Married In Ohio » Him

Class of 1981

Midwestern City Boy — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 21:21:01 +0000

California Girl and I went to my 30 year high school reunion on Saturday night. It doesn’t seem like that been that long. Most everyone in attendance looked good. Sadly, there were a number of classmates who had passed; some of whom I knew about, and some whom were a surprise. It was good to catch up with old friends, especially those who had moved who had moved away. Facebook is a great way to keep up with people but it was still very nice to see people in the flesh. The evening was over all too quickly. I am really looking forward to seeing some of the pictures taken by the photographer the organizers hired. I took some photos myself; but not as many as I would have liked since I was so busy socializing. The world has changed a lot since we graduated; but, some things, like having a good time with the people you grew up with that will always be the same.

Sunday Shorts #7

Midwestern City Boy — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 21:00:31 +0000

I got some new boxing gloves last week. My second new pair in less than a year. Boxing gloves are like running shoes. They still look good on the outside even when they are all worn out on the inside. And new ones have to be broken in just like shoes, especially if they are leather. I’ve turned into quite the weekend warrior now that we’re not so busy with kids sporting events.

I finally used the last credits on the music gift card that I received. Now I can lift my self-imposed moratorium on buying music from iTunes or Amazon. The only “good” thing is that I learned a lot about the internal structure of MP3s audio files and ID3 tags while trying to figure out why my album art did not show up on my smart phone.

I’ve suddenly become allergic to pollen this spring after going the first 47 years of my life without any allergies. Anti-allergy medicines work well; but give me a headache. I haven’t decided which is worse: untreated symptoms or the side effects of the medicine.

I’m “hater” so I’ll be rooting for Dallas this evening. I’m not interested enough in the outcome to watch the entire game. I’ll probably tune in midway through the 4^th quarter. That seems to be when things get interesting anyway.

2010 A Year In Review

Midwestern City Boy — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 23:00:15 +0000

January
Had an occasion to do the Snoopy Dance because of something that happened at work.
Took a cool photograph of California Girl with the flowers she received at The Girl’s last senior night.

We reviewed the proofs of The Girl’s senior photographs and made our selections. It was a bit discomforting how rapidly her high school days were winding down.

February
Commemorated the fifth anniversary of MarriedInOhio.Com.
MarriedInOhio.Com went over 2,500,000 visitors.
Took some neat photographs for Two For Tuesday and Half Nekkid Thursday in the aftermath of a huge snowstorm we had.

March
The Girl had an epiphany and decided where she wanted to attend college. It hadn’t really started to sink in how different things were going to be without any kids around.
Decided to see if I could hold up a hat with no hands for Two For Tuesday.

Worked on a special project for California Girl that kept me busy in the evenings. We still found time for our weekly photo session.

April
Changed the image in the “About Us” area of our sidebar. We haven’t changed much wanted to create a new one since the photograph was many years old. We posted the candidates that we were considering for Half Nekkid Thursday.

Went on a 900 mile round road trip with The Girl for an out of state soccer tournament. Then two weeks later, watched The Girl win the last trophy of her club soccer career.

May
Celebrated our 22nd wedding anniversary. Went out to eat at our favorite restaurant. Posted a photo from our anniversary dinner for Two For Tuesday.

The Girl graduated high school. Then the next day, she registered for classes in the fall and got her college ID.
Got a new camera. Took nekkid photographs of ourselves to test it out.

June
Wore boxing gloves in one of our more interesting Two For Tuesday posts.
The swimming pool is still where we retreat when things aren’t going as well as we would like in the real world.
For Half Nekkid Thursday we did a documentary of our bedcam setup.

July
Created and published our favorite HNT photo post of the year.
Practiced being empty nesters. Posted a NSFW tour of our home for Two For Tuesday culminating with a grand finale in the study for Half Nekkid Thursday.

Photographed and posted a lot of pictures of California Girl in a bikini showing her summer tan lines for Two For Tuesday and HNT.

August
Finally got an Android smartphone. California Girl got a Droid too. We should have upgraded years ago!
Installed a special, mobile friendly theme for Androids and iPhones.
Took both kids to school and officially became empty nesters. Posted about our first pizza night without kids for Two For Tuesday.

September
Posted some cool sexting photographs for Half Nekkid Thursday.

