So, I woke up the other morning and decided that I should try something. I decided that I needed to make bread. Now, if you know me, you know that I don’t do a lot of baking/cooking – pretty much anything that is related to food preparation. However, if you know anything about my family, well, baking/cooking REALLY good food runs in the family. And, if you know anything about my mom, well, she’s simply the best cook on the planet! So I THINK I have it in me, but I’m not too experienced (no pressure or anything)!

I went to the grocery store and bought some things that I (obviously) did not have in my pantry (yeast, flour, sugar, shortening – pretty much everything but the salt). I originally was going to surprise Rob and make it while he was at jury duty on Tuesday. Well, he got sent home pretty early, so I didn’t get around to making it. Yesterday we were pretty busy, and so today’s the day!

So, I’ll let you know how it goes. The loaves of bread are baking in the oven (it smells good in here).

UPDATE: Yummy! Loaf #1 is completely eaten, loaf #2 for tomorrow! (I think that the water I put in the dough was too hot for the yeast, but otherwise, not a bad first attempt. I think I’ll try it again sometime!)

Remember 2003 when the Lakers stockpiled a bunch of talent? Besides Kobe and Shaq, they brought in Karl Malone and Gary Payton. The goal: winning the NBA title, of course!

Pistons fans remember how THAT turned out.

And now, the Cleveland Cavaliers are doing the same thing. First, Shaq signs. And now, news reports are surfacing that LeBron James is meeting with Ron Artest AND Trevor Ariza.

Bring it on boys. We’re gearing up for another championship run!*

*Okay, so the Pistons are “rebuilding,” and I’m not fully behind that statement, but hey, it’s fun to dream and it could spark some debate!

About time.

The news is just now making its way around the Internet, but Michael Curry is no longer head coach of the Detroit Pistons. Yeah!

We’ve spent some time debating his coaching on this blog and how much Joe Dumars was tying his hands. I think this firing makes it pretty clear that Dumars saw that Curry was doing more harm than good to the team. First, Jason Maxiell and Amir Johnson–two players that Dumars made clear that the Pistons had big hopes for–received several DNPs. Then, there was the whole Rip Hamilton-Allen Iverson fiasco, where Hamilton–the Pistons’ leader–was asked to give up his starting spot to a guy who clearly didn’t have it any more. Hamilton was rightly pissed and gave up on Curry from that moment on. Now, I’m not defending Hamilton’s whining, but reports are that Hamilton found out about the benching during a team meeting. It was obvious that Curry lacked the cajones to talk to his team leader one-on-one. That sure can’t help a struggling team get behind their coach.

If one thing was certain about Curry’s coaching style, it was that he was inconsistent and couldn’t back up his promises. Now he’s gone. The Pistons Nation takes a big sigh of relief!

I’m sure we can get into a debate about whether this was a good move, but think about this: this Pistons will start wheeling and dealing for free agents tomorrow. Getting rid of a coach with a horrible record might sound a whole lot more enticing for those players looking for a new home.

So who’s next? Bill Laimbeer? Avery Johnson? Jeff Van Gundy? Another assistant coach (Please, no!)? The Pistons’ summer just got a lot more interesting!

Big day tomorrow! I’m serving as a juror for my first time. Yup, Mr. Rob Patin gets to help society! I’m doing my job to make the world a better place! I’m putting things right that once went wrong, and hoping each time that my next leap will be the leap home!

Whoah…sorry. Got a little carried away with the Quantum Leap reference.

Anyway, it’s just district court in Rockford. We’ve been told that it will be around an eight-hour day (no gaurantees about another Summer Series matchup this week, Scott). I guess I’m a little excited, just to see a court trial up close (will it be anything like Judge Judy?).

Perhaps I’m more curious to see what the REST of the jurors are like. I was amazed at how many people showed up late to the jury selection process, even after the sternly worded letter we all got about the importance of showing up on time. I guess some people just never grow up and become responsible. Go figure.

So, do any of you have any humorous, insightful, or mind-blowing jury duty stories to share? If my jury duty experience turns out to be a bore, I sure would like something interesting to read when I get home.

In case you hadn’t heard, Meijer opened in Cedar Springs not too long ago! I have always been a huge Meijer fan. I love, love, love Meijer! So naturally, I do most all of my grocery shopping there. Yesterday however, was a bit different. Rob had a super idea! “Let’s make mini-pizzas on English Muffins,” he said. We had the pizza sauce, so I decided to run to the store to get the other ingredients. We decided that we would make the pizzas with Canadian Bacon (yummy).

Because I needed just a few items, I thought to myself, “Rather than go to Meijer, I’ll go to the Family Fare because I’m sure their business has dropped since Meijer opened. I’d hate to see them go under.” So, it was off to my local Spartan Store for a quick in and out.

My actual shopping experience was very pleasant. A worker was stocking meat, and asked me if he could help me find anything. I told him I was after Canadian Bacon, and he directed me to the two spots where it could be found in the store. I decided on the Canadian Bacon that was specifically designed for pizza – it was cut into small circles, similar to what is done with pepperoni. When it was time to check out, I went to the self-checkout lane (I hate those things, but they usually are the only things open at that store). This really nice lady who was working greeted me and was helping me bag the items I had scanned. Again, very helpful.

