kapgar

Slip slidin' away...

It's one of those mornings where I'm both upset and grateful. No, not because of the holiday season, but because of what did and could have happened this morning on my way to work.

If you read any local Chicago news this morning, officials are calling it one of the worst road icing events they've ever seen. Hundreds of accidents reported by 8 a.m. It's that bad.

On my route to work, I was trying to turn off one road to get to the highway in to work. I'd already hit a couple small ice patches by this time but recovered without a problem. I've owned my truck long enough to know how to get out of just about anything. We've got a bit of a symbiotic relationship going... we can feel each other (no, not in that way). However, when I hit this turn lane, I could tell the plows and salt trucks had done nothing at all. I lost complete control of my truck for the first time. The pedals did nothing. The steering wheel may as well not have even existed. I just slid. And I had only been driving about 10-15 MPH into that lane.

I kept sliding. Right up to the car in front of me. At the last second, something shifted and made me drift into a giant snowbank on the side of the road.

While I was ticked that I lost control. I was entirely thankful that I not only didn't hit the car in front of me, nor the other car stuck in an extension of the snowbank, but also that the cars behind me were far enough away that they could avoid my lane and allowed me room to back out of the snow and onto the road.

No damage to the Beast whatsoever, though. Phew!

Totally Unrelated Aside (TUA): Katie got me a camera bag for my new Sony! And it's pretty awesome. It's a Tamrac shoulder sling bag. Perfect fit for the camera with my 35-70mm lens on it. Plus some compartments for cables and chargers and a pocket for extra memory cards and whatnot. Also, it's built for add-on components like a smaller pouch just for my telephoto lens, etc. I love it.

And I got another gift that is going to assist my photo and music loving immensely... a 500GB Apple Time Capsule. Sure, I could've requested just any external hard drive for our computers. But, considering we're probably buying Katie a MacBook very soon, having this Time Capsule available for her to use with Time Machine on it will be very nice. I also have an additional $100 in Apple Cash, which I'm debating using to upgrade the Time Capsule to the full 1TB jobber. I think I'd have to pay another $100 on top of all this. Good idea to plan for the future?

Try to separate them...

Just a very quick note.

I know that Katie and I celebrated our wedding anniversary back in October. But today marks our 10th anniversary together.

One decade. In the immortal words of Harry Caray, "Holy cow!"

This is, by a longshot and outside my biological family, the longest anyone has ever willingly put up with my shit. By like nine years and eight months. Most normal people ran away screaming and seeking professional help.

Happy anniversary, hon. Sorry, but the return period has long ago expired.

When you're all alone...

First off, I want to thank everyone here for all their birthday wishes. I was truly overwhelmed. To be honest, I wasn't sure if anyone would catch on to my image reference. Yep, that is Sweetness himself, Walter Payton, donning #34, the age I turned on Friday.

However, anyone who has friended me on Facebook needn't have bothered with the reference as they were reminded on their own and I received nearly 30 well wishes. After a couple years on Facebook, during which I've received only a couple birthday wishes, seeing approximately 30 this year just blew my mind. I guess I actually should start paying attention to the birthday list and returning these sentiments. So, anyone not on Facebook, please get on there. It's going to be my primary method of keeping track of your birthdays. Lord knows I won't remember on my own. Seriously... I won't. I'm bad like that. So I guess it's nice to have Facebook.

Oh, and for your viewing pleasure, I took some pictures of the Christmas decorations around our house. I would've taken more of the Christmas tree, but we have a bunch of unwrapped presents underneath and I don't want to reveal them. I'll get a new photo of that later on. Enjoy what I have otherwise in this pictobrowser (or over on Flickr)...

Did I forget to make note of the camera used to take these pictures? Yeah, it's my brand new Sony Alpha A350. Got it earlier today. I bought just the body of it, though, at the Sony outlet store. It's a refurbished camera and with nothing additional but the battery, covers, cords, manuals, etc., and with an additional 20% discount this weekend only, it came to $471. I did tack on a memory card and a four-year protection plan so it came out to a bit more total. But still. I love it. It's wonderful.

Thank you Katie!

Totally Unrelated Aside (TUA): I woke up this morning and took my shower then came into the bedroom to wake Katie up. She was buried under the covers. Up over her head, in fact. So I peeled back the covers from her head and said, in a sing-song manner, "Katieeeeeee."

She looked at me with the good ol' Katie stinkeye and said, "There is no Katie, only Zuul.

"Are you the Gate Keeper?"

My wife, the movie geek.

It's so cool, it's so hip, it's alright...

'nuff said.

Totally Unrelated Aside (TUA): I like when certain Web sites dynamically change the proverbial little things each time you revisit them. For example, a Javascript-based image rotation or how Flickr welcomes you in a different language each time you log back in or reload the page. I like that sort of thing.

FeedBurner does the same sort of thing. It's a corny message about "your feed" and what it's capable of. And last night's message certainly spoke to the geek in me...

