Back to the DVD. There is a wonderful song Jelly Man Kelly done by James Taylor. I love it. It is catchy, cute and there are all these kids that sing a long with him. He wrote it off of a poem that his daughter wrote in school. And he is hot in a 70′s rock star kind of way. So one morning, Lola and I are enjoying a little James when I notice that he has these pretty long yucky nails. “Really?” I think to myself. So I rewind and have Marc look. I was kinda put off. They are pretty long and thick. I am not one that should judge fingernails, as I have been a biter since second grade when I observed Erin Wheelock doing this very thing. I have never been able to quit despite my mother’s numerous attempts with hot sauce, rubber-bands, and continuous swatting. But long nails on men are just gross. I like them clipped and short. Heck, I wouldn’t even frown upon some bitten down nails. But not James Taylor. This guy has long nails.

So this morning I decided to do a little research to see if anyone else had noticed. I found this quote by James himself: “My style of playing is evolved around hymns … mostly I think hymns and Woody Guthrie. A few Christmas carols. But it’s the thumb. I use the thumb (emphasizes the word ‘thumb’) (L) and the hands that are attached to my arms … the thumb and these three fingers. For a while there I was breaking fingernails regularly and I had these artificial nails put on. But some of you may do that I don’t know. Do any of you use those nails? Well, they’re interesting. It’s hard to get them to believe you. You say what you want just play the guitar (L). But there’s something inherently evil about them. It is epoxying something to your fingertips. You have power.” Transcript of James Taylor Workshop At A&R Studios – circa 1976 or 1977

Huh. I never would have thought. Then again, I have never played a guitar. This explains it all. Love him – long nails and all!!

In the kids department, we had another one this year. Young Sid is going on five months old now. Doesn’t sleep through the night. Taking formula isn’t going very well. He cries more than Lola did and takes really short naps. But he’s growing like a weed, cute as a button, and going to turn out OK. Lola turned three recently, and she’s still our little princess. Adorable barely describes her on her worst day. That’s still little comfort when she calls us back into her room 3-4 times for a sip of water or other ridiculous reason after going to bed, or when she wakes up at 4am still, or insists on pooping in her diaper (she still sleeps in one) when she knows darn well how to use the toilet like a big girl. Perhaps some regression due to baby brother and new house is going on… Both kids have had their share of colds lately, lots of runny noses, coughing, etc. but we bought a nice vaporizer that keeps a room nice and humid through the night. Speaking of devices we bought, as of a couple weeks ago, we’re the proud owners of a remanufactured Roomba robot vacuum. It’s still more of a novelty than a real labor saver since you still have to pick up a bunch of toys and shoes and stuff, but it works OK and it’s kind of fun. Returning to the topic of Lola for a moment, Morgan toured a couple preschools this week, so we’re starting to think about it. Expensive! Need to figure out the best schedule and what’s affordable, but we think we’ve found the place when it’s time. No daycare for Sid yet though, we’re not ready for that yet.

(This is silly, I started writing this as a text document that I would paste into cheztiar later, but I’m having to do it in such small bits as time permits, I should just be writing online in the first place…but I digress.)

One other thing I envisioned doing a lot of on this here website was sharing books, music, and movies that I’ve enjoyed (or not) with you all. Not much reading going on these days – by the time I get to bed, too tired to read much, and what I’ve been reading is pretty dull. I picked up a book on coffee, a sort of reference book on personal finance, and one on making beer. I need to get back into some page-turner fiction. Most of my reading these days is Wired magazine, trying to get through one issue before next one comes, or the various blogs and websites I try to hit every day. I guess reading is reading, but a book would be nice sometime soon.

Speaking of personal finance, that’s the other thing on my mind these days. I must be a real grown-up now, I think a lot about ways to retire early, save a lot for retirement, writing a will, and look forward to doing taxes so I can see just how much having a 2nd child and a home equity loan will improve our tax situation. This year, I opened a Flexible Spending Account, another tax break for medical expenses, and enrolled in the Hartford’s 457 plan, yet another way to save on taxes and save for retirement pretty easily. Fat nest egg, here I come.

