Surfing with the Alien

I grabbed a bag of toys out of my bedroom last time I was down at Mom's house. It was a ziplock baggy full of old action figures. I remember each toy vividly.

I brought it home and gave it to Boyd.

At age 4, he knew the name of Kang the Conquerer, who was an obscure character when I was a kid. He also told me he believed that the Silver Surfer was the most powerful toy in the bag.

I agreed.

We played with these guys for a while. They're his now. I'm glad he likes them.

***

I pulled the old license plate off Dad's truck today and replaced it with a new one. This one is registered to me and Jess, and has Douglas County tags on it.

I guess the truck is kinda-sorta ours now, unofficially. It's not Mom's, it's not Dad's. It's mine and Jessica's... I think.

I don't like the feeling.

***

Boyd was so proud that I was impressed that he knew who Kang was, that he went and got one of his books where Kang is the main villain, to show to me.

Keep in mind, this would be frowned upon by his current school, Montessori School in Lawrence. They say fantasy is bad for kids' minds. Yet fantasy makes my son's mind race, fills him with imagination...

Sure enough, Boyd was right. There's Kang! He showed me in his book.

Good recall, Boyd.

I liked Kang for a few reasons when I was a kid. One, this toy came from the Secret Wars line, which I didn't have many of (they were just a little before my time, but all the toys came with hologram shields, which was cool.) Two, his weapon was sound, which I always thought was interesting. And three, my dad worked for KANG — Kansas Air National Guard — and that acronym was around a lot in my childhood. I liked to imagine that it was like HYDRA or SHIELD, and that it was secretly run by Kang the Conquerer.

Obscure Seth Jones trivia, right there.

Also, I also once bowled a 114.

***

Does anyone happen to have an extra copy of this issue of Lawrence Magazine lying around?

If you did and wouldn't mind gifting it to me, I'd be grateful.

I did the sidebars to the cover story of that issue... which means I was the guy who interviewed Mario Chalmers, Danny Manning, Wiggins, T-Rob, Rick Barnes and Jay Bilas.

I have one copy but would love to nab a few more as I'd like to mail them to a few KU b-ball fans who are out-of-state.

Let me know, thanks.

And no, I had no input on the cover.

***

Mexican week continues at the house, and while we enjoy the food, no one is enjoying Dad's gas*.

***

I think I decided tonight that I'm going to draw another comic book.

Not a 22-page epic, like "What Would Jacko Do?" but a short, six-pager.

I'm really fond of the Fantastic Four comic I did several years ago. It was only 10, maybe 11 pages? I'd like to do something like that again.

I just need a story. Maybe Doctor Solar? But what's he doing? Man, I used to love doing those spoofs of Dr. Solar, where he was a 1970s terrorist. Hmm...

It's always important that there are no female characters in my stories. Not because I'm sexist, but because I don't know how to draw women.

***

Extra points to you if you got the title of this blog post.

***

HOLY CRAP, ADRO... The National just popped up into my Pandora stream!

It's "Start a War" from The Boxer.

I'll admit, in a small dose, it ain't bad.

I'm listening to Cold War Kids radio, btw.

***

You should come with us to see Phantogram in October.

***

*That's called bathroom humor right there, Evey. It's the most base form of humor there is. But it still makes me laugh at times. You have to be careful with "fart jokes." At the end of the day they're "beneath us," but at the same time, there's occasionally a "rumble down under" that has to be mocked.

Tread lightly with bathroom humor, Sis. That's my advice.

New Radiohead is playing

"A Moon Shaped Pool."

Really good so far. I wish they would have hyphenated "moon-shaped."

***

I used the word "goner" in a sentence tonight, as in, "that marker is a goner... throw it away." 

Boyd then said, "Who knows what 'goner' means?" So I explained it to him, it's when something is dead, so long, goodbye.

Then he yelled out, "Snickers is a goner!"

I then tried to teach him the meaning of insensitive, which Adrianne said was a good word.

***

It's been Mexican week here at Casa de Jones. Cousin Melissa came up and her and Evey cooked some amazing enchiladas. There are three left (one more will be gone tomorrow when I devour it with over-easy eggs.)

Adrianne cooked a bunch of taco meat and fajita chicken meat for her office last Friday. A lot of it came home on Monday (she stayed home with a sick Boydee.)

So we're in the midst of Mexican week. Boydee hasn't been fighting us on eating his dinner, for once.

Hmm.

***

I've been walking Evey to school every day, and she's been walking home with her friend Regan.

It's been nice not driving to school, fighting the traffic, and we're both getting a little exercise at the same time.

