Hey Everyone, had another checkup today, the baby isn’t even considering coming any time soon. We’re going to induce on Monday, so hopefully that works out. Sadly, this messes up all of my thanksgiving plans, as Deneall and I will probably still be at the Hospital on Thursday. All my dreams to play video games with my brothers all week has been crushed.
Hope everyone else is doing well, we’ll let you know RIGHT HERE at thebloks.com when the baby comes.
Hey everyone, its been awhile since posting, and for good reason, my life is super busy / crazy. With working 2 jobs (my normal one, plus another 20+ hours at Bestbuy) and being a youth group leader, I really have no personal time anymore. What little I 
have I try to give to my wife when she is around. These are the few precious moments we have left before our lives are turned upside down with the addition of a child to our family. I keep hearing how different our lives will be after that day comes, and to expect little sleep. Most comments I hear about having a kid might have made me take more precautions 9 months ago, if I had known all of this information then. Anyway, Deneall is still Pregnant, and due in 3 days. Will we have a baby in 3 days, I highly doubt it, I am thinking 2 weeks yet. That is just my inexperienced guess, as I have no real data or reasons to back up that statement other than I was 2 weeks late, and Deneall herself was 3 weeks late.
So what else is going on? How am I liking my part time job? I’ll tell you now. Youth Group is great, I have several (8-10) 9th grade boys every Wednesday night who all love Jesus, and are interested in learning more and participating in our lessons. They 
are all great, and I enjoy my time with them, I wish I had more time to spend with them doing other fun events, alas, I do not. Bestbuy, it’s great. I typically work evenings, 5- 10:30PM three or four evenings a week, and some weekends. The guys I work with are pretty cool, and have been very willing to help me get up to speed on the systems they use. I’ve had no formal training, and haven’t had orientation yet. I’m still waiting on my GeekSquad uniform, which I might be getting next week. What else can I say about Bestbuy? Its a great place to work, the employees are super fun and friendly, the management knows what is going on and within the first few weeks, most of them all knew my name and would make a point to say hi. They really do try to build relationships, as they expect all of the employees to build relationships with customers as they come in. If bestbuy can deliver on what they have set for goals for how they do business, they will continue to grow and dominate the market.
Anyway, more about what you guys care about… the BABY! Claire, as Deneall and I 
refer to her has become the dominating topic of our lives of late. We’ve considered other names, I want to name her Evelyn Grace Blok, where as Deneall wants Bella Blok. We’ve tried to strike deals, but I think we’ll just stick with Claire. The baby’s room looks cute, as Deneall has painted it, and her parents have helped putting up the boarder. You’re all welcome to come over and check it out, just email or call ahead of time to make sure we’re available. We’d love to have you over.
I’ve been SO excited for Thanksgiving, to drive back to Starbuck and see my family and celebrate Christmas with them, but that might not happen now, if this baby comes late. Hopefully it works out so we can still go, or hopefully some of my family can stop in and see us. I also work the day after Thanksgiving at Bestbuy, on “Black Friday” as all employees are required to work. So I’ll be at bestbuy on Friday from Noon until 10PM.
If Andrew Boom is reading this, I love you man. You need to stop texting my wife’s phone as she doesn’t find those messages nearly as funny as I do. Anyway, in reply to your last text…. I reply “Fatty Fatty Toad Boy”
Probe Update…. I’ve been driving the Probe for the last 5 months or so, it’s been great. As the temperature gets colder, the less I’m enjoying driving it. I don’t have a garage door opener in it, and it forces me to get out. Also the parking break is not working, so if I want to park, and jump out quick, I need to actually turn off the car. There are several other annoyances, most of which I can deal with. Hopefully I’ll get a few things fixed over the winter when I have it back in Starbuck. The Passat will be coming back out to play at Thanksgiving time, Lord willing.
Hope all is well with you. Hopefully the baby will come soon, please pray without ceasing that our baby comes soon and more importantly, that she is healthy and grows up to know Jesus as her Savior.
