Crash Productions, Inc. Update

Due to the financial woes that I will be going through in the next couple of months, there will probably be no upgrade to the software for some time.

In the meantime, I scored a couple more interviews a few weekends ago and Robb (the Grand-Daddy of it all) is the last one to finish up. Jarrod -- well, that's an iffy choice -- may or may not choose to participate in the documentary, but we all know what he's going to say once he finds out that he's not in it. I'll do everything in my power to try to get him to participate with his interview, but who knows.

So far, I've got some great interviews and I just craving to get into the "meat-n-bones" of this project to start doing my editing thing and moving forward so I can have this all completed somtime this upcoming summer. I'll probably make a few tweaks with the opening sequence and from there, it's up for grabs. I'll do some storyboarding as we move through the project, but my main fear right now is that I'll start to "rush" it, not putting forth my full focus and concentration and later on, I'll start to regret some decisions I made with the documentary.

But I've got a wonderful support staff and things are going well. Still not sure about Sean's drunken interview, though...

Hit Hard, Once Again

You know, I thought that I was going to have a good weekend (last weekend: March 24-25) as I was heading back towards the HomeTown for the annual Pheasants Forever banquet. I felt like I could spend a little money, hopefully win a raffle or two, and mix it up with the old locals and catch up a bit.

But, before all that went down, I met with my tax advisor for my annual check-up.

Half-hour later, while driving my truck back to The Farm, I let forth a plethora of expletives that only God knows what I've said (and what I've eventually damned).

As it turns out, I owe the federal and state governments a total of $1200. To whom can I thank? Why ... my ex-wife, of course.

The divorce killed me last August-September. Now it seems that I've got nothing left to stand on. It doesn't matter whether or not that my ex-wife and I were married nearly 9 months out of the year ... it just matters if we were married or not on December 31, 2006 at 11:59 p.m.

Having a marriage deduction on my W-4 was the downfall. I switched back to "single status" in October and by that time, it was too late. There would be no time for me to recover. If the ex-wife and myself decided to "hang on" for another 3 months until the 1st of the new year, I probably would've gotten about $800 the federal and state governments.

I just cannot tell you how upset I am, taking the hit once again for reasons that I cannot even fathom. I cannot wait until she stumbles upon me 'cause I'm simply going to bust her chops over this one. Ever since the divorce proceeding she's gotten me by the balls and she knows it ... hell, my name's on her fucking loans for school and her car and I cannot do a single thing about it until she pays off the principals on those loans.

You know, I would love to forget about the past five years and move on with my own life, but it's shit like this that just keeps on coming up and it just pulls me right back down again. There's stuff that I want to do and accomplish but she's already digging my own grave and she doesn't give a rat's ass.

Fuck marriage, fuck love. Then I wonder why I cannot trust anybody anymore.

Memories From A Long Time Ago...

I was sitting here for a while to think of something good to write and for quite some time, nothing really came to mind. It's been a typical past couple of days.

I fired up my iTunes and it randomly selected the "Dances With Wolves" soundtrack. There was some common themes, like the John Dunbar Theme and the Ride to Fort Hays, and it all came back to me.

It's funny in some ways that when I listen to music, it takes me back to a certain point in my past. In this case with "Dances With Wolves," it brought me back to Bible Camp sometime during the summer of '92.

Our camp was located on one of the most popular recreational lakes in west central Minnesota. Our cabins were located on a hill overlooking the lake and every night, our super-cool counselor would play the soundtrack to help us calm down (remind you, we were 8th graders going onto 9th grade) and soon we would fall asleep.

Since I spend most of my time listening to music while driving my vehicle, there are some times when I listen to a song and can immediately remember where I was at during a certain point in time. These thoughts are a lot stronger when I started college and started making the trips to-and-fro.

It's just something that sticks in my head. From time to time, I usually amaze people about how I can remember such details from so long ago ... but hey, that's just me.

