Disney Vacation Day One

Our first day of our trip involved me flying. I know it doesn’t say anything good about me that Jordan, an eight year old, flies better than I do. On the plus side, I’m not a bother to anybody while in the air; unless snoring counts. Funny side story about buying the tickets: Wendy asked me whether I wanted an isle or window seat. I told her that a window would be better so people would not have to climb over my inert body. Then she asked where on the plane I would like to sit. I turned, looked at her and said “I’m going to be unconscious, duct tape me to the wing for all I care.”

So we land and now I’m feeling better about being on the ground. That was unit we got on the shuttle to the hotel. Do you remember Bill Murray’s Scrooged, the scene where he is in a taxi driven by Buster Poindexter? That was would have been less scary than what we had to endure. I’m so glad that the Xanax hadn’t completely left my system.



We are going to be here for basically five days so we decided not to hit the parks until tomorrow, Tuesday. Instead, we went to Downtown Disney and walked into all the shops and places designed to take our cash. I bought a cool Mickey Sorcerer’s Apprentice hat (it lights up!) and a gift or two for some friends.

We got back to the hotel and hit the pool. Our room wasn’t ready yet so our luggage was still being held in the secret squirrel hidey hole. No swim shorts for any of us. Jordan, did I mention that he is eight, is getting so antsy that Wendy had to go and get our bags out of deep freeze and find some swimming apparel for him. We played in the pool for a bit while Wendy turned a pretty pink color.

Finally, we went back into Downtown Disney to get some brick oven pizza at Naples. There they had, the only thing that I could call them, balloon artists. We saw them make a Little Mermaid, Pluto and other stuff that I don’t even know what there were suppose to be. The margarita pizza was fantastic!



Our day started three in the morning and we made it to about eight PM befor hitting the wall. Not bad all and all. Tomorrow I will be wearing a pedometer to see just how relaxing this vacation really is.

Happy Mother's Day

It’s Mother’s Day again I want to acknowledge three special ladies in my life. No, not Mariska Hargitay, Olivia Munn and Jessica Biel. While special, they are disqualified to be in this post because of the multiple restraining orders. On a side note, I was able to spell Mariska Hargitay’s name right the first time and that in of its self is bit disturbing considering I can’t spell anything. Seriously, I still need to look at my drivers’ license to spell my middle name.

First there is my Mom. What can I say; I caused her 147 hours of painful labor, ran around with her breast pump on my forehead (that might have been my brother but for this post let us just assume it was me) and was, you know, me. She took Tony and me to a bazillion soccer practices and games, most of which she watch through her fingers covering her eyes as her kids ran with reckless abandon into other kids, goal posts and anything else within reach, usually head first.

Mom was there to share the great times, talk me through the terrible times and always seems to be at the top of the standings in fantasy baseball. My Mom gave the inspiration to be the person that I have become which I think is…pretty cool.

Sandie, my Step-Mom, has been in my life for about 27 years (this is how old she claims to be and being a gentleman I have never questioned but it does seem weird that she turns 27 on EVERY birthday) which means that she has been around for as long as I remember.

Since I have had an amazing child enter my life, I find myself feeling the need to apologize to all the parents that have been responsible in helping me along the way. By the way, every single one of my ‘rents have laughed their hinnies off at these phone calls. And I am starting to understand the unique difficulties of being a step parent. Now I have Jordan half the time, while Sandie only had us for two day every other weekend. I can only imagine the challenges that caused in trying to be an influence over Tony and me. Still, looking back she did a great job.

Lady number three is Wendy Glem (that is how I met her waaaaaaaaaay back in the day). Quick Joey tangent here: I still giggle at random times thinking about how I’m with Wendy Glem. OK’ I’m back. I have been living with Wendy for over a year now and watching her with Jordan has been the most incredible journey I have been a part of.

Her patience and unbelievable understanding continue to inspire me every day. She works so hard to make sure that Jordan doesn’t want for anything. No matter how difficult any given situation is, I have not once heard Wendy raise her voice. The fact that Jordan is great kid is a direct testament to Wendy and her steady parenting.

Wendy and I, plus most of her friends and my family, joke that she is raising two boys. In a real sense she is, giving the fact that I’m still very new to this parenthood thing and she needs to nudge me along sometimes.

So happy Mother’s Day Mom, Sandie and Wendy! I love you all and thank you for being a huge a part on my life.

