The latest geek craze

Sparky and I are now Geocachers. What is Geocaching, you ask? Well, allow me to explain.

Geocaching is like an adventure game in your neighborhood. People hide caches, then post the latitude/longitude coordinates online, usually at the Geocaching website. A cache can be just about anything. In it's simplest form, it's a weatherproof container with a notebook and a pencil so people can log when they visited the cache. Most caches have little trinkets in them as well. You're expected to leave something if you take something. The caches stay put so other people can find them and that's how it works.

Last week, one of the schools I work at got GPS units. I borrowed one so I could see how it worked, and went to find my first geocache. The first one was easy, but the second one I looked for, just a few hundred yards from the first one, I couldn't find. It was then that I realized how inaccurate GPS units can be if you're looking for a small thing in an exact location. But I guess that's all part of the fun.

The caches we found today I really had to work for. The first one we went hunting for was at the dog park (appropriately enough), and after I got within 20 feet of the location, it took me about 20 mintues to actually locate it. After we came home from the dog park, we went hunting for geocaches close to the house. There are three within about 3/4 of a mile of each other along Culebra Creek, over by our grocery store. It took us almost 2 hours to find all three, but we did it. One was a small film canister that was hanging from a tree, and I was lucky to look right at after only 5 minutes of looking. Another was really easy to find, since the hint left online pretty much told me where to look. The third was the hardest, not just because we had to walk through very tall weeds to get there, but because there was a lot of tree cover, which means the GPS doesn't get as good of a signal from the satellites. I went one tree too far, and upon expanding the search, found it easily.

Now to complete my geekiness, I just need to leave a cache somewhere.

Pictures below...

A picture of the Boeing building at Kelly AFB taken from the first cache site we visited today


Sparky enjoying the squeaky bone we took from the first cache


Culebra Creek, our second geocache hunt of the day. Live Oaks make for really cool black and white photos!

Fried Apples

And I'm not talking about the ones at the Cracker Barrel.

Unless you're calling me a Cracker, and my house a Barrel.

So...the other day, I pull out Monica's laptop and try to turn it on. I stress the word try, because I tried damn near everything I know, and it wouldn't turn on at all. Not even the CD spinup, or a fan noise. Nada.

I looked everywhere on the web to find the key combination to completely drain power from the motherboard, but couldn't find it. I know there is one, because I've shocked a computer into not turning on before, and Apple tech support gave me the key combo, and viola! It turned back on. But I couldn't find it anywhere, and of course I didn't write it down when it happened.

I took it in to get it fixed yesterday, but we didn't get home until after 6 so I couldn't call back the place to find out what was wrong. I called this morning, and they told me the motherboard was fried. Since her machine is almost 4 years old, it's not under warantee anymore, so a new motherboard would cost over $700.

Ouch.

Luckily, her hard drive was intact, so I just had them put it in an external drive enclosure, so she can access her stuff from my machine.

Whomp!

Monica had a doctor's appointment today, and while we were waiting, little Rachel was using mommy's insides like a jungle gym. I put my hand on Monica to see what she was up to, and starting poking and prodding the little tyke.

Bad move.

I swear, our little girl is never going to have any problems defending herself. She decided to try out some of that Kung Fu crap on me. I was surprised by how hard she kicked me, but Monica was just about laid out. She told me I wasn't allowed to provoke Rachel any more because, in the end, it was her that ended up getting all the pain from it.

Where in the hell did doctors learn to count?

Is it 6 months or 7? How come no one tells you about this whole "it's really 10 months" thing until after you're pregnant?

I guess we'll just keep counting weeks...that would be 29 weeks.

A big Texas "Howdy" to all my sister's friends...

Howdy ya'll. I noticed that quite a few people have been visiting via my sister's blog (linked over there on the right) since she finally decided to throw me a link on hers.

Anyway, if I don't know you, welcome, and have a look around, and if I do know you, have fun catching up with the events in my life.

Her first photograph

Besides the first sonogram, of course...



If you look carefully, you can see she has a lot of hair up top. We can't wait to meet her in person.

Teach a man to fish...

Mom and Dad just left today. While they were here, we did a bunch of things none of us had ever done before. We went to Fredericksburg, reneted a boat and went fishing on Canyon Lake, and got a 3D sonogram (which I'll post pictures of in my next post).

