J - Joe

Before leaving the States, I lived in Indianapolis for a few years. My first job in that city was working in one of the city schools. I worked in the "Severely Disabled Special Education" classroom. Many of the students in that classroom were non-verbal. Some were in wheelchairs. A few were not even capable of taking care of personal hygiene issues. There were autistic children, one with Down Syndrome, one that was blind, non-verbal and unable to care for himself. Several other ailments existed in this classroom as well. Each student had their own combination of challenges to face.

Of all the students in that class, there were three that were capable of having a normal conversation. One of them is who I am writing about today. His name is Joe.

Joe was a 12-year-old African American student with some sort of high-functioning autism and some other cognitive issues.  A person actually could talk to Joe for a few minutes and (other than a bit of a speech impediment) not realize he had any issues.

Joe could not read and I doubt he ever will be able to. He could not even recognize letters. Joe's mental state was probably as advanced as it is ever going to be. There are specialized schools who may have been able to be more help, but Joe came from a poor inner-city family and a public school day-care setting was the best he was ever going to get.

Whatever setbacks he had facing him, Joe was a notoriously happy kid. And he was one of my favorites in the class. I know a teacher is not supposed to have favorites, but we do. And Joe seemed to adore me. He was at my side constantly. He would get a bit moody when one of the other teaching assistants had to do something with him so I could work with another student.

Joe is one of those kids that I really wanted to take under my wing and be of more assistance to but teacher-student relationships can be tricky so it is better to just not get involved. However, when I left that school to go work in an actual autism center, I got Joe's information. If I was no longer his teacher, I could be of more help.

On the last day of school, I drove to his house to go introduce myself to his mother and explain my intentions. Joe and I just wanted to occasionally hang out. Go catch a movie, play video games, whatever. However, getting to his house was an eye-opening experience. Seventeen people lived in this tiny, filthy house. Most of them were kids. There were holes all the way through the walls and I could tell immediately upon meeting Joe's mother that she had a severe substance abuse problem.

She didn't question anything I said and told me I could take Joe any time to do anything. I didn't consider that to be good parenting, but I was sure that was far from the biggest problem in that house.

For the next year, I picked Joe up about every other week and we went to do something. We went to see the latest Fast & Furious movie in the theater. We went back to my house to play XBOX. We went and played catch in the park. He never cared what we did. He just loved having someone who paid attention to him. And I enjoyed knowing that I was taking him to do things that he never got to do.

Joe never asked for anything. He was always happy to do whatever I had in mind. However, once I said, "What would you like to eat tonight?" He told me he wanted a steak. He had a steak once and loved it. So, we went to Applebee's.

As soon as we stepped inside, he said, "I don't like this place." I was surprised.

"Have you been here before?"

He said, "There's just too many white people."

Here's a picture of me.
In case you can't tell, I'm pretty white.

I asked, "You don't like white people?"

"No. All that money. They think they're better than everybody else."

I got down low and said, "Joe, look at me. I am white."

Joe stepped back and looked me up and down. He then laughed and waved me away. "You're not white. You're pretty cool."

That was intended as a compliment, so I took it that way.

He did agree to eat there and was thrilled that we got a black waitress. We sat and ate steak and fat baked potatoes while he told me all the reasons he hates white people. It was an interesting dinner.

I stayed in touch with one of the other aides from Joe's classroom and she knew that I saw Joe now and then. She would occasionally call me to tell me about things Joe needed. Maybe Joe did not have a winter coat or his shoes were falling apart or he needed a haircut. I would try to get these things for him or find someone who could.

Getting involved in Joe's life was an eye-opening experience. I always knew I had it better than most people, but seeing it face-to-face is different than hearing about it. However, I didn't do it to be a big help to him. Yes, I know I helped, but my original intention was actually for myself also.

When I moved to Indianapolis, my youngest had just turned 18 and she did not come with me. I was without my kids for the first time in over twenty years and I missed having kids to do stuff with. That may sound immature, but it's part of who I am. Today, I live in Vietnam and despite the language barrier, I try to engage with the kids in my neighborhood. I just love it.

That experience with Joe introduced me to how other people live and struggle. Conversations with him and some people in his family really opened my eyes to how blinded we are by our own circumstances and experiences when we observe the world. There are realities that they could not see due to their life experience and the same is true of me. It is difficult to see outside our beliefs, prejudices, customs, culture, and traditions.

