What's This?

This thing just looks foreign to me. The whole interface of it all. The title - what the heck is a Stizl? Stupid name regardless of what it izl.

In a hotel in Chicago. Stuffed from a nice Italian dinner at Piccolo Sogno, thanks to our agency friend. A little bored, but happy with the day's progress (took beautiful photographs of giant cookies - really). Wasn't bored over the weekend. Flew out here late Friday night and had some fun with bro-and-sis-in-laws. Drank a few too many beers, ate a ton of food in restaurants (which continues), and probably gained a pound or twelve.

This hotel has a fitness center, but I don't feel motivated to use it. I'm ready to get tomorrow done, hit a little Miracle Mile shopping for my wife, and go home Wednesday to see the family and get ready for some Thanksgiving fun. Only the best of holidays would roll an invitation to overeat and watch tons of football all into one.

I learned something Friday night. People still don't understand the letter/number system for Southwest Airlines' boarding process. I'm amazed at the impatience and inability of people to do these two simple things: LISTEN and LOOK. That's all it takes. (The above is maybe the most creatively written blog post, by me on this blog, and it was nearly 2 years ago after waking up in the middle of the night with this revelation that we use letter/number combos ALL THE TIME with no trouble, yet getting on a plane with it is nearly impossible. It still makes me laugh.)

I take too many things for granted in life, but not this: my ability to listen and absorb knowledge, information, and even the random bit of useless trivia now and again.

By the way, I highly recommend the book A Painted House by John Grisham. Hadn't read his work before, and this must be a great departure from his courtroom/lawyer dramas as it's written from the perspective of a 7-year-old boy in the cotton fields. It's about family, sacrifice, life lessons, and hope for something better. I also finished 'Tis by Frank McCourt and Born Standing Up by Steve Martin and am halfway through Slam by Nick Hornby, just on my flight out here. (Slam, not the others. That would be some type of record).

That's all I feel like writing about for now. Glad to have typed a few strokes again.

Vacation pics and tidbits

Annie, the kids and I flew to Chicago on 7/31, drove to Hudsonville on 8/2, drove to Big Rapids (Cottage) on 8/5, drove back to Chicago on 8/8, and flew home to SLC (minus kids) on 8/9, our 1-year anniversary. All that time on seats of moving vehicles left me thinking, "Why do men wear wallets in their back pockets, anyway? My left arse cheek kills!"

Happy Anniversary baby! I did exactly what I wanted to do this year: set the bar low. I only get better from here, trust me.

Some of my favorite highlights from the trip:

- Zoey left the other 3 of us in stitches at the SLC airport restaurant. She started doing this weird "duh, du-huh" sound to Preston, and for whatever reason we all started giggling as she just kept doing it, without breaking. It was like one of those uncomfortably long Family Guy jokes. She just kept making that noise.

- The waiter looked like a creepy, ashy-faced version of Michael McDonald from MAD TV.

- I'm not going to compare every anecdote to a TV show, sorry about that.

- Nicknaming the Willis Tower the "What you talkin' 'bout-Willis Tower", and then hearing the kids try to say it fast. TV reference again, dang.

- Preston methodically cleaned out the appetizer plates at Giordano's.

- Zoey played a game at a street fair where you had to throw a ping pong ball into these tiny glass jars, to win a goldfish in a bag. You got 5 tries. These games are designed to be nearly impossible, right? She nailed it on the first try. We won a fish. It lived for 3 days. We tried.

- My Dad unwittingly ego-slapped me while we put together a new trampoline at his house. I just couldn't pull the last few sections of springs far enough to hook them. My hands were blistered, nearly bloody by then (slight exaggeration). He just kept pulling them 'til it was done.

- I saw my cousin Emily for the first time in well over a year, maybe two years? She went and married a man named Steve. Good job, cousin!

- I met my niece Elizabeth finally. She was crying within 30 seconds when I picked her up. We made up and became buddies later in the week.

- Zoey walking through Meijer in one flip flop, having lost the other one at AJ's house.

