Happy Fun Picture Time

Soooooooo…..

Here are some pictures. I could go into a whole, “I haven’t posted in a long time…blah blah blah…. I’ve been really busy with the kids and some international espionage… blah blah….” but I’m not going to. I’m just going to get to the goods.

I thought I would post a few of the pictures I’ve taken lately. I’ve been inspired by some of my incredibly talented wife’s pictures (a few featured here), and wanted to have some fun with our camera. So…. here they are.

Some quick comments on each:

#1 and #3 were taken at a Vietnam War memorial in Kansas City, MO when we were there last weekend.

#2 was in the lobby/common area of the hotel we were staying at.

#4 was taken at the Owlz season opener last week (the Owlz won in the 13th inning, with a power outage and fireworks show in the middle of the 13th inning). Touched up a bit with Photoshop.

#5 was a member of the Sons of the Revolution who were ceremonially retiring flags at the war memorial in Kansas City. There were about 5 of them in uniform. It was a very cool thing to see.

#6 and #7 were a couple of pictures I took during a picture drive with Brittney the other day, then altered a bit using an HDR creating program (Photomatix Pro).

That’s all for now. I’m out.

Update

Just wanted to give everyone an update on the current status of Shadowhawk, because you all care. He got himself plucked. Its a long, convoluted story, but it basically came down to him trying to start a coup with the rest of his eyebrow hair comrades, and he had to be stamped out. He ended up being much longer than I had originally thought, camouflaging himself and only allowing a small portion of himself to be blond. He was pushing an inch long at the time of death. The good news is that I have full control of my right eyebrow again; the bad news is that I have had little to no psychic episodes since the intervention. I take solace in knowing that he will be back, and maybe, just maybe, we can have the mutually beneficial relationship that will allow us to pull off some wicked Jedi mind-tricks.

Lightsabers

Brittney and I recently finished watching all six Star Wars movies in order. One very important question kept popping up in my sub-cranium as we were enjoying the inter-stellar escapades of the Skywalkers and friends: Is there a cooler fictional wepon than the lightsaber?

I mean, come on. Its pure Awesome – in glowy-blade form. And I don’t take its competition lightly. It has some strong competion from the gunblade, the Punjab Lasso (for name alone), and Mega Man’s arm-gun, among others. But you really can’t compete with that cool whirring sound of the switch-blade for the space-monk. And last, but certainly not least, without it we wouldn’t have incredible cinematic moments like these:

edit: Due to 20th Century Fox not wanting me to infringe on the 20 seconds of copywritten video that was posted here, it was taken down. I pretty much expected it, as the only efforts they ever put towards Arrested Development was to keep it off the air. Thanks, Fox, for keeping the internets as free of humor as your networks!

Sweet Rock

I wanted to post this video of Mates of State daughter Magnolia. She’s about to embark on her second tour with the band (the first with her little sister June), and it looks like she’s learned some sweet moves from her experience at various shows. I’m especially impressed with how she transitions the bouncing and rocking at 0:08-0:15 to the smooth groovin’ at 1:07. What a pro.

You can read/watch more about the band/family at their blog babble.com/CS/blogs/bandonthediaperrun

P.S. No, this is not an odd way of announcing we are pregnant, nor implying that we are close to entering that state.

Color

Remember coloring? Its incredible. Stop reading and go color.

The Secret

I have a friend… that has magical powers. This friend is real, and he lives in my eyebrow. My right eyebrow. He is a single white hair in a field of brown, he has psychic powers, and his name is Shadowhawk.

“Psychic powers?” you may ask yourself. Yes, psychic powers that grow ever more powerful as he grows in length and stature. He can read minds, predict the future, and even make certain things happen. I have been having an increasing amout of these kind of psychic events happening in my life – premonitions that came about, knowing exactly what was going to happen before it happened, thinking I want something to happen and it happens, strange coincidences. For a while I thought it was me, my own psychic power increasing, and it kind of freaked me out. But recently I have come to the realization that this was actually Shadowhawk helping me out. He is my assistant, controlling the world around me, taking my thoughts and making them real and taking other peoples thoughts and putting them in my brain. Intense stuff, right?

There are, however, two problems with this recent partnership: 1) Because this relationship is relatively new, I can’t control any of this. I am subject to his magical will and pleasure. 2) Because his power is proportionate to his length it is difficult to manage the psychic-power-to-unsightly-eyebrow-hair ratio. Brittney has been helping me out and has been the one to let me know when he is getting out of control and needs to be eliminated. You would think that because of this he would dislike and fear her because she brings about his elimination, but in fact it is just the opposite. Even though she gives the execution order, he has become quite fond of her (he usually sees it coming anyway), and he likes to share his psychic powers with her when he can.

So this has been the official introduction of Shadowhawk to the world. Now try and not look at him the next time you see me – you won’t be able to avoid it. He’ll probably make you look with his magical powers anyway.

This never happened…

By the way, the November 11th post never happened. I thought about redacting it ’cause I’ve always wanted to redact something, but for the posterity of the blog I will keep the record of my lies in blog form intact.

From the ashes….

So I ran out of ideas. I’m not Midas over here. I haven’t forgotten about the blog, I just didn’t feel like I could make any of the mundane-ities of my life blog-worthy for a while. But I’ve been feeling a little bloggy recently. Sure, I could post about the 3 trips to Disneyland we’ve taken in four months, or some of the other big news worthy events of my life, but then it wouldn’t be my blog. Here’s a sneek peek at what may make it onto the dancing liquid crystals of Blog as Art (in no particular order of importance or fondness to my heart):

Three images for you to blend (at puree speed): bride, Vegas strip, bottle of wine.

Two individuals meeting once, never to cross paths again: Me, Snoop Dogg

Two Disneyland Annual Passports, the children they have spawned, and the helpless world that they have lain to waste between exit 269 on I-15 and Disney Way, Anaheim.

A blog… once thought dead… returns to avenge the death of… the blog… wait… no. Returns to glory… er… prominence… adequatulence? I’ll blog more.

Good-night sweet prince…

I said farewell to a good friend on Wednesday. He saw me though tough times, sad times, boring times… but mostly happy times, as he has been a friend for the last two years of my life – two of the three years that I’ve known Brittney. But I digress.

He may not have been the most healthy of friends – his vision went out at one point, and some of his vital organs went bad – causing a sad face or two, but he stood by me none-the-less. He fought through his imperfections to shuffle me up some goodness, and provided us with hour after hour after hour of entertainment on the countless roadtrips Brittney and I have been on in the last two years.

But, like those that came before him, he lived a full life and eventually had to go the way of the eBay. I dressed him in his finest suit, laid him in his coffin surrounded by his favorite possessions – his charger, his USB cable, his snug plastic case – and sealed him up for ever more. Brittney helped me to bury him in the mailbox that would lead him to his final resting place – Arlington, TX.

I just wanted to give a public “thanks for the good times,” and to relive some of those good times with you. The following are some of my favorites:

His first trip to the beach

The time Jack “commandeered” him and we ended up partying until Jack passed out and I was able to take him back

When we took gold at the Winter Olympics

And one of my favorites, iPod day at Disneyland. Christian’s music was way too loud.

…and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

Shipping

I think those boys were on to something with the Pony Express. Being able to ship things is great and all, but I don’t know that it is worth the price – the price of having to deal with packing peanuts. There are few substances in the world worse than the styrofoam packing peanut. First off, they are made of styrofoam, which feels, sounds, and tastes like uncomfortable and pain rolled into foam form. Secondly, they somehow go from having weight to not having weight at any moment, so they can just go flying off in any direction they feel whenever they feel like it. They are impossible to move in an organized and contained manner. Just try and dump a box of packing peanuts into another box. Try it. It will quickly deteriorate from a simple task into Thunderdome. Thirdly, why on earth would you ever choose packing peanuts over bubble wrap?!? That is happiness and joy encapsulated in tiny plastic bubbles. Every time one of those bubbles is popped the world becomes a happier place. Plus bubble wrap has decided to obey the laws of physics so you can easily remove it from, and place into, countless types of shipping containers.

So I’m formally submitting a plea to the world, in blog form, to please, please, STOP USING PACKING PEANUTS. They are horrible. I would much rather have you use real peanuts. I like baseball, and could use the snack food for Owlz games. I will include a picture of the accused so that you will know the offender when you see it, so that you can avoid it like the plague that it is.

Just remember that it hates you and only wants to make your life harder.