Repurposing Toys
So early this morning my young nephews got these wicked cool tiny remote controlled helicopters. Amazing. They buzz around like big wasps, annoying but fascinating. Later today the older nephews showed up. They found the other presents the young ones got... Nerf "dart" guns. These are pretty cool as well.

Put them together and you have anti-aircraft warfare in the family room. The younger nephews dodging and weaving their aircraft to avoid the foam darts shot with deadly accuracy by the older more experienced nephews. I kept expecting to hear "Flight of the Valkyries" and the smell of napalm. My parents have a huge family room with a very high ceiling. Even so if you entered the room during the battle you were either attacked by a buzzing tiny helicopter around your head or hit by the Nerf darts. This went well until one of the darts broke a rotor on a helicopter rendering it incapable of flying. However as part of the crack repair team, I was able to fix the broken blade with the scotch tape I bought as a gift at the Wawa.

The Turkey Incident
My mother had decided to try something new this year. She cooked the turkey in one of those plastic bag thingies. She was nervous because she's never used one before, she's a traditionalist. An old fashioned Mennonite cook. As the morning wore on, we were all in the kitchen talking when we noticed a smell of burning turkey juice... and smoke coming out of the oven. I quickly turned off the oven. Opening the door? Big mistake. The whole house quickly filled with smoke. We proceeded to open every window and door until my brother in law the home inspection expert closed everything but the front and back doors creating a suction to pull out the smoke. It was quite nasty but the turkey survived and was quite good. Apparently the bag leaked and drippings fell onto the oven and burnt.

Christmas Shopping at the Wawa*
Once again, for the third year, I repeated my holiday tradition of buying gifts for everyone at the Wawa on Christmas eve. The single serve cereals were a big hit with the "middle" nephews. My brother in law said he really did need the tire pressure gauge. I gave my other brother in law the plastic funnel. One sister got a box of black tea. The other one got the cardboard disposable salt and pepper shakers. My brother got a pair of work gloves. The oldest nephew got the chapstick.

The two younger nephews got something I bought earlier at a local thrift store that was going out of business. I got there one day before they shut the doors, Dec 23. There was NOTHING left. Some ugly ugly puke green shiny nylon drawstring pants... XXXL. Some hideous woman's shirts and a few chipped plates. But I did find two very tacky but colorful balsa wood decorations made in Guatemala. A toucan with the tip of its beak broken off and a fish with a missing fin. I told them the next time I visit I expect to see these items prominently displayed in their rooms. (I gave the chipped plate to my sister who got the tea.) My dad got the Chef Boyardee single serve microwavable ravioli and my mother got some Blistex (hey don't be critical. I had already given her a really nice Macintosh a few months earlier.)

Let's make one thing clear before you judge me too harshly, all the siblings absolutely agreed to and promised NO exchanging of gifts. I came home tonight with two bags of loot. To end this story I give you the ultimate irony. My sister gave me a $25 Wawa gift card. The stuff I bought was less than $20. I came out ahead by a 5 whole dollars... which leads to further irony...

The $5 Binoculars
On christmas eve my sister and her husband showed me some very nice binoculars they were giving to our father. "What a bargain Vern! Only 5 dollars!". Okay, nice gift. I don't think of my dad as a big fan of binoculars but he might enjoy them. Later I was helping my sister wrap gifts for her two boys... uh... they each got... a pair of the same binoculars... "What a bargain Vern! Only 5 dollars!". Fine. Kids like binoculars. Today when the ENTIRE Zehr clan were gathered to give out the gifts no one was suppose to have bought anyway, I was handed an oddly familiar shaped package... "What a bargain Vern! Only 5 dollars!". My brother opened his... "What a bargain Jay! Only 5 dollars!"

I came up with the following theory:



Later when I was packing up to leave for the evening... I had no idea which of the 5 pairs of identical binoculars were mine. I picked one at random.

