Somebody got themselves a website

Amazingly, I figured it out!  So here is my last blog post on blogspot.  From this point on all things Jules can be found at julesfunwithcancer.com

that's julesfunwithcancer.com

again it's julesfunwithcancer.com

I'll be moving all of the old posts over to the new site (if you missed it, it's julesfunwithcancer.com) over the next few days.  Thank you all for your support and I hope you follow me over to the new website.  Oh, that's right, I almost forgot to mention the new site.  It's julesfunwithcancer.com

A Return to Normalcy

In 1920 Warren G. Harding ran for President on the promise that he would lead Americans back to the life they knew and loved before the Great War.  That, and the promise that one day US History students would have to write boring essays about the Teapot Dome Scandal, was enough to get him elected our 29th President.  I mention this because I am currently on my own quest for a Return to Normacly.  After slightly more than a week back in Los Angeles I am slowly making my way back to the life I knew and loved before the Great Cancer.  As a result I have greatly neglected this blog.  For that I apologize but on the plus side I haven't spurned the League of Nations, engaged in rampant cronyism or taken kickbacks for an oil field lease.  I'm no Harding.  I'm just a guy that is so happy to home he's shirking his duties and leaving his loyal readers hanging.  Not one of the worst Presidents of all time. 

Now that we've drawn a very distinct line in the sand between me and Warren G. Harding let me update you on a few things.  First of all, this will be one of my last blog posts.  Not because I'm quiting this whole scribbling down my always witty and insightful opinions thing, I'll never give up on opening my big mouth.  Or, in the case of the written word, wiggling my sausage fingers.  No, this will be my last blog post because in the infinite wisdom of blogspot I am no longer eligible to have a monetized site.  I'd hate to think that the good people at blogspot would arbitrarily decide that the whole dollar fifty a day I was making on average was above and beyond what they are willing to pay a talented blogger and as a result they froze my account.  I'd like to say that they had good reasons for doing what they did.  I'd like to say that but I can't.  I can't because they won't tell me why they did what they did.  So, since I can no longer hang my hat on the hopes and dreams of making my fortune through julesfunwithcancer@blogspot.com I will now be switching to a site of my very own.  Hopefully, it will up and running tomorrow but since I'm an idiot to the world of websites I really wouldn't be surprised if I'm back here tomorrow, apologizing profusely to blogspot and begging them to take me back.  Tomorrow being Valentine's Day, blogspot will probably expect flowers and chocolates. But let's face it, they're a bunch of computer nerds so chances are they've already got terrible skin and the chocolate won't be doing them any favors.  Since they undoubtedly never venture outside the flowers will cause their allergies to go haywire.  Plus, they won't take me back so easily.  I'm the one leaving them.  I've got Hand.  I try to come back and you just know they'll rub my nose in it and take my Hand.  It could get really ugly.  A bunch of chubbers with pasty pox marked skin lording their superior computer know-how over me until I flip out Ike Turner style.  Then I'm back, a day later, grovelling "Who loves you, Blogspot?  You don't think Julesfunwithcancer is sorry?  If Julesfunwithcancer could take it back he would.  Come on, Blogspot, baby, don't do Jules like that."

Yeah, there can be no going back.  With a little luck I'll be posting here one last time tomorrow to tell all of you to go to my new site.  And what a site it will be.  There will be prizes and give aways and some kind of reward/points system that lets you get cheap crap in exchange for loyal readership!  It'll be like a State Fair only you won't even have to go to the trouble of putting on pants to attend.  So, basically, it will be exactly like a State Fair.

Sunday, January 22nd

4:30am is a far better time to be falling asleep than waking up.  Eleven degrees below zero is not an acceptable temperature under any condition.  This is how SugarDust and I began our cross country trip.  I was worried that the garage door would be frozen shut and I'd have to smash through it A-Team style.  I know that sounds irrational, why not just wait until it warms up?  This is Maine, it doesn't warm up til April.  I would not be spending another moment in that barren wasteland they call wintertime.  As much as I love Maine that love quickly dies starting around January 2nd.  From that day on it's just a slow march toward, well, toward March.  And even when you make it to March it's not so great.  No, I was heading for greener pastures and no electronic garage door would be stopping me.  Lucky for the door it opened right up.  It must have known better than to disobey me.  Stupid door. 

So after that totally imagined crisis was averted I picked up SugarDust from his place.  I was pleased to find out that he hadn't slept all night.  Perfect!  That's just what I want in a co-pilot.  Someone that is sleep deprived.  I was informed that it was okay that he hadn't slept all night because he had previously slept nineteen hours straight the day before.  Even better!  The sleep habits of a Meth addict.  Who wouldn't want to travel across country with that?  Luckily, our first leg of the journey was only to New Jersey so I would not need to be relieved during the drive.  As it turned out the 500 miles to North Jersey was our second shortest drive of the trip.  We did it in about 7 and a half hours.  Not counting the ninety minute delay trying to navigate the unmarked streets of Bergenfield. 