Watched The Girl play soccer at the next level in college. We’re not in Kansan any more, they play rough.
Got another new camera. Again took some NSFW photographs of ourselves to test it.

October
Discovered that I still own a hairbrush despite not needing to use one in years.
Went to Florida for vacation. Posted some photos from our trip for Two For Tuesday and Half Nekkid Thursday.

Added a new hard drive to the server. The old one was getting filled up since we have posted so many pictures over the years.

November
Took another “instant favorite” photograph of California Girl.
California Girl changed the color of her hair. Heather was the first person to notice.

Decorated the Christmas tree on the Saturday after Thanksgiving now that both kids are in school. Posted a NSFW Christmas card style photo for Two For Tuesday.

December
Made an animated slide show of some of our recent photographs using JavaScript.

Click here to stop the animation. We also posted a more traditional slide show for our Christmas tree Half Nekkid Thursday.

Get Adobe Flash player to see this video.

California Girl and I both got new glasses. We featured them in an artistic Two For Tuesday post.

Created our and posted first high definition video for Two For Tuesday. It was also our first movie in FLV format.

Get Adobe Flash player to see this video.

MarriedInOhio.Com went over 3,000,000 visitors, a milestone we noted in our Christmas Wish Half Nekkid Thursday post. It’s definitely not 2005 anymore so we removed our hit counter widget.

2011 New Year’s Resolutions

Midwestern City Boy — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 15:55:13 +0000

Happy New Year! Since January 2^nd always seems to be the day I post my New Year’s resolutions, here are my resolutions for 2011. But first, here’s a recap of my resolutions for 2010 and how I did.

Have oral sex with California Girl every time she shaves her pubic hair. This one is on the list every year. We’ll see how I do in 2010. I did about the same as always. She shaves everyday so this is one that I’m probably never going to accomplish but it is fun to try.
Lose five pounds. My weight seems be hovering around 167 or 168 which is about 3 pounds more than I would like. If I can lose 5 pounds that will give a bit of a buffer; for parties, the holidays, bar-hopping, etc. I actually gained 5 pounds in 2010. My waist didn’t get any bigger; but, with all the boxing and working out, I added a few pounds of muscle.
Make and post some really fun pictures. We had some really great photo posts in 2008; but didn’t have as many in 2009. Good weather and our schedules were seldom in alignment. There are some good locations nearby; we just need better planning and logistics. 2010 was not the best year for photographs. We had a lot going on and didn’t make as much time for photo sessions when it was warm and sunny as we had hoped to. We took some god photographs; but not as many as we would have liked.
Climb up a few rungs on the corporate ladder. As I was looking back over our records to see when we purchased the TV that we recently replaced, I realized I made more money in 1999 than I did in 2009. It’s been a long time since I got paid pretty good and I would like to get back to those days. I didn’t get laid off, which is good in the current economy; but I didn’t get paid like I wanted to. California Girl; however did get paid pretty good.
Adjust well to being an empty nester. The empty house is coming weather we want it to or not. Or lives haven’t been focused exclusively around the kids; but it’s still a big change. For the first time in many years we’ll have many of our weekend evenings free. It’s time to make some new fun discoveries. This is still a work in progress. We saw The Girl a lot because of soccer, and then the holiday season was upon is.

Here are my resolutions for 2011.

Make and take better photographs both indoors and out. When we get outside, we usually get some good shots; but the weather does not always cooperate so we need to focus on our indoor sessions.
Get away from it all with just California Girl. With two kids in college and the resultant expenses, this will be hard to do. We certainly have the time; we just need to find the means.
Answer comments and emails more promptly. Now that I’ve got a smartphone (with a WordPress app and email capability) it should be easier to respond to comment and emails.
Do a better job of letting California Girl know how special she is to me. Even though we were empty nesters after the kids left for school in August, 2010 was a hectic a year. I want to slow down and smell the roses with her.
Clean up some things around her at Married In Ohio. I’ve done a lot of things “under the covers” like creating some cool JavaScript features; but the site could definitely use some updating.
Make sure that I am not slowly becoming like my father. This is highly unlikely; but, occasionally I notice some similarities that I really, really don’t like.

