Thursday Thirteen #42

13 More Questions and Answer About Me In my lame attempt to keep at this Thursday Thirteen thingy, I'm back to stealing meme questions from other people's blogs. 1. Are you an innie or an outie? Innie. That's a stupid question. What, is this kindergarten recess show and tell? 2. Have you ever worn bell-bottoms? Yes. I remember a pair I had in the sixth grade (73-74) that were way bigger than my feet. I was so proud of them then. I'm so ashamed now. 3. Have you ever written a song? I've written lyrics, but have never put music to them. 4. Can you make change for a dollar right now? Heck no. I've been married 22 years. My wife doesn't let me have that much money on me. 5. Have you ever been in the opposite sex’s public toilet? Sort of. When I managed restaurants, I cleaned a mean bathroom, both the men's and women's. (From those experiences, I found out that many people are disgusting pigs.) 6. Have you ever smelled your own feet? Of course. This is one of those questions I don't think anyone can say no to if they've ever played outside in the summer. But, since I became an adult, I always buy odor eaters for all of my shoes. They really work. I even have odor eaters in my slippers. (No, I'm not kidding.) 7. Do you like ketchup on or beside your french fries? On the side please. I walk a tightrope of OCD mania when I eat things with my fingers. I wipe my fingers off after EVERY bite. I go through some napkins, believe you me. (Sorry about that, Sheryl Crow) Ketchup on my fingers might push me totally over the edge. I'm not kidding either, it's a whole mental dance that happens in my massive cranium whenever I eat foods with my fingers; half-way between gluttonous desire and Howard Hughes hand-washing mania. 8. Can you touch your tongue to your nose? No. I can stick out my tongue AND touch my nose, but I CANNOT touch my tongue to my nose. Comprende? 9. Have you ever been a boy/girl scout? No. My older brother was a Cub Scout, and my mother tried the den mother thing and I think she almost had a conniption (nervous breakdown) one time and that ruined my chances of ever doing that. I actually never wanted to, but I couldn't have if I had wanted to. Hmmm. I wonder if someone poured ketchup on Sainted Mother's fries at that Cub Scout meeting and sent her over the edge, and doomed me to the same affliction? 10. Have you ever broken a mirror? No. I don't remember ever breaking one, but now that I think about it, my life really sucked between 1987 and 1994, so it's possible. 11. Have you ever put your tongue on a frozen pole? No. Big Sis used to try to talk me into touching my tongue to those aluminum ice trays with the big handles that you pulled up to break the ice loose, but even as a kid, I could tell from the tone of her voice that she was up to no good. Come to think of it, Big Sis is still up to no good. If nothing else, I have a strong sense of self-preservation. Never try anything you're being asked to do if the asker will not demonstrate it first. Plus, I've seen A Christmas Story about a million times like everybody else. 12. What is your biggest pet peeve? The religion of global warming. Just the fact that the proponents of the global warming scare are now trying to get us to call it global climate change so they won't have any more embarrassing things like the cancelled global warming conferences this past winter due to blizzards makes my point for me. If they can get everyone to stop saying global warming, and insert global climate change instead, then during the cold winter months charlatans like Al Gore can raise more money. (I'm cynical, sue me.) It's tough trying to promote your beliefs in global warming when folks are seeing blizzards and record low temperatures on the weather channel. As a Christian, I have tried to speak to people over the years about spiritual things, and have had everything from good, honest communication to being cussed at like you wouldn't believe. So I have a bit of an idea what global warming believers feel when their pronouncements are rejected by people like me. For the record, I believe that the earth is warming, but in a normal, natural cycle that paleoclimatologists have told us have happened many times in the earth's existence. I just don't believe that man is causing it, nor do I believe driving hybrids and using flourescent bulbs help matters one iota. Oh yeah, radical Islam is a close second. 13. Do you slurp your drink after its gone? Yes, but ever so gently so as to not annoy those nearby. The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

Could This Be Some Textbook Irony?

From the New York Daily News is a report about Dan Rather poking Katie Couric in the eye with a sharp stick.

Talking via phone to Joe Scarborough on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Rather described Couric as a "nice person" - then let her have it.

