Build me a bike

One of the highlights of the trip for me was meeting Mikey from American Chopper. He's hilarious on TV and super nice in person. He was chilling at some random carnival with a buddy when we ran into him. He was nice enough to pose for a pic with Sammy and I.

Lazy to the extreme

Found at a Wal-Mart.

Seriously?! You can't shake the bottle? The only good sign is that it's on clearance.

Arcade Fun

Henry's pretty good at Dance Dance Revolution. He even likes to choose his own song. The first time he chose a song called "Little Bitch" and that's when Mike stopped letting him choose.

Mary and I got pretty good at the one game that required you to stop the lights in a special area. We hit a jackpot and won 400-some tickets. Which we converted into a bevy of ninja figurines, glow-in-the-dark rubber ducks and a single army guy.

I think we owe our arcade genes to Dad. He was a virtuoso of the skeeball. And that's where we could always find him at amusement parks.

Opa

Found this shot on my phone. Now I've finally gotten around to posting it. We saw this food stand while at an Italian festival.

Vacation Poco-No-Go

Here are some scenes from my 9+ hour trip to the Poconos. It was supposed to take less than 6.

3 Bands @ the Ballpark

Mariella loves the Counting Crows. So I bought two tickets for their show a while back. The show was today and we learned this morning that the tickets were BOGO. So we scrambled and brought Mary but no one else was available. So we had an extra ticket that went unused.

We saw

Collective Soul - their love is like walter.

Live - who created the greatest rock song ever using the word "placenta"

and of course, the Counting Crows. Mariella liked them. I was kind of bored. And we had some douchebags next to us smoking. I had forgotten how much I hate the smell of cigarette smoke - since it's been banned indoors here.

It must've been Dolan's lucky day.

He sat next to myself and another president in the same day.

Elbow rubbing with the rich and famous

This is what it looks like when you park in the players' lot at Jacob's Field. I was attending an event for Lake Effect Radio. I was sitting down with my friend Rick when Larry Dolan sat down next to us.

Who's Larry Dolan?!

He's the owner of the Cleveland Indians! You've heard of them, right? We talked briefly about the Red Badge of Courage. Yes, the book. It turns out he and his wife read the book on a local radio show. I was giggling the whole time because I was sitting next to Larry Dolan. It was kind of surreal.

I also got Lenny Barker's autograph. Who's Lenny Barker?!

He's the only Indians pitcher ever to pitch a perfect game. C'mon people!

I just wish that Dad was around b/c he would've gotten a kick out of that story. He probably would have said, "Ooooooooooooooooh!"

Weekend Shopping

You've probably already figured out that I love shopping the close-out stores. Every experience is like an adventure in bargain-shopping. My favorite is still Marc's but Mariella and I visited a Deal$ yesterday and they might give Marc's a run for their money - even if that money is used to buy things WAY below retail.

Here are some of the off-brand treasures we found:

Mariella asked, "Why 51?" And I couldn't think of a good reason - maybe it's so you have a spoon for every state in the union and one when you go to D.C. aka Chocolate City.

Found this in the "music section" which is a small fraction of an aisle. I had never heard of King Pleasure. But I could've bought this whole album for the cost of one song on iTunes.

Another musical find: You know Lynyrd Skynyrd but have you heard of Skin Yard?

These alphabet erasers double as puzzles. They actually seem pretty cute until you realize the "A" wants to eat your soul!

Blue Blockers

Does dressing like a senior citizen mean that I'm ahead of my time? I bought these awesome specs at Marc's for $.88. Mariella hates them, which makes wearing them even more fun. I'm such the trendsetter.

More Maya & Zeke antics

We went for dinner on Sunday with Karen and family to the Rusty Bucket in Solon (try the wrap with the cucumber salad.)

Maya ordered milk. It came in a cup with a lid and I asked Maya (4) if she wanted a milkshake. I picked up her milk and shook it and told her that now it was a milkshake. She told Karen to keep the milk by her so I couldn't shake it. And when the waitress came by Maya ratted me out and told her that I made her milk into a milkshake and had the waitress tell me to stop it. What a snitch.

