Did Ya get a cool Christmas gift?

My Grand Daughter got these from the folks in da hood. The folks are bucks down but they/she make the solar system from some marbles. Really neat!!! [img][/img]

My daughter had a big flat screen TV installed for me when I was at work as a surprise. I wouldn't give up my old TV until it quit working. My son gave me a blue ray DVD player. It was too cool.

My youngest son bought me a dashcam. It takes continuous video in 5 minute segments (720p quality). It was very inexpensive, but I think I'm gonna have some fun with it. Here's a pic of the bicycle version. The one I got has a suction cup and a small arm to hold the camera.

In addition to using it in my car, I'm thinking I might put some velcro on it and attach it to my bike helmet when I ride. It is very small.

My daughter got me and her dad tickets to see Bill Cosby.

Four days with the grandkids.....paradise.

2seaoat wrote:Four days with the grandkids.....paradise.

The only 'toy' I received this Christmas.

I did get pistachios, X-Files seasons 8 & 9, a Starbucks gift cert, long johns, gloves, a large box of Crunch and Munch, and a few other minor things.

*****SMILE*****

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J16lInLZRms

I got some supremely cool gifts from my family. Santa gave me two silver necklaces that he picked up in Gallup. Santa's cutest Elf ever, my mom, has a wholesaler's license and we often get really neat silver jewelry from Gallup, which is her favorite place to do silver-buys.

My parents gave me two things, one was a Navajo bracelet, which I now have quite a large collection of... but all of them are different in size and style. Also have a smaller collection of silver Hopi jewelry (and one silver and turquoise piece, which is very special), and when my folks got married they gave each of us girls Hopi inlay rings, and my brother a necklace (he was 6 and was into wearing puka shell necklaces at the time... couldn't pay him good money to wear jewelry these days!).

The second thing my folks gave me is The Coolest Gift I got by FAR. My dad is a blacksmith and began making me a collection of fire tools (for the woodstove) some years back. I also have a firebox shovel he made for me, but it wouldn't fit into the picture, so it got the boot. lol. You might notice that there are two very similar tools, one is shorter than the other and made of different material. The shorter piece is extremely special to me. It is made from a piece of steel from the old flume near our family's cabin in the Cascade Mtns of Colorado. My granddad, who passed long before I was born, worked on that flume and managed it via the Dept of Water & Power that was just down the road from our cabin (the cabin is still there).

Anyhow, this year my dad made me the straight tool with the red rubber tip. It's hollow, and is a precise blow-tool for firestarting or re-starting when I've got hot coals left over. Phenomenally cool. I only noticed when I looked at the picture that the blower-tool is also of different material. I'll have to ask Dad what he made it out of. Could just be because it had to be made of round-stock. Dunno.

Huh. Just noticed that I could have included the shovel Dad made me by setting it on the lower step. Oh well. You get the idea. All the pieces except for the one made from the flume steel have fishtail-styled handles. And, I'm not sure if you can see it or not, but you'll see something orange in color near the top of the new blow-tool. It's wrapped in copper with a thumb piece, both as decoration and so I have something to grip. And obviously, the rubber tip is the part that I blow through, so I don't chip a tooth by accident.



I zoomed-in on the copper wrap... blurry, but at least it doesn't look so much like an orange smudge!



But, the greatest gift by far was being able to spend Christmas with my family... especially with my granny.

hallmarkgrad wrote:My Grand Daughter got these from the folks in da hood. The folks are bucks down but they/she make the solar system from some marbles. Really neat!!!

Oopsie... also meant to say in my above post that the marbles your neighborhood folks gave to your granddaughter are VERY cool, hg.

Shoot, I remember loving to play marbles when I was a kid and honestly didn't think that too many youngsters were into them anymore. Shows you what I know!

A dozen energy gels and some special Cliff bars[img][/img]

2 pair of very good riding shorts. I dont know how she knew Saxo bank is one of my favorite teams.
[img][/img]

hallmarkgrad wrote:A dozen energy gels and some special Cliff bars

2 pair of very good riding shorts. I dont know how she knew Saxo bank is one of my favorite teams.

