thought

If you thought we weren't in Grand Marais right now, you're terribly mistaken...and now you're probably jealous.

fun with photo booth

quote of the day

I heard this on the radio this morning, and man is it true.

"There's nothing a Monday can throw at you that a little disco can't cure."

And oh yes, I was dancing in all my tool-belt glory to Night Fever.

condiments

It seems to me, that for the two year old boy, food is a means to consuming as much condiments as possible.

Example:

Corn-dogs are a means to ketchup

Quesadillas are a means to sour cream.

Crackers are means to hummus.

Carrots are means to veggie dip.

Lets be honest men, do we ever really outgrow this?

something you don't see everyday on Matilda Street

So this morning I was standing at the sink making coffee and saw something coming down the street, needless to say I was a bit surprised!



They were heading east down Cook Street...
Then like a couple Jr. High boys cut the corner through my front lawn, which actually is more like a glacier right now.
And then they were headed south down Matilda Street.

I have to be honest, I contemplated getting my gun, the country boy I am. That would put a lot of food on the table. I counted 14 of them turkeys!

manliness

Manliness you say? What is he going to write about? Vacuums! That's right vacuums.

I don't know, there's just something manly about vacuuming. It is a power-tool after all. Weather I'm tenderly cleaning our nursery floor or violently blasting through 100 year old dust on the job site, I love to vacuum. The gentle hum of the motor, and the satisfaction of hearing debris bouncing off the sides of the vacuum tube, there's no down side. It's always satisfying to change the filter and see all that stuff that abides where you do!

Seriously, if our family was at your house for dinner and you said, "Hey Phil, wanna go downstairs and checkout the vacuum?" I'd say, "heck yes!"

I've gotten to know my vacuums. I have two. One is a Ridgid job site vacuum, wet or dry. The other is a household Kenmore, dark blue, with a powerful 12 amp motor and a light!

What do you wield? Men, are you with me?

beautiful snowfall

The last time our street was plowed was the night of that soggy, rainy snow that fell on Christmas. Prior to that our street had only been plowed once. You may be asking, "Where does he live? In northern, rural MN?" No, we live in St. Paul. I wonder if this snowfall will be enough to break out the plows?!

It sure is beautiful though, and I'm glad we drive Jeeps. I was talking in jest with Emily how instead of requiring taxes for snow plowing, they should just give everybody a "vehicle credit" to buy a winter Jeep and never plow the roads.

cool mac trick

If you own a Mac, there is a cool feature that I use quite often. I don't know what it's called but what it does is inverts all the colors on your screen - creates a negative image. I use it mostly in the early morning when my eyes are still adjusting or when I'm in a very sunny situation and I have a hard time reading a white screen. Here's how you activate and deactivate it.

Hold down "Control, Option (Alt), and Apple (command)" and hit the number "8". Do the same thing to deactivate the feature. I've never tried it on a PC, let me know if it does.

I tried taking a screen shot with the feature activated so you could see it but screen shots bypass the feature so it didn't work.