After dinner, I put both of my hands behind my head as you would when lying on a hammock. I looked over at Zeke (1) and he was doing the same thing. He put his arms down when I did. He thought it was hilarious. I forgot about it and did it again later and sure enough he was at the end of the table aping me again. What a nut.

Sarver's bachelor party

My buddy John is getting married next weekend to our friend Kyle (She's a girl.) So last Saturday was his bachelor party. We went and golfed at Turkeyfoot Lake - in the heart of pleasure land. Not a bad course. (I won closest to the pin.)

After that we went to his parent's beautiful home on the shores of Turkeyfoot Lake - it's much nicer than the name implies. We grilled out and went on the pontoon boat for a fishing derby. The boat I was on caught a grand total of 4 fish - including the lunker pictured below. And the other boat caught about 37.

Then we went back to the house and played poker. It was a good time but had you told me in college that was what Sarver's bachelor party was going to be like, I would've never believed you.

How much for the old ones?

Sidewalk Chalk Arms Race

Karen & Kevan were in town last week with Maya & Zeke. It's been nice outside so Mom and Maya were drawing on the driveway with chalk. They were drawing their houses. Here's mom's house:

I got into the action and drew my castle on the hill that overlooks their neighborhood. Maya said that's where all the monsters live. Mom drew a giant alligator to protect their village. So I drew a flying, fire-breathing dragon to protect my territory. The put up a wall to stop my dragon.

Plus, they drew a tyrannosaurus that breathes water to counterbalance my dragon.

I told them that I didn't want to be on their side of the wall anyways. My side was much nicer. It's so nice that Santa Claus lived on my side. (That's why my castle has a chimney.)

Maya said that Mariella didn't want to live in my castle, so she drew an apartment for her. It was purple and had no doors or windows.

Jesus horses

I need a new band

For my birfday, Mariella got me tickets to the Father's Day Barenaked Ladies show. I really enjoy the band although, their last two albums would've made one good one instead of the two mediocre ones. But I digress. Mariella and I went to the show and we had to park in the Christie's Cabaret parking lot - is that irony? We went to find our seats only to learn that we were directly behind two large ladies (and I say that as a large person myself.) The seats at Nautica/The Scene/The Plain Dealer Pavilion are bleacher-style with depressions for your tushy. Not super comfortable when you're wedged in there like sardines. We started sweating as soon as we sat down. And since the opening act wasn't very good we went to walk around. As it turns out pregnant ladies LOVE BNL. You'd think it was an obstetrician office with all the knocked-ups knocking around there.
Also there were TONS of people wearing BNL shirts at the BNL show. Didn't you morons see PCU?! You don't wear the t-shirt of the band when you go to see that band. The fact that you're there tells everyone you like the band. Don't be that guy.
Another thing that irritates me at concerts is people not knowing how or when to throw up the "horns." First off, tuck the thumb or else you're saying "I love you." And even if you're doing it right, YOU DO NOT THROW THEM UP FOR IF I HAD A MILLION DOLLARS! Got that people! It's acceptable to throw them up for Ronnie James Dio and anything else that hard rockin'. Definitely not BNL.
So, while I still enjoy the tunage, I need a new band with a following of like-minded snarky, sarcastic bastards like myself. Any suggestions?

I'm man enough to admit

that this is adorable.

Duct Tape Festival

Every year there's a duct tape festival and I've always been unable to go b/c we've always been on vacation for father's day weekend. Since we didn't use our time share this year, Mariella and I got a chance to experience it.
It reminded me of when Dad used to run the Chanel carnival. I loved it. We were the adopted children of the midway. We got free ride tickets.
Grandma Szczepanik would always come and make sure every grand kid won "the birthday game." You put a quarter on a date on the game board and then the game guy would roll a dice. If you matched the dice, you won a stuffed animal. Mariella and I played the game (I forced her), and we won with "Valentine's Day." It was like Grandma and Dad were helping us out. Mariella selected an excellent pink monkey.
After that we got some of Bayou Billy's Homemade Soda Pop - Sasparilla, we later got a refill of Birch Beer. I think it's a neat business model. Customers buy a tin mug for $5. Every refill after that is $1. They've got a whole assortment of flavors. The mug says that you get $1 refills for life. Mariella didn't like my idea of checking the website and becoming Bayou Billy Groupies - touring the country and following the stand to get our $1 drinks at fairgrounds in exotic locales.
All in all a good time. Although the fireworks could use some improvement.

