Archive for January, 2007
A recap… three days too late…
The online world and the real world came together for me this week when I met Lindsey’s boyfriend during a meeting at my work. I spent most of the meeting wondering where I knew him from and finally asked him after we were done. The funniest exchange came when we both commented on how we don’t remember much from our respective childhoods. Except the beatings. Somehow I always find that conversation kind of awkward and funny all at the same time.
I’ve decided to give up TV. Well, Not *all* TV, since I really can’t give up The Office or Jon Stewart, but most TV. Our TV viewing habits hit a new low when The Real Housewives of the OC came on and I watched it. I wonder if God can tack that hour back on to the end of my life. Right now the wife is watching Engaged & Underaged on MTV while I silently die on the inside.
If I was a waiter or waitress and I saw us coming in to my restaurant, I’d want to turn and run. Much to their credit, most have kept their professionalism and done a great job. I’ll go ahead and say it… I would have a hard time serving a table with three kids under six, specially when one of those kids is Lucy. I love Lucy to death, but man, she can just about ruin any eating out experience. It’s not her fault, really. It’s just that we forget. We forget how awful the last time was and we try to subject her to an hour of sitting down. It doesn’t work. Just this past Saturday, we took a walk through Carytown, went to the toy store, and decide to go grab some burgers. The whole afternoon can be summarized this way: A lovely walk interrupted by the lunch from hell. Of course I’m exaggerating, but since I can’t really remember what my burger tasted like since I wolfed it down trying to get out of there as soon as possible, I’ll chalk it up as a not so good eating experience. We walked out of there a little more disheveled, and determined to give our little gets-in-to-everything mess maker a break from the restaurant circuit.
Although it is Tuesday morning, I am finally glad last week is over. Yup, that means that I am about three days too late, and now I’m a day behind on crap I have to get done for this week. I’m not sure how many more projects I can take on, but a little part of me is glad that I have an abudance of things to do instead of the usual three month brain drain that happens during the wintertime at my work.
And last, but not least, my favorite new site this week:
I did not know that yesterday! Because you can’t ever have too much knowledge. (via Chris Glass)
Have a great week my friends!
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A hoodblog is born…
Ross (of Haduken and RVA blogs fame) and I have taken the challenge that was put out there by John (who runs a couple of great sites ) and are in the works to roll out a hoodblog for the Carytown and Museum District area. We are very excited about this project, and would love to see some more Richmond area bloggers take it upon upon themselves, specially since it seems the RTD is about to roll out their own neighborhood style blogs. As John pointed out, there are some serious problems with that scenario.
So… If you have any interest, please contact one of us. It’s not as overwhelming as it sounds, and it will be a *huge* benefit to our communities.
Also, we would like to receive some input from Museum/Carytown people… or your help! If you want to be part of this, drop me a line at thismudilife@gmail.com.
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And we danced…
What do you get when you combine 100 elementary kids, the cha cha slide, the electric slide, limbo, some Outkast and The Black Eyed Peas? Well, only the most fun dance party that I’ve ever been to with a bunch of 9 year olds. (Not that I go to allot of dance parties that involve 9 year olds…) Anyways, Josiah’s school hosted a dance Friday night, and he really wanted to go. This surprised me a bit, because between Jack and Josiah, it usually is Jack that likes to listen to loud music, dance with me, hang out at outdoor concerts and the like.
We dressed Josiah up in his handsome shirt, took the obligatory first dance pictures and Josiah and I headed over to the school. To say there was energy in the room would be a little bit of an understatement. It was ROCKING. The music and DJ were awesome, and although Josiah never ventured too far from me, I did manage to get him out on the floor with me to do a little dancing. The most fun part of the night was when we did the cha cha slide. If you’ve never done the cha cha slide, it’s like an updated electric slide, only 100 times more fun.
The highlight of the night was when the 2007 dance champions were crowned. My inner fourth grader wanted to get out there and compete, but you know , it would have been a little awkward and all. Besides, the boy and girl champions were well deserved. It was a really fun night, and I’m looking forward to many more years of dance parties with my kids.
