Kindel's birthday is a week from today and in light of that we decided to have a few friends over to her home. She and I had planned to have a friends over, but she didn't realize that I intended for us to celebrate her birthday, too.

It's tradition in my family to decorate with streamers and baloons during the week of someone's birthday. Kindel was quite surprised to see the decorations when she returned from Bloomington...

I had also made dessert - homemade ice cream and shortcake, which were well received by the whole group. We also sang "Happy Birthday" and had Kindel blow out a candel on her cake. Afterward, we played a rousing game of Balderdash. If you haven't played this before, its a game that makes use of your creative abilities to make up definitions for weird words, plots for unknown movie titles, the significance of an unknown historical figure, and much more. I highly recommend Balderdash.

Some other random stuff from the past few weeks:

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My advisor has since gotten back to me with my second draft. He and I were well pleased with the first and the revisal processes has been smooth and quick. I'll defend it before my comittee on May 1.

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Ben, my old roommate, came with me to Kindel's on Saturday. He and I had fried up some brats and did some fishing. While I basically got skunked, he caught a very nice bass. I've posted some pictures of ben and the fish in my Photobucket.

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Last Friday Michael and Anthony hosted a "cheap beer tasting party." It was similar in form to a wine tasting party, with the exception that all of the beverages tasted pretty bad. I thought that the event was a good idea, because "what if there was a cheap beer out there that really tasted good?" As Michael put it, there are times when you don't want to "spend $9 for a six pack of beer with a name I can't pronounce, from a country I've never heard of." The intention was to have a sip or two the 13 cheap beers that we all brought and rate them on aroma and flavor. Busch original came in first, but all in all, I really disliked everything I tried. So, I've decided to stick to my guns with the more expensive drink - Goose Island Honkers Ale. I can't really think of a situation where the only available refreshment, including water, would be cheap beer. But if for some reason I was in a situation like that, I'd go with the Miller Lite.