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Thanksgiving 2007

Another Thanksgiving come and gone.

Since we're "alone", we tried to make the best of it. The temperature was around 65, so we went outside and played. We ended up playing baseball out in the street, which is one of the favorite things I used to do as a kid. Zippy was able to get into the fun by catching foul balls.

We had a quick video call with all the family back in Illinois. That was chaotic, but the girls enjoyed it. With all the noise and madness over at my brother's, I was almost thankful for our quiet time at home.

I was asked about 20 times by 20 different people if we were going home for Thanksgiving. Funny how people just assume you go home for every holiday. We may not have the rest of our family around, but what we have is enough. We were thankful to spend Thanksgiving together as a family, even if it was just the 4 of us.

British Scientists Kill Oldest Living Animal

This is special for Paul. Check out the comments. Quite amusing.

Video taken by Heather

Keith Urban Concert #2

Heather and I enjoyed the Keith Urban in concert so much in Philadelphia we decided to go see him in Buffalo (about a 6 hour trip). One of her friends was nice (insane) enough to drive to a different state and watch Jenna and Ainsley over the weekend. Unfortunately, Ainsley was a monster. For the short time I watched her two boys on Friday night, they were angels. I don't think I have a friend that would be willing to watch my kids over the weekend.

The final portrait just in case we don't make it back...




Keith Urban


Heather had a fun time taking pictures of Pennsylvania trees. Here's some snow in the Poconos.



The new GPS to replace the one that was stolen from Heather's van while at the mall. Bastards. check out the straight Pennsylvania roads.


We made an impromptu stop at Niagara Falls.



More Pennsylvania scenery. This time, on the way back.




Pigs don't fly, but they do go by truck.

Tell a Friend You Look Like A Hippo on the Verge of a Heart Attack

Zappy

I wanted to wait until I took some pictures for this post, but I can't wait any longer. The other day, Jenna took Zippy for a walk around the block. When she got back, she let the dog outside without taking off his pinch collar or putting on his collar for the invisible fence. (Insert picture of collar here) The dog, realizing he just walked out of the yard a few minutes ago, made a run for it. Heather grabbed his collar for the invisible fence and put it in her pocket. Why she did this is unclear. It's not like we use it to walk him, and he already had his pinch collar on. Anyways, the house down the street also uses the same invisible fence that we do. (Insert picture of warning on their mailbox here) Do you see where I'm going with this? While bee-bopping down the sidewalk, Heather got zapped from the neighbor's invisible fence. If only I was there to see her jump when she got juiced.

Only Heather. You gotta love her.

More Bears Vs Eagles Pictures

Do you see that?



Check out the dude on the right mid-dive.



Dirt flying.






Pointing (again)


It's in the air. do you see it? The defense does.


Fumble on the third yard line. FFS!

Bears Vs Eagles Pictures

Eagles Vs Bears

Heather and I had never been to an NFL game, so when I got an offer for some free tickets to see the Bears vs the Eagles in Philly, we decided to go. We had some really good seats. We sat in between the 50 and 40 yard line in the eighth row.

We both had been warned about Philadelphia football fans, so we went wearing neutral colors. No orange and blue for us. We were both surprised at how long the seats remained empty right up to kick off. Speaking of the kick off, it wasn't what we expected. There was no real anticipation. There wasn't, "Gentlemen, start your engines!" There weren't any pace laps building up the excitement to the drop of the green flag. It was anti-climatic.

We can't go anywhere without having a Heather moment. She came back from getting food with her pants wet. No, she didn't piss her pants. She did manage to spill a Pepsi all over her (a $3.50 Pepsi).



I remember a British friend of mine complaining that American football was too commercialized, and that it was too slow. After seeing a game live, I couldn't agree more. Every time it got interesting, it was time for a commercial.

Mandatory Family Fun Day

Saturday was designated mandatory family fun day by Heather, so we went to a farm to get our pumpkins for Halloween. It took us about 40 minutes to get there, and we managed to get there without the girls getting into a fight. Once we got there, we decided to try our navigational skills in the corn maze. This was a first for all of us.

Here are the girls at the start. Would we make it out???

And we're off…

I've concluded that Ainsley channels a scavenger, because she is always picking things up from the ground. Corn, anybody?

I asked Heather if she knew how to orientate the map. She gave me her, "What the hell are you talking about" look, so I took over the duties as navigator.

The master and his grasshoppers. Are you imagining Heather standing there looking confused?

With the girls' help, we were able to successfully make it out of the maze.

We had a good time. We all had our moments. Can you pick out the crabby patty in this picture?

You can't go without getting your face painted!!

We each picked out our own pumpkins. One of them took a bit of an adventure, but you'll have to go here to read about that.

Multi-tasking

I'm a fan of Shepard Smith. I listen to his show on Sirius radio while I drive home from work. I find his conversational approach to telling news refreshing. You never know what he is going to say, or how he is going to say it. I found this interview of him very interesting. He talks about skipping verbs sometimes (who needs them), and how technology has revealed to him his ability to multi-task when processing information from different sources at the same time (tv, internet, phone, etc).

Here's a quote from the interview. "Technology has taught us that we can do more things at one time, that we can take in more information and process it more quickly than we could 15 years ago. I know I can. When this computer thing first started, I couldn't deal with the computer, and the e-mail, and the phone, and the TV, and all of that at one time. Well, I can now, and everybody I know can. We don't have the patience.

