10 Things That I Don’t Really Care For

Once again, in no particular order.

1. Raw Onions, that’s right, raw onions. I can certainly enjoy onions cooked into a sauce or a dish but I have never liked onions on a sandwich or in a salad. I can go for an onion ring every now and then but please keep out of my potato salad, etc. Oh yeah, I don’t really care for them grilled, no onions on my steak and cheese.

2. People who have just gotten a little bit of power and they think that they’re now a ruler. I don’t have any examples, and if I did, I wouldn’t say it here. But I’ve worked with a few over the last 25 years and it’s sad to see a good person who is in the position of power who lets it go to their head.

3. Drying off a wet dog. I know that this is controversial but I hate taking my dog out in the rain and her getting dirty & wet and mussing up the floor and carpet. Then, when I try to dry and clean her paws she thinks that it’s time to wrestle. Usually she wins. I hate when that happens.

4. Waiters who disappear when it’s time for your check. How often does it happen when you’re out to eat at any type of restaurant and the server is has been very attentive but you’re ready to pay and hit the road……no waiter! Where do they go? Don’t they want to turn over the table and get my butt out of the seat so they can wait on others and make more cash? You’d think so, it happens to often to be a coincidence. It never happens in dinner theater because you’re on a such a tight schedule.


5. Getting the first few drops of water on your food when a ketchup bottle is turned upside down. You’re at your favorite eatery and they serve the best fries, you turn the bottle over and you have now ruined a good four or five fries. I know, I know, “shake the bottle first”, but sometimes I forget.

6. Cashiers who don’t speak or never say, “thank you” when you pay them. Since I am giving them my money don’t I deserve a “thank you”? Sometimes I’m an ass and when I hand over the money and they are silent I say, “Thank you…oh, that’s right, you’re the one who’s supposed to say thank you.”

7. Drivers who use exits ramps to pass stopped traffic on I95. They maybe pass 20 40 cars, are they really going to get there faster than me? Are they more important than the rest of us drivers? Maybe they are, at least they think they are.

8. Leaky showerheads. I have a showerhead in the girls bathroom and have tried all that I can think of to stop the drip, drip, drip. I guess it’s time to bit e the bullet and call the plumber.

9. It is inevitable that when I cook a nice dinner and sit down to enjoy it the phone will ring within the first four to six minutes. It could be my folks to thee Queen of Sheeba but someone always calls. I’m not saying I don’t want those calls but how do they know when I’m about to eat? It’s not like I eat at the same time everyday.

10. Lists of 10 things. When will all these people stop creating lists of things they love or things they hate? Come on people, I think someone else atrted doing it back in the early 80’s. Can’t you come up with something new?

10 Things That I Really Like (In No Particular Order)

1. My Kids
I think it should go without saying (but I must say) that I like doing anything with my daughters. They are full of energy, life and are both very bright and humorous. Just sitting around the house with them is a joy. Going to events, shopping, church or just playing around makes my day. There’s a lot of love here.

2. Outback Steakhouse
Funny that something about food would be near the top of my top 10 list. I am an original kind of guy; I like the Outback Special, (nine ounces is enough for me) medium well with a side of baked potato with butter and sour cream. I usually get the house salad with Thousand Island dressing and no onions. I’ll also get an order of sautéed mushrooms on the side to share with anyone at the table. I like the seasoning on the steak and the bakes potatoes come out nice and crusty.

Most recently I have been ordering the grilled salmon with steamed vegetables. I like the sauce that comes with it and I usually don’t order a salad if I have the salmon. Who ever thought that fish would be more expensive than a steak?

If am with people who order an appetizer then I'm happy to enjoy the Cheese Fries or the Bloomin’ Onion. Funny, I don’t care for onions but the Bloomin’ Onion or onion rings are okay with me.

3. Baseball
There’s nothing like going to a baseball game. I love watching the game and playing the game. It probably goes back to the days when my I played Little League and my dad was very involved by coaching and umpiring, We used to play catch in he backyard just about every night. He would help me with my throwing, fastballs, curves, etc. It was a great way to spend time together. Even after I graduated from Little League I still helped my dad coach my brother and even put in some umpiring time myself.



I really love the green grass when you first walk into a stadium or onto a field. A baseball park or field holds something magical for me. As a spectator I love watching the game while eating a hotdog. I don’t care for the large dogs; just the regulars are fine with me. Funny how I brought it all back to food, isn’t it?

4. Flying
There are times when I have to fly for business and it can be a pain in the rear with all of the hustle at the airports but I do love being able to take off and soar in the air. I always request a window seat that is not situated over the wing because I like looking out the window at the ground below. It’s always exciting to me when I fly to the west coast and we fly near or over the Grand Canyon. When I flew to Israel last year we flew over the Italian Alps and it was fascinating.

Because of business I used to have to travel to Las Vegas a good bit. One Friday morning as I was scheduled to leave Vegas I got the airport and they told me that my plane was overbooked. They gave me a free roundtrip ticket and a few other things but the next flight was the Red-Eye at midnight. I went back to the strip and decided to take a helicopter tour of Vegas and the Grand Canyon. It was a costly trip but I got to sit in the co-pilots seat of a turbo jet copter. We took off from the strip, headed through the desert, flew over Lake Mead and Hoover Dam and then headed to the Canyon. It was terrific flight with the pilot taking us all through the canyon, following the Colorado River and climbing up the walls of the canyon. It was breathtaking.