I don't know what Joe got from me other than a few fun days, but I know I learned a lot from him.

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This month, I am participating in the A to Z Challenge. Each day this month, people around the world are writing blog posts and working their way through the alphabet. Each person decides their own personal theme. I am writing about people who have affected my life.

E - ESL at John Wesley

For those of you who may not know, I live in Vietnam. Before coming to Vietnam, I spent two years in Beijing, China. I have lived in these countries because of my job. I teach English to non-English-speaking people. I actually have a Master's Degree in TESOL.

Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages

I have done a lot with this degree, but it didn't start out that way.

Working on the degree, I obviously had a lot of classes to take and papers to write. However, the most challenging part was getting my practicum hours accomplished. I had to complete 120 hours of instruction myself before getting the actual degree.

Unfortunately, I lived in a small town that didn't have many opportunities for me to be able to teach English. I checked around everywhere and could not find anything. The closest I came was the local high school. They had a 16-year-old boy who had recently moved there from India. He spoke a regional Indian dialect and had no knowledge of English at all. I went to the school and offered my services to teach the boy English since no one there was qualified in this type of education. They thanked me profusely and said they had been worried about what they were going to do with the boy. However, the background checks and legal hoops required to allow me to go through the school were quite extensive and the school really drug its feet on getting things done on their end.

I eventually moved to Indianapolis to have more opportunities. I even found an apartment in the middle of their unofficial Mexican district. This part of the city had so many Spanish-speaking immigrants that many of the street signs were in Spanish rather than English.  I figured this would be the perfect place to find what I needed.

The day after I unpacked I walked into a community center to see if they knew any place where a person could go to learn English. A woman there told me "I think the church up the road used to do something like that." So I headed up there to check it out.

I pulled into the parking lot at John Wesley Free Methodist Church and stepped inside. I met the Associate Pastor and explained to him what I was looking for. He broke into a huge smile and invited me to sit down so he could explain their English Outreach program.

They taught English once a week right there in the church. Every Wednesday night and the next session of classes would be starting in only two weeks. He was thrilled to see me because they were still a few teachers short. He gave me the books they would be teaching out of and asked me to come back the next week to help with the registration of students.

I was thrilled to have found a place to meet my hours so soon, but I knew it would not be enough. Teaching a two-hour class once a week would not add up very quickly. I contacted my academic advisor to let her know that I had finally found a place to teach but would need to find another also. She told me that preparation time counted as well as teaching. Awesome. That would add a bit more time, but I would still need more.

After two weeks of teaching, I realized there was a major problem with the church's entire English-teaching system. The church had six different classes being offered at three different English proficiency levels. There were one or two teachers in each class, but every teacher was just a well-meaning volunteer who had no actual idea of how to teach language acquisition. Plus, the book that was provided was basically just a nice picture dictionary. It was not a textbook and offered no guidance for a classroom setting.

This meant that there was no lesson structure provided. Each teacher just did the best they could from the book. For myself, I was writing up complete lesson plans for each week. Soon it was discovered that all of the teachers could use a lesson plan. Over the course of the next month, this program was basically turned over to me and I redesigned the entire thing. I put together lesson plans, worksheets, computer files, and instructional materials for each of the age groups and proficiency levels while also convincing the church to change to a different book for the classroom. I also taught a few classes to the teachers of the classes to help them know better how to teach this subject. It was amazing.

What had started as a search for a place to teach evolved into an opportunity to use much more of my education. I was doing program management, curriculum development, language assessments, and teacher training. It was a lot of work, but all this extra work meant that I met the hours needed for my degree very quickly. Plus, it gave me a lot of hands-on experience in a volunteer setting before actually entering into the professional workforce.

ESL is an intimidating field and I was quite nervous about how my career was going to work out. I am so thankful for having landed at John Wesley. They did not pay me for my services. This was a volunteer ministry, but they did thank me publicly several times. They wrote me glowing recommendation letters. They gave me some fantastic experience. And most importantly, they provided me with a safe environment where I could develop my confidence and learn that I really could do this.

So much of the awesome life I live today is due to the opportunity that church gave to me and being willing to take a chance on the stranger who just wandered through their doors one afternoon.

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This month, I am participating in the A to Z Challenge. Each day this month, people around the world are writing blog posts and working their way through the alphabet. Each person decides their own personal theme. I am writing about people who have affected my life.

