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I was told last week by Andy that two posts in one week from me would be unheard of.

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We've got some cache-ing up to do

Hello, pleased to meet you.

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"It Happened."

Many of you know that Dawn finally had our baby this past Friday night. His name is Evan Connor Siskow and he weighed in at 7 pounds, 8 ounces and measured 19.75 inches in length. He was born at 7:28 in the evening and is pretty much the most incredible little thing I've ever seen. You can keep tabs on him at the Flickr site we're updating, found here.

Some of you know that I tried to blog the entire time and post the updates in real time. The original post was titled "It's Happening," and was saving when the WiFi at the hospital crashed and never recovered. So my plan to be a super nerd during one of the greatest moments of my life backfired, but I was able to maintain nerd status by logging a text document that I would post at a later time. Well, that later time is now. It reads like a blog, from bottom to top, so it will be weird if you read it any other way. And keep in mind that I had no idea how long the night would get, so I didn't anticipate this being longer than the script for Peter Jackson's King Kong.

So here it is, the unedited version of what I was doing and thinking last Thursday and Friday when Evan was born.

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It's Happening.
At some point I'm going to have to stop updating this and greet my baby, but if you're keeping track at home, here's what's going on with Dawn and baby and I.

11:40 p.m.
We finally take him away to the nursery, although it's tough to let him out of our sight. He'll be back in a few hours to eat again, so it's time for bed.

9:00 p.m.
Dawn feeds the little man. He will have his first bath shortly, and then mommy and daddy will send him to the nursery so they can get some rest. There's time to get more acquainted tomorrow.

8:40 p.m.
I'm calling a few friends and family, but still holding the little guy. I'm enamored by him. Dawn will be breastfeeding shortly.

8:20 p.m.
I've been holding my son since shortly after his birth. I can't put him down. Dawn's BP is increasing and she should be able to breast feed soon and hold her baby.

7:40 p.m.
I get to carry my child back to our hospital room as they push Dawn down the hallway in her bed. Her blood pressure is low and she's shaking uncontrollably from the hormone changes and drugs. I can't take my eyes off my son.

7:32 p.m.
I cut the umbilical cord.

7:30 p.m.
Now I've become the OR photographer. I take a million photos -- the weigh-in (7 lbs. 8 oz, 19 3/4 inches), the washing off and APGAR scoring, putting on his wrist bands, etc. Dawn is having her placenta pushed out of her. They're really working her over and she's just lying there unphased, staring across the room at her baby.

7:28 p.m.
Our baby is born. Dr. Hoegh lifts him up and holds him over the sheet for Dawn to look at. He opens his eyes and stares at her and she cries. I want to take a photo but I'm completely frozen. I'm watching one of the most incredible introductions I've ever seen and can't lift the camera off my lap. I've always heard that the moment when a baby meets its mother is one of the most wonderful things you can witness. It's true.

7:26 p.m.
A baby cries. The anesthesiologist tells me it's okay to stand and peek over the sheet at my son. I stand up and I can see him. He's not at all what I expect -- he's way more wonderful than I could imagine and all I can see is his head. I start crying and they tell me to sit back down. Dawn looks at me and all I can do is nod and sob.

7:25 p.m.
Dawn is handling this like a champ and I can tell by the conversations that something is happening. Dawn feels like someone is standing on her chest; apparently that's the baby being pulled from her abdomen. It's getting real.

7:20 p.m.
Dawn is getting jostled around like crazy. Dr. S. is there to tell us when Dawn will be feeling pressure, etc. But then a strange thing happens -- he suddenly goes home for the night and his replacement comes in and introduces himself to me.

7:16 p.m.
I'm "called in" and directed to a pink stool right by Dawn's head. I have no idea what to expect and so I just start talking to her and encouraging her and running my hands softly on her face. There is a blue sheet between me and the doctors so I can't see what's going on, which adds to my crazy thoughts. I look to the side and see a scene out of a movie, as bloody rags are tossed into a silver pan on the floor. Cue Kate Bush's "This Woman's Work" in my mind and my eyes start welling up with tears. I talk to Dawn, who is surprisingly alert, and it calms me.

7:05 p.m.
Dawn is wheeled into the operating room and I'm told to sit outside "until they call me." Now I'm worried. Every time a nurse walks through the swinging door I can see Dawn and the tears well up.

7:00 p.m.
We're going in for the C-section. Dad has to wear a white jump suit over his clothes, a hairnet, mask, and booties over his feet. Dad is also running on adrenaline and his mind is going a mile a minute.

6:40 p.m.
A mini-conference is held with Susan, Dr. Hoegh, Dawn and myself at the foot of Dawn's bed. They're pushing for a C-section. We're not exactly on board but are trusting their judgment. It would be a shame for all the work Dawn has done to seemingly go to waste.

6:30 p.m.
Susan returns and says she is advising we agree to a Cesarean section because of the fact that the baby's heart rate is at an alarmingly high level and Dawn's fever isn't decreasing. She is consulting Dr. Hoegh concerning her thoughts.

6:15 p.m.
Susan returns to check Dawn's cervix and finds that no progress has been made; she's still dilated to just over 3 cm. Susan seems worried, especially since Dawn is running a fever over 100 Fahrenheit and is not responding to antibiotics.

5:20 p.m.
Dad's hungry and ready for the stretch run. The hospital cafeteria provides a very mediocre piece of primavera pizza with wheat crust and a chocolate chocolate chip muffin.

5:15 p.m.
Dr. S. (anesthesiologist) just popped in again (I believe that's his third time since putting in the epidural), apparently doing his rounds.

5:10 p.m.
So much for a centimeter per hour, Dawn's still only dilated to three. She's also running a fever so they gave her some Tylenol. Susan put in a local uterine monitor to monitor the exact strength of the contractions (before now they were only able to monitor contraction length), so they can more accurately administer Pitocin. The silver lining to the fact that her cervix isn't any more dilated than two hours ago is that she isn't quite to four centimeters yet, which is some sort of "magic number" when it comes to cervix dilation. They continue to watch baby's heart rate closely.

3:05 p.m.
Susan came in (she's delivered two babies already today) and broke Dawn's water, which she indicated was somewhat difficult with baby now at 0 to +1 Stage (i.e., his head is ready to come out as soon as the cervix (which is now 100% effaced) is dilated to 10 cm. Susan said that Dawn is now moving at a centimeter per hour in terms of dilation, so at that rate it would be 10 p.m. before the pushing stage, which lasts anywhere from 1-3 hours. It's still uncertain whether or not our son's birthday will be December 14 or 15, but it will be one of the two.

2:40 p.m.
Ashley said Susan will be in shortly to try and break Dawn's water. I feel bad for Dawn, she needs some good rest, but they need to keep this thing moving because the baby needs to come out and Dawn probably wants him out of there ASAP now that she's at the hospital.

2:10 p.m.
Ashley and I helped Dawn move to her back because "baby is being particular and doesn't want you to lay on your [right] side." I'm just following orders and listening to the professionals. I looked at the monitors while we did this and saw that baby is now in "-1 Stage," which is better than his previous -2. Zero Stage is when baby's head is even with the cervix, so we could see some action soon. Especially if Susan comes back and breaks the water. I bet she's off delivering a few babies right now.

2:00 p.m.
Dawn sleeps while I sit here getting caught up on RELEVANT Magazine, which recently had its first two monthly issues ever, successfully putting me two months behind in keeping up with my reading. Ashley enters as I finish that sentence and moves Dawn's NST monitors around a little (they do this fairly often to be sure they're getting clear, accurate readings).

1:40 p.m.
Ashley checks Dawn's cervix and is able to stretch it to 2 cm in hopes that it will "get something started." There is talk of breaking Dawn's bag of water.

12:30 p.m.
Dawn is getting some much-needed rest. The contractions continue but she can sleep soundly through them now. Dad hits the lunch buffet.

12:06 p.m.
Dr. Superlongandweirdname comes in to administer the epidural. It's quite a procedure, and Dawn takes it like a champ.

11:45 a.m.
Ashley wheels in the epidural carts. Dawn is drifting in and out of sleep.

11:20 a.m.
Ashley provides some relief in the form of a second dose of Fentenol. Dawn will have to okay an epideral as her next form of pain relief, but Ashley suggests we do that instead of dose three of Fentenol (she explains that the third dose doesn't always combat the steeped contractions all that well).

11:10 a.m.
The first dose of Fentenol is wearing off and the contractions (thanks to the continuous increase in Pitocin doses) are getting worse. How do women do this without drugs? Dawn is really squirming.

10:35 a.m.
Dawn bursts to life with a cough and her eyes popping open. It makes me wonder for a second if she hadn't actually been breathing for the last 14 minutes. She takes bathroom break #50 and comes out complaining about the height of the toilet for the 50th time. Strange things complained about so far: Picture on the wall (five times), height of toilet (nine times), air handling system (three times). I love you, honey.

