Ho Hum

I've really got nothing to report tonight. Nothing new and exciting going on in my world. As much fun as I had at home, minus the funeral, which is never fun any way you look at it, I was very happy to get "home." I love my friends back home, more than words can ever say, but it was good to come back to my life here in Florida. I told my buddy Brad today, (some of you know him as SMOKEY, even though only I have actually taken a dump beside a house, a la Friday), that I was ready to get back to work.

Ezell: Smokey, you takin' a shit?
Smokey: Shhhhhh! Don't tell nobody!
Ezell: (Screaming for all to hear) HEY! SMOKEY BACK HERE TAKING A SHIT! I ain't gonna tell nobody else.

That whole work thing and Cregan in the same sentence is strange. I've held every job imaginable and have not been completely satisfied in any of them. With this job, it joins independence with fun and rewarding, and I missed it for two days last week when I cam home.

Congratulations are in order: My boy Beef got engaged to a great girl on July 9th in Arizona and bought a house in Virginia and told the crew last night (Saturday). It was exciting for all of us. Congratulations buddy! I'm surprised that I didn't open my big mouth having known about it for more than two weeks. That was tough!!!

Thanks to my friends back home for hosting me and having a blast yet again. Brad and Jess for driving me to the airport today, Luke and Dawn for having us over the other night, Alfred, "Kate and Allie" for hosting me on Thursday night, and the list goes on and on. I love you guys, and will see you again in a couple of weeks.

Nothing funny has hit me in a few days, but as soon as something does, I'll get it on this blog. Until then...

"I'm not some guy named Elmo that your kids watch on the Disney Channel." -Neil Simon's Rumors

First Class...like me...oh wait, that's No Class

Here's a quick one for you people. The other night I'm flying back to New Jersey from Orlando, Florida and of course, I'm delayed. This wasn't any ordinary Cregan delay, this one was delayed for 3+ hours. I didn't have to worry about driving or anything, so I bee-lined it to the airport bar. I had a 23 oz. beer or two, then went down to the gate to see what the update was because they said not to stray too far because "there is a chance we'll leave early." RIGHT, like that happens for a Cregan flight. So I run into this guy that has a US Soccer shirt on. Looks pretty official, so I said, "you an US soccer fan?" (Bill Engvall of Blue Collar Comedy Tour fame would have said, "Heeeere's your sign!") And the conversation started that way, and the guy kept saying, "I hope they just let me know, so I CAN GO BACK TO THE BAR!" What a friend already. He likes USA soccer and wants to go to the bar. This guy is cool. So I go back to the bar, LEV(that's dude's name) goes back to the bar, and we're just shooting the proverbial shit, drinking down some 23oz. The bartender loved me, she was not cute at all, but very cool. They close everything down at that airport at 9, but she straggled a little bit with her cleaning and maybe gave us two more beers than I (should have had) wanted. We're now walking back to the gate to sit and wait now that the bar's closed. Lev says, "I could probably get you first class seats. I'm in first class, and I have stock in this airline, let me see what I can do."

So I'm sitting in first class, drinking my Miller Lite, watching Fever Pitch(I fell asleep because it's about the Red Sux, maybe passed out, I'll leave that up to you,) reading Lindy's Pre-Season College Football magazine that has Clemson ranked 43rd. I've never been in first class before, but apparently every beer is free. That was wonderful, but on my sixth one, the flight attendent came up to me and said, "Sir, that's the last Miller Lite on the plane." I said, "Thank you, I did good!"

So on the way back to Orlando, you know I'm going to be stuck with the crying baby, the young kids kicking the back of my chair and the fat, sweaty dude(other than me) sitting next to me. That's just the way karma works. I enjoyed my first time first class experience. But then again, I'm first class, people, especially in NJ show me that I'm #1 all the time.

"Too much time on your hands..."

The other day, I received a telephone call saying that I had "too much time on my hands," to be able to write/type these nonsensical posts about next to nothing. Well, I would say "au contraire, mon frere, I just make time." This is because if you look at my schedule of life, I may be the most traveling, busiest person out of my group of friends. Now this is not to compare lives, I'm not a competitive guy. I know my buddy Yarbs will claim that he's busier, but he's sleeping right now so he can't argue with me. Dude loves to argue with me, but I love the guy, he's a great friend. But seriously, maybe not the busiest with work, (although I am a traveling, busy guy with work. I've put 30,000 miles on my car since March.) But what I'm saying is that I'm the busiest with life. Here's a breakdown:

7/27-7/31 New Jersey (funeral)
8/5-8/7 Maryland (wedding)
8/12-8/14 New Jersey (engagement party)
8/19-8/21 Boston or Maryland (bachelor party or crabfest)
8/26-8/28 Tampa (hanging with my friends here for the first time in a month)
9/2-9/4 Probably Clemson for opening day
10/7-9/10 New Jersey (wedding)
10/14 St. Pete (wedding)
10/15-10/16 Asheville (wedding) (missing Bucs/Dolphins being played right here)

So that's just the few things that I'm doing the next few weeks. But yeah, I have a lot of time on my hands. (sarcasm) And the way that things come up in my life, there'll probably be more added to that list, or things I forgot. Plus I really want to get up to Savannah to visit the boys up there(and girls and children YIKES!)

