"Let's write it while we still got time"

The last week of summer was packed with all sorts of excitement. On my final Monday home, Sean, Blazak, Morgen and I went to New York to see the Yankees play the Royals.  We headed up to the city early to explore Manhattan…specifically the Strand bookstore, in all of its enormous glory. Floor upon floor of books, a ton of neat rare books.

But that wasn't the important part. We started out hungry, so we hit Mighty Quinn’s BBQ.  When you open the door, the smell of smoke wanders out and drags you inside. Pulled pork, brisket, smoked sausage on buns that clearly are made there or nearby. No store bought stuff here. And they have a great selection of brews on tap. I enjoyed a smoked sausage sandwich, an Allagash Black stout and a Founder’s IPA. There’s a place I’ll go back to.

After lunch, and after the bookstore, we headed off to McSorley’s. A place that needs no introduction, this Irish pub has sawdust on the floor and you have two options for beer: light or dark. Both are spectacular.

After McSorleys, we stopped at one more Irish pub, enjoyed another local brew and a little Jameson, and went to the Stadium. As beautiful as ever, but a little palatial. We got rained on, but stuck out most of the game, and got a Derek Jeter bobble head give away. That item now sits on my desk at school.

On Wednesday, I took Jayden fishing. We caught sunnies at Wells Mills Park, had a hotdog and a rootbeer at Stewart’s. I do love spending time with that kid.

I seem to have a habit of hiding big news at the bottom of posts. My announcement that I was staying in Arizona this year comes to mind, as I hid that in a previous post. This news, I suspect, is no exception.

When Colleen was out west, we went to Petrified Forest National Park…there are rocks that used to be trees there! While we were there, we bought a couple pairs of earrings made from petrified wood.  While I was home this summer, I dropped one pair off at a jeweler to have one made into a ring. I could not believe how difficult it was to find someone who would mount a piece of petrified wood! It has a hardness akin to diamonds, but so many places wouldn't touch it…big ups to Blaine’s Jewelry Box in Brick for taking on the challenge. And for doing a badass job.

 So, on July 9^th, I took Jayden up to camp to play (and give him something to do while mom had her surgery).  While he was off having a great time, Colleen and I sat on the fishing dock, and I offered that rock (formerly tree) back to her.  Now, she wears it on her left hand.

I just want to go through my life announcing that I’m crazy about her... but we are both fairly private people, and she is generally much more understated than I am. So let me just say how happy I am that I make her happy, and that she’s made that promise to me. I am the luckiest guy ever.

One final note…I brought a little tabby cat back to Arizona with me. She is a very sweet little critter, and has been very nice to have around…except for when she broke loose from her carrier and almost escaped into the airplane.  I managed to catch her, unstring my left shoe, and tie the carrier shut. Since then, she’s been great.

In which I explain the first half or so of my summer

“God what am I supposed to do? There’s more than miles in my rearview”

                                -Brantley Gilbert

It’s been a helluva ride this summer. I had planned to try to fit my entire five week trip back to New Jersey into one post, but it proved impossible. Too many things happened! I’m back in Bullhead now, the meetings finished, the classroom prepped, and ready to go for another year of 7^th grade!

So…here we go. In order (mostly) of how they happened.

1.       Sean, Morgen, and Brian came to get me in Philly, and we stopped in Cherry Hill for breakfast at Amy’s Omelette House…Fantastic. Recommended.

2.       Bacation! (In Jayden’s Parlance)

a.       So good to see everyone, spend time with Eric, drink beer and smoke cigars with Dad, enjoy Colleen’s brews (and time with her), play with Jayden, meet Jeanine, and make a beer zipline. Oh yes.

      A beer zipline. Dad’s idea, actually…we cut the top off a wicker tiki torch,  wired on a bottom, made a handle, and strung a line from the top deck of the Bacation house to the pool deck. Voila! Beer carrier!

b.      Jayden

                                                               i.      Buries Colleen in pillows on the couch and declares “When Uncle Mike comes back he will say ‘MY BABY IS GONE’” Where does he come up with this stuff?

                                                             ii.      Nails two holes in one playing Mini Golf. Legitimate holes in one. Took him for ice cream, of course!

                                                            iii.      Hides from Jeanine and declares that he’s “allergic to girls who laugh more than Colleen” (he did eventually make nice.)

c.       Cigars on the deck with Dad and Eric! Spent the week grilling dinner and smoking cigars and drinking beer with Dad and Eric. One night, after dinner, Dad said “Give everyone a drink and a cigar and it levels the playing field. Everyone’s an equal.” What a statement. It’s nice to see my relationship with my dad change into a friendship. He’s a good friend! We sat out on the deck after dinner most nights, the three of us, joked and laughed as friends and as family. What a wonderful thing!

d.      Colleen’s Brews:

                                                               i.      A killer Black IPA

                                                             ii.      An even better Heffeweizen. Wow. What a brew!

