29 June 2010

Catholic Voice Article

Here is a link to the Catholic Voice article about Mass Chaos.


Enjoy!

25 June 2010

Third Week in June 2010

Monday after work Brianne and I got together and planned ahead for a couple months of Mass Chaos. We met at Panera, which is being ignored as a restaurant, I'm kind of sad about it ... people, including me, are so fussy about eating at new places, I hope it lasts, but thinking it might not. Back to the purpose of our meeting, the planning went well. I like being flexible, but everyone is so busy in summer, so I think it will it will work out better being planned out instead of going by the seat of my pants.

Tuesday during early afternoon the Platte River was supposed to crest near Louisville, so I went and got pictures.

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This is about 9.67 feet, the record is less than three feet higher. It's a top ten flood, well, top ten since the oppressive western-centric caucasian capitalist chauvinist males started keeping records ... that hurt to say, do people listen to themselves when they say stuff like that? (it's a rhetorical question)

Tuesday evening we had the usual dance practice, but with a twist ... instead of Dan and Giselle on the screen, we had Dan and Gabby in person. We got about a ninety minute semi-private lesson. If I were a good dancer instead of a guy who dances, I might have learned more, but I got one good move out of it and hopefully a couple principles.

Wednesday evening I finished up processing pictures from the wedding and getting them on line. Thursday was kind of sad, I had errands to run near Old Towne Bellevue, so I included Dairy Queen and then a trip to Haworth Park to see what I thought would be a little high water, nope.

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Pretty much underwater :-( This is a preview, more to follow.

Later in the evening I hung out on the front porch and watched the storms. I tried to get some lightening pictures, like 70 plus attempts, but it's tough. I love rain, storms, and watching from a porch.

I have a new exercise plan which is meeting with mixed results. I am getting up in the morning and working out and walking. I actually love it, and it's not really an issue, except that I've given priority to getting enough sleep. So the getting up early isn't it, getting to sleep on time is. I'm working on it. I got up early Friday and was working, when a front rolled in. It's was pretty intimidating, but no rain and not much wind.

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Full of sound and fury, well not so much sound, and not that furious either. Pretty much signifying nothing.

Friday evening I went to the dance. I'm really excited about dancing lately, not so much about JNO. Still I thought I had a nice night dancing. Saturday I was sick most of the day, and spent it curled up on the couch, so I missed dancing in the Papillion days parade. About 1800, I had napped enough that the medicine had caught up, so I started moving around, and by 2000 I felt well enough to go out. I went to Harrah's and saw Satchel Grande. It was my first time seeing them, but it won't be my last, funkadelic baby. I guess it was when I was leaving that the flooding finally hit home. I was parked in the Harrah's garage and as I was leaving, I looked over the side of the garage into the lower level and saw the Missouri River covering it, I must have stared for a while, Merinda finally said "what's wrong?", I finally got in the car and left.

Sunday I woke up completely recovered from Saturday's headache, and I was ready to go. First up was church and Mass Chaos. We went to Saint Robert Bellarmine, you can read about it here. There was thunder and lightening all around. We ate at Gandalfo's after church, the food is much better than their dumb radio ads.

It was 1430, I knew I had to be at Maeg's by 1730, and so I had some time to mess around, so I decided on an adventure. I drove from church down to Gifford Farm in Bellevue. I parked at the Hitchcock Wetlands Learning Center and walked down the Gifford Boardwalk to the observation tower to the 'Great Marsh'. Okay, let's be clear, the term wetlands completely applied here.

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The boardwalk was actually floating, not anchored down. It was like a half mile long walk on a raft.

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No rain when I got to the end of the boardwalk, but then...

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...it starts raining, and then I spot, um, well, I have no training in tornado spotting, but you know, it looks like something. My situation is I'm standing at the edge of a forest that is under a foot and a half of water, I can run back to my car, a half a mile away on a very slippery path, but then where am I going? I decided to just stay where I was and if I had to take a dive, I'd take a dive. Instead I decided to take some more pictures. Yeah, that worked out pretty well.

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IMHO, the best photo I've ever taken.

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Looks like me with the famous umbrella.

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This is a lake, not a marsh ... well, really it's just an extension of the Missouri River.

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I walked back down the boardwalk and over to Gifford Farm, the nearer field is where I usually see the horses in the farther field.

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Yes, this picture was taken in the Omaha metro.

I then drove downtown Bellevue, back to Haworth Park to take a few more pictures there. Red, White, and Que, the BBQ contest, concert, and fireworks has been canceled for this year, as if the flooded park wasn't depressing enough, Bellevue's annual festival is now gone too.

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These are some sad picnic tables.

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I could not believe how still the water was.

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I thought this picture was pretty cool too. None of these pictures looked so impressive until I saw them on the computer.

From there I drove south on Hancock Street to the trail access point near the Papio's mouth. It was a little marshy and very full.

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This guy was hanging out on the NRD Papio trail.

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What more rain? Good thing that's to the east.

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I don't think Jenny or Keith are riding down this trail on their bikes any time soon.

And that was the end of the afternoon of being half a fish. You can see all the pictures I took here.

I went from there home, changed into some dry clothes and headed over to Maeg's to play Arkham Horror with the Innsmouth Horror Expansion with her and Ben Cass. Yeah, things didn't go so well, and I'm not really sure how it got all so out of control, but for the first time in a while, we lost. At least I wasn't devoured in real life, instead I had an awesome week.

17 June 2010

Second Week in June 2010

Really, I'm so busy, and summer hasn't even officially started yet. Sheesh. Monday I was out, Tuesday I had dance practice, and I was looking forward to nothing to do on Wednesday, when I noticed at lunch that Ben R had posted to his Facebook that he would be playing on the corner of 11th and Harney in the Old Market with Insignificant Other. How could I miss that?
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Not pictured: the beginning of the night at The Upstream.

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The band allowed us to sing along, or couldn't stop us legally, one or the other ... no, they didn't share any money.

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Of course we danced, you had to ask?.

You can see all the pictures I took from our adventure right here.

Thursday I was out and Friday it was on to the dance. We have Dan and Gabby in from Seattle teaching Lindyhop, and so I took a class from them on Friday. It turns out that I was also on the tear down crew, so it's a good thing I did show up.

Saturday was the long await wedding for Micah and Keith. There isn't too much to say about it other than congratulations and God bless, well that and a bunch of pictures.

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You can see all the pictures I took from the wedding right here. I'm sure you can barely trip over the internet without hitting about 5,000 more, but just in case, here are Matt's. Check Facebook for more.

Sunday was another adventure for Mass Chaos, you can read about it here.

Sunday evening myself, Brianne, Joe, and (eventually) Frank met at DJ's Dugout in Bellevue to watch the Cubs-White Sox game. I showed up in a Cubs t-shirt and official cap, Joe showed up in a throwback Sox jersey and a cap. You can guess how it went, only you'd be wrong, it was quite the pitchers duel, the Sox pitcher going 7 1/3 innings with no hits, the Cubs pitcher going into the 9th inning with his. We had a lot of fun and ate a lot of food.

11 June 2010

Out at Five - I'm Featured!

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Yeah, Matt, thanks so much for this.

08 June 2010

First Week in June 2010

Because I was on call the week before, and Monday was a holiday, I was still on call for the entire day. The morning was quite busy, but by the afternoon it had quieted down enough for me to make some guacamole, some cookies, and head over to Amanda's house for her Memorial Day party. The theme was fish tacos and they were awesome!

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Aw! I look so pretty!

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Later on, this device attacked Brianne and I.

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I'm sure it's not Ron's best picture ever, but it's a good action shot.

You can see all the pictures I took from Amanda's party right here

Tuesday I probably did the dumbest the thing I have done in a long time. The storm of the century was heading south from Omaha to Sarpy County, and instead of just waiting it out at work, I left early and tried to beat the storm home. Yeah, that wasn't smart. I was soaked before I could get to the car. I drove home right in front of a wall cloud and hail. I'd stop at a stoplight, and the hail would start, then I'd drive out of it. It was just dumb of me to do, and I think I won't be doing anything like that again anytime soon.

