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http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1863486,00.asp

You must read this. Great idea!!

We Beat The Best!

I thought for sure we'd lose both games last night and at best come out with one win and one loss. Well, the best happened and maybe even better! The first team was TYRM who beat most everyone. They have some guys that play college baseball and are fun to watch. They beat us 13-3 last time, but we actually won 14-12 last night in a hard fought victory. Our team was actually hitting like I know we can and it was great to be a part of. We sucked it up in the first inning defensively, but really came back offensively. The second game is the one I hoped we might win. It was against Milo Methodist who are one of the top 3 teams of the summer league. They are tough, but beatable. Unfortunately, our bats went cold and we had another bad first inning defensively. We lost 12-9. We play them again so I hope to make up for that loss since I know we are capable of it. We are currently 2-2-2 on the fall league. I know that seems like an extra two, but we really have tied twice. Next Monday we take on the two teams we tied against. I'm thinking we can win against both of these teams. That would feel great!

The other good news is I have seen my paystub for Friday and it is good. Over 39 hours of overtime in two weeks really helped this coming check be a big one. That means I can finally have the cash to get a car. I hope and pray that I get the best deal on something that will last for several years! Maybe even something new!

Queensryche in Des Moines, IA

If you've ever even liked a Queensryche song or just been a mild fan, you must go see this show. You will walk away being more of a fan of this band than ever before. They start out their set with some greatest hits. You will hear Last Time In Paris, Empire, Silent Lucidity, Jet City Woman, and more. Geoff Tate still has the vocal prowess and the band is as tight as ever. They took a break after this set for far too long and then performed Operation Mindcrime THE SHOW! The break was way too long at about a half hour when it should have been 10-15 minutes tops, but the following show is incredible.

Operation Mindcrime is a great story. It is performed to tell this story and they employee a few actors and a couple of actresses to help flesh out the story. They use great lights and a video screen and props to assist as well. One of the actresses plays Sweet Sister Mary and has 4 different costumes to tell her story and does some great duets with Geoff. This was awesome. It was not done in a cheesy way, but a very classy METAL way. I was blown away with this set. Of course, it includes the hits Revolution Calling, Operation: Mindcrime, I Don't Believe In Love, and Eyes Of A Stranger as well as the rest of the album.

Fantastic show! No encore, though, but they do a commercial for Operation: Mindcrime II coming out in February. This show has everything you could want from Queensryche. Go see it as soon as you can and then get OMII in the new year!

New Fall Season

I enjoy TV. Sitcoms, action/adventure shows, a couple of well done reality shows, mysteries. You name it, I've probably watched a show in that genre. The only genre I tend to skip is soap operas. I'm not into serializing too much of a TV show. I do enjoy finding things out along the way in the vein of Smallville, but I'm more of a Matlock style person in that each show is pretty much self contained. Reality shows are an exception to that. Thankfully, I have DVR so I'm able to keep from getting lost for the most part.

Head Cases was the first casualty of the new season. It is a great show and I wish it would have stayed on. It's not as good as Eyes was last season, but still worthy of a shot. Eyes is my favorite show in recent years and somehow it still got cancelled. Anyway, Head Cases was fun and will be missed. It would be great if there were a network where these shows could play out the ones that they have filmed so far so the fans can see how things played out.

My favorite reality shows have mostly been on VH1. Surreal Life is always fun since they usually have a rock star on there that I'm a fan of. This season has been great with Cansenco on there. I like the cat-fighting, too. The Brady show is just hitting home in many ways. I have been through what they are going through in their relationship. Chris is the older guy who wants to see the younger woman take on a life of her own before she can really be ready for a life together and she just wants to get married and start planning their family when she doesn't even own a car or a place of her own. It's like watching someone else handle what Loni and I went through. Breaking Bonaducci is just like he says...watching a car wreck. That guy has some real demons and I hope he beats them.

