Really long posts about nothing.

07:36 pm - What happens at Webelos Camp, stays at Webelos Camp.

I was going through pictures for Blue & Gold and came across something that was pretty cool, Kieran getting his eagle feather.

This is one of the parts of scouting where the honor camping groups add some mystique to progression in scouting. This is something that has made scouting really stand out in the local area... while Native Americans do not have quite the appeal that they did in the 1930's, the intensity of the Eagle Feather ceremony has always impressed me.
( Read more... )

01:00 pm - Better than the FB feed.

It was a quiet night... we had gone to bed late after hitting a few episodes of BSG (Yay, they offed Callie!) and a Guiness, along with snorting some dog pheromones (don't ask).

We had thought the dog was getting into something he shouldn't, and Nikki(Mine) had even gotten up to check on him once or twice. Suddenly she sits bolt-upright in bed and says something about a Raccoon. Sure enough, I se a shadow moving on the porch, which is pretty amazing because I'm REALLY freaking blind without my glasses on.

The window had been cracked that night (again, don't ask) and there was a critter checking out the smells inside. I of course popped right up and wanted to check it out... "Hi there little fellow!" which suddenly had Nik hissing at me not to make friends with it... I start looking around for pepper spray or something else to deter the critter with, but I think the hottest thing at her place is probably ketchup.

I did manage to grab a glass of water, and as the raccoon came up to the window, I threw it in his face. I quickly remembered that raccoons are curious, not timid, and not easily spooked. ::sigh::

So we go around to the porch and Nikki wants to collect the trash so that they won't keep poking around. Since Ranger Rick was wet but not really dissuaded, I went out to go help and put myself between Nik and the raccoon. At this point the raccoon looked up at me, stopped going after trash bits, and stared... noticing before I did that I was only wearing my glasses and my tattoos.

Things calmed down after that... I think the commotion and scene was not condusive to raccoon curiosity. We walked the trash down to the dumpster, and when we came back it was 2:30 AM and there wasn't much left to do but put the dog up and go back to sleep. However, it was noticed that there were still critters about. Nik wanted me to spray bitter apple on the windowsill, but we disagreed as to how effective that would be. I decided to make the best of it, and waited until I saw the whites of his eyes and then sprayed the bitter apple in his face. Knowing that this really wasn't going to do much, I combined it with an explosive dog-barking sound.

It hadn't occured to me that not only was Nik not aware of my plans to do anything other than apple-mace the raccoon, she was also relatively terrified by the prospect of 30 pound critters held back only by a thin screen. Guess who jumped more? ::sigh:: I spent the next half hour or more, lying in bed, giggling, with Nik telling me "Oh, get up and blog about it already so I get get some sleep". All I could think of is how the RACCOON would blog about the night... I may write that up later. ;-)

07:19 pm - omg omg omg... (Or - why I have no energy come Monday)

I knew there was going to be a blitz today... Sadie had a football game and Bryce had an early departure for the Mosey Outdoor Adventure campout.

I got a call about 3:00, one or two more for dinner... that was fine, I was making pork fried rice which is easily dividable. I had it started up shortly after 3:30 which would get us to the Legion Hall in plenty of time before I needed to drop off Bryce, then run back home and grab whatever girls I had, and got the to The Game and then I was going to work concessions.

As dinner was cooking, Bryce asked me where the 'food dude' stuff was. He was in charge of food for his patrol, and we had forgotten to go shopping. We were due at the Legion Hall in 20 minutes. I put my Kara Thrace face on and grumbled "Frack!". Triage time!

Huge bowl of Prok Fried Rice was tossed on the table... Rubbermaid bin had the start of the food, then a uber-fast wal-mart run. Since Bryce is a scout, he had a meal plan and had the shopping list well written. I was in and out of walmart in under 10 minutes. Back to grab Bryce, and whatever girls were in the house had decided to walk to the game. Some girls were unaccounted for, but they were not my concern as plans seemed sketchy.

VROOM!!! Got to the Legion Hall, poured out Bryce plus gear, and got to hang out with parents I like. We've been doing this for years... it's fun to survive the camping drop-off. The unbridled precise anarchy is always amazing to watch... somehow we get a few dozen teen boys plus all their food, clothing, and shelter to survive in ANY condition into an unknown amount of vans and trucks, and have them all accounted for, paid, and permission slip'd within 30 minutes. Watching the caravan of Chaos move out is always a bit inspiring... more so than with military movements I did because THIS is all organized by boys who can't even drive... and Kansas let's 'em drive EARLY!

