doodledee

Maynard's. Tequila. A whole lotta laughs. Scooter punching me in the face. The rest is pretty much a blur. Good luck Dion.

Yesterday was the first really hot summer day we've had all year. I cleaned-out the Jeep, took off the top and doors, and headed over to Sgt. Preston's for some patio drinks and snacks with some peeps before our softball game. (They've got a new patio menu that's pretty mint, btw.) During the game, the rain rolled in. I'm normally a big fan of wet t-shirts in my jeep, but not if it's just me. Especially not if it's 10 pm and I'm on the freeway.

Tomorrow morning: 6:30 am @ my house. Breakfast and kick-ass soccer is served. Stop by and cheer on the frogs.

Amy and Andy are having twins. For those keeping score at home: that's two babies. Double your pleasure, double your Dunn.

Here's a picture of the steps now that the work is done. We get to take the warning tape down in 2-4 weeks.

Here at the office, there are tons of pop-tarts by the toaster in the kitchen. I think the employees who fly in and stay in hotels all week take them from their breakfast buffet. I normally dodge them, but this morning I decided to make a couple tarts for a mid-morning snack (aka breakfast). Because our toaster oven takes forever to toast, I walked back to my desk (15 feet away) while they were cooking. After a few minutes, I return to the kitchen only to find, much to my shock, an empty toaster. Could it be that some doof had taken my food out of the oven and eaten it?

Being the last day before a long weekend, there are only like 10 of us here today. So I just walked around until I found the perpetrator, which I quickly did. Unfortunately, it was a client, so I couldn.t really lay into him.

Stealing pop-tarts... How big of a rush do you get from that? Big enough, I guess.

Today, I returned my cable modem to the cable company. The lady behind the counter printed out a receipt for me to prove I had returned it. Unfortunately, the printer was all whacked-up, and the receipt printed half on the page and half off the page. She trashed the bad copy and went to work fixing the printer. I figured hey, no biggie, she.s done this before. Bizzzz! After enduring 10 minutes of the most horrible printer noises you.ve ever heard, she closes up the printer and cranks out another copy. She tears it off the printer and hands it to me to sign. It looks exactly the same as the first one she printed. I felt bad for her. It.s probably a pretty crappy way to start your day.

No working this weekend. Yay. It.s good when this stuff goes well for a change.

Here are some things I like:

• After a softball game, grilling some dinner with friends right next to the field


• My new DSL set-up


• Oatmeal made with steel-cut oats


• Reading the paper on the porch at midnight

Several of us went to a funeral for a friend's dad yesterday. It was a pretty sad situation all around. Being a loudmouthed doof, I'm typically no good at funerals, but this one went pretty well. We stood, we sang, we sat, we stood, we sang, and then we quietly filed out. After the service, everyone gets to confront their own mortality over [buttered] ham buns and sweet pickles in the basement of the church. It sounds a little drab, but the old ladies who pour the punch are so nice, it almost seems pleasant. Plus, they had like 50 desserts to choose from.

The new cheddar bread at Subway is pretty darn good.

Saw the big Star Wars movie on Sunday. Libby had already seen it on a work outing, so I saw it with J9 and her dad. The movie had brutal writing, but I don't think I blinked for about the last about 45 minutes, so I .spose that makes up for it. I've decided I just love those massive computer drawn scenes of robots marching or fighting or what have you.

This time around, I haven't heard nearly as much complaining about the characters, fighting, etc., but my suspicion is that the movie is so thin that there just isn't much to complain about. I thought the Yoda stuff was fun and the love story was lame. If anybody expected different from Star Wars, I think it's them who needs critiquing.

Later that same night, Libby and I watched Oceans 11, again with Jeannine. This time she brought her husband Keith along. That made for something like 6 hours of watching movies with me in about a 10 hour period. Somebody give her a medal.

Well, it started today. By this time next week, we should have a new set of steps and a new, smooth sidewalk. Is it wrong to be a little bit excited? I hope not, 'cause I am.

Suddenly, it's big news that Bush & Co. [maybe] had advance warning that Osama was targeting the US for terrorist attacks. I'm not sure exactly why this is such a revelation.

Let's review:

• Mid 1990's - US barracks in Saudi Arabia get attacked a couple of times. Osama is the primary suspect.
• February, 1998 - Osama goes on record saying he's going to bring jihad to America's shores. He calls on 'good' Muslims to kill American soldiers and civilians everywhere in the world.
• August, 1998 - A couple of US embassies in Africa get bombed. Maybe it's Osama, maybe it's just some dudes he knows.
• October, 2000 - USS Cole gets bombed while refueling in Yemen. Osama knows people in Yemen. Osama says he didn't do it, but he loves that it happened.

Here's a good interview, conducted on September 12th of last year. They talk about most of what has suddenly become headline news. Huh? Did I miss something?

We went to a flea market type deal last weekend in Rochester. It was good for a couple of reasons:

• We got new sconces for our bathroom from this lighting guy we found. At architectural salvage places here in the cities, they.re like twice what we paid at the flea market. I bought two.


• I saw an old dude in a wheelchair eating lunch. He was eating a plate full of bugles. Just bugles. It hit me that my taxes go to support the eating habits of old people who dine solely on bugles. That's pretty sweet.

We went out to dinner with my mom on Saturday night. The restaurant was super busy because it was prom night for one of the high schools. We sat outside for like an hour, waiting for them to call our name. I got to thinking about what would be funny to put in as a fake name for our party. I can remember back at Pannekoeken, when my sister was hostess, talking about how people would say their name was Flintstone and stuff. That never seemed funny. Libs and I thought that Donner and Republican were the two best we could come up with.

Two of Jerry's guitars were auctioned on Ebay the other day. I was going to place a fake bid for like $10 right away, just so I could say I bid on Jerry.s guitars, but the auction house had configured the auction to prevent doofs like me from bidding at all. The big rumor is that Sammy Haggar ended-up with one of them. I swear to god, if David Lee Roth so much as lays a finger on Jerry.s guitar, I.m gonna lose it.

Molly and I went to the Cabooze last night for a [mellow] David Gans concert. The opener was an acoustic trio made-up of guys from the Wu, Big Tasty and the Jones Gang. They were rockin.. So was Big John.

Turns out the pipe bomber was from Pine Island. This probably isn't sitting well down at the Cheese Mart.

Checked out the Dogtown and Z-Boys movie last night. Brought back a lot of memories about ripping it up as a kid. Ok, maybe I didn.t rip it up all that much, but my dad did help me build a half-pipe, I could ollie pretty high, and I had a subscription to Thrasher. Even today, I still ride my skateboard to the corner store to pick-up a video or some sundries. Only in Edina can a guy like me on a skateboard still qualify as a punk. Mint.

SK8 or die, that.s what I say.

Grossie and I made some sweet progress on the TV stand yesterday. In like 3 solid hours of shop time, we ripped a bunch of rails and cut down the legs. Ok, maybe that.s not a lot of progress, but we got plenty of good think time in. Some might call it learning on the fly, but it felt like learning on the crawl. Not that that.s all bad, really. A spinning saw blade is probably best used after careful reflection.
I think the rest the legs and frame should go pretty quickly.

We went on the Home Tour today. Saw some neat stuff. It was my first time inside the old mills that they.ve been chopping into condos downtown by the river. Spendy places for old people to retire. Sign me up.

Today, while I sat at my desk writing stupid Java, Keith was saving lives at Hazeltine.

One of Keith's co-workers somehow managed to drive his mower into a pond on the 17th hole. The mower flipped and went in in such a way that the rider was trapped underneath it; only his head was sticking out of the water. Not just regular water, either. Freezing cold, just snowed four days ago, Minnesota pond water.

Fortunately for the rider, after some 30 minutes in the water, a group of golfers heard his yelling and notified the clubhouse that somebody was in trouble. Keith heard the call over the radio, jumped in his cart, and made a beeline to the 17th. Immediately jumping into pond, Keith and a couple other workers were able to pull their coworker to safety. Later, they pulled the mower out, too.

I don't care if he cuts his own hair -- today he done good. Somebody buy that guy a beer.

I'm taking a lot of crap about my New Years Resolution this year which was giving-up any non-homemade pizza. It's been a punishing couple of months already as many of the nights we work late at work result in free pizza being hauled in. But I don't think it'll be that hard to finish out the year. I'm having a lot of fun making my own pies at home for me and for friends. Come by, I'll make you one. Call first, though, I don't want tech-savvy vagrants showing up at the door.

And yes, I saw it. And no, I will not be commenting.

HBJ9