Day Zero Project #74: Donate money to charity

I think it's important to try and donate when you can to whatever worthwhile charity you like. It doesn't have to be money, many charities need things like stuff we have around the house that we don't need or just someone to give some time. What's important is that you do something.

I figure that if I've got the extra money to go around doing 100 random things, then I should be able to spend some of that on charities. There are all sorts of great organizations out there that you could help, here's two that I like:

1) The Children's Cancer Center in Tampa, FL - This one hits close to home for us and they do a ton of really great things for kids who have cancer and for the families of those kids. They have fundraisers all over the place or you could sponsor a family for the holidays or you could just buy some Christmas cards.

2) Daystar Life Center in St. Petersburg, FL - I won't hold it against them that they are a religious organization, because they do some good work in my immediate area. I hadn't really spent much time thinking about homelessness when I lived in the suburbs outside of doing my best to stay away from them, but now that I live in an urban area I see how big of a problem it is and I decided that I need to try and do more. I gotta think more about what I can do in 2013, but donating to these guys was a start.

Day Zero Project #86: Send someone an anonymous gift

Four random people are going to get $5 gift cards to Publix in the mail this week. How did I pick who gets them? There is this little building on the way to where I buy my daily rations of soda and Funyuns and there's always people grilling and hanging out and I thought, "Hey, those guys could use a random holiday gift." So that's who's going to receive these little anonymous gifts from the Postman.

I wanted to write something witty and/or sarcastic to include in the envelope that I'm mailing, but Kate talked me out of it, so they are just going to be receiving plain ole gift cards. Lame, but probably a lot less confusing than a letter saying that you won a prize for being awesome.

From: Me, To: Someone Random-ish.

Day Zero Project #92: Go to a NFL game

In my family we were raised with two important principles: 1) veggies are not good and 2) there's one thing above all others that you should dedicate your Sundays to. No, not church, but football.

And while I've managed to become the family rebel by learning to love all sorts of vegetables, my love for professional football remains.

Despite this love, I've only been to two football games in person, partly because they are ridiculously expensive, partly because football is best while watching 14 other games, eating fried food and drinking beer and, lastly, because I live in Tampa and I have no desire to see the Buccaneers.

But when a friend said that he had extra tickets to the Patriots / Dolphins game, I gladly accepted, threw on my lucky Pats jersey and made the four hour trip to Sun Life Stadium in Miami.

The view from the top. Literally, our seats were at the very top!

And for all my trouble I was treated to three hours of tailgating with a parking lot full of fans of the visiting team (fairly common in Florida), followed by a game that alternated between light rain showers and blistering sun (also fairly common in Florida).

The game. I really need a new phone with a good camera.

 The end result: a Patriots victory and a great day at the stadium

P.S. Dear NFL, is it necessary for everything to cost 15x what it would outside the stadium? I have no idea how the family of four in front of us managed to afford their trip. Second mortgage, perhaps?

This is what happens when Kate tailgates too long.

Day Zero Project #66: Participate in a charity run

I've been saying that I should run a 5k for about five years now, so I'm glad that this goal randomly showed up on the Idea Finder. This is one of the rare instances where something in my Day Zero to-do list is something that I would have actually put on there if I were picking my own goals.

A few weeks back a friend was talking about the 5k that his family runs every Thanksgiving called the Turkey Trot. I know how to take an opening when I see one, so I invited myself along. I went home that night, signed up for the race and began a very serious training regimen that involved Googling "How to train for a 5k in two weeks" and then ignoring those instructions completely with the misguided idea that I could run it in less than 40 minutes having not ran anywhere for any reason in years.

I thought no one would want to run Thanksgiving morning. I was wrong.

To highlight just how unprepared I am to exercise, I had to run out the night before to buy running shorts so that I wouldn't have to run in jeans.

Decked out in my brand new running shorts, I waited at the start line with over 10,000 other crazy people who thought that it was a good idea to wake up at 7:00am on Thanksgiving morning. The starting pistol sounded and I...waited. And then I waited some more. It turns out that it takes a few minutes for a mass of 10,000 people to get moving. By the time I crossed the start line over two minutes had already passed.

