Christmas Part II

OK, here's a little recap of the last couple of days. Of course, if you've been watching the Twitter feed over there, some of this will be old news to you. Yesterday we broke in the family Christmas present of annual passes to Magic Mountain. It was, quite literally, VERY cool!!! I'm not sure what the temperature there was, but, for Southern California, it was freakin' cold!!!



This was pretty amazing to me. For our first "big" ride, we went on Viper. The older, who recently went with his school, was saying to go on the X2 coaster first, but it was closed on account of high winds. Viper was near to it, and the line was pretty short, so on it we went. Of course, the younger couldn't ride, so we took turns. After I rode, I waited in the exit line area, where I found the coaster does it's final dip under the tracks and loops around to the ride exit. Hey, might be able to get a shot from there!!! I didn't think it'd come out this good, but I was able to get the boy's face quite nicely. I couldn't resist adding a caption in LOLcat fashion!!!



I had bought four of the cheap ponchos from my work, and had the passes wrapped up with them. Expressly because they have several nice water rides there, which I figured would have near no lines in Winter. I was right. We rode the log jammer, which in the other seasons usually has, to me, a ridiculously long line. We donned our ponchos and walked right on. The younger generally does not like coasters, so I was surprised when he wanted to go again!!! We did, and I think that was a mistake. Our second log had probably four inches of standing water sloshing in the bottom, and rode considerably lower!!! On the drops, the water literally poured in on my pant legs and shoes. Enough of that!!!



After that, we took mom and the younger to Bugs Bunny land and the older and I went to try and ride roaring rapids, a river raft ride, before we shucked our ponchos off. Closed for the season, but it was right across from Tatsu, a coaster that hangs you horizontal and sends you on your way headfirst!!! I'd never been on it, and it was worth the wait, which wasn't even really that long.



We went back to Bugs Bunny land and met up, rode the canyon blaster (kiddie coaster) a couple of times, then went for some food. I remembered an enclosed food place along the way, something of a rarity there, and hauled us over that way. The older boy wanted a pretzel, and we ended up walking almost halfway across the park to find one.



It was full dark and even colder by the time we finished eating, and we were set to go home. Well, maybe just one more ride. On the way, we came to the entrance to Goliath, a big 'ol hypercoaster. The line took longer than I would have liked, but it was an impressively awesome ride for the wait.



There was a bit more than that, but we didn't get on a whole lot of lines, but it was fun. We may end up going back there again next Friday. I have elected to work Saturday in exchange for Friday off, a fair exchange I think!!!



Today we had the extended family Christmas gathering. Good times!!! My boys got Halo 2 & 3 for the new Xbox, which my oldest had been lamenting not getting and was already planning his and his brother's birthday wish lists with those two.



Olives: The original finger food!!! More food than that there, most notably and most loved by myself the pecan pie which I had not had yet this holiday season!!!



And, to close this post, an aerial shot of one of the little RC choppers. The tail rotor got busted today. It comes with a replacement, but it needs to be found to do any good!!!

Merry AfterChristmas!!!

And what a great one it was!!! As usual, I'm a bit behind in me blogging. I could go random here, but I'll keep on topic... or at least I'll try!!!



Last weekend, we went to Universal Studios for what I'm fairly sure will be the last time in this year. They have two things they've thrown into the mix, a bit of a production on the backlot of The Grinch (naturally, I was in about the worst possible place to get a shot of it) and REAL SNOW!!!



The snow reminded me quite a bit of last year, when we went to the snow at Mount Baldy. Frozen solid, very slippery, crowded like crazy, and really not a lot of fun. At least to me.



Shaggy and Scooby were there for a photo op, and so was Beetlejuice again, for my wife to pose with.



I took my chili to goody day. It's amazing how much you tilt when you walk, you just don't notice unless you're carrying a pot of sloppy chili in a crock pot. Some got eaten, but there was a lot left. There was a TON of food there. I was going to do a post entitled "A croissant wrapped weenie, chow mien noodles, fried rice, pineapple meatballs, a chocolate covered pretzel and a lemon bar: It's what's for breakfast!!!" I ate before work, at first break, at lunch break, and at the last break. I skipped dinner that night.

