The Manly End

My friend Richard gave me a cigar for Christmas / New Years so I saved it until now and brought in the 2016 extra manly style, with whiskey and a cigar. Gurkha - Hudson Bay.

Grandish Theft Auto V

Ending the year by finishing GTA 5. The world was amazing, as living and breathing a digital city as you can imagine. The graphics blew me away. Unfortunately of the three main characters you play I didn't like any of them so it was hard to get into the story, a story that was choppy at best. Still just wandering around the town was a lot of fun.

Preds vs Rangers

Now that Christmas is past I can let the cat out of the bag, Mari got me a Predators ticket pack! The first game was against Colorado so she had to tell me early. Dad and I went to this, great game 5-3 win.

Four Of A Kind

The furry family finds fatherly affection.

Roadkill

Payton wanted to see this, and it was his birthday so who could argue? The horror... the horror.

Dog Approved

We thought the dogs would be scared of him, but all three found him more of a curiosity or toy than something to be afraid of. They must know he's light side.

BB-8

From Casie and John, this little guy has rolled all over the house. Toys have really gotten amazing.

After

Christmas morning.

Before

Christmas eve.

First Contact

We welcomed Elliot into our world today, my parent's new dog. He got along well with everyone, even the dominance insistent Tara.

Early Bird

51 years ago, on December 22nd, 1964 the Blackbird took it's first official flight. To celebrate that day a list of stats was released. In another "only interesting to me" file, here they are:

• 35 miles per minute or 3,100 feet per second is how fast the SR-71 could fly
• 170,000 pounds was how much a fully fueled and outfitted Blackbird weighed
• 59,000 pounds was what one weighed empty
• 107 feet, 5 inches is the length of a Blackbird
• 85,000 feet is the official Blackbird ceiling, although it supposedly could fly higher
• 34,000 pounds of thrust were what each of the SR-71’s J-58 engines put out in afterburner
• 17,300 total sorties were flown by the Blackbird family of aircraft
• 3,551 of these sorties were operational missions
• 11,675 hours were spent over mach three
• 53,490 total flight hours were amassed on the fleet
• Just 8 crew members had more than 1,000 hours in the jet
• Only 86 SR-71 pilots and 86 RSOs flew operational missions
• 385 total persons have reached mach three in a Blackbird, including 105 VIPs
• 478 total people have flown in Blackbirds
• 32 SR-71s were built
• 50 total Blackbird family aircraft were built (A-12, YF-12, SR-71, M-21)
• 1 hour and 4 minutes was how fast the SR-71 could go from Los Angeles to Washington D.C.
• $33,000,000 was the cost to build a single SR-71 Blackbird
• 900 degrees Fahrenheit was how hot the SR-71’s skin got during high-speed runs
• 3,200 degrees Fahrenheit was the temperature of the J-58 engine’s exhaust at maximum output
• Over 1,000 missiles were launched at the SR-71 without any losses
• 5 pounds is how much weight a SR-71 crew member could lose in their pressure suit during a four hour mission
• 85 percent of the Blackbird’s skin is titanium, the other 15 percent is carbon composites
• 2.5G was the SR-71’s structural stress limit
• About 16 “starts” per engine worth of Triethylborane (TEB) were carried on an SR-71 mission as the Blackbird’s engines could not be restarted in the air without the TEB accelerant.
• 140 degrees Fahrenheit was the flash-point of the SR-71’s JP-7 fuel. Normal jet fuel has a flash-point of 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
• 56 KC-135s were converted to KC-135Q/Ts that could refuel Blackbirds
• 20 of the 50 Blackbird aircraft family were written off in crashes and mishaps
• 6 inches is how much longer the SR-71 would grow at high speed due to heat expansion
• Zero was the number of computers used to design the Blackbird

The Holidays Are Upon Us

Christmas and New Years approach! Got this cool little image in an e-mail from Epiphone Guitars.

Finally

Star Wars VII. Every bit as good as I could hope it would be.

Cheap Trip

Kroger points plus already cheap gas means prices unseen for many years.

Preds vs Colorado

Watching the Preds vs Colorado.

Fat Traditions

Don't judge me.

Corny Traditions

Oh yes, it's Christmas Garrett Popcorn time again.

Light Adjustment

We put lights up outside for the first time this year.

Silvery

And now decorated. Christmas is on!

