WrestleMania 29 Predictions

It's that time of year again - WrestleMania weekend. A weekend during which professional wrestling fans from across the globe flock to the site of an annual event that will either leave them completely floored by how awesome the whole thing was or wondering why in the world they spent so much money on being a part of it all. I'm fairly certain I'd fall into the latter category. Seriously, I love pro wrestling (well, most of the time) but my status as a sufferer of buyer's remorse causes me to go into a state of shock when considering the financial ramifications of attending WrestleMania.

First and foremost, you've got to have tickets to the event. The face value price range for WM29 tickets starts at a fairly modest $49.50 (including taxes & vendor fees), however I think it's safe to assume that those seats will have you watching the show from a distance so far from the ring that you might be able to high-five the crew of the International Space Station. (By comparison, it'll cost you $69.95 to watch WM29 at home via pay-per-view in high definition.) The cost of tickets goes up from there with the most expensive ones being a select group at ringside which are valued at $2,000. Yes, you read that right - 2 grand per ticket (my wife's engagement ring and wedding band cost me just a smidge over that), but on the plus side you get to keep your chair from the show as a bonus. If you figure in other factors such as airfare, cab fare or rental car fees, a hotel stay, food, etc. I would hazard a guess that you're probably looking at a list of expenditures that will set you back between $1,500-2,000. If you treated this as a vacation that might not be such a bad thing. I can't say that I wouldn't consider it, however given that I could spend less money and do something like take a cruise for example I'd more than likely take the cruise - even with the probability of the boat breaking down being at an all-time high right now.

As of this writing, there are 8 matches on the card which, of course, is subject to change. At this point, the Intercontinental, United States, and Divas championships are not scheduled to be defended - I do not expect them to be included on the card unless, that is, they wind up getting added to a pre-show, if that even happens. I think that should give you a real idea as to how important those titles are viewed as being within the realm of existence that is the WWE Universe. Unfortunately the Divas division is paper-thin right now and the two mid-card titleholders - Wade Barrett (IC) and Antonio Cesaro (US) - seem to be perceived as the best enhancement talent available for guys on the upper-tier.

All that said, here are my winning picks for the matches to be featured in WM29. "Winning" meaning that I'm so certain of these outcomes that you could certainly put money on each of them and expect a return on your investment because I think there are a few sports books out there that actually allow lines on an event like this. In all seriousness, if you are a person equipped with enough disposable income that you'd put a bet on a pro wrestling match I would encourage you to instead send that money to me. I promise to do something important with it, like pay my property taxes or take my wife out to a nice steak dinner and not something totally frivolous like buying a fainting goat or getting an absurd tattoo (a pig with wings wearing a tiara and Crocs, for example).

- Ryback vs. Mark Henry

This is the match I have the least amount of interest in. Why? It's more or less just here for the sake of putting two big brutes against one another - there's nothing all that organic about it, in other words.

Ryback is essentially a less charismatic version of Goldberg wearing Rob Van Dam's gear. He's been presented as a good guy but to be honest he carries out the part more like a villain. I don't think he has it in him to make Ryback out to be a likeable character. On the other hand, I do like Mark Henry; his character has shifted from being a buffoon to a monster and he's been able to do great things since the change. Henry's been with WWE for almost 17 years and this is the first time I've ever expected great things out of him. That may be asking too much here, unfortunately, given who he's working with.

I'm trying to think logically when picking a winner in this match but WWE and logic go together like mashed potatoes and strawberry jelly; that being a palatable product but not what you were most hoping for. Henry could use the win seeing as how it would elevate him into a position where he could feud with John Cena, Rocky, or anyone else seeing as how there aren't many other top-tier villains right now. Ryback has been something of a work in progress for a while, though, and I don't see him losing.

Projected Winner: Ryback

- Fandango vs. Chris Jericho

Not every wrestling fan is aware of this but WWE maintains what amounts to a farm system similar to what Major League Baseball does through associations with minor league franchises. It's essentially a training program for wrestlers WWE have recognized as being potential stars which works to mold them into talent fit for the main roster. Just because you're a member of WWE developmental doesn't eventually guarantee you a spot on RAW or Smackdown, though. Sometimes things don't pan out, and sometimes a guy will spend years in training before getting an opportunity to move up. Such is the case with Fandango.

The Fandango character is that of a flamboyant and extremely arrogant ballroom dancer; think one of the professional trainers from Dancing With the Stars if they had the most ridiculously inflated ego imaginable. Before he was Fandango he was Johnny Curtis, and Johnny Curtis was in WWE developmental for right at 7 years - a fact that blows a lot of observers minds seeing as how he's known as a truly talented guy (he won one of the seasons of WWE's NXT program when that show was still featured as a competition instead of the stand-alone show that it is now). In all that time, this is the best gimmick the creative minds in WWE could come up with for him.

All I can say is that it's a good thing Chris Jericho hasn't retired yet. He's one of few veterans WWE has around who can not only make Fandango look like a legitimate competitor but who doesn't mind putting over a young talent like Fandango for the sake of furthering the product. This will be one of the better matches on the card, even though it will be one of the least hyped.

Projected Winner: Fandango

- WWE Tag Team Championship: Team Hell No (Kane & Daniel Bryan) (c) vs. Dolph Ziggler & Big E Langston w/AJ Lee

Tag team wrestling has become an often ignored element of WWE's programming in recent years. Gone are the days of tag teams like the British Bulldogs, Demolition, the Midnight Express and so many others - nowadays the idea is to throw two guys together at random and work out the details as they unfold. (It's the Lethal Weapon approach to tag team formatting, if you will.) Such is the case with this match as we're dealing with 4 individuals whose personalities have no natural attraction to one another.

Kane and Daniel Bryan have been engaged in the Team Hell No gimmick for what seems like forever. It's been an entertaining run for the both of them but you kind of get the feeling that it's grown stale. At the same time, Dolp Ziggler and Big E Langston are a fairly fresh pairing, with Langston more or less being the Virgil to Dolph's Million Dollar Man.

The wildcard in this scenario is the fact that Ziggler holds the Money in the Bank contract, which allows him to challenge the World Heavyweight Champion at any point in time - he only has until roughly the middle of July to cash it in, though, as the opportunity must be used within one calendar year or else it's nullified (he won it July 15, 2012). As much as I like Dolph, I don't think WWE is going to hand the belts to him & Big E if he's potentially about to feud with the WHC.

Projected Winners: Team Hell No

- Six-Man Tag Team Match: Sheamus, Randy Orton & Big Show vs. The Shield (Dean Ambrose, Seth Rollins & Roman Reigns)

Here we have a feud that's been built out of a necessity to get the top stars in the company on the biggest show of the year. Sheamus, Orton and Big Show are all main-event stars who've had significant roles at WM in the past. By contrast you have Ambrose, Rollins and Reigns, three members of the roster who've made a name for themselves via their roguish actions but are still definitely on the rise.

In predicting a match like this, you have to try and take a long-term perspective on things. What happens if The Shield loses? To me, they're dead in the water - not to say they couldn't pick up steam again but having them lose now would be a major hit to their progression, as a group and as individuals. What happens if Sheamus, Orton & Big Show lose? Suddenly two good guys (well, one good guy - Sheamus - and one guy who could go either way at any point in time - Orton) and a villain have a reason to feud with one another. There's more to be gained from a creative standpoint from them losing than The Shield.

Projected Winners: The Shield

- No Holds Barred: Triple H vs. Brock Lesnar w/Paul Heyman (added stipulation that if Triple H loses he must retire)

This match is the culmination of a feud that's almost a year in the making, which is something of a recurring theme for WM29 seeing as how Cena & Rocky have been going back and forth with each other for at least that long (more on that later). Between the two builds, I have to say I'm looking more forward to seeing how this one pans out.

Lesnar, as a pro wrestler, is still climbing out of a deep hole in my opinion. I still remember his send-off match at WrestleMania 20 against Goldberg and how much of a disaster it was. The match was a poor payoff involving two guys who, at the time, were huge stars and it was also proof that neither one of them cared enough about what they were doing in the moment to make the match what it could've been. Afterwards, both of them seemingly disappeared; Goldberg retired and Lesnar went off to pursue his various other interests. Now, having exhausted those outlets, Lesnar's back in WWE, working a schedule that makes him a part-time member of the roster at best.

Is Lesnar the guy to retire HHH? That's the real question here, and it's a matter of ego versus ego in the grand scheme of things. Is Hunter satisfied enough with his in-ring career that he is willing to let this be his swan song or does he want to leave things open so that he could have another go-round? If this is the end for Hunter, and I think it should be, he has done everything one could possibly do in the business of professional wrestling. There is literally nothing else he could do to further solidify his legacy. It's time to put down the sledgehammer, once and for all.

Projected Winner: Brock Lesnar

- CM Punk vs. The Undertaker

There were rumors posted on pro wrestling news websites for months that at WM29 CM Punk would challenge the Undertaker and his perfect WrestleMania winning streak of 20-0. Punk was WWE Champion then, and it seemed like only a matter of time before he'd be dethroned by either Rock or Cena so that those two men would be able to use the title as a feudal point. So it was that Punk would lose the WWE title to Rock earlier this year at the Royal Rumble, setting all the pieces in place for Rock to face Cena and Punk to face the Dead Man.

