New Thing #205: Installing A Bath Storage Cabinet

I am far from the handiest man you've ever met. I am also reluctant to change this trait because I am so afraid of doing something wrong and ruining something to the point where the damage is irreversible.

I am slowly learning that most mistakes are correctable.

But it's hard for me to pull that trigger and drill a hole in the wall.

This weekend, though, that's exactly what I did when my wife asked me to install a bath storage cabinet in the bathroom.

New Thing!

Originally we were going to put the cabinet above the toilet. But it turns out there's a bit of a curve in that wall and the cabinet wouldn't sit flush (ha! unintended pun) against the wall. So we decided to move it across to the wall above the towel rack, across from the toilet.

(This also serves as a nice courtesy to our visitors because if you are using our toilet when the cabinet inevitably falls from the wall due to shoddy workmanship, you will see it as it falls on you rather than have it blindside you.)

There were no instructions with this fixture, so I thought I was on my own and called my dad for advice. Should I use wall anchors? Butterfly thingies that open up in the wall? Do I need to find a stud? (I know, I know. If there was a stud in the house he could probably have installed the thing.)

Turned out, as I was talking to my dad I saw the instructions on the box. They recommended the butterfly things if you couldn't find a stud. I couldn't. So I went to the hardware store.

That night I measured carefully - four spots on the wall and four spots on the cabinet where I would be drilling. I drilled the holes. Turns out, my drill bit was a little too small for the butterfly things, and anyway, with this kind of a fixture, I think those things would have been too complicated to install anyway. So I used the wall anchors.

And then I accidentally drilled one spot too big. So five holes for four anchors later, I screwed the cabinet into the wall.

Yes, I would have liked the screws to feel a little tighter in the end. Yes, I would have liked not to have a 1/8'' hole visible in the cabinet next to where I had to drill another hole because of my wall hole screw-up.

But the anchors are secure, and the screws have that cabinet attached to the wall pretty tight.

But slowly I'm coming to the realization that I can handle a drill. I can make some home improvements. I can D I Y. (That's "Do It Yourself" for those not in the know. Although, I suppose I should say I can D I M. "Do It Myself", you see.)

The only catch is that my wife shouldn't put anything too heavy in that cabinet. Or lean on it too heavily.

And if I were you, next time you're here...I'd ask to use the downstairs bathroom.

New Thing #204: The MMQB

I have a vague memory that years ago I read Peter King's 'Monday Morning Quarterback' pretty regularly. Don't ask me how I forget something like that, but there was a time in my life that I dove headfirst into anything sports-related...and I guess it all gets jumbled up in my mind.

But for whatever reason, it had been years since I read Peter King's Monday column...until last August or so.

I began in the off-season, carried right through the regular season, stuck with it in the post-season, and then dropped off again.

But with football season fast approaching, I need to get back to it.

And just in time, there's a brand-new website for it.

I know Peter King has his critics (man, everyone on Twitter is a critic of everyone), but I love what he does. I think, deep down, I stopped reading him because I wanted to be him with my work the past nine or so years. Without, you know, the intense reporting and all-around knowledge.

The sheer volume of King's work every Monday is probably what impresses me the most...but is also the number one reason that I can't commit to reading it all the time. I kind of need a rest from it...and sometimes I just don't have the time to dedicate to reading it.

So that all was when King's column appeared on Sports Illustrated's website. For a year or so now King has been talking about an affiliated but separate website that he's running - themmqb.com.

It debuted on Monday, as NFL camps set to open up.

And as you can imagine for someone who felt overwhelmed by a column, the site is a little overwhelming. There is so much content.

But it's good content.

It's all football, all the time. (I think my dream would be someone like Buster Olney developing a baseball site like this.) And I'm not all that into football right now - I'm still 100% baseball-focused...but I couldn't get enough of the site on its first day.

There was King's regular 'Monday Morning Quarterback' column, an entry from Greg Bedard (late of the Boston Globe, who I really grew to like in his 2-and-half years covering the Patriots here...he went from dumping heavily - often - on the Jets to becoming a really well-rounded writer...although he was probably always a well-rounded writer, he didn't always show it) about the way the Patriots go about business no matter what is happening off the field, and Jenny Vrentas with a pictorial of Larry Fitzgerald's off-season travels and another article about the Dolphins. My favorite was the first of what will be a regular feature - 3 at 3 - in which some football-related figure (or high-profile fan) answers three questions at 3pm daily. Monday's was Joe Namath. (Wednesday's will be Rex Ryan! UPDATE/CORRECTION: I forgot...Rex Ryan will actually be doing the '10 Things I Think I Think' segment. I think it's Wednesday, but I'm not sure. Also another good segment, by the way.) The accompanying picture of Namath is one of the best old-time NFL still pictures I've ever seen.

I read all of the content in the above paragraph. That still leaves a bunch of content on the table that I didn't read. I'm going to have to pace myself, and figure out a way to get past my desire to dive into something like this website 100%. My instinct is to read everything put on the site. But I know I won't be able to keep that up.

I'm going to need to settle into a routine and figure out which articles I'm going to read. And when. (That's another thing - there are updates with new stories every few hours on the site.) And next month King will start up his podcast again, and he wrote Monday that there will be other site-related podcasts.

