Nothing.... Really??

Come on!

Map of the LOST island

With Lost returning on Thursday I think it is fitting that I stumbled across this website post on Strange Maps -- a Map of the Island in Lost. Sure, this map is not perfect and it resolves absolutely nothing about the show. And without re-watching a lot of Lost episodes, I'm not sure how much accuracy is truly represented. But it is obvious some dedicated (obsessed) fan poured a lot of time into creating a map with key events noted. I'm geeked about Lost coming back on. Let's just hope we get the full season in!

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

Amazon.com recently acquired a hand written copy of five fairy tales written by J.K. Rowling. It is pretty neat to see the images of the book, the hand drawn illustrations, and to read the reviews. You have to wonder if this will ever see print. (I guess that depends on how well her next series does...)

100 Book Every Child Should Read

This is an interesting list printed by the Telegraph (Britain, not Bluefield) about the 100 books every child should read, even broken down by age group (early, middle, teen). There's a definite British lean to the books, of course, but I thought it was interesting to see which books they recommended, and to have some fresh titles to took at for your children.

Dinner request from Trinity

This was too funny ... last night I pulled out some older cookbooks for Jeni from Bluefield. These are community cookbooks that she's had forever, it seems. One of the cookbooks had a post-it note in it with Trinity's name and a big asterisk on it. Funny after not living in Bluefield for 11 years that we still have this post-it beside this recipe. I guess we'll have to fix this if Trinity comes to visit...

Mom sells son's car

I forgot to link to this funny article ... a Mom sold her son's car after three weeks because she found alcohol in the car. Good for her! But the add she placed is priceless...

Lackluster weekend

As Sunday came and went, Jeni and I found ourselves mourning the end of our football season. The Colts lost to the Chargers in an uncharacteristically sloppy game. We were bummed, let down, deflated. We thought, How could this evening get worse? Then we watched the Golden Globes "Winners Special" on NBC. The Golden Globes is the one awards show we usually get excited about. This year, because of the writer's strike, the show was altered and instead we got Billy Bush and Nancy O'Dell reading the results to us from a podium. It was awful. Painful. And to top it off, no one we wanted to win even won. What a crap way to end your weekend. We later found out we could have watched the actual Golden Globes on CNN, which had to be better than what NBC offered. On the bright side, with no sports to watch for a few months it means we can do more on the weekends again.

Happy 60th Birthday Dad!

Wow, significant birthdays all around suddenly. The other day was Chris' 40th birthday, now today is my Dad's 60th. Unfortunately we're in Columbia and my parents are in Cincinnati and we can't be with him to help celebrate this day. A while back we were visiting my grandmother in Richmond and Jeni and I found some old photos that we just love. Copies of pictures weren't as easy to make then, and we ended up just photocopying some, so the quality isn't great, but the image is still there, and that's what counts. Jeni scanned them in a little while back.


This is my Nanny and Pop with Dad at 6 weeks. This is a rare picture of Pop, since he was usually, and preferably, behind the camera.


When Dad was visiting at Christmas he saw this picture and corrected me ... I guess this is Dad in the middle with his uncle Joe holding Dad's younger brother Steven and their grandfather to the left. I always thought Pop was holding them, but then Pop did always take the pictures...


And of course this is Mom and Dad in 1968 or 1969, can't quite tell, but they are outside Nanny and Pop's place.


And here is Dad, Mom, Kelly and me from our trip to the Smokies this Fall. Happy birthday Dad! Sorry we can't be there with you.

Happy Birthday Chris!

Today is my brother's 40th birthday, so I thought I would put a mini-photo tour of his last forty years.

Chris - 3 months old

Chris 5 1/2 yrs and Jeni 3 days
(This was one of our mom's favorite pictures. Check out the bottoms of Chris' feet.)
Chris 5 1/2 years old
Chris 7 yrs and Jeni 2 yrs

Chris' senior portrait --AKA Studly

Chris (20 yrs) with Baby Andrew

Chris (22 yrs) with baby Aaron
Chris (24 yrs) with baby Brittany
(And yes, he's still smitten with his little girl.)

Thanksgiving 1994
(Andrew and Aaron made us all Thanksgiving day hats)

Jackie and Chris (29 yrs old) Thanksgiving 1997

Chris (38 yrs) with Andrew at his high school graduationChris, Jeni, and Dad at Andrew's graduationJackie and Chris (39 yrs) -Christmas at Gulfshores

Chris - I wish you the happiest birthday. I love you!
And remember you will always be older than me!
All my love,
your little sister

Newspapers

After majoring in journalism at Tennessee and spending two years working for a daily paper in WV-VA I have an appreciation for news, and have been interested in how news is presented. One of my favorite websites to glance at is the Newseum map view of newspapers. This is a map with views of different front pages of newspapers. It's very interesting to see how different papers present the same story. A patient just told me about Arts & Letters Daily, which is a collection of headlines and articles, which seems pretty diverse and interesting, and a little different from what you usually see online. (I thought this article about how the trend toward MP3 players has changed how music is produced was interesting.)

