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Thursday, June 04, 2015

Thirty - Becoming The Pop Culture Addict

Well...here we are.  The milestone birthday to end all milestone birthdays - well, at least for now anyway.

This is the story that I plan to tell about the year I turned twenty-nine plus one.



But you know what?  Turning thirty years old was hardly anything to be frightened of.  After nearly dying at twenty-nine, thirty was definitely a welcome sight to see!

And of all the wonderful things that happened when I turned thirty, I can only think of one thing that I want to talk about in this piece.

And, we'll get to that in a minute.  But first, let's take a look at what was happening in the world of pop culture around the time I turned thirty.

Starting with a snapshot from my thirtieth year.



Such a cheeky shot.  This was back in the days in which the term "selfie" was still a novelty and not a necessity.  Sure wish we could go back to those days.  Oh well. 



#1 SONG THE WEEK OF 5/18/2011
"E.T." - KATY PERRY f. KANYE WEST

It's no argument that Katy Perry had a fantastic 2011.  She had quite a few chart-toppers that year, and many of them I loved.  This song though?  Not quite one of them.



#1 AT THE BOX OFFICE THE WEEK OF 5/18/2011
"Thor"

This is a movie that I am sure did phenomenally well at the box office, and I know that a lot of people who saw this movie loved it.  But I can't comment on it because I haven't seen it.  I wonder if it's available on Netflix?



#1 TELEVISION SHOW OF THE 2011/2012 SEASON
"NBC Sunday Night Football"

Really?  Well, on the plus side...it's not American Idol!  I was getting sick of that show!

But one thing that I haven't gotten sick of is writing in this blog.  Would you believe that I've written at least one entry in this blog for the last 1,472 days?  That's 1,472 different entries on different pop culture topics, as well as some personal tales that I feel comfortable enough to share with all of you out there!

And if you count back 1,472 days ago to the time that I began this blog, you'll see that the date will be May 24, 2011.



Yes, it was six days after I turned thirty that I started up A POP CULTURE ADDICT'S GUIDE TO LIFE.  And, looking back on it, I can't believe that I am still writing this blog four years later.

How time flies.

You know, I still remember the time that I decided I would try blogging.  It wasn't one of those spur of the moment decisions either.  I thought a lot about it and a lot of things while I was recovering from my mega surgery.  I was hospitalized for two weeks and spent another six weeks recovering at home.  What else was there to do but think about things?

I mean, it was quite an interesting time.  I had gone through an event that had almost killed me, but I survived.  And yet, here I was - almost thirty years old, and I had absolutely nothing to show for it.  I didn't really leave my mark on the world at all, and I really felt bad about it.

Oh, sure, I had been on social media for at least three years, but let's face it.  Anybody can post a meme on their wall, or play Candy Crush until they make it to level 400 or whatever stage they're up to now.  But I wanted to do something more than that.

Interestingly enough, I turned to my Facebook page for inspiration, and looking at my Notes section, it dawned on me what I should do. 

You see, I used my Notes section as a bit of a mini-blog.  I didn't write in it every day.  Just whenever I had something on my mind.  Sometimes it was something funny.  Sometimes it was serious.  Sometimes, it was controversial.  But whatever the topic, it certainly made people take notice.  Quite a few of my friends read the notes and commented on them, and it gave me the courage to put myself out there.  At least when it came to writing anyway.

I also wanted to challenge myself a little more.  Before, I was lucky if I did one or two written pieces a month.  I wanted to see if I could do a blog entry every day for a whole year. 

(As you can clearly tell, I overachieved on that goal!)

But seriously, it was challenging to come up with a new topic of discussion every day!  I had decided that if I was going to do this, I would have to make the theme of the blog something that I felt comfortable talking about.

And I chose to make it pop culture themed.  After all, I am a trivia buff, watched television constantly as a child, and could probably sing the theme song to every sitcom released between 1975 and 1999!  And initially my plan was to use pop culture references to discuss life lessons learned from them.  Of course the more I wrote in this blog, the more I strayed from that concept.

(Maybe after this retrospective ends, I'll go back to doing exactly that.)

Now, initially I wanted to begin this blogging venture on my 30th birthday - May 18, 2011.  But I had so much planned that day that I completely forgot about it. 

Besides, with the supposed rapture coming on May 21, 2011, I wanted to see if we would live through it before I started anything.  After all, when some 90-year-old crackpot claims doomsday is coming, you best listen.  Wonder whatever happened to him?

Oh, right.  He died.  Never mind.

Eventually, I settled on May 24, 2011 for the launch of the blog.  No particular reason why I chose that date.  I just wanted to launch it sometime after my 30th birthday.  Consider this blog to be my thirties accomplishment.

This way, I have a digital footprint on the world, and my own personal space to feel like I can totally be myself in.  Believe me, it's a great feeling.

And I hope that those of you who have kept up with this blog for the last four years have enjoyed the ride.  Believe me, your input is just as important in keeping this project up and running.  After all, your votes last month helped decide the anniversary project that I would work on.  So, thank you.



You know, this was the very first logo that I used for this blog.  It was nothing more than a hand-drawn logo using pink and blue gel pens (to match the original pink and blue colour scheme).  Seems so long ago.



The following year, I changed to yellow and purple, and upgraded the logo significantly.  I still have a soft spot for this one.  It's the logo I used the longest so far.



Then I used this dark purple and blue one very briefly.



A friend of mine made this one for 2014.



And finally, we have variations of this logo.  It's wonderful to see how this has evolved over time.  Who knows what the future will hold?

All I know is that this blog - however long it lasts - will forever take me back to thirty.

And for my story about thirty-one?  I haven't quite decided what I'm going to talk about yet.  But I think that it'll be an interesting tale no matter what.

Wednesday, June 03, 2015

Twenty-Nine - The Year I Killed My Gall Bladder

Well, here we are at the final week of my...biography.

But, you know, I don't like using that word "final".  That would imply that after this week, my story comes to an end.  And that simply is not true.  It's like that Natasha Bedingfield song "Unwritten".  Today is where my book begins, but the rest is still unwritten.

Kind of has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?

So, what story will I be adding to the book of life this day?

Well, how about a story from the year that most people seem to want to go back to.  A year in which time seems to stop for people who are afraid of growing older.



I'm talking about that forever age.  Twenty-nine.

Seriously, I've known people who would rather celebrate the eleventh anniversary of being 29 instead of facing the fact that they are forty.  To me, age is nothing but a number.

Though I have to say that with one major exception, 29 was a fantastic year! 

Oh, what the hell.  I'd be one of those people who would go back to being 29 in a heartbeat.  Well, aside from being 19.  Or 9.  Actually, pretty much every time I have a nine in my age, I've had a great year.

Thirty-nine had better be epic.

But since 39 won't be happening for a few years yet, let's stick with 29, which I turned in May 2010.  And here's a snapshot of me from back then.



I swear, I'm not screaming in this one.  This was a goofy face.  Though I suppose that it could have been taken on the day in which I had a black hornet flying around my room.  I hate those things!



#1 SONG THE WEEK OF 5/18/2010
"OMG" - USHER f. will.i.am

Oh my God, indeed...never in my wildest dreams did I think that a song with Internet shorthand would top the charts.  Usher, I love your music, but this was one of your weak songs.  But then again, this was the time period in which I turned off Top 40 radio.



#1 AT THE BOX OFFICE THE WEEK OF 5/18/2010
"Iron Man 2"

Okay, the movie scene was a little better.  And I have to say - Robert Downey Jr. makes one heck of an Iron Man. 



#1 TELEVISION SHOW OF THE 2010/2011 SEASON
"American Idol"

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ...

Okay, so let's get the obvious out of the way first.  The only bad part about being 29 was the fact that I had to spend two weeks in the hospital that year.

You see, losing so much weight in such a short time period during my 28th year had a really unfortunate side effect.  Apparently it wasn't until I joined an online support group for people who had their gall bladders removed that one of the ways that gall bladder attacks could be triggered was excessive weight loss in a short time period.

Well, I lost most of my weight in six months.  I suppose that qualifies.

But here's the kicker.  I am a man.  And one of the stereotypical things that people claim men do is put off going to the doctor's office when they suspect that something is wrong.  I totally hate stereotypes and try my best not to generalize or stereotype anybody.

But in my case, it proved true.  When I started getting pains in my side around Halloween 2010, I shrugged them off, attributing them to indigestion.  But when the pains grew worse, I was thinking that something was seriously wrong.

I still remember the day that I knew for sure that something was not right.  It was February 2, 2011.  How I know the date is because that was the day that Southern Ontario was clobbered by heavy amounts of fallen snow.  We called it "Snowpocalypse '11".  Anyway, that night, I picked up some chicken from the deli at my store and ate it for dinner, thinking nothing of it.  The next day, I was in the fetal position, feeling as if someone was taking a pickaxe to my chest.  It is not a pain that I would wish on my worst enemies.  That's how bad it was.

Unknown to me, a bigger soap opera was unfolding inside my body.  My gall bladder - which was once as pure as the freshly fallen snow - had gotten corrupted and was now causing all sorts of trouble inside of me.  Oh, my gall bladder was bad to the bone, throwing gallstones all over the place, causing lots of interior damage.  As if that weren't bad enough, my evil gall bladder had decided that he wanted to embark on a relationship with my liver.  The gall bladder did everything he could to sink his claws into my liver, trying to make it see his evil ways.  And every time my gall bladder tried to inject his poison into my liver, the rest of my organs were screaming out "Drop that zero and get yourself a hero because he ain't no good for you, girlfriend!".

(Well, maybe not.  But that's how I like to envision it, anyway.) 

Whatever the case, there were only two options to go.  Either someone comes in and kills off the villain of this soap opera, or the show gets cancelled forever.  And if the show got cancelled, I die.  Not exactly the way I wanted to go.