I'm Told It's Like Riding a Bike

I'm beginning to fear that I have forgotten how to write. Something is different. I have spent the last couple of weeks prepping for the A to Z Challenge and pre-writing many of the posts. I have also spent considerable amount of time reading many of my older posts and there is a significant difference between my writing today and the writing I was doing as recently as two years ago.

The humor and sarcasm just isn't coming to me as easily as it did before. My writing feels flat and I'm not sure what to do about it. I have been compiling the book that I want to write this year and have the entire story worked out, but don't want to start the writing until I feel that I have regained that snarky voice that I used to have. I thought that, maybe, I was just out of practice, but I'm beginning to wonder if it's something more. So, I have made a list of things that have changed since I last appreciated the results of my writing.

• I have moved from Illinois to Indiana.
• My kids have moved out.
• I have gotten married.
• I got a vasectomy.

 Let's examine these separately.

I have moved from Illinois to Indiana. To people outside of the Midwest, it may seem like the Midwest is the Midwest and there really isn't any difference. From Nebraska to Ohio, it's all the same. Well, you could not be more wrong. Well, I guess you "could" be more wrong. If you said eating a dog turd was no different than flying a helicopter that would definitely be more wrong. So, let's just say that your way of thinking is does not align with the facts. You cannot honestly compare a small farming town with inner city Chicago or Cleveland (you really shouldn't compare anything with Cleveland). The personality of the big cities aren't even the same. Davenport, Iowa is nothing like Cincinnati, Ohio. Louisville, Kentucky is considered the 8th largest cultural center in the country. Bet you didn't know that. Omaha has nothing in common with Chicago…and Illinois and Indiana are not the same.

For instance, while Indiana has its issues, Illinois is in a class almost by itself. Do a Google search for the most corrupt states in the country and Illinois is always in the top five. Several polls rank Illinois at the second most corrupt. Usually beaten out only by Arizona. Yes, I was born and raised in the state that had to put 4 out of its last 7 governors in prison. My home state. And I saw it in my county and town as well.

With all this cheating and lying being displayed by my trusted leaders, it's no wonder sarcasm and talking out the side of my mouth came naturally to me. However, now I live in Indiana which has become known as the bigot state since I have moved here. This is thanks to the RFRA Law which was passed last year. Whether someone is for or against this law, the arguments on each side have been blown way out of proportion and it has become one of those issues that causes many people to just avoid discussions about it. Regardless of your stance, a public expression of your opinion will bring a storm of vitriolic condemnation your direction. So, maybe I'm not as loose with my lips fingers as I used to be.

I also went from small town living to living in the big city. Indianapolis is the 13th largest city in the country with over 850,000 people. Since I grew up in the country outside of a town of about 700, that takes some getting used to. It's taking much longer to learn everyone's names than I expected.

Next, my kids have moved out. This is a significant life change. So many of the blog posts I wrote centered around my kids. Plus, they kept me on my toes. They didn't just give me things to write about, they drove me crazy. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. My mind had to be sharp to keep up and make sure they didn't get away with anything. However, I am much better rested now. No more staying up late wondering where they are and coming up with schemes to make their lives miserable. I'll bet they miss me.

I have gotten married. Now, this is a huge life change. I actually met my wife through this blog and every step of our meeting and dating process can be found in some of my earlier posts. However, once we lived in the same state, my writing really slowed down and once we got married, I only posted 5 times in the entire next year. FIVE TIMES! This is from a guy who posted every single day for 3 months straight.

I've noticed there's a lot less pizza boxes and burrito wrappers around my chair since I've gotten married.

Haven't figured out why yet.

— Minor Character (@brettminor) June 14, 2015

Now, getting married may have slowed me down, but I doubt it is what removed the humor. My wife and I spend a lot of time laughing and the jokes never seem to stop coming. I just wasn't writing for a while. She also sees to it that I get out of the house now and then to have an adventure. I've seen and experienced plenty of things worth writing about.

Last, I got a vasectomy. I actually paid someone to take a scalpel and cut into my ball-sack and root around in there. This was a less than pleasant experience, but it didn't last very long. I was soon back up on my feet, but this was also during the time when I wasn't writing and I wonder if that may have been the moment that something left me.

