2007 - 2008 Newsletter

This is from our 2007 - 2008 News Letter which can be found here.

February 2007

• Cara's first appointments, hearing "Bopper's" heartbeat
• Learned our friends Eric and Keesha were 6 weeks behind us in "infanticipating"

March

• Ultrasound - Grandma Darlene, Dad and Leesha were all able to be there due to the snow day
• Jeffry felt "Bopper" move
• Set up Leesha's "big sister" room
• Saw Greg and Mandy

April

• Visited St. Louis - taking in the Dog Museum and registering at Babies R Us with Grandma Holly and Great Grandma Mary
• Figured out how to work our living room shades after they'd been up for 6 months
• Trip to Labor and Delivery to see if Cara was in pre-term labor
• Leesha got her first soccer ball
• Cara got a 6 week teaching assignment in one of the 1st grade rooms at North Heights (Leesha's school)

May

• Mandy's shower
• Garage sales - sold Cara's old car
• Spent Mother's Day with Darlene (Cara's mom) for the first time in a long while
• Dog-sat Sadie for the last time
• Started gardening
• Took a tour of the hospital
• Time with the Willis family over Memorial Day which included setting up the nursery

June

• Cara had a pregnant lady temper tantrum over getting the house ready for the baby
• Leesha gets her first fish at the all-school picnic
  
• We mourned when Sadie had to be put to sleep
• Leesha broke the repaired portion of her tooth off on the last day of school
• Celebrated Darlene's birthday with her for the first time in a long while
• Celebrated our second anniversary
• Took the New Baby class
• Leesha learned to sew
• Father's Day with David (Cara's dad)
• Pre-Baby Shower with friends from our small group
• Saw Anu when she visited from Philadelphia

July

• Visited our friends the Trelevens in Altoona, WI
• Welcomed Greg and Mandy's son, Simon Lee Willis on July 3rd
• Saw spectacular fireworks at the lake just down the street
• Cara spent time with her friend Kristyn and her kids
• Visit from Steve and Holly
• Tried to tempt fate (and speed Bopper's arrival) by seeing Spiderman 3 in a theater
• Cara turned 32 and celebrated with David and Darlene as well as Jeffry who stayed home because we suspected labor
• Finally (8 days late), Jack Elliot Willis arrived at 3am on July 27th weighing in at 8lbs, 15 oz and measuring 22.5 inches

August

• Getting to know Jack and becoming adjusted to being parents of an infant
• Craig, Tracy, Nathaniel and Aaron arrived for a visit from Kenya
• Jeffry takes two trips out of state to bring back new buses
• Another visit from Steve and Holly
• Cara returns to Linens-N-Things, and Jeffry survives time alone with 2 kids
• Eric and Keesha's son, Keane Philip Pfeifer arrived on the 13th
• Jack's hair takes on a "sticketty-uppity" style
• Jack's first smiles and visit to the MN State Fair
• Post-baby shower

September

• Jeffry celebrated his 33rd birthday with his parents for the first time in a while
• Friends and family join us for Labor Day
• Leesha started 4th grade at North Heights
• More firsts from Jack - sleeping through a night, cooing, going to the church nursery, and Grandma Darlene's daycare
• Time with Bombergs before they moved to Florida
• Leesha got her first A+ and went on a field trip
• Cara started subbing again
• Trip to the MN Zoo with Craig and family
• David and Darlene are acknowledged for retiring from their 36 years in Africa

October

• Jack's first laugh, and Halloween (this year's clever costume - Jack in a box)
• New family joined our small group
• Cara realized Jack outgrew some of his new clothes before ever wearing them

November

• Cara's grandmother passed away
• Jack rolled over, figured out his Johnny Jump-up and started solids
• Celebrated Thanksgiving with Jeffry's family early
• Replaced washer and dryer
• Leesha had her friend Ashley over for sleepover
• Dog-sat Hazlenut (the new small group family's dog)
• Leesha had all her biological grandparents attend Grandparent's day at school
• Thanksgiving with friends and family
• Visited the Bell Museum of Natural History
• Cara got to do some Christmas goody making with Darlene
• Leesha learned to do her own laundry

December

• Snow
• Leesha performs with her schoolmates at the Mall of America
• Anniversary of Leesha's accident
• Visit from Anu
• Time with family over Christmas
• Jack had his first playdate with Keane
• Jack got a tooth
• Cara ended her part time job at Linens-N-Things
• Jeffry took care of Jack, and even took him out on an errand
• Jeffry and Cara saw Sweeney Todd
• Spent an evening with our neighbors

January 2008

• Went sledding with some members of our Small Group on New Year's Day
• Jeffry got a new desktop
• Celebrated David's birthday
• Leesha turned 10 with more celebrations than ever before, including a trip to Underwater World
• Got an elliptical
• At 6 months, Jack got his first haircut, then he's on the move!

