Learn Your Neighbor's Names

The average person on Facebook has 130 friends, but almost all of us only have four neighbors. They live to the left of you, the right of you, sometimes above you, and, if you're anything like me, you probably don't know a thing about them.

Blizzards are great about fixing that. When Kate and I attempted to make it across town during the largest blizzard in Washington, DC's history, it was our neighbors who helped us push our car to the side of the street when we got stuck a block in. No Facebook friends could have done that.

I met Mark. I met Steve. I met the creepy guy named Brad, and the shut-in, Joan. I even met the postman who got stuck trying to exit the alley. His name is Jeff. We talked about the weather and community things like who lives where and for how long, and what the schedule was for our road to get plowed. It was like social-networking in person, and it was nice. Better yet, none of them asked for my help in Mafia Wars.

Now if I'm locked out of my house I know where to go. If I have a problem with my neighbor I can speak to them directly. They know my dog if it escapes the yard. I know theirs.

Better yet, when you're in two feet of snow and are cold and wet and can't get your Hyundai out of the middle of the road, they can help dig you out for the price of a few beers.

So this week, bake a pie, bring some beer, and go knock on your neighbor's door. Have a chat, maybe swap phone numbers, wish them Happy Holidays, and then go friend them on Facebook.

Attend a Bachelor Party

It is the holiest of holy days for men. There is the sanctity of marriage, but before such a blessed occasion occurs, there is a wake for man's bachelorhood. This is the Bachelor Party.

Since Spartans began the practice back in the 5th century BC with a dinner and toast to their betrothed friend the practice has gotten slightly more raucous. In 1896, the first stripper appeared when P.T. Barnum's son's Bachelor Party was raided by police who heard rumors a belly dancer would be performing naked. The first reports of a midget entering the fray occurred at Jimmy Stewart's bash, where little people popped out of serving dishes at his Beverly Hills hangout.

Over time, as with all traditions, rules have been set. They are firm rules, essential to a successful Bachelor Party. Hewn from time-tested nights of blackout drinking and lawsuits filed by midgets, the following 5 Dos and 5 Don'ts of Bachelor Partydom are hereby listed.

This, gentlemen, is what must occur:

1. There must be a limousine.
2. There must be libations of the alcoholic sort.
   
3. There must be a designated host, be it the Best Man or a third party. This person shall ensure that the night is raucous but not debaucherous, memorable but not regrettable, dangerous but not felonious.
   
4. There must be scantily clad women. These are for the pleasure of the group, but the groom first and foremost. He must have singles. He must have a lap dance.
5. Suit up.
   

This, gentlemen, is what must not occur:

1. There will be no travel to Canada. As a rule, Canada is a black widow for bachelors. One groom I know who went to Montreal for his Bachelor Party walked down the aisle with two black eyes. His best man's jaw had been broken. It made his toast awkward. Canada is out.
   
2. There must be no talk of money. Bills are to be handled either before or after the party without the groom's knowledge. The only money to be handled by the Groom are single dollar bills.
3. There will be no flair. Penis straws are for Bachelorette parties. Men drink, watch strippers, and ride in limos.
   
4. There will be no discussion, photographs, or videos of the Bachelor Party after the fact. Phone calls may be made to the bride the next morning . Not earlier.
5. There will be no arrests or regrettable incidents. The host must have ample financing to negotiate the group out of potentially arrestable offenses. The host must have his wits about him, while others may not. This is his solemn duty.

Now go forth! And Bachelor! Bachelor as your father, and his father did before him. Bachelor as the Spartans did thousands of years ago! And tip your limo driver!

Vidi, Vini, Vineyard

When the wife and I first moved to Virginia, we thought we'd left behind the only place in America where wine is grown in abundance: the West Coast. We were wrong. Virginia has vineyards. Maryland has vineyards. North Carolina has them, and so does, it seems, every other state in the union. And that means there's one near you.

December might seem like an off-time for wine tasting, but consider that it's one of the few times when vineyard owners don't have much to do except answer questions you might have about their wines.

Katie and I ventured off to the Gray Ghost Vineyards, located just over an hour outside Washington, DC, to take in some of their 13 acres of fine wine, and to get a look at their Christmas displays made entirely out of wine corks.

Both the wine and Christmas displays are made by one man, the Gray Ghost's owner, Al Kellert, who you can find pouring wine to inquiring guests in the cold backroom of the vineyard. Thanks to his family's hard work, Gray Ghost churns out some 300,000 bottles of wine a year, as well as one new thousands-strong cork display every Christmas, something they've been doing for well over a decade.

As we sipped our way through the reserve Chardonnay, the award-winning Adieu late harvest wine (Federal law, Kellert explained, prohibits him calling it ice wine), the vintage red and the vintage white, Kellert happily went on about the process of making different varieties of wines, the importance of sugar contents, mixtures, those damned federal regulations on labeling and the origins of the name behind his Adieu dessert wine: it was the last word Confederate General "Gray Ghost" Mosby said to his troops, and it happened on the very spot we were standing.

By the tasting's end I felt pleasant. The wine may have helped, but the conversation certainly did, too. Gray Ghost's website asks guests to enjoy the winery's southern hospitality and that is certainly what we did. On our way out, Cheryl, Al's wife, even hand wrote us her recipe for the meatballs she was serving as hors d'oeuvres. Not a bad way to spend a weekend.

Even though you may not find a Kellert near you, you can certainly find a vineyard. So, go raise a glass and toast to the holidays. Cheers.

