27 May 2010

Third Week in May 2010

Dance, dance, dance, dance. It was a four dance week. I love dancing, I wish I actually had talent instead of having a skill at it. I understand the art of it, but making my body do what I want, that's hard.

Monday while I was at work, I started getting texts to go to Ozone and dancing. I said no, no, no, no, no ... so it was a lot of fun, I got there early, ordered dinner, and sat down and enjoyed the crowd. I heard, rather than saw, Connie on the other side of the room, Yvonne was in town, Sara was there. Brianne and Todd joined me at the table. Ben, Paige, and Robyn were at another, and then Josie and Nate showed up later. The dance floor was a little too crowded, but the band, Mike Gurciullo and his Las Vegas Lab Band was ON.

Tuesday has become unofficially official lawn work day. It just works out better all the way around, so I cut the lawn when I got home. Ah, the pleasure of making tall grass short. After I got myself all cleaned up, ate a quick dinner, and went downstairs for dance practice.

Wednesday I did nothing and went to sleep early.

Thursday night was game night at Kaleb's. I got there and ate right away. I then played two games I hadn't played before. Endeavor, a map expansion game that seemed quite familiar due to the mechanics of the game. This one features the player as the white colonial expansionist, and it even distastefully has a slavery option. I came in second to CJ, but it was close, I made up a lot of ground at the end of the game. The second game was Blue Moon City, Troy seems to like it, but this could be because it has dragons. I won the game, I was pretty meh about it, but it could be because I was getting tired.

Friday and Saturday went by with some usual stuff, dance, friends, it was pretty slow and mellow. Sunday was the busy day, and I had the camera. First up was the latest installment of Mass Chaos. After church, Brianne, Joe, and I went to Lisa's Radial Cafe for brunch.

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I swear Brianne has radar for my camera.

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Christmas joined us. I had a kielbasa scramble with guacamole, mmmm. There was also a straw wrapper incident, yeah that didn't turn out so well.

Immediately after lunch we headed down to Lindy in the Park, it was a much warmer day than the first one, possibly too much so. There were many good pictures taken.

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Maeg isn't a doll, she's an action figure!

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This is one way of waking Ben up, here is another.

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One of several pictures I was quite happy with. I didn't develop camera envy until the next stop.

My pictures are here, Matt's are at the bottom of this page, Maeg took some too, and if you look around the interwebs you'll find more from Cliff and Brianne, and probably more too.

Last stop on Sunday's tour was an 'official' graduation for Ben. You may remember the unofficial one from January. This one was official, and mixed with his sister's graduation, but lot's of photo ops.

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I tried to explain to Ben he wasn't taking the picture with Emma for memory sake, but to impress the girls with his child skills.

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Hey, look, an appearance by Insignificant Other.

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We had plenty of fun playing balloon volleyball, and took many bad pictures of it.

The rest of my pictures are here, and Maeg's are here. It was good time, and we stayed a pretty long time. The baby belongs to Chrissy, and it was good to see her after such a long time in Cali.

19 May 2010

Second Week in May 2010

Monday I gave up on my nose, it had been bleeding since midday Saturday, and had not happy before that. So I went to the doctor. Surprise! I have a staph infection in my nose. Icky, and the stuff it produces, ickier. I got my prescriptions and stayed home for the day. Tuesday was more of the same up until late in the afternoon I started to feel better, so much so that I think I had three or four days of energy and I took it all out on the dance practice attendees.

Wednesday I was back to work, and happily so, but not energetically so. I took a break in the afternoon and went to the company store and met my future BFF.

Thursday night after work I went to church and installment six of Mass Chaos. After mass we went to the west Blue Sushi, and everyone order a different kind of sushi and it was all so wonderful.

Friday I went to the Jitterbugs dance. I know that I am not taking pictures in the dance hall for a while, but Cliff is back at it, and I'm glad.
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Although with pictures like this of me, should I be so glad? Photo credit: Cliff.