Heh heh. Sorry, it's the little things in life for me.

And this is my Thanksgiving...

While I won't be able to say it anywhere near as eloquently as John at Buddha on the Road did (thanks for cluing me in to that song so I had a title for this post, BTW), I would like to wish a Happy Thanksgiving to all my U.S.ian friends. And, although a little late, to my Canadian friends as well.

And, if you're either spending time with or hosting family like Katie and I are, I pray you prepared yourself adequately. We did...

Leave your body and soul at the door...

Happy Halloween, everyone!

No, the title does not mean that we will be having a party at our paddock. Hell, unless a miracle happens, I'm pretty sure we're not even dressing up.

But we are hoping for trick or treaters and tons of 'em at that. It's Friday! It's supposed to be in 60s (Fahrenheit)! No rain! SO THERE IS NO REASON WHY THERE SHOULDN'T BE AN ABSOLUTE ASS TON OF TRICK OR TREATERS TONIGHT!!! Please don't let me down, kiddies. We've got good candy, I swear!

For those wondering, my original plan was to grow out my goatee long enough that I could trim it down to a good chin strip, shave my head, throw on a chef's jacket, and laugh maniacally so I could be Chef Duff from Ace of Cakes.

Then I got lazy and never shopped for a chef's jacket. And do you know how much of a bitch it is to find a University of Maryland-Baltimore County hockey jersey? They don't even have a hockey team!

So I worked out a plan to buy an Ohio State sweatshirt, carry a pipe wrench, and declare myself Joe the Plumber (geez, I can't believe he's actually got his own Wikipedia page).

Of course then I got all wishy washy about shaving my head (this likely played partly into the demise of my Chef Duff costume as well).

Now I've got one final idea left. One last vestige of costumed hope. It involves a long, dirty, light brown wig and plaid boxer shorts that I would have to buy on my lunch break. Of course, this also requires that the DMV get me in and out (that sounds dirty in and of itself) right quick as I need to buy my vehicle renewal sticker TODAY (it expires, um, today). I should already have the rest of the costume, I think.

Wish me luck. If it works out, I promise to get pictures.

Oh damn, I think I might also need a carton of Half and Half. Does it still come in cartons?

And, no, I'm not dressing in costume at work. Why? I would likely end up like Pam on last night's The Office or Dilbert as seen below...

Seriously, though, have a happy Halloween!

Jump in...

I swear I'm having the worst time keeping count of Snippet Wednesdays. I always have to go back at least one or two to figure out which number I'm on. This one should be #20. I hope.

Flowers
So, even though Katie and I said "no gifts" for our anniversary this year (to each other, that is), I still did buy her some roses. I had to. Sorry. But I forgot to order them ahead of time to have them delivered to her work. I'm kinda glad I did forget, too, because I wound up buying them from a place near where I work, Dave's Floral, that has a cool recycling program going on. For every box from their shop as well as vases or baskets from any shop that you bring back to their store, they will give you credit for one free loose rose. How cool is that? Katie and I have a ton of vases and baskets sitting around that we don't use and now, instead of simply throwing them in the recycling bin, we can get something for them in exchange. The owner told me that one guy brought in 40 used vases and now has 40 roses available for him to pick up at any time for any occasion. I really like this idea a lot and wish more people would do it.

Nuke
Everyone (at least I hope everyone) has heard the phrase "Jumping the Shark," right? It's in reference to an old episode of Happy Days where the Fonz jumps his motorcycle over a pool with a shark in it as a stunt. Most people point to that scene as being when the show Happy Days got bad. Real bad. And now, people can point to that line in the sand for any TV show or movie or musical act and say that's when they "jumped the shark." However, an article on Cinematical talking about the pending new Ghostbusters film seems to coin a new phrase (well, it's new to me anyway) that I really like. The author, Elisabeth Rappe, says "Nuke the Fridge" in reference to the most recent Indiana Jones film in which Indy survives a nuclear test blast and subsequent throwing and tossing when he gets stuck in a refrigerator. This scene alone really blew the film for me in all honesty and I love the idea of now using "nuke the fridge" as a replacement for "jump the shark." Any other good ideas?

Eli
I'm so happy because one of my favorite new shows from last season, Eli Stone, finally returned with a new episode last night. I really enjoy the fantastical elements in Eli Stone because they are not too terribly over the top. You realize that anything truly strange is a vision in Eli's head and that makes the show all the more believable. Plus it has one of the coolest casts on TV. So bring on more Eli!

Cheadle
The Hollywood scene is abuzz with the news that Terrence Howard, who played Jim Rhodes in this year's Iron Man, has been replaced by Don Cheadle. I've read that it was an inability to come to terms on a contract and I've also read that the filmmakers plan to take the character in a different direction. Who will ever know the truth, really? Whatever. I don't care. I love Don Cheadle and feel he is one of the finest actors working today and can't wait to see him take on the role of Rhodey.

