Tether ball

We watched Napolean Dynamite today and watching him play tether ball by himself really brought back memories ... not necessarily of playing tether ball by myself in high school ... when we were little, our dad put up a tether ball pole (I guess that's what you would call it). I was about five or six, my brother eight or nine. We would hit the ball around, but more often we'd just take turns flailing it around the pole and seeing how tight it would coil. I never truly "got" tether ball. But I guess it did pass the time.

When I was in fifth grade, I was bussed to a magnet school in central New Orleans because that's where the gifted and talented program was (back when they could still call it gifted and talented). We didn't have tether ball there, but that is where I was introduced to funnel ball, where you're supposed to throw the ball into the big funnel, then it will shoot out one of four spouts and you try to catch it. We would have competitions, and as one person was eliminated, you would move to the next spot (they were numbered one through four) and you wanted to be at number four when recess ended. The trick was we wouldn't throw it up top, instead we would throw it through the funnels. The taller kids and better jumpers could actually jump and put their hands in the funnel and throw different directions. I was never quite that good. I do remember getting one perfect throw straight throw the funnel ... unfortunately it took out someone from my class who was "winning" and another class ended up winning that day. Yes, I was th goat that day. I also remember we would bring our own tennis balls to play, and I would bring a tennis ball in the inside pocket of my Member's Only jacket ... I tried to be cool.

(In re-reading this post, I wonder if childhood memories shouldn't be wiped from our memories... come on, Member's Only jacket?!?)

Christmas tree

I wouldn't say that our friend Kelli is a procrastinator, but she finally finished taking her Christmas tree down today. At least she got it down before February.

White Bean Chili

Jeni made this amazing white bean chili today for lunch. With the cold weather and this sinus thing I'm fighting, it was exactly what I needed. The chili had a lot of peppers and packed quite a punch.

What every man needs.....

This is what every man needs besides a good woman. hehe

Picture of the Day - Dean and Nanny in Richmond

I just love this picture - Dean and his Nanny. This picture was taken last New Year's before dinner at the Montgomery Inn. Dean's Nanny is such a class act. She is so kind, sweet, and giving. One of my favorite things about Nanny is she is still a night owl and she loved Johnny Carson. A girl after my own heart.

Picture of the Day -- niece and nephews

Andrew, Brittany and Aaron a few years ago at the beach in Bonita Springs, Florida... we took these pictures to surprise the family with some decent pictures of the kids, since there really weren't a whole lot, and you can only imagine why. A trio of teens/pre-teens, and you can tell how excited they are to cooperate. You'd think we were making them do homework or read a book! Still, it turned out to be probably the best picture we have of the three of them together. (No one's crying or yelling, so that's always a good start.)

Icy conditions

We are expecting 1/2- to 3/4-inch of ice today! What a mess. Good thing we went out and rented four movies from Blockbuster yesterday. Let's just hope the power doesn't go out.

Movies rented:
The Stepford Wives (official site)
The Manchurian Candidate (2004) (trailer)
Garden State (official site)
Napolean Dynamite (official site)

Movies I considered and probably should have also rented:
Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle (official site)
I, Robot (official site)

Room and Board

The Room & Board catalog came this week, and there was much rejoicing! A furniture catalog 409 pages long, Jeni is so so so excited. (To their credit, they did confirm a shipment request before sending it out for environmental, and most likely cost, concerns.)

2005 Bloggies

I was reading This Fish and saw it was nominated for a Bloggie, so I decided to check it out. I found some cool blogs.
rion.nu
Satan's Laundromat
the narrative
The Snowsuit Effort
daily dose of imagery
Scary Duck (I just really like the name...)

(I've been reading other blogs on BlogExplosion during my lunch break, and I find the variation in how people approach their blogs to be very interesting. The "blogroll" concept I still struggle with, because I see these blogs with what seems a hundred blogs linked from it. My minimalist approach would rather just link to those I either actually read, or find to be good quality. But I did update my links ... ok, blogroll ... to get a little more up to speed with the blog culture.)

Mobile phone

Our Sprint phone started freezing up on us yesterday so I took it to the Sprint Store today. The diagnostic guy "reflashed the software and updated the prl" ... in all honesty, I haven't the faintest clue what that really means, but he said it should help.

