I, like most Kansas Citians, could not believe the news yesterday about the shooting at Ward Parkway Mall. I was completely floored.  It seems like most people talk about how it “hit close to home” when referring to the incident.  I’m not quite sure if people mean that term literally or figuratively, but I can relate to the statement.  The mall actually happens to be directly next to where I work.  In fact, my work shares the same parking garage as the mall.  That was “my” Starbucks where the window got shot out.  I go to eat at a restaurant there pretty often when I’m in town, too.  It’s just amazing stuff.  The entire parking area that lead to the mall was closed off today which hindered the parking abilities for many of us at work.  We were told we didn’t need to be there at work if we didn’t want to be.  I can understand if people wouldn’t be able to work if there weren’t parking spaces available, but I couldn’t help but wonder if people silently said “Yes!” to themselves when they read that they could go home because of the tragedy.  It’s a sort of twisted irony that some people could feel any sort of selfish benefit as a result of what happened.

I realized today that I neglected to write any reaction to the Virginia Tech killings, and I guess I feel the need to write a response about that and the one that took place yesterday here in Kansas City.  I’ve been reading a lot of reactions after both of these things happened about how changes need to be made with gun control.  Some believe we need to crack down on it while others seem to think that making gun control less strict will somehow reduce gun-related incidents (I still don’t get that logic).  Personally, these two killings make me wonder if we shouldn’t be looking into how we are treating our mentally ill patients.  In both cases, the gunmen were clinically treated for some sort of mental problem.  The Virginia Tech killer had even had notes by his doctor stating that he could be a threat to others.  The shooter yesterday in KC was admitted to a hospital for mental illness only to be released six hours later with a prescription for antidepressants.  The warning signs were clearly there, and it’s sad to think that these people were let go back into society with the expectation that they’d be responsible enough to take their pills on a regular basis.  Who knows what the right solution is, though.  When things like this happen everyone just wants to play the blame game even though sometimes crazy people just snap.

Now that I’ve talked gotten those thoughts out of the way, I want to talk about a couple of things that I’m sure many people who read this will find insensitive.  For starters, that video the Virginia Tech killer made absolutely blew my mind.  I didn’t think it could be possible for someone to go on a rampage to kill 33 people yet somehow make a laughable videotape ahead of time but the dude managed to do it.  Maybe I’m alone but that video of him was so horrendously bad.  And the picture of him holding the hammer?  Are you kidding me? If he sent me an email of that picture with the words “Watch out!” underneath it, I seriously think I would have injured myself falling out of my chair laughing.  And that is precisely what has fascinated me about the VT murders.  An introverted, non-scary guy ended up causing the most awful massacre in U.S. history. 

Also, whenever I read about any murder-suicide my heart sinks.  I don’t understand the logic of going off and killing people if you’re going to end up letting yourself die at the end of it.  I realize what happened yesterday in KC wasn’t technically a suicide, but it was more or less a suicide mission and the guy knew going into it that he was a dead man.  Anyway, as a plea to any wanna-be assassins out there, please get some help.  If after you have sought help you still want to kill others and yourself, do us all a favor and do the killing to yourself first.  Please.  The result is going to be the same for you regardless of if you take other people’s lives or not.  Just load one bullet and use it on yourself.  With just one squeeze of the trigger, you will singlehandedly make the world a better place.  Thanks in advance.

I had dinner with a friend in Boston last week.  We dated very briefly in college before she moved away to another school, and she actually ended up getting married to a guy she met while there. While conversing over some tasty Tai food close by Fenway Park (the bar/restaurant Cask & Flaggin now has a sign in Japanese in support of their new pitcher which I found kind of odd), we talked about where we are in life.  She’s married, has a successful career, and is in the final stages of buying a nice house just outside of the city.  When I asked if there was any aspect in her life that she’d tweak to make things perfect, she thought for a moment and replied, “No.  I really don’t think so.”

The mere thought of attaining that level of satisfaction at any particular stage of life is almost impossible for me to fathom.  I remember when I was in my high school psychology class and we discussed the topic of self-actualization.  The class voted on who they believed would be most likely to become self-actualized in their lifetime.  To my amazement, the class, almost unanimously, said that the person would be me.  It was surprising and flattering to know that that’s what they thought.  I wonder if such a thing is possible in today’s world, though, because there are always things that could be improved upon to enhance one’s life.  I, for one, will always be looking at ways to evolve and improve upon my life whether it is in my career, love life, friendships, home, etc.  The question I keep asking is, which is better?  Is it better to just surrender and be happy with your life or is it better to constantly be looking to “improve”?  I believe there are arguments to both sides.

