The Cornstalker's Journal

Sushi and hors d'oeuvres

2012-01-29T17:55:00.000-08:00

Last Friday, Vivian and I celebrated our Sushi Anniversary, commemorating five years since we first started dating, and four years since I proposed to her. Since our relationship officially started shortly after eating at Sakura Bana in 2007, we've picked a different place for sushi every year since then (including a trip to the seafood buffet at the Rio in Las Vegas a year ago). Our sushi venue of choice this year was the all-you-can-eat insanity of Wasabi on West Maple. Vivian and I came hungry and devoured two plates of raw fish and rice together and washed it down with a glass of plum wine.

Afterward, we burned off what we could at Jitterbugs Night Out. Grammy and Grumpy were kind enough to take Hannah for the evening so Vivian and I were able to dance until midnight with our friends, just like old times.

On Saturday night, Vivian and I upheld our new annual tradition of Doing Something in January to break up the post-holiday monotony the month of January usually brings. Our idea this time was to have an hors d'oeuvre party, challenging our friends to make tasty bacon-wrapped things impaled on toothpicks and other bite-sized morsels. The winner for the evening was Tamra's googly-eyed crab rangoon, each of which were painstakingly shaped to have actual pincers of the sides. That was cute. Our grand prize was a plastic pig wrapped in a blue blanket. Get it?

Then somebody broke out the Riesling and all hell broke loose. The best part about parties with our friends is that Vivian and I can plan no specific entertainment whatsoever and we still wind up spending a few hours cracking up with each other. Jessica in particular bent over backward (or forward?) for our amusement in-between singing VeggieTales songs and being generally goofy.

Of course, adorable Hannah Marie also added to the fun of the evening. She got passed around to just about everyone, including Eric, who did a little dance with her on his lap that she seemed to get a kick out of. We wrapped up the night playing a couple rounds of Telestrations, concocting horrible new double-entendres that will likely be repeated ad nauseum for the next couple of weeks. (Anybody need to polish the coffin?)

Ingredient Party

2012-01-20T08:22:00.000-08:00

Our house hasn't been quite the same since our cockatiel Babo passed away last Saturday. Flappy seems to be taking it especially hard, screeching and calling out for Babo and noticeably distressed that he isn't around anymore. Vivian's been giving him some extra attention. In other news, Hannah just turned two-months old. Vivian's gone back to work at Friendship Program part-time, leaving Grandpa to play babysitter while she's away. That's proving to be quite an adjustment as well.

We are still finding time to hang out with friends. On Saturday, Phil and Jen hosted an "ingredient party," where everyone brings some random ingredient and then Phil and Jen try to make something out of it. I decided to be horrible by bringing beef kidney and liver, which they were able to turn into a couple of "offal" dishes for us. I also picked up rutabaga, parsnips, turnip, and several other items I can't remember having eaten recently. Jessica and Kristen joined us for dinner and then Monty Python and Meet the Spartans afterward.

In other news, I decided to pull a "ret-con" on my blog my posting year-end wrap-up updated for 2007, 2009, and 2010 in the same way I did for 2011 (and earlier in 2008). It was so much fun looking through all the pictures and memories I'd collected throughout the year that I decided to go back and do it three more times for other years covered in my blog. Click on over and browse through a couple years' worth of memories in pictures that I've collected!

Goodbye Babo

2012-01-16T09:37:00.001-08:00

Baby "Babo" Cockatiel

Baby was born in California and lived with a single man the first of his life. He later to moved to live with the Camozzi family after the man couldn’t take care of him. It is reported that Baby learned the sound of the Camozzi family car and would squawk every time it pulled into the drive way. In 1996 Baby came to live with the Taber family where he was adopted primarily by the father Jack. “Heeeeey Baby” is what Jack would call him. Jack and Baby became good friends and Baby preferred to spend most of his time with him so it made sense that Baby would accompany Jack across country to his new home in Omaha, NE. Baby lived with Jack the first year he lived in Omaha. In 1998 the rest of the family came up to join him along with Baby’s old friend Flapper. Baby and Flapper would eventually become cage mates. Baby enjoyed being the bigger bird, which earned him the nickname “Babo the Bully Bird.” Babo became the primary name he would be called. In 2005 Baby and Flapper went to live with the Taber’s daughter Vivian. Baby and Flapper enjoyed teaming up against Vivian’s roommate Jenny where they would squawk and get out of the cage when Vivian wasn’t home. In 2007 Baby met another new friend Matt and the two of them got to know each other for the remainder of his life. Baby didn’t get out of the cage much, but he enjoyed sitting at the entrance of the opened cage door. Baby also liked getting into boxes, watching curtains swaying, eating Rice Krispies, exploring the ground, sitting on shoulders, getting misted with water from a spray bottle, and looking out the window. He is survived by his cage mate Flapper, Taber family, Johnson family, and all the friends that have come to see him over the years. He will be greatly missed.

Today's guest post obituary written by Vivian, Babo's "mom" of 16 years.

Prairie Cat farewell

2012-01-09T07:38:00.000-08:00

January seems to be a long, boring month, especially coming off the high of the holiday season. The mild, spring-like weather we've enjoyed keeps threatening to come to an end, but Vivian and I have been continuing to love every minute of it.

On Friday night, Nate and Lexi (estranged friends from Twin Valley Church) invited Vivian and me over to their place for an impromptu game night. We brought cookies and some cheese balls and spent a long evening figuring out and eventually playing Citadel. It's a card game featuring several medieval-type characters, and the goal is to gain points by building enough high-value properties on the table before anyone else. It turned out to be a fun little game, especially since I managed to win, though the chances of victory seem to depend highly on what high-value cards a player can manage to extract from the deck (and put into play).

On Sunday, we had another potluck Sunday at church (following a couple meetings) which was always fun — and filling. Vivian made her famous cheesy chicken and chips (made famous from Jenny's cookbook, naturally), and it was gone almost right away.

That following Monday, Vivian went to a "Praise Worship Friends Fun" night at Tamra's with Jonathan Paper, Mark Scheen, Jenny, Ben Anderson, and Katie (with Hannah in tow). That left me free to drop by the Ozone Lounge to bid the Prairie Cats a fond farewell with a handful of Jitterbug friends. The P. Cats has been one of my favorite swing bands ever since I first heard them play at the Lauritzen Gardens in 2007 — right up there with the Brian Setzer Orchestra, Indigo Swing, and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. They've been playing for almost 14 years at such venues as the Cowtown Jamborama and the Windows on the World in the World Trade Center. (Their lead singer is Jeff "Big Daddy K" Koterba, who's also known for his editorial cartoons in the Omaha World-Herald.)

Several "old-timers" dropped by to pay tribute, including "Crazy" Connie, Billy Sobczyk, the "other" Matt Johnson, Sara Pirtle, and a bunch of regulars as well. I had a dance with just about every follow I could find and wore myself out before the end of the night both dancing and snapping pictures. It's nights like these that remind me just how much fun swing dancing can be, if you just get he right music to accompany you onto the dance floor.

Today, Vivian and Hannah dropped by the office to surprise me for a lunch date! We went to Cheddar's, a "casual café" around the corner that's always packed and specialized in... just about everything. I had chicken fried steak, and Vivian got a cheese steak, and we leafed through the new wedding photo album we'd put together on Snapfish over the holidays.

Needless to say, it was a fun outing. We'd been talking about doing a lunch date sometime before her maternity leave ends, and I'm glad we got the chance to do it today — after an extended leave of absence, winter decided to make an unexpected return.

New Year's Dedication

2012-01-03T11:27:00.000-08:00

Happy 2012, everybody! The Johnson Family had a wonderful little reunion of sorts over the year, as you might have guessed from my blog's year-end review. Mom and dad flew into Omaha Thursday afternoon, so I took a few days off work to spend some quality time with them and their new granddaughter. The weather has been unseasonably beautiful for the last few weeks, so we enjoyed both a green Christmas and safe travel conditions for the folks. (It was even warm enough for Vivian and mom to go for a walk with Hannah!)

Naturally, we had to celebrate by dropping by Louie M's Burger Lust on Friday, but mostly we spent a good deal of time doing nothing but taking turns cuddling with Hannah around the house.

On Saturday, Dad and I took a trip to Tish's in Council Bluffs to say hello to Newt Gingrich, who was dropping in again shortly before the Iowa Causes began. The place was jam-packed with people and newsmedia, who all seemed to enjoy cramming into every bit of available space for pictures and video as the former speaker squeezed his way to the podium. Newt's wife Callista was also there, as were Newt's daughters and a handful of grandchildren. Dad was lucky enough to get a seat in the front row, which made for some nice dramatic shots. We stuck around to shake hands with the Gingriches and get a picture with them before heading home.

Back home, the rest of the family — namely Nathan, Renae, and Jonathan — showed up later that evening to exchange belated Christmas gifts (and birthday gifts for the parents). Mom got a puzzle, dad got framed photographs of Grover Cleveland and Calvin Coolidge, and Hannah got a small plush monkey from Campbell University (among other things). I volunteered to make spaghetti for dinner while mom tossed up a salad. It was the first time I can recall the two of us ever cooking together (or at least cooking in the same kitchen). Jonathan brought along an old film called Ruggles of Red Gap, so we watched that while we ate. We called it a night around eight o'clock as Nathan and Renae headed home and mom and dad headed back to the hotel. The rest of us stayed up until midnight to watch the ball drop on Times Square while sipping sparkling wine and Martinelli's to ring in the New Year.

(We also wished a Happy Birthday to Santasaurus.)

On New Year's Day, Vivian and I joined both sets of grandparents and a handful of our friends at Twin Valley Church to witness Hannah's dedication before the congregation. It was wonderful to have both sets of grandparents on hand for the occasion, especially since this was the first grandchild on both sides of the family. Drew said a few words and prayed while holding our little girl. She was very well behaved, though Vivian and I were both holding our breath with pacifier and bottle ready just in case we needed them. Special thanks to Eric for taking all the wonderful photos.

Afterward, we rang in the New Year together down at Village Inn over dark coffee and breakfast-for-lunch. The grandparents joined us again that evening for ham and black-eyed pea soup for dinner. The rest of the weekend wound down quite uneventfully, which was fine by me. We spent more quality time hanging with the folks and taking plenty of adorable pictures before mom and dad flew home Tuesday morning.

So long, 2011!

2011-12-31T23:59:00.000-08:00

It's been a fabulously eventful 2011!
Let's recap (in pictures):

In January, Vivian and I took a "sushi anniversary" trip to Las Vegas, where we saw a Cirque du Soleil show, met Penn & Teller, and lived it up on the strip!
In February, I made Vivian a Valentine's Pizza. We also attended a Mardis Gras party where she found the baby in the cake — a foretelling of things soon to come.
In March, Vivian discovered we had a baby on the way! We celebrated with more pizza.
In April, we celebrated "spent" by binging on spaghetti dinners, fish fries, and all sorts of things leading up to Easter.
In May, we visited St. Louis to say goodbye to some old friends from the comic world.
In June, we took a camping trip up to Niobrara State Park, visiting Gavins Point dam(n) along the way and doing some horseback riding. We also saw the musical Wicked.
In July, Vivian and I took an anniversary trip to Des Moines, spending a fun day swimming and eating lobster. Mom and dad also came to visit, as did my brothers.
In August, I celebrated my birthday like a billionaire. I also had a giant burger.
In September, Vivian and I celebrated her birthday by having a sushi party and seeing Chicago (the musical, not the city).
In October, we carved pumpkins, and dressed up for Halloween. I was the new Number Two, and Vivian was a kitty (but she'll always be my Number One).
In November, our daughter Hannah was born. 'nuff said.
In December, we celebrated the holidays with both sets of grandparents dropping in to dedicate our daughter for the New Year.

2012 proves to be a challenging year, since Vivian and I have been thrust into the role of mom and dad for the first time. We'll see how it shapes up — bring it on!

A Johnson Family Christmas

2011-12-27T12:07:00.000-08:00

Christmas is a time of traditions, and one tradition for Vivian and me is celebrating the anniversary of our first date. It was five years ago last Thursday that I took her down to the Old Market for dinner at French Café (after La Casa Pizza proved ridiculously over-crowded), so we dropped by again to commemorate the occasion. On the menu were Duck Cassoulet, Bouchée à la Reine, and several other things I can't pronounce.

After dinner, we upheld another tradition by bumping into Jenny and Friends, who were down at the Con Agra skating rink. We also made our annual trip to the Old Market Candy Shop for fudge and found the Tannenbaum shop open for the first time in our five years of dropping by. We took a brief, freezing trip down to the Gene Leahy Mall for pictures before running back to 13th Street Coffee to warm up before going home.

On Christmas Eve, Vivian and I attended a candle-light service at Twin Valley Church with her parents (and family friend Shirley). The Rietjens lit the final advent candle, and then Drew read an assortment of scriptures telling the Christmas story while the kids in the church acted out portions while in costume. Yes, it was about half an hour worth of adorbs and kid-friendly silliness in front of everyone (and Sean was somehow rendered speechless).

We returned to our house afterward to find a pile of food and presents on our doorstep. Jack and Donna dropped in with Shirley, and we spent Christmas Eve stuffing ourselves with an assortment of hors d'eourves for dinner before opening our first set of stocking stuffers together. (Hannah meanwhile, just lay around being cute.)

On Christmas Day, Vivian and I dressed Hannah up in her Christmas outfit and attended church together. Back home, we opened presents with Jack and Donna before having a giant Christmas dinner together afterward (with roast turkey, of course). Jack got a meter of chocolate, Hannah got about a thousand ornaments, and I got plenty of pictures of everybody (OK, just a handful). Uncle Eric dropped by to join in the fun and seemed mildly amused at some of the stocking stuffers we'd saved for him.

The greatest gift this year, though, was being able to celebrate with Hannah Marie for the first time, even though she doesn't quite know what's going on yet (outside of eating and pooping). Merry Christmas, everybody!

Christmas Reunions

2011-12-20T12:35:00.000-08:00

On Friday, Mosaic had its annual Christmas party, which was a welcome respite from all the last-minute projects that seem to crop up like weeds right before the holidays. I was able to stuff ourselves with Godfather's pizza and watch Christmas Vacation with several people who had never seen it before (which made it about 1000 times funnier). Others got to decorate cookies and sing karaoke courtesy of Glee for the Wii.

Vivian also made a surprise appearance with Hannah, and several of my co-workers got to take turns holding our little girl (except Brenda, of course, who managed to disappear like a ninja while no one was looking).

By some coincidence, Friday was also the night of the Friendship Program Christmas party. Vivian hadn't seen many of her co-workers since she left for maternity leave back in November, so every few minutes she was excitedly greeting someone. She also got to have her first official "drink" in about ten months (a chocolatini, of course). We filled up on meatballs, sausage, and toasted ravioli courtesy of Venice Inn in the meantime while Betty passed out seasonal door prizes to 80+ different people. Anthony accepted his ceramic snowman as if it were an Oscar and gave a stirring speech until Betty grabbed the microphone back.

Friday night also marked our first trip back to Jitterbugs Night Out since the baby came. Friday was the Jitterbugs' annual Christmas party, so they had the Stan Harper Experience drop by to belt out some swingin' renditions of Christmas songs, (my favorite of which was that Peanuts' Christmas piano song). There was a white elephant gift exchange later on, where a dozen or so guests got to receive random gifts ranging from a collection of swing music CDs to a can of Progresso soup. There was also a Jack and Jill competition toward the end of the night, but Vivian and I had worn out our feet by then and were ready to call it a night. I think we must be out of practice. Still, it was great to see several of our old swing dancing friends, and I'm sure we'll still be coming back.

On Saturday night, the whole family headed up to northwest Omaha for Jenny's annual Christmas party. We put together "gingerbread" houses (with graham crackers) once again, and I took a stab at it this time, finding frosting to be a somewhat inadequate adhesive for constructing anything much larger than a graham cracker tent.

We had our own white elephant gift exchange, which enabled Vivian to trade in a star-shaped candle holder for a half-full bottle of washer fluid. I lucked out by swapping a kitschy "Have a Dickens of a Christmas" diorama for a set of "hobo tools" (consisting of a Swiss-army style fork and spoon), narrowly escaping the clutches of a stainless steel necklace holder in the process. Other noteworthy "prizes" included a copy of The Day I Shot Cupid by Jennifer Love Hewitt, a book Jon seemed to enjoy leafing through quite a bit.

On Sunday, Vivian and I took our turn lighting the advent candles before the church (the theme for this one was "peace"). It also gave us the chance to introduce Hannah formally to the rest of the congregation, though almost everyone has had the chance to see her being adorable for just about anybody willing to hold her so far. That afternoon, Grammy and Grampy dropped by for a photo shoot with Hannah, and later on we took her on her very first walk around the neighborhood. She seemed quite fascinated with being outside for a change and looked up at the sky (or what she could make of it) with amazement.

That evening, a large group of us went by the Hillcrest home down on Harlan to sing Christmas carols to the residents there. Jessica Ritchie accompanied us on piano when we found one availabe, and we decked the halls together for a good hour making sure everyone possible got a bit of Christmas cheer. Afterward, we retreated back to Twin Valley Church to have some spicy venison chili courtesy of Jeff before heading home.

Monday evening a big night for reunions for both Vivian and me. I took a trip down to Lincoln to catch up a bunch of my fellow Land and Sky "alumni" over dinner and drinks at Granite City. Joining us were (from left to right) Dan, Jeanie, Vanchessa, Julie, Paul, and Mark. It's been a good three years or so since I've seen anybody from the old "gang," and it brought back a lot of memories — most of which I probably shouldn't repeat here. Thanks, Julie for getting us all together once again!

As for Vivian, Gail — her old best friend from high school and "Babo's" previous owner — dropped by with her husband and little girl to pay us a Christmas visit. Vivian had been communicating with her online via Facebook for as long as I've known her, I think, so it was nice to finally meet up. They spent the day touring the Children's Museum downtown, where Hannah got to "ride" on a slide and wiggle around in the "wiggle room." We'll have to take her back there older when she'd big enough to stand inside of a six-foot bubble. We had dinner that evening together at Carlos O'Kelly's and then I took everyone downtown for some ice cream at Ted & Wally's. The place still seemed to be packed in spite of the fact that it's December, but we managed to beat the rush and have a scoop of egg nog, maple walnut, and "halva nice day" ice cream before calling it a night.

Christmas, here we come!

Duck butt jammies

2011-12-12T06:58:00.000-08:00

Our venture into parenthood had been going fairly well so far, and we've been able to make the rounds and share Hannah's adorableness with several of our friends so far. On Friday night, Sarah Adair had an Ugly Christmas Sweater party over at her apartment in Papillion. Hannah was more or less comatose the entire evening in her duck-butt jammies, but we did get to pass her around a bit and had a quick OMG I'm hungry feed me moment. Mostly, we sipped wine and played a couple loud rounds of The Last Word and Wits and Wagers, with Eric playing referee at times.

