Project 365 Day 171: DJ Crabcakes

Today was the big day. Amy's sister got married, Amy had a nice reading during the ceremony, and I had one of the most important jobs of all: disc jockey of the iPod.

Luckily I was born for this. Many years of of using touch-enabled devices to play music have led to this one moment. I expertly created an On-The-Go playlist containing the four required songs, and practiced fading out one track that ran a little longer than necessary. Preparedness and practice are key!

Congratulations to the bride and groom, and say hello to the world's newest musical mix-master: DJ Crabcakes!

Project 365 Day 170: Cups Overrunneth With Cake

At the rehearsal dinner for this weekend's wedding we enjoy copious amounts of food, mostly from the meat category. These cupcakes were the final course, and were very tasty!

Project 365 Day 169: Sleepified

After spending the night in the Minneapolis airport, awake, followed by three hours of pseudo-sleep on the flight to Seattle, this bed in Westport may as well be the cure for cancer. I can't wait to put my head down on the pillllll...

ZzZzZzZzZz

Project 365 Day 168: McDonald's at Midnight

Our plan was bulletproof.

Goal: Get from Iowa to Seattle in June for my sister-in-law's wedding.

Method: Fly from Des Moines through Minneapolis to Seattle.

Risk: Low

(I mean, it's not like we're flying through Minneapolis in December, so no crazy Minnesota ice storms to worry about messing up our travel plans, right?).

Outcome: Spending the night at the Minneapolis airport, because of a crazy summer midwest thunderstorm that swept from Des Moines up through the Twin Cities and caused us to miss our connecting flight.

Oh yeah, forgot about those summer storms.

Good news is we found the 24/7 McDonald's in Concourse G, we're hopped up on caffeine, and it's only 7 hours until our rebooked flight leaves for Seattle!

Project 365 Day 167: Suitcase and Syncing

We leave for Washington state tomorrow for Amy's sister's wedding, which means tonight was spent doing two very important things:

1. Packing the suitcase
2. Syncing the iPod

The order of priority is up for debate.

Project 365 Day 166: RAGBRAI Approacheth

I often feel a twinge of excitement when I hear the doorbell ring during the day, because hey, you never know who might be there. While I'm working away on nerdy computer stuff in my basement office maybe Fred Hoiberg has decided to stop by for a visit and get some feedback on basketball plays he's working out for next season.

That may be the most ludicrous thing ever written on this website (thus far).

More often than not, however, it is the UPS Man, or sometimes the FedEx Man, or once, the Census worker who told me that they had not received our Census form for 2010 even though we know for a fact we mailed it, and I'm guessing they probably didn't get it in time before the workers went out because we waited until after the date specified in the first question that went something like "How many people are living in this residence as of April 1st" or whatever, and we were like, "Well we can't send this in before April 1st cause then we'd be lying. There's no way to know how many people might be living in our house in a few weeks." You just never know.

So when said UPS Man or FedEx Man visits, more often than not it is a package of clothes or yarn or something else that is not for me. But still, I can't help but get a little excited when that doorbell rings and today my excitement was validated, because the UPS Man dropped off our RAGBRAI kit, complete with a couple of jerseys like the one in this picture, as well as wristbands, bike tags, luggage tags, emergency contact forms, and a paper asking us to ride safely and responsibly.

Just over a month to go... RAGBRAI here we come!

Project 365 Day 165: ISU Athletics Saved from Obscurity

The past week has been a bit of a roller-coaster ride for the Iowa State athletics fan. After some long-running rumors, all of the sudden a week ago the idea picked up steam that the Big 12 conference could break up. Colorado jets for the PAC-10, Nebraska leaves for the Big 10, and then another group of schools from Texas and Oklahoma might also leave for the PAC 10, leaving the remaining Big 12 teams to find a new home that would have resulted in less money from TV deals, less stature in level of competition, and more difficulties on the recruiting trail.

So today we and many other ISU alumni and fans breathed a sigh of relief when it became nearly certain that the Texas and Oklahoma schools had decided to stay with the Big 12, effectively saving it in its current state at 10 teams. Supposedly the deciding factor was a new TV deal with FOX and ESPN in the next few years that should roughly double the income to each school.

Now I can get back to obsessing about healthy things, like Fred Hoiberg's incoming recruits for men's basketball, and whether Paul Rhoads can repeat and improve upon the success ISU had last year on the football field.

Project 365 Day 164: IT is Funny

Thanks to one of Amy's coworkers we have been exposed to a very funny British sitcom called The IT Crowd (as in, Information Technology, aka what nerds and geeks do, aka, what I do). It might draw a loose comparison to The Office, but it includes a ton of "in" jokes relating to computers, video games, etc, that I and my kind appreciate. There are also fewer long-running plot lines, making each episode more self-contained. It generally doesn't matter if you've seen prior episodes for the current one to make sense.

Amy got the three available seasons (six episodes per season) on DVD for us to watch, which we have thoroughly enjoyed, and now we wait anxiously for the fourth season to begin airing in the UK later this month and eventually make its way over to the Colonies.

Project 365 Day 163: Sheep and Wool

Here's a picture Amy took of some very colorful wool on display at the Iowa Sheep and Wool Festival in Adel, IA. I'm told that this wool was in fact shorn from a sheep, however the sheep was not a Technicolor Dreamcoat sheep, and the color was added after the fact.

Project 365 Day 162: Happy Anniversary to Us

Today we are celebrating five years of married bliss! Thanks to our parents for the gifts!

Project 365 Day 161: A Lovely Bouquet

While coming up with grand schemes for planting plants and trees around the house in the coming weeks and years, we realized that it would probably be a good idea to make sure we don't dig into any sewer lines, water pipes, eletrical wires, dragon caves, etc. So we called to have these nice little flags planted on our property denoting such hazards. Little did we know they would also plant the flags in our neighbors' property too. We're pretty sure the neighbors would not like it if we decided to plant trees in their yards for them, so we took the liberty of pulling these flags up from the surrounding properties tonight.

Project 365 Day 160: Locally Roasted

Tonight while on a bike ride around town to return a movie and get some more miles in, we decided to finally stop at the Burgie's Espresso coffee shop in the gas station on Airport Road by Lowe's. We were pleasantly surprised to find that they make a Jamocha shake that is (hold your breath) better than Arby's! And this after Arby's profoundly declared in their recent commercial that their Jamocha shake is a flavor like none-other that has ever existed on this planet in the entire history of mankind and dinosaurs!

Funny, I always thought it tasted like a mix of ice cream and coffee.

Burgie's is not quite so bold in their advertising, but the coffee flavor in their shake is plenty bold and adds a nice little kick that I never knew I was missing from Arby's version.

So, I declare Burgie's to be the victor in the Jamocha shake wars of 2010, and I will also continue purchasing their locally roasted coffee beans, as picture above.

Project 365 Day 159: Rainbow City

We have started cross-training for RAGBRAI by starting up on the Couch to 5K running program again. We started our run this evening just after a typical Midwest summer rainstorm blew through town, leaving us with some nice rainbows to run towards. Despite our zig-zagging all around the Somerset neighborhood, we never did find that Pot'O'Gold!

Project 365 Day 158: Medication

I'll take one of each, please!

After our weekend of landscaping adventures, both Amy and I are doing our parts to keep the pain medication companies in business. While Amy's legs are feeling a bit sore, I managed to make it through all the rock-picking-up and wheelbarrow pushing on Saturday without feeling any pain, only to feel a sharp twinge in my back while trying on shorts at the Gap on Sunday. Either all the heavy labor on Saturday took it's toll, or else I'm just really bad at trying on clothes!

Project 365 Day 157: Hosta Hoopla

Thanks to Cousin Deb, we are in possession of this beautiful Earth Angel hosta, and yesterday I performed my manly duty of digging a hole in the ground so we could get it planted. As you can see, one day later and it has not died! Yay!

Cousin Deb is also responsible for the variety of potted hostas and other plants sitting on our driveway that you may have noticed in yesterday's photo. We appreciate her generosity of plants and plant advice very much, and we hope to improve our track record of plant survival through the rest of the summer with these hearty species.

Project 365 Day 156: Green Thumbery

Would you, by chance, be interested in some rocks? The dark area in the picture above is what we like to call "dirt," though it may be questionable as to the true nature of this substance. This area was formerly covered many, many rocks. In fact, it was covered by more rocks than one would imagine upon viewing the rock-covered area as it once existed. By way of transferring these many, many rocks to other areas of our property, such as the already-covered-by-rocks area on the northwest corner of the house, as well as the already-covered-by-rocks area under the deck on the south side of the house, through the use of ice-cream buckets, coolers, and once we had finally arrived at our senses, a wheel barrow, the area pictured in the picture above is as you see it, pictured now.

So, if you would like some rocks, you'll have to come get them yourselves, because we're done with moving rocks!!!

We may have some clay and a fine sand-dirt mixture available, however. Free for the taking!

Project 365 Day 155: Drinks at Brewers

This evening we decided to celebrate the end of another week by stopping in the local neighborhood drinking establishment Brewers for some adult beverages and appetizers. I snapped this photo of some martini wall art on our way out.

It's been at least five years since we last visited the bar, when we were in graduate school at ISU, and it's good to see the place is still alive and kickin'. In fact, one of Amy's coworkers who frequents Brewers has a caricature of himself hanging on the wall. Looks like we better step up our frequency of visits if we want to be similarly immortalized!

Project 365 Day 154: Longer Than Forever

Tonight on our bike ride around town we rode by the bandshell as the Ames Municipal Band was performing a concert. As we pulled up we heard the emcee make a special announcement that one of the band members and his wife were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary today, and the band was going to honor them by playing a song, with a special guest singer, that was played at their wedding.

The song had some sweet lyrics about the husband loving his wife "longer than forever," begging her to "leave him never." So far I'd say that couple is on track!

Project 365 Day 153: If Kelly Kapowski and AC Slater Procreated

While Adam and I were on a 17.5-mile bike ride tonight, we paused to take a picture of this sign, which we've noticed many times due to the fact that it contains the names of two of the main characters in a TV show with which any self-respecting child of the 80s should be familiar: Saved by the Bell. Aah, the memories: Would Screech ever get Lisa to go on a date with him? How long would Jessie stay addicted to caffeine pills? (Turns out, about half an hour, minus commercial breaks.) And, of course, would Zach and Kelly be together forever? *sigh*

Anyway, one of Kelly Kapowski's love interests in the first season was A.C. Slater. In the second season Zach Morris won over Kelly and Slater started dating Jessie Spano, but one of the burning questions of our time remains: What if Kelly and Slater had gotten married and had a child named Nevada Starchild? (Don't ask why Starchild. Adam came up with it and even he doesn't know why.) Obviously, the result would have been this road sign. Which ended up existing anyway.

In summary, I apologize for this post.

Project 365 Day 152: Freezer Full o' Meat

Mmmm, meat. Adam's parents gave us this freezer a few months ago and tonight we finally had a chance to go to the meat counter at our favorite local grocery store, Fareway, and pick out some delicacies to put in it. Butterfly chops? Check! Bacon? Check! Hawaiian burgers? Check! I cannot think of a better use for a freezer.