A Stream of Screed

Don't ask!




I really have no idea where these titles come from, okay I do know that they come from my mind, but I am not aware of it until... Forget it.

• Back on the Road Again by REO Speedwagon and What's Your Name by Lynyrd Skynyrd deal with the same theme... Those godless rock -n- rollers loving and leaving them. How rude!


• Andy wants me to mention here that the Cubs have swept the Brewers, even though he has his own blog. He wants to be a journalist when he grows up, but doesn't want to journal a story about his Cubbies. Ironic, no?


• You Can Fly (From Peter Pan) is playing right now... Anybody know who wrote the song?


• John McCain's new ad seems to have struck a nerve with the Obamessiah, so he'll probably pull it and back down. I hope not, it's funny. Unfortunately I lost the link, sorry about that. :)


• This was one Big-Assed Pig, now the kid is feeling the heat from PETA. (h/t nicedeb)


• Hey the Cubs won!! Did you know that?


• My family is all back together again, yea!! All the kids have returned from their various camps; Andy -First Call (a camp for those that may be interested in pursuing a life as a priest), and the girls (Jessie and Katie) are back from Totus Tuus (I think I spelled that right, if not Benjy will correct me ), which used to be called Catholic and Cool Camp.


• Maggie is jumping off the diving board!! Awesome, now I just have to get a picture - here's one of Katie a few years ago that is one of my favorites.
• John Lynch's career with my beloved Denver Broncos is over. I wish him the best in whatever the future holds for him.
• Our CEO seems to be pleased with what we are doing here, so I guess I still have a job for a little while.
• Danny has some weird rash/hives kind of thing going on, poor kid.
• My boss won't let me off the phone, so this is getting weird here, I think, so I shall stop.

There you have it, another episode (I think this is number 2) of what just pops into my head, hope it wasn't too confusing, because it will become a semi-regular feature, unless I forget of course. :)

Have a great evening!

It's Electric!

For this week's Sky Watch Friday, I am using a picture taken by Jenni's uncle, only because I tend to stay indoors when the weather is like this. :)





Enjoy the pics...

Be sure to check out all the other SkyWatch Friday pictures.

A New Princess!!

You may or may not know this, but I LOVE Walt Disney and all of it's worlds and lands and movies and pretty much everything else with the Disney name. Plus they are heading back to doing 2D animation for their movies, while letting the Pixar group deal with the 3D stuff.

Anyway, here is a new teaser trailer for their first adventure, which comes out late next year (I think).

Enjoy!

Can You Say Hubris?

The election is less than one hundred days away. Who cares? No seriously, who does? We have an election this year (although it has been going on almost since President Bush swore in on that cold January afternoon, nearly four years ago) that has two candidates that I feel nothing for. To me this year will be like picking the lesser evil.

The press has it's mind made up, at least the seven to one ratio of news stories related to both candidates, and chose Obama. Although it looks like more of the press is starting to get a little tired of "Mr. I'll-Just-Act-Like-President-And-No-One-Can-Challenge-Me-Obama."

The following comes from the Washington Post's Dana Milbank not exactly the bastion of conservative thinking, when it comes to their editorial board and reporters...

Barack Obama has long been his party's presumptive nominee. Now he's becoming its presumptuous nominee.

Fresh from his presidential-style world tour, during which foreign leaders and American generals lined up to show him affection, Obama settled down to some presidential-style business in Washington yesterday.

He ordered up a teleconference with the (current president's) Treasury secretary, granted an audience to the Pakistani prime minister and had his staff arrange for the chairman of the Federal Reserve to give him a briefing.

Then, he went up to Capitol Hill to be adored by House Democrats in a presidential-style pep rally.

Along the way, he traveled in a bubble more insulating than the actual president's. Traffic was shut down for him as he zoomed about town in a long, presidential-style motorcade, while the public and most of the press were kept in the dark about his activities, which included a fundraiser at the Mayflower where donors paid $10,000 or more to have photos taken with him.

His schedule for the day, announced Monday night, would have made Dick Cheney envious:

11:00 a.m.: En route TBA.
12:05 p.m.: En route TBA.
1:45 p.m.: En route TBA.
2:55 p.m.: En route TBA.
5:20 p.m.: En route TBA.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

As he marches toward Inauguration Day (Election Day is but a milestone on that path), Obama's biggest challenger may not be Republican John McCain but rather his own hubris.

Some say the supremely confident Obama -- nearly 100 days from the election, he pronounces that "the odds of us winning are very good" -- has become a president-in-waiting. But in truth, he doesn't need to wait: He has already amassed the trappings of the office, without those pesky decisions.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

It had been a long day of acting presidential, but Obama wasn't done. After a few hours huddling with advisers over his vice presidential choice, Obama made his way to the pep rally on the Hill. Moments after he entered the meeting with lawmakers, there was an extended cheer, followed by another, and another.

"I think this can be an incredible election," Obama said later. "I look forward to collaborating with everybody here to win the election."

Win the election? Didn't he do that already?

Maybe they'll start asking him some tough questions now... although I doubt it.

It Still Hurts

She first came to me when I was sixteen, almost seventeen. She was the most beautiful thing that I had ever laid eyes upon, and she was all mine.

We would go everywhere together, never wanting to be apart. I filled her with what she wanted and she always got me running. Throughout my senior year in high school she was my most dependable friend, always there when I needed her.

After high school I joined the Air Force and we had to be separated for nearly four months, it was an agonizing time in my life, I mean we had never been apart for more than a day, and now to have this thrust upon our relationship. While in training I would hear rumors of her seeing someone else, but they turned out to be fruitless, it was just someone trying to put the green monster of envy and jealousy between our love.

The next six months were the best; she was the one I could turn to when my training got to me. Often times we would head up to the mountains to be alone in the peaceful surroundings. As my final days of training came closer she was there to help my friends and I ease into the transition of heading to our first duty station.

She was a godsend.

Then the day we both dreaded came to pass, and I got my orders, to the United Kingdom, and we both knew that I couldn't bring her with me. She did come with me to where my parents were living in San Antonio to see me off. In fact, she stayed with them for a while, and when they moved back to Colorado, she gave them a warm homecoming.

When my tour in England ended, I knew that she would be there, but I also knew that I had tried others, and almost brought one home with me.

She didn't care.

She loved me, after all.

So, I took her to Abilene, Texas, when I moved there for my next assignment. I don’t know if we rushed it or not; maybe we were forcing our affection where it wasn't, who knows. We grew apart, so much so, that my roommate asked if he could take her from me. I was shocked, but I knew that it would be for the best, besides a new girl had caught my eye. She acquiesced to the exchange, and I felt that she was in good hands. My new girl was attractive and dependable, but it still felt weird.

One day, maybe a month later, I saw her on the street. My roommate, now former because of my new rank in the military entitled me to not having one, was nowhere in site.

I started to cry.

It was obvious that she had been abused, and was left on the side for dead, sitting in a puddle of her own tears. Then came the anger, how could he do this to her.

I resolved on that day, to never again sell my old automobiles to someone so young and irresponsible.

I Wonder if He'll be on the Guest List?

Finally, a reporter that has the, er, stones to tell it like it is, too bad he isn't an American...





And it came to pass, in the eighth year of the reign of the evil Bush the Younger (The Ignorant), when the whole land from the Arabian desert to the shores of the Great Lakes had been laid barren, that a Child appeared in the wilderness.


The Child was blessed in looks and intellect. Scion of a simple family, offspring of a miraculous union, grandson of a typical white person and an African peasant. And yea, as he grew, the Child walked in the path of righteousness, with only the occasional detour into the odd weed and a little blow.


When he was twelve years old, they found him in the temple in the City of Chicago, arguing the finer points of community organisation with the Prophet Jeremiah and the Elders. And the Elders were astonished at what they heard and said among themselves: “Verily, who is this Child that he opens our hearts and minds to the audacity of hope?”


