July 2007

January 2007

October 2006

More Linnea pics. It's been a while.

Feb 2006

Spent a few days in San Jose Del Cabo, not a bad way to spend the weekend at all.

Rented a casita at the fantastic Casa Terra Cotta:

Ate some food:

Went to our favorite beach:

Met a little buddy:

Took a swim:

Partied with some friends:

Had a great time!

Meanwhile, back in Minneapolis, it's February. Vacation's over. But hey, it ain't the end of the world because we've still got Linnea. I don't remember being this distracted in mid-winter since... well, since last year actually. So far, it really has been all fun and games as far as she's concerned. Dangitall, she's so damn cute and fun. Heck, here's more pictures to prove the point:

Periodic Nea update:

She grows (Dec-April 2005):

Gratuitous Linnea pics (Oct-Dec 2005):

September 10, 2004 - It's not as if I've made any sort of commitment to keeping this page updated, but I do feel rather negligent letting well over a year slip by without updating a single damn thing. All the usual excuses would typically apply, but this time around, I've got a real doozy to add to the list: We've had ourselves some offspring! Well, not "some" per se, on accounta we only had one, but it's more fun to say that way.

Linnea Tofte Ouimet was born at 3 o'clock in the morning on Sunday, August 8, 2004. At the very same moment, her mother lost exactly 8lbs 9oz. All things considered, everybody is doing great. Thanks for asking. It's been a month since she's first opened eyes to the world, and true to standard prediction, our lives are no longer the same. Not that you'd find me complaining, mind. Nothing like that. I'll likely have lots to say on that topic in the coming months/years, but for the time being, I'll just be happy that I'm getting more sleep than everybody said I would.

So that's really it for the big news. About a year ago, I was thinking that this was gonna be the year of the nonevent; nothing was really supposed to happen. Heh. The year of Linnea's birth has been in full swing since last November, when that second pink stripe showed up on the magic e.p.t. wand. We did manage to squeeze in a week and a half in Barcelona during the unseasonably (for the Mediterranean, at least) cold month of February. Heck, I even took a few pictures, might as well post some up: (hover mouse over image for description, click for full-size goodness).

July 2, 2003 - Summer has certainly arrived in Minnesota. How do I know this? Well, when you start slapping mosquitos on your arm, and their carcasses slide right off your skin because of the perspiration you've worked up from moving the other arm (which did the slapping, and not much else for the past three hours in this friggin heat), then you know its summer.

Aha, but you've got central air conditioning!, you say. Well, tha's the problem, is that it's only central to the *inside* of the house. And well, much as I might hate it, life does require that you go outside every once in a while. And, get this, sometimes you even have to do *manual labor* while outside the sweet sweet blissful comfort of the air conditioned indoors. We've been doing a bit of that lately, what with trying to improve the looks and general habillement of our nice little abode and all. Not an easy feat, if you consider that I'd once sworn off yardwork for the rest of my natural life.

But seeing's how talking about yardwork is about as interesting as, say, discussing foot odor, I'll stop. And since I've got precious little else to talk about these days, I'll just fill in the space with a few pictures... click on 'em for nice hi-res bandwidth-hogging versions :)

January 13, 2003 - Nice, only five months between website updates... You'd think that means I've been busy this year, but then you'd be wrong. I've mostly been lazy.

Anyways, since it's a new year. it seemed like as good a time as any to re-do the ol' Loon in some fancy new digs. What'd ya think about the new site (assuming that's how you got here--if not, go look). Who knows, maybe somebody will see it and think to themselves, HOLY SHIT, look at this TOTALLY SWEET WEBSITE! DAMN, I NEED ME SOME OF THAT. Sheeyah, as if.

That's alright though, since I don't much feel like working anyways. That's what winter in Minnesota can do to you. Actually, it doesn't so much make you feel like not working. It just makes you want to whine a lot.

It was actually a pretty good year for the ol' Loon. Just met with my absolutely fantastic accountant Cynthia today, and found out that I might actually be overpaid on my taxes. Which would be the first time that's happened since I was a minor working as a busboy.

So thanks to a reasonably steady amount of work, the Loon household found itself able to indulge in a bit of reckless consumerism. It started with a new TeeVee. You see, we've had this monstrous 32" Sony that our great friend Al gave us back when we were starving dot.commers in San Francisco. It was actually a damn good TeeVee, but since it was assembled sometime during the last industrial revolution, it was starting to show its age. Subjecting it to a 3' drop onto hardwood a few years back certainly hadn't helped. It looked decidedly worse for the wear, and was starting to become something of an eyesore in our new digs.

So we cruised down to Audio King, looking to replace the venerable Sony with something just a bit... well, prettier. That was Sol's intent, at least. Oddly enough, I was just along for the ride on this one, since it was her idea to get a new TeeVee in the first place. If you're a guy, and your wife offers to buy a new television, you just shut the hell up, and thank your lucky stars.

But since my wife is also extremely cool, and I'm an extreme geek, once we were in the store, she pretty much let me have at it. We started looking at Sonys, which were certainly the prettiest boxes on display, but then we wandered over to the HDTV area, and what I saw almost me soil myself. For some reason, when I'd seen the televisions on display before, I just hadn't paid much attention. But now that I was taking a closer look, I realized HOT DAMN, HDTV kicks ass! But so did the prices. Those sets started at over a grand, and that was about double our budget.

Then, outta the corner of my eye, I spotted an almost homely lookin' little black Samsung 27" box, which looked kinda out of place next to these sleek $2000 Pioneer and Philips units. But I wandered over, and lo-and-behold, she was displaying a gorgeous HDTV picture, just as pretty as you could wish. And they just happened to have one that was returned, and happily, 20% off with a full mfr's warranty. Sold. Load 'er up, and let's go.

It took all of ten minutes to get 'er set up, but of course, all we'd be able to watch for the next couple of days was plain old non-HD cable. A call to Time Warner resulted in a visit by one of their technicians a few days later, and he swapped our regular cable box for an HDTV capable version. And very clearly explained that we would have only ONE channel on HDTV for now. Which we already knew. So now, with the exception of CBS, all we'd be able to watch for the next year or three was still plain old cable.

This was what you would call "planning for the future". Or maybe it's just being another stupid early adopter. Bah, who cares, I've got HDTV! And yeah, its only CBS, but have you seen CSI in HDTV? It's so freaking awesome, it almost makes up for the fact that you can also endure Everybody Loves Raymond in HDTV. Plus, I got an XBOX a few weeks later, which also happens to have component outputs, so it works at 480p on our HDTV. If you thought Halo looked good before, all's I can say is "you ain't seen nothin' yet, brutha".

Holy crap, how did this turn into such a geekfest so quick? Dang, I was just gonna write a few sentences about how we spent all our hard earned money, but then I start frothing at the mouth and speaking in tongues about technogeekery and AVbabble. Sorry bout that.

Anyways, to try and stay on topic for a bit, after the new TeeVee, the dryer groaned halfway through its penultimate gentle-dry cycle before going to the great appliance garden in the sky. So we trucked down to Best Buy and picked up (or rather, had delivered) a new unit made by General Electric. I'd like to salute the General, because he makes a fine product. Sorry, no long pointless story attached to this one. After that, we decided it might be nice to have Air Conditioning during those ridiculous swamplike late summer months here in beautiful MN. But the only way they could get central air into our house was if they replaced the furnace at the same time. Ouch. But still, best money we've spent to date on the house.

And after all that, came the big one. But I'll have to pick that story up at another time.

July 21, 2002 - Okay, I'll stop pretending to be surprized at how time flies, and how the weather sucks. It's the middle of summer in Minnesota. I'll leave the rest up to your imagination.

So aside from reporting on temporal and meteorological fluctuations, what can I possibly come up with as an excuse for firing up Homesite and updating this page? Well, it comes in the form of this little quote, pulled off a comment on a post on some random blog:

"It's not that capitalism or money-making is inherently evil -- it's that it's not inherently virtuous. The rich are not more moral than the poor, nor the poor more evil than the rich."

Not so many years ago, I would've read that sentence and blithely agreed with its alternative perception of our social and economic reality here in the states. Now, it makes me want to... well, just groan, I guess. Anything more dramatic wouldn't really be believable. But still, I groan. Aloud, even.