So... I head back home, and as I pull in the development I see Hannah and Emma, two other woodwind players walking down the sidewalk. I thought to pull over to say hi, because these are not people who live close by, nor do they normally walk around my neighborhood on Game Night (or any other night) because there's not much of interest here other than Sadie, and she had left a while ago. Apparently they were the unaccounted for girls... "Have you eaten dinner?" No, they had not... so along with whisking these gals off to various academic drops, I needed to feed them. Hannah, who is sort of punk-rock, decided she would be fine with a popcorn ball. Bullshit. So I stopped by my house to give them disposable bowls with fried rice. No dice... the kids in the house had polished off the whole mixing bowl's worth.

Four taquitos, two paper towels, and 90 microwaved seconds later I was swooping out the door and figuring out drop-off points. The tailgating had started, so dropping them off at opposite sides of the school was fun. Did I mention this was Game Night?? In a small town like Gardner, everyone seems to be involved with The Game. Banks fly the Blazer flag, there is a restaurant named for the High School team, and everyone is wearing blue and is doing stuff around the school. (Friday nights used to be REAL boring for me).

I got through that, found out my concessions slot was taken, so I went home... and looked at the kitchen full of empty dishes and empty of food. I heated the pan back up and fried the remains of the batter I had used on the pork... essentially I made hush-puppies... but without the veggie droppings. Still a few strips of pork though... I was still doing better than the Joads.

And now, boredom... until The Game ends. Luckily, One boy will be in Witchita by then, and I only have to worry about my Clarinetist and her 3-4 friends which organize themselves and their rides pretty much on their own. I may be taking 4 girls to different homes, I may not take any. I would be worried about this except that the girls are all decent and well-behaved young ladies. At least I've had no reason to worry, and I'm the sort of dad who pops into practice unannounced at random times to bring food and check for shenanigans.

It has been an exhausting but AWESOME evening, and I wouldn't trade it for the world. So much pride in the kids, and our ability to make things work.

12:33 pm - Fun with vacuums!

Mercedes finished her Den Chief training, and now her and Bryce are all excited about 'teaching the Cubbies'.

Last night, they put on lab coats and had a Mr. Wizard type night. The fun part of that is taking an aluminum can, heating up a little bit of water in it (on the stove) until it is filled with steam, and then plunging it upside-down in ice water.

My thought was that because the can is open, it wouldn't slowly crinkle in like the old metal gas cans did... my guess was that water would be sucked up into the can.

Anyone care to guess what happens?

01:52 pm - Been cheating on LJ with FB...

And really, I don't even like FB that much... more family there, which is good, but it's hard to post like *I* post on Facebook... Status feeds just weren't meant for a five-paragraph update. It's easier for the twit crowd... and I do ok with random tweets form the phone... but it leaves me sort of all over the place.

University was yesterday, I am now trained for more positions I do not yet have, and failed to get trained for the one I DO have. I love University of Scouting though... it is a who's who of civic movers and shakers around the 19-county mega-metro area.

Did you know that the Kansas City Chiefs were not named after indians? H. Roe Bartle's nickname was Chief, he started the tribe of Mic-O-Say in 1929. Note that Major Things in this town bear the name Roe or Bartle? Add the Chiefs to that list. He was like a blue-collar Kemper I suppose. Granted, I heard about the 'Chiefs' thing from the Legion Hall, not scouts... but Bartle's name comes up more than Jesus when you're at university.

Duane and Nikki got handfasted, and while I knew I knew about 80% of the people there, I recognized maybe 8. Partly because we were not at Faire or Gaea, and partly because people don't wear nametags with LJ names. FB is a bit better at this I suppose... not as many 'extra' names to remember. Unless people are using their LJ names as their FB names. (Half-guilty here... www.facebook.com/Diermuid)

Working on making the kid's uniforms more 'modular', using velcro on the sleeves so that they can swap out badges of office easier. I got the idea from the lesser branches of the armed forces ::rib rib::, Nikki (mine) says it's a 'Modular Army Brigade' so I am calling the uniforms "MAB-Modded".

