I gush occasionally about my previous job, I really did love it.  I worked at Hell’s Kitchen in Minneapolis for almost three years.  When I was ending my stay there and preparing to move, I decided to make use of all the cell pictures I took during my shifts.  I started this video over two months ago, and am finally getting around to completing it.

I was having trouble trying to figure out which music to put in the background.  Then it hit me…of course, I’ll use HUD!  (Check out more of their music here).  They are regulars on stage at Hell’s Kitchen, and they are amazing.

So, enjoy the music, laugh at the photos, and nobody tell Mitch or Kim I always had my cell phone in my apron pocket. 🙂

A joyous occasion for every child  growing up in a conservative Christian home is the beginning of your journey in AWANAs.  AWANAs is a club, of sorts.  It’s like boy/girl scouts, but your patches are earned through the memorization of Bible verses, attending Sunday School etc.  There are many different levels to AWANAs.   Kindergarten through second grades were called Sparks.  Third and fourth grades was when you split up the boys and girls.  However, upon researching the names of those age groups I discovered that somewhere in the mid 1990’s AWANAs changed their format and now, they have different names for the older kids which I have never heard. I would have to assume the change was made because the terms used were very outdated references to American Indian culture.

I am sure there are variations of how the club worked, depending on location.  This is how we did it at my church:

Each night was separated into three activities.  First you would recite the verses you had memorized during the week.  Each club member had a book with their verses to be learned.  Upon reciting the Bible verses, you would receive a signature from a designated listener.   That was their official title…listener. I recall in Sunday services the pastor calling for help in AWANAs, he would ask if anyone would volunteer to be, a listener.   Being as AWANAs was a non-profit, I suppose many people would add it to their resumes and college applications as community service.  I can imagine someone being asked, “Soooah, it says here you were a listener?  Ummm, tell me about that…”

If you competed a certain set number of verses, you would get patches for your uniform.  I was hot-dog excited about that when I was in Sparks.  My vest sported every possible patch known when I graduated.  After that, I pretty much realized bragging rights for AWANAs patches were not that impressive.  However, I still to this day have my Sparks vest.

The second part of the night was group time.  You sang the theme songs and then heard a bible story.  I don’t remember all the songs, but the Sparks song I will never forget.  I was going to sing it for you today, but I am very shy.  So I lent my Sparks vest to Optimus Prime and he did it for me, complete with actions.

The final part of the night was game time.  You went into a gymnasium and games were played, centered around a circle.  I don’t remember all of the games, I do remember running around the circle and grabbing pins and bean bags.  At the end of the year was the Big Daddy OMYGOSH it was so exciting for us…THE AWANA OLYMPICS! Here’s a promotional video from 1991.  The film is old and funny for anyone, but if you ever were in AWANAs, you’re gonna appreciate it more.  If nothing else, go to about 2:10 and catch a super tubular glimpse of a guy with a mullet and acid wash jeans.

Kids from churches all over the area would gather and compete for the gold medal.  I fondly remember winning the event one year and thinking, “How does life get better than this?”

AWANAs is still going on in churches around the country.  Patches are still being earned, the songs are still being sung.  Listeners, they are still listening.

How selfish and wrong of me that I actually feel sorry for every person on planet earth that does not enjoy the privilege of living day-to-day with The Max?  My son is challenging beyond the level of an ‘average’ eight year old, but he’s also spectacular.  While I realize I sound ridiculously snobbish with my statement, I also hope and imagine every parent feels the same about their child(ren).

Ideas pop into the boys brain and he carries them out instantaneously, often landing him in punishment.  However wrong they may be, they are typically the result of a brain so unique that while reprimanding The Max is necessary I cannot help but leave the room and laugh until I cry.

Yesterday was such an occasion that did not require a time out or grounding, but The Max decided to classify what goes into the toilet.

Take a look.

His ultimate goal was to have the classification hanging on the wall in the living room.  After his request was denied, he simply concluded, “Oh yeah, you probably already knew the numbers.”

There you have it friends.  I am crazy proud of my offspring, I just posted his poop/pee diagram on the internet.  I only wish I could film him at all times to get the best Max moments permanently recorded.

Unemployment is difficult for many reasons.  Obviously, I want to pay my bills which have been shortly ignored.  Hanging around the house because it costs five dollars minimum in gas to drive anywhere and back creates a prison like feeling.  Being unable to purchase unnecessary items has been easier than I figured.  But, this morning, I had an itch to peruse through my favorite guilty pleasure, US Weekly.

