Little known fact...only Republican's have Common Sense

Ok Cristin...before never speaking to me again...read on. I'm not really saying I believe that (although I've often felt that way many times :) ), but read on...

So today (January 24, 2008), the details of the 'Tax Relief' plan that was passed by Congress were announced. Read it here if you care.

http://www.startribune.com/business/14178126.html

Now, that's great and all. Now let's go back to logic class and see if I can remember how things work. So here's a few 'familiar looking' logic test questions (true or false of course)

1. Everyone who pays income, works. Therefor, everyone who works, pays income tax. Easy...FALSE. As stated in the article and most people know, if you don't make enough, you don't pay taxes.

2. Rebates are an amount of money given back to you for something that you paid for. Therefor, you must pay for something in order to get a rebate. Easy again...TRUE.

But wait! According to our lawmakers, we can give someone a $300 INCOME TAX rebate, even if they didn't pay any income tax! Ok...so that's fine. But the article states:

"Conservative Republicans, meanwhile, were likely to be restless over tax rebates going to those without income tax liability."

Ok...so logically it would make sense that you would have some sort of liability in order to get something back. But apparently only conservative Republican's are capable of grasping that concept? I would hope that MOST AMERICAN's, regardless of political affiliation, would be smart enough and logical enough to feel restless about that.

There Jim, how's that for keeping it short, stupid? And I appologize to any democrats, republicans, independants, greens, communists, nazis, etc. that may have been offended by this. I understand that COMMON SENSE (not republicans) can sometimes make it seem like people should be accountable and responsible for themselves. It's unfortunate.

Just a quick note...

That I finally added some new pictures to our website (it's basically been since September), so feel free to check it out during your next 'down time'. I tried to cut out as many as I could with Justin in them, but he seemed to show up in almost every one.

Husky Pride and stuff....

So a little Husky Hockey action last weekend...taking 3 of 4 points from the rodents. Can I get a witness up in he-a? Oh, and...to some...maybe even more exciting is the fact that the SCSU Wrestling Team pounded the snot out of Eau Claire 42-0. Ok...so I'm guessing to anyone reading this, the later fact is probably not really a point of interest. I've never been to a wrastling match, and to be honest, I don't know much about the sport other than it involves eating disorders, sweaty men in tights rolling around for a while (justin, put your pants back on). However, in support of Nick (Team Captain), and of Husky sports in General, I give them a well deserved 'Way to go!' or an even more deserved 'Super Job!'. Ava had a blast cheering them all on (which I'm sure contributed greatly to the win). And Nick continue's his winning ways by kicking some serious ass on the mat and racking up that highly sought after 'riding time'. Seriously though...nice work. And sweet tights! (I'm sure that's what they are called, right??)

Time for Swimming!!!

Ava had her first swimming lesson last night! She did great and had a lot of fun. She was a little mad when we made her get out of the pool though.

Just a relaxing swim to start out...


Look! A Camera! I better show off a little bit!

I use this cool thing to kick my way across the pool to pick up little floating toys.

Check me out! I'm doing the 'Monkey Crawl" along the side!

I just came up from a dunk while playing ring-around-the-rosie! Man, these lessons are FUN!

Ava's Turning 2!!

Ava's 2nd Birthday is Thursday! I can't believe she'll be 2 already! We had her pictures taken on Saturday (along with a couple of 'family shots') that you can check out on shallman.com when you have a chance. That's all for now!

Quick Update - WITH BONUS RECIPE!!!

It's been a while. I'm sure I have no readers left. Anyway, just a quick update on 'things'. Ava is turning 2 next week! So that's pretty exciting. She's pretty dang entertaining these days, and getting to the point where you have to watch what you say around her. I'll try to post some pictures from her Birthday next weekend. So look for those.