On Saturday night, we had something of a "coming out" party for Hannah, which was essentially her last little baby shower. Donna baked a giant baby bassinet cake, and several of her friends and co-workers dropped by — Keith and Shelley, Shirley and Roxanne, Sarah Busch, and even Uncle Nathan and Aunt Ranae. We stuffed ourselves with meatballs and salad for dinner, and Vivian opened a bunch of presents before we moved on to dessert.

On Sunday, Vivian brought Hannah by Twin Valley Church for her first time in church. Naturally everyone stopped by to coo and look at the new little bundle we'd brought. Hannah was fairly well behaved, and we were even able to drop by Taco Bell with a bunch of the gang without much trouble.

Back to normal

2011-12-05T11:08:00.000-08:00

Well, Vivian and I are parents now, and we're slowly adjusting as life gets back to "normal," whatever that is now. Hannah seems to be a pretty good sleeper, able to zonk out for a couple hours when we drop into a chili party. We've both gotten pretty good at changing diapers, making bottles, and figuring whether our baby wants food, changing, or cuddles. It's been a joy, but now that Vivian's recovering, we're slowly returning to the real world outside our home in Bellevue.

On Friday night, I took a much-needed trip up to JNO for some swing dancing. (Vivian was still not up for it, but hopefully will be in a couple weeks, just in time fort he Christmas party.) We have live music courtesy of The UNO Big Band, and I had the chance to play with my new camera some more and capture several snapshots that I never could with my smaller point-and-shoot.

On Sunday night, we brought Hannah out for her first public appearance at Eric and Ben's annual Chili Throwdown event. Vivian and I have attended this culinary competition for the past three years now, so we knew we couldn't miss it. She slept like a pro throughout the entire event, but it was fun to introduce her to everyone who happened to stop by her little car seat/carrier

I created my own last-minute entry — a concoction I dubbed "bacon cheeseburger" chili. Naturally, it contained everything a good cheeseburger would have — cheese, ground beef, onion, mustard, relish, tomatoes, and one special ingredient for one special person: KETCHUP! I tailored this chili for the "most unique" category, which I'm sure it could have won if it hadn't been eliminated. Eric said it sparked a lot of "discussion as to whether it was actually chili or not. I mean it contained all the usual ingredients, save for one: chili powder. It didn't win any awards either way, but it was fun to make (and eat).

This year's winners were Bri for best non-chili entry (potato soup), Adri for third place, Julia for second, and C.J. for both spiciest chili and first place. Congrats, guys!

Oh, did anybody notice that it's December already? That means Vivian and I had to run out and grab a Christmas tree. We're in the process of decorating now. We also had to get our Christmas letters taken care of, and that meant getting a new family picture with Hannah! Tamra was kind enough to take some picture of us when she was over for a baby-holding session on Sunday.

Special delivery: continued

2011-11-28T09:17:00.000-08:00

Vivian and I have had our little baby girl Hannah home for a couple days now, and we're quickly becoming adjusted to the mind-boggling idea that we're now parents. Here's how it all came down last week.

Vivian had been diagnosed with pre-eclampsia and put on bed rest the week before our baby came. She went in for a check-up the following Monday, which included an ultrasound that revealed our baby to be in the "breech" position. Vivian's doctor decided to perform a c-section the next morning at Bergan Mercy hospital rather than risk Vivian going into labor with a baby facing the wrong way.

It was an amazing bit of news to digest, and I have no idea how I got any sleep the night before (Vivian actually got no sleep whatsoever). We celebrated the news of our forthcoming little one with a "last meal" as a childless couple at Ruby Tuesday around the corner.

The next morning, Vivian and I showed up at the hospital at 6:30 for a couple hours of paperwork and preparations before the big moment came. I got all scrubbed up and ready with my fully-charged camera to capture every moment in the operating room.

Vivian went in for surgery at 8:30, and by 9:07, our little daughter Hannah Marie emerged from her womb covered in blood and vernix, making her a "cheesy" baby. (Is anybody surprised?) The nurse cleaned her up and then we settled into the recover room for a few hours as I busily told everyone I could the happy news via cell phone.

The long recovery came after the baby was delivered on Tuesday. I got to dive headfirst into fatherhood changing my own baby's diaper and giving her a sponge bath when needed. We had a steady parade of visitors dropping by over the course of our hospital stay, namely Dennis and Kara, Randy and Jolene, Eric, Venche, Lexi, Pastor Drew, and a few others. There's nothing like a baby to draw in a crowd, and we had plenty of picture of our little bundle of joy flying around social media with every visit.

Vivian's stay extended through Thanksgiving, so we had a makeshift Thanksgiving Dinner with her folks in the hospital's dining hall. They had all the typical Thanksgiving foods for us, and it was a nice reprieve from our little room in post-partum.

Vivian and the baby were released from the hospital on Friday, and I got to figure out how to use a car seat in our effort to get little Hannah home safely during her very first car ride. Since then, we've been learning her schedule for feeding and sleeping, which seems to be a bout of "cluster feeding" during the day followed by long period of near comatose sleeping during the night. Lucky us.

My brother Jonathan dropped by over the weekend to see his new nice (as did Maggie and Eric) and he stuck around Sunday night for our "real" Thanksgiving dinner with Grammy and Grampy Taber. Naturally, there was plenty of baby-holding and baby-feeding in the midst of stuffing ourselves with another enormous Thanksgiving meal (which included perennial favorites like green bean casserole, Taber salad, that green fluffy stuff, and poppy seed rolls to go along with the turkey and stuffing).

It's been quite an adventure becoming parents so far, but we're getting quickly settled into home life once again. Of course, we've had a steady stream of visitors coming by to see our new little girl. I have a feeling we're going to see the most-photographed generations in history, if our friends below are any indication.

Welcome home, Hannah Marie!

Special Delivery

2011-11-24T12:03:00.000-08:00

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Hannah Marie Johnson, born 11-22-11 at 9:07 a.m. weighing 5 lbs. 9 oz. and measuring 19 inches long. On Monday, Vivian got a checkup with an ultrasound that showed little Hannah was "breech," so our doctor schedule a c-section the next morning. They didn't want Vivian do go into labor and risk delivering our little girl feet-first into the world.

The baby is doing just fine, and mom is sore but recovering quickly. If you'd like to see more pictures of our special delivery, you can view them on our Flickr account.

Final showers, a hobo party, and a new camera

2011-11-08T12:41:00.000-08:00

Vivian and I are going to be childless for only a few more weeks as the baby countdown is well underway. Vivian's had a number of showers up to this point, one most recently at our church at Twin Valley. I somehow managed to get roped into a baby shower of my own at Mosaic, which turned out to be a big, joint affair since Nicole, one of my co-workers, is having a baby as well (born 11-11-11). It's all very overwhelming, since we both have such generous friends and co-workers. We have enough diapers and baby wipes to last us well into our child's teenage years.

We've still managed to have some fall fun with our friends as well. Our friend Tamra threw an impromptu "hobo party," which involved eating chili out of tin cans and trying to figure out how to have a fire inside a large boat shed while the wind was howling outside (too much to keep a fire going). Joining Second-Hand Matt and Sassy Pants Vivian were Grubby Heather, Goofy Jenny, Wild eyed Lou, Two-Tooth Tamra, Cardboard Mark, Jon, Heather Amanda and a couple others whose hobo names I can't remember. Mark broke out the guitar at some point to strum through some sheet music from the 70s and we spent a couple hours of hammerschlagen before retreating inside to watch MST3K (the Deadly Bees).

You might notice the pictures above are a slightly slightly different dimension than my other photos on this post. That's because Vivian and I finally broke down and bought our dream camera — Canon Rebel T2i DLSR. Our excuse was to be able to take some beautiful baby pictures once our bundle of joy arrives, but it also works beautifully taking snapshots at Jitterbugs Night Out or just eating pizza with the Stubbs for Deena's birthday. The nice, big lens makes it easy to get sharp photos of action on the dance floor with those horrible dust globes swarming around.

This new camera actually brings back memories of using my dad's old Nikon film camera for my photography class. It was always so much easier to get beautiful pictures using a "real" lens and film that I could with a tiny point-and-shoot camera. Vivian and I broke in the camera over the weekend traveling around Omaha and taking a few nice, high-quality pictures of landmarks that had entries on Wikipedia and no decent pictures to go with them (such as the Sokol Auditorium, the Bohemian Cafe, the Saddle Creek overpass, and the Joel N. Cornish House in the old gold coast district). It's already proven be useful getting pictures of our pastor's family (for a Christmas photo) and some last-minute baby belly pictures with Vivian before our inevitable due date.

The next entry you read here will likely be about our new bundle of joy, so stay tuned. Our original ETA is November 30, but just about anything could happen between now and then.

Halloween 2011

2011-10-31T07:20:00.000-07:00

Vivian and I had another fun-filled Halloween weekend together. We kicked things off with a Halloween dance at the Eagle's Lodge with our Jitterbug friends — Eric, Frank, and the Nothnagels came as Angry Birds, Maggie and Lee came as Batgirl and Robin, and Frank and Julia were Buzz Lightyear and Jessie the Yodeling Cowgirl from Toy Story. We had a costume contest and a jack & jill contest, but everyone who came by were winners in spirit — especially those who stuck around for after-midnight breakfast at Village Inn at stupid o'clock.

On Saturday night, Jenny and Tamra hosted a pumpkin-carving party up in northwest Omaha. Vivian and I bought a couple of discount pumpkins the other day that we hacked together with a bunch of our friends — Keith, Jon, Amanda, Anne, and Venche. There were plenty of treats to go around, of course, including a bunch of caramel apples. We also scooped out the seeds, which Vivian washed and roasted with some cinnamon and sugar afterward.

We wound the party down later on by watching John Carpenter's original Halloween film. It was the movie that introduced Jaimie Lee Curtis to the world, along with the concept of the modern "slasher" film that became quite popular throughout the 1980s. This film seemed quite tame by comparison, with most of us yelling at Jaimie to go stick a knife in Michael Myers' heart (rather than simply assume poking him with a sewing needle effectively killed him for the rest of the film).

Of course, no Halloween weekend would be complete without a party in the Nothnagel's basement. The party fell on a Sunday night this year, which meant Vivian and I had to deal with picking up donation bread from Panera and getting up early for work the next morning. We still managed to squeeze in a good deal of dancing with our colorful assortment of friends once the party got started. Ruth showed up wearing a hilarious "shark eating somebody" costume, so I naturally put Mack the Knife into the evening's playlist (no word yet on whether the party "jumped the shark" at any point). Eric and the Angry Birds made another appearance, as did an assortment of gangsters, superheroes, and a super villain (kudos to Bruce, aka Red Skull, for being the only person at the party who knew who I was dressed up as).

I swear Halloween is now more popular with adults now than with children — more of the "grown-ups" I know play dress up nowadays than actual children who come to our door begging for candy. But at least nobody TP'ed our house. This year.

Costume Party and a Hayrack Ride

2011-10-24T08:36:00.000-07:00

The fall fun continues for Vivian and me. Last Saturday we partook in another autumnal tradition — Jenny's birthday costume party, which we've attended for the last four years in a row. This year I came as Number Two from the 1960s TV series The Prisoner. Pretty much nobody in our group knew who I was supposed to be, but that didn't matter. I loved the show, and I needed to buy a gray turtleneck anyway. Vivian came as a cat-who-swallowed-an-entire fishbowl, making use of her eight-month-old pregnant tummy. We had several other hilarious costumers in our ranks this year — the Straussers as the Super Family, Heather as a Major Award, Jon Paper as a headless person, Keith as... Captain Keith, the Kams as a pumpkin patch, and Jenny as Lady Gaga (singing Bad Romance via karaoke just as we walked in the door). Dean West was our host this evening dressed as Bamm-Bamm, and his parents just happened to show up to join us.

We drifted between karaoke and pumpkin-style food upstairs and a dance floor downstairs. Jenny got to have another birthday jam (after getting one at JNO on Friday). Vivian and Venche served up pumpkin cheesecake and pumpkin pie (respectively) to contribute to our sugar rush throughout the evening. We continued on with the Hokey Pokey for some reason and wound down the evening setting up a Christmas tree with random objects gathered from Dean's basement (which included boots, a beachball, and Scotch tape among other things).

On Sunday, Vivian and I partook in another fall tradition — going on a hayrack ride. This year, we went with several of our fellow members at Twin Valley Church to the Hall's ranch down near rural Plattsmouth. We loaded up in two hayracks and got toted about for a couple miles, enjoying the gorgeous weather and countryside along the bumpy country roads.

Everyone brought plenty of food to stuff ourselves with afterward, and we had a roaring firepit going as well, which was just perfect for toasting s'mores with some of the ginormous marshmallows Jeff West was able to smuggle in. The weather was absolutely gorgeous the whole time we were there — warm enough for a T-shirt — but as the sun fell we were reminded that it is, in fact, October now, so the fire was a welcome addition to the evening. (Little Rachel just stared in awe as if she'd never seen an open fire before.)

Showers and silly movies

2011-10-17T11:34:00.000-07:00

On Saturday last week, Vivian had the first of at least three baby showers, this one hosted by our friends Jenny, Venche, and Tamra. I didn't attend, but from what I've heard and the pictures I've seen, it looked like a lot of fun. The girls decorated about a dozen "onesies" together and gave a bunch of baby gifts to Vivian. There was also food — specifically tiny cheese-cupcakes, a couple of which Vivian saved for me. Thank you to Lisa, Jen, Tamra, Heather, Andrea, Li-Ya, Kara, Kelly, Jenny, and Venche for making this new mommy-to-be feel so special (even without a sticker).

On Sunday night, we joined Phil and Jen and a bunch of other random friends for a Silly Movie night together. The evening also involved some very improvisational cooking — on the Facebook invite, Phil asked guests to bring "an ingredient for us to cook — pasta, meat, vegetable, fruit, or cheese whatever." That, naturally, left the field quite wide open. Vivian and I settled to bring some tomatoes and basil fresh from our garden, as well as some crushed tomatoes and garlic in case anybody needed to make either marinara sauce or bruschetta (or both). Other people brought biscuits, sausage, corn, egg noodles, and a variety of other stuff that Phil and Jen managed to turn into a handful of tasty dishes for us. The rest of us watched Airplane while sipping on sangria and riesling (or in Vivian's case, water), which was just as funny as I'd remembered it, especially with a group of silly people.

Party packed

2011-10-13T21:00:00.000-07:00

For some reason, October is an insanely popular month for celebrations. In addition to the usual Halloween and fall-related fun, there are about a hundred birthdays crammed into the tenth month, along with a wedding or two just for good measure.

I took Vivian out to Summer Kitchen on Thursday for a random breakfast date. Then on Friday, we decided to drop by JNO for an evening of dancing and then crashing at Village Inn afterward, just like old times. After we become parents, staying out until two in the morning will likely be a rare occurrence. Eric and Kevin were kind enough to keep us company over breakfast and OneUpMe.com before heading home.

On Saturday, Vivian and I had several different events to juggle. We had lunch at Five Guys with the Hunters to celebrate Lisa's birthday. Five Guys is about the closest thing we have to In-n-Out burger this side of the Sierra Nevadas, and I had a little fun cutting in line via cell phone to order a burger online from my table. Viva technology!

That afternoon, we dropped in at Twin Valley Church to attend Steve and Krista's wedding with several of our church friends. (We also got to see Deena wearing a dress — gasp and shock!) We left shortly thereafter to attend a birthday party for Vivian's co-worker Anthony. He held it at Gerda's on Leavenworth, so I got to tell him, "alles gute zum geburtstag" while eating bratwurst and spaetzle (a kind of German pasta). He wanted to play Young Frankenstein for us to watch, but eventually settled for showing the Cornhusker / Ohio State game instead. Several people were so disheartened to see Nebraska get pummeled during the first half that they didn't bother to stick around to see what happened in the second.

The next day, our church gave Lisa a birthday party in our church basement. Vivian brought peanut butter cookies to go along with the popcorn and cupcakes, and Lisa opened her presents as a dozen kids ran around in circles screaming in the next room. Lexi brought her baby Samantha and Rachel got to be all kids of cute for everyone with a camera handy. (Of course, I drew a caricature of Mark and Lisa on their card, which I suppose is tradition for now.)

It was a fun, busy weekend overall. Now to get back outside and enjoy some more of the unseasonably beautiful weather while it lasts.

Sushi, Cinedine, and Chicago

2011-09-29T07:02:00.000-07:00

It's been a fun, busy week celebrating Vivian's birthday! Officially, she turned 2⁵ (you figure it out) on Tuesday, but the festivities ran the gamut from last Friday to the following Thursday. I think we'll be staying home on Friday night just to recover.

Before the celebrations even started, we had a surprise visit from our old friends Mike and Bekah! They now have four kids — Drew, Alexa, Eden, and Owen (the fourth of whom we'd never met before). We had them over to our house for pizza, salad, and plenty of catching up before kicking off a week of birthday-related fun.

Of course, we had to drop by the Eagle's Lodge for Vivian's birthday jam at JNO. The crowd was decided thinner than usual, possibly due to the wake of people being "lindied out" after the Cowtown events during the previous weekend. We still had a great time, and there were plenty of die-hard swing dancers there who took turns with Vivian in her jam circle. Vivian led the shim sham afterward, and we capped of the night with a traditional run across the border for tacos at Alvorado's until stupid o'clock.

On Saturday, we had Vivian's birthday party over at our house. This year, we did a "roll your own sushi party," and we had origami as an "appetizer" beforehand. Everyone seemed to get in on the action, and we had some pretty impressive folded paper sculptures at the end of the night. Tamra made a T-Rex, Jessica made a flower, and Jenny and Vivian made, um, face masks.

Of course, the highlight of the evening was actually making (and eating) the sushi. Vivian made up a bunch of sticky rice for us to use, and we'd supplied the basic ingredients for California rolls — avocado, cucumber, and imitation crab meat. Phil brought some more exotic things, such as raw white tuna, smoked salmon, cabbage, and mango. Lisa brought wraps to make inari, which seemed to vanish quickly after they were made. Mark brought us an actual wasabi root imported from Washington state, so we got to enjoy the real thing instead of the green-colored paste that even high-quality sushi restaurants seem to be restricted to. The potency of the wasabi lasted for only half an hour, though, so we had to eat it quickly.

We rounded out the evening playing a round or two of What's Yours Like, and I presented Vivian with a "cake" made of maki rolls with lit candles stuck inside of them for Vivian to blow out. Around midnight, Vivian passed her guitar around for our fellow musicians to pluck around before calling it a night.

In case I haven't mentioned it enough, the weather here has been unseasonably gorgeous for the past week or two, so on Vivian's birthday, I decided to surprise her at work with a trip to Benson Park to have some cobb salad for a picnic lunch. Afterward, we had a quick walk around the lake and fed a few of the geese lounging about. They seemed to expect we were about to feed them and paddled on over close to the shoreline when we got near. We've got to enjoy this a few more days before the long, dark, cold winter inevitably descends upon us.

