Westacular

We had a great time at the Rose parade this year. My cousin Mark and his family invited us down. Here's me and my cousin Mark. He was too busy to pose for this photo so I went ahead without him.

Here's my girls. That look on the girls' faces truly reflect their excitement level at 5:30 in the morning.

Here's 2 of Mark's girls. The pre-parade malaise has left a dearth upon their hearts that cannot be filled- except perhaps by the delicious chex mix that Mark brought for us.

Mark's little guy was pretty happy here, until he realized that it was not silly string that has been sprayed on him. Unfortunately, it was the man behind us sneezing and these were his rope-like strings of snot that shot out of his nostrils.

As the light filtered in, the people who were not invited to be in the parade started to show up. Here's giant old-fashioned bicycle guy! Where does he park that thing?

Judging by the hat, these people apparently thought they were in Disneyland. I imagine they went home and blogged about how disappointed they were with the rides.

The parade finally began with the grandmarshal, Captain Sullenberger who saved those people by landing the plane in the Hudson. Strangely enough, shortly after this shot was taken, the car burst into flames, but Captain Sully drove it into a nearby swimming pool and saved the day again. Then someone on the sidelines ate some flaming hot cheetos and started screaming that their mouth was on fire. Captain Sully jumped on him and started riding piggy back. He grabbed his ears like a steering wheel and guided him gently down, mouth opened, into a gutter puddle and saved the day yet again. The guy is good.

I was totally impressed with the size of this guy until he opened his mouth and started talking. Then I realized that he was really stupid and I spent the rest of the day trying to avoid him.

This entire band was blind. And each of the guide people next to them...DEAF! Actually, I made up the deaf thing, but the band people really were blind. As a suggestion for next year, they may want to run with my deaf guide idea.

Here's a famous Jack. Jack Hanna of late night talk show animal fame. Big deal. I can't eat any of those delicious looking animals you're always parading around. What tasty meat products have you ever made that I can eat?

Now here's a REAL Jack! This guy is a genius. I LOVE his work.

This guy claimed he was in WWII like he was Benjamin Button or something. I wasn't falling for it.

I enjoyed this shot because he was the best giant hat wearing, baton twirling person, male or female (he's male) that I've ever seen. The other thing I like is the guy in the bottom right who is enjoying pointing out the fact that he's a fancy lad to all around him.

Here's Jared from Subway. He's so hungry from just eating Subway his whole adult life that he's become a bit delusional and is actually considering eating his own fingers in this shot.

The university of Oregon must not have much of a budget for cheerleader outfits because as you can see, they didn't have enough material to cover their legs or belly buttons. I'm thinking of starting up a charity to try to raise some money and clothe these poor girls.

I've never felt like picking up horse poop would be a good job until I saw these girls. They acted like rock stars and I kid you not, got louder applause than any of the floats.

These guys were cool. They were some of the few living black pilots that fought in WWII. Even more rare though, was the giant eagle on the back of the float that one of them had actually tamed by plugging in his pony tail to it and then riding it to lead the army against the Germans that turned the course of war. Oh wait, that was just the movie "Avatar".

I was surprised that they would bring out the ark of the covenant for a parade. I was even more surprised when I yelled "OPEN IT!" and they did. I was not surprised however, when the ark melted the faces off of all the people around me. I saw that in "Indiana Jones" and I had my eyes closed of course. According to the movie, that's the only way to avoid having your face melted off.

This was pretty sad. The Guatemalans didn't even have instruments to play. They just grabbed some garbage cans and pretended they were instruments. Much like when I was growing up at the public pool and there was one kid who wore his tighty whitey underwear and pretended it was his swimsuit. It's just not right.

This guy managed to get the lasso around his own horse, but the loop never tightened so he never actually caught it. I felt bad for him.

These guys did an excellent "3 amigos" movie re-enactment including the classic song, "my little buttercup". Actually, none of that happened, but it should have. It would have been awesome.

The Mexico float threw out free presents to all the kids which was cool. Unfortunately, when they opened them, they were just full of swine flu so that made me sad. I felt like it was an inappropriate joke at our expense.

