Holy Week April 2011

Monday after work I went over to the Ozone to hear the Prairie Cats play. The show was pretty good, but the Ozone had it's usual bad service and way too crowded dance floor, I got kicked a couple of times pretty hard and unfortunately I stepped on someone myself.

Tuesday night I went to Saint Mary's in Omaha for a reconciliation service. In the past I have had my confessions much better planned, written out, and ready to go by the time I hit the confessional. This time I was not so prepared. It turned out to be a much more emotional experience than it has been in the past. I was told to meditate on God's mercy for me, not an easy thing for me.

Wednesday was the first lawn cutting of the year. There really was nothing interesting about cutting the lawn, but after wards when I went to make my dinner, things got weird.

The plastic piece came off of the salad dressing as I squeezed it, and yes I know people who put this much dressing on their salads.


Later I tried to do another chore, but I was confounded by the 'help'.

Holy Thursday I and some friends went to Mass at Saint Margaret Mary to celebrate the anniversary of the idea of Mass Chaos. I was there very early (why don't all people do this?), and enjoyed the church while I was waiting for everyone else. Joe kept pointing out to me that Lent is over once the Holy days started, so after Mass we went to Buffalo Wild Wings. Thus ended my Lenten sacrifice.

I took Good Friday off of work. I ended up meeting VK and Bente at Blue Planet Grill for lunch. I have been wanting to try it, and I've reached the conclusion that some restaurants equate 'natural' and 'bland'. Yes, the ingredients were obviously natural, but why so **yawn** ... huh, what? After lunch we walked over to 66th and Center Wohlner's grocery. It's comforting to have a group of friends who, if you lose them in a grocery store, you know where to find them ... in the cheese and/or wine sections. Evidently there are rumors that the acoustics are amazing in the ladies restroom there, and that people test it out by singing the Alleluia Chorus while visiting ... I've been told not to mention anything about this kind of thing occurring. After we left Wohlner's we went to Jones Brother's Cupcakes to build up some energy for the next stop we were going to make. I grabbed the only available table, and we sat and talked. We then went over to Lowe's to acquire some projects for VK's house, a couple faucets and a light.

Friday evening Mass Chaos had it's second to last meeting. I then went over to the dance for a little while.

Saturday I got to work on installing the plumbing and lighting at VK's. Unfortunately, while trying to change the bathroom faucet, things turned weird. There were no valves under her sink, so there was no way to remove the old one without cutting lines. It was one of those things that I sat and stared at for three minutes to try to figure out what I did wrong ... I did nothing wrong, it was installed stupidly. I then installed a kitchen faucet with about a 25 foot hose. After all this work, I need to be nourished, so we went out to eat at Wasabi, which features all you can eat sushi ... so I did. After lunch I did more plumbing, i.e. cleaning traps. I managed to break the drain in the basement too.

I cleaned myself up and headed over to the final Mass Chaos (no link yet) church to celebrate Easter vigil. It was a bittersweet moment, so much of free time efforts have gone into Mass Chaos in the past year, that letting it go was easy. Worry about what would happen with the friendships I had developed caused me to be sad. We had some cake after the Mass at the parish center. Joe and I then went up to Patrick's bowling birthday party.

Easter Sunday began with Joe and I going to a Southern Illinois vs. Creighton baseball game at TD Ameritrade Park. The park is spacious, and I mean the crowd has a lot of room and so does the outfield. The Salukis won 2-1 ... yay!

I think this is the best iPhone picture I have ever taken.

Joe and I had disagreed leading up to Easter Sunday whether the Easter Vigil Mass counted as Sunday obligation. I said yes, Joe said no ... I didn't go Easter morning, but Joe did. However, I got home in the afternoon, and after a short nap, I decided to make a trip to the 1800 Mass at Saint Stephen the Martyr as a Mass Chaos make up, it being one of the two churches I didn't get to the first go around. So I managed to get to 54 of the 55 churches in a liturgical year.

The final part of my Sunday was a meeting of our Disorder of the Stick Pathfinder game. It was just Ben, CJ, and I as my character and Ben's character snuck into the quarters of my murdered master to investigate. It didn't go like I expected, and we are off again to another part of the world to figure it all out.

Second Week in April 2011

Revenge is a dish best served cold ... or hot and after much delay. Monday night I paid out my lost bet on the Bears / Packers NFC Championship game. I went over to Carrie, Heidi, and Jen's and cooked them dinner. I made spaghetti and sauce, asparagus, salad, and my world famous cheesey bread, Heidi made some tasty lemon bars, and we sat, ate, and talked for a couple hours. Jen tried to kill me, first with a sore throat, and then with a ninja ballet move.

Tuesday after work I went grocery shopping after work, my life can be pretty exciting!

