I will *try* to blog more than once a year. I’ve got some things to say, no really I do.

Stay tuned!

-Chris

Well, I’m migrating all our photos on our photoalbum site to Flickr. It will take something like 4 days to complete, but it will be nice to have that whole thing offloaded!

This picture was the latest upload when I checked it this morning and it is definitely one of my favorite pics. Jaime cracks me up…

Here’s the URL: www.flickr.com/…

New photos will be appearing regularly over the next couple days, oh boy!

I remember first seeing the movie in high school, right in the middle of some serious teenage angst regarding life in general. It really resonated with me on so many levels. The idea that the world is mostly an annoyance that is only tolerable if it is walled out… I can relate to that!

As I’ve grown older, The Wall, at least musically, has remained powerful. It is, without question, one of my favorite all-time albums just because of the continuity of the music contrasted with some varying styles. It’s a great listen. I had listened to the album and had a desire to watch the film again because there are some subtle differences between the soundtrack and the movie and it had been quite a while since I’d laid eyes on the movie.

As I’ve grown older, I have come to realize that much of what I loathe is not really the world, but the fact that people are seemingly okay with the idea that they do not need to be self-responsible. By that I mean more and more people are content to blame everything on the government, or on others. With blame comes dependence, and so goes mankind it seems. Blame the government for not telling you that putting a hair dryer in the bathtub with your child is dangerous, get a gigantic label and buying restrictions on appliances in order to protect you from yourself.

Many people seem to be okay with this idea that they are never at fault. I, while I would agree it is a convenient way to live, find it deplorable. Whenever we are playing or interacting with Emma and she hurts herself or something, we make a point to remind her that if she runs too fast or doesn’t look where she’s going, she will hurt herself. I see plenty of parents that would coddle them away from the issue and then rearrange the furniture or something so it won’t happen again.

These are the children that drink and drive later in life and kill a teenage friend, all the while wondering how mommy and daddy are going to get them out of this one. It is a terrible shame and it makes me focus doubly hard to make certain that Emma is self-responsible and fully capable of running her own life as much as she’s able.

That said, The Wall just drips of outward blame. I never noticed it as much growing up because I guess I related to him so much as a “misunderstood artist”. As I have advanced in years, it has become evident that I wasn’t “misunderstood”, I was credulous. I thought I was a one-of-a-kind kid with ideas and feelings that none could understand, so it was best that I shut those folks out and handle it myself. I now see that I was just another teenager trying to grow into adulthood but confused about how to make it happen.

In watching The Wall I began to see it much more as a tale of a childish, spoiled adult that refused to take responsibility for his own life. In the absence of his charge, anyone who could step in gladly did to use and abuse him and push him further into his own prison. Yes, his mother was over bearing. Indeed, the schoolteacher was a mean-hearted power monger. Sure his wife cheated on him. It’s true that his manager was a money-hungry maniac willing to risk Pink’s health to ensure continued success and it sucks that his father died in the war when he was just a baby. All these things are terribly tragic and can make life a huge drag, no doubt.

However, his mother’s continued control over him was completely self-imposed. She was long out of the picture, but he couldn’t let her memory go. He’s the one that chooses to relive and in many ways wallow in the very thing that he claims to hate so much. His wife did cheat on him, but only after he pushed her so far away that she was forced into the arms of another man just to feel companionship. Once she had fled Pink’s embrace, he suddenly wanted only her and then became indignant that *she* was responsible for destroying him.

His manager, while quite ruthless, didn’t have to work very hard to control or exploit Pink. Pink’s general malaise and inaction which devolves into a near-catatonic self-perpetuated state of loathing give the manager a perfect platform to inject drugs and basically puppeteer Pink into whatever he fancies. The schoolteacher is unique in that many kids are subjected to the “wrath” of schoolteachers and if they get a bad one, it can leave a memorable impression. In Pink’s case, I empathize with him having a teacher that didn’t understand or encourage his high-art gifts, but once the purview of the schoolteacher was no longer a factor, blaming past tyranny for future indiscretions falls right back into the irresponsible rut that shapes his life.

The one part of the movie that really took on a whole new meaning was the final two “acts”, if you will. Pink suddenly realizes that he has succeeded in walling himself in. He has built a wall out of all these “bricks” that he has fashioned from all the wrongs that have ever been done to him.

