Dishwasher

Blogging has been light lately because I've been busy cleaning. Yesterday was Eryn's room. Today was moving appliances to the garage for J.R.'s curbside pickup on Friday morning (thanks to my father in law who came to help lift a fridge out of the basement), which is $55 cheaper than taking them for dropoff at Appliance Smart, and trying to install a new dishwasher (thanks again to Larry^2 for bringing his trailer for a Sears pick up run) that had instructions for a 3/8" 90 degree compression turn when it meant a 1/2" instead. A-holes. Who the hell knows the size of the dishwasher's threaded receptor if not the people who made it? Not to mention, I had to strip apart the old dishwasher to find spare pieces to make the junction box work, and a cable to splice so I didn't have to rewire under the sink. Pooteewheet is paying the price - she has to stop by Home Depot in the snow storm.

Until the dishwasher is in, I've come up with a plan that circumvents all the hose and tubing problems I'm encountering. I just pass the dishes down there and expect them to come back clean. I'm thinking of having her name officially changed to Dish Washer.

Paracetamoxyfrusebendroneomycin

For my sister, mother, and CookieQueen, courtesy of Drunkcyclist.com, the benefits of paracetamoxyfrusebendroneomycin.

Symphony

I haven't really gotten around to downloading Christmas pictures yet, so instead I'm going to ask a question I've been meaning to pose for a while. A few times a year, say three or four, I find myself sitting around and a symphony starts to play in my head. Nothing I've heard before. Never the same one twice. A fully-fledged, all instruments, sounds like something you'd hear on the classical radio channel, piece. If you gave me a tape recorder at that moment, I could hum all the individual strings and woodwinds and percussion (et al) lines making up the whole.

Until recently, I never thought too much of it. And then I reconsidered that maybe it's weird. So does this sort of thing happen to anyone else? Do you find yourself in-mind of a new classical tune, or some painting that should make it to a canvas but doesn't? I suspect it's my brain just exercising some neurons I haven't been mindful of on a day-to-day basis, but I'm fascinated to know if it's common, or if there are variations on the theme, or if some psychologist knows what causes it.

Present Kicking Yeti

Yesterday, Klund gave Eryn a chocolate present egg from Germany. Delicious two-tone chocolate on the outside, funny present in the plastic yolk. Eryn got a yeti that kicks a little cardboard present box high in the air and Klund demonstrated to her how to turn it into a drinking game, and told her I'd explain the story of the Christmas yeti to her later.

This is what she was told. Santa makes his list up of who's been bad and good every year, but because of the volume of kids and the need to get data processing done on time, as well as present production completed, the very last week before Christmas is not factored into the good/bad algorithm. So you can be horrible the last week before Christmas, and you still get presents. Because of this loophole, Santa employs the present-kicking yeti, whose job it is to triple check the list (because Santa checks it twice) and watch for children exploiting the week before Christmas to misbehave. If he finds a culprit, he visits their house after Santa, but before the child wakes up, and uses his huge feet to kick the crap out of their presents. You'll know he was there because the train or doll you asked for will be in a box that looks like it's been kicked and stomped upon. Moral: children should not try to exploit exception to the rules just because they can.

Ko Imari Soba Choko

Pooteewheet, Eryn and I went in on a nicer than usual present for Kyle this year, a sake cup (Doing double time as a soup cup. Soba is a noodle soup. Choko is a type of sake cup. Given the size of the cup, it's either a generous helping of sake, or a minimal serving of soup.) and two bottles of sake, including one called "snowdrift" that has a sort of dubious substance resting on the bottom. Kyle has already opened the present, but I wanted to get some pictures and documentation from the web site out here so he has details when discussing the cup if he so pleases. I thought about getting him a cup from the 18th century, because a 250 year old cup just sounds cooler than a 160 year old cup, but once you get that far back a lot of things are two tone blue and white and not as pretty. I also liked the initials on the bottom of this one. They give it character.

