Hotel Hell, We Hardly Knew Ye

When I first heard the news today that Hotel Hell was demolished, I was livid.  What are they going to demolish next?  Hidden Valley Park?  That spot behind the airport where the planes fly in?  Krolls?  Kids have to smoke doobies somewhere, ya know.

But then Jess cleared up the misinformation campaign against Hotel Hell.  Apparently the storm last night knocked over some trees, which in turn caved in the structure .  That makes a lot more sense given the cursed nature of the property and because there was a huge ass storm last night.  I bet that place is even scarier now.  That actually makes me happier.

I remember the first time going out to Hotel Hell.  It was the middle of winter in the middle of night.  We were standing in a circle outside the hotel chain smoking cigarettes.

You go in first.   No, you go in first.   I’m not going in there.  Just do it, you pussy.   You’re a pussy.  Fine, let’s go in together.  But you got to lead and go in first. You go in first. 

This went on for like 30 minutes.  Then all of a sudden Dingeldein pokes his head up and waves to us from the 2^nd floor with a big shit-eating grin.  Hey guys!  Classic Dingeldein.  Classic brave dumb Dingeldein.

Of course we all had to go in after that and that truly was spooky and not smart.  There were loose boards all over the place.  No one wanted to fall in the basement where everyone knows they used to host satanic rituals.  There could be no other explanation as to why the hotel burned down.  None.

I miss high school when that shit used to be so fun.  Driving out to some dumb place just to hang out all night used to be so adventurous.  Now if someone asked me to drive out to Manitowoc to look at a haunted house, I’d say no thanks, I got better things to do.  The Brewers are down 0-7 in the third but I’m going to stay on the couch and see how this plays out. 

Maybe I’ll go out there and check out the damage of for old times sake.  I’ll reattempt to find that pack of Marlboros that Kyle dropped in the woods that one time when the cops busted us.  We drove back there the next day to fetch them but we had no luck.  Gas was $.94 a gallon.

 

 Here is the before picture, still creepy as ever.

 And what remains of this once hallowed high school institution.

Someone make High School Football Fantasy Camp a thing, please.

My dad’s credit union recently made a donation to Ashwaubenon High School to replace the football field grass to artificial turf that will allow a lot more use out of the facility.   This is a real missed opportunity.  Not because there are more worthy charity endeavors than replacing grass for a football field.  I’m talking about implementing my plan for high school football fantasy camp.

The idea is simple.   All season long,  offer 20 rotating spots on the practice squad for one week for like a thousand dollars a pop.  I would do this in a heartbeat. 

That turf could have been paid for 10 times over by Homecoming.  And the cash flow would be constant with dudes coming in at various points in their life cycles every five years or so.

I especially regret that that there was no high school football fantasy camp when I was 26 or 27 when I blossomed as a man.   I had a hard time not laughing out loud writing that last sentence even though it’s true.   I was in peak physical condition and a lot more coordinated than I was in high school, I could have cracked some cocky teenager skulls and it would have been glorious. 

The next prime stage would be like right about now, in my early 30’s.  I got into an argument at Cropseys just last weekend about this.  I think I could still hang with those high school kids but Mallien assured me that I would get killed at this point in my football career.   I honestly don’t know what would happen but I would think there would be a lot of wagering amongst friends and it would be interesting.

The next phase would be long and it would basically just be a bunch of pathetic old guys joining for the camaraderie and to ogle the girls on the Pom Pom squad without setting off an amber alert.  Do those girls still practice routines outside in their sports bras?  I don’t know.  But I’ll find out when I’m 45.   Can’t wait.

Phase 4 is where it gets interesting again.   This is when dads are joining high school football fantasy camp in order to find a legitimate means to stomp their sons.  I can’t wait to run the gauntlet with my future son, who I love very much, but God he thinks he knows everything but he really doesn’t know shit.  Worst-case scenario, you end up making a complete ass of yourself in which case your kid is still humiliated in front of his friends, which is cool.

After your kids are graduated it’s back to the Pom Pom ogling for another decade or so but then you would have one last shot at greatness as you eventually develop OLD MAN STRENGTH which everyone knows make you invincible.   You can stomp everyone, even the 26 year olds.  There’s no point in them trying to stop you, their youth and stamina only make you angrier.   Then you ride off into the sunset in a grizzled blaze of glory before being put into a nursing home.   It’s a perfect plan.