It's not unusual for me to be on a conference call, following along with the slides on the live meeting link, instant messaging co-workers, and working in JDE at the same time. Another example. Watching the race on tv, listening to the scanner off the internet, instant messaging my brother, and browsing the internet.

We all do it, which makes the next point even more important.

He goes on to say, "You sort of eliminate the things that get in your way in this era of multitasking, and sometimes the verbs just aren't necessary. It's, "President Bush in Washington today." I don't need to say, "He is in Washington today." "President Bush in Washington today, talking with Colin Powell, getting ready for a trip overseas. Telling others yesterday about what happened when, dah, dah, dah, dah." You don't need all of those verbs."

I can find the link between delivering the news to communicating in business today. You have to be pithy, to the point, and you had better make your argument quick. You can't dance around the subject and ramble on, or your message will get lost in the noise. As he says, we have lost our patience.

To get back to story telling, I was recently reading some material from work that taught how to use story telling to help mentor other employees. Interesting stuff. Studies show that people retain information better when provided to them in a story format.

For those of you who are not familiar with Shep, here's a video. For those tasked with coaching others and/or getting the point across quickly and in a manner which aids retention, read the linked article.

FFS

What are you doing, Tony? Two points out of the lead, and you go and do this.

Arm Update

Jenna and I went to the doctor on Thursday to make sure her arm was healing properly. Heather took her for new x-rays on Monday. They provided us a disk with the x-rays on them. They put the original x-rays on there instead of the new x-rays with her cast on there. Lucky for us, the doctor's office was able to pull up the correct x-rays online. Interesting. There was really no need for us to go in then. The doctor simply had to pull up her x-rays and determine if everything was ok, which it was. She gets to go back in 2 weeks to get her cast removed and get a new cast that stops short of the elbow. She'll be in that for 3 weeks, or so. As we were walking out, Jenna heard somebody getting their cast removed. I don't think she's looking forward to the saw. As long as they don't say the word "surgery", she should be fine.

Below are her x-rays.

Things I Found While Stumbling.

One of my favorite toolbars is StumpleUpon. I love it. Here are a few quick links to things I found interesting while using it.

Message to my friend, Paul. Notice the purple text. That just may link to something, wanker.

I'm wondering if somebody legitimately thinks that Americans think this way. Too funny.

Now people are going to think I'm a dork, but I look at this blog every now and then. The food looks yummy, and the pictures always seem to come out perfect.

The power of Photoshop.

An amazing picture.

These pictures of prepping the shuttle for launch are amazing. Don't drop it!!!!

Think you have insurmountable troubles in your life? Check out the pale blue dot to put things in perspective. It will leave you with more questions than answers.

Never heard of StumbleUpon?

Cruel or Funny?

This is funny. Is she suing because she was made to look a fool?

Her First Broken Arm

When you have children, you know they are going to get hurt sooner or later regardless of your best efforts to keep them from harm. On her way to the bus stop, Jenna broke her arm. How she fell is still a mystery that may never be solved. Did she have a Jenna moment (read klutz)? Did she hit an invisible line? I didn't think this was possible until I was IM'ing a co-worker. When I mentioned the invisible line theory, he meekly replied, "I hit one of those as a kid with the same result."

Regardless of how she did it, the result was the same. Down she went. There were some parents at the bus stop who rushed to her aid. Jenna was in tears. She had, after all, torn her favorite pair of capris!! The growing bump on her arm was of no significance to her. There were more important worries to concentrate on. Blood. A small amount of it was oozing out of the scrape on her knee. A boy raced home to get her a life saving band-aid. Once applied, and all traces of the red substance were wiped away, all was good in life.

When she got to the school she went straight to the nurse's station. She did what any school nurse would do that is of a century in age. She sprung into action (as fast as an old stalwart like herself could). She made a sling out of bandage wrapping, and provided copious amounts of tender loving care. Dad was called to medi-vac her out. I brought along my co-pilot, Ainsley, who already had an appointment with the doc.

After trips down many halls, covering many floors, we received the diagnosis. A fractured arm. The doctor said we had to go see an orthopedic surgeon. That word, surgeon, registered instantly on the face of my eight year old. The doctor, immediately knowing her error, tried to stifle the surely coming cries of a little girl. "You don't need surgery, honey. That's just what they call them." Crisis adverted.

Why can't this doctor apply a cast? That is a rant for later.

The doctor provided me with a list of five orthopedic surgeons, none of which were covered by my insurance. Although the urge to go off on a rant is almost unbeatable, I will save that for later, too.

After a quick lunch, it was off to another doctor in another town to get a cast put on. Unfortunately, the break needed to be set. With big eyes, Jenna asked, "What does that mean." Well, the doctor said, it means I can take you to surgery (there's that word again) and put you to sleep and set it, or I can do it right here after I make your arm numb. After satisfactorily answering Jenna's questions, she decided to do it right there. She was a trooper, and did not cry. That is a miracle, because Jenna can be a wee bit of a drama queen.

Sir Zipadelli was the first to sign her cast, with Dad second. By the end of the night, her new pink cast (is there any other color for an eight year old girl) was covered with signatures.

Here's the proud owner of that cast for the next six weeks.

May it be the worst injury she ever endures.

From the Keith Urban Concert In Philly

She Is Going To Kill Me

She didn't kill me, but she did strongly encourage me to remove this video that shows her snoring loudly. Very loudly.

That's not a Real Plea

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