Third Week in May 2011

I'd just like to say, I know I somehow messed up the numbering for the weeks in May, sorry.

Monday was the end of on call. Hooray! I barely made it through to the end of the day. I bought dinner on the way home, and ate it while sitting out on the back deck with Troy. It was then time for lawn work. After lawn work I relaxed until an early bedtime.

Tuesday after work was the start of my 'spontaneous' six day vacation. I celebrated the start with a visit to CJ's and a session of the Disorder of the Stick Pathfinder group. As I've mentioned before, we take turns doing our best to die each session. This time, it was my turn. Evidently my character is too trusting, it almost made me very dead. I got caught in an alley with three people coming after me, and I was stunned ... it took a generous DM to not make me dead. It also made me rethink my Die Hard feat, the people chasing us aren't going to settle for a nice quick death for us, I'm have developed enough attachment to my (fictional, I know) character to not want a tortuous death for her. It's part of the charm of role playing, is getting an attachment to what is going on.

Wednesday morning I had tickets for the Omaha Stormchasers game at the new Werner Park. It was an 1105 game. All morning long I looked for a game cancellation notice for the game, but they didn't put one up. I met VK at the ballpark, we walked in, the tarp was on the field, and it was announced that the game would start at 1130. VK and I walked around for about 30 minutes, seeing the park, and waiting for Joe and his coworkers to show up. There never appeared to make any move to start the game, and of course the whole time they were taking money for parking, food, and beverages. Finally, just as Joe walked up, they announced the cancellation of the game. I thought the ballpark was nice, but the way the 'postponement' went down didn't sit very well with me.

So I did what I normally do when faced with disappointment, I went out to eat. We had lunch at Red Robin at Shadow Lake, then VK and I went shopping and walking around. Eventually we ended up at her house and spent the abnormally cold afternoon watching movies. After I left, I went home and packed for the trip. By that I mean I went home and overpacked for the trip.

Thursday morning I hit the road! I filled up on the east side of Council Bluffs for $3.49/gallon. I made a few stops on the way, lunch at the Outlet Mall in Williamsburg, IA, gas at the Worlds Largest Truckstop in Walcott, IA, and a couple of rest stops, but mostly I drove right through. I got to my mother's house around 1930, and we immediately went out to eat at the Olive Garden. After dinner I played Mr. Fixit for a few minutes, putting together a few items for mom.

Here I am being the hero! Just in case you are wondering,
my mother does not like being in pictures.

Friday morning I went out to eat with Mom at IHOP. Pancakes just sounded good. I left directly from the IHOP in McHenry and followed the route downtown that Google suggested: Highway 120 to Route 12 to Highway 53 to Interstate 90. I thought it was kind of counterintuitive, but it worked. I exited at Diversey in less than an hour and a half, and drove through the old neighborhood. I met Jen, got some parking permits, and unloaded the car.

We went down to have lunch at the original Potbelly. No, they don't have them in Omaha, and I've been craving one for months. It's a sandwich place, kind of a cross between Quizno's and Subway, only with better chips. After lunch I walked down to the lakefront and through the Lincoln Park Conservatory.

I had a very strange encounter with something called a sausage tree.


No complaints about Omaha area gas prices for at least three weeks.

I would have stayed in the Conservatory longer, mostly because it was warm, but I had to go up to Briar Street Theater to see Blue Man group. I haven't seen them since 2004(?) in Las Vegas. It was a fun show, some of the elements were the same as the last time I saw it, but somethings were different, such as the large boards with lettering on them had been replaced with "GiPhones". It was also much more family friendly than I remember. We left there and went for a dry, but cool, walk along the lakefront.

After some relaxation at my friends condo, we went to dinner at Andalous, which is a Moroccan restaurant on Clark Street. I had lamb (more like goat) shank with veggies and fries (!). It was a BYOB place, there seemed to be quite a few of those kinds of places, and although I know things change in 20 years, I don't remember there being that many BYOB places being around. It seems like a smart idea though. No liquor license, no needing to worry if the customer likes your wine selection, or listening to complaints about your weak drinks. They can get it themselves and have exactly what they want. After dinner, we went back to Jen's condo and sat around and talked, bedtime was early, after all there was about 7 miles of walking involved.

Saturday I woke up earlier than I intended, got my caffeine, and cat pictures ensued before the rest of the day took off.

Hey! This is our condo! What are you doing here?


I caught the 'el' downtown here at this stop, you know,
the one with the view of Ozzie Guillen's favorite ballpark.


We got off of the 'el', and surprise, Memorial Day parade ...
and Mr. Mayor, Rahm Emanuel.

