The first year of marriage came and went. Taryn and I celebrated our first anniversary yesterday. We didn’t do anything exceedingly special, except eat the frozen piece of our wedding cake (which was surprisingly still extremely tasty).

I’m extremely proud of us. That might be a little audacious or cavalier of me but so many of my friends have gone through divorces lately that I think it would be easy to fall into a sense of disquiet about our relationship. The biggest reason that I believe we haven’t had any major issues over the past year is because (1) I have a very understanding wife, and (2) we usually try to assume the best of each other, even when the worst is more likely. Granted, we didn’t face anything exceptionally difficult during our first year and things are bound to get harder, but we made it through the things we did face. That’s all I can ask.

I’m not referring to Depends or some other type of adult diaper for the incontinent. Rather, I’m talking about baby diapers being carried by dads.

I recently discovered that my brother-in-law’s wife is pregnant. I’m extremely excited for them, in spite of her being one of those perpetually happy skinny people that you just know is going to lose all of the weight almost immediately. Lucky. I’m more worried about him. I fully recognize that new mothers nearly always have it worse than new fathers, but I can’t get out of my mind all of the 20-to-30-something dads walking around with their new children, baby food stains on their shirts, sweat pouring down their forehead, hair a bit shaggier than it was a year ago, a pair of jeans that no longer fit correctly because you also eat when your wife craves, and a constant look of fear, exasperation, and dumbfounded happiness…all while carrying an pastel-colored diaper bag with a teddy bear or bunny or something equally emasculating on the front. They might as well have lipstick on their teeth.

I just can’t let this happen to my brother-in-law. We’ve already gotten them a gift for the baby, and I’m working on something else that’s a surprise, but I think my wife and I need to get Ed a manly diaper bag. After all, this is definitely a guy. I’m talking a gun-toting, meat and potatoes, works-with-his-hands, picks-his-fingernails-with-a-pocket-knife, guy’s guy. This is not someone who should carry a giant puffy lavender purse around his neck. He doesn’t need a hand-bag. He needs a dad-bag.

I found three that I think are a good fit.

The first is the Diaper Dude Camouflage Diaper Bag. Click here to see it. This dad-bag has all the pockets you would need in a normal diaper bag, but it’s camo. ‘Nuff said.

The second is the Diaper Bag for Daddy’s. Yes, that’s not grammaticaly correct and it bothers me. Click here to see it. This is an awesome dad-bag that looks like a tool belt. I think it could work, but I’d be afraid he’d accidentally grab this instead of his actual tool belt on his way to work. That could be a problem.

The last is the Diaper Dude Dad Survivor Kit. Click here to see it. This is the mother father of all dad-bags. It’s a sleek black and grey messenger bag complete with a bottle pocket, cell phone pouch, an included changing pad, clips for his keys and more stuff that I don’t know what it’s for.

I don’t know which of these he would like best, but one thing is certain: once he straps this on, he won’t take it off. At least not until his wife comes back and the baby poops.

I hate the NBA.

I watched last week as the NBA claimed another class of players in the 2010 draft, and I couldn’t help but think that these guys are going to make millions of dollars but they don’t even really play the game. The only reason I watched was because Gordon Hayward, one of Butler University’s star players in their magical run to the NCAA championship game, was among those competing for a draft position among the highly-coveted lottery positions. FYI, he was drafted ninth.

While I’m supremely happy for Gordon “G-Time” Hayward, I don’t know if his new position in the NBA will be enough to make me even look at the scores during the season. Why should I look at them when they only disgust me. While writing this post, I went to ESPN and randomly chose May 3 as a date to look at scores for reference, and I see that the Suns beat the Spurs, 111-102. In a 48 minute game, if you do the math, that’s more than two baskets per minute. To me, that’s not a basketball game - it’s a shooting match. The point of basketball is to try to make as many shots as possible - and here’s the kicker - while trying to prevent your opponent from making as many shots as possible. If you’re giving up 100 points, let alone the 168 points Seattle gave up to Denver back in the 2007-2008 season, you’re not playing defense.

