Rooting for the Heels in 2011

I grew up a fan of Dean Smith's teams in the 80s and 90s and as a result, grew up spoiled. Making the tournament every year, Final Fours every other year, some of the best players to come through the ACC... I took wins and deep NCAA runs die granted.

Then Dean retired. Things didn't go south immediately, but the Heels didn't dominate as they used to. Some teams overachieved, some under, andof course Matt Doherty carpet bombed his way through a messy three year run of ups and then bottomed-out downs.

When Roy was brought home to save the school, things seemed to return to the way I remembered. Finishing at the top of the conference, high seed in the tournament. With Hansbrough we were spoiled again with consecutive deep runs before another 21st century title.

And then last season happened, when a dissappointing team frustrated both Coach Williams and Heels fans. This season started slowly, and many of us worried the good times - the high life of the halycon 1990s - were just that: a part of the school's history.

But things turned around somewhere around the time Larry Drew decided to pick up his ball and take his bad attitude home. And rooting for the Heels is fun again. Sure they may throw out a drinker like they did in the ACC Tourney final. And this recent trend of ceding double digit first half deficits before roaring back is going to lead to too-early visits to the cardiologist. But unlike during the 1990s run of success, I'm not taking this team or its wins for granted. I am thoroughly enjoying this period of fandom. Win or lose, this is a Heels team that I am happy to cheer on. And that makes for a fantastic March.

RoboCop deserves a statue

After seeing that Detroit’s citizens – with few other problems to worry about – refuse to accept the mayor’s declaration that there will not be a statue of RoboCop, I started thinking: what other cities need a statue of a fictional character? Philadelphia, of course, has Rocky, and, God willing, Detroit will one day have RoboCop. Who else is out there? Well, here is my list:

- Jasper, Missouri: Dalton (Road House). This one is pretty obvious. Without Dalton, Jasper, Missouri would remain in the evil clutches of Brad Wesley, who nefariously flies his helicopter directly over Emmet’s farm. Dalton cleaned up the Double Deuce and took out the town’s garbage. I can’t think of a more deserving statue-honoree.

- Riverside, Iowa: Captain James T. Kirk (Star Trek). Come on, this town gave birth the man who would save the universe countless times. He even saved the humpback whale! What more can one man do?

- New Orleans: Ignatius J. Reilly (Confederacy of Dunces). Unlike RoboCop and Road House, Ignatius didn’t really serve the community so much as refuse to leave. His sloth and unwarranted braggadocio remain in tact, even as he sells hot dogs in the French Quarter.

Who do you have?

Welcome back to school

“This second exam will be the hardest of your life.”

Thus my professor welcomed us to Macroeconomics last night. But that is the middle of the story; let’s jump back to the beginning.

At a few minutes past 7, the professor, a gray-haired man with a slight face, goatee, and a stomach that poked out a bit above the belt, limped into the room (he favored his right leg) and approached the board. He had a half smile as he walked across the front of the room, paused, turned, and then walked back to the other side. He silently repeated this, the same slight grin on his face, the same slow gait. He limped back to the door, looked around, then slowly limped back to the front.

“Is this it?” he asked. “Well, maybe this will be good. You wouldn’t believe my last class.”

And then began the strangest rant I’ve ever heard a professor embark upon. He lamented the two sections he had in the fall, both of which were great disappointments who did not try very hard and performed so badly on the aforementioned second exam that he was unable to go any further with his plan and had to re-teach that material (the only time that had happened in 25 years of teaching, he said). He explained how he spent much of his break alternatively crying and thinking of new ways to structure the class. He grabbed the cord attached to the pull-down screen and said he could use that if our class followed that course (although to my eyes, the knot at the end of the cord was much too small a noose to actually be functional). And after all of this, he said that he was in good spirits. His knee was acting up, so he had taken a steady dose of pain killers, but otherwise he was in a great mood, he assured us.

My classmates and I nervously and softly laughed throughout this manic presentation that ranged from despair to hopeful anticipation. After scaring us with the second exam story that left most of us stone-faced and unsure what we’d gotten into, he tried to calm our fears. “It’s okay to smile,” he said, as if sensing our unease. “I’m a fun guy. People tell me I’m a fun guy.”

As if to prove the point, he popped the cap off one of his markers and took a great sniff. “Want some?” he asked the quiet girl in the front of the class. She politely refused (as if there were another way to refuse this sort of offer) the black marker, so he graciously offered the green. “Mint? There’s also cherry,” he said reaching for the red.

With his spirits high (pardon the pun), he dove right into Gross Domestic Product. And forever, when I hear someone discussing GDP, I will think of my new professor: the wobbly, marker-sniffing, manic lecturer desperate for us to make sense of Keynes.

