Thanksgiving weekend was great. I really didn’t do that much. I ate a lot of food. I talked to relatives and friends. I sat around and watched football. And I sat around and played video games. I’m sure there are a few other things, but not much.
My parents had a big dinner at their house this year. The first Thanksgiving in the new place. We had 22 people there. People from my dad’s side. People from my mom’s side. And friends of the family.
Following are a few pictures from Thanksgiving Day.
Well, if you’re in America I hope you’re spending time this weekend with friends and/or family. I think there will be about 20 people at Thanksgiving dinner at my parents’ place tomorrow. It should be a fun time, I’m really looking forward to it. Not to mention all of the food that will be there. If you haven’t noticed to this point, I am someone who enjoys eating tasty things.
Have a great weekend everyone. I’ll try to post, but I’m not promising anything.
I’m going to be house sitting at my godparents’ place for the next couple of weeks while they are on vacation. It’s a fairly nice place (pic taken in February, 2003) on Lake Minnetonka.
The sunrise I woke up to yesterday was pretty nice and so was the view out of the back of the house just a couple steps from my bedroom this morning.
Here are a couple of pictures.
The first is from game night on Saturday. We had finished playing a few rousing games of “Catch Phrase” (which Steve, Dan, and I cleaned up on) and had moved to dominos. Steve was shuffling before one round and I got this picture in the mirrored table. It turned out darker than I thought it would. But it’s still kind of neat, I think.
And this is what woke me up this morning. It is the view out my bedroom window.
For those of you who didn’t know, I can be a little weird about stuff. For example, I usually have a certain way I eat certain things. Like Cheetos, I always eat them from the smallest to the largest. Or how I pretty much try to save the “best” thing on my plate to eat last in every meal. Oh, and how I cut up my Eggo waffles nearly the same exact way every time I eat them. I mean, I could eat them in a different way. But why would I when my way is the best? Hehe.
With my recent candy purchase I’ve been afforded the chance to think about M&Ms too much. I remember someone asking a week or two ago about what M&M colors people eat last. And that very question has entered my mind ever time I open up a little snack sized bag of peanut M&Ms.
I have decided that my favorite individual colors are blue and green. And my least favorite are yellow and brown. With red right under the top two and orange right above the bottom two. So I usually eat them in order from least favorite to most favorite. But I always eat green ones last. Why would I do that, you ask? Because of a television commercial. Let it never be said that I am not a slave to the marketing. (Yes, I am aware that this is more of a character flaw than a positive attribute to brag about.)
A wise Southern gal told me that “The only difference between weather that’s too hot and weather that’s too cold is that you can lose a finger when it’s too cold.”
Which is true. I laughed pretty heartily at that. But I told her that Northerners like to wear gloves in the winter.
We just don’t worry about frostbite that much here. At least I don’t. But I don’t worry about much, do I? I guess parents worry about their kids not having warm enough clothes on, but what don’t parents worry about? And we try not to go out when the wind chill dips below -20.
Oh, and another thing. When it’s too hot, you can only take off so many clothes. When it’s chilly, I can just put on another layer when needed.
I sometimes use the phrase “Bad News Bears” about anything that just isn’t quite right or if something might be bad news. I find it softens the blow a little bit. It was a saying from an old girlfriend and it just kind of stuck.
Anyway, over lunch with my dad yesterday I was reminded of something bad that happened last week.
First, one day a couple of weeks ago I hadn’t brought anything to work for lunch. I had to run some errands so I just stopped in at the closest McDonald’s to get some food on my way back to the office. I had a two cheeseburger meal. Unfortunately I forgot to ask for “ketchup only”. I do that not only because I don’t like onions, pickles, or mustard, but I think it ensures that my burger hasn’t been sitting under the warming lights. I don’t mind the extra few seconds it takes for them to throw a “new” burger into the microwave.
So what does this have to do with last week? It was another day that I didn’t bring a lunch. What was I going to do? Go to Subway for a tasty toasted chicken parmesan sub? Go to the little sandwich shop for a tasty but slightly over priced freshly made sandwich? Go to the Vietnamese place for the surprisingly good and ample portions of ginger chicken? Nope. Not that day. I had a Bad News Bears feeling. I was craving McDonald’s!
I don’t care who you are, that is never a good sign.
(two in two days? I should probably save this for some time when I haven’t written in a while.)
