Wisconsin

Big week for the mayor of Green Bay, first a photo-op with the President and then with me...wow.

San Francisco

My San Francisco homies...love you G Dog!

Choo Choo

Many people blog from a plane at 33,000 feet in the sky but this is my first attempt at blogging on a train...riveting.

El Centro, CA

I awoke around 4am Saturday morning and although happy to receive it, the dogs were confused as to why they were eating their breakfast at such an early hour. 
They were because I had to leave the house by 5am to make sure I was at St. Mary Catholic Church in El Centro by 8am for a youth day I was speaking at.  Having never driven to El Centro I wasn't quite sure how long it would take me so I made sure I left in plenty of time. he fact was I had no idea were I was going.  I had asked about 3 different people for directions and had, well, 3 different sets of directions.  The interweb had let me down and had no idea how to get me there either.  Was I dejected? A little.  But I figured if Jesus wanted me there He would get me there.  I was taking that bumper sticker, "God as my co-pilot" to a whole new level.  I drove past Lakeside and up into the mountains, uncharted territory for me alone.

At one point the fog rolled in and I couldn't see a few feet in front of me and then in an instant it would open up again and be clear. The road didn't change, it was just I couldn't see it.  I started to think on my drive how that's how it is in life, we never get to see the whole trip right away we sometimes just see a few feet ahead of us at a time the rest has to do with trust and quality tires.
Before someone calls the shmultz police I will let you know I drove for two and a half hours and found it no problem. I had two talks for about 200 very nice teens and made it home by 3:30pm.  I love my job, even the commute.

Clean Up on Aisles 5, 6 and 7!

Friday at 10:15 a.m., I was sliced and diced to remove another alien from my body and some built up scar tissue.  It was just "minor surgery".  The famous last words of someone not getting "minor surgery".  I got laparoscopy which is way better than getting filleted like a salmon but still, not when you are the fish in question.  So now I am sitting here quietly recovering (my favorite mode to recover) with 3 holes in my belly and the overwhelming urge to crawl out of my skin thanks to the general anesthesia that was pumped through me all because I signed a waiver giving them the high sign to pump away.

To prepare for Friday was quite the adventure the day before.  It involved a jello/broth diet and drinking 2 bottles of this stuff:  Magnesium Citrate, loosely translated meaning the devils spit (grape flavored).

Basically it causes you to have your first miracle; everything solid in your body turns to liquid. Not just once, but thousands of times until your head melts into your toes and you are so happy to show up to surgery you will sign any waiver they put in front of you. Praise God indeed.

So I'm hanging out recuperating and forgetting at times why I am sore until I see the pictures from the hospital they took during surgery (of my innards, not pictures like those infamous Guantanamo Bay photographs with the anesthesiologists thumbs up over my knocked out lifeless body).

I go to do a simple task and then a nice warm feeling comes over me and I have to sit down until I forgot why I got up in the first place.  My mom says I am just warming up for my later years. Maybe she is right,  as long as I don't have to perform any more "miracles" this week I will be fine!

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.