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So my desk calendar is one of those 365-day things that has a different item for every day. The theme of this particular calendar is “Wacky Web Sites.” Today’s is http://runningfromcamera.blogspot.com/. The point is that the guy sets his camera on a tripod, then sets the timer for 2 seconds, then he runs as fast as he can away from the camera.
Personally, I think he’s just trying to get in as many gratuitous butt shots as he can before someone calls him on it.
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Well, there goes 2009. Honestly, does anyone miss it? I know our family doesn’t. We’re looking forward to an awesome 2010 though! Here are some things we’re considering doing this year, and some goals for me:
- Fixing up our house. A LOT. I know we’ve said this in the past, but this time, we really mean it. There are lots of little things that need to be done–like re-painting a lot of areas, patching some little dings here and there, getting those painted … not to mention the overhaul of the basement that we’d like to accomplish. I’m a huge proponent of getting rid of ALL the paneling in the basement and possibly re-mudding and sanding the whole family room and kitchenette area. No paneling. Period. Much sanding and painting.
- New vacation location. Yah, we’ll probably go to Yellowstone because, let’s face it … we’re addicts, plain and simple. There’s a certain magic about Yellowstone that is inescapable, and we don’t want to miss out on that. It’s like a second home to us. However, we also want to branch out this year and see new places. To that end, Lori and I have talked about taking a trip up or down the Pacific Coast Highway and stopping every so often for beach breaks and hotel rest. I think it’ll be awesome and can’t wait. The other thing we discussed was just going to San Diego with the girls. The zoo and Sea World alone would take up a week … no to mention the beaches and other attractions. It’d be great to just get away down there for a week or so.
- We plan on giving birth this calendar year. By “we,” I mean weef, of course, but I will be there 100% in support. I don’t know how this one will work out … the last 10 years haven’t been kind or gentle in that department, but who knows. Maybe we’ll “force the issue.”
- For the 4th or 5th year in a row, I have once again sworn off pop. I guess we’ll just see how that one goes. Sure, I now have the biggest mug in history, but … like I said, we’ll see how it goes. I won’t lie: I like my Coke Zero. It’s exactly like regular Coke, but with no calories. Perfect! Maybe. I guess we’ll see how the “no pop” goal goes.
- I plan on dropping 60-70 pounds. This will be accomplished by smaller and less frequent portions of ANYthing. Weef has discussed possibly picking up a pass to a local gym. I guess so, but then there’s the whole thing about getting there. We bought a membership once to the local rec center. That was the last time we went. How silly. They do have a nice pool, and that’s a really good way to melt fat and tone. Again, we’ll see.
- I want to post here at least 200 times this year. That’s my goal. 200 times. 199 to go!
- As many of you may know, I maintain a music blog at http://frissonic.net. I want to make that a very active site. My goal is to post there 200 times as well, but I also want to market it a lot more. Basically, it’s like I said–a music blog. Concert reviews, CD reviews, thoughts about music in general … and I HIGHLY encourage comments! You don’t have to agree with me; just be respectful of my and everyone else’s opinions. Everyone’s musical interests vary. Even mine and weef’s differ. Sometimes a lot, sometimes not as much. Anyway, I plan on posting there a lot as well.
I think that pretty much covers it, other than the “I want to be a better person” goal. Blah blah blah. Sure I do. How I go about that is my own personal business though. That’s not for general public consumption.
Anyway, happy 2010!
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So it started snowing last night. this morning, we woke up to invisible cars buried under 7″ of snow. Not a ton, but it’s making the roads all slick and not good to drive in. Working in SLC as I do, taking the I-15 in icy parking lot conditions seemed like a bad idea. Consequently, we’re taking a snow day today.
On the agenda is some play time and food shopping. We have to Brooklyn in a few hours, then we’ll get Shariden later. Hot chocolate and donuts this afternoon! Actually, Lori and I have already had some, but we can always have more.
The pic was taken from our front porch. Lovely, eh?
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So I’ve become a huge fan of the Millhouse Coffee Shop in our first floor break room. They make a mean cup of hot chocolate. Today I had a white chocolate with a shot of coconut. Extreme deliciousness. There are a variety of individuals who work there. One guy has a bald spot but is sporting a massive beard. He’s very friendly. There’s a girl with glasses who’s also very nice.
Then there’s “broken arm chick.” She’s rather stand-offish. “How can I help you …?” Like she doesn’t really mean it, but she knows she has a job to do, so she just does it. She’s been like this since I’ve been going down there. She slams the microwave door shut, bangs her bagel cutting knife around, sulks and pouts over who knows what … she’s generally grumpy and harump-y.
Somehow, though … it works for her. Maybe I’m just being uber-kind today and I’m just accepting of everyone as they are today, but for some reason, her pissy-ness didn’t bother me today. I thought, “Hmm. Something must be going on in her life that’s making her like this. Or maybe this is her personality after years of bad relationships. Maybe she got let go from her 6-figure job because of the economy and this is what she’s doing to survive.” Obviously, I can’t just say, “Hey. You have this constant ‘grah’ vibe. What’s the matter with you?” Cuz, really … how nice would that be?