I also would like to apologize for a few things to my general audience. You’ve come accustomed to my witty comic style of writing, and numerous pictures that I used to publish online. I would like to address each of those items with reasons as to why I’ve come up short lately. I’ll start with the pictures. Since getting married, and even starting several months previously to that, the number of pictures I’ve taken has decline dramatically, mostly because I know longer attend nearly as many social events, or go on random trips as a chauffeur for “The Final 4″. Anyway, needless to say, if I no longer attend as many public events, I can’t take pictures. Lord willing, Deneall and I will start getting out more.. but I’m not holding my breath. Now, my witty comic style of writing which has diminished greatly over the past year, I will also say that is because of getting married. Before, I had no one to listen to me most of the time, and as a vent for my odd thoughts and funny imagination, I had no other choice than to express it in blog or email newsletter form. Since getting married, I now have someone forced to spend lots of time with me who has the lucky privilege of getting to hear all of my incredibly funny sayings and thought processes. Because I now have an outlet for my comical urges, I no longer have a need to publish it hoping to get a few laughs from my loyal readers. I know this was one of the main reasons many of you read my “articles”, so I will try to do better in this area in the future.
With that, I say good night. Gary Signing Off.
Hey Everyone, sorry I haven’t written in awhile, I’ve been pretty busy with work lately. I’m still working at the school district, putting in about 45 hours a week, maybe a few more, just because its the beginning of the school year, and I have ALOT to do. I’ve also started my job at Bestbuy as one of the Geek Squad. I was going to post a GeekSquad picture, but everything is copyrighted, and I don’t feel like getting in trouble. Yes, so I’ve already worked 2 evenings, and today I get to work 10-4. I’m guessing this shift will be a bit busier than the evenings. I’m getting about 15-20 hours extra a week, which will help pay for all those diapers and other essentials, once that baby comes.
I’ve got many things going on, Youth Group on Wednesday nights at NewLife Church has been good so far, I’m excited to hang out and get to know my group of boys better. Most of them attend school at New Life Academy, so they all have a pretty good knowledge of the bible, nearly as good as Brethren raised kids.
Deneall and I are looking forward to going to the Wausau Conf, so hopefully we’ll see a bunch of you there.
Hey everyone, Deneall and I have been disconnected for 2 days now. It’s been hard on us, but we are managing. We hooked up an antenna to the TV, so we get about 7 channels with varying quality. And we once again are using the neighbors internet, when it is available. The speed is about 1/20th of when we had it ourselves, so I can no longer download things, or watch tv online. We are saving $50 a month, which helps, we find we are still very short of our monthly needs, once Deneall quits her job to stay home. I’ve been applying for jobs, still waiting to hear back. I’ve very disappointed with Bestbuy, who never returns my calls, after filling out 2 applications, talking with the hiring manager, and calling several times. So I’m branching out, I’ve also applied at the local YMCA, and if that doesn’t go, I’ll apply at Target, or perhaps the CVS across the street.
Other ways of saving money, we’ll probably cut down to using 1 car after Deneall has the baby and stays home. We’ll be using her Jetta, and parking the Probe and Passat. If all goes well, I won’t be driving the passat for a long time, keeping it in storage and driving Deneall’s Car in the winter, and have the Probe in summer. Yes, thats right, the Probe is back! I’ve already put 2K miles on it since I pulled it out a month ago.
Work is going well, extremely busy and semi-stressful right now as school is getting ready to start and teachers are coming back. So much to do in the next couple weeks, I’ll be going even more crazy than I am now.
This past Monday Night, Juan Dia & Jessica Day had a nice taco party with lots of young people over, it was nice to get out, and it was great having my wife with who was lucky enough to have that evening off. It was so much fun to see everyone again and play some games.
So today I finished watching all 5 seasons of Babylon 5, the second best sci-fi series, Battlestar Galactica, being the first. It is so emotional, I watched it once before, back in 2003, and decided I would make my wife watch it someday once I had one, so now I did. She enjoyed it, she got attached to a character by the name of G’Kar, the Narn Ambassador. Once again, I recommend this show to everyone. If you want to watch, let me know, and you can borrow my set. Otherwise I know they had them on sale this week at Bestbuy for $20 a season, which is about 65% off.
Oh, is anyone looking for a computer for a reasonable price? I’ve got some, I’m clearing out some of my inventory and have quite a few good ones for sale if you need. I even have some MACs for those special people.
