One Man Star Wars

Last night, Allison surprised me with an outing to see One Man Star Wars at the Walton Arts Center with my brother-in-law and his 3 kids. Murray and his dad made an appearance, too. I was a bit skeptical at the sound of it. Kinda retarded, but somewhat intriguing. I also knew I would be surrounded by total Star Wars freaks, like a Trekkie convention.

To explain what this guy does is difficult in it's simplicity. He basically acts out Episodes 4-6 (the original trilogy). He makes the sound effects, does the voices of all the characters, and becomes the ships. He really draws out the humor in the movies, such as when Luke Skywalker sadly looks out across the barren lands of his home planet and the wind blows his hair. This guy leaned out, put his hand in his hair and started moving is around as if wind was blowing it. All while singing the sad music. He did the voices of the Emporer, Ben Kenobi, and Han Solo really well. He went through all 3 episodes in just over an hour, so it was pretty non-stop entertainment!

Overall, I enjoyed it immensely! The entire audience laughed the whole time and there was not one boring part of the show. It was well worth the money and the time to go see this show. In fact, he's here for a few more days and does a couple of shows per day. If you can, I highly recommend going to see this guy's performance. You can see some video clips on his website.

Current Top 5 List: Music

I've really been enjoying some different albums lately.

• Dashboard Confessional: Dusk and Summer. I'm just now discovering DC. I'm a huge fan.
• Augustana: All the Stars and Boulevards.
  
• Snow Patrol: Eyes Open. I'm pretty sure I love every song on this album. It's been a constant in my car for a while now. Also makes good background music while working.
• Anberlin: Blueprints for the Black Market. This is their first album. I caught up with them on their second album, "Never Take Friendship Personal" and loved it. Their third CD, "Cities", is good, but I haven't learned to love it quite yet. I'm sure I'll get there
• Rocco DeLuca & The Burden: I Trust You to Kill Me. This is an older, but still new, album that I've re-discovered. Their sound is just neat.
  

(Smokeless-Tobacco)-Less

After 14 years of using smokeless tobacco (aka dipping), I have decided to quit. I'm actually a full week into the process. I'm using Nicorette gum to assist in the quitting, so it's not a cold turkey quit. The difficult part of quitting is the oral fixation portion: always having something in my mouth and always moving my mouth. Smokers have the same problem with the hand-to-mouth motion they grow accustomed to during their addiction.

• I'm going through roughly 20 pieces of gum per day. 8-9 pieces of Nicorette. The remainder is a variety of Orbit gum flavors.
• I'm also going through many, many Gobstoppers throughout the day. This would be a good time to still be working at Nestle.
• As a motivator, I told myself I would reward myself after 4 months with a gift. I was thinking of getting a new lens for my camera. Before I told Allison what I my idea for a gift, she blurted out "I'll buy you a Mac!". Her reward beat mine.
• Side Effect 1: Lots of peeing. I've been drinking a lot of water lately. Not sure why, but I am. I literally peed 14 times today. I was getting strange looks from my co-workers. I also think that the fact that I'm not spitting all my fluids out during the day adds to this. Neat thought, eh?
  
• Side Effect 2: My throat is sore. This has to do with all the swallowing. Thankfully, this has subsided a lot after the first few days. Who would have thought you could get a sore throat from actually swallowing?? I guess after 14 years of NOT swallowing much, this is a big change for my body.
• Side Effect 3: Weight Gain. Nicotine is a stimulant, thus increasing your metabolism. Without it, ex-nicotine users blimp up after they quit. This is a mix between shoving anything in your mouth so as to not put a dip or cigarette in there instead and the slower metabolism. That's just not fair. I figure if I can quit dipping, I can suck it up and do some exercise to counteract this effect.
• Scripture memory has helped a ton to ward off urges and temptations. Specifically Romans 12:1-2. My spiritual life is actually one of the biggest reasons for me quitting. That's an entirely other post, so I'll just leave it at that. Maybe as a celebratory post after 4 months. I'll write it on my new iMac!

Disney Princesses on Ice

This past weekend, we went to see Disney Princesses on Ice in Little Rock. Allison's parents (Gigi & Papa) bought tickets for Emma and us, and themselves. It was an amazing event! I grew up going to Disney World with my parents every year for vacation. So Disney holds a special place in my life. And the Disney princesses hold a special place in Emma's life, too, since she has watched each of their movies (Cinderella, Ariel, Mulan, Sleeping Beauty, Belle, and Snow White). She sat awestruck the entire time.

