a celebration is an order: colston turned fwee!

earlier this month, our youngest, colston, celebrated his third birthday. or as he would say, he turned "fwee." colston has a little bit of a lisp, but i'm not too worried about it. his mother, on the other hand, sometimes acts as if it's so outlandish that any minute, charles xavier is going to appear out of nowhere with a white haired black chick and ask if colston can join his school for gifted mutants. babe, it's not that pronounced... ok, maybe it is, but he'll grow out of it and if he doesn't, i'm sure he has a bright future as the x-man who beats down bad guys by furiously amplifying the sound waives of his lisp at them. in the meantime, no sense in giving the poor kid a complex. thank goodness he doesn't read the blog.

the birthday was nice and low key... at least for everyone but the evening's entertainer: me. we only invited family and a neighborhood buddy of his or two, but i had the wondrous idea of preparing frozen hot chocolate, frozen bananas and balboa bars rather than the traditional stuff. the idea sounded great in theory, but i have since learned that balboa bars aren't that easy to replicate and since it was my idea, it was all on me, but, as usual, aim made for a great help-mate and did all the decorating and the like.

for those unfamiliar with the term balboa bars, these are one of my all time favorite ice cream novelties. one reason the term may not ring a bell is because you can/should really only eat these things on balboa island in newport, california. basically, they're an ice cream bar, dipped in chocolate that freezes into a shell, but not before you choose a topping to cover it in (oreos, nuts, almonds, sprinkles, etc. fyi: almonds are the best). aim and is spent the weekend before the b-day in newport where i had my fair share of balboa bars and, as such, we were both channeling the deliciousness of this delicacy and thought we'd give it a whirl in lv. long story short, the bars weren't bad but they weren't great. the frozen hot chocolate was much better and the frozen bananas were pretty tasty, too.

back to colston...

it was kind of funny, but colston had a black eye on his birthday. we don't know how it happened since it was inflicted while my parents were watching him. don't ask, don't tell, but you can see the remnants below. the i've posted span the course of about three days which is approximately the amount of time we spent celebrating cold stone's birthday in one way or another. i especially like the shot of coles the day he apparently got a hold of the gel and try to pull of his best glen danzig impression. what's more is he's guarding that truck and trailer toy he's sitting by in the pic with a scowl that no fool would want to mess with... and if any particular fool did, i would pity him. just ask caleb. joking, kind of... funny thing is, jameson had a black eye, too, when we got back from cali (word on the street is that caleb is responsible for both of them). it's an eye for an eye thing in this brotherhood.

bottom line, colton is inexplicably adorable. i don't know if it's the cheeks, his belly, his little voice or the fact that he's probably the most jovial toddler you'll ever meet, but he is seriously one of the most endearing souls on the planet. the kid is ticklish on literally every spot of his body and it's almost impossible to resist tickling him on a daily basis. his laugh is not only contagious, but infectious.

colston is also a very smart dude having learned to talk, count and recite the alphabet at a pretty early age. he picks things up quickly and is constantly trying to keep up with his older bros... which he's not too bad at, except that he's not near the fiend for speed that they are. i remember the time at disneyland when i was going to rock the tea cups out of this world when all of a sudden i looked over at colston and against the backdrop of blurry park-goers i saw what looked like a giant tomato that was about to pop in place of where colston's head used to be. i immediately slowed down and learned that he's just not into that kind of stuff... fine by me, less likely to break his back at powell that way. in summary, we're luky to c-town on board at the cooperfive and i can't imagine what life would be like today had i not put my special dance moves on aim that special night some three years and nine months ago. she never knew what hit her.

ok, getting serious again... the aforementioned is great and all, but i have to admit the achievement i am most proud of when it comes to colston is the fact that he followed in the footsteps of his indefatigable dad by potty training himself. yes, zombies, it's time to clear-up the urban legend you all have likely heard that the blogmaster potty trained himself... it's not an urban legend, it's true. consider it cleared-up. and just like his father before him, c-town decided one day he'd had enough of the diaper life and bam all of a sudden we're saving like $40 a month not having to buy disposable swaddling loin cloths.

queue joke about the blogmaster being 6, 10 or even 15 years old when he potty trained himself.

to the contrary, my friends... i've heard it all before, besides, those jokes won't fly in these parts now that i have some proof of my accolade which proof is none other than the flesh of my flesh and blood of my blood heeding the manifest destiny of his genetic make-up by teaching himself to use the loo at the tender age of two. it's in the dna, zombies. accept it. teaches it in the schools... there's science in that logic and, thus, it cannot be anymore disputed than say global warming, err cooling, err climate change.

time for the pics...

epilogue to previous post: in the spirit of full disclosure, the blogamster has been known to sleepwalk a time or two

after revealing mrs. blogmaster's penchant for sleep talking in my previous post, i thought it only fair that i expose a somewhat equally unbecoming aspect of my life: sleepwalking. yes, i, the great blogmaster have had a few nocturnal strolls in my day... no big deal, right? i'm not above that. bottom line: when it comes to the patriarch and matriarch of the cooperfive, she's all talk and i'm a man of action... sounds pretty accurate except that it's not.

fact is, it's been years since i've slept walk. it's actually only happened a handful of times, but that's probably a few more times than most people. and when you think about it, sleepwalking is a really weird phenomenon. there you are practically unconscious, but walking around and completely unaware of your surroundings. as far as i know, the only other time that really happens is when someone is sloppy drunk... and i don't drink, nor have i ever been drunk, so it's at least really weird for me.

