Our Road Trips, 1999-2015: the Complete Checklist, So Far

Alabama!

Teaser image from our 2015 road trip, Day 5. Coming soon!

[Hey, all! The following special presentation is the all-new Page added tonight to MCC that merges and replaces the previous individual “Our Road Trip” checklists that were taking up too much real estate in the desktop header and the mobile menu. This handy Big Picture checklist summarizes all the trips we’ve taken to date for full historical context, with links to everything that’s been exclusively posted here since 2012, a few years’ worth that have been reprinted here on special occasions, and capsule summaries of other trips and vacations we previously shared on other sites in years past that, sooner or later, Lord willing, will all be re-chronicled on MCC someday as part of the continuing story of one geek couple and their annual quests to find new things to see and do.

Or if you totally hate domestic travel, skip down to the 2013-2014 checklists and pretend this is a different new entry called “A Salute to MCC Post Titles”. I’d understand if you did, really. I do like titling stuff.]

Right this way for lists within lists, which I also really like!

The Sweetest Gal in the E.R.

Anne!

Though I’ve been wanting to try out the camera on my new phone in a variety of settings, photography testing wasn’t among my original plans for Wednesday night. My beloved wife Anne agreed to this unusual photo-op while we were waiting calmly for the physicians on duty to determine the cause of the chest pains she’d been having all day.

Make no mistake: that pretty smile belied some pretty frazzled nerves.

Right this way for more about Anne’s fate. Also: a musical number!

“The Theory of Everything” and Thoughts on Star-Crossed Lovers

Theory of Everything!

Before Eddie Redmayne bewildered audiences as a space Cenobite with laryngitis in Jupiter Ascending, he was promoted to Academy Award Nominee Eddie Redmayne thanks to his performance as physicist Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything, the closest thing to a British costume drama in this year’s Oscar race. Unlike his turn as the rebel Marius in Les Miserables, his rendition of the increasingly immobile Hawking had no show-stopping musical numbers and ended up forfeiting the Best Original Song category, even though there are plenty of words that rhyme with “black hole”.

(Special note: if you’d prefer to be surprised by historical records, beware light spoilers ahead.)

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A Fond Farewell to the Chapel of Love

The Old Chapel!

Ten years ago, these were the pews where 60+ friends, relatives, and hangers-on gathered to watch a truly peachy-keen woman agree to holy matrimony with this one dorky guy who read too many comics.

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Not Put Asunder, Ten Years and Counting

Us in Fargo!

This is how everyone spends their tenth wedding anniversary, right? Because my wife and I sure wouldn’t want to look out of place or anything.

Right this way for a post-vacation update!

PBJ, Doritos, and Milk by Candlelight

candlelightI’m not sure if it’s reached national headlines, but this afternoon a severe storm front swept through the Midwest, took at least five lives in Illinois, and destroyed numerous structures between here and there, according to the most recent Indianapolis Star update as of this writing. (See this link for footage from Lebanon — a town halfway between our house and my son’s apartment — of a tornado that swept through the area. Among other damages, it later flipped a semi and took out a Starbucks.) Our prayers are with those currently in the midst of unthinkable tragedy as a result of the day’s upheaval.

We Hoosiers are no strangers to destructive weather. Our TV meteorologists panic more often than most of us do. It’s absolutely horrifying whenever worst-case scenarios do occur. We’ve been coached all our lives on what to do in that event; more often than not, though, all we suffer is unusual inconvenience — a broken shingle here, a leveled bush there, some broken siding on rare occasion.

Tonight, those treacherous storms ruined our dinner.

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For the Bygone Heroes Who Viewed Healthy Marriage as a Viable Lifestyle Choice

Superman, Lois Lane, Action Comics 775

Classic scene from Action Comics #775, March 2001: married couple Clark Kent and Lois Lane share concerns and burdens like a real married couple. Today this scene is against DC Comics law. (Written by Joe Kelly; pencils by Doug Mahnke.)

