Playing with Legos and a camera

Today it is hot. The little thermometer on my computer says it is 98F and the air conditioning says it believes the computer since it (the A/C) hasn't had a break all day. So, since I didn't have to work today, it was a day spent in the house. Well, mostly. See, it's been very dry here this summer. (How dry is it?) It's so dry the grass is wonderful shade of brown and slightly unpleasant to walk on.

Anyway, I was bored and I told my son to get a couple of Lego minifigs so we can set up some kind of photo shoot with them. This is what came of that.

The first one I tried to make it look like he was stranded in the desert. Minus the sand, of course. 

Then I found a little hole in the ground so I shoved one of the guys in there and did these. 

Yes, I'm a dork. And now I'm hot. 

In honor of getting the Internet back...

Here is something from the Way Back Machine. I'm not sure when this was, but I'm guessing it was 1992, or close to it. For some reason I decided to go all out for Halloween. I never did that before, not even when I was a kid, so I don't know what got into me this particular year. (No, it wasn't booze. Well, at least not when I bought this stuff).

Anyway, Jenn and I were at some Halloween shop and I saw this Klingon kit. Now I watched Star Trek, but I wasn't a super huge fan. At least not enough to dress up as a Klingon. Or so I thought. So, yes, I bought the kit with the wig and ridged forehead and the makeup. It turned out okay for my lack of skills in the makeup department. I know that the guy throwing the party didn't recognize me. Anyway, here you go. Laugh it up, fuzz ball. Wait, that's the wrong movie...

I look kid of bad ass, don't you think? Well, except for the straw in my beer cup. I had no choice! That stupid beard thing kept getting in the cup. You didn't expect me to got to a party and not drink beer, did you? 

I hope you all had a good laugh.

I don't know why I post these things...

Miscellaneous Ramblings

It's been a busy week so far. Yes, I know it is only Monday, but we had the big Chicago Bears game on Sunday, Jenn left for Toronto on Sunday, and, well, Jenn left for Toronto, so I'm all alone here. Okay, the kids are here, but they are the problem. I have to make sure they are fed, have their homework done, have a lunch for school and don't kill each other. That is a lot for one man to do. Women do that all the time, I know, but I'm a guy. That's just too much for me to think about. I need to reduce it by a third at least. That's why I decided I'm not going to feed the dogs at all while Jenn is gone. They can find something outside, I'm sure. Cruise is always chasing squirrels out there. Maybe now he'll actually try to catch one instead of his half-hearted attempts he makes now to show off to the other dogs in the neighborhood.

Here's an example of my ineptitude. Jenn reminded me to help our daughter with her math homework that was due today. No problem. I'll get to it after the football game. And, yes, we did get to it. I explained how to count the coins and how to find a way to make a certain amount of money in various coin combinations. I think she even got it. Her teacher, however, never got it. The homework that is. When I picked up the kids at school I asked them if they had any homework. My daughter said yes, that her teacher told her she could turn in her homework tomorrow even though it was due today. Huh? Somehow we did the homework but it never made it to the school. I thought I put it in her back back, but I guess I didn't. It is nowhere to be found. I even went through some of the garbage. I have no idea where it is. So now tomorrow I have to go and ask if we can get another sheet to do. I'm sure if I explain that Jenn is out of town she'll give me that look that women give to dads who are clueless and give me another one with no problems.

At least I remembered to give the kids dinner tonight.

What else? We had our son's ninth birthday party on Saturday. For some reason we thought it would be a good idea to invite his class here. While it turned out well, and the kids had fun, we were both exhausted from it. Luckily, Jenn's parents and sister helped out. I don't know if we could have done it without them. It was also nice of all the parents to show up right on time to pick up the kids. I mean that, they were right on time. They all said they figured we'd be ready to have the kids out after three hours. Yes, we were. The kids were pretty well behaved, but they can only last so long inside a house before they go bonkers. It would have been nice if our son was born in the summer so all the kids could have gone in the yard to run around.

Did I mention it was a Mad Scientist Party? Yeah, here's me being an even bigger dork than normal in a blurry cellphone photo.

Did I also tell you I'm going to be Young Doc Brown in The Further Adventures of Marty McFly?

With that, I'm out.

Happy New Year!

"Dude, no! That's Tabasco!"

Oh, well. Happy New Year anyway.

We went to see Night Ranger at Frontier Days

A few weeks ago a friend of mine sent me a text message saying she was at a concert with Kansas, Foreigner and Styx, which sounded like a great time, and she mentioned that Dennis DeYoung was going to be in town on the July 4th weekend. I had that in the back of my mind for a while, then Jenn noticed that Night Ranger was playing the same festival the night before Dennis DeYoung was going to play. Well, there really wasn't a whole lot to think about.

As I said in my last post, they were my favorite band there for a while in high school. I still listen to them now, mostly to feel young again. I'm kidding, I listen because they rock, man!