Louisville Hijinx

Been swamped and unable to blog. Here are the much delayed details from the trip to Louisville. Overall, cool city, lackluster conference. Last year in San Fran set the bar pretty high but this year's speakers were lousy for the most part. There were a few bright spots.

I got down there on Wednesday night and we met Rick from our AAF - Cleveland office. He wanted to go and get a mint julep at some bar/restaurant that refused to serve O.J. Simpson during the Kentucky Derby. We ordered our juleps (when in Rome...) and that was my first and worst mint julep ever. From there we went to the Galt House which just opened a bar on their top floor called Rivue. It looks over the Ohio River. It was quite nice and Rick had a good time messing with our servers mind. He told her that we were there with the tour bus and there were 60 more of us coming up for dinner. She was pretty worried.

After that we went to 4th Street Live - Louisville's hopping outdoor bar district.

They've put a roof up over the street so it would be good even in the rain. It was 10 pm by that point and we hadn't eaten yet. So we went to the Red Star Tavern. It was highly decent. We headed back to the hotel and ran into some friends of ours from W. Va. Who wanted to go out.

We went to 21c Hotel/Museum. It was one of the highlights of the trip. It's a hotel with an incredible Art gallery on the bottom two floors. I really liked the snow globes with horrific scenes in them. They were done by artists named Walter Martin and Paloma Munoz. They also had some cool interactive installations.

(That's an execution scene in there.)

Rick and I made an early exit and hoofed it back the hotel.

The conference started on Thursday. It was weirdly scheduled. I couldn't go to all of the sessions that I wanted to b/c some of the start times overlapped meetings I was in.

And another thing about these conferences - there are cocktail hours galore plus hospitality suites all over the place. It's amazing that anything that anything gets done at these things.

Thursday night we went to eat at the Maker's Mark Bourbon Restaurant. It wasn't that good. Some of the people I was with ordered the sampling flights of bourbon. The waitress explaining how to taste bourbon to us unsophisticated clods was mighty amusing. I told them that they should just pour them into one glass and shoot the whole thing. I had some salmon with what I assumed was mashed potatoes. But when I took a forkful I found they were full of these little twigs of something. I asked the waitress about the potatoes - apparently they weren't potatoes at all but rather pureed celery. Gross. From there we rushed back to the sports bar in our hotel in time to watch the Cavs drop game #1.

Friday, one of the highlights of the conference was the students from the University of Minnesota who had won the National Student Advertising Competition. Their pitch was for Coca-Cola and it was phenomenal.

The "business" part of the conference ended early that day so that we could go to Churchill Downs to watch some horseracing. Rick (as per usual) dressed in costume - this time as a jockey.

Rick's wife Connie flew into Louisville Friday morning and surprised him. So we went back to Rivue to show her the view. Some of our AAF friends came along for the evening. For dinner we went to Caviar - a Japanese steakhouse located on West Muhammed Ali Blvd. I had some sushi. One of the items was called the Crunch Munch. It was very good. The menu mentioned their Private Room - I'm sorry - The Rrivate Room [sic]. From there we went to 4th St. again and did some hard core people watching.

Saturday, we had to accept our award for being named Ad Club of the Year. Go Cleveland! I was proud to wear my LeBron jersey (b/c as of that point we thought the Cavs still had a shot.) We putzed around town after that, visiting the Louisville Slugger factory and several other attractions.

