My week with JR

JR is a friend of mine from seminary.  We met during my first semester here at North Park.  My week with JR was only four days long, but it was packed with events.

Tuesday:
JR's birthday is July 31.  Last year a group of us celebrated by going to the Moth Story Slam in Chicago.  This year the tradition continued.(when your program lasts for only four years-anything that is done twice is considered tradition).  The two best stories told that night involved a young man learning how much his parents mean to him, and one involving the privileges of getting lost at Six Flags.  Despite the success of the event, the bar let us down with their food service so we decided to hit the Golden Nugget for late night breakfast foods.  We sat around telling our own stories.  I learned that in our group one person fears roller coasters and another fountains.

Oh, and Brian Babylon (the emcee of the night) just may have been a bit intoxicated and coerced into singing the National Anthem at evening's end.

Wednesday:
Wednesday nights are board game night.  To say that JR is a gamer is to say that the sky is blue.  Its obvious, everyone knows it, and it doesn't really due justice to the topic at hand.  I have been invited into JR's world of gaming friends.  But I draw the line at board games (see next week's blog).

This summer the regular host of board game night (Dan-who is one of the best people I have ever met) is remolding his kitchen so the games have been moved to another home.  Jim was out of town so it looked like it would simply be an off week.  However JR wanted to play board games on the actual date of his birth.

I had offered my humble home, but Dan insisted that he wanted to host JR on his birthday.  The three of us played board games at a little card table in the basement.  Nothing unique about the events of the night, however I got to share space with Dan and JR who are fast friends who can have entire conversations quoting lines from Monty Python, Muppets, and punchlines from inside joke culled from years of friendship.  Plus I only lost the first game (one I had never played before) by like two points.

Thursday:
Thursday was the last day of my Hebrew intensive.  That evening the class was invited to the professor's home for a potluck/BBQ.  After hanging out with some really cool people, I stopped by JR's (another really cool person) and we watched Veronica Mars reruns until 3 in the morning.

Friday:
Friday I played my first table top RPG.

 Next Week: My first Table Top or How I learned to stop worrying and love the RPG

--Serving Him alongside all of you, just from further away
--Jesse Letourneau