Over the Thanksgiving weekend I looked at 4 more houses.
One house didn’t have a basement, which was kind of bad, but the fact that it didn’t have any yard eliminated it.
I did find a few interesting things in one house.
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A tragic waste of a claw foot tub.
Although I didn’t like this house all that much, I think mirrored closet doors are going on my want list, right next to having a garage and having a yard.
I started Thanksgiving by helping serve the free Thanksgiving dinner with my Mom, Teresa and Logan. I was given the extremely important duty of collecting trays.
After my shift concluded I talked dogs with Karma’s former vet Jordan and his family. Even though I know when I get a dog again it will be a Golden Retriever, I was told by one of Jordan’s daughters to look into Bulgarian Mountain Dogs.
I really had no intention of doing this, but I was told (incorrectly) that I would be a hypocrite if I didn’t do such a thing.
So enjoy this little tidbit from Wikipedia about Bulgarian Mountain Dogs (AKA Caucasian Shepherd Dog):
Powerful and massive, the Caucasian Ovcharka can be a difficult breed for an inexperienced owner, because it respects and obeys only those that it deems superior to itself. They are good with children, but will not see them as their masters. The dog develops a strong bond with its owner but will rarely be submissive; this is truly a thinking dog which relies on its own instincts, sometimes even disregarding its master’s directions. A breed with a very quick reaction time and fast protection reflexes, it has even been unfairly described by some as somewhat of a “loose cannon”. With proper care, handling and training, this is a well-behaved and obedient family companion.
I have no doubt that such a dog would see me as being superior, but Golden Retrievers are where it is at.
I concluded my Thanksgiving by eating a wonderful dinner and dominating my family in Rack Rummy.
Here are some pictures from the day.
If you break it down, I had 6 Thanksgivings to attend this week. That is a lot of good and unhealthy eating.
Teresa’s latest project was too make individualized Christmas booklets for all the members of the family. Well, not for me, but for the other members of the family.
I spent a fair amount of Thanksgiving trying to explain that I don’t really care what I get for Christmas. I’m the easiest person in the world to shop for because I like everything and I get too much as it is.
But the actual truth is that what I would really like for Christmas is to find somebody that can challenge me at the game of Rack Rummy.
On Willy’s Birthday I got a couple of unique photos of some friends.
Willy joined Jesse, Frank, Vest and I for lunch. In honor of Willy’s birthday Jesse donned the shirt that Jay made to honor Willy. Then he posed with Willy.
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Jesse donning Lone Wolf Gear with Lone Wolf
I’ve been a bit busy in the last few days and I’ve been negligent. So I apologize. It was Willy’s birthday on the day before Thanksgiving.
We took Willy out on Sunday night for dinner and then to lunch on Wednesday for his birthday.
I think I won a Photo Contest once with that picture of Willy.
From the Clare Boothe Luce Files:
Monday was the annual Computer Mine Thanksgiving. The Mine brings in a healthy spread of food and the meal is supplemented in a potluck manner by various employees.
In my time at the mine, I’ve never once contributed to a potluck. This is connected to the fact that I don’t cook all that much and because I don’t really want to.
On the Friday before the Thanksgiving I was having a conversation with newest member of the mining team. He had signed up to bring a wide variety of food and through the process of the conversation I somehow agreed to lighten his load by bringing rolls.
On Monday I brought rolls, butter and homemade apple butter. The apple butter is made by a woman that works with my mom.
After the meal was concluded, the people that run the Thanksgiving loaded the leftovers (including the apple butter) into the company fridge.
The next morning the following email was sent out to the entire company.
To whomever had a jar of homemade applesauce/butter in the refrigerator, I regret to inform you it fell out and busted on the floor. Sorry.
I think this is the universe telling me not to contribute to any potlucks in the future.
As I look at the year that is rapidly approaching, it turns out that 2009 is going to be the Year of the Meeting.
For starters, I will be the Marketing VP for the Ames Jaycees in 2009. That means two board meetings a month in addition to 2 membership meetings a month.
I will also be on the Board of Trustees at the church. I don’t know exactly what the Board of Trustees does, but apparently it involves staring at water damage to the ceiling and then voting on it. I vote “yes” that is water damage. I’m not sure how many meetings that will entail, but I’m hoping that it isn’t too many.
It also seems like I might end up on the Board of the Methodist Men. I’m not sure if this is a done deal, but I think that they meet twice a month in between church services.
That should be enough meetings for me, I might have to abstain from all meetings in 2010.
As it is, my years working for the Evil Clown Empire conditioned me to hate meetings. We only really had 2 Store Manager Meetings and we rotated through them.
The first meeting I will call the Boat Captain Meeting. The old man that owned the company would give a stirring story about how managers were doing to much work. My favorite was when he compared managers to boat captains.
If you were a captain of a boat and you saw that you were going to slam into something ahead, would a good captain run down into the boiler room and start shoveling coal or would they grab the wheel and steer the ship out of danger?
The point of the meeting was that he wanted more staff added to every shift so that managers could manage rather than shoveling coal.
The next manager meeting would always be about how labor was too high and we needed to cut labor.
This of course would be followed by the Boat Captain Meeting. It was an endless cycle.
