Early opinions are in.......

Here is some advice/comments that I have received from various people since the announcement of the baby on the way:

"Hopefully the new baby will take after your wife more than you."

"Hey, it's already been decided, we want a good quality smoke (Macanudo) and you will smoke it with us at the stream. You'll have to do some trout fishing with us so that you can teach your kid something besides Texas holdem."

"You're never going to be the same after it arrives."

Also, my uncle wanted to make sure to inform me that the cutoff day for school is July 30th. So depending on when the kid decides to show up could affect how long before the child heads off to school. It's definitely something to think about. Inducement may be an option in a pinch.

Finally, I had a famed artist create a rendering of the child so you all can see for yourself exactly what the baby will look like. See below for renderings.......

The secret is out.......

Yes, indeed. The well-kept secret that a child was on the way in our household was kept by all involved in the hijinx. The range of responses was quite interesting.

Father-in-law..........Didn't say much, but you couldn't wipe the grin off his face for the entire evening.

Mother-in-law..........Actual quote after unwrapping the framed ultrasound picture...."So who's baby is this?". Wife pointed at herself. Initially, she appeared a bit in shock. After about 10-15 minutes of her saying, "This is so exciting", the water works finally began.

Father.........Knew right away once he took the bubble wrap off the frame. The smile gave that away (this response appeared to be common amongst the soon-to-be grandpas).

Mother..........Opened the box and we had to get her to take the bubble wrap off the frame. After removing the bubble wrap and admiring the frame, her first comment was, "What a beautiful frame......We'll have to find a good picture to put in it!". After the mention that there was a picture already in it, the lightbulb quickly came on.

So, in summary.......
--The fathers just smiled.
--The mothers both needed some help catching on to the surprise, but were extremely excited once they figured it out.

In addition, my favorite brother-in-law received a large amount of flak for keeping the secret from his wife (also my sister). I would state that my brother-in-law had proven his loyalty to me in all regards. If anyone needs a lawyer who can keep all situations confidential, I would recommend my brother-in-law in a heartbeat. The guy is like a lockbox. He's not a bad lawyer either.

Trip to the National Monuments

We decided to take my parents and my grandpa down to Washington D.C. for a quick
day trip when they came out to Baltimore.

We decided to drive to the Georgetown area to park. The reasoning behind that is not lost on most East coast residents. The traffic snarls around the center of Washington D.C. are monumental (pun intended). It's best to just park in an area a few miles from where you want to go and then take a cab to the various sites. The benefit of that is that you get dropped off right next to your destination.

We walked down to a restaurant called Sequoia. It is right on the Potomac River and has a wonderful view of Virginia. There is also a boat dock next to the patio where large boats come in. We got lucky as far as the weather goes. It was 60 degrees and sunny, which is awfully nice for mid-November. Had a great lunch and then jumped into a taxi and headed off to the monuments.

We hopped into two cabs and headed out of Georgetown. We had an excellent cab driver. I asked him about any famous people that had he had given a ride in his cab. He proceeded to list off senators, representatives, and several people who had run for president or vice-president. He was a great guy and he dropped us off right where we needed to be.

My grandfather and father had not been to Washington D.C. in 30+ years, so they might as well have been going to a totally new city. Many of the war monuments have been added since they were last there. We started off by going to the newest, and probably the best monument in Washington D.C., the World War II memorial.

The WWII memorial is great because it has a bit of everything: fountains, sculpture, marble. It is open in the middle to allow a view of the Lincoln Memorial to the Washington Memorial and vice versa. That was one of the musts if they were to build the WWII memorial in the middle of the mall. It also has a wall of bronze stars. Each star memorializes 100 Americans that died fighting in WWII. You have to be there to see it in person, but trust me when I say that there are many, many stars on that wall.

We walked down the mall towards the Korean War monument. I had not seen it before. It's a great memorial with several large sculptures. Each sculpture is a U.S. soldier walking through a rice field in Korea. The various soldiers are represented from the unit. As we were walking through the memorial, my grandpa pointed at a soldier and said, "That's me".

I was initially trying to figure out what he was saying, so I enquired further. He then told me that he was a radio man in his unit in WWII. I chuckled and asked him if he had to carry a backpack that big. He said, "No, it was much bigger. Our packs were 110 pounds. We were expected to storm the shores of Japan wearing a 110 pound bag of radio gear."

I asked him how he carried his rifle with all that gear. He just laughed and said they didn't get rifles. Evidently, all he had was a pistol to carry in case he got himself into a mess. From the sound of his comments, he didn't seem too confident in that pistol.