For the shirt exchange, I got a shirt that says, "Don't rush me! I get paid by the hour!"



You may have noticed that I've FINALLY gotten a twitter account set up over there <--- Now at least I'll likely have something new there on a more regular basis. I can update it via my cell. Ironically, I get terrible reception here at home. The first thing the boys opened was the gift to both of them, so the Xbox 360 was it. I think they liked it quite a bit. I also got the older a video card for his computer, which installed fairly easily. (Oh yea, I bought a new power supply which arrived on Monday, and stuck that in his comp. Works fine now) We got them both these little, cheap feeling RC choppers. They have two control sticks, but only one seems to do anything. They're really a lot of fun, but who knows how long they'll work.

That picture up there isn't really that good, but it seems to be the only one that shows off our pink Christmas tree!!! For my wife, I did go ahead and get her the 100 lottery scratchers. She won $43 cash, and 11 ticket winners, which she exchanged and cashed in. Of the 11, she got one more for another ticket. I could have given her the cash, but she enjoyed the scratchers. I did give her some cash. I'd wanted to give her one of each bill from $100 on down, but I couldn't get and $2 bills.



Here's a shot of me with my new shirt and jeans. I had shaved my head down for the Christmas party, but left sideburns in anticipation of growing my head back. I should update my profile picture, huh???

Well, that got just a tad random, but not too much.

Tomorrow, Six Flags Magic Mountain!!!

Yuleish Random

I'm so far behind on blogging, I'll never hit it all, so I'ma gonna go a bit random, and I've been needing to for a while.

Last weekend my company had their Christmas party. It was the same place as last year, but it was better than last year. The bar lines were shorter, and it was less crowded. The former likely was related to the latter. It seems rather early in the month, but this month does get busied up, so it worked out well.

We also got a room there this year. It was just about as far as you could get between the party and our room. And it cost about twice what the place we stayed at last year. Nice room, but hardly worth the extra money in my estimation.

A rather cool thing that happened, though. I'm not sure if it was the hotel *excuse me, Resort (one of those places that you're sure they have the word resort capitalized in their minds as they refer to the place... ANyway...) or my work, but they were giving vouchers or gift cards for $50 when we were checking in. For use at the Resort, but could be applied to your room price if you'd like. Nice, it almost exactly covered the room tax and mandatory valet parking.



In other news... the Christmas season is coming on fast. I went to Wal Mart around two weeks back, and was hoping not to again until next year or later. Now I'm thinking I may end up having to again. Dread.

Goodie day is going to be this Thursday. I signed up to bring my Chili. I just now decided that my Chili shall be capitalized thenceforth.

Friday, my older boy's comp apparently spontaneously shut off, and now refuses to do anything. I attempted to use a different power supply, and then even tried to swap everything into my Linux computer's case. No luck. If it's not a power supply issue, I don't have a clue what it could be. Rather unusual that I'm at a loss.

I've already purchased one of my own Christmas presents. A Garmin GPS unit. The main reason I got it at an early date was it comes in most handy going somewhere you've not been before. I got it prior to the Palm Springs trip, and it works out pretty nice. Of course, you kind of need an address of the destination to have it navigate you somewhere. I'm very pleased with it. I'm also further pleased that every time I've seen it (or even the small screen twin of it) the price has been at least $20 more than I paid!!!

On goodie day, several of us are having a first ever T-shirt gift exchange. Funny T-shirts are the idea. I got mine for it today, it's pretty cool. It has a skull and crossbones, with a bandanna around it and a scimitar clenched between it's teeth. The message above it reads "Just A Pirate", and underneath, "Hunting Booty".

I've missed the last two mileage updates, so here they are: 27.59 MPG and 30.66 MPG. I noticed a dip on the first one following the anomalous 42.31 MPG fill up, likely related. Brings the lifetime average to 29.98 MPG. I'm good with that.

I had been planning on taking the family to Universal Studios on Saturday, but by the time we got out of bed and started the chili up (that's right, I'm making it up almost a week in advance. Don't want to be up till one AM on Wednesday getting it going, then not have it be done in the morning. Besides, my Chili is always better after it's been out of the pot and in the fridge. Perhaps that will be the final step in my Secret Recipe) (Dang, talk about a run-on parenthetical statement or two!!! Now back to our regularly scheduled sentence) it was near noon. I had been wanting to get one more in before our annual pass expires, but that my not happen now.

