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I say that with as much optimism as I can muster. The holidays as relaxing as they were hectic. We got to visit with our families, celebrate with friends, and spend some quality time with our daughter. As we closed out 2008, we realized that we ended it on a good note. [...]]]> Happy New Year everyone!

I say that with as much optimism as I can muster. The holidays as relaxing as they were hectic. We got to visit with our families, celebrate with friends, and spend some quality time with our daughter. As we closed out 2008, we realized that we ended it on a good note.

Entering 2009 has been a mixed bag. I, for one, am thankful to have a wonderful little girl who is, apparently, enamored with me. Thankful to have a loving wife and family. And, thanks to this morning, thankful to be working.

I am saddened that some of my friends have gotten laid-off. The poor economic times had not yet knocked on my door. Now, I am aware of the trying times. I don’t know what changes this will lead to, but I am sure that we will be hunkering down a bit. No more diamond-studded swimming pools for us. No more opulent dinners in Tahiti over the weekends.

Anyway, to our friends, good luck. To our families, we love you. To our pets, stop peeing on the carpet!

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We fired up the grill and pulled out the drinks for all of our guests. However, I completely underestimated the amount of [...]]]> Brandy and I invited several folks over to the house this weekend to celebrate our birthdays. It was a lot of fun and a big thanks to everyone who came out for the shenanigans.

We fired up the grill and pulled out the drinks for all of our guests. However, I completely underestimated the amount of food I had planned to cook. We planned for 2 hamburgers a person as well as corn on the cob and roasted potatoes. MLONF brought along additional hamburgers as well as chicken. Now, I do not have a small grill, but let’s say it took me 45 minutes to an hour to cook all the food on the grill.

We had three varieties of hamburgers:

1. Pre-made normal beef patties. Yummy!
2. Ground beef and Ground pork mixed with onions and slight seasoning. Yummy +1!
3. Ground beef and Ground pork mixed with onions, chipotle peppers, and an assortment of spices. Yummy +2!

For our 17 guests, we ended up with 35+ hamburgers, 12 chicken legs, 16 ears of corn, and 4 small pans of potatoes. This does not include the pasta salads, barbecue weenies, fruit salads, and desserts. Needless to say, we ate well.

Speaking of cake, Christian baked us a special Birthmeh Cake.

This overwhelmingly excited cake held a special surprise. No, not a tiny midget dancer, but this:

It was chock full of rainbow cake goodness. And it was delicious! So much so that I had to protect my cake…

(Thanks to Christian for these photos!)

Even though we requested no gifts, our friends gave us some spectacular gifts. In our household, it’s a difficult feat to give us a game we don’t already have. Well, we didn’t get just one new game, we got two! Todd came through with Phase 10. Not a new game to us, but one we just didn’t have. It will be a welcome addition to the Game Closet. Geoffrey and Courtney brought to the mix “Wit and Wagers“… or waggers, if Brandy has anything to say about it. This brought about some good times… though I am convinced that Craig and Memo are possibly clairvoyant.

Also, Christian and Hillary gave us the Callen Sisters album. If you haven’t checked this out, you really should. It is excellent.

And BLONF made his first appearance at Casa de Pate. I am pretty sure he stole the show.

Anyway, good times were had be all. We had a blast and I am sure our guests did as well. More pictures will be posted, once they are downloaded from the cameras.

Thanks again!

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Take a look:

http://idlemindsradio.com/geocache/index.php?event=15 

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For those of you unfamiliar with geocaching, it is very much like a treasure hunt, only instead of treasure, you are looking for a [...]]]> Today, I decided to go on an adventure during lunch. I, along with 2 fellow co-workers, decided to find a geocache that was hidden along the Cahaba River behind our office building.

For those of you unfamiliar with geocaching, it is very much like a treasure hunt, only instead of treasure, you are looking for a cache of trinkets or a log book. To find these caches, you use GPS coordinates to make your way to the general location and then scavenge to find the cache.

Today, we sought after this cache: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=3248300e-916b-4369-a355-f3c35b000285

So, off we went from the back patio of the building and tromped our way down into a valley on our way towards the river. What began as an easy trek through an expected flat terrain to a gently ascending hill turned into an adventure over several steep hilltops, across stream beds, through spider webs, and through many piles of dead leaves. Not to say I didn’t enjoy the hike, just my expectations were a little off. Oh — as an added bonus, we picked up several hitchhikers along the way… and several of the ticks we didn’t find until we got back to the office.

What we found was this cache: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=46f45e74-c5b2-4681-8730-ba7c209a5d82

The cache we found was tagged with a significantly higher terrain rating. This would have helped us plan a little better… like hiking shoes, tick repellent, water… oh well, now I know.

Not only did we find the cache, Greg found this:

Some form of animal skull. SCORE!

This was my first geocaching adventure, but probably won’t be my last.

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Hit up the following link [...]]]> This one slipped past my radar. The new seven wonders of the world, as voted upon by the technologically-enhanced members of the world, are:

• The Great Wall of China
• Petra in Jordan
• Brazil’s statue of Christ the Redeemer
• Peru’s Machu Picchu
• Mexico’s Chichen Itza pyramid
• The Colosseum in Rome
• India’s Taj Mahal

Hit up the following link for more details: New 7 wonders of the world named

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10 Things Your Grocery Store Doesn’t Want You to Know – MSN Health & Fitness 9. The salad [...]]]> Over at MSN.com, there is an article details 10 secrets of the grocery industry that they’d rather you not think about. Most of it is common sense, but it’s interesting to have it spelled out for you.

10 Things Your Grocery Store Doesn’t Want You to Know – MSN Health & Fitness

9. The salad bar can make you sick. Raw produce at the salad bar, pre-made salads at the deli counter and other pre-cooked prepared foods all have the potential for harboring harmful bacteria (like E. coli, salmonella and Norovirus). “The biggest contributors to unsafe food are foods that are held at unsafe temperatures, handling of food by individuals with poor hygiene, and refilling partially used containers of perishable food with fresh food,” says Michael Doyle, Ph.D., director of the Center for Food Safety and Quality Enhancement at University of Georgia.

This is something that I have just failed to think about when I walk through the deli section. Ugh…

Anyway, give this article a read and just keep some of these things in mind.

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CNN is the latest news outlet reporting on the missing bees. An alarming statistic — 25% of the US bee population has vanished. That’s a lot of bees… and considering they pollinate [...]]]> As more is revealed about this situation, the more concerned I am. There’s not much I can do about it, but concerned I remain.

CNN is the latest news outlet reporting on the missing bees. An alarming statistic — 25% of the US bee population has vanished. That’s a lot of bees… and considering they pollinate a grand majority of US crops, this is huge.

From the article:

Mysterious honeybee killer could make dinner bland – CNN.com

Among them: apples, nuts, avocados, soybeans, asparagus, broccoli, celery, squash and cucumbers. And lots of the really sweet and tart stuff, too, including citrus fruit, peaches, kiwi, cherries, blueberries, cranberries, strawberries, cantaloupe and other melons.

I don’t know about you, but if I start missing some of those delicious items in the grocery store, I’m going to be upset. Well, I guess I could do with out squash… and perhaps celery, but the rest?? No way!

Perhaps, as some scientists have noted to say in the article, it is time to figure out a new way to pollinate our crops and reduce our dependency on the honeybee. That may not be an easy solution, but it is looking like a more “correct” solution.

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