Blog Number 208

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Well I have precious few hours left in my vacation.  Today was quite full.  We woke up at the normal time and without any kids to slow us down we found we were ready to go over an hour early.  We took the time to go for a walk.  There is a paved path that runs behind our apartment complex so we walked for about 30 minutes.  It was getting hot by the time we got back so we cooled down a little and then headed out to church.  Everyone (OK, 6 people) was happy we returned safe and sound.  The service was good and we ended up going to Pei Wei with some friends for lunch.  We came home, regrouped and then took a test run out to the train station.  My mom is bringing the kids home on Thursday and they are taking the train.  We found the station OK but could not find anywhere to park really.  We got a little lost on the way back (thank God for our compass) but after we drove around and found a street with a familiar name we ended up taking it.  We were very far south from where we needed to be and there were many stoplights.  What do we care?  We are still on vacation!  We shopped for some much needed groceries (the cupboards are bare) and we found yet another sub $10 wine that we are going to try out.  This wine is from Texas and we are hopeful that for $7 it might just be THE wine for us.  We did manage to stop by the apartment front office earlier in the day and picked out a few movies from their DVD library so the wife and I are ready to cuddle up on the couch, sip some wine, and enjoy a movie.  Tomorrow though it is back to work (sigh).

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 207

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

We left Kokomo this morning at 3:45 AM central time and 15 1/2 hours and 930 miles later, the wife and I arrived at home (sans kids).  Missouri was once again a killer.  What a boring state to drive through!  We did manage to visit a place we have drove by each time we drive to and from Indiana.  There is an Amish Cheese Shop in Chouteau, OK that we have always wanted to shop at but each time we went through that town the shop was closed (since we did not travel by it during normal business hours).  Well this time is was a Saturday in the early afternoon when we drove by it so we stopped in.  I sampled the chipotle pepper jack cheese (wow) and perused the store.  We ended up buying some preserves and apple butter at the cheese shop and some fresh bread and pineapple carrot cake at the bakery adjacent to it.  I feel I was a little ripped off though.  Since the store had Amish in the title I was expecting some good old fashioned Amish people to be there.  All that was there was a bunch of Mennonites.  Now don't get me wrong, the Mennonites are fine (there were several in my high school that I was friends with).  But when you are expecting the real deal, you feel a little let down.  After leaving the store we had a discussion in which the wife was convinced that we could convert to the Mennonite faith but when we listed all the things that we had to give up we decided against it (one of the things I would have to give up is owning a computer and thus blogging - my blog would be a piece of paper nailed to the tree).

At any rate, the weather was nice the entire drive and now we are exhausted (and still Baptist and not Mennonite).  We are going to enjoy a good nights sleep back in our own bed.  Until next time...

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 206

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Today is the last true day of vacation.  The wife and I are heading back to Texas early tomorrow morning and that will eat up our whole Saturday.  Sunday I am sure will be church and unpacking and getting the apartment back in order.  So that leaves today.  We are meeting with friends tonight and this afternoon we are visiting my grandma as the assisted living center she lives in is having an ice cream social.

The kids were still with their grandma so the wife and I had the morning to ourselves.  We met my mom and her boyfriend for breakfast and then headed to the Indiana Department of Revenue to try to clear up my state tax mystery.  The State of Indiana sent us a refund check equal to about twice what we paid for the entire year in taxes.  I noticed their error immediately and probably could have called them but I thought it would be easier to explain it in person so we headed to the local office here in town.  It only took 3 minutes and the ladies there could not have been nicer.  They thanked me for my honesty but promptly took the nice big check from me without offering a reward.

As I mentioned in my last blog, the wife and I went golfing on Wednesday morning.  We went to Rice's Golf Center which is a small par 3 course here in Kokomo.  We went into the clubhouse and paid for 9 holes of golf and then bought 4 used golf balls (just in case we lost a few on the course) and borrowed some clubs (7 iron, 9 iron and putter for each of us).  We opted to play the "short nine" which means we play the shortest nine holes on the course based on yardage.  This means hole 1 and then holes 11 through 18.  The longest hole is 100 yards and for the most part you could throw the ball to the green from the tee if you wanted to.  This is my kind of golf and the perfect way to introduce the wife to the sport (though she has been to a few driving ranges in her life).  Here are our scores...

