I did this on my facebook, but thought I’d post it here as well. On the eve of turning 30 I will now share the top 10 memories/events/moments of being 29.
10. Jason Mraz at SummerFest. Just a fun day. The concert? Not so much, but we definitely had fun this day.
9. Last week with Nolan. He’s just been killing it lately.
8. Costa Rica~
7. Nolan’s first time fishing.
6. BEAST MODE! Best time I’ve ever had watching a football game.
5. CHIKARA
4. SNOWMAGEDDON. Probably the best day I ever had with my old girlfriend.
3. WWE Money in the Bank. SUMMER OF PUNK.
2. PJ20. Alpine Valley. BOTH NIGHTS.
1. Milwaukee Brewers NLCS Game 5 at Miller Park.
So here we are. Tomorrow I will be 30. Thirty. The big 3-0. The age when my ex-girlfriend’s friend once told me your life ends. (Bitch.) Thirty freakin’ years old. I realize that 30 is the new 20 and that it’s not that big of a deal, but I’ve also been conditioned my entire life to believe that 30 is old. (What are you, like 30?) Plus, I realize everyday how long ago the 80s were and that I was freakin’ born at the beginning of them. Listen to Private Eyes by Hall and Oates and figure that I am roughly the same age as that song. So, yeah, old.
As becoming older takes over my mind so do a lot of thoughts about my life. I think the whole idea of “what if?” is kind of stupid because (as Morpheus said) whatever happened happened and couldn’t have happened any other way, but that doesn’t stop me from thinking about them. In all honesty, I am not living the life I envisioned for myself. I like myself, I have fun times and no man is a failure who has friends, but to say this life is ideal would be a lie. I could do better. I should be doing better and because of that I am thinking of what ifs. These are the big ones.
1. What if I never moved to Hawaii?
Really all the signs in my life pointed to this being a bad idea. I didn’t have a lot of money, I didn’t have a job and the only person I knew there was a girl that I wasn’t 100% convinced even wanted me to come. Actually, let’s be honest and say that she didn’t. She wasn’t mad when I did and things worked out that I did, but when I told her that I was doing it she said it was a bad idea. So I canceled my plane ticket. Then I bought another one a month later and didn’t tell her this time. It was irrational and when I got to my layover in Phoenix and they were overbooked I was the first one to put my name in. They didn’t use me and I ended up going. Things worked out. I had fun and I got a son of out of it, but holy crap would my life be different and I really don’t know what would have happened if I hadn’t moved there. Would I have moved somewhere else? Would I have ever seen Jenny again? Would I have stayed in LG all this time? A crazy what if that ultimately doesn’t matter because of Nolan.
2. What if I had stayed in Tacoma?
I moved to Tacoma with my girlfriend at the time and when we broke up my first thought was to GTFO. I headed back to Alabama and ended up living there longer than I ever intended and getting into some shit I didn’t want to get into. It was dumb times and that whole Alabama phase has always felt like a big waste of time to me. So, what if I stayed? I don’t think we would have worked it out because, you know, I’m still me, but I loved it there and I could have found somewhere to live. Would it have worked out? I would have probably had to find all new friends, found another a new job and everything else, but maybe it’d have worked. I could be a Seattle Seahawks season ticket holder right now! I could say I was from Seattle and it actually have been true, but alas there would be no Nolan in this scenario so I don’t really care.
3. What if I had went to college for.. something?
I think about this a lot. I never know exactly what I would have went for (which is why I’ve never went), but I know that if I had went I would be down by now. If I had went when I left Tacoma, I’d be done by now. If I had went when I left Alabama, I’d be done by now. If I had went when I left Hawaii, I’d be done by now. Maybe if I had stayed with Jenny when Nolan was born I’d have been like “I NEED TO SUPPORT MY FAMILY” and went then, I’d be done by now and who knows. This isn’t so much a what if as a coulda/woulda/shoulda. I should have, but I didn’t and if I had I wouldn’t be me right now so who cares. I’ve never felt that college was my path to success and I still don’t. Stupid? Possibly, but that’s just me.
