seedy soap

t got some awesome rosemary soap at the co-op.

chuck norris skates!

on actual inline skates! i fully expected to see him on rollerskates. ah, but he still carries a ninja-beater comb so he can tend to hid feathered mullet. any kungfoo master who'll skate around holding hands with his girlfriend is all right by me.

dog-in-boots

bel got some awesome boots for Christmas and fred wanted to try them on. how do you not snap a photo of that?

-11

well, at least this weekend's big snow was reason enough for st. paul to plow curb-to-curb. the ride in wasn't too bad. i had just the right layers on.

peugeot and pugsley

peugeot and pugsley locked at the rack, waitin for their owners to come back.
first comes love, then comes marriage
then come the training wheels and a burley carriage.

choirs of angels

b's duet @ the mall. we risked our lives driving on icy roads to get to this performance, but it was good to get there to see 'em perform. the kids did well, with lot's of folks looking on.

more photos of the dog's wild party

here, fred, this gift's for YOU!



hmm... what's in here?


a new BLANKIE!


since dogs LOVE to look at Christmas lights and it was his birthday, we took him with us to see the lights in Phalen park.



here he is snuggled in his new gift at bed time.

happy b-day fred

today's fred's 9th birthday

caught mu breath... on film

er... on pixels.

this new mi-newt light is awesome. on my way home tonight, i had a slight tailwind and i could see the condensation from my breath clinging to the beam of my light. it looked pretty cool, but i knew that the road conditions weren't going to allow me to take it as a rolling picture, so these two were staged in the garage when i got home.

snotsicles anyone?

-3 fahrenheit but the ride must go on. was a little worried when i got dressed to ride to work today when my mitten liners were a little damp from yesterday, but i must've cooked all of that moisture out right away as the fingers never got cold. the toes, however, were chilly even in my wool socks and shoecovers. well, they were chilly but never got sore, so this configuration could go a few degrees colder.

bike wart?

nice.

first big snowy commute

didn't have the guts to pull the camera out before i got into the driveway. i'm looking forward to trying to capture pics of snowflakes in the headlight this year.

the commute took about 50 mins in the snow. it was worth it,though, to beat the gridlock in downtown st. paul

the lasagne

mmm... mmm... good. well there are a couple of tweaks i will make to the recipe when i make it again.

those jerks at my lbs

so i went into the shop looking for a simple light and the guys in the shop showed me through all of the low-end lights and told me all of their bad qualities. they kept pointing me towards the night rider minewt, but i just couldn't pull the trigger at the $99 price. then... then, they pulled out the big guns and calc-ed the price with my team discount. ugh, i couldn't resist. i'm the proud new owner of a minewt. i'll write some reviews in the near future. and, actually, those guys aren't so bad... in fact, they're pretty cool. thanks matt and tim!

trimming the tree

ok, so the tree was trimmed today and here's the picture shoot in reverse order

the completed product, angel and all...
my super, elf finding new ways to use a tree skirt.

and the angel is up!
here's our elf bel taking the skirt part of tree skirt a little too literally. she looks great, though!


shh... don't tell the girls, but they're actually working TOGETHER!

elf em is helping to sort out the lights.

c'mon, with socks like that, who needs lights on the tree?

we tend to start our lights at the bottom.


stand back, the light ninja in action. if chuck norris was a fan of Christmas, he'd take tree trimming lessons from em.

advent activity sunday

bel reached 5th grade this year and got to take part in the advent wreath project. this is a FUN activity, it even includes the use of power tools.

the weatherman lied

c'mon it cannot be due to inaccuracy. at 10:20 last night, the weather dude on ch 4 said "nothing major" and "only a dusting" in regard to the overnight snow. not that i'm complaining about the snow. it's winter, we might as well have it. i just can't believe that the weather guy could've been soooo wrong by accident.

tree huntin'

we went out to the tree farm and found this beaut just standin' there waitin' fer us. here we are with our trophy field dressed and ready to haul to the cashier (and the professional net and tie guys).

late season trail ride

hoo-yeah, had the day off of work and the house to myself, so what did i do? i went for a ride. i overdressed a little as the midday sun actually warmed things up a few degrees. anyway, i had a pretty good time tromping around in the woods. i stopped the bike to listen to the wind at this spot. it wasn't an extremely strong wind, but it had quite a voice where i was. it was blowing across the lake and into the pines around me, but it had a percussive quality to it. i wondered, "what's that clanking?" heh... it was ice. see it in the background?

just when you think there's nothing green left in the world...

i stumbled across this bright green moss in the woods on my trail ride today. it was so cool to find something GREEN.

skyviews to the east

a couple of snaps from different times looking at the eastern sky from our house.

when i see the moon in the sky wile it's light out

i always think it looks so lonely without any stars to accompany it.

'sploded deere

had to pull the tracto apart this much to get it fixed today. not a big deal if i'd kept all the skin on my knuckles.

toolmaster o-o-o-of...

roseville? well, my mad skillz aren't being applied at the buckeye creamery and i don't play guitar "like a master,but faster," but I will say i'm doin' ok in the garage. i had to improvise severely on a tool to hold the back of this pulley still (the rest of it is free floating on the shaft) so I could loosen the bolt that held it to the shaft. tada, vise-grips to the rescue! i squeezed a bolt in the pliers and wedged that into one of notches on the fixed plate on the pulley and it held things in place. i just hope it'll work the same for putting it back on.

spooktacular drawing contest

bel organized a spooktacular drawing contest at our house this year. here was my entry. i called it "one smart pumpkin," but i didn't win.

tracy's awesome, van-gogh-esque entry of a fall landscape won instead.

pumpkin rage

during a party @ our house yesterday, people pulled out knives and did horrible things to innocent pumpkins...

wrapped around the axle

figgered out why the deere died a few weeks ago. now just a few hrs of trickle charge away from seein' how easily it can be salvaged.

the sun may set over minneapolis, but...

it rises over st. paul.


i actually had to stop, pull off the road, and grab my camera when i saw this this morning on my ride in. i wanted to wait until i got to a better vantage point, but i knew i was too far away from where i wanted to take the photo.

swing again

bel and i fixed the swing in the back yard. we used to have a 1x8 as the board for the swing, but that broke. we went industrial strength this and used a 2x10.