Also amusing, Mercedes left her belt at Nikki's(mine) so I picked it up this morning while picking up milk and I put it around my chest so that I wouldn't forget it. (Sadly, that is the sort of shape I have fallen to recently) I then became amused at being "Hennett, mid-life edition" so I will have to ham that up, take a picture, and post it to Facebook, where Clinton Boomer is a friend. I think he's friended here too, but is like 80% of my friends who have become inactive over the past 10 years.

03:34 pm - Can we stop with the stupid?

On Orlando -

Asked by a reporter outside the police station why he did it, he replied: "Because they left me to rot."

11:12 pm - Legion Liaison

Finally hit a Legion Meeting tonight, and was very good about not hopping into anything. Although I was bestowed some sort of liaison title anyway... which was easy enough, once a month I'll report to the legion on what the troop is doing.

Along with that, I have dates written down for meetings with the American Legion Riders, the VFW, and a bug put in my ear about Colorguard for the Legion. Whoa.

But it was a fun group of guys, some older than my grandmother, some younger than me. And they were glad to hear about the boy scouts, they seemed really interested.

08:40 pm - Progress towards nowhere...

Got the yard mowed... it needed one last good shearing before the winter snows.

Found all the mangled bodies that the Dingo dug up, they all had small ears, so there was much praise. The bunnies have been vexing her because they can scamper under the fence (not skitter!) and she has to slow down and brace for the face-plant into the boards.

Camping stuff is still getting sorted... energy is low. But Bryce poked a pocket of energy when he tracked Dingo Poo all the way up to his room and back down again. Not that I have cleaned it yet, I just had a good 20 minutes of "What the unorthodox holy fuck made you leave your shoes on NOW???" (Any other day, hd drops coat, shoes, gloves, scarf, bookbag, armor, weapons, hobbits, frogs, etc right inside the door in a big pile. Which is nice, because I am always reassured that he is home, and that in the event of emergency he had enough clothing to shelter like a hobo, plus enough books, water, GPS, rope, and knives to survive a small civil emergency.

What else? ? ? Um, did dishes and unknowingly hated on Lizzie. ;-)

12:08 pm - Bank of America...

Bank of America was mad that the federal bailout czar called for pay cuts. The complaint was that pay cuts could send talent fleeing.

This is the same talent that ran the bank on the tightrope, necessitating a federal takeover? The same Talent that made BOA one of the top three places I've known NOT to take my money to for years, because they will gobble it up with fees, fines, and other shenanigans?

Screw'em, they should have failed. They had to become the master of back-end loans... buying mortgages or other loans to manage because most middle-aged Americans won't walk through the front doors, no more than we will hit Sonic's for a healthy meal.

Speaking of that... I have done food pyramid stuff with the kids every year, but for some reason, Kieran still thinks that a ham and cheese sandwich is the healthiest thing his school has served all year. ::sigh::

09:31 pm - A quick thought on Faire...

I've heard a lot of people 'give up' on Faire over the years, and many years ago when I started, I heard many of the same complaints. Funny thing is, as acts or persons age and move on, the Faire is actually not that far off from where it was years ago. Many of yesterday's Rock Stars have moved on, many of tomorrow's Rock Stars are just starting.

And who the hell is Toy? That guy IS a machine! Unchanged for at least 15 years.

I was happy to see that the "Made in China" vendors were just a quick fad. I forget what year that was. It was also sad to see Mother Pocket's place turned into a parking lot (for patrons) but such is the way of things. I still go by the SCA Dell every once in a while and sigh. That's where I was brought into Faire, back when the whole area behind it was pavilions and blankets and people duct-taping armor and fingers back together. I suspect that at some point that area will be re-done and the Faire can make better use of the 'dead' backstage space.

It was also fun to be out there when it was cold. I'm not sure why.

02:32 pm - Writer's Block: Happy go lucky

07:45 pm - Made my day...

I hate pranks that are abusive. I like seeing assholes get what they deserve. I like instant Karma.


Hidden Camera Prank Goes Very Wrong - Watch more Funny Videos

Really, only the first ten seconds of this video matter.

And the guy with the quick thinking and the Chuck Norris kick to the face? Nobel Prize of awesome right there.

01:09 pm - Zero tolerance overreaches again...