4. What if I had went to Milwaukee?
My entire goal of summer 2010 was to make enough money to move to Milwaukee. Then I fell in love with a girl from Illinois who told me she didn’t want to live in Milwaukee and bla bla bla. I probably should have called her bluff and just done it. If a girl doesn’t want to live where you want to live then it’s probably not going to work out. There’s no f’n way I’d live in Illinois either, but that was her home. Just not a good recipe for success. What if I moved though? Would it have helped or killed that relationship? Would I have found some success? Would my life be different? I can’t really regret this one too much because if I didn’t date that girl I never would have gotten over her and staying was the only way to date her.
Ultimately, I have no regrets about the decisions I’ve made in my life. My only true regrets are not doing the things I wanted to do for whatever reason. Twelve years I’ve wanted to write a screenplay and still they sit unwritten. It’s probably too late now, but I could have gone to wrestling school at any point during that time. I could have done a lot of things and I just procrastinated them all this time. Regretful, but like I said before 30 is the new 20. I got plenty of time to do things I want to do.
I live on a private street with maybe five houses on it. We know everyone in the neighborhood so often times I won’t even lock my truck. It’s not like I have everything in there of value or anything. This morning my neighbors came over and said they found a car seat in the woods in front of my house and were wondering if it was mine. I thought this was ridiculous until I went outside to look and yes, someone had went through my truck looking for shit and decided to take out my car seat and throw it in the woods. Really?
Let’s think about this for a second. It was probably kids, right? I mean, only kids would be that douchey. It’s one thing to steal stuff, but that’s just messing with my stuff for no reason. Also, it had to be kids because I had my old (broken) laptop in the backseat and they didn’t take it. Only kids are that fucking stupid to go into a car with the intent to steal something and not steal the potentially most valuable thing in there. I hate kids. Honestly, I’m not even that upset that someone went into my truck. They might have took some change or some other stuff I don’t care about, but that’s it. The car seat thing really annoys the shit out of me though because now it’s all dirty and I have to clean it. It’s not even my car seat really, it’s my son’s car seat and what the hell do you want to mess with a four year old’s stuff for? Again, it’s just completely unnecessary and such a douche thing to do. Fuck off, kids who did this.
Because I am totally cool guy who is trying to be a person who works full time on the internet and writes all the time, I found another thing to distract myself by starting a tumblr. It’s mainly for shorter posts that I don’t feel are worth posting here like this one I posted this morning:
I found an old ipod shuffle (I would say “my old ipod shuffle”, but I honestly have no recollection of ever buying or being given one) and it has the weirdest, most vintown playlist ever on it.
Anthems for a Seventeen Year Old Girl by Broken Social Scene
Banquet by Bloc Party
Rebellion (Lies) by Arcade Fire
Last Nite by The Strokes
lisztomania by Phoenix
Whoever You Are by Geggy Tah
Going Back To Cali by Notorious BIG
Game Got Switched by Ludacris
Off The Wall by Redman & Eminem
Fuck You by Cee-Lo Green
And that’s all. There is still 42 MB left to fill. I can picture the timeline when I started working on this (late summer/fall 2010, post-Scott Pilgrim (track 1/when Fuck You was still cool)), but don’t remember why I stopped.
Regardless of why, I am going to be listening to this for the rest of my trip.
You know, stuff like that. One might question my desire to have a tumblr, blog, baseball blog, twitter, facebook and google reader as well as my business websites, screenwriting(?) and freelance writing; and that would be a good thing to question. On the surface it seems insane, but someone once told me that writer’s block is when there is something that you need to express/write about and can’t for whatever reason. This is my attempt to get everything I want to say out there in one way or another and thus never suffer from this disease. I’ll let you know how it works out.
