Addiction, Inc.

They say that getting tattoos is like killing hookers in the basement. You tell yourself you can stop any time you want, but then Sarah Palin doodles on a restaurant placemat with her crayons and gets a billion-dollar book deal while you toil away as a middle-management writer who actually knows how to operate a pen and then Carrie Prejean tells you it’s un-Christian for you to get married while she spanks her vajesus on camera for boys she barely even knows (which there technically isn't a commandment against but then she lies about it, which there is) and the cosmic inequality of it all makes your head spin and one day you look down and holy shit there’s another dead hooker in your basement. Or another tattoo on your arm.

I don’t have a basement, so you get one guess (unless you’re Sarah Palin or Carrie Prejean, in which case you get 74) as to which of the above two scenarios happened to me.

Here’s a hint, for those of you still looking for your rogue-colored crayon or the integrity you think somehow may have gotten lodged up near your cervix (which is not, for the record, a Latin way to say crucifix or a lens setting on your video camera):

This new tattoo—my sixth, which equals one for each marathon I’ve run … and is still two fewer than the Carrie Prejean sex tapes that we know about—was a bit of a well-planned impulse purchase.

I knew what I wanted:
• A Celtic knot whose structure and symmetry would offset the tribal abstraction snaking down the back of my other shoulder and arm
• A big round shape that would cover my entire deltoid for dramatic effect … and continue motivating me to get as pointlessly big as possible at the gym since people would be noticing my fancy shoulders (well, at least my one fancy shoulder) more
• A dangling element that would peek coquettishly out of my shirtsleeve
• Enough wrapping action that it could be seen when I greet people head-on:

Unfortunately, in my little live-and-die-by-the-calendar mindset, I’d also convinced myself I’d walk into a tattoo parlor on my self-imposed get-a-tattoo day, describe what I wanted and get it seared into my flesh on the spot. Which is exactly what happened … except the tattoo didn’t turn out as I’d kinda been picturing it. (Emphasis on kinda, which really didn’t give any tattoo a fighting chance to be what I wanted, right?) And so for the first week I had it I really didn’t like it. Especially because it kinda (there’s that word again) looked like a baroque apostrophe. Or a dialogue balloon from a Gallic cartoon.

But! The darn thing has generated endless praise from friends and strangers alike. It peeks out of my shirtsleeve just the way I wanted. It seems to make my shoulder look thick and round and manly (and fancy!). And the more I see it, the more I’ve started to really dig it for its nontraditionalness. And the fact that the whole apostrophe/dialogue balloon imagery has a quirky relevance for a professional writer … especially one who actually knows how to use a pen. Plus, it’s done. And even though I kept the receipt I’m pretty sure I can’t return it.

Of course, there are still hookers out there (Hi, Carrie!) so I know I'm still gonna want more tattoos. But I may limit myself to one per marathon from this point forward. (Emphasis on may. Even though I was born in April. And I tend to run marathons in the fall.) And next time I will definitely spend more time working with a tattoo artist getting exactly (more or less) what's in my head on paper before I start enshrining half-baked ideas on my body in ink and blood and fancy punctuation marks.

I am totally winning the race to Christmas!

The living room tree is up! And it turned out relatively even! Just like last year!

The dining room tree is up too! And this year's assembly phase was a lot more successful than last year's toilet brush / sparkle factory mishap. Because I assembled the branches in the right order this year. Just like a big boy! But the tree somehow still looks kind of ... squatty. But it's done and I'm way too old to start over and somehow make it less squatty because at 41 you never know when you're gonna keel over as dead as the three strings of lights I had to throw away this year. Good thing I had three packages of backup lights in my Big Box of Way Too Much Christmas Crap. Which means I get to do stock-up shopping during the Christmas Crap Clearance Sales! And that is totally worth having a tree that looks like a gay fire hydrant.

This is gonna hurt

My personal trainer has started his own blog. To his everlasting credit, he asked me—the keeper of all empirical truth and the best and most humble blogger in the entire known universe—for a few pointers. And he listened to my most important recommendation, the one I never listen to myself: Keep it short.