Japanese Ko Imari Soba Choko, Cup 19c (pre-1837) purchased from Sanai Fine Arts and Antiques
The size of cup: 3 1/4" Dia x 2 1/2" High. Very nice Japanese Ko Imari Porcelain Soba Choko, Cup. The cup has nice shape body. Inside bottom with Sho Chiku Bai. The rim edge with diamond design done very nicely. There are three window of design with the lantern and tree. There is also three smaller windows. The Gold Karakusa with red background around. Nice sometsuke foot rim design. It is marked with Seika Nensei. The condition of cup Excellent, no chip, no crack and no hairline. No enamel loss. Dating from Edo Kouki, 1800-1830.

Panel:


Mini-panel:


Inside:


Bottom edge:


Bottom edge from mini-panel side:


Bottom of the cup:

Busy Days Off

I have this week, and almost all of next week, off to stay home with Eryn while she's on Christmas vacation. I thought it would be relaxing and, for the most part, it is. But so far we've had our family pictures taken for a few hours at the Walker Sculpture Garden. Had lunch at Macy's followed by checking out the Christmas exhibit - a day in the life of Santa's elves. Took a trip to St. Peter to visit Klund, his wife, and kids and drop off a 15 year old espresso maker that I probably could have had shipped to his house for cheaper than the gas to get it there. But Eryn and I had fun visiting the murder of Klunds (or is it a pod?), and we can't do that if we send things by mail. To put icing on the trip we sang along to Christmas songs on the radio for 2.5 hours and managed to stop at the stoplight in Burnsville right next to this:

"Some residents of the Burncliff Apartments will be allowed to return home this afternoon after fire destroyed one building and forced the evacuation of the other at the complex. Nearly 200 people were left temporarily homeless, but no one was injured."

When we stopped, fire was starting to shoot out of the eaves in one area, and by the time the light changed, there was a great big fire shooting out of the roof. Eryn was particularly worried that one of her teachers, who said she lives in an apartment, might live in that apartment (complex) as it wasn't too far from Tesseract.

And then this morning we got up at 6:15 a.m. to head downtown and have breakfast with Erik at the new Hell's Kitchen digs. They're quite the step up from the old restaurant, and the art with the guy trying to push his way out of the wall fascinated Eryn. Not this guy. A different, faceless, scarier guy. It was a great morning for bison sausage and lemon ricotta pancakes topped with mixed berries. I drank caffeine despite my no-to-little caffeine rule that's supposed to keep the restless legs issue lessened, because who wants to have a gourmet breakfast and drink decaf?

I think we're now officially resting, however. Me typing blog posts and working on a novel. Eryn playing with Microsoft Word, Crayola Model Magic clay, and Santa Clause 3 on Netflix instant streaming. Both of us waiting anxiously for the first round of presents tomorrow.

Hidden Marvin Feature

I blogged about the Marvin the Martian sweatshirt my mother bought me and how it was sort of girly, right down to the zipper on the wrong side. But tonight, I discovered a feature that should at least allow me to dissuade small children from picking upon my cool sweatshirt. I learned it zips all the way to the top - as is in the top of the hood. Like I'm wearing a shroud. Eryn is not impressed.

Haunted House

This is a picture from Conner's birthday party at the St. Paul Children's Museum. I told her the 20 on the door was because the playhouse was haunted and every 20th child who tried to open the door would find that it suddenly opened and they would be sucked in, never to be seen again. This is shortly after her try, but before she tried to convince several others to try it to see if they were the 20th.

Big Damn Meme

A big damn meme, courtesy of Princess Max. Add your own item to the end if you use it.

Have you ever?

1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo (not quite)
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill (although I've finished a day out of office where I got better part way through).
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community.
36. Taught yourself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo's David
41. Sung karaoke (does Rock Band count?)
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant (bought a total stranger a CD once)
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie (I was on a clown show on t.v.)
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout cookies (I did sell Boy Scout candy)
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating (a fish)
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous (I saw Wang Chung - maybe that's not the same as meeting them. But I met a famous clown. A famous child actor from Sigmund and the Sea Monster. And the archbishop of the Methodist Church in 1985. I should be covered).
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby ("had")
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a lawsuit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee
100. Read an entire book in one day
101. Been within five feet of a wild animal that wasn't a squirrel or a bird?
102. Biked across a state.

