The owls are not what they seem

Friday night I watched Twin Peaks. Saturday night I lived it. It was a good Halloween weekend. There are a few more photos at the bottom of our Santa Barbara gallery. Check 'em out.

R had to work until late on Friday night, so I stayed home to man the door. We had purchased six bags of candy in anticipation of hordes of kids ringing our bell. Our grand total of trick-or-treaters: zero. (I've been eating candy steadily since then, hoping to put a dent in the supply, but there's no noticeable reduction yet.) I didn’t let the night go to waste. I worked on editing my music video, which is really exciting me right now, and I watched the episode of Twin Peaks where they bury Laura Palmer. That certainly helped me get in the spirit of the holiday and inspired to dress up like special agent Dale Cooper. R had the better costume though. I'm so proud of my little Log Lady.

On Saturday night, after our impromptu photo shoot, we attended a Halloween party at the Scooby gang's house. It turned out we didn't know anybody other than Shaggy, and nobody recognized who we were dressed as, making the costumes feel like a bit of a miscalculation (18 years ago we would have been a big hit). These are some of the downsides to being new in town, but you have to start somewhere. Each time we see these people we’ll likely be more and more comfortable around them. I'm proud of us for putting ourselves out there and working on new friendships. It would be a lot easier to stay in every night.

Sunday probably worked out better overall. First we volunteered at a function raising money for the food bank. R helped people pick out ceramic bowls and I emptied trash cans. I'd further explain the scenario, but it's not that interesting. Afterwards we attended a birthday BBQ for one of R’s coworkers. We have hung out with this group two or three times now, so we’re starting to get to the point where we can relax and open up around them some more. They seem like fun, cool people… and I’m not just saying that because they might be reading this blog.

How has the Twitter stream been working out for you? Did you see that we went to a David Sedaris reading two Saturdays ago? Or how about that I noticed my first earthquake? I’m still looking for the best way of fitting these communication tools together without repeating myself too much. I probably had a bunch more to say about recent happenings, but the fun of Twitter lies in the art of brevity. Let's see how it goes.

Okay, I better get out and vote. The web has been abuzz about the election today that it makes me feel like I’m the last person in the country to hit the polls. Today feels like a historic day. I want to be a part of this.

Top 5 costume ideas for me and R this year

5) Sprockets - Easy, cheap, and just the right amount of obscurity in a pop culture reference. This makes a good costume, but, alas, we used it last year.



4) Paul Bunyan and Babe the blue ox - Distinctly midwestern but perhaps too much so. Californians might be confused. Plus, we're trying to avoid blue body paint.



3) Brandon and Brenda Walsh - Being Minnesotans recently relocated to California sounds appropriate for us, and I think I could pull off the pompadour and 90s clothing style, but the siblings factor may be too incestuous for a married couple.



2) Each other - This just kind of happened partially by accident one day a while ago, and we found it incredibly funny. I think it would make a good costume, as long as we're seen together the whole night. Maybe next year.



1) Wait for it - I don't want to spoil the surprise, so check back here sometime after Halloween for a photo of what we decided on.

Now's the time on Sprockets when we dance

There you have it -- we dressed as Sprockets this year. And there's our 3rd annual "mimic the pumpkin" photo too. In case it's not obvious, we carved a :-) smiley face into it. I guess the nose should have been skinnier. Anyway, the Halloween loop was a lot of fun last Saturday night. A few random people at the bar were able to identify our costumes without any hints, but most just didn't have the knowledge of past pop culture to figure it out. I mean, who doesn't know who Dieter is? My favorite costumes of the night: Teen Wolf and Dwight Schrute.

Gotta run. I'd like to watch a scary movie tonight, but I'm not sure if it's going to happen. Time is running short. Happy Halloween, everybody!

Happy belated Halloween!

It is our Halloween tradition to take a photo of ourselves trying to capture the essence of what we carved into our pumpkin. See last year's photo for another example. I think we reached a new level of interpretive genius this year.... Uh, as you can see, Halloween itself went by without much of a bang for us. 15 kids rang our bell and left us with a truck load of extra candy. We didn't even get to watch a scary movie because I got stuck working the whole night. That's okay though--we celebrated on Saturday night instead. Wilmington has this epic "Halloween Loop" each year where 20,000 people get dressed up and ride a bus to 14 or so bars. I went with my wife, my sister-in-law, and my mother-in-law and had a great time. Our costumes were thrown together in the last minute with props we had around the house (I went as Bread Man, in case you can't tell from the photo below), and we spent most of our time in the tamer bars, specifically the Crimson Moon, the Iron Hill Brewery, and Dead Presidents, which suited our style pretty well. But, man, this was the party of the year. There were a bunch of wild people out there and, based on their costumes, a bunch of creative people too. My favorite costume was Bernie, as in Weekend At Bernie's. The guy looked the part, and he had his friends propping him up and hauling him around the whole night. They even formed a smile on his face for him when we took this picture. Other highlights were the family Double-Dare team, the men's Olympic figure skating team, Wayne, Waldo, Fred Flintstone, male bunny bartenders, and bunch of others I can't remember right now. It was a fun night out and a good weekend all around spent with the family we had in town.