Cowtown Thursday

Okay, since I am obviously not going to be able to find time to do an 'all at once' expose of the 2006 Cowtown Jamborama, I'll go one day at a time, starting with Thursday.

I finally got a phone call late morning, from Lindsay, who wanted help moving stuff from the Eagles Lodge to the hotel. After much confusion and running around, I ended up downtown just as she was trying to stuff the last box into her car. So I took it and saved her the stuffing.

I proceeded out to the hotel, and got my first look at our venue.

Miriam, Andrew, and Nate were already hard at work putting the floor together. I couldn't believe how much space we had between the two rooms. We were soon joined by Troy and Lindsay, and really both floors went together with a minimum of fuss in just a couple of hours. A few other pieces of set up, check into the hotel room, and I'm back home by 4:00.

My friend Barb agreed to watch Cherokee, but due to bad planning on my part, I hadn't finalized the drop off time. So I was kind of in a wait mode while I packed up just about everything I own. I ended up leaving Cherokee at home on Thursday night with Kevin instead of taking him up to Barb's.

Poor Mr. Home Alone

So I headed back to the hotel, unpacked, met up with Linda, and we picked up a rider, JD, to go down to Jazz on the Green. Much fun and dancing ensued as I met up with local friends and some out of town friends.

I think they are all here to watch me dance...


Oh Oh Oh Omaha Ladies, and Brian (this will make more sense after a future post)


We're just friends, we're just friends, we're just friends, we're just friends, we're just friends, we're just friends, we're just friends, we're just friends, WE'RE ENGAGED!!!!


The Mayor of Dancing getting out the vote.


at least Tita is smiling...


don't sneak up on Suzie


... shutterbugs ...


gettin' down, holstein style

After Jazz on the Green was over, JD, Viv, Linda, and I were talking back to our cars when we came across a cicada? locust? freakin' big bug? sitting on the ground under a light in the forbidden parking lot. Was it alive? I had to nudge it with my foot to find out, and it buzzed quite loudly in protest and we all jumped.

The Cicada of Death

After the near fatal encounter with the bug, we made it back to the hotel without further incident, where upon arrival, it was my turn to run the front desk / check-in / t-shirt shop. I probably checked in 15-20 people to the welcome dance, sold a couple of t-shirts, and was really pretty busy for an hour. Then it was pack up the stuff and dance until midnight.

Too cool for mere words

Corinn say "huh?"

Mary & Sarah try to hide the fact they are wearing identical shoes"


Who wants to dance with me???"

thanks to jittercliff for several photos...

Pictures, No Words

I've decided to use Flickr, My account is set up and I added 111 pictures from Cowtown Jamborama.

Monday after Cowtown

enough said

**thanks to jittercliff for the photo...

Views From My Car

Recently seen in my car. My car went over 30,000 miles on Tuesday ... still going strong. Then when I got home on Wednesday this little guy jumped onto my windshield.

Half a Cubic Yard

I got out today into the jungle that is my front yard and made some tall grass short... some very tall grass. In fact it was so tall that I decided to do something I haven't yet done at this house. Bag my grass clippings. Basically every two trips up and down the yard I had to empty it out. After some calculations and assumptions about how full the bag got, I figured out that I probably got about 16 cubic feet worth of grass clippings ... just my front yard in just eight days.

That's a lot of carbon pulled out of the atmosphere, so don't say I haven't done my part to prevent global warming.

So Gross I Had To Finish It

I got my haircut this week. While I was at the counter paying for it, I grabbed a piece of taffy out of the candy jar there. It was half cocoa brown, and half bright green... mmm chocolate mint!

Chomp chomp... "what the *censored* is this?"

My hairstylist says "oh, it's green apple caramel, you know like a caramel apple."

One of my coworkers said that it tasted so bad because I was expecting chocalate mint, but I thought it was just plain horrible... so bad in fact I had to finish it. It was like a car wreck, I couldn't look away. Yuck.

