The 2 Second Plunge

I took a dip in my parent's pool today. It was a beautiful day, and the water was around 55 F. 2 Seconds may be pushing it.

3

We went to First Baptist Frisco for church yesterday and there were three Larson's on stage. Crazy. The pressure is on for us to move down.

Spiffy Duds

Yuriko and I at my work Christmas party.

Taking Pop-ups to the Next Level

Yuriko and I got our neice and nephew, Secily and Larson, a pop-up book of the Chronicles of Narnia for Chirstmas. They loved it. It really is an engineering feat in pop-up-itry.

Style 101

We had dinner last night with Kent, his fashionable sister Lauren, and Ashley. Lauren is trained and works in the fashion industry, and she told me the new way to tie your scarf. I took notes.

I'll post instructions later...

Of couse Yuriko is the Carson Shultz of female style...

Poor Puppy...

Yuriko decided that metallic pink is Chaco's nail colour of choice...

See you in three weeks...

Here is my office at work. A Couple items of note: my Jelly Belly dispenser on the right and my Fisher space pen (in it's case) below my left monitor... Love it.

Christmas Time...

Yuriko and I helped plan a Christmas party for 130 people this last weekend. We even played the Camp Ozark question game around the tables. Each table produced a winner and we had a champions round for people to watch. In this round all of the questions had to be Christmas related. It was pretty good. We also did a 130 person $2 gift exchange. It was pretty intense - 5 people at a time.

My gift (a John Deere 4010 tractor model) was wrapped in this:

Yuriko scored a homemade gift card for dinner and movie at our friends' place, which worked out for us:

Ropin'

We went to North Battleford two weekend ago to vistit Yuriko's grandma and cousins. I forgot Chaco's leash and had to use a rope. It's unfortunately the most like a cowboy that I will get. Sigh...

Heroic Measures

Growing up my dad would tell our dog-sitters, "Don't take any heroic measures to save the dog...and heroic starts at $10".

I guess I am a hero.

Does this make sense?

Yuriko told me about a girl in her class who is allergic to all vegetables and fruit with the exception of watermelon. As if that was not tough enough for her, she has decided it would be a good idea to be a vegetarian - wait what? Crazy.

Burmese Jack-O-Lanterns

We have a Karen refugee family that we get together with (Karen = the non-Burmese people in Burma/Myanmar). We help them learn English and teach them about about Canadian culture. We had them over the week before Halloween and made some jack-o-lanterns. It was good times. The girl in the picture is their daughter, Wah Sha De. She was deathly scared of Chaco for a few months, but now chases her around the house and wanted this picture with her.

Chamberlain

$3.52 and ridiculousely huge. Chamberlain Tempo gas station.

Liae ahh rawlong starneh

Thomas and I went and saw the legendary Bob Dylan in concert last Saturday. It was awesome. We went with Mike Brown and Joel Popescue as well, but didn't sit with them. When we all met back at the car I was telling them how it took me two verses and chorus to recognize "Mr. Tamborine Man" and Mike responded (in all honesty), "He sung that one?". Bob has always been a mumbler, but it's incredible now. We were wondering if that night was going to be his last. It has been about 5 years since he stopped playing guitar due to arthritis, and now he just plays the keys and harmonica - although Thomas and I doubt even that. We were in the 9th row and swear that he brought that harmonica down while it was still playing away.

Also, true to Bob's style, he didn't address the crowd at all - no "hello," Thank you very much," "have a good night," - he just came and played. He's done over a 100 shows a year for over two decades and I guess he is just at that point where he can do whatever he wants. Legend.

Carebear Countdown...

Halloween at work. I was the reigning costume champion from last year, but unfortunately the Sesame Street Aliens won.

Langenburg, SK

Seeing how Yuriko and I have no family left in Canada (with the exception of Yuriko's brother in Vancouver), we spent Canadian thanksgiving with Kent. He has just moved out to Langenburg where he is the town Veterinarian. He is settled - bought a house and got a dog. His dog's name is Stanley and he is 8 months old. Here he is with Kent, and with Chaco and I:



Note that Chaco is 2 years old and Stanley is an 8-month old giant (half St. Bernard, half Newfoundland). We had a great time with Kent. We cooked a bird that we had in our freezer, which turned out to be a chicken, and we went to a super nice restaurant in Langenburg (town of ~1200). It was called conversations, and it is open only on Saturday nights by reservation only. Also, when you reserve a table, they reserve it for the whole night - so you are not rushed. We had a 4 course meal that was incredible. You order the main course a day ahead so they can buy fresh ingredients. If you are ever driving through Langenburg on a Saturday make sure you reserve.

Floaties

We were talking the other day at work about Orbitz. It was a great drink that came out in 1996 and was out of business I believe by the next year. It was a fruity drink with little gelatin balls floating around it - so good. If you want to join the fan club it is here.

Cobwebs and Umbrellas

The streetlights in our parking lot:

Missed the point...

The Movie:
Yesterday Yuriko and I went to see Wall-E, Pixar's new animated movie. It was a really good show I thought. Wall-E was a great character. He is essentially a robotic garbage compactor that has developed a personality, and the first 40 min of the show is almost dialogue free, but the best 40 minutes of the movie.

The Moral:
The whole movie is based on the fact that humans, through over-consumption and lack of regard for the environment, have filled the earth with garbage to the point where it is uninhabitable. Humans are therefore banished to space where they live lazy unfulfilling lives.

The Response:
Yuriko and I hung around for the credits and when we got up, we looked at the floor. I wish I had an iPhone to take a picture of it, but the floor was just filthy...ridiculously dirty. They finished watching the movie, sipped their last sip, said "that was a great movie," and threw their cup on the floor. It was like I was still watching the film...

Fierce Beast

We have folks who live in our townhouse-plex that are deathly afraid of dogs. They will see Chaco from 7 doors down, frantically grab their kids and dive into their house, slamming the door.

But seriously, how could you be afraid of this dog carrying a teddy bear:

A Bigger Diagonal

We finally gave in. After owning a 13" TV for so many years we got a flat screen. Mike Brown is living with us now and he has a Nintendo Wii. The 13" just wasn't cutting it. We upgraded to the 40" Sony.


Thomas Le and Mike Brown helped christen it for us with some Mario-Cart:

Can you spot the scam?

Email #1:
"hi, we are interested on this couch pls reply asap. norfolk

michael"

Email #2:
"hi, we are in the state but are moving to canada in 2 to 3 weks, we dont want to move our furnitures down to canada cause we are only going to be there for 1 and half year. we want y to hold this furniture for us, we can send y the paymen so that y will know that its sold and we will also know that its there for us to pick up once we arrive. we intend to have things ready cause we are coming with our little once.. y know how inposible it is to do anything with them. reply asap."

Email #3:
"pls email me your mailling address and full name so that my wife will go to the bank and get y a money or bank draft and have it sent to y via carrier. "

Letter:



I thought your name was michael?

Apples?

Yuriko and I have recently met some new friends Domenique and Joel. Dominique has worked in BC at a candy shop. So...she came over last week and Yuriko and her made some candy apples. So good.

They turned this:

Into this:

Dragons

Saskatoon has a fundraising event called the dragon boat festival. My office put together a team of 23 people (22 rowers, 1 steerer) and I was a rower. We were called the lilly dippers.



We were feirce competitors and we came in 3rd (in the lowest division). One race we did an almost 90 degree turn, cut off someone, and had to come to a complete stop.

Breckenridge

In the first week of August my whole fam (13 of us) met up in Breckenridge, Colorado for a week. It was solid. We rented a large house that all of us could stay in: hot tub, in-ground tramplone, theatre style couch seating, gorgeous view...


Apart from staying in a sweet place and having good hang out time, we did several days of mountain biking, one day of Class 3+ rafting, some good hikes and several games of both Ticket to Ride and Settler's of Catan. Life doesn't get much better.