This week I approach another one of those birthday milestones: 50 Years Old. It’s not middle age… no, I’m now considered a Senior in some camps.

I’m not sure how I feel about that. However…

Ten years ago, I wrote a blog post entitled 40 Things You Might Not Know About Me on the Tessera website. In honor of this milestone, I decided that was a decent enough idea to do again. I actually started making notes about various ideas for this blog post several months ago (because trying to write a brand-new set of unknowns about myself is not a task to do the night before posting). Since these are a bit more than just a singular sentence or two, I’m thinking this will be a multi-part blog series throughout the year to get to the total number. And maybe a better description might be “Little stories of my life”, but that doesn’t roll off the tongue.

#1 – Talk to Me

I have no ability to extract myself from a conversation.

I revealed this to my parents on New Years Eve. They had no idea that this was a problem.

If YOU are willing to keep talking with me, then that’s what I’m going to do. I have missed Doctor’s appointments, been late to dinners, had my wife blowing up my phone (which I had stupidily left at my desk) because I don’t possess the innate ability to say “Yeah, that’s great. Look… I got to go.” You come to my front door, and I need to hide and not answer you, otherwise that’s like 30 minutes to the rest of my day suddenly gone.

I think I’m trying not to hurt someone else’s feelings. I figure if they are willing to share their thoughts with me, wouldn’t it be rude not to listen?

This year I’m trying to make an effort to speak up a little quicker (maybe only 15 minutes instead of 30!).

#2 – Not a Handy Man

I am not good with tools. I’m not good with putting things together.

Actually, that’s not entirely fair. I’m decent to good with putting things together… until you get to that last 5-10%. That’s when things go off the rails.

We needed to replace seal at the base of the toilette near our entryway. I got out my trusty Home Depot book, grabbed the iPad to watch some how-to videos, and off I went. I’m not sure how long I spent in that tiny little room (if the book said 1 hour, it was probably 4+ hours), but in the end I had everything done… until I went to get the throne back into place.

It wouldn’t lock in.

No matter how hard I tried to do it, no matter how much I checked the book or the internet, it wouldn’t work. Finally, after hours of that, sweat coming off every pore in my body, more foul language used than anyone ever knew existed (I was channeling my grandfather for sure)… I called a plumber.

It took him less than 2 minutes to finish things. Literally. And his words were “You got it 90% there.”

#3 – Just Pay the Money Already

Part two of this was when my wife ordered a pantry closet for the garage.

Now, I’m a dumbass, but I should have jumped at the option to have it built by someone else for whatever the fee might have been. Instead, my cheap side kicked in and said “I can do it!”

I spent the better part of two weekends putting this mammoth piece of furniture together. It was one of those things where you have to put various smaller pieces together first, and then you combine all those into the final product. Everything was going great at first, but then we hit the part where I needed to line up some holes (it was predrilled), but they were in the wrong spot (should have been my first clue). Something didn’t add up. I looked over the plans, looked at the wood. What was going on?

So I created my own.

When the wood was ready to connect, I realized I’d flipped the piece. It was on the opposite side from where it should have been. Which meant I did a whole bunch of work that I then had to undo.

Sigh.

#4 – Getting Shown Up By an 80-Year Old

Part three of this happened this past year when my wife ordered a table and chairs for our deck. Of course, they had to be put together. I know by this point I’m hosed. Something is going to go wrong. I’m going to screw up some piece. But the kicker was when she read the reviews and this one said the following (paraphrased):

“I’m an 80-year-old woman and it only took me 25 minutes to put together one of the chairs.”

It felt like I was being attacked. If it took her 25 minutes, it would take me like 10 times as long!

The first one came together, and it was just under 45 minutes. We had 6 total to work through.

I’m proud to say, the last 3 only took about 15 minutes each. So suck it 80-year old!

#5 – I’m a big Miami Dolphins fan.

If you have met me at any point, I have likely worn worn more than a couple of their shirts over the years out in public. Which sometimes garners two questions:

Are you a real Miami Dolphins fan?

I want to respond to this by saying, “We haven’t won a playoff game in 25 plus years. We’ve only made the playoffs about 5 times during that stretch. At one point, we won one game in a season and I WATCHED EVERY GAME!

So what do you think?”

The other question is always “Oh, are you from Florida/Miami?”

Now this is a reasonable question. But my story isn’t as simple as, “Yes, I grew up in Florida. Or I’m from Miami.” Neither of which is true. The reason is that when I lived in South Georgia (Waycross), the AFC games we got on the TV was almost always Miami Dolphins games. Which made it very easy to root for them.

That’s the story I tell. It’s brief enough, but I think it conveys the “why” pretty well. That’s the reason why they continued to be “My Team”.

It isn’t the complete story.

The real reason I’m a Miami Dolphins fan is the very first football game I remember watching was the 1982 AFC Championship Game (the “Mud Bowl”). I have no idea why I even turned on the tv to bother with it. Maybe we started playing football in the neighborhood recently? Maybe it was a rainy day and there was nothing else to do? That’s the part I can’t remember. I do remember the Dolphins won 14-0 over the NY Jets, and I became a Dolphins fan at that point.

I shudder to think what my fate might have been had the Jets won that game.

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That’s a quick 5 to start things off. It might be a confession on my faults (even loving a team that keeps letting me down).