Yeah, sorry about the lack of daily entries last week, it was pretty hectic there for a while. This week is more of the same, but I’m going to try my darndest to provide all of you with fresh material every day this week.

That being said, this weekend was busy, and I didn’t get the chance to finish my recap of “Family Business,” so that’ll come tomorrow, and last night’s episode (recap coming next week) was the season finale, and I missed taping it, but I’m sure I can find a copy somewhere.

Also, I was too busy watching the “Family Guy” Season 1 and 2 box set to care. Man, I miss that show. A pox on the Fox Network for forcing that show off the air.

Thursday evening, I spent giving career advice to a group of junior and senior engineering students at University of Delaware. My friend, and fellow AIChE officer, Mike, put this meeting together, following the agenda I used for a meeting two years ago, after a speaker cancelled at the last minute, and we had to do something for these students. It was successful then, and it was successful Thursday.

The only issue was that since Mike arranged it, he and I were the only speakers on the panel. But it still went over well. Free pizza tends to attract even the mildly curious and before we knew it, we were speaking in front of thirty or so people, eager to hear about our transitions from the academic world to the working world.

We spoke on various topics such as Your First Project, where I regaled them with the story of a control setup I designed for pH control of a cooling tower sump using sulfuric acid. I installed a low-flow control valve, with a very expensive flow meter that ran successfully for 72 hours before plugging up.

Since 95% of what we model in college is water, I failed to recognize that sulfuric acid is inherently dirty, and its suspended particles of crap plugged my new, expensive meter. Oh well. That and the fact that after spending time modeling the correct tuning parameters for the control valve, the control engineer threw it away, and kept eyeballing it until it was properly tuned. Ah, the real world.

The lessons, of course, being that engineers fresh out of college don’t know squat, and that it is okay to fail; hell it’s important to fail, just don’t make a habit of it.

I tend to speak like I write, which is to say hi-lariously, so it wasn’t long before they were having a good time, laughing at our incompetence, slowly realizing that they would also have similar stories to share before long.

We also spoke on plant politics, co-curricular activities, how much of that ChemE degree we actually use, and how I spent my first paycheck. Hookers and whiskey. Actually, I bought a home theater system, and some other high-end toys. I told them to take their first paycheck and blow it on themselves. It’s important to treat yourself right, and you can start saving for retirement with your second check, so you might as well have some fun with your hard-earned cash.

Ultimately, I think they got the idea that everyone’s transition is different, and hopefully, they can take away something valuable from our experiences. God knows, they took away the leftover pizza.

Anyway, Friday was especially nice, and sunny, so after work we went to Kahuna to celebrate the opening of their deck. Lots of hot women, and we all had fun, until it started to rain. And rain. And rain. We ended up back at Kelly’s Logan House, seeing the same people, listening to the same music. The bar scene in Wilmington is decent, but repetitive. It’s fun to mix it up once in a while. So I was drunk, and wet, and not having any luck picking up women, as it was too loud to distinguish one word from another, and I kept having to lean into their faces shouting, “What?” every minute or so.

Chris wasn’t having any luck either using pick-up lines like, “You smell like Jager[meister].”

So I finally wandered out at quarter to one, after losing a handful of friends, and made the five-block walk home in the rain. About halfway there, I was stopped by a man walking his dog. Yes, it was still raining.

He stopped me and decided I looked trustworthy to offer relationship advice. Drunk. Wet. Whatever.

He told me that he had just left his new bride (married for three weeks) at the bar. An old friend of his wife had come over to say hi and was apparently, all over his bride. Obviously annoyed, he let it go. Then, his wife was grinding with the guy on the dance floor.

I stopped him right there, and told him that dancing, for women, is much different from dancing, for men. For women, dancing is dancing. For men, it’s sex with our clothes on. Getting a butt rubbed in your crotch is a sure sign that you getting lucky if you are a guy, but for a woman, hey, it’s only another song. I told him that he shouldn’t worry about it.

He said that he couldn’t believe his wife didn’t see how that was upsetting him. He said that when they were dating, this behavior was tolerable, but now, “she’s my wife, you know?” I told him that it was good that he left to get some space, but that he and his wife need to discuss how this upset him, and set some ground rules for dancing with strangers.

I advised him to not bring it up tonight, as both of them are probably upset and more than a little drunk. Just casually bring it up tomorrow, and sit down for a long discussion. Don’t yell, or argue, just discuss it.

He thanked me and told me that this was great advice, and he really was glad that he stopped me in the rain.

I told him that I was glad to help (which I was) and added that I hope everything works out. I added that the reason that more than half of marriages ends in divorce, is poor communication. Now, I don’t know if this is true or not, but it sounds good, and hopefully, this guy and his wife will now develop healthy dialogue that will last them until they are old and gray. Or until she sleeps with her ex. My, that’s a happy thought isn’t it.

Why is it that I can offer terrific relationship advice to others, yet I can’t realize what the hell to do when I’m actually in a relationship?

I need a “The doctor is in” sign.

Anyway, no chance for sleep, as I had to be at Matt’s apartment to help him and Chris move from their tiny apartments, into a house at 9am. God bless McDonald’s breakfast.

Man I am so sore. (How sore are you?!) No, there’s no punch line coming. I’m just incredibly sore from moving boxes of crap in and out of a U-Haul. I can’t believe that among the boxes we moved from Matt’s were a box of coupons, a box of magazines, and his porn collection. We even moved a box of trash. Needless to say, the eight of us were ready to mutiny.

