Monthly Archives: December 2012

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day 3095: hanging out with family on the eve of christmas eve.

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day 3095: hanging out with family on the eve of christmas eve. I.

per usual, we had whirlwind travels to see friends and family over the holidays. on the eve of christmas eve, odin and us had a fun time hanging out with grandparents and cousins!

odin and his cousin jonah only get to see each other a few times a year, but that doesn’t stop them from getting on like old buddies.

day 3095: hanging out with family on the eve of christmas eve. II.

what are the odds, i can get a picture of three grandkids with grandma with everyone looking at the camera? slim and none. and slim is out of town 🙂

day 3095: hanging out with family on the eve of christmas eve. III.

perhaps jonah is wondering when all this picture taking will be over!

day 3095: hanging out with family on the eve of christmas eve. IV.

and yet even more evidence as to why i should not be the designated family photographer. just kidding. sort-of.

day 3095: hanging out with family on the eve of christmas eve. V.

who might be trying to tickle grandma while i’m trying to take a picture! grandpa, or odin? OR BOTH?!

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going for a leisure run in a blizzard. and a sign from the thrash metal gods.

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going for a leisure run in a blizzard. and a sign from the thrash metal gods.

the first really good storm of the season hit southwest wisconsin with predictions of up to 18 inches of snow, sustained 25-30mph winds with gusts of up to 40mph and wind chills in the low teens.

perfect running weather!

just me and deserted streets, conveniently emptied so that i could run right down the middle while only having to keep an eye out for the snow plows and their operators who love to give a one fingered wave ( not the middle finger! )

turns out you can set a pretty good pace with a 30mph winds to your back. but eventually you have to turn around. AND THEN IT’s BRUTAL.

and in a perfectly perfect twist towards the end of the first loop back the to house, “trapped under ice” came on the ol’ ipod and i almost slipped on an ice patch, but somehow managing to prevent myself from going into a cartoonish feet above head fall to the ground.

i took it as sign from the thrash metal gods that 3 miles in a blizzard was enough.

conflux

gun control & america’s unique gun culture

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in light of tragedies like the sandy hook elementary school shooting, i tend to gravitate towards “easy answers”. i’ve never understood how anyone could be against buy-back programs, reasonable regulations on distribution & sales, mental health screenings, hardware safety rules ( e.g. trigger locks ) and so on. but whatever happens we all have to recognize that america is unique and “…more violent than other countries because Americans are more violent than other people”. simply taking away our 200 million guns won’t work but when we have nearly twice as many guns per person as do yemenis maybe, just maybe, we should regulate them more rigorously than ladders.

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never underestimate the power of a stupid sign.

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never underestimate the power of a stupid sign.

this sign was visible in the vintage sign bin at our local hardware store and it quickly caught my eye, with the gun and the crazed/fearful? folks. i suppose i was thinking about tragic sandy hook elementary school shooting when i stopped and took a long look.

try as i might i couldn’t figure out what the saying in the sign was supposed to mean. is the gun wielding dude and the woman in the sign the “stupid people” you shouldn’t underestimate? or are they protecting themselves from the stupid people?

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me and H.R. from bad brains and A Perfect Moment at saint andrew’s hall.

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It’s A Bad Brains Christmas, Charlie Brown from Tad Was Here on Vimeo.

this funny video mashup of a bad brains song and a charlie brown christmas suddenly recalled a scene so vividly that it was almost as if i was transported back to a night in 1989 at saint andrew’s hall in detroit, michigan.

bad brains were touring for their quickness album with dag nasty opening the show. i’m standing in the back near the bar as was typical for me since i didn’t want to block people’s view of the bands. dag nasty starts their set and all at once H.R. and a few other members of the band walk up and casually stand around me. i assume they just smoked in the tour van because i could get a contact high from the weed wafting off them. so we stood and bopped our heads to the band for almost the entire set. every so often one of H.R.’s dreads would come close to hitting me in the face.

the entire time all i could think was, “yeah this is happening. i’m standing next to H.R. and bad brains groovin’ out to BRIAN F*CKING BAKER FROM MINOR THREAT!”

a long perfect moment. i suppose it could have only gotten better if brooke shields had showed up.