January – March: I don’t remember.

April: I went to the Frozen Four (NCAA hockey tournament) in Detroit.

May: I got an iPad.

I think that just about covers it. There is the story about going vole hunting with my kids, but I have to save something for my next post, don’t I?

Two things I know to be true:
1) 32 year old men with limited musical talent can’t sing the same notes as pre-teen Michael Jackson (especially true of the chorus of this song, skip ahead to the 1:10 mark – I get some pretty strange looks from other drivers when I contort my face in order to hit those notes).

2) The person who selected Michael’s outfit for that American Bandstand performance has a sick sense of humor.

[On an unrelated note, I'm having some communication issues with my web host, so it's possible that this site may disappear sometime soon. I'm working on trying to transfer it, so please standby.]

On weight loss… Down 37 pounds so far. I had to buy a bunch of new pants – “skinny pants,” as I like to call them. (And yes, Jasmine, they’re pleated. Flat-front pants aren’t meant for dudes with butts.) Also, I scored a $9 jacket at a thrift store, and it’s slimming effect is nothing short of magical. If I get a good picture of me in the magical jacket, I’ll post it.

On the square root of 4… No update, it’s still 2.

On the future of “Say What?” posts… I’ve been following my daughter around with my iPhone, recording everything I can. I’ll get a good mix of words, and will post another one soon. And like I mentioned in the comments, I’m going to do this one like the old music quizzes (remember those?), so you can’t see other people’s answers. And maybe there will be prizes! Nobo, no cheating this time.

On Grand Slam Tennis for the Wii… Somebody needs to buy this game so that we can play online and I can beat you. If you’ve got it, and you’re not afraid to get your feelings hurt, let me know!

On my job (that I love)… It’s bananas! That’s most of the reason why I haven’t been blogging as much lately. In the evenings, I’m catching up on all the work email I didn’t have time to address during the day. There’s a light at the end of the bananas tunnel though, so I’d expect that within the next month or so, I’ll be posting hourly (outside of work hours, boss!) in order to compensate for the past 6 months.

- I had set out some traps because of the increased vole activity in and around my garage. For two and a half weeks, I had traps set out with peanut butter for bait, but they just sat there. This morning, I put a small piece of leftover colby jack cheese in a trap before going to work. I returned 8 hours later to find one deceased rodent. Which leads me to ask, what’s wrong with peanut butter? It’s not like it was cheap store brand, it was Peter Pan!

- Apple released an update for iLife ’09 last week, it fixed a couple of my complaints about iPhoto. So never mind how I used to refer to the “faces” feature as “feces.” It’s still not great, but it’s way better.

- I’m watching American Idol right now, for the first time this season. Through two performances, I’m just about ready to vomit.

- I’m going to do another photo assignment ASAP. If there’s enough participation, maybe I’ll do that requested guitar video. While wearing a sweater vest. And singing.

- Just kidding about the vest and the singing.

And if I was singing along, would that change your answer?

Thanks in advance for answering this question based on an entirely hypothetical situation.

Omar is still irritable.
Fact – I’m blaming it on the weather. Though it was up to almost 60 yesterday, it will be back in the 30′s by Friday.

Omar’s band is touring the east coast.
Fiction – My band hasn’t made it out of my living room just yet. That’s not for lack of practice on my part. Not that I’m blaming other band members, or anything. Nor am I already working on launching my solo career, in spite of what the rumor sites say.

Omar is more productive than ever before.
(Debatable) Fact – I have this problem where I don’t remember anything I need to do. So over the holidays, I read David Allen’s “Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity.” Though I don’t buy everything he’s selling, there’s definitely merit in his general premise that the human brain is not good at reminding you of things. If it was, you’d remember you need milk when you were at the store, not when you’re home wanting a bowl of Chocolate Chex. So I’ve taken to putting everything into a list, even the trivial things. If I need to do it, and I’m not going to do it right away, it goes on the list. And I must say, it’s been amazingly helpful. It seems obvious now, but the idea that I should use my brain to do stuff rather than using it to remember what I’m NOT doing is a pretty good one. It works well for me.

Omar is bogged down with work.
Fact – There was a night last week when I didn’t even take my laptop out of its bag when I got home (though I may have peeked at the iPhone one or two or 20 times). The wife assumes something is wrong with me if I’m not on the couch with the TV on and the laptop on my lap in the evening. You know, now that I type that out, it probably doesn’t paint a very good picture of me. I should strike that out. I’ll put that on my list.

