Rich's Halloween Rules

Well, we got a good number of trick-or-treat'ers at our new place, but not all of them were deserving.  A few pointers to next year's visitors.

1. Put some effort into the costumes.  Some of you looked like you were straight off the street, looking for a handout.  Next year, no costume, no candy!
2. Put some effort into your candy bags.  Plastic pumpkins are good.  Those small plastic bags with halloween themes are fine.  Pillowcases are pushing it.  A white garbage bag?  Come on!
3. You're how old?  If you look 13, you're pushing the line.  If you're 16, you're much too old.  If you have kids, and are asking for candy yourself, you're setting a bad example.  Don't risk getting rejected in front of your kids.
4. Here's the script: You - "trick or treat!"  Me - "Oh, cute, Chewbacca.  Have some candy." You - "Thank you!"  None of this holding out your bag with no words.  Next year, I'm waiting until you say something, otherwise, we'll just enjoy an awkward silence.
5. If I hold out the bowl, you take one piece, unless I bless you to take more, which I usually will do.  Don't get greedy.  
6. Don't swarm me.  3 - 4 kids (or less) at a time is good.  7 - 8 is overwhelming, and I'm likely to get stingy with my candy.  Parents should learn to send the kids in waves, it will help you hone your children management skills.
7. Mind the pumpkin.  People kept kicking my pumpkin tonight and spinning it around.  There's fire in there, watch out!

That's about it for Rich's halloween rules.  See you all next year!

Ready for bed

2nd try

After our first outing, Amy convinced Drew to go out one more time.  She did much better than I did, and they brought home a respectable load.  Maybe there is hope for next year after all.  Meanwhile, I stayed home and handed out candy.  I'll have to rant a little on the performance of some of the trick-or-treaters that came by.  See future post.

Already done

Amy stayed home while Drew and I went out trick-or-treating. It only took about 5 houses before someone scared him so bad, he decided he didn't want to trick-or-treat anymore. They weren't even trying to scare him, it was just someone wearing a ghost mask. The guy felt bad about it, but he didn't do anything wrong, Drew's just a little green at this. Maybe next year, we can shoot for 10 houses before he gets so scared he wants to come home.

The full costume

The hulk

We'll go out for candy in another 30 minutes.

A crunched truck

Excavator!

Feed me, Seymour!

Amy got a couple carnivorous plants for the house, presumably to control the fly population. This is a fly after i caught it and fed it to the plant. The problem is that now that I've caught all the flies, i still have mouths to feed. I told Amy we'd need to leave the door open now to let more flies in, but she's not very sympathetic to my problem.

Pumpkobot

This is Drew's halloween pumpkin for this year.  He's wayyy into transformers, so I let him choose between autobot and decepticon.  He said "I want the captain!", so I went with autobot.  Maybe if he gets another pumpkin I'll do a decepticon on it.  I also need some fire to go into this guy, but Amy isn't keen on me using up her fancy scented candles.

Bella, the cockroaching dog

Dancing Machine

A smile

This is Drew's reaction when Amy told him her mom and cousin would be visiting him tomorrow.

Our frys has a theme!

It's about time, too. It looks like an old west/outdoors theme. Still not nearly as cool as Roseville's train store.

Wii stuff

This stuff is still sold out everywhere, which surprises me. There hasn't been anything great out for the Wii in a while.

Lego store

We visited the new Lego store in Sac and it's awesome. We built and raced cars on this track and looked at all the cool sets. We got a couple more sets for Drew to ensure good behavior, but really just because i want to play with them too.

Tahoe hybrid

It just seems a bit large for a hybrid.

A post for Ruth

Drew has a new read-along book that he wants to listen to every time he gets in the car. On a long trip, he'll read it twice. If we went back to Oregon, he'd probably read it 25 times. I guess it would be nice to not get tired of things staying the same.

Portrait mode

They came around at work and fitted all the new monitors with rotating stands. 1680 pixels are really high!

