Snowbound day 2

So today marks the second day of being totally snowed in.  Yesterday we did manage to get the driveway mostly cleared off and get my car free, but this morning when I tried to go to work, we learned that the main road that goes from our house had been closed for the day so that abandoned cars could be cleared out!

This snow storm has been crazy.  I think the final total was somewhere around 20 – 24 inches of the white stuff, which is more than anyone has seen around here in something like 20 years!  At least we now have my car and Amy’s car dug out and we can get out of our driveway (it may take some effort, but at least we can get out.)

It has been nice though, Amy and I have gotten a number of chores done and we’re almost done with all of our Christmas cookies for family and friends!  Now I have the issue of wrapping Amy’s presents…

I’ve never really been good at wrapping presents but this time of year just brings that whole issue to a head.  Despite many offers of cash bribes for wrapping her own presents Amy has yet to accept the offer (sadly.)  I soldier through it year after year though, I have gotten better than I was our first year, but my wrapping is, let’s say, expressive, I express all my rage at wrapping presents and put it into the wrapping itself, let’s just say I can keep 3M in business for a good long while with how much tape I use :)

Ok, one last thing; in my last post I mentioned the trip to PAX East at the end of March.  What I failed to mention is that it won’t only be my wife and I on this trip, but also my friend Aaron and his wife Anna.  Anna and Aaron have been friends for a long time and we try and get together quite often to hang-out, have dinner, and play video games.  As I said before, it should be an awesome trip and I can’t think of two better people we’d rather spend the time with! 

That’s it for now, more later on!

~C

Snow and Cookies

If you’ve been under a rock for the past 3 days, there’s a small snow storm currently centered over the Mid-Atlantic states and it’s dropping EPIC amounts of snow on the ground…it is in this area that my wife and I happen to live.  At last measurement (a few hours ago) it was over 18” of the white stuff, and it’s still snowing pretty hard.  I’m guessing by tomorrow morning we should have over 2 feet of snow!!!  That’s just crazy!

On the plus side, Amy and I had a ton of social plans that have been, unluckily, cancelled due to weather, but this has given us time to take care of all the Christmas stuff we’ve been needing to do, so we’re sure we are ready for the holidays.  It’s actually been kind of a stress relief to have the snow and allow us to get all this other stuff done.

One of the main things we needed to do was to make some Christmas cookies (yummy!)  So far we are at 8+ dozen cookies.  I add the plus in because we had just a few over that.  Our biggest asset today in baking has been the addition of Amy’s Kitchen Aid stand mixer which I got her for her birthday.  That thing is awesome when it comes to making cookies!  Previously all of our cookies had been hand mixed, which when all the dry ingredients were added made mixing pretty hard, but with the mixer, just dump the dry ingredients in and it handles all the mixing no problem, it’s great fun.  Tomorrow is another baking day for us and it’s going to be great fun, lots of good cookies planned, I can’t wait!

Oh yeah, one more thing that I don’t believe I have mentioned here is the fact that Amy and I are headed to PAX East this year in Boston!  For those who don’t know PAX (or Penny Arcade Expo) was started by the two guys who run Penny Arcade (penny-arcade.com) which is an online web comic for gamers by gamers.  The guys over at Penny Arcade are also known for the other major charity we support beside Toy Lift (toylift.org), known as Child's Play (childsplaycharity.org.)  It’s a great charity to help get video games and video game systems for children’s hospitals so the kids who have to be there can have something fun to do while they are there.  Any, I digress…

PAX has typically been a massive once a year gaming event in Seattle and it’s one of the largest gaming conventions the world over.  In 2010 though PAX is breaking into two events, PAX Prime (which is the event in Seattle) and PAX East (which is the event in Boston.)  So far from the forums that I’ve been reading, it looks like PAX east is shaping up to be tons of fun.  There will be a BYOC (Bring your own computer) room so I’m sure I’ll be brining a laptop with me for a bit of gaming fun and enjoyment.  Also there will be a table top gaming room, along with a hall full of every major, and I’m sure many smaller, video game vendors out there.  Amy even has a Saturday pass so she can see what all the hype is about and also have some fun playing all the different games the various vendors will bring.  Hopefully I’ll get a chance to post from PAX with some pictures or other fun things, but if you want to follow all the fun make sure to follow me on Twitter @itzerokewl.  PAX East takes place near the end of March, so I’m sure I’ll post more as details come out about PAX. 

Well, it’s still snowing but I think I’m going to curl up with a good book and read for a while, more later on.

~C

Thursday evening rant

So the title isn’t super original, oh well…that’s how it goes sometimes.  Making pan seared pork chops with mashed potatoes and green beans for dinner tonight…yummy
!

It hasn’t been too long since my last blog, not a lot has really happened.  The toy lift did happen though and it was a great success!  It ended up being a great day (the warmest toy lift day on record) and we did well as far as money and toy collections went.  Another bit of great news with the toy lift is that I got voted onto the board of advisors!  I got listed as the IT advisor this year, we’ll see what happens next year.  It was a ton of work for sure, but it was very rewarding on Saturday when I got the chance to deliver some of the toys to the schools where the parents of the kids would pick-up the toys over the next few days to get them wrapped and ready for Christmas!  If this all sounds really alien to you go on and check out the website http://www.toylift.org it’s a great charity and a great bunch of people who run the event each year and I’m really excited about next year!

Speaking of the holidays, they’re just around the corner, can you believe it?  It seems like just yesterday we were toasting in 2009 and now we’re getting ready to ring in 2010 in just a few short weeks, crazy times.

I’ll have to say, it’s been a pretty good 2009, lots of crazy experiences and lots of fun and I’m really looking forward to 2010, it seems to be holding a lot of promise already!  The coolest part of 2010 so far is that Amy and I along with some friends will be going to PAX East (Penny Arcade).  I can’t wait!  We already have the hotel booked and I think we’re getting the flights to Boston booked in the next couple of days.  It should be a great time in a great city and with great friends, what more could a guy ask for. 

Ok, I think we’re going to pop in a movie now, more later on!

~C