While it sounds great on paper, there wasn't a natural transition from Punk having been WWE champion for more than a year to suddenly going after Undertaker's streak. Then, tragically, Undertaker's legendary manager Paul Bearer passed away and suddenly Punk, one of the greatest villains in pro wrestling history, had a means to assault the Undertaker on a level so dastardly it made many (even within the confines of WWE) question whether or not having him do so was in good taste.

Having Punk use Bearer's death as a means to make his feud with Taker more organic may come off as a disrespectful maneuver, but I think it's a very powerful tribute to the man himself. Bearer was a brilliant manager and he would've understood that this is all ultimately about making the show better. The developments that have occurred in the weeks since Bearer's death have made Punk vs. Undertaker a much grander spectacle than it would've been otherwise.

I think it's a safe assumption that when Undertaker's streak ends, so too will his career. Could it be this year? Could CM Punk be the 1 in 20-1? I highly doubt it. This will be an epic match but it won't be the last time we see the Phenom in action.

Projected Winner: The Undertaker

- World Heavyweight Championship: Alberto Del Rio (c) vs. Jack Swagger w/Zeb Coulter

Jack Swagger is one of the more gifted athletes WWE has in their employ. He's a former All-American amateur wrestler, having garnered much attention for his collegiate career at the University of Oklahoma. His WWE career has been interesting, to say the least. He's been the ECW champion, United States champion, and World Heavyweight champion but he'd been noticeably absent since September of last year. He returned in February sporting a new attitude (which is more or less a mash-up of extreme Libertarian political views) and flanked by a manager/mouthpiece in the form of Zeb Coulter (who's perhaps better known as Dutch Mantell).

In between Swagger's return to competition and now, he was pulled over for speeding. When the officer involved searched his vehicle he was found to be in possession of marijuana and other drug-related paraphernalia. Swagger was arrested and charged with driving under the influence. This turn of events lead many to believe it might result in his being fired or otherwise buried (wrestling terminology for someone being demoted from a position of prominence). Fortunately for him, the push towards his facing Alberto Del Rio was already in play and it seems to have saved him from what likely would've been a major hiccup in his advancement - for the time being, anyway.

Alberto Del Rio has recently made a transition from villain to good guy. It hasn't exactly been the smoothest move in the history of the business as ADR had become one of the top bad guys around. There was no obvious inspiration for his character to change which made the shift feel clunky and forced. What's worse is that the feud with Swagger hasn't exactly set the wrestling world on fire. The whole thing stands to likely come out as a wash in the end with Swagger getting reprimanded in some way, shape or form and ADR moving on to whoever's next.

Projected Winner: Alberto Del Rio

- WWE Championship: The Rock (c) vs. John Cena

When Rock and Cena faced off last year at WM28, it was a matched billed as being "once in a lifetime". So much for that, I guess.

Having this match as the main event at WM29 is WWE's way of betting on a sure thing. This is a match that guarantees them mainstream attention. In one corner you've got John Cena - the face of the company, has been for a solid decade, isn't going anywhere any time soon. In the other corner you've got Rock - a hugely popular professional wrestler from the "attitude" era who's successfully transitioned into being a household name thanks to his having been embraced by Hollywood as a bankable action star. It's the kind of match that makes a man like Vince McMahon salivate at the mere thought of the thing.

To me, it's a fairly dull combination that has very little allure or mystique to it. Rock is a part-timer at most these days. He's an actor now, not a wrestler. As soon as he's done promoting GI JOE: Retaliation he'll vanish and won't be seen or heard from again on WWE programming until he needs to promote something else. That's not fair to the fans or the business, in my opinion.

John Cena will walk out of WM29 as the WWE Champion. He's the most consistent thing WWE has had throughout the modern era and there's a large chunk of the fanbase (read, women and children) that will flock to him no matter how repetitious he and his work may be. It only makes sense that he takes the belt from Rock because, as I said previously, Rock goes back to making movies when this show is over and done with.

If it sounds like I'm sour to the whole arrangement, that's very observant on your part. Quite frankly, I'm not a huge fan of either of these guys nor do I particularly care for the angle.

Projected Winner: John Cena

Narrow Seats are Narrow

My wife and I have had the opportunity to attend several events recently at Colonial Life Arena and Carolina Stadium, two major sports venues in Columbia, SC, the latter being home to the back-to-back National Champion University of South Carolina baseball team (I threw that last bit in there just because). They are marvelous facilities that I'm glad we have access to as they're truly modern day pantheons equipped with everything from WiFi to a wine list. Be that as it may, there's one aspect to them that I wish was different, and it has to do with basic comfort - specifically the comfort of one's posterior as impacted by the seats in these arenas and others like them.

I've never tried to hide the fact that I'm a bigger guy - not that I could hide it if I wanted to. I'm in the area of 6'2"-6'3" and, to make a football analogy, my body type would be best described as that of an offensive lineman (albeit one who doesn't go to the gym and doesn't diet all that properly). I shop in the big & tall section. I have trouble finding shoes that fit because I wear a size 14 extra-wide and most manufacturers/retailers seem to think mens feet stop growing around size 12 (seriously, next time you're in a Rack Room Shoes or a similar store, count the number of shoes you see in size 14 or above). That said, I admit that when it comes to the physical dimensions of human beings I'm definitely an exception instead of the norm - always have been, always will be. For while I could lose weight, there's no hope of my becoming much less wide than I am right now short of having my pelvis, ribcage and internal organ placement reconfigured.

That's not an elective surgery I'll be signing up for any time soon.

There's a well-known quote attributed to famed professional wrestling commentator/talent coordinator Jim Ross that goes something like "I don't care who wins or who loses, so long as there's an ass every 18 inches I'm happy", his point being to state that the measure of success in his industry is about ticket sales more so than anything else. I'm not sure if Ross was aware of it or not when he made that comment, but he's actually quite accurate when it comes to depicting the space between rear-ends at most coliseums.

I've done extensive research on the subject (read, I Google'd "average stadium seat width") and based on my results (which are highly scientific in nature, needless to say) the typical seat width you'll find in any given arena is between 17"-20". To get an idea of what that looks like, take two pieces of ordinary copier paper and place them side-by-side. What you've got is more or less the same width and depth (14" is the norm in terms of depth) of most stadium seating. By contrast, the seat on my recliner is 23" wide and almost as deep.

The width and depth restrictions are bad but the kicker when it comes to arena seating is the "arm rests". I use quotation marks because while they are capable of serving as legitimate arm rests their true function is that of immovable barriers of butt containment and isolation. They ensure that every posterior has a more or less equal amount of inhabitable real estate for use over the course of an event. In the case of someone like myself, what they actually serve as is a vice grip - except unlike an actual vice there's no hope of adjustment, just the same level of near torturous restriction.

Does that come off as something that would be comfortable to sit in for a couple hours? Now imagine it's made from a hard material like plastic, wood or metal. To take it even further, imagine you're wedged in between two guys like me the whole time. Still want to pay your hard-earned money to go to that next big concert or sporting event?

[SIDE NOTE: I mention paying for tickets to events - I think that's a factor I can add into this discussion as it is something that definitely serves to exacerbate the issue of pain in the buns. I brought up Colonial Life Arena earlier in this entry; that building will soon serve as host to such artists as Carrie Underwood, Taylor Swift, and Justin Bieber. The face value for tickets to those concerts will set you back $63.50, $86.50, and $95, respectively. (That's not including the cost of other expenses that come along with going to an event such as parking, which runs between $10-$20.) I will admit to having paid some high ticket prices in the past (I believe I paid around $90 to see Metallica almost a decade ago - we were in the front row and I got guitar picks from James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett so it was worth it for me), but the cost of attendance has become extremely exorbitant these days, so much so that fans have started to really question whether or not it's worth it. To me, that's what's happening to NASCAR. The TV coverage is so good (even though the racing itself isn't always that exciting) and the events so expensive that people seem to have realized it's just as well that they stay home.]

As I said earlier, I'm a big guy. For the sake of this blog entry, I measured the breadth of my chest from shoulder to shoulder and it was in the area of 27". (I haven't had cause to buy a sport coat or be fitted for a similar garment in roughly 3 years, so forgive me for referencing what is certainly an accurate albeit less than precise measurement.) My hips aren't that much narrower than my shoulders. How do you put something that's 27" wide into a seat that's 17" wide? You can take my word that it's not an easy task as different seats require different derriere depositing methods. With some stadium seats brute force works best; gravity will only drag things down so far, you see. These are generally the seats that I loathe the most as they're usually the ones that leave my tush quite sore, sometimes to the point of leaving bruises. (I've had bruising on my knees from spending hours shoved into a row of seats as well - the curvature of the seat backs combined with the narrow gap between rows only adds to my already high level of discomfort.) Other seats I've found can best be accessed by first sitting down on the edge of the seat then sliding back into the bucket. It takes some trial and error but fortunately I've yet to find a seat that I absolutely cannot get into.

