The next day on my way home from I stopped at Walgreen and took a look at the hair trimming products they offered (all top of the line I’m sure). I found a product that was not only affordable ($5), but it was non-electric, durable and therefore eco-friendly (I thought Jill would like that).

Conair Hair Trimmer

So basically it is a comb with a razor blade in the middle.  In my not so capable hands what could go wrong.  So excitedly I get home to show Jill my smart purchase.  After I show it to her, she looks at me with a bit of disbelevment, but I assure her it’ll work great.  We head out to the back deck with the new trimmer, a comb and a pair of kitchen sissors and attempt to cut my hair.

Everything goes ok.  Jill gets the hang of the (as we quickly realized) crappy razor-comb and get my hair trimmed to a respectiful length.  I head into the bathroom to rinse my head, while Jill gets ready for a community meeting she has to go to.  While I’m washing my head, the back feels a bit long to me, no problem I think I can handle this.  So I take the razor-comb, and with out any sort of mirror I use it to shorten the back of my hair.  I also shorten my sideburns a bit, and end up taking out a small chunk of hair. “Uh oh” I say out loud.  Jill, knowing that I’ve done something stupid when I say that, comes running to the bathroom where she sees this.

bad hair

Jill begins to laugh so much she nearly pees her pants.  I have her take a photo so I can see what I’ve done, she says I should just shave it off, but I assure her I can fix it.  Jill runs off to her meeting, and I attempt to do my best to fix my hair, again on my own with out a second mirror.  I manage to get it straightened out, but it looks like I have the haircut of a monk (with a few chunks missing).  But I press forward, put on a baseball cap and deal with it.  It’s only hair and it’ll grow back.

For two days I show people my haircut (or hide it from them) and everyone insits that I should shave it all off.  So finally on saturday night I’m watching TV with Jill and Mike, rubbing my oddly cut head and say, “alright lets do it, lets go shave my head”. We head into the bathroom I stand in the tub and using Mike’s electric hair trimmer (He had one under the sink), Jill shaves off my head. It’ll be no big thing I think, it’ll just look like I have a buzz cut.  But when Jill was all done I step out of the tub, look in the mirror and exclaim “Gah! My head!  I look so weird!”.

So it’ll be something I have a few months to get used to (while my hair grows back).  On sunday Mike and I took a trip to costco and I bought a full trimmer set, so by december when I need a haircut we can do it right. (We also ended up buying an ice maker and a mini fridge for our bar, go figure).  It’s not easy trying to be cheap, but it can lead to some fun/funny situations.

Shaved Head

Most people wouldn’t take me as someone who would want to be a bartender, or have a bartender’s skills.  I think that is because of a misconception in thinking.  People hear someone is a bartender and thinks “well, they must really like booze”, but that’s flawed, a bartender doesn’t get themselves booze, they serve it to others.  I’m not a big drinker, but I’ve always been enticed by what a bartender can do.  They can be given some seemingly random sentence (for example “Give me a wet gimlet with rocks on the side”) and give someone the exact drink they are looking for (A martini with extra lime juice, in a martini glass with the ice in a side glass) it is the perfect pairing of art and science.  In fact I believe Bartending is one of the only literal meanings of a ‘social science’. Think about it, bartenders are mearly social chemists.  They take common elements (almost every drink is composed of one or more of the 5 following alcohols: vodka, Gin, Rum, Tequilla & Triple Sec).  By combining these elements in different ways they produce thousands of products.  It’s truly amazing.

For years I’ve seen flyers for Drinkmasters Bartending School and I have heard great things about the school.  But with the $500 price tag for the course, it was out of my reach finacially.  But a few weeks ago I was on groupon.com (which I visit everyday) and saw that you could enroll in the Drinkmasters course for only $150.  So for $150 I could enroll in a $500 course, get my bartending license and have alot of fun? that’s a no brainer, so I purchased it. (As did my good friend Mike Matterra).

