Cold Weather and New Ink

Hey gangsters...

Well, we're safely back home after the Christmas Excursion up in Michigan, and are currently settling back into the normal grind that is life in the urban sprawl of Central Florida. I think it can go without saying that we were both pretty down about having to leave the snowy wastelands of the Glove State, but what we weren't expecting is to fly out of the cold, cold winds of Michigan, traverse the continental United States, and land in the cold, cold winds of Florida.

Seriously, people... its 30 degrees outside. What the hell is the problem here?!

So, as we continue to unpack and clean up around the house, we've got the heater on and are walking about in sweatshirts (in the tropics!). My monstrous cacti looked pissed off, but there's not much I can do for them by this point in time - they've already been exposed to the elements, so if they're destined to die, its going to happen anyway. I can't believe its this cold in Florida... is this El Niño (or La Niña, rather, if its a chick storm)? What about Global Warming or something?

I'm not a certified chief meteorologist like Channel 9's reliable, ol' Tom Terry (see jolly looking gentleman to the left), but I'm pretty sure 30 degree weather, for the tropics, is grounds for some serious eyebrow-raising.

Anyway.

I had some ink done with my brother Chris while I was home. This was something that was nigh on four years in the making, and we still didn't get everything we wanted done. Originally, Chris, Jeff and I were all going to get some sort of Hough brother tattoo done, but we haven't been able to successfully plan, design, and agree on any one design in the three years that have passed since we first hatched the idea.

Furthermore, lil' baby Jeffy's now joining the Air Force in March (I think its March), and apparently the U.S. Military has to clear all recruits' tattoos before folks are allowed to enlist... meaning that if he were to get new ink done with his two dumbass brothers, he'd have to postpone enlisting for another six months (which, for him, sounds about as awesome as hammering bamboo shoots underneath his fingernails).


So yeah... here's what I had done. The guy who did it, Jason Rhodes (owner of Intricate Decor in Mt. Pleasant, MI.), does great work and I'm so glad it turned out as I had initially hoped. I had the Hough family crest done, and it took probably four or five months of research and designing to get it to fit well on the inside of my left arm. The surname Hough traces its ancestry to 9th century Cheshire, England, where they were Saxon nobility. I found a couple different family mottos for the Hough surname, but 'Aut Pax Aut Bellum' (trans. from Latin, "Either Peace or War") seemed the most fitting for yours truly:


It was difficult working the design around my existing Gye Nyame symbol on my wrist, but Rhodes wrapped the scroll of the family motto around the side and I included one of my favorite passages in the KJV bible for perspective:


On the other arm, I decided to get the kid's nickname ('Cannonball') done in ancient Irish (seeing how both Kris and I have a lot of Irish in us). I went with a shamrock, too, as other traditional Irish symbols (pint of Guinness, a Shillelagh bashing in a Protestant's skull, etc.) might not be appropriate for a little girl...


Eventually, when the second kid is born, I'll get a design done for him and place it directly below Alayna's shamrock, and then eventually tie all three designs together in some sort of sleeve design. That'll take a couple years (and a couple hundred dollars, no doubt), but it'll look awesome in the long run.

Word. So there you have it. Yours truly had some ink done, its freezing in Florida, and nobody wants to go back to work.

Have a good New Year's, people...

- Brian

'How Terrorists Screwed My Travel Plans,' and Other Holidays Adventures

Post-Christmas time is here again, folks...

How was your Christmas? Awesome? Ours was. This year, the Houghs embarked on an awesome cross-continental adventure - we got to fly home to Michigan for a nine-day, winterland tour-de-force. Loads of fun. We got to spend a lot of time with family, got to catch up with old high school and college buddies, and were able to enjoy all of the old favorites around central Michigan (Buccelli's pizza, local townie bars, snow, etc.).

As usual, the Houghs (specifically Dad, Cindy, and yours truly) took way more pictures that probably necessary. We didn't quite hit the Eight Point Lake typical count of 1200 - 1300 pictures for the week, but I think we crossed 800. As such, I didn't feel like hand-picking a ton of them to post up on here. Again, what's easier for me, is just to provide you with the link where you can view an existing web gallery of our family's vacation up north.


Click here to check 'em out.


