Pippa has taken over my life & other truths

Sean has totally been rocking at this blogging thing and I am so pumped about that because otherwise this blog would have a total of one update this whole year. Sad.

I've been a little MIA recently because being a mommy is  time consuming! Pippa is sooo cute so all I want to do is go explore our neighborhood with her on walks or snuggle her on the couch. My life productivity has really taken a hit. I'm okay with that...I'll never get these puppy months back (I do realize that I sound like a nut and that she is just a dog).

A picture montage of the cutest puppy in the world. Yes, she has a big head. She actually gets personally offended when someone on the street doesn't stop to pet her. "Do you know how cute I am??" Amen sista.

Can you handle that? I can't.

I also want to grumble a bit about how it was 44 degrees this morning here in Nashville and about how I  am sitting in my flannel pj's and a down puffy jacket on my couch because I refuse to turn the heat on in April. Hmph.

I'm gonna go iron now (aka snuggle my puppy). Maybe I'll have something else to blog about one day...don't count on it though.

Mid-Week Crisis

Lia and I have a fun relationship.  I allow her to all-but-ignore my incessant rambling about the future of the world and the role I intend to play in that future, and in return she allows me to incessantly ramble about the future of the world and the role I intend to play in that future.  It works out well because I am able to voice my opinion and see how it sounds out loud, and Lia is allowed to maintain her sanity while continuing to read her mommy blogs.  Once in a blue moon, however, Lia decides to speak up and obliterate my illusion that I have everything figured out.

Let's take my future career choices as an example.  For a number of reasons, I have narrowed my options down to three reasonable expectations for where I want to be in 20 years.  The three roles I have chosen for myself are Governor of Tennessee (or Florida, I'm not picky, but I do love living in Nashville), Major Real Estate Developer (emphasizing in urban renewal and mixed-income mixed-use communities), or Entrepreneur Philanthropist Business Tycoon (likely through a Private Equity or Venture Capital endeavor.)  While I believe all three of these to be quite realistic if I set my mind to it, I had never completely thought through the repercussions some of these choices may have on my personal life.

Lia may have just thought that three prospects was too many, but regardless of her motivations, she recently decided to eliminate one of those options with extreme prejudice.  She set her sights on the Governor role, which I would have to assume is because it is the least lucrative of the three fields and Lia is acquiring quite a taste for expensive puppy toys and doodle accessories.  Either way, Lia forced me to come to terms with what that role would mean.

I think that I would love the problem solving and leadership aspects of being a politician.  You get to apply your intelligence and power on a daily basis to figure out how to manipulate those around you into acting in the way that you perceive to be in their best interests.  You also get unlimited amounts of other people's money to do it and lots of loyal folks with guns to make sure no one legitimately questions what you are doing.  Sounds like a dream job, doesn't it?

But then Lia gets into the lifestyle.  I like people a lot.  I love hearing people's stories and I relish discussing topics with people who really know what they are talking about.  I do not, however, see myself enjoying constant random social functions where I am required to pander to specific groups' interests while pretending to like terrible people and act interested in topics that I find insanely boring.  I also tend to speak my mind, which isn't regarded very highly in a world where everything you say can be used against you and honesty is synonymous with weakness.  I may also struggle with political correctness from time to time, so I could only imagine how often I would make the front page with insensitive comments about how unions are inherently selfish institutions that spit on the consumer and trample the interests of the rest of society while pushing their own agendas forward.

Upon further consideration, I also wouldn't like the job itself very much.  I believe in acting intelligently as much as possible, and the current political system makes that all but impossible.  While I would prefer to start from scratch and use the finest ingredients to make Lia's delicious cinnamon rolls, politics tends toward requiring people to take a spoonful of sugar and somehow make a bucket of dirt palatable enough to not incite the people watching reality TV to leave their couches and revolt.  Most of my solutions to problems require admitting that the current systems have fundamental flaws that are beyond the band-aid approach and should just be scrapped and rebuilt from the ground up.  The reality is people love the illusion of change, but they actually hate change when it happens.  That makes green-field system design all but impossible within the current political environment.  Trust me, if people loved change as much as you thought they did back in 2008, I would be out of a job.  Since they don't, band-aid approaches branded as changes/improvements/reforms will have to suffice.