First of all, is he (yes, it's a he, If i recall the byline correctly) saying that captialism is capable of taking a moral position? I suppose that my Libertarian toenail clipping might think so. Which is to say, WTF? And what's with the rich and poor and morality bullshit? Oh yeah, and the sky is blue, jackass. A nice Rich blue.

What I truly bemoan though, is the underlying premise of that first sentence. I mean, if capitalism is so morally (ahem) lacking, then surely there must exist some socio-economic model out there that's inherently good. Like, um, what? Communism? Socialism? A Pussy-Ass Social Democracy? Wahhabism? No, No, No, and Hell No. And No and No and No and NO. I don't even want Roddenberry's Federation or, God Forbid, Lucas' Rebel Alliance/Republic. Given my choice from a Universe of systems ofgovernance and economy, I'll take me a whole heaping of Constitutional Democracy with a big choking gulp of Capitalism.

And to top it off, I'll find the inherent good in it.

At least until somebody (excepting dumbasses like this guy) come up with something better.

May 10, 2002 - Holy quasimodo moosebag! It's already the second week of May! If you lived in a normal climate, it might seem a bit odd to make much of a fuss. But if you live in Minneapolis, it's a revelation that would have been more believable two months ago. As it is, it's about forty degrees out right now, and hail seems to sprinkle from the sky in those lulls between thundershowers and snowstorms. Erg.

Shiftless, aimless, pointless, blameless. That about sums a certain attitude rumbling through my late-night musings of late. To provide details would unearth a whole novella's worth of useless trash, but I thought the string of words had a nice mellifluous note. There're lots more troubling things to write about in the world right now, but that's about all I can muster.

Except to say that I've never felt a greater sense of impending... something. Can't pinpoint what it is, but that's the nature of these sorts of seventh sense forebodings (sorry, sixth sense is busy trying to figure out where it went). I'm not sure the negative tone it implies should necessarily dominate. But even in my happy-fun view of the world, the immortal words of Patrick Swayze from Road House echo through the chasm of my head: "It's gonna get worse before it gets better." Truly a suck-ass negativistic view of the short term, at least.

But the best part is, without context, I can just wave it off as a bad mood. If anybody inquires when I'm in a bad mood, I'll just bark and growl and, you know, blame it on the weather.

Feb 01, 2002 - Winter just can't seem to make up its mind around here. We've had snow. We've had the snow melt. Then we've had snow again. And then it melts again. And so on. I'm not complaining, mind you. Talking about the weather is just what we do around here.

Blah blah blah.

Jan 20, 2002 - You know what I just realized? My year sucked. It was the year we got attacked by terrorists. It was the year I acquired $150,000 in debt.It was the year I quit my favorite job to date. It was the year of the worst weather I've ever lived through (in Minnesota--granted, I grew up in Ca, but it still counts). It was the year that came after the most ridiculously hyped year that I'll probably ever witness. It was the year that, well... sucked.

But Still... I'm alive. I'm healthy. I'm married to a woman who I'd never dreamed I'd deserve. I have a positive balance in the checking account. I have three cats and a dog who remind me everyday why we're not the most important damned species on the planet. And I have dreams of a baby boy or girl who might contradict that notion.

Go figure.

Jan 10, 2002 - Well, it's winter in Minnesota. Which, for the past couple of years, has traditionally meant copious amounts of updates and changes to the website.

Alas, like most things we try to make traditions around here, it's just no longer, well... the same, I guess. Not too much happening all around, so there hasn't been much cause for updates to the ol' site, if you see what I mean.

I did manage to cook up one little addition to the site, which is the lovely pictures of our feisty lil' dog, Tuuli. What breed is she, you ask? Well, we've taken to calling her a German Sheprador, on accounta that just sounds so darn right. Other times, I call her a little bitch, with the just right amount of 5th-grade sniggering. But hey, she's still a puppy. And for the most part, a wonderful leaping bounding jumping frolicking little beastie.

Sept 1, 2001 - Our New House

This is a big one: We bought a house. Okay, so it's not like we had a baby or anything, but it was a pretty big deal around the Ouimet/Tofte household.

Of course, there wouldn't be much point telling you about it if there weren't any pictures, so if you wanna see the house, follow this link!