Another memorable flight experience was when Mike Tilford, an old Kaiser Permanente buddy, and I decided to go parachuting. We registered for a half-day class at Harwood Paracenter and proceeded to learn how to jump out of a perfectly safe plane. We decided that the tandem jump would be the best for us. We jumped out the plane at 8,500 feet and free fell for 5,000 feet until we opened our chutes at 3,500 feet. It’s hard to explain the feeling you get when you do something like that. I had a lot of fear when I was stepping out of the plane but once we were falling all fear left me. The only time I felt unsafe was when I was about 200 feet from the ground and was getting ready for the landing. All went well when I landed on my feet, dropped to one knee like I was kneeling and then stood right back up. I suggest you try it once!

5. Traveling
I love going places that I have never been before. If I could, I would do mission work about seven months a year and travel all over the world. I have been fortunate enough to do mission work in Mexico, I have been to Guatemala, France, Germany, Austria, Italy and last summer I went on a Pilgrimage with 20 or so other friends to the Holy Land, Israel and Palestine. There’s a chance that we’ll be going back again next summer but instead of just being a tourist we will have the opportunity to actually get dirty and do some mission work.

6. The Office
I don't mean sitting behind my desk, but the TV show The Office. I really enjoy each episode and so do my girls. They enjoy it so much that they've purchased each season on DVD. After the first season NBC switched it to Thursday nights, which is the same night as my choir rehearsal so I would always miss it (No TiVo here). Then Dani started to download it on her iPod and she’d let me watch the episodes that I’d missed. I’m sure you’ve all seen it but it is still a good show.

7. Singing
I’ve been very blessed that I have been given many opportunities to sing. My earliest memory of singing was when my dad would get out his guitar and my mom and us kids would sit in the living room singing. It just sort of took off from there. As a child I sang in the chorus at school and the choir at church. In high school I wasn’t able to fit the class into my schedule but I was able to sing in the Madrigals and was even lucky enough to make State Choir my senior year. I’ve been singing in shows and at church ever since. I really love singing in the choir and it doesn’t matter what style of music. I don't have to be singing in front of anyone, I just get a real kick out of singing.

7. Breasts
Enough said (although, preferably on a female).

8. My Family
For some reason the older I get the more I enjoy my family. My daughters are the main joy in my life but I am referring to my parents and siblings. There was a point sometime in my early 30’s that my parents no longer were my parents but became my friends. I’m not sure if the change was in them or with me but a whole new relationship opened and I am ever more blessed because of it. My brother and I have also become extremely close over the last ten years. He is always there when I need something and I hope that I am there for him. I have also grown a great respect for my older sister. We weren’t that close when we were younger but as she (and hopefully I) have matured I really have come to know a wonderful person in her. I admire her individuality and tenacity.

9. Driving
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t care for driving in all of the DC Metro traffic each and everyday but what I do enjoy is driving in areas that doesn’t seem to have the traffic that we do here. My real estate agent whom I bought my house from 14 years ago still sends me a newsletter that she sends to all of her clients each fall. In that newsletter she has a different fall driving tour through the hunt country in Virginia. There are usually a few versions of the tour; one which lasts about 3-4 hours and one that has you spending the night at a Bed and Breakfast. The drives are beautiful as the leaves are turning and there are rarely any other drivers on the roads. That’s the kind of drives I like to take.

10. Being Involved With My Church
It may sound corny but my relationship with my faith and my church has grown leaps and bounds over the last ten years or so. There have been many situations that have come and gone and I feel that I have been able to weather those storms because of my faith. I don’t mean to be preachy because I really don’t feel that comfortable when someone starts to get preachy with me but I know that I am loved and will always be taken care of. I have a Lord and savior. And that’s a pretty darned good feeling.

There you have it, just some things that I like, I could go on and make the list 20 or even 100 but 10 are enough for today.

Forum Opens With a Lot of Fun!

The last few weeks have been pretty busy and tough. Tech week at the Riverside was relatively smooth which I think can be attributed to a few different things. The changeover Sunday evening stayed on schedule, which made for a easy tech rehearsal Monday evening. Kudos to the tech staff.

The costumes were pretty much complete by Tuesday night so we had no problems with that addition. Wednesday night was a final run without an audience and without stopping. It's a huge help that the set is a one unit set with only two pieces of furniture brought on during the show. Talk about an easy process.

The Riverside has a tradition of letting their annual subscribers attend the final dress rehearsals on Thursday night of changeover week. In my past experience they usually get between 10 – 15 people but this time we had around 40 which was actually helpful, we pretty much knew which lines were funny but it always helps t hear the audience’s reaction.

Friday was opening night; Dani and Barbara decided that they wanted to be there. We had approximately 80 people, which isn’t too bad for August, which is often the slowest theater time of the year. Even with only 80 people the audience was great. Saturday’s house was about double and the show really had the opportunity to shine. I got a few opportunities to stop the show ands work with the audience for a while, I think I’m getting the feel of it.

Steven R. Hayes will be performing Pseudolus on Wednesday matinees since I have conflicts with my job at The Perspectives Group. So if you’d like to see me in the show drop by on Thursday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday. Speaking of The Perspectives Group, the President and Principal, Crystal & Doug Sarno, have graciously decided to invite our whole office and spouses/significant others to come and see the show on Sept 8.

I really think that it’s a good show, the cast all seems to be on top of things, Steven R. has done a fine job of directing and has been very open to suggestions (a big help), Ron Wheman is the producer and the musical director. I really think that Ron gets the most out of an ensemble musically than anyone I have ever worked with.

Let me know if you’d like to come and see the show. I get a cast price, I’m not sure how much of a discount but everything helps. Email me and I’ll get the info for you, actormann@aol.com See you at the show!