I learned a new skill this weekend. My mom finally showed me how to sew on a button. It’s obviously very easy, but I just had never done it before (that I could remember, I probably did it in 8th grade Home Ec.). I had two shirts and one pair of shorts in need of repair.
I am wearing one of those shirts today. I don’t know how many years it’s been since I’ve been able to wear this shirt, probably 2 or 3. I’m guessing it is out of style now, but I still like it. I had forgotten it’s brand but it is my one Abercrombie and Fitch shirt. I wouldn’t go out and say that I’m anti-A&F, but it is not a store I frequent. Not my crowd, not my price range. This particular shirt was a present from a girlfriend in college. I believe it was my 3rd or 4th year (that would be the “junior” or “senior” years for most people). So the shirt is nearing 5-6 years of age.
I seem to have a problem with buying clothes. I just don’t do it very often. I’m *way* too comfortable with all of the old crap I have. I just keep wearing things until they get a hole, and then I keep wearing them for a while. If I take care of it and no holes formed I’m almost more screwed as I keep perpetuating my horrible fashion sense for months and years.
It wasn’t something I wore “out” or “in places other than my bedroom or the workout room” but I still had a t-shirt that was 11 years old up until a few days ago. It was from my junior year of high school football for which the motto was “Strive for more in ‘94″. I remember two plays from that season. I played JV and both plays were in the same game, though I don’t remember the opponent. I had one carry for at least 10 yards and a first down when I made a sweet cut back move against the grain on a sweep. And I remember being wide open in the endzone when the QB passed to the tight end instead of me. When I didn’t get the ball I laid out a defender with a devastating block so the TE could make the touchdown.
I also finally decided that my old Hard Rock Cafe t-shirts probably didn’t need to take up any of my space anywhere anymore. Besides, I had the three least exotic Hard Rock t-shirts you could find: Orlando (who didn’t have that one?), Washington DC, and the Toronto Sky Dome (which I didn’t even visit, my dad got me that shirt on a business trip).
My sense of fashion is not well aligned with the upper-echelons of the fashion world. Or probably not even the middle-echelons. I wouldn’t say I dress “horribly” or “like a drunken red-neck” but no one will ever mistake me for a catalog model. I tend to favor either the “preppy” or “athletic” side of fashion, depending on the occasion. That means lots of button down shirts and khaki pants with a liberal sprinkling of jeans and t-shirts. Thankfully I haven’t graduated to full sweatsuits and v-neck sweater vests.
A couple of friends of mine offered to take me shopping for a clothes make over. We were going to do it last month, but there were too busy. I am a little thankful. While I’m sure I would have looked so fine and they would have helped me bargain shop, I just don’t have the money for any kind of fashion. What with my new digital camera, all of the parties I went to over the last week, and last but most, a three stop plane ticket for my upcoming whirlwind trip.
Crunch bars are just so good. I’m a big fan of chocolate in general, but there’s something about Crunch bars. In a moment of weakness at the grocery store last week I indulged myself and spent a whole $5 on four bags of discounted Halloween candy. One bag of 3 Musketeers. One bag of Peanut M&Ms. One bag of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. And One bag of Crunch bars.
I started liking Peanut M&Ms more a number of years ago after finding out my mom really liked them and if I ever had M&Ms around her they were probably Peanut ones. (I think I like the Crispy and the Peanut Butter ones better though) I still like plain M&Ms, but if I am going to eat chocolate I usually like something better.
I like 3 Musketeers as well. That filling is super tasty. I think my brother Brian likes them more than I do (but he doesn’t like them as much as Snickers) but they are still up there on my list. We both like to eat most of the chocolate coating off of the whole thing and leave ourselves with just the yummy filling with the bottom layer of chocolate.
And Reese’s. Well, I am a fan of nearly everything they make. I like peanut butter a lot (I still eat PB&J sandwiches) and sweet peanut butter mixed with chocolate is a pretty darn good combination if you ask me.
But those Crunch bars. I don’t know. There’s something about the Nestle’s chocolate and the crispy rice puffs. I could eat the whole bag in one sitting, I know that. Thank goodness I have a modicum of restraint or I would have any left right now.
Of course that restraint was my downfall in my youth. Whenever I’d come home from trick-or-treating with a huge haul of candy I showed restraint. I didn’t want to eat it all at once. First, I knew it wasn’t good for me. And second, if I ate it all now I wouldn’t have any later. Well, I usually ended up just being stupid about it and not eating almost anything and arriving at Christmas with a two month old bag of candy that wasn’t as appealing any more. IDIOT!
