Third Week in September 2012

Monday morning I was back to work after a great Cowtown Jamborama, groan. I did surprise myself and got out of the house and over to Kaleb's for a game. This time we played Flash Point. It's a nifty little fireman / rescue game. It seemed, to me, that there wasn't much chance of the team losing, but still it was fun.

Tuesday after work I cut the lawn and processed pictures from Cowtown.

Wednesday I had dinner with Kevin before he left and went back to Virginia. When I got home, I processed some more pictures.

Thursday after work I went shopping for a few items, I didn't want too many because of the upcoming vacation. I came home and cooked as much as I could. Then later on I went for 2012 run #39: 3.26 miles in 32:17 for a 9:54 min/mile pace. No surprise, after running, I put up the remainder of the Cowtown pictures.

Friday after work, I packed for my vacation. When Cherokee was around, he got me in the habit of packing at the very last minute, because he knew when I packed, that meant I was leaving and got sad / unhappy. Later on I went to the dance, but I didn't stay very late.

Saturday morning, I was off and on my vacation, I was aiming for a 0900 launch time so I would drive through Iowa City (and an Iowa football game). I filled up the gas tank and I was off. My original plan was to take pictures of each of my stops and update Facebook as I went, my plan was undermined by cell phone coverage issues, so some of my stops have pictures, some do not.

First stop Zombie Burger, you know it's a great restaurant idea if people who live two hours away talk about your place all the time.

I drove through to Chicago stopping only in Walcott at the World's Largest Truck Stop. I got a little tired while I was driving, so I wanted to pull over and take a nap, but I didn't find a convenient rest stop, so I just drove on and woke up pretty quickly. The trip went pretty well until Highway 176 was closed in between Marengo and Crystal Lake, so I had to drive through Woodstock to McHenry.

Mommy made me dinner!

In the evening I went out to my favorite McHenry bar, The Gambler, to my high school reunion. I heard a bunch of stories about myself that I didn't remember. I also did a good job of reinforcing to myself that I can still be really, really awkward.

What a nice looking group of people.

Sunday I got up and went to church at Saint Mary's in McHenry. Mom and I watched the Bears play the Rams. This was much more the result that I was expecting from the Bears, it wasn't even as close as the score made it look. We watched some more football until dinner time. We went out to eat at The Village Squire, a place that hasn't changed since before I started high school, at least one thing is sure, the prime rib is still really good.

Next week: Mackinac!

Second Week in September 2012

Monday morning I awoke to another bad dream about not going into work and not calling in either. I was in a bit of a panic when I popped awake and realized it was just a dream. Monday also started my new work assignment, the front desk. I'm not excited about it, but I'll give it a chance, because, it's not like I'm going to quit.

Tuesday after work I went running with Maeg while she rollerbladed, 2012 run #38: 2.53 mi in 25:19 at a 10:01 min/mi pace, everything was just dandy until I made a big kick at the end, and my phone fell out of my arm sleeve and cracked on the pavement. That'll take the fun right out of running. The good news is that it works just fine, and probably will continue to do so until I can get a new phone on January 9.

Wednesday morning I woke to more bad dreams, with the same sort of theme. This was the first time in my life that I woke to a dream and was mad at the person in the dream. The good news is that it rained, the bad news, about six weeks too late.

Thursday during the day I worked, but then headed up to the Cowtown Kickoff dance at whatever hipster bar used to be Mick's in Benson, I hope I was never that pretentiously annoying, and if I was, I apologize. We watched the part of the first set of the Blacktop Ramblers, then walked up to the Pizza Collective and ate. One nice thing about all the hipsters is daddy's money, so the Pizza Collective actually looks nice (and clean) now, with a new floor and a big screen TV. In case you are wondering about this anti-hipster rant, besides the stupid bar not even having a wheat beer, it has nothing to do with the Bears losing to the Packers, nothing, nothing at all.

The Blacktop Ramblers.


I went back in time to the 1950's to get this photo of Carly.


I love this kind of picture.

Friday morning I was up and down at the Eagle's club for classes. I also did a lot of herding organizing for the lunch at the Eagle's.

I finally got to be a 'Facebook Official' friend
of Bridget's after knowing her for only four years.


The place was crawling with 'Jitterbabies' making for some cute pictures...


...and some odd ones.

In between classes and the dance I had dinner with Brianne at Hiro 88. Our waiter was very good, and we chatted with him and each other before heading out to get ready for the Friday dance.

Brianne is the star on a Christmas tree ... get it?


Jen is a superstar, I wish we had this kind of lighting every week.


I took plenty of darn good dance pictures.