In one ear, out the ... nope, still there

I don’t want to overhype this story, but if you are trying to decide what to read for the next five minutes and are choosing between Huckleberry Finn, Harry Potter, the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, or this tale of woe, do yourself a favor and burn those other books because they cannot live up to the story of what happened to me on my flight last night.

Since I was taking a red-eye from San Diego, my plan was to sleep as best I could for the majority of the flight. To that end, I was using my noise-reducing earphones, bought as one of Amazon’s Gold Box deals some time ago. The buds are rubber and cling tightly to the inside of the ear; they don’t block all sound, but when playing music, it’s hard to ear much else. Good enough, in other words, to help me get a few hours sleep on the plane.

So I thought.

Shortly after takeoff I reached to pull the earphones out of my ears, and the earbud snapped off the cord and remained lodged in my ear. No problem, I thought, as I reached up to pull the rubber from my ear. It did not cooperate, and my fingers only pushed the thing further back into my ear. I tried desperately for a few minutes to grab a hold of any part of the bud, but could not. It was at this time that the panic swept over me. I don’t know what the guy sitting next to me thought, but he had to see me from the corner of his eye, scratching my ear frantically, blowing air with my nose pinched shut hoping to pop the thing out. This hadn’t been covered in the pre-flight video, so I wasn’t sure what to do. Perhaps the flight attendants could help?

With my panic levels reaching record highs, I ignored the seatbelt sign and walked to the back of the plane. “Excuse me,” I said to the first of three female flight attendants,” this is going to sound weird, but do you have some tweezers? My earphones broke and the ear bud is stuck in my ear.”

I could try to describe their faces, but words would not do them justice. Suffice it to say, they too had not covered this in Flight Attendant School, Basic Ear Maladies 101. It was dark, but they took turns looking in my left ear and none could see anything. The bud is clear, I said, and anyway, it’s dark.

“Why did you stick it so far in there?” asked one. I didn’t really feel like this was the best time to discuss my music listening habits, but I spit something out about accidentally pushing it further while trying to get it out. Regardless of how, what were they going to do to help?

“It’s really deep,” said the first one, “I’m afraid to do anything. If something happens, I’d be liable.”

“Try this,” said the second. “Hold a cup of water over your ear and maybe the pressure will loosen.” Even at my heightened state of fear, I felt this was unlikely to work. “You may just have to see a doctor when we land.”

I may be in the ear-blocked minority, but when you’re 15 minutes into a 4-hour flight with something God never intended to be stuck in your ear stuck in your ear, the last thing you want to hear is that you should wait a few hours. I don’t know my exact reaction, but the terror that had been slowly growing since this started must have reached its facial pinnacle (that’s a thing), because suddenly, one of them remembered that she did, in fact, have tweezers*, and she handed them to me. “You’ll have to do it yourself because we would be liable if anything happened,” she said.

*Look, I know lending a stranger your pair of tweezers for ear-spelunking is not appealing, but this was a life or death situation.**

** Not being a doctor, I can only assume that one could die from Earbudinfesticitis.

She made me stand in front of the mirror in the bathroom so I could watch myself, I guess. If they couldn’t see the thing standing with their eye pressed to my ear, I’m not sure what hope they thought I stood of seeing inside my own ear, but, desperate as I was, there I stood, watching myself scratch inside aimlessly. Eventually one of them said, “Should we see if a doctor is on board.”

“YES,” I shouted enthusiastically.

I’ve never been on a plane when there was an announcement for a doctor’s help, but I’ve seen this done in movies. I don’t remember this being the scenario requiring help. Luckily, three people rang their call buttons, and a flight attendant left and returned with a middle-aged doctor. She handed him her tiny keychain flashlight and the tweezers, and he got to work. We stood in the bathroom, my head tilted and resting on the wall and he dug in. The sensation of a man trying to grasp a rubber doorjam in your ear is one I hope I never revisit, but I knew after a few tries that he WAS actually getting the base of it in between the tweezers, even if every time he tried to pinch and pull he lost the grip. We did this a few times, and it ever so slowly and with each grasp, began to slide down my ear. Eventually, on one grab, I moved my head back as he pulled and it came out.

He held it up and we all looked at it – it was like the doctor removing a bullet from a patient shot in a Clint Eastwood western, only, you know, stupider.

I was overcome with gratitude, and thanked him profusely, shaking his hand vigorously. I thanked the flight attendants, one of whom said she could not wait to update her Facebook status, returned to my seat and rode the rest of the flight without music.

My ear hurts a bit today because apparently jamming something deep into your ear canal then scraping at it with large metal instruments is not ideal ear treatment. But at least I’m not at the emergency room.

“It was a one-in-a-million shot, doc.”

