Thanksgiving Memories

Ahh, Thanksgiving. The laughs, the family, the food, the farts.

I spent a good long break with family in CoMO this past weekend. It was just what I needed.
All told, on Thanksgiving afternoon, there were ten people, one very old dog, one very big dog, one very excited dog, and my sister's thing, CoCo. The food was great, Nanny is still the best cook in the world. My cousins Nate and Amanda and I started talking like Kip at the dinner table and none of the old people had a clue!! (Just kidding, Mom!) Try saying, The mash potatoes have just the neccessary amound of mash in a Kip voice. Let the hilarity ensue. That night, like my brother, I saw the new Harry Pooter, er Potter. My mother, my aunt, my cousins and my cousin-in-law-to-be, who's name is Brad (we call him the Duece, cause I was in this family first!) all took up a row. Unlike my brother, I don't read. Therefore, I was not disappointed. I thought it was great. Great choice for the dark lord, even if his nose didn't come back, Erin.

Friday I woke up at 1:30. That's right. But, in all fairness, I went to bed at 3:00, so I only slept for ten hours. Friday night was Amanda and Brad's engagement party. Amanda bought three bottles of wine at ALDI'S so naturally I brought my own: Woodchuck, an adult cider and Michelob Lager. Very fun. We called it, of course, an "I guess you could say things are getting pretty serious" party. A bunch of Aunt Cathy's crazy friends came and one of them newFamily Guy and who Kip was. So, once again, hilarity ensued. Spent the night and played Trivial Pursuit with the cous's. Nate didn't notice that he hadn't had a turn in 10 minutes. Good times.

Saturday, I actually did it. I went shopping on thanksgiving weekend. But, i had a specific agenda so it wasn't so bad.

All in all, a great weekend and much much too short.

Later, B

That Johnny Cash's full of crap, man!

So, I saw Walk the Line with Lindsey last night. And I have to say I'm a little disappointed. Here's the back story:
When my friends and I all got Ipod's at the same time we started buying music together. With 5,000 songs to come up with up we wanted the best that every genre had to offer. Johnny Cash is the best the old-fashioned rocknroll country has to offer so we bought the Essential J. C. , 40 of his best loved songs. And I have to say that I loved it. Every single song sounds exactly the same (I apologize is you just spit on your computer trying to say that) but it's great. It's the words. He sings about hard times in prisons, bar fights, and boy's with girls names. He sings about floods and hard post-depression country living.

And the movie.....ITS A FREAKIN' LOVE STORY!!!! Come on people. Or should I say, come on Johnny, may you rest in peace. Over the past year, from listening to the music, I had come to think that the Man in Black was the toughest son of a bitch on the planet earth, punching and agougin' in the blood and the mud and the beer. Turns out he was just another strung out rocknroll junkie with a remarkably boring life who cheated on his wife and couldn't really play the guitar all that well.

I've gotta say, the movie had its cool parts. Waakeen, or whatever, did a great job and Reece Witherspoon is probably the hottest woman in the world right now. The best parts were Cash's one liners, all mentioned in the trailors. "What's with all the black? Look's like you're going to a funeral..." "Maybe I am" and "Mr. Cash, would you mind refrainin' from singin' anymore songs that remind the inmates that they're in prison?" "You think they forgot!"

That's the badass Man in Black that I wanted to see. But, no, this story, like any other story ever worth being told, was all about a girl.

So, go see Walk the Line if you're a Johnny Cash or Waakeen Pheonix fan. Go see it if you like bio pics. Or, just go see it if you really liked Ray and want to see it again, only with a white guy!!!

Boy Named Brad,
brad

Having Fun:24, Serving our fellow humans: 12

Alright, I love my church. I'll start by saying that. Central United Methodist Church is a heathly, active place and our church is full of socially minded people. However, we have now doubled the number of people going on a volunteer trip to the Gulf Coast with people signing up left and right for the yearly ski trip around the same time...

This ski trip is a big deal in our church. It started as a youth trip but over the past few years has turned into a church wide group of about 40 people going. We have now reached the 12 person mark for a joint volunteer trip with St. Johns and Country Club UMC's. I am thankful for those 12 and, with the groups from the other churches, it seems we have just the right number going. Any more would be too many to handle. But it's amazing to me how quickly we sign up for something that we know will be fun, and how reluctant we are to do anything to help our fellow human beings. (Of course, I say WE because I've signed up for the ski trip. Only because the mission trip is over a week and I can't miss school, the ski trip is over a weekend and I won't miss any) Why is it so hard to committ to these things? It's still a trip, it's the same amount of time, it's a little less amount of money. Instead of flying down the snowy slopes, they'll be serving meals or building houses. I don't know. Why's it so hard for me to sign up? Because I'll miss school?!? When did i start caring about school so much?

Lord, help us!

Brad

If I had a million dollars....

I have to admit, Mcdonalds' gets me everytime. Every year this monopoly game comes along and every year I gain ten pounds in the hopes of winning the one million dollar jackpot. I guess that makes me greedy, I guess that makes me a rube of the capitalists, but so be it.

So, here's what I'd do if I won, no, even better, here's what I'd do with the 340 million powerball jackpot:

1. first and foremost, I wouldn't give one red cent to the church. That's right. Giving that much money to the church, that is putting it in the offering plate, for the finance and trustee's committees to fight over is not my idea of titheing. I would give more than 10% to an organization that I thought was doing God's work in this world, like UMCOR or ReStart here in KC, or something. I think God would see the logic.

2. Of course the second thing I would do would be to get a new drumset. A Pearl Master's Custom Series complete with double bass pedal (for calds), all the wood blocks I could want (for mustoe), and about twenty or thirty cymbals (a present for Brad).

3. I guess I would move, but not far. I like where I live and don't need anything bigger, just another room for band practice.

4. That's right, BAND PRACTICE!! With 340 million, i figure even Mr. Moneybags Mustoe would do the band fulltime. (Along with the promise of all the nuggets and frosties the little guy could eat) So, our coffee shop, live music, musical instrument and record store would be born. Adam would be manager of Christian and Punk sections, Mustoe pop, singer/songwriter, and corporate rock sections, Diffee, METAL!!!, Ryan, weird ultra-snobbing grad school musician type stuff and me, undergroud alternative, post-punk, post-rock grunge garage band stuff. And each of us would be in charge of the musical instrument of choice. Adam you can have, I dunno, microphones, I guess. And this shop would only be a front for our real jobs of course. With that much money we'd not really have turn a profit, so we'd just run our band out of the store.

4. A 70's stlye, painted up Chevy Conversion Van. Yeah, one with the ladder on the back.

5. I would give a million each to every household in my family, I mean, its only like a tenth.

6. Invest the rest to live of the interest and be able to play drums all day long.

Yeah, that'd be sweet. Doesn't hurt to day dream once and awhile.

Poor preacher/grad student, Brad
ps...Mom, sorry about the language in the last one, but those people took something away from me. For the first time in my life, I am ashamed to be a United Methodist.

What the %@#$?!?

November 2005, United Methodist pastor excommunicates a homosexual member from a congregation, and the Conference supports him!!!!!

Hey United Methodist Church....What the #@$%???

Hey United Methodist Church....the 17th century Catholics and the Puritans called, they want their practices back!!!!

Hey United Methodist Church...Jerry Fallwell and Rev. Fred Phelps called, they say, "good show!"

For another Bryan family reaction, visit www.entertherainbow.blogspot.com

Disgusted, Brad