[SIDE NOTE #2: I take that last statement back - I have found seats I can't get into, but not stadium seats.

When my wife & I went to the Magic Kingdom last November I was quite bummed that my ability to ride a lot of the attractions in those theme parks was limited. Oddly enough, the issue wasn't seat width or depth rather it was the length of my legs that inhibited the restraints from being fully engaged. The first time this happened to me was on Space Mountain; I'd gotten into the car and when the lap bar dropped it hit my knees. I tried to get my legs into a position that would allow me to ride but that effort was to no avail.

I'm assuming this has become a recurring problem for ride operators to have to deal with. We noticed at Universal Studios that there are test seats outside many of the attractions so that patrons can see if they'll be able to fit into the cars prior to boarding. I'm sure there's a joke to be made here about this being unnecessary except for the fact that people nowadays are fatter than ever. Even so, if this is a known trend amongst the masses (pun intended) then why not just make the cars bigger?]

The scenario I painted in a previous paragraph of a person being unwittingly wedged in between two men similar to myself is one that my poor wife has had to endure a number of times. She's a trooper, though, and finds ways to get through those occasions, sometimes with a bit of ingenuity. (Typically I'll throw an arm around her as this takes away a bit of my width and gives us both more comfort, even though it usually winds up with me having to watch where my hand winds up - some people don't like it when a dude they've never met touches them on the shoulder or knee oddly enough.) She and a fellow female attendee to a Ring of Honor pro wrestling card in Charlotte, NC we went to devised a method for improving the comfort level for quite a few people at said event. The show was held in a building that wasn't much more than a warehouse with folding chairs set up for seating. For the sake of security, wrestling fans being the lively sort that we are, the chairs had all been zip-tied together. The other female fan realized that she could remedy the situation by snipping the zip-ties with a pair of fingernail clippers; suddenly we went from being packed into our row like sardines in a can to sitting sprawled out and as comfortable as could be.

[SIDE NOTE #3: While writing of the story about modifying ROH's seating I was reminded of another situation that happened at a different ROH event, one that I hesitate to share because of the individual it involves but that I'm going to put out there anyway.

ROH made use of the same zip-tied chairs for this event, and we'd planned accordingly by bringing fingernail clippers. We adjusted the seats to give ourselves more room but there was one fan whose physical condition necessitated having even more room than I. I don't want it to sound like I'm making fun of him but he was morbidly obese, probably 500 lbs. if not more. He had separated his chair and moved it to a position that put him almost in line with us, which also meant that he gave himself a free upgrade seeing as how he went from having a seat in the general admission section to one that was worth significantly more than those. My wife wasn't thrilled with his presence for another reason; he had what sounded like a couple dollars worth of quarters in his pocket and jingled them incessantly, and this was getting on her nerves.

I haven't pointed it out until now but the folding chairs ROH used were the kind that have metal legs and plastic panels. They tend to feel flimsy to me, and now you know where I'm going with this story...

Towards the end of the show, this guy's chair gave up its will to live and collapsed under his weight. He hit the floor to a raucous calamity, his stash of quarters went rolling away in mass exodus, and he laid there on the ground with an expression on his face as if he were in shock. He eventually got up after being assisted by myself and a few others, gathered his quarters, fetched himself another chair, and returned to the same spot he'd been occupying previously as if nothing had ever happened.]

Unfortunately, you'd need a much more heavy duty piece of equipment than a pair of fingernail clippers to make the kind of arena seating we've been encountering more comfortable, and something even more powerful than a backhoe to get those who are in the business of building, operating and maintaining these facilities to even consider using seats wider than they are now. The point of any business is to make money, after all - in their case the more seats in a venue, the more money there is to be made from putting butts into them. Even butts like mine. So it is that the decision becomes either avoiding events because of issues like these or going to them regardless for the love of the thing.

I guess dealing with a couple sore cheeks isn't so bad every now and then.

Those Crazy Brazilians and Their Steakhouses

It doesn't take much more than a cursory glance at yours beardly to see that I'm a fellow who's rather fond of eating. I always have been, truth be told - it seems like food is an attachment that I have to some of my fondest memories. Case in point, when I was a child someone asked me "Why are you so big?" (I wasn't just a husky kid, I was also a rather tall lad for my age as well.) My response was to tell them that if they ate my Grandmother's cooking all the time they'd probably be big like me, too!

That was meant as a compliment to my Grandma, by the way. I make sure to point that out lest I come off as making it seem like I was implicating her in a negative light for my being the way I am.

I'm writing this entry as a tribute to a restaurant chain that's quickly become a favorite for my wife and I. I don't want this post to push me into the realm of being considered a "foodie" because I can't think of many more ridiculous culturally identifying terms than that and I would just as soon not get lumped into whatever psychosis agreeing to be labeled as such may involve. That said, allow me to introduce you to Cowboy Brazilian Steakhouse.

Cowboy Brazilian Steakhouse

Yes, it's called Cowboy Brazilian Steakhouse, not Cowboy's Brazilian Steakhouse. I'm a stickler when it comes to grammar and mechanics, so trust me when I say I've mulled over the spelling for quite some time. I've come to my own conclusion that the "Brazilian Steakhouse" portion of the name is more than likely there for descriptive purposes than anything else.

Truth be told, I had never heard of a Brazilian steakhouse prior to February of 2012. It was then that while attending a software conference in Greensboro, NC I had my first exposure to an eatery falling into that particular genre in the form of Leblon Churrascaria. I was there with a friend & co-worker from my previous employer; the two of us partnered up with a representative from the company putting on the conference that we'd gotten to know rather well who happens to be from Venezuela (if you're not up on the geography of the region, Brazil and Venezuela aren't that far from one another). The idea was brought up that we try out a local Brazilian steakhouse. Suffice to say that I was blown away by the experience. It wasn't long after we'd returned home that the idea of seeking out other similar restaurants became stuck in my mind.

If you've never been to a Brazilian steakhouse, the presentation could be best described as a procession of awesomeness. You begin with a trip to the salad bar, which in no way does justice to the sort of food you'll find there. The salad bar includes actual salads like potato, tuna and chicken salad but it also has things like shrimp cocktail, smoked salmon (something that I developed an affinity for whilst on our honeymoon cruise to the Bahamas), and fresh mozzarella cheese. Also, there's a hot foods section to the salad bar that features mashed potatoes, broccoli Alfredo, white rice, Brazilian black beans, and, my personal favorite, mushrooms stewed in a balsamic reduction. (PRO-TIP: Use the broth from the mushrooms as a gravy for the mashed potatoes and put the black beans over the rice.) There are too many items on the salad bar for me to name them all individually, and as you might guess it's rather easy to become overwhelmed by its expanse and have it consume your capacity for enjoying the remainder of the meal. Don't let yourself get full just from offerings on the salad bar, in other words - there's a lot of other stuff to enjoy. This is only the opening salvo of your dining experience, after all.

The main event of a meal at any Brazilian steakhouse is the rodizio (the style of service) where gouchos (carvers) bring an assortment of meats to your table for you to sample and enjoy. Your waiter will give you the ins-and-outs of how the serving process works if you've never dined in a restaurant like Cowboy before. (They will also give you something of an appetizer in the form of fried bananas, fried polenta, and Brazilian cheese bread. The bananas and bread are great but the polenta has yet to really do anything for me.) It's a simple premise in that you're given a token - which looks a bit like an over-sized poker chip - that has a green side and a red side. When you're ready to be served, flip your token to the green side and the gouchos will begin visiting your table; when you're in need of a break, just flip the token over to the red side and they'll know you're taking a breather.

This may sound like a tremendously gluttonous comment (which I'm not sure why I'm concerned about seeing as how a restaurant like Cowboy is purpose made for admitted gluttons like myself) but I would recommend that you leave your token on the green side for the majority of your meal. Why? This is an all-you-can eat arrangement, however there's a bit of a challenge to it in that you never know what selection of meat will be coming around or how often it will come around. Better to have the opportunity to accept an offering than to deny it altogether, is essentially what I'm getting at. Just because a goucho offers you a certain cut doesn't mean you have to accept it. Don't want the garlic steak? No problem, politely tell the goucho you'd like to pass or, better yet, do so and ask that he have one of his comrades bring over some of what you're craving.

The meats are prepared and brought out on skewers and the gouchos will serve you a portion of their selection. A small pair of tongs comes bundled with your silverware. You could say the tongs are the interactive portion of the meal as they are what you'll use to assist the gouchos in taking the meat from the skewer to your plate. You can expect to find such cuts as filet Mignon wrapped in bacon, Parmesan-crusted pork tenderloin, leg of lamb, top loin, and many, many more. I'm not kidding - the menu at Cowboy features SIXTEEN cuts of meat. Now you know why I said it's important not to fill yourself up by overdoing it at the salad bar!

