Drunk a skunk am I from the celebration

Thursday, January 8th, 2009

So wow - totally forgot to update for New Years last week, but I had 5 days off straight, so I suppose I was just too busy sleeping in, heh. It all started with Lisa and I at the House of Kabob with John, Libby, Tom, and Jane. It was awesome.

We rang in the New Year at our house. It was awesome.

2009 arrived right on time. It was awesome.

Tom set off a mortar. It was awesome.

We watched from the freezing front porch. It was awesome.

I followed the mortar as it traveled upwards... it was awesome.

So happy new years, everyone! We have a lot to look forward to this year, even with the economy in the crapper. Paul's Boutique is getting a 20th anniversary release, with remastered and BONUS tracks. Maybe I can finally have a perfect "33% God" and "Dis Yourself in '89 (just do it)"... my transfers from vinyl are okay, but I want better!

So I decided to try a little experiment and see what happens if I stop shaving. I've only attempted to grow hair once and I picked some dopey looking goatee thing, and that was over ten years ago... so far it's been interesting, with one day being unbearably itchy and the next being completely fine. One day it feels super prickly, and the next it feels soft. I know this is all stuff most guys figured out in their 20s, but I never felt the compulsion to grow a beard. Lisa is just as fascinated as I am, because I am apparently a calico cat, just on my face. I have brown, red, blonde, and white hairs coming in.

My brother and I were in an informal beard off via email this week. We make faces when we take the pics. Here's one :)

Also, I love my iPhone so much, even the crappy camera... because it lets me take all of those candid cat pics I've always wanted to... here's Simon and Coco on the bed, taken last week in the middle of the day while Lisa was at work... doesn't it look like I caught them doing something? Simon looks guilty.

Coco visited me in the basement a lot, too... she made me stop my work for hugs, so I took pics and immediately mailed them to Lisa. Yes, dear reader, that is what we do to each other on our days off... try to make the work-bound person jealous with snapshots of cats-at-home. So lame of me, hahaha.

First cut of the year

Monday, January 12th, 2009

The face stuff continues to grow, slowly.

It's a strange thing to see in the mirror, as I have never thought of myself as a "beard guy", and it itched something terrible last night. Today it's fine. So weird.

Cut the crap out of Mr. Thumb last night, and it was kinda deep and wide. Superglued it shut and continued to work... it kept popping open, and I kept regluing it. Lisa thinks these "medically related antics" of mine are crazy pants.

This was the battlefield when I called it a night. Rarrrgh.

My iPhone had more juice at 1:20am than I did... I plugged 'er in anyway.

Here's something insanely cool. I got an original Chaz Addams drawing!! My next goal is to get an original Edward Gorey.

Obaaaahmahhhh

Tuesday, January 20th, 2009

Work flew by today. Between the setting up for the inaguration on our jumbo screen in the Atrium, the watching of the inaguration, and the post-inaguration conversations, it's practically time to go home. Ahh home, you know, the place that normally feels safe? Well, not so on Friday night. We got home to a house with frozen pipes - no water to be found anywhere! We checked our indoor pipes, and from the trickles in the basement fixtures, felt that the freeze was happening at the source, most likely where the water main feeds into our home. I immediately called 311, to report what seemed to be a frozen water main. If that bursts, it's "bye bye" Japan Trip 2009, because it would be OUR responsibility! They assured me that I would be taken care of within 24 hours (how helpful - glad I pay near $3k in taxes a year to hear that bullshit).

We sprang into action, arming ourselves with gallons of water for drinking and toilet operations, and get some new space heaters to blast in the basement. After a small debacle where we accidentally heated the GAS MAIN, we discovered that the water main was behind 3.75 inches of hard wood paneling. Great. The previous owner was a retard to box that shit in. Sooo, Lisa's dad was kind enough to loan his circular saw, which I skillfully set to a depth of "not quite 3.75", and cut the crap out of the wall in the basement. Success! It exposed the water main! We applied heat directly to forehead for the next 24 hours or so, and around 11:30 pm, with a tremendous shudder and heave, the water gushed back into the house. And the main valve started leaking.

Sooo, I called a guy who had just fixed our furnace/radiator system a few days prior (yeah, what a week for home repair!) and he suggested I tighten down on the nut a little (that's what she said!). It stopped dripping. We laughed! We cried! We flushed the toilets! And now, we leave a tap at a trickle to stave off frozen pipes from here on out. Oh, and the city? They finally casually arrived at 3:30pm on Sunday. Thanks.

Here's Lisa on our way out the door to work this morning.

She made cookies! COOKIES!

I am still growing a beard, to see how long I can ride this change out. It feels soft now, haha.

Ice to see you, Mendoza.

Wenesday, January 28th, 2009

Well, we got our first irritating snow of the season!

I had to PUNCH my way into my car. Literally.

See that crack in the driver's side window? Thank god it was just the ice that cracked!

It was one of those kinds of ice storms that coats all of the snowfall with a hard clear slippery shell.

That's all I got. I'm tired.