In the great Battles of Caucus and Primary he smote the conniving Hillary, wife of the deposed King Bill the Priapic and their barbarian hordes of Working Class Whites.



You can find the rest here.

How We Try To Fly...

Be it by a mere length of chain...

Or facing what comes towards us...

Or feeling the breeze whip through our toes...

Happy Friday!

One Foot Identified, Five To Go

Nicedeb has the story:

One of the five feet that have mysteriously washed up on the shores of British Columbia over the past year has been linked to a depressed man who went missing a year ago, police said Saturday.
Police sergeant Pierre Lemaitre said DNA testing helped to identify the man. The man’s name is not being made public at the family’s request, said Lemaitre.

“We’re being very sensitive to the family’s demands,” he said, adding more information will be released on Monday. “They wanted the time to reach out to their immediate family and share the news among themselves.”

A team of investigators has been working on the bizarre case since the first foot washed up last August on Jedidiah Island in the Strait of Georgia.

Since last year, detached feet began appearing, floating within a few miles of each other along island shorelines in the Strait of Georgia near Vancouver. The bizarre findings baffled Canadian officials.

I wonder how they decided to pick samples to test for DNA? I mean did they go around looking for people that had missing family members, or what?

Only five more feet left to identify though.

When the Boys Learned how to Snowboard

Okay, to explain myself here... I am joining in Absolutely Bananas Monday Writing Prompt today, and today's prompt is "Travel Horror Stories." There is supposed to be a cute little button above here, but the code isn't working apparently. (UPDATE: cute little button has been fixed.)

Sorry. I don't do code, so you'll just have to take my word for it. :)

So, without further procrastination, here is a true travel horror story...

We live in Illinois.

We live in a very flat state known as Illinois.

When we moved here from Colorado, we were shocked to find out that Illinois has no mountains, and no ski areas.

When we first moved here from Colorado, we were told that Illinois, specifically the Chicago land area had a ski area that was (get this) comparable to those in Colorado.

Specifically Vail.

I, being familiar with Vail, and it's 11,000 foot elevation immediately had to look around for a mountain sticking up somewhere - couldn't see it.

Did I mention that people from Wisconsin call people from Illinois "Flat Landers?"

There is a good reason for that.

Well things started looking up when my brother in law met this lovely young lady (who he eventually married) whose family just happened to own a condo in Frisco, Colorado. Better yet, they were going to rent it out to us, at a nicely discounted rate. All we had to do was get there.

Wanting to avoid heavy winter weather we decided to go in March. The weather would be a little warmer, so that the boys wouldn't be too cold when they fell in the snow.

We left our house on a Friday afternoon after I got off of work, we always travel this way because the kids go to sleep and the traveling is, let's just say, quieter. The weather forecast looked good, and we figured that we would be in Frisco by noon on Saturday, easy.

It started snowing in Des Moines, Iowa.

Normally it takes me two hours to drive from Des Moines to Omaha, Nebraska.

I pulled over after five, and we were still forty miles from Omaha. The roads were just not passable, so we found a rest area and took a little break, a six hour break.

After filling the van up with some gas, we got started west once again, and the rest of the trip to Frisco was relatively uneventful, just noisier.

We were in Colorado for a week and decided to catch up with some high school friends of mine. We decided to meet at Casa Bonita, a little Mexican restaurant that has great atmosphere, but not so great food. The atmosphere includes seating in caves (not real ones), a mariachi band, cliff divers and an arcade. The food, like I said isn't great in fact it's barely good, with the exception of the sopapillas. Those are awesome!

After that great visit with our friends we had to drive back to the condo, which would take about an hour or so. Interstate seventy runs through the mountains, with steep grades and lots of winding roads. One should always be careful, especially at night.