Enjoy the mini-Christmas lights in the above pictures, you won't see them again. Saturday was clean up day at the Eagles Club at the lights were one of the casualties. I worked from 1000 to 1345 minus pizza time. Much thanks to Nate, Christy, Lindsay and her girls, Amanda, Maggie, Robyn, Brianne, Joe, and Ruth for help. If you think the place looks better (and smells good) you should thank them too with a dance.

The funny part for me was getting up on the high ladder to remove some tape from the highest beam on the ceiling. It was doable at my height from the third to last step on the ladder, but I could not make my feet go above the fourth from last step. Fortunately everyone was very understanding. I did get up the ladder for lots of other stuff, but not above that step, I know the limits of my fear conquering.

In the evening Stacy had her housewarming. She said 'no gifts', but I brought her a two liter bottle of Diet Pepsi ... I'm glad I did, it came in handy. I also brought The Game of Things which we played, to much hilarity. I'd like to be able to take a game like that seriously ... maybe. I was giggling before Keith got there, and then it was more like guffawing. After the hostess walked in and put a kabosh on us reading through every card and seeing how it fit with *censored*. We also played a game that was new to me, Boxers or Briefs. It is a social, get to know people, game that I actually WON, even while being silly. I liked it before I won, thanks.

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The happy hostess.

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The happy Sarah. I believe Jenny is getting the dirty look.

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Becky set me up for this.

You can see all my pictures of the event here!

Sunday was installment #7 of Mass Chaos, you can read about it on the other blog. The rest of the day was quiet and full of my friend, xBox.

Next week: more stuff and things.

12 May 2010

First Week in May 2010

Kind of boring week, since I was alone, a lot of video game playing and computer work. That was my Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday ... nothing big to talk about.

Wednesday I grilled out for Shannon and her children. I made chicken and sausages with the usual sides. Shannon brought my favorite orange drop cookies. I let Kasee (who is four) play with the camera, and she took about 80 pictures that featured random subjects. After dinner we played a little bit of Rock Band.

(the next two paragraphs are mostly a copy/paste from what I wrote in Mass Chaos) Friday at lunch my co-worker and Melissa and I went to lunch at Culver's, she drove. As we drove down Giles, we approached the corner at 117th in LaVista, a driver in a huge gold SUV blew through the stop sign on 117th right in front of us, and by right in front of us, I mean right in front of us. Melissa slammed on the brakes, the car niftily slid one lane to the right, and we missed going home early (as in being dead) by about two feet. Small car, big SUV, 55mph equals two unhappy families.

As you might guess, a close encounter of the death with death might get a person thinking. Oddly enough, I didn't really do a whole lot of thinking. I thanked God, and I thought about all the work I still had to do before I shuffle off the mortal coil. I thought about my desire to outlive my mother (no, I didn't quite tell her about this little incident). I thought about how my being dead would affect my family and friends. Otherwise I just felt thankful over a what is in my eyes, a miraculous escape.

Later in the evening I went to the weekly dance. Not quite as crowded as last weeks 205 person attendance, but at least two thirds of that. It made me think of a few years ago when the Friday dance was down to forty to sixty for weeks in a row, and at the time I was thinking the Omaha swing scene was dying slowly. Now it's hopping again with a lot of people I don't know. It's good. Eventually, some of them will want to be involved, and learn, and teach. The new blood helps us 'older' dancers be more enthused. I don't know if it is a sign of this or not, but we had twenty or so go to Village Inn after the dance.

Saturday during the day I did some lawn work, then 'made' lunch for Ben, David, and Anna ... making lunch consisted of getting out sandwich stuff.

Later on in the evening it was game night at Kaleb's. Despite the weather being cool, we played badminton outside (duh) for at least an hour, resulting in many memorable fails and one success. Evidently, any sport I play is just an excuse for me throwing myself at the ground without much chance of improving the situation.

When we got around to playing games, we played several games of Tsuro. It's a very simple game that works best if you stay away from everyone else. Of course, everyone else is trying to stay away also, so planning is important, but really only works at the beginning of the game. We also played the obligatory game of Lupus in Tabula. After this we played the equally obligatory ping pong, and I ended up leaving fairly early and went to bed.