Let me start off by saying that for this being the wife's first attempt at golf, she did great.  Now for the rest of this paragraph I will poke fun at her.  She asked me early in the week why we would go golfing.  I simply replied that it would be something to blog about.  So she knew going in that the entire outing would be documented with my commentary.  After a few pointers from me (which I am sure did not help in the least bit) she managed to hit the ball on her second swing off the first tee.  As she tapped in for what she thought was a four I had to inform her that her first swing (that missed everything) actually counted.  She hesitantly penciled in a five and moved on.  During the round I showed her various places where I or a playing partner had hit our tee shots.  I do remember playing hole 13 once and a fellow golfer hit a tree real close to the tee and was actually behind the tee once the ball stopped rolling.  This caused him to have to hit again before we teed off since technically he was "away".  Good times!  I finally hit a good tee shot on 14 and sank an 8 footer for my lone birdie of the day.  You would think this would have made me feel good but since I did not have any more good tee shots on the balance of the holes, it only served to remind me how inconsistent I am.  The wife hit a ball into a fence line on hole 15 and I dug the pretty orange ball that she was playing with out of some thorn bushes.  It was not until I got to the green that I notice that I had a lot of blood on the back of my hand from retrieving the ball.  I made a point of showing the wife how much I would go through for her (even though I did not feel any pain and it took me 5 minutes even to realize that I was bleeding).  When we arrived at hole 18, I pointed to some mowing equipment to the (way) right of the fairway and noted I had been there several times.  She promptly deposited the ball underneath said equipment.  It was behind a shed of sorts and since we were on the last hole anyway we basically threw the ball back into the fairway (hence the * by my wife's score on the last hole).  If not for a 3 putt on 15, I would have been satisfied with my round.  Since I have not played in about 10 years I don't think I did that bad.  I did, however, learn a few new golfing rules.  Be sure to note these for your next outing...

Section 3 Paragraph 2b: If said player is teeing off of the first hole and if it is their first time playing the sport of golf, any swings that do not result in the ball actually moving do NOT count in the stroke count.

Section 13 Paragraph 6c: If a player hits the ball slightly with the club so that the ball falls off the tee, the player can use the one time per round qualifier, "That does not count, there was a bee on me" rule.  The player will not be penalized the stroke.  This will also qualify for any winged creature that may or may not have a stinging apparatus.  The winged creature must be witnessed by at least one more player in order to qualify.

When we got back to the house the kids were back home and the daughter was sick to her stomach.  She has eaten rather poorly (nutrition-wise) while on vacation (as have we all) but it particularly effected her.  We hung around the house the rest of the day.

Yesterday I went into a local business where I used to do a lot of computer work.  They had a to do list for me and then I hitched a ride to the local building for the place where I work and went to lunch with some co-workers.  The restaurant we wanted to go to actually had a small sign on the door that said, "Closed until Aug. 23rd" so we opted for plan B.  The food was OK but we had a good time catching up.  We went to dinner with friends last night out to the city of Greentown.  Greentown has exactly one stop light.  I used to live there ages ago and my brother used to own a restaurant in the same building as the one we ate at.  We know the wife of the family that runs the business and her husband is from Italy so the Italian food was great.  I had the Gnocchi Amanda (named after the wife).  It was gnocchi with a red bell pepper sauce (ah, to die for).  Again, we had a great time catching up and just being on vacation.

I have surprised myself this week in my ability to avoid working much at all and enjoying myself.  Of course now that will make going back to work on Monday that much worse but oh well.  We have a few things planned for today so I will have to let you know how that goes.  Until then...

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 205

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Well the day has finally arrived.  Unless I messed up counting*, this is blog number 200.  Hard to believe I haven't abandoned this yet like so many others.  I hate to think of all the orphaned, abandoned blogs out there that were started with the best of intentions and yet remain un-updated and full of cobwebs.  Sigh.

