December 28, 2007

We are counting down the end of another year at the St. John-Smythe estate, and I thought I would try one more blog entry for aught-7. It hasn't been too eventful around here lately. Mostly we have been finding ourselves involved in the civic ballet in one way or another. I might have mentioned that we had a Clara living around here the past six months. One of the main characters in The Nutcracker you know. Honestly, it was a difficult experience, but in the end it was a triumphant outcome despite all of the difficulties that led up to it.

This is a pretty big deal. The tickets cost $22, so people need to see good stuff, and I hope we delivered.

Clara preps for the show by playing Sims.

After getting into costume, she expresses "jazz hands" and flexes.

Sorry about the long-exposure movement artifacts here, but flash photography is a bad idea during the show. No duh.

Clara had to make a quick change in the tool room stage left.

Clara had to watch Act II pretty much sitting still upstage center. Not easy!

We had an an awesome Snow Crystal too. She only liked having her photo in the lobby, and didn't mind too much in the fog before the curtain lifted for Act II.

Speaking of fog, if you are in the cast and find a bottle of fog juice backstage, I think it goes without saying that you should hold it up for a pic.

Our local historic theatre has a cool alleyway to the stage door.

Official Nutcracker Party Scene partner of Sir Charles also enjoys the stage door.

Clara's father did not portray "Clara's Father", but Clara's father is aging. Check out the reading glasses argh.

Selling raffle tickets for Clara's tiara was surprisingly popular.

Miscellany

A loverly Christmas was had in the midst of all the Crackery madness.

Tom and I cut a track for the staff present, a compilation of some of our future smash hit covers. Here is "Ebony and Ivory." Tom is Paul.

Here's an awesome picture I found on the memory card from October of two thirds of Team Lazy Mongrels, the winner of the family division in our local urban adventure race. Nice!

It's time to wish Happy New Year to all. Your Humble Bloggist has a planned rendezvous with Curacaoapalooza, the first without Doug Stern. Maybe I'll have a couple stories to relate...

Tour of Missouri
Sept. 12, 2007

It's not often that our humble but worthy small metropolis has the opportunity to host an big-league event. One of those opportunities was today, when the heavy hitters from Discovery Channel's legendary cycling team rolled through town, as well as many other amazing riders from great teams, with a stage finish in the first Tour of Missouri. I don't know whether this event will survive the vicissitudes of the modern sports marketplace or not, but our one day of glory in the sun was nearly unbeatable.


We got our own plaque at the finish line! Check out the jumbotron. There were huge screens everywhere.


Coach Eric and I do NOT like cheaters. Naughty-naughty.




Cycling fans are awesome!




Big George Hincapie won the race. An exciting sprint after a successful 11-man breakaway. Cycling is kind of difficult to watch from the finish line. It's all over in milliseconds.


The press loves Big George! He will probably win the Tour of MO, because the ones that finished with him on this stage so far ahead of the others are not really considered so great in the time trial, which is a different kind of stage that take place tomorrow. In Branson. That should be interesting.

I think this is Levi Leipheimer who finished third in the Tour de France. Regrettably the maillot jaune of that race, Alberto Contador, escaped my camera. He is not either of the other Discovery riders in the photo.




Cheers from the blog of Sir Charles at mid week. There may be stories to tell from a race of my own this weekend, a road trip for the Official Triathlon Club. If our last adventure at a race coinciding with Cinco de Mayo is any indication, things might get a little interesante.

Birthdaypaloooooooza!


















Who knew birthday weekends could be so much fun? Your Humble Bloggist has had quite a few. This one was more fun than, say, my 25th, which, as I recall, was spent at the U Hospital in that SoCal metropolis sleep-deprived and wandering around in a fog with those index cards we used to make rounds with.

Friday

The Eldest has just started Central High and we made the road trip to Willard for the Friday Night Lights opener. Go Bulldogs! Woof woof!

















Uh, the game wasn't close... that scoreboard says Tigers 47 our Bulldogs nothing....:( :( That's at the end of the first half my friends!


















Willard has a band with an amazing number of xylophones.















There is also an acoustic guitar in the Willard marching band. This is something that Sir Charles can appreciate. I think band is big at Willard High.

















The Eldest was not about to have her spirits dampened by the rout. We lost the battle, but the outcome of the war is undecided!... We will be there for the home game this week for our Dawgs! Behind her is Friend of the Blog, Rob (Willard fan ech). Rob is from Canada and was last mentioned in the blog back in the original menehune post as none other than the Chief Handler. ("Don't crowd the Champ"), but was last pictured at Hodad's celebrating our 20th with us. Rob did not make the cut for the anniversary haikus. Sorry, Rob. Rob's kids go to Willard and one of them is seen here snowconing, as is the Youngest. Rob is taunting the Eldest with a Georgetown Hoya (bulldog?) shirt. One of Rob's best talents is taunting. I think he has watched that castle scene from Holy Grail about a million times (French guys...father was a hamster, mother smelt of elderberries..you know the one...) Wow, this is a busy blog! That was a lot of explanation...my fingers are tired. Right now I have to rest because the nightly New York Times speed crossword contest is getting ready to start. So I'll be back in a few minutes, but I guess that won't register in the blog because you just have to go a line down and it's like my pause never happened. It's an interesting fact of literature that these things come out seamlessly, but they are really created in stops and starts. Well, maybe that's not interesting to you, but it is to me.