14 hours of funk

Venche's cup shares it's thoughts at 1:51am.

As I have posted before, one of the things I love about gatherings at Spanky & Mae's is the sheer randomness of the event. I got there about 2:45 and left just about 5:00, that's PM and AM respectively. We did some last minute set up, and started eating. This particular party was a little different. I spent probably six hours of it dancing, and another two of it playing frisbee. I didn't eat as as much as I usually do. There were some strange goings on during the course of the night, none of which I will share because I did not participate... unlike certain past parties...

cut to flashback *cue the eerie music*

back to normal *cue the regular soundtrack*

So anyways. great food, friends, and a good time.

There isn't as much visual evidence of the party as you might think, my first four pictures were really bad, so it became a challenge to get bad pictures of everyone. Here are a few I can share.

Cowhat Jamborama (I take no credit for this photo, Venche took it herself)


I have a theory that ReportWriter can frown, it's never been substantiated.


JUST like Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey...


I do not like green eggs and ham, I do not like them, Sam I am.


We discovered what song you sing at 4am ... the last one you heard!

Hopefully someone else took more pictures and will post them.

P.S. Hugh and Jenny ... wait until I find that undelete button again!

IQ test - by OnionBoy

There have been a spate of personality tests showing on my usual circuit of blogs, so I have decided to produce my own IQ test. Answer each question honestly, if no answer appears correct, choose the one that most closely matches what you are wearing. Scoring is at the end, please post your score at the end with your name, or if you are too embarrassed, post it with the name of someone you don't like. The test is not timed, but if it takes longer than 20 minutes for you to complete, go and carefully pour yourself another glass of whatever it is you are drinking and subtract one point at the end for each minute in excess of twenty you take.

1) if the square root of -1 is an imaginary number, then pi is equal to:
a. 3.1417blahblahblah
b. d/2r
c. 22/7ish
d. cherry

2) you are asleep in your bed at 2am and the phone rings, your reaction is:
a. why is work calling me AGAIN!
b. yeah baby!
c. not ANOTHER booty call.
d. commissioner gordon must need my help

3) on a typical saturday night you:
a. catch up on sleep you missed during the week
b. hang out with friends in a bar and hope to get some digits
c. have a nice dinner, dancing, and ...
d. you would like to answer, but you can't recall what you've done for the last 15 saturdays

4) you are home alone, you are probably:
a. fully dressed.
b. wandering around in your pj's or undies.
c. hanging out with the windows open in your birthday suit.
d. looking for any piece of clothing that doesn't smell too bad.

5) you are having toaster strudel, with the frosting you:
a. carefully and evenly spread it with a knife
b. make smiley faces and 'swear' words like *%#^*
c. you recreate Van Gogh's 'Sunflowers' on one and Wood's "American Gothic on the other.
d. you squirt it at random, and then swear you see the Virgin Mary, and try to sell it on eBay.

6) you hear a juicy new conspiracy theory about the war against terrorism, your reaction is:
a. you scoff, our president is doing a fine job.
b. you consider it carefully, trying to look for a connection to Rasputin's writings.
c. conspiracy theory? those people do whatever they want right in front of us without regard for the law.
d. is Reagan still the president?

7) a friend is in the hospital, you:
a. send a hand-written card and flowers, they don't want to be bothered with visitors.
b. go up and visit with flowers and gossip about your friends.
c. show up with contraband candy and sit quietly and listen to their thoughts and fears.
d. find out about it three weeks later from your mom.

8) your most common English usage error is:
a. to, too, and two, they all sound alike, who can keep track?
b. irregardless of what you might think, I pride myself on making no mistakes.
c. flammable and inflammable ... what's up with that?
d. irony and ironing.

9) day is to calendar as wheel is to:
a. I don't get it.
b. Buddhism.
c. Car? Who makes this stuff up?
d. Pizza

10) your friend is having a birthday, you get them:
a. a petrified piece of toaster strudel with an image of the Virgin Mary you found on eBay.
b. a gift card from their favorite store.
c. an indulgence that they wouldn't buy for themselves, like a bottle of expensive liqueur.
d. bail money.