February

• Simon's dedication
• Cara got her first laptop
• Leesha's best friend changes schools : >(
• Time with our friends the Browns and their kids
• Leesha had her first piano lesson, and got a half day off of school due to the water main breaking
• Modifications to the kitchen so Cara has an "office"
• Jeffry and Cara got to go out for a Valentine's Day date

---

Catching Up

Yesterday I had a day off and got some catching up done. There are now a couple more Jack videos online.



I read another Edgar Rice Burroughs book, At the Earth's Core. Burroughs is fantastic. These books I've been reading have all been fantastically pulpy. Having finished that one, I was on the search for a different author from the pulp era. Kirby O'Donnell or El Borak are some pulp characters by Robert E. Howard that I'm trying to find, but the books are either unavailable or expensive. But it turns out that my friend, Rob, has ALL of Howard's books and he's going to lend them to me. In the meantime I'm reading Burroughs' 2nd Mars book, Gods of Mars.

Leesha and I finished the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon. It was fun, and I'm glad we watched it. I saw maybe two episodes back when I was on the air. We took a break for a while because she got into a website based on a toy. She bought a stuffed animal dog or something and in the packaging was a code for their website. She takes this code and logs on and there is the virtual version of her stuffed dog. She can name it, play with it, send it on jobs, and do all sorts of games and things with this online character. We discovered that if she doesn't put it in his bed before she logs off the site, the dog gets sick! And the next time she logs on she has to nurse him back to health. Its pretty cool. We recently started a new series called L/R or Licensed by Royal which is a light hearted espionage anime. I've seen it before a few years ago, but watching it now, I had forgotten how good it was.

Read Read Read

I took a break from real reading for a bit and re-read the current Checkmate run from DC comics by Greg Rucka. This is such a good book, all 22 issues so far. It ties in nicely with another DC title that recently returned, Suicide Squad. Also an excellent read, though only 5 issues into its limited run.

Upon completing all the said issues, I picked up the next Tarzan novel, The Return of Tarzan. I'm thoroughly enjoying Edgar Rice Burroughs' work.

We were supposed to game today, but gaming was canceled due to Robert being very very sick. Planning on me being gone today, Cara sat for the Browns as they went to a funeral, Timmy and Suzanna came to our house. I was able to get away and go spend some of my allowance on Half Price Books comics. I found a bunch of Warlord comics for cheap. These gems are from the '70s and are heavily based on Burroughs' Pellucidar series.

LOST again

Cara and I finally got to watch it on tonight. Solid return. Its interesting that all the 'flashbacks' take place in the future, now. This episode , The Beginning of the End, didn't answer any questions.

Jack on the Move

Jack isn't quite crawling yet, but he is mobile...

Yesterday I had a job interview and I lost my phone.

Jack's First Haircut

Jack's first haircut...

End of a nice long Weekend

It grows late on Tuesday night. It was a good weekend. I finished that strange Challengers of the Unknown book. I'm going to read an Edgar Rice Burroughs book next after re-reading some comics. Got a lot of setting up done on this new computer. Cleaned up my desk area.

Went to McDonald's for lunch today to kind of celebrate Leesha's birthday, tomorrow. That's the first time I've had McDonald's food in a long long time. It will be the last time she does. She can't function well on that crap. She seemed very close to meltdown this evening. It was a good time, though. Darlene pulled her out of school to take her. Jack, Cara and I met her there. I think she had a good time. Darlene took her back to school. Next...

We went to 2nd Wind Exercise Equipment to look at elliptical. Cara's dad is contributing $200 towards one for us. I don't think he has any idea how much they are. I'm not sure his reasons for the offer, but I'm not going to complain. So we go in to look around and get up on a few. We found a nice one for $299. It seemed clear that we were not going to find another anywhere near this nice anywhere near this price. So we bought it. We have yet to figure out a way to get it home.

Later I called Jon from small group. He said he can help with his pick-up truck later this week. They ended up not going to group tonight.

I canceled our membership with Melaleuca today. I've been a member for around five years now and love the products. The problem is I don't take the vitamins anymore and can't reach the minimum point commitment and end up getting charged or whatever. So now that we are no longer members we're going to order products through our small group coach who also is a member. That way we can still get the products and also help him achieve his minimum point commitment.

Like every other Tuesday, we had small group tonight. After we were done studying Esther chapter 3 (Esther is a great book, so far) Ben came downstairs to take a look at my recently dead computer. He pulled the memory card, blew out some dust and put it back in. We plugged it in and fired it up. I expected to hear the 4 beeps like I did before. But the darn thing booted up! Well, now what?!

BRICK

We saw a fantastic movie last night - BRICK! This is pure film noir all the way through. Some have described Brick as a cross between The Breakfast Club and Maltese Falcon. This is one of those movies that you feel lucky to find. I read about it on Wiki and asked Leesha's dad to NetFlick it and then burn a copy for me, which he did. So now I own this gem. I'm glad, too, because this one will be watched again.

Computers

So, Ben Brown is helping me upgrade or replace my computer. He was looking into upgrading the memory and asked me what kind my computer already had. So I figured I'd open up the tower and look as well as clean out the dust (which was very badly in need), put it back together and email Ben what memory I needed. Most of these things I did. Got the air spray and the vacuum and started cleaning. Found the memory card, removed it, wrote down what kind it was, and then put it back. Plugged everything back in and booted it up...