i know i'm not the only one, though... some of you have probably slept walked at some point in your lives. either that or you know someone who has. i could be wrong, but most of these incidents were likely uneventful. my misadventures, however, were pretty embarrassing... maybe even more embarrassing than calling for a big hairy wolfman to come hither or singing a monotone tune while in a near comatose state. in my defense, though, it has been quite a while since i last slept walk. in fact, last time i had a sleepwalking incident was probably in the 5th grade which was, coincidentally, the crowning moment of my sleepwalking achievements. we'll save that one for later, though. for now, let's warm-up with a little something else i like to call "urinal or laundry basket: how the heck am i supposed to know when i'm 95% asleep."

late one night, back when i was a wee lad, i was fast asleep. the end.

actually, that's all i remember, so that's all i can share in the first person. the rest of the story we will have to accept on my brother and mother's word since, according to them, they witnessed the following series of events firsthand. allegedly. i'm still not convinced as i have suspected a smear campaign from my brother ever since the day my brother posted a youtube video of me in a speedo.

jeff, mom didn't nurse you because i was in the womb and needed the nutrients as a growing fetus more than you did as an already born baby. deal with it.

sorry, zombies... i don't mean to air the family's dirty laundry on the world wide web, but that's the beauty of modern technology... it has allowed me to express feelings and concerns on an intergalactic platform to an extent i never thought possible. i weep in awe.

back to the story at hand...

for starters, i have done my best to recreate the series of events based on alleged eyewitness accounts, my own fleeting and somewhat drowsy memories and a wikpedia entry on the matter. so, one night, as a wee lad, i allegedly had to take a wee... allegedly. unfortunately, i was asleep when i felt this sudden urge, but because i was in such a deep sleep or because the urge wasn't that strong (we'll never know), my slumbering mind did not snap into full consciousness while the rest of my body apparently did. allegedly.

and so i made my way to the restroom. back in those days, we had the dirty clothes hamper in the bathroom, not far from the toilet. the loo itself was in between jeff's and my room and my parent's room. not much of a trek unless you're trying to find it while you're asleep.

i remember the light being on in the bathroom and my body being there in the room. i also remember the singular sensation of relieving myself in the middle of the night. i also recall some laughter and then slightly slipping out of my nocturnal state just long enough to realize that my mother and brother were standing at the bathroom door laughing at me. apparently i was facing the wrong direction. allegedly. i guess they think it's funny when someone urinates on their clothes while in the dirty clothes hamper. personally i think that's gross, but to each his own.

ok, so it was funny... still is, i guess. thing is, i can't for the life of me figure out why my mom and brother were somehow awoken by me urinating on the laundry basket in the middle of the night. i mean, it's not like that's really loud or disruptive. besides, i'm not so sure i like the idea of my mom having seen me in a urinating stance mid-stream... i was in third or fourth grade at the point... maybe even fifth or sixth. i smell a conspiracy. thank goodness there was no youtube back then... jeff!

i think i actually did that twice (urinate on the dirty clothes hamper in the middle of the night while mostly asleep). apparently, the rate of recidivism is fairly high once someone has taken to taking a leak on dirty clothes. it's a vicious cycle.

for my last account of the evening, i will share an experience that is almost unbelievable. this particular incident occurred one night when i went babysitting for our neighbors who lived two doors down from us. it was a late night job which wasn't a big deal since i'd done that before, but apparently i'd never been quite as tired during past babysitting jobs as i was on this night.

this night i was watching a couple little boys who went to bed around 8 or 9 if memory serves (which it doesn't, that's total conjecture) and after that i was on my own. i guess i got bored and eventually crashed on the couch or something. no big deal, babysitters fall asleep all the time... kids had been good, no drama, just me and the couch cushions now. it's all good.

thing is, next thing i remember, my my dad's waking me up in my own bed for my paper route early the following morning. so there i am, getting up when big jeff asked me how the babysitting job went the night before. "good," which was my automatic response. he then asked me how much i got paid. "$7 or $8," i said... but wait, was it that much? i couldn't remember, but in my mind that sounded about right. but, it was so wrong... i hadn't gotten paid at all because i slept walk home before the parents got back from their night out on the town.

turns out big jeff knew full well i never got paid the night before because i'd made my way home well before the parents who hired me got home to their house (they'd called my parents looking for me). at first they thought i was hiding from them when they got home because what kind of kid leaves his babysitting job before the parents get home? the kind of kid that sleepwalks two doors down the street back to his house without realizing he's leaving two little boys at home alone helpless and vulnerable.

kind of strange. no recollection whatsoever. surprisingly, i still got paid for the babysitting job, but not so surprisingly i don't think i ever got asked to babysit for the family again.

thus, we see that aim's not the only one who can't control herself during her sleep. don't judge us.

on a side note, let me know if you'd ever like me to watch your kids.

so, mrs. blogmaster has a habit of sleep-talking...

it's saturday afternoon and a couple members of the cooperfive are taking naps. naps are a precious commodity around here as they are hard to come by but when some of us do get one we're all much more pleasant to be around the rest of the day.