That evening, I took Vivian down to the "Cinedine" theater for the ultimate date experience — dinner and a movie, all in one go! We'd never actually visited the new Midtown Crossing complex in downtown Omaha, so it was kind of nice to wander about a bit. A live band was playing some music outside Coldstone Creamery for anyone nearby to enjoy — mostly families with young children wearing balloon headgear made for them by a clown and older folks walking their fluffy little dogs.

There were only a handful of movies at the theater to choose from, none of which we'd heard anything about. I did a quick search on Rotten Tomatoes and decided on Moneyball, one of those based-on-a-true-story sports movies that involved the Oakland A's (a team Vivian actually saw herself growing up near San Fransisco) recruiting undervalued ballplayers in order to compete against other, wealthier, pro teams. It wasn't the kind of movie I'd normally watch on my own, but I enjoyed it. That might have been because Vivian and I both got to watch it in comfy, reclining seats while eating prime rib wraps and fries served to us. I even got a glass of 12-year Glenlivet — something I never thought I'd be able to enjoy at the movies without sneaking it in under my coat.

The next day, I gave Vivian one of her birthday presents — tickets to see Chicago at the Omaha Community Playhouse! She'd mentioned wanting to see the show in passing, but she didn't expect that I'd actually get tickets to see it. I was even more surprised that I managed to snag the two best seats in the house — front row center! That meant we got to sit right behind Music Director Jim Boggess in the orchestra pit. He actually popped up to wish Vivian a happy birthday (Jessica, who is doing sound for the show, mentioned we were going to be there!)

It was a great show, of course, but even better sitting inches away from the performers as they pranced about the stage. One actor (Erik Quam playing Amos Hart) came down and shook hands with people in the front row during one number. There's something about live performances that just can't been duplicated in any other way — especially when you're this close to the action.

Afterward, we got to shake hands with all the cast members out in the lobby, and I managed to get a quick picture of Vivian with the two leading ladies of the show, Vivian with leading ladies of the show, Kirstin Kluver as Roxie Hart and Melanie Walters as Velma Kelly.

The birthday festivities weren't done yet. Vivian shares her birthday week with both her dad and her mom's friend Shirley, so on Thursday they took us out to our traditional birthday dinner at Outback Steakhouse. We had our bloomin' onion and rib-eye steaks, as usual, and this time we actually mentioned that we had a few birthdays in our party. That meant our waiter brought out free ice cream. Sweet.

Back home, Jack opened his presents, and Donna served us up some decadent dark chocolate cake. (She'd also made some adorable fruits and vegetables made from marzipan, but they looked too dark cute to eat.)

I think Vivian and I are looking forward to a few quiet days now that we've had a busy week of celebrations, but I hope she'd had a wonderful 2^5th birthday! I love you, sweetie! Every year just keeps getting better.

Autumn kicks off

2011-09-20T08:24:00.000-07:00

And with the blink of an eye, fall is here! We went from 91 degrees on Monday to 55 degrees on Wednesday with nary a segue in-between. I don't care though — I love the season of changing leaves, and Vivian and I have been busy finding ways to enjoy it together.

Last weekend, we attended Mitch and Amanda's wedding. Amanda is one of Vivian's co-workers and Mitch owns a comic book store out in Gretna. I'd met them all of twice and wasn't sure how much fun I'd have at a wedding of two people I barely knew, but it was a great evening. The ceremony was short and the reception was long and fun, with beer and wine flowing and plenty of crazy dancing mixing things up throughout the night. I've been to plenty of long, dreary, dull weddings in my life, but this was one was ideal. I only hope everyone who came to our own wedding 38 months ago had just as good a time.

This weekend was Applejack Weekend down in Nebraska City, so naturally Vivian and I had to go down to get our fill of apple turnovers, apple pie, and apple-picking at the orchards there. We dropped in at the firehouse's pancake breakfast to stuff ourselves with flapjacks courtesy of the Pancake Man, and then walked down to the library book sale to grab a couple used, discount books. We skipped the parade of course, learning from experience that sitting through a couple hours of marching bands and shriners driving in circles wasn't as much fun as exploring the rest of the town.

We dropped by Arbor Day Farm next to get a bottle cherry wine, among other things. We had the most fun at Kimmel orchard, where Vivian and I got to wander among the apple trees and stuff as many apples as we could into our ten-pound bag. We grabbed a couple stray grapes from the vineyard as well, which were absolutely succulent. I'd never eaten grapes right off the vine before, and it was like eating candy.

Back in Bellevue, we dropped by the remains of our church picnic in Everett Park. They'd held a makeshift tailgate party outdoors completely with TVs to watch the game when it came on. I mostly ignored Nebraska crushing the Washington Huskies, who were downright pathetic (one guy literally dropping the ball at the one-yard line, giving the Cornhuskers an easy touchdown). I mostly enjoyed the chili, salsa, hot dogs, and fellowship with other members of our church (fellowship being Christian-speak for "pigging out.")

Of course, this was also Cowtown weekend for the Omaha Jitterbugs, but the four long days of swing dancing events was more like background noise for Vivian and me. We showed up at the dances long enough to dance once or twice with each other and then pick up cups before heading home.

Labor Day Weekend

2011-09-08T07:39:00.000-07:00

Nebraska has had a sudden and very welcome spurt of beautiful weather, recently. We've gone from 90 degrees and muggy to 70 degrees every day and sunny, so Vivian and I have been making the most of it before the snow and bitter cold hit.

On Friday, I took Vivian on a "surprise date" to Matsu Sushi downtown. The rest of her co-workers were actually going on an all-you-can-eat sushi binge over at Wasabi sushi, but Vivian wanted to save that for a time when she won't have restrictions on raw fish (among other things). We had a sushi caterpillar among other things and wrapped up the evening with a trip to the theater to see Captain America.

On Sunday, we had another bit of Asian cuisine down at China Road to give our friend Don a send-off party. He's been reassigned at his job, so we won't be able to see him at church on Sunday mornings anymore.

On Sunday night, our mutual friend Jenny threw a labor day party at her house. The weather was still quite cool — just perfect for a game of stereo Frisbee in the backyard. We had burgers, and dogs and then settled down for a few more hilarious rounds of Telestrations inside. We also got to toss around a few Angry Birds sometime before midnight.

Vivian and I had no specific plans for Labor Day, but the weather was so nice, we had to get out and enjoy it, so we took an impromptu trip to Lincoln to visit the Secret Bridges one more time before the baby comes due. There were several other people wandering around Wilderness Park on bikes enjoying the weather with us. A couple things had changed at the bridges since we'd been there last. For one, the old graffiti had been painted over. For another, someone had planted some flowers up on the top of the bridge. Someone had built a fire pit underneath the second bridge, and the old meadow had been overrun with a few trees and thistles. I poked around the trail a bit more and found a historical marker for a train wreck that occurred back in 1894, which the trail we were following had been part of the Rock Island line. I still don't know much about locomotive history, but it's still interesting to see the remnants of a hundred years still lingering about. (I even noticed the train tracks we always crossed had been lain 13 years apart — one with wooden ties, the other with concrete.)

The beautiful fall weather seems to be continuing indefinitely for the time being. Now we can only hope we'll get to have another outdoor dance, camping trip, or some other outdoor event so we can fully appreciate it.

a Burger, a Buffett, and a Birthday

2011-09-05T06:39:00.000-07:00

As of August 29, I'm a year older, probably not wiser, but having more fun than anyone approaching his mid-thirties should be allowed to have.

The fun started on Friday night, where I dropped by the Eagle's Lodge for my obligatory birthday jam. Several other jitterbugs have birthdays at the end of August, so I seemed to be in good company on the dance floor (even considering folks like Troy and Ben Peet who didn't join us in the circle).

Of course, any exercise I got dancing on Friday was quickly negated on Saturday when I decided to take on the horrifying "Stellanator" hamburger down at Stella's in Bellevue. As a previous corn-eating champion, I didn't think devouring the sandwich (consisting of six 6.5 oz burger patties, six fried eggs, twelve pieces of bacon, six pieces of cheese, grilled onions, lettuce, tomatoes, jalapeños, and peanut butter all on a bun served with a basket of fries) would be as painful and nauseous experience as it was. I came close to cleaning my plate, but not clean enough. Fortunately, I didn't have a heart attack, and what went down stayed down.

It was enough to get me to swear off meat for the rest of the afternoon.

That evening (after some proper digestion) Vivian and I invited a bunch of our friends over for drinks and banana splits. I'd realized earlier in the month that I've never actually eaten the uniquely American dessert before, so Vivian made one (small) banana split for me with some homemade ice cream. We were up until nearly stupid o'clock gabbing and playing everyone's favorite new party game, Telestrations. We were fortunate enough to have Dan Wondra among our ranks drawing such things as a Jamaican on a hamster wheel and an angel pulling a king's tail.

On Monday (the big day), Vivian made up a chocolate cheesecake that I was able to share with my co-workers (along with a sweet birthday lunch). When I arrived home from work, I got to see some fun decorations that Donna had left in our yard, which included a pink lawn flamingo with a birthday hat. (I'll have to consult my dad to figure out what we can name him.)

That evening, Vivian took me out to a restaurant we'd driven by about a hundred times but had never gotten around to visiting — The Bohemian Cafe. It's an old-school ethnic restaurant that started back in the days when Omaha had a "little Bohemia" just south of downtown. I'm not a huge fan of Czech food, but the Jaeger Schnitzel and dumplings were quite good.

Much to our surprise, someone else was celebrating his birthday at the Bohemian Cafe in Monday: the oracle of Omaha himself, Warren Buffett! I'd heard stories of Buffett dining at such humble places as Gorat's and Piccolo Pete's, but I never thought I'd bump into the third richest man in the world myself. On his way out, I worked up the courage to approach Buffett and ask if he'd be kind enough to let me get a picture with him just to prove to my friends that I wasn't crazy. He happily obliged.

Vivian and I drove up to Dave & Buster's to spend the rest of the evening playing games together and racking up a few cups full of tickets. Vivian actually hit the 1000 ticket jackpot on Frogger, so we were able to walk out with a trio of cute Angry Birds plushies. Vivian took me home afterward to have some chocolate brownie-mousse birthday cake and presents to round out the evening.

It was another wonderful birthday weekend, and I can't thank my lovely wife Vivian enough to helping to put it together. What we both discovered, though, is that so many fun things can't be planned or even expected — they just have to happen.

Iowa State Fair and JIVE party

2011-08-23T07:54:00.000-07:00

Vivian and I continued to enjoy the great outdoors over the weekend by heading up to Des Moines to attend the Iowa State Fair. It was the biggest fair I'd ever been to, and we did quite a bit of walking trying to see everything we could over the 400+ acres of fairground. We got to see plenty of cute baby chicks, ducks, ostriches, cows, and pigs down at the animal learning center. We got to see some grape-stomping up at Grandfather's Barn (once we were able to find it) and checked out a cannon loading demonstration afterward courtesy of some Civil War reenactors.

Of course, we also had to pay the obligatory visit to the butter cow, but we also got to see other art such as a giant butter cow sand-sculpture down at the art center. We ducked into the air-conditioned horse exhibition arena just for the chance to sit down. I also got in a quick ride on the Ferris wheel with Vivian (giving me the chance to snap a few shots of the midway from a birds-eye view.) Hopefully all the walking we did was enough to burn off the insanely unhealthful fair food we imbibed in, which included corndogs, fried Twinkies, and a pork-chop-on-a-stick (no sign of a José Jalapeño, unfortunately).

We took a quick ride on the ski-lift back to the entrance and called it a night. And by "calling it a night," of course, I meant drove back to Omaha and stopped by Troy and Merinda's for barbecue and dancing. We were unfortunately too late to see the Blacktop Ramblers performing live in the basement, but we still enjoyed having a drink or two with friends before heading back home to collapse.

The next day, Vivian and I spent an afternoon recovering while others went to a Polish festival and danced at the Durham museum. That evening, we dropped by Ruth's house with several of our fellow JIVE members for an appreciation dinner. We got to have some Bruschetta, tofu curry, hamburgers, and hot dogs while sipping gin & tonics and enjoying a cool August evening. We also got to play with Christy and Lindsey's insufferably adorable daughters, who got to ride about in a large pedal-cart of some kind. It was the best kind of party — one where we didn't have to cook anything.

Perseids Party and Women of Faith

2011-08-17T06:32:00.000-07:00

After the broiling weather in late July, August has been treated us fairly well here in Omaha. We were fortunate enough to enjoy the weather while it lasted with our friends on couple of occasions.

Last Saturday, Tamra invited a bunch of us up to her parents' place near Fort Calhoun for a star-gazing cookout. They on top of a large hill, where we could clearly see the before and after effects of the great Missouri River flooding of 2011.

We grilled hot dogs and s'mores over an open fire and then tried to watch the Perseids when the sun went down. The bright light of a very full moon made this almost impossible, unfortunately, but Mark got to point out a few constellations and planets for us by using Google Sky maps. I got to try a Hemmingway Cocktail courtesy of Mark, which is apparently made with champagne and absinthe. Tamra's mom capped off the evening by burning a bunch of Christmas light on the open fire. The copper wire burned with an eerie greenish-blue hue that got a few oohs and aahs from those of us not fixated on the sky.

In other news, Vivian and a bunch of ladies from our church attended the Women of Faith conference at the Qwest Center. The event features noteworthy Christian speakers Patsy Clairmont, Marilyn Meberg, Lisa Whelchel, Sandi Patty, musical guests Mandisa and Amy Grant, drama by Katharine Everett, and token male Andy Andrews. Since men weren't allowed at the event, you'll have to rely on Vivian's account of the event to find out what actually happened (coming soon*).

*may not be coming soon.

Indoor Picnic and Heartland LibertyFest

2011-08-11T09:18:00.000-07:00

Now that my parents' visit is over, Vivian and I found ourselves with a relatively quiet weekend to ourselves. Things kicked off for me on Friday when Mosaic held its company "picnic" indoors due to a bit of rainfall outside. It was an usually fun time at work eating fried chicken catered from Hyvee and playing a few rounds of The Game of Things down in the basement. It was difficult to remain "work appropriate" and I don't think I'll ever hear the words, "Robert: eat poop?" ever again.

No better way to wind down a Friday than some goofy fun and watching Big on Netflix (which I did afterward). That night, Vivian and I got to set up for JNO, where about a hundred people dropped in for the beginner's lesson.

The brief storm ushered in some fantastically muggy weather on Saturday. I dropped by the Heartland LibertyFest at the Sumptur amphitheater over in Papillion. It was a small convention catering to Republican and Libertarian folks in the area, so I got to chat it up with the likes of Congressman Lee Terry, his primary challenger Brett Lindstrom, and Dave Nabity of the Omaha Alliance for the Private Sector (and Omaha's closest thing to a superhero). Senatorial candidate Don Stenberg was also there, as was his primary rival Attorney General Jon Bruning. The smoldering weather unfortunately kept me from sticking around to hear Bruning's infamous comparison of racoons and welfare recipients, which happened to go viral during the next week.

On Monday morning, Mike Johanns paid a visit to the Papillion HyVee, so I dropped by with several other constituents to hear him talk about the debt ceiling, among other things. I'm not sure if or when Ben Nelson is planning to drop by, but if could just say hello to him I'd have all my bases covered in congress.

On Sunday, Chaplin Rick Sweenie paid our church a guest visit. Afterward, we had a potluck at church, and Vivian got to share her tasty potato salad with us. Other mundane chores kept Vivian and me busy for the rest of the week. I wound up massacring a few trees in the backyard, filling one tiny trash bin well over its capacity. Then on Wednesday, we managed at last to buy our baby crib at Nebraska Furniture Mart (and then dropped by Smashburger afterward to celebrate).

Mom & Dad's Visit

2011-08-03T06:36:00.000-07:00

It's late July once again, which means hot, muggy weather and a visit from Mom and Dad. They flew in from North Carolina last Thursday and spent some time visiting our Uncle Ben and Aunt Carol up in Scottsbluff before staying with us for a fun, weeklong visit.

We started off our visit with dinner at Malara's, an old-school Italian restaurant best known for its homemade pasta. On the way home, we dropped by the Eagle's Lodge up the street to show mom and dad the spot where Vivian and I met for the first time (and where I proposed to her some time later). We also took a joyride around the Missouri River so we could get a good look at the major flooding that's still wreaking havoc up and down the metro area.

I took the day off on Thursday and got to have breakfast with both dad and Pastor Drew at Panera. We also had another luncheon with the National Association of Scholars at the Kiewit Lodge at Mahoney State Park.

That afternoon, Dad and I got to spend some nice father-and-son time later in the week by assembling a new gas grill I'd bought down at Aldi when the one we'd been generously lent by Onion Boy somehow stopped working so well. Between the two of us, we got the grill assembled in an hour and ready to grill some tasty steaks that evening.

Afterward, we took along walk by the riverfront to show mom and dad the pedestrian bridge. A film crew working for First National Bank of Omaha was there to shoot some TV spots, and they couldn't have picked a more picturesque time — the sun was just beginning to set over the city providing some beautiful lighting for shutterbugs like dad and me to snap pictures.

On Saturday morning, we took mom and dad down to the Old Market to browse some of the wares at the Farmer's Market. We needed some more prime rib seasoning, and I got some basil for us to use to make bruschetta and alfredo sauce later on. There were plenty of "buskers" out and about playing music for us. The most impressive by far was the group of pre-teen kids dressed in early 1800s military gear playing music with drums and fifes. They must have been miserable underneath all that clothing, but they didn't show it.

That evening, Jonathan joined us for a trip down to Lincoln to visit with Nathan and Ranae. We watched Cowboys and Aliens together and then had Davinci's pizza back at the house. Vivian and I got to spend a little quality time with Nathan's new rambunctious golden retriever, Arthur, trying (unsuccessfully) to use up some of his energy before dinner time by playing fetch for an hour.

Afterward, we wound things down in the traditional way by playing a couple rounds of Apples to Apples.

On Sunday morning, mom and dad came to Twin Valley Church with us and got to hear Vivian play her guitar as part of the praise team. It was the first time Vivian has ever performed in public, and she did a great job. Pastor Drew was on vacation, so our guest speaker was Pastor Juan Andres Fernandez from Fe Eficaz. We grilled up some hamburgers for lunch back home and spent most of the afternoon making use of Jonathan's large collection of MST3K shows and RiffTrax.

That evening, Mom, Dad, and Jonathan got to participate in another long-standing tradition — retrieving bread from Panera. We had to squeeze the five of us and the donation bread into Jonathan's Chrysler, but we all just about fit. We shared another Omaha tradition with them afterward by dropping by Alvorado's on 90th and Maple for some tacos.

On Monday, I took a road trip with mom and dad through Plattsmouth and then Louisville, browsing around the two small towns where dad had been poking around for a place to settle down and retire one day. We headed back to Omaha, where I took them both by Trader Joe's for the first time. We browsed through the aisles of store-brand organic goodies and got some milk for Vivian to make cheese among other things. Vivian made up a batch of pre-dinner cheese for us to snack on later the next day.

