Third Week in December 2010

Monday after work I did some chores, Tuesday after work I hung out at the house. Wednesday after work there was some snow and ice falling very prettily. I went out for free pie Wednesday at Village Inn and afterward we did some cookies, er donuts in a church parking lot ... whatever you call them, I had a good time. Thursday was a laundry day.

Friday morning started out well. I woke up without an alarm, feeling physically awesome, with my favorite hymn in my head, feeling full of love, and originally thinking it was Monday. That's a great attitude to start a day.

Friday night was the Christmas dance at Jitterbugs Night Out, complete with a (well organized) white elephant gift exchange.

Merinda is a trillionaire.


Jillian made me a blanket for Christmas, thanks.


I wonder what the wedding pictures will be like for these two when they have to be serious.

You can see the rest of my pictures for the 2010 Jitterbugs Christmas Party here.

On Saturday there was a lot of things going on, first up in the afternoon, ice skating at the ConAgra rink. I evidently can ice skate just fine.

Jenny had to be at least 6'3.5" with her skates on.


I took this picture while I was skating by, who knew I was so coordinated?


Now I'm in a picture while I am skating ... that's pretty talented too, right?

It wasn't all joy, one of the people in our party fell pretty hard and hurt their wrist. You can see all of my pictures from the event here. We went out to eat at M's Pub after skating. We got there about 1800 and we're told that we could have a table, but had to be out of there by 1900, because of a reservation. Let me tell you, I've never been served there so quickly.

At night was the latest installment of Kaleb's game night. I played lots of ping pong, a game of Arkham Horror, and a game or two of Ultimate Werewolf. We also started to play some Rock Band 3 on the XBox, but then the projector light burned out, odd timing.

Anitra rocks Omaha one last time before riding off into the Tampa sunset.

Sunday morning was the latest installment of Mass Chaos. After church we went as a group down to Blue Sushi. Vesper got a salad as big as her head, and they accidentally gave Frank and Lindsay and extra roll, so there was tons of food to go around.

Later in the evening, it was time for Jenny's annual Christmas party with gingerbread house building.

I built a hill and ski chalet for this year. It was only good enough for third. I know some very creative people.


You fill in the punch line here. There was also a creepy picture of Julia and I in the same time frame.


There weren't as many 'steals' in the white elephant as last year. Heather borrowed this sweater (sight unseen) from her mother to get an 'ugly' sweater, it didn't work.

You can see the rest of my pictures from Jenny's party here. Jenny posted some to Facebook here. The party was a lot of fun, we also played a game of Things ... and that was my week.

Second Week in December 2010

Monday and Wednesday this week I had as bad of migraines as I've had in a long time, but I made it through work and through the day. Sandwiched in between was an awesome Tuesday, I felt great, my attitude was fantastic, and it was a celebration day! After work on Wednesday it was a special Immaculate Conception edition of Mass Chaos. Afterward, we went to the Rose Garden. Thursday I was feeling better, not as good as Tuesday though, but better. I did plenty of chores with my new found energy.

Friday night I went out to JNO and there was a live band, The Grand Marquis from Kansas City. Since it was a favorite band, I got there early so I could hear the entire set. I enjoyed the show, afterward several of us went out to Alvarado's in Council Bluffs until the wee hours of the morning.

I kind of saw this coming, so I was thinking
"Really, you're going to take a picture right now? Photo credit: Matt

Saturday morning was the storm of the century, the early December 2010 version. Minneapolis / Saint Paul certainly got snowed on, but we didn't. We did have plenty of cold and wind, plus a little snow. I took some pictures on my way to and from the next item.

This last of these had two different people call it amazing. I'm not so sure, I almost deleted it because I thought it "meh". I kept it because of the shape of the snow crystals. You can see the rest of my pictures here.

The reason that I was out was Bart and Margaret's wedding reception.

Two of the sweetest people I know, and me.


The weather was indeed frightening, but it was worth it.


Best bride photo I've taken, it was easy with a beautiful subject.

You can see the rest of my wedding reception photos here. Matt took some too, they are here.

Saturday night I wandered back out into the cold for a small housewarming party at Sarah's. It wasn't a big place, so don't be hurt if you weren't invited, we really did fill it. I didn't get a whole lot of good pictures, except one of me, but I thought I'd spare you from that. It's funny how much difference ten years makes, some of gentlemen at the party decided to run up to the top of the hill, barefoot, in -20F wind chill. Ten years ago I would have participated ... am I a little smarter these days, or do I just not like to be cold?