colston is a pretty good napper, but the two older boys think napping is for the birds. in fact they think sleeping in general is for the birds... unless, of course, it's 9:00 am in the morning and jameson has to be to school in 15 minutes and he is home alone and i am on the golf course calling him to get him up and over to his friend cooper's house so they can walk to school together and he's not picking up the phone and he hasn't showed up to school yet and i'm sending people over to knock on the door and he's not answering and i'm starting to freak out now as i'm stuck behind a highway patrolman on the 215 and can't speed up to get home to see what's going on when emcghee breaks in and finally finds him in bed fast asleep. those are the times when sleeping is the greatest thing in the world for the kids... or right before church. go figure.

my kids take a similar stance on eating, which is extremely odd to me since, as a kid, i pretty much ate indiscriminately. eating was the activity that took precedence over all other activities. if something looked good, i ate it. if something looked good and i was full, i still ate it. in fact, i'm convinced some of us coopers don't possess whatever synapse or chemical or membrane or whatever it is in our brain that tells your body to stop eating once it is full. if it tastes good, i'll eat it. even if it doesn't taste good, i'll eat it sometimes, too, if there's nothing else to do.

to the minors in the cooperfive, though, eating is a burden... that is of course, unless it's time to go to bed and all of a sudden they try to filibuster their way out of going to bed by moaning about being hungry even though we had a very adequate dinner two hours earlier. i have to admit, it's a pretty good tactic on their part as no parent wants to send their kid to bed hungry... that's just neglectful/borderline abusive. plus, my boys are tiny so i think they need to get all the food in them they possibly can. as of late, i've taken more of a tough-love stance when they pull this shenanigan on me and refuse to get them anything, but i still usually let them go find what they can in the kitchen... which is typically something nice and hardy like marshmallows or graham crackers.

back to the sleep talking stuff...

like the title states: aim likes to sleep-talk. ok, so it's not every night... or maybe it is and i just sleep through it, but every once in a while, i'll be up and she'll be out when all of a sudden she mumbles some weird combination of words and a conversation ensues. usually the conversation is pretty one sided, but i do my best to keep mrs. blogmaster talking so i might further entertain myself. unfortunately, mrs. blogmaster gets a little stand-offish when she sleep talks and, thus, gets very annoyed with my persistence in trying to keep the conversation alive.

i usually have to call the dogs off after three or four attempts to keep her gabbing out of fear that as her volatile sub-conscious temperament escalates, she might graduate from sleep talking to sleep kicking or smacking. it would be bad enough to be a battered husband, but i've got to think it would be even worse yet to be a battered husband who gets battered by his wife while she sleeps. either way, i don't want to find out. thus, for the sake of our marriage, i don't push the sleep talking pillow talk too far.

the sad thing is that every time this happens, i think i'll remember whatever it is she says so that i can give her a hard time about the next day. unfortunately, more often than not, i usually forget and these gems of moments are lost forever. lucky for us i do remember a couple of choice utterances off the top of my head.

one sleep-talking occurrence might not come across as funny on the blog as it actually was in real life, but i will share it nonetheless. this took place not too long ago when mrs. blogmaster and i were watching an episode of glee. at the end of the episode, aim was dozing off and after the show ended, i noticed that she was out cold. as such, i reached over and started to give her a little nudgie to wake her up so we could go to bed. after a couple of jostles, i successfully jogged her out of nocturnal slumber and unlike she usually does, she barely awoke and was clearly still half-asleep. usually when i wake her up she jolts right back into the land of the living with a heightened sense of urgency and eyes popping all around like she just injected a red bull directly into her heart. not this time, though.

actually, i was pretty surprised she fell asleep in the first place since she absolutely loves glee. that being the case, i said something about being shocked she fell asleep and how she missed the best part of the show, which was the closing musical number. she, of course, insisted she hadn't fallen asleep and that she had, in fact, seen the final number. i knew she was full of it since she was barely even awake at that very moment and, so, i asked her to prove it by telling me what the last number was (this ought to be good).

she tried to cover by saying she didn't know the name of the song, so i said "alright, how did the song go?"

with that, half-asleep/half-awake aim, managed to mumbled out a monotone "hum-ma-na-hum-ma-na-hum-ma-na." i have no idea where she got that from, but it wasn't even close to the "don't stop believing" number they actually performed. it was priceless, aim singing some nonsensical rubbish while barely awake and completely unaware of what she was saying. to be expected, she disavowed all knowledge of this moment the next day and i believed her. i wish i had gotten it on camera if for nothing else, for posterity's sake.

that was pretty funny, but the absolute funniest thing she has ever said came about around the time "new moon" the movie was coming out... either that or there was a full moon out. those are the only things that could explain why aimee kind of moaned a "com'mere you big hairy wolfman" as she rolled over in bed one night. i'm still not sure how to take that since i'm not an exceptionally hairy man and the guy on the "new moon" movies, while admittedly abercrombie and fitch model'esque, is only like 15 years old.

either way, i laughed my head off in my non-expressive/non-demonstrative kind of way and knew there was no way i could forget that one. and now it's documented.

guess she'll want me to be chewbacca for halloween. i'm ok with that.

achtung, baby!

zombies,

i wrote a post tonight that was so long i felt it appropriate to break it out into three separate posts. these posts are the ones that immediately follow this one. i make note of this so that as you read, if something seems a little disjointed or out of context, remember that the individual posts were all part of one great whole in a past life. think pangea or the sum of these individual posts is greater than the whole. your choice.

thank you.

