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.

Boxed In

And here it is mounted inside the case. Almost there....

Rammed

Here's the motherboard with the CPU and the RAM now installed.

I Need A Brain Igor

The motherboard and the CPU.

Frankenstein Begins

And so it begins. First getting the case prepped and then putting in the EVGA power supply.

Collected Parts

I built my last machine in 2009, it's time for a new gaming rig! Here lies all that potential, just waiting to be put together.

WOTM

November.

Would It Help

I went and saw Bridge of Spies with my dad today. It was a long movie but I thought very good, and it's nice to have my Dad local again to hang out with.