Beach Boy Karaoke, Swagger, and Impressive Wiggling

You know how the model in lots of TV sit coms is less-than-average-looking-guy married to way-above-average-looking-woman.  (right here I was gonna list the shows for you, but let’s see in the comments if you can list them…trust me it’s a long list.)  Sometimes people land things that they really don’t deserve – and strangely this often results in unintentional comedy.  That last sentence pretty much describes my whole life, which I’m good with.  Recently I was “matched” with a new assignment in our church that yet again proves this point.  I am now the official DJ for teenage church dances.  If this confuses you, I’m right there with you.

DJs, by definition it seems, are cool.  I haven’t been cool in like 20+ years, and even that is debatable.  Perhaps the last cool thing I did was land a spit-wad directly between the eyes of a the girl I liked in 2nd grade.  I was a hero amongst the large group of 2 eight-year-old boys watching me.  I guess it was all downhill from there.  But DJs have to have swagger and be hip, so the image of the bald-dude who thinks he dances WAY better than he actually does standing behind a bunch of equipment telling the kids how to “get down” should absolutely make you laugh.  (don’t worry, I’ll put pictures up here when it actually happens – I’m nothing if not self-effacing)

One of the surprises so far is that whenever I tell people who are super-old like me about it – they actually want to come hang out with me during the dances.  I’m gonna go ahead and call that my posse.  And we’ll spend the entire first dance coming up with our “street names.”

I haven’t been to one of these dances since I was the teenager.  I’ll admit, I have super-great memories of them and was a little less-inhibited than I should’ve been probably.  This includes the time I did a semi-spontaneous karaoke to a Beach Boys song with 8 girls on the stage in front of the confused on-looking crowd.  But I’m pretty convinced that I’m gonna be laughing a lot looking down on the crowd.  People watching paradise…

So as awkward as I might look trying to be cool up there – at least I can fell some consolation as I look down on the teenage kids trying to wiggle around and impress each other.

Now I just gotta figure out street names for me and my homies…

HTF the Fantasy Football League –Week 5 Update

You know that whole tree falling in the forest without anyone to hear it thing – well, in spite of me not writing about it, the HTF Fantasy Football league has been rockin’ the last month since I gave it a shout out here on the blog.  Last week’s games were particularly close and featured a super-tight 6 point win by the up and coming NYTrainSpotters against Tiffany’s high-scoring crew.  JJ’s Diamond people made sure that “True to the name Tony” stayed in last place, but just barely.  The Gobstoppers snagged their second W and I eeked out a smallish-margin-win against the Goatz, whose mascara-wearing QB named Tom was on a bye.

But Matt’s Cannibalistic Pigs sit atop the league after rattling off 3 wins in a row including a beat-down of the Crushees. 

This week the top and bottom ranked teams actually play each other and you know who most of us will be rooting for.  Go Tony-boy – surely the Chilean Miners are on your side!!

2 Continents, an inflatable kangaroo, and those little white bags on airplanes

Nobody who flies on planes a lot likes flying on planes a lot.  Still, it beats driving, walking, or, uh, swimming to get to where you wanna go.  The blog has been a little sparse lately because I took several, really-long, plane rides, which, judging by the fact that I’m back now and not stranded on an island with polar bears and smoke monsters, were successful.  I went to Sydney and Singapore, which I’ve learned are actually farther away than they looked on my globe growing up.  (like a quarter-turn and I went from the West Coast to Asia – not a big deal.)

A few things I learned/observed during my travels:

• Being upgraded 30 seconds before you board a 14 hour flight feels an awful lot like somebody ringing your doorbell while you’re writing your mortgage check and handing you a bag of hundred dollar bills.  I’m guessing…
• Ambien totally works
• Sydney is an awesome place and they love them the tourists.  Also, so many people called me their “mate” that the Mrs. HTF has reason to be jealous.
• Went for a jog around the Opera House, botanical garden and the harbor bridge, which other than dingos and marsupials are like the only Australian things I recognize – best jog evah!
• Sometimes the perfect gift for my kids is standing in a window wearing boxing gloves.  This was the case with the 3.5 foot tall inflatable kangaroo that’s now a fixture in our family room.
• Harbor Cruise was awesome.  We saw some sweet views, some houses worth $50 million, and a smallish island which we nicknamed “Tasmania.”  The cruise was slightly less awesome during the torrential rains.  Sadly my fish & chips didn’t hold up well.  And for “seafood” that fish didn’t taste very good after being drenched.
• Flight to Singapore delayed 8 hours, so I pulled into the hotel at 4 AM.  Good morning!!
• Singapore is a lot like South Florida except much cleaner, the people are way nicer, fewer alligators/snakes, and most people there speak better English than I do.  (not a stretch)
• I’m not a shopper, but if I was I’d visit Singapore often.  Technically speaking – the shiny stuff in the shops was stunning.
• The place feels like it was all built in the last 2 years – again, much shininess.
• The flight home was horrific as everything that was on my inside suddenly wanted to be on the outside.  You’d think this would be fine after a time or two, but I got to have essentially a 15-18 hour party with those surprisingly (and thankfully) strong “motion sickness” bags stuffed in the seat in front of me and/or the squeaky clean restrooms in Tokyo on the layover.  The good part was that with the time changes I literally landed in Seattle before I took off from Singapore (wrap your head around that), so it was like the whole thing never happened.

All said it was an awesome trip and I got to hang out and work with some marvelous people who may or may not ever speak to me again.  I leave you with this important photo I took at a Sydney park, which is TOTALLY clear: