Well Saturday is the big day. No I don’t mean the stupid fucking royal wedding, after all, that is Friday. No, I’m referring to my trip to Los Angeles. So let me give you a brief overview of the trip. You might remember from previous posts that I won a trip to see the Cubs play in L.A. I’m a huge Cub fan, so this is a huge thrill; I get to see the Cubs lose in a whole new timezone. For some unreasonable reason, Air Tran does not fly from Chicago to Los Angeles; honestly, you can’t blame them, I mean after all who would want to offer service between the second and third largest cities in the entire country. So, we have to leave from Milwaukee, because, after all, according to Air Tran, Milwaukee is more happenin’ than Chicago. So our flight leaves at 9:40 in the A.M. this Saturday, April 30th. The Cubs game is Monday May 2 and we have seats down the first base side just beyond the Cubs dugout six rows back. They are pretty much VIP seating; hell, it even says VIP on the tickets.

Of course, I’m already quite a bit panicked about the flight. I’m going to attempt to do it on no drugs of any kind except for many a shot or two of whatever the airport bar serves. I couldn’t be anymore nervous about the flight, even though everybody keeps reassuring me and I know that logically, it should be fine. But, I do hate to fly.

As for what to do while we are there besides the game, we are pretty much wide open to anything. Certainly we want to go to the beach. And we would like to hit up the casino and a hookah bar. But, other than that we are open to any suggestions anybody might have for us so please speak now or, well, don’t. We do leave to come home on Tuesday May 3.

As part of the game, we get to go on the field before the game and watch batting practice and meet Dodgers manager Don Mattingly. I bought a mini HD video camera specifically for this trip so that everybody can see me humiliate myself in front of Mattingly and any players I should meet. My plan is to record as we go and add the video to my YouTube page so that people can check out the trip as we are on it. So here is the link.

http://www.youtube.com/user/heckels

That’s all. Wish me luck on the trip!

Saturday April 30th is the 10 year anniversary of when I bought my car! Over 119,000 miles miles later it is still going although not nearly in the best condition. I remember when I bought the damn thing and why I wound up buying it. At the time I was driving my mom’s mini van. She had little use for it on account of her being dead. The van was a 1992 Ford Aerostar and I swear the damn thing had a mind of it’s own. I would be driving down the road and all of a sudden, the windshield wipers would go on for no reason. Or, it liked to die out at random times. I brought it into the shop on several occasions but they never could find what was wrong with it. Being that it was unreliable, I decided it was time for a new car. I settled for a Chevy Cavalier.

Now, this was the first time I had ever bought a car. Years earlier I had been with my older brother when he went to buy a used car. Why he only took me with I have no idea seeing as I knew nothing about cars (hell, I didn’t even have a license) but he really got screwed by the car salesman So I had this in my mind about him getting screwed and was determined not to allow myself to get screwed. I remember it was a Tuesday and I was working second shift at AAA and my twin brother was not working at all, so I took him with me. I had it set that I would not pay anymore than $230 a month for my car payment. I still remember the weaselly, slimy fucking salesman who thought he had an easy sale that he could fuck over. But, I was relentless.

I remember taking the thing for a test drive and liking it. I was insistent on getting cruise control and to this day am disappointed that I didn’t get it. But the sales process itself was classic. I told the guy that I couldn’t pay more than $230 a month. He told me he thought he could get me that and we started the negotiation process. He kept leaving and going to talk to the finance manager and he would come back with “great news” each time. The first time he came back he said he got me a great deal for $260 a month. I told him that was great but it was not $230 a month. I told him that if he was good to me I would recommend people to him when I had to deal with people with broken down cars at AAA. He left and came back with an AMAZING deal of $250 a month. I marveled at how great of a deal it was, but it still was not $230. He told me he could get me $230 if I would agree to put more money down but I wouldn’t budge. Instead I asked for the key to my van back (they were appraising it). He said he could swing something with an alarm if I was willing to pay more money. I told him I couldn’t afford more as I needed to still be able to afford to eat. He went back to his manager guy and came back with great news. He could get it for me for $229 a month.

Well, now comes time to mean the finance manager. I get in there and they talk me into an alarm which brings the price up to something like $245 a month. I changed my mind on the alarm and wanted it off to bring the price down to under $230. Only one problem. The price was never going to be $230, they still had it at over $240 without the alarm. Now I was pissed. I flat out told them how the salesman had lied to me and never intended to get me a car for under $230. At this point I had not signed anything and I told them I was going to walk out of there with a car for $230 and if they couldn’t do it for me than I was going to leave and never buy another GM again and being a young guy I would be buying a lot of cars the rest of my life and they just lost a ton of business. They asked Mark and I to leave the room while three of them talked it over.

