Well... There Goes Retirement

If you read our Bios on the About Page you'll see that I have 2 wonderful daughters. They are awesome. Emotionally unstable at times, but overall still the best kids anyone could ask for. Well their lives are about change drastically. Through mostly fault of my own we will be adding to our brood in October. I am thoroughly excited about this. However, that excitement is paired with equal amounts of anxiety & concern. Before anyone freaks out, everyone is healthy. The concern on my part is just the overall questions that come along with being a dad.

• Is it a boy or a girl? While some people insist on finding out the sex of their kids, my wife since our first child has insisted on not finding out. We tend fly by the seat of our pants and are terrible planners for stuff like this. So being surprised in the delivery room has been a great thing for us. Also the hospital staff gets into it too because they don't know either. That being said, with 2 girls already on land, I am a bit curious to see if I need to build a tampon closet in 10 years. +1 for gender stress


• Is the baby healthy? I know I have absolutely no control over this. But this is the number one-ish concern for me.  I want my kid to grow up with every advantage possible and want them to be able to live a normal life. However, it weighs on my mind daily. +1 for uncontrollable factors


• How the hell are 2 of us going to raise 3 kids? 1 kid is easy although you don't realize how easy it is until you have number 2. Right now 2 is good. Not easy, but we can each restrain one and not worry about a surprise folding chair to the back. +1 for WWE-like interference stress


• Please don't be a vampire... Admittedly I have read the Twilight series. In the last book the girl has a half-vampire, half-human child. A vampire kid would be cool, but is it worth the beating she receives? Its the pregnancy issues my wife goes through that I have a hard time with. She literally gives up so much physically to have a kid it is amazing that she would want to have more than one. The daily vomiting and constant nausea to me seems unbearable, but she does it. She's also has had preeclampsia & Bell's Palsy with the other kids too. She amazes me at how much she is willing to go through. I just don't want her to be in any pain. This is the other number one-ish concern. +2 for Twilight reference & wife stress


• How can we afford it? Not that I am Scrooge McDuck and have a room of money to swim in, but planning for the future has always been on the forefront of my wife's & my thoughts. Almost to a fault we put away money for ourselves and kids (mostly kids) leaving not much in the tank to have some extras we might want or go on vacations. We are fine with this rationale. However, I don't know how we can keep saving & pay for another one to go to Day Care (which is in my mind a Ponzi Scheme). We could buy another (larger) house for what child care will cost us. Somehow this blog needs to start turning a profit or I will be reduced to reviewing diapers in hopes I can get them free. +1 for not having a condo in France

Okay, it really isn't that bad, but you get the point. Also, let it be known (and if my wife decides to actually read something I write) that I am extremely happy about the new addition and wouldn't trade any of the stress above for the end result.

-S

Death Flight 2011

Flew from St. Louis to Chicago to Charleston, WV this week, and there were more than a couple of moments that I was less than thrilled about it.

I should probably preface this by saying that I have a knack of working for places that operate in pretty remote locales. My last job was for a healthcare company that served the largely rural portions of Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma and I currently work for a coal mining company (and obviously the views in this space are mine and not those of my company yada, yada, yada) which operates largely in Central Appalachia and the Mountain West areas. I actually do typically enjoy the travel (I don't have to do it much, and it’s nice to get out and see how the money gets made), but it typically involves lots of short flights in a row. I'm not what you'd call a nervous flyer. The worst part to me is only having 20 minutes worth of airline magazines to read but 40 minutes of flight time where I can't turn on my electronic devices (note to self: grab a newspaper before flying home), and somehow still not getting the extra special TSA pat down (kidding, mostly).

So, this week I was flying from St. Louis to Charleston, WV via Chicago. Aside from leaving the gate late (which doesn't even qualify as an inconvenience anymore) the first leg was pretty uneventful. From St. Louis to Chicago is literally up and down -- they don't even bother to pretend they are going to serve refreshments.

The second leg, however, started off a little more ominously. We (I was on the trip with a coworker) got to Chicago late, but fortunately our connecting flight was even more late, so we grabbed something to eat at the Chili's Too (do they even have Chili's standalone restaurants anymore? The link I just included would lead me to believe "yes.") which was directly across from our gate. Which had a paper sign (taped to the functioning monitor) that said simply "Charleston, WV" in Sharpie. Good thing we chose that spot, because they started boarding far sooner than they were supposed to. Only through my Herculean efforts was I able to ensure that none of my French fries were left behind; my traveling companions burger was not so lucky.

We then hurried onto the plane so we could be passively aggressively directed ("we'll pull away from the gate as soon as everyone has turned off their electronic devices") in order to rush to the tarmac where we waited for 45 minutes to take off in a torrential downpour. Once in the air, it only got more fun as the captain came on the speaker to warn us that they were going to try to retest some system that wasn't flashing right on the flashy thing in the cockpit, and that if that didn't work out we'd be going back to Chicago to land in the torrential downpour. Then the plane got really loud as it sounded like they were trying to open the bomb bay doors. Immediately after that sound subsided the plane banked strongly to the right, and everyone let out a groan because we were obviously going back to Chicago. Two minutes later the captain came back on and said everything was fine.

