return from camp

Rake and I have survived our camping trip with our girls. Unfortunately my internet has not survived the weekend and causing a delay in my schedule. More updates and photos coming soon on both blogs. We had a great time camping in the cold rain... really! We did!

This message was sent using the Picture and Video Messaging service from Verizon Wireless!

To learn how you can snap pictures and capture videos with your wireless phone visit www.verizonwireless.com/picture.

Note: To play video messages sent to email, QuickTime� 6.5 or higher is required.

Another BLUE

Over the past few years I have been able to visit and admire some older homes in this area. By older, I am talking about 100+ years old. One of the common things that I have noticed is that many of the porch ceilings have been painted blue. The blue is usually a light blue, almost sky blue, but with more green in it.

The other day I visited the site of an old house that is for sale. I walked around the unoccupied property for a while checking some of the out buildings before I wandered onto the porch. Its ceiling was painted blue, as expected.

The blue color used in these ceilings is called Haint Blue. The word Haint originated from the word haunt. It was a tradition to use Haint blue to keep the evil spirits out of a home. Some home owners even used the paint on window and door frames to protect all openings to the home.

During an outbreak of yellow fever near Savannah, Ga in 1820 home owners started using Haint blue on their porches to keep the mosquitoes out and protect themselves from the disease. Using the paint helped because the mosquitoes were repelled by lime used in the formula.

As I researched the history on Haint blue a bit more I learned that the tradition was likely started in Africa. It came to America as slaves were brought here and they used on it on their living quarters to keep the evil spirits out. This superstition held strong across the Southern states and I read Haint blue can also be found on homes around the world.

Blue

My favorite bird is the Bluebird. To me, they are a small likable size, they have amazing coloring, and they are fun to watch. I have tried many times to get a great photo of one, but they seem to be a nervous bird and vanish anytime I get within range.

Yesterday morning I stood at the kitchen window with my cup of coffe and saw a Bluebird staring at me. I'm not sure what he was saying, but I did manage to get my camera before he left.I was able to get two shots off before he flew over to the driveway and landed on the mirror of the van. He again stared at me as if he had something to say. I took a few more shots during our staring contest.

He jumped up to stare at himself in my rear view mirror (parked next to the van) and started attacking his image. He would stand on the mirror and then fly down to look. With wings fluttering quickly, he attacked the mirror. It was really quite the show for the five minutes before he flew off.

Just before lunch, Cari and I were leaving for lunch and I was reminded of my morning with the bird. It turns out he was trying to tell me, "I'm going to poo on your car".

My other blue news has to do with "blue lights". Also known as "the law", also known as "cops", also known as "David the State Highway Patrolman at a license check as I drove home from work last week". Their sign said license check, so I got mine out of my wallet as I waited in line. It was about 10:30pm and David shined a flashlight in my face. I smiled and handed him my license. He ruffled his thumb over the edge and showed that the back was separating from the face.

"Did you know that your license is coming apart?", he asked.

I told him it has only been out of my wallet once in five years and that was to hand it to him. He directed me to pull off the road so he could write me a warning.

For a moment I thought about speeding off. It would take him a few moments to climb into his car and come after me. As I pulled over as directed I remembered that he was still holding my license and I was only a mile from home. I took my warning with a smile and went home.

At least I got to spend an hour at the drivers license place. Thanks David!

Stupid blue lights.

15,000,001

I used Skype for the first time the other day.  It was actually my mom's suggestion to try it.   I've heard about and known about Skype for some time but didn't really have any motivation to bother with it.  

Mom said she learned of it from Oprah.  Great!  Oprah is one step ahead of me on technology, I thought.  Lately, I seem to be late on any great technology or popular website.  Facebook, texting Google, Wikipedia, and now Skype.  If they numbered users in the order that they signed up I would be 15,000,001 at best. 

I installed the software and setup a user name.  Initially I had the camcorder plugged up and working, but Cari came home from Walmart with a small webcam.  She pointed out we didn't want to put our camcorder at risk by having set up very often.  

The kids and I sat by the computer while we waited for my mom to finish installing the software from the website.  Finally, mom said she was ready and we placed a video call to her.  

Within just a moment we saw my mom sitting at her computer and she saw my kids jumping around like crazy monkeys.   The video had a slight delay, but the audio was excellent quality.  