I was happy to see that in the media poll, 92% found that the punishment for a 6 year old bringing a mess kit to school was overreaching.

To be fair, the knife in a mess kit is sharper and pointier than other knives that have had elementary school kids expelled, to include cake knives, butter knives, and plastic miniature GI Joe 'guns'. Locally, the Cub Scouts are not certified to carry a blade with them until Bear level (Graduated second grade) but on the Missouri side, my boys got their whittlin' chip before first grade. Part of that is knowing that schools have zero tolerance, so they are only to have their knives at camp. Most of them who have been to resident camp (before third grade) have already started a collection of small knives.

I am blessed to be in an area of reason... at times I forget to take my pocketknife off of my keyring before entering schools. Other times, I feel really odd because I have a cake knife at school functions but the kids are allowed to use it, so I relax a bit. I think the biggest distinction I make is that I prefer that knives have a sheepfoot point rather than a clip point. A knife that cannot be used to stab makes sense. You don't need to 'stab' food, and the point is too often used for the wrong reasons... trying to pry things, or stab open holes in canned goods. I blame hollywood for that last bit. ;-)

It's a funny thing, I am not a very aggressive person, but when stuck in tense situations even the most mellow of us can snap. My moment came during mess duty in boot camp. There was a dorky kid who had been assigned to trash cans and he was in our salad room where people with food prep experience were. He was being an ass and wouldn't leave. Given the level of testosterone in Marine boot camp, it is understandable that he got stabbed for his efforts. Luckily, I was peeling carrots, and he was wearing dog tags. It was a wake-up call for many of us... as many things were at the time. It is very easy to lose your cool and swipe at someone. Making sure that non-combat implements are kept less lethal is not a bad thing, as long as function is not impacted.

Where was I going with all this? I think I am avoiding laundry... ::sigh:: I should go do that now.

12:57 pm

You Are a Blackberry

You are one of those super hard working, cellphone to your hip types. You like gadgets that do what they're supposed to do, especially when they keep you super connected to the world. You prefer function over flash, so things like a long battery life and easy features appeal to you. You may not look as cool as all of the iPhone kids, but you're probably being more productive than all of them!

01:47 am - Homecoming pic

12:29 am - Thought on Mandatory Health Insurance...

I was listening to the discussions on NPR today, and had an odd thought.

Imagine you are riding a bicycle down the road, and you hit a sandy patch. Let's say you slide into a curb and crack your head and break an arm. Someone calls an ambulance, and they arrive. They ask you who your insurance carrier is, and when you tell them that you don't have insurance they just sadly shake their heads, get back in the ambulance, and drive away.

This doesn't really relate to the debate, but it was a really sobering idea... imagine if we didn't have the baseline healthcare availability that we DO have today. Man, that would SUCK!

Funny thing, for those who DON'T have health insurance, how often is it by choice?

11:39 pm - Where's my merit badge?

Got through one heck of a day today, there was a puppy poop swoop, gymnastics run, Homecoming dress shopping, and Court of Honor to hit. I could detail each, but the one that rocked was the dress shopping.

I know that even moms worry about this, and here I am with a Freshman who is about as decisive as I am (stop laughing), so it could have gone pretty poorly, but we had a number of days to work on it.

Luckily, we kicked the shit out of that task! We hit a few consignment shops, found via a google maps search for 'consignment'. One store was particularly funny, we stepped in, looked around, took in the scent of old people, and both walked back out without really looking at each other.
( Read more... )

10:49 am - How the hell did I miss this??

Viral Video of a turtle being very human. OMG my sides hurt! I love the dramatic pauses!

Possibly not work safe? Turtle PG-13 I think. And it may interrupt your love life forever if you're like me and in the moment you're going to think "OMG, I'm making turtle noises!"

09:28 am - I am now better informed about the world...

Apparently, since everyone figured out that their wings weren't any better than any other barely edible food that bars serve, they had to come up with a new gimmick. Enter the Hooters bar-stool riding. I'm not sure how it became a phenomena, since I remember doing the same thing as a kid (and getting yelled at for it) but they utilized whatever elfin magic they used to make people think their wings were unreasonably great (or that they were somehow a 'family' restaurant) to make this a new cultural trend. Or something. It's pretty cool actually, the trick they do for TV shows is to pour a beer while spinning. I can almost see a Wii game based around this for those that want to play at home. Heck, -I- want to go spin on a bar stool now... except that mine is padded. And like many of the things I liked doing as a kid, it's less culturally accepted to do them as a man. I was shocked to find out that school's volleyball team was a GIRL-ONLY team. I LOVED volleyball! I was confused and sad about that.

