Ironman Revisited

One of the contractors at work that Ming and I bumped into on Ironman sent me a link to a bunch of pictures of people riding the ride in the rain. Many of them captured the wetness much better than I did.

http://www.skinnyski.com/tools/photoviewer.asp?Id=15894

Hospital Visit

Pooteewheet went to the hospital for surgery yesterday. If you're a Facebook friend, you've probably heard at least a few bits and pieces. She's doing as fine as can be expected given they cut into her to move around some nerves that were entrapped by tendons and bent over bones and she's supposed to be back home sometime tomorrow. Eryn and I hung out while the surgery was underway, mostly playing hangman online. She was partial to the Harry Potter set, although we only scored a B grade. A great kid site.

The hospital my wife is in is great. Attractive, modern, wifi, open spaces, and a lady who distributes free cookies and sodas while you listen to the live piano or harp music. The only downside is they won't take a credit card in the cafeteria. But there are plenty of places to eat nearby.

I came home to a broken water heater, which explains my lukewarm shower this morning. Negative: broken water heater. Postive: I'm taking care of my wife at home for the next two days (well, four), so I can have the fix it guy come figure out why the pilot light only flickers. Almost looks like the tube has blockage.

Some of my favorite things from the last two days:

Driving home to get Eryn and bring her back to the hospital today, the passenger in the pickup in front of me kept rolling down her window, holding a brush outside, and then flicking something out that would bounce off my car. It took three rounds before I realized she was simultaneously cleaning her brush and giving my car a merkin.

If you're an expert in therapeutic horticulture, what you really do is not nearly as interesting as I thought it was on first consideration.

Touch therapy is downright weird. And it's difficult not to laugh - although it's possible if you keep your head down in a book - while a woman is waving her hands over your wife to live harp music. It looked like she was trying to push away farts.

Eryn enjoying the CT Scaning machine in the playset area:

Ironman 2009

It was a pretty wild Ironman this year. Kyle talked Ming into going, and then couldn't go himself, but Ming committed himself to riding with me, despite the promise of poor weather. The first ten miles weren't all that bad, with just a bit of misting and dripping, but after that it gone downright cold and wet. 42 degrees and pouring until our feet were soaked and we were covered in road dirt. Good stuff. At least after you thaw out the fingers and toes. Makes the ride easier to remember when your memory starts going at age 41.

On a positive note, the portion of the ride that's usually in-the-face winds that slow you down to 6 mph near Farmington were absent. That was a pleasant gift.

Here's a bit of mist on my camera lens at the beginning.


Ming, wearing nothing waterproof and my shirt. Brave man.


Me, posing as a pinhead. I may look like a tool, but I loves me balaclava. My head stayed fairly warm compared to the rest of me. The fleece pull over wasn't a great idea. It weighed about 8 pounds more by the end of the ride from soaking up water. Any extra water ran out of the pullover, down my water-resistant wind pants, and directly into my shoes.


Rest stop #1. When we came back out from inside, the rain started in earnest.


Again, just to capture a bit more the gloomy skies.


Ming, aware that he is about to get a swirly from God (or Thor, take your pick).


Rest stop #2. Things have gotten very, very wet. There was a bus in front of the rest stop when we got there. We didn't realize it was a sag wagon until people started lining up on the corner. We saw more buses go past later, packed full. This is one of the few times I've ever seen Ming drink a cup of coffee.


There are still a few people on the road. Most looking for a tree or a Malaysian to hide under.


This is how wet Ming was. So wet he had his own concealing mist rolling off his body, obscuring any shots.


A live look at the weather from the second rest stop, mile 18.5.

Doggy Mayhem!

Per Chris Hardwick's Twitter feed - doggy melodrama:


As an interesting aside, I remember Billy Hardwick bowling on television when I was a kid. I had NO idea it was Chris Hardwick's father:

A Discussion with my Teenage Neighbor, Ty

Me: "Hi, Ty. Do you have an extra egg?"

Ty: "An extra egg?"

Me: "Yep. I'm making chocolate chip cookies, and I'm short an egg."

Ty: "Yeah, hold on."

Ty, comes back. "What month is it?"

Me, momentarily at a loss, "Um...April."

Ty: "April?"

Me: "Yeah."

Ty: "Nevermind. The eggs expired March 17."

Me: "Give it to me anyway."

Ty: "Really?"

Me: "Yeah."

Ty: "Really???"

Me: "Yep. Usually the egg just breaks down a bit instead of going rotten."

Ty: "Okaaaay." Hands me the egg.

It made very good chocolate chip cookies. But it's disturbing Ty and Steve have eggs that are five weeks past due.

GOOOOAAAALLLLLL!!!!

Grandpa and Grandma (my mother and father) bought Eryn a 5' x 10' folding soccer net for her birthday. We set it up, although not without injury. I couldn't figure out how to put in the stabilizing pins at first, and managed to drop the bar on my head when I wasn't looking. Hurt like hell. I can feel the bump two days later.

Here's Eryn trying to score.


And me guarding the goal. I look like some sort of soccer hooligan (more like a football hooligan, and the kind that plays after work now and then and drinks a lot, not the kind that plays professionally and is ripped) in my bicycling t-shirt and bicycling boxers. I couldn't be troubled to put on pants. There are more and more days like that.

Lipbalm

In keeping with the "balls" theme from the weekend. I'm pretty sure this isn't what you're supposed to do with two balls full of Make Your Own Lipbalm, but it was hard to resist. By the way, I suggest you encourage your friends never to buy it as a gift. In addition to looking just...wrong, as you can plainly see...the lipbalm is impossible to get off anything, coating everything that's touched in a nice layer of Carmex-like gloss. Add some bubblegum flavor and you've really got a mess. We did ponder whether it would be possible to use the kit as a base for Vegemite lip balm for Australians.

Amusing Videos

Many of these are from G4 or Kevin Pereira's Twitter feed:

Stop Motion Wolf and Pig


Silence of the Lambs - the Lego Musical, the Lotion in the Basket song (from Jon and Al.com)


Weird...and something you should be afraid of if you golf


Carousel. More advertising than anything else, but an impressive use of special effects that loops back on itself. Fun to watch.

Happy Birthday!

Eryn turns 6 today! We celebrated with a party at the Little Gym and her first sleepover (as the invitee). Tomorrow is a family party over Italian at Macaroni Grill. We'll get to pictures later. Right now I'm tired from setting up the tent in the living room and hauling presents around.

Balls

Eryn told me this morning when I got up, "I got up in the middle of the night. I went to the bathroom. I played MarioKart. Then I went back to bed." She's never gotten up in the middle of the night to hang out by herself. I'm going to have to be a bit more careful about leaving Netflix fare like Zombie Strippers in the DVD player.

So the title story is also about MarioKart. This morning, when Eryn and I were playing she yelled out, "I was hit by firey balls!"

Pooteewheet said, from upstairs, "What?"

Eryn, "I was hit by firey balls! Not balls like Dad's balls. But, you know. Spheres. Firey spheres."

Personally I'm glad they weren't like my balls because it would mean either a.) I need to see a clinic or b.) we purchased the X-rated version of MarioKart.

Easter

I post these not because LissyJo asked for them - that just encourages me not to - but because they were on my list of things to do, already open in individual tabs, I just hadn't gotten that far. But now she's ruined it. Very un-situational-leadership like of her.

Ame' and Eryn looking for eggs. Princesses get extra eggs.


Ame' has found one. She will hug it and cuddle it and love it and kiss it and call it her squishy.


F ya! This is my egg. You want to take it? You'll have to take me. Try it biatch! Colin isn't sure what he's got, but you can't have it because it matches his hoodie.


Ooooo....ooooo...nobody take them. Ahhh! Ahh!!!! Stay away! Conner looks very protective.


Dellie finds the egg her Dad couldn't find.


Eryn wearing her Christmas dress to find eggs. I don't think the discontinuity has affected her mood one bit.

Shoes

Two weekends ago, at Code Camp, I went to a presentation on Shoes, a Ruby-based IDE that includes Ruby in the install. It's not exactly enterprise ready and sometimes it dies on me, but if you're trying to teach your kid to program, it took Eryn just a few minutes to pick up a few of the basics. It's particularly easy to learn and you can do some fancy things like access Twitter or Flicker or YouTube without having to know low level programming functions.

Bunny or the Egg

Which came first, the Easter Bunny or the egg? Eryn's pretty sure it's the egg. Because she has to dye them and leave them in the fridge before the Easter Bunny will hide them. This year, Eryn mixed vegetable oil with the egg dye to get a marbled look. It turned out pretty well. That shirt is from Ming, Kyle and my's trip through Wisconsin on the bicycle trails. She loves it, which makes me very happy.