And so while I was in the peak of my irritability, I did what anybody would have done: I created an online “personality test.” (That’s in quotes on purpose, because let’s be honest, I’m not qualified to make a personality test. My degree is in Finance, I work in IT.) All of the questions are variants of scenarios I encountered within the past couple of weeks. I spent a good 5 minutes doing scientific research to ensure that the questions will fairly roughly probably incorrectly assess your personality.

Quick disclaimer: There’s at least a 50% chance that the results page of this test will call you a jerk in some way. If you don’t like to be called a jerk, even in jest, you may want to skip this test.

It’s only five questions long, it should only take a minute or so to complete.

And here it is.

[you lost] 12 lbs from deathly illness?! Sounds worth it. Where do I sign up? – Annie
Indeed, I lost 12 pounds. If I’m not mistaken, you can sign up at any local day care center or preschool. You’re welcome!

I’m good at taking pictures… not so good at printing them out. I have an almost two year old who has not one single picture of himself in print. – MommyJ
That is a crime! Criminal!

re: what got pushed out of your brian – it was probably the bit about gold card status. – Becky
Don’t you worry about what’s getting pushed out of my brian! And the gold card status lives on… in my heart.

I guess my question would be, of those 4552 post The Girl birth pictures, how many were of The Girl? – Jon
Lots. I’ll update you when I get iPhoto 09. Until then, “lots” is my official answer. Regardless, it’s still less than I took of The Boy, so I’m no exception.

I look forward to my signed 2009 Lawn Portrait coffee table book Omar. – Jon
For those who aren’t lucky enough to get a signed copy directly from me, look for it in stores this fall.

2 – Photos I got published in a local coffee table-style photography book.?! why have we not seen this/heard about it? – aubrey
Because the book is pretty location-specific, and the Internet is full of crazies!

How do we get an autographed copy of the book with your pics?? – Tori
Easy! Send me a self-addressed stamped envelope and $40 cash.

and i am offended that you are using a waffle mix rather than my recipe. do you not KNOW how inferior that is to my waffles? – aubrey
I do know! But it is the whole “eggs beaten stiff” thing. I’ll screw it up!

Wow Omar, how dare you? I make Aubrey’s Waffle recipe every Friday for my kids (Waffle Friday) at 4:45 AM every Friday is Aubrey’s Waffle recipe for Waffle Friday. At 4:45 am. Fridays. – NCS
Like I said, I don’t know how to beat eggs stiff. Oh and also, you’re insane.

what I’m talking about is the extremely flattering and much appreciated tribute [the new SubJug ninja's] existence pays to me. – Jon
And I didn’t even mention that his name is Jerry Oliver Newton. I thought it would be too obvious if I picked a ninja who was also named Jon, so I did the next best thing. You have no idea how hard it was to find a qualified ninja with those initials.

By the way, now that you’ve done a numbers post, how about an “ABC” post–after all “ABC, it’s easy as 1, 2, 3? ; ) – Yvonne
Tito would be proud, Yvonne

My research indicates that there is a disturbing trend revealing itself on this very blog. I see a post on December 24th, 2008. Then a full 11 days pass before another post. That is followed by an equally disturbing 8 day break. Now here we are in a yet to be determined void of posting… Have I rubbed off on you? – Jon
Guilty. I’ve totally been influenced by your transition from blogging to commenting, and I’ve been seeing if I can get that business model to work for me.

Was that all the machine said? Are you sure it wasn’t a scrolling message that said, “Pedal faster you Namby Pamby!” – Jon
Close, but it actually said “nampy pampy.” It must read the comments on my blog.

Omar, that made me smile and giggle.
But, Jon, you made me laugh! (Sorry, Omar.) – Julia
Oh Julia, if only I could say this is the first time I’ve been out-funnied by Jon on my own blog. But it’s not. It’s the 738th time. Not that I’m counting or anything. And though this is speculation, I’m fairly certain that a few of this site’s commenters only visit to read Jon’s comments.

When’s the next photo assignment? – Jonathan
I’ll do one the next time the high temp here is over 30 degrees. I won’t specify Fahrenheit or Celsius.

Suck it.

Sincerely,
Omar

But then when I started doing it, I realized that you guys are not easy to shop for! And because I only was able to find gifts for about half of you, and I SHO NUFF am not going out shopping today, I decided to just get one present that can easily be rationed out to everyone:

You’ll thank me the next time you’ve got an itch for barbecue chicken and/or burgers hot off the grill.

Have a tremendously merry Christmas!