And that pussy baby grass would be paid for, which we didn’t have as a kid.  Damn kids are spoiled these days.   Someone make this happen. I would but I’m busy.

The Legend of Brazilian Short Shorts

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Many of you are aware of our recent travels to Brazil a couple of weeks ago.  My family and a couple of other random families flew to Rio for three nights and Curitiba for seven nights to attend the wedding of Maite and Felipe.  Maite was a foreign exchange student that my parents informally adopted when my bro and I were in college and they kept touch all these years.   It was a wonderful trip and a good time was had by all.

 HOT PANTS!

 

So naturally, going to Rio, we wanted to assimilate with the culture.  Sweater Man (Joey Wollin) and I thought this entailed wearing hot pants and Speedos.   All the travel books said we would look like assholes if we didn’t wear these things on Copacabana Beach.   Yes, there were lots of hot pants and Speedos there but Frommers was wrong.  Boring-ass long conservative American board shorts are perfectly acceptable there.

 

But that didn’t stop us from throwing out the vibe and throw out the vibe we did. You’re pretty much in a constant state of throwing out vibe when wearing those bad boys.  Chicks love a good high thigh farmer tan.  I was really self-conscious about wearing them at first, but all it took was a couple Caprihanas and I was doing jumping jacks all over the place.

 

I thought these were the sexiest photographs ever but then I remembered that THIS is still on the Internet.

Caprihanas are the national cocktail of Brazil.  They are delicious and they have lots of alcohol in them.  Beer and Caprihanas are really cheap in Brazil.  Like close to Cropsey’s cheap.  Thanks, Exchange Rate!

The rest of the week was a blur.  We did all the tourist stuff in Rio, surfed Ipanema beach, flew to Curitiba, went Anthony Bourdain style on some smaller Brazil towns including this crazy little new city for rich people that I forgot the name of but I’m calling it New Miami, went clubbing, and finally had it capped it off by the most epic wedding ever. 

 

I thought open bar was the best you could do at a wedding.  I was wrong.  Private waiter at every table that fills up your drink with wine or whiskey or champagne or beer after taking a sip is now the best you can do at a wedding.  And have this service available until 5:00 am.  Brazilians really know how to party.  I would kill to see the bar tab from this thing.  I would kill to see the flower bill to tell you the truth.  Like I said, it was crazy balls and I appreciate weddings now.

I was a hot mess by the time the week was over.  Hungover as hell, at the airport on the way home, I was eating an ice cream drumstick thing with a wrapper and I was sort of leaning over my chair in the waiting area eating it.   I had the wrapper on the ground next to my feet.  I was totally going to throw it away when I was done.  But then this Brazilian cleaning lady came by and picked up the wrapper right by my feet and gave me the stink eye.  I don’t speak Portuguese but I know stink eye when I see it and it is universal. 

I deserved it.  That lady thought I was a jerk American who thinks he can litter wherever he pleases because USA is number one.   Since I was already guilty of the crime, I was ridiculously close to snubbing out my ice cream cone on the floor with my foot and then signaling the lady to come over to clean it up.  I started thinking about this and then I started laughing hysterically to myself for about five minutes straight.   Jess just stared at me and then moved over a couple of seats.

Next time I travel abroad, I’m totally going to litter everywhere and be the littering American that doesn’t give a shit because he’s the tops.  That will make one hell of a blog post.

Also, by “surfing Ipanema” I mean my brother rented a surfboard and we took turns laying on our bellies in the ocean while gawking at the locals because we couldn’t stand up on the surfboard to save our lives.  But yeah, we surfed Ipanema.

I Love The Half Price Card Store

Today I made my annual trek to the half price greeting card store on Hansen Street.  Unfortunately my bid to get Jess to go along with Test Number 1 was unsuccessful. 

Which is fine, I really didn’t think that plan through.  Oh man!  I was so young and naïve back in 2005!  Who knew I would become the grizzled wise man that I am today.

The whole point of that exercise was to never have to scramble to find a greeting card again but then I would have to offer a thousand bucks to my immediate family as well and that is just too cost prohibitive.

So what I do now is, once a year, I go to the half price card store and buy all my cards for the entire year.   Believe or not I still actually care what the card says, I don’t just take the cheapest ones and call it a day.  I was there for almost 30 minutes, which is an excruciatingly long time to shop for such things.  