This leads me to one of the many observation's I have made that will help you understand my world view:  Generally speaking, people are confused about who they are and what they actually want.  The example above shows how I am just as guilty as the next person.  Lia was able to poke holes in that one illusion I had created for myself, but Lord knows how many others I am nurturing right now.

I think that this principle has significant implications in that it implies that most people make calculated decisions that we will later refer to as "mistakes."  One example for me is moving to Sunny Isles Beach.  The place looked awesome and appeared to cater to the lifestyle that I thought I wanted.  It turned out that the people there were slimy and the location, while being close to things I thought I cared about, was actually quite far from my true priorities.  We have luckily fixed that mistake by relocating to Nashville and placing ourselves in the middle of all of our friends and restaurants we can actually afford to eat at.  Luckily that mistake only cost us 72,000 happiness units and a year of our lives.

Marriage and children being two obvious exceptions to this next statement, I do believe that people grow out of this lack of understanding as long as they are allowed to make those mistakes.  Imagine if I had coincidentally moved to the perfect location after college and did not realize what I valued in living location until after I had bought a house in the wrong neighborhood?  I am glad that I had the opportunity to make that mistake while being a young renter and still able to correct it. I think it is hard to watch, but you really do have to let people fail in order for them to learn something from their experiences.  As a caring spectator, it is your job to make sure that the person does not cause irreparable harm and then you must also be there to help them recover after the failure.

The exceptions, as mentioned above, are decisions that are permanent in nature or mistakes you only get to make once.  Think about how much worst it is for people who pick the wrong career, or god forbid, the wrong spouse.  This is one of the reasons that I am a big advocate of pre-engagement interrogation.  Lia and I planned out our entire lives before we got engaged, not because we actually thought the plan was going to come true, but rather because we wanted to see whether we were on the same page in terms of our hopes and dreams.  We were close enough to where I didn't feel the need to go back to the market.  This communication seems like common sense, but I am continually amazed at how many people make the second biggest decision of their lives without taking the time to discuss basic things such as how many kids they want to have or their philosophies on managing family finances.

The governor story above is a great example of how listening to a unique perspective and just talking it through honestly can help a person to realize something is a bad decision before they have to go through the pain of actually making the mistake for themselves.  If you are insightful enough to truly analyze a situation objectively, then you deserve to miss out on the pain of a few big mistakes.  Imagine if I had taken a political job in hopes of accomplishing a dream that would have actually been disastrous for my long-term happiness? I would have wasted years of my life and not moved myself any closer to accomplishing what would actually have made me happy.  It is possible that I would have enjoyed the entry level job for a while, but chances are I would have realized my mistake sooner or later.

Sorry that this post turned out to be so heavy.  I don't want to make you question every decision you have made in life, and please keep in mind that I am far more contemplative than the average bear and plan a lot, and I mean a lot, more than you do.  To make sure that I do not feel personally responsible for any major life changes that could occur due to you reading this, I have included the sole message that I would like for you all to take away from this story:  It is a great thing for me that Lia isn't very good at ignoring my rants.

The Case for Local Government

So I got into a discussion last night with one of my buddies and it was a very, very enlightening conversation.  Being that it is tax season and a lot of my self-employed friends are having to write gigantic checks to Uncle Sam, taxes have been a hot topic on a lot of people's minds.  When I say taxes, I am referring to Federal Income Tax.  Please disregard Social Security and Medicare Tax (Payroll Tax), State Income Tax, State Sales Tax, Local Sales Tax, Capital Gains Tax, Property Tax, Estate Tax, Enterprise Tax, Federal Corporate Income Tax, State Corporate Income Tax, Local Corporate Income Tax, Business Origination Fees, Tariffs and Duties, Gift Tax, Drivers License Registration Fees, Court Filing Fees, Parking Meters, Toll Roads, Security Taxes (Airlines), Bus Fares, Sin Taxes (Cigs, Alcohol, Gasoline), Museum Admission Fees, Water and Sewage Bills, and Stamps.  Please forgive me if I forgot to mention any and obviously those taxes vary wildly depending on where you live and what you do each day.