Oh the things I do for the amusement of my friends. Photo credit: Vivian


Really the only group shot we got ... that I can put up. Photo credit: Sarah

Sunday morning was the latest edition of Mass Chaos. Later on, the official Mass Chaos Auxillary Bears Fans meeting took place in the usual spot with the usual suspects ... but something was missing, oh yeah, a Bears win. We got spanked, which I think we amazingly didn't worry about. The Packers losing helps a lot. The last thing that happened this week is I went over to CJ's to play Pathfinder, it was a good session, and we made it to level 4! Go us!

November / December Bridge Week 2010

This was a super slow week, fortunately, I found stuff to do by writing my NaNoWriMo story Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Wednesday night I also went to the 'serious' game night at Kaleb's. Kaleb and tried a game of Roll Through the Ages: The Bronze Age before anyone else got there. We then played the classic, Puerto Rico. Thursday was more writing.

Friday I went to a game night party at Stacy's house. It was a lot more socializing than gaming, but we did play so social games including Quelf, I probably won't go out of my way to play it again. Around 2300 I went to Friday dance.

Saturday I ran errands all day buying stuff for the chili contest. Saturday night was my department work party. Jenny went with me. She agreed to go before she met Kris, so there is no controversy, nice try.

Sunday I was up early and off to Mass Chaos. We went to Immaculate Conception this week, it's the Latin Mass parish, and it was at 0900 ... and it seemed all the earlier. The Mass in Latin is right at the edge of my memory from being a small boy, so it kind of drove me half nuts trying to remember it.

The rest of Sunday was spent preparing for the Chili Throwdown 2010. I made up my chili, got everything set up downstairs, and waited for the guests to arrive.

There were 14 entries for the chili contest.
It looks like Heather really likes that one. Photo credit: Matt


42 people came to the party (insert Hitchhiker joke here), this is just a third of them.




The winners: 1st place - CJ, 2nd place - Julia, 3rd Place - Lisa,
Spiciest - Ben, Most Unique - Matt. Both middle and lower right photo credit: Matt


Four pretty ladies doing the YMCA in front of a Cialis commercial...
Photo credit: Matt

You can see lots of pictures around the interwebs, mine are here, Matt's are here, Jillian and Sarah also had their cameras there. The chili feed was a tremendous success, thank you one and all for attending.

Thanksgiving Week 2010

Monday I still felt crappy from Saturday and Sunday. I went to work, but when I got home, I still had the chills, so I went to sleep at 2030 and didn't wake up for 11 hours. Tuesday I worked out and that was about it.

Wednesday after work began my four day weekend, and Jenny had a party and was showing off her new boyfriend, Kris. Jenny usually has good things happen at her parties and this was fun.

We liked Kris, and we took the whole thing very seriously. Photo credit: Matt


Oh, hey, one good picture.


There was a draft in the window, VK was getting cold so Kris and I tried to save the day ... unsuccessfully I might add. Hey Jenny's landlord, fix that thing.


We played What's Yours Like? and The Game of Things. Photo credit: Matt

Thursday I went over to Matt and Vivian's for Thanksgiving dinner with her, Matt, and Vivian's parents, Donna and Jack. I liked to give a big public THANK YOU to them for inviting me. I thanked Matt by mocking him as he played Mega Man.

As usual at Matt and Viv's, I filled up on the hors d'oeuvres, so this was my only plate.


Thank you again, I love this tradition.

Friday was the first time I can ever remember intentionally taking off Black Friday. I have had it off before, but only as a regularly scheduled day off. I celebrated my day off by Jess and Ben come over and test out my chili recipe before I made it for the contest next Sunday. We played The Order of the Stick game, even after we warned Jess that it would be four hours. We did pretty well almost finishing in three.

Later on in the evening we went over to the regularly scheduled Jitterbugs dance. It was Jillian's first dance back from New York. Jenny brought her new boyfriend, Kris, we worked hard at teaching him how on to dance. We also had Jillian's birthday jam. I went home right after the dance in anticipation of...

