The Irish invaded Fazoli's

The observations that I had for the day are this, Itilian food and Celtic music is a strange blend at lunch. My dad gets exctied when he conqures a new task on teh computer.

Today we went to the city and got a price and draft design on new kitchen cabinets. While we were there we ate lunch at Fazoli's, an Itillian food place. When we sat down Amy and I both honed in on the music which was Celtic Music, the radio they were listening to was celebrating St. Patrick's day. Perhaps it was like the move Groundhog Day, with Bill Murry where he lives Febuary 2nd over and over and over until he finally gets it right.

Tonight we went to my parents and I was like the computer help desk telling my dad which buttons to press and where to put the CD's in his computer. We were copying a CD that he though taht I would like, and he was correct. I like a wide span of music from the liks of Roy Rogers to R.E.M. and Third Day. The list could go on for several pages, so I will spare you. The short version is I like just about anything that is not Rap or Opera, though the later is growing on me.

Easter Beer and WIne Sale

Tonight Brandon was reading the adds in my news paper and came across an interesting one from United Supermarkets. The top line said, "Easter Beer & Wine Buys." I find this to be disturbing on several levels. First, this is a christian holiday, the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Christians have varying opions on the consumption of alcohol from don't do it, to do it in moderation. This add implies that Easter is a time to drink past the point of moderation. Secondly, it is like a slap in the face of Christians and Christianity. Finally, if this was a Muslim holiday, it is possible that they would mount a physically and verbally violent campaign against the offender (in this case it would have been United Supermarkets.)

I also find it interesting that the last two times Brandon has read the sale fl yer in the newspaper. I though about thsi and came to one of two colonisations. First, he might be bored with the company. Secondly, this is his way of relaxing after a hard day at the office, no beer, or liquor for him, he hits the sale adds...

Robber Stripped...

It's been another Terrific Tuesday, filled with fun and adventure. TOngiht we went to dinner with some work people to celebrate a member in my group milestone, we had several good laughes during the event.

Below is the text from a story that was in the Amarillo Globe News today.

By Chris Ramirezchris.ramirez@amarillo.comPublication Date: 03/27/07
A man who picked up his clothes at an Amarillo dry cleaner came back moments later and tried to rob the business Monday.
The would-be robber ended up getting beaten and stripped naked while making his getaway.
Police say a black man in his 20s entered the business at 619 N. Fillmore St. just before 6 p.m. Without saying a word, the man ripped the cash register out of the wall.
The man wore a hooded sweater, but employees recognized him as a customer who had been in 20 minutes earlier to pick up an order, said Jimmy Dunn, the business' owner.
Dunn said he was working in the back when he heard a commotion up front. He went to investigate and saw a man heading his way, carrying the 35-pound cash register and a rifle.
He knew he had to act.
"I wanted that gun," said Dunn, 67. "All the girls up front were screaming and carrying on. I didn't want him to get scared, turn around and start firing at people."
He lunged at the weapon and a struggle ensued. Others in the store helped and disarmed the man. They grabbed onto anything they could to subdue the robber.
First, his shirt ripped. Then his pants. Then his shoes flew off.
And, finally, off came the skivvies.
"By the time it was all over, he was bare naked - no shirt, no pants, no underwear, no nothing," Dunn said. "He had nothing else on by the time he got out of here."
The naked robber slipped away, hopping into a burgundy car outside. Dunn got its license plate number and called police.
"I'm sure (his accomplices) were wondering what the heck happened to him when he came outside and got into the car completely naked," Dunn said.
Police recovered the register and the rifle, which turned out to be a pellet gun, according to a report.
Authorities said the robber is thought to be a 25-year-old Amarillo man. No arrests had been made Monday night.
"He made a big mistake trying to rob this place," Dunn said. "A bad choice on his part."
Click here to return to story:http://www.amarillo.com/stories/032707/new_7161348.shtml

Abe Lincon and Iran Contra

This is the time of year when PBS and NPR do their public fund raising, which means that I do not listen to much NPR. Today I played catch-up with my podcast and listened to an Episode of This American Life produced by Chicago Public Radio. This show is one that I really enjoy listening to, the story and producer have a slow and somewhat meandering pace, as the rhythmically tell a story. (If my dad read that , he might think that it was a Rap show.) This episode that I listened today was on the Television. A device, that I do not watch very much at all, and during the course of the episode the producer mentioned that the average American watches 29 hours of TV per week. I was shocked and alarmed, that is over a day, and it is the average American. I would not want to see how much time the TV overachiever watches. There is a link below in case you want to check it out and listen to it.

