2013

It’s been some time since I last sat down and wrote anything worth reading. It could be because I’ve been busy switching careers, it could be because I’m a parent. It could be because I’m lazy. Or perhaps the depression I’ve lived with for much of my life some times gets me into a funk that I have difficulty getting out of. It could be all of the above. But I have decided to set some goals for the new year and I figure if they are here for the world to see maybe I will actually follow through with them.

Now before I list my goals it is important to note these are not resolutions. Why? Because for the most part resolutions fail within hours of being made; it’s the nature of the beast. By setting quantifiable markers in my path I hope to be able to look back in a year and say “hey, I accomplished something.” Also while I want to be a better human being you won’t see that or anything else so abstract on this list because it is not measurable. So without further ado, my life goals in no particular order are as follows.

1) Get published again. It has been almost 5 years since I saw my name in a by line and that is unacceptable to me. I will make time to spend at least 60 minutes writing every week and by December 31, 2013 I will have had either a short story, an article, or whatever published either in hard copy or online in exchange for money.

2) I will sell more. In 6 months last year my crappy online shop had 10,000+ views and 400+ items favorited, or saved for later viewing, resulting in a whopping 11 sales. After reassessing what was viewed a lot versus what actually sold I have come to the conclusion that people may think a Hello Kitty themed assault rifle is nifty they are not likely to buy it. On the other hand, people into the steampunk aesthetic will see something they like and then spend money on it. With this in mind any new builds will be geared towards the steampunk subgenre.

3) Combing items 1 and 2 I would like to do a monthly webcomic or even a video podcast of the fictional crew that runs my online shop. I think this would be a fun way to show off new merchandise as well as a creative way to drive view and sales. I would also like to actually get some fans on facebook as the 2 right now aren’t really cutting it.

4) Health insurance for the wife and I. This one is pretty self-explanatory.

5) I would like to drop 15-20 pounds of fat and gain 10 pounds of muscle. And I want to do it the right way, not the insomniac crime-fighting way of my mid-twenties. That means eating multiple salads and other vegetables and fruits every day. And continuing with the exercises I’ve been doing since Christmas. And maybe, if I get to a point where I can do more than 50 sit-ups and push-ups without feeling like I am going to die, breaking out the P90X DVDs that have been collecting dust for 3+ years and doing them.

Okay, so those are my yearly goals. There are some immediate goals as well but those are best kept in the family for now. I am off to make it happen.

Go team!

Trick or Treat?

t has come to my attention in this most glorious season many homes are failing to fulfill their obligations of giving free candy to those in costumes. Some point to the obvious, saying a weak economy has left little extra money in people’s budgets for frivolous things like delicious candy treats. However, I don’t think the economy is to blame. In fact the jobs market is slowly growing and we are steadily climbing out of the economic nightmare we found ourselves in three and a half years ago.

Others blame oversensitivity towards various religions, saying celebrating Halloween is akin to worshipping the Devil. Balderdash! First, of all this is the 21^st century, that kind of talk is only fit for Stephen King novels or discussions of the Dark Ages. Second, Halloween has never been about the Devil. It is about scary good times and free candy. Period.

Still others seem to want to eliminate all the fun and adventure from childhood by eliminating trick or treating all together because little Billy has a peanut allergy and little Suzie is lactose intolerant and if someone were to give them a Snickers Bar the world might implode. As a parent I feel it is necessary to respect another parent’s decision on how to raise their wiener kids (not to be mistaken for Congressman Anthony Weiner’s kids, judging by their dad those kids are probably pretty cool) but ruining it for everyone is never, ever cool! Gone are the school costume parades, because lame families felt bad because their costumes were not good and their feelings got hurt. Gone are the school parties because of food allergies and special dietary needs. And now they are even refusing to hand out candy. For shame. But these lamewads are not the only culprits in the killing of Halloween.

So what, pray tell, is at the bottom of the miserly-like stinginess of people in America today? The majority of the blame falls squarely on the shoulders of America’s youth.  You thirty and forty-something’s have raised a generation of self-entitled brats that want everything now without working for it. They want the treats without working on the tricks. This laziness has led to people thinking they can get away without providing free candy to the costumed masses; there is no fear of reprisals. Well you well-fed, lazy, vitamin D deficient, children need to learn the TREATS are only half of the Holiday. The other half is at least as important if not more so.

TRICKS! Terrifying, mischievous tricks and the fear of them is the extortion this holiday is built on. If family does not provide candy you give them eggs! Eggs splattered all over their windows and exterior walls! Or toilet paper streamers over their roof and trees and bushes and car! Or you spray poo-in-a-can (yes that’s a real product) into their mailbox (just be sure you don’t leave fingerprints because that one is a federal offense). Now I’m not advocating you go out and commit a crime in order to scare people into giving you free candy but putting on a mask and creating some mischief can help loosen the neighborhood candy coffers. So stop being lazy bastards, design a fun and creative costume, and go out and get some candy. Or else! Muahahahahahaha!