Eventually the crowd thinned and I was able to start my jog/walk alternating style of moving. To be honest, it was mostly walking.  It turns out that a person can't just run 3.2 miles without practice. Even so, I managed to finish the race in 42 minutes. It wasn't a great time, but not bad. And, hey, I finished, which is good enough.

We ran 3.2 miles. And lived!

Later that day I ingested some 8,000 calories and, because of the race, I didn't feel bad about a single one of them.

Seriously though, me and my wife both had a blast. And we're already signed up for another one in two more weeks. I think if I dedicate myself to running even one day before then I can break the 40 minute mark!

Day Zero Project #58: Play a round of golf

I am a businessman. Golf is a game for businessmen. Naturally, one would assume that I have at least an elementary understanding of how to play the game of golf, right? Wrong.

In my 32 years I've golfed maybe twice and both of those times I focused more on downing beers with my father-in-law than hitting that little white ball into a small hole some 400 yards away.

So when the time came to accomplish #58, I called up a buddy of mine who is actually good at the game and we set up an early enough tee time that I hoped would ensure that I wouldn't be thinking about drinking Bud Lights and racing golf carts. I figure that the best way to try and see if I'm any decent at this game is to start it early and hope for the best.

The approach to the infamous Hole Six

And for the first few holes my theory seemed to work. I started with 3 or 4 double-bogeys, which was my goal for every hole. And then something magical happened on the par 3 6th hole (they were all par 3s, by the way). My tee shot wasn't too terrible and landed just outside the green. And then, even more unbelievably, rather than chip it all the way across the green I managed to put it close enough to the hole to make a putt for par. I fist pumped like Tiger Woods winning the Masters and it was then that I realized that golfers put up with all the horrible shots for those one or two times per round where you actually hit a perfect shot. That rush of hitting a great shot can make you forget the last 14 drives that you shanked into that road that runs alongside the golf course.

Chipping? Not a problem. Except the other 17 times when it was.

And after that par? It was a blur of bad shots, bad putts and a few lost golf balls. All made worse by the fact that on the 9th hole I decided to give up playing golf sober and stopped by the clubhouse only to learn that they don't serve beer at this particular golf course. No beer on a golf course?!? That really messed my day up.

At the end of the round, I'd guess that I was somewhere around 60-70 over par for 18 holes. Not too bad considering that I had to play the whole round with exactly 0 beers.

The End.

Day Zero Project #6: Create a traditional dish from a different culture

To be honest, I didn't do a very good job of making a "traditional" dish. I had some matzo meal lying around that I needed to use, so I was going to make something traditionally Jewish, but with a twist.

First, I had some corn. My favorite way to eat this vegetable is fried. It's important to not start with a can. Get some ears of corn and cut the kernels off. It's easy stuff.

Then you throw all of that in a skillet with an amount of butter that would make Paula Dean happy. Also, you should scrape the ears of corn with a fork so all the awesome corn liquid (probably not the right term) is in the pan frying with the butter and the kernels

 

Then I mixed tall that up with matzo meal. It wasn't pretty and it smelled  bad and I was thinking that I should just abandon the whole project at this point.

But, like a trooper, I soldiered on and took this weird corn-filled, bad-smelling flour and turned it into little matzo balls which I boiled.

Most people might stop right there and have a soup, but not this guy. I took those matzo balls, rolled them in panko bread crumbs and baked them in the oven for a little while until they came out looking like this:

They were actually decent, but if I could do it all over again I would probably deep fry them instead of baking them in the oven because they didn't get as crispy as I would have liked.

The best part of the whole project was getting to spend a couple of hours in the kitchen. I love cooking, but with busy schedules and some general laziness, I don't get to do that very often.

Day Zero Project #82: Celebrate Oktoberfest

I realized last week that October was almost half-over and I had exactly one weekend open with which to accomplish #82, Celebrate Oktoberfest. Lucky for me, the German American Society of Pinellas heard my pleas and conveniently dropped an article into my web browser informing me that October 13th would be their final Oktoberfest celebration of the year.

With visions of Spaten and sauerkraut dancing in my head, I packed up the car and made the long trip to Germany (OK, not Germany, but Pinellas Park, FL).

