Married In Ohio

Or perhaps a little bit longer. I had some hardware problems yesterday so I did not reply to all of the comments like I usually do. And today I’ve been busy today fixing a performance bug I introduced when I updated the site to cut down on referral spam. More fake referrals were caught by the system but there were extra checks where there didn’t need to be. Things should be much faster now. I would reply to comments and answer questions now but its time for our HNT photo session. Later dudes.

Today is ask MCB/CG day. We didn’t do one in December because of the Christmas holidays and we almost let January pass without one as well. We should have done this last week but didn’t think about it. This is the seventh time that we have done this. The questions have been pretty interesting in the past. Here are the rules for any new visitors. Feel free to ask us anything. We’ll respond in the comments or, if the answer is long, in a separate post. We will answer anything that is asked, usually before our next post. If you don’t read this on Monday but still have a question, go ahead and ask it. There isn’t a cutoff date. So please leave us a question if you’ve got one.

First Fred and Wilma’s fun was taken down last week. Then Young Suburban Wife went off line on Saturday and One To The Nth Power signed off on Sunday. So three daily reads are no more. As Married In Ohio approaches its one year anniversary, we are becoming the elder statesmen. In case you were wondering, California Girl and I have no plans to stop blogging. We don’t know what the future holds. But this blog will be somewhere in the mix.

I got tagged by Midwestern City Boy to do this meme. His answers are further down the page. It was originally created by Melanie.

1970: Yesterday by The Beatles
My family had an organ with a library of automatic-play songs. I thought that was pretty cool when I was a little kid. “Yesterday,” first released in 1965, was one of the songs.

1973: Crocodile Rock by Elton John
This song reminds me of girls bringing cassette players to school and jumping rope at recess. I was younger than my classmates and wasn’t very good at jumping rope, but I got better with practice.

1975: Jackie Blue by The Ozark Mountain Daredevils
I liked Southern bands for a while when I was a kid. That was when 8-track tapes were the latest thing.

1980: Mickey by Toni Basil
This song was popular when I was at college in Santa Barbara. It’s a high-energy song that makes me think about youth, enthusiasm, and new experiences.

1984: Solid by Ashford & Simpson
This is a favorite love song that expresses my feelings about my relationship with Midwestern City Boy. It’s 22 years later and we’re still solid as a rock.

1986: We Built This City by Starship
When I was engaged to Midwestern City Boy, we did a lot of riding around in our car listening to the radio. This song (first released in 1984) was popular at that time.

1992: Kiss of Life by Sade
I didn’t have much time for listening to music when I was busy taking care of two small children, but Midwestern City Boy bought me a CD with songs by Sade because he knew I liked her music, even though he thinks all her songs sound the same. What a great guy.

1999: If You Had My Love by Jennifer Lopez
This song reminds me of when I started my job. Although the company lets me work at home (yay!) I had to go to the main office for a week of training when I was first hired. The CD player on my car was broken, and Midwestern City Boy was nice enough to let me drive his car so that I could listen to the Jennifer Lopez CD that I had just bought.

2000: Around the World by ATC
The theme of this song is the creative inspiration of the artist. I’ve always enjoyed writing short stories, but when I was so busy with the kids, I sometimes felt overwhelmed and didn’t have much creative energy. By 2000, life was starting to feel more relaxed again.

2002: Where My Heart Will Take Me by Russell Watson
This is the theme song from Star Trek: Enterprise, and it makes me think about my family’s long tradition of eating pizza while watching Star Trek. We started doing that in 1989, soon after the Next Generation series began.

2006: Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring, film score: The Bridge Of Khazad Dum (from 2002)
Although there are no more new Star Trek episodes, the Lord of the Rings DVDs are great for watching while we eat pizza (which is what we’re going to do after I finish this post).

Dirty Debbie tagged me to name 8 things that I would have in a perfect partner. Since I’m already married most of these things will describe California Girl.

