Keeping with this week’s theme of romance tonight I figured that I would rattle off some of the incredibly stupid things I have done in the attempts to find love, a relationship or just someone who would acknowledge my existence. Usually when people talk about how their relationships fail it is always because of something wrong with the other person. Looking back I’ve finally realized that I was just a complete idiot. I’m married now. After reading the following you will wonder how the hell that happened but understand why it took me nearly seven years of effort to get Kim to go on a date with me.
1) At the age of 29 I took up smoking in an attempt to look cool. Or, as one of my drinking buddies put it. “If you are going to inhale all of this secondhand smoke then you might as well get some benefit from it.” Plus there was the surprisingly accurate logic that if you sit at a bar with a pack of cigarettes and a book of matches in front of you people will talk to you, if only to bum a cigarette. That part of the plan actually worked. It is an amazing prop to have if you need one. However, I never took into account the fact that I did not know how to smoke, that I couldn’t smoke without coughing and that the entire thing made me look even less cool in the process. This culminated when a girl, who had asked me for a cigarette told me, “Give me your phone, I want to call the idiot who told you to start smoking in order to meet women.”
2) Purchased “The Mystery Method” by Mystery of VH1’s The Pick Up Artist fame. Given all of the crap that VH1 now airs why haven’t they brought that show back? We need the wisdom of Matador and J-Dog, damnit. Yes, somewhere in my book collection I have a dating guide that discusses the importance of peacocking and how to utilize negs. Theoretically I purchased this for entertainment purposes. Or at least I hoped so.
3) In the “it was a good idea at the time” category, I knew where one woman I liked would occasionally hang out and since it was near my apartment and the place served alcohol I figured that I would stop by every once in a while in case she was there because if she wasn’t, well, alcohol. This actually worked when I ran into her until I quickly realized that I had no Step 2 to the plan and looked like a total stalker. Yeah, not my best moment.
4) Been the “let’s go out and drink coffee together” guy on more occasions than I would like to admit. This has become a running joke for Kim as whenever I discuss any girl I knew in college she reminds me that going out for coffee doesn’t technically qualify as dating. Admittedly, on an engineering campus being within fifty yards of a woman technically qualifies as dating so I still feel that having a conversation made me a superstar under the circumstances.
5) Rocked the “cool, hip t-shirt under the dress shirt” look for years in an attempt to show that I had a good job but was still with it. Yep, never worked. Never once did I have anyone mention the t-shirt. Ok, one time someone did ask if I had ever been to CBGBs but given that I purchased that t-shirt at Urban Outfitters I felt more embarrassed for being asked the question than anything.
6) Decided that my go to small talk question would be “Who is your favorite muppet?” To be honest, I still think that question is awesome.
Monday, February 11, 2013
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Dating Blunders Volume One
It’s Valentine’s Week so that means that it is time to tell stories of love won and lost. Or in my case, I’ve decided to use this week to write about some of my worst dating experiences ever. Oh and I will tell the story of my first date with Kim on Thursday as it will tie in nicely and at least that one will not rank as one of my worst experiences ever. I have more than enough of those to go around.
Now before I tell some of my stories I have to remind people that in the not too recent past I used this very blog to openly promote myself as a date for Valentine’s Day. In fact, I had a standing offer in Kansas City to take any woman who volunteered to be my date on Valentine’s Day to the following: 1) Dinner at the Outback Steakhouse (value up to $25, everything above $25 directly ordered by said date must be paid separately. Shared appetizers will be split evenly but please bear in mind that I have a strong dislike of Bloomin Onions because there are some things that even deep drying does not improve, 2) Tickets to see Air Supply in concert at the Harrah’s Casino and 3) one cocktail of their choice at the Casino venue and let me say as someone who had a lot of $6 beers at that damn Voodoo Lounge in that place that is a very nice addition to the package. No one ever took me up on the offer but one of the girls on a competing team did say that she would have but she had to be out of town that day. Seriously, I would have done it just because the sheer thought of seeing Air Supply on Valentine’s Day with a random person would be too good to pass up.
Things were so backwards in Kansas City that I did actually utilize the It’s Just Lunch dating service. Of the many things I learned from that experience number one is that I shouldn’t choose dating services based solely on their advertising in every in flight magazine that I have ever seen. I went on fourteen or fifteen dates in the year or so I was a part of it and I saw a grand total of one woman on a second date. And there was another that gave me her number but never returned my calls. So yeah, not a great history there. However, my final date using them has to be the worst blind date that I have ever been on, made worse by the fact that I technically paid for the experience.
