Fathers Day 2005

Batman Begins! Holy Fa-Nizzel Batman! To say that I may have had high expectations this movie would be an understatement! I almost did not see it in the theater. Thanks to Dan for dousing my disenchantment with this movie franchise. The movie is true to the comics in almost everyway. The "Cheese" that started creeping in on the last few movies was gone. Also missing was the gigantic ego'ed stars that overshadowed the plot. Thank goodness! As a batman fan, I am very happy with this movie. I think Spiderman opened up the door for "true" telling of the classic storylines. 5 stars from my chair! Now, the only lingering question that begs to be asked... Did Etter hit the tanning booth with a bat signal taped on his chest? Fathers Day. We were on the run most of it... 3rd Sunday market in Bloomington, Lunch in Pontiac with Grandpa Jim and then back to Green Valley. Cool gift of the day, "The Cary Grant Collection" on DVD from Ang. "Mr. Blandings Builds his Dream Home" is a classic. Don plays tomorrow in Springfield. I cant wait! I am going to try and record on my MP3 player. We shall see!

Aiden is 2

HAPPY 2nd BIRTHDAY AIDEN! I made him a cool train table for all of his Thomas stuff. Yes, I did build it. It was not even a kit! Now, when you see it, and notice the warpage (Not a word according to spell check) of the wood, be gentle on me. I swear, you cannot get a straight piece of wood these days. I searched the pallet of 2X4's at Menards, found the straight ones, and once they were home... The twisted like Chubby Checker. I fought those suckers like Uncle Mary taught me, but its hard to disguise on a table like this. Ang painted up an antique bed to replace his crib. A few night ago when we were watching a movie, we heard a tremendous thud-crash-bang. Actually, I though the ceiling was falling in. Ang says "What was that?"... It was our boy trying to reach over his crib rail to find "Cliffy". He did not quite reach it until he hit the floor! Fathers Day stuff will go on all weekend as well. Tonight, we will head to Bloomington to Joe and Syl's. Most of my family will be there for that. Sunday we may go up to Pontiac to a get-together that Grandpa Jim is having. That's a lot of action for 2 days. Then, we have Don in Springfield on Monday night! Come one, come all! Details on the front page.

Swimming & Beer

I have been pretty lax here.. But it is not for lack of trying. I have downloaded 2 blogging programs to the site and tried to get them up and running. To no avail. I am getting sick of it, but will continue to try and update the system. One reason for this upgrade... Organization! If I can get one of these programs to automatically file old posts... It would be priceless. Summer and Aiden start swim lessons tomorrow. Of course, we had Soccer tonight. Summer has been titled "Bruiser" on her team. We can see her in the middle of the field playing dirty, but she cant hear our "time-out" warnings from across the span of the World Cup Football sized field. I just hope the other parents don't see her coming to us at the end of the session. There may be payback later. Dan and I will be visiting Steele this Thursday. So, I don't know if that means we will be recording or not. Recording???? What's that all about? OK, check out Beer Report #2 on the Fun Page. BEWARE! NASTY FOWL ALCOHOL INDUCED CONVERSATION AWAITS! Not work friendly! Let us know what you think. We have stepped up production value, and look forward to a better quality 8 minute recording soon! Yeah, I am going back the old format. It looked better!

Audio Blog 2

Audio Blog #2. (3.7meg MP#) Sound seeing tour of progress at Mom and Dad's house. Once again, no foul language. For the record, Summer rocked at soccer tonight. She was everywhere on the field. You feel bad for the other kids, but deep down you are a blood thirsty parent raving like a lunatic!

Nobody Home

Long week! I am doing something different here... Recent pictures will be posted here. I will try to refresh the news page every 3 months or so, just to keep the page from getting to hard to load. The step forms were in place today at the house. Soon the folks should be moving in. In the meantime, the builder of the house is letting everyone stay in some of his apartments. That means we are guest free! Wow! I did not even remember what that meant until the first night. Total quiet, no worries about people making it home... Very surreal! The kids were fine with the whole thing. As usual, kids are more resilient to these types of things than the adults. Lets hope that they get to move in the house real soon. Did anyone check out the audio file? Just wondering, I did not get any feedback. Dan and I have played around with some recordings. I don't know if I will post them on the site yet. I really wanted to get something a little more professional recorded. If vanity is that much of an issue for me, you wonder how I produce this site! Caffeine Free! I have been pretty tame on the stories of late. I don't know if I have dulled down that much, or feel like we have heard it all! I have given up caffeine since we got back from Europe. Honestly, that sounds like the opposite of what you would think would happen... But we were not in Paris at the Bistros smoking cloves... LOL... No, we were in Jolly Old England were the men, women and children drink ALE. Mmmmmmmmm, Ale. I did try a few sodas in England. Dad made coffee every day, but "pressed" coffee is the equivalent of chunky espresso. Certainly an eye opener, but not a great texture to get your day started. Anyway, I had been away from my 5 or 6 cups a day that I normally consume at work. It was perfect timing. Now, without caffeine, I wake up every morning without being tired! Imagine that! I drink water at work. I DO feel much better! But, what about the edge? You know... The edge that you get when a chemical is swirling in your brain kicking the dust off the grey cells???? I don't know. I think I need to get pumped up mentally in order to get the creative juices rolling. I often said that I could do open mic night at the Jukebox when I worked at ChoicePoint. Just give me 2 pots of coffee, and send me up on stage. I would just rip on anything and everything. Or I would just start sweating before my heart exploded. Either way, it would be a quality set that the Jukebox would be hard pressed to best. I do wonder what a big Cappuccino would do to me right now! Ang says I am just like my Brother and Uncle. None of us an do anything in moderation! Don gave up meat because he believes it is unethical the way they treat animals. Steve gave up Wine because it was controlling him.... Well, maybe I am in a similar position to Steve. I totally could not get through the weekend without being a freak for a soda on Saturday morning. As it stands right now, other than what caffeine is in a snickers bar, I do not touch the stuff, and have not for a while. Back to the creative part. I will get with Dan this week to see about a new recording. Don's big show in Springfield is coming right up. Check out the Damon Fowler website for details. All are welcome, we would love to pack the house for them. Ang totally caught me with my pants down. "Oh hey, by the way, I am getting some hay delivered today", I asked how much... "Oh, about 200 bales, but 50 of those are Vera's". I was snookered, she even pretended that some of her riding partners would be there to help... Ha Ha.... Nowhere to be found! As it stands right now, I unloaded the bales off the trailer to my barn floor. I will be throwing them up the loft this weekend. I am still recovering from the first part of the process. Volunteers are encouraged to contact the webmaster! New project... A fence, gate and arbor for the front entry to the yard. We bought the arbor, the rest is up to my creative skills. Pictures when complete. We went to Jessica's graduation get-together last Friday night. Time flies! I do remember when these guys were infants! Congrats to her. Fun picture of Jessica, Alyssa and Penny to the right. I have been listening to the Kevin Matthews Podcast... This past week he was sitting with Mancow talking about Chicago radio. Very entertaining and exciting. I am a total personality radio junkie. Roe Conn has completely lost it for me since Gary was let go. I look forward to the day when I can tune into WLS or another great AM station to hear quality entertainment. I am an idealist. More than likely, those days are gone forever.