Monthly Archives: August 2004

The Secret to Potty Training

We discovered the secret to potty training for Abigail: Sponge Bob. No, not on Television, not in sticker form (methods that sounded like they’d be effective) – we have Sponge Bob and Patrick on the toilet. Literally. We got a Sponge Bob Squarepants toilet seat and now Abby thinks it’s fun and cool to go to the potty. Moral of the story? Television is from the devil 🙂 If she’d never seen Sponge Bob (my fault) she’d have been just as bored as before with the old potty seet.

Olympics

I’m pleased with the Olympics this year because even though the commentary is just as bad as it was in the political arena, it’s much more palletable. The athletes are doing great over all as well. Abby or course adds a whole new flavor to the Olympics because each event is summed up to one action. Tonight during the men’s high bar event it was, “Swing, swing.” The swimmers are told to, “swim, swim.” And of course the Women’s Beach Volleyball athletes are told to “Put some clothes on!” – but that’s me saying that 🙂

Of course NBC is doing everything they can to make it hard to know when certain events are being aired. Witness the schedule. 

8:00 PM OLYMPIC SUMMER GAMES 2004 Primetime

helps so much.

Bush Blamed for Lack of US Olympic Medals

While it is a little early to tell how the United States Olympic teams will fair, their lack of Olympic Medals is causing some concern. Many Democrats are blaming Bush and the War on Terrorism. A John Kerry representative was quoted as saying:

“Obviously the teams are unable to employ good 'stratigery' due to the distraction of Iraq being so close geographically.”

President Bush or one of his administrative aides were not available for comment.

Olympic officials were glad to see athletes Dollars from other countries competing to show the United States that the sporting community is able to support top-dollar pharmaceutical companies in their search for performance enhancing drugs supplements.

Ticket sales at the Olympic events has been lower than people expected since according to television anchor Bob Costas, “Most of Greece is on a religious holiday and that’s why Olympic ticket sales are down.” Other authorities say ticket sales were down because 1) the Olympics aren’t that cool anymore when compared to the X-Games 2) Attendance was up at Bible Study meetings at hooters and 3) priceline.com was running specials to go see the “Elvis is Alive Museum” guided by William Shatner.

Rutabaga

Last night we went to our friends, the Kaes, house and had a blast. We (as in not me, but my wife and Krystal) made lots of Mexican food and then ate it (which is good) and it was quite tasty especially since not one thing on the table had wheat in it! Yummy.

However, I must say that I prefer our toilet paper over theirs. And Craig, since I know you read this… thank you for having toilet paper since while climbing Mt. Bierstadt I thought, “I hope I don’t have to go potty.” We have the nice soft Cottonelle toilet paper which we enjoy as much as one can enjoy a piece of semi-abrasive material on ones skin. I don’t know why I had to write about this other than it was a distinct thought I remember from last night. You see my allergies were bad. The ragweed plant, which I think is misnamed, is polinating right now, which means the air is filled with little tiny bits of nasty stuff designed to wipe me out [and thus we’ve come full circle with the wiping].

We played a game called, “Hear Me Out!” which could be fun, and had some funny moments, but the problem was that we kept landing on one of two mini-games that made it too much of the same thing. However, at one point in time Krystal compared herself to a white tiger and Craig proudly proclaimed, “I love vegetables because without them I couldn’t say Rutabaga with a straight face.” He then followed it by talking about how legumes make you gaseous. We all were busting up (including Brian, who was hanging out with us) outrageously at that point and so we ended that round and called it quits lest we have to play the ‘brainstorm’ mini-game again.

Oh, and for the record, Jon Doyle and I leading some of the music Sunday morning went quite well and the congregation seemed to like it. Or, at the very least no one ran out screaming 🙂

Test Your Web Projects in Konqueror

I’m using SuSe Linux and it rocks. But it is not installed on my Desktop. Nope, it is on a CD-ROM where it boots from when you start up the PC. Of course you could install it as a dual boot OS on your PC, but that’s your choice. Cool things included in the installation are spell-check built into the text areas of Konqueror, the ability to use the TAB key to actually put tabs in the text area and the fact that the User Interface is clean, fast and looks nicer than Windows XP. I’m very pleased with the performance of the OS and will probably install it here on my desktop soon.

Download this useful version of Linux at http://www.suse.com/us/private/download/ftp/live_eval_int.html

The Hike

The climb up the mountain (I can’t remember the name of it for anything) was awesome. It kicked my behind-side but it was a good experience. If you come to Colorado (assuming you don’t live here) I’ll take you up there to see it even if you don’t hike it. I’ll have pictures up soon. The air up there is… thin. or what feels like make-believe. It is like God let Mr. Rogers design the air because it was really hard to breath as I was ascending. However, the ascention was slowly but surely achieved and we had a great view of all sorts of mountains and hills. You will see in the pictures that they don’t do justice to the real thing.

The hike averaged 1,000 feet of climb every mile (so 3 miles = 3,000 feet up) as we started around 11,004 feet. Cool stuff, but completely exhausting. I’ll report more when I wake up from the tiredness.

Psalm 121

A psalm of ascent
1I will lift up mine eyes unto the mountains: From whence shall my help come?
2My help [cometh] from Jehovah, Who made heaven and earth.
3He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: He that keepeth thee will not slumber.
4Behold, he that keepeth Israel Will neither slumber nor sleep.
5Jehovah is thy keeper: Jehovah is thy shade upon thy right hand.
6The sun shall not smite thee by day, Nor the moon by night.
7Jehovah will keep thee from all evil; He will keep thy soul.
8Jehovah will keep thy going out and thy coming in From this time forth and for evermore.

Since I’m about to ascend, I thought this little play on words was witty, but right now I’m pretty tired. The noises and my own normally staying up later made it hard to sleep last night. Anyway, see you in a while!

Julia Child, 91, Dies

As I just found out, I had to report that Julia Child died. While many people don’t know it, I like food. I also like PBS and so sometimes those two would mix and I’d see Julia on PBS teaching the cameramen how to cook. Fortunately the cameramen shared with the editors and the TV food-chain so that I could watch. By the time she died she had osteoporosis so bad that she was really hunched over, however, her perky, squeaky voice continued on with delight as she dipped her hands into the ingredients, many of which I wouldn’t touch, and delightfully mashed, chopped, frapped, hammered, sliced, sauted, baked and ate various foods.

May her heritage continue on.