Chuggnutt!

Category: Holidays

  • Scooby’s at the front door! (The Halloween party)

    Shannon blogged it first, I’m still waiting to see if Simone writes it up (or at least puts up the pictures)… I’m talking about the Halloween party we were all at last night. I hadn’t been to a Halloween party in I-don’t-remember-when, and it’s been even longer since I dressed up. I was a vampire, a classic one (not a goth one) with the black pants, white shirt, black cape, etc.

    Everyone dressed up, too, which was very cool—you always have these doubts, “will anyone else be dressed up? Am I gonna be the only one?”—but no, everyone who came was in costume. (Well, except for one guy, near the end.) The best costumes, in my opinion, can be seen here—the freakiest, too. Why the best/freakiest? The one on the right is a woman(!).

    I’ll say this—the hosts, Lance and Katherine, go all out for Halloween. Smoke machine, spooky sounds CD, spider candles, dry ice in the drinks, even cool touches that I wouldn’t have thought of like filling gutted pumpkins with dips (and a couple of large ones for the punch—alcoholic and non—with the dry ice dropped into them).

    And, of course, a giant, inflatable Scooby Doo at the front door, who kept trying to get in. So that’s gonna be the new tagline, I’m thinking. T-shirts, coffee mugs, bumper stickers, viral in a “All your base” kind of way. You’re gonna see it everywhere.

    Halloween rocks.

  • Bastille Day

    Today is Bastille Day in France, their equivalent to our Fourth of July/Independence Day. The Wikipedia article I point to there has a pretty good overview.

    On 20 June [1789] the deputies of the Third Estate took the Tennis Court Oath (named after the place where they had gathered which was a place where an ancestor of tennis, the “jeu de paume” was played), swearing not to separate until a Constitution had been established. To show their support, the people of Paris stormed the Bastille, a prison where people were jailed by arbitrary decision of the King (lettre de cachet). The Bastille was, in particular, known for holding political prisoners whose writings had displeased the royal government. Thus the Bastille was a symbol of the absolutism of the monarchy.

    There were only 7 inmates housed at the time of the siege. The storming of the Bastille was more important as a rallying point and symbolic act of rebellion than a practical act of defiance. No less important in the history of France, it was not the image typically conjured up of courageous French patriots storming the Bastille and freeing hundreds of oppressed peasants. However, it did immediately inspire preparations amongst the peasants for the very real threat of retaliation.

    An even more comprehensive history (you gotta love Wikipedia) is found at the Storming of the Bastille article.

    Back in the summer of 1989, when I was 16, I spent three weeks in France on a high school trip. We were there for the Fête Nationale (National Holiday), in… Tournon, I believe it was. Not only was it Bastille Day, but it was the bicentennial as well. Sadly, it was half my lifetime ago and I don’t remember nearly as much as I should; I remember fireworks in Tournon but the big action was in Paris (where we weren’t). I did keep a journal for the time I was there—most of it, anyway—I think I’ll dig that up and re-read it. Hell, I’ll post it here, even.

    In the meantime, happy 14 juillet.

  • Our Fourth

    It started with housecleaning, since we were hosting a party at our place. We managed to finish up in time to go to the Pet Parade, which is always fun (though, as someone was telling me later, is just crazy with too many people compared to four years ago). The highlight of the Parade worth blogging about was the flying dog. Someone had harnessed up a little rat dog of some kind to a bunch of big helium balloons, and had it tethered on a leash at about four feet in the air. My thought was, if they drop the leash, the dog is gone—I hope they have a pellet gun!

    For the balloons. The balloons. Yeah, I know what you thought I meant the gun was for.

    Oh, we saw Shannon in the Parade, as well. And apparently Chris was in it too. A fake monkey? What?

    We fought our way to Drake Park where my wife was looking for toe rings and I bought the kids each a beanbag snake. This was the “old fashioned celebration” part of the public festivities they were advertising, I guess—craft vendors and food, though we didn’t make it as far as the food.

    The party at our house was pretty good. We had my family, old family friends, Shannon and Simone for a little while, a friend of my wife’s and even some of my coworkers. The best part of course was the fireworks, especially for the kids. I set off a lot of them, and we were treated to just as many (legal and otherwise) from elsewhere in the neighborhood.

    And this was the first year we let the kids stay up until 10 to watch the Pilot Butte fireworks show (which according to the news this evening is the largest in Oregon. Who knew!). We have a nice view of Pilot Butte from our yard, so it was a treat.

    The only downside was going back to work the next day (today)… unpleasant. Maybe I’ll start taking July 5th off from now on…

  • Happy Fourth of July!

    Happy Fourth to everyone, hope you all have a good holiday. We’ll be down at the Pet Parade at 10, then kids’ swimming lessons and a party to prepare for. Plus it’s going to be in the mid-80s today, perfect!

  • This Memorial Day weekend…

    Sunray Premium Playground 2005 (AKA swingset monstrosity)…I’ve been tasked with putting together this monstrosity of a swingset. I’ve had help, my father-in-law yesterday and today, and tomorrow my dad pitches in. We may finish tomorrow.

    Happy Memorial Day to everyone else. I’ll likely be cursing before the day is out.

  • Friday the 13th

    You gotta love superstition. It’s widely considered to be the unluckiest day of the year today, but does anyone really know why? Wikipedia has a good article, and Snopes debunks most of the myths. The conclusions? Nobody knows for sure.

    I’ve always rather liked Friday the 13th. I don’t believe there’s anything inherently lucky about it—good or bad—any more than any other day. Although today I walked downtown to get my haircut and got caught in the rain walking back—without a jacket. Bad luck? You decide. :)

  • 05-05-05

    Not only is today Cinco de Mayo, but it’s also the fifth day of the fifth month of the fifth year of the millenium. 05-05-05. I’m sure people are imagining correlations. I touched on this two years ago in 03/03/03.

    Isn’t numerology grand?

  • The worst Valentine’s Day story

    …has to be this one: Letourneau to wed former pupil. This is just one of those things I have a hard time understanding; this woman should have been kept in jail. For the rest of her life.

  • Happy Valentine’s Day!

    Happy Valentine’s to everyone. So far this morning it’s looking to be a nice day (yet here I am stuck at work…), so here’s hoping it’s nice for everybody.

    And if you’re looking for something a little bit different today, I wrote up some Beer Valentines ideas over on The Brew Site blog. Enjoy!

  • 2005!

    Happy New Year everyone. So far 2005 is turning out uneventful: we cleaned the office, watched some movies. What to expect for this new year? I don’t know, maybe for it not to go by so quickly. My grandma was right, the older you get, the quicker time passes.

    At any rate, I’m not making any 2005 predictions, it seems like everybody else on the internet is and I’m pretty sure anything I could come up with is already covered somewhere.

    I will do some stats, though. Those are always fun. :)