What was great about this particular Oktoberfest is that it's hosted by a bunch of older folks who speak German and cook German food and even dress in a weird way that I can only assume is German. This translates into a festival that seems a little more authentic-ish and not just a reason for 23 year old males to get drunk and act like idiots.

That said, immediately upon my arrival I ordered a beer that is the size of a person's head and proceeded to work towards getting drunk and acting like an idiot. But I'm 31, so it's different.

Also, most young males at beer festivals will eat no food. I, on the other hand, ate some of the best potato salad and sauerkraut that one could hope to eat.

Bland looking, but delicious.

We mosied around, we watched a band play polka songs and couples who, amazingly, knew how to dance to said polka songs. And then we waited in line for potato pancakes. And waited. And waited. This things are so popular we waited about 40 minutes for them. Thankfully I had a beer the size of a milk jug to keep me company.

 

 

 

 

In the end, not worth the wait.

The craziest part of the whole night was the Stein Holding Contest in which contestants had to hold a full stein of water (I was told spilling beer would be wasteful) at arms length with elbows locked for the longest time. It gets pretty intense as you can tell by this picture of the final two.

In the end the guy with the cool mustache won,which made me happy because while everyone else was struggling he was using his free arm to drink more beer.

People love watching people struggle to do stuff

The best part was that while we were walking out, despite all the zaniness going on outside, the inner room of the hall featured a much more tame, but awesome party of Grandparents who have drank more beer in their lifetimes that you will ever hope to see. Don't even try to party with these folks, because you can't handle their party.

I can only hope me and my wife someday have a 2-person accordion band.

And this whole day was why I'm glad I am doing this list. I would have never made it out to this event, but ended up having a great time. Even if they ran out of Spaten Oktoberfest so fast that I didn't get any.

Day Zero Project #83: Attend a Beer Festival

We are beer snobs. I don't like it, but somewhere along the line we taught our taste buds that the only place for Coors Light is in a cup that you throw a ping-pong ball in to. If you are going to have a beer at the end of a long work week, it should be a good one.

Arriving early = more time to sample = good times

And for that reason, we really enjoyed the World Beer Festival in St. Pete last weekend. Where else but a beer fest can you pay a cover charge and then proceed to try about as many different beers as your tolerance allows. Sure, by the 20th beer I couldn't tell you the difference between a lager and a stout, but I enjoyed the the tasting experience of the first six or so samples and then I proceeded to enjoy the buzzed good times of the rest.

And what beers do I recommend to you? I have no idea. You try and sample two dozen beers and remember which ones you liked. I was fortunate enough to remember how to get home at the end of the night and, in a neighborhood where a wrong turn is sure to get you mugged, that's good enough for me.

Which beer was good? I took a picture of these, so they must be the ones.

Day Zero Project #15: Have a Board Game Night

You know what I say, why play one board game, when you can play all of them? With that in mind, we set about Day Zero Project #15, "Have a Board Game Night."

The idea was that we would play every game we have in the house and the winner would get... We didn't really think it through that far. Mostly, we just wanted an excuse to stay inside and not do anything for a little while. In hindsight, I wish we'd have bet something because I ended up winning (just barely), 10 games to 8.

The Games I Won

The Games She Won

The final results:

Dustin (10) - Ladder Golf, Jenga, Zigity, Scattergories, Yahtzee Texas Hold 'Em, Othello, Farkle, Boggle, Zombies!!! 4, Zombies!!!

Katie (8)- Life, Mancala, Cribbage, Phase 10, Sorry Revenge, Monopoly Deal, Yahtzee, Chez Geek

Day Zero Project #13: Send 10 Postcards via Postcrossing.com

I had no idea what Postcrossing.com was, so I had to look that up before I could even begin to start this one. Basically, it is a site where you register and send postcards all over the world and for every one one that you send, you get a postcard back from somewhere in the world.

It's fun to go to your mailbox and get a postcard from Latvia or Russia or something; certainly better than the mix of bills and junk mail that I am used to seeing.

There's only so much you can do with a postcard and most that you would get fall into one of four categories.

