The Dude Abides

i have alot more to talk about, but don’t have time right now. i will post more as soon as i can. new topics to come: our wedding in jamaica, our reception, ireland updates, float trips, our house (new fence!), harry potter, etc. i will do my best. my 10-month old and wife are keeping me busy!

So I got a brand new pair of glasses about 2-3 months ago. I would say I had the same pair of glasses for the last 10 years. They were held together by tape. Needless to say, I never went out in public in them. So, my eyes have been bothering me lately. Could be due to the dry weather, allergies, or who knows what else. Anyway, I wore my new glasses to work today. I honestly think it is the first time I have driven in glasses. It went well. What do you think of them?

I lifted this from Shane, who lifted it from Average Jane, who lifted it from someone else (who I’m sure lifted it from someone else). Still, it’s awesome and given how much I like movies, I thought it would be fun for a Friday. Here are the rules of the meme:

Ok, go.

i am very bored at work lately. i spent quite a while online entering a bunch of different sweepstakes. Hopefully work picks up soon, so i can be busy again.

Comment on this entry, and I will:

• Tell you why I am friends with you.
• Associate you with something - fandom, a song, a color, a photo, a word etc.
• Tell you something I like about you.
• Tell you a memory I have of you.
• Ask something I’ve always wanted to know about you.
In return, you must post this to your own journal/blog.

That’s easy enough, right?!?! All you have to do is write whatever you want in my comments. Granted, only about 4 people read my blog, and they are all family members. So, it shouldn’t be too hard. I got the idea to do this from Shane and Alli.

SHANE

• I am friends with you because you are my blood. we have the same personality. we are loud. we love movies and music. we get along very well. and like you said in your blog, it didn’t always use to be that way, but now we are best friends. i feel like i can tell you or talk to you about anything.
• I associate you with good design, movies and sad bastard music
• I like that you are who you are. I like that you have such strong faith, but you remain to be a cool dude.
• Most memorable moment I have of you was a while back in your partying days. I won’t go into detail, but let’s just say i had to sneak you back IN to our house. And we went and got hootie & the blowfish tickets the next morning (which was a funny thing in itself). i know i went to some concerts before then, but I am pretty sure this was the first without Mom & Dad. I thought it was so cool that I got to go with you and your friends.
• I’ve always wanted to know about your call to the priesthood. I was in college when it all happened, so I didn’t really hear how everything went down. I’m curious how your relationship with God became so strong, because i don’t remember it always being that way.

ALLI

• I am friends with you originally through association. My bro married you, therefore you are my sister-in-law, so I “have” to be friends with you right? Wrong. I am friends with you by choice. I am friends with you because you are fun to hang out with, and you have such an amazing outlook on life.
• I associate you with dance, bright colors, and movies
• I like that you are such a positive person. You have such a positive attitude towards everything, and it just rubs off on people. I like that you are my big sister.
• My favorite memory of you was when you married my brother. You two are absolutely perfect for eachother and your wedding was so beautiful and so fitting. I was so happy for you to join our family.
• I’ve always wanted to know how you can go your whole life without liking delicious strawberries and bananas? j/k. Although a strawberry and banana smoothie would hit the spot right now. I’ve always wanted to know who your SECOND favorite artist is?

kel and i bought a house! we are both SO excited! it’s in Grain Valley (just east of Blue Springs). it’s still being built, but we close march 12th. why Grain Valley you ask? kel’s parents live out there and that is where we take ireland every morning before work. so it will be really nice to be that close! wish us luck, because we are a little nervous, being first time buyers and all.

so i got a message from my brother around 4:00 that they had just found heath ledger dead in his manhattan apartment. this is tragic. he was a good actor. i first remember him in 10 Things I Hate About You. but he had gone on to do far better roles. anyway, it is a sad day. and like my brother said, “I hope for his daughter’s sake it wasn’t suicide or drugs.” he never struck me as the druggie type. he always seemed cool and collected, and thankful for everything had been given. maybe it was the divorce to his baby mama michelle williams. i guess unless someone finds a suicide note or that investigators find out it was murder, we will never know.

now, can the writers strike please be over!?!?! this has gone on long enough! i swear if the academy awards gets canceled because of the writers strike, i seriously might consider hunting down some of the studio executives to punch them in the face.

