"An optimist stays up to see the New Year in. A pessimist waits to make sure the old one leaves" columnist Bill Vaughan

Another year is almost through and it's time to look back on the year-that-almost-was and make plans for the next 365 days. 

2010 saw a lot of pivitol moments for the Rappingers (namely the start of this blog). It also saw Geoff finishing his Photo-A-Day project, and the wedding after wedding of family and friends. 

Mostly, though 2010 can be summed up like this:

Geoff worked...

and worked... 

And worked some more...

So, what's there to look forward to in 2011? Well here at LaaR (sidenote: worst. acronym. ever) you'll be seeing more of what you love: namely more inane babbling and the photos. Lots of photos.

The goal will be to post to the blog more regularly. And with what Katie and I have planned for the year I think that's something we'll be able to do. 

Speaking of which: After the success of my 365 project (read: I finished it by cheating. A LOT). I've decided to start again, albeit a big more relaxed. This time it's a tag team effort, with the K-Dizzle and I working to take a family photo once a week.

Yes, boys and girls, we're talking FAMILY PORTRAITS of the Rappingers. 

There'll be some good ones:

"Good," of course, meaning I find it kinda funny

There will be some bad ones:

Like this one I tried to do in September. Just very boring and not well thought out.

As well as several taken at the last minute but by the end of the year we should have a pretty accurate account of 2011 just in time to say hello to 2012.

So mostly, as far as the blog is concerned 2011 plans to bring more of the same. If you have any suggestions for a 365 photo for us, or ideas on what you'd like to see more of (did you like the Halloween movie reviews?) we'd love to hear from you. 

The new year is T minus 9 hours and counting.

We'll see you on the other side.




---Geoff

In hopes that St. Þvörusleikir soon will be there

It's Christmas-time in the Rappinger house and while Katie has been decking the halls and hanging her stockings by the chimney with care, Geoff is thinking of spicing things up a little bit.

I recently met a woman from Sweden who regaled me with the traditional Christmas celebrations of her home, and it got him thinking: Whose to say that our Christmas traditions are the right ones?

Whose to say that somewhere in the world the idea of a large bearded man keeping constant tabs on young children and sneaks into their homes in the middle of the night to leave them tokens of his affection isn't considered ODD?

So next year, I think, we should celebrate an Icelandic Christmas.

See in Iceland there’s no such thing as Santa. Instead there are 13 troll-like creatures called “The Yule Lads" (seriously, I’m not making this up)

The Yule Lads are small creatures that attack the homes of all 350,000 Icelandians by stealing bowls of porridge and sausage and pretty much everything else.

See the Lads invade on Dec. 12 one at a time until Christmas day and (in ancient times) were said to STEAL CHILDREN WHO WERE TOO POOR TO AFFORD NEW CLOTHES.

Back in the day, I guess, new clothes were a reward for being a good child.

Nowadays, though, with Santa spreading the Christmas cheer across the globe the Lads have had to take a more child-friendly (read: non-kidnapping) approach to the holidays.

These days the Yule lads still steal sheep and whatever, but they also leave gifts in shoes left on the windowsill. If the kid finds himself on the Icelandic “naughty” list they might get a raw potato instead of a lump of coal.

The Lads are mostly single minded. Almost all of them have a never ending hunger for table scraps that they grab in various ways.

There is.... 

Stekkjastaur, the Sheep Cote Clod has two peg legs and 
steals sheep to drink their milk... (Again, I swear 
I am not making any of this up)

The second is Giljagaur, The Gully Gawk. 
He sneaks into the barn and drinks the froth 
off the pails of milk (That. Is. Gross.)

 And then there's Shorty, a.k.a. Stúfur. This is the 

smallest of them all, and he scraps the scraps of 

food off pans in the kitchen.

Þvörusleikir, the Spoon-licker steals the used wooden spoons 
from the kitchen and licks all 
the food off of them.

Likewise Pottasleikir the Pot-licker goes for the dirty 

pots and pans and licks the scraps off of them. 

Askasleikir, the Bowl-licker takes a different approach. He hides under 
people's beds and waits for you to finish with your midnight snack, 
then he grabs the bowl from off the floor and licks it clean. (I'm starting 
to sense a pattern here...)

Apparently not content with stealing table scraps, 
Hurðaskellir (the door slammer) 
spends his days slamming doors and 
keeping people awake all night.

Skyr is a popular milk curd/yogarty food that Icelandics seem to enjoy, 

and Skyr-Gobbler (Skyrgámur) sneaks into the pantries and cupboards 

of families and raids the skyr stash for a midnight snack.

As you might guess from the drawing, Bjúgnakrækir, the sausage 

swiper loves him some meat and steals as much of it as he can get.

By far one of the creepiest of the Lads, The Window Peeper  
Gluggagægir is pretty self explanatory, he creepily sits 
outside your window and watches everything you do, looking 
for things to steal for himself.

Then there's my favorite. Known as Gáttaþefur The

Door Sniffer this big schnauzed individual can smell 

cake from a mile away and will snatch one or two

for himself.

Then there's Ketkrókur Meat Hook comes to take his own prize. 
Like the Sausage Swiper Meat Hook loves meat and uses a gnarly 
hook to grab meat from the roof.

And then there's the last of the Lads. By far the most pathetic of 

them the Candle Beggar Kertasníkir isn't mean like the Door 

Slammer or hungry like most of the others, he just wants a 

candle to see. Is that so wrong?

