Christmas 2007

This year it snowed on Christmas (just over an inch I believe), which made for the perfect holiday atmosphere. The Star and Tribune ran a little infographic about the probability of a white Christmas in Minnesota. Note that certain areas of Northern Minnesota are guaranteed a white Christmas.

Annual chance of a white Christmas in Minnesota, based on historic records from 1899 through 2005. Sources: University of Minnesota, Minnesota DNR, NOAA. Graphic by Billy Steve Clayton.

Sledding

The snowy weather inspired a group of us to go outside and sled in the backyard.

Bro-in-law and niece.

The outlier: knee-first sledding!

My sister tearing up the snow.

My father.

My aunt.

Don't fall off the sled as deep snow awaits.

Christmas Morning (Stockings and Presents)

My niece received a little gorilla in her stocking;
she's attempting to imitate it here.

My niece gave me a storybook of my life (2005-2007) made with Shutterfly.

I gave my niece a princess crown.

The next gift my niece opened was a princess dress.
She is actually airborne here jumping for joy.

The full princess costume.

Whiteout Conditions in Twin Cities

The Twin Cities received about six inches of snow today on top of
the two inches it snowed yesterday. Both Minneapolis and
St. Paul declared snow emergencies. (Photo credit: Jeremy Portje, AP)

My parent's backyard as viewed from their kitchen window.

Looking back at my parent's house from their backyard.

My dad and I on a short hike through the forest on my parent's property.

The northwest side of my parent's house.

The high winds brought about whiteout conditions. There is about fourteen inches of snow accumulation in the Twin Cities.

A View From My (Parent's) Window

ELM's First Birthday

Pumpkin Patch on Friday

Party on Saturday/Sunday


Como Zoo Trip on Monday

Ah, Minnesota Pride

Yet it's safe to say the Jazz are looking for Humphries, who left the University of Minnesota for the NBA after his freshman season, to develop much more of an all-around game. "I told him, 'I don't want a confrontation every time. (But) how are you going to make a living in this league? Shooting it every time you touch it? Or, I say, you can make a living in this league if you defend, rebound, run the floor and do some of those things,' " Jazz coach Jerry Sloan said when discussing Humphries' play after Utah's Saturday-night loss to Memphis "I don't have a problem with a guy shooting," Sloan added. "But every time he touches it? He's got to learn to pass it. To me, that's one of the simple things to learn how to do. Once you do that, then your teammates accept you a lot more and it makes the game easier for you." Desert Morning News

And

"Another day, another lesson for Kris Humphries. The Jazz's second-year forward checked into the game at the start of the second quarter Saturday against Memphis. So he was obviously shocked when Robert Whaley subbed in for him just 2 1/2 minutes later. As Humphries approached the bench, Jazz coach Jerry Sloan stopped him with a blunt message. "I can't put you out there," Sloan said as Humphries passed by, "if you're not going to compete." Salt Lake Tribune

(from link)

Canon S200 on Last Legs?

I've taken approximately 11,000 (11,173 to be exact) pictures with my Canon PowerShot S200 Digital Elph, which I received for Christmas from my beloved father in 2002. Lately, though, I've been having some difficulties with the quality of photographs the S200 snaps. The autofocus has ceased to work on two occassions -- most recently when I was on vacation in Minnesota. Luckily, on both occassions this problem went away on its own but it makes me a bit worried, what if I am trying to capture a once in a lifetime moment and it turns out like this:

Which fortunately is just a picture of my Dad and not, say, an expose of Brad kissing Angelina... but you get the idea. For like a week, every picture I took with my S200 looked basically like this. Here's another one of my cousins and I at at my grandfather's house.

In some ways, I can understand why my camera would be a bit tired -- 11,173 is a lot of pictures. BEyond that it has survived two falls off a countertop onto the floor, being carried for 2 years in the front pocket of my backpack, camping trips, etc. Overall, it's been a wonderful camera - I can't really criticize it - definitely one of the best pieces of technology I've ever owned (robust, easy to use, and typically did exactly what I wanted when I wanted).

Towering Pines

Just got back from a week long family vacation in North-Central Minnesota with 23 other family members (four generations).

Land O'Lakes

Before I embark on my journey home, I thought it fitting to include a tidbit on my native state, Minnesota. As a Minnesotan I am innately proud of many things my fine state has to offer, ice fishing, Nate On Drums, snow mobiling, cross country skiing, the ice palace, Prince, Kirby Pucket before he got in trouble with the law, the old Minneapolis Lakers, Charles Lindbergh, Garrison Keilor... but most of all, we are proud of our lakes. In fact, our state motto is the "land of 10,000 lakes." Aha, but recently a conniving, malevolent geograhy professor from Ohio has said that Texas, the land of bad mottos (e.g. "Don't mess with Texas"), has 269,976 lakes!

In Minnesota's defense, this same professor showed that humble Minnesota actually has upwards of 100,000 lakes. And, I suppose if you were to break it down density-wise, Minnesota would most definitely have Texas beat. However, there is little defense against coming in 7th out of 50 (yes, there are now 50 states in the union!) particularly because we lost to such winning states as Kansas and Oklahoma.

Of course, one argument is that many states are actually artificially increasing their lake count via reservoirs and other man-made bodies of water. They say this is for aesthetic or water irrigation reasons, I say it's because they want to beat Minnesota. Fat chance of that happening, we have Moose (Meese?).

(link)