Fun on Wednesdays...

Yesterday was Church night and the kids love their Church activities. The program their in combines a mixture of physical activities, study, prayer, and just plain fun to learn Bible truths and the kids just LOVE it. They want to come early, stay until the last possible moment, memorize their verses, etc...

The little guy's class went to the local park's splash pad for an hour of great fun with his classmates! They were given these little sponges so that they can soak them with water and spray each other.



I did notice my little buddy standing next to the same little girl A LOT! Hmmm...



At least the girl's parents know the my little man is a churchgoing guy. (smile)



I don't know about this. I don't think I'm ready to give the "birds and the bees" lecture yet.

A little too late.

Hi everybody. I don't have much time this morning but I got this picture emailed and I wanted to share it. Perhaps making millions throwing a ball around the field doesn't generate enough excitement for some and they have to resort to hurting animals.

What a deplorable thing to do to a dog.

Of course, you can go too far the other way with animals. Some people just have no sense.

Bad news and Cool news...

... of broken cameras and motorcycles!

Well, the bad news is that my new camera suddenly stopped working this past weekend and I have no idea why. I didn't drop it or anything; it just stop having the ability to focus, so I took it back to Officemax where I bought it and they agreed to exchange it for a new one since I haven't had it for more than 15 days.
Phew!!!
Unfortunately, they didn't have my model in today but thought they'd be getting a bunch of new ones before the end of the week.

The good news now. I did have a very fun weekend with the kids and some friends of mine who also have kids. Fortunately, the camera worked for the first part of the day and we got to see this Amazing motorcycle rally! The Indianapolis motorcycle drill team was there and they had an amazing array of motorcycles!



The kids were amazed!



Check it out from the front:



Of course, the day was insanely hot so the kids ended up splashing in the water!

If Coffee could kiss...

... and other incredible amazing things!

I love coffee! I probably drink two or three cups a day usually with some hazelnut or chocolate flavored cream. Yum...



A friend of mine sent me this and I wish I could find out where I could get one. Don't you think it's an awesome piece of art that would go wonderful on say a coffee table?

You want to see an incredible amazing feat of coordination and creativity. Then watch this!



I know, the quality is terrible, but I was telling a family member about this and she wanted to see it so that's why I'm posting it. He's so cute at the end!

The kid's Wednesday night Church program started yesterday and they were excited from the moment I picked them up. It's this exciting and very cool program called "AWANA." The thing is, my oldest child Jaron is autistic and normally he sort of stays to himself somewhat but last night he was right in there, having a wonderful time, participating in all the activities and and answering questions.



I was just so happy seeing him acting and being just like all the kids there and just before we left the Church some girl that was in his class walked by him and said, "bye Jaron, see you next Wednesday!"

That's my boy!

I have a new Camera and I'm not afraid to use it!

I broke down and got a new one after my other one broke. I thought I could do without it but I was wrong, I tell ya. So here's what went down this weekend. I got the kids at around 2pm and we had a great time just lounging around at home watching "High School Musical 2" which they had been anticipating for a couple of weeks. Then we went to Knoxville because I had heard that they opened up the Sun Sphere a couple of months ago after having closed it for years:



We got on the elevator and saw a spectacular sight of a LOT of Knoxville:





The little guy was particularly excited with the view!



Afterwards we walked down to World's Fair Park:



There are these great fountains at that park where people go and splash around and have a great time, and that's just what they did! The water pressure starts small:



I like that picture and thought I should have put a label like "I'm going in!" or something. Anyways, they kicked up the water a notch or two:



Girlie girl thought that the water was too cold and wanted to stand in the middle to stay as dry as possible but she left just in time because then they REALLY turned up the water!!!



Goodness!!! I thought I was going to lose a child or two when they did that! The little buddy was thrown up in the air twenty feet, but I caught him on the way down. (Just kidding!)

Take 5...

I bow to you, Joe Morello!

Who's Joe Morello, you ask? He's one of the most accomplished jazz drummers ever and you don't even have to like jazz to appreciate this guy, he's that good. So when I found this clip on Youtube of the Dave Brubeck quartet playing the well known jazz great, Take 5, I just had to share it. I've played this a number of times with some pretty good people, but it's awesome to watch these jazz greats play this.

Watch...



If you want to hear a better quality version of the song, listen! I'm not sure which I like more, the video recording where they play it fast, or the audio recording where they play it slow; the slow one has an awesome drum solo, but the video does too! I'm a drummer and I appreciate this guy's amazing sense of rhythm and style!



I remember being in Jr. High, just starting out on the drums and listening to Joe's amazing mastery of playing in odd time signatures. If you have a bit more spare time, watch the following clip. He's even more amazing, if that were possible!

Hi there! Boy, it's hot!

How are you folks doing? It's so hot right now, all I want to do is sit in an air conditioned room, wearing nothing but boxer shorts and drink ice tea until the sun goes down.

How hot is it where you are? Over here it's bad! I drove by the bank and just had to pull over and take a picture!



Last time when it was this hot, I had to put the kids on ice, and this time they put on their bathing suits and had the most awesome water balloon fights! I'm sorry I don't have pictures of them going at it but I have to decide to take the plunge and buy a new decent digital camera. All I have right now is the camera on the cell phone.