After the dance was over and clean up had commenced, I headed downstairs for the breakfast and late night. I ended up staying much later than I had anticipated, mostly to make sure people got rides.

Saturday morning it started all over again, except that I missed the first class in the morning. Kim and David taught an aerials class, I took this series of pictures of Ben and Maeg.

I seemed to be the only person in our group who did not take this class.

Saturday evening it was back to dancing and having fun, with Hannah!

I like to swing dance this much. Photo credit: Matt


Doctor, I'm seeing spots before my eyes!


Another dancing picture probably only I love.

I did the clean up, then headed over to 906 gallery for the late night. I had a really good time, and got there when there was still food left. I ended up staying later than I thought I would again for the same reason as the night before.

Silly fourth monkey.



You can caption this as well as I can, I guess.


Not much in the way of dancing, but we had fun.

Sunday morning I was up way too early so I could get to church before the getting to the Eagles lodge to assist in the lunch organization. Peter spoke at lunch (after a failed attempt at an AV presentation) about the history of swing dancing. I would probably listen to Peter speak about mashed potatoes.

"The legacy of Frankie Manning is that we know each other" ~ Peter Loggins

Of course the focus of the day is the Corn Eating Contest. Billy was the winner, I ended up with corn on my forehead (photoshopped out below).

First up, the junior division.


Oddly enough, some friendly, corn eating zombies showed up.
Wait, it's not really that odd.


I thought if I broke all my ears apart I would get more credit, it didn't work.

The final event of the evening was the closing dancing at the House of Loom, a nice bar, expensive, but thankfully free of pretension.

Adam seems a little unsure about this. Maggie is glad to have the volunteer wrangling done for this year's Cowtown. Good job!


I won first place in medal stealing!


Misha is shimmyriffic.

And so another Cowtown draws to an end, but one without me leaving the next day on vacation, instead, I had to work. I you want to see all of my pictures from the 2012 Cowtown Jamborama, click here.

Next week, vacation time.

Labor Day Week 2012

Monday was Labor day, and Frank had a firepit party.

I really like this picture.


I have no idea how that frosting got there...


...or there, or there.


Acky, no, that was on your mommy's feet! Photo credit: Matt

Evidently, all of that smoke caused me to be sick on Tuesday, I stayed home all day and didn't do much.

Wednesday was my last Fantasy football draft, just a couple hours before the start of the season. I thought I did pretty well, I ended up with some really good receivers. After the draft I went for 2012 run #35, 2.88 mi in 32:21 11:13 min/mi.

Thursday I worked on the housing for Cowtown Jamborama, it was not quite as fun as you think it might be.

Friday evening after work I went to the usual dance, but left early to go and run in the Omaha Midnight Run.

I ran with Rachel, Kimee, and (her friend) Maggie. I started out running with Kimee and her friend Maggie for a half mile, but then I left them and almost finished the race in under 30 minutes, my time showed 30:08, and my official time was 30:02 (I think). Oh, so that is 2012 run #36, 5k in 30:02, that's about 9:30 per mile. I finished really strongly, and felt great. There were so many people there that I finished less than 10 seconds behind Robin's husband David, and never saw him.

Saturday morning I went to the Eagles to help clean up in front of Cowtown Jamborama. I did a couple hours of work, a lot of it on the end of a mop, but by the end of it I was able to feel good about touching the floor in the back room of the Eagle's Lodge.

When I got home I went for run #37 2.59 mi in 25:15, that's a fairly decent 9:45 min/mi pace ... yes, you heard me, two runs within 24 hours. Saturday ended kind of oddly, I was home, alone, by myself, I guess that's a lucky break. I played some video games.

Sunday I was up and off to Mass at Saint Mary's in Omaha, two weeks in a row at that parish.

In the afternoon, it was week #1 of the NFL, and I dutifully headed out to DJ's Dugout and cheered on my Bears to victory. It didn't start well with Cutler throwing a pick 6 at the beginning of the game, however, It was almost all good from there however, including the rib tips, very tasty.

The last bit of my week was the Jitterbugs volunteer appreciation party. We went over the final planning for Cowtown, and then ate some tasties and enjoyed the beautiful weather.

Next week: Cowtown Jamborama X

Last week in August 2012

Welcome to the dog days of my year, everything will be running behind and behind and even more behind. Between all the late August birthdays, Labor Day, Cowtown, and my vacation, catching up can be difficult. This year we have the added change of new work duties that I am trying to adjust to, so here we are, September gone, October well underway, and I'm writing about late August. It's good to stay busy.

Monday was the day after on call, so I made myself go to bed early, but before I did, I played a little Diablo 3.