There were a lot of duds to sift through.  But if you look hard enough you can find $4.00 or maybe even $4.50 sentimental dollar value for two bucks or less.   Don’t expect $5.00 sentimental dollar value though, it ain’t a Hallmark store.

I dump all these cards on the counter and the check out lady rings them up one by one.  The total was $54.  I’m thinking to myself, “holy shit, what a waste of money!” But then I forgot they take the discount off at the end so the total was $27.  I thought to myself, ”holy shit, what a waste of money!”  But still.  27 bucks.  That’s nothing to scoff at.

I had a hard time keeping a straight face when the checkout lady asked me if I came to the store often.  She wanted to give me a frequent shopper card.  I just bought a birthday card for my wife, for my mom, for my dad, for my brother, for my grandma, an anniversary card for my wife, and anniversary card for my parents, a Father’s Day card, a MOTHER’S DAY CARD, six money holder wedding cards, a stack of thank you cards, and what the hell, a baptism card because ya just never know when you are going to get invited to a last minute baptism party.

“Ummmmm.  I come here about once a year”.

I still took the frequent shopper card.  After my shopping trek next year, the punch card should be filled out so the year after that, I’ll get an additional 15% off.  So I got that going for me and son of a bitch I just realized I forgot to get a Valentines Day card and now I’m going to have to go back sometime between now and February well that’s just great.  Bring a checklist, fellas.

Another downfall of this strategy is that you will inevitably end up grabbing the wrong envelope for at least one card.  If you ever get a greeting card from me and the envelop is like twice the size of the card and the card is just jostling around in there, now you know.  This is a best case scenario.  Things get ugly fast when the envelope is too small.

Anyways, HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESSICA MY LOVELY WIFE!  I hope you like your birthday card this year;)

You Want Bloody Nipples? You Got Bloody Nipples!

I’m sorry.  I used that attention-grabbing headliner under false pretenses.  I can only offer you one measly bloody nipple. 

This particular bloody nipple belongs to my brother, Joey Wollin.  He completed the Green Bay Marathon on Sunday along with his gf, Corey.  Jess completed it too.  Here she is at mile 26, barely breaking a sweat and having the time of her life apparently.

I’m kidding, she was actually quite delusional at this point.  She has no recollection of seeing me here when I took this photo even though I was like 5 feet from her and I was cheering for her and she looked at me.  No memory though, she says.  I believe it, running that far and long does weird things to your body and mind.

I did not complete the marathon.   I had to drop out around mile 15 because of aching knee pains, which I later found out was a flared IT band.  It’s my own fault.  I ran too fast in the beginning of the course and did not keep up my normal pace.

The problem is that I see these 95-year old dudes just cruising through the course and then I have to pass them.  There’s no way I’m going to let Blue beat me to the finish.   But then I over exert myself and I paid the price for it.  Plus bad genes.  I’m going to blame them too.

So I had to take the walk of shame back to Lambeau where the finish line was located.  Well, since guys don’t have a walk of shame (walk of fame, what what!) I can only imagine that is what a walk of shame feels like.  It stinks.

I probably could have limped in the rest of way but I basically did that last year and I didn’t want to jeopardize the 2013 kickball season.   We’ve got a title to reclaim.

Even though I finished the GB marathon last year, I really wanted it to be official this year and get a recorded time.  This was going to be my last race and then I was going to put this horse out to stud.  But now I have to run another one of these stupid things.  Oh well.

I’ve got to do some foam roller stretches now.  Those are fun.  Somebody get Steven Spielberg on the phone, I’ve got an idea for Zero Dark Thirty 2. 

Working From Home Is Not A Drag

So I’m working from home now. I was working at Cellcom as a desk jockey for the past couple of years but now I’m a freelance desk jockey working out of one of our extra bedrooms doing appraisal work.

Working from home is a lot like being unemployed with one major difference. When I was unemployed, I wore sweat pants every day. When working from home, I wear sweat pants every day!

It’s been about six weeks now and the novelty is starting to wear off a little. I need a means to get out and start connecting with the world again. Ya know. Because of the soul crushing loneliness of working from home all day. My solution is to start writing again for Brain Litter. From my computer at home. Me smart.

I’m kidding. Working from home kicks ass. Although I do find myself uttering “SHIT YEAH! THE MAIL IS HERE!” more often and more excitedly than I care for, the benefits still outweigh the costs. Like no-shirt lunch breaks outside on the patio. That’s fun. Being over 30 years old and experimenting with facial hair. Super fun. Don’t get me started on taking work breaks to do laundry, mow the lawn, etc. You can get that crap done during the week and then not have crap to do, EVERY WEEKEND.

