The Blarg

We’re back from our little trip and had a really nice time.

Our first stop was Seqouia, and we weren’t really sure how that part of the trip would pan out. Originally I thought it would be rainy and we might spend one night in a hotel, and the second night camping…but it actually worked out the opposite. When we got there it was wet, but not raining, so we decided to throw down the tent and camp! It was cold out, but not unbearable (thanks for the Merino wool suggestion Angelo!). It started to rain around 7 o’clock, so we made our way to bed nice and early. We survived the first night of rain and dampness, but by morning we were ready to leave. The sun was out, but totally covered by low lying clouds. Everything was damp and there was zero hope for drying off, so we packed up and left!

We started driving towards Turlock and never saw anything worth stopping for. Since our camping trip was shortened we ended up arriving in Turlock the same night as everyone else! Not a lot of note happened in Turlock, just a lot of time with family. It’s nice to see people up there because it really only happens once a year. The only really touristy thing we did was visit the Hilmar Cheese Co. It is the single largest factory in the United States. Kraft and all the other guys have more facilities altogether, but this is the single biggest. We ate lunch there, tasted some cheese, and took this funny picture of Stacie and Sarah as cheese workers.

Hope everyone has fun plans for New Year’s Eve tonight. I hear there will be some Wii gaming at Kurtii’s tonight, so I’m excited. Happy New Year everbody, see you in 2007!

I’ve decided it’s not a road trip unless there are multiple stops involved. For example, going to Vegas, then returning from Vegas is not a "road trip." It’s simply going to a destination and returning. Nope, a real road trip must involve multiple stops, or to be more precise, returning from a location which was not your original destination. Now that I’ve got that cleared up…

The car is packed and we’re leaving by 8 am sharp! It looks like tomorrow will be rainy in Sequoia, but we won’t know how much until we get up there. If it’s too wet we have several hotel selections, and then we can camp for night number two. Seqouia is about over 250 miles, so a 4-5 hour drive. After that we’re heading up to Turlock for night number three to see my Mom’s side of the family. Turlock is about another 150 miles North of Seqouia.

We’re taking the camera, so hopefully I’ll have a fun picture of Stacie eating beans and wieners or something.

Merry Christmas from Stacie, Boo, and the tree!

This was a little time-lapse photography fun. The focus is on the tree instead of us, but it still looks cool. The beard is down to a gotee.

Vacation is good for the mental health, but bad for the blog. I’m sorry blog that you haven’t got blogged on very much despite the greater abundance of time I have. Please don’t give me coal for Christmas.

Being on vacation has given us time to do some last minute shopping earlier in the week. Something I enjoy about getting a little older is it’s more about what I get to give and less about what I hope to get. Thinking of the "perfect" gift for somebody is fun, sort of a challenge for us. We sit down and analyze the person’s life situation and what they might need and see what we can come up with. Sometimes we have success, sometimes the gift seems less than perfect, but it’s still a lot of fun.

We’ve spent the last two days doing some baking. I had this great idea to bake people bread (banana nut and pumpkin) and Stacie baked several different kinds of cookies. I’m not a big dessert person, but it was fun buying bags of flour and sugar, hunting down mini-loaf pans, and actually making something. Now we just have to drive around and hope people are home.

Yesterday I drove to Sport Chalet in Torrance to obtain this bad boy. Why do I need a propane fueled catalyic heater you might ask? Because I’ve convinced Stacie that tent camping in Sequoia National Park in Decemeber will be fun (but a little cold, thus the heater). We’re planning to leave Wednesday, stay two nights, and then continue up to Turlock to meet the rest of the family. I called the ranger station yesterday and the highs are about 50, and the lows are right around freezing. While camping is an adventure in and of itself, adding in the extra challenge of the cold makes it even more fun. It’s been three years since my first winter Sequoia trip, and I miss it. Hopefully the weather cooperates and it stays dry.

Hope everyone is ready for Christmas and has a great day with family and friends. Merry Christmas!

Vacation is goooood. I’m very glad I became a teacher. The following are two accounts of people that have annoyed us over the last two days.

Yesterday at 5 a.m. the doorbell started ringing. "What the crap?!" I thought as we lay in bed still mostly asleep. A minute went by and then again "Ring ring ring?!!?!?" Extremely disturbed I went downstairs and looked out the window. A fool in a Raiders jacket looked back at me with an embarrased look on his face and said "oh sorry, wrong house." If you’re going to ring a doorbell at 5 a.m., make sure it’s the right house!!

Contrary to what is apparently popular belief, we are not a Walgreens Pharmacy. I understand calling once, asking me if I will fill your prescription, and then you find out that you have the wrong number. But when you call back 5 seconds later I realize here that you think you only dialed wrong, but no, you didn’t. I let the answering machine get it, because I can’t bear to tell you what a fool you are. Then 5 minutes later when you have a different person call and ask "Is this Walgreens?" I realize you’re totally in denial that the number you have is wrong. When you call back for the FOURTH time all I can say is "This still isn’t Walgreens" and hang up. Hopefully by now grandma or whoever has not died from a failure to obtain her prescription. I highly recommend you try the "internets" or even that old thing called the "phonebook."

Having spent much of tonight looking for gifts for those closest to me, I realize that buying gifts for those you like with absolutely no "hints" is quite difficult. With enough thought it is possible to find something that seems perfect for someone, but that’s rarely the case.

Because of that I’ve decided to make a list of "wants" heading into this final week before Christmas.

Books - I like fantasy and sci-fi books, and especially series of books. Anything you find at Barnes and Noble that has wizards, dragons, space, and elves I will probably enjoy (and especially if the story takes more than one book to tell). If you need more specific direction, I want to read The Stand by Stephen King, I want to read Dan Brown’s other novels (I’ve read Angels and Demons and The Da Vinci Code, so whatever the others are), and some authors I enjoy are George R.R. Martin and Michael Crichton. I also have a couple series by Robin Hobb that are waiting for me. Based on all of the above you should be able to find me a book that I would enjoy. Finally, I like collecting books, so hardcover is great.

That’s all I’ve got for right now. If I think of anything else I’ll add to this post.

Last night we caught most of a 48 hours "The Mystery of Christmas" episode, and it was actually very interesting. Usually I hold my breath waiting for the anti-Christian slant, but this was really very well done. It spurred me to look into a few Christmas related "ideas," and I’ve got a small list of interesting trivia I didn’t know before.

• The Christmas story is only mentioned in two of the gospels, Matthew and Luke.
• The Magi/Wisemen are only mentioned in Matthew.
• The Shepherds are only mentioned in Luke.
• The number of Wisemen is not mentioned in the bible, but the three gifts translates into three Wisemen in most nativity sets.
• The Wisemen shouldn’t actually be included in the nativity because they probably arrived up to 2 years later (King Herod, after meeting with the Wisemen, had all boys 2 and under killed, meaning the Wisemen saw the star sometime around 2 years earlier).
• The Wisemen are not given names in the bible, but one legend names them Gaspar, Balthasar, and Melchior.

Feel free to comment on any other fun Christmas "trivia" you’ve heard.

I haven’t posted any "new" music lately, but I’ve got one for you today! It’s called Honestly by a band named Cartel. It’s not exactly new (2005), but it’s still very good. Check them out over on the Blarg radio! If you’d like to hear more songs by this band visit their purevolume page.