Canadian Szczepanik hailed as a hero.

We're good people.

I'm busy

but apparently not as busy as some of my siblings whose blogposts are way more tardy than my own.

Here's a run-down of what we've been up to.
For Halloween, Mariella and I were a wii remote and a nunchuck (we didn't actually wear the costumes anywhere except to show Grandma.) And frankly, I think I was robbed in my work halloween costume contest. My costume had actually working LED lights but the best of show goes to some guys dressed as Wayne's World? A movie that I think came out before they were born. I've expressed my disdain for movie-themed halloween costumes here before. They were amusing but again, not very original. Nathaniel (a newish guy at work) won a prize for his spot-on LEGO man costume. It was pretty incredible.

I beat the snow in installing a new paver walkway for grandma. It's definitely an improvement over her old sidewalk. Thank goodness Mary and Kristen pitched in and helped or I would've never finished the project in one day.

I continue to be active with AAF-CLE and I'm currently helping recruit judges for this year's ADDY show. And I've added a new organization to my repertoire, The Social Media Club of Cleveland. It seems to be a fun group and I've gotten to meet people I've only previously "knew" through twitter.

We're getting caught up in our annual holiday madness. We had the fam over on Saturday for the OSU/UM game and fried turkey. It was delicious and so were the leftovers. My soup was pretty spectacular if I do say so myself.

That's all for now. I have to get some photos off my phone, so I should post again shortly.

Tight security

Dear joggers,

After the leaves have fallen, shirts should be worn.

Thank you,
The mgmt

I hope the Indians make better free agent decisions than this

So my pumpkin pictured below didn't make it into the finals of the Cleveland Indians Pumpkin Carving Contest but these did?!



What gives? I know I'm biased but seriously?!

Chief Wahoolloween

Here's the pumpkin I carved for an Indians contest. I may need your vote, if I'm chosen as a finalist.

Car fire

The plume of black smoke made me believe it was going to be a long commute. I could actually see the flames jumping from the front of the pickup truck as I approached. I arrived about the same time the firetrucks did. And somehow it was my fastest time in at least a month.

Sasha P: a man of the people

The wife and I were at the Parma Giant Eagle - not the highest class community or grocery store. We were selecting some yogurts and we run into Cavaliers star, Sasha Pavlovic. Can you believe it?! In our Giant Eagle?! Wild! He and his lady friend were shopping for groceries - just like me and my wife!

The best part is when it was time to check out, he didn't rely on his NBA star power to convince the checkout lady to accept expired coupons. Instead he went to the self-checkout aisle and rung up his own groceries (while his girlfriend bagged.) Do you think LeBron would do that or even do his own grocery shopping? That Sasha is one salt-of-the-earth kind of guy.

And as we left, it turns out that we parked nose-to-nose with his giant black Escalade.

Nothing says loving like curtain rods

Not sure if I've mentioned here, how much I despise Sears Grand. Basically it's the merger of Sears and Kmart with half the selection of either - which means they rarely have anything you need like switchplate covers or mini paint rollers. But if you happen to need some MacGregor sneakers and a Kenmore ice-making refrigerator, it's your store!

But I digress... We've moved Grandma from Maple Hts to Solon and been trying to get her and Uncle Gary set up. I was going over today to install some floor molding and mom called and said she needed two curtain rods. I had already left Home Depot at this point and did not want to go back, so I went to Sears - because it was conveniently located. I was shocked that they had the curtain rods I needed. I proceeded to the check out. The curtain rods were $2.99. So my total came to 6-something. As I was paying the girl asked me if I wanted a gift receipt. I couldn't help but laugh a bit. If I were to give these as a gift wouldn't I get a higher end rod?

The other thing that always shocks me about Sears Grand is they always give you about an arm's length of receipts - there's coupons, survey information and assorted other items on the scroll. Maybe they could lower prices if they didn't have so much overhead caught up in receipt rolls.

But now I know what I'm getting everyone for Xmas this year.

Deli bailout?

I like this spot

Apparently it's old, but I just saw it.

Not funny

Wait, yes it is.

BFLK Wordle

Interesting results from putting this site into the wordle engine. "Mariella" just beat out "skunk" for popularity.

Dear Dad

It's been two years since you've been gone. Things have changed a lot in that time. The biggest change being that I'm now married. I'm glad that you had a chance to meet Mariella. We all missed you on the big day. I'm sure you would've loved the party. It was huge and we had beautiful weather.

Mariella has been very understanding and a huge support to me. I'm trying to take care of as much as I can which gets to be a lot sometimes. Although we've pushed her to her limit on taking down wallpaper.

Mariella and I have been getting adjusted to life together. One of the strangest parts is calling someone else "Dad." It's nothing against Mr. Sidoti, it's just odd.