It would take ten days before the surgery was booked.  Prior to that, I got the runaround by the hospital staff and I was bounced back and forth from the emergency room to home and back again.  With lost ultrasound requisition forms to nurses not knowing what was going on to my overhearing four nurses in the emergency room having a debate on what flavour of coffee creamer they liked best, I was not exactly having a lot of faith in the medical system.  But nevertheless, on February 10, I was FINALLY admitted into the hospital, and on February 12, my gall bladder was about to film his final scenes.

Oh, my gall bladder fought tooth and nail to try and continue to be the star of the show, but the rest of my body would not let that happen.  Oh, sure, my liver tried to stand in the way and prevent my gall bladder from being harmed (even going as far as sacrificing a quarter of itself to save the love of its life).  In the end, the relationship was doomed from the start, and the gall bladder's days of tyranny and villainy were silenced forever.  The liver would have some scars from the ordeal, but eventually after a long rest - and a couple of pints of blood red wine - O positive brand - it was fine.



As for me?  I was left with a foot long scar across my chest.  Apparently my gall bladder was too badly damaged to be able to be removed by laparoscopic measures.

My total recovery time was eight weeks - two in the hospital and another six at home.  Considering how serious the surgery was, it was necessary.

Believe me...when I had my very first surgery, I never expected it to be such a major ordeal.  I guess I know how to do it right, huh?

Though admittedly my surgery would not have been so severe had I listened to the warning signs and gone to the doctor a lot earlier.  If I had, I probably wouldn't have had such a hard time.  Lesson learned for next time, I suppose.

I'm just happy that there was a next time.

But you know something?  Throughout that ordeal, there was one thing that I was thrilled about.  The fact that so many of my family and friends were so concerned about me...that really made me feel glad.  I lost count of all the people from work who visited me.  I couldn't even count all of the people who signed my get well card.  And all the people who brought me treats and get well presents and things to read while I was in the hospital...that was such a nice surprise, and I thank you all.

(Oh, and thanks Mom for sneaking in my Nintendo DS and charger cord into my hospital room!  I know the nurses frown upon that, but playing Super Mario was the only way that I could stay sane.  You try having a hospital roommate that was 99 years old and had trouble breathing! 

All in all, my first surgery was a very scary and very painful experience.  But it wasn't all that bad.  I learned a lot about myself that day.  How strong I really was.  How much I was loved.  And how much damage a tiny little organ could cause a human body!

Gall bladder.  I don't miss you.  My liver's moved on from you.  She can find someone better than you anyway!

Tomorrow, we take a look at a milestone birthday.  And one very special thing that came out of it all.  Here's a hint.  You're reading it right now.

Tuesday, June 02, 2015

June 2, 2004

Well, what a crazy week it's been!  It's a week in which a peacock got loose on the streets of Toronto, and Bruce Jenner decided that he wanted to be called Caitlyn. 

I have no idea what's going on with the peacock, but I support Caitlyn on her quest to find herself.  It's definitely going to be an interesting experience, but I think she's holding her own.

Why, Caitlyn's journey could very well be mentioned in a future entry for the Tuesday Timeline

But not today.  Today I have another subject in mind.  And, as far as what the answer is...well, you'll have to place your wager on Final Jeopardy.  Do that while we go over the list of other events that took place on June 2.  And keep in mind that today's entry will fall sometime between 1981 and 2015.

455 - Vandals enter Rome and plunder the city for two whole weeks during the Sack of Rome

1692 - The first person goes to trial upon suspicion of being a witch in Salem, Massachusetts - Bridget Bishop would be found guilty and hanged just eight days later

1731 - Martha Washington (d. 1802) - the first First Lady of the United States - is born

1774 - The Quartering Act is enacted

1835 - P.T. Barnum hosts his very first American tour of his circus show

1896 - Guglielmo Marconi applies for a patent for his new invention - the radio

1919 - Eight American cities become the target of anarchists, who planted bombs to go off simultaneously

1924 - President Calvin Coolidge signs the Indian Citizenship Act into law

1941 - Baseball player Lou Gehrig passes away at the age of 37

1962 - A series of fights between Italian and Chilean soccer players take place during one of the games of the 1962 FIFA World Cup Championship

1983 - Twenty-three passengers aboard Air Canada Flight 797 are killed after a flashover takes place following an emergency landing caused by an in-flight fire.

