bryanpruitt.com

My running has slowed down a bit lately, because stuff gets in the way. I am considering running a half marathon the first weekend of November, so I might want to get it together. This weekend should prove fruitful.

Jeni left tonight for the furniture market in High Point for a week, so this will be a good opportunity for me to gain some ground on her with Catherine in the parentallove department. It could be tough to make progress, as tonight Catherine said at bedtime “I am just going to dream about Mommy.” A new Shrek puzzle this weekend will get me going in the right direction though. And there is always pizza.

I have now had three wonderful experiences with Stubhub. It earns my highest recommendation. Speaking of tickets, Van Halen is opening their new tour tonight in Charlotte and I am not attending. I have mixed feelings about it (the not attending , that is), but $90, when including the Ticketmaster fees, is an insane amount to watch that group. And no Michael Anthony? F.

This weekend was football intensive as we doubled dipped with the Tar Heels and the Panthers. Both of our teams lost, and I got sunburned. F.

We took Catherine to the game in Chapel Hill (her only one of the year, if you will read on). The game was at Noon, so we had a nice morning drive up to Chapel Hill, followed by some good fun at Tar Heel Town. Catherine was looking insanely cute in her cheerleading outfit and pig tails.

By the time the game rolled around, however, her patience was wearing a little thin. In fact, she announced after the SECOND play from scrimmage that she was “ready to go Grandma’s now.” Umm, WTF? She must not be our kid. She held on (thanks to frozen lemonade, M&Ms and her own bottle of water) until near the end of the third quarter, when she and Jeni began the SLOW walk to the car.  I stayed on until about 6 minutes left, until I was shamed via text message into leaving. I missed the near comeback. Boo.

Sunday was worse, as it was hotter than Saturday and the beatdown that occurred was unexpected (at least we have gotten accustomed to the Tar Heels losing). Absolutely miserable loss. But Houston is the real deal.

I am beginning to realize that I am not the most dependable blogger I know. Things just seem to get in the way. I ate four lamb chops tonight.

 This is the worst song/video combination of all time. It will definitely be on the next “Worst of” compilation.

The best part about living in North Carolina, apart from proximity to the Tar Heels, the beach and the mountains and the North Carolina State Fair is the the fact that on any given Monday, you can find a local couple walking their pet lion at the rest stop along Interstate 85. Am I kidding? No. A nice, shall we say, rural couple, was walking their pet lion cub in the “pet rest area.” His name was Tanner. Jeni inquired how large he would become: “Well, his Diddy weighed about 500 pounds.” Oh.

Could it possibly be legal for a private citizen (i.e. not a zoo or similar institution) to own a lion in North Carolina? Apparently so. Click here for more information. By the way, the bill referred to in the article went nowhere this legislative session.

And before we put this issue to bed, we need to have an educational link. So, click this link to learn how you would identify specific groups of animals (eg. a gaggle of geese, etc…).

Team Pruitt went to Raleigh this weekend for the UNC football game. Before the game, Janet and I ate at Mama Dips, so I indulged with pulled barbecue, fried chicken, mashed potatoes & gravy, green beans, cornbread and 6 glasses of sweet tea. Dee-lish. Then, Janet took Catherine home and Jeni and I went to Linda’s for some “Pre-Game” drinks. There I shot -11 on Golden Tee for my best score in a LONG time (note that Jeni tolerated this sort of childish indulgence without complaint – well, she just utilized the cell phone to call her peeps). Finally, the game was just as tasty as the Tar Heels put a beatdown on James Madison (37-14). The Butch Era has begun. Everyone is on notice.

I must also mention that I saw two friends from the ol’ ‘Hood this weekend. They are enjoying being single again. Nice.

NFL pre-season football is the worst tease ever. The action is untenable, as is the fact that season ticket holders are forced to pay full price for such a terrible experience. When I say “forced,” I am fully aware nobody is required to buy tickets to football games, but the pre-season tickets are part of the season ticket package and cost the same amount as a regular season game.

So basically Jeni and I had to pay the same amount tonight to watch Brian St. Pierre lead the prolific Pittsburgh offense as we pay to watch Super Bowl champion Peyton Manning later this year. What kind of !#@@$$ is that?

We got out of the game tonight by giving the tickets to some of Jeni’s business associates, so not only did we not have to sit in the rain to watch the Panthers turn the ball over four times tonight, but we get a tax write-off. Nice.

I am excited about the first game of the season for the Tar Heels against James Madison on Saturday. We will be there. In Butch we trust.

By the way, Catherine really loves hush puppies. There’s a good girl.