They did have a big dragon (from Sleeping Beauty) that scared the living bejeepers out of Emma. She screamed and said she wanted to go home. We made her push on through and she was happy that the Prince awoke Sleeping Beauty after defeating the dragon. All in all, it was a pretty amazing adventure! The skaters were really good, too. Lots of figure skating acrobatics and stuff. And of course, Goofy, Tinkerbell, and Minnie & Mickey showed up to top things off. She loved it!

Check out the Flickr set for pictures!

Ding Dong the Wicked Witch is Dead!

I literally jumped off the couch, did the Carlton, Running Man, and the African Anteater Ritual when they said our token she-male was going home!

Commentators can talk all they want about why they think Sanjaya would have / could have won American Idol and why they think he was generating votes that kept him on the show up until now. However, there is always one of those contestants:

• Season 1: (didn't watch, so I don't know)
  
• Season 2: Carmen Rasmusen
• Season 3: John Stevens
• Season 4: Scott Savol
• Season 5: Kevin Covias / Bucky Covington
  
• Season 6: Sanjaya Malakar

It's like each season, the writer's forget that there were some awful voices that remained and completely dumbfounded the world. In time, the voters always come around and start taking the competition seriously and begin voting as if it were a singing competition. We now have our final six.

Speaking of Vomit...

Emily had a pretty great story about vomitting. We got video of it...

Photo Tour: The Airport Road

On my way to Phoenix this past Monday, I got on the road a little early in hopes of taking some pictures. The road to the airport is littered with very photographic opportunities. Barns, vast fields, deer, cows & horses, and streams. So I stopped to take some pictures near Osage Creek (I think). I stayed by the first bridge near the 264 and 112 intersection.

Looking at the stream to the north, I noticed an old decaying barn near the edge of the stream. I'm really fascinated with barns and want to focus on taking lots of pictures of them.








On the South side of the bridge is a large field that the stream cuts through. I lucked out and caught several horses drinking from the stream that morning. The previous week (when I didn't stop), I saw deer drinking there.








And while in Arizona, I was hoping to climb the small mountain behind our hotel and take some large landscape shots. Unfortunately, I didn't have the time, but I got a few shots out of my hotel room window.








Hopefully, I'll be going on another photo tour soon. The more practice, the better! I may even try out the Devil's Den Outdoor Festival at the end of April!

Times Square & Indian Dentists in Arizona

It's been an eventful couple of weeks for me. I spent a week in New York City for business, home for Easter, then out to Phoenix, Arizona for sales training. Now I'm home.

New York
Time/Warner's corporate headquarters are in Midtown (NYC). It is adjacent to Times Square and Rockefeller Plaza. I basically spent 12 straight hours each day in a conference room going over sales numbers and meeting everyone that worked on different titles (People, Martha Stewart Living, Sports Illustrated, etc). The weather was crappy. The last night there, a co-worker and I walked around Times Square for a little while. I took a crappy picture with my camera phone.

Phoenix
The training in Phoenix was a simulated sales call. Basically, they throw you into groups and you have to accomplish something in a limited number of meetings with people and with very little prep time. We were right next to the ASU campus and stadium (the picture is of the big "A" on the hillside by the stadium). But the big story for this trip was my body-numbing pain. The first night, my tooth hurt. I tried to go to sleep, but was unable to due to the pain in my tooth / jaw. I finally called a co-worker at 2:00 AM to get some aspirin from him. The next day, I fought the pain all day with aspirin. The next day, I was worthless to my teammates as I was running a fever and couldn't focus on anything except the pain. I started calling dentists in the area to get a meeting (and drugs). One guy had an open spot. I walked 3 miles to his office (the bellhop said it was a MUCH shorter distance) in 90 degree heat in pants, dress shoes, and a long sleeve button down. Lots of sweating. Sat in his office for almost 2 hours before I got in. He spent 3 minutes looking at my tooth. Infected. Root canal needed. Drugs prescribed. I walked to the nearest Walgreen's and got my drugs. Took them. Finished walking back. My root canal is scheduled for this coming Tuesday. I have horrible teeth. I'm the reason dentists drive luxury cars.

That's the long and short of my last two weeks. I traversed almost the entire length of the US. It's good to be home again. It's good to be with my girls again. And it's good to be on pain meds. I highly recommend them.

The Easter Pictures

After 3 years of trying to capture a good picture of Emma for Easter, I've resigned myself to hoping that in a minimum of 4 years I'll finally get a real picture. You know, one where the kids are actually looking at the camera. Or standing still. Or smiling. And smiling for real...not the fake, cheesy smile. 4 years.

Until then...we have this.

Bumbo Madness: Easter Edition

Happy Pre-Easter

Today, in preparation for egg hunts in the back yard tomorrow (or inside, as it's pretty nippy outside), we dyed eggs. This was Emma's first time to dye eggs, and Allison and I's first attempt in many, many years. It went well! Only a couple of dented eggs resulted, but all were colorful and stickered. Below are some pictures.