This dog food float was pretty cool. I think what they were trying to imply is that if you buy their dog food, your dog will immediately take up snowboarding. This is not a positive in my book. #1 snowboarding is expensive. It's bad enough when they beg for table scraps, but soon your dog will come begging for money to buy a lift pass. No thanks.

#2 the ski term "hot dogs" comes from aggressive snow boarders like this one.

This monkey played a funny prank on the zebra by giving him a crazy haircut. However, the zebra got the last laugh as he then gored the monkey with his sharp-pointed hair. It was gruesome, yet satisfying for all of us who have ever had their hair wrecked by a monkey hairstylist. Bad monkeys!

This is someone famous who is associated with the California Angels baseball team. Unfortunately, since I don't know him, I'll just say it's an old man who is having trouble hearing.

This was an amazing scene from nature that I was lucky enough to catch. I saw this lovely butterfly perched lightly on the back of the horse. I thought for sure it would fly away at some point, but it must have enjoyed the attention because it remained there throughout the parade. It was quite amazing and one of the largest butterflies that I've even seen.

"I am the wizard of haircutting! Prepare to get magical layers!"

Here is the "guardian of Taiwan". I'm not sure what he's doing here, probably on vacation. Which begs the question...Who's guarding Taiwan? I hope mainland China doesn't realize it's currently defenseless or they'll sneak in and take it over. I remember when I served a mission in Taiwan I had to battle the guardian and earn his respect before I could enter the island. I simply pointed behind him and yelled "It's Jackie Chan!" then when he turned his back, I unhinged my jaw and swallowed him whole, like a python.

Here are the giants from the northland. They stand 15 feet tall. The horses pulling their monstrous carriages are Clydesdales. At one point a small child sprayed silly string at them and one of them picked up the child in one hand and swallowed him like the Rancor in Return of the Jedi.

Here's Michelle Kwan. She triple salchow-ed her way into my heart this day. How you ask? Well, turns out that handle she's holding onto is actually a toilet-like flush handle. When she turned it, the gentleman behind her was flushed out the middle of the float and out the back of the float onto the street- much like airplane bathroom waste. WHOOSH!

This lucky girl won the ugliest hat in the world award. congratulations!

The odds of the weirdo in the bizarre costume being a serial killer are about 5000% which is pretty amazing since it's impossible to go above 100%. He also was the proud recipient of the "most likely to regret wearing this costume award". The lady in the stagecoach was trying to get away, but her tiny horses were far too slow.

I call this one, wierd chinese kids with faces on their chests on rollerblades. I know it's not very original, but it's extremely accurate.

Speaking of Jackie Chan, here's the man himself and the evil super-villain "Dr. feathered bangs" who Jackie has a temporary truce with. Jackie is putting his hands up offering me a hug. I didn't fall for it though. As soon as I got close enough, he'd raise his hands straight up in the air and yell "Psych!". Believe me, this is the voice of experience talking.

One of these girls forgot her flag but still had to march in the parade and is very angry. See if you can figure out who she is.

Yes, harvesting good health indeed, say the cancer patients on the side of the float.

This gentleman was a last minute entry. He won the worst float in the history of the world award.

The front of the float says "jewel of the pacific". The contents of the float say "I'm a highly poisonous blow fish and a deadly manta-ray". I think the pacific has better jewels than that to present.

These kids have a rare and deadly allergy to the sun. Note the head to toe covering. The sun wasn't out most of the morning so they decided to take their protective masks off to see the crowds. Unfortunately at that moment, the sun came out and their faces exploded.

I thought this roller derby team was pretty cool..

apparently the guy on the horse following them didn't, because he took out his rifle and shot them. Luckily, they were blanks, but still, it was a pretty violent parade.

Here are the FFA, the future farmers of America and their highly accurate representation of it's membership. Ask anyone, when you think FFA, you think pop sensation "Usher" wearing a lab coat and holding a beaker.

These girls didn't know how to ride a horse. I must have yelled at them 8or 9 times, "You don't stand on it, you sit down! YOU SIT DOWN!! SIT ON THE HORSE!! I don't think they understood me though. They may have been from Norway.