On Tuesday night, we wrapped up our visit with a big steak dinner down at Piccolo Pete's, best known as one of Warren Buffets favorite restaurants (we actually stumbled upon it on the way to Malara's). It fit the mold of an "Italian Steakhouse," of which there are plenty in Omaha — Caniglia's Venice Inn, Johnny's Steakhouse, and Cascio's. This one fared very much the same, and we were lucky enough to drop by when the special of the day was Ribeye.

Afterward, we headed back to the Old Market for a quick sugar rush at Hollywood Candy and then Ted & Wally's, the ice cream parlor Vivian and I had visited countless times with our friends but not once with our family. I discovered that "phosphates" were actually on the menu, so both mom and dad had one.

It was a great week or two with the family, and all too short as usual, but it looks like the folks might be moving back to Nebraska once they it comes time to retire. In the meantime, we'll be seeing them next time over Spring Break, just in time to say "hello" to a new grandbaby!

Anniversary in Des Moines

2011-07-21T14:24:00.000-07:00

Vivian and I already had a big, pull-all-the-stops trip this year to Las Vegas to celebrate one of our many anniversaries, but we couldn't let our actual wedding anniversary pass us by without taking a trip somewhere. So where did we go? Why right around the corner to Des Moines, the perfect place to go to spend a one-day-off vacation!

We drove down on Monday night, passing by the familiar smiley face in Adair and stuffed ourselves with Mexican food from Mi Mexico in the West Des Moines suburb of Clive to start our brief vacation off right. It's been smoldering here in the midwest, so we took a brief, romantic swim in the hotel pool to cool off properly before calling it a night.

We had absolutely no plans in Des Moines other than to goof around and whatever we happened to stumble upon. First stop: the Science Center of Iowa downtown. It was more of an activity center for kids, but Vivian and I did get to have some fun connecting with our inner children, shooting off paper rockets and playing around in front of a meteorologist's green screen. Unfortunately, most of the museum was closed off for some cadaver exhibition, which neither Vivian nor I felt we had the stomach to experience.

We headed out into the broiling heat long enough to take a look at the capitol, but the temperatures were exceeding one hundred degrees, so we decided to retreat to the Great Indoors once again. We stopped at the Gateway Market cafe for lunch, which was quite a bit like Whole Foods, though not nearly as expensive. We dropped by the World Market back in west Des Moines next, stocking up on exotic foods and random electronic toys. Vivian got a voice-distortion megaphone that should be fun for some random occasion.

We spent the rest of the afternoon at the Clive Aquatic Center, a small community waterpark which seemed to be a scaled-down version of Oceans of Fun. I couldn't think of any better place to spend an afternoon with triple-digit temperatures, and we put my waterproof digital camera through its paces as we got video and photos of each other sliding around and drifting on the lazy river.

Of course, we had to finish off the day by having a big lobster dinner, so we dropped by the Waterfront Seafood Market and Restaurant for lobster tail, shrimp, scallops, and clam chowder. I also presented Vivian with my third Anniversary Comic — I've been drawing up small, illustrated summaries of our years together, showing little cartoon vignettes of the things we've done.

We drove on home quite happy and sleepy. Now that we have a child on the way, I'm not sure what we'll be doing for our fourth anniversary. Knowing Vivian, though, I'm sure we find something fun. I love you, sweetie! Happy Anniversary — I can't wait to see what the next year has in store for us.

Some like it hot... or not

2011-07-18T07:03:00.000-07:00

We're stuck in the middle of the Dog Days of Summer, but that doesn't mean we can't still have some fun outdoors. It just requires good friends and some homemade ice cream. On Friday, Venche had a bunch of us over her house to watch the classic comedy film Some Like it Hot displayed on a large sheet in her backyard. Vivian brought along her bucket to make some homemade ice cream root beer floats for everyone, which was quite refreshing, and Mark made some homemade popcorn with his movie theater style popper. A couple passing storms actually made things a little cooler outside, and the rain let up just enough to allow us to watch most of the film before it started up again.

Donna's birthday also was happening this weekend, so Vivian and I decided to celebrate with a surprise trip to the Joslyn art museum, where we were happy to learn Donna had never been before (but had wanted to visit for some time). With temperatures pushing upwards of 100 degrees outside, we were more than happy to spend a good portion of the day appreciating art of many different periods and having ice cream in the cafe all in the comfort of an art deco, air conditioned palace. That evening, we had Jack and Donna over for dinner and ate grilled squid (courtesy of Jack) with some fried yucca and plantain (courtesy of Vivian). We also got to have some of Vivian's decadent chocolate cheesecake for dessert before wrapping up the evening.

A Birthday and a Future Senator

2011-07-14T05:58:00.000-07:00

Our explosively fun three-day weekend came to a close, and now Vivian and I have been enjoying the Great Indoors as the Midwest in general heats up to a broil. We stopped by the doctor last week and got to see some new images of our new baby. Everything seems healthy so far, and he/she even gave us a thumbs up.

We dropped by the Eagle's Lodge on Friday just long enough for Eric to try on Vivian's shoes before we made a break for the Donut Stop.

In other news, we finally got around to celebrating Nathan's birthday in Lincoln. He turned 31 a couple weeks ago, and we celebrated in the traditional way — eating pizza from Big Sal's pizza and playing several rounds of Mario Kart at his new house with Jonathan and Nathan's wife Ranae. We also got to meet his new golden retriever, Arthur, who was a source of boundless energy tearing around the place when we wasn't out of his little dog pen.

We also went to see Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life at the UN-L campus theater. It was a hipster indie film that tells the story of a couple kids growing up in Waco Texas and their passive-aggressive relationship with their overbearing father (played by Brad Pitt). They also threw in about half an hour of the creation of the Earth, complete with dinosaurs and several long shots of explosions and things bubbling on the earth's surface. Sean Penn was also in this movie for some reason, but he mostly rides up and down an elevator in present day and then had an explicable encounter with the rest of the cast on a beach toward the end. In short, it was an enjoyable film hacked together with bits and pieces of a Nova special and a screen test from Penn thrown in for no particular reason.

On the following Tuesday, I stopped by DJ's Dugout in Omaha for a meet-and-green with former Attorney General, current State Treasurer, and hopefully future Senator Don Stenberg. Our family attended First Covenant church with the Stenberg family back when we first moved to Lincoln back in 1995, so we've known him personally for quite some time. I've had the chance to vote for him twice so far — hopefully the third time will be the charm.

Also attending the meet-up was Spencer Zimmerman, who's also apparently running for United States Senate. He's never held public office before, hasn't set up a campaign committee, and has never been to Washington D.C. He passed around his business card, which belonged to a limousine company and had his name and phone number written on the back. Among his campaign ideas is to abolish the bicameral legislature we've had in Washington since the writing on the constitution and replace it with a unicameral like we have in Nebraska. It was a little hard to know how seriously to take him.

Independence Day 2011

2011-07-06T10:41:00.000-07:00

Happy birthday, America! Vivian and I celebrated the signing of the Declaration of Independence with our friends in the traditional way: music, dancing, and lots of heavy artillery.

Our three-day weekend started off with a hot night of music down at Memorial Park. Every year, Bank of the West hosts a giant outdoor concert, and Vivian and I weren't even sure we would be going until the last minute. It was an absolute steam bath outside and the bands were 38 Special and Cheap Trick, neither of which I knew much about. The crowd, however, was decidedly smaller this time around — last year you could only find a spot with a view of the stage if you showed up at five in the morning. There was plenty of open seating down the hill toward the stage, so Vivian and I found a comfortable spot and ate Dippin' Dots while listening to Gonna Raise Hell the theme to That 70s Show.

We also stayed for the fireworks and then hitched a ride back to our car on the back of the KMTV Action 3 News van.

On Saturday night, Jenny hosted a hot, buggy barbecue up in northwest Omaha. Some of us showed our appreciation by drawing a portrait of Jenny on her driveway with smoke bombs (and a pimp fish). We "wrapped" it with a bow and gave it to her as a present. Jon grilled burgers and dogs out back, and I mixed a few piña coladas for anyone who wanted one. Ben, Jon, and Keith made some creative use of paper airplanes by adding explosives to them and seeing what would happen. The result: lots of hilarious burning wreckage (some of which got into the neighbor's yard). They also created a smoke-bomb Frisbee and set loose a glowing lantern, which drifted West and should be somewhere over Okinawa by now.

Naturally, we set off a bunch of fireworks out back (with plenty of artillery shells), and the girls tried using sparklers to write the words "wow" and "zoo" for Eric's camera (with limited success). Once the explosives were all spent, we retreated indoors to play a couple rounds of Telestrations. I got the word President, which Keith was able to mangle inexplicably in just one turn, and someone else drew a pair of jellyfish — I mean a chair — which managed to put tears in Jenny's eyes.

On Sunday, we got to prove to the world what a cool church Twin Valley is by setting off even more fireworks in their parking lot once the sun went down. Elder Don put the event together and brought a large assortment of bright, shiny explosives for us to detonate. We let the little ones light a bunch of small, sparkling fountains first before shooting off our Black Cats and artillery shells.

The Omaha metro seemed to be a veritable war zone all weekend long, with fireworks in nearly every neighborhood and crackling going every night for weeks in advance, so we certainly got our fill of pyromaniac glee. (Of course, a few members of our group seemed more interested in setting up a Facebook account, but that's OK — we don't judge.)

On Monday the Fourth, Vivian and I joined a bunch of our fellow Jitterbugs to dance in the annual Independence Day Parade up in Ralston. We had a huge turnout for the parade and almost couldn't find a parking spot as every available lot nearby seemed to be filled to capacity. We danced down main street enduring the heat with bottled water and an assortment of ice cubes pilfered from the cooler on the back of our black Jitterbug Truck. We crashed at the Dairy Queen on 72nd Street (along with the rest of Ralston) where Jitterbug president Nate treated us all to ice cream and lunch before calling it a day.

We wrapped up our holiday weekend that evening at Fazoli's with Ben, Jenny, and Tamra, and then Vivian and I went down to the waterfront to see some fireworks. It didn't seem right to end the weekend without seeing fireworks from the pedestrian bridge, but they'd been moved from Harrah's Casino to the Horseshoe further island due to the Missouri River flooding. There were plenty of people outside to gawk at the water level, which was drowning the poor statues over on Lewis and Clark landing. We still got a fairly good view of the fireworks from the bridge before heading home and calling it a night.

Father's Day and Shakespeare on the Green

2011-06-28T12:00:00.000-07:00

Vivian and I arrived back in Omaha after our weekend camping trip just in time to celebrate Father's Day! We had a giant dinner with Vivian's parents, which included glazed pork kabobs, roasted asparagus, and a giant bowl of potato salad. After stuffing ourselves silly, Jack and I set about setting up his Father's Day gift — a new flat-screen TV. It took us a few minutes to figure out how to screw together the stand, which came in several pieces unlike the other models we've assembled. It seemed to work fine, so I'm hoping we won't have to figure out how all the Styrofoam pieces fit back in the original box so we can return it later.

Vivian had her own special Father's Day gift for me — a week of special lunches! It was so sweet to see what she'd pack for me every day the following week. One Wednesday, I got sushi from Sakura Bana. Now that was a surprise!

On Friday, Vivian and I made an appearance at Jitterbugs Night Out — partly because it was our turn to set up for the evening, but mostly because the Grand Marquis were playing for us again. It turned out to be a busy night, with about sixty people showing up for the beginning lesson. Several other noteworthy follows making a rare appearance at the Eagle's Lodge, including Sara and Sarah (up above). It seems strange that it's rare these days to have a Sara(h) among our group, let alone two. Also making a rare appearance was Margaret, who we hadn't seen since Bart's funeral several months ago. (I among several others was quite happy to have her back among us again.)

On Saturday night, we and a bunch of our friends attended Shakespeare on the Green, an annual traditional that combines the rich flavors of Deep Woods Off and Merlot (so saith a certain emcee/weatherman). I arrived early enough to claim a spot near the front of the crowd and then enjoyed an afternoon of being forced to enjoy the outdoors with a good book (a copy of The Fountainhead I managed to grab from the library on the way to the park). Friends started to arrived around six o'clock, and we got to spread out on our blankets together to enjoy wine, cheese, strawberries, and an assortment of other vittles as the standard Shakespearean entertainers wandered among us. The chorus of wandering minstrels sang for us, and the juggler made a well-expected appearance with his cigar boxes. Before the show, a troupe performed a couple rounds of two-minute Shakespeare for our amusement. They were quite good.

The show itself was excellent, of course. This year they performed A Midsummer Night's Dream, a play I was fortunate enough to study in High School (so I could tell what was going on). It was interesting to hear the audience laughing along with the funnier parts that were written a couple hundred years ago and are still enjoyable today. (Nick Bottom's extended death scene was particularly hilarious).

In other news, I'm now a Virgin Mobile customer. Once I discovered that I could get an Android smart phone and actually pay $15 less per month than with Sprint, I had to jump ship. Now I'm happily playing with GPS and Facebook and trying not to become one of "those people" whose face is forever glued to a two-inch screen, oblivious of the world around me.

Camping at Niobrara State Park

2011-06-21T20:15:00.000-07:00

It's summertime once again, and that means going camping — an annual tradition for Jenny and our bunch of mutual friends. This year, we decided to go up to Niobrara State Park, which was fortunately still up and running despite the flood happening pretty much all around it. (Two of the three roads into town were closed.)

Vivian and I decided to take the picturesque Old Lincoln Highway north to get to I-29, avoiding the flooded (and closed) portions of the Interstate. We got to see the swollen Missouri River and some of its subsequent flooding up close and personal, including the small town of Missouri Valley, which is all but preparing for Flood Armageddon with the amount of sandbags they've put out protecting their picturesque buildings downtown. Travel was fairly swift north of Missouri Valley, though we got to see some more of the flood up by Sioux City and along the Interstate (some of it dangerously close to the roadside).

The first stop of our camping trip, of course, was to check out the root cause of all this mes — Gavin's Point Dam. Extra snow and rainwater from Lewis and Clark Lake was being expelled into the river at the rate of a million gallons every few seconds. Eric and Anne joined us along with dozens of people to watch the raging waters and get splashed by random twelve-foot high waves every few seconds. It was a surprisingly festive atmosphere considering the same waters that were soaking us like a wave pool at Oceans of Fun were responsible for destroying countless farms, towns, and homes just downstream.

(We also took a brief trip to Gayville, because I have too much of my seventh-grade humor left not to visit a town called Gayville.)

Vivian and I stopped for ice cream at the (wonderfully retro) Tastee Treet in Yankton and enjoyed the flora and fauna at a scenic overlook across the river before heading on to our campsite at Niobara State Park. We were the first campers to arrive for the weekend and got to pick a lovely spot right down by the river with both a double-sized pavilion and a bathroom right next door. I drove around the park at least once to soak up the beautiful scenery (and take plenty of pictures). We set up our tents and had some burgers for dinner while the sun went down. Our food was ready just as a passing storm doused our campsite, but it didn't last long. Before you knew it, the deer were out, and we were roasting marshmallows before bedtime.

The next day, we all headed to the stables to do a little horseback riding. I'd never been on a horse before, but it was a much tamer experience that I expected. We all had very well-behaved horses, and Eric compared our experience to those automated cars at amusement parks that five year olds can pretend to drive around a race track. My horse, Sox, was pretty much on autopilot the entire time, though I had to pull the reins every now and then to keep him from eating grass and sniffing the butt of the horse in front of me. (I also wound up passing Eric's horse when he stopped to take a whiz.)

We did a little exploring afterward, walking up to the Interpretive (dance) Shelter where Lewis and Clark were rumored to have met with the Ponca tribe a couple hundred years ago. We headed down a nature trail to a large, old train bridge by the river that has since been converted into a walking bridge (stubbornly ignoring all the signs that told us both the bridge and the trail were closed due to flooding). We got a beautiful view of the river, the bluffs, and the various bluebirds and redwing blackbirds that called the riverfront home. We even got a glimpse of our own campsite half a mile away. (Jon and Rachel were off visiting their uncle, who happens to be a park ranger, but Vivian left a sign for them to follow.)

We had a little lunch back at the campsite and then went to the park's pool for a little swimming. The water was predictably brisk, but I dove right in just to get the initial shock over with. We spent a few hours throwing water balls at each other and taking turns diving off the diving board. I got to experiment with my camera's underwater capabilities, and we basked in the sun afterward when the mandatory three o'clock pool break came around.

We spent more time in the afternoon exploring the park, and Vivian and I took a trip down the closed portion of Highway 12 to see what the flooded river looked like. It was quite amazing to see what was once a perfectly dry highway turned into a giant swamp, complete with weeds and reeds growing right on top of the asphalt. (Check out this exact spot on Google Maps for a street view of what the scene above looked like before the flood.)

Vivian and I watched the sun set from the top of the tallest hill in the park before joining the rest of our friends back at the campsite. We roasted some hot dogs for dinner over the open fire and then passed around Vivian's electronic game of Catchphrase as the rest of the day wound down.

We wrapped up our camping trip the next day with bagels for breakfast and a big group picture by our campsite before heading home. We did stop by the picturesque down of Verdigre along the way to grab some kolaches from the cute small town bakery they had there. Vivian had somehow never had a kolache before, so I had to get a couple just for us to munch before starting on the long trip home.

It was a fun trip, and it felt great to break away from "big city" and enjoy getting a little closer to nature. Of course, the best part was having the chance to do almost nothing for a couple days, which is always something I should have on my to-do list.

Wicked weekend

2011-06-17T08:00:00.000-07:00

Vivian and I got to enjoy a lovely "wicked" weekend or to since we got back from our road trip to St. Louis.

On the Sunday after we returned, the Omaha Jitterbugs hosted their first Lindy in the Park event. The weather was a balmy weather near-100 degrees outside, though the shade from the trees by the 11th Farnam archway did help things a bit. It was the kind of weather that demanded a trip to Ted & Wally's afterward for honey-sesame-walnut ice cream afterward (though everyone else seemed satisfied partaking of a random Popsicle vendor instead.)

In other news, I just finished hosting a class on personal finance for Twin Valley Church at our home in Bellevue. I've been something of a personal finance "junkie" for the past few years, addicted to podcasts from Clark Howard and Dave Ramsey (and reading websites like the Consumerist on a daily basis). Dave Ramsey's sales team has been pestering our church to buy into his Financial Peace University system for a while, but I decided as an alternative just to go through his book, The Total Money Makeover, and discuss topics as they came up (and adding relevant information that Dame Ramsey seemed to leave out). As the class progressed, I found myself relying less and less on contact from the book and more on information I'd been able to gather from other sources, eventually creating a little personal finance curriculum of my own. I should probably try rolling all the information into a financial "university" of my own and give it out for free.

Special thanks to Jessica, Kathy, Darlene, Mark, Lisa, and Vivian for letting me use them as test subjects in this project!

