"...Cuz Now I'm Hiiiiiiiiii-iiiiiiigh..."

another week complete. work's been pretty slow. actually did quite a bit of reading and phone answering, so i won't go into any details on that. well, one person did tell me that my boss better call her back or she was coming after him. *dunt-a-nuuuuh* (old-school oregon trail fans? anyone??)

so after my jogging last night i got together with another buddy from the music department, and we ate pizza and stuff and watched movies. actually, we only ate pizza. not "and stuff." but that's neither here nor there. that reminds me of something that bugs me. i have to admit i have a few mild pet peeves. mostly they're just private jokes i have with myself that amuse me almost to the point of irritation. i discovered one of them is when someone uses only the first half of the saying, "six of one, half a dozen of the other." should we do it this way? or that way. ooooooooh... six to one. huh? are you saying that one option is exactly 6 times better than the other? another one is the notion that nauseated and nauseous are interchangeable. "i feel nauseous!" yeah, makes me sick just looking at you. therefore... if you see me grinning at you while you're complaining about your illness it could be merely a case of the funnies over your grammarical incorrectness...

and if you think you're one of those people and you now feel irate... it's ok. really. i still love you.

come on. relax. i didn't mean any harm!

so we ate pizza. since when does papa johns make square pizzas??? has it been that long since i've eaten from there? like, not square cuts, but an actual square pizza. weird. while we were at hastings renting a movie i saw a guy from my poli sci class who sat a few chairs down from me, next to his pregnant wife (girl friend probably). he used to have really long hair and characteristically wide, intense eyes. he apparently had practice for some rough sport immediately prior to class, if his clothing and condition of cleanliness were any indication. he opened the door in front of me and i grinned at him and he grinned back and asked, "heeeey dude, are you high?" i was like, "what?" "are you high." "uh, no..." "oh, you're eyes are pretty red." i guess there's gotta be a first time for everything. i mean... for having questions like that asked... not for being high... you get me. many long years ago, when my dad had long hair, people used to ask him the same thing. they'd see him and start getting real friendly. like, a complete stranger would come over all happy like and being buddy-buddy. then in a loud whisper, "heeeey, so you got anything on ya man?"

i also kind of like james blunt's songs.

"will you be my shoulder? when i'm gray and older?"

my guitar top and back have completed another stage of development. they have all the inlays finished (rosewood strip down the back, rosette on top) and the sound hole and overall shape have been cut out. they're also sanded down to thinness. next they're going to start curing in the bathro... i mean humidity control center. we'll mark the bracing patterns on them though they can't be attached until they've been in the chamber for a couple of weeks. we also re-glued the neck on my 12-string hondo i got from james (not james blunt). it should be ready to be restrung by next week. we're going to convert it to a 6 string and i shall begin learning to actually play the instrument that i'm making. right now i know all of 3 chords. it's amazing when i play them...

gotta skeedaddle. byes

Traveler's Return

i am in fact actually back from the longest drive of all... i mean from our vacation.

let me just say that it was a fabulous trip. papa got home early from work, so we left at about 3 a.m. saturday morning. all told it took 22.5 hours to drive straight through and achieve destination "aunt nancy's house." you might say we took the scenic route for one small section of that trip. we arrived at 2:30 a.m. michigan time. you can do the math and make sure that's actually 22.5 hours, if you're so inclined.

after a nice (but regrettably short) rest we were awakened by screaming cousins bouncing off the walls. and us. for most of the morning we took it easy... eating popsicles... lifting weights... catching up on family news... etc. then uncle dave kicked us into fun mode and we were off to see the sights (sites? both?) of detroit, which wasn't too far away. detroit is a rather interesting city. obviously it's the hub of the auto industry, but it seems like a crumbling empire. all the auto makers are still there (i happen to have some nice pictures of the GM tower), but the city itself is in disrepair. in the midst of a thriving metropolis, complete with fancy cars (i have a semi decent shot of a bentley rumbling by) upscale neighborhoods, and their own personal baseball team, there were burned houses, abandoned office buildings (we're talking boarded up sky scrapers with all the windows open!), and rubble and construction (or destruction) equipment everywhere. anyway, we saw what there was too see, took a ride in the people mover, played in a giant fountain, gave the crazy squirrel lady a wide birth and saw a ginormous barge. among other things. then dave took us out to eat and we dined on italian plenty (nothing like the pizza hut my aim away message usually refers to). we had about 3 or 4 courses. chief among these was the deep dish pizza, which was in fact about 1.5 or 2 inches thick. more like the ultimate pizza pie. oops... let me just wipe this drool off the keyboard. how embarrassing. later there was ice cream and heavenliness and i guess i just passed out and don't remember anything else.

next...(i wonder if i should have made this a multiple entry story...) on monday we went swimming at the metroplex. they have a jumbo pool... oh my gosh. i just realized that i already wrote about this in my last post. shoot. and i thought drooling was embarrassing. i've written it, so i guess i won't waste all that completely by deleting it. i guess if you're this far it somehow held you in spite of its redundancy.

so. camping. i'm pretty sure i haven't gotten into that yet. on tuesday we all packed up and headed north for the border. we got accross to ontario with only a slight hitch due to the absence of owen's birth certificate. we went to a fabulous camp on the beach of lake huron. the were some storms the day before which riled up the water a bit and it actually felt like being at the beach. like, the ocean beach. there were some decent waves piling up and nice sand. i have to say that it was nicer than south padre. course it was cold enough that i didn't really swim while i was there, so i can't fully compare. but i know enough about being in ocean water to tell you that it was marvelous not to choke and gag on saline and have to shower out salty hair and tend to super dry skin. therefore, we spent the next three days enjoying the beach, eating hamburgers and hotdogs and... and i guess that's mainly it. i only ran one morning. it's kind of shameful, especially considering all the great trails and stuff that were available. speaking of trails, the family did go to a tiny museum inside the park (they had really lame animal displays with fake creatures behind the glass). and since you're probably wondering how that trail is related to a pathetic museum, it happened to be right at the head of a bunch of scenic paths which threaded through various parts of the whatever. is that ambiguous enough for you? i'm sorry! i don't even know the name of the park we were in. i figure it's good enough that i actually know we were in ontario beside lake huron! besides, it's in canada... so does it really matter? hehehehee..... hope i don't get in trouble for that.

we came back on thursday evening (back to michigan). i spent all that afternoon reading. then in the evening we had the laporte/yerkes talent show, featuring all the talented youngsters of our combined clans. kyle played the guitar, the harmonica and the flute (seems like there might have been something else), kelly played the violin, the piano, the violin again, the piano again... keegan played the piano (i found one performance very interesting because he proudly announced that he was going to "play [such-and-such] on the piano and sing at the same time!" then he played very quietly and not a peep escaped his vocal chords.), courtney played the piano, sang, accompanied and generally kept the show moving. then i proceeded to stay up very late reading. papa stayed up late with me, except he was watching 20,000 leagues under the sea.

next morning... time to pack up. we loaded up the freshly washed vehicle, stuffed last minute laundry into bags, took fairwell pictures with all sorts of combinations of our families, gave hugs and kisses and goodbyes and finally started the return journey.

once again i suppose i'll pretty much gloss over that portion. i shifted to traveler mode. after every one gets through rehashing the week's events and shouting and laughing, we all fall asleep. then the road buzzes and one person remembers that they have to wait their turn to slumber. we listened to all the cd's anyone was interested in (multiple times). then eat. drink. drive. sleep. repeat. and while that may not sound like the best combination, i assure you i do not condone drinking and driving... unless it's a caffeinated non-alcoholic beverage combining with a lack of sleep to function as an eye bulging attention enhancer to preclude dangerous road accidents. doesn't that sound great? *sigh* the things i condone...

so we're back. arrived on sunday morning, welcomed by rain. slept and unpacked all afternoon. went to church in the evening. started work back yesterday. back to the usual i guess.

today i got to have a real visit with a friend i haven't seen in a long time. it was really good. enjoyable and encouraging. man, what is it with people growing up and getting jobs and living like functional responsible adults? it blows my mind. right. where was i. nowhere. which reminds me of the first part of a netflicks commercial i heard today. "contestant number one! are you ready?? if bobby is 6 and sarah is 9, what did we have for supper last night?!?"

"uhhh... meatloaf!!!"

"correct!" *ding* "what... is the difference between an orangutan?"

"a rhino!!!"

"correct!" *ding* "why is the netflicks summer savings deal such a great offer?"

"well... hmmm... it's only $5.99 a month... there's no activation fee or hidden costs... you get unlimited weekly rentals... so, basically there's no logical answer..."

"correct!" *DING*

that bit of wisdom pretty much took the last of it out of me. i'm going to go mindlessly pound my legs until i'm exhausted.

Falootin'

another day over in michigan land. last night i was quite surprised to discover that the time was after 4 o'clock, and i quickly rushed to bed. but it was too late. i doomed myself to sleep till after noon.

stephen and owen have been bellowing and fighting with swords and guns all day. some of the people have been playing chess with super jumbo pieces. i caught up on some national geographics which i hadn't seen (that's one subscription i really miss). lifted weights some. it's funny to think about doing that all of a sudden, while on vacation, when i never do it otherwise, and will not in all likelihood do it when i get back. i do wish i had such a fabulous exercise room as dave's right in my house. *thank you kyle for playing the flute loudly in my ear.* this evening we went to the metropark. it consists of a pool (with slides), a putt putt course, a play ground, etc., all right next to the beach of the st claire lake. we went swimming in the pool the way sardines swim in the can. i even embarrassed myself on the diving board for keegan's sake. at least i didn't have to be rescued like one guy. i don't even know what happened to him. maybe he stayed down by the bottom just a little too long, who knows. all i know is in a flash the lifeguard blasted her whistle and hauled him to the side by the neck in the crook of her elbow before i could croak holy cow. it was impressive. guess that's what all their training is for.

now that we're all full of chicken from kfc, we've been packing for our camping trip. one van is almost stuffed, and another one following suit. in the morning we're trekking to the canada side of lake huron for a few days, where i'm sure we'll engage in much swimming and eating and playing and laziness. so long my friends!

Willy

right now i'm in the basement. i'm rather cold. my bare feet are on tiles and i can hear the a/c blustering. which makes it rather surprising that i have been sitting here for over an hour and a half looking at pictures from a friend's bachelor party/wedding/honeymoon, etc. my oldest brother and a couple of cousin's are playing video games. i can clearly hear the beautiful music... oh, one other thing. i'm in michigan.

so... on sat morning we left at about 3 o'clock. actually we pulled down the driveway in the baluga at precisely 2:59. we arrived here at aunt nancy and uncle dave's house 22.5 hours and 1200 miles later. and guess what? remember me mentioning that the a/c is running? yeah, it's just as hot, if not hotter here than in texas! today it was in the mid to high 90's! good grief. it was supposed to be like, 20 degrees cooler just for us. i guess i should be thankful i get to freeze my feet off in the basement at night.

this afternoon we ate a tasty breakfast. tasty as it was, i didn't eat enough as it turned out. it was 5:30 before we ate again. so, as i was saying, we went to the races. boat races. they were loud and fast and the yellow one won, even though his engine cover blew off and destroyed his air foil. that's about all i can tell you. if i'd known this was on the agenda i swear i would have done some research to provide you with more entertaining details. also, some fellows flew stunt planes over the water and performed acrobatic insanities for our amusement. one of them blew smoke into the shape of a heart. i was impressed. they flew straight up until the plane stalled, and then dove back and almost kissed the water before pulling up. lots of loops and up-side-downs. if i'd been in there i would have up-chucked my breakfast for sure. this was on the narrow section of the detroit river, btw. the south branch that cuts around belle isle. i believe it is located between lake huron and lake michigan.

after we experienced the boats, we ate italian. there was waaaaaaay more food than we could possibly eat, even if i was half starved. first we got bread (which was heavenly) and beverages. then a few mintues later salads arroved (the ranch was impressively tasty. seemed to have a little more than what i pour out of the bottle). next came the pasta. then the first pizzas started to arrive. the most fabulous of all were the deep dish meat lovers. it was really more like a giant, thick crusted pie, an inch deep in cheese, sausage, pepperoni, etc. basically i forgot all the peeved thoughts i had thought about missing lunch.

after we stuffed ourselves silly (only a few actually popped) we went to downtown detroit. it kind of looks a bit war torn. there are abandoned buildings all over the place. big abandoned buildings, like glass walled mini-sky-scrapers with the windows propped open. lots of burned stuff. piles of rubble. when a bentley rolls by, you kind of get a picture of a dwindling wealth still struggling (at least partially successfully) at the hub of the nations auto industry. we took a ride on the people transporter. with all our squealing and running around i think we annoyed a little lonely gray man who was holding a paper bag concealing two bottles. we finally left him in peace and went to eat ice cream.