I know that I am now sterile, but could it be in more way than one? Could he have snipped a nerve that contributes to my funny? Where did my funny even come from? I've heard it said many times that men can only think with their penis. If that's true, it's very possible that this surgery severed the route to my typing fingers and changed everything. The Road to Gonad has been permanently closed.

I feel like I'm on to something, but it will take a little experimentation to test this theory. Stay Tuned.

Mr & Mrs Transformed Nonconformist

Four months! 

It's been over four months since my last post. A lot can happen over four months. A lot has happened. I've really dropped the ball. Let me try to give a quick recap of what I have not written about.

My daughter left high school with a bang.

Valentine's Day has come and gone, as well as St. Patrick's Day. I got a job in the Indianapolis Public School system. Spring Break is over. Summer vacation has started. My daughter graduated high school. Orange is the New Black has released season two onto Netflix. Russia invaded the Ukraine. An 18 year old girl in New Jersey lost the case against her parents when she sued them for college tuition. The Big Bang Theory got picked up for three more seasons. Casey Kasem died and I got married.

I'm not going to try to cover all of that in this post. One thing at a time. Let's start with the last item on the list. I got married.

OK. It's 7 o' clock. Let's compare stories. I got married today. Who can top that one?
— Brett Minor (@brettminor) May 4, 2014

I am sure that I have lost some followers since my writing has drastically slowed in the last year, but my long-time readers know that on May 2, 2012, I met face-to-face with Red of Doesn't Speak Klingon. Before that, we met through our blogs, we conversed in the comment sections. We traded emails and eventually started making phone calls. We then dated for almost two years while living 200 miles apart.

Last December, I moved to Indianapolis to take advantage of some educational opportunities to finish up my degree. I moved to a big city for these opportunities. I chose Indianapolis because that was where Red lived. We had already seriously discussed marriage, but there was nothing official. I thought it would be nice to get to date while living in the same town. Those bi-weekly commutes were hard on both of our wallets.

It didn't take long before we knew marriage was in our future. We just needed to decide when. Neither one of us was interested in the ceremony, but didn't want to exclude family either, so eloping or just going to a courthouse was out of the question. We had the end of the summer in mind. I would have just finished my degree and she would be moved into a bigger place ready for me to come join her.

Once we got her moved in, we were just waiting for the time to pass. I had my place, she had hers, and we knew we would be married in 3 to 4 months. However, no one else knew that. We had decided to keep it quiet so it could be ours and no one else's. We wanted no family input on how it should be done, what food should be served, what should be worn, or who should be invited. We just wanted to be married. We didn't know when it would happen, but we did know we wouldn't be giving much notice to anyone.

One Saturday morning, Red was discussing the travel plans of her sisters. They were both going to be in town the following weekend. Her family is so spread out, they are very rarely all in the same place. Her brothers aren't even in the country. So, I suggested doing it the following Sunday.

Red: "Are you serious?"
Me: "Sure. Why not?"
Red: "OK!"
Me: "Great! We're getting married in eight days!"

I quickly called Chuck, a local minister friend of mine, to check his availability. We then called Red's parents to tell them our plans and get permission to do it in their backyard. We called our immediate family members and assured everyone that nothing was needed but their presence. For the people who like to stress about these types of events, we had provided them with the gift of only getting to stress for eight days.

We did get some questions.

"Would you like me to pick up some ___________?"
"No."

"Hey. Should I bring a ____________?"
"No."

"How about if we get a few _____________?"
"No."

Red and I had decided that more "stuff" and involvement would just make the event bigger and more stressful with things to plan. We were going to show up at her parents' house after church with some pizzas and soda for everyone and when they all got there, get married. That was a simple plan and we wanted it to stay that way.

We only put effort into three things.

1. Red SOLO cups - we specifically had red SOLO cups simply because someone told us that we couldn't (not one of the guests or family).
2. We purposefully mismatched the plates we used. I had a 10-pack of Happy Birthday, 10-pack of sports themed, 10-pack of underwater themed, and 10-pack of Disney princesses. This was done to demonstrate that we were not concerned with protocol or appearance.
3. We begged everyone to not mention the ceremony to anyone or put it on social media. We wanted to announce it after the fact. Everyone respected our wishes.

Red's mother did get us a beautiful cake and one of her sisters bought items for the best man, maid of honor, and cheerleader to hold (we had a cheerleader instead of a flower girl).

Notice the casual style.
(Except for the cheerleader's tiara and my tuxedo t-shirt)

It occurred to us after picking the date that May 4th is Star Wars Day.

