Category: People

Chef is The Veteran‘s cousin and is indeed a chef. He’s an ordinary, down-to-earth kind of guy who is usually the focal point of any room in which he happens to find himself. He is at ease with himself and, as a reult, is at ease with others.

He likes to have a good time and whoever is with him usually has a good time as well. The good things that define his version of good times are friends, food, fermented beverages, and f***ing.

Chef is the brother of Fearful Flyer and happily for everyone involved, applies his culinary expertise to her birthday bash that she holds at a St. Paul Saints game every year.

Fearful Flier is The Veteran‘s cousin and sister to Chef. She is not a librarian though she went to school to become one and as a result, is the first person to turn to when you need to track down an elusive fact or piece of knowledge.

The fact that she has a command of knowledge and knows where to look for the knowledge she does not have, gives her a natural advantage over pretty much everyone.

She started her own business so she could work on her own terms and from home where she can care for her three children. Her husband is an Irish playwright who is as equally imposing in stature as he is understated in conversation.

I first met Fearful Flyer on a project we both worked on and for which we fly to New York. It was on this trip that I discovered that she was afraid of flying. I’d never been on a plane trip with someone who feared flying, so it made a lasting impression on me.

The flight to New York was not so bad for her but the flight back was indeed. While explaining that she uisually didn’t drink, she insisted that we go to the bar before our flight left, which I was perfectly happy to do. We had a few drinks and were on our way.

Fearful Flyer got increasingly anxious as the plane waited to taxi. She was visibly upset as the jet revved its engines, took off down the runway, and took to the air. Once airborne, she calmed down a bit.

Sometime into the flight, however, we ran into turbulence–a thunderstorm–and as lightening struck outside our window the plane was buffeted about, she began to shake and murmur "Oh, my God."

I tried to talk to her and tell her everything would be alright and engage her in conversation to keep her mind off of the storm but really, what could I ultimately do to effectively assuage her fears? Not much. Not much at all.

Needless to say, we arrived safely and I’m sure she still fears flying.

Every year, Feaful Flyer throws herself a birthday bash that is one of the events of the season. She throws it at a Saint Paul Saints game. Everyone arrives early for tailgating that features fantastic food by her brother Chef and beer. Saints games are always entertaining and afterwards we usually end up at The Half Time Rec. So her birthdays are always a full day of food and fun.

Surfer Dude, not surprisingly, is from California. It is not for that reason alone that I call him Surfer Dude: He actually does surf.

He’s also a talented photographer–and videographer–and happily makes his own video highlight reels of his surfing, something I’d love to be able to do for my football games.

I met him at one of The Veteran‘s parties and overheard them talking about playing football. He’s a very talented football player. He’s fast but deceptively so because he’s got a compact build, more of a running back than a wide reciever.

He moved from California where he worked at some Hollywood studios doing animation to Minnesota to set up his own animation shop with Pixel Grrrl. I’ve admitted to them both that I’ve got a serious case of professional envy because I love animation.

From Minnesota he moved to Chicago and from there he moved to Orlando where he now works at one of the leading video game companies.

Surfer Dude smartly uses organized city football leagues as a means of meeting new people in a new city.

But he didn’t have much of a chance to play football shortly after he moved to Orlando because about a week and a half after me moved there the first of four major hurricanes hit Florida; the eyes of two of them passed over Orlando.

One night while he was in Minnesota, we stood for about a half hour outside a bar so he could watch an oncoming violent thunderstorm, a phenomenon he didn’t get much of a chance to see in sunny California.

In Orlando, not only did Surfer Dude get plenty of opportunities to sate his hunger for inclement weather, he also got plenty of practice at hurricane preperation and he got to snap pictures of the resulting damage.

Grover was The Veteran‘s best man. They’ve been buddies since childhood and the stories of thie deeds and misdeeds are seemingly endless.

He got his nickname because, as a kid, he he did a flawless imitation of Grover on the Sesame Street television show.

When I first started hanging with The Veteran, he said that I had to meet Grover because we had a lot in common and have the same sense of humor. We do.

Like Grover, I’m amused by the unexpected and the inappropriate. When I’m listening to a formal speech by, say, a politician, I often make up alternate and inappropriate speeches for him that end with his audience stunned into silence. Like Grover, I’m a news addict. I must know what’s going on in the world (though, I admit, I’ve lost a great deal of interest since Bush was reelected) and constantly have cable news as a informational wallpaper.

He’s opinionated and not afraid to express his views. Grover and I love a knock-down, drag-out political discussion.

Grover is loyal almost to a fault, a trait I admire a great deal because I value loyalty a great deal. He’s also an extremely generous person.

Grover and I are both former smokers. He’s an IT administrator and, like me, he likes all the coolest and latest tech toys.

Grover is married to Artisan and they have a baby daughter.