***

Can you believe it's almost September?

The Boydee Whisperer

Boyd's been sick for 24 hours, he looked lousy today at 3 pm so I took him to the doctor.

They think croup, maybe. Gave him a steroid. 2.5 pills, smashed, in his food.

We tried cheesy pasta first, and he said no. So then I committed to chocolate pudding. He took one half-ass bite, then paused when he saw green powder in his pudding.

I was like, "Are you kidding me? Eat the chocolate pudding!" I was so mad because, even when he's sick, he'll eat chocolate pudding. And who taught this kid to be such a fickle eater that he balks at the sight of green dust in his chocolate pudding? It's chocolate pudding! Do I really need to disguise the medicine that much!?!

I excused myself from dinner so I wouldn't upset Boyd by telling him to man up and eat the one spoonful of chocolate pudding.

About 30 minutes later, Evey came down to tell me the deed was done.

Guess who got it done? EVEY JONES!!!

I don't know how. But she is the Boydee whisperer.

Well done, Evey.

The weekend that was, August 19-21

It was quite the weekend here at the Casa de Jones.

On Friday I left work early to get down to Wichita. Needed to meet a real estate person to discuss Mom's house, and the guy working the estate sale asked if I could mow the backyard.

I took the mower down there. Got to Mulvane just in time to meet the real estate person... and just in time for the storm to start!

By the end of the storm, 7 inches fell on Mulvane, enough for the town to make national news and for a downtown building to partially collapse. It was nuts.

***

Mom's house is progressing nicely. The guy I've contracted is amazing. So lucky he's on our side.

***

Got back home early Saturday and the fam took Judy to the farm. She took a nice trip to the DR and needed to be reunited with her car. Popped in and said hello to Virginia while we were there.

From there, we went to Lawrence, where I took the kids to see the DeBruce Center. We wanted to see the original "Rules of Basket Ball." It was a cool experience!

I told the kids we were going to a museum, because that's what I thought what we were doing. But according to the kids, despite the $3.8 million dollar document hanging on the wall, it did not qualify as a museum...

I just heard Adrianne say, "Ask Dad, he's running the show." (Which I've never heard uttered by my wife before.) Then they were all, "DAD! Can we PLEASE go to the museum that Grandma takes us to?"

Well, of course. I told the kids that the Natural History Museum was my first ever "beat" as a journalist, when I was just a sophomore in college. They were unimpressed.

First time I've been there in years. It was nice. Fun. The triceratops skull wins for coolest exhibit.

***

From there, Pyramid Pizza, where we all had a slice then played some Donkey Kong and Ms. Pac-Man. Apparently Adro didn't know who she was messing with when it came to Ms. Pac-Man. But stop by Pyramid when you have time and check out the new high score... yeah, THIS GUY.

***

I smoked a brisket on Sunday. It was a'ight.

Need to talk to Stark about smoking brisket.

***

CDs I want to get: New Radiohead. Glass Animals. Head and the Heart (maybe.) New Local Natives. Robert DeLong. (This list is just for me.)

***

Boyd dressed himself in the above photo. He did a nice job.

While we drove from DeBruce to Dyche, we saw all the sorority rush stuff going on. The Chi-O fountain as overflowing with college girls. The neighboring sorority was throwing colored chalk dust in the air, or something. Music was blaring. A school bus (Perry!) was blocking traffic. It was all quite the spectacle.

Evey was somewhere between horrified and disgusted, I couldn't tell which, but she wasn't having it.

She voiced her disapproval, saying it looked scary, and not like a good time, and for sure not like a party.

Then Boyd piped up. "I think I could go to that party!" he said. "I think I can go, because I saw there were two boys there."

Those two boys were photographers. But I was happy to hear that Boyd was down for whatever the hell that was.

***

What a weekend

We packed a ton in! Including some pizza pies!

Pissin' with Sasquatch

You've seen the commercials for beef jerky on TV, the "Messin' with Sasquatch" commercials, right?

Well, I decided to dub this one "Pissin' with Sasquatch." While I usually avoid such coarse language... I just think it's the perfect caption to this photo.

So the question is, the second you see this photo, is it funny, or offensive? I think it depends on where you stand on bathroom humor, frankly. 

I think it's hilarious. But I laugh at bathroom humor. Like the scene in Austin Powers when he drowns Lucky Charms? And groans, "Who does No. 2 work for?!?" I can't even type it without laughing. Sorry.

