Category Archives: Friends

Susan G. Komen Fundraiser

I got some information from Monica yesterday that I think is vitally important that I pass along.

If your curly locks are getting a little bit long and you are looking for a way to get both your hair chopped and donate money to a worthy cause, then I have some news for you! The Salon at Younkers is doing a fundraiser for the Susan G. Komen Foundation.



I would advise you to make your appointment now. You know it is for a good cause. Plus Monica does good work. I’m sure her other girls do as well.

Happy Birthday Sara!

Today is Sara’s birthday.



Rather than post a bunch of pictures of Sara for Sara’s birthday, I’m going to take a slightly different tact.

Yesterday I wrote about Sara auditioning to become a Photography 139 Photo Assistant. She got high marks for having a big purse. One of her few problems was that she doesn’t know the difference between a film camera and a digital camera.

I left her with 1 digital camera and 1 film camera while I moved up the river looking for a better spot to photograph Jen’s team. I told her that she could take pictures with the digital camera if she wanted.

About 10 minutes elapsed and I returned to her position and asked for the film camera.

She looked at Derrick awkwardly. He looked back equally awkwardly.

The she said, “There is a little problem with that camera. I didn’t know it was film, so I used up all the film.”

So as a tribute to Sara, I’m going to post all the pictures from that roll of film. The first few are from before I handed her the camera.



More convertible


More convertible


Dock


Derrick and Jay


Derrick


Jay and Derrick


The River

It was at this point that I left my camera in Sara’s hand.



All in all, I think she did some pretty solid work. But I was still counting on having that film for later in the day!

So one final Happy Birthday Sara! I look forward to the party on Saturday.

My Saturday (Volume 2)

More pictures from Saturday. Some of these pictures were taken by Sara as she was auditioning to become a Photography 139 Photo Assistant.


Des Moines Regatta - 2008
Relaxing

Des Moines Regatta - 2008
On dry land

Des Moines Regatta - 2008
Done

Des Moines Regatta - 2008
Done

Des Moines Regatta - 2008
Oar duty

Des Moines Regatta - 2008
Guns

Des Moines Regatta - 2008
Oar Duty

Des Moines Regatta - 2008
Me

Des Moines Regatta - 2008
Celebration

Des Moines Regatta - 2008
Celebrating with some juice.

Des Moines Regatta - 2008
Jen and Derrick

Des Moines Regatta - 2008
Sara

Des Moines Regatta - 2008
Banner

Des Moines Regatta - 2008
The Past

Des Moines Regatta - 2008
Back in the convertible

Des Moines Regatta - 2008
Shiny

Des Moines Regatta - 2008
Sara after winning a scholarship.

Des Moines Regatta - 2008
Classic Frozen Custard

Des Moines Regatta - 2008
Classic Frozen Custard

Des Moines Regatta - 2008

All in all, it was a pretty good day.

St. Elmo’s Fire

There was an article about Willy and his running ways in the Boone News Republican on Friday.



Because of the weird way that they printed the article, I couldn’t scan the whole thing in one scan.

For reasons I can’t quite figure out, the Boone News Republican (maybe they are busy getting ready to cover the big nudie bar town meeting tonight) didn’t post this article on their website. So if you combine the scan above with the scan below, you can get the whole article.



Somewhere and someplace, John Parr is smiling.

Growin’ up, you don’t see the writing on the wall
Passin’ by, movin’ straight ahead, you knew it all
But maybe sometime if you feel the pain
You’ll find you’re all alone, everything has changed
Play the game, you know you can’t quit until it’s won
Soldier on, only you can do what must be done
You know in some way you’re a lot like me
You’re just a prisoner and you’re tryin’ to break free

My Saturday (Volume 1)

My big plan for Saturday was to journey down to Des Moines to watch Jen compete in the Des Moines Regatta. I have never been to such an event, so it was going to be a new experience.

I started my day by going to Ames to drop off a roll of real black and white film at Walden Photo. It seems to be more and more difficult to find a place to get real black and white film developed. I think it is down to Walden Photo and Pyle in Ames. I took this roll of film to Walden Photo. We’ll see how that turns out.

While I was downtown I stopped at the Downtown Farmer’s Market briefly to talk to Shannon. She was making soap there. While I was there I picked up a jar of jalapeno jelly. I already have about 6 or 7 jars of jelly that I don’t eat because I don’t eat breakfast, but I have high hopes that I will use this jelly on crackers.

I met Jay back in Boone and we headed down to Des Moines to meet Sara and Derrick for lunch. We ate at the Hessen Haus. It was somewhat of a disappointment. Fortunately, due to the poorness of the Hessen Haus, a plan was hatched for a future FNSC. That is exciting!

After watching Iowa lose to Northwestern, we hopped into the Mustang convertible that was being used as our form of conveyance and went to Prospect Park to watch the Des Moines Regatta.


Des Moines Regatta - 2008

Des Moines Regatta - 2008

Des Moines Regatta - 2008

Once we got to the park, we had a brief wait on some rocks for Jen’s team to come up the river.


Des Moines Regatta - 2008

Des Moines Regatta - 2008

It didn’t take long for us to see Jen’s boat come around the bend.


Des Moines Regatta - 2008

Des Moines Regatta - 2008

Des Moines Regatta - 2008

Des Moines Regatta - 2008

Des Moines Regatta - 2008

Des Moines Regatta - 2008

Des Moines Regatta - 2008

Des Moines Regatta - 2008

Des Moines Regatta - 2008

Des Moines Regatta - 2008

Des Moines Regatta - 2008

Des Moines Regatta - 2008

Des Moines Regatta - 2008

Des Moines Regatta - 2008

Des Moines Regatta - 2008

Des Moines Regatta - 2008

I’m not going to try to using rowing lingo, but one of the members of the team missed the regatta because before they were supposed to get into the water, their knee was run over by a van. They had a member from the ISU rowing crew sit in with them.