The other reality shows I've enjoyed have been Rock Star: INXS and The Apprentice. Rock Star surprised me just a little with the ending, but after those performances it was really obvious. JD just has the right instincts for INXS and will lead them to furthering their stardom. The Apprentice is off and running for the 4th time. I've seen them all. I love the premise of this show and I enjoy seeing people that are educated, but still act like dorks or butcher the English language.

I tried watching Invasion and while it seemed exciting at first, I quickly got bored. I guess it would be similar to watching Lost. I'm just not into shows that draw themselves out like this. I would like to catch Desperate Housewives from the start as I've heard it has some wit and sardonic humor about it, but I don't want to jump in the middle of it.

My Name Is Earl and How I Met Your Mother are fun sitcoms. They are the best of the new ones I've seen. I did enjoy Out Of Practice a bit, but I'm a huge Fonz fan, so I'm going to still tune in. Besides, the Fonz still has it in this show with the younger woman. You'll have to see it to see who I mean!

HBO has a great series called Rome that I'm watching with my On Demand. Rome is a soap, but it's a period piece, too. I watched the first 3 episodes back to back and I plan on doing that so that it doesn't make me feel cheap when I have to wait each week for a new episode. It's a fantastic show and a great period of time to do a show from. The politics, the action, the loyalties among the people, and the things Romans do.

Let me know if there are any other shows you like that I should catch. Also, check these out. TV is a great escape this time of year and especially as Winter sets in.

Billy Idol in Des Moines, IA

There are few performers that have IT and I've been fortunate enough to see a few of them this year. Bret Michaels has it. Tom Petty has it. George Thorogood has it. Ted Nugent has it. Alice Cooper has it. Billy Idol has it. The ability to not only envelope you in the music, but make you pay attention to the entire performance. Billy Idol played the Val-Air Ballroom last night. He has a tight band in Derek Sheridian (Dream Theater - Keyboards and a touch of Les Paul guitar), Brian Tichy (drummer and a touch of Les Paul), and Steve Stevens (guitar player extraordinaire). These guys came out guns ablazing with Devil's Playground and then ripped into the hits. We heard White Wedding, Eyes Without A Face, Flesh For Fantasy, LA Woman, Rebel Yell, Sweet Sixteen, and Hot In The City. Billy played a few of the new tunes since he is strongly supporting the new CD and they were heavier than most everything else he did. He had the crowd in the palm of his hand the entire show.

I stood front and center at this show and was right next to a young blond girl and her boyfriend. During the show, she seemed to know most of the lyrics and Billy spent a tremendous amount of time singing to her, reaching out to hold her hand, and make all kinds of gestures to flirt with her. She kept him entertained and during the last song of the main set flashed him. He acted like he was lost when she did this and had to be reminded where he was and what he was doing. She was clever and waited to do this until late in the show so he'd pay her that kind of attention. Fortunately, this wasn't the only person he was paying attention to. I'd struck up conversation with a young woman from Omaha and her friend. They had seen Billy Idol in Kansas City and this was her second show in the last few months. She was excited to be so close to the stage and right up front and center, too. During the show, I handed her my Rebel Yell CD and asked her to hold it up. She was able to get Billy's attention and he signed it for her. I'm so grateful for her doing this and she was grateful for the attention.

Steve Stevens was given a solo opportunity during the show. He is one of the masters on guitar. He was playing an electric acoustic that had a built in guitar synthesizer or something that made it sound like keyboard swells when he would strum a chord. He turned that feature off for a bit and went into some Spanish style guitar. When a guy does this, you have to be very accurate to hit all of the notes with the right intensity and there is no room for sloppiness. Steve pulled this off like the master he is. He was kind enough to flip out a pick my direction, too, but it fell short and the security guard gave it to me at the end of the show.

There was no opener for this show and it was just an awesome night with Billy Idol. He was energetic, conversational, excited to be performing, and making funny faces and gestures throughout. Go see this show and buy the new CD, Devil's Playground. Billy Idol is back in a strong way.

Church Fall League So Far...

Last week we tied in our first game 7-7 and then lost 13-3 in the second game. The team we tied is currently in first place and we beat them during the summer season. The team that creamed us, we expected to beat us. They have a couple of guys who play college baseball. They are fun to watch, but crap to play against.

This week we tied in our first game 11-11. This is a team we should have beat, but they scored a run in the last inning and we failed to do so to break the tie in the bottom of the last inning. The second game we expected to win and did 19-10.

This leaves us in third place out of 6 teams. We have been outscored by a total of one run. The two tie games should have been wins. We play each of these teams again so we will hopefully get the win the second time around.

I looked ahead at the schedule and I can see us winning all but one game. Next week we play the two toughest teams, which doesn't include the first place team. I am sure we will lose the first one, but hopefully by not as many runs as they beat us in that 13-3 game. The second team I hope to beat since the first place team beat them and we tied the first place team. In two weeks we play the two teams we have tied. I hope to get those wins, too. If we play our best, we should only lose one game in the rest of the season. You can see the Fort Des Moines standings and scores at www.indianolasoftball.com if you would like to see how we are doing.

I did get an e-mail earlier of a Billy Idol sighting. He was spotted by a couple of the softball players at the downtown YMCA working out and then walking toward the Embassy Suites. I'm getting more and more ready for the show tonight!

I'm also wearing my new Metal Sludge T-shirt. Last week I ordered two shirts and one was supposed to come with a CD. Stevie Rachelle called me at home and left a message concerning my order. Stevie is the singer for Tuff. When I called him back he told me that he was out of one of the shirts I had ordered so he sent me a Tuff shirt and an extra CD, The History Of Tuff. Very cool of him. He also asked me a few questions about seeing the bands back in their heyday and if I ever saw Tuff. When I explained that I'm a preacher's kid, he had a couple more questions before he let me go. Very nice guy and I do hope to see his band if they make it to Iowa sometime. Kinda cool that a rock star called me at home, eh? Ok, well Tuff wasn't huge, but they were on MTV and it is cool to get a personal call at home from the guy that runs Metal Sludge and sings on a CD I own. (Well, my little brother has done that, too, I guess. He has recorded a CD of his own.) That call from Stevie was on Friday and I received the shirts and CD's by priority mail on Monday. That order took just under a week to place and receive. I highly recommend any business that does things like this! Go check out the Metal Sludge site!

Weekend Cookout

I've been fortunate to have met and gotten to know some really good people in the last year in the church I attend. I had my church softball team over last Saturday and we had a great time. I planned it to coincicde with a weekend that my girls were here so they could play with the kids from the church, too. We had a grill brought over and we filled up a picnic table and a couple of card tables with food. There were brats, burgers, hot dogs, carrot cake, German chocolate cake, brownies, and more. We played some volleyball and just goofed off until dark. My kids had a blast and were very helpful in getting things ready and assisting in the cleanup. I'm hoping to do this again sometime.

I do have an update on the Bon Jovi CD. The song Unbreakable, which I really like, is not on the US release. Apparently, the store version has 13 tracks and the one I heard has 15. The 13th track on the US release is a countrified duet version of Who Says You Can't Go Home, which is track 4, I believe. That duet is not on the one I heard, which means I've heard 3 tracks that aren't on the US release. The songs Dirty Little Secret, Unbreakable, and These Open Arms are not on the US release. They are great songs and I recommend tracking them down. Any one of these tracks could replace the songs Bells Of Freedom and Wildflower to make the US release stronger. Sometimes we never know why record companies make the decisions they do.

Tonight is the Billy Idol show. This is going to be a great show and he has Steve Stevens playing guitar for him, so I will be hanging out for a while afterwards to do what I can to get some pictures!