1995 - U.S. Air Force Captain Scott O'Grady's F-16 is shot down over Bosnia

1996 - Game show host Ray Combs takes his own life following a battle with depression at age 40

1997 - Timothy McVeigh is convicted of fifteen counts of murder and conspiracy in regards to his role in the Oklahoma City bombings of April 19, 1995

2001 - Actress Imogene Coca passes away at the age of 92

2008 - Blues musician Bo Diddley dies at the age of 79

2012 - Original Family Feud game show host Richard Dawson dies at the age of 79 - exactly sixteen years after his replacement Ray Combs died

And for celebrity birthdays, we have the following people turning one year older; Sally Kellerman, Robert Paul, Ron Ely, William Guest, Susan Hart, Stacy Keach, Charlie Watts, Maree Cheatham, Jerry Mathers, Joanna Gleason, Dennis Haysbert, Dana Carvey, Michael Steele, Jonathan Stack, Tony Hadley, Kyle Petty, Andy Cohen, Jon Culshaw, Anthony Montgomery, Wayne Brady, Wentworth Miller, Matt Serra, Tim Rice-Oxley, Zachary Quinto, Dominic Cooper, Nikki Cox, Justin Long, Morena Baccarin, Fabrizio Moretti, Jewel Staite, Brittany Curran, and Jemma McKenzie-Brown.

Okay, so here we go.  Have you got your wagers ready yet?  Let's begin.



The answer is...June 2, 2004.

The question is - What is today's Tuesday Timeline date?

Okay, let's double the value of the next answer.

The answer is...this quiz show that has been hosted by Alex Trebek since the 1980s tests your knowledge in a variety of subjects.  Just remember to phrase your answer in the form of a question!



The question is - What is Jeopardy?

Yes, today's topic has to do with the game show Jeopardy.

Ready for Final Jeopardy?  Here we go.

On June 2, 2004, this contestant began a record-breaking run on the game show "Jeopardy".  He managed to last a total of seventy-five episodes winning thousands of dollars as a result.  You have thirty seconds.  Good luck.



Oh, what the hell...you probably already know the answer to this one already.



Who is Ken Jennings?

Yes, today we're going to take a look at the record-breaking run of Jennings, who went to battle against over one hundred and fifty people in his 75 consecutive appearances on the show as a contestant.  How did he accomplish such a feat?

Well, let's take a look at some events that took place prior to 2004.

Now, I grew up watching Jeopardy and loved the show.  Mind you, I didn't know any of the answers as a six year old unless the category just happened to be about Saturday Morning Cartoons, but it was a show that everyone in my family watched, so I guess I learned to like it through osmosis.  Anyway, one of the long standing rules of Jeopardy was that a contestant was allowed to play the game for a maximum of five games.  After their fifth game, they retired from the show and three new contestants were brought in.  Those contestants would later come back at the end of the season for the Jeopardy Tournament of Champions.

At least, that was the case until 2003.  That year, producers decided to remove the limit on how many episodes players could appear on, meaning that if a player won their fifth game, they could come back for a sixth, and so on.  It never really dawned on the minds of the producers that a contestant could ever last more than ten episodes, but they went ahead with it.  And until the summer of 2004, the record of most Jeopardy appearances was eight.



But then Ken Jennings came along.  A then 30-year-old computer science graduate who served on the Brigham Young University Quiz Bowl Team who grew up watching the show.  His first appearance on the show was Wednesday, June 2, 2004, and he unseated then two-time champion Jerry Harvey.  But due to the way that Jennings answered the Final Jeopardy question, he almost lost the game!  It was to his good fortune that the judges accepted the question "Who Is Jones?" (the answer to the Final Jeopardy question was Marion Jones), because Alex Trebek reasoned that because the subject was female athletes, there weren't a whole lot of female athletes to choose from - which admittedly was a sad but true commentary, even in 2004!

Anyway, Jennings won that game.  And the next.  And the next.  In fact, Jennings won so often that when the season ended in late June, they had to go on hiatus, and Jennings returned at the start of the 21st season where his streak continued!  And that wasn't the only time his run was interrupted.  He survived the 2004 Tournament of Champions, 2004 Kids' Week, the 2004 United States Election coverage, and the Jeopardy College Championships!  That is a huge streak.

Oh, sure, contestants tried their hardest to defeat the unbeatable Ken Jennings, but they failed.  It was hard to deny the charm that Jennings had though.  From the way he wrote his name in different fonts and styles to his cheeky bugger nature each time he answered a question, Jennings soon became a superstar in the world of game shows and a media sensation, appearing on "Live With Regis and Kelly" and "The Late Show with David Letterman" due to his long-running streak.  A total of one hundred and forty-nine contestants went up against Jennings and he managed to defeat them all.  It seemed as though nobody was ever going to take him down.



That is, until Nancy Zerg appeared alongside him on the Jeopardy episode that originally aired on...get this...November 30, 2004 - nearly a full six months after Jennings first appeared on Jeopardy!

That particular episode was a tough one for Jennings.  Although the third contestant, David Hankins, had a negative score and was unable to play in Final Jeopardy, Zerg proved to be quite a formidable opponent for Jennings.  Jennings had lost both of the Double Jeopardy questions, and Zerg had answered quite a few questions correctly.  By the time the Final Jeopardy round had arrived, both Zerg and Jennings' scores were quite close.  All it took was the Final Jeopardy question.

Oh, you know what?  Let's watch it together!



