JRock3x8's Blog - 2old2play

Weekend!

What a great weekend!!

It may have rained through most of our drive to and from Arlington Heights, but we were driving so what do we care? It was decent weather in Arlington Heights and the kids got to run around and see their grandparents and cousins! Kelley's cousin Matthew had first communion and we were invited to the party!

Someone remind me to thank Grandpa Rodney for this...

No party is good without leftovers and Matthew got his mitts on a bun for the ride home. Yes, that bun IS as big as his head and YES, he ate the WHOLE thing.

Sunday was a BEEE yoo tiful day and so after I finished some brief work at the library, we all went over to the park and then the neigbors for a little friendly family baseball game.

Kelley has practicing on the Wii and showed off her baseball skills and her pretty dress...

I helped Matthew with a couple swings and then he said and I quote "I don't need you, Dad!" And you know what? He didn't. The ball is right by my neighbor's Katie's face after he hit it!

Just for good measure - I took a little BP off the neighbor

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Pure Magic

I had some relatives over this past weekend for my daughter's 6th birthday so I busted out Rock Band and it was the life of the party. I've never been more impressed with Rock Band's ability to make total strangers into a functional band and actually make it work.

One thing I discovered about the group experience is that it's REALLY hard to keep your own instrument straight when everyone else is SCREWING UP theirs! I am somewhere just south of a "decent" Rock Band Guitar player. I can get near perfect on all the "Easy" songs but I stall about halfway through on Medium.

Our longtime friends from Milwaukee joined us for a very heartfelt rendition of The Pretenders' "Brass In Pocket". I had no idea what a great voice she had, but she was BELTING out the lyrics as if she had practiced the song in the shower every day of her life (maybe she does!)

Finally, I bring you my sister-in-law and her family (the youngest takes a quick exit on drums in favor of my brother-in-law) working out "Are You Gonna Be My Girl" with a little sass and attitude!

Embedded YouTube Video --> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXmelFmtsuQ

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Amazing Cakes!

Today on Amazing Cakes! we bring you the story of a mother who goes above and beyond for her children's birthdays. Witness some of her previous works of art!

This year, the amazing cake maestro mommy has OUTDONE herself with this amazing Barbie Ball Gown Cake!

The studio audience is clearly impressed!

Pretty good work, Cake Maestro Mommy!

Happy Birthday, Kelley!

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Just Plain Sick...

No one has a right to look this cute at the age of six...

with her Auntie Jennifer :

and just for old time's sake, the same picture almost exactly six years earlier :

Big YAWN!

...aaaaaand Good Night!

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Park Season Returns!

At last after this brutal long winter where even March felt like February, even after April 1st where we could see our own breath - finally, FINALLY we get a day where we can go to the park without our jackets!

Matthew is really amazing in how much he's grown up since last year - he would barely climb this thing last year, now look at him!

By the way, they were taking turns saying "Baby Pickles" (which is funnier than "cheese!" for the play camera that's built into the playset (not pictured) :

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Misery

I am sad. Today I figured out why I don't feel very good. I think that chocolate, or more specifically milk chocolate, is triggering some headaches for me. It makes sense because I have always loved chocolate but I have always not felt so good after eating it.

I was trying to do some work this morning while fighting another miserable headache when it occurred to me that there was no good reason for me to have a headache. I'm a perfectly healthy individual, my wife feeds me a very good and balanced dinner every night, and for crying out loud, I've been taking Flintstone's vitamins (can't stomach the adult version) for the better part of six months now.

Then I remembered that I had a slice of my birthday cake last night. And then I remembered that I had a horrible headache on Thursday. Wait for it. I worked from home on Wednesday and for snacks? Chocolate Cake. I was playing a video game last weekend and had to stop because my headache got so bad. Ready? Yah, that was the weekend she made the cake.

So, with tears in my eyes and a knife through my heart, I bid you farewell, Milk Chocolate. I have always loved you but I'm not putting up with these headaches anymore. So long and thanks for all the memories.

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I Got Beat by a Girl...

We bought a Wii. It was fun. Until... (sigh)

I decided I wanted to try out Wii Sports Baseball. My daughter Kelley obliged me as the opponent since my wife was not home. Our first couple games were scoreless as neither of us were faring very well with the controls. And then...it happened.

I was lobbing 60mph fastballs at her trying to give her a fair shot of hitting one.

If you can't tell by now, I'm more than a little bit ashamed of this.

She got one in her wheelhouse and took it out of the park on me.