None of those taxes seems particularly bad by itself, but the people who are smart/dumb enough to add them all up before calculating their effective tax rate are the ones walking around with a frown every spring.  I'm not here to demonize and attack a minority in America (the 1% who we all secretly wish we could be) or talk about taxes being too high (in fact, I think certain taxes are actually too low).  I am here to show to you all how truly convoluted our tax structure is and hopefully point out some fun facts about taxation that influence my thinking.

The key point that jumped out at me was how much bigger Federal Income Tax is than all of the other taxes.  If we take a quick look at a typical case for a moderately successful married couple's largest tax burdens they look like this:
Federal Income Tax: $25,000
Federal Social Security and Medicare Tax: $7,000
State and Local Sales Tax: $3,500
Local Property Tax: $3,000

Now why is this shocking enough for me to take time to write a post about?  Because think about which level of government actually provides you with tangible benefits.  When people defend taxation, they immediately go to the big 3:  Safety, Roads and Schools.  My safety is provided to me by the local police and fire departments.  The roads I typically drive on are county roads, although I occasionally use state and federal highways.  I don't yet have children that attend schools, but appreciate that parents get babysitting provided for their kids for 15 years. I am myself a product of public babysitting (no offense to people trying to change that, but you are the one's who best understand what I mean.)

What do those three things have in common?  They are locally funded!  Your Property Taxes and Local Sales Taxes are paying for the public schools in your area, the fire stations in your neighborhood and that cop driving down your street.  They are also paying for those beautiful streets and sidewalks as well as that huge brick library that you rent kindle books from.  Oh yeh, those measly funds are also expected to cover parks, courts, the airport, public golf courses (yay!), emergency management, gigantic convention centers that no one really wants, and of course, those lovely buses that are always going somewhere.

If you take a step back and think about it, your local dollars go a long way.  Some of it good, some of it bad, but you can generally see where the money being spent is in some way, shape or form making your city more livable for at least some portion of it's residents.  You benefit from living in a more developed and awesome city.

When you move to the state level, things get a little more fuzzy.  Your State Sales Taxes and the number of point-of-service taxes help pay for some obvious services:  state highways, drivers licenses, state troopers, state parks, state courts and public colleges.  The state also starts to get into some of the more re-distributive spending.  That is spending that is in no way ever intended to benefit you at all.  These expenditures include Medicaid, Children's Services and Unemployment Benefits.  There are scenarios where people you know may need those services, but taxes wouldn't really be on their mind if they did.  A number of those re-distributive services are assisted through Federal block grants.

If you have read this far and have finally made it to the Federal level, you are going to need 7 lawyers and a crazy straw to be able to tie most things back to you individually.  I can't possibly list all of the things the Feds are doing, but that is because no one in Congress can either.  Let's hit the 5 biggest expenditures:
Medicare and Medicaid: 21%
Social Security: 20%
Defense: 20%
Safety Nets: 13%
Veterans Benefits: 7%

Those 5 cost centers account for 81% of the $3.6 trillion federal budget.  Every one of those is a nationwide safety net in case you are unable to care for yourself, except for Defense and Vet benefits, which accounts for about a trillion dollars spent every year to ensure the Canadians don't try to take Detroit from us.  I'm not arguing about whether or not safety nets are good or bad, I'm just saying that independent people don't use them.

I think the facts here point to one clear principle:  Local Taxes benefit the entire community while Federal Taxes can be considered a combination of charity and paranoia.  So why are federal tax receipts four times larger than all local taxes for the entire country? That's what I wonder.  If you read through all of this, you are braver than most and hopefully a better informed voter for it!