Hope everyone is doing well, the few people who still actually read this. I know the quality of content has dropped dramatically over the past couple of years, but my life is changing and I no longer have the ability to travel the US, taking pictures and reporting on events, so unless you people want to donate money to me (garyblok@comcast.net for Paypay payments), you’ll be stuck with my boring day to day updates. The only person who probably still likes to read about my day to boring day details is my mom, “THANKS MOM, I love you”.
Catch the rest of you later.
Just a shout out to Peter Grul, who is driving to PA and back this week, I pray for Traveling mercies for you brother.
Hey everyone, sorry it’s been so long. Deneall & I have been keeping busy with work and what not. We’ve been going to a Church here in Woodbury called NewLife. I’m not a big fan of their website, (I don’t like Flash). Anyway, last week we took a vacation, the last one before the baby ruins our life. No, I Joke, the baby will only put a serious financial and emotional strain our life, nothing near ruining it. So what did we do for our last big bash before our free life ends? We on a Visication. I can see you now thinking “Gary, what is a “visication”? Well, I’ll tell you, It’s a vacation heavily dominated by visiting relatives.
First up, Holland MI, visiting Deneall’s sister April and brother-in-law Mark. It was a 
grand time, we went downtown Holland, into the tourist area of stores and cobble stone side walks. With all the walking, Deneall was doing good, I’m sure we stopped more for myself to sit, than for her. I’ll get back in shape one of these 
days. We went into a nice little park area with some cool fountains and fish ponds, nice atmosphere. I could see myself spending hours there if they had wireless interent available. We then went over to the Beach, on the wonderful Lake Michigan. The water was a mere 50 degrees, but in 
the 90 degree weather, it was actually refreshing. Mark and I played frizbee in the water for awhile. That is us in the picture on the left. There was a sandbar, so we were out a good hundred meters or so. Yes, I used meters, for I actually perfer the metric system, why are we pretty much the only country in the world not using it? You know what I’m 
talking about! Anyway, while in MI, we also went biking with Mark & April, that was fun as well. We got to see the school (Walden Green) where Mark & April work, helping to improve the youth of America. Its a charter school in a brand new building. They use all Macintosh computers. Deneall laughed as I was more interested 
in the wiring (data cables) and computers than in most other things. We also went to the lake town of Grand Haven, MI. It was a really big tourist area as well, with lots of people out on the 
Pier and on the Beach. We walked a good 10 kilometers or so that day, way too much for my liking. So after our time in MI, we drove over to Wisconsin Dells. We got a 3 day / 2 night stay in the dells for $25 dollars, if we go and listen to some “time share like” talk. The hotel was ok, a few pools and stuff, and it had a Green Mill resturant attached. The service at the Green Mill was so bad, but over all the Dells were prettty good. We went downtown and walked around for awhile, then we played a round of golf. It was excellent. I will be going back there again. Here are a few more pictures from the trip.
For lots more pictures, go HERE (pics.thebloks.com) and click on MI / WI Trip Pictures
Thanks for reading, we miss you guys! - Gary & Deneall Blok
So it’s been awhile since I’ve written anything, so here’s the scoop on some recent events. D & I have been all over the place, visiting her family, visiting my family, and getting stuff done. We were up in Fargo for a couple weekends for Graduation parties for D’s cousin’s, then down in Rochester for a weekend helping D’s dad and for Brooke’s Graduation. Deneall’s dad could use your prayers as he recently cut into 3 of his fingers on his right hand, down to the bone. He will be out of work for 3 months. He is a self-employed electrical contractor, so his hands are his life, please pray for a quick recovery.
We’ve started to attend a church here in Woodbury more often, but I still will try to make appearances at the chapel when possible. The family of believers here are great, and we’ve recently started to attend a young couples group on Wednesday nights, actually last night was the first time, but it was a great time of fellowship and bible study. We look forward to becoming tighter with that group and having some friends here in the area.
Well, my Probe is still uncompleted, last update I have is the body work is done, but they still have to get it running, I’m hoping that I’ll get it before summer is over.
Tomorrow is Andy Buch’s wedding, he is the last one of the group to get married, unless you include Dave Smith, but I haven’t heard from him in ages. First it was Mike, then me, Dan and now Andy. I’m looking forward to attending this weekend, as I’m sure it will be a good time with lots of entertainment. I wish him and his wife to be the best. I will be going solo as my wife works this Friday night, bummer. I still need to find someone to go along with, but I suppose I could go alone if needed.
