Cornbread?

I can watch my Netflix instant queue movies right on the device and the screen is incredible. I can control my DishNetwork DVR, use the camera as a remote webcam, play Tiger Woods golf, play GT Auto Racing, view webpages like they’re supposed to be viewed, take 5MP digital photos, record 720P HD video, get the exact distances to pins and hazards at my favorite golf course, conduct an ebay sale, price-check items against Amazon online (worked great for getting a discount on toner at Officemax), play my iTunes music wirelessly over bluetooth on my Sync-equipped Escape, and even make a pretty decent phone call.

Honestly it’s a case of total integration between my Mac Pro and my brain, and I can’t believe I’ve lived without one.

Hi, I’m Grady, and I’m a Mac.

Chocolate Cheerios?

They sell Chocolate Cheerios now.  That can’t be right, can it?  I mean don’t get me wrong, I’m no crazy purist or anything, and I love a good dose of cocoa as much as the next guy, but for crying out loud, what’s next, Strawberry Pringles?

I know I should be rejoicing, and when I impulsively snagged a box on Sunday (from the dang end-aisle display of course), I was very happy that my favorite method of reducing my cholesterol was now in a new and more inviting flavor.  But even after partaking of these tasty morsels, I’m still conflicted.  I mean, aren’t Cheerios supposed to be healthy, cholesterol-lowering, tasteless little turnips?  Shouldn’t I be dolefully trudging my way through a bowl of mindless crunch-nuggets while I improve my health and maintain my less-than-appealing physique?  And here’s another thing, they don’t have any more carbs than the regular Cheerios!  How the hell can they make something that tastes like Cocoa Puffs but is actually on the list of “good” foods for a diabetic?  Now I admit I was also totally stumped about the whole teflon thing (couldn’t figure out how something so incredibly non-stick stayed stuck the pan) but I’ve grown now, I’ve matured, and I’ve come to understand that some things in life are not meant to be understood.  So for now I’m disregarding my queasiness with the absurdity of eating a heaping bowl of chocolaty goodness and accepting that Karma has come full circle and all the bad things I’ve done in life have been forgiven.  Thank you General Mills, you fancy bastards, I love your new cereal!

The Vows

Of course there were lots of other things that happened, but honestly the year has been a dizzying blur of activities that while totally worthy of some mention, have somehow escaped attention in journal form.

One thing I may do is to try to chronicle my return to the game of golf.  I played quite well in my college days, but various injuries and the pace of family life led me away from playing for many years.  I mean I would maybe play a couple of times a year, but that’s nowhere near as much as needed to keep a good swing.  My equipment is old and in need of replacement, so this winter I’ve been acquiring clubs to make a whole new set.  Maybe in my next update I’ll ramble on about the various clubs I have now and which ones I have yet to acquire before the start of the golfing season.

We had visitors this weekend from some of Tracy’s family.  The Danielsons arrived on Saturday morning and stayed overnight.  Her parents came out Saturday afternoon and stayed for dinner.  It was great fun to have them all here and made for a good excuse to get our spring cleaning done early.  We’d been using one of the spare bedrooms for extra storage and having company forced us to empty it for its proper use as a guest room.  Tracy and the kids went to Sauk Rapids on Sunday morning to watch Atlie wrestle in a meet, and I stayed home to catch up on NASCAR and golf.  I did miss Lobsterfest at Red Lobster, but Tracy says the salmon I like wasn’t even on the menu this year.

I woke up early and got to Menards about 30 minutes before the doors were scheduled to be opened, and was surprised to see a line of about 150 people already formed in front of the store.  I silently joined the crowd with coffee in hand and patiently waited for the doors to open.  It turned out to be a nice morning weather-wise, so I wasn’t too cold or otherwise uncomfortable.

Crowds are odd things.  The line was maybe 2 people wide and extended into the parking lot about halfway down the row, at least that’s how it started out.  As the time to open grew closer, the crowd, without any warning or communication, suddenly shortened to about half and widened out.  I suppose this was an instinctive  protection reflex due to a growing number of people shuffling around to the side of the line near the doors.  My theory is that some people began to move slightly to protect their position in line and shut out the interlopers that arrived later and were obviously edging toward the front without any regard for the proper line etiquette.  When store employees appeared at the front near the doors with about 5 minutes to go til opening time, the line suddenly and unexpectedly reformed again, and I found myself shuffling forward furiously in order to keep my place in a line that was now 20 feet wide but significantly shorter.  I remarked to the person next to me that they were “definately in my bubble” which caused some laughter.  Seriously though, at this point we were packed in so tight I could no longer bring my coffee to my lips.

