Car Wash

I think the birds behind my office hate my car.

Spiral Upward

At a sneak peek for "The Social Network". This hangs above the lobby of the movie theater.

Glee Goods

As part of a contest at work, we gave away a Glee Prize Pack to sweeten the pot a bit. This show is so popular, these items probably could have been the grand prize!

Walking It Old School

I forgot to charge my Zune last night. How was I supposed to exercise this morning without music? Not possible, I say! Good thing I still have a walkman lying around. I popped in a couple of double-A batteries and fired it up. It worked great! Going retro saved me today. Thank you, antiquated technology!

Fireworks Finale

Tonight wrapped up Valley Center's Fall Festival for 2010. A magic show, a concert by Of The Rescue, good food, seeing old friends and making new ones. The weather was great and the temperature was cool. Cool enough for wearing jackets. I snapped this photo of the fireworks finale. If you look at it right, it looks like a glowing dandelion, don't you think?

Fall Festival

One of the greatest nights of our year! Every year, we look forward to this day. It's so much fun. The morning parade, the delicious food, the carnival, it's all great! But it's the community of people we enjoy more than anything. Still, the food is pretty darn good!

Hornet Homecoming

Spotted on the sidewalk near the football stadium before tonight's homecoming football game.

Creative Corner

That's what we call our area of the office. The Creative Corner, because we create creative things, videos, artwork, ideas, etc. Should we be creative and use K's? Kreative Korner. Hmmm. Not sure. Anyway, I always thought it'd be cool to have saloon doors to the entry of our production department. It was just an idea. But, all I had to do is say it out loud, and the newest members of our team made it happen! How cool is that? I need to speak out loud more often.

Fall Is Coming

He lives in our front yard, just on the south side of the driveway. Every year, this guy puts on a fantastic show. Take a good look now. He's about to blow our minds with the most vibrant colors as Autumn begins tonight. He never disappoints. We should sell tickets.

Last Day of Summer

Sign of the Times

You should see our freezer right now. There's probably room for a couple more deer or a few turkeys. Speaking of which, Andrew tells me that turkey season opens in a couple of weeks, and they saw like 30 of them out at the hunting site. It could be a very good Thanksgiving. And Christmas. And New Year!

First Deer

This week, the state of Kansas allowed youth hunters to go hunting for deer before the grow-ups take a crack at it when the season opens next week. Andrew went out with his Uncle Kurt last weekend but didn't have any luck. They saw a lot of turkeys, though. They gave it another shot yesterday and didn't see a thing until they climbed out of the blind and there were three deer standing there. Shucks! Because of that, they gave it another shot today, the last day. Lo and behold, those three deer came back! The first one was a large doe and he got it! He hit her in the shoulder and she ran off not too far away. When he fired that shot, a young buck came looking around wondering what all of the commotion was about. This was about 13 minutes after the first one. He collected himself, took aim and fired. Got it! That's the deer pictured above. He could have had the third deer, but he only had two tags. They brought them home, shared stories with all of us, and we broke for lunch and a rest. Later on, we all got together and skinned and butchered them up. (Kurt's dad was a butcher and learned this valuable art from him.) It was a lot of work but good family time. It was a great day of hunting! Not to mention, an awesome experience for Andrew and quality time spent with his uncle, who is a pretty cool guy.

Team Pictures

Hornet Truck

Another tough loss tonight for VCHS. I think we're improving as a team, though. We scored twice which is an improvement, but we really beat ourselves up when something goes wrong. Gotta learn to let it go and move on. I think coach seems to be doing the right things and believe we'll turn a corner eventually. Until then, I'll continue to cheer them on and support the team. Rome wasn't built in a day, you know.

Driving Home

The boys suffered a loss tonight against Prairie Hills, but I was proud of A1 and the game he played. I think we could've won the game but there were a lot of things working against us. Sara and A2 didn't go because of other commitments, so I drove up and back alone. I enjoy having them along but I also enjoyed the drive home with just me and my Dakota Style Jumbo Sunflower Seeds.

Full On Single Rainbow!

Whoa! It's so beautiful! What does this mean? So bright! So vivid! Single rainbow! So intense!

Just the Facts

Doing 3rd grade homework. Well, not doing it. I was helping and guiding. I was rocking subtraction like a corporate bean counter slashing a budget.

Wine-Dip?

What in the world is this drink? The kids and I went out to eat since it was "Dad's Night To Cook". Mom was at a meeting and we went to a restaurant that has lots of stuff to look at on their walls. We've eaten there several times but I've never seen this on the wall. I've never even heard of such a drink. Kind of looks like a Coke bottle to me. Anyone ever heard of this before?

Cole Aldrich Meets His Match

The Oklahoma City Thunder had their first ever rally in Wichita today. They brought two former University of Kansas players with them that now play for the Thunder, Nick Collison and Cole Aldrich. People have always told us that Andrew looks a lot like Cole. My mom, a huge KU basketball fan, was the first one to ever point it out. We saw the resemblance so there was no question that we should go meet Cole and get a picture of the two of them. Andrew tells us that many of the kids at this mini-camp kept telling him that he looked just like Cole Aldrich and asking him if they were brothers. Even employees of the Thunder saw the resemblance. I think Kelly McKeown, their Director of Marketing & Brand Management mentioned it when we spoke with him on the playground outside of the venue while waiting for the doors to open. Then, when Cole and Nick showed up, one of the guys leading the camp grabbed Andrew from his group drills and brought him over to Cole for this picture. Pretty cool! I've never really been a fan of pro basketball, but we've all taken an interest in the Oklahoma City Thunder this year and are looking forward to the season.

Sunflower

My favorite time of year breeds my favorite type of flower. There are fields of them everywhere, and today they seemed especially vibrant. Just another reason why Kansas is such a great place to live. On a side note, the KU Jayhawks won their football game today. It was a good day!