Seahorse

Burning palms

My traffic backup of the day.

More racks

Drew and I stress test the new storage space / guest accomodations. We figured our house can sleep 8 more guests than it could earlier today. Email me for reservations.

Scarred

I still have a pretty visible scar that doesn't seem to be going anywhere. And if you look for it, you can see the outline of the ICD. I have a tiny little thread of the stitching coming out at the end of the cut. Amy wants to just pull it out, but i'm afraid of the whole thing just coming undone again.

Ron

Knuckle biting

Clear view

We had a nice view the day we left.

Watching tv

He wasn't feeling well, so he watched incredibles while the rest of us enjoyed the cold.

The ugliest dog

Ruger met up with another yorkie / chihuahua cross. It was definitely the ugliest dog i've ever seen.

Running through camp

Camp robber

The jay stole food from us the entire trip. We got peanuts to keep him out of the rest of the food. Later that night, we were raided by raccoons that stole everything that wasn't locked down.

Amy and Dad at camp

After

The Before picture is on the SLR, so this is kind of backwards, esp. since you really need to see the Before picture to have some frame of reference as to how much wood was burned on this camping trip. And it was MUCH needed given how cold it was. We kept a good fire going during all waking hours and it was kept up reasonably well at night, too, since Rich's parents woke up once each (around 1 and 4) to take the dogs out of the camper to relieve themselves.

Drew's Camp Chair

This was seriously THE best REI Outlet purchase ever. Drew loves his own camp chair. He drags it all over the campsite so he can sit close, but not too close to the fire.

REI Outlet has daily specials which are mostly random, but occasionally awesome. Plus they have an RSS feed for it, how much easier can it get?!

Dog fashion?!

Rich, both his parents, and his grandmother all put this particular dog inside their jackets/sweaters. Marlin (the dog), shivered a lot during the camping trip and whoever was holding him was apparently compelled to keep him warm. What the heck kind of dog can't keep himself warm?! This is CLEARLY another example of evolution gone awry. We keep interfering in natural selection.

A friend of nature

This was one of the fattest squirrels i've ever seen.

Horseshoe horses

Tranny-man!

Drew walks the dogs

Gramma and her camera

Brookings, Oregon

Camping Day One

It was a relatively uneventful first day of camping. After returning from the short hike, Drew went down for a nap and I got comfy and read my book. I was a munchy, so I opened up a small bag of Cheetoes. I didn't get far and put the bag on the picnic table. About ten minutes later, a blue bird dove out from a tree, neatly landed on the table and absconded with my bag of Cheetoes! Max thought it was hilarious that I was so surprised and indignant. Apparently this happens all the time. The bird took the bag into the shrubs near our campsite - look carefully.



Max recovered the bag and brought it out into the open so I could see it again.



Sure enough, the birds were accommodating.



A couple of days later, they made their way into some peanuts we bought. Max actually went and bought some peanuts just for the birds and set them out in a row along the table so the birds would come!

Anyway, the rest of our first day of camping was pretty mellow. Here's Max with the puppies and then Drew, taking them for a stroll around the campsite.

First short hike

Max, Drew, and I went for a hike after Rich and Gail left to drive back to the house (90 miles away) to pick up all the stuff Rich forgot. Nothing important or anything...just a couple of sleeping bags and the tent.

The trail led us down to the beach, where Drew and the puppies romped around in the sand, avoiding the waves. Aside from the fog and cold, it was lovely.

Trash

Caltrans makes the nicest stuff.

Playing games with grandpa

Sunset over Redding

I was about and hour and a half behind Rich and gaining time as I drove up to Oregon with Drew.

The former Lake Shasta

There should be water at the bottom of the shot. It's been dry so long that the lakebed has trails in it now.

Fire in Redding

Huge fire, somewhere west of Redding. The rest of the Sacramento valley was filled with smoke from field burning.