Hows my little juror?

Last week marked the second and final week of my jury duty service. The best part...not having to go in even ONCE!!! This was a big deal for me. If I got stuck on a jury they have the audacity to pay a juror $10 per DAY(plus mileage). That's just low enough to be a joke. I'm 95% sure panhandlers make more than that daily.

Anyway the reason that this is exciting to me is that this is the FOURTH time I've been summoned to jury duty service. The first time I was in Duluth and I wrote on my summons in large probably messy capitol letters I'M PAYING TO GO TO COLLEGE AND CAN'T BE ON A JURY. The second time was a year or so later and I had my car mostly packed to move to Indiana. I called that one in and said I can't come because I'm moving out of state, the lady laughed and said yeah that would be a long drive.

The third time was scheduled for the beginning of harvest this past year. It was a close call too. I actually showed up for the first day because I couldn't get a straight answer on whether or not I would be required for service. Fortunately I was able to get out of it since I'm technically a farmer and that is the busiest time of the year for me. When I got out of service I was asked to say when my next availability was and marked it after the new year. She said from her experience I would most likely get called right away. Sure enough, I got my letter mixed in with Christmas cards and a trip up north. Every night I got home I called the jury hotline and did a little cheer for every time I didn't have to go in (every night baby!)

Apparently I'm a marked man for jury duty. I've been summoned more times than some people twice my age. I have a sneaking feeling I'll be called again soon because of how I got so lucky with the draw in Vermilion County this year.

Hows my little stranded traveler?

After Christmas at home this year we headed up to MN to visit my family and friends for a fast weekend of catching up, good times, and a lot of relaxing.

We kicked off the trip by setting our Alarm for 3:45am to leave by 4am so that we could drive an hour through the falling snow that was being largely ignored by the interstate cleanup crews. Our 6:30am flight was delayed because some of the ground crew couldn't make it into work due to a couple of inches of snow in Bloomington (we made it just fine driving an hour!). After getting the VIP "shoveled path" treatment to our plane we flew to MSP without anything noteworthy happening...well aside from the guy next to me leaving his seat and giving me TWO SEATS OF LEG ROOM! Heaven. Being tall is under-appreciated on flights of any length.

When we arrived in town we grabbed breakfast with both of my brothers and their whole families! It's been a few years since I've been able to see that many family members in the same spot so it was great to catch up and say hey.

Afterwards Laura and I were able to exchange our Christmas presents with my parents and we decided that we must have been good kids this year! Yay!

That night we did a Cognac tasting with my Dad's respectable cognac collection. After tasting five different cognacs we learned that Courvoisier tastes like garbage compared to some of it's rivals (in Dad's collection). We were also pretty surprised to find that the two Hennessys we tried had some very different flavors considering they bear the same brand name and don't really have much distinguishing one from the other.

The next day was quite a bit warmer (12) and we gave the sledding run a try. Typical me if I can add fun to something perfectly fun on it's own I will try. So I added a run with some tree obstacles and later decided to add a "cliff" into the mix. There were no injuries, just fun.

That evening we headed to Town Hall Lanes for some bowling and brews with my lovely friends and old roommates from Duluth. We had a great time and even witnessed four strikes in a row performed by the always lovely Chin.

The next day my parents hosted a party for a bunch of my friends and their parents from high school and beyond. I love that friendships on good foundations can be picked up months or sometimes years later without a step missed and we can have a fantastic time together.

Reflecting on hanging out with old friends I had tried to make a point of not telling people that I've just simply been busy. Sometimes awkwardly mentioning I was trying not to say that. It has for some reason a go to response along with 'nothing much' and 'the usual, and 'same shit different day' mostly because life hasn't been simply those things, I've been busy! With things! Fun things! Apparently I need to check my blog before I hang out with people so I can carry a conversation due to a complete lack of a useful memory.

On Sunday we were planning on flying home at 7:45pm and due to a long lasting snowstorm in IL our flight was canceled. After the usual headaches and waiting for about 6 hours for a phone call from Delta we were rebooked for Wednesday. Sadly since everyone was snowed in and temps were hanging around -15 all afternoon we no one could check on our cat Jinx. So we rented a pretty lame Mazda 5 almost van and drove home on Tuesday. Not before our completely lazy and unproductive and phenomenal monday in front of the TV on the couch and hanging out with my mom and dad. Since it was so cold Monday night (-18) we decided to try the oft failed throwing boiling water into the air trick. We thought that was pretty cool.