Here's why the above conversation is so interesting. In all of my years, I couldn't get any comments from my grandfather about his experiences in WWII. The only glimpse of a picture into that world was when we watched 'Saving Private Ryan'. He mentioned that the war scenes were spot-on. That was it. Suddenly, the sculpture of a radio man in the Korean War monument had sparked him to tell us more about his WWII experience than any other time throughout my life. It's amazing how things work that way.

We wandered across the steps of the Lincoln memorial and went over to see the Vietnam War memorial. It's interesting that the memorial for a war which was protested so vigorously by a large portion of America and who's veterans were not always received home with open arms is now one of the most popular memorials in Washington D.C.

The black wall is the first thing you see. They have books nearby where you can find out where the names of the fallen are located on the wall. Mom looked up some names of people who came from her hometown and found them on the wall. The part I like best is the personal items that are left at the base of the wall. All of the items are collected daily and stored. I'm sure there will be a wonderful museum with those artifacts someday. Some are specifically left by family members. I saw a T-shirt that was left for a family member. Others items are from people that don't even know anyone on the wall. I saw one letter written by a young child. It said, "Dear Soldier, I don't know you. But I wanted to thank you for fighting for freedom so that everyone in America can live free."

Grandpa was starting to get tired, so we headed off to Arlington National Cemetery. They have bus tours that wind their way through the cemetery, so we could all sit down and relax for awhile. We went to the Kennedy gravesite, where all of the Kennedy's now rest. We drove by the area for judges, noting the freshly covered grave of Judge Rehnquist amongst all of the other notable judges. By the way, Judge Rehnquist does not have a reference to him being a
Supreme Court judge anywhere on his tombstone. He is listed by his rank from his time in the Armed Forces.

Finally, we reached the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. It's always a really cool place to go. The soldiers were making the usual steps.....21 steps down, pause for a count of 21 and then 21 steps back before pausing again for a count of 21. For those that don't know, the constant use of the number 21 refers to a 21 gun salute, which is given to honor fallen soldiers. We got to see the changing of the guard, which is always very precise in its orchestration. A group of cadets
showed up and stood at attention while observing the changing of the guard. The sun was setting, providing an excellent opportunity for pictures of the tomb.

We grabbed a cab to head back to Georgetown. A bit of excitement occurred when we got into the cab. The cab driver didn't want all 5 of us to go in one cab. We offered to get out and catch another cab that would allow it, but the cab driver realized he was going to lose a fare and so he relented. He wasn't happy about it, but he got us back to Georgetown so we could get our car and head back to Baltimore.

That was really strange.......

I was speaking to a co-worker who had just got news that her aunt was sick and would probably pass away soon. I mentioned to her that my Grandfather passed away not long ago right around Christmas time. I told her that it ended up working out well in that everyone could come to the funeral because of its timing around the holidays.

Not more than 2 minutes after I had that conversation, I get an e-mail from my mother mentioning that exact same Grandfather when discussing the content of the blog. What are the odds that I mention my Grandfather at the exact same time my mother is writing about him in an e-mail at roughly the same time of year that he died a couple of years ago? I'm sure it's just a coincidence............

Snapped back into reality

You know, I would have normally been pretty irritated as a diehard Tiger fan by the results of the Illinois game last night. However, the final incident in the broadcast quickly snapped me back into reality.

For those that missed it, as Quin Snyder was leaving the court last night, a fan near the exit thought he would do something really cute and decided to dump a tub of popcorn on Quin Snyder's head. That single act and the fact that I'm somewhat removed from the daily MU/KU banter that occurs in KC allowed me to realize something very important.........this is a game for entertainment purposes and the fact that any one person decided that it would be a great thing to dump a tub of popcorn on a total stranger's head without ever having met that person face to face shows just how bad the effect of sports has had on some people.

Ignore all of the other obvious problems that the Missouri basketball program is facing. It's a shame and most are quite frustrated by that. That's a perfectly acceptable stance as a fan. But how would this young man feel if someone else had done that to him? He would have been irritated and would have probably even struck back physically. I admire Quin for doing no more than brushing some of the popcorn out of his hair and quietly walking back into the locker room. It took much more courage to do that than any amount of courage this coward had to muster to dump popcorn on someone he didn't know.

Coming from a background of officiating both basketball and softball for several years as a kid, I have seen all of this before. It's a very nasty off-shoot of sports that adults who should be role models to their kids and family, somehow end up acting in a way they know is inappropriate when a sporting event is occurring. I threw out one guy multiple times out of games. He had a temper, but the fact that he showed up drunk as a coach certainly hurt his chances of staying in the game. I threw out a coach who was ranting from the dugout in between innings. I finally got tired of it and asked him if he wanted to be thrown out of the game. He said yes and I threw him out. A fair and quick resolution in that I even gave him the option to stay if he wanted. Heck, I even yell at the officials on occasion at basketball games, but you won't find me hunting them down after the game to dump a Coke on their head.