Also, Brooklyn just turned 6 months yesterday (the 6th), so here are some shots of her.




I hope everyone has a fantastic Easter! Here's a message from Emma to remind us all of what Easter is about...

My Job Sucks

Ok, not really.

Brooklyn Decker (pictured above) modeled for the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue. She recently did an in-store signing at a couple of Wal-Mart stores in North Carolina. One of my co-workers got to go supervise the signing. I requested an autograph for my friend Todd. My co-worker forgot and had her sign it to me. Sorry, Todd.

The Fish Zoo

Yesterday, we took a trip to Tulsa for the day. Our initial plan was to hit up the Oklahoma Aquarium (fish zoo, since she doesn't know what an aquarium is), then spend some time at Incredible Pizza (Chuck E. Cheese meets Locomotion & Bowling). We needed to get out of the house and do something different, so this is what we did.

The aquarium was pretty neat. Emma was pretty interested in the fish, but not interested enough to justify the $40 is cost us all to enter. I really enjoyed it, because I took a lot of pictures. The lighting was pretty tough (for my skill set, at least), so a lot of the shots came out blurry. You can see the full set here.

They had a turtle-feeding area which was pretty fun. You stuck some food on the end of a long stick and shoved it down into a throng of hungry turtles. I dangled it above their heads to see which one could get the highest. Mean, but pretty fun! The also had a stingray display where you could feed them. I like stingrays...they always seem like they're smiling. On the left, I caught one jumping up to eat. Easily the best part of the aquarium was the shark tank. They had a large window where you could sit and watch the sharks swim by. They also had a walk-through tunnel. You could go stand among the sharks. Emma really liked that. After an hour or so, we had seen pretty much all of their offerings, so we headed to Incredible Pizza.

Incredible Pizza was incredibly crowded. So crowded in fact, that we decided to just drive home and hit up Chuck E. Cheese instead. Emma didn't take a nap, and Brooklyn was WAY off her sleep schedule. We drove home and spent about 45 minutes in a very crowded Chuck E. Cheese. Now that everyone was over-stimulated and tired, we headed home. The girls were asleep by 7:30, and Allison were reading in bed by 9:00. It was a good day.

Bath Time

I'm pretty sure it's required of every parent who blogs to put up bath pictures of their kids. I'm not sure why, but I am compelled to do this by an unseen force. So, here are my kids taking baths.

Emma
No, she's not bleeding to death. It is colored dye that doesn't stain. Kids toys are miraculous nowadays. I'll post about WHY she needed a bath later. It's a great story.










Brooklyn
Would ya' look at the fat rolls on that girl!

America Digs DEEP on their Retardation

I have no words to describe American Idol tonight.

Oh wait....

Maybe. I. Do.


(warning: the post is filled with raging bitterness)

Bumbo Madness: The Office

While Allison took Emma to the doctor yesterday, I got to spend some time with Brooklyn at my office. After making the rounds and stopping productivity by about 100%, I decided to get down to some REAL work: Bumbo Madness pictures! I didn't have a real camera, so I had to use my cell phone camera instead. Thus the crappiness of the picture.

Sisters

Saturday afternoon, the fam went to visit Josh & Margo at their farm. The purpose of our visit was threefold: To see the Hale's and all the progress that's been made on the farm, to do several Bumbo Madness: Farm Series shots, and to entertain Emma with all the animals there (it's like a trip to the zoo for her). The highlights of the evening:

• Josh caught a brim from his pond and let Emma touch it.
• Josh found a spotted salamander near the pond. Emma touched it.
• Lots of Bumbo Madness shots!
• Great dinner! Brown beans, cornbread, & fried potatoes. If I were wearing overalls, it would have finished off the country feeling. It was great!
• The meltdown of both my girls as we inched them closer to sleepless-induced insanity.

While we were doing a fishing shot for Bumbo Madness, we were having a hard time getting Brooklyn to look at the camera (shocker...she's only 6 months old). Brooklyn LOVES her big sister and pretty much watches Emma wherever she goes. Having asked Emma if she'd go over to Brooklyn and help her look toward the camera, I got to snap the picture to the left. For some reason, I absolutely love this picture! Just two sisters looking at something we can't see. It's a secret they both share together. I'm glad they get to grow up together and be friends.

Bumbo Madness: The Fisherman

I would like to take this opportunity to announce the launch of BumboFun.com! It's pretty much the worst site I've ever seen, but that's all the more reason to go look at it!

You can view the gallery of BumboFun photos and even submit your own photo to be shared! (send photo to John @ BumboFun.com).

Now on to the goodness that is Bumbo Madness:

A Loss in the Family

We have recently experienced a death in the family.

