So I arrived back into the rainy, hot, and humid Ohio weather and got to work at 1:20pm on my first day back. When I got to work, I found that the power was out, so we got sent home at 2pm. Quite a productive day, I must say. On Wednesday of that week, I met up with my Mom, Denise, and the kiddies for a nice Chinese dinner at the Golden Dragon, and then on Thursday, I got my oil and car battery changed. By Friday, I was ready for a quiet weekend which began with a viewing of Vertigo to check out all of those film locations I had just visited the week before.

I hadn’t had a free weekend since May 15 (after nine weekends of activity) and I would haven’t another one until July 24, so the temptation to stay home and do nothing was strong. Then I decided that I can rest when I die. Or when I’m old. Or simply when I run out of things to do.

Mom & Bob and Denise & Aaron and the kids had went up to Indian Lake for the weekend for one of those great getaways to my Uncle Tom & Aunt Diana’s cabin, so I decided to head up there as well. I did take my own sweet time getting there though. But it wasn’t due to laziness, it was due to having to work from 8am-noon, and then go home and cut the grass. Ashleigh arrived home that day as well after her trip, so I saw her for the fist time in two weeks. Besides the normal mischief, she had also decided to attend Ohio State in the fall and had set those wheels in motion.

I headed out about 4:30 that afternoon for the lake and got there just in time for the cookout of hotdogs, hamburgers, and other traditional cookout eats – including some baked beans apparently laced withpepper spray. Two of Aaron’s friends from the area – named Keith and Carol – were there enjoying the lake, the food, and the beer as well. They got a speeding ticket on the way home. Whoops.

Diana shows off the toxic baked beans that made her eyes water when she opened up the can

Carol, Keith, Denise, Aaron, and I enjoy the foods and beers

Synchronized burger munching on this episode of The Bob and Tom Show

Denise seems skeptical of Mom’s eating practices

Megan is ready to make use of these bubbles

Megan decides how to best tackle this watermelon

Mom illustrates the best way…under the watchful eye of Denise

Megan kisses the neighborhood fake dog

We played some of the traditional games like cornhole and ladderball. Diana and I were victorious in cornhole over Mom and Denise. Mom destroyed me in ladderball. She also beat Diana although it was a closer match. It was only after some good-natured, intense arguing over the rules that she came out on top. All the while, Megan looked adorable in her lifejacket, throwing pebbles from a Styrofoam cup into the lake

Mom puts the oomph in cornhole

Megan is eager to join our team

Megan observes how best to intimidate a ladderball opponent

The best way to handle ladderball defeat

There is nothing Megan would rather do than toss a cupful of pebbles into the lake

Adam shows us how to use the bubble gun

Megan joins the legion of kids who have hung out in this boat at the dock

We had a nice comforting bonfire over which I roasted s’mores and enjoyed the beautiful heat lightening over the lake. The rest of the crew played a card game called ‘Oh Hell’, but I just relaxed on the sofa where I would sleep, listening to the iPod and reading through some old Entertainment Weekly magazines. So even though I was out doing something, I was being quite lazy.

The sun goes down on Indian Lake

Mom and Bob snuggle by the bonfire

On my way to creating a s’more

Aaron, Mom, Bob, Denise, and Diana play the family card game “Oh Hell”

Adam finds his own amusement playing with jugs – a kid after my own heart

On Sunday morning the 27th, I awoke to the sounds of the children and the smell of eggs, sausage, and bacon coming from the kitchen. We had a great breakfast over a game of Farkle, which Diana won. We were no sooner done withbreakfast that Tom was frying up a batch of crappie and blue gill (in addition to some mac and cheese) for lunch. He prepared bothbaked and deep fried. As much as I liked both, I preferred the baked, probably due to his excellent knowledge of seasoning. It was a great lunch, but that didn’t seem to make any difference to Adam who threw up all over the living room. I watched the clean-up detail whilst listening to my iPod.

Megan is ready for a new day of wetness

Megan stays in the shallow end

Megan requests a listen to some Blue October

Tom deep fries some crappie. I just like typing that.