We were halfway back to the condo when a car decided to tail gate us. There are three lanes on I-70, and it was just the two of us on the highway. I tried to slow down, he wouldn't pass us. I tried speeding up and he stayed right on our tail. So, I slowed down again. That did it and he passed us, and then proceeded to get in front of me.So I flashed him with my brights, to show my displeasure, and figured that he would just drive away.

I was wrong.

He slammed on his brakes and lost control of his car. He slid to the right, where if it weren't for the guard rail he would have plummeted hundreds (maybe even thousands) of feet to the bottom of the mountain and into the creek below.

Not a fun trip for sure.

Anyway, the guy bounced off the guard rail right towards us! There was nothing we could do, except pray that he missed us. He did, but barely. I slowed down to make sure he was okay, and noticed that he was heading back up the mountain. And gaining. Jenni started to get worried, and the kids woke up (someone had screamed when the car ricocheted towards us), and the car kept gaining on us.

I was not going to stop now. Not with an obviously crazy, or at least slightly impaired driver on my tail. Thankfully, either his car started to show the effects of the crash, or he got off at an earlier exit, but we never saw him again.

Oh, and the boys learned how to snowboard.

Because I like Randomness

This is an experiment in randomness, because all of these sentences are random, except maybe this one. The Colorado Rockies have won two in a row, there is NO stopping them now. I love a rain storm and a good book, with a bottle of Arizona Pomegranate Green Tea and maybe a margarita. I love it when my spell check agrees with me.

(h/t Shameless)

Blogging from my phone....

Blogging from my phone. Who would have ever thought I'd be doing this, blogging from my phone. But here I am blogging from my phone. Let me know what you think. Do I sound like a robot? I think I'm sounding like a robot. You can listen to what I said, if you really wanted to. Hear my voice sound like through a cellphone, or you can just read this lovely words that I'm reading, writing now. Anyway, hey, aren't jelly belly's great? Talk to you all later. Okay. Bye, bye. listen

Powered by Jott

Day and Night

Which do you prefer?

The day, where all can be seen?

Or the night, where mystery abounds?

Choose wisely.

Don't forget to visit others at Sky Watch Friday, and join in the fun!

See you next week.

A Walk in the Park

I am taking up walking, for my health and the kids love it.

Why, you ask?

Because they get to come along - at least on my evening walks. They don't want to get up early and walk with me in the morning. Okay, Katie does, but I don't think that Jenni wants her to. Besides, and I know I am being totally selfish here, I kind of like the peace and quiet that my iPod brings me. :-)

Anyway, last night I had to drop off Jessie and Jordan (neighbor and God daughter) off at church for music practice. They are getting prepared for Vacation Bible School next week. Jenni jumped out of the car along the way (I forgot to drop her off at the library {actually, I thought she said she was going to walk with us}, my bad), which freaked Danny out briefly. Then I told him that we were still going to the park, and he got over it.

So myself, Katie and Danny had a nice little walk around the lake planned...

It was great, and very scenic...

Pretty pictures of flowers taken by the girls...

Here's one by Maggie...

And one by Katie...

Like I said, a beautiful evening for a walk, until...

Do you see that thing on Danny's head (I should have photo shopped a circle around that thing)? I swear it is a cross between a horsefly and a mosquito. Very evil!! They were so thick that we had to turn around and run for the cover of the minivan.

Yikes!!

We did escape them so that we could walk again...

Then we went to a playground...

Unfortunately we had to cut the evening off shorter than we intended. We still had a great time though.

Walking for your health is awesome when you have these guys with you. :-)

I Can't Make Up My Mind Y'all

You Are 50% Yankee, 50% Dixie

You're a pretty even split of Yankee and Dixie. You've probably traveled around a lot in your life.

Are You a Yankee or Dixie?

Wanna Spoon?

You Are a Spoon

You are a well rounded, balanced person. You are friendly and welcoming. You get along with everyone. You are easy going and laid back. You don't have any hang ups. Non judgmental and accepting, you are a comfort to people around you.

What Utensil Are You?