Anyway, we met some friends at the festival, sat on some beach towels and listened to come classic 80s rock and roll. Woo! I think all the women at the concert kept their shits on. It was a family event after all.

So, yeah, I took some pictures, because I'm a big dork, and I could.

This one was from somewhat far away, and it was still light.

For the next two I ditched the family and went closer to get some shots. What?

The complete set is over on Flickr.

It's was a fun show! We got home way too late and I had to work today, so I'm a bit tired.

Have a great 4th of July. Go out and find someone from Great Britain and give them a hug. They need it on this day.

My friend sent me something cool the other day

Back in March, Florinda mentioned she was going to the Festival of Books out in LA, and as a half-joke I mentioned to her that Pamela Ribon was going to be there and it would be great if she could get me an autograph. Now, I didn't really expect Florinda to do that. Like I told her, I didn't have anything I could send her to have Pam sign. But, she was the only person I knew who was going. It was worth a shot.

Now, I found Pamela Ribon (AKA Pamie, Pamie.com, May Q. Holla, Wonder Killer) on the Internet several years ago, but she's been on there with her online diary since 1998. I didn't even have a computer that could go on the Internet back then, I think we got one in 2000 then all we had were those free AOL discs so I wasn't online a whole lot. Anyway, a couple of years after that I found out about blogs, I found hers and have enjoyed it since then. She cracks me up. But, besides being a blogger, she's also a TV writer (Samantha Who, Romantically Challenged), author and a Derby Girl in LA. I'm not sure when she sleeps, to be honest.

I'm going to stop with the background on Pam so I don't sound like some kind of stalker. I've been thinking how to write this without sounding that way. It's not easy. Really, I'm not. Florinda can vouch for me. Just check out Pamie.com to see what I'm talking about.

Anyway, back to the Festival of Books. As you can read on her blog, Florinda did go to see Pam who was speaking on a panel and got two books signed. Yes, she got one for me. How cool is that?

As Florinda knows, the book isn't my normal genre, so to speak, but if you see what Pam wrote in there, I really have no choice but to read it. It's almost like a threat. She'll probably get the Chicagoland derby girls to kick my ass if I don't.

So, that was my good news in the mail the other day.

Thanks for all your hard work, Florinda. And thanks, Pam, for signing it.

In real life

I've been absent from here a few days, sorry about that. It's been a busy week. I've been on the afternoon shift at work, which always makes things a little more interesting, and we've been busy around the house too. I don't want to say why yet, if everything works out I'll let you know of course.

But, one fun thing did happen this weekend. I got to meet a blogger friend, in real life and everything! It was a little surreal to think about it at first. It's not like I know many people from here anyway, but actually meeting someone who I've never met yet, at the same time I know, was strange, cool and fun all wrapped up together.

See, Florinda was here in town for the BlogHer convention, so after several e-mails, and work tweaking, we got to meet downtown for lunch on Saturday before I had to go to work. It was fun, but way too short. I only had about 90 minutes before I had to fight traffic to make it back to work on time, but it was totally worth it. I had a good time, and since she hasn't blocked me from Twitter yet, I guess she did too. I did feel like I was talking at an extremely rapid pace, but sometimes I do that when I'm a tad nervous, and when I only have 90 minutes to tell my life story. Good thing I didn't have any caffeine to make it worse.

The funny part is that we would have had a little more time to talk, but I got a little lost. I don't drive downtown much, hate the traffic, but I did okay there since it was right off of Ohio street. For those of you not from Chicago, that is the street you get off the tollway from, in that area at least. I was fine there, the problem came after parking. It was one of those garages where you pull in on one street then come out somewhere else. Or so it seemed. All I know is I came out of the garage and I was totally turned around. I called Jenn for some help, but she couldn't help without seeing where I was. Then I remembered I had GPS on my phone! Somehow I got a decent signal, figured out which direction to go (the opposite of which I was heading) and started to jog to the restaurant. I'm sure I looked like a total goober. So, in short, the person who has lived in the Chicago all his life, was slightly late meeting the person who had never been there because he was a little lost.

Anyway, we had a nice lunch, talked a bit about the conference, family and the city. We didn't have enough time at all, but it was still great meeting Florinda. She said her and her husband plan to come back to town, so hopefully we can get together again. This time I'll have Jenn with to guide me.

One thing I wanted to do was take a picture with both of us in it to post here, but I forgot. See, goober. Want to know what pictures I did remember to take that day? Take a look:

Yes, I took pictures of in the parking garage so I could remember where I parked. Nerd!

Anyway, Florinda, thanks for taking time out from your convention to meet me for lunch. I hope I didn't talk your ear off.

My, I mean our, new toy

It's a good thing that I have a couple of days off so I can learn how to use our new toy. Here's a picture of it, in case you've never seen a computer before. 

If you look closely, you can see me in the reflection. That is probably about the best picture you are going to get of me here. I look goofy in every shot, I don't want the world to see!