Now, before you start naysaying with cries that these are LAME Christmas elves to be worshipping, I should mention that since the 13 Lads arrive one at a time each day before Christmas, Icelandic children traditionally receive 13 presents on Christmas, one from each Lad.

So whose with me? It’s a bit late now, but what say we get together Christmas 2011 and line the shoes on the windowsill for some goodies from Þvörusleikir, Skyrgámur and Ketkrókur?

Sounds like a plan to me!

So, from all of us here at Life as a Rappinger, Merry Jól, everyone and have a happy New Nýársdagur!

C is for Christmas

Every year Katie's family gets together during Christmastime to make cookies.

 

There's about a dozen members of the family who get together every year. They each bring some cookie dough and frosting and spend a few hours just shooting the breeze and making cookies.

I'm not sure how many cookies they make at one of these get-togethers, but I'd venture they make about 160 pounds of cookie.

See what I mean?

It's a fun little tradition which usually involves everyone standing around and chatting while three people actually MAKE the cookies.
 

I demand cookies. Now.

It also lets us hang out with some family members that we don't see every day. Like this little one.

"Hmmm... I think I need more fuzzy balls on my sweater."

Once the cookies are baked then everyone starts to decorate them.

Megan is a firm believer in the "superglue" theory of cookie decoration.

It's a tradition that mostly involves the women-folk and --- as usual --- I was the only gentleman to partake.

Multi-colored frosting is a must, and everyone has their own thoughts on what makes a quality cookie.

I first considered the "Jackson Pollock" approach to decorating...

But in the end settled for Winnie the Cookie, although some at the party said it was actually an L.A. Lakers bear

*GEOFF'S NOTE:  THIS IS WRONG.

Others opted to make  UO Duck Santa Ghost...thing.

Needless to say, I have about 80 pounds of cookie sitting on my counter if anyone wants to come over and savor some frosting and sugar cookie.

Come on, don't they look delicious?

Geoff's Kinda Crappy Videos #5: Football Edition

It's time for another edition of Geoff's Kinda Crappy Videos. These are short documentaries that my newspaper The Times has started doing over the last few months.

This one is about Aloha High School football. The team went on to win the state championships this year, but back when we made this they had just made the playoffs.

For those not content with the piss poor quality of this upload, go here. Otherwise, enjoy:

VIDEO: Zoo Lights 2010

A couple of weeks ago Katie and I went to Zoo Lights at the Oregon Zoo. A bunch of zoos across the country do something similar, but essentially they put a gazillion Christmas lights up around the zoo and you wander around after hours and enjoy.

It's something my family has always made a habit of going to every year, and Katie was always forced to sing Christmas carols at Zoo Lights in high school.

This year it was Katie's niece who was singing and we went and watched her perform. It was a fun time and I've managed over the last few weeks to string together enough time to make this: It's a short video I threw together of the performance and some lights.

Just to be clear, I didn't shoot this using my normal Nikon D60, I used this:

Also, this was taken with our super sweet new 35mm lens, but more on that later...

It's an old Canon Powershoot A710. They don't make these anymore, so the video quality isn't exactly going to be in HD, nor is the sound.

But I had fun, so suck it.

Oh, and Merry Christmas.

 

In the still of the chill of the night

This may sound counter-intuitive but there’s something really nice about being at work really, unreasonably, early.

"...and that is why Ace of Cakes is the greatest show on television today. The End."

For those of you who don’t know what I do for a living (like --- for example --- stalkers or our friends in the Russian Federation) I work for a small town newspaper just outside of Portland. Once a week on production day I get to work early. I mean E A R L Y to finish up my stories and get started putting the newspaper together.

By early I mean "I didn't even know that time existed" early. I'm talking "Holy Crap What the Heck are you THINKING!?!" early.

This week I was at my desk at 3:30 in the a.m. and didn't get home until about 5 or 6 in the nighttime.

And you know what? It’s really nice.

Yes, you read that clock right. It's 4 a.m

Now, I don’t consider myself much of a “morning person” but I have to say that there is something incredibly relaxing about being up when the rest of the world is asleep.

Everything is so quiet. You feel like you're the only person in the entire world.

Plus my 45-minute-long drive to work is also shorted to about 17 minutes, which is REALLY nice

I’m used to early mornings, having had them most of my childhood, but I’ve never really embraced them. Most of the time I’m too groggily choking down caffeine and sweating bullets to get my stories finished to realize it, but today I really enjoyed myself.

The newsroom has a tendency to get a little crazy during the day. People spend their days running around, making calls, shouting across the cubicles at each other, driving back and forth and everything else that has to do with making deadlines.

But at 3:30 in the morning, when you’re sitting in the office in the dark, all alone. When there’s nobody around but you and your thoughts and Pandora turned up as loud as you want it’s actually quite relaxing.

And hey, I.T.-guy from work, if you're reading this: Yes. I use Pandora. At work. And don't care if it takes away bandwidth from everybody else in the building. It's 4 a.m. and I'm at work. I'm gonna listen to whatever the heck I like. Deal with it.

Of course, I'm write this after having worked a 14-hour day yesterday, so I might just be a little sleep deprived.

I'm gonna go to bed now.

Speaking of Pandora, everyone should listen to Seasick Steve. You shan't be disappointed.