3D Weekend

If I don't forget to make entries in my calendar, I will end up either forgetting something important or double-book myself to two different events at the same time.  On thing that makes me smile each time I look at my upcoming appointments is a 3D entry.  3D stands for Daddy-Daughter Date.  This weekend I had two!

 

Friday afternoon I used a couple hours of annual leave so Sarah and I could attend Frontier City's Homeschool night.  Tickets had to be pre-purchased through the OCHEC organization.  Since it was designed for homeschooling families only (several public school friends were there as well), the lines at all of the rides were almost non-existent.  We were able to ride all the rides we wanted as many times as we wanted!  The first time we were on the Renegade Rapids, we barely got wet at all.  An hour or so later, we decided to ride it once more, so we would have time to dry off before we left for the evening.  The second ride was nothing like the first.  I think I am usually dryer when I get out of the shower than I was when I got of that raft the second time.  Normally I am not one to think ahead, but the ziploc bag in my pant's cargo pocket containing my billfold, keys and cell-phone was the best idea of the day, as they were the only dry items on me.  I even had to pour water out of my prosthetic foot!  Sarah and I stayed until closing time and then headed north to Stillwater.  (the evening wasn't even ruined when we had a right-rear blowout on I-35 in the middle of nowhere)

 

Fast forward to today. 
Sarah and Renee went to Tulsa University for a high school student visit day with a friend.  That left Hope and I to have a our own 3D.  After church we went home to change and then off to the Golden Dragon for lunch.  Since she normally rides in a booster seat in the rear seat of the car, we decided to move it to the front seat of our old Oldsmobile (she loves riding in the front seat ... she says it feels like she is flying).  After a great lunch of sweet-n-sour chicken for her and shrimp fried rice for me, we stopped in at Swick's Mini Glow Golf. Swick's is a pizza place in Stillwater that bought the shop next to it for a mini-golf game room.  It is a small 9 hole course, but all the course borders, golf balls and decorations are painted with neon paint that glows under black lights, the only lighting in the room.  To top off a great daddy-daughter date ... we had the place completely to ourselves!  Since it was unlimited-play Sunday, we got to play as long as we wanted.  Sarah had told Hope to wear white so she would glow.  Knowing this, Hope decided to wear her cute white dress.  I couldn't tell if she was glowing from the black lights or if it was from us having a great 3D!

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Floating helicopter, or....

... one filmed with the FPS (frames per second) of the video camera in perfect sync with the rotation of the blades?  You decide.

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When She Loved Me

Hope played "When She Loved Me", also known as "Jessie's Song" from the Toy Story 2 movie for her piano recital piece this year.  It's hard to tell from the video, but Hope was dresses up like a little cowgirl and had her own Jessie doll with her.

 

From Wikipedia.org:

When She Loved Me" - performed by Sarah McLachlan - used for the flashback montage in which Jessie experiences being loved, forgotten, and ultimately abandoned by her owner, Emily. This song was nominated at the Oscars in 2000 for Best Song.

 

Please excuse the low-quality recording, but this was from my camera phone:

 

              
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A Tale of Two Houses

House #1
A 20 room mansion (not including 8 bathrooms) heated by natural gas. Add on a pool (and a pool house) and a separate guest house, all heated by gas. In one month this residence consumes more energy than the average American household does in a year.
The average monthly bill for electricity and natural gas runs over $2400. In natural gas alone, this property consumes more than 20 times the national average for an American home. This house is not situated in a Northern or Midwestern "snow belt" area. It's in the South.

 

House #2
Designed by an architecture professor at a leading national university. This house incorporates every "green" feature current home construction can provide. The house is 4,000 square feet ( 4 bedrooms ) and is nestled on an arid, high prairie in the American southwest. A central closet in the house holds geothermal heat-pumps drawing ground water through pipes sunk 300 feet into the ground. The water (usually 67 degrees F.) heats the house in the winter and cools it in the summer. The system uses no fossil fuels such as oil or natural gas and it consumes one-quarter electricity required for a conventional heating/cooling system. Rainwater from the roof is collected and funneled into a 25,000 gallon underground cistern. Wastewater from showers, sinks and toilets goes into underground purifying tanks and then into the cistern. The collected water then irrigates the land surrounding the house. Surrounding flowers and shrubs native to the area enable the property to blend into the surrounding rural landscape.