It was either January or February and it was the only time the restaurant where the date was set up to be was within walking distance of my apartment. Given that I lived in the nightlife / entertainment district of the town this never made any sense to me but oh well, at least this time I could trudge through the snow to get there. I sit down, starving for dinner, order a beer and wait fifteen minutes for this woman to appear. When she finally does you can tell that she really doesn’t want to be here either.
I was always surprised at how game people were on these blind dates. I mean, it was an entirely contrived experience, this meeting of a random stranger that someone told you about over the phone for dinner on a Tuesday night. And some nights after a crappy day of work the last thing you want to do is sit down across from someone and make small talk. I always tried and for the most part I always at least had an interesting conversation. Besides I can always talk about books or music or pop culture and find some common point of interest. This night however there was nothing we had in common.
She wasn’t in to music while I was going to concerts every week. She was into hiking whereas I felt that if God wanted us to climb mountains he would have made them smaller and installed hand rails for safety purposes. The crowning moment came when she mentioned that she was originally from Washington and I sensibly asked if she gets the opportunity to get back home and visit her family much. To which she let me know that both of her parents had passed away.
I believe the awkward pause that hung in the air after that statement is still going on.
Trust me, there is nothing you can say in that circumstance that can make you feel like you’ve recovered even though this was a subject that I had no idea about and quickly apologized and switched topics. It is just this feeling of being the biggest ass in the world. We both decided quickly that we didn’t feel like ordering dinner (even though I was absolutely starving) and I walked her to her car and let her know I was walking home. I watched her drive away and then quickly walked one block over to my favorite bar where the bartenders were pouring a beer for me the second I walked in the door. To be honest, for those five years in Kansas City Harry’s was as much of a home for me as my apartment and that night, after sitting through the most awkward conversation that I had ever had, the only person I wanted to talk to was a bartender.
Now before I tell some of my stories I have to remind people that in the not too recent past I used this very blog to openly promote myself as a date for Valentine’s Day. In fact, I had a standing offer in Kansas City to take any woman who volunteered to be my date on Valentine’s Day to the following: 1) Dinner at the Outback Steakhouse (value up to $25, everything above $25 directly ordered by said date must be paid separately. Shared appetizers will be split evenly but please bear in mind that I have a strong dislike of Bloomin Onions because there are some things that even deep drying does not improve, 2) Tickets to see Air Supply in concert at the Harrah’s Casino and 3) one cocktail of their choice at the Casino venue and let me say as someone who had a lot of $6 beers at that damn Voodoo Lounge in that place that is a very nice addition to the package. No one ever took me up on the offer but one of the girls on a competing team did say that she would have but she had to be out of town that day. Seriously, I would have done it just because the sheer thought of seeing Air Supply on Valentine’s Day with a random person would be too good to pass up.
Things were so backwards in Kansas City that I did actually utilize the It’s Just Lunch dating service. Of the many things I learned from that experience number one is that I shouldn’t choose dating services based solely on their advertising in every in flight magazine that I have ever seen. I went on fourteen or fifteen dates in the year or so I was a part of it and I saw a grand total of one woman on a second date. And there was another that gave me her number but never returned my calls. So yeah, not a great history there. However, my final date using them has to be the worst blind date that I have ever been on, made worse by the fact that I technically paid for the experience.
It was either January or February and it was the only time the restaurant where the date was set up to be was within walking distance of my apartment. Given that I lived in the nightlife / entertainment district of the town this never made any sense to me but oh well, at least this time I could trudge through the snow to get there. I sit down, starving for dinner, order a beer and wait fifteen minutes for this woman to appear. When she finally does you can tell that she really doesn’t want to be here either.
I was always surprised at how game people were on these blind dates. I mean, it was an entirely contrived experience, this meeting of a random stranger that someone told you about over the phone for dinner on a Tuesday night. And some nights after a crappy day of work the last thing you want to do is sit down across from someone and make small talk. I always tried and for the most part I always at least had an interesting conversation. Besides I can always talk about books or music or pop culture and find some common point of interest. This night however there was nothing we had in common.
She wasn’t in to music while I was going to concerts every week. She was into hiking whereas I felt that if God wanted us to climb mountains he would have made them smaller and installed hand rails for safety purposes. The crowning moment came when she mentioned that she was originally from Washington and I sensibly asked if she gets the opportunity to get back home and visit her family much. To which she let me know that both of her parents had passed away.