When you’re out there begging for candy remember these words: “Trick or treat is a choice. Either you give me candy or I get to make your life miserable.”

First Time Father Blog

I’ve spent a lot of time in waiting rooms this year. First, there was when dad had his heart attack and subsequent bypass surgery. Then there were all the hospital, doctor’s offices, and lab visits when my face decided to stop working and no one knew why. And of course there were the monthly then weekly trips to see the midwives for the whole pregnancy thing. I met a lot of interesting people, had some nice conversations and learned some things.

One of the things I learned is everywhere I go I am surrounded by tOSU fans (maybe I attract them). Another thing I learned is old guys with cities as part of their name are usually kind of gangster (not gangsta… Pittsburgh Mike is hands down the best waiting room friend I’ve made this year). And I learned when people find out you’re an expectant parent you cannot get them to stop giving you advice. Some of it is helpful, some not so much. Taking the advice I have been given and what I have learned in my first couple of weeks of parenthood I have put together a short guide to new fatherhood. For advice on how to become a father check the Valentine’s Blog I wrote almost 5 years ago here.

1) Get plenty of rest especially in the weeks before the due date. It is tempting to try to get the most out of your last few months without the responsibility of parenthood by staying up late and doing all the stupid crap that makes you happy. However, you should get as much sleep as you can while you can. Trust me.

2) Bring snacks. The hospital will provide mom with food for the duration of her stay, but more often than not dad is on his own to find sustenance. A well stocked snack bag will save you a headache.

3) Be there and be supportive of your wife. This entails knowing when to massage her shoulders, knowing when to tell her you love her, knowing when to hold the barf bag for her (most women throw up during labor, mine didn’t but that’s cause she’s a superwoman), and knowing when to shut the hell up.

4) Doctors are dicks who will not warn you that your little bundle of joy’s head will become conical to help it get out of your woman’s body. That being said YOUR BABY’S HEAD WILL LOOK WEIRD in the moments immediately following birth. Your job is to NOT draw attention to this fact. So bite your tongue and be confident in the knowledge your baby’s head will normalize.

5) Don’t take time spent with your baby for granted. I’ve been a dad for two weeks and everyday brings changes and growth in Milo. Children really do grow up quickly.

6) The birth of your first child is an emotional time. A father of 2 I met while sitting in the waiting room for the midwives told me he cried for a solid half an hour after his baby was born (I think he might have felt compelled to tell me this because my left eye still randomly tears up because of the Bell’s Palsy thing). No one is going to think any less of you if you cry or get pale or faint. However, remember you’re supposed to be a man so sack up and act like it.

7) Follow your instincts… unless your instincts are stupid. Check out “The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding” for some really good advice. It’s an awesome read.

Okay so that covered some of the very basics, the rest you’ll just have to discover on your own. Good luck.

Random Toads

I’m sure you all know that I started a group (of about 3-ish people) to rescue toads and amphibians from their impending doom for man made hazards. Here are some random photos of rescues and little toads we met along the way.

This is Princess. She lives in my mother-in-law’s window well.

 

This is another shot of Princess.

 
Toads like children’s tunnels.

This is Daisy. She’s cool!

More to come someday.

Jeremiah's Tale

As I am sure most of you are aware by now (because I've told you several times) Jeremiah, international toad of mystery, said a tearful goodbye to us on Easter Sunday and went off in search for his toad wife that he was separated from last winter. It was quite sad as we had become very close friends but when true love calls you have to answer.

It was an emotional day for all of us, including Jeremiah.

In the 3 months since Jeremiah headed back into the wild we have not seen him again. Though that does not mean we do not know how he has been. We have been informed that Jeremiah did find his toad wife. They were so happy to be reunited after all these months they immediately got started on making a toad family with 10,000 babies. That was not a typo, 10,000 babies. For about the past month the young ones have occasionally hopped up to my in-laws house (because they live in the surrounding wooded area) to say hello. The first one to do so was a little spitfire named J.J. which he soon explained to me was short for Jeremiah, Jr,

It was easy enough to believe as there was definitely a strong family resemblance but I was surprising that my little J-Rock could be gone for 2 months and make that many kids. As J.J. explained it, his father knew that he would be leaving on Easter but did not want to make his good-bye any harder than it needed to be, especially after my father's heart attack on Good Friday. So the night before he left Jeremiah gave Mollie an extra-special hug and a kiss and me a manly/toadly high-five. Then on Easter when no one was looking he scaled his outdoor terrarium and hopped to the tree line. J.J said his dad told him the hardest part about leaving was that he could hear us calling for him to come back, but he knew that if he turned around he would never find his toad love. So on his epic journey he continued.

