A recent visit to a nearby state park would have been one of those times, had I not spent the whole time anxious about the possibility of one of my children falling from one of the many bridges or ledges.  (And the real kicker?  The only one to slip and fall the whole time was me.)

Click to enlarge.*

*That only works for the thumbnail photos.  Sorry.

On the plus side, the Yankees have never lost a game in franchise history when played the day after I went to watch them at Yankee Stadium.

I went to NYC a few times per year every year as a kid, because we have a bit of family still living there (my family lived there also, several years ago). But because we were always hanging out with locals, we never did any tourist stuff. So the wife and I went to times square, Rockefeller Center, the WTC site, THE APPLE STORE, and my new favorite business, “Phat Cribs Realty.”

- for the birth of my second child.
- at the conception of — nah, I’m just kidding. That’s gross.
- for the signing of my will.
- when I went to Apple’s WWDC and saw Steve Jobs.
- when I met Jon and Cadiz12 in Chicago.
- at my best friend’s wedding.
- when Tiger Woods was having lots of extramarital affairs.
- etc.

The point is, it wasn’t just a writing utensil. It was a part of my daily routine. I’d twirl it in my fingers when I was deep in thought. I’d write with the pen upside-down, just because I could.

One day in January, I was getting ready for work, and I couldn’t find my pen. I almost made my kid miss his bus, because I was looking for my pen. It was very troubling. That night, I had mentioned at the dinner table that I still couldn’t find my pen. My son sheepishly went over to the toy box and pulled out his sister’s little purse. From one of the side pockets, he pulled out the pen. I was mostly excited to have it back, and only partly wanted to give the kids both up for adoption. But let’s focus on my excitement.

Just over a week later, my pen went missing again. After some mostly civil interrogation, I was pretty sure that my kids didn’t know where it was this time. And as much as it pained me, I deemed the pen lost. Because it had been over 3 years since I got the pen, I figured I owed it to myself to go buy a new one. I don’t want to be in the habit of buying $20 pens, but if I can make them last, I’m OK with it. So I went out and bought a shiny new Space Pen. All was right with the world.

Until three weeks later, when the NEW one went missing. By this point, I was pretty angry about all of it. And though we do OK for ourselves financially, I’m not looking to spend $20/month on pens. So after going to a pretty dark place, emerging from that dark place, then having a rational discussion with The Wife, I decided to not buy a new Space Pen.

So for the past several months, I’ve been trying to cut down on my sadness by carefully avoiding flood conditions, greasy writing surfaces, extreme temperatures, and outer space. All the while, I’ve been making due with these lame pens with non-pressurized ink cartridges that would totally melt like sissies at 150 degrees. I’d like to say that I’m over it by now.

But I can’t.

January – March: I don’t remember.

April: I went to the Frozen Four (NCAA hockey tournament) in Detroit.

May: I got an iPad.

I think that just about covers it. There is the story about going vole hunting with my kids, but I have to save something for my next post, don’t I?

Five years later, I (again) need a creative outlet. And though I currently suck at blogging, I’m still receiving comments from cadiz12 and Jon. Except now, they’re not strangers to me. And because I had dinner with them, I have visual proof that they’re no longer strangers to each other.

[To be clear, I had nothing to do with these two people getting together. But because I got to watch their blog friendship grow from the very beginning, I kind of feel like I was there. And it's always fun when two people who you already like as individuals get together.]

Jon and Cadiz12 are engaged, and they’ve entered a wedding contest – no, the ULTIMATE wedding contest. And I like these two more than I like any of the other contestants, so I want them to win. In order to win, they need votes. In order to get votes, they need you to go here:

http://www.ultimateweddingcontest.com/entries/36688

Your vote gives them a better chance to win, which makes them happy. If you vote as a result of reading this post, that also makes me happy, because I like to help. And the knowledge that you made three other people happy should make you happy. Don’t you deserve some happiness, too? Of course you do. So go vote.

Two things I know to be true:
1) 32 year old men with limited musical talent can’t sing the same notes as pre-teen Michael Jackson (especially true of the chorus of this song, skip ahead to the 1:10 mark – I get some pretty strange looks from other drivers when I contort my face in order to hit those notes).

2) The person who selected Michael’s outfit for that American Bandstand performance has a sick sense of humor.

[On an unrelated note, I'm having some communication issues with my web host, so it's possible that this site may disappear sometime soon. I'm working on trying to transfer it, so please standby.]

1260 – Approximate number of photos including the girl taken in 2009
910 – Approximate number of photos including the boy taken in 2009
315 – Approximate number of photos including the wife taken in 2009
150 – Approximate number of photos including me taken in 2009

10 – Months since I went on Craigslist and bought myself a guitar.
lots – Number of hours I spent playing the guitar between late February and May.
not enough – Number of hours I spent playing the guitar between June and December.

5 – Age my boy turned in 2009. I’m the parent of a kid in kindergarten! I still can’t believe it, sometimes. I started blogging when he was 5 months old.

1 – Age my girl turned in 2009. And after a nice calm stretch, she’s starting to exhibit some “terrible two” behavior. Which means the “vasectomy-inducing threes” are right around the corner.

40.6 – “Official” number of pounds I lost in 2009. I don’t mean to keep blabbing about that, but I’m pretty pleased. Still some work to be done, though.

2 – Number of times I went to the movie theater in 2009. Both times, I saw “Up.”

0 – Number of times I left the state of New York in 2009. Kinda sad. I’ll see what I can do about that next year.

27 – Number of new blog posts I published in 2009 (including this one). That’s embarrassing. Jon, Cadiz, and Syar posted more than that in November alone. But at least I beat Becky.

(1) Figure out what the crap Omar’s kid is saying (if your browser doesn’t use Flash, click the clip headings to hear each clip).
(2) Leave your guess in the text field next to each clip.
(3) Identify yourself in the “your name” box, so I know who to ridicule praise.
(4) Click “Go!”

I originally composed this post with 7 audio clips, but I thought two of them were prohibitively hard. And while I’m not looking to make it easy, I’m not trying to take the fun out of it, either. Besides, 7 is an awkward number.

On weight loss… Down 37 pounds so far. I had to buy a bunch of new pants – “skinny pants,” as I like to call them. (And yes, Jasmine, they’re pleated. Flat-front pants aren’t meant for dudes with butts.) Also, I scored a $9 jacket at a thrift store, and it’s slimming effect is nothing short of magical. If I get a good picture of me in the magical jacket, I’ll post it.

On the square root of 4… No update, it’s still 2.

On the future of “Say What?” posts… I’ve been following my daughter around with my iPhone, recording everything I can. I’ll get a good mix of words, and will post another one soon. And like I mentioned in the comments, I’m going to do this one like the old music quizzes (remember those?), so you can’t see other people’s answers. And maybe there will be prizes! Nobo, no cheating this time.

On Grand Slam Tennis for the Wii… Somebody needs to buy this game so that we can play online and I can beat you. If you’ve got it, and you’re not afraid to get your feelings hurt, let me know!

On my job (that I love)… It’s bananas! That’s most of the reason why I haven’t been blogging as much lately. In the evenings, I’m catching up on all the work email I didn’t have time to address during the day. There’s a light at the end of the bananas tunnel though, so I’d expect that within the next month or so, I’ll be posting hourly (outside of work hours, boss!) in order to compensate for the past 6 months.

(1) Figure out what the crap Omar’s kid is saying.
(2) Leave your guess in a comment.
(3) There is no #3!

The first person to correctly guess what is being said in the following two audio clips wins! For what it’s worth, I think the first one is pretty easy, but the second one is hard. If necessary, I’ll comment with some clues. Ready? Go!

Clip 1:

(or click here)

Clip 2:

(or click here)