I caught a big one, Pa

After 2 hours of frustrating error screens, I would just like to let everyone know that I successfully ordered Phish tickets. I am now the proud holder of tickets to both Phish in Mansfield, MA and East Troy, WI.

Start your engines, it's road trip time.

Beer and Birthdays

In 11 and one-half hours Phish tickets will go on sale. I have to admit, I'm terribly nervous about this. Tickets for Deer Creek went on sale recently and supposedly sold out in minutes. My summer plans, and consequently (maybe) this blog, will be back to the drawing boards if tomorrow doesn't go as planned. Cross your fingers, if not for me, for the blog.

In other, more interesting news, last night I discovered that I like dark beer. When I had my first taste of Guinness, I thought I would never be a dark beer lover like my Irish ancestors. They would be turning over in the graves watching me drink PBR, Keystone, Busch and the likes. Last night, however, I made them proud. Well, maybe.

I am now the proud drinker of both Smithwick's, a red Irish ale, and Bell's Porter, a medium-bodied beer. I can't really give you any more information about either, except that the Porter kind of reminded me of coffee and chocolate and Smithwick's was lighter and also served as a good chaser for a shot of SoCo Lime.

I tried both these treats at Ashley's in Ann Arbor as I celebrated a birthday with one of my oldest and closest friends. Later, after cake supplies were purchased using food stamps, an attempt was made at baking a late-night birthday cake. This might have gone well, depending on how important you think vegetable oil is to the cake-baking process.

I will tell you now that vegetable oil IS in fact important to the cake-baking process.

I will also now tell you that it is not a great idea to eat birthday cake sans oil at 2am after drinking the previously mentioned dark beers. But, I won't tell you why.

I'd also like to throw in a quick shout-out to the birthday boy, Mister F. Check out his tunes on myspace.com and wish him a happy birthday before it's too late.

Public Apology #1

I forgot that I am under strict orders to publicly apologize to Mark for turning down drinks at the bar to write in this last night. Which I didn't even do because I fell asleep watching Jon & Kate Plus 8 and woke up at 4am to a fully lit bedroom and a blaring television.  

Sorry, Mark! 

My First Day As A Substitute Babysitter

I guess I figured I was mildly prepared for my first day of substitute teaching solely based on my babysitting experience.  No one else seemed to support this claim, seeing as how I have zero teaching experience unless you count my stint as an after-school Mad Scientist, where I was regularly unable to both factually answer questions or execute simple experiments until I got fired. But, I felt supremely confident that substitute teaching involved an introduction and several videocassettes (or DVDs, depending on the school district). 

However, subbing was, to my surprise, so much like babysitting it was a breeze.  It did involve more actual teaching that I expected, but it really just turned out to be several hours of arguing with 3rd graders about what their teacher does and doesn't let them do every Tuesday.  I had a sneaking suspicion that Mrs. Rikena doesn't typically let her students sit on the floor under their desks in lieu of chairs. Or spend the entire day making origami cranes that are missing heads, (only because she hasn't learned that part yet).  Or erase words from a sentence I'm currently writing on the board because it's her job.  But what do I know? I'm not in 3rd grade anymore. 

Despite the part where another teacher had to come and quiet down my screaming class, I think things went relatively well.  

There was also the part where we were using adjectives to describe things in the room and one student wrote the words "big,"  "blonde hair," and "heart necklace," to describe me.  So maybe I didn't clearly explain what adjectives were.  My bad.  

And the part when the math lesson was completely beyond me so we just built structures out of straws and twist ties until it got too out of control.  That wasn't my fault, all the plan said was "explain pyramids and build them." Oops.

The best part of the day was when I found that the agenda left by the teacher had scheduled for a Power Hour at 2:30.  It wasn't until later that I found out this was an the hour of the day in which other children from all over the school joined my class, doubling it in size, and tried to fill out worksheets far beyond their intellectual capabilities. This resulted in me explaining how to figure out each word problem at least thirty times.  

Somehow, I have to say I would rather spend an hour drinking a shot of beer every minute than explaining word problems to 3rd graders.  

Disclaimer No. 1: No dolphins here.

I will not be writing about dolphins or any kind of dolphin-related paradise. Sorry, fin lovers. 

Although I am an avid watcher of Planet Earth and totally enjoy the episode on Deep Seas, I went on a whale watch in Boston once and only saw two dolphins before I spent the next seven hours throwing up in a paper bag. 

After weeks of deliberation, it's here.

After weeks and weeks of mind-boggling stress revolving solely around deciding on what to name my blog, I finally came to a verdict.  A love child belonging to my fondness for made-up words and a place I imagine to be just after college graduation but not quite the real world. 

As I transition from parent payroll to my own personal struggle street, I'm going to hit a few speed bumps along the way.  And see some heady live music while I'm at it. 

Here is where I will chronicle my adventures, thoughts on those adventures, and pretty much anything else that comes to mind. 

It begins now.