Does this look stupid?

When compared to this?

One is an edit of the other. Does the edit look silly? Is it better than the original? (no)

Just being a dork, that’s all.

I woke up early this morning. Not terribly early, but earlier than sanity allows. A little after 5:00am.

I couldn’t go back to sleep so I spent a little time farting around on the computer. I did something I usually don’t do. I came to this page and looked at what I was doing at this time last year. Fascinating, right?

We had to cancel our New Year’s Eve plans last year for a number of reasons, one of which was that Jen and I were both a little under the weather. We weren’t feeling too well.

Oh… did I forget to mention the reason I woke up early? Oh, I did? Okay, the reason I woke up early was a sore throat. I’m not feeling too well this morning.

Coincidence? Or am I allergic to New Years?

Happy New Year’s Eve Eve… I think.

Like I said before, lots of pictures of trees. The kid pictures will go on the other page soon, but probably not today.

These are from Lisa and Ken’s house on the afternoon of Christmas day.

HoHoHo

Star

One of the best ornaments ever: Mickey as Santa, tangled up in lights.

This is not the droid that Santa is looking for.

There is that @%$&ing shadow again. I suck.

Presents. Lots of them.

Even the television was decorated.

Darth Vader, inside his tie fighter, says, “the force is strong in this tree.” Okay, that was lamer than usual. Sorry.

The tree reflecting on the wall behind it.

Star.

I used the word, “asshat” in a derogatory sense the other day. It was something like, “That asshat just tried to steal my parking spot.”

Last night Jen and I had a very in depth debate about the pros and cons of the word “asshat” and we have decided that it should no longer be used in a negative way. It should not be a put down, it should be a thing of value.

Asshat… Ass Hat… An asshat should be a good thing. It’s a hat that helps keep your ass warm. What could be more positive than that? (although you have to take it off to sit down. Maybe that’s the origin of the negativity)

Here is an image that attempts to demonstrate the goodness that is the asshat.

Welcome to Christmas Pictures Recap Post #1a. These are pictures from our house on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. #1b will be on the private page and it will have kid pics. #2a will be pics from my sister’s house on Christmas day, and #2b will be private kid pics from my sister’s house on Christmas day.

Be warned… I took lots of low light pictures of Christmas trees.

My Owl ornament from 1977. The Law states that the Owl will always be the highest ornament, next to the star.

Our star.

I had this weird urge to see the tree from outside.

One of the penguins lit up in our yard.

The awesome Star Wars snow globe (it’s Darth Vader building a snow-death star) casting awesome shadows.

I turned off the lights at this point. The kids were annoyed. They were sitting on the couch playing with Papa’s iPad.

I was going for our tree, reflected in the window. What I got was our tree blurry in the window and the neighbor’s outside lights. Oh well.

Extremely lame self-portrait-in-a-glass-ornament attempt. Uber lame.

I kinda like this one. Cheesy, but cute.

Our candle has a lampshade/hat.

Darth Vader without a flash makes cool shadows on the back wall. With a flash, the globe itself lights up in cool ways.

I did not buy my wife roses on Christmas eve specifically to take macro photos of them. I bought her roses on Christmas eve because I love her like crazy and I thought it would be nice to give her flowers that she could put on the dining room table for our Christmas eve party. Taking macro photos was an unintended bonus, that’s all.

Christmas Morning, before the kids got out of their rooms… Santa Claus came!

(yes… I had the friggin’ shade on my lens, and yes I used the flash, and yes the shade is in the way of the flash and it casts a shadow onto the image, and yes I do suck.)

Another angle.

Santa ate the cookies and drank the eggnog, and the reindeer ate the carrots. Awesome!

HoHoHo!

So the work-from-home-due-to-the-snow day is about to come to a close. I have been sitting on the couch dreading the ringing of the phone all day… just like any other work day except it’s a couch and not an office chair.

Then out of the blue the phone starts ringing. Oh no! Thinks me, the phone is ringing! Until I picked it up of course and saw that it was actually a Face Time request from my step daughter.

The kids got new iPod Touches from Santa Claus and they were trying out Face Time for the first time. It was pretty awesome. My step son tried to call Jen, but Jen hasn’t entered our network security password on her iPhone yet, so she couldn’t receive the call. So, after a few seconds my step daughter disconnected and my step son promptly called me.

I ask you, was that awesome?
I answer, yes that was awesome.

Apple FanBoy for Life.

This storm needs a name. Snowpocalypse was taken last year. How about The Boxing Day/Mary (my sister in law)’s Birthday storm of 2010!

Lame, yes?

Yes.

I opened up the top half of one of our bedroom windows and took a few pictures of the woods. They have all received the Picasa-I’m-Feeling-Lucky treatment.

Stay warm
Stay dry
Stay inside
Happy birthday to Mary.

Gaze in wonder at the awesomeness of the tiny little icicle picture taken with my D90’s macro setting. Amaze in awe at the blurred background that even has some of those little dots of light that get people so excited. It’s almost as if I did it on purpose! (I didn’t, but don’t tell anyone… and I am never taking the camera off the macro setting again)

With only five days left in 2010 we managed to sneak in one final snowpocalypse. It means two things to me this time:

1. My company told us all to work from home, so Jen and I are both working while sitting with each other on the couch. That’s love for ya!

2. Today, for the first time as a home owner, I shoveled my driveway. That’s one more thing checked off of my things I’d never done before list.

Stay warm
Stay dry
Stay home

Trying to light a fire in the fireplace for the first time…

…and failing.

My step son has a chicken on his head and I just picked up a duck and lost two levels.

Weird.