Christmas 2010, part 2

*EDIT*

I didn't actually mean to post this today... I set this one up to post automatically on Saturday and must have forgotten about it. For those of my readers who don't know, my Oma passed away this past Sunday. I guess that makes the fun we had in the post below a bit more special seeing as it was her last Christmas with us. There will be some commemorative posting later, but for now let's take a look at the good times.

The cousins could only stay with us for a couple of days, leaving on the Thursday after Christmas. Before then we managed to do a few fun things, including a trip to the Corning Museum of Glass. The CMoG as I'll be calling it is a pretty cool museum, showing off a lot of glass science and history right next to the place where they invented fiber optics and CorningWare. Here are some photos from our outing:

On our last night we had Fasekigla (oy... is that how you spell it?) and my dad made stuffed peppers. Yum!

My cousins were all scheduled to leave by Thursday but my Uncle was unfortunately not able to get a seat on his flight. So we decided to make the best of it and went on a mini wine tour, hitting up Bully Hill, Dr. Franz Konstantin, Heron Hill and Ithaca Beer Co. Here's some pics of beautiful Finger Lakes country with some Herzl clan members thrown in.

Christmas 2010, Part 1

Well, it certainly has been a long time since I rapped at you all... wait, I've started this way before and it didn't work out well then either.

For Christmas Rachel and I headed back to Elmira. We were planning on driving but through a combination of stress on my part and increasingly dire weather predictions for the weekend we decided to fly. I had to work until noon on Christmas Eve so the best that I could do was the first flight out of Milwaukee on Christmas morning.

For reference, the weather predictions were very dire- snow starting on Christmas Eve and building into a full Nor'Easter on Sunday. And, to be fair, it proved true... just not on any of the places that I was going. 3 AM on Christmas? Roads clear. Flight to and from Detroit? Not snowing. My entry into Elmira? The ground was brown. BROWN!

Coming from a land where there was at least a foot of snow on the ground, I think it's fair to say that I was a bit disappointed.

SigusFriedus and Le Dog picked us up from the airport. After that it was a whirlwind meet n' greet with the immediate fam and the quickest present opening that I have ever been privy to. Highlights included:
-I Love Bacon! from The Girl
-Awesome spring jacket that Hans got me from Columbia
-Mark Twain's Autobiography!
-and the most awesome thing of all, a drinking horn holder.

You seriously have no idea how awesome this is. Having experience attempting to use a drinking horn at... a family friendly Rootbeer-athon!... it is incredibly hard to reliably keep one's drink in the horn or one's mouth based simply on the fact that you can't put it down. With this device, I can enjoy my Nordic traditions while secure in the fact that my horn will not tip over and spill my mead.

From there my cousins came home and we started off the big family reunion. Gifts were exchanged in a "Secret" Santa. I got some awesome silicone bake/cookware from my cousin Matt while I in return got him the Star Wars pop-up book (with working lightsabers!). The inevitable Christmas dinner featured double the normal number of birds, and in the war between Max and Meat I am sad to say that meat almost won, going so far as cutting off my dessert resupply. The jerks.

I also got to reconnect with Greg who grew a beard in my absence. Much Black Ops was played, and I was introduced to a new game that Hans got called Stomple. I can't help but pronounce it the German way...

Anyway, this post is getting a bit long, so I'll continue the rest of the trip hopefully over the next week. Check in next time for the 7 v 7 soccer tourney!

Until next time...

"The xmas holidays have this high value: that they remind Forgetters of the Forgotten, & repair damaged relationships."
- letter to Carlotte Welles by Mark Twain, 30 December 1907

Frozen Lakes and Music

It's getting fairly chilly here in Madison- we've had quite a bit of snow as of late. Epic is dealing with the problem in particularly crazy fashion by keeping their artificial river running throughout the winter. Granted, it leads to this pretty awesome view:

In other news, the girl and I have been concert going fiends as of late. First this past Sunday we went to a Doomtree concert featuring our favorite rapper, Dessa!