i am SO annoyed with the writers strike, i don’t even know where to begin. would the studios just sack up and give in to the terms that the WGA has asked? the terms are not unreasonable. and it’s not like the studios can’t afford it. they are just pompous asses who are too proud to say they are wrong, when everyone knows they are. although i am angry and annoyed at the studios, i am also annoyed with the writers, because it’s not like they weren’t getting paid well in the first place. i am not saying they don’t deserve more, but seriously. how many people have lost their jobs because of productions being shut down? it’s just gotten out of control. even though two studios have given in to the terms (UA and Weinstein Co.) it seems like it is still a long road ahead before they make any progress.

and then there is the small little annoyance of the golden globes being cancelled! this just pisses me off. i love the golden globes. almost as much as the academy awards. because they have categories that the oscars don’t. anyway, i was forced to watch the stupid replacement show for the golden globes where they announced the winners of all the categories. i say forced because i wanted to see who won, and that was a the fastest way for me to find out. and i think the hollywood foreign press was just annoyed with all the hollywood actors picketing the globes that hardly any of the typical hollywood actors won. instead you have people like Marion Cotillard winning for best actress in a comedy or musical in some movie nobody has ever seen or heard of. what a joke? i hate when they nominate movies and actors that nobody has ever seen. it’s dumb. i heard hairspray and sweeney todd sucked so i haven’t seen either yet, but for some reason both were nominated for multiple awards. and does anybody else think nicki blonsky is quite the over-actor? her reaction they showed when she found out she got nominated was just hysterical.

anyway, i hope this crap ends soon. because i can only take so much of the new american gladiators. luckily prison break and lost are coming back on so i can break away from this awful reality tv stint we have been on. stupid golden globes. they better not ruin everything and cancel the oscars too.

so kelly, ireland, shane, alli, and myself all celebrated the new year together. well, ireland was asleep in her bed, but she was in the same vicinity. it was a night of delicious snacks and treats, a couple board games

(the new game we got for christmas from amy is awesome! thanks amy!), and just hanging out with my brother and his wife. we fixed some delicious appetizers. fresh bruschetta, chips and rotel and mexicorn/black bean salsa, bacon and crab stuffed mushrooms, veggies and ranch dip, and crackers and Boursin cheese spread. It was all so good. Then shane and alli brought rice crispy treats and kelly made chocolate brownies with peanut butter swirls.

we all stayed up until around 1:30 in the morning, the longest kel and i have been up together in a long time. same for shane and alli, i guess. shane and alli stayed the night and woke up early and headed home. thanks you guys for such a fun night!

so 2008 is going to be an exiting one! kel and i are getting married in jamaica on june 17th, so we are really looking forward to that. ireland will turn 1 year old in september. and hopefully we will find an affordable house to buy.

New Years Resolutions:

• Be a Great Dad
This is SO important to me. I love that little girl so much, and I want to be the best dad I can to her.

• Be a Great Fiance & Husband
I love Kelly more than anything in the world, and I want to do whatever I can to make her happy.

• Get a New Job
Not happy with my current position and it doesn’t pay very well either.

• Live a Much Healthier Life.
I am WAY out of shape and don’t eat very healthy. I would like to limit the amount of times I eat out during the week. Right now I basically eat out every day for lunch. So, I want to limit it to no more than 1 or 2 days a week.

I want to get some kind of exercise. It’s tough because I leave work at 7:45 or earlier every morning, and I don’t get home until at least 6 in the evening. So I want to fix and eat dinner and spend some quality time with my beautiful daughter and fiance. Once it gets nicer outside, Kelly and I will be able to walk with Ireland, so we are looking forward to that. I don’t know, any suggestions on how to get some exercise without missing out on anything? I guess I could get a gym membership and workout during my lunch break…

• Read 10 books
This is going to be a tough one, because I have never been a big reader. But I would like to try and read more, because I feel like I watch way too much tv. I have a couple I have my eyes one. Kel and I got an awesome book from Shane and Alli for Christmas titled 101 Things to Do Before Your Kids Leave Home. Plus there are some web design and photography books I have my eye on.

• Learn how to play the guitar
I have been wanting to do this one for the last 2-5 years. I have a guitar and some how to books and dvds, so all it’s going to take is some discipline.

We’ll see if I can follow through with all these. I am hoping to…