"May the Fourth (force) be with you."

Get it? Plus, since Red is a huge Star Wars geek, it turned out to be the perfect day to do it. That's why there were light sabers. Thank you, Hestia.

We had 15 guests (plus the minister and his 6 kids), a day that could not have been more beautiful, and every family invited was able to make it. Plus, our main goal for the day was accomplished. We were married.

I only met this wonderful woman because
I started a blog in October 2010.

Evil Urban Empire

This is NOT the view from my house.

For a little over a month now, I've been living in the big city of Indianapolis. This is the biggest city (844,000) I have ever lived in. I was in San Juan, Puerto Rico for a year, but it only had 400,000.

There are some major differences between living in the country and living in a big city, but I'm proud to say I have always made the transition fairly well. It's true that I can't pee in my front yard anymore. In fact, I don't even have a front yard. Or a back yard for that matter. Also, as much as I don't like people, I have found it very easy to ignore the multitude of them I am surrounded by. Actually, this is easier to in the city than it was in the country.

Growing up, I really didn't give big city life much thought, but there was one thing I knew. All country people and small town folk know.

You just aren't as safe in the city.

Before leaving my hometown (pop. 400), the worst actual crime committed against me involved someone stealing my garbage and dumping it on the side of the road a mile away. I still don't know what that was about, but I cleaned it up while the police watched. I never found out who did it and the police didn't believe it wasn't me.

Years later, on my first trip to San Juan, I got mugged.

Now, I was in a bad neighborhood and we had been warned to stay indoors after dark, but Dave and I couldn't bear our first night in the Caribbean locked inside someone's house. We just wanted to take a walk. It didn't end well.

Years later, when I actually moved there, someone broke the window on my SUV and stole my wife's purse, which happened to have her wedding ring in it as well as all her identification. These things didn't happen back home in small-town Southern Illinois.

When I moved to Indianapolis, (less than 5 weeks ago) it took all of eight days for my apartment to be robbed. They didn't just rob me, they took something very personal. My pet.

That is a python named Dr. Finklerstein that

we have had for over three years.

When I first moved in, I was told the entire complex was getting new windows. Management would send me a note the day before so I could prep my apartment by moving everything away from the windows.  They didn't send me that note. I left my apartment one day to discover they were putting in windows downstairs. I asked if they were doing the upstairs as well and discovered that I needed to go move some of my things. I then left for the day.

Get in the POT!!!

When I came home, I had beautiful new windows, but later discovered that Dr. Finklerstein was not in his terrarium. I searched all through the house as Kirsten cried on the couch, "That dirty Mexican took him." 

I don't know how she became so racist.

"He took him home to eat him! Snake is a delicacy in Mexico, you know?"

Um...actually, I don't know if that's true.

I searched through all the dresser drawers, behind the shelves, in the boxes that were only half unpacked and as much behind the water heater as I could see. He was nowhere to be found. And my apartment isn't very big.

I finally relented and did what Kirsten was begging me to do. I called apartment management.

The immediate reaction of the woman on phone was of concern for a loose python in the building. I gently tried to reassure her that this was not the case. I've had this snake for three years and he has never gotten out of his enclosure. I told her that I didn't want to accuse anyone, but it seemed odd that he just happened to disappear on the day someone was in my apartment. I understood they couldn't really do anything about this, but I wanted to make a report in case others reported things missing. I also told her I would not be letting people in my apartment unsupervised anymore. Apartment employees included.

The snake has never escaped from his cage EVER. It's weird that the one time people are in our house the snake disappears...
— Kirstey Minor (@KirsteyKitten) December 27, 2013

While Kirsten was tweeting her rage, I continued looking. Every day for the next week, I expected to see him stick his head out from behind the water heater. I think I got obsessed with the water heater because it was a heat source. I just expected him to gravitate toward it. I finally gave up. Kirsten must be right. Someone fried him up into python nuggets. Or took him home to give to their kids like I did. We're a strange house.

Almost three weeks later, I discover him sleeping on a pile of clothes in a box I had yet to unpack.

I immediately call management to let them know the snake has been found. She responded, "Great. I'll let your neighbors know."

Wonderful. They notified all my neighbors.

At least we'll have something to talk about in the spring when I actually venture outside.