on the way home we took the scenic route and looked at some really nice houses facing lake michigan. i would really not mind living in one of them. even if it wasn't a super nice house, just a house in front of the lake. we think we're so big in texas, but i'm afraid we can't boast any lakes of that volume. i wonder how many lake nacs would fit in it...?

well, i'm gonna clunk my blocks of ice back up the stairs and have some more pizza. hopefully hit the sack soon. btw, i brilliantly left my cell phone on the floor in my room when we left. if you happen to be someone who would call me, then just know that you can't. unless you call my parent's cell. course, if you just want to sing happy birthday you can leave a message and i'll get it when i get back. and it will still be early. good night.

i'm sunburned again, but not quite so bad as last time. the past couple of weeks i've been doing everything outside - putting up signs, playing badmitten, frolicking amongst the daisies... er, huh??

so, the other day we had to put some new lamps in a bigish sign up on a pole by the highway. in jasper. unfortunately there were only two access holes. actually, the quantity of holes was not the problem... mainly the size of them. robert didn't even try to climb through, but instead called on my narrow torso for the task (he refers to the three of us as the "two fat-boys and one skinny man with a tapeworm"). thank goodness i'm not clostrophobic. i had to stick my head through the slot, breathe, and then exhale deeply to get my chest through. i had a mild sense of, shall we say, urgency, when i once tried to take a breath before i got all the way in.

the fourth of july was wonderful! we were so excited about going to the jones' that we rose with the sun and left the house about an hour and a half later. at about 10:30. the food was glorious, the friends were friendly, the water fight was cold, the sky was overcast (during the hot part of the day, and it never rained. cool!!!), i don't know what the horse shoes were, and caleb shared his jelly beans. it was good to catch up with friends that i seldom see and make new ones.

i had my first guitar session of the summer on thurs. steve showed me a few things on guitars-in-progress in his shop. especially some sides he is bending. they're folded around an aluminum and particle board template which has light bulbs in it to make it hot. the wood is clamped at the waist to force it into the contour of a guitar side and heated for about 20 minutes. then allowed to cool. the process is repeated to set the curve, since it likes to spring back. i'm also highly excited to say that we began work on my guitar. steve is going to make one with me, from the beginning and do each step as i do it. we worked on the rosette first. we made many measurements and drew lines and circles and eventually cut out a very shallow ring in the spruce top, for the walnut ring that will encircle the sound hole. at least i'm pretty sure that's the species we finally landed upon. then we made more lines and circles ("we made lines and circles" makes it sound so easy) and used what i like to call the scalpal (same exacto knife i use in the sign shop) to cut out the walnut ring. it was very brittle, and i broke mine in about three places. i had just finished cutting it out, proudly held up the pretty little sliver, and dropped it on the bench. i felt less bad after steve broke his. eventually we got the pieces glued and clamped, and they're going to look great. billie also prepared a delicious supper to which i was invited - an invitation i readily accepted. i also got to behold a very beautiful maple and rosewood instrument that steve just sold at a guitar convention. ahhhh, and inspiring piece of work.

oh wow! i nearly clicked publish post without mentioning i watched POC dead man's chest last night! we've been talking about it here in the kitchen, and for some reason i just didn't write anything. i won't spoil it for those of you who haven't seen it yet, but i will say i enjoyed it. it was more centered around the fantastic and the slapstick this time. not so clever as the first one. i thought there were some wasted punch lines (they could have come up with something way better to say and made certain moments perfect), some stuff wasn't developed as well, and certain scenes were too long and all-the-same. there were some good fight scenes, several healthy laughs, and lots of impressive computer animation. hope you enjoy it!

best be off and away. i have a face to shave and a wedding to attend in dallas.

