HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Be back soon...

I know ya'll miss me but don't worry, I'll be back soon. Just let me get through the Chrismukah season and I'm yours again!

Until then, miss me!

~JT

Have a Very Merry Chrismukkah!

The second day of Chrismukkah is today! It's the most wonderful time of the year!

For those of you unfamiliar with this holiday, here is an excerpt from Wikipedia:

Chrismukkah was popularized by FOX television program The O.C.. On the show, the character Seth Cohen has a Jewish father and a Protestant mother. As a way to merge the two faiths, Seth claims to have "created Chrismukkah" when he was six years old...Seth simply said in the first season's Chrismukkah episode that it was "eight days of presents, followed by one day of many presents," with a stress on the word "many".

You might be a bit confused as I am neither Jewish or Protestant. However, I am a fan of The O.C. Somebody has to carry on the tradition now that the Cohen's are off the air (tragic!). Besides, who wouldn't want eight days of presents, followed by one day of many presents." It's fun and we support Seth Cohen!

HAVE A MERRY CHRISMUKKAH!

Spotted - Frosty at the Market!

Click the image to make it bigger -

Ever have one of those days...

...when you just want to hit something or somebody? Yesterday was one of those days.

We started the day off with two hours of phone coverage. Yes, I had to answer and direct calls from those on Medi-Cal. Who wouldn't want to do that?! What? Did you ask if we had support staff? We're down to one but she can only answer the phone TWO HOURS AT A TIME! WTH?!?!?!?! She sure as heck doesn't do anything else! Useless #$%^&*($*&%#)(%*&#(##$%^&!!!!

We continued the day with a computer that seemed to do nothing but compute...or rumble...or scan...or whatever it was doing to make the little green light continuously flash the WHOLE FRIKKIN DAY! For those of you not familiar with this, it means that my computer was doing everything else BUT what I wanted it to do. It had no time for me. I wanted to throw it out the window!

It gets better - I was approached by the section chief, AGAIN, to update a website that DOESN'T EVEN BELONG TO ME! What time? Oh, it was 2:30. Excuse me, but it takes several hours to download, convert, make sure they're ADA compliant (they seem to be taking over the world outside of the parking lots too!), upload, complete all of the required information for each frikking document as required by the Department, etc...I finally had to hit the power button on my computer because I couldn't get it to do anything I wanted it to do and I sure as heck wasn't staying any later so that I could do somebody else's frikking work.

It was just one of those days...but now it's Tuesday. Stay tuned...

American River Branch Christmas Party 2008

American River Branch had it's Christmas Party Saturday night. The meal was a traditional ham, caesar salad, green beans, etc. Shortly after, a member of the branch whose family owns a bus, drove us around for some caroling and Christmas lights. We even managed to crash River City Ward's Christmas party by stoppping by to share our joyous song and spirit! They wish they could be us but they can't! HAAA! Oh, and thanks River City for taking our empty cider cups! :-)

Here are the boys of ARB (C'est moi!, Dustin "Mississippi/Co-Tex", TL, and Lance). It's how we do, I know.

I just know this was the highlight of Ariane's entire evening! She got to sit next to me for dinner!

Once dinner was over, we boarded the bus...

While boarding the bus, there was hot chocolate and apple cider for the taking aboard our holiday voyage. Here we are waiting for the bus to take off... (Dustin, Shanna, Ariane et moi!)

After caroling and crashing RC party, we struck it out to Stanford Ranch to see the Christmas lights. Here is just an example of what the people of SR do -

This is csomebody's one car garage they converted into a Christmas scene. Pretty fantastic!

And that ends the evening of the ARB holiday enchantment!

Passing Out Homeless...

Thanks to JMo for heading this up the past two years! Throughout the year, she gathers items such as sweatshirts, hygiene kits, hats, etc, along with lunches. She got PC.com to donate 40 for those "green" bags to use for this purpose.

Saturday morning, JMo, LW, TL, and I bagged everything up to hand out to the homeless throughout downtown Sacramento.

Here is TL as we made about 100 sandwiches. It's super fun once you get your routine going.

JMo and LW put together the PC.com bags with the sweatshirts and hygiene kits.

The lunches included a bottle of water, a few cutie oranges, a danish, granola bars, a bag of chips and three sanwiches:

We threw in some candy this year. Everybody needs little sumpin sumpin around the holidays!

Here's a pic of the hygiene kits and the sweatshirt:

It is so much fun doing this. I remember when I was asked to partcipate last year. I had my concerns. After a few bags being passed out and seeing the thankfulness of these people, I adjusted. I now look forward to this event! We've learned to look in areas further away from Loaves and Fishes as there are usually an abundance of people handing out items. We usually try to get those people who aren't able to make the trek to L&F. However, this year, we had plenty of extra and noticed that the other handouts have come and gone. We made the surrounding area of L&F our final destination. Here's what was so cool about this experience - we had already handed out most of our lunches and bags but had candy bars and hygiene kits left. We parked on the corner as the people flocked to the car. Not a few minutes later, a family drove up with clothes to hand out. Then another car showed up with lunches. I thought it was so awesome that we all happened to show up at the same place with a variety of items to hand out, meeting a broader range of needs of these homeless people. Such a awesome experience. I'm so proud of LW too for joining us this year!