Sunday morning was the fifth week of Mass Chaos. We had quite the crowd, eight, and our first person we didn't know or expect, Teri. We went to an early Mass to accommodate Mother's Day, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

After Mass we went to McDonald's for breakfast, we used the logic that since it was Mother's Day, any sit down place would be crowded. I'm sure they were happy to have us leave when we were done. It's a fun group.

In the afternoon was the first Lindy in the Park of the season. A little cold, a little windy, but hey, it's Lindy in the Park!

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I've been waiting six months to get this shot.

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Is there anyway this won't end up funny?

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Several Jitterkids made their Lindy in the Park world premiers!

Of course I took plenty more pictures, including some classic Dean being Dean shots. Matt also took quite a few including some of me I don't remember, nor am I sure I want to remember. About 30 or so people were there, good turnout, let's keep it up!

Later in the afternoon I picked Troy and Merinda up from their cruise. It was nice having the house to myself for a while, but it's also nice to have people there too. I ended up going to bed pretty early in the evening, and it turns out with good reason, but that is a story for next week.

All in all I ended up feeling quite blessed by the end of the week.

07 May 2010

Fourth Week in April 2010

This is post #666. Read at your own risk. I had tried to figure out a way to not have a post with this number, but really, it's just a number.

Monday after work, I went down to a Haiti benefit dinner at GAMe. Okay, it was the regular Monday dinner, but the proceeds went to supporting a mission trip to Haiti. It was pleasant to see so many of my friends there. I stayed for the music too.

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Tuesday morning when I got up I was greeted by this sight when I went to shave.

After work it was time for dance practice. We worked again with Dan and Giselle's videos. I continue to enjoy working with the videos. 5-6 in Lindy makes so much sense the way it is explained.

Wednesday I got my grill on. I marinated three chicken breasts and made five sausages. Ben came over, Troy was there, and Sarah joined us late, and by the time we finished, there was only one sausage left ... I must cook pretty well.

Thursday night was game night, and goodbye (for a year) for "I'm-bringing-pie-I-nominate-Sarah-let's-call-Angela-Susan" Tom. He is getting deployed overseas. I was one minute late in arriving and of course was the first one there.

We played basketball with his daughters (Roslyn and Lydia) until someone else arrived. I got the short end of that deal ... meaning the younger of the two daughters. We lost, good thing it was just for fun. People got there finally, so we ate. While I was trying to eat, Lydia insisted that we played a game of Mastermind. I was a little worried about kicking her butt at it, but no worries, she brought out the children's version, and even then we played with 'alternate' rules. After we ate, I played two games of Guillotine. It was my first time playing it, although I have seen it played before, I kind of thought it was a little too random, hard to be ready to play until the person in front of you plays. Good luck Tom, come back safe.

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I drove Kevin to JNO, he decided to read while waiting for me to get ready.

Friday I was on the tear down crew for JNO ... wait, I was the tear down crew for Friday night. I took one whole picture, but at least it was a good one.

Saturday I wanted to go to the Renaissance Festival, but all the usual suspects who I do things like this with were not available, so instead I stayed at home all day with my best friend xbox. It turns out plenty of people went, but I didn't know about it. I guess that's what happens when you're a hermit, no one thinks of you ... how's that for passive-aggressive whiny? I still got it.

I cut the lawn instead.

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A robin has built it's nest in the vines and latices outside the front door. There are three eggs in there.

Brianne, Frank, Joe, and I went out to Amarillo's for dinner. If you live in the Omaha metro and you can, you should try eating there. After dinner we came back to the house and played Rock Band. Brianne hadn't heard me singing Radiohead's Creep before ... I wonder if I should karaoke that song.

Sunday was the latest installment of Mass Chaos, you can read about our adventure there. Brianne, Christmas, and I were going to go golfing, but it rained instead.

Next week: something, I guess we'll find out then.