- Preston deciding to do lots of unpredictable things: Choosing an afternoon with Grandpa John and Grandma Terry instead of taking the train to Heidi's neighborhood with me and Annie and Dave and Heidi for the street fest; Going grocery shopping with Grandma Carol instead of hitting the G.R. Children's Museum with my Dad and Annie; Waking up super early on his own, at my parents' house, to play Gotham Racing on the X-Box. Well, that last one isn't so unexpected.

- Josh Pepper singing - screaming - "Beat It" in falsetto at the top of his lungs on Guitar Hero World Tour at AJ's house.

- Preston and Zoey arguing over the controls of the slowest, least entertaining type of water vehicle: the paddleboat. "I want to push the little handle forward and back!" "No, you suck at turning left while pedaling!"

- Seeing 3-yr old Danny by the campfire with his pants down. He was standing there with a marshmallow roasting stick in his hand, and suddenly his pants were at his ankles. It seemed like no great surprise to his parents.

- On my 2nd ski run of Thursday, catching an edge and going shoulder/face first into the water at full cutting speed. I hadn't fallen in a long time, and it's a trip. In half a second these thoughts occurred: "I am killing this run OH NO GOING DOWN. I think my shoulder just punched my clavicle. Am I upside down? I wonder if this looks cool to the kids. My teeth hurt?"

- Something about vacation makes my wife actually okay with a real, full arms and body hug. With an extended embrace. I know that's really sappy but I'm treasuring it. It was our anniversary after all. And I hadn't showered in like 3 days at the cottage and she was still in for it. That's love, baby.

I'm omitting a few things, surely, but I'm also very tired and this is taking forever. Plus I took the time to put those clever, HI-larious captions on all the photos above, so don't skimp on those. Thanks to Terry and John for letting me drive the Kia Sportage with the "One Hot Grandma!" license plate frame -- very awesome -- and for letting us crash at our favorite downtown Chicago condo. And thanks to Mom & Dad for hosting us at your home and the cottage for a week. It was a lot of running around, but something about the Midwest always makes it feel easy to enjoy. 

Crickets...where has Stizl gone?

I haven't written anything lately because I spend too much time thinking about writing. Ask me about that next time I see you; I'll have to explain.

I'll say this: John Irving either has some deep-seeded father issues, or he simply has the mind to create the gripping fictional tales his Garp longs for. I read The World According to Garp in about 2 weeks, which is, for me, flying through a novel. I can't wait to get more of his stuff.

My wife made a good point tonight over garlic burgers and beer. (Yes, a romantic Wed. evening every woman dreams of.) I was blabbering about how I hadn't blogged in a while because I couldn't recently find the time to write my observations or op-ed column-styled posts about life happenings. She pointed out that this particular blog may be an outlet for me in that respect, but that the small group of readers - family, friends - who would take the time to read it simply want to know what's going on in my life. Throw on some pics and let them know we all went to the water park, in other words.

So I'll probably start doing more of that. But not until after my vacation next week. We're all flying to Chicago on Friday, then driving to Michigan on Sunday for a week to catch up with friends and hang out with the family at the cottage. I'll get a chance to finally meet my niece, Elizabeth, do my kind of skiing (less snow, more motor) for the first time this year, let the kids 'drive' the Sea-Doos, catch some delicious bass, and maybe even share a reflective, love-drenched moment with my wife over garlic burgers steak and beer.

Christmas2Christmas Review

Many writers, bloggers, and entertainment news shows do a Year In Review, which I'm essentially doing now. But since I really need to start at last Christmas to get the big story in, I'm doing a year in review from NOW. This is no 2008 calendar review. And so I present my first annual Christmas2Christmas Review!

I'm calling it the Christmas2Christmas Review because I really wanted to use a title incorporating a number which acts as a word. See, the "2" acts as "to" and connects last Christmas to this Christmas in a really neat way. Additionally it gives me a little visual trick - I can use the 2 with no spaces around it. If I tried it with the word, it would look like ChristmastoChristmas, and then people would ask me if I'm celebrating the new Greek holiday "Christmasto" (kris-MAS-toh) and that would be uncomfortable. My other title ideas were "52 Week Pickup", which is a takeoff on an hilarious card game my parents used to trick us with when we were kids; "My 30th Year: What Have I Done?", which has a more reflective quality and a cute double meaning; and my last choice was "Read My Last 33 Posts", which is just rude.

