New camera

We finally gave up on finding our camera and ordered a new one.

I went with a Panasonic Lumix with 10x optical zoom. I appreciate the zoom but I’m also hoping it’s small enough to carry around a lot of the time without being a big hassle. And I’m hoping the Leica lenses live up to expectations. I don’t know anything about the chip in the Panasonic cameras, so I’m a little worried about that.

UPDATE 12/30: The camera still hasn’t shipped. The tracking page still says “processing.”

We think we found a good SD memory card deal, if any of the stores in town have it in stock.

With the year almost over, our movie lists are getting wrapped up. I might be able to add one or two more in the next few days.

http://www.fuzzycouch.com/labels/movies.php

My cousin Stephanie likely had a baby this week (she was supposed to be induced). And one of my relatives died this week:

Opal I. Strotheide, 87, (nee Iberg), on Wed., Dec. 26, 2007.

She was the wife of Laverne E. Strotheide; mother of Diana L. (Dennis) Osterwisch, Connie J. Colloton and Debra S. (Michael) Garves; grandmother of five; great-grandmother of two; stepgrandmother of three; stepgreat-grandmother of eight; sister of the late Virgil and Kenneth Iberg, and Evelyn Beard.

Funeral Services 11 a.m. Friday, Dec. 28, at Evangelical United Church of Christ, Highland, IL. Interment Highland City Cemetery. Friends may call 5-7 p.m. Thurs., Dec. 27 at Spengel-BoulangerFuneral Home, 1501 Ninth at Lemon, Highland, IL, (888-654-7234). Memorial contributions to Evangelical U.C.C. and Faith Countryside Homes-Village, c /o funeral home.

A merry, French Christmas

Christmas was great this year. For our annual Christmas international meal, we had French food. I helped mom prepare a soufflé. Mom managed to get it perfect. We also had crepes, fondue, an asparagus dish, and ratatouille.

“I Am Legend”

I went to see “I Am Legend” tonight. It was really good. I would describe it as feeling a little like “Cast Away” crossed with “Resident Evil.”

I went to see it on a whim. I walked by the theater as I was leaving the mall food court. The movie started at 6:15 p.m., I looked at my time-piece and it was only 6:30. So I ordered the ticket and the vendor informed me that the movie might have already started. I thought to myself, “might have … exactly.” Sure enough, I found my seat right as the actual movie was starting. I didn’t have to watch any ads, Perfect!

Pre-Christmas

Jantina and I spent the weekend in Orlando (80 degrees!). Actually, she is still there for the rest of the week, then we meet up in Lincoln for Christmas through New Years.

I think I’m done with my Christmas shopping, we cut way back this year. I saw on the news that we may not be alone in that, but that it may be an overall trend this year.

We spent all day Saturday with our Orlando “Home Team” group (sans Christopher, we missed you!) visiting, playing games, eating, and just hanging out.

Then, on Sunday, we visited our Orlando church, Calvary Chapel South Orlando. They had a fantastic Christmas service and we were able to catch up with a few friends there, too.

After church I was dropped off at the airport, where I’m writing this post on my cool iPhone 😉
We had a great time seeing everyone!

OpenID-enabled

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Electricity to be restored

Story from AP, dateline Jacksonville: Ameren spokesman Leigh Morris says about 1,700 people are without power Wednesday morning — mostly in Jacksonville. At one point, 17,000 Ameren customers were in the dark. [link]

Clay put a slide show of ice storm photos. [link]

IMG_3569
Originally uploaded by azalea_jade

ABOVE: A woman who lives in my neighborhood posted some ice storm photos, like this one a few doors down from me. Our neighborhood got hit pretty hard. BELOW: A limb roughly the size of this one came down in my tree, landing perfectly across the street, but also came down across the phone lines and popped a nearby telephone pole out of the ground.

Fallen Tree
Originally uploaded by grable8

w00t aka w007

The AP has a story about the Merriam-Webster word of 2007: Woot. The story quotes one of my college professors, Alan Metcalf (the executive secretary of the American Dialect Society) — but he didn’t care for M-W’s choice. [link]

Ice storm

With an ice storm tearing Jacksonville a new one, our weekend has been a little uneasy.

Trees and limbs are down all over town. A huge chunk of the tree in our front yard crashed down Sunday afternoon and took out the phone lines, snapped the telephone pole on the corner, and blocked the street. Verizon was here and had our phone and Internet hooked back up at 3:45 p.m.

We’re lucky to only lose our phone and TV (we’re not sure when TV will be back on), thus far, because the whole block east of us is without power since yesterday. On the down side, there is more ice possibly on the way tonight.

We’ve lost or misplaced our camera, so I didn’t get pics of the limb or the ice storm, darn it.

Update 9 p.m.: TV is back.

Update 1:30 a.m. Tuesday: The newspaper has a video up about the ice damage. [link]

Update 9:30 a.m. Tuesday: We lost power at 5:09 a.m. Looks like the whole neighborhood and Ameren doesn’t know when it will be restored. A lot of the schools in the area have canceled for the second day, today, including Julie’s.

Update 11:19 a.m. Tuesday: Power’s back on at home. Whew!

New apartment

Its been a super busy weekend, but we are finally all moved into our Minneapolis apartment. It is a one bedroom loft. We especially like the location. We are near a lot of great places to shop and eat.

The video is too dark, it is from our still camera, but it gives a better idea of the layout.

Here are the static photos:

Click for more

Skateboarders video story

Clay posted a new video on the local initiative to build a skateboard park. [link]