But it didn't boot. It just beeped four times, paused and beeped four more times. Nothing on the monitor. I tried re-seating the memory card, same. Tried seating in a different slot. Same, nothing. Just four beeps.

Looks like I'd be replacing instead of upgrading. Damn.

Now I'm trying to figure out how much I can afford for a new or used computer.

Then George Bush says he's going to give me a bunch of money for a computer in the form of a tax refund! Thank you, George.

After work I met everyone at Byerly's restaurant right next to the bus terminal. Everyone being Darlene, Jack, Cara and Leesha. They have fantastic food there! We left Darlene and Byerly's, buying her dinner as thanks for watching Jack so often for us, and went computer shopping! We first went to the Best Buy in Roseville to find the tower I wanted, but discovered they didn't have it in stock. We did pick up a flat HD monitor from the 'open box' shelf. Leesha, Jack and Cara went on home, I found the tower I wanted in the Maplewood store.

When I got home, Jack and the girls had stopped somewhere for a piece of pie.

Spent most of last evening setting everything up. So now I'm surfing in style. More up-to-date than I have EVER been.

I met a geek at the Source.

Wednesday is New Comic Book Day every week. So I went to the Source today. Found my comics. Wondered on to the back of the store just to see what game books came out this week. Then I saw someone I recognized. I thought I've seen him on the internet. He looks just like that guy that reviews role playing games on Youtube. So I asked him,

"Are you Kurt Wiegle?"
"I am", he replied.
"I'm a fan of your show!"

and we shook hands.

Then five guys (who were in his group) surrounded me and one of 'em said, "Kurt, we found your one fan!". It was pretty cool. I had no idea he was from around here, turns out he lives in Eau Claire, WI! He recognized my screen name, too. Said they were on their field trip to the Twin Cities.

Kurt is the host of a show called Game Geeks that airs on Youtube almost weekly. They've covered many different RPGs and his reviews are pretty good. Check it out - Game Geeks

Challengers

Jack is always changing. He has already outgrown his gleeful chirps and squeals and replaced them with a grunt or growl. No need to search for his tooth. Anytime he grins, his tusk is clearly evident. He is just a classic little guy.

Cara and I have been having a very hard time with Leesha (Cara a WHOLE LOT MORE than me, because she's with her a lot more). Leesha is in this phase of behavior of control. An example is if Cara tells Leesha that she would like some time to herself to exercises and not disturb her unless there is an emergency, Leesha will proceed to interrupt Cara's time with very trivial, stupid questions, and more than once. Questions we all know she can handle herself. Therefore, she is in perpetual trouble with Cara. This behavior NEVER CEASES! Its amazing how self defeating Leesha has been in the last few months. Cara is almost really at her wits end. Its also clearly a conflict between Leesha and Cara, because Leesha is almost always cool with me. Its becoming clear to me that something is going to snap because it seems to be on a downward spiral, not improving.

Anyways, I finished that Double Agent book almost a week ago. The 2nd one was better than the first book, more epic like a Bond film. Ever since, I've been reading Challengers of the Unknown which is a book based on a DC Comics series from an attempt to make some of their titles more mainstream in 1977.

Its a strange book and I'm not enjoying it a ton, but i'm pushing through it anyways since its short.

Last Saturday was fantastic. I took my change bowl to the bank and exchanged it for cash. Then dragged Cara, Jack and I to a few Half Price Books stores and picked up a bunch of cheap comics- some G.I. Joe, Doc Savage, Indiana Jones and one issue of Challengers of the Unknown!

We had small group last night (every Tuesday) and Ben Brown took a look at my computer. He made some adjustments to the settings and greatly improved the performance of it in moments. He's going to help in finding what I need to upgrade this thing. Thank you, Ben.

My Thursday

Sleep study appointment could've been done be phone. They insisted that I come in to meet the doctor since I was put on a CPAP over two years ago. Last year all I had to do was call and ask for a letter (and that's all it would've taken this year, too), but NO. They needed to weigh me and check my blood pressure and in person reaffirm that I don't have any allergies other than lactose and that I love my CPAP. Seems like a lousy way to spend money at a hospital. I'm sure this visit was not less than $100.

Drama at home with Leesha and Jack today.

I received a call on my cell phone while I was driving the school bus. I never will answer it while driving! I checked my voicemail as soon as I was clear of students. The voicemail was from Leesha. She was upset. She told how she accidentally made Jack go sideways in his johnny-jump-up and he fell out of it, hitting his head! And that she was sorry.

...

I drove to my next next parkout in a panic. My mind took off with the worst scenarios. I was convinced Jack had to be rushed to the hospital with a concussion or something! As far as I was concerned Leesha was never going to touch Jack again. I was livid.