As for what I would change in my life, I would choose stability over anything right now.  I’d really like to have some sort of a routine and to sink my roots into a place I could really call “home”.  The good news is that I think that may end up happening here in the next couple of months.  It’ll be interesting to see just exactly what that will entail.

I’ve flown Southwest quite a few times over the past couple of years and have had mixed thoughts about their operation.  I think it’s great that they offer low fares and have great customer service.  You really can’t argue much against that.  The one thing I really dislike about flying with them, though, is the way they organize their seat selection process.  You basically have to stand in line 30-45 minutes before you board the plane so that you can pick your seat before those behind you.  This is normally not too big of a deal if you’re quick enough to hop on a computer 24 hours before your scheduled flight time to print off your boarding pass.  Doing so guarantees you to be in boarding group “A” which means you will get that window or aisle seat you want even if it’s not necessarily at the very front of the plane.

I was fortunate enough to get with the “A” group on my first leg of my trip back to KC Friday.  The second leg, however, I was stuck in the “B” group.  The “B” group is a frustrating group to be in because there’s still a possibility you could get stuck with a middle seat.  That means you have to get in line early to make sure you’re at the front of the “B” line.  It’s very annoying.  Anyway, as I was standing in line I looked over to my left at the folks in the “A” line.  They were all between the ages of 18-45.  All of them were holding their piece of paper they printed off on a computer for their boarding pass neatly in their hands.  I then looked at my line and saw roughly the same demographics with a few older people mixed in the bunch.  When I looked over to the “C” line, though, it was a whole different story.  I kid you not, of the 50 or so people standing in line, only five of them didn’t have gray hair.  It was astonishing to see such a high percentage of senior citizens compared to the other lines.

This got me thinking about the Southwest model of how they do their ticketing.  Unlike most (if not all) airlines who automatically assign you a seat, Southwest specifically leaves those without computer knowledge at a clear disadvantage.  I’m not saying that this was intentional by any means.  What I am saying is that it’s unfair that the older segment of their client base, who were raised to use typewriters and have no understanding of how to use a computer or internet, is pretty much screwed over and left to get the scraps when it comes to seating.  I would put money down that 90% of the middle seats on my flight were occupied by individuals with silver hair.  I would also be willing to bet that a fair amount of them had arthritis or some bone/muscle condition that would make the middle seat much more uncomfortable to them than to the average person.  It’s just not right, and I’m going to pay attention to it on every Southwest flight I’m on from now on to see if this is typically the case.  If so, I will likely try to do something about it.

My mom told me some pretty strange news a while back.  We were talking about what giving birth was like with both me and my sister, and she surprised me with a details about giving birth to me.

I was born with a boner.

Actually, she didn’t say it like that. What she said was, “Your little pee pee was all hard.”  Awesome.

I’ve talked with a few friends of mine who are in the healthcare field to see if this is common.  They’ve all looked at me like I’m a complete freak.  They’d never heard of such a thing happening.  Thank goodness for Google, though.  I really hope my company isn’t able to look up Google searches on my work laptop.  The discovery of “baby erection” really can’t be good for my career.  According to one site:

It is common for a baby boy to have an erection of his penis. He may have an erection during diaper changes, when breast feeding, or when you are washing him. He may also have an erection when his diaper rubs against his penis.

Thankfully, my mom didn’t divulge any potential information about me getting aroused while she gave me a sponge bath in the sink.  That would have probably made me faint into my mashed potatoes (yes, this conversation took place at the dinner table).

Now, if a lady asks me if I’m ready for her, I’ll be able to say, “Babe, I was BORN ready!”  And that’s no lie.

I am currently in Virginia Beach in a hotel that overlooks the ocean.  The view is pretty amazing, I must say.  It’s too bad that the weather is so cold or I’d go stick my big toe in the water.  I spent the past couple nights in Columbia, Maryland where I was able to meet up with a couple of friends from college who are married to each other.  The original plan for last night was to go to an Orioles game to hang out.  I was pretty pumped about it because I’ve never been to Camden Yards.  Sadly, the cold weather kept us away from freezing at a ballpark, and we settled on having dinner and a few drinks at a nearby sports bar.  The funny thing is, had I not experienced the cold, harsh conditions at The K last week, I probably would have gone to Camden Yards anyway.

