2005 in summary...

here's a list of events that i blogged about in 2005. not all of this
information is recap-worthy now, nor was it particularly blog-worthy then,
but it is what it is. it's a quick, high-level glimpse of what went down with
me in 05. if i forgot to mention something important, say, your birthday, it
was a complete oversight on my part and is not to be taken as a diss. without
further ado:

january

owen turns 2

the current launches

12th wedding anniversary

blogger's are abc's "people of the year"

sesame street live

sister and brother in law attend inaugural balls

-20 temps

february

went skiing at afton

took girls to gopher women's basketball game

started "supporting" macintosh's at work

went to gopher men's hockey game

march

celebrated another year of being alive

became "ITIL" certified!
(no one probably knows what that means)

alaina's first communion

my first fantasy baseball draft

april

finalized summer vacation plans

went to wes's book reading

experimented with radio\blog

external firwire drive crashed, lost 51.3 gb of music:-(

may

recovered all of my music files:-)

alaina's birthday

mom's birthday

june

noelle's kindergarten graduation

noelle's birthday

get new mac g-5 at work to "test drive"

girls dance recital

infected with nasty spyware virus and eventually kick it's ass...i
respond to dozen's of people who have "googled" me looking for help

july

jeff and i replace my ipod battery

my softball career resumes

i completely overhaul thirdthoughts

august

family vacation to st. louis

white stripe's show at the orpheum

my soccer coaching career begins

september

minnesota state fair

mom retires from northwest airlines

allie and girls trip to chicago

massive summer storm rips through metro area

october

granny deweese turns 96

soccer coaching career ends

fantasy baseball league mercifully over

annual golf outing with jeff and al

november

my blackberry device meets maker due to untimely drowning

thanksgiving

string of bad luck with electricity, garage doors, and snow blowers

december

allies birthday

christmas season begins, relatives from boston visit

bridger thomas is born into my nieice's family

2006 begins!

with warmest regards and best wishes for a happy and prosperous new year!

-skip

the mother of all icicles and more...

here is a look at the jagged ice dagger recently seen hanging from our porch. this was taken after the temps warmed up and it had melted for a couple of days. it's hard to tell by the picture but it probably maxed out at around 4 feet.
in other news my "official" christmas vacation is over as i am back at work. unofficially the christmas holiday rambles onward as we still have relatives in town and a few more "to-do's" to scratch off the list.
although i haven't used it much yet, my big score for christmas was a nikon coolpix 4600 digital camera. my old hp 1 mega-pixel was badly outdated and i was starting to get openly mocked whenever i would bring it out in public. you will begin to notice a change in the quality of my posted images almost immediately.
as i did not receive my camera until late christmas night, i was not able to use it for the following pics. i did sneek one picture from the new camera...can you guess which one?
in other news, i saw "munich" yesterday, probably not the feel-good story of the year. also, if you're looking for a date movie, i'd shy away from this one as well. speilberg always makes a good film though and this one does not dissapoint.
more later...

a santastic visit...

the kids had their annual brief meeting with st. nick (hey, he's a busy guy). presumably they had to submit their last-minute gift ideas that didn't make the official list. at least i didn't forget my camera this year.
posted a couple of other pics here, including two from allie's birthday.
went to the holidazzle parade last night. despite the fact that it was quite chilly, we had a great time. there have been colder years.
more soon...

here we go...

have enjoyed a couple of days getting caught up with last minute christmas details. now, it's officially "on". allie's brother, sister-in-law and their 3 kids arrive from boston tonight. my sister and brother-in-law arrive from boston tomorrow. to do list before sunday: skiing trip, day at the water park, hollidazzle parade, trip to rochester to see my other sister's family, christmas cookies, package wrapping, (what did i forget??)so...it's fair to say the "leisurely" part is over, at least for now. more soon...

