work work work

here is what is so surreal about my life: ive only got 12 more days of work until the end of august. i have to work 12 days of the next 14 weeks. im not saying this to brag, im just stating how strange this is.

ok, and to brag just a little...

???

tommorrow night is going to rock!

ill fill you in later...

*update* heres what went down.

mothers day

on sunday i went with my parents to my grandmas place. all the uncles and aunts were getting together, and mom said i was invited. i was a bit reluctant at first, being the only grandkid going, but i got over it and went anyway.

it was great to see everyone again, it had been quite a while since i had seen some of my uncles and aunts. i wasnt able to make it to the family christmas party, so i missed out on the fun then. that side of the family is quite close, so i always look forward to a chance to see any of them.

in the evening tim and jill came over with all the kids and we played outside and grilled out for dinner. we gave mom her gifts (or more accurately, her gift certificates...) and had a great time being silly with the kids, and just genuinely enjoying the evening together.

i am very thankful i got to take monday off and be able to enjoy that night with the family instead of having to drive home! (the extra sleep wasnt too bad either...)

a fine cuisine

my version of culinary art

weekend hangin

last weekend i headed home for mothers day. i know im not going home for memorial weekend, so i figured id head up last weekend instead. also, i still had a day of vacation, so i took off monday and stayed up there an extra day, which is always excellent!
it was a fun filled action packed weekend. well, not really, but it was still a blast! on friday i headed to the folks place and chatted with them for a while. when jeffry lee and i finally caught up we decided to go see a movie. he wanted to see disturbia, but i was not at all interested. so we settled on 'fracture'. it was pretty good. after the flick we went to tgi fridays and had dinner. we got talking and catching up that we actually closed the place down at 2:00am! i dont think ive ever done that before! we headed down to our cars, and sat and talked for another hour! hes always got something interesting to say, and he is a really great listener, so just the conversation was enough to make it a great night.
saturday the family and i went out for breakfast. then mom and i took my niece to the mall. we got her a cute little ducky stuffed animal which she loved until we had actually paid for it, then she decided that she hated it. thats kids for ya. in the evening i met up with jeffry lee again. we went out to eat and took part again in some great conversing. for old times sake wee went over to toys r us (which i actually used to work at, but thats another story...) to check out the cool transformer toys. eventually we made our way over to the movie theater and checked out '28 weeks later'. it rules. we ended the night shooting some stick. a great time was had by all.

finally, its all mine!!!

after almost four and a half years, this beautiful stallion is finally all mine!!! i unfortunately got a car loan all those years ago that restricted how quickly i could pay it off. i wasnt allowed to pay it off early, or i would face a couple hundred dollar fine.
well, the restriction was lifted today- so right after work i raced down to the bank and wrote my last check for the car! i am very excited to finally have it payed off- now if i could just get rid of those pesky credit card bills...

looking ahead

i get to go see these three this weekend! i cant wait!

free comic book day!

after going out for breakfast with ken, we went to go see spiderman 3 (a second time for me). on the way back we were talking about the movie and about the comic books that the characters are based on, and then it hit me! i had almost totally forgotten! saturday was free comic book day!!! i brought it up to ken and he was in, so we headed over to the local comic shop (a first for ken), and checked out what free stuff was there for the taking. after milling around for a bit we found the free stuff and grabbed as much as we wanted! oh, how i love free stuff! ken enjoyed flipping through a few issues on the shelves and seeing what his favorite superheroes were up to these days. we each grabbed about 10 free comics (i bought a copy of wizard and a tpb i had never heard of) and headed out. i dont know if ken will read the books, but it was really fun to share the comic book store experience with someone. now that i think of it, i think that may be a first for me- bringing someone with me to the comic shop.

thank you free comic book day, for bringing people together!

a very fun bad choice

thurday i was chilling at home after work. i had just finished dinner and the phone rang. it was a friend i havent really kept in touch with lately. i saw him the night earlier, but otherwise it had been about a year and a half since we last saw each other.