Denise and me loving the fishies

Adam displays the ultimate Cheeto hand

It was risky to go out on the lake under the grey skies, but Tom, Bob, and I did it anyway. We paid for it though, as not long after getting out there it began to sprinkle and then, as we headed home, pour down on us. It didn’t take too terribly long to dry off, before heading out at about 3:30 that afternoon.

Tom and me on the open lake, not long before the rain began

Bob indicates the location of ‘Bob’s Island’, where once he had to make an unscheduled pit stop

Since I had been heading home from California on Father’s Day the weekend before, I went straight to O’Charley’s to treat my Dad to lunch. Vicki joined us as well and I had a great chicken panini.

Belated Father’s Day dinner with Dad and Vicki

I had put a raincheck on the resting that weekend, so did plenty of it the following week…along with the packing and preparations for my next trip, which would begin on Friday, July 2.

2010 will continue…

My family had begun the tradition a few years ago of holding our Memorial Day picnic on Sunday, the day before the holiday. That way everyone could spend a relaxing day on Monday (or travel back home) before returning to work on Tuesday. It was the typical come-at-4, eat-at-5 deal. We didn’t arrive until just around 5 after our six-hour road trip.

It was the traditional family fare of outrageously good food, swift and punishing games of cornhole, and phenomenal company. Obviously I felt the need to eat like there was no tomorrow, enjoying many delightful delicacies such as  hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken, buffalo dip, oriental salad, baked beans, potatoes, meatballs, chips, dips, spreads, poppyseed cake, and soda. Mom brought along some extra food on our behalf since we had been traveling all day.

In attendance at the event were: Grandpa Murphy, Diana & Tom, Debby & Mike with Bradley and Tori, Mom & Bob, Denise & Aaron with Adam and Megan, Me  & Erin with Nate and Chloe, Bev & Ed, Karen & Joe with Andrew, Abby, and Allie, Jim & Jan, Jan’s Mom Lois, Jan’s sister Debbie and her son James, Ben, Eric, Darlene & Bob, and Zac. Not necessarily the best turnout in sheer number, but naturally we made up for it in quality.

The Claudish table: Tom, Bradley, Mike, Debby, Diana, Tori. Denise and I particularly enjoyed Debby’s comment to Mike while they were playing cornhole: “Hey Mike, we’re black.”

Darlene and Bev and the goodness of family food

Bob and Mom on their way to clunking heads

Lois, Debbie, and Grandpa. Ed may or may not be asleep in the background

We needed a shot of the gals in the sundresses quickly. Chloe was in dire need to get out of her and into shorts once everyone had seen her ‘looking darling’.

Reading a condensed version of War and Peace to Megsy

Erin enjoys Adam’s Cup Karaoke

Karen is full and needs a place to collapse. Ed’s shoulder will do.

Denise and Megan. Pals ’til the end.

I introduced Erin and her kids to the joys of cornhole and Nate and I were able to defeat Erin and Denise in the first game. Quitting while I was ahead, I just enjoyed watching the kids keep on playing. Nate and Chloe were great with all of the kids in the family, enjoying playing wiffle ball and just rolling around in the yard. In fact, when Erin and I decided to run back to my house to drop off her car and our luggage at around 8:00, Nate and Chloe were comfortable enough to stay on and then ride on to my Mom’s house, where we would meet up with them at about 10.

On my way to Cornhole victory. Denise has a decided handicap.

Chloe tries her skill against her brother

Nate and I let life and cornhole pass us by for a while

Nate and Mom steal the bat and ball from Andrew and Adam

Me and Denise, those of the sick minds club

Back at Mom’s, we all gathered around the bonfire and cooked up some s’mores. Chloe and I even were able to force down an additional hot dog. Denise and her family were there as well and we all crowded into the house to spend the night.

Chloe takes delight in burning all of Bob’s ‘questionable’ documents

Denise will tell you that this get-up was designed to ward off biting insects. I’m not so sure.

