Jam sessions

Well, summer is finally here, though after the last few months of unseasonable coolness, I won't complain over a few days in August in the 90s. It certainly won't keep us from having fun outdoors, such as having a family picnic for Hannah's 21-month birthday! My two ladies stopped by Stinson Park, and we had some sandwiches before letting Hannah run through the fountains by Center street. Then she found some kid's discarded toy car and decided to claim it as her own in-between shooting down the slides. On Saturday, we had another rendezvous with Dennis and his clan in Papillion. He had an "end of summer" party, even though it feels like it just got started. We had burgers and dogs with some of our mutual friends as the kids terrorized one another in the other room.

On Sunday, we had one last, hot Lindy in the Park for the 2013 season. It almost didn't happen, since Billy wasn't around to set up this time, but Dan Wondra stepped it with his Tailgater, and I'm awfully glad he did. Despite the heat, we got a handful of friends out to dance underneath the pavilion, but the real fun started when a few stray musicians wandered our way. If you've been to Stinson Park over the past few weeks, you may have seen a piano bearing the words, "Play Me, I'm Yours" (which part of a larger street art project). After an hour of dancing to stock swing tunes, local musician Gene Klosner dropped by to improvise some blues and boogie woogie for us on the fly, which was fantastic. About an hour later, a man named Jim Snyder came by to bang out some amazing rockabilly and bluegrass for us for at least an hour after we were going to call it a day. It was the first Lindy in the Park ever with live music, and you couldn't possibly have planned it. We had a handful of other jitterbugs join in the fun, and at least as many other pedestrians walking by filming the spectacle. I'm so glad we were able to have one last (hot) dance outdoors for the season! Special thanks to Dan Wondra, Jim Snyder, and Gene Klosner for making it so memorable.

Friendship dancing and air boating

Last week, Vivian helped carry on a tradition that's been going on longer than I've even known her: swing dancing at Friendship Program! Yes, a few stray Lindy Hoppers and member of the Jitterbug "performance team" dropped by to demonstrate their fancy footwork to the good folks up on Maple Street during a lunch break. Most people had to wander back to work (aka "real life"), though Dan Wondra, Linsday and I got to stay until the very end with Vivian, kicking up our feet for Charleston or whatever else we could come up with before the music ended.

Then on Saturday, the Johnson Family spent a little more time taking advantage of the Best Summer Weather Ever down on the Platte River with some mutual friends and co-workers. The whole event was held at a complex of "cabins" and beautiful landscaping owned by the Labedz family, which was open to any member of the family, a few of which we happened to know. The lot of us had chicken and ice cream hanging out on the patio, and then Mr. Labedz dad broke out the air boat to roar a couple of us up and down the river. There's nothing quite like being able to shoot right over a shallow sandbar when you're used to scraping over it with a canoe. Hannah, of course, just had fun running around outside and playing with other kiddos before crashing in our car on the way home.

Mandatory Night Out

One thing I happen to love about Groupon is that these little vouchers have an expiration date. That means Vivian and I get an extra financial incentive to make a "date night" happen! We had one of these on Friday, dropping by Jazz downtown to have some Chicken a la Mer and jambalaya. We dined al fresco, since this epic summer of unbelievable coolness just keeps continuing. Then we actually headed on down to the Eagle's Lodge for a night of swing dancing. Now that Hannah's too old to just fall asleep in her car seat on command, staying up until 11:30 doing the Lindy Hop is something is a special event. We got to catch up with (and dance with) a few of our old friends, and we also got to meet Dean and Sarah's new baby girl. There was also a Jack and Jill competition, but we had to run home and relieve someone of her babysitterly duties before we could see how that turned out.

The next day, we had a few of Vivian's old co-workers over to our house to catch up over lunch. A few of them had never met Hannah before, so she got to have a new grandma and grandpa for a few hours. On Saturday night, the Perseids meteor shower was (allegedly) making its annual appearance over the Rector Ranch, so we headed on back there to spend a few hours with our usual crew of friends around the campfire. Vivian and I decided to take a brief hike off into the picturesque landscape just for the heck of it. Jessica kept Hannah company in the meantime and played some hilarious game that involved smelling flowers (one of which I picked for Hannah on my trip back to the campfire).

Stop! Hammerschlagen.

We got to have a little more family fun last week in Omaha. On Thursday, Vivian had the girls from her bible study over for the evening, so I took Hannah down to the local Chick-Fil-A for some story time with April Dodson. She's an author from Colorado Springs who wrote a book called Tally the Turtle, so for whatever reason she decided to drop by Chick-Fil-A with a few books to read to any of the kids who showed up. The center of the restaurant was rearranged into a cozy story nook, but Hannah seemed a little more interested in getting a turtle-shaped balloon made by the Balloon Man around the corner.

On Friday, Vivian took her mom out for Canvas and Cabernet at Aksarben Village as something of a belated birthday present. We'd stumbled upon the place one hot Sunday afternoon after Lindy in the Park, and it sounded like fun. They had a basic landscape everyone followed along and painted with a preset palette of colors, all while sipping a couple glasses of wine. The budding artist in me might be tempted to try such a thing down the road, mostly because I won't have to worry about cleaning and storing a bunch of brushes like I did in my art school days.

On Saturday night, we headed up to the Rector Ranch for a joint birthday / retirement party for Tamra and her dad, Royce, respectively. Tamra was turning the big three-oh, and naturally had to celebrate with our mutual group of friends with volleyball, Telestrations and Hammerschlagen (apparently mandatory at the Rector Ranch). Vivian and I took turns juggling Hannah, who seemed quite enamored with the countryside and open spaces, very eager to play with our friends and steal the volleyball in-between sets.

