An original tale by Brennan Codlin:

(This was one of Bran’s writing samples we received back from his 3rd grade teacher)

Transcribed in it’s original draft form:

“One afternoon I was watching TV.  And then all the sunden the news came up.  It said-*good afternoon.  At night there is a guy that is raising zombies and skloton warriors.  So if you here any knoking in the middle of the night please call 911 or the millatary.

…In the middle of the night insted of a knoking on the door I heard a slash!  He’s here!! I said.  Then my parents woke up.  I called 911 and I said he is here but it was to late.  I then was a liveing zombie kid.  My parents jumped out the window and said noooooooo!!! at the same time.”

On a completely unrelated topic, I got the World of Warcraft Realm First achievement for Level 85 Death Knight on Azjol-Nerub.

;D

Some friends are harder to save than others.

KCodlin: Stop posting songs on Tumblr. :-/
Molly: why? you don’t like them?
KCodlin: I never listen to them
Molly: you and kristin (and bran) come to church with us, and I will.
KCodlin: Wow, that’s a shot out of nowhere! Heh
Molly: hahaahha. 10:15 on sundays
KCodlin: I’m busy
Molly: we even feed you after! free food!
Molly: why are you afraid of being saved?
KCodlin: That’s when I make last minute fantasy football changes
Molly: hahaha. Sigh. One of these days…
KCodlin: It’s not that I object to the whole being saved thing, but it seems like a lot of effort.
Molly: sigh… what if you were just to give it a try. who knows, you may like it.
KCodlin: But then people try to, like… talk to you and stuff, right?
Molly: hahaha…no…at church you mean?
KCodlin: I’m not really into the whole talking thing.
KCodlin: You know… with people
Molly: people may come up and say hi…introduce themselves….but they won’t try to force you into talking to them.
Molly: you sit there, stand sometimes, sing some songs, listen to some stories, then leave.
KCodlin: Yeah, you see, that all saying hi thing… I dunno
Molly: you are in control of how involved you get. Hahahaha
Molly: ok, fine…I will change the subject…
KCodlin: But then you have to walk out of the, what do you call it… the place with uncushioned benches you sit on for 8 hours at a time…
Molly: but seriously, I will ask again. nope…cushioned chairs. no pews.
KCodlin: You walk out and there they are… people in robes and all smiling at you. Wanting to shake your hand…
Molly: hahahaahah. that is NOT how it is
KCodlin: And the whole koolaid thing? When everyone is all like, “the cops are coming, just drink this!” I dunno…
Molly: hahahaah. you’re funny.
Molly: I don’t go to church at a compound!!! I mean, it IS on EMU’s campus, but…
KCodlin: Compound… church… cathedral… underground bunker… whatever. You say tom-ay-to and I’ll say tom-ah-to.
Molly: sigh. And we serve wine, not koolaid
KCodlin: But it’s really blood, right?
KCodlin: I mean, that’s kind of gross. Really.
Molly: hahaah. symbolic.
KCodlin: Blood and skin? Who came up with this kind of menu anyway?
KCodlin: Symbolic?  I thought that whole spell that you cast is supposed to really transform everything into blood?  You mean that’s all just fake?
Molly: wow…God is really testing me right now, isn’t he?

When Bran was around 5 years old, his favorite things to watch were old Godzilla movies.  You can imagine the things he did our cat, CJ. 

I wanted a share a really nice picture of Kristin and I in our Halloween costumes this year.

Really nice that is until you notice Mr. Clean back there.  :-/

Halloween party was a big success.  Not so much in the way of Halloween oriented games and crap, but a lot of cards and kids running crazy through the house.

There may have been a shot or two of booze as well.  😉

About five weeks ago or more, Kristin and I decided that we were going to host a kids oriented Halloween party this year.  Costumes, kids, and the whole shebang.  While it was plenty of time for everyone to make sure that they had their costumes in order, it wasn’t quite enough time to lay claim to the primary Halloween weekend, so we scheduled it for this Saturday, one week before the holiday.

We started preparing, bought a fresh round of decorations for the year, and sent out the invitations to our friends with kids. (“Invitations” being a clear synonym for “emails”)

Just today, two days before the party, I got this email from one my friends.  It wasn’t even a new email, it was a reply just to me from a thread between a bunch of us discussing when our next poker night would be.  So it’s not like he’d been thinking about for some time, it was just something that crossed his mind as we were emailing around.

From: Mike —— [mailto: m—–@——.com]
Sent: Thursday, October 21, 2010 12:00 PM
To: Kyle Codlin
Subject: Re: Poker

Are kids invited to your party

---

From: Kyle Codlin [mailto: kyle[at]codlin[dot]net]
Sent: Thursday, October 21, 2010 12:01 PM
To: Mike ——–
Subject: Re: Poker

Yes.  It’s a costume party.

Kristin was handling all of this, didn’t you get the memo?

---

From: Mike —— [mailto: m—–@——.com]
Sent: Thursday, October 21, 2010 12:04 PM
To: Kyle Codlin
Subject: Re: Poker

Yes.. Just making sure..

Kristin mentioned a carving table for pumpkins so I assumed kids were allowed.

You wearing a costume?

