I just realized it’s been a while since Jerry last wrote for his “dad bod” series (which was on Tuesdays). He said unless he makes progress worth writing about, he’ll just do a “deep thoughts” post or something like that. This morning, he mentioned possibly training for and running the Detroit Half-Marathon this fall.

We did it together in 2015 and we had so much fun! I kind of wish I had the desire to do it again, but I’m not going to pretend that I have the discipline right now to do the training. Anyway, I only mentioned that because if he does train, maybe he’ll write updates about how that’s going. Today, he answered some ice breaker questions (he loves answering these)…

Did you have a stuffed animal as a kid? What was its name?

Who didn’t?! He was a beaver and his name was Bucky. I was probably about five years old and went everywhere with him. He was my “bestest friend”. My dad was in the military and part of the job was moving locations once in a while. We started off in Marquette, Michigan for four years, then moved to Sacramento for four years, then back to Marquette.

On our first move, we were heading out to California and it took us a couple of days. Motel 6 was apparently our lodging of choice, probably because they “always leave the light on for you”.  Anyways, my parents had gotten up early to drive another day across the country and put me in the car while I was still asleep. When I woke up I was without my friend and I was so upset.

So, my dad turned the car around to go back and get him. Usually he only threatened to turn the car around when I was being a little jerk, this time he just did it because he cared. I don’t have Bucky any more but I wish I did. With that said, my nephew’s first birthday is this weekend and I bought him a stuffed beaver so he can enjoy making some memories of his own.

What is one thing you can’t cook?

Katie tells me it’s pasta. I couldn’t agree more. I under-salt the water and I cook it for way too long. I have a tendency to be cooking something else with it at the same time, trying to get everything else prepared for the meal, when the timer goes off. Instead of removing the pasta from the heat and draining it, I do one of two things: turn off the timer and forget about it for a couple more minutes or turn off the burner and let the pasta just sit in the water until I’m ready to drain it. Both of those equal pasta death.

Katie doesn’t have any pictures of me cooking, but here is a picture of me baking. She leaves the baking to me.

What is your favorite sport?

Baseball has always been and always will be my favorite sport. It’s one of my favorite things about the summer. I can sit and watch games all day long without even thinking about it. Most people say things like ‘it’s so boring’ or ‘I just like going to the park to watch’. I find that a lot of people who I see at the games are just there for the atmosphere or the entertainment of being at a ballpark.

In Detroit, we have Comerica Park which is a really nice field. But, everything surrounding the field is just distracting and totally takes away from the game. Bars everywhere in the park and rides for the kids. Everyone wants to go to a baseball game but they don’t even watch it and do everything they can to avoid it. There… that’s my soapbox moment. LOL

Have you ever met a celebrity?

Ha! I’ll one up this question…  ‘Have you ever been married to a celebrity?’. LOL

I’ve met a few. I went to Star Wars Celebration in Chicago in 2019 and met John Boyega, Oscar Issac, Kathleen Kennedy (President of Lucasfilm), and Cameron Monaghan. I only took selfies with them in passing because they were being swarmed by fans.

The only one that wasn’t surrounded by people was Cameron Monaghan. He just got off stage talking about a character he portrayed in the games Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. He was just walking casually though the area and I just had to take a picture with him. At this time he was also playing Ian Gallagher on Shameless, which was Katie’s favorite show at the time. He was super down to earth and really easy to talk to. Needless to say, she was super jelly and it made her happy. 

Have you ever won a contest?

I’ve won a couple. I won a scooter when I was a kid when my name was pulled in a drawing at a convenience store. Then I won concert tickets by being caller 89 on 89x radio. The last was a trivia contest, which was the best. I won Detroit Tigers tickets for it.

There was a talk radio station that had a show with a duo of guys named Dominski and Doyle. They liked playing the game ‘Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon’. I’m a master of this game, totally love it. The premise is you would name an actor and through movies you would have to link that actor to Kevin Bacon in six moves or less.

So, in this game you would have to give them the name of an actor and if they couldn’t link the actor to Kevin Bacon in six moves, you would win tickets to the game. They would just eviscerate people who tried to stump them and it was funny just listen to their banter. I would play along with them in my head and I decided to call in one day, give it a shot.

Blew them away with Richard Belzer. Richard Belzer was in Scarface with Al Pacino who was in Heat with Robert De Niro who was in Sleepers with Kevin Bacon. I love trivia, anyone who knows me will tell you that.

What show on Netflix did you binge watch embarrassingly fast?

Katie and I recently watched Love is Blind pretty quickly. Oh wait, the embarrassing part is supposed to be how fast we watched it, not the show itself? I’m not invested in the show, but it’s just fun to see the drama unfold and to make fun of the situations on the show. Katie and I get a real kick out of it. Sometimes watching shows like this starts some interesting conversations and lighthearted ‘if I was single’ or ‘when you die I don’t think I want to date’ jokes.

It’s always easier to watch shows after the season or the series is complete. Long gone are the days of truly episodic television with 24 episodes a season and 3-6 months before the start of the new season. Nowadays shows will have 10 episodes and then you have to wait 10 months to start the next season and you’ve completely forgotten everything about the show.

Katie here. If any of you want to try to stump Jerry at the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, he would probably love that! (And he won’t cheat by looking anything up. He’s just really good at that stuff.)