A month in the making...

Over a MONTH since my last post!? Unacceptable. I am sorry to have kept the handful of folks who actually check up on this blog waiting... I'm sure you were all on tenterhooks, weren't you? Sure you were.

So, what's happened since the 22 of Dec, 2007?

I marked five more notches on my 200 goal at the Flying Saucer, but I'll get to that later.

Christmas was amazing. The kids had a blast, Santa brought the kids board games, Amy got me a leather jacket, Amy got Coco Chanel... but the funnest part was having mom and a house-full of Handy's in the house. Two days after Christmas (Tasia's birthday), Dave, Tari, Taylor, Amanda (Taylor's girlfriend), Seth, Tasia, Eric (Tasi's fiance) and mom all came up to Raleigh from Charlotte to visit for the day. Eric is considering going to NC State so we packed up in the car and toured the campus (albeit a deserted campus, as it was Christmas break), and got to show them around the capital city a little. We went to the Saucer for a few Flyers (Flyers are sample platers with 5 large shot glasses of different styles of beer) which they loved. We all went out for dinner and then when the Handy's made tracks for Charlotte, mom stayed the rest of the week with us. That weekend, we brought her back to Charlotte and we got to hang out some more at Dave and Tari's. What a blast!

I've started freelancing more regularly, which is to say that I have had two freelance projects in the past few weeks: one is helping design/drafting for a woman who is renovating her house and another project is for my old employer, Phillips Architecture, doing facade renderings in Photoshop. Having the extra income has been a relief.

My Packers had surpassed my expectations, and even though they couldn't pull off the NFC title game against the NY Giants at Lambeau field, I am proud of their season and am hoping that Brett decides to keep it going next year. We still should have won that game though.

The kids are doing great. No new lost teeth, not even any new loose ones. No crazy stories or dramatic happenings... that's probably the reason I haven't thought to post anything recently. Everything has been, well, uneventful and boring I guess :)

Alright, in addition to the two flights we had when Dave & Tari came to visit, below are my latest additions to my 200 beer goal at the FS:

Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier Dark
Container: Bottled

Style: Dunkel Weiss

Brewer: Weihenstephaner

City: Freising

Country: Germany

Description: Superb dark wheat beer. Full rich favor, sweet malt and hop finish.

Flying Dog Doggie Style Pale Ale

Container: Drought

Style: Pale Ale

Brewer: Flying Dog Brewery

City: Denver, CO

Country: United States

Description: Two- time medal winner at the Great American Beer Festival. This Classic Pale Ale is dry-hopped with Cascade hops grown in the Pacific Northwest and has enough hop character to satisfy hopheads. Beautiful amber-copper color and pleasant malt flavor.

Big Boss Coffee Stout

Container: Draught

Style: Stout

Brewer: Big Boss Brewing Co.

City: Raleigh, NC

Country: United States

Description: Pleasant coffee aroma with some roasted malt and a hint of chocolate. Pours a thick reddish khaki head leaving spotty lacing. Dry, bitter coffee on the tongue. Medium bodied with good carbonation. Finishes with some bitter astringincy. (Brewed with Larry's Coffee Beans)

Again, these were were all very good. The Coffee Stout was a suprising thumbs-up, since I'm not a big Stout guy. The Dunkel Weiss was thick and had some great flavor. The Doggie Style Pale Ale was my favorite of the three. I've found that you just can't go wrong with any of the Flying Dog beers! Great stuff. I also had a bottle of Wells Banana Bread beer, but it didn't count towards my 200 since you're limited to tallying three per night, no matter how many you put down. Anyway, that beer was bananas (B-A-N-A-N-A-S), sorry, had to. THAT one was the best of the night. I'd order one of those every time I went if I could.

I promise I will post messages sooner next time.

Peace

Good Buds

Jude & Kerrigan

Testing the New Camera

Ah, finally... we got a new camera.

Doesn't make me look any better but it takes good pictures :)
I put the timer on for this one, that's why it's off-center, but I like the way it turned out.

Christmas Card

Here is this year's Christmas card... if we have your address, you'll get one of these in the mail. If you don't get one, it's not that we don't like you, it's just that we don't have your address :) The fun part was that my neighbor (who sadly moved to Texas) took this picture for us beyond our backyard and I did the rest myself in Photoshop. The not-so-fun part is that it is the 2nd week of December and we're wearing t-shirts... Bring the SNOW and the 10 degree weather!!! These are the days I miss Wisconsin.

Eric with Aunt Amy

Eric Isaac Sorkin

Jude and Kerrigan with their new nephew, Eric.

Great job, Michael & Karen. You made a good lookin' kid!

The Burrito Ride

Jude loves it when I do this for him...

Accidental Flush...

