Responsibly Wild Blog

Three-year-old Pat repping the Cubs (and some awesome war wounds from my attempts to ride my tricycle through a brick wall). For the entirety of my 34-years on this Earth I have been a Cubs fan. Born in Chicago, descended from at least one die-hard Cubs fan, my Grandmother Constance Catanzaro (and one White Sox fan, Joseph Catanzaro), I have always loved the Chicago Cubs. One of my oldest Chicago memories is going to Wrigley Field with my Grandma, my Mom, and at least one of my aunts (maybe others) and sitting in the stands enjoying one of those frozen chocolate malts you eat with a wooden stick. Now there is a picture of a five year-old Pat wearing his Grandpa's Chicago White Sox cap, and I did root for them in 2005, but such is to be expected in a divided family tree. I'll be the first to admit I'm not a baseball obsessed sports fan. Basketball is my number one (Hard not to be with MJ and the Bulls dominating your youth), But the Cubs have always been my baseball...

My favorite meme and a metaphor for my life. I am a heavy guy. Not someone who "struggles with my weight," and battles that emotional baggage every day kind of heavy. I am just a dude whose natural eating tendency's result in excess weight. Occasionally I'm lazy, occasionally I have to set aside certain exercise for health reasons, but excuses aside at the moment I am a heavy dude. But that is not my natural state, at least that is what I discovered late in college. A dozen years ago I discovered how much I love running. Not only running but just cardio exercise like activities in general. Put a set of weights in front of me and you're pretty much returning me to high school math class, but if my bones could handle it I would run all day.  When I single in my super semester of college I ran every day, and eventually I got up to ten miles a day. The best part about it was I could maintain my far from perfect diet and still lose weight because I was g...

I love vacation. I love vacation so much, I get sad when other people go on vacation, because I'm not going on that trip. It doesn't matter if we're talking friends, acquaintances, frenemies, or my arch-nemesis (of which I don't have one); if you're going on a trip I want to be on that trip. So guess how excited I get when I actually am about to set off on a trip. Roughly 24 hours from now Marieta and I will be landing in Boston for our tour of New England. For a little insight into how we plan our trips, Marieta and I research several points of interest along our travels and build a Google Map of everything. For this trip our map has roughly 100 travel stops; some are Marieta's, some are mine, and we when touch down back in Des Moines we will not have hit close to half of them. But making these maps is a great way to build trip anticipation. For roughly six weeks we've been adding to this puppy, with Boston getting the least attention (due t...

In season two of  Game of Thrones  there is a very formative battle to the entire plot of the show, " The Battle of the Blackwater ." The capitol of Westeros is invaded by a would-be king and his army. There's plenty more to describe the situation and the players, but truth be told none that matters. In fact, it so doesn't matter that one of the b-level reoccurring characters gives up the ghost of importance to the whole story mid-battle. Sandor Clegane , better known as " The Hound ," is a member of the Kings guard and one of the most decorated, respected warriors in the show. He's relatively fearless and few could best him in combat. The Battle of the Blackwater may be the first time we see him in true combat and for fans of gory action, the battle does not disappoint. At one point The Hound is so in the zone he slices a man in half (I'd share a gif, but I've evolved beyond reveling in these things). The strange thing is this should be ...