Shane Life

What a crazy few weeks it’s been.

It started with Alli taking off for drill team camp at Emporia State for a few days. They had a very successful camp and Dreyfuss and I held down the fort. As soon as she got home, her sister took the dog with her up to their parents’ house. Dreyfuss struggles with kennels, so we send him up to Grandma and Grandpa’s where they can spoil him.

Then, we were off to Negril, Jamaica via Memphis for Jake and Kelly’s wedding. Four days in Jamaica, then a day and a half at home before we headed up to Council Bluffs to get the dog. We spent the weekend with Alli’s parents, celebrating her mom’s (belated) birthday and then returning home about 7:00 this evening.

Now, we’re parked on the couch, I’ve got the DVR remote in hand and we’re catching up on some TV. Sure, I’m back to work tomorrow, but it’s nice to have everyone home.

There’s a point in every young boy’s life that he realizes that he’s no longer a boy. He’s not really a man yet, but you begin to realize there’s more to life than running around the neighborhood with your friends.

In 1981, Raiders of the Lost Ark came out and that was my time. Dr. Jones defined cool to me. He was a guy I wanted to be like. He was smart. He was adventurous. He was heroic. He was afraid of snakes. He had a whip.

Freaking sweet.

I’m so excited for the release of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, despite its excessively long name. And if the early reviews from people are any indication…it’s gonna be awesome.

Roger Ebert’s quote on the movie says it best:

I can say that if you liked the other Indiana Jones movies, you will like this one, and that if you did not, there is no talking to you. 

This pretty much echoes my feelings. The original Indiana Jones trilogy is up there with the original Star Wars trilogy in the pantheon of films. And to be honest, if you don’t like Indiana Jones, I probably wouldn’t be friends with you. It’s a movie to be enjoyed, to be loved. It’s something to make you love movies.

We are probably going to see it sometime on Sunday. This is going to be a huge weekend. Jake’s Bachelor Party Golf Poker Extravaganza. Indiana Jones. My first cheeseburger in months. It’s going to be incredible.

We had a crazy busy weekend. Friday night we celebrated the completion of Alli’s hospital mural with a couple movies, some Chipotle and a cookie cake. On Saturday, I needed to work on my sermon for Sunday morning in Manhattan. After I completed that, I joined Alli out in the yard. We decided to start a landscaping project in the front yard to add a flower bed in front of the retaining wall I built four years ago.

Working on the yard is hard. We had to cut out all the sod in the flower bed, which turned out to be - by far - the most difficult part of the process. Next time, we’re renting a sod cutter. We broke for lunch and then trekked to Home Depot to pick up some flowers, soil and mulch. When we returned, my mom joined us and we laid down the weed barrier and got to planting some petunias, some begonias, some gerber daisies and some pepper plants.

By the end of the day, we were totally exhausted and completely sunburned. We crashed on the couch for a while and then went to bed around 9:30. I then proceeded to toss and turn all night. My back was sunburned so it was extremely difficult to get comfortable. Combined with the fact that I was already sore…I ended up getting no sleep at all.

That made it difficult to get up and drive the two hours to Manhattan on Sunday. But thankfully, my wife kept me company along the way and we planned out what we were doing later. We had a great service in Manhattan, but four hours of driving is a lot for an hour of worship.

We had to run right after so we thought we’d stop along the way to grab something to eat real quick. After passing several viable options, we kind of “last resorted” at Pizza Hut on California in the state capital.

This was a mistake.

I should have known. It took us about 15 minutes to place our order. And we were first in line. We had to repeat ourselves five times to order boneless wings and a cheese personal pan pizza. Not a whole lot of confusion to that, right?

After a 20 minute wait (which was supposed to be 13:25) and overpaying for every item we got (including the 12 oz. sodas that cost us $2 each, we got out of there and back on the road. As I pulled out of the parking lot, I bit into my first boneless buffalo wing to find a surprise. A BONE! I thought to myself, Wait a sec, didn’t I order boneless? I checked my receipt and sure enough, I did.

Eating bone-in wings while driving would be a challenge. So I went back and did what any rational person would do - I yelled at the 20-year-old manager. 

“I know I ordered bone-out wings because I said it. I also paid for them…right here on the receipt. So why do my wings have bones? You have two choices: you can either re-make them correctly and immediately or you can give me my money back.”

The manager tried to ease my anger by offering me twice as many wings. I told him this wasn’t one of the options and that if the wings were going to take longer than 2 minutes, that he should just give me my money back. He did. All of it. If he thinks he got off easy, he’s kidding himself. I plan on writing Pizza Hut’s franchising office today to let them know the disgusting nature of the bathrooms, the poor service and the plain idiocy of those working at the Topeka Pizza Hut.

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After we returned home, I had to run to the grocery store quickly. When I got home, Alli and I spent the evening doing some pre-marital counseling with a couple that I’m marrying in July. It was a really nice evening and I made some awesome meatballs for the pasta - ground turkey and pork italian sausage. Very good.

We finished the evening watching the rather weak season finale of Saturday Night Live. The previous week with Shia Lebouf was funnier in my opinion, which is surprising because I love Steve Carell. But his skits just weren’t that funny. Neither were John McCain’s two appearances. I know he’s trying to joke it up and make people less worried about his age, but he just looked so uncomfortable.

Another restless night of sleep and it’s time to work again. Too short of a weekend.

Man, have I ever had a week.

I’m really looking forward to kicking back this weekend…oh wait, I can’t really. I have 3 freelance projects to work on and I still have to figure out why my downstairs toilet is leaking. Plus, I’m speaking next weekend outside of Topeka, so there’s that.

Just when I thought I’d be able to breathe…

However, I’ve committed to tonight of just hanging with Alli and the dog. It’s going to be a fantastic night of pizza, soda, and catching up on our recorded shows. I think we’ve got about 6+ hours of TV to watch. Thank goodness for skipping commercials!

What are you up to this weekend?