Tonight was the middle school’s “Ceremony Of Excellence” – I posted about it last year, but oddly didn’t the in 2010 except briefly in passing.

At any rate, she made good on her claims and doubled her count…not only that, but doubled it by getting exactly the awards she said she would. Tonight she took home four:

1. Superior Award in Language Arts – for making it to States in Power Of The Pen.

2. Outstanding Academic Achievement – for Straight A’s this year.

3. President’s Award For Educational Excellence – for having a 90% or higher average in middle school and scoring in the 85th percentile or better on the standardized achievement tests.

4. Superior Academic Achievement – for getting Straight A’s for the entire three years of middle school.

Some pretty good stuff there. I’m not complaining. If she keeps this up through high school, I think we have a winner on our hands.

(Only 3 of 4 awards pictured)

Knocked The Fuck Out On The Playground:

Fuck You, Bear! Bitch Slap:

Don’t Fuck With LaParka’s Mask:

I’m sure it’s not a simple as I’m making it, but it pisses me off that people who made bad purchases (house not worth what you paid – underwater) and then don’t keep up with the commitment (at least two payments late) get breaks while everyone who struggled to keep afloat or didn’t make a bad purchase in the first place gets nothing.

It’s a state of rewarding bad behavior. Fuck these people. Someone should flip them off, kick them in the nuts and tell them to learn to run their fucking lives, they’re adults.

It just made me laugh. Such a silly play on Brock Lesnar. I knew nothing about it, but pointed it out and said to the family, “We need to take a Bork Laser sign to Raw tomorrow. It’d be funny two nights in a row.” So I did a quick sign in simple block letters and added it to the group of signs we already had made. Then I googled it. Turned out it’s kind of an in joke of sorts, not really a meme, but in certain circles it’s a running gag. Best I can tell is that it all originated (like all good memes) with an unintentionally funnily titled YouTube video. Good enough for me.

So Monday night the show begins with a segment with Lesnar coming out in the first few minutes. The camera dude has a real wide angle lens thing happening and you can see both sides of the entrance ramp in the shot. Lo and behold, there I am sporting my Bork Laser sign right in the shot. Seriously perfect. Almost immediately my wife got a text from a guy she knows from work with a pic attached showing the shot from his TV. Too hilarious. We ended up getting texts all night from people saying they saw us, so that made it fun. Then while sitting in traffic trying to leave after the show, I was checking out twitter and it seems the Bork Laser sign was appreciated. Lots of tweets about it and a couple of shots of tv’s showing it. Good stuff:

None of the other signs got as much airtime. The Funkasaurus diss was on for less than a second and the Kane sign was in the bottom left corner of the screen when he entered for maybe a second. The other two never got seen…and I so want #kwang to trend when Tensai is on. Oh well.

I took a bunch of pics. I’ll get some online eventually. Taking pics with the point and shoot sucks.

1. Sitting around some high school on the outskirts of the other side of the Dayton area for six hours to see my daughter perform three ensemble pieces seemed like a colossal waste of time.

2. Today was also football sign-ups from 10am-2pm and with a new jersey design, guaranteeing your number was on a first-come, first-serve basis.

So I got my daughter to her thing on time and stuck around to see the first performance. There were a couple of kids she knew in the same boat (stuck with multiple performances spread over the entire day), so she was cool hanging out. Plus other friends would be in and out over the course of the day. I zipped back home in time to go with my wife and son to football sign-ups. Good thing I did because they were fitting the new jerseys and my wife had no clue about pads and such. We got him fitted (an adult small) and he got the number he wanted – 92.

Ever since he’s started he’s been number 29. That came out of nowhere. One of his very first practices back when he first started playing (in 2008!) he had to pick a number. It was kind of an on the spot sort of thing and he matter of factly said “29″ like he had planned it all along. Not sure if I posted about that back then or not, but we still laugh at the way he seemed to just know he wanted to be number 29.

So last year I started planting the seed that he needed to flip it and become 92. Mostly because he’s not a #29 player – 29 is a back number and he’s not an offensive or defensive back. He probably never will be. That’s not his thing. He’s a lineman and while he’s a better offensive lineman than defensive, he does play both and 92 (a defensive line number) is way cooler than the O-line numbers (50′s, 60′s 70′s). It also paid a bit of homage to his old 29 by simply flipping it. Plus, it’s James Harrison’s number and Harrison is a badass. If just an ounce of Harrison mojo runs off magically because of a number on a jersey, then yipee!

Anyway, I suggested it last year. Little man listened to my reasoning, but wanted to stay with 29.

