All for Alf!

Especially Evey readers have spoken -- they want ALF on their fictional cable network!

It looks like the final tally will be Alf, 13... Greatest American Hero, 4... Muppet Babies 3... and Swamp Thing 1. (I'd like to thank the one person who voted for Swamp Thing... it wasn't me, but I liked that show! It deserved more than 1 vote!)

In case you're wondering, I voted for Alf too. I loved that show. I liked all four of my nominees, but Alf was a childhood favorite. I liked it that we had a disdain for cats in common. And I wanted to believe that if there were aliens, they'd be like Alf (and not like the aliens from "Alien").

I asked Adro which one she voted for, she said she was one of the four in the Greatest American Hero camp. Another cool show. I just wish the main character wouldn't have had such bad hair...

Oh, and Adro was happy to see that Swamp Thing earned no votes. But then I told her, "Swamp Thing got one vote!" "Who?!?" she asked. "I don't know!" I assured her. Apparently Adro wanted names (or I guess, A name), and I wasn't about to sell out my Swamp Thing fan friend, even if I did know who it was.

"Hmm..." Adro said. "Apparently, Swamp Thing reads your blog too..."

Great news in the Jones casa!

The below email went out at work today at 4:12 p.m.:

Staff Announcement

With the departure of Ryan Toner from the Sr. Staff Accountant position, Adrianne Jones has been promoted to Staff Accountant in the Finance & Member Solutions department. Duties and responsibilities are being spread throughout current FMS staff in lieu of filling the vacated position at this time.

Adrianne came to GCSAA in March of 2004 as an Account Payable Coordinator in the Finance & Member Solutions department. In March of 2008, she was promoted to Sr. Coordinator, Accounts Receivable.

Please join me in congratulating Adrianne in this well deserved advancement of her career at GCSAA!

I'm so proud of my beautiful wife! This is a case of someone setting a goal, being determined, dedicated, working hard... and all of that was rewarded with the promotion she was striving for.

GREAT JOB ADRO, WE'RE SO PROUD OF YOU!!!

The weekend that was

A pretty good weekend. Let's review:

The good: Lervik was in town, so I got to hang out with him on Saturday and Sunday. Some bar hopping, hanging at the house, a fantasy football draft, etc. -- good times hanging with Lervik.

The bad: Apparently I thought I was made out of money on Friday night, because I dropped about $60 on beer at the Big Head Todd and the Monsters show at the Crossroads. At $5 a pop, it goes fast, though. But I could have almost bought an entire keg for that much! BHTM was great -- Adro liked them, even though she had never heard of them before.

The ugly: Saturday night after a long day of drinking with Lerv, I decided to make myself a chicken and tomato sandwich... as I was slicing the tomato, I lost control of the knife and buried it in the tip of my left index finger. GROSS. I wrapped it up in several band-aids and still haven't unwrapped it to look at it... I'm scared.

Photos are of my girls at bedtime the other day, as well as some of the veggies I've gotten out of the garden. The cucumbers are doing awesome (though slowing down recently) and my tomato plants are dead (that heat that hit while I was in Milwaukee/Chicago toasted them). I'm also getting one water melon... it's slowly growing. A little bit bigger than a softball right now. How do I know when to pick that?

Don't forget to vote in my new poll, time is almost up!

Friday O'POMP

This is a suddenly morbid Friday O'POMP. I didn't think this idea would take me from posting photos of Chinese food to this, but...

The below photo is a picture of my Dad getting radiation treatment for brain cancer. I took this photo a year ago today, give or take a day or two... me and Dad had both seen better days, eh?




I debated taking this photo (just as I debated posting it). At first I was going to be clandestine about taking the photo, not wanting Dad to think I was trying to make his sickness and treatment some tourist's sight-seeing adventure for myself. But I decided that I wanted to be able to show Adrianne just exactly what it was my Dad was doing -- specifically the enormity of this machine -- and I didn't know if I could properly describe it with words. Hence, this photo. (I don't recall if I ever showed this photo to her or not. But I also may have posted this photo here before and just don't remember doing it.)

I told Dad I was taking the photo. "Hey Dad, smile," I said. You can see in the photo, he's waving at me for this picture. Dad had a sense of humor throughout the whole thing.

I saw an old episode of Seinfeld, when he was still doing the stand-up comedy before commercial breaks... he did a joke, he said that you could tell how screwed you are when you get sick by the size of the room they take you to for treatment. The bigger the room, the worse off you are. He joked that if they take you to a room with a theater for viewing -- if the doctors say to each other, "They're going to do WHAT to this guy? I gotta see that!" Then you know you're in big trouble.