3.       Week Three:

a.       One big thing happened in week three. Smithbauer got a call from his doctor. The cancer seems to have been…I don’t want to say defeated…but maybe put on the mat. The chemo and radiation did what they were supposed to, and while he continues to take treatment, and will continue, the prognosis is spectacular. When we heard the news…we partied. Oh how we partied. Great news for a great man!

4.       Mission Trip, Wood River Junction, RI

a.       Drove a van full of middle school kids. Didn’t kill anyone.

b.      Learned I’m out of practice with the 24 hour nature of the trip, but enjoyed it.

c.       Drove a van full of middle school kids. Didn’t kill anyone.

'Cause nothin matters in the whole wide world...

Well. What a three weeks this has turned out to be.

From National Parks and family to Spring Training and Phoenix to Vegas last night and Colleen on an airplane today. I'm writing this from my apartment, oddly quiet and dark in comparison to what I've become accustomed to over the past three months.

Exhausting would be a good word to describe how today went...in fact, when I saw my boss and she asked how I was, I told her "Awake. And that's just going to have to do for today." She laughed, which I appreciated.

Today was a tough day, up early, dropping Ms. Earp off at the airport, and heading to work sans breakfast. Thankfully, there was some granola in a mason jar in my classroom to munch on, and my handy Keurig to pump coffee out into my brand new Spring Training Arizona 2013 coffee mug. After work, it was softball practice and then home. I was missing Colleen all day, but it didn't hit me until I walked in tonight. It was kind of like Brad Paisley's "Fishin Song" (conveniently done in Camden, NJ)...except not as hilarious. And I'm genuinely excited for Colleen to be home with her family and friends, to be going back to a job she enjoys and another job she loves, and for her exciting news about New Orleans and the opportunities that exist there. So mostly it was like that song in that he realizes that when he gets home it'll hit him that she's gone.

But Colleen isn't gone with a capital G. She's just elsewhere. And we have a relationship that can confidently support the divergent geography that we currently share.

Hey. Ain't no thing. Just a very, very long day full of granola, coffee, and dirt from a softball field.

OH. And a sub. A real one. From Jersey Mike's...we found one in Vegas.

I walked into the sub shop and asked for a whole # (I don't remember). The kid behind the counter looked at me like I'd walked in, removed my pants, and thrown them in the air. So another employee took over, made the sandwich with just a few confusing questions (HOW HARD IS IT TO MAKE A SUB?!). As I paid out, I told her that the questions confused me...back east, you walk in, tell them "half a #4" and in 2 minutes there's a sandwich in front of you. She explained that she was from Camden, and that she gets it.

Ate the sub for lunch...split it with a coworker. Needless to say, it was a hit, a real sub made on correct bread and in proper fashion. I'm overly excited about this, yes, but there just aren't any good sub places out here. It's not a thing.

Another reason to want to come back east, and another reason to be excited about the summer.

I've decided to stay here for another year. Arizona, while trying, has treated me well, my coworkers are great, and I'm lucky enough to be doing a job I love. I wish it were closer to home...there are a lot of things about the east coast that I miss, including family and friends, and porkroll, and subs.

(At least I listed you all before the food...but be honest, you'd miss those things too.)

11 weeks until I'm home...

The 8 year old inside me screamed!

Spring Training. Usually just known to me as the end of the "Long, dark, nightmare of the soul" that is that time between the Super Bowl and the beginning of baseball again. This year, however, we went. The eight year old inside of me was jumping around all over the place. And it was glorious.

After a week of travels that involved some great National Parks, some great company, and ended with new tires (heh heh, oops) we headed south to the Sonoran Desert and the land of saguaros. Those things are crazy! They're all over the hills, and as you get closer to the city of Phoenix, they dot the landscape along with Joshua Trees next to the highway. After we arrived in Phoenix, we checked into the motel, went and had some Waffle House (!!) and then stopped to grab some beverages at a gas station. Coming out of that gas station, my car would not start. An hour and a half and a new battery later, we were ready to go.

We went to a night game our first day in town to see the Rockies play the Reds at Salt River Fields in Scottsdale. It was awesome; major league players in a minor league setting, like Lakewood. We spent $8 for lawn seats, bought a beer and walked around the park, finally settling behind the Reds bullpen to watch their starter, Bronson Arroyo, warm up. As he began to throw, we got into a conversation with him. Personable, funny guy. Brock wound up getting a ball tossed his way as Arroyo went to the mound to begin the game. Neat stuff.  Since we didn't move our location all night, we were still behind the pen when Arroyo drove a double off the center field wall. This caused another round of conversation about whether or not the relievers would hear the end of his double. As it turns out, it's a good thing it wasn't Mat Latos who got the hit.

