Bark at the Park
Baxter made his pro baseball debut Wednesday night at the Round Rock Express “Bark in the Park” night. When I saw this game on the schedule I immediately signed us up. As you remember, we went to an Express game a couple weeks ago against the Rangers, and it was total mayhem, but on this random April Wednesday night, it was as pleasant of an experience as could be. The stadium was mostly empty, traffic was light, and we got a chance to get out of the house for the night without worrying about Baxter destroying our valuables. He barked a lot and played with many other dogs and everyone commented on how good of a dog he was. Round Rock lost to Omaha, 4-0, but we barely noticed the game with all the commotion.
Kitchen Failures
The kitchen and I had our share of differences this week… all while standing within one square foot, actually. Sunday, I somehow stuffed too much food down the garbage disposal and it totally quit, causing me to put in a maintenance request. Monday, I was home over breaking letting the dog out and Lauren gave me simple instructions for dinner: take the pot out of the fridge, set it in the crockpot, plug it in and turn it on high. I forgot one of the steps… plugging it in. Well, “forget” isn’t quite accurate, in fact I double-checked that there was a cord going from the crockpot to the wall, but it turned out it was the blender cord and dinner was more or less ruined… which brings me to Tuesday morning. Lauren has been on a healthy breakfast smoothie kick lately, mixing kale, bananas, peaches, yogurt, and ice together for a frothy treat, and I volunteered to make some for the two of us while she showered. Unfortunately, the damn blender wouldn’t work for me and every time I pushed the Puree button all the ingredients would just blow up against the sides and the blade would just be spinning air. I would pack it back down in and start it up again and the same thing would happen. Lauren emerged from the bedroom to me red in the face with rage, screaming profanities at the blender, putting her in a bad mood due to my early morning anger. Then today before leaving for work, being the good helper I am, decided to start the dishwasher on the way out the door. And as luck would have it, I used regular dishwashing liquid causing bubbles to foam out all over the floor, leaving Lauren, who was already running late for work, behind to clean it up on her way out. For my next act, I plan to microwave tinfoil, leave several burners going, and leave Baxter in the freezer all day.
Going to a Meat Loaf Concert!
A co-worker noticed my autographed Meat Loaf 8×10 photo being proudly displayed in my office the other day, prompting him to alert me that he’d heard Meat Loaf was going to be performing in Austin at ACL Live. Naturally, I dropped everything and waited online for tickets to go on sale, then promptly purchased three fourth row floor tickets for me, Lauren, and Baxter to see him on June 22. You don’t understand, there really wasn’t a price for those tickets that would have caused me to think twice about purchasing them without another second of thought. While I’m not as into his recent work, everything he ever did in collaboration with Jim Steinman is pure gold. The Bat Out of Hell albums are still some of my favorites of all-time. Even the third, by-far least popular third Bat album from 2006 had some great songs. I saw Meat Loaf in Prior Lake, MN in 2003, also in the fourth row, and left with goosebumps. I’m pretty, pretty, pretty excited.
Catching Up with the Meyers
Last Saturday, Lauren and I headed an hour south of town to the amusing tourist city of Gruene to meet up for brunch with longtime Willow Lake teachers Mr. and Mrs. Meyer, who live down in this area during the winter in retirement. Not only did I have Mrs. Meyer for PE from kindergarten through fourth grade, but I also had her again in seventh grade for Home Ec and then senior year for Family & Consumer Science. Mr. Meyer, on the other hand, I had for science and technology classes every year from seventh grade through senior year. Not only that, but my brother and sister had them their whole school careers, as did both mom and dad! To say the Meyers are well-acquainted with the Glanzers would be a bit of an understatement, although they are most familiar with all of us during our likely awkward high school days.
Anyway, Mr. Meyer reached out to me now that we live in Austin and we agreed to meet up. It was supposed to have happened a few months ago, but the weekend we were planning to see them, Lauren got hired at Whole Foods, which struck Mr. Meyer as being absurdly coincidental given that their niece works on Lauren’s team. What in the world are the odds that Lauren, a newbie to Austin, would have any sort of connection with someone in a tiny office of 25 people, let alone be able to recognize and make that connection? We came to the conclusion that the odds were not good. But anyway, the Meyers are good and it was great to see them, and they treated us to a delicious meal.
All Aboard the PGA Truck!
Lastly, the Callaway Tour Truck made its first ever appearance at our Austin office today, and I climbed aboard for a tour. Not being as diehard of a golfer as some of my co-workers, I only found it to be mildly entertaining, but the one cool thing I noticed was this cubbyhole that the Callaway pros use when on Tour. And notice the bottom right is that of none other than Lefty himself, three-time Masters champion Phil Mickelson. Those are his trademark KPMG visors he will be wearing at an upcoming event. So that part I found interesting.
Ryan Glanzer Blog 
the rant about the kitchen was funny
I, too, enjoyed the mayhem in the kitchen. Maybe I’m to blame for not making you do more cooking as a child. And, I must say, the Meyer’s never seem to age. I’ll bet people from large schools can hardly believe that you had the same teacher for multiple classes, or that your parents had the same teachers way back when. Good old small town schools, you can’t beat ’em!
Buy some of the little dishwasher tablets, then you won’t mix them up.
I read your rants often and i think the piece about the kitchen is your finest work, i would guess you wrote the kitchen tirade and the Meat Loaf ticket buying incident back to back because they are both passionate and well written. i am not bull shitting this post is some of your finest work.
First, you need to buy a ticket for Baxter? And furthermore, you intend to take Baxter? Won’t he freak out and run around/away?
Second, with the dishwasher thing, I mentioned doing the same thing on facebook back in December, you responded with ‘Hmm… So I laughed at you for this status the other day, then today I ended up doing the same thing at Lauren’s sister’s house.’ and now you’ve done it again? Really Glanzer?
I lied about Baxter’s ticket.
Is this an outdoor concert? Beagles are welcome but require tickets?
I lied, Baxter does not have a ticket.
I feel like you’re embarrassed now about having bought him a ticket and are now lying about not having done so.
I never really had the Meyer’s much. I had Mrs. Meyer for PE in grade school and one year in seventh grade for FACS when it was a madatory class. I only had Mr. Meyer for 8th grade Algebra. They were on there way out by the time I would have had much to do with them.