First stop, The Art Institute. We wandered around the museum. Some things had definitely changed in the past few years. So I had to wander around to find some stuff, although it wasn't difficult, except I'm still wondering where some of the Georgia O'Keefe paintings wandered off to. I did think that the new location for Seurat's A Sunday Afternoon on La Grande Jatte was not as interesting a location to walk up on as the old location. One thing that still amazes me is Peter Blume's The Rock. Our visit to the Art Institute was interrupted by this little thing I like to call 'lunch'. We walked up to Billy Goat's Tavern to eat, probably I would have preferred pizza (foreshawdowing).

While we ate it started to rain. When we walked back, we went via the lower level of the bridge on Michigan Avenue, and then climbed up the stairs when we had to. My umbrella was cleverly back in my car, so although it sounds like it could have been a wet, unenjoyable situation, the rain just made it more fun. We walked up to 'The Bean' at Millennium Park, and there were about 80 people underneath it. After a few shots, we went back to the Art Institute via the new bridge over Monroe Street.

Hey, The Bean is mirrored, it's all about me.


I could spend all day in Millennium/Grant Park, so much to explore.
My jacket dried out about ten hours later.

We headed back to the 'el', and headed back to the Lakeview area ... and Pizza!

We ate at Giordano's, I believe the correct term is 'nom nom nom'.


After dinner we hung out on the roof until we got too wet and cold.
Especially since we just got ice cream.


What better way to warm up than epic sushi at midnight?

Sunday morning was the day to start heading back, but it was also a lazy morning. We laid around, packed slowly, and then chatted. I noticed the sky was getting kind of dark in the west. Jen turned on the Weather Channel and ... it was time to go. I sprinted out of condo to the car, drove it up front, and loaded it up just in front of some epic rain. I headed out of town to Schaumburg and one of the two Ikea stores in the Chicagoland area. I think it's odd that I wanted to see what the Ikea experience was all about, but I still haven't been to Trader Joe's here in Omaha.

I had several plans for the way back, plan A was to see the riverfront in Davenport, Iowa and stay in the Quad Cities, plan B was to stay in Iowa City, and plan C was to drive all the way home. Davenport's riverfront didn't disappoint, it was very pretty.

Davenport has a pretty riverfront on the Mississippi. This picture was taken from a pedestrian bridge below.


No, I'm not nervous about the height, not at all, really.


Once night set, you could see that the bridge had cool lights that changed colors over time.

I had dinner at a nice restaurant at the other end of the pedestrian bridge, thank you to the nice group of people who pointed it out to me, saving me from dinner at the casino buffet. As it worked out, the trip was a combination of plan A and B. Visiting Davenport and staying in Iowa City. It didn't quite work out that way, because on the way out of Davenport, there was the same hotel I was going to stay at in Iowa City, Country Inns and Suites. I checked, and they were cheaper than Iowa City and they were right there. Good choice. After relaxing in the pool and hot tub for 45 minutes, I went back to the room where I fell into a deep hard sleep.

Second Week in May 2011

Just as a note, I've decided to go with a slightly larger picture size. It fits within the format, is easier for me to do, and I don't think it will affect the bandwidth too much.

Monday began the latest version of "No life for YOU!" a.k.a. being on call for work. I celebrated by making mac and cheese that was not too spicy, and yet still tasty.

Tuesday morning I stopped at the c-store on the corner by work, and when I came out, my car wouldn't start ... the usual reason ... it doesn't usually happen at 55°F. I got permission of the store manager to leave my car for a while, managed to get the car out of the way, and walked over to work ... only to discover that I left my work badge in the car. I walked back to the car, and it started. Dumbest reason to be late ever. Tuesday night revolved around work.

Wednesday night while waiting for work to pop up, I played a tower defense game on Kongregate. I'd like to sarcastically 'thank' Kevin for introducing me to tower defense games.

Just thought I'd throw in a picture of my 2011 'garden'.

Thursday was a long drawn out affair for work, I finally got home after 2100. It wasn't the length of the day, it was everything that went wrong in between 1700 and 2100. It started with a fire alarm test that only I didn't know about ... picture me running out of the building to a crowd of no one, and ended with my car not starting after working late. It all turned out well, and no one was injured. After I got home, I was in bed a little bit early, and got through the night with on call.

Friday night I managed to get to Jitterbugs very late and danced maybe six songs or so. Afterward I went to Alvarado's with Lee, Cecily, and Nate. I made Lee laugh for about three minutes straight, and my stomach hurt the next day, although it could have been from all the sit ups.

Saturday I did some car maintenance, new wiper blades, a whole lot of clean up. I then got ready to go over to the Johnson's for their spring BBQ. There was some spectacular hail, good food, great friends, a couple games of Telestrations, and of course, stupid o'clock.

Jessica took this picture after Jenny and unsuccessfully tried to take one
(more like 15) of ourselves.


It hailed three different times during the party.
Photo credit: Matt


Here I am trying to explain what happened to my Telestrations word 'toaster'.
Photo credit: Matt

I took very few pictures, but they can be seen here, Matt took more, they can be found here. Playing Telestrations with amazing cartoonists like Dan and Matt makes for a lot of fun. There was also the big surprise announcement ... Vivian is pregnant! She had a lot of fun with it, telling everyone in advance that it would be a surprise announcement about the color they were painting the house ... White! Navy! Pregnant! Congratulations!

Sunday I went out to lunch with Joe at Nebraska Brewing Company. I felt kind of icky all day, kind of a combination of not enough sleep from being on call, and a bunch of allergies. So, mostly the day was spent napping and then working, and repeat. I ended up getting Culver's ice cream and taking a late night walk.

First Week in May 2011

Monday after work I had the latest meeting of our Disorder of the Stick Pathfinder group. However it wasn't until 1900, so I went to Council Bluffs, got gas, then went to Alvarado's to get some food ... they messed up my order but what I got was still good. Our Pathfinder session was just about us escaping town. We keep finding new and stupid ways to try and get ourselves killed. This time Chris had his character, ByPoe jump into a pit and he almost got stabbed to death. We finally got out, on a caravan, and carried away to another land.

Tuesday night after work there grilling at VK's. We had an unintentional progressive dinner, because that's the way it got cooked. It was all really good, and I definitely ate too much. Wednesday after work I stayed home and finished up blog entries (more below).

Thursday was the initial meeting of Rome and Coke, the new Catholic young adults meeting group. The subject was drinking (in moderation) within the church. There are some super smart, knowledgeable people who go to these things. I'm there to represent the touchy-feely side of the Catholic experience. After our spirited discussion, Joe, I, and about 12 other people headed down to eat at Old Chicago. We had a fabulous time.

Remember when I wrote about blogging the paragraph before last. If you can't remember it, go reread the last sentence and come up with a memory exercise to help you improve. Blogspot blew up sometime in between me finishing writing on Wednesday and Friday morning. So everything I wrote on Wednesday and Thursday was gone. I wrote the entire previous entry, Monday through Thursday on this one, and also the 2011 top ten games entry was worked on ... all gone. At first I thought that I didn't post anything, but people told me they read it, so I know it was there. Further research, i.e., looking at the tabs open on my browser, allowed me to save the previous entry and some of the game entry. However what I already wrote on this entry is gone. It was probably the most insightful, clever, funniest stuff I've ever written too.

In the evening I went to the dance, I was on the clean up crew, so *cha-ching*, I just had to work for a few minutes for free entry. Marilou was celebrating her birthday, so I went out to Village Inn with the group and picked up Marilou's tab, that was nice. Not so nice was me arguing with Maggie, in a mean way.

Saturday during the day I cut some really high grass. Troy likes to have it bagged, and I filled up seven bags full of lawn clippings. Usually it's three. It looked nice when I finished, though. I had an impromptu lunch with VK, which happened because I forgot my credit card at Old Chicago on Thursday. Since I had to go get it, I was half way to her house anyway, so we met in the middle.

Saturday night was Kaleb's monthly game night. I was late! Nine minutes late. They had just started a game of Cargo Noir. It's a new game to me. It's a Days of Wonder game, so it was brightly colored. It was a simple game too, I liked it. We then set up the badminton net and played in the cold and the wind. I had a couple shots of 'warm-up juice'. Finally we came back inside and played Shadow Hunters ... it's about time. Kaleb 'found' the game almost a year after it went missing ... and of course I was the first one killed. I then went to play some ping pong, not the kind where you keep score, the kind where you have fun and talk. Suddenly, we were summoned upstairs to play a game of Ultimate Werewolf. I was a werewolf, and lynched pretty early, we had the very odd occasion of having three out of four nights where the person we killed was saved. The villagers won, not us bad guys. I had a very brief game of Fluxx, which I didn't win. Fluxx is a game that should only be played at Ted and Wally's. The last game I played was (twice) Cash n Guns. This is not a family friendly game, but it is fun. The rules are probably shorter than how I would describe it. I won the second game, finally a victory. The evening ended with Rock Band, which somehow went into 0300 ... how does that happen?

Sunday morning I got up for church early, met Joe, and went to Mass at Saint John's on the Creighton campus, in part, to hear Katie play flute. I then ended up back home and had a bunch of difficulty trying to find someone to go to lunch with me, in fact it was too difficult to accomplish. I went for a walk in the evening to get my total miles walked for the year up over 100, as I noted on Facebook, that's the equivalent of five containers Blue Bunny Coffee Break ice cream. Next week: next week.