 1) Cartoons

from Finland

from Yokkaichi, Japan

2) Animals

from Engelskirden, Germany

from Ripa, Latvia

3) Scenic Stuff

from Czech Republic

from the Netherlands

from Krakow, Poland

from Pomerania, Russia

4) My personal favorite, postcards that people make out of local food boxes.

from Vienna, Austria (some sort of ice cream bar)

from the Netherlands (some very healthy looking cereal)

Day Zero Project #36: Get My Handwriting Created As A Font

Day Zero Project #18: Read Game of Thrones

I really didn't want to like this book. There's a book snob residing inside of me that really dislikes the idea of enjoying something that everyone else keeps telling me is great. Plus, the book is like 800 pages long. Who needs that many pages to tell a story?

Apparently George R. R. Martin because, much to my dismay, this book was good. Great, even. I managed to read the whole thing in about three sittings because I didn't want to put the book down without knowing what was going to happen next.

Even though I thought the book was great, I caution you against starting to read the book for a few reasons.

One, there are seven books in the series. Each one having more than 700 pages, some more than 1,000. I won't get to read a non-GoT's related book until sometime in 2023.

Two, and this is the worst part, now I have to find time to watch the show on HBO so I can sit there for hours on end complaining about how the book was so much better.

Day Zero Project #32: Get a Full Body Massage

Get a full body massage? Easy! I've had one of those before. As a matter of fact I've probably had 100s. I'm one of the lucky chosen few who has had a wife go through massage school. Her homework was to give massages and I was always there as a willing test subject.

Sure I had to sit through some weird, hippie stuff. I mostly just rolled my eyes as I became a test subject for energy work, healing crystals and sound therapy. And sure, there were times when she was learning deep tissue massage that she made me cry and I cursed whomever put it into her head to go into massage, but for the most part it was an experience that made me the most relaxed guy of all time.

So if you are wondering why I never seem to get angry, it's because I am still in a perpetual state of relaxedness that will continue until sometime in my 50s.

But last weekend, I cheated on my regular massage therapist and went to a spa. I don't think my wife minds because if there's one thing that a massage therapist doesn't want to do, it's to give free massages after working. Keep that in mind if you have a friend who's a massage therapist. No, they don't want to rub your sore shoulders. Maybe if you give them $65, but they don't ask you to do your job for free, so you shouldn't ask them.

Anyways, back on task. This new massage therapist was the strongest lady in the world. I'm talking gold medal winning strength that makes those super-big Eastern European body builders you see on the Olympics seem like little babies. I almost cried when she was working on my shoulders.

Which brings me to why I try to be nice to my wife 100% of the time. Massage therapists can kill you. Seriously, if you google that, it might be true. Thankfully they use their strength for the greater good of humanity.

For now...

Day Zero Project #20: Learn Basic Car Maintenance

Do you want to know what I learned today?

I learned that the best time to learn basic car maintenance is when your car tires rips to shreds on the way to work in the morning.

There's just something about learning how to change a tire while cars zoom past you going 80mph on a busy highway at the peak of morning traffic. I don't know if it was the extra embarassement caused by the fact that hundreds of cars drove by, every single one of them laughing at my misfortune (probably not true, but that's how I imagine it.), but I managed to get what was left of a tire off my car, and the donut on it, in record time.

I wasn't even sure I could do it at all, but I'm glad I didn't call a tow truck to do it because now I have super-manly blood blisters on my hands.

And now I'm proud to say that after two hours, $400, and at least a dozen near-death experiences, I can check #20: Learn Basic Car Maintenance off of my list.

Day Zero Project #23: Go Without Soda For A Month

Day Zero #23: Go Without Soda For A Month

See that picture? That's an image of my desk the day that I started the difficult task of going without soda for a full month. That's probably about two days worth which, as you can see, tells you many things about me:

1. I drank way too much soda.
2. I also tend to sprinkle in a couple beers here and there.
3. I'm indecisive. You can see Dr. Pepper, Coke Zero and Pepsi in this picture. I need to make up my mind.
4. I probably need to do a better job of keeping my desk clean.