It may seem daunting, but I'm sure I'll figure out a way to face down this adversity and make the best of it.

I am a Jets fan, after all.

________________________________________________________

A couple of notes about the beginning of a new site like this:

-I went to the site over the weekend, when the domain name had been released but before it was supposed to have content. I thought it was interesting that this high-profile venture starts out just like any regular joe's website:

-And then there was this - I typed mmqb.com into my browser early Monday morning - some Mondays during the school year I would read Peter King over breakfast because I wouldn't have another chance all day. I figured I'd try that with the new site. And this is what I saw:

It looked spottier than I expected, but I figured they were working out some bugs, so I clicked what I thought was King's article and I got this:

I'm embarrassed to admit I thought it was for real. At no point did I even come close to considering paying money for the content, but I was furious. "How can they go from offering this content for free at SI.com to making people pay this much for it! That's terrible business! Who's going to pay that?!" Then I took a breath. I realized that I had never heard this was going to be a site that charged money. I went to Twitter and it didn't look like, from there, the site was up yet. So I waited. And later that morning I saw the real thing unveiled.

But I wonder if anyone who is slightly more gullible than me - enough to pony up money immediately - fell for the fake site.

New Thing #203: The Blessed Unrest

I'm not sure if anyone does the upbeat song about the downside of love any better right now than Sara Bareilles. Exhibit A: Little Black Dress, off her new album The Blessed Unrest.

Putting aside the fact that the song sounds like a modern-day Supremes hit, it follows along in the footsteps of Love Song and King of Anything as happy sad songs.

Little Black Dress may not even be a single off the new album - right now the only one getting radio play that I know of is Brave.

But it's my favorite off another solid album by Bareilles.

I bought Bareilles' first album because I liked Love Song. I think I've written before that I like piano-heavy music, and that's what first piqued my interest about Bareilles. A friend gave me Kaleidoscope Heart, her last album, and that's when I became a legit fan. I love that album. (Actually, besides The Supremes, the song I thought of first when I heard Little Black Dress was Gonna Get Over You, one of my favorites from Kaleidoscope Heart, because it has a throwback feel to it as well.)

I'm not sure a week into it that I love The Blessed Unrest as much as I loved Kaleidoscope Heart, but I still like it a lot. Brave is a good song. Two of the next three songs on the album feature New York City, and you can never go wrong with me with songs paying tribute to NYC. There's a (surprise!) breakup song called Manhattan and there's a song called Chasing The Sun in which Bareilles sings about "a cemetery in the center of Queens." I think I'd still like it if it was a cemetery in the middle of the Bronx, but obviously I have my soft spots.

Towards the end of the album is a song called 1000 Times. It's about someone who's afraid to tell someone their true feelings. I kind of like the juxtaposition of that song on an album where the big hit is Brave - which is about encouraging people to "say what they want to say."

I remember hearing Brave on the radio a couple of months or so ago and knew that a new Sara Bareilles album was coming. I thought, though, that it would be in the fall. It was a really pleasant surprise when I saw the weekend before it came out that it was a mid-July release.

Of all the new music I've written about this year I think there's only two bands that I've decided I really want to see live. The first is The Lumineers.

The other is Sara Bareilles.

New Thing #202: Shake Shack

Over the All Star break, my wife and I tossed around the idea of going to the Mets-Phillies game on Saturday. We really enjoyed taking the family to Citi Field last year and wanted to re-create that experience.

We called around and it looked like my parents and siblings were also going to be able to make it.

Then there was some rain in the forecast, and we started to second-guess a 3-hour ride into 90-degree temperatures and a rain delay.

We cancelled the trip.

But my wife suggested that in honor of Citi Field, we check out the new Shake Shack in Chestnut Hill.

We've had Shake Shack at Citi Field - it's the only place we have, actually. (There are 10 locations in New York State, a few in Florida, a couple in Connecticut, and the one in Massachusetts, which opened up just this past March.) And the first time I realized Shake Shack extended beyond New York City was a year ago at this time, when I was in Washington, D.C. I saw there's one at Nationals Park - that's one of three Shake Shacks in the DC area.

Anyway, as many food options as there are at Citi Field, it's a credit to how good Shake Shack is that there's always a really long line there - by far the longest concession line in the park. And we'll usually wait in that line too. The burgers are so good. And the fries are excellent too.

Saturday night my wife and I got burgers, the girls had hot dogs, and we got an order of regular fries and an order of cheese fries, figuring the girls might not like the cheese fries. They ate almost all of them. (Next time it'll be two orders of cheese fries.) And then, of course, we topped it off with some shakes. (My wife had ice cream, actually, which she thought was better than the shake.) At some point I'll have to try their 'concrete', which is ice cream with toppings blended in. It looks like a dessert you have to eat with a spoon, though, and Saturday night I was only interested in a shake.