Currently, I have no more tabloid funds.  I haven’t paged through an issue of US in months.  I considered gathering the change out of my coin jar and driving to the nearest town, but decided against it.  I’ll just see what I can find on the net.

Celebrity news is easy to find, every supposed legit news site has a page dedicated to smut and there are plenty of smut only sites.  I’ve decided to re-report to you all the most important stories I came across.  Yes, they are life changing important, follow closely:

Russel Crowe is Robin Hood?

This is beyond swell!  I’m not speaking with sarcasm at all.  Remaking movies like Robin Hood, IMO, is easy money.  Get a famous actor, spend a good amount of money on special effects and make sure you link it with figurines to McDonald’s Happy Meal and your pretty much guaranteed to have the top grossing film of the summer.  Depending on my love or detest of the actor/actress playing main character, I either never watch the film, or I am standing in line on opening day.  I love  Russel Crowe, despite his telephone throwing ways, so it’s a given I will see this film.

Sarah Jessica Parker got buffed.

Which immediately made me think of Madonna, luckily it made the writer of the story feel the same way.  This pic was also on the page:

I dunno, it seems like they are picking on aging ladies, calling them too healthy.  Clearly they are consuming calories or muscles would diminish.  It may not be the desired look by most standards of beauty in our society, but I say better strong and muscly than to embrace the middle aged granny gut.

1980’s movies are being re-made

Yaawwn.

At least 30 films from the ’80s are being revamped, including the comedies “Police Academy,” “Short Circuit” and “Private Benjamin,” horror fare like “Fright Night” and “Poltergeist,” actioners “Escape From New York,” “RoboCop” and “Red Dawn,” and everything in between from “Near Dark” to “Footloose”….

Whoop-dee-doo, Hollywood cannot find anything new to write…WAIT OMYGOSH DID YOU SAY RED DAWN!?!? “But, Kbell, it’s right wing propaganda from the Reagan era!”   Don’t care, it’s Red Dawn, it’s forcefully epic and I will eat it with a spoon.

Scream it with me…”WOLVERINES!”

Let’s end with some superficial nonsense!

Something about Kate Hudson’s chest

Kate Hudson had no boobs.  Kate Hudson went out and bought boobs.  Spencer Pratt tweeted this in response to her boobs:

“How is it possible to get breast implants and still not have breasts?  Kate H – get ur money back…”

After and before shots of what is none of this married man’s business.

And America continues to loathe the reality star for obvious reasons.

The files you save on your computer or memory cards are often forgotten and lost in a digital junk drawer.  I recently came across a few SD cards in my unpacking, and was delighted at most of the things I’d found.  There were vacation photos from when The Max and I went to New Orleans last spring and other moments I was glad to have back.  I also recovered a video of my friend Tim, who passed away last month.

We’d always spend time taking pictures and videos and writing things together we planned on making into blogs, books, screenplays, etc. almost all of which never made it past the first draft.  When he was diagnosed with melanoma, his first treatment was taking experimental medication and he wanted to showcase it on the internet.  I am not sure why we never ended up posting this video, but I am going to go ahead and do it now.

Miss you tg.

JUST CLICK

HERE AND

DON’T ASK

QUESTIONS!

Spring. Spring. Spring. Spring. Spring. Spring. Spring. Spring. Spring. Spring. Spring. Spring. Spring. Spring. Spring. Spring. Spring. Spring.

See what I mean?

I realize the season is going on one month, but it is finally beginning to warm up a bit.  The mountain tops are losing their whiteness and the hillside behind the log house I live in is turning the most fabulous colors with grass, shrubs and wildflowers.  It feels like spring.

I’m terrible at keeping secrets, and one of mine is that I get angry at the start of spring.  I love frigid weather.  Snow warms my little heart. All the greatest holidays take place in the fall and winter.  So, here’s my annual “cheer me up” blog to assist me in embracing the warm months.  These are the things I will love about Spring, 2010:

Baseball

The 2010 season brought a brand new stadium to the most wonderful team in the MLB.  Also, an eight year deal for the most wonderful player, Joe Mauer.  This is bitter sweet, as I now live 1700 miles away from the new stadium and watching games is something I cannot do without a decent internet connection and 24.99/month subscription.  Instead, I sit on the mountain where I get cell service and utilize MLB At Bat Lite (the free version) and watch as the balls, strikes, and outs are recorded in emotionless fashion on an iPhone screen.  ‘Tis a good year to be a Twins fan, I believe.