What’s worse is that it’s spreading to the supposedly “elite” programs in college basketball. Last week, the University of Kentucky saw five of its players drafted in the first round of the NBA draft. This is because each of those five players played with a “me first” attitude that showed off their individual talents at the cost of the team’s success. Yes, they won a lot of games, but they failed to make the final four because they couldn’t play as a team. It makes me sick to think that their coach, the honorable John Calipari, described the 2010 draft as the “greatest night” in UK basketball history. For one of the most storied basketball programs in the country - a program with seven national championships and 70 SEC basketball championships - its greatest night is surely not when five of its best players leave the program and give up an education before winning a national championship.

Basketball has some serious problems. I hope the NCAA and the NBA figure out how to fix them.

To celebrate the completion of my first year of law school, my wife and I decided to go out to eat. I wanted to eat somewhere on The Hill, which is St. Louis’s version of Little Italy. We have a place we normally go, but I wanted to try some place different. After looking online to find a place, we decided to dine at Zia’s.

Upon first entering, I had high hopes. When you walk into the restaurant, you immediately go up a few steps into the bar area. The room looks great and it has plenty of seating. The tables are nothing to write home about, but they look decent enough. Beyond the bar, the rest of the restaurant was confusing in its decor. Some of the features made it seem as though the restaurant was going for upscale. The wood finishing was beautiful but the combination of gray paint and the dim lighting made the wood disappear. Also, the 1-inch ceramic tile and the slatted closet doors made it appear that the restaurant was going for a diner look. For aesthetics, Zia’s was definitely lacking a cohesive style.

Immediately, we ordered an appetizer of calimari and a long island iced tea. The calimari lacked flavor. Some lemon juice would have helped. It was plated with two lemon wedges, but this was not enough to bring out the flavor in the ample portion. Overall, the appetizer was average, as was the drink, which lacked strength and had too much sour mix.

Next, we had the basic dinner salad. This was the best part of the evening. The house dressing was extremely good. An oil-based dressing, combined with some fresh red peppers and plenty of cheese, made the salad extremely flavorful.

Unfortunately, the salad did not make up for the extreme lack of quality in the entree. You would think an Italian restaurant would at least know how to make a good cream-and-butter based sauce. This was not the case. The sauce tasted like it came out of a jar. Further, the seafood included a few small pieces of shrimp (which were adequate - nothing great or terrible)…and imitation crabmeat. No restaurant should ever serve imitation crabmeat in a pasta dish.

Overall, I give Zia’s two stars. They get one star for the salad and one star for decent service.

I came out of school today and saw a motorcycle cop writing a ticket. I asked him if he could give a break, just this once, but he continued writing the ticket. He didn’t even say a word, just kept on writing! I told him there was no need to be rude and not say anything, and he started writing another ticket, this time because the car’s tires weren’t pointting in the right direction! I couldn’t control myself. I told him that he was abusing his authority and that he should be sure to write his badge number on the tickets so his boss knew who to contact, and he started writing another ticket because of bald tires! After about twenty minutes of this, I decided it was time to go home, so I walked down the block to my own car. I feel bad for whoever’s car it was.

I remember riding in a gray Chevy Blazer on my way home from school one afternoon in the fourth grade. A neighbor who worked at the school usually took me home from Pipe Creek Elementary, and this day her husband picked us up. I sat in the back seat, careful not to touch the metal part of the seatbelt that was scalding hot from being in the sun, and I began to hold my breath as I saw her husband light up a cigarette. Smoking fascinated me. I imagined smokers breathing in the flames from their lighter as they lit their cigarettes and the brown tip turned red hot. Then they would exhale a blue haze of smoke, reminiscent of an angry dragon trying to keep his cool. I knew smoking was bad, as this was around the time that all of the information about secondhand smoke was surfacing, and I also hated the smell. Luckily, the drive was all of five minutes. I wouldn’t have to hold my breath for long.

