Thursday, November 27, 2008

Thanksgiving

I've been making and eating these since about 1974....




Fresh hot flour tortilla.

Butter (spray on is good)

Dash of salt

Salsa

Roll it up

Enjoy.





You can leave off the Salsa for a change



Or put on just Honey.



My wife doesn't "DO" much hot sauce. However, lately even she has been having some of these. Well, not as much salsa as shown here.

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Kids climbing trees


As a kid, I loved to climb trees. We lived right off Lake St. Clair, outside of Detroit, when I was around eight. There were these massive trees. The military base, had been opened right after WWI, about 1919 or something. The trees had been growing ever since. They were great.


We moved into our home in Highland Village in 1986. We planted a live oak tree in our front yard in 1987 or maybe 1988. We brought it home in a five gallon bucket in the back of our 1986 Ford truck. In 1994 we brought home daughter number two in a 1984 Toyota Corolla. Daughter number two, sometimes likes to climb the front tree. I got home from work this past Monday and daughter-two had two friends over. They'd all climbed the tree. Three kids in the tree. Wife suggested we call the tree man out to remove the growths in the tree.


Just amazing to think that I could put my index finger and thumb and encircle that tree, just 20 years ago.


The squirrels love it for it's nuts. It helps that there are two more huge oaks in the back yard.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

almost lost my lunch today.....

I'd finished my lunch at my desk.  I was listening to the local oldies station, KLUV.  When on comes this...



What posses's people to call in and request this stuff?????

Don't they remember Disco Demolition Night?   I wonder how many blown up Disco LP's, were Kung Fu Fighting....

Monday, November 24, 2008

Orienteering at All Saints Camp

Over the weekend of November 15 and 16, I went orienteering. It was a two day event for North Texes Orienteering Association. It was at one of my favorite camps, All Saints. 660 acres of forest nestled up on Lake Texoma. Being a two day event, you must complete both days to be in the hunt for an award. I went up with the Marcus High School and the Flower Mound High school kids. We had four adults and about 14 kids on day one. We left on the bus at 6:45 AM and arrived about 8:30 at the camp. Being a two day event, they also had us all pre-registered so we even knew our start times. But with that many people, we had to be up there early. I do the technically difficult orienteering, but the shorter course. Better for this out-of-shape-bad-back guy. Day one, I made a royal screw up. Not on the course. I finished the course in about an hour and 11 minutes. Being advanced courses, we were electronically timed. Meaning, you wear an RF thing on your finger. When you find a control point, you verify it is the correct one and then stick your RF thing into the device strapped on the control point. It records your time onto your RF thing and you keep going. You know it recorded, as it "beeps" and flashes at you. I got to the sixth control, and it wasn't recording. In that case, you must revert back to the punch card method. The lower, easier courses, all use punch cards. On those, when you reach the control, it also has a paper punch. Each punch makes unique marks and you punch the paper into the box for that control. It sounds confusing, but it is easy. So on the sixth and seventh, I reached into my pocket to yank out the paper, punched it, stuffed it back into my pocket and kept on going. You can always paper punch to be sure your presence is recorded.




About an hour after my return to the bus, I remembered that at 6:15 AM, I'd ALSO put my Texas drivers license into that same pocket! Yep, my license is out in the woods. I checked at the finish, but it hadn't been turned in yet. By then, all our group was back, so we headed for lunch and back to the Dallas area. I figured I'd ride the bus back up and then I had about an hour and thirty minutes on Sunday, and would check for the license and then ask permission to head back out onto the day-one course and those two controls and hope to find it. They would probably not be using that side of the camp on day two.


Can you say "Needle in a haystack"? Sure. I went out to the two controls and the one spot where I'd had to climb under an old barb-wire fence, but no luck in finding the missing license.


Over all, I did well. I got third. Our fearless leader also got a third. One kid in our troop got a fourth. Only one other kid in our group, had bothered to finish their orienteering course.

Here are some photo's. The bus, the camp area, the cabins, the woods.



Monday, November 17, 2008

Broken glass everywhere


What a whirl wind week was the past one! Two more physical therapy sessions, a cancelled doctor follow up. Wednesday evening, 10 PM, phone call from oldest daughter. She was very upset, in tears. She was getting off work and went out to find her rear side window was busted out and her book bag was stolen. They broke the rear window, got in, and took the bag from the front passenger side floorboard. Seemed like a lot of effort! I guess they thought they were getting a free laptop computer. What they got was her bag, the schools Speech text book, her notes, and nothing else. We filed a police report. The next day I called the insurance, but it is below our deductible. They scheduled us a great company, SafeLite, to come out and replace the window. He came out Friday afternoon and replaced the glass in a little over an hours time.

The wife and I had mentioned to daughter, to use her trunk to lock up stuff. Hope she understands this now!

But faith in humanity was also restored later on Friday. I got a phone call from a guy who saw the stolen text book laying in the street by the shopping area where it happened. He got on the phone and he and I met to see if they hadn't tossed the rest of it out at the same place. No luck, her note book and bag must have been tossed someplace else. I checked all the stores trash dumpsters, but never found it.

Monday, November 10, 2008

Sunday, November 9, 2008

Cat Napping - An Extreme Sport

I got a 1:45 AM call from work. I had to get up and fix a database. I was working about 45 minutes, and called our most excellent operations staff to let them finish it up. I also had to get up early today and report to church at 8 AM. So, cat nap Sunday afternoon. However, I don't take cat napping to an extreme sport. Like our 20-something pound cat. I placed a ruler next to him, for perspective. He has set places he sleeps. The wife's side of the bed sometimes. On a couch in the evening, another bed when the mood strikes him.

Friday, November 7, 2008

Kids and the Elections





















Tuesday was the national elections. Tuesday is also football night for our middle school kid. She does cheer leading. So they had gotten home about 9 PM. About 9:45, her cell phone rang and one of the other cheer leaders informed her that the nation had a new president, President Obama. My daughter informed me of this, even though I was laying on the floor, with the TV on, doing my back exercises.
Here is the conversation we had (most of it).

Her: "Dad! My friend says that the President is now Obama!"

Me: "well...not quite. He is what is called the President Elect"

Her: "what? My friend just said..."

Me: "Right. There are now enough states reporting their results, that the media can project that Obama will be elected"

Her: "so....he's president.... And moves into the White House tomorrow..."

Me: "Not yet. He is elected to become President. It doesn't take effect until January"

Her: "So. That must give President and Mrs Bush time to pack up their stuff and dishes and all......"

Me: (choking back laughter) "Um...Right. It allows for the orderly transition of our government. See, Obama now must pick some advisers and such"

Her: "And meantime, the Bushes pack"

(Understand that we have not moved, so she has no idea of the work. She had a good friend just move to Arkansas, and saw them packing up their stuff for several weeks)

Me: "Well, the Bushes are rich. Any president is. The government has special people who will pack up the Bushes personal stuff from the White House and move it here to Highland Park"

Her: "That makes sense. So the Bushes don't drop the china and stuff"

Me: "right. Let's work on going to sleep now....."

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

And how can we forget Hayseed Dixie

Hayseed Dixie





And a classic...


And the Beatles...

Sunday, November 2, 2008

All Hallows Eve - so I'm a day or two late....

This is one of the scariest things you will ever see. Not for the squimish.





And in case your forgot, or never heard/saw the originals....