Fantasy NASCAR -- Banger's Lava Lamps

The 2nd Season of Fantasy NASCAR Racing through Yahoo! Fantasy Sports is underway. Instead of just three participants last year, now I've expanded the field to six (including myself and some of my current and former students).

After last weekend's race at Atlanta, it has taken me a while to get to the top of the standings. I'm clearly having a better beginning-part of the season that I had last year -- making the right picks, even the ones who I don't "start" and those guys end up winning the pole or a top starting position for extra bonus points.

At the beginning of the season, I added Nicole and Meghan, two juniors who I had the privledge in my previous classes to be added to the roster. I figured, along with Ashley and Molly, to be "fresh meat" to pick the bad drivers and the rest of us would run away with the points. Instead, my little plan backfired, as the first couple of weeks Nicole (had stayed at the top through Weeks 1 through 3) and Meghan held her own.

The biggest downfall is probably certain people, like the seasoned veterans Ashley and Molly -- totally forgetting to make their picks! As you can see by the points in the picture, they are behind, but like Molly told me today, she's staging her comeback.

So far after Atlanta, we have this:

1. Tony: 1,087 points
2. Nicole: 1,037 points
3. Meghan: 831 points
4. Ashley: 584 points
5. Molly: 424 points
6. Doug: 200 points

Doug's a new-comer, just starting the league at Atlanta. He asked me today if "200 points was any good..." but it's mediocre. I had a 355-point effort in Atlanta and that's DAMN GOOD.

Next week: Bristol, the best 1/2 mile concrete track on the planet. But, it's also the start of NASCAR running its new car ... the so-called Car Of Tomorrow (COT), so who knows. Everything could get screwed up as far as my picks go, but I'm going to pick the obvious favorites and see what happens.

Sidenote: in the other Fantasy League I'm in (the official Ryan Newman Fan Club), I'm also leading the points standings there, but only by 10 points.

The Nike Shox

Yeeeeeeeahhhhhhhh....

I forgot to finish this story from yesterday. It was all apart of my trip to the T-Cities for the girl's state basketball tournament. Early that Friday morning, I stopped at the local mall (not THE Mall) and bought myself a pair of much-needed Nike Shox.

The "strange" girl at the store that sold me the pair didn't notice that the left shoe that was in the box was a size 11 1/2 ... while the other shoe was my regular 9. I tried them on a couple of days later and I thought that was pretty strange...

So now I'm pissed, spent over a $100 on shoes and I've got an old former student (shout-out to Ashley! woo!) telling me that I'm making a big mistake 'cause Shox shouldn't be used for running. "Comfy," she says. "But not for running."

I will be taking my business to SuFu, probably this Wednesday to get them exchanged.

Finally Home: Girl's State Basketball

Simply exhausted. Even with a fair and adequate amount of sleep in the past couple of nights, I feel like I've been awake for 72 hours.

Ever since our girl's basketball team won the Section championship, I had debated whether or not to head to the state tournament to watch them play. In the end, the pros outweighed the cons.

• The last time that I had seen anything "state tournament" related in Minnesota was back in 1987. My school's high school football team won the state championship at the Dome.
• I had been to state tournaments in South Dakota while I was attending college there (my ex-brothers-in-law played in state basketball tournaments).
• Just the fact that they were THERE in the first place ... and the opportunity to play at the Sports Pavilion (the backside of Williams Arena).

Coming from a small, rural town, I immediately turned on my pessimistic attitude and started to think that we were going to lose out right away in the 1st Round of the state playoffs. It just all seemed to good to be true. Why were we here?!

Last Thursday was the first round and right away, it was looking bad. We were down early -- BIG TIME -- like 16-0 mid-way through the first half and our girls finally got some points with nearly 5 minutes remaining. Soon afterwards, the jitters were gone and the half ended at 20 to 17, with our girls facing a 3-point deficit. That, in itself, was a win.