Now that I’m older, I can’t help but wonder if his addiction was really so bad that he couldn’t go five minutes without a cigarette while he was in a car with a child. I went to the grocery store yesterday to pick up some veggies for dinner, and I saw a woman and her grandchild walking into the store ahead of me. The little girl looked to be about three or four years old. The all-too-familiar smell of cigarette smoke filled my nostrils so I looked to a cigarette in the grandmother’s hand. At this point, we were right in front of the doors.

This upsets me. With all that we know about secondhand smoke, why must people continue smoking around children? If I don’t like to be around it, I can leave, but your kids or grandchildren don’t typically have that option. If you are so addicted that you can’t walk from your car to the front of the store without smoking in front of your kids, I think you need to re-evaluate some things.

According to the EPA, secondhand smoke is the cause of between 7,500 and 15,000 respiratory tract infections in children each year, and between 150,000 and 300,000 lower respiratory tract infections for children under 18 months of age (source: EPA). Moreover, a 2006 report from the U.S. Surgeon General noted that secondhand smoke causes children who already have asthma to experience more frequent and severe attacks, and that Children exposed to secondhand smoke are at increased risk for ear infections and are more likely to need an operation to insert ear tubes for drainage (source: CDC). Finally, secondhand smoke has been linked to a greater likelihood that your child may die from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). With the abundance of information out there regarding why you shouldn’t smoke, and especially shouldn’t smoke in front of your children, it’s clear that this is a problem. Yet, I continue seeing it happening, so it must be a problem that is not going away.

As a society, we have to continue sending the message that smoking in front of your children is unacceptable. If you are somewhere that children might be, don’t smoke. Don’t allow smoking in your home. If you’re a business owner, don’t allow smoking in your business. I remember my parents have a sign on the front door of their store that says they have “country air” inside, so no smoking is allowed.

The biggest thing you can do is stop going to places where smoking is allowed. If there’s a restaurant that you’re craving, get it takeout. When owners see their restaurants half-empty, they’ll get the message. When they see that they’re not selling appetizers or desserts or alcohol because people aren’t dining in, they’ll get the message.

Stand up for your kids. Even if they could stand up for themselves, they’re kind of short, so they need our help.

More later…

-G

I apparently need a creative outlet.

For the past decade, I’ve been active in speech and debate. I competed for eight years, then I coached the team at Miami of Ohio for two years. I was also active in theatre and band throughout high school. I loved taking a script or a piece of music or bits of information and making them my own, giving the play or song or speech my own touch and getting people’s reactions.

Now I’m in law school and I can’t bring myself to get involved in any of those things. I’ve been getting emails about auditions for local theatre productions, but I can’t justify the time commitment while I have cases to read, outlines to work on, and briefs to draft. The problem is that I’m going crazy from the monotony.

I’m going to start writing here again in the hopes that this will alleviate some of my exasperation with the ordinary. I have no idea what to write about, but I’m sure I’ll think of something. Stay tuned!

More later…

-G

I like my mom’s dog, but he’s lucky he’s cute because he’s not very bright. My dog is pretty intelligent. Have you ever played with your dog and thrown a toy but not where the dog thinks? We have a two story apartment and I like to throw his toys upstairs and he thinks I’m throwing them into the dining room. He used to run when I threw them, but now he’s learned to watch where the toy lands before he starts running. It’s a little frustrating because sometimes I would throw his toys so he would look for them for a while so he would leave me alone. He also knows sit, lay down, roll over, and crawl.

The most impressive thing is that when we say “cage,” he goes right into his cage. We didn’t even try to teach him that. One day we were talking about his cage and he went in it. Now, he can tell when we’re getting ready to leave and just goes in on his own without us telling him. If only he would stop getting into the trash…

I was surfing YouTube this evening, avoiding homework, when I came across this video. This guy has an amazing voice. Actually, he has two amazing voices. Watch with your sound on. You’ll see…or I guess you’ll hear what I mean.

The left lane is for passing, or turning if need be. That is all. Have a joyous day!

-G