I laughed and thought to myself, "Yeah, you're kinda right."

I mean, look at the size of this frickin' machine. It's enormous. And it had all these moving parts on it. This thing would rotate around Dad's head and zap him. Everyone would have to leave the room, close the lead door with the "radiation" sign on it, walk down a hall. The nurses would watch to see how Dad was doing from a TV monitor. I'd go down the hall and wait in the lobby. Dad would get out, his face would be pink and he'd be even weaker.

So, yeah, I've been thinking about my Dad a lot lately. Because this time last year, I was on FMLA leave, taking care of him. And these current days on the calendar -- I can relate them all to what I was doing with my Dad, and how he was doing at the time. And that is freaking me out. It sucks! I can only imagine what it's doing to my Mom.

My Dad died Sept. 14th... in about three weeks it'll be a year. I look at this photo, and think, "This is what you were doing last year this time." It sucks that Dad is gone -- I still think about him everyday -- but these days when he was ill, going through this stuff? I'm glad that nightmare is over.

Hopefully this post/photo isn't in poor taste... hopefully I'm not a jerk for taking/posting this photo. I go back and forth on if I should post it or not. The thing that makes me say yes is 1) it feels good to get these thoughts out, yet not having to speak them to a person, because I might lose my shit and 2) if it reminds anyone who is reading that life is short, and to call their mom or dad or brother or sister, just to say hey, well that is payoff right there.

My best photo from Comic-Con

Here's a photo I got at San Diego Comic-Con a few weeks back. My press credential got me into the photo pit... I jostled with the rest of the photogs and managed to get a couple good ones (if I had photo editing capabilities, I'd crop out the hand on the left.) You would think that celebrity photographers generally would be taller, but most weren't that tall. One guy even brought a step stool. So I just pushed my way in, like all of them were doing. When the cast of the upcoming Avengers movie came our way, I was front and center.

This shot is of Samuel L. Jackson (Nick Fury); the guy who is playing Hawkeye; the guy who is playing the Hulk; Joss Whedon, director; and Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man). (Notice how Samuel L. Jackson is looking right at me? It's because he remembered me from when I interviewed him on the golf course five years ago.)

I hustled back to the yacht to uploaded these photos. CBR's editor was thrilled with what I brought him. He made this photo (cropped, natch) the lead photo on CBR's page that night.

Needing a break (I had been reporting from the same room for 12 hours that day) I headed to a nearby hotel bar for a few drinks. My boss from CBR texted me, "Where are you?" I told him I was at the hotel bar, relaxing -- did he need me? He texted back that he saw my photo, and that "you're all kinds of awesome, aren't you?" Well, that made my day. It was my last day in San Diego, and I was happy to do something that impressed him.

After a few more drinks at the bar, I headed back to the CBR yacht (my boss rents a yacht and him, me and our cameraman live on it for the week) for our annual tradition at the end of Comic-Con: cigars on the top deck of the yacht. We traded stories (I told my tale of having to walk across Lincoln, Neb., to get back to the hotel after the Pixies concert) and killed a few cocktails. I was burned out, but it was another awesome experience for a comic geek... attending Comic-Con for three days, and getting paid to do it!

F (for FORGET) the garage sale!

What an unexpectedly great weekend I had. I had almost nothing planned... and the one thing I had planned I didn't want to do.

So me and my wife made a spur-of-the-moment decision to not do the one thing we didn't want to (go sell our leftover crap at the company garage sale) and instead have FUN. And we had a ton of fun... Adro even told me she decided that we were out celebrating her birthday, because we had so much fun! (Her birthday is in two weeks, but we'll have a lot of friends/family in town, as well as the Laugh Olympics, so often times her birthday is competing with guests in town, me being drunk, etc.)

I also got some writing done this weekend. That felt good. Some of it was specifically for the blog, so I'll post some of those ramblings this week.

I re-arranged my man-cave (it's official name is the Shadow Gallery), and I'm loving hanging out down here! Plus, I got my wireless internet up again, so I'm blogging from the Shadow Gallery right now, listening to music, sipping on a cold beer... life is good my friends.

The included photos is of me and Marlan at the Cubs game two weeks ago, and Evey and Adro's matching toes. Evey was so excited that she had painted toenails, and that her mom's matched hers... Evey's knee is just about healed already, btw, so she's doing good.