Around the World (not quite) in 80 Days

80 DAYS!!!

Eighty days is how long it has been since my last blog post. That's a long time considering that shortly before that post, I vowed to post at least twice a week. Let me try to catch you up on my world a little bit. Some major changes have happened in my life since I last wrote.

I have mentioned many times that I'm working on a graduate degree for Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. I am now sixty percent of the way through my degree and should graduate in August. However, there has been some concern over my graduation date for the last several months.

In addition to my classes, I am required to do 100 hours of practicum in this field. In other words, I have to find a place to start teaching English before I graduate and start doing it. I have now been in this program for a year and have yet to acquire a single hour. But this is not for lack of trying.

My problem was due to living in a small town with little cultural integration. My hometown has a small population of Spanish speakers and a Chinese restaurant whose employees who do not seem to have a decent grasp of English. There are virtually no English language classes anywhere in the area. I called the local community college to see if I could assist in their ESL (English as a Second Language) courses. They told me they only offer one ESL class every year and no one ever signs up.

Only one high school in the area had a foreign student. That one student had moved from India with his family and only spoke Kashmiri. In the entire world, less than 6 million people speak this language, so it's not easy to find translators for this language. Especially in Southern Illinois.

When I went to the high school to offer my assistance (my FREE assistance, by the way), it was met with much excitement in the counseling office. They basically had no system in place to help this kid who was months away from having to take his ACT and could not speak a word of English. My daughter said he just sat in class and nodded when anyone spoke to him. There would be some legal hoops to jump through, but they were very excited that someone from this field was offering to help. One of them even said that my walking into the office was an answer to her prayers for this kid. Since I was already certified to substitute teach in the school and had been doing so for over a year, I didn't expect it would take very long. However, after a few months, I still couldn't get into the classroom.

Not again!

I finally gave up and talked to the district office for the elementary schools in the area. They showed the same exuberance as the high school. They had a few students who really needed help and were excited to have me available. They even contacted my college advisor to properly coordinate and be sure I would get my credits. However, they never actually made it happen either. Every time I checked in, they would tell me to come back later or explain that it was taking longer than expected. Once again, I had lost several months and was running out of time.

Not long ago, I was sitting in Red's apartment in Indianapolis when someone knocked on the door. He wanted to know if there were any Spanish speakers in the apartment. They were starting an English language course at the apartment complex and wanted to make sure anyone who might be able to benefit from it was aware.

Unbelievable! I had been unsuccessfully struggling to get into one of the extremely limited courses back home and in Indianapolis the opportunities just come knocking on the door. The only thing keeping me from getting my hours was where I lived. A few weeks earlier, my advisor had jokingly made a comment suggesting the same thing. I had just become convinced that she was right.

It took some effort to pull it off, but two weeks ago, I moved to Indianapolis. Two days later, I found a place to start teaching three blocks away from my apartment. It took almost no effort and there are teaching opportunities all over this city.

Plus, I now live in the same city as my girlfriend! No more 200 miles commutes every other weekend.

For those of you who have been following our story, I guess this is our next big step. We started out 900 miles apart. Almost two years ago, it dropped to two hundred miles. And now, she is a 10 minute drive from my apartment.

Life is pretty good right now. Now, I just need a job.

Last Day in Indy: Part 3

You may want to read my last two posts to get up to speed on the events of the last couple of days.

Day 1: Dealers and Winos and Pimps - Oh, My!

Day 2: Dealers and Winos and Pimps Must Sleep In

My last post was written on the morning of the third and last day we were in Indianapolis. The plan was to get our van back that morning, see as much of the city as possible (now that we were mobile) and head back home. However, it did not work out that way.

I called at 9 a.m. to get an estimate of when they thought the vehicle would be done so I could get a cab and head in that direction. He said they were close to having it finished and they provided a free pick up service, so there was no need for a cab. HOORAY!!!

Since they were close to being done and we did not know how far from the car shop we were, we decided not to venture from the hotel. They could call at any time and we had no idea how long it would take them to get there.

The hotel requires checkout at 11 a.m., so we moved to the lobby. Kirsten surfed the web while I read a book. It was hard to relax knowing that every passing minute is another minute that we are NOT out enjoying the city.

The mechanic finally called at 12:30, but said it would take a moment for the driver to get to us, because he had just left for a 30 minute lunch. As soon as he got back, he would be on his way.