I finally got to my spot and called Cara. Jack was fine. She said Leesha was tipping Jack in his johnny-jump-up and tipped too far. He slipped out head first down onto the floor landing on the left side of his forehead. This took place in the doorway by the kitchen and Cara was right there. As soon as it happened Cara SCREAMED Leesha's name (she thinks the neighbors might have even heard) and Jack started screaming, of course. Leesha started to cry, too. Sounds like she was terrified. Something about her grandpa Sorley saying that if Jack ever fell on his head he could DIE! Two minutes after the incident Jack was fine, like nothing happened.

I hope Leesha now got the point about being careful with Jack. This has always been a point of conflict between Leesha and me ever since Jack arrived. I guess it takes something like this to drive it home and I'm glad Jack didn't suffer too much as a result.

As for me, it was an interesting experience feeling so completely out of control and having to let Jack's safety go into the hands of God. It was also interesting to have that wave of anger towards Leesha. I'm glad I wasn't in her presence at the time.

Jack in a Box on Deviant Art

Jack's Halloween costume picture was featured in a 2007 children's pictures articles on Deviant Art. Here is a link to that article.

Sunday

I'm still an alleged sockpuppet.

Church was fine. Greg Boyd must've been sick because the sermon was on the screens from video tape. After church we joined a lot of people at Olive Garden, mostly Keesha's small group folk and some FOCUS people (Woodland Hills singles). Next Keesha and Eric, Jack and Cara and I went to Half Priced Books. I spent $1.00 on Challengers of the Unknown comics from 1977.

On our way home we picked up Leesha from her dad's. Once we got home I changed into grungy clothes to work on the tire. Had about 30 to 45 minutes of daylight left.

This is when I discovered that the Jeep's jack wasn't in the garage at all! And either was the CRV's! We think someone broke into our garage and took them! It never stops for this weekend, does it!

I borrowed a jack from Mike who lives across the street and has two Jeeps. Brought it over, jacked up the vehicle and loosened the wheel. The darn thing would not come off the Jeep. No matter what I did, it was stuck. Finally called for Mike's help. He brought over a couple of mallets, some 2x4s and a blowtorch. A combination of all three and we finally got it off.

Never woulda happened if it wasn't for our neighbor, Mike. Thank you, Mike.

Strange Day

I've been, little by little, adding rpg setting information to the Wikipedia file about Top Secret/S.I. (Orion Foundation and WEB, the good guy spy agency and the bad guys, respectively).
Its fun and I haven't seen this information anywhere else on the internet. Checked my emails and what-nots to find that my articles were marked for deletion by some guy. So I go to a couple of Top Secret/S.I. forums and ask for some help about it. Whatever. Kind of pissed me off. Not a big deal. Here's a link to the interesting discussion about the nomination to delete my articles.

I was done getting ready to go to Patrick's house for Rob's final session of his current D&D game. I had everything ready to go, turned to turn off the light which hangs naked from the ceiling- and broke it. This is one of those new spiral shaped fluorescent bulbs so when it broke, it remained in one piece. I carefully unscrewed it so that it wouldn't fall... But of course it reached the end of the threading exactly when I let go to turn it again. Bulb falls to the floor exploding. But I have to go now! So I warn Cara and Leesha not to go downstairs without shoes because there is glass everywhere and I can't clean it up before I go.

So I go.

Rob's game was great. We've been running this campaign, the Heroes Three game, for over a year. I don't remember exactly when it started, but it ended today. The story has been about our characters dealing with a vampire cabal who are trying to defeat a network of dragons. Today's finale was pretty much the final battle with the big bad Red Dragon and that combat took up most of the day. Patrick's character fell with a fabulous ending as Paul's and mine survive. The random treasure results ended up crazily in our favor with the ability to bring Pat's character back. It was a lot of fun. Paul is up next with the next game in three weeks. This game will go until all the characters are dead and each of us have 4 characters to go through. Should be fun.

Paul, Rob and I were saying our farewells when I noticed my driver-side rear tire was very low, pretty much flat. No problem, I can put on the spare. Only my jack is missing for some reason. Ok. Paul gives me a ride to a nearby gas station to pick up some tire fix kit that you spray right into the tire. Then right back to the Jeep because I left my wallet there. Back to the station, picked up two cans, back to the jeep. The kit seemed to work pretty well. I made it home with no problems. Thank you very much, Paul. You saved me!

I made it home.

I'm leaving the tire for tomorrow when I can see.

First thing I do is clean up the light bulb.

Then I checked my email and my articles to see if they were still there. They were, but now I was accused of being a sockpuppet! A sockpuppet is someone who creates multiple wiki accounts to add votes to an ongoing debate or something like that. This infuriated me! I wasn't mad about being accused, really. But that the guy who did it accused an acquaintance of mine (who I respect a great deal) of being one as well. It has been a long time since I was THAT mad. I literally couldn't see straight. Check out this fascinating discussion about me. We shall see how it ends.

First post of 2008. Last year I clocked in at 104 posts.

For New Year's Eve we did nothing. We stayed home and took it easy. Actually, this was the one and only day we didn't have something planned or meet with someone else for company or eating or something like that.

