I want to see the entire I met the walrus short animation I saw nominated for an Oscar. This is from the same animation people. Enjoy.

So long Maxwells

Last Thursday Maxwell's bar and restaurant burned down. It was a frequent hang out because our friend shawn worked there. the fire apparently started in a 3rd floor apt. storage area. I went today to take pictures of the aftermath. There was lots of other people with the same idea. although fires are always sad, i really enjoy the designs and shapes leftover when the water freezes in the winter. probably would have been better to go on friday because by today a lot had melted due to the warmer temps. still cool looking though....



reflection for a window across the street. just noticed that if you look hard enough i am in the lower righthand corner taking the picture.

Luminary Loppet

so this post is belated, but i just got the picture from stephanie so i figured i would post it. stephanie, chris, kristen and i did the luminary ski at the beginning of the month (side note: i don't have a matching bid because i signed up that day). over 1000 other people did it also and it was absolutely beautiful with the ice lanterns every 50 feet or so all along lake of the isles. it sounds kind of silly, but it was somewhat magical. it was nice to see lots of families out with their little kids on wee skis. i took a bunch of pictures, but none of them turned out as well as uptown blog's so i refer you there.

My whereabouts


Two weekends ago Anton and I drove through what appeared to be a blizzard to my friend Kraft's cabin. The cabin is about 45 minutes (in regular conditions) south east of Wausau. The drive should have taken 2.5 hours and took a bit over 5! Once there, we drank beers and built a cool snow fort. The trip was fun and it was great to see a bunch of my high school friends I rarely get to see anymore. Unfortunately, I missed a turn in Wausau on the way home and next thing I knew we were more than an hour north in Minocqua. Rather than backtrack, Anton and I decided to just drive Hwy 8 all the way through Wisconsin. The fact it was -12, or so, wasn't the problem driving home... it was the wind. I seriously thought my Jeep was going to tip over or blow into oncoming traffic. When it was all done, I must say it was 10 hours of the worst driving I have ever endured.

This past weekend I avoided driving at all costs. After work Friday I hopped on the light rail and met Christina and some friends downtown for happy hour. Well happy hour continued and continued. After Cameron and I played on NES games on Kirk's touch iPod we went over to the ice bar at the Chambers Hotel. The bar is made of ice (I know, crazy). It was super cold so we had to convince the bartender to come outside and serve us. After this we all went to BANK. It a restaurant/bar that takes up a giant space that used to be a bank (hence the name). After a few requests the manager showed a few of us the wine cellar that is located in the old bank vault.

Easter Egg Hunt

Yesterday, a cold February afternoon, was like easter sunday! I went to the coop and discovered a crushed blue egg that the chickens had pecked at and eaten the contents. i ran to the enclosed area hoping i would find more... and there was a pristine giant blue egg in the nest waiting for me. the fruits of our labor-- realized! i was as excited as a mother who had just witnessed her baby's first steps. the eggs are obviously camilla's. i kind of wondered how long it would take the others... until today when i noticed a crushed brown egg. i searched around like a kid looking for an easter basket and discovered another blue egg and another brown one. steve was out of town and missed it all. He can hunt for them tomorrow.

In order to curtail the pecking at the eggs i have placed a golf ball in there. this way they will peck at it, hurt their beaks and quickly learn not to peck at the eggs. learned it in my class, let's hope it works. fried up the egg tonight and it was quite yummy. SUCCESS! our first homegrown organic egg.

LINK OF THE MONTH

A tad late, but awesome nonetheless.


Oh, and I've removed the spinning shamrock and the dots are gone. McBlog has a new refined look.

Meet Camilla Parker Bowles

Well we got a new hen this weekend at the farm. She's an Ameraucana and about the same age as the other two. She has NOT been warmly welcomed into the coop though. Queenie and Dutchess are definitely not rolling out the red carpet for their new coop mate. I would liken it to hazing. She has been pecked at aggressively (even by Duchess, who is like half her size) and has been exiled to the annex of the coop. We feel horrible about it and have been monitoring her closely over the last 24 hrs. We read that you are supposed to introduce a new hen into the group at night (which we didn't because we learned that too late) because then the others don't feel threatened by a newcomer. We also read that we should spray all of them with a 2/3 water, 1/3 vinegar mixture so that Camilla will now smell the same as the others and they will then accept her. So we did that and have yet to see the results. Hopefully things will settle down soon...

Complete coverage of my birthday

Jarvinen has some pretty in depth coverage of my 28th birthday. I might have to nominate him for a blogger's choice award for best coverage of a random birthday.