They announced the cash profit sharing number on Friday. 350%!!! And this year, after having been employed longer than two years, I'm eligible for all of it!!! I'm pleased indeed!!! Right on the announcement, there was mention that next year's number will not be so good. They must have crystal balls. Of course, they almost always predict the number of orders and lines per day within a couple hundred, which I find remarkable.

Interestingly, after I put everything back into the Linux case, now that one does nothing when you go to turn it on, either!!! I'm wondering if it could be power supply, and whatever caused it to go in the original configuration could have done it again. That case did have a much weaker power supply. I'm hesitant to use the power supply from mine.

Along the inner wall (which used to be an outer wall before our last expansion) at work, in a stretch with nothing but walkway and wall, they've placed one of the decorative poinsettias right on the ground. It is totally random looking there, and I smile every time I see it there.

Maybe that was the idea.

I'd been thinking of getting myself a laptop for Christmas, but last week I saw an ad for the same DSLR camera my dad has, with a 300mm lens kit, for only $599+$29, with no sales tax. Price was good for quite a while, too. Sigh. Right after I'd talked myself out of getting a DSLR.

I haven't gotten a ton of things for my wife yet, either. I'm thinking of buying her something like 50 or 100 big spin lottery scratchers. Good times!!! Maybe I'll buy 50 for each of us!!!

I'm not finding the laptop I want for a price I want anymore. Back around October, I was seeing nicely equipped Toshibas with 17" screens for under $600, but now they're asking almost $700 for almost all nicely equipped PC's with only 15.4" screens. I thought for sure that with the economy tanking they'd actually try and get people to buy stuff near Christmas. Oh well, I'm in no hurry.

Actually, I would like to buy before the end of the year. The sales tax goes up another 1/2 percent come 2009. *Rollen my eyes*

Instead of going to Universal (and getting the all you can eat pass like the older boy and I did last time, but for both us and wifey this time) we went to John's Incredible Pizza again. The price was about the same, but that included $25 of game credits. I got to try the garlic pesto and BBQ chicken pizza this time, and they both rate high with me now.

Maybe I'll buy neither. I'm considering buying myself some commodities. If I'd bought about $400 of oil last Thursday and sold it on Friday, I could have made around $100. I've heard talk of it getting down to $25 a barrel for light sweet crude, but I honestly don't see that happening. what I do see happening it it going back up... eventually...

I see Tiger Direct has a build your own system with a dual core AMD 2.2 gig processor, 2 gig RAM, 250 gig hard drive, as well as the motherboard, case and power supply for only $149.99. Really, almost too cheap to pass up!!! Could likely be the easiest way to get my boy up and running again.

Honestly, I can't imagine the oil companies even bothering to extract oil at only $25 a barrel!!!

After returning from John's Incredible Pizza, the boys and I FINALLY got the Christmas lights set up. Nice, wouldn't likely have gotten that done if we'd gone to Universal Studios!!!

I had wondered if the plummeting gas prices would help the fortunes of the big 3 auto makers. They profit best making gas guzzlers. Which, ironically, is why any bailout will fail. There's this thing called Corporate Average Fuel Economy, and it will torpedo any turn around attempts. Opinion stolen from the Wall Street Journal, but if you think about it, it makes sense.

I've been thinking of buying annual passes to Six Flags Magic Mountain for the family for next year. I'd been looking at Disneyland, but the price!!! Insanity!!! Six Flags is a relative bargain, and they throw in passes for one extra visitor one trip, and one pass to the water park. I'm thinking yea. Maybe wrap 'em up, then after we open everything Christmas morning, take the family there for the rest of the day!!!

I don't think they've done this before, but they told the day they're going to give out the profit sharing checks. It'll be on the 22nd. Nice, you don't get a weekend in between to spend it. Not a big deal to me, I'll take me gravy no matter when it comes!!!

I'm not especially worried about posting possible Christmas gifts here, only one member of the household reads this, and that is only once in a blue moon.

