Another word game

MustPopWords requires you to type in words you can spell with the letters appearing on the dropping balls. Keep making words to keep the ball count below 50. Slightly addicting, but I can't seem to get past making 3-letter words :-(

Healthcare Reform in the US

I usually try to keep my political views out of this blog, but in this case I think that the issue is important enough to break that code. President Obama and his staff are trying to reform the health care system in the United States. There's a lot that I think is broken, and though I am happy with my current coverage for the most part (a price break would be nice, though), there are millions of people without health care in this great nation of ours.

The Obama administration is feeling a little headwind on their plans for reform -- some from the health care industry who would have to clean up their act and play fairly, at some loss of revenue, and some by those who are just opposed to anything that the Democrats do. There's a lot of fighting, discussing, arguing, debating, posturing and politicking going on all over right now.

The American Medical Association has weighed in on the new Obama health care proposals.

The Allergists voted to scratch it, but the Dermatologists advised not to make any rash moves. The Gastroenterologists had sort of a gut feeling about it, but the Neurologists thought the Administration had a lot of nerve.

The Obstetricians felt they were all laboring under a misconception. Ophthalmologists considered the idea shortsighted. Pathologists yelled, "Over my dead body!" while the Pediatricians said, "Oh, Grow up!"

The Psychiatrists thought the whole idea was madness, while the Radiologists could see right through it. Surgeons decided to wash their hands of the whole thing. The Internists thought it was a bitter pill to swallow, and the Plastic Surgeons said, "This puts a whole new face on the matter...."

The Podiatrists thought it was a step forward, but the Urologists were pissed off at the whole idea. The Anesthesiologists thought the whole idea was a gas, and the Cardiologists didn't have the heart to say no.

In the end, the Proctologists won out, leaving the entire decision up to the asses in Washington...

'Nuff said.

Sept 26th -- Free Food for the Mind!

The Smithsonian is sponsoring Museum Day - a chance to visit over 800 museums around the country for FREE. Click the graphic above and let your adventure begin!

Let's go shopping...NOT!

I know, I know, this is probably just something that someone typed up and not legit, but it's funny nonetheless. Some of them might be fun to try myself one day... I'm just sayin' :-)

Abbott and Costello in today's world

You have to be old enough to remember Abbott and Costello, and too old to REALLY understand computers, to fully appreciate this. For
those of us who sometimes get flustered by our computers, please read on...

If Bud Abbott and Lou Costello were alive today, their infamous sketch, 'Who's on First?' might have turned out something like this:

COSTELLO CALLS TO BUY A COMPUTER FROM ABBOTT

ABBOTT: Super Duper computer store. Can I help you?

COSTELLO: Thanks I'm setting up an office in my den and I'm thinking about buying a computer.

ABBOTT: Mac?

COSTELLO: No, the name's Lou.

ABBOTT: Your computer?

COSTELLO: I don't own a computer. I want to buy one.

ABBOTT: Mac?

COSTELLO: I told you, my name's Lou.

ABBOTT: What about Windows?

COSTELLO: Why? Will it get stuffy in here?

ABBOTT: Do you want a computer with Windows?

COSTELLO: I don't know. What will I see when I look at the windows?

ABBOTT: Wallpaper.

COSTELLO: Never mind the windows. I need a computer and software.

ABBOTT: Software for Windows?

COSTELLO: No. On the computer! I need something I can use to write proposals, track expenses and run my business. What do you have?

ABBOTT: Office.

COSTELLO: Yeah, for my office. Can you recommend anything?

ABBOTT: I just did.

COSTELLO: You just did what?

ABBOTT: Recommend something.

COSTELLO: You recommended something?

ABBOTT: Yes.

COSTELLO: For my office?

ABBOTT: Yes.

COSTELLO: OK, what did you recommend for my office?

ABBOTT: Office.

COSTELLO: Yes, for my office!

ABBOTT: I recommend Office with Windows.

COSTELLO: I already have an office with windows! OK, let's just say I'm sitting at my computer and I want to type a proposal. What do I need?

ABBOTT: Word.

COSTELLO: What word?

ABBOTT: Word in Office.

COSTELLO: The only word in office is office.

ABBOTT: The Word in Office for Windows.

COSTELLO: Which word in office for windows?

ABBOTT: The Word you get when you click the blue 'W'.

COSTELLO: I'm going to click your blue 'w' if you don't start with some straight answers. What about financial bookkeeping? You have anything I can track my money with?

ABBOTT: Money.

COSTELLO: That's right. What do you have?

ABBOTT: Money.

COSTELLO: I need money to track my money?

ABBOTT: It comes bundled with your computer.

COSTELLO: What's bundled with my computer?

ABBOTT: Money.

COSTELLO: Money comes with my computer?