The next day was two ball games. The first game was at Hohokam Park in Mesa for the Cubs and Rangers. We spent some time walking around the park before settling into the grass in right field for the duration of the game. They had 24 oz PBR for 10 bucks! What fun. The second game found us in Peoria for the Giants at the Mariners. By this point we were totally exhausted from all of the sunshine from the afternoon and an all-you-can-eat stop at the Waffle House, but it is always awesome to see Major Leaguers giving baseballs to kids at every opportunity, which happened abundantly all week.

Wednesday found us thankful for only one baseball game. Dustin left before we headed to Surprise for the Dodgers at the Royals. Keeping up with this game was a little confusing because both teams chose to wear blue. Perplexing. During this game, we found out via the internets that Dodgers third baseman Hanley Ramirez will miss the first 8 weeks of the season. Go WBC!

Thursday was our final day in Phoenix at the Days Inn. We checked out and went to see the White Sox play the Brewers at Camelback Ranch. During this game, we watched little kids get the best baseball experience they could ask for...baseballs tossed liberally into the crowd, autographs by many established Major Leaguers as they exited the game, a great lawn to roll down.

It was incredible to see Major League players interact with fans, sign autographs, and just generally enjoy their work in such a setting. The weather was perfect, the venues small and cozy, the prices totally reasonable. While I imagine that going to Florida to see the Yankees or Mets would be more exciting (since I'd have a dog in the fight, so to speak) the fact that everything in Phoenix is a half hour from everything else makes it a great opportunity to see many new players, parks, and teams.

"And I've rambled on about me..."

 As 2012 drew to a close, I found myself (reflective by nature) more reflective than normal. My life, so different than it was at the end of 2011, stands to change even more in 2013. I couldn’t help but consider the end of 2011: frustration at the lack of job prospects, chafing at continuing to live at home and not being able to stand on my own two feet, the rut of routine.

January 1, 2013 finds me both literally and figuratively in a different place. No longer a resident of the South Jersey I love so much, I hang my hat now in Bullhead City. A trade for the different, if there ever was one. January 1, 2013 finds me teaching 7^th graders, but currently on break, sitting in my parents’ kitchen, the room swimming with the smells of garlic and soy sauce, comfortable as it ever was. January 1, 2013 finds me secure and confident that I know where my (professional, at least) life will take me until the beginning of June. Past that, who knows? I know that school will end in June and that at some point this summer I will be on the Outer Banks with the family and in Rhode Island with the youth group. I know that at some point this summer I will become a squatter in Eric’s home. I know that at some point this summer, I’ll have a plan for the fall. I am hoping for one long before then, being who I am, but have begrudgingly accepted the fact that there is just no way to know where I go from here right now.

2012 saw changes for the good…new job, new friends, new self confidence and awareness, renewed joy in the holidays and the little things that make New Jersey my home. 2013 will begin with changes…Colleen coming west for ? days/weeks/months. The aforementioned challenge of deciding where to be and what to do next (hoping I have a decision to make, and that I can make the right one). I’ve made changes for the better, and here’s to hoping that I can set my sights on bigger and better and continue to sand the rough edges of change already begun. Here’s to hoping that I can be as positive about the advancement and adjustments on December 31, 2013 as I am right now about the way 2012 treated me.

For the second year in a row I begin with questions about where my future will take me, although this year with more confidence that I can take whatever it may be in stride, or at least have the strength to bear myself back on course, or change course. At the dawn of 2012, I felt the weight of inactivity, the strain of a cloudy future. In 2013, my future is no clearer, but the experience of driving 2500 miles, setting up a life, and surviving the first five months tells me I have the strength to pull off whatever it may be. The unending love and support from friends and family, new and old, tells me I have the support system, too.

So here’s to you, 2013. I hope to look back 365 days from now and say that I’m a better man, a better friend, a better teacher, a better student, a better brother, a better son, a better uncle, a better grandson, a better nephew, and a better cousin. I hope to look back at the halfway point and say I’ve done a service for my students, taught them not just the Essential Standards but to think for themselves, taught them not to pass a test but how to learn, taught them that their final score is not the important part, but the knowledge they gain and how they apply it makes all the difference in the world.

From a Friday Night in Bullhead...