If you're familiar at all with the Chestnut Hill Mall (and The Mall at Chestnut Hill, which are two separate things, as far as I know, on opposite sides of Route 9 in Chestnut Hill), there's a whole lot of work being done in that area. They're building a Wegman's and there's a whole bunch of other construction there too (the Wegman's is the only site that's labeled), and the Shake Shack is part of a stretch that's completed, called 'The Street'. It's next to Legal Sea Foods, there's a City Sports and a Sports Club LA there, a Pottery Barn, a couple of other restaurants, and a movie theater that we couldn't tell was open or not yet.

It's a pretty hopping area right now. We went for Shake Shack and discovered a whole lot else was happening.

Which is good. Because it's only about a 30-minute drive to have a little bit of New York City here in my current home state.

And it sure is worth the drive.

New Thing #201: Clearing Memory On The iPhone

This has happened more and more frequently. My phone has given me a message similar to the one you see at the left.

Sometimes it's exactly the message you see at left - when an app update comes along there's not enough available storage to download the update.

More often, though - especially lately - it's when I try to take a picture.

The phone won't even open up the phone shutter because it doesn't have enough memory to store a new photo.

And that's led me to clear some memory on my phone on a pretty regular basis for the first time.

Turns out, I have a lot of unnecessary stuff on my iPhone.

I have games that I tried out that I haven't touched in months. I have apps like the WTF app you see in the top left corner of the above picture that I paid for, used to catch up on old episodes, and are now worthless to me. I have apps that I downloaded because I thought I had to have them (like the Dunkin' Donuts app - I love Dunkin' Donuts! I need the app!)...but I never used them. So I've been deleting them all.

This is partly a byproduct, too, of trying some new music this year - that's added some songs and albums to the phone that take up space - and also the podcasts I listen to. If I go a couple of days without listening to some shows, especially the longer ones, I end up with hours of content on there before I end up listening to them and deleting them.

This is all kind of a big step for me. I'm not a huge fan of undoing something I did. And I like routine - and when I delete an app, it affects the layout of all the other apps. So if I'm used to finding an app in a certain spot on my phone (like, all the way on the right on the third row of the second page of my apps), and suddenly it's no longer in that spot...well, that's a hard adjustment for me.

But I'm making that adjustment. And part of the reason I need to clear some of the memory is so I can add new apps that I'll use more often.

Until I have to delete them.

New Thing #200: Sending The Kids To Camp

I'm working a lot this summer. This might not strike you as unusual, as perhaps you always work through the summer.

And I'm not seeking your sympathy.

I am simply stating fact: I'm working a lot this summer.

It's because of a project I took on at work, and the project is going well, thanks for asking.

But the reason I bring this up is it's a departure from my regular summer activities.

And I think that's been great for my kids.

See, in previous years I was home the entire summer with my daughters. It's one of the great benefits of my current career. Once or twice a week we'd put the girls in day care to give them some time with their friends (and to give Dad some time to get together with his friends...or enjoy some time by himself), but most of the week it was just me and my girls.

I remember my first summer with my oldest daughter - she probably wasn't quite 2. We'd be up early, then late in the morning we'd watch Sesame Street before settling into lunchtime, afternoon nap, and then playing a bit before my wife came home and it was time for dinner.

When a second daughter entered the picture, I structured things a little more so the centerpiece of our activities wasn't a television show. We'd do playgrounds or museums or something like that in the morning and take it easy in the afternoon. I'd invite friends with kids in the same age range to join us for particularly exciting morning activities. It was great. I called it 'Sucich Summer Camp.'

But this summer I just wouldn't have the time.

So my oldest two daughters are at real camp. And they love it.

They swim. They do all kinds of different activities from tennis to yoga to sports to arts and crafts. (Oh yeah, I forgot - I did arts and crafts too. Or at least pretended to. It's not my strong suit.)

And that's why this is a better situation for my daughters. They're learning to swim. They're learning tennis. They're making new friends. They're doing real arts and crafts.

I've learned a new joy of parenting this summer - picking up happy children at the end of a good day of camp.

It's almost as good as having happy children with me all day.

New Thing #199: White Nike Dri-Fit Shirt

I have this exercise shirt that I love. I bought it last year - I had a gift card that I spent on some sporting equipment, including a running shirt and some shorts.

It's a yellow Nike Dri-Fit shirt, and I got it at Dick's Sporting Goods.

This year, I had another couple of gift cards to Dick's that I was given for my birthday, and I bought some workout equipment. (More on that another time.)

I saw the shirts and had enough money left over after my purchases to get one.

As you can see, I went with the white.

Here's something you may not know about me: I have slight sensitivity issues. They've abated over the years, but they're still there a little bit. (For example: As a kid I hated turtlenecks. I still don't seek out a turtleneck if I have a choice, but I can now wear one without feeling terribly uncomfortable. Also, when I was a kid I hated the way certain tags felt on my neck, and this is still true. Similarly, if a shirt has too sticky of a logo on the front or the back - that bothers me too.)

But that's the best thing about these shirts - they are among the most comfortable shirts I've ever worn. I don't feel them around my neck, which appears to be my highest-sensitivity area. (Interestingly, the white shirt feels tighter around my waist than the yellow one. Not a big deal, just interesting. I only notice it when I wipe the sweat from my face with that part of the shirt while I run.) The tags on this shirt are not on the neck.

