An Unspeakable Tragedy

The Boston Marathon, a historic event with people running from ALL over the world.  One of the best days to be From Massachusetts, and better yet, from Boston.  We take Pride in our Marathon.  It's the best one out there.  But this year it changed forever.  and who knows what it will look like in years to come.

I have had to turn off the News lately because it makes me sick to my stomach to watch the gruesome footage and watch that poor old man crumble to the ground.  I can only take solace in the fact that he is ok.  But not everyone was as lucky as him.  I wont spit out the statistics, we all know them.  Something horrible happened and I wish it would stop.

I have talked to many people over the last couple days, and I have heard MANY opinions and many thoughts regarding this terrorist attack.  All I know is that whomever is responsible will undoubtedly be brought to justice.  This is not something you "get away with"  We are a strong city, and we are unforgiving in situations like this.

Some are calling this "war".  and I can understand why they would do so.  The images from the finish line are horrific, they do not belong here.  So yes, you can say "this is war".  But it's a different kind of war.  War use to have a purpose, albeit a controversial one...  If you saw a visible threat, you'd send in the troops.  And even then, the guys with the guns were only suppose to shoot at other guys with guns.  What threat did a bunch of marathoners pose?  What threat did a crowd of civilians cheering on their family and friends pose?  This is a different kind of war.  War has changed over the span of our history and it scares me.  So where do we go from here?  What is going to happen next?  I wish I could believe that this will be the last attack, but that would be naive.  I can only do my part and stand strong. 

"Not on my watch" - A Few Good Men

Slacking Off

Ok, So it appears I have been slacking off on this blog lately.  My bad, sometimes I get busy and don't have time, sometimes I get lazy and say "I'll post tomorrow".  Other times, I simply forget.  I will let you be the judge of which it was. 

So Maybe what I will do is just "brief" you on some tings that have a happened lately...

In the World:

Pope Benedict XVI decides "Pope-ing" is not for him and announces his retirement.  This sends the world into a spiral and was ultimately the cause of the destruction of the planet...  Ohh wait, never mind.  That's from the script I am writing.  "Pope's From Outter Space".
What really happened, was people were shocked that the sitting pope would do such a thing.  Apparently Popes like to stay in office until rigor mortis sets in.  Benedict was the first Pope to just up and quit in over 600 years.  That's a long ass time to say "all the popes before you died in order to get out..."  And so the world started to make predictions on the next Pope, and in probably the least decent thing you could do in the situation, Vegas drew odds on it...  Yes, you could actually bet on the next Pope.  I lost.  Over the next few weeks the Vatican went all "Election Stile" and Cardinals were nominated to be [supreme ruler of church] Is that what it's called?  In the end the newest Pope was chosen: Pope Francis from Argentina.  And apparently this dude is changing everything from hats to chairs..  I like it.  Lets put big screen TV's in church so we can watch the games too...

                                                            Is that Gollum?

Winter Storm Nemo drops about 3 feet of snow on New England and generations threaten to kill each other over the dumbest thing ever.  "whose storm was bigger"  Generation X is excited to say "This is the biggest storm I have ever seen!!"  And the Wet Blankets that the Baby boomers are had to get all pretentious and say "that's nothing compared to the blizzard of 78!"  My uncle Kevin would call them "toppers"  because they need to top your story.  Well guess what Kevin, you happen to be a topper in this story simply by being born in the stone age (sorry).  The only thing that separates 78' from 2013 is the advancement of technology.  So yeah, you had it worse, but I don't care so shut up.

      
A meteorite blasts it's way into Russia, and Russians think "not a bad day"  so yeah, that happened. 

In my World:

Jenn is still Pregnant but VERY close to having the baby and we are getting really excited.  Everything that needs to be done before a baby comes is done, the room is put together, the pack n' play is set up, the high chair is set up, the swing is set up, the car seat is good to go...  We're ready!  Now we just need a baby to put in there.  Of course saying you are ready means nothing, because everyone tells me "yeah you say you are ready but you are not".  So that's good.

