Complete and Undisclosed Christmas Vacation, Part Two

So the swimming was awfully short, and we’re back. Now, I continue.

As I write this, little cousin Emma’s sitting next to me. She’s in kindergarten, and offered up this beautiful explanation when asked what I was doing: “Nathan’s destroying his dreams.”

This is scary, yet very accurate.

Okay, here come the fun parts of the blog: how Nathan’s occupied his time past the religious holidays where people give each other stuff. In short, I did not do very much stuff, and I plan on continuing this trend. Most of the cavorting has taken place inside this house. It’s cold outside, you see.

Slightly blurry, but that’s the best you’re going to get. It’s dang cold outside.

Here is the living room area, where presents are exchanged! In there’s a few of my cousins.

I always fall down these stairs, or I make too much noise going up them. Apparently this is a problem.

My grandpa’s office area. This is the place where Nathan broke a light (in the upper-left corner, above the computer). It’s also where I’ve blogged from, and the room that contains two Wiis. That’s right. Two of them. Suck it, eBay.

This is the furnace room, where my family unit is staying. As you can see, it’s a bit messy.

Now that you’ve seen the pictures, I can stop writing! Just kidding. Perhaps I’ll do more later.

Cheers again, Nathan

Complete and Undisclosed Christmas Vacation, Part One

I seem to be doing a lot of multiple-part posts lately. This may be because I’m too lazy to blog every day. It’s Christmas vacation! Nathan seems to have thought he deserved a break. This is a very naughty thing of him to do.

NATHAN SINCERELY APOLOGIZES AND WILL GET BACK TO BLOGGING NOW.

So~ Due to the various delays, we arrived at my grandma and grandpa’s house in fabulous Proctor, Minnesota, around 3 P.M. on Christmas Eve. This is a very nice house, with a very intensive, exciting basement. It’s pretty dang cool, and I suppose later on I’ll take some pictures and release it to the world.

Present exchanges and a large holiday dinner were to be had at this point! You see, there are a wide variety of people who stay at this house during Christmastime. My grandma and grandpa, for one thing. That’s two. My family makes six. My uncle KJ and his family make ten, and occasionally this number gets up to fourteen and sixteen, if more people come along. This is pretty ridiculous, as the house is not the biggest thing in the world.

Still, we manage.

SO: People seem to be curious as to what I got for Christmas. As it turns out, I received a few things. Notably, a new set of headphones, rechargable batteries (which yes, I asked for, and they are rad), that Stephen Colbert book I wanted, and Tootsie Roll pajama pants. My mom got an iPod touch, so I got to set that up for her.

CHRISTMAS OH GOSH CHRISTMAS YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY
It was pretty cool, I guess.
My parents provided me with a little ittybitty digital camcorder, for use with another project of mine, The Giant Pile! The greatest comedy podcast video series made by Nathan and some friends, and also the only one in that category. Hm. The link’s over there to your right, in the blogroll.
Also, some Wii games and iTunes giftcards. And a really cool shirt with a hawk wearing headphones from my sister. It was satisfying! :D

More stories to come later. Cousins want me to swim.

Cheers, Nathan

A word to the wise:

Don’t mix Wii Sports and Dragonforce.
If you’re anything like Nathan, you’ll use your other hand to smash a fluorescent light bulb into bits.

Stay frosty, America.
Sincerely, Nathan

Holiday Travels, 12/24/07

That’s it, I’m done and in Proctor, Minnesota. I don’t have anything else to say about that. I’ll get the inspiration to do a better blog post soon, but besides that:

Holiday Travels, 12/23/07

8:30 A.M. 52 Miles South of Wichita

We’ve set out for the day again, and the interstate’s defrosted! Awesome. We can now drive, and we’ll be driving forever, because we are pretty much behind schedule. Also: My Sony headphones are totally gone. They failed to exist, and that does not mean I lost them at the Super 8 Motel, and I would like to put emphasis on NOT. They were beginning to go out, but alas. Fare thee well, dearest ‘phones. Also, my sister is a hypochondriac. More at 11.

9:10 A.M., Kansas Turnpike
I take back my headphone eulogy. (Headphone Eulogy would be a very good band name. Duly noted.) They were actually underneath my seat the whole time, with emphasis on “whole”. That’s very ironic. Another sad thing is that my DVD of An Inconvienent Truth seems to have decided to stop working. I have half an hour left of the movie. I want to finish watching it. This is a big deal, and apparently I might blog about that later. Alas. My sister, this morning, didn’t want to do anything. She was sick. (Note the “hypochondriac”.) And she didn’t use the bathroom. The only rest stop for 40 miles had a closed bathroom, due to frozen pipes. My sister was basically dying at this point, but she got in and used it anyway. Good for her.

