Chris' 30th birthday

Let me tell you, I would have loved to have big plans for Chris' 30th birthday.  There would have been a beer donkey, Cirque du Soleil performers on the barbie, and a DIY cupcake bar.

But alas, the birthday boy is rending his clothes and gnashing his teeth over grad school, and the bride is all aglow (mostly with rage) over wedding plans.  So.  Instead, we had a quiet evening with a few of our friends and several cases of beer.  The highlight of the evening was the result of the only real planning I could do.  Several months ago, Chris was telling me (again) about one of his favorite childhood birthdays, which was Star Wars-themed and wherein the main memory was of Chris licking the frosting off of Han Solo's little plastic butt.  

I discovered on eBay that people were still circulating Star Wars cake pans that had been originally manufactured in 1980 -- R2-D2 and Darth Vader were the two biggies.  There might have been an X-Wing, but I may be dreaming.  I bought one of the R2-D2 pans and kept it in the closet (again, for months) waiting for Chris' birthday. The awesome part is that the original decorating instructions are still available on Wilton.com, so I was able to recreate R2-D2 in all of his retro glory.  I kept imagining myself as a befuddled mom in 1980, making this cake and going, "Well I don't know who this R2-D2 character is, but he's a real BITCH to get buttercream to stick to!"

Here are the results.  I could not be more pleased and proud, and I'm happy to say that Chris appreciated the 2 1/2 hours of work that went into this labor of love.  Happy birthday, dude.  Enjoy your wacky-ass robot cake.

Here's an in-progress picture.  I was so worried that it wasn't going to come out nice that I took pictures along the way so I could show Chris "what it looked like before the incident."  Also, here's a good idea of what R2-D2 would have looked like if he was Mexican.

He's done! I used maraschino cherries for his little lights.  Have I mentioned I'm so proud of this?

BOOP BEEP BEEP BOOOP!!! 

Meet Kristen.

 Kristen is special in many ways.  One of those ways is that she doesn't like slang words that are pronounced ending in "-a" when they are spelled ending in "-er."  For example, she won't say "holla," and certainly not "playa hata."  I mean, she won't even say them in jest, or to demonstrate her point. She doesn't even like saying "Splenda" (the sugar substitute that comes in a yellow package), even though that's its real, trademarked name.  She claims, rightfully so, that the word is a bastardized form of "splendor."  So are half the other brand names out there, but I digress.

This is the first time I went out drinking with Kristen.  Before the evening commenced, I learned that Kristen will, in fact, say "holla" when she's had enough to drink.  I had to capture video of this wondrous event.  Please ignore the drunk chick at the beginning.  She should have had her camera taken away.

Early St. Patrick's Day!

This year, St. Paddy's falls on a Monday, which is kind of lame. A friend of a friend came up with this excellent alternative, which is a paddy wagon pub crawl. They loaded us onto buses that took us around to four different pubs in town. Free t-shirt, free beer on the bus -- it was brilliant (the shirt was great, but the beer? warm Pabst.) Chris and I were joined by some of my friends from work, and a good time was had by all. I've been told I also enjoyed myself.



Not sure who this is.  But allow me to tell you how funny it was at the time.

Carly on the left there.  She was also sporting the PBR box at one point.  And no, we weren't talking to anybody.

Just past the crazed leprechaun on the left, you'll find Carly, me, and Kristen.

Ahem.

Overheard in the grocery store

I walked past two girls in their early twenties, who clearly and joyously have not bought a membership in my neighborhood's Plastic People and Soccer Moms club.  They were kind of hip, kind of punky, but not too much.  Anyway, it went like this.

Tara:  "Well, I totally nailed the baking brownies thing.  At least I got that done okay."

Girl B: "Tara, honey, I have to tell you something.  Those were the worst brownies I've ever tasted in my life."

I guess it's good that Tara heard it from a friend.  I was laughing my ass off though.

Stupid calendar

So I'm standing in the kitchen, eating half a turkey sandwich, as you do, and I'm staring at the magnetic calendar/whiteboard thingy that's stuck to our fridge.  It was left on our front door by the Real Estate Wizard.  He's got a name, but when you've invested in a moniker like the Real Estate Wizard, you expect other people to roll with it.

