hello. my name is jim bishop. this is what i look like today:

 

so much to say. i'm glad to be going back to work because all of this "recreational time" has made me quite exhausted. friday started out quite a flop. kyle and i got to the movie theater to find that ALL of the pokemon shows until 2:30 in the afternoon were sold out. that sucked. he looked a little disappointed, so i took him to get a taco. he said he didn't like tacos, and then he ate one anyway. the woman working at the taco shack belted out a beautiful impromptu song about glass bottle cokes that confirmed with kyle that all adults must randomly make up songs all day. (i had been making up songs for days at that point: songs about kyle where i would rhyme his name with everything that it could possibly rhyme with, songs about lee's cat peeing in a bowl, ... you get the picture.) i hung out at garden.com until one thirty or so. kyle and i played with the dogs until i just had to go. i said my tearful goodbyes... :-) the bulk of my weekend was spent in the lovely towns of waxahachie and ennis, tx. my friend, james, as was previously reported, was hanging up his spurs for good and allowing katie the honor of him as her husband. (cough, cough. sputter.) i do believe that james could be the second most blessed man in existence--i being the first. i think katie has just enough patience to put up with james and plenty of spunk to give him that well needed kick in the pants. i took a lot of photos this weekend, so i'm going to explain that before i move on. i put all of the photos in two resolution categories: big (400 x 264) and small (250 x 165). the photo sets are exactly the same except for the speed in which they will download to your computer. so if you're at work or have a big pipe at home (for the internet, stacey, not for the "lettuce.") check out the larger versions!! my trip (big, small) up to waxahachie was very pleasant. as most of you have heard me whine about, i grew up in a relatively small town in south texas. i had forgotten that in rural communities they sometimes broadcast television stations over the radio in case of emergency. about half of my trip up there consisted of me listening to soap operas over the radio. i don't understand why soap operas ever made the jump to the small screen. i found them incredibly more entertaining over the radio. there isn't enough dialogue to adequately explain what is going on, so you get to fill in all the holes yourself. i'm pretty sure i was listening to "passions," but i'm not one hundred percent on that. another portion of my trip consisted of a rousing bout with a christian radio station. i'm flipping the channels after "passions" dissipated into the ether and i land on a christian talk radio station where the subject is "relationships." most of these shows are like a right wing answer to jerry springer. my god. where do they find these people? i'm listening to this guy complaining how his marriage is now in shambles because, well, he got on the internet. then, he was tempted with internet porn, and that obviously led him to hiring prostitutes online. this became a problem when his wife found out about this cyber-hooker fest. .... my blood began to boil. the "therapists" actually helped this guy blame all of that on the internet. give me a break. oh my god. i was livid. i was screaming at the radio in my car. (actually, i listen to lots of talk radio in this vain, so you will often find me screaming at the radio in my car.) ahhhh!!! i've been on the internet since 1994. i've worked on the internet since 1996. i don't know how to hire a hooker online!!! can jesus freaks really not take the blame for being dumb asses? i mean really!! it's never their fault. it's always "satan tempted me" or "rock music" or "drugs." i guess now it's the internet. enough ranting.... anyway, so i check into my hotel with only a minimal confusion with finding the place. hee hee. then it was off to the rehearsal (big, small). the church building was very simple, and i thought it was quite beautiful. the pastor was a might bit frightening, and i thought katie was going to hit him when he said he'd stop the wedding if someone took a picture during the service. afterwards, we went out to the keener's for the rehearsal dinner (big, small). i had so much brisket to eat i thought i was going to pop, and so much to drink i ended up sleeping on the couch. :-) i have a theory that bud light, which i had never drank before this weekend, is nothing more than really cold sweat. you drink it; you sweat. the keener's are just the nicest people i've ever met. weddings are incredibly stressful, and they just opened up their home to anyone and everyone. they treated you like family from the very beginning and made you really feel a part of the wedding celebration. the next day found me, john, lewis, and james in various stages of post-rehearsal dinner fatigue. we had to get it together quickly for there was much to do. after a few hours of frantic scurrying i decided that katie (the bride) would most appreciate me being clean for her wedding. so i headed back to waxahachie to take a shower and a nap. my hotel room was VERY cold, so i fell right to sleep. unbelievably, i showed up at all of the functions on time this weekend. this was actually quite a feat since punctuality doesn't come easily to me. all of the guys got dressed together in the nursery at the church (big, small). since the pastor had warned us so vehemently the day before i didn't even take my camera out until the reception. the wedding was quite beautiful, and so BIG!! there were seven attendants for both the bride and the groom; on top of that, there were four ushers. the wedding party was huge. the one sad note to this whole weekend was that some jackass pulled my darwin fish off my car. i loved that little footed fishy. oh well, i guess i'll suffer through another trek to bookwoman. the reception (big, small) was beautiful. although the town of waxahachie seems to be a hole in the earth, they had an amazing assortment of beautiful, victorian homes. the reception was in one of these. the wedding cake was beautiful. the groom's cake was a hobbit hole prepared by mrs. keener. the reception was a lot of fun. after james and katie made their exit, quite a few people went back to the keeners. i got home around one. i passed out cold. i didn't stir until eleven a.m. sunday morning. i sat and watched movies ("die hard with a vengeance" and something with john stamos that i'm too embarrassed to go look up the name) until almost two. i'm exhausted, last night i went to see "loser" with bryan, but i'll tell you about that tomorrow. :-)

email me to fawn over the pictures of young james keener,
or look at what i looked like last week.