3:37 P.M., Osceola, Iowa
This afternoon, we’ve passed a total of three graveyards. It’s beginning to get unnerving. Why would you situate your graveyard next to a highway, besides to creep people out? Still, we were saved by fabulous OSCEOLA, IOWA: A place where nothing ever, EVER happens.

There is a single gas station, though, and food.
There was some seriously weird food in Osceola.

EXHIBIT A: Cinnamon Sun Chips.

EXHIBIT B: Pomegranate 7-UP.

EXHIBIT C: Diet Cherry Chocolate Dr. Pepper.
I was completely obligated to taste this soda, considering that it’s the official soda of Tay Zonday, the Chocolate Rain guy. It tastes EXACTLY like liquefied Cherry Tootsie Roll Pops. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not. But I drank the whole 20 ounces. That is something to be proud of.

4:22 P.M. Des Moines, Iowa
We just saw the Barack Obama tour bus pass by us on the opposite direction, right as they talked about it on the radio. It made me feel pretty good on the inside.

10:33 P.M. Northwood, Minnesota
OBSERVATION: There’s a very unnerving quality to windy snowy days, especially if they prevent you from driving. We were going to stop in Albert Lea, a little town with five hotels. All of said hotels were completely full. So I dined on a delicious omelette, and we continued onward to my aunt/uncle/cousins’ house. We made it there! But staring into darkness, and only being able to vaguely see the road stripes in front of you…it’s creepy. And Nathan’s never ever creeped out by bad weather.

Tommorow, we make it to Proctor, our destination! Maybe. We’ll probably get attacked by bears, at this rate.

Cheers, Nathan `

The hotel room of today.

I’m not sure if this hotel room makes me uncomfortable or soothes me. It feels, more than anything, “lived in”. Completely unrefined, yet somewhat pleasant to be in. Maybe. The carpet is overly firm, and the blankets on the beds are an ugly mixture of red and green, and for some reason there’s a sink next to the doorway.

I look at the walls, and nothing is where it should be. The lights are mounted at a tilt. The lightshade leans to the left, no matter what I do to try and fix it. The TV is permanently set in a position where it’s partially hanging off the side of the little table it sits upon. The curtains don’t fold like they should. It’s too messy.

That picture on the wall bugs me most of all. It’s of some sort of lake, reflecting trees, reflecting a mountain, reflecting a sun. It’s too gray. I’m not sure why it’s here, and it’s making me feel awkward.

The hallways here feel bigger than the last hotel, but I don’t think they are. They’re even more unnerving. All the emergency lights have long since died, but there’s one in the corner that continues to flicker. Three seconds off, one on, three seconds off, one on. The heater pulses in time, the noise ebbing and flowing in eighth note slurs. The ripples in my watter bottle are awfully staccato.

Katy’s Snowetry (and a joke)

For clarification purposes, Katy is my little sister. She is almost 11 years old.)

SNOW
by Katy Storck

winter harsh and wonderful
can never decide
chills my nerves
pleases my eyes
sparkling snow fresh on the ground
a blizzard putting the power put
will it ever stop
will it ever snow
the answer is I don’t know

Also, a joke from Katy:
Q: What do you call two black holes?
A: A PARAVOID! ::rimshot::

Holiday Travels, 12/22/07 Part 2

Super 8 Motel, Blackwell, Oklahoma
9:22 P.M.

So guess what happened after that last blog? The power went out.
It is 20 degrees outside, plus a 15 degree wind chill, and the power went out.

The heat went with it. This made Nathan a very sad person. So, I spent a few hours sitting under the covers and moping. This was not a very productive moment, so I went outside in the hallway. As it turns out, that Magic Cube from the Part 1 post is an excellent stress-reliever. It twists so painfully, so slowly that it’s very frustrating. This frustration pretty much kills any despair you might have in your head. It’s pretty much my favorite thing right now.

FUN FACT NUMBER TWO: You haven’t listened to Sigur Ros until you’ve listened to Sigur Ros while laying in the middle of a creepy flickering motel hallway, staring at the ceiling, which is staring back at you into your soul.

So I went back into the room, and it was still dark in there. Nathan attempted to listen to the Lupe Fiasco album again. It did not work. I got about five songs in, and it was declared that it was time to get FOOD! Food that wasn’t cold crackers, that is.

KFC/Taco Bell was the only restaurant that had power. (Well, that and some ice cream place called Braum’s, but I wasn’t feeling ironic enough to eat there.) Chicken was good, but I pity the person who was working the counter. She seemed very…fatigued. Also, they were out of macaroni and cheese.

