The Thibodeau Men, Part II; The Proud Papa

"The Thibodeau Men"

Why I love The Onion...

(For those of you who have never heard of it, The Onion is a satirical news website and is quite possibly the funniest site on the net...)

A sampling of some of their recent "headlines":

* 'Wheel of Fortune' Contestants Suffer As Vowel Prices Skyrocket

* Desperate Hillary To Obama: "Next Vote Wins"

* San Diego Zoo, Prison Merge

* Nike Signs Big Brown To $90 Million Horseshoe Contract

* Pacman Jones: "Who Do I Have To Kill To Get Reinstated To The NFL?"

* Mathematics To Retire Favre's Number

* Shroud Of Turin Accidentally Washed With Red Shirt



The Onion never disappoints.

New layout.

Yeah, yeah, I'm trying out a new layout that hopefully is easier to read since a few people have complained about the old layout. Problem is, I'm having a hell of a time trying to figure out how to get my old customized sidebar stuff. I'll stick with this one for a while and see how it goes.

The X Man è un calciatore

A letter to my newborn son.

Dear Luca,

I know it must seem strange of me to write you a letter when you’re only 10 days old but I hope you’ll indulge me. I really wanted to write a similar letter to your brother when he was born but he was our first child and we got so wrapped up in trying to figure out how to be parents that I just never did it. I hope that when he is old enough to read this, he will realize that my words apply to him as well. And although we still haven’t gotten this parenting thing figured out 100% yet, one thing I have learned is that you’re never truly ready to be a parent and so you just get by the best you can and let the rest happen as it happens.

First off, I’m your father. As such, I bear a tremendous responsibility and I hope I don’t let you down. When your brother was born I knew something big had happened but I don’t think I really understood the scope of my responsibilities. I do now.

I love to hold you in my arms and I find myself watching you as you’re sleeping and I feel myself welling up with such love for you that it’s like my heart is going to burst. I can be a hard man sometimes – just ask your brother – but when I look at your little face, so innocent, pure and unspoiled, I just melt. It’s just unbelievable to me that I could produce something so beautiful.

The world that you have born into is a hard one. You have been born into a world at war, where people kill each other because of something as trivial as what religion they practice or don’t practice or what part of the world they are from. When I look at your little face, I sometimes think about how lucky you are that you have not yet been tainted by this world and how I wish you could forever remain so innocent. I pray that you will not become involved in such terrible things as are occurring right now; that the world and its inhabitants will have evolved beyond such madness by the time you are old enough to understand. I pray that you will never learn such hatred as to judge a fellow human being by the color of his skin, by his station in life, where he was born, or by his ethnicity. Please son, choose the path of understanding rather than violence whenever possible. Understand that while violence is sometimes necessary and inevitable, it is not the desired path and should be used only as a last result.

Let me tell you about your mother. She is the most amazing person I’ve ever had the privilege to know and as you grow I hope you will realize how lucky you are to have her for your mother. I’ll be honest with you – she was really hoping for a girl when we found out you were coming…but when I see the love in her eyes when she’s holding you I can assure you that she could not possibly love you any more if you had been a girl.

Earlier tonight I was holding you and you were sleeping so quietly in my arms and I just got lost looking at you, all your little movements and sounds. A thought occurred to me as I was watching you. I starting thinking about all the babies born in the world, about how they’re brand new to this world. Each one is born into different circumstances. And then I started thinking about how the circumstances that you’ve been born into are controlled by me. And it made me realize that the role I will play in your life is paramount in how you will develop and grow as a person in this world. As I said earlier, I am your father. I am perhaps the most influential person you will know in your life. I don’t take this responsibility lightly.

I promise that I will do everything I can to prepare you for what you will face in your life. I promise that I will never desert you, that I will always be here for you, no matter what hardships you face. I may not always give you what you want but I will always do my best to give you what you need. I may not always be the best father but it won’t be for lack of trying. Above all else son, I promise that I will love you and do my best to make sure that you have everything you need. A few months ago, before you were born, I was in the hospital where the doctor told me that I was lucky to be alive. I took her words to heart and could not stop thinking about how I almost didn’t get the chance to meet you in person. It made me break down and cry and I have cherished every moment I have been blessed to have with you because of that day. I finally realized that my life is no longer my own; it belongs to you and your brother now. If, by some tragedy, I should ever have a relapse and not be as fortunate as I was that day, I hope you will always know how much I love you and your brother. You are both my treasures. Never forget that.