For New Year's Day we got up relatively early and got all dressed up for warmth and went sledding! Cara, Leesha, Jack and I met up with the Brown family (Ben, Emily, Timmy and Suzanna) and soon after, Laura Beth arrived and finally Eric. It was loosely a small group event. It may have been a bit too cold for sledding, but that didn't stop us.

We chose a hill by one of the schools I drive for. I was a very steep incline that came to a nice flat area ending near an apartment parking lot. Down towards the end was a lip that kind of became a ramp from plowing the parking lot. It was the goal of the day to hit the jump and land on one's feet. I was afraid to try because I don't have health insurance right now. Ben tried twice and failed. Eric tried a couple of times with no success. We attempted a sled chain. I lead with the anchor weight, Ben was 2nd steering, Eric was next and even Laura Beth jumped on at the last second. However, half way down, we lost Eric and Laura Beth! Ben took little Suzanna down a couple of times, but Timmy wasn't up for it. He kept riding down the plowed snow pile with Emily and Cara. Suzanna even rode down with Eric once! Leesha tried a small train with Ben. She went flying on that run! Then one time I went down the hill. I figured on going down like normal, veering to the right to avoid the ramp. But then my mind said, heck, go for the jump and before I knew it, I was launching off of the ramp! And then I landed on my feet in a full run! First attempt and only success off the ramp and on the feet all day. We called it a day and went home shortly after that.

Cara's parents came over for homemade curry for dinner. Good food. And a game of dominoes after. David and Darlene had never played dominoes before. I caught Leesha cheating, however.

So that's how Willis East started 2008.

Christmas Break

Mom and dad traveled up from St. Louis on Friday. They spent the night somewhere in Iowa at a hotel. They said it was pretty bad visibility the entire trip up. Thank you, God, for traveling mercies. Mom and dad went directly to Greg and Mandy's house.

Saturday. We each had a list of chores to get done on Saturday. After Leesha was picked up by Jeremy, Cara and I went to the Saturday night service at church. We got home and watched some episodes of Jeremiah.

Sunday. Cara and Leesha left early. Mom and dad came to our house and we spent some time, just the four of us (mom, dad, Jack and me). Next we took off to David and Darlene's. There were a lot of people at this gathering, Kara and Jeff, Scott and Anna and Olie and Elsa, Dealane and Ron, Ruban and Donna and Paul, mom and dad, Cara, Jack and Leesha and I, and of course, David and Darlene. Melanie was meaning to come, but traffic was backed up with many accidents due to a lot of snow coming don. Deserts were served. The drive home was nice and slow. We dropped Leesha off at her dad's house on our way home.

Christmas Eve we spent evening at Cara's parents house. We had a fantastic dinner of Swedish Meatballs. Opened up a bunch of Leesha's gifts and played a game called In a Pickle. Jack was fed and Leesha took him and bounced him. Jack vomited a large amount on Leesha's black shirt. Perfect! The drive home was nice and slow. We dropped Leesha off at her dad's house on our way home.

Christmas morning. It was snowing. Leesha was dropped off late morning and we opened a bunch of our gifts, Cara, Leesha and I. For Christmas evening was over at Greg and Mandy's. It was a wonderful time. All the adults revealed who they had picked for our Secret Santas. Cara and I had each other. She got me a big gray sweatshirt! I've been missing my old one that I recently retired to the trash. Leesha was pretty good. Mom and dad were to come to our house for the night. Leesha was up too late and too tired. She absolutely melted down. The original plan was for her to sleep on one of the couches in the living room, but we changed it so that she would sleep on the twin sized mattress in Jack's room. She chose this point to just fall to pieces about. Just sitting in the room screaming her head off, crying, shouting that since she wasn't given any kleenex that she would have to wipe her nose on Jack's blankets. I wasn't handling her behavior very well, but then mom and dad arrived to witness her horrible behavior. This may have been the first time they've seen this, it wasn't the first time they've heard about it. It was good for them to witness it first hand. Leesha does have some behavioral issues.

Day after Christmas we went to IHOP for a fantastic breakfast with fantastic service. Mom, Leesha, Cara and Jack went home. Dad and I went to Menards (for some electrical stuff), to Target (for a humidifier), to the Library (to check out museum passes) and home. Dad and I installed a different light in our kitchen area, Cara and dad set up the humidifier and changed the locks on our side door. Mom and Leesha watched a bit of Totoro and I did some finishing up on my role-playing game (what does that mean, read on...) and showed my mom a bit of Porco Rosso.

I have been working on a short campaign idea for a game to be run for my family. It started at our Thanksgiving family get together when my dad commented on his lack of interest in my hobby of role-playing games. He later felt the need to apologize, because he felt he may have come off as too critical. I told him he was forgiven and if he was interested I'd put together a short game to demonstrate what an RPG is all about. He said OK.