That's all I've got for today. Once again, not a whole lot of comedy, but it'll come, I promise.

Uncle Nick

Well, there is some sad news to pass along. I've been trying and hopefully succeeding in my attempt to bring some humor to my writing. I've always loved to write and I try to be funny, so I hope that translates on this crap. But on a serious note, yesterday I lost a member of my family. Nicholas Monticello, my great-uncle passed away from Liver Cancer, which unfortunately and fortunately only leaves two of my grandmother's siblings, Uncle Rocco and Aunt Elia. Last night, wallowing in sorrow I thought to myself, what a great family, what a great group of siblings. It is, like any Italian family, extremely close, and rather impressive, and it sucks that it took someone like my Uncle Nick to die for me to think of that. I absolutely adored my grandmother. She was/is my angel. As weird and cliche as it may sound, I still feel her around when I'm about to do something stupid or protecting me from bad situations, it's a weird aura. She used to call me her lifesaver because I once told her that she should go to the hospital after the fall that she took that eventually led to her death in the hospital. On some grounds, I feel like I was the one that put her in the hospital where she had the heart attack that took her life, and on the other hand, I thank God that she was in the hospital rather than at our home when she died because I'm not sure anyone would have been home to help her. At least in the hospital they were there to try but unsuccesful. I was never sure of the ages of my mom's aunts and uncles, nor did it ever matter. I just could always see and still see the love that they show each other and their extended family. My Aunt Elia is the matriarch of the family. Her love for her family, each and every one of us, is unconditional and great! Without fail, her cards for any sort of accomplishment are in the mail, right on time. She's wonderful that way. A simple phone call to my Aunt Elia brightens her day. My Uncle Rocco may be the best man I've ever met, along with my brother and father. Just a genuine guy, tells it like it is, and also loves his family and loved his big brother more than life itself. I know I'm babbling along during this post, but it is getting a bit dusty in here as I write about the loss of my Uncle Nick. I'm very happy that he's not suffering from that awful disease anymore, but I really wish that shit like this never happens. Everyone entrenched in the church say that this should be a celebration of life instead of a grieving time. I agree on so many levels, but man it really sucks that I will never see my Uncle Nick anymore. He will not meet my niece Kiley, not see his oldest granddaughter graduate high school, not be there when and if my cousin Stephen were to ever get married, see me get married if that ever happens as well. There's just something about an Italian family.

I'm extremely lucky to have known and to have been loved by my Uncle Nick (Si Gumba). I was lucky enough to see him last weekend and my parents and his brothers and family were able to be with him for his final hours. I feel awful for my Aunt and my three cousins, Nicholas, Angela and Stephen, and Uncle Nick's grandkids, Nicole, Jenna and Gina. He was a good man.

Sorry for the downer "blog." It was just something I had to get off my chest and get out there. Maybe some more funny stuff tomorrow, but I can't do it today.

Take Heed Little One

I've always wanted to say "take heed" and never really had the opportunity to. I've noticed in my five days of "blogging" that other people's "blogs" aren't nearly as long as mine and I've now taken into consideration that I am long-winded in writing as well as speaking or telling stories. I always thought that I was, but now seeing the length of my posts, I know it's true. Damn it!

So I receive a call from a member of my family last night saying that I have some obscenities(spelling is way off) in my "BLOG" as well as in my fantasy football league that I am running. I would never mention my sister-in-law Jeanne's name on here because I'd like everything to be anonymous. The message that I received was a bit muffled, most likely due to T-mobile's tremendous service, minus the tremendous part, but the gist was that my language was unacceptable, especially being a new GODFATHER to my adorable niece Kiley(sorry Kiley, I had to mention your name on here because people would ask anyway, but never your mothers name or your father Marc's name either.) I really don't have an answer or explanation to the accuser other than, "I'm from New Jersey, I can't help it!" That's my excuse for a lot of things, especially when it comes to vulgarities. Either that or, "if we were in Jersey, you'd get killed for that," typically coming while playing some sort of card game, i.e. asshole(pardon the vulgarity, but that's the name of the game, I didn't make it up), bullshit(yet again, the name of the game), and Beerpong(not a card game, nor vulgar, but yet a good time nonetheless.)