Calling all .NET developers (that you know). Seritus is in need of 2 more developers, so if you know anyone ASP.NET experience, send them our way (assuming you would recommend them of course)

As you know, I work out of my house now, and with that, comes less eating out and more making myself lunch. This generally consists of a sandwich of some sort (most often PB&J), along with some chips or cookies or cheese or something. And of course a glass of milk. But you can't eat the same thing every day. So I thought I'd share a recipe of an easy to make, quick lunch that I have had twice this week, and it's one of my personal favorites!

Steve's Famous 'Steve-uritto'
2 flour tortilla's (bigger one's not the tiny things) 1 cup shredded cheese Sour Cream Salsa Directions: Spread 1/2 cup of shredded cheese over each tortilla and roll up. Microwave on 1/2 power for 1 minute. Then full power for 20 seconds. Top with sour cream and salsa. Eat as fast as you can. Also great for parties.

Onto other business...So I've been asked what I want for birthday/Christmas...anyone have any idea's on something I need/want? I'm sure there is something cool I want that I haven't thought of.

That's all I gots time for. I'll try to do a full post next week..but as always, I make zero promises when it comes to that. I hope everyone had a great Turkey day! Here's a picture of Ava and her Cousin's from Thanksgiving...enjoy!!

Happy Halloween!

Ava was a (not so) scary witch for Halloween! Check back to our website soon to see pictures from her Party on Saturday, as well as the party at Daycare on Halloween and Trick or treating! She had a blast even though she hasn't been feeling too well this week. Hope everyone had a safe Halloween! (Colin, I hope you practice 'safe' sex...cause that lady you picked up looks like she'd be carrying something.)

Gabby is all about style...

Most cat's just stick with the same old haircut. But not our's. She's got flare. She's got style. She's a trendsetter. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.




Alright guys, I'm not gonna lie to you. This is gonna get kinda weird... Two Lions.
RRRRROOOOOAAAAARRRR!!!!

A Final Blast of Summer

The K-Fel's are such great neighbors! We mooched their pool off of them Saturday afternoon for some afternoon refreshment from the upper 80's super humid ickyness! It was great!
Ava and her friend Jordan had a great time swimming and playing together, and wandering around in their towel shirts.
After a long day of swimming, they decided there was still enough sun left to get that perfect finishing touch on their tans.

I hope you all had a great weekend! If I have any readers left! I know, it's been a while. For those of you who may not know, I quit my job and am now unemployed...basically a bum. Good thing Tenielle has a good job. :)

Ok...I DID leave IDS after 8 years, but we are busy and full time on Seritus now. Things were going well enough for us to risk taking the jump...so it's pretty exciting..but I'm busier than ever so that is my only excuse for not updating my blog anymore! I will do my best to keep this up.

Go BoSox!

Oktoberfest fact for Justin

Ok...so Justin responded that he can't make it to Jim's party:

"I would love to drink and sleep over with you, but Cristin and I are heading down to La Crosse for Octoberfest (yes, I realize it is in September, but that is how La Crosse roles). Holler"

Ok...there is a very good reason that LaCrosse (and most any other place) celebrates Oktoberfest mostly in September. That's when Oktoberfest is. It starts in mid september and goes for 16 days. Why would they celebrate it AFTER Oktoberfest is over? That wouldn't make sense. If they celebrated it at a different time, then it wouldn't be Oktoberfest. For how big of a bash LaCrosse puts on for this...wouldn't it just make sense that they would do enough research to make sure they do it at the right time? And for how often you've gone to it, wouldn't you just assume that you already knew what Oktoberfest was all about? Rather than go into a long schpeel about the history of the festival, i'll just end with this...

This year...we as a family have decided to celebrate Christmas in December. Yes, we realize it's not January...but that's how we roll.

P.S. I will post some labor day pictures sometime this week..and probably have a REAL blog entry. Even though it's September.

Seritus (Sār'ĭt-us) - Now we in bid-ness (ebonics for Business)

For those that haven't heard, my 8 year run as an employee of IDS is ending! Wade, Brad and I have decided to fully commit to growing...what used to be...our side business, Seritus Solutions. So before I got any further, let's clear up how to say it, as well as what it means (to us anyway).