So my game finally happened the day after Christmas. The game I ran was very different than the first few ideas that got this project going. First of all I was planning on running the game using the True20 system. I found that True20 is superior to d20 and easier for newbies to learn. In spite of True20 being a generic system, I felt confined to running a fantasy setting and that was my original intent. But as the plot developed, the setting started to change and evolve from a fantasy setting to a fantasy/sci-fi setting (Princess of Mars-like thing) to dialing it way down to a simple pulp action temple treasure hunt. I decided to use the Top Secret/S.I. system for this game because a). I've been longing to run a game in this system for years. b). Its an easy system to learn/explain. c). It is my favorite RPG system and game. So, TSSI it is.

I created the characters before hand- stated and named them and threw together a few skills. However, I had the players select the character's advantages/disadvantages to give my folks a feel for character creation. They got into that. My dad, for example, drastically changed the character's appearance by taking the obese disadvantage (and he took at a 2 point value). Fantastic! Totally changed how the character felt.

The story took the characters to a cave in search of a small statue. Upon arrival they find another boat already docked at the site. They gather a bunch of gear from the boat and set off to the cave entrance. Following two sets of fresh footsteps, they make their way through the cave and find the body of an archaeologist long dead (Forrestal, tribute to Raiders of the Lost Ark). Next they find that the Eastern most wall of this cave is actually a steep cliff with a rope-bridge that looks as old as the dead body behind them. Here's where the party surprised me. I figured they'd all just cross, but they got all crafty and used all sorts of rope and crossed one at a time. My plan was for them to have the bridge break and they'd have to find an alternative way up to the other side (which was provided with a tunnel leading up, however, there was a leopard in that tunnel waiting as an encounter). So I was forced to improvise. I moved the events clock ahead and lead the party into an encounter... To make an already long story short, we concluded the story as every good pulp adventure should in time for dinner. If anyone reading this is interested in seeing the gaming notes, I could share them with you. They're not much.

We finally wrapped up the game. I felt so completely satisfied with how it went. It seemed my folks really got into the game and their characters to the point that I think they want to continue with these characters again at a later date. This experience was such a delight for me on all levels- creating the campaign, the characters, and running the game for my family. I'm just so satisfied with how it all went.

Long Busy Week

It has been a busy week. Started last weekend with the start of a cold. Had a good time gaming on Saturday in-spite of how I was feeling.

Took me over 60 days to finish A Storm of Swords. The next book I read was Edgar Rice Burroughs' 1912 Tarzan of the Apes. I finished Tarzan last week. This week I re-started a book called Double Agent: Web of Danger.

Leesha had her Christmas concert last night. Going to David and Darlene's immediately after work and then right to the church for the show was a bit rushed. The show was very cliche and cheesy. It seems to me these things are all for the benefit of the lady in charge of the deal. If it wasn't for her, no one would pick up this ball and go with it. All the work and all the parents showing up to watch it all go toward her feeling good is my guess. Leesha seemed 'whatever' about it and I'd guess she'd just as soon not be involved if given the choice.

I found out some frustratingly bad news today. Since I drive a school bus I need a DOT drivers license. In order to get that I need to pass a physical. No problem there except that I have sleep apnea. Last year all I had to do was get a letter from the sleep clinic stating that I was using my CPAP and that it was beneficial. That's all it took to get my DOT license. This year, however, the sleep clinic says that in order to get a letter this year, I have to go to the sleep study and they have to check me out. This is not going to be very cheap. On top of that, the first available appointment date is 1/31 and my license expires 1/23! The bit of hope I had is that Cara's dad is a doctor. He offered to write a letter for me! But tonight he talked with the clinic that gives out the license and they were listing all these technical terms that made him think that he wouldn't be able to write the letter. So now its back to the first expensive plan. This is just maddening.

BUS

Two weeks ago my School Bus crapped out. Radiator was leaking and the transmission was failing. I wrote the problems up as I should, but the shop only focused on one of the two problems. The transmission failure basically made 3rd gear the same as Drive. Top speed was 31 mph. Not good.

I've been in several buses since then.

• 253
• 194
• 253 again for Monday
• back in 242 to discover it wasn't fixed and then into 360! in the AM and 315 for PM Tuesday.
• 306 in the AM and 315 in the PM again on Wednesday
• 308 on Thursday and Friday

360 is one of the brand new buses we drove up from Oklahoma this summer. Nicest bus we have.

It is Tuesday and I have my 242 back! The transmission is nice and tight.

See Jack Jump

See Jack Jump

Today, I saw a blind man walk down the sidewalk and buy a newspaper and then walk back.

Thanksgiving

We had a very full house for Thanksgiving. This was the fourth year the Trelevens' came to celebrate with us (Terry, Teresa, Lucas and Merriam). That has become a comfortable tradition which I hope continues forever. Cara's folks came, David and Darlene. For some reason Hazel was very intimidated by David. As far as I could tell he didn't make any overt aggressive communications to her. She just didn't like him (I'm not sure he liked her either and I think she could tell). Darlene's sister and family came- Donna, Ruben and Paul. And Laura Beth from small group also came. Leesha was at her dads for some of the evening and joined us as we were eating. Lucas is smitten with her. I think she was getting irritated with him following her around. Jack was passed from lady to lady and was charming them all as he does so well. Even when Darlene doesn't host, she does. So Cara had plenty of help.

Our house was very very cozy.