But working at home has shifted some of my priorities. For instance, before the job change, my two best friends were Ding and Joe. Now it’s a three-way friendship toss up between the dog, the cat, and the neighbor kid, Easton. Cheese is the most loyal but Skits is more talkative throughout the day. Easton wins points because he has a Power Wheels and Power Wheels are awesome. I could debate this all day.

Oh crap, I forgot, Jess is my best friend now because we’re married and stuff. I’m supposed to say that, right? Sorry babes, I meant you are my best friend. Forget that last paragraph. Let’s get some Power Wheels though.

Ok I’ve got to get back to the grind. I’ve got a strict regime to adhere to. One hour of work. One hour of Netflix. Repeat.

Wedding Planning Venting

We’re getting close to the finish line. In just a few short months, I’ll have a ring on my finger, a joint banking account, and a new deduction to put on my taxes. Being married is going to be awesome. But first I have to whine about some stuff.

I’ve learned a lot about wedding planning over the last year and I’ve concluded that I, the groom, am only playing a small role in the wedding day itself.

I’ve assembled this handy pie graph to illustrate my point:




51% Bride
Almost everyone agrees that the wedding day is about the bride: looking hot, being a rock star, sticking it to frienemies, these are all the hallmarks of a bride’s wedding day. While I concede that the bride is the majority stakeholder, there are other factors at play.

38% Parents
Parents also have a major stake in the wedding day. For them, it’s a chance for them to recuperate gift value from all the weddings and showers they were forced to go to throughout their entire lives.

Banquet hall space is scarce and may limit the number of guests that can attend a reception. While there are many friends I would like to include on the guest list, they will be playing second fiddle to my parents’ wishes of inviting their co-workers, former co-workers, long lost acquaintances, random strangers they just met on the street, and other assorted people I’ve never met before and will likely never meet again. Sorry, many of my old friends from college and high school, no soup for you.

But, the parents are paying for most of the wedding so I better just zip it. Weddings ain’t cheap.

10% Creating Exciting Pinterest Photo-Ops
Remember a few months ago when I started raving about this Pinterest website? Like it was the greatest website ever made because of the great meal recipes, and the cute cat pics, and whatnot?

I was wrong. Good God, was I ever wrong.

Pinterest stinks. It has made wedding planning tremendously difficult. Everything in a wedding nowadays has to be super creative and you can’t get around it. There is no such thing as an easy decision and the long time frame for planning a wedding only gives you more time to second guess yourself. At least the website is getting blocked now at most peoples’ place of work. Smart move, Corporations.

1% Celebrating Two Kindred Spirits Becoming One and Sharing the Rest of Their Lives Together

If you’re lucky. There’s a good chance this 1% sliver might get eaten by the Pinterest factor stated above.

The silver lining to all this is that there is a precisely 0% chance that I am backing out this wedding (or marriage for that matter) because I don’t ever want to go through this again. Jess could quit her job, let herself go, eat Funyons all day and have constant Funyon breath, start collecting dirty pennies, forbid me to listen to Call on Me, become a crappy volleyball player, insist I buy her hallmark greeting cards for every minor milestone, and generally hurl insults at me all day and I would take it in stride.

Hell, she could become a Minnesota Viking fan. I’m sticking around forever.

You know, I probably shouldn’t have let Jess know this. This information does NOT give me a lot of leverage in the future. I would prefer that Jess keep her Funyon breath to a minimum. At least she doesn’t like cool ranch Doritos.

Ok, I'm done venting now. I may be venting again soon though, this weekend I'm in charge of attaching ribbon bows to 200 invitations. It took me over 5 minutes to do the sample one, which I was not able to complete satisfactorily. That puts my estimated time of completion between 1000 minutes and infinity.

Chariots of Firing

Well I think it hit 60+ degrees today, which only means one thing, the start of spring. There are still a few snow piles out there gone rogue but they should be evaporated by the middle of this week. Good riddance.

Complain all you want about the cold, the thing I hate most about winter is stepping on some invisible microscopic puddle in the middle of the house somewhere and then having to walk around with a slightly wet sock. I hate slightly wet socks more than anything. Even more than I hate Maroon 5, that’s how much I hate them. Of course I could just put on a new pair of socks but like I said, they are usually only slightly wet and it just doesn’t seem like its worth the time and energy to change my current pair. I would rather just complain about the slightly wet socks all day.

