Comedy from Kansas City

Christmas Photo

We are a hot to trot family, and with the help of photoshop I will make this into our Christmas Card photo, hold please...

TAA-DAAAA!

But nothing beats the year I was cast as Baby Jesus.  I was totally type cast that time.

What a Fun Couple!

Sandra Bullock and Dick Cheney...what? It could happen.

Comedy from New Orleans

Comedy at NCCYM 2010 in New Orleans, LA - Judy McDonald

Working Smarter

I taught the obese dog to walk the skinny dog and now I have 3 to 4 extra minutes a day!  

That's working smarter, not harder.

Under The Roof: Jesse and the Missalettes

The Best Video I Ever Played Drums In

New Orleans

Long blog to follow! In it you will learn about giant bottles of hot sauce and how accidentally walking away with babies is so not a good thing!

Lucy

"I got puked on and I didn't even care." -Lucy 

 

"I was so excited to see you I threw up a little, sorry." -Aunt BBJ

Houma,LA

Houma LA fact #876 Not all camouflaged lingerie is the same.

Beach Sightings

In the future scientists will learn about us through our family pictures & determine we all lived on the beach & wore jeans & white shirts.

I think I might be coming down with a Messianic complex, I just yelled at these two guys to stop fishing & follow me.  They did not.

Shirley He Can't Be...

RIP Leslie

What I saw on my Walk

I'm so thankful that I live where this is considered normal.

Nuts and Other Goodies

 This weekend I found myself in Minnesota.
To be fair, I just didn't wake up in Minnesota, duct-taped and blind folded, I knew I was going, I was invited, it was a planned thing.  As my ride drove me from the Twin Cities to Rochester, the snow began.  Personally, I have never driven in the snow because well, I live where it's 72 degrees everyday and the most severe weather I see is frost.  I was thinking of how much I love frost while sitting in the back seat and questioning Jesus why He was going to take me home while being in a car which was clearly about to skid off the road and into a ditch where they would find us frozen to death, luckily we arrived in Rochester before it came to that. From Friday night to Saturday night the twin cities and surrounding areas got hit with about 11 inches of snow.  Fortunately Rochester was not in the path of the storm and just got a few inches that didn't stick.

Saturday morning my roommate from USD, Sarah who lives about an hour from Rochester was going to pick me and we were going to explore the wonders of the town.  She texted me about an hour she was to pick me up to let me know the plow had not been bye yet and she could not get her car out of the driveway.  That was the equivalent of telling my dogs the combination to our safe and how they were to copy out the plans that were locked inside of it, I had no comprehension.
Who is this person who operates the plow and why when it snows are we at their mercy? If all it is is a big truck with a shovel on it, why doesn't everyone who lives where it snows just strap on a giant shovel to their own cars and take the power away from the plow!

I have so many good ideas, if people would just ask!

After a few hours of waiting for plow Sarah let me know she couldn't make it and with 4 hours before my ride picked me up for the conference I made a decision.  I walk everyday so why should today be any different?  I traveled with a giant hooded parka and just because the thermometer said 30 that was no reason to stay inside and use the treadmill.  Besides, I had come to Minnesota with a particular goal, to buy my dad his favorite hard to find unless your in the Midwest candy, NUT GOODIE.

I went down to the front desk and asked the nice eastern block lady if there were any stores in walking distance.  She said, there was a Wal-Mart on the other side of the freeway, just a short walk away.  Turns out this lady was a LIAR! Perhaps in comparison to how far she used to walk to her town's water well in her old country this was a short walk but to a Californian in 30 degree Minnesota weather, this was my own personal Camino walk.

I knew I was in trouble when I went to wipe my nose and the snot was frozen, that was a big tip off right there.  But half way in the middle of a walk is never the time to turn around.  Especially when it was so close to my dad's birthday and the smile on his face when I presented him with his Nut Goodie was worth it...OK that's a lie, the truth is I think I had snow blindness and couldn't turn around to get back to the safety of the treadmill.