The eggs. 11, if you're counting. Number 12 got dropped. I like the bluish-gray vegetable oiled egg.

Eryn Crushes Your Brain Remotely

Some leftover pictures from our big ride on Saturday. In this one, Eryn reaches out from the computer, grabs your brain, and twists until you can't think. Ow. Ow! OW! She has mental powers you cannot imagine. You cannot conceive. Or maybe you can because she's her SOA brain twist is rendering your senseless. I've been training her to be a super villain. I believe this will be her propaganda poster. As you can see, I'm her sidekick. Folded arms man.


And off we go, to conquer the world. Or at least to spread discord among anyone stupid enough to hang out in the Minnesota River Valley. Don't believe me? I just asked Pooteewheet if she'd removed the rope from her mirror that we'd attached shortly after this picture was taken. No. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Breakfastacular

In case any one doubts my commitment to being a breakfast guy.

• Saturday, Backstreet Grill (picture below - Eryn's first personal order of silver dollar pancakes).
• Monday - Original Pancake House with Andrew and Mike.
• Tuesday - Junior's (link includes a review by djneko - nice one, Pete!), by myself, after the dentist.
• Wednesday - Key's downtown with Erik before the MHTA Spring Conference.
• Thursday - scheduled breakfast with Ming at the TR cafeteria.

That simply can't be healthy. Although I did get some berries with one meal.

This is for Klund - Mario Kart

Entirely altruistic, as your wife can't play Rock Band on Wii, we are now owners of Mario Kart. Including an extra controller (and associated Nerf wheel in green, Eryn's favorite color) so the whole family can race at the same time. We look forward to shooting the rainbow bridge with you over the wire. Sincerely, The Scooter Family.

Taxes - Done!

Taxes, done. No small feat considering our accountant got the rental property taxes back to us yesterday. I spent the evening talking to my brother, who was seeing no change in his taxes based on a 50/50 partnership split using our K-1s. But it looked great when they were all on my deductions because Pooteewheet makes so little. So today I called the accountant and asked, "How does the split work? Aren't there partnerships where one partner is 95% and the other is 5%?" There are. Saved about $2200. I think that's why I pay her. I shouldn't have to figure it out myself, particularly as she has a copy of our previous year's taxes. I'm pretty sure I deserve a tax preparation rebate.

Bifkin

I had a dream last night in which I had a black pet snake (whatever - my dreams are generally process oriented, not symbolic). The pet snake, realizing I paid more attention to dogs than to snakes, grew a poodle - also black - out of its mouth until the poodle was full formed, at which point the original snake bit dropped off like a residual tail, and the poodle came to life.

Seriously creepy, even for dream me. So I called in a herpetologist who examined the poodle, listened to my story, and proclaimed my snake was a bifkin, a species of animal which would evolve to a shape where it felt it was getting optimal food and attention. After that, the next lengthy chapter of the dream was me looking extremely nervous and wondering when the bifkin was going to change into some version of me by growing a human body out of a poodle's mouth.

I'm sure the snake dream is a result of reading The Red Queen book about evolutionary pressure and parasites. But bifkin? I had to look it up. It's a synonym...for perineum. I don't believe I've ever consciously heard or read the word before. But now my dream has educated me with a new word for taint that was previously outside my vocabulary. I think the instructor who told Ming and I to open a dictionary more often would be proud.

perineum /peri·ne·um/ (-ne´um)

1. the pelvic floor and associated structures occupying the pelvic outlet, bounded anteriorly by the pubic symphysis, laterally by the ischial tuberosities, and posteriorly by the coccyx.

2. the region between the thighs, bounded in the male by the scrotum and anus and in the female by the vulva and anus.

Rocky Amusement (Updated)

Update: I put the broken rock on the carpet near the computer room this morning and as Eryn walked into the bathroom at about 7:00 a.m. I said, "Look, Bailey pooped." Eryn said, "Ewww....gross!" I said, "You have to clean it up, she's your cat." Eryn replied, "Sigh...can I use a tissue?" Me, "Of course, honey." She almost dropped the rock in the toilet before I explained it to her. Score. She's sort of has the opinion that it might be fun to leave it in front of the red room guest room door when She says is here.