First, let's all SAY it! (sounds like Ferret-us, NOT Sare-eye-tus, which is a rare skin malformation (which periodically oozes brown mucus) that Justin has on his genitals). So out loud! 3 times! Memorize it! ....SERITUS!.....SERITUS!.....SERITUS!!!!

Second, let's clear the air on how we came up with it and what it means. We focused on latin words whose meanings were descriptive of our services. There were plenty of options, but most were used excessively in other businesses out there, and getting a useful domain was almost impossible. So let's start using creative spellings! Some didn't look right, others were too long...etc. We found the word Celeritus. Which in latin means speed, swiftness, rapidity, quickness...We figured no matter what path we chose (services vs. product oriented), our goal was the same: Provide our customers with applications that streamlined and automated their processes...greatly improving their efficiency and throughput. So basically speed up their daily business processes. Celeritus was a little too long, and we wanted something unique, so we made our own word...derived from it...and made Seritus. Don't worry...soon enough it will be a household name and eventually a legit entry in Websters. You just wait.

So what DO we do? For right now, we are focusing on the services side of things. Consulting and providing custom software solutions. Eventually we hope that side will grow big enough to help fund a product focused side of our business. For those that might not know, we've had Seritus up and running since mid-2006, as a moonlighting opportunity for us, all along hoping we'd be successful enough to allow us to focus on that full time. Well, that day is here! We've got a ton of momentum right now, so we'd be foolish to not jump at a good opportunity! Rather than bore those of you who don't want the details, feel free to give me a call if you want more of the nitty gritty details.

Anyway, come Sept. 7th, I will officially no longer have a guaranteed salary! Yay! How great is that?? Ok, kinda scary. Stay tuned for happy hour info! BTW, our website is still basically just a placeholder, but we should have some updated content in the next few weeks. It's at http://www.SeritusSolutions.com

Oh, and check out Ben Stay's blog! The link is on the side! So far Karen has been updating pictures almost daily! Impressive!

I'll update our website with pictures after labor day weekend, and get an Ava post soon too! (maybe later today!)

A quick note from bean town...

So I'm in Boston this week. I was out here last Sept. and loved the town, so when Soy got the option to come out here for a conference, I couldn't turn down the opportunity to go again. And if you read my last entry, you know my position on my job. However, it's got some GREAT plus sides. For instance, I am working from here for a few days this week, so saves me a few days of vacation.

So far the weather has been great! We are hitting up the BoSox game tomorrow...day game...and it's supposed to be in the upper 80's and muggy. At least it's not rain, and the beers should go down really well. We are going to tour the Sam Adam's Brewery on friday with a few other people, and do a couple other touristy things between now and Saturday when we head home. So far we've had a couple of late nights bar hopping in Back Bay.

Ava is staying with the Kortan's til tomorrow when my parents pick her up. Unfortunately Darrell and Joyce had to take her to urgent care last night to find out she has pink eye and a double ear infection. So that's no fun.

Anyway, have a great week and what not. I'm going back to bed.

More of the same...

So today I sit at work, with zero motivation....again. So why not blog about it! I think I've hit the point at which you realize it's time for a change. I'm not sure there is much anyone can do to get me re-engaged here. So do I move on to somewhere else? Or just commit 100% of my time to getting Seritus rolling hard core? Give me a week or two, and I guess we'll find out.

Last weekend was great. We had a neighborhood bonfire friday night (after a dip in the K-Fel's fancy new pool!). We found out that Ava's new favorite snack (maybe more than Cheeto's?) is now microwave popcorn! She literally inhaled half a bag. Saturday we shipped Ava off to stay with Darrell for the night and Tenielle and I hit the town for our Anniversary. We had a great time. Dinner was excellent (if you haven't eaten at Rossi's yet, get off your butt and give them some business..my favorite place downtown). After dinner and sitting at Rossi's for a bit enjoying the band, we headed over to Peavey Plaza for a free concert...band was pretty good...'The New Primitives'. We stayed at the Graves 601 hotel above block e. Nice place! Pretty trendy, but the atmosphere is romantic...very dim lit. The rooms were really nice, but they furnishings seemed a little too modular and cheapy. We had a super fancy breakfast at the IHOP in Brooklyn Center and then picked up Ava and spent a couple hours at the Mall of America.

