How did your weekend go?

I got tell ya, this weekend was a tough one. The Mrs worked all weekend, so me and the girls were at home the whole time. Stir crazy is one good way to describe it.

Thursday, we avoided going any where because, well, it's just too friggin' busy!

We live in Rochester MN. Actually the windiest city in the world. Maybe not, but it was windy all weekend...and cold...and dreary. I couldn't keep the kids outside for more than 10 minutes. So back in the house we go. I got some of the Christmas lights up, but not many.

Did I mention the kids were stir crazy? It is actually pleasant to get back to work today. It's quiet here. Since we were home all weekend...the phrase "Dad, I'm bored." was said so many times, it lost all meaning to me. I even called Grandma to prove to Em that when Daddy was a kid, we WERE NEVER INSIDE. So the two would just fight each other and then see who could tattle first. Not Daddy's favorite game.

I can't begin to tell you how much I'm looking forward to B finishing graduate school and getting a job that doesn't require working EVERY OTHER weekend.

There...I vented. Not that the weekend was a total loss. We even had some fun this weekend between the screaming. I even had enough time to make B one home cooked meal!

Carnival Games for the Wii has been turned into a totally fun game for our family. Ash has found a couple of the mini games to be a ton of fun. She can beat everyone in the family! Finally, a game we call all play and enjoy! I know this is terrible, but it was nice for her to finally point out to Em that she didn't beat her. Em has a bad habit of pointing out the Ash is losing. Table turned.

Thank God it's Monday!

Ooops...sorry folks

130,032 People

San Francisco Dating

Everything just feels like Christmas time

I've really hoped to get more blogging done this weekend, but as time would have it...that's just an excuse. I did try doing some live blogging from Thanksgiving Day, but it would appear that K and KT's Mom and Dad live in an AT&T dead zone. We actually couldn't even make calls with the phones let alone use the EDGE.

I thought I'd share a picture of the wonderful pumpkin pie E's Grandma made. That was actually round two. There wasn't much left. Even my Ashlea had 2 pieces.

We should be, as Ashlea likes to say, "Putting our Christmas out" today. It's been cold and windy lately. Not really helping.

Did anyone else get excited for the Black Friday thud this year? I seriously found NOTHING worth even considering getting out of bed for. Super boring ads. We've done it years past, but I'm not getting out of bed to save $20 on a $30 MP3 player, and all those poor suckers that bought the computers for $100...wonder if they realized that it had Linux on it. Not that there is anything wrong with Linux...just wondering if they knew it wasn't windows.

Happy Holidays everyone! Christmas is almost here!

Wishing everyone everywhere a Happy Thanksgiving

I have pictures from the day to share with you later. We're hitting round 2 of the food right now. Turkey sandwiches and MORE stuffing!!! Nummmy!

Saw this today and it kinda put me in a holiday mood...well, that and the wine I drank earlier. Unfortunately, they didn't really list any of my favorite beers. It does make me wonder how I ever survived college.


It would take 35 bottles of Red Dog to kill me

Virginia Beach Dating

Thoughts of thankfulness

I know that Thanksgiving is only 2 days away, but I feel prepped and ready. The stomach is ready for the challenge.

I thought it might be fun to mention somethings I'm thankful for.

1. I'm thankful, most of all, for my wife and kids. They are the greatest!
2. I'm thankful for most of my inlawed extended family. I think you know who you are ;-)
3. Kt and K, I'm thankful your mom makes the best pumpkin pie, EVER
4. While we are on that side of the family...I'm also grateful that my wife's mom's side of the family has few people at all that eat sweet potatoes...YEAH! More for me!
5. I'm thankful our family is so close and yet far enough away...if you know what I mean ;-)
   Americans Enjoying Thanksgiving Tradition Of Sitting Around At Airport
6. I'm thankful for my parents. Simply wonderful people.
7. I'm thankful for my small extended family. (Our holidays are small and peaceful)

There is more, I got 2 more days to post them. Keep thinking!

At the mall

Brenda is shopping for new clothes. Thank goodness for the new play
area at the mall. All it needs is recliners, TVs and beer for Dad and
we'd be all set!

Some interesting ratings

I just took these tests to see where my blog and personality lie. Some of these were very suprising...like

Get a Cash Advance

For those of you that know me...Easy Rider????

What Classic Movie Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

And finally, an intersting result...one of my most admired presidents!

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Who and what are you???

Finally - The Truth About Professional Wrestling (I think we all knew)

Controversial Tell-All Book Reveals Wrestling Fans Are Fake

Wednesday is here...is it nap time yet?

Wednesdays really suck if Tuesday goes well. Well, Tuesday went well. Now, I need to get through the day, winning a poker tournament is always fun, but the piper gets paid the next day with my complete lack of sleep.

I was thinking about my last post. G, probably the best reason to get an iPod Touch...when we are out for dinner with the kids. $2 spent on an episode of Spongebob is so worth it when the girls will just sit there quietly watching. Yep...2 kids quiet and content in a restaurant waiting for supper. It's a beautiful thing.

Our oldest daughter made raising a child seem like the easiest thing in the world. We were very lucky. Our youngest...she's been different. She's now taken to lying. She know likes to tattle on things she did but blame other people. A couple of days ago, she blamed her big sister for something, something big. We figured she was lying, but wanted to see what she would do if we punished her big sister. It didn't change her stance. Well, we changed tunes and then punished her for lying and the original offense. We really don't want to see her grow up lying, as some of you know, our extended family has enough compulsive liars. Any ideas?

That's for the great question! iPhone vs iPod Touch

G from It's Not About the Badge possed an interesting question over on a recent post of mine.

His question..

Hey I am thinking about getting a different ipod after christmas. Would you
get a classic for 249 or spend the extra and get the touch ipod, or as I will
call it, the iphone without the phone part.

If you aren't in the market for an iPhone, this is definitely something to consider. I love my iPhone, but I can see where it might not be suitable. But the iPod Touch does offer a lot of the same non-phone benefits as the iPhone.

When thinking about whether to get an iPod Classic (or similar) or the iPod Touch, I think you need to base your decision on which features are important to you. It will eventually come down to functionality vs capacity. As much as I love my iPhone, it still pains me to choose what stuff I want on it.

I bought the 8GB version. Since the video on this device is amazing, I've been carrying with me video podcasts and TV shows for me and the kids. Video takes up a fair amount of space and soon you'll find the 8GB isn't as big as you'd hope it would be. When I'm playing in a long poker tournament or travelling, the capacity of whats on the device starts making me long for something else. The larger capacity of the iPod Classic would alleviate a lot of this problem and just allow me to carry everything.

But here's the trade-off, you get gobs of storage capacity and the lose all your extra functionality. For example:


Let's start with the main reason to get either device, Wi-Fi. both have it and both use it. This may seem small to some of you, but this feature is EXTREMELY handy. One downside to the lack of phone features in the Touch is Wi-fi is all it has. With my iPhone, I'm always connected to the Internet as long as I have EDGE. The Touch doesn't. But as long as you can find free wi-fi to hop on, your golden. Both the phone and Touch offer iTunes downloads over wi-fi (warning - this can be extremely addicting and a little hard on the credit card). iPod classic has none of the PDAish features and thus no need for Wi-fi.

The iPod Classic offers none of the Internet based functionality. No Safari can be tough to lose once you've tried it.

So it comes down to this, if you are only buying one of these devices, what would you rather have? Internet over wi-fi with an amazing display or the capacity to carry your most if not all music and video?

I love my iPhone, but I'm seriously considering using my early adopter rebate to buy an iPod Classic to store more stuff. Besides, I can't use the iPhone at the WSOP! They've been banned!

If I've said nothing useful here, let me know. I spend a couple of days trying to get out everything I wanted to on this subject. My brain is usually faster than my fingers can type.

Bee Movie review and more

Wow...this has been a busy week. Brenda is chugging away at her thesis for her Masters degree. I've also had a very busy week on the felt (aka...playing poker).

Ashlea went the the dentist today for the first time...not good. She's not a big fan of going to the dentist apparently. Emilea was a piece of cake! (sugar-free cake of course ;-))


Last night, we went to Bee Movie. It's the first new kids movie in a long time we were looking forward to going to. According to the credits, this movie is pretty much all Jerry Seinfeld. He's the write, producer and star.

I liked the movie. The story was timely and interesting. I'm not sure the underlying premise would be understood by people that don't keep up on their news. (Bees and are dying off...this would be bad)

The kids really seemed to like the movie, which is the most important thing. We went with Bodie25 and family, which is always fun!

No spoilers for you, but it was definitely fun. May not be a blockbuster, but we enjoyed it.

On a related note, did anyone catch this exchange from Larry King on CNN? Seriously...I wonder if Larry King is loosing it.

Look what I found!

I found these pictures in the pile of pictures I took of the girls when we went to the Red Wing and hung out with grandpa on the ATVs.

There is a more extensive collection of pictures at my photo blog of that day.

Another very busy week...

This past weekend, Brenda and I hosted a Halloween Party/Poker Night at our house. As much as I love playing home game poker, there is a lot of stuff to get done! The party was a lot of fun and seemed to be a good success.

Em and Ash just continue to amaze me. Em is really growing up and developing a greater sense of responsibility. She was a trooper and helped Mom and Dad a lot get things ready for Saturday night. Ash...well...we are hoping that Halloween will be over soon and the nightmares will stop. This poor girl needs a good night sleep.

Hopefully, things start returning to a normal routine soon. Sure, there might be another poker night, but Halloween made it extra specia!