I found a rock in the work parking lot today that was broken into two pieces. Eryn loves that sort of thing, so I put it in my pocket and gave it to here when I picked her up from school. When we got home, she brought it in and left it on the table where I realized it looked exactly like a piece of curved cat poop when the two rock pieces were side by side.

So I took it downstairs, left it in front of the computer room door, and then slowly pushed the door open, pointed at it, and said to Pooteewheet, "Ewwww...look what Bailey did."

She got as far as the bathroom before taking another look and realizing it was a rock. I'm leaving it on the floor for Eryn to find in the morning.

Easter!

I swear Easter is basically about cleaning up the house before company arrives. It does help me gain a perspective on how much junk is floating around the house. So for a few hours, until the five children dispersed all the toys and marshmallow guns and candy, it looked pretty good. We had the Cookie Queen family and my sister's family over for some egg hunting and grilling. That's right - we grilled for Easter. Ingenious. If I ever do a ham, I think I'm just going to throw it on the grill for expediency.

For a while I was in charge of tossing a spongy softball in a game of Heads Up! The best part about that was that I managed to unload an extraneous softball glove. My day is happiest when something leaves the house. I was particularly pleased that after the marshmallow guns came out, Eryn drew an engineering-esque comparison between the guns and the rocket launcher she got for selling magazines. She carefully put a marshmallow in the end of the rocket launcher and shot it at Dan'l.

I should have some pictures to post by tomorrow when Pooteewheet's camera finishes a lengthy download.

First Big Ride of the Season - Minnesota River Valley

Yesterday, I managed to get a bit off sunburn bicycling down into the Minnesota River Valley with Eryn trailing along on the tagalong. We biked over 14 miles, half of it downhill and half of it climbing back up out of the valley. I was exhausted and hit the sack just after 10.

We spent a lot of our time at the Jens Caspersen boat landing. A rather seedy looking area, but it drops you down by the river where you can cross to the other side and bike along the center of the river (sort of), or along the bank. We did a bit of both, as well as cruising down the road to Black Dog power plant. I'm sure there are mothers out there that would disagree with that choice of path as there's not much of an area to bike along the side of the road, but Eryn loved bicycling up to the tall smokestacks and rolling around the woods.

Just to prove it's a bit questionable if you're not with a 6'2" 250# man, here's the memorial for the area, covered in faux blood.


Here's the pedestrian bridge we rode over to the other side. I think I commented on this last year as well, but I'm saving you a picture of a woman with her legs spread drawn around a post hole. Classy! I don't think Eryn really noticed it. She was busy checking out the view.


Here's Eryn in front of the bridge. Note that she is NOT trespassing.


I'm not trespassing either. Don't I look like I belong in front of all that graffiti? I'm such a tough. Next thing you know I'll be tagging Shannon's car.


Here's a close up of Eryn that's pretty cute.


Eryn and I saw some of Ghost's graffiti on the pedestrian bridge. Pooteewheet is all over his signage while she takes picture of discarded bicycles, bird poop, and dead trees (said pictures turned out pretty well, so maybe she'll post a few).


Eryn caught mid-dance. It looks like she's doing some sort of Talking Heads move.

Bunny Residue

The Easter Bunny left behind a half chewed carrot bit. Can it be eaten worry free, or do you have to worry about an ETD?

In line with that question, a retro look at one of the most popular posts on my blog (per statcounter), specifically because of the picture that gave the post its name.

Cleo Sleeps With the Fishes

That's a positive statement. If cats have an afterlife, hanging with a bunch of fish is probably the best thing to hope for. I know that's where I'd want to be. Hanging out in a field of catnip in the sun next to a pond with so many fish they occassionally have to force one to jump out to make room. Although Cleo preferred turkey. If she smelled it, she'd do her darndest to crawl into the trash can. That and a groccery bag were her idea of a good time. But the cat afterlife would be scary if it was full of great big turkeys and you were a cat, so hope for fish.

Pooteewheet took Cleo to the vet for euthenasia today. She'd lost so much weight. But more than that, she'd started to leak all over everything. Back of the couch. Arms of the couch. Footrest of the couch. Eryn's rocking chair. Three layers of Eryn's covers and sheets. The floor. Probably our bed. She was in pretty rough shape from that perspective. Pooteewheet held out a long time, cleaning up after her wherever she found a smell.

She has some pictures on her blog post. My favorite picture of Cleo is this one. That was some good Pale Ale!