 I overheard the following quotes this weekend come from the mouths of (unknown) 8-year olds. They represent two differnet circles of the Charlotte social scene:

• Redneck child at Panthers game: “Diddy, you aren’t drunk yet?”
• Bratz clone at Target shopping with her mother: “Mom, you KNOW I don’t wear pleats.”

A post script to the redneck child is that one of the adults in his group defined the word albino as “a black person who was born white.” I am not making this up. Using her vocabulary and diction as a barometer in estimating her level of understanding of concepts like biology, melanin pigment and genetic inheritance,  Jeni and I elected not to correct the woman.

Charlotte/Mecklenburg public schools open tomorrow, so everyone should prepare for an extended commute. This is worrisome because the parking deck fills up at work by about 8:30 and I am not leaving tomorrow until 8:00 (gotta wait for the babysitter), so I might be exiled to the BFE lot at our campus.

I will set the stage: Catherine has a large picture book that includes a number of magnets of people and things that she can stick on each page to create little scenes, etc … Anyhoo, she has lost almost all of the magnets and has just a few remaining.

• Cat: “Daddy, I have lost most of my magnets.”
• Me: “Well, Honey, you need to try to take care of your things.”
• Cat: “Daddy, I do, but things just didn’t work out.”

Jeni, Tsjaz, Catherine and I went to the zoo on Monday. I had not been to the zoo in about 25 years. It was much larger than I remember it. And is was very hot!!! But all in all, we had a great time. I was, however, concerned about the polar bear who was lying outside on his rock in the 95 degree weather. I mean, is that safe for him? I guess he knew what he was doing because he could have plopped himself into the cold cold water next to him.

Also, there was a carousel at the zoo that Catherine wanted to ride, or so she said. So, we buy a ticket, get on the ride and … you know how sometimes you see a parent/child on the carousel who are sitting in the “sleigh” because the child is afraid of the moving seats? That was us. It would have been cute if this had been the first time this had happened.

We spent this past weekend in Charleston at Lynn and Kevin’s wedding. We had a really good time. it was fun to see a lot of folks who I have not seen in a long time …. some since college, which was 10 short years ago.  There was excitement from seeing the following people, in no particular order: Kerry & Russ(ell), Kelly & Diego, Becca & Iain, Holly & Lee, and Lynn and Kevin (of course). Remarkably, everyone looked the same, or at least had aged wonderfully.

The weekend began with Tsjaz arriving on Thursday evening, followed by a cut-throat round of Golden Tee, which was won by Tsjaz (his reign as champion would be short-lived, as the author worked him over in a rematch later in the visit). Friday night, all of the wedding guests went on a dinner cruise through Charleston Harbor. Barbecue!  It was a mighty effort to only eat one plate’s worth, but I held firm. I wanted more though.  The wedding was not until Saturday evening, so we had Saturday afternoon to mill around. Tsjaz and I took advantage and took the ferry over to Fort Sumter for a history lesson. The ferry& tour was $14. The sunburn was free.

The wedding was great because it was short. Lynn and Kevin got down to the point really quickly. “Do you? Yes. Do you? Yes. Then you are married. Kiss her.” Most efficient wedding ever. Wedding photos are here.

Among the memorable moments and observations from the weekend are:

• Kelly and Diego love football.
• What happened to Iain’s accent?
• Jeni had a brief, yet torrid infatuation with Young Hot Brother.
• The best speech of the night came from the bride herself.
• Tsjaz and I learned that if spoken properly, and in true redneck form, ”well” is actually a two-syllable word.

In other news, I found out that a co-worker is pregnant, so there was rejoicing today. She is going to find out the gender tomorrow … good thing too, because Jeni is chomping at the bit to buy a present.

I have not written lately because I have been terribly busy with … oh, who am I kidding? I have just been too lazy to do it and there was a four or five days stretch where I forgot I had this site. Nice. So to catch up on the last 10 days or so:

I have run 8 out of the last 9 days. My motivation stems from the fact that I am going to as wedding next weekend and will see a number of friends from college whom I have not seen in a long time, so I need to be trim. I guess they will notice the hair color, however. NOTE: the running has had some success so far. I need to keep it up.

Work is going to be a bear indefinitely beginning Thursday, as we are losing a valuable employee. She would be difficult to replace anyway, even if it were not for the hiring freeze that prohibits us from even posting a position. Should be interesting, and by interesting, I mean terrible.

This weekend I watched the first two Bourne films in preparation for seeing the third film in the theater this week. All reviews (i.e. the ones from people I know) have been positive, so that counts for something.

Our upstairs A/C unit might be on the fritz. The air is not getting as cool as it should, which is most unfortunate because the last four days have been something like this: 100, 102, 104, 95. But we know a gal who is married to a guy whose sister is married to a guy whose brother is a Heating/Cooling specialist, so help is on the way. I am not making that up.