At any rate, the calendar has little pictures to go with each month -- tulips in April, a starfish on a sandy beach in August, and a snowy plains scene in December.  Here's my problem with this, and all other similarly-themed calendars: speaking as a human-type person who lives in a place with seasons, I don't need to look at the calendar in January and see MORE F@*KING SNOW.  I want to look at a picture of palm trees waving lazily in the tropical trade winds, you know?  And maybe in August, when we're all sweating our balls off because [this bit of the blog has been redacted by the Coalition for Coloradans for Upholding the Myth of Perennial Cold], I'd rather see some ice skaters or a close-up of a snowflake or something.

Dunno.  I can't be the first person to have thought of it.

Grandpa Bob

My grandpa Bob passed away this last weekend.  I'm sorry to see him go, but he was happy and healthy right up until the end, and that's the most that anyone can ask.  Here's the last picture of him, taken just a couple of weeks ago on my dad's CrapCam.  He was doing what he does best, which is having way too much fun with the simplest of things -- in this case, a rubber chicken.  Okay, that's the second best thing he did -- the first best thing was being able to fix anything with duct tape and sheer will.

I'm back, and from this end, I look a lot cooler.

For the last couple of months, this household has been running on the worst cobbled-together computer equipment you've ever seen.  Our old PC died, so we had the hard drive plugged into my 8-year-old Dell laptop, which features 256 centimeters of RAM and a dejected demeanor.  It was good for viewing one -- if you were lucky -- website at a time, and not much else.  Especially not blogging, as uploading pictures and such took forever and a day.

That all changed this last weekend, when we finalized the adoption papers for our new Mac.  It's so pretty, and there's no irritating buttons, cord jacks, little blinking lights, or much else on it to indicate that it's a mere machine.  Remember the monolith from 2001?  Now make it out of brushed silver and put a silhouette of an apple on the front of it. If you wish, you may tape a sign to the front that says, in large, friendly letters, "Don't Panic," but that would disturb its qi.  Please do not disturb the qi of my new Mac.

So once again, I have a permanent computer where I can upload photos (they've all been living on my camera for ages) and generally entertain the two people who ever check into Funundrum anymore.

It's official.

I am officially in love with Barack Obama.

1. He's pro-choice. Let's face it, it's pro-abortion, and I'm fine with that. I hate the spin of "pro-choice" and "pro-life." But that's for another day.

2. He's pro-other countries. I need a stronger dollar and for fewer countries to hate us. See, other countries hating us is the source of a lot of our problems.

3. He's young, which was mainly why I was in love with Bill Clinton.

4. He's black. That would piss off the unwashed NASCAR masses. Yay for that.

I probably have a lot of other good reasons, but this is good enough for now.

Resolutions? Okay.

Why have just one?

1. Climb at least four new Fourteeners this summer.
2. See two new countries (Guatemala and Belize).
3. Tour two new Colorado breweries.
4. Make it out to the Mesa Verde cliff-dwelling Indian site.
5. Don't freak out too badly about the wedding.
6. Unlike all my friends, have my thank-you cards sent out within six weeks after the wedding.
7. Don't freak out too badly about the wedding.
8. Don't freak out too badly about the wedding.
9. Learn to knit socks and cable-knit sweaters.

You may notice that none of these resolutions involve me being a better person, quitting a bad habit, or losing weight. This is primarily because I'm already better than most people, can live with the few bad habits I have, and already lost a shitload of weight in 2007. Secondly, I've found that resolutions are much easier to keep when they're fun and designed to broaden one's overall experience. For example, my resolution about 10 years ago was to learn to eat with chopsticks. Did it make me a better person or make the world a better place? No, but I was no longer the one ass at the Chinese food restaurant asking for a fork. So. As we begin this new year together, I wish both of you (remember, I only ever assume I have two readers, and my mom is one of them) a safe, happy, and prosperous new year. If you settle on a resolution that makes you a better person, make sure you lord it over other, less enlightened people just a little. It's fun.

Happy 2008 to both of my readers.

There may be more of you, but I would content myself with two. We rang in the new year in a much quieter, simpler way than we had in the last couple of years -- it's hardly rational to try to top Ensenada, Mexico in 2006, and then Cusco, Peru in 2007. We would have had to go to either Tibet or the moon, and we really don't have that kind of capital right now.

Instead, we enjoyed a dinner with friends and sat in front of the fireplace, waiting breathlessly for the shiny plastic corporate-sponsored presentation of the ball drop in Times Square, which had actually happened two hours previously. It was nice to see Dick Clark out there one last time before he hangs it up. He may be getting a little old and have suffered a stroke, but that guy is always sincerely grateful and overjoyed to be hosting what he calls the greatest New Year's Eve party in the world. And he just may be right. Well done, sir. Next year, you get to enjoy the holiday with friends and family, and more importantly, without having to feign excitement for whatever new pop act Disney's dragging out for a midnight performance.