Speculating on the program's declining ratings, Rather said, "The mistake was to try to bring the 'Today' show ethos to the 'Evening News' and to dumb it down - tart it up in hopes of attracting a younger audience."

Now isn't that special?

Dan Rather. Wasn't he the guy who used to anchor the CBS evening news until he tried to pass off forged documents supposedly proving that Presiden Bush (W) neglected his duties as a pilot in the Air National Guard during the Viet Nam era?

And didn't Dan Rather report this as factual news during the runup to a U.S. Presidential election in fall of 2004?

And isn't this the Dan Rather who stuck it out a little while after his and Ms. Mape's shenanigans were made public, and then "retired" from the anchor chair at CBS Evening News?

Yeah, I thought it was the same guy.

I once sorta like Joe Scarborough, back when he was semi-conservative, but I guess being on MSNBC with that complete nut job Keith Olberman has turned Scarborough to the dark side.

I'm no fan of Katie Couric, but at least she's reading the news instead of trying to pass off fake documents as real and attempting to bring down the re-election campaign of a sitting U.S. President like that moron Dan Rather did.

Dan Rather has no shame.

Seems ironic to me that he would say such things about another newscaster unless they were on FOX.

But, I did go to Louisiana public schools and maybe never got a good grasp of the concept of irony.

Proof Of Just How Lame I've Become

Well, it's finally happening folks. I've had days with nothing to say, and just wrote a post that basically told you to go over and look at what I posted on my photography blog, John's Daily Digital Images. It's a slam dunk to post a couple of photographs on there, so if you don't see anything new here, chances are there's something new over there, OK?

Well, I'm sinking to a new low today, and pointing you back in time to a post I wrote my during my first month of blogging, in March of 2006.

Folks rarely have time to go back and read the stuff the blogs they follow wrote way back when, so I figure most of you haven't read this post called: A Kiss For Daddy

I Can Read At A High School Level!

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to read a book. I went on a search, and in Number Two Daughter's room, I found the book Eragon by Christopher Paolini.

I always love the Lord of the Rings books although in general, I'm not a big fantasy fan.

But beggars can't be choosers, and it looked fairly interesting, so I decided to give Eragon a shot.

I usually give a book 50 to 100 pages to hook me, or I just put it down. Like with music, I'm pretty fickle in what I like, and I know it when I see (or hear) it.

Over the years I've tried to read classics and also popular stuff, if for no other reason than to see what all the hubub was about with the various authors.

For example, I've read one or two James Patterson books that I liked well enough to read all the way through, but I've also picked up several others by him that I put down withing 40-50 pages because they were totally lame. I'm not a James Patterson fan, he's too hit and miss with me.

I've also tried Tolstoy and Hemmingway, and was almost put into a coma. Just couldn't finish them, save only for The Old Man and the Sea.

Anyway, so I start on Eragon, a fantasy about a boy who finds a dragon egg, it hatches, and they become bonded. Problems ensue and Eragon has to grow up fast.

The book turned out to be very, very good.

So after Atlantis went up successfully Friday night, Lovely Wife and I headed out to Barnes and Noble.

I went over to the Science Fiction / Fantasy section and looked and looked. No luck. Well, it was a popular book, maybe they have it on a special display. Nope.

Finally, against man's natural inclination to not ask for directions, I went to the service desk and told the lady there of my plight.

"Could you tell me where I could find the book Eragon by Christopher Paolini? I looked all over the SciFi/Fantasy area and couldn't find it anywhere."

"Oh, that's because it's not in the Science Fiction / Fantasy area. It's in the teen book section. Come on, I'll show ya!"

So she leads me, head hung low (my head not her's), to the teen section and behold, there they were.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome! Just let me know if you need any more help, OK?"

"I sure will."

I grabbed a paperback copy of The Eldest, the follow up to Eragon, and headed to find a couple of Larry Niven books.

But I noticed the few 14 or 15 year old girls glancing at the moose that had invaded "their" section of the store.

But I wasn't too worried, I'm bigger than all three of them put together, so I was pretty sure I could get out safely.

I guess I need to call Sainted Mother and tell her I'm now up to teen fiction in my reading.

I'm sure she would be proud of me.

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Here's another couple of pics of that cool sky that was outside of Barnes And Noble this past Friday.