 

HOUSE #1 is outside of Nashville, Tennessee. It is the abode of the "environmentalist" Al Gore.

 

HOUSE #2 is on a ranch near Crawford, Texas. It is the residence the of the President of the United States, George W. Bush.

 

Urban Legands Reference Pages: A Tale of Two Houses 

Claim: E-Mail compares Geoge W. Bush's eco-friendly ranch with Al Gore's energy-expending mansion.

Status: TRUE

http://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/house.asp

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Microsoft Mobile oFone

Seeing as the Zune was such a hit, Microsoft decided to repeat the success and tackle the iPhone before it even gets out the gate; friends, I give you the Microsoft oFone. Not to be outdone by Apple's multi-touch keyless interface, the oFone features not one or two, but three keyboards that can all pivot about the small central screen. With multiple keypads, there is no need for wireless connectivity for gaming (see video). Need to bag some wild game for dinner? No worries, oFone can do that too, simply extend the three arms (like in the pic to the right) and it apparently makes a decent boomerang. I'm loving where they're going with this idea -- cool and unusable, just how I like my fake phones.

YouTube link, if needed

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History Lesson <possibly offensive to liberals>

Humans originally existed as members of small bands of nomadic hunters/gatherers. They lived on deer in the mountains during the summer and would go to the coast and live on fish and lobster in the winter.

 

The two most important events in all of history were the invention of beer and the invention of the wheel. The wheel was invented to get man to the beer. These were the foundation of modern civilization and together were the catalyst for the splitting of humanity into two distinct subgroups:

   1. Liberals; and

   2. Conservatives.

 

Once beer was discovered, it required grain and that was the beginning of agriculture. Neither the glass bottle nor aluminum can were invented yet, so while our early humans were sitting around waiting for them to be invented, they just stayed close to the brewery. That's how villages were formed.

 

Some men spent their days tracking and killing animals to B-B-Q at night while they were drinking beer. This was the beginning of what is known as the Conservative movement.

 

Other men who were weaker and less skilled at hunting learned to live off the conservatives by showing up for the nightly B-B-Q's and doing the sewing, fetching, and hair dressing. This was the beginning of the Liberal movement. Some of these liberal men eventually evolved into women. The rest became known as girliemen.

 

Some noteworthy liberal achievements include the domestication of cats, the invention of group therapy, group hugs, and the concept of Democratic voting decide how to divide the meat and beer that conservatives provided.

 

Over the years conservatives came to be symbolized by the largest, most powerful land animal on earth, the elephant. Liberals are symbolized by the jackass.

 

Modern liberals like imported beer (with lime added), but most prefer white wine or imported bottled water. They eat raw fish but like their beef well done. Sushi, tofu, and French food are standard liberal fare.

 

Another interesting evolutionary side note: most of their women have higher testosterone levels than their men. Most social workers, personal injury attorneys, journalists, dreamers in Hollywood and group therapists are liberals. Liberals invented the designated hitter rule because it wasn't fair to make the pitcher also bat.

 

Conservatives drink domestic beer. They eat red meat and still provide for their women. Conservatives are big-game hunters, rodeo cowboys, lumberjacks, construction workers, firemen, medical doctors, police officers, corporate executives, athletes, Marines, and generally anyone who works productively. Conservatives who own companies hire other

conservatives who want to work for a living.

 

Liberals produce little or nothing. They like to govern the producers and decide what to do with the production. Liberals believe Europeans are more enlightened than Americans. That is why most of the liberals remained in Europe when conservatives were coming to America. They crept in after the Wild West was tamed and created a business of trying to get more for nothing.

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Dealing with cell calls ... Vader style

 

On Monday, April 23 2007, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences screened Star Wars as part of their Great to Be Nominated series. Before the start of the show, they showed this special clip as a message of warning to members in the audience.

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... and the winner is:

On April 13th, I posted a link to the Oklahoma quarter voting site (previous post).  While I liked number four (state of Oklahoma outline, wheat, oil derrick and Pioneer womand and child), the final desicion for distribution early next year was for number two:

 

The bird is the scissor-tailed flycatcher (state bird)

The flowers are gaillardia pulchella (aka: Indan blanket)

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