Memorial Day, 2005

The picture to the left was taken a few weeks ago when we went camping (see a few posts back). My father passed away in Feb 2001 and was laid to rest in the national cemetery in Ft. Gibson, Oklahoma ... which is just a few miles from where we were camping. When we separated from our friends for a while, we went by the cemetery to see my father's stone. Hope was only 14 months old when dad died, so she has very limited memories of him.

If you click on the image of Hope, a new window will open with an image showing the decorations Mom put in place this weekend.
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This Day in History ... 1933

Three Little Pigs debuts
Walt Disney's cartoon Three Little Pigs is released on this day in 1933, featuring the song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" The cartoon became the most popular animated film up to that time.

Walt Disney was born on a Missouri farm and showed an early interest in art. He sold his first sketches to neighbors when he was just seven, and he attended the Kansas City Art Institute at night during high school. At age 16, during World War I, Disney went overseas with the Red Cross and drove an ambulance that he decorated with cartoon characters.

Read Complete Writeup

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If you don't stop that, ...

Saw this on the FoxNews.com website and just had to share it:

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Webpage Redesign time

I have decided to change the look of my personal webpage and would like some input on the final design choice. Being the geek I am, I decided to do it via an online poll of my blog readers (all three of you ... just kidding, you guys might actually total 10 by now).

Please review the options below (each image will take you to a demo of the page) and then submit your vote. When viewing the options, understand that I didn't reformat all pages, just applied different themes to the standard info ... as such, some pages with tables may have white boxes, instead of the standard page color. Those type of minor issues will be addressed in the final site prior to implemntation. Please use this blog entry to provide any feedback (problems, etc) about any particular option.

Here are the Options: CURRENT:
OPTION ONE:	OPTION TWO:
OPTION THREE:	OPTION FOUR:
Which website design do you prefer?    Current Option one Option two Option three Option four View Result Free Web Polls

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"Riding a dead horse" in today's society

The tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians, passed on from one generation to the next, says that when you discover you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount.

However, in modern business and government, because of the heavy investment factors to be taken into consideration, often other strategies have to be tried with dead horses, including the following:

1. Buying a stronger whip.
   
2. Changing riders.
   
3. Threatening the horse with termination.
   
4. Appointing a committee to study the horse.
   
5. Arranging to visit other sites to see how they ride dead horses.
   
6. Lowering the standards so that dead horses can be included.
   
7. Appointing an intervention team to reanimate the dead horse.
   
8. Creating a training session to increase the riders load share.
   
9. Reclassifying the dead horse as living-impaired.
   
10. Change the form so that it reads: "This horse is not dead."
    
11. Hire outside contractors to ride the dead horse.
    
12. Harness several dead horses together for increased speed.
    
13. Donate the dead horse to a recognized charity, thereby deducting its full original cost.
    
14. Providing additional funding to increase the horse's performance.
    
15. Do a time management study to see if lighter riders would improve productivity.
    
16. Purchase an after-market product to make dead horses run faster.
    
17. Declare that a dead horse has lower overhead and therefore performs better.
    
18. Form a quality focus group to find profitable uses for dead horses.
    
19. Rewrite the expected performance requirements for horses.
    
20. Promote the dead horse to a supervisory position.

Which is your favorite (and why)?
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That makes sense!

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Office Dares (as shared by my brother)

ONE-POINT Dares

1. Run one lap around the office at top speed.
   
2. Ignore the first five people who say 'good morning' to you.
   
3. Phone someone in the office you barely know, leave your name and say "Just called to say I can't talk right now. Bye."
   
4. To signal the end of a conversation, clamp your hands over your ears and Grimace.
   
5. Walk sideways to the photocopier.
   
6. While riding in an elevator, gasp dramatically every time the doors open.
   

THREE-POINT DARES

1. Say to your boss, "I like your style" and shoot him with double-barreled fingers.
   
2. Babble incoherently at a fellow employee then ask, "Did you get all that, I don't want to have to repeat it".
   
3. Page yourself over the intercom (do not disguise your voice).
   
4. Kneel in front of the water cooler and drink directly from the nozzle
   
   (there must be a 'non-player within sight).
   