ABBOTT: Yes. No extra charge.

COSTELLO: I get a bundle of money with my computer? How much?

ABBOTT: One copy.

COSTELLO: Isn't it illegal to copy money?

ABBOTT: Microsoft gave us a license to copy Money.

COSTELLO: They can give you a license to copy money?

ABBOTT: Why not? THEY OWN IT!

(A few days later)
ABBOTT: Super Duper computer store. Can I help you?

COSTELLO: How do I turn my computer off?

ABBOTT: Click on 'START'.............

Mini Cooper humor

A friend of mine owns a Mini Cooper. I had lunch with him the other day and was relating this to my kids, who refer to my friend as "Purple Shirt Jeff." What made me bring this up to them was that we were passing a Mini dealership. When I pointed out that "That's just like the car that Jeff has now," my youngest proceeded to ask if it was going to get any bigger when it grew up.

"No, son, a Mini Cooper is not a baby car, it will not get any bigger," I had to reply. We all had a good laugh at his insight.

Mountain living...

Good thing -- no mosquitoes. Apparently it's because there is no standing water for them to bread in 'cuz it's always running downhill.

Bad thing -- no-see-um's (aka biting midges). OUCH!

These boots were made for hikin'

So that's just what we did... We hiked from Max Patch to Lemon Gap on the Appalachian Trail in NC the other day. The guide books say that's a distance of 5.8 miles, but I don't think that includes the mile or so climb to the top of Max Patch to start the trip, so let's make it an even 7 miles including the "up the hill, down the hill" games the kids played.

My mother-in-law lives at about 3750 feet up in the mountains, and Max Patch peaks another 900 feet higher than that at about 4616 feet above sea level. We ended at Lemon Gap which is back down to about 3500 feet so it was a nice downhill slope most of the time. My mother-in-law has hiked about 3/4 of the Trail so far. Now my kids can say that they've hiked 0.32% of it!

They had a great time, though I had to carry my youngest (and another one his age) at the very end. 5-1/2 year olds just can't handle all of that yet I guess. The views were really spectacular even through most of the trail was through the woods. The path was really well maintained. It was a nice trail to cut our hiking legs on. I suspect that we'll do more as the kids get a little older.

Travel times

OK, so 12 hours in the car is never a "quick trip," but once again it seemed like forever on the way home yesterday. It seemed like much longer than the time it took to drive to North Carolina on the way down last week. We took exactly the same router (but in reverse) on the way back. Yes, there was a little more construction, but not enough to impact this perception I don't think.

One day while we were down there, we went to a place my mother-in-law works to say hi, get a quick tour, and just to have something to do. The house was just over 2 miles from the main road, though it took (or seemed to take) quite a long time to get there, relatively speaking. It was on a mountain, so there were all these switchbacks, narrow roads, steep grades, even a creek to cross on the way there. When we got there, it was really cool. The owners of the house own Mary Mac's Tea Room in Atlanta. Very nice people and a very nice (and large!) house.

Anyway, back to the issue... When we left, it seemed like it took just a few seconds to get back to the main road. Go figure!

Some might way that it takes longer when you don't know exactly where you're going. OK, on that theory, the house visit makes sense. Took longer to get there because we weren't sure where we were going and seemed to be much quick retracing our steps back to the main road. But that doesn't work for the ride home. We knew exactly where we were going and it still seemed to take a lot longer.

Some might say it's the anticipation of being home. You want it so bad, it can't come fast enough -- kind of like a watched pot never boiling. A little credence in there I guess...

Maybe it was because we were all really tired on the way home and that disturbed our sense of time. Pretty sad to be so darn tired from a vacation, but.

I'm not sure what it was, but I'm really glad to be home... finally...

On the raod again...

We try to find something interesting to do on the way home from NC. Sometimes we play Are we there yet?, a kind of I Spy / Bingo card game mash-up. Other times we play the Alphabet game. Anything to help pass the 11-12 hours that we're couped up in the wagon.

One "game" we often play if the license plate game where we keep track of all the states we can find on the passing license plates. The only rules are that they cars/trucks/semis, etc have to be on the same road as us, and they have to be moving. Cars in parking lots when we have to stop don't count.

I forgot to print the sheets so that we could play on the way down to NC, but on the way back we saw 30 states and 2 Canadian provinces. We had plates from as far west as Washington (a semi, I think) and as far east as New Jersey.

We didn't get to count it because it didn't fit the rules we'd established, but we did see an Alaska plate in a parking lot. That started a whole debate about why we'd be really unlikely to see plates from Hawaii... :-)

zea mays everta

My kids love popcorn. I love popcorn. My wife loves popcorn. I've loved popcorn for a long time, but I did not know these 20 things...