I Shoe Malaysia

This is primarily for Ming. You have to get home. Now. Not your home here in Minnesota, but the home where your parents live. You have to save them! They're in dire danger!


AHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

Infection - The Photos

French Dip asked to see some photos of my incarceration. I didn't leave them out because I didn't want to show them. It's just that I wrecked 'em. Ahahahaha....just try and outpun me. Dicks. Anyway, I just hadn't managed to get them off Pooteewheet's camera yet because I have to pop the chip, put that little chip in a bigger chip, put it in the camera, and then download the pictures. It's annoying.

Unfortunately, I don't have any surgical footage for you, although I'd have enjoyed that. They should tape surgery for you - that would be cool. Way better than wedding videos. But, if you're French Dip and you really must see a few nice pictures of hemorrhoids, then here's a Google image search. Keep in mind that anal melanomas are aggressive malignancies only masquerading as hemorrhoids and shouldn't be confused with anything I was suffering from. I was in no such danger (scroll down on that one from some enjoyable photos. The phrase "6 cm prolapsed, nodular, pigmented anal melanoma" should be enough to make your stomach churn without accompanying media).

Here I am in the ER. IVed and prior to antibiotics or the hospital. Don't look up my dress, although if you start to, you can see I still have a little bit of a tan from bicycling. That is not a Lance Armstrong bracelet.


Bad oxygen levels. They don't like it when you're at 90% and your white blood cell counts are way up. So they hook you to this tube which made my sinuses first dry, then congested. I'm not sure if those are hives or dry skin. Being in a hospital/clinic environment has given me hives before (I think there's a disinfectant to which I'm slightly allergic).


The shunt they left in for my hospital stay while they pumped various antibiotics into my system to cycle the fever down.


This will be the name of a future nephew. Axial. You KNOW this is a sign. It even starts with an "A". I should have scribbled a request on the back of a napkin in case I'd died in the bed.

Surgery and Infection

So I've been out of action almost an entire week. I shall summarize it, in all it's gory, too-much-information, detail below. The evening after the pizza challenge I encountered a hemorrhoid problem. Not a get one and it goes away problem, but a 15 minutes of sleep overnight, I've run into something serious, sort of condition. I could blame poor eating habits, but it's probably more accurate to blame, in order, 1.) my father, who had surgery when he was 36 or so for hemorrhoids, 2.) bicycling (you can assume the pizza had quite a bit to do with it, but I doubt it - I suspect the 30 miles in the bike saddle that day was more of a culprit), 3.) my job environment (sitting in a cube or a chair all day. Given who I work for, can I call them hemorreuters?). So Monday morning I called my clinic and got a referral, then called the Fairview system to find someone who could get me in right away. I went in at 1:00 p.m., bent over for a doctor, and he said, "I'll see you in surgery tomorrow. Go get a pre-operative physical." F***. I walked through all the hoops, and the next day at 1:00 p.m. Fairview Southdale attempted six times to get a needle in me to knock me out. The anethetist was getting so frustrated that he demanded the Christmas music in the OR get turned off until he left.

Three hours later I was awake, and Pooteewheet told me the doctor said it had taken twice as long as he had thought it would as there was a crop of hemorrhoids. There's a word you really don't want to hear in conjunction with anything other than agricultural products and scrapbooking.

I went home on percoset and ibuprofen and did fine overnight on the couch (so Pooteewheet wouldn't accidentially kick me). But the next day I fell asleep at around 1:00 and woke up at 4:00 with a temperature of 102.7 (F). So it was off to the ER at Ridges. They moved me to the top of the line (a fever after ass surgery is serious business) stuck several more needles in me, took blood cultures, and several hours later announced I wasn't going anywhere other than to room 200 in the hospital for an overnight stay. Which turned into two overnights. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday until 7:00 p.m. I sat around trying to find some way to keep busy. The next morning the temp had cycled down to 101.3 or so. The morning after that to 99.6. They pumped several ivs of liquids and antibiotics into me, and then finally sent me home with two additional oral antibiotics to make sure everything was gone.