Last week in April 2011

So I did lawn work on Sunday, and so I did it again on Monday, this time at VK's house. I really wore myself out doing it too. Unfortunately, the guy code doesn't allow you to complain about being worn out, so I didn't.

Tuesday evening I developed a rather bad headache which lasted into Wednesday morning. I ended up not going in to work until the afternoon when I felt much better. Thank God for medicine. After work I ended up hanging with VK, we went to dinner at Carrabba's, which, I found out, is part of the same ownership as Outback. Thursday after work I did chores.

Friday I went to lunch at a local BBQ place, Doc and Eddies. I tried a sandwich, the meat was good, but the sauces were dull, and the sides were just plain bad, cornbread should not stick to the roof of your mouth like peanut butter. After work Kimee and I went out to eat, then for a walk, I then let her drive, and then I hung out at Shannon's until 2300 or so. I then went downtown for a little dancing. Below are pictures that Kimee and I took.

 The local wildlife objects to my picture taking.


 Aw, baby geese! Momma and daddy didn't let us get too close.


 Pretty sunset!

If you'd like to see the rest of the shots from our adventure, please click here, Kimee has a good eye.

Saturday during the day I met VK for lunch at Smashburger, it wasn't as good as the first time I ate there. We ate outside, it was very windy, welcome to Nebraska. After this we walked over to the bookstore and went to WalMart. I would like a new hoodie, but retail places don't seem to have plain hoodies. I think I'll have luck at Cabela's or Bass Pro, but that seems a little expensive.

Later in the day, I introduced Maggie to China Buffet and the concept that 'all-you-can-eat' is a challenge, not a suggestion. After dinner we hit my new favorite secret photo spot. We then drove around Bellevue until we ended up at Dairy Queen. Strange how that happens. You can see some of the pictures below, or all of them here.

If you haven't heard me whine about allergies, let me take this opportunity. They have sucked for me this spring. I was so worn out that I went to bed at 2230 Saturday night and got up at 1100 Sunday morning. I went to church at Saint Mary's in Bellevue, they painted it, very nicely I might add. I then slept some more. When I got up, I went to Westlake Ace, and purchased some supplies to let me pot cherry tomatoes and some peppers. I will attempt to remember to take pictures. That was my week.

Fourth Week in April 2011

Monday after work I spent a nice relaxing night at home. Tuesday I went over to VK's to fix the drain that I broke on over the weekend. On Wednesday I ended up on the phone very late arguing with a friend, odd for me.

Thursday night I went out to Gator O'Malley's to see the Mezcal Brothers. It was the first time I have seen them since Playing With Fire in 2009. I didn't drive, so I had a couple beers or so. Maybe not a good idea, but I had fun dancing!

Friday I ended up working a little late, and then was super hungry on the way home. I got two full meals and did my best to finish them. Silly me. Silly because then I tried to dance and it didn't work out at all. I danced a little while, but then I stopped, and went home around 11:00.

It was okay to get the extra rest though, because Saturday was the first day of the Nebraska Renaissance Festival. We had a group of about a dozen people that went.

Maggie was swimming in her armor...


...but so was I ... which way to the war please? Photo credit: Matt


Chain mail hackysacks. The metal wasn't sharp. I thought very hard about buying one, but I did not do so, maybe if I see them again.


Half of our group. Photo credit: Matt


And what day of mine would be complete without a totally inexplicable photo and/or happening.

If you would like to see my photos of the Nebraska Renaissance Festival, including some of Matt yelling "Bring out your dead." click here, Matt's pictures can be found here, and Jillian has some here.

Later in the evening, Joe, Bente, VK, Amber, and I went to eat at Outback. Our waiter was VK & Bente's brother Caleb ... if you are having deja vu about this, it is because it might sound like something we did a few weeks ago. There was a funny moment with my doctor while we were there. We ate a lot of food and then went over to my place to play Dance Central, everyone did participate, some more than others.

Sunday morning was no Mass Chaos, but I did go to church with Joe, Teri, and others. After church we headed over to Assumption Parish to the Czech Fest kick off dinner. I ate too many kolachi and I won at Pickles ... okay, it's not true, there is no such thing as too many kolachi.

Later in the afternoon I did lawn work, then headed over to CJ's at 1900 for installments two and three of Game of Thrones. There was a lot less nudity in these episodes, I guess that they drew you in with it, but it wasn't necessary, there is so much to like and dislike with almost every character that I'll keep watching.