I don't know that I've ever had a wicking shirt. But I think these are wicking - they're a light material. I also don't know how they work - the tag says they keep you cool even in the heat. These do that, but they certainly absorb the sweat - they get sopping wet during my runs.

I saw the display of these shirts on my way into Dick's earlier this week - they were $22, which I thought was a pretty good price for these shirts. I made a mental note to come back if I had gift card money left over. When I did, there was only one problem.

I've written before about my inability to make decisions. There were so many colors to choose from. All shades of orange, green, black, white, blue, red, and gray. I narrowed it down to a royal blue (my size wasn't there in light blue) and white, and texted my wife. Her advice was exactly what I was thinking - if I wanted the better color I should get blue, and if I wanted it to be cooler I should go white.

I'm sure the 90-degree temperatures outside affected my decision, but I couldn't get the idea of a 'cooler' shirt out of my head. That's why I went white.

I'm getting to the point where I have a pretty good rotation of comfortable running shirts, which is good for me. I'm not below stopping a run because my shirt is giving me discomfort.

The way I see it, $22 is a small price to pay for a shirt that I love...and one less excuse not to exercise.

New Thing #198: Broccoli Fritters

I think it's the smell of the oil that gets me salivating. I'm like Pavlov's Dog with the oil in the pan - once I get a whiff of that smell, I don't think it matters what's being cooked in the oil, I'm already conditioned to like it.

That was the case last week when my wife cooked up some broccoli fritters.

That's the early stages of the cooking process pictured above. (Also shown, but not featured, is our new frying pan. As part of our kitchen work recently we bought a few new pans. New Things! There is nothing quite like a new non-stick pan.)

The cool thing about this fritter recipe is that it came from our farm share - they linked to it in their weekly e-mail newsletter, which came in tandem with the broccoli that came in last week's box of veggies. Here it is if you're interested.

The recipe yields 9. As you can see, my wife made 10. She's so great.

I liked my fritters with a bit of salt, but they were tasty even without it.

The kids liked them too, which is always a bonus. And, despite my belief that my wife made these so I could experience another New Thing, she says getting the kids to eat the broccoli was her inspiration for doing this.

New Thing #197: All Star Game At Citi Field...Program

I won't lie. I was really hoping that New Thing #197 was going to be "Going To The All Star Game At Citi Field."

From the day they announced that the 2013 All Star Game was going to be held at Citi Field, I wanted to go.

Then from the day I saw how expensive tickets were going to be, I wanted someone to get me a ticket.

And then my birthday came and went, and no one was ponying up the multiple hundreds of dollars.

So I'm watching the All Star Game on TV.

But I have the program.

This was the other piece of All Star Game merchandise I got for my birthday last week.

I told my wife when we were at the game that I might like the program - I can't believe it was $15 though. Yipes.

Usually, I wouldn't want a souvenir from a game I didn't attend - but I just love that the Mets' beautiful new ballpark is being showcased for the baseball world, and I want a memento, even if I can't be there.

I also like commemorative programs. I was at the game when the Mets played the Marlins in their first-ever game back in 1992, and they ran out of programs at Shea Stadium. People were mad and the Mets gave out an address where you could send money to order a copy. I did, and then I did it for the inaugural series with the Rockies that year. But I don't spend much time looking through those programs. And I read this magazine, but it'll just spend the rest of its time on my shelf, as I hope it becomes a collector's item that I probably won't ever sell.

It's a thick program - there are lots of different general articles about baseball, so that it's not time-sensitive. There's a section on the Mets, which I love, and as part of that a Q-and-A with David Wright as well as a guide to Citi Field.

One thing I don't like about the program is that it includes a regular-old scorecard. I like that it has a scorecard, but it's for the All Star Game - the one time in the year where guys are being switched out every other inning. Give fans keeping score a chance to not make a mess of their scorecard. (No, I'm not keeping score.) I suppose there's a little extra room, but it doesn't seem like much - there's 24 lines for players, but it still seems like it would get messy.

I don't know if Major League Baseball will be republishing this program now that the rosters are set and they know who will be playing in the game. (This one has lists of 'possible players' - essentially a copy of the ballot.) But I'm glad I have something to remember the All Star Game coming to Citi Field. (I'm very excited for the game, and the fact that David Wright and Matt Harvey are starters on their home field is icing on the cake.)

I haven't quite given up on going to an All Star Game at Citi Field. The way I see it, this is a twice-in-a-lifetime event. At the absolute worst, it will be 60 years before the game comes back. But that's not likely. It's also unlikely it will be another 50 years between Mets All Star Games. (The last time was 1964 at Shea Stadium.)

I figure it will be about another 30 years (partially dependent on the next time the Yankees get the game and New York City hosts again). And at that point in my life, hopefully, with three grown daughters, I'll be able to treat myself and spend the money on an All Star Game ticket.

Maybe I'll even buy a program.

New Thing #196: Magna Carta... Holy Grail

Under normal circumstances I probably wouldn't have thought about buying Jay Z's new album. But if ever there was a New Thing for Music Monday, this is it.

It's not like I've never heard Jay Z music - it's all over the place. I've heard all of the singles on the radio.

But I'm pretty sure I've never listened to a full album before this one.