I have to admit that I’m kind of phoning this one in. I’m going to copy and paste and email I wrote about the Living History Farms Run on Saturday.
You just need to know that there was some confusion about whether or not we would be able to watch Willy and his friend Kristy participate in this race.
Turkey Trot
The LHF Run ended up being a piece of cake from a spectator perspective. Jay and I left Boone about 7:45. We got down to Des Moines at about 8:30. A line of traffic began to form on Hickman (correct me if I’m wrong) underneath the interstate bridge. This gave me some cause for concern, but it was wasted energy. We pulled into the LHF parking lot and they had people directing traffic. We got a choice parking spot right next to the road.
In the morning it wasn’t that cold. In fact, Des Moines didn’t get nearly as much snow as Ames or Boone. We hung around the starting point for awhile, but could not find Willy in the middle of the mass of humanity of 7500 runners and maybe another 500 or so spectators.
We walked maybe a quarter of a mile down the course and set up. The hope was that when the crowd started to move we could pick out Willy and Kristy. When the racers did reach our point it was fairly impressive to see 7500 people running next to you. It took in the neighborhood of 6-8 minutes for all of them to run by us.
We were unable to pick them out. It was like looking for a needle in a stack of needles, plus we didn’t know what they were wearing.
After the runners passed we cut up through the town to watch the runners go by again. By the time we got there, the group had spread out, but I still didn’t think that we would see Willy. As luck would have it Kristy and Willy saw us and waved to us. I’m not sure how they saw us, because we were standing behind another group of people and Willy just isn’t that observant of a person.
After they passed we followed a group of spectators to a part of the stream where the racers would have to cross it and then climb up a hill using ropes. We set up near there. I was at a spot in between the ropes and the creek. Down in the little valley it was actually pretty warm because there was no wind.
What I did not count on was that the ground I was standing next to was going to turn into mud after a few hundred runners came out of the stream.
While I was standing there. Annie Buchmiller came running by. She stopped briefly and said, “Hi.” Then she ascended the hill.
As runners ran by me I got covered in mud. At least my jeans and winter jacket did. Some groups of people started picking up mud and throwing it at each other. One girl threw some at the guy she was running with and he ducked and it hit me.
She looked horrified and she came over and apologized.
I said, “Don’t worry about it. It’s no big deal. It’s my fault for standing this close to the action.” I do believe that.
Eventually Willy and Kristy came through the stream, but they didn’t cut the way the course was supposed to cut. They didn’t go up the ropes. They went over the side, so I didn’t really get a very good picture of either of them. Actually I didn’t get a picture of Kristy at all.
After they passed we walked out of the stream valley and made our way towards the finish line.
Here is an example of focus.
The runners began to get backed up pretty far from the stream. We had to work our way up the pack to find a place to cross the course and head back to the town. While we were walking alongside the race course a bunch of girls that were kind of stopped because runners were backed up at the stream that we were walking by asked, “Aren’t we cute enough?”
At first I didn’t realize they were talking to me, because I was 100% focused on getting to the finish line before Willy.
So, I kind of responded off hand, “You’re cute enough.” And kept walking.
Jay said, “You get that a lot don’t you?”
It was then that it dawned on me that they thought I should take their picture because they were “so cute”.
“I guess it has happened twice this year.”
While we were walking back to the town it started to snow and the wind picked up. The temperature must have dropped about 10 degrees.
We watched them cross the finish line and I got a picture of Willy and Kristy.
At this point, Sara called and asked if we were still on for lunch. I told her that I was covered in mud, but we were still on for lunch.
Jay and I stopped by Christian Photo to pick up folders for December 1 and the Roland Christmas thing.
When we got to Sara’s she loaned me a pair of pants that didn’t really fit, but as long as I held them up while I walked it was okay. At least better than being covered in mud.
We ate at Los Laureles. It was excellent. They serve their meals with 3 different types of salsa. I’d say their only drawback was that they serve their soda out of cans, therefore there are no refills. Maybe the best refried beans I’ve ever had.
Then we hit the Juice Company. I had the Orange-Carrot-Banana. It was very good. I think in the future I might go with the smoothie so it is cold. I can’t remember what Sara had, but the name might have had Aloha in the title. Jay didn’t have anything and he seemed confused as to why anybody would pay 5 bucks for 24 ounces of juice. Sara liked it and is going to go back to try their wheat grass at some point. She also like the atmosphere because it was a lot less “snooty” than Fresh.
Kristy and Willy
Jay
Mud
Annie Buchmiller
One of my favorite runners.
Climbing the Rope
The Brides
Willy
Willy
Kristy and Willy
After the Finish Line
The squirrels in Sara’s neighborhood have been eating her pumpkin.
Sara with her drink from The Juice Company
Styling in my loaner paints.
All in all, it was not a half bad day.
This past Saturday was the birthday of Suzie.
Happy Birthday Suzie!
I’ve heard a lot of my friends conversing about “real” things lately. I am not going to weigh in on what is “real” camping or “real” cheesecake.
I also heard a rumor about a cribbage game that went down a little while ago.
This makes me want to weigh in on what a real cribbage board looks like.
It look a little something like this:
It almost makes me wish I knew how to play cribbage.