I can say the obvious stuff, "Yes, I felt better without drinking soda." "Yes, I saved money without having to buy the stuff."

Was it a good idea? Let me just say this. I celebrated the end of a month without soda by drinking soda. And what did I have. One Dr. Pepper, one Coke Zero, and one Pepsi. I guess habits don't change much, even after 30 days.

Day Zero Project #16: Make My Own Soap

Our Life of Lists-inspired soap

 If you were young and idolized Chuck Palahniuk, like I did, then you assume that soap is made via a  difficult process that involves stealing fat and punching each other in the face. Imagine my surprise when I walked into Milagros in St. Pete to accomplish Day Zero Goal #16 "Make My Own Soap" and was greeted by two nice ladies and an overly lovey Golden Retriever puppy. Nothing about this place said, "OK, time to make some soap up front, before walking into the back room and getting the crap beat out of you."

Well, there was a very angry Chihuahua. I think he may have preferred Fight Club's version of soap making. He was pure evil in the form of the Taco Bell dog.

All told, soap making was a fun experience, even if it made me smell like sandalwood and lavender for two straight days.

Milagros

Hard at work designing our soap

My wife's much more "normal" soap

Day Zero Project #76: See a Live Comedy Act

It's Saturday afternoon and I send a text to my friend, "Hey, What's up?" I send a text because I'm staunchly anti-talking on the phone. This is probably a sign of a very serious anti-social disorder.

My friend, obviously better with people than myself, doesn't text, but calls me back and within minutes. Not only do we know have plans for the evening, but I also get to check something off the list. A few hours, and a couple frozen drinks later, Day Zero List #76 - See a Live Comedy Act was in the books.

And this is why I don't make plans. I just keep my schedule open so whenever something pops up I'm ready to go. This keeps us in good standing with everyone we know, who I like to imagine think of us as "Those guys you can always call and they'll be ready to hang out no matter what."AKA "They don't have kids, so they'll hang out."

And what did I learn from these comedians? That I think they are somehow listening in on my regular conversations with friends and stealing my material. 50% of people I hang out with are Latin and 100% of the time that I hang out with them we are making jokes that are either a) jokes about how fat we are getting or b) jokes about angry Latin girls stabbing people. And what did the comedians talk about this fine evening? Fat jokes and angry Latin girls stabbing people. I want my royalty check.

Usually I get made fun of for being the token skinny white guy who wears shirts that are too small. If the next comedy show I see is about that, I'm gonna convince all my friends to quit our jobs and become writers for some sitcom.

And, just in case you want to watch the professionals at work, these are the people that we saw

Day Zero Project #48: Learn How To Make Lasagna

I slaved in the kitchen for hours making my own tomato sauce, carefully seasoning the ingredients and painstakingly creating what I hoped would be a beautiful lasagna. What did I get for all that time invested? A very average lasagna.

 

Next time I'll save the three hours and go to a restaurant.

Day Zero Project #8: Complete the 30 Day Song Challenge

Limited-Edition Facebook Cover Photo I made to celebrate finishing this.

I did this on Facebook, but here's a summary of everything. I'm too lazy to link or embed 30 videos. Sorry.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 1 - Your Favorite Song: "Bury The Evidence" by Tricky.
I saw Tricky open for Tool way back in 2001 and this has been my favorite song ever since. For someone with my musical tastes, it's about as perfect as it gets. P.S. This is part of my Day Zero List challenge, so I'll pre-apologize now for the daily post of music you don't care about at all.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 2 - Your Least Favorite Song: "Down With The Sickness" by Disturbed.
There are so many bad songs in this world that it's hard to pick just one. Usually I can appreciate them for their badness, but not this song. Absolutely unintelligent music with lyrics that have always made me think that their singer is trying to emulate an ape. And this is the sort of stuff that goes platinum...