A mile into my frozen snot, isotoner gloves aren't warm at all and Nike retro shoes are not snow friendly walk, I saw it.  The glow of mass consumerism, Wal-Mart.
Ten minutes later and I had stepped into that familiar den of iniquity and smelled the sweet stench of polyester and poor business ethics.  I walked up to the first Wal-mart employee I could spot and asked with frozen snot on my face, "do you have any Nut Goodies?"
She looked at me, or rather my face and said, "I don't know.  You mean do we have nuts and other goodies? Cause we sure do"
"No, the candy, that you can only get in the frozen tundra, Nut Goodie"  I said.  She looked at me like I had a head injury as she calmly repeated, "yes, we have nuts and all kinds of goodies." as she walked me to her manager, probably standard procedure whenever a crazed person comes into the store.  This guy knew what I was talking about and said "no. haven't seen them in awhile.  But the "Kwick Stop" might have em."  After figuring out that that was a gas station I got directions, pulled my parka up and headed out.  Along the way I learned that Dollar Tree, Petco and a hunting store don't carry Nut Goodies either.  Apparently they are harder to find than a nice rich Irish Catholic husband.


As I walked and maneuvered my way through the parking lot and snow and cars to the "Kwick Stop" I must have looked like those TV news packages that show a dazed and confused moose that wonders into a small town looking for food right before the ranger puts a dart in their butt.  Unfortunately the "Kwick Stop had no Nut Goodies".

Defeated I pulled up my parka and started the walk back to the hotel but something magical happened, instead of simply walking I started to run, the run turned into a sprint and finally my feet left the ground and I began to fly!

When I awoke I was in a cage in the Rochester Fish and Wildlife office with a new fluorescent tag in my ear and a sore backside from where the dart had got me.

The Diocesan Catholic Youth Conference  went great and I met some really nice kids and the people who work with them.  They told me silly stories that they thought I would fall for like how it gets down to negative 50 degrees and large bodies of water freeze and you go out and fish through a hole cut in the ice, YEA RIGHT! I didn't fall for any of their lies.
The snow never stuck in Rochester but the 11 inches in the Twin Cities started a rumor that I would never get out on my flight.

In the end The Minneapolis airport got my flight off the ground but not before I found Nut Goodies for sale at the shop outside my gate.
Happy Birthday Dad, you are so worth it.

My Dog Thinks I am Dumb

Every year it's the same thing, we fall back and change our clocks yet no one EVER informs Chewie of this.  Chewie is currently on a diet because, well, he is obese.  Only dog food and carrots for awhile for him.
So, on this new diet, Chewie really values his two meal times which occur in the morning and then again at 5pm.  Chewie has an internal clock everyday around a half hour before meal time he tries to remind you that he lacks opposable thumbs and that you are responsible for getting his dinner ready.

So now that the clocks are back one hour and at 4pm he is looking at me like I am an idiot.  The dog thinks I am dumb.  He thinks I don't remember that he eats.  He will continue this for at least a month.  If he wrote a blog (once again the thumbs thing) he would write that the humans have finally proven they are a inferior species. 

If you see him, tell him I'm not as dumb as he thinks I am...but don't feed him!

Birthday Blog

I turned 24, 10 years ago.




For my birthday I got a new red car.

Took the obligatory God-parent photo.

And my sister finally got over her fear of Poor Claire's nuns.

Lazy

Day 12,897 of no new Golden Girls Episodes, seriously, they need to get on that.

Birthday Blog Coming Soon

Fondant Sheep, yep, we party hard!

Special Guest Blog by Mike Patin (www.mikepatin.com)

Monday, October 18, 2010 

McRival?

Rivalries.

Ali-Frazier.

Bird-Magic.

Yankees-Red Sox.

A new chapter is written today.

Today, on her birthday (I will show some class and not mention her age), I had lunch with Judy McDonald. If you don't know Judy, she is a very gifted woman who has done comedy professionally but also has a lot of great witnessing and faith to share as well. 