It’s your life son. Whatever you do with it, I pray that you will never settle for anything less than what you deserve; greatness. I love you and your brother more than you will ever know.


Love,

Dad

Even More Baby Pics...

The Face of Fear?

Quite the contrary actually.

While the wife and I laugh at this picture as appearing to show me scared to death of baby #2, the reality is actually the opposite; I'm thoroughly enjoying the second kid so far. I think it's because we've already gotten the "fear of the unknown" out of the way with the X Man but whatever it is, things seem a lot easier this time around.

Luca is eating well (a very healthy appetite to be sure) and sleeps a lot. The only problems we're having so far are actually with the X Man; he is acting out quite a bit in an effort to recoup some the attention that he lost when Luca arrived. I'm told this is normal but hopefully it won't last too long as I have little patience for it. I'm doing my best, taking him out for daddy-X Man excursions, trying to give him extra attention, etc, but nothing seems to be working.

All in all, we're having a ball with little Luca and wish like hell that we could share him with everyone...

More baby pics...

(As always, click image to enlarge...)

Luca Christiano Thibodeau

Meet Luca Christiano Thibodeau, born on May 12th, 2008 at 0730 AM, 6.5 lbs (2.87 kg), 18.5 inches (47 cm).







Mommy and baby are doing great. The wife did it totally natural with no drugs, pain killers, epidurals or anything. She's the Terminator.

It's Baby Day.

The wife started early labor last night around 11pm, the contractions are getting closer and more painful and all the signs say the baby is on the way.

So why, you might ask, am I home writing this instead of at the hospital? Well, we went to the hospital this morning around 0330, the nurse checked her out and after about a half hour said that she's dilated 3 cm which is borderline. So rather than keep her there she told us to go home, walk around, take a nap, etc and come back in about 2 hours by which time she should be at least 4 cm. We'll be heading back in about 30 minutes so hopefully I'll have a big announcement posted on here sometime later today...

Steve-O, the X Man and Me

From Steve-O's visit a couple weeks ago

Baby Update

Baby number two should be dropping any day now. The official due date is May 30 but we were at the doctor last week and found out that the wife was already dilated 1 cm, the baby is sitting very low and is pushing down hard. Virginia is also having trouble walking around or staying on her feet for an extended period of time. She's entering her 40th week now and I've been saying all along that the baby will be early so we'll see if I'm right.

We're pretty sure we've decided on a name but it's been so tenuous that it could change 10 times before the kid actually arrives.

Are you kidding me?

Ladies and gentlemen, my hometown:

Yankees fan charged with murder in death of Red Sox fan

Un-freaking-believable.

Dancing Lessons From God, Part 11

I didn’t wait until Friday, I called the recruiter the next morning and informed him of my decision. I remember him telling me that I wouldn’t regret it; he had no idea how right he was. He put me back on the bus to Boston where I signed my name on all the forms and they gave me a choice of several dates to ship out. The dates presented a minor problem because the latest one they had was April 25th and my sister Tracy was getting married on Memorial Day weekend at the end of May. Since my assignment was to Germany, there was no way I’d be able to go back home for the wedding after only a month. So I picked April 25th and hoped Tracy would understand. When I left the MEPS and got home I felt better than I could ever remember feeling. It was a feeling of liberation, like I was finally escaping the prison I’d been living in for so long. Where there was no hope, there suddenly was some. It was so strange, I had feared this decision for so long but now that I had actually made it and there was no going back, I actually felt better than ever and couldn’t fathom why it took me so long to make it. I had no earthly idea what awaited me on the other side of the ocean but I didn’t care. I was just incredibly excited to find out. It was to be an adventure and adventure was exactly what I needed in my life at that point. I could have been making the biggest mistake of my life but I didn’t care; at least I was getting out of Nashua. It may have been only for three years but I was finally going to be experiencing life.