And that was how Nancy Zerg put a stop to Ken Jennings' reign as ultimate Jeopardy champion!  Of course, Zerg didn't last 75 episodes herself.  Not even close.  But you have to give her mad props for doing the one thing that 149 people before her couldn't do.

As for Jennings...don't feel too bad for him.  His final score after the November 30, 2004 episode?  A cool $2,522,700!  At the time, it made him the highest earning contestant in game show history until that record was broken by another Jeopardy contestant, Brad Rutter.

(Interestingly enough, Jennings and Rutter competed against each other in 2011 in the IBM Challenge where both took on Watson, the supercomputer.  Watson won.)

And since appearing on Jeopardy, Jennings has appeared on several other game shows including "1 vs. 100", "Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?", and "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?".  He has also authored a book "Brainiac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs" in 2006.

I have always said that I wanted to appear as a contestant on a game show.  But if I found that Jennings was my competitor, I may run out the door. 

But again, that's part of his charm.  Charm that we were first introduced to eleven years ago today. 

Monday, June 01, 2015

Year Twenty-Eight - The Miracle of Walking

Hey, everyone!  It seems hard to believe, but we're already at the first day of June!  Summer is almost here (though in my area, you'd never know it because the temperature dropped so much today), and I am definitely looking forward to seeing it arrive.

But with the month of June comes the final stretch of the retrospective celebration.  This is the final week of the retrospective and I have but only a few stories left to tell.



Today, we take a look at year twenty-eight in this post, and we left off at a period in which I looked at a holiday picture and I ended up being disgusted with what I saw.

2009 was the year in which I decided to get into shape and I lost quite a bit of weight.  Unfortunately, that weight loss lead to having my gall bladder go bye bye, and since that happened, my metabolism has been completely out of whack.  I tell myself that I will get back to my fighting weight once more, but I have come to learn that getting in shape is a lot easier when you're doing it with friends and family instead of alone.

So, I guess I'm saying this.  Does anyone reading this want to work out with me?  If you don't mind seeing me sweating through my shirt and showing off my hairy legs in shorts, let's set up a gym date!  I'm game if you are!

Ponder this for a moment while I dig up a snapshot from 2009...



Yeah, get a good look at this photo.  I'll talk more about it later in this post.



#1 SONG THE WEEK OF 5/18/2009
"Boom Boom Pow" - THE BLACK EYED PEAS

I won't beat around the bush here.  I HATE this song.  It's easily the worst song to ever hit #1 the week of my birthday.  Even more hard to believe?  Between this and "I Gotta Feeling", this band was on the top of the charts for HALF OF 2009.  Then again, the whole period between 2007 and 2010 is one of my least favourite music periods to date.



#1 AT THE BOX OFFICE THE WEEK OF 5/18/2009
"Angels & Demons"

This is the sequel to "The DaVinci Code"...and it wasn't as good as the original movie.  Then again, what sequel is?  Oh, and the movie was so controversial that it was banned in Samoa!



#1 TELEVISION SHOW FOR THE 2009/2010 SEASON
"American Idol"

Sigh...when will this show die?  I can't wait until 2016!

Okay, so anyway, 2009 was the year that I got into shape, thanks to a wonderful support system at work, as well as the support of family and friends.  And, as you can see from the photo above, it was like night and day from 2008.  What a difference a year makes, huh?

Now, this photo was taken at a charity event that I took part in.  It was taken at Confederation Park in Ottawa, and hundreds of people from all the stores in my district flocked there to take part in a cause that was near and dear to all of our hearts.

It was also going to be my major test.

Now, if you've read this blog over the month of May, you'll know that I have shared a lot of secrets over the last few days.  One of them was that I was not an athlete.  I hated gym class, sucked at sports, and nearly had an asthma attack whenever I tried to run more than a kilometer at a time.  Jack LaLanne, I was not.

So, after the weight started coming off, I thought that I needed a test of some sort.  A test that would prove to myself that I could do anything if I could put my mind to it.

I think that's what prompted me to sign up for a charity event called the Walk for Miracles.  We would raise lots of money for children's hospitals all over the country, and have a fun time going the distance doing it.

It was a real fun event filled with live bands, activities for the children, free food and beverages, and sometimes there would even be celebrity appearances.

(Well, if you consider Ottawa Senators players and people dressed like Star Wars characters to be celebrities.)

But here was the clincher.  The reason why the event was called the Walk For Miracles was because you had to walk.  Five kilometers, to be exact.

And while five kilometers doesn't seem like a lot to most of you reading this, for me it was a real challenge.  Prior to 2009, I was lucky if I walked one kilometer.  And keep in mind that prior to 2009, I was huge.

But I started preparing for the event as early as March of 2009 (the event was held in June), and by the time the day of the walk came around, I was more than ready to take on the challenge.

