bryant is no more.....

Ever been around somebody who was loud and obnoxious? Someone who showed up every day, did their job, but you never knew if they'd be there the next day? Someone who gave you a number of reasons to dismiss them from your life, but instead you let them hang around until they ended the relationship themselves? We had one of those situations happen to us as home recently.

Bryant was our downstairs heating and cooling system. No, we don't name appliances at our house. Bryant was the name brand. It was a construction-grade system that came with the house. About a month ago, the system sounded like a cross between a train and and airplane. It stopped doing vehicular impersonations and went to wildlife sounds. The bride said it sounded like an angry screech owl.

We had a company come out to tell us what was wrong with Bryant, like we didn't already know. We knew it was dying, we just didn't want to replace it. Not because we'd become attached to it, but because companies actually charge for new heating and cooling systems. (I know, strange, huh?) The technician told us how much it would be to fix the unit. Then he informed us that because a couple of holes in one of the components could cause carbon monoxide to blow into our house, he had to legally shut the system off. Come to think of it, I had been sleeping rather soundly over the past few days.

Bryant ceased to exist around 3:00 PM on Tuesday. The new unit was installed on Wednesday. It's quiet, it's efficient, and it isn't the size of a 1947 Buick.....

one more place you should never try to rob.....

KGW-TV (Portland) - 12/30/08

A masked man escaped in December after trying unsuccessfully to rob the Washman carwash in Portland, Ore. In the middle of the job, the man's gun literally broke apart and fell to the ground. As he continued to demand money, it became clear why robbing a carwash is tricky. The employee grabbed the nearest tool, which was the wand of a pressure washer (2,000 pounds per square inch) and hosed the robber, sending him fleeing.

how our family saves over $2,500 a month.....

Times are tough. Everyone's looking for ways to cut back. Back in November, I sat the family down for a little talk. I used words like "cautious", "careful" and "wait before you buy". I got blank stares. Then I mentioned the magic phrase "we probably won't be doing a beach trip next summer"; that got their attention. They knew that if we weren't going to the beach, I was more than likely serious about this thing we were discussing.

I received our wireless bill via email yesterday. The three lovely ladies at our house accounted for 12,651 text messages over a 30-day period. Yes, that's an average of almost 422 texts a day. I don't think I even use 422 words in a month. For those of you wondering, one person accounted for 9,108 of those text messages. Take a guess who it was. She's not in college and she's not a teacher's assistant. She's obviously the one with the most friends.

The bride, in her infinite wisdom, bought the unlimited text plan for their 3 phones for $20 a month. (Actually, we had to resort to the plan when Meg's texts ended up doubling our wireless bill one month. Bygones.) If we had been charged for each individual text message, Verizon Wireless would have proudly charged us $2,530 for texts last month. Plus another $13 for 52 picture messages.

Yes, my girls are saving me money and they didn't even know it. Now if I could just figure out how to pocket that savings.....

i got nothing.....

Trying to be creative, but it's just not happening. Things that have happened in and around the home and family have been pretty normal. Writing anything that I thought was really funny might have me sleeping on the couch, so I've refrained from telling things like that.....

change i can believe in.....

Detroit News/AP - 12/19/08

In December, the city council in Brighton, Mich., passed an ordinance making it illegal for anyone to be "annoying" in public, "by word of mouth, sign or motions." Violators can be ticketed and fined.

one great picture.....

Chris sent me a great picture of the inauguration yesterday. Once you view it, be sure to zoom in and out with the controls at the top/left of the page. Great clarity in this shot. I can't imagine the cost of the lens that took this picture.

Things to look for:

To the left of the picture, behind Obama, look at all of the former presidents and their family members.

Also behind Obama, and to the right of the section the presidents are in, see if you can spot Clarence Thomas sleeping.

Click here for the picture.....

ok, that's better now.....

I don't know if the bride was happier that Danny Gokey won the third spot on American Idol last night, or if she was happier that Tatiana had been eliminated.  (She's harsh like that sometimes.)  But I would have given ANYTHING if Tatiana had grabbed a microphone and started singing her song over Danny's, or if she had just tackled him while he was singing.  Would that not have been one of the biggest Idol moments ever?

I'm not sure I care for the new format this year, but at least the first three to make it through were decent.  Well, two of the three, Danny and Alexis, were actually the best on Tuesday.

Now that Tatiana is gone, one wonders who will provide the drama queen moments.....

from boring to just plain weird.....

Daily Telegraph - 1/22/09

London's Gymbox in Bank athletic club, recognizing that lifting weights can be a boring way to exercise, introduced "human barbells" recently, hiring five men of various sizes (including two dwarfs) that customers could use for weights instead of the iron. One advantage of the humans is that, on request, they shout encouragement to the customer with each lift. The largest of the five is a 37-year-old, 340-pound man.

blackberry beware.....

This may be the coolest phone ever. Ever! Click here to see the new Pomegranate. And be sure to explore all the phone's features. You'll be amazed.....

a few milestones.....

