The Velveteen Rabbit

Here come the water works.

Somebody gave me a copy of the Velveteen Rabbit as a gag gift.

7-year-old and 25-year-old me cried a little.

Rollerblades

Neon colors were actually one of the highest exported goods during the '90s. Seriously, Wikipedia that.

 I don’t understand the weird shoes that kids wear today that have a wheel in the heel. They don’t make sense to me and seem a little dangerous.

Then again, when I was a kid I probably spent as much time in the summer with wheels on my feet as they did. Mine were called Rollerblades and they were about 80 times cooler.

5 for Friday: Birthday memories

Caitlin, myself and a very young Zach circa 1997. Although this was technically Zach's first birthday, celebrating with the family is always nice.

As I said with my last post, Wednesday was my birthday.

I have had a lot of great birthdays (many that have happened in the past few years have been especially fun), so I thought I would trudge through memory lane and come up with some highlights.

Today is my birthday

These pictures were taken a few years apart.

As you can see by the headline, today is my birthday, so instead of doing a post about 7-year-old me, I think I may talk for a bit about 25-year-old me.

He’s new here, so let’s be nice to him.

Becoming a stand-up comic

"Seriously, don't make me laugh. I'm swinging here, come on."

I think of myself as funny. In fact, I pride myself on it in a manner which borders on narcissistic.

It also was a future occupation 7-year-old me though we would one get get into, even if he was more in prat falls.

Heroes in a half-shell

Watch out bad guys, headband-wearing turtles are coming to get you.

Ask almost any kid during the late ‘80s and early ‘90s what their favorite TV show was and good chances the answer is going to be Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Confession, 7-year-old me was not one of those kids.

Pogs

To do list: 1) Find my slammers. 2) Knock all of these over.

The other day I was talking with a friend about my weekend job at a local magazine store. In doing so, he had mentioned that he had not been there since the mid ‘90s when he would make regular stops to pick up football cards and pogs.

Yes folks, we’re doing a post on pogs. Get ready to read at the edge of your seats.

5 for Friday: Taking trips

"What? Oh, this dinosaur? Yeah, I dug it up, no big deal."

This is my last post in the series for Summer 2011, which for me has been a great time with friends and some good memories. But there is one thing I did not do this summer which I probably should have considered: taking a vacation.

For my family, vacations were few and far between -- we took one-day vacations before they were cool. But that’s not to say we didn’t take a few trips in my lifetime of note. So here we go, my family’s top trips, at least as best as I can remember.