Things don't really change that much

I haven't been around here much this week since Spring Break is going on. I'm home with the kids all day, which, in itself, doesn't allow for much blogging time, not to mention the fact that I'm too tired to do it later. I'm not a Spring chicken anymore, you know.

This past weekend we had some of our old friends from college over to the house. Some of which we had not seen since we left school. One couple we see every few years, and one that we see all the time. This all came about through the magic of the Internet. We found a few friends through various social media sites, and we all decided it was about time we got together.

I was wondering how the night would go. Seventeen years is a long time. People change. Families grow. We get old. But, you know, after the first few moments the years melted away. I'm sure the beer and wine helped a bit.

We talked about some of the crazy people we used to know from the dorms. The strange things that should have gotten people arrested. (No, not me! Who do you think I am?) We laughed a lot. I think that helped more than anything. Laughing about your childish behavior, or stupidity, does a lot to bridge the gap of many years.

We talked a lot about music, too. You know how the perfect soundtrack can really bring a movie to life? I think it does the same thing with memories. A lot of our stories revolved around concerts we went to while in college, since graduating, and what we still listen to now. One of my friends told me to make a playlist of all the songs from our college years. I didn't do that, but I made sure to skip through iTunes to find the right songs. I think it worked out well.

So after way too many beers (for me anyway), way too much food (for anyone), our friends had to leave. Most to get kids, or themselves, to bed. I think Jenn and I were in bed by midnight, which would have been unheard of in college. The parties would just be getting started at 10:30! But, we are all older now. That's not such a bad thing.

I hope we do it again soon.

Way behind

I'm way behind in posting this week. The holiday and work messed me up. I haven't done Karen's weekend assignment, and I haven't done Ten on Tuesday. But, to day is Wednesday, I'm going to do my usual random post.

A few days ago I was trying to get on to Technorati, at least I think that is what I was trying to get on to, and en error message came up saying it was 'borked' right now and to come back later. I like that word, bork. It makes me think of the Swedish Chef from the muppets, which reminds me of a good story.

When I went back to college I had to take a physics class, actually I had to take two, but this story is about a certain one. It was one of those large classes with 200 people in it and there was a separate lab day that was cut to about 30. On the first day in lab we got paired up with partners based on where we were sitting. The group of four for the fist day was me, two other guys, and a girl who happened to be from Sweden. She was really nice and was a very good lab partner to have; she was very smart. So, we are all talking a little and asking her about Sweden and one guy is obviously trying to hit on her. What does he ask her? Yep, he asked her what she thought of the Swedish Chef from the Muppets. She totally shot him down by saying that she didn't know the chef was supposed to be Swedish since he made no sense. I laughed to myself because I know the guy thought he had a good line. I don't think she ever talked to him again since we were all changed around the next week.

This is for Jenn; she wanted me to post about this. My brother is very handy. He can fix nearly anything, and helps me out quite a bit. He and his wife have a big closet that they were fixing up; organizers, a hardwood floor, crown molding. Yeah, I said crown molding. Yes, in their closet. We all gave him crap for that. They said there is a crack in the wall near the ceiling that they have tried to patch a few times, but it keeps coming back. My response? It's a closet. Who is going to see it? There closet looks nicer than my living room now.

You know what commercials bother me the most? The commercials on the radio where they pretend they are a radio show interviewing someone who is selling something. Sometimes they will pretend it is a radio show and they are doing a live read, when it is really a guy doing a commercial. They do the same thing on TV. I have a guy in mind who does it all the time, but I don't want to name names. He is always in trouble with the FTC because of his shady practices. You know who I mean. The products are usually lame, or their claims are highly suspect. That is why they can't get any real radio personalities to interview them.

That is all for now. Happy Wednesday!

Spring break, yeah!

Last night was my last working day until spring break is over for the kids. My wife and I split up the time off this year. We are both off together tomorrow, then she goes back to work on Thursday. No going to Daytona Beach for us.

I only took one spring break trip ever. I went with a friend to his sister's house in Albequrque during our senior year in high school. It was a lot of fun; mostly because we were on our own for the first time. No parents, no rules. We were rebels I tell ya.

My favorite memory of the trip was driving up to Colorado to go skiing. This was the first time I ever went skiing in the moutains. Being from Illinois we were lucky to have a hill to sled down. The problem was that I wasn't good skiing on the little hills in Illinois and southern Wisconsin; these were actual mountains. Born from the tectonic movements of the Earth millions of years ago. The place were people tend to ski 40 miles-an-hour into trees. I wasn't ready for it. To make a long story short, I wiped out, fell on my hand, and possibly broke a bone in my hand. I'm not sure since I didn't go to the hospital, but the green and purple hue my hand took on the next day lead me to believe a break may have been possilble. But, I was able to hold a pole the next morning, so we went out again. And I fell again. On my other hand. I gave up after that and hung out at the bottom to wait for everyone else to finish. My thumb still works, so I guess I'm OK.

In college I never had the money to go on a spring break trip. I paid for half of my schooling so I had to work. My favorite job was library security. Yes, you read that right. I didn't get to carry a weapon, but I had a clipboard to write down you ID number if you broke the rules. The best part of that job was that after 10PM my boss left and I was "in charge" until closing time at 2AM. I mostly read books and did homework during that time. Not a bad deal.

Back to my point. Even if I had the money I don't think I would have gone to the spring break hot spots. I've seen it on TV and it's not for me. I'm not saying I didn't drink and go to parties in college, but I don't like big crowds. A big crowd of drunk people is even worse. Maybe it's me now. Maybe I'm too old and my memory is clouded. But, I don't think so. I'm just not a spring break guy. No offense Daytona. It's nothing personal. (People still go there, right?)