What I Learned from TV

Talking about TV and the overachiever made me think of one of my uncles, (great uncle actually), named Aurthur. Unfortunately he was not the character on PBS, he was a human being. After my great aunt passed away, he picked up a strange habit of staying awake all night and sleeping during the day. During the Iran Contra hearings, he recorded them and watched them until the wee hours of the morning. They lived in Houston for a long time and when I would go for my check up we would stay with them. My great aunt would make rolled hole wheat for breakfast, and I always sleep in this huge bed that Abe Lincoln could fit in, with his hat on and everything

Jtv

My blog reached a televison miles stone recently, it passed it's 250th episode (or post). If my blog was a television show, we would have had a post with random clips that were funny, or perhaps thought provoking. This is done to tell the world, look at what my show did. I do think some things in my life would make for an entertaining tv show, it would probably get canceled because of low ratings... ... the thing I think is funny about reality tv, is how unreal it is. How goes off to a deserted island with 16 other people? Who tires to race accross the world for the fun of it? Yes, there are real people on the show, and you get to see thier real emotions, both good and bad, it just that the situations are set up. Part of the set up will create an atmosphere that is more condusive for having emotions flash, like Survivor.

It is almost like pledge season for social clubs or fertinites. In my opion it is all set up to force the pledges to have real life bonding moments over an 8 week period. I use the word bonding because guys bond (I am not sure what girls do, grow closer perhpas). Experiences like when the guy in the room next to you in the dorm gets his chevy Blazer II stuck in the mud on a friday night. After your date with the girl that you end up marring, your roomate says, hey we need to go pull CHris out. Thus begins a 3 hour saga that ends around 3:00 am, with a recovered blazer, and 5 guys with mud all over them.

Painting

Last night I plled, or almost pulled, what I would call a "Strebeck". It is an event that I named after Ryan Strebeck. It is a time which you stay up really late working on your house. Last night I called it quits around midnight, so I am not sure if it was really a full "Strebeck", I will have to ask the master for clarification...

I took some pictures of my new front door, but I have not been able to retrive them from my phone.

Charbroiled

We had EPIC at our house tonight, and it was good. We began talking about the Lord's Supper, and ended the discussion visiting about our church. Brandon cooked hamburgers, and Jenn cooked some beans. We had to use the water hose to calm down the fire in the grill at one point, to much grease from the hamburgers. One patty was "charbroiled". I think we should have gone with the Cajun cooking method, it was Blacked...

Tomorrow is "Friday!", which is a good thing. I have a long list of projects to accomplish over the weekend, and I am ready to get them done. It rained here today at lunch and I had a wet seat in my company truck after lunch. I alleviated this problem with a 10 cent trash bad, it is like the plastic sheets that parents put on their children's beds. In one sense it must be really hard to be a baby, look at all the things that they have to learn, eating, drinking, talking, their name, mom, dad, all of the animals, and sometimes an entirely different language.

Mr. Fixit does not Fixit

Tonight on Nightline the big story was the pet food recall. I have a few thoughts on the subject, is that the true spirit of journalism in America? We see more of Anna Nicole Smith and Tainted Dog food then we do of some real pressing issues that are facing Amercia's today. Things such as a new blowing alley has opened in town.

In case you are just now hearing about the dog food recall, you can click on the link below for a list.

http://www.menufoods.com/recall/product_dog.html

Tonight I went to the church for the Wednesday night meal, choir practice, and a class on membership. When I walked in R.D. appeared and the first thing he said was, "The chiller (on the building A/C) will not run." So I went and looked at that, determined that it was out of my scope of knowledge, and we needed to call in the professionals. This excursion made me 1/2 hour late to choir. Then during the class I had to looked at the dishwasher, again it was a problem that required professional assistance (a bad or stuck solenoid valve on the water going into the washer.) I was 0 for 2 on fixing stuff at the church.

The Evening Update

I moved the computer from the dinning room to the spare bedroom (aka "The Cave") tonight. In the process I hooked the scanner up to the computer, so I now have an image of #2. It looks like a fuzzy image of a baby. Below is one image (I will probably scan some additional images in later in the week.)

