AWESOME!!!

Today I am starting three contests for the Month of December. Contest one will be on Read To Me, Dad. It is for a Baby Sherpa Diaper Backpack and other prizes. I made a video to promote the contest.

The Second Contest is on The Wired Kayaker and is for various Mad Gringo items like Hawaiian shirts, sarongs, hats and T-shirts. I made a Video for that contest as well.

The Third contest is for a GiSTEQ PhotoTrackr Lite and is going to be hosted on this blog. I also made a video for that contest.

Each contest kicked off today at 8:00am. You may enter from December 1st to December 15th. Then from December 16th to December 30th voting will take place to determine the winners of each contest. Here are the links for each contest.

• Win a Baby Sherpa Diaper Backpack
• Win a Mad Gringo Hawaiian Shirt
• Win a GiSTEQ PhotoTrackr Lite

Speaking of Contests. My blog was nominated to be in the 3rd International Blog Cup Voting takes place from December 1 - 7. My friend Mark from The Green Fingered Photographer nominated me for this contest. If you wouldn't mind, could you please pop over there for the next 7 days and give me a vote. thanks.

It snowed here on Friday, both Allison and I got to come home early from work. I have the good fortune of being able to work from home often. I like telecommuting because I can work in jeans. I dress up when I go to the office but kicking around the house it is much more comfortable to be relaxed in jeans...more-->

On Saturday morning Dad and Tara and I cleaned off the driveway. We have a very large driveway and there is no good way to clean it all off, it just takes time. I guess I am equating good with quick, but the driveway clean up is never quick. When Erik is home we have two snowblowers going and it still takes a long time. But we do a very good job of cleaning the driveway. When we get the chance to do it right we scrape it right down to the asphalt. When we do that and the sun hits the driveway everything melts away. So we do end up doing a good job on the driveway.

It was a rather slow day here at the house. I worked on moving some more posts over from the old blog to this one. I also added a couple of cool widgets to the new blog. I found a really neat sidebar widget through MyBlogLog and then added a couple of things like an RSS feed from my two other blogs: The Wired Kayaker and Flatwater Tech. I first added the Sidebar Widget from Automattic. I then added the MyBlogLog widget to add to the sidebar. I then added the MyAvatar's Plug In and this plug in allows the MyBlogLog images to go with comments that users leave. So please leave a comment to see how this plug-in works. I also added my FuelMyBlog widget so you can vote for me on FMB.

Tonight Allison and I went to Derek and Michelle's. We made a corned beef and cabbage dinner and brought it over. Derek and Michelle provided a salad (but there was no dressing, honestly!). Andrea made a delicious mocha pie with homemade chocolate sauce, and Neil made the evening better by his presence...more-->

We had a wonderful dinner and spent some quality time together. Derek and Michelle's son Nicholas has gotten so big and he's five months old now. He's so cute with his little baby cheeks. And he is so well behaved, not fussy at all. Allison enjoyed getting to spend some time holding him.

We were introduced to some of the traditions that Derek and Michelle have for St. Patrick's Day, they put oil and vinegar on their meal an also boil eggs to go with the meal. I tried the oil and vinegar and t wasn't a bad choice. I couldn't eat the boiled egg however, I'm just not a fan of them.

After dinner I synchronized our Wiimotes to Derek's Wii and transferred our Mii's onto his Wii. That way we would be ready to play after dessert. The dessert was delicious and we all enjoyed Andrea's cooking skills.

After that Derek, Neil and I played Wii bowling, then the training stages for throwing power strikes for bowling, then some of the boxing games and training sessions. Derek and I played Wii Play and I'm not sure but I think Derek did not like the game. After that Derek, Andrea, Neil and I played the Monster 4X4 game. After the first race Michelle switched with Andrea and we played a couple more of those games.

We ended up playing the Wii till about 12:00am, because once we got into Wario Smooth Moves it was too funny to stop. That game is fun to watch other people play. I know that most times it is torturous to watch someone else play a game but the actions that the player has to perform in this game are so funny. We were trying to beat all the mini games so we could play multi player but that never happened.

