Category: Uncategorized

New Years Eve

We are currently 22 minutes away from 2013. I hope everyone is having a great time and managing to stay safe.

My wife and I stayed home and watched a couple of movies, both of which I already forget the names of. Was the Adam Sandler flick where he is a Somerville douche bag who crashes his son’s wedding called, “That’s My Boy”? I think so. It was crass and stupid and awful and I absolutely laughed my fat ass off. After that we watched a Bruce Willis, Bill Murray, Edward Norton movie that I think was called, “Moonrise Kingdom”. It was weird and bizarre and quirky and I really liked it a lot. I’m a sucker for weird. The relationship between the two run aways was one of the most genuinely romantic things I’ve seen in a movie in a terribly long time, even if they were only about 12 years old. It reminded me a little of Pixar’s “Up” without the devastating heartbreak. I really thought it was a good movie.

Tomorrow is New Years Day (actually 12 minutes from now) and the entire free world has the day off. Except me. I’m on call for work. There are three on call situations for me. One is when new customers go live with our software. Those happen regularly, but rarely do you receive calls. Another is when updates go live. Those are rare and are also usually free of calls. The third is extended business hours coverage and the phone often rings the whole time. On holidays it’s a 24 hour shift and it can be so busy that sometimes you work the whole time. Guess which of the three I got saddled with tomorrow.

Yup, New Years Day is going to be 24 hours of suck for me, beginning at 8:30am tomorrow.

It’s six minutes to 2013. I’m sitting up in bed typing this while my beloved darling wife sleeps next to me. The only way I could be happier right now is if the kids were with us. I’ll try to remember this feeling when I’m buried in work shit tomorrow.

11:56… Four minutes left…

11:57… Three minutes left… Someone near bye is lighting off fire crackers…

11:58… Two minutes left…

11:59… One minute left…

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Moon Over the Gas Station

iPhone Astrophotography:  The Moon Over the Gas Station.

Moon Over the Gas Station

We had a snow storm Saturday night into Sunday.  I cleaned off the cars and the driveway on Sunday morning, but then stayed home for the rest of the day.  When I took the kids to their father’s before work today I realized that I was a touch low on gas.  I could probably get to work, but probably couldn’t get there and back without a fill up.

After dropping the kids off I went to a gas station near their dad’s house.  I hit the button next to the driver’s seat to open up the gas tank and went outside… and the gas tank didn’t open.  Ummm.  That’s never happened before.  I tried again.  Nothing.  I tried prying it open with the only tool I had on me, a pen cap.  Nothing.  Eventually, after about five minutes of digging and prying with the pen cap, and hitting the button over and over again, it opened and I could fill up.  I took a picture of the moon to memorialize the occasion.

Happy New Year.

Dueling iPads

My beloved is locked in a dueling iPads game of Monopoly against her daughter. They are both listening to music at the same time so when they talk about the game they are both yelling.
 

I couldn’t love my family more.

iPads for Everyone

Last year my wife and I got each other an iPad 2 as an anniversary present. When the new iPad (3rd gen) was released my wife upgraded while I decided to hold out for the iPhone 5. Just prior to Christmas, she got a nasty case of GAS, or gadget acquisition syndrome, and waffled between an iPad mini, a Nexus 7, and the new Kindle, before going for the Nexus. We decided that it would count toward her Christmas presents.

For the last couple of years we have gotten the kids one gadgety Christmas present from the two of us to augment what Santa brings them. This year we decided to get them new iPads (4th gen). They each had an iPad 2 at their day’s house, so it would be nice to have one at our house too.

Through all of this, little did I know that my darling wife was also getting me an new iPad (4th gen). That made three lightening connected, retina display iPads coming into the house on the same day.

So now here we are. The three of us, all sitting in the living room messing with our new iPads while an Indiana Jones movie plays on the tube ( The Last Crusade). The kids are playing games. Their step dad is writing drivel. We are all just enjoying a flaky Sunday at home, being nerds.

I love my family.

Hawks

This post references this older post.

Did you read the old post?  It’s a short one, but very cool.

Today I saw the hawk again.  I was outside shoveling and I heard a ruckus coming from high above me.  The hawk was being chased out of the trees a street or two away from us by three very noisy crows.  Mr hawk was just casually flying away.  I wonder if he had a baby crow, or an egg or something as he was laughing in the face of the crows he had just violated.  He flew over my head into the woods behind my house.  Once or twice he bobbed and weaved as the crows got close enough to touch him, but otherwise he was just casual.

Then I saw something even better.  Hawk number two!  Hawk number two came out of the trees from the direction that hawk number one was headed and just leisurely flew past the others.  I was expecting number two to kick some ass on those three crows.  I mean, three crows vs two hawks pretty much equals two hawks eating crows for lunch, but no.  Number two just flew away.  He/she was pretty  ambivalent about the whole thing.

Eventually I lost them all in the trees.  A few minutes later the three crows came back out, heading home.  I guess hawk number one showed mercy on them.

I love where we live.  Our house is in a city.  Not a big one, but a city nonetheless.  Our home, however, is right in the middle of wild kingdom.  We have hawks, we have deer, we have all sorts of birds I’ve never seen while living in the suburbs.  I love it.  I really love where we live.

It is Snowing

It is snowing here tonight.  I just took my camera outside for 2.5 seconds to document the occasion.

First we have the nice looking no-flash pic that magically does not suck.
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We follow that with two pics that used the flash in an attempt at showing just how heavily the white crap is falling on us.
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Tomorrow I expect I’ll have to spark up the snow blower for the first time in two years. I hope it still works. I hope I remember how to use it.

The Incredibles

Today has been a movie day at our house.  I ran some errands in the morning, and then the kids and I ran another errand, and then we came home to movie bonanza.

First we started with disc one of The Lord of the Rings – The Two Towers.  We’ll watch the rest tomorrow.  The kids said they wanted a movie watching break after the first disc so they went and did other things.  I took advantage of the rare moment of being in charge of the television by throwing on the blu ray version of Return of the Jedi.  Within seconds of the flick starting, both kids were glued to the tube with me.

After that my gorgeous, beloved wife declared that after two guy films she was taking over and picking a super chick flick.  She and my step daughter stayed in the living room and watched Beaches (OMG!) while my step son and I went down cellar and watched The Incredibles.

Pixar has never made a bad movie, have they?  I don’t think so, but every time I watch The Incredibles it gets better and better.  That movie just plain rules all animated movies.  It’s the best, really.  I want an Incredibles 2.  How could they have made Cars 2, but not The Incredibles 2?  Cars was a great movie, but it’s not fit to fold The Incredible’s underwear.  Really.

Pixar… make The Incredibles 2.  It’s time.

Make it so.