After defeating a gang of crows with the deadly speed and precision of ninjukai taijutsu, smacking around a black bear, and outwitting the evil copperhead snake twins (apparently he got them to fight amongst themselves while he walked past them) he was reunited with his love, Marietta. And then they got busy in a big way, as is obvious by the 10,000 tadpoles they hatched. According to J.J., Jeremiah has been taking it easy and spending lots of time with Marietta. And I don't blame him for wanting to spend as much time as possible with her. To go through the challenges and dangers that he battled to get back to her, I would be surprised if he ever left her side again. Just knowing that he is happy is good enough for me.

J.J. in Mollie's hand as he told us his father's story. He's all of 3 months old.

J.J. and some of his siblings have made a point to come by whenever I'm at the in-laws to give me updates and whatnot. I was so inspired by my friend Jeremiah that I have founded the Amphibian Rescue Federation, or ARF for short, (and yes I am aware that ARF would be a better name for a dog rescue group but bite me, it's my rescue team not yours). Actually, it was not so much inspired by Jeremiah as it was by me not liking dead toads in our swimming pool. Never having an in-ground pool before I was unaware that small animals would crawl into it in search of water at night and then drown because they are unable to get out. Then a few weeks after Jeremiah left I was skimming leaves when I came across 2 dead toads, it was not much fun. So I did what any good pool maintenance guy would do, I threw it over the fence, let Arby's worry about it. (Ten bonus points for whomever gets that reference - you can post it in the comments). But out of that act I decided I would do what I could to prevent any toads from dying unnecessarily. To that end I have been doing walk-arounds 2-3 times a day to make sure no toads have fallen into the pool. So far there have been no more dead toads in the pool. Which is good.

About a week and a half ago I did find a grouchy city toad living in our garage though. I named him Benedict, or Benny, after the Benedictine monks because from what I can tell there are not really any female toads within a few miles of our home. I brought him inside and was going to put him in Jeremiah's old terrarium because our garage is not a good place for toads to live. However, Mollie said he was really ugly and that we could not keep him. So I packed him up and took him out to the in-laws so he could live a good country-ish life. Unfortunately, Benny has decided he wants to live in the girls place house. And no matter how many times we move him out into the woods he keeps coming back. Poor guy, he's kind of stupid as well as ugly. I want to bring him back to our house and  move him into a habitat where I can take care of him and make sure he does not get himself killed. However, like I said, as toads go he is kind of not pretty looking and his mug kind of scares Mollie so no dice. (Sorry no pics of Benny, the camera really did not like him.

Anyway, the whole point of this was to let everyone know that our favorite amphibian is doing just fine. He has been fruitful and multiplied (a lot) and he is getting some well deserved time with his Mrs. But I also wanted to let you know that if you ever come across a toad, handsome and smart as Jeremiah or as ugly and stupid as Benny, it is your duty as a friend of the blog to do your best to make sure that amphibian is safe. Whether that means carrying him to the other side of the road so he does not have to dodge traffic or feeding him crickets and flies. Excelsior!

Pain in the neck

I know I have said that I am going to write more often but over the last couple of weeks it has not really been feasible. Back on June 23rd or 24th I started having this neck pain that was really horrific. I popped some Ibuprofen and went about my days though because I'm a man and that is what we do. Then on Sunday the 27th I woke up and the left half of my face would not work. It was kind of lame but I decided maybe I should go to the hospital.A CAT scan showed that my brain was normal (or as normal as my brain ever is) so they decided I had Bell's Palsy, put me on a steroid pack and an anti-viral and sent me on my way.

Tuesday the 29th, I went back to my doctor and she told me to stick with the medicine and to come back in a week to be reevaluated. She also sent me for blood work to check for Lyme's Disease which came back negative. So this past Tuesday I went back and we did see some progress; I can now almost get my left eye closed but there is now lots of numbness in my lower left arm. Weird. So she ordered an MRI and CT scan of  my cervical spine to rule out crazy nerves or something. She also referred me to a Neurologist who I just got back from seeing. He doesn't think it is Bell's Palsy and referred me for more tests, blood and brain.

So for now I am just an extremely tired, numb, achey-faced jerk who can't do much of anything. But I'm keeping my spirits up and I figure I'll be okay. Hopefully, sooner rather than later. :-)

Century List

So it is my birthday again and I figure it is a good time to reevaluate what I have accomplished and what I want to accomplish with my century list, the 100 things I want to do while I am living in the body (note it is not a bucket list because the good die young, but the best live forever so logically I cannot die).  While trying to find my list I had to go through a lot of my old writings from a few years back over on my myspace blog. While I am not one to look back on my old work I have to say I was a pretty funny, clever writer. If you have not done so you should head over to myspace.com/sipeman and read each and every one of my posts and the comments that come with them because it will seriously change your life and make you a better person. No kidding. The kind of advice and philosophical view points posted there really will make you want to change your life for the better. 

