Saturday was pretty sweet too. Went down to The Jazz Kitchen to see a friend, Sarah Scharbrough play. She did an excellent job! It was such a nice atmosphere and had some great company, it was a really good time! Since I love jazz, I’d have to say that The Jazz Kitchen was my favorite part of the weekend.

On Sunday I got to go to the Indianapolis Indians game, thanks to Amy and her friends from Common Ground. The game itself wasn’t too exciting, the Indians lost. But it was such a beautiful day for baseball and I had a great time. Anyway, hope you enjoy pictures from the weekend!

Lemonade Stand on the iPhone

I’m sure that many of you may not know about this game. But back in the Apple II days, this game was used in a lot of classrooms. I remember spending a lot of time in the computer lab at St. Luke’s playing this game, it was simple, yet also presented challenges. As soon as I found this game on the iTunes Store, I looked for Oregon Trail… Oh Oregon Trail… if that was on the iPhone, I’d be a happy man!

Picture Frames

I was shopping at World Market the other week when I came across these boxed frames. Essentially they have three panes of glass: the front pane, middle pane, and back pane. I was able to come up with some pictures to put in these frames and I’m pretty happy with it.

Christmas is Coming!

Christmas is by far, the best of all the holidays. So please don’t judge me for the fact that I found holiday cookies on sale at Target…

Straight No Chaser makes it into iTunes!

I was pretty excited to log into iTunes and find that in the “Holiday” section, that Straight No Chaser’s album is featured on that page. Woo hoo!

So overall, it hasn’t been a bad weekend. I got the apartment cleaned, went and saw my friend Clayton while he changed the oil in my car, watched Elf with Chad and then watched Kung Fu Panda with some other friends. I’m hoping that I’ll have time to take off towards the end of the week to relax. I have a few things due this week, so it’ll be nice to relax after I’m done writing those papers.

As for next semester, need to decide what I want to do, since the college isn’t offering anything that will really help my degree. I’m considering going to Ivy Tech for the semester to get some classes out of the way. Well, that’s all for now!

As for Sunday? I was supposed to go down to Brown County with some other friends and go hiking, have lunch in Nashville, IN, and go to Oliver Winery. But my stupid allergies acted up and kept me stuck in the apartment all day. So I spent the day cleaning and watching videos on Hulu. In fact, here’s a clip from SNL mocking the Vice Presidential Debate… made me laugh. Tina Fey makes an excellent Sarah Palin.

Well, I guess that’s all for now! Have a semi-busy week ahead, but looking forward to a four-day weekend (for me, the rest of you only get two days… ha ha!).

But I walked into my office the other day and realized that I need to design a creative space to work in! I spent last night checking out bookshelves at IKEA, looking for prints at AllPosters.com, and checking out paint sites to get an idea of cool colors for my office. I was getting kind of bummed because I couldn’t find anything that fit my style.

So with some motivation, I hopped on my bike and rode down to the Carmel International Arts Festival (www.carmelartsfestival.org). I was looking from tent to tent looking for stuff and then I came across Trudy’s booth. I was so excited to see some of her work because to me, it inspires creativity, fun, and the casual look I was going for. Here are the three prints I bought.

I’m thinking I may have to go see her for more prints, but for now, those were the three that I really loved. To see more of her work and to order, you can visit her on the web at www.TruDysigns.com. She has drawings of your favorite college campuses (IU, PU, Notre Dame), places around Indianapolis, and so much more.

Now if I can only figure out what colors to paint my office… sigh… Oh well, my jambalaya is ready to be consumed and it’s a beautiful day, so I’ll worry about my office later.

Many of you already keep up with me, so it’s not hard to figure out what’s going on when I have a lack of posts. Truth is, I’ve been keeping busy! I have some big projects coming up at work, school started last week, and I’ve been trying to get some time for myself squeezed in there.

In my free time I’ve been playing with my new camera, which has been a joy. I really forgot how much I enjoyed photography and how inadequate my old camera was. It was a good “point-and-shoot” camera, but for the more advanced stuff that I like to do, it just didn’t measure up. I have even created a section on here called “Photography by Kiel” which I hope to start working on soon. I took some good pictures at the Indy Air Show this weekend and hoping to post some of those.

This past weekend was filled with joy and sadness. The sad part? I had to get rid of my faithful 1995 Geo Prizm LSi. I’m pretty grateful that it has held up for so long… we even drove through the mountains of Tennessee together. Fortunately the car didn’t break down on me while up in Chicago. The joyful part is that I got a 2004 Chevy Impala LS… which I’m loving! My most favorite thing about it (apart from the stereo sounding good) is that it has cupholders! That’s right… it’s the little things. My old Prizm was supposed to be a “luxury” model (if there is such a thing with the Geo) and it didn’t even have cupholders! The only downside is that my new car doesn’t get as good of gas mileage as the Geo or the other car I was looking at (Honda Civic), but I will survive.