Personally speaking, I have yet to try any of the meats which I haven't thoroughly enjoyed, however I'll say that my favorites at Cowboy have to be the filet mignon wrapped in bacon, the house special Picanha (or top/rump loin), and the lamb loin. I wasn't aware of the fact that I enjoy lamb prior to eating at Cowboy - it just goes to show you that an outing like this can open your eyes to a wealth of tastes and flavors that you'd never had previously. That's one of the things I enjoy most about getting out and trying new restaurants, the chance to partake in unique culinary formulations. Some people like to jump out of perfectly good aircraft, I like eating. To each their own.

Of course there are desserts served at Cowboy as well. I can't recall all of the dessert options but I vaguely remember there being traditional New York-style cheesecake, turtle cheesecake, creme brulee, Brazilian flan, and some sort of chocolate layer cake (there may be 1 or 2 others). Should you have room for one, I would recommend trying either the traditional New York-style cheesecake or the turtle cheesecake. I'm a cheesecake fan, though, so you may want to go in a different direction depending on your individual taste. My wife, for example, loves chocolate and adores the chocolate layer cake.

It goes without saying that if you are of the vegetarian or vegan persuasion that you will not find much on the menu at Cowboy to sustain you. There are a few veggie-based items on the salad bar but I'm not quite sure why someone who subscribes to the herbivore lifestyle would even set foot in a steakhouse of any variety.

In terms of price, as you might expect from my description, Cowboy isn't exactly on the cheap end of the spectrum. Unlimited access to the salad bar and full rodizio is $30 per person, however you can have just the salad bar for $17. These price points do not include beverage, dessert, or gratuity. While $30 may seem high, I would contend that if you go to a restaurant like this and don't eat $30 worth of food you've done something wrong. These are brilliant cuts of meat perfectly prepared and served to you with a unique flair. To me, it's worth the expense.

Cowboy has three locations in South Carolina: North Charleston, Columbia, and Spartanburg - so far, my wife & I have dined at the restaurants in Columbia and North Charleston (I'm trying to plot a reason to bother with driving to Spartanburg just to say we've been to all three). Both the locations we've visited delivered consistency in terms of the food but I am going to give a rub to the North Charleston location, which just opened in December of 2012. The food there seemed a smidge better for whatever reason, however that's not to say the food in Columbia has ever been bad as I would (and will) certainly go there again. Another advantage their restaurant in North Charleston has is its location as the property it occupies is a stand-alone building that was a formerly a Piccadilly (a cafeteria-style restaurant chain that once had several outposts in South Carolina; they've all closed, unfortunately). It has great parking and is conveniently located of I526. The Columbia location is in the middle of downtown. If you know anything about downtown Columbia, you know where I'm going with this commentary: Parking and accessibility. While there is free valet parking available to Cowboy patrons, I would just as soon avoid the hassle of getting into downtown Columbia on any given evening as the area is typically a mob scene of cars, pedestrians, and all the craziness an active bar scene tends to generate. I hate to have to level criticism at what is a great restaurant based on where it happens to be but in all fairness it's worth mentioning. Seeing as how that's the only genuinely negative thing I have to say about it should give you real insight as to the quality of these restaurants.

My Love/Hate Relationship with Pro Wrestling

This entry is in response to a wealth of comments and criticisms I've read recently online regarding fans of professional wrestling being frustrated with the state of the industry, as well as some surprising responses to these sentiments (which have come from talent and fans alike).

It's no secret to long-time followers of wrestling that the kinds of things we see on TV today don't hold a candle to what was out there back 10 or 15 years ago. The "attitude era", as it's referred to, spoiled us. There were 3 major competitors running steadily in the United States at that time in the form of Extreme Championship Wrestling, World Championship Wrestling, and World Wrestling Federation/Entertainment. It was a great period for the "sport" as the talent working then was as great of a combination of skill and charisma as has ever been seen in the world of wrestling.

Now, for all intents and purposes, World Wrestling Entertainment IS professional wrestling in the United States. Yes, TNA/Impact Wrestling is there, but they aren't considered a major competitor to WWE (they have their niche but their audience pales in comparison to that of WWE). Likewise, the independent wrestling scene is a jumbled mess of companies that seem to ebb & flow in terms of being able to deliver a hit only to have it fade into obscurity shortly thereafter. Ring of Honor, Pro Wrestling Guerrilla, and Chikara are at the top of the food chain in terms of indies. WWE has signed a lot of talent to come out of those companies, which is a testament to the kind of athletes that are out there working in high school gyms, bars, and VFW halls every weekend still trying to make a name of themselves. It would be awesome if one or more of those federations could grow to be a bigger entity but I just don't see it happening - not now and maybe not ever. Wrestling just isn't the draw that it once was.

As wrestling has changed over time, so too has the fan base and its ability to express themselves. The internet has been a great tool for wrestling as the product is as visible as it has ever been, but at the same time the internet has also been one of the worst things that could've ever happened to wrestling because there are no secrets anymore. Everybody knows by now wrestling is a show, a form of entertainment no different from a Broadway play. But because of the internet and the amount of information that's out there, every fan who's read one dirt sheet or wrestling "news" website is suddenly an industry insider with their finger on the pulse of the business.

The combination of knowledge acquired from often unreliable sources, unfettered freedom of speech, a cultural attitude where complaining without having an actual point is acceptable, and a slew of mountaintops from which these complaints can be slung into the ether of the World Wide Web (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, etc.) has brought us to where we are now. A couple nights a week, hundreds upon thousands of armchair match-makers tune into Monday Night Raw, Impact Wrestling, or SmackDown and let loose to all their online buddies about how Vince McMahon is an idiot, Dixie Carter has no business in wrestling, and that the wrestlers they hate are being forced upon the masses despite being talentless hacks while the wrestlers they like are being horribly misused by the companies for which they're working.

How do I know this? Because I do it myself, that's why, and I think we - as fans and consumers - have every right to making our opinions known.

First and foremost, what makes me an "expert" or capable of delivering valid analysis of pro wrestling? I'd show you the certificate I got off the web for being an internationally recognized master connoisseur of wrestling but it's printed on paper that will literally disintegrate if I were to attempt replicating it, so you're just going to have to take my word on this.

In all seriousness, I'm a lifelong fan and while I may have never been a wrestler I did spend a brief bit of my life working as a production assistant (for lack of a better phrase) with a couple independent federations. I would never toot my own horn about those experiences, but I think I've been around long enough to know the difference between good wrestling and bad wrestling as I've seen plenty of both.

When I buy a product that winds up being a disappointment, I tend to want to tell others of my experience so that they might not waste their money on the same piece of garbage I did. It's not griping for the sake of griping either, this is legitimate criticism we're talking about here. Now apply that line of thought to professional wrestling. I go to live events, I buy pay-per-views, I own wrestling-related merchandise. I'm not a WWE stockholder but I've definitely contributed to their earnings over the years in other ways.

That said, I don't see what I'm doing as being anything different than what most consumers engage in these days via the modern marketplace; think of it as leaving a 2-star product review on Amazon. The difference is that when I report a bauble I purchased as being less than ideal it can't get its feelings hurt because it isn't able to comprehend it's own ineptitude whereas when you tell a wrestler with an overly inflated ego that they aren't that great they tend to get defensive about it. And you know what? That's fine, too! They can buy their own hype all they want or, better yet, maybe they can take what's being said about them constructively. (I admit that's a difficult thing to do, especially when you've got random 12 year old kids on Twitter telling you to learn to work.)

The most consistent comeback I've seen to comments made by folks like me is that if we know so much about how the wrestling business should be run then why aren't we operating our own promotion, having live events, producing TV shows, web content, and the like? I'll answer this in two parts.

1) If I had access to WWE's roster, I would take advantage of the abilities those men & women possess. That's one of the biggest problems with the product nowadays; wrestling and being a charismatic personality isn't the focus, it's the angles and the storylines that matter. We're in an era where writers who have little to no knowledge of wrestling history put together the material that's seen on TV and where bodybuilders and swimsuit models get opportunities above guys and girls who've worked in obscurity for 5-10 years on the indies. How much sense does it make that a guy who's drawn crowds in the US, Mexico, Japan and Canada plays second fiddle to a dude who has an amazing physique and the wrestling acumen of a breath mint? None, that's how much. Let wrestlers actually wrestle - it worked before, it can still work today.

2) It's my experience that people either pursue wrestling as a business or a hobby; for me, it couldn't be a hobby. If I were to become a promoter it would be a full time job because that's what it would take for things to progress beyond mediocrity. Unfortunately, I don't exactly have a whole bunch of money lying around to invest in an entertainment-based venture. For that matter, even if I was a multimillionaire I wouldn't be wasting my disposable income by running a wrestling promotion because the failure rate is huge. (Alternatively, if someone bleeding cash were to come to me and say, "Hey, I'm going to give you a million bucks but you have to use it to make the best wrestling product anyone's ever seen!", I'd be all like "CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.") As a business, indy wrestling simply isn't profitable. Taking risks is a part of any business, sure, but starting an independent pro wrestling promotion and expecting to make money is like planting a jar of grape jelly in your yard and expecting a wine vineyard to appear. It's just not going to happen.

