Sunday, January 02, 2011

Random Recap & The Christmas that Everything Broke

Happy new year to all!!! It's been a while, huh??? Soooo much has happened, who knows if I'll cover it all???



Christmas was good, but a lot of things broke (as you may have surmised from the title) right around then. The week before we were having our famous rain storms, and the top of the pepper tree by the property line and driveway blew off. This was actually something of a win, as we've been gradually working on cutting this tree down for a while, and the top portion is the hardest to get to, and when it fell it was away from the cars & the neighbors' house!!!



There's a shot of my younger boy in one of his Christmas presents, a shirt from Woot! It's got to be one of his favorites, he's worn it almost every day since!!! The colors have grown on me. Boss shirt, boss!!! (He says, "I know.")



We had goody day a few weeks back at work. As usual, it was good, and there were plenty of leftovers. I ended up taking home two 12-packs of soda and the remains of a cheese ball, among other things. I've been nomming on that cheese ball ever since!!!

The work Christmas party could have been amazing. Instead it was pretty decent. A lot of things could have been a lot better, though. I'm interested to see if they keep the same venue next year.



The sink in the kitchen had been draining slow. I took it apart to clean out the trap & use the hydraulic drain cleaner on the pipe. Turned out the galvanized pipe was all corroded out on the bottom threads. Only about 12 years or so that lasted, I remember replacing it before. Replaced it with some incredibly beefy schedule 80 stainless steel pipe, think it'll outlast the rest of the house!!! Of course, I had to put it back together in the meantime. The garbage disposal stopped working in the interim, sounded like something was jammed in it. This breakdown magically fixed itself, but on the night of the 23rd, while the older was doing dishes, it all came apart, flooding the kitchen with 2 sinks worth or dirty dish water. Before this project was done, I had to replace the P trap, too. Once I got it back together, it had a line of pin holes down one side.



There's a shot of my nephew with a blade from my younger's Lego set. Ever see the Veggie Tales' "The Toy that Saved Christmas"??? My nephew goes by the nickname Louie, so here's your Buzz Saw Louie!!! The only toy featuring an actual working buzz saw built into his right arm!!!

Had a power surge on Christmas morning that took out the stereo amplifier that we run the sound on the T.V. through. I was resigned to buying a new LCD T.V. the next morning. We went out and saw Tron, then I messed with it and another like it I had in the basement when we got home. Couldn't find anything wrong, but when I put it back together, it worked!!! Another problem that magically fixed itself!!!



A couple of shots of pumpkins here... One is my youngests' of Sonic. Of course, I did all the carving and a lot of the gutting. First time I've ever followed a design, and first one I've ever done with the shaving off of the top layer. My pumpkin, I was inspired the day we carved 'em. I was going to the boys' room to get them, and I saw the shells the older had brought back from Florida, along with a couple of blue marbles from inside spray paint cans. I like the way the flash made them glow!!! Somewhere in my video camera are some clips of the annual pumpkin smashing...



Speaking of video, see the shot of me with my new camera??? A real nice Pentax I bought for myself. It'll shoot a video HD enough to choke your laptops' meager video capabilities!!! It also features in body image stabilization to help keep the price of lenses down. I'm quite pleased with it... except... after about half a dozen shots, the built in flash stopped working!!! At least it's still under warranty...

One of these pictures is of my dad with our Christmas present to him, a gas tank that I'd had in my panel truck. Hope it works better for him than it did for me!!!



There's a shot of the cake I did for my nephew's birthday. If you don't know, that's Wubbsy. My sis started with him, then changed to Sponge Bob. I've done too many Sponge Bobs, so I stayed with Wubbsy, only with Bob's pants on him. Why??? That's why his tail is in the form of a question mark!!!

I know another thing or two broke around then, but I can't remember what....

New year's resolution: I resolve to blog more!!!

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