documentary review: trekkies

one of my other new year's resolutions was to watch at least one documentary each month (like i said, aiming high with the annual goals). ever since i recently watched new york doll, which i also highly recommend, i have been on a documentary kick. that documentary is about a pioneer punk rocker turned mormon. the story is fabulous and the special features an acoustic version of "a poor wayfaring man of grief" performed by his former frontman is pretty dope:



but, that's neither here not there seeing as how the first installment of my documentary series was trekkies. as you can guess, trekkies is about obsessed star trek fans. actually, "obsessed" is being too kind, these guys are actually certifiable whack-jobs who need a serious intervention in their lives. nevertheless, chronicling the happenings of their sweet spirits is not only interesting, but amusing.

i've never been a trekkie myself, but because i like star wars quite a bit it is not uncommon for people to assume i also like star trek or that trekkies and star wars fans are one in the same. not so, my friends... nothing could be further from the truth. i'll admit that i really liked the new star trek movie, the wrath of khan was great (they put bugs down the dudes' ears for crying out loud) and that even aim was down with one star trek movie we watched about the borg, but that does not make me, or mrs. blogmaster, trekkie material. far from it, to say the least.

and if there is any doubt about that, this movie makes any such misperception abundantly clear that such is not the case. check the trailer.

overall, the show wasn't what i hoped it would be, but there were some choice lines that definitely made the 86 minutes worth it. i can't repeat them here because doing so without putting them in their proper context would not do them justice. as such, i recommend that you watch this show with a light heart and with some friends you like to laugh with just to hear those lines. and if that's not sufficient incentive, if for nothing else you should watch this show to take note of the warning signs that may tip you off to a child's involvement with the star trek universe. mothers, don't let your babies grow up to be trekkies... at least not the freakishly extreme kind of trekkies like the ones detailed in the documentary.

for those of you who are not good enough parents to watch the show, i have summarized some warning signs for you to look out for, not only your sake, but the sake of your children and any hope you might have of your child ever meeting a member of the opposite sex and creating a child of his/her own.

1. intergalactic army space patches for some alien nation, people or planet you have never heard of. if your child starts asking you to iron these on his/her clothes, iron them directly on to his or her back as a lesson of what's to come if they keep watching star trek.

2. phaser beam guns or communicator devices held in holsters on their belt that they are willing to wear in public after the age of 6. what in the name of all that is holy.

3. a "klingon language for dummies or doghs (that's klingon for fools)" book. they have a written language for not only a fictional people but a fictional alien people hellbent on violence and with massive foreheads that look like brains... need i say more?

4. dungeons and dragons books... d and d is a gateway drug to the highly addictive and highly dorky universe of all things fantasy and science fiction. i admit, that fantasy and science fiction are great in moderation, but when taken to an extreme they can spell the ultimate ruination for many a poor and unfortunate soul. either that or these same individuals become really good computer programmers, start a .com company and make billions of dollars before they turn 25. even then, no amount of filthy lucre can quell the severe degree of scrutiny they'll go through during those ever so tender early adolescent years.... oh well, to each his own.

that is all i have time for tonight, zombies. stay tuned for february's documentary review (okie noodling). you're in for a treat.

restaurant review: settbello pizzeria napoletana

i made a new year's resolution this year to try a new item of food selected from a list of "vegas musts" by some food critic guy and a chef in a recent issue of a local publication (the desert companion) i read when i'm bored at work. there were twenty items on the list, but six or seven of them were adult beverages... of which i do not partake... and one other one was fried intestines, so that left about twelve eligible edibles. thus, one item per month for the rest of the year. as you can see, i aim high when i set my goals... we should all be so ambitious. and altruistic i might add as this has given me a way to give back to you, my zombies. as luck would have it, i have decided to review each item i try over the course of the next year and, as a free-service to you, i will share my thoughts in an effort to broaden your culinary horizons.

first stop: settebello pizzeria napoletana.

settbello is one of the two best pizza places in vegas (gramaldi's being the other) and it's not even close (ok, anthony's is in the discussion). supposedly, in order to make the kin of pizza settebllos makes you have to be part of some exclusive italian pizza club or something. here's what there site says about it:

The Vera Pizza Napoletana (VPN) was established by Antonio Pace in Napoli, Italy in 1984. Signore Pace led a group of pizza makers whose sole purpose was to protect the integrity and defend the origin of the pizza making tradition as it began in Napoli over 200 years ago.

The VPN charter requires that members use only specific raw ingredients to create the pizza dough, that the dough be worked with the hands, never using a rolling pin and that it be cooked directly on the surface of a bell shaped pizza oven that is fueled solely by wood. The charter also requires specific types of tomatoes be used and only the use of fresh milk or buffalo milk mozzarella is acceptable.

i've been to settebllo before, so when i went a couple of weeks ago it wasn't a first, but i hadn't tried the specific pizza selected in the magazine article i mentioned above: the carbonara.

here's the description from the site:

Crushed Tomatoes, Pancetta, Egg, Fresh Mozzarella, Basil, Parmigiano-Reggiano, Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

it was good... but not as good as their signature dish, the settebello. this particular pizza, i can't get passed... which is why i hadn't tried any of the other pizzas. it's that good. here's the description:

Crushed Tomatoes, Pancetta, Wood Oven Roasted Fennel Sausage, Roasted Mushrooms, Toasted Pine Nuts, Mozzarella, Basil, Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

we also tried the diavola:

Crushed Tomatoes, Finnochiona (Peppered Salame), Roasted Red Bell Peppers, Crushed Red Peppers, Garlic, Mozzarella, Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

this one was also good, but if i had to rank them, i would say: 1. the settebello, 2. the carbonara, and then 3. the diavola. the settebello is as standard a pizza as settebllo the restaurant can get: sauce, cheese, sausage, basil and pine nuts (my favorite). it's close to traditional american stuff, but not so close that it's little caesars (not that i'm coming down on lc, it serves a purpose) and yet distinct enough to be a delicacy in its own right (the olive oil and pine nuts are a great addition, but the fresh mozzarella is divine). the carbonara is pretty similar to the settebello except that they put some fried egg on it... not bad, but it takes away some of the succulent flavor of the settebello which makes it not nearly as good as the same. the diavola is a nice change up in that it's a little spicier than what you're used to on a pizza... but it lacks the overall flavor of the other two, especially the settebello.

you can't go wrong with any of them as they're all exquisite, but if you're a first timer there, i would definitely start with the settebello and branch out from there. but, before you even get that far, the caprese salad is a must... i might like gramaldi's pizza slightly more than settebello's, but settebello gets the nod on their caprese salad. we also tried the insalata carpaccio this last go and really enjoyed that, as well. here's the description:

Bresaola, Parmigiano-Reggiano, Caciocavallo Cheese, Arugola With a Splash of Balsamic Vinegar and Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

bottom line: i recommend all of the items listed above.

pedicure part 2

some of you may recall a previous post i authored in which i detailed my first experience with receiving a pedicure. only the hardcorest of zombies will note that said post took place almost a year ago to the day during an attorneys' retreat to newport beach. yes, for those who have done the math, we just had our annual attorneys' retreat in newport again and, yes, i was fortunate enough to get another pedicure... but that's not all.

first, i stand by my previous assessment that pedicures are a wonderful thing and the fact that i enjoy them says nothing about my unquestionable masculinity. second, even though i have not had a pedicure since i first had one a year ago, i have been long looking forward to the newport trip so i could receive my second. finally that day came and after a bruising battle of a football game on the beach and a rain soaked biking expedition to balboa island, my esteemed male colleagues and i made our way to the local albertson's shopping center pedicure chop shop for some self-pampering.

the five of us who were secure enough with our masculinity to embark on such an endeavor entered the nail salon and were immediately greeted by a score of vietnamese women who showed us to our chairs and commenced chiseling away at the roughshod on our feet. but that wasn't all, one of the ladies asked if i wanted a neck and shoulder massage. is the pope catholic? let's do it.

next thing i knew, though, was that she was asking me in broken english to lift up my shirt. huh? then the next thing i knew is that she was not only asking me to lift up my shirt, but to remove it. huh? then the next next thing i knew was that my boss and another colleague of mine had already peeled their shirts off and were getting the rub down. so, if all your friends jump off a bridge, should you jump off the bridge, too? absolutely... if it means getting a massage. off went the shirt and on went the massage oil.

let me be clear... we weren't in private rooms tearing off our tops and getting massaged, we were in the main area of the entryway to the salon whose whole front wall was a window to a fairly busy shopping center parking lot in broad daylight. oh, and i was the one closest to the window... surprisingly, i didn't care. i guess it was the super relaxing massage i was getting that calmed my nerves and tamed my apprehensions.

in addition, there was an older lady sitting next to me and then on the other side of her were my boss and co-worker. when the tops came off and she was surrounded by some not so strapping fleshy males, she was all of a sudden smiling in a laughing at us and not with us kind of way. but, as noted above, i couldn't have cared less although it was kind of awkward... and i'm sure that anyone who might have waked in at that moment would have been beholden to quite the site. you come in, thinking you'll enjoy a people magazine, an episode of harpo the she-devil, or private viatnamese language lessons and the first thing you see is three pale white guys whose better days in terms of being in physical shape are well behind them not only sitting in your starship enterprise chair but getting a combination pedicure/massage. like i said, quite a site in that it's not quite the site you were expecting. feel free to take your patronage elsewhere.

all i'm saying is, don't hate me because i've got finely trimmed, filed, waxed, and buffed toe nails. hate me because i not only have finely trimmed, filed, waxed, and buffed toe nails, but because i've also got finely trimmed, filed, waxed, and buffed finger nails... oh, and did i mention i got all that done simultaneously with a massage. to say the least, these ladies were master salespeople. every five minutes they were asking me if i wanted something more, all while being under the influence of nail polish fumes, massage oil and the massage itself... i didn't know what to say. actually, i just kept pointing to my boss and saying, "whatever he's getting." and, of course, he was getting whatever they were proposing... at least according to them he was.

and that was just the pedicure. the rest of newport was great, too... but that's a story for another day.

i'm dreaming of a white mlk day

earlier this month, the cooperfive spent mlk weekend up in park city for some fun and wintery sun in the snow... that's all i'm getting at with the title, e.g. spending mlk day in the snow... you know, instead of dreaming of a white Christmas, a white mlk day. it's funny because of the how it seems to contradict itself on its face with the white snow reference and the racial inconsistency between a day meant to celebrate civil rights when whites are the ones who have typically suppressed those rights, but the post title really has nothing to do with race (i feel like my mom what with having to explain my double entendres and all, but i don't want anyone to read anything more into it than that. i just couldn't resist the comedic irony of the double entendre. really. no racial insensitivity here on the blog... i'll leave that to the likes of nevada senators and vice presidents.

moving on...