It was a beautiful walk too.  Confederation Park in Ottawa is situated right by the Rideau Canal, and there was a lot of things to see on our walk.  There were joggers, people having garage sales, rollerbladers, cyclists...and of course hundreds of people in white T-shirts walking down the pathways raising money for children's hospitals and having fun doing it.

And as I completed the walk, I realized that walking five kilometers was no big deal at all.  At first, everyone from our store stayed together, but somehow I found myself sprinting past them, and I was at the bridge crossing well ahead of everyone else. 

Would you like to know how long it took for me to do the whole course?  50 minutes.  Walking five kilometers in 50 minutes is AWESOME!  I had expected to be one of the last ones to finish the leg, but instead I ended up being one of the first!  I was never more proud of myself than I was at that moment.

You know, it was fantastic to raise money for the kids, and I was very happy to see that my whole team crossed that finish line.  But you know what?  When I crossed that line without feeling winded, I have to tell you, that moment was so emotional.  All my life, I never believed in myself enough to be able to accomplish such a great feat, and the fact that I did it - it's an indescribable feeling.

Let's put it like this.  Twenty-eight was really great!

And twenty-nine was just as fine...despite the surgery that I underwent.

But that story will have to wait to be told on Wednesday. 

Sunday, May 31, 2015

How Twenty-Seven Was The "Big" One

Today may be the last day of May, but this retrospective is set to last at least one more week.  After all, I am a lot older than twenty-seven years old.

As much as I hate to admit it sometimes.



Anyway, this is the story of my twenty-seventh year on this earth, and I have to say that 27 could have gone a lot better for me.

Then again, I suppose my 27th year went a lot better than Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain, and Amy Winehouse.  All of them died at 27.  So, right off the bat, I'm grateful that I even made it past 27 in the first place.

But let's just say that 27 was a year in which I came to a realization about myself.  And, it wasn't a very good one at that.

Now, I'll get to that story in a second.  But before we do that, I have a few things that I want to share with you that are pop culture related.

I do have a photo taken of me from my 27th year...but I think I'll share that photo a little later on.  You'll understand why as we proceed.

For now, let's see what was hot around my 27th birthday...



#1 SONG THE WEEK OF 5/18/2008
"Bleeding Love" - LEONA LEWIS

Now, I can't remember if she won Britain's Got Talent, or the X-Factor.  I know that she was a contestant on one of those shows.  The ultimate result was this worldwide smash hit.  It's a shame that she never really had much success in North America, but she's still a star in the UK from what I hear.



#1 AT THE BOX OFFICE THE WEEK OF 5/18/2008
"The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian"

Although I loved reading as a child, I never really got into The Chronicles of Narnia series, which is probably why I never watched this movie.  I heard it did very well though.



#1 TELEVISION SHOW OF THE 2008/2009 SEASON
"American Idol"

Sigh...you know what?  I'm bored with talking about this show.  Let's just skip it for now.

Okay, so 2008.  What was happening in 2008?  Well, not a whole lot.  I mean, I was still working my full-time job and I was enjoying it.  I had friends who I could hang out with and who liked me.  And as the holiday season approached, I had thought that things were going well.

I still remember the holiday celebration that we had at my workplace back then.  It was just after I celebrated my fourth anniversary with my workplace (I started two weeks before Christmas in 2004), and it was at a time in which our workplace uniforms were dark blue (they're now a lighter blue).

As part of the festivities for the holiday season, we were allowed to dress in Christmas colours, and for the occasion I wore a green polo shirt, green khakis, and a red sweater vest that I had bought myself some time earlier.  All I needed was red socks, and the entire outfit would have rocked!

In our employee lounge there were all sorts of treats for all of us employees.  If I remember correctly, I was working a day shift that day, so we were treated to pancakes, sausages, fresh fruit - after all, it was a holiday breakfast.  And naturally, all of us employees - especially yours truly - took advantage in a big way.

Well, I think someone from management was going in and out of the lounge periodically taking pictures of all of the employees and somehow my picture was snapped.  I didn't realize this until I saw a collage of all of the photos that were posted on the wall outside the lounge.

And when I saw my photo, I felt so sick inside.  Have a look.



First things first, contrary to what you might think, I do not randomly drink an entire gallon of store-bought maple syrup.  It just happened to be placed on the table that I was sitting at.

Secondly, I thought that my green polo and red vest would have looked fantastic, but when you throw the blue vest over top of it, there was clearly too much going on, and it just looked bad.

And lastly...and more painfully...I realized just how much I let myself go.

I was huge.  I was enormous.  And, here's a bit of a confession.  I was probably at the 300 pound mark, if not completely over it.  And, it just made me want to break down and cry.

The sad thing is...it never made me feel that way before. 

I don't know if any of you could tell based on my childhood photos that I've posted over the last month, but I was always a husky kind of kid.  I needed a big and tall store before the days of Destination XL.  In first grade, I was four feet, five inches tall.  By seventh, I was five foot seven.  And by my eighteenth birthday, I was already at 6'1".

The height I could deal with.  The weight was always a problem.