Here we go again, another three paragraph post on NOTHING! That's what I'm good at. The only thing is, it's taken me about three and a half minutes to type this out, which is probably the answer to "Why did (football player roommate) pay you in pizza or $10 (whichever I needed more) to type his papers for him in college?" Because I have a great capability to type fast and BS(there you go, an abbreviation) my way through a paper or "blog" in this case.

Nothing really exciting going on other than that in my world. Hulk Hogan is back in the WWE, I just heard that. That's big news where I am because he is known as "Pinellas County Royalty." It seems that everything that Hogan aka Terry Bollea does around these parts is well documented. And now he's even got that show on VH-1, Hogan Knows Best, which is pretty humorous if you've had the chance to watch it.

Get ready for Laguna Beach: The Real OC Season two premiering tonight. I haven't been this excited for a tv show since the CHiPs reunion show. I'm not sure if there ever was a CHiP's reunion show or not, but man I'd be excited to see that if there was.

Hey! Carl! Good to see you! -Billy Madison

I Hate That...

"Put mustard on that shit, eat that shit..." -Anonymous

I like leading off these things with a dumb quote or a musical line that was in my head. That's where the O.A.R. line came from in the last post, but I think it was appropriate for that post, which was done while I was extremely tired and slightly buzzed.

The title of this post, I Hate That, is how I feel after a weekend where there isn't a night that I have people calling me the next day and telling me how drunk I was and what I said to them, etc. It's usually after about 7 Red Bull and Vodka's and a few beers. For some reason, the RBV(I made that abbr. up. How cool is that?) makes me black out, and as long as I am in the comfort of my own home and with my dear friend Mr. CellPhone, then that's when the stories get going. For some reason, I have the tremendous ability to call people, even my parents, BOMBED!!! Why is that? What does that? Is it the fact that I miss all of my friends so much that I want to share with them that I haven't changed and I am still getting drunk at 28. Maybe it's the fact that I love my friends and family, that I want to share the happy drunkeness with them, even though they're not with me. I'm not really sure.

So yesterday, after not really "getting after it" on Friday night, I thought last night would be the night. It's like trying to prepare to hook-up with a girl, there's no real rhyme or reason why it happens, you just can't prepare for it. Either it happens or it doesn't, no real middle ground. So last night, my boy from Furman calls me up looking for something to do, and that is usually the proper ingredient for trouble, aka Cregan-black-out. He's with his girlfriend, who is wonderful, and wanting to do something. I really wanted to see "Wedding Crashers" to get me started and then get on the road to "blacker nights" (i made that one up too, don't know how much I like it, but I'll leave that for you to decide.) 6:20 movie in North Tampa with my boy from Furman, his girlfriend and the two girls mentioned in the previous post. (On a side note, the movie was absolutely hilarious. If it was an hour and forty-five minutes, I lauged for an hour and forty minutes straight, brilliant dialogue, and the ending is sweet and good for a date.)

Movie's over and my buddies girlfriend says, let's go get some food and beers at Leroy Selmon's a restaurant named after the first good player in Tampa Bay Bucs history. Good food, with a southern feel to it, and good, tall, cold beers, with a drunk feel to it. The two girls mentioned earlier decide that they don't want to go out, which is fine, because me and my buddy usually get after it by ourselves and end up at Taco Bell at 5 in the morning amongst other adult establishments that I won't name on this family-intended "BLOG." We get to the place and order some beers and some apps, and you know that feeling where it's just not working for you. The beer, although tasty, is just not going down right. It's like drinking rubber mixed with staples(don't know where that came from.) It just wasn't happening and then the food was there, and I chowed it down, and three beers later, I was yawning, ready to hit my bed. Long story short, it was 11:30 and I was seriously contemplating going to bed. Thinking about how great a good nights sleep was going to feel.

I was feeling it all day, wanting to have a few more than 20 beers and have good people to hang out with, and it turned into three beers, and home by 11:30 to be in bed, dead asleep by 12:30. What's happened to me. Whatever it is, I don't like it! I HATE THAT!!!

Devil Rays and Broads

"Here we are once again..." - O.A.R.

I'm hooked on this thing. I want everyone to know what I did and where I've been being that I'm 1200 miles away from my closest friends and family. I went to see the Devil Rays vs. the Baltimore Orioles tonight at Beautiful Tropicana Field(I made that "beautiful" part up.) with about 10 other Clemson University Alumni. It was good times. There is this bar, literally across the street from the stadium called Fergs. Fergs is good times. Not much else really to say about it other than it had, arguably the best wings I've ever eaten. ARGUABLY! But I don't like to argue, ask Kelly VanderVeen! haha!

