Saturday, 25 December 2010

The first item on our agenda today was to open up our Xmas presents. Owen didn’t want the presents sitting under the tree all month this time; he wanted them to ‘magically’ appear under the tree on Xmas eve. So, last night, after he went to bed, Jennifer and I set his and Isla’s gifts under the tree.

Owen’s gifts included: A Star Wars Visual Dictionary, nesting robots (matreshka style), a 2011 calendar, a mini-remote-controlled robot, and a stuffed robot that he can color and decorate himself. Isla’s gifts included some wood teethers (including one that I made!), playsilks, and one of those puffy books that infants like to chew on. Here’s what I’m talking about.

It’s a cool book, because it’s essentially a photo album, and we filled it with pictures of Isla’s family (mom, dad, brother, cousins, grandparents, and great-grandma).

Next, we drove to Jennifer’s uncle and aunt’s house in Forest Lake. We had dinner there, then we went downstairs to their basement for the dice game. The dice game is really fun and here’s how it works: everyone brings some gifts that they’ve prewrapped. The gifts aren’t fancy – a box of tea bags, a couple lottery tickets, some knick-knacks from the thrift store, a flashlight, used books, stuff like that. Anyway, they are labeled as BOYS, GIRLS, or UNISEX, and thrown into piles in the center of the room (it’s a big room). Then we all sit around the piles, and we pass around boxes with a pair of dice in them. When the box gets to you, you roll the dice inside, and if you get doubles, you get to run into the middle and pick out a gift. This takes a surprisingly long time, actually, but it’s entertaining to see which gifts go first and which ones stay for a long time. Finally, when all the gifts are accounted for, we keep rolling the dice for a couple more minutes, and if you get doubles, you can steal from someone else. This often results in tackling. And here’s another funny thing – you might think that it’s a good idea to steal the biggest gift – because surely that one has the best prize inside it – but this is actually not such a good idea. The reason why is because other people might also want that gift, and then they’ll steal if from you when they get doubles.  It’s funny to see some gifts change hands multiple times. Bottom line: it’s better to steal unremarkable gifts, because then you have a better chance of keeping them.

After that, everyone opens his or her gifts. Some of my gifts included a wine rack, a jar filled with candy, and a book about beer. Owen participated in the game for the first time this year, and he stole a gift from me (he thought that was sooooo funny). Now I have 364 days to start collecting gifts for next year (I am always on the lookout – at the Goodwill, at vendor shows I attend through work, and even here at home where there might be things I don’t want anymore, but that still have some value).

On second thought, instead of telling you about the dice game, maybe I should just show you:

[Oh wait – I guess I can’t. After trying for several hours, it turns out that YouTube’s upload software is, for the fifth straight year, a piece of shit.]

Thursday, 23 December 2010

Happy Christmas Eve Eve!

`11`1            111111111112QAQ1                                     1`1q            AWZA≈Î444SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSZA

Okay, first of all, the above message is what happens when I leave my laptop on the floor in proximity to a 4 month old. So – let it be known – that message is Isla’s first ever attempt at written communication. I don’t know what language she speaks, but I think it roughly translates to “Hey, what’s this?”

Today Owen and I ventured to Home Depot. I copied some blueprints for a stool that I want to make for him, and I figured I would buy the wood today.

See, Jennifer and I have these IKEA chairs in the living room and they have matching stools. IKEA ever so adorably has a kid-sized version of the chairs…but not the stool. What are they thinking? If that’s not a missed opportunity to make some easy money, I don’t know what it.

Anyway, the stool blueprints I found are for an adult-sized chair, too. No worries, I thought, I’ll just construct it smaller so that it’s Owen-sized. Well, stupid me forgot about the scaling-down part of it, and I bought enought wood ($40 worth) to construct the full-sized version. Damn. That was stupid. So, yeah, I got some extra wood laying around.

(Did you think with all this talk about stool and wood that I would take the opportunity to make a sophomoric joke? Sorry. I’m too mature for that.)

Also, check this out:

Damn. I’m not sure if Jesus is coming…but Pope Palpatine sure is! (ba-dum!)

Friday, 24 December 2010

Happy Christmas Eve!

Today we celebrated baby Jesus’ 2,010th birthday by going over to my sister-in-law’s house. She lives about two miles away, so she’s just barely inside my daily recommended car trip allowance.

Owen’s grandparents were there, too. And his grammie had a great idea: pack as many gifts as you can into a single box, and then just wrap that one box. How clever is that? It’s great because then she didn’t have to bother wasting time and materials individually wrapping all sorts of things. As an additional bonus, Owen is really bad at unwrapping stuff. I’m serious; I think he thinks he has to unwrap gifts such that the wrapping paper, ribbon, and tape are all reusable.So, having less to unwrap is a good deal for him. On an unrelated note: he’s been randomly saying “Jewish people” at odd times.

