Trip To The 'Nati

We took off this morning and headed to Cincinnati for the weekend. My grampa's birthday is next week and I really wanted to spend some quality time with him. He's turning 97! That is so cool. And he's in great health, exercises every day, reads the paper and watches every sporting event he can on TV. I called him up yesterday and told him that I would be in town this weekend, and asked if I could come over and watch the Georgetown - Ohio State game tomorrow evening. He said that sounded like a wonderful idea and he informed me that the Las Vegas odds on the game are 50/50. The best part is that my dad talked to him later that day and my grampa was really psyched that Liz and I were coming over for the game and he asked my dad if he could get some beer for the game.

Again grampa, you rock. Luckily I caught my dad before he got to the store so I could request some NA beer but that's another Lenten story.

There is a funny part. On the way here today we stopped in a rest area to go to the bathroom. (I still don't know why they don't just call them bathroom break areas). I think we were just east of Wheeling, WV when I spotted an intriguing headline in a local newspaper box. I had to invest the 50 cents to investigate further.

Born A Baptist?

A friend emailed this to me today. Enjoy!

Each Friday night after work, Bubba would fire up his outdoor grill and
cook a venison steak. But all of Bubba's neighbors were Catholic....and
since it was Lent, they were forbidden from eating meat on Friday.

The delicious aroma from the grilled venison steaks was causing such a
problem for the Catholic faithful that they finally talked to their
priest.

The Priest came to visit Bubba and suggested that he become a Catholic.

After several classes and much study, Bubba attended Mass ..and as the
priest sprinkled holy water over him, he said, "You were born a Baptist,
and raised a Baptist, but now you are a Catholic."

Bubba's neighbors were greatly relieved, until Friday night arrived, and
the wonderful aroma of grilled venison again filled the neighborhood.
The Priest was called immediately by the neighbors and as he rushed
into Bubba's yard clutching a rosary preparing to scold him, he stopped
and watched in amazement. There stood Bubba, clutching a small bottle of
holy water which he carefully sprinkled over the grilling meat and
chanted: "You wuz born a deer, you wuz raised a deer, but now you is a
catfish."

Observation Creates Reality

It's true. Just ask Dr. Quantum.

I believe there is some kind of relationship between quantum mechanics, a future unified theory, and all the wierd things that happen without explanation such as miracles, faith healing, angels, etc. I'm not sure what that relationship is, but think we will start to learn more as the CERN Ultra Super Duper particle accelerator (aka Large Hadron Collider) gets under way in Switzerland.

So how does observation equal reality? Let the doctor explain...

Dishwasher Installed!

We ran most of the plumbing and electrical today for the new kitchen island. But we didn't finish until almost 9:00pm tonight. So now I'm too tired to write a long entry, but not so tired that I can't share this great video with you. Tenacious D and Foo Fighters playing Tribute.

Georgetown Hoyas Go To The Final Four!!!!

We Are....Georgetown!

Ahh yes, my alma mater is making me proud! Georgetown Wins!

And in case you're wondering...what exactly is a Hoya?

Here's your answer.

Life Without Limbs

Have you ever heard of Nick Vujicic? Nick was born in Australia with no arms and no legs. Probabaly just ended up in some kind of institution or lives at home with full-time nurning care, right?

Wrong. He's actually an international motivational speaker and has a growing ministry that is reaching around the world. This guy is awesome. Looks like he travels to the U.S. quite a bit to speak. Click on the title link to see his website.

Evidently Size Does Matter

At least, to European roe deer.

Interesting Use Of A Dollar Bill

Gotta love the ingenuity and creativity of the American college student.

Demonstration Video

Realistic Internet Simulator

This is pretty old. I think it came out about 5 years ago or so, which is about 1000 in internet years. (Like oh my gosh...that flash animation is totally 2002.) I was wondering if it still existed. It does. See how many you can close in 30 seconds. I'm using my touchpad right now so it's a little slower than using the mouse. I scored a 27. Here it is.

Short Films

My wifi seems to be acting up a little tonight so these were more like 30 seconds for me but I hope they're only 5 for you.

The Titanic in 5 seconds.

Batman in 5 seconds.

The Godfather in 5 seconds.

Amadeus in 5 seconds.

That Wasn't So Bad...

On thursday nights I practice with the choir at my church. I used to sing in the choir when I first moved to charles town but gave it up after about two months. At the time I was commuting to DC every day and I just got tired of having to go to church an hour early every sunday so that I could learn what we were suppose to sing. In those days I wouldn't get home till 8 or 9 o'clock at night so there was no chance to make the once/week practice on thursday night at 7:00.

