Tag Archives: Christmas

Finally, Rain

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We finally had some rain today. Not a whole lot and it brought some cold weather along but things were getting very dry.

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I just now noticed the nativity piece located in the prime position below the monitor and above the power strip.

Logan is doing well with his new job at a grocery store. He worked in the deli for a while and is now working maintenance and appears to be doing well. He is getting all growns up it seems.  I took him to a medical lab for some blood work and he checked himself in.

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I love taking photographs of refineries and other industrial stuff. I read that in Japan indusrial tourism is a thing. They call it Kojo Moe. People try and visit factories and other industrial facilities. I can understand that. I think I would have a hard time getting the other two in the family to join me.

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LJ the cat is happy. It got cold enough for us to turn the fireplace on. Sometimes I think he is going to burst into flames.

We are having a little bit of a toned down Christmas this year. We have had lots of distractions but I am taking a few days off and my brother is driving in to visit. We’ll eat good and maybe watch a movie or two. My main problem with Christmas is that I can’t turn it off as fast as many people can. I always want to stay on the vibe for a week or so. Lots of people seem to be done with it the day after. Too quick for me. I love the time between Christmas and New Years.

Skywatch Friday – Christmas is Coming

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Courtesy of Cheri Lou Gastineau

Here is a crowd scene in western Oklahoman. Tough looking but nothing like Tulsa shoppers on a shopping rampage.

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Courtesy of Cheri Lou Gastineau

And here’s security, a guard donkey keeping the bad guys at bay.

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Here is my happy spot. Not this Christmas but maybe future??

I’m linking at Skywatch Friday come join us.

It’s Getting to be Christmas

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Well we are running behind schedule on Christmas this year. This is the tree. Heather put on the Topper just to keep me from putting on the Dallas Cowboy Star. I strung the lights. Oh well, we have a lot going on in our family right now. Believe me. Buy me a beer and I’ll tell you about it. Buy me three or four and you will hear all of it but you will have to drive me home.

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Oh well, what keeps it fun is that Lizzie the kitten is enjoying the dickens out of Christmas.

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And at work, the Large Projects Group that I work in has a tree. It was a woman engineer that raised the cash from us deadbeat men engineers and bought ornaments and the tree. I think she did a great job. I love all the construction equipment ornaments.

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On a cold windy day last week I went for some noon time geocaching out on this remote lake. I froze my butt off and didn’t find the cache but I loved the hunt. In case you need to dispose of a body, I found a couple really good spots!!

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Son Logan is working at a Neighborhood Walmart these days. He is proud of his job and seems to be doing well. We went by there the other day (he wasn’t working) to get a few things and then all the customers were ordered to evacuate immediately, so we did. And I fulfilled my blogger journalistic duty by taking a photo of the fire engine and fulfilled my artistic duty by using prisma to pretty it up a little bit. I don’t think there was any property damage nor was anybody hurt.

So that is what is new with me, what is new with you?

Our World Tuesday – Clear Sailing

Orange Beach Sailboat

Sailboat chilling on Wolf Bay, Alabama

Well we did Christmas. I love Christmas and we had a nice quiet one at the house with our small family including my Mother-in-Law. We exchanged gifts and cards and had a nice meal and texted/facebook messaged our other family in Idaho, Colorado, and western Oklahoma.

Now I am ready to be done with it. Sure, leave the lights and tree up for a few days but it is time to go outside for a little while and get the head screwed on straight. I’m taking a week off and although we have errands and stuff to do I plan to get a few runs and hikes in and take a bunch of photos.

How about you? You done with Christmas also? (I know, I know, it is technically still Christmas while I post this but I am about to come out of my skin.)

I’m linking with Our World Tuesday

Christmas Eve

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This is my favorite Christmas Card this year. A water color set in New Mexico. I grew up in New Mexico and I don’t think there is anything prettier than snow on adobe. Throw in a traditional blue door and a ristra of red chilis and it is perfect as far as I am concerned. Check out the artist, Terry Clark, on his blog Coffee With Clark. Artist, Journalism Professor, Journalist, all around great guy, and fellow lover of New Mexico. He is painting and posting lots of New Mexican scenes and commentary this month on a Christmas theme.

Communion Candle

I like the quiet moments of Christmas the best. The introspection and remembering years past, especially the loved ones who are no longer around.

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Plus, young kids are great at Christmas. They still have the wonder of how it all happened. Plus I like playing with the little kids toys the best. Especially during the afternoon nap.

Christmas Card 2016 done

So unlike Professor Clark I never got around to making cards except I put this together on PicMonkey. So, to those who celebrate the holiday, Merry Christmas!!!

Office Christmas Party with Jennifer Aniston

Friday I had my every other Fridacation and Heather didn’t do her Friday morning Zumba gig so we could go have breakfast together and go do some Christmas shopping.  So most of the plan worked. We had breakfast at Full Moon on Peoria, one of our favorite spots and then we checked out Lululemon right next door but they didn’t have much of any sales going on but they did have their music crancked up considerably, I mean the music was not being able to think loud.

So we went up to Athletica at Utica Square. They are just as cool as Lululemon but the music, although not quite as cool, was a lot lower in volume. Also they had a little bit of a sale going on. Turns out that they offer exercise instructors a 30% discount. So we shopped a little bit and Heather is going to get her certification in hand and we’ll go back and do some serious shopping. I guess cuz we are cheap. So then, heck with it, lets go to a movie. We were wanting something fun so we went to see Office Christmas Party.

