When the power came back on yesterday, after 3 hours of having nothing do to but read (actual books printed on paper and not blogs or news sites), I turned on my TV to see footage of a flooded Louisville, Kentucky. As I watched footage of 10,000 library books ruined at the main library and cars driving through newly made rivers, I thought “Wow, that’s just like the great flood of ’97!”

As I slowly approach the age of 30, there have been several indicators of the aging process that have nothing to do with grey hairs or the number of pills I pop at night. I can remember when Green Day’s first video played on MTV, and when I do the math I realize that was 15 years ago. The latest milestone I noticed is that I have disaster stories to tell the young kiddies.

In 1997, I lived in Louisville, Kentucky and after I returned home with my family from seeing the special edition release of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, I rushed to [...]

• Continue reading "The flood of ’97"

1) Going to bed at 9:00 (yes, PM).

2) Watching a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie and enjoying it.

3) Sitting in a coffee shop and being annoyed by “those damn teenagers.”

4) Hearing a song on the radio and thinking, “I have that album…on cassette tape.”

5) Watching the ladies ice skaters at national’s and realizing they were all born in the 90′s.

6) Realizing I am older than Kurt Cobain, Janis Joplin, or Jimi Hendrix ever were.

7) Hating the snow because it’s hard to drive in instead of loving the snow because it’s fun to sled in.

8) Taking a ton of pills at night. (I skipped becoming my mother and went straight to becoming my grandmother.)

9) Feeling tired all the time.

What’s made you feel old lately?

• Continue reading "9 things that have made me feel old lately"

They’ve got 911 on speed dial

The cardio machines at the downtown gym face four big windows looking onto the street, providing interesting distractions from the pain of working out. For three days in a row, I saw the flashing lights of an ambulance in the parking lot across the street. “Damn, I’m glad I don’t live in that apartment complex,” I thought as I jogged along. People must be getting stabbed in the lobby or falling down the stairwells on a regular basis. I was also grateful that the ambulance was not parked in front of the YMCA three days in a row. That might be enough for me to cancel my membership. Later, when all the machines on the side of the room near the door were full, I got on one in front of a different window. This is when I noticed the ambulance had not been parked in the parking lot of the apartment complex, but in the lot for a building with a large sign on the front that said “Fire [...]

• Continue reading "Tales from the gym"