10:08 pm - On Obama and the Jackass

Knock off the damage control... Twitter caught a president being honest. Run with it.

Kanye is a jackass, and has been for years. I'm not sure why Hollywood lets him get away with this crap.

It's all fine to love and respect each other as human beings, but when there is a sociopath in the mix, it's time to be a bit more strict.

Don't let Micheal Vick babysit your dog, Don't fight Mike Tyson if he hasn't already eaten, and don't invite Kanye to an award show without a private guard to watch him. Oh, and don't ever shack up with Bobby Brown, James Brown, or that jackass that beat up Rhianna.

06:03 pm - Gah... in the wrong database.

Yes, I respect gay rights and signed some petition for the Courage Campaign (to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell) because I served with a number of gay/bi/lesbian Marines, and it didn't impact their performance any more than being black, asian, polish, jewish, or russian.

HOWEVER, that doesn't mean I believe that Walmart is evil, farty meat causes global warming (which was global cooling just a few decades ago) or that drilling for oil in Alaska is bad.

If I sign up to support one campaign, and I get pissed off by the other five, you're going to make it harder for me to support the next one.

Oh, and as a 'breeder'/'straight' in your corner, I don't know what DOMA is, I was thinking those neat Greek hushpuppies wrapped in a grape leaf. (It was the Defense of Marriage Act, I looked it up)

And I'm sure that people have heard me state the obvious, when politicians are breaking their own families with adultery and other stupidity, keeping marriage from gay couples seems pretty dumb. Marriage was a religious thing, leave that to the churches and let ALL legal unions be just that, legal unions. Seems silly that people who's only religion is praising Jesus when Dale Jr comes out of a bad spin are the ones complaining that gay people are wrecking marriage. Hundreds of thousands of perfectly straight couples ruin their marriages every year. I don't suspect the 'Gay Agenda' is strong enough to destroy all that.

04:39 pm - Since I randomly sing this, I need to get it out of my head...

Not Work-Safe in a Monty-Python way.

01:54 pm - Half-staff?

I had a flag out this morning, but a Scout buddy told me that we're at half-staff today?

::edit:: half-staff on 'Patriot Day', Memorial Day, and Pearl Harbor day. http://www.gettysburgflag.com/FlyFlagHalfMast.php

For those playing along with home flags that can't be half-staffed, that means adding a black streamer.

02:25 pm - Yahoo!, You're doing it wrong. Again.

Yahoo!'s format changed again, and while I hate jumping on the bandwagon of "OMG! New format is Horrible! I'm going to start an email protest!", I am actually annoyed with the new news layout.

Along with there being a lot less popular stories shown (which makes it harder to pick out real news and not stuff about MJ, Paris, or Jon & Kate) I am also now treated to "Gardner News". Which at no point so far has actually been about Gardner. Every day there are articles about who's shot and who's arrested up in the metro. I don't care. I stay far south so that I don't have to check to see if my coworkers were shot last night. I would like "Gardner News" to be news about Gardner. They're a lot more guns and shooters down here, but the only ones who have to worry are the ducks, deer, and the cases of clay pigeons.

::shrug:: Going back to Google news. It's hard to get out of the habit of going to My Yahoo though... it's like buying produce from the local market, knowing full well that 33% of the time it is already partially spoiled. That's what I get for buying (trying to buy) fresh veggies from the same store where I get jumper cables, nerf darts, and galoshes.

I went up to go hop on the Wii for the day, but instead grabbed a bowl of French Onion Dip and Ruffles. That used to be lunch when I was 25 and 135 pounds... maybe if I eat my young adult meals, I'll get my young adult body back? ::grin::

07:54 pm - New game...

A few days ago, I was carting off the princess squad to their various gyms, and the discussion came up about all the 'stuff' in my van. We had already determined it was all there in case of Zombie apocalypse, but now they're picking random things and asking me their function in such a scenario.