Then this year out of nowhere, he says he wants to go with 92. (This is how seed planting works with kids – best parent trick ever) As an aside, he’s changing up his nickname again. He went his first two years as “The Cyclone” then switched it up to “The Viper” for the next two and he decided a few months back that he wanted to be “The Madman” for his last two years.

So that’s cool as always.

Saw a few team people at sign-ups and we’re in for big changes this year. We lost our awesome head coach and a few of our key players. It’s going to be a different team. I’ll be surprised if they pull off another 7-1 season. Then again, I’d rather go 2-5 and advance in the playoff tournament than go 7-1 and get knocked out early as the case has been the last two years.

So we got that done, then headed back across Ohio and caught my daughter’s final performance. I don’t know the scale of rating, but I know lower is better. Their first performance got a 2 – a little disappointing. The performance we missed got a 1 – the best rating. And she’ll find out the rating for the third performance at school this week. Not too shabby. French Horn doesn’t carry the drama of football, unfortunately. Although numbers and nicknames and shit would be sweet. Not enough French Horn players command the adjective of “badass” when describing them.

So I put like 150 miles on the Camaro which is probably my highest single-day total since the week after I got it and we drove home to PA. Oddly enough, on the return trip to see my daughter’s final performance I spotted a silver Camaro ahead of me on I-70 and proceeded to catch up. (still not a lot of Camaros in this area)

As we gain on it, the plate reads “DOMN8R” or some crap meant to read “Dominator” which would have been fine except it was pretty much a base model with a young chick driving it.

I’ve become a bit of a Camaro snob – even if I really shouldn’t be. Flat out, I have the V6 myself. I understand it’s not an SS and it’s certainly not a ZL1. But I’m not a car guy (at least I never thought I was, but I’m starting to suspect my upbringing ingrained it me more than I ever realized – thanks, Dad!) and 312hp is plenty to kill yourself with. Although I do have HP envy at times when I catch an SS somewhere. But I made a conscious decision when I bought the car not to spend too much and I went with appearance packages instead of performance packages for the upgrades I did buy. My car looks good. Fucking good. The more base models don’t – if you know what you’re looking at. I suspect to the average joe, a Camaro is a Camaro. They have that “look” and they all look like that. But that’s not true. My snobbery comes not from performance (in fact, real car dudes probably look down on me in that sense), but in style. You can’t buy a low end Camaro. The big upgraded 20′s, the halo lights, the spoiler – shit like that makes the fucking car. You can tell people that have no clue and just wanted that “look” and bought the cheapest Camaro they could find. For whatever reason (and yes, I’m going to negatively generalize here) those base Camaros all seem to be driven by girls. (note that I didn’t say women)

If it were a basic line chart, the older and more male you get the nicer the Camaro you’re probably in. Obviously there are exceptions – nothing is hotter than a woman who knows her car is badass and she’s not driving around one of those girly versions and nothing is more lame than the dud that thinks he’s all that in his base model that neither goes nor looks good.

At any rate, I blew by her with no acknowledgement at all (I felt bad, but it’s not like she’s privvy to the camaro wave anyway). Turns out she was going to the same school we were…and she park right behind us. When we left, her Camaro was still there and I have to say that side-by-side I’m glad I bought into the appearance stuff. My car clearly looked more “finished” for lack of a better term.

We still talk about doing a few more things to make the car ours. I’d like to tint the windows I think. I’d dig putting on a new exhaust to give the sound some balls and add a bit of performance. There’s a cool backlit bowtie for the trunk that looks easy to install and adds just a bit of ‘different’ to the look. The wife wants me to get custom “Gonchar” door sill plates. Just little things like that to have some fun with it.

So yeah, my day consisted of french horns, football and cars.

“That’s the biggest black ass I’ve ever seen. And I like it!”

We didn’t color Easter eggs this year. No one seemed to bring it up or give a shit either. The kids are 10 and 14. This year they’ll turn 11 and 15. That’s how numbers work. They’re sequential. We’re reaching the point where things change – Like the need to go through the motions of coloring eggs. I’m not sure if I missed it or not. I don’t think I did. I’m not the weepy nostalgic type when it comes to, “Oh remember when the kids…fill in the blank with some stupid shit kids do.”

Ghosts of Easter Past

My son ended up coloring some eggs with his friends at one of their houses from what I understand. That’s another thing that’s taken a giant step forward – the boys in the area are all hitting that age where they hang out all day together. We barely see him much anymore it seems.

At any rate, I ate too much candy already. I’m bloated and full of sugar. My daughter scored some clothes my son got a cool Nerf gun that shoots these little discs at motherfucker speeds and a little Batman/Catwoman Lego set that has a sweet traffic light/street corner.