The other question I see often is "If you dislike what's on TV so much then why don't you just stop watching?" You've probably seen a sports fan at a game dressed like this.

That pretty much sums up the way I feel as a wrestling fan right now. There are times where I'm ashamed to admit that I'm still hanging around but I also can't give up on "my team", to use another sports analogy. I've been watching pro wrestling for the majority of my life. I'm as big a fan of wrestling as you're likely to ever meet. I have passion enough to stick with it because I know how great it was and I know it can be great again. I don't want to miss what might be around the corner because I was a fair-weather fan who walked away when times got rough.

We've Been a Bit Busy

Before I begin, I'd like to note that I'm aware of the fact it's been almost a full calendar year since last I added anything to this here blog o' mine. Hopefully no one's been using this journal as a means of knowing whether or not I'm still alive and kicking - if you were, I can certainly see why you might have thought I'd fallen off the face of the Earth but I also want to say thanks for waiting around all this time. It's been too long, don't you think? Yes, I do too.

So, where do I begin? I guess the most obvious answer would be to handle this linearly, so as to keep a logical order of events flowing. I have a hard enough time remembering what happened to me two weeks ago which is why I wouldn't dare engage in some kind of Quinton Tarantino-esque re-telling of the past year where the ending takes place before the beginning and the middle is filled with random exposition. My issues with brevity are well known by this point, however I feel like my advanced usage of Twitter may have helped in that regard. We'll keep an eye on that, though - drat, I'm already well past 140 characters.

We Bought A House

Around the point in time that I last wrote an entry, my wife and I were in the beginning stages of house-hunting. Renting was no longer a desirable arrangement for us as we wanted something of our own instead of continuing to pour money into something which would never be that. Don't get me wrong, we enjoyed the house we were renting. It had been my home for almost 3 years by the time Jill and I were married, and we'd been living there together for nearly 2 more years when we began seriously looking into financing options and available properties.

I will be blunt in saying that our search for the house that would become our home was not a completely enjoyable experience. Things in the realm of real estate are altogether different than how they were several years ago, or at least that's what we were told throughout the process. Neither my wife nor I had ever gone through this sort of transaction previously, thus we had nothing to which we could compare it. Apparently a whole bunch of backhanded dealings by bankers, investors, real estate agents, and the like lead the powers that be to recognize a need for change which is why things are much more tightly run these days.

My wife and I became frustrated with our search at one moment in particular. We'd found a house that we both liked (although in hindsight I would say Jill liked it far more than I did) in a neighborhood where people we already knew lived which was in our price range. It needed some work in terms of updating but I think we both felt like it had solid potential. After talking with our agent we submitted an offer that was a bit below the original asking price. The owners then came back with a counter offer; we thought we could get them to come down more since it was an older home that we'd have to put some sweat equity into, so we made a counter to their counter. At that point the owners offered us a price that was higher than the original asking price - yes, you read that correctly. They were now willing to sell it to us at a price HIGHER than they had listed it. Essentially they were blowing us off, which wasn't a huge bother to me truth be told as I'd begun to have serious misgivings about that particular property. It was nice but not worth what we'd have wound up paying for it.

As an aside to this, I can tell you that the house in question was never sold; from what I've been able to gather the owners instead decided to take it off the market.

We continued searching and our frustrations mounted. It just didn't seem like there were many houses within our price range in the area that appealed to us enough to actually want to buy them. (There were some that we probably could've afforded that were above the ceiling we'd set for ourselves but it wouldn't have been reasonable to pursue them; the last thing we wanted was for our new home to become an immediate financial burden.) I feel like this upset my wife greatly because having a home of our own in her eyes (mine as well) was something of a gateway to us beginning our own family, and I agreed with her completely.

Honestly, we more or less stopped looking for a while. We'd literally seen all there was to see, from beautiful homes we'd have loved to have to houses that looked like they'd been better off demolished. (We viewed one home which had been repossessed; apparently the previous owners decided to ransack the place prior to leaving and we toured it in its as-is condition.) I was in a state of mind where I was content with what we had, that if something came along we'd look into it but no longer was I all that interested in the pursuit.

I forget the date but one afternoon I took some time while working at my desk to look at real estate listings in the off chance something new would have become available. I noticed a new listing in Saint Matthews, a nearby town I've known all my life seeing as how my Aunt & Uncle are residents there. It was a home built in 2006 at a corner lot on about half an acre of land. It looked to be well-maintained and equipped with everything we'd hope to find in our first home. What blew me away, though, was that the asking price was set at $119,000 which was well-within our price range.

By way of fate, coincidence, or whatever you'd like to call it, Jill had seen the listing as well - we wanted to check it out immediately so we contacted our agent and he arranged the viewing. (He happened to be the listing agent for the property, so scheduling for us to tour it was a snap.) After seeing the house in person we both wanted to move in so we entered an offer of $115,000. Our offer was accepted within 24 hours - I'll never forget when we found out as we were walking around the electronics section of Walmart. Jill got the call and it was all we could do not to start celebrating there in amongst the cell phones and DVD players.

We sought out pre-approval for our loan before we ever began looking at houses, and this was a big help in terms of looking at numbers when we would try to plot out what we might be paying per month based on the asking price of a house. (We knew what the bank said we could spend but we knew we didn't want to get anywhere near that.) Unfortunately, our loan officer decided to leave the bank we'd been working with while we were still in the middle of ironing out the transaction. I'm not going to harp on this because clerical mistakes do happen in every line of work, but I will say that there were quite a few occasions where we were called into the bank to fill out corrected documentation because the person who'd taken over for our previous loan officer had botched them. It was all handled ultimately but suffice to say that something of this magnitude is not when you want to find out a supposed "premiere lender" has trouble with numbers.

Be that as it may, we were fortunate to be able to work with a number of great professionals who assisted us tremendously in ironing out matters related to the business end of things, main among them Manny Andre with the Century 21 office in Orangeburg, SC. I can't say enough about how thorough he was in dealing with us as our agent; he was there every time we had a question or concern, coached us through every step of the process, and provided a wealth of information along the way about houses, how things work within the industry, and the whole gamut of potentialities we might've been facing. I would strongly encourage anyone in the Orangeburg/Calhoun area who's looking to buy a home contact him for assistance - he hasn't started mailing me my royalty checks yet for all the clients I've steered his way but I'm confident they'll arrive, at some point.

The Moving Process Sucks 

We closed on our house June 1, 2012. Knowing when we'd be moving out, we began the process of packing up all our belongings in anticipation of the move. You'd never think from the amount of stuff we pulled out of the house we'd been renting that only two people had lived there - more like a half dozen or so it seemed.

I rented a Uhaul for the occasion but obtaining the thing and returning it was something of a chore. I made the reservation online for a truck that would be larger than we actually needed - I figure if it's worth doing, it's worth over-doing. I wound up having to get a relative to drive me 30 miles out of town in order to pick up the truck, which according to Uhaul's dispatch operator was the only one of its size within a reasonable distance. More details regarding why this particular Uhaul experience was painful will be divulged later on.

I drove the Uhaul to our soon-to-be former abode where we had a small army of friends & family over to help us load and unload our wares. Jill and I truly appreciated all the assistance we had that day because without it the process would've taken days instead of just the better part of an afternoon. I have to admit that I promised those folks a barbeque at our house which hasn't come to fruition yet; one more thing for me to work on and look forward to having, I guess.

Now back to my Uhaul debacle. When we were finished unloading the truck, I dropped it off at the nearest local "rental office" I could find. "Rental office" is in quotes because while this joint is officially in business with Uhaul it consists of a guy who has about as many teeth as I do fingers working out of an old building guarded by what looked like a German shepherd who's had a very bad upbringing. I was told doing so would be perfectly fine by the agent who leased the truck to me that morning so I assumed I had wrapped things up in returning their property.

I began getting phone calls from an unknown number the evening I returned the truck. I ignored them at first as I figured it was just someone mistakenly calling me, then they finally left a voice mail. The message was from the guy at the "rental office" I'd dropped the truck off at earlier in the day. He told me that I had to come pick up the truck as soon as possible else I'd be charged a significant return fee, fuel surcharge, etc., etc. - I don't know how much money we were talking about but he made it seem like it would be quite sizable. (Bear in mind that it's almost 10 PM when this conversation is taking place.) I ask him why and he describes to me that the lease agreement I signed was for a round trip rental, meaning I had to return the truck to the same dealership from which I'd leased it. This wasn't what I had been told when I picked up the truck - for that matter, I had no idea Uhaul even had such a thing as a round trip option - but I had no ability to argue with this guy about it seeing as how he wasn't involved in that transaction.

My only recourse was to pick up the truck in the morning from where I'd dropped it off and return it to its point of origin, which is exactly what I did. I wound up having to put more gas in the truck (you have to return it with the same amount of gas in it when you picked it up), incur the bother of having a family member drive 60 miles round trip to get me back home, and in the end I was billed for an additional day's rental.