My big project this spring is to complete the Cellcom marathon in May. I promise you I will never blog about this marathon again because tales of jogging are boring so I’m just going to post a few random thoughts about it and then never talk about it again.

First, I personally don’t think jogging stories are boring anymore. I am genuinely interested in how many miles you ran, the weather conditions, what part of your body started ailing and at what point of the run did the ailment occur. As my weekend long runs have expanded, I find my body is breaking down in new and interesting ways. At first just my toes hurt, then my calves, but my run last Saturday, my shoulders and neck started aching to my surprise. And the top of my right foot. I love talking about this.

Second, I originally signed up the marathon because I got a free entry for being a Cellcom employee but I also thought it would be a good excuse to lose some weight for the wedding. The problem is that I have become ravenously hungry at pretty much all times. I’m eating an entire pizza as I write this very post. I’ve been running my ass off but have only lost a couple of pounds tops over the last couple of months, its total bullshit. Seriously, don’t train for a long distance event to lose weight, only sign up for a long distance event if you hate your knees.

Third, I really wish I could Prefontaine-up and grow out a sweet, 1970’s moustache but I can’t. I think that’s what’s holding me back right now.

Fourth, I’m scared of chaffing. It hasn’t happened yet but I know its coming. It sounds awful but hopefully it’s like having dead toe nails which I was also scared of but have now come around to embrace. I also hope my nipples don’t start bleeding like Andy from The Office. I don’t think that’s a real thing though, the nipple bleeding.

Fifth, do not watch the film Chariots of Fire to get inspired. It’s weird and boring. However, DO hum the theme song and pretend to cross your driveway in slow motion at the end of a run like you are winning a gold medal in the Olympics. Your neighbors will love this. I call this Chariots of Firing.

Sixth, the best and worst part about running a marathon is that is doesn’t require any athletic ability to run one, just pure stubbornness. You push yourself to your limit on Saturday, your muscles break down, they heal back a little stronger, you can run a bit fit further the next Saturday, repeat, repeat, repeat. You just have to slavishly follow the training schedule and prioritize your weekends around the big run, wreaking total havoc on your social calendar in the process. It’s a high price to pay but also reassuring that, barring any training injuries, you can stubbornly cross that finish line if you just stick to the plan. I hope it’s worth it.

Happy Spring and Happy Chariots of Firing everyone!

Bachelor Party: Lake Tahoe

I just got back from my bachelor party in Lake Tahoe this past weekend. It was pretty crazy, not The Hangover crazy, but wilder than any partying Uncle Jesse ever did while visiting Tahoe. Of course that is just an assumption, we’ll never know if, off camera, the Tanner boys and possibly the Beach Boys went in on an 8-ball and accidentily knocked off a prostitute or two in some kind of epic bender that went horribly awry. One can only wonder.

Gambling trips are all about creating a good omen off the bat. If you go into Nevada with a negative attitude, you’re going to leave Nevada with negative dollars in your wallet. When we got off the plane in Reno, we found out Ryan Braun was exonerated for steroid use and would no longer serve a 50 game suspension. That is a good omen and got the trip off to a hot start. Then, when signing up for a Players Card in the casino, I won a free trip to the buffet which was one of the top sign-up bonuses available. It was going to be a great trip. Buffets are awesome.

Two hours later and I’m down $200. I couldn’t win a bet to save my life. No one could. Well, except Cody who is the luckiest son of a bitch alive, not kidding. By the end of the trip, the pit bosses were just handing cash over to him in order to save the casino time and grief. The remaining four of us went to bed Thursday night discouraged.

Friday was ski day. This picture below sums up ski day.


Friday night we went down to the local Irish bar for happy hour, then decided to get food before, whoops! hey guys let’s all play in this $100 buy-in no-limit Texas Hold em poker tournament! So much for dinner.

After dominating for several hours, I ended up taking 2nd place out of 32 dudes. I would like to say I played well, but I could tell I was just getting really lucky based on all disgusted looks I was getting from knocking out players with only marginal hands and big river cards. One guy harassed me for a good hour or so during the breaks based on a call I made that took him out of the tournament. I wish I could remember the hand but like I was saying before, I just came from an Irish happy hour.

