I couldn't decide what pictures to share today, so I decided to share them all! First, I have some nature-y pictures I've taken the last few days. The squirrel was actually hanging from a limb, but I wasn't able to get that shot! The cooler weather has been nice for nature pics and lying on the porch. Fall can officially begin now that BMS's Spirit Week and ISTEP are both over! Speaking of BMS, Mac has been having a great football season, and I'll post some pics soon. For now, check out the new picture of Abbi on her site. I posted the GIF of her barking on the home page and a new pic on the 2007 Pictures page.

Last month, I entered a Women's Health essay contest entitled "Impossible Is Nothing." Women who had met running goals were encouraged to write an essay telling their stories of triumph. Because I have such a story, I entered the contest in which the winner would receive Adidas merchandise and her essay published in Women's Health. Apparently, I didn't win, because I haven't heard anything about it. However, I want to share my essay with you, so I added it to the Fun Stuff page. Check it out!

Don't freak out; I haven't cut it. However, I'm considering a 'do change. I have an appointment with my hair guru on Tuesday, and I'd like to talk with her about doing something new with my hair at my next appointment. Cut? Color? I don't know. Help me! The pic to the right was taken right before my IU graduation. In it, I'm sporting my natural color and the shortest 'do I'd had since birth, and I liked it. Now, I feel like I want to keep my long locks, but maybe not my blonde locks. I know folks have better things to do than worry about my hair, but I need ideas! Send 'em if you got 'em!

Happy 09-08-07; I made it just in time! Two things to share today: first is a picture from Mum's The Word. Ed and I played there this afternoon and had a great time! Second, I want to show off a new program I'm previewing; it makes

videos into animated GIFs! Here's one of Abbi attacking the Aquabot in Mom and Dad's pool!

I am officially done dealing with hot-hot-hot temperatures and am ready for cool, crisp fall! So ready am I, in fact, that I almost switched JoKai.net to the fall layout today. However, I'm going to force myself to wait until after the autumnal equinox, so enjoy the last few weeks of the beach layout! JoKai.net does have something new, however: the web site for Croonin' for Crohn's #2! Check it out. I'll be adding performers and corporate sponsors as they are recruited. Hope you can make it to C4C#2 on Saturday, February 16, 2008! Also, I want to share a fun picture (right); it made Mom have dreams about five-faced people.

Yesterday was the annual Claude Akins Scramble at Otis Park. We had such a good time! The team I followed included Ed, Dad, Sam, Uncle Bill, and Michael and Jeff Tillett. They were favored to win, but some tough conditions got in their way and/or their head cheerleader couldn't come up with the perfect cheer! In any case, we had a lot of fun during our six-hour round on a beautiful day. Check out the pics to the right. The first shows our team (guess which one of us used to compete in pageants), and the next shows Mom and me after the tournament. Mom helped me a lot when I got stung by a bee on #15. It turns out I might be allergic to bees!

Why am I awake after 11:00 P.M. on a school night? I think it's because I'm anticipating the non-bedtime, more care-free style of the approaching three-day-weekend! I've been doing lots of work on my web sites and lost track of time, as well. First, check out Forever Gold Pics & Clips. I added pics from last weekend's show, Hot Fun in the Summertime! Hot fun, it was! The same pics were also added to the Forever Gold web site. Also, I added some new pics to Abbi's site. She's been a bit stressed lately. Mom and Dad think she's having a little posttraumatic stress from her July adventure, and/or she's been missing me. I'm giving her an old T-shirt of mine to comfort her at night.

It is 104°F outside... nearly unbearable! I have a softball game in an hour, and I'm not looking forward to dealing with the heat. I think I'm ready for snowy weather—fall at the very least! It's supposed to cool down into the 80s this weekend. On Saturday from 6:00-8:00 P.M., come up to D&D 37 One Stop in Judah for the free Forever Gold concert, Hot Fun in the Summertime!

School has begun! Three days down; 177 to go. I'm enjoying my new students a lot, but the daily grind has worn me out a bit. OK, more than a bit. Thank goodness tomorrow is Friday! The weekend brings the BRI dinner and a golf scramble with Ed, Dad, and Sam. I'm playing in this one! Stop laughing! :o)

Ed & I just got back home from Omaha, Nebraska, and American Idol Season 7 auditions. We left Indiana Tuesday night and got in the Idol banding line at 3:30 A.M. We spent the next two days in exciting Omaha, playing putt-putt, playing golf, and enjoying the Old Market. Yesterday, I auditioned for Idol, and didn't make it again. However, I'm very much OK with that! I said before leaving for auditions that whatever happened would be right. I'm perfectly happy loving my family, teaching Math, designing web sites, singing with Forever Gold, running, etc., all right here in Indiana! Anyway, my audition went quite well; I sang "I've Been Everywhere." The judges told me how impressed they were with my vocal and performance ability and my memorization. Then they cut me! Ha! They told me to come back next year; I replied that I was 28 (Idol cut-off age), and the judge said, "Oh, sorry." Isn't that funny? The whole experience was like playing a slot machine; you don't expect to hit the jackpot, have a little hope that you might, are slightly disappointed when you don't, and have moved on by the time you turn around. I still plan to watch and enjoy Idol during Season 7. Until then, check out the Idol Auditions slideshow, also linked on the Fun Stuff page. It's got great pics of all aspects of the auditions, and of exciting Omaha. It was a great way to end summer! Now, on to the new school year!