But first I had to take care of things there. I handed in my two week notice which was a huge relief. Most of the people at work were a bit shocked to say the least but they understood. I think the management was probably as relieved as I was when I handed in my notice since Pressline was in a rut and I knew that they held me responsible. But I still had a good relationship with them and it was an amicable parting. I did everything I could to make sure they would be able to run Pressline in the interim while they looked for my replacement. Those two weeks were actually pretty enjoyable. I didn’t have to make any sales calls so I spent most of my time tying up loose ends and practicing my German. My best friends at the paper, Bob and Mary Gorman were really sad to see me go and threw me a going away party at their house. It was to be the first of four going away parties people had for me. Eric and I took one last trip up to Montreal and I enjoyed it so much more knowing that I didn’t have to go to work when I got back. I forget exactly why Eric was in town at the time but I was really glad he was. He was really my inspiration for this crazy decision and I think he, more than anybody, understood my wanderlust and need to see the world. On the way home we stopped in Claremont, New Hampshire. Claremont is a town on the border with Vermont and is where both of my parents are from. Most of my relatives live there and my mom’s side did a get together so they could all say goodbye. The one thing I remember most is that my Uncle Jerry, a Jehovah Witness, was not happy about me joining the army. I guess Jehovah Witnesses don’t believe in military service and he threw a bunch of bible verses at me that were supposed to explain why but I just kind of chuckled and said goodbye. I always liked Uncle Jerry and didn’t want to offend him. We headed back to Nashua where my dad had planned another going away party for me and had invited his side of the family and his friends who knew me and wanted to say goodbye. It was at that party that I received one of the greatest, most perfect gifts I’ve ever received in my life. As the party was winding down, Eric pulled me aside and handed it to me. I opened it and it was a travel guidebook: Lonely Planet’s Western Europe on a Shoestring. He mentioned that he had used it when he was backpacking around Europe and found it extremely useful and figured it would be perfect for me so he bought me my own copy. On the inside cover was written the following:

“Unexpected travel plans are dancing lessons from God”
-Kurt Vonnegut

18Apr98 Eric Thibodeau

Although I loved it right away, I had no idea how important that gift would be. In the following years that book went with me everywhere and I relied on it so much that I started referring to it as the “travel bible”. Even now, years later I still use it although some of the info is out of date, the corners are frayed, the cover is worn and the pages are marked all up, filled with my notes, highlights, and the occasional phone number or email address from women I’ve met in my European travels. Eric had given me the perfect gift and as I thumbed through it, I couldn’t help but feel that despite the freedom he had and all the places he had been, my brother was just a bit envious of me being able to start over and experience all this for the first time.

There was one last goodbye party to go to and that was one thrown by my friends. All my closest friends, the people I would miss the most, were there. It was a bit sad saying goodbye to everyone and I realized how much I would miss sitting around on Sundays with the guys watching Patriots games, not to mention the annual pilgrimages to Fenway Park for the Red Sox games. But the decision had been made and there was no going back. I went home and packed as much stuff into a duffle bag as I could and prepared to leave. I had seen the movie Braveheart a few months earlier and one line from the movie kept replaying over and over in my head: “Every man dies…not every man really lives.” I was twenty-six years old and I was finally about to start living.


**FIN**

Dancing Lessons From God, Part 10 (The real Part 10...)

I walked through the door and was met by a couple of soldiers in class B uniforms. They looked at my file and said “Oh, you’re prior service…you’ll be coming in with the same MOS.” Without even thinking, I replied “Well, the recruiter told me I’d be able to change my MOS…” and before I even finished the sentence I dropped my head and started laughing “Right, right, what was I thinking…”. As it turns out, you actually can change your MOS when you reenlist. The problem is, the only things you can change to are Infantry, cook, mechanic, stuff like that, jobs that most people don’t want and that the army has a hard time filling. Things like computers and such were impossible to get into because they were highly sought after. So I got snookered by the recruiter. “Well played”, I thought to myself. The chances of me actually signing up after that were very slim but they didn’t give up. I explained my situation, that I would be leaving a good job to do this because I wanted to see Europe and finish my Masters Degree and if I couldn’t change my MOS then I would always be in the field and I would never get to work on my degree so it wouldn’t be worth it. First they guaranteed me a slot in Europe. Then they tried to sell me on the idea that my MOS was not that bad, that there’s not that much field time and that I’d still be able to work on my degree. They mentioned the GI Bill but I told them I didn’t qualify because I had already had partial GI Bill with the reserves. They tried every trick in the book to convince me but I would not budge. I was convinced that there was something they could do to get me an MOS change and I was determined to call their bluff. They even called some General Officer in charge of something or other and tried to get a waiver but nothing doing. Then one guy said “What if we could get you money under the GI Bill?” to which I replied “I already told you, I’m pretty sure I don’t qualify.” But he said he found the regulation that says that because I was in the reserves and only received a partial amount, they could give me $16,000. I thought about it for a minute. That much money would certainly be enough for a Masters Degree. They also informed me that because I was prior service, I would only have to enlist for three years instead of four. They were making it very attractive but they still weren’t giving me the one thing I wanted, a change of MOS. I held firm on that point and after a couple of frustrating hours for everybody I told them no thanks. In a way I was bluffing to see if they wanted me bad enough to somehow get me an MOS change but mostly I really meant it. I was not interested in enlisting, quitting my job, leaving my friends and family and going to live in a tent for three years.