Silliness is a wonderful thing... I even manage to explain that empty soda cans can be ripped into strips and embedded into tree limbs for supplemental slicing when you club zombies... because even if you don't crush their skull (skulls are pretty hard) the damage to muscle and tendons makes them less effective.

And I can post this NOW... because I have not gotten an 11:00 call from saffronhare yelling at me because someone was having nightmares and ratted me out. Nope... they were totally digging it.

12:42 pm - Good, Bad, Ugly, other...

First, the bad, my BMI is up a stitch.
Second, the good, it's been years since I've been on the Wii (ok, 16 days) so the graph that shows the change barely looked uphill at all.
Third, the UGLY, Squat Holds. That is, go into a full squat (legs parallel to the deck, feet flat, knees over toes) and then hold that while the Slowest Counter Ever counts off really long seconds for near a minute.

Other - Kristi is having a boy. I find it hard to be excited... I'm rather penis-phobic. Luckily, it is a very rare chance I will ever have to change his diaper.

01:00 am - Mentoring thoughts...

Bryce got a sack of merit badges today, a collection of many he earned over the summer. That was pretty cool. Looking forward to seeing his sash filled out a bit more.

Also did a board of review for another scout, his fourth bronze palm. Which is pretty rock star. The board went pretty long, this is a kid who has a rock-star resume but because he's seen and done more at 17 than most people do by 70, he's a bit cocky. Too cocky... so we had a long chat with him.

Picked up Kieran from his buddy's house afterward and was gifted with dinner. Fun little bit of good Karma there... I've been doing scout stuff every night since Friday, and it's not letting up until Thursday, which is probably going to end up the scheduled day for Cede's driving lessons.

Fun stuff all around.

10:43 pm - Trillian, hurry up and update so Yahoo! can shut the hell up!

not much else to say about that.

04:02 pm - No pagan pride (day) for me...

The kids and I will be paintballing at the Drop Zone tomorrow. #3 may be forgoing the adventure and hitting church instead, which is cool.

Funny note - on Thursday one of the kids asked if that was our 'down' day this week. I confirmed and watched the sigh of relief.

Pagan Pride was a 'popped up' event, so it falls behind the Crew outing and Tenebrus's last day at Centerpoint. If the weather is horrible enough to wash out paintball, then we might show, but I highly doubt it.
Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone with SprintSpeed

03:07 pm - Pagan Pride Day is tomorrow?

Who knew? Other than the Wild Hunt Order! that is?

Granted, I don't get out much.

01:51 pm - And since I'm posty-McPosterson recently...

Oh noes! Obama rode a bike without a helmet! Doom!

Who knew that the road to undoing the 'precious snowflake complex' would be a politician from the Democratic party? Rock ON!

I also love that Ms. Obama is not shy about being herself. I hope we see a lot of changes in politicians to come based on the Obamas being normal. Now if we can just get politicians to stop having affairs.



Also, what is up with long-term abductees being found recently? And the in-depth way that they are hidden for years? Tent compounds and underground bunkers? I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that porn-fiction is certainly not helpful, and it certainly cements my feeling that kids should learn escape and evasion tactics early, as part of routine play. Taking it up a notch from hide & seek and tag. Nothing to alarm the kids or anything, but I like the lessons learned in airsoft/paintball and boffer fighting. And in neighborhood games like cops & robbers and Kidnap. But that might just be me being paranoid. I'll be very glad when the kids are all older and carry pepper spray.

12:35 pm - Email post

Because Hestiax poked at the feature, and in order to answer her questions, I had to fix my own.

You have to have your sending email and pin registered (I can post a link if needed) and then you can email posts directly. Mine have been failing because my yahoo address was not registered, so my texting posts can go through, just not my email posts. And on a crackberry, it's all integrated so I didn't realize the difference until it broke.

Also today in Blackberry discoveries, if you type 's-i-g' into an email, your whole sigfile inserts into the email. And not like Windows where the cursor will lock, the box will grind, and the screen will flash with the inserted text a few seconds later... There is no MS-bloat here, it happens so quick that the WTF factor had a good ten second time lag.

Annoying, but wicked cool!
Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone with SprintSpeed

12:34 am - Notes from the movie night (Pathfinder)...

...which was a Native American/Viking/Canadian fusion film (because if you're going to make a movie that caters to a fringe audience, you need to hit a few fringe audiences).

