Year: 2017

This morning we woke up to a bit of white in our trees…

There’s some pretty impressive work, thirty feet up in the big tree. But there are also signs of amateurs at work, because they left about a dozen mostly-full rolls of toilet paper on the ground… perfect for us to use in our revenge. Now we just need to figure out who the culprits are…

On his mission, Alex wasn’t allowed to have facial hair. He’ll be leaving for BYU in a few weeks, where beards are forbidden (mustaches are okay, but they’re definitely not in vogue). So, in these few weeks, he’s decided to grow a bit of a beard. Here’s the progress:

Like me, he doesn’t get much action along the lines of his jaw, and I guess above his lip it’s all blond hair that really doesn’t show. So he decided to just keep the fuzz along the bottom of his chin. It’ll be interesting to see how far along this gets before he has to shave for school.

How many kids have turned up their noses at dinners they didn’t like, and then given the excuse they’re “not that hungry” so they won’t eat it? Zaque is a master, as evidenced by a recent dinner:

As Yoda famously said to Luke, “How you get so big, eating food of this kind?” I have no idea how Zaque is the size he is, since he rarely has much dinner…

At Zing we’re talking about changes to our employee health-care program, and at the same time I’m watching the slowly-unfolding train wreck that is the Republicans’ tax bill, all the while tracking the unbelievable increase in health insurance premiums from year to year.

That’s why this quote by Cory Doctorow resonated with me:

Although I understand there are drawbacks to fully socialized health care, I can’t believe people still think the American health care system is reasonable.

(Oh, wait, the people who do think that are the ones who stand to profit from it! Of course…)

So the movie Inception is not only good, but it’s perfect for jokes involving multiple layers of things. This morning I was in a conference call and we were sharing screens with one another. At one point my screen showed his screen, which was showing my screen, and we were off to the races.

Here’s the craziness that ensued:

If I hadn’t switched to a different window, it might’ve caused a rip in the fabric of space-time or something. Whew!

I’ve been sending Christmas cards to family and friends since 1995, and the scale of the effort continues to grow each year. This year’s list of recipients is just shy of 350, which of course means a lot of printing and envelopes and postage. It’s quite a production, and one which has consumed the past few weekends.

For many years, I would put together elaborate newsletters and photo collages and that sort of thing. One fateful year– 2009, to be exact– I was doing my usual work on our card, and came up with the design we’d send to the printing company.

That looks pretty good, right? Well, when I was taking the pictures, I mentioned that we should all make a goofy pose. We did, and I tested it on the card layout:

The kids absolutely loved it. They thought it would be so funny to send this as our annual card. So, okay, I did. I was (pleasantly) surprised at the number of people who mentioned how much they enjoyed our irreverence.

Thus, the tradition was born. The next year I wondered what we could add to our funny faces. The answer: head over to Target and have everyone pick out a hat to wear. We stood in the store, trying on hats, and eventually asked a customer to take our picture. That was an interesting conversation.

A year later, I thought we should stand in a circle looking down at a camera on the floor. (I admit, it wasn’t one of my most creative moments.)

In 2012 I decided we should take a serious family portrait– the kind of thing you’d buy at Olan Mills or some other professional studio. But I wanted to add something completely unexpected. After a bit of thought, it came to me. Wigs. This drew rave comments from a lot of friends, and remains one of my favorite cards. It’s mostly because of the way Zack looks.

My office has a lot of huge glass walls, and I figured we’d see what it looks like to mash our faces against glass and take a picture. The result wasn’t quite as funny as it seemed in my mind, and I ended up doing a lot of work to remove glare from the photo.

2014 was the year our Christmas cards went from an amusing anecdote amongst friends to the stuff of legend. For whatever reason, people loved the “Jurassic Park” idea. Even now, years later, I have friends who tell me how their kids talk about that card. I know people who still have this card on their refrigerator. Yes, really.

Inspired by the previous idea of combining our family with popular media, I decided to capitalize on the hysteria surrounding the newest Star Wars movie. As it turns out, it’s much more difficult than I expected to combine our faces with a movie poster. In addition, Alex was serving his mission in Peru so I couldn’t get a photo of him specifically for the pose I needed. That said, it turned out pretty good.

In 2016, I wanted to do something that combined our card with a web site. What sort of thing might have a multimedia tie-in? Music, of course! But we’re not a musical family at all (with the notable exception of Kyra and her flute), so whatever music we included would probably be bad. Well, why not make it really bad, then? The answer was obvious: kazoos. I opted for a serious take on a kazoo orchestra, and we all dressed up and tried to look serious. In truth, this “photo shoot” had me laughing so hard I was crying at points. We have some hilarious outtakes. And I built a web site, complete with audio clips and biographies of the orchestra members. Even Alex, still off in Peru, was mentioned as an absentee member. The site allowed people to comment, which was fun. This project definitely took longer than any previous card, but it was a blast.

This year I had a complete dearth of creativity. Thanksgiving had come and gone, and still I didn’t know what to do, but with some input from the team (well, Alex), it came together. It’s not my finest work, but I hope it’ll be a hit.

I’m not sure what to make of this…

Monopoly is one of those games that really brings people together. I mean, it’s tedious and ruthless and the entire point of the game is to bankrupt your friends and family.

Today Dirk learned– apparently for the first time– about the “auction” rule. If the player who lands on a property doesn’t want to buy it, the property goes up for auction to all of the remaining players. Of course that’s pretty important, but most people (including Dirk) don’t know about it.

I told him this:

To which he responded:

In general, games like this remind me of a classic Calvin and Hobbes cartoon:

I actually have a printed copy of that comic tucked inside one of our board games, and I pull it out as a reminder to the kids when we play.

Thanks, Monopoly!

The other evening we were at the King Soopers grocery store, and Zaque noticed one of those little motorized carts sitting in the parking lot. I assume it was abandoned by the senior citizen who used it to drive groceries to a car. Zaque– always looking for opportunities to serve, hah!– asked if it would be okay for him to drive it back into the store.

Here he is, parking it in the cart storage area at the store entrance.

The funny thing was how slowly that thing moved. I realize you don’t necessarily want older people tearing around the store and screeching around corners in high-powered carts, but at the speed this thing moves, it would take most of the day to shop for groceries…

It’s the time of year when I create our annual Christmas cards, and I’m suffering from serious creativity block. In past years, I would often have an idea months in advance, and it was just a matter of making it come together. This year, though, I’m coming up blank.

I had a funny idea about having us riding animals, or having Bob Ross paint a family portrait, but when I sat down to work on the concepts, it just didn’t flow. Laralee suggested a Justice League theme, since that’s the blockbuster movie that just came out (and Wonder Woman is her favorite movie of all time).

So I found a movie poster…

… and combined it with a few photos from our album for an initial concept…

But… no.

Back to the drawing board.