Everyone's been doing as well as can be expected. Mom continues to inspire me with her strength. There seems to be a never-ending mountain of work between our house and the rentals. We've been doing tons of work at the rental house getting it ready for Grandma to move in. Lisa, Mike and the boys have been helpful through everything and have put quite a bit of mileage on their vehicles for our many causes. It was nice seeing Karen and her gang on vacation. Mary continues to be the tough, dependable one. Joan seems to be doing well at work. You'd be proud. Kristen's in Alaska, apparently having a great time. We're all doing okay but would really wish you were still here with us.

Love always,
Mark

I'm buying one of these for each of my brother-in-laws

Order your own here. There's also a democrat version.

This reminds me of my nephews

Cristoph Niemann is an illustrator who tells the story of his sons who are infatuated with the New York Subway system. Sounds a bit like Henry and Sammy to me.

Skunked

We've been trying to catch a skunk in the backyard to no avail. (They keep taking the bait.) But my nephew Sammy is super intrigued by the prospect of catching the skunk and is waiting for video footage of the capture.

I'm going to post this sign to let the skunk know he's welcome and lure him into a false sense of security.

Good Luck

It's been a long time since I've blogged. I've been extremely busy in every facet of my life. I've been facebooking more. It you aren't on there, you should be.

Here's something from one of my favorite blogs that made me laugh.

This is a cake featured on Cake Wrecks - a blog that looks at cakes that came out horrifically (and often hilariously) bad. Read the story behind how this one came to be.

They're serious

You probably can't see it but this house had estate sale signs in the front yard as well as a hearse parked out front.

Madonna & a-rod

Rick and terry got topical at this year's aaf outing.

Happy belated to Sammy and early birthday to Lisa

I asked this robot to deliver you a cake. Hopefully you got it and he didn't malfunction on the way over.

Joan's new blog

Joan has fallen prey to sibling pressure and got herself a real live blogspot blog. Read all about her new exciting life as a contributing member of society working for the Cleveland Foodbank. She's making us proud.

Doing my duty

Jury duty is so much fun. It involves lots of waiting around for them to call your name. Highly exciting. The entire group was briefed on procedures and stuff. The highlight was when they had to do another announcement reminding us not to smoke in the restrooms as the whole building is a non-smoking facility. Seriously?! Someone was smoking in the restroom? What the hell is wrong with people. They were pretty explicit about the not smoking thing in the video.

The video orientation was pretty hilarious. It was about 20 minutes long. 10 of those minutes are spent telling you what a valuable service you are providing to society. Then they tell you how rewarding it can be for you - apparently you can make many lifelong friends with the people you serve with. The closest I've come to a "friend" today was a woman insistent on telling me how delicious her sausage from the food court was "it was right off the grill and greasy!"

The video goes on to tell you about all the waiting you'll be doing. In fact, they show a guy using one of the tables to work on a jigsaw puzzle waiting to be called. I figured it was just for dramatic effect. I mean who even thinks to bring a jigsaw puzzle? I dismissed it as an editorial embellishment but I was looking for a place to set up my computer on some of the counters around here and there's a sign posted reading: Please do not use this counter for puzzles. So maybe I'll bring one in tomorrow.

I need to learn to play my banjo

Baby Loves Banjo
Originally uploaded by Kamepyon

before we have kids.

I dare you to tell me this doesn't make your heart smile.

A robot for Sammy

Went to the world of coke museum. It's pretty neat from an advertising perspective. They talk a lot about the marketing advances that the company had made through the years. There's also a 4D movie with a ferret that was pretty dippy. The best part is the 64-flavor tasting room. There's pops from all over the world. Beverly from italy is the worst tasting one in the place. The robot pictured above is a packaging robot. It could pick up bottles, pack them into boxes and even get new boxes to fill. Pretty neat.

Rick as Scarlet

I think I've discussed Rick here before. He's my friend and mentor from AAF-Cleveland. He's known throughout AAF for his penchant for costumes. They're usually themed to whatever city we're in, so for Atlanta he was Scarlet O'Hare. The best part is the reactions he gets from people not expecting a cross-dressing Executive Director.

The creepiest part of the costume was Rick's chest hair visible through the mesh top of the dress.

I'm back.

In case you live under a rock and haven't been following my adventures on www.markiella.com, I'm now married and honeymooned. It was a very nice affair all around. So check back often for more bflk antics.

WALKIES!!!

Don't know if you can see but that's a woman walking her cat on a leash through downtown Cleveland.

Dog tired

Chloe recovering at home.

It's a family blog

Created by OnePlusYou
You can let your kids read BFLK, dammit.

One of my pet peeves

Couples that sit on the same side of the table. Weirdos.

Go cavs: round 1, game 2

Ricky and vince fired up over the largest cavs's playoff win in franchise history.

New Pornographers

Tuesday nite Mariella and I went to see the New Pornographers at the Beachland Ballroom. A band called Okkervil River opened for them. They're were pretty good. The N-Pers were great too but Neko Case wasn't with them, so it was a little disappointing.

