Even Funnel Clouds Love Parades!

It's not nice to ask Mother Nature for directions

Get us started Roz (wherever you are)
Happy weekend! The weekend started out Friday night for me. Last night was the Lincoln Highway Parade in downtown DeKalb. Cha Cha had me convinced that it was going to be a rinky-dink parade (why else would they let us in the parade right?). There were a lot of people lining the streets for this parade. We were number 30 in the parade line-up and I don't think we were even at the half-way point.

On the way there we got lost (not really) but Mother Nature lowered her finger to show us exactly where we were suppose to go. About an hour before we were to line-up for the parade The Lost Sock, The Found Sock (that's what Cha Cha named The Lost sock's wife, Kara, for the parade and I were driving into town from the East to get the vehicles ready for the parade. A funnel cloud reached down and appeared to be pointing right to Huntley Middle School which was the starting-point of the parade. I can see why so many people die during tornadoes. Everybody was outside taking pictures and here we were driving right toward it; I have very little fear of things like that because I figure I have to die of something and what a great story my family would have. What did grandpa Matt die of? Well, he was a moron and drove right into a tornado that he had seen for the past 20 miles. I guess you're still a grandpa if your grandchildren are born like ten years after you're dead right? Otherwise family trees would be impossible to decipher. I don't want to die of a boring heart-attack or something. Sorry for the poor quality of the photo but I was driving (storm-chasing more accurately).

I suppose this blog is going to be mainly about the parade since that's what I spent the last week preparing for. Next weekend's blog will be about ghosts and ghost hunting because that's what I am doing next weekend. I seem a lot more exciting than I am lately. Maybe I underestimate my excitement barometer.

I don't just talk diversity...I parade it proudly!

MisterYM (monsieur) and MADYM were nice enough to let us be in their humongous truck in the parade - they also manned (and womanned) it for us. My friend John (John Law for now) called out of the blue yesterday and asked how to get to the parade starting-point because he had a police specialty-car that he wanted to know if I would be interested in him bringing down for the parade after reading yesterday's blog about whoever wanted to be in the parade "come on down." Had I known Mother Nature was going to point the way I could have just said "just follow Mother Nature's long gray pointing finger." When I said "come on down" I didn't expect someone to "come on down" from way up near the Wisconsin border.  I gotta say I was flabbergasted that he did that for me. Thanks a lot John - it was really great and I am happy we got some time to talk before the parade too. The vehicle he brought, coupled with the monsterish truck we already had for the parade, made for what I am sure was the most diverse vehicular display in the parade. He and his friend/co-worker Brian (who is now named "Brian the Fuzz") came down SPECIFICALLY for Dirty Laundry! Rounding-out the Dirty Laundry team was The Lost Sock, who manned the music you could barely hear because I had a crappy boom box that was drowned out by the monster truck's exhaust and the police car in front of it (which was with us) and the country band behind it, The Found Sock who helped me hand out candy and cards on the other side of the street and their daughter who should have some kind of a sock name (Sock Monkey - who doesn't like sock monkeys?) Cha Cha was there too but she conveniently got some glass in her foot and had to ride in the back of the truck - well played Cha Cha.

It was a lot of fun and I think all involved had fun too.I still cannot get over how many people were watching this parade. I am not gonna blog any "I told you so's" but we ran out of candy because I was told we had too much already. Okay - maybe that was sort of an "I told you so." MADYM cracked me up saying "why would you listen to someone who has never been in a parade" when gauging the amount of supplies. I guess that's a good point; I have been in literally hundreds of parades so i guess I should have gone by my own instincts.
I know this blog is getting long (TWSS) and I will try to wrap it up but it's hard (TWSS) because I have a lot more to say about the parade. Cha Cha and The Lost Sock had never been in parades before so I am honored and proud that this blog and the Dirty Laundry Podcast could make a few MIDDLEaged childrens' dreams come true. We are already planning the next parade - seriously. This was mostly MisterYM's idea but he has a truck (a low-boy if you know what that is) and we are probably going to build a mini-studio on the back of the truck. An actual working mobile Kajunkles Studio and we will record a podcast while we are in the parade. I hope it is more exciting than all of the stupid commentary you usually see on the televised parades. We would have a real guest and everything like a regular show. I bet we'd be able to get a celebrity-ish type person for that one.

Since when is a crappy blog and a MTL (Matt The Loser) podcast a crime?

Sorry for my length today (you know) but I figure this is the weekend edition and I won't do a blog tomorrow because we will be doing the Dirty laundry Podcast (as heard and seen in the Lincoln Highway Parade). Thank you to all of the people I mentioned above for all of their help and being a part of the parade. I have plenty more photos and I will be posting them on my The Facebook right after this and after I get something to drink and take me vitamins (say that last part with a British accent in your mind please). I am dehydrated because I literally ran most of the parade because I kept getting left behind trying to wrangle podcast listeners. My most common response was "what's a podcast?" - now I have one more thing to teach this town.

Another huge thank you to everybody who came out and saw us in the parade (it was great to see you Greg and Shirley- thanks for coming way out West) and the people mentioned early in this blog for being part of the K-Team (Kajunkles Team) for the parade. It's nice to have great friends who know how to have a good time. I mean do we know how to party? This was a parade! TTTM...MITM (out to post The Facebook photos) TTFN!