A Study in… Christmas Traditions

We’ve never done anything extra special for Christmas, just some quirky family traditions added in with the normal. I, like most American children, was always really into Christmas. I LOVED getting new toys to play with and always hated getting clothes. Our family tradition when I was younger was always to wait until 8:30 or 9:00 to get out of bed. We weren’t allowed to get out of bed before my dad, or we wouldn’t get any of our presents. So I would lay in bed staring at the ceiling until finally after an eternity he would knock on my door. Then came more torture, we would have to wait for my mom to make breakfast, and then eat it. After this we would all gather in the living room and stare at the presents, at least I did, while my dad read the Christmas story and tried to redirect my focus off the presents. Finally we would get to the presents. I normally got to go first, unless I was really rowdy, then I would have to wait till last. As I got a little older things changed, I wasn’t as excited about the presents and was more interested in the sleep. This was when my dad started waking us up at 3:00 in the morning to open our presents. I liked this about the first two years it happened. Then my brothers got married and had kids, so now we spend Christmas Eve with them eating, playing games, and exchanging gifts. Christmas day, normally in the morning we finish opening the gifts we got from our parents and they open their gifts. The rest of the day we spend watching Christmas movies, eating junk food, and just being lazy. One of my traditions has been to put up the Christmas lights on Thanksgiving day, but I flubbed that this year. I was too lazy, and then went to the Eagles game that night, but the past couple years some people in my family have wanted to skip the Christmas tree, that hasn’t happened yet, and hopefully it never will. I still do like Christmas a lot, and it is one of my favorite times of year. I love sitting in the living room looking at the tree all lit up and reading a book, or just drinking coffee. I even like Christmas music, mostly because it is only played for just over a month every year, so it always seems fresh and new.  So that’s what happens here on Christmas. Oh, and tonight at 6:45 EST we are starting the live streaming of our churches Christmas cantata, so tune in if you want to! There should be a red box on the main page of our website indicating that we are streaming.

(Edit)

Wisemen tradition… It really isn’t torture, it’s just something we started to make our manger scene more biblical. We take the wisemen and their camels and place them in the kitchen, on top of the microwave so that it looks like they are traveling to Israel, following the star. That’s all… Oh and the snow if to symbolize sand dunes…

A Study in… Busy

Ha, yeah, so I’ve been busy lately, plus I was just too lazy to post. So after a short sebatical, I am back! Yeah, that is a picture of a set of steps that were built for our Church cantata, or “Christmas play with a biblical message” for you people in Alaska! Anyway we were going to a first centuryish look, so I poured gasoline on them and lit them up. They turned out pretty good, and structurally sound, I think.  Christmas is almost here and things are starting to get even more busy. I do however plan on posting a little more often than once every two weeks, LoL.

Eagles Game

Thanksgiving day wasn’t a very typical Thanksgiving at our house. Normally my brothers and their families and my uncle who lives in town come over, but this Thanksgiving everyone was going to other places. So it was just my parents, Rachel, and I. It was a pretty quiet day. I just sat around being lazy, went to the range and made sure my gun was sighted in, and ate dinner. Finally the evening rolled around. A couple weeks back my dad got three tickets to the Eagles Thanksgiving day game through his radio program. Chris and Nathan Gable and I ended up being the ones to go to the game. The tickets were for club seating, and would have been rather expensive, except that we got them for free. When you walk up to the stadium there is the normal entrance, and then there is a special entrance for all the club level seating. People dressed in suits scan your tickets, stamp your hand, and direct you to the right section. The lobby is carpeted and heated with lounge chairs everywhere.

The view was really good too, the seats were up high enough that we could see everything, without anyone’s head being in the way, but not so far away that you didn’t have a good view. There were even people who walked up and down the isles taking orders for food. It turned out to be a  really good game. McNabb, the eagles quarterback, has had a rough couple games recently, and the fans weren’t very happy with him to start, but he remdeemed himself and did a good job. We were seated next to a couple hardcore fans that made the game more fun with their comments. Overall it was alot of fun and definately worth going to. Oh, and the seated were padded with a dense foam that was comfortable and held body heat well, so that was nice too.  A hotdog was $4.75 and a drink was $3.75 so it was a little pricey for food, but what do you expect for a NFL game…

yeah, I was talking during the picture

David Akers warming

The makings of a knife

While at one of my favorite local stores, WoodCraft, I discover a knife kit and decided I would try it. The knife looked like this

and the wood like this

(sorry that’s kinda blurry) anyway it’s a drop point knife and the wood is “Bolivian Rosewood”

I had no clue how I was going to get these blocks of wood into the shape and size of a knife handle. So I went a googling and found a couple ideas. I decided to go with the bandsaw approach.

After cutting the wood to the shape of the handle, I took it to the belt sander to bring it down to size.

After belt sanding came drilling the holes for the hidden rivets

Then came alot more sanding, working my way from 60 grit all the way up to 220 for a smooth, gouge free finish. So a couple hours later I now have a new kinfe. Now I just have to figure out how to make a leather sheath for it and I’ll be good to go!

rAndOm

This is just a random picture I took at work a couple days ago. We loaded the truck down just a little too much with wood. We had 50 2×4’s, one 12ft 6×6 and other assorted pressure treated wood as well as pressure treated 16ft 2×10’s sticking out the back and making the whole truck bounce with every bump in the road. I’m happy to report we made it out alive and safe.

New Phone

Yup, my old phone was really starting to give me issues. We’re talking dropped calls, calls that never come through, calls that showed up as missed 2 hours later, texts that wouldn’t go out, or come through, random power-offs, ect… So I firgured it was time to get a new phone. I decided on the relatively new Pantech Matrix. I spent several days reading reviews, and researching other phones. So far I’m really happy with it, but I’m gonna wait a week before I really make up my mind. I got the black/green one. So here’s a picture …

Car Expenses

If I drive my car for 250,000 miles it will cost me…

$18,750 in gas!

$2,083 in oil changes

$2,500 in wiper blades

$5,000 in tires

$2,500 in inspection costs

$1,250 in air fresheners

and about $8000 in general repairs and parts

that comes to a grand total of $40,083… But, the good news… At my current rate of driving it would take me 12.5 years to reach that many miles.

Tag Revisited

So, I ran out of things to post, so I’ve decided to revisit the unimportant tag. 

6 unimporant, or little know facts about me

1. I like breakfast, alot in fact

2. History was my favorite subject in school

3. I hate tomatoes and beets… I just do

4. Mustangs are my favorite cars… So that probably wasn’t very little known

5. I really like big cities, enough to live in one for a while

6. Donuts are awesome, and I would like to meet whoever invented them

 

And that’s all folks

Ramblings

Artemis Fowl

Yes, yes, I know Tobi has already posted about this, but I haven’t. During my recent trip to Alaska I was lead(by Tobi) to the author Eoin Colfer. He writes books for kids, some of which are dumb, but his Artemis Fowl series is pretty good. I have yet to read that latest book in the series, but it will only be a matter of time. 

Barnes and Noble

I have started to frequent Barnes and Noble weekly. It’s nice to go somewhere to read and study. Unfortunately our’s doesn’t have a really cool fireplace. I heard a rumor that they are building another B&N nearby, so hopefully they make it nicer.

Fall

It’s finally starting to get cold at night, so I can now take my air conditioner out of the window. I’m really ready to lose the heat during the day too. I would much rather have to add layers than sweat. 

Work

Work has been ok lately. We’ve been working on the Boss’ addition for several weeks in a row, but are now starting to pick up some fall landscaping jobs. So I’m happy for thesmall change of pace.

That’s about it though. Our Bible Conference is coming soon, so things are gonna get even busier. I’m hoping Jordan will post pictures of his hunting trip on Tobi’s blog… HINT. Anyhow that was really boring but I had to post something.

Joe Cook commercial