Later on, the game was a great one with our girls pulling off a victory. It was decided that I would stay in the Twin Cities (my dad was in town on business and he already had a hotel room) and thus began the long downfall of the weekend.

First off, I drove up by myself. I just met people at the games. It was a fairly boring outing being by myself in a big town, but I could manage. The students were also surprised to see me at the state tournament -- but they all had their own plans for some crazyness back at their hotels.

After leaving the Pavilion, I drove to a northern suburb to where my Dad had set up some hotel accommodations and I dropped my stuff off. I made a few calls, talked to my brother Dan, who was watching the boys basketball Section championships back home; called Mike and gave him an update on my status since we were going to continue to film some more interviews for the documentary; and called my old buddy "Brew", who I had the pleasure knowing from college (in Minnesota) A LONG TIME AGO. He called me back later that afternoon and I met him and his fiance at an Irish pub in a suburb south of Minneapolis. It was a 2-for-1 deal and they kept on coming. It was great catching up with a guy who I hadn't seen in nearly 6 or 7 years.

I hauled it back to the hotel that night and found Dad, and later on we ate at the Green Mill restaurant (I highly recommend the "Desert Fire Pasta"). I drank even more tap beer while Dad had his share of Jack/Sours and it after a while, it had gotten pretty late (and I had gotten pretty drunk) and we hit the sack.

Again ... another step towards the Ruin of Me ... my Dad snores like a chainsaw. I was prepared -- brought along a set of earplugs -- but they didn't help. I woke up around 3:30 a.m. Friday morning to piss out some of the alcohol from a few hours before and the sound of the snoring continued to seep through the plugs and into my ear drums. I probably didn't crash until a few hours later, until my Dad woke up for an early meeting at 6:30 a.m. Once he left, I removed my ear plugs and it wasn't a half an hour later, the housekeepers were already coming around. I gave up, flew the white flag at 8:30 that morning. I showered, gotten dressed and drove to a mall to look for a few things. One of the items that I was purchased was a brand-new pair of Nike Shox (since I'm determined to get back into shape with a little running routine), but more on this later.

I was already tired that day and I was supposed to meet with Dad at his temporary office for lunch. The second round of the playoffs wasn't until 6:00 p.m., so I had lots of time to kill. I hung around the office for a couple of hours, then decided to head to the Mall of America to finalize a few things that I wanted to buy. It was there when I ran into a hoard of my students and I heard a few interesting "stories," but what else was new?!

As the afternoon wore on, I was becoming gradually tired. Our main course of entertainment was watching a certain worker who worked at place called "Hot Dog on a Stick" and made fun of their unique uniforms. Interesting... Soon afterwards, I made my annual stop at the NASCAR simulator -- a student of mine rode with in the passenger seat -- as I raced at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Charlotte and raced at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

We got to the Target Center just in time for the 6:00 p.m. tip-off and we ended up beating a team who our girls had lost to in the state volleyball tournament eariler that fall. It was an overtime victory, a little revenge ... and again, I was surprised that we had actually won and were going to play in the state championship game. But during that semi-final game, I was running on fumes and didn't get into the game itself. I did my fair share of hollering when the opposing team decided to "sit on the ball" at half-court (when the opposing team had a 2-point lead). I was so tired -- and broke -- that I decided to head back for the HomeTown that night. I didn't have the money for a hotel room and I didn't want to stay with anyone else. I fought off my sleepiness for a few hours until I arrived home and immediately went to sleep.

Since Saturday was St. Patrick's Day, that gave me a pretty good excuse to drink! Mike called and said that his younger brother Kevin was coming to town and we could get his interview done, so I bought a case of Miller Lite and we watched our girl's play in the championship game on television. I don't even want to comment or break down the 3-point shot that happened at the end of the game. It ended up being the deciding factor in the game as our girls won by 1 point and I'm sure the referee's call (referee called a 3-pointer while the guard's foot was on the line for the shot). In the end, we got the trophy and the medals ... the first ever P-Town championship in ANY sport!