It was great to have them down, and the weather cooperated very nicely, as you can see from these pictures.

Dad catches a famed Canyon Lake Shirtfish

Memorium

Two years ago today, Monica and I found out that her mother had passed on. It was, and still is a very hard day for her family, especially now that we're having a little one. It also happens to be her mother's birthday, which made it that much harder.

We felt the best way to honor her was to name our child after her. Tomorrow, we get to see her for the first time when we go for our 3D sonogram. I'll post pictures as soon as we have them.

Garage Sailing

Yeah, I know I spelled it wrong. I did it on purpose.

We took part in a garage sale yesterday at our friend Maria's house. We did pretty well...enough to have some spending money for when Mom and Dad are here. We also got the chance to meet Maria's new dog, Chico.



He's really not that big...I bought a new lens off ebay, and was trying it out. It allowed me to get the extreme close-up of the pup. We had great fun at Chico's expense...but I was not the instigator of this:



I did, however, have to take this picture of our friend Andy and the dog because...well, just look at Andy's shirt:



Get it? It's Chico and the Mann!

I also got way more sun than I needed to yesterday, but not enough to blister and peel, which is a good thing, because I plan on getting even more sun later this week fishing and doing other things outside with the 'rents.

This one's for Google

My good friend Andrea tried to Google my blog this afternoon, but couldn't find it. I told her I think it's because I haven't put my first and last names together anywhere on the old Laleblog. So here goes...

This is Scott Laleman's blog. This page belongs to Scott Laleman. Looking for Scott Laleman? You've found him. Hi there, I'm Scott Laleman.

Take that Google.

By the way, if you're a high school kid and you've come here looking for information about how to get around the blocking software your school has in place so you can get to your MySpace.com page, stop reading my blog and do your homework. I never had any info on how to get around that software in the first place, and in the second place, the blog that talked about that, the one that used to reside here, is long gone because I want to keep my job.

Thank you for visiting Scott Laleman's blog. Have a Scott Laleman day.

The Astronaut, The Social Studies Teacher, and Me

Hey, remember that building with the green neon that I posted a picture of last night?



We were on the top floor of it tonight.

So why were we on the top floor of one of the biggest buildings in Dallas? We were there for a reception honoring Dr. Mae Jemison, the first woman of color to go into space. She's the keynote speaker at the conference we're up here for, but the banquet tonight was for the school where the conference is being held, a Catholic high school here in Dallas.

Dr. Jemison was very cool to listen to and to talk to. She grew up on the south side of Chicago and read a few passages from her book tonight. I got a chance to talk with her for a bit, and we joked about how the oldest siblings always pick on the youngest. She was the youngest in her family. I am the oldest in mine.



Another highlight of the night was the "small world" event that happened. When we were at dinner last night, we were talking with Anita and Roger (our gracious hosts, and the GIS gurus) about funny town names. I happened to mention that I was from Normal, Illinois, and Anita said, "That's where Fred Walk is from...he'll be here tomorrow."


Anita and Roger, our gracious hosts

I did one of those double takes, and asked her "Who?"

"Fred Walk," she said again.

"He was a social studies teacher at my high school," I said, still a little bewildered by this turn of events. I can't remember now if I ever had Mr. Walk as a teacher, but I knew him, and most of my friends had him for class. We had a nice conversation when he got there, and yes, Sarah, he even remembered you.



Overall, it was a pretty entertaining night. I got to meet an astronaut, ran into someone who knows that Ironmen isn't just a Black Sabbath song, and got to eat good food.

Oh yeah, since all of this stuff we're doing is taking place at a Catholic high school, I was a very good Catholic today...actually I didn't have much of a choice. The lunches we had today were either veggie or tuna, and none of the food tonight had meat in it. Still really tasty, though!

Tomorrow, Eric and I present a couple of things at the conference and head home late tomorrow afternoon. It's been fun here, and I've learned a lot, but I can't wait to get home to my beautiful wife and sleep in my own bed.

Big "D"

My colleague Eric and I are in Dallas until Saturday for a GIS conference. GIS stands for Geographical Information Systems, and it's the "next big thing." It's basically using maps to analyze data and it's very cool, if not a bit complicated. I got the "fire hose" treatment of info today, and my brain hurts.