Why leave so early if we are only driving 500 miles?  Because areas of the country like Central Massachusetts and Northern Connecticut are best experienced at around 80mph in the dark.  There is nothing worth seeing so why bother to burn any daylight with looking around.  Also, the NFC and AFC Conference Championship games would be starting by 3:30 and I did not want to miss kickoff.  This portion of the trip was not a pleasure cruise.  We did not take any pictures of any sites along the way or stop for any longer than it takes to fill a sixteen gallon gas tank.  This was the opening round and we were setting the tone of the fight.  Establishing the pace.  We didn't know exactly how far we'd be driving when all was said and done but we intended to drive the road and not let the road drive us.  Okay, I'm not really sure what all of that last part means.  Basically we just wanted to get the hell out of sub-zero temperatures and get our trip started.  We did it and then some but I did miss the opening kick-off.
 

The Giants Win the Pennant! The Giants Win the Pennant! The Giants Win the Pennant!

Before I begin filling all of you in on my eleven day trip across country (including the horror that is Snowshoe, PA, the babysitting skills required when having drinks with SugarDust and why you should never ever attempt to take a vehicle with catalytic converter issues over the Rocky Mountains) I would like to post my Super Bowl re-cap.  While it's nice to see the most hated team in professional sports lose on the biggest of stages this Super Bowl was special for a far more important reason.  Namely, The New York Football Giants have always been my Dearly Departed Dad's favorite football team. 

Clearly this is not one of those "not during my lifetime" championship scenarios that Cubs, Vikings, Knicks and Maple Leafs fans deal with.  Far from it.  My Dad got to celebrate three Super Bowl championships since 86.  Most recently in 07/08 when one of the greatest upsets in sports history took place and the Patriots wound up with a very distinguished 18-1 record.  18-1 is an amazing record provided that the 1 doesn't occur in the last game of the season.  Then it's comical.  But this post isn't about how the Patriots choked in 07 or how they haven't won a single championship since they were no longer allowed to tape the opposing teams practices.  This post is about how God loves my Dearly Departed Dad more than he loves the other recently passed Dad's of Patriot fans.  I never figured God would play favorites in the world of sports but that was before my Dad got up there.  He is rather persuasive.  I'd bet he even got God to don a G-Men ball cap.  Or, even better, a giant foam finger. 

So as the waning moments of Super Bowl XLVI passed and Gisele Bundchen prepared to throw the Pats receiving corp under the Giants victory bus I couldn't help but feel like I should be calling my Old Man.  As I've mentioned numerous times in this blog there was nothing on the planet that we talked about more frequently than sports.  Specifically we talked about football but even during the sports wasteland that is post-Super Bowl February through St. Patty's day March Madness any sport would do.  Well, any sport but soccer and the WNBA.  So as the Giants celebrated I felt the need to make a phone call.  Then, something that I've never done while watching a sporting event happened.  I cried.  I used to cry every time I played football.  Win or lose.  A lot more with the lose but playing football was such an emotional high that by the time those four quarters were over I'd always squirt a few.  And I've always been baffled by the fact that people not even on the field might do the same.  For anyone to become so involved as a mere spectator to a sporting event as to actual cry at the outcome would have to be a little unbalanced.  In my humble opinion.  As much as I love the Steelers their wins and losses in no way affect my everyday life.    Neither do the Giants either even if it is against those cheating bastards the Pats.  But for some reason this mattered.  More than ever before.  And I cried.  Cried because my Dad's team won.  Cried because I can't make that phone call any more.  Cried because I won't ever be able to have those near daily sports conversations ever again.  In a year that could not have gotten any worse, it had the best fucking ending I could have ever written. 

We will resume this program...

Monday Night February, 6th after dropping SugarDust at LAX for his flight home.  Sorry for the lengthy delay but between the travel, sightseeing and drunken revelry in between I had no time for posts.  I promise to fill you in on all the travel details, why you should never go to Dodge City and how Global Positioning Systems may be the best and worst thing ever invented. 

Oh yeah, here's my Super Bowl Prediction that all of you have been waiting for.  Especially a Old Placekicker from Orono (he may have played other positions but my memory is his best was as a kicker) that now owes me dinner and drinks for betting against me.

Giants +3 over Patriots - I was shocked when I saw this line last week.  I'm even more shocked that it's hardly moved.  I see the Giants D-line shoving around the Pats front without needing to bring blitzers so they can keep full coverage on the Pats receivers.  Brady will have very little time in the pocket and when you throw in the loss of his favorite target in Gronk (I know he's supposedly gonna play but he won't be effective) I think he's going to have a rough day.  The Pats still have a lousy D and I can't see them stopping either the Giants pass or run consistently.
Final score - Giants 34-21