Here’s a quick update on how to follow me properly: read more »
My line throughout the year has been that I had kind of a crappy summer. There were big, sweeping changes in my life that made me think this and to a point I was right to think this. Of course, not every big change in your life is a bad one and sometimes the things that feel the worst are actually some of the best things for you. I didn’t like that I got fired from my last job and I didn’t like that I didn’t get unemployment, but in the end that was the best thing to happen to me for my future. A dead end job isn’t where I belong. Now that fall is here I’ve been thinking a lot about my summer, a summer that I thought I “wasted”, and I realize now that it was actually a pretty damn good one.
Here’s what I did:
Saw Martin Lawrence. That was in May, does that count? He so crazy!
Went to Ring of Honor. It was okay.
Took my girlfriend to SummerFest for the first time and saw Jason Mraz. The show was “meh”, but the day we had was awesome.
Went to CHIKARA in Chicago with my dad and nephew. The most fun I’ve ever had at a wrestling show in my life.
Met Colt Cabana and Mike Quackenbush at that show. Didn’t take my picture with them or anything because be for real, but it was cool meeting them and just saying what’s up since I spend about two hours with them every week. (Art of Wrestling/Grizzly Bear Egg Cafe podcasts.)
Went to WWE’s Money in the Bank pay-per-view, the greatest WWE pay-per-view of all-time and watched CM Punk walk out with the title in one a crazy moment in front of an INSANE crowd. (Since this show I’ve not been able to keep myself interested in wrestling. It’s like I reached the apex of my fandom and there is no point of continuing.)
Saw almost every movie I wanted to see this summer (Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Tree of Life and Bridesmaids being the ones I wanted to see but missed). Saw Harry Potter 7p2 surrounded by people dressed up at midnight. Another good time.
(SUMMER MOVIE RANKINGS: Thor, Super 8, Captain America, HP7p2)
Took Nolan fishing for the first time. Took Nolan camping for the first time. Went on bike rides with Nolan. Took Nolan swimming for the 10,000th time.
Reconnected with some old friends and realized that I’d been being stupid keeping myself locked up all the time.
Met some new friends who made me realize how awesome I can be to hang out with when I want to be.
Two Brewers games. Not an ideal number of games for a guy like me, but you have to make some sacrifices when you don’t have a lot of money. Really enjoyed the two games I did go to.
Went and saw Pearl Jam both nights of their 20th anniversary show which is something I wanted to do since the day the concert was announced and I’m glad I got to do it.
Also saw The Strokes at the show which was awesome because they are one of my favorite bands. Julian Casablancas acted like kind of a douche between songs, but they were still good.
Ran a restaurant. Working a 70 hour week is not exactly what I’d call fun, but it was a good experience.
Got a new iPhone. Got a new laptop.
Started eating right and losing weight. Feeling good about myself.
Maybe I didn’t do everything I wanted to do and maybe everything didn’t go how I planned, but I do some fun stuff and I had some good times. It wasn’t a great summer, but it was a good summer and sometimes that’s enough.
I'm 29 years old, a single dad and my name is Vince. I write about my life and the things that I find interesting which covers everything from movies to TV to wrestling to writing. I'm just trying to have fun, have a good life and figure out how I can be even more awesome. Still working on that last one. You can find my baseball blog at Miller Park Drunk. I've been told it's okay.
My line throughout the year has been that I had kind of a crappy summer. There were big, sweeping changes in my life that made me think this and to a point I was right to think this. Of course, not every big change in your life is a bad one and sometimes the things that feel the worst are actually some of the best things for you. I didn’t like that I got fired from my last job and I didn’t like that I didn’t get unemployment, but in the end that was the best thing to happen to me for my future. A dead end job isn’t where I belong. Now that fall is here I’ve been thinking a lot about my summer, a summer that I thought I “wasted”, and I realize now that it was actually a pretty damn good one.