While three of them talked in the office the salesman tried buddying up to me to which I responded in a dickish tone “Look, I don’t know what you think, but you and I aren’t friends, okay? I’m here for one reason only and that is to buy a car. You told me you were going to get me a car for $230 a month and you lied to me. I’m not exactly happy right now.”

A few minutes later they came back in and they told me they could give it to me for $229.37 a month, to which I responded “But its not $229 a month.” There jaws dropped and they got pissed. I told them I was only kidding and would take it for $229.37 a month, wiser for having been through the experience of buying a car.

Okay, I’ve got nothing to write about, so I’m going to blatantly steal this from storyofmylife87

Friday April 22 is Earth Day. Being somebody who cares deeply for the environment, I always try to dedicate a post to the day. What I find frustrating is that it seems like not enough people care or don’t care enough. When I think about all of the different issues affecting our country and world, I really do believe the environment is probably the most important issue. One of the reasons why it is so important is that it is something that can have an effect on so many other issues, yet people still don’t care. Or even worse than being apathetic or not caring, they fight against it. Quite honestly, I don’t see why there even has to be a debate about the thing, but for some reason, at least in this country generally speaking, liberals come out on the side of the environment and conservatives against it. Really, this is something that we all should be FOR with the only debate being what are the best ways to improve the environment.

Global climate change is the issue that gets the most attention, but of course, it is still an open debate, at least if you ask Republicans. While I do consider myself an environmentalist of sorts, I’m also a cynic first and foremost and so therefore, I’ve never believed in global warming 100%. I do fully believe, however, in the things that environmentalists and scientists want to do to solve the problem, such as cut down on emissions. Even if you think global warming is total bullshit, certainly we can agree that pumping all of those emissions and smoke into the air can not possibly be good for the planet or any of it’s inhabitants. There is no way that anybody is ever going to convince me that emissions are good for any single person to inhale on a daily basis.

Now many Republicans believe that doing something to cut emissions might hurt jobs. I think that it is a valid point, to an extent. But, what they (or any Democrats) fail to grasp is that this is a unique opportunity to CREATE jobs by switching to alternative fuels or finding ways to “go green’ as they say. Our planet and economy is in dire need of a green revolution and yet nobody in our political leadership is willing to take the baton and run with it.

Of course, the environment is more than just clean air and global climate change. We also need to focus on trash and overall consumption. I’ve heard on several occasions about a floating pile of trash the size of Texas in the Pacific Ocean. Again, the cynic in me doubts the claim. But, when it comes to trash, we all know that there is way too much trash in the world and it grows day after day. In fact, everything in the world at some point, will become trash. This is a problem that needs to be solved and again, should not be something that is open for debate, only HOW we can have less trash.

Water is another thing that is a big part of the environment that nobody seems to think twice about. Do you realize how many bottled water companies are around nowadays? Honestly, were there any even 20 years ago? And why do we even need bottled water? Because a lot of tap water, even here in the United States, is contaminated with various things, even if they are not all that harmful. What is worse is that in many countries around the world, they don’t have the option of bottled water but instead have to live off of contaminated drinking water. Seeing as not a single person can live without water, again, this is not something that should only be debated by HOW to provide clean drinking water to everybody. And since we drink so much bottled water, it, of course, results in more trash.

Yet, here we are, with Congress and the President sadly agreeing to massive cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency at at time when protecting the environment is a critical need. Look, we don’t exactly have a spare planet we can go to when we totally render this one unlivable, this is the only planet we have so let’s take care of it.

So I’m taking this trip to Los Angeles in just a little more then two short weeks. Now I live in the southern burbs of Chicago but for some stupid fucking reason, Air Tran doesn’t fly from Chicago to L.A. And why would they, I mean after all, it is only the second and third largest cities in the country. Fortunately though they do fly from Milwaukee to Los Angeles so we get to go to Milwaukee to fly, making my flight even longer than what it could be. This really fucking sucks.

Why does it really fucking suck, you ask? Because I’m totally fucking petrified to fly. Oh, I’ve flown before and I will fly again, assuming I survive this trip. But, I still HATE to fly. Now I want to clarify that I’m not afraid due to any potential terrorist attack or something like that. No, I’m not jumping on the whole afraid to fly bandwagon. I’ve always been afraid to fly. And it’s not the flying part that scares me. In fact, it is not even the crashing part that scares me, although I can’t imagine the crashing would be all that pleasant. No, it is the certain death that follows the flying and crashing that has me scared shitless. Or is it shitful?