Fast forward a couple years. A week before Lent started a woman from the choir approached me and asked me if I wanted to come back and sing with them. I had been looking to take on something new for the Lenten season besides just giving something up. I agreed. I said I would come to every practice and sing at every sunday service as long as I was in town.

Our music director knew I played guitar so she asks me two weeks ago if I would provide music for "Amazing Grace" at the upcoming service. I said sure. She hands me music. I totally forgot that the last time I read music was in 10th grade when I was in the marching band. (geek, I know). So I take it home, figure out some chords, and go to thursday's practice ready to rock. Now the amusing bit.

A. I had been painting a ceiling that day and accidently touched my head to a freshly painted surface so I had a perfectly shaped yarmulke sized white circle on top of my head. I had no idea of course till it was too late to do anything about it.

B. When I take out my guitar someone said "looks a little dusty." I've been renovating my house for about 2 months now and there is dust everywhere but it really looked like my guitar had been sitting in an attic since the 1800's.

C. We go to practice in the place where we will sing on Sunday and I, of course, am expected to play at a microphone standing up. At home I always play in a chair and so I never bothered with getting a shoulder strap. I also forgot to bring a pick.

D. My guitar sounded to me like it was out of tune with the organ so it just didn't sound very good.

I think the choir was really wondering if I actually played guitar or perhaps I just wished I played real guitar.

Anyway, sunday came. I cleaned up the old instrument. Got a shoulder strap. Brought my pick. We practiced it once right before church and the organ player said I sounded so good that she would just let me play along with the choir singing. It ended up sounding great in the service although I was a little nervous and the choir gave me a standing ovation. Remember, managing expectations is the key! If you can make people think that you are going to totally suck and then you actually do ok, then they will praise you as if you're totally awesome.

2006 French Beatbox Championship

I don't know about you but when I think of beatboxing I'm usually thinking of The Human Beat Box from the Fat Boys. I had no idea that it has come so far. Meet Roxorloops from Belgium. This guy looks like he should be coding linux.

Church In The Internet Age

I got this from a friend in an email fwd the other day and got a kick out of it. We don't have a sign in front of my church but I'm starting to think that we should.

Charles Town Pictures

I'm sure many of my readers are consumed with desire to know just what my adopted home town, Charles Town. looks like. I could go and take pictures of my own but my camera is like 5 years old and takes pretty poor pictures. (I'm sure it has nothing to do with the person working the camera.)

Luckily the internet has provided me pictures without me having to go and buy a new camera or take lessons from my family members (many of whom are very talented photographers/videographers). I figure I just saved at least a thousand dollars.

Now I pass those savings on to you. Here's some shots of downtown. I live 2 blocks away from most of these buildings.

Michael Hedges - Coffee Shop Fridays

I wouldn't say it is typical but every few weeks I'll go down to the local coffee shop on Fridays and listen to live music and drink about a pot of coffee. It's relaxing, except that I'm usually pretty wired by the mid-afternoon. The usual entertainment is off to Europe for a couple months. Something about there being more opportunity there than here in our small town in West Virginia. Whatever. (Just kidding David, we wish you luck).

So to fill the void here are some selections from Michael Hedges to help your Friday move along.

A real ATV

I just realized that the ARY has had an expired inspection sticker since January.
D'oh.

I don't think I can just go and buy a new sticker. The state is probably going to require that I get all those things fixed that have broken in the last year.
D'oh.

It used to be the CAMRY, but the 'C' and the 'M' fell off the back.
D'oh.

I ran over a tire on the interstate last year that had fallen off a semi truck. It was one of those big tires about the size of a washing machine. No right hand turn signal or right side headlight.
D'oh.

Oh, and the fuel pump is messed up so when the engine has been running for more than 10 minutes and you stop the car for a minute, say to stop at a convenient store, the car won't start for at least an hour. Ever been stuck at a gas station for an hour or more with nothing to do but sit in your car? It's boring.
D'oh.

I'm holding on to it though cause it's almost to 200K miles and it still mostly works. "No, no, no...he's only mostly dead."

I'm also starting to think about the next car. I heard from someone that West Virginia leads the nation is ATV accident fatalities. Not something to be proud of but who doesn't want to be the envy of their neighbors when they purchase a new car...or rather an ATV....or rather THIS.

Spring is back!