10:21 a.m.
She's out like a light. Mouth hanging open and everything. This is about the best thing that could happen to her right now. She's so tired and has a long day ahead.

10:20 a.m.
Okay, she seriously may be intoxicated. The verbal exchange we just had was about as bizarre as any conversation I've ever had. With a drunk person. On Fentenol.

10:15 a.m.
Dawn says she feels drunk. The Fentenol causes dizziness in the first few minutes of the drip. I'm looking at her right now and she seems relaxed for the first time since yesterday morning. Probably since she's drunk. On Fentenol.

10:10 a.m.
After upping the dose of Pitocin again, Dawn has had it. She's exhausted after being up virtually all night with contractions. Her contractions are now two minutes apart and have been for a while, and they are strong. Ashley administers Fentenol to take the edge off the contractions. This is a drug that can be given in advance of an epiderul (which is like the pain killer of all pain killers). With Fentenol, the peaks of the contractions are not as painful and it will help Dawn to loosen up (her neck and shoulders are tense).

9:50 a.m.
Ashley returns and Susan, our midwife, is back again. She is apparently delivering two other babies on the floor today (before Dawn), so she's fairly busy but should easily be freed up before our baby is ready (which makes us both realize how long the day ahead will be). She checks Dawn's cervix and she's still dilated at 1 cm and has a "good bloody show" (normally an oxymoron, but not in this case). She says Dawn is 90% effaced and the baby is engaged at -2. This means that his head is right there where it needs to be.

9:25 a.m.
Ashley's back and the contractions are getting nasty. She measures Dawn's temperature and finds her slight fever from the previous night has seemingly gone away thanks to our old friend Tylenol.

9:00 a.m.
Ashley arrives to administer the Pitocin and thus kick in the serious contractions. The dose is supposed to be increased every 20 minutes or so and will continue to increase the pain of the contractions with each dose.

8:00 a.m.
Our nurse Mandy has completed her shift after staying with us all night. Dr. Hoegh and nurse Ashley arrive to remove the Cervadil and check Dawn's cervix. She is now dilated for the first time to a whopping 1 cm. Dawn is free to take a Whirlpool bath and walk around as she's disconnected from the machines for at least an hour.

12:00 a.m. - 6:15 a.m. Friday Dec. 14
Contractions continue to ramp up and Dawn is having to practice breathing through them. The nurse returns what seems like every 15 minutes to check on her, and every few hours to check vital signs (the actual signs, not the album by Survivor). Daddy tries to sleep and gets 4-5 hours. Dawn gets very little sleep.

11:00 p.m.
We're lying together in the hospital bed watching videos on my iPod while Dawn starts to have cramping that leads to contractions. The Cervadil is officially working right in the middle of "Half Light" by Athlete.

9:30 p.m.
Answering a bunch of medical history questions and wondering if we're going to sleep through the night. We officially write the baby's first name on one of the forms. Middle name is still being debated.

9:15 p.m.
Dawn is started on Cervadil, which is a medication that will be administered for the next 12 hours to help induce dilation. Petocin will be administered in the morning.

8:30 p.m.
Dawn is hooked up to the NST again. This time in a cool bed with controls and a built-in TV remote.

8:00 p.m.
Arrival at Iowa Methodist Maternity Center. We won't see Cooper again until he's got a brother.

7:30 p.m.
A quick drive-thru at Fazoli's. Mommy needs fuel, but since they put mayo on her sandwich the only fuel eaten is breadsticks.

6:00 p.m.
Cooper gets little attention as bags are packed and adrenaline pumps.

4:30 p.m.
Back at Midwife Services, Susan recommends we induce as soon as possible because the placenta "ages" very quickly when a mother is overdue and the amniotic fluid situation is not going to improve. She says baby is very healthy now so we should get him out while he's not at any serious health risk. We ask, "How soon is 'soon?'" Her response: "Tonight at 8:00 I think you should go in." Jaws drop and stomachs turn.

4:10 p.m.
Ultrasound at Iowa Methodist. This is our second ultrasound and baby doesn't even fit on screen. What was originally supposed to be standard procedure turned out to return shocking news -- the test found that Dawn's amniotic fluid level is not in the preferred range and we were directed back to Susan at Midwife Services.

11:30 a.m.
Lunch at Manhattan Deli. It's Dawn's first time eating there but she doesn't eat the Ultimate Grinder, although it's Thursday, so it's "Grinder Day." My Grinder is superb. As usual.

11:00 a.m.
The NST test takes a while but the results look great, according to our midwife. The nurses seem relieved, which makes me wonder if they were more worried than they let on. Nonetheless, we're optimistic. Our midwife Susan recommends that we induce on December 19, which would be 42 weeks if you're following along. She also orders an ultrasound to be done ASAP (standard procedure). Turns out ASAP translates to 4:00 p.m. in medical terms, and 4:10 p.m. in Dawn and Aaron's poor punctuality terms.

10:00 a.m.
At Midwife Services, we find out Dawn is not dilated at all (huge bummer). The midwife recommends an NST (Non Stress Test) to see how baby's heart rate is doing and to monitor contractions and other uterine activity. The test is apparently administered because baby is only measuring 38 weeks, which is apparently a little small for someone at 41 weeks. This NST machine is the type of machine Dawn will be hooked to upon arrival to the delivery room. Except maybe not as old-school looking. It looks like a dentist's chair that Norman Rockwell would have probably worked into one of his paintings.

9:45 a.m.
Midwife appointment. Going in, we're expecting Dawn to be slightly dilated (since she's a week past due) but overall unsure what the day will bring. It is warm(er) today (high of 34 F) and the sun is shining for the first time in what seems like days. Ice is melting off the trees and icicles are dropping from stoplights, some of them coming incredibly close to our car as we pass beneath. The parking lots are slippery.

8:06 a.m. Thursday, Dec. 13
Aaron gets his second speeding ticket (first in Iowa). Doing 57 in a 45. Crappy start to the day.

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Nursery. But no baby. Yet.

As promised, here are some photos of the nursery, enhanced by my wife's vision and my friend Ed's artistic abilities.

And by the way, no baby yet. Nearly a week after the due date. We go in tomorrow to schedule an induction date. Yes, we're getting antsy.

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I'm Pregnant!

We went to Midwife Services for Dawn's checkup today....and....she's not dilated. At all. So no baby yet, and (as it would seem), no baby for a while, but that's fine. We'll wait as long as we need to for the little man. I just feel bad for Dawn. The good news from our midwife, however, is that the baby's head is right on the other side of her closed cervix, which is a position that some women have to work really hard to get to. So we're not complaining. He's in launch position.

I haven't updated in a while because I've been so busy at work and at home getting prepared for our son's arrival. In fact, the nursery is pretty much done and I'll try and take a photo and post it in the near future (aka, don't count on it). I got some requests for photos of Dawn, and while I don't have any recent ones (her stomach has gotten a LOT bigger the past few weeks), I have a photo with her in it from one of our classes (about a month ago). The proud young pregnant woman on the right is me. Or what I would look like if I was pregnant with an annoying heavy bag of sand and my skin was made of canvas.

Wearing the empathy belly was pretty cool, and I didn't know what to expect considering we had to sign a waiver before we could put it on. It weighed between 30-35 pounds, and of course, I acted really tough when I got it on. But it really wasn't that heavy at first, and as I got used to it, I was thinking "this really isn't that bad." Our instructor made us do some tasks such as pick something off the floor, sit down and stand up, walk up stairs, etc. These every day things were all much harder to do with the belly on.

Now I don't want anyone to think that I don't feel for my wife or other pregnant women because I didn't initially think the belly was that heavy. Because when I took it off, I realized exactly how heavy it was. I felt like I was about 100 pounds lighter, and there was no longer a steel ball pushing on my bladder and pressure on my chest. I was relieved. And I only wore it for 10 minutes or less. I couldn't imagine doing it every day. Maybe that's why pregnancy lasts so long, so the woman can slowly get used to the insane amounts of poundage she has to lug around each day.

The other thing I should note is that that belly only represents between 20 and 25 percent of my total body weight. Dawn's baby-filled belly weighs a little less than 40% of her total weight. If I were to wear an empathy belly that was 40% of my weight, it would have to weight like 72 pounds. That's right, 72 pounds! Are you kidding? It's stuff like that that makes me more and more proud of Dawn every day she's going through this.

I will either e-mail, call or post when the dude arrives. Keep Dawn in your prayers; she will be going through quite an ordeal in the coming days!

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Baby Pictures!