he calls me up and presents me with a question: "we have an extra ticket to see a midnight showing of spiderman 3. are you in?"

here is the problem: i am an adult with a full time job, i have many responsibilities and am accountable for doing a good job at work. and i really like my sleep. if i were to go, i would not be home untill 3:00am, there by destroying any chance of having a good day at work. i had also already made plans to go and see the movie with another friend on saturday. there was really no reason for me to accept the offer, it would be foolish, irresponsible, and childish.

which is exactly why i said yes! we ended up having a great time, i met up with him and a few of his friends i had never met at bw3 before the movie. we hung out for an hour and talked, i got to know them and we had some good laughs as well. we went to see the movie (which i talk about here), and i finally got to bed around 3:30am. oops! amazingly enough though, friday went just fine, i didnt feel any more tired than usual. so, the only side effect of going was a great time and a chance to meet some new people. not to bad, huh?

dark before the light

this winter was a rough one. not necessarily the weather, it was actually a fairly mild winter, except for about a week there where we had a huge blizzard of snow (and two canceled days of school!!!). the truth of the matter is that it was a rough winter for me personally. im not entirely sure why, but the dark months of winter were also dark months for me. nothing really bad happened or anything, life went on as usual. work was good, family was good, church was good, but i wasnt. as darkness creeped in earlier and earlier each night, i was feeling a sense of depression creep in on me.
i cant recall any particular day or event that triggered it, but i was definitely withdrawing from those around me. after work i would head home and try to think of a good reason to call someone to hang out, or just to get out of the house. as time went on i found less and less reasons to make the effort. so i didnt. passing on invites from friends became more and more common. i think some of them just stopped inviting me at all to do stuff.
i know this is a lot more candid than i usually am with this blog, but its something that i want to acknowledge. about two weeks ago things mysteriously changed, the fog went away. ive been rediscovering my life. work has taken on a renewed enjoyment for me, ive gone out more nights than ive stayed in this week (which hasnt been the case for about 8 months), and i have been reconnecting with old friends. ive even been working on getting healthy again. i dont know what brought about the change, but i am very thankful that it happened, and i look forward to finding joy again!

dearth

i havent updated in a while. sorry about that, i guess i just havent had much to say lately. hopefully that will change soon. starting today!

why clock, why?

i keep doing this! i head over to panera to use their wi-fi with the best of intentions to post on this blog, but then i end up squandering all my time going to different websites! now ive got to get going and this is the only post i have time for. argh. i promise more updates soon.
promise.

guys night

tonight was 'guys night' for my dad and i. my mom had plans to see some old friends, so dad and i took it upon ourselves to enjoy the evening together.
my dad and i are alot alike, we have the same sense of humor, we both enjoy learning about history, we even look alike (which is kind of scary to me- i look like a 52 year old?!?). so when ever we get the chance to spend some time together it is always a good time. well, lately dad has been asking about the movie 300. he saw a special on the historical battle on the history channel (i saw it too) and wanted to see the movie. we hadnt had any time since i got home, so we took the opportunity to see during our 'guys night'. the theater was quite empty (4:00 on a monday, what do you expect?) so his usual comments and questions while we watch movies werent quite as disruptive. i always enjoy his questions because they are usually something like this: 'whos that guy?' which invariably is asked about 3 seconds before they tell us. i get a kick out of that.
after the movie we headed out for dinner at an old favorite: the corner bar in rockford. it seems like a bit of a drive, but my dad swears 'its only seven minutes away!' every once in a while we will go up there and have their amazing hot dogs. they are so good im almost positive they come from the same magic farie hot dog land as baseball stadium hot dogs. we had a great time talking about the historical accuracy of the film the whole way there, and were able to just have some great conversations and enjoy each others company all night.
it never takes much to remind me, but tonight i remembered how much i love my dad. hopefully someday i will be as cool as him.