But then, things changed. As I was about to scan the Canadian Bacon, I happened to look at the package a bit more carefully. It said, “Use or freeze before June 21, 2009″ in black right on the front of the package! Problem being – it was already June 23. So, I show it to the nice lady. She says that she will go ask someone to make sure that it wasn’t the date that they stocked it (I doubted it, but thought it was at least a nice gesture). In the meantime, I went back to the Canadian Bacon to get another package with an unexpired date. There were 7 more packages of that bacon with the June 21 date on it, and there were no other packages. So, I went over to the sliced deli meat, and got a package of the Canadian Bacon that was more like sandwich meat. I took it back up to the check out lane. The nice lady said, “You won’t need to pay for that meat, don’t scan it and take it up to the customer service counter and they’ll give it to you.” I thought to myself, “Well that’s real nice. They are righting this situation.” But then I realized something and so I said to her, “All of the other Canadian Bacon had the June 21 date on it, so I got the other brand because I’m not going to eat meat that has expired.” She said to me, “I’ll go ask if you can have that for free. It shouldn’t be a problem though.” Well, it WAS a problem. Because it wasn’t the same brand as before, I had to pay for it (and I had already paid for everything so I had to scan it and do another transaction – ARGH).

I should have thrown a huge stink about it, but I had just come home from working out, and I was hot, sweaty, and really stinky. I just thought that I could run in to the Family Fare, get what I needed, and be on my way. Um, not so…

I will no longer be shopping at Family Fare. It does not matter if it is just for a couple of things. Sure, they’ll give the meat to you for free, but only if it is the same kind that you found to be expired! The problem being, what if there are ONLY expired packages on the shelves? My original intent was to help out the business because I don’t want people to lose their jobs if it has to close. But, I can’t shop in a store that I know sells bad meat! I really did want to help them, but I won’t be helping them again!

It’s so great that the weather has finally gotten warmer! With that said, I’ve been enjoying time both inside and outside this summer. I spent one afternoon this week reading The Bridges of Madison County – good book. I was able to enjoy the book while sitting on our deck and catching some sun. I’m also addicted to this game on my Ipod Touch called “Word Warp.”  It’s one word game that I can play for hours, trying to beat my previous score (my high score is over 9000 pts – hopefully I can break 10,000 before too long).

The first few days of break were spent “reorganizing” our flowerbeds. We took out all of the stones and replaced them with wood chips. I’m pretty sure that Rob already wrote about that. We have one more bed to go – which I’m sure we’ll get to in the next couple of weeks. I’m now in search of some pretty flowers to plant in our flowerbeds, as we ripped out some of the more “boring” shrubs in order to make room for prettier (in my opinion) flowers. Any suggestions? So far, I’m thinking of Hydrangea and Rose Bush. But I’m certainly up for other ideas! I’m also playing in a women’s over 30 (yes, I’m now dating myself) soccer league. This is my second summer playing, although I’m with a different team this summer (and I’m sure it will be more fun too). I’d never considered myself a soccer fan before – always a softballer, so to speak. But, I thought I’d give it a try last summer and found out that I really enjoy it.

So, as Rob is having fun playing with his websites and editing wedding videos, I’ve also been able to find lots to keep myself occupied with this summer. Oh, how could I forget about our awesome basketball court! It’s been fun to go outside and shoot, or even play Rob in a game of PIG/HORSE/Around the World. I always enjoyed shooting hoop when I was a youngster. It was a stress reliever then, and it is for sure one now too!

Okay, that was a pretty silly title, but hey, you can’t expect brilliance every time I post.

I haven’t been blogging much lately, because I’ve been busy working on updating the ol’ RPS Films web site. Boring, eh? Well not for me! In the past week, I’ve figured out how to effectively work flash videos into my web site and provide them in high definition. Very cool.

I’ve even decided to put Twitter to use to help keep my clients posted on how I’m progressing on their DVDs. Sarah has a new Twitter account as well (that copycat!), so she has been helping me figure out some other features, since she’s definitely the more talented “social networker.”

So what’s on tap? Well, the Summer Series has kicked off with my buddy Scott (mental note: gotta update THAT web site). He took the first series, 4 games to 2. Revenge will be mine in our second series! Muwahahahahaaa!

Other than that, well, we’re getting excited for our trip in mid-July. More on that later. Oh, and we’ll be posting some Chicago footage this week. Stay tuned!

Well, the rain stopped long enough after a wet day of shopping for us to take the “L” up to visit my Uncle Mike and Aunt Chrissy. We had a great Thai dinner, and Mike drove us down to the beach to get a great view of the beach and Chicago skyline. What fun (we’ll overlook the fact that I accidentally jumped into a deep puddle, soaking my tennis shoes and my jeans up to my knees)! We hope to come back later this summer to hang out with them some more (hopefully, we can also hook up with my old buddy JMH!).

Tomorrow, we’ll finish off our trip by completing the loop of musems by checking out some “science and industry” (if you know what I mean) on the way home. Figures that tomorrow is going to be the warmest day of the week.

We’ll post some video of our trip when we get home. Later, y’all! Ooo…that didn’t sound very “big-city’ish.”

I just thought I’d check in before we leave to Chicago for a couple days.

We’ll be bringing along our new Kodak Zi6 HD pocket video camera (thanks for the advice, Jason!). We’ll see how easy it is to post a little HD video of our adventures on our blog once we return. By the way, I think I’ll stick with Vimeo for posting videos online. Too many jerks on YouTube.

The Orlando Magic won a game! I’m still picking LA in five, but I’d love to be proven wrong!

I washed my car for the first time in our driveway tonight. More and more, this place is starting to feel like home. Please don’t bother ranting about how my car wash is contaminating our water supply.

The Grand Rapids Symphony responded in a letter to my earlier blog post, basically apologizing for the way I was recently treated by one of its telemarketers. Very classy. All hail the power of the written word!

Has our blog been loading slow? I guess there is a WordPress update coming out this week that will hopefully speed things up a bit. Of course, I won’t be able to get to that until this weekend.

Sarah just pointed out that it’s really late. I need to get to bed! See you in Chicago!