Christmas lights, camera, action

The day after Thanksgiving I started what appears to be a new holiday tradition at my house—namely, me stringing up Christmas lights. This is the first year I’ve made any attempt whatsoever at exterior lighting, so I decided to start small. Armed with two strands of 25 lights and a package of 75 gutter clips, I set forth to become the first house on the street with a multi-colored rooftop.

One thing I learned very quickly: You never have enough lights. Think it’ll take two strands of lights to cover the front of the house? BUY THREE. Think you need 75 gutter clips? BUY A HUNDRED. Think you need a six-foot ladder? BORROW A 20-FOOT ONE. (Seriously.)

Anyway, after two trips to Target and one each to Ace Hardware and my parents’ house (for the ladder), and after weathering a solid three hours of gravity-defying antics on a rain-slicked precipice, I did it! And it’s now officially Christmas season at my house.

My lighting odyssey begins

Ethan watches and learns

We put a star on the garage, too

Let there be light!

 Stay tuned tomorrow for Christmas tree pictures.

When turkeys attack

It takes a real chicken to run away from a turkey.

Happy Thanksgiving!

One more from Acadia

Here’s one more picture of Ethan from our Acadia vacation. I finally got around to downloading it from my cell phone. It’s pretty low-res, but I still think he’s super cute.

Frozen leaves, Get Smart, photo shoot, new computer, etc

There ought to be a law against sub-freezing temperatures before Thanksgiving. I set out to finish mulching our leaves yesterday, and not only was it below freezing outside, the damn leaves were frozen to the ground and my leaf piles were basically big, brown leafcicles. The mulcher actually spat out brown ice chips. Twelve bags of mulched leaves later and I’m still not done. I miss city living.

We rented Get Smart last night. I’d heard it was just “meh,” but I held out hope. My review? Meh. Anne Hathaway is pretty, though.

Today we’re heading to the mall for a family photo shoot, the results of which will become our Christmas card. Yes, we’ve become that family—the one that sends a picture of themselves and calls it a holiday greeting. When did this happen?

I finally ordered my new computer on Friday. It’s a custom-built Dell Slim Studio desktop—my first desktop system since 2002. It won’t get here till the middle of December, though. The wait is killing me.

What do you want to bet that sometime around January or February I’ll probably wish I’d spent my money on a snowblower instead?

I wrote for 20 straight days this month, and then ran out of steam. I’m now going on four straight days without writing. I need to find my work ethic again.

Stone Cold

So apparently ABC has cancelled Eli Stone, one of the quirkiest and most enjoyable shows on television. THIS SUCKS. Now if NBC even thinks about cancelling Chuck, my other favorite show, I’ll… I’ll… I’ll shake my fist impotently at the sky, damnit!

Sarah Marshall, Wet Leaves, Vampyre Story, etc

We rented Forgetting Sarah Marshall over the weekend. I don’t usually get too excited for Judd Apatow movies, but this one was written by and starred Jason Segal of How I Met Your Mother, and I was interested to see how it turned out. The verdict: Hilarious. Definitely worth renting. Highlights: Mila Kunis and Russell Brand. Lowlight: Jason Segal’s private parts in full-frontal HD. I’m going to have nightmares for weeks. 

Other than the movie, we spent the bulk of the weekend raking and mulching several tons of wet leaves from our back yard. Note to future homeowners: A big yard is not necessarily a good thing. I learn this the hard way year after year after year.

Just one of the games that will not work on my laptop

I’m thisclose to buying a new computer, partly because my laptop is giving me hints that its days are numbered and partly because that same laptop won’t run any of the new adventure games I want to play (e.g., A Vampyre Story, Chronicles of Mystery: The Scorpio Ritual, Sinking Island, and The Abbey). 

The only problem is that I hate and fear Windows Vista, because it won’t let me play any of my favorite old adventure games that I’ve spent entire weekends getting to run on XP. Sigh.

42,062

This might be the first time in my life I’ve written for 14 straight days. Currently I’m about 600 words ahead of schedule. I even had two straight 1,000-word days mixed in there. It’s not quite NaNoWriMo numbers, but I’ll take it. The challenge now is to keep it going.

‘Tis the season for children’s charities

Ever since I became a father I seem to have lost all ability to say no to children’s charities. The latest solicitation came in the mail today from the Make-a-Wish Foundation. How can you not give money to an organization that helps grant dying kids their once-in-a-lifetime wish?!?! Such a tear jerker.

So yes, Make-a-Wish Foundation, you win. I will donate.

Speaking of the Make-a-Wish Foundation, I had the opportunity to see it in action first-hand 10 years ago when I worked at Marvel Comics. They flew Stan Lee to our New York office to meet a sick kid and give him a tour of the Marvel bullpen. See, now I’m getting all choked up just thinking about that again.

Maybe I’m like the Grinch. My heart grew ten sizes when Ethan was born.

So far today, Ethan has…

1) Poured 16 ounces of steaming hot Trader Joe’s gingerbread coffee on the living room rug.

2) Managed to lose my cell phone (twice).

3) Smeared oatmeal all over his pajamas.

and

4) Toppled a cup full of plastic stirrers onto the floor at Starbucks.*

Hard to believe it’s not even lunchtime yet. Ah, Thursdays!

* – Hey, I had to replace the spilled coffee somehow!

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