I have a heart-breaking/funny story about Kerrigan.

Tonight when I was putting the kids to bed, I was in the kid's room tucking in Jude while Kerrigan was in the bathroom. I was walking toward the bathroom when I heard Kerrigan say, 'daddy', so I opened the door to see what she needed. As I opened the door she started to scream, and I'm not talking about a stubbed toe scream, this was a 'there's a big creepy bug, a bat, a lion and an alien in the bathroom with me' type of scream! I held on to her and tried to ask what happened, but she was incoherent and inconsolable and only screamed harder and louder. I was a little scared, I didn't know what was going on or what had happened. She had been fine a moment ago, but then went to pieces in the period of a few seconds. I thought maybe she slammed her finger in the toilet seat cover, but it didn't look like it.

So, all this happened within a few seconds... I tried asking her again what happened and by this time I hear Amy flying up the stairs. Kerrigan wailed something that sounded like, 'I lusssssssed I saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.'

Amy got it before I did. She said, 'Kerrigan, did you flush your sock in the toilet?"

She unburried her face from my chest and cried, "YEEEEEESSSSSSSSS!" and screamed even louder.

Amy and I, in spite of Kerrigan's trauma, started cracking up (are we bad parents?) and laughed. I held my poor little girl and tried to comfort her. Finally she settled down enough where we were able to get out of her exactly what happened: She had changed into her pj's in the bathroom before going potty. She picked up her clothes and tried to flush when one of her socks fell into the toilet and helplessly watched it swirl off into sewer oblivion. She was SOOO upset; it was a very special sock, you know?

It's not over yet... So we get Kerrigan settled down a bit and then we hear Jude crying in his room. We go in to see what's up and he's hiding under his covers, visibly shaken. Seeing that Jude was crying, Kerrigan started up again. He had never heard Kerrigan cry like that beofre (none of us had, even when she had 2nd degree burns on her leg when she was a baby, I don't remember her crying so loud).

It took about 10 minutes to restore order. I had to dramatically re-inact (which wasn't too far off from what happened) the whole event before they both started seeing the humor in the whole thing and began laughing as we re-told the story to each other several times before we said it was enough and it was time for bed.

It's still not over yet... a little while after all had settled down, Ames and I were downstairs watching Sunday Night Football, Kerrigan came down asking if she could use the downstairs bathroom because she didn't want to accidentally flush her sock again... Poor little sweetie.

Ames is going to get her some new socks tomorrow.

3 More Down & New Job

Well, today was my last day at Phillips Architecture. It was a great gig while it lasted, but hopefully the new job that I start on Monday will be another exciting and fruitful chapter in the Smith book of fun.

Speaking of fun, a handful of friends from Phillips met up at the Flying Saucer at quittin' time to knock a few back, and that we did. I marked three more notches on my 200 goal. Below are my latest additions:


Ska Buster Nut Brown Ale
Container: Bottled
Style: Brown Ale
City: unassigned
Country: United States
Description: This brown ale produces a nice head that lasts awhile. The flavor has a touch of nuttiness due to the use of Victory & Munich malts. Well rounded brown ale with a touch of hop character.




Pauwel Kwak
Container: Bottled
Style: Belgian Strong Ale
Brewer: Brouwerij Bosteels
City: Buggenhout
Country: Belgium
Description: Full-bodied Belgian Specialty Ale. Amber in color with beautiful foam and slightly sweet, seductive malt character. Rich, satisfying Belgian experience. 8% abv




Flying Dog Tire Bite
Container: Draught
Style: Kolsch
Brewer: Flying Dog Brewery
City: Denver,CO
Country: United States
Description: Light lager, Kolsch style beer, with a well balanced taste and a hint of hops. Finishes very smooth and is refreshing for hot days. 5.1% abv




They were all very good. The Ska ale was excellent, a micro-brew. The Belgian ale was interesting, kinda wish they had served it in it's intended kwak glass though, that would have been cool. The Tire Bite kolsch tasted a lot like a Miller Lite. Sorry I'm not a better beer reviewer guy... Maybe by the time I reach 50, I'll do better :)

Anyway, on Monday I start at MI Homes. Really looking forward to making new friends, learning new stuff and having lots of fun.

Wish me luck.

Bitter-Sweet

After exactly two years of working for Phillips Architecture here in Raleigh, I'm moving on. I have made so many great friends there and loved my work very much, but an opportunity came up at MI Homes that I could not pass up. So now, instead of Commercial buildings, I'll be working on residential homes.

Here's to good friends and a smooth transition.

Cheers. [clink]

The Flying Saucer

Today, I became a member of the Flying Saucer's UFO Club.

