Planet Stahl

Check out http://picasaweb.google.com/grouchomarkks for new pictures from the weekend trip to Fun City.  We had a few days to kill, and headed to Burlington Iowa for some fun.

Hey, its not called Fun City for nothing!  It was fun!

We did get tons of snow last week.  The snow plow was stuck in front of our house…  And I had some massive drifts to deal with.  Thankfully the county sent out a giant tractor to dig us out on Friday morning.  Otherwise, we would still be stuck in the house.

After 15 years of absence… I finally got a copy of The Cars “Shake it Up”.  Big deal?  Well, it is to me.  I was a Cars freak for many years (Don will testify to that).  I had every LP AND Cassette back in the day.  I had concert programs, autobiographies, and cutouts of every picture that ever made it to Rolling Stone!  Big time geek!!!

I have had  all their other albums on CD up till now, but for some reason…  Even after having all these other CD’s, I never ordered “Shake it up”.  Its not because I didn’t like it or anything… I just always figured I would find it used or something!

Anyway, the gist of the story here:  This was like an audio time machine.  I still had memories of all the songs on the disk, but for the most part, they were almost new again.  It was a wild feeling. 

My only real memory of this album was listening to it on my Sony Walkman while spending the night at Aunt Carla’s condo in Bloomington.  In a strange bed, in the dark, listening to new music with headphones on…  It was like drugs!  Ha Ha!

On to other things….  Yeah, my dream fell short…  Devon Hester was an MVP in an alternate universe…

Everyone here at the house was sick this weekend.  What fun!

I NEVER have dreams like this… So I feel I need to share on this Super Bowl Eve…  I had this crazy dream that Devon Hester was the MVP after having 3 TD’s…  ???  Lets hope I am right.  In actuality… I have never rooted for the bears since the late 80’s.  So, I am not nearly as emotionally tied to this game as many other “locals” around here are!

Ang has Summer rooting for the Colts…  The logic?  Her and Summer like horses, and colts are horses!  I guess the last laugh will be at 10:30 Sunday night.  (Dont even get me started on how late this game runs!)

Don just notified me that Roger Clyne is coming out with a new album!  Joy!  Here is sampler of a few of the new tunes.  http://www.azpeacemakers.com/ecard/

Our whole family has been enamoured wiht “Howls Moving Castle”.  Its ridiculous, but we have had this movie from Netflix for like 2 weeks, and it gets watched every-other day!  The kids know it by heart!  We have been on a Studio Gibli kick for the past few months.  Favorites include:  My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki’s Delivery Service, and Spirited Away.

Dan and I went to Chicago with the Homebrewers of Peoria…  Fun time.  Check out the beer site for details and video on that.