New Sales Record

On Sunday I went down to Hy-Vee Hall to help man the Little White Lye Soap booth at The Women’s Life Expo.


Women's Life Expo>
The Women’s Life Expo

Women's Life Expo
Little White Lye Soap Booth

Before Sunday I had helped Shannon set her 1 day sales record at the Webster City Farmer’s Market.

After 1 day of the Expo, the record still stood.

Then came Sunday. We managed to shatter the record into a trillion pieces. Now I can’t take full credit for the record being shattered. I only talked to a handful of customer’s and none of them actually bought any soap, but I must be bringing something to the team. I have helped break the record twice. It must be something intangible. Something that you can’t quite place a finger on. Because of its ethereal nature, it can’t be replicated. I wish there was a word for it.

For reasons that are not clear to me, this new sales record is also shared with Becky. She wasn’t even in the building. Something to do with merchandising. That is okay, I guess, I can share the glory. As long as my name goes on the Sales Record Plaque first.

Don’t forget that if you are running low on Little White Lye Soap, you can pick some up at the Ames Downtown Farmer’s Market this Saturday. My understanding is that there will be a soapmaking demonstration going on. You’ll regret missing that.

Dear, Beloved, Precious

My Aunt Linda is renting out her acreage. This has caused her to get rid of some of the things in the acreage. I benefited from this downsizing by getting a sweet new table.


09-21-08
Aunt Linda

So I got Steve and Jesse together and we drove over to the acreage and picked up the sweet table.


09-21-08
Steve and Jesse

When we got back to Steve’s house he showed me the zucchini that had grown “too large” in his garden and now he is going to allow them to rot.


09-21-08
Too Beaucoup

Apparently Steve feels like when zucchini gets too large the seeds become too hard and Steve doesn’t like hard zucchini seeds. I think this makes him soft.


09-21-08
Whatever Jesse does disappoints Steve

So I bid a fond adieu to Steve and Jesse.


09-21-08
Random picture of Steve’s flowers

I went home to admire my new table.


09-21-08
The Sweetness

I’m very excited about this table. It is going to make an awesome workspace table some day. It will be perfect for painting, matting and cutting. Plus it has a drawer! The drawer is super long.

Yes I know that nobody else is as excited about this table as I am, but those of you that don’t see the greatness of this table can bugger off!

Shafted

Friday night was the big Jay home cooked meal extravaganza. Willy choose not to join his brothers for this meal. Even though a week earlier he begged me not to go to the Ames on the Half Shell Appreciation Party because he needed a home cooked meal.

Although I was moved by his pleas, I had already made a commitment to attend the party and I was looking forward to getting the sweet AOTHS calendar that Shannon had designed.

Because I could only make an appearance at FNSC on that Friday Jay and Willy held a weenie roast in Willy’s garage. I stayed at the weenie roast log enough to eat a couple dogs and clean the gutters of Willy’s garage because… well if you know Willy, you know why.

Let us just say that because the gutters were clogged, rainwater was pouring out of the gutter and nearly falling onto the grill.

“What are we going to do about this?” was the question of the night. So I grabbed Willy’s ladder and unclogged his gutter and the weenie roast was saved.

I don’t like to brag, but the word hero was mentioned a couple times.

Jay rescheduled his home cooked meal for the next Friday. Willy decided he “needed” something else more than he needed the home cooked meal. He needed to race.

Well below is a very poor camera phone picture of what Wily missed.



You will have to trust me that it tasted much better than this picture makes it look.

Another highlight of the night was Auxiliary Member Jesse Howard’s presence. Plus Kelly, Kalista, Saydie and Taylan all became full Auxiliary Members. So despite the fact that Willy shafted his brethren, it was a successful evening.

Something Special

I had a free night foisted upon me. So now I can get caught up with entries. So some of this might seem dated.

On Tuesday, September 16, the movie Young @ Heart came out on DVD. This would easily be my favorite move I’ve seen this year. The only movies that come close are WALL-E and Son of Rambow.



Back in 1993 Jim Valvano gave a moving speech while he was dying from cancer. He said something that I’ve always found profound:

To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. And Number three is, you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that’s a full day. That’s a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you’re going to have something special.

I also consider these to be pretty good criteria for evaluating movies. Young @ Heart certainly does all three. Next time you are in your video store pick it up and give it a spin. You will not regret it.

Even if you hate old people (like Jay) you will love this movie.

Worst in Ames

My website has moved servers yet again. I know anything related to PHP doesn’t work at all and I’m not really sure when it will work again, but I’m told FTP works again, so I’m testing that theory with this entry.

Jay is rather uneducated in the nuances of the Cy-Hawk rivalry. Last week he did some research and he sent me a blog that an Iowa fan wrote about doing things to a Cyclone fan’s mother. It was the type of unintelligent drivel you would expect to come from an Iowa fan, but I don’t wish to dwell on it. I just want to show a screen capture of part of the blog.



I take umbrage with one part of this blog. At least I was going to take umbrage with one part of this blog. I was going to say that Whiskey River is not the worst bar in Ames. I was going to argue in favor of Deano’s or The Fox.

Then last night I found out that Whiskey River has been condemned. I guess it is the worst bar in Ames, until the end of the month.