Dreaming of a White Christmas

Merry Christmas to all!!! Since I'm not doing a lot, and my internets are going really slow, thought I'd put together the next post of vacation pictures!!!

I thought pictures from the Sawyer glacier would be appropriate. This was the first destination on the cruise, up Tracy Arm. There was one whole day of steaming up the Canada coast and a night of heading up the Alaska coast. When I looked out the porthole of our cabin that morning, I saw icebergs!!!

We never left the ship, but were just positioned off the glacier all day.

I kept looking at the left side all day, see how it looks like it's all an overhanging ice cave???

There went a little, but I was sure there was more in it.

They said that some days they come up here and it doesn't calve off but one or two icebergs. As was typical of our trip, however, it was excellent, and it was calving ALL DAY LONG!!!

I took so many pictures there, and the bulk of them came out quite good!!! There's the wave from just a bit to the right of where I was watching.

If you notice the dark specks on the ice floes, those are seals. Gives you a bit of an idea of the scale. There's a huge hunk of the blue of the glacier iceberg.

There it's going!!!

And to all a good night!!!

More Rage

I made this up some time ago, once again based on a true life adventure!!!

In case you didn't know, Mexican candy is notorious for having high levels of lead...

Passing the Torch Random

Once again, I've got a lot I've been meaning to blog, and it's time to get some of it out!!!

First up is some cup art I did back on December 7th. I was going to subscript it with "We will never forget", but it didn't come out too recognizable. It's supposed to be the Arizona memorial, in honor of Pearl Harbor day.

There was another birthday, where as usual I was contracted to make a cake. Actually, it was a double birthday celebration, so I was requested to do two or something... I forced my older boy to do the second cake, ergo the title of this post!!!

My niece is a fan of Justin Bieber, and that was my only direction for a cake. I utilized the Rage Comic "Now Kiss" guy, and made the dolls her and Justin, then added their names (+ each other) to the bottom, along with a heart. She LOL'ed.

I'm sure he's been featured here before, but the other requested cake was for SpongeBob. I've done at least two other SpongeBob cakes, and even Wubbsy with Bob's pants on, and I'm about Bobbed out. My older boy is quite the aspiring artist, so I told him, "It'll be a new medium for you to work in!!!" He wasn't especially enthused to be doing so, but he came up with this slightly Picasso themed cake. the smaller eye is actually 3D about an inch tall!!!

That same evening was my company's Christmas party. There we are dressed up for it. This year, instead of having a photographer on the way in, taking a formal picture then selling it to you on the way out, they had a photo booth. The pictures were free, and they had a lot of costumes and props to use, too. I wore a sparkly hat and my wife wore a black & white feather boa and a necklace that read "HO HO HO" in large letters.

I worked the Friday after Thanksgiving, at time and a half, plus getting paid for the vacation day. I'm doing the same for tomorrow, Christmas eve. They fed us breakfast and lunch last time, and I'm assuming they will tomorrow, too. If not, I'll be going hungry.

I saw the Counting Crows at the Wiltern back at the end of November. It was a pretty good show.

Personal space and general admission shows are pretty much mutually exclusive.

Opening act one was Tender Mercies, who come to find out, Counting Crows has been doing several of their songs for years as covers. I have many as bootlegs, and one (maybe two???) are featured on their latest album. Instant fan!!! The second opening act, Mean Creek, well, they were loud. They feature a cute girl guitarist, who constantly jumped up and down the whole set. She made a comment that she loves when the crowds are rowdy, and we were the rowdiest. Pretty much the opposite was the case, I LOL'ed.

I liked the artwork for the Wiltern show. Wish they'd had it on a shirt. I never much care for the concert shirts from Counting Crows. Strange.

Goody day at work was kinda bad this year. We're back to three lunch breaks, and by the time I got my break, they were out of a lot of stuff, including drinks. Oh well, I've been told next year will be better. This year WAS better for gravy day. If I'm not mistaken, it was only 5% under what I've been told was the record amount. Also 10% under what I was told by a "reliable source" to be this year's amount. I'm good with it.