The course was only a week long, four hour classes every night from 6pm-10pm.  You would think that a four hour long class would be brutal, but the way the instructors teach the classes it goes by quick and is wicked fun.  There is no pressure, your there because you want to learn, the instructors are there because they want to teach and everyone has a great time. And the max in each class is only 16 people, so you get to know your fellow classmates and joke with them (just how you would as a real bartender)

Every class started with drink drills (where we would stand behind the bar and the instructor would yell out drink orders and we had to make them).  Monday and tuesday night, nearly everyone struggled to make even the basic drink correctly (including handling the glasses, ices, serving the drink to the customer) but by thursday we were all nearly pros.

I surprised myself, most of the time I can be a bit of a klutz…. I tend to drop things.  But everything clicked for me behind the bar, I was scooping ice, grabing the right bottles, shaking, serving the whole nine yards.  I know I keep saying this, but it was alot of fun.

The course went over the whole spectrum of bartending, from how to properly take a drink order all the way to how to identify and pour wine.  We learned how with just a little bit of knowledge we could make any daqauri, shot, mixed drink & margartias.

Friday night was the big night for the course, it was exam night. Where we would see who would go home a bartender and who would go home a customer.  The exam consisted of a written test and a practical.  The written I found was easy, it was only 25 questions and I knew the answer to all except 1.  I was more nervous for the practical, where you had to actually make drinks.  In fact Myself, Mike and our friend Justin were so nervous that we had arrived at 3pm (3 hours before class started) on Friday to just practice our drink drills.

After the written there was a quick break, and then we had the practical.  Myself, Mike & Justin and two others (our new friends Nellie &  ‘P’) were in the first group of bartenders-to-be to take the practical (it was split up into groups of 4/5 at a time).  I was feeling confident, the instructor explained the guidelines and then gave us each our first drink orders.

I cant exactly explain what happened next, it’s all a blur I was in the bar tending zone. I heard the drink orders and it seamed that before I was even done repaeting the order back to the ‘coustomer’ the drink was made and served and I was getting the next order.  It was… I have to say amazing, I was truly impressed with my self and my classmates.

We all finished our drinks (I was first to finish) and then we’re sent on a break (so that the last waiting group could not grill us on what it was like).  Taking advantage of the 45min break we had and the adrenaline we all had pumping we decided to go around the corner to a local bar.  The one thing about the bartending course, is al week we have been making these colorful, exotic drinks but with colored water.  So they looked good, but were completly undrinkable.

One drink, in particular I had been wanting to try all week, it’s known as a planters punch.  When we first learned it the instructor told us that not many bartenders know how to make this drink and it would be hard to find.  So at the bar I asked the bartender for a planters punch, and what do you know but she didnt know what it was.  I explained how to make it and she proceeded to try. The ting about learning something is that you notice when others are doing it wrong.  For example when the bartender was making me my planters punch I could see all the flaws in her technique, and was taken back (of course it’s no big deal since she did manage to make the drink).  But it was just a wonderment to myself to know that when ever I go out in the future I’ll see these flaws.

After our break we went back to class, when the instructor tallied up everyone’s grades and presented all of us with our certificates of achievement (that’s right 100% of the class passed!). We were all excited.  the instructor then explained how the school should be the resource to us for finding bartending jobs, and that we can comeback at any time for free refresher courses or to practice.

Certified Bartender

Does this mean I’m going to quit my job and become a bartender? Of course not, I love my job and using my college degree.  But if in the future I know that I have a second set of skills in case I need to make extra cash.  For now it’s just a great party trick.

Excited with our new sets of skills Mike and I proceeded to get all the necessary tools to make our home bar an actual bar (as opposed to a cabinet with liquor bottles).  Mike purchased a bartenders kit online with all the tools, and saturday went up to New Hampshire to  get all the tax free booze we would need (about $200 worth).  And sunday we went to the christmas tree shop and bought all the proper glassware.

Home Bar

We now have a bar that any bartender would be proud of, and proceeded to christen it with a couple of home made margaritas. (with no pre-made mix, and they were perfect for the heat wave we had over the weekend).

Margaritas

The whole experience was great.  I learned a lot, made some new friends and had a lot of fun. So before I head to my home bar to make you a margarita I need to know, do you want rocks & salt?

America!

Tacky enough?

Awaiting for me in the basement was a huge pile of junk:

Basement Junk

It was quite alot of stuff to go throu, but I had the whole day (and the new chickenfoot CD to listen too) to go throu it all.  As I started going throu it I started snapping some photos of items so that I could share some of my past with the internet. Because I know the internet wants to know all there is about michael miles.