I believe the awkward pause that hung in the air after that statement is still going on.
Trust me, there is nothing you can say in that circumstance that can make you feel like you’ve recovered even though this was a subject that I had no idea about and quickly apologized and switched topics. It is just this feeling of being the biggest ass in the world. We both decided quickly that we didn’t feel like ordering dinner (even though I was absolutely starving) and I walked her to her car and let her know I was walking home. I watched her drive away and then quickly walked one block over to my favorite bar where the bartenders were pouring a beer for me the second I walked in the door. To be honest, for those five years in Kansas City Harry’s was as much of a home for me as my apartment and that night, after sitting through the most awkward conversation that I had ever had, the only person I wanted to talk to was a bartender.
Wednesday, February 06, 2013
Nerdism personified
It is strange that the older I get the geekier I become. I mean, I was actually excited yesterday when I heard that they found a new largest prime number, which is incredibly important if…ok, to be honest knowing that a number that is millions of digits long is prime really has no practical application outside of really obscure cryptography purposes but, hey, it’s another prime number. And they still have to test it by doing things like “can we divide it by 3? Well, how about five? Seven, then? Damn, this might take a while….”
I do find now that though I am not as fast with math as I used to be (and way too reliant on spreadsheets for my own good) I probably understand and appreciate the ideas behind all of the high level math that I was taught. I’ve joked with people that I reached the level in college courses where numbers no longer existed and all you were dealing with were greek letters and neverending discussions about the imaginary portion of the equation. This is actually true. I still deal with imaginary portions of equations to this very day and for the life of me I cannot explain it. The square root of negative one is i, or maybe j, but it exists. You just accept that it does.
I bring this up because it just shows how a school subject changes as you get older. As a kid math was a competition to the point that a) I made state in the Illinois math competition my senior year of high school, b) said state math competition had an official song, c) I have heard people referred to as mathletes without a sense of irony and d) math competitions have marked the only time in my life where I could look around and realize that I am the coolest guy in the room. Then in college and starting work math became my tool. I’ve mentioned many times that I really only have two skills and being good at math is one of them. Being able to spin numbers around and make sense of them has built a career for me. But it really was just a tool that was just a step above a parlor trick. Now I actually enjoy thinking about how numbers work and thinking about the paradoxes around infinity and how some infinities are larger than others even though they are all still infinite. I don’t understand everything and I am much too old to develop any great theorems but I really enjoy reading up on the theories.
God, I’m such a nerd.
I do find now that though I am not as fast with math as I used to be (and way too reliant on spreadsheets for my own good) I probably understand and appreciate the ideas behind all of the high level math that I was taught. I’ve joked with people that I reached the level in college courses where numbers no longer existed and all you were dealing with were greek letters and neverending discussions about the imaginary portion of the equation. This is actually true. I still deal with imaginary portions of equations to this very day and for the life of me I cannot explain it. The square root of negative one is i, or maybe j, but it exists. You just accept that it does.
I bring this up because it just shows how a school subject changes as you get older. As a kid math was a competition to the point that a) I made state in the Illinois math competition my senior year of high school, b) said state math competition had an official song, c) I have heard people referred to as mathletes without a sense of irony and d) math competitions have marked the only time in my life where I could look around and realize that I am the coolest guy in the room. Then in college and starting work math became my tool. I’ve mentioned many times that I really only have two skills and being good at math is one of them. Being able to spin numbers around and make sense of them has built a career for me. But it really was just a tool that was just a step above a parlor trick. Now I actually enjoy thinking about how numbers work and thinking about the paradoxes around infinity and how some infinities are larger than others even though they are all still infinite. I don’t understand everything and I am much too old to develop any great theorems but I really enjoy reading up on the theories.
God, I’m such a nerd.
Tuesday, February 05, 2013
Super random fun time
Yes, I know that I promised to write a lot more often this year. Sadly, life has an unnerving ability to get in the way, cause me to spend weekends in the office, find me in various gin joints in the French Quarter with my special someone and just generally eat into my precious writing time. As I have mentioned before I am in the market for an assistant, not for work but more for my life. It doesn’t pay, you’ll have to deal with the fact that I have almost no ability to function in modern society but I can probably get you college credit. At least at the University of Phoenix. Anyway, some random thoughts at the moment….
