Weekend Round up Girlie Style
So Priceman told you all about the boys awesome weekend but what about us girls? Did you ever think about us? Huh, Price didya? Would it have killed you to write my weekend round up as well? Come on, you are much funnier than I am.
Here’s my lame attempt at a weekend round up. After work Friday, I came home to secretly pack the suitcase for Steven and Price. Steven had no idea until 5:45 pm (just minutes before leaving) that he was going to Springfield. Who doesn’t love a surprise road trip, eh?
So the boys left and Maya and I awaited the arrival of our guest, the ever talented Laurie the Treasure Sale Queen. Laurie is a friend and also a volunteer on my Event Planning Team. She graciously, and somewhat naively, agreed to be the leader of our church’s annual Treasure Sale. She knew I would be out from surgery in the pre-work stage. So she has been coordinating all the efforts with our team and the many many donations coming in. Anyway, she was coming over so I could treat her to dinner out at a place of her choosing. We went to Smokehouse BBQ. YUMMY! We ate corn nuggets, burnt ends and delicious beans. Sweet! We were stuffed when we left.
We headed back to Casa de Horn to continue our meeting looking over the details of the Treasure Sale (which is this week). Maya came home to chill and watch some Noggin while we met. Around 10:30 pm, Laurie left and Maya and I got ready for bed. Once she was asleep, I spent a good 45 minutes trying to convince my grossly overweight pug, Elly, to jump up on the bed. She wouldn’t do it. Very frustrating! Finally I got her up there. After all that, I was still kind of wired from the little tantrum and from all the Iced Tea at the restaurant and decided to watch The Producers (the old one with Gene Wilder). I fell asleep half way through the movie.
In the morning, Maya and I enjoyed a breakfast of cinnamon rolls. So tasty. Shortly thereafter, our friend Hey Jules stopped by. I had asked her to come over and take some shots of my princesses with her awesome amazing camera (notice how last night Elly was a grossly overweight pug and today she is my princess;). She did and here is some of work.
See some great ones of Maya over at Jules place. Are those not amazing? Jules is the awesome.
So after Jules left, I continued on a project I had started earlier which was to declutter and clean out Steven’s room (for donations to the Treasure Sale). Then us girls ate lunch and napped briefly. It was then time for me to get ready for work and get the babysitter. Our good friend, Miss Emma, came to hang with Maya. While I was at work, they made homemade pizza and had a PJ party. I got home, ate the left over pizza and Maya and I settled down for a girls movie night. We got into mommy’s bed and started to watch Jane Eyre. Never having seen the movie or read the book (I know I know FOR SHAME!), I thought it would be along the lines of Sense and Sensibility or Pride and Prejudice so it would be ok for Maya to watch with me. She likes the dancing and horses and such. Yikes, that movie was a little darker than I expected. Fine for me, but a bit much for the wee princess. So it was back to tickling and pretty to hide under the covers where I can’t see her.
Finally our boys arrived home and there was much rejoicing and we all crashed around 11 pm (11:30 for us parent types). Sunday, it was back to work for me. I was hosting our services and then the work began. Setting up and sorting hundreds of boxes and bags of donations of clothing, toys, books, knick knacks and more. Wow, that stuff really piles up! But it’s all for a good cause, 100% of the profits go to agencies that serve those in need.
I got home around 5:45 pm and we ate dinner. After the kids went to nighty night, Daddy and I watched a little Battlestar Galactica (Man why did you get me hooked on this show?). Then as Priceman finished up his version of the weekend roundup, I watched the latest in the battle for Top Chef Chicago. Poor Jen:( My bets are on Richard, Dale and Stephanie as the final 3. We shall see. Top Chef please come to KC and fix me something tasty!
Well after a weekend of craziness, Daddy and I are super tired. So off to night night for the entire Horn Clan.
Good night John Boy.