As an aside, I've never understood the whole "if something is wrong we're going to fly back and land at where we just took off from" mentality. To me, if we are going to crash, I'd just as soon do it at my destination as opposed to my starting point. If we have a terrible landing in Chicago, it isn't like I'm gonna want to hop on the next plane to Charleston. If we have a terrible landing in Charleston, at least I have two days to get over it before I return home.

After that, things got much better. The <sarcasm>cheery</sarcasm> flight attendant apologized for the rough flight and gave us all free trail mix after assuring us that this was his best flight of the day. Free trail mix cures a lot. Maybe <more sarcasm>I'll start bringing that home when I forget my anniversary</more sarcasm>.

The rest of the evening was pretty unremarkable aside from our luggage being wet and the Mapquest iPhone app sucking. Can't wait to fly back home. Hope it is on American Eagle, again.

Pants Make Me Happy

Pants are a staple in every non-clinically insane person's wardrobe. They keep us warm, protect our legs from would be intruders, and in most cases serve as the base for a Man's work wardrobe. Before we dive into this topic much more, I want to distinguish here that when I say "Pants" I mean your khaki-type material 2 legged variety. Anything made of denim are jeans,  & mesh or thick cotton are sweat pants. Also, pants start at the waist and cover the entire leg, not 3/4 of it. They have 4 pockets 2 in front & 2 in back (not cargo pants). They are simple and wonderful.

Until recently, I didn't take much stock into my pants. I had a few here and there and I stayed within the Dockers arena. Dockers are a fine pant indeed, but at the end of the day, I wasn't crazy about them, the weren't flattering and everyone else on the planet (of Metro St. Louis) wears them. They are safe pants. They had served me well before I had lost all my weight because I could find that size 42 waist pretty much anywhere I went, try them on, sulk about being fat, and buy them. And quite frankly when you are fat, you just want to blend in anyway. Which Dockers are great for. Any additional attention would make you seem like you were a fat guy trying to be trendy or cool and that's not what I wanted. I don't want this to sound bad for Dockers, they serve the masses with quality, affordable pants.

So, after the lbs have dropped and I am at a steady size that I'd like to be. I am a new person, more confident, yada yada, yada. I needed to refresh my closet. It has been a slow process for me to upgrade my wardrobe accordingly due to the cost. Shirts are pretty easy for guys, they come in lettered sizes and they have buttons on them. Also I can get away with some of the shirts I already had. However, it has recently come down to getting some new pants and I refused to buy Dockers because I wanted my wardrobe selection to change with my new image. Enter Bonobos.

I was briefly introduced to Bonobos by a friend a few years ago but never bought anything. I completely forgot about them until one off my favorite sites Earndit had a $50 gift card as one of their rewards (and they still do). So I saved up the points and got that Gift Card. Little did I know that gift card would start a small obsession with this company. I went online and bought the The Graham Slackers. It was a good match. The pants fit very well and they have just a small bit of the "hey look at me" that I would shy away from in my fat days. I just bought my second pair this week and I am excited about them. If there's one issue I have with the first pair is that the Length of 32 was a little shorter than what I am used to. I am talking about maybe 1/2 - 3/4 of an inch or so, but not quite enough to test the return policy. They still look good.

So what makes Bonobos different? Here's my opinion. They only exist online. I guess one could go to their NYC office (not retail store) and try stuff on, but I don't think I will get approval to fly to NYC to try on a pair of pants unless Bonobos would foot the bill. So existing online is a cheaper way of doing things for sure, but what if the pants don't fit correctly? Bonobos is crazy about customer service. They will take their pants back for any reason at any time. This security helps a dude in St. Louis feel OK about buying something and not having to deal with the hassle of trying to get a company to accept a return. Also, I have called their "Ninjas" (customer service reps) on a couple of occasions and they are easy to talk to and know their product. Lets be honest, its tough for a guy to call up another guy and ask "Hey whats the inseam length on your "Crabby Shack" shorts?" But its easy with these guys. They just get it. Surprisingly, they really don't do much marketing that I have seen outside of the web. It seems they rely on word of mouth more than anything. Finally, their customers can get referral bonuses for sending people to buy stuff. I would want to work for these guys based on the quality of their product and their business model. Unfortunately the Mid-West is not known as a fashion hub. So the best I can hope for is they want to use my basement to store product.

I am giving Company a rating of A Little Bit of Italy & the Pants the rating of Amighetti's Special (only because of the length issue) from our sandwich scale. This is a pretty impressive 1, 2 punch.

So anyway, you should go check these guys out, do it, buy the pants. Also use this link so I can get some referral love from them:

http://www.bonobos.com/invite/shepponis17611

-S