First of all — I’m now an uncle. Lisa and Pat have a little girl named Isabelle Marie. I can’t post any pics until Lisa’s updated her blog.

So, yeah. Pretty amazing.

Then there was the election, of course. Kelly and I were both very happy and excited, but it was tempered by the fact that we were watching the results come in with my parents, who are pretty conservative. So we couldn’t jump on the furniture while giving each other high fives.

As I’ve mentioned earlier, I’m not interested in discussing politics much here right now. I will say that I’m proud, that it was historic, and that both candidates’ speeches last night were inspiring.

From a little after Kelly’s birthday.

I guess it’s my thing to give Kelly late presents. Not because I’m lazy or forgetful, but due to circumstance. She just recently got the DS I got for her for Christmas, because they were impossible to find until about a month ago.

For her birthday I’m getting her an iPhone. But her contract’s not up for a couple more months, and there might be a new iPhone by then.

Yes, we rocked the Rock Band. It’s too badfortunate that there was no video.

Chris visited this weekend. We played Halo 3. Beat it at about 4 AM Saturday morning. Went to the Walker. Good stuff. Except for that canvas that was just painted black. That… was rad. I’ll post pics of us in front of the Spoonbridge and Cherry soon.

I’ve been working on some circuit bending. I was kind of keeping it under wraps because I was working on a xmas gift for my brother-in-law, but he came across it this weekend (a Casio SA-2 I’m working on). So yeah. Fun stuff. I may put a vid up.

Finally, there’s a new PSA up on Flapping Crane. Word.

Here’s some pics:

This was around 1990. It was during the first Gulf War. My father was stationed in North Carolina. At one point, he had the occasion or obligation to visit DC, and Lisa, my mother and I travelled there to meet him. This pic is obviously of Lisa and I at the Lincoln memorial. That’s the last time Lisa was nearly the same height as me.

I’m not sure what to say about this picture. There’s a lot of good and funny stories that can be told about this. Some sad stuff, too. It also occurred to me that I still haven’t forgiven that old woman in the chair for what she did. I’m not sure what upsets me more — what she did or that I still hold it against her, even after she died. The rest of my family, including Lisa there with the Super Scope, apparently don’t hold any grudges anymore.

Anyone who used to be my friend but isn’t any longer knows that I don’t easily forgive seriously fucked-up actions. Still, it’s a flaw I need to work on.

On to more light-hearted stuff:

This was taken Halloween 1995, I think. That sweet sixteen banner there is for Lisa, whose birthday is right before Halloween. From left to right: Adam (he smelled very strongly of bananas, if I correctly recall), me (way in the background there, half of my head), Chris (he’s always made the hottest middle-aged house-wife), Scott (dressed as either a Ren Fair juggler or a butch lesbian) and Shane (wtf).

There’s some funny stories surrounding this, too. Something about our friend Brake and a car accident, if I recall correctly. Seriously, it was funny. Like the cops thought they really were women or prostitutes or something.

Chris, wearing a Crow shirt. Probably taken by Lisa at Village Inn on Telshor and Lohman in Las Cruces, NM. I’m guessing Chris was around 20 years old, but I could be wrong. He definitely wasn’t in high school.

• Myself
• Pete
• Bryann
• Alex
• Eric
• Illegal Brian
• Ang (she’s in Hotspot)
• Steph (in Porkchop, Reicher, Hotspot, etc)

I started in January. Eric started a few weeks ago. Illegal apparently started the other day.

I have no idea what’s going on.

Shawn just needs to accept his fate. He will work here.

Chris, severely depressed about a game store that either moved or went out of business.

A closeup, to fully capture the full sadness.

Goddamn National Socialist nazis? Are you kidding me?

That’s all I took. I’m a lousy picture taker.

Then we headed to downtown Madison. I’ll put a couple pics up later. Pretty nice area. Nice campus. They also served beer on campus. As a NMSU alum, this blew my mind. I had to fill out some evil paperwork to get the beer, but we made it happen.

I complained a lot about MN weather. However, I came across this today: Super Bug Sweeps San Diego.

That’s one point for MN — no superbug. Also no hantavirus (take a bow, NM). Ok, so there’s West Nile up here, but I don’t think people get boils or vomit their liquified pancreas due to that.

I’ll post more stuff later. Just testing out some software.

Sonic Youth and Flaming Lips are playing at the MN Fair next Thursday. Word. Haven’t seen Sonic Youth since their A Thousand Leaves tour back in 97 or 98. Their new album (Rather Ripped) is really good, BTW.

Probably heading to Madison, WI to meet up with Chris on Monday. Haven’t seen him for 3 years, I think. And I get to meet the girlfriend. And pick on her. Because that’s the kind of jerk I am. Yeah, I’m that guy.

Other than that, it’s life as usual. Work work work. I wake up in the morning with algorythms in my head. Came up with an interesting Greasemonkey script the other day, but it’s not really applicable outside of our company, so no sense talking much about it. But it’s pretty effective, and writing those scripts is fun.

Probably working on some Flapping Crane stuff this weekend. I think we’ve all been in summer lethargy mode.