The Eagle has Landed

We've touched down. Everyone handled the traveling great. Especially the longer second leg when the in seat TVs didn't work. What a bummer. The laptop batter barely runs 30 minutes. BigE was a gem in the seat keeping himself entertained. Peanut handled her first flight. She was a little fussy because she didn't really nap. For a four month old she did great.

Early Morning Practice

I wanted to drop a quick note about an event that was lost in the weekend of activities. Especially due to the Christmas party.

This Sunday BigE had his first early hockey practice. Well 7 am. Early but not too early. He was slow to wake up, and we got there at the last minute but everything went well. Plus he wasn't a big ball of snot for the remainder of the day too! Always a plus.

We've got one 6:30 and one 7:00 coming up after Christmas. We'll have to see how he does.

Semseter 4 Done

[Insert Usual clap trap about being busy.]

Done the fourth semester as of 9:58 pm tonight. Man that feels good. Give or take a few percentage points I'm 44% done. Sone I might even have to map out a post degree plan.

Meeting Santa

Another Christmas season has brought Mama's work place kids Christmas party. Similar format to last year. Swimming, pizza, pop, cookies, Little Rays Reptiles, and of course Santa

This year BigE got to go up with his baby sister for a picture with Santa. Unlike previous years he wanted to go up to make sure Santa knew what he wanted. A pirate ship and walkie talkies.

I still might be able to get that RV!

Now I've resisted the last years worth of $200 oil predictions. And this one should be taken with a grain of salt as well. Read it an see the effect of prices on production and how it take 3+ years to bring new production online.

The Coming Oil Crash: Why Oil Prices Will Drop

The tripling of oil prices since the summer of 2003 has unleashed forces that within the next two or three years will bring oil prices tumbling back down to below $50 a barrel. Looking even further ahead, prices could easily fall to $30 a barrel or even lower. So before you trade in your Cadillac Escalade for a Toyota Prius, think twice: $1.50-a-gallon gas might not be gone forever.

For extra good measure. The governments could be bailing out the big three with a promise to keep building an electric car that no longer makes financial sense. Then turn around with green rebates for consumers to make the car affordable.

Quote of the Day 66

At bedtime tonight as we're discussing going to the community's Santa breakfast in the morning.

BigE "I know what I want for Christmas. TWO THINGS"

Dada "Oh yeah, you know what you want?"

BigE "Walkie Talkies and a Pirate Ship!"

(Good thing there on their way!)

The Birthday Party

BigE turned 5, almost, with his Birthday party today. He's been excited over the party for days. The kids were over to dress up as pirates. They had a good time with the pirate entertainers for about an hour. A couple of the kids were scared by the pirate.

Most loved the pirate dress up.


Then it was time to wolf down some pirate party cake.


Followed up an enormous pile of gifts. Sadly nobody took Dada's suggestion that BigE needed a Wii, new laptop, or Lexus seriously. He did get a kiddie laptop (something like this) but no Dell Mini. Oh well there is always Santa!

Pirate Ship

Here is BigE's Pirate birthday cake. It took some work and the creative inspiration of four people but we got it sailing, sort 'o speak.

Two 9x13" pans of chocolate cake, a couple of tubes of chocolate icing, a tub of white icing (for the ocean), some PlayMobil Pirate guys, and two packs of small crispy crunch bars that were on sale for 67 cents each.

Some notes:
- That is a real piece of wood coming out of the bow of the ship (Sailing readers what the heck is that called?). I sanded it down smooth and wrapped the cake end in saran wrap that was mostly hidden by icing.
- The Playmobil pieces are mostly from a Pirate accessory kit that looks like this (amazon.com) but I don't think was a 1/3 of that price.
- The masts are skewers
- The crows nest is the bottom half of an ice cream cone
- The plank is a cadbury thin chocolate bar
- The guns where some kind of round waffer that had chocolate on one end.