My Wife

I couldn't resist taking her picture.  She's beautiful.

Juice

About a year ago and the youngest started to request juice with her dinner.  Every evening that she requested it I told her she could have water.  It didn't take long before I began to insist that I was giving her juice.   Cloud juice.

The first few times I pulled this on her she looked into her glass and then back at me.  "That's not juice", she hollered  "it's water!"  The older two supported my term by explaining to their sister that if you juiced a cloud you would get water.

Still not satisfied, the youngest would demand "real juice".

She doesn't ask as often these days, but when she does I still give her a glass of cloud juice.

Harlem Shake

I feel like I'm pretty up to date on what's going around the internet but I seemed to have missed this one.  About a week ago I discovered a Harlem Shake video that Jeff Gordon and Pepsi put together.

After watching it I did a quick YouTube search for "Harlem Shake" and quickly realized that everyone on the internet had made one of these videos besides me.  How did I miss this?

Now two things are happening.  First, I'm thinking about some ways to make one of these at home.  Two, I've convinced some people at work to put one together.  If the first one happens, I will certainly be posting it here.

2013 SC BLIZZARD!

It happened.  It snowed and I have the proof!

It wasn't quite enough for me to call into work the next morning.  But I did consider it.

Cursed!

Does your town have a cursed restaurant location?   You know the place.  It's the one that houses a minimum of two failed restaurants per year until finally, after many years, nobody else is willing to try that spot.

When we lived in Florida there was one.  The Brown Derby spot was cursed since that restaurant left its space.

Now in South Carolina I regularly drive by the old Ryan's spot.  Most recently it was a Mexican restaurant they remodeled the building and seemed to be doing good.  It was the most cars I had seen in the parking lot over the period of the last three eating places.  Today I noticed that even the Mexicans couldn't remove the curse.  It's closed.

Might as well tear that place down and make it a used car lot.

Do Good

“Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can. In all the places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can. As long as ever you can.”

― John Wesley

YouTube of the Week

Watch this to the end.

Valentine's Day

In all the years of this blog I don't believe I have ever written about Valentine's Day.  Ever.

It's really a day for the women anyway.  Most guys only go along with this to keep their ladies happy.  That's what makes me extra fortunate.  My lady doesn't believe in Valentine's Day.  She believes we should love each other everyday.  That we should express and show that love to each other every day.  Do we need one special day for buying flowers and cards?

Wouldn't it be better to surprise her with cards and flowers on a random day to show her you were thinking about her?  Yeah.  I should probably try that.

Prayer

Here in Pickens County there is a group trying to prevent a prayer from being given prior to the beginning of the school board meetings (news story).

This got me thinking a little about the places we hear prayers and some of the places we don't hear them.  In the places we do hear them are they offensive?  Are they badgering a non-believer to change?  I don't think so.  If I'm missing something then go ahead and leave me a comment.  

Living in the "Bible belt" of America I have come to expect a prayer at most events.  Every high school football game is preceded by a student on the field asking a prayer.  Every city council meeting is started with a prayer (in my town).  Anytime there is a group of people together for some event I would not be surprised if someone wanted to ask a prayer or a blessing before getting started.  That's how we do things around here.

As I'm writing this I keep wondering if I wasn't a Christian would I be offended at these prayers?  If the leaders of a group were all Jewish or Hindu and wanted to ask a prayer would I see this differently?  I don't think I would.  What we are talking about are simple "May God watch over the participants of this activity" type of prayers.  This isn't a fifteen minute sermon ending in a call to the altar.  Is it offensive to ask (a) God to watch over our activity?  

NASCAR is getting ready to start up again in the next few weeks and if you turn on the coverage just before they announce, "Gentlemen! Start your engines!" you'll get to hear the invocation prayer given to the entire crowd and broadcast on television.    I watched the Superbowl a few weeks ago and didn't hear anything like that.  Does that make one better than another or one more right than the other?  

No.  It just shows that they have the right to choose if they want that in their event or not.

I know the school board is not NASCAR.  I believe that the leaders of a group can choose to include a basic prayer if they choose too.  I realize that NASCAR is not the school board.  My point is that if a prayer was so offensive then would NASCAR continue the practice?

There are still a lot of places I hear prayers and I hope that the lawyers don't remove the school board meetings as one of those places. 

It's MINE

I will not be giving this fortune away.  I have framed it and put it in my home.

Cutting the Cord

We have been plotting to dump Direct TV for a few months now and the end is near. The end of Nickelodeon, Disney, ESPN, Discovery, History, and even BBC America is very near.

We will replace a lot of content by subscribing to Netflix and Hulu+ at the time that we cut the cord. Even paying for two new services will cost us only a fraction of the monthly Direct TV bill.

There is content that we will have to live without after the change. Most of what will be missing is live sporting events on ESPN. I think we will survive. The one thing that I will miss the most is new episodes of Game of Thrones on HBO.

What I would love more than anything is a model of subscription that allows me to pay HBO directly and not have to pay for all the junk I won't watch in an expensive cable package. This desire is being expressed more and more lately in the media and I believe the announcement by Netflix of 2 million new subscribers in the last 90 days is even further evidence that what I'm getting ready to do is common.

HBO says the subscription model I am suggesting can't happen yet and they are aware of the growing crowd asking for it. The fact is that HBO collects much more money through cable operators than they can get from individual subscribers at this time.

The cable companies see no reason to change a business model that has worked for them for decades.

Now that Hulu+ and Netflix are adding more content to their lineup there are alternatives to the old-school cable operators. I don't think these cable guys are willing to see this as the beginning of the end. They (the cable operators) don't see any reason to change.

The newspaper / book / music industries didn't want to see their business model change either.  

But it did. The end is near.

YouTube of the Week : Super Bowl

There's a lot of football games on every year.  I normally see about two of them.  One of them is always the Super Bowl.  Not because I get excited about the game.  But because the marketers make it worth it to watch commercials this one time a year.

Here is one of my favorites from this year.

Every other night I'll be fast forwarding the commercials on my DVR.

Oh... and one more.  Not a funny commercial, but one of the best ones from the Superbowl.

Random Bathroom

Once in a while I walk into the bathroom and I become frozen at the doorway.  I take a minute to see what's around me and I ask myself one question.  "Why?"

Kids.  Kids are always the answer to this.

 I'm thinking about writing a book called,  "Things in my bathroom".

Birthday Girl!

It's her birthday today.  She wouldn't let me tell you how old she is but careful observers of this first photo will figure it out.

Happy birthday my love!