Musicwise, I just recently started listening to Sublime again. After getting the box set earlier this year, it’s kind of sat on the shelf for a while, so I brought it out to listen to again, and have been really enjoying it, getting back into their music again. I have to say, I really think they claim the title of “my favorite band ever”. Which brings me to a trivial little anecdote. With my renewed interest, I thought I’d look to see what Wikipedia had on Sublime. As expected, a good thorough entry, and good entries on each band member. So, reading through the entry on drummer Bud Gaugh, it mentions he now lives in Nevada. Huh, interesting coincidence. So I visit his MySpace page, read about his new surf band (which sounds great, looking forward to hearing what they put out), and it turns out he lives in Reno at least part of the time. More coincidence. Among all my reading and websurfing, I am referred to a recent SPIN magazine which has a good article on Sublime’s legacy and a tribute band back east called Badfish. So I go to find that issue at the library, and Foo Fighters are on the cover. Foo Fighters just announced a concert date here in February, which I think I’ll be attending. And the final coincidence…Dave Grohl is wearing a Bucket of Blood Saloon t-shirt on the cover…it all comes back to Reno. (I’ve always maintained, besides being a great place to live with lots of interesting history, Reno is forever destined to be the footnote to history…famous people get arrested here, relatives of famous people die here, we’re mentioned in songs randomly.)

Movies…never get to those much anymore. Netflix (and the library) keeps us in recent release, but all our time is getting sucked up by Six Feet Under these days. I can’t give up any more time to TV series!

Changing gears again here, let’s talk food and drink. Morgan and I celebrated our fourth anniverary with dinner at Harrah’s Steakhouse, probably the oldest fine-dining establishment in town. A bit disappointing, mostly the crowd, but the food was nothing that special. We’ll probably return to LuLou’s or 4th Street Bistro in the future. And there’s always our usual splurge that doesn’t really qualify as fine-dining, SUSHI. For now, our attention is on Amish Friendship Bread since receiving a starter for a coworker. I continue to dwell on my love for two beverages – beer and coffee. Someday you’ll all be regular customers of Marc’s House of Barley and Beans (I still need to work on the name…)

In the technology realm, we’re still happily wireless and using the laptop around the house most of the time, but I had an epiphany recently and added 1GB of memory to the desktop PC in the office and it runs SO much better now! Still need to tidy up the hard drive some, and I think I’ve committed myself to migrating to Picasa to organize and tag photos. With two kids being reared in the age of digital photos, we’re rapidly accumulating hundreds of digital photos with little organization. At least I’ve got some piecemeal backup systems in place, but I need something more systematic I think. Picasa and some kind of offsite storage may be the answer. Not sure when I’ll have the time, but at least I’ve started thinking about it… I dabbled in trying to burn a movie onto DVD, wrestling with the matter from every angle before deciding the DVD burner on the laptop is kaput. Sigh.

I’ll toss out a plug here for a game we’ve been enjoying quite a bit lately, courtesy of Grandpa Dave, Apples to Apples is our latest party-game fascination.

And lastly, I just want to give a shout-out to our little dog Daisy. She’s seen some rough times lately, with her diagnosis of Cushing’s Disease, recent stomach issues, difficulty with stairs, and general aging. We still love her, and hope she’ll stick with us comfortably for a little while longer.

And with that, dear readers, I’ll come to a close. If you’ve read all of this, I owe you a coffee or a beer. Keep coming back to cheztiar in 2008.

A few more things about me:

21. I bite my nails. I have since I was in second grade.

22. I’ve never had a cold sore.

23. My first concert was MC Hammer. I’ve been to very few since then. I am not good about music. I just know what I like when I hear it.

24. I was a huge New Kids on the Block fan. When I moved to Reno, it was not cool so I quickly abandoned them.

25. One of my favorite books is To Kill a Mockingbird.

26. As much as I’d like to – I do not have a green thumb.

27. A kid named Wade was going to kiss me in my grandma’s garage, instead wiped a hand full of spit on my face. I didn’t kiss a boy until I was 16. It was very romantic by the falls in Sioux Falls.