Greenery

We got our live tree today, and we think it's one of the prettiest we've ever found.

Flipped

The back of the quilt.

Christmas Cover Up

An early present from my parents, a king sized Christmas quilt. As always the detail they put into them is amazing, I can't imagine how much thread it took to do all that quilting.

WOTM

December.

Twelve Leg Surprise

And an already great holiday ends with the best surprise! Unknown to us my folks had gotten the dogs out of the kennel and brought them home so they were there when we walked in! Fuzzy babies everywhere.

Music City

Back home in Nashville.

Future Wish

The day was great, the company perfect and the meal one of the best T-Days I've ever had.

T Minus

The big day. Watching football with John while Mari and Casie cook. Being tempted by this classy table setting put on by the Huldens. We also did a little early 17th anniversary celebrating.

Not Chicago

Finishing off a great day, having had lunch at the Edgefield edition of McMenamins, the perfect way. With hockey. The Portland Winterhawks (surprisingly no affiliation at all with the Chicago Blackhawks despite the logo and name similarities) versus the Moosejaw Warriors. Couldn't have asked for a better game, 6-5 win for the 'Hawks in overtime.

Rare Waters

The rarest of all sightings on this blog...people! Especially Mari and I. The family enjoying the falls, picture courtesy of John.

View

Amazing view, I wonder how many times this picture has been taken? I understand why it's so famous, truly beautiful.

Falling

Another request from me, I'm the only one who hadn't been to the much talked about Multnomah Falls so they were all kind enough to indulge me.

Birdman

Then we went to visit Mari's dad and had a nice long visit, talking at one point about how much he enjoys watching his hummingbirds.

Donuts

They are just as good as advertised. I had the Voodoo (upper right, regular doughnut with chocolate glaze filled with raspberry, the butterfinger (not pictured), and the maple bacon bar bottom right (no not all at once, spread out over two days.) The latter being the easy winner, but they were all amazing. Casie had the other maple bacon while Mari and John went for the Memphis (banana fritter, peanut butter and chocolate drizzle).

Doo

And yes...

Voo

Then on (by my request) to the famous Voodoo Doughnuts.

Rosemary

Lots to do and not many days to do it, so we start off right with an amazing breakfast at Yvonne's. The rosemary hash is epic and as you'd expect the coffee is amazing (this coming from someone who usually doesn't like coffee all that much.)

Furry Family

We made it after delayed flights and lost luggage. Just a bunch of dog lovers in this family. Indiana snoozing.

Outlaw

Up at an ungodly hour and at the airport thanks to my Dad giving us a lift. Ready and waiting to get on to Oregon City, Oregon for Thanksgiving with Casie and John.

Fobbing It Off

I can add replacing car fob batteries to my resume now.

Mobster Meal

Fortunately, Maggiano's is always a hit.

Just Shoot Me

Our next play arrived, Bullets over Broadway. Easily the worst play we've seen since starting to get tickets. We couldn't put our finger on why, the acting and singing wasn't bad. Maybe it's that neither Mari or I like Woody Allen's work. Anyway, not good.

Vandy Venue

We finished the day at J. Alexander's and their view of Centennial Park and the Parthenon.

View Virtuoso

Mari and I are both big fans of local artist Phil Ponder. We were surprised to see a booth dedicated to his work, and then even more surprised to find Phil Ponder himself was signing his art! Needless to say we bought one and now have our own signed Ponder.

Village Visit

We braved the yearly Christmas Village at the fairgrounds again this year, it was even more packed than usual but we still managed to have a good time. Its interesting how having a Fitbit changes all of our perspectives on walking. Before it was, "do we really have to walk all this way, we should take the shuttle", and now its "skip the shuttle, I need 5,000 more steps!".

Roll In

A foggy morning in Nashville.

Rounded Out

Here's the last one.

Chairwoman

The missing piece became a tradition, so we intentionally left a piece out of each subsequent one. My apologies to anyone who suffers from OCD.

Puzzling Memories

Having painted, some of our old decorations aren't going back up on the wall as we move to different tastes. This includes these puzzles Mari and I did years ago, but I wanted to save them here on the blog. This was the first one, and if you look you'll see a missing piece that Mystic ate.

It's Alive!

It took a while of fiddling with the BIOS settings to get everything running, but there she is!

All Together Now

Finally, with the waterblock CPU cooler, the MSI graphics card, and the hard drives there in the lower right.