After everyone left I took a short nap and then got up to go meet Robert outside the Egan Best Buy at 2 AM to see if I could score a new computer for $200 (a $650 or so value). We got in line, chatted for about an hour and discovered shortly after 3 AM that we were out of luck. There were a lot of people there before us and after us. Rob was there pretty much to keep my company. He didn't even really want anything. What a nice guy. Rob was also how I found out about the deal. Perhaps he felt bad about getting me into it. I've never gotten involved with the day-after-Thanksgiving-sale frenzy. I always thought it was silly for people to do what I did. I guess I was right all along.

I got home and realized I was completely jacked up on coffee. D'oh. Went to sleep around 7 and got up around 10:30 AM.

We are dog sitting for a couple who has just joined our small group. Hazelnut is with us for a week and a half. She is a very good dog. At two and a half years old her behavior is incredible. She seems to have a strong understanding of pack order and is a very good listener.

Not sure what breed mix she is. There seems to be some yellow labrador and what I suspect is some collie. She is real lean, but has a thick coat. Her ears don't stick up like they are in the pictures. She is a very good dog.

Its been a busy week. My folks were up last weekend which means there will be hundreds of new photos to look at. We had a great time and spent every moment at Willis West (Greg and Mandy's in Maple Grove). Mom got a good chunk of baby time which should tide her over till Christmas. It was fun to have Jack and Simon interact with each other. They're both more aware of their world and of each other now. We celebrated Thanksgiving on Saturday night which works out well considering we get two Thanksgivings this year! I love food.

Dad and Greg got to watch their Packer Game. Leesha did relatively well considering she was in competition with the babies for attention and had no one else her age to play with. She enjoyed seeing Cogswell and Eddie.

We skipped church on Sunday morning for a Bible study lead by dad. It was fun and full of discussion (as well as baby and dog distraction). I would love to do more of that.

I had a gaming book with for when conversation got stale. It lead into gaming as a topic of discussion resulting in dad kind of dissing the hobby (which he knows little about). He later called to say he felt bad about that so I offered to run a game for he and mom (and Cara and Leesha) over their stay for Christmas so he could get a feel for what it actually is about. So I've been starting to gather ideas for a miniature campaign to run for my family. I'm excited about this.

Jack rolled over yesterday!

Here is video of Jack in action

Cara's grandmother died today. Her dad, David, and his sister were with her grandmother when she passed. It was said to be very peaceful.

I am Where I Was a Year Ago

I think it was more than a year ago that I finished a huge book called Clash of Kings and swept right into the next huge book of the series called Storm of Swords. It proved to be too much and I got bogged down about 1/6th of the way into Storm of Swords. Well, about 2 weeks ago I picked up the book again and tried to read from where I left off. I was so lost. Starting from the beginning again, this morning I reached that 2nd bookmark that held my place for over a year. What a fantastic book, too. If you haven't read the Song if Ice and Fire series by George R. R. Martin, you should. Best fantasy series of our day, perhaps.

Good Movies at Home

Friday night, Cara and I went to the McDonald's Red Box to see if we could rent Transformers. It was not in, but Casino Royal was!

Casino Royal was a fantastic film. I already knew it was going to be. This is such a fresh way to portray James Bond. Maybe the best since the whole franchise began.

We've had Elizabethtown on our shelf for probably 2 years. I got it from Rusty Gatenby when I was working at KSTP. I think he got a bunch of copies as screeners or something so he just gave me one. Had no interest in seeing this chick flick.

We watched it last night. It started off very good. Not too far into the film, I was hooked. There were many things about the film that had an extremely familiar feel to them. One thing was the soundtrack was extraordinary. Films usually don't have such a strong selection of popular music. It wasn't music that was big at the time of the release. Another familiarity was the realness the film had. Characters were more ordinary and quirky than most chickflicks or dramas. I felt very at home in this movie. Something else that was comfortable was the narration. Some of my favorite movies also used a very similar technique. One odd thing was that there was no opening title or credits. The movie just starts.

Then the movie ended. It was a wonderful tale. And the credits rolled. And it was a Cameron Crowe film! This answered all of the hints and feelings I was recognizing all throughout the film. I had no idea it was a Crowe movie going into it. But it sure felt like one. A great movie and the best way to discover it. I'm glad I have this movie for I WILL be watching it again.

Its interesting to note that both Elizabethtown and Casino Royal had a lot of plot development involving cellphones.

Mr Mom

Cara worked at Linens and Things today so I was the stay at home dad. There is no school today or tomorrow so I can catch up on things.
WRONG! I have a new respect for Cara. Pretty much if Jack was sleeping all my attention was on Leesha. The only moments I had to myself were when Leesha was entertaining Jack and when I was on the can.

Its a Jeep Thing

Yesterday I was trying to work on our cars with little luck. Seems I actually made the Jeep worse. Trying to open the hood, I broke the hood latch cable. I've been trying to figure out a way to close it safely so the hood doesn't fly up when driving. Here's what Cara suggested:

I think its going to work.