She picked Dave & Busters as our lunch spot, which just so happened to have a Pop-a Shot basketball hoop.  Judy has a competitive streak (bless her heart, poor darling) and it was clear she wanted to test skills and smack talking abilities.
She won the first game, then two.  Must be luck, I thought.  Then I won two games to tie it and I asked her if she wanted to give before it got ugly.
 I didn't know how prophetic I am. 
That is when she won the next 5 in a row to serve me birthday humble pie---she won 7 to 2.
I have a long off-season to rehabilitate.  I shall return.
Happy BD Judy!

Believe

We had tons of teens come out to Escondido, which in itself, is impressive, since Escondido is my own personal Bermuda Triangle. 

I had a fun 30 minute set with material that was either very dusty or brand new, very fun...for me, who knows if anybody else had a fun time.  Once again, coolest job, ever.  Plus, I ate German food, on purpose.

Latino Love

While in Florida I hung out with some great people.  And these greaet people introduced me to some great things, mostly things they eat and drink.

Being from California, most of my friends who are not Irish or German are Mexicans.  So my new buddies in Florida had to let me know that Cuban food should be on my list of things I ingest on a regular basis for a happier life. 

The best part of the trip was my reintroduction to Cuban coffee.  I saw people handing out little shot glasses and I had to investigate.  Cuban coffee is made with 56 parts sugar and the rest parts love...and some other stuff that puts hair on your chest.  Oh my goodness.  Needless to say, I ran home from Miami and beat my plane I was scheduled to fly on.

Sometimes the best part of my job is not the actual time on stage but the people and the experiences I have before and after I even touch the microphone. Thank you Jesus for the coolest job ever...and for Cuban coffee.

Sunday

Today on my walk I saw a dead cat and then 5 feet away a dead mouse and I wondered if it was a murder–suicide.

Miami, Florida

 

I flew into Miami Florida late Friday night and forgot that not only is it the mecca for Golden Girls but also home to the largest walk in sauna in the world.  Since I had until about 5pm Saturday night I spent most of Saturday walking around Coconut Grove (I actually covered 8.5 miles of the place). 

I was there to do comedy for a group of high school students who were celebrating the arrival of a relic of St. John Bosco.  I didn't know a lot about the Saint till I started doing research for weekend.  First of all I couldn't for the life of me figure out his name.  Was it John or Don?  Even on the website for the event in several different places it referred to the him as St. Don Bosco and then St. John Bosco...what gives? Turns out, I am slower than I thought and "Don" in Italian is "Father"...but I refrained from referring to him as "Saint Don Juan" because I am classy, and my guardian angels grabbed me before I could.

St. John Bosco founded the Salesian religious order in the 1800s.  The Salesians are known for their work with the youth through teaching and meeting kids on their level, something I love (the meeting of people on their level part).  Bosco was the original youth minister, hanging out with troubled teens and having fun with them and showing them that if he liked them and was just a human, imagine the love God has for them who was all about unconditional love.

So this relic has been traveling for some time and finally made it to Miami.  The actual relic is his right arm which is encased in a wax figure of the Saint complete with his "death mask" which was made just the day after his death.  I am tempted to request one of those in my will just for something for my kids to complain about. 

So The relic came in, the Bishop spoke, the relic went out and around the corner for thousands of adults to view while hundreds of kids remained on the football field for a night of sugar and fellowship.  

Around 1am I took the stage and told jokes to kids who were starting to question the fun part about staying up all night.  I spoke for an hour, made it back to the hotel, took a two hour nap awoke and made it to the airport and seven hours later landed in San Diego to weather warmer than Miami! 

Saint Don John Bosco, pray for us.

South Dakota

I came, I froze, I was dinner to mosquitoes. Amen.

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How Excited Am I to go to South Dakota This Weekend?

Holy Rollers

Oh ya, last weekend I was in Anaheim, CA at a conference and during a set that my friend Ike was playing I maybe got on stage and played a little snar drum (there was no cowbell available).


I must say if the whole comedy thing fails I can always get a job keeping rhythm for a jazz fusion band.  Who am I kidding, it took me three attempts to even spell rhythm correctly.

At least I can twirl drumsticks really, really well. 
It's a charism.

