Starbucks Fun

Razor is having fun at Starbucks.

I will try the "Gretzky" alias my next trip.

Banana skin usefullness

Next time you slip up on a banana skin, you might want to hesitate before picking it up. You never know where its been.

Apparently, hockey announcers don't have much to do in the off season.

Razor - go guest host on the Hardline or something. Geesh.

These Are A Few Of My 100 Things

Time Magazine has an article about living with only 100 things. That is a pretty tall order. Depends on what your definition of "thing" is. Does a set of golf clubs, tees, balls, cart, and bag all count as one thing. I sure hope so. One of the participants is quoted addressing this problem.

Cait Simmons, 27, a waitress in Chicago, takes a different approach. Although she has pared down her footwear collection from 35 to 20 pairs, she says, "All my shoes count as one item."

I am pretty partial to my stuff, and probably irrationally attached to several items I hold dear, particularly an afgan knitted for me by my grandmother, and my grandfather's old wooden creaky rocking chair. This article looks and smells like self-loathing freedom haters to me. As long as you are not consumed by possessing things, or them possessing you, I say what's the problem?

April 15

"Republicans believe every day is the Fourth of July, but Democrats believe every day is April 15."

- Ronald Reagan

I love this quote from the Great Ronald Reagan.

Happy Pi Day (3.14)

Happy Pi Day. Here's to hoping that last decimal place will never be calculated.

Pi are not squared, pi are round.

Christmas lights

Last weekend Samantha and I got everything Christmas out of the attic. We decided to put the icicle lights up on the house again for this year. As the picture shows, we had ice last Christmas and the ice ended up pulling down one of the light chains and busted a good many of the tiny bulbs. The first job then was to fix the damaged lights. The first one out of the box must have been the chain that took the biggest hit last year as many sections of it wouldn't work. Sam and I decided to cannibalize it to get the others properly working. We were surprised to find an unopened box of icicles to replaced the damaged one.

Part of this year's fun was discovered over the summer. As part of a bulk garbage pick-up by the city, I decided to empty the attic of unnecessary items. In doing this I discovered where I had put lots of other lights from years gone by. After the icicle lights were fixed and put up in front, I began untangling and fixing these old lights. I recognized these right away. We have some lights that are big bulbs, about the size of eggs and solid colored. Not my faves. Also many chains of smaller bulbs that are solid colored and clear colored. Last of the bulbed lights are three or four chains of smaller bulbs that are very faded and beat up. These used to hang in our back yard for a year or two long ago. We would turn them on at night and go play in the backyard when the boys were little. The boys loved to play soccer at night, and who could blame them - its much cooler then.

I ended up fixing these extras and putting them up on the back of our house and along the fence next to the road. It looks goofy but I'll take a Christmas exemption on that.

There is a lot of variety of lights up on houses around the neighborhood. I have been looking at the houses nearby that leave the lights on the house year round ( but don't turn them on obviously) and there are large sections of these lights that don't work. Some houses have one strand near the door or on a tree, and others have lights everywhere. And then there are the chasing lights that turn the house into a Blockbuster Video store.

My preference is for the simple lights altho the icicle light is more the norm today. I like the small bulbs, clear and with colors. Its a bonus if some of these lights pop on and off randomly - I have only a few of those treasured bulbs now.

Overall our house looks much like it has for the past many years, as do our neighbor's. Next week we go to the Trail Of Light on Town Lake for that traditional trip - with hot chocolate.

HEB Check Out

Standing in line at the HEB check out tonight I notice a woman in front of me purchases 16 items. The man directly in front of then purchases 15 items. This is in the "Ten Items Or Less" line. Harumph. No, same items do not count as one item. My bad karma is now washed away - I watched passively, chatting with a lady that attends our church, and waited to buy my 5. One of the these days tho, I will get up the nerve, and probably still do nothing. Except harumph a lot.

Because I was up anyway.

Perhaps it was because I had seen a news story on Yahoo, or perhaps it was because I drank most of a twenty ounce bottle of water before going to bed, but I was up at 4:25 a.m. this past Tuesday morning (8/28/7). The second time that night. I remembered a total lunar eclipse was going on and at that moment was reaching its peak here in Austin TX. After a few moments of arguing with myself, I put on some shorts and went out into the front yard. Kasey our dog padded along with me.

I looked around for a moment or two at the sky not seeing the moon right away, but located it about halfway up off the horizon to the southwest from the end of our driveway. Only the lower edge was fully lit. The rest of a nearly full moon was shadowy and dull, as if clouds were obstructing the view, only not by Earthly clouds, but those that might be around the moon itself. No changes of color of the moon this time meaning it did not run red with blood or anything.

I looked around the neighborhood and all was quiet. No other nerdy types out with their dogs looking at the moon. The main thorough-fare near our house was very quiet and a pleasant breeze was blowing.

After about five minutes I took a final look at the dusky moon and headed in. I marvel at how these eclipses are predicted and with such accuracy. It wasn't an awesome display of celestial power, but a nice cerebral moment, a chance to contemplate one's place in the world, but five minutes was all I could stand. Kasey failed to notice at all.