Monday I took the day off...and for the first time ever, golfed more than 18 holes in a single day. Yeah, for some people that isn't that rare of an occurance, but it was a first for me. We golfed 9 at Stonebrooke in the morning, then headed over to Prestwick for the Lyon's Pub annual scramble. Although my performance at the Scramble was sub-par by far, it was still a great time and we had good weather. Brad was a little off his game, but still played well enough. Matt had some killer drives, and Darren was an all-around superstar. Plenty of holes where we used every one of his shots. I need to play more and get my swing memorized a little better. I still pretty much suck.

Other than that, we are hitting the Aquatennial Torchlight Parade tonight. Ava's first big parade! We'll see how she does, considering it starts at 8:30, which is basically her bedtime. Boston is less than 2 weeks away, so I'm looking forward to that. Sounds like we got hooked up with some tickets for the BoSox game on that Thursday. Although I've been to Fenway before, this will be the first game for me there. Should be pretty cool. THey play Baltimore.

That's all for now. Have a good week, and stuff.

The 4th...and stuff.

So after a week off of work and a few days back, I can honestly say...Workin sucks. We had the best stretch of weather during the week up north that I can ever remember having. Plenty of hot, sunny days...perfect for early morning golf and a long day on the water...and a couple of nice cooler and overcast days, perfect for heading into town for a while. No washouts! Can't beat it.

So we spent the first 2/3 of the 9 days of our break at my parents place in Crosslake. They have done a ton of landscaping over the last few weeks and it looks GREAT! I got a little bit of fishing in on Ox. Went out fishing for panfish a couple of times, and we caught enough keepers to feed the 6 of us, in not much time at all. I only got out bass fishing with Mike once, but I caught quite a few, and managed to pull in a nice 18 1/2". I credit Mike though, since he found the hot spot and came and got me. Ava and Ben got to go swimming a few times. The water in Ox is perfect right now. Doesn't get much better. One of the rainy days we headed to Longville to see what that town was all about. Here's a tip...don't bother going ot Longville. Nothing there worth noting. The next day we headed to Walker to check out Karen and Mike's lake lot. What a great spot! Hit some shops in Walker and ate lunch too. Walker is a town to check out. Managed to get to the Ox Tavern twice. Once for late night beers...had a great time. Played some ring game, til Cristin broke it. Then shot some pool, which I dominated. Then played some erotic 'find the difference' video game thing. And played some big buck hunter. And the waitress gave us our tab for $160 bucks. She actually missed a couple of pitchers...and apparently the 'important' day in school where they learned how to use a calculator. Since it should have only been about 60 bucks. Close enough I guess! We boated over for lunch as well. I believe on the 4th? If I remember correctly. Good burgers. Good Beer.

We saw fireworks on the Saturday before the 4th. We went to the park in town. View wasn't very good. But Ava liked them. Cristin and Justin came to see them as well. They were probably the best they've ever seen. As you can guess from above, they accompanied us to the Ox Tavern for libations that evening.

Headed over to North Long on thursday. Guess what. We caught 0 walleye. The loons must have really been eating a lot lately. We finally decided to fish for bluegill and the big one's were biting good. Got enough for another meal. They also had their annual pig roast, which was tasty as usual! We played on their beach with Ava quite a bit. You can go out hundreds of feet into the water and still be in knee deep bath water warm, sugar sand bottomed, water. It was a perfect place for Ava (and Ben!) to play. Good times. Had an interesting interaction with a local at the boat launch when trying to load my fishing boat on the trailer, but i'll save that for a bar story or something, as this entry has gone long enough!

Lyon's Pub Scramble on Monday! Should be a good time!