Then we moved on to Chris’ apartment, aptly nicknamed “The Treehouse,” where the only things we moved weighed no less than half a ton, each. Not only was each piece of furniture massive, but we had to move it down three floors on a rickety staircase, sections of it held together only by dirty carpeting.

But we still managed to finish moving both of them by 2:00. I just wish Ripley’s was there to see us maneuver that sleep sofa down the stairs. We could have charged admission, it was so impressive.

But we were paid in food and beer, which is to say handsomely, and so later, we were able to make it out to Tara’s bar crawl. We were late, for some unknown reason. Those of us itching to go out were forced to sit through the latter half of “K2” while everyone else bitched about going out later, or going to different bars.

So we waited for a half hour at Dead Presidents, three bars down from where the rest of the bar crawl was, because Ed wouldn’t go to the Continental because his ex-girlfriend was tending bar.

Did I mention the theme was Hawaiian? No? Well Matt, Chris, and I were the only ones from our group of eight to dress to fit the theme. The last bar crawl we did, was before Christmas where everyone (about thirty people) dressed the part, and I dressed as Hanukah Harry, thus earning the nickname Hanukah Harry. And today, these same people refuse to call me Jeff.

So Brad and I are sitting at the other end of the bar watching the Sixers game, and hitting on the hot bartender. Brad’s somewhat of a male whore, so I’m just making conversation while he pours on the charm until she moves over to the jukebox and begins playing some amazing music. “Take Five” by Dave Brubeck starts playing over the bar, and I admit to her that I’m impressed by her musical selections.

She asks if we’d ever heard of The String Cheese Incident (which of course I have) and if we’d ever heard their cover of “Take Five” (which I hadn’t). We, Hot Bartender Erin and I, start talking about music: the Bonnaroo festival, Phish, the Dead, Widespread Panic, etc, and Brad excuses himself to the other end of the bar.

I’m just excited that I beat him out for a woman. My friends were happy to hear this as well. Anyway, the rest of the bar crawl finally showed up, and only a handful of them were dressed in Hawaiian garb. Chris and I were obviously pissed, as we looked like fools in our Hawaiian shirts, but Matt was too busy sucking back Rum and Cokes to care.

We were introduced to two of Tara’s friends, Carol and Carrie. Chris started hitting on Carol, who Tara originally wanted to set up with me, and who, it turns out, is interested in Matt. So Chris and I are trying to run interference with Lori, Matt’s ex, so that Matt and Carol can talk, however, Lori, drunk off her ass, decided it would be a better idea for her to involve herself in the conversation.

I learned later that evening that they referred to Lori as “The Repeater” for her tendency to echo the other person’s statements.

“I live in Manayunk.”

“You live in Manayunk? What do you do?”

“Oh, I’m a teacher.”

“A teacher! What grade?”

“First.”

“First grade! That’s great.”

I’m not sure if Lori was using active listening skills, or if the noise was too loud, but for whatever reason, she’s now branded The Repeater.

Anyway, at this time, I’m pretty drunk. How drunk? Drunk enough to still be coherent enough to be charming and witty, but not so drunk that I’ve lost my motor skills. So I take our scorecard (a sheet for the bar crawl where we get strangers to sponsor us for our drinks by signing their names) over to Erin, where I once again, complemented her taste in music (Moe is playing on the jukebox) and asked her to sponsor my beer.

She smiled and signed my card, and I was apparently too drunk to remember to ask for her phone number. That’s an opportunity I regret missing.

But anyway, we were already on our way to Pala’s World’s Worst Pizza for the next stop on the crawl, and I was chatting up Carrie, a very cute brunette, about being excited to try the world’s worst pizza. I was expecting Wonder Bread, ketchup, and spray cheese.

They should have called the place World’s Worst Bar because aside from us, there were three people in the joint, and the bartender seemed put out, to serve us. Also, the kitchen was closed, so I was bummed out that I didn’t get my Wonder Bread pizza.

But Carrie told me she had once tried the pizza, and it actually was pretty good, so I would have been disappointed anyway. Apparently, it’s more like actual pizza. Who knew?

So we skipped a few bars and went to Grotto’s for some actual pizza, drunk enough to not care about skipping the loop.

So there we ended our evening, drunk at Grotto’s, wearing Hawaiian shirts, and birthday party hats (after midnight was Elise’s birthday) trying to blend in.

I was standing behind Elise, and Carrie, with one hand on each chair, occasionally sipping my beer, engaging in conversation, and watching Sportscenter on one of the bar TVs, when Carrie leaned back, resting her head on my arm and said, “I’m tired, and you’re comfortable.”

Had I consumed three fewer beers I probably would have recognized that rather obvious signal. But I didn’t and Chris smacked me on our walk home for being so dense. I had no clue she was interested in me, and according to Chris, I was missing signals all night. Damn you alcohol!

But this tale has a happy ending. About three in the morning, Elise, Carol, and Carrie had stopped off at a 7-11 and called Chris (since he had called Elise’s cell phone earlier, they had his number) to make sure that they were all invited to Matt and Chris’ house warming party next weekend, and Carrie wanted to make sure I was going to be there.

Sweet.

So now, I’m off to do some actual work this fine Monday morning. I have developed a cold, most likely from being out in the rain Friday wearing shorts, and I am still sore from moving. (How sore are you?!) Damnit, I’ve warned you once, now get out.

READ THESE JOURNALS Uncle Bob SaraH

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