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 3 - A Song That Makes You Happy: "Sunshine Highway" by Dropkick Murphys.
Reminds me of road trips and excellent times with the lovely K. If it doesn't make you smile within 30 seconds, you don't have the capability for happiness.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 4 - A Song That Makes You Sad: "Let Me Go" by All Get Out
Lots of things make me cry. I'm emotional like that. Word on the street is that is due to the fact that I'm a Sagittarius. This is the latest jam that gets me all choked up every time I listen to it.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 5 - A Song That Reminds You of Someone: "Basket Case" by Green Day
I moved in with my Madre when I was 14. the time I didn't like any music at all. Luckily, this video was in pretty heavy rotation on MTV at that same time and my mom almost always stopped to watch it (odd for a woman who's favorite musicians are anyone who has appeared on American Idol). Anywho... I eventually started liking the song which lead to playing instruments and listening to better bands and turning into the person that I am today.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 6 - A Song That Reminds You of Somewhere: "Summerland" by Everclear.
The "somewhere" is on a road trip through Iowa. Ever since K and I were little kids we would listen to Sparkle & Fade on every road trip we went on. It's a near-perfect album for two kids driving hours through corn fields talking about leaving the Midwest. We've continued to listen to this every road trip we've ever taken, which means that since you stopped listening to Everclear back in '96, I've listened to this CD 50 more times, at least.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 7 - A Song That Reminds You of an Event: "Stay" by Onelinedrawing.
I am more awesome than my brother in almost all ways, with the exception of one. At my wedding I played a bunch of very normal wedding type songs. He played this little piece of beautiful indie rock that most likely no one but him, his wife and myself had actually heard before. I was so proud I almost cried...

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 8 - A Song You Know All The Words To: "Straight to Hell" by The Menzingers.
I know lots of words to lots of songs, but in honor of concert #209 last Friday (Bouncing Souls, The Menzingers, Luther), I picked a great band covering a song by a great band. We've known these guys forever and they are super-nice dudes and you should give them all your $ and visit whenever they are in your town.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 9 - A Song You Can Dance To: "Lean Back" by Fat Joe.
I don't dance. I just pull up my pants. And do the rockaway. And lean back. And lean back. And lean back. And lean back. I'm not sure why I lean back four times, it's just something that all the cool kids were doing so I thought I'd copy that. It seems to work.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 10 - A Song That Makes You Fall Asleep: "The District Sleep Alone Tonight" by The Postal Service.
There is no such song. Its impossible for me to fall asleep listening to music. I regularly listen to instrumental music for enjoyment, so not even that works. Instead, here's a depressingly beautiful song with the word "sleep" in the title.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 11 - A Song From Your Favorite Band: "Sextape" by Deftones.
Deftones have been my favorite band since I was 15. For those keeping track at home, that is the longest relationship that I have had, beating out my relationship with K by 2 years. Thankfully K is not the jealous type so she doesn't mind when I ignore her for hours on end listening to the bands full discography.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 12 - A Song From A Band You Hate: "Thunderstruck" by AC/DC.
Everyone loves these guys, I have no idea why.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 13 - A Song That Is a Guilty Pleasure: "Yeah" by Usher.
I'm not a huge fan of pop music, but I know every single word to this song. Someday I will form a karaoke group just to perform this song. I call dibs on being Ludacris.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 14 - A Song That No One Would Expect You To Love: "Black Water" by The Doobie Brothers
You probably know me as the metal and punk guy, but I also happen to love me some vocal harmonies. This song is the best of all such songs. Probably in my Top 10 songs of all time...

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 15 - A Song That Describes You: "Won't Be The First Time" by As Friends Rust
A great song about everyone growing up around you, whilst you still are fairly immature. If you are in your 30s, don't have kids, and do things like go out more days than not, you may relate. Plus it starts with the sound of a beer can opening...

Day 16 - A Song That You Used To Love But Now Hate: "Blind" by Korn.
Like all good Midwestern teenagers I had the requisite Nu Metal phase and this song got some heavy airplay on my walkman. Thinking about that makes me cringe a little bit...

