Background,:Nikolai fighting Darth Vader, under the direction of Mace Windu.

Foreground: Unknown youngling facing off with Darth Maul.

Dug up these gems today from our last visit to Disneyland. Nikolai got to become a Jedi, train with Master Mace Windu, and face off with Darth Vader.

        

  

"Nikolai! If you only knew the POWER of the Dark Side!"

We just had our company Holiday party this past Saturday. I was invited to help provide the Spanish translations. Turned out to be quite a challenge!

Relive the fun we had as well as my many translation errors here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/s9d1e4shcpufr6c/MOV05606.MPG?dl=0

Golf At Last!

Jon began speaking to me about getting out and golfing years ago, but having no clubs we had never really made an effort. Well, a short while ago, my next door neighbor required my help emptying a storage shed that she was responsible for. She explained that everything was being given to the Goodwill, and that I should take anything I thought I might be able to use. As luck would have it, a perfectly suitable set of golf clubs was inside the shed, patiently waiting to get back to fairway.

After throwing out some odds and ends discovered in the bulging pockets (two left golf shoes and a half dozen worn out golf gloves among them) the golf bag and clubs were ready for service. Jon and I invited Brent to come along for the experiment, but he was unable to make it. He sounded very interested though, and I hadn't given him much notice, so I expect we'll have him with us next round.

As noted by my father, the best beginner course in the area is the River Oaks Golf Course, so that's where we went. The day was much hotter than I'd prepared for, and I soon found myself wishing I had slapped on some sunblock. Despite this though, the course was entirely empty, so we took our time. Having had some golf lessons and having played alongside my father, I found myself trying to impart some rough sketches on swing technique to Jon. This sport is truly one of the strangest thanks to a required set of movements that is so alien to the normal person as to almost be absurd. Much to my surprise (and likely his) Jon was able to hit the ball consistently straight, so we're off to a good start.

We always teed off from the beginner tee. Each hole had three different areas to tee off from. Each one was colored either blue, red, or white. If you look below on the scorecard image, you'll see the bluebird, eagle, and pelican images; they correspond directly to the colors. We couldn't really figure out the reasoning behind the animal choices for beginner, intermediate, and expert. Bluebird being the beginner makes some sense, but how did the eagle come in second to the pelican? Jon thought it might have something to do with the quasi-fact that pelican nearly rhymes with mulligan. I felt this made even less sense but decided to drop the issue. Having had another day to think about the bird-ranking system, I'm starting to believe that the birds are rated on how many golf balls they could theoretically carry in their beaks.

I should also add that the water hazards were surprisingly successful in coaxing our golf balls to take a dip. We probably lost three golf balls just teeing off at hole 5. We also both took a trip to the desert having each landed in one bunker (at least I think Jon did early on - I know I did for sure). Luckily the pockets of the golf bag we had were bulging with golf balls when I got it, so neither of us worried much about losing a ball or three. The image up top shows an aerial shot of the course; you start south of the parking lot and work your way around clockwise from there.

Below I've inserted an image of our scorecard for the six holes. As Jon kept repeating, we have lots of room to improve.

Ripped Pants at Work

Though I am uncertain of the origin of this picture, it is an accurate model of the impromptu passion-play put on by my pants this afternoon…at the office.

Today I was working with several desktops; moving them between our storage area and my desk. As luck would have it, my pants held out until the very last one. The fortuitous part of this escapade is that the moon didn’t rise until I was in my office, so merely closing my door prevented witness of my indignity.

Thus a seam tear through my nether regions interrupted the otherwise pedestrian pants-wearing portion of my day. As I heard the stitches give way with their tell tale rip, I felt the panic rising within me. I immediately fought it down by imagining myself strutting around the office, button-down shirt tucked into my boxer-briefs, pants over one arm like a towel-holding butler, wearing a prince-charming smile with all the confidence it implies. I had the sudden jobicidal urge to do it, but I took a deep breath and pulled myself back from the brink. Invigorating as it might be, I wouldn’t fancy having to explain my actions to the ladies in Human Resources.