• If you can't figure out a pre-Columbus Native American Canadian accent, just use a vaguely Filipino actress and call it good.


• Canadian Native Americans invented the mullet.


• What would normally pass for a 'supporting actor' monk in a chinese-ish flick was deemed to be the village idiot in the viking-ish flick.


• If I have two events scheduled at the same time, and one is with my conservative friends, and one is with my liberal friends, I can still hit them both Just Fine. Because 7:00 means 6:45 to scouts, but 7:45 to pagans.


• Sadie is indeed awesome, and can get herself to the high school, get fitted for a uniform, pay for it by check, and get back all on her own.


• My Blackberry still does not take well to being dropped into a large cup of water.


• Someone thought the slow-mo CGI blood and gruesome images from 300 would make up for a lack of plot. And was right. Don't forget the beefcake icing!


• Late period vikings invented 18 gauge latex plate armor. Which is forgivable if you have slow-mo gore and blood spatter, but also means that heavily armored Vikings float like corks after breaking through the ice.


• 10,000 BC had a more developed plot.


• Vikings calling -anyone- 'savages' is beyond funny.


• fionnabhar's new haircut is HAWT! Gave me butterflies when she poked her head around the corner of the kitchen and gave me the 'come hither' finger, then led me back to my bedroom. (Only to ask me if I had a plunger, as the toilet was draining slow).


• People WILL come to Gardner, and on a weekday even! Good crowd there. Although I still don't get out enough, as I still had to translate to Real Names from LJ names. Except for Jamie who's LJ name I can never remember but her name in my head is "and kaboodle."


• After a year of running a patrol of teenage boys working with knives, fire, and cooking, I have no problem leaving Bryce in charge of hosting a house with several adults.

10:01 am - And what will tomorrow bring?

Double booked last night, quadruple booked tonight. The weekend also has a number of important things going on.

It's great that the kids have a good sense of self and have courage... it looks like Diva will be riding her bike to her band uniform fitting. Meanwhile I'm one of the few who can do the Cubbie recruitment night tonight, and we also have a wild Hare movie going on. Luckily, this is the Patrol Leader's Council week, and Buddy is a Den Chief so PLC isn't mandatory for him. Oh...Quintuple booked...Committee meeting. But we have someone reporting for my committee already so that's cool.

Still don't have any time to start a job, but I will have to figure that out soon. On the plus side, the kids are getting older and since we have made most things Gardner-centric, they can walk to just about any event they have. And since they've spent years doing hikes across town and through wilderness, they realize just how easy it is to get places, given time.

Hey... what are these shoulders doing in my ears???

Oh, also found out that massage therapists are not to be called a 'masseuse', no matter what the dictionary may say. I stood corrected. I'm not sure how I was incorrect, so the massage therapists within the sound of my voice (or sight of my journal) are free to enlighten me.

02:07 pm - Getting better about the birthday thing...

I'm recovering from years of not liking the big fuss. Granted, a part of it has been training the kids to track and plan ahead for things they want to do, and two out of three are excited about DAD's birthday. (The other one does not get excited unless you ask him about government styles or Roman contributions to society).

Facebook is a trip though... with 1400 friends, I have been getting b-day wishes from people I don't ever really talk to, although we may randomly give each other facebook 'gifts'.

I'm a lot less grumpy about it than in years past, but a lot of things have changed. Hooray change!

Thanks all for the birthday wishes.

03:39 am - Another conversation from Facebook... Packing hitches

As the fates would have it, I ended up with my guest bed back the week after my parents left. And there was another round of musical beds. This doesn't bother me, since I have what saffronhare calls 'lifeboat skills" and I like labor. Unfortunately, my mind isn't what it once was and I tied down a bed using a hitch that would have worked great if we were picking up the Minivan by the mattress, but was not the proper hitch for highway transport which involves a lot of uneven wind shear.

What I needed was a packing hitch. It is usually taught in scouting, at least back when scouting was more about lifeboat skills and not just gaining the 'Eagle' rank. It isn't a sailor's knot, it usually considered a pioneering skill as the origins are in securing bedrolls and gear to a pack horse or mule. But the skill is also used by outdoorsmen today to lash down cargo on to vehicles. Or at least it used to be, before everyone had pickup trucks and bungee nets. Good lord, I'm getting old and crotchety.