Eric and I got into town last night and went down the to West End for dinner. While we were down there, I had my first celebrity sighting in quite a while. We were finishing up dinner, and saw some action across the street. When we looked more closely to see what was going on, we realized that Howie Long was leaving the resturant and getting into an SUV driven by Terry Bradshaw. Evidently they do hang out after the season is over. Unfortunately I didn't have ma camera with me, but I took it tonight, just in case we had another celebrity sighting.

Unfortunately we didn't, and I didn't have a tripod to hold my camera steady for the cool night shots.



But I'll bet you didn't know I was a lucrative business owner in the Big D.



And here comes the obligatory big building shot...



And finally, a cool picture and an artsy picture. The last one is the building we're staying in.

In San Antonio, a live truck in your neighborhood is never a good sign...

Our quiet little neighborhood has been in the news twice today.

Twice. In one day.

This morning, there was a story on the news about some crazy-ass who locked himself in an ex-girlfriend's garage and slashed himself with a knife. The style of the house looked like the ones in our neighborhood, so I Google Mapped the street name and found out it was the street that's behind our house. Not exactly in our neighborhood, but close enough.

This evening, on my way home, I passed a KENS 5 live truck coming out of our neighborhood, and when I turned on the street to get to our house, a WOAI live truck was sitting at the corner...1/2 a block down from our house (and screwing up traffic, I might add...not that I'd expect any less from WOAI).

Turns out a girl that lives down the street from us was attacked by a home invader earlier today. She had stayed home sick from school, and had awakened to the man standing in her living room. She fought him off, but got slashed by a knife in the process.

This does not make me feel comfortable about going to Dallas and leaving Monica here for 3 days.

If this is wrong, I don't wanna be right...

Just a sample of a photo from my new camera, which I love, by the way...



Yes, that's right...the snapdragons are in bloom. In February. Have I mentioned how much I love living in Texas?

OK, ok, here's one of the puppy for you all too...

Belly!

Early January:


Today:


What a difference a month and a half makes. By the way, I LOVE my new camera!

A new camera

We must have at least 5 cameras of various types laying around the house, almost none of which get used on a regular basis.

Don't get me wrong, I love my cameras, but it's hard enough for me to remember to take my lunch to work with me in the morning. Remembering to take film to the grocery store, and then go pick up the picture a few days later...that's asking way too much.

I loved my digital camera because everything was instant. I could see the pictures as soon as I took them, I could play with the settings to get the shot I wanted, and not have to wait a week to find out if it came out OK or not, and the best part...I wasn't spending any money on a whole role of film to get 3-4 pictures that I really liked. If I didn't like it, I deleted it.

When my digital stopped working a couple of weeks ago, I didn't think much about it because it had stopped working before, but had always started working again at some point and time.

I have finally given up hope.

Two and a half years, and almost 4000 picutres later, I have decided it's time for a new camera.

Monica said she wanted to get me another camera for my birthday, but hasn't yet. I decided that I wanted to move up because, while I loved my little point-and-shoot Canon that I could change all the settings on, there were some things that drove me crazy. Shutter lag, picture size, the time it took to change settings on manual. I really missed having a fully manual, really good camera like the one I learned on in high school. The prices of digital versions of these film cameras had been way too much for me to get one, though.

Until this week.

Best Buy just happened to be having a sale on digital cameras, and Pentax had just released a very affordable model. Pentax. The kind of camera my mother owned, which I learned to take really good pictures on when I was in high school. It was a sign. I had to buy it. It arrives Monday.

What will my first picture be of? My beautiful, pregnant wife, of course. I'll post it here.

Bonus: the camera I purchased can use old Pentax lenses with an adapter. Hopefully Mom still has those lenses tucked away somewhere.

SNOW! It's gonna snow, and we're gonna have a snow day, and go sledding, and, and....

What? No snow? It'll be in the 60's today? Crap.

Thus begins the "March of the Babies"

We received a phone call from our friend Roger, in the Great White North, last night that his wife Bianca had her baby boy on Thursday. So now it's time for the rest of the dominoes to fall.

Our friends Mandi and Ed have a baby girl due in April, Pete and Carol's (brother and sister-in-law) baby boy is due in May, and we're bringing up the rear in June. All we need is some friends who are having a baby in March. Anyone want to sign up?