The kids stayed with their aunt and grandma on Monday night so yesterday morning the wife and I found ourselves alone.  We made a pot of decaf coffee and then pondered our breakfast options.  Neither of us felt like cereal or like cooking so I offered to head out and get something to go.  McDonald's was the choice.  I have not been to an actual McDonald's to eat in over three years.  I have stopped at McDonald's while traveling as they tend to have cleaner bathrooms than most places.  I decided to go inside and place my order.  I do not like drive thru's.  The second you pull up they want to take your order.  Typically you cannot see the menu until you are at the speaker and for some reason I don't like the pressure of having to order right away.  If you go inside, you can sort of hang back from the counter thereby indicating you are not ready to order.  Only after I have thought out my options and know what I want will I mosey up to the cashier.  So, I went inside to order.  The place was kind of busy (I thought) for a Tuesday morning but the line was moving quickly.  I ordered what my wife wanted and then some breakfast burritos for myself.  This was a mistake.  I paid for the meal (only about $5) and then waited.  Many people ordered after me and then received their food and left.  I counted 19 orders actually.  19 orders were placed after my order and actually had their order fulfilled before mine (this is just inside orders, I did not include drive thru orders in that count).  Breakfast burritos must be a made to order item.  Overall I was in the store about 20 minutes.  I never got upset or angry and I could tell the cashier was getting frustrated with the cooks as he was sure I would be upset on the delay in fulfilling my order.  He breathed a sigh of relief when he finally gave me my bag of food and I told him that I was on vacation and in no hurry.  The food was nothing to blog about really.

At around 11 we went to some friend's house and hung out for 4 hours or so.  After catching up on the latest and touring all the parts of the house that they had updated it was time for the main event, the ping pong match.  The husband and I have some epic battles.  He has a good backhand and I have a good forehand.  This is a nice way of saying that he has NO forehand and I have NO backhand.  Either way, we are about equally matched and always have a good time.  We usually egg each other on as needed with insults about the weaker points of our game.  I tend to have the better serve and usually end up winning more games than I lose based on how well I am serving that day.  I won 5 of the 7 games yesterday so I left happy in my ping pong conquest.  We have a tentative match scheduled for November which is the next time we are scheduled to be back in Kokomo.

The kids stayed with their aunt and grandma again last night so the wife and I went and watched Wild Hogs.  It was Tuesday so the dollar theater was only 50¢.  This is about the right price to pay for this movie actually.  We did run into some of the wife's extended family at the movies though.  Unfortunately for us it was the people we try to avoid at family get togethers.  Also unfortunate for us was (unlike at family get togethers) that we were the only ones there to talk to and also unfortunate for us was the fact that we arrived early so we had no other choice except to talk to them.  The boyfriend of my wife's aunt is truly weird.  There is not enough room on this blog to give you a background on this fact so you will have to trust me.  Here is the first 5 seconds of the conversation...

Him: Hey, I had open heart surgery (no, this is really how it started, no small talk).
My Wife: Oh
Him: Yeah, see. (lifts shirt up to show her the scar.  mind you he is like 70 pounds overweight and not pretty to look at in general, add "no shirt" and "a scar" and you can see how this was our worst nightmare coming true right in front of us).

Anyway, we knew (or hoped) that in 10 minutes the movie would start so we did not have do endure this for very long.  Fortunate for us there was another gentleman in the theater recovering from open heart surgery and we walked away as they were going to compare scars.  I am not sure if this incident had an affect on us enjoying the movie or if it was just not that great of a movie.  Either way we were only out $1 total.

This morning we went golfing.  It was the first time golfing for the wife.  I will save that for tomorrow's blog however.  Until then...

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

* 2012-08-05 note - As I copy these early blogs from Xanga to this blogger site I confirmed that I did indeed mess up counting.

Blog Number 204

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

I am not really good a taking vacations so yesterday I went into the my company's Kokomo office.  My badge still worked thankfully and I remembered my passcode easy enough.  I had not been in this office since Thanksgiving last year but it looks about the same.  I had to chuckle a little as well since there were several packages piled up out front that no one has bothered to take the time to deliver then to the intended recipient.  This was the subject of one of my first blogs actually.  So you see, very little has changed at all.  I looked at the attention line of the packages and did not recognize any of the people's names or I would have picked up where I left off and delivered them myself.

After visiting with a few folks, logging in and checking my email and making a phone call or two I logged off and headed down the street (on foot) to my favorite pawn shop.  When I first started going there they had CDs for $3 or 5 for $10.  Eventually they just lowered them to $2 each and lo and behold when I came in yesterday they were now only $1.  I recognized a lot of the CDs from my November 2006 visit but now that they are only $1 my standards for what I wanted were greatly lowered.  I found 7 CDs that I thought I needed and even 2 of the 3 Lord of the Rings movies for $5 each. Unfortunately the DVDs are the 2nd and 3rd movies so I will need to go find the first one before I can feel like I got a bargain.  Still, 7 CDs and 2 DVDs for $18 (including tax) is not too shabby.