Aaron provides a backrest for a quickly fading Adam

Erin and I show why we do in fact believe in Memorial Day bonfire goblins

On Monday, Memorial Day itself, we had originally planned on going to The Beach waterpark. However, the weather looked sketchy enough that we decided to spend a lazy morning around Mom’s house. Mom made a great egg casserole, bacon, and sausages. It felt nice to be lazy after our busy weekend of Dollywood, sushi, and driving.

Chloe and Erin relax…on me

That afternoon, we all went to Marion’s Piazza for lunch. Nate and I split an all-meat pizza while the gals stuck with solid cheese. I did okay when Nate challenged me to air hockey, appearing to win by my two-out-of-three victories. But in all honesty, the table failed to calculate one of Nate’s goals during the first game, which would have given him the victory and the 2-to-1 game leverage. Such is life.

Megan desperately tries to get a piece of oregano out from between her teeth

Erin compares the Marions to her hometown favorite Famulari’s in Summerville

On my way to air hockey defeat

We went back to my place after lunch and the kids got their introduction to Laurel and Hardy with a screening of Helpmates. Erin introduced me to Northern Exposure, and then we watched The Twilight Zone: The Movie. Chloe opted out of our viewing entertainment after L&H, and went upstairs to watch The Simpsons.

Back at home, we discover Chloe’s doppelgänger

For dinner we all went out to Skyline, where I made Nate the challenge of spraying hot sauce into his mouth for three seconds for $5. He did it…but it made for an interesting trip to Kroger afterward. As we gathered up snacks and such for the week, he spent the time longing to get home to use the restroom. He recovered enough to be able to eat popcorn that night along with the rest of us during the evening screening of the Memorial Day classic The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.

Skyline time! We made sure that we hit all of the ‘local delicacies’

Nathaniel does not back down from a challenge

We’d have more than a week ahead of us to enjoy the wonders of fabulous Ohio and my DVD collection.

2010 will continue…

And can you guess what else needed completed around mid-April? Yep, that’s right, Ashleigh and I finally took down the Christmas tree on April 14. (Yeah, shut up). And of course, we had to get our taxes completed and submitted by the 15th – the same day as the Sean Hannity book-signing fiasco at the U.C. Campus. We were there with work ready to sell his books; he didn’t show up. So with all of these chores and responsibilities, I figured that it would be a good time to take off for the weekend and go to the zoo.

But honestly, it wasn’t the zoo itself that drew me in, it was the prospect of spending time there with my nephew and niece Adam and Megan. Mom, with Grandpa in tow,  took a little longer than expected to get over to my house Friday night, April 16, 2010, so we had a bit of a late start after stopping at the Burger King by my house. It was getting close to the kids’ bedtime when we arrived Denise and Aaron’s house in Westerville.

There had been a new addition to the Ockerman family: the Wii game. Adam had already mastered the system and had helped create ‘characters’ for the members of our family. We played baseball and bowling. I fared ok, but certainly wasn’t performing up to Adam’s standards. I slept in the basement that night, having been the bowling loser.

Adam exercises his Wii chops

A haunting self-portrait of Megan and me. Unfortunately I wasn’t using a 3D camera

I got up extra early on Saturday morning in order to go meet my old camp friend Eric Hubble at Bob Evans that morning at 6:30am. It had been since January 2008 since we had met up. It’s hard to believe it had been over two years, but as always, the conversation just flowed like no time had passed. I felt myself wanting more time to chat about the incredible number of topics that keep me in stitches over my pot roast hash.

Old Woodland Altars camp buddies Eric Hubble and me

I went back to Denise’s place and waited for everyone to eat breakfast and get ready. We made it to the Columbus Zoo, which many consider to be the best zoo in America - if not second to San Diego - not long before 10am and began our odyssey of animal voyeurism. I won’t try and describe all of the animals that we saw. You’ve all been to the zoo, I’m assuming. So I’ll just let the pictures do the talking and throw in a few picture captions to spice things up a bit.

It was so chilly on this morning that I had to borrow Mom’s sweater again and buy some hot chocolate. Denise had season passes and was able to get us in free.

