You and yours

Merry Christmas everyone.

22

I don't have a way with words like she does, but that don't make me any less lucky. Happy anniversary to Scroo-Loo; she's gorgeous, smart, funny, and the best friend a man could have. Did I mention she can fish circles around most people? Ya, that too. It's 22 years today and it has flown by.

Happy anniversary babe. You are everything I could have ever wanted. Love you.

Final update

And...she's home, safe and sound, and pretty much back to her old self. Thanks for the calls and concern.

Now we can get some sleep.

Blog: A love story

For those who may not pay very close attention (everybody), April marks five years and roughly 45,000 visits at this site. This is post number 1,433.

Even without recent slowdowns, this site had given me far more than I have given in that time. There has been some great moments, like a certain homework assignment and subsequent Blair-a-lanche. But this blog turned into much greater things for me. It taught me to articulate and debate, and gave me great confidence in my abilities to publish online.

Back in the old days of Blogger, a working knowledge of HTML code was necessary, and I spent hours learning the language so my site wouldn't look just like the template. I read incessantly looking for new material, and learned everything I could about subjects so I wouldn't look like a idiot when I put something out there.

I credited this blog for making the difference in a 2005 job interview; I was certain my confidence running web sites was the difference between myself and other candidates.

Now, five years later, I work as a communications specialist and manage a massive web portal. I help shape decisions that affect people's lives on a daily basis, and am responsible for the communications and image of a massive organization. I'm not trying to brag, there are certainly far more important jobs; I just find myself stunned at times what's happened since I signed up for a Blogger account.

For that, I am in debt to Tom D. (happy birthday Heath!), who was a first generation blog reader and convinced me I would enjoy it. Among many others, he introduced me to Blair, Powerline, and Iowahawk. He has been a devoted reader all this time, and provided plenty of material as well (click link under his name).

The last five years have been quite a ride, and I owe a lot of that ride to this insignificant web site which, as it turns out, appears to have had great significance.

Thanks to all for sticking with it over the years. Though I can't claim more than a handful of fans, I can certainly claim the most loyal fans in the sphere.

Cheers to you!

Inflation is Everywhere

So, 10-year-old GD⁴ just walked into the room with twenty bucks in quarters. He earned it selling his snacks at school. That's right, he's the kid hooking you up with Oreos for money; every school has one.

The going rate these days, according to GD⁴, is 75 cents to a dollar. And it sure doesn't hurt that GD³ is paying him $1.65 for a scoop of cotton candy ice cream. (The entire box of ice cream was $2.50.)

Time capsule: Everything you could buy from a kid in school was a quarter when I was his age. Everything.

A Few Random Statements

It's nice to the sun again.

The Wii is cool, but my shoulder hurts like a mofo.

The Hangover is as funny a movie as I have seen in quite some time.

A Christmas Feast T-Style

I started on the rum and cokes about 3:30 today and this post is the natural result.

A feast fit for planet haters on a holiday celebrating American greed! Behold the giant piece of cow in its "before" pose:


And...after four hours; cooked to perfection by Yours Truly. Nine pounds of prime rib roasted to a perfect medium rare:


And, because no celebration of American greed would be complete without complete and total over-indulgence, home-made pies in cherry and pumpkin:


Louie made a French silk too, but it had to stay in a place of shame (the fridge) because we hate fureners so much.

Naah. Just kidding. We love our European brethren.

Merry Christmas all! I hope yours is as great as ours has been. The first for GD - grandchild edition (GD^GE).

I Love a Parade

Here's the first thing we will see when we arrive in San Francisco.

Graduation: The Photo

As promised, a photo from the GD² graduation ceremony. That's GD² holding all of her educational booty, which was plentiful - highest honors and all that.

Speaking of booty, GD² is posing with the super-fine Scroo-Loo.

A grandchild, ridiculously smart kids, and gorgeous trophy wife. I'm the luckiest guy you know.

Probably Good Advice

It's been a busy couple of weeks, what with the graduation and subsequent party planning, two soccer teams going strong now, and assorted work related business. Fishing is essentially off the radar, not just because of other priorities, but also due to a broken starter cord on the vaunted Johnson (yes, it happened on the lake, but at least it was at the launch).

Pics to come soon from GD²'s graduation day - in this house we still do film for the important things, which must then be developed, time providing.

A footnote from the ceremony: the teacher-speaker, although giving the usual "go to college/be good to your kids/seize the day" speech, focused especially on encouraging graduates to learn to use their hands. I can only assume he meant that, in these tough economic times when the government is taking everybody's money, those "handyman" skills might be their only chance to work off the books.

Renewal Awaits

My hotel reservation confirmation for my summer trip to San Francisco:

Welcome,

Renewal awaits. We've received your reservation. Thank you for choosing to experience The Westin St. Francis. Your mind, body, and spirit will be energized. If there's anything we can do to make your stay more rewarding, please ask.

Be Well,

The Westin St. Francis

It must be some hotel.

A Major Holiday Announcment

Peace and joy everybody. Merry Christmas.

Already?

As Scroo-Loo noted already, it is our 20th wedding anniversary today. Amazing how time flies when you get to spend it with someone so incredible. She fishes, can pound booze like a Wisconsinite, she's hilarious, she tolerates football and hockey season, and 20 years later she is just as hot as the first day I followed her around school, watching her walk.

It's hard to believe she looked at me twenty years ago, saw the mullet, and decided to marry me anyway; but I sure am glad she did.

Happy anniversary babe.....

May the weather last

At long last I took delivery of The Bike last night. Randy's Toy Repair did a terrific job on the carbs and it runs like a brand new machine. I rode last night for the first time since about June of 2007 and it was magnificent.

