a summer past

i have successfully finished the first week of school. granted, it was a short one, but it still took some effort to get through. its always fun to start a new year, get to know the new homeroom, start over with all the lessons and stuff. its certainly one of the best parts of the school year (you know, aside from the summer part...).

for some reason though, i not as excited as i was last year at this time. i think i know why. i think its because i had a really great summer! last summer was good, but i didnt really challenge myself, or grow last summer. this summer i did a lot of things i havent done in a while, and i really got to spend a lot of time working on relationships with friends and family. i spent a bunch of time in michigan, which i always enjoy. but, as strange as this may sound, the highlight of the summer was spending a lot of time with jeffry lee. its kind of cheesy, but its true. i havent been able to connect with a friend like that in far too many years. the thing is, he has a habit of challenging himself with big-picture questions and always thinking on a larger scale, and its been rubbing off on me. this summer we often talked about life, love, and God. sometimes i get caught up in my own life that i forget to ask questions and challenge myself.

i would have to say, this is the first summer in a while that i feel better at the end than i did at the beginning.

doomsday ahead

the start of the school year just keeps getting closer and closer. today i actually had to wake up on time! that sucks! and you know what? i have to tomorrow too! what is this crazy world coming to?!?

today and tomorrow we are doing in-service type stuff (that means teacher meetings and planning sessions. not too exciting). the real school year starts on wednesday. but, thankfully, we only have a half day. and to make the transition even easier, we have a short day on friday (out at 1:45), and we have monday off! if this fun vacation is going to end, its nice to do it gently...

a night at the museum

friday i met up with a friend and we decided to head over to the art institute of chicago. it free on friday night, so it was a no-brainer... i hadnt been there in quite a few years, so it was really cool to be able to wander the halls once again. the institute has many works of art that are world famous, such as 'american gothic,' 'nighthawks', and 'sunday in the park.' there were some really cool works of art, including some great etchings of the 'gates to Paradise', and a really cool lincoln statue!

after the art lesson was over, we headed down to millennium park and checked out the new orleans jazz band that was playing in the outdoor theater there. it was some groovy music, and there were actually quite a few people dancing around and loving it.

of course, we had to stop at ginos east for pizza! that has to be one of the greatest restaurants in the world! two slices, and i was stuffed to the rafters!

decorations

the race is on for the new school year to begin. this is the last week of summer vacation for us. when ever the last week rolls around, i find myself in the same position every year: crap! ive got to get going on decorating my classroom! ive decided to decorate the room in cartoon characters this year. last year it was superheroes, and the year before that was video game characters. but im only doing characters that are sidekicks. (dont worry, it really does make sense. trust me). ive got a few finished already, but im mostly looking forward to my favorite of the bunch: launchpad mcquack! if you dont know who that is, then you are missing out on a lot!

here are some more pictures of works in progress. ive still got a bunch to do yet. its going to be a busy weekend...

downtown

monday i went downtown chicago. it was rainy and icky, but for some reason we went anyway. i always enjoy going downtown and being a part of the crazy hustle and bustle of the city. we walked the magnificent mile (if you are not familiar with chicago, the magnificent mile is the main shopping part of downtown). one of the places i always like to visit is the 'virgin megastore'. they have two floors worth of movies and music. aaron always loves going there because of their great selection of techno vinyl records. well, we came to find out that the place closed! it just up and moved on us. i made sure to shake my fist at the empty space that used to house it. sadness. sadness.

we ate at a cool place called 'rock bottom'. they had some great food. i think we picked a strange time to eat because we were literally the only ones in there when we arrived! as the meal went on the place filled up pretty good, but for about 15 minutes the whole join was empty! quite strange...

the drive home

on sunday i headed back to indiana. it was a great weekend being back in grand rapids. first i went out to sandy pines and had lunch with the whole family, gram even came out. the weather was a bit rainy, but not too bad.

on the way home i was minding my own business and suddenly, out of nowhere, a dashboard light blinked on! but just for a second, trying to be sneaky as if i hadnt seen it. but i had. it turned on again a couple minutes later. i wasnt entirely sure what to do, not being a car guy and all. so, i did what anyone in my position would do: i called jeffry lee! he knows a bit about cars, so i figured i could relly on his knowledge to get me through.

it was a coolant light, so he said i had to let the engine cool and put some more coolant into the engine. well, getting the engine to cool takes about 45 minutes to an hour. so i got really familiar with that particular shell station... actually while i was waiting my brother called and we talked for about a half hour of it.

once the engine was cooled, i tried to pour in the coolant and it was not at all interested. it turns out that the engine was fine, no coolant needed. argh! still not quite sure what it was, but i figure it might just be the sensor is having issues, or from all the rain i was driving through getting it wet. oh well, i got home safe.

supergood

this afternoon i spent much of the day trying to figure out what version of the days plans were actually going to happen. i believe there were at least three sets of plans with different time lines that were it play at one point or another. after the coordination headache, we settled on our plans.