1. Must have the correct attitude. As I’ve said before, to me, the most attractive feature of a woman is her attitude and the way that she caries herself. Not what she looks like; but how she feels about her looks. A sort of inner self confidence.
2. Has to be able to tolerate me in large doses. (I’m easy to tolerate in small doses.) As California Girl points out, I like women who can pay a lot of attention to me.
3. Must have a sense of adventure. If you read this blog you know how adventurous California Girl is.
4. Must want children and has to be a good mom. California Girl is the best mom that you ever saw.
5. Must enjoy sex (or be able to fake it really good). I assume California Girl is in the First category but you never know.
6. Must be a “high performance” woman. Although they usually go hand in hand, high maintenance is NOT required.
7. Cannot be too prissy. Should be equally comfortable at a night out on the town or going for a hike in the park.
8. Cannot be too serious. Must enjoy playing games. Can be board games, computer games, or whatever. The type is not so important. I’m still a kid at heart and need someone to play with

If I dare, I may ask California Girl to do this butI’m not tagging anybody else. I’m curious how I rate; but I’m uncertain if I really want to know how close or far I am from her ideal mate.

Scroll Down for The Soundtrack Of My Life Meme

The Girl will be playing indoor soccer for her team’s arch rivals. They needed a player for the indoor season so they asked The Girl to play with them. The coach dropped her uniform off yesterday and she has her first game today. It looks really weird to see her in “enemy” colors. Both teams pull from the same area so the girls all know each other. A lot of them go to the same elementary school so neighborhood bragging rights are at stake. They’ve played together before; the Girl’s team has used several of their players as guest players for tournaments over the years. It would be a great team if they were all on the same club. The big difference between the two is what high school they’re going to attend next year. Most of the kids on The Girls team will attend private school while most of the kids on the other team will go to public school. So after the spring season when they turn back into mortal enemies, they’ve got another four years to play each other.

I was tagged by Melanie to create the soundtrack that represents my life. These songs don’t necessarily represent my taste in music so much as they symbolize where I was at a point in time. I though about linking to the lyrics but though that it would be better if you could hear them for yourselves. I re-encoded all the songs at 96Kbps so the quality is only so-so but it should give you an idea. I don’t usually use Castpost but this was too many MP3s to host. And yes, it took forever to upload all of the songs.

Circa 1970: Yellow Submarine by the Beatles
I was a HUGE Beatles fan when I was young. I remember saving all of my loose change so I could buy their albums. And for some reason, even though they were a (relatively) recent rock group at the time having only been broke up for a few years, “Yellow Submarine” was in the music books at school. So, whenever I hear that song, I think back to the days when I was 7 or 8 years old.

1972: Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple
As I got a little older I began to take an interest in contemporary music. This was the hot song that played at all of the parties. It was a long song but was instantly recognizable. Whenever I hear the song, I think back to the days when I used to hang out with my friends in grade school.

1979: Flash Light by Parliament
This song is pure funk. We use to play it on our boom boxes as we walked to and from football/wrestling/track practice when I was in high school. Yes, this was the day when we all walked around with big boom boxes on our shoulders. I used to have a big afro but cut it off after I got tired of stuffing it into a football helmet. Whenever I hear this song, I think back to my high school days when I was a jock.

1982: You Dropped a Bomb on Me by The Gap Band
My girlfriend at the time really liked this song. She always turned it up on the radio no matter what we were doing. (Use your imagination to fill in the blanks.) We broke up and I lost track of her over twenty years ago but this song reminds me of some of the fun times that we had.

1984: When Doves Cry by Prince
You know there had to be at least one song by Prince on the list. Purple Rain was a smash album. It and Michael Jackson’s Thriller were the albums that year. I was a big Prince fan and introduced California Girl to his royal badness. She had never been to a rock concert before I took her to see Prince at what was then Riverfront Coliseum in Cincinnati. (The building is now called USBank Arena; thanks Narcissus.) I had seen him in much smaller venues (before he made it big) but it was California Girl’s first concert.