Hickory Cove Bible Camp, a great love of mine, I don’t feel it will be possible for me this summer to make it down there, with everything going on, and being on a much tighter budget than planned, thanks to our up coming baby, we are just unable to do many of the things we were hoping to do this summer. Bummer. I will miss that part of my life greatly for the next few years until our lives are a bit more stable and won’t be living paycheck to paycheck. I don’t think anything could prepare me for the amount of responsibility you take on when you get married and start a family, you have to make so many sacrifices, and you start to worry more about the well-being of your family then you ever did about yourself. I guess its just something that you can’t fully understand until you have a family, just gives me even more respect for my parents.
Oh, if anyone needs any computer help, let me know, but I’ve started to charge a small fee as to help with supplementing our income.
Catch you all later, with much love
Gary Blok
So you all know I hate D’s car. She has a 97 Dodge Avenger -
These are just stock photos, but they give you the idea. Just imagine that car with dents and scrapes covering 65% of it’s body, a transmission about to die which has been losing “blood” for awhile and needing frequent top offs, a water pump praying for mercy every time you start the car (which only happens about 50% of the time you want it to), and a foul odor emitting from the car like I’ve never smelt before. It was unsafe, unsavory, appalling to look at, and wasn’t near worthy of being parked next to my Passat W8. So we drove it down to the dealer last night, it was a long drive down to burnsville, so by the time we got there, I was a little light headed from the gases it made. We parked it about 1/2 block down the road, due to poor parking at the dealership, and walked over to the car we saw online. Deneall mentioned “I can still smell my car from here”. So we test drove a 02 Jetta GLS 1.8T. We liked it, it had lots of nice features, and about 85K miles.|
(link on site HERE)
It was great, so we went to talk to the guy, while we were waiting D saw a new Rabbit, and liked it, and was like… that’s not too much more… but it was 2 door and I wanted 4 door since we’re getting a kid. So D wanted to know if there were any new style Jetta’s for about the same cost as the Rabbit, so they found one, and we test drove it and D liked it a lot. So finally after lots stomach turning about all my bills and adding this, I said ok, we’ll get the new one. D gave me several reason as to which New is better, and that it will last so much longer, etc. But she is so cute and I love her so much I couldn’t say no. So we left in a 2006 Jetta. It’s a base model, no cool features, but D said she didn’t care. She doesn’t use that stuff anyway. She said “we have your awesome car, we don’t need two”. I totally agree and disagree with that statement. But we now have a car with a 10 Year / 100,000 Mile warranty. We will have it much longer and it will probably be the car that Clarie gets some day.
So after all this, D has a car she loves, one I can be proud of, and one I will actually drive. We’ll probably use it a fair bit on long trips since it does get about 1/3 better gas mileage than mine. I really wanted a car with cool rims, but oh well. I’ll have to talk with Karl Noelle and have him hook me up some day, after it’s paid of, my car is paid off, and 1/2 our mortgage is paid off. Karl, if you’re reading this, I’ll give you a call in 2023 for some ideas how to spice up D’s car. Now I know many of you who read this are thinking one of many things, I’m not sure about many of them, but I bet I can guess a few:
Anyway, no matter what you are thinking, I’m thinking this… I’m glad my wife and baby are in a car I don’t have to worry about breaking down or exploding. It comes with road side assistance, and Pease of mind for my new family. Will D & I be rather tight for awhile, yes, was it worth it, only time will tell.
Oh, we have names for both a boy and girl, Claire or Eden. We have middle names picked out as well, but I’ll save that for next time.
For our future kids or NOT (Lord willing), we’ll be selling the rights to name our children on EBay to help fund the on going expenses of raising them.
No points this time, I haven’t seen much of anyone but Peter. Peter… here is a little something for you. I was filling out paper work to purchase the car, and they wanted 3 names of people as “character references” so I put Dad, then I was like, who else… hmm.. PETER!! And D was like… “you have brothers you know… that’s bad, you think of Peter before your own Brothers”.
Later everyone,
The Webmaster formally know as GARYTOWN
Yes, it is true, if you hadn’t figured it out from previous posts, I’m just going to come out and say it, D is with child. Here are the Facts:
Due Date (Nov 14) just 3 days after our first year anniversary.
