Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Thanksgiving!

Hello there, dear readers. It's Cyber Monday Eve [as usual, when I mention the date in a post, it actually took me 4 days to get back to writing this, so it's not Sunday anymore], and I'm back in town after a nice Thanksgiving trip to see John and JaNae at Niagara Falls. So, here's what happened.

Actually, for some of the story to make sense, we have to start early. Last Saturday. Kate and I had a pretty fun day- just enjoying ourselves and a nice day off. Kate was having problems with her eye, though. It was hurting and kind of blood-shot all day. No bother, we thought. Just a weird contact thing or some such small problem. It got worse and worse through the night, and eventually we went to the ER early Sunday morning. Long story short, everything was fine. The contact scratched her eye up a bit, so she is on strict glasses-only orders for a week or so while it heals.

So, Wednesday comes around. Kate has to go to work, but she can't find her glasses. If she wears no glasses and no contacts, she can't see. But she can't put a lens in her right eye because it's all scratchy. And she can't just wear one contact, because that messes with your vision (or so I hear). So, my dear wife being very resourceful, she just puts a contact in her left eye and gets an eye patch to put over the right.


(artist's rendition)

So, after work, Kate and I headed off to Niagara.  It's an hour shorter to go through Canada, so we headed off to the land of Poutine and kilometers.  Crossing the bridge from Michigan to Canada was an ordeal.  There's a 4 dollar toll just to cross the bridge, which felt kind of excessive.  The lanes were really narrow and there were trucks getting really close.  It was stressing me out.

When we got to the border, the border patrol guy asked Kate if she was smuggling parrots into Canada.  Ha Ha! Pirates!  After a very long drive we got back to America.  The American border patrol was way less fun.

We got to the house in Niagara Falls late Wednesday night.  I took a few minutes to get Grandma Payne's rolls going, since they rise overnight.  Thursday morning, John and I got up and went to Walmart for some last minute things, then started making dinner.  We made some Dad Payne stuffing (butter, onions, bread, sage, and no other ingredients) and got everything cooking.

Grandma Payne's rolls, for those of you who don't know, are baked in a muffin tin.  You put three balls of dough in each cup and they rise together and form beautiful pull apart rolls.  Like this:



But Kate and I only own one muffin tin, and we forgot to ask John and JaNae to bring more, so we had to improvise.  We had a pie tin that we were going to use for pie later, so we figured, why not make a bunch of dough balls and put them in the pie tin?  I did this, and it sort of turned into a giant roll.



Pretty darn tasty, though.  Here's the whole spread, giant pie-roll and all



It was a heck of a Thanksgiving.  After dinner and before pie, we walked to the falls.  While the walk itself will be part of another post, I thought I should try to post one of my terrible pictures of the falls here.  These were all taken on my iPod since my camera died recently.  (Thankfully, I found a good one on Black Friday so I'm back in business.)



The next day, we went to an aviary on the Canadian side of the border.  It was really close and we were able to just park on the street on the American side and walk over.  The place was really neat and I think deserves its own post.  So, till then!

Saturday, November 26, 2011

Internet Fame pt II

Well, dear readers, I find myself internet famous again. Here I am on the "Blog" of unnecessary quotation marks.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Efficiency! I love it!

white trash repairs - It's Not About Going Green, It's About Pretending To Go Green
see more There I Fixed It

(Yes, I know this is a gag- there are two bags in there. Just let me have my laugh.)

Friday, November 18, 2011

Mistborn

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was excited for the new Mistborn book to come out, and I thought I should follow up on that.  I finished the book (it turns out that the free teaser chapters that were online before the release were almost 1/3 of the whole book, so what was left was a pretty fast read), and it was pretty good.  Solid.

At some point, I'd like to muse about the series as a whole, or maybe even Brandon Sanderson's universe that he writes in, but for how I have just a few thoughts for anybody who is considering reading this book.  It was a very fun read, but very different from the original trilogy.  It was much less epic.  I don't mean that in the way lame teenagers use "epic" as a substitute for "cool," but rather I mean that the scope of this book is much smaller.  It came from a free-write where Brandon Sanderson apparently said to himself "what would Sherlock and Watson be like if they were magic?"  It turns out that they would be pretty darn cool. 

So, what can you expect from this book?  Some of Brandon's hallmarks are missing (epic scope, intricate plot, lots of twists and surprises), and some of them are very present (a well thought out plot, fun and original magic system, interesting characters, some very cinematic fight scenes, and a very internally consistent world).

And one thing I noticed that is one of Brandon's biggest weaknesses (bad banter) is getting way better.  I don't mean this to be hyper-critical.  I could never do what he does.  But he loves to include witty banter that sounds like an author writing witty characters, not like real witty people.  If that makes sense.  Anyway, in this book, the witty banter is way way better.  It's only rarely clunky and awkward.  It's kind of fun to have been following Brandon's works from near the beginning and see him develop in little ways like this.

So, it's a really fun book that you should read.  And you don't need to read the first books to get it.  There are some moments where people who read the original trilogy will chuckle at inside jokes, but I don't think newcomers will be too lost.

Monday, November 14, 2011

Evolution




From Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Whoopsie

So, it turns out that I'm not terribly bright.  The other day, I got frustrated and posted a rant.  It was a pretty good rant, as rants go.  Brad even made an insightful comment on said rant.  Then I posted on my Facebook wall that I was updating my blog.  Moments later, I got a thumbs up from a faculty member at the University. Which reminded me that my readers include more people than just Brad and my family (which is almost repeating myself).

So, I hurried over to my blog and removed the post that might have hurt some feelings.  If anybody read a post that they can't find anymore, that's why.  I apologize to anybody who I might have offended. 

Moral of the story?  Never say anything you don't want everyone hearing.  Thanks a lot, internet.  Thanks a lot, Al Gore. 

Friday, November 11, 2011

11-11-11

Friends, in addition to being Veteran's day, today is very special. As was pointed out this morning on Ace, it should be the one day in the century to celebrate Nigel Tufnel.



So, let's celebrate all things 11.

Veterans Day

We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm. — George Orwell

Today is Veterans Day. So, thank a veteran for being willing to serve you and me and keep America safe.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Productivity



[update- Kate submitted this to ILoveCharts.tumblr.com and now I'm internet famous.  Well, I'm internet somewhat known.  Well, a few people said they liked it.  Which pays about the same as being internet famous]
I'm a Mormon.