Hello again.

It's been a little while since I rapped at ya.

My son Max was born in 2012.

Married monstersocks back in '11.

Stuck with the curling thing. My team won the club championship last year and came in second this year.


So, a few things happened since my last post.

Thanks to the internet I finally know what an irish taco is.

Fritos, covered in chili with sour cream, sliced tomatoes and green onions.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:fe8LYf3b0XsJ:blog.theurbanrebellion.com/2008/01/tale-of-first-loves-culinary-and-human.html

Pictures:

• 2010 Reunion Pictures
• The Super Buffet at Big V's

After watching a bunch of curling during the winter olympics, monstersocks and I took a class at the Dakota Curling Club. I enjoyed it so I decided to sign up for the Spring League at the Saint Paul Curling Club, much closer to home.

I was fortunate to be placed on a team with one other beginner and two more experienced curlers. There were six teams in our League, with half of the teams having one or two experienced members and the rest being composed entirely of beginners. We ended up having a different team each week as we beginners showed up every week but there were substitutes for one or the other (or both) of the more experienced curlers several weeks. I showed up early each week to practice before the match.

We lost our first game to a team whose skip was in the 2006 Olympics. We won the next few games, although our fourth game was extremely close (we were tied going into the last end then stole a point to win the game). Our last game of the season was against the first team we'd played. We did better this time around, stealing a point in the third end and four in the fourth. They rallied to score three in the fifth, then steal two more in the sixth tying it up. The match was running long so we had a tiebreaker after the sixth where the thirds on each team threw a single stone, no sweeping, and whoever was closer to the button won. The other team was a few feet closer so they won.

I'm very happy with how we did overall. I got a lot better as the season progressed, and I can now say that I've only lost matches when the other team had an Olympian. I'm seriously considering signing up for the Fall League later this year.

monstersocks came out to two of the games and took some pictures with my camera for me. (I had messed with the settings poorly for game 4 so the pictures came out a bit overexposed.)

• Spring Curling Class
• Spring Curling- Game 4
• Spring Curling- Game 6

We watched the Lost finale on Monday night since I was caught up in work Sunday night.

I never would have guessed that the island was actually The Black Lodge. The surprise cameo from Kyle MacLachlan ? Blew my mind.

( My thoughts, loaded with spoilersCollapse )

I went out to Baltimore last weekend for my cousin's bachelor party. We went to the Preakness. I actually just about broke even when betting, except for the money I lost on the horse owned by a fellow Macalester alumni. (My method for winning- I came up with a ridiculous rationale for betting on a race, then tried to bet that way, then bet on the longshot instead when the rationale didn't work out and won.)

Way more sun than I'm used to, but I appear to have applied enough sunscreen.

There was a little wandering between bars in Baltimore before settling down in a hotel bar that seemed to be hosting the guests of a couple of weddings.

I also got to see my brother and cousins, including my youngest cousin Walter. He appeared briefly early on, then went back home.

I brought my netbook with me (still no iPad). The netbook is definitely slow and clunky compared to an iPad, but I can log on to the VPN at work with the netbook when necessary. I also wouldn't feel nearly as bad if the netbook were stolen from a hotel room as I would with an iPad.

One other advantage of the netbook- I could watch Season 1 episodes of the IT Crowd with commentary by playing the separate audio file along with the video file. Using VLC with that option makes me think buying some of the Rifftrax commentaries might be worthwhile.

The prior weekend we made a quick trip up to Virginia MN, including several hours of driving in the snow.

monstersocks and I watched a bunch of curling during the winter olympics. I can probably name more curlers now than athletes in any other sport (although that isn't saying much).

We took a class down in Lakeville to try it out and had fun. I decided to sign up for the St. Paul Curling Club Spring League (with informational class). Our team has two beginners and two experienced players. We've had one match so far and lost by two (although the opposing skip was in the 2006 olympics so I can't feel too bad).

Our gas bill was lower every month this winter than it had been the previous winter thanks to our new roof (and insulation). Quite pleased with that.

No iPad yet. I'd like one, but I'm not sure when I'll be able to justify it. I've been working on creating a budget and sticking to it, that doesn't play very nicely with extravagant technology purchases.

Just opened up a post window and found a draft from after my winter vacation:

Had a great vacation in Tennessee with family.

There were minor delays due to maintenance on both planes on the way down, but no significant problems. The Krispy Kreme drive-thru took almost half an hour though.

We had a good time at the family cabin in Gatlinburg with my parents, brother and his family. One of my aunts and cousins also stopped by for a couple of days.

At the airport on the way back I thought a woman outside of security looked familiar. I eventually figured out she was Julia Campbell (although I didn't really have much beyond "from that Fox women in prison sitcom".) I'm a little surprised I didn't notice her companion, Jay Karnes. He was in a couple of episodes of Bruce Campbell's TV show.

They were on our flight out of Knoxville too. Didn't pester them, I always feel bad about bothering folks.

So, that was all about four months ago.

Pictures from our Thanksgiving dinner and from Thanksgiving observed with monstersocks' family (mostly dogs).

• Thanksgiving 2009- Lefserittos
• Thanksgiving 2009- Observed

Getting ready for Christmas and Thanksgiving. Finished much of my Christmas shopping online tonight. We're doing Thanksgiving proper on Saturday with monstersocks' family so tomorrow is just the two of us.

I've got one more Google Voice invite if anyone is interested.

I haven't figured out anything to do with Google Wave yet, but I've got several invites for it.

Amazon- Simpsons & Futurama DVD Sale

Get $7.50 - $12.00 off Simpsons and Futurama DVD sets at Amazon. (Buy two, get $15 off, buy three, get $25 off, up to ten at $120 off.)

We got everything ready on Halloween, strung up some lights in the windows of the Beauty Shop and put out some spooky decorations including the bubble fog machine. We had a total of eight trick-or-treaters show up, plus one small child dressed as a chicken who came back twice because of how much she liked the fog filled bubbles.

Once we closed up shop, monstersocks got her costume together (Abby Sciuto from NCIS) and we headed out to Eric & Nichole's Halloween party. monstersocks' costume was gotten by a few folks. I've got pictures from Eric & Nichole's Halloween Party online.

I either picked something up at one of the parties last weekend or my nasal flu shot did it to me.

I've had a sore throat for a couple of days and slept from about 11pm last night until 5pm today (woke up a couple of times to e-mail work and monstersocks and when monstersocks called). Hopefully I'll be better soon.

Good weekend. Went out to Jarrin's annual Halloween party and had a good time as always. The pneumatic airlock was very nice, although a little tricky if you weren't fast enough. I'm disappointed that I somehow didn't take any pictures or movies of the airlock door or flame tower.

I'm pleased with how my costume turned out:
( Killinger Costume DetailsCollapse )

Went out to Roller Derby tonight. Carolina was ahead at half time, but Minnesota outplayed them in the second half and won fairly decisively.

I bought Critter Crunch for the PS3 this weekend. monstersocks enjoyed playing it for a while, although I hadn't thought to set her up with her own profile on the PS3 so her trophies got credited to my account. Oops.

Pretty fun little puzzle game with cute graphics.

I had a good birthday weekend. Went out Friday night to the Danger Board show, then drove home in the early morning snow. On Saturday we went out for breakfast then saw Surrogates and Zombieland. Had a multi-birthday celebration with monstersocks' family on Sunday.

I'm not verbose.

There was a light dusting of snow this weekend on my birthday, then we got a whole lot more this morning for Columbus day.

You'd think this would surprise me less after spending about half of my life in Minnesota.

My brother made a quick stop in town over the weekend on his way out to California for work. We had fun showing him the house and he got to be the first guest in our guest room. Now we just need to figure out how to have someone come and stay in our computer room so that we have motivation to get that room organized.

We went out to moto-i for dinner on Saturday. (We'd been meaning to check it out for quite a while but didn't get around to it until we had someone visiting from out of town.) The food was very good (especially the chicken hearts on special, even better than the ones I've had at brazilian steakhouses). We'll have to go back sometime when monstersocks is driving so that I can try more of the sake.

This morning we went down to Lock and Dam No. 1 then played some disc golf at the nearby course followed by lunch at Sea Salt. After lunch we came back home and played some Wii disc golf (although we couldn't play at Hazeltine as you apparently have to unlock it first) and then some other games.

I've been working on my pictures from this year's trip up LeConte. I've narrowed it down from about 982 pictures to 292, although that's still too many. I did manage to get my panoramic pictures from LeConte 2009 online, and I updated my LeConte Group History set, with pictures from 1974, 1975, and 2002-2009.