our newest addition

It was a normal Saturday. Work in the morning, with not any definite plans for the afternoon. Julie came home soon after I did and said, "I just went to look at a piano."

What?

Apparently our friend Dan was helping our friends the Hammonds move houses. They had this gorgeous old piano that they really just didn't have room for in their new house, and as soon as Dan saw it he knew it would fit right in at our house. So he called Julie, she took a look ...

Two hours later we had a houseful of strong boys drinking Izzes and standing back looking at what they'd just moved in. We then spent the next couple hours playing it and marveling at how wonderful an addition she is to our abode.





Thank you, Hammonds! Thank you, Dan! Thank you Tom, Skylar, & David! She's already right at home.

another one of my not-so-bright ideas

Those of you who know me well know that I sometimes get some pretty grandiose ideas that just don't pan out the way I envision them. Welcome to my latest.

I grew up on a farm, not in a neighborhood, so while I technically did learn how to ride a bike when I was a little kid, I sure didn't get very good at it. My closest friend lived about three miles away down a two-lane, 55 mph highway, so I never got the pleasure of tooling around on bikes with my friends. It was more fun for us to explore the barn and play with the tools and set up forts and pretend we were detectives.

Then in college all my friends were crazy-into mountain biking. At some point I mentioned that I still wasn't very good on one, so my friend Jodie who worked in a bike store built me one. He took it upon himself to teach me to ride, but after a few tumbles on the trails I was pretty much ready to call it quits and sit on the front porch with a beer.

This hereby concludes in its entirety my experience with bicycles.

About a week ago I acquired a bicycle from a friend, mostly because it looks really cool and I live close to work. I thought it would be a bright green idea to bike to and from work, not really thinking it through. This bicycle doesn't have gears (something that confused me greatly in college even though Jodie explained them a thousand times), AND it sports backpedal brakes. (I also had a really hard time getting handbrakes down. Turns out that things like riding a bike DO come back just like riding a bike and I found myself frantically backpedaling on that mountain bike wondering why the hell I wasn't slowing down.) So last week upon acquiring this bicycle, little did I realize that the darn thing weighs about fifty pounds. Also little did I realize that there are many hills on the way to work that I'd never noticed in my walking or jogging. And even moreso little did I think about the fact that I'd be carrying my laptop and all the other junk I carry in my mobile office I call a messenger bag SLUNG OVER MY SHOULDER. Oh and have we forgotten that I still don't particularly know how to balance myself on a bike?

So, if you happen to be driving past and notice me huffing my way up a steady incline, please refrain from laughing. And if you happen to see me crumpled at the bottom of a steady decline because those backpedal brakes don't actually work too well, please pick me up and dust me off.

I'm gonna keep ridin' it, y'all. We're two days and counting.

really?

Monday night some friends of mine went a little crazy on my car in the middle of the night with some shoe polish and their creativity.

Today I drove up to the car wash, and as I got out of the car the attendant asked me, "Did you get proposed to?"

"Um, no. I got pranked."

Classy.

highly recommended

So, say you're on a jog and you come upon a swing set. Say you spend two full songs on your iPod just swinging. As high as you can go.

Like a little kid.

Today, it totally made my day.

well said

Cashier at Whole Foods, to me:

"Back up a little so I can see your pants—"

[pause]

"—well now that's about the weirdest thing I've said all day."

gettin' my geek on

Star Trek?
Good.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine?
Good.

Cookies and milk for dinner with Ryan?
GOOD.

for the calendars

Friends.

First of all, happy Cinco de Mayo. We ate Italian food tonight, not in honor of the Mexican holiday, but in honor of our good friend Jonathan, whose birthday was today. Happy 29th, Jonny. You bring all kinds of light into this world.

Second of all, send your mom a Mother's Day card if you don't live near her. My mom and grandmothers are getting postcards featuring my own photos that I made on moo.com, one of the coolest sites I've found.

Third of all, come support local artists and a great cause! My very good friend Melissa is a midwife who lives half of each year here in Kansas City working at a city hospital and the other half of each year helping run a birthing and nutrition center located on the northern coast of Haiti. Not only is she one of my best friends, she's a huge inspiration in my life—talk about a major rock star. May 10-16 at Dunn Bros coffee house (just south of 91st Street on Metcalf), we'll have art displayed by a variety of local artists, including myself and many of my good friends. There will be a reception, complete with a silent auction, on May 16 from 4:00-8:00pm. All proceeds will go to fund the medical mission that Melissa works with. You can read up on the needs in Northwestern Haiti on her blog here. Please come out yourself and spread the word to your friends!

pybir

Wow. I just realized I never posted about my birthday, which—thanks to Cari—we've now taken to calling, "Pybir."

[At Jewel's birthday celebration, we were going round the table each singing one syllable of the Happy Birthday song. We were doing just fine for awhile ... hap py birth day to you ..., but when it got to Cari, she sang, "pybir," and then looked at me alarmed while I sang, "tthhhday?" You can see the video here.]

Considering I wasn't the only birthday of the week, there was much celebrating in the middle of April. Mike, Blakely, Jason, and I all had birthdays the same week, so the four of us celebrated together at an adorable little french bistro in Parkville.



Then Friday night, Blakely's actual birthday, a whole crowd of our girlfriends took us to Blue Koi and gave us the coolest, most personalized gifts ever. Wine, good food, dessert, coffee, and the best conversation.





Then Saturday morning, my actual birthday, Natalie and Julie (with not much help from Sam) made me a most beautiful breakfast complete with chocolate milk.





Saturday evening was our Spring Jaunt To Weston, and unfortunately Cari couldn't go with us because of a scheduling conflict. So Mike took her place and he, Ryan, Jewel, and I did all the usual things like taking too many pictures and eating Irish food and drinking Irish beer at O'Malley's.







We finished off the evening by watching The Last Starfighter, an absolute favorite movie of mine and Mike's, which he got for me on DVD since we had no VCR on which to play my old, ratty, VHS version.

All in all, I am extremely lucky, blessed, fortunate—whatever you want to call it. I have the best friends and roommates in the world and share a birthday week with three of the coolest people on this planet. Thank you ALL, my friends.