I've got pictures, which I'll post whenever Chris gets out of bed and plugs in the camera for me. If that sounds a little retarded on my part, you're right, but only because we're trying to run a 2008 PC setup (external hard drives, mice, printers, etc.) off of a 2001 Dell laptop. There aren't enough USB ports to go around, and Chris got a splitter dongle, but it's not plugged in. So he's got to do it for me because the last time I tried something like that, I unplugged the internet.

I'm off to watch my beloved Rose Parade, which I set to record on the DVR last night. The parade coverage it picked up is that of ESPN. Damn. You think Stephanie Edwards has uninspired patter? At least she has been covering the parade for so long that she doesn't spend the first 10 minutes being "amazed" at how everything is covered in mums and pampas grass. Yeah, that's the point. It's like these ESPN people have never before watched this particular parade, and are assuming that their audience hasn't either. They may be right. I won't be surprised if the station starts a crawl at the bottom of the screen that says, "DON'T WORRY, Y'ALL. NASCAR RACING IS STILL HAPPENING. TURN TO CHANNEL 45."

Funundrum: changing lives since 2005

I think maybe one reason I had to scale back my postings on this blog is that I was just having far too big an impact on the world -- I was altering history on a dangerous level. Like, you know in "Back to the Future," how Marty's brother and sister were disappearing from that picture because of Marty's actions? That level.

I offer you one example.

Remember the elusive giant bow from last Christmas?

I got a comment on that post about six months ago from a fellow by the name of Todd, who said, "I am the owner of CR Bows We specialize in just that. GIANT BOWS. We also have the worlds largest available to the public. I hope this helps. Have a wonderful day."

I checked it out -- he sure does have a website. Here it is. Good luck, fella.

If that's not enough of reaching out and touching someone via Teh Intartubes, I received a pair of messages that read like a classic holiday tale of gift-giving-related strife, last-minute epiphanies, and resulting success. All it needed was for him to throw open the window sash to the pealing of bells in the crisp Victorian morning air and shout, "Huzzah! For it is still Christmas day!"

The first comment found our protagonist with a serious issue: "I just bought an SUV for my wife for Christmas. I called the local Lexus dealer to see if they had bows for sale, but no luck! I don't have time to order one on line, so I am thinking of buying 10 rolls of wrapping paper from Wal-Mart and going wild with the scotch tape. Any recommendations on the best way to wrap a Suburban?"

Did you find the problem yet? That's right, he bought his wife an American-made, gas guzzling behemoth with no regard to his carbon footprint on the earth or his asshole footprint on the road. I was honestly too busy to reply to him, what with 1) preparing to go home to California for a week and 2) he posted anonymously and I would have had to do the public post, like I am now. It lacked drama.

Fortunately, my blog has such a grasp on the fabric of reality that he was able to draw his own inspiration without my direct involvement. A few days later, I got this update:

"Hey- It's me, the guy trying to giftwrap the Chevy Suburban again. As a clueless yet gregarious male I have found that I am able to go into stores that are generally thought of as female (such as fabric stores) and have one of the ladies working there take me in as if I were a lost puppy and help me out! So I stopped into Jo-Ann Fabrics last night and found a middle aged lady working there, told her what I was doing, and next thing you know not only has she picked out all of the things necessary to make the bow, but she has also taken me aside and made the entire thing for me! So now I have a giant custom made bow that matches the car inside and out with enough extra ribbon to wrap around the vehicle all for $10. I think making the bow and the conversation we had during the time made her day (and it definitely made mine too)."

See? This pretty much would have been my advice anyway! Reading Funundrum is good for you, boys and girls. Lesson #2 is: stop buying big cars. They are dumb. Good night.

I made this!

Look, it's like the first real piece of clothing I've ever knitted. Aside from this, all I've ever made is a huge green and purple elephant that my niece apparently loves to divebomb into now that she's learning to walk.


But this! This is a hat! It's round! I can wear it outside! It functions in both the "on" and "off" positions! I've already started on the second one, because it's fun. After this, I think I'm going to have to move on to socks. Put in your orders now, just don't expect anything before Christmas. Socks look freaking hard.

We have better grocery store employees

See, where you live, the folks working in your grocery stores are sad husks of their former selves. They shuffle around, half-heartedly stocking the same crap on the shelves day after day.

Here in Colorado, however, our grocery store employees skip gaily down the aisles, whistling happy tunes and smiling as they watch little cartoon bluebirds straighten bags and boxes on the shelves. The air is cleaner here than where you live, the women are strong, the men are good looking, and the children are above average. Wait. That's Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegone. But still. What I'm trying to say here is that folks in Colorado are 13% more human than the jaded individuals living near the coast. Here's proof:

If that doesn't make you smile, then I don't know what will. And yes, they were stacked upside down all the way to the back of the shelf.

Why I love local commercials.

Normally I hate the crappy local car dealership commercials because they're loud, irritating, extra grating because the car dealer's wife has learned her lines pho-net-i-cal-ly. Today I saw one of those little things that makes watching live tv more palatable (oh, how spoiled Tivo has made us).

The aforementioned car dealer's wife had just begun her shrill spiel, when she mentioned that any car purchase would result in the buyer earning "one, two, three, four, five crispy hundred-dollar bills!!"

Crispy. I'm wondering if they used that word to really emphasize the new, clean condition of their hundred-dollar bills, or if she just butchered the copy every time and that was the best take they could get.

Boring month

It's been a full month since I blogged anything, but I assure you that I've left very little out. More follows, though.

It's cake graduation time!

I've now completed my first four-week class in Wilton cake decorating, and I'm happy to say it's not as hard as it looks. I've learned the basics, and practice will help me improve my techniques in time. I am now fully qualified to create a rose from a paste made of Crisco and powdered sugar. It's an accomplishment, of sorts. I even got a certificate that's hanging proudly on my refrigerator.

It's hard to tell the colors, because I didn't have very good lighting and I couldn't use the flash without washing out the cake, but the roses and dots all over the cake are ivory. I wigged out the other soccer moms in my class by mixing green, yellow, and purple to color my leaves. They don't see what's wrong with using the bottle marked "leaf green," but I dare you to show me a leaf the color of that bottle. "Purple???" they asked? Yes. Here is a color wheel. Let me explain it to you ladies, using small words. Just kidding. I said, "Yes, it looks better," and moved on with my cake decorating.

Oooh, artsy shot that makes you feel like you're an inch tall and standing on the cake! So cool!

So what with holidays and all that, I can't take the next course until January. I'm really looking forward to it, mostly because I'll need another breather from planning this obnoxious wedding by then.

JoeFlakes!

Our company has adopted a clutch of Marines in Iraq. (I'm not sure if "clutch" is the group noun for Marines -- perhaps a "grunt" of Marines, a "stink" of Marines, or a "collective group of questionable life decisions but hey, in these guys' cases, it's probably for the best" might be more appropriate) In the past months, we've sent them clothes and other gifts.



The latest drive was set up as a Christmas ornament competition, in which employees were asked to buy, make, or personalize ornaments to decorate the Marines' little Christmas tree. Funundrum thought about it for a few days, then had an epiphany that turned out to be... JoeFlakes™. I'm not really sure where the idea came from, but I glued toy army men together to make snowflakes, then spray painted them white. Behold, JoeFlakes™.

And I totally won first prize, which was an iPod Nano. It's one of the sad, old tiny ones, so we're going to use it as our travel iPod. This way, if it gets lost or stolen, the thief will have to listen to the same 240 songs over and over, and REVENGE WILL BE OURS!!!

I wish I had been able to take pictures of these against a higher-contrast background, but I was at work, so my only choice was Mindless Laborer Beige.

Second Wilton cake

This cake was completed a couple weeks ago, partly in response to the sad fact that I never got a slice of the Pac-Man cake. I figured if I made this cake huge and covered in chocolate, I would try harder to get in on the action.

The decorating didn't take that long, but everyone was pleased with the color contrast of the blue flowers and chocolate icing. I'd like to do another one like this, but with WAY more flowers on it.

PS -- the Asian-owned computer store guys aren't to thank for the technological miracle of me being able to blog from home. Our stupid-ass PC just decided to start working again. I guess we forgot to keep up to date with the required infant offerings to Microsoft. CAN WE GET A MAC YET???

Technical difficulties update

Chris is currently working very hard with a crack team of Asian-owned electronics stores, located throughout the greater Denver metropolitan area, to find a part for our computer that will make it go. Unfortunately, that part is not a shiny new iMac. Not yet.

For now, I will try to blog a couple of things from here at work, just so everyone doesn't totally abandon ship (I think it might be too late for some of you.) Thanks for hanging in there.

Not for lack of trying...

I have a list of stuff to put up on here, but our PC died at home. I will not forget.