My Confession

As I sit on the back deck and watch my dog dig up the grass that i spent hours planting last week, I can't help but think that I would have drop kicked one of my dogs had they misbehaved that badly growing up.  Now all I can think about is how cute she looks as she destroys my hard work.  Does my dog have some kind of magical powers that allow her to manipulate me, or is it true what all the single men in the world have been saying for centuries?

Marriage makes you soft.

At first glance I cant help but believe they are right.  I have a puppy that I enjoy playing with and refuse to beat mercilessly, I lose bets and have to become a vegetarian for days at a time.. and I'm starting not to mind it, I find myself glancing up more often at shows about married couples that have 20 kids (I will not succumb to the wedding dress shows, those are just pathetic), and I am less confused than I used to be when my wife brings me home new clothes that I wasn't expecting.

The thought even crossed my mind that my hypothetical kids would enjoy Mule Day down in Columbia.  Lia loves to spend time with her own kind!

What has happened to the callous Sean that liked to watch movies where people got blown to bits and then discuss how unrealistic deaths were in movies as compared to actual war footage?  Or the Sean that would hunt Bull Frogs at night with a flashlight and a pellet gun?

I'll tell you what: that Sean is still alive and well.  Although my tolerance for gore has definitely diminished since college, I still enjoy watching violence on a large TV.  I also still enjoy shooting guns... but now I feel the need to say "safely" shooting guns at "non-human" targets.  I also think that I could win a beef jerky eating contest and I still believe that when you need them to, a good dog should be willing to bite someone for you.  I would also gladly take on any challengers for any sport.  I would be happy to play a game of football with anyone of any size, and I am incredibly happy when I am sweating like crazy on a Saturday afternoon while digging old fence posts out of the ground with a spade.  I haven't really lost my edge as a guy at all.. so what is going on?

P.S. - Here is our backyard right now.  I am very proud of it.  If I don't post a follow up picture in about a month, that pride has turned to shame.

I think I've finally come to the truth of the matter.  Marriage doesn't make you soft, it just makes you well rounded.  Now before everyone gets to hollerin' and flinging feces at me, please let me explain myself.  I am no less of a man than I was when I first met my wife.  You can ask anyone who knows me, I have a detailed zombie/apocalypse survival plan, I watch too many sports and violent TV shows, I love to go sleep in a "cabin" without water or electricity, and I still do all the things I did before I got married.  I am actually playing the best golf of my life and my scotch collection is in a great place.

The difference between me and the average single guy that frequents bars on Tuesday nights is that I have branched out beyond the stereotypical male knowledge base and skill set.  I know how to hold a baby and I know that desperate housewives is on Sunday nights.  That doesn't mean I have to ask to hold people's babies or watch that show, but it doesn't make me any less cool to know those things.

I also think that my dog is incredibly cute at this stage in her life.  Just replace the word cute with something cooler, let's say... awesome.  If you don't think that my dog is awesome, then you clearly haven't met her.

Vegetables are still gross and will always be, but you can always justify being healthy by saying it is a man's duty to be there for his family and protect them, and I can't do either of those things if I'm 500 pounds or dead.

Now that I have completely rationalized this weird situation that my life has transformed into,  it is time to get to my honey-do list for the day.  Hopefully I can get done before the Grey's Anatomy marathon this afternoon!!!

Manly Last Stand

There comes a time in every man's life when he faces a feeling of impending doom.  You see your football Saturdays slipping away while beers with your buddies turns into "play dates" and "quality time".  For some, it is marriage itself, but for me, that impending doom is named Pippa.  So, before my life becomes filled with "awwww" and "she's soooo cute!" I decided to get back in touch with the side of me that likes to destroy things.

Lia was kind enough to allow me to leave the house for 48 hours, so I made the best possible use of that time.  Thomas, James and I loaded up the guns and cheese puffs and headed over to East Tennessee where they surprisingly do have laws, they just choose not to enforce any of them.  James' family was kind enough to let us use their land in the middle of nowhere, and even opened up their electricity-less, plumbing-less cabin for us to stay in.  The perfect location to ensure that no woman would ever want to tag along.

