On Wednesday, Jen brought me the super-cute Knocker Walkers shirt for the 5K on Saturday. I would have to say that the shirt was super-cute and ended up being the best shirt that I saw there.

The only shirt I saw that approached it was a shirt with a baseball diamond on it that said: “Saving Second Base”. But that shirt was a distant second.

I took a few pictures to send to interested parties and I am going to post some here. Remember that these pictures were taken with a phone, so they aren’t of the highest quality.

Derrick registering for the 5K.

Jen texting somebody to find out their location.

Jen and Jessica. Jessica is one of the 2 founding members of the Knocker Walkers and is a cancer survivor.

I call this picture “Estrogen Overload”. We arrived at the event about an hour early and proceeded to… well I’ll leave that alone and repeat that it was for a good cause.

Sara seemed to insist that this was the first time she had ever seen my legs, even though I wear shorts constantly. This was the first time I have ever seen Sara in a ball cap.

Me, Sara, Jen and Derrick

Sara and Jen

Dionne, Jessica (with her pink mohawk) and Jen. Even though we (Sara and I) just met Dionne, I think she might attend the Matisyahu concert with us on Thursday night. She will be a welcome addition to the concert, since of the 3 of us, she is the only one that can pronounce his name correctly on the first try. Although I have been practicing.

This picture is supposed to show how crowded it was at the start of the 5K. We lined up about 2 blocks away from the starting line and it took about ten minutes to get to the starting line. For an event like this, that is a “good thing”.

Jen waiting to get to the starting line.

The starting line.

This picture is supposed to show how far into the distance the crowd was this closely packed. You can’t really tell in this picture, but the crowd goes all the way to the buildings in the distance. The crowd was that packed almost as far behind us. 25,800 people.

Derrick, Jen, Sara and Karolina nearing the end of the 5K.

Jen, Derrick, Sara and Karolina crossing the finish line. 1 hour and 20 some minutes after the race had started.

It was an awesome event and I would encourage anybody to be a part of it next year.

I would also like to give a special thanks to Jason Baier and Geri Derner for making contributions to the cause through my pledge page. Special people, those two.

On Saturday, after going to the gym, helping Becky move, having lunch at Papa Chubby’s, touring Andree’s new digs but before going to Jeff’s birthday barbecue, I went down to check out Midnight Madness.

On my way from the car to the event, I took these pictures:

Once I got to where the competitors were congregating, I snapped a couple more pictures.

I believe that Logan was trying to throw down the badass vibe in this picture. It is a family trait of men with Bennett genetic material.

There is no doub about this one. Brandon is definitely throwing down the badass vibe in this picture.

Geri D. showing off her time clock. I made a deal with Geri that if she walked Midnight Madness next year, I would walk it with her. I don’t know if this is a “real” deal or if this is the type of deal I made with Becky last year where she was supposed to hold me accountable for volunteering for Special Olympics. I did not volunteer for Special Olympics.

I’m not going to describe this picture. In fact, there is only one regular reader of this blog that will even understand this picture. I hope they enjoy it.

Once the race got started, Becky joined me and I took a few more pictures of the competitors.

The beginning of the 5K.

Willy

Willy nearing the finish line.

Logan

Blake (The World’s Best UPS Guy)

Scott

It was an interesting event.

I had a pretty great 4th of July!

I woke up in the morning and headed to Ames at about 9 am. I met Shannon and her cousin Matthew for a pretty sweet breakfast of biscuits and gravy that Shannon made.

Then I headed over to Jen and Derrick’s to drop off some cherry ice cream I made the night before for their annual 4th of July barbecue.

I got to Bandshell Park at about 10 am and worked on Ames on the Half Shell until about 7 pm.

I got a few photos of the event, but I’m just going to post my 5 favorite.

Peg and Angie with Mike Butterworth of The Nadas

Me with Teresa and Logan

Me with Willy

Geri D. re-enacting the stamping of Matthew’s Tongue

Matthew and Shannon’s Annual 4th of July Portrait (Destined to be used as a Facebook Profile Picture with the cute part cropped out of it.)

After Ames on the Half Shell, I headed over to the fireworks firing grounds. Lighting off fireworks was quite a bit more dramatic this year. I saw quite a few fireworks do things that they weren’t supposed to do.

Becky signed up to do fireworks, but after the very first one that Shannon lit blew up only a few feet in the air and flew all over the shooting area, she changed her mind.

I have to admit, that was pretty exciting. The next day I talked to Melissa. She did security for fireworks, so she wasn’t at ground zero. She told me that when she saw that first firework blow up and shoot fireworks all over the area, she said a little prayer. But figured everybody must have been okay, because the fireworks didn’t stop.

Shannon never knew that her firework malfunctioned, but that is part of the training. You don’t watch your firework.

After a couple of minutes, Becky changed her mind and joined in the fun.

Here are a few pictures from the fireworks:

Scott showing off our massive amount of communication technology we had a ground zero.

Hammering Rebar. Rebar is hammered in between mortars to prevent them from falling over and firing into the crowd. Or worse, at the shooters. This is an example of what went wrong in Charles City last year. They used rebar, but they only hammered it in a few inches into asphalt. Because all the mortars were chained together, when one mortar fell over, they all fell over.

Joe unpacking fireworks.

The 10 minute warning. This was the very first firework that Becky ever lit.

Last year, Sara asked me what fireworks look like from the other side. I don’t have a good answer for that question, but this is what fireworks look like from underneath.