The drive home on Tuesday was remarkably quiet considering a massive snow storm just moved through Illinois two days previous. Oh wait, two days ago...any municipality worth their weight in salt should have that stuff under control within 48 hours easy. But not Champaign or Vermilion County! It was literally at the county lines where we encountered ice covered roads and cars and semis all over in the ditches. It was absurd! I can rant for awhile on this topic (where was the sand?) but I'll just say we made it safely home and we were happy about it.

A nice drift next to our car.

It snowed so much that we actually shoveled our driveway for the first time ever! We actually have piles of snow all around!

It was an eventful trip and it was great catching up with everyone I saw...until next time MN, keep it cool!

Hows my little MMXIII?

Two thousand and thirteen. Reflecting on you has been a real joy, but at the same time, I didn't look at you as a pivotal year in my life. Sure we had some good times, drank some good drinks, saw some cool things, commented on some interesting events but really you were nothing like 2012. Which is fine, there was enough going on for two years there.

So, here is some good stuff worth noting:

Best: 

Movie (in theater):

This was a tough choice this year so I chose my top three from different categories:

Thor: The Dark World

The Conjuring

Gravity

TV Show:

This year I got hooked on the Game of Thrones Series, its funny that my favorite shows in the past have all been HBO originals.

Concert:

Charlie Parr @ Sleepy Creek Vineyards

(wins by default, but still really enjoyed it)

Album:

Bastille - Bad Blood

Song:

Old song that was new to me in 2013 Macklemore - Can't Hold Us

Game:

Assassins Creed Brotherhood - Fired up the PS3 this year and realized how much I like gaming.

Book: 

George RR Martin - A Storm of Swords - 2013 might go down as the year I tackled most of A Song of Ice and Fire. Some pretty epic events happened in book 3 that kept the series twisting.

Gadget:

HTC One - New phone is better in almost every way than my old guy.

Getaway: 

Northern Getaway 2013 - Twin Cities, Duluth, Washburn all in the summer sun with the best people I know. 

Garden Growth:

Habaneros - sadly our house was too humid to dry them properly, but holy shit were they hot.

Construction:

The Pergola!

Intoxicating Beverage Tour:

The Biltmore winery tour was fantastic. 

Food Ferment: 

Kimchi! Laura loves it, I think it's surprisingly delicious too!

Alcoholic Ferment: 

Raspberry Mead

Whats in the carboy: Natural Wine Experiment, Peach Wine

Athletic Endeavor: 

Tough Mudder Chicago

Events of Note: 

Random:

Getting a big copper decanter on a whim.

Obsession:

reddit - this has stolen so much from and added so much to my life this year.

Newsworthy:

The Boston Marathon Bombing

News I'm oblivious to: 

Paula Deen or George Zimmerman

Travels:

Chicago (and surrounding areas), Indianapolis, Toledo, Asheville, Twin Cities, Duluth, Washburn, St. Louis.

More events of note:

Riding my motorcycle every day I could

Buying a Subaru Outback

Bockfest 2013 was fantastic

Running two half-marathons with Laura

Total gallons fermented this year: 67.75(!)

Began regular yoga practice

Resolution:

This year I've decided that I'm going to touch the floor...with my palms.

In 2014 I am going to bend over without bending my knees and touch the floor with the palm of my hand. I've got about 6 inches before my fingertips can touch the ground, so I've got a long way to go. I'm 6'5" and my persistent running paired with a historically oak tree-like flexibility are stacked against my success, but motivation from the cosmic snoo along with extra yoga practice should turn this stiff giant into a rubbery noodle.

After that I think I'll do a handstand.

Last year I resolved to learn more about and drink more bubbly, I did a great job of drinking about one bottle of bubbles a month but didn't do a good job of learning more about bubbles.

So If 2012 went out like a lion and 2013 was a lamb. I'm predicting 2014 to be an exhausting liomb. There are already some exciting prospects for the year and with a lot of uncharted pieces that can fit into and make an interesting puzzle I'm sure it will be one worth remembering. Regardless, I'm going to continue to look inward to feel better outward. Currently life is pretty damn good and I've got a lot to look back onto fondly and plenty to look forward to excitedly. 

2014 I think I can handle what you've got. Bring it on, I dare you.

Hows my little Christmas Stay-cation?

This year was our first christmas at our own home.


Awesome.

Laura's parents agreed that since they have a more flexible schedule, being retired and everything, that they could drive down to windy IL to visit us for christmas. We were incredibly thankful for that since it snowed around 10 inches in Washburn the day they left and more snow fell in the surrounding area. Since I don't have driving tranquilizers for Laura yet I was relieved to skip traveling for the most part this year.

less than a second after this picture the Ice cracked and we all ran away scared.

Tim had a hard time getting into the group photo.

We had a good time too! From shopping at the outlet mall in Tuscola to hiking around Kickapoo it was a good few days.

Since we were hosting this year we got to make Christmas dinner! We decided on red wine & rosemary braised lamb shanks, homemade/grown green bean casserole (everyone's favorite), mashed bourbon sweet potatoes, and banana cream pie.

Potato Volcano.

Hows my little Christmas outtake?

This year we took photos for our Christmas card in our hotel the night before the Santa Hustle wearing most of our race gear. Here are some that didn't quite make the cut:

Ok, Try and time your jump for when the camera takes the picture.

It's hard! You try it!

One of the creepiest photos of Laura ever taken.

Success!

Merry Christmas to all!
Ho Ho Ho!!

Hows my little Santa?

Last weekend in Indianapolis Laura and I ran a half marathon called the Santa Hustle.

The theme of the race is obviously Santa, what hooked me was you get a Santa hat, beard, and there are cookies, candy, and christmas music along the race course. Oh, and you get a cool running shirt that looks kind of like a santa jacket! For some reason I've always wanted a santa hat, I've just never obtained one for myself.

As far as race times go, Laura did great! she got a new personal best with a time of 2:29:43. Which compared with the half marathon we ran in April was an improvement of nine minutes! The night before the run we were walking around downtown Indy and most of the streets and sidewalks were still pretty icy. Up until then I was going to run it on my own, but after thinking that there was no way the course was going to be cleared of ice I decided to run it with Laura. So I also improved my time by minutes from our last run but I was still just over 30 minutes slower than I had hoped to run it in. Laura was pretty jazzed that she had a buddy for the cold race so that made me feel good.

The race itself however is not one I'd highly recommend to my friends. For several reasons. The biggest was the race coordinators over promised and under delivered on nearly every front for the event.
-Starting with the beginning, our sign-up confirmation said, if you book your room in the JW Mariott you can take a short sleigh ride to the start line. COOL! (corny but a fun to start race day). No sleigh ride. Just a walk.
-Christmas music along the race course. This wasn't a major selling point but they said it would be there, at minimum I expected maybe 3 places where music would be playing. There were ample water stations but only one had music. Under delivered.
-Candy along the race course! The official map claimed two stops. Only one candy stop.
-COOKIES! At packet pick-up they had a pallet of Sysco cookies saying, thats a lot of cookies (which it was). Really? Shitty frozen restaurant food? I could go on  but won't. A real cookie brand would have made this seem more legit to me. Granted that didn't stop me from eating seven cookies along the route. They had trays of cookies at the finish, they were so boring I didn't even want to take a whole tray.
-The finish line. They had one, that even had a time and there was even a couple of photographers at it, but no announcer talking to people or anything, I was pretty happy there was music there at least.
-The post-race party. It was six days before the event before they announced it would be outdoors at the finish. Our bib even had a party ticket attached to it. There was no tent, some music, no hot food, no drinks(outside of water), no group of people. In fact the only indicator of a party was a plastic box that read: post race party Indy sitting next to a small stage. Laura and I might have stopped by to check it out before we left the hotel but it was 20 degrees outside with a 15 mph wind. Felt like 8. No tent, no heat, no party. The party turnout was so poor that when we finished there were as many workers as runners in the area.
-Finally, the reason I wanted to do this race in particular was strongly related to getting a hat and beard to run the race with. Yes we did get these things but the quality was on par with the cheapest halloween costumes. The hat was one size fits some, with no stretch to accommodate various head sizes. I was able to get the hat on my head but only barely. In the future I would recommend something stretchy or a couple of sizes.

I normally don't like to use this space to bitch about petty things like this but I guess I just did.

What did I like? The shirts were pretty exciting. Also the course route was fantastic. It even snowed for a little while adding to the romanticism of a santa race. I will applaud the organizers for having a 99% ice free course especially considering there was about 4 inches of snow followed by sleet and freezing temps the day and night before.

Altogether we did enjoy ourselves, it was a fun to do a race somewhere scenic for a nice change of pace. If santa hustle just gave the details more attention and lived up to all of the claims and promises I would happily run another. Until then I'll be happy I was able to begin my training during the best part of the year for running while building my fitness and maintaining some decent health.