Rabbit Ears

So this weekend was pretty stress free (after two traveling ones in a row). We went to eat at Chef's Kitchen (I had a nice fish flown in from Hawaii, which was the special) and then went out to see The Pursuit of Happyness with Chris and Holly. It was a pretty good movie. I'll admit, I got a bit emotional...but so did Chris, so I didn't feel so bad. Afterwards we spent a while at ColdStone. One of the topics of conversation was how annoying they can be there. I had almost forgotten that I don't like to tip there because they sing and I find that annoying.

We discussed how it's hard to know how much to tip at places like that where you get the product and have to pay for it before you can even pay for it. Specialty Coffee, Ice cream and etc are all examples of places like thing. Now if you know a place then sure, you expect a certain quality and what not and so you know them and you build a relationship that way. But, for example, my ice cream mix had marshmallows which were stale and gross and distracted from the experience. How am I supposed to adjust my tip for that? They already have it...

Oh well...

Anyways, on Sunday we had a nice lazy day. We thought about going out to see a movie, but I wanted to watch the Simpsons. And since Sinclair Broadcasting and Mediacom are acting like babies and are in a dispute over broadcast rights I had to watch it over rabbit ears that I had Mediacom sent me. Yes they were nice enough to send me them after I filled out a form, however, it was still pretty lame. standing up to adjust the rabbit ears to only get a grainy sometimes dual picture really pissed me off...what is worse is that I couldn't DVR it, so if we were interrupted or what not, I couldn't pause or what not.

LAME.

Anyways...I don't know how long I'm going to give them, but they have a finite amount of time and if they don't resolve it, I will not only move my business from Mediacom, but I will ban the watching of Fox (or any other station that Sinclair owns) from this house...

Several of my friends used to work for Mediacom...and now they don't, so I am far less interested in keeping them in business.

Anyways, we got a busy couple of times coming up. This weekend we may have an event to go to back in CR. And two weeks after that A game night (first one of 2007).

In February, we're gonna see Phantom at the Civic Center, a few days after that, I'm flying to Utah to see my younger sister Alissa get married...or...I guess go to the reception since I can't actually go to the wedding. The Next week we're driving with the Matta's to Texas to go to my friend Dan's wedding...Then we'll get a bit of a break and we got Chris and Holly's Wedding, then Josh and Lindsay's Wedding (am I wrong in not being sure when this is?).

So another busy few months...and that doesn't even include work.

Way to start off the new year

So my boss and I headed off in his new to him car (Audi A8, a bit older then the A6 that he had), to get a cup of Joe at La Mie. Simple enough, it rides smooth. On the way back, Proctor let me drive his car. I pull out of the parking space, pull forward go for about 20 or 30 feet and some old dude in an SUV backs right into his car. I even honked the horn to tell him to stop.

First accident in years for me. Years...I'm not sure if it's right, but I think that it's since High School....

So it was an older couple and they seemed to be very apologetic. Gave Proctor all the information, said they'd pay for it and all that.

So Proctor got a bid and then a second one cause he asked for it and Now the guy is questioning responsibility. Though what there is to question is beyond me...but far be it from me to make assumptions about this.

Oh well. Proctor told me not to worry, the most I'd have to do is probably sign an affidavit of the facts as I saw them.

New Years

So we spent New Years with the Mattas once again. Taylor spent the night at Grandma's. Cali was out pretty early and only woke up once or twice. I brought up most of good selections of my booze so that Nathan could try them and I had a few of theres. Even with all that collection not to much drinking was done, though much silliness was had. We played Clue and Taboo and spent a chunk of time chatting, it was a nice way to ring in the new year. For Taboo, Jenny and Nathan dominated against Shannon and I, but Nathan and I, after being tied with Shannon and Jenny for a bit, came back to get 6 in a row (of the 3 needed) to win right before midnight. I guess 30 some odd years of friendship adds up to something.

