2009 Holiday Season: Part One

I've been really bad about blogging recently. I'm not sure what's come over me, but I haven't had the fire to blog like I used to. Am I getting sick of blogging? Certainly not. I blame it on the season. It's getting darker earlier now and ... you can't blog in the dark.

Okay. Lame excuse. Regardless, I'm filling you in on the past few weeks of holiday festivities. Here goes.

First, we had a Christmas party with the family.





And at that Christmas party we had a talent show. Some of us painted on our chins...


And some of us played the Ukulele...


Some of us read Christmas stories...


And some of us sang and played the guitar...


And some of us did a Christmas rap about Santa...


Then it got really foggy, so I went out at about 1:00am to take pictures.




A few days later, we took a roadtrip to Vegas to watch the Cougars go bowling.


The clouds were spectacular on the way down.


The wind was spectacular as well...



It was the coldest, windiest football game I've ever attended.


The guys holding the flag were nearly blown away.


And BYU ended up blowing out the Beavers.


We woke up the next morning to a beautiful sunrise on the strip.


And doodled on the newspaper as we drove home.


Part two coming soon!

-Barry

Un-bear-able...

The global warming, man-made carbon disaster, green movement agenda was recently pushed to greater heights with the whole Copenhagen Alliance thing. You're hearing more and more blatant, in-your-face style propaganda rather than the occasional hippy rant like it was before. What I am about to show you, however, is ridiculous. Embarrassing for even the greenest of tree huggers...

I present to you, the Build-A-Bear "Under the North Star" Christmas special - a little animated feature kids could watch on the Build-A-Bear website.



My favorite line? "It could happen the day after tomorrow!" HAHA! She might as well throw this up for the kids to watch:



That's enough of my rant. Think of the children, though. Must they have this crap shoved in their faces?

-Barry

WTH

Sometimes you see things on the internet that just make you stop and think, "What the hell?"

I found this while perusing the "Free" section of the ksl classifieds...


The only connection I can make as to how this belongs in the free section of the classifieds is that this person wants to be "free" from the harassment of betty johnson. Why would you put this in the classifieds? So strange...

-Barry

Icicles

Went out to our balcony today and took some pictures of the icicles. And ya know what? I don't care if they're a hazard to the community. I love big icicles.






-Barry

Love thine BCS

Courtesy of www.fiestabowl.org

Tonight the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) found, once again, a way to short-change the little guys, namely TCU and BSU. Instead of pairing them up in match-ups with teams from BCS conferences, they've matched them with each other in what is, essentially, a rematch of last year's Poinsettia Bowl. This was a blatant effort by the BCS to prevent a scenario in which two non-BCS teams could finish the season unbeaten, sending a vicious blow to the precious system currently in place.

Initially, this angered me. Like so many of the shenanigans they've pulled in the past, I felt the bitter sting of injustice stirring inside me. However, while watching the Christmas Devotional later tonight, this scripture was mentioned:

Matthew 5:44 - "But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you."

What a great scripture for the Christmas season! It rang true to me on so many levels, but especially with the whole BCS thing. If the BCS is the enemy (and they are) then we should love them. We may not agree with how things are run. We may not be happy with the pairings in the bowls. We may feel that the whole BSU-TCU thing is a filthy cop-out that leaves nothing to be proven and drastically cheapens the work that both teams have put into the season. Nevertheless... *deep breath*... hostility is not the way to enact change. Let us search for other options (namely a playoff) with love in our hearts.

After all, it is the Holiday season. :)

-Barry

White Christmas

Don't you love it when you are enlightened to a mystery that has enshrouded your mind for years?

Many years ago I saw the holiday classic, "Christmas Vacation," for the first time. As the film builds its final crescendo toward the heartwarming ending, this scene plays out...

**Warning: If you are offended by language, skip the clip. You'll still understand what I'm talking about by my description below. The clip is really funny, though.**





I'd always wondered what the reference was to the line, "We're gonna have the hap, hap, happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby danced with Danny $&#@ing Kay!"

And tonight, my friends, I found it...



Bing Crosby dancing with Danny bleeping Kay. From the movie, "White Christmas." My life is now just a little bit more fulfilled. :)

-Barry

Pics from The Game

Pictures from the 26-23 victory over the U of U on Saturday night....

Tyler walks toward LaVell Edwards Stadium as we head to the game.

Andrew and Shannon just before the game began.

Two classy Utah fans sat near us. They were so dejected after the game.

The stadium was absolutely packed.

The winning helicopter. :)

Ashlyn and Steve sat across the stadium, so I called him on his cell, we found each other, and I asked him to smile in my direction for a few seconds. It turned out nicely!

Tyler wasn't so far away, but was just as cooperative. Sadly, Dad was nowhere to be found when this picture was taken.

Stormed the field when the Cougars scored. Absolutely euphoric.

Shook hands with Brian Kariya. Told him he'd had a great season. His response, "Really? Well, thank you!"

Andrew George in the post-game interview. Had the opportunity to shake his hand as well.

-Barry