------

Scoring:
Give yourself the following number of points for each answer:
8 points for each 'a'
12 points for each 'b'
16 points for each 'c'
4 points for each 'd'
and add it up, we'll wait for you to get a calculator

see below for your total:

145 and up: you are a genius! you are smart, funny, and gosh darn it, people like you.
119-144: you are above average, your main feature is using your brain too much, shut it off and don't over-think everything.
81-118: you are average, you are almost smart, almost funny, and gosh darn it, people almost like you.
80: if you got exactly 80, man do you need a life.
79 and below: you're not too bright, but people want to party with you.

A river runs through it

When I first bought my house I wondered what that little raised cement bump was for where my driveway meets the street. I wondered until the first good rain, and saw that my neighbors house, which didn't have one had all the runoff from the storm run right down their driveway and through their back yard. About 30 minutes before this picture was taken, the rain was hard enough to over top the bump, and I had a good amount of water flowing through my back yard.

My rain gauge says a little over three inches since last night when I came home, they are saying another 1/2 inch is possible. More pictures may be added to this.

Peter Loggins Corn Eating Method

Look, someone else has Peter Loggin's odd corn eating method.
And I've issued a challenge too!
photo somewhat courtesy of CNN

The Witness Who Can't Say What He's Seen

“a failed attempt to translate thoughts and feelings into words” is the tag line to Suzie’s blog. This is how my life feels right at the moment, only without much in the way of angst, more of an inability to express what is going on inside my head. It’s not even frustrating, it’s just a failure. So I wrote this “poem”.


The Witness Who Can’t Say What He’s Seen

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. As though I am eating alphabet soup with ten inch high letters, the words are too big to be said.

They cannot be written, cannot be drawn, nor expressed visually, I am like a man on fire in the desert, nothing will bring relief.

For I opened the door marked eternity, ventured through, and into the mind of God, rested in flowers made of joy, and saw sights not for the mortal mind.

What mind, having witnessed for itself, the unfathomable love of it’s creator, could be satisfied ever again by the mere triflings of we humans.

For I’ve been crushed by love and stomped by understanding, serenity has been burned, no branded right onto my psyche; a drug, and I want more.

I want, I need, I crave, more, more, more, until I am nothing but a vessel of love, an addict of peace, looking for my next fix.

And what is left of who I used to be? Torn and tattered, it hunkers in the corner like a rabid dog, waiting for any opening to bite me again.

It has no chance, no pain can stop me now, a blinding white fog surrounds me, the animal is gone, and I leave the blessed lands... and return

to the chaotic lands where I was hatched, my worldly needs left behind, wanting to return to the beauty, and rest again in the gardens of love.

All I can now be until that day comes, is an instrument of His peace, and the cup of His love ... drink, my friends, drink deeply.

Like a Rock

If a tree falls in the middle of a storm, but it doesn't wake me, does it really make a sound?

How did I sleep through this? This is maybe 60 yards from my bedroom, the window was open wide enough for the cats to sit in it.

A New Wind Blowing

Something is changing.

It may just be really simple, I am cycling back into being more relaxed with myself... But I think it is more, that God has rebuilt or just plain made a new foundation for my life. It feels like I am a house, and I am being moved from my current spot to a new one in a beautiful spot.

It started while I was praying and God said “talk to Me”. I’ve been trying to talk to God rather than just praying at Him. I’ve wanted to do this since I began my ‘recovery’, but I’ve afraid of what He would say to me even though He has always been so gentle. I think deep down I’ve had this fear of having God talk to me and instead of hearing “you did this, this, this, and this wrong”, hearing “I love you.” I can stand the scolding, I don’t know how to deal with the love.

I’m not exactly the returning prodigal son, but I feel like I am moving into a house much closer to church.