Pooteewheet has gone off to a mindless movie so she doesn't have to think about anything. Eryn composed songs on the piano about not seeing Cleo anymore and petting her for the last time to get some sadness out of her system. A sad Good Friday at the Scooter household.

Storyline!

I can't recommend this site enough. Storyline is famous (and semi-famous) actors reading well known books aloud. Not audiocasts, but videocasts. Eryn loves them. Among those available (and there are others):

To Be a Drum read by James Earl Jones
My Rotten Redheaded Older Brother read by Melissa Gilbert
Brave Irene read by Al Gore
The Polar Express read by Lou Diamond Phillips
Me and My Cat by Elijah Wood
Enemy Pie by Camryn Manheim

Just don't let your web saavy kid who knows how to navigate the site get anywhere near Jason Alexander's Dad, Are You the Tooth Fairy? It has a warning on it. I came skittering over to the top of the stairs, my fingers covered in Bisquick and parmesean cheese, yelling for Pooteewheet to stop her because she was going to watch something that "was too scary for little kids!" Eryn was disappointed. I'm pretty sure she has some suspicions that it's not scary at all, but hides a secret.

Things I Think Are Funnier Than Eryn Thinks They Are

When she falls off the swing at the playground and lands in the rocks, and they go down her underpants.

Rapunzel's Revenge

I felt I should recommend this graphic novel, Rapunzel's Revenge, if you have a little girl. I should warn you that there are guns and a chesty thespian, but overall it's a wonderful story with some real treats in the narrative and a very strong female character who has male friends but definitively takes care of herself. Eryn loved it.

Chicago!

Last week, on my four day weekend, we went to the House on the Rock, and followed it up with a visit to Kopp's Custard in Milwaukee, and then my nephew's (and niece's) house in Chicago for his fifth birthday. As part of the hanging out together event, we all went to the Chicago Field Museum for a day. I can't say I'm entirely impressed. Sue, the T-Rex dinosaur, was pretty cool. But the cost to enter the museum, plus the add on costs for the underground exhibit and pirates exhibit make you appreciate just how good we have it here in Minnesota where prices for culture are low, to nonexistent if you get a library pass. We had a good time, cost notwithstanding.

Here's Eryn, Max, Sophie and Grandma in front of Sue. Sophie was all about holding Eryn's hand. When she got tired or sad, Eryn's hand seemed to be the cure. Eryn wasn't 100% sure that was a good thing, but she was a good sport.


How many kids does it take to build a pyramid? More than this.


ARRRR! I'm a pirate, ye scurvy lubbers! And pirates wear stickers on their fleece pullovers. And stand in front of posters about dandy frogs. That's how vicious we are. ARRRR..... Is it just me, or is he giving me sort of an annoyed/disgusted look? We got to see a big pile of silver pieces of 8 that had "never been touched". I wondered how they'd a.) cleaned it and b.) gotten it to the museum, without it being touched in any way. Eryn did get to see a gibbet, which had been described in one of her books recently. Bonus!


After the pirates, we stopped at a New Zealand communal hut to hear a story from a cranky old man who, nevertheless, told a good story about Maui fishing up the whole north island of New Zealand. He said something at one point that seemed almost racist, but I'm going to chalk it up to my imagination. Early in the story process, a little kid started whipping around in circles like a maniac and talking loudly, so his parents removed him from the hut. For the next 15 minutes you could hear him screaming from what sounded like the other end of the museum, like someone was removing his fingernails. That's got to be a positive museum-going experience for his parents.

The underground exhibit shrank you to only 1/2 an inch tall. So there were huge grubs, which figured in a nightmare I had my first night back, spiders, ants, roots and discarded insect shells. This is the reality of how little girls are born.


Me, inappropriately touching a monkey. Or am I? If a monkey is in estrus, can they be inappropriately touched? And, if it gets his gnarly ass off the fresh vegetables at the market, isn't that a positive act? I'm not sure why that guy thinks faux overseers should touch monkey butts, but he does seem to be encouraging me.


These aren't from the field museum, but from our swimming adventures. I came back with a face so dry from chlorine it resembled my heels more than the soft, downy features you all are used to admiring. This is the submarine I was referring to at the House on the Rock Inn. There are several red buttons inside. If you reach for one while Eryn is watching, she'll cover her ears, scream, "NOOOOOOOO!!!" and run for an exit. As near as I can tell, they do nothing at all.