8:00. Power still wasn’t on. We went to Wal-Mart and hung out there. And…they had a Guitar Hero III demo. “…:D”, thought Nathan. So I sat around playing Barracuda repeatedly. Which is a great, fantastic song. It’s also very annoying and will get caught in your head.

I bought socks. Going from damp wet socks to dry new ones is pretty much the greatest feeling in the world. You don’t even know. You should try it sometime. We arrived back at the motel, and convienently, THE POWER CAME ON.

Now I have blogged all of these facts. I do believe I will go play Wii now that the power is on.

(This has delayed our travel by…a lot. Expect more exciting blog adventures tommorow.)

Cheers, Nathan

Holiday Travels, 12/22/07 Part 1

8:27 A.M.: Leaving Denton, Texas
And so, Nathan sets out upon driving once again. (I’m not the one driving. You know what I mean. Yeah.) I must say, though: There’s one constant I’ve noticed about Hampton Inns, and that’s that the breakfast tends to be on the side of “very terrific”. The rest of the hotel could be the worst crap you’ve ever experienced in your life, and you can still go downstairs for a delicious waffle and maybe some coffee. EXAMPLE ONE:

Juice, eggs (to be peppered with a little packet), a biscuit, and a muffin.
Very good, albeit that the eggs were a bit..odd texture-wise. It made me feel insecure about myself. It’s okay, though. I have an apple juice with me in the car as I write this, so I will be okay for the next 12 ounces or so.

10:33 A.M. 40 Miles south of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
We drove right in to the storm everyone on the news has talked about. Gray skies, a layer of water on the windshiled, partially leafless trees. My mom’s new claim to fame is that she can do Sudoku in pen. This is, of course, a very big deal. Temperature is 35 degrees, Fahrenheit. The temperature will continue to drop. That is Nathan’s prediction.

12:47 P.M.: Lawton, Oklahoma
Temperature continues to drop. We are currently sitting at a comfortable 29 degrees. I admire my sister’s foresight to bringa blanket. We stopped in on Cracker Barrel for lunch, which is the Midwest’s only old-tyme foodstaruant/curio shop chain. Good burger, good fries, messy restrooms. I will not put a picture of those up. Instead, you get this:

The “Magic Cube”. A neon-colored copyright-infringing Rubik’s Cube. The solving directions they provided in the box were oddly poetic, although they are now lost forever in the wind and snow. “Instruct on How To Solve The Magic Squares”. I smell a song in the making. That phrase warms my heart. Back on the road again, rain and an upsettingly small amount of ice chunks do not really pass as precipitation, let alone “snow”. Leaving to play with Cube now. It’s probably my only friend.

2:27 P.M., Northern Oklahoma
The weather continues to worsen. There are next-to-no trees around anywhere, and unfortunately, we’re now in a blizzard. 30 miles an hour on ice is not a very efficient pace to be driving at. It also helps if you can see farther than 10 feet in front of the car. On the plus side, there’s snow!

5:03 P.M., Super 8 Motel, Blackwell, Oklahoma
In the end, it was too much snow. It helps if you can see, apparently. We pulled over and have stopped for the night in a little itttybitty Super 8 Motel off the highway. It does, in fact, have highspeed internet! It’s just not very reliable highspeed internet…like, at all. It’s died on me a bunch in the past few minutes. Anyway, we’re settled. I’ll probably go do something else, then come back and take more pictures and blog about it. It’s going to be a…fun night? I guess?

Imagine that with 40 mph winds and you’ve about got it.

Cheers, Nathan

Holiday Travels, Part One

DECEMBER 21, 2007, 10:40 P.M.
Hampton Inn and Suites, Denton, Texas

Good evening! All through the night, et cetera, blah blah blah. Happy Holidays! Nathan’s going to Minnesota, land of snow and funny accents, all vacation long. I will be blogging this vacation daily! Perhaps you may want to read it. There will be pictures.

I snuck out of school at 2:30 (people were loud in Mr. Rendillio’s class), and we were on the road. Yes, my family drives from Texas to Minnesota. We are quite hardcore. Autographs will be available in January. Driving occured for a while, and I listened to two songs from the new Lupe Fiasco album, then fell asleep, oops. Dinner at Chick-Fil-A, and we continued onward, and then we got to this hotel.

This hotel has a very nice lady at the front desk. You should probably come. There were cookies on the counter when we came in! Very good cookies, too, albeit a bit on the hard side. I must demerit them, however, for the hallways. They’re very creepy.

See?
In the interest of getting away from creepy hallways, I will be going to bed now. Expect a much more exciting blog tommorow.

Cheers, Nathan