Holy Week 2012

Monday during lunch I went running for the third time in 2012. I was a little concerned that it would be too cold, but there was no need to be worried. 1.86 mi (3k) in 19:16.6 ... although I exceeded my distance goal, my pace (10:22/mi) was only slightly faster than pouring cold maple syrup. After work I came home and enjoyed a quiet night hanging out by myself ... well almost by myself, I went out on the back deck to eat and saw someone familiar.

Hannah Marie! ... oh, and her parents too.

Tuesday after work I hung out with Maggie, we went for a walk down by Gifford Farm. I wanted to see what the flood damage looked like first hand, it wasn't as bad as I had feared, although the boardwalk wasn't in good shape.

There were a few trees that were downed, I wanted to walk up this one,
but Maggie said no. She ruins all my neck-breaking stupid plans.

After the walk, we went downtown Bellevue and ate at Swine Dining.

Wednesday Maggie came over and I cooked pieroguies, and then we had a productive dance practice.

Thursday after work I went to Holy Thursday Mass. Father Joseph wanted to wash 12 people's feet, so since I was already going to be there for my confirmation, I (and my fellow classmates) were volunteered. The other eight people were from the parish. I knew I had Friday off as my floating holiday, so I stayed up kind of late.

Friday I was up and met Maggie over at Stinson Park and we went for a long walk along the Keystone Trail, it was a pi walk, 3.14 miles, I'm sure that it was an exactly irrational length. I left the walk, did some errands, finally got home mid afternoon, and immediately took a nap. In the evening I went to Good Friday service. After the service I ate and then to the dance, I heard one of my favorite follows was going to be there...

...or several of them. Photo credit: Matt


Babies make you do weird things. Photo credit: Matt

After the dance I went to the Donut Stop, but not with the usual crowd. It was still fun and funny, but I didn't stay up too late.

Saturday I slept in as long as I could, since I was expecting to be up late. In the early afternoon I baked cookies from scratch. I tried two different oatmeal cookie recipes, one that was difficult (the dough ended up in the fridge), and one that was easy. I over baked the second batch just a little too long, they were not as soft as I wanted them to be. Frank came over while I was baking and hung out for a while.

Saturday evening was the culmination of all those RCIA meetings, I was confirmed at the Easter Vigil. Thank you again to Joe for being my sponsor. Thank you to my classmates, Jamie and Stephanie, to Father Joseph, to the deacons Ron, Gary, and Subby, the helpers Sandy and Joyce, and to all of my friends who supported me during the year and showed up for the Vigil.

Sarah, Marilou, Joe, Maggie, Frank, Beth, Josh, me, Cullen, and Jen.
Thank you again. Photo credit: Joe


Look, we're both smiling! Photo credit: Joe


Rosary, Crucifix, and book from the parish. Photo credit: Joe


Ice cream! I don't know Maggie is doing. Photo credit: Joe


Thank you to Frank (not pictured) for hosting the party,
here is the obligatory stuck-in-the-pantry picture. Photo credit: Joe

The evening ended at Frank's house, as usual, with Joe, Marilou, Sarah, and I whooping it up while Maggie and Frank desperately tried to stay awake. You can see all the pictures that Joe took here.

Sunday I slept in, got up at the crack of noon, and was lazy until about 1430 at which time I started cooking some peiroguies for Easter dinner at Amanda's. I took the borrowed toy and took a few pictures.

I'm not sure you can see what makes this picture hilarious, but I'm still laughing.


Part of the spread and all of the hosts.


Bocce ball! Maggie did quite well.


This is not an action shot.


Technically, this one is not either.


There was a Dance Central contest to end the evening...


...Maggie was first, I was second, Joe was third.
I don't know what is wrong with Joe and I. Photo credit: Amanda

Thank you very much to the hosts, Chris and Amanda. Dinner was good, multicultural, and very fun. You can see all 166 pictures I took from the event here.

Next week: Rachel and Jason get married.

Last Week in March 2012

Monday immediately after work I met with Rachel about her wedding plans and my participation in taking pictures. Jason and Rachel bought a Canon Rebel XS, flash, and a couple of lenses, and they were lending it to me early so I could get used to it and be able to take pictures at the rehearsal and wedding. So, on Tuesday I came home and immediately grabbed the camera and went out to take pictures ... so I could practice.

