Safer Than Sorry

song of the day

Excellent new album from one of the most underrated guys out there these days and my favorite underground velveteen

It's Real And It's Spectacular

That's right people. It's November 30th and we're getting our tree. A real, live, needles sticking you in the eyeball Douglas Fir and then we had hot chocolate. We even listened to Christmas music on the ride to the farm. Extreme times....

This year we are choosing for a precut tree, since they're usually so much fuller and fluffier and does not require a two hour expedition. I may push for the hacksaw next year, but I choose my battles.

Besides, the 50 or so trees they had precut to choose from seemed a hard enough decision as it was. Even Yuula had to get in on the search, tho I must say her opinion does not hold as much weight as mine and her mothers. It comes in time little hushpuppy. First you have to be able to spell 'tree'.

The tree guy started to become concerned for us when we started strolling the rows for the fifth time. Apparently most people don't take this kind of time decided on what tree they'll let die in their living room for the next month so...

...we made friends with this fella. He had a nice low front and high back, perfect for hiding gifts and keeping space from the floorboard heater. Yuula agreed so we strung it up. Tomorrow morning starts the blitzkrieg.

Met4Life

In the recent dark days of Metdom, it seemed no one would be remotely interested in being associated with this team, long term, short term or any term in between. We've seen Beltran fly the coup, Reyes head for greener pastures, and I was sure that it was just a matter of time before Wright wised up and threw his hat into the free agency. But today word comes down that not only is Wright gonna stick around, apparently he's sticking around for awhile, possibly the rest of his career. The ink on the seven year $138 million contract has yet to dry, but it doesn't mean that I can't throw a mini-celebration tonight as a relief that finally someone likes us enough to wanna stick around. 

Nolan Roy

Congratulations to Bubba and Theresa, breaking out the new baby boy this morning, healthy as an ox and already styling.

She's Taking The Reigns

Becoming A Bed Without Bars

We're thinking about transitioning her to a "big girl" bed for Christmas, but I think she's gonna miss her crib. She really digs it inside those bars and she may be the first baby to never ever EVER try to climb over them. She's more content in there than anywhere else in the world. 

Come to think of it, I wouldn't mind some bars on my bed. Maybe I wouldn't be typing on a silly blog at 5am every morning....

Who Needs Who

song of the day

it was a long day

tomorrow will be longer

Birdcrumbs For Bread

Let's Go Hiding

Hiding. It's all the rage. If we could wrap it up and give it to her for Christmas we'd save ourselves a lot of money. She spent about an hour under that comforter today, mostly talking to herself and assuring me that she was indeed hiding. When I inquired as to who, she was hiding from she declared, "Christmas!". Apparently she doesn't have a strong conceptual grasp on that whole thing yet.

Ball Of Power And The Wishbone

I'm not ashamed to say that we joined in on the national hype and played us some powerball last night. We were fully aware that we were more likely to be hit by lighting while being stung by a bee and riding a dinosaur up Mount Kilimanjaro, but still, it's fun, somebody's gonna win something, and we need a legitimate reason to stay up til 11:59pm with absolutely no payoff.

So we don't need to explain how we didn't win, but this morning I saw the reason why we did not win the $588,000,000. That darn wishbone. Laura found it while she was de-meating that turkey yesterday and we forgot to snap it. Therefore, neither of us had any luck. No luck, no lottery. That's how it works, right? 

We'll save it for when we need it, like summoning nature for a day off or finding $588,000,000 buried in the backyard.

Not Ready For The Grave Yet

song of the day

just one of the many very cool tracks off the new B. Fleischmann album... now I have to go back and listen to his other ten releases... damnit

More Of The More or Less

She wants to swim, "like a dolphin (???)

She now dances mostly ballads instead of just old school hip-hop

She is very serious about choosing what characters are on her clothing each day

She does not appreciate me getting her out of bed in the morning while shirtless

She has taken to staring at the sky waiting for more snow

Her breakfast of choice is one and a half eggs, orange juice in a coffee cup and one Honeycomb

The past few days the first word out of her mouth is Christmas

(it's going to be a long month)

Hoarding Of Pfeffernüsse

Mmmm. Susie managed to convince Eileen to share her beloved pfeffernüsse and all their spicy goodness with us. They weren't really Laura's thing, and that's fine because then it's more for me. But I'm rationing them to try and last as long as I can. If I play my cards right I just may have one on Christmas eve to put on Santas plate, and we all know where it goes from there.

St. Nicholas is gettting pfeffernüsse!

We Have Ourselves A Flake Kicker

Well, maybe not gone, but going. This stuff is melting quick, and it's leaving next to no sled time. Good thing we hit the storage unit first thing this morning to switch fall supplies for winter ones. We just barely fit all the Christmas totes in the van. If we buy one more tree ornament we're gonna have to buy a new car.

 

She ran a few more tests on the snow. Won't walk on the shoveled paths, only directly in the snow. So that's promising. But she's not interested in snowballs or snow angels yet. Just kicking. Kicking snow. I know it sounds couter-productive but she don't care. Kicking snow is her thing.

We took a few laps around the yard on the old sled. Just enough snow left to make it an easy drag. She had fun but was mostly interested in finding a nice new spot to kick some fresh flakes.

See. Told ya.

Yesterday's Black And White And Red

Yesterday was back to business as usual, wake, eat, play, eat, play, milk, nap, eat, dance, sleep. So anything that shines a fancy little light on these proceedings are welcome and worth noting. So here they are.

