Dallas

I had to go to Dallas last Monday for work and rather than leave Sunday night and return Monday night I decided to go down a little early and spend a day with my college buddy John. I've been to Muenster 3 times now and every time it's fun a reminds me a little bit of Lisbon. I got to eat some BBQ and some cleverly named shots and just have a blast in general. I spent Sunday with my old boss from Roundy's, coincidentally also named John, and had some solid Tex Mex. I learned that 7 year old kids have a different sense of humor than adults, thanks for the surprise Smith.

I'm heading to the Cities for Thanksgiving and there should be turkey and fixings. That's all I need. I'm going to watch football (and Marquette) while gorging myself on food. Mmmmm.

This Thursday I went to a Seattle U basketball game. The Redhawks play a few blocks away and have super duper cheap seats because they are transitioning to D-1. They are going to lose a lot but I might look into getting season tickets for next year because you get a lot for your money AND people can hear you heckle because it's a huge arena that is only partially full. Hmmmmmm. Heckling!



Since I wrote a post last I think my crown story has taken place in full. 3 weeks ago I realized I had what I thought was a sharp spot on a lower moral. Being the smart person that I am I figured it was related to a recent filling on that tooth that may have fallen out or something. The dentist corrected me and said it was decay and a chunk of tooth might have been lost and I would need a crown. Great. I went back a few days later and got a crown (and temporary) and just this week I had the porcelain crown put on for what I hope is a really long time. It freaking hurt all the way around. I would recommend brushing your teeth to prevent crowns because they don't feel good. I imagine a root canal to considerably more awful so I think I'll brush a floss a lot from here on out.

The Vikings destroyed to local Seattle Seahawks today. I'm still not sure I trust Brett Favre but I'll share bandwagon duties for now.

The origin of my name has a Wikipedia entry as well.

Things

I went to the MLS (that's Major League Soccer) playoff game on Thursday and ended up sitting in the Family Section (Code named No Alcohol = No Fun). It was pretty exciting and ended in a tie. Go Sounders! Honestly, live soccer is pretty fun and way more exciting to watch than I would have ever expected. That was my 4th game of the year and it was worth the money.

Thursday was also the day I resumed my Big Brother / Big Sister (BBBS) role at a local Seattle school. The way the program is designed my "little" from last year moved onto the 6th grade and I get a new "little" this year. To refresh: I go in for about an hour worth of chatting/playing every week during the school year and generally hang out with a elementary student to provide some stability. Go kids. This years kid is hilarious and is a reason the program exists. A good kid with a weird situation who could just use somebody to talk to. School lunch is STILL awful and the teachers at the new school seem a bit sharper than last year's already.

Saturday (Halloween) I went to a party with some friends. They added us onto the party list because it had an RSVP attached to it. Unbeknownst to my friends it was a surprise wedding. We arrived to a party that had catering, photographers, magicians, and a real circus performing emcee. After some general discussion is was discovered that Frankenstein would really be marrying the Bride of Frankenstein in a relatively bizarre ritual. The Bride and Monster spent over $1000 having a professional Makeup Artist apply their makeup, apparently he was the artist on the Van Helsing monsters. I only took a few photos with my phone but they will give you the gist. It was probably the coolest wedding I ever crashed - open bar, a giant costume party, I didn't have to provide a gift since I crashed, and it was a surprise for almost everybody involved.











The Wedding Ceremony




















The First Dance


















The Crowd 1



















The Crowd 2





























Scary Jess (the Pig) and Scary Kelli (the Dark Queen)

I'm too lazy to get the formatting right so these captions correspond with the pictures in sequence.

I also have downloaded some other random photos worth posting.











The Kites from the Kite Festival in August.



















Adult Toys on a desk at work. We sell these oddly enough.



















I was part of a team that won a small award at work called a "Door Desk" and you get a mini desk signed by the boss man.



















I'm a gnome this Halloween. It's felt, a snuggie, and some hot glue to hold things in place. Jessica is a master of hot glue.




















If you ever see an Elmo like this - you should return it. It is obviously unsafe.

The Vikings also defeated the Packers today and the Brett Favre experiment is working out well so far. The season is far from over and I'm still skeptical. When we make the Super Bowl I'll change my mind.

Screw the Yankees.

Exciting Things! Not really.

There hasn't been a lot going on since the last post. I did go to an all out Halloween party last weekend on the East side. East side of Lake Washington that is! My friend Kylene has crazy parents who throw an all out bash complete with "shows" consisting of Magicians and card trick type stuff. Jessica and I went as lawn ornaments, I was a gnome and she was a pink flamingo. Pictures will follow shortly, and I actually mean it for once.

Thursday, I'm going to a MLS soccer playoff game. While I've never been a huge soccer fan or anything I find myself somewhat interested now that I have a team in close proximity and they happen to be winners. Live sports are great if the fan experience is either all out like College BB or something low key like a baseball game in mid season. Anyway, The Sounders are playing the Houston Dynamo and it should be fun.

Speaking of College BB, I got my season tickets in the mail today. This will be my third season not living in Milwaukee but this year I changed how the tickets will be working, no more "good" seats for me. I downgraded to 2 seats in the upper deck for much less money and intend to give them away for less desirable games and sell them for more interesting games. I figure I should at least be able to recoup my money on these seats since they were only $99 apiece for the whole season, and compared to my old seats, these are dirt cheap.

