Lightsabers and Lollipops

today is the anniversary of the day that i asked my wife to marry me.
she said yes by the way.
yesterday was the 10th anniversary of the closing of disc-go-round. dan, tall steve and i went to fuddruckers, it was dee-licious.
but i'll go on with the story of the engagement. it's kinda cute, so this one's for "the ladies."
it's also kinda long, so if you feel the need to get a snack or something, now's the time.

way back when this girl, let's call her"ellie", and i were dating we were seriously talking about about "someday" we were gonna get married and stuff. but i was just a po' boy. (not the tasty sandwich often served at popeye's and known throughout louisiana, but a boy with just a wee bit of income) i was a college age suburbanite. so credit card companies kept throwing cards at me. long story short, i'm still paying off those cards. credit is bad, bad, bad, bad. ...bad.
well, one day, it was thursday i believe, i got a letter from sears stating that they had raised my spending limit by 2000 dollas. in about 2 minutes i came to the conclusion that SEARS HAS A JEWELRY DEPARTMENT! i actually yelled this out loud in my room and jumped up and down at least twice. so, off i went to sears. plastic in hand.
when i got to the jewelry counter i found the wedding rings pretty quick. i was a man on a mission. i was kinda sad and mad cuz there was a nother couple there picking out a ring for themselves. i was thinking, man, what's the surprise in that!? "will you marry me, let's go pick out a ring..."
this was one instance where i wanted it to be a complete surprise. anyway, as i saw an opportunity, i snaked my way in to gaze upon the rings. when the couple tried to look around me, i didn't move. i was there to buy. not be pushed around. short story long, with help from the old lady clerk i found the ring which i thought was perfect. it was many sizes to big. but we could size it later. once again, man on a mission.
so the following day, friday, i went down to ellie's college and told her we were goin on a real date to a nice place. that everything tonight was gonna be a surprise. she never expected the engagement cuz she knew i didn't have that kind of money.
i consulted her friend tatiana on where the best place to go would be. she was a great help, i couldn't have done this without her. she was the only one i let in on my plans. she even got ellie all excited and dressed up without letting her know a thing. tat let me know a good place to go would be a place called jumer's. they have a castle like setting. tat suggested there because they had booths that were very private like. and then i could make my move.
so we go there, i got the ring in the back, under the seat.
when they seat us, they sit us not at a booth, but right in the stinkin middle of the restaurant! i was kinda ticked about that, but too nervous and jittery to make any kind of changes. i couldn't figure out how to get the ring in without being noticed so i told her i was going to the bathroom and instead went out to the car to hide the ring on my person. i wanted to keep the box so she could open it but i didn't want this protrusion from my pocket. so i kind of placed inside my shirt. it was a button down so it was tucked in. it was kind of concealed by the puffy part at my waist. so i come back from "the restroom" and pretty much sweat through the whole meal. i just could not seem to find an opening to "pop" the question. i'm not a big fan of people watching me. so there.
meals over. jumers was also attached to a nice looking hotel. so we went in the lobby.
it had like a sunken fireplace area that just screamed out to be the place to make things happen. i told her to sit down and close her eyes. (all day long i had been telling her to close her eyes and placing something silly and inconsequential in her hands, like a happy meal toy or a dollar bill. this actually worked cuz she had no idea that this was a serious thing i was about to do) i kneeled down in front of her, wrestled the ring out from my shirt, opened the box and told her to open her eyes.
i asked the question, "someday, will you be my wife?"
she was actually speechless. started doing the whole uncontrolled crying thing. somehow got out a yes. and the rest pretty much writes out itself.
she later told me that her first thought was, "where on earth did he get the money to buy a ring?"
it was a good time to be had by all. if there's anything i got wrong about the story, i'm sure my wife can correct it in the comments. should be interesting.
the only thing i did wrong was i didn't ask her dad first. i'm not old fashioned. it really didn't even cross my mind. to me that would seem like giving away the surprise. the only people who knew were tatiana, the lady at the jewelry counter and ben crouse, cuz there's just no fooling him. plus he's one of the funniest guys i know. and that's about it for that story.
um, go sox?

i have no funny caption for this pic.

just a dance. just a girl. just the woman i ended up marrying. so there.

and this pic is just for the sake of nostalgia. times were much simpler in those days. it seemed like everything was in black and white...

i've always thought halloween decorations are a waste of money, time and precious garage space.

don't even get me started on Christmas...