It was a good trip, and definitely one of the high points of our year. I managed to squeeze in time for the ol' high school crew, was able to get tattoos done with my brother Chris, got to pub crawl Clare, MI. with the infamous Sausage Pad, see all sides of my family, and still had down time in order to chill by a fire, sip 'nog, and jam out to the Vince Guaraldi Trio's Christmas album. All in all, nine just-about-perfect days at home.

Alas, as is typically the case, the vacation had to come to an end. What made our particular venture back home all the more excruciating was the fact that terrorists decided to screw around with my travel plans.

As we all know by now, some Nigerian idiot decided to pack plastic explosives (or whatever it was) in his underpants and try and blow up a plane heading from Amsterdam to Detroit. The exact same airport we would be flying out of two days later.

(Why he was trying to blow up good ol' Detroit, MI. - a city that's more or less already a smoking crater anyway - I have not a clue.)

Anyway, his botched suicide-bombing attempt more or less meant that we had to stand around in pain-in-the-ass lines even longer, and had to deal with heightened security (orange level! gasp!).

Running the airport gauntlet with a pregnant woman and a toddler is just as much fun as it sounds, folks.

News cameras felt it necessary to stick video cameras in people's faces throughout the long lines, which is like the last thing you want to endure after lugging around fifty pound suitcases whilst placating a toddler in the middle of a freak-out. A couple of these newsies even felt it necessary to videotape our daughter as she played around with a suitcase on the floor while we were in line. I didn't know they could do that without offering us a consent form or something. I mean, not that I really minded all that much, but I do enjoy the occasional form-signing. Makes me feel important.

So in conclusion, the Houghs had a good time in Michigan for the Holidays, and are looking forward to it again next year. Only next year, we'll have a second kid (hopefully a boy), and will be forced to make the 1300 mile overland trek - through the Deep South, over the Mountains, and up through the Midwest - in our family's Battle Wagon, as neither Kris nor myself feels like forking out an additional $300 for a third plane ticket (Alayna will need one by then). I'm sure that'll be an awesome car trip.

pfft...

- Brian

Fondewds and Dollar Store Gifts

Happy Pre-Christmas, everybody!


Well, its that time of year again. Time for the annual Hough/Voigt/Gowen bizarro Christmas Gift Exchange and Fondue Extravaganza. Always a good time. More or less a practice run for the up and coming 'real' Christmas, but with less family drama and more beer. Basically, everyone brings two dollar store gifts (gender appropriate, of course) to exchange, and everyone walks away with two random, usually tear-inducing, Christmas presents (though the Cannonball usually does pretty well for herself).


Here's some pictures from this year's blowout. Enjoy:

- Brian

Merry Christmas from the Houghs, Vol. V

Dearest friends, family members, and random people who come across this blog from the far corners of cyber space,

We, the Houghs, wish you all the merriest of Christmases (unless, of course, you don't celebrate Christmas, in which case we'd wish you 'Happy Holidays' in order to remain PC). Here is this year's installment in the ongoing Hough family Christmas card saga.

Enjoy.

Too Yule for School,

- The Houghs

Kid Sitting on Random, Bearded Old Guy's Lap, Vol. II

Well, I think they'd take our parenting merit badges away if we didn't have pictures of our kid sitting on some old, bearded guy's lap for the holiday season.

Spoiler Alert: I don't think this was the real Santa Claus, because these pictures were free. I'm sure it'd cost a lot to sit on the real Santa Claus' lap, seeing how he's somewhat famous and all, and I'm sure a lot of kids (and maybe adults) out there would love to sit on the real Santa's lap...

See ya in Vol. III, Old-Guy-Who-Somewhat-Resembles-a-Fictional-Character-Connected-to-a-Religious-Holiday!

- Brian

One Beat's Enough

kris went to the doc today, and, according to the heart monitor-thingy, it looks like we're having one child. this is really, really welcome news, as yours truly didn't have the heart to pay for the whole 'buy one, get one free' deal. one's a lot easier for the wallet to deal with. besides the financial side of things, kris is happy she doesn't have to deal with giving birth to two kids at the same time (or however that works).

that's all for today, folks. looks like we dodged the twin bullet yet again.

relieved,

- brian