I'm not sure I quite got the focus where I wanted it, but it was windy.

Maggie showed up, we came inside, and she made me alfredo for dinner, again.

Wednesday during lunch I went running at work, run #2 in 2012, 1.49 mi (2.4k) in 15:08.2, that's a 10:09 pace.

After work, I went to RCIA, the final time before Easter. I am going to miss this part of my life, I really grew to like and appreciate the deacons and my classmates. After RCIA, I came right home for the final fitting of my Miracle Max costume by Lee, it's going to be awesome! We then had some dance practice. I had to show Maeg the borrowed camera, and we took a bunch of semi-candids.

Maeg was behind the camera for a lot of them.

If you'd like to see all the pictures we took, please look here at the set called Borrowed Toy v1.

Thursday I went to Sarah's karaoke birthday party. I arrived at Mic's before anyone started singing. I put my name in, and I was first to sing, Staind's It's Been a While. When no one else wanted to go second, I was second to sing too, Bobby Darin's Beyond the Sea. Other people decided they wanted to sing also, so my streak ended at two. Later, I also sang a third time, Dan Seals All That Glitters is not Gold ... man, that song is a heartstring grabber. I didn't stay very late, but I was happy to celebrate with Sarah.

It's a quartet! Now if we could just decide on a musical style. Photo credit: Sarah

Friday after the dance was the last 'fish' fry of the year, the pasta feed at Saint Pius X. This visit did not disappoint, many more people showed up than I was expecting and a very nice time was had by all. Afterwards I made my way over to the usual Friday dance.

In the late morning on Saturday, I took some more pictures with the borrowed toy, you can see them all at that link, or selected ones below.

The afternoon was quite interesting, it was my RCIA retreat. At the end of the retreat was confession. It is such a life changer. I completely got ruffled while I was in the confessional, and left quite unhappy. Fortunately, I had to time to calm down and think things through, and decided things would be fine. Confession is something I know I should do more often ... for myself.

Saturday night was Kaleb's (sort of) annual Murder Mystery Party. It was roughly based on The Princess Bride movie, and I played Miracle Max. Brianne was that witch Valerie ... wait, she's not a witch, she's my wife. This was my second murder mystery party, and I confess I was no closer than the first one to guessing the murderer correctly ... and I'm still a little confused about my part in it, but it's okay, my character was a little confused too. A big shout out to Kaleb for hosting this, it was fabulous. Kaleb hired Christopher Tierney to photograph the event, so if you like to see his stills of all the characters, they are here, including Brianne and I here.

Maggie "Are you the murderer?"
Ben "I invoketh my right to not incriminateth myself". Photo credit: Matt


I've walked by the place where it was held at 1000 times and not noticed. It is Lucille's in the Old Market and it is a very nice space. Photo credit: Matt


Get away from the baby, witch! Photo credit: Matt

You can see all of Matt's pictures of the party here, no, I didn't take any.

Sunday it was church and lawn work, just a nice relaxing day.

Next Week: Easter

***Note: this entry has been edited, um, twice***

Third Week in March 2012

This week's Monday item is brought to you by the last thing that happened last week. I left my wallet at Kaleb's. I had a little cash, but just enough to get milk and a few other staples.

Tuesday I made arrangements to get my wallet back, via Beth (thank you). Then I met Maggie for dinner at Zio's Pizza. After dinner we went to Krypton Comics and wandered around for an hour in true geek fashion, looking and commenting on everything.

Darth Vader ice cube mold tray, how does Joe not have this?

After the comic book store was happy to see us leave, we went over to Target because I needed some groceries. Suddenly Maggie was replaced with "ooh, shiny" Maggie, and I never knew a shelf full of jelly could be so distracting, and it wasn't just the jelly, it was just about everything in the store, I mean seriously she stared at the Easter basket grass for five minutes. It was all pretty humorous, like hat. Oh, and we saw Jamie from RCIA there.

Wednesday after work I went to RCIA. When I got home, I started cooking, then Kate showed up, then Frank, and I ended up feeding Frank even though he said he was full. I then did a little planning with Brianne for Kaleb's Murder Mystery Party, we are going to play Miracle Max and Valerie.

Thursday after work I drove over to Council Bluffs (while talking to mom on the phone) and met Paul and Brianne at the casino parking lot. They followed me over to Lee's house where she was going to custom make our costumes for the Murder Mystery party. Jillian was playing guitar on the front porch, but we got past her, Zonda was a bit of a different issue, she likes me less and less as she gets older. I had been a little worried that Lee was not particularly interested in this little project, but when I got there she had drawings and plans, and was quite excited.

We got all measured out, Brianne left, and Lee and I went to get into my car to go buy fabric ... when a wild Maggie appeared. So we left in her car, went by Alvarado's so I could feed my face (and they theirs), ate in the parking lot of Hobby Lobby, then went in and bought our fabric, in record time I might add, they close at 2000, who knew?

Friday, the fish fry tour went to Blessed Sacrament. We got a crowd of five and then we were joined by Jennifer and Cullen who were volunteering there. I was not particularly hungry, so I didn't have much to eat. After the fish fry we stood outside and talked about the planetary alignment with the moon, Venus, and Jupiter all within a few degrees of one another.

I left and went to the dance which, for the first time in a couple years was not at the Eagle's lodge, but at InCommon. It's a fabulous space, although not even close to the Eagle lodge size.

The dance floor is not quite as smooth as it looks from this angle. Photo credit: Matt


What's that on your shoe? Photo credit: Matt


Derp, um, I can dance. Photo credit: Matt

You can see all of Matt's pictures from this event here. InCommon is located next door to the Donut Stop, so we just walked next door to unwind after the dance.

Saturday morning I was up at a sort of reasonable time to have lunch with Kimee, we grabbed food from Chipotle and headed out to Schram State Park to eat with the geese. Surprisingly, the geese were not interested in our noms, they kind of kept to themselves. We sat under some pretty trees, and enjoyed our lunch. Afterwards we went on a short walk around the park. Then came home all too soon.

In the evening Maggie and I hosted Dianna and Adam for dinner. I guess in the old days this might have been called a dinner party. Maggie made alfredo, and I made asparagus and fresh salad. Dianna and Adam brought bread pudding. There was plenty of good conversation, we watched Megamind (it was quite enjoyable), ate dessert on the back porch under the stars, and finished the night with a game of Qwirkle. I am know I am not the first person to ever have a double date that was relaxing and enjoyable, but I really enjoy those moments in life when time becomes irrelevant.

Sunday morning Maggie and I got some pie at Village Inn and then went for a walk along the Keystone trail. Although it is only March 25, we were plenty warm and Maggie was worried about getting sunburned. Speaking of it being pretty early in the year, I got out and cut the grass for the first time in the afternoon. I fully intended on skipping Mass, but somehow I ended up at Saint Mary's at 1700. I think it's been 10 months since I missed Mass, I'm sure I could research back through my blog entries, but who wants to read what I write?

The evening ended down at Frank's house with the firepit, some loud conversation, two attention loving dogs, and beautiful weather.

Next week: Miracle Max

here

Photo credit: Matt

Second Week in March 2012

Monday at 1800! The release from being oncall, hip hip hooray! I enjoyed a quiet night at home and sleeping early.

Tuesday I got back on the exercise bandwagon, walking 18 laps at lunch, and then after work we had dance practice at our house. We watched a video, and then tried to imitate the teachers (Kevin and Jo) were doing with various degrees of success. We tried to do a move where the follow jumps over the joined hands of the lead and follow, no one died (*success*), but Jessica landed on our wrists twice, so it was time to give that one up.

Wednesday after work I went to my RCIA class, then afterwards headed up to Village Inn on Dodge to get some pie for π day. I had cherry pie and enjoyed the conversation.

Thursday morning I found it nearly impossible to wake up ... however I did manage to get up and get in to work. After work I had dinner with Maggie at Whole Foods, then we went for a ride afterwards to enjoy the beautiful weather.

Oh yeah, Whole Foods has cheese. (a.k.a. the token picture)

Friday I had my incentive half day, and I decided to get my haircut at the place Brian Langbehn told me about, The Beard and Mane. It had been about 10 years since I have decided my own hairstyle, between the advice of various lady friends and female hair stylists saying "No, we're not doing that" it had been quite a while. I definitely got what I wanted, only better than I imagined.

Later in the afternoon I met Maggie and we went to the Mary Our Queen fish fry. There was no way it could be as epic as last year, right? Right! It was pretty subdued, but pleasant. Maggie and I had a long talk, then made it to the last 30 minutes of the dance, mostly becauseI was on cleanup duty. We went over to the Donut Stop afterwards.

I got up and going on Saturday and out running. I met my distance goal, but not my speed goal. Three laps around the block, 1.14mi (1.82k) in 12:12.5 at a snail pace of 10:44/mi, it really didn't feel very well either, so let's hope it picks up next run.

In the evening, I met Maggie, and we went to CJ's game night. It was Saint Patrick's day and there was a green food theme, I brought broccoli, green onions, green peppers, and cucumbers with dip ... it was not a big seller. On to the games, First up was a favorite of mine to lose, Arabian Nights. Maggie and I played together, and spent about 2/3 of the game in jail, but I still love it. We then played Werewolf. We had a little trouble with people backing out of the game before it started, and frankly, the game is somehow more fun in Kaleb's front room than anywhere else. The final game of the evening was Cargo Noir I really like that game, although we did have a dispute on one of the rules, and we could not find any clarifying errata on the internet. I think I won ... it was late ... hard to tell, someone will no doubt correct me if I don't know what I'm saying. Then we headed home.

Sunday morning I went to Mass at Mary Our Queen with Teri. We grabbed lunch at Schlotsky's, and then to the park to have our food blown all over creation enjoy the warm weather. After more or less enjoying our food, we went over to Kaleb's house afterwards to visit. We knew people would be there testing a new game, but they had already started before we got there. We sat down on the couch, and the next thing I knew I was being awoken by my own snoring.

After they had finished the test play, we played a game called The Resistance. It's somewhat like Werewolf, only not nearly as friendly. After the third intense game, some people were none too happy with me. I went down to the basement and played Rock Band with Melissa for about an hour. I set up both mics for singing, I played bass and she played guitar. Finally, more people came in to play ... and there was a six player game of round the world ping pong, I was in the finals almost every round, but only won twice. That was my week!

Next week: Alfredo!

First Week in March 2012

Monday morning I was tired and sore from my dance weekend, but back to work. Unfortunately, I also picked up the oncall laptop and phone. I did enjoy a nap in the car at lunch, and a quiet night at home processing pictures. Tuesday was more of the same.

Wednesday morning as I was on my way to work, I started the process of uploading all of the pictures from Heartland Swing, and I guess I forgot that the upload stops when my computer goes to sleep. I am guessing that I've noted that somewhere on this blog before ... I'm wondering if I will do it again. Wednesday I went to RCIA, and then home. In keeping with the oncall theme, I stayed home, and Thursday I did nothing too.

Friday after work I went to the Saint John Vianney fish fry with a group of seven. The lines for that fish fry have gotten really long, and not well organized. I was lucky, and received no calls while there. I decided not to press my luck, and went home after the fish fry and not to the dance.

Saturday during the day I did work and waited around for calls. Saturday night I ventured out of the house, with the work laptop, to Kaleb's and his game night. The first game we played was Ra, which is a favorite of mine, but not one I succeed at usually. It was no exception here either. Next we played a different game, but I just can't remember what it was ... so since I don't remember it, I can't review it.

Then the entire group, 23 people, played a game of Ultimate Werewolf ... lately it has seemed like the villagers have enjoyed a big advantage, and they won both games. I did like the addition of the Cupid card (which I drew), I picked Kaleb and Angela (Susan) for the lovers, and it worked out fairly entertainingly, as they were on opposite teams ... and everyone believed me when I said I was Cupid so I actually survived until the end.

After Werewolf, we all went to the basement to play Rock Band (I didn't participate) and Around the World Ping Pong (heck yeah). Troy came up with an alternative rule to have the winners from that night start with a point for each previous victory. It gives more people an opportunity to win, like me. I ran up in between games and checked the oncall phone, fortunately, I received no calls or e-mails all night. There was also a very late night game of Tsuro which I won, but it was kind of a I'm not leaving yet moment rather than any strategic brilliance, I won. The night got late fast when the spring ahead time change occurred, and it went from 0159 to 0300.

Sunday morning(ish) I was up and at church at 1230 at Saint Mary's in Bellevue. By chance, Joe was there too, although I had planned on going by myself. After church I went by the grocery store, and then came home and hung out handling the occasional call or e-mail. On call was pretty quiet, until 2215 Sunday night, then it got a little busy for about an hour, it was all handled in the end though.