The recruiter picked me up at the bus station and asked what had happened. I guess he wasn’t used to people coming back from the MEPS without enlisting and just could not understand why I hadn’t after everything they offered me. For the first time I think he realized that I wasn’t like most of his other recruits and decided to take another approach with me.

“Look man, I’ve already passed my quota for this month so whether you come in or not doesn’t really affect me that much. So let’s be real. You came to me for a reason. You seem like you have a good job and everything but there’s obviously something missing and that’s why you came. I’m not going to give you any bullshit, if you sign up and go to Europe, you’re going to spend some time in the field. I spent a couple tours there so I’ve done it and I’m telling you first hand that it’s not as bad as you seem to think. You still spend most of your time in garrison and you still have plenty of time to do some traveling and even take some college courses if you want. It’s not paradise, it’s the army. You’ll have to put a lot into it but you can get a hell of a lot more out of it if you really want. Most guys never realize that but you’re smarter and have been around more than most guys that I put in. Just do me one favor, just take a few days and think it over. Today is Tuesday. Call me on Friday and if you haven’t changed your mind then you’ll never hear from me again.”

I was convinced that I wasn’t signing up but I agreed to think about it and call him back on Friday. I got home, opened a beer, watched some television, then went to bed and fell into a deep sleep. The next day I was back into my routine, making sales calls, having fruitless sales meetings, the usual. Except that now I began to believe that there was a way out. I didn’t have to do this anymore if I didn’t want to. The real question was, “how bad did I want to leave?” The answer: very bad. I finished up the day and went home. My mother was in the kitchen cooking dinner and I sat at the counter and said I needed to talk to her about something. I told her about the events of the day before at the MEPS in Boston and said I was having a very hard time making this decision. I didn’t ask for advice and she didn’t offer any. Instead, for the first time, I just started pouring out my frustrations with how my life was turning out, that I felt like I had accomplished nothing and had nothing promising on the horizon, about how miserable I was at my job and especially how embarrassing it was for me to be twenty-six years old, working two jobs, and living with my mother. All my friends were getting married, having kids, buying houses, and here I was no better off than I was in high school. What I realized was that I might be miserable in the army but I was already miserable so why not be miserable in Europe at least? So I decided to look at the worst case scenario and see if I could live with it. The worst case scenario was this: I join the army and go to Europe. I spend most of my time in the field and never get to do a lot of traveling or take any college courses. I still finish after three years having seen at least a little bit of Europe and with $16,000 to go back to college with. Could I live with that? Hell yes I could. I was joining the army. I was joining the army!


(Click HERE for Part XI)

Dancing Lessons From God, Part 9

The next day I got to my office with my customary large regular coffee from Dunkin Donuts, sat down at my desk, pulled out a sheet of paper and put my mind to work. I decided to make a list of everything and anything that I wanted to do. I put myself in the mindset that I was starting from scratch and had nothing to lose so anything goes. My final list consisted of two things:

1. Travel, especially to Europe.

2. Go back to school for something that I enjoy and can actually make a career at.

As I looked at the list I thought to myself “man, imagine if I could do something that would allow me to do both, like going to college in Europe”. But since I couldn’t even afford to go back to school in the US doing so overseas was obviously out of the question. Suddenly the idea of enlisting in the Air Force occurred to me again. It had been a few years since I tried the first time so maybe they had changed the “no prior service” policy. Besides, I had finished my enlistment in the Army Reserves almost two years earlier so I wasn’t even in anymore. I excitedly picked up the phone and dialed the recruiter. My joy was nipped in the bud pretty quick as they still weren’t taking anyone who had served in any other branch of the military. I considered the army but quickly dismissed it. That may sound crazy to people who have been in the army because at the time the US had a lot of bases overseas in Europe and I was sure that I could get a slot there. However, there were several other factors that prevented me from seriously considering the army. First of all, if I was going to quit my job and join the military it would be for two reasons: to see the world (or at least Europe) and be able to get my Masters Degree while on active duty. I knew that most bases had an education center where I could probably finish my degree cheaply, if not free. The problem was that my MOS (job skill) was a 31K which was a communications job. I had met several people in my reserve unit who had been on active duty in Europe with my MOS and they all complained that they were never able to take any college courses because they spent so much time in the field on exercises and whatnot. That was a big turnoff for me because the thing I hated most about the reserves was going to the field for our 2 week annual training exercises. If I was miserable doing two weeks a year how could I even consider going active duty where I would no doubt have to spend a lot more time than that in the field? Not only that but if I’m in the field so much that I’m not able to finish my Masters Degree then when I finished my four years I would be in worse shape career wise than when I enlisted. So the Army was out. I would have to come up with something else.

Another week or so went by and I still had nothing. The army kept creeping back into my mind as possibly my only option. I started thinking that maybe if I were able to change my MOS to something computer related it might work. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that anyone with a lot of computer skills had a bright future so maybe that was my way out. I might spend a lot of time in the field but if I’m learning a skill like computers, it would not be wasted time. Eventually I started considering the army as a possible option. Not a very attractive option to be sure but I was getting desperate. The other thing I had to consider was that I didn’t even know if I was young enough to enlist. Now that might sound funny since I was 26 at the time but I felt like the oldest 26 year old in the world. So about a week after I’d been denied by the Air Force, I placed a call to the local US Army recruiting office. At this point I still hadn’t decided that it was something I wanted to do, I just wanted to get some questions answered so I could make an informed decision one way or the other.

“US Army recruiting office, Nashua, New Hampshire”

“Hi, I’m just hoping you can answer two questions for me. First question is, what is the age limit for prior service enlisting active?”

“Thirty-five…”

“OK good, second question…I was in the reserves for 7 years and have been out for almost two. If I reenlisted active duty, would I be able to change my MOS?”

“Yes.”

“OK, thanks, that’s all I need to know.” -CLICK-

Now I‘d dealt with the recruiters before from my time in the reserves so I knew how they worked. I was familiar with their little tricks and games that they can sometimes play on unsuspecting possible recruits. I was determined not to be one of those naïve recruits who believe everything that the recruiter tells them. I knew that the recruiter can promise you all kind of stuff but it’s not until you get to the Military Entrance Processing Station – MEPS – that you actually find out what’s true and what’s not. So I knew that I had to talk to the recruiter initially to get my questions answered but I would have to get to the MEPS in Boston before I could really make any decisions. I thought about it and if I could truly change my MOS, this might work. I decided to go through the recruiting office in Manchester rather than Nashua because there was much less chance that I would run into anyone that I knew. The recruiter that I talked to was a young E6 who was actually a Manchester native. He told me that the army had a program called “Hometown Recruiter” where you could volunteer to be recruiter and they would send you to your hometown to do it. I didn’t let on how desperate I was to get out and that army seemed to be my only option as I wanted to maintain the upper hand. I wanted to make sure he knew that while I was considering enlisting, I still had a good job and didn’t necessarily need to enlist so he was going to have to offer me a really sweet deal to get my name on the dotted line. In fact this was actually not too far from the truth. I was still very hesitant about joining the army. It’s not something that most twenty-six year old college graduates do, for good reason. I asked about Officer Candidate School and was told that it’s easier to enlist and apply while on active duty – this I knew to be true from people who had done it – so I kept that in the back of my mind. After a couple of visits over the next week or so it was time to go down to the MEPS in Boston. I called in sick that day, the recruiter put me on a bus and away I went. I went through the battery of tests and application forms. As I looked at the kids around me, most of them seeming so young, desperate and impressionable, I actually started feeling better about my situation. Some of them were from really bad backgrounds and neighborhoods. This was probably their only chance in life. Finally sometime in the afternoon I was called to go to the guidance counselor office where the “negotiations” would take place.