In my personal life I have been doing alright. I have had to learn to say “no” to people and to create some distance so that I can have some time for myself. It has been through that time that I’ve been able to connect closer with God, spend some time searching myself, and I feel so much better. So that can probably explain the lack in blog posts. HOPEFULLY, I will start posting more now that my mind is a little more free. We shall see!

Here are some pictures and a few videos for all of you, enjoy!

12►

As you can see below, I originally just used the closet to store my trash can, paint, and bottled water. But now, voila! With the help of a $25 wire rack from Target, I’m a poster child of efficiency, turning that maintenance closet into some valuable storage space. SWEET.

You can’t really see it, but at the bottom-left of the shelf is a gas line… so I had a really tight squeeze to fit that shelf in… but it worked! Woo hoo! Now I can use my hall closet for other things besides cleaning supplies, bird food, tools, etc.

Before

After

So after putting that shelf together (which wasn’t hard), I can now relax. I’m feeling better, but still a little dizzy (one of my symptoms). I’m looking forward to wrapping up school and enjoying summer!

Here are a few pictures:

Before	After

Before	After

It’s a beautiful day today, so I think I’m going to check out the park next door which has a couple of trails that circle the park and a small pond. I’m excited to take my bike out and check it out. Hope all of you are doing well!

I kid you not, this salesman was like, “here’s a couch that looks like leather, but it’s not.” Honestly… either you like leather or you don’t… and if you like leather, you’d be pretty disappointed to sit down on a couch that looked like leather, but was micro-fiber.

So I went over to Kittle’s Rooms Express and found a glass kitchen table I like with four chairs… which is pretty sweet. I ended up going back to Kittle’s for my couches too since I couldn’t find anything good at the other stores. I ended up spending more than I wanted, but if I pay it off before January, I don’t incur any interest…. sweet.

Milo has been busy getting used to his new surroundings (which will change in a week anyways). I cover him up at night, but in the morning when I get up, I place him by the window and he chirps very happily to greet the day. He does this (much to my brothers’ dislike) for about 5 minutes. I have taught him to perch on my finger and pretty much nothing else. He has gotten brave enough to fly, but ended up running into the refrigerator and also pooping himself in the process… Milo has learned that the refrigerator is not your friend (if you’re a bird anyways).

I’m looking forward to next week, I’ll be working Monday through Wednesday, while taking Thursday and Friday off. I don’t have a ton of stuff and fortunately, Kittle’s is going to deliver my furniture. I thought about bringing the U-Haul by their warehouse to save money, but in the end, I’m too lazy to carry all that furniture upstairs.

Well, that’s all for now. I hope everyone is doing well!

There’s not a whole lot to report on from this past weekend, I got to sleep in and get some work done around the house. In addition to that, my niece celebrated her third birthday on Sunday which is always enjoyable.

I think the biggest thing in my life right now is hope for the future… which is something I haven’t felt in a while. I have begun looking at apartments and I’m very excited about the prospect of having my own place for the first time in my life! Don’t get me wrong, living at my Dad’s house rent-free is pretty sweet… but unfortunately the benefits are no longer there. I have always loved living with my Dad, but having my two brothers there is just getting too much for me. There is just so many details I could go into here, but I’m not going to. Just to say that I think it’s time for me to spread my wings and fly a little bit. And I have to say, I’m looking at apartments in Carmel… so I don’t know if they helps or hurts my credibility to be moving north of 96th Street!

But things are starting to come together for me which I’m really excited about: I’m losing weight, I have most of my credit cards paid off, I’m going to start paying on my college loans (ahead of schedule), I’m saving money, and I’ll hopefully be moving out soon. Woo hoo!

So yeah… things are going alright. This week has a lot in store, I begin my independent studies this week for Eschatology… so I’ll be spending time on Monday nights at working on primarily Eschatology, but tonight I’ll be focusing on preparing my sermon for Wednesday. My favorite study spots? The Central Library, IUPUI Library, Lazy Daze Coffee, McAlister’s Deli, and my corner Starbucks will be my study areas. Because let’s face it, if I sit at home in front of my awesome computer, I’m going to want to play Call of Duty 4 online, which will only put me farther behind.

I hope to have another blog entry or two this week, so stay tuned!

P.S. I’ve been listening to some Mozart and Chopin which I got on Amazon.com MP3 Downloads… it’s some good music.