I should have blogged about this earlier, but I was able to head out to Kaufman Stadium last week to watch Daisuke Matsuzaka make his major league debut.  I was beyond excited to go to a baseball game after such a long hiatus, but the thought of seeing one of the most highly-touted players to break into the majors only heightened that excitement.  As expected there was Japanese media everywhere.  I don’t believe I’ve ever seen such media coverage for a baseball game before.  I went to a Giants game in San Francisco last season when Bond’s was one homer shy of tying Babe Ruth, and I didn’t see nearly as many reporters or cameramen.  Even when he wasn’t pitching, the cameras weren’t focused on the game.  Instead, they were all turned on Matsuzaka in the dugout.  It was a pretty weird sight.

Dice-K himself was pretty impressive.  Then again, I can’t imagine any pitcher who has EIGHT different pitches in his arsenal being anything but impressive. 

Ironically, the first batter he faced in the majors got a hit off of him.  I tried to start an “Overrated” chant, but it never really caught on for some strange reason.  We also wanted to try to start a chant in Japanese, but we weren’t exactly trained in the language.  The only words I know in Japanese are bacca and ching-ching.  Bacca means “stupid” and ching-ching means “weiner”.  Yelling out those words probably wouldn’t have had much of an impact, and the Japanese cameramen would have likely just thought our group had a unique case of Japanese tourettes.  The only reason I know those words is because I had a Japanese friend when I was growing up in Ohio who taught them to me.  Ironically, his name was Daisuke. 

Even though I bundled up more than the others in our group (I doubled up on socks, wore long underwear, brought thick gloves, etc.), I was still freezing by the 7th inning.  It almost made the whole experience unpleasant.  Had Boston’s new pitcher not been pitching and had we not gotten to see Alex Gordon’s first major league hit (off Daisuke and also met with a standing ovation from Royals fans), it probably would have been.

I normally don’t post reviews about individual albums.  Instead, I save reviews for live shows or for listing my favorite albums at the end of the year.  Wilco released are different with me, though.  If I was forced to name my favorite band it would be Wilco, and I seem to view each new release of theirs as some sort of monumental event.  Having heard/seen them live a couple times in the past year and a half, I was able to hear several songs from their new album and was beyond excited to hear the finished product when it was eventually released. 

I’m sad to report that Sky Blue Sky is my least favorite Wilco album.  I’ve listened to it countless times hoping I’d eventually end up really liking it, but that moment just hasn’t happened to me.  Sure there are a couple of good songs and others have their moments, but I feel like Wilco has rested a little on their laurels.  If I had to introduce my mother to Wilco this is the album I’d give her because, in all honesty, most of the songs sound like they would fit perfectly in the background of the TV Guide Channel.

My favorite songs are two that are back to back and towards the end of the album — “Walkin’” and “What Light”.  If I had to create an album worth of my favorite songs by Wilco they’d easily make the cut.  My least favorite is probably “Hate It Here”.  The song itself isn’t too bad, but the lyrics may be the worst in Tweedy’s great catalogue.  The song is centered around heartbreak and loneliness, but instead of creating any impact with the listener, it ends up being four and a half minute song describing household chores.  Tweedy’s better than that.  That’s the disappointing thing.

Listening to this album makes me realize what an underrated player Jay Bennett was in the band before he was kicked out.  Sure, the guy was difficult and kind of a nutjob, but it’s evident to me that the guy challenged Jeff Tweedy and provided a great pop sensibility to the band.  I think if you asked most people, me included, what their favorite Wilco albums are, they’d say either Yankee Hotel Foxtrot or Summerteeth.  Both of those works were the last two projects that Jay Bennett worked on as a member of Wilco.  I hope Tweedy and company prove me wrong and rebound from somewhat of a downward trajectory since YHF, but I’m afraid that those days may be gone. Despite such a big letdown with the new album, they are still probably my favorite band, and I will jump at any chance I’ll have to see them perform these songs live.  Maybe then I’ll gain a better appreciation for their latest effort.

I’m going through a pretty weird period in my life right now.  I’m soon approaching multiple crossroads and am stuck playing the waiting game about how to approach it.  It’s really frustrating knowing a very big change is about to come within the next few months yet the fate lies in the hands of others.  I’m left just waiting in the meantime, attempting to prepare myself the best way possible for what direction I may end up going (or having to go).  I have my fingers crossed that I will have a good idea about what the future may hold by the end of the week.  If I don’t know anything by the end of the week I’ll be left a little irritated.  It’s not really all that important going into detail about what these “changes” are at this point.  Those who know me pretty well already have a pretty good idea about my situation.  Those that don’t, well, you can cross “sex change” off of your list of potential things that “changes” could mean.  That’s all I’m going to give you at this point.  Either way, there will be feelings of excitement, nervousness, disappointment, and a whole gamut of emotions that one could feel when making a big decision.  I’m just getting past the point where I want to know.  I need to know.  And I need to know very soon.