The baby has pretty much taken up all the news worthy things in my life, but here is a quick list of some others.  My windshield is broken, my commute still sucks, I get to slap my brother in the face as hard as I want, my laptop died, my March Madness bracket is getting pummeled, baseball starts soon, Still don't follow hockey, professional basketball sucks, started watching "The Newsroom" it's awesome, and finally I am 2 lbs lighter than I was when I made my last post....  good for me. 

                                                  Thank you again Aaron Sorkin


That's all for now.

FEAR...

Lets talk about fear, not tangible fear... like bees (fuck that), *we don't need to be scared of bees. but the fear that is spreading through America slowly but surely. This is the kind of fear that has people treat every day situations like they are life threatening.

This post comes to you courtesy of my ride into work this morning. I turned on to Fisher St. as I do every day, Today by luck of traffic I was a few minutes earlier than usual (crap). Fisher is about 2 miles long and usually a painless drive, HOWEVER, today instead of it taking me about 4 minutes to get from one end to the other it took me 15. Do you want to know why? Of course you do, I ended up behind a school bus, which normally would annoy me... Today it pissed me off. This bus in the span of half a mile stopped 14 times. 14!! Are you kidding me?! Basically I could see 4 stops in advance around the buss, the freaking thing stopped at every other house to pick up 1 or 2 kids. I was losing my shit by the 6^th stop. And this went on for 8 more stops before the bus finally turned onto another street (Thank Christ).

It got me thinking, and since I had plenty of time to think with that yellow monstrosity creeping along in front of me I hammered out some good thoughts. First I thought of all the things I would do with 106 million dollars... They had just announced the Power Ball and well, come on you think about it too. Anyway, back to the topic at hand; I thought of my childhood, I would walk from my house to the center of town (¼ mile maybe) where about a dozen kids would pick up the bus. At some point the bus stop was moved to right in front of my house, what a great day that was! But still, the other kids had to walk to it. And this was me at maybe 9 or 10 years old, yeah I am sure most parents watched their kids and whatnot, but even still today on the drive almost all of the kids were sitting in their parents cars waiting for the bus anyway. So what's the difference? What has us so scared that we can;t let our kids walk 4 houses over and catch the bus? If the thing stopped 5 times in that stretch I would have been fine, It would have been unnecessary but I would have been fine. But the bus stopped at nearly every other house for only half a mile. Is it kids getting abducted? Is it the “helicopter” parents who are scared that their children will be left out of the fun? In all honesty bus stops are a blast. We use to play wiffel ball in my yard waiting for the bus, and then if there was time, we would hit each other with the bat... Ahh the good days.

America seems scared of it's own shadow these days, we constantly make up reasons for our bad behaviors. We are trying to justify them as if it matters... It doesn't. “Listen, person who isn't me, it's ok to be scared of bees, you don’t need to say that you ran away screaming as a 'joke' because it's totally funny to do that.” Just be honest. I swear that person isn't me.

My wife is a teacher, she teaches 3^rd grade, and let me tell you, her kids are dumb. Not all of them, but if you had a hand full of rocks and you threw them at her students (don't do this) the kids the rocks hit are dumb. Let me also clarify this, all kids are dumb.. . It's not a bad thing, it's just a fact. They haven't had the life experiences that you and I have had. Guess what, you were dumb too once (maybe still), but for some reason, parents today are not letting their kids fail and then learn from their mistakes. Instead parents are making excuses for their kids which is totally enabling them to be dumb forever. I'm going to give you an example of something that recently was done in her class... I might change a detail or two just to ensure anonymity.

Jenn hands out a Test which the kids have known about for weeks and have been studying/practicing IN CLASS with her the whole time. This test was based on a story they read in class. One kid gets several questions wrong and as a result needs to have the test signed by a parent and returned the next day, you all remember these...

So here is the question that the student got wrong, and then her note afterward...

1. What might Dogzilla realistically do?
   A) Chase cars        B) Chew a furniture store
   C) Fly                    D) Prepare taxes

The student chose B... which is wrong.

“Billy didn't understand this question because we have cats not dogs, so he wouldn't know that dogs chase cars”

Two things lady, 1) they read the story in class, which meant that he was at least EXPOSED to dogs. 2) You are a stupid bitch.

Don't make excuses for your kid! Let him learn, tell him what he did wrong and maybe get the kid a dog you ignorant twit. Cats suck. Period.

