Old photos

Will and Lervik, 1996, Oliver Hall, Kansas University. Our freshman year. Photo 2, me and Will in Las Vegas... I'm going to guess... 2002?

St. Patty's Day

I'm ready! Wow, I'm ready...

I have a big presentation at work today, so I'll hopefully be celebrating a job well done Monday night. We'll see. Wish me luck!

My mom and dad stopped in this afternoon, my dad and I watched the KU/UT game together, had a great time. They were on their way back from my dad's business trip in Ohio and a brief stop-off in Indiana to see family and friends. While they were here, I took their camera photo card and downloaded them on to my computer so I could give them a CD of their 200+ photos on their camera, and clear their card. I'll keep the highlights on my computer, too, so I can show off their photos here as well. A photo my mom took of Evey (among other photos, surely) are included with this post.

We rearranged the office this weekend. Feels good, too. Except that where the computer desk is, the ground feels like it slopes toward the wall a little bit (keep in mind, this house survived Quantrill's raid), so it's a little creepy. Still, I'm liking the kwan (or whatever they call it... fung shui) of this room right now. Makes me want to type, and be creative. I should rearrange office furniture more often.

I feel like I'm about 30 seconds away from rambling, so I'll stop now. Happy St. Patty's Day, everyone! See you at Red Lyon tomorrow night. I apologize in advance for what may seem like a slur (but what I can assure you is most definitely an injury to the jaw I succumbed while being a great parent!).

(If you click on photo 2, you'll see a photo of my mom from her high school days, and a photo of my grandparents post-WWII, in the background.)

Styx fans?

Any Styx fans out there? I have their "Return to Paradise" doubce CD in my collection, unintentionally, and I want to get rid of it. Email me if you're interested, and it's yours, next time I see you.

(For the record, this CD found it's way to my collection as a give-away)

Her future's so bright...

You know the rest.

Thanks to Lindsey for the photo!

Laundry day

I gotta hand it to Evey... she knows how to help her mom and dad out.

For example, this day, when we were doing laundry. We had a basket full of Evey's clothes ready to be folded when Grandma Judy and Memow (Virginia) showed up at the house. They had a seat, we got them something to drink... and then Evey started handing them clothes to fold! So, we all laughed and then... they folded all the clothes! It was brilliant. Evey kept handing them clothes until they were all done.

So be ready if we invite you over... we may act like we're wanting to hang out, but in reality, it's just laundry day.

Great White fire update

Read the new Sports Illustrated tonight (not a great issue). Also started the new Rolling Stone with Barack on the cover (looks like a great issue, even better than the new Esquire, surprisingly). I found this story on the Great White concert fire that happened back in February 2003.

It's great to see someone doing something for the victims of that tragedy. It really seemed to me that this story slipped through the cracks. 100 people died, 200 injured. But it was a hair band concert... so it just kind of happened, then went away.

If it were a Maya Angelou fan club meeting that was engulfed in flames that day, man, we'd probably all be wearing matching ribbons every anniversary. Anyway.

I remember when this happened, I wanted to donate to the victims. I searched on-line, but couldn't find a place to do so. I even thought about making this the official cause of the Laugh Olympics -- because me and Wake loved going to concerts, and man, that's just my demographic right there -- sweaty nightclub of loyal music fans trying to enjoy themselves. I mean, I'll still donate to the DAV, with pride, but when you've got fellow music geeks that need help, I think to myself, that could have totally been me, had I lived in Rhode Island and liked a suck band like Great White.

So anyway, I scanned the article so you can read it. And you can even make a donation to the http://www.stationfamilyfund.org/ if you ever wanted to, but were like me and couldn't find the proper outlet. I mean, I've already sent Ticketmaster over $50 this year in "convenience charges" (and that's not even hyperbole). If I can do that, I can send these fire victims, fellow rockers, a $20.

Just the way I feel about it.

Sleep watching

One of my favorite things about being a parent is this: Checking in on little Evey when she's sleeping.