We Are Pleased

Midwestern City Boy — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 04:10:03 +0000

California Girl and I both picked up or new eyeglasses today. They were very expensive which we expected; but they look very stylish which is good since we need to wear them all of the time. We are both still getting used to the new prescriptions; but my vision is much improved and her California Girl’s vision is better too although she did not have as much of a change as I did. Glasses lenses are a lot more high tech than they used to be. And, if your vision is like outs, it really does make a difference. They don’t reverse the ravages of time; but they make it a little bit more manageable. It was definitely was easier for me to type this post. It’s been easier for me to use my Droid phone too. We are pleased. We’re not sure how to do it but we’d like to display them in one of our upcoming photo shoots.

Only The Good

Midwestern City Boy — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 02:00:56 +0000

I haven’t been reading things as well as I usually do so, last week, I went to the ophthalmologist to get a new prescription. It was my first time visiting this particular doctor and I hate going to new medical professionals; but the guy I went to before him was always in a rush and didn’t take the time to explain things. He was highly recommended; but I hate being hurried. The eye doctor that I had been seeing for many years retired. That’s the worst thing about getting older. Everyone that you have been visiting for a long time start retiring. Anyway, the new doctor said that my current prescription was too strong and I was having a hard time compensating which is why I was having problems. I am really looking forward to getting new glasses. I’m sure that changing to a weaker prescription will take some time to get used to but it will be good to have “normal” vision again. Except for needing to wear bi-focals, the ravages of time haven’t caught up to me yet. So not being as nearsighted as I previously thought was a good early Christmas present.

Brushing My Hair

Midwestern City Boy — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 03:15:24 +0000

I was going through my toiletries kit recently and discovered that I had a hairbrush in one of the compartments! It must have been in there undisturbed for a long time. I’ve shaved my head for years; and, before that, cut it very short with electric hair clippers. I must have neglected to take it out and eventually forgot about it when I stopped regularly brushing my hair head. It probably would still be there if I hadn’t got a new toiletries case and needed to switch everything. It’s amusing to think how many distant airports and strange cities I carried a completely useless brush around in. I’m usually pretty good about going through things, and getting rid of items that have outlived their usefulness. Apparently, my toiletries bag was not included in that category. I wonder what other worthless stuff I have laying around that I haven’t come across.

Doing The Snoopy Dance

Midwestern City Boy — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 03:05:03 +0000

It wasn’t a pay raise or anything like that; but, when I got into work today, I received news that made me want to do the Snoopy dance. It was a very good day! Even the fact that our printer was out of ink and we couldn’t print the envelopes for the last few bills that we still write checks by hand and mail didn’t dampen my spirits. The actual name of the song for the Snoopy dance is “Linus and Lucy” by Vince Guaraldi; but most people call it the Peanuts Theme song, or just the Snoopy song like I do. If this doesn’t make any sense, click here to listen and it almost certainly will.

Email me or leave a comment if you want more details regarding why I am dancing.

2009 A Year In Review

Midwestern City Boy — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 01:30:01 +0000

January
Did a lot of tinkering with the number of posts on the front page to speed up page load times. Finally I wrote a plugin that shows all posts published in the last seven days on the home page.
Created and published our favorite HNT photo post of the year.

February
Got California Girl a nice skirt and blouse set for her birthday.

Neglected to mention that Married In Ohio celebrated its fourth anniversary.
Survived one of those good news, bad news situations where the “good news” was that the bad news wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

March
Went over 2,000,000 Visitors which is a lot for us.
Created and published one of our favorite Two For Tuesday photo posts of the year.

April
Created and published our favorite HNT video post of the year.
Updated our theme to support threaded comments.
Posted a true click through HNT.

May
Posted our version of Jack Dawson and Rose DeWitt Bukater on the Titanic.

Celebrated our 21st wedding anniversary by going to dinner at our favorite restaurant.

June
Reminisced about the days that we used to watch us having sex in the mirror.

Had some good pool weather for one of the few times this past summer.

July
Posted a video edition of our Independence Day Sex series.

[Video]

Posted a Digital Photo Frame with all of the TFT photographs from 2008.

Get Adobe Flash player to see this video.

August
The Girl passed her driver examination and got her driver’s license.
I weighed 164 pounds on the scale at the doctor’s office.

September
Repaired the car that The Girl drives after it dropped dead and smoke started coming form underneath the hood.
Visited a college with The Girl. Realized how close we are to becoming “empty nesters”.