We finished interviews -- Sean stopped over and got his done -- played a little Wii and slept once again at my parent's house.

Today, I watched the NASCAR race at Atlanta and drove back to P-Town and here I am now, dead tired and ready to hit the sheets. But overall ... a great experience for myself and hopefully many others from P-Town ... hell, we're the champs!

7th Grade Baseball Outlook

Coach Z and myself had to do some serious recruiting these past couple of weeks, since apparently at this grade level, baseball seems not to be "cool" sport. Others are running for either tennis, golf, or track and field.

I've already had lists made up, had meetings, did anything possible that I could think of just to see if we had the numbers. I did not want a situation in which we had to pull down some 8th graders (my all-stars from last season) to play with us.

As it ends up, we'll probably got 12-13 kids lined up to play ... so I'm hoping none will quit on me.

Last week, I started practice, which ended up being a smart move on my part because I had a few borderline kids not sure to play or not. I'm already hurting because I know of a few 7th graders with some really great talent to play baseball, ended playing something else. With me starting practice a little bit early, I've already got my claws in them to prevent them going elsewhere.

Of course, I've been taking the "advice" from others that my ballclub isn't going to be good this season, due to the lack of talent. I'll admit, I had it pretty easy last year with the group I had and this year, well, it'll be an uphill battle. My main worry is whether or not these players will take the game seriously or not and I just hope we will, but at the same time, we're going to have fun.

As before, I'm not going to play favorites. I'm going to give every player an opportunity to play, regardless of their playing ability. I've already laid down some ground rules on proper and respectful behavior that my players should follow because with this bunch ... you never know.

The outlook is this: we'll see. With a lot of practice, we should be alright. I've got a couple of really good players and a few who are a little rough around the edges. In time, we'll be alright. This week, though, we will particularily difficult due to the girl's basketball tournament in the Twin Cities and we don't have school on Thursday and Friday. Lucky for us, our first game probably won't be until late April.

Updates as they come!

In-Service

Eh. I don't particularily like these days at school, especially when the teachers are required just like any ol' work day, while the students are running recklessly around town in this some-what beautiful weather we're having.

In-Service days, in my mind, have always been seen a personal waste of time. Either we talk about things that are completely irrevelant to my subject matter or it's something where we have to interact with another (as teachers) and it just seems we're back at Bible camp or something. I was hoping that we were going to have "work-in-your-rooms" time, so I could get a little caught up on some grading, but unfortunately, there were many things planned throughout the whole day.

Early this morning, we had a keynote speaker (click on this link to go to his web site) and he completely rocked the house. He's a local guy from South Dakota and he spoke of this story of an eldery gentleman who worked at a Wal-Mart. A few of our own teachers knew the man himself, an eccentric cashier who always greeted people and gave back their change and receipts on the SAME SIDE of the person who was paying for the items. He would shake their hands, say "thank you" (a big part of the presentation) and give their young toddlers a hug and some candy. An unreal presentation.

I just may have to buy the book.

After that ... things went downhill, as your typical in-service days go. I also got to learn about digital cameras ... which I HAVE NO KNOWLEDGE ABOUT!!

Peace

On Friday afternoon, I pulled onto the wet-n-wild gravel road that led to my parent's house, which is located just a couple of miles north of the Home Town. The temps were reaching in the high-40's and all that snow that we had to endure just a couple of weeks before was melting quickly.

It was during that time that I had found my own personal inner "peace."

It's strange how that works and I've broken it all down before, I know. In P-Town, I'm miserable. I'm there to work. My social life is non-existent. It's almost pathetic. Combine that all with my past history with the town and basically, I cannot breathe.