Tonight Cap and I played outside, Cap got dirt all over his face, then we walked up to see Uncle Tom. Tom is not actually my uncle, and I don't call him that, it is just how I refer to him with my family. He is one of my dad's good friends from elementry school, so I have know him my entire life. Cap had a good time, he was excited to get his own bottle of water along with sitting with the men in Tom's garage. However, his enjoyment of just sitting did not last as long as I would have liked...

College Roomate

Today I stumbled across my roommate from McMurry University in “Myspace.” I was excited to find him; I have not heard or seen him in several years. It all happened like this; Matt Mercer found me (college friend) and listed me as a friend. So I wanted to see if I knew any of his friends. There was this fellow named Robby that I thought I might know, so I clicked on his profile. Then I saw Daniel. He looks about the same as he did then (I wonder how many people say that about me when they see my picture.) Truth be told, the picture I have is from 1997 or 1998, so it looks a lot like I did then, but I look about the same anyway.

I had a depressing occurrence happen today. Carlos came up behind me at work and laughed and said, with his Venezuelan/American accent, “Jeremy, I see that you are getting some grey hair,” to which I responded, “yes, Amy has pointed it out, and I will tell you what I tell her, it must be your fault…”

St. Patrick

Today is St. Patrick's Day, a day to celebrate an individual that has been given sainthood by the Vatican. To this end, I find it particularly interesting that in America it is celebrate with large parades, pomp toil, and green beer. Additionally, Chicago turns it's river green, at the expense of the tax payer. Along with the green beer there are many intoxicated individuals with stickers that say, "Kiss me I'm Irish." Have they pondered on who they are celebrating? I would think not, I certainly would not want to "Tap a Keg" on Christmas to celebrate the coming of Christ. In case you wanted to know, I am wearing my green christmas pajama's tonight, I did not want to get tinced.

News

Today we went to the city and Amy had a sonogram. We took Cap and he seemed somewhat interested for the first 10 minutes, afterwhich he decided it was funner to open the cabinet doors and drawers, and then close them. He did not get anything out of the either the cabinets or the drawers. I was going to scan a picture in but the scanner is not hooked up, nor can it be easily hooked up to the computer.

I have a few pieces of earth shaking kews that might shape America for years.

First, the great state of New Mexico has made the "Boilo" when in public.

Foggy

Today was monday, and with that came all of the monday morning blues. This was only compounded by the fact that it was foggy this morning. A condition which might be normal in San Franscisco (what is really normal there though) and Seattle, Washington. Did you know that Seattle only gets 34.3 inches of rain annually. The way people talk, I thought that it rained everyday there.

Big D and some other stuff...

We went down to Big D this weekend. The trip was good, it was nice to get out of town for a few days. I had a meeting in Ft. Worth and Amy needed to collected a few things that her sister had. That being said, both missions were accomplished. My meeting was held in the Downtown Hilton Hotel, which was the hotel where JFK spent his last night alive before he was assassinated in Dallas the next day. The room that they stayed in is stilled called the presidential suite, we would have gotten to see it but there were guest in there. That room has 2,000 sq ft of space, for a hotel room.

Why do normal people get killed, while political leaders are "assassinated". In both cases the affected person is still dead. This is just an observation...

A few nights ago I stumbled across Galatians 5:16-25 (see text below), which reminded me of what Love is suppose to be. In America we say we love food, or our car, or perhaps our cellular phone, but how do we love an inanimate object? While we throw the word "Love" around, we are gradually diluting it to a point of being just something we like.

Galatians 5:16-25
16So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. 17For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. 18But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.
19The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. 25Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. 26Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.

Backyardigans

Recently I went to my parents house and I mentioned that Cap like the Backyardigans. At which point, my dad began to explain that he like the Backyardigans, and they were on the same level as Madascgar. TO a certain extent Madagascar has become the standard that we judge cartoons from. It was not the type of converstion that I would have expected to have with my dad. It did not fit into the Big Three (Midnight Oil, Work, Home renovation). I did enjoy the converstion, and do enjoy watching the Backyardigans, however, I have only seen bits and pieces of a few eposodes. One that I have seen most often is, "The Great Pie" and they are ningas, a queen and two pie makers. It is full of excitement, a few ninga fight seens and some pie throwing. All in all, a pretty good show.