It's actually pretty cool, because since I'm so old (as Monica loves to remind me), I figured most of my friends were done having babies, and I figured we'd be one of those couples with no friends that had kids the same age as our kids. I'm glad I was wrong.

This morning, while we were lying in bed, I looked over at Monica's tummy and saw that it looked oddly deformed. One side of her belly was sticking up way farther than the other side.

It's the first time we've seen Rachel this way, and it was pretty cool...in an "Alien" sort of way.

Busy, busy, busy

My camera broke last weekend, so I didn't get any really good pictures at the rodeo this past weekend. Monica and I took our nieces Rebecca and Claudia to the carnival part of the rodeo on Saturday. We also took them through almost all of the animal barns, which was cool because these city kids don't get to see a lot of livestock up close and personal-like.

This week is hectic. In addition to starting another pilot program at one of my schools (this time with email), and teaching a 6-week online class, and trying to clean out the spare room, I'm also preparing for my presentation at TCEA on Thursday. I'm actually going to Austin Wednesday and spending the night. I'm really finished with my presentation, but I need to rehearse, because I'm taking a new approach to powerpoint. After watching Lawrence Lessig's talk on Free Culture, I decided to adopt his style of presentation, which one of my colleagues called "minimalist powerpoint."

I'm really going to have to get my timings down, though, so I don't look like a bumbling idiot in front of a room full of people.

Wish me luck!

It's like Chicago, but without the cold, snow, or murders...

It just took me 90 minutes to go 20 miles.

Why?

Because in San Antonio, there are no alternate routes, so when there's a wreck on one of the expressways that blocks 2 out of 3 lanes, you either sit in traffic on the expressway, or try to wind your way through the maze of southeast-to-northwest and southwest-to-northeast streets (like I did). Either way, you're going to waste away a big chunk of your day. Next time, I'll sit on the expressway...at least that way I don't have to worry about stoplights and turns.

Have I mentioned lately how much I love living in south Texas?

This is what we did yesterday. 'Nuff said.

It was 20 years ago today...

And this doesn't have anything to do with Sgt. Pepper.

I was sitting in my fourth period social studies class on that Tuesday morning, when the principal came over the intercom and told the entire school that there had been a problem during the launch of the Space Shuttle Challenger. After lunch, I had a study hall. I signed out and went to the library, and watched Tom Brokaw show the footage over and over again of the Challenger, 73 seconds into its flight, disappear in a ball of smoke and flames.

I knew as soon as I saw it that those astronauts weren't coming home. Despite what everyone on the news was saying, that they didn't know if there were any survivors, that they didn't know what exactly had happened, I knew. This was going to be one of those days that changed the course of history.

It was a very sad day for me, personally. I was your typical geeky 8th grader. OK, more than your typical geek. I knew just about everything an 8th grader could know about the space program. I wanted to go to Space Camp, and I wanted to be an astronaut, so the Challenger disaster was a great personal loss for me.

It was my Kennedy assassination, it was a day that changed not only my life, but the life of so many peole in America. It's just a shame that NASA didn't change.

On a Saturday morning in February, just 3 years ago, Monica and I got off a plane in Orlando, Florida. I was no longer that geeky 8th grader, but a Technology Director of a school district working on a Master's Degree. When we entered the concourse from the jetway, I started looking around for the baggage claim signs. I saw some people gathered around a TV near the gate and saw what appeared to be falling stars streaking across the screen.

I was immediately taken back to that junior high library, and that feeling of loss. I turned to Monica, trying to hide the emotion in my voice, and said, "They lost another shuttle."

Cowboy up

It's rodeo time in San Antonio again, and today was the kick-off Cowboy Breakfast. In the simplest terms, this is a free breakfast for the entire city of San Antonio.

You can imagine the kind of traffic headaches this might cause.

People get up really early to go stand in line to get breakfast tacos, biscuits and gravy and coffee. It's ain't the greatest food in the world, but hey, it's free, and there's entertainment, so why not?

Last year, I took a personal day to attend and then came home to sleep. Sure, sure, I could have gotten up at 5 AM, gone to the Cowboy Breakfast and still made it to work, but that takes all the fun out of it.