New Jersey: You're shore to love it

Jean made a reasonable request after my rant on New Jersey drivers. “So when do we see the posts about things you LIKE in New Jersey?” Naturally, my first reaction was snarky, because, let’s face it, there is a lot to despise about this place. But am I too rough on the Garden State? This is the most densely populated state, and in such a crowed environment, things (tempers, blood pressure, blisters from too much tanning) rise. But because Jean represents 20% of my blog’s audience, I thought, “Sure, I can think of some things.” So below are things I like about New Jersey.*

*I have excluded people and friends because this is a no cornball zone.

• Naturally, it is pretty incredible to be so close to New York. My town sits on top of a hilly area, and we can see much of the New York City skyline driving through town. That feeling of awe really doesn’t go away.
• New Jersey is home to amazing pizza and bagels. You can find either all over. In North Carolina, it was all chains.
• Generally speaking, things move fast up here – on the roads, in stores, on dates, etc. That mixes well with my general lack of patience for slow people.
• Despite all the densely packed houses, every town I’ve lived in has had an expansive city park where families routinely go on nice afternoons.
• The library system up here is amazing. I can read all the graphic novels I can think of through the inter-library system.
• There are practically no mosquitoes up here! The humidity is only bad for a month or two in the summer. And the spring and fall are usually pretty mild. Can’t say any of that for North Carolina.
• You can’t spit without hitting a Dunkin’ Donuts. (Of course, you can’t spit without hitting a salon either, so …)
• With Continental’s hub in Newark, I can fly almost anywhere in the U.S. non-stop

There's probably more, but my head is tired.

Honk if you want to risk your life on New Jersey roads

Driving in New Jersey is like living in Mad Max: the streets are a lawless, post-apocalyptic free-for-all where the aggressive do as they please and the timid are left limp and lifeless on the side of the road, unable to cling to one more precious breath of air as the toxic fumes of society’s death speed by in souped up, dual exhaust Hondas. Trust me, of all the things I had to get used to when I moved up here from North Carolina, driving was one of the most difficult. I come from an area where people do not tailgate, wait patiently to turn onto other roads, and do not pass those cars waiting to turn.

In New Jersey, drivers get into the left lane of the highway and stay there, no matter how many cars line up behind them, eager to go faster. In New Jersey, the shoulder is merely another lane for cars to pass those stopped and waiting to turn left. In New Jersey, it is a driver’s right, given by God Himself, to pull out into the street and block on-coming traffic as it waits to turn left out of the Stoprite parking lot. In New Jersey, the only time it is acceptable to take your hand off the horn is when you are raising it to give someone the finger. In New Jersey, if someone is going too slow, the only solution is to practically tap their rear bumper – this will undoubtedly solve your problem. In New Jersey, when the light turns red, at least five cars can still slide through and turn left. That’s just common sense. And in New Jersey, if you don’t like it, you can take your non-fake-tanned rear somewhere else.

The snow blows, and other cold Northern truths

Growing up in North Carolina, I was excited every time it snowed. In fact, I have very vivid memories of most of the snow storms we got when I lived in Durham. I remember riding a very flimsy, plastic sled down the Lees’ driveway, right over a very big, bumpy rock around their mailbox that made my area where a human butt should be hurt horribly. I remember Dad helping us all go down our driveway with a wooden sled we could steer with our feet. I remember standing outside WTVD-11 as our church Youth Group was preparing to film the Christmas classic, Rise Up Shepherd*, and a freaky November snow fell on us as we lined up to get inside.

*This is the classic in which I made my television debut**, at the age of 7, with the immortal line, “What about the baby Jesus?” He is the reason for the season, I’m told. Anyone interested in watching this timeless masterpiece, contact me for details on our annual viewing.

** This only aired on the local ABC affiliate, and I believe Nielson recorded it as 0.01 rating.

I even remember sitting around the kitchen table listening to a Walkman with Mom (because the power was out) hoping that school was canceled that day. More often than not, if it snowed, we stayed home. And if it snowed while we were in school – heck, if the forecast called for the possibility of snow – they would cancel the rest of the day and tell our parents to stop partying. The kids were coming home early.

In other words, for 25 years of my life, snow was a big deal. A stop-the-world-I-see-white event.

Today, as I enter what is my fifth winter in the North, it snowed on my way to work. And far from being happy with it, I was irritated. Winters here are cold, dry, and windy; and when it snows, unless it’s a nor’easter, life goes on, your bones freeze from the inside, and the snow hits your face with the cold, wet kiss of a Dementor.* It snows often, and it snows unforgiving. It took only a few years, but New Jersey has turned some of my favorite childhood memories laughingly out-of-date.

*Harry Potter reference!

As friends and family in North Carolina excitedly post pictures of a rare snowstorm, I jealously long for that sense of childlike enthusiasm. You know, rather than the beaten-down, “here we go again, how long is the commute going to be this time,” I hate you CBS 2’s John Elliott! feeling I get now when I see snow in the forecast.

On the plus side, the summers are far less humid. So that will be nice in 7 months.