funny

vegeterian Pardon My Planet

Pardon My Planet by: Vic Lee

I'm a vegetarian, so I can't tell you much about today's specials other than they were really, really cute.

Don't Lie to Your Mother

John invited his mother over for dinner. During the meal, his mother couldn't help noticing how beautiful John's roommate was. She had long been suspicious of a relationship between John and his roommate, and this only made her more curious.

Over the course of the evening, while watching the two interact, she started to wonder if there was more between John and the roommate than met the eye. Reading his mom's thoughts, John volunteered, "I know what you must be thinking, but I assure you, Julie and I are just roommates."

About a week later, Julie came to John and said, "Ever since your mother came to dinner, I've been unable to find the beautiful silver gravy ladle. You don't suppose she took it, do you?" John said, "Well, I doubt it, but I'll write her a letter just to be sure."

So he sat down and wrote "Dear Mother, I'm not saying you did take a gravy ladle from my house, and I'm not saying you did not take a gravy ladle. But the fact remains that one has been missing ever since you were here for dinner."

Several days later, John received a letter from his mother which read: "Dear Son, I'm not saying that you do sleep with Julie, and I'm not saying that you do not sleep with Julie. But the fact remains that if she was sleeping in her own bed, she would have found the gravy ladle by now.

Love, Mom."

Lesson of the day... Don't Lie To Your Mother.

Note to self:

old photo

1977 at CBMC

My Aunt Sandy came across this picture and sent it my way via e-mail. She saw where I had mentioned the CBMC conference that my parents were headed to teach. The South East CBMC conference use to be held at Covenant Collage up until the mid 80's or so, and this picture is of me back in 1977 at the age of three standing in front of Covenant College.

Thank for the picture Sandy!

Family Visit: wave 2

blueberry on the finger

... My parents arrived on Sunday evening and hung around until Wednesday afternoon. We had a good time. Dad and I were able to knock out a few little projects during their visit. My Dad is the type that does not just like to sit around, so I have to put on my thinking cap as far as projects go.

One thing we did that was fun was to go Blueberry picking. There is a little farm about 3 minutes down the road that has a bunch of Blueberry bush, and you can pick your own for 1$ a pound. It is a pretty good deal. We ended up with 11 pounds in about 45 minutes.

I don't think I got the address exactly right, but if you look closely at the satellite picture then you can see the blueberry bushes under the red dot.

blueberry on the chin

Elliot got a little sun burned on his right leg because his leg was hanging out of the wrap. John David had a ball though. At one point I had not heard from him in a while so I kind of nervously started looking around for him. It only took me about two seconds to find him about twenty feet away tucked under a bush and filling his belly. Yea don't worry; I tossed in an extra 50 cents when paying because I know the kid must have eaten a half pound.

I figured he was occupying himself so I just let him eat. Leslie found me about ten minutes later and asked if I had seen John David. I pointed her to the bush. She started laughing and then grabbed my camera and headed over to where he was. The three pictures in this post are the ones she took.

On the way back to our house after the berry picking my Dad noticed a tree on the side of the road that had been partially cut up and tossed out for the city to pick up. That was just the project he was looking for. I tried to convince him that my chainsaw did not work, but he just viewed the broken chainsaw as another project. So, after dropping Elliot, John David, Leslie, and my Mom off at the house we ended up back at the tree to load up as much as we could into the back of my pickup.

Now I have enough fire wood for the winter. All I have to do is split it, which should take me well into winter until I get it done.

elliot hanging around on mommy

We had a really good visit with the parents and wrapped up several projects in the process. My parents headed out on Wednesday morning to visit my brother before the yearly CBMC conference at Lake Junaluska, North Carolina that they teach at. My sister and her family came in on Saturday before the conference started. I'll save that for the next post...

hope for a steely resolve

My first reaction to the bombings was to wonder if it was an inside job. It just makes me wonder if these bombings were like the anthrax mailings we had after our terrorist attacks. I don't guess they ever could prove who was mailing the anthrax but I think they have an idea that it was an inside job.

Unlike Spain's resolve after their terrorist attacks, I sure hope that the steely resolve of Churchill will be found in the British people.

I think it will.

the dangers of appeasement

If you have not read this yet then take a moment and have a read. It is very good. It was written by Matthias Dapfner, Chief Executive of the huge German publisher Axel Springer AG. In his editorial he is highlighting the dangers of appeasement.

Are his conclusions fair? Maybe so. What do you think?

Here is an excerpt from Europe, Thy Name Is Cowardice:

Family Visit: wave 1

Nicholas and John David

I've been really sparse on posts lately. I have a ton of things rattling around in my head, but just no time to get them into ones and zeros.

It is the time of year where our families either come up to visit us or is either passing through to bigger and better places. Leslie's mom and nephew were the first to make it our way. They came on either Wednesday or Thursday night and stayed until Sunday morning. We had a good time.

