So Much for "No More Special Interests"

yeah, those promises that Mr. Obama made while he was campaigning, about not allowing special interests and lobbyists to write bills and get special treatment...

Well, we see that Mr. Obama can't even keep a promise for what, 2 weeks? Check out the latest spending bill. I can't call it a "stimulus package", because it's not stimulating the economy of the country - even though that's what its proponents are calling it. Stimulating the economy of the special interests that are getting our tax money - and our CHILDREN'S tax money thrown at them? Oh heck yes.

Beethoven's Fifth - New Horizons In Music Appreciation

For your listening enjoyment...the music of P. D. Q. Bach.

The Cat Came Back

Just remembered this one...

I found all the global warming!

I just found out that Melbourne, Australia is having problems with extreme temperatures. Their railroad service had to shut down the other day due to failed air conditioning and buckled tracks. Yup, the tracks are buckling due to the extreme heat. Apparently they're in a heatwave that's posting overnight temperatures of around 100 degrees Fahrenheit!

So that's where all our global warming is - The Australians are hoarding it all.

Mister Gore, please call Australia and make the Aussies give us some of their global warming!

Sign the petition - save the unborn

I don't know if signing this will do any good or not, but I have to try.
Please, go out and sign the petition AGAINST the "Freedom of Choice Act".

Ford Focus Floats on Flakes

I was much grieved when Ford stopped making the Escort. My Escort was a little mountain goat in the snow - handled pretty much everything a bigger car could with very little problem. However, I have come to discover that the Ford Focus actually does very well in the snow, too - although not so much on ice. More on that later.

First: we got POUNDED last night with snow. The news people were saying "biggest snowfall in a 24-hour period in at least 4 years, and maybe since 1979". That's a lotta snow.
My car was parked along the side of the road, so it sorta got "plowed in". Sorta. Mostly the plows cleared one lane, so I actually didn't have that much EXTRA snow to deal with. Good thing. Rocking the car back & forth finally got it out of my parking spot, and off I went. The car seems to pretty much float on the snow, and once it gets going, it stays going. I was traveling faster than some trucks were, with NO problem!

Sure, I only went about 40 mph the whole way to work, but hey, lots of people were going way, way, waaaaay slower. If there's no traction to be had, however, I have to slow WAY down because the car starts to slide out almost immediately.
All in all, pretty happy with the way my Floating Ford Focus handled last night & this morning.

Weekly Webness - TV Tropes

Weekly Webness: TV Tropes!
It's a self-described "wiki of a catalog of the tricks of the trade for writing fiction."

You can see every cliche, every common theme, every "trick" you've ever seen in TV, Anime, Literature - if it's in a fictional work, chances are it's on this website somewhere, fully described with several examples.

Be warned - it is a wiki site, with many, many links to other pages on the site, so you can get lost for days in there.

Weekly Webness - Wikipedia

Webness of The Week: Wikipedia. It's a handy site for general reference, quick look-ups of information, and trivia.

You can look things up by genre, by name, by date, and in several languages.

Not a great site for hard reference, since it's a universally-editable site (meaning anyone with a free "wiki account" can edit any page), and the editors don't always have the best of intentions -- or even "telling the truth" -- in mind, but it is a handy site for quick reference material.

Getting Attention

I seem to be garnering more and more attention with my cool rad new legwarmer. My boss saw it on Thursday of last week and asked what it was. When I explained about the metal plate in my leg getting really cold in this weather, and that a friend from church made it for me when she found out, my boss said, "wow, what a great friend! And what a COOL legwarmer!"

There ya go, Cynthia - my boss thinks you're cool, and that the legwarmer is totally rad. So to speak.

An Amusing Letter

Just saw this blog post and had to share. Funny!

COLD! Cold cold cold cold cold...

MAN it's cold out there. Not the cutesy "Baby it's cold outside" kind, either.
No, this is mind-blowing, bone-chilling, "I can't put my arms down!" cold. Are those things crossing the parking lot just people all bundled up in everything they own, or some kind of mutant bear? That kind of cold.

News people: "Stay inside if you can"...which of course I think of as I'm walking the 1/4 mile from my car to the building...yeah, I would if I could, BELIEVE YOU ME...
All's I can say is, I'm glad I had two layers of warm wool around my right leg. Otherwise I'm pretty sure all my blood would've just flat-out FROZEN, because it's so cold I know that hardware would've just shot right to about 20 degrees or so. And then, once the blood came in contact with that FROZEN METAL, it would've all frozen as well.