LAST CHRISTMAS I GAVE YOU MY HEART...
Let's start there. It's been one year since I proposed (SBBEYAS nominee), and in that time you could say...I've been busy. I maintained the engagement, got married, and now have two wonderful children, 9 and 7. It took some real parenting to raise rapidly aging kids in just one year, but we did fine and they seem to have a well adjusted life. After the new year, we're shopping for colleges!

Weddings were a theme of the past year, and they helped me rack up the frequent flier miles: Matt Murray's wedding in Northampton, MA in March; Josh Pepper's wedding in June back home in G.R., which ended with a lost wallet (SBBEYAS nominee); my cousin Beth Ann's wedding in G.R. a few weeks later over the 4th of July weekend, which gave Annie and me our only cottage trip of the year; and finally, our wedding in Chicago. Of the 4 weddings, mine was the best because I got to go on the Honeymoon.

We visited Chicago multiple times this year, including an early wedding planning session in January where we tried to get some amateur engagement photos. Problem was, it was -93 degrees (with the windchill) that weekend and smiling for pictures meant your face would freeze that way. But we picked our reception site and surveyed a couple other locations. We also hit Chicago in May, in August for our wedding, and at the end of October for a mini-vacation with Annie, after I finished nearly 3 straight weeks of travel for work, which included a stop in Chicago.

I turned 30 this year (5 months and 5 days after my wife did). In related stories, my company went bankrupt and emerged, and our house started falling apart. Seriously, as I'm writing this, I'm waiting for the plumber to come to fix our 2nd faulty shower of the year. The past two nights I spent time Gorilla Gluing pieces of our stone tile countertop back together, which involved moving the dishwasher out - not something I do every day. Last week I spider-bombed our basement, and in order to safely fill your basement with toxic fog blasters, you have to turn off things called "pilots". Apparently, both our water heater and furnace have them. Luckily I read that instruction before I did the fog thingy, so our house didn't explode. I have to admit though, that whole process caused me incredible anxiety. First, I had to deal with the fear that I would improperly stop/start the gas pilot functions. They put very strong wording on those labels that say "IF YOU SMELL ANY GAS WHATSOEVER IMMEDIATELY LEAVE THE PREMISES AND DO NOT LIGHT A MATCH LIKE YOU DO WHEN YOU SMELL GAS IN YOUR BATHROOM". Secondly, my brain envisioned legions of spiders sensing their impending doom and scrambling from all corners and cracks in the basement to jump on my head and neck as I ran upstairs to let the killer fog do its work. Blessedly, I saw not a single arachnid and haven't since. In summary, turning 30 for me meant a lot more housework, and our house is certainly obliging. My body actually feels fine, and I'm in decent shape after spending more time in the gym the past 2 months than I had in the past year. That's not a cry for help, right? "Hey, after 29 years without a single shred of desire to lift heavy metal bars, I think I'll start lifting heavy metal bars and grunting more!"

ARE YOU GOING TO TALK ABOUT SPORTS?
Well, duh. The best moment was clearly Lloyd Carr's final game with Michigan. A high scoring battle with Florida, a bowl win, lots of winged helmets in the air - a great way to start 2008! Little did we know it would be the only positive Michigan football story of the entire year, and maybe the next few. I made my first attempt at a Super Bowl ad review on my blog in February, revealing the fact that since I never have a team to care about in the Super Bowl, I'm now in that group of people that finds the commercials more interesting than the game. The Pistons won a whole bunch of games again, and ran out of gas in the playoffs again. They seem to be poised to repeat the feat this season, even with the addition of Allen "Practice?" Iverson, who is the reason Detroit traded my favorite dude of this era, Chauncey Billups. I'm further ticked because I have a t-shirt with Chauncey's name/# on it, and I don't want to have to buy new team gear for those days when I really, really need to show how much I love my home teams by wearing shirts. What if we showed our loyalty to, say, hair care products in the same way? "Dude, nice Suave shirt. You jumping off the Dep bandwagon?"