Gladiator!

I am sadly excited about the return of American Gladiators. Jeni and I had been watching Gladiators on ESPN Classic before we knew it was coming back, and had even commented that we'd like to see it brought back. I just with they had brought in Nitro or Blaze or one of the veterans to commentate.

Community Supported Agriculture

One of my patients was telling me about how she was given a share of a farm (Five Leaves Farm) as part of Community Supported Agriculture where local farms deliver a portion of their crop to you (a drop location, or you can pick it up). It's really cool. You can find local farms near you, too, and it's a great way to get fresh, local produce and support the small farms that are the backbone of the US.

Raucus caucus

Today is the Iowa caucus, which is a big deal with the 2008 election and a chance to thin the field a little bit. We were talking about it at work today and I wanted to tell about our caucus experience. When Jeni and I were at Palmer, we lived in Davenport, Iowa and we participated in the 2000 Iowa caucus. I had no idea what to expect. I figured we'd go in to the church where we were sent, cast a vote and leave. Instead we heard little pitches from some local delegates, then split the room in two -- "If you like Gore, sit over here, if you like (the other guy) sit on this side." You had to declare a party in Iowa, either Republican or Democrat, and we are registered Democrats so we got to choose between Gore or the-other-candidate-whose-name-I-can't-remember. After we split the room in half it became volunteer time -- "We need someone to be a delegate for this area. We need someone to represent our district in Des Moines. Who wants to do that." It was around this point that we decided to sneak out the back when everyone was looking away. I understand the value, and the historical importance of the caucus, but my experience was very anti-climatic. Maybe I'll do the SC primary this year and see what's different.

On a side note, Hillary Clinton's campaign called me at 7:45 p.m. on New Year's Eve. Now, I'm not here to talk politics or debate policy, but if you're calling to poll and ask if "we can count on your vote," I wouldn't call around dinner time on New Year's Eve. Really! That's right up there with the creepy handwritten letter from a Howard Dean supporter we got in 2003. Yikes.

Back in some kind of a groove

We're starting to get back in the groove of real life after all the holiday time, vacation, travel, guests, shopping ... Tiffany is heading home today after spending New Years with us. It's always great having company, and we're looking forward to her coming to Columbia after she finishes nursing school. It's fun having Tiffany around. I think my boss likes her more than me, and I'm sure he would hire her if he had any way to do so because he seems to light up when she's around.

I'm back at work, my second full day. After working only two half days in the past 12 days, my body was conditioned to thinking it was time to go home at 1:00. But it is nice to be seeing all the patients again. I'm just ready for a real, full week, and some normalcy at work. (But I do miss all the Christmas treats the patients were bringing in, although we all were starting to get sugar overload.)

It's been cooling down here in Columbia the past few days, which means the kittens are snuggling in bed with us, making it hard to get up in the morning. Last night the strong winds blew out our pilot light on the water heater. Fortunately Jeni noticed before we went to bed or I would have had a very cold (and miserable) shower to start the day. Brr. But, as normal for Columbia, it's supposed to warm back up next week. Go figure.

Guess I should get back to work...

I won on Blingo!

I actually won on Blingo again. It had been some time since the last time I won, and I was starting to get pretty cynical about Blingo in the post-Publisher's Clearing House-purchase era, but alas, today, while searching for Flickr, I won. I had the choice of $5 to Amazon or a Fandango movie ticket. I opted for the movie ticket, since I enjoy going to the movies, but have a hard time justifying the cost.

If you want to win, click this link and sign up and start searching. Then, if you win, I win too! Cathy won a movie ticket today because she referred me.

Good start to '08

We got off to a good start to 2008. Tiffany came in and two of her friends joined us, and Tish, Susan and Leona. We had a great time. Then Tennessee beat Wisconsin in the Outback Bowl (nice to win a New Year's Day bowl). We'll miss David Cutcliffe and Erik Ainge and Trooper Taylor as they move on to Duke, the NFL and Oklahoma State, but I'm also excited to see what UT will do next season. We're disappointed for Tiffany because UVA lost, and disappointed for Brian, because Clemson lost, too.

Last year we did not make any "resolutions" but we did decide to give up Coke and most soft drinks. We managed to go the whole year without drinking any Coke, except for one we shared a month or so ago and didn't enjoy as much as I remember. We get so addicted to the Coke (should I clarify -- Coca-Cola, not cocaine) that we knew we had to put it down and be rid of it. But I still love the sound of a two-liter opening, the fizz, the effervescence of the bubbles as they release off the top of the ice ... yes, had to give that up. It's just too yummy, but eventually too unhealthy, too.

This year, we again are making no resolutions, but I am determined to be more active because I know I feel better when I'm active, and am more positive and energetic and up-beat. And that's important.

I hope everyone's new year starts off well, and if you made resolutions, I hope they all work out.

2008

Happy New Year!