Archive for December, 2008

• The Hap-Hap Happiest Christmas Since Bing Crosby Tapdanced with Danny F*ing Kay

  Date: 2008.12.27 | Category: family | Response: 0

  Well, it’s all over. The turkey is demolished and the wrapping paper is in shreds. All in all it went pretty well. On Christmas Eve, my grandparents aunts uncles cousin parents sister and bro in law all came over for Christmas dinner. I cooked my 26lb turkey and it was really yummy if I don’t say so myself. After dinner was eaten we had a small white elephant gift exchange which was really pretty fun. I ended up with a box of “gamble” chocolates ( which I re-gifted to my father) and John got a coffee set thing. There was also $10 in cash, a Sees Candies gift certificate, spam, coal, and scratch tickets galore. My 7 month pregnant cousin ended with a back massager and her boyfriend won the neck massager for her so she was really excited about that. It was a lot of fun and I loved being able to host Christmas in our house.

  About 9 everyone filtered out and headed home. John and I had a plan to open our Christmas presents from each other at 12:01am but that didn’t happen. We snuggled in the big mink blanket on the couch and started to watch White Christmas but got about 20 minutes in before we both passed out. We decided to just get up earlier and open them before going to my parents house. So about 4:30am we awoke. I was excited to see what I got. I got a very sweet card worth one good car cleaning, Seahawk’s gear, a fancy cork screw, planet earth on Blu-ray, a new blue tooth for my car, golf tees, golf balls and more goodies. He was excited to get 4 new shirts, a new MP3 player ( precisely the one he wanted), snowboarding socks and a coupon book. We also opened the presents from his parents and sister, which got us Wii games, tools, a new purse a wallet, REI gift card, Victoria’s Secret gift card, and more goodies. However, there was one present from each of us that the other couldn’t open until we were at my parent’s house.

  We loaded up the car and headed to Roy. We exchanged gift and I got very spoiled this year. In the big wood box from John I got a Coach purse. My sister also got one but it was from me. We also got a new microwave (with a browner), I gave John and Jeff NFL customized jerseys, and my sister and Jeff got me a set of brand new golf clubs. Leanne and Jeff made out pretty well because my mom and dad got then a new HDTV. It’s pretty awesome. After presents my dad made us all breakfast. It was fun. We had a good time.

  I love Christmas because I get really spoiled but mostly because I get to spoil other people. Like my parents when the 4 of us “kids” got my them a night’s stay, breakfast, and 2 massages at the Salish Lodge. They seemed pretty excited.

  Now the decorations are down and the Christmas music is faded and I get over my cold and prepare for work on Monday. I hope you all had a very Happy Christmas too!

  

  The Whole Fam

• The post holiday recovery period

  Date: 2008.12.27 | Category: Life as we know it | Response: 0

  Jessica and I are recovering from a bout of the SARS/Bird Flu/West Nile Virus and haven’t felt up to doing much. We’re fairly sure that one of her friends was the original carrier of the crud and infected the both of us. I can only hope that I didn’t pass it on to anyone that came over to our house on Christmas Eve. The worst of the crap is over in the first 60 hours but I expect it to take a full week before I feel like a regular human.

  I’ve got next week off while Jessica heads back to work on Monday. I’ve got a few tasks to take care of around the house but some of them are dependent on the rest of the snow and ice melting. I can deal with the rain but I need to be able to get a little traction out there. Most of the Christmas decorations are already down and stored away in the basement. The only remaining decorations are the tree sitting in our living room and the lights outside of the house. We’re planning on taking the tree to the backyard and flaming it later today. We expect the tree to last about 45 seconds before all that is left is a pile of ashes.

  I’m off standby so I’m a happy guy – I can do what I want when I want. The only stipulations that I have are to check into work on Monday and Wednesday next week. Other than that, I’m a free man. I guess that means beer, Madden, and sitting on the couch for hours on end. What you’re feeling right now is envy.

• Merry Christmas

  Date: 2008.12.24 | Category: Life as we know it, photos | Response: 1

  

  Our Christmas Photo

• The drivers outside are frightful

  Date: 2008.12.20 | Category: Life as we know it | Response: 3

  The weather over the next few days is the last of my worries. What worries me is my need to get around when the roads are full other people. The forecast calls for 6-20 inches of additional snow and we’ve still not seen a snowplow head down our street. The traffic has made a rut in the street down to the pavement but it is hardly an effective method of snow removal. Along with the snow we’re supposed to see sustained winds of 25mph with gusts of up to 90mph. Slippery roads and high winds do not mix. Add people that are unaccustomed to poor driving conditions to the mix and things could get a little hairy.

  In other news – we’re back to three dogs in the back yard. Raisin is back into the mix and she is already wearing out the two boys. The three of them have been having a blast and she has been the catalyst that has gotten them all to play. Lick is a bit of a grouch and Duke is always looking for someone to play with and she wants to play with everyone – whether they choose to play or not. In the past we’ve noticed that Lick has been covered with drool while the other two were completely dry – I have a feeling they were ganging up on him. He needs someone to beat the crap out of him once in a while.

  Jessica and I just came home from the Ammo Christmas party. Last year it was a bit of a drag but this year the tension was down and everybody was in a relatively cheery mood. 70% of the people have been swapped out since the previous party so it was interesting to see all of the new faces. What surprised me the most was the number of children that were under 4. There had to have been at least 10 kids there – my lieutenant asked me when I was going to have kids – I’d have to get hitched to do that.

  We’ve got some cooking to do so we’ve got to trundle off to the store and hope to avoid those that don’t know how to drive but still insist that they do – at 4mph.

• I got hacked

  Date: 2008.12.18 | Category: Life as we know it, Series of tubes | Response: 0

  I don’t know how they did it – but – on the 14th somebody injected some malicious code into a footer.php file and filled it full of links to garbage sites that were shilling drugs on the down low. Google shot me an email (thanks) threatening me with being de-listed by the search engine for violating their terms of service. I quickly dug through my site and found the bad code and deleted it. I think my PHP was a little out of date so I updated to the latest greatest version. I also changed almost every single password. Who would have guessed that a little site like mine would be a target for hackers? Freakin jerks!

  For the record – don’t by any drugs off the internet – I don’t want anyone to support those jerks.

• It’s snowing and snowing

  Date: 2008.12.18 | Category: Life as we know it | Response: 0

  

  It’s still snowing and it looks like it is going to continue for a few hours. Jessica had a snow day – I wasn’t so lucky.

• Bad weather brings out the worst in us

  Date: 2008.12.17 | Category: I was too lazy to organize these | Response: 0

  I grew up in the Midwest and learned to drive on sheets of ice. Washington residents, on the other hand, forget how to drive when the sun is hidden by clouds. I thought it was bad when traffic slowed to crawl when it rained – something it does quite frequently. What amazes me is how bad traffic gets when it snows. Most of the people living in the Puget sound are a mere hour away from a mountain pass and snow but for some reason they are unable to drive when snow falls on the street in front of their home. If you can’t drive on it – stay off the roads. We’ve only got a few inches and one might think that this is the blizzard of ’08 – the one that will be talked about for years to come.

  It could be worse – but – it should be a whole lot better.

• 40 Inspirational Speeches in 2 Minutes

  Date: 2008.12.15 | Category: I was too lazy to organize these | Response: 0

• It's almost like an interpretive dance

  Date: 2008.12.14 | Category: I was too lazy to organize these | Response: 1

  So John and I saw this today and laughed the whole time! This is an amazing video and even though john and I loved it it’s sad to think that nothing like this would be seen on prime time TV today.

  But here it is for you to watch and enjoy.

  [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEhF-7suDsM&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0xcc2550&color2=0xe87a9f]

• Christmas Vacation

  Date: 2008.12.10 | Category: Life as we know it | Response: 3

  Life often imitates art – my has been imitating the movie Christmas Vacation. For the past few days I’ve been calling Jessica Ellen while she has been calling me Clark a few times as we’ve transformed our abode into highly decorated Christmas themed wonderland. The fun started Saturday with the lights on the house. Armed with a staple gun, some gumption, and a ladder I started on my task. We only had a few sets of lights and planned on installing twinkling icicle lights around the perimeter of the roof. I had three strands installed when I had an epiphany. I needed to check the lights.
  

  
  

  Most of the lights didn’t twinkle and the rest of them didn’t work. To add insult to injury the remainder of the lights that were bought at a different location weren’t compatible without modification because they had a spade plug and wouldn’t plug into the lights that were already on the house. An edict was given to me to swap the lights on the house for the other set. I did as I was told. We surveyed the house after the lights were installed and neither of us were happy outcome. The lights came down and were returned to Wal-Mart. I picked up some standard lights and headed back home to try and finish my job. As I was hanging lights I looked across the street and saw two neighbors climbing across their roofs trying to defy death as they too hung Christmas lights – there are few nice days during December and everybody was trying to take advantage of the decent weather.
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