my summer in pictures.

I decided that my last post of the summer should be a little recap of my summer.   Meetings start tomorrow, school starts in a week, and today is my last day of summer.... in a manner of speaking.  i shot this recap completely on my phone.    enjoy..... i know i did.

 stayed up late... usually too late

 

planned on building a deck (haven't yet) 

  

 went to a few concerts...... this is from weezer (great show)

went to MASC (see here) and admired these duckcakes that pam made. 

 

went to milwaukee with some friends for a bachelor party..... congrats seth (left)

 this is vladimir putin, on a horse.... inside joke.

 on our milwaukee trip we saw a father son star trek pair.   nice.

 

i also found a souvenir jersey for my jesus bobblehead.

 

i taught summerschool and watched some world cup.  zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!

 

i went to plenty of royals games. 

 

 

 celebrated fourth of july....and ate PLENTY of good food.

 

helped pam find a new couch

 

witnessed some awkward toilet situations

 

 brenna got settled in to her new locale 

 

found this at Target.   weird. 

did plenty of yard work with only few casualties  

 

 saw seth and angie get hitched

 

'played' plenty of foursquare

 

suffered thru the heatwave (noticed the bottom left number)

 

 went to memphis and had even more good food.   above and below. 

 pam and i found a HUGE rocking chair.

 it rained for about a month straight..... which has been forgotten due to the terrible heat.

 enjoyed some more good food and have been trying to do so with some better decisions.

moved pam to Liberty!

 pam's new apartment.

another concert (old 97s) 

more royals games

survived a stick-up by Pam's mom.   (in retrospect, those may have been fakes)

 more heat.

got my backyard  looking much better.... there was once quite a brush pile.  still need to rig up a shed door.

the end.

Tomorrow starts year 5 of teaching for me.   I am sure that there will be another update when students come and the year actually starts.... but for now I just needed to say, "so long, sweet summer." 

QUAPTCH!

'Quaptch' is an onomatopoeia for a sound that came from an interesting man we met a week ago.    The story from the beginning:

It was early in the morning and my sister and a friend of mine where going to a free mini-concert put on by a band called Mumford and Sons.  The music was good but the most memorable part of the entire experience was our long long wait in line.  When my sister and I walked up to the line (which was extremely long...two hours) we encountered the man in line in front of us.   We never caught his name but from here forward he will be called 'Charlie'.    Charlie seemed like an eccentric concert-goer at first glance.    Then he mumbled some things to himself and let out what can only be described as soft cackles.    He would sort of look at things and fake shoot them then soft cackle.... or just say things to himself.   It would be a full hour before i understood a single sentence from him.   He was wearing a STAFF shirt from Sturgis '08....backwards.    The Jack Daniel's logo on the breast of the shirt was now on his shoulder blade and the front (now back) of the collar dipped awkwardly low.       He didn't talk much but when standing feet from a person for over an hour you pick up on things.    Our favorite thing he did was extend out his index finger (not like E.T. but more like he was placing it on a fingerprint scanner to gain entrance to a secret layer) and make the 'quaptch' sound.   Picture the sound you would make if you were trying to mimic the sound effect of people giving a high five on a cartoon.  When he made the sound it was less enthused and more duty-driven..... like he had to touch these things.... claiming them or something.    We would walk a few steps in line and when we got close enough to a fence, building, door, light post, power pole (you get the picture right?) he would 'quaptch' the next thing.      

After an hour in line we made it to the door and he spoke his first understandable sentence and directed it at us.

 " What is this a line for?"       

WHAT!?    awesome.  

So we have been continuing his mission.... or are we competing with him?   Either way we have been 'quaptch'-ing things for a week now and sending photos of what we get.   Click here to check them out or send your own.   

Enjoy....Brenna, Seth, and I sure have been.

 Bam..... just got the president!

schoooooooooooooool's OUT!

I am happy to say that i am officially finished up with my 4th successful (not to say that any years prior weren't) school year!     now i have a FULL 16 hours until summer school!    haha.    I am looking forward to summer school and the upcoming MASC (Missouri Association of Student Councils) Summer Workshop starting this weekend.    Life is looking good.     more updates this month... i promise.

Snakes on a Pane.

Let's start by saying I think snakes are unnatural and horrible. They don't have legs..... Gross.
Today: I am driving on a rural highway this afternoon when I see a huge hawk-like bird fly out from the fence over my car...it had a huge snake in it's talons. This was a 3-4 foot long, girthy black snake. The bird is flying overhead and drops it right on my windshield. Aaaaaaaaah. It made a pretty gross sound and flew over the top of my car. I am really grossed out at this point, I mean who has a snake hit a windshield!?
No damage to my car but it is very unsettling to have a huge snake flying feet from your head. I hate snakes and am glad I got to finish the kill off for this corner-cutting hawk.
End of story.

edit:    to set the record straight this blog post was renamed by pam... i laughed outloud when she suggested it.   i am a sucker for sam jackson movies.

Melissa: Senior

To view a few more go to my flickr stream.