Everybody has their own little suggestions as to how I can be okay on this flight. And certainly, if you want to add your own suggestions, go right ahead, I’m open to anything really. Some people tell me to just go to sleep on the plane, but I’m a really light sleeper as it is and being nervous and anxious as hell is not going to help. Other people say I should just get totally fucking loaded and pass out. Others say I should take some sort of drug, either legally prescribed by a doctor or illegally obtained from a “person in that sort of business.” I think all of those are fine and sound ideas, but I’m still scared.

Personally, I think I should just take something that knocks me the fuck out for somewhere around three and a half hours. I’ve always said I want to be out cold on a plane that way if the plane crashes, I never know. I mean, talk about a peaceful way to go. Think about it, while the rest of the plane is in complete and utter panic and hysteria, I’m asleep and none the wiser. Also, if I were awake I would no doubt be so panicked that I’m either having a stroke from my raging blood pressure or pissing myself out of fear. And honestly, can you think of a less dignified way to go than pissing yourself out of fear? Geez, when I think about it, that would be horrible. Than again, nobody would ever know, at least not until they find my body after the crash and see the wet spot on my pants and think “yep, this guy was a totally fucking wuss, he was so scared he pissed himself!” Yeah, being asleep is the way to go!

I don’t think I have ever shared this story here on Xanga and to be honest, I’m surprised because it is a really good one. At least when it comes to stories about my mom. Now I should give some background info on my mother. My mother was a………….er…………uhhhh, a unique lady to say the least. And I use the word lady in the loosest sense. My best friend once told me that my mom was “unlady like.” I think that was a nice way of putting it.

See, my mom was much older than me, which I know is the case for most people’s mothers but in my case, she was 41 years older then me as she was born in 1934. Because my dad died when I was four, she was often very fond of saying that she had been both mother and father to us kids. My mom was always more man than I could ever be and more male than I could ever have. I think her penis was bigger than mine. And she had hairier armpits.

My mom was a gruff, blunt, tactless, and obnoxious lady with a mouth like a fucking trucker and very little shame. So this made her a natural to run her own in home daycare. I always said when people took their kids to my mom she always taught them French as a second language! My mom was certainly not shy about using any type of offensive language around any children, yet like a good Catholic lady she always made us cover our eyes if there was a pair of tits being shown on t.v. Go figure.

My mom also had a very short fuse. She could go from zero to really fucking screaming in a manner of seconds. It was actually amazing to watch and quite scary, shit even adults were scared of her when they saw this transformation take place. Honestly, she probably could have been a character right out of Saturday Night Live.

About 20 years ago she was babysitting a bunch of kids, one of which was the type that would cry at a drop of a sandwich. Literally. She was a sweet girl, but very sensitive.  She was probably about 6 or 7 when the incident I’m about to describe happened. Now I should clarify, this story has gone down in lore amongst my friends and I have told it countless times throughout the years, but I have never written the story and it is certainly not going to come off nearly as funny as my telling it in person. But, here goes.

I was in high school at the time of this story probably about 15 or 16. All of the kids were playing around when the aforementioned girl told one of the other kids to “Come here, bucko.” Only my mother didn’t hear bucko. That’s right, being trained to astutely pick up any word and automatically convert it to a curse word, my mother heard “fucko.” That’s right, fucko, because after all, most 6 year olds are totally familiar with the word fucko. So this is how the conversation went, keeping in my mind that my mother was yelling the entire time and the little girl was crying the entire time:

Mom: “WHAT? WHAT DID YOU SAY NICKI? DID YOU SAY FUCKO? IS THAT WHAT YOU SAID, FUCKO?”

Frightened little girl: “NOOOOO, NOOOO!”

Me(laughing I might add): “No mom, she said……”

Mom (pointing at me): “SHUT UP! SHUT UP!” Now looking back at the girl “DID YOU SAY FUCKO? DID YOU? DID YOU SAY FUCKO NICKI, IS THAT WHAT YOU SAID, FUCKO?”

Crying and nearly pissing herself with fear little girl: “NOOOOO, NO I didn’t.”

Me: “no, mom, she said bucko.”

Little girl so scared she can barely even admit to speaking: “no, no I didn’t” She was so scared that she didn’t even want to admit to saying bucko!