so, anyway, we converged for some skiing, snowboarding, tubing, good food, games, and all-around fun in the hills of park city, utah. it was quite the trip. here's a pic of two of the boys in front of the house we stayed in (4 families... 20 something kids and believe it or not, it wasn't all that crazy):

mrs. blogmaster grew up skiing but hasn't gone since we got married many moons ago, so i was excited to see her strut her stuff on the slopes. aim loves being outdoors, doing something physical, going fast and throwing caution to the wind. in fact, this is how she broke her back and her elbow and wrecked a few of her dad's cars, but these are all stories for another day (actually, i think i've shared the elbow one before).

at any rate, i was still excited for aim to get her downhill slope on, but somewhat worried in the back of my mind because if the mvp goes down, the rest of the cooperfive fall apart. trust can be such a double-edged sword. unfortunately, i don't have any video or pics of mrs. blogmaster in action, but all the reports i am getting is that she picked up right where she left off... really fast, good (for someone who hasn't skied in 12 years) and crazy. that's my babe.

i was also really excited for jameson and caleb to snowboard and ski, respectively (jameson was way too cool to ski). jameson has started to wakeboard pretty well, so i was anxious to see how he would do on a snowboard... he actually did really well. caleb was a downhill wonder on the skis and seemed to love every second of it. i can't say i'm surprised, they obviously have just the perfect combination of their mother and little boy daredevilism in them to take on just about anything (now that's a dangerous combination). check out some of these vids of the boys' in action:


colston, on the other hand, is a little more reserved than his mother and brothers, so c-town and i sat out the day of downhill fun. we did, however, go up with aim and the boys to get everyone settled in and then returned a little early to get some pics and pick everyone up. i had a blast just watching aim and the boys. i have only been skiing once, back when i was a kid, but i kind of always wanted to do it more, so i was glad to be able to see my boys getting into it and having a good time. i hope to join them in the near future.

i was especially happy to see aim thoroughly enjoying herself. she was definitely in her element and i can only hope that this is the first of many, many cooperfive ski/snowboarding trips... unfortunately, we don't have any of the equipment necessary which leads me to this big fat thank you to all who lent us stuff to use. that thank you is really meant for t-cakes, t-bone, the rest of the hodges clan and kurt h. you are all wonderfully generous people and helped make our trip so much more comfortable and cheaper than it would have been otherwise. we couldn't have done it without you. as they say in castellano: muchismas gracias!

one quick noteworthy story from the trip. after mrs. blogmaster and the boys had been skiing and boarding all day and it was time to head back down on the gondolier, aim discovered she could actually ski the rest of the way down the mountain rather than take the ride. of course, aim hadn't had enough, and opted to ski rather than sit down (i wonder why our kids can never sit still). jameson was having such a good time, too, he wanted to tag along with mom. at first aim said no, but then had a change of heart and told him to come along.

big mistake. apparently, going down the mountain is a lot harder and longer than the stuff jameson had been doing. as a result, he had a pretty miserable trip down the mountain and when i met them some half an hour later at the bottom, he looked like he had seen a ghost and immediately uttered out, "i'm never snowboarding again." he was overreacting, of course, and has already decided to try it again at some point, but it was kind of a bummer to finish the day that way. plus aim wasn't able to unleash her inner speed demon and end on a good note. maybe jameson was meant to slow her up so she wouldn't injur herself in some irreparable way. needless to say, i think aim and james were the last ones off the hill. but no big deal, it was all worth it and still lots and lots of fun.

here are the pics:










we also did some tubing. i did participate in this activity and it was also a lot of fun. the tubing took place at one of those places where they actually have a lift kind of thing that pulls you up the mountain so you don't have to hike up the hill every time. much easier and much more enjoyable than trekking uphill at high altitudes in the cold. the boys really liked tubing, probably as much as skiing and boarding. i really liked it, too. you really move down those slopes. here are some pics i took while jameson, caleb and i were flying down the long/fast run along with some others from the tubing experience:









in closing, i also want to thank those who arranged the trip and invited us. we had an amazing time with everyone. it was the perfect weekend getaway for us. goodnight and thank you!!!
colston in front of the snowman he and i made.
jameson in the snow after having jumped out of the hot-tub for a momentary thrill. better that than drugs. he is his mother's son.
colston listening signing along to some music after a fun-filled day in the snow.

bathroom stall foibles and nickel slots on the strip

i like to read when i use the restroom... when i'm in the stall, of course, not the urinal. i usually get some good technical reading in at work this way. helps me stay abreast of the latest in estate planning and the like. i call it being efficient. others might call it gross.

honestly, i don't know what the proper etiquette is for something like that and that's probably why i feel a little self-conscious carrying my reading materials down the hall, out into the lobby, and in to the bathroom... i'm pretty sure everyone knows what time it is. maybe that's why i started folding up my reading material and putting in my pocket thinking it's a little less obvious that way. who are we kidding? papers in hand heading for the restroom can only mean one thing: time for some leisure reading.

seriously, though, is there something wrong with reading on the throne? my boss is infamous for it and he doesn't get more than a hearty chuckle from everyone and a "hey, everyone, look! so-and-so is on his way to the private library, he might be a while!" when he does it. then we all giggle like it's the end of a sitcomand get back to work. why can he get away with it and i can't? maybe because he's older and that's what old guys do, or maybe it's because he signs everyones' paychecks.