Our next weekend proved to be absolutely wicked. As you've probably guessed from the title, Vivian and I were able to go and see Wicked at the Orpheum theater, a show so popular that it's come to Omaha twice in the last year. Neither of us had seen the show before, and it definitely lived up to the hype. The story itself was something of a prequel to the Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, and even though I got the soundtrack for Christmas, nothing compares to hearing (and seeing) the show in real-life. I got goosebumps when they started Defying Gravity, and the entire audience was applauding even before the song was done.

The thing I love best about live theater is the interaction with the audience (which you could tell was rapt with attention during the entire show.) Whenever there was applause or extended laughter, the characters on stage would hold their lines until it had died down, something that's pretty much impossible with any other medium. The audience lined up before and after the show getting photos of themselves in front of the marquee, the posters out front, and even the branded Wicked truck outside the theater. I, of course, was the only one ready with my camera for the curtain call.

The weather turned on a dime (which is more than typical here in Nebraska) and after a rainstorm or two, it was back in 70s again. That meant it was perfect weather for walking around the waterfront to check out all the flooding from the Missouri river. Areas that had once been woods or sandbars were now swamp and waterfront. Since the College World Series is happening pretty much right now, the city as a whole seems to be holding its breath to see if the ballpark will be a swampy mess when the first game starts.

I don't know what anybody's worried about, though. We have a much better stadium right down in Sarpy County that could be used instead. (And you won't have to pay two sales taxes if you want to partake in any of our lovely restaurants.)

Farewell in St. Louis

2011-06-04T18:25:00.000-07:00

Over Memorial Day weekend, Vivian and I traveled from Omaha to St. Louis to have a brief farewell get-together with the Kolters, who'd been responsible for starting the annual tradition of hosting some kind of Comic Genesis cookout together. They'll be moving to Florida very shortly, so it only made sense to have a road trip down to St. Louis to say a proper goodbye.

My first cookout in 2006, then in 2007, a Nashville cookout in 2009, and then one right here in Omaha in 2010. Now it feels like the end of an era, where many in our group seem to have gone their separate ways.

Our first day started with a trip from Omaha down to Colombia, Missouri to meet up at Fading Aura's place with Mr. and Mrs. Vorticus. We played a few obligatory rounds of Rock Band together, and I got to learn the hard way that I didn't know quite as many lyrics to R.E.M.'s It's The End Of The World As We Know It as I thought I did (but strangely enough, I feel fine).

We headed down to the local pizza parlor of choice — Shakespeare's Pizza — and got to have dinner with the Faubs while catching up with one another. (The food was great, but their drink cabinet that contains WD-40 for some reason.) We got some ice cream for dessert up the street at Sparky's, another of Fading Aura's favorite places, and then took a quick tour around the University of Missouri campus.

The next morning, Fading Aura made us waffles for breakfast, and then we headed on over to the Kolter's place for a farewell party. We spent the afternoon watching Ryan give Tristan piggyback rides and their new baby girl Morgan being adorable. We made spaghetti for lunch with some of my homemade marinara and spent some quality time playing Telestrations, picking through baby clothes, and staying up late performing a "purity test" on one another.

Of course, no visit to St. Louis would be complete without a visit to the iconic Gateway Arch. We went fairly early in the morning to beat the crowds but still wound up fighting through three long lines to get our chance to ride up to the top. That was no problem since we got to play a game of checkers and visit several animatronic pioneers in the Western Expansion museum while we waited. The view from the top was spectacular, of course, though I think Fading Aura and Vivian both got a little sick with the arch wobbling back and forth in the wind.

On front, the Mississippi River had risen to the point of flooding the side streets, which gave Vivian the chance not only to see the old river for the first time in her life, but to touch it as well. (It was so hot, I went ahead and just decided to wade around for a while, which was quite refreshing.)

I would be remiss not to mention a man we met standing on the steps of the arch dressed in white and holding a Christian flag. He stood there silently without a sign of protest or a tip bucket, so we asked him why he was there. He told us he has been standing there for six hours every Sunday for the last 38 weeks or so just as a form of silent prayer, offering to pray in the name of Christ to anyone who asked. That was it — no yelling street evangelism, no angry messages of fire and brimstone, just prayer. It was an amazing display of Christian love in a way I'd never seen before.

After visiting the arch, we grabbed lunch a cute 50s-style diner called Chuck-a-burger. I say "50s-style" when in fact it is a diner from the 1950s that still happens to be around. I'm always a sucker for old-school diners and dives, especially when the food is good, According to Fading Aura, though, the guy who owns the property has been itching to tear the place down and put a bland strip mall in its place, so I'm hoping this piece of Americana somehow manages to stay there for many more years to come.

We traveled on to Forest Park and the St. Louis Art Museum after lunch (which included a statue of the city's namesake, a figure I didn't even know existed). The museum was great fun for an art major like me, with works from Van Gogh and Degas that I remember from my art history class. It's always a thrill to see those up close and personal. Fading Aura hunted for a few geocaches out in the gardens and we took a quick walk down by the boat house before heading back to the Kolter's for dinner.

The Kolters has been unfortunately unable to join us for most of the afternoon because the hoarder next door somehow set her house on fire, which caused their entire neighborhood to get blocked off by fire trucks for the entire afternoon (and condemned the house in the process).

We finally returned to the Kolter Kastle later in the afternoon, where I offered by limited culinary skills to make up some chicken alfredo for everyone, which I think turned out well. We let the sauce set while having our traditional dart gun war, which was fun until Vivian got Sarah square on the lips. We wrapped up our visit with a few more inexplicable rounds of Telestrations before calling it a night.

On the way back home to Omaha, we stopped by my former home in Warrensburg, Missouri. I lived in this small college town between 1990 and 1992 and hadn't been back in nearly 20 years. It was quite a trip down memory lane. Very little had changed about our old house other than the peeling paint and overgrowth of foliage in the backyard. I took Vivian to Lion's Lake where I went walking with my brothers, and we stopped by the old Video Palace, where I used to rent video game every week. It has has since been changed to the "Hookah Lounge." We even stopped by my old middle school, which has since been turned into an elementary school for grades 5 and 6. It was closed for the summer, so I was only able to get a brief peek inside, but I could still remember those long, terrible years in grades seven and eight marching along the track out back and cutting gym class to read books underneath the north stairwell.

The way back through Kansas City, we stopped by the Country Club Plaza for dinner at Fiorella's Jack Stack Barbecue for dinner. It's become almost a tradition for us to drop into this place for a rack of succulent ribs, a cheesy potato bake, and some steaming hot carrot cake for dessert. We would have dropped by the Better Cheddar to fill up on some Gjetost, but they has unfortunately closed early for Memorial Day. (We satisfied ourselves by dropping by World Market instead.)

It was great to see some old friends for one last "cookout" together in St. Louis. Hopefully we'll be doing it again soon, but next time perhaps down in the land of oranges and Mickey Mouse.

Baby Cookout and Meeting the Speaker

2011-05-25T11:20:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy couple of weeks, and it seems like my blog gets further and further behind the times. I guess it's time to play a little catch-up.

As mentioned in my last blog update, Vivian and I are having a baby! We wanted to wait until after the first trimester before telling anybody, and we wanted the chance to tell at least a handful of our friends in person rather than letting them find out via Facebook. So, we decided to have a cookout at our house as an excuse to give everybody the news. Vivian, Randy and I took turns grilling hamburgers as a brief hailstorm rolled into Bellevue. Golf ball-sized chunks of ice descended from the sky but did fortunately little damage to our roof. (I hope I can say the same for our guests' cars.) We broke the news of our firstborn child to everyone in the midst of announcing our house's new paint colors, will are hopefully going to be applied this week.

We stuck around until "stupid o'clock" playing everyone's favorite new game, Telestrations.

In other news, Newt Gingrich — former Speaker of the House and current presidential candidate — made an appearance at Tish's restaurant to meet and greet voters in Western Iowa. I first tuned into politics when Newt became speaker back in 1994, so I wanted to drop in, say hello, and ask the Speaker to send a message along to my dad. He's been a fan of Newt since the early days of the Contract with America, and since he couldn't be here to meet Newt in person, I wanted to try giving him an early Father's Day present by sending a message via YouTube from the Speaker back to North Carolina.

Our friend Jessica also had a birthday party over at her house. Vivian and I dropped in to eat cheesecake and play an extended game of "throw a badminton birdie at the ceiling fan and see where it goes." Ah, simple pleasures.

Bun in the oven

2011-05-24T19:00:00.000-07:00

Vivian and I have been sitting on some big, big news for a while, but we wanted to wait until the right time to share it with you. Well, here it is: we're having a baby! That's right, Vivian is about twelve weeks along with a proverbial bun in the oven. We held a barbecue at our house on Saturday to make the announcement, and although it has been awfully hard to keep a secret this big under wraps for so long, the news was fortunately a surprise to all of our friends.

All signs look good so far — we've had a couple ultrasounds done and our kiddo has a good, strong heartbeat. We're not going to find out if we're having a boy or a girl, so you'll have to wait along with us until the big day, which should be in late November.

Needless to say, we're both quite overwhelmed with what Vivian has correctly described as "a God thing." You see, in early March Vivian and I went in for some tests and were told that we wouldn't be able to have kids naturally. It wasn't easy to hear, and we had to talk about all the alternatives, including adoption. Well, before the month was over, everything had changed. It was nothing short of a miracle!

Thus begins the next, biggest chapter of our lives — as parents. Hold on tight, Vivi, we're in for a bumpy ride.

Ren Fairs, Salsa, and Mother's Day

2011-05-11T12:01:00.000-07:00

Vivian and I have been enjoying the Best Weather of the Year here in Bellevue and took advantage of the great outdoors by joining a bunch of our friends (and Vivian's mom) at the Renaissance Fair. Vivian and I attended the fair last year, and enjoyed seeing what was new and improved this time around. We enjoyed a much more elaborate show down a the Jousting Arena this year — instead of knocking over cabbages, we had knights actually hitting each other with lances in engaging in sword-fighting down on the ground. It had all the flair of a pro-wrestling match, and the crowd even started stomping along in time with Queen's "We rill rock you," a la "Knight's Tale."

Of course, we also enjoyed stuffing ourselves with medieval food, including turkey legs, root beer "grog," and some tasty but absolutely horrible-looking pickled eggs and beets. I got to try my hand at archery for the first time, which went about as well as I could expect (no fatalities). We also got to try on some helmets and chain mail and even kick around a chain-mail hackey sack. Strangely enough, we got the most entertainment out of a couple wooden stakes that we each took turns balancing on. I've got to install a couple of those in our backyard.

Vivian made up some tasty enchiladas for our own private Cinco de Mayo dinner, and we celebrated with our friends at GAMe the next day at a Salsa party down at 13th and Jones. Enrique was back to walk us through the basics of salsa and meringue, and I found myself reverting to Charleston several times as I stepped back and forth in my tiny Latin box. There was also plenty of Mexican-style food to go around, including pico de gallo, quesadillas, stuffed jalapeños and sopapillas with honey — that kept us going long enough to smack open a couple of piñatas at the end of the night.

On Sunday, the men of Twin Valley Church decided to put on a huge breakfast for the ladies in honor of Mother's Day. Pastor Drew made up some blueberry and chocolate chip pancakes while Jeff scrambled eggs and Tim sliced up orange. The ladies — both moms and non-moms — got to enjoy everything on behalf of the men of the church, and it was a good way to get full and sleepy right before the church service started. (Needless to say, I went home for a long nap afterward, though that was mostly due to the Worst Cold in the World descending upon me.)

Hoppy Easter Weekend

2011-04-27T09:33:00.000-07:00

Last Friday, I went with Vivian and a bunch of her co-workers to have some Indian food down at Tanduri Fusion. I got some weird cultural vertigo when people started ordered "cheese and chicken naan," which looked suspiciously like a quesadilla (but tasted just as good). I got some chicken goa, which is about as awesome as creamy coconut, curry, and chicken can possibly get over rice, and Vivian had some lamb steaks that I stole from her occasionally. It's always fun hanging out with Vivian and her co-workers, and I think we all got a kick out of Pablo's cute son trying to eat with a knife.

We headed out afterward to check the world premier of Atlas Shrugged: Part 1, a fairly mediocre movie based on a very awesome book. I'm still hoping they did well enough to make parts two and three.

The next day, after sufficiently puttering around the house, we attended Mark's birthday dinner down at the Nebraska Brewing Company to chow down on burgers and fries along with Lisa, Keith, and Micah. Mark's B-Day. There seem to be about a thousand "beer and burgers" type restaurants between Gretna and Council Bluffs, but I found this one had the fluffiest, tastiest buns of them all. 'nuff said. We crashed at Mark's place afterward to play a few hilarious rounds of YooStar 2, a sort of "movie karaoke" game for the XBox.

I had Good Friday off the next week, so I was able to enjoy a three-day weekend. I spent my time catching up on some housework and mowing the lawn for the first time this season (in-between some obligatory loafing).

That evening, we enjoyed some Latin dancing and Mexican food at Andrea's house with some people from GAMe in anticipation of their Cinco de Mayo party in a couple weeks. I'd wanted to learn more basic Salsa and Meringue for some time now, but it's always been hard to find a venue where you weren't expect to know what you were doing already.

On the Saturday before Easter, Vivian and I had some fun with Marshall "Mascot Rabbit," who Vivian managed to steal from work. He took him down to such fun places as the public library in Bellevue, where he was able to read some his favorite books before hitting up the Playboy Club.

That evening, we dropped by Dennis and Kara's place in Blair to help celebrate his 35th birthday. A bunch of our mutual friends dropped in to binge on barbecue sandwiches and wine before calling it a night.

On Easter Sunday, Vivian and I attended Twin Valley Church, where we finally have an overhead projector up and running again. Before we left, we found the Easter Bunny had left us a basket of chocolates, potted flowers, and other fun things for the garden. That afternoon, we had Jack and Donna over for Easter dinner, which consisted of our usual assembly of glazed, pistachio marshmallow fluff, poppy seed biscuits, party potatoes, and some giant, fruity, custardy dessert called "trifle." It looks like Spent season couldn't have come too soon, as I think Vivian and I will have to spend the rest of the year working all this off.

Passover and Spent

2011-04-14T17:00:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday, we had a representatives from Jews for Jesus drop by to show us what a Passover Seder ceremony looks like. I was quite surprised that it involved onions and horseradish (in addition to hiding the matzo). It was yet another cross-cultural culinary experience that seems to come around this time of year.

On Friday, Vivian and I went with some of our friends to another Catholic-style carb binge, this time in the form of a Lenten pasta feed at St. Pius church up on Blondo. We had spaghetti and mostacolli with beer cheese and spicy red sauce, as well as some homemade pizza and the obligatory baked goods table. I somehow thought I would have energy to go dancing afterward with all the pasta we ate, but I instead wound up quite tranquilized once I got back home.

Vivian and I noticed how much we wind up eating during Lent that we decided to create our own post-Easter season called "Spent," where we'd try to eat normally for a change and try working off everything we've gained since Mardis Gras.

The next day, Vivian and her mom worked a bit on cleaning up the yard and I patched some dead spots in the lawn. On Saturday night, Jenny carried on what seems to be an annual tradition now by hosting another Taco Party at her house. Vivian made her delicious guacamole and we had burritos and tacos with chicken and beef while playing some silly games downstairs. Jenny introduced us to "Telestrations," which is a pictorial take on the old telephone game and quickly became quite hilarious. We would start off with simple objects like manhole covers, nachos, and mouthwash, which would quickly deteriorate into "crazy guy eating pita chips" or "hit the curb and not the pedestrian." In other cases, we could just give up and draw people throwing up. Coincidentally, Kaleb and company played the exact same game at his house, so it must be very popular. I'll have to get my own copy of the game when we next meet up with our friends from Comic Genesis.

Burgers, Burritos, and Fried Fish

2011-03-29T08:44:00.000-07:00

Vivian and I both had a fun weekend hanging out with a handful of friends this weekend, starting with the gang from JNO. It was our turn to set up for the dance, and we wound up staying most of the night. Little Debbie decided to have a belated birthday jam, and then we joined her for pie at Village Inn afterward.

On Saturday, Vivian and I had lunch with Jenny and her new boyfriend Joe at Louie M's Burger Lust in South Omaha. I've always loved this particular "hole in the wall" in South Omaha, and it only seemed fitting to share it with Joe, being a burger connoisseur himself. The place has a charming decor that looks like it hasn't changed in the last 60 years, and it only seemed fitting to wash down a couple burgers with a chocolate malt served up at a soda fountain that could have come right out of American Graffiti.

That evening, Vivian and I attended an anniversary party for a few of our friends, Phil and Jen. They're food fanatics as well and decided to make some homemade tamales and burritos for the lot of us, complete with equipment to make our own tortillas. We met them last year at a GAMe couples night put on by Craig and Debbie, and we seem to share a similar passion for food. We stuffed ourselves and watched their wedding video and honeymoon in Greece before calling it a night.

On Friday, we celebrated our third annual Fishy Friday at St. John Vianney's in Milliard, lining up with a dozen or so of our friends to have fried fish, tater tots, pancakes, grilled cheese, and an assortment of other fried, beige food together. A live band played "Sweet Caroline" for us to "bah bah bah" along to, and they even played "Happy Birthday" for Frank, who just happened to have a birthday happening at the next table.

Of course, Jenny and Joe joined us as well and stuck around to make some weird sculptures out of leftover food and then fly paper airplanes at one another until the parish staff kicked us out.

Jon's Birthday and Bi-Polar Weather

2011-03-25T07:57:00.000-07:00

My brother Jonathan paid us a visit over the weekend to celebrate his birthday here in Omaha, and Nathan drove up from Lincoln to join in the fun. We celebrated in the traditional sense, with pizza, burgers, and a couple bad MST3k movies (that were actually quite hilarious) — Daddy-o and Girls Town, starring Paul Anka and Mel Torme of all people.

We also spent a great deal of time playing with Photo Dojo, a downloadable game for the Nintendo DS. It takes advantage of the DS's built-in cameras and lets you snap photos of your friends to create a Mortal Kombat style characters that can fight each other. We wrapped up the visit playing a round of DAK together at the kitchen. We didn't even make it through one round, as Nathan and Jonathan both spent most of the time picking out crads they thought they'd thrown out.

On Sunday, Vivian and I took advantage of the beautiful weather and took a twenty-mile bike ride up and down the Bellevue Loop Trail. I had been hoping to make it all the way up to Haworth Park (and then ride into Old Towne for ice cream), but the gale-force wind had the uncanny ability to blow in the opposite direction toward the end of our ride. We got to see some neat scenery along the way, including old railroad mile markers, long-abandoned telephone wires, and old farm equipment being devoured by weeds. We finished off our trip with Culver's ice cream to replenish whatever calories we'd managed to burn off.

A few days later, the calendar decided to roll back to winter for some reason, and we got dumped with a few inches of snow out of nowhere. It felt crazy for this to happen in late March, but the roads stayed clean and the trees got a nice coating of wintry frosting.

Blues and Greens

2011-03-18T12:57:00.000-07:00

Vivian and I have been enjoying a fairly quiet March as winter gasps its last as makes way for what seems to be a beautiful spring so far.