The Blue Cooler Wars-The First Great Battle Is Fought

Blue Cooler Recap: I and my then wife gave it to Tony and Carrie and forgot about it. That Christmas they tricked us into taking it home again. War was declared. They thought living in another state made them safe. They learned that was not the case.

So the following months when we got together it went something like this: Check their car, is the Cooler in it? Did you look in our car? Open the trunk and make sure it's not there. Lock the doors and hide your keys. Did you search the house? Check behind the shower curtain. Will it fit under the bed? The Blue Cooler changed possession a couple of times. Other plots to give it away were discovered and foiled.

So in April of 2005, when My Bro bought a new house in Oregon, we put into action our plan. We had the Cooler at this point and spent many hours in our War Room implementing a scheme to not only deliver the damn thing but do it in a way to demoralize the enemy as well. We had directions to their new place but we did not go directly to it. We did some recon and searched for ways to spring our trap. I parked the truck two houses away and my wife jumped out with the Cooler and ran up to their house from the one side that had no windows looking out. She then hid the Cooler in a big clump of bushes beside the house and ran back to the truck. I then parked next to the house and we got out and rang the bell. Tony came out, told us to stay where we were and then searched the truck. Even though he didn't see The Blue Cooler, he was still suspicious. He would get nervous when one of us left the room. We of course knew this, so we would go out of our way to go outside or disappear upstairs and watch him scramble to make sure that no treachery was afoot.

To her credit, Carrie wasn't as crazy as Tony. Her problem was that she is nice and trusting and didn't take this as seriously as the rest of us. What that meant for Tony was that he was outnumbered and facing very motivated opponents. We were staying for the weekend and that night we set the plan in motion. Whenever my Bro and I get together we play Mario Party into the wee hours of the night. I will write a post on the Mario Parties later. This also includes some adult beverages. Well, many beverages. So when we finally retired for the night, Tony and I were feeling no pain. About four in the morning the linchpin of the whole operation woke up. My ex was an early riser. Very early. Butt crack of dawn early. She put on a robe, drank some coffee and went outside. She grabbed the Cooler and took it to the garage. Anyone who has ever moved knows what the garage looks like three weeks after the move. Their garage wasn't any better. She unstacked a bunch of stuff, placed the Cooler down and stacked all of the stuff on top of it. As part of the plan, the things she used to bury the Cooler were sleeping bags and other summer gear. Stuff that they won't touch for awhile. She then went into the kitchen and cleaned up after the Mario Party to cover up the treachery. How could someone who cleaned the kitchen do something like hide The Blue Cooler in your garage?

I don't know how long it took them to find the Cooler, but Tony did not acknowledge that he had it for months. My guess is that it stayed hidden for awhile, just sitting in the garage to whole time. This is also the time that Carie turned to the Darkside and decided that we were going to pay. All that summer and fall, they tried to get us back but we stopped them every time. We even managed to find the Cooler and smuggle it back in their truck before they left our house. They found it while driving home. Tony must have been so proud of himself thinking that they got us, only to find it in their truck 20 minutes later. That phone call made us laugh for days. They were final able to get us in November, about a year after the whole thing started. We found it outside of the house in some bushes. Ironic I suppose.

But that wasn't the end of it by far.

The Blue Cooler Wars-War Is Declared!

We left off with Tony taking the cooler home with a turkey and instructions to keep the cooler. Fast forward to that Christmas at Mom's house. We did the usual stuff; food, presents and general merry making.

Sometime during the evening, my Bro causally told me that he has the blue cooler to give back to us. I then reminded him that he was to keep it, that we did not want it back. For most people, it should have ended there.

Not for Tony.

This is the important part of this saga and I want to point this out. The blue cooler was freely given and received. A contract was made. We gave it them (don't think you are getting off the hook here Carrie) and they took, understanding the terms of the deal.

So you can appreciate our surprise, when that night, we unloaded the truck and found the blue cooler. I believe that was the time it became “The Blue Cooler.” Again, let me point out that we were the victims. We were the ones hoodwinked (I'm so glad I got to use that word...love it). How did this happen? Why did it happen?

I called my Bro for an explanation. All he could tell me was "Your name was on the damn thing with permanent marker. It is yours." Yes, he did sound very self satisfied. Even proud of what they had done. Here is the most important part is that they were in Portland. They believed they were safe from my justice. Safe from my righteous anger.

But they were wrong. So very wrong.

The Blue Cooler Wars-Opening Salvo

Members of my family who read this blog have asked me if the Blue Cooler will make an appearance. The answer has always been yes, but I wanted to tell the stories right. Those of you that know the saga will have to be patient as I write about the events and people that have made this the epic struggle what it is today.

It started small, like most things do, in 2004 around October. My brother and his wife-to-be Carrie came up to visit us from Oregon. I don't remember why and it really is not important. I am sure, however, that I handed my Bro his ass in Mario Party that trip.

Somehow the conversation turned to Thanksgiving, and to the fact that Tony had not grabbed a turkey yet. Well my wife at the time, being the efficient shopper that she was, had purchased a couple of birds at a good sale price and stashed them in the freezer and asked if he wanted one of them. He said that he would but he had a long drive home and was worried about the turkey thawing out.

Amazingly, the stars had aligned and the answer was shipped to us the week before. Every year we ordered a bushel of Hatch green chilies from New Mexico. We actually would spit an order with my then mother-in-law in Illinois. She would buy the chilies and send us our half. That year our order was sent in a heavily taped blue cooler. She wrote our address on the lid with a permanent marker and affixed the shipping label on the side.

After receiving said cooler, we were trying to figure out what to with it. We had four other coolers and didn't need or want the blue one. So we offered it to my Bro for him to put his bird in for the trip. We also told him that the cooler was his to do with as he pleased.

So we loaded the turkey in the cooler, packed it with ice and sent him on his way believing that we helped Tony have a great Thanksgiving and solved our blue cooler problem.

If it only stopped there....

To be continued.

Bowling Is Not A Sport

I have never been the best athlete around. That’s not to say I suck at everything. I think that I play a good goalkeeper and I can hold my own in basketball as long as you don’t mind that I can’t dribble, shoot, jump or that I’m only 5’9”. I do play some mean defense though.

This fact makes it weird to know that Jordan seems to think that I’m the great athlete ever. My brother Tony tries to disabuse Jordan of this belief whenever we all get together as much as he can.


Jordan and I watch football, baseball and some basketball when we have the time. He wants to know everything and asks millions of questions, all which I know the answer to naturally. Even the crazy eight year old questions. “Why do they get four downs to get a first down? How come it’s called a touchdown? Did he just make a homerun?”

So in my house, I’m the greatest and smartest athletic person in the world. Even sports video games are dominated by me. All of this makes the next part really, really hard to admit.

I lost to a five year old at bowling. Sure he had the bumpers up and I was dealing with the plague (one of those is a lie) but it still hurts. Holy crap it hurts. I want you all to know that Ben, the five year old, is an animal. In fact, he beat everybody except for Keith, his dad.


Of course the kids, Ben’s brother Conner and Jordan, were having way too much fun to notice anything and my sports reign is still alive in Jordan’s mind. The day he figures out the truth is going to suck. Might even feel as bad as losing to a five year old at, well anything.

Oh, in order to able to use the photo of Ben, his Mom Rachel made me write this:

I lost to Rachel too. She beat me by like a bazillion pins. It was terrible. She is the greatest bowler I have ever been around. I was blessed to be in her presents. Is that enough Rach?

I Shall Call Him...

I am succeeding at brain-washing Jordan and turning him into a Mini Me! The first thing he did after we got home from daycare was to change into his jammies and do some quality reading in the bathroom. Well spent time in there if not quite reading yet.

He got his homework done, just math today which he is very good at. Hey, just like me. Someday I will go into greater detail on how in the same semester, I got a B in Spanish (which I can’t read or speak) and failed English (which I use everyday.)

After homework, Jordan goes to his room and brings down a couple of stuffed toys, Froggy and Winnie the Pooh. (As I type this, Jordan has Froggy’s pants down and his shirt unbuttoned, laying face down on a makeshift table. He is checking for a concussion. I don’t think he has totally figured out what a concussion it yet.)

Anyway, he brought down the two guys and had Froggy blocking for Pooh, who was the Quarterback. He put on his Seahawk helmet and ran through the frog and sacked Pooh. He has literally tackled the stuffing out of him and has to have had Wendy perform some stuffed animal surgery. A couple of times.

A little later on, he was doing some slow motion instant replay to see if he scored a touchdown and then to check if he really recovered a fumble. Really super slow motion. I thought he had only two speeds; sleep and a million miles an hour.

He plays imaginary football games and his imaginary team is the Skillet Lickers, my fantasy football team’s name. “It’s the Skillet Lickers verses the Mario, Luigi and Sonic team.”

Next, I will need to get a book in his bathroom for him to actually read.