Stranger than Fiction

Finally back to the vacation posts, here's the previously alluded to Science Fiction Museum. No, it wasn't really stranger than fiction, but it was pretty cool!!!

And there I am, also looking pretty cool. Ahem.

The boy, in the red glow, was being scanned for motion capture technology, the kind of which they use in many of the SciFi movies these days. This particular one was for the exhibit from Avatar, where they motion capture you, and make a rough video clip with you replaced by an avatar!!! Pretty cool, you can see the video here, watch the boy almost stagger off his feet at the end. Oh, and instead of just touching the plant, he gives it a karate chop!!!

They had a lot of other cool stuff from that movie, too. Models, costumes, and an interactive computer display.

James Kirk's captain's chair, surrounded by tribbles.

The cane and amulet of Yoda.

Not pictured but appreciated was the gun from the Men in Black series.

The skeleton of a face-sucker stage of alien.

There were many displays of groundbreaking Science Fiction books and authors. The Watchmen is featured here.

Concept sketches from many movies were on display. Pictured is the costume concept for Neo from The Matrix.

Unfortunately, we only hit about 2/3 of the museum before it closed. at the end we were watching video trailers and commentary from several classic horror movies. Too much to see!!!

It Was THAT Kind of Weekend...

The Halloween Post

We interrupt our vacation pictures series to bring you the Halloween post!!!

So, a couple weeks back, my firstborn was telling me about one of the characters from Homestuck. "He's got candy corn horns..." Enough said!!! I'm going as Karkat Vantas!!! He's also got a sideways "69" on his shirt (the symbol for cancer) and types in all gray caps (I CONSIDERED DOING THIS POST IN ALL CAPS & CHANGING MY COLOR, BUT THOUGHT I WOULD QUICKLY TIRE OF THAT.) I used a couple of yellow cake decorating tips for the horns, with Chevy orange for the middle color. I was going to paint the tips white, but at the same time was still looking for a headband to put 'em on, as well as trying to figure out how to mount them. First plausible one I found was antennas, so I clipped them off and held the rig together with wire nuts on the ends, painted white. Will Karkat play at work??? No one knew who I was supposed to be (or what Homestuck was, for that matter), but everyone recognized 'em as candy corns and loved 'em!!!

In keeping with the theme, I made horrorterror dogs for dinner, from the Eat Mesa cookbook. Interesting and makes for quite a visual.

The firstborn had been talking about going as Indiana Jones, which surprised me a bit that Indy would still play today. Didn't get it together, so he wore a wig he'd picked up, and took my sledge hammer and was Thor. I was asking him if he was going to do anything else with his clothing. He answered while I was taking a drink of water... "No, it's casual Thors-day." I about died choking on my water!!!

The younger had the idea for his costume since early summer. He got a white hoodie, and wanted a red cape added to one arm. His brother asks him, "Are you going to be cosplaying as Enzo from Assassin's Creed??? Yes, that was what he had in mind!!! I took a closer look at the design, and sacrificed a threadbare, falling apart leather jacket and an old belt to make the shoulder guard, with the cape attached. Over the weekend, we stopped by the 99 cent store for some wrist blades (of course, they weren't wrist blades when we bought them, some modification was necessary) and as a bonus they had some wrist gauntlets. I think his came out the best!!! He's the cosplay kid!!!

Pretty geeky this year, too!!!

Are You Experienced?

So, what do you do to follow up your Space Needle visit??? Right next door is the Experience Music Project!!!

It's got a cool design to the building, reminds me more than a little of the Disney Concert Hall back home.

There's a crazy sculpture primarily made of guitars, but also with keyboards, banjos, and all manner of other instruments.

I think it has six of them that have motor driven spring pluckers on 'em, making their own music. It was pretty cool. Probably the most photogenic thing there!!!

