My coworker just showed me a blog that is posting old garfield cartoons that have been altered to remove the Garfield and Odie characters. Once you do this, you're just left with Jon talking to himself. He had a pitiful existence to begin with, but now he's really funny.

here's the link: click

it's primary election day in New York. And even though i was running a little late this morning --lots of "Rock Band" at my apartment last night--i made sure to swing by my neighborhood school to vote.

i never got a voting notice in the mail, so i didn't know what district i was in. this would mean standing in line to find out before going to my specified voting booth to stand in line again. But on the way to the school i passed my roommate who was coming back from voting. as we passed i thought to ask what district we were and she remembered. whoo-hoo! i could skip the frst line at least.

when i found my station and my turn came up to register my signature, the advanced-in-age ladies told me three times that i wasn't listed in the book! i had to keep spelling my last name for them -- H-O-M-E-R. then they started writing me up as a democrat. this i knew to look out for since the same thing happened to me last time i voted. "oh, he's a REPUBLICAN!" they exclaimed after i corrected the one filling out the voter cards and showed them both the REP next to my name.

and of course the young guy working with these ladies had already set the booth for democrat - more wrong assumptions. so i had to wait for the next person in line to vote and reset the machine. but the girl next in line couldn't vote until all of this was understood by the lady filling out the cards and the lady looking up the signatures. WOW! what a test of patience first thing in the morning.

while at a jobsite this morning i noticed a plumber seemed to be talking to himself as he was up on a ladder in the corner of the room. i didn't see a cell phone, either. hmmmm.... okay, whatever, right?

i moved on to other things. i okay'd a light fixture installation in the other room with the electrician. i talked with the carpenters about a wall niche they needed to make for a giant flatscreen TV. then i looked around for anything that seemed to be out of place. that's my job.

then i double-take as i see two legs squirming out of a hole high up on the kitchen wall. it was funny too because he wasn't going in or out, but just squirming around. i guess the plumber was actually talking to someone earlier, and wasn't just crazy. this other guy had somehow shimmied into the wall, which is up pretty high, and had crawled back above the ceiling of the neighbor's apartment.

i thought it was hilarious.

Ever feel small, insignificant, or helpless?

Ever think you're out your league, too small to matter, or fighting a losing battle?

Ever feel bullied, out of place, or like you're second class?

i think this building feels the same way.

72nd street on the upper east side is lined with giant apartment buildings. i was early to a meeting up there today--i'm working on a 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath apartment with wrap-around terrace, no less--when i noticed this relic across the street.

actually, i think it's holding its own just fine.

i'm with calvin. sure, try and do better in the new year, but don't strain yourself.

perhaps i could try a bit more than calvin:

- reacquaint self with gym.

- read bible more.

- sleep more.

- eat less cookies.

- take some tests.

that'll do for now.

Happy New Year! i missed the ball drop here in the Big Apple, and it seems i also missed an apple at work. this is what happens when you leave an apple on your desk over the holidays.

funny enough, it looked perfectly fine from the other side.

Christmas at the Emerson's has been lots of fun. little Lincoln has been loving the toy holly got him for me, though it took us three times before we finally got one that worked. The first one was DOA, and the second one only partially worked. while Lincoln played with it for a little while, he kept giving us these puzzled looks. he knew it wasn't working the way he remembered. now we finally got it right, and Lincoln is a happy kid.

His grandma + grandpa got him a motorized vehicle for outside. lincoln loves to push it around the cul-de-sac instead of driving it. at least it's good exercise.

other than playing with lincoln, i've just been eating, sleeping, and breaking in my mac.

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope santa brought you everything you deserved, wanted, or needed. i know that's quite a range of options, but you should know by now that Christmas is not about gifts. It's about celebrating Jesus Christ coming to our little messed up world to be our light and life.

And Christmas is about celebrating with your family. I got to meet my newest nephew on Christmas Eve! What a fun kid! I'm told that on their way back from Russia, as he was reviewing pictures of his new family, he saw my pictures and said that i was just a friend of the family. ha, ha! But his mom and dad set him straight, and he now calls me uncle--in Russian, for now--and gives me big hugs.

it's been a great christmas.

and if you didn't get what you wanted for Christmas, then take a tip from the Homer family. You'll never be disappointed Christmas morning if you buy yourself the gift you want the most!

i really want a mac laptop.