As usual, I'm not keeping up with updating this blog daily like I had originally planned. On the bright side though, the nursery is almost finished and Dawn and I have gotten a few other big projects out of the way in the last few weeks. But the little guy is sneaking up on us. His due date is less than six weeks away, and in three weeks Dawn will have carried him "to term," and he could show up at any time.

To round out the week, I thought I'd share the only pictures we have of the little guy. When Dawn was 19 weeks along, we had an ultrasound done at Iowa Methodist Medical Center. Normally, you don't get to have an ultrasound unless the pregnancy is "irregular." I use that term for lack of a better one since there are a lot of reasons that an ultrasound would be performed. Examples would be when the mother has gestational diabetes or some other disorder, or a baby that is growing a little slower. Or in the situations of twins or triplets. Usually though, I think prenatal caregivers like to give the parents at least one ultrasound so they can look on their child. If the pregnancy is not in need of an additional ultrasound but you as parents would like one, I think you're entitled to one, it just wouldn't be covered by insurance. In our case, our midwife wrote down on the chart that Dawn was measuring "a little small," even though she was measuring about right on where she needed to be at 15 weeks. So we had an ultrasound. And we saw our son.

Seeing the ultrasound is pretty amazing. The images are very clear and in stunning black and white. But the coolest thing about them is that they can kind of see through different layers -- i.e. adjustable x-ray vision glasses or that gun they used in the movie Eraser. I was pretty amazed and think I was smiling the entire time we were in the room. Also, the whole time I was trying to figure out if it was a boy or a girl based on my judgment, because we were really anxious to find out what it was at that time. But throughout the entire procedure the little guy was lying in the wrong position and wouldn't roll over so we could see his stuff. Dawn had brought in some M&Ms and ate those because she'd heard that the sugar would get the baby moving. And he was actually moving a lot without the sugar rush, he just wouldn't show it off for us. So after a while (and after informing us that "sometimes you just don't get to find out because they won't turn the right way") they started pushing on Dawn's stomach and moving the bed up and down to get him to move. No dice. They took his head measurements and measured his arms, legs, etc., and came back to get a shot of his posterior and -- BOOYAH! -- there it was. But I still didn't know what I was looking for until they told us. The nurse was like, "Do you want to know what it is?" We replied in the affirmative and she showed us the photo at the left and said, "Well, this is his bottom, these are his thighs, and...well..."

I wasn't necessarily hoping for a boy over a girl, I just know that I want to have one of each some day. We don't know exactly how many kids we want to have (we'll see how much Dawn likes pushing the first one out), but we're thinking either two or three right now. We've also really considered adopting a child someday. Who knows. For now we're just worried about one little guy.

I'll sign off with a funny story about when we got in the room to have the ultrasound. The nurse told Dawn to lie down on the bed and asked her "What pregnancy is this for you?" and Dawn (thinking that she had asked something like "What week of pregnancy is this for you?") replied, "Um...nineteen." Hearing that response confused me a little but I just passed it off, thinking that I had heard the question wrong. The weird thing is that the nurse said, "Okay," and wrote it down. Moments later, Dawn said, "Wait. Did you ask how many weeks I am?" The nurse said no and Dawn replied, "Okay I misspoke, I'm 19 weeks along with our first child." And the nurse said, "Oh, okay. I was going to say, 'Wow you look pretty good to be on your 19th kid.'"

Uh...ya think? Not to mention young. Nineteen kids at age 28 would have to be some sort of record.

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Happy Midwifery Week!

We just had another two-week pregnancy appointment with Midwife Services (that's how I know that October 7-13 was National Midwifery Week). The appointment went well once again -- Dawn is measuring right on track for being 32 1/2 weeks along, and our son's heart rate was in the low 130s to high 140s, which is right where we want it to be. Dawn's weight gain is consistent and right on track, and her blood pressure is excellent.

For those of you that are wondering, we chose to utilize the services of a midwife through Iowa Methodist Medical Center not only because we like the midwives that work there, but because we feel that the care is a little more personal. We have nothing against any other type of prenatal care, it's just nice to know that the midwives (who are all Registered Nurse-Midwives) are with you the entire labor up until delivery (whereas doctors might enter the room 15 minutes beforehand). It's comforting that the person delivering the baby is with you from the moment you arrive until the end (plus they're all women, which is more comfortable for Dawn).

The birth will still take place at the hospital in a birthing suite, and the midwives really emphasize the control you'll have when the birth takes place (they ask about things like roles, positions, medication, techniques, candles, music, relaxation measures, etc.). Sometimes a doctor can kind of make it his/her birth, because they like to do things the way they've always done things. Again, our choice is not because we have something against doctors. It's basically the same thing anyway. In fact, if there are complications in labor, the midwives bring in an on-call doctor.

So far, everything is going well! Please continue to have Dawn and baby in your thoughts and prayers.

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Rubber Baby Bloggy Bumpers.

I guess it's time for me to update my blog (everyone say it with Cork: "Finally!"), since a few noteworthy things have happened since my last post. Number one (and the only thing really worth mentioning for now), is that we found out Dawn is pregnant. In eight weeks, that is (give or take maybe a week or two, so it's coming fast). Really fast considering we just found out we were pregnant three days ago.

Actually, we've known since April 4*. I had come home to meet Dawn for lunch and she called down from the bathroom for me to come upstairs. She was holding a pregnancy test so I didn't even need to look at the ultra-confusing plus/minus/blue/pink/dots/smileyface to know what I'd skipped up the stairs for. It was a very exciting moment and the eight months have blown right by. Since finding out, we've done some garage-sale shopping, worked on many unfinished home projects, read baby books and taken childbirth classes.

I should let everyone know (who doesn't already know) that we are having a boy, and he's due on December 6. We have a first name picked out already and only one other person besides Dawn and myself know that name. Some people think they know it, but they don't actually know and we don't tell them they're wrong. Which makes it even more fun to keep it a secret. We would probably have announced the name to everyone by now, but I keep worrying that someone with the same name is going to become the next world-renowned murderer or cult leader (all of you who named a child Orenthal James in early 1994 know what I'm talking about). So we're going to hold out until the tiny dude comes out and let everyone know then. Middle names are open to suggestion.

Let me try and quickly break down how things have kind of gone down (from my perspective anyway) for the first eight months (also known for prospective fathers as the "what do I do?" months). Well basically, it's super-exciting for a month or so because you're not technically supposed to tell anyone since the pregnancy is not a guarantee. As you probably know, most miscarriages occur during the first 10 weeks of pregnancy, and an overwhelming majority occurs during the first trimester. So you kind of sit on this secret for a few weeks and it's really hard not to tell anyone. When you finally are in the "safe zone" for telling people, it's a lot of fun. But not telling people is hard, and it's especially weird when your wife isn't feeling good every time a couple wants to hang out or something. You're kind of like, "Yeah, it's some weird coincidence that she's always sick when you want to hang out," but you're thinking, "Boy, we might as well just tell them. It's pretty freaking obvious." But Dawn wasn't actually sick all that much. She had some dizzy spells and some nausea for a few weeks maybe, but not like I've heard some people have had. All in all, she's handled this pregnancy better than I could ever have. She has hyper-sensitive senses of smell and taste and didn't like the sight of raw meat for a while, but other than that she's pretty much been the same as before she was pregnant aside from the ever-increasing belly size.

It's probably the only time she'd ever not frown upon me talking about her weight gain, so I'll let you know that she's gained something like 28-30 pounds to this point and has not had any complications or red flags. Our midwife said from the beginning that based on Dawn's Body Mass Index (BMI), that they would like her to gain 30-35 pounds. And it's all in her stomach, so she's starting to feel some lower back pain and has had trouble getting comfortable at night for some time now. Add that to the fact that she gets up every five minutes to use the bathroom, and she's dealing with a lot less sleep than she had hoped (which is probably God's way of preparing us for the day the little man is hollering from the other room).

[By this point, any woman reading this post who's had a baby is probably thinking this is pretty boring, but it's all new to people like us who haven't been through it before so hang in there]

So you get past the first few months and then dad starts forgetting that mom is pregnant. I did anyway. That probably sounds horribly insensitive, so let me explain. I don't mean that people were telling me "I heard your wife was pregnant" and I was responding "Really? Crap, that's right. I forgot." What I mean is that I didn't think about it all the time like I did at first. When I thought about my wife during the day, I obviously remembered she was pregnant. But going through my daily routine at work and such, I wouldn't think about it. Whereas I know Dawn knows that she's pregnant every second of the day. So that's kind of weird and it was a time where I tried to do little things for her to let her know that I remembered. But I didn't do near enough of that. So to all you future fathers-to-be, I tell you right now to try and pamper your wife as much as possible (for the full pregnancy if you can, not just the times you see she's in discomfort or stressed). It's the least you can do for her hauling around your kid for you for so long.