I got to have some unexpected fun at work playing director at Mosaic recently. Every year the company has an "Employee Campaign" that involved asking different agencies to submit videos of themselves to combine into one large collaborative montage. Our department created a "teaser video" to encourage people to submit their own, and since this year has a road trip theme, I wrote a script based on the Blue Brothers (with the "we're on a mission from God" line playing a prominent part, since Mosaic is a Lutheran organization). Starring in the film as the Blues siblings are my co-workers Davina and Dan, while Matt Sheffield plays the role of Park Ranger / State Trooper (written by my counterpart, Ed). You can see the whole teaser video here.

In other news, Vivian and I have been enjoying some festive meals together this month, including jambalaya for Mardis Gras and corned beef and cabbage for St. Patrick's Day. Vivian even managed to color her hair green for St. Paddy's day, so after washing down our dinner with an Irish cream or two we watched the film The Secret of the Kells, which was about as Irish a film as I could find on Netflix instant play list.

I've also started a personal finance group at our church and have started meeting on Tuesdays to go over chapters from the Dave Ramsey book, "The Total Money Makeover." I've been absorbing information from personal finance podcasts and blogs for some time now and have been eager to share what I've learned. I didn't want to go through Dave Ramsey's system at first, since anyone who actually believes that commission-based funds cost less than commission-free funds over time needs to have his head examined. Enough people asked about doing his "system," though, that I thought it'd be worth a look, especially if I can add a few doses of good advice from other points of few, particularly my hero Clark Howard.

Done Ham and Michael Moloney

2011-03-06T20:00:00.000-08:00

Vivian and I had a terrific weekend together that started on Friday night with dinner at the 801 Chophouse. We'd been planning on eating there for some time, particularly since one of our Jitterbug Friends, Brian Langbehn, just happens to be the head chef. Vivian ordered the filet mignon, and I got a rib-eye so tender that I was able to cut it with a fork. We tossed on some wild mushrooms and lobster mashed potatoes on the side, along with some soufflé for dessert. Naturally, we let the waitstaff know that we were friends of the chef so he could come out for an embarrassing photo with us at the booth.

After dinner, we got to head down the street to see Jeff Dunham and his cast of characters perform at the Qwest Center. The place was absolutely packed with tens of thousands of people crammed in with us at the main arena. The Guitar Guy was the opening act, and he got to perform a couple amusing songs, one of which involved accidentally walking into a couple gay bars in Omaha (both of which I was familiar with for reasons I can't explain). Then Jeff and his friends Walter, Achmed (the dead terrorist), and Peanut made us laugh for another hour or two, which was terrific. We even got to meet a few new characters, such as Achmed's son (who was only half-dead), and smaller hand-puppets versions of both Peanut and Jeff Dunham himself. It was a great show, though next time I'll try to get a little closer to the stage.

On Saturday, Vivian and I met up with a bunch of her co-workers to gorge on Sushi at Wasabi out on West Maple. I'd gone to Body Pump earlier that morning to work up something of an appetite ahead of time, and I'm glad I did.

Afterward, we met up with our mutual friends Phil and Jen for an afternoon at the Home Show at the Qwest center. We met several people who might be able to help us with some home improvements, and also sat through a lengthy cookware presentation that lost interest long before the would-be salesman/chef got to the hard sell. The highlight, however, was getting to meet Michael Moloney, the interior designer for the show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. He had a brief Q&A about the show and stuck around for autographs and pictures afterward, which was fun.

We had dinner with Phil and Jen afterward at Zum Biergarten in Bellevue, a delightful German restaurant owned and operated by an authentic German who emigrated to Omaha. Vivian and I found room to share a Tour of Germany plate, which consisted of a brat, schnitzel, sauerkraut, and lots of other things. Zehr gut! I washed it down with a bottle of Spaten Dunkel and then had some Jagermeister back at Phil and Jen's before saying, "Gaten Nacht."

Jeff Dunham photo courtesy of This Guy.

Mardis Gras birthday and an Anniversary

2011-02-28T14:21:00.000-08:00

Viivan and I have been able to enjoy a couple relatively quiet weekends together, which is just fine with me. Sometimes I worry we might be becoming an "old married couple," the kind who prefer to sit at home watching TV instead of going out with friends. Then there are times I feel like it feels quite right not to do anything at all, at least for a little while.

We did managed to get up to Dean and Sarah West's house last Saturday to celebrate her birthday, Mardis Gras style. We'd been meaning to visit Dean's new digs for sometime now and check out the dance floor he built into his basement. It was a fun night. Since the party had a Mardis Gras theme, everyone was required to come in "masquerade" style. It gave me an excuse to pull out my Phantom of the Opera mask and my tuxedo T-shirt. A friend of Dean's played DJ and even put on a dance mix of the Phantom of the Opera theme for us, which was terrific. We got to eat some King's Cake, and Vivian even found the baby inside — hopefully foretelling a prosperous year ahead.

The next night, we took Jack and Donna out to Outback Steakhouse to celebrate their 33rd wedding anniversary. Stuffing ourselves with ribeye steak and a bloomin' onion seems to have become an annual tradition of sorts. We retreated to our house to have blueberry cobbler afterward.

Things have been relatively quiet otherwise. I do seem to be getting quite a lot of reading done. Our Wednesday night Journey group is going through Francis Chan's "Crazy Love" book together, which is giving us plenty of things to talk about. I'm also devouring Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged in anticipation of the new movie coming out based on the story (or at least "part 1" of it). In addition, I'm hoping to start up a Personal Finance group at church based on The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey. As a regular listener to the Dave Ramsey podcast, I've become fairly familiar with the stuff he teaches and look forward to giving it a look with some friends from church. (And by look, of course, I mean a rebuttal.)

V-Day 2011

2011-02-15T06:26:00.000-08:00

Since our big trip to Las Vegas, Vivian and I have enjoyed a couple weekends of not doing a whole lot, which has been great. We had a week or two of nasty winter that seems to be transitioning quickly into quite beautiful springtime.

We had a couple fun events for the weekend before Valentine's Day. Friday night at JNO was the Pink Party, of course, so Vivian and I got to dance with several of our favorite Jitterbugs, including Lisa's mom. It was her birthday and she decided to have a dance in the middle of our traditional birthday jam, which was quite fun.

Sunday evening, Twin Valley had a Wild West themed potluck dinner for some reason. Vivian and I joined in the fun, and we got to duel with Pastor Drew and teach everybody how to do the Electric Slide. Tim provided musical accompaniment. There was also plenty of food, of course, including barbecue, cornbread, and a chocolate cheesecake that Vivian auctioned off for $32 (which went to the coffee fund).

On Valentine's Day, Vivian and I had several fun treats in store for each other, most of which involved food. I got up early enough to make her some heart-shaped pancakes for breakfast, and she made some heart-shaped cherry chocolate cheesecakes for me. I brought her roses and Panera chili for lunch at her workplace, and then made some homemade deep-dish pizza at home for dinner. I was lucky enough to find a recipe from my all-time favorite pizza restaurant in the world: Pizzeria Uno. I made the crust from scratch, which was a first for me. Nobody told me what a horrible, sticky mess that stuff is until you beat it into submission. The result was quite tasty. We also had a few gifts for each other. Vivian gave me a wine-tasting notebook and label organizer, and I got her some tickets to see Jeff Dunham when he comes to Omaha on March 4.

Needless to say, it was a wonderful (and somewhat gluttonous) Valentine's Day for the both of us. Of course, I'll jump at any chance I can get to make homemade pizza, especially if it comes in a heart-shaped pan.

Matt & Vivi, Las Vegas!

2011-01-29T08:39:00.001-08:00

Viva, Las Vegas! Vivian and I decided to celebrate our "sushi anniversary" by taking a break from our midwestern winter wonderland and enjoying a week in the city of neon lights. I've visited Las Vegas five times before, all for business while working at Land and Sky. This was the first time I'd gone to visit just for fun. Vivian had never been to Las Vegas at all, so I was able to show her all the sights and sounds of Sin City.

The weather was a balmy 70 degrees or so — warm enough for the hotels to keep the pools open. It was quite mind-boggling to see people swimming at the Bellagio in the middle of January as if we were in the middle of summer. We kicked off our weekend by stopping for lunch at the Inn-n-Out on Tropicana, which was within walking distance of our hotel. The first time I ever ate at the cult burger chain was during my very first trip to Las Vegas back in 2006, so it only seemed fitting to stop by there again.

After spending some time exploring the strip, we met up with Vivian's childhood friend Alan at the New York, New York's Gonzalez Y Gonzalez restaurant for dinner. He grew up with Vivian in Petaluma and even spent a little time in Bellevue before eventually winding up in Las Vegas nine years ago, so it was nice for him and Vivian to have a chance to catch up. We spent some time afterward wandering up to the Bellagio to watch a couple of their famous fountain shows and then explore the conservatory inside, which was decked out for the Chinese New Year (the year of the rabbit, as it turns out).

We made sure to take one trip downtown so we could see the canopy light show above Fremont Street. I've always enjoyed staying downtown when it Las Vegas — seems like a much quieter version of the strip with much less walking distance between casinos.

The next day, we kicked off our sightseeing with a big breakfast buffet at the Monte Carlo and then a trip to the top of the Stratosphere. It's always fun to get a good bird's-eye view of Las Vegas, and the Stratosphere's the only place I know of where you can see downtown Las Vegas, the Strip, and the World Market Center all at the same time. Our stay was unfortunately cut short when some nut tried to jump off the observation deck. Fortunately, the management were quite professional in preventing the guy from becoming road pizza, but they ushered everybody out of the place and got plenty of emergency personnel on the ground just in case. (As a bonus, we got a refund for our trip to the top).

We had to spend some time finding our way to a bus stop to get back to the strip, where we did a little sightseeing visiting the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas Sign and the M&M's World. Our dinner that evening was the enormous seafood buffet at the Rio, where Vivian and I tried to get our money's worth by stuffing ourselves with all the split lobsters tails, crab legs, sushi, and ceviche we could eat.

We stuck around afterward to see the Penn & Teller, everyone's favorite libertarian atheist magicians. Audience members were allowed to go on stage and inspect a large wooden box that Teller would eventually pop out of. Pianist Mike Jones and Penn Jillette himself performed music on stage as everyone eventually got seated. The tricks themselves were quite amazing, and the duo revealed how some of them were performed — mostly through slight of hand and misdirection.

The highlight, however, was actually getting to meet both Penn & Teller after the show. They stayed in the lobby signing autographs and having pictures taken with audience members, so Vivian and I had a turn with each of them. We even bumped into Teller in his street clothes after getting a few drinks at the bar when the show was done, so I was able to thank him personally for giving everyone at the show the chance to meet them both. He said, "Oh, it's fun — it's like having a party every night."

We couldn't visit Las Vegas without being able to say we did a little gambling, so we decided to blow $20 the next day on roulette at Caesars Palace. It took us exactly two spins to see it evaporate (lesson learned). We decided to stick around and try to get our money's worth by visiting the animatronic show at the end of the Forum Shops, where King Atlas yells at his kids among water fountains and bursts of flame. It was quite fun to watch — kind of like Chuck-e-Cheese on crack.

We ran into a large number of fun street performers along the strip willing to pose in photos for tips. Vivian got to have her purse stolen by Captain Jack Sparrow, and we both stopped to pose with a stormtrooper. If you're coming to Las Vegas, bring a bunch of one dollar bills in your pocket so you can tip as many as you like.

Of course, we got to have our pictures taken with many, many more celebrities at Madame Tussauds in the Venetian. I'd heard of this wax museum plenty of times, but I had no idea that we could actually have our pictures taken with any number of life-like celebrity replicas, including Simon Cowell, Evel Knievel, Shaq, George Clooney, Sean Connery, Jerry Springer, Stevie Wonder, and many others. We spent a couple hours there wandering among the lifeless celebrities, and I even had fun pretending to be a wax dummy just to scare a few other visitors.

That evening, Vivian and I decided to live it up down at the Paris together. We had dinner at the very posh Eiffel Tower restaurant, dining on monkfish, pheasant, chocolate mousse, and some pineapple meringue dessert with champagne sauce, all of which was quite breathtakingly good. Our waiter was even an authentic Frenchman named Pierre who put a very heavy touch of suave Frenchiness on top of our entire visit. Nothing could beat the view of the Bellagio's fountains across the street from the giant wall-to-wall windows, 0f course — nothing that is, except the view from the observation. Vivian and I both traveled to the top of the half-sized Eiffel Tower and got a great view of the strip and a water show from the Bellagio some 460 feet in the air. I can attest it's the best view of the neon lights I've ever seen.

After dinner, we hurried across the street to see "O" at the Bellagio. I saw my first Cirque du Soleil show, Mystère, when I came to visit during the WMC summer show of 2006. It was quite an impressive mix of trippy acrobatic stunts and beautiful music, and I found "O" to be much the same, except on water. Vivian and I were close enough to the stage to feel the heat of the fire acts on stage, as well as the cool water spraying from the thunderstorm scene. I've heard from several people that "O" is the Cirque show on the strip worth seeing most, and we definitely enjoyed it. I even got a T-shirt from the gift shop and played with some of the "zebra" masks with Vivian afterward, hamming it up for the camera by mimicking some of the characters from the show.

Our unforgettable trip seemed to end all too quickly when we finally flew home on Friday. It was much more fun to visit Las Vegas when I wasn't there on business, and I have to admit that the recession has made Sin City a much better deal for travelers like Vivian and me. I only wish we'd brought our swim suits and taken a dip in the pool. Maybe next time.

Cheesy Party, Snowy Sunday

2011-01-29T08:26:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday, Vivian and I hosted our second cheese party, this time in our home in Bellevue. We invited a few of our fellow cheesy friends over to enjoy some wine and cheese, along with cheesy trivia and cheesy games people could play and complete for cheesy prizes. Vivian also made some cheese for everyone to try, which was quite a fun treat.

We also told some cheesy jokes, which went over much better after a bottle or two of wine. The winner of the Best Cheese this year was Lisa, who had the honor of taking the cheese cap away from Venche with, surprisingly enough with some Stilton Blue she found at Aldi. We had a fairly fierce blizzard roll into the metro area, so some people had to cut out early, but a few stayed for a cheesy movie — Pumaman, courtesy of MST3K.

The next day, we got to enjoy the remains of the blizzard by going sledding with Jenny and friends over at Standing Bear Lake. It have me the chance to try out my freezeproof, waterproof, and generally adventure-proof camera, recording some horrible shaky video was sliding downhill. Jenny and Jon also went out onto the lake to make snow angels and write messages in the snow (with footprints, all right?) We retreated indoors for pizza and games once the cold became a bit too much.

It seemed a fitting way to end the weekend before our big trip to Las Vegas. More on that next time.

Sledding at Standing Bear Lake

Goodbye, Bart

2011-01-25T08:35:00.000-08:00

Bart Wormington
1952 - 2011

Vivian and I have been busy with several things over the last week or two that have kept me from updating my old blog, but I would be remiss not to comment on the passing of a mutual Jitterbug friend, Bart Wormington.

Bart had been a long-time member of the Omaha Jitterbugs, having joined with the same "class" as former president Ruth (who usually manages the front desk on Friday nights). Vivian and I had only bumped into him occasionally until he started dating Margaret Clancy a year or two ago. They both danced with us in Papillion parade last summer, and we attended their wedding in December. Strangely enough, Bart and I spent most of our time communicating via Facebook, often sparring over one political topic or another. He was still the kind of person who had a great deal of compassion for other people, even those he disagreed with. He gave Vivian and me loads of advice when her car suddenly needed a new transmission, and also let us know what dire consequences could come from a cracked heat exchanger in our furnace (which we fortunately didn't have).

Bart's passing, which we learned about just last Sunday, came as the biggest shock of our lives. He'd been commenting on Facebook just hours before a fatal heart attack, and Vivian and I only learned about it via a Facebook comment from Ruth. I'd never lost anyone so suddenly before, and I was simply in shock most of the day. His Facebook page and Margaret's quickly filled up with sympathetic comments from mutual friends online, and I can only hope some of that gave some comfort to her and their grieving families.

You will be sorely missed, Bart. We hope you're dancing on beautiful celestial floors now and forever.

Blessed are the cheesemakers

2011-01-19T08:03:00.000-08:00

Vivian and I have enjoyed a few quiet, snowy weekends back home in Bellevue since the holidays have wound down. We're both preparing for a Cheese Party in the next week or two, so Vivian tried her hand at cheese-making one Saturday. She was able to produce some tasty soft white cheese, very much like ricotta, from a gallon of whole milk. It should be fun to top off another cheese-tasting event with something made right in our own kitchen!

We got to enjoy an unexpected three-day weekend when a fairly large snowstorm passed by and dumped a good portion of white stuff all over the Omaha metro area. I shoveled our driveway at least three times trying to keep it clear, which seemed like a futile effort at times, but it was nice to have the extra time off to do it. I was also a little amused at how the snow storm suddenly became national news only when it approached the east coast a few days later.

Snow on the ground, of course, means spending more time in the Great Indoors, which often means cooking. Vivian made up some tasty stuffed peppers one Saturday just for fun, and she also went all-out with something of a seafood feast made entirely of items I'd found at Aldi. You'd never guess the little discount store down the street would have such things as lobster tails, bay scallops, and mussels available (not to mention wine). Yeah, we're living up, albeit on the cheap.

We've still been having fun with our friends, of course, dropping by JNO for dancing and then tacos at Alvorado's afterward (two weeks in a row). On Saturday, we joined Jenny and a few of our mutual friends at Mic's in northwest Omaha for karaoke. The guys stepped up with I'm too sexy, which was hilarious, and the girls and I got to perform Love Shack once again. I've taken a pledge to boycott Omaha for the time being, so I didn't get a dose of liquid courage before stepping on stage. From the sound of the inebriated members of the audience, it sounded like we did just fine.

New Year's in Kansas City

2011-01-01T20:00:00.000-08:00

Vivian and I spent another New Year's Eve in Kansas City, a town we're both growing increasingly fond of, and not just because it's the home to our two comic friends Vort & Michelle (who actually live in Independence).

We beat a nasty snow and ice storm and headed down a day early to stay at the Sheraton next to the decked out Country Club Plaza. We'd visited the Plaza a few times before, but we'd never seen it dressed up for Christmas. It was quite lovely to walk around in the not-quite-freezing weather and enjoy a piece of cheesecake down by the Cheesecake Factory before bedtime.

We had a fun-filled time the next day seeing a few new sights around Kansas City, which mostly included food. After a greasy breakfast at the Waffle House, we dropped into the Better Cheddar, which is quickly becoming one of Vivian's favorite haunts, to spend a small fortune on cheese, jellies, and various sauces. We also dropped by the World Market for more off-shore goodies before having some barbecue lunch up at Arthur Bryant's, which was a favorite of my dad's when we lived in Warrensburg. It was a fairly typical (albeit famous) KC barbecue joint, though Jack Stack is still going to be our favorite for some time.

