Lame

OK, I'm frying other fish right now, so you'll have to make do with this e-mail forward I received today that made me laugh.

Angels Explained By Children

I only know the names of two angels, Hark and Harold.
--Gregory, age 5

Everybody's got it all wrong. Angels don't wear halos anymore. I forget why, but scientists are working on it.
--Olive, age 9

It's not easy to become an angel! First, you die. Then you go to Heaven, and then there's still the flight training to go through. And then you got to agree to wear those angel clothes. 
--Matthew, age 9

Angels work for God and watch over kids when God has to go do something else.
--Mitchell, age 7

My guardian angel helps me with math, but he's not much good for science.
--Henry, age 8 

Angels don't eat, but they drink milk from Holy Cows!!! 
--Jack, age 6

Angels talk all the way while they're flying you up to heaven. The main subject is where you went wrong before you got dead.
--Daniel, age 9

When an angel gets mad, he takes a deep breath and counts to ten. And when he lets out his breath again, somewhere there's a tornado.
--Reagan, age 10

Angels have a lot to do and they keep very busy. If you lose a tooth, an angel comes in through your window and leaves money under your pillow. Then when it gets cold, angels go south for the winter.
--Sara, age 6

Angels live in cloud houses made by God and his son, who's a very good carpenter.
--Jared, age 8

All angels are girls because they gotta wear dresses and boys didn't go for it.
--Antonio, age 9

My angel is my grandma who died last year. She got a big head start on helping me while she was still down here on earth.
--Ashley, age 9

Some of the angels are in charge of helping heal sick animals and pets. And if they don't make the animals get better, they help the child get over it.
-- Vicki, age 8

What I don't get about angels is, why when someone is in love, they shoot arrows at them. 
--Sarah, age 7

Summer Sunday

There's not a ton more to report than the last time I posted.  However, Avis did remind me of a topic that I meant to cover a couple months ago.  That subject is about sheets.  First, let's cover my guest sheet policy.  I always wash them between guests, so don't get all freaked out about what I'm going to tell you next.  When it comes to my own sheets, I'm not as diligent.  You see, I have two sets of sheets.  My "summer" sheets and my "winter" sheets.  The difference is the color and the thickness of the flannel.  I change the sheets when the new season comes around whether they need it or not.  I also usually change them if I've been sick, which I was recently.  So now I need to change my sheets.  I think I may need to briefly *gasp* use my winter sheets in the summer.  Horrors!

This afternoon I went to a concert at the local festival going on in town.  The opening act was a local band that's on the verge of making it big called the Bronk Brothers.  They've been the opening act at the festival's country concert for the last three years, and they're the best opening act I've seen in smaller venue concerts.  One of the reasons I like them is because one of the guys plays a mean harmonica, and he runs through the crowd while playing his harmonica solo rendition of Orange Blossom Special.  My favorite song of theirs is called "Tan Lines".  If you want to hear an acoustic version of it played in a radio station, go to this link.  If you want the slicker concert version of it, go here.

The main headliner at the concert was Jack Ingram.  He was decent.  His hair was cut a lot shorter than all the pictures on the internet show of him.  It was military cut style instead of the shaggy look he used to sport.  I think I prefer his new look.  Overall, he was good.  If you go to his website, listen to his "Barbie Doll" song (if you can't tell, I like songs with some wit or a bit of a twist).  He's been performing long enough that he has good stage presence and some hits to play.  My only issue with him is that I prefer my country performers to have one or more of the following:  piano/keyboard, fiddle, or harmonica.  He didn't have any of that - just guitars and drums.  That's why he gets a decent rating instead of a good rating.

I saw a friend from work at the concert who is pregnant.  She was telling me that she usually doesn't get much sunburn, but while she's been pregnant that she does get sunburn badly.  Weird, huh?  She also said she gets sick when she eats her favorite foods, but she's fine when she eats her husband's favorite foods.

The second batch of robins for the year is hatched.  See below.

Peace out people.

Off My High Horse

I must have done too much bragging on Monday because Tuesday through Thursday were a bit miserable.  It wasn't anything too serious, but it wasn't really a very fun bout of enteritis either.  I was thankful it made me thankful for "relatively" good health and most of the time great health.  It was serious enough for me to go to the doctor.  Lucky me, it appears to be a virus, so I get to tough it out.

I realized yesterday that I totally missed a critical bullet point in my previous post on my trip to Florida.  I have now added "seeing dolphins at sunset" to the list.