When I was younger, and the breakfast was at Central Park Mall (it's now at Crossroads Mall), I would take the day off because I knew that they country bar opened at 8 AM on the day of the Cowboy Breakfast. Last year, we found out that Dave & Busters was opening at 8 so folks could drink (it's 12:00 somewhere, right?).

This year, though, Monica and I decided to skip it. I actually took back roads to work so that I could avoid the traffic.

Skipping the party and worrying about traffic. My God, am I getting old.

And by the way, I know when you're from up north, you don't exactly think of February as being a month for rodeos, but it works. The rodeo here is a lot like the county fair--lots of animal judging and the like. Imagine all the wonderful smells, and then imagine them in the heat of a San Antonio summer, and you understand why February is the perfect month for the rodeo.

It's a....

Blurry alien being.

OK, ok...here she is.



Of course, there's always that margin of error. And since the tech said, "I'd have to say it's a girl," instead of "You're having a girl...no doubt," or "Look at the johnson on that kid! It's a boy for sure!" it was kind of a let down. I guess we were both expecting a drum roll and a much clearer picture of what this kid's anatomy would be.

So it's a girl, and her name will be Rachel.

Dumbing down America...

ABC's show, "Stupid in America" should have been about NBC's television schedule.

It's a sad day when a smart, timely show like "The West Wing" is cancelled, but "My Name is Earl" and "Joey" are still on the air (sorry, Mom and Dad...I just don't find the humor in "Earl"). And don't try to tell me that "Law & Order" is a smart show, either. In real life, nothing gets solved in an hour. Those shows are just modern day versions of "Perry Mason."

I guess it's official...we have no reason to watch NBC anymore. Tom Brokaw is gone, the local news sucks, "Today" has become more celebrity gossip than real news, and they have canceled or lost all of their good shows.

Winter has arrived

After weeks and weeks of endless sunshine and spring-like temperatures, it has finally turned rainy and chilly in south Texas. I still refuse to say that it's cold, because, honestly, these people down here don't know cold. However, that doesn't mean that I'm not breaking out the ski jacket to head outside.

It's an interesting thing that happens when you live where it's warm (OK, freakin' hot) for most of the year. Your blood thins out, and you become a cold wuss, and this next paragraph will exemplify that:

Yesterday, we took puppy and peanut to the dog park (of course, we have to take peanut everywhere, since it's living inside Monica), and it was in the mid 50's, which isn't bad, but the wind! My God, you'd have thought we were in Chicago the way the wind was howling. I was wearing a sweatshirt and fleece and I was freezing. I was so ready to go home after 15 minutes, but Sparky was having such a good time playing with the dogs of the 5 other insane people that were there, we decided to tough it out.

See? Cold wuss. I know those of you that live north of the Mason-Dixon line are going, "It was in the 50's! Do you know what we'd give to have a day in January in the 50's?!"

We actually cancelled our planned trip to the coast because it was just too cold, and walking along the beach when it's 50 and windy just didn't sound like that much fun.

Have I mentinoed lately how much I don't miss the winters up north?

Thank God this will be over in a week or two.

I guess I'll have to lay on the bunny

Monica uses one pillow to sleep with. I sleep with two. I developed a habit a long time ago of sleeping on one pillow and hugging another. Monica is very particular about her pillows, and will even go so far as to bring her own pillow when we sleep in a different bed, such as at a hotel or at mom and dad's house.

Tonight, I walked into the bedroom, and there were no pillows on my side of the bed. She had two under her head, and one on her belly because "I don't want to expose Peanut to the magnetism in my computer."

I'm digging the other pillows out of the closet tomorrow.

Birthday blues

Because my sister is totally kicking my ass with blog posting in the past week, and because my wife is giving me shit about not updating my blog (although she already knows everything I write here), I have decided to take a few moments to say "hello."

Hello.

The past week has been pretty hectic. Between dealing with incompetence (again) at work, and being in the classroom 3 days this week, I haven't had much time to think, let alone sit down and write a post (sorry Mom and Dad).

So this weekend I turn 34. It's funny, really, because when I think back on my youth, which to me doesn't seem like that long ago, I thought about how old people were when they were in their thirties.