...my friend Jen was on a train from Denver to Chicago which, by schedule, was due in to Omaha at 0500 and would be there for 15 minutes. That would be plenty of time for hugs and giving her a lemon bar I baked. I dragged my butt out of bed at 0445 and drove down to the train station. I arrived just at 0500 and there was no train so I walked in and asked the clerk and he told me that it would be another hour. Ugh. I might have been tempted to stay if it were warm, but it wasn't, so I went back home to sleep. To answer the question that some of you are bound to ask; no you cannot track a train online.

Later in the day, when it was warm, I cut the grass. That'll be the last time of the year. Now I have to learn how to work the snow blower. Saturday night was a birthday party for Jess at CJ's. We did a lot of talking and played a couple of games of Werewolf. CJ's sister Amy is one smart cookie, but only as a Werewolf.

Sunday was the latest installment of Mass Chaos, this week we were out in Elkhorn. We ended up meeting at DJ's Dugout at 1515 to watch the Bears beat up the Eagles. That was as chippy of a game as I have seen in a while. If I wanted fights, I'd go to a hockey game.

Sunday night ended with our latest session of Pathfinder. We now have a five person group, plus a fighter that CJ is playing for the group. I'm sure I said it before, but I really like this group, no one takes it too seriously.

Third Week in November 2010

Monday after work I played video games and in general decompressed from being on call. Tuesday I got the long called for haircut. As usual, it was physically traumatic, and my head hasn't gotten used to be cold yet. Wednesday, I cooked oddly, I had a salad with Thousand Island dressing, (mild) curried potatoes and lentils, and Tuna Helper.

Thursday was the big trip to Thursday Night Swing Social in Des Moines. I met Brianne and Ben after work, and we car pooled to Des Moines. It took about 2:10 to get there, park and walk in. We made some new friends and saw some old ones. The location, Java Joe's was very nice, but I realized once again how spoiled we are in Omaha with our dance floor.

Here we are! The sad part of this picture is that Ben took his glasses off for it.



I tried to get artsy with my camera.


I'm considering a new kind of dance move, Hannah is considering if she trusts me enough to follow it.

You can see all of my Des Moines Swing Road Trip pictures here. After the dance, we met Rae, Larry, and some of the other dancers at TGIFriday's on the west side of Des Moines. There were a lot of laughs. I had the 'Captain Morgan™ Caribbean Conga-Line Chicken Sandwich' ... first off, it was good, but it was quite strange, I can't really compare it to anything else I've ever eaten. Around midnight we took off and made it back to Omaha and our cars just after 0200. A good time was had by all.

Friday was a busy day, but a good one. I started off the day with a trip to the doctor and a finish up my 75,000 mile check up, they drew some blood and gave me a tetanus shot. I was hungry for ice cream in the afternoon, so I took the gift card that Maggie gave me for lending her my boots, and Merinda and I went to eCreamery to get ice cream. If you thought I whined about Ted and Wally's flavors, I don't even bother doing so about eCreamery, they are consistently weird. The funny part was on the way over, Merinda was talking about getting some cinnamon flavored ice cream if they had it. I tried to say cinnamon, and my speech issues really drew it out "sim ... sssimn ... ss ... ssinnoomm", finally in frustration I just said CINNAMON! really fast and kind of angry. It came out perfectly.

I tried to say it again slow, but nope, it didn't work. Back to fast and angry, it came right out. Then I tried other words that give me issues. Sure enough, slow is stuttery, fast works. We both had a good laugh. I had creme de menthe ice cream, it was good and easy to say.

In the evening, I was supposed to go to the Nighthawks football game with Heidi, Ann (who I don't know) and Carrie. I dressed really warm and headed over to Heidi and Carrie's house. It turned out that Ann backed out, and the only Heidi could give away her ticket was to give away her own too. So it left me, and Carrie, and a (nice) couple we all know, but that was too many third wheels for me. It didn't hurt that Holly was there in town too. Heidi, Holly, and I had one of the best conversations I have had in a long time. It was mostly boys and girls and getting into relationships. It's hard.

The three of us ended up at the Friday swing dance, which turned out to be considerably warmer than the football game. After the dance twelve of us went to Alvarado's for a late night snack. Good conversation until 0200.

Saturday I decided to put the workout to the test. Actually, it was me that ended up tested. I probably did about :45 minutes, I wore myself out.

Saturday evening I went to game night at Kaleb's. I actually managed to only play one game of Werewolf ... and eat a lot of food. It was a different version of Werewolf. Plus socializing and ping pong. Near the end of the evening, I got really dizzy and nauseous, I don't know what was up with that, but ...