The doctor (actually it was the PA) did a blood test on my white blood cell count to determine if my malady was viral or bacterial.  Apparently a common unit of measure for them is in cells per microliter, and the count is usually in the thousands.  Can you imagine that?  A milliliter is a cc (cubic centimeter) of liquid, so a microliter would be one thousandth of milliliter, which is a very tiny drop of water.  It's amazing to think about thousands of white blood cells being there along with red blood cells, platelets, water, and other viruses and bacteria and stuff.  How does it all fit?  Science and the human body truly are mind-boggling.  When I asked, the PA told me something interesting.  A "normal" person has a white blood cell count below 10,000 (mine was 8,000 yesterday) - of course you don't want it to be zero or anything, because then you don't have an immune system.  He said typically for viral infections the count might be up around 12,000-13,000, but if you have a bacterial infection it can be 15,000-20,000.  I should have asked why they are different for different types of invaders, but I didn't think to at the time.

The PA also told me you can get the chills from being sick without having a fever.  I guess I had never really thought about that before and had usually assumed when you have chills it's because you have a fever.  What is the physical mechanism behinds getting the chills when you're sick?  I didn't think to ask him that at the time either.

I saw the new (and last) Harry Potter movie tonight.  Overall, I would give it a thumbs up.  It didn't stray too far from the book, but of course they had to cut out or take a few liberties with some things.  Now I feel the urge to re-read the books, but I may have to save that for winter because I've still got lots of summer things that need to get done.

MelBMarvis: 9
Chipmunks:  0
Raccoon:  0.5
Gray Squirrel:  1

Yesterday while I was working from home, I saw a chipmunk hanging around again, so I went out and set my trap.  At the end of the day when I emptied the trap, I counted five bodies.  I could hardly believe my eyes, and I'm pretty sure I wasn't counting any previously trapped carcasses.  The gray squirrel gets a point because he ate a big lunch out of the chipmunk trap without getting caught in it.

Lunch for some, death for others.

Guess what I ate right before I brushed my teeth.

 It's all over now.

Magnificent Monday

Magnificent may be going a little too far.  But it was a pretty good day.

• Garbage day switched from Tuesday to Monday today.  Luckily I heard the truck and ran out there with my trash can before they got to my house.
• Fresh blueberries and peaches in my oatmeal.
• Only worked 7.5 hours today.
• Volleyball on the beach with heat and sunshine (we didn't win either match, but that's OK)
• Strong thunderstorms
• Lunch at the local grocery store deli
• More blueberries and peaches for a snack
• Biking down to the beach to play volleyball

A good summer day all around.

Sorta Lazy Weekend

So you wonder what I've been up to.  Since last weekend, mostly work.  Well, not entirely.  I played my first tennis of the season.  Today was a beautiful weather day outside, and I didn't do anything with it.  You see, I have a self-imposed deadline on a project again that involves being hunched over a computer, so that's what I did today.  I'm trying to finish a certain scrapbook, and I'm getting close.  I wrote on about 65 of 100 pages today, and I have less than 20 left.  I'm thinking maybe by Wednesday it'll be ordered.

For the first time in a month, after work on Friday I didn't have to rush off to catch a plane or drive through Chicago or finish cleaning my house for company, so I actually had time to take a leisurely trip to both Target and the grocery store.  I hadn't done that in a long time.  It's the little things in life that make it so special.

I did get something done yesterday.  I didn't do any yard work like I should have.  But, I did have good fun.  Some nice people from the state and field just south of here invited me to go on an annual kayak/canoe excursion with them and a bunch of people from that area.  So I loaded Kermit onto Herman and went down there.  It was nice.  Part of the adventure involved plowing through about 200 feet of lily pads with our canoes and kayaks.  That's my kind of adventure right there.  After the paddling, there was a potluck followed by some croquet (super amateur style this time - the grass was patchy with twigs and uneven ground) and dominoes.  It was a good day and nice to get to know those people better that I occasionally see at GM or SM.

I always appreciate those people who host those types of things and invite me to them because I'm so terrible at doing that kind of thing myself.  I'm kind of a doofus though.  Communication snafus were involved.  The communication I had with the hosts about this event didn't explicitly state there was a potluck (they just said they were grilling afterward) and I didn't catch on to any subtle clues, so I didn't realize it was potluck.  Therefore, I didn't bring anything and felt bad about that.  I'm not going to lie; I sure did eat anyway!  I also left there with a bunch of leftover snickerdoodles and home brewed iced tea.  That's extra mooching skill there.  Some day I'm hoping to figure out how to start giving instead of always taking.  Below are some pictures from Saturday's paddling excursion.