I got homered off of

by a girl

in a Snow White Dress.

Oh, the horror!

I'm not normally a prideful man but I have to say...that stings a little.

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Rocking out to Rock Band

The kid is something else...

Embedded YouTube Video --> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgwBf8L3xwU

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Rock Band ... Gone Wrong...

So my wife has been playing Rock Band and I took a video of her singing...

Embedded YouTube Video --> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlRYjwYY6Ik

She wasn't so thrilled about that little stunt, so I had to do this to get her to play with me again :

Embedded YouTube Video --> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Qx4XFo44QU

yes it is hammy but then again so is the original :

Embedded YouTube Video --> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yh9cNYlmXEY

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Public Thank You to Rock Band

I have a few chief "thank you's" to the makers of Rock Band, one semi-sarcastic and the others genuine.

First of all, thank you to Harmonix for proving what my wife has been saying on car trips for a decade - I can't sing worth shit. I started a Rock Band solo tour and was boo'ed off the stage twice in three songs (on Easy mode, no less). I never knew I had such a tin ear. The only song that I actually got through was Nirvana's "In Bloom" and even that was REALLY dicey.

My wife on the other hand has never scored below 90%, even on Medium. Even on songs she doesn't know. Even on songs she doesn't LIKE. There is a good side to this though. #1) I now have a lead singer for my band and #2) my wife is actually starting to appreciate rock songs. I go through these songs and I say "Hey you remember that one from college?" and she goes "No...I didn't listen to those songs." But now she actually kinda likes some of my favorite songs and that's COOL!

Last but not least, my wife and I have almost never played video games together. I play shooters, she will occasionally play puzzlers or driving games like Burnout. We played Band World Tour for an hour this morning, together. I can't remember the last time we both played on the 360 at the same time. Playing video games with your wife is COOL.

Thanks again, Harmonix.

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A Very Big Win

On March 6, 2005, I got a phone call from my grandmother. She was calling to rub it in. You see, Ohio State (where a number of her children went to college) had just upset my alma mater Illinois on the last regular season game, ending Illinois' perfect season. As it turns out, Illinois' difficulty with talented big men like Ohio State had that year would manifest itself again a few weeks later vs Loren Woods and Arizona and finally in their only other loss that year vs Sean May and North Carolina. Ohio State was in the midst of a rather terrific turnaround which manifested in last year's National Championship loss to Florida. Thad Matta rebuilt the Ohio State basketball program from a unti that struggled to make the tournament to a national power. That game was a big turning point for them.

Illinois was watching that game with great interest, but not for their basketball team. Their football team was in one of the worst stretches in school history. Newly hired coach Ron Zook had a monumental task in front of him to rebulid a horribly crippled football program. Prior to 2007, the University of Illinois had won 8 games in FOUR YEARS. That's an average record of 2-10 for four years. That's bad, really bad.

The recruiting improved immeasurably starting with the star of the day, Mr. Isaiah Williams, aka Juice. They almost broke out last season beginning with a great win against Michigan State. They had Indiana and Wisconsin in deep deep holes before giving up big leads in the second half. They even took #1 Ohio State last yera to a closer than expected 17-10 dogfight loss. My father, a big OSU fan, told me that usually the year after you lose all the close games, you start winining them.

This year didn't start out that way - a loss to Missouri that in hindsight looks much better now than it did then. Wins vs Western Illinois and a weak Syracuse team did little to bolster my confidence. But then they handled Indiana on the road rather convincingly, and they beat ranked Penn State at home. And then they really surprised me by putting away Wisconsin at home. Losses to Iowa and Michigan put things back in perspective - this team still had problems. Wins versus Ball State and Minnesota were expected, although I was impressed with the way they beat Minnesota with Juice having his best game of the season. Up until that point, I was a big fan of pulling Juice in favor of freshman McGee.

I loosely jabbed an OSU alum coworker on Friday, asking him if he had enough alcohol around to drown the sorrows of a loss. I gotta be honest - I didn't really think they'd win. The opening drive felt a lot like their only loss of the 2001 Sugar Bowl season when they were absolutely ripped by Michigan. But they responded. They took every punch that Ohio State handed out and then delivered some of their own.

In my mind, Jim Tressel bet heavily on his team's ability to stop the run, and when Juice beat them with his arm (4 TD passes), OSU just had no idea what hit them. On almost every big play that Illinois had, OSU was caught trying to crowd the line to stop the run. If the run got past their front 7 or if they decided to throw deep, there was all kinds of green grass out there to run in with no safeties to help cover.