Purdue

The show was over and 15 college kids, a comedian and 2 Dominicans were walking to get some gelato when all of a sudden 1 of the 15 went down. Good news is he's ok and while he created a diversion I got about 3 free samples. Don't judge, I'm a nervous eater.

How Rude

I am so sorry for my behavior!  How rude of me not to blog in 10 days. 

So much has been happening.  I have been eating a lot of soup lately and that seems to occupy most of my time. Soup, walking, photoshop projects and teaching the dogs to bark in three part harmony (which is extremely difficult since we only have two dogs).

I leave on Friday for Purdue University where Saturday night there will be a pig roast followed by me.  It's a risky career move, but I am nothing if not a risk taker and a pig roaster.

Mac's Dilemma

Really though, I need to get out more.

Home Again!

I am very happy to be home again and free to enjoy some free time.  Also very thankful to find out that the old girl can still surf. It turns out that the same girl forgot how to golf though, el stinko!  If you need me just leave a message, my phone is not waterproof (believe me).

Arlington, VA

There is something to be said about a venue where you get two body guards/helper monkeys.  In matching tuxedo shirts to boot.  Classy, Arlington, VA, just plain classy.

D.C. Part Deux, Capitol Bugaloo

Back in Washington D.C. and my buddy Anne Marie and I were treated to a tour of the Capital by the one and only Andy Graham.


I learned a lot from the tour, mostly that it is a miracle that anything ever gets done in Washington.  

Steubenville San Diego 2010 - HIGHLIGHTS IN PHOTOS

Jude and Ike, classic couple or freaky Most Wanted poster?

We had to kick out a few hundred kids because of a silly fire code, maybe that's why Jesus talked outside.

The dorkiest street gang ever.

A weekend capped off with two newly adopted family members.  They grow up so fast!

Last week I was in Portland and my niece Sydney turned out to be quite the baking partner.  Now if I could only get her to do my laundry.  And yes, that is Paul the German octopus who predicted the World Cup winner.  We are cutting edge.

I Would Walk 500 Miles...or 484.67 Miles

About 3 weeks ago I spoke at a Steubenville conference and while there was reconnected with my my buddy Fr. Dave.  I picked up his book, "Hiking the Camino" and figured I could read it sometime this summer but after my direct TV was on the fritz on the flight home I cracked it open and read the whole darn thing.  I usually never read a book that fast and this thing didn't even have pictures!  But what I read I loved, it combined my two favorite things, walking and Jesus (not in that order). Camino de Santiago, or the Way of St. James, is a Pilgrimage, and while I have been on many I have never walked almost 500 miles to the bones of an apostle. But it makes sense that I have been training for just such a thing for the past few years as all I do is walk and talk about Jesus, perfect match!
So we shall see.  Currently I am reading up on sleeping bags and back packs, the right shoes and how to bring enough imodium for a 30 + day hiking trip.  Sounds fun right? I know! Wait, I'm not kidding, it sounds fun to me and I can't wait to tell you all about it.

Jagerschnitzel Vom 4th of July and Puppies (but not together)

Holding Mastiff puppies and then eating a German meal prepared by a German, celebrating our Nation's independence just how our forefathers intended.

Virginia Mae Krupich McDonald the Only

July 1st is a very special day.

It's the day we celebrate my favorite human I ever spent 9 months in, my mom.

My mom loves golden retrievers, Jesus and Butterfingers.

All around she's a keeper.

Sure, she gets into the occasional bar fight.
And yes, she complains when the Golden Girls are all reruns.
But we have decided to keep her, because God broke the mold when He made her...and it's been 30 days since we got her and He won't accept returns without a receipt.

I love you Mom!  Happy Birthday!

Washington D.C.

Obama called me to D.C. to talk to me.  Something about a blog I wrote.  I hope I'm not in trouble.

High School 2: Electric Bugaloo

Steubenville, OH

Today was a very full day.
I was lucky to get a quality 4 hours of sleep, give two workshops, play the cowbell in front of 2,300 people and see Fr. Dave reunite with his friend, Velvet Kenny Rogers (from the Padgett collection).

Just another day in Steubenville, OH.