Also, I tried my latest batch of homebrew this evening. Not good. Too bitter, and an unfortunate aftertaste. Of course, it just finished conditioning a few days ago, so maybe it will taste better in, like, a week or so. Otherwise, I might just put a cup of honey in each glass I pout and keep some sugar sitting next to me that I can splash onto my tongue every time I take a swallow.

Tuesday, 21 December 2010

Happy December Solstice! (“December” is more PC than “Winter.”)

Are snowplows exempt from following traffic regulations?

Today, on my way to work, while driving north on Ayd Mill Road, I happened to be behind a snowplow. It was a small snowplow – just a small pick-up truck with a plow attached to the front of it. I could have gone around the plow, but the driver was slightly straddling the other lane, and with so much snow piled up, I really would’ve had to squeeze to get through.

As we approached the stop sign, the snowplow driver just decided to ignore it – he didn’t slow down or give any indication that he care that there was a stop sign there. And he wasn’t in the process of plowing, either, he was just driving somewhere.

About two minutes later, I was driving north on Snelling Avenue. As I waited at a stoplight, a very large snowplow came barreling past me in the other lane. This time, it was a large Caterpillar digger, with the number ‘950F’ emblazoned on the side. It just went right through the stoplight. I’m not sure why he couldn’t wait, the light turned green about 5 seconds after he past. I caught up to that snowplow, and we both slowed down and came to a stop at the next stoplight. “Oh good,” I though, “this time he’s stopping for the light.” But he only stopped for a second – ‘cause then he just went right on through that light (even though opposing traffic was approaching) and then, crossing over the highway, switched lanes without signaling and drove straight through the next stoplight, too.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many traffic violations in such a short time. I think I’m gonna strap a plow to the front of my Cavalier so that, should I ever get pulled over, I can say, “Sorry officer, but you see I have a snowplow, so normal rules don’t really apply to me.”

Wednesday, 22 December 2010

Happy Christmas Eve Eve Eve!

Today is my last day of work for the year. I am not stepping foot in this building again until January third of next year. It’s funny how much of a ghost town my job becomes – only seven people from my department (a department of normally 15 people) are even here at work today, and one of them left at noon. The parking lot is relatively empty and many departments got to leave early today. I think I just saw some tumbleweed blow by.

On the Christmas front: my beer is done conditioning as of today. Good timing! Now I just have to apply the labels to the bottles and then I can go ahead and spread some Xmas cheer! Last year (not sure if I mentioned this before) I completely forgot to brew some beer for Xmas until it was too late, but this year I stayed very cognizant of it, having purchased the supplies the weekend after Thanksgiving.

Sunday, 19 December 2010

Today my sister and her husband came over to our home and we celebrated Xmas together. They bought some gifts for Owen and Isla, and we had a gift for their dogs. (I also gave a 4-pack of homebrew to my brother-in-law).

We had decided a few weeks ago to not buy gifts for each other. As my sister explained it, if she wants something, she’ll just go buy it…so there’s not much fun in asking each other what we all want and then buying it for each other. She said she just likes to buy stuff for kids. I said that was fine with me, except that then I feel like it’s unfair, since she and her husband have to buy stuff for our kids, but we don’t have to buy anything for them (since they don’t have kids). So that’s when she suggested that we get something for her dogs. I think that’s a good arrangement, and I’m gonna stick with that for future Xmases.

Later, we all went out to eat at Olive Garden. Jennifer and I had tried to eat at Olive Garden a few weeks ago, but it was so busy there – with a wait time of about an hour – that we left and went to eat somewhere else. So, today we tried again. The wait was predicted to be at a half hour. Which, I guess, isn’t so bad. The entryway was packed with people – lots of them clearly having come from church. My sister said, “Getting brainwashed must make them hungry.” Ha! I’ll have to remember that.

Anyway, we were seated about 25 minutes later. One of my co-workers is married to a guy that works at Olive Garden, and she said they always overestimate the wait time. Very smart of them.

Monday, 20 December 2010

Today I gave my first speech in Toastmasters.

Well, technically, I suppose this is my second speech, since I was called on to give an extemporaneous “table topic” speech two weeks ago. But this was my first prepared speech – and it was the first one out of the Competent Communication handbook.

Speech #1 is called the “Ice Breaker” speech. It’s supposed to be 4-6 minutes long.

