Peace on the Earth, Goodwill toward men

Yet with the woes of sin and strife

The world hath suffered long;

Beneath the angel strain have rolled

Two thousand years of wrong;

And man, at war with man, hears not

The love song with they bring

O hush the noise, ye men of strife, and hear the angels sing!

"I like it a lot" - Lloyd Christmas

"Feels good to mingle with these laid-back-country-folk, don't it Harr'?"

how we celebrate

This is footage from a Christmas party I attended this Christmas season.  It doesn't seem like Christmas parties in China have changed much since I attended my first one in 2006.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXwYDnqWAho (in case the video below takes a while to load)

Mac Attack

Happy birthday, Micah! We love you, miss you, and are sorry we can't be there to celebrate with you!

The (older) O'Hare boys this summer in Memphis

Hung by the fire with care

Biking GN

This past Saturday, my friend Justin (of Hiking Gambo Mtn. fame) and I set out for my most ambitious scheme yet - a 70-mile round trip bike trip, including an ascent up to 14,000ft. to a remote monastery.

We set at at 8:30a and the temperature was in the mid-20's. It was freezing cold, still dark, and honestly, pretty miserable. Within 5 minutes, my CamelBak water reservoir had frozen solid and it wouldn't thaw back out again until close to 11:30a.

Justin and I thawing out during our first break. The sun had only just risen over the mountains.

After a little over an hour, we stopped to rest and thaw out. I'll be honest, I was miserable at this point - I hadn't felt my pinkie or ring fingers for over an hour. On top of that, I had turned down an offer to go to a natural hot spring with some friends for the day. The irony was as thick as club-hands felt.

After a quick snack, it was time to start the climb....

...which I was hoping would help thaw me out.

Stacy's step-dad Erik had sent some trail mix granola bars from America, a treasure for sure, and I was carrying 3 with me. At the foot of the mountain, I downed two of them and finally got my water unfrozen, and then began the climb.

Hopefully you can see from the picture that the climb was brutal. It just kept going up and up and up, something like twenty or thirty switchbacks, and because of the elevation, I had to stop at nearly every cutback to catch my breath.

Taking a picture is a great excuse for catching your breath...

After nearly an hour and a half of grinding it out, we finally made it. Probably the happiest I've ever been in my life to see a Buddhist monastery...

The monastery is there behind me, in the saddle of the mountain

We ate lunch, saw some of the local monks doing their thing, and then turned around and headed right back. I must say that the 23-minute ride down the mountain was the polar opposite of the climb up - it was pure bliss.

The ride back, not as cold or seemingly far as the approach, was uneventful. A solid 10 and 1/2 hours later, just as the sun was going back down, we made it back to town.

I should have gone to the hot springs...                                                                                 ...or not

This makes me happy

One of the only Christmas-y things I can buy here (Who cares if I can buy them year round?):

And here's one of the best Christmas commercials ever, featuring those lil' guys:

Call me the lucky one

Because I've got a great wife.

Stacy's mom has got it going on (It's true)

Happy Birthday to my beautiful Mom! (Belated post - her birthday was actually Sunday).

so 80's. so cute.

I love you and hope you had a great birthday!

S(L)SO!

On Saturday, I went for a 70 mile bike ride which included climbing a 14,000ft mountain on my bike. As I was enduring this pain, I casually mentioned to my wife in a text that all I could think about was fried chicken and waffles.

I arrived home from my 11 hour travail to find that... she made it happen!

Stacy (Leigh) Shepard O'Hare - incredible beyond words. In fact, incredible was a lame attempt at securing a fitting word.