Say Thank You

George Washington made America's first Thanksgiving. Abraham Lincoln put it on a Thursday. FDR loved the holiday so much he celebrated it twice. But it's mom who makes Thanksgiving so damned delicious.

So let there be pies. Let there be 27 guests and small children. Let there be ample wine and moist turkey. Let there be stuffing. Let yourself be stuffed. Play football.

Thanksgiving is the one true American holiday. Yes, it has spread to other countries since Plymouth Rock (I'm looking at you Canada), but it is one of the few American moments that doesn't involve creed, color, or politics (except after a few glasses of wine). It's the simplest holiday around: no egg hunt, no mythical creature, all you have to do is be grateful, which is something all of us could do a bit more.

So, give thanks. Thanks mom for the pies. Thanks friends for nights at the Big Hunt. Thanks family for the stories. Thanks guy on www.Fixya.com who told me how to fix my motorcycle. Thanks wife for being beautiful and patient. Thanks soldiers abroad and workers at home. Thanks for whoever invented cranberry sauce, and Betty Crocker for Breakfast Casserole. Thank you, bacon. Thanks all.

Give It the Ol' College Try

With unemployment hitting the double digits for the first time in decades, there's no better reason to take a few months off, wait it out, and hone your resume into a razor-sharp tool of salary negotiation.

Or, if you're anything like my wife, why not keep the full-time job, and get the degree anyway?

College, based on what I witnessed over the weekend, is not what I remember it being. There were the energy drinks, sure, and a pizza box here and there (somehow when the wife is working, food doesn't get made it gets delivered) and I'm pretty sure at some point I learned more about the ethno-sectarian manifestations of the genocide in Rwanda in contemporary literature than I ever hoped to, but still, something was lacking.

What was lacking was sleep.

Online colleges permeate the web these days. American Military University, University of Phoenix, DeVry, Kaplan, (there's a great list of them here) all promise a degree from the comfort of your own laptop. One commercial pitches online college as an opportunity to earn your degree in your pajamas, though I don't see how that's much different than real colleges.

What the online colleges don't tell you is this: you still have to earn the degree. Lectures there may not be, but apparently learning is still a requirement. Reading, too.

That said, for those willing to burn the candle at both ends, or for those looking for a way to pass the time until the housing/credit/oil/inflation crisis passes, a degree is really a smart thing to focus on. In their lives, folks with Bachelor's degrees will make about one million more dollars than people with just a high school diploma. The difference between a Masters degree and a Bachelors is about a half million. And when you get up to the Doctorate and PhD levels, you're earning about four times as much as your GED brethren.

So, warm up that laptop and log on. Use the GI Bill or employer incentives, put on those pajamas, and give it the ol' college try. After all, a million bucks for a few hours of lost sleep isn't a bad deal, especially these days.

Volunteer

I know. You can admit that the prospect of spending your Sunday in any other way than paying homage to that religious experience called Call of Duty 4 upsets you. And that's OK, you're in the company of at least 4.7 million people . However, it's not as painful as you may think. In fact, it's kind of awesome.

If you don't know where to start, go to http://www.volunteermatch.org/ They are the veritable match-makers for virgin volunteers with local opportunities and have everything from being the Editing Director or photographer for local magazines to tutoring youth in everything from math to music. You can volunteer at rallies, concerts, even films fesitivals.

idealist.org or 1-800-volunteer.org are also great sites to find interesting ways to pass a couple hours until "How I Met Your Mother" comes on. Afterall where else are you going to find a way to become a Ceritified PBJ Sandwich Artist?

Since being in the District, we've had the pleasure of watching the DC elite [to include the Redskins Cheerleaders] conduct a runway show at L2 in Georgetown in support of Luke's Wings; became foster parents for adorable pups helping them find thier "forever families"; packed more than 5,000 USO packages to support the troops deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq; and walked more than a few old ladies home with their grocery bags in Dupont.

Needless to say, it can't be all that bad if we keep finding cool ways to feel good about ourselves (not that Showing Old Friends Local Haunts isn't rewarding, it may just be to the detriment of our livers)!

If you want a bit of excitement but can't commit to 12 weeks in Peru, you can get your fix at a local zoo tending to the animals within the Amazonian exhibit. Seriously. 4.7 million people worldwide may have bought a video game this weekend, but 61.8 million people in the United States alone felt another call to duty. Volunteer.

Visit a Secret Society

It's hard to tell exactly when the Masons showed up on this planet of ours, but according to Wikipedia, they've been around at least since the 14th century, before America was even a spot on the map. Any organization that has persevered that long without promising eternal bliss is pretty impressive, and their well-publicized secrecy, makes for an interesting afternoon.

For a while I thought the trick to joining the masons involved saving the life of a member ... or something to do with a virgin sacrifice. It turns out, this mysterious organization is much more transparent than we non-members might think. Most of the lodges and temples offer tours to the public. If you live in an American town, odds are you live within ten miles of a masonic lodge of some sort. So, why not unveil the shroud of mystery and have a look?

There are two huge temples in Washington, DC: the Scottish Rite Temple on 16th and S NW which is referenced in Dan Brown's latest book and was designed by John Russell Pope who designed pretty much every building in the District; and one further south on the Yellow line on King Street in Alexandria, VA, that George Washington used to preside over (called the George Washington Masonic Memorial). Both offered me free tours and I didn't even have to sacrifice a virgin.