We had a very nice Saint Patrick's Day with everyone and we are looking forward to our next gathering.

Here are some pictures from the night.

Setting the Table

..
A delicious pie, where's my chocolate sauce?

Poppa and baby.

Nicholas is eyeing the pie.

Coco watching the Wii.

Derek performing the Elephant Form.

Me performing the Mohawk Form.

Last night when we were at the Christopher Williams show and I was talking with Chris we discussed Photo-A-Day. You may not know this, but I hope you do because that means you've been following Photo-A-Day for a while now, Christopher was the inspiration for Photo-A-Day. Anyway we were discussing it and Christopher has been kicking an idea around about taking a perspective a day. He had to explain it a bit to me so today I took a photo from my perspective, right before I enjoy some diet pink grapefruit soda. This might not be what he was talking about and maybe I just didn't want to go outside into the crappy weather. Tomorrow's Photo will be better because we are going to Derek and Michelle's for St. Patrick's day and we are having a Wii party. Derek got the Wiimote recharging station. I am jealous, and burning through batteries as I blaze through Zelda. But I wonder if I should buy something specialized like that or just get some rechargeable AA batteries.

Tonight Allison and I went to Christina's Cafe in Westborough, Ma to see Christopher Williams. Allison saw that the show was coming up so she found out about getting tickets. Christina's looks like a nice little restaurant. We sat at a table in the front and could see everything quite well.

Before Christopher played we heard three songs by Sarah Adams and three by Brian Vanderpool. They played together but are not in a band together. Then we heard and Laura Bullock. She was very good and also a good storyteller. I liked her song, The Net Below very much. Look for these three artists to become a Singer Spotlight Artist in the future. Christian Bookstore The Olive Branch was the sponsor for the show. Prior to the show starting Allison and I caught up with Christopher and chatted for a bit. Then he was called away and we settled into our seats. I set up my QuikPod with the tripod leg attachments to try and get some pictures. Even though I was using a tripod and the highest ISO I still got pretty blurry pictures because I didn't use a flash. Maybe next time I will bring the Digital SLR camera and get better shots. Although I do like this shot because it was the only time Christopher used the djembe. And that song was Did Not Draw. I love that song especially the sound of the djembe.

Christopher's wife  was not there and we missed seeing and talking with her. The night was very nice and it was late for us 'old folks' especially since it was a school night. Christopher's storytelling is getting better and better. He just returned from Africa with Blood Water Mission. Blood Water Mission was started by the band Jars of Clay and the mission is to build clean water wells for people in Africa. And they are doing this to help reduce the impact of the HIV/Aids pandemic by promoting clean blood and clean water giving the people basic conditions that are necessary for good health. Blood Water Mission is also trying to raise the funds necessary to build 1000 clean water wells in Africa. You can find out more about Blood Water Mission as well as how a donation of $1.00 can give one African clean water for 1 year. Take a look at www.1000Wells.com.

As always the Christopher show was moving, powerful and fun. If you ever get a chance to see him play go and see him, you will not be disappointed.

Oliver has certainly been making himself quite comfortable around the house. He keeps sitting on Allison while she knits. Allison has been knitting up a storm. She has already made a bunch of scarves and she even made a cute little baby hat for her friend Jess' baby Kaylee.

I was working on some of the video that I took this past weekend and I don't really like how everything came out so it might end up on the virtual cutting room floor. I did however pull together video for the RockStartup auditions that PayPerPost and RockStartup are having. The task was to make a video about PayPerPost and what it has done for me and my life. Well so far I have bought a bunch of cool things with the PPP money and that is pretty much what the video is about. And after I posted it it went up on the PPP blog. So quickly too.

And speaking of PayPerPost, Christine from The Passionate Ailurophile sent me a message about going to see the PawSox in April. That will be a good time.

Bones is back on TV as of tonight. Allison and I just watched it. I thought I had the whole thing figured out but I was wrong. They threw me for a loop tonight. Good Job doing that. It was a very interesting ending. I also like how the main character of Dr. Brennan's book is Kathy Reichs. That is a riot.