For anyone looking for a mechanic to work on their vintage motorcycle (harder to find every day), look no further. Randy's was professional and thorough, and couldn't have possibly done a better job.

Thanks to them.

Seven years already

As always on this day, I read Lileks' thoughts from 9/11/01. Here's a tiny:

12:07 The timing between the impacts is interesting - it has a classic terrorist twist: Detonate one bomb, wait for the ambulances and fire trucks to convene, then strike again. Kill the innocents, then kill the people who show up to help.

Read it all.

Wooden Ships on the Water

We trekked up to Duluth today at Scroo-Loo's behest, to see the tall ships in the harbor. Here's a closeup of the Pride of Baltimore II's bow with the lift bridge in the background:



And here's a shot of the Pride of Baltimore II (left) and the Niagara, a man-o-war that barely cleared the lift bridge when it entered the harbor on Friday:



The Duluth News Tribune has a video of the ships entering the harbor, including a shot of the Niagara letting a round loose from a cannon. Pretty cool.

The missus' only disappointment was that the ships had sails furled. I told her they can't be under sail when they are tied or at anchor, but she didn't care. She thought it would have only been fair if the crew were to take them out for a spin every couple of hours so we could see them under sail. I certainly wouldn't have minded. As the above video will show, the ships true majesty can only be experienced under way.

The lines to actually go aboard the ships was blocks and blocks long, and tickets were $10 apiece. So instead of taking a tour we went to Wisconsin Point, where freshwater body surfing - or at least the attempt - ensued:



When the waves are that big, no one cares what the water temperature is.

And thus the annual family road trip to Duluth.

Sense of Snow

Mark Steyn on Tony Snow:

He was an amazing man who gave the impression he had all the time in the world for everyone he met.

Rick Moran:

...it is usually the ordinaries who teach us the most about life and encourage us to live every day as if it were a gift rather than a travail.

Snow also made an appearance in Tim Blair's "obligatory" cancer column, in his usual role.

It sounds like he was a pretty great and caring guy. Which, of course, would make him exactly (in person) as he appeared on television. Pretty rare, that.

UPDATE: In case you needed another reason to like Snow, the boy could play:

A Well-Tapered Post

LearnedFoot experiences the joy of a son's awakening to the pride in a really good dump:

There, laying in the bowl was the most remarkable specimen I have ever seen eliminated by a toddler. Moonchild's poop was about 8 to 10 inches long and about 2 inches in diameter at its widest point; well tapered, with a healthy color and a solid appearance.

Do read on.

Following a long period with a high suck factor, its nice to see KAR returned to the quality writing and elite commentary we have come to expect.

Marking Time

Yesterday marked the 15-year anniversary of mine and Scroo-Loo's return from France. We realized this late last night when we were half in the tank, playing darts and listening to "1200 Curfews" by the Indigo Girls (the live version of "Strange Fire" is still one of the greatest songs ever).

The picture to the right might seem like just an image of one really cool dude full of win, but it is loaded with 1993. Check the Levis 501 button fly jeans, or the Tom Clancy novel (probably "Sum of All Fears"). The "Ed's Sporting Goods" shirt is from JV's dad's garage, a marketing tool for a sporting goods store that never materialized, but provided us with free lures for about five years. On the left wrist is a sailors bracelet of the kind historically commonly worn by workers on ore boats in and out of Duluth.

It is also one of the last pictures taken of me without a goatee.

I haven't done much writing about our time in France, but Scroo-Loo has. For me, time in France would turn out to have a very significant impact on what followed, but not in any of the ways I would have imagined at the time.

If someone had told me I would be writing news, not songs, a decade later, I would have scoffed. Here we are; Chris Whitley is dead, and I pick up a guitar about once a year.

The most long-lasting impact France would have on me would turn out to be political. It marked the beginning of the end of liberalism for me, as I saw its ugly side and I saw how it was exploited for credibility. Mind you, not from our friends in France (all happy socialists), but from the band itself. Our drummer's constant America bashing (he an illegal immigrant from Canada living in L.A.) took a major toll over a period of months.

The crass exploitation - we weren't just a band, we were a band with a "message" - also killed the dream insofar as the "message" was simply a tool to pique interest on a continent which readily absorbs anti-Americanism and hard core liberalism. Within five years of our return from France I would be a devoted conservative.

As far as my career in music went, France spawned my favorite saying: "The biggest problem with the music business is that it is full of musicians." The shine was off that rose, and any romanticism I had for touring was replaced with the reality of being away from my family. I never craved it again.

In that sense also, France was the end of a belief. In total, I guess you could say that boyish idealism (I was 23 years old), of many kinds, died on that trip. But our return also marked the ending of what had been the most tumultuous two years of our young married life together. Our daughter's broken leg, meeting my biological mother, multiple trips back and forth from L.A., [Ed. - I forgot to add the broken collarbone that almost got me replaced for the tour], Scroo-Loo and I hadn't relaxed since sometime in 1991.

Within six months of our return we bought the house we live in now, and while things haven't always been quiet, we have never experienced the peaks and valleys of that two years.

Aside from all of the bullshit, living in France was a pretty terrific time; great people, great food, even better wine. But unlike Scoo-Loo, who could have stayed forever, I was happy to be home in Minnesota and never regretted we didn't stay longer.

Anyway, we did come home to Minnesota, on May 25, 1993. It only feels like yesterday.

Less, Not More

So much for the theory that Chimpler W. McHitlerburton was profiting from the war in Iraq:

President Bush's financial fortunes appear to have declined over the past seven years, with his family assets dropping as low as $6.5 million, according to disclosure forms released yesterday.

Bush still has his ranch though, which continues to serve as a thumb in the eye of jerkweed envirotards everywhere.