Tuesday during lunch I went and renewed my plates at the Sarpy Country Courthouse. I think if you took and added up all the time I've waited in line at the Sarpy County Courthouse for drivers license renewal and car taxes, it still wouldn't be as long as I waited the last time I renewed my drivers license in the city of Chicago.

After work I went and picked Kimee up and we went to dinner, where else, but Runza.

I've been stabbed right in the hamburger!

When I got home, I went for 2012 Run #34, 2.87 miles in 32:04, that's a slow pace of 11:09 per mile. It was also Zombies, Run #4.

Wednesday was a very homemakery kind of day. I ran errands then spent the evening cooking and making ice cream.

Thursday right after work was Fantasy Football draft number 1, the work league. I thought the draft went okay, there are only seven people in the work league, so we play points only. My big four were Matthew Stafford, Ray Rice, Greg Jennings, and Andre Johnson.

Immediately after draft number 1 was over, I was preparing for draft number 2, Kaleb's league. The location, our basement. We had more than just the people who were playing show up, and it was a good time. Computers, tablets, phones, trash talk and maybe a few drinks were all the rage. I had the last pick in this draft, but I thought it went really well. I got Greg Jennings and Andre Johnson again. My running back situation is a little dicier with Matt Forte. However I got Cam Newton and Jermichael Finley. I think this team will be just fine.

After the draft we played some board games. The first one is a game Tseyu picked out called King of Tokyo. It's a difficult to describe game other than to say it was really fun. Each person is a monster, and wants to control Tokyo by getting the most victory points or killing all the other monsters. I won the first game (as any regular reader knows, winning makes me like games better), by getting a couple of nice accessories and letting everyone else kill each other. We also played a game of Fluxx, or several.

I took Friday off of work, so I slept in a little, and then tried to make my goal of running five miles. I went over to the Keystone Trail and ran. It ended up being a scorcher, so I didn't feel too well after the first part of my run, so it was a lot of walk, run, walk, run ... 2012 run #34 was 5.01 miles in 1:02:11, that's 12:14 min / mile.

After I showered and napped, I had some errands to run, including grocery shopping. I decided I might not want to do that alone, so I thought I'd see who was available. Vivian was, and she was shopping for Matt's birthday party. We tooled around the Hy-Vee at an undisclosed location, and despite our antics we did not get thrown out, but we did laugh a lot.

I then went by the zoo for about a ten minute trip. I walked through the 'new' Aquarium, it didn't really look all that different from the old one...

...but there were crabs.

I came home and worked on housing for Cowtown Jambarama. That's a lot of work! Speaking of jitterbugs, later on, I went to the dance.

Hi there Uncle Eric!


Okay, enough attention already!


I'll take a birthday jam for four please.


This should make Maeg happy.

You can see the rest of my pictures of the dance here.

Saturday morning it was moving day for Maggie. It turned out that there wasn't as much to move as I thought there might be, we were promised tons of books, and it just didn't happen. I was a little concerned when I saw where Maggie & Cecily's new place was, but then I met the neighbor and their 70 pound dog. After we got her moved in, we went to eat at Papa Chris' ... if you have not heard the story, just be sure that Joe does not have my back.

In the late afternoon it was time for Matt's birthday party.

Yay, my camera is good for something.


Pretty in pink.


Pink is halfway from white to Husker Red, Heather can show Hannah the way.


Happy birthday daddy!

My pictures from the picnic are here, and all of Matt's birthday pictures can be found here.

After a nice picnic in Ralston, we reassembled over at the Johnson household for ice cream and adult beverages. We also played a game of New Yorker Cartoon game. The game is simple, see a New Yorker cartoon, and caption it, then a la Apples to Apples, one person reads all the captions and assigns the winners. Only one cartoon we did generated PG-13 content.

Sunday morning started with Mass at Saint Mary's in Omaha. After Mass I came home and soon after met up with Rachel, Kimee, and (Kimee's friend) Maggie to run in preparation for the Omaha Midnight Run. Run #35, or mostly run 3.11 miles in 37:28, at 12:02 pace. The girls had started late to get ready to run, so there was a lot of walking.

Later in the afternoon / evening, we had a party at our house, the 'Triforce Wizards Party', a.k.a. the combined birthday party for Troy, Maeg, and Ben. We played some games starting with Fluxx.

Maeg, Ben, and I then set up a game of Elder Signs: Omens. We played two games and won both of them. There was a game of Apples to Apples started, I played for a little while and then dropped out when a game of King of Tokyo started, I played a couple games of that, but didn't win either.