At the stadium, I thought it would be a GREAT idea to drink as many $8 beers as humanly possible. I had 5, which in 7 innings is pretty respectable. The beers were 23 oz. apiece. (I'd argue that they were 32, but I'm dyxlexic(sic)) Either way, five of them is 115 ounces, or almost 10 beers out of the bottle or can. After I threw my arm out at one of those crazy speed-gun games (I threw it a heated 52 mph), and the Rays beat the O's, we went back to Fergs for more antics. Well, everyone kind of scattered away, some to the bathroom, others who knows where, so I got ansy and did a self-check and said, I feel great, I'm going to meet up with some other group of friends at McDintons(a popular Irish joint in South Tampa, I live way West.) Well it turns out that I run into these three dudes who swear I play for the Bucaneers, the local NFL football team here in town. After saying to me, "I'm not gay, you can stay at my place, do not drive back to Palm Harbor" about seven or eightTEEN times, I left.

I did see and talk to my girl, the one that I'm stalking...er...talking too. She's really cute and you guys would all be proud of me, but I don't know what's going on. I'll have to figure it out someday I guess, but right now, the chase is fun. So I didn't get to smooch her tonight, but I may have made her jealous by smooching half-lip, half-cheek, more-lip-than-cheek best friend, which I thought was a brilliant move on her part. BRILLIANT!!! But anywho, I'm sitting at my computer, typing a "blog" because I'm hooked! and it's 1:15am.

"O Captain, my captain" -Dead Poets Society

WHEW!!!

After all that ranting and raving about my car being dead, IT'S JUST THE BATTERY!!! WOOO HOOO!!! I love my car. It's like Timex, takes a licking and keeps on ticking! I'm still going to drink now!

Did you ever just not have it one day and could not wait for it to be over. That's me today. I recently(March) started a new job with this amazing company called Follett Educational Services here, serving the Gulf Coast of Florida based out of my home office in Palm Harbor, FL. The gist of the job is that I drive around my territory looking to purchase used and surplus textbooks from K-12 schools with the ultimate goal of refurbishing them and getting them back into students hands around the company. It's a lot like selling back your books in college for beer money, WHICH (for those who know me) I NEVER DID! haha. We're the people that say that we'll give you $3 for that book that you bought for $106 (damn you Chemistry!). The reasoning behind why you're getting half a pitcher of beer at Tiger Town Tavern for that $106 book is because most likely, the book is not being used anymore, therefore virtually worthless. That's the professors fault, not the nice man behind the cash-register handing out money. (What a diatribe! Another shocker, if you know me)

So today, I'm in Hillsborough County (Tampa) going to my second of three appointments of the day, and I'm at FedEx dropping off some afore mentioned books that I had bought, when my car just up and dies. DIES!!! No crank, nothing, just dead in the parking lot of FedEx. Another point for people who know me, know I have a knack of ruining...er...running cars into the ground. A la 1991 Volkswagon Jetta with 235,000 miles on it that clicked and popped everytime I made a turn, or the 1998 Mitsubishi Gallant that blew up on me on I-80 going to Green Township(wherever that is.) So, I get the thing towed to Jeep to get fixed and I'm currently waiting on the damage. According to Joe Service Guy at Jeep it's just a "minor" part that will "only cost a couple hundred bucks." Those who know about my financial woes, know that "a couple hundred bucks" will ruin me for weeks. Especially with weddings coming up and trips to Maryland, New Jersey, Boston, Miami, Philadelphia, and Asheville, North Carolina coming up in the next MONTH!!! (and with college football starting soon, you know I'll be in Clemson a few times as well)

On the good note though, I went to Enterprise Rent-A-Car(insert plug here), and they offered me a Hundai Elantra, whatever that is, but it turns out that some other customer had been waiting on that car for a half-hour, so then Ryan (my Enterprise worker) goes above and beyond and said that he'll upgrade me to a Chevy Blazer, and yet again, it has been saved for another customer, apparently I'm not good enough for these cars. But then, Ryan goes in one more time and drives around the corner in a Chrysler Seabring CONVERTABLE!!! So that's what I'll be tooling around in (emphasis on tooling) for the weekend, yet I'm too much of a wimp to put the top down.

That's all for now. I thank Brad for doing this before me, it's a good outlet for frustration and stories and God knows I have some stories, which will be post on here very soon. Hopefully, I'll have a new one for you tomorrow as I am heading out with some BROADS tonight! Wish me luck! I need it, all of my friends have significant others, and I would like my sons to date Brad's daughters someday. HAHA!!!

O'Doyle Rules!