Dawn of a New Era

Happy New Year's, America!

How's everybody feeling today?  Like utter crap, right?

Word.

So Kris and I spent New Year's Eve up in Traverse City this year, sans kids of course (we dumped them off at my mom's, as 'kids' and 'New Year's Eve' never spells 'fun.')  My brother Chris and his new wife, Nicole, were hosting a mini-reception for their wedding up at her parents' house, foregoing the usual, full-blown reception. . . and consequently saving a butt-load of money in the process.

Nicole's folks' place in Traverse City

Still, they ended up forking out enough to treat their limited guest list with top-shelf booze, Qdoba catering, and free lodging, so we could hardly complain.

(Though that two-hour drive north definitely wasn't fun.)

All in all, there were about six couples there, a few randoms, and one kid.  So this basically meant that everyone had to eat and drink enough for seven or eight full-size adults.

Let's do this.

This was a pretty decent Imperial Brown from a local Michigan brewery.  Great way to kick off the evening.

Kris and Nicole had set up one of these. . . things. . . for people to take pictures in front of.  It would see a lot of use before the end of the night.

Kris and I ended up arriving after almost everyone else, but we still beat the Qdoba caterer by about a half an hour.  When she did show up, she brought so much food that it took her about twenty minutes to set everything up.  This was, literally, a feast for about fifty people.  The next morning, Chris and Nicole sent everyone home with a huge grocery bag FULL of Qdoba fixings.  Which, obviously, was awesome.

As a whiskey lover, the selection on hand was indeed much appreciated.  I typically gravitate towards Irish whiskeys; this one was pretty good.

That's a disgusting amount of queso.

After people took posed New Year's pics in front of that glittery backdrop (the one Kris is standing in front of), they uploaded the pic to an app connected to a blue-tooth Polaroid-ish printer.  They'd then hang the pics up on this string set-up for people to check out.

Borthers

Eventually, I decided to start printing random pictures of famous people to add to Chris and Nicole's growing collection (Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Lou Diamond Phillips, Cuba Gooding Jr., etc.)

Cleaning up the uneaten food and packaging it for people to take home.

Breaking into the good stuff. . .

I think this is the first 'couple picture' Kris and I have taken together in a few years.

There was some college football game on, but I didn't watch it.  Honestly, I don't really care for college football:  I don't get the point of watching a bunch of 19-year-old kids playing sports.

Hangin' out around the ol' 10 lb bucket of queso. . .

Locally-distilled whiskey.  You really don't think 'Traverse City' when you think of Bourbon, but it wasn't bad.

Check it out:  they randomly pulled this dude out of the netherworld to perform at Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve.  I had thought Jimmy was dead for the last six years or so.  You can imagine, then, my surprise upon learning that he's still belting out his classics today.  Inexplicably in Times Square for New Year's Eve.

The next morning, Kris and I got to drive all the way back from Grand Traverse Bay (not-quite-pictured here) to Midland in a  frickin' blizzard.  I can't begin to describe to you how shitty - and LONG - that was.

- Brian

Apples for All!

If it's one thing that pisses me off, it's a computer that's outlived its usefulness.


Kris' old G4 Mac has been around since '03, and, in computer years, that makes it sorta like Dick Clark. Only, unlike Dick Clark, its fall from glory hasn't been so absolutely horrifying. At first, it merely took longer to launch iTunes. Then, it had to really think about how to open iTunes. Then, you couldn't have any other applications open while opening up iTunes. And finally, the computer would get frozen just trying to open iTunes.

There was only one way to take care of this Dick Clark-ish computer: we had to get it a flashy, young Ryan Seacrest computer to help it along as it faded from our daily lives.



...and that's exactly what we did.

Being the mega-nerd that I am, I nabbed an iMac from the Apple store and was able to transfer all of Kris' old files and programs off her previous dinosaur computer and hook up the new iMac in an evening (excluding her iPhoto and iTunes libraries, which took all the next day due to their size). Personally, I would think that receiving a flashy, new computer - and having your husband set the entire, damn thing up for you - would be more than enough to make any woman as happy as can be.

But Kris?

"Wait... there's no number pad on the keyboard?"

Seriously?!

I didn't think anyone outside accountants even used the number pad on a keyboard anymore. Evidently my wife is an accountant. Despite the fact that the enclosed iMac keyboard was a.) incredibly small and thin, b.) a $60 value, and c.) f****n' wireless, she really, really missed those 10 or so keys that make up the standard number pad.


So, being the heroic husband that I am, I went back into the Apple store in hopes of exchanging the wireless, number pad-less model with the one she preferred. Of course, the tech folk at Apple gave me a hard time about it (despite the fact I was in the store less than 24 hours prior, dropping $1400), but after I rose all sorts of hell in their store, and refused to cede an inch in my quest, I ended up obtaining the desired keyboard.

In addition, because I'm such a pain in the ass, I ended up keeping the original, wireless version as well. For free.

Huzzah.

So now Kris has her ultimate set-up. Hooray for her, hooray for our Ryan Seacrest computer. But what about Dick Clark? What happens to her old, reliable computer that saw her through seven or eight years of emailing, budgeting, picture management, and jam loving?

We gave it to the kids. Observe:


Yes, I swiped most of the unneeded apps and erased all of her previous files off the harddrive, renamed the primary user, installed a few new kid-appropriate programs, imported a ton of children's music and nature sounds, and - voila! - the girls have a new entertainment system in their bedroom.

I'm awesome.

...yet, some of you may be saying to yourselves, "Well, Kris got a new iMac, and the girls got a new stereo/DVD player/internet browser for their room... what about Brian? What the hell about Brian?!"

I hear you. And I took care of it.

The good thing about dropping $1200 on your spouse is that you can get away with spending $100 on yourself and there's really not a whole hell of a lot she can say about it. With my $100, I bought us the Apple TV.

Now, from the comfort of our living room furniture (which may be the next household item replaced, at the rate our children wage war upon it), we can browse both Kristina's iTunes library as well as my own, as well as view our iPhoto libraries, movies and podcasts, as well as stream YouTube, TV shows, and cinema. For $100, I'd say it's a steal.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go high-five myself in the mirror.

Awesome,

Brian