My, um, 29th birthday weekend

Time to get another year older, I'm down with that. As long as I don't have to do anything or wear anything stupid...

Darn it, I guess it is too late.

My birthday started on Friday, and ended on Tuesday, with just a short break on Sunday. Friday was the birthday dance and festivities at Jitterbugs night out. Many of the most popular jitterbugs and me have their birthdays at this time of year, Timmo, Steph, SendmeJackson, and Corinn were all out there making for a crowded dance circle ... cool!

All these ladies were waiting just to get in line to dance with me.


JennyJitterbug takes her turn.


Emeade got into the act too.


Sheila and I captured Becca when she wasn't looking.

Saturday night BeckyRants had her annual "Look, I'm Making Ice Cream Party". Okay, it is true, this party had zero to do with my birthday, but what the heck... Schmedrick, Mae, and I rode down to Lincoln together, and in a rare treat, Mae drove. BeckyRants made four, count them four different kinds of ice cream, Strawberry, Mint, Vanilla, and Chocolate ... I tried three. Somehow, no one got a picture of the ice cream...

There was the usual party stuff for us, food, dancing ...


... and the obligatory and much liked game of Apples to Apples.

Sunday was a down day, but Monday was the actual birthday. My birthday morning dawned in the colors of light reflected off the jewels and gold of a dragons horde, rays streaming skyward, golden fire, unimpeded by the everyday ... oh, um, yeah, nevermind. I had to work. After work Vivian met me and we went to Bible study together. There I got several cards and a couple gifts, including the birthday glasses. Smeade was rather insistent that they be worn from the time I got them until the end of my party on Tuesday ... I got right not on that.

Look, I'm six years old!

After Bible study we went over to Ted & Wally's to get some birthday ice cream.

Tuesday was the party day. I spent about four hours during the course of the day taking care of some much overdue lawn work, including getting out the chainsaw and cutting up some wood for the party later. We met at 1830 at Old Chicago downtown Omaha, and hung out and had dinner.

If you don't mind, I'll thank you not to use the term 'old' in my presence on my birthday.


Thanks everyone for showing up!


SmileChild is certain why she doesn't like onions, and not so certain why she is friends with me.

After dinner it was back to my house for a foamy sword fight. I think we all got so excited about it, we forgot to get pictures of it. Then a fire and too many roasted marshmallows.

Guess who likes his gift!!!


JennyJitterbug started this one ... honest.


This one is just here because it is a freakin' cool picture. Who knew Maegmariel was part ghost or that I could pet Cherokee like that.

Mostly I just want to say a big fat
THANKS
to all my super-cool friends who helped to make this birthday grand, I love you all!

Many thanks to Cornstalker and SmileChild for allowing me to borrow pictures more or less with permission.

I need a botanist to identify...

I was taking a look at this picture again, and noticed the plant in the foreground ... or should I say weed. Click on it to get a bigger version.

I guess working at the Henry Doorly Zoo Wildlife Safari has its benefits.

Timing is everything

Dana asked me to dance, and she does some supercool stuff, but as a lead you have to pay attention to her and what she wants to do. I had a momentary lapse, and stepped to the right just as she was going to come by me, bam! we ran right into one another. My fault. Double stupid, cause I knew JitterCliff was standing right there with the camera. Arg! Wait a second ... let's see that picture...

Wow, that's Just exactly the way I envisioned that move.

Many thanks to JitterCliff for allowing me to borrow a picture more or less with permission.

OnionBoy update

New Job
I applied for, and got a different position here at my employer working in the IT department. I don't have my start date yet, but I am figuring the last week in August or first week in September. After sixteen months on the 7 on / 7 off, twelve hour shift schedule, I am burned out on it, the schedule, not the job. The new position will be normal weekday hours with an occasional rotating on-call pager. Plus it will be more in line with my college education, it's very much what I have wanted to do here for three plus years.

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New Song
Well I tried to publish a new song the other day and got stuck by that mystery Firefox/Blogger issue that locks up when you use words in a certain order. Anyways, not because of that, but because of some musical issues and discussion with musical talent extraordiare SmileChild, I decided to simplify the song and redo the verses down to one verse and make it praise and worship style. I will post it when it is done.

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New Musical Talent
Speaking of music, I stuck my foot in it again ... and this time not my mouth, but a bass drum. The Bible Study praise and worship band drummer got married and moved away (how rude), leaving us completely without a rhythym section. I was either moved by the Spirit, got tired of no one else volunteering, or was overcome by delusions of adequacy (probably all three), and I said I would do it. I haven't played 'live' yet, but I've practiced with the band twice, and I have surprised myself, hopefully in short order I will be playing with the band, and keeping time ... and as an added benefit, I heard drummers get all the chicks, although I'd be happy with just one.

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New Picture

This picture is cool because it really captures what dancing is all about, having a good time!

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New Attitude
My mood over the eight or nine days can best be summed up by these words from The Love of God by Mercy Me:

Could we with ink the ocean fill,
and were the skies of parchment made.
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
and every man a scribe by trade.
To write the love of God above,
would drain the ocean dry,
nor could the scroll, contain the whole
though stretched from sky to sky...
Hallelujah

I told MistyJoJangles the other day that I have been so in love with God lately, and I have no other words to use, I have at moments in the past ten years had short periods of joy and peace, but just for a few hours or a day at most ... this has been a week plus of just love, and no sex, no drugs, no rock'n'roll could replace this feeling I have in me, and I think I've tried all of that enough to know. I yearn to join the saints and angels in their song of glory to the King who knows all His subjects by name.

Many thanks to SmileChild for allowing me to borrow a picture with actual, written permission.

Grrrr

I had a new song up for a while, but something about the post caused Firefox to lock up while displaying my blog. This has happened to me before, and just changing one word fixed it, but you can't really do that with a song. It worked fine in Safari and (gasp) IE

I will try to put it up when I figure it out.