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Spiderman Panties

Anna came in the bathroom this morning as I was getting out of the shower.  Upon observing a thread-worn pair of boxers I had discarded in the bin (second pair this week), she said "Daddy, you need a new pair of panties.  I'm going to get you a new pair of Spiderman Panties for my birthday, when I'm four."  She is a generous, thoughtful little girl.

Baby, would you like espresso with that catfish?

We've been in Georgia this week visiting some friends.  Today Tim took me by a "local" coffee shop for a change of pace since Starbucks here seem to outnumber everyone else by 10 to 1.  It looked like a typical coffee place from the outside, but walking up to the front door I noticed a piece of paper taped to the window advertising the Wednesday night All-You-Can-Eat Catfish special.

Amused, I prepare myself for what will surely be a blast of deep-fried stuffy air and open the door.  Things look more coffee shop-ish on the inside than the catfish teaser in front would lead you to believe, so I make my way to the back to place my order.  "Hey Darlin'" is the greeting I receive from the dark-haired flannel shirt wearing southern woman behind the counter.  My amusement has turned into a full blown grin.  "Hi there", I said.  "I'd like a double vanilla breve latte with the espresso poured over the top."  She replied with a puzzled, "You want what, baby?"

We became well acquainted in the five minutes it took her to prepare my fix, and she was most appreciative that I had explained what a breve is and how it just isn't kosher to have catfish and espresso served in the same establishment.  "Be carefull, doll, it's really hot" she drawled, and carefully handed me the lidless 175 degree beverage.

What a friendly, hospitable place.  Where else but Georgia can you be called darlin', baby, and doll, and then be served espresso and catish?

Today's Funny

Today's laugh was produced by the following snippet.  I'm sure it was forwarded a billion times, and I haven't a clue where it originated.  (And, no, it's NOT ok to add me to a joke-of-the-day list):

A man and his ever-nagging wife went on vacation to Jerusalem .  While
they were there, the wife passed away. The undertaker told the husband,
"You can have her shipped home for $5,000, or you can bury her here, in
the Holy Land , for $150."  The man thought about it and told him he
would just have her shipped home.

The undertaker asked, "Why would you spend $5,000 to ship your wife
home, when it would be wonderful to be buried here and you  would spend
only $150?"

The man replied, "Long ago a man died here, was buried here, and three
days later he rose from the dead.  I just can't take that chance."

Is There Something in My Teeth?

After church on Sundays we like to go to Atlanta Bread in Grandville.  Awesome sandwiches (I like the Bella Basil Chicken Sandwich, grilled) and they bake chocolate chip cookies for us... sooo good.  And they have a special on Sunday where kids eat for .99 !

We sit in pretty much the same booth every time, right by the window.  So we're sitting there eating.. and I glance out the window to see an elderly couple at an outside table.  How sweet.. they must be in their 80s.  It looks like he's telling her she has something in her teeth.. they're pointing.. she can't quite get it... AND THEN SHE TAKES HER TEETH OUT AND STARTS POLISHING THEM WITH HER NAPKIN!

Tormented

"M, I'm feeling tormented.  I have too many problems to work out.. I'm figuring out problems in my sleep at night and again when I wake up in the morning."

"I'm sorry, dear.  You need to pray about them and give them to the Lord to work out instead of dwelling on your problems."

Such a sweet, loving woman my wife is.

"No, they aren't problem problems but Sudoku problems.  If I wake up at night.. in that half asleep half awake state I see rows and columns of numbers and I'm putting numbers in the boxes and trying to do it faster to beat my last time.  It's like the burn-in you could get on the old televisions if you left the same video game image on there too long, except I have Sudoku burned into my brain and I see the puzzles when I close my eyes.

And when I'm not solving Sudoku problems in my head I'm trying to figure the solution to sorting an array of words in Ruby [I'm learning Ruby so I can learn Ruby on Rails so I can go to stuff like the CarsonWorkshops Summit and learn about making a killer web app] without using the 'sort' method.. I thought I had it worked out but there's a bug and I haven't tracked it down yet.. still learning the language and all.  I've been stuck on it for a few days now.

And then this morning I woke up trying to decide if it would be more efficient to process the new loan portfolio we're buying using Salesforce or my old FilemakerPro solution.."

"Oh, that's just terrible dear.. you poor thing.."

Happy Birthday to Z!

"Happy Birthday, Zachary!  How does it feel to be eight ?"

"It feels great!  I love being eight, and it means I'm one year closer to being seventeen so I can play Halo!"

Update:  see all the photos here

Ionia Free Fair (Spinning Teacups!)

This weekend I took kiddos to the fair.  We started out by stopping at the 4H booth to consume some hard-earned ice cream, Z's reward for doing a good job helping out in the 4H food booth last week.  Watching the kids eating their ice cream reminded me that I had only a bowl of cereal for breakfast, nothing for lunch, and I worked out in the yard in the morning trimming the hedges (no electric trimmers for me either) in the 90 degree heat.  I was starving.  Amidst the ice cream, candy, and carbonated beverages on the menu, the words "chili dog" jumped out at me.  That's what I need I thought.. a quick chili dog fix I can down before the kids finish their ice cream, and a little sustenance should keep me from passing out in this heat.  I just had one of them, because they're not very good for you, right?

Geeks R Us

Tonight I went to an ultra nerdy local computer users group meeting.  The room was packed.  I had hoped to meet some young, hip, cool, entrepreneurial geeks (like me, right?), but alas the room was filled with mostly older people who had recently purchased a computer.  Oh well.

What I found amusing, however, was that some of the problems people were having, issues that weren't all that unusual and that could be solved with a simple change in the system preferences, resulted in lengthy technical discussion by the Top Gun Nerds at the front of the room. 

Elderly Lady:  "My screen turns brown after I use the computer for a while, but it goes back to normal after I wiggle the mouse.  It's very annoying."

Top Guns:  "It could be a bad video cable, or maybe your video card is going out.  Remember back in '95 they had the video card issues?  What type of video card do you have, ma'am and how much vram do you have?  What OS version are you running?  Go into the console and run this and that and examine your logs to see what may be causing the problem.  If the logs don't tell you anything maybe your monitor is going bad."

Elderly Lady:  "Huh?"

Nerd in the Crowd:  "It's your Energy Saver setting.  You have it set to dim the screen when you don't do anything for a while."

Elderly Lady:  "Yep, ok.  I bet that's it.  Thanks."

Top Guns:  "Oh, uh, yeah.  Well, that could be it too."

Sign Language

At dinner the other night Elizabeth was talking incessantly (she is very social), and finally I said "Elizabeth, will you PLEASE stop talking and eat..." and she started signing to finish what she was saying as "and eat" left my mouth.

She's not fluent in sign language, so don't be too impressed at that.  I just thought it was so funny that she would do that, because I'm sure she was trying to be funny in her cute little way.  She is such a neat kid.

Spiderwoman

spiderwoman,

[cue Spiderman theme music]

Wonder what would happen if you crossed a dwarf woman with the genetically engineered spider who bit Peter Parker, alias Spiderman?

Lana has a good time with Photoshop, but she's much taller in person (and married to my buddy Kevin).