Photoblog

This is a really neat photoblog. It is part of the street photography [non-photography] site. I enjoy the photoblogs. It's interesting to see other people's view of the world.

Speaking of pictures, have you noticed the Yellow Page option on the A9 search engine offers photos of the locations you find in certain major cities (currently working on other cities).

Jeni's nerd score

Just to put my nerdiness score in perspective ... and her intelligence accounted for some of her "nerdiness."

Picture of the Day -- Lazimpat

This is one of my favorite pictures from Nepal. This was our last adjusting site, in Lazimpat, Kathmandu, and just before lunch two bus loads of school kids showed up at the adjusting site. We were working under that huge canvas tent, which offered very little break from the heat, but at least provided some shade. We decided to work on instead of breaking for lunch. I was in the corner in the front of the picture, so I saw quite a few of the children. Children respond so well to adjustments, and they are so funny the way they gather around their friends and laugh and joke while they are getting adjusted. It was like an injection of sunshine whenever the kids came by. Just after we finished adjusting the kids, a monsoon came through and took down our tent and soaked our adjusting site. It was quite a dramatic finish for our trip.

Rating our blog

I'm just amazed... we have our blog and our cat's blog on Blog Explosion, and Jasper's blog is kicking our butt. He's been blogmarked four times to our one, and he is rated 8.07 (out of 10) to our 3! Just goes to show you don't need opposable thumbs afterall.

Spy Hard

I heard this funny piece (Spy Hard) on Marketplace on the way home. I even sat in my car for the final minute just to hear the end. Cash Peters is pretty funny, and did a feature on plastic surgery as gifts before Christmas (Nipped and tucked in a bow).

My nerdiness score

All I can say is "well, huh?" I'm not disappointed that I'm not nerdier and I'm not sure what this really says about me, but it was a fun way to pass a few minutes... I know Jeni's hardly even going to register on the nerdiness score (she was a cool kid).

Picture of the day - Me and my Dad

This is picture of my dad and me on our family vacation on Myrtle Beach circa 1981. That was my last bikini, and I probably shouldn't have been wearing one then. I picked this picture because family vacations have been on my mind. My family, immediate and extended (like 30 of us), would always go to the same hotel at Myrtle Beach for a week every June. Those were some of my earliest memories. My family would start off caravaning down from Ohio, stay at our house in Virginia, and then we were all off to the beach. We always had a good time, and it was so cool because it didn't matter what time of day it was there was always someone to take us little ones to the Pavillion to ride the rides or play skeeball. Then in July, my immediate family and one other family (my mom's cousin, Cynthia, and her family) would go to Hilton Head Island. We would go for either a week or two or three. That was nice, but that one week in June every year was like heaven. Drinkin' Tahitian Treat, picking up shells, ridin' the waves on my bright yellow Hawaiian Punch "Punchie" raft (the really thick ones that were ocean worthy), finding sharks teeth, watching the sunset every night, getting dressed up to go to dinner, and loving life. It just didn't get any better.

I hope one day that my kids can have those same kind of vacations.

Sidenote: It wasn't until I was older that I understood what my mom and Cynthia's joke was at the end of the day. One would say "Don't you think we should go get the baby?" And the other would say "Yeah, I think it's that time." Well one would go up to the room, and would come back down in about 10 minutes with something wrapped up in a towel. It was the pitcher off the blender. I'm not sure what the mixed drinks were, but they were always a hit. They had to wrap up the blender in a towel because it was glass and it had alcohol in it, and then you were not allowed to bring either on to the beach. One funny addition to this story is that my family always made friends with the lifeguards out front of our hotel. Usually they were hot for one of my older cousins, but they always fell in love with our family. Well after "the baby" exchange between my mom and Cynthia, this one precious lifeguard said to my mom so seriously when he saw Cynthia coming down onto the beach with this towel "Did she really leave her baby in the room all day?" My mom about fell out of her chair laughing. He instantly because one of my mom's favorites.

Picture of the day - Singapore

Our friend, Casey, is setting up a practice in Singapore. He sent us a couple of pictures from a hike he took on Sunday. I thought this beach looked very tranquil.