Wednesday was a struggle because I was all over the place emotionally. Sheesh, I hate ______ (see the first paragraph from last week's entry).

Thursday was the last of the spring Theology on Tap series. This one handled the subject of moral relativity. Probably the most 'controversial' of the presented subjects in the spring series. I thought Father Taphorn handled the subject well. What I didn't like was the question and answer session. Six of the eight people asking questions didn't actually ask questions, they made statements, mostly self justifying statements. If it had been me instead of Father Taphorn, I would have been less patient.

Friday I was back into my moodiness, maybe I need to eat more, I am saying this because I was not hungry starting around noon on this day, until Monday evening. Later in the evening, I went to the dance.

Saturday I was in a black mood during the day, but then I got a big shot of perspective, it seemed to be just what I needed. My mood switched pretty instantaneously. I decided instead of feeling bad, I would get out and have some fun. So I went to the OTOC fundraiser that Brianne worked so hard on. It was at the Omaha Hot Shops. I hung out mostly with Kaleb and his girlfriend and toured just about everything on the first floor. I had already broken my Lenten vow by nomming down on the appetizers at the fundraiser ... so, why worry then? Joe and I planned on meeting VK at the Outback in Bellevue, and surprise Kaleb and Audrey joined us. Our waiter was VK's brother Caleb. I had steak and crabcakes, but didn't finish it. After this, VK and drove over to Mark's house for the tail end of the his birthday party. Mark had a XBox 360 game that let you take place of actors in a famous movie scene and do their lines. It was quite funny to see Matt and Mark pretend to be Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion. That was it for Saturday night!

Sunday morning church was late, so I had a nice breakfast, then headed off to the next to last weekend of Mass Chaos. After Mass we went to Jason's Deli Smashburger. I had a drink and maybe pilfered a few of Marilou's fries. For a minute it looked like Frank, Joe, and I were going to Sam's Club, but sleepiness took over and I came home and napped. Later in the evening we gathered at CJs and I watched the first episode of Game of Thrones. Yep, that's an HBO series alrighty. I'm not sure I liked it (I have not read the books), but I was fairly enthralled. I did not see the end scene coming.

First Week in April 2011

Monday and Tuesday I stayed home sick. I am currently feeling empathy for doctors, specifically how difficult it must be for them dealing with people like me who have migraines, allergies, other nasal issues, and depression. It's almost maddening to me to try to figure out what I have, and it's me inside my own body. So I had a bad migraine from Sunday through mid-day Tuesday, and I thought I was depressed too. However none of the outside signs of depression were evident. I am eating right, exercising, and keeping the place clean as it usually is. So I think it was allergies and a bad migraine.

Wednesday I had dinner at VK's. She tricked me into being a taste tester for her entry into a recipe contest ... or did I trick her into feeding me a bunch of good food? Bwahahahaha! Anyways, they were baked omelets, and they we're super tasty. Later we went to Home Depot, looked at possible home improvements, and then over to Baker's to get some dessert. It was a really nice evening until ... VK went to get her keys out to let herself back into the house. She didn't have them. Don't worry, they were safely locked in the house. We ended up driving over to where her roommate was and getting her keys and going back to her house.

Thursday I went to Theology on Tap after work. The subject of the night was church architecture, a.k.a Build of Living Stones, with Father Weidner. It was an enjoyable talk, with pictures of churches in Chicago.

Friday after work a large group of us went to the Saint Pius X pasta feed, kind of like a fish fry, but no fish.

Matt managed to take the worst picture of me ever. Photo credit: Matt


The spicy pasta was actually spicy, who knew? Photo credit: Matt


Sometimes you just gotta use whatever chair is handy. Photo credit: Matt

Only Matt took pictures, start here and move towards newer. After we had finished all the pasta they had, some of us went down to the dance.

Saturday during the day I ran my usual weekend errands. Saturday day was a Kaleb game night with an easter bunny theme. Only games with land based animals were played (sorta) First up, we started a game of Dominant Species: this might be a good game, but it is a weekend killer. We were two hours in and it wasn't looking like we were finishing anytime before six. We actually gave up the game and started others. I joined a different table and played a game called Evo: this was a cute game of evolution, that ends in everyone dying. I didn't win, I made a bidding blunder towards the end of game that I never got out of. The final board game of the night was Telestrations, which is quickly becoming THE social game, I know it is a social game only because we've never determined the winner. It is so funny, and different every time. All I know my last word of the night was 'Amazon River', I drew a tall naked lady and a river, by the time it got back to me it was a naked man and a dog peeing on a pile of cannonballs. These things are not remotely similar. The evening ended, or maybe it was the morning started, with a ping pong game with me and Kaleb versus CJ and Maggie with Susan Angie looking on ... very funny, stupid o'clock conversation.