In summary, as wrapped up as we get into sports in our daily life, it's really not that big of a deal and shouldn't influence us as much as it does. If anyone happens to notice me not abiding by this message, a quick whack over the head should do the trick. And when good times do come for your team, savor the moment.

Mass Transit

You never really understand the value of mass transit until you move to the East Coast.

In Kansas City, there are ads for the buses encouraging people to ride the bus. I know there are some who do ride the bus in Kansas City, but it's generally limited to the city for going from place to place. It's not widely uses by the public in general.

In east coast cities like Baltimore, Washington D.C, New York, etc., mass transit is a must. Even in Baltimore, mass transit is a life saver. While I do not use mass transit myself, the number of people who do is measured in seven figures. Buses are everywhere. Light rail lines run throughout the city. Even with the large number of people that use the mass transit system, the beltway that goes around the city is highly congested. I have friends that take over an hour to do a 25-30 mile commute.

I can only imagine what our neighbors in NYC are dealing with right now given the mass transit strike. If something like this were to occur in Baltimore, the streets would absolutely be packed and possibly even large gridlock. There's simply no way the road system would be able to handle all of those additional cars. I believe a strike is also illegal in Baltimore, but that obviously didn't affect the NYC mass transit employees.

Hopefully, KC will set up mass transit in the form of light rail in the near future. At a minimum, a line from the center of the city to the airport along with a spur to the Blue Springs area and a spur to the Johnson County/Overland Park area. Given the wonderful convention center in downtown along with the redevelopment and repopulation of downtown, a light rail would be wonderful. A spur to the convention center in Johnson County from downtown would provide a route from the airport to the Overland Park area, providing excellent transportation for commercial travelers. A spur to the Blue Springs area would provide an excellent commuter route that would take a lot of traffic stress off the I-70 commute from the Missouri side. It may be a dream at this point, but it's needed if Kansas City wants to continue city growth.

Here's how rough it is to be a Ravens' fan

Last night, thousands of Ravens fans were forced to watch their team play against the Green Bay Packers on one of the coldest nights that we've had in Baltimore thus far. Both of these teams have been absolutely horrible all year and now they both get to showcase just how bad they are in front of a national television audience. I listen to the sports radio station every day and have to hear people complain about just how bad the Ravens are playing, in case it wasn't obvious to everyone.

Last night, facing a team that is in the running for a high draft pick along with the Ravens, they managed to destroy the Packers 48-3, handing them their worst loss in 25 years. The Ravens' reward? They still aren't going anywhere and managed to hurt their draft status. So, I wasn't all that shocked to come in this morning and hear Baltimore fans still complaining, but now they were complaining about a win. Even when the Ravens win, the people are still upset. That's how bad it is in Baltimore. Makes the 'predicament' that my beloved Chiefs are in look quite manageable in comparison.

Giants/Chiefs Football Game

I drove down the turnpike and noticed Manhattan on my right and knew I was close. I reached the end of the New Jersey Turnpike and saw Giants Stadium directly in front of me. I was excited that I was finally there and ready to park and enter the stadium to watch the game.

Being from Kansas City, the first thing I observed was how the tailgating in the parking lot measured up to what I had experienced compared to the Arrowhead tailgating. Lots of grills and a couple of smokers on a trailer immediately caught my eye. The smell lacked some of the BBQ smell that you find at Arrowhead, but there was quite a bit more seafood on the grill then there is in KC. So a different smell, but still a very nice smell that would cause anyone to be instantly hungry. I noted that one tailgate had actually brought along a 6 foot Christmas tree and had decorated it with Giants ornaments and lights. They had actually brought along a generator solely to power the lights. Very cool stuff.

I went over to an older man leaning against a gate. I thought that he would be just as good as anyone to ask where the best place to look for tickets was in the area of the stadium. Very nice guy and he pointed me to an area just a few hundred feet from where I was standing. I walked over there and was instantly approached by a younger guy. Instantly, I recognized him as one of those people you despise and don’t want to buy tickets from even if he had the last tickets available for the game. I bartered with him a bit and finally just waved my hand and walked off after hearing his last offer.

I continued to walk down the sidewalk and a man my age asked me if I was looking for tickets. I said I was looking for one. He said that was exactly how many he had. I asked how much face value was and he said $70. I told him I would give him $100. He said OK and then said, "Listen, since you seem like a nice guy I’ll let you have it for $80. Only thing is that you’re forced to sit next to me."