The six-million dollar dog

Stupid dog peeking around the corner.

Chloe had been throwing up all last week. We took her to the emergency vet clinic after the Cavs game on Monday nite. Four hours later, we left several hundred dollars poorer and with some pills (that we couldn't get her to take.) She seemed fine for the next couple of days but didn't eat anything all week and started puking again on Thursday. So Mariella took her to the vet on Friday where they repeated the x-rays and the bloodwork. The bloodwork was fine but her stomach looked odd to the vet. So she suggested that we take her to the animal hospital. So on Saturday we spent the better part of the day waiting around an exam room. The vet finally told us that she needed surgery - which isn't cheap. But Chloe pulled through and the surgeon pulled out her stomach: a liter of liquid (a lot for a 12 lb. dog), some string, some hair and some little green bits of plastic. Nothing was getting through past that clog of crap, so it sounds like she's all better now and pound-for-pound the most expensive dog on the planet.

Bachelor party report

This is the only photo I took. It's of kevin my best man. SIDE NOTE: I don't know why women bring cameras to bachelorette parties. I mean why do you want/need pictures of you with a stripper?

Anyways, we went to Northfield Park where race #3 was the markiell.com bachelor party stakes. We got to have our picture taken with the winning horse and a muddy driver. It was a good time. After the track we went to DePompei's in Beford.

Club seats rule

Here's the view from my agency's seats. They also come with all-you-can-eat food. And the tribe won.

CNN said so

They're even selling the shirt.

Awesome indians fan hair

He's like a lion.

For the ladies

Grady Sizemore bending over

McCain Girls: Raining McCain

I don't know who I'm voting for yet. But this makes me not want to vote for McCain. If they're trying to help his cause, they need to stop. Good luck watching the whole thing.

The office

This is the view from my office looking out. We're getting our windows replaced so they've built this lovely barrier. I think we're going to tag it.

Marc's hijinx

I re-arranged some lawn gnomes at Marc's to depict a darker scene. Side note: mariella wouldn't let me buy them.

Opening day

Post and ye shall receive

Mere seconds after I posted the last entry, Mariella called and says that someone cut down the tree. Hurrah! That means I have time for some of the other stuff I've been meaning to do.

Another thing on my to-do list

The tree with a serious lean is located on the foreclosed property adjacent (remember the messy backyard photos?) to Mariella's house. It's been leaning more and more since the ground has thawed out. I called the realtor to see who owned the house. He was going to check and get back to me. (He hasn't. Thanks, pal. I think he was upset because he originally thought I wanted to buy it.) Mariella called the city who said they would send someone out. (It doesn't seem that they have.) So I think that maybe something for us to do tomorrow between appointments.

chloe@stupiddog.org

Incredible Birthday Presents

Today's my birfday. Making me officially the oldest I've ever been.

I have received a number of awesome presents the first from my bride-to-be Mariella. I've wanted a custom Indians jersey for a long time. And now I have one:

And, yes, I realize that I have the same number as Jackie Robinson, the first player to cross MLB's color barrier and that it's retired throughout all of baseball. It's my birthday 4/2.

From Mom and Joan, I received an astounding piece of environmentally friendly technology

It's a solar-powered, lighted squirrel yard ornament. I've never owned anything so amazing. It harnesses the power of the sun during the day so at night it gives off a warm (and hopefully skunk-repelling beacon of light.) Mariella wants to put in the front yard in hopes that it will be stolen. But it makes me very happy and as it turns out there are other solar animals available for sale. We could have a whole night-time zoo!!!

Wiggle Room

Here's a commercial I wish I did. Thanks to Ridgill for showing it to me. Hilarious.

Blazer flips it

We hit 100K this morning. I bought it new on May 11, 2002.

I'm a pasta machine

Went over mariella's aunt graces to help make macaruna. It's not as hard as pierogis. Basically u take a thin stick and roll the dough around it. Its like making play-doh snakes. Lets hope they're tastier.

WHAT?!

Celebrity pilots

On friday mariella and I went to see my buddy, josh's band (he's the drummer) at the beachland ballroom. It was good to get out.

It's not the 'birds year

I took a halfday on thursday to go see my Chanel Firebirds play in the state final four. Dad and I always went down whenever Chanel made it to the playoffs. Unfortunately Chanel was seriously outgunned. The other team was loaded with shooters who couldn't miss a three.

But it wasn't all a loss as I got to hang out with CJ and his family. Here's CJ's son James. Who as it turns out, really LOVES popcorn.

Spontaneous Musical

This improv troupe put on a musical right in the middle of a mall's food court. It's pretty good.

I made Sports Center

As previously posted, I was at the Cavs game against the Pacers on Saturday, in spite of a blizzard. That's me in the red circle. The seats were great.