Some highlights:

• They still don't know what it is I caught. Feces in the blood stream? General infection picked up during the surgery? Coincidental cold?
• Having the doc examine your bum while it has stitches in it is BAD.
• Going to the bathroom while your bum has stitches in it is BAD.
• Morphine is worthless (as far as I'm concerned) for general ass pain. Percoset is much better.
• Having access to Facebook can relieve 15-30 minutes of boredeom, but not much more.
• Why doesn't the guy on survivorman ever find anything to eat? He mostly seems to survive by starving for 6 days until he's picked up.
• The oral antibiotics preclude drinking alcohol, so I spilled them all out on the counter to make sure I was going to be able to have a few beers on New Year's.
• I've been told I can get back on my bike two weeks after the surgery. I'm not sure I believe that - I'm guessing three. Pooteewheet thinks I'm crazy.
  

Now I'm home. And not feeling 100%, but I did make it to the office Christmas party yesterday for an hour just to see something that wasn't the inside of a small room. Kyle came over to visit and brought a game to play (I can sit on our new puffy couch - it was almost like my butt could see the future when we decided to buy it) and some food to eat, which was exceptionally nice of him.

The other doc told me I can expect to start feeling better somewhere 7-10 days out, somewhere between this Tuesday and Friday, and I'm supposed to do two follow up appointments this week to make sure my blood looks good. I'm going back to work tomorrow and have a full load of meetings - e.g. a full load of sitting in uncomfortable office chairs - so we'll see how that works out. I told Ming I'll probably be 10 minutes late shuffling my way from meeting to meeting.

Pizza!

I'd like to preface this post with a statement that is probably evil in nature. Kyle. Ming. If I don't come out from under the knife tomorrow, it was the pizza that killed me.

Ming, Kyle, Ming's brother-in-law Chris (subbing for a very sick Dan'l) and I took the 30"/30 minute pizza challenge at Randy's Pizza yesterday. 30" or 30 minutes - I don't think extending either liminal would have done us a lot of good. But like the 18 year olds we're not, we gave it a try.

Here, Randy's demonstrates that the pizza in question is pretty much the size of a trailer. Those aren't the current gas prices in Minnesota, by the way, that's just an out of business gas station that Ming is going to turn into a scrapbooking store.


The pizza is bigger than your average pizza worker. We'd have possibly had better luck trying to eat the person who delivered it.


She lays out the rules. Right after this I sprinkled Parmesan on my side, just to be an idiot, and separated quite a bit of the pizza to get it to cool off.


Greasy fingers. Can you believe a group of four finished one of these in under 15 minutes once? Under 15 minutes. That's insane.


Mouths full. You can tell we're already wearing out. Chris (next to me, left) replaced our anchor, and he lived up to the challenge. He clearly finished more pizza than the rest of us.


Me, realizing that a slight allergy to tomatoes can be a problem when eating the equivalent of a 14" pizza and 10-20% extra. I was getting very warm. I like how this picture shows that my bald spot is starting to sneak down the side of my head.


When the money comes out, you know it's all over. No free pizza for us. But they did give us our drinks for free, which was very nice.


This is how far we got. You can make your own assumptions about who ate their share and who didn't.


Live pizza blogging, courtesy of Pooteewheet:


A little more:

Coughin Up a Lung - the Halloween Finale

Spoiler warning. Big warning. If you don't want to know what the end of the Halloween 2008 geocaching series looks like, then don't look. Eryn and I finally collected all the codes from the previous twelve Halloween caches, and took them home and ran the numbers to find the coordinates for the last cache. We were going to go yesterday, but ran out of time before Conner's birthday, so we managed to sneak it in today, if you can call tromping around in the snow and woods for over an hour "sneaking it in".