After 3 hours of leading me to believe the driver was going to show up at any moment, the driver calls to get the address and tells me it will take 30 minutes to get to us from the shop. He shows up 45 minutes later at 4:15. I learn from him that he was delivering a part out of state and was not on a 30 minute lunch. Had I known that, I would have hopped in a cab and had my vehicle back by 1 p.m. However, due their messing around and trying to cover for each other, we sat in a hotel lobby for 4 hours longer than necessary and missed half a day of exploring the city. We drove away in our van a few minutes before 5 o' clock and $600 poorer.

Finally back with our vehicle, we decided to visit the Indianapolis Children's Museum because one day a month they are open until 8 and it is free during that time. Plus, the other things we wanted to see were closed at this point. This seemed like a good plan at the time, but there were things we had not considered.

This children's museum is ranked as the best in the country by three different children's magazines and it offered free admission for only four hours once a month. This means that it is the most popular place in the state during that time and is the last place you want to be if you actually want to see anything. About 5 blocks from the museum, traffic stopped. In the next 30 minutes, we moved less than a half block. Everyone was trying to get to the museum. At the rate we were moving, we would never make it to the museum parking before it closed. Luckily, a person pulled away from the curb right beside us, so I nabbed that spot and we walked the remaining distance.

The last children's museum I had visited was more of a hands-on science center and it had been several years since I had taken my children. This place, while impressive, was designed for children. By children, I mean 5 to 8 year olds. My daughter is 16. We gave it a go anyway.

They had an Egyptian market for the kids to dress in Egyptian clothes and play like they were working in various jobs, There was a mirrored maze play area, lots of interactive activities and places for parents to sit while their children ran wild. I was most impressed by the LEGO exhibits.

However, what I hadn't considered was the thing I should have been most concerned about. There were children everywhere. Thousands of them. Because of the museum being free at that moment, the entire tri-state area showed up with their kids...and their grandkids...and the neighbor's kids. 

They were screaming and pushing and fighting and crying. It was awful. Parents were yelling for their kids to come back despite not having any idea in which direction they had run off to. Those parents that like to walk their kids on a leash spent their time trying to untangle from other safety minded parents. It was a complete madhouse. It was wall to wall screaming banshees.

Kirsten and I decided that even without the wailing midgets, this was not what we had in mind and decided to leave. Nothing on this trip had gone according to plan and it was time to give up. We vowed to return to Indianapolis on another day. Next time we would plan better.

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For this post I am participating in the Get Fit! Challenge presented by Pish Posh. She is challenging her readers and other bloggers to write about an area in their lives to could stand improvement. Please visit her site.

Dealers and Winos and Pimps Must Sleep In

Before reading this post, you need to read Dealers and Winos and Pimp - Oh My! to get up to speed. This is a part two from that post. Quick reminder: Kirsten and I got to Indianapolis for a funeral. Our van broke down as soon as we arrived in town. The 5 mile walk back to our hotel took us through a very questionable part of town. Once again, click here if you did not read my last post.

When we woke up yesterday morning, I decided we would stay at the hotel another night. That meant we did not have to check out and we could leave our stuff in the room. Being 6:30 in the morning, we made the trek back to the funeral home on foot. We knew it was not a good neighborhood, but we had survived the day before and theorized that most crack heads do not get up before noon. We expected the streets to be empty and we were correct.

We met the tow truck driver and soon our van was gone. Soon after people began to arrive for the visitation. I have been to literally hundreds of funerals, but this was one of the most difficult services I have ever sat through. The service was for the 19 year old son of some college friends. He was loved by many and there was a very large crowd.

Despite the mood and reason that we were there, it was great to get to see old friends. Other people from those college days showed up as well. Most of us hadn't seen each other in over 10 years. The day alternated between tears and laughter. It was a great reminder of how close we all used to be and how much I miss them. We parted promising that we will not wait another 10 years to get together.

We did hear from the mechanic that the problem with my van was the fuel pump. $603.22 This trip that wasn't supposed to cost me more then a few hundred dollars just jumped to almost $1,000.

This morning we are getting packed up and hoping that the van will be done in the morning as they said. Otherwise, we will be hauling all our stuff around the city until it is finished. We are hoping to only have to hop in a cab and go straight to the mechanic and be done with it. That will leave us a few hours to explore the city. I imagine we can take in more with a car than we did on foot for the last few days.