It's kind of crazy how Dawn's energy level changed in that second trimester too. During trimester one, she had some nausea, a lot of anxiety and felt hungry a lot. In trimester two she ate normally for a while and started eating a little more as it went on, but she suddenly had a ton of energy again. She was seemingly back to normal and wanted to start working out and a bunch of other things. Now we're in the third trimester and she's a little sluggish basically because she's at something like 130% of her old weight, and when she eats too much she's in considerable pain so she has to be careful. And she pees a lot.

For the past month or so we've been able to really feel the baby from the outside. She's been able to feel him from the inside for probably twice as long, but I can feel his head sometimes and see him pushing on her belly from inside and can feel it in the bed at night when he has the hiccups. So now it's really getting real and new thoughts are starting to surface - anxiety, happiness, stress, and wonder (among others). But bottom-line, we're so excited to have the little guy come into our life. He's got his own room that his dad's still working on completing, and he's got about 50 new outfits to wear thanks to his grandmothers and Great-Grandma Betty, so he's ready. And I think we're ready too.

So now that we're getting close, I keep telling myself that I'm going to start blogging a little more frequently with baby updates. Keep in mind that this is coming from the same guy who started a blog in the first place thinking that he would update more than twice a year. So check back and see if I've been following through with baby updates for the next few months. I'll try to keep you all in the loop for once, since this is a major life event for us (and for you as our friends and family).

*Statement added for Dustin's sake.

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Coldplay

I'm not even going to get into why I haven't blogged in so long. I'm just gonna get right to the meat and potatoes.

By "meat" I mean Coldplay. And by "potatoes" I mean...well, Coldplay. Back in November I had my finger on the left-click trigger of my mouse ready to buy the best seats in the Omaha Qwest Center for last night's concert. I kept refreshing my Ticketmaster page over and over again at 9:53, 9:55, 9:56, until the screen changed and let me in to purchase the goods. I had my credit card number already "Ctrl-x'd" and ready to be "Ctrl-v'd" into the form...and when the time came, I was in the zone. Got a ticket for Dawn and Wade, and hit "Buy." Imagine my surprise when I found that we were in the second row on the main floor. That's right. Second row. We were never more than 30-40 feet from frontman Chris Martin at any point in their standard set, and since we were on the end of the row, Wade and I were able to reach out and cop a feel from him as he ran past down the aisle to the rear of the arena.

The concert itself blew my mind [Anyone who's going to a show soon may not want to continue reading this post, because I'm going to give away some things]. They start out with a blinding white panoramic screen for a backdrop, counting down from around four minutes while the band plays the intro for "Square One," the opener off their latest album, "X&Y." The clock ticks down as the band is in silhouette in the foreground, and right before the chorus, Martin comes sprinting to the front and leaps off of a platform, landing right in front of a bunch of drunken rich kids whose parents bought them tickets to a concert they'll probably leave early, and a mixture of true fans like myself and the people with which I attended. There's a whole lot of sound just blowing you away for about 10 minutes straight as they roll into "Politik," and the whole thing is choreographed brilliantly. The 15,000-plus fans were nuts from the get-go, and the show had a lot of cool elements like giant yellow balloons filled with confetti dropping from the rafters during "Yellow," a semi-unplugged songset including the tribute to Johnny Cash "Till Kingdom Come" (including a rendition of "Ring of Fire" that brought the house down), and a heck of a lot of Chris Martin running around like a lunatic (totally surprising me with his energy). Martin and gang seemed to be impressed with the venue from the beginning, saying if they'd known they "were going to get such a warm welcome from a place they'd never been, they would have come visit a long time ago." A writer from the Omaha World-Herald even said the climax of "Clocks" was the loudest response they'd ever heard during an arena concert. So what I'm saying is, it rocked big and bad, and you should have been there.

The concert was more than worth the price of admission (and believe me, with Ticketmaster's surcharges and arena fees, it was an investment), and will definitely be tough to top. The opening act was Fiona Apple, whose voice is still amazing me this morning. She's something to see on stage too, girating and seeming to curse out imaginary friends when she's not curling her 5-foot, 2-inch dainty figure into a ball. But man can she belt it out. I was more than entertained by her performance and will probably listen to a playlist from her on the iPod today.

And as for Coldplay, they've potentially surpassed Travis as the greatest band on my own personal planet. Now I've just got to go to England and see Travis perform live.

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The OTHER Local Boy

It seems like everyone around here that follows professional sports is real high on local boy Kyle Orton (former Southeast Polk High School quarterback and successor to Drew Brees at Purdue) and his role as starting quarterback for the Chicago Bears. And with good cause -- Orton has improved in every game he's played (exactly what a rookie is supposed to do), and the Bears are atop the NFC North Division despite having first-string quarterback Rex Grossman (a.k.a. Glass Joe) injured and on the bench nearly the entire season.

But some people aren't paying enough attention. New Jersey Devils goalie Scott Clemmensen (formerly of Urbandale) is now 5-1 in his career in net, including winning his last two games (one of which was a shootout) with all-star and future hall-of-famer Martin Brodeur out with a minor knee injury. And Clemmensen's stats are nothing to scoff at -- especially considering any rookie goaltender entering the NHL at this time (with all the rule changes that promote high scoring games in an effort to win back fans) is going to suffer greatly in the statistics department. He has a goals against average of 2.05, and has faced 158 shots, saving 144. That's a save percentage of .911, which is pretty much unheard of (even in the ten games that Clemmensen has played). And the Devils aren't exactly the top defensive team in the league, either. They're currently 6-5-0 this season (sitting in third place in the Atlantic Division) and lack the pre-lockout defensive stars they once had in Scott Stevens, Scott Niedermayer and Ken Daneyko. And this is a guy that used to play for the Des Moines Buccaneers.

Sure, Orton is having a good season. But I wouldn't say his stats are anything spectacular. Clemmensen, on the other hand, could probably be a star today if he were ever thrust into a starting role (especially considering his success -- and more importantly, his experience -- in the AHL). It will be interesting to see what happens in his future. As long as Brodeur is healthy, Scott will ride the pine. But if he ever gets dealt away, or if Brodeur faces an injury that keeps him out for a while, watch out. He could very well be the most successful Central Iowan still active in the four major sports.

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One of the Best Sports Stories Ever.

I saw this story this weekend and it blew me away. It's the antithesis of the corruption that scars professional sports, and really captivates what sports should be all about.

*Broadband users: make sure you watch the video on the right side of the screen.

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Sports

I'm riding a wave of team pride that I haven't experienced for quite a few years, and it's getting me back into sports, moreso than I've been in a while. Sure, the Illini made the NCAA basketball finals last year, but there was no hockey -- the sports fan in me just wasn't quite complete. But in the past year, the Saints have been my only real disappointment (I'm not even counting ISU sports right now -- don't get me started), but there were a lot bigger things going on in New Orleans than football at that time, making a poor season easier to swallow. Currently though, I'm on cloud nine after the Tigers won five road games to open the season and found themselves tied for the division lead; the Devils have won eight of their last ten and are only two games behind Philly for the fifth spot in the Eastern Conference playoffs; the Iowa Stars went berzerk and put together an eight-game winning streak, landing them in the final playoff spot in the AHL's Western Conference (they lead Omaha by three points with four games to go); and the Suns lead their division by six games though Amare Stoudamire is out for the year (making an NBA title a virtual pipe dream). So things are good for "Sportfan Aaron." In addition, the NCAA tournament rocked (aside from the last three games), and was enhanced by a first round ousting of the Iowa Hawkeyes in dramatic fashion, and the Saints recently nabbed Drew Brees (about which I'm very optimistic).

So if you're ready to talk sports with me, I'll actually speak proudly of my teams for the time being. And win or lose, the NHL playoffs begin soon (which is hands-down the greatest thing about sports), so I still win. Except I don't have cable. So I actually lose.

I love sports.

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Amazin'!

I'm going on fast tonight for the holiday, and I won't be back online until Monday...

...so I leave you with this, probably the most clever thing I've ever seen on the Internet, hands down:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8547285560243429315&q=RBI+baseball&pl=true

Happy Easter!

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Good/Grief 1

There are so many little things going on right now, I don't even know where to start. Here's a fairly random synopsis of the recent goings-on.

SPORTS: The Devils miraculously won the Atlantic Division, after winning -- that's right, winning -- 11 straight games. That's no ties and no overtime losses, but 11 wins. That earns them the third spot in the East, and they'll play the Rangers on Saturday afternoon. It could be on NBC, so do yourself a favor and tune in. In other hockey news, the Des Moines Buccaneers are in the Clark Cup Championship, and play game one (of a best-of-five series) in Urbandale on Saturday night. And finally, the Iowa Stars start their seven-game series with Milwaukee (which everyone and Alice Cooper knows is "originally an Algonquin term meaning 'the good land.'") on Friday and will play game three on Monday night in Des Moines. Be there.