So this is the end of this particular rant. Don’t be so scared America, like FDR said “The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.” And Bees... Seriously, they are winged demons. 

 * Yes we do.

It's Been a While...

So I haven't written anything in a while.  I could blame it on the Holidays, I could blame it on Obama...  Or I could blame it on being lazy and having little to say.  I blame Obama.  But enough about the messiah/villain of the century!

I am just about 3 months away from being a father...  The baby (Jack) is due in April, and the pregnancy has been LONG  but at the same time very short.  I remember finding out that Jenn was "with child" like it was yesterday, I feel like it was yesterday.  With that said, the sleepless nights and mood swings are not entirely "lovely".  She is a delightful woman but when you upset her, she is a tiny weeny bit more sensitive...  Occasionally this translates to anger (I LOVE YOU).  In those situations I have found it is best to say "I'm sorry baby, I love you"  and just let her cool off.  But in general the Pregnancy has been exciting, like crazy excitement.  We get all giddy when we talk about what we are gonna do with the bedroom, or what cool little outfits we will buy him.  We are very excited to be parents and the next 3 months seem like an eternity right now.  But I know they will go by like the snap of your fingers.  I expect that I will be terrified in the Hospital, Jenn will be in more pain than ever and I don't like seeing her in pain and I am also very awkward around emotional women...   I don't know why but I am.

                                                          "Happen this will"


JACK
My son is on his way, he is growing and growing, and becoming more of a little person every day.  I can't wait to see what he is like.   I currently have four nephews and each one of them has their own little personality, and they are all hysterical.  My sister even tells me that her youngest is me "Chris, Nate is a little you.."  I know better now than to ask why... "He is a little shit!"  she'd say, he gets into everything, he intentionally defies everything we say and he just simply has your personality.  Well.. If my nephew got that much of me simply though my gene pool...  How much of me will be in MY OWN son?  I cannot wait, because I am going to love that little kid with all my heart.

Things I am scared of...
1)  Diapers - Maybe I am not scared, but I want no part of it.
2)  Hurting my child (physically OR emotionally)
3)  Making parenting mistakes, I am told everyone does, but what if I make a BIG one?
4)  Money.
5)  Bees.  This really has nothing to do with my baby, I am just scared of bees.

                                                                    
                                                                  Terrifying

Things That Piss Me Off

Today's Blog post is about things that piss me off,  Some of them have happened recently, some are just things that constantly piss me off.  If you make the list, be warned; one day I might snap.

People who say:

"Turkey bacon is just as good as regular bacon" - Really?  are you kidding me?  Turkey bacon is like the Mets in New York, they will never be as good as the Yankee's and if you say they are better you are kidding yourself and you are stupid.

                           










 Also not as good as regular bacon







"Everything happens for a reason" - I hate this saying, this is some generic "sorry something shitty happened to you" attempt at comforting another person.  Does it ever help?  No.  Do I feel better when you say it to me? No.  Do I want to punch you in the mouth when you say it to me?  Yes.

                                              I guess some things DO happen for a reason

 People who:

Use the fast lane to drive the speed limit- I have less than ZERO tolerance for you people, and If I could run you off the road without ramifications I wouldn't hesitate.

Jump in front of a line of people at (insert anywhere) because they are in a rush/late -  Not only do I not care that you are late for your meeting, but I also do not care that your fly is down and you have toilet paper stuck to your shoe.  I hate you for everything you do.  *Side note - I LOVE the guy who openly calls her a "dumb bitch" and points to the end of the line.  Also, out of the 7 people she jumped in front of to get a coffee not one of us mentioned her open fly or the tp on her shoe.  sometimes everyone is on the same page and it is awesome.


 Get offended by use of religious terms - This one is specific to this time of year because every single year people get progressively worse, and it affects more and more people.  For example Rhode Island has a "Holiday Tree" instead of a Christmas Tree.  This enrages me, It's not a Holiday Tree because Jewish people don't use decorated tree's to symbolize their Holiday, they use a Menorah.  Are we calling those "Holiday Candles" now?  It's a God Damn Christmas Tree and EVERYONE knows it.  So why call it something else?  Either you are of another religion and this upsets you (not the case).  Or you are Christian, and doing this out of guilt/fear and you suck as a human being. 

