Best Father’s Day ever!

How lucky am I? Incredible.

The weekend that was, June 12-14, 2020

Judy and Evey on a walk, Friday morning.

Wow, it was a great weekend here!

Not many photos though. Shows you how much I do things without my phone in my pocket these days…

***

Weekend started off a little early. Friday afternoon everyone was clocking out early. I had to run a few errands so I went to Eudora. Post office, grocery store, gas station, liquor store. Knock it out, fast. Get back home. Kids were home alone for a little over an hour (Adrianne had to go to the office.) Got home, kids were great. Finished doing what I needed to do at work, then went outside and started mowing. (Mowing is relaxing now.)

Judy and Adrianne pulled up. I said hello. Then went to grilling some chicken, drumsticks and breasts. Tried cooking four drumsticks in the air fryer. Hate to admit it, they turned out pretty good.

But wouldn’t it be weird if I sat outside, drinking a beer, while staring at an air fryer?

After dinner Adro proposed we watch the “series finale” of Schitt’s Creek. Turns out it was not the finale, but it was $hit. That show isn’t for me — sorry Babe.

Good news though, there was enough daylight I was able to finish mowing. 

After mowing I came inside and watched the first 10 minutes of Johnny Mnemonic with Keanu Reeves. Movie takes place in 2021... and there is rioting... and everyone has to wear a mask... 

OK, I made it 10 minutes in and fell asleep. But maybe I should revisit that flick?

***

It's Saturday!

Woke up feeling fine. Lots to do, but it's Saturday morning ... the world is my oyster.

My oyster started with a trip to Lawrence with Judy, to visit the … dirt pile? Mulch pit? What this place is called, I don’t know. But it was fun. Me, Judy, Koko, on a mission to pick up dirt. And pick up dirt we did.

I think we'll go back next weekend, and I'll bring the kids. I know Boyd would have a good time digging in a 20-foot hight pile of dirt. Shows you where my mind is at now, when visiting a dirt pile is high entertainment. 

Got back home, parked the truck in the backyard. Adro made an amazing breakfast. Breakfast burritos! Then, outside to work on what I've been calling "the farm," Adrianne is calling it "the Jones Gangster Garden," I think. It's this kit Adro bought... and we filled it up with the appropriate ingredients, I hope, that we can grow some vegetables. It was fun until it got hot. Then we bailed. (I'll post photos soon.)

From there, I relaxed, watched PGA Tour golf (yeah!) and then I unpacked a few straggler boxes looking for my Marvel Visionaries and Essential Spider-Man books (missing since the move... did the movers steal them?!?) I was unsuccessful finding the books, but I did look at some cool old magazines, etc. 

I mean, I think they're cool. When I'm dead and (hopefully) the grandkids are going through my stuff, they'll say, "why the hell did Grandpa save this issue of Esquire?" (They'll ask Evey, and hopefully, wise soul that she is, she'll have a guess.) 

Saturday night we went back outside to finish off the farm/Gangster Garden. Knocked it out, the kids did a great job pushing the dirt towards me and Adro's shovels, so we filled that thing up, Momma planted her plants, we high-fived. I pulled the truck out of the yard (took the kids and the dog on a quick drive around the 'hood, saw a wild turkey) then back home. 

As the sun was setting, the temperature really dropped. I suggested we get a game of Uno going. Before any cards were thrown, Adro proposed we make s'mores. 

Oh YEAH! This caused me to start a fire... and deliciousness ensued. Boyd asked if he could have "one more," and he meant a wet wipe. We went from "take a shower, go to bed!" to "one more s'more!" Very clever, Boydee. Evey was in charge of s'more creation. This was an absolute blast. The music was good, too.

***

Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!

Woke up feeling like a champion. Watched a little Sunday Morning (downer.) Then I got ready to make breakfast, pancakes and sausages, on the flat top grill. 

Turned out nice! The flat top is still the boss, sorry air fryer.

We "went" to church by watching it on YouTube. Amen.

Photo I found of Mom and Dad, mid-80s.
At McConnell, an air show. This image has no context here.

At noon I had a Facebook video chat with Crazy Uncle Willy. Good to see my old roommate/best man. He's in Kenya now. Fun conversation, I look forward to doing it again. I made the kids pop on the call real quick so he can see them. He's the only Crazy Uncle they have. OK, there's Vince.

Picked up groceries. Smoooooth. Koko rode shotgun.

Came home. Chilled out. Watched professional golf. Lousy ending. Burger won and deserved it, but Xander (I won't even try with his last name... OK, that's a lie... Chauffele?) had one of the most painful lip-outs I've ever seen. I've met Xander and his dad before, good people. (Woodland had a bad stretch that took him out of contention but he looked good.)

Then I went and picked up dinner... we decided to take it easy and even though the fridge was stocked, get take-out. Jason's Deli. It was good. 

From there? I went back to the storage wars, looking for those Marvel Visionaries books... And guess what? After a few misses.... FOUND THEM! Also, Adro told me she wanted a coffee table out of the downstairs living room... what to do with it? It's PERFECT for my comic book collection... now it can breathe easier, instead of being packed like sardines.

(Aside: I should go to bed, but I'm caught watching/listening to this great Soundgarden concert. Almost done.)

OK, let's bring this blog post around and wrap it up....

It was a great weekend. Lots of chill time. Kids were helpful around the house and with chores (especially Evey.) Adro got tons of stuff done. I had a good time revisiting some memories while I opened random boxes of my stuff (Grandpa, why?)

AND I FOUND MY MARVEL VISIONARIES COLLECTION!

This week is gonna be busy, but a good week. I'm going to go to press on Golfdom... and I'm going to buy 5 of the 32 remaining Captain America comics I need to complete my run.