By the way, I just checked the dates Six Flags is open, and it's closed Christmas day. Glad I checked that, it would have been JUST like National Lampoon's Vacation, starring Magic Mountain as Wally World!!!

There's more random left within me. If only there were a way to safely extract it!!!

P.S. I Love You

What I did over the Thanksgiving weekend: We all went out to Palm Springs!!!

Like last year, most of the extended family had other plans. My parents actually set this up, it was a time share condo where they give you a few nights of free lodging in exchange for listening to their spiel. It was a really nice place!!! For Thanksgiving dinner, they bought most of the whole thing pre made from a local grocery store, and for all the possible ways it could have failed, only the stuffing was a disappointment!!!

The next day, after swimming in the pool for a fair amount of the morning (while my poor folks attended the spiel), we went to the only actual attraction I was aware of in Palm Springs, the Aerial Tram. It was amazingly crowded there, and a bit spendy for a trip to the top, but well worth it.

The temperature was much lower at the top, and the rain that had come through the Los Angeles area the days before made for a nice layer of snow up there.

I guess this qualifies as our annual snow trip!!! The boys had a lot of fun frolicking in the snow, and would have stayed there much longer, but it was getting dark already.

We came back and went back to the pool area for a session in the jacuzzi. There are two of them there, one outside, the other under a synthetic hill, hidden behind a waterfall.The next day we went out to one of many oases in the area. Apparently the San Andreas fault line going through the aquifer causes the water to make its way to the surface. We hiked from one oasis to another, about a mile each way, with many cool things to see on the way.

Once we got back, we were snacking on some crackers and sodas near the visitors center (which was already closed for the evening), and along wandered this bobcat!!! Of course, I had already stowed my camera, but I managed to get it out and fire off three shots before he disappeared for good. The first two came out the better ones, shooting from the hip, than the third where I framed him up, and the camera failed to auto focus.

There's a shot of the pool in the background (along with the inflatable turkey). Actually, two separate pools. The smaller one has a very shallow large area for small kids, and two different water slides, one straight and rather flat, and the other of a decent height with some nice twists to it. The larger pool has one area with a volleyball net set up over it. The older boy took a Jr. Lifeguard course they offered. I don't know how much they actually taught him.



This was pretty cool, too. The condos, to further sweeten the pot, gave my parents several vouchers for, among other things, the gas station up the street. The day we headed home, they gave us one to use, $20 value. The drive out there is 111 miles, plus some driving around town, plus about 40 miles of to work and back the day before. Now, we'd driven out on Wednesday night. I haven't made mention here, but I bought myself a GPS unit for Christmas already. Figured it made more sense to have it BEFORE I'm in a strange town trying to find my way. On the drive out, it routed us along a couple of small, two lane highways (not what I'd have chosen, but we followed it anyway). It also rained a bit, causing everyone to hit their brakes far too much. The elevation increases quite a bit from home to there, so in other words, it was all uphill, albeit very slightly for most of the drive. In other words, the drive was less than optimal for prime fuel efficiency. However, in spite of that, after driving 168.4 miles, Baby would only take 3.98 gallons of gas!!! That works out to an unprecedented, AMAZING, 42.31 MPG!!! I have to imagine that this is an anomaly, but at any rate, I was quite pleased. The gas station wouldn't give full change for it, so we ended up with two large water bottles, three of the huge slim jims, and five dollars cash.

Good times!!!

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

The weekend before last, we celebrated ALL my middle sisters' kids birthdays.



Does that say something, that they were all born within an approximate one month window??? I don't know, but it made for convenience celebrating.

The oldest of the three chose the venue, and quite wisely I believe. He picked John's Incredible Pizza. I've only been there one time before, and have been wanting to go back since!!! The food is buffet style, and they have, among other things, a peanut butter pizza. Doesn't sound that good, but it really is. I swear last time it was spicy peanut butter pizza, but it's been toned down some.

This part was completely superfluous, being as they have a rockin' dessert area, but they brought a cake. The funny part??? They used it three times for each of the kids, changing the name each time. In the middle shot, my boy was blowing out the candles with his balloon, because the oldest is weird about birthdays.

My camera batteries were all near dead for some reason, so I didn't get as many pictures as I would have liked. Nonetheless, good times!!!