New Beginnings

I absolutely hate having knee surgery. You want to talk about a long road filled with little more than pain and inconveniences. I first hurt myself in February, and who knows if I'll be back to 100% by that time. Two surgeries and a total clusterfuck of physical therapy will hopefully lead me to a healthy knee. I'll probably post a little pictoral montage once everything is said and done with my recovery, but right now I'm tired of looking at the 6 god damn slices in my knee.

Thankfully, September 2nd is right around the corner and life will suddenly start tasting better and have much more meaning once the college football season begins. While Notre Dame is poised to make a major run at the National Championship and almost surely a BCS game, I will hopefully be making it to at least one game at ND Stadium and out to Maryland for the Navy game. Good times will be had and while I won't be fully recovered, I should be able to stand without crutches and throw a football. Lets just hope everything falls together how it's supposed to in the end. Almost a month and a half from my last post, good to know I'm consistent on not maintaining things in my life.

Must...buy...AC

You'd think someone as intelligent as me would have figured that in the heat of Chicago's summer, there's a good chance that I'd be melting in my tiny studio apartment. Holy horseshit it's out of control. At least 85 degrees at all times. Unfortunately, the past two months have been less than stellar, with my commissions coming in at around 40% of what they should be...kind of frustrating considering that I've been making my quota. Needless to say, a window AC unit will find its way into my possession very soon or I may lose another 15 pounds before I have my 2nd knee surgery in 4 months. July 27th is the date. I'm planning on a 4 month recovery, if Carson Palmer can do it; so can I.

In other news, I realize how important my friends that are still in Indy are to me. Phil was in this weekend...seen here being drunk with me at the Cubs game. It reminded me of how vital your friends can be in staying sane. I need to work on finding some friends that invoke this kind of attitude out of me in Chicago. Either that or I'll find a big house and we'll start a Chicago/young guys based Old School.

Life Changing Moments #2

Ummm...so, I just don't think I'm good at accomplishing anything with regularity. Due to an extremely wise conversation with my dad, yes that dad, I've decided that School is a bad option for me right now. And, Shannon and I have decided, well I decided, that it would be better for us not to be together. Things don't always work how they're supposed to. That's how life goes. So, instead I'm going to build a career on my current situation and go from there. In the mean-time, look for a RV sighting coming to a town near you. I'm thirsty.

Life Changing Moments

Life changes so quickly, it’s difficult to keep up. Since I last posted I’ve had some major developments. Surgery was a pain in the ass. Correction, it was a pain in my whole body. Besides the fact that I had my meniscus repaired and my knee scoped, I’ve been sleeping on my futon for the past 4 weeks and my whole body is taking a toll. I’ve lost 15 pounds since my surgery, which isn’t too terrible because it was getting kind of difficult to fit in some of my jeans. I had to miss 2 full weeks of work, which has put me incredibly behind but I’ve pretty much caught up to the fullest extent. I declined to have mommy come take care of me, mainly because I thought I would be back at work in a few days. Cue two weeks later and I was barely hobbling to work. It’s very frustrating to be so helpless, but I feel that it was an incredible life lesson and I’ve grown an immense amount just by the sheer will of my mind sitting around for 2 weeks straight and having the desire to grow as a person. Which leads to me two gigantic developing situations…

School and Shannon.

Most of you who read this have a good idea of what happened to me with both situations, so I’ll spare the background. School is something I’ve wanted to complete since I moved to Indianapolis, but I hadn’t found the drive. Now I feel that I possess that drive after seeing how quickly the roadblocks of being degree-less will cement themselves in front of me in the business world. The issue now is, how do I earn this degree. Do I take the chance of earning a degree from an online university and having the stigma of not earning a real degree? Do I take more amiable job for a few years to complete my degree in a timely manner, or stretch out night and weekend classes over 5-6 years to receive said degree? What the hell do I want to major in anyways? All of these questions are not easily answered, I wish I wouldn’t have fucked up so bad in the first place. I wouldn’t be in this position.