My students tell me I should title my autobiography (a primary source) "How is this my life? A Field Guide to Teaching Middle School on Purpose"

They tell me Chapter One should be "What did I do to deserve this?" and Chapter Two should be "What do you want?"

I am totally ok with this. The students who tell me this have scores of 95%+ in my class.

So I come home in two weeks for Christmas.

I got back to Bullhead from thanksgiving two weeks ago, roughly. Thanksgiving was great. I love being able to be home and to make a general nuisance of myself in the kitchen. I even cleaned the bathroom. Yeah, being home was nice.

There are a lot of things that really make this place incredible. Red sunrises through my classroom window, making me wonder about Northeastern Maritime Tradition and Superstition. These absolutely stunning sunrises reflected in fleeting clouds before the sun crests the top of the Arizona mountains. It’s pretty great. Being at work so early has the benefit of allowing some time to reflect on my lesson plans, their effectiveness and the strategies I can employ to make my class more fun, more effective, and more relevant to my students. Sunsets, mostly orange and pink, that silhouette the Nevada mountains and highlight them like a slash across one of my students’ papers. Good friends. Great coworkers.

In a lot of ways, I am truly blessed here.

But it’s difficult, too. Being away is still a daily struggle for me. Knowing some of the people I care most about are struggling with things while I’m 2500 miles away is difficult. Not that I think I can solve these problems, but it would be nice to be able to share them, toss back a beer or two and talk and just be around.

Feel more effective.

Feel more relevant to the lives of the people I care most about.

Eric was able to swing by my little apartment in mid-November…that was nice. It’s always good to see him, good to catch up, good to let him know I plan to play squatter in his home for some of the short summer. Looking forward to tossing back a few at Christmas time, by the way.

Colleen will be coming out here with me when I return home after the holiday. I feel both excited and very nervous. I want to see her happy…and though this is a TBD (the party goes till ??) amount of time, I am pulling for her to find the employment she so deeply desires. Weird position to be in…to want to spend more time with her, but also be pulling for her to land a job in Nowhere, Arkansas (or any other reasonably named backwoods place in the middle of nowhere).

Such is my life, and I kind of love it that way.

Incidentally, I recently bought a fake Christmas Tree. While I am not proud of this, I didn’t want to throw away a real tree before Christmas (as I’ll be coming home) and didn’t want to come home to five million needles on the floor…(cue jokes about Needles, California, which is not far from me).  I had sent my mom and my sister a picture of my sad little undecorated tree, and independently of one another they sent me ornaments.

Blew me away, a little bit. I love stories, and I have more than a few ornaments, now, that will always have a story attached to them, and a little bit of love.

Appreciated. Much, much appreciated.

We roasted pumpkins. Because it's fall.

It was good to be home.

Just arrived back in Arizona after a two week return to New Jersey. 

Some highlights (in no particular order):

1. My family and friends

2. The day I subbed. Haha.

3. Bagels

4. Porkroll

5. Pizza

6. Charcoal grill

7. Yeungling

8. I do, in fact, like stout

9. Picking up hours at the store

10. Moe’s Burritos at Mccarren Airport

11. Watching the Gangnam Style video with Colleen

12. Sitting with Colleen while she graded

13. Brewing pumpkin beer

14. Colleen’s pumpkin lasagna

15. Football with Jayden

16. Golf with Dad, Smithbauer and Morgen

17. Falling asleep in Colleen’s office…under her desk

18. Sitting in on her classes. I learned things!

19. Trees with fall foliage

20. Football at Abby’s

21. Delicious Orchards with Colleen and Jay

22. Delicious Orchards Apple Cider. Wow

23. Driving the Jeep.

24. Finding marathons of bad television shows with Colleen

25. Harold’s

26. A cheesesteak in the airport

27.   Jayden's picture of a fall tree

28.   Pumpkin Ice Cream

Friday was rough. Headed out to the airport early to hang with Katy for a bit, and about 1/3 of the way there realized I’d left my keys at home. So there was an added hour.  Colleen dropped me with Katy and headed off, and Katy and I hung out with her roommates for a bit before heading to the airport. My flight had already been delayed an hour. It took almost an hour to get to the airport because of traffic, but I was able to sit in Chickie & Pete’s for a bit and have a cheesesteak and a Yeungling. Or two. Then we boarded, and sat on the tarmac for an hour, then decided we didn’t have enough fuel, and sat for another hour. I got to my car a little after 2 am yesterday morning, slept a few hours, and got back into life as I know it. It was  a long, long day. I hate flying. I’m basically anxious the entire time, and I really don’t like not having control of the situation. And sitting. And sitting and sitting and sitting hoping to take off. 

4 weeks until I’m home again.