There was the usual dancing, conversing, and merrymaking that goes along with parties at our house. The final game of the night was Werewolf ... I think we can say that we may have played this one out, at least temporarily. We did reverse it and play a game of Infection instead. I can't find rules online, so I'm wondering if Scott made it up. The infected people pick one person to infect every night, and everyone else tries to eliminate the infected. It seems like the mechanics of that game can get abused fairly easily.

That was it for my week!

Third Week in August 2012

Monday was the beginning of on call, and I was pretty busy when my normal shift end came up, so I just stayed and finished up. I did some shopping on the way home, then cooked some dinner. Later in the evening, I picked Troy up at the airport, but I still think I got a decent amount of sleep.

Tuesday after work I cut the lawn and then went for a short run, 2012 #30, 1.36 miles in 12:43, that's a 9:19 pace. I celebrated all that physical activity by making ice cream.

Wednesday I went on another run, first time on back to back days. 2012 run #31: 2.61 miles in 28:01, that's a 10:42 pace. I did Zombies, Run #2 - Lay of the Land, a new character was introduced, runner 8.

More importantly, the four day hostage crisis was ended. Flash back to Saturday, after Kaleb's game night I went out to my car and my chicken was tied up, left on the seat and my white bear and monkey were missing. When I got home, I found this taped to my bedroom door.

Kidnapped! I left it taped to my door so I could question my roommates later about it. I was so worried about it, that I went right to sleep. Sunday afternoon I found out that Maeg found it on the front door, then moved it to bedroom door. She asked me then if I had seen the ransom demand on the back. No! I quickly tore it off the door and found the note, I had missed the exchange, drat! The next day I found another note, this time, they were tied up on the train tracks.

Look how sad blue bear and chicken are about their missing car-mates.

Maeg gave me the first clue, the pictures were printed off at the Walgreen's on Galvin Road in Bellevue. The train track picture was taken in South Omaha by where Highway 75 crosses over the tracks, I figured that out by myself. Knowing the criminals are lazy I had to figure that the culprits lived in Bellevue somewhere.

I made my pleas on Facebook, and there was no way I could make the drop time because of work requirements. Then things took a nasty turn, I received another note...

A fate too horrible for anyone.

...and I couldn't take it any more. I gave in and agreed to meet demands. I went to the park at 2100, I didn't try to be sneaky, I wore white and went alone ... well almost alone, an unnammed neighbor with firepower was watching the proceedings from their house and and a sniper rifle.

The exchange was ... weird ... and incompetent. I saw a dark four door drive slowly down the street with it's lights on, turn around at the end of the block, then turn their lights out, pulling up slowly next to the park. I stayed sitting on my bench, but pretending not to see the car. Suddenly there was a very bad bird whistle from the car, and then a deep voice telling me to put the ice cream on the park bench and walk away. I went and sat on the the cricket. I heard the shuffling of feet across the sand, something dropped, then a car door slam, and the car speeding away.

I was laughing so hard at the exchange I never saw the perpetrators.

Fortunately, Bear and Monkey were just fine.

Oddly enough, just after I rescued bear and monkey, Matt, Vivian, and Hannah showed up at my front door to say someone drove by them and threw ice cream at them ... so not only did I get bear and monkey back, but I also got my ice cream, which we shared on the back deck with Frank and Maeg. Still no idea who were the perpetrators of this crime, but we are all reunited. Matt also made a post about the entire event, he thinks he has solved the crime.

Thursday was kind of dull, I am noticing a Thursday trend. I also didn't exercise to give myself recovery time.

Friday after work had died down, I went late to the dance and then to Donut Stop.

Saturday during the morning was a lot of work, but in the afternoon, I went to game night at Kaleb's house.

The first game played was 7 Wonders. I did not win, I finished in my customary second or third place, although I used the war strategy a little more than usual. I think they have carved themselves a niche for the seven player, half hour game.

The second game was Agricola, and it was kind of my idea. So you can guess how I did at the game, really badly. I finished fourth out of four. It's a lot like last place, in fact that's exactly what it was.

We then played several unmemorable games of Werewolf. I may have gotten myself into the burned out phase of the game.

The last game of the night was a spirited game of Shadow Hunters with the expansion. I don't like the expansion characters, and I lost, and I was fairly confused. That was the end of my evening.

Sunday morning I was up early and went on 2012 run #32. 3.43 miles in 36:15, it's a 10:33 pace. I did Zombies, Run #3, "Distraction", imagine this, the gate gets stuck open ... pretty typical zombie apocalypse fare.

I went to church after running, and getting cleaned up. Most of the rest of the day was just hanging out at the house, making ice cream, answering a few work things, and doing some low impact chores.

Next Week: September already?