The cache was well worth the trip. This is what confronted us at the end. A snow-covered coffin. Wonder if anyone's in it? Was it all an elaborate ploy to do away with a fellow geocacher?


There is someone inside! Eryn had the school dog along with her, dressed in his snowsuit. He thought that coffin looked nice and warm. Wait until the kids at school see the scrapbook with Sparkie hanging with his new friend.


Interesting. What's that in his hand?


If we look a little closer, we can see that it's the Dead Man's Hand! I have it on good authority that he's hiding the queen of diamonds in that set.

Christmas Meme

We're down half a million jobs in the last month? That is seriously bad holiday season mojo. I don't want to think about it at the moment because it's sad, so I'm going to tackle a Christmas meme I picked up from Sunshine on my Toes instead.

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags?
I hate gift bags with a passion. If I had my druthers, I'd just hand the present to someone unwrapped, which would indicate I should prefer bags to paper, but my hatred of bags outweighs their similarity to my natural inclination.

2. Real tree or Artificial?
Fake. My mother once called Pooteewheet and I scrooges or some such thing because one year we didn't even have a tree when Christmas wasn't being hosted at our house (we were headed to Arizona). So we've generally had a fake tree because I'm not sentimental enough to have to go strap one to the top of the car every year. A little one that lived on top of the entertainment unit when we lived in apartments, and seven foot (or so) one now that we're in a house. Theoretically, we could host a 15 footer in the kitchen which would be impressive, but I think my ladder is still in the tennants' garage. As an aside, Pooteewheet and I were married in front of a Christmas tree at the Methodist Church in Monticello. The ornaments on the tree had been hung for as long as I'd been at the chruch.

3. When do you put up the tree?
Earliest, the weekend after Thanksgiving. Latest - a day or two before the holiday.

4. When do you take the tree down?
No later than one month after Christmas, at which point it starts to offend my "there's junk in my house" sensibilities.

5. Do you like eggnog?
Delicious, but bad for me. I prefer with alcohol. Ring Mountain has egg nog gelato. If you can stand a full cup, it's good stuff.

6. Favorite gift received as a child?
Tough one. I got some great gifts. I really liked getting my first DVD player. Dan'l gave me a best of Aerosmith CD before my parents gave me the DVD player, so that was memorable.

7. Hardest person to buy for?
Anyone in my extended family and friends in the age range of about .5 to 1.5. I just don't know what the hell to buy them. I always want to buy something that's good through age 6, and that's just not possible.

8. Easiest person to buy for?
My wife, Pooteewheet. I have a list as long as my...arm.

9. Do you have a nativity scene?
Sort of. I have a hand-made wood ornament from 35 years ago that has a nativity scene on it. But no standalone version. As another aside, my coworker has to sit next to a cubemate who has a nativity scene in his cube. That would bug the be-Jesus out of me.

10. Mail or email Christmas cards?
ARGH. I hate Christmas cards. And thank you cards. And invitations. I am horrible at them and despise them, even though I enjoy reading them when I get them from others. Can we all just agree to Facebook each other a "Happy Holidays"?

11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received?
If Kyle had given me Madonna's True Blue for Christmas, I'd nominate that - but I think that was a birthday gift. So I'll have to say "cheese set" - the cheeses are never as good as if someone had just picked one particular cheese and purchased a really good one.

12. Favorite Christmas Movie?
Probably Christmas Story. Not because it's a classic. It's just damn funny. But Joyeux Noel is an excellent Christmas movie. And I'm also partial to Bad Santa (Fuck me, Santa! Fuck me, Santa! Fuck me, Santa!) and White Christmas.

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas?
Before Pooteewheet (and early on in our relationship) year round. I'd have items set aside in a closet waiting for Christmas as early as the previous Christmas. Since her, I shop much closer to Christmas, generally the month before.

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present?
That would be rude. I find a use, or I find someone who wants it when it's not Christmas.

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas?
It's a NodToNothing family tradition - Fondue (swiss and wine and cheddar and beer, but sometimes onion and whiskey).

16. Lights on the tree?
One color on the top and another on the bottom. We're discussing something with a bit more multiracial theme to match the ethnic angel on the top.

