2008 Christmas Letter

Another year has come and gone and yet another one of these Christmas letters.

Beth and I were meaning to get Christmas cards out this year. We wanted to include pictures of the new dogs, but they just don't cooperate with photo taking. The paparazzi would have a tough time with these two. So it looks doubtful we'll get any cards out this year. Perhaps belated Christmas cards will be sent. 

Anyway, here's some of what's happened in the year past:

The Dogs

As you've already learned, we are now proud parents of 2 old English sheepdogs. This summer, Beth was training Elliott, an old English sheepdog, for some friends. They were going to relocated him to Chicago with his owner once he was trained. Beth got the itch for a dog at that time. It looked possible we might adopt Elliott as him relocating to Chicago did not look promising. But we were told that they wanted to keep Elliott. Therefore, we got Bubbles at 6 weeks old in October. In November, we learned that Elliott could not move to Chicago and life on the farm where he was staying was not working out.  Would we want him?

We briefly looked into finding him a good home. In the meantime, we brought him to our house, where he and Bubbles got along really good.  Elliott became housebroken in 24 hours, far faster than Bubbles. So we decided to keep him and make him a part of the family. We originally thought about getting 2 dogs so they keep each other company. Bubbles seemed like a bit of work and we started re-thinking that idea. But this arrangement seems to be working out... most of the time.

The pack is now complete!

The Band

Nootril Drop was on and off this past year. Over the summer, Daren, our drummer was off for 3 weeks in Germany to visit in-laws. Don't we all wish our in-laws lived overseas. But once he got back, I headed out for 2 weeks for Alaska. So not much happened during the summer months. However, we did get some gigs at Oliver's in Peoria Hts in May, Sept and Oct. One weekend, we played a benefit that got some exposure and media coverage. We even had a Halloween gig where Dave, our bass player, and I were judges for a costume contest. 

We're now working towards writing our own material. Currently, we have two originals in our set listing. They've gotten some positive responses thus far. The only gig we have scheduled is for January 24, 2009 at the Peoria Sportsman Club near Manito, IL.

Rock On!

Travel

Anyone who reads this blog read all about our Alaska trip. If not, search under the "Alaska" label on this blog. Alaska was the real highlight in travel for 2008. 

Our other trip Beth and I took was to Lake Louise/Banff, Canada in March. We met Beth's sister Pam and her husband Bill there. Bill wanted to try cross country skiing, which believe it or not, all the rentals and lessons were booked. I managed to get a couple of days of downhill skiing in. And in the process, got Bill hooked on skiing. I have to hand it to him, he's 10 years older than me and is just starting out. He seems to be sticking to it as we all have a trip to Jackson Hole for March '09. We also drove around and saw the sights of the Canadian Rockies.

We also took a couple of other smaller trips; Atlanta during Labor Day where we saw the DragonCon Convention (a sci-fi/comic book convention) and Charleston, SC.

Family

I am happy to report that everyone is feeling good and doing well.  Two-thousand eight is the first year in a long time that we did not have some kind of death in the family.  In 2000, it was Aunt Helen, '01 and '02 were ok, '03 Dad passed away, '04 Uncle Charlie went, '05 Great Aunt Jeanie died at almost 92 years, '06 Great Uncle Gene went with his boots on and lastly, in '07 Trixie had to be put down. Jim Rinkemeyer gave us a bit of a scare in November with some problems, but he's doing fine now. I guess there's not much of us left.

Mom turned 65 in May and we held a surprise party for her. Beth's parents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary (where the trip to Charleston was their gift). Jack turned 8 and he started the third grade this fall. Dennis still likes to hunt and fish. He still oversees the operation of his smoke shops. Dennis has recently taken on the challenge of treasurer of the local PTA.

That's the past year in a very small nutshell. Hope everyone is having a Happy Holiday season and wishing all a great new year!

MySpace vs Facebook

Is MySpace now on life support?

It seems to be that Facebook is now the popular website to interact with friends. A year ago, it was all about MySpace. Facebook at that time was deemed more for "older," more professional people (perhaps mid-20 somethings). This might be a good example of how young people can be so fickle.

I have a profile on both services. To tell you the truth, I though MySpace was easier to use and navigate. You can allow music and video to be played on your page. As for Facebook, there was more of a learning curve. It's interface is not laid out well; it took me some time just to figure out how to upload pictures. Their applications you can add are mostly a piece of crap that may or may not work... from my experiences and in my opinion. I don't know... maybe I just turned old.

One last thing I noticed between MySpace and Facebook, is that all the women on Facebook use their entire full name; first, middle and last. With no initials. An example would be Jane Mary Doe. What's the facination with the chicks using their full name and not the guys? Why? This is not done on MySpace. In fact, many MySpace users have a nickname, alias or a term we used in the 70's on CB radios, "handles."

Toyota vs Ford

To read a good analogy of what American corporate culture has succumbed to today, read this. This is a post from a conservative blog called Illinois Review, which I glance at every once in a while.

Disclaimer: I have owned a '97 Ford F-150 and was very pleased with it. Earlier this year, I traded that for an '08 F-150 and again I have been very pleased with this Ford product and have found both trucks to be of high quality. I did chuckle a bit reading this story, however, it is a sad truth.