that brings me to the next issue i deal with as a result of reading in the stall: length of time in the restroom. i admit somewhat reluctantly, that sometimes i'll be barricaded in the stall for quite a while which i'm sure other people notice... especially our receptionist, since i have to pass her on my way in and out. i wouldn't doubt that there have been times where she has seen me go in and then come back out sonly to think to herself: "was that really all just one sitting? or did he leave and come back again?" neither option is all that flattering for someone like me who really tries to maintain that certain je ne sais quoi quality of cool mystique. wouldn't you agree, alex? plus, my legs fall asleep a lot more easily these days than they used to, which isn't all that comfortable.

so, really, does that gross people out? is that a social faux-pas? without getting into too much detail and in my defense, let's just say that i wash my hands thoroughly and my reading material stays completely clean and sanitized. i just get the impression that once i take something in there and it comes out, everyone is is looking at it as if it's glowing a radioactive green and then looking at me like i'm some kind of radioactive mutant.

to me, though, the irony there is that tons of people have reading material sitting right inside there bathrooms at home. people are expected to read it in that instant and no one freaks out if you do. i guess the difference there is that the reading material stays in the restroom. but, that seems less sanitary to me since, in that case, the reading material sits there changing hands and gathering bathroom stall or restroom particles 24/7... kind of like those studies you hear about bowls of peanuts at bars being covered like 70% wit fecal matter. now that's gross.

speaking of particles, i'm not a germaphobe like that chick on glee, but i do like to use the tissue paper toilet seat covers when i'm in public restrooms... even at work. on the one hand, those are pretty great inventions in that they at least give you some mental comfort in knowing that the flesh of your backside is not touching something that the flesh of someone else's backside has touched. i guess people get a little weirded out over stuff like that. on the other hand, they might keep you from getting some std or even pregnant since i've heard rumors that both are possible.

problem is, either the seat covers we have at work are some of the cheapest seat covers ever made, or paper seat covers in general are just poorly designed products across the board. as an example, i'll often pull one out of the box, and assuming it doesn't tear on the way out (because the paper is too delicate), i'll then have to spend time tearing the middle seat part out.

what's the point of having the middle seat part? i don't get it. no one needs it... anyone who leaves it connected is in for a big surprise. why not extend the industrial cutting machines' blades a few more centimeters and take those things completely out? maybe they're easier to fold or package with the middle portion in... who knows?

my point is, though, that some days after having had lunch at robertos or faustos, i don't necessarily have the time to spend taking the middle portion out. it can be a process: enter the stall, pull out the paper, tear out the middle part, place the paper on the seat and hope it sticks (more on this later), unbuckle my pants, unbutton my pants (sometimes i have two buttons... another thing i don't totally understand), and then drop trow. it may only take 20 seconds most days, but sometimes it feels like an eternity.

and that's where the other problem with the seat covers rears its ugly head: getting the paper to stay on the seat. this can be downright comical sometimes. you see, the paper on these things, at least at our office... which is wear i have had the most experience with paper seat covers, is super thin... so thin they are almost air. so thin, they actually slip off the seat sometimes before i actually have a chance to sit on it.

sometimes the slippage will take place as i'm trying to place the paper on the seat cover. i think it's because of the way the paper seat covers are folded and that maybe you're supposed to put them on with the creases facing up. i'm not sure, though, seeing as how they don't come with instructions.

nonetheless, this can be very annoying, as there's nothing you can really do make it stick when it won't stay. it's not like you can lick the paper at that point and then try and get the saliva to make it stick... the paper has already touched the seat, that would be disgustingly gross (i'm gagging in my mind just thinking about it). besides, i'm not licking anything in a public restroom. no way i'm letting my tongue enter public restroom airspace with all those rogue microscopic particles floating around.

the other time the slippage issue becomes problematic is when you think you've got the paper secure on the seat, but then you drop trow, turn around to sit down and it slips away into the watery abyss of the toilet bowl below before you can safely secure it against the seat with your cheeks.

that's not so bad on the days i haven't eaten at robertos or faustos, but it's always a major time waster and, i'll admit it, i'm not a fan of having to pull out another sheet, tear out the middle and then place it on the toilet again all while my pants are down (actually, i'm pretty sure i pull my pants up again whenever that happens, but that would be pretty funny if i didn't).

other times, though, the slippage takes place at the point of no return as i'm sitting down and i can't pull out of the descent. when that happens, i just have to bareback the seat. it's not pleasant, but i don't have a choice... better to go bareback than to try and put my hands back to break the fall. that could get ugly.

disclaimer: this next part might get ugly... it's not for the faint of heart or those offended by potty humor. you can choose to keep reading or just call it a day with the cooperfive.. you have been warned.

and speaking of ugly, last night we had the serendipitous pleasure of experiencing one of the best nickel slots i have ever seen without actually gambling (credit to megan for help in coining the term for the blog, nice pun... i mean the "coining" language).

for those who don't know what a nickel slot is, it can be one of several things: if you're from vegas, it might be a type of gambling device. if you're from everywhere else, it might be the slot on a gum-ball machine or the like where you insert the coinage. if you're a degenerate like some of my friends and me, it's another way of referring to a plumber's crack. i think i saw the worst nickel slot ever last night... it was actually more like a paper currency dollar bill slot... inserted vertically.