See you later and stay cool!

Harry Potter

I went by the library yesterday to pick up the unabridged audio cd of the latest Harry Potter book. I'm pretty excited about this because I "heard" the first two books and thought the reader, Jim Dale, was amazing the way he brought the book to life, giving each character a distinctive voice building up excitement, etc...

I got into listening to books when I used to work an hour away, in Knoxville. For five years I drove two hours a day, and in that time I listened to almost every thing the library had to offer. Many of the readers were good, some not so good, and I had my favorites that I would pick from, which I think is funny in retrospect. Picking a book to listen to based on the reader instead of the author!

I know a lot of you folks have read it already so don't spoil it!

Anybody else like audio books?

Throwback Thursdays #1...

Fellow blogger Chrissy does this thing on her blog called "Throwback Thursdays" where she puts up pictures of her and her family when they were kids. It's actually kinda neat since you see a fellow blogger, cute as can be, as a little tike, and to see the VERY HIP clothing styles of way back then. I've thought about doing the same thing but I hadn't yet for two reasons:

1. I can't imagine why anyone would want to see what I looked like as a six year old.

2. I don't have very many pictures of me as a little boy so it wouldn't last very long. (Of course, I could call mom and see what she's got...)

Anyways, my digital camera broke last week and I'm not too happy because, as all you know, I take a lot of pics of my little guys and post them and now I don't have a decent digital camera. So it occurred to me; now is as good a time as any to institute my own Throwback Thursdays for lack of new pics of my kids to post! (smile) It may take me a bit before I can buy a new one.

Check out the shirt I'm wearing!

I was a very big Star Wars fan back when the real first Star Wars Movie came out I even had my own Millenium Falcon to fly around the house...

Then there was the time when I went Roller Skating (Roller Blading wasn't around back then) with the family:

We were styling with our John McKenroe shirts, huh? (If you have to ask who John McKenroe was, then never mind.) I think it was cold that night and we were all wearing our Members Only jackets but soon took them off when we started skating! If you listen very closely, you could hear Donna Summers singing "On the Radio!"

How 'bout a joke?

A man was driving down the road and ran out of gas. Just at that moment, a bee flew in his window.

The bee said, "What seems to be the problem?""

I'm out of gas," the man replied.

The bee told the man to wait right there and flew away. Minutes later, the man watched as an entire swarm of bees flew to his car and into his gas tank. After a few minutes, the bees flew out.

"Try it now," said one bee.

The man turned the ignition key and the car started right up.

"Wow!" the man exclaimed, "what did you put in my gas tank"?

The bee answered,

"BP!"

Things NOT to do at a water park...

and TAG REDUX...

Last time I was at Dollywood's Splash Country, my children decided to "act out" something they saw on TV. At first, not knowing what it was, I was excited about the idea. "Cool" I thought. They're always acting out all kinds of things. After all, they've been in various Musicals such as "Children of Eden", "Beauty and the Beast" and Cats, and I'm used to them wanting me to watch them do things like that.

So here we were at the wave pool when my daughter and my little guy decide they would play "drowning boy and lifeguard."





Now, do you see where this might be a problem at the water theme park? It wasn't very long before a lifeguard showed up, concerned about what he was seeing. I had to explain that it's not what he thought it was, they were just pretending. He actually laughed but then said I needed to stop them from doing that. I should have known better than to let them start doing this, but, seriously, I'm used to them acting out all sorts of parts.

Yes, I told them to stop and I told them why. They laughed like I told them the funniest joke in the world.
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Susan from "Susan's Musings" tagged me to cough up eight random things about me. I'm glad she limited to eight because I'm pretty random...

1. I LOVE Pringles Cheese Ums. You have no idea how many I've eaten in my lifetime, but the number must be huge.

2. I am very easily entertained and hardly find myself bored. Maybe it's more of a "I can't stand still" kind of thing, but I need to keep myself busy doing/learning/playing something almost constantly. I read, play on the computer, play with my kids, work, study, you name it, all the time.

3. I HATE almost all vegetables. The only ones I'll eat are carrots, peas, and corn.

4. I love my kids so much and miss them the instant they leave my side.

5. I love my job as a computer technician and feel very lucky to do exactly what I enjoy doing for a living. I've worked at jobs doing other things (waiter, cashier, etc...) and it has taught me to be greatful and treasure my job now.

6. I like meeting new people and making friends.

7. I lived and went to college in Chicago during the Chicago Bulls/Michael Jordan victory years and it was a very exciting time in my life. I was a Music Major at the time and met lots of interesting people (like Dizzie Gillespie) and saw lots of great things and would like to go and visit again someday.

8. I'm terrible at responding to tags...

UPDATE: I'd like to take a moment to let you folks know about a favorite blogger of mine named Dorky Dad. Please take a moment to stop by his blog, if you can. He and his wife have suffered a difficult loss, as well as being in Minnesota and came close to being on that bridge that collapsed. He's a good man, a great father, and a very funny blogger. DD, I'm real sorry, man. I hope God blesses you with another child...