HOBBIES: I went disc golfing in my third different state in the past year, playing at a park in Rochester, Minnesota over Easter weekend. It was windy on an open course, and I didn't have my discs with me. That equals disaster for me, who can't throw a good drive without my beloved "Pinky," and can't putt without my Innova Birdie. Throw the windy conditions in the mix and I'm worthless. So I spent a lot of time combing the nearby river for discs, wanting to add to my running total of 43 discs found in the past ten months. I didn't find anything, and walked out of there with what felt like hypothermia and a minor puncture wound on my foot. I was fasting at the time, adding insult to injury.

PERSONAL LIFE: We came home from Easter break to find a plaster udder hanging from our ceiling. Apparently we had some rain over the weekend and our roof took the holiday off. There was some water on our living room floor, which sort of messed up the wood. But the biggest issue for us is the fact that we have two problems to fix -- the roof and the ceiling, and no professionals can come out and look at the damage until potentially next week. Of course it could be worse, but it's just one of those problems you don't want to have to worry about. And strangely enough, last night we had a quasi-monsoon that brought about a third of an inch of rain and then disappeared, and I expected a deluge to fill the bucket I'd placed there before we went to bed. I woke up to find the bucket and the udder as dry as a bone. Go figure; it's a mystery.

FAMILY: We celebrated Easter in Rochester and Chapin, spending time with both sides of the family. I got to see my cousins' babies, which was cool. I wish we could have spent more time at each of our parents' places, but anyone who's married knows how difficult it can be juggling schedules on holidays.

MOVIES/TV: We haven't been to the cinema in some time. Not only has nothing sparked our interest (though we went to V for Vendetta on its opening weekend), but we haven't had time since we've been getting caught up on different TV shows of interest. I'm currently involved in season four of The Sopranos and season two of ER, and Dawn and I have been using the Internet to get caught up on Lost. We're finally ready to watch it "live" when it airs tonight. I also am working on the complete series of Firefly, and Da Ali G Show season two. It sounds like entertainment overload, but it really isn't -- this has been going on for weeks. And it slows down every day the weather improves, because we do more and more outside.

MUSIC: Right now I'm checking out the new Mat Kearney CD, which contains six songs off of his first album. The repeat songs are worth repeating though, and the new album is pretty good. He's kind of a "you've heard one, you've heard them all" type artist, but that also translates into "if you LIKE one, you'll like them all" for me. Other than that, I am slowly weaning myself off of the latest Umphrey's release (which is excellent) with lots and lots of Supergrass (including their latest, Road to Rouen) and sprinklings of artists like John Vanderslice, Aqualung, Elbow, Doves, and Coldplay. James Blunt works his way into the mix every so often as well.

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Hair: Always where you don't want it, never where you do.

Everyone has it, and some people are obsessed with it. It takes some people three hours to style, others it takes three minutes. Some choose to rid their body of it (though they never can TOTALLY rid themselves of it, which is why Gillette will always be in business), others grow it out for a cause. Hair is something amazing to me. It amazes me that humans have hair that predominantly grows in the same places -- the head, face and chest (for males), armpits, legs, pubic regions, etc., and it's pretty much that way for all humans. Yet hair growth locations are different for every other animal -- it becomes "fur" on many, an extension of their skin. Call me a weirdo, but this astonishes me. Evolutionists would say that "we evolved to have hair in these places." I say God created Adam with hair in these places with a specific purpose in mind -- sometimes for warmth (as on the head and chest), and sometimes to keep sweat and dirt out of different orifices of our body (as in eyebrows, nose hairs, moustaches & beards, etc.). Whatever you believe, you've gotta admit, it's pretty cool and weird. And it's possibly even more weird that I'm so enamored by hair. And even stranger than that, you're still reading this post. Perhaps you're asking, "When will he start to have a point?" Hopefully right now...

...I've been able to grow hair on my face pretty well since maybe 8th grade. I think I shaved the soft, white hair off of my upper lip when I was in 7th grade, but it started coming in dark probably the next year (and don't let anyone ever tell you that shaving makes hair come in thicker, it's not true; it simply makes your hair grow with stumps on the end, making each hair appear fatter, rather than tapered at the end). I've never been able to grow a good beard, however. My brother (3 1/2 years my junior) can grow a beard in about 45 seconds. Seriously -- I think I sat and watched it grow one day, like Chia. He's growing a full beard now as a matter of fact, (he says) until the Devils are eliminated from the playoffs (which may not happen for a while since they're on a 14-game winning streak and playing better than they have in three years). I saw it last night and it's thick. But for me, it has never been easy. I tried growing one on our way to the Black Hills last fall, but Dawn made me shave it because she said I looked stupid. She always thinks my facial hair looks stupid. She also says it hurts when I kiss her if I have facial hair (which I'm sure it does), so I never really get to try (to grow it, not to kiss her). It's probably good that I don't try too often to grow a full beard (although I tend to let my face get pretty scruffy before I shave), because it just comes in so darn patchy. To be honest, I suck at it. I think I could do a nice Magnum P.I. moustache if I wanted (though Dawn may file for divorce), but I want the whole thing. I want the beard and it ain't happening.

So where am I going with this...oh yeah -- so after Tony Almeida died on 24 this season, I jokingly told Dawn I was going to grow a soul patch (a small growth of hair under the bottom lip) in "honor" of Carlos Bernard's character's death. She (for a reason which is so far beyond me it's not even funny), was like, "Yeah, you should." My friend Derek wears one, as do a number of hockey players. Carlos Bernard does, in addition to Howie Mandel and Ty Pennington, so it must be cool, right? Sure. That's the reason to which I'll attribute her quick backing of the soul patch idea...pop culture. So I started growing the soul patch and have been for the past month and a half and...

...NOW I AM FINALLY TO THE REASON WHY I BEGAN BLOGGING ABOUT HAIR IN THE FIRST PLACE:

No one says anything when you're growing a soul patch.

I've done it all -- a set of mutton chops, goatee, chin goatee, long sideburns, patchy beard, and I even was growing a moustache for a college film I was working on in the summer of 2000. And pretty much every time (especially on the moustache), people will say stuff. They'll say, "You need to shave," or "SOMEBODY needs to shave," or "You've got some dirt around your mouth there," or my personal favorite -- the knee-slapping inquiry, "Is your razor broken?" But with the soul patch, no one seems to notice. I got one comment on it without having to bring it up myself: my good friend Dan who pretty much says anything that's on his mind said, "I can see your soul patch has lost weight," after I made a comment about him looking like he'd shed some pounds. And because that statement pretty much makes no sense whatsoever, it has been stricken from my observation that: No one says anything when you're growing a soul patch. It's strange. I don't know if it's the fact that it's too embarassing to say anything to me about (kind of like that new perm that your co-worker gets that everyone is thinking "holy crap" about but no one will actually ever say anything about (even to other co-workers). I just don't know if it actually looks good on my face and there's nothing to say about it or if people are talking about it behind my back and I embarrass myself every time I step out the door with it on my face. It's even really bizarre at home; Dawn never says anything. She'll still say, "Go shave, Mr. Harryman." And then I'll ask, "even the soul patch?" and she'll say, "No, not the soul patch." Why? Why not the soul patch? She never says anything about it either. I'll say, do you like my soul patch, and she'll say, "Mmm...I don't know yet." Okay, it's been like 45 days. How can you not know? Is the soul patch so mediocre in the realm of facial hair? Are they that hard to notice that no one cares? Are people walking around with soul patches and I'm just not aware of it? It's such a mystery to me. When we went home for Easter my mom said, "Aaron, what is that under your lip?" to which I replied, "It's my soul patch." My brother noticed it right away and called me "Almeida." But other than that and the comment about it looking like it's "lost weight," no one says anything about the soul patch. It's funny. But at least Dawn's letting me grow facial hair. And I've found a style I can actually grow pretty well. So I'll keep growing it until someone makes fun of it...unless it's you. Because I'll know that you've read my blog.

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"Soul Patch Paranoia" or "Does Aaron Dream of Electric Sheep?"

I think my soul patch is making me paranoid. Shortly after blogging about my facial hair I realized that there was something I had left out of my rant. Since I've been growing the patch I've wondered if I'm becoming a hippie. I didn't wonder this until I was doing some minor research on the soul patch and the style was associated with hippies (a la Frank Zappa) and blues/jazz musicians from the 50s and 60s. I wouldn't have immediately thought, "Man, am I turning into a hippie?" if I hadn't been asked earlier that day (by my friend Derek) if Dawn and I were "turning into hippies" because we've been buying a lot of organic foods for the past few months. But that was pretty much as far as it went - that was about the height of my paranoia until Angela innocently commented on my MySpace blog about the derivation of the name "soul patch." I had always thought it was the association with the musicians that apparently coined the style, but thought I should check it out to make sure. What I uncovered was something far more than my incredibly vulnerable psyche could handle. In my search, I came across a message board on which someone said they thought soul patches were worn to "signal that you were gay." Someone replied to this saying that was untrue; that it was mainly worn by guys that were "really vain." Further, on this same message board the soul patch was referred to as a "flavor savor," and another name that was so crude that I won't bother to repeat it here (for those of you with good imaginations, the term was an amalgam of the word "man" and a part of the female anatomy). It was also stated that only hippies and beatnik poets should wear soul patches, but nowhere did it tell me where the term came from. Regardless, I was no longer thinking about the origin of the moniker; I was now contemplating whether or not people think I'm either: 1) Gay, 2) A Hippie, 3) A Jazz Musician, 4) A Beatnik Poet, 5) Really vain, or 6) Apolo Anton Ohno. Maybe this is why no one says anything about it - they think I'm having an identity crisis. Maybe that's why my wife hasn't decided if she likes it or not - she's waiting to see if I start speaking in haiku or become a really good bongo or saxophone player...or maybe she likes the smell of incense and this is some sort of reverse psychology method of getting me to play her Strawberry Alarm Clock's greatest hits. Or maybe the world as I know it could all be some sort of big Truman Show-like social experiment that I'm a part of and everyone is in on it. But this soul patch, this is the turning point for me. I've figured out what's going on. Now I've just got to figure out how to escape to the real world...

Man, I've got to stop watching Lost. I'm really starting to creep myself out.

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Six degrees of weirded-out.

I went to sleep last night very disturbed. Was I wrestling with some sort of daily problem or stressing out about work, you ask? No. Was I feeling down or depressed about something? Not at all. In fact, I was in a really good mood when Dawn and I tucked ourselves in after a date night. We settled in and caught the end of "ER" and talked about the upcoming weekend. But then it happened.

NBC aired a commercial for undergarment superpower Hanes. And it wasn't your typical guys-in-tightie-whities-getting-their-wastebands-snapped-by-a-mischevious-woman type of ad. And it wasn't a run-of-the-mill "people shopping for clothes" type of ad either. Nope, this one sent my mind to places I didn't want it to go. This ad was disturbing beyond comprehension, not because of its shock value or strange imagery, but more for its subtlety and undertones. For those of you who haven't seen it, I'll give you a little bit of background:

The ad stars everyone's favorite Hollywood everyman Kevin Bacon and none other than Hanes' highest-paid and most-recognized spokesperson, former NBA superstar Michael Jordan! I could probably just leave it at that, and leave you going, "Whaaaaaaa????" but I won't. I'll further confuse you by telling you that the ad begins with Kevin Bacon playing basketball, wearing one of Hanes' vibrantly-colored "tees." So Bacon (for comedic value, I will now refer to him as K-Bake) is shooting hoops by himself and he puts up this shot that...looks...like...it's going in...and then, BAM! Out of nowhere comes MJ to block the shot! Wow, just like during his playing days. Except this time, Jordan isn't all sweaty and trash-talking like he would to Patrick Ewing. No, this time, he's decked out in Hanes gear and gives K-Bake a little wry smile. And then K-Bake looks around really confused like he's having flashbacks of Tremors.

So the ad presses on, flashing some colorful images of K-Bake in multiple different shirts (or as my wife would call them, "tops"), and in comes the jingle, "Look who we've got our Hanes on now." Um...yeah, it's Kevin Bacon that you have your "Hanes on." So what? It's Kevin Bacon. I mean, I can understand Mr. Jordan inspiring people to buy undies, but Bacon? What is likeable about him? I mean, really. But, I digress. Back to the commercial. So now Bacon is just arriving at home wearing his Hanes clothing and he decides to "shoot" his keys towards a red bowl of some kind as if to say, "What a zany day on the hardcourts. To show my exhaustion, I will take one last jump shot and land these keys in that bowl across my studio apartment." Makes sense, I guess. So the keys are in the air, everyone's thinking about how cool K-Bake was in Footloose and then - POW!!! - out of nowhere, here's Jordan again to swat the keys away and keep them from going in the bowl.

Okay, wait. Hold on. Jordan is in Kevin Bacon's house now? Are these guys roommates, or is Jordan some sort of expert at picking locks? And why doesn't Bacon care? He just gives Jordan the old, "You got me again, ya big lug" awestruck stare and Jordan peers (I don't want to say lustfully, but close...more like "creepily") back at K-Bake. Another blocked shot for Jordan. You should be proud, MJ. You blocked a guy who's seven inches shorter than you and probably sucks at basketball. And not only did you block him, you blocked his keys. That's tough to do. Retirement's treated you well, you haven't lost a step. Must be the Hanes underwear.

But there's more wacky hi-jinx from K-Bake and MJ to come. Kevin Bacon is now in his...recording studio?...apparently fresh off of writing a composition of some sort, acoustic guitar leaning next to him. Well, apparently K-Bake isn't too happy with this particular song he's written, because he wads it up violently and tosses it towards the trash can. As a viewer you're like, "Ho-hum, I've seen this before, Kevin's just tossing away a piece of refuse." But no. The paper ball is near the garbage bin when - BOOYAH! - like a white-collar Superman with a porn moustache, here comes none other than future NBA Hall-of-Famer Michael Jordan sliding by on an office chair to block it from going in, much to K-Bake's dismay. Rejected, Kevin! Take that! Michael 3, Bacon 0. Needless to say, the two exchange looks again like Al and Peg Bundy might - frustrated, yet mischeviously bonded to one another somehow...

And in the final scene - the climax of the ad, if you will, Bacon is in his kitchen staring at the walls of his apparently very expensive and lonely life in NYC (wife Kyra Sedgwick and their two children are apparently never around, which is why they bought themselves a pet...uh...Jordan). Anyway, so Bacon is sitting around contemplating...um...probably his role in Animal House, when he decides it's time to eat a grape. He pulls a piece of fruit off of the bunch and then looks around to make sure that no one (i.e. Jordan) is around to prevent the following act from occurring (if this isn't evidence of these two apparently shacking up together, I don't know what is). So K-Bake notices the coast is clear and tosses the grape up in the air. Cue the slow motion...the grape is falling, falling, Bacon's mouth is agape, falling, falling, OH SNAP! - he's done it again. Jordan catches the grape! What an athlete! And he's wearing Hanes!

By this time, K-Bake is visually frustrated, and Jordan is kind of...uh...turned on?...I don't know what's going on. Then the "Air-man" proceeds to ask "What?" and eat the grape and give K-Bake a little wink (what the heck is that about?) and the audience is left feeling just a little uncomfortable. Actually, even K-Bake is feeling a little bit awkward about his pal Michael Jordan by this time. I just wish this commercial didn't leave so much to the imagination. I wish after the opening scene they would have been in the locker room and K-Bake would have tossed his sweaty shirt to his locker and MJ would have snagged it and taken a big whiff of it like Hannibal Lecter might. Okay, maybe I don't wish that would happen, but at least that way we'd know what was happening between these guys and we wouldn't have to try and figure it out for ourselves. It's just flat-out weird. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but these guys are not linked in any way except for the fact that Hanes paid them a lot of money to appear a wee bit "chummy" in a nationwide commercial. What was Hanes thinking? Were they sitting around asking, "Well, we have Michael, but we really need someone that could play a good sidekick. Who could we get?" Was the first answer to this question really "Kevin Bacon?" If it wasn't, then it was turned down by pretty much anyone else offered the part after they read the script for the commercial. In fact, Bacon could have been one of their last choices, he probably just jumped at the opportunity to act with possibly the only person on the planet with whom he hasn't acted before.

watch the ad

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If They Only Knew!

At one point this week, I felt like my blog should be about a certain television concept I find absolutely absurd. And while it's not really going to stray from the absurd too terribly much (the topic du jour is quite strange and laughable to me), I just couldn't find enough funny information about my original blog idea, which was tentatively titled:

"The ridiculousness of the reunion episode of Gilligan's Island in which the Harlem Globetrotters came and played basketball against a team of robots."

Yep, that's no lie. Some of you already know this "TV Movie" exists and have seen it. I saw it many years ago on TBS and barely remember it, and apparently didn't note at the time how ridiculous the concept was. It's been brought to my attention recently and I wanted to talk about it, but I didn't have enough material to make it worth reading. So I'm going to discuss something else that's equally stupid, but a bit more recent...

Over Mother's Day weekend Dawn and I went home to visit our moms and families. On Saturday I was introduced to a show on Spike TV called "Pros Versus Joes," in which regular people or "average Joes" compete in sporting events against current and former professional athletes. The show was actually quite entertaining. The "pros" are actually given physical handicaps at times to not only show off how awesome these individuals are at their sports, but also to give the "Joes" a chance. And the Joes aren't your run-of-the-mill dudes either, they're fairly athletic - not overly athletic, but not too bad. So it's competitive most of the time.

On Sunday, Spike had a marathon of the show, so I tuned in for an episode or two. One thing I noticed was that the show (which normally doesn't have the same "pros" from show to show) featured the same five athletes in two episodes that I happened to catch on different days: former NBA player Dominique Wilkins, former major league catcher Darren "Dutch" Daulton, U.S. women's soccer star Brandi Chastain, "the world's fastest man" Chris Gatlin, and Heisman winner and NFL great Herschel Walker. It was a chance to see the personalities of these respected athletes in an "off the field" setting, which was neat. I thought Herschel and 'Nique were hilarious, and Brandi talked a little more trash than expected. I also found out that Chris Gatlin is just flat-out cool. Darren Daulton rarely talked though, and no one talked to him. Now that I think about it, I don't think he said a word in any of the episodes I watched. So I don't really know too much about his attitude off the field. But as it turns out, I don't think I want to know too much about him. Here's why:

It seems that Mr. Daulton has a slightly different world view than say...everyone else on the entire planet. This includes Tom Cruise. In fact, Daulton's philosophy on the universe is so off kilter that I'm not sure I need to ever blog about how insane I think Cruise is, because it would all be in the shadow of the weirdness that is Darren Daulton.

You see, our pal Darren (according to an article in Sports Illustrated) occupies "a nether world that involves alchemy, auras, telepathy, energy transfers, astral planes, planetary ascension, parallel universes and other psychic phenomena too mind-boggling to catalog." Now, I personally know some people that are into psychic-type stuff and auras and astrology and the whole bit, and I'm not really concerned that they believe that. Not everyone has the same world view as myself, and I understand that. That's not what I'm getting at. It's the part about "energy transfers, astral planes, planetary ascension..." that kind of gets me. The guy actually thinks that he leaves his body when he sleeps. Now, don't get me wrong, I believe in supernatural activity to a certain extent, but let me tell you something personal about me: When I sleep, I stay IN MY BODY. I'm not going anywhere. I'm in my house, in my bed. When Cooper barks at a car going by at 2:00 a.m., I'm not hustling back from elsewhere in the solar system or some fourth dimension, I'm slowly opening my crusty eyelids and trying to restrain from kicking him off the bed.

That aside, I don't necessarily think he's nuts solely because he believes in those things. Misguided? Yes. The thing that starts pushing him into the lunatic bin for me is the fact that Darren Daulton thinks the world is going to end in six years. That's right, he thinks the world will end at 11:11 a.m., GMT on December 21, 2012. I don't know enough about his beliefs to understand why he thinks that this is the exact date and time (it has something to do with the Mayan calendar and the number 11) that the world will end, and frankly, I don't care. The one thing I do know is, come December 2012, the authorities had better keep an eye on this guy. Me thinks that Dutch could be hittin' the yam-yam or downing a few scotch-and-sodas and gettin' a little crazy around that time. You know, with the authorities and every other being on earth being destroyed on the 21st, you might as well live it up, huh?

So what is the significance of the 11:11? Well that part seems pretty simple - according to the Sports Illustrated interview, Daulton said "Reality is created and guarded by numeric patterns that overlap and awaken human consciousness, like a giant matrix or hologram. They are created by sacred geometry -- numbers, the language of the universe, codes of awakening -- such as 11:11, which represent twin strands of DNA about to return to balance. Eleven equals BALANCE."

Well, duh. Who didn't know that? It's about geometry and codes and DNA.

He goes on to say, "I'll wake up at night and look at the clock and it's 11:11. I'll turn on the TV and see a baseball game tied at 11 in the 11th inning. I'll look out the window and see a car passing with 1111 on the license plate. The car will turn into a driveway with 1111 on the mailbox."

Maybe Ol' Dutchie's been watching a little too much Lost. Or maybe he's stalking people with ones on their license plates. [NOTE TO THOSE OF YOU WHOSE HOME ADDRESS IS 1111 SOMETHING: Move. Darren Daulton is coming to scare the crap out of you.] Who else would be willing to bet that DD just lies in bed until 11:11 staring at the clock so he can freak himself out? And I wonder how many major league baseball games have actually been tied at 11 in the 11th inning in the last nine or 10 years (the amount of time he's had these kooky beliefs). It can't be very many.

And did I mention that in the article, Daulton admits that it rains when he's upset? No, that's not a joke. It actually starts raining when the guy is in a bad mood. So whenever it's raining outside, be sure to blame it on him. And if a child ever asks you, "Why does it rain?," be sure to tell them it's because Darren Daulton is angry. It has nothing to do with climates or the water cycle.

So Uncle Darren's apparently working on a new book now (surprise). He's compiling all of his...theories?...into a page-turner called "If They Only Knew!," and apparently, within his masterpiece he will reveal some shocking "truths" about the world in which we live. I can't do this any justice by paraphrasing it, so here's an excerpt straight from SI.com:

... the Mayan temples were built not by the Mayans, who were merely caretakers, but by a lost civilization. Possibly the Atlanteans, who allegedly disappeared beneath the waves. Possibly space aliens.

Daulton can ramble in mind-numbing detail about Dark Forces, the illusion of substance, the limitations of linear time. "The universe is made of vibrating energy," he says. "When energy vibrates fast enough on our 3-D plane, matter becomes invisible. Everything you see is vibrating at a certain level. A dirt clod, a rock..."

Even a rosin bag?

"Sure. A rosin bag is just a mirage of innumerable particles constantly speeding up or slowing down. But the Fourth and Fifth Dimensions remain unseen by most people. Their vibrations are at a lower frequency." Whether those vibrations are "good" is perhaps something only the Beach Boys can divine.

Earth, Daulton believes, is entering a quadrant of space in which the "vibrational energy" will increase dramatically. "The Mayan calendar stops at Dec. 21, 2012 -- the date the Mayans believed the world would end," he says. "On that day, at 11:11 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time, those who are ready to ascend will vanish from this plane of existence, like the crew of the Enterprise in Star Trek."

Um...

Here's a tip, Daulty. If you want to appear even the slightest bit credible in your cornball ramblings, try not to mention the TV series Star Trek (no offense, Dustin) within them. You pretty much want to separate yourself as much as you can from that show if you're a raving derelict trying to sway people's opinions.

This guy is long gone.

Daulton, who spent six months in a drug and rehabilitation program a few years ago, has apparently dealt with those particular demons, telling SI that he doesn't drink or do drugs. So it's not the chemicals talking...and he's not legally insane...hmm. He is from Philadelphia though (no offense, Woodsie), so he's probably a Flyers fan, but even that shouldn't make him goofy enough to believe such out-of-the-ordinary things.

But why do I even try to understand? Even Daulton's close friends don't get him. He claims that's normal though, stating, "When I share my thoughts and experiences with them, I tell them there's absolutely no way their minds can comprehend what I'm trying to relate. My friends are limited to the five senses." Sure Dutchie. In other words, you're saying your friends are stupid because they don't believe you. Not a good move, pal. Burning bridges isn't a good idea when your only friend is Mr. Spock.

Dutch's claim about his first out-of-body experience is all his word against...um...reality, I guess. Daulton told SI in February that it's fairly obvious it wasn't he who hit a line drive down the third base line to win a close game against the Cubbies nine years ago. I mean, sure, the guy was wearing his uniform and had his...body, but it wasn't him. He said, "The strange thing was I didn't hit that ball. I never hit balls inside the third base line." Uh...wait a minute - he's right! In fact, it's a physical impossibility for him! It must have been an out-of-body experience! Oh no, we only have six more years to live!

Now I know why Herschel and Dominique don't talk to him.

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It's Recap Time!

I hate it when my job sits at the top of my priorities list, but sometimes I guess it has to if I plan to not get fired. And when that happens, different parts of my life get shifted down the ol' totem pole - things like disc golfing, spending all day on YouTube, and blogging. And it really stinks because I've had all these great ideas about what to blog about in the last two months or so since my last post, and haven't gotten to cash in on them. Plus I've got Derek on my back, himself blogging about how long it's been since I've blogged (among other topics like how Al Gore is the devil yet he would vote for him), so I guess I have no other choice but to hit you upside yo' head with a massive update.

Looking back, not only can I not remember all of the topics that I thought would be good to blog about, I also can't remember why I thought they would be in any form entertaining after all this time. But here is a condensed list of what I can remember once considering for a topic, and you can use your imagination as to where you think I might have gone with it:

For Crichton Out Loud!
In the realm of trying to entertain myself, I finished a few books, all - interestingly enough - revolving around the topic of religion: The DaVinci Code, The Pocket Guide to the Bible, and The Pocket Guide to the Apocalypse. All three were entertaining - DaVinci was a page-turner written like a Thomas Harris novel, and the Pocket Guides were hilarious, particularly The Pocket Guide to the Bible. Whether or not you've read the Bible, it's really entertaining. And I learned a ton. I also read The Pocket Guide to Adulthood (I've been on a Jason Boyett kick I guess), which wasn't as good as the aforementioned two, but was still worth the read. I'm now going to try and read everything Michael Crichton's written in one year (no lie).

Thinking Outside the Idiot Box
Dawn and I got hooked on Season four of ER (more Crichton) on DVD, and are currently trying to finish up Firefly, which I've been borrowing from Derek for upwards of nine years. We also rented a few other flicks: Everything is Illuminated (good); Memoirs of a Geisha (average); Waiting...(ho-hum); Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (excellent). We saw Superman Returns and Pirates of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest in digital projection. I'm not sure if it was the movies that I liked, or the digital projection. Digital blows my mind and will probably make me go to more movies. The films themselves were pretty good, but neither was as excellent as the original.

Just Like Hank Scorpio
I partook in a "fun-run" of sorts over the 4th of July, competing(?) in my first 5K run ever in Urbandale. Fun, that is, if you call getting passed by 11-year-old girls "fun." It's kind of funny because I hadn't been running much before doing this, I just saw in the newspaper on the 3rd that there was a 5K the next morning, so I got up, ran it and came home just as Dawn was getting out of bed so it worked out well. What didn't work so well is the fact that I hadn't run a race since like 8th grade, and had probably never run a long-distance race, unless you count our timed mile-runs in 4th through 6th grade, which I don't really remember. This fact is most obvious from my taking off at top speed out of the gate, not realizing that a 5K isn't a race around the block. I got about 150 feet and people started passing me - including people with prosthetic legs and women with strollers. I got my second wind around mile two and managed to finish it in about 24 minutes, though I was dragging tail at the end. But at least I got popsicles at the finish line. That was awesome.

The Flaming Card Backwards-Talking Dream
Yes, Lou, maybe you should drive. A few nights ago I had the weirdest dream I've had since probably 7th grade when I dreamt my mom had turned into a lizard and was wearing my dad's old football jersey around the house while the basement filled up with orange mittens. In my latest installment of vivid bizarreness, I was a plucky reporter that had just uncovered the truth about the legend of "The Quadruple Royal Flush," a hand that has supposedly only been attained one time in the history of cards. And the hand belonged to none other than - wait for it - former Cincinnati Reds 2nd baseman and current ESPN color commentator Joe Morgan. Yeah. I told you it was weird. And did I mention lucid? Morgan was laying on a gurney with his head all bandaged up like he'd just had a lobotomy or something, and I'm sitting beside him conducting this interview. So we're at the spot where the card game originally took place, in some kind of jungle hideaway with an Amazonesque river flowing gently nearby. I ask Morgan - who is talking in a raspy voice, like he's on his deathbed - to explain his take on the big moment, and while he tells the story, my dream flashes-back, and the world takes on all sorts of '70s TV graininess, complete with color loss and celluloid scratches. Imagine an old episode of Bonanza (the colorized ones) - it was kind of like that. So Joe goes on to tell me that he's in the middle of this card game (I still don't know what the game was...obviously not poker) when he discovers he has a chance to attain the extremely rare Quadruple Royal Flush. In retrospect, a good reporter would have actually researched (or even asked) what the heck the Quadruple Royal Flush is, and I failed to do that. Maybe I made mistake number one of a true plucky reporter - I assumed I knew what it was. Because it sounds like it's probably a royal flush with all the suits, but who knows? Guess I should have asked. Maybe that's why I work for an insurance company now. Anyway, as Morgan talks, I see all the Manchurian Candidate (the original, not the Demme remake) type of surroundings, complete with cult-looking people moaning and chanting while they play these card games, and then I see Morgan get the cards that could help lead him to the Quadruple Royal Flush. But he knows he can't get the Quadruple Royal Flush, because he's missing one card. So he starts looking around all suspiciously. Then he gives some kind of signal, and this guy in a Spider-Man suit comes swinging in on vines, yelling and screaming. He crashes into a side of a cliff and totally disrupts the culty guys and diverts everyone's attention. It was kind of like when "Fan-Man" came crashing into that Evander Holyfield/Riddick Bowe fight back in the early '90s, except without the fan backpack. So by this time, everyone's looking at the Spidey look-alike, and (I laugh at this part now) a whole bunch of cops in the stereotypical '80s police uniforms go scurrying up the rocks to apprehend the "perp." You know the uniforms I'm talking about - light blue shirt, badge on the pocket, badge on the stupid looking navy blue hat....up the hill they run, and - cut back to Joe pulling the correct card out of his sleeve and replacing it in his hand. The commotion dies down and Joe acts distracted like everyone else, then looks back at his cards. "Would you look at that!" Joe Morgan says, "The Quadruple Royal Flush!" Everyone gasps. Ripple dissolve back to me at his bedside, writing furiously with my pencil and pad. Because "this is good stuff," as plucky reporters always say...

The Babysitters' Club
Dawn and I got to babysit our nephew Zachary a few weeks ago. He's 18 months old and was pretty fun to have in the house. Now everyone's saying things to us like, "Uh-oooooh, are you thinking about having a baby now?" and "Ohhh booooooy, did that make you want to wait to have kids, or do you want them right now?" and "What did you say? The printer's too loud." The answers to those questions are pretty much: Our babysitting Zach has nothing to do with our timetable for kids, we were just babysitting and it was fun. Now get over it. You're not getting any insider information about whether or not we're having a baby in the near future. Do you really care, or do you just want to try and be the first person to know in case we did say when we were planning on having kids? And yes, the printer is loud.

People say you can learn so much about yourself just by having kids. Well, I think you can learn a lot about yourself just from babysitting. Here is a list of five major things I learned about myself (and humans in general), or general observations from that weekend:

1. Milk is so freakin' good for us. I think if we had to, we could live off of it and nothing else.
2. Toilets are probably the greatest invention ever created (#2 all-time: the sippy-cup).
3. Learning English is such a waste of time - so much can be communicated in grunts and hand gestures.
4. I don't think the top of the bottle was named the "nipple" to trick the babies into thinking it's their mother's milk. I think it was because of its shape.
5. So much of a person's life is obviously sculpted by their upbringing. My generation's children are going to be a sick, twisted bunch.

The Old Men and the Idiocy
My biggest beef of the last two months has got to be old men playing baseball. I mean, it's a great novelty act and all, but does this really need to be some sort of competition? A few weeks ago an 83-year old man played in a minor league baseball game and became the oldest man ever to play in a baseball game. They showed the guy on the news and the highlight of his game was him fouling a pitch off (he ended up striking out swinging). I mean, what did people expect, the guy to hit a dinger or something? He's 83 freaking years old. It's not like the pitcher's going to let up, even a little. He wants to send the guy down on strikes. He does not want to be the guy that gives up any kind of hit to a guy that's older than his great-grandfather. Why is this old man in uniform? Seriously. The guy did not earn a spot on the team for any reason other than that HE'S OLD. If that's the case, if we're just putting everyday schmoes into pro games, then throw me in the game. You can call me "the most average athlete ever to play professional baseball." Come on. What's next, a three-year-old that stands in the batter's box and draws a walk because his strike zone is so small? Nope. I'll tell you what's next. A 94-year-old guy playing in a minor league All-Star game. Yep, an All-Star game. Did he make the All-Star team because he was having a good season? No. He made the All-Star team solely because he's older than crap. That's the only reason. Yeah, he used to play in the Negro League and was a two-time batting champ there. He was also the Major League's first black coach. Sooo...great, he was good 60 years ago, and yes, he deserves to be honored. But guess what? You're only embarrassing the old man now by putting him in the game -- and in his Levi's for that matter! He just pretty much got up there in his blue jeans and uniform top and stood with the bat on his shoulder and took a free pass to first base, at which time a stinking pinch runner came in for him. What kind of an All-Star has to have a pinch runner? Answer: The kind that doesn't belong. This man is no All-Star.

And I don't want people to think that I'm against this man being there, because I'm not. I think he should definitely be honored in some way, but don't put him in the record books like he worked his way onto the team this year. What happens when a 47-year-old that's batting .451 for the Omaha Royals and has been in the minors for 24 years makes his first All-Star team? What's he going to say? He's gonna say, "That should be my name in the record books, going down in history for something - the only thing - I will ever be known for." But it will never be his name because John Jordan "Buck" O'Neil made the All-Star team at 94 years old simply because he was old.

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