I need the Vikings to keep winning and beat the Packers this weekend. That is about the most important thing happening in my sports fan world in the next few days. I'm going to watch the World Series but I don't really have a rooting interest other than cheering against the Yankees which sort of makes me a defacto Phillies fan.

Apparently the NBA started playing tonight. Shows how much I care.

I did get to witness a bit of excitement the other day I guess now that I think about it. I work in a huge building and there is a bank branch in the lobby. Yesterday somebody tried to rob it and it resulted in a standoff and shoot out of some sort. How does a cop blow it and let the guy get away?

I'll try to get in a routine and post more often again. It was decent for a while.

Iceland Photos for real

OK. So I went to Iceland with my girlfriend Jessica about a month ago, where in the hell does the time go? Anyway, I loaded about 190 photos from Iceland into my Picasa account with captions on most of them and there are some really cool ones there.

I'm not going to recount the entire trip but it goes something like this.







Waterfall, Glacier, Waterfall, Hot Springs, Waterfall, historical stuff. Seriously, Iceland was very green and amazing to walk around with waterfalls all over the place.













































































Pictures and Ads are hilarious when you can understand the what they are about.














Whale is tasty. Iceland takes like 20 - 30 whales a year for traditional things and mostly to feed to tourists. It was really good and I can see why it was hunted. Cow of the see if you ask me.


Puffin, on the other hand, tastes like SHIT. I thought it smelled bad and tasted worse. Liver is the closest thing that comes to mind. The breast meat was RED. Gross.




Dracula Candy is the worst candy in the world. Jessica's reaction was pretty much the same as mine. It's gross and you can't even come close to finishing it. So gross.




About 300,000 people live on Iceland (Island in Icelandic) and it's about the size of Kentucky so it's pretty sparse outside of Reykjavik and all of the places we went had almost no people around other than the tours we were on. No fences either so you could walk right up to most of the natural attractions and touch them if you were willing to fall in or get burned.

Things learned:

It's weird to pay for cold water. Hot water is so abundant they charge you more for the cold water coming into places because they mix it with the hot water to cool it off for showering etc.


Viking, Gull, and Tuborg beer are drinkable beers. I would say the Coors Light, Miller Lite, and Bud Light of Iceland except with about 5.7% alcohol and in 16oz cans. I would drink them again.


Icelandic is one of the oldest languages in the world and nearly impossible to understand. Thank you Iceland; I'm glad almost everybody speaks excellent English.

Everybody really is related and they still use Patronymics, meaning they don't have last names. My dad's name is Charles I would be Tyrel Charlesson. My brother would Owen Charlesson, and if I had a sister her name would (Girl's name) Debrasdottir. Crazy to understand - and they only have about 10 names there.

I don't have a picture of it somehow but if you ever have a chance to try Skyr do it. It is delicious and sort of a cross between cheese and yogurt in texture. I loved it.

Hot dogs in Iceland are excellent. They have a little bit of lamb in them we were told and it made them excellent. I think I ate 4 or 5 while I was there over 8 days.

Here is the Geyser, Strokker, going off.



Here is the link to all the of the photos.

Iceland Photos

Are loaded but I haven't added the captions to them so another day or three might be needed before I put them all for public viewing. 182 photos made the cut so it will take people a while to go through them all and there are a few videos that I need to load as well.

I'm all caught up from Iceland in terms of sleep and it appears there was no big news in the world since I left. I finally got rid of most of the worlds worst candy - Dracula - which is the flavor of Salty Licorice. If I wasn't clear Salty Licorice is awful. I'll move on to the Brennivin, otherwise known as black death. I'm not sure when I'll try it though.

The fate of mankind hangs in the balance of the Packers - Vikings Monday night game tomorrow. Brett Favre decreed it, so it must be true. I'm not quite used to cheering for Mr. Favre when he chucks the ball deep down the field and doesn't really have a receiver in sight. I guess that's why he's a gunslinger.

The Twins try to further beat down Detroit by winning a 1 game playoff on Tuesday. Detroit must be an awful place right now.

I like both MN teams to win.

That's all I have for now but there will be another post in the next few days I hope.

Puffin....

... smells like liver tastes like shit. Sorry mom.

Any bird that eats fish for a living is probably going to taste like crap and puffin was not all that good.

Whale on the other hand, I get why it's endangered. Mmmmmmmmm. Happy cows come from the ocean. Smiley face because I can't find the colon key on my Icelandic Keyboard. )

P.S. Owen, we're waiting!

I HATE WIND!

I'm in Iceland and it's great but I'm going to complain about the wind. Screw you wind. Anyway, Dracula Candy is terrible, and Icelandic beer is tasty and I'm going to eat Puffin in a few and my girlfriend is going to eat some whale. Whale, the mammal that is sometimes protected by less seafairing people.

It is about 50 degrees here and the weather has cleared up dramatically and I know how the Reykjavik system of mass transit works.

Good times are had by us.

P.S. - Owen, 3 *good* sentences in the mail within 24 hours of reading this.