Speaking of Evey -- the namesake of this blog (I'm so narcissistic, but Evey cannot type, nor spell, yet, so for now you're stuck with me), Evey perhaps had the best weekend of any of us Joneses... check it out: on Friday night she went to hang with her friend Julian at Steph's Tupperware party (while Adro and Judy spent $$$ on Tupperware); on Saturday morning, like me, she got out of the work garage sale, and instead went to the Busker (what?) Fest in downtown Lawrence with Grandma Judy, then went out to the farm; on Sunday she went to church then shopping, afterwards her cousins Jett and Marina came over to visit her at her house!

I'm sad this weekend is over but I can't complain.

So, are you wondering what was so much fun about my Saturday?

I told Adrianne this today: my favorite moment of the weekend was Friday night, when she and Evey got back home from the Tupperware party. Me and Bart were hanging out. Adro grabbed a beer and sat down with us. "What would you think," she asked me, "if we skipped the garage sale and instead went to the casino?"

That was music to my ears. "HELL YES!" I shouted. We just weren't prepared for the garage sale (I was dreading it but didn't want to admit it), and we've been wanting to get to the casino to have fun.

So here's my brilliant moment of the weekend: I'm at the casino, rum and coke in hand, it's 2:30 in the afternoon. The USA-Lithuania basketball game was on the big screen. I had my iPod earphones in. And I'm playing video poker.

GOOD TIMES.

Omaha zoo

This is a photo Adro took of Evey when they visited the Omaha zoo a few weeks back. They said it was a pretty awesome zoo. Plus, it had a "morning push" there, also known as a merry-go-round.

TGIF! Jett and Marina are coming over to visit this weekend. We're ready for the weekend to get started.

The Laugh Olympics are right around the corner! Visit www.laugholympics.net to register. Sept. 5th is the date... I've already got 50 people registered!

True blood

I took Evey to the park tonight. On the way home, she was sprinting down the sidewalk when she tripped and fell.

She already had a scuff on her knee that she was really babying... this didn't help that case.

She went down in four parts, first to the knees, then she tried to catch herself with her hands, but she was going so fast her chin hit the sidewalk and then her feet got a little airborne behind her. She somehow made this fall cute, don't ask me how. I swear I wasn't drinking or anything, but my first reaction wasn't "Oh shit!" but "Aww, cute!"

She didn't cry, though. I expected her hands to be bloody and they weren't. I told her to give me five for being a big girl and not crying. "Daddy, I don't want to give you five!" she exasperated. Poor girl was a little freaked out.

We walked slowly home and then I saw that her leg was bleeding through her pants. Dammit. The fall wasn't cute anymore. I carried her the rest of the way and called for Adro to come help out. Got her pants off, and yep, she shredded her old wound pretty good. Lots of blood, which she didn't like seeing.

Evey didn't move from the couch much the rest of the night. Until she got up to go to the bathroom. And then, somehow, she fell again. And, yep, she broke open that knee again. More blood.

To make Evey feel better, and to try to get her out of this weird habit of picking at her fingernails, Adro gave her a manicure/pedicure tonight. Glossy fingernails and blue toenails. You can see the toenails in the photo, taken a few hours ago. You can also see the band-aid on her knee here.

So this was the circumstance of Evey's first nail polish experience. We prolonged it as much as we could. But Evey was having fun letting her nails dry, and bla bla bla, girly girly girly. There was a bucket of warm water involved at one point, and all I could think of was the "Messin' with Sasquatch" commercial.

I'm proud of her though. That was a pretty big fall for no tears.

Despicable movie

We were wild and crazy tonight, for a Monday night... as soon as I had both girls in the car after work, I took them to the Legends to see "Despicable Me."

We told Evey we'd see a movie this weekend, and then we kept missing our chance. Adro and I felt like we broke a promise to Evey, so we tried to remedy that tonight. Evey was really happy to be at the movies when we got there.

Nothing about the preview made me want to see that movie, and the movie itself follows suit. I wanted to take a nap at one point. The best news about the movie is it's mercifully short, only 90 minutes or so. But the movie seems to be half-baked throughout. It's OK for kids, but don't expect to get any laughs or chuckles if you're an adult.

Afterwards we decided to go to Dave & Busters. The three of us ate for $30 and that included a $10 game card. Evey's favorite game was one where you shot water at a target to make a car climb upwards... she also raced cars and played some skee ball, though she isn't strong enough to get the ball all the way up the ramp yet.