The next step was removing my pants to assess the damage. As you can see in that picture (again, not actually me), things didn’t look good. If I had let the rip run its course, my slacks would have transformed into chaps. With the critical eye of a seamstress and the skillful dexterity of a drunken longshoreman with shoe-horns instead of hands, I stapled the new “feature” of my pants shut.

Feature…I can just see the advertisement now… “Tired of using sanitary toilet seats in public restrooms? Does the heat have your crotchtal region sweltering with no relief in sight? Wishing you could catch a surreptitious tan to your junk? Disappointed at the lack of ants in your pants? Consider your leg-based garment woes a thing of the past! In fact, you never need remove these pants again! The last pair of pants you’ll ever buy!”

Having never previously “sewn” together a pair of pants with a stapler made for inch-high stacks of paper, I soon found that my strategy of following the previous seam line was a mistake. The ripped threads were not covered by my work, leaving the rear of the slacks looking decidedly…furry. A second line of staples was soon placed just after the first. Again, these were unusually long staples, but they were all I had. So I pulled out my pliers to try to bend the long barbs away from all possible wayward wanderings of my tender undercarriage.

With a grimace and visions of bicycle-seat-shaped cacti dancing in my head, I played guinea pig to my own creation. Luckily it was a success. I’d post photos, but Google would probably ban me and then contact the FBI. They, in turn, would contact local law enforcement who would likely raid my house and confiscate any and all pants-like objects.

But truly, this was the highlight of my day. In lieu of me running home to change my pants and losing an hour of work time, my boss allowed me to stay on the premises with one caveat: I was not allowed to leave my office. Working in IT, everyone expects that you can be interrupted at a moment’s notice and come running to fix their problem. I got to spend the remainder of the day on the phone, retelling the gruesome story of the wicked rear-ended disembowelment of my wholly innocent and undeserving trousers.

An Adventure in House Hunting

My wife and I have been looking at property on our own for a year or two now, but never with any help. So, last Saturday we made an appointment at a local real estate office. They had an inhouse lender who took some information from us and quickly calculated a reasonable price ceiling. He then got paperwork together to get us approved for a loan. While we were doing that, the agent was looking up property in the area that would match our range. We then drove around to see the properties. We found one in particular that we fell immediately in love with:

When I was a kid, my family used to rent a cabin in Mammoth, CA with almost the same floorplan as this place. The agent told us that the price had gone down 25% on this one over the last few months, because it wasn't selling. But the yard was impeccable and the interior was great. Needless to say, we were excited. When we compared this property to anything else we saw that day, nothing even came close.

So we put in a bid on it. We soon found out that there were nine other individuals vying for the same property, and that the counter offer we received was out of our league. But I was caught up in the moment and didn't know what to do. Keep in mind, we had never even looked at houses, gotten a loan approval, or placed a bid on a property before.

So I did what any confused person should do. I called someone with more experience. My father immediately saw the situation for what it was: a frenzy. The seller had had to drop the price significantly in order to get some attention for the property. Once they had our attention, they could easily play us off each other to drive the price back up. My mother reminded me the most important and easiest to forget fact of buying a house: it is a business transaction. You can't let your desire become your decision maker.

So we cut our losses and got out. It was a little painful, but we learned more in one day of playing the game than all our days of dreaming and planning.

Getting Wet

I haven't surfed in years. Last weekend I found a nearly new board at a garage sale for a price I couldn't refuse:

I was talking to a friend about it and he reminded me how easy it is to get wet before work.

All day yesterday it was growing on my mind, so this morning I got up at 4:30.

Once it got light enough, I suited up and paddled out past the break.

Just to give you an idea how long it's been since I've hit the water: the first wave that slapped me in the face made me realize that I was still sporting my eye glasses...

Colorful language insued. Here's a shot from the car as I'm pulling out of the parking lot:

Mother's Christmas Card Post

This post is for you Mom.
Here are some photos that might help you patch together a Christmas Card.
They are all from 2011.