Oh, and Happy Anniversary honey! You're the best! (It's our 7 year anniversary on Sunday, so buy us something cool! Tenielle prefers games for the Wii or Gander Mountain gift cards. It's better you buy her something SHE likes rather than something for both of us. I'd just prefer it that way.)

iPhone - you can have it.

Ok, so another post that Justin will find extremely boring. Tough hop.

So 2 days from the widely anticipated launch of the Apple iPhone. Here's my take on it: Big Whoop!

Sure, it's pretty cool. But what about it is so new? Basically one thing. Multi-touch screen. Ever heard of a Treo? It can do pretty much anything the iPhone is touting it can do. It's not new stuff! Treo has been doing most of it for years. Let's run it down.

First off, let's start by pointing out the things iPhone and Treo (I'm comparing against the 700w (which of course runs Windows Mobile 5.0) have in common, and which one wins.
1. They are phones
-a phone is a phone is a phone in my book
2. They can store and play mp3s
-iPhone...has a built in 4/8 gig hard drive to store them. Requires iTunes(boo!)
-Treo...Runs windows media player. Stores music on a SD Memory card (up to 4 gig). No iTunes! (Yay!)
3. Built in camera
-a camera is a camera is a camera
-iPhone has more megapixels. Either way, probably won't replace your normal digital camera
4. Surf the web!
-Treo has internet explorer. Kudos.
5. Email
-iPhone - POP, IMAP
-Treo - POP, IMAP, Exchange.
6. Applications
-Treo has Microsoft Office. View/edit word, excel, powerpoint, etc. OUTLOOK! What you are used to, and syncs up fully. Write your own/buy 3rd party! Thousands of apps out there for it. Sweet!
-iPhone - all propriety Apple stuff. O/S isn't open to outside developers, so you will get what Apple says you get. Don't think about writing your own apps or buying 3rd party apps!
7. Battery (This one is kind of a big deal, believe it or not)
-Treo, rechargable, replaceable, swapable. Have extras for backup, or replace if the battery is faulty.
-iPhoen, rechargable...NOT replaceable. No extra's! When your iPhone's battery goes kaput, guess what. You have a fancy piece of nothing. Send it in for repair. Don't think you can just swap it out with a new battery. Lame.
8. Touchscreen
-Treo, has one. Single touch input.
-iPhone, has one. Multi touch input. Cool!
9. Keyboard
-Treo, has a physical keyboard. As well as a software keyboard.
-iPhone, software keyboard only.
10. Service providers
-Treo: Verizon, Sprint, Cingular/AT&T
-iPhone: Cingular/AT&T only for now
11. Tether to laptop as a modem
-Treo: Yup! PDANet. Works awesome!
-iPhone: nothing i've seen indicates this is do-able.
12. Ability to be run over by a car
-Treo: Heck yeah! Still working good as new (just banged up a lot)
-iPhone: If you buy one, try it and let me know the outcome.

Benefits of the iPHone over the Treo:

- More built in memory
- Faster processor, etc.
- Cool auto-sense landscape mode
- Fancy UI and interfaces...
- Looks less dorky than a Treo (cool factor)


Overall, I think it's a pretty cool product. Is it as cutting edge as people are trying to make it out to be? Not really. Just a new player in an already existing market. The fact that the O/S isn't open up for 3rd party development is a HUGE fallback. Most of the apps I use daily on my Treo are 3rd party applications. And let's not forget that the Treo is almost half the cost of the iPhone! Sure, the iPhone will come down soon enough. If/when they expand to allow use of it on additional networks, and if/when they open up the iPhone for 3rd party development, and if/when they get rid of it's dependency on iTunes, I'd consider buying one. Only if it ran Windows Mobile :) Sorry, I'm a Window's user. I jsut won't buy something that natively isn't the same as what I use for everything else. Seamless integration is key!

Anyway, that's my quick overview. Please correct me if i've misstated anything. If you buy an iPhone, lemme know as i'd love to check it out.