Picture of the day - Party on dude...the retro prom

This is from my 30th birthday party. We had a retro prom. The theme was "Why don't we get drunk and screw." Since I have had a couple of posts about Tracey and Clay, I thought I should put their picture up here also. The night was so much fun and everyone had a blast. Our friends, Matt and Kelly, were kind enough to let us use their house for the party, and to TP the trees in the yard. We even had MadDog and Boone's Farm...just like high school. It was a hoot!!

Picture of the day - Garrett

Here he is....Garrett David. We are so happy he is here and we can't wait to pinch those chubby little cheeks.

Congrats Tracey and Clay!

My brother's version of cleaning windows

This comic strip is how I imagine my brother cleaning windows...

And my niece in a few more years... with her dad...

Why Jeni doesn't let me help cook...

The real reason Doug and Cathy are having one more. Amy needs help with leverage.

(These links are from Six Foot Six Year Old, which ran from 11/3/03 to 7/8/04. I just found the comic yesterday and really got a kick out of reading it. It kind of had a Sad Sack feel to it. Sad Sack was an old World War II Army comic strip without words that I used to read when I would visit my dad's parents in Richmond, VA)

Picture of the Day -- Happy Birthday Morgan

Happy Birthday Morgan! Our friend's daughter Morgan turns nine today. She is pictured with her hampster Comet. As hampsters do, Comet recently passed away, age five months. We expect to get a very similar picture later today of Comet II.

Unplug it!

I went over to my boss's house to help him with some tech issues. He has an iMac (the second generation, first with the flat screen and the long neck) and his son and daughter have the iBook for school (his motivating factor for getting the iMac). He recently got an airport for the kids to be able to use their iBooks, but they couldn't get it to connect. I was able to see that I had a signal, and could get a response through the internet with a direct connection, but couldn't pull up web pages using the airport. His internet is through Time Warner Cable (Road Runner) , so I called them to see if there was something I needed to do. Their answer, unplug it. Funny, that's their answer when my digital cable goes out too. Makes you wonder if the first page of their manual simply says, in big red letters: UNPLUG IT!

Dog Eat Doug

I found this blog/comic strip while surfing along Blog Explosion. It has a daily comic strip at the top along with his blog below. Very entertaining. I also got a kick out of Six Foot Six Year Old, another comic. Be sure to read April 26, 2004.

It's burning again!

No ... not that! My cd burner. I uninstalled Service Pack 2 and everything is essentially back the way it was. Sure, I get pop-ups again using Internet Explorer, but I'm using Firefox more now, and that still blocks pop-ups. I'm sure there's some pop-up blocking software I could install (I do like the A9 toolbar, and should use it more ... that'll block them) but really it's not the biggest issue in the world. I'd rather be able to burn cds.

Picture of the Day -- Lego Computer

Not to give Doug any ideas, but I saw this online ... the guy has build four or five computer cases out of Legos. This on is my favorite, because it is less obtrusive than the others, and I like how he utilized the door for the power outlet.

Arts and Crafts

It was Arts and Crafts day at work today for me. (Not this Arts and Crafts ... but it is one of my favorite fonts.) I made a trifold about an upcoming event to be distributed, but to make 500, it would cost $50 to print and fold. So instead, since we have a copier that will do double-sided copies, they decided to make the copies in the office, and manually fold them. Let's just say that the hourly breakdown of me doing this task far exceeded $50.

IT'S BOY!!

Tracey and Clay had a little boy yesterday. Garrett David was born on Thursday at 3:46pm. He is 8 lbs 7 oz and 20.5 ins. Mom, dad, and baby boy are doing great.

Congratulations Tracey and Clay!!

All new episodes. All new phobias.

Monk is back! I'm so excited that there are new episodes of Monk. Dean and I have been dedicated fans since the first episode. And thanks to Doug and Cathy we have the complete season one DVDs, which we watched last week getting geeked up for the new episode this week.

If you have not seen this show, START NOW! Every episode is smart, witty, and laugh outloud funny.
USA Network - Friday - 10pm est

Picture of the Day - Cousins

This is one of my favorite pictures from my vacation this year. The little girl is Makenzie (Trinity's daughter) and the little boy is Jacob (Trinity's nephew). My friend Trinity and her whole family vacation every year at place called the Bronson Forest near Summerville, SC. The Forest is owned by NS Railroad and is a "getaway from the whole world" for their upper management. There used to be no phones, TV's, or clocks in the rustic log cabins. Now there are phones and TV's in most of the cabins, but it is still really rustic in many ways. I forget how many ponds on the grounds you can fish in, but it's like 20. You can also go skeet shooting, and used to be able to go horseback riding. I have been lucky enough to go there with the Cranes three times. (When I was growing up, my family used the beach getaway in Flordia since my parents weren't fishermen.)