Sunday was the latest version of Mass Chaos. They had a fill in priest, I have no complaints about what he had to say, but boy the delivery left a lot to be desired ... and the Mass time was wrong. The rest of my Sunday was lazy.

Last Week in March 2011

The week started with Troy gone in San Diego for work training, and Anna coming in to stay with us the week on Tuesday. Monday had Merinda working to close, so it became the day to enjoy my winnings. At the fish fry the proceeding Friday I was the winner of Omaha Steaks in the raffle. I cooked them up on Friday with potatoes and asparagus for and with VK's help.

Well of course there is cheese on everything.

Tuesday night was Sarah's birthday, and she decided she wanted to do karaoke. So we went to Mic's. I did a new song (for me), It's Been A While by Staind. I was not happy with my 'performance', but everyone was supportive. I don't like the acoustics there, or maybe the microphone set up. Regardless, much fun was had and I stayed later than I intended.

The birthday girl and a cheesey grin. Photo credit: Sarah


Sarah colored her hair just for this party, and Takashi, he's just being Takashi.
Photo credit: Sarah

On Wednesday, since Anna was there, we invited a few friends over and I made 'jambalaya' for six, myself, Anna, Merinda, Frank, Julia, and Jillian. My version of jambalaya is tasty, but certainly not very traditional ... or caloric, well, until you add the cheese on top.

Thursday I went again to Theology on Tap. It was Father Hoesing spoke about eternity. Father Hoesing was smart, witty, and like Archbishop Lucas he did not appear to reference any notes. Discussions about time, time philosophy, and God existing outside of time mess with my head. I get God existing outside space, but outside of time? Too weird to think about God seeing the whole of my life at once ... yes, thank you for your willingness to attempt to explain it to me, but I think I will be considering other things first.

Friday after work I went over to the Saint John Vianney fish fry. The Mass Chaos crew went along with Matt and Vivian on their fish fry expedition. Goofy, fun times were had by all, but there were no raffle winners on this day.

Here is table #1 and table #2, or was it the other way around? Both photos credit: Matt


It was Frank's birthday. Lindsay and I snagged the PA microphone and sang Happy Birthday, amazingly not one person in our group got a picture of this.


Jenny is up to no good here... Photo credit: Matt


...but as usual, there was plenty of that to go around. Photo credit: Matt

Were there pictures taken? Oh yeah, lots. Mine are here. Matt took some and they start here and move forward in time (newer). Jillian took some that are more portraits they can be found here and move forward in time (newer). Lisa also took pictures which can be found here on Facebook including of me being sent to the corner.

Saturday I went for a walk around Standing Bear Lake with VK. Actually, near the end of walk we ran about 1/8 of a mile. It's hard to tell exactly how far we walked. You'd think that would be an easy something to find now during the information age. It should really be called the opinion age, because the internet is short on facts, and long on opinion ... like this statement. After the walk we ate dinner and then watched a movie ... yes, I said we watched a movie. We watched It's Complicated. I thought it was humorous, and hey it had three really good actors in it.

Sunday morning I went to Mass with Mass Chaos. We went to a pancake feed immediately after Mass and then sat around and commiserated for an hour or so. I got some good friends.

Fourth Week in March 2011

On call was particularly demanding this time around. So, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday I just slept.

Thursday was beginning of the Spring Theology on Tap series, which meant that Beth, Joe, I, and surprise, Maggie, were not going to finish the bowling league. The lecture at ToTO more than made up for it. Archbishop Lucas spoke about the changes to the Mass coming up in the new Missal. The Archbishop was an excellent listen, he spoke for 45 minutes, and if he referred to notes, I didn't notice it. The funny part of this story was after the lecture, the group was socializing, I heard my name, and I turned around to see Joe talking to the Archbishop about me ... nice things I'm sure.

Friday was a day off, so I ran a bunch of errands and ended up at the Mary Our Queen fish fry. In case you haven't been there, there may be alcohol involved. The evening was so epic that I can't really relate it here, but I did feel the need to apologize to someone later, who told me "It's okay, you are funny". After the fish fry, we went off to the dance. Maggie drove, in case you were wondering. I danced the night away and ended up back at my car at 0030 and I safely drove home.

Saturday was the latest meeting of our Disorder of the Stick Pathfinder game. Even though I think CJ is pretty clever storyteller, it has amazed me just how he has set up this game for us to be both screwed and epically awesome. Our characters are really taking on personalities and interacting with each other in unexpected ways.

Sunday morning was the latest trip for Mass Chaos. After Mass people went out lunch. Somewhere there was a communication gap and everyone went but me.