Hubba hubba, HG! I never thought you'd be the lycra/spandex-shorts type of guy. And all this time here I was thinking the guy below was the only man on Earth who should be allowed to wear lycra/spandex shorts!



In other exciting news, I recognize the Skoda branding on your shorts from seeing their cars all over Europe. I'm not sure if I recall correctly, but if memory serves they're owned by one of the big German automakers. I have actually ridden one several times. My friend Katarina is from the Czech Republic and brought hers from there to Denmark when she moved there. She took me on a roadtrip all around DK (main island) one day. Yeah, it's that small. lol. As was the car. It gave me a serious case of claustrophobia. Thank god our rental was one of those gigantor Mercedes sedans.

Guess I should look up Skoda to make sure I'm not making shit up here. I'm fairly certain I'm right, though.

By the way, what the hell is the difference between lycra and spandex??

Yes, Škoda is owned by VW since the fall of communism... 1990/1991.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%A0koda_Auto

Pretty interesting read. They began as a bicycle manufacturer. Quoted from above, the founder of Škoda wrote to a German company,...

"...asking them to carry out repairs, only to receive a reply, in German, stating: "If you would like an answer to your inquiry, you should try writing in a language we can understand."

...and the story goes on from there.

Of all the different folks I've dealt with professionally, I have had the most communication and dealings with Germans. Unfortunately, my experiences mirror that reflected above, all the while knowing full-well that their English was better than my own. lol. Ya gotta butter 'em up, them Germans! And when you're a woman, you must be treat the men with deference and refer to them by their proper titles.

HG, I got 2 fuzzy vibrating ball pillows.

I thought it was about giving. Why ask about getting?
I gave what I thought the people I give to wanted, but would never buy for themselves.

Birthdays are for getting. Until then, give a little.

Ghandi wrote:I thought it was about giving. Why ask about getting?
I gave what I thought the people I give to wanted, but would never buy for themselves.

Birthdays are for getting. Until then, give a little.

it is about giving. i did mostly giving, but i got a couple little things tht were interesting.

my furry vibrating ball pillows massage my neck and lower back soooo good...

hallmarkgrad wrote:I usually wear a pair of loose nylon outer pants over my riding shorts. I know they look funky but they really do the job they were designed for. I ride solo 99% of the time so I try to minimize any clothing issues. In the summer I wear long cotton T shirts w/pocket that works well. Cycling jerseys have 3 pockets on the back side that makes it very easy to carry your food, phone etc, but I find them to be a bit warm and too tight.
I dont know why the Energy Gels are not more popular. They really work great and are a great way to keep you stamina up. Hard to find them in this area at a good price.
Some bike gear looks pretty weird but it works. I only average 12 to 14 mph on long runs so a 60 mile ride is around 5 hours maybe a little more if I stop anywhere. It is not fun if your clothes don't fit right or you don't carry what you want to eat with you. I rode 3,000 miles 1n 14 months 2011/12. That is close to 250 hours on the road. But I like it and it something that keeps me from from going crazy(er)

I was just ribbin at ya, hg. I wouldn't imagine you would choose to wear lycra shorts if they didn't serve a good purpose. So it's just you and Georges St Pierre for me, hg. lol. A couple of my good friends (actually both of them are ex-boyfriends) are avid cyclists and I think the jerseys are pretty neat. I like the zipper pockets. Their pockets covered like the whole bottom half of the jersey. Oh, but maybe that's because they rode distance. They bicycled all over Central America, mostly in Guatemala and Belize for a year and a half together. They both wrote me frequent and long letters during their trip, and it was interesting to see the differences and similarities in what they both experienced... while experiencing the same things.

Hey, I got a bunch of Clif bars, which I do not like. I should send 'em to you. Ha ha.

Hey, you put more miles on your bike in 14 months than I will have put on my pickup in as many, come the end of January. That's pretty cool. Not a normal driving year for me since I started working from home, but I sure have liked not having to go to town every day. Congratulations on that awesome accomplishment, hg!