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.

Pinewood Derby

We raced our cars at the Pinewood Derby this morning and took the coveted Non-first or second place positions, which means that we are done for the day and do not need to come back later to race in the finals.

One car in GP's den lost its axle on the first run. We found a stock non-polished replacement for it, and the car won every heat by at least a full car length. So much for spending an hour polishing axles...

Pinewood Derby Construction

This year for the pinewood derby, we decided to abandon the whole "car" concept and went for a more WW-2 look. GP demanded a Curtis P-40 Warhawk with blue camoflage.

CP chose a battleship, shown here with the USS Arizona.

Both boys helped out a lot with their vehicles. CP ran the scroll saw and both of them used the hand sander with 36-grit paper to shape their models.

V-17

GP & I built the V-17, a massive paper rocket. If the V-2 was good, a V-17 should be about eight and a half times better, right?

XMas 2007 Part 2

We were supposed to get an inch or two of snow, but instead we had a beautiful sunny day. The boys ran out to try out GP's new sled.

Nana really got into bowling on the Wii.

Merry Christmas!

XMas 2007

This year we had Nana and Gramma & Grampa for Christmas. They all arrived on Christmas Eve.

Santa came during the night and left a load of goodies for everyone. CP got some cool star wars stuff.

GP got his lava lamp.

And both received a healthy supply of WW-2 gear. (Note the B-25 attacking the tank)

GP's Self Portrait

GP took his self portrait.

Werft 1

On the second day of X-Mas vacation, we needed something to do, so we made up some paper airplanes and a paper hangar to match. This one was designed for 1:144 scale planes and works well with a lot of the boys' planes. The internet has some amazing resorces for paper models. Download them, print out on cardstock, and build your own things. I barely have time to assemble these models, I cannot image how anyone has the time to actually design stuff like this. Pretty cool.

Katrina is a total lap cat. Whenever anyone is sitting for more than two or three seconds, she is there.

Gingerbread House 2007

JP & the kids put together this year's gingerbread house. As usual, the icing (liquid nails made from powdered sugar) was problematic and we resorted to using ziploc baggies to squirt it. Next year I need to remember to setup a caulk gun...

Aside from the initial house construction, the boys completed the house themselves. Note the P-51 in sitting on the table. It seems like there's some sort of WW-II plane sitting on every flat surface of the house.

Wagon Wheels

CP made breakfast for us the other morning. I don't know how he did it, but he was able to flip this pancake by himself.

Ice Storm No. 2

Last night we were brushed by the ice storm that left 2.5" of ice in Oklahoma & Missouri. We ended up with about 1/4" here in Lincoln, and Beatrice had 1/2 - 3/4" with another inch of slush on top of that.

The boys had the day off of school and played all day. I slept in and went to work in the daylight.