I mean, when I was 12, back in 1984 (remember? Reagan, Mary Lou Retton, Cubs win the NL East...OK, so I'm dating myself), people in their 30's had grown up watching black and white TVs, not having cable, heck, not having computers!

It makes me wonder what kids who are 12 think about people in their 30's now. I guess they can marvel at how primitive our video games were, but, really, we had them. It seems to me that we had a lot of the things kids have today when I was growing up. Maybe I'm just old, and not hip anymore, so I don't have any clue, but it doesn't seem like the world has changed all that drastically in the last 20 or so years.

So why is it that I feel so old around all of these kids today?

We're having some people over on Saturday night for game night and burgers...oh yeah, and beer too. I'm looking forward to spending the remainder of the 3-day weekend relaxing with my wife, our dog, and our unborn child.

My turn

Yesterday, while we were getting ready to go to work, Monica felt the baby moving around again. I ran over and said "Let me feel!" She put my hand low on her tummy and after a few seconds, I felt a little bump against my thumb. My eyes got really big, as did my smile. Monica started to laugh, and as she did, I felt a twinge of disappointment because I thought what I had felt we just her abs flexing. When she stopped laughing, though, I felt it again. I asked her, "Is that it?" and she said that it was, indeed, our child beating against my thumb.

Friday, January 6, 2006...the day I first felt my child.

flutterbies

Monica felt the baby today.

She was sitting on the couch, surfing the net and laughing because it was tickling her on the inside. It made me smile really big.

Complete!

Sort of. There are still obvious mistakes in the wall, so I think at some point this spring, we're going to re-paint with a texture paint to hide the mistakes, then paint over that with the brown....Oat Straw to be exact. We may also end up painting the whole room in Oat Straw, and going a touch darker on the far wall. Or not.

At any rate, this part of the project is complete. I love the new lights...they make it look like such a modern house. Let's review again how this thing progressed, shall we?

This was how our wall looked up until 13 days ago. Let's disco, baby! This picture was taken in June 2004 when we first looked at the house.


The first day I was on vacation, I started bringing down the wall. "Tear down the wall! Tear down the wall!"



On Monday of this week, Andy came over to help me hang sheetrock with the suppies that Gregg graciously brought over.


And finally, today. The finished product.


Here's a more dramatic, "While You Were Out" look at it, with out the fan in the way...

Mud wrestling

In my haste to make a post the other day, I forgot the thank Gregg for brining over the finishing supplies so that my wall didn't look like a jigsaw puzzle. I mudded up the wall, put some tape down, and since I'm not a pro at this, left bubbles in the tape, but I put primer on it anyway (thanks again to Gregg), and then it really didn't look right, so I went back today and re-mudded the spots that looked bad. It looks much better now, and I'm just waiting for it to dry so I can sand it and re-prime it, then it's off the Home Depot to get some paint and a new light fixture.

I "painted" the wall virtually so we could try out the colors. We'll see how it looks compared to the real thing once it's all said and done.

And on the 9th day, he said "Let there be a wall," and a wall was built and it was good

Not too shabby of a job for amateurs. Much thanks to Andy for helping me out. Tomorrow...the mud.

When the Saints go marching in...

Since I left my camera at home, I had to use the phone cam. Evidently, it doesn't take far-away pictures as well as it takes close up pictures.





We left the game with about 90 seconds. The Saints had a 2 point lead when we left, and as we were walking throug the stadium, the Lions were stopped cold for 3 downs. Evidently, though, the made a huge connection on 4th down and won the game by 1 point. Go figure.

Getting the entire family in the Christmas spirit

He wears the "Santa's Helper" bandana with pride. The antlers...not so much...

It's 10 degrees somewhere...

Yesterday I went shopping. Most of the shopping was done online, but I did have to go to some real stores and deal with real people for some of it.

And that just served to hammer the Christmas spirit right out of me.

I hate crowds. The reason I hate crowds is because there's always stupid people in crowds. You know the kind...the ones who walk slow and take up the entire walkway while gesturing wildly with their hands or stop every 10 feet to look at something? The "slow and wides" as Mom and Dad call them.

Well, here in San Antonio there's another kind of stupid, along with the slow and wides. They're the "I'm-trying-to-be-fashionable-in-my-winter-clothing-even-though-it's-almost-sixty-degrees-outside" stupid. They were everywere. The typical ITTBFIMWCETIASDO stupid person is a teenaged girl, although I did see some 20-somethings too. They're so easy to spot, too, because they're wearing a scarf and possibly a stocking cap, although not down over their ears like people do when it's actually cold outside.

But what really gives them away are the boots. You know the ones--the Uggs that Oprah likes so much. I think they're called Uggs because they're frickin UGLY. These are the kind of boots that you should be wearing if you're in the Arctic or Chicago during the winter (because there's really no difference between the Arctic and a Chicago winter, except...no penguins in Chicago), but you sure as hell shouldn't be wearing them when it's 60 degrees outside!

I recall Oprah (yes, I watched the other day...I'm on break, remember?) saying how warm they kept her feet, and all I could think about yesterday when I saw these teeny boppers wearing them around in the mall was how badly their feet must be sweating, and what a lovely aroma that must produce.

Very fashionable, indeed.

Phase 1: Complete

And I didn't even need any help from Andrew Dan Jumbo, or Ty Pennington. Just over three hours from start to finish, and that included clean-up! Here's the evidence:

The first hole in the wall was made just before noon...


The obligatory "before" shot...from summer '04 when we bought the house


During...I went a little nuts with the masking tape...


Finished with demo, just after 3 PM.


I left the top because there's nothing on the other side of that wall except attic, and I didn't feel like leaving our house exposed for the next couple of days. We'll get it done when we're ready to drywall.

Now I just need to get the crew over here and we'll drywall and paint!

Be prepared to call in some backup

I think I may have been watching too many home improvement shows. This weekend, I'm going to take on the task of destroying the "wall o' mirrors" in our house. Hopefully, the rest of our house will still be intact after I'm done.

Of course, destroying is the easy part. After that, I have to put the wall back up, sans mirrors. This is going to prove to be interesting, as I've never put up a wall before. I can only hope that it doesn't look like a totally amateur job. I'll post pictures as the process moves along.

Just to prove that I can and do update my blog more frequently than my sister...

Some cute dog and wife pictures for you...

I published my first book!

Yes, you read that right. I published a book.

Seems like the whole Laleman family is getting into the book biz. Maybe I can get my mom to sell my book at her store...maybe not.

I became interested in trying my hand at book publishing after reading this post on Dooce. I never realized that publishing my own work could be so cost efficient. I've created photo books through Apple's iPhoto before, but they were really expensive, and I wasn't all that impressed with the quality.

I still haven't received my copy of the book yet, but I'm expecting it sometime this week. It's a collection of photos from our honeymoon this summer (no, not those kind of pictures...landscape pictures). I already know one thing I need to revise in the book--I didn't give Monica credit for the photos she took, and I just know I'm going to hear about it.

Anyway, you can check it out (and buy a copy if you want!) through Lulu

Its' beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Well, it's officially Christmas at the Laleman household.

We've purchased...rather, I've purchased our summer sausage and cheese ball.

I remember those times when Dad would purchase these items from kids at school, or receive them as gifts from staff members. It always marked the true beginning of the Christmas season, with Dad cutting pieces off the sausage and Sarah and I peeling the casing off and popping them in our mouths.

We never seemed to be able to get enough.

Since Monica is pregnant and can't ingest the tons of preservatives present in the meat and cheese, I get to eat these wonderful Christmas treats by myself.

That's right, Sarah, they're mine...ALL MINE!

A Magical Christmas Palace

When we got home from our trip to the great, frigid north last weekend, I decided I had better take advantage of the 90 degree weather to put up Christmas lights. This was a much easier task than it was last year, as I already knew what I was doing and didn't have to put any new nails in the side of the house like I did last year.

It was sort of like teaching the same lesson two years in a row.

What we didn't do last weekend, though, was put up our Christmas tree and other decorations--mostly because that would have involved us cleaning the house.

We did that this weekend.

So now we have a lit fake Christmas tree and all of our Christmas knick knacks decorating the living room, and as the song goes, "it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas."

I'm looking forward to not having to travel this Christmas, but I am going to miss being with my side of the family. It was just going to be too much driving for one year. I think just with our road trips, we've traveled close to 15,000 miles in the past 12 months.

We're listing Monica's truck as a second home on our taxes this year.