And I'm not sure I will again - rap just isn't my thing.

But I certainly get the appeal.

I don't quite know how to judge a rap album - is it different than other music genres? Am I supposed to focus more on lyrics than music? I sense there's more attention paid to the words than the tunes that you hear...but both make an impact.

For what my opinion is worth: I found the entire album to be very listenable. Certain songs stood out to me more than others, and those did so mostly because I liked the tune...not necessarily because of the words. I've heard this isn't the best Jay Z album there is - but it's still pretty good. I'm sure die hards would cringe knowing this is the album I'm basing my Jay Z opinion on (or maybe they wouldn't care - I don't know), but really - I get why he's so popular.

(Most of the words, if you're wondering, dealt with how rich Jay Z is. And how much more rich he wants to become. And a good percentage of them are dirty words. I am a grown man and there were times I thought to myself as I listened to this album, "Am I allowed to be listening to this?")

I particularly liked this album because it was good to run to. I listened to it three times in the first week during my longest runs of the summer. Coincidence? I don't know. But it's been a while since I had a go-to exercise album. It was good running music.

It also served as a way for me to be further exposed to the work of Frank Ocean, Beyonce, and Justin Timberlake - all featured on songs on the album. It's not like I hadn't heard of them or their music, but I don't own anything by any of them. I enjoyed what they did. And, I feel I should offer this admission: there's nothing I've seen or heard involving Justin Timberlake that I haven't enjoyed. The guy is talented and knows what he's doing. And I enjoy his work. There. I said it.

I'm sure this album will continue to serve as a running soundtrack for me this summer. It's about the only way I can listen to it anyway, considering I won't play songs with this kind of language in front of my children.

I'll just be the only runner in town blushing due to the strong language coursing through my headphones.

New Thing #195: Odwalla Food Bar

Last week I needed to grab a lunch on the way to work. I stopped by the supermarket and picked up a pre-packaged sandwich but decided I needed something else.

I wasn't feeling like potato chips - I wanted something a little more healthy...like a granola bar.

But I didn't want to buy a big box of them.

And then I came across the Odwalla food bar stand.

As you can see in the picture, the bars were two for $3. So I got two. I probably should have tried two different ones, but I got two of the same.

And actually, I meant to get the 'super protein' one. Because, you know, I recognize the importance of protein and all.

But I got the 'superfood' one - it says original on it. I think that might have been what swayed me - I figured if I'm trying something new I should start with the 'original.'

It has 500mg of spirulina! (I don't know what that means!)

But then, when I opened it...it. was. green. Green!

(I apologize for the blurry picture, but I took multiple pictures and they all had trouble focusing. It seems even my camera had trouble accepting the color.)

My stomach turned instantly. I just wasn't expecting green snack food.

But, being 2013 (New Thing!) I pushed through it. I took a teeny bite. It wasn't bad. It kind of tasted like other types of nutrition bars I've had. So I nibbled my way through it and finished it. I just didn't look at it.

I had the second one the next day. They were good. And they held me over pretty well, which was the whole point.

There's certainly a wide selection of the Odwalla food bars, as you can see in that top picture - I wonder if they're all green. Just in case, next time I might go for one of the chocolate ones.

The chances are slim I'll nibble anything with chocolate.

New Thing #194: Drunk History

I'm not sure where I first heard about Drunk History.

I think it's been advertised recently on the podcasts I listen to.

I know I read about the show in last Sunday's New York Times.

It was an interview with a creator of the show, Derek Waters, and he talked about how the idea came from a conversation he had with Jake Johnson, where after a few drinks Johnson was messing up a story he was trying to tell about Otis Redding.

Johnson is Nick on New Girl, and I think I would pay to watch him tell a story when he was drunk. I think he is very funny.

So that translated to me thinking that this show had to be funny.

Apparently Drunk History was featured on the website Funny or Die (which I have not spent nearly enough time checking out) years ago. Now it's a show on Comedy Central, Tuesday nights at 10pm.

The premise is simple - people tell historical stories while drunk. And while sometimes the actions of the drunk storyteller are funny (the first storyteller on the show last week vomited mid-story), most of the comedy lies in the fact that the stories being told feature big-time actors acting them out.

The first episode featured Bob Odenkirk as Richard Nixon, Jack Black as Elvis Presley, Adam Scott as John Wilkes Booth, and David Grohl (I know, I want to call him Dave too, but he was credited as David), Stephen Merchant, Fred Willard, and Jack McBrayer in lesser roles.

The show employs a researcher, and I think part of its appeal is that the stories are true....although I think I'd do some fact-checking of my own before I took a story I saw on the show to the bank.

It's an entertaining half-hour. Next week's episode goes opposite the All Star Game, so I think I'll be catching that one on the DVR, but it's a good option if you're looking for something to watch on Tuesday nights during the summer. And then I guess there are some old web episodes worth searching for too.

Here - if you have 5-and-a-half minutes, check out the first one produced for Funny or Die - it features Michael Cera as Alexander Hamilton and Jake Johnson (!) as Aaron Burr.

New Thing #193: Re-Organizing The Pantry

I wish I had taken a "Before" picture so you could see just how impressive this effort really is. But I only thought to take a picture once I had cleared out the pantry.