I can haz spring now? PLEEEEEAAAAAASSSSEE?

Weekly Webness - TwoLumps

This week I'm going to the comics page: Two Lumps, the adventures of Ebenezer and Snooch. Eben and Snooch are 2 cats that talk, surf the net, watch TV, and generally do cat things. And they're funny.

Weekly Webness - Glycemic Index Online

Want to make a change in your diet? Want to know how much those carbohydrates you're going to have will affect your body? Check out the Glycemic Index Online. You can get information about the Glycemic Index: What it is, how it's calculated, and do an online search for the GI rating of any food.

It's obviously geared toward people who need to watch their Glycemic Intake, such as Diabetics, but it's handy information for everyone.

Harrison for President?

I was just directed to this guy's website....here's a paper he's written on the future of the LCMS:
He calls it "“It’s Time”
LCMS UNITY AND MISSION -
The Real Problem We Face
and How to Solve It

Interesting. If I'm reading this stuff correctly, I'm all for Harrison.

Um...what?

Okay, this is it. What's wrong with this picture????

This is from a serious website, that's supposedly helping people with choices.

How I Spent My Christmas Vacation

a not-so-brief essay by moi.

First, we'd just gotten a Shiny New Tradition. I'd just unwrapped it and didn't even get a chance to try it out! Our Shiny New Tradition was supposed to be Staying Home And Relaxing on Christmas Day. Only it turned out that our planned traveling day was going to be Stormy Weather, so we left on Christmas for my parents' place.

Good thing we did - the weather was terrible the next day.

We had a great time at Christmas. Seth, Heather and Ray were there as well as my parents and we had a lovely visit with them. Ray and Kai got along GREAT, as usual. :) Kai even let Ray give him a hug and kiss when it was time for them to leave.

Next, we went shopping in Traverse City for mom's New Years' Party! Woohoo! It was very cool - mom and dad took us to Old Mission Peninsula Park (a lovely drive down Old Mission Peninsula) and to the lighthouse at the end. VERY cool there - there's not only a Lighthouse, but a Historic Marker and a World War 1 & 2 monument there.










The next day was New Years' Eve, and so we went to the New Years' Eve service at church. And, thanks to my dad, I got to play the organ!
It's a very old Tracker organ. It was actually installed in the church in 1901, and originally had a hand-pumped bellows. Here's the hardware:


Neat, huh?

But wait, there's more! It's less complex (for the organist) than any other organ I've seen. No endless ranks of stops, no buttons to change stop settings, no double or triple manuals (or more)...
Just eight stops (plus Pedal Coupler - and more on THAT in a minute) and a single manual. And it's got a GREAT sound.

Looky:


Here's a closeup of the Right side stops:



And of the Left side:


See that one that says "Pedal Coupler"? It means it - if you have that activated, and push down a pedal, the corresponding manual key depresses as well! That was disconcerting...


Those aren't really "stops": they're notes for the 3 foot options. "Forte" is the pedal one pushes to get pretty much all the stops to come out. "Piano" is the one to push to make 'em all go back in (except for a few quiet stops). And "Swell" is just what you think - it's the foot rocker pedal for the Swell box to open for more volume.



I found this note a bit amusing in its pointedness. They've tried polite little notes before, but to no avail - sometimes they get over-enthusiastic guest organists that really stomp on the foot pedals and...well...as you can see, it does take its toll on the poor organ hardware!
Sorry for the blur - I was right there taking the pic. Best I could do.
The text is:
Pedal repair work was done in May '08.

It doesn't matter how hard you strike the pedals. The volume doesn't change. The trackers are old and brittle so please be gentle.

Do not wear street shoes when playing this organ.

Here's the pedals:



And check out some of the gorgeous paintwork on the pipes:








My dad rocks. I'm really glad he arranged that opportunity for me. I hadn't realized how much I'd enjoy playing that organ. That was a GREAT organ to play...now I wanna do it again! :D

Then on FRIDAY when we were out getting last-minute supplies for the party, we found this license plate:


*snicker*

It Ain't Been The Same

Every year after Guy Lombardo and the Royal Canadians went off the air on New Years' Eve, my Papa would say the same thing: "It ain't been the same since Guy Lombardo left." Pointing out that, "Papa...Guy Lombardo is dead, he can't exactly be here anymore..." always got the response of, "doesn't matter - it still ain't been the same."

How right he was.

This is for you, Papa.