No, really. Fair! Just keep reading. It’ll make sense later.

Sunday, our church had a big celebration for our pastor’s 30th year. Pastor Dennis is amazing and it seems like he knows everyone. Seriously! He got letters from Nolan Ryan and George W. Bush and there congratulatory videos from James Robison and Mike Huckabee. (Huck spoke at our church before his presidential run.)

They wanted to make a DVD of the event, and I got tapped to be a camera man. And not just a silly old handicam. I got to run a real TV camera, with handlebars! It was great fun.

The State Fair of Texas opened this weekend. (I still think the name is really presumptuous. Like the “University of Texas.” *Pfft*) and we were eager to go. So after church we headed out.

Tammy’s ankle is healing remarkably well. She’s got a bright (and by that I mean **BRIGHT**) pink cast. To our happy surprise, the doctor gave her a shoe that fits over the cast and instructed her to quit using the crutches. She’s been walking on it for a couple weeks now. She was really brave and tough and walked a good ways before relenting. I insisted we rent a wheelchair.

We didn’t go on any rides. We’ve both developed a healthy fear of any ride that is packed on and off a trailer every week by carnies. (Small hands. Smell like cabbage.) But we were eager to try out some of the fried fare.

I’ve been jonesing for a corn dog since the first fair ad I saw on TV. So we started there. Safe, reliable, fair corndogs. And they were great! Then we got adventurous. The fried pork chips were awesome! Think thinly sliced pork chops in a spicy, shake-n-bake batter. For dessert, fried cheese cake and fried peaches-n-creme. YUMMY!!

The cheese cake was wrapped in a light tortilla-like-thing, so it looked like a chimichanga. The cheese cake was warm and mushy inside. But, it needed some fruit topping or something. Still, good.

The peaches-n-creme (the award for best taste this year) was little more than canned peach slices, fried and served with a sweet creme dipping sauce. Simple, but very tasty.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, yes. The diet has been “on hold” for a while now.

If you learn nothing else from this blog, learn this: Never refuse a breath mint. And now for today’s white board quip.

Dude. Tic-Tac.

Honda, using technology gleaned from their Asimo robot, have trumped the Segway and I WANT ONE!

Honda has introduced the U3-X. It weights around 22 pounds and is about the size of a large skate board, small enough to be carried around. (It even has a handy dandy carrying handle.) It’s not as fast, (only about 4mph). But what makes the U3-X really cool is its omni-directional travel. It looks like your just floating around.

The bad news is they don’t have any plans to sell them. I’m guessing partly because they’re worried about exposing their technology and partly because they would cost eleventy-billion dollars each.

But seriously. C’mon guys! If I can’t have my flying car, at least give me a shot at a floating chair!! Then again, you could argue that this puts us one step closer to being the gelatinous blobs from Wall-E (clicky). [Edit: LOL!*After* I posted this, the original article was updated with a pic from Wall-E. THEY STOLE MY JOKE!!]

You can read the complete article. (Clicky clicky.)

The article had a better video from the press conference when I first read it, but it seems that video is not working now. [Edit: They replaced it with MY Wall-E joke!] So here’s a promo I found on YouTube:

A single death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic.

Why is that? I know why. I could tell you, but it would mean spending the first part of my day composing a long and vividly articulate post. I will do that eventually, but today I’ve got code to write, so it will have to wait. But if you see me out and about and really want to know, ask me about “Monkey Space.”

Seriously.

Life is pain. Anyone who says otherwise is selling something.
– Dread Pirate Roberts

I have so many good things to tell you guys about, but there’s just no time. Life is treating us very well lately. True, Tammy’s had surgery and is coping with life in a cast. True, I’m outside my comfort zone sleep-wise, having to get up before 5:30 AM to drive Tammy to work. True, it’s been raining here for the last three days, making the job of keeping Tammy’s cast dry a real challenge. But even with all that God is so good to us!!

We have a beautiful new home to keep us warm and cozy. We have an amazing church family that has stuffed our shiny new refrigerator to capacity with yummy dinners. We have an awesome, reliable truck that can haul us all over town in all kinds of weather with no worries. And we finally have a FREAKING AWESOME 4-channel DVR that is nearly overflowing with all the shows we’ll get to catch up on after this ordeal is over. Seriously, I am giddy about finally having a DVR. Thank you, AT&T U-verse!

Live is tough. Don’t let anyone tell you different. But when you’ve got faith in the Most High, there’s nothing you can’t handle.

Ahh, junior high band concerts. Great times. Great memories. Great googly-moogly, that sounds horrid!

If you hate your dog and/or your ear drums, crank your volume up to eleven for this one!!