      "Menorah" 

    "Kwanzaa Set"

   "Festivus Pole"

. 




 "Holiday Tree"







For now this is the end of my rant, please share with me what upsets you!

The World of Tomorrow

To anyone (unfortunate enough) who will read this, I apologize in advance for the way it’s written. Will I jump from point to point? Yes. Will I ramble on? I absolutely will. Will I make grammatical errors? Yes.,; (see). The reason it will probably be less than perfect is that I am not actually a writer, I am just a guy who is fed up with our society sometimes and decided to put his thoughts on paper. Anyway, I need to get to the point... To the topic! (points finger to the sky), See, I am a terrible writer. 
 

We live in a world that is ever changing. If we don't keep up with the change, what do we become? One of the biggest issues our nation (and the entire world) face today is religion. Who is right and who is wrong? Is anyone right... is anyone wrong? Let me explain who I am and why I am writing this today; I'm 29 years old and recently married. We are very happy and in fact we are going to be parents. This now means that my eyes are set on the future. No more late nights with the boys, no more thinking of "right now". I have to be mindful of the future for my son. "You're having a boy! That’s wonderful". Well, not necessarily, I have no idea whether it's a boy or girl, but if we have a girl I might freak out. Either way I will be happy. I started thinking of what the world will look like in 10 or 15 years, when my child is most impressionable. What will the world of tomorrow offer my son or daughter? Will the world still be in conflict? Will Nations still battle over resources and land? Sadly I am sure they will. But what about some of the other cultural staples of today's world, will these be resolved? Will Justin Bieber still be awful?
 

How will religion look in the future? That is my question, that's why I am writing this. When did religion become about hate and intolerance for those who are different? I grew up in a Catholic house, the values my siblings and I were taught came directly from going to church, and attending CCD each week. My parents instilled the Christian values of kindness, respect and tolerance. This makes me wonder how religion came to be in the first place, what was the intent then? The truth is, religion as an idea or a concept may date back as far as humans do. This of course means that the point was basic, it was not as much about faith in "God" as it was about rituals that tribes may have had surrounding their most well known means to survive: hunting. But what about religion as a "thing” what about when man gave religion names and rules to live by. Let’s look at three of the largest Religions worldwide. Christianity, Islam and Hinduism are the three largest ranking religions based on population or "adherents". So let’s break these down a bit and see how and why they came to be.

Christianity - Many say that ideas and beliefs that go along with "Christianity" date back hundreds of years before Christ was born. Some will argue that Christianity was born with the coming of Jesus. The true date of Christianity's birth is actually hundreds of years AFTER his death. 311 AD is known to be the year that the Christian religion formed, although it was certainly around before that date, just not recognized as a "real" thing. In fact Jesus; who we claim today to be the man who brought Christianity to the world was never actually trying to form a new religion, he wanted to change his own, he wanted people to start preaching tolerance and kindness to everybody, he told of a wonderful place "after death". Most of the Jews didn't care for what Jesus was saying and actually shunned him for it, thus his followers would end up preaching to "others” these foundations would set up a whole new religion years later. Think for a second about the foundations of this religion, a world of tolerance and kindness, a world that offered an afterlife if you lived by that "golden rule". Christianity was founded on KINDNESS.

Islam - Islam is a Religion that came to be not long after Christianity. Islam was founded by a Prophet Mohammed C.610. The story goes that while Mohammed was in a cave the Angel Gabriel came to him as the voice of god, telling him that he was a messenger of god. Mohammed's war was a war against greed, immorality and idolatry. So once again you have a man who creates a religion purely to gather a people and teach them about tolerance.

Hinduism - It's hard to define when exactly this religion came into existence because there may have been forms of Hinduism that had changed or disappeared as others emerged.  Many say it dates back long before the birth of Christianity.  Hinduism is known for the terms Dharma and Karma. Dharma being ones duty and Karma being the action and reaction of ones choices, so yet another Religion with righteous beginnings.

