No chewing on this ice

Interesting article......if you are a total nerd.
http://www.isa.org/Content/ContentGroups/News/20071/March33/Hot_ice_in_nanoseconds.htm

Rockin A-Rock with the new Yammie

Breaking in a new trolling motor is pretty boring, so I thought I could at least add an exciting title.

I recently purchased a small trolling motor for the boat, so Dad and I went up to Arrowrock on Saturday to break it in and make sure everything was working right. Was absolutely perfect weather and there were not many other boats on the lake either. Maybe that was because the launch ramp looked like this:

Yes, that's right; The dock is completely blocking the ramp so everybody has to drive around the ramp (?) just to launch. Typical. As you can see, we also broke in the new tow vehicle (Shanna's Sequioa). It really pulls nice!! Much better than the truck, so I think she's out of luck for the entire summer.

Only caught one fish, but we didn't expect much anyway - after grilling chorizos in a quiet cove with the shirt and shoes off, it didn't need to get any better.



And I really apologize for the totally inappropriate amount white skin in the above photo. The internet just isn't safe for children these days (never was...) Until next weekend!

Round the block

I thought this was a neat post (click here) about the process a parent goes through when trying to figure out at what age to cut the kids loose in the neighborhood. I can relate because Mia regularly asks if they can run around the block. It's actually a really small block, more of an 1/4 block with 8 houses total on the inside of the circle facing out and about 25 around the outside facing in. Anyway, it's interesting because they do go out of sight for a while and you just kind of sit there waiting for what seems an eternity for them to pop out around the corner. One time I sent Mia and Coop around with the two way radio and it was really humorous to hear her check in all official and stuff.

*bebeep* Dad?
*beep* Yes, Mia.
*bebeep* Can you hear me?
*beep* Yes, Mia.
*bebeep* Cooper wants to say something.
*beep* Ok.
*bebeep* ired
*beep* What Coop?
*bebeep* I'm tir...give it to me...*bepbeepbeepbep* He said he's tired
*beep* All right, just come home then.
*bebeep* Ok.

And so on......

On Saturday, Coop decided he might get hungry along the way (which he probably would because he's ALWAYS hungry). So he got a box of Wheat Thins to-go.

*deep voice* Monster Trucks yeeaaaaaaaaa

Coopster and I went to see the Monster Truck show today. I brought my old, smaller camera to keep it undercover, and now reviewing the pictures I can see how much better the new camera is at low light performance. If only it was smaller! Anyway, back to the trucks - didn't have time to get earmuffs at Home Depot, so I was forced to pay an exorbi exorba exorbu........a lot of money at the show instead. So as a result they even look like monster truck tires. Oblivious to the shafting that dad just took, he looks cuter than a penguin at poker party don't ya think?

The crowd favorite Grave Digger was there, and of course, won 2 of the 3 challenges. Very effective mix of name recognition, leading edge engineering, and skilled driving there.

It's all fun and games until somebody loses a tire. Bonus excitement.

They also threw in some freestyle motocross dudes jumping a 70' gap and they were very impressive. Again, sorry for the total lackey pics but I suppose it's better than nothing. Somewhere up near the ceiling is a guy with both feet straight up in the air, holding on to only the rear fender.

In the end, Grave Digger launched himself off that huge dirt pile, which none of the other drivers were willing to do. *the crowd goes wild* Had a good time. I'm sure Ms.Reyna and the kids at daycare are gonna hear all about it on Monday....

Shanna's new baby

This week we magically transformed the old '96 Honda Civic into a massive land yacht otherwise known as an '02 Toyota Sequoia.

We certainly got our money's worth out of the Honda (123,00 and zero problems), and it is still in the family because we sold it to Shanna's mom! Got a good deal on the Sequioa (two other buyers were working on a deal while we just 'got er done') and it is in great shape for an '02. I was a little concerned about buying an older vehicle, but between the fact it's a Toyota and an extended 2yr warranty I think it'll be no problem. Speaking of problems.....how to fit in the garage with the Tacoma and boat???

No problem. Well, it's a little tight but liveable nonetheless. Done for now - off to pay the gas bill.......

Now that's advice we can all use.

http://damions-diary.blogspot.com/2007/03/do-us-favor.html

I love the way Amy lays down the law - politely. I had to wait until somebody nicer than me posted this so I could link to it! Anyway, don't blow my cover ya bunch of blogerrific newbies - Let's just keep things on a first name basis or I might have to turn this thing into such a horrible wreck that no one would even want to read it, much less try to Social Engineer their way into my life.

A fascinating topic by the way. SE, not my life. Consider this little tidbit from Wikipedia: In a 2003 information security survey, 90% of office workers outside of their building gave away their password in answer to a survey question in exchange for a cheap pen.....

Out-Sam

When in March, do as Martians....

I just made that up. On Saturday, Shanna and I went snowboarding with Jacob and Amber at Bogus Basin. It was unusually foggy, but fun nonetheless. Here is Shanna in her new coat and hat, just as cute as a cucumber.

Sorry, no action shots. Partly cause it was cold and wet and mostly cause there really wasn't much action. Getting too old for that crazy stuff.

Dirty rotten scoundrel

Bert posted pics from the Chicago Auto Show here. Oh, super jealous. Then he throws in a picture of the Mini to really drive the point home. there's a pun in there somewhere

Red Velvet Cake

Shanna made a Big&Rich (no relation) red velvet cake on Saturday. Everybody got a kick out of the batter being so....RED. She said she didn't have the right pans, so she had to use a bundt pan instead. As a result, it was very dfficult to bake into the center without overbaking the outside. So that's my guess as to why she didn't take a picture of the final product. I, however, thought it was pretty crazy cool and it tasted fantastic!!.....whoah there Nelly (no relation), that baby is really rich.

The End MUST be Near

Because of a variety of incomprehensible situations, I realized the other day that the End must be nearing. Consider these items and try to convince me otherwise:

#3: Rob created a blog. That's really not a big deal to the rest of us, but to put this in perspective, I hear that the Town of Princeville will be awarding him the 'First Citizen to Log Onto That Darn In-Ter-Net Thing' award. And a banquet.

#2: Jenny, the consummate corporate professional on the fast-track, the know-it-all (in a good way) go-to-gal of user interfaceverything recently decided to stay home and raise CJ. Now that's great soup.

#1: I have a 6lb bag of protein in my pantry...I've been making one or two fruit smoothies a day...and I regularly *gasp* work out at Gold's Gym. Anybody that knows me, knows that this is simply not possible.

Yeah, just try to convince me otherwise. Actually, my feelings lately have been that there is a lot of great stuff going on around you in life if you just choose to look.

King Spam and the Toxic Peanut

I just thought that would be a cool title for a post.

Growing Up

This was a landmark weekend regarding how much fun it is starting to become to have older kids. We have had a great time playing games at a suprisingly comprehensive level, in addition to the fact that Mia and Cooper play together very well for extended periods of time now, so I was able to finish my taxes, etc. It's so nice not to have to babysit - for a few minutes at a time anyway!
One of the sweetest moments in recent memory happened while we were playing Pictionary on Saturday night. David and I on one team and Steve, Shanna, and Mia on the other team, which worked out well, since Steve's 30 second attention span lent itself to needing a 3rd player. Anyway, Mia was doing an awesome job drawing and guessing - she seriously beat Dave and I drawing a couple of times, no holds barred. One of those included "underwater camera", complete with a stickman diver wearing flippers, diving under the waterline while holding a camera. We came upon the word "small" and it was an all-play, so that left Mia and I drawing. I drew various contrasting objects and finally David guessed it right before the time ran out. But neither Shanna or Steve had guessed anything close to Mia's highly detailed little object, so they asked her what she was drawing. "A grasshopper." We totally died laughing. So then she says, "I guess a shoulda drawn a ladybug - they're even smaller..."
Here is pic of Mia, Coop and I playing Uno tonight. Cooper is fully functional and can get through an entire game without me having to tell him which card to play. Note the "I really don't care if anyone sees my cards" attitude, which means Mia just works him over when it's her turn to pick a color. Note2 the duration of which it takes Mia to play a card, routinely resulting in napping antics.

Hawkins lays down the law

Dan Hawkins (the previous Broncos coach) took on a huge challenge in building the Colorado football program back up - they were 2-10 this year. At at recent press conference, he decided he needed to set a minor detail straight. Now that is funny. Sounded a little like Howard Dean runnin' for president.

Tundra update

We saw a new Tundra in person this weekend at the local Toyota dealer (we seem to spend a lot of time there for some reason). My first impression is that the overall size is definitely in the 'real truck' category. It comes across no less than a Ford, Chevy, Dodge etc. So if that was one of the goals, I'd say it's been met. Shanna didn't really like the hood which is very short(depth), tall(height) and rounded(shape). I think it looks sweet - kinda like a semi-truck. We saw the double cab and single cab models, but no CrewMax yet. Because of the overall size issue, I'm sticking with the '06+ Tacoma Double Cab as the Current Truck of Choice. Shanna easily retained her Sequoia selection as Current SUV of Choice.

Toyota's new Tundra

Finally getting some good info on Toyota's new Tundra. This version is the first major competitor to GM and Ford, coming in at 3" longer than the F-150. I'm not a big 'big' truck fan, but I think it is very good looking in the CrewMax configuration shown below. Like an upsized version of our Tacoma with twice as much power. Now, where did I put that extra $38000 I had laying around....

Ooooohh, stock headers.....