The 2010 U.S. Census is here and there are lots and lots of bad people out there who will use it as an avenue to rip you off, or worse.

This us pulled verbatim from Snopes:

Since the first phase of the 2010 U.S. Census is already underway, reminders about how to ensure you provide information only to official Census Bureau representatives – and provide only the types of information they are authorized to collect – are especially timely. The web site of the Better Business Bureau (BBB) offers some good advice on this topic:

• If a U.S. Census worker knocks on your door, they will have a badge, a handheld device, a Census Bureau canvas bag and a confidentiality notice. Ask to see their identification and their badge before answering their questions. However, you should never invite anyone you don’t know into your home.
• Census workers are currently only knocking on doors to verify address information. Do not give your Social Security number, credit card or banking information to anyone, even if they claim they need it for the U.S. Census. While the Census Bureau might ask for basic financial information, such as a salary range, it will not ask for Social Security, bank account or credit card numbers, nor will employees solicit donations.
• Eventually, Census workers may contact you by telephone, mail or in person at home. However, they will not contact you by e-mail, so be on the look out for e-mail scams impersonating the Census. Never click on a link or open any attachments in an e-mail that are supposedly from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Happy 9’s!!

At the sound of the tone it will be 09:09:09, 09/09/09.

BEEP!!

(WordPress bungled this post, so I had to hack the database to get it to show up. Now it’s LATE!! Grrr.)

This is just one small example of why I so dislike the United Nations (the “Un”): Un-Speak.

To accomplish the Un-goals of the Un-Security Counsel and the Un-General Assembly, Un-Speak is all about being completely Un-offensive (and thus  Un-effective) in whatever you have to say.

Regarding the tensions with Libya over the release and glorification of the Lockerbie Bomber, this quote is from U.S. envoy to the Un, Susan Rice. (Emphasis added.)

“How President Gaddafi chooses to comport himself, when he attends the General Assembly and the Security Council in New York, has the potential either to further aggravate those feelings and emotions or not.”

He “has the potential” to make people mad “or not.” Gee, ya think? That’s like saying, “That is the ugliest baby I have ever seen in my entire life or not.”

Actually, the more I think about this, it could come in handy. It could allow me to say more of the tactless things I really want to say without all the weepy backlash.

“Wow! You really let yourself go or not. You must be over 200 pounds or not.”

“You drive like a complete idiot or not. You might be missing a chromosome or not.”

“You are the worst parent I’ve ever seen or not. If you don’t do something about your kid running around the restaurant, screaming, I’m going to strangle him first, then you or not.”

…

As a footnote to this post, the quote above was little more than a footnote to the article which is really about the Bronco Bomber getting in bed with the Un. (Actually more like getting in bed on top of…) (Again, emphasis added.)

Barack Obama will cement the new co-operative relationship between the US and the United Nations this month when he becomes the first American president to chair its 15-member Security Council.

This should really throw some gas on the whole Anti-Christ conspiracy theory. I prefer to stay out of the Bronco/Anti-Christ conversation. The way I see it, the Anti-Christ is coming and there’s not a darn thing we can do to stop it (or bring it). So I don’t really care that Obama is the Anti-Christ OR NOT.

My family (immediate and extended) has been doing a great job over the last few weeks of keeping our doctors in business.

Tammy’s ankle surgery went very well this Thursday. She had plenty of tendon in place to do “option one” (as opposed to the tendon graft that was “option two”). She spent yesterday on the recliner, but is in very little pain. This morning she made her first solo trip to the bathroom, requiring no help getting out of and back into her nest of pillows and blankets on the recliner. She’s also telling me, as I type this, that she’s ready to get up and go out for breakfast. She’s either a real trooper or has a terminal case of cabin fever. Probably both.

Tammy’s dad had heart surgery Friday. They expected to do a quintuple bi-pass (that’s five blocked blood vessels) but after getting in there and finding the tissue very weak, they stopped at three. I’m not sure what the plan is for the other two.

There was some concern last night because he was not breathing steadily enough on his own to remove the ventilator (which means he had to keep the hose down his throat and needed to be sedated).

But this morning we got news that he’s off the ventilator and talking. (PTL!) He’s still in a lot of pain and he has a historical problem with medications making him sick. The search goes on for the right pain medicine to keep him comfortable and not make him sick.

My Aunt Martha, is home (sort of) after open heart surgery. Her recovery has been slow and difficult, but she moved from the rehab center to a room in her daughter’s basement yesterday. She lives in Beaumont, Texas, but all this has taken place in Maryland. She’s far from home, but at least she’s “home.” If you know Martha and want to follow her story more closely, my cousins, Kathy and Daina, are keeping a blog of her recovery.