So before everyone talks about how I am an evil person and am shirking my duties as Pippa's father, I would like to counter with two things.  First, I worked on the yard for 2 hours yesterday securing it and making it Pippa safe.  There was a nice big gap under the deck and Lia and I thought it may not be a good idea for Pippa to be able to get down there.  Pippa may be fearless, but I'd rather not come face to face with a possum in a dark crawlspace.  I also used this weekend as a seminar of sorts to see how dogs behave in the wild.  To help with that, Thomas brought along his dog Lucy.

When we got to the land, James dad and brother were waiting for us.  In Tennessee fashion, they were both armed as well so we thought we would begin the shooting fun.  At first we were just shooting at paper targets, but I brought some Georgia shooting experience to the party.  Whenever my uncle would take me shooting he would comment that "whats the point of shooting at something if you can't tell you hit it?"  I agree with this and so we switched over to hanging a small log from a tree branch.  Everyone in attendance was a good shot, so there wasn't much jeering or emasculation necessary.  Take a look at the incredible form:

I prefer to rock the Miami lean a bit.  You should be relaxed even when shooting at stuff.  I'm sure Rick Ross or Pitbull have mentioned that before.

Thomas wanted to differentiate himself from the other 2 white guys with beards so he decided to bring a top hat.  It was shiny and sort of matched one of the guns.  It may have also helped with his balance a bit, although it did not fix the fact that he shoots with the wrong hand.

How often do you actually see camo in an environment where it is effective? The untrained eye would never realize that James actually has an entire head. 

I want to get through this next part quickly because it is a point of shame for me.  We didn't even think to take any pictures until it was dusk, so if anyone with authority over me is viewing these pictures please know that 99% of our shooting occurred during safer daylight hours (sorry, mom).  So these next two pictures are complete flukes.. the only reason I didn't get a cool picture as well was because of the light.  The iPhone camera takes a long time to focus when it is dark outside, so we couldn't time it very well.  Because I am bitter that I am not included, I am just going to skip over the next two pictures.  

Not bad for an iPhone camera, eh?

After we had our fill of shooting stuff (read: it got too dark for us to see if we were hitting our target) we went over and built a fire.  The first started strong but we may have had a slight issue with consistency.  Even with an Eagle Scout present (not me, gangs were much more popular than boy scouts in my hood, yo) we had not anticipated having to burn a bunch of scrap wood left over from some construction.  The fire may have been a bit unorthodox, but it did a great job of keeping us warm and cooking our beer brats. 

The next day we drove into Knoxville, had a delicious meal at the infamous Cracker Barrel, and then Thomas and James got to see their families for the afternoon.  James' family adopted me for the day.  We had some conversations regarding what I will suspiciously refer to as "the endeavor" and then made our way back home.  I think after a weekend of manliness, I am now ready to become a puppy father... or at least closer to being ready than I was last week.

Dogs (Duh)

 Pippa @ 7 weeks. I never want to forget that face. 

Pippa's cousin Fredo. Most dignified dog ever. 

 Willow as a banana. This picture kills me every time. She looks mortified. 

Pippa's BFF is ridiculously lazy/snuggly. 

That is all I have for today. I just figured a post full of dogs could only bring a smile to your face. 

Wait...what? We have a blog?

I really didn't want to turn into one of those people that starts a blog, is all gung-ho about it and then promptly forgets about it 3 months later. I hate those people... oops.

We are back...and we will try not to leave again. We also probably need to change the name of the blog because we moved to Nashville and it isn't so sunny here. It is filled with lovely people and pretty houses though.

I guess I should back up and start from the beginning. When I last posted we still lived in Miami, I still worked in Broward, Sean was working in Kansas and we didn't have a dog.