Let’s move forward in time to 2012 AD. Christian groups openly protest and in some cases physically protest gay marriage or gay rights, Islamic terrorists murder millions. And Hindu's, well, Hindu's stay quiet and do their own thing. Good on you Hindus. Where in our world’s timeline did religion become a forum for hate? Where in our own nation’s history did Christianity foster Intolerance for people. Yes if we look at the entire history of Christianity then we might find some blood... we try not to think about the dark ages, we try not to talk about the Salem witch trials. But I suppose that's all part of Christianity's history. In the future will our children's children say "we try not to talk about the intolerance of the early 2000's"? I pray for my children, that will not be the case.

We have to talk about the Bible... I know, it won’t be easy, but it must be done. Many people use the writings in the bible as a weapon against their opponents, whether it’s a gay man who wants to marry his boyfriend or a nation that sends its troops into another country for whatever reason (Oil?). This makes me very sad, and I truly believe that it would make the founders of this great religion sad as well. Some argue about politics and religion as an integrated facet of society. That's a very difficult area and I understand why politicians tend to avoid actual answers to those questions. If I were running for office and I knew for a fact that giving a definite answer to one of those hot button topics would lose me a substantial amount of votes... I might think about giving the "gray" answers too. My thoughts on religion and politics together are that it doesn't seem to work in everyone's favor. And at this point you are either all in or you are all out. Currently we have large debates about separation of church and state, the word "God' is pulled out of schools nationwide and they no longer recite the pledge in some schools because of that word. And yet on the topic of gay marriage, we say "well in the constitution it says... yada yada yada. It doesn’t make sense to me. I feel that the fat cats are sitting on their thrones and just making their own opinions and beliefs mandatory for the rest of the country. Maybe I am wrong, but hey, I am entitled to an opinion too right? Laws cannot be passed to only suit “certain” situations.

I don't propose that religion disappears entirely, because I think that it serves a purpose for many Americans. I think that many people in this country need something to believe in, they need their faith to get them through the day. Not to mention that the teachings in most religions help instill those values that I mentioned earlier. But when does it become a problem? Certainly when a radical church protests a funeral for a fallen soldier, Religion gets knocked down a peg. But is it that specific Religion's fault, or just some people? Today the word "Islam" is followed by a scoff or a very racially charged debate. But, those radical few only comprise a small fraction of that religion. We as a nation shouldn't write off the entire religion as terrorists, but many do. I think that what Americans need to do, is remember why our religions were formed in the first place; to bring hope to a people, to help people get through difficult times and to teach tolerance and kindness. These are the values that religion was founded on and that many religious people now are forgetting.

So what happens in fifteen years? Where will society be then? This is a major issue right now that seems to have very passionate people on both sides. History shows that intolerance generally loses, but it’s a bloody battle and victory comes at a price. So, yes I believe that one day the religions of the world will give in, but when will that happen? And how many lives will be lost in the process? The world is changing, do you want to be left behind? Or do you want to adapt and move on with the rest of us?

I am not trying to change minds, I am trying to open them
- Christopher F. Darling


Referenceshttp://en.wikipedia.org
http://www.metmuseum.org

Rock You Like a Hurricane

Hurricanes suck.  I kind of want to just leave it at that, end the post right there.  I suppose it's too late for that now.  Hurricanes are powerful and destructive, they live to mess peoples "stuff" up.  I am using nice words so that anyone can read this blog post!  Anyone that can read that is...  Anyway.  On top of the fact that a hurricane will completely uproot anyone's plans for the day(s), my wife's school canceled, so she is sitting on her "but" watching TV all day.  Meanwhile I am here at work dealing with down servers and irritable co-workers.  And an internet connection that goes out every 5 god forsaken minutes.

Work is 48 miles away and none of those miles are fun to drive.  SILVER LINING - apparently Deval says "all nonessential workers stay home"  which means that about 87% of the cars on the road are parked safely in their driveways, which made the commute into work relatively easy.  I had to keep a slower pace thanks to rain and wind, but overall I got to work WAY faster than a typical day.  The silver lining sucks though considering the worst of the hurricane will hit on my way home.  Why the hell can't I be nonessential, what's so important about hospitals anyway? 

Here are some pictures of Hurricanes that made me happy...

Enjoy the Apocalypse folks.