rex and jeffry lee came over to my place and we chilled until show time. at 6:15 we headed over to the theater and met up with kooch and aaron to take in a showing of 'superbad' (which was really funny). after the show we went to fridays for some eats. with all the schedule changes that went on, unfortunately one person was accidentally left out: molly. she had been waiting at fridays since 8:00, our original meet up time, and was sitting there alone for almost an hour before we showed up. oops...

we had a great time talking and laughing and enjoying ourselves. once dinner was over we headed over to the local pool hall establishment. we shot some stick for a couple hours and had a great time. there was a lot going on, and it was fun to just sit back and take in all the strange nuances as they happened. im am a really crappy pool player, so i paid little attention to the games as we played. i think for the whole night i only shot in one ball. thankfully my partner, molly, was not too concerned so we didnt mind getting our butts kicked by everyone else.

post-billiards, jeff and rex hung out at my place for a bit. there was chatting and chilling. all was well.

IQ

i just took one of those dumb internet IQ tests, and it turns out, according to them, i have an IQ of 131.
not bad considering there wasnt even a single movie trivia question on the whole test!

babysitting

tonight i babysat my nieces and nephew. my sis and bro-in-law werent able to make it to see 'borne ultimatum' when my dad and i saw it, so i figured id offer to babysit and allow them a chance to go out on a 'date night' and see the movie.

it was me and the kids, and we had a lot of fun! we played with legos, rolled around on the ground, created hand motions for famous classical music compositions (to confusing to really explain...), watched a bible song sing-a-long dvd, and just plain had a good time! jackson once again wanted to try his hand at taking pictures with my phone (as seen here).

the kids went to bed great, and soon after jeffry lee stopped by to hang out. we chatted and ended up watching 'bad company', which was surprisingly funny. sis and bro-in-law got home eventually, and we were able to chill with them for a bit. i always like spending some quality time with the kids!

the brinktionary

for a long time i have always claimed that my dad is weird. not a bad weird, just weird. actually, i completely take after him in my personality and sense of humor. so, i guess that makes me weird by default too, which im quite fine with.

well, one of the things that i have always loved about my dad is that he has a vocabulary all his own. growing up we always thought these words were quite normal. much to our surprise, no one else in school understood what we were talking about when we would use one of these words. i soon learned to keep these words to myself, to avoid the confused looks others would give when i would use them.

after letting these words slip once too often among friends and at work, i figured i should show these words the respect they deserve. i have decided to start cataloguing these words and defining them as well, so that when i use them there might not be so much confusion.

so, without further adue, i would like to introduce the latest entry into the 'poke it with a stick' community: the brinktionary!

guests: the rest of the week

after rex left, it was just jeffry lee and i. feeling deep pangs of sadness over his departure, we spent most of the day wailing in agony. once we recovered, we decided that one p'zone a weekend just wasnt enough, so we ordered another batch and got some videos to watch. we decided on a daniel tosh comedy concert video (which was hysterical!), and a direct-to-dvd movie with morgan freeman and john cusack called 'contract'. it was fairly lame. we watched tosh, tmnt (which i reviewed here), contract, then it was sleepy time.
when monday rolled around, we rolled out of bed. we got ready and decided we should take a visit to the ol' interweb; check out what was going down in the land of cyberspace. so we spent a few hours at penara bread. at seven o'clock around and we packed up and hit up the movie theater for a showing of 'stardust'. it was really good, by the way. afterward we went back to the video store to return the movies and get a couple more. actually, we got one movie (pathfinder) and a game (legend of zelda: twilight princess, for the wii). got home and spent a couple hours playing zelda. and it was sweet! also, since the weather was so nice, we decided we should go for a walk. it was a really great time, in fact, our conversation on that walk was probably the highlight of the visit.

tuesday, after watching 'pathfinder', we paid a visit to borders bookstore to pick up a new collection of sci-fi short stories to read together. it was a phillip k dick collection. jeffry lee picked up 'mere christianity' on my recommendation (best book ever!) and a new journal. we needed some grub in our bellies, so we stopped at bennigins. while there, jeff had a strange impulse that he really needed to hear a song from the sixties about summertime. we searched high and low and finally found it in a cd collection at best buy. then it was back home to play us some more zelda!

wednesday was a short one- i wanted to get home in time to see a 4 o'clock showing of 'borne ultimatum' with my dad, so we got up, packed, and were out of there by 12:15. the ride home was good, and it was nice to finally get rid of jeff. actually, i called him later that night just to chat. i must admit, i missed the big lug...

