Make Merry

The hell has been happening?

Wrapped up Burrito Quest 4: Veggie Trek. Managed to coordinate Isaac in on the last episode. We kind of decided to do a BQ5: Bizarro Trek, but my enthusiasm for it is not super high. Maybe I'll see if I can pawn all the work off on Ben, then just coast along.

Xmas went swimmingly, without any actual swimming. Spent the weekend before and up till Xmas day in Carl-Bad. Highlights include:

Trying to find something to do on Sunday before Xmas in Carl-Bad, as nothing beside fast food or Chili's is apparently open. And for your information, the Chili's in Carl-Bad is pretty crappy. Got to hang out with Nathan some though, which is always good.

Played some Minecraft with Ross while in C-Bad. I finally grok why that game is so popular.

Woke the kids up Xmas morning telling them Santa Claus came and left them presents, to which Owen replied, "Dada, I'm scared." He got over it pretty quick though, and spent quite a while pushing his new scoot bike around the house. They should hopefully put on the inch or two needed to fit them by the summer. Paige dug hers too, but was more interested in her new backpack.

Fat loots from Santa to me included were highlighted by Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm: A New English Version by Philip Pullman and a new Kitchen Aid can opener. We use a can opener twice a day feeding Piper and have generally picked inexpensive models that either didn't work consistenly or broke within a pretty short time period. Maybe I was just doing it wrong. Anyway, the new opener rocks. Also got some socks with monkeys and mustaches on them.

The day after we got back from Carl-bad, Jon (plus Cameron & Derek) and Dad both showed up. Jon stayed till this past Sunday, and Dad is leaving this coming Saturday. Been a busy house full of visitors through the holidays, but not in a bad way.

Made it out with Jon and Dad to the Mimbres Brewery taproom. The beer was better than it has been (helped that they had their Chocolate Pinon Coffee Stout on tap) and we had a good time hanging out, chatting, and having a few beers.

Played some CoD: Black Ops 2 with Derek. The zombie mode on that game is pretty damn sweet, especially the Grief games.

More Xmas with Jon et al. Scored more loot, including a sweet Loveland Ale Works shirt from Jon, a digital photo frame from Mom, cash for a weekend getaway from Dad, and comics and video games from Sage.

Did our annual kickball game. I think I kicked once, then rounded up the kids and took them home. It was cold and they were getting grumpy. But there was a good turnout depsite the cold and I think everybody had fun. May try to do it bi-annually, or maybe even quarterly in the future.

Saw the Hobbit, was underwhelmed. There was a lot of bloat and some weird production choices that would have, for me, been more successful if they had been more understated. Dislikes: too much light in caves in the bottom of the mountain, dwarfs looking weird or not like dwarfs, for kids=goofiness & fart jokes, Radagast. Likes: Bilbo, Riddles with Gollum. I like the old Rankin & Bass cartoon a lot more than I do this version.

Dad and Aunt Nette are both headed back east tomorrow.

And look at this, it snowed.

Should Do This More Often

Since last time:

I hiked the Grand Canyon rim-to-rim. Given a general lack of training on my part it went pretty well. If anything it mostly affected my recovery time. The scenery was, of course, amazing.

Owen and Paige turned 2. Had a great party with lots of friends and family.

I turned 38!

Gaming ground to a standstill with various travel and whatnots. Played in a session of Apocalypse World this past Saturday, was good. Was good...

Decided to put the renovation project on hold, for the patio. We're in saving mode, trying to build the money to get the job done, rather than depleting savings to do it.

The tree is pretty sweet. It finally dropped its leaves, and the yard is, for the first time, littered with leaves. Hopefully it established well enough to make it though the winter. Should be fine given how large a tree we bought.

Had a low key Thanksgiving with Mom and Nette. Made way more food than needed, as is the wont of that holiday.

Finished the firs of the Long Price Quartet and started the second, Betrayal in Winter. Good series, but I think I may pause after this one and read Ghost Brigades.

Burrito Quest is on track for a possible successful trek. It would be our first since BQ1 if it happens.

Poo Quest

Burrito Quest has once again fallen into disrepair. Not that we've failed, per se, but we're a month behind on burritos, given our self-imposed schedule, and just as far behind on me getting a recording out. Also, I think our last burrito may get disqualified on the grounds that they fucked up and got some meat in it from the grill when they prepared it. Need to step this shit up.

Technical Improficiency

Burrito Quest has been happening for around 3.5 years now.  I just stumbled upon how to make iTunes pick up the recordings.  Of course, I never took the time to look into it so...  Anyway, looks like there is some way they parse blogger posts that looks for links to audio files only in the body, apparently ignoring title enclosure links.  Oh, and it also looks for any text preceding the link to add to the description block.  So, if I want iTunes to pick up the feed for these things I may have to go back and reformat.  That or look into the settings on the iTunes side.  Either way, based on past performance that may not be happening any time soon.

Tonight is date night for Carrie and I.  I like to think that the title of this post does not apply directly to that.  Just saying.

And yes, it's improficiency.  And yes, I had to look it up.

Housings

Heard back from the bank about refinancing our house.  The deal's good to go, but the appraisal seems to have come in fairly low, which is not super happy news.  That means after being in the house for over 6 years we have very little equity, and not near enough to finally get out from under PMI.  The refinance should still reduce our mortgage payment in the short term, which was our goal in the first place, but the whole process has shed light on just how much the housing dump has hit us.  Again, we're not getting hit hard, but mostly because we're not planning on moving any time soon.
In other house news, we had some rain the other night and some dripped down the exhaust and shorted out the flame sensor on the furnace.  This meant we spent the night without heat.  We put a small electric heater in the kids room and bundled up.  I tried the furnace again in the morning just before I was going to call in for a repair and it had dried out and is working fine.  Need to get some folks out to give us some estimates on converting the place to refrigerated air, which would likely involve a furnace replacement as well.

Restarted Burrito Quest last Friday.  We're doing a vegetarian trek, what with Ben's dietary mores.  In the process of processing the recording I discovered that I had never posted the 12th episode from BQ3.  So, two recordings need to go up and I'm already almost a week behind.  More of the same.

Gaming last Friday was mostly us sitting around wondering what to game.  I offered to run something and Ben seemed intrigued by the opportunity to play again.  Going to run some Lamentations of the Flame Princess starting (maybe) on Friday.  Should be interesting as it's a old school D&D revision that really doesn't provide much in the way of specific and/or useful bits for how to run it.  I haven't run something that was strictly sandbox in, well, maybe never.  It'll be interesting to see how it goes.