October
Had a LOT of problems after upgrading our server to PHP 5.3. The upgrade also broke our OpenId sever too.
Started working on the project from hell at work. It’s still radioactive.

November
Added a visitor map to the blog that showed where their visitors were from. Check it out in the sidebar just below the local weather.
Took some fun photos of California Girl changing one of the spotlights in the kitchen

Posted one of my one of my favorite photographs of California Girl for the week of Thanksgiving’s HNT.

December
Published an illustrated post explaining our “bedcam”setup”.

Got a new HDTV to replace our old one which started smoking and had a burning electrical smell.
Created and published the fourth edition of our Christmas Vacation Sexseries.

2010 New Year’s Resolutions

Midwestern City Boy — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 23:15:42 +0000

Happy New Year! The first post of the new decade is a good occasion to list my resolutions for the upcoming year. Most people usually post their list on New Year’s Day; but I was busy enjoying a rare BCS Bowl victory by the Buckeyes. Here’s a recap of my resolutions for 2009 and how I did followed by my resolutions for 2010.

Have oral sex with California Girl every time she shaves her pubic hair. I know I’m never going to accomplish this one but it’s fun to try. I did about the same as always on this one. A lot; but not as much as I would like. I plan to keep at it in 2010.
Get The Boy a “graduation” present. We got him a powerful laptop for college which was nice; but it wasn’t really a surprise since a laptop is required highly recommended for college students. It would be nice to get him something useful and memorable that he doesn’t really “need”. He enjoys technology so we got him a 22-inch flat screen monitor and surround sound system to go with his laptop. Gifts like that are probably too useful; but they were well appreciated. Unlike his sister, he’s so practical, it’s difficult to find him a “just because” gift that he likes.
Enjoy time with The Girl. It turned out that the summer before The Boy’s senior year in high school was more of a “best ever” than the summer before his freshman year in college. We don’t know if things will work out the same for The Girl but we want to plan for fabulous summer. We didn’t do real well with this one. This past summer was busy. The Girl was taking driving classes several days a week and had soccer practice almost every day. Plus the weather was bad (cold and/or rainy) so we didn’t get to do many of the things that we wanted to. Hopefully, 2010 will be more relaxing for everyone.
Keep my job. I’ve had “get more money” on the list; but, in today’s times; you’re doing well if you’re not falling behind. I haven’t thought about it much while I’ve been on break; but there are going to be significant challenges for the company I work for in the months ahead. I was continuously employed in 2009 which is great for as bad as the economy has been. Many people where I work were not so fortunate. The cost-cutting measures for the survivors were painful; but something is a lot better than nothing. Hopefully, the worst is behind us.
Catch up with some people that I have lost track of both in blogland and real life. I’ve been focusing on the family so much that I haven’t been as “sociable” as I usually am. We didn’t even have our start of summer blast like we usually do. I started using Facebook in 2009. (I know I’m probably one of the last people on the planet to do so.) It’s been a great way to reconnect with classmates and co-workers who I had lost track of long ago. Plus a lot of current friends and coworkers are on it as well. I’ve discovered a side of people that I didn’t know existed. I don’t do much myself; but it’s an interesting way to keep up with people who do.

Here are my resolutions for 2010.

Have oral sex with California Girl every time she shaves her pubic hair. This one is on the list every year. We’ll see how I do in 2010.
Lose five pounds. My weight seems be hovering around 167 or 168 which is about 3 pounds more than I would like. If I can lose 5 pounds that will give a bit of a buffer; for parties, the holidays, bar-hopping, etc.
Make and post some really fun pictures. We had some really great photo posts in 2008; but didn’t have as many in 2009. Good weather and our schedules were seldom in alignment. There are some good locations nearby; we just need better planning and logistics.
Climb up a few rungs on the corporate ladder. As I was looking back over our records to see when we purchased the TV that we recently replaced, I realized I made more money in 1999 than I did in 2009. It’s been a long time since I got paid pretty good and I would like to get back to those days.
Adjust well to being an empty nester. The empty house is coming weather we want it to or not. Or lives haven’t been focused exclusively around the kids; but it’s still a big change. For the first time in many years we’ll have many of our weekend evenings free. It’s time to make some new fun discoveries.