Welcome to the world Justin. You’re the best Christmas present your mom and I can ever ask for.
I want to write this for you to read on your 18th birthday, hopefully this blog is still up by then. Being with you for the past few days really opened my eyes to truly appreciate parenthood and sleeping. Your mom suffered a lot to carry you into this world so you better be nice to her when you grow up or I’ll kick your ass.
Now that you’re 18, I want to impart some manly wisdom onto you and hopefully they will help you with adulthood.
Here are the 20 life skills essentiak to be a real man
Cooking a steak properly – I hope by now I’ve shown you this already. The most important thing is having a good piece of meat. There’s really not much you can do with a terrible piece of beef. A good dry aged cut will go a long way and you have to be a massive idiot to mess it up. Salt, pepper, butter, thyme, garlic, that’s all you need. Give the meat time to rest because good things take time. Kind of like a good pint of Guinness
Learn how to make cocktails. Know the classics – Martini, Negroni, Old Fashioned, Manhattan. There is only gin martini, vodka martini is not a martini, people who drink vodka martinis just pretentious people who likes other people to think they can drink martinis but can’t handle a real drink. Also, don’t order extra dry martini because that’s how everyone orders. Extra dry means barely any vermouth so people who drink extra dry martinis are just alcoholics who drink straight up gin. You want your martinis like you want your girlfriends – dirty and wet. I can make dirty jokes now, you’re a big boy. Trust me this will come in handy because life as a Knicks Fan is going to be rough.
Always arrive early. If I haven't instill this habit onto you now, either I’ve failed you as a parent or you really took after your mother – no one ever complains about another person arriving early but you can’t say that when it’s the other way around.
Speak a second language fluently – but in your case may be three since your mom and I would’ve already have taught you English and Mandarin
Make eggs. Scrambled, omelet, sunny side up, over easy, frittata, steamed, hot spring – LEARN THEM. DO NOT ever order Eggs Benedictine at a restaurant like your mother. The hollandaise sauce has a stick of butter in it.
Now that you know how to make eggs, learn how to make breakfast for the woman you married.
When you wear a suit, never ever wear a short sleeve shirt! No matter how hot it gets, NEVER!
Build the fire at a BBQ and man the grill.
Read a book every now and then.
Be the life of the party, learn to tell jokes and cool stories.
Be a good poker player and be a good sport win or lose.
You don’t know unless you try. As you grow older you’ll come across a lot of people that’ll tell you that this is not possible, that is too hard. These people want to see you fail, and when you do fail they want to say I told you so. But, when you succeed, they'll be the first to take credit for something they didn't deserve. Don’t be one of these naysaying assholes - be the doer, dare to be different, and most of all believe in yourself.
Sing at least one song well
Stay in shape. Always find time to work out.
Open a wine bottle with a waiter’s corkscrews.
Walk away from fights, but if need be have the necessary skills to protect yourself and those you love
Ask a woman out properly. Don’t just send dick pics because that is tacky and lazy.
Shave with a blade.
Table etiquette
Treat service staff with respect
Happy B day Justin, the world is your oyster!