Once complete, there seems to be a notion that he truly grasps that these bricks were made by him and for him. They might consist of the actions, or lack thereof, of other people, but *he* made them. They weren’t bricks until he fashioned them into bricks and laid them into the wall. At this point, he is beginning to separate his mind. Part of him sees that the only guilty party for his life and the course he has taken is himself. The other part is still clinging to the comfort and solace of all the hatred and disdain.

This leads to the final scene where Pink is put on trial by his own egos. He is forced to evaluate his life and chooses to call as witnesses the people that he holds accountable for his life’s course. As they “testify” in the proceedings, you get to see how his perception of these people have really worked to shape him into what he has become. The final segment involves the judge himself ruling over the trial. The judge declares that because he has revealed his deepest fears he must be subject to the full penalty of law. The penalty? TEAR DOWN THE WALL!

So why bother recounting this whole thing? As this election season rolls on, there seems to be hints of this sort of thing happening in the world around us. So many people are victims of their own lives and have become dependent on the government to take care of them. They are so willing to become socially catatonic and let the government drug them up and drag them to their next gig. They just wall themselves in and let the world around them do what it will.

I find this sort of thing almost completely insane. I believe that the government should do three things primarily: 1) Protect the nation’s sovereignty, 2) police the population and 3) prevent fraud

With those three things being handled by a government body, people should turn to other as necessary, and pull up their bootstraps otherwise. There was once a time when kids broke their arms on playgrounds and the jungle gym wasn’t torn down and replaced with a huge padded cell. There were cars that were wrecked and no money was expected for a repair because, “It could happen to anyone.” There were once communities that worked together, knew one another, and formed the necessary committees to make their little pieces of the world safe and hospitable. There used to be families that were able to afford to eat dinner together every night of the week, where family was far more important than jobs or cars or status.

The government doesn’t need to babysit you for you to be able to live a fulfilling life, but it will gladly do so for merely half your income. I for one think it is high time that self-responsibility made a huge comeback! All we have to do is TEAR DOWN THE WALL!

-Chris

It’s a tragic tale, but it has a happy ending. Shall we begin?

Over the last couple of weeks, there was some bizarre behavior exhibited by the Explorer. Every time I had to brake hard for any reason, a plume of black smoke would billow out from under the hood. Of course, it led me to do two things, 1) Check under the hood for something obvious, and 2) try to figure out exactly which actions caused this smoke to billow.

After some investigation, I opted to take it to MIDAS (our local garage) on Friday (9/5) and let them take a gander. They called me back and told me that the smoke wasn’t from under the hood, it was actually from transmission fluid leaking onto the exhaust pipe.

/sigh

I had a feeling that a leaky transmission wasn’t a good thing, especially with a 1996 vehicle. He said that the pump assembly was leaking and it looked like bad seals. He would need to remove the transmission to replace the seals and it would be expensive to do it. In this scenario, given the age of the car, he would recommend rebuilding the transmission to be sure that we wouldn’t be back in there in a month or two with another failed part on a 12 year old transmission.

To give you a bit more background, prior to this, here’s what I *knew* was … umm … “not ideal”.

• Front driver-side quarter panel damaged
• Back springs completely worn-out, replacement needed
• Driver’s seat unable to remain upright, board propped up by folded rear seat
• Passenger seat belt buckle required “finesse” to open
• Passenger side brake light cracked
• Air conditioning untenable, needed complete replacement
• Driver’s side door unopenable from outside until opened from the inside, if outside handle pulled while locked
• Several rips/cuts/stains in interior
• Bizarro security system requiring random driver actions for car to start

And now, a transmission replacement. All told, that would be about $6000 to get it all fixed, and the car, in perfect condition, is worth ~$5000.

This meant only one thing, I would have to go car shopping. Now, I cannot describe to you how much I loathe shopping for cars. It’s like going into a very sneaky, but extra vicious lion’s den and I never feel like I’ve prepared enough for what I’m about to face. I started praying straight away that God would provide some extra discernment and that he would really help me to remain calm and patient.

We had planned to go look at some cars the next day (9/6), but after browsing the web at some auto sites I had absolutely no idea what kind of car I wanted, much less which make/model. As I wasn’t anticipating buying a car anytime soon, my perfect (or maybe my *tolerable*) car was the furthest thing from my mind.

