Ice Jam

Angie and I spent, what seems like, all weekend chopping ice from our driveway. You don't shovel snow one time and look what happens. There is now a 5 inch high "curb" of ice to climb when leaving our driveway. The driveway's clean now though.

I'm not supposed to say anything, but there are now three "women" in the house. Abby's had her first monthly visitor this weekend. Eleven seems awful young to us.

Peace-
Matt

Prowler

I've always been a morning person, but the more I roam at night, the more I like it. Maybe it's because, during the winter, the night starts about 5pm.

Blessed

What a great Christmas day we've had. Everything about it has been great. Everyone has been getting along all day (I shouldn't have said that), everyone is in a great mood, it's been fantastic. I think this will go into our memory banks as one of the great ones. We didn't get carried away with presents this year, we didn't have the money. We did focus on what's really important though. For me, it helped that the sun was shining and that it got warm. Well 40 degrees is warm after what we've had.

I hope your Christmas was as good as ours.

Peace-
Matt

Merry Christmas

I hope you have a great Christmas.

Peace-
Matt

Baked

Yesterday was our annual "Baking Day". As much as I love cookies, I'm glad this day happens just once a year. I bet I ate 10 cookies yesterday. That's probably why I have a headache today.

Christmas is drawing near. One more shopping outing today and we'll be done I think. I wish we could afford to do more for people. Someday.

Peace-
Matt

Redemption

It's been a busy week. It gets this way at Christmas time. There's always too much going on.

Angie & I went to see Glenn Beck's Christmas Show last night. It was pretty good.

I pulled some muscles in my back brushing my teeth Tuesday morning. Stupid, I know. It's been a long week. I'm glad tomorrow's Friday.

Glenn Beck spoke last night about Christmas being a time of redemption. A time to start over. I've been paying attention to our Advent readings this year. That's what they're saying too. That's what Christmas is about.

Peace-
Matt

Bird's Eye

I had an all day work meeting on the 40th floor of 801 Grand today. I brought my pocket camera just in case the view was good. This is a shot of the sunrise this morning from about 600 feet up. The sun didn't stick around for long though. We got about 4 inches of new snow today.

Peace-
Matt

Memories

Angie & I were talking about our earliest memories last night. For both of us, they're of Christmas. When we were kids, Christmas was the biggest day of the year. It's the big day. I hope we're helping our kids make good memories too.

Peace-
Matt

Anal

I'm a meticulous person by nature, and fairly obsessive. This is a fault mostly, but sometimes a benefit. I'm picky about everything, which causes some rifts. I'm obsessive too. When I get into something, it's in the front of my head all the time, wanting to control my thoughts. It's a struggle sometimes to concentrate on other things.

My middle daughter has picked up my obsessive gene it seems. This will help her become a great sax or guitar player, if she can put down the stupid teen magazines.

Peace-
Matt

Serendipity

I was out running this afternoon and noticed these hay bales. I knew the moon would be fullish tonight and that the trains would be running by frequently. When it got dark I walked out to this field and made this exposure (about 9:20pm tonight). It's lit completely by moonlight, with the train's headlights in the background. Sometimes it all comes together nicely. This is why it's so much fun for me.

Peace-
Matt

The Day After

I remember a movie, from the early eighties I think, called The Day After. It was about the day after a nuclear attack. I had nightmares for a long time after watching it.

Last year, on "black friday", while I was stampeding into Target with the rest of the cattle, I had an idea for a photo. I pictured a mass of blurred people funneling into the doors as the store opened. I went out this morning to make that photo. You see the results above. I'm not really happy with it. One bad thing about digital is that with long exposures you get a lot of noise. I didn't want noise in this photo, and it doesn't have any, but it's still not right. To avoid noise I used multiple shorter exposures instead of one long one. I didn't get the blur I wanted. I can see too much detail in the people. I guess I didn't expect to get it right the first time anyway. This is one of those situations where you don't get another chance. Just a couple of shots (actually about 20 with the multiple exposures) and the crowd was gone.

We had Thanksgiving at my mom's yesterday. The food was great and we had a lot of fun playing games. Didn't watch one minute of football either.

It was 11 degrees this morning. Yuck.

Peace-
Matt

Pink Eye

I was home with Madeline today because she has pink eye. She missed her kindergarten Thanksgiving "feast", so we went for our own "feast" of chinese food hy-vee style.

We had our first snowfall of the year today. About 3-4 inches from what I can tell. I made Madeline a grape juice snow cone out of it.

I usually like the first snowfall of the year. It pissed me off today though. I'm not ready for winter, I like fall.

Thanksgiving is the quintessential american holiday. You overeat and then sit on your ass and watch football. perfect.

Happy Thanksgiving

Matt

Finally

This week seems like it took forever. Next week is a short week, thank God. Maybe that's why they call it Thanksgiving?

Scam

I hate talking politics & issues. I mean I really really hate it. I don't mind talking it with my wife or my good friends. We can disagree and still be civil. I just can't do it with anyone else. I'm going to do it now though, but just a quick jab and then I'm done. I promise, I won't make this a habit.

Rant on. Anthropogenic global warming is a fucking scam and I'm sick of hearing about it. The hype is totally out of control. Desire for money and power and recognition are what it's about, not the truth. See the new link over there ---->. I could put up with the bullshit and brainwashing until my kids started coming home from school talking about it. No more. I'll be making sure they know the truth from now on. Rant over.

See, that wasn't so bad.

Peace-
Matt

Tooth Fairy

Madeline lost her first two baby teeth this week*. She was so nervous about letting us pull them. She finally let Angie pull one of them a few days ago. She pulled her second one herself last night. She showed me this morning that she can feel one of her adult teeth coming in. This makes me very sad. This tooth coming in is the same one she'll eat her wedding cake with some day. Madeline is my baby, I really don't want her to grow up yet. I want her to stay 5 for a long long time.

Peace-
Matt

(* I'm not counting the one we had pulled after she fell and cracked it two years ago)

Blistered

I raked the yard today, and burned 10 tons of leaves. I have blisters now, and sore lungs; plus I helped raise the global temp .000000001 degrees. You'll thank me this winter.

Peace-
Matt

(PS - okay okay, enough of the corny blurred water)

November

I can't believe it's November already.

My favorite stream will be frozen soon.

Peace-
Matt

Float

Full Moon & Trees

Our House & Trees

Float trip 07