Suffice to say what I learned from this experience is to make sure what you're agreeing to before you drive off with someone else's property.

This wasn't the only moving we'd wind up doing.

Saying Goodbye to 200 Colonial Avenue

My Grandma passed away in July of 2011. She and my Mom had lived together in the home where I grew up for years after I'd moved away for work, but the house had become a burden upon them in more than one way. The house is 2,500 square feet (tri-level with 4 bedrooms, 2.5 baths) situated on a piece of land just shy of an acre. It was way more house than they needed or cared to continue keeping up, so they'd put it up for sale. Unfortunately when they initially listed it was when the housing market was at its deepest lows thanks to the economic recession, which meant that people weren't looking to buy a home. It sat on the market for almost 2 years before it was finally purchased by a family with kids enough to fill it up and make use of all it has to offer. Their timing couldn't have been more coincidental as they wanted to move in to my family's old home at just about the same time that Jill & I would be moving into our new home.

We were elated that my Mom would get out from under the issues she had related to maintaining the house by herself. The financial and physical burden it had placed on her was a tremendous weight but she'd bore it just as she has so many others throughout her life. Still, it was an emotional process in emptying what had been our family's home and a time consuming one as well. There were lots of old memories stirred up in the process, believe you me. Things that hadn't seen the light of day for years suddenly being pulled to the forefront of your mind. People tend to collect a lot of stuff after living somewhere better than 30 years, but after many trips to Goodwill and at least one yard sale a majority of it was whittled down to only that which was deemed necessary or otherwise needful.

It was a real stroke of luck that this happened when it did as my Mom was able to move into our old house in Orangeburg. The house we'd been renting is perfectly suited to her needs as it affords her and her dog Chewie plenty of room and privacy. There was a bit of overlap between when my Mom moved out and when our old house would be ready for her as it needed a coat of paint and she wanted to put down fresh flooring as well (the carpet that was there while Jill & I had lived there was ancient, green and in need of replacement). She lived with my Aunt & Uncle during the time in between and her belongings took up temporary residence at a nearby storage rental unit.

When the day came to move Mom's belongings I found myself driving yet another Uhaul truck, this time from Rock Hill, South Carolina to Lancaster to pack it up before finishing off the day in Saint Matthews. I found myself identifying with my fellow truckers, to the point where I felt like I should begin a new diet consisting of beef jerky, black coffee and speed. The truck I drove that day was the same size as the one I'd rented to move my wife & I into our new home - the difference this time around being that we'd wind up using every bit of space the truck had to offer and then some.

As I mentioned earlier, we put her stuff into a storage unit temporarily until our old house was ready for her to move in. The concept of loading the Uhaul to then unload it knowing that we'd eventually have to move it all again seemed like an incredibly daunting task but with a lot of lifting, patience and help from friends & loved ones we got it done.

It's been about 7 months since we moved - it certainly doesn't seem like it's been that long. There was a couple days in there where I was fairly distraught about the whole ordeal but I think I hid it well. For the first time in my life I felt like I didn't have a home town anymore. I didn't have a reason to go back to Lancaster, a sensation I'd never felt. It took a while but I began to realize that the old adage of "home is where the heart is" holds truth. It doesn't matter where a house is, what matters is where your family is.

The Space Between

Almost immediately after we'd finished up the move it was time for our annual trip to Myrtle Beach with Jill's side of the family. This vacation has become something I look forward to every year as it's a fun-filled week of time away from work spent with family in a locale that couldn't be more picturesque. We rent a spot within Pirateland Campground that's owned by some friends of Jill & her family; it's located on a small inlet which makes it ripe for fishing (we haven't caught anything yet but we know they're out there by the splashes they make) and nature-watching. Some traditions we've built over the years are our trips to Medieval Times, the House of Blues, and the Annual Truesdale Myrtle Beach Putt-Putt Challenge Championship. To save time on describing what the ATMBPPCC is, Jill & I play a best of 5 series of putt-putt matches at various courses around Myrtle Beach and whoever wins the most matches gets the title. Jill bested me in 2012 and in so doing gets the rights to the trophy for one calendar year. A new pastime that I grew fond of thanks to this trip is the game of cornhole, or bean bag toss as it's referred to by some. Every camper slot seemed to have their own set of boards which made me want my own as well, except I wanted to build my own which I finally did just a few weeks ago - free time has been a valuable commodity for us over the past year, you see.

Around the early-middle portion of 2012 I began writing album reviews for a site specializing in critiquing releases by bands subscribing to the genre of heavy metal and its associates called The NewReview (check it out at http://thenewreview.net/). The site is owned and operated by a couple friends of mine that I got to know during my college years through the music scene in and around Myrtle Beach. It was a great opportunity for me as it allowed me the chance to do two things I've grown to love, those being to write and listen to music. This was a hobby, though, and as 2012 progressed it wound turn out that I needed to focus elsewhere. I left my position on their staff towards the end of the year.

I Got A New Job

My employment with Orangeburg County government was the reason why I originally moved to the midlands. If I had never taken the job I would've never met my wife; if I had never met my wife, we wouldn't own the home that we do. There are a whole bunch of other "if not for this" scenarios I could add but I think you get the idea that things (in my experience, at least) happen for a reason. By the latter stages of 2012, I had been with Orangeburg for almost 5 years and they'd been a great 5 years. Orangeburg afforded me the chance to grow professionally and learn more about real-world IT support than I ever did in a classroom. More importantly, Orangeburg allowed me to meet some of my closest and best friends. For those reasons it made the decision to leave Orangeburg all the more difficult.

I'd seen that Calhoun County government was in search of an IT director; I wasn't necessarily looking for a new job as I was fairly content with where I was but I weighed my options anyway. Saint Matthews, our new hometown, is a part of Calhoun County and their administrative offices are within 10 minutes of our home, meaning getting the job would immediately cut down on my fuel usage. There was a significant increase in salary from my position with Orangeburg to what was being offered in Calhoun. I'd have essentially the same benefits in terms of health insurance and retirement investing as those I'd enjoyed in Orangeburg. Everything seemed great on paper, like a real win-win situation, which is why I submitted my application and carried through with the interview process. All the while I knew that if I landed the position I'd have to say a whole lot of goodbyes, and that was going to be the most difficult part of it all.

I will admit to thinking I had a snowball's chance in Hell of getting the gig (a 32 year old guy with less than 10 years of experience in the industry just didn't seem like a top contender in my mind), so when it was offered to me I genuinely didn't know what to do. I'm not one to burn bridges which is why I did what I felt was best by informing my superiors at Orangeburg of the opportunity that had been presented to me. They made a gracious and generous counter-offer, which I will point out is something that they did not have to do. As I said before, I enjoyed my time in Orangeburg and more than that I will forever be grateful to them for allowing me the chance to be a part of their operation. I opted to take the position with Calhoun, though, because (much like when I left a previous job to move to Orangeburg) I felt like I would be missing out on a big step forward in terms of my career if I didn't accept it.

The last day in my old office was tough. It's the people you encounter and build relationships with that you miss the most and who are often the biggest pieces of collateral damage when it comes to the changes life inevitably brings. It's not as though I moved across the continent and would never see my friends in Orangeburg ever again; even so, there's a fair amount of adjustment involved when you're accustomed to seeing the same group of people every day then they're suddenly no longer a part of your life.

It's been said that life goes on with or without you - you either stay where you are or you learn to adapt. I'm still adapting to my new surroundings but I'd say they fit quite nicely. Every day is a new challenge, but every challenge is a chance to grow. I'm going to stop with this section now because the more I write, the more I'm starting to sound like someone who comes up with slogans for motivational posters.

Walt Disney World is Awesome

Jill & I have developed something of a tradition when it comes to taking a vacation around the second week of November. Why such an odd time of year for a vacation, you ask? She's a government employee as well, you see, and we government types have fairly consistent schedules when it comes to holidays that are observed every year, Veterans Day being one of those. The strategy being that you take a vacation when you're already going to have a day off anyway so that you wind up using that much less annual leave time.

In 2011 we took a Carnival cruise to the western Caribbean and enjoyed every minute of it - even the night when the boat was sailing at what felt like mach 2 because we were rushing back to port due to there being a passenger with a medical emergency on board. That was the second cruise we'd taken in two years, the first being our honeymoon, and while we love those trips we wanted to do something different this time around.

I will fully admit that when we got married my ideas for the honeymoon were Hawaii or Walt Disney World. I don't think I ever really thought of Hawaii as being a realistic option because of the expense. I more or less included it because I figured if my wife didn't want to get involved in that much travel Disney would win by default and I'd have wound up getting my way regardless. The cruise was her idea and it was a great experience, but be that as it may I still wanted to get her into the House that Mickey Built before we take the next hurdle in life as a couple, that being starting a family and having kids. Fortunately, it didn't take any arm-twisting at all for me to get Jill's interest up in going to WDW as she wanted to go just as much as I did.