... Sunday I missed Mass Chaos for the first time, because I slept until about 1115, which never happens no matter how late I stay up, and I wasn't up particularly late the night before. I went over to CJ's to play Pathfinder. I thought I was feeling better, but I probably should not have done it. By the end of the night I was kind of cranky.

Second Week in November 2010

This is on call week, so prepare yourself for the shortest 'weekly' update ever. Monday on call started ... I ended up working late anyway, and then taking a couple calls when I got home. Troy received his Kinect, so we had some fun after he got it set up and running. I was sore for the next couple days.

On Tuesday I made significant NaNoWriMo progress.

Wednesday on call had me working at home for three and half hours. After I finished I went downstairs to watch Troy play Dance Central.

P p p poker face p p poker face.

Thursday was Veterans Day. My employer went out of their way to make myself and the other veterans feel special, and I was quite touched.

One of our customers brought in a Army vehicle for us to see.

After work I wrote some more for my NaNoWriMo. After writing 600 words I decided that the section probably belonged elsewhere in the book.

Friday I stayed home and waited for work to be busy and it never was. I did take a couple photos of the first snow of the season.

The weather screwed up my lawn cutting plans for Saturday.

Saturday was the same story, work was just never busy. Later in the evening Troy, Merinda, Maggie, and I played Dicecapades for the first time. It was fun, but could be a little more tweaked.

Sunday was not so lucky for work being dead, after being woke up early, I was able to make it on time to the latest installment of Mass Chaos. I tried to enjoy lunch with my friends after wards, but I kept getting calls! Such is the life of being on call.

First Week in November 2010

I am participating in NaNoWriMo this year, you can see information on the side bar to the left. I strongly suspect writing will drag me to December and January. My progress can be seen here.

Monday after work I went to see Beauty and the Beast at Millard North High School. Kimee was doing the makeup for the show, and she wanted me to come. The show was very nice. It was kind of funny because the number of kids on the production staff was greater than the number of people in our entire shows when I was in high school. The show was good, and everyone looked great.

Tuesday I stayed home. Wednesday Jenny came over and I made her dinner. We ate in the basement and looked at pictures of her weekend in Nashville and mine here in Omaha. Thursday was also not a very exciting day.

Friday immediately after work was the quarterly JIVE meeting for Omaha Jitterbugs. I guess I am not afraid to talk in meetings, I can never figure out if that is a good thing or bad thing. Afterward I went home, and then right back to the dance. The original plan was to go to Alvarado's after the dance, but I was the only one left there who was in on the original plan.

Saturday was Hugh and Sarah's wedding. It was a well organized, beautiful wedding, that just happened to take place during a Nebraska - Iowa State game, the bridal coordinator said she was instructed to take the groomsmen's phones away from them. Troy DJ'd the reception, the cake was amazing although it was destroyed, and the company was awesome.

Okay, maybe I was a little sentimental on this one.


It was breathtaking to see how much Sarah loves Hugh.


The most popular picture in the set.


First dance.


We got together and took a picture of all of us friends together. A couple people escaped.


Each table had its own cake, this is how our cake ended up. Thanks Ben A., if you want to see how it's really done, look here.


Everyone was all smiles!



There were cake shenanigans. I may have had some payback coming.




There was plenty of dancing.

You can check out all of my pictures here, Matt has all of his here. If you are the Facebook type, Sarah posted pictures here, Rachel posted pictures here. Also, Matt posted a YouTube video here.

Immediately following the wedding, I followed Jenny to her house, and then we went out to Shady Lane Ranch for Brianne's birthday party. I only took a three pictures, and they were fire pictures, but others took some pictures that I was able to borrow.

It was a little windy, so this fire was really hot.


You just never know where vampires will turn up ... don't worry they are repelled by carton/box wine. Photo credit: Brianne


Aw, too cute, before Ben tried to walk across a pile of loose wood. Photo credit: Brianne

Since we got there late, the party broke up shortly thereafter. Ben C., Jenny and I went down to Alvarado's in Council Bluffs for lotsa noms ... I mean good food.

On Sunday there was an extra hour of sleep and we went to Mass Chaos at a reasonable time. Immediately following Mass, we took a trip to the Holy Family Shrine. It was my first trip there.

You can see the rest of my pictures from the Mass Chaos visit to the Holy Family Shrine here.

Next week: I am on call, so basically nothing will happen.