N. Lake Tahoe

The first weekend of December, Mom & Dad Turner, LW, JMo, TL and I stayed at Edgelake Resort in timeshares. It's located right on the lake just as you come into town from Hwy 80. I wasn't expecting much but it ended up being a very decent place to stay. Mom & Dad came down for dinner Saturday night. We had ham, turkey, and all the trimmings. Then we watched "Meet Me In St. Louis", you know, the one with 'Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas'? Such a fantastic night!
It had a very small kitchen, especially when there were four of us trying to get all up in it to get our dishes done for our ham/turkey dinner!

The gas fireplace was one of the better ones I've experienced. It actually gave off heat...except for the one night that it just didn't work. BOO!!! We did get it fixed the next day.

We found four lost geese in the grass area. Don't they know it's almost Christmas and they could become somebody's roast beast?

We managed to find a sushi place while we were up there. In doing so, we came across this Italian restaurant, MOFO'S! Alowizzle, this one goes out to you!!!!! I. WAS. DYING.

As you can see, the weather was fan-freaken-tastic!! Here's our cute little pier.

I thought this was a cool shot, so I took it -

More of the cute little pier, and the very low lake -

We played games, read up on the latest Hollywood gossip, got our Christmast movies on, and enjoyed each other's company! It was delightful! Thanks for coming up, everyone!

I've decided to go Blu...

Bear with me as I wave my geek flag for just a moment - Much like Beyonce (or shall I say Sasha Fierce?), I have found myself at a crossroad <Listen!>. As movies are being released in both DVD and Blu-ray formats, I realize my mad decision making skills are about to be implemented. Just less than a year ago, the High Definition (HD) format war was in full effect, HD DVD vs. Blu-ray. I figured I had at LEAST a year before things settled down and a format winner announced, giving me quite some time before I had to spend money on this new technology. Uhhhh I had no idea prices would drop so soon! Let me tell ya, there were some tempting prices for Blu-ray players on Black Friday. I was almost ready to buy the $128 Magnavox Blu-ray player just so that I’d have one ready to go for my first Blu-ray purchase. You know how desperate I was if I was about buy a Mag! YIKES! My electronic cohort who has my TV’s twin would probably keel over had he known. However, I managed to remain strong and not give.
I’m not sure if you are aware of this or not, but Mamma Mia will be released on 12/16. This is the first movie in a long while that I decided I’d pay full price for as soon as it was released. It’s absolutely fantastic! Anywho, not sure if you’ve noticed but 12/16 is on its way, full speed ahead folks! I have to choose between DVD and Blu-ray. Mamma Mia would be a GREAT movie for Blu-ray as the scenery is amazing! I’ve made my decision and I’m buying it in Blu-ray, player or no player. At least I’ll have it…
…which brings me to this – I’m totally getting a Sony Blu-ray player! Why? Oh because I have enough Sony points to get a free one, the super nice one too! I just knew all that spending would count for something one of these days!

Here’s the little gem here:

For those of you wondering what the difference is, think of the difference between VHS and DVD. Once I started watching DVD, VHS hurt my eyes! Now when I watch HD on TV, even DVD doesn’t look nearly as good. For those of you without a discerning eye, lucky you! You’ll save yourself a lot of money if you aren’t able to tell the difference. For those of us who are able to tell, the resolution of Blu-ray and HD programming is much higher than what we’re all used to. It’s fantastic! It’s taken me a while to be sold on this new technology, but I think it’s finally happened, and with Blu-ray disc coming down in price, now is the time for me, I think.

Turner and Disney in December!

For those of you who may not have Disney classics on DVD (shame on you if you don't) Turner Classic Movies will be showing 26 classics every Sunday throughout December. How exciting!

Here's a preview (don't forget to pause the music coming from the blog music player on the right hand side of the page):

TCM Presents The Family Classics @ Yahoo! Video

Christmas Divorce (Cute!)

A man in Jacksonville calls his son in San Diego two days before Christmas and says, "I hate to ruin your day, but I have to tell you that your mother and I are divorcing. Forty-five years of misery is enough."

"Pop, what are you talking about?" the son screams.

"We can't stand the sight of each other any longer," the father says.
"We're sick of each other, and I'm sick of talking about this, so you call your sister in Denver and tell her."

Frantic, the son calls his sister, who explodes on the phone. "Like heck they're getting divorced," she shouts, "I'll take care of this."

She calls Jacksonville immediately, and screams at her father, "You are NOT getting divorced. Don't do a single thing until I get there. I'm calling my brother back, and we'll both be there tomorrow. Until then, don't do a thing. DO YOU HEAR ME?" and hangs up.

The old man hangs up the phone and turns to his wife. "Okay." he says, "They're coming for Christmas and paying their own way."

GG

Enjoying a little bonding time, S & L are snuggled together watching a romantic movie. Things appear to be going well.

Smitten, indeed!

Until next time...

XOXO,
GG