I Resolve

2010 was one of those years. A lot really can’t be said for it.

Looking back at my blog posts for the year, you might wonder what was going on. Frankly, I am too. Not nearly as many posts as previous years. Kinda makes me wonder what I really accomplished last year.

I’m not really going to try to wonder why though.

I’m just going to start out the New Year fresh, with a positive outlook and happy for the life-changing miracle that God gave to my wife and I last year.

My daughter.

We’re currently in our final trimester, due April 7 – and totally ecstatic about our bundle of joy arriving healthy and ready to take on the world.

It’s definitely going to be life-changing. We’re both excited --- and scared and nervous too – but mostly excited about being parents. It’s something we’ve wanted for a long time.

We know we won’t be perfect parents. Nobody is. But we both already love this little girl more than words can say and are going to do our best to provide her everything she will ever need.

With that in mind, I’m going to start of the year with some resolutions.

I think technically you’re supposed to make New Year’s resolutions the first day of the new year, but I don’t think I’m really breaking any rules by making them a few days late.

So, here goes, in no particular order:

• I resolve to be the best daddy I can be – and be there for my little girl when she needs me and more
•  I resolve to be the best husband I can be – and be there for my wife when she needs me and more
• I resolve to lead a more healthy lifestyle – to eat better, to exercise, and to take care of myself better
• There is a big sub-resolution to this: I resolve to lose weight...
• I resolve to kick soft drinks
• I resolve to watch our money more tightly, not to eat out so much (but there will be special occasions when I will want to take my wife out), and not buy stuff that we don’t need. No more sudden impulse DVDs will be the big one.
• I resolve to spend more time with my wife – and focus on my family time more than time on anything else
• I resolve to stop bringing work home all the time and to not have that be the focus of all my spare time
• I resolve to stop getting on Facebook so much and to limit my time on it during my spare time
• I resolve to keep this blog updated more as time allows. I have a feeling a lot of posts will be made this year about my daughter.
• And I resolve to not stress so much over stupid things

We’ll see how I do.

Welcome to The Husbands' Hangout

Usually when I go with my shopping with my wife it ends up be a very long, tiring experience - one which she tends to enjoy more than I do.

We went to our local mall this evening. It started off being a trip to buy one Hello Kitty themed item - a shirt, a pair of pajamas, something. No, I'm not into Hello Kitty. But my oldest neice is and her birthday is tomorrow.

I figured we'll hit one store, find something, buy it, and be done with it. At the first store we went into we found something my wife liked in minimal time.

Since I have a very 'get in, find the specific item as quickly as possible, buy it, and get out' mentality about shopping I thought "OK, item bought, time to go." Not so much.

Four stores and three hours later of trying to find something "better" (in my wife's opinion), with a brief stop in some gadget store that sells all kinds of cool electronic toys (can't remember the name of it), I start getting dragged into several of the smaller, more obscure children's stores.

At this point, well, frankly alot earlier, I was ready to go. My wife, not so much.

The unfortunate part(s) about our local mall is that it doesn't have any really cool "guy" stores, it doesn't take long to peruse the tool and electronics departments at Sears, and there is no arcade.

Here's the tangent to the story:

When I was little and I heard we were going to the mall, the only thing on my mind was going to the arcade, trying out the new games, and trying to kick my dad's butt at Defender.

Aladdin's Castle was the name of the arcade. And it was the end all, be all of video gaming for all males in the Venango County area of Pennsylvania. My dad and I spent many a quarter (actually, we had to trade our quarters in for tokens before playing) at Aladdin's Castle. Mom would disappear into the mall - sometimes dad with her, sometimes not - and I would immerse myself into a world of barrel throwing monkeys, cotrollable yellow blobs eating little dots, and centipede and millipede erradication.

I miss those video games. They're hard to find, but still so addictive. I actually saw one of my favorites - the Star Wars video game (the one where you get to pilot the X-wing down the trench of the death star) at a local comic book store recently. I asked how much they wanted for it; and needless to say it would take many years to gather enough quarters to purchase it.

OK, back to the main point of the post.

Midway through the second store of the night, I started to hatch an idea. Malls need to do something more for husbands.

My initial thought was to station a TV outside of the entrance to every women's dressing room area. You know, the area where the husbands stand around with an armload of bags, pacing back and forth, waiting on their wives to come out and say "What do you think about this on me" and the only thing you know they're all thinking is "As long as it gets me out the store quicker, it looks fine." The area where sometimes there may be one chair -- and nobody wants to be the one to sit in because you don't want to be a complete wuss in front of the other guys and you want to seem like a gentleman if there happens to be a daughter/child, mother, sister or female friend of someone who is in the dressing room and may want to sit down.

We're guys, we can take it.

Well, having a TV outside of the dressing room would be nice. But here's a better idea. It's called The Husband's Hangout and it's going to be my first business endeavor some time in the future. It will be franchised nationally at ever major shopping mall.

The exact schematics or floorplan, if you will, have yet to be determined, as well as its maximum capacity. But the experience would focus on The Chair.

Now this is not your average, ordinary lounge chair. It comes equipped with an Ipod docking station, wireless internet accessibility, head to toe heating and massage capability, and an integrated control pad that allows you to control.... wait for it...

Your own, individual monitor that swings out from behind the back of the headrest, swivels around, and locks in place at a comfortable distance for your viewing pleasure. The monitor allows you watch movies (you have access through your control to any movie ever released onto video) or any TV channel imaginable, play video games (you have access to any video game ever released), along with some other yet to be determined functionality.

From your lounge chair, you can order what's called Hangout Hospitality, i.e. the equivalent of room service. Have a burger, popcorn, or pizza and/or drink delivered to your chair from the in-facility kitchen.

Along with the yet to be exactly determined number of The Chair in each facility, there would be several foosball tables, air hockey tables, pool tables, several widescreen TVs on which groups of husbands can watch the game(s) of the day, and, yes ---- an old-style arcade, complete with all the best stand up arcade games and pinball games we played as youngsters.

The main rule of The Husband's Hangout:

• Only husbands are allowed in, and, even at that, only those husbands whose wives are currently shopping at that moment in that particular mall, and once their wives are done, they must leave until the next time they return to the mall with their wife

Obviously there are some logistical issues relating to verifying the conditions of the rule.

We don't want just any Joe Husband coming in off the street into the hangout. You can only be there while your wife is shopping at that mall. And we have to watch out for the single guys trying to take advantage of The Hangout's luxuries. Having single guys inside would defeat the purpose of The Hangout.

I guess we would have to implement some sort of membership. There's some other things that will need to be ironed out, but I think that can all be worked out over time before the first location opens.