Pics (particularly of academic interest for zylch) - ( Read more... )

06:25 pm - For my second amendment buddies.

We may disagree on open carry vs CCW, and may debate 9mm vs .45ACP, but I think we can all appreciate the following public service clip. ;-)

08:23 am - Poor taste...

Carrying an 'assault rifle' to a political demonstration is legal in Arizona, but in poor taste. I feel it is like protesting at funerals. It is a quick way to make sure there are new laws restricting your rights if you play fast and loose with them. No matter which party is in power.

And forgive me if I'm wrong, but has Obama made it a point to try and restrict the second amendment? I realize that the NRA went whackjob a number of years ago so I haven't been keeping track, but is there a new threat to the second amendment or is it just the same old "Democrats hate gun rights" stuff?

12:09 am - Ask me anything...

Since I -had- to ask someone something, I now get to put this out there...

Ask me anything you want, I'll be as honest with you as I am with myself. No topic is off-limits unless it involves information that others may not be willing to share.

Granted, this is pretty much my standard deal at all times anyway. I love to overshare for some reason.

Comments are fully screened.

12:43 pm - Because I need another pet like I need a colostomy...

Auto was featured in the town's weekly business mailer. So we stopped by to say hi.

Notes:

• Possibly shy of men? The vet is big and carries the Thermometer... I think Auto knew about vets is what was going on. No fear of me at all. Respect... I got respect from him, and that meant a lot.


• One year old, it's an approximation, but sounds right. He has some awkwardness to him still.


• Trained? He knew sit very well, but also had the attention span of a squirrel. He still jumps, which is pretty easy for me to train them out of (grab the right thing and show displeasure*, they learn REAL quick). He's also quick to remember that licking his genitals is a no-no, so he's certainly not been a stray (or lost) for very long.


• I now really really want a dog I can take to the lake... although the van is too nice for dog uck. Auto also smelled like he's been in a kennel for a while... the smell washes... but it reminded me of old Casio funk. ::sigh::


• Auto has been his name for two weeks, so we can rename him to whatever we want. Haggis, Chopin, EndApartheid... anything really.


• All that being said, I still hope it's a while before we do another animal. I like dogs, but I also like Twinkies. They're good in some ways, not-good in others. And we can't make any moves at all until things stabilize here with a new job and such. But it was nice to say hi.

11:07 am - Deep thoughts...

Cheese Nips have a note on their package that they are flavored with REAL cheddar cheese, and that Cheese-its are not. I immediately wondered if anyone that is eating crackers really cares. If I did, then I would just eat Cheddar Cheese. I noted that it was sort of like Mountain Dew advertising that they used pure mountain spring water. Which is cool and all, until you add oils that have been blasted with Bromine, which is used for Mountain Dew, Antifreeze, and soft-tissue radiology. Granted, Coors uses the 'mountain stream water' thing, but they're much closer to water.

In other news of things that are horribly snarkable, but awesome anyway... I got Pandora to do a Flogging Molly channel last night. It was fun, and then got awesome when they pulled up Entering Haggis. It reminded me of hitting the Elder's cocert with the girlfriends, and noting that the music was Quite Good, but overly Irish for my tastes. This got me to thinking... I like bagpipes, I like them with the core of my being, but I tolerate the jiggity Irish music because the cute lasses can't really dance to bagpipes. Much like High School where I LOVED Heavy Metal, but tolerated the bebop pop because it was something I could enjoy while doing something other than drinking or breaking things. Since neither drinking nor breaking things was very productive, I haven't listened much to Metal in years. That, and Axl Rose got whinier than Fred Durst, and Metallica sued their fans.

I think I'm going to stop by and look at dogs today. I have been set against it until Diva asked if we could trade the cat in. THAT is a deal worth thinking about!

01:54 pm - Going Rainman with the food plan...

Fun thought... since I often mandate variety through some sort of routine, I was thinking about having a schedule of 7 different types of dish. This is based off the way I figure out dinner plans, I figure out what meat/base to start with, then determine how to prepare it from there.

Pork, beef, chicken, fish, pasta, eggs, vegetarian... seven different bases for seven different days of the week. From there I can figure out if I want to curry, stir-fry, xxxxx-helper, or just grill.

Veggies also get rotated, but they tend to get matched to the meat.

Now I just need to figure out more vegetarian meals (that are filling)