Would you like to play a game?

If you do, there's a good chance you'll find me playing Literati, the Yahoo! Games version of Scrabble.

Picture of the Day -- Chris in Afghanistan

Our friend Chris, right, was in Afghanistan in 2002. In this picture, he is showing the locals some photos he took of them on his digital camera. We have some pretty amazing pictures that he took, so I'll post a few over the next few days. (There's a good one for UT fans coming up...)

Picture of the Day -- Labasa clinic

Another Fiji picture, this one from the clinic in Labasa, Korey is pacifying this young girl with Smartees while we do an exam.

Label maker

Our label maker had disappeared. It was one of those things that really had no place, so it was constantly just out, always being seen, until we need it. I can't tell you how many times I have glanced past it while getting something else. But when we need it, I look and look everywhere, to the point that I am beginning to imaging having seen it places. I was about to suggest to Jeni that our ghost from Davenport was back. (ok... not really positive about the ghost, but there were moments that we could have sworn something was in the works playing games with us.) But I did find it, hidden on it's side in the closet beside a shoe, so it looked like another shoe. (ok... so that makes us sound like disorganized slobs, but remember, the boss and his fiancee were just over the other week, so things end up in the closet...) Yes. It did show back up, and without even a tempermental outburst at the cruel humor of the Universe.

Picture of the Day -- Sunrise in Fiji

Sunrise in Labasa, Fiji when we went with a chiropractic mission trip in the summer of 2003. We were there for three weeks and it was such an amazing experience to be able to do so much good in such a brief expanse of time.

Picture of the Day -- Mt. Everest

I took this picture of Mt. Everest in 2001 when I went to Nepal with a chiropractic mission trip. On our first day there, after two days in a plane, we boarded a two-propellor plan and buzzed the world's tallest peak (well, as close as you can get without getting hammered by the crosswinds.) Mt. Everest is the left peak in the background.

Picture of the Day -- I Want Sour!

We have become addicted to these wonderful candies from Target -- the whoo... sour neon worms.

Babies abound

It's baby season... Our friend Scott and Elisa had been trying for years to get pregnant, investing lord only knows how much money in fertility treatments with no luck. We just got an e-mail saying they adopted a 1 1/2-year-old girl from China. She is so cute, but I can't get the pictures to download right. Elisa said the question people keep asking is "does she speak English or Chinese?" She's 1 1/2, she says "Dadda" but says it to everything.

Also, our friends Jennifer and Joseph just had a little baby girl, Lilly Eileen (named after Great-grandmother and grandmother). And Tracey and Clay are due any moment. Tracey and Jennifer were actually due the same day, but Jennifer had to have a C-Section because Lilly was breach and they couldn't get her to turn. Of course, my sister-in-law is also expecting and due in May.

Sitting on hold

I'm sitting on hold for Sony support for my CD-RW drive. Since installing the Windows Service Pack 2 security update, Windows fails to recognize blank CD-Rs n the drive. Windows Media Player doesn't recognize it as a burning device either. At the same time, I can burn with B's Clips, Roxio Easy CD Creator and iTunes. I'm trying to decide if I can just inunstall the CD drive and let Windows reinstall it. I just don't want more trouble. Of course, as I sit here on hold, I don't expect much help from them, but it's worth a shot.

Picture of the Day -- Noah and the birds

This is the first photo of our Picture of the Day. This is our nephew Noah on the ferry in North Carolina (Southport to Wilmington). As kids, our dad would take us on the ferry and we would feed the sea gulls. My brother decided to share this experience with his son. You can see Noah isn't quite sure if the birds are coming for the crackers or him.

