Who is that masked man?

Bub enjoys rocking his pajamas — 
and sometimes a mask — on
weekends.

 Good weekend here. Didn't get much done, but chilled a bunch.

***

After work on Friday Adro brought home a cheese pizza and we watched the new WandaVision. I thought it was pretty boring/bad. But we've come this far, we'll finish it... 

Later that night I had three of my buddies come over, the first time we've been together since playing golf together back in the fall. We crushed a few cans, watched some NBA and then closed the night with a Soundgarden concert on YouTube while we discussed the events of Jan. 6th, the state of the Jayhawks, and what happened on Super Bowl Sunday. It was great to see those dudes, and the bar tab, for once, was reasonable.

The guys all rolled out at 1 a.m. Turns out as Sean was driving north on 1900, a little less than a mile from our house, he saw a deer running and slowed down... and the deer ran into him! No damage, thankfully.

***

Ted, Joe, me and Lip at the Eudora BBall
golf scramble a few months ago. We finished 
in a tie for second.

Saturday morning I got up late, feeling a little groggy. Went and finally did the recycling, it had been piling up. That chore wasn't too bad. Came home and turned on the Jayhawks. Boyd's cut-out was rocking front row, midcourt. Evey was front row, behind the basket. 

Great game for the Jayhawks, it got close at the end but they hit big shots when needed.

Adro and the kids joined me for the second half. Once the game was over, we started playing music videos on YouTube while we took turns playing Ms. Pac-Man. Boyd was drawing in his sketch pad. Evey was reading her book, Twilight.

We played some Uno Flip, then put on a NetFlix movie or two. One of them had Paul Blart Mall Cop as an accidental super spy. Then Adrianne put on a Pee-Wee Herman movie from 2016. I was hooked. 

After everyone went to bed I finished the book Sing Backwards and Weep by Mark Lanegan. Wow, what a read! I tore through it in exactly a week. 

We did a whole lot of nothing all day but it was a good day.

***

Sunday I thought I'd be more motivated, but I didn't do much outside of cooking breakfast and dinner. Did some Golfdom proofing late. Ran a couple errands and ran to the farm to take some food to Virginia/Judy/Lupe. It was great to see Virginia back home after a brief hospitalization. I also watched a couple good NBA games: Pelicans/Celts and Clips/Nets. 

I made street tacos and refried beans for dinner. It was pretty good. I need to play with the pork a little more and find a better seasoning. 

I asked the kids if they had a good weekend and they said yes. We talked about how dumb the Pee-Wee Herman movie was. Adrianne said she knew I secretly liked it because she could hear me doing my old man laugh from upstairs.

Last weekend was more productive, but this was a good weekend. Sad it's over. This will be a good week though, we go to press on Golfdom and KU has two big games this week. Rock Chalk.

The weekend that was, 2.5.21

 Hello!

Let's see how much of the previous weekend I recall. It was a pretty good weekend, mostly.

On Friday we chilled out after work and watched a lot of TV. First, the new episode of WandaVision. It was good! It gets more interesting each episode. Then we started watching Soul, the new Pixar movie. I made it about 30 minutes or so then gave up on it and decided cleaning the kitchen while listening to good music was more exciting. Adro and the kids made it another 20 minutes or so before deciding to take the rest of the night off and finish it later.

When they finished it later, Adro hated it, and Evey gave it an 8, while Boyd gave it a 7. Glad I didn't commit too much time to it.

***

On Saturday morning I made sausage egg and cheese biscuits for breakfast, along with hash browns like the ones from McDonald's, in the Air Fryer. The entire meal turned out GREAT. I was pumped about those hash browns! 

A little later, mid-morning, Copy J came over for a visit. It was great to see him! He brought me some cool stuff, including some Schlitz bar memorabilia, and a very nice handmade wood six-pack carrying case. 

It was about to snow, but we walked around the property. Weird moment came when we were walking to the creek... and two men are walking towards us from the other direction! Uhm, hello, who are you and what are you doing? Turns out, it's the new neighbor (one of them, at least) and they were checking out the back side of the property (the mowed down pathway is on my side, hence them being over there and the confusion.) Nice guy, but most excited to hear they have a young family with three kids in middle school/high school. The kids are excited of the idea of kids next door. Hopefully they're cool.

After Copy J's visit, I went to the comic book store and got some new bags and boards for my Spideys. Then I came home and saddled up to the downstairs chair and started working on the comics while watching old music videos on TV. The kids and Adro all stashed away in Boyd's room and had a play date with Mittens the cat while listening to murder mystery podcasts. 

It was a very chill day and everyone just relaxed. I finished the evening with a few episodes of Breaking Bad, which has picked up some steam since I last left off (I'm on season three now.)

***

Sunday was Super Bowl Sunday and I was nervous. I got up and got busy. Cleaned house, made breakfast. Ran to Lawrence to pick up the grocery store order. Got home around 3:30 in time to get my game face on.

First appearance of Will'o the Wisp, by arch enemy.