This has been the Summer of Sportiness for me. Last year, no one would've ever thought that I'd ever do anything remotely sporty! It begins, of course, with running. I've kept up my training, and run a few races this summer. Next, a friend asked me to join the church league softball team. I did it for fun, but it turns out I'm not so bad. My weight training and Ed's help have made me a pretty good hitter! Last, I participated in the Glory Days kickball tournament and had a blast! The picture to the right shows my great team; most of us didn't know each other before we played! (To learn more about my kickball experience and about why I'm wearing a different colored shirt than the others, read my letter to the editor that appeared in the Times-Mail.) So, it's been a great summer! Ed and I are ending our summer with an out-of-state trip. More on that when we get back!

Good Vibrations +Plus+ was a resounding success! More than 600 people attended and had a great time. We all felt it was our best performance ever! To relive the excitement, visit the new Forever Gold Pics & Clips page. I plan to use this page (with a link also located on the Fun Stuff page), to display recent sights and sounds of the Forever Gold band. (The Forever Gold Pics & Clips page uses a new slideshow code; I didn't have to write text descriptions on the pics!) You can also check out the Forever Gold web site for pics of Sunday's performance and other shows. Stay tuned to JoKai.net for info on where Forever Gold will appear next. Now that Ed has joined Forever Gold, we're unstoppable!

Happy 2nd Birthday, JoKai.net! It was two years ago today that I launched JoKai.net in its current format, a domain site. What better way to celebrate than with a slideshow! The JoKai.net Second Birthday Slideshow contains 39 pictures from events that took place in the last 12 months. Some of the pictures have appeared here before, and some are new. There's even a teaser pic from a dress rehearsal for Good Vibrations +Plus+! Go enjoy the pics from the great year that was 2006-2007! In other news, I am being profiled in the next 500 Festival Mini Marathon Newsletter. The 500 Festival folks think my running story is inspirational. Cool!

Much to report today! First, Abbi had an adventure yesterday. The back gate at my parents' house broke, and Abbi decided to leave the safety of her own backyard. My parents searched for an hour, and finally called the police station where she had been brought. Apparently, a man (who actually ended up being the father of another member of Sam's golf team), got out of his car, stopped traffic on the highway, and saved Abbi. THANK YOU TO THIS MAN! I don't know what I would've done without my Abbi. It has been suggested that she ran away because I compared her to a goat in my last post! :o) In other news, I sang the Anthem at an Indians game again on Friday night. I've added more pictures to the slideshows. Next, on Saturday morning, I ran in the Limestone Klassic and won my division with a time of 28:58! More pictures have been added to the running slideshows, as well. You can also check out all the Limestone Classic results at this link. (By the way, I also found Judah Jog results online this week, too.) Finally, Sam shot an even-par 72 in the second round of the Jr. City yesterday and came in second! Check out the Times-Mail article here; Sam has a great quote! What an eventful weekend! Now, it's on to Good Vibrations +Plus+ on Sunday. Be sure to come watch!

Sam won the Mountain Dew Tour tournament at Otis Park yesterday! (Check out the Times-Mail article here.) He shot 78 to tie for first, then secured first place in a sudden death playoff. Way to go, Sam! In light of his victory, I've added a new site to the Fun Stuff page: IndianaGolf.org. There's a lot of cool stuff here, but it's the Pepsi Junior Golf Program statistics in which we're most interested! Click here to check out Sam's 2007 stats! You can break down and analyze Sam's scores in the five Mountain Dew tournaments in which he's played this year. He's 16th (out of 296) on the 2007 points list for 15- & 16-year-olds. Way to go, Sam! In the meantime, Mac's been conditioning for his upcoming successful BMS football season. In other news, Dad, Mom, and I had a great time at the 4-H Fair yesterday! Check out the goat to the right; it looks like Abbi!