Suffice it to say - those shelves were filled with 8 years worth of clutter.

And then we'd add groceries every week.

I've been slowly and steadily doing a re-organization of all of our kitchen cabinet space, and this was a big one.

I'm proud of the work I did...and you'd better believe I remembered to take an "After" picture.

Ta-Da!

To be honest, I'm still working on the finishing touches of the pantry.

There's more room for me to move around some stuff from some other cabinets - especially on the floor there. (For example, after the "After" picture I moved the breadmaker to the bottom right part of the floor.)

But this is a world of difference from what we were dealing with before.

I'm particularly proud of the baskets and organizers we bought from the Container Store. (I'm hopeful that if you click the picture it'll enlarge and you can better see the details.)

Let's start with the baskets - on the right side of the third shelf from the top you'll see a two-tiered basket. That will now house the loose snacks that the girls pack for lunch rather than the big box of the snacks that takes up way too much space. I forget what my original vision was for that bottom shelf, but my wife and I decided to put the girls' applesauce snack down there. Again, this eliminates a box that takes up too much space.

Under the next two shelves you'll see hanging organizers - those are for kitchen towels and placemats, respectively. I never thought these things would work, but they are awesome. They hang off the shelves perfectly, they don't take up too much space, and we had no good spot for our placemats. It's so organized now! By far the best part of this whole re-organization. (We also bought a basket that hangs under the shelf - that's in a different cabinet and now houses my wife's Keurig cups.)

After we organized the pantry we were able to create some room in other cabinets and then discovered a whole bunch of baby bottles that we no longer need and could throw away.

We're doing a lot of re-organizing and I'm not going to bore you with every little thing. But the pantry is a big key to the rest of our kitchen re-organization.

And it was so successful that I had to share it with you.

New Thing #192: All Star Game Merch

My wife and kids went a little All Star Game crazy for my birthday this year. No, they did not get me tickets to the game.

But they did get me some other All Star-themed merchandise.

Among the items - the cups you see at left.

Not pictured: the Matt Harvey baseball my oldest daughter insisted my wife buy at the Mets Team Store.

I have no need for a Matt Harvey baseball, but I like the way my soon-to-be-7-year-old daughter thinks: Daddy has been talking a lot about Matt Harvey. We should get him something related to this big interest of his.

This is a good sign for future gift-receiving by me.

But let me tell you a little bit about these cups.

The last thing I need these days is more souvenir cups.

I could open my own, um, souvenir stand I guess, with all the souvenir cups I have.

But the blue cup you see is a great cup. It's a sturdy plastic, and it's perfect for my smoothies. I got a clear one earlier this year with the regular All Star Game logo, and as you can see this one has the alternate ASG logo with an apple. I hadn't seen that logo before my trip to Citi Field last week.

The orange cup was a birthday gift. (Technically the blue cup wasn't a birthday gift, but my wife took me to the Mets game last week for my birthday, so I guess it falls into birthday gift territory.) The second-to-last thing I need these days is coffee cups - I have many of those too - but these kinds are useful.

3 out of 5 days a week during the school year I bring iced coffee to school. (I make a pot of hot coffee one day, then I throw the rest into a pitcher and put it in the fridge for about three days' worth of iced coffee. The fifth day I usually treat myself to a Dunkin' coffee.) I don't have many cups like this orange one with the straw - it's perfect for iced coffee. (I got one like it as a free gift somewhere but I dropped it and the lid doesn't fit exactly. So until I drop this orange one, this is a great addition.)

I used the orange one on Wednesday - it worked out perfectly.

There was one more All Star-themed gift. I'll fill you in on that next week.

New Thing #191: Taking My Daughter To The Dentist

I was dreading Tuesday a little bit this week. Probably not as much as my daughter was dreading Tuesday this week.

But, actually, the fact that she was dreading it was a big part of why I was dreading it.

Don't judge me as a parent...but she has some cavities. And Tuesday was the first of multiple appointments this summer to fill those cavities.

And, as I told you when I had to take another daughter to the doctor earlier in '365 New Things In 2013', with my wife at work I've had to take on some of the going-to-the-doctor-and-dentist parental responsibilities.

As I alluded to in the January posting, between me and my wife you have a 50-50 shot at getting a competent parent at a doctor or dentist appointment. I'm the wrong 50.

What I didn't allude to, and I'm not sure I've mentioned this yet in 190 previous posts, is that I'm somewhat squeamish. So the dentist's office is a bit of a dicier proposition than the doctor. Especially with the filling of a cavity and some drilling and all.

(I feel here I need to stop and stress to you that we don't feed my daughter sugar or send her to school with a lunchbox full of taffy. I have a feeling her dental difficulties are genetic....and I have a sinking suspicion that I'm the parent to blame [New Thing #87]. I hope she doesn't find this out when she gets older and probably is mad at me for the other things I've inevitably messed up between now and then.)

Well, I'm happy to tell you that when I wasn't using my iPhone to sneak pictures of the empty dentist chair next to ours, I was a pretty solid support for my daughter.