Now we live in Nashville, Sean works from home mostly (with some random travel scattered in there), I work at a large teaching hospital here in Nashville in their crazy, cool NICU and our puppy is coming home in less than 2 weeks. I'm so stinking excited, I can't handle it. This blog may end up being renamed "The Pippa Diaries" (our pup's name). Before we go on to our wonderful new life, I want to catch you all up on the past three months.

Back when Seany was still in Kansas his team did fun things like go to NFL football games. This was on Halloween. He had a blast. Go Chiefs!

Then Sean left the Kansas project and decided to be awesome instead. One of his ex-team members was so sad he was leaving she made him his favorite dessert ever...cookie cake! It even included the ever appropriate slogan "go dores!".

We left Miami on Jan. 6th to drive to Nashville (forever) and spent a night in Gainesville. We thought it might be fun to buy a car in Central Florida (why not?). We bought a Hyundai (like Sunday) in a beautiful dark gray color. It is so awesome it even tells me how to get places when I am lost in Nashville. You'll get to see a picture in a minute...fear not.

The next week Sean had to ditch me and head to Madison for work. I was freaking out a little bit because I was in a new house and the furniture had not arrived yet. I was also starting a new job and it was like 12 degrees and snowing outside. I guess Sean's situation wasn't much better. He almost got stuck in this lovely blizzard.

He said there was an inch of snow in the enclosed jetway. That sucks. 

Sean likes to travel to really cold places in the dead of winter. Weird. Here is a picture he took last week in Chicago from Tyler & Mallory's apartment. The day before there had been a blizzard. Snow follows Sean. Fact. 

So, while Sean jet sets around the country I've been home loving our new house and making it as homey as possible. Our last apartment was super lame and I was very uninspired to decorate. This place is the opposite. It is a 90 year old house and it is so cute...it begs me to love on it. It has a ways to go but we have made some progress for sure. 

New house, new car

I'll give credit where credit is due...Sean reupholstered these chairs that we bought at an antique shop here in Nashville. Aren't they awesome? I picked out the fabric and then one afternoon while I was napping he reupholstered 6 chairs. Impressive! 

 Our dining room.

Here is a picture of our living room. I want to add a ton more stuff to the walls, we haven't gotten there yet.

Sean's office and also where you will stay if you come visit us! That red thing is a futon and we also invested in a super fancy aerobed. Sometimes I wonder if it is more comfy than our real bed. This is a plug for people to come visit us.

We have this weird little peak through, cut out thing between our living and dining room. I don't know what to do with it so I just put a few random decorative things we had laying around there. Anyone have any ideas?

This is Pippa's crate. We are ready for her! Since I took this picture we got her a bed for in there and I am going to find some blankies to make it more comfy. That basket on top holds some of her toys. Willow the dog sent her future BFF some pretty epic Christmas presents.

For Christmas my sweet husband got me this stand mixer. I was so happy I almost cried. Isn't she a beaut? This is a picture of her maiden voyage. This day I made cheesecake, chocolate cake AND cinnamon rolls. It was kind of intense.

So that is the excitement that has been going on in Nashville. We are pretty obsessed with our lives here. We have great friends who helped make this move as painless as possible by helping us unpack, taking loads of  boxes away, letting me crash at their place when we had no furniture and helping to clean our base boards. We are blessed.

Side story: 

One of my biffles Kristin Alice McDougal (Wardell) got married a few weeks ago! Sean and I flew back to Miami for the big event. It was an epic reunion with my best girls. 

Soulmate.

 Silly bride at the bachelorette fiesta!

 Insane rick shaw rides definitely happened. 

 Beautiful bride waiting to walk down the aisle. 

MC Wick dancing with the saints. 

 These flower girls made me melt. Little Maddie thought Maggie was the coolest thing ever!

 Doesn't MC's hair look like it belongs on pinterest? She is trendy like that.

 "Snooki lives in Texas"

 Good little Catholic school girls. 

 Sean & Sly Dog were the life of the party obviously.

A post can't be complete without a picture of a precious pup. This is Suki. She is my favorite boxer/shar pei ever. She is also a cowgirl. Can you handle that? Didn't think so.