(Click HERE for Part X)

Dancing Lessons From God, Part 8

The feeling of doing something drastic actually had started several weeks earlier when I went to a see a movie called “Good Will Hunting”. I originally went to see it because it took place in Boston. Little did I know that it would contain a scene which, without sounding overdramatic, would change how I looked at my life. In the film, Matt Damon plays a young genius named Will who was born in Boston. He had never experienced life but was arrogant because he was an expert on just about any subject you could think of. Robin Williams plays his psychiatrist and Williams’ character, Sean, is the exact opposite of Will. He’s not the smartest person but he has more life experience than just about anybody in the world. He’s a Viet Nam vet, whose wife had died of cancer and who had traveled the world. When Will arrogantly puts him down and demeans him, he first lashes out at him. However, after considering the situation he asks Will to meet him and lays the following speech on him:


Sean: You're just a kid, you don't have the faintest idea what you're talkin' about.
Will: Why thank you.
Sean: It's all right. You've never been out of Boston.
Will: Nope.
Sean: So if I asked you about art, you'd probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. Michelangelo, you know a lot about him. Life's work, political aspirations, him and the pope, sexual orientations, the whole works, right? But I'll bet you can't tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You've never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling; seen that. If I ask you about women, you'd probably give me a syllabus about your personal favorites. You may have even been laid a few times. But you can't tell me what it feels like to wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy. You're a tough kid. And I'd ask you about war, you'd probably throw Shakespeare at me, right, "once more unto the breach dear friends." But you've never been near one. You've never held your best friend's head in your lap, watch him gasp his last breath looking to you for help. I'd ask you about love, you'd probably quote me a sonnet. But you've never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone that could level you with her eyes, feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you. Who could rescue you from the depths of hell. And you wouldn't know what it's like to be her angel, to have that love for her, be there forever, through anything, through cancer. And you wouldn't know about sleeping sitting up in the hospital room for two months, holding her hand, because the doctors could see in your eyes, that the terms "visiting hours" don't apply to you. You don't know about real loss, 'cause it only occurs when you've loved something more than you love yourself. And I doubt you've ever dared to love anybody that much. And look at you... I don't see an intelligent, confident man... I see a cocky, scared shitless kid.

That scene spoke to me so loudly that it was like a smack upside the head. It instantly dawned on me that I was Will. Minus the whole genius thing of course, but Will nonetheless. I thought I was hot shit because I had gone through four years of college and could hold a conversation on several different subjects, whether it was history, art, science, whatever. I seldom lost at trivial pursuit and usually answered most of the questions on Jeopardy! correctly. But, like Will, whatever knowledge I had was strictly from books. I had experienced nothing. I had studied Michelangelo in college but so what? I’d never seen the Sistine Chapel either. I was just like Will and I didn’t like it. I wanted to be like Sean. This realization had been festering inside me and it really hit home that night.


(Click HERE for Part IX)

Pictures From Italy

Taking time out from the book long enough to post some pics from our trip to Italia last week. As always, click the image to enlarge..


Of course Giampietro and Agnese were unbelievably excited to spend some time with the X Man. Giampi was one of the special Italian mountain soldiers in his youth called the "Alpini". They do special get-togethers throughout the year, which explains the hat he's wearing:




And we wasted no time in diving into the Italian food. As usual I ate as much pizza as I could handle. The one below might be my new favorite: rucola, ricotta cheese and cherry tomatoes. Hmm, what country's flag does that pizza resemble?




I renewed my Italian fishing license while we were there and enjoyed some time fly fishing on the Brenta River while the X Man clowned around:




The X Man is normally a fussy eater but when we go to Italia he eats Giampi and Agnese's pasta like it's going out of style. He wasn't in the door 5 minutes before he asked them to make him some:



We spent a day in Venice, our home away from home when we lived there. I'd almost forgotten how much I love that city:



No trip to Italia is complete without the panini! I think the X Man was getting panini'd out by then:



Alas, it was time to say our goodbyes and hit the road. Any time spent with Giampi and Agnese is priceless, they are such wonderful people:




We stopped at the Emisfero to stock up on vino, olives and Grana Padano before we left. I ran in to pick it up but ended up being in there so long that the X Man got impatient and started reading my magazine. I laughed out loud when I saw this picture:



Our car full of Italian goodies, it was time to hit the Autostrada through the Alps. I never get tired of the drive, it's so beautiful:



We stopped in a little town in Austria called Heiterwang, which makes a good half way point to break up the drive.