Today was the most perfect spring day. Warm and sunny. James and I were working all day (again) on the kitchen renovation while Liz and K worked on their laptops in the yard. There was a definite energy in the air today. I'm not sure what it is but there's something about these first warm days of spring that really make you happy. Oh wait, I remember. It's all those days that we freeze our *ss off.

Amazing how the absence of things make them so much more intensely wonderful when they arrive. Of course this doesn't apply to everything. Somehow not doing the dishes for a long time doesn't make it a pleasant experience to finally do them all. I know, I try a lot.

Ninja Warrior

This clip is from the Japanese gameshow Ninja Warrior. Evidently this is only the second guy to ever pass. Much better than our gameshows where people have to outwit 5th graders.

Watch till the end to check out what he can do in 30 seconds.

Bracketology - Continued

So I realize that last night's post wasn't even from the real bracket. It was actually someone elses bracketology predictions. Bummer.

Also, I didn't want to copy paste all the brackets again into this blog, so I just printed my bracket and filled it in the old fashioned way. With a pen and paper. Here's my results.

Go Hoyas!!!

Bracketology - Midwest

Bracketology: The study of the NCAA tournament bracket.

I never really noticed this word before this year's tournament so that probably means it's been in widespread use on ESPN since 1999 given how much television I watch. I do wish it was an actual academic branch of study. I wouldn't have wasted all that time and all those brain cells trying to major is stuff like computer science and sociology. OK, so I still would have wasted the brain cells. But all that time was a definite waste. I still don't really know what sociology is or how it's useful.

But on to my real major. Bracketology. In case you're betting on the big tournament in your office pool, here's my run-down of the first round. I don't have any money on the games so this will be a good experiment to see how well my college basketball swami skills are coming along when not influenced by the green stuff.

MIDWEST Bracket

(1) Ohio State vs. (16) North Texas : Odom is going to play this one in flip flops, left handed, blind folded, and chug a beer at every time out. OSU still wins.

(8) Xavier vs. (9) Arizona : Arizona is so pissed they're a 9 seed they'll take it out on the Catholics. Arizona advances despite Xavier being a hometown school for me.

(5) Maryland vs. (12) Drexel : I have no idea who Drexel is, but they seem to keep popping up in the tournament. Terps beat them anyway.

(4) Texas vs. (13) Holy Cross : My first upset prediction. The longhorns will not be happy.

(6) Creighton vs. (11) Arkansas : Unfortunately for Creighton, the baseball team is not playing basketball. Arkansas wins in another stunning bracketology upset.

(3) Pittsburg vs. (14) Albany : After sucking so bad in the Big East final one would think that Pitt will come out of the gate looking more alive. Pitt wins.

(7) Virginia vs. (10) Indiana : I'm not sure on this one. So I flipped a coin. It said that Virginia would win.

(2) Memphis vs. (15) Belmont : I thought Belmont was a horse race. Horses are cool but they're no match on the court for this Memphis team.

I'm trying to write this in bed and I'm starting to get a kink in my neck so I'll post the rest of my first round predictions in the morning.

Best TV Commercial Ever

Back in my DC days we used to love commercials for "Shoe City" and all the Senate Car Insurance guy. He was the "Kiss my bumper, just kiss it! ha, ha, ha" commercial.

Anyway, I just saw this recently and I think it's better than both. Warning, it may have you singing the song the rest of the day.

Is this really science?

First of all, please don't be offended if you happen to be overweight. I myself happen to weigh in at a solid 265 lbs so I'm not trying to pretend that I'm not a big guy who could lose a few pounds. But have you ever read a research article by an ivy league scientist where your reaction was "Duh, any one who goes to a cheap buffet or Wal-Mart could have told you that."

I especially like their term for a group of large individuals.

ScienceDaily.com Article

The Dilbert Blog: Laws of Physics

I thought this would have been a fun class to take. Who wants to major in regular old physics when you could study Dilbert Physics.

The Dilbert Blog: Laws of Physics

Firefox Gone Wild

I heard there are over 1000 extensions now available for firefox. Imagine how productive you could be if you had them all. Looks like I might need a bigger monitor.

Firefox Gone Wild

Greetings Loyal Fans

So my month off from blogging is now over. It was a nice vacation. Full of working on actual "real world" projects like installing new flooring, fixing holes in old plaster walls and rennovating kitchens. I'll be posting some pictures of those activities soon.

In the mean time....

If you really need a gun....and don't need it long....say only for 1 day....or maybe even just an hour....don't buy one....rent one!