Needless to say, it had to be done as the Explorer would need to be topped off with transmission fluid weekly to keep it from leaking dry and ceasing up, and that was a risk that I wasn’t ready to take. We got a late start after waiting for me to finish my DVD polishing exercise (I got 1984 on DVD from my in-laws, but it was scratched. You see the only way to get this DVD for a reasonable price is to buy used and this one wouldn’t play, or at least wasn’t entirely readable due to the depth and location of the scratch, but thanks to a rouge wheel given to me a while back by my father-in-law, I was able to slowly polish the scratch enough that the DVD was readable. This, however, took longer than I had anticipated). So after a quick BK lunch, we decided that Jaime would take Emma home and I would drag myself to a couple of car lots. We had seen the Saturn dealership’s “$17,999 VUE” banner on our way there, so that would be my first stop.

They were nice enough there, but the Vue was a bit crowded inside. I’m a giant person, so I need a fair amount of room to feel comfortable, and the Vue was too cramped for me to hang out in there. Plus the $17,999 model was pretty stripped down, but that wasn’t nearly the concern of the size issue.

They had an Outlook in the showroom, so I gave it a go and was impressed. It was very roomy inside and was setup like a minivan, but looked more like an SUV on the outside. The Employee Price sale was still in force, and this model was the lesser of the two Outlook models at ~$27,000. I grabbed some flyers, filled out a customer info card and said I may be back. $27,000 was a bit more than I wanted to spend for the car because we were w/o a car payment and were really driving our debt down. I was hoping to get a payment ~$400-450, regardless of how low that figure was feeling.

I was finished for the afternoon after that one stop (105 degrees and no A/C in the Explorer makes Chris a sweaty mess) and so I was heading home. I came up to the BMW/Mercedes intersection and thought, “What the hell? The worst thing is that I find out that I can never afford to drive a BMW.”

I pulled into the BMW place making sure to stop a bit hard and get that nice plume of smoke billowing. In my shorts and T-shirt I trudge to the door as a salesman named Ritchie opens the door and greets me. I’m sure that I looked like a joyrider trying to score a test drive with no hope of being able to afford a car, and in some ways that analysis was spot on.

Ritchie asks me what I’m looking for in a car, so I told him that I need to fit comfortably and I wondered if there was a BMW that would work. So, he took me to an used X5 and I sat in it. Quite comfy, not too cramped, except in the price department at ~35k. So, to remedy that situation he got me into a 2009 Alpina B7, also quite comfortable to sit in, but even more troubling ~$147,000 price tag.

Certified Pre-Owned? Sure! We head to a 5-series for ~$26k. It fits pretty well, not too cramped and quite roomy. It’s also a *sharp* looking car, so i was tempted. This would get better mileage and certainly is a bit classier than the Outlook, plus we already have the Durango, so we have the SUV if we need the space. I was about to have Ritchie cook up some numbers for me when he stops me and says, “I think I may have the perfect car for you.”

We walk around the dealership (I’m sweating profusely from the heat, fyi, and Ritchie is wearing a suit w/o a bead of sweat. Felt like a real goon by this time.) and he walks me up to this black Land Rover. It’s a beautiful car, but so were many other cars on this lot. The price was the first thing I noticed: $19,997

/confused

“Sooo, was this pulled from a lake or something?”
“No, it’s about to go to auction at that price, the wholesale price. It’s not negotiable because we will get that price from the auto warehouse that handles our auctions. It will most likely be gone by the weekend.”

Riiiight, that’s a pretty good story, but we’ll see. It’s a 2006, and has 43k miles. Not the best mileage, seems a bit high, but oh well. Even with those miles, the price was ~12k below blue book. They got me a carfax for the VIN and it was clean as well. Did a bit of scouring on my blackberry regarding auto auctions and his story checked out, that how it works (as best I could tell). Maybe, just maybe, this guy wasn’t swindling me.

I text Jaime and tell her I’m bringing a car by and it’s a Land Rover. “Of course it is” she replies, I’m sure thinking that me, the moron, went and fell in love with some $40,000 car that we are going to have to stretch every penny to afford. She came outside and liked the look, when I told her the price she was as shocked as I. She took it for a spin and thought it was a dream to drive as well.

So, we went back and he started working up the papers. After the deductions on the explorer due to the numerous problems, I netted $500 for it which I happily took. They got it all approved and printed and lo and behold, $450 payment. Both Jaime and myself were surprised that God was so good as to help up meet our budgetary goals with a nice car that works so well for me.

