Friday Night Bonne Finken played Ames on the Half Shell. Here are a couple of images.
For about 50 more images, click on the link below:
Bonne Finken
This Friday the band will be Kountertop.
Friday Night Bonne Finken played Ames on the Half Shell. Here are a couple of images.
For about 50 more images, click on the link below:
This Friday the band will be Kountertop.
I think I’m going to create a hybrid of the 2 birthday salute styles that I have tried in the past.
Happy Birthday Mr. Janson!
Jay in Beautiful Downtown McCallsburg
Jay-Working It in Ottumwa (Rob Gorshe Admires His Work)
Jay in the Stephens Parking Lot after Watching Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
But I do have more pictures of Jay in the Snapshots Gallery. But you can also click on the link below to find about 20 more pictures of Jay.
There is also a random picture of Bill in the mix as well.
A lifetime ago I knew this girl that was entering a wet t-shirt contest. She was explaining to Jesse, Jay and I her strategy for winning this contest.
We tried our best to explain to her that there really is only one strategy for winning a wet t-shirt contest.
That strategy, of course, is “Skin to Win!”
She didn’t believe us.
While you are probably wondering why I am telling you the story of somebody that would sell their dignity so cheaply, the answer is simple. On a recent wet morning, I wandered out of my house and took a few pictures of some wet plants.
I hope you find them to be as sexy as I do.
If you are wondering, this girl’s strategy was about teasing. She did in fact lose to a girl that knew the cardinal rule of wet t-shirt contests.
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.
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…
In my quest to catch up, I’m going to just copy and paste an email about a recent experience I had a new local pizzeria. So if you were the one who received this email, you might want to skip reading this and go back to your normal job duties.
This experience took place on Friday the 13th. Apparently not just a bad day for Templar Knights.
Earlier in the week, Jay brought up wanting to try this new pizza joint in Ames. I had heard the story of how it opened because it was on CNN. I had heard two reviews of the place. One from Jon who loved it. One from Corey who hated it. Corey’s main hatred was generated from the fact that they claimed to serve the pizza with “sauce” on top of the pizza. In actuality the sauce was diced tomatoes. I told this to Jay because he does not like tomatoes as a warning.
Originally we started with 3 people. During the day I sent an invite out to Jen and Derrick to see if they were interested. Then I went home from work to meet the cable guy.
That afternoon, Monica called and wanted to see if she could join us for FNSC since she wasn’t doing her normal birthday dinner.
I called Jay and we worked out a time for when we would meet there. He told me that Willy was not coming because he had run 35 miles that day and felt he should take it easy. He also had big plans for Saturday night. He was going to a birthday party on Saturday night for his friends that he goes to the fights with.
So it was going to be me, Monica and Jay. About this time, my internet was turned on and I saw that Jen had sent me a message saying that she would be interested, but Derrick was out because he was running sound for Dennis’ surprise birthday party at Deano’s.
I called Jesse to tell him what time we were meeting because he had expressed some interest in trying the new pizza place, plus he had my new speakers in his car. Jesse said that he was in.
About 5 pm, my doorbell rang. I went to the door and was surprised to see Willy there. I told him that Jay said that he wasn’t coming.
He said that he had decided to “Man up.”
Then he gave me a partial bag of ice. The rest of the ice from the bag he was using to ice his legs.
Then Jay came over. He was insistent that we leave right at 5:30 to hold to some schedule that he had made in his head. Willy and I told him that wasn’t “the way things worked”.
We eventually left and met Jen and Monica at the pizza place. FNSC was supposed to consist of Me, Jay, Willy, Jesse, Jen and Monica. 6 people. On the way there, Willy started to get sick.
We ordered two large Chicago Style pizzas. Mr. Meaty and Louie’s Supreme. The price: $69. That is not a typo. That did not include drinks. They told us it would be 1 hour 15 minutes. We asked if we could change the order to delivery and we would eat at Jen’s place. They said that would add 30 minutes to the time we got our pizza.
