Meeting myself.

Have you ever come face to face with yourself?

I forgot to mention a fairly odd moment during our horrible day of travel. As we were scrambling in the San Fran airport, attempting to get a flight into Portland rather than Seattle, we walked up to the gate to ask to be put on standby. The woman working said that I shared her name. I expected her to say that she was a Heather, but as she turned over her name tag, S and I both gasped. She had my ENTIRE name--first and last.

This kind of freaked me out. How many of me can possibly be out there? My name isn't that common. What are the odds? 1 in 50? I don't know, but I still find the whole thing rather disturbing.

United is on the naughty list.

How we should have gotten home:
Chicago - San Francisco - Seattle (back just after noon)

How it was proposed we get home after the Seattle leg was cancelled:
Chicago - San Francisco - Seattle (back at 11:00 pm after sitting in the airport for 10+ hours)

How we actually got home:
Chicago - San Francisco - Portland - drove to Seattle (back home at 6:00 pm after spending $150 on a rental car)

Overbooked flights, unsympathetic staff, and nasty weather further add to the case that the airline industry is jacked.

A little present from Bluebee.

As a little present to you, we filmed Blue "boxing" his own reflection in the bedroom mirror. What a furry little nut!

SNL at the holidays.

We just watched this week's episode of SNL featuring Justin Timberlake. The show has gone to pot, but this R-rated SNL short made it all worthwhile. It's in the vein of last year's "Lazy Sunday", but definitely not for work-viewing as it features some foul language.

My Junk in a Box

The lines "One, cut a whole in a box. Two, put your junk in that box. Three, open the box." are pure genius.

And a classic from a few years ago:
TV Funhouse Charlie Brown Christmas

Look Ma, we're elves!

S as Elf
H as Elf

Now, make your own and post the link in the comments. You'll have to email it to yourself to get the link!

Thanks for the tip, Mary!

The consequences.

So Seattlest has posted this official map of power outages in the city. I doctored it to add a little black circle where I am sitting. Somehow, we are planted right in one of the only parts of the city not affected by outages due to last night's storm.

Unfortunately, I didn't see this map before leaving the house to run errands this morning. I ended up in a dead crawl amongst zombie drivers with little understanding of how to handle non-functioning stoplights. So, I drove in a circle for 2.5 hours only to find the businesses I needed to visit blacked out, as well.

I started the day off badly, but I am very thankful that I came home to electricity.

The weather outside is... frightening?

It's been crazy windy and raining hard (for Seattle, at least) tonight. I have flickering lights and a failing satellite dish... Some of the headlines popping up on The Stranger's blog and Seattlest:

Thank God it Aint Katrina, but It's a Mess Out There
Wild Weather We're Having
Wow, It's Bad Out There

As a result, I haven't gotten to leave the house all day. Suck.

Best of 2006.

It's time once again to present my picks for Best Albums of 2006! To see the full wrap-up, check out my Best of 2006 on shotgunreviews.com.

10. Silversun Pickups – Carnavas
9. Scissor Sisters – Ta-Dah
8. The Brother Kite – Waiting for the Time to be Right
7. The Dears – Gang of Losers
6. Gnarls Barkley – St Elsewhere
5. Elefant – The Black Magic Show
4. South – Adventures in the Underground Journey to the Stars
3. Keane – Under the Iron Sea
2. Band of Horses – Everything All the Time



1. Tie:
Mew – And the Glass Handed Kites
Phoenix – It's Never Been Like That
I've never picked two Best Albums before, but these records are brilliant in completely different ways and I just can't decide between the two. It's Never Been Like That is Phoenix 's most consistent and ultimately most satisfying, record to date, and a real pop masterpiece, while And the Glass Handed Kites is a tour de force from the My Bloody Valentine school of texture and complex arrangement. All in all, each of these albums deserves the highest compliment.

Somewhere.

I saw a full rainbow this morning.
For a city that constantly rains this time of year, this never seems to happen.

Stevens.

We have indeed found a use for the snow here! Mind you, the snow is a minimum of an hour outside of the city, so it doesn't affect our day-to-day lives. Since last February, we've been a bit nutty about skiing. This winter, we purchased our own sets of skis and a ski rack for our little mountain car.

Yesterday, we checked out Stevens which was a bit more advanced, but still pretty cool. Stevens is more like skiing on an "actual mountain" as Nathan put it. There are trees dotting the landscape and the trails are a bit more narrow than we're used to. S and Nathan did fine with this, whereas I had a few issues. I came down my first intermediate trail which was interesting. At one point, the hill was a bit too steep for me, so I had to sit on my butt and slide down for a bit. A fairly ridiculous scene overall...

We all did good, though. My shoulders hurt now, but I'd happily go again weekend after weekend if given the chance.

{Also ridiculous--our hats. S wore his little Colts Santa cap since they were playing yesterday.}

The weekend is upon us.

We're heading out to see the Christmas Ships again tonight. Hoping they don't deafen us with their frighteningly loud caroling.

Off to ski Stevens Pass tomorrow, so photos will be coming soon. In the meantime, here is a winter wonderland shot from their webcam that I just snagged...

A post from the girl in me.

I am so obsessed with funky patterned bags that I documented my favorites today. I had to do this after looking down one day and noticing I'd dumped a coffee all over one of them. =) My two new scores were found on sale last night and are in the top two photos--one little and one not-so-little LeSportsac. Yum.

So, why do I share this on the blog? Well, we're all the way out here in Seattle and I don't get much girlfriend gab these days. =P

The holiday eating has begun.

I'm not a huge cookies-and-cream fan (as some know), but my goodness. If you can get a hold of some of these cookies, do it! They have crushed candy canes in them and are to-die-for. I can feel my waist thickening already...

So long, blondes.

Sweet.
The blondes are gone.

Sweet girl.

My uncle has posted some cute new pics of our niece on his blog:
Aubree
You Want?

We aren't complaining about the snow now.

Finally got to try out our new skis for the first time today! Ski season has been open for two weeks now, but we've been busy entertaining until now. It was a great day for it, too. The snow was perfect and powdery, the sky was blue, and the mountains provided an amazing view. Moonrise occurred just as we were about to finish and there was a stellar sunset, as well. We felt pretty comfortable, too... skiing just might be "like riding a bike". I took a couple of small tumbles, but for the most part, was loving it. S is in total daredevil mode--taking jumps and making quick stops. Digging in for more next weekend...