Story
I think this is one of the greatest spoof trailers I've seen. And, much like the twist on the Stand By Me trailer from a couple years ago, this shows that the right amount of altered atmosphere can severely darken even the most whimsical of films.

You can call me any, anytime...

While this exercise won't necessarily apply to every one of you out there (those young'uns like kilax), I would like you to think back to when you were young and how you got in touch with your friends when you wanted to hang out and play. Or how they got in touch with you.

What did you come up with? If you were me, you came up with nothing more than a home phone and knocking on each other's front door, right? You could also have letters sent to your parents' house. As I got older and girls came on the scene, notes were passed in school to get messages back and forth. Early on in college, I got my first pager. That was pretty much it.

Flash forward to today. Not that you go outside and play anymore (that would just be creepy and might warrant a call to the police), but think about all the different ways you can now be contacted for whatever purpose. How long was your list?

I shall attempt to count for myself:

• home phone
• office phone
• cell phone
• home mail address
• work mail address
• text messaging
• three G-mail accounts
• two Yahoo e-mail accounts
• one SBC e-mail account
• one Hotmail e-mail account
• five work e-mail accounts
• Twitter
• Facebook
• MySpace
• G-chat
• work-based instant messaging program
• three or more AOL IM accounts
• one ICQ account (does that still exist?)
• My blog comments
• Last.fm message board
• Vimeo comments
• Talkshow comments

You scared yet? I don't know why I thought of this, but for some reason I did. And as I was mentally hashing out my list of contact methods, I realized I was having trouble keeping track of them all. In fact, I'm pretty certain I thought of some others yesterday that I'm forgetting now as I type this.

I'm not sure I enjoy this realization. On the one hand, it's nice knowing I can be found in an emergency. On the other hand, it's a bit disconcerting knowing I can be found in an emergency, if you catch my meaning.

I would seriously like to go back to the days of passing notes in class. Please?

Totally Unrelated Aside (TUA): This is here only because I would hate to leave Cinnkitty "jonesing" unnecessarily. That would be animal cruelty.

Typically for our anniversary, Katie and I will get each other one sincere card and one funny card. I dunno how this started, but it did and we try to live up to it each year. This year, though, Katie outdid herself. No, I'm not sharing the sincere card, just the joke-y one.

The outside reads: "Sometimes when we're lying in bed, I look over at you and think, 'I'm so lucky'."

The inside reads: "Then you start snoring in that snorty way, and I think, 'Well, that's annoying, but I'm still lucky'."

And she accompanied the card with a box of Breathe Right strips.

I love my wife. No, really, I do. Seriously!

I believe in a thing called love...

It's been a few years since they were posted on the Web, but I'm finally starting to get some earlier photos that were on my static site up to Flickr.

And the first to be posted are the pictures from our wedding!

Why? Because today is our seventh anniversary! Happy anniversary, hon. I love you.

[Check out the album on Flickr if you can't see the Pictobrowser in your reader]

Sorry they are so low resolution. They are scans of print photos and I had so many to do at the time (six years ago), that I scanned them quick and dirty. But they still work.

Your own personal Jesus...

Welcome to Snippet Wednesday #17!

Authentic
Katie was driving this morning when she passed by a church with "Authentic Jesus" on its front sign. Can anyone tell us what constitutes an authentic Jesus as opposed to a fake Jesus and what studies have been done to validate these findings? Can I take them on their word on this? If they're lying, who would I file a complaint with?

Domobacca
I'm starting to wonder if these two little beasts were separated at birth. At left is one of the Target Domokun Halloween plushes and at right is the Mighty Mugg Chewbacca. Eerily similar, aren't they? And, yes, that's a candy corn in Chewie's mitt.

Henson
Speaking of little creatures, happy birthday to Jim Henson, creator of The Muppets and so much other great stuff that has entertained me throughout my life. You are a true artist.

Mattingly
My BiL Scott sent this bad boy my way. It's an oversized (5" x 7") 1985 Topps Don Mattingly card. Back in the day, I was a diehard Yankees fan (I was born in New York and raised a bit in Connecticut, so I'm excused) and "Donnie Baseball" was m'man. I collected all kinds of Mattingly baseball cards until I stopped collecting sometime in the very early 90s. Scott, who got back into card collecting recently, has been sending me the occasional Mattingly card for kicks. Two of them are in magnetic frames on our fridge while this one is now displayed on my overhead cabinet at work. Thanks Scott (and Becca).

Dairy
Winter twatted this morning about a report that PETA is asking Ben & Jerry's ice cream company to start using human breast milk as opposed to cow's milk. Seriously? Well, as she said, that would be one dairy I'd like to see.

Dew
When the first thing you do upon entering your place of employment in the morning is to head to the breakroom and buy a Mountain Dew, you know something is wrong.