Afterward, we had time to gawk at the ruins of the Wheatley Provident Hospital, which had apparently been the first black hospital built in Kansas City. We rounded out the day by visiting Union Station, KC's old train station which has since been remodeled as a kind of large museum (not unlike the Durham). Most of the exhibits were closed, but we did drop into the Build a Dino workshop to create our very own Santa Saurus. The holidays will never be the same. ROAR!

Our next stop was Vort and Michelle's home down over in Independence. We had dinner and killed some time cracking up to Jeff Dunham talking to his puppets and playing Kirby's Epic Yarn on the Wii. Once Fading Aura arrived from Colombia and then made a quick trip up to Walmart to buy ingredients to make chocolate chip cookies before midnight. We rang in the New Year with sparkling white wine and grape juice and then played a game called Outbreak as the first dark hours of 2011 unfolded before us.

Fading Aura ponders the situation

On the first day of the new year, I went "geo-caching" with Fading Aura down around Watts Mill near the Indian Creek Bike Trail. Geo-caching is a bit like a treasure hunt, where you find hidden items using GPS and record it in a log book both at the site and online (mostly for bragging rights). It was sunny, windy, and unexpectedly frigid outside, but we managed to find our cache and check out the ruins of the old Watts Mill before retreating to the warmth of the car.

Among the other ruins we expected that day was the quite dead Bannister Mall up the road. It was built back in 1980 and the main structure had been torn down about two years ago. All that was left were rows and rows of vacant strip malls that looked like something out of a post-apocalyptic zombie film.

The mall wasn't completely dead (though it is featured at deadmalls.com). There was a "GenX" clothing store still open, along with a Burlington Coat Factory that felt it was necessary to hang a banner and remind everyone "Yes, We are still open!!!" The rest of the facility was just a sad example of suburban blight, with bizarre details like boarded-up windows and bleached-white stop signs to remind us how long it had been since anyone cared about this property.

Back at the house, Fading Aura made some of his delicious trademark waffles for a late breakfast, and then we introduced Vivian to Doctor Who by firing up the first episode of Season One (from 2005). It was much easier to follow than I expected, and we might wind up watching more.

Before we said goodbye, we headed down to the local Steak and Shake for lunch. They don't have one of these in Omaha, and as a "burger snob" I was eager to give it a try. The chain has been around for some seventy years now and has the distinction of being both a fast-food drive-thru and a sit-down, wait-you-at-your-table restaurant. It was definitely a step above most other burger restaurants I'd visited. We spent the rest of our afternoon eating and drawing together before Vivian and I headed on back to Nebraska.

2010 Wrap-up

2010-12-31T22:30:00.000-08:00

Goodbye, 2010!
2010 was a fun, fabulous year for Vivian and me.
Here are some of the highlights... in pictures!

January: After celebrating the New Year with friends in Kansas City, Vivian and I celebrate with her parents and light the fireplace for a (literal) housewarming party. We also celebrate our third Sushi Anniversary.
February: Matt made a heart-shaped meatloaf for Valentine's Day. We also went to a Fish Fry at St. John Vianney's for a second year in a row (thus making it a tradition).
March: Now that we have a house, Vivian and I host a late-night Pancake Party, just because we can.
April: This was a month for parties: a taco party, a burger party, a tea party, Easter, birthday parties for friends and co-workers, as well as the last meeting for the Shovelers as the torch is passed to Lisa.
May: I get my fifteen minutes of fame making sound effects for Brad Sherwood & Colin Mochrie on stage at the Holland Center.
June: Vivian and I play host for the (final) annual Comic Genesis cookout.
July: We and some friends get to see Styx, Foreigner, and Kansas live in concert with about 50k Omahans in Memorial park. Vivian and I also celebrated our second anniversary in Kansas City, shopping in the Plaza, visiting a museum, eating lobster, and cooling off at Oceans of Fun.
August: Matt has a birthday full of awesome at Johnny's steakhouse and Fun Plex. We also had a fun camping trip canoeing up the Niobrara.
September: Vivian had a birthday made of sushi, Malara's and martinis. We also ate lots of corn at Cowtown and attended the last baseball game at Rosenblatt stadium.
October: Vivian and I participate in a murder mystery, take a trip to Vala's, and host a birthday party for Jenny at our house. We also learned the dance from Thriller and performed it every chance we got.
November: Trader Joe's opens, the Amarillo closes, and Hugh and Sarah have a wedding of extraordinary magnitude.
December: Vivian and I ring in the New Year with friends in Kansas City. We spent a little extra time hanging out in the Plaza, eating some barbecue, and adopting Santasaurus. I also won a chili contest.

Christmas 2010

2010-12-27T08:35:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas, everyone! Vivian and I are wrapping up another whirlwind holiday season here in Nebraska, sharing time, food, and gifts with family and friends over the course of a week or two.

The weekend before Christmas, we had something of a family get-together with Jonathan, Nathan, and Ranae joining us on Friday night to see the premier of Tron Legacy at the Twin Creek cinema. Vivian and I had watched the original Tron a few weeks earlier in anticipation of the sequel, and I have to say that I was very impressed with how they managed to continue the story so well after 28 years. Of course, the visual eye-candy is what made the film so much fun to watch, but I also decided the plot was much deeper than the 1982 film (which felt more like a cheesy and clunky excuse to use computer graphics).

After the movie, we had everyone's favorite breakfast-for-dinner down at Village Inn and then returned to our house to open presents before going home. Vivian got some vanilla bath soaps from Nathan and Ranae, and I got a book I've been meaning to read — Never Eat Alone: by Keith Ferrazzi.

On Christmas Eve Eve, Vivian and I celebrated our fourth First Date Anniversary. We went down to the Old Market and had a very unique dinner at the Passport, where Vivian had duck with an orange glaze and I got to try ostrich steaks for the very first time. We made the obligatory trip to the Old Market candy shop afterward to get some egg nog fudge, then went down to the bench along the Gene Leahy Mall to not kiss for a few minutes before heading over to 13th Street Coffee to warm up.

We wrapped up the night by watching Journey of the Dawn Treader back in Bellevue, which was quite enjoyable. I read the books years ago but remembered very little, so watching the film made me want to start reading some of the Chronicles of Narnia once again.

We spent Christmas eve day happily doing as little as possible, wrapping presents and watching the movie Elf. We attended the Christmas Eve service at Twin Valley church for the first time. Pastor Drew had a message about the original St. Nicholas for the kids, and we sang a variety of Christmas songs, along with Silent Night by candlelight.

We had Jack and Donna over for some Cheese Fondue back at the house, which was quite tasty. It came in the form of a mix Vivian picked up at Trader Joe's and I got to enjoy it with parsnips for the very first time. We opened a boatload of presents afterward, which included a new hard drive and some red shorts for me, a chocolate fondue pot and a Snuggie for Donna, a book on grilling for Jack, and a new shirt and a book on cheesemaking for Vivian.

On the big day, we opened some presents at home via telephone with my parents and then stuffed ourselves with hors d'eourves and Christmas dinner at Vivian's parents' house. Vivian's co-worker Sherry, her husband Rob, and their son Matt joined us for the feast, as did Onion-Boy and my brother Jonathan. I got to try my hand at carving turkey for the first time, which wasn't as easy as it looked. Our meal came with party favors that included small paper crowns (that we all put on immediately). Afterward, we opened our stockings, which had plenty of innuendo going around thanks to such gifts as "monkey butt" powder and "caulk saver" (as if nobody knew that was going to happen). We also had a more-than-welcome visit by everyone's favorite Christmas dinosaur, Santa Saurus.

We returned home and had a few more gift exchanges with Jonathan, which included a boxed set of Mystery Science Theater 3000 movies for Jonathan (from mom and dad), a box of chocolates for Vivian, and some Weird Al CDs for me (both from Jonathan). We spent the Day After Christmas together watching Devil Fish (via MST3K), the Mouse that Roared, and eating pizza and leftovers to round out the weekend.

Christmas Parties

2010-12-14T13:15:00.000-08:00

Christmas is fast approaching, and it seems everywhere we turn is a celebration of some kind. On Wednesday, we had our Small Group Christmas Party, which involved having cocktail wieners and cookies while exchanging a variety of gifts (most of which included fun board games). We also got to coo over Justin and Kelly's new baby girl, Sydney.

At Mosaic, Jim Kuper the Pancake Man paid a visit to Mosaic for a holiday breakfast. He's known for flipping his flapjacks across basketball courts to people hoping to catch a few on their plates. There wasn't as much room in our basement lunch room, and many of the pancakes wound up on the floor, but it was still fun to try to catch them. Even our CEO gave it a shot.

On Friday night, Vivian and I decided to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows: Part 1 together, just on a whim. Since Voyage of the Dawn Treader was opening that same night, we had a not-all-that-full house to enjoy the show. And by enjoy, I mean I watched and followed along since I had already read the book, while Vivian sat bored out of her mind wondering when the main characters would just hurry up and die already.

The rest of the night, of course, was spent at the Eagle's Lodge dancing to the Grand Marquis, who were paying us a visit. Afterward, we crashed at Alvorado's once again for some tasty late-night Mexican food, and we hung around for a while goofing off and playing with Ben Cass' magnetic balls. (Yes, I know how that sounds). Naturally, I had my camera snapping everything in sight, as usual, much to some people's irritation.

On Saturday, we got the fringes of the blizzard that brought down the Metrodome. It was mostly gale-force winds and snow that cut you like sheets of stinging sand, but nothing that made the roads too treacherous to drive on. Our furnace also blew a fuse, making me fairly glad that we'd just renewed our home warranty with Service One. We had him give the furnace an annual check-up as well. Another heating company had "found" a crack in the heat exchanger and said we had to buy a new furnace right away or we could die in our sleep. For some reason, Service One couldn't seem to find the same crack. Maybe that's because they aren't in the business of selling furnaces.

As such, we were a little late to a wedding for Bart and Margaret, two mutual swing dancing friends of ours. I did have time to dance with the bride, but I had to sing the song myself, as the band had already packed up. There was time to snap a handful of pictures, of course, and act a little silly with all of our friends.

Vivian and I had some tasty Nachos Navidad for lunch and washed it down with some McDonald's Egg Nog Shakes — both apparently a Christmas tradition for Vivian. We were also able to do almost all of our Christmas shopping before the end of the day. The blizzard had somehow kept all the holiday shoppers indoors, allowing us to browse a couple different stores at our leisure to pick up a few items (which will be revealed at the proper time, of course).

That evening, Sarah Adair had an apartment-warming party at her new digs. Several of us stopped by to sip wine and play a few games. Things did seem to get pretty goofy fairly quickly. Innuendo ran wild during What's Yours Like, Eric actually ate a ketchup-coated cracker, and then Jon, Jim, and Kris also decided to run out into the snow for some reason. They thought it's be fun to run along the railroad tracks behind the apartment building and bring half of it back inside when they returned. We still had plenty of fun once they got cleaned up.

(And by the way, "Are we still on cake?")

We had yet another Christmas party on Monday, this time with our new friends from Twin Valley Church. The pastor's brother in law lives in the house next door, so we gathered there with several other church members and attendees of the Monday Night "game and bible study" group. We got to stuff ourselves with stromboli, tabouleh, tortilla soup, and an assortment of sweets for dinner, and then we had a fairly competitive white elephant gift exchange. I had to fight to keep a pair of extendible marshmallow tongs, while others got to fight over the hot sauce and chocolates we brought with us. The most popular item seemed to be a large dart gun, which I was actually happy to give up, since I had an identical model sitting in my closet at home (waiting for next year's Comic Genesis Cookout).

Chili, barbecue, and the start of the season

2010-12-07T12:47:00.000-08:00

In case I hadn't mentioned it earlier, Vivian and I have recently started attending Twin Valley Church here in Bellevue, the very church where we got married two and a half years ago. That's right, we've abandoned our local mega-church in favor of a small church where people actually recognize us when we walk inside. It's a very welcome change. We had dinner with our pastor and his family recently, Vivian's singing with the choir, and I'm being recruited do such things as work the audio board and A/V system when other people are out of town. It certainly feels nice to be involved someplace again.

On Tuesday night, we went to dinner at Amarillo with Mark and Lisa from church. Amarillo is a barbecue restaurant on Fort Crook road where I took Jack and Donna for their blessing before I proposed to Vivian in 2008. It's been open for a couple decades now and had such noteworthy guests as Sean Penn, Garth Brooks, and several others. Its last night open was Nov. 30, so we got to enjoy some ribs, feather bones, and "dirt cake" for one last time.

On Friday night, I attended the Friendship Program Christmas Party at Venice Inn, imbibing in a few drinks with co-workers before gorging on steak and toasted ravioli.

On Saturday, we finally got our Christmas tree. We found a lovely little Fraser Fir at a nearby lot and hauled it home (slipping and sliding all the way) on top of my Taurus. It fit just perfectly in the living room, and Vivian and I spent the next couple of days decorating it with lights and ornaments. Our whole living room is now basking in the soft, warm glow of the holiday season every night.

On Sunday evening, it was time for Eric and Ben's annual Chili "Throwdown," held once again in the Nothnagel basement. This thing seems to get bigger every year, with 42 guests and about 15 or 16 competitors joining in this year. Vivian made up her Best Chili You Will Ever Taste once again, and I put together my own special concoction: pizza chili. It included typical chili ingredients such as ground beef, onions, and stewed tomatoes, but I also added green peppers, black olives, mushrooms, garlic, pizza seasoning, pepperoni, Jimmy Dean's hot sausage, and pizza sauce. I think it came out quite well and it won a prize for "most unique" chili of the evening.

Vivian and I were predictably stuffed by the end of the night, quite possibly because we did more sitting around and watching the Simpsons pretend to be Muppets instead of dancing off what we'd just eaten. Maybe next year.

Thanksgiving Weekend

2010-11-28T16:30:00.000-08:00

Vivian and I were able to attend our first professional football game at Rosenblatt Stadium last Friday, which was a certainly interesting experience for the two of us. We'd been to Rosenblatt several times, but we'd hadn't seen the field dressed up for football before. It was very surreal experience. The weather and the crowds were also noticeably different — the family-friendly atmosphere had given way for beer-swilling drunks screaming at the field and fighting with each other in the stands. I could almost understand & it was below freezing and the line for hot cocoa stretches all the way around the stadium. It was still fun to watch some professional football huddled together near the end zone, but the visiting Tuskers plowed the field with the Nighthawks, and Vivian and I headed home early rather than watch the carnage play out.

Fall is quickly making way for winter, with colorful leaves turning dry and brown as the dreaded white stuff starts sputtering down from the sky. That meant Vivian and I had to break out the rakes and clean up our lawn for the very first time. We've come full circle in our little house — we bought it nearly a year ago and we've got to experience all four seasons with it now.

We kicked off Thanksgiving weekend at Jenny's house on the following Wednesday, enjoying some drinks and treats while playing What's Yours Like with her new boyfriend, Kris. Ever since I made martinis at Vivian's birthday party back in September, I've been a bit of a fan of mixing drinks. I made Manhattans for myself and Eric, appletinis Jenny, Venche, and Jon, and virgin appletinis for Vivian and Kris. I could have made another virgin appletini for Eric, but he seemed to like grabbing for Vivian's.

We got to celebrate Turkey Day for the first time at our home in Bellevue, and we had Jack and Donna over to share in a feast that included turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole, pearled onions, cranberry sauce, and everything else you'd need to induce a day-long Thanksgiving Coma.

Vivian and I took a trip down to the Old Market that evening to enjoy the recently-lit Gene Leahy Mall and walk off a bit of our meal. As such, we discovered the Hollywood Candy store has a new, much larger location at 12 and Jackson. Among the aisles and aisle of candy were a new soda fountain and a small movie theater in the works. The owner bumped into us and mentioned that he plans to show free B-grade movies there once the theater is finished. I'm thinking sugar rush + bad movies = MST3K.

Despite being entirely too full, we still stopped by Ted & Wally's for some egg nog ice cream before our walk down to the Gene Leahy Mall. We got our annual photo taken down there before heading home for the evening.

On Black Friday, Vivian and I skipped the homicidal three in the morning crowds and enjoyed a very tame and not-too-crowded stroll through Walmart, where we picked up Batman Begins and Bladerunner for $2 each along with our egg nog. We visited the Durham that evening for their Christmas tree lighting and helped Donna's cake-decorating group hand out cookies for the kids to decorate before the main event.

Later on, we dropped by JNO to welcome back Jillian from New Yawk City. She was able to have a Birthday/Welcome Back jam toward the end of the night. Jenny and Kris made an appearance as well, and we inducted him into the tradition of having breakfast and BS'ing down at Village Inn afterward.

Random Vivian Weekend

2010-11-15T11:14:00.000-08:00

Vivian and I have had a fun week or so just hanging out with one another. On Thursday last week, she got an award from Friendship Program, where she's spent the last five years of her working life. We got to hang out with a few of her goofy co-workers and have some tasty hors d'eourves provided by the staff.

On Saturday, Vivian made good on a bet we had on the Nebraska / Texas game a few weeks ago and took me out to lunch at the place of my choice. Naturally, I chose Wasabi, the All You Can Eat Sushi restaurant out on West Maple. The place was absolutely amazing. You order sushi from a menu similar to Sakura Bana or any traditional sushi restaurant, except you only pay once. We stuffed ourselves with maki rolls, shrimp tempura, miso soup, green tea ice cream, and an assortment of other items that would have put us well in bankruptcy if we'd eaten anywhere else.

We waddled on over to the Michael's next door to browse the art supplies and play with the toys over there as we let our giant meal settle.

Vivian and I headed down to the new Trader Joe's at One Pacific Place afterward. The place was packed, as we'd expected. Trader Joe's is the kind of grocery store you'd get if Whole Foods and Aldi had a baby — the selection is mostly all-natural foods and specialty items usually found only on the west coast (such as Italian Dry Bologna, or whatever it's called), and it's also almost entirely store-branded products. That means the prices are actually quite reasonable. I picked up a big bottle of sweet vermouth for $5 as well as a bottle of the notorious Two Buck Chuck (which was actually $3).

I was also impressed with the effort Trader Joe's made to localize their store with murals on the walls of noteworthy Omaha landmarks, such as the Lauritzen Gardens and the Dundee Theater. It was fun to try to identify them as we squeezed out through the checkout line with our goods in tow.

We were still stuffed from lunch, so we walked down the Big Papio Trail as the sun set. The light was hitting the colorful leaves of a nearby grove of trees, and Vivian wanted to stop and get some lovely fall pictures of ourselves before heading home.

Our little Honda Civic hit a big milestone on Sunday night — it finally made it over its first one-hundred thousand miles. Vivian wanted me there on hand with a camera to capture the moment on video.

On Tuesday, I decided to take Vivian out for a "just because" date, so we dropped by the always-appetizing Charlie's on the Lake to have some seafood for dinner, and then we went to the AMC theater around the corner to watch Facebook: The Movie (also known as The Social Network). It was quite compelling, and much better than I expected, probably because they didn't include anything about Farmville.