I surprised everyone with WWE tickets. Yeah, if it isn’t bad enought o be a coaster geek, I’m a lifelong wrestling geek too and I’ve passed it on to the kids. Watched all my life and even worked indies in western PA in the mid 90′s. Wrote for a couple of wrestling sites before I got into the coaster scene. I lost track of wrestling right around 2001 – once Vince bought WCW. I think that was the last Monday Night Raw I watched for quite a while so I missed a lot from the 2001-2008 time frame. Got back into it with Wrestlemania 25 and have been casually following since. Nothing like the hardcore days.

During that time that I didn’t watch. my Dad would always ask if I saw this or saw that and I’d kind of smile and play along. Sometimes I think of how cool it would be if he hadn’t passed (4 years ago next week!) because some of the things my son is really into (wrestling, football and stuff like that) would have made for some fun common ground.

At any rate, I found out WWE was coming back to Dayton a few months back. We’ve been hitting the shows every time they come around – a couple Smackdown tapings and the Raw where Bret Hart returned. We usually get the hook-up and take whatever the connections can get us. We bought decent seats for the last Smackdown taping and had fun with a little screen time a few rows off the floor. Generally, just chilling at the shows.

So this time my son insisted he wanted floor seats. My pursuit led me to learn a lot about the ticket distribution.

I got in on the presale and realized that good seats were being sold, but not great seats. I decided not to bite. Best that came up was 6th row behind the announcer’s table or a few rows off the floor on-camera. The next day for the regular sale, not much more. Not better seats, just different ones. I watched the usually reseller outlets and didn’t really see much to bite on. We put in a couple of calls and found that even folks who were pretty well connected didn’t have access to the best seats. Turns out the very best seats go a couple of places:

1. Contest giveaways
2. Charity giveaways
3. VIPs
4. Ticketmaster’s Platinum Seats thingy (basically jacked up prices on the best seats – supplier scalping to some, supply and demand to others)

Well, I wanted some of those tickets so I paid out the ass for some. Fuck it. You only live once, right. I’ve never regretted buying something, but I’ve often wished I hasn’t hesitated or passed on buying something. I keep that in mind when making purchasing decisions anymore. If you’re on the fence – do it. Your gut will tell you it’s wrong if it’s wrong. If you’re not sure, it’s your brain fighting with your gut instinct and I trust that instinct more.

I figured if I’m paying Platinum Seat prices, then I’m cherry picking the Platinum Seats that I want…and I did. I scored seats 1 and 2 in rows 4 and 5 right along the entrance ramp in section G. Basically, instead of sitting four-arcross in a line with only one-row access to get up along the entrace ramp barriers, we’ll be sitting in two-in-front two-in-back at the end of the rows with two-row access to get up along the barrier. Pretty ingenious if I don’t say so myself.

So here’s a map of the arena with our seats marked with little stars (click for larger, easy-to-see diagram). The show is on the 30th – the night after the Extreme Rules PPV. Should be fun.

We got an email a week or so ago saying that one of our better defensive boys was taking a year off from football. Problem there is that his dad has been our awesome head coach since these boys (going into 5th grade this fall) have been kindergarteners. It was a hard blow, but parents began exchanging emails and figuring ways to pick up the slack. Then today word came that our main scorer, sometimes Quarterback and probably best all around player was also moving away from football to spend more time on other sports. This is a huge blow to the team’s potential success and to make matters even worse, his father has also been an assistant coach since the kids were in kindergarten.

On top of that, nothing has officially been said, but the kid who was used as QB most often hasn’t been heard from. My professional opinion – the kid only played because he knew the head coach and his son from baseball. Without them, he doesn’t come back either. Also word through the grapevine that another boy who has played every year since kindergarten has moved. He was another that had been around forever and gelled as part of the whole.

To make matters even worse, there’s been whisperings that all three teams have lost quite a few players this year and we may be forced to consolidate and become two teams. If you’ve followed the football posts here, much of our enjoyment of football each fall came from the situation more than anything. Compared to the other two teams, we had a great group of parents, the best coaches and a generally pleasant vibe. The other two teams were full of assholes, drama and losing.

It’ll be interesting to see how it plays out. My son still seems like he wants to give it a go, but as more and more info pours in you can tell even he’s putting it together and realizes thing are changing – and not necessarily for the better.

Sign-ups begin in a couple of weeks and practices begin the last week of July. I’ll really miss our fall football time if things don’t work out.

A big ‘Fuck You’ to those people. I hope you die, fuckstick.

(note: I’m really hoping that my blog eventually becomes the top result on Google for “giggle like a horny retard”)