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This is just a test blog for the new wordpress v2.0 software for the iPhone. Supposedly, I can add pics here now. We’ll see.
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I served a mission in Portugal about 15 years ago. It’s not often that reminders of that era come up, other than church-related discussions. Tonight, though, I get to dine with one of the guys I served with all those years ago. The last time I saw this guy was 2002, I believe. that’s the last time he was out here. He’s from Portugal, lives in London, and he travels everywhere. Lucky turd …
So now I’m just waiting for him to show up. I hope he shows up soon … I’m starving. I specifically ate extremely light today so I’d have a larger appetite tonight. Brazilian grill is a luxury I don’t normally get to indulge in, but tonight isn’t like every other night now, is it?
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I’ll be the first to tell you how much I despise snow. It’s a pain to shovel, people around here tend to forget spring to fall how to actually drive in snow, and if there is snow, it means it’s cold. Therefore, I highly dislike snow. A LOT.
However, there is something to be said about the quiet that falls over a community when you’re outside walking in it. Such a noise-dampening effect can have an almost surrealistic effect on observing your surroundings. What you’d normally hear from 100 feet away becomes mere pantomiming in snow. People a few hundred feet away seem blurred and faded through the falling snow … like looking through fogged glass. It’s kind of peaceful.
That doesn’t mean I *like* snow … it just means I dislike it a little less.
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Well, I’ve started a new job. That’s pretty cool. I got laid off at the beginning of September, and started the new gig on 1 October. Weef and I feel extrememly thankful to have been blessed with this. I have family and friends who are or were laid off for months, some going on over a year. Why I was able to land a new position so quickly and these good people are still looking is beyond me.
so now I work in downtown Salt Lake. It’s a sweet location, shorter commute, better pay … it just blows me away.
So there’s that. Weef and I are still doing foster care as well. We now have two little boys living with us as well! They’re really, really good kids, too. so quiet and mellow. Well, the baby is when he’s not hungry or pooping … which is disturbingly frequent. His little face gets all pissy looking and his whole headbturns dark purple from the strain of defecation. It’s quite a sight! Poor little guy. The 3 year old is busy leaning stuff every day: potty training, using a fork and knife, drinking from an actual cup instead of a pull-top bottle, getting dressed on his own … he’s an amazing kid.
Other than that, things are pretty normal around our place. Of course, something will happen.
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As anyone who stops by chrisandlori.com will notice, there has been a massive overhaul. We scrapped our old site in favor of a new, more interactive site. We’ve moved into the blogosphere to attempt to keep our loved ones and friends more in the know as to the goings-on of our lives.
Then again, it’s been SO long since we’ve updated the site that people have probably given up on looking at it. Maybe this will bring people back.
We definitely welcome comments!
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We seem to be losing water pressure in our sprinkling system. I’m not sure how or why–maybe it’s something the city is regulating. I don’t know. I *do* know that I popped the lid on our valve box that houses the secondary water line. Much to my chagrin, I found a few disturbing things:
- The inside of the box has become over-run with quack grass rhizomes and shoots. This isn’t too surprising because our whole front yard is over-run with the stuff. Nothing I can do will kill it, either … short of nuking the whole front with vegetation killer, which I *really* don’t want to do.
- Nestled among the shoots and rhizomes was THE BIGGEST female black widow I have ever seen. She was at least 2.5″ long. That’s gargantuan by black widow standards.
- She must be the “get-around spider” of the yard cuz she had egg sacs all over the place. At least 3 or 4 that I could see, and who knows how many there were deeper in the hole.
So I put the lid back on and wondered what the heck I was going to do. As I sat on our sidewalk, contemplating my next course of action, I looked around the yard. All along the west side of the property, buttressed up against the shrubs that divide our yard from our neighbor’s driveway, were black widow nests. There were at least a dozen … probably closer to 20. I mean, they were EVERYwhere! That freaked me out.
Due to my quickly browning lawn, I knew I had to stick my hand in there. I also knew that doing so pre-maturely would probably end badly–at least with a healthy (see?! irony!) sized patch of necrotized tissue. Bad juju for someone who uses his hands for a living. Like I said, we have some shrubs that separate our property from our neighbor’s. I took a relatively long twig off of it and began poking around in the valve box. Interestingly, the black widow immediately rallied around her two larges, most top-side egg sacs. It was rather cool to see. I mean, no … she didn’t rear up on her hind legs and knock the twig aside, but it was obvious that she was in a completely defensive mode. It was just cool to watch.
I think I’ll take some pictures later tonight and post them. I don’t really *want* to kill all the black widows. They keep our annoying bug population to a minimum. That’s always nice, except our girls like to play in the front yard. Can’t have that right now! It’s strict backyard outside time for them until I figure out how to get rid of them.
Posted on January 7th, 2010 by cam
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