guests: the weekend

this past weekend rex and jeffry lee came down for a visit, and boy did we have fun! the reason for the visit was the chicago comic con (as writen about below). they came up friday night. they were a lot later than anticipated due to jeffs paranoid obsession about making sure he got all his work done before taking a vacation. when they arrived they were hungry, so we picked up some food and spent the rest of the night talking and watching crazy tv shows like 'mind control with darren brown' (which is really cool!)
saturday was the convention. afterwards we stopped at target to get 'hot fuzz' to watch that night. while we were there we got into a rather silly mood. we started talking funny with silly voices and wound up creating a very strange character, but it doesnt matter. stop. we got back to my place and ordered some pizza hut (p'zone- yummy!) and watched 'hot fuzz' and then followed it up with 'reign of fire'. by then we were exhausted and called it a night.

sunday rex hooked up his playstation 3 he had brought with him (its usually against the rules to bring any non-nintendo gaming system into my house, but i made a rare exception...) and showed us some cool movie previews and game demos he had downloaded. he played a game called 'the darkness' which i didnt really care for. around 4pm rex left to go pick up angus oblong from the comic book convention to bring him to grand rapids (how exactly this came about is still a strange mystery to me).

pros and cons

saturday was glorious! rex, jeffry lee and i went to the chicago comic con. we got going fairly on time and got there around 1o:00. it was truly a sight to behold! it was jeffs first con, so we had to baptize him with fire! we entered into the con floor and it was breathtaking.

the place is broken down into three sections: first the publisher booths, where companies like marvel and dc have all their latest wares on display; then comes all the vendors, the people who are selling all kinds of comics, toys, belt buckles, posters, skulls, etc. finally, there is what is called the 'artists alley' where anyone who self-publishes their own stuff can set up a booth and commission drawings, sell comics, or sell prints.

we took our time and meandered all over the huge convention floor, zig zagging up and down each isle looking for different goodies. rex was always on the lookout for anything 'venom' related, i was scouring for anything to do with 'hellboy' or 'stargate sg1', and jeff was just happy to follow along.

it was a great time taking in the sites. the best part of these things is always the super-high nerd factor! there are always tons of people who go all out and dress up in crazy costumes and stuff. part of the fun of going is seeing the ridiculous lengths people go to to pay homage to their favorite comic characters. one of the things that made me laugh the hardest was when a saw a guy with tons of comic character tatoos. the reason it was funny was because all of them were for characters that are no longer around! they were characters that were big in the early 90s, but quickly faded into oblivion once their publishers when out of business. sucker!

by the end of the day i had racked up a pretty good haul: i got a few toys, a couple books, and even got to chat with a friend of adams, and creator of a really funny cartoon: angus oblong! (if you dont know the cartoon, you should totally check it out! the dad is even voiced by will farrel! there are quite a few clips here on youtube- check em out)

oh, and there are tons more pictures here ,here, here, and here.

comic con

i am really looking forward to this weekend. rex and jeffry lee are coming down to visit, and we are going to the one and only: wizard world comic book convention!

ive been there many times over the years. back in middle school i was really in to comic books. that passion carried through high school. when i was old enough (and my parents trusted me enough) i drove down to chicago, by myself, and attended the show. i had an awesome time, but was quite intimidated, mostly because i was trying to navigate chicago by myself, and then all the craziness of the convention center alone too. ive gone back four times since.

now, one important thing to understand is that there are a lot of people there who are really into comics. not just kind of into comics, i mean like full blown obsessed! part of the fun is just seeing all the freaks in costumes (which are usually very ill fitting...) and laughing. a couple times i went with a bunch of friends and we figured it would be a lot of fun to dress up ourselves. but with a twist: we wanted our costumes to look totally crappy! we headed down to meijers and got white t-shirts and markers, the proceeded to poorly draw superhero logos on them. one year aaron made an especially terrible spiderman design, and then proceeded to wear a pair of adult size spiderman underoos over his pants the whole day. we had a blast, and people would actually stop us to take pictures! hah!

im looking forward to it this weekend. rex wasnt able to come last year, and jeffry lee has never gone, so it should be quite a treat.

some pictures

here are a few pictures from last week.

this is of all the girls hanging out at sandy pines.










this one is of the guys hanging out at founders last monday. its jeffry lee, kate, adam, and aaron chatting it up (jeff, of course, is trying to get her phone number...)

new way to rent

i finally came back home this week. you know, got bills to pay and stuff. ive been keeping myself busy with some tv (got to catch up on all the stuff my tivo recorded since i left). one cool thing i noticed this week when i was getting my groceries was a big red vending machine type thing. i stopped to check it out, and its one of those new dvd rental things. its filled with about 50 different dvds that you can rent for a buck each! not bad! they even have all the latest releases and stuff. i figured id give it a shot, so i selected 'the number 23', and 'the proposition'. they actually played perfectly. i brought them back earlier today and figured 'why stop now?' so i got a couple more, 'renaissance', and 'shooter'. not a bad deal, a rental at about 1/4th the price, and no annoying membership card to worry about! granted, its not quite as cheap as the library (free), but it will do.