I started to realize that with Skype if you sit in your pajamas, drinking your coffee, checking your email, and then take a video call, that you would risk looking a bit rough (to put it nicely). 

I'm going to do a search this afternoon and see if I can locate Oprah on Skype.  Maybe she'll fill me in on some other tech that I'm missing out on.

The Actress

Meredith was playing outside yesterday near the garden. I thought it would be a great opportunity to get the camera out for a few photos of her.

When she saw me come out with the camera, she instantly began posing. She thought of, and performed, all the ideas and I just took the pictures.

Choices

Cari looked at me and said, "Do you want to clean the kitchen or give the baby a bath?"

Initially, I thought to myself that I would like to have more choices.  

For a moment, I didn't say anything.  I just thought as I looked around the dinner table.  When my gaze approached Meredith, she spoke up and volunteered herself to join in the baby's bath.  "That choice just became more complicated", I thought as I turned my head to Randy.  He could tell I was contemplating my choices.  He declared that he was going to go watch tv.  That sounded like a great idea, but unfortunately, wasn't one of my choices.

Cari leaned in and said, "I'll clean the kitchen and you can give the girls a bath."  I was in shock.  Did she just take my freedom of choice away?  She did!  She just took my choices away from me!  I felt robbed.  

"You can't do that.  You offered choices and I was about to make my decision.", I complained.  

My wife looked at me with eyes that said, "Hurry up and let's hear your choice."  I started stammering as my mind raced, trying to pick the easiest chore that would take the least amount of time.  I looked into the kitchen to try and judge the mess that awaited.  I quickly glanced at the baby - covered in spaghetti sauce - and Cari continued to stare at me.  

Cari stood up and took some dinner plates into the kitchen.  She asked Randy to help her clear the table and he did it without complaining.  I was still sitting, thinking about my choices, when Meredith said she was going to start the bath water.  

"What about me choosing what I was going to do?"

Cari kept working on the kitchen when she replied, "You chose to give the girls a bath."

I thought about the past few moments, trying to remember the instant that I made a choice.  I wasn't really sure if I made a choice or one was made for me.

Please Pinch!

St. Patrick's Day is today.  Before writing this post, I decided to do a bit of research about St. Patrick and the holiday named for him.  St. Patrick was a missionary that went to spread Christianity to the Irish.  One of the more interesting bits I learned during my research was about the shamrock.  The shamrock became associated with St. Patrick because it is believed that he used it to help teach about the Holy Trinity by using the three leaves on the plant.  

Along with shamrocks, a common tradition is to wear the color green on St. Patrick's Day.  Those that wear green make it their mission to seek out non-green wearers and PINCH them.  There are many theories on the beginnings of the pinching, but none of those are interesting today.  What I'm focused on is the PINCHING.

This year, I made it my mission to eliminate any and all green from my attire.  I'll be at work all day and I want lure my coworkers into PINCHING me.  

NO - I'm not doing this for the pleasure of having people put their hands on me. 

In fact, I plan on finishing my day at work in the human resource office.  I'll be filing harassment complaints on every idiot that pinched me!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

U 2 the Vet

A coworker took his dog to the vet and the kept her (the dog) three nights.  On the fourth day, the coworker wanted to take his dog home.  The vet said they wanted to keep her for observation one more night.

He asked, "You watch her through the night?"

Vet, "Oh no. We don't work all night."

The coworker got cross-eyed at the doctor and asked how they observe when NOBODY is in the office.   The answer was that they check in the morning.  

So instead of paying another bucket full of cash for another night, my coworker took his dog home with him where he could observe because he would be there with the dog!

Doctors, Vets, Dentists, etc. . . are a business.  They need to make money.  Sometimes I believe they exaggerate things to make more money.  I don't trust them.

Now that you are 10....

Randy is 10 today!

We asked him on the way to dinner last night what he wanted for his birthday and he replied he wanted a butt.

What's wrong with the one you have, I asked.

"It's got a crack!", he answered through his laughter.

We didn't get him a new butt...this year...so instead we got him something that Cari says is really more a present for me.Yeah, I'm excited about having a telescope at the house. I was up until 2am the other night putting it together and testing it (finding Saturn). This is another of the cool things about having a son, sharing his toys.

Cartwheel Challenge

While at the park last weekend, Meredith and I had a challenge to see who could do the best cartwheel.   Unfortunately for her, I was the judge....