I don't think it was a permanent thing, but they had an AC-Dc exhibit. There was a photo op in front of their logo, with guitar and Angus Young jacket props.

They've got Hendrix and Nirvana exhibits. I stayed at the former considerably longer than the latter. There was much very cool audio history, as well as displays of several of the remains of his sacrificed guitars.

There's a hands-on music lab thingy that'll teach you to play, and sound mixing and vocal effects labs.

I really like the way the last picture came out!!! It was tricky, as they prohibit flash photography!!!

In the same building there was also a Science Fiction museum. Next post!!!

Seattle Part One: The Space Needle

As I go through my pictures & experiences, I've decided the best way to go about it is to have 3 or more posts about our time in Seattle. Here comes the first, we'll see if I manage much more!!!

Seattle. The weather was nothing like you may have been led to believe. In fact, most days I took a light jacket and never even wore it!!!

Our hotel (actually, suite... said so right in the name) was in the middle of downtown, right near the convetion center. First shot is the view from our top floor room. Our last night before departure, we finally got a chance to check out the joint between the two, Cyber Dogs. Vegetarian hot dogs and interwebs access. I really liked the food, one of those where if you didn't know you probably wouldn't even know it was vegetarian. I didn't tell my oldest until the next day. No, I can't say enough about the place!!! The decor was awesome, and the music fit right in with it. That may be one of the following posts in itself.

Of course, we had to visit the Space Needle. Don't know how that'd be on a weekday, but on the weekend it took around an hour to get on the elevator. A pretty cool thing, it was. Shot 2 and 3 are, of course, the space needle, and the boys, looking up at it. Right across the street there's a McDonald's, and it has their logo painted on the top. Easy, effective advertising!!! I think the rest of the shots are all taken from the top of it. 50 year anniversary of the Space Needle!!!

I rented a car for the stay there. I don't think I'd do that again. Every place you go, you've got to pay to park. There's a bit of street parking avalible, but I was never able to get in on any. We even made a stop in at a Target. You'd think they'd do a little something with you there, but NO!!! $10 if you can keep it under an hour!!! Nice, my $14 purchase there ends up costing near twice that!!! I haven't figured it out exactly, but I think I spent about twice as much on parking as I did on the actual rental and gas. In fact, the rental was at the airport, and the departing dock for our cruise were pretty much on opposite ends of town, so we needed to take a cab to and from the dock, and THAT cost less than parking!!! I have learned.

In the same area there's the Experience Music Project. It's got a cool design to the building, reminds me more than a little of the Disney Concert Hall back home. In the same building there was also a Science fiction museum. Those could both be a post to themselves.

The next day we visited Pike Street marketplace and went on the crazy underground tour. There's another post!!!

I liked the World's Fair Space Needle hat. Would have totally gotten one of those!!! Haven't even gotten to all of Alaska!!!

Finally...

Here it is, the first post of share from our vacation this year!!!

This year we took a Disney cruise to Alaska!!! Made for a great vacation.

One downside was that, as always, if I want vacation days all in a string, I've got to get them at the end of the previous year. If anything comes up in between, there's not much you can do about it. The week I got was the one at the end of August and beginning of September. Unfortunately, my wife's job ended up starting in the middle of August, and of course they wouldn't give her the time off. Ended up being a bachelor vacation.

They did have the Friday before that week open, so I took it, too, and we had a few days over the weekend in Seattle, which is where the cruise departed from.

I took SO many pictures, and a good deal of them came out excellent. I was going through to find ones to print out to show co-workers, and I was over 50 before I knew it. No one has time to go through that many, so I had to pare it back.

Every place we pulled into on the cruise, they would announce over the P.A. on the ship that it was the best weather they'd seen all season. Of course, I had no basis for comparison, but it was nice enough to me. While we were in Juneau I saw a dad walking with his kid, just past toddler age, who was wearing nothing but shorts.

I've got a lot more to go on about, but I'll save it for later posts.