Upcoming Shows

Well, I did it. I sold the Green Day tickets. I really would have loved to have gone, but sometimes it's all about timing. I do have some shows that I will be hitting next week so I'm not doing too bad. Billy Idol will be at the Val-Air on Tuesday and Queensryche will be there the following Sunday. I'm also trying to convince people from the church to take a van to see Petra. I will also be getting Bon Jovi tickets. I may even take the girls to see Steven Curtis Chapman and Mercy Me. That depends on the ex, though. Mercy Me is a bit mellow, but SCC can turn it up for some roots style rock if he doesn't do the Michael W. Smith thing and wimp out.

Today is shaping up to be a great day. We just cleaned up the basement a bit and are getting ready for the softball team and their families to come over at 3pm. This is the first time I've done this, so it will be pretty cool. We got into town just after 10pm last night and the girls and BA helped me get the volleyball setup over here. That stuff is heavy! We had to take one of the posts up the stairs, but got the other up through the elevator. Just gotta get the net up now. I spent a bunch of money on hamburger, hotdogs, buns, chips, plates, condiments, and bought a volleyball. I know at least one person is bringing another grill. There will be a lot of food from what I'm hearing, so that's always good.

I've been playing with this new computer setup and something hosed up my Outlook. I can get my MSN and Hotmail through it, but can't get my HotPOP mail. I've uninstalled and have just finished reinstalling so I'm anxious to see how it goes.

The new Bon Jovi CD is great! One Last Cigarette and Unbreakable are my favorites so far. I will be buying it when it comes out on Tuesday. I recommend it to everyone. Gotta keep supporting bands like this if we want to keep seeing them on tour and hearing new music.

And what is it about people that think these artists quit writing their best songs back when radio played them? Just because radio isn't playing them doesn't mean there aren't great songs out there by our favorite artists. The new Bon Jovi, LA Guns, and Stryper CD's are proof that great music is still being written and played.

Well, I'm signing off to finish setting up Outlook. Wondering what e-mails I've missed...

Temporary Fix

I had my 3200+ PC running last week from Labor Day to Friday. I finally figured out the driver issue I was having with it and realized that if I reloaded the PC in a slightly different order, I'd be fine. Friday evening I set out to reload the thing and couldn't get Windows back on it at all. I kept getting errors that seemed like the hard drive was bad or the memory was bad. I hadn't changed any hardware since I had loaded it on Labor Day, but could not get past the errors. Fortunately, the roommate had a tower sitting around that just needed a hard drive. It's a Celeron, which I can't stand, but it runs. That's what I'm working with now. It will buy me some time to get the Motherboard and CPU sent back in under the warranty so I'm ok for now. I'm loading a few things back up on here, but keeping it minimalist. I have so many things to back up so it will keep me busy and I can get the work done I've been wanting to do.

It's also very ironic. Before Compaq was bought out by HP, I couldn't stand Compaq and wouldn't have anything to do with them. I also got in trouble for saying bad things about them at Best Buy and recommending that customers buy something else. Well, this is a Compaq. Thankfully, not a Compaq in the old sense of the word, but really an HP. Thankfully.

So I'm back online and more available than I have been for a while. Hope to have more for you soon, but here are a few tidbits.

Bon Jovi is coming to Des Moines on November 2nd. I will be going to that show. I may not be going to see Green Day this Saturday, though. I have my kids this weekend and I really don't want to get a sitter when I can spend time with them. I am also hosting a potluck grill out here at the house for my softball team. It will be a blast and I don't want to feel like I have to cut it short if it goes for a while. I would like to see Green Day sometime, but I think I'm going to skip this one. We will see.

I'm still a bit worn from last week and already have over 8 hours of overtime that I will accrue for this week. Last week added up to over 33 hours of overtime. For that week alone I should be getting paid for about 98 hours. Last week and this week will add together for my check at the end of the month, so it's all good. That should mean I can finally get a car and I'm looking forward to it. Time for some wheels!

The Business Work Horse

I volunteered for it, but I didn't realize just how frazzled I might get. I am putting in tons of overtime at the job this week. I worked Labor Day for 8 hours, Tuesday through Thursday from 9AM - 11PM, a regular 8 hour shift on Friday and 8 hours today. I'm also the oncall person this week. If you add all of that up (double time and a half for Labor Day and time and a half for everything over 48), I'm getting paid for over 85 hours and still have more oncall today to add to it, I'm sure. Since I'm oncall tomorrow, it will mean overtime for next week, too.