First Matt, Now Meet Davey

At least I can understand the lyrics to the song for this one, and it makes me think of one of my favorite places... ENJOY! (ht: The Disney Blog)


Davey Dance Blog -50- ORLANDO - The Beatles "Baby You're a Rich Man" from Pheasant Plucker on Vimeo.

Holy Chafing, Batman!

Some things I learned yesterday...

• Complaining about broken links that are then mysteriously fixed, without my knowing it, can cause confusion. Especially for me. Maybe mylivesignature.com was down for maintenance or something.
• Being a 1930's kind of guy/husband may not translate to a good thing, especially to ladies of the twenty-first century. But in my defense, I'm not exactly a have my wife cater-to-my-every-need kind of guy, just ask Jenni. :)
• Taking walks with the family are lots of fun, and good exercise. Not to mention the sights you can see. An example:

We were walking home last night, from the library - we all forgot our library cards so no new books! (Darn it!) Anyway, we stopped at the Batavia Popcorn Depot, a literal shack that has three popcorn poppers in it and offers your choice of plain, cheesy and caramel popcorn. It's been a Batavia tradition since 1929. Good popcorn as well, and Katie was buying (actually Benjy ended up paying because he had paper money versus the change that Katie had, because Benjy sold it to her) so all was good. Five bags of popcorn $6.50.

As we left we noticed an older man and his grandson (I assume here, but you know Tony Randall became a daddy at 77, so anything is possible) were standing by a fire hydrant. As we walk up, the man seemed a little startled, although he had to have seen us coming, we soon realized why he was so startled...

Older Gentleman: "Oh, hi."

Us: "Hello"

OG: "Do I have to bring a bag with these kids?"

Us: "Huh?" "Oh." "Maybe we should" "Eww"

You guessed it. The child, maybe three, had himself a little accident. Now, I didn't see anything on the ground, but everyone else did. I surely could smell it though, and the poor kid didn't look too comfortable. Granted his Grandfather looked a lot less comfortable, but...

Now, soapbox time... Why the man didn't walk the hundred, or so, feet to the fourteen port-a-potty's, or the McDonald's, or the restaurant across the street is beyond me. But to sit there and not do anything about the child's accident is baffling to me. I would NEVER embarrass my kids that way. In fact, if something like that would have happened to me, I would have done my best to not be noticed. True, the man did seem to be unaware of our approach, so I'll get off the box now.

• Poop really does happen, after all. :)
• Five year old children don't like to walk.
• River bugs do NOT taste good.
• Arizona Pomegranate Green Tea does though.
• Ignoring your Google Reader all night, leaves a LOT of reading in the morning.
• Being a large man that is trying to better himself by getting some exercise, can be painful. I won't let it stop me, I promise! Jenni and the kids won't let me. :-)

Ouch! A Broken Link!

That is what has happened to my signature, apparently. What do I do about it? Well, this is a start, I guess. But what can I really do about it.

Hmmm.

Have I become so dependent on the Internet to always be working that I, uh, just don't have to think anymore?

Apparently so. I mean, all I see is this red x and have to wonder, what have I done to deserve this? Followed quickly by, what did I do wrong? Who can I call?

Anybody know?

Should I become super cool and have someone design my blog, with the greatest of ease, that will include all the things that I want? Will that stop the red x from appearing? Do you even know what it is I am speaking about, I mean writing?

I am one confused man at the moment and I need to get home for some fine home-cooking. Then maybe I can figure it out.

Maybe.

Guess I'm a 1930's Kind of Guy

Whatever that means..

148 As a 1930s husband, I am Very Superior Take the test!

A Boy and His Duck

Who else could it be, but Danny!! The older boys are so over ducks!


Here he is making a leap. Crazy boy, has absolutely NO FEAR.
Here I hold him, all calm and quiet...Holy Smokes! That kid is fast!
"Warn me next time kiddo!"Fun times before the rains came, at least I think they came later that day. I can never tell.:)