OOH! THE GREAT PUMPKIN IS ON TV!!!
gotta go!

if all the play-doh ever made in the world was wound up into a rope it could circle the earth 300 times.
i read that off of my cheese stick wrapper.
and i thought i wasn't gonna learn anything new today.

for some strange reason i feel compelled to purchase merchandise from a baseball team.

don't know why. what are the teams in the chicago area? maybe i'll get one of those.

do the bears play baseball? or is that basketball? i like taco bell.

allllright.
i got permission from john to tell this story. it rocks. i was there.

waaaay back when we were in high skool we went to what we thought was gonna be another night of youth group. turns out we were expected to attend a churchy worship quartet concert. let's call the singing group, well, the um, witnesses.

being young and restless, the last thing we wanted to do was sit in pews and watch people clap their hands out of unison to pre-recorded music and over-practiced singing. if that's your thing, well, um er sorry. it's not mine. as the title of my website states, i rock.

sooooo, instead of wasting our precious teenage time at the show, we were hiding out in the church office. i believe there was about 5 or 6 of us. and out of boredom, john starts going through one of the girls' purse. ( i always consider this a bad i idea. women's purses are a scary black hole of craziness)
the girl in question had a small spray canister inside her bag. the sprayer in question held inside it defensive mace. now at this time in history, women were allowed to carry around military grade mace. not the weak pepper spray that is legal today. what she had was.. well, let's move on...

now john did what most people do when they pick up something with a button. he pressed it.

i was 2 feet away from him and tried with all my best efforts to warn him not to do such a thing. but as i said, "NO WAIT, JOHN, THAT'S TEAR....gas." yup, you guessed it, i didn't get to finish the two word combo, "tear gas" as the activator was depressed. even though the stream was aimed down at the floor and it was the teeniest, tiniest of squirts, it was enough to get everyone in the general vicinity choking.

it gets worse.

by then, the concert lets out.
and as usual back then, the concert was followed by a pot luck in the fellowship hall. deviled eggs, cookies and that jell-o dessert that no one touches.
keep in mind, one little squirt of mace (tear gas) has been released. as the concert attendees are making a beeline to the buffet tables they all start coughing.
women, children, elderly. no one escapes the gas. babies too.

john went and did the right thing. he admitted to our youth minister what he had done. a very brave thing to do. most kids in his situation would just run. so hats off to him for that.

at this point it had become very funny. there's nothing like choking and laughing at the same time. although i wouldn't suggest it.

to add fuel to the fire, one of the mom's started to really lay into matt, our youth minister. (y'know, all churches have at least one or two of these women. the ones that complain and moan about every little thing and make everything their business. so when they yell about something it's hard to take them seriously.) so as she's tearing matt a new one about how her kids were gasping for air, we were about 6 feet behind her rolling on the floor laughing. MAN! we were insensitive little jerks back then. as for me, i'm still pretty insensitive...

anyway, if there's a point to this story it's that ya just shouldn't force kids to go to boring concert event. bad things may happen. and the people who actually enjoy that stuff (God bless em for it) will have a better time because of it. so there.
tell em to go get kicked out of burger king instead.

mmmm zesty onion ring sauce. and all the dr. pepper you can drink. mmm hmmm.

oh. and don't do drugs.

"i got a weird thing for girls that say 'aboot'."