Now on to the more life-changing situation, Shannon Lynn Moser. Those of you who have known me for a lengthy period of time know how often I change girls. I’ve never had a problem meeting new female suitors and have always been somewhat of a ‘serial dater’. So, after breaking up with Shannon recently, most people just assumed it was par for the course with me. But, it was not…underneath it all I was confused on my own reasoning for ending things. Nothing is perfect, relationships need to be worked on. If I learned anything from my parents relationship, it should be that adversity overcome makes for a stronger relationship. Unfortunately I wasn’t prepared to change my opinion on things and I wasn’t ready work at making things better. Since Shannon returned from Australia last week, we’ve begun the process of continuing our life together. I don’t know if its going to work out, I don’t know if we’ll end up spending the rest of lives together, but I do know that right now I don’t want to be with anyone else. If I can’t get over my own insecurities and work at this relationship, I’ll never be able to make anything work in the future. So, support me in this adventure, because if you don’t I’ll probably survive without it anyways.

I’m now looking at a late July/early August ACL repair surgery, so wish me a speedy rehab, so I can have fucking surgery again. Let’s all get amped up for the world cup, how’s that sound?

Knees are great

Knees are even better when they're not torn to shreds. The doctor's initial diagnosis is a Bucket handle Meniscus tear and an ACL tear. What this translates to is two surgeries, first to fix the meniscus (which is preventing me from straightening my knee and causing all the pain), wait for that to heal and then fix the ACL. So, my recovery could be from 7-12 months. Not exactly the summer of Chicago I was looking for. Let me also comment on how painful the MRI was...I can not bend my leg past 70 degrees without immense pain, but for the MRI I had to take pain pills and strap my leg down at 0 degrees for 30 minutes straight. Not cool, although the doctor did comment on how good the scans were...fantastic.

Hopefully I can get my first surgery scheduled this week to get the meniscus healed and then I'll be able to go forth with the ACL. Wish me luck!

Guy Weekend #1

Ahhh yes, it's almost that time of year. You're probably wondering how glorious it is to be in such a great city when it's 75 degrees outside...let me show you...

Ok, so it's not that bad, but it feels that bad. I'll find out later this week if i'll be on crutches for the rest of my life. Stupid fucking knee better not ruin my summer.

In other news, I'm heading to Indy with Skaggs for a weekend of general debauchery and drunkedness. What more could a bachelor ask for? I'll get to hang out with all the normal douchebags and drink as many alcoholic beverages as my body is allowed. It'll be interesting to see if I can handle being drunk on crutches, since being sober and on crutches is enough of a difficulty. It's a little disappointing that I won't get to play golf this weekend, but at least I'll save a few (15-20) golf balls from staying out of the drink or just generally being lost.

I've got a good couple weeks coming up, the ND Blue and Gold game next weekend, possibly Indy the weekend after that, then starts a few weekends in Indy for the month of May and the Indy 500 as well as a trip to Dale Hollow. DMB at Deercreek is looming just around the corner (June 2nd and 3rd) and I couldn't be more excited. Everyone cross your fingers that my tendons don't look like spaghetti on the inside. I leave you with this picture...don't ask why, just enjoy it.

Reincarnation of Pele

You'd think after the stat line I put together in our scrimmage on saturday that I am the rec version of Landon Donovan. Unfortuantely, 1 goal and 3 assists against a makeshift team on a wide open field does not make me holier than thou. Although it does give me the confidence I so desperately need to perform well. I have two games tonight, both of which may be played in the goalie box; which should be interesting. That and the oncoming rainstorm should make my second game at 10pm very cold. We're also obligated, yes obligated as in contractually, to go to the bar after the games this session seeing as how we're sponsored by this bar. Should make work really fun. In other news, Skaggs and I had a blast this weekend just being drunk and being guys. It should be a fun weekend as I go out to the 'burbs to visit him.

We ordered tickets for the Blue and Gold game on April 22nd and have reissued our interest in traveling to Baltimore for the ND vs Navy game. Hopefully we'll get to visit Rucker as wel, nothing is dull when you're around the most colorful man alive. And I don't mean colorful in the gay way. Single life will allow me to focus on my important friendships and will hopefully see me travelling to Phoenix and LA to visit my boys from PBurg. These sexy guys right here...

Anyone have any requests for visitation rights? I've got a lot of free time on my hands and I'm looking to experience some things that I haven't had the chance to, as of yet. And that does not mean anything to do with guys, I've had plenty of opportunities to bat from the other side of the plate and just haven't been interested. Or have i? So far, trips are planned to Indy probably once a month, South Bend hopefully three times this year, Maryland, Phoenix, LA, Toledo, and who knows where else. Where do you people want to see me go?