11-30-2011

It's here.

11-29-2011

Now that Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday are all officially over (well not exactly totally over), I'm now prepared to begin to think about Christmas. Or in my job's case, whichever seasonal holiday you choose to observe. Speaking of my job, we have a Christmas (used to be a tree) ladder that everyone can decorate with office-made ornaments. I made Post-It-Note-bread-people that are wearing finger tip hats that I cut off my hobo gloves. Needless to say, I'm already pretty excited about Christmas.

11-28-2011

Oh, Cyber Monday. I know I made fun of your relative, Black Friday, but what you've done to my bank account today was cruel and entirely uncalled for.

11-27-2011

Nicole and I have a policy of spontaneously awarding ourselves "prizes." Generally these are for minor accomplishments such as running 600 miles, or in this case buying a miniature, porcelain, teddy bear tea set to assuage for a really really bad sinus headache. Additionally, we're crazy cat people, and just so happen to have things like giant catnip filled tea bags laying around the house. It doesn't take a fortune teller to predict what happens next. Yeah, we're having a high tea party on an antique silver dish with our cats. That's real milk in the creamer because Mushroom takes her tea with milk. Not because she's British though, but because she's a cat. A cat that drinks tea. However, since catnip is pretty much crack for cats, Mushroom may have drank a little too much tea and ended up trashing the party then passing out. I belive that that's the definition of a successful cat party.

P.s. I'm fully aware what this post says about both my relative level of sanity and social life. I still like it and I don't care. I do what I wanna.

11-26-2011

The number of nice days left in the year for hiking in the woods are probably very limited. Pretty soon this cave and these bees will be covered in snow.

11-25-2011

I hope everyone had a good time standing in line for hours in overcrowded stores to buy a stack of VHS tapes and DVD's for 10% off. I was out burning up turkey and pie calories in the woods stomping in the glorious mud, climbing hills, and chasing Great Blue Herons for 11.2 miles this morning. Enjoy watching that Brüno DVD you got for 99¢. I'm sure it will be worth it.

11-24-2011

Thanksgiving is by far one of my favorite holidays. It celebrates eating, and if you've ever read my blog before, you know that eating is pretty much a religious activity for me. Quickly becoming another religious activity to me is running, so in addition to celebrating copious gluttony, we signed up for a Turkey Trot race in the morning. Since this was going to be a relaxed "fun run," I had grand aspirations of running with my little point-and-shoot camera to document the whole race. I started out well with a shot of the pre-race ritual of Nicole eating a bagel (maybe the ritualistic eating is why I like running so much). I even got a shot of the ritualistic, pre-race trip to the Porta-Potty. Now understand, I'm a bit of a germaphobe and have a paralyzing fear of public restrooms. Especially Porta-Pottys. Like night terror, screaming in my sleep level horrified. So before races, it's pretty much like a game show to get there early and pick the right door that no one has been to before me. Finding the closed down lid (pictured above) and still wrapped up roll of paper is pretty much like winning the all expense paid trip to Tahiti for me. Aaannnddd this is where my documentation of the race comes to a close. Right before we lined up, I decided that running with even a small, little camera would be no fun at all, so I stashed it in the car. Sorry, I really did want to get pictures of people huffing and puffing so they could eat at much turkey as they want. Maybe next year...but probably not.

In a move towards full disclosure, even the above photo is fake. That's not really the end of the race, and Nicole didn't really beat her dad. Her dad still has a bit of speed on her. Nicole's parents are cool. If you don't believe me, here's a picture of me doing festive holiday shots with my mother-in-law.

You can pretty much (rightly) assume that there was truckloads of food and that I ate it all, but I was too busy eating to take pictures. I did however take this picture because I'm still obsessed with the electric turkey saw power tool. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

11-23-2011

It's the day before Thanksgiving, and I'm fully prepared to out-gluttony this wee spider in terms of relative body mass to consumption ratio.