First up, my trophy from the only year I played little league (have never been a big sports guy).

1993 F.L.B.L Peanut League

You might notice the bat is broken, that’s because I use to use this trophy for science experiments in my bedroom.  I would clip DC chargers from my remote control cars to it and plug them in, to see if I could electrify it? (I don’t know what I was trying to do, guess I’m lucky I never electrocuted myself).

Next up are the race cars I made in middle school shop class (7th grade & 8th grade).

race car 7th grade

race car 8th grade

I never got a change to race them, but I’m sure with my knack for engineering they would of each won. Speaking of middle school I also found my middle school year book.  Looked up my photo, I looked pretty geeky (I was still a wet rag on a coat hanger back then).  Also I found Jill’s photo (hilarious) but she wont let me post it.

FHS

Coming up next, some stuff that is pure badass.   First off are my dog tags from battleship cove, because what kid does not want their own pair of dog tags?

dog tags

To show you how much of a nerd I was am. This is what the dog tags say :

Mike D Miles
USS Matrix B77
Weapons Expert
Framingham MA

Next up is from when I took a trip with my friend Joe and his family to Six Flaggs New Jersey.  Joe and I got one of those olde time photos of us as western badasses.

Wild Wild West

Who at one point in their lives have not gotten an olde time photo?  I think its something everyone experiances once (ony once because after that you realize what a ripoff it is, like getting a characture).

OMG… I cant believe what I found, something my dad helped me put together… A bit of back story before I show the pics.  As a young boy growing up in the 90′s there were two action packed shows I loved.  One was the animated classic Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  The other.. you guessed it Power Rangers!!

Go, Go Power rangers, du nu nu nu na.

Go, Go Power Rangers, Du nu nu, nu na.

Go, Go Power Rangers you mighty morphing power rangers!

Sorry a bit of nostalgia crept up on me. So yeah I loved the power ranges. Watched them every saturday morning, had the action figures and the trading cards.  Which leads me to my next discovery. ready?

Its my Mint Condition Complete first edition Power Rangers trading card collection (including all the foil cards)!!

Power Rangers!

mint condition

Quick to ebay! Ok after searching ebay I found that this collection is only worth about $15.00 .  I’m sure their value will appreciate in time.

Next up I came across my highschool year book.  The class of 2004.  Highschool not the greatest time in my life (again I’m a nerd and that equals not poular in high school).  But I did have some good time with my friends, speaking of which my friend Janelle was the only one to sign my year book, but I think its a great entry.

FHS

Janelle yearbook sign

For those of you that dont know I was involved with some less then legal co-curricular activities with my firends.  Which was the case when this was written.  If you cant read it it says (children cover your eyes!)

Yo, I dont no what makes you so damn funny but all I know is I laugh so fucking hard wen u talk. AHHHH too many words. MY leg is vibrating.

- Janelle (June 1st 2004)

Although I’ve always been a funny guy, and could make my friend laugh at any point (I almost got Janelle to pee her pants, I’ve also gotten Jill to almost pee her pants)

The summer I graduated high school, was the first summer Jill and I started dating.  For some fun summer activities we held a MGA tournament (Miniture Golf Association).  We tried to go to as many miniature golf courss as possible, and at the end of the summer the winner would get a golden putter. (What ever Jill tells you, really I’m the one who won, its not about points its about style.)

MGA

This next guy is a monkey Jill won for me our first year of college when I came to visit her in Springfield and we took a trip to six flaggs.

green monkey

He’s also featured in one of my all time favorite photos of Jill.  I took it while we were driving back to her dorm.

(When I find the photo I’m talking about I’ll upload it here)

Nothing much more worht writting about.  I went through alot of my books (again, big nerd, big reader).  Here is a shot of about half of them.

books

A box of krusty-o’s I got from 7-11 when the Simpsons movie came out. (they are just really bland frut loops)

KrustyO's

At the end of the day.  I went from that huge pile of junk (See first photo) to this:

cleaned

I was able to relive alot of great memories, get rid of alot of junk, and listen to some great tunes (again check out the chickenfoot cd if you get a chance).