A quick little Weekend Roundup jaunt
A quick little jaunt down to Springfield, Missouri, that is. Friday evening, as soon as I got home from work, I headed south down Highway 13 to the campus of Missouri State University for the 2008 Society for Technical Communication’s Region 6 Student Conference (a mouthful, innit?), where I was speaking (!). I didn’t want to make the drive alone, and Shannon was a) pretty busy, and 2) not quite up to a long drive just yet, so joining me were The Boy and my buddy Tom. Unwilling to shell out for a hotel room, we called our old friends Jim and Malea Vandiver. Tom and I were pretty tight with Jim back in our college daze; he and his ever-growing family (five kids and counting) live in a small, rural community east of town, in a house right next door to a small farm owned by Jim’s parents. So the three of us crashed on assorted beds, sofas, and other cushioned pieces of furniture in the Casa de Vandiver.
Saturday morning came far too early, as an over-eager rooster next door loudly saluted the first slivers of sunlight around 5:30 a.m. I was hoping for a few more minutes of sleep to prepare for the conference, but alas, it wasn’t to be. Luckily, my early awakening gave me that much more time to get nervous about my presentation. As I left for the conference, leaving Tom and Steven at the house to hang with the Vandivers and experience life on the farm, my heart beat faster and faster and my anxiety just increased. Public speaking is just not my thing. If I were doing a dramatic monologue in front of all those people, no problem. Give me some lines to memorize and I’ll pretend to be someone else and everything will be just dandy. But if I gotta be myself? And talk about stuff I know? Dear lord, that terrifies me.
As it turned out, I needn’t have worried. After all, I wasn’t doing the presentation alone. I was co-presenting with my friend and colleague Sarah, another MSU alumnus and fellow KC-based tech writer. She’s done this stuff a lot; her confidence and solid prep work (she made most of the PowerPoint presentation) calmed me down considerably, and I think our session went pretty well. Sure, I stumbled over my own tongue a time or two, and there were a couple of times I was droning on and on about something and I thought I would never shut up, but overall… not too shabby.
After my work was done, I headed back to the woods of El Rancho Vandiver. They basically live in the middle of the woods, so you better believe we checked for ticks. Only found one on Steven! (I don’t know if Tom found any ticks, nor do I want to know. I don’t even want to think about it. I’m sorry I brought it up, really.) I thought I had escaped tick-free, but just now as I was typing this I reached down and felt a little something on the back of my knee. Yes indeed-y, it was a nasty ol’ tick feasting on my sweet, delicious blood. Down the toilet with you, you tiny bloodsucker!
Anyhow, enough of my jaw-jacking. Let’s bust out some mad picz. Not crazy mad, angry mad… because our digital camera decided to finally up and die on me this weekend, forcing me to take cruddy photos with my phone. It’s nice to have a camera on my phone, because it allows me to take photos wherever I am at any time, but it would be even nicer if the photos didn’t look like grainy, low-res vidcaps from a 20-year-old VHS tape. So let’s take a look at some of these images, and try to resist the urge to adjust the tracking.
First off, here’s our friends the Vandivers with their whole sizable, Walton-esque brood. There’s even more than you can see in this picture: they’re expecting another in November.
Here’s their weiner dog, Clara, with her multicolored litter of warm, squirming puppies.
The Vandivers’ youngest, Anna, gently petting an angry-looking chicken.
(Is it just me, or do all chickens look they’re ticked off at something? I can’t blame them, I guess. If we’re not stealing their eggs, we’re eating the chickens themselves. I’d be angry too! And delicious.)
Mary, the gentle, sweet, drooling Jersey dairy cow.
The udder side of Mary. Steven is gamely help Jim’s dad squeeze every bit of creamy, calcium-rich goodness out of that veiny flesh bag.
She produces seven or eight gallons a day! The family can’t possibly drink or make butter or cheese out of all of it, so what they don’t use, they just give away to friends and neighbors and such.
Old Farmer Tom! Lookin’ good, Tommy. You should carry a chicken with you at all times.
Steven with an Ozark mudbug, aka crayfish, aka crawdad, aka ugly little critter. (Found by the cool, fast-moving waters of the Finley River.)
Finally, Steven on the family’s little motorbike. He did pretty good on it, keeping his balance and all that, especially considering he’s never ridden one before.
Good thing he had that helmet on, though, because later when he asked Tom to ride it with him, there was an… incident. Somehow, when they were arranging themselves on the seat, one of them kicked the chain cover off, and as soon as Tom hit the gas, the chain immediately grabbed a hold of his pant leg and a shoelace. They lost control and barreled full-speed into a fencepost, throwing them both to the ground. Long story short, they’re fine, but Steven’s got more than a few scratches and bruises to show for it, and Tom’s pants will probably have to have a good Christian burial. But look at the bright side: they can both impress the chicks with tales of surviving a motorcycle accident.
(Note to Tom: for best results, don’t mention that it was a child’s motorcycle.)
Games
I have uploaded these games from Primary Games for you to play.
| Red Beard |
It is a “Weekend Roundup” situation probably?
A few years ago, I started a blog. No, no this one, this one. It was “Brian’s Adventures in Findlay, Ohio,” and I wrote it in character as a guy named Brian who lived in, of course, Findlay, Ohio (Why I chose Findlay, Ohio is another story in itself—I’ll tell you about that some other time). Anyway, Brian was an interesting fella. He was kind of a loser, with no friends to speak of, a crappy apartment, and a dead-end job at a hardware store. Though fundamentally sweet, Brian was also rather naïve, socially inept, and he had a strange and unique writing style (read through some of the posts on his blog and you’ll see what I mean). Eventually, I grew tired of writing the blog, so like the quitter I am I just stopped. But I sometimes miss ol’ Brian, so I decided to give him a chance to come out of retirement and write this edition of the Weekend Roundup. Take it away, Brian!
Okay thanks Price for the “opportunity” to write on your blog web site, I have not really written a thing for a blog web site in a long time, kind of busy like you can imagine right? At the store there is always “business” (of course that is true because it is a business, every store is a business probably, so you know that is the “case” but I mean to say it always is busy and so I am busy too and so I can not write all the time on my blog web site.) Anyway I am going on and on about nothing (that is what they say at work about me, if you get me talking I will go “on and on”). So anyway I will go ahead and do the “Weekend Roundup”. What it is is when Price writes on his blog web site about what they did on their weekend, I do not really know what is the deal with a “roundup”, it is not a rodeo like the old west. Anyway it was better I guess than my weekend, which is always basically eating frozen pizzas (of course they are cooked, you do not eat icy pizzas! gross) and watching the show on the cable channel about the guy who digs in poop all the time or the people who are the boats with crabs. Okay I will do this now. I will start with Friday, that is “usual” to be the first day of the weekend even though you have to work on Friday, what I am talking about is when you come home basically that is the weekend beginning.
Okay anyway on Friday Steven and Maya (remember them, they are the “kids” of the family), anyway they went over to somebody’s house for some reason, probably it was to “play”, that it something kids are always doing, maybe a video game? That sounds like something they would do probably. Okay so since the “children” were not at the house, Shannon and Price decided to do a crazy thing because they could do whatever they want, so they watched a movie! (Ha, see it is a joke because watching a movie is not really crazy, I guess maybe I did not have to explain the “joke” now that I think about it, it is “obvious”?) Okay anyway it was the movie “Life Aquatic” and the guy in it was from Ghost Busters (the funny one) except he was old with a beard. The movie was “by” the same guy who did some other movie that they watched last week, it was called “Darjeeling Limited” (yes I looked up the name, internet help) and Price said it was “okay” (I mean the “Darjeeling” one) but the “Aquatic” movie was a lot better because he likes that Ghost Buster guy and so on. Okay so that was about all of that night but of course the kids came home from the other person’s house and they did all the stuff they have to do for “bed times”, (they do the same thing every night all the same way, it is called “routines”). Basically Steven just goes to bed but Maya (the girl) is different, they have to do “prayer” and a story time and also sing a song, there is so much to do. Anyway they did that and then they watched “Battle Star Galactica,” basically it is about robots, some of them are like regular robots but some are like beautiful ladies, also it is about space. It is pretty good.
Okay so now it is “Saturday time”, I do not meant it is Saturday right now, I mean it is time to talk about Saturday. Well not too exciting, basically it is breakfast first, it is “usual” that there are eggs and bacon and toast, that is basically what everybody eats for breakfast, except I guess you can eat cereal or maybe hotcakes or whatever, I guess you do not always have to eat eggs but I am just saying that if someone says “breakfast” you think about eggs, you can not help it! I have tried, and that is always what I think about when I think about breakfast (eggs). Also Price made some muffins where you mush up old black bananas that you would just throw away because they are no nasty, but I guess you can make a muffin out of them. Also there were chocolate chips in it. Anyway the muffins were so good. I do not have the “recipe” but it was on the internet, you can find it on “google” probably? Okay so anyway a lot of kitchen activities you can guess, but also cleaning. Price did a “vacuum” (that is a hard word to spell, I always think there are a bunch of Cs and bunch of Us, I can’t remember how many, that is why you have “spellcheck”) and there was a lot of “dusting” and that kind of thing, and of course they folded a laundry. Then Steven (“The Boy”, that is what Price always calls him, “The Boy”, you know it would be a “confusion” if there was not just one boy, he would say “The Boy” and you would not know what he was talking about, but I guess it is okay because there is just the one boy in the house usually), anyway Steven went to a “sleep over” birthday party at a place called “Great Wolfs Lodges” (it is a “link”, that means you click it). So anyway Steven was with his friend Lucas and they could go swimming and so forth at that place, he was there all night, Maya stayed home. They met some friends of theirs, their name is the “Kings” but no they do not live in England, it their name. They went out to a special restaurant, it is right by their house, it is a “Japan” place like where they serve fish that is not even cooked (no I am not kidding). But they did not eat that. They ate at a table where there is like a big hot grill, it is right at your table and they cook the food and throw shrimps in your mouth, basically it sounds kind of strange and I do not know why you would pay to have people throw hot food at you, but they liked it a lot anyway. Then they went over to the King house, and here is the thing, the King people have a pug named Bumpy (it is a kind of dog, I mean pug not Bumpy) and so the Horns got their dog (Elly) and took her over there to play with the Bumpy pug. Here is a picture,
See they are the same kind of dog. They had fun basically, they chased each other around and (this is gross kind of) also sniffed the “rear end” of each other, that is what dogs do always for some reason (that is what it says on “wikipedia” I guess?) Also Maya played with her friend, her friend is named “Mackenzie”, here is a picture of them.
Okay so then they went home and did the “routines” and then sleeping like every body in the world probably.
Then it was Sunday and they went to church, a lot of people do that I guess, Shannon went too. It was the first time she went since her “surgical” situation, I do not know a lot about it but basically it had something to do with “lady areas”, I do not need to know all about that please. Anyway she went to church and every body was so glad for her to come back, they would not leave her alone basically. But anyway she left I guess because she is at the house so I guess it is “logic” that she got home some time. Also Steven came home from that “wolf lodge” place and he had fun, you can believe it, he is 10 years old and every “young boy” like that would like to swim at a place like that, that would have been fun I guess if there was something like that when I was 10 but even if there was my dad probably would not take me there, too much $$$. Okay so anyway on Sunday also they had to “cut the grass” basically it means you have to use the lawnmower, the grass was so high it was not easy, you can believe it, also the dog (Elly) had pooped in the back yard all winter so that was a mess you can bet. Anyway here is what it looked like in the back yard (a picture), this is “before”
And here is “after”,
I am just kidding of course! It was not a “jungle forest”! Also it is not a “golfcourse” now, that was a joke. Anyway it looks better, also Steven picked up the poop, do not worry he wore gloves. Okay I guess that is all, I am done probably.
Thanks, Brian! You really know how to paint vivid pictures in our minds. You, sir, are a true wordsmith.
No Weekend Roundup this week
It’s just not happening. This last week was one of the worst in recent memory. To wit:
- A work project that I had high hopes for ended disappointingly… with a whimper, not a bang
- Bills started arriving for Shannon’s very expensive surgery
- Our dog Elly also had to have very expensive surgery
- Our van got rear-ended by an uninsured motorist, meaning that through absolutely no fault of my own I now have MORE bills to pay
- This whole week, all I wanted to do was sit and read a good book, and every opportunity to do so was stolen away by circumstance and duty
Then, to top it all off, I spent an hour and a half Sunday afternoon writing what I thought was an excellent Weekend Roundup, a long one that helped to exorcise some of the bitterness that had been building up for the past few days. And when I put the finishing touches on it and hit Publish, it disappeared forever.
Okay, Life. You win. I give up.
New Crow on the block!
There’s a new Crow in town, and this time, it’s a baby. Congratulations to our friends Jon and Jessie Crow on the arrival this morning of a brand new little dude.
Eli Coltman Crow, welcome to our world! (Please pardon the mess.)
Bonus Comicon photo I forgot to use the other day
I AM (standing next to) IRON MAN!
Weekend Roundup: More like “Geekend Roundup” if you ask me
What a weekend! As Shannon continued her recovery from surgery, we had visitors from out of town–her mom and dad from St. Louis. It was nice to have a little help running the house and taking care of the wife, especially Saturday. Saturday, you see, Steven and I needed the services of a Shannon-sitter so that we could attend Planet Comicon, a big gathering of geeks of all shapes and sizes (although the shape was mostly “round” and the size was mostly “XXL,” if you know what I mean). It’s primarily a comic book convention, with artists and writers sketching and autographing drawings and books, but there was plenty to keep other geeky types occupied, as well.
We–and by we, I mean Steven, our friends Tom and Irving, and my own self–drove down to Overland Park that morning. We were not quite sure of the exact location, but when we turned a corner and saw a parking lot full of fat guys with goatees, we knew we had found the right place.
Tom and I had brought some comic books for people to sign, but the real fun was all the other geeky guests, such as a ton of folks dressed up as Star Wars characters.
Enough talk! Let’s look at some pictures.
Steven got to meet all the usual Star Wars suspects. A Tusken Raider and some questionably tall Jawas…
Stormtroopers…
The wicked Darth Maul…
The mysterious bounty hunter Boba Fett…
Some mysterious Boba Fett-esque bounty hunter dude and his Boba Fett-esque female companion (Booby Fett?)…
And of course, the dastardly Dark Lord of the Sith, the genocidal strongman that everyone loves for some reason: Darth Vader.
But it wasn’t all plastic armor and toy guns. Star Trek was represented, too, albeit in limited form. Just one guy, in fact: Walter Koenig, aka Pavel Chekov from the original 60s Star Trek series.
Steven doesn’t look all that impressed. Though to be fair, I don’t think he had any idea who the guy was. Also, I never realized how short Chekov was.
But here’s the guy I was most excited to see…
Recognize him? Most people probably don’t, but if you’ve seen King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, you know exactly who he is. It’s Walter Day of Twin Galaxies, the organization officially charged with keeping world video game records, and he’s featured prominently in the film. We watched King of Kong a few weeks ago and absolutely loved it. Mr. Day and I discussed the movie and the stuff edited out of it that would have messed up the good guy/bad guy plotline and would have made Billy Mitchell look like less of a jackball. Mr. Day could not have been nicer, and I was thrilled to meet him.
Exhausted after hours of walking up and down aisles crowded with sweaty comic book fans, we headed home. Other stuff happened, but Planet Comicon was the highlight. When asked to name his favorite part of the convention, Steven answered, “The whole thing!” Yes, I have turned my precious young son into a geek.
May God have mercy on my soul.