Illinois' defense also got much better as the game went on. J Leman played like a man possessed and the DBs were very opportunistic with Boeckman's errant throws. You just can't understate the power of Illinois' blocking late in the game though. That's unheard of - they're running the ball - OSU knows that Illinois is running the ball. And OSU time and time again couldn't stop them. Illinois ran off the final 8:09 to kill the game and they never threw a pass. That's amazing.

So, Grandma, instead of a phone call, I give you this blog to return the favor. We won. And I hope that Illinois is in Ohio State's position soon.

GO Illini!

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Daddy Daughter Dinner Dance

Watching your little baby girl grow up in front of you is one of the most rewarding and painful experiences a man can go through. Last night was another rite of passage - the Daddy Daughter Dinner Dance.

We both dressed in somewhat formal attire - I must say my date was looking quite striking last night :

As is tradition, we took a couples picture before we left for the big date :

We had a small bit of misadventure on the way to the banquet hall - we actually went to the wrong hall. Schererville (our town) has two St. George churches, both very large and both with entertainment facilities. We went to the one closer to our house where they told us that we had chosen the wrong place. I saw another Dad out in the parking lot and I headed him off to save him some time. Little did I know this guy makes his own time out on the roads as I found out later.

Anyways, we went back home to ask Momma where we were supposed to be and of course she had taken Matt to Target to go shopping. I had a vague idea of where the other St. George church was so we headed in that general direction. Unfortunately for me, my vague idea of where it was was slightly off which added about 10 minutes of driving in the wrong direction before I figured it out. On the way, I saw this car zipping in and out of traffic, not actually making any headway but at least he let everyone else know he was in a hurry. At the next stoplight, I glanced at the driver and it was none other than the guy that I had stopped at the wrong hall. It gets better.

We finally got to the hall where Kelley and I were greeted by the very friendly hostesses of the event. As Kelley and I walked in, there was a line for the buffet style dinner that at this point had wrapped halfway around the room. There were about 20 8 person tables and the room was pretty much filled to capacity. I decided not to make Kelley stand in line for 20 minutes and luckily for us, the waiter had brought out bread, so Kelley snacked on bread until the line died down. After we had been seated for about 5 minutes, who walks in? Mr Speedy Gonzales - I waived at him and just laughed.

There was also a line for formal pictures but it was a cash and check only operation so we passed on it - maybe next time. They also couldn't afford to keep the picture setup for long because they had the camera and backdrop right on top of the dancefloor. So they gave a final call for pictures and then closed it up.

Of course, once the dinner line actually did diminish, Kelley had pretty much filled up her appetite with bread, but they had a dessert table with pineapple, strawberries and bananas. Kelley picked up half a plate of pineapple, half a plate of strawberries and a cookie with sprinkles on top. They also had a chocolate fountain which Kelley really wasn't interested in, but the skewers for the chocolate fountain she liked very much :

I sat her back down to eat her fruit and then ran back to get my own dinner plate. I had a nice plate of pasta and some salad - standard buffet fare but good nonetheless, even after 20 minutes of waiting in line or so.

As dinner wound down, they turned down the lights and turned on the dancefloor. A pretty impressive setup for a Girl Scout Troop, I must say. It looked to me like one of the dads was a DJ and he brought his full setup complete with colored strobe lights. Kelley wasn't interested at all in dancing at first - I think she was taken aback a bit by all of the girls she didn't know jumping around on the dancefloor. I had to question the DJ's song selection a little bit when he threw on Aqua's "Barbie Girl" for the second song but it was pretty standard wedding dance fare from then on, with all of the usual hip-hop stuff that I really don't care for.

Embedded YouTube Video --> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=st7waojEXDg

Fortunately, they sprinkled in about every half an hour a slow dance song for the dads and we all gathered on the dancefloor with our petite dates. After one of these songs, Kelley decided she would keep dancing with her dad out on the dancefloor. And so it went for about an hour - she wasn't out mixing it up with the other girls very much, but at least she was out on the dancefloor with her dad having fun. The flipside of that was that I was the only adult on the dancefloor as all the other dads sat at the table and watched. I hardly noticed - I had my baby girl spinning in front of me making her skirt flare out as she did. She liked the effect so much that she did it about every 30 seconds for the rest of the night.