---

From: Kyle Codlin [mailto: kyle[at]codlin[dot]net]
Sent: Thursday, October 21, 2010 12:12 PM
To: Mike ——–
Subject: Re: Poker

YES!  Everyone should wear a costume to the costume party! 

Kristin, Bran, and I are wearing costumes.  I know R—– mentioned something about their kids’ costumes and N—– and V—— are wearing costumes.  Pretty sure K——, C——, J—–, and R—– are as well.

---

From: Mike —— [mailto: m—–@——.com]
Sent: Thursday, October 21, 2010 12:12 PM
To: Kyle@——.com
Subject: Re: Poker

Maybe I’ll just put peanut butter around my mouth and be an asshole..

Here are the most frequent searches done on the Internet that hit on my blog between July and Sept of this year, complete with mispellings:

King Julien
Michigan Football
Ohio State Football
WoW Cataclysm
Name Tag
Bascic Reading Skills
Star Wars Droids
Football Motivational Posters
Flock of Seagulls Hair
Cataclysm

Nothing terribly exciting except that King Julien is evidently the most interesting thing I’ve ever posted about on this blog.  Also, why are so many people searching for “Name Tag”?  What could anyone possibly want to now about something so generic as a name tag?

Here are some of the more interesting search phrases:

Go Buckeyes (O-H…)
I am extremely (Tired?  Happy?  Flatulent?)
Michigan Demotivational (Michigan is pretty demotivating in and of itself lately)
Star Wars Hangar (Damn Star Wars nerds)
Star Wars Garbage (What the…)
80s Hair Highschool Picture (We all have them.  Don’t lie, you do too!)
Computers with Blue Lights (WEEEEE!)
Integral Radical Lipstick Slide Rule (I’m actually the top search result for this!)
Look Closely (and you’ll see my blog)
Michigan Defeat (There’s got to be billions of results for this this, I’m sure.  Pfffft!)
Utah Symphony Opera (I’m pretty sure I never posted about this)
wwwpornqueen.com (Heh, I love searches that include the www and the .com)
Kyle Pedophile Illinois (Fortunately, I am NOT the #1 result for this)

If you can watch this video three times in a row and NOT have the song stuck in your head for all eternity, please explain to me your Jedi training abilities.  I’m now walking around the office and joining meetings singing, “BABY MONKEY!  BABY MONKEY!”

Lyrics for your enhanced singing pleasure:

“Baby Monkey, Baby Monkey,
Riding on a pig, Baby Monkey.
Baby Monkey, Baby Monkey,
Backwards on a pig, Baby Monkey.”

“The world has gone insane,
And you don’t know what is right.
You got to keep on keeping on;
Get on that pig and hold on tiiiiii-ight!”

“Baby Monkey, Baby Monkey
Riding on a pig, Baby Monkey.
Baby Monkey, Baby Monkey
Going Backwards on a pig, Baby Monkeeeeeeey, HEY!”

Long ago, our forefathers (Michigan forefathers, that is) had a great idea.  They needed to know how they should divvy up all of the state cash that was allocated for public schools.  After much thought and careful consideration, they decided that the fairest and most accurate way to do this was to have one single day, in the middle of each year, where they would simply count the number of students in the classrooms of each school.  The more kids a school had… the more money they would get.

Brilliant, no?

Students offered gift cards, cash for Count Day success

Detroit Public Schools will offer $20,000 in Target gift cards — including five $1,000 prizes — to DPS parents who bring their children for a full day on Count Day.

Breakfast and lunch also will be served to every DPS student at no charge.

How else could we possibly expect our public schools to get the proper amount of state funds if not through pay offs, free offers, and outright bribery?

Apropos of nothing, Detroit native and former mayor of Detroit, Kwame Kilpatrick, “is facing 19 counts of fraud and tax evasion, accused of illegally using the nonprofit Kilpatrick Civic Fund for personal expenses, including crisis consultants, a Cadillac, and summer camp for his kids. The fund was supposed to be used for charitable purposes.” (Kilpatrick’s status conference delayed to January)

How could he possibly have ever believed that he’d get away with these things?

Swooping in at the very last moment, federal judge Susan Boltan blocked portions of Arizona’s controversial immigration law.

The overall law will still take effect Thursday, but without the provisions that angered opponents — including sections that required officers to check a person’s immigration status while enforcing other laws.

The judge also put on hold parts of the law that required immigrants to carry their papers at all times, and made it illegal for undocumented workers to solicit employment in public places.

So what prompted the Feds to step in and pull the stops on Arizona from implementing it’s new law at Midnight, tonight?  According to the federal judge:

“By enforcing this statute, Arizona would impose a ‘distinct, unusual and extraordinary’ burden on legal resident aliens that only the federal government has the authority to impose.”

That’s right, Arizona… only our FEDERAL government can impose “distinct, unusual, and extraordinary” burdens on us!  So just back off!!!

In the middle of an IM conversation we were having about my efforts to finalize the purchase of a new house…

Molly: ick!
Molly: OMG!! I totally just ripped one!
Molly: hahaha
Molly: good thing it waited until Scott was out of my cube!
Molly:
Kyle: I hope your co-workers heard you
Molly: um…yeah, I meant to type that in another window and tell someone other than you…nice…