Let's see, what else? The Tigers added a bunch of dudes you've sort of heard of, then did much, much worse. I'm pretty sure the Wings won the Stanley "Stan" Cup but I maybe watched 2 periods of hockey all year, and they were the last 2 periods of the Cup-clinching game. Some fan! If you're in Michigan, the cold and prevalence of ponds just sort of makes you watch more hockey. Here in Utah, hockey takes a major backseat to skiing, the Jazz, and producing children. And back around to Michigan Football which, as we all know, lost to their 3 major rivals (Utah, Toledo, Northwestern) during their worst season EVER. But hey, the basketball team is back, baby! We owe West Virginia half a thank you.

STIZL, WE REALLY WANT TO KNOW WHAT WORDS AND PHRASES YOU WISH WOULD DIE, SINCE NO OTHER PEOPLE THINK TO WRITE ABOUT THAT
Actually, a surprising few columns were available on this subject. Lake Superior Sate University apparently has this topic locked up. Really? We can't do better than that? Harvard, Yale, and Davenport were too busy to put one of these together? [Note: When I researched this, LSSU had their 2008 word list - today, it shows the 2007 version...not sure why. Check back maybe.] Anyway, a few phrases have been bugging the crap out of me, so now I will talk about them, proliferating their existence on the interweb for eternity:

1. "We overcame a lot of adversity" Alternate misuse: "We've had lots of adversity" (generally in sports): Athletes and media love to talk about the momentous hurdles facing teams and individuals in sport, like "the opponent also likes to win" and "sometimes you get owies". I heard a QB from a football-factory powerhouse, who was 11-1 at the time, talk about the "great adversities" they "overcame" to "get to where they were at". Aside from the poor grammar, what great adversity did you face? Losing one game? Injury? Those things affect every single team/individual in all sports in all corners of the earth for all time. Those things are normal, not unusually challenging or contrary or even unlucky!

2. "From Wall Street to Main Street" (politics/media): Uh, yeah - let's go ahead and group all companies, all people, all communities into two convenient groups (which happen to make a clever, poetic phrase). On one hand, "Wall Street" - an actual place, but the idea of which has become completely un-relatable and, frankly, disreputable to most Americans; and on the other hand, "Main Street" - a quaint reference to small town, middle-American communities which is myopic if not condescending. Thanks for this one, Economy!

And the best one of the bunch from LSSU's 2008 list:
3. "It is what it is": This vague phrase is often used when someone totally under qualified is asked to comment on a very specific issue. I'd explain it further but it's just, well, it is...

STIZL'S BLOG BLOG ENTRY OF THE YEAR AS AWARDED BY STIZL
Thanks to all those who commented on their favorite posts, lines, or topics this year. I received over 3 suggestions for the SBBEYAS, a new record! Several posts discussed pants, and those seemed popular. But the runaway winner, and the reason to start this review at Christmas, is...

Ring A Ling.

(wild applause, awwwws from the ladies, groans from the guys...)

WHAT HAVE I LEARNED?
Don't invite Sue to a surprise party.

Also, you absolutely do NOT have to enter microwave times in :05 increments! I don't know why this unwritten law seems to control our actions, but it does. And you don't even have to use only :15 or :30 multiples either. What, like if your oatmeal is set for 1:30 it will be perfect, but 1:26 it's lukewarm soup, and at 1:48 it's burning oat-paste? And think about this: Every time you enter, say, ":30" on the microwave, you waste a ton of energy by moving your finger from the 3 at the top to the 0 at the bottom. Next time, just try hitting ":33". If you're not big into saving fractions of seconds on finger motions, then just do random #s that are near enough to your target time - :47 to reheat your coffee, maybe. It's fun - trust me, you'll feel like you're doing something naughty. And we all know, in today's depressing economy, we need to find elements of fun in the little things, like microwaving or putting on seatbelts (SBBEYAS nominee).

Speaking of the depressing economy, hope you had a Merry Christmas!

Where's Stizl?