1) As someone who has spent much of his life in the electricity business (slightly more than a quarter overall, which means that when I ask the rhetorical question “what have I done with my life?” my answer will be “Determined the amount of imaginary power in the circuit diagram”) watching the Super Bowl blackout was a bit of a thrill. First because I knew that there had to be a bunch of utility execs freaking out at the moment. Then because it was incredible to watch the sideline reporters struggle to understand concepts like fuses, circuit breakers and the fact that it takes time for stadium lights to warm up.
2) I miss the Bud Bowl. I’m sorry, I just do. I don’t care what type of new, hip beer Budweiser wants us to drink this year. I just want beer bottles playing football. Well, that and Bud Dry. Or whatever ice beer is hip at the moment.
3) What I miss about college / my misspent youth item #23: The annual changing of the hip drink / beer. Remember when everyone had to drink Red Dog? When you couldn’t step foot in a bar without hitting ten guys drinking Icehouse? Or that brief moment when people were drinking Zima unironically? Ah, those were the days.
4) Heard on the news today that Muzak is being rebranded. In a way that makes me incredibly sad. Not that the product is disappearing or changing because it isn’t. The company is still going to produce inoffensive, moderately upbeat versions of songs that are popular enough that you recognize the melody but are completely oblivious to the name of the song. They just aren’t going to call it Muzak anymore. I just don’t see the need for the change. We have a perfectly good name for a product we all barely tolerate, why should we be forced to change all of our default small talk statements just so someone in marketing can justify their existence.
5) Yeah, it is tough for me to believe that I was at one point that person in marketing trying to justify their existence. It was Kansas, though. Nothing makes sense there. Any place where the primary mode of transportation is tornado is one where logic need not apply.
6) I wish we could get to the point where we no longer cared about the Super Bowl halftime entertainment. We didn’t care when it was Up with People, we didn’t care when it was in 3D, we didn’t even really care when it involved Michael Jackson. To be honest we could go back to the days where everyone changes the channel for twenty minutes and watches something else and we really wouldn’t lose anything.
7) Oh, and the Ravens won. That was nice, I guess. Delaware’s own Joe Flacco now has a Super Bowl ring so that is nice to know. I believe that automatically makes him the next governor but there are only ten people in the state so it was probably his turn anyway.
1) As someone who has spent much of his life in the electricity business (slightly more than a quarter overall, which means that when I ask the rhetorical question “what have I done with my life?” my answer will be “Determined the amount of imaginary power in the circuit diagram”) watching the Super Bowl blackout was a bit of a thrill. First because I knew that there had to be a bunch of utility execs freaking out at the moment. Then because it was incredible to watch the sideline reporters struggle to understand concepts like fuses, circuit breakers and the fact that it takes time for stadium lights to warm up.
2) I miss the Bud Bowl. I’m sorry, I just do. I don’t care what type of new, hip beer Budweiser wants us to drink this year. I just want beer bottles playing football. Well, that and Bud Dry. Or whatever ice beer is hip at the moment.
3) What I miss about college / my misspent youth item #23: The annual changing of the hip drink / beer. Remember when everyone had to drink Red Dog? When you couldn’t step foot in a bar without hitting ten guys drinking Icehouse? Or that brief moment when people were drinking Zima unironically? Ah, those were the days.
4) Heard on the news today that Muzak is being rebranded. In a way that makes me incredibly sad. Not that the product is disappearing or changing because it isn’t. The company is still going to produce inoffensive, moderately upbeat versions of songs that are popular enough that you recognize the melody but are completely oblivious to the name of the song. They just aren’t going to call it Muzak anymore. I just don’t see the need for the change. We have a perfectly good name for a product we all barely tolerate, why should we be forced to change all of our default small talk statements just so someone in marketing can justify their existence.
5) Yeah, it is tough for me to believe that I was at one point that person in marketing trying to justify their existence. It was Kansas, though. Nothing makes sense there. Any place where the primary mode of transportation is tornado is one where logic need not apply.
6) I wish we could get to the point where we no longer cared about the Super Bowl halftime entertainment. We didn’t care when it was Up with People, we didn’t care when it was in 3D, we didn’t even really care when it involved Michael Jackson. To be honest we could go back to the days where everyone changes the channel for twenty minutes and watches something else and we really wouldn’t lose anything.
7) Oh, and the Ravens won. That was nice, I guess. Delaware’s own Joe Flacco now has a Super Bowl ring so that is nice to know. I believe that automatically makes him the next governor but there are only ten people in the state so it was probably his turn anyway.
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