Rolling in my ‘64

I shut the hood after practice on Thursday to be greeted by this sight... 

Save Evey!!!

She was like, "Dad take our photo!"

I was like, "Evey don't get stabbed!!!"

Spring break 2021, whoooooooooo!!! 

IMG_85161.jpg

The weekend that was, 3.5.21

Lydia and her fam came by the house a few weekends 
ago! She's our Goddaughter.

What a fun weekend! Let’s recap: 

Friday afternoon the weather was great so I went outside and moved some stuff around the HOJ, including bringing the umbrella back out. Once the sun went down I ran to Lawrence for a couple cheese pizzas and brought them back for dinner. 

The five of us watched the finale if WandaVision. Adro and the kids liked it; I hated it. Then we started watching Coming to America 2. I stopped it halfway, worried that the kids weren’t liking it. We watched an episode of The Chase. That was awful too, all three contestants lost so they just brought the first guy out one more time to arbitrarily lose one more time. Mom wanted the other Jeopardy! champs to come out for the final battle, but she doesn’t write the rules to that show, much to her dismay.

It was late and everyone went to bed. I put on a pot of beans and cut up some potatoes for the next morning, then went to bed.

***

Saturday morning I jumped out of bed, ready for action. Went and did the recycling. Came home and made breakfast. Then we got ready for our first soccer practice of the season. The practice was good! All the kids were well behaved and listened. I think everyone had fun. 

Me and the kids went in the Impala so I could wash it after practice. After I finished washing it (and spraying the kids accidentally… several times… through the cracks in the windows) Boyd was like, “Dad, can we grab a treat to celebrate our first practice?” Listen, I just washed the car, the next logical thing to do is drive 75 mph down the road and blow off all that water! I cussed at the idea and suggested we go to the gas station. For a bottle of water… but then acquiesced. We pulled into Sonic for milkshakes and to watch the water spots dry on the hood…

An old-timer pulled up next to me and hollered at me that he liked my car. We chatted a little bit, he was more interested in chatting than I was (not to be rude, but I didn’t have much to say and the way we were parked, he was pretty much behind me, which made for an awkward neck turn for me.) He kept going on about how nice it must be to take a ride in a car like the Impala and I said, “you know it is! Just getting it out. And the kids are like, Dad, let’s get some milkshakes, and I was like, heck yeah!’ 

I turned back into the car and Boyd was like, ‘heck yeah? You wanted to get a bottle of water!’ And Evey was like, ‘you didn’t even want to come here!’ They called me out for my made-up story to the old timer. I had to laugh.

We came home and Adrianne was cleaning out the woods on the north side of the property. She did so much work and really improved the way it looks over there. Our land gets better and better…

I changed out of my soccer gear and Evey and I headed to Lawrence. Quick stop at Dick’s to spend a $10 rewards card that was expiring. Evey got a cool Chiefs hat, I got a KU stocking cap on clearance for next winter…

Then we went and drove for an hour. Evey’s learning and she did a great job driving all over West Campus. We ended our lesson when mysteriously, a few KU and Lawrence cops started ascending on the area. “It’s getting hot over here Evey, let’s bounce!” She put it in park, we switched drivers and made out getaway. (Evey is pretty sure there was a daytime drug deal about to happen.)

From there, on to Chops Comics for some bags and boards and a few $1 comics. Then I invited Evey to 23rd St. Brewery and she was in. We sat at a booth distant from everyone else and enjoyed some chicken fingers and Big 12 basketball. 

Finally we came home, and Adro and Boyd were in the HOJ pretending to be napping on the new hammock Adro bought. Adro bought two hammocks, different styles. I helped her with the second one and then got ready for company…

My sister and Herschel came over and watched the sun go down with us. Made some fajitas and ate inside, then came back over and started a bonfire. It was a beautiful night out! We chilled for a while and enjoyed the bonfire and some cold drinks. 

They took off and I stayed outside a while longer burning more of the brush Adro pulled out of the woods. I don’t know what time I finally went to bed, but I know I had the music cranked up to 11. No worries, the neighbors aren’t bothered, I don’t think!

***

Sunday. Woke up with a level three hangover. Made breakfast burritos. Went next door to try out the hammock. It’s not built for me, I don’t think. I did see a bald eagle fly by while I was in there! Came back over to the house for online church at 11 a.m. Then we all finished Coming to America 2. Turns out the kids and Adro enjoyed it as well as me! Randy Watson at the end was perfect. So silly and stupid, just what the doctor ordered.

We all came over to the HOJ. First Evey and Bub were in the hammock, Evey was reading her book to Bub. Then everyone moved around, various magazines, books, comic books, napping. Really relaxing day. 

All-Star weekend on the TV now. Gonna wrap up this weekend. It was a good one! (And yet, somehow I didn’t take a single photo!)

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!