Space: senior pictures 1993.

what happened to me in the last 12 years?

i am expecting a lot of comments on this entry.
don't let me down.

and no, that's not a perm. my hair was naturally curly.
now, it's naturally gone.

i'm awake right now because i was having a dream that i did not want to fall back into.
it involved green spiders.

anyway, here's an entry that i thought of while driving yesterday.

there's just something hot about chicks who can wail.
i am referring to singing in a band of course. i would list some examples but the best i could think of right now is eve's plum. i know there's a lot more. but it's late. the mid 90's produced alot of semi-good female vocalist bands.

then britney and her cohorts came along. following that, american idol. now every girl wants to sing all pretty like. not that that's a new concept. men and women have been cantillating badly on stage for years, mainly in church.

but i've never been a big fan of the cutey, prissy, sissy singing done by a single person on stage with canned music. i usually get the urge to hit them in the face with a large novelty boxing glove. y'know, like:
"turn your eyes upon.. BOOF!! Umph! thud." show's over folks. there might even be applause, if not surely laughter. cuz who doesn't like seeing an unsuspecting somebody taking a hit to the dome with a gigantic boxing glove?

nazis, that's who. and i hate illinois nazis.

this is all because i was listening to a punk girl band while driving yesterday. oh, and cuz i can't sleep or the green spiders will eat me.

GOODNIGHT EVERYBODY!

A CHICKEN!?!?!?!

how many fathers play with thier 3 year old daughters while making references to the band DEVO, Clerks: the animated series and somehow i worked thelma and louise in there somehow?
she was having a ball!

clerks:

oh, no! who is driving? bear is driving, how can it be!?!

Devo.

are we not men? we are Devo.
whip it good!

and of course, thelma and louise keep driving over the edge of things. holding hands. etc.

meow.

got my ipod.

named it Ziggy.

10 points to Gryffindor for the first one to comment on what sci-fi show or movie that i based my ipod's name on.

and ...go.

stupid movie night, oct 14.

bring candy and soda.

LAMBADA!

so i had this dream last night that that john, the jew and i went to some concert where the had stadium seating. and every other seat had a small laptop computer with which you can type stuff and it would appear behind the band as they played. somehow i stole this girls seat and kept typing stuff. my words actually kept appearing on the screen behind the goo goo dolls and their terrible rendition of "give a little bit." but being the bad typist that i was, and the fact that it was a small lappy top with little bitty keys, i kept mispelling everything. sad thing was the words kept appearing on the screen as they were being typed. even when i tried to just type in spacemanrocks.com over and over again, it came out all wrong.

anyway, here's the sample story i was trying to print on the screen:

when robbers in movies try to break into places they spray black paint over the security cameras. i think this is very inconsiderate. do you know how much those cameras cost? i mean sure, they are there to rob the place of it's precious valuable thingies. but replacing those cameras must be a pain in the butt. i would suggest taping black construction paper over the lenses. it's safe and economic. etc. etc.

oh, and for some reason, they wouldn't let us out, so john peed on the back of my seat. he had a pretty good laugh due to the fact that i didn't notice.

craziness i tell ya, craziness.

i've never been able to explain myself in Indiana...

one of the many ways to tick off a woman is to count out loud how many times she says that she is tired.

don't try this at home, kids.

so here's how my prayer went today:

Lord, i witnessed a man yelling at geese today.

please let me age well.

i know that i'm a little crazy and weird, but please don't let me display it publicly like that in my yonder years. i'm happy just to write about it on the world wide web. or even do wild things when i know others are watching who will be entertained.

i'm sure the geese had it coming.

anyway, i hope you see my point.

katrina relief.

amen.

after talking to my wife on the subject, i figured it out.

i love music.

and that is why i don't like praise music.

so there.

OH YEAH!!
WELL, COMMENT THIS!

my lunch today consisted of gas station nachos, a 32 oz. fountain drink of Mountain Dew and a coffee flavored Kit Kat bar.

it made me all kinds of happy and satisfied.

best part was, it only cost $2.50.

it's the little things in life...

goo!