of course, being the mature gentleman i am, i couldn't resist taking a picture of the person sitting diagonally from me at the table whose head just happened to be in the direct path of the nickel slot. what a coincidence? even mrs. blogmaster couldn't resist taking a picture. that was the level of maturity we were dealing with last night. if it weren't for the frozen hot chocolate (not only is that an oxymoron, it's a supremely delicious desert), the night may have been ruined (now that's a good example of hyperbole).

regardless, i wouldn't be the dutiful blogmaster you've all come to know and love me for if i didn't post some pics for my zombies' own viewing pleasure, or something like that (pics of the nickel slot and the frozen hot chocolate). if you don't want to look, avert your eyes. you may be scarred. actually, it doesn't look as bad in the pic as it did in real life. really.

again, you've been warned.

last chance.

really, last chance now.

the millennium child enters double digits as some polar bears take a dip

"mom, when were you born, again...? i know it was in the 19s, but i can't remember when exactly."

these were the words that left our eldest son's mouth earlier this week as he entered his eleventh year of life. kind of makes me feel old. well, he's no spring chicken himself anymore seeing as how he now has a decade under his belt. i'm only half joking when i say that as you actually wouldn't know you were talking to a 10 year old most days upon having a conversation with the lad. jameson's grandfather labeled him jameson the wise some years ago and i'd have to say he was very perceptive in doing so.

i don't know why he seems so sage for his age (most of the time), but it might have something to do with the fact that he's the oldest kid in the family and was the only kid for the first 4 years of his life. i think it took him about six or seven years to realize that there was actually a significant age difference between him and aim and me. it also took him about that long to quit calling aim and me by our first names. it didn't bother me so much that we were all on a first name basis, but it drove other people absolutely nuts.

many of my memories of jameson as a kid are a mixture of him bouncing off the walls in various apartments throughout provo while in school and then climbing on walls in our apartment in san jose. one particular wall-climbing memory i have of him occurred one shiny afternoon when just jameson and i were hanging out at home. on this blessed day, it just so happened that i was in the laundary room switching some clothes from the washer to the dryer (there, it's been documented, i've done laundry at least once in my married life), when all of a sudden i hear a little boy's voice calling for me from the other side of the apartment to come check something out.

"hold on, jameson, i'm almost done."

but the requests kept coming... and i kept shoveling clothes from the washer to the dryer wanting to complete the task at hand before leaving to tend to jameson. after a couple of minutes, i finally finished and headed out to see what all the fuss was about only to find jameson on the other side of the apartment... but not on the ground. no, my friends, that would have been far too ordinary for this blogmaster's son... you see, instead of having his feet firmly planted on tierra firma, jameson had wedged himself between the two hallway walls, by virtue of his own strength, outside the bathroom to the point where he was perfectly parallel to the floor below him. his arms and legs fully outstretched as he was clearly applying the maximum amount of pressure on each end of his body just to keep himself afloat, if you will.

kind of fun if your a kid. i used to do it. some of you have probably done it. thing is, jameson was only 4 at the time and not only doing it approximately nine feet above ground (he'd climbed all the way up to the ceiling), but he was also unable to get down on his own because he was too high up in the air. oh, and he'd been wedged there for the 4 or 5 minutes i'd spent switching up the dirty laundry to the point where he was literally shaking and probably seconds away from falling to his death... well, probably not his death, but probably a lot of pain.

luckily, i got there in time to get him safely down so that some 5 or 6 years later we could gather together at the cooper household and celebrate the 10th anniversary of his birth. james, you're a good man and i love you.

the party was fun. pretty laid back and easy for us as parents (maybe the older they get the easier the parties get). we just had the friends over for a late night (i guess late nights are the same things that we used to refer to as slumber parties except that kids don't actually spend the night slumbering at your house, they just go home around 10 or 11) and they played games and watched a movie. we even had a fog machine, which was a special request by jameson (luckily, grandma coops had one, thanks, special k). best part of the night, though, was when jameson and his brothers each got one of those cool nerf swords as a gift (thanks, emcghee) and an absolute battle broke out upstairs consisting of slashing nerf swords, light sabers, and pirate swords.

i was downstairs when the rumble commenced, but as i ascended upwards and stumbled upon this beautiful chaos, my boyhood instincts overcame me and i had to be a part of this momentous event. as such, i set the camera down and charged forward securing my weapon of choice (green light saber) and the carnage ensued. i pretty much made short work of the novices and it was a sight to behold (aim has recorded some of it, so maybe it will show up here at some point)... weapons-a-blaze and the murky effects of fog from a fog machine simmering all around. it was rad.

another rad moment that took place in the early hours of new year's day in the form of an early morning polar bear swim i reluctantly participated in... and so did mrs. blogmaster, twice! let me just say that it was way cold and even as i sat in the throws of a bubbling hot tub, i couldn't get warm. mrs. blogmaster, being one of two women to participate in the swim, in the midst of 5 or 6 guys, dove in twice.

of course, she was so sleek and stealthy in her dive and torpedo like cruise across the pool and into the hot-tub that she minimized her actual time in the cold water. she was nothing like the rest of us neanderthals who cannon balled in and then tried to run across the pool. no, my friends, she was pretty much the female version of michael phelps but with more swimming attire than a skimpy speedo. the entire 48 hour period was a blast and, therefore, i sincerely thank everyone who had a part in it.

to say the least, the entire day was exhilarating. in fact, i'm already looking forward to next year's swim, although i'm not sure how much longer the heart of someone born in the 19s can handle the extreme temperature changes.

pics from james' party.