Philip and Colleen’s Blog
Posts tagged Colleen
First Non-Adjacent-State Family Visit
Nov 9th
My Dad and Karen came out from New Hampshire to visit us a little over a week ago. It was the first time we’ve had anyone from my family visit (they’re all from non-adjacent states). I took a couple days off of work so we could spend time together. We spent one day doing nothing, another day doing nothing except shooting at the gun range, and another day in Oklahoma City where we visited the bombing memorial and the OKC Museum of Art.
I didn’t get a picture of it, but there was a picture at the gun range that said “Hide your money, Hide your gun, Hide your Bible, Obama won”. Needless to say, it was awkward pulling up in our bright green xB (minus any McCain-Palin bumper stickers), without copious amounts of camouflage on.
Here are some pictures from the range and at the memorial:
Best…Gift…Ever
Jan 21st
I was browsing around the internet a couple weeks ago and stumbled across a website that had a sale price and free shipping on custom-printed glasses clothes.
$0.99 and 2 weeks later the package arrived from Hong Kong ($4 shipping had been paid by the sender).
There are at least three reasons why this is the best gift ever for Colleen:
- 1. A ridiculous picture of me
- 2. She almost always wears contacts
- 3. I got a great deal
I hope you enjoy the picture! To order your own custom-printed glasses cloth go to www.artscow.com.
For bonus points this entire post and the image were created on my iPhone using the WordPress app.
Farming Fun
Jan 4th
A couple months ago I found this book at Barnes and Noble about growing house plants from the fruits and vegetables you buy at the store. I decided to try one labeled as ‘easy’ to grow- an avocado. One of the tips from the book is to use bottom heat to speed germination. An official bottom heater for seedlings was way too expensive so I tried using our heating pad. Unfortunately our heating pad has a safety feature that turns it off after 30 minutes. After a few weeks of nothing happening to my avocado pits, Phil suggested I set them on top of the water heater and that seemed to do it. One of the funnest things about this whole thing is how Jack and Luke are so interested in the pits. Every time I check the sprouts they need to be there.
The next plant I want to try growing is a ginger plant. The book says it will be similar looking to a bamboo plant.
If We Lived in Springfield
Jul 6th
Even as a cartoon, Phil is a mouth-breather
After playing with Joe and Casie’s Wii this weekend and having so much fun with making goofy and freakish mii’s, we ‘Simpsonized’ ourselves at http://simpsonizeme.com
Birthdays, Tours, and Guitars
Oct 28th
Peg, Colleen, and Philip over St. Anthony Falls
Two weekends ago Colleen and I took my mom on a Segway tour of Minneapolis as an early birthday present (You can’t Segway in late November!). The tour was led by Human on a Stick, and lasted about 3 hours. We got to ride around the banks of the Mississippi and took a stop off at the Mill City Museum, which has ties to General Mills. Segways are a lot of fun to drive, and about half-way through the tour they had us swap out the keys to increase the top speed to 8mph. I almost wiped out a couple times when I was messing around by taking turns too sharply.
Last weekend we celebrated Brian’s 27th birthday here in Minneapolis. He brought his new Guitar Hero Rock the 80’s with him and we played that for several hours. The weather was wonderful so we spent some time walking around our neighborhood and looking at houses and condos.
A Bike Tour
Sep 19th
Last Sunday Phil and went on a bike tour of the downtown Minneapolis area. From the description we thought it would be about 20-30 people and a tour guide. What we found when we arrived at he Walker Art Center (the start point of the tour) was several thousand people.
I guess they meant tour as in tour de France or ‘let us tour around town on our bicycles in a turn of the century kind of way’ (see image at left). The grounds around the Walker Art Center were crawling with bikes and people and cars. I have never seen so many lumpy, mis-shapen, spandex encased men in my life. It didn’t matter if they were 5′4″ and 350 lbs or 6′7″ and 165 lbs, these guys were going to stretch the shiniest most obnoxious fabric they could find from their neck to their knees. It was like witnessing an accident. I knew I shouldn’t gawk at the horrors in front of me, but I couldn’t turn away until my brain understood what it was looking at.
It was a relief to finally start the ‘tour’ which turned out to be 15 miles around several of the ritziest lakeside downtown Minneapolis neighborhoods. It was a pretty fun couple of hours and the morning was perfect for it. We met a bunch of other GM people at the tour. This is a picture of Phil and me with other GM new comers Wei and Jie after the tour:
Wei, Colleen, Philip, Jie
Information Superhighway
Sep 13th
This is how I feel
We are finally connected to the World Wide Web again. I felt strangely isolated without it, which kind of scares me. I am almost done unpacking the apartment but we still have a couple of things to bring up from New Ulm. The last few weeks have been really stressful and weird.
I really miss everyone in Missouri. I feel like I lived there a lot longer than 3 months because of all the family and friends there. I am still looking for a job having to do with art that allows me enough time to still work on my own pieces.
Phil has been at General Mills for one week now and loves it. This Sunday we are going on a bike tour around the lakes in Minneapolis for new comers. Hopefully we can get some neat pictures to show everyone.
Portfolio
Aug 29th
I now have an official artwork portfolio. I am wondering what everyone thinks about it? I don’t know how much I like the ‘portfolio’ page of the site with the photo albums of my work. I would love comments or suggestions. I still want to have an art site that isn’t a portfolio but more of a works in progress type of thing. That will have to wait for now though.