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It was still raining when I took this shot.

When I got home, there was dance practice, and David and Anna were staying with us, but the only people who showed up were Tony and Joe. Well it doesn't take a genius to figure out there are no follows, so I stayed upstairs and worked on my blog and other things.

Wednesday after work Brianne and I met Rachel Sawin at the Crane Coffee on (Ben) Cass Street for our Catholic Voice interview for Mass Chaos. She made it really easy for me to talk to her, Brianne was great too. I'll be posting the link on this blog after it comes out. Afterwards, I was famished, Brianne too, so we had dinner at the closest Chinese restaurant (sorry, I don't remember the name).

Thursday after work, I had dinner with Kevin and Joe and Buffalo Wild Wings in Bellevue. It was boneless Thursday, and we ate wings. I went a good deal of the middle of the week with no veggies, oops. I have the NTN Buzztime trivia app for my iPhone, and it is a battery hog, I can play it for about ten minutes before the phone is drained. If this paragraph isn't scattered enough for you, try this sentence.

Friday was my half day compensation for working on call. In fine OnionBoy tradition, I went and did something frustrating; I call it golf. I did really well on the front nine, and fell apart on the back, sigh. I shot a 40/46. After I got home and cleaned up, I went to the dance. Friday's dance was a big time stretch, it just seemed to go on and on and on, in a good way.

Saturday 'morning' I got up and met CJ at Tara Hills for more golf. This was different, I fell apart on the front nine, actually after the first seven holes I was eight over par. I think I accurately determined the problem was a sugar crash. I thought about how I could get some sugar into my bloodstream in the fastest way possible and then get a hot dog at the turn. Oh, look, it's the beer cart girl: "I'll have a Mike's Hard Lemonade". That did the trick, real food at the turn, and I was only four over par for the final 11 holes. That is how I expect to golf.

Late Saturday afternoon I went to the Saint Lucia Festival with Jenny, Stacy, Sarah, Hugh, and Jon. We enjoyed some food and music and then walked over the pedestrian bridge. It turns out that Jon is quite the destructor. He wanted to take apart the bridge piece by piece, fortunately, we threatened to throw him over the side to make him stop ... I mean we talked him out of it. Later on Keith met us, and we went down to Ted and Wally's.

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I think this was a little harsh punishment for forgetting a hair tie for Jenny to borrow, but I wasn't going to get involved, we'll miss Sarah.

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Jon decided to challenge the water to a duel, he lost.

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Jenny in Nebraska, land in Iowa, storms over Missouri.

Not only did we have a great time, but Ted and Wally's flavors were good ... mmmm. See the rest of the pictures here.

Sunday Mass Chaos went to Sacred Heart, you can read about the adventure here. After Sacred Heart we had lunch on the other side of Omaha at the once might Garden Cafe, now reduced to a shell of it's former glory, still it was good. Later in the day I met up with Erin and we had dinner. She'll be moving back to New York State soon, but it's very nice to enjoy her company for a few hours on a Sunday afternoon.

Coming up next week: More Stuff!

04 June 2010

Last week in May 2010

The shortest 'week' post ever. Last week was an on call week, so I didn't do a whole lot. Monday was meh. Tuesday I did lawn work and then went to dance practice. Wednesday the internet went down at the house just as I was trying to fix some on call issues, so that was awkward. Thursday was the same as Monday. Friday I decided to brave the on call phone and go to the dance. I got there late and luck held and I didn't get called.

Saturday was very busy with work, and I tried to get as much sleep as possible.

Sunday was a busy day, but not with work, and not really until the afternoon. First came Mass Chaos, you can read about it on the Mass Chaos blog. After church we went to dinner at Old Chicago. After that we went to Cosmic bowling. No matter what Maeg might claim to the contrary, I was the winner, and more importantly Cass added to his bowling legend.