Since Dad's retirement announcement, Mom's been sending me newspaper clippings and forwarding me links to articles. It's nice to see the outpouring of praise. It reminds me a bit of watching the reviews for You Don't Know Jack come in, and even sniffing around the internet after our wedding for people posting pictures on Facebook. After such a big event, just trying to get some hints at what it all really looked like. Maybe the internet can help me understand what just happened to me.

My dad's always had a coach's stoicism, wisely avoiding any whiff of hubris ("That was a good game/season, but let's focus on the challenges ahead..."), so I hope now he can begin to step back and see what a truly amazing career he's had.

Poland, one of my coworkers, mentioned recently that he actually had a just-in-case speech prepared for the wedding.

Besides being one of the best writers for You Don't Know Jack, Poland also does all the music and most of the sound effects for the game. Over the years, if I couldn't think of a funny joke for a certain dialogue slot, I'd write in some kind of funny sound effect instruction, knowing that Poland would do it, and make it hilarious. This eventually evolved into me intentionally inventing strange sfx instructions just to see if he could do it.

Well, apparently he printed up a list of some of his favorites that I'd written, and although he didn't get a chance to read them at the wedding, here are some of them:

"[sfx: eagle caw and then poop sound]"

"[SFX: parrot vomitting] (sic)"

"(SFX: sheep baa, then gunshot, then thump of sheep hitting ground)"

"[SFX: nunchuk sound, interspersed with painful sounding bonks]"

“eagle shooting lasers out of eyes”

"[SFX: sheep baaing, positively?]"

"[sfx: squawking of multiple falling chickens]"

"[sfx: sad pig squeal]"

"[sfx: pterodactyl hitting a cow?]"

"[sfx: dolphin squeals then 70s porn music]"

"[sfx: background sound of a sort of regal meow]"

"[sfx: two boob honks and a poop sound]"

"[SFX: violin, trumpet, guitar and bongo blasting out noise and mariachi singer yelling ominous things in Spanish]"

"[sfx: angry sounding tinkerbell talking]"

"[sfx: pretty bird sounds, then a loud jet sound, and somehow getting across that the jet kills the birds?]"

"[SFX; fart noise]"

"[SFX: funnier fart noise]"

"[SFX: funniest fart noise]"

Reunited!

Colds mostly gone. Quarantine over!

We had a little surprise party at work for Harry, the company's founder and CEO.

There's new teleconferencing equipment upstairs that's pretty neat. For instance, if there's more than one person video-calling in, the person speaking is automatically placed into the biggest part of the screen, on the left. So, the people are periodically shuffled around the screen as they talk. Pretty cool. Although it makes it a lot harder for those people to try to send a "Happy Birthday" message with signs, and keep them in the correct order.

Sarah did some promotional work last night where she had to walk around a corporate party pretending to be a frazzled bride-to-be, interacting with guests and then later do a musical number on stage. This picture is the slide they used for her character, "Sarah Shaffer."

Me: Was it weird to be dressed as a bride again?
Sarah: Not really. It was a much simpler dress. But I was excited to wear my headpiece again from the wedding.

These sort of being-a-character-at-a-party gigs can be awkward, but they can pay well.

Sarah: I was trying to think of things to say, so I asked one woman where she got her shoes and she pulled me aside and gave me all this wedding advice.
Me: So... she didn't realize it was fake?
Sarah: No, I think she did.
Me: But that was just the conversation she wanted to have.
Sarah: I don't think she knew anyone at the party, so I was someone to talk to. I was slouching a lot, as part of my character, and she gave me all these posture tips for the big day.

This is the apartment building where Young and I lived before Sarah and I moved in together.

Longtime readers of my blogs may remember that there was a crappy open storefront beneath us, then it became the "Mini Flea," a sort of misguided used furniture store that looked like someone shoved a bunch of dingy furniture into a room and called it a store. A dry erase board out front read, "Free Hot Dog All Day." It didn't last long. The "Grand Opening" banner was still up when it closed down. After that it became the home of the local Chamber of Commerce.

Young: I went by there this weekend, and you know where the Mini Flea used to be? It's now the Chicago Tea Party headquarters.

So it goes.

I drove by the new "Mini Tea" today to see for myself and it somehow looks even more slapdash than that resale shop ever did.

Our neighbors in the apartment next to us are a bunch of dumb loud kids. I sort of suspected we were in for trouble when they moved in over a year ago, and one of them had a black eye and was carrying a kegorator up the stairs.

They must be annoying other people in the building because I found this note crumpled up in the trash down by all the mailboxes. I dug it out because I found it funny. My favorite part is the response from the "mailman." I truly hope that it's actually from our mailman and not just someone with a good sense of humor.

Just because I "graduated" from physical therapy doesn't mean I'm done. Now I just do the home exercises. Many of the same exercises, only replacing machines and official equipment with things around the house. You know, like a prison workout.

For instance, in the gym I used to do an exercise where I stood on my left leg, knee slightly bent and placed five small orange traffic cones down on workout bench and then picked them up and them put them down over and over again. For the home version I use this old wooden storage chest and these leftover plastic wedding cups.

The cold and flu season is still in full effect in our apartment. Sarah’s cold is so bad that we’ve decided to utilize “sick bay,” aka “the guest room.” Of course, despite the fact that I’m mostly okay now, I’m the one sleeping sick bay, but, oh well. It feels strange to be separated by this self-imposed quarantine.

Sarah: [via text sent from the bedroom] “G’night Roomie Husband.”
Me: [via text from Sick Bay] “We are not roomies. We are temporarily starcrossed lovers. Our eventual reunion will be beautiful.”
Sarah: “Ooooo. Then are you my Phantom of the Husband?”
Me: “Yes. Especially because that makes no sense.”

Sarah and I, despite being pretty nerdy, keep missing the comic book conventions in Chicago. We keep meaning to go. C2E2 was a couple weekends ago, but again, we missed it.

Young went though, and if this picture he sent is any indication, he had a great time.