17. Favorite Christmas songs:
We Three Kings. Little Drummer Boy. Kathy Mattea. Amy Grant. If it has almost a depressing edge to it, I prefer those.

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home?
Used to travel to Arizona, but now we stay at home for the most part (with a short excursion to the in-laws' house for the second celebration).

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer's?
Not without singing them. But do you recall....the most fa-mous reindeer of all....

20. Angel on the tree top or a star?
Angel - she's black, or perhaps brown. Actually ethnicity is really sort of up for debate. We are whitebread. We did once put my sister's picture on the top of the tree in Arizona. I'm pretty sure it's not sacriligious given all the Hallmark ornaments with beer and Coke products and even Scooby Doo.

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning?
Christmas Eve for my family. Christmas Day for Pooteewheet's family.

22. Most annoying thing about this time of the year?
The sheer amount of attempts to solicit donations. We go out of our way to pick a few, and once we do, someone(s - many of them) asks for donations to a different fund. It's not because we're scrooges (despite what my mother says), rather that I try to donate quite a bit of money, until it's noticeable on my bottom line, throughout the year instead, where I can solicit matching funds from work which makes my money work harder for people in need. So maybe I'm practical to the point of being a scrooge as I want my donation to be 150% of what I donate (we still donate to a few toy charities during the holiday. Kids should get presents, even if they're practical, like clothes).

23. Favorite ornament theme or color?
My grandfather always bought us a Hallmark ornament every year. Since he's passed on, we still get an ornament from his estate money every year. Those are my favorites (and the majority of what's on our tree). Some others include the Snoopy plastic ornament that was part of set my brother and I bought for my mother one Christmas and a glass bird with tinsel tail feathers that's probably as old as I am.

24. Favorite for Christmas dinner?
Fondue. See above - it's our tradition.

25. What do you want for Christmas this year?
For those 500,000 people to find jobs soon and to hang out with my friends and family during the holiday season for food, drinking and gaming.

We Put Up Our Christmas Tree

I almost forgot some of the ornaments.

St. Peter

After Thanksgiving and the day of finding the toad geocache, the family rolled down to St. Peter to visit Klund and his family. Mean Mr. Mustard was supposed to show up, but didn't (his blog says his wife was too busy reading Twilight). And Tall Brad's family was supposed to show up, and did. At least 66.7% did, which is probably a valid number if you're referring to the number of members, or the total height.

We had a busy weekend, visiting Brad's baby (Anika), playing rock band (I didn't sing until Brad was busy changing Anika. For the record, my first Rock Band singing experience was "Mississippi Queen"), listening to stories about where Brad shops for pants, mass shoveling snow, watching the Lego Mindstorms competition, geocaching, eating Ms. Klund's wonderful food (and Brad's spicy queso, which I put on tacos the next day), playing Link's Crossbow with the whole family (grandparents included), doing acrobatics on the Ikea ladder and grips (that was Eryn, not me or Pooteewheet), and I'm sure there are many things I'm missing. I pulled out a few pictures below and others can be found in the Flickr set.

The kids asking for food.


Klund demonstrating that if the river were to flood, he could bob with his head above water, but all the children would be goners.


No trip to St. Peter is complete without a picture of the Pearly Gates. There's a chart somewhere that tracks Flickr pictures of the gates and the resulting number is divided by the cost to build to justify the taxpayer expense.


Lego Mindstorms competition. Lego heads.


This is what happens when Mindstorms robots go horribly astray from their programmed path, seeding destruction throughout St. Peter.

Strange Signs

I saw two strange and amusing signs on my way back from St. Peter.

1.) "Captive Tan". This is either funny or offensive if you know the right Malaysians.

2.) "Think Opportunity. Think Bethany." With a large picture of a presumably college-age woman to the right on the billboard. I read this and the first several meanings that crossed my mind had nothing to do with going to Bethany the Lutheran school. They don't have this one on their website that I can find. Perhaps they realized they were engaging in a bit of entendre.