380 shopping days left til the christmas after this one...

to recap, i did, in fact, have to deal with the afore mentioned bug. it disabled me for a good 24 hours but i was still able to attend the christmas snow ball event. i was pretty much a wallflower that night but it was nice to see some folks that we only see once or twice a year. we did not have the foresight (or common sense) to make dinner reservations at figlios so we had the unfortunate task of trying to find a place to eat dinner at 7:00 on a saturday night. not necessarily a good idea. we did find a nice little italian bistro called "the olive garden", which presumably only exists to try to sell you their crappy house wine. although we did feel like family while we were there, we made a pact not to tell anyone at the party that that's where we went, which i am obviously ignoring. here are some reasons one says you should not eat at the olive garden.
tonight we are dining with my fellow co-workers at a real italian place called "buca di beppo's" which, although is a chain restauraunt, is actually pretty authentic and has fabulous atmosphere.
well, i'm about to checkout of work until december 27th. that's 10 calendar days in a row, with nothing to do but enjoy my relatives, partake in countless christmas related activities, revel in christmas merriment, and deal with all of the associated stress that will no doubt ensue. i am looking forward to seeeing my sister and brother in law from boston, and my wife's brother and sister-in-law and their kids. i will no doubt honor may annual tradition of watching "christmas vacation" while i wrap presents.
lastly, i thought i'd leave you with 2 of my favorite christmas classics from one of my all-time favorite artsts, john wesley harding. you can get the songs here (link removed).
i'll check back in a few days...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALLIE!

today marks the **th birthday of my beloved wife allison. happy birthday hon, you're the best! you may stumble across this post a few days from now, then again you may not. i know your interest in this blog is "mildly curious" at best, but let the record state that i have officially declared your birthday wishes to the entire blog reading community.
more later...

...as the shoppers rush home with their treasures

allie and i were talking the other day about how our family's christmas gift-giving habits have changed in recent years. a few years ago i can remember spending a ton of dough just on her! she bought me an xbox ($299 at that time) when they first came out and that was only one of the gifts she got me. there were plenty of others too. what were we thinking?? leather jackets, tons of clothes, cha-ching, cha-ching. we have decided to set realistic limits this year, but trust me, we will still drop a bundle after all is said and done. that's why it always amuses me when i see these lexus ads on tv. someone's spouse is giving them a $50,000 car. does this really happen? can you even get those big bows? apparently the answer is yes. read more here.
going to our annual "snowball" christmas party tomorrow night at the st. paul hotel. we are dispatching the kids at grandma and grandpas house for a sleepover, the first time they have ever taken on all three of the kids for an all-nighter. we hope to go to dinner here before the party.
off from work monday and tuesday. hope to finish up my shopping. more later...

does this work?

i tested a new feature with blogger several months ago and never was able to get it to work successfully. the concept is: i create my usual captivating dialogue and send that text in the body of an email to a super secret email address (that i created). if you are reading this than this feature now finally works correctly. i can now make posts without having to log into blogger. kinda cool, huh? perhaps some of you have been doing this all along and i am once again late to the party. it seems like a good idea a d as long as it works, i'll probably use it. not sure if i can incorporate images into the mix or not. well, it's nice to have options. another post coming later...

washing my hands and crossing my fingers...

some sort of stomach flu virus has been ravaging our household over the past few days. so far, (knock, knock) i've managed to avoid it. started with noelle, who no doubt picked it up from school. than it hit allie, and now alaina's not feeling well. me and the boy have dodged the bullet so far. i'm taking some precautionary measures, including sleeping on the floor of the living room last night. so far, so good. with my luck, it'll hit me over the weekend. let's hope not. paranoia will deystroy ya... more later

top music picks of 05...

i have compiled my year-in-review "best of" music list here.

looking back and moving on...

i had a series of unfortunate events occur these past couple of weeks. not big deals, in and of themselves, but smaller, more irritating things that build up over time. first it was the dimmer switch in the family room that broke. four hours and a couple of trips to menards it was fixed. than the blown circuit - fixed the next day. than it was the garage door - froze to the floor and then busted the chain when it tried to unstick. fixed ($75). then my snowblower leaked an entire tank of gas onto the garage floor (new carb $50). so it almost seems like lateley i am waiting for the next thing to go wrong! actually it's been a couple of days so maybe i've turned the page. onward and upward, blue skies & green lights!!