I wore my jersey to the national ADDY awards. One of our friends overheard two ladies in the lobby early on in the event.
WOMAN 1: I don't know what to wear.
WOMAN 2: Me neither. But there's some guy up there in a LeBron jersey.
WOMAN 1: Wow.
WOMAN 2: It's an Ohio thing.

Whatever. Our teams aren't typically good. We haven't won a championship since '64. I'm going to wear my jersey as much as I can.

The National ADDYs were actually pretty good. The work was better than last years and Joe Piscipo (the host for the second year in a row) wasn't as terrible as I was expecting. From there we went to the 6th district hospitality suite which wasn't really hoping. So we went to bed, caught our plane Sunday morning and returned home.

Going south with Boobie

I'm heading to Louisville for the AAF National Convention. Should be good. I'll be flying Cavs colors pretty much the whole time.

Dollar Dog D'oh!

Mariella went to the Tribe game with friends on Friday. I had other crap going on and didn't get a ticket but my event was shorter than I expected so I went to get a ticket and meet her. All they had left was $20 standing room only?! (Cleveland apparently loves it's dollar dogs.) And it was already the 5th inning.

Looks like that prison Martha was in.

So I found a spot on the street that let me see home plate. I watched the game for an inning or two and headed to a bar to see it "all" on TV. The Tribe was losing so Mariella came to meet me outside for the postgame fireworks.

Well, long story short - she missed an amazing comeback and a 12-11 Tribe win.

DE-TROIT (sucks at) BASK-ET-BALL!

So, the Cavs did it.

Cleveland is freaking out.

It was awesome to see them beat Detroit. No one thought they could (myself included.) But most of the Detroit team is a whining bunch of sissies. I'm annoyed by pretty much every player on the roster:

Rip Hamilton AKA glass face. Frankly, he should NOT be allowed to wear a facemask. He broke his nose when? Two seasons ago? It's an unfair advantage. He can go to the hoop without any regard for his face. Why not put both teams in full pads?

Rasheed Wallace AKA Mr. Angry. It was awesome to see the Cavs get his ire up. Although apparently that's not hard

Tashaun Prince AKA that sickly kid from the Simpsons. I don't like him b/c he's too good - make that was too good.

But let's not focus on the losers. We're going to the Finals!

I created a new shirt to watch the game in.

I'm going to be in Louisville for the first view games, but I'm definitely packing my Cavs jersey.

Lookout, Spurs. King James doesn't fake the funk on nasty dunks and all that rigamarole.

Long (and tiring) Weekend

It was a great weekend. I'm exhausted.

Friday - Worked. Went with the new guys (Mark and Wes) to a bar near our office. I'd been there before. It's a dive but never have I had an experience like this. As we were walking into the establishment some woman asked if any of us were single because she's ready to mingle. We said no and headed inside hoping this would be the end of the interaction with her but it turns out that she's the bartender. The only guy in there was a creepy dude in a cowboy hat. And then a gaggle of girls sauntered in. The bartender told that we were in luck b/c she had strippers there tonite and pointed to the girls - who fit the stripper mold in dress only and seemingly walked the line between hookers and dancers with a large degree of care. We declined and she said, "Why not it's only p****?" Then the bartender mentioned how drunk she was. Wes started a tab with his credit card. The dude in the cowboy hat went and started rubbing the girls' backs. (I told you he was creepy.) The bartender asked again if we wanted lap dances stating again that it's only pussy. She also mentioned that they have "boobs" and "ass." Prince started blaring from the jukebox. Wes ordered us another round. Then asked for the tab. The bartender couldn't find his card which was weird because we seemed to be the only folks paying for drinks. It turns out that it had fallen out of the cash register drawer and into the cash register. It was mildly amusing watching her struggle to put the drawer back in. We cashed out and Wes and I went to meet Steve (another coworker) at a local horsetrack.

At the track, I lost less than $20. I didn't win at all. I typically bet the exacta (meaning I need to pick first and second place.) Worse odds, better pay-off. It was a good time and we got to try potato-crusted hoakie - which the waitress claimed was a fish. It wasn't delicious or even appetizing but it became the joke of the night and probably the month.

