Up North ~ Life in Minnesota

Back in the saddle

jerry — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 06:18:13 +0000

It’s sad when the only reason I blog is because I recently upgraded Wordpress. Perhaps this reveals a fatal character flaw? Regardless, we will really, really try to post more regularly. Spring is here and that always makes our camera fingers itchy, so you can expect a few new shots of the young’un as well.

Oh, I almost forgot what prompted this monumental posting—things are a little discombobulated after the upgrade, so for now, please ignore the ugliness.

November is beard month

jerry — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 02:11:42 +0000

Yes, it’s that time of year again. It’s the time when a man must boldly stand up and reassert his masculinity. It’s the time when the beardless are derided for no good reason, unless one recalls that they are, in fact, spoiling it for the rest of us. It’s the time when when women and children with sensitive skin begin to shy away from their menfolk, or risk a debilitating case of “whiskerburn.” It’s the time when prepubescent lads idly dream of future glory. I speak of November, beard month. The month of vikings, mountain men, Chuck Norris, and Kenny Rogers. The month where nothing five-bladed, triple-headed, dual-actioned—with or without soothing micro-pulses—must ever touch a real man’s face. The month when the age-old debate—foam or gel— is temporarily rendered irrelevant. If you think you have what it takes, you’re in good company. If not, perhaps all you need is a little inspiration.

Vote for Joe

jerry — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 14:17:21 +0000

Joe Lencioni’s fabulous photoblog, Shifting Pixel, is up for a 2007 Weblog award. If you’re not already a fan of his work, I suggest you check it out. Once you do, I’m sure you’ll agree it’s award-worthy stuff. To show your approval simply visit the 2007 Weblog Awards website and vote (often).

Redesign for the win!

jerry — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 13:51:56 +0000

As my grandpappy used to say, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Unfortunately, I’ve never been very good at heeding sound advice, hence this spaztastic redesign. If you notice things awry, don’t fret, I’ve still got a lot o’ tweaking to do before I affix my official seal-of-approval.

Finally… vacation photos

jerry — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 23:16:00 +0000

Man uses blog. Man encourages wife to use blog. Wife uses blog. Man and wife forget about blog. Family complains. Man uses blog…

That’s a brief recap of our recent blogging fortunes. To placate the disgruntled family members, I’m posting photos with a vengeance. Enjoy!

Gilbert trying out the snorkeling gear

Gilbert showing off his latest catch

Grandpa and Gilbert collecting peas from the garden

Shanon and Gilbert enjoying a boat ride

Gilbert applying one of his infamous “super hugs”

Tagged: photos, snapshots, vacation, family, minnesota, island lake

Summer vacation going, going, gone…

jerry — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 05:13:38 +0000

We’re officially back from vacation and we’ve probably checked our various e-mail accounts around 400 times. We had a wonderful, and restful, time at the lakes and we will eventually post a few photos to prove it. We’re eager and apprehensive about returning to work on Monday—a week away is far too long, but oddly not long enough.

Upgrades, yay!

jerry — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 14:56:55 +0000

I’ve upgraded to Wordpress 2.2 and now Wordpress 2.2.1 in the past week. If you notice any problems, I would appreciate an e-mail!

This is not a post about Paris Hilton

jerry — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 23:29:19 +0000

If you look closely at CNN.com you’ll find a link to their new beta website. Now I’m not sure what it is, perhaps it’s the lifeless gray background, or the individual boxes for each chunk of content, but I’m not a fan. With the completely disconnected horizontal bar at the top, it almost seems like two different competing pages.

While the content blocks offer clear visual divisions, and an overall “cleaner” look, the beta offers a lot less content (in terms of headlines). While I’m glad to see that CNN continues to refine its style, I’m not sure they’ve ever managed to concoct anything completely pleasing. With every redesign they manage to fixate on stuff that, to my eyes, already seems dated and bland. I’m usually one of the first to say “it’s the content, stupid,” but I have to admit that I find myself wishing they’d come up with something a little prettier.

Lazy movies are bad movies

jerry — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 15:20:31 +0000

I accidentally rented a horrible movie this weekend. I say “accidentally” in the sense that the description on the case didn’t indicate one of my most despised movie devices—the “dream” or “unreality” theme. This is the lazy screenwriter’s ticket to freedom. It opens up all possibilities because there are essentially no rules, and no point. You show 10 minutes of Character X living life normally, then suddenly he/she is plunged into this unbelievable nightmare where nothing is as it seems.

While the audience (me) is hoping, and praying, that this is building to some sort of revelation, Character X is plagued with a seemingly random assortment of strange happenings. It’s easy to find clues to Character X’s predicament where no clues exist. So while you’re pondering, piecing together your own much better ending, the filmmakers unveil that Character X is in a comatose state, lying in some hospital. Shortly after the first 10 minutes of reality, something bad happened, and Character X slipped into this never-ending nightmare. Yippee!

This same basic formula has been used countless times, with few variations, and little originality. It should have been retired long ago, however, every year some inspired hack gets crazy ideas for scenes and probably doesn’t have the creativity to piece them together without resorting to the dreaded “dream” bit. Since this is reality, all I can hope for is that they do a better job of writing the synopsis, so that I may gleefully avoid it.

Tagged: movies, films, plot, lazy movies, bad movies

Things Mostly Forgotten

jerry — Mon, 28 May 2007 23:37:44 +0000

With a sudden surge of lucidity akin to the proverbial “wake up call,” we realized that our little man was, in flagrant disregard of every parental effort and machination, growing up. Many of the cute, baby-talk phrases and words are disappearing from his vocabulary. His trouble with the “r” sound is substantially less noticeable, and many of his more humorous language slips are quickly being forgotten. With a desperation born of parents’ natural aversion to the passage of time, we decided to document a few of these verbal miscues so that we may grow old, and yet, never allow Gilbert to completely shed the vestiges of toddlerhood. Below is the beginning of a list that shall inevitably grow as we recall these last three years.

Britney = “Burtney”
Breely = “Byooly”
Gilbert = “Deeboot”
naked = “maked”
orange = “ohjin”
yellow = “lellow”
umbrella = “rellella”
daddy = “dadoo”
dizzy = “bizzy”
breakfast = “becky”