She is ridiculously talented- for one of my favorite songs of hers, check out the video below:



We also went to the Trampled by Turtles concert on Friday. They focus on contemporary bluegrass and are from Duluth. An example of their music is below:



In other news, I've been formally attached to a customer team and they are glad to finally meet me. So far the work hasn't been too tricky, but I hear there will be a lot more soon.

That's it for now- lots of busy work this weekend, but not too terribly much.

Until next time...

"We often feel sad in the presence of music without words; and often more than that in the presence of music without music."
- More Maxims of Mark, Johnson, 1927

Apartment Video

Finally got the video of my apartment to show! Now, this is from when we just moved in so there have been a few modifications since, but the layout's the same. Enjoy!

Anniversary and Certification

I have finally gotten solid proof of completing a certification; behold:

Yeah, I'm awesome. I should also have Inpatient and Mychart finished up today- now there's only STC to go  and I'm good to work. Which is a good thing as people from my hiring group are already starting to get customers, and once that happens I'll have no time to do any more training. So gotta get er done!

Also this past week was Ms. Carroll's and I's (mine? my? stupid possessives...) 5th anniversary. Kind of boggles the mind to think that we've been together for 5 years as it doesn't seem so long.

Anyway, we of course had to give gifts to one another. My gift, continuing a theme from last year, was making her some Dr Who miniatures, this time the 11th doctor (Matt Smith) and his companion Amy Pond.

 And the complete group for full measure. All of the miniatures  (except for the TARDIS) come from Heresy Miniatures, bt dubs.

She probably one upped me, though, by biking out to far away places in the rain to deliver me this:

She even put it in a little basket with Easter grass and wrapped it in plastic. Makes me tear up a bit to think about how good that Nettle Gouda is going to taste paired with the cracked pepper beer...

We also went out to dinner at a fabulous restaurant on the Capitol square called the Blue Marlin and then ended the night with a sold out viewing of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1. Excellent meal, pretty darn good movie and of course amazing company.

We closed out the weekend with modeling (me) and studying (Rachel), though we also had a cozy game night Sunday night. One of the beers that we bought for the game night still has me stupefied; it's called Brown Shugga' from Lagunitas Brewery. It tastes like beer flavored malt syrup, but better than what that description sounds like. It still has a bit of bitter character, but the sweetness is through the roof and the beer itself looks like amber colored glass.

As Lagunitas put it (in very fine print around the bottle), "We believe this Special Ale is Something Unique. Feeding Brown Cane Sugar to otherwise Cultured Brewery Yeast is a'kin to feeding Raw Shark to you Gerbil. It is unlikely to ever occur in nature without Human Intervention. And it looks weird besides. But it has happened and now it's too Late." Truer words never said.

Until next time...

"What ought to be done to the man who invented the celebrating of anniversaries? Mere killing would be too light. Anniversaries are very well up to a certain point, while one's babies are in the process of growing up: they are joy-flags that make gay the road and prove progress; and one looks down the fluttering rank with pride. Then presently one notices that the flagstaffs are in process of a mysterious change of some sort--change of shape. Yes, they are turning into milestones. They are marking something lost now, not gained. From that time on it were best to suppress taking notice of anniversaries."


- Mark Twain's Notebook, 1896

Finished with app camp!

I'm finally finished with Inpatient Application Camp! Only took about 2.5 months...

Anyway, I still have lots of projects and tests to do before I get my certification, so the upcoming week will be filled with all sorts of fun times. I'm confident though that I'll be able to at least get the lion's share of my training out of the way before I am assigned a customer... which might happen before the end of November. Yay!

Speaking of fun times, this weekend was pretty fun, though accidentally so. Friday was pretty quiet in the apartment, both of us just getting some work done, but Saturday was going to be our big night out. First there was to be bowling with my work friends, then an Olde Tymey Drinking Party at Dwight's where we would have Olde Tymey cocktails and wear Olde Tymey clothes.