So the background on this one: my company held it's annual publishers/editors meeting at Seven Springs Resort in Pennsylvania. My friend Ryan's last day for the company was nearing (he's leaving for law school.) As a goodbye joke, Marty donned a Sasquatch costume and crashed the dinner party one evening. Apparently it's Ryan's belief that Bigfoot is real, we just haven't found him yet — this came up during lunch one day. So the guys like to rib him for believing in Bigfoot. 

So I had to take a pic when I walked into the men's room and saw Marty putting on the costume. Too funny.

***

I put my back out, BIG TIME. Saw the chiropractor today. He told me I'm swollen on one side. Five to seven days of low activity, and he says I'll be back to normal. But if I mess it up in the interim? Another five to seven days.

He told me that today. Makes sense now, why Adrianne got so mad at me, when I let Boydee ride on my back to the bedroom yesterday.

***

I've decided to let my hair grow out a little, see how I like it. So apologies in advance, if you see me, and I look like Teen Wolf's dad.

It probably won't last through the weekend.

***

I've been traveling so much lately. I'm tired, burned out. 

I did the math as I was sitting in Chicago O'Hare the other day, and I realized I'd been in seven cities in seven days. Those cities: Kansas City (natch), Chicago, Milwaukee, Newark, New York City, Denver, Pittsburgh. In the week since, I've added Columbia, S.C., Augusta, Ga., and St. Louis.

I'm almost done. One more trip — for what I think could be my big story of the year — next week. And it's a 36-hour trip.

In the meantime, the kids kind of look at me like I'm a stranger.

***

Boyd is starting to stretch out. He's looking tall and lanky right now. I think he's grown over the last few weeks.

He's also been pretty cute. He told Adrianne yesterday that she was "the best mom EVER!"

Then he told her she did a good job of picking Dad.

***

Today might have been momentous, if only for me.

My dentist (Hay, in Eudora, he's awesome) removed my lower permanent retainer!!!

I've probably had this in my mouth since I was 17-years-old... it may have been taken out for a week or two in the interim, when I was going to that awful dentist in Lawrence (cough LEGENDSDENTAL cough) but I finally convinced a dentist that, yes, this is my body, I want this thing out of my mouth.

It took all of 30 minutes, and it was actually easier than I thought it'd be. The dentist was like, "Whoever put this in apparently wanted it to stick around for a while." As I was leaving, I told him what a pain in the ass this thing has been over the years, and he said something like, "As a rule I don't complain about other people's work, but... that didn't look comfortable, what you had."

I've been digging this new feeling all day, of NOT having this jaggedy metal piece of crap in my mouth. It makes me nervous, sure — it was probably there for a reason, according to some dentist. 

But I'm going to give it a try, for a while. Like this new Old Teen Wolf hair I'm rocking!

What is this, a midlife crisis?

***

Man, I remember when I used to do this all the time. Blog at night, over a few drinks, with the music on.

I've played two top-100 courses in the past two weeks. This, right now, feels more fun.

On the jukebox: Interpol, Zero 7 and Portishead.

***

Just finished that show, Animal Kingdom. It was decent. Creepy, exciting at times... decent.

***

OH! I'm on a radio show on Saturday, I think. Here are some details. I don't know much about it, my associate editor, Grant "Buddy" Gannon, set the whole deal up.

Coincidentally, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal also contacted me this week, wanting to know if I could go on the record about what happened at the Hall of Fame NFL preseason game that got cancelled. I told them I couldn't talk specifics (I wasn't there, after all) but I could discuss the industry in general... that got the big GONG! and I talked my way out of that one. 

I'll follow-up on what happens on the 19th Hole...

Surprise 10-year anniversary trip

So not this last weekend, but two weekends ago I "surprised" Adrianne with a 10-year wedding anniversary gift: a trip to Denver to see one of her favorite bands, The National, at Red Rocks.

Our actual anniversary is Oct. 21, but the National weren't available to come to KC that day. So I snagged these tickets instead, a few weeks early, to catch them at a venue I've always wanted to visit.

We also visited Fort Collins AKA Fort Fun, and went on a tour of Odell's Brewery and a ghost tour of Fort Collins. We also stopped in Estes Park to visit the hotel that inspired the movie/book The Shining.

We had a great time, and Adrianne has already talked about road tripping to see The National again next year. (Let's just hope they're opening for Radiohead. Or Interpol. Or maybe Starsailor is opening for them.)

I'll post more photos from the trip soon!

Touch 'em all

Boyd got to catch another Royals game with Rosalina, Brent, Dexter & co. He is a regular baseball fan these days.

We were shooting hoops on Saturday. He said, "dad basketball is a lot of fun!" I said yeah it's the most fun sport there is! He said no baseball is the most fun.