My family & I went to Disney every year when I was a kid, or so it seemed, and I have always adored it. I've seen those parks expand and evolve over time; I probably know more about their development than an average person realistically should, a fact about me that my wife found out about thanks to me spouting off trivia about them ad nauseum. It had been close to 4 years since I'd been to WDW by this point, however it had been probably 20 years since Jill had last visited - that point made, I really think she may have been looking forward to the trip more than I was.

We booked our vacation directly through Disney and we opted to stay at the Pop Century, one of their value resorts which is on the lower end of the spectrum as it relates to hotels run by Mickey & Co. I can tell you with absolute honesty that the low-rent section in Disney is nicer than most 4 star joints, so don't let the classification fool you. We knew going into this adventure that we were going to be in our room to sleep and not much else, and that's the thing I've always tried to keep in mind when booking a hotel - they all look pretty much the same when your eyes are closed.

I had spotted a deal on the Disney Resorts Facebook page that offered a free quick service meal plan which would include two quick service meals and a snack per day for each of us. Quick service in Disney terminology refers to, as it was described to us, any meal that you pick up on a tray; it's their equivalent to fast food, more or less, but this is unlike any fast food you'll see anywhere else in the world. The quality is second to none, the options are vast, and the fact that we were getting what amounted to a package worth several hundred dollars for free was unbelievable.

To anyone who may be reading this and thinking about going to Disney, keep the last two paragraphs in mind when planning your trip. If you luck up you can get 7 days at a value resort with your theme park tickets and a whole bunch of awesome food included for around $1,700. It may sound like a lot but if you book in advance you can make a deposit and pay off your balance over time. Please don't snub your nose at free food either because trust me when I say that unless you bring your own you're likely to drop a good chunk of coin on sustenance during your stay.

The trip itself was every bit as magical as we'd hoped it would be. I could spend days on end talking about our experiences but I'm going to sum up every bit of it in one picture.

That's my wife while riding the Flight of the Hippogriff attraction at Harry Potter World within Universal Studios' Islands of Adventure theme park. I love to see her smile and there were plenty of those to be had during our time in Walt Disney World. That's what life is all about for me now - striving to live not just a content existence but one where joy can be found in every moment.

Our time with the Mouse flew by - something that seems to happen with all our vacations - but I know we'll get back there someday and make a whole bunch more memories.

The Holiday Season (aka, The Chaos Season)

Thanksgiving was upon us almost as soon as we got back from Disney. We hosted our first family Thanksgiving dinner at our new home, and it was quite the spread as we had everything from deviled eggs to fried turkey. There would be many more epic meals throughout the weeks that followed as it seemed like we were on the road every weekend from roughly the end of November up through the beginning of January. My wife and I are fortunate in that our families are all within driving distance, so while we may log a lot of miles in getting from here to there at least we aren't like many other families who wind up spending more time around the holidays sitting in airports or dealing with other travel-related woes than with their loved ones.

My Mom's birthday is in December and she would be celebrating her 60th in 2012. Since it was a definite special occasion, we took her to a local restaurant that offers a style of cuisine that's quickly become one of our favorites, that being a Brazilian steakhouse. I had been introduced to them earlier in 2012 when a good friend of mine and I visited one while we were attending a software conference in Greensboro, NC. This particular restaurant is called Cowboy Brazilian Steakhouse (note that that's the correct spelling; they don't use a plural or possessive form of the pronoun) and it's in the heart of downtown Columbia. I don't think I can give credence to the food with mere words; do yourself a favor and search out a restaurant of this kind near you. If you're a meat eater like me, trust me, it's some of the best food you'll ever have.

I planned a quick trip to Charleston for Jill & I the weekend before Christmas. Charleston is within a 90 minute drive for us and we love visiting that area. We go down to the low country (as it's referred to here in South Carolina) a couple times a year but the days we spend there always seem to get cut short because of having to drive to and fro. For this reason, I thought it would be great if we spent the night. I booked us a room and we got into town fairly early in the day that morning. We normally wander around the historic city market as there's an amazing assortment of shops and restaurants to enjoy in the area, and we began this trip there.

It was while walking around the market that I got a call from my Uncle notifying me that my Mom had been injured while stopping at a gas station in Kershaw county. She and my Aunt had been on their way to Lancaster to see some friends and members of our extended family when they decided to take a restroom break. Mom doesn't remember what happened to cause the fall but she wound up taking a tumble that resulted in her suffering a laceration to her lower lip and an upper humeral fracture on her left side. To put that in more simplified terms, she broke the part of the bone in your upper arm that connects to the shoulder socket.

Luckily enough, Mom wasn't alone when she got hurt. Like I said, my Aunt was traveling with her that day and she was a great ally in helping my Mom through the process of getting treatment. My Uncle coordinated the flow of information amongst everyone as the situation changed throughout the day. Jill's Mom & Dad were brought into the ordeal. We'd dropped off our dog at my Mom's house since she'd agreed to keep him overnight while we were out of town, so Jill's Mom came and got him then took him to their home for safe keeping. I felt bad that we were out of town when this all happened, but there was nothing we could've done to help. I've talked with my Mom about the calamity she went through that day and she agrees with me, which makes me feel better in light of it all.

Mom has since had surgery to repair the damage and is going through physical therapy now. She has a lot of work ahead of her in getting back to being fully functional, but I know how strong my Mom is. She's endured divorce, raised a child as a single mother, taught elementary school for more than 30 years, had both knees replaced, successfully fought breast cancer and undergone a double mastectomy, lost both of her parents, and now this. No, her name isn't Job, it's Barbara - she's my Mom, I love her, and I know her spirit and her body will endure this trial as well.

We had originally planned to host Christmas festivities at our house but with Mom's injury it wound up being more convenient if we all came to her. Me, Jill, my Aunt & Uncle, my Mom and her dog all celebrated Christmas together (yes, Chewie opens his own presents). It was a house packed with family and that's the way it should be.

Jill & I have a unique arrangement as we get to open presents 3 times seeing as how we celebrate once with my family, again with her family, then a third time with just the two of us - well, three of us counting our dog Roddy. It was a really special feeling to have Christmas in our own home. It's one more thing that only a few years ago a part of me never thought I'd get to do.

To Infinity...

I'm going to go ahead and be blunt about this. Right now I have no idea what comes next for my wife & I. I mean I have things in mind that I'd like to do but to say we have definitive plans for what we're going to be doing with ourselves in the near future is totally up in the air. (The only definitive venture we're plotting now is trying to start a family - bow-chicka-bow-wow.) That's not a bad thing, though, because I'm discovering living life one day at a time to be fairly rewarding. We're one month into 2013 and life is about as good as it's ever been for us. We're both gainfully employed, we have our own home, we're healthy, and we have a fantastic relationship. I wake up every morning feeling thankful for all that I have and all that I am, pleased with another opportunity to go out into the world. I have everything that I need and so much more. I think that's about the best way I could end this update entry, by simply being appreciative.

And so much for that brevity thing, huh? It's overrated.

Our Voyage to the Western Caribbean (Part 5)

11-18-11 (Friday): The final day of a vacation is always bittersweet (or at least it usually is to me) as you may want to go home but not necessarily back to work, school, or what have you.  It’s usually around that time that you start to feel the cold harshness of reality dragging you back to the mundane processes of everyday life.  Such was the sensation I had upon waking up the last day of our cruise.  Even though our vacation was ending I couldn’t help but be happy.  We’d done so much and seen so many things – we’re not wealthy people by any means but we have been tremendously blessed to be able to enjoy trips like this.

We’d gotten up at what had become our usual time, that being 7:30 AM, and decided that we wanted to have breakfast on the lido deck.  The buffet line for breakfast that morning wasn’t particularly busy, which would seem to have indicated that either we were up too early or everyone else was sleeping in (although it could’ve possibly been due to a combination of both factors).  Since it isn’t often that I get sausage, bacon, scrambled eggs, and the like in the mornings I helped myself to a portion of each that was way more than any reasonable person would’ve considered.  Gluttony is not only acceptable on cruises, it’s encouraged.

Since it was our last day we had no plans of what we’d be doing from one hour to the next, which was a first for us on this vacation seeing as how we’d had scheduled events going each day prior.  Jill and I have something of a tradition built around miniature golf – putt-putt, if you will – with our Annual Truesdale Myrtle Beach Putt-Putt Challenge Championship (the ATMBPPCC, for short), a truly epic yearly competition where my wife and I do battle to see who is the best of the best (out of the two of us) at mini golf.  Seeing as how the Dream features an 18-hole course, we could think of nothing better to do than play a few rounds.

Attempting to line up a shot - not that it helped

Jill strikes a pose on the Dream's putt-putt course

If you’ve never played mini golf on the top deck of a cruise ship sailing through the Atlantic Ocean, let me be the first to tell you that it gets a bit windy up there.  The gusts we encountered while playing putt-putt that day were the strongest I’ve ever felt.  Add to that the fact that the ship is in a constant state of motion and you can easily see how the difficulty level for playing on this course was quite high.   The course itself was not all that challenging; the holes there featured a fairly basic set of obstacles, nothing near that of the absurdly configured holes we’re accustomed to playing during the ATMBPPCC.  Conditions being what they were, I think either of us would’ve been lucky to have scored a round even close to par.  As it were, Jill bested me both rounds – 47-48 the first and 43-46 the second.  I blame my poor performance on the environmental conditions as well as the fact that I was distracted by the shenanigans of a group of older men playing behind us (they were hilarious and I’m fairly certain they had a betting pool going).  She may have beaten me but the ATMBPPCC trophy is still mine, at least for a few more months!

