Showing posts with label Kansas City. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kansas City. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Yoga: Threat or menace?

(Before I start I want to give a shout out to Davey's Uptown Ramblers Club for getting a shout out in Esquire's Best Bars in America list for being the best dive bar in the Kansas City area. I spent many a night there thanks to the owner's great taste in booking bands and the ambience provided by a bar that dates to Prohibition that also just happened to be across the street from an adult bookstore. It was like music, alcohol and porn all on one corner. They also named Harry's Country Club as one of the best bars and though I drank there several times I am so loyal to Harry's Bar and Tables that I am using this only to bring up the fact that Kansas City is the type of town that has two different bars named Harry's. Creativity was never a strong suit in the heartland.)

Anyway, so a few years ago back when I was posting regularly I listed my New Year's resolutions and crowdsourced one of the resolutions. The winner was that I would try yoga that year. And I did, if Wii yoga technically counts as yoga. I did a tree pose on several occasions so that should count as yoga. But while that is a start to yoga it really isn't a full experience.

After Kim and I got married we started to go to yoga classes together. This was a really good experience as working out for an hour together was a good way to work out the stress at the end of a week. It also helped to show how poor my flexibility is and the fact that I can't balance on one leg to save my life. But I have to admit that I had three significant problems with my yoga classes.

1) I was the only guy in the room. For years I would not consider that to be a problem. Hell, it isn't even the first time I was in that situation. I've been in writers' groups where I am the only guy (and the only person not writing cat mysteries) and while it is a weird experience it can be rewarding. Plus, I was with Kim so at least I wasn't truly on my own. However, there is no way to be the only guy in a room of women working out without coming off like a bit of a creep. Especially when you are the out of shape guy in the back who keeps on falling down. Plus, when the teacher said "This move will really help you look good in a bikini" my response of "Hey!" was not really appreciated.

2) Yoga classes start with the expectation that you know what you are doing: Everything in yoga has a name and for the life of me I have no idea what any of them are. I had a great teacher for the class but they are always referring to their left when they are using their right and would then say things like "now walk the dog" and "go into crocodile and then push up into down dog" and I am trying to simultaneously look up at the teacher to see what am I supposed to be doing, look down because by looking at the teacher it looks like I am staring at the women in the room, and falling over because apparently I am supposed to be able to lift my leg over my head backwards. The learning curve for me was something fierce.

3) There was always a spiritual element that I was never comfortable with: The class that Kim and I took was a really cardio focused yoga so it was much more a workout than anything else. That said, at the end you still found yourself lying on a mat with your eyes closed being told to find your center and let yourself melt into your mat. This at a moment when I would really appreciate toweling off, having some water and getting on with the rest of my day. I appreciate the idea of meditation and I have done it in the past. I just like my workouts to be my workouts.

But for the past eight weeks I have been trying a different type of yoga and I have been loving every minute of it. This is the best exercise program that I have come across in years. So tomorrow I will provide my review of DDP Yoga. Because if you are going to do yoga why not do one promoted by an aging, slightly well known retired professional wrestler?

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.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

We've found our third starter

Two big news stories today that I must touch upon.

The first is that Sluggerrr, the Kansas City Royals vaguely lion mascot, has been sued for damaging the eyesight of a fan with a hot dog. Not one from the hot dog cannon either. He literally put a man’s eye out with a thrown hot dog. This would be the best throw that a Royal made all year. I’d even expect the settlement to be reduced because the plaintiff will no longer be capable of watching the Royals.

Sluggerrr (and yes that is two g’s and three r’s for those wondering the state of the Kansas City school system) is simultaneously the most baffling and least effective mascot in baseball today. He is a lion, which is fair enough as you can somehow make a king of the jungle connection to the Royals. However, his crown is apparently growing out of his skull as a result of some bizarre experiment. Seriously, kind of like how Doctor Octopus had the robotic arms melded on to his body. Also, since the Royals introduced Sluggerr in 1996 the team’s record is 950 wins and 1,314 losses with a grand total of one winning season. I place the blame solely on the mascot. Clearly he does not inspire the team nor the fan base and should be removed immediately.

(Sigh. It is stories like this that make me embarrassed to even have lived in Kansas City. That is really difficult given that I now live in Delaware a state that only exists to provide tax free shopping for residents of Philadelphia. We’re less of a state and more of an outlet mall.)

The other story is that the inventor of the Easy Bake Oven has died. There was something unique about the Easy Bake Oven as even though I never owned one I have to say that it is one of the most memorable toys of my childhood. Mainly in that it wasn’t a toy at all. It was a method of feeding yourself after school before your parents came home from work. True, it was just slightly more effective than cooking over the lamp in the living room but it still marked a pretty big change in generational lifestyles.

See, for the most part kids were raised to play kitchen in the sense of pretending that you are in a working kitchen. It was all imaginary as no one would expect children to actually cook. The Easy Bake Oven changed that as kids could now fend for themselves, which is interesting because that is precisely what they had to do. Instead of coming home from school to a parent (almost certainly the mom in those times) who had something for them to snack on before dinner they were left with an empty house, Brady Bunch on syndication and an Easy Bake Oven. This is how Gen X learned to be self reliant at an early age. We had to bale our own chocolate cakes as a nine year old and it wasn’t going to get any easier from that point out. So tonight, give thanks to Ronald Howes. The man who taught a generation the importance of independence.

Thursday, April 30, 2009

There is no there here either

Here is the nice thing about the Swine Flu. For the first time in my life my obsessive compulsiveness will come in handy. Now I can wash my hands repeatedly and everyone will think that I am just taking extra precautions as opposed to, you know, trying to get rid of the dirt that never seems to wash off. I knew that if I stuck with it long enough eventually it would be proved to be perfectly rational behavior.