Why am I suddenly this glutton for punishment? M-O-N-E-Y!! I will be getting paid for over 2 weeks worth of work for just this week alone. If the oncall adds up to more, I could end up with 100 hours of paid time in one week. We get paid the 15th and last day of the month and the way the pay periods are I won't be getting these hours until the end of the month. I'm hopeful this means I can finally get a car.

I've been very fortunate being without a car for such a long time. I've had friends loan me their vehicles to get my girls every other weekend and a co-worker and my roommate make sure I get back and forth to work. I've also been able to line up a ride for the upcoming softball season. It's good to have friends, that is for sure!

It has taken a small toll on me. I'm not getting much sleep due to some very rude (well, probably not really) people who call for assistance. The first two calls I got (and got credit for) had things resolved by the time I called them back. One caller this morning at 5:15AM Central was already in her branch on Eastern time and had a question that didn't even pertain to my group. If she had dialed the right option when calling, she'd have gotten an answer from the right group. Another caller at 6:30AM this morning was already trying to get into her PC and knowing that we would actually have someone in the office at 7AM (me getting up at 6:15AM was the plan to be at work by 7AM) still had to call instead of waiting a mere 30 minutes. These people all realize that our oncall is between 11pm and 7am when people are sleeping. There are the occasional emergencies, which is why we have someone oncall, but if a couple of them would have waited 10 minutes before calling and one 30 minutes and one calling the right group, I may have had a few more hours of sleep this week. Of course, I also wouldn't have gotten an hours worth of credit for each call, either, so when the last day of the month comes, I will feel much better about those calls.

Now I wonder how much extra money that will be....

Softball Season 2

Tomorrow marks the first practice for the Fall Church League softball season. We play Monday night, too. I'm anxious to see how rusty I may have gotten the last couple of weeks. This Fall league consists of 6 teams and we beat a couple of them during the summer league, but finished below all of them in the standings.

There was some minor controversy surrounding the entry of our team into this Fall league. Some of us have talked all season long about what it would be like to have a competitive team without having to make substitutions to make sure everyone plays. We have some great players and when we concentrated on those players we tended to do much better. After talking to several of the players we decided to form a team of just 12 of our best so that we could play as competitively as we want to. They sort of relied on me to put it together and see what it might take to enter a coed league or see if there was another church league to join. Fortunately, the same organization found interest in enough teams to have a 5 week fall league.

I'm really looking forward to not having to make so many substitutions. There were a few games that were close and we had three weak hitters bat for us in the bottom of the last inning. It was 3 up and 3 down each time. When you are playing that close it is disappointing to lose knowing that you have better players sitting so that everyone can play. I realize it's just a game and for fun, but winning is fun, too. Those of us that love the game and love to compete really find those types of losses disheartening and it can lower team morale.

It was difficult to break it to a few players who really enjoy playing and have been very supportive of the team. We did let them know that the players on the Fall team are paying for it out of our own pockets and we did this to allow for just playing the players we want to play. I'm hopeful that they are ok with this. My hope is that every year we can have a summer team and a fall team. The summer team can consist of anyone that wants to play and the fall team can be those more interested in winning. This should appeal to everyone, I hope.

It would be great to have a sports ministry at the church. I'd love to see the softball teams joined by volleyball teams. It would be great to have things like horseshoe tournaments and ping pong tournaments during different times of the year, too. I know a few guys even work out in a local gym together, too, and I'd love to be able to join that group if scheduling permits. Athletics can be a great bonding tool for some people and most sports emphasize team play and comraderie. Those are things the church can use to better relate to some people.

It's sure fun to be a part of and I hope it continues to grow!