Work challenge

I have this frustration at work. A lot of times, a patient will come in and be excited about what chiropractic can do for them, but because of a family member, they don't follow through with care. This has happened to me twice in the last three weeks, both times women whose husbands "don't believe in it" or don't want them to get adjusted. One was a pregnant woman who was experiencing sciatica. After her first adjustment, she said she went to the grocery store and made her entire shopping trip without pain for the first time in three months. BUT her husband doesn't "believe" in chiropractic, so despite the improvement she's not coming back. Now, I have another patient who is in a wheelchair and depends on a skeptical daughter to bring her. The mother is seeing results, but the whole time, the daughter is questioning the adjustments. I encourage questions, and I am providing her with supporting research, but don't undermine the results if the patient is noticing a difference. The amazing part for me is when the family member says they are feeling better, moving better and doing better, yet the spouse or child still says "No, you can't go back."

What a meal

My boss and his fiance came over for dinner tonight and Jeni fixed an amazing meal. It was a challenge initially to find good things to eat, because they are in a low-card, South Beach mode right now and as Jeni looked into what she could and could not fix, she had to scrap her original dinner plans. In the end, she pulled some great ideas and tweaked some things from The Food Network and Rachael Ray.

Jeni fixed a chicken breast with pecans with a gorgonzola sauce, baby carrots, fried spinach, sauteed mushrooms, an amazing salad, a baked brie appetizer and a ricotta cheesecake. (I'll let her edit in the links to recipes and add in the fine details of the meal that make this lame list sound as delicious as it really was.)

It was a very nice night, and they really enjoyed themselves. We had been to my boss's house for dinner a while back, and they had us out to dinner once before so it was nice to be able to have them over and to fix something that they truly enjoyed. (They cleaned their plates ... no leftovers...)

Prize arrives

I received my prize book today (well, not today since it's Sunday, but I finally checked the mail today) ... Dr. Ann's 10-Step Diet. It's no lamp in the shape of a woman's leg, but I'm looking forward to reading it.

I'm a winner!

I'm getting old. I know that because instead of listening to commercial radio, I listen to NPR. On my way to work, there is a local radio program called the South Carolina Business Review. It's about a five to eight minute interview with someone from a state business. Each Tuesday, they have a trivia question of the week. I correctly answered last weeks and just received an e-mail telling me I won and my prize package was in the mail!

The answer to the question, by the way...
According to the SC Dept. of Commerce, SC ranks #2 in the nation in terms of the percentage of our private sector workers employed by foreign investment. (approx. 8%)

This week's question: All of the Beano sold in the world is made in SC. Name the company and where in SC it is made.

An E-mail from a Tsunami Survivor

Speaking of NPR, I heard this story "An E-mail from a Tsunami Survivor" on Weekend Edition. It is one of the best retellings of the events I have heard yet. (I can't figure out how to link to NPR's audio links, so scroll halfway down and find the headline...)

Black Spot Sneakers

Black Spot Sneakers -- the Anti-Corporate movement

H2G2

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie is due out May 6, 2005.

Mirrormask

I'm a big Neil Gaiman fan and I just saw that he and Dave McKean have a project in the works with Jim Henson Studios called Mirrormask. "MIRRORMASK is a new fantasy feature film in the tradition of The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth." Sounds exciting. I'm going to go view the trailer now.

Steak N Shake story

Our friend Kelli works at Steak N Shake and there is an old couple who come in who are named Bud and Mary Jane. (And there was much rejoicing by all the stoners.)

The name creates the man?

A friend of mine I graduated from Palmer with had a son pretty soon after graduation. Her husband is a big fisherman (fly fishing), and when they found out they were having a son, her sister-in-law suggested Fischer, since her husband likes to fish. Well, we knew they had been pregnant again, but we never got a birth announcement. But when Christmas rolled around, we got a card with the pictures of their two sons. The second child is named Finnegan. Instantly, my thought went to nicknames for these kids... Fish and Fin.

Reinstalling the CD-RW

I've been struggling with my CD-RW drive communicating with Windows after installing Secvice Pack 2. My current thought is to uninstall the drive and reinstall it and see if that resolves it. (Any thoughts on this?) Tim suggested reformatting and reinstalling XP from scratch, which I am sure would probably optimize how my computer is running, but I'm a big wimp and coward and just lack the techie-confidence right now.

Dinner

We had a cheeseburger salad for dinner and it was so good and easy!

Tournament of Roses Parade

My sister played with the Bands of America Marching Band in the Tournament of Roses Parade and I actually saw her on the CBS coverage of the parade. They had a full screen shot of her, and another as she walked by.