Parts of this experience were not as bad as I expected - I thought I'd be in the way trying to soothe my daughter, but the dentist was very appreciative of my efforts and when I had the idea of showing my daughter pictures on my phone (not of the empty dentist chair...family pictures), she didn't mind that I was shoving the phone past her to get in my daughter's sight line. (She also encouraged my daughter to pick out a toy but there was no possible way my daughter was able to play a game laying there while the dentist was working in her mouth. I was not prepared for helping my daughter with that. Also, pediatric dentistry is something else. That woman told stories and tried to distract my daughter for 97% of the time she was filling that cavity. I wonder if she's available for birthday parties.)

Other parts of the experience were pretty terrible - worse than I was ready for. For example, my daughter repeated, "Ow, ow, ow" over and over again (she was much more understandable than I think I ever was in 30-plus years of answering the dentist's questions with my mouth full of equipment, for what that's worth). I hated to hear her indicate she was in pain...and I have no idea if she was just saying "Ow" because she was truly in pain or because she was scared. But I didn't like it.

As for my squeamishness, well, it wasn't a factor. I didn't look at the nitty-gritty stuff. But I'm not that sure it was even all that nitty-gritty. At the end there were some bloody gums, but that was tolerable enough for me.

It didn't seem to be all that tolerable for my daughter though. And I'm sure I'm not the first parent to have this thought sitting with their child next to a dentist's chair...but I hope that's the most painful thing she'll ever have to go through.

New Thing #190: Na'an Pizza

I was the beneficiary of my wife trying out a New Thing a week or so ago. The genesis, she says, was seeing some na'an in the grocery store.

She walked by it and thought, "That would make a good pizza crust."

And that night she made na'an pizza.

It was very good.

I should tell you, right off the top, that I love na'an. Usually when my wife makes na'an it's with a chicken tikka masala dish she makes.

So this was different - and I knew something was afoot when I saw the na'an in the closet but knew we weren't having chicken for dinner.

It took my wife no more than 10 minutes to prepare - from sauce and cheese to cooking time in the oven. She made four total - and those four went a long way.

It not only fed us (we're a family of five) - but I was able to take a full na'an pizza with me for lunch the next day.

A brilliant idea by my wife, and a New Thing food for me that I can actually make myself.

New Thing #189: Cups

You might find this hard to believe, but here goes: Sometimes I'm the last person to know about something trendy.

This often becomes clear during the school year when the students start doing something that I think is clever, and naively I think they invented it, only to discover too late that it's the coolest thing going.

Or at least, it was the coolest thing at the time.

Such was the case when I stumbled across this week's New Thing for Music Monday on Sunday night.

I was in New York for the 4th weekend, and I didn't experience any new music, so Sunday I went searching through some sites for something new.

After a quick glance through what's been hot on  iTunes I popped over to YouTube and clicked 'music'. One of the first videos to pop up there was Anna Kendrick's "Cups", which I guess is also known as "When I'm Gone" from the movie Pitch Perfect.

I had heard this song recently on the radio, and I feel like I had heard of Anna Kendrick. She's an actress, but I just looked at her IMDB page and I have no idea if I've ever seen her in anything. Maybe I'm confusing her with the baseball player Kyle Kendrick. Or Anna Friel or Anna Faris. Anyway.

So the song's catchy, but then she starts doing this thing with the cups and clapping in the video, which the fifth graders spent most of last year doing. I thought it was something they had learned in music class. Turns out, it's from a movie.

So that's this week's new music. Hopefully I just helped you avoid doing something embarrassing by introducing you to this corner of popular culture. Maybe I should go see Pitch Perfect and write it off as a business expense.

Here's the video with the aforementioned cups performance:

Well look at this. Apparently she learned it by watching someone else. Wonder if the kids knew that.

New Thing #188: Halfway To 70

Today is my birthday. (I'm the 'little guy' on the right.) I love my birthday.

My wife thinks that's strange.

I think it's strange that she thinks it's strange.

My daughters have the right idea - they couldn't be more excited.

And I love how contagious their birthday excitement is.

To be clear - they get excited about birthdays in general.

But when it's my birthday - well, the excitement gets amped up a notch, because I play into their excitement and we really work it into a lather.

Case in point this year - For about a week I would tell the girls, "Try not to get too excited, but next Sunday [or in 2 days, or tomorrow, as the case may be] is my birthday!"

That led my daughters to come up with this idea that I would have a "miserable birthday". They told me I would have to do lots of chores, and they were going to get me an "I love the Bruins" cake. (My suspicion is that they came up with this story to cover up for something awesome that's happening later today.)

But there's no way I could have a miserable birthday. It's 7/7! That's my day!

My brother looks at this birthday as "halfway to 70". I prefer to think of it as, "Now I can run for President."

Either way, it's my birthday. I'm with my family in New York. I had a great 4th of July weekend.

My birthday is like icing on the cake.

But it'll still be nice to celebrate with some cake.

New Thing #187: Metropolitan Museum of Art

I've told you about Johnny Tremain. One of my other all-time favorite books that I first read when I was a child is From The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, by E.L Konigsburg.