One of the woikas in my field is donating a kidney to one of the other woikas in this state.  The donater happened to be at the paddling thing, so that was interesting to discuss the prospective surgery with him.  You might want to send some good surgery vibes this way this week since they're going under the knife on Wednesday.

Just Getting Started

The Lily Pad Challenge

Turtles, Turtles, and More Turtles!  We saw all shapes and sizes.

Sparkling Good Weekend

I guess you could say the weekend was well-rounded.  It was the 4th of July weekend, and my employer gave us two days off (Monday and Tuesday) in addition to the weekend.  For those playing along at home, that's four days off from work total.  I spent most of it in the cheesy state.  It seems like it has almost become my second home, although I believe in reality it's still only my third home.

So I was saying something about the weekend.  I did a big loop up to that skinny peninsula northeast of Green Bay (Door County for those in the know) and back home.  I went from living in a tourist trap to going to someone else's tourist trap.  I made a pit stop at Jeff and Mowla's on the way there and at Brudda Jeddles' on the way home.  Here's the list of highlights from the trip.  Not necessarily in order of importance.

1. Camping.  In a tent.  But that was about the extent of our roughing it.  The rest was pretty cushy.  On my camping scale from 1 to 5 with 1 being very rustic and 5 being luxurious, I give it a 4.
2. Bicycling.  With a new trail I hadn't been on before, how can I complain, even if one of the travelers with me had a flat tire?  I can't complain Bob......can't complain.
3. Kayaking.  Buddy Jack-E was present, so we took a spin from the State Park around a nearby island and saw a little bit of wildlife and scenery.
4. More kayaking.  We entertained some nearby boaters as we practiced capsizing and re-entering our kayaks.  One nice older man even came by in his boat to offer to tow us to shore since it looked like we were struggling with our re-entry (and we were), but we didn't accept his offer.
5. Fireworks.  Seen from the car along the side of the road because kayaking and the meal afterward ran a little bit long, so we missed part of the fireworks.
6. Traffic.  The drive through Chicago on the way there was pleasantly nice without any slow-downs.  Ironically, the worst traffic I saw on the drive there was in Door County itself.  However, the return trip was a different story.  Back-ups due to road construction near Fond du Lac.  Interstate closed near the MKE airport.  This caused unfortunate delays, leading to slow traffic on the "Edens" and "Kennedy", which is kind of unusual since that was on the inbound leg.  The only break was clear traffic on the "Ryan" and the "Skyway".  You can tell I'm an expert when I use the big city code names for the highways.  Travel time to Door County:  approximately 7 hours.  Travel time from Door County:  approximately 9 hours.
7. Seeing Brudda Jeddles and his family.  Yes, trampoline jumping was involved (in our swimsuits with the sprinkler underneath).
8. Sunshine.  It was great to have such an awesome weekend weather-wise.  It was nice and hot, no clouds, and that sun sure was powerful.  No sunburn occurred (on me anyway - not sure about the others).
9. Cousin.  I saw my cousin's son at my other cousin's house (even though the other cousins weren't home).  It's interesting to see kids growing into adults with their adult personalities when I can really only remember them as kids.
10. Fellowship.  With friends, family, and strangers.

I think I'll leave it at an even ten like that and end with a few pictures.  I forgot to say who I camped with:  Sharin' (hereafter known as Share Bear just because it makes me laugh), Jack-E, and Jen-E.

Herman bearing a big load on the trip.

For those in the know, I'm told you may recognize the building on the shore.  You may not recognize Jen-E since her back is turned.

Jack-E cheesing in the cheesy state after eating cheese curds so fresh they were extra squeaky.

Jack-E's rig - not sure if he/she has a name.  He/she puts Herman to shame by carrying two kayaks, three bicycles, three people, and their luggage simultaneously.

While you're up, could you get me that bag chips?  Thanks....

 P.S. Special food bullets:
11.  Cheese curds.  Made that day, and extra squeaky, the way they should be.
12.  Several attempts at making Jiffy Pop over the fire, all failed.
13.  S'mores.
14.  Cherry rhubarb pie.
15.  Specialty bakery bread.  Door County Bakery.  Very original, huh?
16.  Czech roast pork loin served by our Romanian waiter.

Checking In

Well people, I'm back.  You probably didn't notice my absence since you were likely gone yourself.  More on the weekend tomorrow (or at some later date this week).

My 4th of July weekend was great, and I hope yours was too.