As I mentioned in an earlier part of this series, Jill and I had decided to use a portion the extra spending money we gained by way of our excursion in Isla Roatan having been cancelled to purchase some of the pictures we’d had taken during formal nights.  We went to the photo display walls after we were done with our putt-putt match and decided to buy four more pictures, bringing our total to six – I won’t tell you exactly how much they cost us but I will say that it was worth the expense to have them.  They really are excellent pictures and the ones featuring the staircase in the Dream’s atrium are especially nice considering the uniqueness and ornate nature of the surroundings.

Looking down the shaft of the Dream's atrium

Looking across the atrium at the Fun Shops and photo walls

By the time we finished up browsing through the photo walls and shops, it was – you guessed it – time for lunch!  There was a barbeque on the lanai deck that day and an assortment of tasty vittles were being prepared by chefs cooking on honest-to-goodness grills.  The selection was a combination of traditional grilling fare like slider hamburgers and hotdogs but also things like quesadillas.  I had a couple of hotdogs and I can honestly say that they were some of the best hotdogs I’ve ever had.  Say what you will about the process of making them or the meat that goes into those casings, these were great.  Jill picked us up a plate of deserts, almost all of them involving chocolate which should come as no surprise to anyone who knows my wife.  I learned of her affection for chocolate early on in our relationship as there was an occasion where we were out at dinner and wanted to get a desert to share.  Jill said that I could choose what our desert would be, and so it was that I picked the one item on the menu that didn’t involve chocolate.  Her disappointment at my selection was more comical than it was resentful, but suffice it to say that her point was made that night.

There was an event in the Encore Theater in the afternoon called Love & Marriage hosted by our cruise director Jaime.  It’s a take on the Newlywed’s Game where several couples (three, to be exact) are involved and each participant is asked a series of questions about their spouse with the winning couple being whoever gets the most similar answers to each question.  The contestants for this event were a young couple who’d just gotten hitched, a couple who’d been together for a while, and an older couple who’d been married for 64 years.  It turned out that the husband of the young couple was the grandson of the older couple; considering the nature of some of the questions, I think Sonny learned a few things about his Pappy and Maw that he might not have wanted to but it was all in good fun as we laughed the entire time.  One of the questions posed (which was aimed at the wives but had to be answered by the husbands as well) was “When is your husband most macho?” with possible responses being: A) In bed, B) Out of bed, or C) In his dreams.  The husband from the older couple – whose name was Bud and who happened to be hard of hearing – had come up with his own answer: Boobs!  And I have to agree with him because boobs are awesome and I think they’re as good an inspiration as any for us men to be macho.  Jaime got closer to Bud and explained the answer choices which lead Bud to change his response to “in bed with boobs”.  Bud, I don’t know where you are today but let me applaud you for being a shining example of all that is man.

Our cruise director Jamie coaching Bud during the Love & Marriage game

Part of the process of concluding any vacation is getting your stuff packed, and so it was that after the Love & Marriage game we had to return to our stateroom to begin the process of wrangling our clothes, gear, and other accessories.  Much like how your luggage is delivered to your stateroom sometime during the first day of your voyage, your luggage will be picked up by the crew from outside your stateroom during the evening of your final day aboard the ship and you’ll retrieve it from a processing area similar to those seen in airports once you’ve disembarked.  It’s an efficient method of handling what amounts to literally tons of baggage, and it is so at least partially due to it running on a schedule (like everything else associated with the cruise experience, it seems).  Passengers have to have their luggage ready for pick-up by a certain time and we certainly weren’t going to miss it.

The festivities onboard that evening were very low key as it seemed like everyone from the passengers to the wait staff knew that the voyage was all but done.  No more neckties or evening gowns in the dining rooms – if I had to guess, I’d say most of the passengers were just wearing whatever remaining clothing they had that was clean.  We bid adieu to our tablemates at supper and wished them well.  After the meal we returned to the Encore Theater for one more show.

I should point out that throughout the entire cruise we noticed our dining room was often rattled by what we assumed to be the churning of the ship’s propellers since the Scarlet Restaurant is located at the stern of the ship.  It wasn’t too bothersome until this final evening when we began to feel a much more intense shimmy, so intense that we and other passengers were wondering what might be causing it.

The rattling was even more pronounced in the Encore Theater as we watched several members of the entertainment staff performing an edition of the Liars Club, a show driven by audience-participation where passengers are asked to pick who amongst the entertainers is telling a fake story and who’s telling the truth.  The Encore Theater is equipped with a wide assortment of lighting rigs and other audio/visual equipment, all of which could be seen shaking or swaying to and fro.  It reminded me of shows I’ve seen at amusement parks like Universal Studios Florida where parts of the theater have been gimmicked to give you the sensation of calamity.  There were no gimmicks here, though.

Members of the Dream's entertainment staff in an edition of the Liars Club

We returned to our stateroom after the Liars Club to set out our luggage and get ready for bed.  We also took the time to fill out our customs forms as passengers are required to declare everything purchased while abroad as it could pan out that you own Uncle Sam some money, if you catch my meaning.  Around that same time, our cruise director Jaime made an announcement over the ship’s public address system that we may have noticed the boat traveling at a higher rate of speed than normal.  “Huh, here I thought we were just sailing downhill!” the smart aleck in me replied.  Jaime continued, saying that the reason for this was a medical emergency involving one of our fellow passengers.  My thoughts immediately went back to the passenger I’d seen being taken away in an ambulance the day prior in Costa Maya.  We never found out what the specifics of the situation were, but I certainly hope that whatever the matter was that the passenger in question is alright now.

I think we both had issues sleeping that night which wasn’t a good thing seeing as how we’d be hitting the road in the morning, making the long drive back to South Carolina (and reality).  I guess we should’ve expected some drama considering our surroundings – too bad it had to happen on our final night aboard the Dream.

11-19-11 (Saturday): Once again we were up bright and early, only this time what we had to look forward to were long lines, customs procedures, and our re-integration into the United States.

We rounded up our carry-on (carry-off would be a more appropriate term in this instance) luggage, said our goodbyes to the stateroom that had been our home-away-from-home for the past week, and made one final trip to the Encore Theater which would again serve as a staging area for guests before disembarkation.  To keep things orderly, guests are allowed to disembark according to zoning designations.  We were supposed to have been off the ship by 8:30 AM but our zone wasn’t called until almost 10 AM – breakfast would’ve been nice to have had that morning but room service doesn’t deliver to passengers whose voyage is over, I’m sad to say.  While the lines for passengers to pass through customs were long they were at least moving somewhat steadily.  Our customs experience this go-round was entertaining as the agent working at the station we passed through was working with several teenagers who were job shadowing that day.  We were recognized as citizens of this great country, found our luggage and were able to get to our car in near record time.  Our egress out of the port area was slowed when we got to the parking attendant stations where we’d pay our due for the week; there was either a mechanical issue or some sort of confusion among the staff there.  It was resolved, though, and once we were paid up ($120…FOR PARKING!?!?!?!?!?!?!) we were on our way.

I usually handle the driving duties whenever we’re on the road and Jill usually sleeps 93% of the trip.  I’m kidding – she’s awake at least 30% of the time.  As we got to Jacksonville the lack of sleep the night before caught up to me as I was very close to dozing off while driving.  Trust me when I say that Jacksonville is not a town you should drive through if your head isn’t exactly clear as there are more lane changes and overpasses to navigate there than I’ve experienced anywhere else.  The fact that the gentle jostling sensation you get from riding in a car has always been a relaxing feeling for me didn’t help matters (my parents would take me for a drive around the neighborhood when I was a child if they couldn’t get me to sleep otherwise).  Jill helped out as best she could by trying to have a conversation but she was tired too.  It felt like it took forever for us to get into Georgia but once we were there in the Peach State we stopped at the welcome center where Jill and I swapped places so that I could get some rest.

I don’t recall which Georgian town we were in when we got lunch but I do remember the occasion as we stopped at a Krystal Burger restaurant where I had my first ever Krystal burger.  We don’t have Krystal’s in South Carolina (if we do I’ve never seen it) and consequently I’d never thought to visit one when we’ve passed them in our travels.  Jill had become a fan of theirs thanks to her having lived in North Carolina for some time after college and she felt it was high time I sampled their food.  I have to say that it’s a good thing there isn’t a Krystal Burger anywhere near where we live, else I’d probably be there every other day.  Their burgers are proof that something doesn’t have to be intricate in order to be tasty.

We got back home late in the afternoon, unloaded the car then sorted our laundry.  There were mountains of clothes in our living room, some of them smellier than others but all ripe with reminders of the week that had been our cruise to the Western Caribbean.