And then, just like that, our Italian vacation was over. Back to work and the daily grind. *SIGH*

Dancing Lessons From God, Part 7

In between it all there was one bright spot and it was my brother Eric. Eric was a year older than me and had joined the Navy after high school. He had been on the USS Missouri during the Persian Gulf War and had been able to see a lot of the world during his time in the service. I was in college at the time and he used to send postcards from places like Thailand and Australia and while I was a bit envious of him, I just took it for granted that my future was to graduate, get a job, get married, buy a house, have kids, basically to live “the American Dream”. The idea of traveling never entered into my mind. After the Navy Eric lived a vagabond life, working on boats and living in places like Seattle, Baltimore and New Orleans. He’d even owned a houseboat that he lived on in Fells Point in Baltimore which I always thought was cool. He had also backpacked around Europe and had some great stories. After my cross country trip to Las Vegas and due to my ever increasing desire to escape Nashua, his stories of his travels became more appealing to me. Occasionally the idea of following his lead popped into my head but it usually popped back out just as suddenly. I wasn’t 18 years old and just out of high school anymore so joining the military wasn’t really an option. And I knew nothing about boats anyway. But sometime in 1997 Eric came home to visit and asked if I wanted to meet him in Montreal to hang out there and in Quebec City, then drive back to Nashua with him. I jumped at the chance and my friend Dave and I made the 5 hour drive north where we hooked up with Eric and his friend Mike. Montreal and Quebec are two really beautiful cities and the nightlife in Montreal is especially fantastic. We ended up making another trip to Montreal that year and those trips were a godsend for me. Sitting there in Hurley’s Irish Pub downing pints of Guinness with a bunch of Canadians and Irishmen, belting out football (soccer) songs at 3 am, it felt like I had finally escaped Nashua and was experiencing life for the first time since my trip to Las Vegas, if only for just a few days. I became jealous of Eric and his seemingly carefree life on those trips because while I would be going back to my mundane life, he would be driving around the country on his way back to New Orleans where nothing is ever dull. This thought never escaped me as I would sit in the Monday morning sales meetings dreading the thought of what new hell awaited me that week.

Sometime around the beginning of 1998 came the biggest blow, the one that would eventually send me over the edge. As I mentioned earlier, Pressline had stagnated and my sales commissions had plummeted. I didn’t have a lot of bills but I was starting to struggle a bit financially. It dawned on me that I might need to take on a second job until either my Pressline commissions started rebounding or I was able to find something else. Of course the only time I had was at night and there wasn’t much I was qualified for so I ended up taking the only thing I could find and that was as a cleaner for three hours a night at a nearby corporation. That’s right, on top of everything else, I was now moonlighting as a janitor to make ends meet. Every day I’d get out of work, head over to my second job, take off my tie and slacks and put on my grubby jeans and sweatshirt and spend three hours mopping floors, vacuuming, and cleaning up people’s messes. I was never afraid to do work of this sort and wasn’t afraid of getting dirty or what have you. However, I was miserable because I felt that after putting in my dues with college and the Army Reserve, I should have been long past this. How the hell did I end up in this position? I placated my misery by continually telling myself that I was not the only person who was forced to work two jobs to get by and that there was nothing wrong with it. But the final straw came one night as I was vacuuming one of the offices and noticed something familiar hanging in one of the cubicles. Staring me right in the face was a full page Pressline ad that the guy working there had cut out of the paper and hung up at his desk. I thought to myself “I wonder if this guy knows that the guy who runs that system is the same guy who comes in every night and cleans up after him after he goes home”. That was it. I had to do something. I went home that night and went to bed but couldn’t sleep because my mind was just racing, trying to come up with something, anything, that would get me out of my situation. I’d been dying inside for some time but suddenly my soul was screaming that enough was enough. I was going to do something. I just didn’t know what.


(Click HERE for Part VIII)