Cleaning house, a wedding, and Arts for All

2010-11-08T05:59:00.000-08:00

Vivian and I had an unexpectedly fun and lively weekend together. It started early on Saturday, when we dropped by our friends Craig and Debby's house to help them move on out. Craig recently accepted a position in St. Louis, so they needed to clean house and get it ready to put on the market. That meant painting several rooms and tearing apart some moldy dry wall in the basement. I had a little too much fun going all Jack Nicholson (as in The Shining) on the walls, breaking them open and going all Kool-Aid style in the demolition process. OH YEAH!

At four o'clock, our mutual friends Hugh Kam and Sarah Hansen were married out at Peace Presbyterian Church in West Omaha. It was the ideal wedding ceremony — brief and to the point, and followed by a long and fun reception. We had dinner and speeches by Best Man Olin and Maid of Honor (Sarah's sister) Laura. Then we had several hours to burn off our dinner dancing to music by DJ/MC Troy. There seemed to be an equal mix between swing and country music, as well as welcome inclusions of "Shout" by the Isley Brothers and a conga dance. (The Chicken Dance and the Hokey Pokey were notably absent.)

Of course, I was on hand to take plenty of photos and video, and I put together a brief video summary of the event online.

Vivian and I had some more fun on Sunday crashing at Sam & Louie's in Bellevue to have pizza with new friends from Twin Valley Church, where we've been attending for the last couple of months. Afterward, I dropped by St. Martin's up in South Omaha, where our swing dancing friends Jessica Ritchie and Dan Wondra were participating in an art show with Arts for All. Jessica had her photos on display, and Dan was, of course, drawing caricatures. He did one of me mixing up nasty drinks, as is my forte now, apparently. We also did one or two swing dance demonstrations to anybody who happened to wander by.

Highlights from Hugh & Sarah's wedding

Halloween

2010-11-02T11:58:00.000-07:00

We had our first freeze warning of the season shortly before All Hallows Eve, so Vivian and I did a late evening harvest of our tomato plants so we could have a chance to eat some of them. We had plenty of green tomatoes still waiting to be picked on the vine, and even some red ones. It looks like some bruschetta may be in our future.

Among our slew of Halloween events was a brief birthday party for Vivian's co-worker Sally. She dressed up as Waldo, so I made a themed card for her and joined the gang from Friendship Program for pizza and burgers dressed as Inigo Montoya. Vivian came as a piece of sushi.

Friday night was the Halloween Dance at JNO, so Vivian and I wore our costume over to the Eagle's Lodge for a night of dancing. We had plenty of worthy competitors in the costume contest this year, which included Rob and a Whoopie Cushion, Jaimie as Little Bo Creep, and Dan Wondra as... Dan Wondra.

The highlight, however, was our brief performance of the Thrill the World dance in the middle of the dance floor. We'd been practicing in Merinda's basement for the last month of two, and it was quite exciting to jump out and perform in front of a bunch of unsuspecting swing dancers. We're already talking about doing the whole six-minute song next year, perhaps at the Haunted Manor here in Omaha.

On Saturday night, Merinda had another classic Halloween party in her basement. Some of us donned new costumes just for the occasion, including Lisa as Running with Scissors, Jaimie as Mother Nature (or Poison Ivy, take your pick), Brianne as a Blue Ox (with Paul Bunyan standing by) and Ben Cass as the Creepy Panda (no, I don't get it either). Dan and Cathy got to take the cake as the Creepy Swing Dancing Zombies, with make-up provided by the Haunted Manor. Seriously, Dan looked remarkably like Freddy Krueger.

It was a long, fun night, with plenty of silliness and mixing of drinks. I got to give away some of our own store making Martinis, Appletinis, and White Russians who anybody who wanted them. Of course, Troy's radioactive rum was probably quite enough for anyone.

Vala's & Lisa's 50th

2010-10-24T12:36:00.001-07:00

With fall well underway, and only a week or so left in October, it was high time for a trip to Vala's Pumpkin Patch with a bunch of our mutual friends. The weather was just about perfect — sunny and cool with nary a trace of the "80% chance of rain" the forecasters had been warning us about. As such, there was plenty of room for us to act like crazy kids bouncing on orange trampolines. We also got to ride around on pedal carts, get lost in a corn maze, wander through the obligatory haunted house, and gorge on succotash without waiting around in line. It was a terrific time, and we got to see just about everything we wanted (except for a surprise appearance by The Godfather).

That evening we celebrated our friend Lisa's 50th birthday party at the Bancroft Market / Reception Hall in south downtown Omaha. Our Jitterbug and Classical Music disc jockey Ben Rasmussen appeared with his band Insignificant Other and covered a variety of 60s and 70s songs for our dancing enjoyment. I poured a couple White Russians for everyone and got stuffed on nachos, cake, and other hors d'eourves over at the snack table. A few hours of dancing wasn't nearly enough time to burn it all off, but we still had a great time hanging out and being silly under nearly midnight.

Political Jabbing

2010-10-21T20:00:00.000-07:00

It's election season once again, and I decided to drop by Bellevue University to check out a debate between 2nd District Congressman Lee Terry and his would-be opponent, Tom White. I went in with an open mind, already more or less decided on my vote, but I was somewhat disappointed when the "debate" quickly turned into an exchange of personal attacks. To be specific, all Tom White seemed to want to talk about was Lee Terry's alleged conversation with a female lobbyist, much to the irritation of his wife in the front row and most of the audience. I'd much rather hear from each candidate what they'd do differently in Washington instead of why I shouldn't vote for the other guy.

I have to admit one thing about Lee Terry — he's damn easy to run into in Omaha. He regularly holds "coffees with Lee" at random local dives and town hall meetings, which makes it easy for noisy constituents to come and complain to him about things. The one moment that stands out to me most, however, was when I bumped into him at Deitz music shop down on Cornhusker while doing some Christmas shopping. There's something that makes you feel quite warm and fuzzy to know you can just run into your own congressman like any other human being, that he's not walled off in some fortress of solitude back in Washington. He was buying his son a guitar for Christmas, so I didn't do much other than shake his hand and say hello, but it felt good to know I could tell him what was on my mind as well.

Now if only I could bump into Ben Nelson the same way.

Pizza and a Costume Party

2010-10-15T21:45:00.000-07:00

We can had a couple select birthdays to celebrate last week. The first was on Thursday for Jon Paper, who threw a fairly impromptu dinner party down at Old Chicago in Bellevue. It was a great excuse to see a couple long lost friends and gorge on some giant deep dish pizza together.

On Saturday, we celebrated our friend Jenny's 30th birthday party in style — at our house! For the last couple of years, our mutual friend Hugh has been gracious enough to host Jenny's birthday parties, but this year we gave him a break to worry about getting married and offered to have Jenny's party at our house down in Bellevue.

As usual, it was a costumed affair, with many creative entries from our collection of crazy friends. Among the highlights were Lisa as her second childhood, Eric as a cop from Reno 911 (with extremely short shorts), Jon as God's gift to women, Rick as a worm-ridden zombie, Frank as a big chicken, Merinda as a creepy doll, and Jenny with a Cookie Monster party dress. Vivian's trying to keep her costume a surprise until this weekend. I came as Inigo Montoya, complete with long, curly tresses, rapier, and name tag. We hung around into the wee hours of "stupid o'clock" dancing and playing with balloons in the basement. Kevin also commented on the "crouching cauliflower, hidden broccoli" in the veggie tray, a phrase destined to become a T-shirt. (I still don't get it.)

We had plenty of food and drinks to go around, and we got to burn off most of them on the dance floor in our basement. It was the first time we got to use the tiled portion of our basement for any serious dancing, but it worked out pretty well, especially thanks to Dan Wondra's Tailgater sound system. Of course, our dancing including a performance of Thriller out on the driveway, which seemed to go over pretty well.

Murder Mystery

2010-10-12T10:07:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday Night, Vivian and I had the chance to participate in a Murder Mystery party hosted by our mutual friend Kaleb. He hosts an elaborate murder mystery party every year in October, so we were quite happy to be invited. The theme of this year’s party was based on the movie Bladerunner, with nods to several other science-fictions films including Terminator, Aliens, and even Total Recall (among others). The event was hosted in the Old Market Lofts in downtown Omaha, so Vivian and I got to enjoy some Japanese cuisine with a spectacular view of the city from the rooftop.

Vivian and I were “security officers” for the event along with Ben Cass, and we got to piece together a fairly detailed story that was in essence one big piece of interactive fan fiction. Other players included Onionboy as CEO of Cyberdine, Merinda as a nosy reporter, and Lisa as a wealthy German socialite. Part of my role was to manhandle one of the guests who had a big mouth and had to be made an example of in front of everyone on the ride up to the rooftop. Then I had to attend to our host, Kaleb / Tyrell CEO Vincent, as he gets shot and then almost figures out that he’s a replicant. As the story slowly unraveled, I was able to figure out most of the key plot points just in time to blab them to a few other people, potentially losing my chance to win any of the prizes Kaleb handed out at the end of the night. I was able to complete my “goal” of proving my loyalty to former Tyrell CEO Eldon Tyrell, who I was able to determine was now a female clone played by Kaleb’s mom.

It was essentially a night of grown-ups playing “make believe” and honestly couldn’t have been more enjoyable. My only regret is that I decided to shave off my goatee in order to achieve the “serious cop” look I felt was necessary for the event. Now when I look in the mirror, I feel like an extra from Super Troopers. Oh well — at least it’ll still work out for the Halloween costume I plan on donning Saturday night.

More on that later.

Photos above courtesy of Onion Boy.

Fun with friends and on the farm

2010-10-04T12:46:00.000-07:00

Vivian and I have had another fun week enjoying the fall weather and spending time with family and friends. On Wednesday, we had a random game night with our Journey Group from CCC. We played some croquet in the courtyard of the Greenfields apartments out in West Omaha, where Nick and Lisa live. We had to fight off some terrible, carnivorous mosquitoes and then scratch and itch or two upstairs while playing a few cutthroat rounds of Apples to Apples.

On Thursday, we continued our September birthday celebrations with Vivian's parents, carrying on the tradition of eating ribeye and a bloomin' onion at Outback Steakhouse in celebration of Vivian and Jack's birthdays (which are two days apart).

We've been having some gorgeous autumn weather this week, so Vivian and I enjoyed the great outdoors on Saturday. We dropped by the Farmer's Market in downtown Omaha in the morning, buying a peach pie, some swiss mushroom brats, a bottle of homemade root beer, and a few other tasty wares from local vendors (including a yummy peanut butter and banana cupcake).

Afterward, we dropped by Gifford Farm in Bellevue, which was having an open house fundraiser. Vivian's mom has been working there for sometime, so we dropped by and got to visit some of the animals on the farm, including baby chicks, a ferret, a turtle, a leopard gecko, pigs, chickens, horses, and several other animals. We also got to sit inside a makeshift planetarium and learn about astronomy later in the afternoon. Now I can find the north star if I ever get lost in the woods.

That evening, we finally made it up to Blair again to take part in one of our friend Dennis' many movie night events. (It seems like our schedules have always collided in the past.) We had some pulled pork and a few glasses of wine before settling in to watch Back to the Future Part 3 and Smokey and the Bandit, both movies I'd seen a while ago but had mostly forgotten about. Vivian had never seen Smokey and the Bandit before, and it was fun to watch the antics of Burt Reynolds and Jackie Gleason in what was essentially was one long car chase. The third installment of Marty McFly and Doc Brown's adventures in time also turned out to be a little more interesting than I remembered.

Vivian's Birthday

2010-09-29T21:30:00.000-07:00

On Monday, Vivian had another birthday, and we had a lot of fun things happening leading up to her big day.

On Friday night, we dropped by the Eagle's Lodge so Vivian could have her birthday jam at Jitterbugs' Night Out. She got the lead the shim dance immediately following. After the dance, we decided to break from tradition and dropped by the cozy little Donut Stop in south of downtown instead of our usual haunt, Village Inn. It proved to be a great idea — the place was packed with teenagers drinking milk and playing games, and the warm, sugary goodness of a couple fresh donuts was a welcome change. Jenny and Lisa joined Vivian and me as we stuffed our faces with a few Bavarian cream donuts, and then we scraped together loose change and begged from friends (namely Ben & Ben) to get a couple more.

The weather's been absolutely gorgeous for the last week or two, so Vivian and I were sure to attend the final Lindy in the Park down at 11th and Farnam with our friends. Then on Monday — Vivian's birthday — I decided to surprise her with a picnic lunch at Keystone Park. I brought some Sushi for Two from Sakura Bana, which we washed down with Green Tea in the best picnic weather possible.

On Monday night, I took Vivian out to dinner with a bunch of our friends. We went to Malara's Italian Restaurant, which is best known for its selection of homemade pasta. Vivian had spaghetti with white sauce and a laughably large sausage in the middle (just begging for a "that's what she said" joke). There was enough left over to fill a to-go box that I and everyone at the table decorated with our happy birthday wishes.

The lot of us returned to our house down in Bellevue, where I mixed up some martinis for the very first time for everyone. I made some vodka martinis, chocolate martinis, apple martinis, and a virgin apple martini with blended ice that seemed to go over best. I did learn the hard way not to mix "virgin" cocktails in the cocktail shaker — the carbonated ingredients exploded all over me and the kitchen, so I wound up wearing a Shirley Temple for the rest of the night.

Donna brought cake for everyone, and we ate it with some Bailey's Ice Cream I special-ordered from our favorite ice cream parlor, Ted & Wally's. After that, Vivian opened presents, which included a sock monkey hat, a new slow-cooker, and a water bottle filled with Lindor Truffles, among other things.

We had enough martini ingredients left over that I'll have to schedule a cocktail party to use them up. It'd be nice to have an excuse to practice my mixing skills once again. In the meantime, Happy Birthday, Vivian! I love you and hope we have another wonderful year together.

Corny Cowtown Weekend

2010-09-21T06:00:00.000-07:00

The Omaha Jitterbugs held their eighth annual Cowtown Jamborama swing dancing event over the last weekend, no naturally, Vivian and I took part in the festivities. We and other members of the JIVE volunteers group moved tables and got things set up before a swinging opening night in the Elmwood Park pavilion. Playing for us were Big Sandy and his Fly-Rite Boys, a rockabilly band Los Angeles that seemed to have a mix of country music in their repertoire. Every Cowtown feels a bit like a family reunion, with old friends who've moved away coming back to dance with us, as well as the usual cast of "out-of-towners" who only make it to Omaha for this one event every year.

The one other highlight of the night was dining at "Five Guys" for the first time down on 72nd and Dodge. They recently opened three locations in Omaha, and I had heard about them recently as having been voted one the best burger chains in America. I found them quite similar to Inn-in-Out, with a deliberately limited menu selection and a focus on fresh products — specifically french fries cut on the spot from actual potatoes before getting fried in peanut oil. The other highlight was the extensive list of burger toppings, which included items like fried onions, mushrooms, and jalapeños. Needless to say, we will definitely be back, but if you'd like to drop by, be prepared to wait — every dish is made to order.

On Friday night, we celebrated our friend Venche's birthday in style down at Brix, the new "wine lounge" in West Omaha at the Village Pointe mall. It was an interesting place, with a variety of unique "small dish" appetizers and dozens of wines to sample from self-serve kiosks. I enjoyed a bubbly, sweet Australian white called Friend of Dreams and enjoyed goofing around with a bunch of our friends (one of whom decided to "borrow" someone's camera and snap some amusing pictures).

We gathered at Venche's house afterward to stuff ourselves further with Vivian's delicious chocolate cheesecake while playing a couple lively rounds of The Game of Things.

Vivian and I arrived late to the Friday night dance, and I'm awfully sorry we did. We had only twenty minutes to enjoy the amazing Little Harper Big Band, who played a set of fast-paced swing music that reminded me why I first fell in love with swing music back in the late 1990s. I also enjoyed dancing with several of the far more experienced "out-of-towners" and was quite amazed at how everything seemed to "click" into place during every eight-count swing-out. It was pure joy.

The party continued downstairs during after hours, where other hungry Lindy Hoppers got to chow down on everybody's favorite menu option: breakfast after midnight.

On Saturday, Vivian and I traveled down to Nebraska City to enjoy an afternoon at the Applejack festival. We'd attended twice before with friends, but this time we traveled by ourselves and took in a few sites we'd missed before. We ventured inside the Arbor Day Lodge for the first time, a 100+ year old manor which was home to Secretary of Agriculture and founder of Arbor Day J.S. Morton and his son Joy Morton, founder of the Morton Salt Company. Among other memorabilia, it had fascinating old blocks of lead type from the 19th century in the attic, and a hundred-year-old wooden bowling alley in the basement.

After the tour, we dropped by the Arbor Day Farm across the street for a wine-tasting, sampling apple wine and cherry wine and then grabbing some pumpkin butter and apple butter to take home with us. We ate lunch downtown at the Dinty Moore's, a quaint lunch counter that appears to be unchanged since 1930. We both had a couple shredded beef sandwiches that gave us enough energy to visit the library's book sale and go shopping for some apple pie before heading home.

Vivian and I returned to the Eagle's Lodge Saturday Night for some brief dancing, which included a jam circle to showcase the talents of some of our instructors. Peter & Mia, Kim & David, Karen & Andy, and Dan & Gabi all joined in. Then we dropped by the 906 Lounge in north downtown for the after-hours dancing. We had to circle the block three times to make sure we'd found the right location. The 906 Lounge in actually a bizarre kind of art gallery disguised as an auto junkyard, completely with barbed wire on top of the chain link fence surrounding the entrance. Inside, we had the usual jitterbug fare of sleepy-eyed dancing and breakfast after midnight (with egg casserole supplied by Vivian). Some of the ladies also enjoyed posing with a bust of Grover Cleveland, which was hilarious.

On Sunday night came the main event: the corn-eating contest! I'd kept myself deliberately famished most of the day in order to build up the appetite necessary to devour 16 eats of corn. The contest started at seven o'clock JST (Jitterbug Standard Time), which turned out to be around 8:30. We got to see the "baby" corn-eating contest first, with the adorable children of Jitterbug veterans taking their few teeth to a couple ears of their own.

As for the grown-up corn-eating contest, Vivian got third place (again), and I took a close second behind Andrew Thigpen (who managed to down 17 ears of corn). Eric somehow beat me to finishing the first ear of corn, which he was more than happy to announce to everyone after the contest, so I'll have to be faster on the mark next year. Unfortunately, this turned out to be the first corn-eating contest where we actually ran out of corn. I found myself with a minute to spare at the end with nothing more to eat and had to settle for cleaning the ears I'd already racked up. Nobody had to be taken to hospital to have a stomach pumped, so I guess you could say we were all winners.

Thus ends another crazy, busy weekend around the Cowtown Jamborama. Maybe next year Vivian and I will take a class or two, but until then it'll be nice to settle back into the more or less "normal" routine of saving dancing until midnight and breakfast afterward to just one day a week.