To bolster my confidence in the purchase, there were 3 couples that came in inquiring about the black LR3 and leaving irritated when they found out it had been purchased. Maybe I had found a diamond in the rough after all!

Well, I drove it to work the first time today and it was so nice. It was quiet (WINDOWS UP!) and cool (A/C ROCKS!). I was comfortable and it drives really well in traffic. It (supposedly) will do 12/25 mileage, but we’ll see how that goes. It does has a 6-speed transmission which will help mileage a bit, but if I get 20 on the highway I’ll be happy!!

This one’s not mine, but it looks *exactly* like it.

So, the next era begins! Here’s to another 10 years of driving the same car! :-D

-Chris

If you follow this blog, you might recall that I lost two of my grandparents, my father’s mom and dad, last year. My grandmother (Jeanne) passed away and not long after, my grandfather (Don) followed. My grandmother’s death was expected for quite some time and my grandfather’s death occured so temporally close to her passing that the sting wasn’t as severe.

My mom’s dad (Bob) passed away back in 1989. I remember being pulled out of school for that, but it is all a complete blur. I have vivid memories of my Grandpa New, but they seem very distant, as if I was very, very young when I experienced them.

I did a lot of soul searching when my grandparents passed last year, and came to the same conclusion I always do. They are in a better place, and the promise of everlasting life through faith in Christ Jesus means I will see them again. When I visited them last they were both very lucid, and grandma was still moving about her house. She was clearly weak, but she was still very much herself.

My mom’s mother, whom this blog is about, has battled cancer for a very, very long time. I don’t even recall the last time I knew her as someone without any cancer, or cancer in remission. She has had a number of surgeries and treatments and lost her hair several times.

Her cancer came back on the radar a couple months ago, and they started ramping up for more chemotherapy, as surgical options were pretty much exhausted through her previous cancer surgeries. They found that after her first treatment, she was deathly sick and the cancer seemed to have spread throughout her body instead of dying in place.

After all those treatments over all those years and all the hope of complete remission, she was given 1-3 months to live.

Needless to say, the short time line came as a shock to everyone, most of all Grandma. Ever since she had her first surgeries and treatments for cancer, she always worried that it would be back. She would often panic anytime she felt a familiar pain, but this time it was very real to her and she had a very hard time facing that diagnosis, now that it was finally delivered.

Jaime, Emma, and myself made a decision to travel back to Indiana as soon as we could to get to visit with her while she was still lucid, and more importantly, alive. I had a chance to visit with my other grandparents before they passed and I will treasure that memory forever.

The difference this time around was that Grandma New was basically bedridden by the time we arrived to visit her. Her hair was completely gone (the first time I had ever seen her w/o a wig or kerchief in my entire life) and she was severely emaciated. She was also being medicated and her emotions were both visible and amplified.

Those of you that know me well know that I don’t handle sadness or despair very well. I struggle to both show and experience emotions when they aren’t joy or anger. Moreover I tend to (if possible) force my sad emotions into one of those categories with pseudo-sound reasoning and logic.

This time was different. I can’t explain it really, but I’m pretty sure that this was the first time I had ever seen, in real life, someone completely helpless and suffering. It was impossible, and I mean, impossible to change the feelings I was having and experiencing into anything but sorrow and sadness. Logic be damned, I could not do it. I knew that she would be better off when she passed, that her pain would be gone. But it hadn’t passed, her pain was very real, and her sadness was very real as well. I had talked with Jaime and prayed for strength to talk to her about Jesus and His promise; to reassure her that this old world will miss her, but she won’t miss it at all.

The first night we were there (4/20/08) was surreal. I was at a loss for words. I, unlike my normal self, felt completely unsure of myself and almost afraid of what would happen if I did or said anything. We chatted a bit as a group in her bedroom and then mom went to get her meds for the evening.

She brought her meds and she took then with some warm water and mom left to check on some paperwork with hospice or something. Grandma said something to the effect of “I’ve been having trouble keeping these meds down.”, and I could see that she was struggling not to vomit. At this point Jaime, who found the entire situation very sad due to her Grandmother passing in a very similar way, took Emma and left the room. I so much wanted to yell for help or something, but I knew that it would only serve to embarrass grandma. I asked her if she wanted her small container that was there for her in case she was sick and she nodded.