I thanked him and said that would be just fine. I also told him I’d buy him a beer once we got inside. He went back to his tailgate as there was still 1 ½ hours until the game. I went inside to take in the stadium.

The stadium is nothing special, but the sight lines are very nice. I watched the sun set over the edge of the stadium. Also watched jet after jet fly over the stadium as Newark International Airport is not far away. Many of the lower deck fans had moved down to stand next to the railing to harass the Chiefs fans. They badgered the Chiefs from the time they came on the field until the time they left.

Roughly 30 minutes before kickoff, I went down to get two beers so when my friend showed up, the beer would be there for him. I went out of my way to buy Bud Light so he would be forced to drink a Missouri beer. As I was walking up the aisle, I noticed that he was up in the seats. He immediately noted the KC Chiefs stocking cap that I had put on that I wasn’t wearing when I bought the tickets. He thanked me for the beer and laughed at me, mentioning that he didn’t know I was rooting for the wrong side. Everyone around me immediately figured out that I was a true Chiefs fan from KC. Three people all mentioned that they had heard from different people that Arrowhead had the best tailgating in the NFL. I told them about the smell of BBQ before the game and they all agreed that they had to go sometime.

The announcer began speaking roughly 15 minutes before the game and I was immediately excited. Unknown to me, Bob Sheppard, the famed announcer for the Yankees for many years was also the announcer for the Giants. In addition, this game was his final regular season game announcing for the Giants. The crowd gave him a standing ovation and he waived to the crowd from the press box. It was a very exciting thing to see in person.

The national anthem was great. Nothing fancy by the singer and the crowd was very quiet. The crowd went crazy during the final line. You can see in the faces of the locals that the national anthem still means a lot to them still to this day. The starting lineups were different than I had seen before. The announcer asked the fans to welcome the Chiefs’ starting defense. The defense just ran on the field and no individuals were recognized. Boos cascaded down on them. On the other hand, the Giants’ starting offense was introduced player by player. It was very evident that Tiki Barber was the crowd favorite. He’s very workmanlike as a player and the NY fans love that.

My friend’s name was Brian. He was an investigator for a state district attorney in NJ. We noted the discussion in the program concerning the last meeting between the two teams. The teams had last played each other in September 2001, right after the 9/11 attacks. The article mentioned how classy the KC fans were and how supportive they were of the Giants when they came on the field. Brian said that he saw the second plane go into the World Trade Center. He said he had heard about the initial crash and had gone up to the top of his building in Newark to take a look. Only a few minutes after he reached the roof, they noticed a large plane flying very low not far from where they were. Everyone was surprised at how low the plane was flying. A few seconds before the collision, he said everyone knew what was going to happen. He switched the topic to my job after that and I didn’t stop him because it was obvious he didn’t want to discuss it anymore.

I had a great time watching the game. I mentioned to Brian that the NY fans seemed to be harder on their own team than the opponents. He agreed. The guys in front of me forced me to give them high-fives every time the Giants did something good. They would scowl at me until I did so and then would smile at me after I finally obliged their offer. I asked a lady next to me what the word GESH meant as a guy behind us kept calling the Chiefs that name. She said she imagined the last two letters stood for ‘shit head’ and that she didn’t want to know what the first two meant. I told her that if I ever got out of hand, she could go ahead and whack me. Moments later, the Chiefs intercepted a pass and I jumped up and pumped my fist in the air. I sat back down and immediately felt a whack on my leg. I looked over at her and she said, "You got out of hand".

Brian said he had to go to a Christmas party at 8:00. I looked at the stadium clock and it read 7:55. He said he’d be late, but he didn’t care. We each mentioned to each other how nice it was to meet and then he surprised me by giving me a hug. Great guy and very sincere. When the Giants scored a touchdown to put the game out of reach, I said I was leaving and everyone around me was very nice, shaking my hand or giving me a hug on the way out. It was great to meet all of them.

I headed back out to the parking lot. I ran to the car to try to beat the traffic. As I ran by two guys, one said, "Yeah, I’d run too after the way the Giants ran over your defense today."
I chuckled and headed out of the parking lot to go back to Baltimore. On the way out of town, I took a quick look towards Manhattan. I noticed that the Empire State Building was lit up in red and green lights for the Christmas season. It was a fitting end to the day.

Dedication

I have created this blog to document various things that happen in my life. I want to send a special thanks to Bill Harris, the creator of http://dubiousquality.blogspot.com. I read his blog religiously and always was amused by the stories that he had regarding his daily life. I always thought, "this guy has a lot of funny stuff happen in his daily life." As I started thinking about my own life, I realized that just as many crazy things happen in my life and I should document them. So thanks to Bill Harris for being the motivation for this blog.