Rock Star: INXS

WOW!! This week was a tough one! I was so sure MiG was the frontrunner, but now Marty has come on strong by actually staying on pitch when he performs. He also had a great original in a style that INXS would be proud of. MiG had a great song, but I'm not a ballad fan and it didn't seem to have anything musically relating to what INXS does. Now I'm not pigeon-holing INXS, but they do have a certain flavor and melodic style. I still think MiG is the better singer and performer, but Marty really rose up last night. That performance was AWESOME!

JD did a decent job with Pretty Vegas and I can see how he would be a great fit for INXS, but I gotta say it's between MiG and Marty now.

There have been some great performers and I hope to see a few of them in solo careers soon! See ya soon Jordiss!

Race Card

Two events happened in the last week that brought up a subject that should be long dead by now; the subject of race.

The big event of the last week was the hurricane in New Orleans and surrounding area. It was a NATURAL event that I'm told occurs about every 30-40 years down there. It was originally a much lower level hurricane, but just a few hours before it hit mainland it was upgraded to a Category 5.5. That's a huge hurricane with a lot of destructive force. The levees that were in the area were apparently built to withstand a Category 3. The place is flooded and there were many lives lost in this tragic event. Thankfully, we have our military and the many great charities helping as best as possible to take care of the people who have suffered because of this NATURAL disaster.

Why do I keep capitalizing the word NATURAL? It seems that there are many who forget that this was not manmade. There are some calling it a holocaust, which is manmade. There are also those that believe that the NATURAL event caused suffering only for the poor who lived there and for those with dark skin. In actuality, this occurrence devastated many people, rich and poor, black and white, people of faith and those without, and their families who may not even live in the area, but suffered loss. Why would anyone think that a NATURAL occurrence singled out any one type of person? What does the color of a person's skin or the size of their wallet have to do with a hurricane? Some idiots say that the rich had means to leave and the poor didn't. They imply that the "rich white man" was able to leave and the "poor black man" wasn't. What they don't tell you is that 67% of New Orleans is made up of Americans who have dark skin. (I refuse to use the term African-American for those that are Americans and have no citizenship in Africa.) The mayor of New Orleans is a man of color. Is this all his fault? Is it the fault of a white President who is miles away when this NATURAL event occurs? Why then would anyone blame race for the NATURAL disaster's effect on the area? It was a NATURAL disaster that affected people. That's it. Race has nothing to do with it. There are people suffering and people assisting those that are.

The other event of last week was greatly overshadowed in the news because of Hurricane Katrina. Did you see Rock Star: INXS? They started out with 6 singers on Wednesday night and pared it down to 5 at the end of the show. The remaining 6 were MiG (an Australian who could win this), Jordess (a beautiful vocalist and music arranger), Marty (has the look and attitude, but not the steady voice), JD (great voice and presence with some immaturity), Susie (she's a great performer, but not quite INXS material), and Ty (a phenomenal singer who is best at soul and gospel). At the end of the night, Marty, JD, and Ty were in the bottom 3. Ty was the one eliminated. Ty is a great singer and I can't wait to see what he does on his own, but INXS music is not quite playing to his strengths. When they asked for word from Ty after the elimination, Ty went on briefly stating that he knew what he had done the last 3 weeks and that the world kept voting against him because he is a black man. My jaw hit the floor upon hearing this. It was the stupidest thing I have heard out of the mouth of any of these contestants and JD has said some pretty stupid things!

Ty, you are just not right for the band...INXS. You are a great singer with a ton of talent and I love the song you co-wrote earlier in the show with another contestant. The song you wrote to INXS material, though, was sorely lacking. Also, while your performances were awe inspiring, they aren't what I would consider putting in front of INXS. INXS is looking for a singer to carry on their wonderful music and to forge into the future. Neither of which you will be able to assist them in doing. Your best bet is to pursue a solo career and I will be one of your fans buying your music. This has nothing to do with your skin color and everything about finding someone right for INXS. This has happened with other bands and will continue to happen. Bands look for chemistry and I'm sure you will find that in your career. You are a great singer so please keep doing what you do.