Picture Post, Sunday June 10, 2007

This is a picture of the Melbourne Causeway, linking Melbourne, Florida with Indialantic, Florida. That's our Camry on the left there, and this is where we parked to watch Shuttle Atlantis lift off Friday evening. This is looking west toward the mainland of Florida.

This next photo is looking east, toward the island and the Atlantic Ocean. You can see how, even 30 miles or so south of Kennedy Space Center, the roadsides clog up with folks parking and waiting to see the shuttle. The closer to the Space Center, the worse the traffic and gridlock.

This is Atlantis up pretty high in the sky, and about one minute after leaving the ground, and before releasing the solid rocket boosters I showed a picture of yesterday.

Just after the solid rocket boosters were released, I zoomed back out to wide angle to show the scene were we were standing, with the plume of smoke from the liftoff in the distance.

After the launch, we went to the Barnes And Noble in Melbourne, and bought some books. When we walked out into the parking lot, this was the magical looking sky we saw. Fortunately I had even carried my camera into the book store, and set it up for low light shooting and took a bunch of photos, hoping to be able to catch in some small way just how beautiful the clouds and the sky were. This was the best shot of the bunch. My heart soared just looking at this sky. It was as if God was (were?) saying to us, look, there's still beauty in this world. By the way, that 'star' up in the upper center of the sky is our closest planetary neighbor, Venus.

Here's another one of the spiffy sky in front of Barnes And Noble Friday night.

The sky outside of Barnes And Noble was every bit as exciting to watch as the shuttle liftoff was. There were folks in the parking lot trying to take photos of the sky with their cell phone cameras. When Number Two Daughter got home later, she had been out with some friends and they stood and watche the sky and she showed me her cell phone photos too.

Shuttle Atlantis Has Smooth Sailing

Yesterday ended up being pretty busy for me.

As I mentioned, I had some new tires put on the Camry, had my massive cranium sheared, we had some plumbers in for some work, went and picked up another vehicle from the mechanic, and at 7pm, Lovely Wife and I left the house to try to go to the Melbourne Causeway to watch the Space Shuttle lift off. Hopefully.

We live something like 30 or 40 miles south of Kennedy Space Center, but even though the shuttle is small from this far away, it's incredibly impressive anyway.

We parked on a good spot, looking north up the Indian River Lagoon, and waited.

We got out of the car at 7:25pm, and leaned on the bridge's guard rail and waited.

At 7:38, right on time, Atlantis lifted off.

In about 3 minutes or so, the thing was out of sight, having shed the two solid boosters.

You can see the light of the flames of the shuttle's engines for a bit longer, but they soon disappear.

We left, and headed up the road, and on the radio, they announced that the shuttle was in orbit, was 120 miles up, and doing great.

At this point, we were less than two miles from where we watched the liftoff. It takes eight and a half minutes to reach orbit. Amazing.

To see the shuttle do it's thing never gets old.

The morning rains and bad weather had my back freaking out and I ate pain pills like House all day, but it was still productive, and ended beautifully with the successful shuttle launch and an amazing sky just before it finally got dark.

And one of the coolest parts was that just after the shuttle had disappeared from sight, the sound finally made it to Melbourne and the rumble was startling, even this far away. I don't worship men, but they sure can do some amazing things sometimes.

Oh yeah, I had my camera with me; behold:

This is a crop of one of my shots to show Atlantis better.

I had to blow this next one up about a billion, squillion times. No stone unturned for my many fans.

My Off Friday

Sorry folks. I don't have anything for y'all today.

I had to spend part of my morning getting a couple of new tires on our Camry, then I went and got about 5lbs of hair cut off, otherwise known as a normal haircut for me, and now I'm letting a plumber do his thang with various problems around the homestead.

All in all, an expensive day.

I might have to reward myself with a trip to Southern Photo Supply to look at cameras and whatnot, and also I'm due for a swing by Barnes and Noble too. I want to look for a book, and I'm sure Lovely Wife could use wonna dem super-mocha-half-calf-coffee-thingamajigs.

I did post a couple of posts on John's Daily Digital Images, if you care to see them.

It rained a good bit this morning, but as I type this as 3:05pm, it's clearing up pretty good.

Hoping to see a Space Shuttle launch tonight. We'll see.