When the doors did finally burst open there was yet another furious shuffle to get a cart and get out into the store.  Some people were smart enough to grab some garbage bins with rollers that were strategically placed at the front of the store.  I was not one of them.  I waited for a cart, then made my way to the first item on my list.  I had pre-shopped the store the day before so I knew exactly where to find them, but I was too late and the vaunted $8.88 boot dryers were all gone by the time I got here.  I expected this, however, and quickly mobilized my cart over to the 2nd item on my list.  I was lucky enough to get all the remaining things with no issue, then joined a large crowd of people in line to check out.  It took more time to get through the checkout than I imagined, but after another half-hour I was on my way to Officemax for a color laser printer for $99!  Of course I arrived too late (I knew they only had 6 in the store), but I had a good backup plan.  I knew that Newegg had them on sale for the same price online, and with no tax and free shipping it was actually a better deal than the in-store model.  

I moved on to the other stores and was generally able to find the bargains I hunted.  I was back home by 8:30 to tell Tracy all about my early morning adventures, which she found amusing.  After making some coffee we went out together to get some breakfast and fill out some things on her shopping list, which meant another 3 hours in Herbergers!  It was a wonderfully productive day and we managed to get almost all of our Christmas shopping done.  As I was shuffling along in that cold dark parking lot I was wondering if I’d lost my mind, but I’m sure I’ll be ready to try it again next year.

Movie Poster - Madagascar

Saturday was a big deal of sorts for our family.  It was the first trip to the movie theater for the boys, which at 4 years old is about average I think.  I know my first movie experience didn’t come until I was a bit older (I clearly remember seeing the creepy thriller ‘Willard”, so that was when I was 9 or 10), but that was without parents.  I have no way of knowing if they took me to see something earlier.  It’s entirely possible that the only reason I clearly recall the experience is due to the traumatic effect the movie must have had on my young mind.  Regardless of the effects of that particular showing, I have always held movie-going in very high regard.  The overly-buttered popcorn and overpriced pop, along with the loud volume and dark theater always made for a highly indulgent experience for me, one that I was eager to impart to Cole and Cody.

Back to the boys…

Cole and Cody have been watching “Madagascar” as one of their rest-time movies, and enjoying it very much.  They get to pick from that or “Little Bear”, “Curious George”, “Racing Stripes”, and either part one or part two of the ‘John Deere for Kids” series.  They have a rest period after the noon meal so they can unwind and be ready to stay awake and not so tired for the rest of the afternoon and evening.  The boys generally go to bed around 8 to 8:30 and it’s a long day for them if they don’t rest a little.  When “Madagascar 2″ came out, we thought it was a good opportunity to take them to the theater, and they, of course, loved the idea.

We choose to go to the Saturday afternoon matinee, which was a good choice of time (3:20PM).  I’m happy to report that not only were the boys excellently behaved and a pure joy for me and Tracy, but the movie was fun and entertaining as well.  There were many parts that we laughed out loud about, the penguins being particularly silly this time.

Of course they want to go again, but now we’ll have to wait for another family-friendly movie to be released. With the track record Hollywood has, we should be ready to get back into the theater in time for their 8th birthday!

Ticket Stub

Halloween Superheros

The Halloween theme this year was dedicated to the boys recent fascination with Superheros.  I don’t know exactly how it started, but suddenly they were all excited about Bruce Banner and the Incredible Hulk.  Then they were playing Spiderman by “web-slinging” each other, which seems just like wrestling of course.  Tracy and I love to laugh at their antics, as well as share a few stories about Spiderman and the Hulk.

Halloween is really fun for us, and we take great pleasure in getting the boys outfitted for the event.  This year we really didn’t think they’d tolerate the masks that come with the costumes, and they didn’t.  We had them try on the masks and sure enough they didn’t wanna wear them more than a few minutes.  So we took the extra step of drawing on their faces with makeup, and it made for a more enjoyable evening for them (and us, we kinda like seeing their smiles).

We started off the evening by taking them to the ECFE party at the elementary school, where they got to play some games and make some crafts.  They collected prizes for the games and made some cool little craft projects.  Then it was off to Trunk-R-Treat, which is a parking lot full of vehicles that distribute candy.  It’s held at one of the Lutheran Churches and is a great way for the kids to load up on good sugar-laced candy before we visit a few houses.  After making the rounds there, it was off to Bethany for a visit to the residents there.  The residents line up in the entry and pass out treats to all the little ghosts, goblins, and Superheros that stop by.  We made a few stops on the way home to some of Tracy’s co-workers that wanted to see the twins.

Once at home, we set about visiting all the neighborhood homes with Isaac and Tyler, their friends from 3 houses down.  The boys were very happy to get to participate with their friends and we were happy there were so many lights on in the neighborhood.  The weather was so much better than last year that the whole evening went just great and it didn’t start getting too cold until the last bit.  It definitely helped that Halloween was on a Friday this year, which means a more relaxed evening.  I’m not sure what the boys will want to be next year, but I’m already looking forward to it!

Oh good grief, has it really been 4 months since I last logged in to update my blog?  I’m not even sure it can qualify as a blog anymore…more like a randomly selected event from my recent past.  So much has happened in the past few months that I’m not even sure where to begin, but since I left off with the deck being nearly complete, I guess it’s safe to say now that it’s complete.  We finally finished all the construction, then moved on into sanding the whole thing, then applying Thompson’s Natural Cedar deck stain.  If I said we were completely thrilled with the finished product I’d be fibbing a bit, but despite the fact that it came out looking a bit “orangey”, we’re very happy with our deck.  

We attended a couple of weddings this summer, and they were both a very cool experience.  Tracy comes from this big midwestern family who all get together to celebrate the weddings of anyone related.  She has tons of cousins and extended family, so we’ll probably be attending weddings for a long time.  Having very little family of my own, I’m highly inexperienced at the whole wedding thing, but I’ve seen “Wedding Crashers” on DVD so I wasn’t totally out of sorts.  Nonetheless, they managed to confuse me, since the family has this odd tradition of auctioning off the bride’s garter.   Never saw that one on TV, so it was a bit of a surprise.  It goes like this:  Tracy’s great uncle Morris is a professional auctioneer, so he starts an auction and people keep bidding until the money is huge, like upwards of $1200.  And all the adults (especially Tracy’s dad and uncle) use someone’s 8-yr-old as a shill bidder.  Then the poor kid has to go collect his prize.  Actually it’s great fun and the winning bidder is quite a celebrity for the remainder of the event.  It certainly is a unique way to get the new couple a few extra bucks to help pay for the wedding.  I like it.

At Davis and Teresa’s wedding, Cole, Cody, Atlie, and Etta had a very important role.  They were given the task of making sure that everyone in attendance received a neat little bottle of bubbles for blowing as the new couple left the church.  They took great pride in making sure that nobody escaped their attention, and that everyone got at least one tiny bottle.

Etta, Cole, Cody, and Atlie

Of course there was a nice meal and dance in each case, which turned out to be hugely entertaining.

Contrary to popular rumor, nobody was groped during the bunny hop dance, but I have it on good authority that someone was nearly strangled with his own tie!  Did I mention that they serve alcohol at these events?

First Day of Pre-School

 The boys have entered pre-school now, and they have been very excited to attend.  The schedule worked our perfect for us to both drop them off before rushing off to work.  I’m so happy that Tracy switched jobs and now works for the county Social Services, which is is right down the street from Bethany.  It’s awesome that we get to ride to work together and have lunches together too.  

Cole and Cody are in class from 8-11 on Tue and Thur, which seems to be the perfect amount for them right now.  They’re always excited to go, but don’t pine for it on the days that they don’t go.  We’re really happy with the curriculum of the program and they seem to be learning a lot of new things.  Of course some of that comes from having switched day care in the later summer, and she really works with them on learning new things.  We’ve been hugely impressed by how happy the boys are at their new day care.  The only drawback is that she is our neighbor (4 house down) and Tracy and Corinne really get along well, which means that sometimes it takes a long, long, long time to finish the pick up (they gab at each other).  Oh well, it’s a small price to pay for such an excellent environment for the boys.