That night we partied our asses off. We went to Your My Boy Blue! Montbleu casino down the street, took turns ordering rounds of shots at the bar, then decided to head back to Vex nightclub at Harrah’s. I remember being at the club and dancing like an asshole, having a great time, then I time-travelled and just all of a sudden woke up in bed. With Finally Miley.



I have no recollection of how I got home or how I ended up in a lover’s embrace with Finally Miley. Based on reports from Joe, Ding and I ended up jumping on stage at the club where the go-go dancers were dancing. Apparently security allowed it, they probably let it slide because it was my bachelor party. They probably knew it was my bachelor party, because all that night, I was constantly screaming, this is my bachelor party!

A further report revealed that Ding disappeared for awhile, then reemerged in the hotel room like an hour later where he fixed himself a drink and then proceeded to stand creepily in the middle of the room with the lights off, totally zoned out. In the morning, we found him sleeping in the shower with the water running. Good job, Ding.

We were all moving a little slower on Saturday. It was very subdued. I mean, I still stayed up and gambled all night, but the energy was lacking. We tried repeating the steps we made on Fri night but it wasn’t quite the same. We really captured lightning in a bottle that Friday night.

I lost a bunch of money sat night but still came out ahead overall on the trip. Joe had to drag me from the poker table to our awaiting bus to take us to the airport Sunday morning. Then I bothered everyone on the way back home with my offensive smells. It was hilarious. What a great trip.

Point-Counterpoint: Doomsday Preppers

I just started watching this reality television program Doomsday Preppers on the National Geographic channel. It’s about people that are preparing for a cataclysmic event. These people then get graded by a team of survival specialists on their likelihood of surviving said event.

I’ve got a lot to say on the subject of Doomsday prepping.

In the two episodes I’ve seen, most of the fears are based on natural disasters, disease outbreaks, massive oil shortages, etc. I have to be honest, part of the reason I like the show is the suspense before each vignette, because eventually someone is going to just straight up say, zombie apocalypse. I’m preparing for the zombie apocalypse.

When that happens, I’m going to do a Tiger Woods’ fist pump, then call Joe Daniels and talk to him about it.

Point: Doomsday Preppers are on to something…

These people are nuts, but not THAT nuts. Yes, it seems mostly silly to live your life planning for the end of days as a full time endeavor, but I don’t think it hurts anyone to have a contingency plan in place.

1. The first segment was about a retired couple that created a self-sustaining compound out of shipping containers. They had a mini farm, built backup solar powered generators, ran evacuation drills, and shot a bunch of guns for target practice. Unusual, yes, but when my Grandpa retired, he sat around and watched bowling all day. At least these people found a hobby.

2. Experts don’t know shit. The show always ends a segment with the likelihood of the event happening. They’ll say something like, this blah blah blah event has 1.3% chance of occurring. Bullshit. No one knows when the next super volcano is going to erupt or the next asteroid is going to hit the earth. Some egghead is just pulling numbers out of his ass. I know, we can smell our own.

And I don’t care if the probability of an event is .0000013%, it could still happen. The odds of winning the powerball are like 1 in a billion but eventually someone always wins.


Counterpoint: Nope, Doomsday Preppers really are Looney Tunes.

1. The show gets weird when they show the outwardly-normal suburban families preparing for disaster. These people have basements and bedrooms packed with food and supplies and seem to spend most of their free time stockpiling even more rations. I bet the camera people double dip and recycle the footage for the next episode of Hoarders. Winning, said the Nat Geo TV Executive.

2. I think it is really funny when these people claim that they hope their event will never happen, they just want to be ready for it. Again, bullshit. Nothing would make these people happier than to be vindicated from all the dirty looks of their neighbors. If said event never happens, then they are delusional and possibly have OCD. If said event does happen, BINGO.

3. Methinks that some of these Doomsday Preppers are making too many pre-emptive raids on their food pantries. The majority of the people seemed to be terribly out of shape. Perhaps they should worry more about heart failure and less about the Earths north and south poles reversing.

Conclusion

The moral of this blog is to not judge these characters so harshly. Maybe keeping a couple cases of water and a few weeks of canned goods in the basement is a good idea. And it never hurts to challenge yourself with hypothetical scenarios and mental exercises for an armageddon event. What would you do, where would you hide, who would you save, what would be your reason to keep on living?

Not to get too sentimental, but with that special time in mid-February fast approaching, I don’t need to tell you what I’d be fighting for...