Help me on this: Is there anything wrong with using your cheese cutter on both the cheese and the summer sausage?
Sugar-mama just semi-scolded me for cutting my snacks with the same cutter. She’s worried about “cross contamination” but I say you’re going to eat both together, so what’s it matter if they’re cut with the same knife or different?
Your thoughts?
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Ah, it’s nice to be back. Actually, it’s nice to just breath.
It’s been a couple weeks since I last blogged and it’s not because I didn’t have anything to say. I’ve had many of these moments like above to write about, except that they’ve all been at work and I haven’t had time to write them down (other than my Facebook Monday’s awkward moments).
Since about Dec. 12, it’s been ridiculous trying to get the new site launched. But it went live on Monday, Dec. 20, and while there’s still a ton of stuff that needs to be fixed, it at least looks pretty. As I told my new boss, the best way I can describe it is like, “Taking a bag of shit, putting it in a box and dropping a bow on it. People will be all “Ohhh and ahhh” but it’s only prettier than the last one, not better yet.”
I think he knew what I meant by that. We’ll see when bonus time comes around next year.
Anyway, it was hectic as I literally worked more in a 10-day span than I’ve ever worked in that amount of time. The site didn’t have any stories in it or any information at all on Dec. 14 and we got it finished enough to turn the switch Monday morning, part of a stretch of 23 consecutive hours in the office.
My boss kept saying, “Just wait. You better be ready.” Um, hello. Dude never saw my lagging time maintenance skills when I was doing a media guide and had to pull an all-nighter or two every year to get it done.
I don’t think any of the three of us who were getting it updated slept more than four hours a night. That’s probably why in a span of five days I, 1) wore mismatched socks twice, 2) put on the pants with the zipper that doesn’t stay up and didn’t realize it till an hour after I got to work and 3) continually got off the elevator on the wrong floor or hit the up button when I was going down.
But, thankfully, it’s up and running and now we’re hoping over the next few months to get into a better routine. That’ll mean updating the website, editing stories our writers provide and doing some writing myself. My first things I’ll have to write will be in two weeks when we go to Frisco, Texas, to cover the FCS Football Championship between Delaware and Eastern Washington.
I think we’re going to end up covering about four or five championship events each year in person, and of course, this year being the first, my boss is expecting us to go to the Final Four.
And by us, I mean everyone on our staff except me.
I, in my wisdom, back in August, bought sugar-mama her birthday/MBA graduation/Christmas present.
(SIDENOTE: I need to take a minute and say how proud I am and congratulate sugar-mama publicly as on Dec. 17, she officially graduated from Nebraska with her MBA. Now, granted, this totally could be seen as selfish promotion as it totally helps my retirement plan, but I’m not thinking of it from that vantage point right now; I’m just really proud of the hard work she did to finish with like a 6.87 GPA on a 2.0 scale. Way to go sweetie).
So, I picked out her present and bought it back on Aug. 12. Little did I know that I’d end up with another job that’s related to college athletics, so I didn’t care about the dates. I was cashing in some of my frequent flier miles and taking her on a trip, and the timing of the trip didn’t matter to me at the time.
I went four months without telling her or anyone else about the trip (well, maybe my hetro-life partner knew toward the end, but otherwise, it was a record for me actually keeping a secret and my mouth shut). And then I got the new job and it just figures it’d blow up in my face.
My boss said early on we’d cover championship events, but probably not this year. Then, after a couple weeks, it changed to, “We’re going to cover FCS game, Final Four and Women’s College World Series this year.”
So, I get the football championship and hopefully I’ll get to OKC for softball, but the Final Four is out as the national semifinals start on April 2 at probably about 5:30 p.m. At around 10:30 a.m. that same day, sugar-mama and I will be making a plane transfer and taking off for a week in Belize. Meaning, the first free trip I could get to the Final Four, I am passing on.
But at least we’re going some place cool and I’m going with someone cool (and no, I’m not just saying that because she’ll read this and I’m hoping it gets me some brownie points when I get busted for checking out the locals on the beach where we’re staying; although that’d be a great unintended benefit).
We fly into Belize City on April 2 and I have reserved a cabana on a little island about 18 miles off the coast, called Caye Caulker. The island is home to about 900 people year-round and is like 3 miles long and less than a mile wide.
It is a short boat ride away from the Belize Barrier Reef, the second-largest coral barrier reef in the world behind the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. So, by the middle of August, I will have snorkeled on the two largest barrier reefs on the planet, which is pretty freaking cool, if I don’t say so myself, which I am. There is also scuba diving and we will probably go see the Aztec ruins on the mainland one day, but otherwise it’ll be just 4-5 days of sitting around in the sun and water, eating fresh seafood and drinking Belikins (the official beer of Belize).
Until then, it’s back to work like normal. And finding fun things to blog about. I’ve had plenty of material to work with, but really haven’t written it down lately. So I’m going to leave everyone with a little Christmas laughter the old-fashioned way: stealing it.
Merry Christmas to all of you who like Saturday Night Live
Six-7 Offsuit 