   Shout random numbers while someone is counting.
   

FIVE-POINT DARES

1. At the end of a meeting, suggest that, for once, it would be nice to conclude with the singing of the national anthem (extra points if you actually launch into it yourself).
   
2. Walk into a very busy person's office and while they watch you with growing irritation, turn the light switch on/off 10 times.
   
3. For an hour, refer to everyone you speak to as "Bob".
   
4. After every sentence, say 'Mon' in a really bad Jamaican accent. As in "The report's on your desk, Mon". Keep this up for one hour.
   
5. While an office mate is out, move their chair into the elevator.
   
6. In a meeting or crowded situation, slap your forehead repeatedly and mutter, "Shut up, darn it, all of you just shut up!".
   
7. At lunchtime, get down on your knees and announce, "As God as my witness, I'll never go hungry again".
   
8. In a colleague's diary, write in 10am: "See how I look in tights". (Extra points if it is a male, even more if he is your boss)
   
9. Carry your keyboard over to your colleague and ask "You wanna trade?".
   
10. Repeat the following conversation 10 times to the same person:
    
    "Do you hear that?" "What?" "Never mind, it's gone now".
    

    Come to work in army fatigues and when asked why, say, ! "I can't talk about it".
    

    Posing as a maitre d', call a colleague and tell him he's won a lunch for four at a local restaurant. Let him go.
    

    Speak with an accent (French, German, Porky Pig, etc) during a very important conference call.
    

    Find the vacuum and start vacuuming around your desk.
    

    Hang a two-foot long piece of toilet roll from the back of your pants and act genuinely surprised when someone points it out.
    

    Present meeting attendees with a cup of coffee and biscuit, smashing each biscuit with your fist.
    

    During the course of a meeting, slowly edge your chair towards the door.
    

    Arrange toy figures on the table to represent each meeting attendee, move them according to the movements of their real-life counterparts.
    

Thanks Dee!
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Found some shirts online....

click on this one for a larger image

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Variations on "half full/half empty"

"Some see a glass that is half full. Some see a glass that is half empty. I see a glass that's the wrong size."

"Is the glass half empty, or half full?"

"That depends on if you're drinking or pouring."
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Our welcoming committee

This was our site as we drove up to our cabin at Greenleaf State Park last week. Our cabin was at the end of the road you see in the first two pictures, on the right side. The deer you see in the third picture (practically facing the camera) is the same one that was in yesterday's posting with Hope petting it. A total of five deer were within a few yards of our car, and cabin, as we arrived. How is that for a friendly park ... to have such an unusual welcoming committee!

(click on the images to see larger copies ... images taken by cell phone camera)
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Where the deer and the antelope play

We went to Greenleaf State Park last week with some friends and wanted to share just a small little glimpse of what we experienced. When we got to our cabin, we were greeted by six deer wandering aimlessly in our front yard. A few days later, one of the deer was near the playground area and was tame enough to walk up to and pet. When this photo was taken, there were kids playing tag about 20 feet east of us, yelling and screaming at the top of their lungs!
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I really don't NEED it, but....

.... but the geek factor of such a small projector has been making my "I want it" kick into overgear.

While it only has a 1000 Max ANSI lumens in regards to brightness, the Infocus LP120 (not as bright as I would like), it does have the following geek-factors:

Wireless connectivity option that keeps you from having to connect it to the computer with cables

Interactive status display (instead of various flashing lights for status)

Intuitive one-touch keypad ... most all commands via individual buttons, instead of deeply hidden menus

Less than 2 pounds

Data Compatibility: VGA, SVGA, XGA & SXGA (native resolution: XGA 1024 x 768)


How is that for small?
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Stretch H2 sited on Broadway Extension

While traveling from the Homeschool Convention in Oklahoma City with my buddy Todd, we found a stretch H2 northbound on the Broadway Extension. I decided to take a couple of picutes with the ever-present camera phone:
  

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