Then they started a train of girls and at last Kelley got the bug to go out on her own :

Then the DJ started a limbo line which he discouraged the adults from participating in - "we don't need any torn ACL's or bulging discs after tonight". He was personable - I'll give him that

As they came back around in line for the next limbo turn, Kelley got her groove on in line with the other girls :

After the limbo was over with (none of the kids were really doing it right, so there wasn't really a "winner") we had a final stretch of songs for the evening. And for the finale, you know there's only one song that would really work : "Butterfly Kisses" by Bob Carlisle. I have always had a hard time of listening to that song because it's so good but having my 5 year old girl standing in front of me looking up at me while the lyrics rolled out was really really hard.

"There's two things I know for sure:
She was sent here from heaven and she's
daddy's little girl.
...

In all that I've done wrong I know I must
have done something right to deserve a hug
every morning and butterfly kisses at night.

...

But I remember
Butterfly kisses after bedtime prayer; sticking
little white flowers all up in her hair.

...

She'll change her name today.
She'll make a promise and I'll give her away.
Standing in the bride-room just staring at her.
She asked me what I'm thinking and I said "I'm not
sure-I just feel like I'm losing my baby girl."
She leaned over...gave me butterfly kisses with her mama there,
Sticking little white flowers all up in her hair
"Walk me down the aisle, Daddy-it's just about time."
"Does my wedding gown look pretty, Daddy? Daddy, don't cry!"

Oh, with all that I've done wrong I must have
done something right.
To deserve your love every morning and butterfly
kisses-I couldn't ask God for more, man this is what love is.

I know I gotta let her go, but I'll always remember
every hug in the morning and butterfly kisses. "

Right about the end of that song I was praying that no one could see me because I just welled up with emotion. I've never made any secret of my affection for my baby girl and at that moment it really just poured out of me.

The song ended and we headed home. All through the drive and even in getting ready for bed that night I kept having to remind myself that she's still my baby girl, even as she continues to be a little less so every day.

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Choices In The Dark

Every morning I shower and get dressed for work downstairs away from the rest of my sleeping family so as not to wake them. My closet for work clothes is without a light so sometimes it's tricky to tell what's what.

That is particularly true of my two belts. I wear a brown belt and a black belt to complement my various outfits that I wear to work. Charcoal, Black, and Grey pants typically go with the black belt. Navy, Khaki, and Green Pants typically go with the brown belt, although I do mix things up on occaion.

Here's the problem. I always pull the wrong belt out of my closet. No matter which one I think is the brown one, it turns out to be the black one and vice versa when I pull it out into the light. This summer, my wife bought me a stick up light to put in there but I won't use it and here's why.

I think there's an important lesson to be learned here - I use this daily exercise to remind myself that choices made in the dark are usually poor ones. In some cases, shining an actual light may not help. Human Relationships are notoriously difficult decisions to make and too often I/we make those decisions rashly, only to wish later on that we would have taken a bit more care with what we had said. Impulse purchases are another example : what seems like a necessity or an incredible bargain today may become tomorrow's latest ignored piece of junk in a closet or on a shelf.

In my case, until you shine the light of Christ on your decisions, you really don't know right from wrong, black from brown.

So therefore, I go on picking the wrong belt every morning if only to get my day off on the right foot to understand that walking in the world without a true light in your life will lead you to many paths you did not intend or even want. Holding your decisions up to the light of Christ will usually "shed light" on the right answer.

God's Blessings to All.

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Train Show in Griffith, IN

(Editor's Note : I am a couple weekends behind in my blogging. I would like to say the problem will get better but with starting a new job, that's more than likely not true.)

On September 29, the day before my son's 3rd birthday party, I took the kids to a train show in neighboring Griffith. My son is infatuated with all things train recently so I saw this as a good opportunity to let him explore that a little bit.

It started out fairly cool that day - you can see the kids wearing jackets but by the time we got out of the car and walked over to the little park where the trains were, it was quite warm.

I never did get Matthew to look at the camera for most of these pictures. He was so thrilled with all the model trains and such that were on tables.

We took a ride around on a fake train they had set up. It was more like a riding lawnmower with several riding cars attached but the kids got a kick out of it.

I took this picture 3 times before I finally got Matt to look at the camera :

The other 2 are him staring up at the crossing signal.

Kelley got in the act of not looking on this one too.

On the way out, we saw another little red head girl and her mother and I had a short exchange that went something like this :

Mother : "There don't seem to be that many red head kids these days."

Me : "Nope, just the special ones."