Dad and Sam made excellent showings in this weekend's final rounds of the Bedford Men's City Golf Tournament at Otis Park. We're proud of them! I'd like to share two new kid-themed Fun Stuff sites today. First is Swift Heart's Rabbit Hole. This message board is home to fans of the Care Bears. It's pretty neat! Next is my new addiction, Webkinz. For my birthday, my cousin bought me a little stuffed alley cat called a Webkinz. It came with a special code that I entered at the Webkinz site. There, I was able to "adopt" my cat and name her Mew. Now, Mew is a virtual pet of whom I take care! She has a little house with little furniture and a little yard with a little garden. To earn money, called

Kinzcash, Mew gets "jobs" (games) and answers trivia questions. Go to the Webkinz site and click "Take a Tour" to see what I'm talking about, because I don't think my words do it justice! And by the way, I know I'm an adult, but this is pretty fun! :o)

Happy 7-11! Good Vibrations is back! Forever Gold will be performing Good Vibrations +Plus+ on Sunday, July 29, at 2:00 P.M., at the BNL Performing Arts Center. You don't want to miss it! We're including old favorites and never-before-performed songs in this special +Plus+ edition. Get your advance tickets for $10 from me, or pay $12 at the door. You can check out pictures of our past shows at ForeverGold.us. See how much fun we have? Come join us! In other news, Dad and Sam had quotes in the Times-Mail again on Monday. (The picture of Dad to the right is a Times-Mail photo.) Both of them are in the Championship Flight in the City Tournament at Otis Park this weekend. Way to go! They and Ed are teaching me to play golf, which is proving to be a challenging effort. One would think with my lineage and environment that I would be quite good. Wrong!

The rescheduled Independence Day fireworks in Bedford were breathtaking! Being a fireworks fan, I was in my element. I took tons of pictures and added the best 13 to the Independence Day photos in a completely new slideshow. Check them out! Also, I added a few before-fireworks pics to the original slideshow. Singing before the fireworks is always a lot of fun; this year was unique because I got to play Simon Says with a crowd of over 1,000! In other news, Dad and Sam have made good showings at the Men's City Golf Championship at Otis Park. In the Times-Mail, Dad was featured in an article, and Sam was quoted in an article. Good luck next weekend, guys! (Happy belated 07-07-07!)

Independence Day, also know as the happiest day of the year, turned out to be super awesome! Of course, I've made a slideshow of Fourth pictures to celebrate. The day started with the Bedford parade, where I rode for Lawrence County Idol. The car in which I rode was sharp! Bedford really knows how to celebrate the Fourth; we have parades, music, ice cream socials, tournaments, food, and more. I had to miss evening festivities in Bedford because I had a gig with Forever Gold in New Albany at the Riverfront Amphitheatre. We managed to dodge the rain and had a great show. The fireworks were great too! My Fourth slideshow has pictures of the show, but you can see even more at the Forever Gold site. Just click on Photos! Imagine this good fortune: we ended up not missing the Bedford fireworks because they were rained out! They were rescheduled for tomorrow, and I'll be singing. Speaking of singing, American Idol is having auditions in Omaha on Aug. 10. I'm considering it. I'd have to miss the Cicero Triathlon, but I could do that next year; this is my last year of eligibility for Idol. In other news, check out Abbi's page for a new, "healing" pic!

Happy Anniversary, Mom & Dad! Deb, Lisa, and I went to Red Nails today to get patriotic pedicures. We wanted to make sure our toesies looked great for our Independence Day show; and boy, do they! Check out our stars-and-stripes toes (along with our artists' toes), at right. You can easily pick out my ridiculously-short-runner's-toenails in the starred flip-flops! In other news, Abbi has a new pic on her page. I also added a new site, Myxer Tones, to the Fun Stuff page. Here, you can make cell phone ringtones using your own MP3s—for FREE! Finally, I posted my wedding pics one year ago today. Go reminisce at the July 2, 2006 entry!

Happy Anniversary yesterday, Ed! For our anniversary, we took a trip to Cincinnati, which included a spontaneous visit to Kings Island. We rode the new coaster, Firehawk. WOW! After boarding, we were lowered so that we were lying on our backs. After being hauled 115 feet in the air, we were flipped onto our bellies. It feels like flying! It's so neat. You can see our reactions at right. Click on the photo to see the facial expression of the guy next to us. It's hilarious! The second picture shows me sitting in a barrel that Mom and I painted for the Bedford Revitalization, Inc., fundraiser. It's an advertisement for JoKai CobbWebs! We had a lot of fun making it! The barrels will line the streets during the parade on the Fourth. Finally, I archived the Spring 2007 What's Up posts and included a link to them at the bottom of this page. Enjoy the last days of June!

Welcome to Summer! On the first day of Summer (Thursday), Ed and I met with CCFA about making Croonin' for Crohn's an annual event! It looks like C4C#2 will take place sometime in February. Cool! Also on Thursday, I sang the National Anthem at an Indians game again. I added pictures to the Indians slideshow. There's a double-dose of slideshow-ness today. I ran the Judah Jog 5K this morning, and had a personal record of 27:35 (8:54 pace)! Check out the new pictures added to the running slideshows. Tonight, Ed and I are performing at a benefit concert to raise money for the construction of a local playground. Good times!