There was no place to sit, so we ordered the pizza as Carry Out.
Order was placed at 6:20.
Jesse called to say that he had called home and found out that he couldn’t come out.
Jen went home.
Jay, Willy, Monica and I went to Wal-Mart. I needed to buy a toaster and some microwave popcorn. Monica (not making this up) bought a rake so that they could rake up all of the cigarette butts in their yard.
Jen called and said that Jill would be joining us. Willy continued to get worse.
We went inside. There were some tables available. I ordered some drinks and changed our order to Dine-In. They gave me a number after the lady stared at a computer screen for quite some time. I had no faith that the number she gave me was somehow connected to anything on her computer screen. Jay said that if the pizza wasn’t ready in 5 minutes, he was going to leave and take Willy home.
The pizza wasn’t ready in 5 minutes. Jay left.
Jen and Jill arrived. FNSC turned into Me, Jen, Jill and Monica. With two large Chicago Style Pizzas.
A little after 8 pm we were still sitting there (talking about hair) when one of the owners approached our table. He shook my hand and introduced himself to me. He asked how long we had been waiting. I said that we placed our order at 6:20. He asked what time it was. I didn’t not know. He looked at his cell phone and said “Is it really after 8?”
“If you say it is.”
He gathered some information and then went back and came back with a pizza. It wasn’t exactly hot. We told him we had two pizzas. He said, “I hope those dumbasses didn’t accidentally give it out.”
He came back with another pizza. It was not Chicago Style. Somebody pointed this out to him. He took it back and came back with the right pizza.
When he brought back the right pizza he said, “You must have thought we were running a special: 1 pizza for the price of 2!”
The Mr. Meaty pizza had next to no flavor. The Louie’s Supreme wasn’t bad. I like tomatoes, but I could have done without them on top of the pizza. Tomatoes are not a substitute for sauce, which the pizza had none.
At the end of the night, we had 9 slices of pizza left. I took 3 of them to Deano’s for Derrick. I later found out that he took 1 bite and threw the rest away.
Although this experience was very negative, I would be willing to give Black Market Pizza one more chance. I am not willing to give their Chicago style pizza a second chance though.
There are no pictures from moving day, but I would like to thank the people that gave some effort to make moving day work out.
The Friday before moving day had spectacular weather. The Saturday of moving day was not scheduled to have spectacular weather. I returned to work on that Friday to get caught up on a few projects that I had fallen behind on.
To take advantage of the nice weather, Jason and Carla moved some stuff during the day. Then at night, Jen and Derrick and Sara came over and we moved stuff that I wouldn’t be able to handle the projected rain on Saturday.
So after FNSC, Jay and Willy and Derrick and Jen and Sara and I moved a few things.
But thanks also needs to be given the people that showed up on moving day:
Jason Stensland
Jesse Howard
Steve Roberts
Roger Sebring
Toby Sebring
Jason Baier
Andree Jauhari
Russell Kennerly
Shannon Bardole
Becky Perkovich
Jen Gorshe
Sara Junck
Derrick Gorshe
Dan Dill
DJ Dill
William McAlpine
Jay Janson
Plus a special thanks to Scott Degeneffe who personally delivered my brand new stove.
After a good chunk of work was done, Monica and Jeff showed up. Jen, Derrick, Sara, Shannon, Monica, Jeff and I went to Jimmy’s for supper.
When we returned, Derrick and Jen stuck around. Derrick and I hooked up the new TV and Blu-Ray player. We watched The Warriors. Jen had never seen The Warriors before, but I have no doubt that she now probably considers it to be one of the greatest movies ever made. At least I don’t see another way of thinking about that movie.
Although Carla and Alexis did a wonderful job of taking pictures, one of the downsides of not having taken any pictures myself is that I didn’t get pictures of everybody that helped.
