Found in My Basement: College Papers and Tax Returns

It's been several years since we did a thorough cleaning of boxes. With the older two boys away at camp, we decided to dig into some boxes which have been sitting in our storage closet for years. The best find was a gift card for $100 that we received when Pedro Tulo was born in 2014, and although the expiration date on the card expired, the funds did not, so I called the company and received a brand new card in the mail. We donated toys that my kids have outgrown and have seen better days but may still be useful for preschool-aged kids. We threw away and recycled a lot of stuff. 

As you can tell from the title of this post, I found many folders filled with college papers and tax returns. While I'm not sure how long you're supposed to keep tax returns (it seems like the answer is only 3 years), I have some dating back to my childhood. Why do I have tax returns from when I was only 10? It's not like I was working at Hills or Kmart. Anyway, all tax returns from the 20th century and the 2000s are now gone. Fun fact: I made $1,877 working as a soccer referee in 2005 or 2006. That was definitely before kids when I had a lot more time and was physically able to work multiple games on both days of a weekend. I haven't come close to making this amount in a year since then. I also found this W-2 tax statement proving that I worked at Blockbuster.

On to the college papers. Did you ever want my thoughts on Secretary of State Warren Christopher from a 1997 paper? How about a 1995 paper titled "The Unification of Germany and Its Economic Consequences?" I was quite generous with the margins and font size of this paper about NAFTA. Really needed to make sure I had enough pages!

Just one more item to share. While I wrote about being a summer intern for Congressman Mike Doyle, here is a letter of recommendation from him. Can I still use this or is there an expiration date?

Bret Michaels' Concert Uniform

There are many jobs where you have to wear a uniform. Professional athletes in team sports wear jerseys with their team name on them. Many restaurants require employees to wear uniforms or hats with the restaurant logo. I remember working at Blockbuster* and wearing the dashing navy shirts with gold trim and store logo. This brings me to Poison lead singer, fellow Pittsburgh Steelers fan, and Rock of Love star Bret Michaels. (Man, I miss Rock of Love.) Poison recently played at PNC Park in Pittsburgh with Motley Crue, Def Leppard, and Joan Jett & the Blackhearts. I saw this picture of Michaels with a Terrible Towel and thought it would make a perfect addition to my Celebrities in Pittsburgh gear series. 

Then, I noticed that Michaels was wearing a Poison T-shirt. This seemed odd to me. I don't ever recall seeing a musician wearing a shirt of the band they are in or of himself/herself. It turns out that Michaels is wearing Poison shirts throughout the tour.

Minneapolis:

Marysville, Ohio:

Buffalo:

Toronto:

Bethlehem:

Boston:

Council Bluffs, Iowa:

Denver:

I think you get the point. So now I'm wondering if Bret is constantly doing laundry and wearing the same shirt each show or if he's just grabbing various Poison shirts from the merchandise stand at each tour stop.

* If you're under 25, you may have only heard of Blockbuster, a chain where you could rent movies on something called VHS tapes and DVDs. You would enter the store, walk around aisles to select your movie, pay approximately $5 per film, and then you had to return it by noon the day after you rented it. (If you rented a movie on Friday night, you had to return the film by noon on Sunday.) I'm convinced Blockbuster made much of their profits through late fees. Oh, here is one of my Blockbuster shirts:

Photos by Morgan of Live Nation, Tammy Vega, and others all on Bret Michaels' Twitter page.

The Perfect Crime

I'm not a thief, but I'm going to play one today on the Internet. Recently, a man dressed in a Walmart uniform to steal from the store. Here's the story:

Authorities are searching for a man who may be stealing from Walmart stores by wearing an employee vest and who, on one recent occasion, used a ruse to get a cashier to walk away from their logged-in register, Fairfax County police said Thursday.

Police said the unidentified man walked up to a cashier at the Fair Lakes Shopping Center store around 4 p.m. on Dec. 15. He told the cashier that he was needed in the office and, after the cashier left without logging out of the register, proceeded to check out a customer before taking an undisclosed amount of cash.

This (and thinking about watching Ocean's Eleven) has inspired me to pull off my own heist. Look out, world. Prepare for the Blockbuster Bandit!

Random Thoughts

Let’s start with a quick, quick recap of yesterday’s Pittsburgh Steelers-Tennessee Titans game. The Steelers defense was amazing forcing seven turnovers with four sacks. Plus, Titans running back Chris Johnson, who has had twelve consecutive 100-yard games, was held to only 34 rushing yards. Meanwhile the Steelers offense still has some work to do. The team is not going to win very often with 43 passing yards and going 2 for 15 in third-down conversions.

When I worked at Blockbuster, we had an automatic VHS tape rewinder to rewind all of the VHS tapes that hooligans failed to rewind. While at Yom Kippur services this weekend, it is easy to notice that the Torah is clearly coming to the end. I wonder if some company could make automatic Torah rewinders to take the Torah back to Genesis.

Congratulations to the Ithaca College football team for defeating Widener University 31-7. The Bombers are now 3-0 on the season.

Ithaca’s primary rival is the SUNY-Cortland Red Dragons. Because of this, I always choose to buy red delicious apples instead of Cortland apples.

Was it me or did it seem like a lot of players lost helmets or shoes during the course of Sunday’s Steelers-Titans game?

I listened to part of the Washington Redskins radio broadcast while returning from the grocery store. After Kevin Walter made a catch in overtime, either Washington broadcaster Sonny Jurgensen or Sam Huff stated that they hadn’t called Walter’s name during the game. After a long pause, play-by-play announcer Larry Michael stated that the catch was Walter’s ninth of the game.

Mark your calendars. The University of Pittsburgh men’s basketball team visits Georgetown at the Verizon Center on Wednesday, January 12th.

I had the opportunity to watch the premiere episode of tonight’s How I Met Your Mother before the show airs. This season picks up from where last season ends including another guest appearance by Rachel Bilson. Bilson may now be one of my top five actresses based solely on one of the closing scenes.

Although I didn’t notice him in the episode, JQ doppelganger Aaron Takahashi is listed on my “TV critic” information page as a guest cast member.

If I get to 100 Twitter followers, I’ll create a new TMI Thursday post. I’m currently at 96.


Finally, I can’t get enough of this video of Vince Young getting slammed to the ground by James Harrison, Aaron Smith and Brett Kiesel. I’m glad that Young is okay because I thought he may have been seriously hurt by the trio of Steelers defenders.

Netflix Questions

In another attempt to join the 21st century, we are thinking about subscribing to Netflix. According to the Netflix website, the service is greatest thing since sliced bread. (Actually, the website proclaims Netflix as "The BEST Way To Rent Movies.") So today’s questions are all about Netflix. If you have/had Netflix, is it worth it? What type of plan do you have? Is Blockbuster better than Netflix? Please feel free to leave your thoughts and opinions in the comments section.

Thank you!