Weekend Recap and The Ugliest Cars on the Road

So after a nice long 4 1/2 day weekend up north, I must say, it sucks to be back at work. We had a great time though. Ate a ton of great food...had a couple of bonfires...hit the much transformed but still great Ox Tavern...fished a little...golfed 9 holes...drank beer/cocktails....went for a bike ride...Pawned Ava off on family members...etc. Nothing beats a weekend up north. And luckily my neighbors only had the guts to talk about but not implement their plan on mowing a falic symbol into my 'well past needing to be mowed' lawn.

In having 6 hours of total drive time, I saw plenty of cars. So in spirit of having a topic, today's is easy and I'm sure will be extra controversial (or not). But here is my pick for the top 3 ugliest new cars:

1. Dodge Caliber - Their slogan of "Anything but cute" is right on. It's not cute. It's not hot. It's not cool. It's not mean looking. It's just plain ugly. It's like they took the AMC Eagle, made it boxy, and put a Dodge logo on it. I'm not sure if the people who have bought these (mostly guys i've seen driving them) think they look 'aggressive' or 'tough' or what. But guess what. They don't! I could totally see Justin driving one.

2. Chevy HHR - Basically a clone of the Chrysler PT Cruiser. The PT Cruiser, when it first came out, I admit I thought was kind of snazzy. Had that cool zooty look that fit in with the (at that point) overused Swing Dance craze that went through. Would look real tight to drive it around in a zoot suit. But...The HHR and the PT Cruiser both just look rediculous now. Not sure who they are trying to sell to with this one, and they are trying to sell it as a power packed man car. But really, it's just a minivan. Deal with it. Ugly. Jim would drive one of these.

3. Dodge Magnum - You can usually count on Dodge for ugly cars. So for 2 of my 3, Dodge gets the nod. What IS the magnum? First of all, explain the concept of a station wagon? Why not just get a minivan? Both concepts I wouldn't be caught driving, but I'd pick a minivan over a wagon. More cargo room. So they take the station wagon, make it look sleeker and low profile-ish. Make the grill look like the new charger. Result = still a station wagon. Buyers = clueless men or mom's that think they are cool. I could see Jim driving one though.

Ok, I'm going back to staring at my screen. And constantly hitting refresh until comments show up.

Cool, Free Stuff!

Ok, so this entry is going to be totally boring to some of you, and in a different direction than most of my mindless rambling. But here goes. Over the past few months, I've run accross a number of cool, free things online. Although I've used them for business reasons, there are plenty of ways you could utilize them for personal uses. I've used most of them...and who knows...maybe you'll find one of them useful.

Google Checkout - We (Seritus) just started utilizing Googles 'currently free' checkout service. Essentially, we use it to bill our clients, and it allows instant payment from them via credit card or whatever means they want to pay, and it directly deposits their money into our checking account. No Fees! Eat that PayPal! (Credit Card fee's are currently waived by Google (until sometime in 2008), but even once that couple percent kicks in next year, that's not a bad deal considering the convenience. But until then, set up an account! If someone owes you money, just send them a Google invoice and they can pay you instantly with their credit card. Jim, this one is particularly useful for you for collecting FF fee's or even your fee's for the brackets. No more me holding onto peoples cash for 3 months, then having you hound me for it. They can pay you instantly and leave me out of it. Many other uses too! (insert the one you are thinking about here!).

Vyew - We ran across this site when our free WebEx trial expired for Seritus. WebEx is great and all, but we don't use it enough to justify paying for the service at this point. Vyew is an online collaboration tool which has both free and for fee services. However, at least for now, desktop sharing, document sharing, etc. is all free. There is also free phone conferences! It's a long distance call, so if you are still on the old fashioned paying by the minute for long distance junk out there...you will incur some long distance charges. But that alone should be incentive enough to get with the times and get Vonage or just use your cell phone! Anyway, there are plenty of times sharing your desktop is helpful, so keep this in mind and set up your free account! If nothing else, check out the free conference calling. Might come in useful for your next Fantasy Football draft.