Still unsure of the snow. Not whether or not it's there or what it is, but more whether or not she likes it or hates it. So far I think she's leaning towards like but then she fell in a drift she was scaling and now we're not so confident. She may have been set back. 

This was dinner. I killed a buck in the backyard and she tore into it with her razor baby teeth. And then she had some spaghetti-o's.

Holiday Tree-To-Be

Lights Tonite Between 7pm And 9pm

I gotta say, I was a little turned off when I heard that the tree in Rockefeller Center this year was chosen as an emblematic Sandy survivor. I thought it was a strange way to show the admiration for the great Norwegian Oak's ability to stay upright while so many toppled around him. "Wow, how amazing, let's cut him down"

But then I found out that it had been chosen weeks before Sandy even hit and I guess I feel a little bit better about it. Still seems a bit of a shame, but it does make for a better story. Apparently the old man who so proudly gave up his evergreen for the greater good was so concerned that the storm would take her down and all would be lost. Little children would be so disappointed to see a giant blank space at the end of Angels Avenue where oh tannenbaum should be, or even worse yet, Rockefeller would need to hoist a plastic replica, the likes of which "adorn" so many households nowadays. Christmas, most certainly, would be cancelled.

In the end, the sun rose, the storm subsided and the tree stood. That is until they came to cut down of course. We hope to see it as a family come December the ninth and gawk at its branches and heighth. We hope that it will instill the comfort and joy it has for so many years now, consecutively. We hope that we'll see that homeless guy cutting it up on the ice below again like last year, Kristi Yamaguchi ain't got nothing on this guy.

But either way, it lights tonight above the rink amidst some Rockettes and other "surprise" guests and I suppose Christmas can begin. In my mind at least. I always subconsciously used the event as a sorta starters pistol for the holiday cheer to begin. A little perturbed that it's in November this year as opposed to first week of December like I remember, but it'll do. Besides, I think Christmas is gonna come fast this year so we might as well get on it.

A Bunch Of Things To Make Me Smile

song of the day

Very nice new collection of tunes by BMSR, hard to choose just one, but this is sweet little ditty, kind of uncharacteristic of them, and me, and you

It's White Alright

There she is folks. First snowfall of the year. Or at least the first one that has amounted to anything. I already shoveled snow and scraped the car, but instead of our trademark oatmeal on snow days we opted for cold cereal since we bought about twelve boxes to feed our guests over Thanksgiving and of which we ate zero. I think we may be eating a lot of cereal in the coming snowstorms. 

Yuula didn't believe when we told her it was snowing out. She had to see it for herself. Then she wanted fruit snacks. 

Fatih Photos Incorporated

Caught Fatih getting some shots round the compound on Thanksgiving and then stole them off his camera. I like when people can make my place look nicer than it really is.

Are You Thinking About The Things I've Done?

song of the day

I don't know what it is about this genre of dark, dank chamber pop I've been into lately. Might be because of the colding. Or all the sweaters we just pulled out of storage. Makes me think of Scandinavia and its ungodly darkness and subsequent high suicide rate. But I love this Get Well Soon album. This is the closing track.

Anything But Turkey

Believe me, I am already sick of turkey. I've only had like two meals in the last few days that have not consisted of some turkey-based product.

Pizzaro's. Of course.

I'm pretty serious about my breakfasts.

Not Even For The Bestest Bargain

I somehow allowed Eric & Fatih to talk me into a little Black Friday excursion to Best Buy at midnight after Thanksgiving. At first I was kind of excited, thinking  solely as a spectator, that I'd either see a trampling mob or some good deals on stuff I can dream about one day owning, more likely the latter. Instead we got a queue. A long, building surpassing queue that passed PetSmart, Bed Bath and then beyond, around the corner and down a dark alley. I managed to strike up some conversation with other line-standers, but immediately regretted that. I shivered some and had to be reminded about 7 times what exactly we were doing there. I still couldn't tell you. Once we got inside the pre-arranged human hamster cage sale items were grabbed and the search for a checkout line began. We stood in the wrong line for about ten minutes but it didn't seem to matter. The boys got some good deals on cameras, photo and video, and I bought a pack of mentos at Black Friday deal price.

I told them this picture marks the moment we stopped being friends.

Work Makes Way For Play

Dave and Kevin just got on the road after almost a week of fairly intense workdays here at the Northeast division of SSI. Long hours put in and lots of personal interaction, something we don't usually get the chance to benefit from. So I'll miss the office mates and Laura will miss her father and brother, but Yuula... well she'll miss this.

The child has no fear

Grating Cheese

Well it was almost boring but a good kind of boring, ya know. Nice to see them get their acts together and stop losing to pop warner. Would be nice ot at the very least have a team to route for come January. And it does feel nice to make of fool of the discount double check douchebag. 38-10, and I was kinda wanting them to push for more, but why be rude. Save it for the rest of the season, Redskins, Saints, Falcons, Ravens and Eagles won't be an easy task to outdo last years 9-7, but it may just be good enough still.

Like Eyes All Around Your Head

I'm not even sure how well these can be seen on here, but I am experimenting with this new panorama app I found on my phone. These got kind of messed up. Maybe I needed better lighting. You may need to click on them to see a larger version.

I was inspired when Eric took some awesome ones, maybe I can get him to send them to me.

Eric... Hi... can you send those to me?