Fergie Jenkins

I did my Christmas shopping this morning (a whole 5 days early!) and got a pleasant surprise gift for myself.  Cubs Hall of Fame pitcher Fergie Jenkins was signing autographs in a store in the mall and there was only a short line. So I got a signed baseball. Sweet.

By the way, he’s a much bigger dude than I expected. His hands are huge!

July 4

The plan for the afternoon was to go to the wedding of one of Sara’s cousins to catch up with family members.  But Alex took a late nap and we missed it.  So we decided to show up to the reception to meet people there.  We had not RSVP’d to the reception, so the plan was not to stay long and go for dinner elsewhere.

On the way, Alex gobbled up his much adored snack – fruit gummies.  Welch’s says they’re made from fruit, so I guess they’re good, right?  Sara said that we would have to find a store to buy some more (as a way to appease him from asking for more).

We got to the place early before anyone else and so we walked the grounds.  Except Alex kept walking, past the gate and down the sidewalk.  I was tailing him and asked where he was going?  He told me to the store to get more fruit snacks.

That was a nice way to do a wedding.  Skip the ceremony, hang around and mingle with the crowd a bit, then depart before dinner was served.  Okay, so we didn’t get cake, oh well.

We went to a TGI Fridays for dinner instead.  This particular one was right next door to a Sheraton Hotel and the parking lot was full.  I couldn’t find a spot.  However, cruising the parking lot I was able to view some really weird characters.  People were walking dressed in odd costumes.  I thought perhaps a Shakespeare play had just ended.  I saw a guy with a large hat with an even larger feather.

I finally got a spot and went into the restaurant.  I should have realized something was up when I noticed they changed the TV behind the bar from a baseball game to Return of the Jedi.  Soon all sorts of people in costume were pouring into the restaurant.  There were men dressed along the lines of Han Solo, women with pink and purple hair, a bearded guy in a leather and lace dress and another guy in what was probably some sort of Star Trek villain outfit.  This guy’s suit was pretty impressive.  He had a sort of mask/face guard thing going on and he walked all around the restaurant.  At first I thought he was showing off his costume to everyone, but then I realized he probably couldn’t see too well out of his mask and couldn’t find his party.  I later saw him walking with a cosmopolitan drink in his hand.

Alex called that guy a monster.  He kept looking for him all through dinner.  “Monster go?”

So yea, it was the Minnesota Sci-fi & Fantasy convention going on. I found a Guide book to the festival.  Here are some of the sessions that were offered (I am not making any of these up):

• Beginning Costuming
• Credibility and the Internet
• Southern-Fried Vampires
• Ask a Freemason Almost Anything
• Meet My Invisible Friends
• Dragon Making by Committee
• Does Bigfoot Really Live in Georgia?
• Puppets! Not Just for Kids
• Raising Your Teens “Geek”
• Zombie Survival [ed. note: ok, that one could be useful]

In addition, they also offered movies that went all night.  I did have a hankerin to see Afro Samurai Resurrection at 3am, but I couldn’t convince Sara to come with me.

We got to Fridays just before the end of that day’s festivities and were able to get a table right away.  When we left, we had to wade through quite an ensemble of characters waiting for a table.

Being Independence Day, we thought we’d try to keep Alex up to see some fireworks.  He’d never seen the real big ones in the sky before – except in his favorite movie, Cars.  He had slept in that morning and taken a late nap, so we risked it.  We helped by giving him ice cream.

When we loaded him up in the car to go to McDonalds and then to the park, all he kept saying was “ice cream first, then fireworks.”  He was so thrilled.  It was a cool evening, but we got ice cream anyway.

We got a seat outside the park so we wouldn’t have to deal too much with the throng of people that would be leaving.  Then we sat and ate our ice cream while we waited.  The shows start late in MN: 10pm.  But Alex did really well with the time.  The bangs were loud and he covered his ears, but he still enjoyed it a lot.

On Vaca

I had a 6pm softball game and then the plan was to load up and go when I got home.  I pulled into the driveway and Alex couldn’t wait to get into the car.  He was so excited to go to grandma’s house.  He even broke down crying when I backed the van out of the garage without him so I could load it up easier.

Driving at night was nice since Alex slept a lot.  We stopped at a hotel at about 1am.  Possibly could have made the remaining 2.5 hours, but we weren’t in a huge rush and it was good to take a break.  We got settled in around 2, but had to leave a light on since the strange place scared Alex.

The place we stopped at in the middle of nowhere Wisconsin had some sort of major offroad ATV gathering going on.  There were hundreds of them gassing up at the nearby station and then heading off into the woods behind the hotel.  Alex kept calling them lawnmowers, and I suppose they do look like riding mowers.

I realized I should have taken longer to pack since I forgot some things … like shorts.  And I left the house thinking I did such a good job.  Oh well.  We’ll be home Tuesday night.

For those would-be home thieves let me save you some time.  Please take the TV (I’d love to go HD) and the DVD player (Bluray would be nice).  The computer is way to old to be valuable, but knock yourself out.  Take the big CRT monitor, too; LCD is all the rave now.

Oh, and we went to a park nearby this afternoon.  The playground was empty until another young family walked up.  The daughter decked a Cubs shirt and dad a Cubs hat (Cubs fans are everywhere).  But the parents kept calling out the girl’s name which I thought at first was a nickname, but am now pretty sure it’s actually her name: Maddux.  As in Greg Maddux, former Cub pitcher.

Random Images

I hope they aren’t selling used caskets…

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When Todd and I went to the Cubs – Sox game, we were early enough to watch batting practice. It’s the first time I’ve ever witnessed BP. Not entirely exciting, but fun, nonetheless.

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A few weeks ago, a local radio station was holding a contest to find a new sports reporter and Todd tried out.  It was fun.

Wardrobe Malfunction

I ran to the bathroom between innings of my softball game last night and the zipper broke on my baseball pants.

Thankfully my t-shirt was long enough.  Still was awkward.

Odd

I just found out that the girl I had a huge crush on in high school for like 2 years, but she always had a boyfriend and when they finally broke up and I mustered the courage to ask her out and she rejected me and I was devastated for like a week, recently got married.

To another woman.

I’m really not sure how I feel about that.  Guess I’m glad that relationship never happened because it could have gotten real awkward down the road.