i've been deliberating on the decision for a while now. i was going back and forth between buy ing now or waiting for christmas, or bonus time, or the new year, or after the mac expo when they might announce new models, thereby driving down prices on the current models. my first plan was to buy the basic version macbook pro new from amazon, which had quite a discount plus a rebate. but i agonized over spending the money. then amazon's price went up a few times. oh well, it wasn't meant to be. then i remembered my brother had mentioned buying refurbished apple products from the apple website. so i looked there and saw that i could buy a refurbished model at a discount. then an ichat with my brother brought up the idea of getting the more powerful version. and since it's refurb, the upgraded model is within reach.

last night i put the macbook pro in my online shopping cart, filled out payment and shipping info, and then hovered over the 'purchase' button for a few minutes. should i really buy this? what am i doing? but i want it now. why wait? common sense prevailed. i hit the purchase button.

so santa came early this year! okay, actually i just went and splurged on myself. whatever. i'm getting a mac in the mail next week! merry christmas!

my parents put me to work while i was in wisconsin last week. just what everyone likes to do on vacation, right? well, i never mind it much.

My dad needed me to figure out why some of the landscaping lights weren't working. after searching in vain for my original wiring diagram, digging up the yard, and testing wiring combinations, i figured out that he had the wrong kind of bulb. the solution? he needed low voltage halogen bulbs, not line voltage (12V versus 120V). so then i had to put the yard back together.

The bigger task was for my mom; i had to sort through my childhood. See, at our house, you never through anything away. instead, you just put it up in the attic. we had virtually unlimited storage up there, and you never know when you might need another shoe box. and it seems i saved everything growing up. but it was fun to dig up photos and mementos that trigger happy times growing up.

all that to say that i found this slide in my desk, which i tried to scan but did horribly. i'll have to find a better way. This is my architecture school picture that we tried to take one year at Washington University. being architects, they asked us to wear all black for the picture. We heard later that the art student taking the pictures messed up the film or something, but one of my friends snapped this picture and i ended up with it.

if you're looking for me, i'm sitting in the top window just over the last "L" in GIVENS HALL looking to the side.

good bye twenties. you were lots of fun. we rocked out in a praise band and went on fun spring break trips to florida. we finished out college at a fancy university in the cushy part of St. Louis. to accomplish that, we worked summers at a factory and even delivered mattresses for extra cash. that helped since we got into a real ivy-league graduate school. As a result, we traded in the midwest for the east coast and lasted through all three years of architecture school, with a masters degree to show for it. This included great summers exploring New York City, plus a few trips to places like Los Angeles, Upstate New York+ Connecticut+Pennsylvania, London, and all over the Netherlands. we struck out into the work force and learned a ton from two design firms while working on houses, apartments, showrooms, and offices. we started and finished the minimum 3-years of internship hours and passed the first few exams on the way to becoming an honest-to-goodness professional; we're 2/9th of the way there! we found a great church in times square, joined the choir, and sang on Broadway three times a week (in church services, of course). This took us to South America, the heart of Times Square, and twice to parts of Africa. thanks for the adventures.

thirties, top that!

just saw a great-looking film. i never heard of it before, never saw the trailer, nothing. it's from 2006. the rental store didn't have anything else that interested me in the new release section until i saw this on the shelf. it promoted itself as a sci-fi thriller, and it has what i thought was some sort of combination of animation and live action. but perhaps it's all animation? the black and white is a really great look. and i'm not talking gray scale. it's pretty much black of white. i'm glad i gave it a shot. hey, why don't you try it?

site of the day, via keith:

http://www.whatjeffkilled.com/

Jeff is a cat who kills stuff. the site shows you all the gorey pics! gross and funny.

i've been craving some good ol' Sheboygan bratwurst for a while now. In case you didn't know, Sheboygan in the official "home of the bratwurst." it's been so long since i've been in wisconsin during the summer, those few short months when sane people still "grill out." visting over the christmas holiday means i have to get my fix at Charcoal Inn, a local restaurant with an indoor charcoal grill. it's just not the same.

then by chance i saw these "sheboygan bratwust" at my local wholefoods market! they actually tasted pretty similar to real brats, but they were white and almost hot-dog small. nice try, but it looks like you still have to travel to sheboygan to get the real thing.

you've heard of pigs-in--a-blanket right? how about cat-in-a-drawing? marcel breuer was lounging on my drawing set and i needed to flip to another page... so i folded the drawing on top of him. does he care? nope. instead he takes a little nap in there, only giving me the evil eye once he gets bored with it. or maybe it was when alex starting tapping on the paper.

how do i bill this time?