John David had a good time playing with Nicholas. It was touch and go from time to time, though. He is use to having all of his toys to himself, so when it came to sharing there was a bit of a learning curve. There was a time or two when John David and Nicholas got into it. I have never seen John David act in such a way. It was quite strange. At one point John David and Nicholas were on the back porch playing with these two little cars that you can sit on and kind of push around with your feet. I only caught the beginning of it out of the corner of my eye, but I think Nicholas grabbed the car John David was playing with so John David tried to pull it away from him. Nicholas got mad and hit John David. John David hit Nicholas and they both started swatting at each other. By the time I got over to them Nicholas was just about to lock his teeth into John David's left hand, which was still firmly grasping the back of the car. They were both very angry and I'm not sure how long it would have gone on if someone had not stopped it.

I guess those little incidences will happen when an 18 and 29 month old play with each other, but regardless it was a little sad to see.

Enough of that…..

I got a chance to run out to the Chattanooga Greenway and pick 12 or so cups of blackberries. I made a pretty good (if I do say so myself) blackberry cobbler on Saturday night. The recipe was out of the 1999 Southern Living cookbook and it is one I will make again.

blackberry cobbler

On Sunday Karen and Nicholas left. Judging by John David's attitude change he must have had a much better time playing with his cousin then I was aware of. Once they left he just quietly moped around the house. It was quite sad. I gave him one of his Richard Scarry books to look at but he was much more subdued than normal while looking at it. He just stood there quietly in front of the couch flipping through the pages.

Luckily my parent showed up at the end of the day, and he quickly popped out of his little sadness.

More latter....

Very Cool LCD

Sharp Two-Way Viewing-Angle LCD

This is going to make multiplayer games even better. Though, if you were playing a graphics intensive game then you would have to have one heck of a vid card to handle both games running in two different process spaces. Yea, how would they do that? Maybe this was meant for web tv and not as a computer monitor. Heck, I don't know. It's cool anyway.

TOKYO (AP) - At last, a way to end squabbles over which TV channel to watch - without buying a second set. Sharp Corp. has developed a liquid-crystal display that shows totally different images to people viewing the screen from the left and the right.

One person can be surfing the Internet, using the display as a PC screen, while another watches a downloaded movie or TV broadcast. It also works for watching two TV channels: One person can watch baseball while another watches a soap opera.

The "two-way viewing-angle LCD," announced by the Japanese consumer electronics maker Thursday, will go into mass production this month and will cost roughly twice as much as a standard display.

Sharp will offer the product for worldwide sale, but the Osaka-based company will also supply other manufacturers with the displays for various products expected later this year, said spokeswoman Miyuki Nakayama.

Sharp says the technology offers many possibilities.

It could be used in cars so drivers can look at a map while the passenger watches a movie. Or at a store, sales clerks and clients can view different data on the same display simultaneously.

Another possible use is for billboards that display two kinds of advertisements depending on where viewers stand. The display will also work in the regular way and show a single image to all viewers.

One catch is that the images overlap if viewers stand right in front of the screen. Moving a few inches to the left or right may be necessary for a clear view.

Another drawback is that users will have to work out a way to listen to the sounds coming from the different channels. One solution is for one viewer to use earphones.

The technology appears to derive from Sharp's three-dimensional LCD displays, which work by projecting slightly different images to the right and left eyes without the use of special glasses. Sharp has been selling 3D laptops for a few years, aiming them mainly at engineers, architects and other professionals.

A U.S. startup, Deep Light LLC, plans to launch its own monitors next year that can present several different images to different viewers in 3D without glasses.

i buy eggs for a living

Yesterday while on the phone with Leslie she told me that John David thought I was buying groceries. The way it came up was she was talking to him about me being at work and he started saying something like cereal, strawberries, blueberries,…

We think his understanding of what working was occurred when I told him that I had to go to work so we could eat.

Well, this morning as I was heading out of the house I yelled up the stairs to tell Leslie that I was leaving for work. She yelled back to me from one of the rooms to have a good day. I then heard her tell John David to go tell daddy good bye.

This was John David's response once he got to the gate and peered down at me from the top of the stairs. Mind you he was yelling at me from the top of his lungs.

John David: Bye Bye.
Me: Bye Bye booger. Daddy is going to work.
John David: Work Eggs. Get Eggs work.
Me: Daddy works on computers at the work office (vs our home office)
John David: Eggs Work Eggs.
Me: Daddy is going to the work office not the grocery store.
John David: Eggs

Realizing that it will probably take several months to clear up the confusion I headed to work laughing.

got my scanner hooked up

leslie 2nd or 3rd grade

Well, I am finally getting around to hooking up my scanner after more than 7 months of living here on fox den lane. I was looking for a picture to test with and found this one of Leslie sitting behind me on the bed. I think she was in second or third grade. Enjoy.

breastfeeding makes her uncomfortable

Barbara Walter's Breastfeeding Comment

I'm not sure if we really need another reason not to watch The View, but for all those women who think breastfeeding is a very important part of mothering, then you might want to watch this clip.

How absurd!