Saturday - Went to my favorite store in the world, Marc's to pick up some flowers for our house. It was pretty crowded everyone had the same idea I did apparently. I went inside for various sundries and got into a checkout line. The line was pretty long but the dude working the register was amazing. He was like a flair bartender except he intoxicated people not with alcohol but rather his speedy technique of handling and bagging the wares. Toothpaste went end-over-end into the bag. My strawberries were bagged delicately but with the speed of Mercury. And in series of quick motions. the parcel was double-bagged and landed on the counter. One of the other cashiers called him "Flash." His peach-fuzzed mouth broke into a wide smile at the mention of the nickname that he both earned and loved. It was incredible.

I brought my purchases home and began to work on getting an enormous stump out of our front yard - manually. The thing is at least 2 feet in diameter. I hacked at it for several hours not accomplishing much except to make it look like Mordor from the Lord of the Rings.

Then Lisa and Mike arrived with the boys. Mariella came over and we grilled up some turkey burgers and played some Wii, which Henry is scary good at.

On Sunday, Mariella and I went to our friend Christy's 30th birfday party at some Irish pub and watched the Cavs beat Detroit. (Eat it, D-town!)

Then Monday, was Memorial Day and we went and cooked out over at Grandma's. It was weird because typically we'd go over in the morning with mom for the parade. Dad would've stayed at home working on the flower beds and tomatoes. He would show up just in time for Grandpa to start grilling. I started as Grandpa's grill helper and eventually assumed the role of chef. He'd always comment on what a good cook I was and would tell everyone how well "Marker" had made the burgers. So it was completely weird without Dad and Grandpa.

Arm floods

That's as long as my sleeves are. I've got long arms but this shirt doesn't even come close to fitting right. It said the sleeve length was 34 on the package.

I roll up the sleeves to hide it and look more industrious.

Happy Birfday, Joan!

We went to the Cheesecake Factory to celebrate Joanie Baloney's bday.

And here are some of the pics that come up when you google "Joan Birthday."

Have a backpack this cool, you shall not.

Why didn't I think of this?

Mariellathon

On Sunday, Mariella completed her first (and she claims last) marathon. Luckily, it wasn't the thoroughly confusing 10K. She did it in about 5 hours and 41 minutes. I'm very proud of her. There are somedays that I don't drive 26.2 miles.

Markiella

Every power couple needs a good moniker for the tabloids.
So we've now got ours and the internet domain to match. Visit www.markiella.com for all the wedding updates fit to print.

Weekend Recap

I'm having some sinus issues.

I woke up at 5 am on Friday with a terrible sore throat and throbbing earache. I didn't think I was going to work. I took some theraflu and went back to bed. I woke up at 7 feeling pretty good, so I went to work. It was pretty hectic at work. A bunch of people were out.

We were going to go down to Shelby to see Shane (Mariella had never met him.) But I didn't want to get all the kids sick. So we tabled it until Saturday.

I woke up early on Saturday to fertilize the lawn. (We cancelled our chemlawn contract.) I had bought a seed spreader the day before and I needed to get the tags off. So I broke out the pocket knife and quickly managed to slice my left ring finger open. I was bleeding pretty bad but didn't need stitches. Unfortunately the first bandages I could find were princess ones - thanks, Maya. (I later found a suitably rugged alternative)

I then went to pick up Mariella and Chloe (the dog). We dropped Chloe off at Mariella's parents' house. And found out that her dad had a literal run-in with a steel beam and had six staples on top of his head to close the wound (I noticed first, b/c I'm taller.)

Then we headed to Shelby and hung out all day. Went to Galion for a birthday party for Micah and Mallory (Shane's brother and sister - they're twins!) As usual it's always cool to hang out with my friends, I just wish circumstances weren't what they are.

On Sunday, Mariella and I went on a 6-mile run/bike ride (she ran, I rode. What?! She's training for her marathon) on the towpath. It was beautiful weather and a nice ride. We even saw a blue heron.

