RAGBRAI

I read in the paper today that The Register's Great Bike Ride Across Iowa will be coming through Central Iowa. Oddly enough, out of the 8 stops, one stop will be in the city i live in (Ames) and another in the city my brother lives in (North Liberty)

Maybe this is the year i should take part in the bike ride. Oh wait, my dirt bike got run over by a concrete truck 20 years ago. Never mind.

slow down, or at least pay attention

As i was driving to the house today, (see following post for reason why) i see two mini vans both heading for the same intersection at very high speeds. Apparently i was the only one who saw it coming. They met pretty much in the exact center of the intersection without having touched their brakes. One van spun around, went backwards and died, and the other jumped the curb and came to rest about 10 feet from the front door of a house.
I pulled up a couple seconds later to find one woman running circles around her vehicle and the other woman looking totally confused and wondering what happened. I immediately called Ames police and was greeted by a very rude woman who pretty much yelled her questions at me. 20 minutes later the police finally show up. One womans husband was able to drive clear from north ames and still beat the policeman by a good 5 minutes. crazy.
One woman was fine and the other had to get checked out by the ambulance people (that showed up 5 minutes after the policeman). One van is probably totaled (dodge caravan) and the other was actually not too bad (Montana)
both women were in a hurry to pick up their kids from school. too bad for them they didn't car pool.

honey??

i was out shoveling the driveway at the house today when i see my new neighbor step outside. I smile, wave and yell out "Hi!" She responds with a smile, wave and a hi as well. Thinking the pleasantries are over, i go back to my shoveling when i hear a loud yell of "Honey!" my way. Puzzled, i turn back wondering just who she thought she was. "I'm Allison's honey thank you very much," i declared silently. It was then i saw her dog running towards her. Oh. Question answered.

a pic is worth 1000 words

p.s......i love my wife!!

the run is over

we finally did it...we broke down and turned the heat on last night. i was hoping no heat bill all winter at the apartment, but when you have on 5 blankets and are still a little chilly, its probably time aye?

Battle at Kruger

Probably the most amazing amateur video ever shot. Incredible! -jared

Deer Hunting

This is another post that is a month overdue. I'll just say right off I have never been deer hunting, so maybe it is something you have to truly experience before you can make fun of it, but i am going to do it anyway.

Somewhere starting in November, guys start taking off work to go try their luck at deer hunting. They plan all year for this experience and talk a big talk of how this is THE year they get the big one. They call it game...but is it really "game" if only one participant knows he is playing? They sit up in their tree stand for hours before a herd of deer mosey by, merely looking for their supper. When the hunter sees them, they steady their 1000 dollar plus weapon and shoot it dead and a victorious cheer erupts from the tree.

Following this, the hunter poses for several different glamor shots with them holding up the deer's head in triumph. Every year people thrust these pictures in other guy's faces and expect a reception similar to that of a grandma showing off newborn baby pics to her friends. I've had pictures, antlers and even an entire deer head shown to me this year. Crazy.

Brothers Forever

Here is a hilarious tribute. Just picture my brother singing it instead of Renaldo.

Final house pics

Allison and I were able to finish up the house a couple weeks back. The only things left are for a few landscaping issues this spring and for someone to buy it. It turned out really great looking - here are a few pics taken by me. For better pictures, a virtual tour and more information, you may click here.

sledding

This post is a long time overdue, but when i saw the pictures i figured it would be a good one to put up for everyone to see.....While we were at Allisons family's house for Christmas, we went sledding a couple different times. We only had one sled, so we improvised. There was little snow, but several inches of ice, so it made for interesting sledding. We figured the sled would work best, but it ended up the cardboard really flew. Other items we tried out were a grain scoop, plywood, a seat cushion and just our rears. It was a really fun time, and no one got hurt all that bad.

Look at this mean crew (pics taken by Allison)

What Happened to My Coat?

Here is a funny little story for ya'll.

Last Friday Jared and I went to one of our friend's weddings at Cornerstone Church. The wedding was beautiful. It is always great to see one of your friends get married. After the wedding, Jared went to grab our coats (which he hung up before the wedding, so in theory he knew where the coats were and what they looked like). Jared handed me my coat which I held on to while we stood in the foyer for a while chit-chatin with some friends. Here is the good part. When I went to put on my coat I noticed that it was not my coat. So as any loving wife would do I immediately laughed and said to Jared this isn't my coat (but to his credit it looked like my coat it was the same color, black but much longer and it was missing the hood). I went back to the coat rack to return the wrong coat and find my coat. But to my surprise my coat was not there. Thinking to myself, while looking at the bare coat rack, did someone mistakenly take my coat or did Jared take their coat first so they took mind as a replacement. Not quite sure what to do we decided to leave the wrong coat there hanging on the rack. Jared kindly let me wear his coat to the reception, where we thought we would check the racks for my missing coat. But my coat was no where to be found. We left for home that night laughing about the humor of the whole situation and thinking now my mom will just have to buy me a new one for my birthday.

To end this humorous story.....that Sunday before church we went to check the rack again to see if the wrong coat was still there and if my coat had turned up. We'll to our surprise there was my coat and the other one was gone. What really happened with my coat, we will probably never know. But what a happy ending to a really bazaar coat mishap.

Are you smarter than a 5th grader?

I really like trivia. Not trivial pursuit though as that is just way too hard and stuff...or something. Because of this appreciation, i enjoy watching shows like millionare, jeopardy, and things like that. Today i was home early and got to take in a little jeopardy. I am proud to say i got two questions right in a row that the contestants didn't know the answer to. One was a Biblical question and the next one was about the Muppets, so it proves i am quite versatile in my enormous amounts of knowledge.
I must say though i had to cheat off my 4 year old niece when i got asked what the fastest land animal was. Hmmm.

I Love My Husband!

Here are a few highlights from the weekend:

• Saturday night we are walking towards Hilton Coliseum and I ask Jared if he remembered to grab the tickets for the basketball game. His response was "Of course I remembered the tickets when have I even forgotten anything like that." We continue walking and as we get close to the door Jared pulls the tickets out of his pocket and looks closely at the date....Tuesday Feburary 5 was the date on the tickets. Needless to say I had a good chuckle as we walked back to the car and drove home to get the right tickets.

• We decided to take a walk since the weather was amazing this weekend. As we were walking I decided to butt chuck Jared off the sidewalk. (for those of you who are not familiar with the term butt chuck, it is when you throw your hip into the person next to you so they stumble) Once again I found this humorous and giggled at the sight of Jared stumbling. Not thinking there would be any retaliation, I kept walking not expecting what was to happen next. Jared bent down grabbed a handful of snow and chucked it in my face. As this happened, I opened my mouth to say "No!" Too late I ended up with a face and mouth full of snow.

• This is one is my favorite. As we are getting reading to go out for the night this is our conversation.

Me: "Hey, Jared do I look alright?"
Jared : "You look fine"
Me: "But you aren't even looking at me"
Jared: "I've seen you before"