This is the year 2005. Race isn't the card you play for NATURAL events or for TV reality shows. Issues today revolve around ideology. There are those who believe you can solve most of society's problems by opening markets, utilizing entrepreneurial capitalism, and making sure everyone has equal opportunity. There are those on the other side who believe in a welfare state. Liberals define compassion by how many people are on the welfare roles. Conservatives define compassion by the number of people no longer in those circumstances. There are those who believe in a community where everyone makes the same amount of money and has the same things regardless of their contributions to the community and those who believe in the freedom of the individual to determine what they contribute and what they have. It's ideology, not race.

Next time you want to use someone's race as an explanation for some perceived bias, maybe you should ask why you noticed the color of their skin to begin with.

Good Times

That song by Tommy Lee is pretty good. It keeps getting stuck in my head, especially after the last week. Good Times for sure. You can read in previous posts how the week started with two shows on the Rock Never Stops tour. The kicker was the messages I came back to after those shows. One by e-mail and one via phone.

I checked my mail and saw that I had a message about the possibility of putting the band back together. I was floored and typed as fast as I could that I was in. I will do whatever has to be done when I hear that suggestion. I was asked to call the bass player and had a great talk with him last Monday night. He can't do the band and I was bummed to hear it, but he gave a heart wrenching explanation. He had gone through open heart surgery this year. This guy is just a couple of years older than me and he had to have a valve repaired or replaced. My heart goes out to this guy. As bad as that sounded, he was as happy as I'd ever heard him! He sounded like he has a new lease on life and really has his priorities in order. He's always been a good husband and father, but he has made some great choices in his life and made things even better for him and his family. I was so grateful to hear how good he sounded. His life is truly inspiring. I'm not sure what the future of the band holds, but I'm anxious to find out!

The second message I received was by phone. My mom had called and asked if they could come up Labor Day weekend. As soon as I heard that message Monday morning, I dialed up my parents. Dad said that he had already put in for time off Labor Day weekend because we were going to have a family reunion. The reunion had to be postponed until October so he still had the weekend wide open and they wanted to come visit. It worked out great because I was going to have my girls up for Labor Day weekend.

I decided to surprise my daughters about the visit from my parents. My ex-wife e-mailed me on Thursday asking if I could pick up the girls on Saturday morning. I immediately wrote back telling her that there was no way because I my parents were coming and she needed to keep the secret. Of course, I was curious as to why she would even ask. Turns out that Paige had been in a cheer camp and they were going to be cheering at half time in the Friday night football game. It worked out that I would be there just about the time they would be performing and I could bring the girls home after Paige's halftime performance. This would allow me to keep the surprise.

I made it to the football field with 1:39 left in the first half. I was booking it! There was no way I was going to miss Paige's debut as a cheerleader. I found the ex and her husband and they gave me the layout of where the girls were. I went over to the other side of the bleachers and saw Paige practicing. Brittany saw me and joined us. I snapped a couple of pictures and then waited with Brittany to watch Paige perform. Paige did such a wonderful job! She looked excited and had all the moves down. They did 3 cheers, the third being their schools fight song. I just stood there and kept snapping pictures. I can't wait to get them posted later today.

On the way home from the game, I gave the girls one hint. They kept asking and I finally relented. I told them it was 12 letters and started with a G: Grandparents. Brittany overheard me asking for the hotel room of my parents when they were supposed to be getting ready for bed. I figured that I'd have to head this off with Brittany the following morning.

Saturday morning, the girls woke up asking when they were getting their surprise. I told them it would be a while since we just woke up. After breakfast, I grabbed the third season of The Greatest American Hero, since it was still wrapped and they didn't know I had gotten it, yet, and handed it to them and said it was their surprise. They were stunned. Brittany admitted later that she really started having doubts as to her grandparents visiting at that point. They were glad they got the DVD, but were under whelmed since I had told them it was a huge surprise. My excuse to them was that now they had every episode of The Greatest American Hero and there were no more left to buy.