So many bad omens on Sunday, but I won't go into that now. It was a difficult game to watch. Evey was the most disappointed, followed by me. We talked about what we were witnessing. It was tough to enjoy any of it. 

The game was so bad, my emotions never got too high. I'm so thankful we won it last year, and I'm so thankful we made it to back-to-back Super Bowls. I told my co-worker Jake, if five years ago you told me we'd be in back-to-back Super Bowls, but bad news, you'll go 1-1 in the two games I'd say, are you crazy, I'LL TAKE IT! 

We'll try again next year, hopefully this gives the Chiefs some scar tissue to get tougher. But proud of the team and yeah, that was a bitter pill to swallow. 

Color off

Jonesy’s journal, 1.31.21

Boyd has been getting after it with drawing this weekend. Tons of dinosaurs! They look great and he's hanging them on his wall. I'll share a photo soon.

***

Evey had a sleepover with Ryan this weekend. I made some fajitas and we ignored the KU/Tennessee game. The girls had fun. Adro, Bub and I played Marvel Comics memory... and I won! 16 to 15 to 14, a TIGHT game.

Watched SNL and conked out.

***

Bub went and hung out with his pal Nolan for a few hours on Sunday. Afterwards, Bub and I went to the farm to deliver some cookies and a bookshelf, and visit with Judy and Virginia. 

Back home, I worked on bagging my Captain America comics and watching some NBA. A very chill night. We finished The Meg, from RedBox.

The report from  Nolan's:

They have a way fun house... with a zip line... a pond... their apples are juicer than ours... they have two cats and a dog... 

Basically, Boyd was impressed. Their sliced bread is better than ours. 

Yeah, I get it. Remind me to tell you about the Kansas T-shirt. I'm beginning to understand why I thought my dad was a hardass....

The cut-outs

Hello people! I'm writing tonight. For a few minutes...

I asked my fellow Jayhawk fans to keep an eye out for these cuties (and me) for the KU/TCU game tonight. I'm not subscribing to EXPN+ based on my lousy internet and PRINCIPAL, but Carrie Jordan tells me Bub was 2nd row behind Dr. James Naismith. Cool!

***

Listening to Run the Jewels on YouTube. They're becoming one of my favorite bands, but mostly El-P for the lyrics/rhymes, Killer Mike for the overall political badassness.

***

Today after school, I picked up Bub. Then I told him, "I've got a couple errands to run." Bub hates running errands. He wants to head straight home so he can get into his zone; snack, Xbox, chilling. Mess with that? He gets grumpy.

I told him I didn't have much to do, and he might even have fun.  One of my stops would be the comic book store (I'm excited to get new bags + boards for my Captain America run) and he could come inside with me and I'd buy him something. "Well, maybe..." and I told him, you don't have to bro, you could sit here with the dog and not see anything potentially cool...

He fell asleep immediately. The comic store was closed (COVID-19) anyway so no need to wake him up. I had him. back home in an hour; he was happy.

I finished up work emails and cracked a beer. Got Bub some cheese and crackers. He asked me if I could help him fix his headphones with Duct tape. We fixed it! He was pumped. I went back to work. Turned up the music. Evey was still at school shooting photos for the yearbook (boys bball), Adro was still at work. I fired up some snacks because what the hell.

Brought Bub some cheese and crackers while he was on Xbox and he was like, "Whoa! For me? I don't have to quit playing?" Told him to keep going, it was just me and him. 20 minutes later I came down and asked him, "want some little smokies?" His eyes lit up and he asked, "do you got some?!?" Yeah man! 

I brought him five li'l smokies down and he acted like I handed him a brick of solid gold. He was so excited. Back upstairs for me, I had music on and was going slow, drinking a brown ale from my co-workers, chilling.

***

It was 20 degrees out the other day and Bub had a home-school day. Wanted to go outside. Asked me if he could. "Well, yes, but bundle up."

Next thing I know I'm out there throwing the mini light-up football with him! Ugh. We had some good throws, though, and agreed it was time to come inside.

 

 

Expecting snow overnight

Maybe two inches... hopefully enough for some more sledding!

***
How about those Chiefs?!? We're all excited for Super Bowl LV!!!

***

Why am I yelling?!? Because that's what I do!!!

1202021

Heard on the radio that today was a palindrome... and there won't be another one for a thousand years!

***

Biden took office today. A new chapter begins.

***

This is a pic of the kids making cookies for Santa, Christmas Eve 2020.

Playing in the rain

In the next few days I'll post some photos from Christmas and some more pics from the snow days.

This one is of Boyd and I, Dec. 29, a Tuesday, 7 p.m., over at the Hall of Justice. It was dumping ice cold rain at the time, and Boyd really wanted to play catch outside, in the dark, with his new glow-in-the-dark football.

So I told him to put his gear on and let's see how it goes. 

We played with that little $5 Walmart ball for three, four days in a row. Boyd can ZING IT. That's why I think he likes it so much, it fits his hand just right that he can really chuck it and compete with his Old Man in throwing long bombs.

