CORALINE!!!!

If you haven't read this book, read it! It's pretty great. Read it before the movie drops in February and you'll be among the cool "in-the-know" crowd.

random pics for saturday

i've been meaning to pass this shirt on to Marjorie, but i keep forgetting to send it. good times.




a nice picture of my bad to the bone 2.0 swapped colt. more good times



here is a picture of the back of our now sided garage. in the colt picture you can see it wasn't done yet. it is done now.



that is all for now. we did some family photos recently that i will post, but we haven't decided which ones we are posting and which ones we might mail out. anyway. have a good weekend.

-ryan

Something for Friday

NY Times thinks that the financial crisis has not yet hit home. . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/20/garden/20math.html?_r=1&hp

(Sorry, the hyperlink function isn't working.)

Richard

pwned for the Holidays

Happy Thanksgiving wieners!


Remember to play it safe.

Holiday Advice from Jack Handey

If you're at a Thanksgiving dinner, but you don't like the stuffing or the cranberry sauce or anything else, just pretend like you're eating it, but instead, put it all in your lap and form it into a big mushy ball. Then, later, when you're out back having cigars with the boys, let out a big fake cough and throw the ball to the ground. Then say, 'Boy, these are good cigars!'"

Countdown to Thanksgiving

Well, I spoke with Betsey at 6:00 and she and Richard and Nora are on the road to North Carolina.  Ed and I leave tomorrow at 3:30, and Karl and Emily will head out after Karl finishes his shift at 11:00 pm.  With all of us on the road like that, we hope you will keep us all in your prayers, and that we can navigate through the expected snow safely.

Betsey is not around to post a blog, and I don't know if Edward and Meridth can continue to shore us up with their fun and interesting posts, three days in a row.  But since there is no news here in Indiana, we are going to turn to Stacey and Teressa in Illinois to fill us all in with their new news.  How is Baby Lexi?  How is Kyle adjusting to having a little sister?  I hope he won't be a big brother tease like his great-uncle Ed. (poor Liz!)  What about Jack and Justin?  How are their school years going?  What is new with them?  Is Tom still working with the construction business in a slump?  We have questions?

Miss you all!

Claudia

Blue Collar versus White Collar

Can you believe it?  We're sitting here, working on an apple pie, and we hear Rachel Maddow talking about the new CitiBank bailout!  They have been given a second bailout of twenty billion dollars, and loan guarantees of 300 billion by our wonderful government, no questions asked.  No testifying before a Senate committee of angry, sarcastic white men, no ridicule, no plan required for restructure, no cheap shot about airline transportation arrangements or CEO pay!  

And what does CitiBank do with our taxpayer dollars?  They pay 400 million dollars for naming rights to the brand new New York Mets stadium.  Where is the public outrage!?!  What a double standard.  Betsey, how can we legally express our displeasure at the highest level of government!

On a brief aside, the asshole Senator from Alabama who grilled and ridiculed the Big 3 and the UAW at hearings approved state perks to the tune of  $175,000 to Mercedes-Benz per employee to locate a SUV manufacturing plant to the state.  And he has the temerity to chasten the UAW for receiving supplemental unemployment benefits during layoffs.  We are furious, and feel greatly let down by Obama's critical remarks in light of the Senate decision!

Ed and Claudia

International Lionel Richie Day

How will you celebrate this year?

Last day of a four-day-weekend

So on the 11th Meridth and I went hiking. Cool, huh?


So this is about half a mile into the hike and the camera is facing North. Note the big rock with the arrow above it. It is a reference point. What does it refer to you ask?


Well here is the arrow again. Look how much smaller the lump of rock we were by has become. Are you impressed with our bipedal fortitude?

Last reference. It was a gorgeous day to be out. Warm and breezy by the ocean. Sadly RADAR couldn't come with. There aren't a lot of dog-friendly trails in the CA State Park system. Still California is awesome. Except for the fires of course. The trail we were going to hike were closed from the fires down here last summer. Boo.

Here's a rough outline of our course. The red arrow is the parking lot. The orange arrow is, in fact, the spot we pointed to earlier. The lump of terrain? Yeah. The mustard yellow spot is where we turned back inland. And green was where we turned left and started back for red. It was about eight and a half miles all told and we knocked it out in about four and a half hours. Lots of fun. Well worth the unsightly tummy-sweat.


Meridth found some things to love too.

Ya Gotta Love Google Earth

I tell you, I am so grateful to Brandon for teaching us about Google Earth.  I can still remember him showing us all that cool stuff in the hotel room in Salt Lake City when we were there for Betsey and Richard's wedding.  What a fun place to go!  

The missionaries were here for supper this evening, and while we were waiting for stuff to bake, Ed googled-earthed their hometowns, and focused in on their houses so we could see where they lived.  One elder was from Heber City, and the other elder was from Holliday (SLC suburb).  Anyway, we were talking about your missions, and Ed wanted to show them how cool Austria was (since he was able to travel with me to pick Edward up in Vienna).  He google-earthed St Johann im Pongau, Austria, and we got to see some of the greatest views of the little town where Rusty spent 9 months of his life.  It was incredible.  I'm sorry that I have no link included in this post, but I think you have to load Google Earth into your computer first.  Maybe not--I don't really know.  Anyway, now I am going to have to go look up Betsey's mission addresses so I can go see the fun places where we went, when Margie and I went to pick her up in Dublin.

Anyway, you know how crazy I am for maps, and Google Earth is like having a live map.  Dad spent the next hour after the elders left, looking at places in West Virginia, following rivers, checking out homes, and traveling down some of their beautiful, winding, twisty roads.  I, of course, had already gone back to grading papers.  -sigh-

We love you, and are thinking of you all.

Claudia and Ed

TWILIGHT

I went to see this at midnight on Thursday, with low expectations- the movie is never as good as the book right? I'll keep my opinions to myself b/c I don't know who all has seen it yet, but let me know what you think if you've seen it!

shun the non believers

chloe thinks this is hilarious.

brought to you by ashley.

xoxo

Friday Wrap-Up

Okay, tonight I'm tired and don't have much to contribute to the interweb, but we must post!  We are going strong here and have a little over a week left.  Keep up the excellent posts everyone!  I'm very proud of us.  

Tonight, Richard and I are going to watch the Office and 30 Rock on the internet and then go to bed.  We are having a low-key evening in.  What about you?  What did you do to celebrate the start of the weekend?

My Sister's getting married!

...so I did her announcements
Apparently my new brother-in-law is a James Bond fan too! I wonder what the stats are for male fans versus female fans? ;)

The Proposed Big Three Bailout

Mitt Romney on the Detroit Bailout...

Thoughts? I mean we've all got a stake in this one.

Also: something to think about.