Why Blog?

My response to Dirt Road's question on why we blog:

With the upcoming departure of my good friend Darwin and his wife, Roamer, I felt a sadness of losing another friend. I don't know if it is a guy thing, but I am horrible about staying in touch with good friends when distance seperates us. Doc is my only friend from high school that I stay in touch with on a regular basis, but it has been tough with him being out of town so much these last couple of years. I have so many college friends that I lost touch with, too. I realize this is partially my fault, I could make the effort.

So this blog thing is my effort. I don't like to talk on the phone and I am not to good at letters via mail or email. I don't want to lose anymore friends.

I think it is working. Doc is in Washington state and and I get to read about his activities and I assume he is reading about mine. I hope Darwin and Roamer will keep this up when they are in Spain.

I think it is strengthening my friendships that I have with all my Homer's buddies, but I am also learning what great wives they have too!

I also use this as a tool to document life (my life) with words that I may come back someday and read. I also hope I can become a better writer. I love words. When Darwin tries he can blow you away with his words.

I Love BBQ!

Yesterday, my son and I after playing in the new and improve Antioch park went to get some lunch. I heard that Arthur Bryant's BBQ was giving away $12 coupons per person. So Goose and I headed over to the local Arthur Bryant's. We were met by an insane line, but I was determined. It was sponsored by local.yahoo to rate and find things within your city. They were paying for the whole thing. Radio stations were on hand blaring out their tunes and giving away tacky keychains and cheap T-shirts. The yahoo sponsors were dressed in purple jumpsuits and were on Segueway (sp?) scooters zooming along the line of people outside and making small talk with us "anything for free" type people.

What's the catch? (Me and Goose, two people, with two coupons for $24 dollars total.) We had to give a rating out of 5 stars. Well that's easy for me. 5 stars! I think Bryant's is one of the best in town.

It took about an hour to get through the line. After hearing about the freebies, the group of people in front of me went in shifts to get the free key chains, stickers, t-shirts, and bland R&B cd's from the smooth jams radio station van. The two ladies behind me were planning a very busy night as one was setting the other up on a blind date. She did the old trick of let me call him up and describe you to him and then here you talk to him. I hope the date went well. Goose found some friends to play with who were in line with their mom and grandma. He kept hugging them and lifting his legs off the ground. I tried to tell him that one hug is enough and let's not be annoying. It looked like their mom didn't think all this hugging was too cute. They are complete strangers! (So are we!) A couple college-aged girls in the purple jumpsuits riding the Segueway scooters made it a point to stop by and flirt with Goose about every 10 minutes. They would call out his name as they zoomed by. He liked their wheels. And of corse I overheard conversations about the great KC debate of who has the best BBQ or who has the best sauce or who has the best beans.

Was it worth it? You bet. Goose got to practice his behavior in public and we walked out with 24 dollars of BBQ. It was a ton of food and it was also lunch today.

Yum.

R I I I I I S E part 2

With my cold thing that I have been fighting the last several days, I don’t have the ability to turn on the cool evil Lord Sidious voice whenever I want. It only comes to me after doing a good deal of talking. Last night the four of us went on a family walk, so naturally my wife and I are doing a good deal of talking. My voice came back!

“R I I I I S E !”

“R I I I I S E !”

“R I I I I S E !”

I am having fun with my voice and Goose my 2 ½ year old also thinks this is funny. Remember when I said that for some reason guys love to do weird things with their voice. I think now I know why.

They learn it from their dad.

Goose wanting to get in the spirit of things starts saying “RISE” in his little monster voice.

What have I done? What have I created?

Really, Goose is not possessed. He may sound like a demon, but he is not.

R I I I I I S E

Two things:

1. Vernal and I saw Star Wars Monday night.
2. I have been fighting a cold.

We had Grandma come over to watch the kids and off we were to see Star Wars. I know Dust was talking about the nerds on Wednesday nights. You should have seen Vernal. She is not a huge fan or anything, but a few weeks ago she picked up a Japanese Star Wars shirt at a thrift store. She found it in the boys section. She wore it to the movie. It only occurred to me later that I should have asked her to braid her hair into cinnamon buns on the side of her head. Anyway, I love the part in the movie when Lord Sidious tells Lord Vadar to “RISE.” His voice has a deep, guttural throaty sound. With my cold, I have been loosing my voice and I discovered yesterday that if I relax my throat and say “RISE” that I sound just as evil as Lord Sidious. Goose thought it was funny and was cracking up every time I did that until I started saying his NAME with that voice. He ran away with fear and trembling.

I think us guys like it when we can do cool things with our voice.

Long Live Half-Fridays

I love my half-Fridays. At my new job, I get every other Friday afternoon off. We work 8.5 hour days Monday thru Thursday, so that extra half an hour adds up to four hours every two weeks. It almost feels like a Memorial Day weekend. It is a nice feeling on Thursday night to be thinking that I only have four hours to work and then I am out at noon. It is the same feeling I had in college on Thursday nights. Thursday nights were my favorite. It was the start of the weekend. I remember at midnight, some Fraternity or Schol-hall would chant something like “happy loopy day, happy loopy day….” and then there was a chant back from somewhere else. I would usually have a four hour studio Friday morning and then be done for the week. The class was just the car trip you had to take to get to the campsite. You looked forward to going because you knew that it would soon be over and that you could fully partake in the weekend. That is what my half-Friday feels like. I wake up with an extra bounce in my step, get to work, talk to others about weekend plans, get busy with real work and before you know it; time is up. The next week is a full week, but half-Friday is right around the corner.
Long live half-Fridays!

Goose and Turkey

In the last few days Goose:

• knocked over his chest of drawers during naptime, busting his lamp/nightlight, but luckily not himself.
• got his fingers smashed in the car door by grandma and mom closing two doors at the same time. Luckily, no damage.
• now considers his tricycle his most prized possesion. He no longer wants me to give him a bike ride to the park; he wants to ride his "bike" to the park and he does. He happens to be a little speed demon, too. The kid can move!
  
• started the habit of greeting dad in the window when I come home from work. He hears the garage door open and rushes to the window. He hasn't failed me in over two weeks.
• his favorite game is "jump on dad."
• can stay up late and be full of energy the next morning.
• constantly has bruises on his knees and shins.
• Is really interested in his younger brother.
  

In the last few days Turkey:

• has really come into his own.
• recognizes things and goes for them.
• has been getting around on the floor. Not full fledge crawling, but pretty close. It's only a matter of time.
• has been eating peas, carrots, yellow squash, sweet potatos, and little toast strips.
• gets so excited whenever mom walks in the room.
• got smacked in the head with a wooden train thanks to Goose.
• fell to the ground off a trike. I shouldn't trust Goose to hold on to him.
• experienced the first thrills of swinging and was gigling like crazy.
• is starting to express himself vocally.
• adores his older brother.
  

These are a few things that come to my mind. I figured it would be nice to remember what Goose and Turkey did at 2 1/2 years and 6 months of age.

The Year of Trying New Things to Eat

...or maybe it isn't so much of trying new things, but giving a lot of old things a second chance.

I have my new years resolution figured out and I am in the process of re-elvaluating why I don't like certain foods and drinks.

I am trying to learn to like tomatos, coffee and other beverages. I used to always pull tomatos off of my sandwiches, but this year I am leaving them on. (babysteps)

I have also been giving fish another shot. I used to eat fish when I was younger, but somehow I had a bad episode that turned me off.

I am trying to learn to like coffee. I love the mochas and the latte's and the smell of coffee, but plain coffee is something I have never been a fan of. I am giving coffee a more serious shot this year. It helps when I add creamer and sugar, but I am coming around. (My mom and grandma will be proud.)

Mushrooms? I don't know if I am ready for them yet.

The Sunday Paper

Yes, I go straight for the ads that sell new music and DVD’s. I always pick out Best Buy, Circuit City, Target, and Nebraska Furniture Mart. These days we don’t make it to the Cinema as often as we’d like. I do like movies and I do have collector tendencies. If there was a movie that I would have liked to see, but missed out, now I can pick it up on DVD. Movies that slightly interested me I’ll rent. Anyway, I feel justified when the price of a DVD is cheaper than two tickets to the movie theater.

Here is the scope for the best prices for new releases on DVD:

Wal-Mart usually is the cheapest. They don’t have a Sunday ad.

Target, Circuit City, and Best Buy are pretty competitive, but once in a while one will break away from the others and be a dollar cheaper.

Lately, Nebraska Furniture Mart will have a one day sale (Tuesday) for new titles at $9.99. That is the best buy, but could be a bit of a drive.

This is what I do: Grab the cheapest ad (NFM) and drive to the closest Wal-Mart. See if you ad price beats Wal-Mart’s, if not Wal-Mart will accept the other competitor’s ad price. (Best Buy will also accept competitor’s prices although I heard they might discontinue that service, Target will not, and I am not sure about Circuit City.)

Recent purchases:
A Series of Unfortunate Events (9.99)
National Treasure (9.99)
The Phantom of the Opera (9.99)

Be Prepared With An Answer

More thoughts on my Cleveland trip:

It seemed that the three of us spent a good deal of time thinking about our next place to eat and to be on the look out for good places. When the client is paying for meals, we can eat well. We are in Cleveland! Let’s see what Cleveland taste like. The hard part came from getting advice from the locals. One of the guys we met with was from Hudson, a rich suburb outside of Cleveland. We asked him for a nice spot to eat in Cleveland and he said “…if you like steak, Morton’s is pretty good.” I am sure it is, but we have a Morton’s in Kansas City. He had trouble coming up with other options. Another guy we talked to said that Outback Steakhouse is pretty good. Eventually, someone told us we should check out the “little Italy” part of town. We did and found lots of unique Italian spots to choose from. It seemed pretty hard to find suggestions of local flavor from the locals. Eventually, we found a best of Cleveland list on the internet.

Be prepared with an answer.

Could I be ready to guide an out-of-towner to a local food establishment? What would I suggest? Where would I take people to experience Kansas City?

Fortunately for us, we have lots of good BBQ joints and I could recommend quite a few, depending on what part of town one is in or if you want the hole in the wall vs. the nice sit down place. For a unique choice of foods, it would be easy to recommend going to 39^th and State line (the restaurant alley.) For nice dinning, the plaza has lots of choices to offer, although they do have some higher-end big city chain restaurants. I think I would have good recommendations for all types of food including ice cream (Murray’s in Westport.)

I am by no means a food snob and I don’t cringe at the thought of eating at a Chain, but I think this trip has given me a new appreciation of our local food. I think I’ll make an effort to support them when I can.

Hello Cleveland

I just got back from Cleveland Tuesday night. I was only there for two days on business, but it felt like a little vaction. I went with two other engineers and we probably only worked a total of 2-1/2 - 3 hours. We just got luck and didn't run into any problem. It seemed like we spent more time talking about where to eat next and how to find our way to discover the local flavor. The best part is that I didn't spend a dime. All expenses are reimbursed by the client.
We went to the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame. Some people gave us tickets, because they had extras.
We had some Itailian food in Little Italy at a place called "la dolce vita" -the sweet life. It is named after the old black and white movie that takes place in Rome. The movie is played every night on the televisions and projected onto the walls. No sound. The opera singer was coming later. There are no light exept a few accents and the small candle on everyones table. A large extended Italian family sits behind us pulling four tables together to sit their group. The noise level drowns out the background music. I love eating on somebody else bill. We don't have to be shy about drinks, appetizers, the price of the main entree, ordering desserts and drinking latte's.
We did a lot of driving around and exploring the city. We discovered some good architecture too! The rock n roll hall of fame is designed by I.M. Pei. He also designed the Louvre in Paris (the glass pyramid.) We ran into a Frank Ghery build with it's wacked out metal paneled roofs.
We toured the Cleveland Museum of Art (free.) The have a lot of old stone bridges that is not native to the textures here in Kansas/Missouri.

I don't know why, but I am always surprised when I visit a different region in the U.S. that people live there and carry on just like we do where we live. People drive their cars, go to work, shop, dine and live just like us. I could be transplanted and fit in just fine. It is kind of scary when you drive through the suburbs and discover the same shopping center you have at home. Across from our hotel was the home depot, best buy, applebees, outback, tgifridays, anytown, USA.

Maybe, I am surprised, because my previous experiences with traveling has been on backpacking trips through Europe where each new town could be a different language or on missions trips. Just lately, because of kids, my wife and I have been doing more American City types of vacations. (Chicago, Seattle.)

Whoops! (A total lack of judgement)

I found this letter with the U2 exhibit in the RocknRoll Hall of Fame. BTW, Paul Hewson is Bono's real name.

RSO Records
10th May 1979

Dear Mr. Hewson,
Thank you for submitting your tape of "U2" to RSO. We have listened to it with careful consideration, but feel it is not suitable for us at present.

Yours sincerely,

Shelley Call