Just being mean is the new awesome

I was in Hood River, Oregon over the weekend, and apparently the devil designs all the supermarkets out there.

From Russia, With Love is the new awesome

If it wasn't obvious by my last post, I really loved Russia. Much of it was what you would imagine - like, they really do have those golden domed churches all over the place like Epcot led you to believe, and they really do sell vodka by the liter in the grocery stores!

And though all the people in massive fur hats that we saw were usually tourists, at least Russia didn't disapoint with the large imposing Soviet looking heads and statues pretty much all over the city.

So those things you sort of expected, but there are also some fun quirks that you don't always read about. For instance - most of the apartments that I saw had two front doors. First front door:

Second front door, immediately inside the first:

Also, all of the rows of porta-potties in Moscow had one that had been converted into an office, where little cute russian women sit and take your money if you want to go to the bathroom. Hey. She has a better window view than I do in my cubicle, and apparently they are okay for napping too.

And, Russian women have a physique that makes it appear that they ingest umbrellas?
Moscow and St. Petersburg had their own mix of classic old Russia, and a new cosmopolitan Russia. Like, sometimes you would find yourself in front of the towering statues at Peterhof...

...and other times you might find that you were just standing in front of a Versace store. Practically the same thing.

We also saw so much art, since the Russians have alot of it (much of it stolen). Since many of the art museums didn't have captions written in English and my Russian doesn't extend much beyond "thank you" and "I am here to pick up my mail order husband," we were forced to make up our own captions for many of the fine pieces that we saw. Like this one, that I am pretty sure is called "Mom, I thought I told you not to come in my room when I have girls over!"

The language barrier did provide a few laughs along the way. We ate at a great little street stand that they had all over, which I wanted to pronounce as "Crapdogs" every time I saw it. However, we discovered that you actually say it a little bit like "Starbuck" which is especially funny because there is one of them on every corner in Moscow, much like Starbucks in the US.

Possibly the best of all? The super hardcore anti-riot squad over there is called OMOH, and they all run around trying to look tough with that printed on their backs. Someone hand them a mirror and and we can ALL have a good laugh.

You may wonder how the pursuit of a mail order husband went? Well, Emily better luck than I did. We stopped to watch a band in the Metro one night, and Emily was trying to take a photo, but this short, drunk russian guy kept sticking his face in her viewfinder. I'm not sure exactly how it all happened, but the next thing I knew he was yelling "american girl!" in english, and they were slow dancing in the middle of the crowd. Good friend that I am, I ignored the look of pure terror on emily's face and just photographed the whole incident instead.

I didn't have as much luck with the drunk Russians. I guess I am still holding out for the Russian mullet of my dreams.

the Hipster Mullet is the new awesome

Greetings, comrades. I made it back on American soil yesterday after taking care of some of that business that I mentioned a few weeks ago. I have some real photos to post, but first, I wanted to make a small tribute to my new favorite male hair accessory: the hipster mullet.

I know we have been seeing them all over the streets of Williamsburg for years, but I think I never truly had any feelings about the hipster mullet until I saw the sweet eastern-european version of it on practically everyone in Russia. Be still, my heart:

No, really. EVERYONE in Russia had a mullet - and not the full bodied w.t. american kind of mullet that you see on small town boys that ride around with the confederate flag and a gun rack in the back window of their pick-up trucks. These mullets were tailored to be just enough of a rat-tail/mullet combo that you almost couldn't tell that there was all this extra hair in the back of the head until you got a side glace. It was totally hot. I think I fell in love about 172 times a day based solely on haircut.

Behold! A stealthy collection of the hottest hair trend in Russia:








The girls have mullets. The dogs have mullets. Even the totally fash mannequins have mullets.


I know, right? You are all feeling weak in the knees right now, aren't you?

Pizzeria Seven Twelve is the new awesome

I know I've mentioned it before but the opening of Pizzeria Seven Twelve is getting closer by the day. All you lucky Utah readers will be able to visit this amazing restaurant anytime you want. For the rest of us stuck here in San Francisco, we'll just have celebrate by frequenting similar establishments like A16 and Pizzeria Delfina.

You can also track the progress of the opening at the new Pizzeria 712 Blog. My brother-in-law Joseph and his business partner Colton will be updating it regularly.

So rad.

Also, I want to apologize to the readers of the new awesome for the lack of awesome content lately. It's not that nothing awesome is going on in our lives. Quite the contrary in fact. But with all the awesome comes so much busy it's not even funny. Here's hoping things slow down a bit soon so we can post like we did back when we were cool.

Cornhole-ing in Ohio is the new awesome

You may remember my last trip to Ohio to visit Ben and Danielle and their new baby Abbey. Apparently they thought it had been too long since I had come to visit, so they decided to have another cute baby to lure me back out for another weekend.

Totally worth a trip to Ohio: Amelia!

Although I was excited to see Abbey again too, this time all grown up into a two year old, I fear the affection was not totally returned.


Now I feel your pain, bets.

Since you can see what I was up against, I feel no shame in admitting to having resorted to bribery in order to establish myself as Favorite Aunt. This obviously meant stocking up on some serious princess gear to make sure that Abbey didn't give me any more of that withering stink face. I thought it would be simple, but do you have any idea how many princess accessories there are out there these days? I spent a good hour in the pink section of Target analyzing different plastic tiara/earring/shoe/dress combos, and debating whether to throw in the talking magic mirror that exclaims "You're a pretty princess" or "Isn't it great to be royalty?" in a very affirming voice.

I think the tiara we came home with was a winner. Proof that even fake diamonds can totally be a girl's best friend:
The other important draw for this trip was the annual Columbus Neighborhood Cornhole Tournament. For those of you unfamiliar with Cornhole (make sure you don't get it confused with THAT kind of cornholing), it is favorite pasttime of many U.S. Americans where a group of people gets together to throw sacks of corn at a board with a hole in it. The game is apparently a pretty big deal out in Ohio and elsewhere in the Midwest.

The "Corn Master" showed us the very official looking winner's flowchart. There was $75 and a spot on the annual Cornhole winner's trophy at stake!

Mike and I warmed up by ruthlessly beating a 6 year old whose best strategy included throwing all of his corn bags at once.

Take that, you foolish 6 year old.
I think that cheap victory gave us a false sense of hope, because our real competition played dirty. Part of Ben's strategy was to have Amelia pee on the corn bags so that no one else would want to pick them up.

Even my most intimidating face didn't help the fact that I couldn't throw the corn bag in the hole to save my life. After a really long game ... we finally admitted defeat.

Mike and I didn't take losing well. I just went and buried all the corn bags out of spite, but I think Mike took it harder and denounced his long-held belief in The Secret, since the cosmos obviously didn't deliver him the victory that he had been asking for.

I am planning on practicing my cornholing over the next year, so that when I attend next year's Championship, my name will have a place in the winner's circle. Danielle and Ben, do you think you could work on having another kid for me to come visit by then?