doin' nuthin.

friday night was a blast! a few of the guys got together at adams, which in and of itself is pretty cool because we rarely get to see him these days. its always fun to hang out with everyone when there are no expectations. the worst times we have together are usually the times when we have the highest expectations. when we plan on going out on the town or makes plans for 'the best night ever', it hardly ever is. when we do that i think we put too much pressure on ourselves and end up disappointed.
friday we had no expectations. our plan for the night consisted of this: 'hey, lets go to adams and hang out'. and hang out we did! we caught up on life, joked with his dad (who is really cool), and then we headed down stairs to chill. after another hour or so of talking and making ourselves laugh, we hooked up my wii and played some bowling. the 'iconoclast' did fairly well, and we had a great time playing.
around 2:00 adam realized what time it was and headed off to bed. we packed up and ended up spending another hour and a half standing in his driveway talking and laughing some more. finally at 3:30am we called it a night.
it reminded me that often he simplest of plans are the most enjoyable.

a comical quandry

there is a comic book shop in town that i go to every once in a while. i used to be totally into comic books when i was growing up, but since college i have lost interest in the collecting aspect of comics. i still enjoy the characters, story, and especially the art, but now i am alot more selective. growing up i would get anything and everything that had my favorite characters in it. my favorites through the years have been mainstream (batman, xmen) and indie (maxx, sandman, cerebus, etc). i used to be all about the characters, but i am now more prone to follow a particular author.
there are very few comics that i still keep up on, and i have gotten alot more patient. i always wait for the collected stories (trade paper backs) instead of the monthly issues. there is one character in particular whom i still keep up with: hellboy. i was initially drawn to him based solely on the art. i love to draw and i deeply appreciate mike mignolas high black and white contrast. that man can shadow a face like no one else!
any way, this past fall i went to the local comic shop because i had heard that there was a new hellboy tpb and i figured i would like to see whats been going on lately in hellboys world. so i go and he doesnt have it in stock. i ask him if he can order it and he says 'no problem'. i then proceed to purchase another book or two and figure id pay for the hellboy order now. cut to last week: i remember 'oh yah, i ordered a comic, maybe i should pick it up'. i drive down to the shop, and what sight do my wondering eyes see? nothing. and here lies the problem. the comic shop is gone!!! the windows are covered in newspaper, the sign is gone. nothing remains.
so, my question is this: how do i get my twenty bucks back?!?

spring already?

what a strange week we have had here. earlier this week spring gave us a little sneak peek- it got all the way up to 68 degrees around here. i actually pulled out some shorts! but the weather was short lived. a day and a half later i wake up to see snow on the ground. quite the change. but with this flipping and flopping, the reality of my upcoming spring break becomes real. how lucky am i? once the weather starts to get nice my job gives me a week off so i can enjoy it. can it get any better? oh, thats right, it does get better- they give me 13 weeks off over the summer too. (did i mention that i love this profession?)

im not going to be doing too much for spring break this year. next friday ill head up to michigan and stick around there till tuesday or wednesday (or until i get sick of it). im not quite sure how i will spend the rest of my time, but thats most of the fun of spring break anyway...

just a little reminder...

ive been doing this blogging thing for a while now, and i really love it. i like to write about what ever is going on or what ever is on my mind. i also like to keep these thoughts (aka ramblings) a little bit organized, so i have created for myself a bit of a blog page empire. i have a different page for different things i want to talk about. the break down like this:
home page: this is where i put stuff that is going on in my life, or general thoughts on whats going on.
critiques: this is where i review general pop culture stuff. everything from tv shows ive watched, video games ive played, dvds ive watched, books ive read, and magazines i have looked at.
music: this is where i review cds ive gotten, or just talk about my favorite bands.
movies: this is where i review movies ive recently seen, or am looking forward to seeing.
etc: just like it sounds; this is where i post random thoughts, quotes, or pictures that catch my interest.
theology: this is where i talk about bigger issues that are on my mind. i need to spend more time on this one...
image gallery: this is where i post photos, mostly of my family or other events i actually remembered to have my camera with me for.