Anyway, here's my century list. Note not everything on my list is appropriate for all audiences. If you get squeamish about things of a PG-13 nature you should stop reading now. I had to check off a few things but I'm not making as much progress as I would like so if anyone wants to help me out by giving me free sky diving lessons or tickets to the Super Bowl or if you have a liger or a functioning spaceship you are willing to let me borrow let me know..

1. See Ohio State win a National Championship in football.
2. Throw a huge party and invite every one of your friends.
3. Swim with a dolphin.
4. Skydive.
5. Have my portrait painted.
6. Learn to speak a foreign language and make sure I use it.
7. Go hang gliding.
8. Leave my footprints on a celestial body.
9. Spend a whole day eating junk food without feeling guilty.
10. Be in a Hollywood film.
11. Tell someone the story of my life story, sparing no details.
12. Make love on a forest floor.
13. Make love on a train.
14. Ride an elephant.
15. Fly a plane.
16. Dance on a white sand beach.
17. Get the minions to build a monument to me.
18. Buy a round-the-world air ticket and a rucksack, and run away.
19. Grow a beard and leave it for at least a month.
20. Give my mother a dozen red roses and tell her I love her.
21. Write a best seller.
22. Pet a liger. Then yell He-man and ride it around while brandishing a sword.
23. Send a message in a bottle.
24. Spit off of the Eiffel Tower.
25. Learn to ride a motorcycle.
26. Plant a tree.
27. Play any position for any professional sports team.
28. Write a fan letter to your all-time favorite hero or heroine.
29. Visit the Senate and the House of Representatives to see how Congress really works.
30. Learn to ballroom dance properly.
31. Run through the streets of London while wearing a werewolf costume.
32. Be the boss.
33. Fall deeply in love -- helplessly and unconditionally.
34. Ride the Trans-Siberian Express across Asia.
35. Sit on a jury.
36. Kick Chuck Norris' butt.
37. Go to Walden Pond and read Thoreau while drifting in a canoe.
38. Ride a bull.
39. Drink beer at Oktoberfest in Munich.
40. Be someone's mentor.
41. Shower in a waterfall.
42. Add a little person to my circle of friends.
43. Release an album.
44. Teach someone illiterate to read.
45. Make a Queens Guardsman crack a smile.
46. Spend a night in a haunted house -- by myself.
47. See a solar eclipse.
48. See a lunar eclipse.
49. Spend New Year's in an exotic location.
50. Get passionate about a cause and spend time helping it, instead of just thinking about it.
51. Experience weightlessness.
52. Sing a great song in front of an audience.
53. Go streaking through the quad and down to the gymnasium.
54. Drive across America.
55. Make a complete and utter fool of myself.
56. Own a car that will run a 10 second quarter-mile.
57. Write my will. Insist that I be mummified and placed in my own pyramid.
58. Sleep under the stars.
59. Take a ride on the highest roller coaster in the country.
60. Become a crotchety old miser.
61. Go wild in Rio during Carnival.
62. Spend a whole day reading a great novel.
63. Ride a horse.
64. Learn to juggle with three balls.
65. Drive the Autobahn.
66. Find a job you love.
67. Spend Christmas on the beach drinking pina coladas.
68. Overcome my fear of success.
69. Raft through the Grand Canyon.
70. Donate money and put my name on something: a college scholarship, a bench in the park.
71. Buy my own house and then spend time making it into exactly what I want.
72. Grow a garden.
73. Spend three months getting my body into optimum shape.
74. Drive a convertible with the top down and music blaring.
75. Accept myself for who I am.
76. Learn to use a microphone and give a speech in public.
77. Scuba dive off Australia's Great Barrier Reef.
78. Go up in a hot-air balloon.
79. Attend one really huge rock concert.
80. Hang out backstage at a kick ass concert.
81. Eat at a 5 star restaurant.
82. Give to a charity -- anonymously.
83. Lose more money than you can afford at roulette in Vegas. Always bet on black.
84. Let someone feed you peeled, seedless grapes.
85. Kiss the Blarney stone and develop the gift of gab.
86. Ride a camel.
87. Make love on the kitchen floor.
88. Run amuck in the streets of Tokyo while wearing a Godzilla costume.
89. Go to the Super Bowl.
90. Visit the Holy Land.
91. Make myself spend a half-day at a concentration camp and swear never to forget.
92. Run to the top of the Statue of Liberty.
93. Create my Family Tree.
94. Catch a ball in the stands of a major league baseball stadium.
95. Sell at least one piece of my artwork.
96. Run with the bulls in Pamplona.
97. Put a saddle on a dog and ride it.
98. Run a marathon.
99. Have a kid. Look into my child's eyes, see myself, and smile.
100. Figure out cloning and brain transplants. Buy myself at least another 80 years.