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The movie is entertaining. There is a story line but the story line is not important, the party is important. The company’s Chicago branch is about to be closed and so they decide to throw a party to end all parties so open bar, lots of decorations, a DJ, and things rapidly get out of control, clothes end up on the floor, Bad decisions are made, office relationships are deepened, and in the end it all works out. You have the all the office types there, the burned out old guys, the striving young guys and gals, the enthusiastic interns, the overzealous HR goons, spoiled out of touch executives. They all play a part.

So everybody makes a lot of bad decisions but it all is well in the end. The evil management sees the light and the branch is saved! Yeah!!

Keep the kids home on this one. Rated R and deserves it and lots and lots of bad language. Also, you have seen before in movies where people sit naked on the copy machine, well in this movie, they make use of 3D printers. I’m not going to spell out what they were copying with the the 3D printer for you. Isn’t technology great!!

I’ve never been to a wild office Christmas party but I have been to parties where people have drank too much and made bad decisions. I’ve been to a lot of nice Christmas parties. One year, a former employer flew Heather and down to Houston for a company party at the the Hyatt Regency downtown, that was nice, very nice. And everything in between. Usually it was a nice sit down dinner and a cocktail or two. Nowdays its a luncheon at the office. I’ll take it.

How about you? Does your employer have a Christmas or “Holiday” party?

Oh, yes, the movie. I loved it, Heather didn’t. So you are on your own!

Back to the Grindstone!

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My barber of 24 years finally retired so Logan and I now have the same one.

I took a lot of time off this Christmas. About two weeks in all. 

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I always love following Heather around the grocery store taking photos of her in action. She never seems to enjoy it as much as I do.

I didn’t do a whole lot, mainly just hung out the family, including my Mother-in-Law we watched movies, ate a lot of great meals and spent a lot of time together.

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Ginger discovered the joys of the fireplace. She doesn’t like sharing it with LJ the cat though.

Our spoiled critters got even more spoiled.

 

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We celebrated Christmas in almost all the senses, the spiritual,

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and the Family.

So I had a good time and I’m looking forward to getting back to work.

Christmas 2015 – In the Books

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Christmas happened this year. Hear you go a rare shot of me in my snuggie. 

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The kid with his Nana. The kid is getting taller and taller. Is there something we can spray him with to slow him down a little bit.

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Heather and Nana, quite a team.

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I got a candid shot of Heather. She said she hated it but then she made it her profile pic on facebook. Should I hit her up about royalties?

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I captured Nana also.

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Before the Christmas meal. We decided to have it more informally this year in the kitchen. Lots less work that way.

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My sister Ellen posted this on facebook today. She’s the cute one in the middle. I’m the good looking guy on the right and brother Bob is on the left. I’m guessing mid 1960’s in Price, Utah. We always had a great Christmas. Often we would load up afterward and head up to southern Idaho to see our relatives there. That was fun, or we would head down to Phoenix and see people down there. That was fun also. Bob and Ellen, with her husband Irvin, spent Christmas in Idaho with my dad this year.

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She also posted this picture of her three girls. I’m guessing in the 1980’s.  Dana is on the left. She and her husband Adam are in Australia visiting his family with their little girl who was born this year. Adam is an Australian citizen you see and their little girl has dual citizenship which I think is totally cool.  Jillian in the middle is also visiting my dad, her Grandfather for Christmas in Idaho. Her husband Brian is in the Army serving his country overseas this season. Mary on the right spent Christmas in Colorado Springs with her son this year.

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This isn’t a Christmas picture but it is Ellen and her Husband Irvin with Logan back at the turn of the century. 

Son, Dad, Brother

This is also not a Christmas pic but it shows my dad in between Logan and brother Bob.

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And this is brother Bob and me with our mother a long time ago in Coyote, New Mexico.  She is never far from our thoughts.

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Hey you know, when we celebrate Christmas we celebrate it with the critters also. This is abby our sweet but not very smart mutt.

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And Rascal, he is sweet and smart. You can see that he has been reading the paper.

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And our sweet but perpetually cold mutt Ginger. My niece Dana pictured above lives in the Phoenix area and I think Ginger would like us to move there also.

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And Nana’s dog Fiona. She always enjoys visiting us, but is ready to go home when that times comes also.

That was our Christmas this year or at least part of it. I’m big into Christmas not running into a huge stop on Christmas Day so I’m going to go ahead and everybody a Merry Christmas.

Christmas Moon 2015

Christmas Moon 2015

I’ve been reading about the Full Moon that we were supposed to get Christmas night. The big deal is that it is the first full moon on Christmas since 1977. We are supposed to have some weather blow in so I was wondering if we would even be able to see the moon at all but low and behold we could.

So I got my new camera out and put it on the tripod, the Nikon D5300 and went out there but it didn’t seem to be getting it done so I grabbed my Canon SX40 SuperZoom and tried it out. Even with the tripod it took a long time to get a decent shot where I got good magnification yet kept got the whole moon. This is at about x68 magnification. The camera does x35 optically and the rest digitally.

And just because it is Christmas I will tell you that I ran the the photo through Topaz Lab’s Adjust software first to bring out the details and second to give a little color range to the details.

it is kind of hard to beat the Canon SX40 for moon photography. I couldn’t make it work until I consulted Mr. Google and I learned to just put the camera on “Auto” and let it do the work. I did and it works great.

So, did you have a chance to go check it out this Christmas night?

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