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 17 - A Song That You Hear On The Radio: "Somebody Tht I Used To Know" by Gotye.
Remember the first time you heard this and thought, "That's not too bad"? And then the radio proceeded to ruin it by playing it 80,000 times per day.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 18 - A Song That You Wish Was On The Radio: "St. Matthew Returns To The Womb" by Botch.
Any world in which Botch is on the radio is a good world. A good world in which only a handful of people, myself included, actually like what's on the air.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 19 - A Song From Your Favorite Album: "Change (in The House of Flies)" by Deftones.
There are so many great albums that it's hard to pick just one, but if I had to be stuck on a deserted island with only one CD, I would most likely want to have Deftones "White Pony" album with me.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 20 - A Song You Listen To When You're Angry: "Dopeman" by Less Than Jake.
When I'm angry there's no reason to listen to anything other than music that will make me happy. And what music makes everyone in the world happy? Ska music, of course.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 21 - A Song That Makes You Happy: Anything with crazy breakdowns
If you grew up listening to hardcore then you are should like breakdowns and kids windmilling. Basically, any show that I went to that looked like this video makes me incredibly happy. Unless I got punched in the face, that wasn't so much fun.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 22 - A Song That You Listen To When You are Sad: "Banditos" by The Refreshments.
Much like when I am angry, I also like to listen to happy stuff when I'm sad. And what could be more happy-making than ska? 90s alternative rock!

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 23 - A Song You Want Played At Your Wedding - "Nerdy" by Poison The Well
Our wedding song was "It's Your Love" by Tim McGraw and Faith Hill because it was the first song we ever danced to (Homecoming some year). This should have been your song, because we both love it, it's metal, and it's awesome.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 24 - A Song That You Want Played At Your Funeral - "In The Wake of Pigs" by Oh, Sleeper
My biggest musical guilty pleasure is Christian metal music. So, I suppose at my funeral I should play some of that, just in case I've always been wrong...

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 25 - A Song That Makes You Laugh - "Wild Ones" by Flo Rida
Any time that K or I want to make the other one laugh, we quote Flo Rida. In this one he says "two-ooh-ohh" so we try to work that into our conversations as much as possible. For example, K will say "Hey D, how many pancakes did you want" and I'll respond "Two-ooh-ooh" and we will all laugh. We are dorks.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 26 - A Song You Can Play On The Instrument - "Bored" by Deftones
This is the first song I learned to play on bass guitar. It was back in '96 and my friend thought we should learn it for the school talent show. Turns out teachers aren't very big fans of heavy music.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 27 - A Song You Wish You Could Play On The Instrument - "Buildings Began to Stretch Wide Across the Sky, and the Air Filled with a Redish Glow" by Red Sparowes.
It took long enough to type the name of the song, so I'll keep this short. My favorite bass riff of all time.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 28 - A Song That Makes You Feel Guilty. "Birds" by Bars of Gold
Makes me feel guilty? What the @#$@ does that even mean. I have no idea, so here's a really good song about birds from a band that makes me feel guilty because I'm not in it.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 29 - A Song From Your Childhood. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme song.
I have a theory that the adult that a person turned out to be is relative to their favorite Ninja Turtle. For example, I liked Donatello and I turned out to be the smartest person in the world. My brother liked Michelangelo and lives in Iowa, has kids and doesn't drink, so he's a party.... Well, my theory is 50% true.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 30- Your Favorite Song Last Year. "Everything's Not Sh!$%%" by Fear Before
I'm finally done! I'll now return to sarcastic and/or inside jokes only K understands.

Day Zero Project #67: Attend a Pride Parade

This was a pretty easy goal to accomplish as we live within walking distance to Florida's largest pride parade, St.Pete Pride. We walked the mile or so to the parade route in the sweltering heat and were greeted with a parade that featured everything from drag queens to politicians in suits and everything in between. I'll let the pictures do the talking on this one.

There were drag queens throwing glitter on the crowd.

There were guys dressed as flamingos.

 

There were guys with giant bead necklaces.

 I'm guessing you didn't notice the beads right away with that one. That's okay, neither did my wife.

There were also floats that were a mix of young, unclothed guys and ballerina drag queens.

There was this guy.

There were guys in leather stuff.

 

Even the President of the United States of America showed up.

And there were three whole protestors.

All-in-all we had an excellent time and will definitely be back next year.

P.S.  On a serious note, everyone should be allowed to get married, regardless of whom they've fallen in love with. Even Cardboard Obama agreed with me on that one, so come on Congress, lets make that happen.