Mia Rose

I'm not sure when I came across Mia on Youtube, but I really enjoy listening to her. She sings a lot of covers, but has some of her own as well. Ana Free is a friend of hers as well that I like.

One of Mia's fans decided to put together this "What the future holds" video. Given Mia's quick rising star, this video may be very prophetic... Enjoy

100 things your kids may never know about...

The Wired Geek Dad recently posted a list of things that his his will never know experience except through reading about them on Wikipedia or some future equivalent. These are items that were ever-present in his youth and while growing up. Some were more fleeting than others, but anyone his, or my age will remember them.

It's interesting thinking about what my kids might put on a list like this of their own someday... Hover boards, teleporters, instant ice cream, humanoid robots, self-cleaning houses, One-terabyte cameras, ... hmmm

Radio Disney

I've not posted recently about Radio Disney partly because we've not been able to attend any of the road shows recently (busy summer, shows further away, etc), but don't YOU forget about them. Lots of fun and prizes to be had for all!

I still keep the calendar to date on the right column whenever they add anything to their official calendar or I hear about the road shows on the radio, etc. Check 'em out!

What are you doin' right now?

The New York Times had an interesting interactive breakdown recently of how we each spend our 24-hours allotted to us each day. Categories include activities like eating, sleeping, watching TV, household chores, computer use, etc. The interactivity is just as interesting as the data itself.

Warning: Don't read this one at work. People will stare!

Just try reading this without laughing till you cry!


A guy who purchased his lovely wife a pocket Tazer for their anniversary submitted this:

Last weekend I saw something at Larry's Pistol &Pawn Shop that sparked my interest. The occasion was our 15th anniversary and I was looking for a little something extra for my wife Julie. What I came across was a 100,000-volt, pocket/purse-sized tazer. The effects of the tazer were supposed to be short lived, with no long-term adverse affect on your assailant, allowing her adequate time to retreat to safety….?? WAY TOO COOL!

Long story short, I bought the device and brought it home. I loaded two AAA batteries in the darn thing and pushed the button. Nothing! I was disappointed. I learned, however, that if I pushed the button and pressed it against a metal surface at the same time; I'd get the blue arc of electricity darting back and forth between the prongs. AWESOME!!! Unfortunately, I have yet to explain to Julie what that burn spot is on the face of her microwave.

Okay, so I was home alone with this new toy, thinking to myself that it couldn't be all that bad with only two triple-A batteries, right? There I sat in my recliner, my cat Gracie looking on intently (trusting little soul) while I was reading the directions and thinking that I really needed to try this thing out on a flesh & blood moving target. I must admit I thought about zapping Gracie (for a fraction of a second) and thought better of it. She is such a sweet cat. But, if I was going to give this thing to my wife to protect herself against a mugger, I did want some assurance that it would work as advertised. Am I wrong?

So, there I sat in a pair of shorts and a tank top with my reading glasses perched delicately on the bridge of my nose, directions in one hand, and tazer in another. The directions said that a one-second burst would shock and disorient your assailant; a two-second burst was supposed to cause muscle spasms and a major loss of bodily control; a three-second burst would purportedly make your assailant flop on the ground like a fish out of water. Any burst longer than three seconds would be wasting the batteries.

All the while I'm looking at this little device measuring about 5″ long, less than 3/4 inch in circumference; pretty cute really and (loaded with two itsy, bitsy triple-A batteries) thinking to myself, 'no possible way!' What happened next is almost beyond description, but I'll do my best.

I'm sitting there alone, Gracie looking on with her head cocked to one side as if to say, 'don't do it dipshit,' reasoning that a one second burst from such a tiny little ole thing couldn't hurt all that bad. I decided to give myself a one second burst just for heck of it. I touched the prongs to my naked thigh, pushed the button, and . . HOLY MOTHER OF GOD . . WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION . . . WHAT THE HELL!!!

I'm pretty sure Jessie Ventura ran in through the side door, picked me up in the recliner, then body slammed us both on the carpet, over and over and over again. I vaguely recall waking up on my side in the fetal position, with tears in my eyes, body soaking wet, both nipples on fire, testicles nowhere to be found, with my left arm tucked under my body in the oddest position, and tingling in my legs? The cat was making meowing sounds I had never heard before, clinging to a picture frame hanging above the fireplace, obviously in an attempt to avoid getting slammed by my body flopping all over the living room.

Note: If you ever feel compelled to 'mug' yourself with a tazer, one note of caution: there is no such thing as a one second burst when you zap yourself! You will not let go of that thing until it is dislodged from your hand by a violent thrashing about on the floor.. A three second burst would be considered conservative? IT HURT LIKE HELL!!!