Megan is bundled up and looking cute

Adam confronts some sort of sea otter

Megan takes her turn in the petting zoo. Mom inexplicably wears a blanket.

Adam confronts a web-footed lion

Shoving Grandpa Murphy

Megan referred to the tigers as TIGEEES. This one with Adam on its back, however, wasn’t real.

Something seems fishy to Adam

Make way for the Lemon Parade…

Rule #34: Never turn your back on a kangaroo

Adam and Megan strike a rare cooperative, smiling pose in the food court. I had fries from Charley’s Steakery.

Fourth most entertaining moment of the day: before he could take his first bite of his hot dog, this kid dropped it on the floor, bun and all. But that’s not the funny part. That came when a worker walked by about three seconds later and simply swept it into a dustpan and walked away.

This large-mouthed gorilla at one point threw his entire body into a fiberglass wall that separated him from the zoo patrons. There was a worker near the glass so I don’t know if he was just fooling around or he truly wanted to eat her head

Either Pongi or Cassie and me. I have trouble telling gorillas apart.

Adam and the REELA. That’s Megan-speak as if you hadn’t guessed.

Barbara Mandrill

I know you will be surprised to learn that this black man and these gorillas are not real

Adam’s absolute favorite part of his Columbus Zoo experience

We left the zoo around 2:00 that afternoon. My sincere apologies to all of the tigers, penguins, alligators, manatees, elephants, and dragons who did not get pictured in this posting. But I would have to say that the third most entertaining thing that I saw this day didn’t involve any of the zoo animals. It involved two birds who were wrestling around just off of the walking path. Whether these birds were fighting or having sex, I have no clue, but they did it for a full five minutes, with people watching from close by. Then they just flew off. Most interesting animal activity I’ve seen live – EVER.

We went back to Denise’s that afternoon and hung out at the house. I did quite a bit of Facebook-messing and playing a bit of Wii. Everyone else just played the Wii. Grandpa joined the ranks of the rest of the pro bowlers in the house. He did however have some major issues getting the golf swing down – as the video below will prove. Second most entertaining moment of the day. Still, it’s great to see an 86 year old man embracing the new technology.

Megan ignores me and yaks away on the phone

At about 6:30 we all headed out to find the nearest and most convenient Chinese restaurant. Notice I didn’t say ‘good’. We ended up at the Wok Buffet (a most original name if there ever was one), which had to be one of the worst Chinese restaurants I’ve ever frequented. Still, it was yummy in a disgusting way. The ice cream dessert had to be scooped out of a freezer with a spoon. Even the always-beloved crab rangoons were mealy. And I’m certain that some of the chicken was actually made from a bean bag chair. We left at about 7:30, bellies full. It would soon be time to pass the favor on to our toilets. But I’ll have to say that the Number One most entertaining moment of the day was when Adam sneezed at dinner and blew a huge wad of snot simultaneously out of each nostril.

Even bad Chinese food is too tempting for Mom

I always suspected that Elmo was a lo mein buff

Thank you Mommy for the MSG!! Grandpa simply doesn’t care.

It was a great day, but it was time to get home to begin the next round of the insanely tight and busy schedule: doing the laundry, cutting the grass, packing, and preparing for another weeklong trip, followed by another week of adventures back home. Don’t let me fool you; I LOVE vacation season!

2010 will continue…

Denise enters the terrible twos

Denise’s array of loot. Boogie Shoes was front and center

We were actually quite busy around move-in, with not only Denise’s birthday, but a couple of other activities as well. Dad took me to a coin show at the Grange on sunday, April 16. My cousin Debby’s fifth birthday was on April 21st, and we held a party for her on that Friday.  Dad also began preliminary work on building another two-car garage in our backyard, holding a meeting with American Garage on April 26. My cousin Lori, who was seven years old at the time, had her First Communion on May 7. I began an early Summer t-ball league on May 30, with my practices being held at 6:30pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays at Shaw Elementary. My first game was on Tuesday, June 13. I sucked.