Now I realize that this whole story sounds horrible and awful and maybe you just had to be there or had to know my mom. Certainly my mom did not handle this proper in any stretch of the imagination, in fact, I would not defend her at all with regards to this. But, we have always found this to be a very funny story because, honestly, what type of adult reacts this way to a kid? And where the hell did she come up with fucko? Seriously, fucko?

The year 2001 was a big year for me, a lot happened either good or bad. After my mom died of cancer in early 2000, I was determined to get a job that offered health insurance so in part, that I could go to the doctor for routine physicals. In February I wound up getting a job at AAA and within a matter of just a few months I was promoted. As for the health insurance, I wound up getting coverage for the first time in 8 years. Turns out I would really need it later in the year, but more on that later. Since 2001, I have managed to go for a routine physical every single year, including this year when I will go in a couple of weeks.

On April 2 of that year, I met my friend Danel who would go on to become one of my best friends. We had an instant connection; almost like soul mates if you believe that sort of thing (I don’t). Like many great friendships, this one had a funny story that started off the friendship. She worked at AAA but in another office. I had always seen her name in our system but because I had never seen the name Danel before I assumed it was a misspelling and that her name was actually Daniel. So finally she came out to our office and the moment I saw her I read her nametag and said these exact words: “Holy shit, you’re a girl!” And with that it was on. I remember calling my best friend Jt when I got home that night and told him I had met the person of my dreams and her name was Danel. He knew I was gay and was stunned by my call. We actually wound up going on a few dates but nothing became of it for obvious reasons.

Flash forward to April 30 when I bought my car, a 2001 Chevy Cavalier. There is a funny story about me at the dealership but that deserves it own post. It was the first brand new car I had ever bought and 118,000 miles and 10 years later, I still have the damn thing. After having the car for only a few weeks and under 500 miles, I dozed off at the wheel on my way to work on a Tuesday in May and drove it into a curb, destroying not only my tire but also the rim.

It was a bad year for my battle against curbs. On July 4, I was playing right field in a game of baseball when my cousin hit a long foul ball that I went after at full speed. It went into the parking lot and I raced after it to try to stop it from going into the street. I never even saw the curb that I tripped over and landed hard on my right shoulder. Curbs 2, Mike 0. There were two things I instantly realized: the laughter coming from the field at the sight of my stumble and the excruciating pain that was radiating from my shoulder. I thought it was just a bad bruise so I got up and continued to play the entire game (this happened in the first inning) in part because I didn’t want people to make fun of me for not playing due to a simple bruise. As the game went on though, the pain got worse and worse to the point where just swinging the bat or throwing the ball resulted in the worst pain imaginable. Turns out it was right to hurt like hell as I had separated my shoulder.

Although it was only a first degree separation, I spent much of the rest of the summer recovering from my injury; and injury that still hurts every now and then if I sleep on it wrong. I remember my last doctor appointment for the shoulder was on September 10th. The world changed forever the next day.

In June of 2001, my friend Jt and I took a one day road trip down to Cincinnati to watch the Cubs play the Reds. I live in the southwest burbs of Chicago and Cincy is about a 5 hour drive from my house. We took the Cavalier, left at 10am, got down there about 4:30 (we lost an hour due to the time change) watched the game which started at 7:10 pm then drove home right after, getting home at about 3:30 in the morning. Some say it’s nuts to drive that far for a 3 hour baseball game, but I ask those people where is your sense of adventure?

So those were my own personal memories of 2001.

Wow, I can’t believe 2001 was 10 years ago already. Every year I like to do a rather lame ass post about what went on 10 years ago as a way to look back and see how far we/I have come. I’ve decided this year to split it up between two posts, one for my own personal 2001 and another one for the year 2001, which is where I will start.

Of course one thing overshadows everything else when you talk about the year 2001: wait, I forgot. Okay fine, I didn’t actually forget, but honestly, do we really need reminding of that fateful day in September when we are all going to hear about it all summer long? Instead there were some other rather significant stories before then in the year 2001:

January 20- George W Bush takes office. The world is never the same. Just ask the hundreds of thousands of people dead from the Iraq war.

February 18- FBI agent Robert Hanssen is arrested and charged with spying for Russia for 15 years. The joke is on him though as the cold war had been over for much of that time, rendering his prison rape rather pointless.

April 1- Speaking of spying, turns out we Americans aren’t very good at it. An American surveillance jet has a run in with a Chinese jet in China. The Chinese respond by poisoning our children’s toys with led for the next 10 years.

Summer 2001- George W Bush decides that reading memos about Osama Bin Laden determined to attack the United States is not important. Gee, I wonder how that worked out for him?

