Update 6/26: Snopes has the full story of how this commercial was shot. It is indeed fake.
Leaves were falling, just like embers
I’m sitting beneath the picnic shelter at the Wolf Lodge Campground in the beautiful Idaho panhandle near Lake Coeur d’Alene. Today it’s just me and the dog watching over the camp as everyone else in our party cavorts at the Silverwood Theme Park and Boulder Beach Water Park. I didn’t bring a laptop with me but the dog’s owners brought several so I bummed one for the day. The dog is completely deaf and not a good conversationalist so I will amuse myself with some blogging, assuming this HP laptop doesn’t drive me crazy first (windows keep popping up every minute and it chooses to ignore many of the letters I type).
Vital Statistics
Bike odometer: 2443
Van odometer: 152791
Weight lost (in pounds):Â 5
Aches & pains:Â Left wrist, right ankle, left knee
Current reading: The Book of Totally Useless Information by Don Voorhees, My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk, CSS: The Definitive Guide (O’Reilly) by Eric A. Meyer, Profiles In Courage by John F. Kennedy
Recent listening: This American Life, Jimmy Buffett
Recent viewing: The Borrowers, Celtics at Lakers, U.S. Open (golf)
Recent playing: Chain Factor, Sporcle
Recently accomplished:Â Mowed and trimmed lawn, assembled and mounted bike rack, paid bills, helped fix Thomas window, cat boxes
Imperative To Do: Sell G4, get rid of junk (couch, vacuum cleaner, mower, bed), buy trailer for van, activate new Tivo, oil change for van, weeds, clean garage, moss, new muxtape, re-assemble bathroom door frame
Barack Obama on Father’s Day
Yes, it’s long but even if you watch just a few minutes, it is quite enjoyable.
1 minute, 5 seconds
Created by OnePlusYou
Road trip 2010
Last week as I chatted with my newly discovered cousin, Beth, I pulled up Google Maps to get a better idea of where she is geographically. Specifically, I wondered how far she lived from my sister, Mardy. It didn’t take long before I realized that a killer road trip could be devised. My first pass at possible destinations yielded this list (see Glossary if you don’t know any of these names):
- Portland: Our home.
- San Francisco: Home to Uncle Ralph, Aunt Carol and cousins David and Danielle.
- Moreno Valley: Home to Maridee, Steve, Trisha and Michael.
- Phoenix: Home to Michelle, Ric, Xander and Wil.
- Albuquerque: Home to Jan and Tom.
- Austin: One of America’s music capitols. Need to find worthy venues to visit here.
- Houston: Home to TQ, Tina’s grandfather.
- New Orleans: Another of America’s music capitols. Will probably need a couple of days here. Any suggestions for family friendly spots?
- Pensacola: Home to Beth and her family.
- Jacksonville: Home to Mike, Micah and his family.
- Savannah: Home to Mardy, Steve, Barrett and Kendrick & his family. We should spend at least three days here.
- Charleston: My old stomping grounds and historic southern city.
- Washington, D.C.: Our nations capitol. We would want to spend more than one day here visiting monuments and historical curiosities.
- Philadelphia: A natural follow-up to a visit to D.C.
- New York: The boys have a long list of places they want to visit here so this might also take a few days.
- Cleveland: Home to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
- Madison: My cousins Dee and Jon live near here.
- Riceville: My little hometown where my 25th class reunion will be held in 2010.
- Colorado Springs: Tina’s cousins, Natians and Kelly live nearby.
- Salt Lake City: Much maligned but beautiful city.
- Portland: Our home.
Remix of Radiohead’s “Nude”
James Houston took seriously the challenge by rock band Radiohead to remix their song “Nude”:
Houston explains the remix on the YouTube page. More information about the remix challenge is here. Radiohead’s original is also available on YouTube along with loads of other user-created videos.
Vital Statistics
Bike odometer: 2443
Van odometer: 152647
Weight lost (in pounds):Â 3
Aches & pains:Â none
Current reading: The Book of Totally Useless Information by Don Voorhees, My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk, CSS: The Definitive Guide (O’Reilly) by Eric A. Meyer
Recent listening: Chrome Dreams II by Neil Young, Jimmy Buffett, Fresh Air, This American Life
Recent viewing: Lakers vs. Spurs, Celtics vs. Pistons, Doctor Who, Face the Nation, Countdown, Hardball
Recent playing: Chain Factor, Fireflies
Recently accomplished:Â Voted, GPS rebate, cleaned cat boxes, cardboard recycling, new tires for Thomas, fixed flat on little bike, mowed lawn
Imperative To Do: Sell G4, get rid of junk (couch, vacuum cleaner, mower), buy trailer for van, activate new Tivo, oil change for van, weeds, clean garage, mow lawn, pay bills, fix Thomas’ window, moss, new muxtape
Just a few more hours
A few years ago I started a little Wiki project with the goal of gathering all the data documenting my father’s family tree. I spent many hours entering, formatting and editing the data. Eventually, other people joined in and we managed to document almost all of the basic facts for everyone in my family from my grandparents to my many cousins. At some point, the project became stagnant because we had reached an end to our participants’ knowledge and there was simply no more information to add. And so the Ring Family Wiki sat idle for a couple of years.
And then yesterday I got an email notice from Wikispaces that somebody wanted to join the wiki. It came with this message:
My name is Elizabeth (Ring) Rowe… I am Elmer Ring’s youngest daughter
Elmer was my dad’s youngest brother and moved to Florida back in the 70s. His family sort of fell out of touch with the rest of our family, especially after Elmer died in 2004. I logged in to the site and found the following email:
Just curious as to how we would be related. I found this site by shear dumb curiosity and recognized the old photo of Grandma Ring and family. I will try to clear up any information that I can help with, unfortunately Dad died in January of 2004, but I still remember some things and what I don’t remember I can find out. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions. 🙂 Hope to hear from you soon!!
Cool, eh? I immediately approved the membership request and her 10 edits were immediately applied. I replied back to her and she sent me her Yahoo name and we’ve been chatting since. She forwarded the website URL to her sister Cathy, who has also started updating the Wiki and improved the marketing on the site with companies as The Indexer that helped with this. It’s good news for everyone in the family, I think.
If you want to email Elizabeth, she is on yahoo.com with a user name of mizzb31. I’ll leave it to you to put those together to form an email address. She’s also available on Yahoo chat.
The Frustration Continues
Last night I watched in disbelief as Hillary Clinton failed to concede to Barack Obama and hardly acknowledged that she had lost the Democratic nomination for President. This was her opportunity to begin healing all the wounds inflicted during the primary, but instead she chose to merely point them out again. You can read the full text of her speech but let me just summarize for you:
Continue reading “The Frustration Continues”