I grabbed the small tub and held it to her chin for her as she spit the pills and her dinner back up. I could see that the act of vomiting caused her great physical pain. She was then reaching for some Kleenex to wipe her face, which I quickly grabbed for her. She wiped her face and I pulled the tub away from her quickly. (I know I hate the smell of vomit)

As she leaned back she had tears in her eyes and said, “I’m sorry you had to see that.”

I don’t remember much for the next 30 seconds which felt more like 4-5 hours. I managed to keep it together, but even as I write this I’m trembling. I was furious at the doctors. I was furious at the hospital. I was furious at myself. I was furious at God. I don’t often get angry with God, because I usually come to my senses, remember his promises, and move on. But something about seeing my Grandmother so destroyed by this world made me very, very upset. It was not fair. Regardless of our sin nature and fact that we are all sinful creatures, noone *deserves* to suffer like that and then feel guilty about the effect of their suffering on others. I eventually settled down (in my mind) and kept telling myself that God’s will is much bigger than my emotional state and that he will bring peace that transcends all understanding. That’s exactly what I needed, because I would not understand.

I muttered something like, “It’s no problem Grandma, don’t worry.” I wanted to go punch someone right away. I wanted someone to step into the house and claim responsibility and I wanted to destroy that person with every fiber of me.

In the meantime, Emma was being pushed in Grandma’s wheelchair and was having a blast. It was very nice to see Grandma smile a bit, but she was very tired and we left.

The next day we went over again and we knew that this would be our last visit as we were planning to leave the next morning bright and early. During that evening I had prayed again for strength, and thank God, she was feeling much better the next day. She was much calmer, seemed less stressed, and even joked around with us a bit.

I hated to break the mood, but when I got some time alone with her I told her that we will continue to pray for her as we had been doing for months. I also told her that if we don’t get to see her again, that we look forward to seeing her in heaven. I told her that she needn’t worry about us, and that she can keep Grandpa company and prepare us a place, as we’d be along soon. I had found out that she was baptized by my parents’ pastor only a few days before and had made a commitment of faith. I can’t express how happy I was to hear that. It really made this part much easier for me.

She started to tear up a bit, but I smiled at her and hugged her. She said that she believed that was what would happen and was very happy about it. Emma came in and patted her leg a little bit, which was very sweet, and Jaime and Emma both gave her a hug. It was pretty powerful actually saying a last goodbye and knowing it, but it was very cathartic as well.

Mom said that she often mentioned our little talk about heaven with other people and that brought me great comfort. Hearing that reassured me that I had done the right thing to say something and I have no regrets.

She passed away 9 days after that last visit on April 30, 2008. She was 75.

She loved all things nature. Mushroom hunting, fairs, flowers, fields, and animals. She collected owls (porcelain, stuffed, et al) and took care of her own cats as well as clingy strays. She played cards with my Mom, Dad, and Sister almost every week, and was well known and liked by nearly every person in Martinsville it seemed. She loved her family literally more than life itself, and I’m quite certain that leaving her loved ones was fair more upsetting than dying.

She met my grandfather when they were little kids, and their relationship blossomed over many years into a loving marriage with a lasting legacy.

I’m glad that she’s in a place now with flowers stretching as far as the eye can see, and her husband there to help her lift the heavy stuff. :-)

Here she is holding Emma… I like this picture because they both look so happy.

Here’s a pic with Grandma, me, Mom and Emmabug

I find music to be a very powerful tool for finding my way through confusing situations. I’ve quoted some Ralph Stanley before, but he seems to really verbalize and put to music my feelings in an almost eerie way. Here’s another one of his songs that made me smile when I listen to it and think of Grandma.

THE PRETTIEST FLOWERS WILL BE BLOOMING

I know there is a land of beautiful flowers,
Where we will meet again when life is o’er;
Where we will while away the endless hours
On heaven’s bright eternal shore.

Chorus
The prettiest beds of flowers will be blooming,
By the prettiest streets our eyes shall e’er behold,
Where the beautiful tree of life for us is waiting
By the prettiest mansions made of purest gold;
The prettiest robes and crowns we’ll all be wearing
In that city four-square, beyond this world of strife,
And the prettiest songs with the angels we’ll be singing
On that beautiful morning by the river of life.

On heaven’s golden strand there’ll be no more dying,
No chilling winds or tempest e’er will blow;
It is a land of love and wondrous beauty
Where fragrant flowers ever grow.

I want to meet you by that beautiful river
On that eternal morning in the sky;
Where we will live in peace through endless ages,
Where we will never say goodbye.

-Chris

She had a great time. Stuck by her buddy, Kendyl, the entire time. She loves Kendyl so much. After we picked her up, she kept saying, “Kendyl Kendyl Kendyl Kendyl!” So funny. She keeps saying “up-ee-down” and “side-a-side.” They must have sung the Gymbo song at least once while she was there, as those things are in the song. She had me sing it for her a few times after we got home.

When we got home, we sat down in our chairs to quickly eat our dinners before putting Emma to bed. She rushed out of the room into the kitchen and hurried to the corner by the pantry, which is her normal pooping spot. We asked if she was pooping, and she said no. Normally, if you try to go into the kitchen when she’s doing her business she’ll say, “Bye-bye!” Or maybe, “Sowwy, sowwy (sorry, sorry)!” So I got up from my chair and said I was coming in there. She said, “Sit down!” So I walked back to my chair and sat. She could see me from her spot, and right after I sat down she said, “Good girl.” It was hilarious. Chris and I laughed so hard.

So, I HIGHLY recommend Go Fish for all you parents out there, and even for those of you who don’t have kids yet but like good Christian music. To find out more about these guys, or to order some of their CDs, here is their web site.

Emma absolutely loved the show. She danced her little heart out and clapped along with the songs. It was so cute. I tell you, she has the music in her. She loves to boogie. It’s the sweetest thing.

That’s all for now. More later.

Always remember: The rhythm IS going to get you … sooner or later.

Anyway, funny story. I gave Emma a bath on Monday evening, and then Chris and I put her to bed. We left her room, shut her door and came back out into the living room, expecting to see Norbert curled up in my chair like he normally is. Nope. Then we expected to find him curled up on our bed in front of my pillow (his other favorite spot). Nope again. We looked all over the place for that crazy mutt, but he was nowhere to be found. We figured we shut him in Emma’s room, so I opened up her door and looked in, but he wasn’t there.

Turned out he had gotten himself shut in the bathroom where I had given Emma a bath. He had been hanging out with us in there, and I guess I had shut him in there when I carried Emma out. Poor thing, he hadn’t made any noise being shut in there in the dark. He probably thought he was in trouble. Chris let him out and gave him a dog treat to try to make up for it. He doesn’t seem any worse for the wear. Silly puppy.

Chris, Emma and I will be visiting Indiana Oct. 10-17. There’s a Heacock family get-together on that Saturday, and the annual Martinsville Fall Foliage Festival parade on Sunday that we’ll get to attend. I think Emma will really like the parade.

We’re planning on taking Emma to the San Diego Zoo soon. I think we should probably wait until it’s not as scorching outside, but I want to go fairly soon. I think she’ll love seeing all the animals.

Emma’s into waving at people (anyone and everyone) these days, which is the cutest thing. She says “hi” sometimes, but she says “bye” a lot. It’s so funny. We were leaving Johnny Rockets (where we ate lunch) Monday, and she waved at one of the waiters and said “byeee.” He turned around and smiled and waved back. So cute. She’s also into blowing kisses and making the kissy smack noise. Again at Johnny Rockets Monday our favorite waiter stopped by to say hello to us. He turned and walked away, and Emma blew him a kiss to his back. She loves him. It was so sweet.

That’s all for now. More later.

Always remember: Nobody puts Baby in a corner.

The winner: Hardee’s Monster Thickburger. Topping over 1400 calories is no small feat. Add fries and a drink, and you’re looking at just under 3000 calories for that meal.

This led us to look at our favorite foods elsewhere, which then led to Chipotle. Everybody loves Chipotle. It looks healthy, with fresh, all-natural ingredients.

Bottom-line: a normal burrito with rice, black beans, chicken, corn and tomato salsa, cheese and sour cream — 1279 calories. Cut out the cheese and sour-cream and it’s still 1049 calories. We were all completely surprised. Add a soda to that meal, and it’s worse than most burger-and-fry meals at any chain. (Check your favorite Chipotle creation here).

I’m sure this isn’t news to many people, but I thought I’d share anyways. Typing keeps me awake, even if you just say “meh” to guest writers…

~Andrew