DriveHQ - I haven't actually used this one yet since I have 2 ftp sites anyway, but I just know it's going to be cool. Ever had a big file(s) you wanted to get to someone, too big to email...you don't have your own ftp site....neither do they (losers), etc. Well, DriveHQ gives you your very own ftp site for free! Up to 1 GIG of space I believe. Again, there is a limit of what you can do with the account for 'free', You have to set up people in your group that have access to your site, and for free I think you only get one person. So either change it for each scenario, or just give people the userid/password for the shared account you set up. I'm not here to tell you how to manage your stuff...i'm just here to point you in the right direction :)

Gmail - Ok, if you haven't heard of Gmail yet, what are you doing reading my blog? Gmail is the best (IMO) free email out there. Plenty of storage space (I have almost 3 gig of space now), and the interface is plenty easy to use. If you are using some old hotmail or yahoo account or some garbage like that, drop it and move on to Gmail. There is even an integrated messenger client. Sheesh.

Anyway, exciting stuff, huh? Next time you owe me money, expect to pay me via Google checkout. And if I owe you money, I'm only paying if I can use Google checkout. So you better set it up.

So have a great Memorial Day weekend! We're heading to the cabin(s) and hopefully the forecast improves and we can actually get out on the lake for a bit. Otherwise I guess I'll be doing a lot of drinking and playing Wii! Ava says 'Bbbbaaaaaaah' (she makes that noise when she gives kisses, duh). And if my last entry got over 20 comments, this one should get more with things like "man, I can't believe I never used (insert one of the 4 things above) before! It has totally changed my life! And best of all it's free!

2 in 1 day! OK!

So apparently my first entry wasn't 'opinionated' enough for JBetz, so here's something I've been wondering for a while, and I know Justin will have an opinion. What the heck happened to North Face? Back in the day (high school), North Face was worn/purchased by skiers who wanted or could afford high quality, fashionable ski wear. Kind of a fashion statement I suppose. Non-skiers really didn't even know what North Face was.

Nowadays, I get on the bus to head downtown...(now that summer is approaching, not so much anymore with warmer weather), and close to 50% of all women on the bus are wearing something with the North Face logo on their right rear shoulder. Generally a lightweight fleece jacket. First of all, who pays 120 bucks for a fleece jacket? 2nd'ly, most of these people clearly aren't athletic enough to even WATCH the olympics.

My question is, did North Face start marketing to the mall crowd? Or did the mall crowd just realize that North Face is considered a top shelf brand and rape it's image into the new Girbaud? I used to have respect for the brand. Now, why wear it? To say "hey, look at me! I follow the crowd!"

Justin, this in now way reflects my opinion of you and Cristin (who are so cute wearing their matching NF fleece coats together). It's the dozens of people I saw every day downtown wearing the same fleece coat as everyone else. You'd think they sold NF at the Gap or something.

Wow, this entry was my lamest yet.

A suprise appearance?

What? A blog entry? By me? Are you kidding me? Wow. It's been a while. Justin has been crying that he has nothing to do at work, so I figured i'd do my part in making his job productive. So I was in Seattle last week for the first ever Microsoft Business Intelligence Conference! So I figure I'll spend most of this entry talking about everything BI. Ok, so it's not interesting stuff at all to most people, and nobody who reads this would give a rip, and I'm not one to talk much shop outside of work, let alone AT work. However, let's go over the fun things I got to do while in Seattle.

Pike Place Farmers Market: Yes, this is the location that includes the 'world famous' Pike Place Fish Market. I'm sure most have seen the 'Fish' video's on having fun in the workplace...well, that's the place. Guess what! It looks the same in person! Same people, same fish tossing. But pretty cool to see none-the-less. I did pick up some Salmon Jerky, which I really like, but others haven't been as fond as I am about it.

The Experience Music Project: Wow, this place is UGLY on the outside. It's basically a Music and Science Fiction museum. And no, I don't see why a museum would include both music and science fiction. Who gives a rip about science fiction? Anyway, the attendee evening event was held here, so we toured some of the music museum. The coolest part about it is being able to play instruments and record music. Otherwise, the best part of the night was the ton's of free food, free booze (open bar, dude!) (insanely huge, strong drinks...crazy), and a live band.

Safeco Field: So friday morning we got up and hopped on ebay. Found 4 tickets for the Mariners/Yankee game that night...good seats in left field. What a great place. I can't wait for outdoor baseball here. It got a little chilly by the end of the night, which should be expected, since I was wearing only a t-shirt...at night....in May....in Seattle. Long story short, Mariners shut out the Yanks 3-0.

Kell's: A small little irish pub a few blocks from our hotel, and a block or two off of the water. We drank at Kells on Wednesday night, thursday night and then again on friday before and after the game. So needless to say, we liked the place. Impossible to find if you didn't know it was there. Entrance is from an alley, no signs anywhere else but once you get there. Live music every night (same guy all 3 nights we were there). Good drinks..not too spendy. The food was good too...the little that we ate there. If in Seattle, check it out.

Sparging the Mash @ Red Hook Brewery: We headed out friday after the conference and before Kells out to some suburban area outside of seattle about 30 minutes to visit the Red Hook Brewery. One of Nick's buddy's played hooky from work and joined us. Had a pitcher before the tour, then for $1, you can take the brewery tour, get your own tasting glass to keep, and drink a few beers along the way. I can't think of a better way to spend the daytime that day...The bottling line wasn't running that day, so that was the only bummer.

We got to hang out with Nick quite a bit.....And met Anna! (for about 10 minutes). Great girl. Nick must have money or something, cause not sure what else she's hanging around a guy like Nick for ;)

Jim spent most mornings...no...all mornings...Hungover. To be expected, he's not very good at drinking, so he get's hungover just thinking about beer.

Brad bought a sweet new Twins hat...if you like really tall cornered baseball hats. You got hosed!

Was hard to be away from my two ladies for that long, so I'm happy to be home. Happy Mothers Day to you Mom's out there! If you complain like justin, I might write more tomorrow. Oh, and be sure to wish Justin good luck in getting Cristin pregnant. (If she's not already)

Ode to Dwight, Stuff, and Twinkie's in HD!

So a new 1 hour episode of 'The Office' was on last night. Can a show get any better? Easily still the best comedy on TV. Dwight steals the show, which Michael trailing in a close 2nd. I'm sure you are all jealous (except for Justin), but above you will see pictured my very own Dwight Bobblehead. To keep this entry short, I would like to invite all of you (yes, the thousands of readers that I have) to respond with your favorite Dwight Schrute quote. Also, be sure to check out Brad's zazzle page. He's got some great paraphanlia for sale from the Office, including Schrute Farms shirts/mugs...Vance Refigeration, Dunder Miflin, etc.

On the homefront...Ava had her 15 month appointment. 75% height, 12% weight. String bean. She's got a ton of teeth now...talking like crazy, and is basically WALKING up the stairs on her own rather than crawling. She still has no fear and doesn't know any better to crawl down, so she's got some work to do yet :) I have fairly recent pictures (as of mid march) finally updated on our website, so be sure to check em out if you haven't already.

Twins had a hot start! Joe, Jim, Brad and I split a season ticket package this year. Getting our priority established for the new Stadium, if and when that ever happens. Next two series should be a good one...3 game WSox series...the chicago bullpen has sucked so far this year, so hopefully we can get another sweep. Then the Yankee's series...first series of the season televised in HD! For those that are up on the times and have an HD television, there are 43 twins games that will be televised in HD this year. I believe that's about twice as many as they had last year. I would hope that within a couple of years, all games will be in HD.

Well, that's a start for my return to blogging. I make no promised on when I may try this again, but I'm hoping to get back into a routine again. I hope I still have a reader or two. Don't forget to comment on your favorite Dwight quote...I'll start with two of my favorites:

"I am ready to face any challenges that might be foolish enough to face me."

"Whenever I’m about to do something, I think “would an idiot do that?” and if they would, I do not do that thing."