Better Tennis for Boys and Girls

I realized just now that I had not yet given an official "shout out" to the newest addition to the family, a mister Maddox. You can read more about his wonderful cuteness and how he came about on my cousin Danni's site (see the links to the right). I would like to amerliorate the no shout out situation. Here we go. Wait for it... SHOUT! OUT! MADDOX! I think thats the way thats done. Hmmm. Maybe I should just say "welcome to the family, Maddox" and "I'm very glad that you and Danni are happy and healthy" and "it was a true joy to hold you." So I will, and there you go. AND the shout out.

(and now, an abrupt transition)

So I seem to have turned into a vampire. Over the course of the last few weekends I have stayed up until 6 or 7 in the morning on 3 seperate occasions, the last two on two nights in a row. I have not grown funny teeth, been imbued with a great sense of fashion, or taken on a liking for the blood, so its not that serious, I think. But still. Vampire. Yeah. It could be that, or it could be that each time I was up hanging out with some very awesome folks. Or maybe one folk. Or maybe I just wanted to say up late enough to watch lots of infomercials. Wait, whats the singular form of folks? Anyway, its probably the hanging out thing. But the vampire explanation is cooler, and Occam's Razor ( http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/OCCAMRAZ.html ) does not apply to my website. The principle of Cool Stories does, though.

Yesterday I ended one such all nighter (at Shane's; yes, there was some hot tub involved. And maybe some drinking. Don't be alarmed!) by sleeping for a few hours and then going to mass at the Cathedral with my parents and Liz and Josh. A partner in my all night escapades, Tonya (see the reference to maybe one folk), also came to mass and got to stay for lunch, too. The Cathedral is giving away a bunch of old stuff from the school in preparation for some renovations, and Liz, Tonya, and I all went to check out the treasures. There were old shelves, records, and the like, but the real catches were found in the old books. We found such literary classics as "Lets Go to the Middle East!" (found by Liz), "How to Build Robots" (found by Tonya) and even "Gale Sayers, All-Star Runingback." (found by me and given to my dad). I also found "Better Tennis for Boys and Girls", one in a series of sports guides. My favorite though was an instructional book on how to shoot a set shot in basketball, something that hasn't been taught since before I was born. It included such instructions as "your body must be under control" and "you shouldn't even try shooting until the second half of your seventh grade year, as you will not have developed sufficient strength or coordination to shoot the ball into the goal." It is, I must say, TOTALLY AWESOME!!! The Robot book was a close second, talking quite a bit about how robots were fast becoming common in the home (like "microcomputers"), and that if it seemed like too much of a bother to build your own robot you could always just buy one. You know, at your local robot store. It was a great weekend capped by an equally great day.

And to set things up for the week, the other day Nick bought Milo's sweet tea, Little Debbie Jelly Rolls, and a Pony Keg of Grolsch. You have to prepared for the studying, you know, and Nick seems to have found a combination of stuff for all the possibilites of studying:
1) Milo's for fuel (still too hot for coffee)
2) Little Debbie for the inevitable snacking that accompanies hours of reading
3) 5 liters of good beer for when you give up and play LOTR Return of the King (tm).
He's a right smart young man, I tell you.

Well, its time to go back to an annotated bibilography on aging and working memory. A glass of Milo's awaits.

I hope everyone is well!
Peace,
Joe