It's Been Freaking Weeks!

I'm sorry it's been so long since I've blogged. I was attacked by a bear named Kingston that demanded my money and then forced me to drive to Mexico where I was put into a slave labor camp making peanut butter from lettuce. Yeah, the bears didn't understand how it worked. They just really wanted peanut butter. In fact, they'd roam the lettuce fields voraciously wondering why nothing smelled like peanut butter. I tried to explain to them that you can't make peanut butter from lettuce, and was mauled for speaking out. So I just kept working until I could eventually build a plane from lettuce scraps and fly my way out of there. I flew into the sunset, bears roaring in anger beneath me, shooting flares at my lettuce airplane with the "Top Gun" theme playing in the background. My wings were singed in a few places, but I was gaining altitude and headed for the border - for my freedom.

Two days later, I crash landed near Blanding, Utah. I was parched, sunburned, and so freaking sick of that Top Gun theme song. I passed out under my pile of lettuce and didn't wake up till the next morning. Thankfully, the music had stopped. But then the ground begin to rumble - like the sound of a distant train on railroad tracks. On the horizon I saw a dust cloud forming and was ready to take shelter from what I thought was a sand storm. As it neared, though, I could see thousands of tiny, furry bodies sprinting towards me. Jackrabbits! I let out a primal scream and ran from the wreckage without looking back. In the distance I could hear their little teeth sink into the wings of my airplane while they grunted with delight. Hours of running later, I made my way to a desert highway where I stole a motorcycle from a time-travelling dinosaur named "Rex." Totally ruined his day, but I figured he'd do well with all the rabbits out there.

I rode the bike home and here I am. So as you can see, I have an excellent excuse for the lack of blog posts. I hope you can all understand.

-Barry

Pictures From the Fourth of July

We celebrated with a bunch of family over, played games in the backyard, and watched fireworks. I ate exactly one bratwurst, one Nathan's hot dog, half a hamburger, potato salad, chips, watermelon, jello salad, four Cokes, two ice cream sandwiches, and a lemon bar. If you ask why I tell you that, you don't understand the true meaning of the Fourth of July. :)


We played a game where you had to throw these ball things onto a pipe thing and had a blast with it. We had a tournament with brackets and everything.


Cheryl, Brent, Shannon and Andrew. Just enjoying the back yard.

Tyler approves of the festivities.

Leaves in the late-afternoon sun. Ah... summer.

My sister-in-law, Ashlyn, and her sister, Briana.


Steve and Dad go head to head.


Steve and Ryan were kicked out of the tournament. Tyler offered little consolation.

Nature's fireworks.

My handsome brothers.

Shan and Andrew.

Chad and Allie.

This pic is blurry, but I loved my intensity and Dad's macho pose. :)

Home made ice cream sandwiches. *Drool*


More of nature's fireworks.


Most of our fireworks were fountains up on a ladder. They're so much cooler that way. Sadly, I have no pictures of our other, more "awesome" fireworks.


Sparkly....


We gave everyone sparklers and opened the shutter on the camera for 30 seconds. I like how it turned out. :)

-Barry

Independence Day, Via JetBlue

Years ago, when I worked with jetBlue, I flew out to California with some friends for a day-trip on the Fourth of July. We explored the Hollywood Hills, admiring the impossibly large mansions the celebrities lived in, then wandered up and down Rodeo Drive, gawking at the impossibly high prices of the merchandise those celebrities bought. When that lost its novelty, we made our way to the coast where the rest of the day was spent playing at the beach, happily baking under the golden Southern California sun. The combined lack of worry, the smell of the ocean, and the inherent patriotism of the season made it seem as if we were living, for a day, straight out of a 50's Coke ad. I remember admiring the way the California haze distilled everything into warm, muted tones and wondering if Norman Rockwell himself painted what I beheld.

Like all wonderful days at the beach, that one came to an eventual end. As we made our way back to the airport, we stopped for dinner at a small sandwich shop where we bought cheese steaks from some gnarly gentlemen I can only label as typical California surfers. We were short on time, so we stowed our sandwiches in our backpacks to eat on the plane. Our flight lifted off just as the sun was setting, and as I settled into my seat at the window - cheese steak in hand - I watched the sun disappear into the ocean's burning horizon. Soon the golds and purples of the sunset gave way to deep blues of twilight which gave way to the dark of night. Being entirely spent from a day of fun, I seriously considered sleeping, and as I gazed into the hypnotizing blackness below, my eyes began to grow heavy. I remember the frail, electric skeleton of a city passing slowly underneath us. This caught my attention for a moment and I admired it's filaments of light branching out over the featureless landscape. Then suddenly, in the middle of it all, and to my great surprise, there appeared a tiny burst of cherry red explosions. I sat up. More bursts followed, littering the pocket-sized cityscape like neon confetti - a Fourth of July celebration on a lilliputian scale. It was incredible. And that wasn't the end of it, either. On that night, I had a ticket to every firework show over which our plane silently passed and a unique perspective on the celebration of our country's independence that I'll likely never experience again.

It was the perfect ending to an incredible day.

-Barry

That Wouldn't Be Weird... Would It?

Let's say there's this incredibly popular movie about a regular teenage boy and his two love interests. Both are gorgeous, almost perfectly attractive, teenage girls. Each possesses a supernatural power, adding mystery and intrigue to their adorable personalities. The movie follows the drama that ensues between them, with each beautiful girl vying for the love of the teenage boy.

Now let's imagine that the great majority of grown men in the country are obsessed with this movie and the books that begat the movie. They idolize these teenage girls as the "perfect" women and fawn over them to the point of cheering when they appear half naked on screen. With every new movie or book that comes out, they attend with their guy friends (because their wives/girlfriends just wouldn't understand) and return home with delusional ideas of what their wives/girlfriends should be like.

That wouldn't be weird... would it?

-Barry