Random Thoughts Thursday

Surprise!  I bet you all thought there’d be no Random Thoughts today, since I’m out of town.  But I decided rather than skip a week I’d invite a special guest blogger to post some random thoughts of his own.  I’ve invited my not-so-little little brother Rob (see, I called you Rob!) to take my place today.  He’s always been a good friend to me (we kept each other alive during the first few months when our family moved to England) and he keeps me in stitches with his somewhat bizarre sense of humor.  Some day I’ll devote a whole post to him and the films he and his buddies made under the name “Erroneous Entertainment”.  He has his own incredibly random blog at rtbd.wordpress.com, stop on by and visit him.  And enjoy whatever randomness he has to bring you today, while I enjoy the wonderful Magic Kingdom! -Allison

Hi everybody!  This is me, with my wife!:

It's an honor to do Allie's Random Thoughts Thursday, and I'm flattered to be trusted with it.  And when I'm done with it, I'll never be trusted again, insert sinister laughter and ominous music/lighting here.  Just kidding.  Or is he?

My family & anyone who knew me before I was 14 calls me Robbie, everyone else calls me Rob (hence, the "not-so-little-brother Rob (see, I called you Rob!)" comment above.  If you ever don't know which one to use, just say "Hey theerrrre.... buddy," or "Heeeyyy... buckaroo."  Brian Regan.

Let's not kid ourselves, most--if not all--of you are here to read Allie-related content, not mine.  So, I thought I'd post a few of my favorite pictures of Allie's girls here at the beginning.  Here's one taken at Marie Callender's a bunch of years ago.  I love Vicki's smile in this:

Here's Lexi eating crackers on the front lawn of my parents' old house (sorry about my scanner quality):

And I know this one's already on Facebook but it's just awesome enough for me to post here as well:

I was also going to start this out by pretending to be Allison, and typing stuff like "you know who my favorite person is?  My brother Rob!  He's the greatest!" and other funny stuff, but then Allie emailed me the thing to put at the beginning, thus foiling my plan/joke. 

Today is my wife Rebecca's birthday!  Everyone wish her a happy birthday on her blog!  You can do it in the comments for the post linked to this sentence!  I don't care if you don't know us!  Do it!  Yaaay!  DO IT NOW!!  Yaaay!

I'm excited to hear about how things go with Allie, Chris and the kids at Disneyland.  Does anyone remember if they were going to go twice or just once?  Once might be enough, I don't know. 

My favorite ride at Disneyland is Splash Mountain.  I've never been to Disney World.  Or Tokyo Disney. 

Once when I was 13 (while we still lived in England), my family went to EuroDisneyland along with the Bledsoe family.  As soon as we got there I ran up Main Street as fast as I could, way ahead of everyone else.  This resulted in me being lost in EuroDisneyland for over 7 hours.  What a doof!  It wasn't until 5pm that I was found by chance walking around somewhere near Tomorrowland.  I had only gone on five rides (not as fun by yourself, trust me).  It hadn't even occurred to me to find some kind of authority figure; I just assumed I'd find people eventually.  Don't get lost when you go to places, kids. 

I had thought about calling this "Robdom Thoughts Thursday," but then I decided not to.  But then I decided to type it here anyway. 

I work in an office.  My shoes got real dirty from doing this, so I've been wearing flip-flops to work for the past week.  That would probably be a big deal if this was a fancy "hey let's all wear suits" office, but it's more of a business casual, "we're all friends here" office, and I'm on a creative team, so it's not like I'm being rebelious.


Why don't I ever feel like exercising or doing anything productive in general until 10pm or later?  (And doesn't that sound like something Allie would type?  zing!  heh heh)

In a way, it's a lot of pressure to write this post, because I'm hardly familiar with this audience at all!  Mostly a bunch of girls Allie's age, probably with kids.  I don't even have kids yet!

Anyone ever go to icanhascheezburger.com?  Up until a few weeks ago I never, never in my life thought I would find it amusing to look at lolcats.  For crying out loud.  I'm a grown man.  But look at this.  And this.  Or this.  Is this stuff funny in and of itself?  Or is its existence + my looking at it = some kind of ironic funny?

Now for some shameless plugs: my company recently released a video about changing human behavior, based on research.  Specifically, it deals with trying to get kids to remember to wash their hands!  (Flu season, anyone?)  I did about half of the shooting, most of the graphics, and almost all of the editing.  It was a doozy to put together, and now it's done!  You can always find it here, check it out:
http://www.crucialskills.com/2009/09/all-washed-up/

Well thanks everyone, this was fun.  Check us out at our blogs: this is my wife's blog, and this is my blog.  My blog has been described to me as being "weird."  I did not disagree.  Lately I've been trying to make it more accessible, but not so accessible that it loses its sense of wonder, and enchantment.  And also, intrigue. 

I was trying to think of an embarrassing story I could tell about Allie from our childhood, but I can't think of anything right now.  She's a great sister.  If I think of something I'll put it in the comments to this post.  I promise to have something by.... Monday, so check back then. 

_Rob