Gender: Girl (just my guess, no scientific proof)
Future Hobbies of Claire (her name) include:
What a great life she has to look forward to! If its a boy, we’re thinking adoption. JK!!!! D & I are having a hard time coming up with names right now, I don’t really like any of the ones she does. Oh well. We’ll figure that out soon enough.
So the Wausau Conference was this past weekend, it was great. The sessions were pretty good, they were dealing with Revelations. I would have liked a little bit more info, but I guess I’ll have to research more myself. Saturday evening we had a Photo Scavenger hunt, it was great times. My Group didn’t place but we had a fun time anyway. I was the driver and was the only one who was able to get a picture of the SYG adopt a highway sign.
Also been working on the retreat website lately, mostly for the reunion retreat. Check it out here: http://jubilee.winteryouthretreat.org/
Catch ya later!
Cool points to:
Later everyone! It was so great to see so many of you this past weekend in Wausau!
Gary Blok
Just a quick post to say I restored the Biz Info Page on the garytown website. Check it out HERE
I don’t have any consent from BIZ to post this, but last time he didn’t seem to mind, granted I was paying him rent to live on his couch back then. Anyway, Biz rocks! And I just wanted all you fine young ladies out there to know what a great single guy you are missing out on. Here is one of my Fav Pictures of Biz!
Later Everyone.
Hey Everyone
So you been wondering what we’ve been up to. We’ve traveled a little, to visit family, visited a Mega-Church, I was not overly impressed, and actually went for a 2-mile walk. D has been tired a lot lately, and had some unusual “cravings”. She has also been extremely thirsty and drinking a lot more water. Anyway, other than that, things are good. I’ve applied for a evening part time job at the local bestbuy to help make a few extra bucks to pay off our debt and save for future expenses. I’m saving up for our 1 year Anniversary gift that I’m going to get for D. She doesn’t know yet, and knowing that she doesn’t read this much unless I tell her I updated it, I know my secret will be safe. I’m saving for a nice rocking chair for her, and possibly a futon for our “guest room”, which is currently my office. In the next several months, I will be dismantling my office, and moving it to another location. I’m excited for spring and garage sale season! So many things on my list to get this summer, things I wasn’t figuring on getting for another few years, but times are good, and I want them now!
So you want to hear a pathetic story about me? Yes, you do? I knew you would… who doesn’t like hearing about these things? Ok, so about 2 months ago, I started watching a new sci-fi series called 
Roswell. Its this story about the Roswell aliens.. sort of. Check out the link for details about the show. Anyway, I don’t think it’s a true sci-fi, its more like Startrek meets Melrose Place. Its the highschool drama and the main characters just happen to be Aliens. So I watched 3 seasons of this show over the past couple of months. Hey, it’s winter, and I HATE going outside in winter, and my wife works at night so what am I supposed to do??? So anyway, I get to the last episode, and I actually cry, a lot. I got so wrapped up in these people, seeing their lives grow and mature over “3 years”. I felt like I knew them, and now they are leaving my life, it was sad. My wife laughed at me and tried to comfort me by saying “Its ok, you can watch them anytime, you still have all the shows”, but to that I say, its not the same. Its like looking at a picture of a great time in your life and wishing you could be there, you can’t, its in the past, looking at pictures isn’t the same. I need new adventures with them, not re-runs. Anyway, thats my pathetic story of my life and my “tv friends” who left me. THANK GOODNESS summer is here and I can get out side and do stuff.
And now, Cool Points time.
Peter Grul - for coming over and watching TV with me on Sunday, and talking about Biblical stuff from a science point of view, it was fun.
Biz - for driving a New Jetta, even if it was only a loaner
Dido - For writing my current favorite Song - “Resting here with Me”.
(D)eneall - For comforting me in my times of need and loving me even though I’m very Odd.
Andrew Boom - For keeping in touch, and for being a MAN and getting engaged at such an early age.
Ken & MB Habel, for being such awesome role models, and influences in our lives.
Oh, this Thursday Night I’m teaching a class at Dakota County Tech about Clark Connect. I’m excited.
I will also be busy working on the retreat website, hopefully rebuilding it over the next couple of nights.
Later Friends
Gary Blok of GARYTOWN Inc.