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Two new bands I’m digging…
Well, they may not be *new*, but they are new to me. Anyways, on heavy rotation on my station are The Weepies and The Decemberists. Thanks to the wife and Jen and Jeffrey Rowland for tuning me in!
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Hey… I’m the DJ…
If you hang around me long enough, It won’t be long till you hear me say “I should have been a ________.”(Fill in with pro football player, cop, referee, rock star, politician…) Not because I necessarily want to be those things, it’s mostly because I have moments of genius when I think I can be better than those that do it professionally. The wife is amazed by the fact that my giant, inflated head can even stay up anymore.
Anyways, I’ve been scouring the net for a way to be able to stream my mp3’s at home to my computer at work (or anywhere I wanted to have access to my music.) I tried a couple of different apps, but finally stumbled upon Mercora.
The cool thing about this is that it lets me setup my own radio station. I can have up to five channels playing at any one time. I can also create a play list and create custom channels. For now, I added my whole My Music directory. Anyone that goes to the Mercora website can search for my DJ name and listen to a sample of what I have on my hard drive. How cool is that? The best thing is that since I rip Cd’s entirely, I forget what music I have on my hard drive, and this randomly selects music and streams it to me.
So now I am the DJ ( I can FINALLY cross it off my list) and I personally think it’s better than anything that is streamed on the intertubes.
If you want to give it a listen, go to Mercora’s search page, and search for jinric. You can also listen to other DJs, or listen to random mixes categorized by genre.
Recent Stream
PS… My music collection is all over the place, just so you know. Be kind.
For the more “eclectic” musical taste, check out David Byrne’s radio stream. Great background music for those late night bloggers.
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A weekend without mom…
The wife (who is an amazing mom, writer, friend, sister, daughter…) has decided to add one more awesome thing to her growing list of things she is awesome at. To achieve said awesomeness, she took a three day certification course over the weekend. That means that I was left to to be wholly responsible for the care of the kids.
I was up for the challenge, although a little bit nervous, since this was the first time Lucy would be away from her for such a long time. The boys were great and so was Lucy. (Even though she goes nutty from time to time) No one was injured, everybody was fed most of the time, the house was cleaned up and I did a bang up job dressing my little girl. (The boys and myself, well that’s a different story.)
The funniest moments were out in public, when moms would do a double take, probably asking themselves who in their right mind let him out with these kids by themselves. I felt out of place everywhere I went.(Except the park, there were plenty of dads there with their kids) I saw one lady glance at my ring finger. I wonder what she was thinking? Is it really that weird to see a dad out by himself with just the kids?
Anyways, we had a blast. Over two and a half days we wrestled, watched movies, went to the park, bought new legos, watched football, went to Target, ate at Baja fresh and Jersey Mike’s and finally came home and collapsed. (Lucy was the one who watched football with me. She is the coolest baby ever.)
Incredible Beauty, Incredible Evil: The Harvey Murders One Year Later
This heartfelt piece was written by my sister Jen Lemen. I’ve posted an excerpt here.
Something about all this broke my heart wide open. “Something has to be done, right?” I said to my sister the next morning. I could tell she felt like crying, too. “I don’t know how to say it, but if hate wins in this thing, if the weight of this evil stamps out the last shred of compassion–or the last bit of hope–then we’re in worse trouble than before, right?” We sat on the phone in silence. Neither one of us thought more killing or despair would solve anything, but it wasn’t our place to say. We understood that we did not know even in part what it felt like to lose someone you loved in such an incredible, vicious way. We knew nothing of whatever terror had brought Gray or Dandridge to this final moment.
Full text can be found over at jenlemen.com
My sweet girl…
photo by Krissy
New Year…New Look…
I figured it was about time to change the layout… I was starting to get bored with the old one. So… here’s the new design… what do you guys think?
Jackie-boy is four today…
Happy Birthday little buddy!! You have brought so much joy to our family. I especially love how snuggable you are and your sweet little heart! Many blessings on another year of your life.
Love you,
papa
Edit:
Jackie-boy chose his birthday dinner… it consisted of:
Corn Dogs
Corn on the cob
Chips
It couldn’t have been a better dinner!