So thanks to my incredible painting crew on Primary Painting Day:
Jason Stensland
Carla Stensland
Alexis Stensland
Jason Baier
Jeff Daniel
Amy Yin
Jen Gorshe
Derrick Gorshe
Sara Junck
Teresa Kahler
Monica Henning
Nader Parsaei
Jay Janson
Jesse Howard
Shannon Bardole
Becky Perkovich
James Strachota
I’m sure I’m forgetting somebody. They all did a wonderful job and if it wasn’t for the stupid moisture, I’m sure we would have been completely done on that day. With everything except the kitchen cabinets.
My mom also cooked up a wonderful lunch and supper. I think a good time was had by most.
Some pictures from that day in no particular order:
Roger taking the tile out to make room for a shower.
Shannon painting the entry way.
Jen working in the kitchen. Notice the swanky green color that kitchen cabinets used to be before the horrible antiquing.
Jesse, possibly high on something, working in the kitchen.
Jesse doing some primer work in the kitchen.
Sara and Alexis toiling in the kitchen. I do not know what I am doing.
Alexis and I painting the living room wall. It might be the accent wall, but I’m not sure if it is still considered an accent wall if you paint two walls that color.
Carla painting in the master bedroom. To the left of her is the family heirloom, our Grandpa Bennett’s painting stool.
Jason and Carla came over on Sunday to do some more painting.
Jen came over and did quite a bit more work in the kitchen as well. I just don’t have any pictures of that.
More pictures from paint prep night.
Life Lesson: When working on a ceiling fan, don’t ask for the fan to be turned on when your heads are still in the blades.
Willy, Jay, Me, Becky, Shannon and Alexis.
Alexis and Teresa washing walls.
Becky and Teresa in the basement.
Another health amount of work had been accomplished. The house was ready for painting day.
Day 3 of home ownership consisted of paint prep and lots of it. Her are some pictures in no particular order from that night.
Shannon would want me to point out one thing in this picture. Well maybe two things. One she is a master taper. Two she did an incredible job taping around the rounded corner of this wall.
Suzie showing off her taping skills.
Taking down curtains in my bowling shirt.
A good supervisor/leader takes time out from ruling with an iron fist to get to know the people on their staff. As opposed to this looks like I’m not doing any work.
Jesse working on the living room ceiling fan. This ceiling fan did come with a remote.
Shannon, Becky, Teresa, Jesse, Yours Truly, Suzie and Scott.
Jesse and Scott got shocked on more than one occasion. I noted their ability to take a shock, in case I ever need somebody to jump in front of a taser for me. I think I have a couple of candidates.
I was blessed with a phenomenal prep team.
On Sunday, January 10, I looked at the House with the Cute Backyard with Jason. I had seen the house with my Mom, Carla and Jay. Plus Teresa had seen it earlier. I wanted Jason’s far more practical perspective.
Jesse also dropped by to look for a lead pipe. A simple lead pipe once cost that man 10,000 large. It has become a personal crusade of his to prevent any of his friends from going through such an ordeal again.
Jason felt that the house was solidly built and didn’t see any major problems.
It was now my time to think about whether or not I wanted to buy this house and what my purchase price goal would be.
I spent Sunday night thinking on whether or not I wanted to buy this house.
Shannon had asked me about the house and so I sent her the following email to both inform her and as a way for me to work out the pros and cons of this house.
SUBJECT: RE: Post-Holiday
This Nostradamus end of the world thing is lamer than anticipated.
Some pictures of this potential house.
Dining Room Minuses
Living Room Negatives
Master Bedroom Minuses
Bathroom Minuses
Bedroom Two Minuses
Bedroom Three/Office Minuses
Basement Bathroom Minuses
Negatives
Other Positives
Negatives
I actually looked at 5 other houses. There is another one that I kind of liked. It had a much bigger kitchen. It had 2 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms, but it doesn’t have much of a yard. But one of the bathrooms had a sweet pink tub and sink.
I have no doubt that you are sufficiently bored now.