The Awful Qwest

Just had a terrible experience at the Qwest Fuel in Kearney, Nebraska on the south side of Interstate 80. We pulled in to get gas and the pump was slower than molasses. I should have known something else was going to go wrong. About ten minutes later when our tank was full I released the handle and pulled the nozzle out... and gas kept flowing. I wasn't sure what to do so I juggled the damn thing while trying to catch all the gas that was pouring out. Like I was trying to contain a bottle of ranch that was leaking or something. Dumbass. I finally had enough sense to look for a shutoff button. Not seeing one, I asked Wanda to signal the workers in the building and they finally shut the pump down.

Now my hands reek of gasoline. At least nothing exploded. Lesson? Stay away from Qwest Fuel in Kearney, Nebraska.

Kearney Rest Area

Kearney, Nebraska westbound rest area.

Super 8 and the Holiday Weekend

Just got back from watching Super 8. I really liked it. It was a collaboration between JJ Abrams and Steven Spielberg so I knew it was going to be something pretty great. In some ways it felt like Close Encounters, which was fine with me. The setting, the music, and a lot of the mystery and terror-tinged suspense.

I appreciated that care was taken to show the story from the perspective of the group of middle-school friends. It's a pleasant dive back into the innocence and adventure of childhood and the interplay between friends, and also the relationships with parents. A good film that I'd recommend to anyone.

We're heading out to my aunt and uncle's place at Johnson Lake tomorrow to celebrate the holiday weekend. Looking forward to a good time with family and some quality water time. As Wanda would say regarding herself and her family, "We're not water folk." I always joke with her whenever she says that, that her family is not like the water folk in The Lord of the Rings. From page 51 of The Fellowship of the Ring: The Shadow of the Past: "[T]here lived by the banks of the Great River on the edge of Wilderland a clever-handed and quiet-footed little people. I guess they were of hobbit-kind; akin to the fathers of the fathers of the Stoors, for they loved the River, and often swam in it, or made little boats of reeds."

Wanda also would say that I often ramble and detour into excessive ramblings when I'm trying to make a simple comparison. Much like the one above. She would be quite right about that. Back to the water:

Myself? I've never been huge on boating activities like skiing (tried it once with a jet ski trying to pull me. Didn't work), tubing, wake-boarding, etc. I don't mind the occasional tube ride, but I mostly spend it white-knuckling the tube handles and trying not to get thrown off.

When I was much younger I did enjoy going fishing on a boat and I enjoy a good boat ride. When we would visit my grandparents I loved to go fishing with my grandpa and my cousin. Grandpa and Grandma had a cabin out at Red Willow Lake (some know it as Hugh Butler Lake) and we'd spend a lot of time out there. Sometimes we'd go out in the boat to fish, but mostly we fished off the docks. Good times.

The Big Ten Network is dedicating what seems like all of their programming this weekend to Nebraska since we officially joined the conference on the 1st. So I sat down and watched the 1995 Orange Bowl between Nebraska and the Miami Hurricanes. It was kind of weird watching it now, because I was only ten when it was played. I didn't know that Warren Sapp and Ray Lewis were on that Hurricanes team. I also didn't know that Cris Collinsworth was one of the announcers. And now I do. Good stuff.

I suppose I should be getting ready for bed since we're shoving off relatively early, for me anyway. Adios.

My Dad, a Husker?

As I browsed through some of the Nebraska Cornhusker football rushing records, I discovered that there was a Craig Johnson (which is also my dad's name) who holds the single-game record for yards-per-carry. He ran for 192 yards on 10 carries against Kansas on November 4, 1978 for a 19.2 yard average. I'm pretty sure my dad wasn't a Husker I-back but I still think it's cool. My dad was a basketball player and hails from McCook, Nebraska. The Husker CJ is from Omaha. Perhaps more investigation is warranted, since I wasn't around back then to validate that it wasn't him. Hehe.

My Library

I'm in the process of cataloging my book collection online. This is something I've had an itch to do for a while, and now on this Sunday afternoon, I'm doing it! In doing so, I've come across quite a few books I've had for a long time. Books I remember reading during many a long, boring, lonely summer as an only child growing up in Kearney, Nebraska. Good times, good memories. There's also plenty of books I have that I haven't read yet. And, there's some that elicit a chuckle or two. Like, Smooth Operators. A birthday gift from my early days of knowing Wanda. She sure knew just what to get a guy like me with such little fashion sense.

I'm probably doing more work than I need to be doing, but I'm cataloging both on Facebooks visual bookshelf and Library Thing. Check them out, it's a fun way to spend some time and maybe it will come in handy someday. Maybe, if I forget what books I own. Or something like that.