When do we start following?

We're almost into June and Chipper Jones is hitting a cool .420 on the season. I'm just wondering when everyone (besides me and other Braves fans) is going to start flocking to each stadium that Chipper is playing in to witness potential history.

Sure this may be a bit premature to start talking about being the first person in 70 years to hit two times above the Medoza line, but we're a good portion into the season and his average continues to rise. He's 44% of the way to having the minimum number of PAs for a batting title and the Braves are 33% of the way through their schedule.

Having a player hit .400 for a season would be the greatest thing to happen to baseball since the home run story of '98 and that was the greatest story since April 8th of 1974. Hitting .400 with two people chasing the triple crown might bring light to a sport that steroids have cast a shadow over.

What makes this story even better is that he's hitting .400+ from both sides of the plate and many say he's past his prime (won the NL MVP in 1999) and injury prone. Maybe no one is talking it up because it's like telling a pitcher that he's throwing a no hitter, but I'm here talking, even after last year when I posted this and the Braves lost 3 of the next 4 and began their downward spiral for the season.

Simply ridiculous

So You Think You Can Dance started last night and it comes to that point in the year where I lose Christi to the TV every Thursday night. Don't get me wrong, I like watching the show as well, but my enjoyment is more for the amazing dancers that won't win it all. Last year it was Brian Gaynor and this year it's Robert Muraine:



For those wondering, here's the sick beat to accompany the song.

Our first home

Six months later I finally got around to posting a few pictures of our house. If you'd like the full tour, give Christi or I a call and you can come on over.

A little experiment

Most people know that I'm not too fond of Facebook. It's obviously a good site, but I can't understand why people spend hours and hours (a day) checking up on people that they're not really friends with. Last year I had a bunch of people wishing me well on my birthday and I'm sure some meant it and was sure that even fewer actually remembered without a site telling them.

Hence my experiment.

This year I removed my birthday from the public view to see how it would differ and thanks to Google, I even set the blog post on my birthday to be displayed at 11:59 pm so no one would see it until the next day.

Outside of my immediate family I received one text, one email and one Facebook message while two others meant well but were shopping for housing supplies all day. Ben even added a comment saying that since it wasn't on Facebook, he didn't remember. Is this what life is coming to? Outside of my family, I know at least 10 people's birthdays and I let them know through a call, in person or a simple email every year. It's the same thing as how people don't memorize other people's phone numbers because they are conveniently stored in our cell phones. So what happens if the internet crashes and we lose our cell phone? Do we just render ourselves obsolete?

Don't get me wrong. I'm not someone who wants everyone to call me up. Lately it's just been the opposite. I like to keep the day low key and will never tell anyone unless they ask. I just find it very interesting that online sites like Facebook have completely taken over my generation and that's the only reason people said something a year ago.

My Sweet Sixteen?

Before we get into everything, let's start at the beginning. I married into even more May birthdays as Christi's grandpa's is on the 12^th, her mom's is on the 13^th and mine is on the 14^th. Last night, for her mom's birthday (Donna, we won't say how old!), we went over to Dale's house to cook some burgers and celebrate. During the gift giving process Dale proceeds to give her an old note that she wrote for him a year or two ago. So he held onto it and framed it as a nice gift. Here's where our story begins.

On our drive home I brought up the note and asked Christi if she remembered something like that. Back in our senior year of high school, I remember pulling into our driveway talking to Christi on the phone, and I had to hang up for just a second while I went inside. So I said, "can you wait for me?" To which I received the best answer in the world, "I've waited my whole life for you, why wouldn't I wait 15 more minutes?" With our story, and how perfect the answer was, I wrote it down and tucked it away in my wallet.

Now we fast forward to our senior year of college, and I say the exact same thing, and she fires back with the exact same answer. This triggers something in my head and I whip out the note and she was extremely impressed. It's just one of those things that you do when you're starting a relationship.

Alright, we should be caught up to tonight now. I get home and she has a bag on the island waiting for me, even after we agreed on some new (used) golf clubs as my gift this year. As I tear through and find MLB '08 and more Guitar Hero games (yes, I have the greatest wife ever) I open my card and it couldn't have been more perfect. It's times like these when you know that you're meant to be with the person you're with.

So this makes for a great story and blog post, but the night gets even better. She left work a little early to come home and bake me a cake. I caught her as the cake was rising and watched her put it together and top off the icing. Yes, we're getting the part about the title of the blog (you might have to scroll up if you forgot what it was).

She gets done and starts putting in the twenty four candles and we agree that we should write out the number 24 as we're sticking them in the cake. After she's done with the creation, we head off to the bedroom to get ready to go to Kobe's. No more than five minutes later, we come back out to put the dog away and lock up the house. But we have a problem.

Stanley decided to throw his paws up on the stove and devour half of the cake. Candles and all. After we got done throwing him outside, to obviously get rid of what he just ate, we went back in to see the destruction. He ate eight candles. Eight wax candles. Leaving me with only sixteen and leaving his stomach with something that's not going to look good on our living room floor tomorrow morning.

Shocked as we were, since he has never had human food his entire life, we can smile about it now and will have a great story to tell later on. Then the night gets even better as we finally lock the dog up and head to Kobe's. We're sandwiched between two sets of three people at our table. There's a divorced couple to our right, with their daughter, and an elderly couple to our left with their 90 year old uncle. How did we know, it was his birthday too.

After seeing four separate birthday celebrations going on in the first five minutes, I looked and Christi and told her in no way was she going to tell them that it was my birthday. She agrees and after we order, we grab a couple of drinks and get carded like we did back in the good ol' days. Not thinking about it, I nonchalantly hand over my license and the waitress says, "It's your birthday today?"

Long story short, me and the 90 year old war vet, who was doing Saki shots and speaking Japanese throughout the night, have a Polaroid of a night that we, or at least I, will never forget. Thanks for a great 24^th baby!

Cheers.

Our thumbs are turning green

The ratio of increasing temperatures to increasing yard work is certainly the case at the Helge household. We ripped up all of our old bushes and planted some new ones that Donna and Dale bought us for our anniversary. The rain-soaked weekend actually proved to be key factor for helping us out.

After removing the three bushes on the east side of our house, I went to remove the thorn bush on the west side ... or so I thought. After I pulled it out, I noticed a round metal tag in the ground saying that it was a rose bush. Nothing like tearing up a nice rose bush that the previous owners had left for us. Never the less, our Husker red and white bushes will look great in its spot (once fully bloomed).

Feeling accomplished by our work, we decided to tear up more of the yard and plant a garden. We are now growing strawberries, tomatoes, jalepeno peppers, cilantro, rosemary and garlic. We'll have to cook out and invite everyone over in 2-3 months when everything is ready to use.

Please note the fence we had to put up to keep Stanley out:

A new list of places to drink

I've never been big into magazines, but when my dad gave me an Esquire subscription a few years back, I absolutely fell in love with it. Everything from how it's written to the modern look and feel to the 10 things I should know about women every month gives it an easy read and makes you feel that you can apply whatever you read into any situation until the next issue comes out.

Over the past three years I've became obsessed (just ask Christi) about the Best Bars in America guide that they put out. It may sound strange, but just because I trust their magazine so much, I trust their bar guide anytime I visit a new city. Although the 2008 list doesn't have any areas close to me, I still have plenty other places to go to from the previous two years.

The Clique

Ben VanKat
Troy Bell
Chris VanKat

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