tbKMD reminded me of five more gaffes so it's now a Top 25 countdown

25 - This summer in a tournament softball game I rounded 3rd and headed to the dugout thinking an out, the third out of the inning, had been made at first. Alas, I was soon surprised to find myself being tagged for the third out. We were up by eight at the time and ended up losing. Ugh.



24 - Freshman year at SLU, left my weather radio on when left over T-giving break, forgetting about the weekly tests of the alarm that occurred on Friday. Apparently, the few people who stayed behind for the holiday couldn't get into my room to turn it off for over a day. Another black eye for meteorologists.


23 - Junior year at Trinity. Honors English w/ Fr. Caster (doo-daddy-doo man, or something like that). Easy class. Even more so when I inadventently left my vocab book wide open on my desk while taking a vocab quiz. Fr. Caster's reaction upon detecting this ... "Maniac!"


22 - Dislocating my shoulder for the 11th? (have lost track) time while doing flips off a diving board in Siler City. Think I was 37 or 38 at the time and it was about the 37th or 38th dive of the day that ended badly. Stupid!


21 - Throwing a marble through our family room window when I was a teenager. Remember it like it was yesterday ... stepped on this marble ... right on my arch ... hurt ... Dolberry angry ... marble at fault ... hurl marble ... wait ... hurl marble in other direction ... too late ... crash ... El Cuerta? ... not happy.

20 - One of our first Xmas'es down in NC, tbKMD and I went to get a tree.  Dolberry tied it to the roof through the closed car doors w/ the windows down ... forcing me to have to climb out that same window to escape (and get scissors) upon arriving home.

19 - Getting a massive sunburn in San Diego right before having to spend the day on a plane flying back to Chicago. Then went double-down on the gaffe by going to Northwestern hospital ER at 2am that night ... only to be laughed out of ER by doctors w/ a recommendation to take a Tylenol.


18b - Think I was in 3rd grade, so it was probably Goldsmith elementary. Along w/ a schoolmate, had connected three straws together into a sword and were swashbuckling our way through lunch only to have the duel prematurely end when my sword violently disconnected and landed in the teacher's tray two tables over.


18a - You'd think Dolberry would have learned w/ the straws, but no. Crowded Chicago movie theater ... Dolberry chewing on his straw ... goes flying out of mouth ... onto lap of patron in row in front of me. No words exchanged. None needed really.


17 - One cold January day (~ 15 degrees) in Des Plaines, workers accidentally ignited a fire up on the roof. Dolberry smells smoke and calmly evacuates w/o his winter coat. Don't get back into office for several days due to smoke damage and clean up. Brrrr!


16 - First day at new job at Region 5 EPA in Chicago, I got on the wrong southbound train heading out of the Loop. Train blows right by my apartment at about 40 mph stopping only upon reaching East Chicago ... which is in Indiana.


15 - Early date with tbKMD (tbKMB at the time), Dolberry goes to movies w/o his wallet. tbKMB less then impressed. Odds of tbKMB ever becoming tbKMD at that point .... 5000 to 1.


14 - Sunday morning massacre. Crashed into two separate cars leaving church. Interestingly, I almost backed into someone while leaving church a few months ago here in Apex. Obviously, Dolberry needs to spend more time praying about safely exiting the parking lot.


13 - Junior year at Trinity ... Covington Catholic Invitational ... for some unknown reason Dolberry bolts to the lead (> 100 other runners) ... so unaccustomed to running in front I run off course ... even taking shortcut (Coach Kahl called me "Cutter" for the rest of the year) I can't hold lead for more than a half mile, eventually fading to 40th place. Even Leary beats me. Wow.

12 - APD and tbKMD had come up to visit me in Shepherdstown WV over the weekend while I was in a two week training class.  Sunday afternoon we decided to head out to the Antietam battlefield site which Dolberry knew was close.  We drove for about an hour and a half in various directions before finding it.  Upon leaving the battlefield park, we see a sign that says: Shepherdstown -- 4 miles.

11 - Junior year at SLU. Come home to Louisville w/ friends (Matt?, Tom?) to attend KY Derby. Trying to showoff and play the role of experienced local, Dolberry advises buying race program outside the track claiming they'll be much cheaper than inside ... only to find out exact opposite is true less than two minutes later.


10 - Working at MCNC (1998) ... big presentation ... Dolberry spends several hours loading multiple animations onto workstation prior to talk ... only to trip over cable ... disconnecting machine and sending the needed animations into the ether. Disasterously attempted to solider on. If a picture is worth a thousand words ... it makes sense that a missing animation can't be described w/ ten thousand.

9 - Inadvertently stole a guy's dog once while getting breakfast at Bojangles.  The old pup was just wandering around the dumpster while (unbeknownst to me) his owner was in the restaurant.  Dolberry took Buddy home and called the owner who had been quite saddened to have his pet dognapped while eating breakfast. 

8 - Looking through a photo album w/ tbKMD's sister, Shelly. (Note: Dolberry spaces out whenever forced to look at other people's pictures for more than 30 seconds. Some sort of survival instinct honed from growing up w/ La Shutterbugga.) Shown picture of then newborn, now superstar, Gracie on a blanket, Dolberry remarks absentmindedly ... "so, that was after she was born?"


7 - Dolberry is night-running along Chicago lakefront. Unbeknownst to me, mugging had taken place on the path earlier that morning. Am ambushed by TV crew who want an interview. Reporter asks why I'm running in dark, by myself, w/ headphones, in same place as earlier incident. Winded Dolberry confusedly replies ... "Uhhhh ... I work in the day." Dolberry's doofus quote featured in lead 10p news story.


6 - SLU again ... went out to western suburbs to play some football at a park w/ friends... walking over to park from Evans' house along some busy road ... Dolberry launches an errant pass ... which takes an unfortunate and had-to-be-seen-to-believed bad bounce ... right into a passing car's passenger's side mirror ... dislodging the mirror from its rightful place on the car. (Matt Jung ran about a quarter of a mile to catch the driver at a stoplight and presented her w/ her now-standalone mirror.)


5 - The Incident at Berghoff's4 - Summer of 1987 ... first trip out to visit tbKMD's family. Meet up w/ some of tbKMD's high school friends. Some of which still have feelings for tbKMD ... who's still tbKMB at the time. Dolberry trying to be on his studliest behavior but status takes a hit when I inadvertently tip the raft containing all the group's beverages ... which quickly submerge to bottom of Salt River never to be seen again.


3. Senior year in high school ... March 1984 ... first trip out to SLU to visit campus. Must have been a Friday in Lent because ordered a fish sandwich from Wendy's near campus. Accidentally drop my square of fish on restaurant floor ... too cheap to get another one and too hungry not to eat. End up vomiting over most, if not all of the 240 miles of I-64 shoulder upon return to Louisville that evening. Why Dolberry? Why?

2. 2002 Kentucky Derby party ... everyone gathered around the TV but strangely ... no one's cheering for War Emblem as he goes wire-to-wire for victory.  Why not?  Dolberry inadvertently left him out of the blind draw.  Probably the only Derby party that day to award the big prize to Proud Citizen (who finished 2nd).

1. January 18th, 2000 ... Apex gets a small snowfall (~3") ... lot of fun ... Dolberry gets his snow shovel out for maybe the first time ever in NC to shovel the snow together to make a snowman ... and leaves the shovel out in the yard ... where it is later unfindable ... buried by the 20" snow that falls one week later.