Category — Family & Friends

My daughter Meg is 6 years old and in Kindergarten.  When Meg comes home from school and is asked how school went – she immediately turns into Napoleon Dynamite.  “Only the worst day of my life – what do you think”.  Yesterday, my best friend Heather saw Meg and asked “How was school today?”.  In which Meg replied, “AWFUL……………..I got detention”.  Now mind you, Meg did not get detention.  In fact it is quite the antithesis, Meg behaves like a saint in school and I wish she was half as obedient at home as she is in the classroom.  At home, she is quite obnoxious and bosses everyone around because it is Meg’s world and we are just visiting.  However in school, she sits criss-cross apple sauce and lights up a room singing songs with the class.  At home, she screams from the family room asking where her chicken noodle soup (with the curly noodles) is and wonders aloud why it is also taking so long for her glass of orange juice.  At school, Meg sits quietly in the lunch room eating chicken nuggets and smiles politely as other kids talk and laugh around her.  When Meg gets home from school she throws her backpack on the floor and kicks one tennis shoe off in the kitchen and the other next to the couch.  At school, Meg quietly hangs her back pack up on her hook and puts her boots, hat, and gloves in her cubby.  It is truly amazing the transition of behavior from home to school, not to mention when she visits other peoples homes and they confirm she was just a delight!  This behavior is not new in children.  I have heard this for years from other parents, that their children are perfect and well behaved when away from home.  But the minute they bring the child back home LOOK OUT!  In conclusion, I just hope that someday Meg will share the “good child” behavior with me someday so that I too can experience what she only saves for the public.

- Kristen

Mark has some clever ways to deal with telemarketers. He comes up with funny lines to have fun when they call trying to sell things to him.
One bit involves the telemarketer calling and asking for his wife. Mark responds by asking “Are you the son of a bitch who is sleeping with my wife? Don’t ever call here again!” Click.
Another favorite is when they again ask to speak to his wife, he replies in a depressed tone “She’s not here right now and I don’t think she’s ever coming back.” Speechless, the telemarketer hangs up and never calls again.

Even at work I often hear him talking loudly into the phone acting like there’s a problem with the connection. “Hello? I can’t hear you. Hello?” Then he hangs up. Then we know its another call from a salesperson he’s trying to avoid. It’s very funny.

His tactics work well and the people rarely call back to annoy him.

from 2002…

So on Saturday afternoon we go to see David Copperfield at the Fox theater. We bought our tickets the night before on Ticketmaster.com and by luck got second row seats.

While we were waiting for the show to begin, a stagehand approached and asked if Pam and I were married. He said that David uses a married couple in his act and wanted to have us join him on stage. Yee ha!

The show began and we were called up for the first illusion. It involved a large steel plate and we were there to test its authenticity. David had us both knock, tap and even kick the plate to make sure it was real. He made a couple of married couple jokes and had us stand on each side of a large metal box.

He laid down in the box and our steel plate was placed on top of it. Next a large sheet was placed over the entire box.

Before too long, we saw the sheet rising up in the air! He was passing his hands and feet through the steel plate and making sheet rise up. Amazing.

We were standing right next to this box the entire time and still couldn’t figure out how he did it. Of course we were pretty nervous being in front of such a large crowd but the illusion looked very real to both of us. He finished the act to the sound of a roaring crowd.

“Everyone give them a big hand” said David and we were shuffled off the stage and back to our seats. During the rest of the show he glanced at us a couple of times. We were his new helpers, we thought.

After the show, we hopped over to the MGM Grand casino to check it out. We’ve never been to the one downtown. We had a decent meal at the buffet and quickly gambled away the $10 in quarters we got while playing the slots.

It was a fun night and one we will remember for a long time.

So I’m walking into the restroom at work and some guy from another area follows me in carrying several magazines. He slips into a stall and I go about my business. About 10 minutes later, I’m getting some coffee and this same guy strolls out of the restroom and places the magazines back into the bin where he got them.

What I don’t understand is why he needs to come to our floor to use our resources but what really pissed me off was he was putting contaminated magazines BACK into the bin where someone else will pick them up.

The next time I see this loser, I plan on letting him know about it.

My brother Jeffery has a new project for the year. It’s his plan to take one picture for every day of the year. By doing this he hopes to become a better photographer by sharpening his skills with each day’s photo. I also enjoy the captions he creates for these photos. Check it out, the site promises to be very entertaining.

www.dfwjeff690.photoblog.com

There are only 22 more days left to live in our temporary apartment. The new house will be ready and we can finally move out. At first we were very excited with the idea of Apartment Life. As the months went by, we quickly grew tired of the cramped ant hole.

All of the neighbors seem to be in their own little worlds. You never see anyone outside walking around. On the rare occasions I did see someone, my greetings were usually met with a vacant greeting. I won’t miss anyone at that place.

The unit itself looks nice but they must have used the cheapest construction materials they could find. Not one cabinet door opens smoothly and all the kitchen drawers stick when you open or close them. Even the drawer in the refrigerator almost falls off its track every time we use it. When the furnace comes on you can’t hear yourself talk and the included washer and dryer is so loud it sounds like its falling apart.

Even the cats are becoming bored with the place. There is nowhere for them to run and nothing to look at through the windows. All of us are going stir-crazy in anticipation of the new condo.

Yes we will be very glad to finally be out of that place.

Online in one form or another since 1996, Frontsideback is Michael Feldstein’s personal web site.

The archives only go back to January 2002 because of the Christmas Incident in 2001 where all my old entries were lost. Almost 5 years of extremely entertaining stories were lost to the world.

You wouldn’t know it by looking at me, but I can run really fast.

Other people’s bad driving habits will be the end of me. Years of therapy hasn’t helped. This weblog allows me to vent about it and sometimes I feel better.

Let me know what you think of the site, call anytime.

Christoph - farewell, my friend. You will be missed by many people with me at the top of the list. It was a pleasure getting to know you and I enjoyed our conversations about your life back in Germany. Take care, buddy and please stay in touch. And be warned that next time we meet, I will kick your ass playing golf.

Pam and I went up north for her tribe’s annual Pow Wow. It’s a fun even where her entire tribe meet for dancing contests, great food and weird music. The drums and chanting all sound alike to me but the grass dancers have fun dancing in tune to their “favorite songs.” They are dressed up as you would see traditional Indians on television and it’s a lot of fun to see the different outfits. Every outfit right down to the feathers all have a special meaning.
The best part was Pam visiting with her family. The Pow Wow is a great way to get them all together in one place.

My friend Mike C is moving away to start a new job in Florida. I’ll miss having him around, we had some fun times and he made the job a lot less tedious for me. Thanks for putting up with my nonsense, Mike. I hope you enjoyed our short time together, I certainly enjoyed helping you out as much as I could. And while you didn’t always show it, I know you truly appreciated everything. The office already seems too empty without you around.

I hope we can meet again sometime, I’m only a email or phone call away. Try to keep in touch to let me know how you’re doing. Be on the lookout for some Photoshop fun (you should never allow me to take your picture).

Take care and farewell, and don’t be too bougie after you make your fortune.