Pick up line challenge

Not that I frequent many bars, or use many pick up lines, but you have to admit this picture deserves a crack at it. So, what's your best pick up line for this group.



How about, "I know it's probably nun of my business, but you sure have great legs."

Okay, you can obviously see why my wife fell head over heels for me, so if you're going to tell me what a loser I am, let's hear a better line.

Designing Differences

Deann and I just got back from the paint store where we found out that Dan the Paint Guy has quit his job to go drive a semi-truck. Oh the tragedy - the horror - Dan is the equivalent to Michelangelo for Pleasantville's small need of an interior designer. So, after the shock wore off, we began to plan out how we are going to paint our bedroom.

A relatively easy task for some, but Deann's tastes and mine are very different. I love the old world / mediterranean look like this.


She's in the mood for... well, I still don't understand what she wants. She has good taste, I just don't understand it. So 2 hours later we're home with a comprimise of olive khaki colors to go with our eggplant bedspread. My creativeness and willingness to experiment has driven her up the wall which is still unpainted. Her style has driven me through the wall. Maybe we should considder remodeling as well since the wall now has holes in it. Uh... no.

I'll get some pics up as the project unfolds.

I'd beat that kid into next week

You ever go to the grocery store and see that horrible brat kid that totally controls their parents?

You ever become one of those parents who is getting controlled by your kid at the grocery store?

In the first case, you usually walk away saying to yourself either "I'm never having kids" or "I'm never going to let my kid do that" or even "If I were that kid's parent, I'd beat that kid into next week"

In the second case, you usually walk away saying to yourself either "I'm going to kill this kid when I get them home" or "I'm going to kill myself when I get home"

Either way, in either case, you all can categorize yourself into one of those areas. Which is exactly why this commercial is absolutely hillarious, yet somehow surreal.

link

Wood, Paint and Tears

Jacob, my oldest son has recently joined Tiger Scouts (Cub Scouts for younger boys) As part of the tradition every Scout gets to make a pinewood car to be raced at the highly competitive Pinewood Derby.

Every dad's tradition is to design and build the fastest, coolest car conceivable, then paint with some incredible paint job. Fading flames, airbrushed, mixed custom colors... The works. Well, remembering these days as a young scout myself, I vowed not to let my son fall victim to my competitiveness and be forced to stand by while I made the sweetest pinewood car ever.



So, Jacob designed it, painted it and even sanded it. I did my part on the band saw, and power tools, but Jacob did a good part of it. He was very proud of it. The day of the race came and out of 4 cars racing at a time in 4 rounds of races, Jacob's car got 4th 4 times. And the tears flowed.



After comforting and consoling, I dried the tears and resolved him to the fact that we had a great time working on it together. Of course things did get better when he won the award for Most Original Design. He wanted an aligator for a car, so I cut out an aligator and he painted it up. You can see it below. Not the one being pointed at, but the one above it. Orange and blue colored.


But next year... we're going to win it all.

Conference Calls

Never having been part of a large corporation, I'm not that experienced in the art of conference calls. As I write this, I'm in the middle of one right now. Is it rude to be blogging during the time when everyone else is going over financial numbers??? It is Saturday night at 8:00pm afterall.

Our annual fraternity alumni board meeting with the active executive committee is going on, and since I can't be there in person, conference call is the way.

Good thing about it is - It's all with a bunch of old friends and some new aquaintances too from the college days. So - I guess I should get back to the drone of finances. Oh, wait... we've just transitioned into Member Development. I think I'm up next.

Does Size Matter?

Earlier this week, Airbus introduced the A380 airplane. "Yippie, who cares" you might say, but honestly it's pretty cool to think we can get on board a tube of metal that is 239'3" long and 23'5" wide with 554 other passengers and travel 9300 miles across the earth without refuling.

According to Airbus, Size does matter. This monster, 49% more space and 35% more seats than the Boeing 747, is HUGE... and more effient.

Check out the link. You can take a virtual tour of the aircraft and read all the stats on what's being called the future of air travel.

link

Can I get a witness?

