Ridey ride..........

I got a ride in.

Not that big of a ride, but any ride is better then no ride. I managed about 15 miles of just dawdling along in my neighborhood and in my parents neck of the woods. My folks live in the original suburbs of our town and it was cool to check out the architecture of the older houses. Lots of cookie cutter houses but also quite a few unique houses as well.

Sorry, no pictures....not too sure people would like me stopping in front of their house to take shots of their house.

Couple of observations about what I saw while I was out riding.....

-People are seriously overweight. I'm not trying to be judgemental, but most of the folks I saw sitting on their front porches were "big boned".

-Lots of guys have a riding tractors to mow their yards. This being typical suburbia, most of the yards aren't that big, so to me.....it's kind of hilarious watching some fat guy sitting on his tractor acting like he is a wheat farmer cutting down the crops on his 1/5 of an acre of property. Don't get me wrong, maybe some of those guys aren't able to handle pushing a mower but it's still funny to watch.

-We need to make driving and talking on cell phones at the same time illegal. I almost got creamed not once, but twice by someone backing out of the driveway talking on a cell.

-Being that it was a nice day, lots of kids were out on bikes, it makes me squirm when I see kids with their parents riding down the wrong side of the street without helmets while listening to an iPod. Sure, sometimes I listen to my mine when I ride, but only in one ear and I'm an adult so I know that it isn't the brightest thing to do. As far as the helmet issue....if you're an adult-it's your brain that might get splashed on the pavement if you get hit so it's your call on whether you're okay with that. Your kid isn't capable of making that decision for themselves.

-On the bright side, everyone waves at you when you are riding a bike...it's kinda hard to be in a bad mood when you're on a bike.

-I am back to square one on base fitness. I was out for two hours yesterday just poking around and I had to pack it in when my knees started to bother me. Not sure if that's because of old age or the fact that I haven't been riding, but I decided to not overdo it.

I was working on a client's computer this past weekend............super nice folks, they couldn't figure out why their computer was slow and randomly freezing up. They didn't have any viruses on their hard drive but they had quite an interesting variety of spyware doing it's thing.

Since I had previously worked on this computer I was kinda surprised by how much stuff got on there.

I went through their e-mail (with the owner's permission) and traced the problem back to one infected attachment they had opened up a couple weeks ago. It only takes one spyware program to invite more spyware programs to the party.

Moral of the story.......don't open attachments unless you are 100% sure they are clean or trust your anti-virus to catch everything.
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I have no idea how this kid does this, but I wish I could do the same thing.

Damn, that's one tiny little doggie.

It's really gonna suck to commute in SF for the next couple months.

George Bush gets a purple heart. Notice I said "get" instead of "earn".

My favorite one is "dickhead"


I used to like Subway.......

Jeff Gordan won yesterday at Talladega. The fans help him celebrate with cans of beer. Now I know why I don't watch that many races.....it's lucky no one got killed from getting hit on the back of the head from a full can of beer. What a bunch of idiots.

Till later.

I'm a busy boy...........

Way to busy to blog this weekend, I'll catch up with y'all next week.....

Till later.

Hi Monica......

Here's the website of the commenter on my previous blog entry. I think she's got the kind of bikes I ride mixed up with the ones that have motors. My next door neighbor has a couple Harleys, but he's married as well.....looks like I won't be able to help you out much. Sorry.

You'll have probably noticed the "Iraq Body Count" thingie at the top of my blog, I'm not trying to be an ass, but I think it's an important number to have in your thoughts. That's one helluva lot of dead people.

The Onion does network news better then the networks.

Crappy joke time.....

A woman named Jill stood up at her church's Testimony Meeting, or as some churches call it, "Cry Sunday", one Sunday morning, took the microphone from one of the church ushers, and bared her soul to the enrapt congregation:

"I want to tell you about the awful accident that my husband, Jim, has suffered this past month. He was riding his bike, lost control, ran off the highway and hit a tree. He was rushed to the hospital, and could have died, but thank the Lord, all he suffered was a broken scrotum."

The congregation gasped in horror. The men in the congregation were obviously uneasy and writhed in their seats.

"Jim has been in terrible pain all month since the accident. He has trouble breathing. He has trouble swallowing his food. He can hardly lift anything, he's in so much pain, and he has missed work because of it. He can't lift our children up to hold them and give them the personal love that they need.

Worst of all, we can no longer cuddle and have intimate relations. He is in constant pain, a pain so terrible that our love life has all but slipped away into oblivion. I would like to ask you all in the congregation to pray for Jim, and pray for us, that his broken scrotum will soon heal and be as good as new."

A dull murmur erupted within the congregation as the full impact of this terrible accident sunk in, and the men in the congregation were visibly shaken up with the thought that, "there but for the grace of God go I."

Then, as the murmuring settled down, a lone figure stood up in midst of the congregation, worked his way up to the pulpit, obviously in pain, adjusted the microphone to his liking, then leaned over and said to the congregation:

My name is Jim, and I have only one word for my wife, Jill.

That word is: STERNUM!"

This video reminds me of the huge-ass LPG tank near Lake Redman. If you've ever been the Lake Redman, you pass it as you come in on George St. For some reason, some of the land nearby was developed into upscale homes. I bet the people that live there never saw that video.

Here's a shocker....not really.

"My job is a job to make decisions. I'm a decision—if the job description were, what do you do—it's decision maker."— George Bush Tipp City, Ohio, April 19, 2007

She's as delusional as her husband.

I really don't like Roger Ebert as a movie critic, but ya gotta admire him for guts.

It's not moving. Honest.

The Dexter Lake Club is for sale. Toga party!!!

Till later.

Most excellent weekend.

I can't complain a whole lot about our weather here in Central Pa. It could be worse. Sure, sometimes it's really cold in the winter and it's usually quite muggy in the summer... we only get a few of those "75 degree, cloudless, low humidity with a light breeze" days every year.

To get 3 of them strung together back to back to back while I was off was truly outstanding.

Got all my yard work done on Saturday (it looks quite nice, I must say) then did some errands and checked out my parents new car. They bought a Saturn Ion 3 from Saturn of York. I like the idea of the "no dicker" price thing, but like most dealers.......they still resort to some shifty business practices. After my mom picked out the car she liked, they added over 250 bucks worth of pinstripes and fabric protection without asking her.

Knowing my mom like I do, the last thing you want to do is be anything less then 100% upfront with her. Don't get me wrong, my mom is one of the nicest folks you'll ever meet-but she'll let you know in no uncertain terms when you do her wrong. She was the vice president of a local credit union before she retired and she had every one's respect where she worked because she demanded 100% honesty at all times.

I'm not privy to the conversation my parents had with the salesperson but they ended up cancelling that deal and buying another Saturn without the "optional" add-ons. It's ain't over yet, my mom is gonna write the company in Spring Hill, and I guarantee someone will be calling her up from the dealership to personally apologize.

That's just how my mom rolls.

I was planning on taking a leisurely mountain bike ride on Sunday morning, but Dan had some other plans in store for me. Namely.....fishing.

Yeah, baby.

Nothing like hittin' up the local restaurant for an early breakfast and checking out the lake to see what's biting. The way I figure it, Dan will be all grown up before I know it and then I'll have all the time in the world to ride. Who would want to miss stuff like this........


It's not a fish he reeling in, it's a log.

That was right before his rod's front half became disconnected and we watched it following the taut line right into the murky depths of Lake Redman. Yeah, the rod cost 15 or 20 bucks but the laugh we both got out of it was totally worth it. Good times for sure, I have the best kids.

We all gathered at my brother and sister in laws house on Sunday afternoon for one of my nephews confirmation party. I got to meet some of their friends that used to take our daughter with them to visit the zoo when Katie was a toddler. 15 years have passed since they last took her and they were very impressed with scholastic achievements so far.

Not that I was bragging or anything.

I'm a proud dad, our daughter has busted her butt to get where she is .....sometimes it's hard for me to shut up about it:-) Like I said before...we have good kids.

I was screwing around on Cafepress a few days ago and came up with a tagline for our company....


Whaddya think? The front of the shirt has our company name and our web address, if anyone wants to buy one, I'll send you the link to the Cafepress store. Daniel and I are styling around with them-Cafepress did a nice job.

Since it was so nice out this weekend, we opened up all the windows and the front door and put the screens in. Our cat has gone into sensory overload. She had to put up with looking through the glass of the window and now she can sit right in front of the front door or patio door and listen to all the birds and squirrels right through the screen.

That's one kitty that wants outside.

This is one amazing dollhouse. I used to build scale models and working on stuff like that is tedious after a while.

I like this cartoon. We'll always have a shady politician or two to kick around, but the media has gotten way more shifty and dumbed down in the past 30 years. It's like Idiocracy isn't going to take 500 years. More like 50.


Pretty cool, huh?

I'm glad this dude is gonna be okay, but 91 mph on the highway and no seatbelt doesn't set a very good example.

"We're the first national company to have a canned dog food made not in a pet food plant, but in a USDA plant." I'm not sure if that's a thing good for the dogs or if it's a good thing for humans. Not be crude, but I thought Dick Van Patton was dead.

I'm a wallpaper junkie. These are some very nice ones.....

I'm also a freeware junkie. There's some real nice stuff in this list. Lots of these programs are in my toolkit.

Bottled water is kinda dumb most of the time if you think about it. Maybe not everyone has fresh clean water to drink but one dollar a bottle for most varieties is too expensive.

Best picture you'll see all day.

Something Ill never have to worry about. I like sticking things in my piehole way too much.

Maybe I am ignorant of the way things are done in the deep south, but this should have happened 40 years ago.

Here's a news flash.......Bush Administration Awash in Scandals. Who knew? He isn't the sharpest tool in the shed. He may not be a very good listener, but at least he's loyal to a fault.

George Bush thinks he's like Lincoln. Umm, yeah....

I'm always up for a little bit of tweaking on my computer set-up, if you are running Firefox, this program seems to speed page loads up a bit. As usual before you go tweaking stuff, make sure you follow the instructions in the program and make a back up of your config files.

Cheese isn't always cheese.......I mean, the cheese you thought was cheese is cheese food.

Ringtones that don't sound like a phone ringing are kinda dumb. When my cell rings, I like it to sound like a phone because I don't want to look like a tool.

Monday morning........... I started out my day by taking some wrapped coins to the credit union to deposit. On the way there, I ran over a squirrel, this was wasn't the worst thing that happened though. I also ran over one of those parking lot cement things and ripped a hole in the sidewall of one of my tires.

Oops.

At least it was in a flat parking lot and not on the side of the road and it wasn't raining. It coulda been worse.


Looks pretty stupid with that tiny spare on there, although it might look cool if all 4 tires were that size.

On the bright side, when I took the tire over to my parents for my pop to replace (he's a tire wholesaler) my mom was just pulling out a tray of fresh blueberry lemon scones from the oven. I got to have breakfast and a nice chat with my mom. Everybody oughta have breakfast with their mom once and awhile if you can.

It's my wife's birthday in a couple days and she likes to keep it simple, so I bought her a simple gift. Since she reads this from time to time...........I ain't gonna spill the beans just yet, but it's something she really needed.

I'd love to tell you about a bike ride, but quite honestly, I couldn't fit one in this weekend-it was that busy....maybe this week sometime-I'm gettin' the shakes from not riding. I even spilled a 5 pound box of mini M&M's on the floor at work last night because I got the heebie jeebies for a ride.

Just in case your wondering.....5 pounds of mini M&M's will evenly coat the floor of an entire aisle in your typical grocery store.

I'll be spending less time on the computer now that it's getting nice outside......

Till later.

Enjoy the weekend........

I know everyone is riveted to their computers waiting for my next update to see if I've chopped off a finger, weed wacked my swimsuit area or mowed over a toe doing yardwork, but this will be the last post for a couple days.......it's too damn nice to be inside playing around on a computer.

I do plan to do a brief ride around Lake Redman early Sunday morning just because I haven't been down there in ages. I might take some pics if I remember my camera.....

I'm taking the single speed so I must be a glutton for punishment.

If it's nice where you are, go outside and enjoy it if you can. If you're working this weekend, call in sick.

Till later.

Yard work extravaganza......

I'm psyched.

I'm off this weekend and it's supposed to be beautiful.

I was at the hardware store and bought 38 bags of mulch to cover all our flower beds etc.

Looking forward to spending some time speadin' mulch, pullin' weeds, cuttin' grass and generally getting dirty. I might even fit in a bike ride Sunday afternoon if I'm not to sore to walk.....


Our cat loves the spring weather. She has a stand on one of our front windows and stays there all day making funny grunting noises at all the birds and squirrels when the window is open.

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After reading this article, I realized.....it's all about the oil. The hard truth is that those oil reserves will be tapped one way or the other at some point down the road.

A wall didn't work out to well for East Germany, what makes them think another one will work?

Here's the scary thing if you think about it, we all know someone like Seung-hui Cho. You certainly can't lock every disturbed person up and throw away the key, sometimes the best you can hope for is that they self destruct without harming anyone else.

I don't know if Attorney General Alberto Gonzales lied or not, but he sure seems like one sneaky bastard.

This isn't a surprise. I'm kinda partial to HP's and I've recommended them to a half dozen or so clients shopping for new PC's. I'm sure someone out there has the exact opposite opinion......

I don't know who's dumber.....the cat or the human.

Probably a waste of time at this point, but it sure would get his attention.

Sometimes lawyers can be real assholes.......that's not always a bad thing.

Till later.

When I get old........

I hope I get a few letters like this.....

A Polite Letter from the Smithsonian

Sometimes......

Sometimes the media needs slapped upside the head.

NBC Broadcasts An Eerie Epilogue

New stuff from Banjo Brothers....

I just got a new backpack in the mail from Banjo Brothers.

All I can say is that this is one nice piece. I like the fact that it's water proof, that will come in handy this summer on vacation when I pack it full of ice and cold sodas and go sit on the beach.

Actually, our 13 year old son took a look at it and I think he "appropriated" it from me. If Mike and the guys at Banjo need a product tester, Our son Daniel will give that backpack way more abuse then just about any rider.

As with all their stuff, this pack is well thought out and well made with all kinds of stabilizing straps and pockets.. Dan averages a back pack a year before he rips them to shreds.....I bet this one lasts longer.

I also want to publicly congratulate our son-he busted his butt and made honor roll this past quarter-way to go big man!

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Here's what people with too much money buy. And here's what people with too much time do.

Fast Food: Ads vs. Reality. I'm surprised I've never seen a website like this before. Burger King seems to be the biggest offender around here, when I get burgers from them, they look nothing like the picture on the menu.

Modern government in 4 pictures.

The latest "Dial a Human" numbers.

I don't give a hoot what anyone thinks...this guy has my respect.

Go Sanjaya.

Till later.

Unspeakable.

All I can think of is to say a prayer for all the families involved in yesterdays shooting.....

Desktop Tower Defense

I've never done crack cocaine, but this game is gotta be close to it.

Desktop Tower Defense

SNL Skit: Don't Buy Stuff You Can't Afford - Consumerist

This book could solve every American's debt problems.....

Don't Buy Stuff You Can't Afford

Just thinking.......

We've had a fairly mild winter here in the East Coast, not much snow or weeks on end sub zero temps.........but spring sure seems to be taking it's sweet old time getting here.

I sitting here typing this listening to 40 mph continuous wind blow through our trees in the back yard. Not that I mind a little wind from time to time, but we have several extremely large oak trees and I really like the way they shade the back of the house, I'd hate to have them be blown over.

I was working on my mom's new blog/website this weekend and darn near lost the whole thing. I learned from experience that it's a good idea to save the template from time to time as you make changes to it.

I saved it and about 2 minutes later changed something that deleted a whole bunch of stuff. I just about passed out until I remembered that I had just saved it......

I woke up yesterday and my lovely wife had already dived into the taxes.....she pretty much dealt with the whole production and told me not to bother her. Sounds like she was being mean to me but that wasn't the case, she was on a roll and didn't want any interruptions. I just kept her supplied with coffee and it was all good..........

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Lots of people owe these guys an apology. What the hell ever happened to "Innocent until prover guilty?" I know that most of the time people that are accused of crimes are usually guilty of something........but not always.

Who knows if this guy is guilty of something or not, but he sure seems sneaky. Sneaky isn't a crime but it sure appears to be a prerequisite to get a job in the Bush Administration.

I can't understand why this is even in the news, it probably takes less 20 minutes to spend that much money in Iraq.

It's hard to argue with this list.....especially the shopping for a pair of pants part.

Sorry, no bike content for today....ain't no way I'm gonna go for a ride with 40 mph headwinds.

Till later.

Indiana State Police blow shit up.

If some's good, more must be better.......

Indiana State Police

Taxes and a haircut......

Taxes are due soon aren't they? Neither my wife or I particularly enjoy doing them so as usual, they get put off until the very last minute.

We don't really have much incentive to do them as we have our deductions set up so we usually come out close to breaking even. No sense in letting the government have use of our money for a whole year.

I've had the tax software set up on my laptop for the last 6 weeks........I guess we'll be busy this weekend.

Ever since I shamed my old man into cutting off his swirlydoo haircut and going for the straight-up "I'm bald, deal with it" haircut, I like to make sure my hair isn't any longer then his. Everybody says I look just like him, so why not. I hit it with my electric clippers about once a month and save some bucks by not going to the barber shop.


As you can see, it doesn't take long for a haircut.
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Looks like Imus got canned. I bet he'll be on satellite radio inside of 6 months.

Eat Shitto. Xeni goes all over the world and has some great podcasts.

Lee Iacocca calls out our current leadership in his new book. Like Lee or not, the dude says what's on his mind. From reading the preview, it kinda looks like Lee doesn't think Bush has a set of balls or any kind of roadmap for the country. Kinda hard to agree with him......

It's national Faggot Week in Britain.

Till later.

AlterNet: Imus Got His Trash Talk Pass Yanked, Now Yank it for Blacks Who Talk The Same

AlterNet: Imus Got His Trash Talk Pass Yanked, Now Yank it for Blacks Who Talk The Same

I'm on my soapbox again..........

Just to be clear, I think Don Imus is a jackass and he probably deserves to be fired.

Snoop avoids prison time. How come Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson aren't lighting this guy's ass up for being such an upstanding citizen? Maybe they could both check out the(NSFW) lyrics to this song by this fine young lady. Or maybe they could invite this guy to sing at one of their rallies.

Bill Cosby had a point back in 2004.

I'm calling double standard....... if a white person sang some of those types of lyrics, Sharpton and Jackson would be all over them like stink on week old cheese.

I'll get off my soapbox now........
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I hope he wins. I don't get to watch that show much, but I did see him a few weeks ago when he had a mohawk and he impressed the heck out of me. Anyone that has the balls to do wear his hair like that on national TV deserves to win.

I said I wasn't gonna mention her name again in the blog, but there was this rather well endowed formerly overweight reality "B-list" star that died two months ago that IS STILL IN THE NEWS. Holy mother of all that is good in this world.....every time I read something about her, I throw up a little bit in my mouth. Enough already.

Like his approach or not, the dude has a set of balls. I think he's an honorable man, but I don't want a President that will be 72 years old when he's inaugurated. I don't like his stand on the war, but at least he is 100% clear on where he stands.

Evidently the White House staff went to the Rose Mary Wood school of filekeeping.

This is absolutely ridiculous. I can't even begin to imagine how the troops feel about it.

Sure would have been hard to sell an iPod in 1956.

I'm with this guy. I run a script that disables the damn thing on all my computers.

I can hardly wait to show this trick to my nieces and nephews.

America should have a war on meth instead of focusing on busting pot smokers.

It's none of my business what your religious beliefs are but this guy has a point....and a fairly large set of cajones.



Till later.

Trolls and stuff...........

Every once and awhile, I notice that a troll will put a smart ass remark in my comments.

Whatever.

Most of the time, I enjoy reading them and them I just delete them. No sense in arguing with someone on the Internet because it's usually just a waste of perfectly good pixels.......not sure about the guy that has an e-mail address almost like mine that comments from time to time ...strange stuff out there in Billy-Bob land.

It's always funny when people assume they are anonymous when with a little digging, they usually aren't.

Am I anonymous?

Nope.

Some guy made a comment about where I work and wondered if they know that I blog.....yes, they know I blog, I don't mention my company by name on this blog so it's never an issue. After all, I just make donuts for a living, it's not like I'm the company president or something.

I guess you have to expect some trolls with some of the content and opinions I post......

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The dude absolutely made a stupid remark, he apologized for it, got suspended from his job.........somebody needs to get over themselves. I'm getting the idea from reading the article that some people would like to see the guy crucified. What happened to Christian forgiveness? The guy made a stupid mistake. Last time I checked, all radios and TV's come with an "off" button.

He is going to personally apologize to the players involved. I don't know if that's good enough for the players involved, but it's good enough for me. I wonder if Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton have listened to a rap album lately? Most rap artists say way worse things about women then Don Imus. I'm not sticking up for Imus because I am a fan of his.... I really can't stand to listen to him.

I think they want us to leave. They're gonna kill all the Sunni's when we leave anyways, doesn't matter if it's next year, ten years or a hundred years from now. Bush opened up a can of worms that can't be closed without a whole shitload of innocent people dying.

Websites need content warnings.........mine should say "Silliness, frank opinions and foul language ahead"

Go ahead, crawl up your bosses ass.

I wonder how they tell which cable does what?

What the hell are the tranquilizers for?

Would you read your own blog? Me? Oh, hell yes. I would read it just to see what under-baked opinions and dumb ass links I came up with. I'm sure some of my posts are boring as hell and some just go off half cocked, but I don't do this blog for you, I do it for me. Do some of the commenter's comments piss me off? Yeah, sometimes, but that's what the "delete comment" button is for....


George Bush needs to think harder.

"She has to smoke a lot of weed, right? No sober person conceives of something like this and then actually prepares it, right?" .........my favorite comment from this article. Paula Deen is Satan.

Blogger code of conduct. Interesting idea that will never work. Here's my code of conduct........if you're nice to me-I'll be nice to you. If you want to be an asshole-I'm just gonna delete your comment and I'll call it good. If you want to disagree with me and post a comment.......at least be polite.

After all, it's my blog, so I get to make the rules.

Same but different.

I don't work in a restaurant but I have friends that do and most of these tips have some element of truth. One of my buddies is the head pastry chef at a local hotel and he has all kinds of stories.

Worst snacks ever.

Lord, why don't you buy me a............... Zody Chair fully loaded with Gel seat. 1000 bucks for a freakin' chair? You have got to be kidding me.

I call bullshit.

Gas will be 4 bucks a gallon just in time for summer.



Diets don't work. My doctor ripped me a new asshole the last time I visited because I gained a few pounds. He said pretty much the same thing about dieting. Regular exercise, watch what you eat and you'll lose weight. I got 6 bikes, I guess I better start riding them as soon as it warms up.

Maybe they could get this Navy guy to run some more military stuff. The dude does have a point.

My father-in-law got his broadband internet hooked up yesterday, my son and I are gonna show him how his e-mail and assorted stuff on his computer work this weekend. Dan and I are also gonna take him shopping for a new laptop for my mother-in-law.

I have the best mother-in-law in the world, so I better not screw up when I give my father-in-law equipment suggestions.

I'm the guy that will have to fix any problems......

Till later.

A joke........

I don't have much spare time today, I'm working on a website for my mom's craft guild but I had to pass along this joke my dear friend Hank sent me.............

A guy goes to the supermarket and notices an attractive woman waving at
him. She says hello. He's rather taken aback because he can't place
where he knows her from.

So he says, "Do you know me?"

To which she replies, "I think you're the father of one of my kids."

Now his mind travels back to the only time he has ever been unfaithful
to his wife and says, "My God, are you the stripper from my bachelor
party that I made love to on the pool table with all my buddies watching
while your partner whipped my butt with wet celery???"

She looks into his eyes and says calmly, "No, I'm your son's teacher."

Oh yeah.

Till later.

Family....

4 grandparents, 7 aunts and uncles, 11 grandkids and enough food for at least twice that many people all in one house. That would be Easter brunch at my in-laws house.......and that's a small gathering.

Other then the obvious religious reasons for the holiday, I like the Easter brunch because I get to see all my nieces and nephews and watch them become young men and women. One of my brothers in law has 3 daughters and all 3 are as cute as a button.....I'd love to be a fly on the wall when they begin to date and they bring their boyfriends home to meet my brother-in-law.

He's gonna scare the hell out of a lot of potential boyfriends....

Most years we take a picture of the whole family posed on the front steps of the house, we didn't this year because it was 35 degrees outside and getting that many people to stand still long enough the get a picture taken woulda been impossible. Maybe next year.

It doesn't seem like 24 years but as of today, my wife and I have been married for that long. Again, time just seems to fly by when you aren't really paying attention. All in all, it's doesn't seem all that long ago since we were sitting by the ocean in 1981 when I asked my wife to marry me. All I know is I'm glad she said yes.

Other then the arthritis in my knees, I sure don't feel like 47. Hopefully they have perfected knee replacement in the next 10 or 15 years and it will be an out-patient surgery by the time I need it.

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I bought my brand new mower last week and I haven't managed to get it out of the van yet, having the temps dip back down into the 20's and 30's last week didn't really put me into the mood for yard work. Looks like it supposed to rain most of the week, so most likely, I won't get much done outside anyways.

Anybody see this? Nice, huh? Withdrawing the troops out of there should have begun yesterday. I'm sure the vast majority of the folks living in Iraq are just normal people but the few fanatics over there could and will wait us out for as long as it takes for us to leave before they start their own ethnic cleansing. It's gonna happen, it's only a matter of time.

You'll never guess this one.


Robert Reich's vlog, April 8, 2007 on Vimeo

Dick Cheney ruins another Easter tradition.

Till later.

The Easter Bunny is gonna be pissed at me....

.....for posting this picture.



It's one of my favorites. My mom sent me a nicer version that didn't have the word "ass" included.

My wife left our son a note yesterday morning to do something constructive with his time off from school this week.



So he made some muffins.

He made more then four, I guess he just wrapped those up special. I gotta say, my son has some varied interests. I don't know if he's gonna follow through on cooking as a profession, but someday he's gonna make some lucky girl happy with his cooking ability. The kid has some talent.

Our daughter is home for a couple days for the Easter holiday, it's hard to believe she has almost completed her first year of university. Time flies.

Till later.

Winter's last blast...

Kinda cold this morning, I think the forecast is calling for lows in the 20's for the next couple days. I'm okay with that, I'm sure I'll be bitching about how hot it is in a few weeks.

Got to talk with Mike from Banjo Brothers last night, he's spending the Easter holiday in my next of the woods with his wife's family. I think he's gonna spend some time checking out some of the local bike shops. I hope somebody decides to sell his product around here, it's good stuff.

This is a nifty idea. I could see me doing that on a social ride. Nothing beats a bagel sammich on a bike ride. All I would need is a nice tall glass of milk to wash it down......

Check out the teef on this bad boy.

This doesn't surprise me whatsoever. Hell, I almost expect him to do stuff like that.

This would get rid of a few Billy Bobs.

Dick Dale is one smart guy. He's a helluva musician as well.

Till later.

Easter Break..........

Our son has off school for his Easter break for the rest of the week. I can remember when I was in school and we had our Easter break, it was always nice to have a little break right before the end of the school year.

He's got roughly 8 more weeks of school before the summer break. He's only 13 but he wants to find some sort of job this summer. Back when I was a kid, lots of extra money could be made mowing yards.

I can remember having 8 or 9 yards lined up, a Sunday paper route and a job at the local auction house on Saturdays.....I wasn't a rich teenager, my parents made me put most of it in the bank. I'm not complaining, some of that grass cutting money was used in our down payment for our first house......I'm sure Daniel will find something to get involved in, he's an industrious kid.


One advantage of owning your own company. I can hardly wait to see what my Christmas bonus is gonna be.

George ain't gonna like this piece. Not that he actually reads.......

This is fast. We could build neat stuff like that here in America, but nobody would use it.

If you are on a Windows box, you should have gotten this patch automatically. If you leave your computer on all the time, it will have indicated that it has rebooted, which means you have the patch. If you aren't sure-go here and follow the instructions.

I hope they lose. I've had several clients contact me about upgrading a "Vista" Capable" computer to Vista and I've advised all of them against it because their units generally lack the necessary horsepower.

Even if they have the RAM and a good enough video card, I've heard too many experts advise against it to even attempt it. I have a pre-installed Vista laptop and it runs very nicely, but it has 4 gigs of ram and a 512 meg video card in it.

Kinda sucks to be this guy. It's a shame, the same thing happens in the USA all the time.

I can't pick a favorite.

Japan changes world history (link courtesy of my son) Yes, he reads the NY Times everyday.

I used to build lots of models, but this one
(watch the video)

....flat out blows me away.

Till later.

You Know You're A Cyclist When...

My friend Hank sent me these..............

You Know You're A Cyclist When...

You use your helmet as a hair-styling device.

You think nothing of walking into public places dressed in tights like a super hero.

You can give instantaneous directions to any corner in the city, but only for those using bike paths and public transportation.

Multi-ton cars and trucks are tearing along in front, alongside and coming up behind you... your pulse rate: 66.

All of your pants have frayed cuffs and chain-grease marks.

You keep deodorant and baby wipes at the office.

You are polite to most everyone, you blush at some rap songs, but you swear like a drunken sailor when a grandma in an SUV cuts you off.

You've been asked if you're a tap dancer.

Although you speak only English, you're perfectly capable of pronouncing several words in Italian.

The friend who was so happy to see you on his morning drive wonders why you gave him the finger when he honked.

When someone asks for advice on buying a bike, you either:
a) ask, "How many thousands do you want to spend?"
b) assail them with so many questions about intended use, riding style and the like, not to mention such personal questions as pubic bone height, that you make buying a bicycle sound like rocket science and unintentionally put them off the idea.

When that same person reacts by saying, "It's only a bicycle," your jaw drops and your eyes bug out, and you're only half kidding.

When you encounter rough pavement, you say to yourself, "Ah, pave," and daydream about leaving the peloton in your dust as you speed through Arenberg Forest.

A car goes by with two (your preferred gender here) carrying two bikes. Later, you can't recall their hair color or what make car, but you can ID the bikes' make, model and color.

You have 3 bikes and you absolutely need more.

You sometimes wish you had a longer commute to work, just so you could ride more.

You ride 50 miles, one way, with a twenty in your pocket and if you actually buy something, you consider leaving the change because of the weight.

You select a restaurant because of its charming, outdoor dining. Your bike is 23 inches away. You lock it anyway. But you can't enjoy your meal because you can't take your eyes off your bike.

You consider the color of the bikes hanging from your ceiling when selecting home decor.

You missed more than two family events this summer due to scheduling conflicts with club rides.

You and your friends can recreate the "Jaws" scene where Quint, Brody, and Hooper compare scars, each with an even better story behind it, except yours go something like "This is from a 1990 Buick station wagon that turned left in front of me and put me over the hood."

Another cyclist asks you for the location of the nearest bike shop; you fix their bike on the spot.

You shop for your spring wardrobe at our store, rather than malls and clothing stores.

Your idea of surfing consists of drafting buses, minivans, and SUVs to keep up with the green wave.

You practice track stands and bunny hops in your spare time.

When actually driving, you stop at a red light and since no pedestrians are in the crosswalk you start to drive right through before you realize you are NOT on a bike, and slam on the brakes.

Similarly, when driving on the highway at 60 mph, you freak out at a 1-inch-wide groove in the pavement. What if your tires get stuck?

You know the location of all the major potholes between your home and office.

You can't think of the last time you saw any of your friends who don't bike.

Kinda funny to think of how many of these I've done or are true in my case.

Just in case the super guys at Banjo Brothers are reading this...I lost the e-mail you sent me today. Not sure exactly how I did it, but I can't find it anywhere on my computer. I emailed the customer service address, I'll send the contact info you requested there if I don't hear back from you. Sometimes I'm such a klutz.

I didn't get a chance to ride on Sunday, the weather didn't cooperate. This rider did. That's one helluva ride report, I really dug the slide show with the music. Awesome job.

How not to buy a car. I hate buying cars. I figure at the rate I go through cars, I'll only have to buy 2 or 3 more until I kick the bucket.

This baby likes the Wii.

Here's a minute and 13 seconds you'll never get back.

"How Not To Clean A Gun".......copied and pasted from one of my favorite sites....

(PS-NSFW Language)

Let Me Tell You About The Stupidest, Stupidest, Stupidest, Stupidest Thing I have Ever, Ever, Ever Done!

No shit.

For I will now regale you with a tale of danger and wonder. A tale with gunfire and explosions. A tale of deceit and shame.

I will tell you a tale of the stupidest thing I have ever done. In my entire life.

I only tell this story now because it’s been almost a year and a half since the events in question have transpired, and recapping the story no longer makes me hang my head in shame as much as it once did... Okay, yes it still does.

But please, if you will allow me some latitude, your honor... Thank you.

Set your wayback machines to September of 2005, I scant two months after I moved from Massachusetts to Florida. I was a newbie to the Gulf Coast, and Hurricane Katrina was fresh on everyone’s mind. Or, given the storm had already past, the aftermath was fresh on everyone’s mind. Looting, assault, rape, murder, you name it. Hurricane Wilma was bearing down on Southwest Florida. Would we be next, I wondered?

And so off I went to the local gun dealer. Ding dang doodle, man! I done went and bought me a Glock 30 – a sub-compact semiautomatic .45 caliber handgun. It shoots bullets as big around as a fucking frying pan. Says I to myself, "I’ll be goddamned if some sorry son of a bitch is gonna loot my new house." Try to rob me? That'll be tough to do with a .45 caliber enema, motherfucker!

But Wilma came and went with no rioting in the streets. No tubs of Heinekin being heisted. No new plasma televisions. No roving gangs looking for women. No hoards of zombies roaming the streets looking to eat brains. I was disappointed, yet relieved. But with the urgency of the storm having passed, I wanted to be a responsible gun owner and made it my mission to learn how to handle my new weapon safely. After all, if I ended up hurting myself or some poor bastard of an innocent bystander, the gun was of no use to me.

Now a quick tangent here. When you buy a Glock (and for all I know this is true for other handgun manufacturers as well, but that’s irrelevant to this story) they give you two magazines along with the gun itself. The idea being if you rotate the strain of a loaded magazine between the two, the springs that feed the bullets won’t wear out as fast.

So after taking my Concealed Carry Weapons class, I went off to the gun range about once a week. I slowly and methodically discharged my new handgun in the safest and most controlled manner as possible. A dozen or so trips and some 2,000 rounds later, dare I say the naturally skilled shooter in me came out again. (I scored as an NRA qualified sharpshooter back in the Boy Scouts, thank you very much.) Whenever my handgun came out, the following four rules of firearm safety were PARAMOUNT in my mind:

1. All guns are always loaded.

2. Never let the muzzle cover anything that you are not willing to destroy.

3. Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on the target.

4. Be sure of your target.

And this is how it went for two months. Me bringing my new gun to the range, shooting through a few boxes of ammunition, taking it home, cleaning the living piss out of it, and putting it away until I went shooting again. In the meantime, I kept it in the nightstand next to my bed. There isn't a huge of crime where I live, but hey, fortune favors the prepared, right?

Oh, another side tangent. Remember spending hours and hours writing a big research paper for school, and no matter how many times you reread your own work, you didn’t notice your own subtle spelling errors? The turned into "teh". Of turned into "fo". Necessary tuned into "nessecary". You know what I'm talking about... tiny, subtle errors that no matter how many times you looked at it, you didn't see them. I've always found the best way to correct this was to have someone else read you work. Or, in the absence of a third party, to put your work down and take a fresh look at it in the morning.

And so, on a Monday morning, after shooting my gun the previous day, I said to myself, “Self, I wonder how clean my gun really is? I mean if I can spend hours writing a story and not see simple spelling mistakes, I wonder if I’ll see many dirty spots on the inside of my gun from when I cleaned it yesterday?”

A reasonable question, right?

And so, I decided right then and there, just as I’m packing up to head to the gun range again, I would pull a ‘surprise inspection’ on myself. Yep, I'll see just how well of a job I did in cleaning my gun. I set the carrying case down on the kitchen countertop and opened it. My beloved Glock stared up at me with opaque eyes as dark as night. Its stock still glistened from the tiny film of gun oil I had gently massaged into it the night before. I had been handling this handgun for some two months now, and was only just now becoming comfortable feeling its weight in my hand.

I began the same takedown procedures I had performed a dozen times in the past...

1. Eject the magazine from the gun. Set it aside. In fact, I always set both magazines on the other side of the table whenever I'm cleaning it. As if somehow a bullet could magically jump up and over six or seven feet into the firing chamber of the gun. I knew it couldn't, but somehow just seeing the bullets wayyyy over there made me feel safer. Anyway, knowing I only had two magazines and since I was looking at both of them sitting on my kitchen counter, the only thing to worry about is if there was a round already chambered in the gun. Now because the gun was still new to me, I didn't trust myself to keep a bullet chambered like that. I kept a loaded magazine in the handle, so all I would have to do in an emergency is rack the slide, and then point and click. But, none the less, safety is paramount. So let's assume there is a bullet in the gun and we have to remove it. That is done by...

2. Pulling back and release the slide. Any chambered round would then be ejected. Not surprisingly, this didn't happen because again, I don't keep the gun loaded to that degree. I was now 100% confident my handgun was unloaded.

3. Holding the gun in my right hand, use my left hand to depress the two ‘take down’ levels on each side of the gun.

4. Point the gun in a safe direction and pull the trigger, releasing an internal catch holding the slide in place.

5. Once released, pull the slide forward and off the of the handle of the gun, thus separating the gun into two pieces and completing what is known as a ‘field strip’.

I detailed all of those steps merely because I want you to understand what I expected to happen. But what actually happened is anothe rmatter. As I completed step 4...
KA-FUCKING BOOM!

And for those of you who have never personally fired a gun -- especially in an enclosed area without hearing protection -- you have no idea of the level of sound, ferocity and pure violence of which I speak.

Upon squeezing that trigger -– very nonchalantly, I might add -– I was instantly greeted with a lick of flame that I thought only happened in the movies. An instant later, the sound was deafening. As is typical with most Florida homes, the ceilings are high and the floors are tile; sound fucking echoes, man. There were three dogs in the house at the time this even occurred. All three fucking screwed and hid under whatever bed ther were nearest to. I noticed the ringing in my left ear almost immediately; that was the ear on the same side as the muzzle of my gun.

The very instant it happened, I was aware of two things: One, my gun had just fired. I wasn’t quite sure how just yet, hell I was looking at the magazines on the counter so I was somewhat baffled and trying to understand how the impossible just happened. But regardless, it did happen I knew that was in certainty. And two, I was going to jail. I wasn’t sure for what, but I knew that discharging a firearm in the city limits was generally frowned upon. The cops would show up responding to a call of gunfire, I would explain what happened, they would sympathize but I would still leave in handcuffs. It was as simple as that. I accepted this fact almost as quickly as I grasped what just happened.

To illustrate how unprepared I was for this handgun to be discharging at that moment, you'll have to allow me another tangent. The way a semiautomatic gun works is like this. The operator manually pulls and releases a slide mechanism which accomplishes two things: it both loads Bullet-A and cocks back the firing pin. Upon pulling the trigger, firing pin slams forward and Bullet-A fires; the recoil energy from Bullet-A loads Bullet-B and re-readies the firing pin. Firing Bullet-B loads Bullet-C and readies the firing pin again.. etc, etc, etc. Lather, rinse, repeat. The only way to interrupt this process is to either run out of bullets, or have some other force absorb the energy of the recoil and thus interrupting the reload process. What could absorb this energy? Say for example... some limp wrested sissy who was lackadaisically holding the gun with one hand and wasn’t expecting a handgun to fire a bullet into his kitchen wall. You know, “for example”.

And that’s pretty much what happened. So about the same time I was watching this big lick of flame shoot out of the gun I was holding, about the same time I was losing the hearing in my left ear for a few weeks, there was a piece of 4”x4” white tile above my stove that exploded into a thousand little pieces.

I wouldn’t say that my life flashed before my eyes, because it didn’t. But your mind does accomplish a good hours worth of thinking in an instant, that much I know.

So okay, my gun goes off, I hastily set it down as if it were 1000 degrees Centigrade... and I ask myself. What the fuck just happened? And by that mean you know what happened – the fucking gun just fired. Right in my kitchen. Into my wall. Without my consent. What the fuck. But how did this happen with an unloaded gun that was evidently loaded despite my doing 'all the right things'?

The answer came instantaneously to me. It didn’t hide, I didn’t have to seek for it. It wasn't like when you're trying to remember that actor's name and it's right on the tip of your tongue and you almost have it. It was a very simple answer that came to me without a moment hesitation.

I bought a third magazine yesterday.

STOP. WAIT. Reflect back upon your thoughts as you read that last statement. For a split second; for a tiny fraction of a moment; you thought, "Ooooooooooooh! He bought a third magazine!" As if that explained everything. As if for a split second because you understood the mistake I made, that makes it all okay.

Well my friend, that split second, that tiny fraction of a moment, was all it takes to kill someone. Or yourself. And I don’t say this to point a finger – fuck after all I’m the guy with the extra stove vent. But my point is for a split second you kind of slapped your knee and shuffled around as if you suddenly understood the punch line to some joke. For a tiny second you allowed yourself that transgression. And that was about as long as it took for me to point a loaded gun at my wall and pull the trigger.

Get my point?

But forgetting this small and seemingly insignificant fact could have had cato-fucking-strophic consequences. First, I’ll detail what actually happened, versus what could have happened.

What happened is the day before, after I went through my two boxes of ammunition at the range, I figured I might was well buy a third magazine. If rotating the rounds between two magazines extends their life, then rotating among three would be even better right? So when I looked across the table and saw the two magazines looking back at me, I had completely forgotten that this new third magazine was sitting in the handle of my gun. When I racked the slide -- with every intention of ejecting any round in the firing chamber -- what I actually did was load my gun to fire. And the scariest part is, I was completely, absolutely 1,000,000% positive the gun was unloaded after I did that.

The bullet came out of the gun and barely nicked the top of the splash plate on the back of the stove. It ricocheted upwards and tore into the white tile, destroying a single square before tumbling through the walls of my house, finally coming to rest into the master bedroom closet. Thankfully, I was using Glaser prefragmented ammunition; so by time the bullet (fragments) reached the closet wall, they had so little energy they literally came to rest on a t-shirt without even so much tearing the cloth. No shit.

Let me illustrate how unprepared for this I was. Before I could even react to the fact that the gun had just fired, the gun had jammed because of that whole limp wrested energy absorption example I gave above. In an imperfect balance of timing and grace, the empty shell was actually caught and dented by the rebounding slide... I have the deformed shell casing sitting on my computer desk to remind me of how complacent I had allowed myself to become.

Long story short, the cops didn’t come. My eternal thanks to my neighbor John who had a table saw going in his garage and I'm assuming that's what drown out the sound of my kitchen wall being put to death. I disassembled my Glock and hid it in various parts of my house; not sure if I was ready to take the, “huh, what gun? No not me," defense should the cities' finest showed up asking questions. But the police sirens didn't come. And as one minute turned into two, which turned into five, then twenty, I became every increasingly confident I may escape jail time for my mental lapse. And so it came to be.

I tell you this story not for laughs -- although I do not fault you if you had a chuckle or ten at my expense, please do –- but rather to teach.

The whole while I was waiting for the cops to come haul me away, the longer I had to sit and think about just how fucking stupid I was. I’m not sure which was worse. The following fact I am not proud to admit, in fact I am embarrassed to even type it. But if I'm going to tell this story, I'm going to tell it. I can't count how many times right after I just purchased it, I sat there in my livingroom holding my gun -- of which I was completely, absolutely 1,000,000% positive was unloaded -- and watched TV. Pointing it indiscriminantly at: the television, the wall, the WINDOW, my DOG, out the SLIDING GLASS WINDOW, the ceiling, my FOOT, whatever. But it was unloaded, so it was safe, right? Accident don't happen to smart people like me, they happen to idiots who aren't careful and play with loaded guns, right? Uh, yeah.

Obviously this behavior was NOT smart. It was NOT responsible. It was NOT reflective upon the million or so legal (AND SMART!) gun owners here in America. What I was stupid. Asinine. Dangerous. Deadly. Dumb. And I could go on, but we’ll just say it was against everything I had been taught. Mr. Meiring, the Rifle Range master at Boy Scout Camp Massawepie would be ashamed of me. I could have killed myself. I could have killed my neighbor. I could have killed MY DOG. I could have put a bullet into the wall and straight into the propane line that feeds the stove. I could have put a bullet through the sliding glass door, through the pool cage screen, and into my neighbor’s kid. What I did was the epitome of stupid. Period, end of story.

But thank goodness none of that happened. Misfortune only gave me a glancing blow of her sword. I escaped with my life and the life of those around me. It could have been otherwise.

Needless to say my behavior has since been corrected. The gun stays in my nightstand until I go to the range, have to carry it somewhere, or have to defend my home. When I unload my gun, I remove the magazine, pull back the slide and look from the top all the way down through the handle not once, but three times. THREE TIMES. If I can’t see my little wiggling piggies on the other side, something ain't right. No more assuming. I am Joe Fucking Safety now.

Feel free to disperse this story as far and as wide as you so choose. Just please, don’t be as stupid as I was.

Yikes. I woulda soiled myself.

If you understand Web 2.0, you probably get this video. Most of the customers that I see shopping at 2 AM probably don't know that there are things other then porn on the net.

This is a safe erection, the English engineer said so.

I've finally convinced my father-in-law to go from dial-up to broadband. When I first hooked his computer up 2 years ago, he wasn't entirely convinced broadband was worth the money. Now that the price of his dial-up is almost the same cost as broadband, it made sense for him to switch. I'm digging it because it won't take me 4 hours to update his computer and my mother-in-law is even talking about getting her own laptop. Will wonders ever cease?

Till later.