For New Years Day, we ate lunch at Ruby Tuesday, which was...well...they described it much better then it tasted. Not that it was bad, but it just wasn't as good as it sounded. You see these commercials with these wonderful care taken to make these burgers and then you expect at least something better then above average.

Then. Chucky Cheese. Oh the joy. You know Shannon's nephew and niece are great, but I'm not a huge fan of Chucky Cheese. Oh well, The Matta's joined the party and it was a lot of fun for the kids. But unlike last year where there were pretty much just us there, they had 4 parties there and it was just a bit crowded...but maybe that's just cause I don't like people.

And afterwards we stopped by a Starbucks (I know I know, I'm bad) and headed down 1st Ave to look at the changes to the town, got on the interstate and headed home.

So this was cute

I got a call from Nathan just a bit ago, confirming when we're going to be heading down to Cedar Rapids for New Years and Sean's birthday on the first, but he handed over the phone to Taylor and she thanked me for giving her the Chocolate teddy bears (gotten from Stam). It was very cute.

Adagio Teas

So in my green tea kick, I have decided to purchase some from Adagio Teas. I got the tea today (I was impressed at how fast they shipped it (I ordered it in the morning and by that afternoon it was traveling via fed ex.

I got it this afternoon...well we were here and I swear the fedex guy didn't knock, just left the package. Of the tea, I got the green tea starter set and a 3 oz tin of Casablanca twist. I got the Casablanca twist, because of my experience with something similar in the Moroccan restaurant at Epcot.

So I haven't tried a cup yet, it being so late in the day, but the Casablanca twist and the Citron Green (in the sampler) smell amazing.

I'm looking forward to having them.

So this is how my mind feels...

So yesterday, I reorganized our DVDs and videos, removing the duplicates and fully combining the collections (yes, we had kept our collections separate). We ended up with two plastic grocery sacks full of vidoes and about 6 or 7 movies on DVD that we both already had.

So they are in alphabetical order, except on the collections, where they are on the name of the collection (Kelly, for the Gene Kelly one, Marx, etc). Series movies, or sequels are where they belong in order then chronological order.

After sitting on the floor for hours last night (two movies worth), it was finally done. One thing I said that is really me. "My back hurts, but this is strangely satisfying in my head."

Christmas

So we headed down to Cedar Rapids on Saturday afternoon. A little more then halfway to Cedar Rapids, I noticed that we didn't bring our camera. We stopped by my parents and dropped off presents (and I asked Joseph to go get my camera (since he had to go to Des Moines to get Alissa from the Airport anyways), stopped by Shannon's parent an did the same and went to the Matta's and settled in.

That evening we spent it with Shannon's grandmother and aunt. We also met up with one of her grandmother's care nurses. So it was interesting. They seemed to really enjoy our wedding picture book.

We headed back to the Matta's and saw that the little friends party had started. Many of my friends from high school were over there chatting and having a general good time. It was nice to see everyone again. We may see quite a few of them again for New Years (since we'll be back in Cedar Rapids for Sean's birthday on January 1st.

Sunday, we kinda had a lazy day and headed over to Shannon's Parents at around 3:30. The night was filled with pizza, snacks, presents and a couple games of Scene It (first the Disney version, then the Harry Potter version).

We headed back to the Mattas and help them set up Christmas morning for Taylor and Calle and shared a bottle of wine. After much chatting and placing of presents, we all headed to bed.

I woke up, but didn't hear Taylor stirring (I did hear Calle, but she can't so much go downstairs for presents, yet). I just kinda snuggled in bed and waited for the fun to start. When I heard Taylor, I nudged Shannon and we got up and headed downstairs to watch the kids with their Christmas Stockings.

We had a nice breakfast (prepared the night before) and then opened up presents (thanks Mattas!). We then got ready for our day and headed over to my parents. Shortly after breakfast, Shannon started to feel a bit bad, and then proceeded to sleep on the couch at my parents for the rest of the day. I checked on her at various times. But spent the rest of the time chatting with my family. It was kind of depressing since there were no kids there. The youngest person there was my younger brother Isaac...No nieces and nephews. *sigh* Anyways I still had a good time, even worrying about Shannon. My family ate dinner (Shannon slept). I then played a bit of Settlers of Catan (Shannon slept) and then we packed up and headed back home (Shannon Slept).

