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!

I love my PS3. Today, I got a little gift when browsing the PlayStation Store. I found that Episode 1 of Voltron (the Lion version) was available for download, free of charge! How cool. I vaguely remembered how the series began, so I thought this would be a great way to relive a few childhood memories.

Twenty minutes later (PlayStation store downloads are incredibly slow), I was watching the video. 24 minutes later, I had a headache. The “plot” was all over the place (the Space Explorers escape from capture and then immediately return to their prison?!). The dialogue was incredibly bad (”We’re Space Explorers, and we need space!” Okay.). And, well, some things just seemed weird. I mean, if you and your friends fell into a giant pit of skulls, would you look at your buddy and say, “Stop looking at me!”?

As usual, a visit to Wikipedia and YouTube reveals how incredibly hacked and butchered the original Japanese series was for American audiences. I first learned about the American “editing” process years ago when researching Starblazers, my all-time favorite childhood cartoon. Apparently, American children can’t handle cartoons with mature themes.

So what’s my point? Well, I remember my Mom telling me to turn off Voltron because it was too violent. I protested. I argued. I pitched a royal fit. “They’re robots, Mom! Voltron is just blowing up robots!” Uh huh.

Chalk one up for Mom.

Oh, well. Japanese anime is still cool.

Sorry for the lack of blog posts, but Sarah and I have been quite busy the past few days. Apparently, we’re into red lately, as we’ve done a little landscaping in front of the house with red wood chips. My little sister (Jessica!) got us this awesome gazing ball as a going away gift. It really makes our path up to the house scream “Welcome, friends!”

As for the title of this blog (it would make more sense if you were a fan of the punk group Rancid), well, Sarah and I have also been car shopping. We’ve been in need of something bigger than a Cavalier and a tiny Mazda, so tonight, “Ruby” joined our family. Here she is:

Our new car!

Ruby is a 2009 Toyota RAV4 Sport. The naming thing was entirely Sarah’s idea, but it seems to fit. This is my first NEW car (Sarah’s an old pro at this), so this is a pretty exciting experience for me!

In other news, we’re gearing up for Festival food tomorrow, another wedding to videotape this weekend, and Chicago next Wednesday. We’ll make sure to check in before we take off!

This one’s for you, Melanie! I finished reading Twilight this past weekend. Let’s just say I’m in no hurry to read any of the next books. Bella seems too desperate, and she is a very weak female character. As a high school teacher, I really feel like Bella is perpetuating the “NO ONE could EVER love me and I could NEVER love anyone more” belief that so many young women have today. It seemed to me that the book was about 200 pages too long – wasting pages upon pages of Bella gushing about being so in love. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with a good romance novel, but Twilight must not be my kind of romance novel. I’ll save my time and energy for other books this summer. Am I glad that I read it? Absolutely. It helps me to better relate to my female students (who all love the books – and of course I think it’s great that they are actually reading something other than Internet sites). So, with the Twilight series out, any recommendations for my next book/series?

Gotta love technology! Scott has been sending me pictures throughout the day of our little “home improvement” project. We’re expecting the pole next week, and then it’s game on!