There's something comforting about watching your child sleep. I don't fully understand it. Maybe it's primordial -- my 10,000 B.C. ancestor looked at his sleeping child and knew this meant he kept said child from being eaten for another day. While I'm not worried about wild animals, I do worry, all the time, about my little Evey. And when she's sleeping, she's beautiful, and she's safe.

Also, I don't know how much experience you have with kids, but as for me... I never watched babies sleep up until recently. It was right around Evey's birth when I started this hobby, actually. Previously, watching sleeping babies didn't interest me. And actually, it's only my baby that I like to watch sleep. It's not that other babies (especially yours) don't sleep beautifully, it's just that I'm not a weirdo. I don't think.

Anyway, looking in on Evey every night is like the one constant of parenthood. She's always running around when she's awake. She's always moving. But when she's asleep, she's static, and I can get a good look at her on a scale -- with her crib and her Curious George serving as my "control" -- to see how big she's getting. And wow, she's getting BIG.

In the above photo, Evey is asleep in her crib. The shot was actually taken at night; the flash makes it look like daytime. I can assure you that, though she's on her knees with her butt up in the air, she's not praying to Allah. (Though, if she is, that's fine. But apparently the Sundays at St. Johns aren't taking like Adrianne is hoping.) Instead I think she is fighting off sleep with every ounce of energy she has. And when she finally succumbs to Mr. Sandman, she has no time to lay down -- it's sudden, and she goes to her knees, and then, boom, she's sleeping on her face. Since this looks uncomfortable, we usually put her in a more comfortable position. Other times, like this one, I just take photos and giggle.

Anyway, watching little Evey sleep... not a hobby I expected to have, but one that I enjoy.

Scan the man

I'm playing with my new scanner/copier/photo printer/printer.
Appropriate that I'm listening to the Beastie Boys' Paul's Boutique right now... because it was Greg Nunn who gave me this idea that I needed a scanner.


From top to bottom -- me and my dad, January 1978 (those are toy glasses); me in NYC, January 2000; me and Greg at Horde Fest 97 (and the photo that inspired the need for the scanner); me and Adro at Stark's wedding, 2006; me walking down the hill, KU graduation 2001 (that Bauer and Anne right behind me).

TGIF!

Bought a scanner yesterday... I'm going to play with that over the weekend. Evey will be right next to me, playing with her books.

Crimson and the Blue

That's why the call him 'Big Poppa'!

Here's a photo I got on Saturday night of my dad ('Poppa' to the grandkids) and his three grandchildren -- Marina, Evelyn and Jett.

The kids are really drawn to my dad. It's cute. I didn't even set this photo up. Jett was already laying with my dad, then Marina came over, so he picked her up, then Evey came over, and put her head down on his chest.

********

Anyway... I promised a Roger Clemens post last week. Here it is.

I think Clemens juiced. I also think that no one should really care. And in 20 years from now, no one will care -- not even the governing bodies in baseball.

I met Clemens (you knew that was coming). He's a giant. His forearms are freakishly big. Seemed like an OK guy.

What I want to know is, why does the government care about steroids in sports? Isn't there anything else going on right now? How many troops died in Iraq today? How many meth labs franchised today? How many kids didn't have P.E. class?

You know what I think this is? It's modern day McCarthyism. Instead of chasing after commies, they're chasing after juicers. And the nation is enthralled with the story.

In the future, there will be so many ways to sneak 'roids through your system, they'll just have to open it up anyway. It's an even playing field if they all juice, right?

And Sam Gonzales' 182nd home run of the 2021 season sure will be exciting.

We don't realize it yet, but we're in the golden age of steroids. While they're reviled today, Barry Bonds will be known as a chemical pioneer to his baseball brethren of the future. They'll say he had the courage to juice. He broke down the barriers! They'll call it the Bonds Act -- the day they forgave everyone for juicing and opened up the record books to juicers and non-juicers alike.

Cue the patriotic music. God bless the U.S.A.!

Now... how the hell do we get out of Iraq? And does Evey get to play in P.E. class when she gets to school? How about recess -- will they still have that?