At Home, I fed Shannon about half a serving of chicken noodle soup (I raided my parents cupboards, cause no stores would be open), which is about all she would eat. She then proceeded to headed up stairs and Slept. She did set her alarm for work this morning, but ended up just waking up to call in sick. She continues to sleep.

So it was still fun. We got lots of presents and I loved the reactions that our wedding books got. We are going to investigate transferring 8mm film to DVD for next year.

Dinner and Cookies

So last night, I headed around, picked up a few things and then started making dinner. Meatloaf, some chive mashed potatoes and a bit of bread from La Mie.

What's the occasion? Bribery. In turn for helping us decorate gingerbread cookies, I made Chris and Holly dinner.

Ok, so maybe they didn't need to much bribing, but it also goes into my whole idea of doing little mini dinner parties. Anyways...the food turned out very well, and then we went into cooking the gingerbread cookies.

I used a recipe from Cook's Illustrated. Or at least one i found on the internet that was from Cook's Illustrated. It turned out great and easy too...since it was made in the food processor (it also said you could use a mixer, but I didn't read that part until afterwards. The cookies turned out very good. So much so that we decided to make a another batch. And Chris did all the work.

Shannon had to run to the store and get some more molasses, and she got a full bodied molasses (we had gotten mild before) so the second batch was a bit darker. It also had a bit of a richer taste.

Then we made some frosting, and Holly helped. I think the recipe was a bit wrong or maybe we just messed it up a little, but it was a little runny...not to much, but it wasn't solidifying very quickly on the cookies.

So Chris, Holly and Shannon dressed up a few cookies with frosting, candies and what not. Chris spent quite a bit of time on a couple of cookies, being very meticulous. They looked very good. And combined with the extra-vanillaey frosting, oh it was fantastic.

The intention was to get a bunch of cookies decorated and take them to my office, for snack day today, but when 11 or so rolled around, it was pretty much out of the question. So I filled up a tupperware with unfrosted cookies.

Chris and Holly took a few of theirs home and we stayed up a bit longer to clean up a bit more.

It was a good time...but It was a long day. Working then basically cooking from 5 to 11. I was very tired afterwards.

But it was very fun though!

Over the river and through the woods...

Sunday morning we headed up to Albert Lea to visit my older brother and his family and my Grandmother on my Dad's side (Only remaining grandparent on my side of the family). Gramma was unable to make it to our wedding, which was sad, but understandable. Hyrum, Shannon and I headed over to the nursing home and woke her up from a nap to show her wedding pictures and the book that we made on iPhoto. She was pretty impressed with the book and was really happy that she got her own copy (although I had to unwrap it for her).

Going through the pictures she seem very happy to see how beautiful the wedding was., Shannon's dress, The decorations that Shannon's mom made (she was quite impressed at how much work Shannon's mom put into it, with the dresses, the decorations and etc). Apparently my older brother had brought one of the stained glass butterfly's to Gramma as well.

When we left, after being there for a little more then an hour and a half. We talked a bit about her condition and Hyrum says that she does sleep a lot and usually when he visits, he usually has to wake her up. She's not making it down to the dinning room for dinner anymore, and sometimes her memory is foggy. But when she does have something to look forward to (like seeing the wedding photos) She does generally remember that.

I know I've said it before, but it is hard to see Grandma that way. But I'm gonna try to make it up to visit more often. Maybe headed up on Sundays to visit when Hyrum goes too...

I'm glad it's almost over...

So after working this past evening, and the previous 8 Wednesdays, I'm glad that I only have one more site to transition to our new server tomorrow. And then, I should be done, and it's back to normal work, and rare Wednesday nights...

I'm tired, yet wired (frustration at work does that to me), so I'm gonna try to go to bed, but I doubt I'll have much luck.