Also a couple of other things that didn’t have actual dates on them. Remember Gary Condit and Chandra Levy? He was a Congressman and she was the intern who he was fucking that went missing? Also Danny Almonte, the kid who lied about his age so he can be on a little league team? These were both very hot stories until September.

Remember these songs from 2001?

Lady Marmalade- Christina Aguilera
Thank You- Dido
It Wasn’t Me- Shaggy
Survivor- Destiny’s Child
How You Remind Me- Nickelback
It’s Been A While- Staind
Beautiful Day- U2
Southside- Moby featuring Gwen Stefani
Ms. Jackson- Outkast
Babylon- David Gray
Drive-Incubus
Drops of Jupiter- Train
Butterfly- Crazy Town

Or how about these movies?

Lord of the Rings
Memento
Blow
Harry Potter
Monsters Inc
A Beautiful Mind
Shrek
Donnie Darko
Black Hawk Down
Ali
Moulin Rouge

Or these tv shows:

Friends
CSI
E.R.
Everybody Loves Raymond
Law and Order
West Wing
Will and Grace
Frasier

So there you go, a brief look back. So what do you remember most about 2001, besides the obvious?

Guess who I just got off the phone with? The Los Angeles Dodgers! As you might recall from my April 2 post, I am the fortunate winner of a trip to Los Angeles to see my Chicago Cubs lose to the L.A. Dodgers. Well, I got the package in the mail from the Red Cross today and started the process of finalizing the details. Check this shit out. For me and my three guests, in addition to meeting Dodgers manager Don Mattingly, we get to watch batting practice from the field right behind home plate. We also get to sit in what amounts to the best seats in the house and have passes to all the food and non alcoholic drinks we can ingest. I tell you, its all too good to be true. I’m sorry, I’m not trying to rub it in, but I can’t believe I won it.

To make things even better, I’ve managed to convince probably my three best friends to go with me. All we have to pay for is airfare for two of them which will be split among all four of us. We also need to pay for a third night at the hotel as we decided to go from Saturday until Tuesday even though we have only two nights at the hotel. We are going to be in L.A. on a Saturday night. Let’s see how much trouble we can get ourselves into!

As excited as I am about the trip, I’m nearly as equally excited as getting the boys together to go just like old times when we used to take road trips together. Those road trips were probably the most non sexual fun I’ve had in my life and while it has been years since we last took a trip together, I would imagine it’s going to be just like old times. I absolutely love hanging out with them guys and a trip together like this is going to totally kick ass; I can’t imagine going with anybody else.

I  haven’t written about basketball in a long time so this post is long overdue, especially with how excited my favorite team, the Chicago Bulls, have me right now. Those of you who aren’t huge basketball fans or who doesn’t have a chance to watch the Bulls on a regular basis are missing out. The Bulls have the likely MVP of the league and one of the most exciting players to watch in Derrick Rose. I have the pleasure of being able to watch just about all Bulls games, but he still never ceases to amaze or excite me.

I knew the Bulls would be good this year. In fact, before the season, I made a bet with a friend that they would win more than 45 games. Well, not only have the blown right past that number, as I write this they appear well on their way to win number 57. And not just win number 57, but in all likely hood the number one seed in the Eastern Conference. And they still have an outside yet long shot at finishing with the best record in the NBA. Nobody thought they would be this good.

Now I don’t want to take joy in the misfortune of others, but I love the fact that they have a better record than the Miami Heat. In spite of all the hype and undeserving hysteria of the Heat, the Bulls not only have a better record than them, but they also swept the season series from the Heat. See, I HATE Lebron James probably more than any other player in the league and nothing makes me happier than to see him fail. Although I know this is very unlikely, but if he did not win a title the entire time in Miami, well, I might just be so fucking jubilant that I will have an erection lasting longer than four hours.

Than there are the Boston Celtics. I do not hate the Celtics; in fact, I’ve always loved Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett. But, they were expected to be better than the Bulls as well and for much of the season they were. Now they trail the Bulls by three games in the East. I’m quite certain they will be saving their best basketball for the post season, but it is still pretty damn stunning that these young Bulls are going to finish with a better record than them.

Of course, I do fully recognize that the Celtics or Heat might very well beat the Bulls in the playoffs. But, for right now, I’m just going with the flow of the excitement that they have brought me and the city. I’m not saying Rose and the Bulls are anything like the Michael Jordan teams of the 1990s; shit, that as once in a lifetime stuff back then complete with well earned hysteria. But, this is the closest thing we have had to that here in Chicago since then, at least when it comes to basketball.