Free Minutes

every time i turn around today, i think it's saturday! it's so weird to not go to work and have papa home. so yesterday i had a wonderful nap, which lasted about 3 hours. it probably would have been more wonderful in the long run if it had only been one hour. last night i could not sleep. my body started to randomly itch in different places. i tossed and turned and kicked and rolled and squalled, and finally got really tired late this morning and slept till about 9 or 9:30.

i ate about 5 really good peaches today. i feel like going to pick more.

did a bunch of cleaning in our back room (my room when evan is here), which is full of clothes and boxes from our move and from my dorm room. i took off all the sad strings from my guitar, which you needed to know, but doesn't have anything to do with anything.

next i will tell you that papa and i put up two laminated shelves that i made about a year ago, but i will not provide any of the details. except they look awesome and we have three times as much shelf space.

this evening i bought two new pair of blue jeans. i am quite pleased with myself. actually more with the jeans than with myself. they even had weird odd (weird+odd=very rare and unusual) sizes that fit me so nicely! then the entire family went to the track where we ran (or perambulated) about the concourse at various velocities for about an hour. i decided to run up and down the hills, while still attempting to maintain speed and run the same distance. it was much hard. i made it up about 3 or 4 hills, and then just tried to make it the rest of the distance. i think i'm over 150 miles for the summer. ooooohh, my calves!!!

time for chicken tetrazzini.

i probably won't get around to posting for the occasion, so - EVERYONE HAVE A GREAT 4TH TOMORROW!!!

OxyChem Feed Phosphates*

yesterday was one of those days that really seems like two or three different days rolled into one. remarkably, all the activities started after a full day at work...

as soon as i got mullah from the boss-man, i headed over to wal mart to do some piratey accoutrament shopping. as some of you know, we are intending to watch pirates of the caribbean in costume. i admit that i need a bit of assitance in the costume department. much as the idea of being captain jack entertains me, i didn't really know the first thing about where to begin. so it turns out that there are some types of pants that would be almost perfect, except they're for girls. *sigh* i am now the bashful owner of a pair of pants (which i will probably only ever wear once) that are to be altered to make pirate britches. i'm thinking my shirt will be long and untucked... female garments are awkward and quite ill-fitting on me. it's more and more occurring to me how embarrassed i shall be at the theater. this is definitely something you do not do by yourself. if you get dressed up for a movie by yourself, you are officially a geek. if such a one is reading this, don't deny it. just be proud of your geekiness.

then i went jogging. what??? i went jogging.

met nathaniel while i was there, and he ran a bit with me. then we went and took showers. i wonder where my keys are? but i didn't let that bother me. we headed to the carmike to watch superman. i enjoyed the movie over all. the beginning was kind of boring, but after about 30 minutes superman took charge with his glorious feats of cheesyness, the world was saved from one more villain. it was fun. katie pointed out that superman movies have to be at least a little bit cheesy!

hmmm. what did i do with that key?!? then we got back in his truck. "nathaniel? i don't know where my key is." "ooooh, nice. what should we do?" i decided it would be best just to stop by the track and i could thoroughly search my bag and the pockets of my other clothes. but low and behold, there was the key, glinting brightly on the asphalt not two feet from my "securely locked" car in the parking lot. i hadn't even hoped it would be that easy, and decided to be more relieved than shocked at the possible unhappy consequences of such carelessness.

since it was about 1 o'clock and i hadn't eaten anything for 13 hours we went to whataburger. it took them a very long time to complete my order, including complications in which an inept fellow decided to charge me for a biscuit and other stuff, bringing the total for my little breakfast buritto and hashbrowns to almost $8. so they gave me a coupon for a free burger or something. works for me.

since it was time to be going to bed, we went out into the parking lot and stood there talking for about 2 hours. we pretty much discussed everything. especially the three g's- god, girls and guns. except, a lot of true texans would be ashamed of us, because our guns conversation was about the lumps us guys like growing between our elbow and shouler, and had nothing to do with hunting.

when i got home i snuck quietly into the house - no need to unduly disturb anyone at such unearthly hours. my parent's bedroom door was strangely wide open. i stalked back to evan's room and noticed that the girls door was wide open too. glanced at courtney's bed and it was empty. so was bethany's. mhmm!! so i walked less quietly to the back of the house and found the whole family hunkered down nearing the end of a marathon. a pride and prejudice marathon. i took just long enough to say "hi" and "goodnight" and went to bed chuckling to myself. keeping college hours indeed! ha! nothing new about those kinds of hours at our house.

since the day is more than half over, i'm going to try to be productive. have an excellent weekend!

*p.s. because that's what this coffee mug beside me says.