Beautiful Sunday!

After having snow and cold about a week ago, we were excited to have some SPRING weather this past weekend. Roughly my past ten days off have been plagued with bad weather that prevented us from venturing out with the baby.

I was off Sunday and we started making plans days in advance. We could visit a waterfall, an abandoned train tunnel, or even a mountain top. We invited another family to join us but disease struck their house on Friday and they were forced to go into quarantine.

Cari and I cancelled the plans and decided to relax around the house after church. Around three o'clock, Randy came in and asked if we could go to the park and it sounded like a great idea. We loaded up the car and soon found out that everyone else in town was also at the park.

We played on the playground and then headed up to the empty soccer fields to run around a bit. It was fun to get into the middle of the field and let Brenna run. Or at least give her the chance to run. She chose to mostly shovel chocolate Teddy Grahams into her mouth the whole time.Before long, Cari called across the field to me that it was six o'clock! The sun was still out and it felt more like four than it did six. Stupid time change! Suddenly I became very hungry and I didn't want any more chocolate Teddy Grahams.

This coming weekend is back to cold and rainy. I sure am glad I have to work!

(I would have posted a few more photos from our day out, but Blogger is slow right now. I'll share some more in a few days.)

Get me out of here.

Too much work!

Cha Cha

Have you ever been sitting at lunch and started wondering how deep Lake Michigan is?  Yeah, me too.  It was helpful that I was at lunch with a coworker and he knows someone that knows about Lake Michigan.  He told me to ask ChaCha.  

I had never heard of him (or her) and Bryan started to tell me more.  If you text any question to 242-242 you will get an answer back.  I was a bit hesitant to try it because I didn't want some $50 charge to show up on my phone bill.  Bryan promised me it was free except normal texting charges.  

So I texed ChaCha and waited.  

. . . and waited. . .

After some silence of the two of us staring at my phone, Bryan started bragging on ChaCha again.  He said he had asked for a good blonde joke and received one within minutes.  He asked me if I had ever wondered what is the substance in which coal is formed from?  I told him I hadn't, and he said that ChaCha knew the answer.  I looked up at Bryan and asked  why he would think about that.  He avoided answering and continued to brag on ChaCha.

We finished eating and I still hadn't received my answer on lake Michigan.  I started to imagine ChaCha getting in a boat, driving it to the middle of lake Michigan, using a LONG pole, and measuring the depth for me.  Then he (or she) would text me the answer.  This might take a few more minutes, I thought.  

It turns out that ChaCha is a free service that you can text any question to and get an answer.  You can get sports scores, weather, trivia, and pretty much any answer to any question.  The way it works is there is an army of paid people sitting at a computer waiting for a question.  As you ask it, someone gets on the internets and starts doing some quick research to text back to you.  As far as I know, there is no guy (or gal) in a boat measuring the depth of Lake Michigan.  

It is free for the user and is paid for by advertising.  Sometimes there will be a text ad tagged onto your answer.

By the way, Lake Michigan is averaging 279 feet in depth, and reaches 925 feet at its deepest point.  What's your question?

Snow "man"

We got our "once a year" snow on Sunday night. It rained all day Sunday and the meteorologist continued to push the call for snow later and later into the day. For a while I started to wonder if we would get skipped over, but around 4pm, the rain got a little thicker. It was beginning to turn to ice.
By early evening, it was snowing. . . hard. I ran out and took some photos in the snow.

We get snow so rarely that it makes people act a little crazy sometimes. I'm guessing that is why Cari ran outside and looked to the sky with her mouth open, trying to get a taste.

I got up and scraped the windshield clean at 5:30am on Monday morning. Driving to work was slow but exciting. There wasn't much traffic and the road had been cleared so it didn't feel too dangerous. The landscape looked awesome. The old farm houses covered in snow were calling my name to take some pictures, but I had to get to work. I did have my camera with me and I couldn't wait until lunch because I was hoping to get some good snow shots at the park.

After I hiked through the woods a bit I walked toward the other end of the park across some fields. Up on a hill I saw a sculpture and I ended up finding another piece of craziness in the snow.

Someone had built a snow "man" -

Race Results

Randy finished 3rd for his age group and then Cari and I raced in the adult group. Maybe that put me at a disatvantage, but I didn't complain.

Here's a video of my car running: