August and Campus Visits

Tomorrow is August 1st. Can anybody else believe it is 1 day from August? I start classes in twenty five days. I remember that no long ago I was fretting over not having enough material to keep all ya'll entertained over the summer and soon I will have all of my school experience to blog about . . . or at least I hope I'll have a lot of experience to blog about . . . no, I will, I'm an optimist.

But, a very exciting thing is happening tomorrow. Tomorrow is an OWU visit day. Anyone that has a history with my blog will know have heard about visit days before but for those of you that are new to OWU or to the blogging arena I will explain. At strategically placed days through out the year, OWU provides an entire day where there are numerous programs (panels, financial aid stuff, etc.) and even more tours to give prospective students an unhastled day to explore all aspects of OWU. And tomorrow is one such day.

I will be making my return to campus to participate in tours and the student life panel. I jump up and down when someone tells me that they've read my blog so if you have and you happen to see me, give me a shout and I will hopefully hear you and turn around.

And for stuff that is not OWU but that I will be doing this weekend that I have to talk about because it is amazing and a family tradition is the Bumpers, Blues, and BBQ festival. It lasts all of Saturday and there are old cars and blues music and my favorite part, BBQ from tons of different vendors with different and special recipes and it is yum. I plan on eating a lot and then eating more. And also my family is going and family friends are going, and my cousins and aunt are going, and Mike and Liv are going and it is going to be a good time.

Hope ya'll have a good time and have a great one.

Pictures: First is what I look like with beanbags on my head. Second is what I look like when I am eating . . . but I will control myself tomorrow at the luncheon. Third is what I look like when I put my feet out a window. Fourth is what I look like when I'm dancing . . . and there is lots of dancing on visit days.

100 One Hundred 100 ONE HUNDRED

Can anybody guess the theme of this blog? No, it's not puppies or sprigs of thyme. It is, in fact, the number 100.

Why?

Well, it could possible be the 100th day of the year, but its not. I could possibly be 100 years old, but I'm not. I could be counting number of stops signs from Cincinnati to Columbus, but I'm not. Maybe 100 is the number of shoes I've worn on my left foot, but no, it's not. This dear readers is my 100th post. Can anybody believe it? I can't believe it. I started this blog in November of 2006, the November of my freshman year and it is now July of 2008 and I have finally reach 100 posts.

I remember planning this day around post 92 and now that it is here the best work that I produce is rambling nonsense. But I suppose that fits the unwritten title of my blog, The Rambling Nonsense of OWU, so why should post 100 be any different?

I would like to offer a thank you to the loyal readers that have gotten my hit count up around 300 and who have taken the necessary time to decode the wonderfulness of OWU from the previous 100 posts. I would also like to extend a thank you to the friends that I've featured in my previous posts because without them the tales that I've rambled about probably wouldn't have happened.

I look forward to the next 100 posts and I hope the rest of you do as well.

Have a great one.

Pictures: First is the number 100 and a very nice reunion with the paint program on my computer. Second is a banana that looks like and probably did sit on the parking lot for 100 days. Third is a wall in the radio station booth and looks like it has a lot of lines. I don't have the patience to count them. Fourth is the Trio of Doom and it probably took around 100 pictures for us to get a decent one of everybody.

The Trio of Doom Reunites

Hello wonderful visitors to the OWU blogging pages. It is the third week of July, a Tuesday, and I sit in McAllister's restaurant, borrowing their internet to update you all on the lovely weekend I had with the Trio of Doom aka Zoe, Adele, and myself.

Last Thursday, I drove from home to pick up Adele and then we made the trek to Ann Arbor to stay with and visit Zoe. While in Ann Arbor we went to the Ann Arbor art fair which encompasses much of the downtown area and involves a ridiculous amount of walking that you don't really know you are doing until you reach the end and have to make the journey back to the parking spot you lucked into. The art fair is mostly visual arts; painting, drawing, sculpture, jewelry, etc and while most of it is on sale, the prices are a little outstanding for a college student. My favorite booths were the silverware jewelry booth and the leather booth with the masks.

We also watched a lot of movies while we were there. We to the theater and saw The Dark Knight which was impressive to someone who wasn't all hipped up to see it. I thought the performances were great and when Christine Bale isn't doing the Batman voice, I could listen to him all day long. We also watched Sweeny Todd, Moulin Rouge, and I Am Legend. All three were also good. On the last night Adele and I were there, the three of us made enough cookies to feed the city of Ann Arbor. I ate a lot of them and brought even more back to Cincy with me.

Overall it was an excellent weekend I was happy to spend it with my OWU girls.

Have a great one.

Pictures: First if the Trio of Doom getting ready to go to the art fair. Well, I suppose we are already ready but we were soon to be walking out the door. Second if Adele and my, at the art fair, pushing the giant cube that Zoe said was a must do with visiting Ann Arbor. Third is a picture of me in a hat. Fourth is Adele in a freezer.

Road

Ah road.
My road.

You use to be broken
Worn and faded.
Your black asphalt resembled
a depressed persons view of life.

But like antidepressants
make loopy the souls of the hopeless
the county finally made you new.

The black poured from the truck
and gave you a tax bought new coat.
The rollers pressed you and made
you beautiful.

And then the details:
Yellow dashes that will mature
into the solid yellow lines of an adult.

And then my road,
you are no longer worn and broken.
You are new.
You are rejuvenated.

Someone is 16 and Someone is Dead

Kind of a menicing title, isn't it? Dead. Sixteen. Well, the sixteen year old isn't dead but the host of her murder mystery party is. William Bunbury (Adele, that name's for you).

For Gretchen's birthday party she wanted to have a murder mystery and she wanted to write her own, which means I wrote it. Well, we did work together coming up with the characters, the theme, and those building blocks but the story line, clues, and overall happenings are copywrited to my brain. And I did all that writing the day before and the day of the party. I allowed myself the procrastination time.

I think that the party was an overall success. The attendees spent three hours playing the murder mystery game and then the last hour they had for whatever they wanted. The clues were probably too easy but for my first murder mystery I think it was well composed. They were all going in a different direction at the beginning and I was able to turn it around in the end.

Character-wise, it was a good time because I got to play a fortune teller and Liv, who was the other moderator, played a reporter. Gretchen was an actress from the 1920s and in the pictures, the dress she is wearing, is my never-before-worn prom dress because I was sick and couldn't go. It's a great dress and I'm glad she could use it. There was a war widow, a detective, a gem inspector, a flapper, a mob boss, an heiress, and a world traveler.
There were also cupcakes. Mmm cupcakes.

Have a great one and have a very happy 4th. Right now there are no giant plans. The family might be visiting friends in Kentucky, assuming the rain holds off which being the 4th of July in Ohio, doesn't seem likely.

Pictures: First is the group of kiddos that came to the party: Kristi, Charity, Gretchen, Chad, Meriel, Ashley, and Elizabeth. Second is Gretchen in my dress right before everybody got to the house. Second is me and Liv all costumed up. Fourth and me and Gretchen. It is our heads and they are nice heads.

16th Birthday . . . Not Mine or I Would be a Prodigy

Gretchen turned 16 a few days back and we had a little part for her. The big party is coming this weekend and I am writing it. Yes, writing it. She wanted to do a murder mystery party but she didn't want to get a kit or anything so she came to her creative writing major big sister and said, "can you help me write this?" and I said "sure" and the next thing I knew I was writing the entire thing. It'll be fun though. I get to play a hobo.

I had to work all day on Gretchen's birthday so the real fun began when I got home because instead of doing sixteen spankings, I decided to do sixteen sneak-tackles. And I got all sixteen of them in, plus a pinch. I hope this brings just as much luck as the spankings would have.

Probably the funniest tackle was when I snuck up on her in the living room, yelled tackle, and proceeded to through both of us over the back of the couch. She screamed and we ended up a pile on the floor. Tackle sixteen was enjoyable because I cornered her in her bedroom and tackled her into her dresser which we slide down and landed on pillows, paper, books, and whatever else Gretchen keeps on her floor. It was a good evening.

There was cake too and Gretchen's big birthday present with a new lacrosse stick and the lacrosse camp that finishes today. She went to the UC campus and stayed overnight, three days and two nights.

A huge bug just flew into the window. It wasn't a cicada but if it had hit me I would have screamed like it was a cicada. Good thing I'm not a window.

But I think Gretchen had a blast on her birthday and I hope the party this weekend goes just as well.

Have a great one.

Pictures: First is Gretchen acting sixteen with no eye fronts. Second is Gretchen getting ready to blow out candles and then eat cake. Third is the result of one of the tackles. And fourth, because of the tackle, Gretchen got confused and thought she was ninety one.

The Soccer Game that Wasn't

It feels like my life has been very sportsy lately. Baseball games and more baseball games and running and the soccer camp and the last almost-sporting-adventure was to a soccer game starring the Cincinnati Kings. Rosemarie mentioned we should go and organized a group of us. I was so excited. It had been a while since I'd gone to a game. The last game I went to was one up on the cape when I was visiting Katie a few summers ago.

But, the night of the game this icky storm blew through Cincinnati. I was of the opinion that we could still go because we were driving to northern Kentucky and the storms weren't there but Rose made the command decision that we shouldn't go. Which I understand. She was driving all of us and didn't want to get there and find out the game was cancelled. Jonathan also didn't like the idea of sitting on metal bleachers in a lightening storm.

So, instead, the lot of us went to the movies and grabbed dessert at Outback. We saw Get Smart, which turned out better than I thought. I expected it to be funny and it was and it was a consistant humor that was easy to enjoy.

After the movie we drove to Outback. On the way there we got caught in a Harley-Davidson party. There were thousands of bikes surrounding the store. At the restuarant I had cheesecake with raspberries. Good times.

Have a great one.

Pictures: First is the fight over the bread which wasn't really a fight and more of a posing because someone (me) had their camera out and ready to take blog pictures with. Second is of Rosemarie laughing. Third of of Jonathan, but check out Liv in the background. It is gold. Fourth is of Liv.