The "Actors"
As you may or may not know I am working on an animated short to promote Animation Master. I need some sounds of an audience in front of a stage at a trade show demo. What a great opportunity! All my family in one place. I can get them to make crowd noises and I can layer this to make it sound like a larger group. It's difficult getting everyone in one room together so I decided to do this in smaller groups.

The first group:



Perfect job on the first take. Next up was the slightly ominous "oooohs" and then the final cheering and applause. Perfect job. On to the next group.



Eventually we got the job done. I commended them on a fine performance and there was much discussion of missed acting opportunities and how naturally talented our family is. I asked if anyone felt they needed to sign any waivers... they all wanted a percentage of the profits. I promised them all equal shares of any money I make... or a pair of binoculars.

-vern

*for those who don't know, the Wawa is a local convenience store like a 7-11... but much better.

Ay! I paid $10 for a pair of them Vivitar bino's... at $5---that's quite a BARGAIN!

Dawn and I drove to NYC this past October and on the way home thru PA we happened upon a WAWA. I got a big cuppo coffee/doughnut and Dawn got a Roast Beast sandwich made to order... we both agrred the place was really fantastic and we wished there was one by our house, cause we would go there all the time.

I got one of them heliocopters too. It hovers great but I can't figger out how to make it go forward.

I don't think it goes forward. I think you can only turn left or right. The beauty of those things is how stable they are. My nephews are really young and they had them flying around almost instantly. They got two in a package. They can "shoot" each other with them. If you hit the other helicopter it causes the controls to go all wonky.

-vern

Sounds like a nice holiday

Thanks Vern a lot more interesting then the traditional wrapping paper fight after the gifts are open at my family's get together. No one injured with any wads of paper and bows flying around the room.

John- YOUR Christmas sounds great...I want a paper fight too!

VERN- My heliocopter flew nice and straight too...the 1st time. Every time since it has spun wildly out of control and damages itself worse and worse each crash. My cats don't help... they see them as 'Charlie'... I see in the directions there is supposed to be a 'shoot down' button but my remote is lacking this button. ALSO- the directions are almost hilariously written in Chinese-esque Engrish...very bad. I actually did not glint one piece of usefull knowledge after scrutinizing them for 30 minutes... we should get that guy to make us some Hash toots!

My nephews helicopters had "trim" adjustments on the remote. Left and right trim. One of the copters would "spin" like that. I was able to fix it by adjusting the trim until it stopped spinning and flew straight... uh... you have cats? Check the tiny rotors for hairs wrapped around the "axle" that caused spinning problems as well. We had to pull the hairs out and fix the trim constantly on one of the helicopters. There was also some vague instructions for "twisting" the tail to adjust trim. These suckers were constantly being shot down by nerf darts for 3 days straight and still kept flying.

By the way, the ants never showed up but we did hook up the lights and used the empty "farms" as a pretty center piece on the table.

------

I always get some "mad money" from the folks for christmas. They insist we buy "fun" stuff with it (not groceries or underwear). Another local business was closing down with a huge "50% off everything must go" sale. It was a video/music store. Everything half price. I bought movies, blank DVDs, batteries etc. I have enough new DVDs to keep me entertained for weeks... possibly months. I got blank DVDs for like 20 cents a disk.

It's very annoying because the young attractive manager of the store would constantly encourage me to purchase one of those discount cards. A week before they closed she finally convinced me. $20 for a year with a 10% discount on any purchase.

When I got to the check out she was there:



My question is where were all these people before? Why weren't they buying half of what they are buying now at half price, over the last year when it would have made a difference? They were spending ten times more now then they would have spent all year at full price. People had stacks and stacks and huge bags of movies and CDs, games etc. They were only buying it because it was half price, and more than they would have otherwise.

I kept asking them when I went in over the last year or so since the Walmart opened nearby how business was going. They always lied apparently. I never buy movies online. If there is a store that carries an item I need or want I try to buy it locally to help keep the local businesses going. It doesn't seem to be working very well.

-vern