These ncaa commercials r making me hungry for a kfc bucket o' chicken... And to fill out the census.

A couple days in the office

Sure, most of the time I'm at work I'm at my desk writing or editing copy, but then there's also a lot of days like these:

Let me show you the world through Evey's eyes

Here is a good use for your old electronics: give them to your kids!

Yup, I've always had a hard time throwing away an old digital camera, even if it didn't work well, or the hardware was obsolete. Well, Evey was always interested in my camera, but that's MY camera... I don't want her playing with it. I don't want it to get broken. And she's too smart for a fake toy camera...

That's when it dawned on me -- pull out one of my old working digital cameras. The camera is a good six, seven years old... still works, but the weight of the thing, the screen size, the resolution of the photos -- it's crappy compared to the stuff we're using today. But Evey thinks it's the best thing ever!

So Evey has her own digital camera to shoot photos with now. She's getting better at it with practice. I downloaded the first batch of photos so you can see some examples of what she's doing right now. In the future, I'm sure I'll only save the good ones.

Evey also has a real cell phone. It's my old cell phone from five or so years ago. Again, I have a hard time throwing away electronics. And now, Evey feels like a rock star with her real cell phone... she had a fake plastic one for a while, now she has a REAL plastic one.

Here's her conversation in the backseat while we were driving home from work today:

"Hi Sadie."
"Do you want to come over?"
"OK! Let me ask my Mom and Dad."
"Mom, Dad! Sadie wants to come over!"
"OK, Sadie, you can come over!"

The whole time me and Adro are having our own conversation -- Evey is entertaining herself with this pretend phone call.

(At least, I think it was pretend. I better check that phone when I get a chance.)

Seth and Eric's Angels

Here's a great photo I got of Trish, Adrianne, Bella and Evey a couple weeks ago in my basement.

So, how was your weekend? Mine was pretty spectacular, I'm not gonna lie. (But I'm not going to give you any details about it here, sorry.)

Good news: Ryno set up my wireless internet for me tonight. I think this will enable me to blog more... I never feel real comfortable blogging in the office at our new house because I feel I'm making too much noise over here while my girls are asleep. Now, with the wireless, I can blog from the basement on my laptop. (but the main impetus for the wireless was to get my Blu-Ray player ready for NetFlix streaming movies -- what do you think, worth the effort? Vote in my poll, please!)

Big 12 Tourney champs! Awesome. great job, 'Hawks. Now, on to the REAL tournament.

(btw, Evey's hair doesn't always look like 1988... it's just in this photo, after she took out her hair bow or whatever.)

Even 80-year-old women...

Can use the ABSOLO!

How did Abasolo miss out on this one??? I saw it on TV at 4 a.m. on some infomercial a few weeks ago! Abasolo has had the name since he was born!

AND HE COULDN'T INVENT THE ABSOLO????


(The guy on the left just found out Abasolo didn't own the patent on the Absolo!)

The Oscar goes to...

Night-night time

The case of the moneky's tail

Here's a photo of the girls in our hotel lobby in San Diego. Not a great photo, but we do need to cherish these photos of Evey while she's still shorter than her Grandma Judy...

You can see by the photo that Adro is holding on to, well, a leash... connected to Evey's backpack. While we were in San Diego, Evey often wore a monkey back pack that had this long tail. She loved this back pack. She'd put it on, and ask one of us, "Hold my tail!"

Before this trip, I always hated the look of these things. I mean, keeping your kid on a leash?

But now that we did it for a week, I have a different perspective. It helped that Evey loved the thing, and never fought us. But it was also good to know that Evey couldn't run too far away... it kept her out of the revolving door at the hotel, out of the street downtown, etc. It even kept her from falling once, as she was about to bite it as I was holding on to the tail, and as she about hit, I yanked her back up before she could hit the ground.

***Went and saw Avatar with my Mom last week. Pretty cool movie! I would suggest you go see it in the theaters while you still can. It was an intense three hours. At first, during the set-up, I didn't think I was going to enjoy the movie. But once the main character went into the machine and became one of the natives, I was hooked. That was cool.

***Also went down to Stillwater to see the KU/OSU debacle with my friend Travis. I'll share a bunch of photos later. Still a great time, even though the game didn't go our way.

I fought piranhas

If I wasn't doing White Stripes song titles this month, this one would have been titled, "Seth choked by Chicken."

I did TV interviews in San Diego this year. I got better as the week went on. I'm not trained as a broadcast journalist, so I had to learn to fake it quickly. I did OK.

This "interview" with the San Diego Chicken was probably the most fun... but they were all fun, in a nerve-wracking way.

I showed this clip to Evey and she liked it and disliked it at the same time. She liked seeing me with the Chicken, she didn't like seeing Daddy getting choked by the chicken. Her exact words were, "Daddy, why is he giving you suplex?"

Backstory: I give Evey "suplexes" when we're being silly. Lervik will correct me, but my version of a suplex is when one person picks up the other, lifts them straight up in the air, then falls backwards on to the mat.