The only other event that my parents even bothered to photograph was a visit from my Dad’s childhood friend Mike List along with his wife Mary and baby. I remember this evening of adult conversation, and I was always pleased when we had company of any kind.

The Mike List family sits on our couch

Overall, I had settled nicely into my new digs – enjoying my bright room with the multi-colored swatches of carpet, collecting Sesame Street records, going to see Superman at the movies (and in my head, inventing the concept of DVDs – or more accurately Laserdiscs – as large record albums that could be slid into a machine that would allow you to watch movies on television), exploring the woods, and playing with my new neighborhood friends Kenny Carroll and Chris Demeter, who I met for the first time on one of our bus rides home.

Here are a couple of discolored photos taken of our early days in the new house:

Mom and Denise

Me and Mom hanging out on the couch, perusing some book

As far as school goes, I continued at Fairbrook Elementary, but now as a bus rider. Since we had now moved out of the ‘walking range’ from Fairbrook elementary, I rode the bus for the first time to school. Our bus stop was just up the road at the Mulhern residence where Greg and Barry Mulhern, Kelly and Barry Nye, and Kenny Carroll all waited and picked on me a bit. Whereas I used to walk directly down Echo Hill to St. Andrew’s (where my kindergarten class took place), now the bus would stop at the school and I’d have to head through a tiny woods area, over a walking bridge, and into St. Andrew’s.

Apparently I didn’t do so well on the bus, as I recall that once when fellow kindergarten classmate Pat Leadingham was bickering with me from the seat behind, I turned around and slammed my bookbag over his head. Unfortunately, I brought along a metal spoon every day to eat my pudding cup for snack, and this bad boy broke the skin across his cranium. I was reprimanded by the driver. The folks weren’t very happy.

My last day of Kindergarten was on Monday, June 19. What follows is the report card that I received that year. Apparently my penchant for talking and giggling was already getting me in trouble. And I also needed work on my letter E’s. This was Mr. Mercer’s last year at Fairbrook Elementary. Fortunately, I had never met him before he retired.

As Kindergarten came to a close in early June, I was ready to plunge headlong into my first summer here in the Country Acres 9 neighborhood.

1978 will continue…

I kicked off the month by taking Heidi out for her birthday to the movies on Monday, March 1,  to see Martin Scorsese’s latest flick Shutter Island, a very atmospheric and enjoyable thriller.  Her actual birthday would come on March 3. After the film, we stopped by the pub so that I could grab a delicious Strongbow Cider and naturally I asked the gal behind the bar to snap a photo of us to commemorate the occasion. The first one came out fine apparently, but she wanted to take another one – at which point she fumbled my camera, and then dropped it into a sinkful of water.

Troubles at the Cinema

Although biting my tongue, I forgave the clumsy mistake…and the bartender comped our drinks. The thing that really ticked me off was that the perpetrator wouldn’t allow me to take a picture (with Heidi’s camera of course) of her with me, sulking over the wet camera. So the original camera that snapped so many photos for this website is no more. However, when purchasing my new Canon PowerShot, my old camera seemingly came back to life when I brought it along to Best Buy to see if the batteries were compatible. Still the zoom didn’t work, so I went ahead with getting the new one.

With Heidi at the Pub…in the last photo taken with the original Canon Powershot. Sniff.

March 2 saw a visit to the dentist and an oil change. Film at 11.

Thursday, March 4, was a fun day, though. I put those tickets that I had purchased to the touring Broadway-quality touring version of Wicked to good use. I picked up my friend Kimberly at the Masonic Temple where she works in Dayton that evening and we headed to the show at the Schuster Performing Arts Center. We arrived a little early for cocktails at the Citilights bar in the venue. I enjoyed a Key Lime Martini and a Louis Martini Red Cabernet. Kimberly had a Little Green Monster (but referred to it appropriately as a Little Green Monkey).

With the Key Lime Martini, our bruschetta snack, and oh yeah…the lovely Kimberly – before the performance of Wicked

The show itself was great. It had all of the spectacle and magic that it did when I had seen it in Hollywood a year and a half earlier – even if it didn’t have David Garrison in the role of the Wizard! The only celebrity-of-sorts in this production was Don Amendolia, also in the role of the Wizard. I actually knew this character actor from his various sitcom roles in such series as Seinfeld, Newhart, and especially Cheers.

