
The blog what speaks for Guido, Troy, Ryan, Brett and Matt
   
   
   
   
Guido Strotheide | Troy Lowe | Ryan Seggelke | Brett Thomson | Matt Janet
Friday, December 28, 2007
New camera

We finally gave up on finding our camera and ordered a new one.I went with a Panasonic Lumix with 10x optical zoom. I appreciate the zoom but I'm also hoping it's small enough to carry around a lot of the time without being a big hassle. And I'm hoping the Leica lenses live up to expectations. I don't know anything about the chip in the Panasonic cameras, so I'm a little worried about that.
UPDATE 12/30: The camera still hasn't shipped. The tracking page still says "processing."
We think we found a good SD memory card deal, if any of the stores in town have it in stock.
With the year almost over, our movie lists are getting wrapped up. I might be able to add one or two more in the next few days.http://www.fuzzycouch.com/labels/movies.php
My cousin Stephanie likely had a baby this week (she was supposed to be induced). And one of my relatives died this week:Opal I. Strotheide, 87, (nee Iberg), on Wed., Dec. 26, 2007.
She was the wife of Laverne E. Strotheide; mother of Diana L. (Dennis) Osterwisch, Connie J. Colloton and Debra S. (Michael) Garves; grandmother of five; great-grandmother of two; stepgrandmother of three; stepgreat-grandmother of eight; sister of the late Virgil and Kenneth Iberg, and Evelyn Beard.
Funeral Services 11 a.m. Friday, Dec. 28, at Evangelical United Church of Christ, Highland, IL. Interment Highland City Cemetery. Friends may call 5-7 p.m. Thurs., Dec. 27 at Spengel-BoulangerFuneral Home, 1501 Ninth at Lemon, Highland, IL, (888-654-7234). Memorial contributions to Evangelical U.C.C. and Faith Countryside Homes-Village, c /o funeral home.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
A merry, French Christmas

Christmas was great this year. For our annual Christmas international meal, we had French food. I helped mom prepare a soufflé. Mom managed to get it perfect. We also had crepes, fondue, an asparagus dish, and ratatouille.Tuesday, December 18, 2007
"I Am Legend"

I went to see "I Am Legend" tonight. It was really good. I would describe it as feeling a little like "Cast Away" crossed with "Resident Evil."I went to see it on a whim. I walked by the theater as I was leaving the mall food court. The movie started at 6:15 p.m., I looked at my time-piece and it was only 6:30. So I ordered the ticket and the vendor informed me that the movie might have already started. I thought to myself, "might have ... exactly." Sure enough, I found my seat right as the actual movie was starting. I didn't have to watch any ads, Perfect!
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Pre-Christmas
Jantina and I spent the weekend in Orlando (80 degrees!). Actually, she is still there for the rest of the week, then we meet up in Lincoln for Christmas through New Years.I think I'm done with my Christmas shopping, we cut way back this year. I saw on the news that we may not be alone in that, but that it may be an overall trend this year.
We spent all day Saturday with our Orlando "Home Team" group (sans Christopher, we missed you!) visiting, playing games, eating, and just hanging out.
Then, on Sunday, we visited our Orlando church, Calvary Chapel South Orlando. They had a fantastic Christmas service and we were able to catch up with a few friends there, too.
After church I was dropped off at the airport, where I'm writing this post on my cool iPhone ;)
We had a great time seeing everyone!
Friday, December 14, 2007
OpenID-enabled

OpenID commenting is now available on Fuzzycouch.com. This means that our friends and readers can leave authenticated comments on our blog using their blog URLs from services such as WordPress.com, LiveJournal, and AOL Journals, or with their AOL/AIM accounts.Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Electricity to be restored

Story from AP, dateline Jacksonville: Ameren spokesman Leigh Morris says about 1,700 people are without power Wednesday morning -- mostly in Jacksonville. At one point, 17,000 Ameren customers were in the dark. [link]
Clay put a slide show of ice storm photos. [link]

IMG_3569
Originally uploaded by azalea_jade
ABOVE: A woman who lives in my neighborhood posted some ice storm photos, like this one a few doors down from me. Our neighborhood got hit pretty hard. BELOW: A limb roughly the size of this one came down in my tree, landing perfectly across the street, but also came down across the phone lines and popped a nearby telephone pole out of the ground.