Thursday was a good day. I stepped on the scales and I'm down 10 pounds in 6 weeks. I got dressed and realized I'd gone down a notch on my belt. Then I eclipsed the 2-mile mark on my run last night. (One of my employees told me about the site mapmyrun.com. You can map out your run or walk and it will tell you how long your route it.)

The bride and I are going out to dinner tonight for Valentines Day. I may eat something other than a salad.....

what a thoughtful guy.....

Hartford Courant - 1/13/09

Police in New Britain, Conn., arrested Joel Rubin, 42, in January and charged him with using a stolen credit card, but unanswered was why Rubin also tried to use his own store discount card to get a lower price on the merchandise. It was Rubin's name on the discount card that tipped off police, and it was not immediately clear why Rubin wanted to save a few bucks off a bill that would be sent to someone else.

some time on the natchez trace.....

The weather was gorgeous here in Middle Tennessee on Saturday. The bride and the girls were going to Ellen's baby shower that afternoon. After doing some household chores and washing all three cars, I set off for a trip down the Natchez Trace to Jackson Falls. Just me, my camera and my tripod. Here are some of the shots I came away with:

i'm making an omelette, and i don't care who gets hurt.....

Tampa Tribune - 12/15/08

In Plant City, Fla., in December, Robert Thompson and Taurus Morris were charged with armed burglary after taking a woman's eggbeater from her at knifepoint. It was not reported why they wanted the eggbeater or why the victim had to be threatened at knifepoint to get it.

hard to watch.....

Sara had to have a mole removed from her cheek on Friday. It was a very routine procedure. The nurse told the bride and me that there was plenty of room for us in the room where the procedure was to take place. I figured we'd go back, let her get settled, then go back out to the waiting room. Nosireebob. We were there for the whole thing.

Don't misunderstand me, I was glad to be there for Sara. I just didn't plan on watching it happen. But I reasoned that since I was in the room when she was born, I could be in the room for a simple mole removal.

I watched the doctor as she drew around the area with some type of felt marker. I saw her "paint it brown" with some sort of antiseptic solution. I even watched as she numbed it with a needle. There was a point, however that I had to turn away. It was when I saw blood. I wasn't faint or sick at my stomach, I just couldn't bear the sight of my child bleeding.

On the outside, I've always said that it's good for kids to have the occasional bumps and bruises because it makes them tough. No, I don't want my girls to be rough and tumble girls, but I want them to be able to handle the everyday things in life without panicking. However, whenever either of my girls hurt, whether it's emotional or physical, I hurt. I may not show it, but inside it's killing me to see them in pain of any kind.

I came back to the office and ate at my desk. As I finished up my salad, I had an epiphany: How hard was it for God the Father to watch His Son bleed and die an unbelievably cruel death? Toward the end of Matthew 27, Jesus asks His Father why He has forsaken Him. I've heard pastors and people much smarter than me say it was because at that moment Christ took on the sins of the whole world, and God can't be in the presence of sin. He had to momentarily look way. Part of me believes that it hurt God so much to see His Son in pain that he had to look the other way.

Times like that make me appreciate God's love even more.....

them's gonna' be some shiny shoes.....

Remember when you were a teenager and adults would say stupid things? It wasn't that the adults were stupid, they just sometimes got their words tangled and what came out of their mouths sounded really stupid. I am now a stupid adult.

Softball season starts in about a week. Sara needed new cleats because her foot has grown a full size since last fall. We went to three different places, coupons in hand, looking for the cleats.

Have you heard that Under Armour now makes footwear? I started seeing them last year, and now they're making all kinds of shoes. They appear to be well made and very popular. But I have a problem saying "Under Armour". While Sara was trying on a pair of Nikes I said something like, "So do those feel better than the ArmorAlls?" She looked at me and said, "Uh, Dad, what did you just call them?"

I went home and watched my Matlock DVDs until I fell asleep.....

these kids should really watch "a christmas story".....

New York Times-AP - 1/15/09; Omaha World-Herald - 1/16/09

An exceptionally cold winter brings more instances of the annual tragedy of young boys (rarely, girls) who could not resist the age-old physics experiment to see what would happen if, in sub-zero temperatures, they tried to lick a metal pole. In fact, it happened on successive days: a 10-year-old in Hammond, Ind., on Jan. 14 and a 6-year-old in Omaha, Neb., on the 15th. Both episodes ended badly with traces of the boys' tongues left on the poles.

the first meeting.....

I went to my first meeting at the Brentwood Camera Club last night. I told a friend that if I walked in and saw a bunch of guys with runny noses wearing Star Trek shirts and showing pictures of their cats dressed up in halloween costumes, I was turning and leaving. But it wasn't like that at all.

I expected that we'd meet in a classroom and there would be around 40-50 in attendance. We met in the church auditorium, and there were probably 150 people there. The meeting lasted a little over 2 hours. Photographer Jack Spencer did a 45 minute presentation on his work. He was fascinating.

Next month's meeting is Tuesday, March 3 at the Otter Creek Church in Brentwood. If you're the least bit interested, come on out.....

the complete opposite of fun.....

Still fighting this sinus/crud thing. Now I get to sit through a couple of 1/2 day meetings dealing with legislative and regulatory things. They need to do a better job of planning these things around my illnesses.....