You see...I am what you call an emotional eater.  I ate to fill the void of things that I didn't have.  When I was in high school and all the other kids were going to dances, I was raiding the refrigerator at home and gorging on whatever food there was that contained sugar, fat, or both.  And well, by 2008, it had all caught up with me.

It got to the point where I didn't recognize the person who I was looking at in that photo.  It certainly wasn't the best representation of who I knew I could be.

But, who was I?  At 27, I didn't know the answer to that question.  All I knew was that when I was growing up, people were mean to me for being overweight - both kids and adults.  When they weren't calling me "Fatty Matty", they were giving me unsolicited advice about how to lose weight.  One kid actually lectured me by saying that I should stop eating junk food and maybe, just maybe he would have something to do with me.

Clearly he and I were never going to be friends.  Not with his holier-than-thou attitude.

Though, admittedly, my attitude sucked as well.  I basically had the "I give up" attitude where I just binge ate over and over.  Food filled the relationship void, the friendship void, and the general life suckage void.  And all I had to show for it was a three hundred pound body that I was convinced that nobody would love.

I suppose it was sort of an insane way to show self-preservation.  Self-preservation through self-sabotage.  At least by being heavy, I ensured that people who could potentially hurt me would stay away.

But it's not a great way to live life.  And I suppose that you could call this a two-part piece...because at age 28, I decided that I would change all that.


But it also made me come to a rather sad realization.  One that I will be one hundred per cent honest about.

Saturday, May 30, 2015

Age Twenty-Six - Hi Ho The Dairy Oh!

Well, I hope you enjoyed the little trip back to "Hogwarts" in yesterday's blog entry.  I have to say that despite the bad weather, the Halloween party was the talk of the town in 2006.  I think everyone who attended the party had a great time, and I hope to be able to throw a party like this on my own one day.

After all, I always wanted to throw a murder mystery dinner theatre.



But now we go on with the retrospective, and this time around, we're at year twenty-six.  And twenty-six was a year in which I did a lot of chilling out.

Quite literally, might I add.

Sorry.  I have no snapshot of me taken in 2007 - which is probably a good thing since 2007 was a year in which I simply did not look good at all!  Things would eventually improve though.  The whole losing weight, gaining weight, losing weight, and gaining weight has been going on since...well...2007.  I'll eventually find a weight I'm comfortable with.  It just hasn't happened yet.

But I do have some pop culture tidbits to share.  Have a look at what was hot the week I turned 26.



#1 SONG THE WEEK OF 5/18/2007
"Makes Me Wonder" - MAROON 5

Okay, I'll admit it.  I really like this one.  Maroon 5 is one of those bands that people really, really love or really, really hate.  I guess you could say that I'm in the like camp, but only for their earlier stuff.



#1 AT THE BOX OFFICE THE WEEK OF 5/18/2007
"Shrek The Third"

Okay.  The first movie was wonderfully splendid.  The second movie was a rarity in that it was better than the first one.  But what were they thinking with the third film?  Too many supporting characters, a lame villain, and Justin Timberlake as Artie?  What a mess.



#1 TELEVISION SHOW FOR THE 2007/2008 SEASON
"American Idol"

Again with American Idol!  Sheesh.  I don't understand the obsession - especially since it was recently announced that 2016 would be the show's last year.  Highlights include the topless photo scandal surrounding Antonella Barba, the astonishing rise of Sanjaya Malakar...and oh yeah.  Jordin Sparks won the competition.  

And as I turned twenty-six years old, I had something huge happen to me in my professional career.

Full-time status!

(Well, okay, it's not that big of a deal.  But considering how rare full-time jobs are in this world - thanks free trade agreements and outsourcing - I couldn't look a gift horse in the mouth.)

And even better?  The full-time job did not involve shopping carts, bathrooms, or loading giant things into cars!



No, in the summer of 2007, I was hired as a full-time dairy and frozen worker.  It really was the coolest job in the world - both figuratively and literally.  Every single day I would face temperatures of minus 25 degrees Celsius - even in the middle of July!  Though when the winter winds began to arrive in November, the job wasn't as much fun.



But there were a lot of perks to working full-time frozen and dairy.  I got to be the first one to discover all of the delicious new ice cream flavours.  And really, being privy to such information is always a good thing.

I also got the chance to work in relative obscurity.  Oh, sure, I had to go out on the sales floor to stock merchandise like cheese, yogurt, sour cream, frozen pizzas, and Swanson frozen dinners...but I had an entire walk-in cooler that I could hide in if things were going badly.

Not that I did this all the time, mind you.  It was just nice to have a space in the store where I could be alone with my thoughts.  Even if you did have to wear a jacket.

In all seriousness though, I loved my job in the dairy/frozen section.  I must have if I spent seven years in that department!  Nobody spends seven years in a department if they hate it, right?

And there were a couple of reasons why I loved the job so much.  Two very special people who made coming to work so much fun.