like i said, there are a lot of them, but i spend a bit of time filling up those blogs too, so be sure to check them out as well. and feel free to comment.

oh, and something about a fish turtle...

car problems

last weekend i was stuck at home. friday morning i got ready for school, and when i go out to the car, ready to leave, i turn the key in the ignition. nothing. no clicks, no klunks, just nothing. i quickly gave matt a call. he had just pulled in to school and was nice enough to come and pick me up. friday afternoon rachel brings me back home, and i do what any reasonable man would do: i try and convince my three 'car guy' friends to come down and visit me that weekend! 'so, jeffry lee, what to come and visit?' 'why?' 'oh, no reason...'
the ruse doesnt work. saturday matt and dan stop by (dan is a mechanic and can easily fix it, but he does charge for it) he lifts the car and starts wacking the starter. 'try it now' i do, and it rumbles to life. we drive back to dans house, because hes got a huge garage and tons of rad tools to make my problem go away.
cut to monday afternoon, the cars done and all is well once again in me-land. it set me back a bit, but i knew it was coming. even before the problems started last weekend, i knew car problems were in my future. i knew something was going to happen because i was currently in the perfect storm: recently ive been able to have a little extra padding in my account, my car just passed the hundred thousand mile point, and i almost have it paid off. i would have been amazed if i didnt have car problems!
oh well, it could have been a lot worse...

avery's baptism

last sunday my new little niece had a big day- and i dont think she quite knew what was going on... it was time for that ever important sacrament in the life of a christian family- that of baptism. as members of the christian reformed church, my sister and bro-in-law took part in their tradition of infant baptism. fortunately, i got to be there for it!
sunday night at their church, friendship crc, my whole family, my grandma, a cousin or two, an uncle and aunt, and many of their friends were able to celebrate the event.
it was really cool. avery looked really cute in her outfit- as you can see above! there were even a few surprises for me during the service too- i had been told before, but had forgotten, that the pastor who baptized avery also baptized me! kinda cool! also, after the baptism, all avery's cousins got up and sang a song about how she is now in God's hands. it was super cute and it became obvious that jackson is going to be a performer of some sort- he was hysterical!
unfortunately i had to leave a bit early to beat the weather so i could make it home that night, but i felt really blessed to have been able to be a part of that beautiful night!

last weekend

wow, its been a while since ive been able to post on here! well, i better catch back up-
last weekend i went back up to michigan again to see the family. my brother, who is in the air force and stationed in new mexico, came into town for a visit! i had just been home the weekend earlier, but it was certainly worth the trip again to see him.
friday night we ate at my folks place (we pulled out the grill again) and spent time catching up and talking. after my sis left with the kids i got my bed ready. since my brother was home, he got the spare bed (because my parents love him more than me), and i was stuck with an air matress in the other room. after getting it set up (which included a quick visit to meijers because my dad accidentally threw away the old matress inflater) my brother and i headed over to my sisters house.
we sent the rest of the night playing cards and laughing very hard. such highlights include: 'oh, yah, they call that the pinch hitter', and a unique variation on 'pass' that i am unwilling to share here...
saturday i met up with rexy and putzed around baker bookhouse, toys r us, and woodland mall. jeffry lee joined us for a late lunch, and then he went back to rex's to play with transformers (no lie!). eventually we went to the theater to see ghost rider with aaron. afterward we grabbed a bite to eat, and went to go 'shoot some stick' as they say. it turned out to be a very fun day, even with the emminent promise of a blizzard coming.
sunday after church we had a great meal with my grandma. in the evening my new niece was baptized and i had to race home to see the oscars afterward.
a very fun and packed weekend!