I feel that my reputation has been tarnished in this town and considering the job and the social standing I have in this town, it's not the best of situations. Unfortunately for me, my ex-wife ended up being (several things that I choose not to repeat), but with her reputation now of backstabbing and spreading lies about our marriage to my own students (whom she had the pleasure of working with) ... makes me feel so-big. Who are the students going to believe? I've tried to repair the wrong-doings of my ex-wife and that usually puts me in a situation where I'm on the defensive -- then I think, why am I doing this? Why should my own personal life become the fodder for my students, and of course, they all eat it up. To get personal dirt on a teacher, true or not, spreads like wildfire and I'm always too late to put out those flames.

But my students know better. They soon realized and found out who my ex-wife is all about. Apologizes were offered and I accepted them, but the scars remain.

That all brings me to another point: will I ever trust another woman again? I cannot even watch movies any longer with a love story between a man and a woman (the affection for one another is tough to watch) or even couples in a movie that fight. A debilitating phobia? Perhaps. I can sit and listen to boo-hoo sad songs ... but as long as I don't have to see it, I'm fine.

I'm sure this feeling will pass over time, but I'm not sure how long. At least the bad dreams have stopped.

I still cannot help think about what one of my students said to me last week ... all about where I see myself in five years. I still absolutely dread my future within five years of right now, but I had the same attitude when I was in college and I got through that! But one of my responses was that I would love to end up back on the family farm, just a couple of miles north of the Home Town and live in peace.

I pull through the sloppy driveway and see C-Dog running up to meet me and I know that this is where I want to end up, the place in which my great-grandparents built the house from scratch, where my grandparents once lived and farmed, where now my parents live. I would love just to hang out on the patio and look straight east during one morning with a cup of coffee in my hand.

Like Pop Fisher said from the movie, The Natural, "I should've been a farmer."

And I would be happy, alone or not.

The Weekend: March 9-11

It's been a while since I've done this -- posting what I've been doing during the weekends. This past weekend is quite the exception, since recently my weekends have been quite boring to begin with.

For starters, I'm lucky, in a sense, that I work at a high school in which we are loaded with female athletic talent. This past fall, our varsity volleyball made it to the Minnesota State High School Tournament and came away with 3rd Place in their class. For some reason, I knew that talent would carry over onto the basketball court, and wouldn't you know it, they beat their opponent on Friday night to win their Section, earning a state berth and returning to state for the first time since 2005.

But previous to all that, I had my heart set on visiting my cousin Eric (who is affectionately known as "Noodle"), because he practically lives at a bar in which our other cousin, Tom, successfully owns. Prior to the game, I gave Eric a call and he was already down there after a long day of work, so I met up with him about an hour and half prior to the 8:00 p.m. game.

The place itself was packed, but not with the college regulars, since they all probably went home for the weekend -- but the atmosphere itself reminded me that I was back in college. This time, I'm hanging out with Eric and a bunch of other older, balding or graying guys. I'm properly introduced, sit and talk about work, and at the same time -- the beer is flowing freely.

I probably bought one beer myself and the rest were already paid for when it was time to get another. Before I knew it, I was almost full and the time was already passed 8:00 p.m. It was time to hit the road and get to the game!

I get there and obviously, just over 10 minutes had already run off the clock, but our girls had a commanding lead. I'm trying to find a spot -- behind the student section -- and several of the students had already knew where I was at. I made my greetings as quickly as possible and moved up to the top to watch the game.

Afterwards, I chatted with a few of the students and moved on to return to downtown once again, where Eric and I continued to hit it up. We also hooked up with softball teammates Joe and Craig, which made it even more of an excuse to stick around and shoot the bull. Eric and I did manage to hit a few other hotspots around town, but it wasn't the same as our cousin Tom's place.

Towards the end of the night, we even witnessed a fight between two guys who were fighting over a 37 year-old MILF, who according to Tom, is "hot to trot." The fight went out to the parking lot where there was just a lot of shouting, but nothing much happened. Eric and I just went back to his house and I crashed on his leather sofa for the night, waking up the next morning with an extremely sore neck.