In the book, a brother and a sister run away from their home in Greenwich, Connecticut and decide to live at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

I don't know why it appeals to me so much - maybe because I always look at a place with an eye towards "if I became trapped here, would I be able to survive?" (Or maybe I think that because I read the book.)

Either way, I'm pretty sure it's not because I spent a lot of time at the museum as a kid...because I think Friday, when I visited with my family, was the first time I had been to the museum.

It is certainly possible I took a school field trip to the Met when I was a boy. (I hate to get up on my high horse, but it would be criminal for any New York City school to not take a trip to this museum with all this culture right at their fingertips.)

But if I went, it certainly didn't make an impression. I don't remember. (That's not saying a ton. I remember so little about my elementary school experiences that it's embarrassing. I remember a couple of class plays, I remember studying about the American Revolution in 4th grade, and I remember throwing up in the classroom in 6th grade. But those are stories for another day.)

Anyway, digressions aside, I spent a few hours at the Met Friday afternoon...and I could have spent many, many more. It's incredible. I should mention (one more digression), we went because my oldest daughter (almost 7 years old) wanted to go to a museum. It's fun not only to enjoy going to a museum these days for myself, but also to see my daughter enjoy it so much.

We spent a good deal of our time in the American Wing. I hate to be a homer, but I enjoy American art. Don't be offended - I'm no expert. I'm not even sure I know how to appreciate art. But I know what I find interesting, and I was engaged in the American Wing more than other places.

Thing is, as I mentioned before, we only scratched the surface of this museum. I believe we could go back again and again and still not finish. So maybe there's something else out there that I would love that I just didn't make it to.

The highlight of our time at the Met on Friday - by far - was 'Washington Crossing The Delaware'. I had seen that image before, but nothing prepares you for seeing it up close. First of all, it's huge. I didn't realize that. Secondly, it's breathtaking. It's really really remarkable. I didn't even realize it was at the Met - that surprise factor probably figured into the breathtaking-ness of the painting.

Besides everything there was to see, in my mind there was a lot of trying to figure out what has changed at the Met since From The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler was written about 50 years ago. And I spent a lot of time thinking about Claudia and Jamie and where they spent their time. I knew, for instance, that the Egyptian pyramid was one of their hiding spots, but we never made it to the area where they found the bed in which they slept. We saw the grand staircase which is featured in the book, and we saw a fountain by the cafe in the American Wing, but I'm not sure it's the fountain in which they bathed and found their "income."

I'll leave you with this: the area where the American Wing's cafe and the fountain are is beautiful. It's outside this wall that looks like it could be part of the original footprint of the museum. I'm not sure what the history of additions is. But it's an awesome sight. So I'll leave you with that picture while inviting anyone with any knowledge about the Met to tell me what you know. Because I learned a lot in my visit to the Met on Friday afternoon. But there's a whole lot more I want to learn.

New Thing #186: Man Of Steel

On July 4th in 1989 my dad took my brother and I to the movies (with a friend of mine and his dad) to see Batman. It was thrilling. (Probably a little more for my brother than for me - he was so excited - but if you saw that Batman movie you know how good it was. Trust me. It was thrilling.)

I have a memory of the 4th of July being the day Batman came out, but I could be wrong about that. (I also remember the line at the movies being around the block.)

24 years later, my brother and I decided to spend the early afternoon of Independence Day at a superhero movie.

This time, it was Superman.

A couple of weeks ago I was with my brother and we were talking about Man of Steel - the new Superman movie. I convinced him to wait until I was down on 4th of July weekend so we could see it together.

Somewhat surprisingly, he did.

So we saw a show early on Thursday, before we headed out for our nephew's birthday party. (The 11:55 show was the matinee! $10.25 instead of $13! When we saw Batman I bet it cost at most $8 for a non-matinee.)

I guess part of my surprise was not that my brother waited for me to see the movie - more that he still wanted to go with me at this point. Man Of Steel has gotten some pretty bad reviews, and I was going to be OK with missing it if he changed his mind. But we soldiered on.

I understand why people didn't necessarily like this movie. I didn't like parts of it. There were essentially three elements of the movie: 1) A very Star Wars-feeling inter-galactic piece, 2) Disaster movie stuff, and 3) the Superman story.

I could have done without all of the disaster movie stuff. The Star Wars stuff was unnecessary - I like my Superman battling bad guys on Earth. But I loved all of the Superman stuff.

This movie had a different take on parts of the Superman story - but I loved the flashbacks to when he was a boy growing up in Smallville. I thought the way the movie played out a lot of the groundwork was laid for good stuff to happen in the sequels of this particular Superman franchise. (I had forgotten until I was talking with one of my cousins at the birthday party that there was a very short-lived Superman franchise that my wife and I saw in the theater a bunch of years back - that one where Lois Lane has a kid? I guess, as rarely as I get to the movies, I never miss a Superman movie.)

One of the better parts of this movie, I thought, was Amy Adams - I thought she played Lois Lane incredibly well, and I thought they wrote that character very well. She's always sticking her nose where it doesn't belong! And not unlike Lois Lane, I just love Superman. How can you not?

So, while there was a lot happening in this movie that I didn't love, I liked the movie overall. And I'm really looking forward to the next one in the series.

In fact, I've already lined up my brother to accompany me.