I know this post sounds a bit depressing, but the last few days have been great. It has a tragedy at its center, but we have had a few adventures, got to see old friends and have found a new area to visit when we have free days. Life should be back to normal next week.

Dealers and Winos and Pimps - Oh, My!

This week my daughter is on Spring Break and we try to go somewhere every year. A few years ago, Christian and I went to Cleveland to visit the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame. Great trip. Two years ago, Kirsten and I ventured to New York to see the Tim Burton exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art. I could write a dozen different posts about the times we had on that trip.

This year, we planned to go to Nashville, Tennessee. We were only going to stay for a few days since we are taking a trip to Portland this summer for a wedding. Nashville would be a short inexpensive trip, but still something to do on her Spring Break. However, our plans got changed.

One of our friends died a few days ago, so we changed our Spring Break plans to go to Indianapolis for the funeral. We packed up last night and left this morning to get here in time to see a little of the city before going back to the hotel room.

Once we got checked in, we decided we should locate the funeral home for the next day. According to Google Maps, it was less than 15 minutes from the hotel (4.7 miles). We hopped in the van ready to find the funeral home and then start checking out the city. It's almost a straight shot from the hotel, but it may not have been the safest route.

A few days ago, when  I contacted a friend from the area about hotels, he stated not to get a hotel in the area of the cemetery. He said it was not a part of town we would want to spend the night in. This is why our hotel was so far away; he was concerned about the neighborhood. As we drove further in, I quickly understood his concerns.

The buildings were falling down and I counted half a dozen drug deals as we drove through with our windows up. We kept the windows up for safety reasons and because the area smelled like a mixture of disability checks and gunpowder.

We found the cemetery without any difficulty and went in to confirm where the services would be since the place was so big. After getting the information we needed, we hopped in the van to head to a nearby museum. After backing out of my space the van died and would not start again.

It was just after 5 o'clock, so I had trouble finding any place that was open to help. I finally located a service that would tow my vehicle for free if they got the business. However, they could not send anyone until morning. The funeral home agreed that I could leave the van there for the night.

Being the beautiful day that it was, we decided to walk back. It was less than five miles, I sill had the Google Maps printout that we could follow backwards and being a country boy, I just can't bring myself to spring for a cab. We started walking. About ten minutes into our journey, I remembered what we had driven through to get here.

Someone destroyed this church

As soon as I realized we were in the same area that we had rolled the windows up in earlier, we were approached by the first of many people that needed money for a variety of reasons. His was for food at Dairy Queen (not joking). Another wanted to buy cigarettes, one lady was insistent that she needed change for a dollar, and another guy wanted money to help find his dog. I still don't understand that one, but he really didn't understand it either, so I didn't feel too bad.

They even killed SPIDERMAN!!

We had planned to eat after leaving the cemetery and were getting very hungry, but Kirsten was unwilling to enter any of the eating establishments we passed. I can't say I blamed her. We kept our heads down and smiled when we did make eye contact with someone. Kirsten, convinced she was going to die very soon, sang These Are a Few of My Favorite Things to distract from the situation she was in.

We stepped over the broken bottles and needles, sidestepped the winos, ran from stray dogs and dodged the beggars, all while avoiding traffic. On three separate occasions someone called for us to come to them. Twice into an alley and once from their front door. We got very good at playing deaf and looking straight ahead.

After about an hour of walking, we began to see signs that we were coming out on the other side. The condition of the roads began to improve, there were more houses with intact windows and the sound of screaming was getting further away.

I was overtaken by local wildlife once.

It took us about 90 minutes to get back to the hotel and we began to go over our agenda for the next day. Tomorrow morning, we have to check out of this hotel and get back to our vehicle. Despite the night's experience, we will be walking back through the area we just came from. However, this time we will be carrying our stuff. Just like the Dread Pirate Wesley and Princess Buttercup in the Fire Swamp, we now know the secrets of the area and can survive there for many years if needed.

We have to get back to the van before they tow it at 8:30 to put our  stuff into it. We must then stay for the funeral and then somehow find our way to wherever it is being worked on. Hopefully, it will be fixed tomorrow, so we will have a vehicle again.

Getting back to the hotel was the easiest part of this. I expect the worst parts to come tomorrow. Getting back to the vehicle. Getting to the garage (which is on the other side of town). Getting around while it is being worked on. I really don't know what to expect. Tune in tomorrow for the rest of the story.