Category Archives: Fun

Halloween Party

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Jenny, Brenden, and I went to a friend’s Halloween/birthday/costume party Halloween night instead of waiting at home for trick-or-treaters. We left some candy outside the door but didn’t get many customers. Anyway, we had a great time and thought you might like to see some pictures.

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Vacation is Here!

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Every year I use vacation days to take off a large chunk of time in the second half of October. In 2005 we went to Seattle and Vancouver. In 2006 we took a cruise to the southern Caribbean. Last year we spent a week at Disney World. This year our situation is obviously much different, with a new member of the family, new Bible studies, and a new role as a CARES team. So I’m still off duty for the next 10 days or so starting Monday morning, but we’ve altered our plans compared to previous years.

First, we have our normal Monday night men’s/women’s Bible studies and our every-other-Tuesday home group at our place. On one of those days we plan to vote early for the Nov election. Wednesday morning we plan to drop Brenden and the dog off at Grammy’s house and go on an overnight adventure. The location and itinerary are a surprise for Jenny, but I’m very excited and think we’ll have a great time. All I’ve told her is that we’re driving, staying at a bed and breakfast, and spending some time outside. Email me if you want the details.

Thursday is my birthday, my 30th. I’ll address that issue in another post. =) We plan to meet at Crystal’s Pizza in Irving at 7:00 to celebrate like 10-year-olds in case you’d like to join us. Friday night is our CARES Fall Festival, a fun carnival for all the CARES teams, families, and apartment managers. Saturday is our monthly CARES breakfast. Sunday morning Lisa and Phillip are dedicating Reagan at church. So we’ll be plenty busy as usual, but at least I’ll have some time off work to relax and play.

Save Yourself from Drunk Emailing

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Apparently Google Mail has a feature that tries to prevent users from drunk emailing, which (for those of you who don’t do that sort of thing) is similar to drunk dialing (calling people while drunk and saying things you’ll regret later but maybe not remember). Google’s service kicks on during the late night hours and forces you to perform arithmetic before sending an email. Presumably if you’re too drunk to send a legitimate email, you’re also too drunk to do the math correctly. I thought this was both hilarious and potentially very helpful for some folks. A reporter for Time decided to test this new feature and wrote a very funny account of her experiment.

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Hello, I’m a Mac

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For much of my life, I have viewed Mac users as a fringe group – slightly militant, extremely loyal, possibly weird. They loved their weird little computers even though they were a tiny minority in a world dominated by Gates & Company. Although I used Macs in school a bit, my home computer was always a PC. I was used to them. Software was easy to find. New PCs were easy to find and offered a huge, ever-changing variety of features. Sure, they didn’t always behave correctly, and they had various annoying little quirks, but I could usually figure out how to make them comply.

Over the last year or two, I’ve begun to question my loyalty to PCs. Mac popularity is growing. More and more of my friends use and adore Macs. I now own stock in Apple. My home PC has some minor issues that shouldn’t exist, and I’m tired of it. I’m tired of Word. I hear bad rumors about Vista.

It’s time to make the switch – not only to a Mac, but to a Mac notebook that I can carry with me to work, on vacation, into my living room, to church, to the coffee shop, or nearly any other place I want to carry it. After months of speculation and rumor, Apple finally released a new line of notebook computers on Tuesday. Thanks to my October birthday and my generous family, I have some extra cash set aside for this purpose. I think I know which model I want, but I’m going to wait a few days and play with them at the Apple Store first. I hope to see you there!

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Fair Day

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Jenny, Brenden, and I went to the State Fair on Tuesday. I hadn’t been to the fair since high school. Honestly, I’m not a huge fan of fairs. Like Canton, they have too many visitors to wade through and too many vendors trying to sell you stuff you don’t need. But Jenny really enjoys the fair, so we spent the afternoon there before our small group gathering. The weather was BEAUTIFUL, not a cloud in the sky, comfortable temp, and a nice breeze. We saw the dog show, tried a few different foods and wines, checked out some cars, and wandered around the exhibits. Brenden enjoyed most of our excursion, getting a little fussy here and there but enjoying the outdoors, especially when Jenny wore him in the sling. In case you’re going, here are my recommendations:

Try:

  • fried smores (expensive for the amount you get but fabulous!)
  • fried cookie dough ice cream
  • automotive building (to see the 09 Dodge Viper up close)
  • Killdares (Irish rock band that I didn’t get to hear, but my friend Joanne says they are awesome)

Avoid:

  • fried banana split (they left off the banana and ice cream and replaced them with honey and peanut butter – huh?)
  • keeping your coupons in different places (you’ll forget some of them until you get to the car to drive home – d’oh!)
  • weekends/school Fair Days/weekends with major sporting events at the Cotton Bowl such as this coming weekend (it was even crowded on Tuesday, when demand is so low that they let you in for $3 with a can of Dr Pepper)
  • Scientology booth near the Centennial building (it’s black and yellow, and the outside says something about a free stress test)

Roller Skating Date Night

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Friday night, thanks to Grammy and Grampy, Jenny and I had our longest post-Brenden date night yet! We started by going roller skating at Interskate in Lewisville, which is the best deal I’ve seen for roller skating in the Irving area. On Friday it was $5 each plus $3 each for skate rental before 6, and the rink was open all day instead of just a few hours like some rinks. We both tried inline skates, which we quickly decided were fun but less stable than the “quads” of our youth. Most of the customers at 5:00pm on Friday were under 10, and they did NOT play a slow song for couples skating. The only people anywhere near our age were watching children. For the races, there were two boys’ brackets: 6 and under or 7 and above. I chose to sit this one out, which is good because I would have gotten smoked by a teenager who worked for the rink. We still had a blast! Jenny took a picture with her phone of me skating and sent it to our vacationing friend Alexis, who is thinking about having a skating party for her birthday. She sent us back a picture of her at Epcot, where she and her husband were enjoying the Food and Wine Festival. Technology amazes me.

After our feet and legs grew tired, we had dinner at Romano’s. This is a big deal because it’s the first time we’ve done a multi-part date (i.e. a meal AND and activity) apart from Brenden. Dinner was excellent as usual, and we got to use a couple of gift certificates. Finally we stopped at the Super Target to get some wine (see previous post on alcohol sales in Irving) and returned home to find two very happy grandparents.

Once they went home and we put B to bed, we opened some cheap bubbly and watched the original Ghostbusters, which I don’t think I’d ever seen before. Good times, good times. Dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!