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 ...

WARNING! This is about to get downright nerdy. During a recent Star Trek debate a horrifying thought came over me; do missed phaser shots from starships travel through space until they hit something ? i.e. say the Enterprise gets in a firefight with a Romulan Bird of Prey and they firing wildly at each other while sailing around in space, many phaser shots miss and seemingly soar out into space... forever. How dangerous are those missed shots? Obviously I'm not a physicist, and I do know lightwaves dissipate the farther they travel, but in a close, hornet's nest shootout missed phaser canon shots can quickly turn into friendly fire. Also, many of these shootouts occur in the vacuum of space, not inside a planet's atmosphere. For recent illustration of this quandary, look no further than the Star Wars: Episode VII teaser trailer above. Around the one minute mark the millennium falcon is being shot haphazardly by two tie fighters. None of the tie fighter shots...

The American people are blind. We're blind to the real interests of our elected officials. We're blind to the political process that empowers them to protect those interests from public scrutiny. We're blind to the mountains of corporate and special interest dollars that have polluted our government. What's worse, we don't even care. Two months ago we saw the conclusion to an ugly, contentious, and disheartening election where the popular narrative contends Americans voted for fiscal conservancy, transparency, and change to an obstructive federal government. Congress is supposedly half-full of socialist liberals who force the electorate to accept progressive values they aren't comfortable with and a healthcare law that picks the pocket of every family and retiree in nation. To that logic and flag-waving nonsense I say one thing; Cromnibus. The U.S. congress just force fed the American taxpayer the most disgusting, destructive law-masked-as-an-appropriation-b...

For the last seven years How I Met Your Mother was one of the few TV shows in my life that was appointment viewing. Every Monday from the first night I discovered the show I tuned in. For five seasons I was blissfully on board with every Barney catchphrase, every Mosby dumb romantic gesture, and every other shenanigan that made the show so unique. Then season six hit the airwaves, and slowly but surely all my blind enjoyment eroded until the cataclysmic ending. Over the last four seasons HIMYM doubled down on the failings of the final seasons of friends. The show's writers embraced the worst parts its characters idiosyncrasies: Ted was a whiny, often moronic sap, Marshall was an over-the-top loveable dope, Lily was a sweet but vindictive menace, and Robin was a straight up mess with too many faults to recount. Thankfully Barney remained his madman self and was actually redeemed in a believable and slow manner. Before I get to the broadcast ending/alternate ending that inspir...