We have visiting our church a guest minister by the name of Dr. Ed Dufresne (pronounced doo-fray-n) It's been a long, long time since I've been in a "healing rally" sort of atmosphere, but the Doctor brought his A-game and it's been a great time. God has really done some cool things and I've seen some pretty cool miracles happen like a guy with a steel plate in his shoulder get full motion back among others, but if you've been around a word of faith teaching for any time at all everyone has seen cool miracles. Not discounting God's power, or the coolness of it, but that's not what I'm writing about.
I am writing about people's nature to fit in. I think it's kind of funny to watch people as they get prayed for. If you're not familiar with what I've called a healing rally, it would be similar to Benny Hinn or some similar healing minister only on a much smaller scale. Of course as Dr. Dufresne begins praying for people, they begin to fall. Again, not discounting the power of God, but my impression is (without trying to be too judgemental about it) that most just lay back and take the ride to the floor to fit in and not becuase they are truly overwhelmed by the power of God as written about in the Bible.
I honestly almost fell over laughing (not from the Spirit) when I watched this elderly gentleman get prayed for. He was not a normal church attender and was probably pretty overwhelmed by what he saw going on. After the previous 8 or so people fall quickly to the ground (caught by my lightning quick ushers of course) it's his turn to get prayed for. As soon as Dufresne puts his hand on this guy's head, he sets his cane down, takes a knee and softly sits down then rolls to his back, and lays there right next to all the others.

Maybe you had to be there to see the humor, but it was almost cute the way he wanted to fit in with everyone else.

Laughing at Myself

I've learned a lot of things in my life. I have an innate ability to retain stupid facts that never come in useful until you are playing trivial pursuit or some other similar game. However, the greatest thing I've ever learned is to laugh at myself. Actually, I figured everyone else was laughing at me, I might as well join in on the fun. So, to illustrate what i mean, here are some great photos of me that are worth a laugh.

Me on the left, my friend on the right. Riding the waves by body surfing was way fun until one not so gracefully deposited me face first on the beach. I think i still have sand in my crack.


If I wasn't married already, I would considder using this one for my online dating service profile. That's me on the right - Wow - am i hot or what? (okay - I know I'm a little porky, but honestly the life jacket was like 3 sizes too small, which just added to the image of I'm a tub-o-lard)


Normally I'd say this is a cute picture. My wife and I, a loving hug on the beach, but look closer... Why does the bottom half of my gut seem to be sweaty, while the rest of me dry? Since noticing this, I also use Speed Stick Anti-persperant on my gut from the belly button down.


It takes a confident man, one sure of his image to show how stupid he can look. Fortunately I'm confident I'm a dork, so it doesn't bother me to let the rest of you witness it too.

Homosexual Lizards

We'd been in Mexico for less than 24 hours. Still acclimating to the beauty and slow pace of everything. Knowing that CanCun is close to jungle areas it's not uncommon to see animals that you wouldn't normally see in the midwest. For example, the birds are different, pelicans and big ugly hawk like birds fly above the water. Of course snakes, spiders and lizards aren't uncommon either.
As I made my way from the dining room table to the couch I hear this shrill, panicked scream and freeze dead in my tracks. I look up to see the wife of the couple we went with pointing over my left shoulder, hand over her mouth and a look of terror on her face. I slowly turned, expecting to see a large snake, venom filled fangs poised to bite me. Goose bumps began to rise on my arms when I completed my turn and saw the tiniest lizard perched gently on the wall above my head.



Then out of her mouth come the words "Oh My God its a gay-ko" First I thought, it's pronounced Geh-ko, not Gay-ko and second, I think they like to be called homosexual lizards. Even the reptiles have gone PC.

Fortunately I'd watched multiple episodes of the Crocodile Hunter and was able to apprehend the lizard and safely release him off the second floor balcony to the sand below.

Back from Paradise

I'm back from vacation, but I feel like I need another vacation to get rested up.
We drove out Dec 31st to Chicago, where we would catch our flight Jan 1st at 8:00am to CanCun. We decided to party it up in Chicago on New Year's Eve, so we ate at Gibson's Steak House. If you want a good steak, Outback serves a better filet. If you want to pay a lot for a steak and have the atmosphere with the great steak, Ruth's Chris is better.
We later went downtown to Millennium Park and walked around before the fireworks. (I've got pictures of this, but you'll have to wait a while. I left my camera in the car, so I took them on our friends' camera. A spectacular show! Seriously I think it was best fireworks show I've ever seen in person.

Got to sleep at 2am for a 5:30 wake-up call. Slept on the plane a little and walked out into this view from our balcony


Life is rough... I know, but somebody has to do it.

Deann spent her time sunbathing, to the piont she got sick and ahd to cover up. So here she lays covered up in towells, still trying to act like she's sunbathing.


In between games of sand volley ball for me and when Deann was turning over to tan the other side, we became frequent customers of the Palapa Bar (pictured below). I drank so many fruit drinks (non-alcoholic of course) It was fun to swim up to the bar and drink Cabanas. I just needed Tom Cruise and Elisabeth Shue and it would have been a scene from Cocktail.


On our last day before we left. Tan and beautiful, but not quite ready to go home.


More pictures to come in the following days. And more stories of our adventures. Tune in tomorrow for the story of the homosexual Gecko.