My Xbox 360 was pronounced dead at 9:20 PM tonight.

I think I'm actually too sad to cry.

Checked Off My List

I find great satisfaction checking things off a "To Do" list. It has been amazing to me how long it takes me to get things done around here. Keeping up with the day to day chores plus cleaning hardly leaves me time to do the "extra" stuff. That includes the "to do" things that I actually find joy in doing. I don't paint very often or very well, but when I do it is very therapeautic. I sketched out this canvas before Brooklyn was born. (about 6 months ago) My Mom painted some of it for me while she was here helping out in October. Since then, the painting has been sitting in our dining room. I can finally say that as of yesterday, the task is checked off my list! I had no idea it would turn into a 6 month project, but it did. Now, I can move on to the next task at hand. No telling how long it will take me to catch up on printing pictures out and putting them in an album.

Nate & Emma

Nate McGooden has been a bachelor all week while his wife and kids are kicking it on the beach. He came over to join us for our Wednesday Night Lost & American Idol watching event. While I was grilling the burgers, Nate played with Emma on the trampoline. It was quite amusing. I'm not sure exactly what they were playing, so I'll put my own captions on the pictures.

Just Jumping









The King Is Crowned









The King Is Uncrowned









The Slaying of the King









The Victorious Queen

American Idol Stuff

Melinda Doolittle rocks. At the end of tonight's show (she was the last performance), Simon asked her is she really is as nice as she seems. A few nights ago, I was watching The Soup on VH1. They did a mock infomercial on the Melinda Doolittle School of Humility. Here it is in all its raging genius:



On another note, I made the worst mistake in my entire life (and probably here on out): I accidentally voted for Sanjaya. I'm so sorry. I have asked God for forgiveness (He's getting back to me on that one, by the way) and ask your forgiveness also.

You can read the whole story on the TV Addicts blog.

Sweetness

Well fed and super sleepy.
The true picture of
being content with
life................

Bird Party

Emma and I went out to the front yard this morning to draw with chalk on the sidewalk. When we walked out a huge amount of birds flew over our heads. This was our conversation:
Emma: Mom, look at ALL the birds!!!
Me: I know, there are a lot of them.
Emma: Wow, they must be going to a party!
Me: (laughing) I bet they are!

A side note: We were in our front yard and Emma was dressed like the picture seen. I was still in my pajamas. I'm sure we were a sight to see!

Brooklyn Laughing

For the most part, parenting is pretty fun work. Watching kids grow up and discover new things (Brooklyn) or learn how to navigate a social situation (Emma) is pretty amazing. Brooklyn hasn't shown much interest in sitting up (must be spoiled by the Bumbo) or rolling over yet. However, she has recently found her feet and rolls to her side while playing with them. It's only a matter of time before she's running around in the backyard with Emma and Belle.

Until then, we get the simple joys: laughing at her older sister shaking a loud toy over and over and over again. Allison thinks the funniest thing about this video is Emma's rats nest hair. We're not sure how she does it, but that girl wakes up with some WHACKED hair.

Weeknd Fun

The weekend was beautiful here, so we took the opportunity to enjoy it outdoors again! Looks like we weren't the only ones, either.

Friday
Nothing too special went on, but I did build a fort in the living room for Emma. She and I split popcorn and watched a movie in the fort. It's amazing how excited she gets when I build a fort!

Saturday
After blowing off thing indoors, we ate lunch with Aaron & Allyn Elleman at the mall. While my girls took naps, I went on my photo tour. Then after naps, Allison and I went on a dinner date to Hugo's in Fayetteville. We chatted briefly with the Harkey's. This marks the second time in a handful of dinner outings were we've seen the Harkey's. I think they're following us, which is kind of creepy. Cut it out, Brett.

Of course, this date was the reason Allison and I could not attend the 3rd Annual St. Paddy's Day NWA Blog Bash (which really needs acronyming...ASPe mornDNWABB). Maybe next year, guys.

Sunday
The morning was kind of weird. Emma crawled in bed with us around 2:30 and rubbed Allison's back for a while. Then we kicked her out. The other girls woke up around 8:30-8:45, so it threw off our church schedule and we skipped (SOOO going to hell). Around midday, we packed up and went to Tyson Park in Springdale to play around. We spent a while on the different playgrounds and riding bikes (and taking pictures, in my case). While the kids took naps, Allison pulled weeds (God love her!) and I finally took down the Christmas Lights on the house (yeah...in March). The Hannon kids came over to eat and hang out while Sam & Amy went to Community Group. They all played and ate outside, which is the best part of daylight savings time: the long evenings.

I hope everyone else had a great, outdoorsy weekend! Especially since it's going to rain all week long. Here are the pics...