I love my life and how everything is going I just don’t know what to do to try to connect the pieces of my life. My work time is crowded and overflowing. My family time is great but takes out the time to unwind at the end of a day and relax. Then there is no time left for me or for going out with the guys. I feel that this is the cause of this disconnection. Side note this is all popping in my head as I’m typing.

I work six days a week five days I am gone from 6-6:30 until 6:30-7. Then I eat and play with my daughter until 9-9:30, then put her to bed. Then its cuddle time with my wife. If I’m lucky I snag a little time like now to jump on the computer. Then its off to bed to do it again. My sixth work day for the week is my business which used to be a little job here or there. Now its grown into a great business that I could be busy with full time until like July. So I cram as much work into my Saturday as I can. I need to make progress by leaps with only one day a week.

This leaves me with not time to just do something for myself. I used to go to the races with a friend and that was my serenity. He now races Wednesday nights which kills the chances of me going. The races was what I did each night I’d wrench on the car. Then Saturday all morning we would get the finishing touches done and race that night. It was my life. This all ended when I found the woman of my dreams and married her. I went racing less and less. Now I work and work, not to get away but to further us. I don’t know what to do. I need to keep up with family, growing business, and try to have a good social life. I want to know how others juggle situations like this.

Years ago I was at a small cookout with some people I knew from MSU (one professor and a couple students). Becky, the professor and sweetest person you could ever hope to meet, had all types of meat to grill. I may be misremembering this, but she had steak, hamburgers, hot dogs and even the fabled cheddarwurst. For some reason, I imagine rednecks sitting on pink flamingos around a broken down Ford that’s been turned into a grill chomping on their hot dogs filled with cheese.

Of course, I wanted the cheddarwurst. And, of course, I hesitated. Don’t get me wrong, I would have happily eaten the steak, the hamburger, hell, anything that once had a pulse and blood running through its veins. Thankfully, some cheddarwurst made their way to the grill.

At the same event we were talking about our “bucket lists”. I don’t remember everyone else’s, but I know most were wanting to go to Europe or Asia or some other country.

My list, in no particular order…

1) Go to Kansas City (for years I’ve wanted to travel to Kauffman Stadium to watch the Twins because it looks so damn beautiful. Also, Negro League hall of fame is a bonus.

2) Beat Wizardry for the NES (Don’t laugh, this game is tough as nails. Finally beat around a year ago due to creative use of the reset button)

3) Make a feature-length movie (Almost, almost had this one finished a year or two ago, but alas…)

I know, aim high, right? Instead of going overseas, one of my goals in life is to make a less than 10-hour journey. Shit, I could finish the other two goals by the end of 2011. The movie wouldn’t be very good, but still… I could do it.

Lately, I’ve been caught in lines at gas stations where the guy at the front of the line is sitting at the god damn counter buying and scratching off lottery tickets. This pisses me off to no end. I don’t care that people waste their money on scratch-offs. In fact, I’ll buy the occasional lottery ticket myself. Even though my life’s work is 1/3 complete, I don’t have a lot of time. Especially when my cheddarwurst is cooling in my hand. So take your ticket and go scratch it at the back of the line.

Have some fucking class.

For the longest time, I thought that’s what writing was. Writers, by definition, write. Call it my Christian upbringing, but I believed in a form of divine inspiration. When the time was set to write, the ideas would pour into me. But apparently this writing thing is supposed to have a little “work” involved.

Anyway, I hadn’t been inspired in a while. My confidence was low. I didn’t write anything for a long time.

Then I got re-acquainted with “The Duke.” No, not the big ass burger Graves and I tackled in our college days, and no, not John Wayne.

David Duchovny.

I rented “Californication” for obvious reasons. Duchovny, sex and…. well…. that’s about it. What I discovered was something that would inspire me. Here was a badass writer who smoked, drank (par for the course) and got laid left and right! (abnormal).

“Weed, whiskey and Warren Zevon” as he would say later on.

Duchovny is writer himself. Supposedly, he wrote the screenplay for a little-known movie called “House of D” in six days. My friend The Governor and I heard about this and would joke about it from time to time, calling it “The Duke Challenge.”

Before “Californication” I tried my own version of The Duke Challenge. I would stay up late, sometimes all night, brewing coffee and writing. I only got halfway through, but the seeds were planted.

Sometime soon, when I get into writing mode again. When I can write more than 400 words and have the piece make sense, then I’ll know I’m on my way.

I’ve had a l-o-o-o-o-o-o-n-n-n-n-g day.

I didn’t really sleep well last night, not quite sure why, it just wasn’t happening and I woke up super early after I finally did pass out around 3am.

Given that Boston is in the grips or some sort of snowmaggedon or snowpocalypse or whatever the kids on Twitter are calling it, I was expected to go into work early to ensure we’d have the libraries open and ready and rarin’ to go in lieu of other staff members who wouldn’t be motivated able to make it in to work.

I did so and was at work prior to 7am.

The problem is, the snow never really got as bad as it was supposed to and this essentially just mean that I’d come into work much, much earlier than I had to and prepared two libraries for opening when the regular opening staff had no problem making it in.

Awesome. Simply, awesome.

The worst part? Well, I was slated to work until 8pm tonight, because Wednesdays are my late night—remember that stalkers—but luckily, my lovely co-worker Roshni bailed me out and offered to take my late shift.

As such, I made it out of there by 6:30—I’m a busy man, y’all—instead of 8pm and was able to substitute an 11 ½ hour day in lieu of a 13 hour day!

w00t

Anyway, all of that long-winded rambling was to say…it’s a writing prompt kinda day. As always, this one comes courtesy of the peeps at Plinky.com.

Write a haiku about something that drives you nuts.

As a consummate overachiever, I decided to write not one, not two, but seven…count’em seven…haikus about things that drive me crazy!

You can thank me later.

you are not my boss
stop micromanaging me
you annoying bitch

the twins are awesome
i don’t want to work anymore
the twins are awesome

i hate skateboarders
seriously they suck balls
big ole donkey balls

use your damn blinker
it is on your car for a
fucking reason, dick

chicken mcnuggets
taste like poop and shame, so why
can i not quit them

megan fox is hot
i cannot deny that fact
yet still she bores me

hummus is a very
cruel joke you play on someone
who wants some chip dip

We’ve ALL done this a time or two before. That’s why we’re here.

I know no one wants to hear a sad story, or a story where they can’t sympathize with the protagonist, so I’ll try just to do this once.

I used to have something to say. I used to have blind ambition. I used to have balls.

Film was my desire. After watching “Clerks” for the first time I was motivated to make movies. I bought some Syd Field books and wrote a Clerksish screenplay about my gig at the movie theater. Being the person I am, I was determined to shoot THAT movie. You know, get some camcorders, some bad high school actors, and try to make it turn out. Thankfully it never happened.

Instead, we shot “Pizza Delivery Man”. Yes, THAT “Pizza Delivery Man”. A story about a Pizza Delivery Man who had a philosophical pizza chef at his parlor, a horny friend and an “easy” delivery. Which, after a rewrite with a friend (who had the best intentions) replaced the Tommy Chong-like chef with a slutty boss. Which was toned down to get our high school theater teacher to be in it….. and then she turned it down because it was still too inappropriate. So our PDM was shot with a 18ish year old playing the slutty boss, Tom the Pimp as a bench-humping friend and myself as a a bad-acting co-star.

The 20-minute film wasn’t even good enough to make MSU’s amateur film festival. One of the films that beat it out was called “Objects”… or as a title card on the movie read…. “Ojects”.

Yes. That was better than my movie. But, if you get me drunk enough, I’ll let you watch it some day.

(short entry, but I’m building some writing muscle…)

To Be Continued…..

It’s a Monday—which means it’s my Sunday—so I figure I’ll ease into the week with a writing prompt from the fine folks over at Plinky.com.

What does your fitness routine consist of?

My physical routine is generally quite boring and uneventful.

During the spring/summer/fall months I generally do nothing but play softball.

Last summer/fall, I was playing softball anywhere from two to four times a week. This had a pretty good impact on my endurance and overall physical well-being.

You might not think much of slow-pitch softball—and let’s be honest, you probably shouldn’t—but if you’re playing enough and you’re anything like me (read: hypercompetitive and a centerfielder) you’re likely to spend A LOT of time running.

I can honestly say that by the time my softball seasons finally wrapped up in mid-to-late October, I was in some of the best shape I’ve been in since high school.

Remember, high school? Remember when you had Phys. Ed. like three days a week and you couldn’t be a fatty unless you really worked at it (or had a glandular problem)?

Yeah…those were the days.

In high school, I looked like an anorexic 11-year-old cheerleader, but danged if I wasn’t in some solid shape. As I got older, I spent less and less time playing sports and found myself falling into considerably worse shape.

That’s why I decided that I needed to pay outlandish amounts of money for a gym membership. This was a HUGE waste of money when I lived in Southie, but now that I live a few blocks from the gym, it’s not so bad.

In fact, this is how I spend my winters attempting to stay “in shape.”

Basically, what I do is meander into the gym 3-4 times a week and sorta stare at all the equipment.

I move some things around until the bang and clank and I assume that means I’m working out. I run on the indoor track until my knees feel like they’re going to explode and then I go sit in a sauna and read the sports section of the paper for half an hour.

That’s pretty much the extent of what I’ve got for a physical fitness routine: softball in the spring/summer/fall and ill-fated attempts at gym-rattedness in the winter.

If you’ve got a better game-plan, lemme hear it in the comments…

I’ve noticed a serious lack in output here at PTQ lately.

Technically, this is a good thing since the original intent of this entire blog was to get me and the two lovely ladies I write with back into the mix as regular bloggers at our own bitchin’ sites (links along the right hand column, y’all).

Things have been slow-going, but we’re definitely on the right path back to regular postingness.

I’ve attempted to recruit more writers for PTQ and the results have not been pretty. I know of at least half a dozen bloggers who are damn good writers, but have fallen off the wagon (or are back on the wagon—I can never keep it straight) in terms of their own blogging.

I have invited all of those peeps and I’ve heavily pimped PTQ to them as well. Thus far, we’ve gained one new blogger, my brother. He’s written sporadically—granted, we’ve all written sporadically—as he is just now joining the world of writers/bloggers/journalers/ranters/etc.

I’m very proud to have him not only in the mix here at PTQ, but writing in general. I’ve long been a writing pimp and tried to get anyone and everyone on the bandwagon, because—and let’s be honest here folks—writing is effing awesome.

If you’re mad; you can write about it. If you’re happy; you can write about it. If you’re in love with a zebra; there’s a whole separate section of the internet for you, but you can sure as hell write about it—likely under a pseudonym.

I’m all about writing.

My efforts here have waned considerably from posting everyday to posting once or twice a week at best. I’m down with that. It means that my own blogs are slowly (but surely) working their way back into shape.

I’m still busy out of my mind at work and in my personal life, but I really—REALLY—want nothing more in my life than to write. I think I’ve got a knack for it and I’m fairly personable in the sense that my writing often sounds exactly like the way I speak.

As such, it’s not too hard to picture yourself drinking a beer and listening to me ramble on, yet all the while I’m sitting across the world pounding on some keys and—well—drinking a beer.

Anyway, this has gotten really long-winded ( likely because I’m actually drinking whiskey and not beer tonight ) but the long and short of it is that we need some new writers here at PTQ to keep this enterprise going.

If you—or someone you know—wants to write more or needs an outlet, let me know, this is the place for you.

PTQ is meant to get writers writing.

Let me know if you need that push.

In the spirit of the season, I’m going to say I would make it illegal to drive around with snow left on top of your car. I’ve seen far, far too many lazy people tearing down the road with snow and ice flying off their car roofs, and even though I don’t drive, it still pisses me off.

I get especially disheartened at the state of humanity when I see tiny cars with the snow still piled on top. Really, people? Can’t be arsed to pull out that snow brush and do a little stretching? It’s not that hard, is it?

I feel like SUV and truck drivers think they have an excuse, since the roofs of their cars are tall enough to make snow clearing impossible to a normal-sized human. To them, I point to the gentleman in the picture above. This man knows how it is. If you own a big car, you should also own a big brush. Or a broom. Your propensity for large vehicles does not excuse you of the responsibility!

I suppose I get so riled up about this because it’s a safety issue, and lazy people are putting the lives of fellow drivers in danger. When I experienced my first snowfall as a licensed driver, I couldn’t be arsed to reach across my car roof to get all the snow off. Then my mum explained about how ice can launch off cars and into the windshields of vehicles behind them, cracking the glass on one end of the damage spectrum, and causing a multi-car pile-up on the other. That’s all it took; my car was brushed meticulously clean each storm after that.

If a 16-year-old can understand the concept, I think it’s only fair to expect adults to get it too. Which is why I would enact a law imposing a strict fine on anyone driving with a dangerously snowy car. After some research, I found that New Hampshire already has this law; drivers get fined between $250 and $500 for the first offense, then up to $1,000 for the second. My fine would be the average cost of a windshield replacement plus the average ER and hospital costs – sans insurance – for car accident victims… some Googling of these costs brings my estimated fine amount to $4000 on the low end.

Would the threat of this fine be enough to motivate people to get off their butts and spend 5-10 minutes clearing their cars off for the good of society? My tiny faith in humanity says probably not, but then again, you know what they say about assuming things…

For example, in the generally mundane and patently boring place that I live, there have been many immoral acts lately. I am not one to preach but this is getting ridiculous. There are eight families, that I know of personally, who have been torn apart as a result of cheating. That means eight more divorces in Iowa. One of the couples had been married for almost 20 years. Three others were married anywhere from eight to twelve years. The other four I’m not entirely sure how long they were married, but the point is they were married. I feel that this is utterly unimaginable. I have been married for almost five years now and can’t imagine being with anyone else.

The kicker in these situations is that the cheaters feel they truly did nothing wrong. They won’t take the blame for ruining the marriages. All of the families have children that will now have to meet new people and adjust to them as their “new family.” In total, there are (give-or-take) 23 children between these families. This is what makes it so hard to stomach. Each family already has one parent trying to turn the children against the other parent for personal gain. The worst part of writing this is that I keep remembering more couple that have recently been split as a result of cheating. I started with two sets of families and at this point I’m up to eight families that have been divided.

I may not be the most moral person, but when I look around and listen to everything going on right now, I look pretty good. This is coming from the guy who was “Mr. Immoral” in high school. Many people, most of whom I haven’t talked to since high school, would probably think that I am still the same guy. I’m not. Not by a long shot, but it is hard to change a person’s mindset on who you are – as opposed to who you were – when you’ve changed for the better. When you do something bad, however, it changes in a heartbeat.

I feel that we, as a people, need to change the direction this country is headed. All I see is bad, worse, and worst. I challenge all of you (even if it is only one or two people) to make a change. We have to try to correct this mess of a country that we all live in. I want my daughter or daughters (not sure if new baby is boy or girl yet) to grow up in a place where you can trust people. Where your children are safe and so are you. Where you don’t need to wonder what your wife or husband or girlfriend or boyfriend is doing. Where your wedding vows mean something other than “I get half of everything you have” or “you get to pay me to do nothing.”

I AM SICK OF THIS.

I know many may not like this post, but I’m venting. I will probably post many topics like this. Anger management and venting is one major goal of my blogging. Along with just telling my stories. Stay tuned for the “Blown Cellulose Chronicles” starting soon. This will be writings about the job sites, the people, and the general crap I put up with each day as I work insulating.

As such, y’all are getting another writing prompt courtesy of Plinky.com.

Share a photo of something that makes you smile.

I think I love this photo so much because we weren’t even aware a photo was being taken at the time. Grace and I have been together for more than eight years now and I still get all giddy and nervous around her like she’s some sort of high school crush.

I dig this.

I dig this a lot.

My hope is that it’ll always be like this and you’ll be able to randomly snap a photo of us 50 years from now and we’ll still be grabbing at each others’ asses blissfully unaware that anyone is paying any attention to us.

The idea of happiness at work seems to be an oddity to many people. They show up just in time in the morning and run to the door at lunch. They struggle to drag themselves back in for the last half of the day. Then they just count down the minutes till the five-o-clock whistle. It takes two afternoons worth of work in the typical work environment to equal the productivity that one typical morning produces. A person who loves their job or at least enjoys it and has a passion for it has steady production all day.

This is where I reach out to all the people who dislike their job. QUIT!!!! If you don’t like what you’re doing you are not only cheating yourself but your employer and everyone around you. Your family will suffer because you won’t have true happiness no matter what you think. Yes, having a well-paying job is nice, but like everyone says “money can’t buy happiness.” I have some very nice things and I appreciate them because I worked hard for them. Every moment I get with my family I make the most of. These moments come and go way too quickly. You never know when your family will be taken from you. One day you could get a call to hear that a good friend has cancer; that in their scans they look like a Dalmatian with all the cancer spots. These are the reasons that I never get a break about working so much.

I work from seven to five, five days a week. Saturdays I work from when my babysitter shows up till whenever I stop. Sundays are my day off, to spend with family. With our work we go just about anywhere so I leave home at six-thirty and usually don’t get home till six-thirty. When I am home at night I play with my daughter and sit and talk with my wife. If I have time and they don’t mind I work on our house. Does this make me a workaholic? Or just a guy that wants to get something done in a day? What is so wrong with making as much progress as you can? There are only so many hours in a day and I intend to use as many as I can to get done what I need to.

This work ethic was installed in me at a young age. My father is a great man, I give him a lot of shit but I really look up to him. He had all three of us boys by the time he was my age. He worked a normal nine to five and took care of hogs during his free time to earn extra cash. At one point he had pigs at three different places. From the time I was deemed old enough, I was his ride along buddy right there on the passenger seat. These are memories that I’ll never forget. He would work from sun-up to sun-down. He did anything he had to do put food on the table (which took a lot) and clothes on our backs. If he had a little extra money he would improve something. This is a virtue that I have kept with me a tried to help other people understand. Do what you can, Rome wasn’t built in a day, your house can be redone one window at a time. Every little bit will help and get you that much closer. I work with my dad every day this has created a bond I wouldn’t trade for millions of dollars.

I started working full-time during the summer when I was twelve. I fell in love with hard work, it sounds odd I know. With this job I quit playing baseball, I love baseball, but work came first. My brother on the other hand loves baseball more than anything. Instead of working construction he worked making pizza. The pay wasn’t nearly as good. I didn’t understand back then why he would choose to work there and make less. Now I see that with that job it gave him the time to do things that he loved and he didn’t care for construction. When I realized this I gained a new respect for my brother.

Every person has the potential to do something they care about. The hard part is having the drive to do it. Many people still criticize me for quitting college after one year. I was 3.0 and hardly there. It just wasn’t for me. They all say you had potential to do so much could have done something more. Is what I do not good enough?? Is being a carpenter/electrician/plumber/landscapers/etc. not enough? This is why I let my wife choose what she wanted to do. I wanted her to have the same happiness that I have with my job.

With all of this is it bad to be a workaholic??

I know, right?!