Across the Yellow Line

You know when you're watching a football game on TV and you see that yellow line that marks where the first down is? This isn't it. That line on TV doesn't even exist in the real world. This yellow line is for the press on the sideline of the high school football game I was shooting video at tonight. The officials were pretty strict about making sure we stood behind that line. At one point during the game, I looked down and my foot had crossed it. REBELLION! I didn't get a penalty but the game was called due to strong storms in the area with two-seconds left in the 3rd quarter. I guess that could've been my fault. I'm not gonna lose any sleep over it, though.

Football Tapes

The VCMS 8th Grade Football team beat Haysville tonight 26-0. Transferring the victory to DVD for the coaching staff.

The Funeral

I dug the grave under a bush that has lots of flowers on it. Andrew made a cross out of some sticks from the tree in our backyard and some string. Amber found a pretty gold box and lined it with some tissues. She also wrote a note that read "Rest and peace Clod. I love you." She wrote her name and drew a sad face with some tears rolling down the cheeks. Sara joined us while I put Clod in the box and helped Amber wrap it up. She placed the box gently in the hole I dug and we all said a few words before shoveling dirt back in the hole. Sonny came over to see what was going on before quickly losing interest and going back to play with his plastic bucket. Dogs.

Turtle Heaven

Tonight changed the way I look at this picture. I snapped it on the drive into work because of the way the sunlight broke through the patchy cloud structure. I didn't know it'd have a deeper meaning tonight.

I'm a softy. That's not breaking news. I always try to do the right thing, no matter what, because right is right even when nobody is doing it, and wrong is wrong even when everybody is doing it. Here's what happened.

After dinner, I put our turtle, Clod, into the small pool we have outside so he could swim around outside of the aquarium he lives in. That's something I do everyday. He swims around and hunts for pieces of dried shrimp we bought for him at the pet store. Tonight was no different. But somehow, I got distracted and simply forgot where he was. I also assumed the dog was in the house.

Well, you can put two and two together to figure out what happened next. Clod was missing and I couldn't find the dog. (I refuse to use his name because I'm still so mad at him.) A little frantic searching in the backyard and I see the dog and I know immediately what he's up to. After shooing him away, I inspected Clod and immediately noticed how serious the damage was. Without going into detail, this was serious damage to Clod's shell. I thought he was gone, but after watching him for a couple of minutes, trying to decide what to do, he started moving. The guy had to be in pain. Serious pain. Andrew was with me and we decided to carefully pick him up and put him back in his aquarium to rest, and hopefully just fall asleep and go to turtle heaven during the night.

I know it's just a small turtle I'm talking about here, but I'm just sick thinking about it, knowing that my absent-mindedness played a large role in this situation. I know that the dog was just doing what dogs do. But I'm still disappointed in him. Tonight, I failed in a big way. I have a heavy heart for the pain I caused to an innocent turtle and the sadness I brought into the house.

Meat My Grill

Labor Day weekend. It's one of my favorites. I'm always looking go a good reason to cook outside and Labor Day is always one occasion. But this year was better. Our old hand-me-down grill finally ruined enough food with its uneven cooking antics that we put it out to pasture and brought home a slick new model. Putting it together became an afternoon activity of father/son bonding where we both learned patience and precision while I practiced "vocabulary control", which has never been a problem for me anyway. But, you never know what might sneak out when faced with an adverse situation such as this. The grill came together fairly easy and we fired the guy up tonight for an inaugural run. It performed great, it didn't ruin any food, and nothing today ruined my Labor Day holiday.

Holiday Weekend

Spent some time outside enjoying the 2nd day of a 3-day weekend.

Football Weather

College football started today. Well, there were a few games on Thursday, but today is Saturday and that's college football day. So, in this guy's world, it started today. Especially with all of the Big XII games being played. It was so nice outside that we sat out in the driveway to listen to the games on the radio. It was sort of like being at the game, except we had great parking, the snacks were a lot cheaper, the seats were more comfortable and our dog was sitting on the field under the tree growing in the middle of it.

Line Judge

Tonight was the first VCHS football game with our new head football coach. The beginning of the game was exciting and full of electricity. The energy of the coach and the team cheering and pumping their fists really penetrated the crowd. It was great! Things took a turn, though, and we ended up losing. But you know, this is just game one of the beginning of a new era of Valley Center football. The potential this program has is great and the crowd in the stands proves that hope springs eternal and there's a community surrounding this coach and these boys that continues to believe.

Ocho Cinco 90210

It was a big day today. We had the first football game of the season and it was Andrew's birthday. We were excited about both, but neither really turned out the way we had hoped. The football game was a nail-biter going into several overtimes and lasting much longer than anyone at the stadium expected. We lost in a heart-breaker 22-24, but the boys put up a good fight. Now that we have that loss out of the way, we can focus on winning. Unfortunately, when we got home, Andrew wasn't in much of a mood to celebrate his birthday, so we'll postpone it to another day. Losing a game that close and playing for nearly three hours really wears on a guy so I understand. Good thing birthdays last all week around here.

Pharmacy Phor Phido

Our dog has been going darn near crazy scratching and itching. It's like the Itchy & Scratchy show over here. During the day, during the night, during a walk...he's gotta be going mad. I swear his back legs are looking more buff from the workout he's been giving them. Poor guy. It's not fleas causing the problem, we know that much. It's gotta be some sort of allergy. My wife was talking to someone about the problem and heard about a possible remedy. So, I ran to the grocery store and picked up some very human medicine to hopefully relieve the irritation. We're crossing our fingers that the jingle of his dog tags are silent tonight while he gets a decent night's sleep, and a lot of relief.