Fallen Tree
Originally uploaded by grable8
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
w00t aka w007

The AP has a story about the Merriam-Webster word of 2007: Woot. The story quotes one of my college professors, Alan Metcalf (the executive secretary of the American Dialect Society) — but he didn't care for M-W's choice. [link]Monday, December 10, 2007
Ice storm

With an ice storm tearing Jacksonville a new one, our weekend has been a little uneasy.Trees and limbs are down all over town. A huge chunk of the tree in our front yard crashed down Sunday afternoon and took out the phone lines, snapped the telephone pole on the corner, and blocked the street. Verizon was here and had our phone and Internet hooked back up at 3:45 p.m.
We're lucky to only lose our phone and TV (we're not sure when TV will be back on), thus far, because the whole block east of us is without power since yesterday. On the down side, there is more ice possibly on the way tonight.
We've lost or misplaced our camera, so I didn't get pics of the limb or the ice storm, darn it.
Update 9 p.m.: TV is back.
Update 1:30 a.m. Tuesday: The newspaper has a video up about the ice damage. [link]
Update 9:30 a.m. Tuesday: We lost power at 5:09 a.m. Looks like the whole neighborhood and Ameren doesn't know when it will be restored. A lot of the schools in the area have canceled for the second day, today, including Julie's.
Update 11:19 a.m. Tuesday: Power's back on at home. Whew!
Sunday, December 09, 2007
New apartment

Its been a super busy weekend, but we are finally all moved into our Minneapolis apartment. It is a one bedroom loft. We especially like the location. We are near a lot of great places to shop and eat.The video is too dark, it is from our still camera, but it gives a better idea of the layout.
Here are the static photos:

Click for more
Saturday, December 08, 2007
Skateboarders video story
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
Columbia, Mo., weekend

Last weekend, Julie and I headed down to Columbia, Mo., (I got Friday and Saturday off work). I was supposed to play in an ultimate tournament called Savage December Rewind.We checked into our hotel and headed to the downtown district to do some Christmas shopping. By the time Julie and I were getting some late lunch, I received a message and phone call that the tourney was canceled for Saturday due to the weather forecast. The tourney director wanted to know if we wanted to try to hold some version of the tourney on Sunday.
Julie found a lecture Friday night by an author whose book she teaches, so we went to that. I made calls while she was in the talk and I found that a large part of my team decided not to come for the Sunday-only tournament, but I found that we could combine with Dan Morgridge's team from Chicago.
Julie and I had all of Saturday to do more Christmas shopping, which we did, and try some restaurants that were recommended. The weather wasn't nearly as bad as the forecast had warned. The Lincoln, Neb., team was in town and sent out a message that they were going to be playing Ultimate Saturday afternoon, so I joined them for a couple hours of playing.
Dan and three others came late Saturday, then five from my team came Sunday morning to find 63-degree temps. A front blew through and it poured and the temperature dropped 20 degrees or so, but we played the two teams that didn't bail out on us. Then my team warmed up at Flat Branch, a brew pub type place. Then we all hit the road.
I helped Josh hang the December show at Noir on Monday. There are 17 prints. The show opens Friday night.
Trying to use up vacation time, so I'm off tomorrow. I plan to clean and straighten at the gallery.Sometime tonight, Utini found a bag of dark chocolate M 'n M's that we didn't realize were within his reach -- so Julie had to make him throw them up. Good times. We're heading over to Josh's soon for Project Runway, cheese and bread.
Posted by guido @ 2:16 PM