The son and I went to lunch with my mother while the daughter and wife went to lunch with hers.  My mom then took my son birthday shopping and I hung out at the house with the daughter while the wife got her hair done.  It seems there is only one person in the known universe that can properly understand the complexities of my wife's hair.  Fortunately for her, that person is located in Kokomo (and not, say, Budapest).  Anyway, a short 2 1/2 hours later the wife arrived back home looking like a million bucks and with a broad smile on her face (indeed this morning she said goodbye to the new look as she hopped in the shower since she claims she can not pull off styling it herself).

Last night the mother-in-law and sister-in-law planned a late birthday party for the son.  There were almost 20 people at our table at Hacienda.  My brother, his wife and her son came along with my dad and his wife.  My grandmother was there along with a friend of the family and 4 of her 5 kids.  Through in my mom and her boyfriend and my family and my wife's sister and mother and you have one big crew.  The service was very good and the food was average (which is good for Hacienda as it is not one of my favorite spots).  Most importantly I got to spend some time talking to my dad and of course my son had a good time.

We have another partially full day ahead of us so we will see what adventures the day brings.  We are heading over to some friend's house and the husband and I typically engage in an epic ping pong battle.  I will have to let you know how it goes.  Until next time...

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 203

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Today was a pretty fun day.  We stopped at Panera this morning on the way to church.  This is something we did about every week when we lived here in Kokomo.  In fact, there were a few regulars there that recognized us and commented on how much the kids had grown.  Church service was good (I really miss our pastor here).  I was scheduled to sing during the offertory and that went pretty good.  Some friends who moved to Luxembourg were in town this week as well so we went out to lunch with them and another couple.  The wife and I were interested in a Chinese buffet or anything that was not a chain restaurant that we could easily eat at in Texas.  We were overruled however by the other couple as they wanted good old American food.  So we went to Steak-n-Shake.  It was not my first choice but we had a good time.  The wife and I left the kids with grandma and went to see Disturbia at the dollar theater after shopping some of the end of season sales at the mall.  It was a pretty good movie (for a dollar).

Tomorrow I am going to head into the office to catch up on email.  I do not do well on vacation without a little work.  Some of my fellow co-workers think I am deranged.  So be it, I can only enjoy my vacation if I know I am not going to be behind when I actually return to work.  Sometime this week I hope to take my wife to a par 3 golf course.  She has not been golfing before so this should be something to blog about.  Until then...

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 202

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Despite being on vacation and despite being dead tired from getting up early and driving all day yesterday, my body still decided it wanted to wake up at its normal time (5:30 AM central time).  My wife got up and made some breakfast (her vacation hadn't started yet evidently since this is what she would do on a non-vacation morning).  My mother, grandmother and aunt came over for a visit around 10 and then the kids went out to eat with my mother-in-law and sister-in-law while the wife and I went out to eat with my mother and grandmother.  We went to Ruby Tuesday's and all four of us actually ordered the same thing off the menu.  We only differed in choice of beverage.  I opted for a Pomegranate Lemonade while everyone else had iced tea.  The lemonade sounded good when the waitress rattled of the drink choices but once she delivered it to the table I rethought my selection.  It was served in a very tall, skinny glass and was very girly looking with its pink color and wedge of lemon on the rim.  It did taste good though but it was a little embarrassing to lift that glass to my lips.

After that we were kid free until 4 PM when the daughter had an eye doctor's appointment.  We drove around Kokomo a little and noted what businesses were still in business and what new ones had taken the place of the olds ones.  We checked out the dollar movie theater to see what was playing and made a mental note to get back when we could secure a babysitter one evening (which should not be a problem).  After the eye doctor, we hit the local Big Lots and then came home for a game of Sorry (the game of sweet revenge).

I really do not like the game of Sorry.  It is one of my mom's favorite games so that is why it is in her house.  The wife vaguely recalled playing it as a young child and not liking it then.  The son loves it.  It was the only game in the house so I opted to play it.  The daughter quickly lost interest and the wife and I were soon drawing cards for her and moving her pieces.  Lo and behold, 40 minutes later she was the winner.  I think this will be our last game of Sorry for the vacation.  I would rather go out and buy more games and leave them here than play Sorry again.  I think the wife would agree with me on this.

It is only 8:30 now central time and the wife and I are both beat so we are off to bed.  Until next time...

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon