How Not to Order Wine

A conversation on Friday night between my buddy Stu and a bartender.

Bartender: What'll you have?

Stu: A Stella and a Cab.

(Bartender fetches a bottle of Stella Artois and hands it to Stu.)

Bartender: How many?

Stu: Um... one?

Bartender: Where are you going? Sorry, I have to ask.

Stu: I, uh, just got here.

(Moment of realization)

Stu: Cabernet. I'd like a glass of Cabernet.

Bartender: Oh... Ooohhhhhh. Sorry about that. I'm on meds.

I swear, it was a lot funnier in person.

10 Things I've Learned

Since I can't come up with any good ideas to write about, I'll detail my latest traveling businessman adventure to Louisville with a list of 10 things I learned over these past few days.

1. When running late, I turn into a complete lunatic. I didn't give myself enough time to get to the airport, so I was a total wreck until I got to my gate. I think I wound up stiff arming a slow moving nun in the terminal.

2. At the age of 26, I am incapabale of buying a Maxim, FHM, or Stuff in public. I have no problem, however, buying a GQ with Jake Gyllenhall on the cover.

3. Southwest has some surprisingly good looking stewardesses. You can even tell that the older ones were pretty hot a few years (and several pilots) ago.

4. It is impossible to open up the complimentary bag of peanuts without using your teeth. Try it. I dare you.

5. Likewise, there is no good way to eat peanuts. Eating them one at a time is ridiclous and shoving a handful of them in your mouth makes you look like a complete slob. (By the way, whatever happened to the honey roasted peanuts? Those things are amazing. Bring 'em back.)

6. Talking on your cellphone while waiting to board the plane makes you a complete asshole. This is especially true if you're waiting in the covered ramp area.

7. Even after 3 glasses of wine, I cannot approach random women at a bar. I had my opening line all teed up and I still couldn't do it. But hey, at least there were good looking women at the bar.

8. Rick Pitinio (the head basketball coach at the University of Louisville) wears white suit jackets ala Miami Vice. (I know this because he was at the same restaurant I was on Monday night.)

9. A non-talking cab driver is much better than a talking cab driver. On my way to the airport, my very talkative cab driver brought up these topics in no particular order: a stabbing, a mugging, picking people up in the ghetto (a big no-no), his step-daughter being placed in state custody, the plethora of rental car dealerships near the airport, and gangs. I preferred the one who didn't say a word and smelled kinda funny.

10. It's much better to have someone pick you up from the airport than to drive yourself home. There's just something about seeing someone who's happy you're home that can't be beat.

Seriously. Call me back.

Most of what I do on a day to day basis isn't too difficult. I'm presented with a series of questions, usually in an Excel workbook and then I answer those questions to the best of my abilities. Usually I know the (correct) answers so I fill out my part, save it, and send it right back. Easy enough.

But what happens, you ask, when you don't know the answers?

While this is rare, it does happen. If this occurs, I scour through old e-mails trying to find the one or two people in the company that know the answer so that I can call them and have them do my job for me. I'm currently sitting on a few questions that I don't know the answers to and the person that does know the answer won't call me back.

Yeah, I know I called you at 4:00, but that's no excuse. Just call me back so I can send this in. I'm going to look like a complete idiot if I take longer than 2 hours to get this back.

So, to the person I called around 4:00 - if you're reading this - call me back. You know my number. Thanks.

Hey, Wha Happen?

As a graduate of THE Ohio State University, I had a vested interest in last night’s BCS Championship game with my Buckeye’s taking on the Florida Gators. If you happened to have been in a coma the last 24 hours or trapped under a rock, you know that Florida completely manhandled OSU to the tune of a 41-14 score and it wasn’t really even that close. As the game wore on (and on and on and on), I traded text messages with friends and family. I’ll share with you the best (and worst) ones of the evening.

Sara to Me (an hour before kick off): Let’s do this

Me to my brother Marty (after Ted Ginn Jr’s opening kickoff return for a TD): Bye!

Marty to me: Owned!

This was the only time I would be happy all night.

Me to Marty and my other brother Tom (after Florida jumps out to a big lead): FUUUUCK

Tom to me: So True

Marty to me (Halftime): What is going on? Tressel better lay into them.

My sister Pauline to me: WTF

My buddy Drew to me: God Damn Shit Fuck Wha? (ed. note: Exactly)

Pauline to me: There is still time. Pray to baby Jesus. I like to picture him in an OSU helmet. (Ok… That made me laugh.)

Friend who grew up in Florida to me: Hmm.. It’s great to be a Florida what?

(The answer is Gator. I know this because I’ve got that chant stuck in my head.)

Me to several friends (A few minutes left in the game): Ok. I’m gonna go outside and fight a tree.

Me to my buddy Brian who roots for the team up North: Now I know what it feels like to be a Michigan fan.

All in all, it was an embarrassing game and a terrible way to end a great season. I’ve got to give Florida all of the credit in the world for flat out bringing the ruckus last night. You guys deserve to be National Champs.

One other note about watching sports in general: I’m one of those fans that thinks that what I do at home while watching the game will directly affect the outcome. For example, I wore almost the exact same outfit to watch every single game this year and up until last night, Ohio State was 12-0. So, I naturally wore this outfit last night as well. Once the Buckeyes started shitting the bed, I felt my once lucky outfit (OSU track jacket, OSU t-shirt, specific pair of jeans, gray New Balance shoes – original, I know) was somehow unlucky. I removed the track jacket, but it didn’t help. I threatened to go “skins” if need be, but I felt the room would have revolted against me.

Another example of how people think that they can alter the course of the game was at halftime when as a group, we decided that what the Buckeyes needed was for us to pass around a bottle of Jack Daniels and listen to a Van Halen record. (Yes, an actual record.) For some reason, this all made sense at the time because when we didn’t do that, the Buckeyes played like crap, so if we did do it maybe they’d play better.

(And you know what? They actually kind of did. In the first half, OSU gave up 34 points. In the second half? 7 points. I’d like to think that we had something to do with that. Well, us and the guys from Van Halen.)

Maybe it was too little too late. Or maybe as much as we (as fans) think that we can directly alter a game by our actions, it just doesn’t work out that way. It comes down to the coaches and the players and which team decided to show up. Last night it was Florida.

***On a side note, my boss actually gave me the morning off to recover from any potential hangover I might have had. Fortunately, I didn’t have one, but I still appreciated the extra sleep. Thanks boss!

Friday Limbo, 2007, Holiday Party

Stupid Friday.

So here's the deal. Every Friday during lunch, I like to go to the gym and work out since a.) it's good for me b.) I can take a little longer lunch on Fridays since it's a little more casual and c.) I'm going to do enough harm to my body over the weekend that I need to counterbalance it some how.

I should also point out that while my boss is not a clock watcher at all, she also doesn't come in on Fridays which makes it that much easier to take an extra 15 minutes at lunch.

Well, today was one of those days where my boss decided to come in since we had a big meeting to go to. Before the meeting started, we had to go over our presentation again and work out a few kinks. Nothing big, but since I'm a Power Point wizard (Thanks 4.5 years at Ohio State!), I had to lend my skills to the task at hand.

This would've been all well and good if we hadn't started working on this thing at 11:30 and the meeting was at 2:00. We finished fixing up the presentation around 12:30 so I didn't have time to sneak in a work out without coming back looking like the sweat monster that I am.

The meeting got done around 3:30 so I thought I could cut out early and work out before happy hour. I usually like to say goodbye to my boss when I leave, so as 3:45 rolled around, I stopped by her office and she wasn't there. I went back to my office, sent out some funny e-mails about Bill Cowher "retiring" from coaching the Steelers and then checked back around 4:00. Still not there.

As I write this it's 4:24 and she just got back to her office. If I leave now to go work out I'll be late - and most likely sweaty - for happy hour. If I head straight to the bar, I'll be drinking by myself for 45 minutes waiting for people to show up. (Actually, that doesn't sound too bad.)

Instead, I'm sitting here writing this in a sort of limbo state. If you're a Catholic, this is the equivalent to Purgatory. You know, that place where unbaptized babies go when they die. I'm sort of in that place. Except without all of the, um, crying and such.

(Sorry. Even for me that was terrible.)

I'm going to go ahead and stop right there with this topic before a lightning bolt comes crashing through my window.

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It only took until Wednesday before I heard the first "I accidentally wrote 2006 instead of 2007 in my checkbook" story. Actually, this story had a twist as the listener responded with, "Yeah, well I wrote the year 2005 in the other day!" This was followed by some giggling and the sound of me slamming my head onto my desk repeatedly.

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Next week, we're having our office holiday party at some stuffy private club. Seeing as the average age of my department hovers around the 45-ish mark, I'm sure it's going to be a gas. I'll have full updates of it next week so that all of my readers (both of you) can read about what it's like to hang out with drunk middle aged people that aren't your parents.

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That's all I've got for this posting. Have a good weekend and GO BUCKS!