Swimming

Not today, but soon.  This is the lake that I live down the road from…well, about seven miles down the road.  The water is blue and clean and cool.  It’s snowy in the winter, but summer is a different beast.   It’s a desert by all definitions.  There’s dust and tumbleweeds and temps well into the hundreds for a couple months each year.  Jumping off the rocky edges of the shore will be my favorite daily activity.  I still cannot believe I live HERE.

April Rayne

Yes, I spelled that right.  This is a plug for a blog written by tg’s sister.  The Real April Rayne. She’s twenty-one next week, so swing by and wish her a happy birthday.  April is going through a life storm right now, and expressing it with some beautiful words.

Chicks

That’s my future supper.  Yesterday, we set up the coop for the new chickens and loaded them inside.  The Max named a few of them as well, Fat Boy, Smalls, Short Neck…though I wonder if he is keeping them straight.  He was told to think of them instead as, ala king, cordon blue, and BBQ.  I don’t want to traumatize the boy when he realizes he’s eating his pets.

I’ll do my best to forget about the pollen and the heat and instead focus on flowers and not having to chip ice of the windshield.  Welcome to the season readers!

Popcorn (the cat) is almost four months old.  Already she is burning through her second chances like a diabetic in a candy store.  Hopefully, she can hold off the suicide attempts for a year or two.  Here’s a video I made of her kitty adventures.  I used Daily Motion instead of Youtube, ’cause sometimes, Youtube sucks.

I started tweeting, more or less.  I have had the account for over a year, but now I am using it more.  I have no idea what it is for, other than to kill time.  I also have no idea what all the # symbols mean, someone show me the light?  I started following John Cusack.  I think he must drunk tweet, or has never taken an English course in his life, because he don’t seem to talk real proper on the tweets.

side note:  I just saw the world’s largest spider crawl out from under the porch I am sitting on.  I trapped it instead of killing it because I want someone to believe me when I talk about it.

So, just before coming outside with the laptop, I made a glass of Kool-Aid.  I didn’t have any clean pitchers, so I made a single glass.  It was Berry Blue flavor that I chose.  I poured a bit too much mix into the glass and now I am puckering through the sips that are turning my tongue the same color as Grover.

This blog is progressing nicely.  Such as my adventure in land of the new life I set out for two months ago.  Upon leaving the city I thought, “I’m gonna live in the country and farm and raise animals and smell like dirt and leave the internet behind!”  While the dirt and the animals part is true, I have noticed that (with the exception of never watching television…ever) I still can use what my cell phone and the internet have to offer.  I simply must jump through the hoops of rural living to do so.

I either climb the mountain or drive to where I can use the phone.  My internet connection stinks, but so long as I don’t open two tabs at once and never stream video, I can make it work.

side note #2:  the previously mentioned spider is crawling on the side of the glad throw away storage container I trapped it under.  This is very unnerving.

Baseball has started.  My one reason for not detesting the warm months is in full swing and my favorite teams is preforming the best it ever has.  Went to a bar around here the other day to try and catch a game on TV, but the only sports station they could find on their TV was Nascar, no lie.

OK, the spider is official giving me the willies.  I need to go find a camera and then kill his arse.

I’ve decided to blog week-daily.  I will, of course, break this rule.  But having goals is good, and right now I have no personal goals.  I dropped out of college #4 and I barely have a job.  Let’s try blogging again.

I cannot get the nerve to kill the spider, so I wrote a note so nobody accidentally kicks the fake Tupperware over and lands in the hospital from the surely venomous bite of the monster spider underneath.

Goodnight World!

I just straight stole this article from Gizmodo.  I don’t have much to add, but all the hope in my heart.

Steve Swasey, Netflix’s VP of Corporate Communications, was asked if there’s an iPhone app in the future—after all, we are getting one for the iPad. His response? Netflix is working on it.

He explains:

We wouldn’t invite you to dinner without planning to serve dessert. In other words, we’re working on it so stay tuned.

Well, that’s a much better answer than “eventually.” [Netflix]