25 Random Facts

From Facebook


1) I hated my grade school. I hated going to school because I felt a lot of the teachers there had absolutely no business teaching. To this day, I cannot stand my eighth grade teacher who told my parents I had no business going to Crespi, that I would flunk out and that I should go to a vocational school instead. Thank God I found some actual teachers at Crespi.

2) While I hated grade school, I am forever thankful that my parents sent me to Our Lady of The Valley instead of Saint Joseph the Worker. OLV was much further away from our house, but I’d be minus my best friend Gary.

3) I love going over to the Svolos’s. I spend more time over at the house with them then I do with my parents on Thanksgiving, Christmas etc. I can go over there and just be me and relax. It’s my second family and there isn’t much I wouldn’t do for any of them.

4) I listen to country music. Brad Paisley is probably my favorite. “I'm Still A Guy” is probably my theme song at the moment. Toby Keith is also up there. I also love classic rock and 80’s metal bands.

5) I hold firm to the notion that Stevie Ray Vaughan is the greatest guitar player ever.

6) I tend to say things just to piss people off. Example: growing up, I admit, I was a closet Steeler fan. However, I openly supported the Browns just to spite my parents and my dad’s side of the family. When I was living in Pittsburgh and going to Duquesne, I’d rip the Steelers every chance I could just to stir the pot.

7) Speaking about that, I had to barricade myself in my room for a day after the Steelers lost to the Charges in the AFC championship game in ’94. Apparently, Sean, Ryan et al didn’t like what I was saying….lol. My loud mouth also nearly started a riot at a Duquesne football game that was being broadcast on the original ESPN 2 on October 31, 2004. The Dukes were laying an ass whopping on Saint John’s and I started getting on this Italian kid from St. John’s. I started calling him every name in the book and he finally had enough and started coming towards me and had to be restrained. I also recall yelling crap at Jose Offerman while the Dodgers were in Philly one day that even had the notoriously harsh Philly fans gasping.

8) Looking back, my years at Duquesne were my most enjoyable years of my life. It’s too bad my father’s side of the family were being such pricks back then. Part of the reason I went there was to spend time and be around them.

9) I wish I hadn’t been so anal retentive about my grades in high school and college. But, I guess when your eighth grade teacher calls you dumb, you kinda want to shove it in her face. Still, I feel like 10 years or so of my life was spent in front of a book and that I didn’t stop to smell the roses.

10) I am sad that either side of my family doesn’t get together at all. We are all so spread out that we rarely spend time together. That said, I always felt for some reason that my grandparents didn’t like me because they never came to visit me as often as my other cousins. I know it's not true, of course.

11) I was a life-long Penn State fan…..until September 1993. My buddy Tim was going to Ohio State and came up to Pittsburgh for OSU’s first game of the year our freshmen year. We went to the Pitt-OSU game and I was stunned to see just a sea of Scarlet and Gray outside the stadium. We went in and Pitt Stadium had at least 50,000 OSU fan’s there out of the 75,000 seat capacity. Joey Galloway took the opening kickoff and ran it 104 yards for a score. OSU wound up winning 70 something to 3. The following week, I went to a game in Columbus with Tim and was taken in by the atmosphere and have been hooked ever since.

12) I didn’t feel right rooting for a school I didn’t go to, so that summer, I went back early and took some summer classes just to say I went there. I wound up doing that every summer thereafter.

13) I have been fortunate to see many OSU games in person over the years, but two stand out:A) The 1997 Rose Bowl. After Jake Plummer drives ASU down the field for a go ahead score with 1:40 to go in the game, Joe Germaine drives OSU down the field in the closing minute of the game and David Boston puts us up by 4 with 24 ticks left…..no national championship for ASU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inT3Kbmut10B) Michigan – OSU 2004 in the shoe. 37-21 Ohio State wins. I’ve never witnessed a louder game than that. My ears were ringing hours after the game.

14) I own two handguns. Anyone breaking into my place is getting a full clip into the upper torso.

15) I have been known to enjoy a nice glass or two or four or five or half a bottle of Jameson.

16) I fully support the war on terror. I hold firm to the notion that you should kill those who wish to do you harm before they can do the same to you. The US should just let Israel wipe them all out for us. Honestly, if I was president on September 11, 2001, I’d have been hard pressed not to make the forecast for September 12 in every middle eastern city call for extremely bright sunshine with temperatures reaching 3,000 F.

17) I do not believe in global warming. It is the biggest fraud of the last 10 years. In the 1970’s it was global cooling, then it was acid rain, then it was the hole in the ozone. Now, it’s global warming that is going to do us all in. Whatever. At least Al Gore made his $100,000,000 of you people that actually fell for it.

18) I stand firm to be fact the Bernie Nicholls the greatest LA King of all time, followed closely by Lucky, then Dave Taylor and Marcel Dionne. Notice the complete absence of the Great Fraud? Also, Kelly Hrudey is still the greatest Kings net minder of all time.

19) I’ve run my own fantasy baseball league for the past 24 years….do the math.

20) I hate California. I want to get out of here badly.

21) I am still dealing with the whole Ami situation. While I know it was really for the best, it’s still hard to deal with. I was happiest for my parents who I think finally thought this was it. The happiest day of my life was December 31, 2007 when we all went to Malibu for lunch.

22) That said, the biggest alarm for me that Ami might not be right for me came the that night when she nearly killed herself taking a shot of whiskey at the Svolos’s. Any girl who can’t shoot whiskey is not the right one.

23) I am loyal to my friends. Matt, Gary, Tim, Jocko, Jimmy, Janet and Torie are the siblings I never had. I’d go to the ends of the earth for any of them.

24) I am happy to have to friends in law enforcement (LAPD and CHP). The perks are amazing. The coolest moment came this past October when a bunch of drunk SC shit heads were chanting 35-3 to us. Granted, doing that with about 1,000 drunk and pissed off OSU fans around you is probably not the brightest idea, but what happened next was awesome. Jocko, at my request, takes out his off duty sidearm and starts unloading the hollow points from the clip and placing them on the bar and starts passing around his LAPD ID. Those fuckers got the message and bailed in under two minutes.

25) I like the fact that my dad and I are starting to understand each other. My whole life has been lived trying to please him. He is a big reason why I am a staunch conservative Republican, why I love my country and everything else that I am. I just wish pops was a bigger part of my life earlier and we didn’t wait until now to do it.