A random Monday night, a sub-par movie, but a good time regardless.

Back at the farm

After a 9-day road trip, I'm finally back home.

=whew=

I brought the cool weather back with me, too.

You're welcome.

(Photo of my Mom and Rod at Adro's grandma's farm.)

Details about Lollapalooza, my return to Wrigley Field, and the PGA Championship to come. Maybe.

Friday O'POMP

This is a photo of Chinese food.

In case you couldn't tell.

The reason I took this photo? I was travelling all day... trying to get to Boston for an important interview. And I barely arrived, about an hour before the scheduled interview.

So I had some time to get some much-needed food. I stopped in at a fancy looking Chinese restaurant and told the girl I needed food, fast.

This is what she brought me.

I was so happy, I took a photo of it.

It might sound weird, but have you ever just been happy/relieved to see food? I have. This was one of those moments.

I only ate about half of this mound o' food and took the rest to the hotel room with me, never to be touched again. But, damn... at the time, this was the best meal EVER.

Friday O'POMP, baby....

Thanks to Adro

The title of this post was to be, "I love my wife!" but I don't want to scare anyone away from some possible mushiness...

Anyway, I just want to thank my lovely wife for those times when work occupies, you know, a LOT of my time... and those other times... you know, when you have to see SOUNDGARDEN...

And it wouldn't even work for me if it weren't for Adro, who is awesome, and can put my mind at ease, when work keeps me out, uh, late... and when I decide to also see Wolfmother and The Strokes and Green Day and even Spoon along with SOUNDGARDEN...

So what I'm trying to say is, "I love my wife!" And thank you, babe, for being the coolest, most understanding wife, east or west of the Mississippi.

(This photo is of Adro and Evey, taken with my cell phone, when Evey was just a little baby!)

I LOVE YOU BABE!!!

Evey and Sadie at the museum

A few weekends ago Evey and Sadie visited the museum. I was out of town at Comic-Con at the time, so a big thanks to Lindsey for taking a bunch of great photos for me! I'll post a few this week.

These hats they're wearing, they got them from a restaurant where your food is served on a train that comes by your table. The girls tell me it's a pretty cool place, so I'll be checking it out soon.

Friday O'POMP

Time for an Old Photo Off My Phone...




The reason I took this photo? The absurdity of Mike's timing. See, the dude is obsessed about his yard. You've seen his blog, you know he's put a soccer field, complete with team logos, in his yard. He thinks his yard is right up there with Fenway Park.

So, we're all sitting around, chatting... heck, we may have even been in the middle of dinner. And Mike disappears. Eventually we're like, "where's Mike?" Then I hear the mower fire up. "No way," I think to myself. I go outside, and yep, he's getting a quick mow in on his front yard... because he hadn't mowed it in oh, the last 8 hours.

So if Abasolo ever disappears from the middle of the conversation, don't worry about him... he's not sick, he's not taking his talents to South Beach... he's just getting out the mower.

Johnsons and Joneses at Modest Mouse concert

Here's a good photo of my bro-in-law and my sis and me and Adro at the Modest Mouse concert a few weeks ago. Actually, this was at the bar prior to the show. And note that Adro isn't that short, she's just sitting down. (The concert, btw, was a bit of a sleeper.)

***

Adro made me watch the worst movie ever tonight, it was called "A Single Man" and starred Colin Firth. I think Adro would watch anything with Colin Firth in it, I say this because she watched this entire piece of crap! (At least I got out of the last 15 minutes by volunteering to give Evey a bath!

***

Evey watched "Chicken Little" a few times recently, I got it from NetFlix for her. In the movie, there's a scene where the characters are singing the Spice Girls' one hit. So this evening Evey sang out loud, "If you want to be my lover... you have to pick up this mess!" It was an early failure in parenting.

"Chicken Little" is another movie that can be avoided, and not just for the Spice Girls.

***

Apparently "A Single Man" put me in a bad mood, because we had something of a no-nonsense bath tonight. Evey didn't like my concise method of washing the shampoo out of her hair. I think I lost some "cool daddy" points with that bath.

After the bath, Adrianne was getting Evey dressed in her pajamas, and Evey told her, "Whew! I'm glad you're not Daddy!"

***

I've been sick for the last couple days, but hopefully I bounce back soon. It sucks being sick when it's 104 degrees outside. Actually, a lot of things suck at that temperature.