I'm talking about my former dairy companions and co-workers, Alex and Graham.

Now, as far as personalities went, Alex and Graham were quite different.  Alex was loud and boisterous at times and he was never afraid to make his opinion heard.  Graham, on the other hand, was more subdued and laid back.  Graham was soft spoken and thought about what he wanted to say, while it seemed as though every seventh word out of Alex's mouth was the F-bomb!  Graham was quite tall, and Alex was...um...vertically challenged.

And yet somehow, these two men became two of the best friends that I ever had. 

I think part of it could have been the fact that Alex and Graham were older than I was.  Graham was a dozen years older than I was, while Alex was considerably older than Graham!  But they had so many wild stories to tell and life experiences that listening to both of them was never boring.

And not once did they ever make me feel like I wasn't worth anything.  There were times in which we did clash, but it was never anything out of maliciousness.  More like them bringing me back down to earth.  I admit that at 26, I was a little cocky about life, and I guess I needed Alex and Graham to keep me grounded a bit.  Whatever the case, it worked.

I think that part of the reason why Alex, Graham, and I got along so well is because we were friends both on and off the clock.  There weren't a whole lot of people that I could say that about, but Alex and Graham were those friends.  I still remember that Alex and Graham took me out to Boston Pizza with a group of other people from work, and Graham was doing everything in his power to try and get me drunk!  Seriously, every time I turned my back, my beer glass magically refilled itself!  I don't doubt that my intoxication would have amused both Alex and Graham, but the joke was on Graham.  My alcohol limit is insanely high!

In short, I am not a cheap drunk.  Not that you really needed to know that, but it's the truth.

Besides, they got me back at the pool hall that we went to later on that night.  They cleaned my clock at the billiards table.  But I still maintain that it was one hell of a night.

Alex and I also competed in the 2009 Bowling for Miracles event in Ottawa, where we entered a team from our workplace to bowl for CHEO.  All the money raised went to the children's hospital and we all had fun - even if my score was abysmal.  I did manage to beat Alex's score though, and that was all that mattered in the end to me.  Bragging rights?  Why not!

And then there was the time that I got sick.  Really sick. 

You all know that I had my gall bladder removed a few years ago.  And you know that the surgery was so complicated that I ended up hospitalized for two whole weeks.  Well, would you believe that Alex and Graham both came up to visit me on more than one occasion?  Alex and Graham actually came up together on the day that I was admitted and actually made fun of the fact that I was on the maternity ward (apparently February is a really bad month for hospitals being at overcapacity).  I joked that I was set to give birth any day now!

Seriously though...their sense of humour helped me get through the surgery.  And after I had the surgery, did I tell you that Graham somehow got access to the ICU and visited me while I was recovering from surgery?  I never did find out how he did it, but the fact that he cared enough about me to visit...that's how I knew that I had real friendship with him and Alex.

Friendships that began in 2007, age 26.

Now, here's the part that doesn't have such a happy ending.  You see, sometime in early 2012, Alex had been suffering from an injury that he had gotten in January or February, and in May 2012, he stepped down from his job in the dairy department.  And of course, I wanted to give him a send off that he would remember, so I arranged to give him a retirement speech and had everyone at work sign a card for him.  Everything went perfectly, and I wanted him to enjoy his retirement.

It almost seems so unfair that just four months later, Alex would pass away.  You see, Alex had been terminally ill for some time, and he knew that there was no cure for what he had.  But he chose not to tell Graham or I because he didn't want us to worry about him.  That was just Alex's way though.  He didn't want people to fuss over him.  He wanted to go out on his own terms, and I guess this was the way to do it.

With Alex gone, Graham and I worked together for a few months after that, but in April 2013, I was transferred to the Garden Centre area and later moved to electronics while Graham stayed in dairy.  And right around this time, Graham was having health issues of his own, with him taking on seizures - a side effect of a surgery he had when he was in his early twenties that until 2013 he had been able to control with medication.  But Graham was determined to not let that stop him from living his life, and even though we worked in different departments, we still found a way to hang out.

And that's why when Graham died in November 2013 - it was really a loss that hit me hard.  Within fourteen months, I had lost two of my best friends, and when you have losses like that in such a short time period, it completely changes you.

I know that in many ways, I feel like there's something missing in my life.  Alex and Graham were good people, and it wasn't fair that I no longer had these wonderful people in my life.  It wasn't fair that their lives had to end right when things were going well for them.  It wasn't fair that two people who I was proud to call my friend were no longer here.

At the same time, my life is so much better for having known them both.  They taught me so much about myself, and so much about life, and I know that somehow they will live on, even if only in my memories.  They will always be my friends no matter what, and even though they are no longer here physically - I know that they're out there somewhere.

At least, I have to believe that.

At any rate, Alex and Graham became my friends when I was 26.  And that's why I will always look at 26 as being a year that was bittersweet. 

Coming up tomorrow, I have a story to tell you about turning 27 - and how one holiday snapshot made me realize something about myself.