Photo of the day, Saturday

Well Hello Winter!


It blew in big time today. I shoveled before my men's group, mid afternoon and again after dinner. It's stopped snowing, finally, but it was kind of annoying, you know, every time I turned around it seemed, the snow was 4" deep and the plow had just gone by. Aarrgh!


We continued our decorating of the house. Most years I could care less about all that stuff. In fact when we were married and I was a mere 31 years old, I brought only 1, one, ornament into the marriage. I am not a Grinch or a Scrooge, but, all the to do in the house for a month, well, quite frankly it escaped me. This year I helped as much as I used to when I was a mere lad of 12 or so. And you know what, it was fun. Dang, all those years, lost. Never back, always forward, I am so looking forward to this from now on.


I was just thinking that I really blew the horn for my big brother's birthday. As I reflected on how I really enjoyed making a big deal out of his day, I realized that for many of you I don't know your birthday. If you want to share, please send it on to me and I'll make a shout out to you on your big day. If you have new photos, I'll post them too! You make the call.

With decorating the house comes the tree for my office. I'll take it in this week early so that we have it for our week long event. With 8 of us on the event, I'm sure we could use some Christmas cheer. Anyway, here's the tree that Holly created for me this year. Can you tell that I love blue?


Yesterday the boys came home and chased about a billion birds off our front porch. You doubt the number? Look at these photos. Sorry about the sideways shot, for some reason I am unable to rotate this photo, but Ian took this and I am proud of the shot and the style. OK, I've got an idea, if you turn your head to the right. Isn't that better? Yeah, I thought so.Thanks.



Have a great day!
Pat

Photo of the day, Friday

Happy FRIDAY!

It's been a long week, the weekend looks better. Next week is bound to be crazy, I am leading a lean manufacturing week long event, the hours are long, but it should be a lot of fun. We take a week and try to make it better in one area of our manufacturing plant. Focused work, it's great because in a short amount of time we can actually accomplish something significant. Not that day to day isn't significant, but with a team and 4 focused days, it's amazing.

We just got back from the hockey game. We went to the Grand Rapids Griffins Hockey game. It was a lot of fun, even though the Griffins lost to the Toronto Marlies. The highlight was that Chris Chelios, a defenseman from the Detroit Red Wings, was playing a few games at this level to get ready to move up. Man, he was a joy to watch with the puck, even as a defenseman. So, here's his photo. He's shown here in Red Wing uniform, and this shot is from the Griffins website.

Have a great day!

Pat

Photo of the day, Wednesday

Happy Birthday one last time this year to brother John. It's bound to be a good year!

Really busy at work again/still. I know that this project will eventually be done, but for now it's killing me. They just realized that the time lines are too long now and so I have to see what I can do to pull things in faster. Stress is driving my hair whiter and whiter.

One last shot of John. Not sure when this was from but it ended up in my laptop. I don't normally use the laptop to post these, but I was working late and didn't want to get off the couch. The photo is probably over 2 years old since I think that it was taken in the Mantorville abode.

Have a great day!

Pat

Photo of the day, Tuesday

First some great bragging news, Spencer made the honor roll and we now have the window cling to prove it. We are pretty proud of him. Holly won the arm wrestling match and so the window cling is heading to her car. Here it is. Way to go Spencer!


On to the big news, my brother John is having a birthday Wednesday, December 3rd. Let's see, he's my older brother, actually the oldest brother. I am still pretty much a juvenile so it's all I can do to stop from trashing him. Instead here are some shots of John, not an exhaustive montage, but one that shows growth. If you have his email, spam him, I mean send him an e-greeting! Happy Birthday Big Guy!

Mom, Dad and Jack when he was way, way younger.


Dave, Jack, Pat and Mom. Jack has an eye for the camera.


Wally Cleaver, oh, I mean Jack at 8.


Jack in high school, senior?


Dave and Jack by Owens' Ice Machine Van, note the white belt.


Dave, me, Jack and John, all of us older and hopefully wiser.


Jack and Jim Bell, note that Jim, while a bit older, more hair on the roof.


Have a great day!
Pat

Photo of the day, Monday

Why is it that when you get used to technology someone, somewhere decides it's time to obsolete or "improve" it? It drives me nuts. I have begun to wonder if it's just because I'm over 50 and so technology is like so much junk once I come in contact with it. My iGoogle home page recently went wacky, then I lost my daily funnies and now something seems to be up with Blogger, where I record these random thoughts. Oh well, let's hope it's a phase, like the teen years.


I know that the message is getting out though since many of you have weighed in on David's reason for the glasses. Most popular reply, "carving the turkey", most humorous; "that's funny. I'm sure I put socks on this morning." Thanks for playing along. David, any recollection?


This is a shot of a "loaner" dog, one that was being watched by Tom and Maureen while the owners were away. Angel took over this dog toy for the weekend and was often seen carrying it around like a large stogy. When bit, a most disturbing noise could be heard, not a squeak, more of a earthy sound, if you catch my drift. Good dog though.


Have a great day!
Pat

Photo of the day, Sunday

Here we sit, in the first "major" snow storm of the year. We joined the lemmings and headed to the store to stock up with a few items, but nothing major, after all, we're Michiganders! Ian and Spencer played out their superstition of; if you wear your PJ's inside out and backwards and flush an odd number of ice cubes down the toilet, you get a snow day. We'll see how far that gets them.

This morning the little kids sang in church. Pretty cool song, not one of your standard Christmas tunes, but a new one called; "He Made a Way in the Manger", this is a You Tube link to a video that has the song, I did watch the whole video, It's not like when I watched lots of little kids sing this song, but the music is very similar. I really enjoy working with kids and when we do the "Big" productions, I really get a kick out of watching the kids that I have worked with and see how they deal with life on the stage. Some make it, some hang back and a few grab the spotlight with both hands. It's always interesting watching kids on stage.

One of the bonuses of coming back from a trip is that I have extra photos. Spencer was my main photographer on this Thanksgiving and here is one of his shots. Uncle David is reading something, as evidenced by him wearing his glasses. Other than that, I have no context for this shot. Let's make one up! Post a comment on what you think Uncle David was reading, remember this is a G rated blog. I think David was reading...

Have a great day!

Pat