11-22-2011

Look! Do I win a prize or anything? I hope I win something good...like maybe a new car.

11-21-2011

These are egg rolls that my grandmother made. We keep a stockpile of them in the freezer for special occasions and when we want to be fat. Tonight is not a special occasion.

11-20-2011

Don't let this really hip drummer fool you. We're at the Beachland to see my favorite bluegrass band. For real bluegrass with lots of cowboy hat wearing and yes, I have a favorite bluegrass band. This isn't my favorite bluegrass band. They're the opening act but they were still very good, and even sang songs about bears.

When I saw Trampled by Turtles last year (11-6-10), I was a lot closer to the stage and got better pictures. This time I was shooting though heads, so I didn't take as many shots. I really like seeing live music though and I always wonder why I don't do it that often anymore.

11-19-2011

Look, Nicole is wearing crazy shoes again, and this time she's carrying a ladder. What could she be up to? Whatever it is, it apparently involves this very suspicious caulk gun and putty knife. Actually, she's not doing anything at all, because I won't let her do sketchy things like climbing on the roof since she's know to be "whoopsie" prone. Instead, I climbed my own clumsy self up on our sketchy roof to pretend that I'm a good and responsible homeowner. If you've ever read this blog before, you know that this is not true. Regardless, I could no longer put it off, and set on an expedition to find why water has been leaking though our walls and into our basement. This crack looks like a viable culprit. I did this which probably would have fixed it, but since I was already up here and had a full tube of nasty smelling sealant stuff, I did this to make sure I won't have to go back up here for another hundred years. Hopefully it works.

I wasn't sure if it was in bad taste to post about this on here, and it kind of creeps me out, but I think it's really crazy so I'm doing it anyway. Today while we were out doing stuff, we saw all sorts of police lights and people searching in the woods by a broken highway barrier. As always, I was curious to know what was going on, and always have my camera with me, so I took some pictures. The weird thing was when we got home, we googled to see what happened and if everyone was ok (so far they are), and came across this picture on a news site. If you look closely at the last two pictures, the guy in the yellow jacket is leaning into the car in both shots, and I'm pretty sure that little blue guy and I were taking pictures of each other. Creepy.

11-18-2011

Tell me I won't leave the house in a wool duffle coat, reflective running tights and Vans slip-ons to drop my broken car off at its sleepover. I'll make you a liar.

11-17-2011

Peep kicks.

11-16-2011

So back when I was in college, one of my friends started seeing a girl that liked to go to bars with her dad. In order to see said girl, my friend would have to meet up wherever said dad chose to be that night. No big deal. But wait, said girl's father happened to be gay and logically enjoyed going to gay bars. Gay bars with male exotic dancers performing on stage. This frightened my friend. As such, I was enlisted to come as "backup." I'm not really sure what exactly being "backup" entailed, but whatever, it was something to do that night right?

In any case, the reason that I'm telling this seemingly random story is because since my time in college, said gay bar has turned into a divey punk rock bar, and my friend's band was in town to perform on the same stage that I had previously watched a dude wiggle around in a thong on.

This band had a kick drum graphic that was pertinent to Nicole's interests. My friend's band was selling real records.

11-15-2011

It really sucks that the sun goes down before I get out of work every night now, and I don't normally post pictures like this, but it was really pretty tonight.

11-14-2011

Often when people ask me what exactly it is that I do for a living, I'm forced to take a long pause, chew on my inside of my lip a little bit, then summarise that I work in advertising and quickly change the subject.

11-13-2011

Some things will undoubtedly make you faster automatically. Being Kenyan, being chased by a bear, getting elbowed ten feet from the finish line etc. None of these things will automatically make you as fast as Nicole's new crazy colored shoes will.

11-12-2011

We saw a lot of cool stuff today. I thought that this buck narrowly avoiding death in traffic would be the coolest, but it wasn't. Since I'm still on break from running, we went hiking on this path to enjoy whatever is left of the pretty fall season. I took lots of pictures of Nicole in nice light while we walked around beautiful scenery. It's also pretty cool to see horses, but that wasn't the best thing either. On pretty much any other day of my entire life, this would be the coolest thing I would see all day, but I'm still having a hard time declaring even the living icon of America the winner.

This is Sheldon. It sounds like the setup for a joke, but tonight at our favorite creole restaurant/bar, I watched Sheldon taking orders, serving drinks, and busing tables. You might be thinking that's not so weird right? Well, Sheldon doesn't work at said creole restaurant. Sheldon is a shellfish eating, beer drinking rabbi, and I'm pretty sure the coolest thing I saw today.

11-11-2011

I'm not even good enough with Photoshop for this to be fake. Can we at least have a vote on this or something? I haven't had even close to enough of fall yet. This is all just a very bad joke.

This was an incredibly hard shot to get so I'm posing it on here. It doesn't mean that I like snow. I just means that I think it can be pretty.

11-10-2011

If you didn't read my post from three days ago this won't make a lot of sense, but beyond the treasure trove of black and white film my coworker had developed, he also has a bunch of this stuff. Exposed but undeveloped 120 and 35mm color film that calls for E-2 processing (which I had never even heard of before). I'm pretty obsessed with the painted, real metal containers, and the lack of ASA/ISO speeds since "daylight" or "flash" were enough to distinguish back then. I'm really hoping he goes though with sending this all off to get processed. I'm pretty sure if he hurries he can make the "Develop Before" date...the film still says it's new so it should be good right?

11-9-2011

I didn't really want to say anything at first, but you might have noticed that our Halloween kind of sucked this year. As people who at the very least pass out candy, but normally go so far as to dress both ourselves and our cats up in costumes, this year was rather lackluster. But since we had so much other stuff scheduled at the same time, I sort of resigned to celebrating Halloween the same way the Religious Right does. I did have a major regret though. In this off year, I didn't get any candy.

All I really wanted was a peanutbutter cup and any sort of the many variations of gummy candy. I even verbalized this regret to Nicole and she somehow managed to procure a peanutbutter cup for me. I was so excited with this gift that I stuffed it into my camera bag to save for the right time, and sort of forgot about it. Well today at work, over a full week after the date, a Halloween miracle happened. Look closely at the picture above. That gummy worm and (slightly smooshed up) peanutbutter cup are hard evidence that dreams do come true.

11-8-2011

Nicole is down to eat way weirder stuff than I am, but I'm down to eat way more. To the point that our visit to an all you can eat buffet has left me in more physical pain than our half marathon. Taking a few days off from running is mandatory after a big race, but I had better start again soon or I won't be able to even walk if I keep eating like this.

11-7-2011

So this is a really cool story. The other day, a coworker and I were talking about old cameras and film and stuff since I'm a nerd and those are the kinds of things that I like talking about. Well, he told me about someone he knew in the 80's who bought a house, and found a box full of medium format and 35mm film. The film was exposed but undevolped and dated as far back as the 50's. Out of curiosity, my coworker had some of the black and white rolls developed. The pictures ended up being super awesome, cheesecakey pinups and nudes from what looks like the late 50's to early 70's. On top of being cool just because they're old, they're really well shot photos. I'm assuming they came out of the kind of vintage Hasselblad or Rolleiflexes I'm always hunting for judging by the image clarity. I don't think I'm allowed to post the scans on this blog 'cause there are boobies, but they're seriously by far the most awesome thing I've seen that someone found in the basement of an old house. It's kind of crazy to think of the grandmas out there that would totally trip out if they were reintroduced to these photos from their glory days.

I'm changing my mind and posting one of the scans here because it's super artsy and cool, plus you can't really see any "objectionable" bits. I'm totally obsessed with these pictures.

11-6-2011

So apparently Baby Lily reads my blog, because she specifically requested to go to the brunch I posted about on 10-2-11. She considers herself a bit of an expert on chicken and waffles, and really wanted to try these ones. She then proceeded to demonstrate various traditional techniques for eating the strange combination of foods. First with a fork (above), then the more advanced Waffle Taco Method, and finally eating like a hungry puppy (this maneuver is for experts only and should probably not be attempted in public by anyone over the age of two. This blog claims no responsibility if the photos inspire you to mimic a baby). For all her enthusiasm, Baby Lily forgot that she doesn't like hot sauce and then demonstrated how to wipe flavors you don't like off of your tongue using the palm of your hand.

After brunch it was goodbye hugs and the end of a very incredible weekend. Well, not really quite the end, but nothing that we did today is quite as interesting after Baby Lily drove home. We already miss that baby.

11-5-2011

Well, after a month and a half of solid (really hard) training, the big day is finally here. Determined to get one of these or leave in one of these. It was a super hard race and the finish was a close one, but I managed to edge out Baby Lily in the end, but just by a hair.

Since I survived the hardest race of my life, I decided to go ahead start some other race with Nicole. I really shouldn't belittle this, because it really was a pretty big deal. Nicole and I finished our very first half marathons. I want to make sure the readership of this blog really understands how surprised I am that we did this, so here's a crop that better explains my feelings while I was crossing the finish line. That little blonde girl sitting in her pink chair may be judging me, but the people handing out medals actually said that I was the happiest person to finish yet.

Nicole's finish was a bit more dramatic and came down to a showdown at the end after the girl next to her was stupid enough to elbow her in the last ten feet. These crops make me laugh every time I look at Nicole's battle face when someone is foolish enough to spur on her competitive side.

But after everything, it was all smiles and Nicole and I were both really happy with our times and medals. Baby Lily didn't really have a time, and wasn't too sure about her medal.

The following pictures are pretty graphic, so fair warning if you get grossed out by gross stuff. Nicole and I have undoubtedly developed (ugly) runner's feet. I think there's a weird mentality in running that you earn nasty blisters and disfigured toenails are a badge of honor. I just know that blisters hurt and that safety pins have more uses than just keeping your number pinned to your shirt.

Cups also have other uses. Like this cup that's actually my Age Group 3rd Place Finish trophy! Can you believe I actually won something that's physically oriented and doesn't involve being an art nerd and coloring?!

After the race, we waited forever for dinner. While waiting, I realized that regardless of age, (even half) Asian people can always bond over electronics and technology.

If you have Queen in your iTunes, start playing We Are The Champions now...
I'm honestly really amazed and ecstatic that all of our training paid off and we had such a great experience. I keep telling myself that we can't get too used to coming home with things after all of our races, but our fireplace mantle has some new residents. I know that this was for Third place at a local half marathon, but I feel like I just won the Olympics.

11-4-2011

One of my favorite things to do is to play tour guide for people visiting Cleveland. I think there are a lot of interesting things here that are really slept on by locals, and super fun for out of towners. Although incredibly well traveled for a baby (actually she's better traveled than a lot of adults I know), Baby Lily hasn't been exposed to a lot of Cleveland stuff. So continuing our preparatory quest for carbs, I invited her to Sokolowskis for perogi. I'll let you watch all the Food Network clips on YouTube if you don't already know about the place, but suffice to say, the food tastes about a million times better than it looks. Baby Lily is a bit of a drinker, so after dinner I took her to buy a case of another Cleveland thing that people go nuts over. Big things are happening tomorrow, so I'm going to go soak my legs in the tub now while Baby Lily finishes up the last of her 24 pack.

11-3-2011

Look who's in town to run the big race! In preparation, she made sure to carb up on pasta and taunt me for being slow. I sure hope that I don't get beaten by a baby this weekend.

11-2-2011

Apparently I have a new officemate at work. I'm not too sure I like him being here though. Hopefully he just works the night shift.

11-1-2011

Nicole and I are crazy cat ladies.