Interior Decorating

JP took the neighbor girl to pre-school the other day. Katrina claimed the car seat as her own.

JP has been working on finishing off the living room. I think we are just about there.

Morrill Hall and New Wall

I took GP to a b-day party at Morrill Hall (the Nebraska State Museum at UNL). We were supposed to go ice skating with the cub scouts, but who can pass up Morrill Hall?

Every time we go to the museum, JP & I pretty much chase the kids from exhibit to exhibit without getting a chance to read anything. I took advantage of GP being locked in with the party and wandered about and read all the things I have skipped by in the past. I even hit the gift shop and did not have to listen to "Dad, can I get this?" over and over and over and over again.

Saturday morning, JP started hounding me about building a coat rack for the laundry room. Friday, she went to Lowe's and found some bomber coat hooks and an oak plank. I put the power tools to use and hacked out a coat rack that should be able to withstand the boys. It's amazing how it changed the look of the little room.

Just another weekend

This weekend got off to a great start Friday night at the cub scout Blue & Gold banquet. CP won a medal for his pinewood derby dar: "Best Non-Car." He was up against a cell phone, a block of cheese, a wii remote, as well as several other non-cars. Of course, GP was bummed that his P-40 did not win.

Saturday CP & I built a big 1/48 scale B-17. GP built his own 1/72 Harrier and adamantly refused any help. He's very proud of building his own plane.

Saturday was beautiful and in the 40's. I tried to fix our garage door opener; it has an intermittent fault that makes opening the door a challenge at times. It looks like it may be a faulty circuit board relay that will have to wait for another day.

Last week our tax refund arrived, and JP let me run over to Guitar Center to get my birthday present. I spent 2 hours there trying different guitars and still could not decide. I had my heart set on a metal shredding machine straight out of 1984, but all that I tried did not live up to my expectations. None of them were significantly better than my $100 used Ibanez. I went back the next night without the need for a whammy bar and brought home a beautiful Schecter Hellraiser Tempest. All I need now is some talent.

Nebraska's First Ever Democratic Party Caucus

Tonight we made history as participants in Nebraska's first Democratic Party caucus. Instead of just going to the polls and voting, we went to the country club lodge with all the other 75 registered democrats in south Lincoln. We split into two groups, one for each precinct, and went into separate rooms. We then divided into three groups: Clinton, Obama, and undecided. Speakers from each group then tried to convince the others to vote for the better candidate. JP spoke up for Obama from our group. Of the four people that spoke up, three were from Illinois and one from Texas. Once the undecided folks decided, we then counted heads and found that Obama won 2:1, which matches the results for the entire state.

We brought the kids along to let them experience politics in action. They were unimpressed with the event, but were very interested in eating dinner at the country club.

Funny to think that I was a proud member of the teenage republicans in high school. Did I change, or is the world changing?

TP's 40th

JP Threw a big party for me last weekend. I think everyone was ready for a mid-winter party. We went through our scrapbooks and pulled out some funny photos from the last 40 years.

JP managed to light all 40 candles without burning herself. Pretty good for someone that usually burns herself when pulling tater tots out of the toaster oven.

The highlight of the evening was when I got to open my gift. JP bestowed a new addiction on me: Guitar Hero III. It has taken over my free time. I thought it would interfere with trying to learn the real guitar, but it hasn't.

The game features the song "One" by Metallica, a seven minute plus heavy metal song. The song is beyond CP's capabilities, so he plays it in practice mode on the slowest setting, which means it takes about 20 minutes to complete. He sticks with it and gets most of the notes. I need to get a microphone for him so that we can record his performance on video.

My favorite songs in the game are "Number of the Beast" and some crazy sped-up song by Dragonforce. I have conquered "Easy" and have moved to "Medium." I need to start practicing to get to get to "Hard."

Sunset

Lately, I have been leaving work as the sun goes down. We have the most spectacular sunsets here. The sun warms the colors so that all the prairie grass glows red, and the darkening sky brings out an almost ultraviolet tint in the snow.