Yes, I do this to Evey. But I'm careful about it. I drop her on the bed, and I always hold her head up as I throw her down, so she lands on her back or butt, not on her neck.

Anyway, I had to explain that the Chicken was really Daddy's friend, but they were just having fun, like when Daddy does suplexes to Evey.

She frowned... then said, "Watch it again!"

We had to watch it five, six times. Each time she was a little pissed at the Chicken. Yet each time she wanted to see it again.

The union forever

A couple photos from San Diego... this first one has become a tradition -- me, Adro, Evey and Judy in front of a GCM cover at the GCM booth. I think we've done this three years now (I'll have to look in the archives to see if I'm right. If I'm right, I'll post all three together. If I'm wrong... you'll never hear about this again.)

The second one has a little bit of a story to it. It's literally ten minutes after we'd taken the top photo, and a superintendent walks into the GCM booth. "Are you Seth Jones?" he asks me. "Yes..." "And you're married to Adrianne, right?" "Yes..." "I went to high school with Adrianne! My family knows the Weibel family!"

So we start chatting and I ask if he's seen Adrianne at the show yet? No, hasn't seen her in years, he tells me. Then he asks -- we have a little girl, right? Yes, we sure do... would you like to see them? And Judy? And he's like, "Judy is here too?!?"

The guy's name is Chris Ericson, and I've heard stories about his family from Alan since I've known him (It starts out 30 years ago, with a car with Kansas plates -- Douglas Co. -- rolling down Alan's street in McAllen, Texas, and Alan stopping them to see where they were from in Douglas Co.).

So now I know I need to arrange a quick family reunion.

I take Chris to where Adrianne is working, we have to wait in line. Once she's done, I'm just sort of like, "Hey, say hello to Chris..." and Adrianne gives a look like I'm introducing her to my friend... and I'm like, "Chris Ericson." And she look at his name tag and goes "Chris!!!" Turns out she hasn't seen this guy since they were little kids. So I call Judy, same thing -- except I introduce him first and last name, and it takes her a second to register the name and then it hits her -- BOOM! old friends from back in Texas reunited.

Anyway, kind of cool.

Fell in love with a girl

Here's another photo from the Children's Museum in San Diego.

Crazy couple days here. We've been busy. I had friends in town, KU tickets, a new toy I had to go pick up... then Adro tripped on the stairs the other day, and now she has a bruised up foot and is hurting... so I've been sleeping hard lately. And I'm about to go to bed soon, even though the KU game isn't over yet.

Quick worthwhile story, to try to save this rambly post:

I was at the KU game on Saturday. Evey tells Adro that she misses her dad.

Adrianne asks Evey, "Well, you're hanging out with me..."

Evey tells her, "I don't like you, Mom. Dad is my best friend."

Adro is obviously hurt, and shows it. So Evey tries to soften the blow...

"That's OK, Mom, you're a good sister."

Effect & Cause

Candidate for photo of the year right here, baby! Man, I NAILED this one. Love it. I did take about 30 pictures here, because I knew it was a photo-friendly spot and situation.

This photo was taken at the Children's Museum in San Diego. I can't really recommend the place because honestly, it wasn't much of a museum. The good news is it was only $10 per person. Also, I nabbed this photo while there, so that alone is worth the $30 in tickets and 2 hours of time.

Evey is painting some outdoor art of a whale... it was in three pieces, and they had the buckets set up for kids to just go at it, and Evey did. She spent most of her time at the museum at this "exhibit," and it was hard to get away from it. Her other favorite spot was the bubble-blowing area, which is what yesterday's photo was of.

(By the way, if you're wondering what the title of this post is about, I'm still trying to do the White Stripes song title month, even though I inadvertently messed that up two posts ago.)

Sugar never tasted so good

We are back from San Diego... and it feels good.

Here's a photo from the San Diego Children's Museum... tomorrow, a photo that will compete for photo of the year (hey, wait - -did I ever do that for 2009?)

Two days, two gifted tickets

Two weeks ago was indeed the dreaded root canal, BUT... I also was gifted two tickets to the KU/MU game (thanks Greg!) and my sister got me and Adro two tickets to the Everclear concert!

And the fun didn't end there... on Thursday Grandma Judy got tickets to some flamenco dancers (or something like that) at the Lied Center, so Evey and Judy went to that!

It was a fast week... tons of fun... tons of drinks!

It's true that we love one another

HELLO.

I haven't been blogging a lot lately.

Did I tell you that I got a root canal last week? I did not take this well. I am not a fan of the dentist. Jerry Seinfeld would consider me an anti-dentite.

They tell you when you're getting a root canal that you should hope that you only have two "canals" in your tooth that's getting worked on. Your tooth will either have two or three canals. A root canal on two canals, naturally, is 33% easier than a root canal on three canals.

Or, you can just be me, and be one of the lucky 8% of the population who has FOUR canals in his tooth getting this wonderful service.

And then one of the canals might come up a millimeter short, causing the dentist to redo that canal. So I get the work of five canals. Not two... not three. FIVE F*%$&^#@ CANALS.

It's like having the worst super-power EVER.