The pool at our Chicago hotel. Eryn has recently learned to dog paddle and put her head underwater. It's a big change in her swimming, so I'm looking forward to bicycling to the lake this summer.

Awakening

Yesterday I walked into the corporate bathroom, sidled up to a urinal, and then heard this from one of the stalls:

"Uh umhph...umphh?!"

I can't quite capture it, but it was exactly the sound someone makes when they wake up unexpectedly, like after they've fallen asleep someplace they don't really expect to fall asleep. Hope his ass wasn't asleep.

Clowning Around

This was a photo over a fireplace at The House on the Rock Inn. I don't know why it's so important to immortalize Ernest Borgnine posing as a clown, but apparently it is. His hand is suspiciously close to being in his pants and who knows if there's a hole in his pocketses.

April Fools

Discussion with Eryn yesterday when I picked her up from school.

Me: "Hey honey, I got you a special treat."

Eryn: "Really? Where is it?"

Me: "In the car."

Eryn runs to the car and gets in her car seat, "Where is it?"

Me: "Here." Hand her a small brown bag with handles.

Eryn looks in the bag. "This is dressing. Ranch dressing."

Me: "Mmmm..... There's vinegrette too."

Eryn: "That is NOT a funny April Fool's joke."

Me: "I got it at work today for free from the Kraft people."

Eryn: "Ick."

Me: "Is it better than when I gave you a tube of wasabi and told you it was candy?"

Eryn: "No. It is not funny at all. I don't like Ranch dressing." Pause. "I told my teacher her shoe fell off. THAT'S a funny April Fools joke. Ranch dressing is not funny."

House on the Rock

We spent the weekend and Monday/Tuesday driving to Chicago to visit my nephew Max on his fifth birthday. Our two big events, other than Max's birthday, were a stop at the House on the Rock in Wisconsin, and a trip to the Chicago Field Museum. I had never been to The House on the Rock before, at least not to my knowledge. It was a fascinating trip. Partially because the guy, who built an interesting house, progressed into crazy, collecting everything from teeth to creepy dolls to air-powered musical ensembles, and partially because Eryn walked for 3.5 hours without so much as a single complaint. She was quite taken with his collections, particularly the carousel and musical contraptions. But there was very little she didn't stop to check out for at least a moment.

Before we go on a short tour, a piece of advice, never ask the younger saleslady at the House on the Rock gift shop for directions. "A mile down the road" is literally seven miles. We turned back thinking we'd missed our hotel. There's not much around, which leads to some surprise that she doesn't know the directions to the closest town.

Here's a dragon on one of the pots adorning the driveway. Damn snow. It came down thick the night before and we abandoned my desire to hit up a local brew pub because the Focus was slipping on the 1" of slush that was under 3" of fresh powder. I was somewhat worried we'd have to wait for a plow in the morning before sightseeing.



Squid/Whale fight. The whale has huge teeth, like you or I, but larger. Seeing as regular sperm whales seldom lose a fight with a squid, I'm not sure why the teeth were necessary.


See, teeth. And a rowboat. Because you always have time to eat a rowboat before fighting a squid.


Scarier than the whale. Urinals where you can't put appropriate distance between you and the next guy. This breaks a lot of guy bathroom etiquette.


Boobs.


Crazy peacock statue.


Pooteewheet thought this was funny because of the piles cure. She's not funny. The sign isn't funny. Piles aren't funny.


The Mikado. One of the air powered musical ensembles. Eryn liked how he wiggled his eyebrows even after the music was over.


I preferred the ensemble that played a bit of Benny Hill...


The Marieville. According to a puzzle cache in Klund's home town of St. Peter, this was the last paddleboat to travel up the river past St. Peter.


I didn't know St. Nick had a wand, much less that it tasted like a candy cane.


The infinity room. It was built after the House on the Rock designer died. The way it wobbles in the wind is seriously creepy. That didn't stop me from bouncing up and down on the floor as Pooteewheet walked out to the end.


Here's video...


Somewhere, Count Olaf is afoot.


Proof of the madness. These angels adorn the area where the carousel sits.


And one of them has a beard.


Eryn, wishing she was big.


The carousel. This was actually pretty neat, even if you couldn't ride it. The animals were about six deep and of all sorts, none of them a horse (the horses were all strapped to the opposite wall, like they'd been banished for bad behavior). The bulldog was my favorite.


What's this? We're everywhere! It's trippy to run into work when you're touring House on the Rock.