But man, this was an awful night to go outside. But I was off work. I was stir-crazy, like Boyd. The girls looked at us like we were crazy. And I think they thought, 'they won't last 5 minutes.'

I had the right gear on (some new warm stuff from Christmas, and a waterproof jacket) and I didn't really get that cold. And it was nice to be outside. And you know, it was fun chucking that flashing football in the night sky. It's not really glow-in-the-dark, it has a light inside that flashes and is activated with impact. But it automatically shuts off after about 2.5 throws. So if we didn't time it right, that missile would be midair and go dark.

But the cool thing was, with the little light off the HOJ, and timing it right... we'd still catch the dark ball two out of three times. And that was cause for celebration.

I didn't want to go out there and drag Boyd back in after a few throws. I wanted him to relent, to say, "that's good, we're cold, let's go inside." We took a few breaks to play some songs in the HOJ and warm our hands. But I bet we threw the ball for a good... 40 minutes, maybe 45? We moved around the yard a lot and tried different tricks (running routes, throwing skyballs, etc.)

I doubt Boyd will remember the times we went outside in the soaking rain after Christmas 2020 to chuck a random Christmas present (that I forgot to put under the tree) but I think I'll remember it. It was a useful mental break, and something physical to do while the weather was bad. And it is pretty hilarious to see a 3rd grader zip a plastic football so hard that you know it might hurt a little if you don't catch it right...

It’s 2021...

Can you believe it?

Evey's enchiladas!

I was really impressed with how Evey put together this power point for her class recently. I was there cooking with her and she was snapping the occasional photo as we were working ... quality work Evey, wow! The enchiladas turned out great, too!

Merry Christmas!

Go climb a tree!

Front row for Flat Jonesys

In this weird COVID-19 year, I decided a few weeks ago it would be fun to buy cardboard cutouts of me and the kids for Allen Fieldhouse. I figured there was a 50/50 chance we ever see them on TV ... but we get them back at the end of the season, and they'll make awesome decorations for the HOJ! (Oh yeah and the money goes to charity.)

So we've seen two home games this season so far (I don't get ESPN+ so no telling about those games) but for the Creighton game and the Omaha game, the kids were rocking sweet seats!

No sign of me yet, but that's all good! My cut-out is probably at Rick's. 

 

Cooking class!

Evey nailed these pretzel bites for school work! A new weekend tradition Evey???

The weekend that was, Thanksgiving 2020

So I'm wrapping up five days off in a row. How was your break?

Wednesday the kids and I got after it and did laundry, cleaned the house, etc. Felt good. then it was easy street for a few days.

We cleaned the basement up and had a double feature. "My Spy" and "Gemini Man." I kinda liked My Spy. It took us 2.5 days to finish Gemini Man because of our slow internet.

Gemini Man started off strong, and ended with a dud.

***

Thanksgiving was chill. Judy cooked the bird and the pig, I made the easy stuff, the stuffing, green bean casserole and mashed potatoes. It was a quiet day overall. We ate well and had some awkward zooms. One with my family, the other with Adrianne's. I watched the Jayhawks get ran by Gonzaga (felt like the scored easily on every possession) ... first half in the HOJ, second at the house.

The most notable thing was that Virginia came over, possibly because Boyd wrote her a note inviting her. It was great to have her here and I think she enjoyed herself just fine even though she wouldn't do a tequila shot with me (don't worry, I didn't offer her one.)

The food was great. We ate plenty. 

***

Friday felt good. We chilled. Leftovers. 

We watched KU win in the HOJ. Came back over. Everyone was tired and cashed it in early. 

Adrianne and I watched The Crow on free pay channels — I get the impression that was the first time she's seen it in 20 years — and it still holds up for me, stylistically. Then we did a double feature and watched Go which she had not seen. I think that's a great 90s movie (if it came out in the 90s?) and she liked it, I think... at least, she stayed awake for all of it.

***

Saturday the weather was amazing and we weren't going to miss it. I cleaned up and burned a bunch of yard waste. Then I trimmed a tree behind the house. Then I burned that yard waste.

I was exhausted by 1 p.m. on Saturday, but I kept burning stuff, the weather was so nice. The kids came out and helped pick up the yard. Adro was pulling weeds like crazy and it was going directly in the fire.

Then Cathy brought her family over and invited us over for a game of croquet. That was surprisingly enjoyable! The kids were nervous going over, not knowing the rules. But once we learned how to play, we had a nice time.

My bonfire was still smoldering after the match. I came over and started burning the last of the big tree behind the house. Almost burned the whole thing!

My moment of clarity came on Saturday as the sun went down. It was cold. I was alone. But the jukebox was rocking. There was a small bonfire burning. I had a productive day, where I could point to the results. My body was fatigued but happy. My evening pint tasted sweet, like a reward. I sat in my barber's chair and thought to myself, "thank you." 

Pretty lucky. Thankful.