OK, I'm back. Another close but no cigar for Top Ten points on the puzzle racing, type as fast as you can thing. Just one more thing about the game. PA announcement: "The Willard track team is selling raffle tickets for a half a side of beef. The winner will claim the prize after the last home football game. " I, as Dave Barry would say, am NOT making that up.




Saturday





I was determined to do a 44 mile bike ride for this particular day. My symbolism is subtle and deep, you know. I took off with Jeff (from the Chili Ride entry) and his fellow iron stud Eric. This is part of the ride that day, if you want to look at a satellite map with a bunch of farm roads. Farm roads are awesome for riding. I don't have the best legs right now, and I had meant to run with them but started cramping like a mile in so I turned around. How did menehune get to our humble yet worthy small metropolis?






















I love birthday parties and I'm sure you can see that I am now forty-fortunate. And I have to give the Eldest the TM on that nice turn of phrase. So chapeau to her as I think they say in Quebec or something. Maybe Rob can comment on that. Nobody ever comments, though.






Here is the traditional birthday, self-timer, camera on the plastic Adirondack chair arm family portrait.
















My mom sent me an awesome painting along with the tale of how she painted it right after I was born. My mom can do art, oh yeah. So proud of how good my mom was even all those years ago.



















You might wonder what's the deal with the spatula and to that I can answer that that spatula was part of our life when I was a baby also, the last extant (as far as I know) wedding present of the Official Parents of Sir Charles. I have kept that over the years and now I have two awesome things from the early sixties, which was a ridiculously long time ago when I think about it, so I just won't...think about it.




Youngest has made me a card with the "happy pencil", evocative of our nightly, pre-bedtime crossword solve on the computer. The program gives you a happy pencil picture when you're done if your solution is correct. So that's what that is, and I'm sorry if that's not interesting, but I wanted to put this picture in the blog, and this is something a bloggist gets to do.


























Sunday




OK, yes, going to a water slide park is bourgeois, so it might surprise you that our adorable little communist likes to do it. No good pictures of sliding. Nuts. But here's one of the Eldest as we break for lunch. We love her dearly, but it must be said that she comes up with strange ideas, your classic hare-brained schemes. Every so often, though, if the stars align in the Seventh House, and the Perseid meteor shower and lunar eclipse occur over the right lintels at Stonehenge, one of these ideas has merit. And here she is, bereft of a fork for eating her Mandarin orange slices at Wendy's, using two straws successfully as chopsticks. So once again, chapeau to the Eldest. That was a problem solved in a most elegant manner.


For the first time ever at the blog, I am going to try to post a video, so cross your fingers.

I don't know if that was worth the bytes or not, but that is of course, the self-portrait movie of the earth-shaking trip down the purple kiddie slide.

Monday

On Monday we hit the links in about a thousand percent humidity. But your worst day golfing is better...well, you know the saying. For future use I was presented (by the ever thoughtful Official Awesome Breathing Partner) Saturday with some lessons from a truly awesome pro in our fair city as well as some golf shoes, so this is the last time you will see this particular pair of Asics in the blog. Do you remember the first time? Go back to the finish line photo from Kona.

PS

I have to do a P.S. here and go back to last weekend, when we attended a baseball game and ended up throwing a party for a bunch of Marines who were at the game and just back from the hot zone in Fallujah. Whether or not you think the war is a good idea, you have to tip your hat to these guys and serve them some beverages.

You can cheer their slightly ragged marching after said beverages as well.

Marines are a studly group.

PPS

OK this is it, I promise. Then you can go back to fixing your fantasy football team if that's what you were doing. Then fix mine while you're at it. How did I end up drafting Kevin Jones? Unwise!

I couldn't haiku this, but I have to say one more thing about the Magical History Tour. When presented with this killer view from our reception venue of 20 years ago, Youngest came up with the best three-word answer of disdain ever. "It's just city."

Twenty years ago,

Breathing Partner and I vowed,

Endless Aloha.

In San Diego
we celebrated. This post
is all in haiku.

Waves at Ocean Beach
Take hopeful boogie boarders
lifting like big hands

At UCSD
We met on this softball field
Loved her at first sight.

Our alma mater
mascotted by a sun god
which looks very strange

It's a long story,
here's where we celebrated
awesome twenty years

Dinner at Hodad's
For our anniversary.
Only the finest

Electric toothbrush
Camoflaged as manual
Delights the Youngest

Our first apartment.

Student housing. Had to wed

Or risk eviction. :)

At Balboa Park
My new life-changing driver
Blasted one downtown

Skinny arms have I
Thanks for accepting their hugs
These past twenty years

Two decades later
You still have that scrumptious smile
And glittering soul