Unfortunately there were a few hitches. I went to pick Rachel up from her volunteering/studying on Saturday night but through miscommunication and ridiculous traffic thanks to the Badger game what should have been a 5 minute pick up turned into half an hour. Then actually getting geared up to start our evening took much longer than we anticipated, pushing us back to 8 o'clock before we could even get out the door, tanking our chance at bowling. So we ended up waiting until 9 to head over to Dwight's.

Well, we still had Olde Tymey drinks to look forward to, right? Wrong. Apparently the party had been cancelled the day before but since we were silly and didn't RSVP we didn't end up getting the message. So we stood awkwardly outside of Dwight's place for a few minutes ascertaining this information and jumped back into the car.

We drove for a bit, crestfallen that our magnificent attire would have nowhere to go, so we pulled off into a parking lot to mull our options. We eventually decided to take our awesomely bedecked selves to a local Irish pub and just hang out. Turns out it was very fun- the place was hopping, the drinks were good and we got to actually have a lengthy conversation which is sadly becoming a rarity these days thanks to work and whatnot.

Still, it's a shame that we didn't get to show off ourselves... oh well. There's always next time, and my coat still looks awesome.

Until next time...

"There is probably no pleasure equal to the pleasure of climbing a dangerous Alp; but it is a pleasure which is confined strictly to people who can find pleasure in it."
- A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain

The past week at work was a bit crazy. I spent a lot of time studying at home and spending 10-13 hour days onsite with early morning tests and late night project work. Fortunately I think most of that crazy work schedule is behind me, at least the working at home bit. From now on I'm resolved to leave my work at work, as it'll take enough of my time away doing just that.

Fortunately I had plenty of ways to relieve stress over the week and over the weekend. On Wednesday I finally got to play a Warhammer 40k game that turned out to be quite fun. I took part in a demo game with an older gentleman (who is responsible for the pic above, btw) and we just had a blast going over the rules and integrating pretty much every single one into our game. Hopefully I'll be doing that more often in the coming weeks, as it's a source of fun that I've been sorely missing.

Rachel and I also recently went to a "Post-Halloween Smug Fest" where we ate dumplings. This was an awesome party, as not only were the dumplings delicious but I got to debate comic books and Star Trek pretty much the whole night. Plus I came away from the party with a borrowed copy of Snow Crash, which I've heard from many people is a book that I really need to get into.

We also tried to get some karaoke in over the weekend but kind of failed. We got to sing along with a lot of the people who got to go up on stage but unfortunately I apparently needed to bribe the DJ beyond my $1 entry fee to actually get up on stage and sing. Still, pretty fun, and I learned that apparently you CAN sing death metal karaoke style if you really want to. Cool the first time, kinda sad the second...

I've also started working with a trainer at my gym to build a work out, and I've figured out that I'm pretty out of shape. Hopefully working out 3-5 times a week will change that around as I really don't have the time or opportunity to do much else- guess I'll just have to make the most of it!

Finally, I've been watching AMC's new series The Walking Dead and it's amazing. Granted I'm a post-apocalyptic fanboy and zombie apocalypse tenured professor so take my recommendations with a grain of salt, but I have been blown away with the depth that they've managed to get out of the ol' Undead Apocalypse. The impact of seeing your loved ones turned into ravenous corpses was definitely the focus of the first episode, leading to a lot of emotional scenes as the survivors try to cope with the changes in their world. The "walkers" as they are known in the show are also frikkin' creepy, especially since they still exhibit certain echoes of their past lives- the little dead girl picking up and clutching her teddy bear before trying to eat you, the dead wife coming to her old house every night and trying the door knob... great, chilling stuff. That combined with the great production values makes for some pretty terrifying ghouls.

If you're interested in getting into the series the first episode is streaming on the AMC website- definitely the place to check it out. Unfortunately it looks like they won't be streaming any of the other episodes, but I think most of you know some... "alternative" ways to get your programming so I won't go into that.

Well, that's it for now. Lots of tests and projects this week like last week so wish me luck!

Until next time...

"Each man is afraid of his neighbor's disapproval--a thing which, to the general run of the human race, is more dreaded than wolves and death."


- "The United States of Lyncherdom" by Mark Twain

*Images used without permission from