Shannon lighting a 5 inch shell. The 5 inch shells were the biggest that we lit off this year. I think this is actually my favorite picture from the day. Even though I’m sure critics will claim that it is slightly derivative of my earlier work.

This is an example of what it can look like when something goes minorly wrong. It might look to some people like this is a series of fireworks going off, but it isn’t. This is what it looks like when a firework doesn’t go up high enough before it blows up. It comes back to the earth before it has completely burned up. The strange thing about this picture is that if you look closely, you can see aluminum foil on top of the mortars. These are the grand finale mortars and they are covered by aluminum foil in case something like this happens. All the grand finale fireworks are fused together, so if 1 of them goes off, they all go off. If you look even closer, you will notice that there is not aluminum foil covering all of the mortars. This happened while people were removing the foil and getting ready to set off the Grand Finale. If you look very close, you can make out Joe on the very right side of the picture. Shannon was also in the middle of this, but she does not appear in the picture.

The Grand Finale going off.

4th of July

I concluded the evening hanging out with some wonderful people at Jen and Derrick’s barbecue. I didn’t leave there until a little after 2, but I still woke up in time to usher at church. Take that sleep! Who needs you any way?

I had a housewarming/birthday shindig on May 23. I made individual invitations for those that were invited. I’d like to share some of them.

Willy

The Kahlers

Nader

Sara

Shannon

The Roberts Family

The Hiatts

The Howards

Jay

Jeff and Yin

The Gorshes

The Baiers

Bethany and Rebecca

Casy

The Degeneffes

Geri

Geri requested a new picture of us be taken because she wanted a picture where she wasn’t looking at me as if I was the smartest person in the world. I guess I never noticed her having an expression different than what I’m used to seeing by the majority of people in my life…

Last Friday was a busy night for me. I spent the beginning of the evening at a Super Secret Session of FNSC. I can’t really tell you what happened there, because it is a secret.

After our session concluded in a secret manner I made my way over to Terra’s house to celebrate the birth of Geri D.

Her party consisted of much merriment and my complete and total domination of a game called “Apples to Apples”. Maybe that was the name of the game. Either way, the name is secondary to my thorough domination.

When I got home around 1 am I noticed that my garage door was wide open. It is not uncommon for me to leave my garage door open, so I must have done it. But at the time I wondered who had been in my garage. It was a silly thought, considering my nephew Johnathan is the only other soul that knows the security code to get into my garage.

I pulled my car into the garage and got out of my car.

There was a fluttering above my head.

I was excited. I thought I might have a bat in my garage. I like bats. In fact, I wanted to buy a bathouse or two to put up in the yard.

I looked around the garage and finally found the culprit. It was a female cardinal. She was perched on top of my garage door opener.

I was tired, but I made a game effort to shoo her out of the garage, but she wasn’t interested in leaving the garage. So I decided to leave the garage door open for the night.

Sleep came fast on that night and that was a good thing. I had an 8:45 am appointment at Beyer Hall with Baier, Russell and Andree. I was giving them free basketball lessons. They had expressed some interest in knowing how the game is properly played. As their friend, it was my duty to provide such a service.

I overslept on Saturday morning. I barely managed to find basketball clothes and shoes. I put them on and headed out the door.

When I got to the garage I looked around for the bird. I didn’t see her at first, but when I turned around to get into the car I saw her. She was lying dead on top of the old washing machine that I’m storing in the garage.

Since I was already late I decided to deal with the dead bird later.

Basketball went as expected. Admittedly there was a surprise at the beginning. A team of Andree/Russell did shock the team of Baier and I in the first game, but I finished the rest of the day undefeated.

When I got home later in the day, I discovered that I don’t actually own a shovel. So I waited until Sunday to bury the bird.

I dug a hole and threw the bird in it. Then I put an Easter Lily over the top of it.

Now it rained all day Sunday. I was digging a hole and burying a bird in the middle of the night in the middle of a thunderstorm. Jay thought that this must have looked like the beginning of a cheesy horror movie to an outside observer.

All I know is that the bird is buried and the lily is still kicking.

If you need to bury a dead bird, I recommend the middle of a thunderstorm. The ground is nice and wet and the ambiance can’t be beat.

On New Year’s Day, between the Outback Bowl and the Rose Bowl, I went over to check out the ACTORS building in Ames with Becky, Terra and Geri. Geri is actually the President or Chairman of ACTORS.

Some pictures.

Geri

Shoes

Becky & Terra

Rubber Chicken

Ham

Geri and I

Dressing Room

It was an interesting experience.

Friday night was another successful Ames on the Half Shell. The band was Kountertop and they were phenomenal. I even had a chance to catchup with an old chum named Todd Sawyer who is a Kountertop roadie. That was pretty sweet.

I haven’t loaded any images into the Snapshots Gallery yet, so don’t go running over there. That will happen in due time.

Friday may have been my Half Shell swan song. I don’t think I’ll be able to make it to this Friday’s Half Shell. I’m going to spend Thursday and Friday in Cedar Rapids with a small group from my church getting covered in dry wall and black mold. I’m not sure I will make it back to Ames in time to work Half Shell. Even if I did, I’m not sure what I would smell like.

So that means at least a couple of you are going to have to go to Half Shell and drink my share of the Red Monkey Root Beer. This week’s band is the 3AM Band. As always the event runs from 5-8 at Bandshell Park near beautiful downtown Ames, Iowa.