I hope you're well, and safe. My sister celebrated a landmark birthday this weekend... but I'll write about that later, when we get to actually celebrate with her!

Cheers. Soundgarden show just ended. They closed with "Slaves and Bulldozers." 

Is that a Mustache?!?

The Jones boys on May 3, 2020, seven weeks into the pandemic 

and two full months without haircuts.

Note: this post was written in late May, as I was nervous about an LM deadline. The photo is from early May, the day before Boyd and I would get our first haircuts in over two months, and I had a mustache for the first time in my life.

***

Hello from the Hall of Justice. Just clocked out. Cleaned the kitchen because I needed to do something different with my brain. Decided to bring the laptop next door, in case I get motivated to write that advertorial.

But when have I ever been motivated to write an advertorial?

***

Who puts mayonnaise on a hot dog?

***

I haven’t been blogging much these last few months. Kind of a weird time to make that move. I haven’t been going anywhere, but I abandon the blog?

I think it’s because I’m mentally exhausted a lot, and also, I don’t have as many photos of us out and about, to share. “We went for a walk today!” Is only exciting maybe once or twice.

But at the same time, I’ll bet I look back and I’m disappointed that I didn’t document the first few weeks of the pandemic/stay-at-home more.

***

We have been doing good here. Staying busy. Work has been kicking my butt. 

Here’s what I’ve been doing to occupy my time when I’m not at work:

— I put new CDs in the jukebox, along with new playlist cards, which I drew/designed by hand

— I cut a path out of the woods to the creek, replete with a dirt staircase 

— Yardwork, mowing, string trimming, branch removal. It’s a solid three hours to spruce up the yard each weekend.

— I started organizing Mark LaFleur’s CD collection he gifted me in a bookcase (about 600 CDs)

— Grilling, cooking dinners. The flat-top grill has been IN EFFECT on the weekends, especially for breakfast.

— Watching movies with Adro and the kids (I, Robot; Mr. Mom; Hobbs & Shaw; Wonder Woman (terrible) Groundhog Day; Young Frankenstein; The Shining; Good Will Hunting (awful, it should have been called Jenius Janitor); Vertigo)

— Playing Jones Creek National with Bub

— Cleaning/organizing the Hall of Justice

— Cleaned the garage a few times

I started watching Breaking Bad, but gave up on it… again.

***

Beautiful Kansas evening tonight. Me and the kids have been outside since about 5:30 or so. I was picking up while the kids rode bikes. Then we got out the tennis ball and saw how many times we could keep it in the air, hitting it to one another. After we worked up a sweat, I sat down in my lawn chair. Evey rode her bike a bit more. Then she got a juice box, Bub got a freezer pop. I suggested we get out the Uno cards, and it was GAME ON. I’m on a three-game winning streak. Evey also has three. Bub has one. Next game coming soon…

***

Shinobi went on the fritz! SHIT! So bummed about this. I talked to the guy who replaced the screen about… 18 months ago? He’s going to take a look at it, but I have to take it to him… ugh. Could be a $30 part. But if the monitor went out again? That might be the end of Shinobi for a while…

***

I’ve said this a few times, and I do think about it often… the pandemic is awful and scary. But I think about where I am in my life right now, and I think that in terms of my age, and the age of my family, it’s not the worst timing. My kids are both still at fun ages (13 and 8) they both are young but not too young… and we just moved out to the country eight months ago. So we’re still in the honeymoon stage with our new house and the adventure of living in the country. I recently turned 43, and without a doubt, age 42 saw me in more cities in a year than I’ve ever been before… and away from my family a lot.

I think about one of my co-workers who just had a baby, her second, and now she has two little ones in the house, and I think that has to be stressful. I think about the empty nesters who are used to getting out and about to enjoy themselves, and this has to be a damper on their new lifestyle. Or the people who are even older, maybe their kids are grown up and moved far away, and they have grandkids they can’t see. That’s terrible.

For me and Adrianne to be here at a new house, with a 13-year-old-girl and an 8-year-old boy? I think it’s just about the best case scenario of a quarantine experience. 

Evey and Boyd might disagree but that’s my take!

***

The kids are swatting bubbles now. Adrianne is inside relaxing. I’m going to keep going.

***

I do think I’ll regret not being more productive in the first 10 weeks of the quarantine. I could have finished Moby Dick. I could have created a YouTube TV series. Or made a year in review video like I used to do when Evey was a baby (someday I’d like to get back to that… I can see doing it.)

I look at the above list of stuff I did, and it’s really pretty weak sauce. I’ll give myself a bit of a pass based on the overall stressful mood, it kind of stymies creativity. And also I’m in front of my laptop so much during work hours, I don’t want to flip it back open again when I’m off the clock!

I’ll say this: as someone who worked from home for nine straight years… it was a cool gig. I could keep up, mostly. Then put everyone else in the same boat? It’s amazing the work people have created for all of us that really is just busy work… because they’re frightened that they won’t look busy working from home.

We produce two magazines a month, and we also host three websites. We deploy between seven and 15 emails a month for our various readerships.  We do videos, social media, webinars. It’s sufficient, it’s plenty. We have a combined readership of 100,000+ that we worry about, we worry about their businesses and how we communicate with them so we respect their time.

So we don’t really need to create new ways of burning business hours, just because some people are skittish about the idea of everyone working from home.

***

I don’t know what the kids are doing now. I half expect Evey to have an apple on top of her head here in a minute, and Boyd with a Nerf bow and arrow. That’s what it looks like from here. And by the way kids… it’s clearly raining out right now.

*** 

End blog post, May whatever-whatever-whatever, 2020.