Royce had invited a bunch of his mutual friends and co-workers as well. It seemed daunting to think about working at once company for longer than I've been alive, particularly in today's corporate culture where employees are treated more or less as a disposable resource, and anyone from a senior vice-president to an executive assistant can be shown the door at a moment's notice.

Winds of change

Can a Nebraskan like me ever get tired of talking about the weather? Not when it's 71 degrees in July. Earlier this week, a sweet wind of change blew through the Omaha metro area, sweeping in some fantastic clouds just in time for Hannah's 20-month birthday (giving us plenty of opportunity for cute pictures). Along with that came a little rain and then gorgeous, fall-like conditions that provided the perfect weather for playing outside and a picnic in the park.

The cool weather also came in time for another outdoor movie at the Sumtur Amphitheater in Papillion. We'd already made plans to see Wreck-It Ralph with a few clusters of our friends, and the weather only helped in bringing about a record-setting crowd of over 1400 people. A bunch of kids did the Crazy Dance on stage (including a few we know from church) as the rest of us lounged on our blankets before the movie started. The weather was downright intoxicating, a sweet treat for late July to say the least.

On Saturday night, we dropped by the Reed Community Center to join in the fun of Merinda and Mike's wedding reception. It was the perfect excuse for Hannah and a few of her little friends to put on pretty dresses and bring on the cute as mom and dad danced with a bunch of their swing-dancing friends. Billy also did what no other DJ could do — combine swing music and 80s favorites (and I found myself dancing more for the latter). There was a parent-child dance, bouquet-tossing, garter-grabbing, chicken dancing, the YMCA, and a shim-sham, of course, as well as plenty of retreating outside to get another gulp of the gorgeous weather. It was what I hope my own wedding reception would have been — lots of fun for all our friends!

Congrats, Merinda and Mike! Keep dancing, keep dreaming, keep loving, keep living.

Five year anniversary

Vivian and I celebrated a matrimonial milestone last week – five years of marriage! We got Grammy and Papa to stay with our girl for the day so we could take a brief trip up to Ashland to see some of the sights close to home, right between Lincoln and Omaha. Our first stop was to the drive-thru “safari” right off exit 426. We’d been meaning to drop by for a visit for the longest time and finally made time to see some elk, pelicans, whitetail deer, and some American bison up close and personal, all from the comfort of our Honda Civic. We got to get a look at a few bald eagles, as well as check out some of the interesting plant life that the bison much enjoy eating at the north end of the park.

We headed across the Interstate to Mahoney State Park after we’d had our fill of flora and fauna and had some lunch at Kiewit Lodge. We spent a few hours at the water park next door after that, getting into a tousle with a fairly violent wave pool and seeing how high we could get a couple fountains to spray by stepping on their other spouts. We also took a few trips down the water slides when the lines for them weren’t unbearably long. We put on sunblock, of course, but we still managed to get burned before the end of the day, probably because we weren’t reapplying the allegedly waterproof sunblock every 80 minutes.

We worked up a sufficiently good appetite by the time we were done frolicking and headed back to Omaha for some dinner. We dropped by Charlie’s on the Lake and picked out a couple genuine live lobsters from their tank, and then proceeded to try to tear them apart without making too much of an embarrassing mess. (The kind staff offered to help us, of course, but we were too darn adventurous.) We also exchanged some appropriate gifts. Vivian gave me a lovely office organizer set, as well as a combination corkscrew, bottle opener, pocket knife key chain (a very manly item, indeed). I gave her a wooden shadowbox frame of our wedding vows, which also plays Unchained Melody, as well as my traditional cartoon summary of our year together.

We took a brief walk around The Lake before heading home, where our girl was already fast asleep. I had one more surprise before calling it a night: the video you see below! It’s been another amazing year with my lovely soul mate, and I have to admit that every year just keeps on getting better! I love you, Vivian.

Five-year anniversary video

Living large in Omaha

I mentioned in my last blog update that I had some big news in the works, so for those of you who don’t already know, here it is — I’m going to be in a book!

Clark Howard hosts a radio show out of Atlanta, George and deals with financial topics, specifically learning how to save more, spend less, and not get ripped off. I was first turned onto the show by my dad when I visited for Christmas in 2008. I’d wanted some fun podcasts to listen to on the flight home, and he mentioned Clark Howard. I’ve been something of a Clarkaholic ever since. Listening to the daily talk show, I’ve learned how to open a Roth IRA with a discount broker, fund it using low-cost index funds, and watch my retirement income grow over time.

I’ve learned many other things from the show over time, but when a couple of Clark Howard’s co-authors came calling in late 2012, they wanted to talk with me about my story on investing for his new book, Living Large for the Long Haul. The book itself is a compilation of real stories from people around the country who’ve been able to “make it” during the last few years of the Great Recession. My portion of the book is used to explain investing using low-cost funds wrapped around my brief encounter with Warren Buffett at the Bohemian Cafe (as well as plenty of personal tidbits). The book will be available on August 6, but since I happen to be featured in it, I got an advance copy. I haven’t had the chance to read much of the book yet (I’ve been too busy celebrating an anniversary — more on that later), but I highly recommend checking it out. From what I’ve gathered so far, most of the stories are far more interesting than mine. And if you can check Clark Howard on your radio dial, I recommending tuning in when you can. if you can’t, you can find it online at clarkhoward.com.

And at an online bookstore near you, of course. (Look for my story on page 128.)