Kimberly paid me back that Sunday, March 7, by taking me to see the 3-D version of the new Tim Burton film Alice in Wonderland. I stopped by Cub Foods beforehand to pick up some Twizzlers to smuggle into the Showcase Cinemas in Miamisburg.

It was so nice to be getting out and doing things again, instead of sitting around the house that I continued to so throughout the next week, meeting up with Jamie for a nice lunch at the Macaroni Grill on Monday the 8th, and then out to dinner with Kristy and Sly on Thursday, March 11, at Carrabba’s to celebrate Sly’s 26th birthday. I celebrated with a nice four cheese pizza, and then some cake and wine back at their place. I stopped by the Fresh Fare to bring Jamie some of the cake afterward, and unfortunately have not seen her since. The following Monday was simply not pretty.

But the real adventure began after having my sister Denise come over on Friday, March 12. She spent the night at my place in preparation for our departure to Chicago the next day. Yes, I had finally really broken free from the chains of Dayton, Ohio – leaving town for a road trip for the first time since Sweetest Day the previous year. More details of our great weekend in Chicago can be found here.

The last weekend in March that I might be found in America was Ashleigh’s 20th birthday weekend. I gave Ashleigh the option of choosing what restaurant she would like to go to celebrate the occasion. She picked an interesting one to say the least, and it ended up being a completely new experience for me. It was a fondue joint in Centerville called The Melting Pot.

Christi, Mom & Bob, Joy & Kenny, and Stephen joined Ashleigh and me for the dinner, which lasted no less than three hours. Christi and I paired up to get the Fondue Fusion for a couple. The meal came in four courses, beginning with three cheeses of our choice, then the best Caesar salad I ever had. The main course was various raw meats including lobster tail, sesame crusted teriyaki sirloin, citrus infused pork tenderloin, ahi tuna, garlic chili chicken breast, kiwi lime shrimp, and spring vegetable dumplings.

Mom, Kenny, Joy, and Ashleigh work on the cheese and bread

Christi and I dip. The empty martini glasses had contained the Swedish Fish drink, which was too sweet for me to recommend

The raw meats that we would be consuming

Joy has too many irons in the fire

The most common question heard throughout the evening was “which one is mine?”

Mom stumbles onto some meat that was not hers

It absolutely amazed me that when you stuck these raw meat pieces on the fondue fork and dipped them in the boiling sauces, they would completely cook within two minutes. We capped the meal with an incredibly rich array of fondue dessert dips including a Turtle sauce, peanut butter & chocolate, and bananas foster – with the appropriate brownies, crackers, marshmallows, Rice Krispie treats, and strawberries to dip into the sauces. Simply amazing and totally filling.

The gang – now collectively 30 pounds heavier

Ashleigh’s actual birthday was on Sunday the 21st and Briana’s was Monday the 22nd. Briana had come down for the weekend but she had quickly taken off with Ashleigh on Saturday. On Sunday, I offered to take both of the girls out for lunch at Friendly’s – ala the old days – but Ashleigh declined in favor of her stupid boyfriend. So Briana and I dined alone, which was a great time as always. I love that Little B.

With my Little B, enjoying after-meal sundaes at Friendly’s

The next day, I went back to see Alice in Wonderland in 3-D, yet again, this time at the Cinema de Lux at the Greene, and with a different girl. I had promised Heidi that if the movie was in 3-D that I would go see it again with her, and as always, I live up to my word. Heidi’s company is always good so it’s not like I minded.

The rest of that week was a busy and brutal week of getting prepared for my first big trip of the year, one on which I would embark on Friday, March 26. Once again, I would soon be leaving American soil in favor of the wonder and majesty of Europe…and the United Kingdom.

2010 will continue as the trip begins at Disneyland. Yes, you heard me right, Disneyland…

Check out Chicago here…