As you may have noticed it’s been pretty slow around here. I have little responsibility and except for last week I have all of my nights free and of course have weekends free. I just haven’t felt inspired lately–even after doing something fun every single night from two Thursday’s ago to this last Saturday (which is crazy). I don’t know what the reason is. I’m sure I’ll pull out of my slump here soon and you’ll all be back to laughing at the ridiculousness of my life.
My good friend “Kito Montanito” just started up a new blog called Czech Your Parts. He’s not Czech, but that is a play on a phrase from my surveying days. The original phrase used the word “check” and it meant “make sure everything is okay” or “watch out”.
It didn’t take long before it expanded for use in non-surveying situations eg “you best check yo-self before you wreck yo-self” (ie “shut up or my fists will pound you”) or “review what you just did” (ie “you’re an idiot, and you need your head checked”).
Anyway, Kito was a good buddy of mine and my brother’s best friend out in Bozeman (lots of Shogo). Brian and I used to say that Kito could get you into messes you’d never dream of, but if there was anyone you wanted along to get you out of a mess, he would be the one. He’s been over in Cairo for a while and he’s just starting to put up some of his pictures and experiences. He is a highly entertaining and interesting guy and I look forward to reading about his exploits and his opinions.
I think you should all czech it out. (sorry)
Man, after my fun weekend I was supposed to have a nice slow week. On Monday I watched Star Wars. Tuesday night I had a hot date with two lady friends. We saw a cheesy feel good movie because one of the gals has been having a rough time of it lately.
Then last night my parents, Claire, and I…I mean my boss, two coworkers, and I went to a couple clients’ house to check out the cabinets we had done for them. We made the cabinets for a basement remodel and they were beautiful. It was a bar and entertainment area. Well, I thought we were going to just look and chat for a couple of minutes and get out of there. But we did make a bar, so we all had a few drinks and some appetizers and the owner showed off his 100″ (diagonal) projection TV screen that drops down out of one of our cabinets. A couple hours later I was thinking that it had been a pretty nice business call. And work has just been too busy for blogging. So I haven’t got to write much.
I had a great weekend. All sorts of fun stuff happened. Too much stuff, in fact, to give me time to write about any of it. And then today in the mail I got my DVD of Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith so I had to watch that this evening which doesn’t give me time to write yet again. If I was younger and had more energy I might stay up late to write. But I just can’t do that any more. Plus, my weekend was so exciting, I didn’t get tons of sleep and I’m tired. So I’m heading to bed for now.
Here’s a panoramic view of the Tetons from Grand Targhee Ski Resort in Wyoming from probably 2 or 3 winters ago.
The image was constructed from 14 pictures and stitched together with the way-to-simple to use AutoStitch software.
On Saturday, Steve, Linzy, and I went to the Gophs vs. Ohio State game, thanks to Chey and her free tickets.
The Gophs were coming off of a bye week after a heartbreaking loss to the hated Badgers and this week were playing what should be a much mightier foe in Ohio State. The first ominous sign was that Ohio State had fans like this guy, Captain Ohio.
How can you compete against a team with freaks like that for fans. I think this guy was in his 50s or 60s. I would love to be travelling around the country watching the U play football games late into my life, but I don’t know if I’ll be dressing like that.
We got there early enough to see the pregame show. My favorite part is right before the team comes out. The band plays “Pageant Fanfare” and marches into place to form the block M. They then play the Minnesota Rouser and rotate and march down the field while in the M.
The game was fun even though the Gophers got beat 45-31. Aside from a few plays they stuck with the Buckeyes pretty well.
One the train ride back to the Mall of America I struck up a conversation with a cute young girl. She was dressed up as Miss Minnesota. The problem is that I don’t know if she was really Miss Minnesota or just dressed up for Halloween. There are factors that point either way that I may go into in another post, but I really don’t know. Oh well. It’s not every day I talk to a stranger out of the blue (I’m very shy), let alone a pretty girl (girls make me nervous) so that was an accomplishment.
That night I went to a party at my friend Gerard’s new apartment. It was a grand old time. There was just as much drinking as any normal party with this group of friends. But this time I decided to try something new and not drink too much. I ignored the slights to my manhood regarding my choices of drinks and quantity of quaffing and just drank as much as I felt I needed.
Pictures to follow.
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