But the experience of Friday night was something that I hadn't experienced in a while, dating back to my college days. Sure, it wasn't much of a college crowd, but the place was packed and there were people worth talking to. The "lady" situation wasn't all that great either, and yes, I did my share of speaking to them. I could have easily walked out with a college girl that night, but she was sporting a mustache that almost made me jealous ... so nothing came from that!

Saturday was a day of recovery. I was hoping that day that I would get to some more interviews for the documentary but nothing fell through. That afternoon, I gave Mike a call and we along with his wife Lacey went back to watch some high school boy's basketball, who were in the midst of their own playoffs. After we had all gotten back to the Home Town, I was so tired and shot that I really didn't have the energy to put up with anything else.

March 10 was also another big day, since it marked the annual "FroFest", aptly named after a roommate of mine back in college. But that drive was clear across the state and me being me, was too tired for the trip. I did manage get a phone call from Jewett and Troy, but that wasn't going to move me much further. I crashed early Saturday night, moved the clocks ahead one hour, and fell asleep.

Back to Square-One

I just realized this one day ... I'm back where I was at about 6 years ago, maybe even a little worse off.

I was once livin' the American Dream: going to college, having a part-time job, having a great set of friends in both South Dakota and Minnesota ... partying every weekend. There was always something to do.

Now, although I'm a couple of years into my career choice, I'm coming home to an empty house. The cats are gone, as is most of the furniture. Oh, well ... that's the way the cookie crumbles.

My friends are miles away and it seems like a chore to keep in touch with them. During my more-than-borings, I would usually take trips back to the Home Town to visit with my family and the always-loyal bunch of old-school friends. Now during the weekdays in between the trips to work, I'm usually just stuck with my thoughts and random forms of music -- only if the PS2 wears thin.

I'm not happy with my current situation by any means, but I'm driven by a deeper force, like something's going to get better. But that was the same advice that I followed during the short-lived marriage, so who knows.

But the most enjoyable part of my day is when I actually go to work, interacting with the students and the teachers. Then, I start to dread it all when the final bell rings at 3:15 p.m. Luckily for me, the spring sports are just around the corner and I've already fired up my 7th grade team -- two weeks before varsity -- just because it keeps me from going home.

As much as it bothers me to say this, it's hard not to form friendships with some of the students in my class. There are somedays that I look forward to my prep periods and hope that just someone comes though my door to shoot the shit. Even at school, it sometimes sucks to be alone.

The rumor has been going around school that I will be leaving the district soon and most of the students know about it. The rumor isn't far off the mark as I'm already thinking after my third year in the district I will be looking for "greener pastures". I had one student ask me the other day "where do you see yourself 5 years from now". I was completely floored by the question and in truth, I couldn't even answer it. But deep down, as much as I sometimes dread my own future, things will eventually work out.

And that's how things roll -- once something breaks down, just start over again. It's good advice and I'm on the comeback trail. It's just a matter of time before something or somebody will show me the way and I'm just hoping that day comes soon.

Getting SOME Motivation Back

This has just been a lousy winter. Things seem like they're just got going right.

It's just one of those unexplainable things in which I simply had to impluse to write anything. With all the snow we got hit with these past few weeks and the super-low tempuratures that we had to deal with about a month ago ... I think my own blood had come to a dead-stop.

But in my life, it seems like I'm finally starting to "turn the corner," so to speak. On the other hand, I'm not really liking my job right now just due to the ever-constant struggle of the politics of it all, but hey ... it's all unavoidable.

I haven't been back to the HomeTown in a few weeks due to the weather and other events that have been happening this past few weekends, so the "project" has come to a standstill at the moment. I'm still waiting for my next paycheck (plus my fat tax return) to pay for the software upgrade and finish up some interviews.

But like I said before ... it's starting to come back. Just hang in there and I'll come through.