Welcome to NovemBeer

"Winter" days in the mid to high 70s/low 80s?  Yes please.  A few Saturdays back we hopped on the cruisers and made our way to midtown to check out the Mexican Cultural event taking place at the Herd Museum. This was the second time I'd attended, and a first for Jonathan. We perused various artist booths, bought two small pieces of art and enjoyed the live performance of a fantastic mariachi band. The music and singing of this mariachi band apparently calls to my soul, and quickly lulled me to a happy, strangely at home daze. However, after a few songs the grumbling of my stomach interrupted my zen moment providing the impetus to head off to our second event of the day.

 Back on our cruisers we continued South down Central Ave towards downtown Phoenix.  We were now headed to The Vig Downtown for lunch as well as an event named NovemBeer.  Can you guess the theme?  The Phoenix New Times was presenting 4 weekends dedicated to craft beer enjoyment, and the weekend we opted to attend was focused on stouts and porters.  After we ate lunch we sat outside for a moment and discussed our tasting approach, mine being undoubtedly brief since these heavier beers really are not my preference.

While I enjoyed some dark and stormys Jonathan kept up his end of the beer event and we enjoyed some high quality people watching.  As the afternoon and drinking continued people's apparent disbelief in the properties of sun screen became evident.  My favorite lobster was the guy sporting a stylistically saggy gray beanie on an 80 degree sunny day.  That was going to be a tan line he'd regret.  Also entertaining was the noticeably drunk beer server at one of the stations close to where we were sitting.  One pour for you, one chug for me.  Yeah, that sounds about right.

Feeling a little less excited for the entire ride home we lugged our over sized bikes onto the light-rail for a little more than half of our total trip, then hopped back on our bikes to finish the journey.

As much as I enjoyed our outdoor adventures on Saturday, Sunday was football day. A few boisterous heckles into the first game I noticed Sydney appeared slightly concerned with my fan aggression and felt the need to intervene.

Her discontent with my continued heckling was visible and she eventually managed to bring Jackson by as an additional plea for increased coach/heckling discretion. While the effort may have been genuine, my need to let players know that they ought to "run" and "catch the ball" is far too important to be left unsaid.
                                                                      


                                                                                       

As a fun finish to great weekend I made cookies Sunday evening and got to test out my new cookie cutter.  I truly wasn't too concerned with the detailed frosting, but was happy with how silly they turned out.  They were arrrrrrrguably the best lookin cookies I've made in a while!  And not to mention, they're mighty tasty.
                         

PS. We are hoping our smiley mugs made it to the NovemBeer site, but so far they only have pictures from last year...

  

Legotastic Halloween!

Despite the month of October's best attempts at passing me by, I was ready with this year's handcrafted Halloween costume the weekend before the big day. For a while I was having a creative costume block, no pun intended, but after a little inspiration from the interwebs I decided it was time to give another go at creating a Lego person costume.  This would be my second attempt at being a Lego and I was confident I could pull off the construction this time around.



Always helpful Sydney

 First came the body. Luck would have it we had recently purchased a new couch, which gave me ideal access to ample cardboard including a box large enough to fit over my body. I first cut away and bent in enough cardboard to create the Lego top slope, or Lego shoulders.  Then I created a top piece that would help stabilize the shape of the body, cover my shoulders and give the costume enough structure to rest on my shoulders rather than my arms.  Next, I cut out arm holes, and a hole just large enough to get my head through. Finally I covered nearly every inch of cardboard in yellow poster board and contemplated the start of the head piece.

 
Still a little timid about creating the head from scratch I started a quest for existing containers. One suggestion that looked not only easy but cheap was the container that holds a 2 year supply of cheesy poofs. You know the one, ubiquitous at big box stores, office break rooms and football parties. However ,my hopes for an easy, cheezy way out of crafting we're soon dashed after not one, nor two, but four different stores said they no longer carried the product.  No worries, Costco to the rescue in the form of way too many sourdough pretzels. The container shape was ideal!

Having returned home, it was time to test my newly purchased option. Seconds before I opened the container it hit me, just maybe, before it deal with this many pretzels I measure my head to see of the container will fit. Confidently I bagged the contents of the container, then rinsed it out and  shortly thereafter experienced my next "duh" moment. So, the container might fit around my head, but how the hell was I going to get it over my head.  After some hazardous, jagged plastic cutting I was able to pry apart the container and wrap it around my head only to quickly realize I'd neglected to include my nose in my measurement. I had to laugh at the silliness of it all as my nose squished against the walls of the container.

Later that day I made my way to the craft store and found exactly what we (Jonathan would be joining me with his own Lego costume) would need to create the classic cylindrical shape. 4 rounded, 12 inch in diameter wreath rings and a few foam disks later it was time to build.  I used bamboo kabob skewers and glue to secure the rings together in a tall enough cylinder that the top of my head wouldn't hit the top of the Lego head. I glued a piece of cardboard to the top circle, enabling me to glue on the top foam disks to create the iconic Lego connector.
 

Lots of tape, glue and and spray paint later the costume really came together. I created a little bikini top complete with a little tie in back and would later construct my skirt from hand cut palm frowns from our very own palm trees (Jonathan's creative idea). To finish up the head I smoothed over some rough edges with a little paper mâché action, which made me smile in appreciation of the various childhood projects involving plenty of paper strips and water/flour glue.

 The final element of our costumes were the Lego hands/arms. Jonathan chopped some extra large PVC pipe and I painted some flexible dryer tubing.  I wrapped the sharp C-hands in yellow duct tape then secured them to the tube arms with zip ties.

Our costumes were big hits at our Halloween block party, loved by kids and adults alike!  At one point Jonathan and I entertained the crowd by Lego-couple dancing to the music provided by the live band. Fun, fun,fun!

 


                                





Proof I wore it at work

On Thursday morning, Halloween, I had to drive Jonathan's car to work just to fit my Lego body in the trunk.  Just before I opened the door to exit the parking garage I had a moment of nervousness, but remembered, it's Halloween, and I was going to wear my Lego costume with pride!  I got a few "Awesome" shout outs and a friendly, impressed elevator companion. Seeing that I could not sit in my costume I stood behind my desk, typing on a raised keyboard stand and answering calls via headset inside my Lego head.  After the office costume contest I had to call it quits and set the costume aside until it was time to hand out candy.

Was this years costume a little more work, sure? Do I now have a scar on my arm from a hot glue gun incident, yup. Was it worth it, without a doubt!!  Less than a year till next Halloween!!