Skull and crossphones

We got awesome new phones at work. They're the same ones they have on 24. They do all kinds of cool things. But I managed to improve it. Under the receiver there's a couple of lights that come on if you have a call. And now my phone is bad ass:

Sasha Smash!

Went to the Cavs game Sunday with Mariella, Mary and Vince.

Saw the best Cavaliers play I've ever seen compliments of Sasha Pavlovic.

Spider-man 3

Eh, it was okay.

As a comic book fan it was awesome to see Venom on the big screen. But he was barely in it. And who decided Topher Grace would make a good villain? And who told James Franco that amnesia made you retarded? And what's with all the stupid shots? e.g., Spidey poses in front of the American Flag for no reason before a big action sequence.

Mariella said Harry Osborn is way hotter than Peter Parker. I think Gwen Stacey is way hotter than Mary Jane Watson.

But despite all that it was still pretty good.

How much?!

I paid the most I have ever paid for gas this morning. $3.19 per gallon.

Our Year?!

I'm jinxing it by posting this but as a Clevelander, how can you not be excited?
The Cavaliers are kicking ass in the playoffs.
The Indians are in first place and finding ways to win games they shouldn't.
The Browns are calling last Saturday The Draft.
Could all of our sports teams collide in a giant explosion of success?

Of course not. This is Cleveland. Our motto's "There's always next year."

But what if...

It's a horse, people

Listening to the radio yesterday morning, I heard some newsbite about the upcoming Kentucky Derby and someone mentioned the Barbaro Memorial Fund. Donations are encouraged to help aid the research of laminitis, the hoof disease that plagued Barbaro.
I can get behind any charity that helps ease suffering. Even more so if it's for humans. But having had pets I can understand the attachment to animals. But aren't racehorses typically owned by the rich? You don't hear too much about people choosing between feeding their horse and their family, do you? So shouldn't that research money come from those deep pockets rather than approaching average joes who simply think horses are pretty?
Frankly, I'd rather see donations go to the Red Cross or Cancer Research. Than to help a race horse. Wouldn't that disease have claimed them in the wild anyways?

Bad news

Today's 8 months to the day that Dad passed away. And yesterday I got a chilling phone call. My best friend Shane's father passed away.
Apparently, he was complaining of a headache, went to bed and didn't wake up. Sucks is an understatement. I think he was in his early 50s.
Shane lives out in Arizona, so he's coming in today. I called him yesterday and he said it still seems unreal. He was worried about his mom. Which is pretty close to what I went through in September.
I got to know Shane's dad while at OU. Larry would come down and party with us. Actually the whole family would come down and party with us. He called me "Sharky" (just like everyone else at college) and actually it eventually become shark-I. If your name ended with a long e, he replaced it with a long I. So his wife Judy became Jude-I. So we took to calling him Lare-I.
Larry was always very welcoming to everyone. I always really liked going down to Shelby to visit the Wolfersbergers. CJ and I went down for Shane's cousin Austin's wedding. And Larry invented one of our all-time favorite phrases "Chicken Whammy Jammies" CJ and I were standing around and Larry asked if we had tried the chicken whammy jammies. We hadn't. So Larry made a big production out of it. He got one off the tray (I think they were simply chicken fingers), and he said "watch this, watch my mouth." He put the whole thing in his mouth enjoying it heartily. He kept saying how delicious they were. Finally, convincing us to try them. They weren't as delicious as he made them out to be.
When I talked to Shane, I told him that there was never any doubt that his dad loved his family. And that's more than true. Larry relished in managing the many bands of Micah (shane's youngest brother) including IZENET KOLDOUT, Buzzbucket and I'm sure there's one I'm forgetting. Larry even printed out T-shirts for us once.
You can definitely see Larry in all his children. Shane shares his father's mannerisms and ability to get excited about little things like breakfast. Larry would always make Camper's Quiche and some "steaming java." Shane will make up stupid little songs about random crap, which apparently he got from his Dad.
It's scary that it can all be over so suddenly. Once again another unfortunate reminder to make the most of the time that you're given.
We'll miss you, Larry.