Happy Holidays

FLASHBACK!!

I was thumbing through next weeks Best Buy insert and I came across some old Disney movies like Pete's Dragon and The Sword in the Stone which reminded me of cartoon short I used to watch all the time on the Disney Channel called Little Hiawatha.

Buffalo, NY

Last weekend Aimee and I flew out to Buffalo, NY (and man are my arms tired) to see our niece Lexi in a semi-professional play called Madeline's Christmas. The play was at the Theatre of Youth in downtown Buffalo, NY. I'm very proud of Lexi as she did a fantastic job playing Camille. Maybe some more plays for in the future? Who knows maybe Broadway?

OK you can not go to Buffalo and not have some chicken wings. The place to go to is Duff's where Medium is Hot, Medium Hot is Very HOT and Hot is VERY, VERY HOT!! AWESOME WINGS! It would put BW3's to shame. Heck it would put BW3's out of business.

This is how you rock out in Buffalo! We don't mess around with our Rock Band!

Enjoying some beverages.

Niagara River just before the falls.

Canada, eh. We went over to Canada for a little bit. Nothing much to see there.

Take a look.

This is the observation deck on the U.S. side where you freeze your butt off in the winter. TONS of Japanese tourists snapping pictures.

Niagara Falls from the U.S. side. on the right is Canada.

Aimee and I freezing on the observation deck.

Lexi in her red coat for the play. They had a photo session for parents to take pictures at the end of the play. It was hard to snap any good pictures with the way the lighting was setup. Once again I wish I had a Canon 40D (or 50D) to get these shots.

Hair Band Wednesday

It's Not A Tumor!!

Wait it is! Poor little Zoey has a histiocytoma which is a benign tumor that is fairly common in young dogs. It will eventually go away in 2-3 months. If it doesn't go away it will need to be removed.

The Hat

This is my hat. There are many like it but this one is mine. My hat is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life. Without me, my hat is useless. Without my hat I am useless. I must wear my hat true. I must wear it straighter than my enemy, who is trying to scare me. I must scare him before he scares me. I will. Before God I swear this creed: my hat and myself are defenders of my country, we are the masters of our enemy, we are the saviors of my life. So be it, until there is no enemy, but peace. Amen.

WCHA Hockey Weekend

James, Pete, Kris and I got back yesterday from our guys WCHA Hockey Weekend. This was our 5th year and this year we kept it close to home driving up to St Cloud to see the Huskies play Mankato. Just to review past arenas we have gone to: Duluth, North Dakota, Wisconsin, and Michigan Tech. Beer and Hockey, how can you go wrong? Our seats for the game were right behind the Huskies bench. It was a cool experience to be right behind the bench and feel the intensity of the game. Only down fall was watching the game on the far side of the rink and looking through 3 panes of glass once the puck was down on our side of the rink. I thought the National Hockey Center was pretty nice, nothing fancy but it got the job done. I don’t think anything will top Ralph Engelstad Arena in North Dakota. The game was riddled with fights! I think Mankato was getting extremely frustrate towards the end of the game being down 5 to 2. With about 5 minutes left we started to hear the student section yell out “FREE WINGS! FREE WINGS!” We then found out if the Huskies score 6 goals everyone in the arena gets 6 free wings from Buffalo Wild Wings. With about 58 seconds left the Huskies scored their 6th goal! On our way home we stopped at BW3’s and had our free wings. I'll post up some pics once I get them from James. Next year we go to Colorado in Pete's GMC Safari.

-MikeyB

Old Skool

Anyone remember this show back when you were a kid?



or Picture Pages? I always wanted a Mortimer Ichabod marker .



And then there were Brain Games on HBO.

Everybody Wants Some

From one of the greatest movies of all time.

Well, it's... A leg, you know, like a statue

12 reasons that A Christmas Story is a modern Classic!

12: "Deck the halls with boughs of horry, ra ra ra ra ra, ra ra ra ra"
11: "Don't forget to drink your Ovaltine"
10: "Nadafinga!!"
9: Ralphie's pink bunny outfit
8: Scut Farkus' yellow eyes
7: "Fuuuuuuuudddggee"
6: "Randy...how do the little piggies eat?"
5: "Fra-gee-lay. That must be Italian"
4: "Where's the glue?" "We're out of glue!" "You used up all the glue on purpose!!"
3: "I triple-dog dare ya!"
2: "Alright, I'll get that kid to eat. Where's my screw driver and my plumber's helper? I'll open up his mouth and I'll shove it in"

... and, of course, the #1 reason: "I want an Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle! You'll shoot your eye out, kid!"

Hair Band Wednesday

All Is Good In Da Hood

Aimee went in for her check up this morning and all is good with Baby B. She has an ultrasound appointment on Dec. 23rd where we will soon discover if Baby B is a He or a She. I'm excited to find out what we are having and also to start getting Baby B's room ready.

Aimee and I went down to Hampton Hills Tree Farm on Sunday and cut down a 7 ft fraser fir. I think last year we had a Balsam Fir. As long as the needles stay on the tree and there isn't any large gaps in the branches, I'm good. It's seemed like the tree selection was a little scarce. Most of the trees still standing were 3-5 ft range and looked like Charlie Brown tree. For $35 bucks you can't go wrong considering the tree lots in the cities sell thems for $80-90 bucks. We want to get a fake tree at the end of the season but I'm a little unsure about getting one since I really like the real trees. Of course we have been talking about getting a fake tree for the past 3 years so I'm sure this year will be the same result as in years past.

Work is good. Getting into the busy holiday season. It seemed that Black Friday was a success as there were 400 people in line at the Apple Valley store last Friday. Crazy MFer's. I personally didn't see any good deals that caught my eye. I know Mike N. always wonders what I do at Best Buy. I'm a Promotional Pricing Planner...that's what I do. Before that our title was a Pricing Support Analyst, before that it was a Tactical Pricing Analyst and before that we were just Pricing Analysts. We like to rework our job discription to keep up with the times. I basically make sure that what is in the Sunday insert is correct in the system and online.

Oh I'm a chatty Cathy today, lets continue. So the biking season has pretty much come to an end. I don't have any winter gear and don't really feel the need to freeze my jingle bells off winter riding. I was pretty happy with this years riding season. I hit the trails 3-5 times a week and Lebanon Hills seemed to be my trail of choice. I would have gone to Murphy Hanrehan more often but with the gas prices hitting $4 a gallon I stayed closer to home. I also go in over 40hrs of volunteer time so with that Best Buy cuts a check to MORC for $1,000. Since I'm not biking in the winter that means I have to hit the gym to keep my beer belly to a minimum over the winter months. 45 minutes on the elliptical and some arm lifting usually does the trick. My goal is to go 4 times a week. We'll have to see about that.

That's about all I have. X-Mas list is HERE and updated daily.

-MikeyB