My first beer was a Breckenridge Vanilla Porter on tap. It's listed as "an ale that has all the chocolate and roasted flavor of a classic Porter with an enigmatic surprise thrown in for good measure, real vanilla bean. Smooth, roasted and chocolate with a creamy vanilla finish."

Very interesting. I'm not a Porter-guy, but it wasn't bad.

One down, one hundred ninety-nine to go. Ah, an explaination is in order...

The Flying Saucer is a bar in downtown Raleigh. There are ten other Flying Saucer locations scattered throughout the U.S. as well. They have over 200 beers in house from all over the world. Some friends and I went there a month or so ago and sampled about 20 beers alone. We ordered a Ireland sampler, a UK sampler and a North Carolina sampler. Each sampler plate had 8 large shot glasses of different beers from that area. Needless to say, that was a very good night.

One of the cool things about the place is that the walls are absolutely plastered with gold plates (they look like drum cymbals). If members of the UFO Club drink 200 different beers, you get your name on a plate which is mounted on the wall and they give you a free $100 bar tab for the night to celebrate.

So, as I said earlier... one down, one hundred ninety-nine to go.

Action Shot

I just got this photo in the mail from my rafting trip.

I LOVE IT!

I'm sitting right in the middle and hamming it up to the camera right in the middle of a Class V.

Right before this picture was taken, we went over a five-foot drop.

Awesome!

Kid's School Pictures

Family Star Wars Trivia

Jude & Kerrigan are in full-blown Star Wars interest right now. Jude is reading excellently, so he reads all the trivia questions. I can't tell you how happy I am that they are finally getting into it. Jude loves Jawas, Chewbacca, Obi-Wan, Anakin, Luke, Han and the Ewoks. Kerrigan likes R2-D2, Princess Leia and Ewoks. I can't tell you how hard it is to find Star Wars action figures for them to play with. The new ones in stores now are expensive... I have some of my old ones that I gave to them, but if anybody sees any at garage sales or anything, let me know...

No more training wheels

We took the training wheels off Jude's bike this week... He was off on his own on the first try.

Whitewater Rafting on the Gauley River

This weekend, I went Whitewater Rafting in West Virginia with some of the guys in our church. What a blast! (The guys above from left to right are: me, Shaun, Bob, Blair, Brett, Jennings & Taylor.) We rafted the Lower Middle Gauley River which had several class III rapids and also several class IV & class V's. I did Jump Rock, about a 20-ft cliff, into the Gauley which was excellent. I was able to sit in the front seat for half the trip. All eight of us on the raft were able to jump out on the swimming rapids and float down for about 1/2 mile.



I took some beautiful pictures while out there... however, digital cameras and white water rapids are a combination doomed for failure. I thought I was prepared; I had the camera in a zip-loc baggie, but the water seeped through half-way through the rapids and the camera was dripping. I was able to salvage the memory card from it, so all the shots I took to that point were saved. So, could we have a moment of silence for my Sony digital camera that has brought memories to my family for the last five years?

-sigh-


That's me & Jennings above, and below is the last picture I took with my ill-fated camera. It may not look like much, but the rapids past the big rock in the center of the picture was the point where the water got into it. If you think, 'What rapids? Water looks a little calm to me!' you are correct. The only time I had to take pictures was when we were in between rapids. If I had shot any pictures of when we were in the middle of the Class III's, IV's, or V's my camera would have been tanked from the beginning. :) If you want to see some rapids footage, check out this website, its a few action shots of our group on the Gauley. I don't know how long these pictures will be up on that website, so I won't be surprised if the link is broken after a week or so.

Image seven-thousand five-hundred... I guess I won't be posting any 'new' photos until we buy a new one. Until then, I have plenty that I can post.

2007 Fantasy Football Draft Complete

I just got done with a 4-hour draft for the fantasy football league I am in. I made this logo for my team about 10 years ago and still use it.

For those of you interested in these sorts of things, here are the players I drafted by position:

QB: Donovan McNabb (PHI), Brett Favre (GB), & Tarvaris Jackson (MIN)
RB: Brian Westbrook (PHI), Edgerin James (ARI), Vernand Morecy (GB), Chris Brown (TEN), & Chris Henry (TEN)
WR: Anquan Bolden (ARI), Plaxico Burress (NYG), Joey Galloway (TB), & Greg Jennings (GB)
TE: Ben Walston (NE)
K: Jeff Wilkins (STL)
DEF: San Diego Chargers

Not a bad draft considering it was a keeper league.

I'm sure this season will be full of frustration and bad moves like they always are. I always seem to bench the guys who go off and play the guys who lay an egg...

Kerrigan's First Day of Kindergarten

Doesn't it just seem a few months ago when I posted a picture Jude's first day of Kindergarten????

Me and Jones

Just me and my little man.