Technical difficulties

Here I am, at my 'puter, ready to blog... but the blogger machine is having problemas. no photos allowed. Maybe it's all this rain.

Anyway, we'll resume our normal programming once the site is back to full strength. In the meantime, this haiku:

Oh Evey blog site,
Why do I post so often?
Attention I crave.

How you doin'?

Evey and my pops, here.

I have a post I wanna write re: Roger Clemens. I'll save it for another night,

Meanwhile, me and Sean Lipford won trivia at a Tanner's tonight... that earned us $35. It was just the two of us, in second place, a team of 10. One of the correct answers was "Annie Hall," so yeah, even my wife will be proud (I hope). Next week we get to play in the quarter finals.

Friday: I take the day off to......

REST MY BRAIN!!!!

Kid's meals

I asked aloud the other day, "How old do you think Evey will be when we buy her her first kid's meal?"

See, up to this point, we had ordered food where we could share our meals with Evelyn and she'd have a solid meal. But then, something snuck up on us... Evey keeps getting bigger and bigger, as does her appetite.

I think I guessed she'd be 2, maybe a little older, when we ordered her her first kid's meal.


Barely a few weeks later, I found us ordering her a kid's meal. It happened last weekend while we were in Wichita. Her first kid's meal was a Sonic Wacky Pack grilled cheese sandwich and milk. She was 14-months-old.

That was for lunch. For dinner, we found ourselves at Chili's, where we ordered her the kids mac and cheese.

So, in my mind, this is so cool, because guess what? More food for me. And every once in a while, a cool toy.

Idiot. It's also more money outta my pocket!

Oh well, she's worth it. We have fun with the kids meals when we're out to eat. This last weekend we were in Topeka (at Baby Depot, natch) and afterwards we went to Ruby Tuesday's or T.G.I. Friday's, one of the weekdays, I'm not sure which one, and we ordered her the kid's chicken tenders and mashed potatoes. Poor Evey had to fight for those mashed potatoes... they were really good!

So, now I know... only 14-months-old, but costing me an extra $5 or $6 when we go out to eat.

Saturday Night Live

So, it's Saturday night. What am I doing? Why, I'm making refried beans. And working on freelance stories. And watching college basketball. And downloading the Black Lips. And drinking various rums in my Coke.

What are you doing?

• This post fueled by a rum my brother-in-law brought me back from St. Lucia. Thank you, Mark, that really was good stuff (Bounty).


• Note to my city league basketball team: bad officiating is at all levels. Take the college scene today. Yeah, they let one guy shoot 20 free throws against KU, but what was really awful was that 5-second call against Rush. Whoa! And in the Memphis/Tennessee game, there were several bad calls, the worst of which was a Tennessee player cutting off his defender's drive by moving his feet, and they whistled Tenn for the touch foul. Good D rewarded with a foul. Frustrating.


• Yeah, Trav, I didn't answer your call tonight. I was too pissed off to talk to an Okie Stater immediately after the game. You understand.


• You know, my wife is funny. She's shy, too, so I feel the need to let people know, that my wife is really capable of some solid humor, it's just that the general public doesn't get to see it very often. Tonight's one-liner: I walk into the bedroom to say goodnight to her and Evey wearing the jacket pictured. Adrianne says good night, then she asks me, "Are you going somewhere? ...Like 1980?"


• You should check this out: http://www.rorrimkcalb.com/arcadefire.html It's Arcade Fire's "Black Mirror," where you can remix it a little bit by dropping certain ingredients from the song. I suggest rocking the song out with 1, 2 and 6. Despite what Rolling Stone said, this song is great because of the drums.
• Hey, I need some of my guy friends to advise: Should I watch Platoon? It was on Starz tonight... I remember the suicide scene really freaking me out as an 11-year-old... and I never finished it for that reason. But the cast looks great. Let me know if I should try it... also, let me know if any women or children are brutally murdered, because that freaks me out too.


• It snowed tonight.

More later, as it comes to me.