It has been a rather long week and I still have one more day in the office to go. It is strange as to just how busy I am seeing that I really don’t do much. I mean, it is not like I am out at the bars every night. In fact, the degree that I go out now compared to when I lived in Kansas City is astounding. I haven’t even made it out to play trivia in weeks. Yet every night seems to be packed even all I seem to do is talk to Kim, watch tv and write. Admittedly, those are some of my favorite things in the world and I look forward to them every day but it is just odd in that they seem to take up the majority of my life.

I guess part of the reason is just the weird area in which I live. Wilmington is just a strange town. For being the largest city in the state and having a rather decent sized downtown there just doesn’t seem to be much to do. I’m sure there is and I just haven’t found it but I still find it odd that I barely pass any fast food restaurants on my way home. Everything that I would like to do always seems to be a fifteen minute drive away and that takes a lot of the fun out of things.

If there is anything that I miss about Kansas City in terms of the town itself it is the fact that I lived in quite possibly the most convenient location possible. I was blocks away from restaurants and bars. Two music clubs that featured national acts were within walking distance. A grocery store was directly across the street. On consecutive nights I could walk to a bar to play trivia and hang out with great friends. The main high end shopping district was a mile away. The only thing that wasn’t within walking distance from my apartment was a Target and a Best Buy. Other than that I could do pretty much anything I wanted without ever having to get into my car.

I guess what I miss is that convenience. I am already planning my list of things to do this weekend because now when I go out it is more of an excursion. I need to know where I am going and what I am going to pick up when I get there because of the time it will take. I have to optimize my trip and on a Saturday I have no desire to be optimizing anything. All I want to do is turn my brain off and just live in the moment. I’m hoping that I will find a way to accomplish that while living here but it has turned into a bigger challenge than I had anticipated.

Thursday, September 04, 2008

Wave goodbye...

I’d really like to write something incredibly special and meaningful right now. Today is a rather momentous day in my mind. I turned 35 today as well as prepared for having movers arrive in the morning to pack me up and move me out from Kansas City. Sadly though, I am insanely tired at the moment so I am not sure what I will be able to write. But I’ll give it a go.

As of today I am no longer important to American culture. I am no longer a male aged 18 to 34. I am not a part of the target market. That is what I mean when I say that this birthday is rather meaningful to me. This marks from a marketing standpoint that I simply no longer matter. It also means that I am in my mid-30’s. No ifs, ands or buts about it. That will take me a little while to get used to because I have failed on my biggest goal: to be married by the time I turned 35. On the plus side I did not settle for someone who I really didn’t want. On the minus side I am alone when I didn’t really plan to be at this point in my life. I will write a lot more about this in the upcoming weeks.

As for leaving Kansas City it is a real bittersweet moment for me. As anyone who has read this blog knows I am not exactly fond of this town. I intentionally did not set down roots when I moved here. I knew that this was only going to be a rest stop in my life. I never anticipated living here for the rest of my life. But there are certainly things that I have enjoyed about the town.

KC is a really convenient place; something you get spoiled by. I was able to go to hundreds of concerts with no real commute to any of them. Shopping surrounded me wherever I turned. There were bars within blocks of my apartment. True, you typically have to drive wherever you want to go but it is never a long drive. I’ll miss that.

I won’t miss the conservative nature of this town and the closed mindedness that confronted me at seemingly every turn. I won’t miss the cliquishness and the pettiness and all of the small town nonsense that I came across. Those are the things that drove me crazy and it took me years to find some like minded people I could connect with. Maybe I can blame all of this for my lack of a social life at time. It took a long time for me to meet people that I would want to be friends with.

But I did end up with a great group of friends and they are going to be incredibly tough to say goodbye to. I moved here knowing no one and I will leave with some wonderful friends, a few of whom made the decision to leave one of the toughest decisions I have ever had to make. To everyone who has crossed my path in these past five years and has touched my heart I thank you in every sense of the term. You made these past few years worthwhile.

Where am I off to? Delaware in terms of geography. The next challenge of my life in more abstract terms. It should be one hell of a ride.

I’ll end with what might be the most appropriate song possible. I sure made a mess of this town…

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Things to do in KC

So it has dawned on me that my time in Kansas City is limited. I still don’t have an official start date but I have completed all of the steps needed to acquire one. What I’m thinking about right now is what I need to do before I leave in a few weeks. Not from a moving / packing / saying goodbye to friends perspective. I’m talking about things I need to do to remember KC by. Here is my first attempt at a list. Feel free to add anything I may have missed.

1) Really do some shopping on the Plaza: Several reasons behind this. One, I think I will soon find myself missing having such convenient shopping in a pleasant environment within walking distance of my apartment. Two, I am really going to miss not having a Mark Shale nearby. Three, I really need to upgrade and update my wardrobe and I would like to do that before I start working. Anyone willing to help in this endeavor is welcome to join in.

2) Visit the Liberty Memorial: I’ve driven past the thing for five years and have never actually been in it. Given that it is the closest thing that Kansas City has to a landmark I really should make a trip there.

3) Spend a day with a camera taking pictures of all the places that I want to remember: For some reason I just feel like documenting this part of my life. Maybe spend a day driving around town and taking photographs of all the places that I hung out at or that hold special meaning to me. There are some odd corners of the city that I would like to remember for a very long time and having pictures help.

4) Get some real barbecue: I’ve had surprisingly little barbecue in my time in this town. Since I really won’t be able to get much on the east coast I should try to have my fill before I leave.

5) Take one last trip to Lawrence: Spent too many days there and saw more concerts than I can count. One last day hanging out at the only part of the state of Kansas that can be deemed to have culture.

That is all I have for the moment (it’s late and I’m tired). Suggestions are welcome.