O l l i e ' s B l a h g - Home sweet smelly home.

| - Home sweet smelly home.

The trip was splendid. As promised, pictures of cuteness and cake:



What can I say? Iowas was cold. Much colder than I was prepared for. The key, it turns out, is plentiful layering. At any given moment, I was wrapped in a minimum of four layers. This, I'm sure, is the single item that prevented me from dying of exposure. The unfortunate aspect of going to the frozen north, you see, is that the people who live there are woefully unaware of its actual temperature. Their ice-addled minds have been numbed into believing that an ambient temperature, in doors, of 68 degrees is comfortable and optimal operating temperature for warm-blooded creatures. This is inaccurate.

There are two independent central heating units in my condo (remember, it was actually two units combined) and if you think either of them are ever turned lower than 73, you're nuts. This has the happy coincidence of allowing me to exist in my dwelling without resorting to the murder of seals for their blubber.

So, anyway, Gabe's birthday party was at a Chuck-e-Cheese (sp) knock-off joint. There were some rides. Some air hockey was played. A worker donned a large costume and walked around greeting children, a permanently stitched grin on his face and the unmistakable odor of sweat trailing behind. Oh, and we had a few relatives crash our party. My grandmother, aunt, and two younger cousins popped by. And by 'popped' I mean, drove five hours to surprise us. It was wild. They were clearly tickled at having caught us so thoroughly unawares.

Actually, here's a picture of my grandmother and me playing Simpson's Bowling (consequently, my sister and I reprised this act of virtual bowling the following morning by playing wii, practically my first experience with it [there was one other small occasion during which I may have touched a wii controller, but it was at my ex-roommate Kevin's pre-wedding party, and I don't really recall much.. I was too busy winning poker]):



Look at all those tickets. Aren't you proud? While I'm on the subject, can any of you explain to me the insane level of ticket inflation going on these days? I don't know what's happened to this economy of ours, I really don't. Back when I was young, you had to scrimp and pinch and save and fight to get a few tickets. And those tickets were worth something. These days, you get fistfuls for even playing the game, let alone actually winning or performing well! And what do you get for these dangling carrots? Plastic crap that's probably tainted with Chinese lead (if you think my grandmother wasn't worried about the Pb-level of the toys, you would be wrong, sir).

At least my flights were uneventful. Of course, the airlines always have this coming Wednesday to screw up my currently warm feelings towards them by delays, cancellations, or just plain stupidness as I make my way to Minneapolis for Tofurkey day.