28. I love golf. My dad and grandma started me when I was 5. I won trophies when I was in junior golf, but I think we all got trophies.

29. I LOVE Vietnamese food.

30. I started driving when I was 14. In SD, they have limited permits because of all the rural areas.

That’s it for now. It is a lot harder than I thought it would be!

Went with Paige and DayDay to see NOFX last night at the New Oasis. Wow. Sold out show (~1000 people), never seen that before. Taps ran dry, bartenders couldn’t come close to keeping up, steam poured from open doors into the cold night, the sheer size of the crowd was incredible. They were really good and fun to see. I’ll admit I’ve seen better shows, but they just command such a big energetic crowd, have good songs, and enjoy themselves. Sorta-celeb sighting: a couple of the guys from 7 Seconds in the crowd (steve and troy if you’re curious). Now that’s punk.

Couple of interesting reference questions at work today:
How much does US currency weigh, and how many bills would be in a pound of them? See the seventh fun fact for the answer. Address for ABC? How tall is the Empire State Building? I love my job when I get to answer these kinds of questions.

In Lola news…a bit of sickness going on again. Lots of coughing, a brief sighting of thick green snot this morning. She generally acts well, but symptoms are there. Invest in cold medicine. This on the heels of a minor bout with pink eye which it appears the antibiotic drops have put a quick end to.

One fun link for you, and I’ll end with a plug for the book I’m reading. Really enjoyable book – a collection of columns from the RGJ, historical Reno stuff. It will make you look at our city in a whole new light, and have fond memories if you’ve lived here forever. If you’re interested, let me know, I’ll have a loaner copy available.

And let’s not forget our friends Pho 777, Blind Onion, Hippies, and the other small businesses that, while they didn’t lose everything, at a minimum while probably need to relocate, could potentially lose enough business to close their doors, and are probably facing the single worst day a business owner can face today.
Finally, the other loss is for the city of Reno.  We’ve lost yet another chunk of our history, a fine old 85-year-old building will probably need to be demolished when all is said and done.  Tragic no matter how you look at it.

Not to change the subject too radically to something less serious, but I just wanted to note, I’ve recently rediscovered NOFX and am remembering how much I enjoy those guys.  Picked up an EP at Tower, can’t stop listening to it, and now I think I need to buy the full CD.

A bit sad that today’s my last day off while Nana is still visiting. Back to work tomorrow and she’s back to France on Wednesday. (also in store Wednesday, my flight on a NV National Guard C-130)

Random log:

• We spent all day Thursday and Friday painting our kitchen cupboards white. Lots of work, more than I remotely predicted, but definitely looks good, like a new kitchen Morgan sez.
• My recent batch of spiced amber ale homebrew turned out GREAT, as reported by party-goers last night. For the record, it included cloves, ginger, cinammon, nutmeg, and orange peel for flavors. The keg is still going strong (and supplemented by the kind contributions of our guests and the case that Morgan picked up, our beer supply around here is at record levels!). Speaking of beer, Morgan and I went out while sneaky others decorated for prom, and visited the new Sierra Tap Room on the river. Very nice, old brick, neat location, no smoking, and 6 (I think) varieties of Sierra Nevada beer on tap.
• Yesterday, Lola got to read with dogs at the library, today, fall festival at Bartley Ranch park. Go Washoe County!
• If you need to buy CDs (or DVDs, or magazines), Tower Records is going out of business and discounting to clear out inventory. We stopped by and picked up a few things, only 20% off right now, but sure to increase as time goes on.
• One final plug…it’s that time again, VOTE

OK, now I’m done for now. Maybe I’ll go load some more photos….

• For our upcoming trip (and for future travels), the Universal Packing List.
• Japanese surf guitar covers of classical pieces – I’ve got these downloaded, but haven’t listened to any yet.  Definitely looking forward to hearing them.
• This site full of music videos also has potential for some serious time-wasting, but wasn’t working when I tried it.

Thanks for visiting, bye for now.