A minute or so later (I can't be sure, as time was a relative thing at that point), I collected my wits (what little I had left), sat up and surveyed the landscape. My bent reading glasses were on the mantel of the fireplace. The recliner was upside down and about 8 feet or so from where it originally was. My triceps, right thigh and both nipples were still twitching. My face felt like it had been shot up with Novocain, and my bottom lip weighed 88 lbs. I had no control over the drooling. Apparently I pooped on myself, but was too numb to know for sure and my sense of smell was gone. I saw a faint smoke cloud above my head which I believe came from my hair. I'm still looking for my nuts and I'm offering a significant reward for their safe return!

P.S. My wife, can't stop laughing about my experience, loved the gift, and now regularly threatens me with it!

If you think education is difficult, try being stupid !!!

TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED THE 1930's, 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can and didn't get tested for diabetes.

Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-base paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, locks on doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had baseball caps not helmets on our heads.

As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, no booster seats, no seat belts, no air bags, bald tires and sometimes no brakes.

Riding in the back of a pick- up truck on a warm day was always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a filtered bottle.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and no one actually died from this.

We ate cupcakes, white bread, real butter and bacon. We drank Kool-Aid made with real white sugar. And, we weren't overweight.. WHY? Because we were always outside playing.

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on..

No one was able to reach us all day. And, we were OKAY.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride them down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We did not have Play Stations, Nintendo's and X-boxes. There were no video games, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD's, no surround-sound or CD's, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet and no chat rooms.

WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.

We would get spankings with wooden spoons, switches, ping pong paddles, or just a bare hand and no one would call child services to report abuse.

We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them.

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment.

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever. The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.

--

I'm not advocating a lot of the things called out here. This is definitely a different time we live in, but it kinda makes you think. It makes you think of all the fun we had back them. It makes you think, "Am I allowing my kids to have that much fun, and can I?"

Reader's Digest had an article this month called Bubble Babies talking about how the "Kiddie-Safety Industrial Complex" has convinced us to part with our money -- in the name of keeping our children safer. I remember a similar story about a mom in New York that let her 9-year-old son ride the subway alone. My immediate reaction was WHAT THE...! Then I shifted to, "well if he's mature enough, I guess." Then, "surely the "sane" people outnumber the "criminal elements" by a large enough margin that he'd be safe." I was conflicted.

There's no debating that science has improved our standard of life and living, but have we taken it too far. In many ways, I think so. I'm guilty of over-protecting my kids as well. We live in one of the safest cities and neighborhoods in the country, and yet, I won't allow one of my children to go around the block, out of my sight, without at least one of the others going with them. Safety in numbers. If something does happen, there'll be someone to help, someone to scream, someone to describe what happened. The likelihood of anything more tragic than a scraped knee happening is less than me winning the multi-state lottery three times in a row in three weeks (Anyone care to calculate the odds of that just to keep me straight?).

I remember playing in an abandoned log cabin way back in the woods. I remember playing in a hay loft that was surely decrepit enough to be condemned. I remember bringing a lit sparkler into the house (and burning a hole in the carpet -- never had that babysitter again!). I remember jumping on a trampoline without the net enclosure. I remember riding my bike in the middle of the street, without a helmet. And I survived.

But... I also know of kids that have broken their arm falling on the padded section of a McDonald's play area. And a 10-ish-year-old that had to wear a halo brace for quite a while because of an injury in a ball pit if I recall (or was it a moon jump?).

I'm not saying that my parents didn't care about my upbringing or my safety - they did. I'm also not saying that I followed every rule they set.

As a parent, our children are the most precious things we "own." It's only natural to want to keep them as safe as possible, right? At whatever "cost?" If that means going a little overboard, so be it.

I don't like my kids jumping off the swing set. My wife insists that they wear helmets when they ride bikes or scooters. Are they better off because of rules like these? Probably. At least in the short-term. Will it prevent them from taking chances, risking it all, finding the cure for Cancer? Only time will tell. I hope not.

Unemployment...over time

My sister finally got a job the other day after being unemployed for several months. I'm glad for her. It's a huge weight off her family's shoulders. She's not alone in her experiences. It's no secret that Michigan's not doing so hot right now. There are many, many people that haven't been as lucky as her.

A co-worker of mine shared a site he had seen that showed the employment status over time for many metropolitan areas from 2004 to present. It's really quite interesting. it shows we still have a long way to go, though.

Dear Anonymous...

I guess it's not fair for me to ask who you are because I don't say who I am, but my head's spinning trying to think of who you might be... I know that several of my coworkers read this (Thanks!), and several friends and family (Thanks!), but I'm trying to think of which of you started working after me.

Oh well... Thanks for reading my thoughts and leaving yours! I get an email when someone leaves a comment and I LOVE seeing those pop into my mailbox. It's always a pleasant surprise and it reminds me that people are visiting.

Thanks again!