Well, I'm in Orlando now, and leave for Baltimore tomorrow. But first a little rewind. As predicted, last week ended much better than it began. Chicago proved a fantastic host in many ways, and ORD couldn't even dampen the trip. We had a large group from corporate for the Chicago meeting on Thursday, so Wednesday was Big Dinner time. Went to Gibson's, near ORD. AWESOME steak. Plus, one of our field personnel swore up and down that Martin Scorsese was in the restaurant. It was totally not him, but it was funny watching her talk herself into it. Something about that Wednesday dinner and socializing led us into a great meeting on Thursday. Chicago's franchisees can be a tough crowd for our company, but we handled them well. I really hit my stride as a presenter/facilitator during my hour of the meeting, even dropping a personal anecdote about my wedding (awwww). Seriously though, just chatting about anything other than the content of the meeting helps me relax, and then I cover the content better, too.

[aside]
I haven't watched much of the MLB playoffs, but with only a few highlights last night and currently glancing at the 1st inning of the ALCS, I have seen nothing but Tampa Bay Rays' batters smashing huge home runs over the Green Monster. What happened to home field advantage, Chowds?
[end]

Thursday night provided a new Chicago experience of EPIC proportions. Dave & Heidi (my bro- and sis-in-law) -- well, mostly Dave -- decided it was time to welcome me to the world of Gene & Jude's, a strangely famous hot dog stand. Yes, hot dog stand. I can't consider it a restaurant, even though it had 4 walls and a ceiling. This place was a tin can with a neon sign, a potato cutter, and a line of 8 fryers. It is nothing but those skinny Vienna hot dogs & fries (well, tamales too, but I wasn't in the mood). And NO ketchup. For each ketchup you ask for, they kill you.

On Dave's advice, I went with 2 double dogs with everything and a Coke. This is the great part: the dogs come piled with the fries on top. So you order 2 dogs, and you also get 2 orders of fries! This should be standard in any restaurant! And you must eat them all together, the fries essentially a condiment for the hot dogs, smashed into the bun. I started picking fries off the top of the first one, and Dave almost backhanded me for insulting the G&J culture. I guess it's like ordering philly cheese steaks in Philly - you gotta know the culture. So I crushed those 2 double dogs, standing at the counter like a champ.

I just realized that I had 2 distinct dinners in Chicago, and I spent 200 more words on the hot dog stand than on the critically adored steakhouse. Such is life.

Orlando hasn't been that interesting - hot & muggy & rainy. So-so meeting, sort of dull. But the biggest thing is it's only Tuesday, and it feels like I've been gone a week again already. The weekend was nice (time with the wife, beers with the boys, didn't watch Michigan lose to the Toledo Rocket-football team), but it flew by, and heading to the airport again early Monday was miserable. I just want this week to be done, so I can go home for the weekend...again...and leave on Monday again...

Converging on Chicago

I'm getting married this summer, so you'd think I would have a whole bunch of stuff to write about. Plans, logistics, worries, anticipation, costs, honeymoon... Thing is, Annie has done 94% of the planning and coordinating and decision making, so my thoughts are: She's doing great! Also, both her and my parents are being super generous with their time, money, and help in this deal that I don't want to step on their toes. Yeah, that's it! My jobs have been to work on the website (haven't touched it in a month or so), get a pastor/minister (none yet), and work on Men's apparel (I don't dress like a grown up so this is much harder for me than she realizes). And I secured the park contract for our site - after she chose the site - and it appears I did not secure the ability to play music through speakers, so I need to work on that too.

But this morning, just now, I did look up information on Cook County marriage licenses and figured out how and when we should get one. Bet she hadn't thought about that, huh! Plus her Dad is giving me tickets to the Tigers-White Sox game in Chicago the Thursday before our date, and I've told a few people about that. Let's see, what else... We're going on a cruise for our honeymoon - leaving from San Juan P.R. - so that's going to be sweet. I did buy a new swimsuit and have been doing some sit-ups so she's not embarrassed to be seen with me...

Yeah that's about it. We have a lot to do. Thankfully she is very good at this planning stuff since she used to do it for a living. And she is organized and thoughtful and good at schedules and stuff. Did I mention how beautiful and sweet she is, too? You're doing great, babe! It'll be worth it I swear!

Next weekend we're going to Chicago to do some on-site planning, hang out with her dad & stepmom & brothers, and my parents are coming down from G.R. to hang out, too! Any reason to party in Chicago is a good reason. Weddings especially. Even the planning part.