Interesting Evening

I spoke with my grandmother on my commute home, today. We discussed Edgar Rice Burroughs, Arthur Conan Doyle, Sweeney Todd and Jack Elliot.

Cara went to work this evening, leaving Leesha and Jack in my care. As Leesha finished her dinner, which always takes her too much time, I fed Jack a bottle. As I'm feeding Jack, Leesha cleans up and hops in the shower. Still feeding Jack and I hear Leesha finish her shower, but then I hear a familiar sound... she comes out and confirms my suspicion. She puked in the toilet. So I had her lay down and take it easy. I figured it must be the large bottle of water I had her finish before she left the table (she's been coughing and we figure water would help with that), but it could be bad food. So now my stomach feels uneasy. I hate that. Jack falls asleep. Cara returns from work- they didn't need her, I guess. As she's taking care of Jack, I go to dump a bucket of mop water outside. That was enough to send me over the edge and I let my stomach go. I figured it was get it over with now or fight it all night. I don't think there was anything wrong with the food. It was just in my mind, but oh well. I felt fine after anyways.

At the convention, last Sunday, I picked up some Tom Strong trades. Man, these are good. Alan Moore is a genius.

Monday Monday

After school activity routes started today. Mine is very long. Longer than all of my other routes! However, the first half of stops were dead.

Craig and Tracy came over for dinner tonight. Adults with no kids running around. The kids were the topic of most conversation. We managed to keep environment and politics out of any conversation.

It became a late night.

Fallcon 2007

Greg, Jessie, and I all met up at Fallcon again this year. The convention was how we celebrated Greg's 31st birthday. This has become our affordable, miniature Wizard World comic convention tradition (Jessie did have Keep Coming to America in his head the whole time!). Really, its just as good. Probably better. The difference is there is no hotel or very late night drinking. Better. However, there also isn't a Sean McKeever.

The regular costumes were walking around, but this year we got footage of them. You will be seeing that soon. I didn't buy as many comics this year. One reason was I am not looking for as many comics these days and another reason is the list of comics I'm searching for was lost early on my hunt.

One of the coolest things about this one was that they held a chapel before hand which I attended. Hans from the Source mentioned it (and gave me a ticket for the con, which was incredibly nice of him. Thank you, Hans) so I asked some questions and, boom, there I was. It was ok, not real heavy, but just the fact that they do this is cool.

After the convention I met my family at a model train shop on Marshal ave for Nathan and Aaron's birthday. That was kind of neat. Miniatures are always cool and so are shops dedicated to them.

Lots of birthday stuff today.

I'm trying to get a feed all the way from Google Documents to Blogspot and then to Conk.com

Lets see if this post worked.

I have a decision to make.

I currently and happily drive school bus routes for St. Paul for my main income, these days. This is the 2nd year I'm doing so. Last year was great. I made friends with the people I work with and the kids I transported. Last year one of the routes I drove had a bus aid that rode along with the kids. We became friends and quickly discovered that we went to the same church. This year I got the same route, but she was assigned a different bus to aid. The guy that is the aid for this route, this year, also happens to be from my church!

Now, both of them are telling me about a job opportunity at the school (Murray Jr. High). Laura (from last year's route) has said all along that I'd do well in this position. David is encouraging me daily. He says the chances are very good that I'd get the job if I tried for it.

The job would be a teacher's aid with the special education department of Murray. The pay is greater than what I'm doing now and there are benefits. It seems like a very good deal. I figure I could apply and if, for some reason, I don't get the job then nothing was lost. But, if I go for it and end up not liking it... then what? I suppose I could drive a bus again, but I'd lose this route.

I am going to submit my resume. See what happens. Usually, when I'm indifferent about a job is when I'm sure to get it. Its when I really want the job that I don't. So, if that's true, this job will be mine.

I guess I'm writing this for some feedback and just to get it out on 'paper'. Please share your thoughts on the matter.

We celebrated Craig's 40th birthday last night by going to Fasika's Ethiopian food for dinner (which is right next to Big V's which I popped in to say hi to BJ but he wasn't working yet). One of the dishes they served was goat meat. This was the best I've ever had at Fasika's.

After that we had ice cream cake at Cara's folk's house. Craig, Tracey, Nathan and Aaron are staying there while they are here in the US (they live in Kenya while Craig works his ministry working with the environment).

Today is a rare time of getting things caught up. I've been looking at different ways to promote my business and at the same time save money on the cars. Both of our cars have the engine light on. For the Honda its been determined that there is a misfire going on. Jeremy and I spent Tuesday morning replacing the plugs and the wires with no progress. I'm wondering if the same thing is going on with the Jeep. We're going to get auto repair manuals from eBay today so they can be worked on soon (by me!).

Wednesday, I spent my birthday money on the new Battlestar Galactica RPG book. I wave my geekflag high. This is a very well made game. Margaret Weis Productions improved their production since they released the Serenity RPG. This book seems more conceived and clean. The rule system has been refined as well. Great product. Its been a fun read and has gotten me back into the franchise. Too bad there won't be a DVD for season 3 until Spring next year.