1986: C’Est la Vie by Robbie Nevil
California Girl and I were living together in our first apartment. One of the other residents used to drive (too fast) through the parking lot with this song blaring from his windows. Whenever I hear this song, I think back to the time that California Girl and I had the first place of our own together (other than sleeping over in dorm rooms.)

1988: Just Got Paid by Jonny Kemp
Every Friday at 5:00, a local radio station used to play this song. I always tried to be in my car and on my way home by the time it came on. Whenever I hear this song, I think back to the time when I just had my first job out of college and used to race home and gather up California Girl for a Friday night out.

1992: Nuthin’ but a “G” Thang by Dr. Dre
By the summer of 1992 we had two small children (0 and 2) and life was busy but good. I don’t like a lot of rap music; but, on the rare occasions that I went out, for the evening this song was playing. I remember a high school basketball team that I used to follow played the clean version of this song while they were warming up. In those days, a Friday night out was going over to a nearby high school for 90-minutes to watch a ball game.

1999: I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing by Aerosmith
With small kids, we didn’t listen to music or do much of anything but by1999 we were back to life. I remember we got a new big screen television and our first DVD player. One of the first DVDs that we watched was Armageddon with Bruce Willis. Whenever I hear this song, I think of California Girl and how we (barely) survived having two rambunctious toddlers.

2000: Ride Wit Me by Nelly
By 2000 we had resumed being husband and wife after years of being Mom and Dad. I had a new better paying job and we started going to concerts again. We saw Nelly in concert at Riverbend Music Center in Cincinnati. Destiny’s Child was the main group but Nelly stole the show. We had lawn seats but “upgraded” to seats in the fourth row. Whenever I hear an old Nelly song I think back to that night and the magical time we had.

2002: Pussy Control by Prince
Shortly after our new house was completed in we had a large outdoor party. It’s a tradition that we continue to this day. This song is one of my favorites and was my first request after we moved the party inside. It’s not from 2002 but it will always remind me of the big blast we had when we moved into our dream home. California Girl thinks it sounds strange outside of a night club, but I think it sounds fine if you turn it up.

2005: Don’t Phunk With My Heart by Black Eyed Peas
The summer of 2005 was the best summer ever. We spent the entire summer enjoying the best that life had to offer. The kids had good grades the final grading period before summer. I didn’t have as much work to do so I came home at 5:30 or so every day. And there were plenty of days of burning sun to enjoy the swimming pool. Whenever I hear this song, I think back fondly of the best summer ever.

2006: Always by Atlantic Starr
This song was released in 1987, the same year that California Girl and I got married. If we had played music at our wedding this would have been our first dance. Whenever I hear it, I always think of my wife and all of the wonderful year that we have had together.

Thanks for reading this far. I’m not tagging anybody but I may try and get California Girl to do it.

When ever I am carrying salt down into the basement to add our water softener, I always think about how I used to weigh that much without carrying anything. I’ve mentioned in previous post that I used to be much heavier. So heavy in fact that I actually weighed more then than I do now with two 40 pound bags of salt. Just walking down the stairs is a strain. I can’t believe that I used to be that heavy all the time. Nowadays, I work out every day and those days are a distant memory. But it all comes rushing back to me whenever I have to refill the water softener.

I was unaware until recently that if you ever visited at 11:00 PM EST the site would be unavailable. (It actually would come up but it would take several minutes.) This issue has been resolved and this blog should be available at all times. I know that this blog is not like an e-commerce site or anything but I still don’t like it when it’s not working correctly. I’m just a perfectionist like that.

The theme for our HNT photo session was getting comfortable with our new bed. It arrived two weeks to the day that we broke the previous one during an HNT photo session “after party”. The bed, California Girl and I are all nekkid.

I like this shot, especially the big smile on California Girl’s face. I hope you guys a can see it.

I like snuggling with California Girl any time. She’s got a way of holding on to me that just make me feel so comfortable.

California girl and I really like these pictures. And not just because they include our latest toy. These photos probably would have been better as B&W but we’re just full color sort of people.