I decided to title my speech “Four Unique Events” and briefly talk about four things that have happened in my life that are, probably, considered unique by most standards. Actually, at the beginning of my speech, I defended my choice of the word ‘unique’ by stating that these events were unique to me – in that I have only experienced them one time, though I wouldn’t mind doing any of them again.

I also had four slides that I used. I am not really a big fan of Power Point, but that’s what I used. There were five slides, and each one was just a photo; I had no intention of using bulleted lists or just reading from the screen!

Here are the five images I used:

Hey look! It’s my old buddy Tim, in Belgium, shaking hands with me, in France!

Yep, here I am on Oprah. That necktie is made out of hemp, by the way.

Here I am as Right Reverend Zimmerman. As I said in my speech, I’m happy to announce that these guys are still married.

Wow. That’s a big tub for the third floor of an apartment. I’m glad I wasn’t worried that it was going to crash through the floor or anything.

I ended with a picture of mini-me and mini-Jenni.

Thursday, 16 December 2010

Today, Jennifer and I were talking about friends. Among other things, we were discussing the difficulty (sometimes) in maintaining friendships. In some cases, actually, it’s easy – especially if you and your friend are ‘thrown together’ (for lack of better words) for an outside reason. This is often why it’s easy to be friends with family members: your gonna be in contact with them anyways.

I’ve noticed the same thing with co-workers. I am with them every weekday, so I start to become their friends. It’s interesting to notice how quickly a co-worker can drop from one’s circle of friends once they quit the company – or even just transfer to a different department.

Jennifer and I have had friends in the past that, we claimed, liked us better than we liked them. Of course, I can’t be certain if this is fact or just our perception. Indeed, I am not even sure how something like this would be measured. But it certainly ‘seemed’ that way. Let’s just go ahead and assign numbers to these friendships, because that sounds like an extremely shallow and arbitrary thing to do:

My friend, Clarence, says I’m a 9. I say he’s a 7. This is probably okay, because, even though I have other friends I like better than him (or maybe I just have some idealized friendship that he does not, quite, attain), he is actively seeking me out – he calls me, emails me, looks for activities and events for us to join in together. And that’s just great. Of course, I reciprocate sometimes, too.

Now my friend Guenther says I’m a 10. I say he’s a 3. This isn’t any good, because even though Guenther thinks I am awesome and wants to be with me all the time, I easily grow weary of him. I get sick of the fact that he’s always hanging around and I wish he’d give me space.

Then there’s my friend Sinbad, who says I’m a 5. I think he’s a 9. This is how Jennifer and I feel a lot, especially since there’s not as much to ‘throw us together’ with friends like there used to be.

Friday, 17 December 2010

Today my department (where I work) had a potluck. Which does not mean, I was sad to learn a long time ago, that everyone brings pot and we see who gets lucky.

Here are some take-away lessons for the next potluck: I really only need to bring, like, three or four servings of food. Yep, it’s true. Here’s why: everyone in the group (and this group consisted of about 15 people, but any potluck involving over 5 people holds true for this) thinks that they need to make enough for everybody. If they’re making chili, they’ll make enough for everyone to have a bowl. If they’re bringing a fruit tray, they’ll bring one large enough so that everyone can have a serving spoonful. In my case, I brought cookies, and my wife prepared about 30 cookies – enough for everyone to have two.

But – and here’s the point – no one can eat all that food. See, if 15 people each bring something to eat, there’s no way I can consume 15 servings of food. So, I need to leave out some stuff. This brings me to my second point…

Since attendees at a potluck have to discriminate about what they’re eating, unless you bring one of the two or three best-tasting items in any given category, you’re going home with a lot of leftovers. For example, if you bring in soup, no one’s gonna eat your soup if there are two other soups there that taste better – or at least look more promising. So, you know cookies? Booooring.

Anyway, we have some extra cookies here.

Saturday, 18 December 2010

My sister and her husband are coming over tomorrow for a my-side-of-the-family family Christmas celebration. And, yes, it is sure to be the biggest, funnest, most extravagant Christmas gathering in our entire family.

So we cleaned cleaned cleaned. Dishes, laundry, vacuuming, dusting, organizing. I also spent some time today working on little gifts for Isla and her cousin Asa, but I can’t give any details here in case any of them read this blog. When you run a blog that gets read – literally – by ones and ones of people everyday, you have to be careful what you say.

This was yet another day in which I did not get into one of our cars and drive somewhere. I’ve had a lot of these days lately, and I cannot emphasize enough (well, I probably could) that I absolutely love going an entire day without getting into a car.

We also wached Jurassic Park tonight. That’s a fun movie to watch.