The girls finished getting ready for the day and then the doorbell rang. Brittany and Paige rushed for the door and Brittany could see who it was. When she opened the door, both girls were all smiles. Their real surprise had just arrived. Mom and Dad were so excited to see the girls again, too.

We had such a great weekend. We went shopping at the Jordan Creek Mall first. The girls had their Build A Bear's with them to get some stitching done and new outfits. While we were there, Brittany saw some Crocs shoes that she wanted. My mom decided to get them for her, but she wanted to find what the price was. They eventually found some that were a different brand name and apparently better quality. Since Brittany got new shoes, Paige needed some, too, so they looked around some more. I was also carrying their Old Navy cards from their birthdays still, so they each had more shopping to do with Grandma. The girls ended up with new outfits that really look great on them.

After the shopping excursion, we had a picnic. Mom had brought her wonderful potato salad and some melon. She had also purchased some fudge while at the Amana colonies that we had for desert. We had taken a basketball, so everyone but mom played Horse. Paige had to quit early and go hang out with Grandma on the playground equipment, but Brittany stayed with us and played. She was out first and then it was Dad and me trying to show each other how truly out of shape we are. It took a while, but Dad beat me, proving he still has some of it left.

I had tickets to the iCubs game that night with my job and the girls had been signed up for some between inning activities so I made sure Mom and Dad had tickets on the third base side to get some good pictures. It was a great way to enjoy a game. The girls and I had skybox seats in the left field area so we weren't that far away from my parents. We chowed down on the free ballpark food and took a program and scorecard to my parents since we could wander around a bit. After the first inning, I took Brittany down for musical chairs. She wasn't the first one out, but did go out the second pass. She did good and had fun doing this. We immediately had to rush around to the right field foul pole so I could do the hot dog shoot. I rode around the field shooting hot dogs into the stand from a golf cart. It went quick, but it was fun. I only had two of them explode on me. After the 4th inning, I took Paige over to do the race around the infield while wearing a Be-Bops outfit. At the start of the race, the guy doing the events held the other two contestants back by their outfits while Paige got a nice head start. The other two were boys from a baseball team that had attended and they were much bigger than Paige. It didn't take the boys long to catch up, but they were kind enough to let Paige win. I was so excited for her and thankful to those boys. She was all smiles since she had seen this done before, but this time she got to participate. Ah, the perks of the job... The iCubs were losing badly against another last place team so after the 8th inning, we left the ballpark.

Sunday was great, too. Mom and Dad attended church with us and Mom had a roast cooking at my house. This is the first time a roast has been cooked in that oven since I've lived there. I think it's the only thing besides a couple of cakes and my roommates' pizzas that has been in that oven. When we got home from church, I peeled the potatoes and Dad made his awesome mashed potatoes. Believe it or not, in my house we actually had roast, potatoes, and corn on the cob. It was the most awesome meal I've had in a long time! Even when we went to Missouri several weeks back we didn't eat this type of meal at my parents' house. Mom had invited my roommates, but they were both working so I even got the leftovers when I got home last night after taking the girls back to their mom's. It was delicious! Derek had arrived before I got home and he was so jealous because of the smell that still lingered in the house from that meal.

After dinner, we visited for a while and did the dishes. Mom and Dad took a few pictures and then needed to hit the road. Little did I know that they also stopped at Best Buy on their way out to see Derek. See, the whole weekend my parents were hoping to meet my roommates. Pete was probably working and staying at a friend's house in West Des Moines and Derek was working all weekend. Derek and Pete were both at the house Saturday morning, but they were sleeping downstairs and my parents didn't want to wake them. Derek went into Best Buy to finish up his work day and my old roommate, Jody, had told him that my folks had stopped by to harass him a bit. Derek was sorry he missed them and thought it was great that they wanted to introduce themselves.

It was an awesome weekend. We had so much fun and the girls were truly surprised. I'm hoping we get to do something like that again soon. Good times.