I wanted to go to shopping after this little adventure (give the mommy some more time to clean up the house for the party) but about 30 seconds after we got into the car, Matthew was out cold, so home we went.

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My Son's First Train Ride

As stated in earlier blogs, my son is fascinated with all things trains. Momma and Kelley took a full day trip to the "Covered Bridge Festival" and no, I don't have any idea what that is either other than the fact that it's girly and boys aren't allowed. Sounds good to me.

One of the stops along my train ride to work is 57th St which is the stop for the Museum of Science and Industry. I thought Matt would really enjoy the opportunity to ride on the same train as his daddy does and we could go see the miniature trains at the Museum.

It was good plan and it sorta worked. Sorta. We got to the East Chicago train station with just enough time to get up to the platform and catch the scheduled train (trains on the weekend run every 2 hours, so it was catch this train or drive up to the museum). I should have known this day was going to be a little unusual when they said the scheduled train was running 30 minutes behind schedule.

Matt watching for the next train :

Not wanting to keep Matt standing up and quiet for 30 minutes, we headed back down to the little snack shop in the train station to enjoy a couple cookies that Momma had made for us.

I have to say that Matt was exceptionally good the whole day. We finally went back up the platform to catch the train. Matt leaned his head out so he could see the train coming. I picked him up to make sure he didn't get too adventurous. As the train got closer, he grabbed me a bit tighter and as the train flew past us, he clenched a bit. I don't think he was quite prepared for how close the train was going to be to the platform. I gave Matt my previous month's ticket so he could have something to show the conductor (he rode for free).

When he saw trains outside the train we were riding in, he was absolutely in seventh heaven.

We finally got to the museum and found out we were actually 15 minutes too early. So we sat down and waited. Then we toured the Star Wars exhibit (separte blog entry, not all that impressive if I'm being perfectly honest). Following Star Wars, we went to see Matthew's trains. He was extremely excited.

After about an hour of this, he was getting pretty pooped and was ready to go, but unfortunately we had just missed the scheduled train. If I'd thought about it, we probably would have caught the train because it was delayed. So I marched him around MSI for another hour and then he was definitely done.

Thinking that we had plenty of time until the next train and remembering that I had seen a McDonald's on the train, we set out in search of some lunch (I had not eaten a thing all day). We walked from 57th to 55th only to discover that the McDonald's was all the way up at 51st and I had no desire to drag Matt all that way plus I didn't think we could make it that far and back before the next scheduled train (notice how I keep using that word, "scheduled"). So we went to a small coffee shop in the train station for 20 minutes and then headed up to the platform to wait for the train.

About 5 minutes before the train was scheduled to arrive, they told us (via a loudspeaker, there were no ticket agents on site) the train heading into Chicago was 30 minutes late and the one coming from Chicago to take us back home had been cancelled. About 30 minutes later, they told us that the next train out of Chicago was also cancelled and it would be 4pm (four hours from the time it was) before we could get on a train to go home. Oh, and the delayed train coming into Chicago still hadn't arrived.

Julie had my cell phone, so I had no way of getting more details. I briefly considered trying to take a cab home, but the cost of doing so just boggled my mind. I finally figured the best thing to do was to get downtown and figure out what the heck was going on.

I went to the southbound platform and the inbound train finally shows up, an hour late. I get on and the conductor starts yelling at me saying they weren't supposed to take on any passengers. She told me to exit the train, but I was having no part of that. I was a monthly paying customer and they were stranding me in Hyde Park for 4 hours. We had a testy but short exchange, and she let me ride. I think once she got closer to me, she recognized me as a frequent rider.

Matt was running out of steam and fast. At about 12th Street, he crawled into my arms and quickly fell asleep. It turned out that the next train outbound was 2pm, not 4pm, so we got on that train and headed home. I had wanted to go to Subway and get something to eat (still starving) but the thought of trying to manage a sandwich while Matt was still sleeping convinced me not to.

Matt slept most of the train ride home and he was about as adorable as he has ever been. It was one of those really neat father-son moments, despite my hunger and mild discomfort of trying to get into a position where he could sleep and I could sit.

On the drive home we stopped at Wendy's and I got some food (finally) from an exceptionally perky (and loud) window attendant. We finally got home, no worse for wear from our little adventure, but a little tired and with a mild headache.

Matt and I settled down to watch some Thomas the Tank Engine and I said "I love you, baby." He replied, "Love you too, Daddy." It was a pretty special moment and well worth all the difficulty of the day.

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