19950 Ford Tractor

"1970 Pontiac Firebird. The car I've always wanted and now I have it. I rule! " Lester Burnham American Beauty. Today I was in a meeting at work and one of the fellows that is~40-45 years old infomred everyone that he had purchased his mid-life crisis vehicle, a 1950 Ford Tractor. His statement took everyone off gaurd, not so much the mid-life crisis vehicle, but the fact that it is a tractor. Brad asked if he was going to play, "She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy" by Kenny Chesney.

This is a far diffenet vehicle then what one relates to mid-life cirisis. If his crisis gets out of hand, will he break down and by a farm? It will be like the TV show Green Acres. What is the mid-life crisis, how do I know that I did not miss mine?

Below is some junk mail that I found to be funny, read if you want, if not then have a nice day.

1. How do you put a giraffe into a refrigerator?

The correct
answer is: Open the refrigerator, put in the giraffe, and close the door. This
question tests whether you tend to do simple things in an overly complicated
way.

2. How do you put an elephant into a refrigerator?

Did you say, Open the refrigerator, put in the elephant, and close
the refrigerator?
Wrong Answer.
Correct Answer: Open the refrigerator, take out the giraffe put in the
elephant and close the door.
This tests your ability to think through the repercussions of your previous
actions.

3. The Lion King is hosting an animal conference. All the animals
attend.... except one. Which animal does not attend?

Correct Answer: The Elephant. The elephant is in the refrigerator.
You just put him in there.

This tests your memory.

Okay, even if you did not answer the first three questions correctly, you
still have one more chance to show your true abilities.

4. There is a river you must cross but it is used by crocodiles and you do
not have a boat. How do you manage it?
Correct Answer: You jump into the river and swim across.

Have you not been listening? All the crocodiles are Attending the Animal
Meeting.

This tests whether you learn quickly from your mistakes.

The Hot Dogger

This morning, I helped with a fundraising breakfast at the church, it was fun, and I finally found the job that I like. I have cooked eggs, sausage (hot and greasy), gravy (it goes well with my chemistry back ground, but it is a bit more finicky then chemistry lab), hash browns (the oven man is always in the way due to kitchen design) and I was the oven man. Today I was one of the Biscuit boys, we have our own room, it is nice and quite and we make the biscuits for the oven man to put in the oven. It was great, and while it involved mixing ingredients together, biscuits are more forgiving to make then say, gravy.

This afternoon we went to the city to look at kitchen cabinets, doors, shelves for Cap's room, stoves, and dryers. While we came back with two doors, 3 door knobs, ordered Caps's shelves and the front door, it seemed like it did not go as well as I planned. We ate some good hamburgers.

Tonight we went to my parents and in the course of the conversation a cooking device called, "The Hot Dogger" came up (see picture below). (Yes I did find it on Ebay). It is a device that cooked the hot dog (wienies) using electrical current. My parents actually had one of these before I was around. Cooking devices are not quite as interesting as the hot dogger. Could you imagine what American kitchens would be like if the hot dogger was as popular as the microwave. We could have had the "Hamburger dogger", "corn dogger" or the "steak dogger" all complete with a set of electrodes to electrocute dinner.

Himalayas

At work one normally desires to have a nice Friday without interruption, so that you can clean your desk off. That has not happened for me in several weeks, so my desk is beginning to look like the Rookie Mountains. If nothing is done it will grow to be as large as the Himalayas. I did have a few minutes of relaxation at work, when one of my good friends and past co-worker called. He move to the West coast and tells me that it is very different out there. (If you don’t know, you could say that I live in Mid-America.) He informed me that you even have to pay for parking, which is unheard of in these parts, unless you are going to the airport. Why do you have to pay for parking at the airport anyway...

The link below takes you to a place with a neat movie.
http://www.woodsidebible.org/splatvideo.htm

The month of March has a strange name, it is a name that is also a verb, "March", which means the following:

1. to walk with regular and measured tread, as soldiers on parade; advance in step in an organized body.
2. to walk in a stately, deliberate manner.
3. to go forward; advance; proceed: Time marches on. –verb (used with object)
4. to cause to march. –noun
5. the act or course of marching.
6. the distance covered in a single period of marching.
7. advance; progress; forward movement: the march of science.
8. a piece of music with a rhythm suited to accompany marching. —Idioms
9. march on, to march toward, as in protest or in preparation for confrontation or battle: The angry mob marched on the Bastille.
10. on the march, moving ahead; progressing; advancing: Automation is on the march.
11. steal a march on, to gain an advantage over, esp. secretly or slyly.

Thanks to Dictonary.com for that information.