His blog is still pretty new, but he seems to update it frequently. And he packs his entries with thoughtful, useful, short workouts and nutrition recommendations. And I can personally vouch for most of the workouts because he inflicts them on me before he releases them to the general public.

So in the spirit of spreading the gospel of good workouts, I send you to Hank’s blog: H4 Training. And if you follow his tips and suddenly find yourself getting crazy wicked hot, please send pictures.

Comcast responds

Via email:
Thank you for contacting … Comcast. … I can understand your frustration with the incomplete installation of your two DVS's. I would be happy to look into this situation for you and help you to resolve the problem. Could you kindly reply to this email with your full service address and account number? … I appreciate you providing us with the opportunity to assist you. Thank you for contacting Comcast. We appreciate your business.

Via blog comments:
Jake, Thanks for sharing your blog and I sincerely apologize for the unacceptable experience. It was a simple task to do, but unfortunately we have failed completing it. If you don’t mind, will you please let me now the phone number associated with the account? This will help gather more information about your experience. Best regards, Comcast Customer Connect National Customer Operations

Via phone:
[I didn’t make a transcript, but I got a call with more of the above apologies and promises to help.]

We have had some extremely frustrating experiences with Comcast—especially with our Internet service—but their employees have always been courteous and helpful, and they’ve always (eventually) resolved our problems. It’s still a little appalling that there have been so many problems in the first place, but I wanted to state for the record that Comcast is making an admirable effort at customer service.

In fact, I told them three times that they didn’t need to contact me about this issue because I don’t like to make a fuss and in the big scheme of things some simple cable-connection corrections were no problem for me. I just wanted to let them know that their installers didn’t know what they were doing.

And guess what? The woman I just talked to on the phone credited the installation (or, technically, non-installation) fee back to us. Which seems completely fair. I hadn’t even realized they charged us $60 to come out and plug some wires into some holes.

So thank you, Comcast, for taking the trouble to correct your errors. I’m sure your Internet search-bots will find this post, so I won’t email it to you. Besides, it probably does more for your company out here on my blog.

Not winning means you're NOT a winner

Dear Comcast,

You guys came out and installed two DVRs in our house a couple weeks ago. Your technicians not only installed them wrong—crossing the RCA cables for BOTH DVRs so our speakers buzzed like motorcycles—but they also completely disconnected our DVD players. Plus, doing all that shoddy work took them over half a day.

I wasn't there when they did their "work," but I'm smart enough to figure out how to connect a DVD player and match colors on RCA cable plugs so I've fixed everything.

Inept cable installers aren't the end of the world. But for the prices you charge I'd expect a little more competence from your employees. And despite my snarkiness here, I'm not filing a complaint or asking for an apology. But I thought you'd like to know how your employees are representing your company and your product.

Jake

ChicagoRound: The John Hancock Center

Chicago’s most recognizable skyscraper, with its delicate tapering and its iconic X-bracing, is only the city’s fourth tallest building.

Erected between 1965 and 1970, the Hancock Center actually sits on landfill from Chicago’s great 1871 fire. As legend has it, a mountebank named George Wellington "Cap" Streeter ran his steamboat aground on a sandbar 450 feet off Chicago’s north shore in 1886, convinced post-fire contractors to dump debris between the shore and his boat, and over the decades sold deeds and collected taxes on the growing mass of landfill he called the United States District of Lake Michigan.

The area is today called Streeterville, and the Hancock Center reportedly occupies the spot where Cap Streeter’s boat stood for over a decade.

100 stories tall, the Hancock Center houses stores, restaurants and about 700 condominiums. That swirly structure behind the building in this awesome satellite photo is the ramp to the parking garage, which sits on floors 4–12.

And this February, I’ll be racing up the stairs to the 94th floor once again in Hustle up the Hancock. It’s a fundraiser for the Respiratory Health Association of Metropolitan Chicago (formerly the American Lung Association), which works to fight lung diseases including cancer, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and the medical consequences of smoking and pollution.

The top Hustle up the Hancock time is 9:38, roughly half the time it takes me to climb. But it takes you less than a minute to sponsor me just by clicking this link. It's easy!