A Good Weekend

Jason and Stu at Jones Park

Stu has been meaning to come up and visit since we moved up here over a year ago, so now that he’s shifting jobs and moving in the next few weeks, he was able to get some extra time for the 4.5 hour trip from Columbia to Swisher.  We time this such that Meg was in Hannibal for last week with her grandparents, then Brooke went down Friday night to get her.  Needless to say, Stu and I got into only a little bit of trouble…

Mostly, the weekend was taken up by games, BBQ and frolfing.  Lots of frolfing.  I haven’t played this much in years.

Jason joined us for Saturday’s romp around Cedar Rapids.  We hit up Jones Park first, followed by Shaver Park.  Both were 18-hole courses, where the first (picture above) had a good number of open spaces, while Shaver Park was almost entirely in thick forest.  Thankfully, we played Shaver second, as it was getting rather sunny and hot out.  On Sunday afternoon, when it was infinitely more hot and humid out, we “only” played another 18-hole course, Legion Park.  I guess you could say that Legion offered the most variety of the three courses we played this weekend, but it was so disorganized that it was probably the worst experience we had the whole time.  The signs were few and far between and the holes didn’t seem to be organized in any logical order (i.e. we played through hole 6, couldn’t find hole 7, found hole 10 after doing holes 11-14, and play hole 17 and 18 before finding 15 and 16…ug…).

Regardless, my legs are pretty tired after all that.  Good times, though.

"What's for dinner?"

The weather held together pretty well the whole weekend.  We BBQed Friday night while the ladies were out of town, then again on Saturday night after they returned from Hannibal.  Brooke’s thus far unnamed chicken even came over to visit while we were sitting by the grill.  This is the first weekend we’d seen the chicken venture that far from the coop, but it was nice to see her out and about.

Margaret Jean Linsenbardt, circa 1932

Meg was mostly in good spirits, but she needed to “reset” her sleeping clock after a week with grandma.  She slept until around 6:15 am on Sunday morning, but made it until around 7:30 Monday morning, so it didn’t take too long to get her back on our usual schedule.  Now that she’s “toddling” much more effectively, she’s also getting in to things we don’t really want her to.  Case in point, she has discovered Brooke’s pots of dirt, and loves tossing them in the air and on herself.  I grabbed this picture above and Stu suggested a “sepia hue” to pull out the dust bowl aesthetic.  I think it worked pretty well.

Not sure how this makes her parents look, though…

There's a game controller beneath that tail...

Otherwise, much console gaming was had.  We really weren’t up all that late playing, which is probably just a testament to the fact we’re getting older…or the copious amounts of beer we were having…  We played through almost all of Killzone 3 in the co-op campaign, only to have the save file get corrupted at the second-to-last chapter of the game.  Grrrrr…  Otherwise, we played quite a bit of Mortal Kombat and Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit, so I think we did a good job scratching the “heavy game session” itch.

In all, a pretty spectacular weekend.  Thanks for visiting, buddy.

What else is there?

Haven’t posted recently, mostly because there hasn’t been much going on besides the same ol’, same ol’… I’ve just been keeping up with Biostatistics for the past 5 weeks, and getting some experiments done before the school year starts up on August 21st.

I guess I’m generally ready for classes to start, but only to an extent. While I’m perfectly fine getting to work around 9:30 and leaving by 4:00, I’m also ready to get into learning a bit more about my chosen field, as well as moving on with my research beyond where it currently lies. I’ve actually been getting some pretty good data, recently, so hopefully that continues (otherwise…well…graduation may be “delayed”…).

Anyway, this week marks the end of Biostats (woo hoo!). Brooke’s also got a few interviews for jobs, so hopefully that goes well. Otherwise, I’ve got from August 9th to the 20th to be lazy and worthless…maybe I’ll drop into Columbia and see what’s going on there (you know…frisbee golf and the like)…

…what a weekend…

So, yeah…we were both pretty busy this weekend…again… This time, I played poker on Friday night at Jeremy’s, which was cool, as usual… Then Saturday, Stu and Joel came to St. Louis for some frolf action…there are pictures posted, but I’m sure most of you don’t care…but you should, ’cause frisbee golf rocks tremendously. We played at Watson Trails Park and Jefferson Barracks, neither of which I’d ever played at. Later that night, Stu and I went to a concert at Pop’s featuring Strapping Young Lad and Fear Factory. Who are these bands? They’re death metal bands. Yes, I went to my first death metal concert. In East St. Louis. Next door to the Penthouse club. Needless to say, it was an interesting night…

Arguably the most pertinent part of the weekend, however, came on Sunday… Brooke and I were wanting to get a pet, so we finally did. While I wanted to get a dog, it wasn’t really feasible for our current situation (i.e. I don’t have time to take one out for walks, teach it not to do its thing on my computers, etc…), so we got a cat. We went to the Humane Society on Sunday afternoon and picked out this little fella:

Sam the Cat

He’s 6 mo old and was a stray before being picked up and taken to the Humane Society. He was very well-tempered at the shelter and seems to be pretty friendly, thus far. They named him “Constantine,” but we decided that a 3 syllable name is a bit long for a cat, so we decided to call him “Sam”…seems like a name befitting a kitty cat… There are a few more pictures of him up in the Photos section now, too…

Now, time to get back to reading for this week… I don’t have to start my next rotation until November 14th, so I’ve still got afternoons off for the next 2 weeks…w00t!

Updates and such…

So yeah, as of last Saturday, I have a B.S. in Biology and Chemistry (now officially, since grades are posted and I apparently graduated…). For now, I’ll continue working at the HelpDesk here at Truman until ~June 17th, when I’ll start worrying about getting all my stuff moved to St. Louis so I can start graduate school at Saint Louis University beginning July 1st. Also, I’ll be getting married June 25th in Hannibal… Yeah, things are changing rather quickly…

Otherwise, I’ll be going home to Columbia for Memorial Day weekend so I can go to Stu and Angela’s wedding. His bachelor party last Friday night was rather fun as well, consisting of frisbee golf, dinner at Flat Branch, and a lot of Halo 2…the best bachelor party ever… 😉