I probably should have prefaced this post with some sort of warning about hiding the children and keeping an empty trashcan nearby, you know, just in case. Unfortunately, I did not and now you’ve all been privy to my photographic evidence that Al Davis, owner/dictator of the Oakland Raiders, is–unquestionably–a freakin’ zombie!!

Seriously, take another long, hard look at all-o-that.

Do you wanna try and refute my statement?

I didn’t think so.

I’m sorry I didn’t have any sort of “real” post in me today, but when I stumbled upon this photo, I just figured the world should be made aware that the dead do, in fact, walk among us.

Lock your doors and draw the shades, y’all…because Al Davis could be peepin’ in your windows right now.

Sleep tight.

I did, however, figure that I should post a little something and thus I’ve gone with a writing prompt from the fine folks at Plinky.com.

Have you ever thought about starting your own business?

I thought for a brief period of time that I could somehow start my own website and offer fantasy baseball consulting.

Logic eventually set in and I remembered that there are roughly 30,000 websites out there that offer fantasy baseball advice, tips, tricks and strategies for absolutely no cost whatsoever.

Needless to say, it wasn’t going to be the bountiful business venture I’d once dreamed. It turns out that people have absolutely zero incentive to pay some random dude with questionable facial hair for baseball advice when they can get the same basic advice—or at least just advice—for free elsewhere.

It’s the old “why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free” thing and let’s be honest, it makes perfect sense. I mean seriously, I’m a pretty competitive fantasy baseballerizer and I’d never pay some schmuck for fantasy baseball advice because I know that I know more than 90% of the peeps out there.

I assume any fantasy baseballer worth their salt feels the same way. That having been said, to think it’s worth not only asking for but paying for someone else’s advice is straight up poppycock.

So yeah, my fantasy baseball consulting business hasn’t really gotten off the ground floor and doesn’t really figure to anytime in the near future.

I guess I’ll have to go back to my other game plan of releasing a line of zombie apocalypse preparation-themed workout DVDs.

Why yes, Plinky, I have indeed been on stage once or twice, despite my penchant for shyness around lots of people. Let me share some of the best moments:

1) My first time going onstage not to receive a Books & Beyond award in elementary school (I read a lot) was at the illustrious Mechanics Hall in downtown Worcester, MA. I went on countless field trips here as a kid, and one time got picked to hop up onstage to take part in a random performance. I forget if it was 3rd, 4th, or 5th grade… I’m leaning toward 5th… but the show centered on this guy who sang songs about the environment and diversity, etc. I got to hold up the “L” sign in his aptly titled song “Ecology” while some of my classmates were quickly taught ridiculously complicated clapping routines to accompany the song. It was weird.

2) In 8th grade, I was part of the not-so-illustrious “Chorus 2″ in my middle school’s production of Leader of the Pack. Chorus 2 was where the musical director stuck all the kids who couldn’t sing or act, since no one was allowed to be cut from the cast in middle school. I got to wear 1960s-era clothes, plus more makeup than I’ve ever worn any other time in my life, and sing and dance to hits such as “Be My Baby,” “Do Wah Diddy,” and “Chapel of Love.” I also got pretty good at dancing the Hanky Panky, but sadly all those moves have escaped from my memory.

3) During a random fit of inspiration to participate in as many diverse things as possible during my sophomore year of college (the year in which I played indoor soccer for the first time, wrote sporadically for the school paper, and several other things), I tried out for a small production of the third act of Our Town, and landed the role of dead Mrs. Gibbs. (With my track record of being pegged as a bad actor – see above – I was pretty pumped that I was actually given a significant speaking role). It was a pretty fun experience, and also occurred right before my hatred for all-things theatre developed fully, so I’m glad I was able to sneak it in there.

There you have it, Plinky… evidence of my brief history as a thespian. They say nature abhors a vacuum; well, DGobs abhors actors, actresses, musicals, and most-things theatrical, so I’m pretty sure these were my last moments onstage as an actress. Do with those memories what you will.