So my wife’s birthday is this weekend. She’s thankfully not yet in the mindset of lying about her age or skipping birthdays altogether, so for now I’m allowed another excuse to lavish attention and quality time upon the kindest, loveliest human I know, and I’m not just saying that because she tolerates my foibles, though that’s quite a selling point. Not every minute we share is easy, but we’ve weathered our conflicts, had our adventures, and endured thousands of quiet, boring timespans as well. Like any typical marriage that lasts for more than a month, ours has been all about the ups and the downs, the treacherous mountainsides and the plateaus. If you expect happiness and excitement 24/7/365, you’re doomed to disappointment. We recognize that, and we’ve developed the tools and the foundation to see the harsher times through.

Odd timing brought a regrettable quote to my attention today, on Wife’s Birthday Eve of all days. DC Comics had already made headlines in recent months for the lack of married couples that survived the New 52 reboot intact and not annulled. Adding fuel to the fire at this weekend’s New York Comic Con, DC editor-in-chief Bob Harras responded to a question about their heroes’ current collective failure at matrimony:

…the New 52, we want surprises. We want things to happen that may be unexpected with romances, relationships. What we ask in general is that we don’t want any of our characters rushing into stable relationships. The only character we have married is Buddy Baker, Animal Man, and that was part and parcel of the character.

Uh…huh. About that…

The Story of One Geek Couple, Part 2 of 2

wedding, happy couple

Don’t you hate it when a trailer or a comic-book cover give away the end of the story? Yeah, so do we. This remains among my favorites from our unnecessarily vast wedding photo collection, Star Trek red-alert lighting and all.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: representing the saga of How We First Met. Part One has the detailed intro that needs little paraphrasing. If you’ve stumbled across this half first, you’re doing it wrong. Click the link in the first sentence, catch up to this moment, then rejoin us with your Back button. Better reading that way, trust me.

Onward, then.

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Not Put Asunder, Nine Years and Counting

geek couple, Midlife Crisis Crossover

Taken out of context, this photo of a happily armed woman and some dork with a bowling ball could be misconstrued as a future submission to awkwardfamilyphotos.com with a caption questioning the decision to don summer wear in December.

At left in the 2012 Metropolis Superman Celebration T-shirt, my wife is holding a Red Ryder carbine-action 200-shot Range Model Air Rifle with a compass in the stock and this thing that tells time. At right in the hard-to-see shirt sporting the periodic-table block for adamantium, that’s me toting the bowling ball given to Ralphie’s old man for Christmas. The backdrop is the living room from the original A Christmas Story House in Cleveland, open year-round for visitors like us.

Some vacationers might spend their time off getting drunk and sunburned on an exotic beach. That’s not who we are.

We’ve known each other for nearly twenty-six years, but Wednesday marks our ninth wedding anniversary. When the one you love is willing to pose with you without a whit of hesitation, surrounded by this much pop-culture ephemera, confident in the knowledge that we agree on the most important things in life while sharing a variety of commonalities in the Department of Ultimately Unimportant Things, you realize you’re ridiculously blessed beyond what you deserve. You also thank the Lord that He’s in charge and not Joss Whedon, or else something tragic would’ve happened five minutes after the photo was taken.

Happy Anniversary, m’lady. Can’t wait to see our vacation photos at age 70. 🙂

My Valentine’s Day is What I Make of It.

Lugash, Valentine's Day, The SimpsonsWhen you’re sitting at a ballpark or other sports stadium, the crowd is doing the Wave, and you see the crest heading straight for your section, do you rise and raise your arms in rhythm with your neighbors? Or do you scowl, remain in your seat, and lecture your friends about how the Wave is conformist tomfoolery?

When your coworkers decide they’re not in the mood for cafeteria food or the tiny Weight Watchers meals they brought in their lunch bags and decide to order pizza or Chinese takeout together, do you go with the flow and chip in a few bucks for a little something different for yourself? Or do you denounce their impulsive extravagance and consign yourself to the turkey sandwich you brought because it was slapped together with only the purest of motives?

When you need to buy drinks at the grocery, do you base your decision on advertising? Do you buy drinks regardless of their advertising? Or do you specifically boycott any drinks that have ever been advertised in any way because advertising is shallow and irritating and unholy, and instead limit yourself to buying only products that have never been advertised in any medium?

If you’re at the theater watching a movie that the other patrons seem to be enjoying a lot more than you are, do you leave them to their difference of opinion and count down the minutes till the travesty is over? Or do you castigate them for their life choices and demonstrate the superiority of your disdain by chasing them around the theater with a stun-gun?

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