When life gives you lemons, make lemonade

And when life gives you pill bottles, make a tower.

John poses by his tower of pill bottles, a flashlight, a nasal rinse bottle. One day after his oral surgery . . . baby tooth extraction, his canines.

Making the best of it, John's way. Actually, he did really well with the oral surgery. And he had no trouble falling asleep last night with the Tylenol with Codeine that they had prescribed for his pain.

Creepy XBOX Advertisement

I did some google searches and confirmed -- I'm not the only one who thinks the Microsoft XBOX 360 advertisements, which show a hollow headed person staring at digital entertainment, is freaky.

"Disgusting, nightmarish, perverted" are a few of the adjectives people are using.

All that and more! The woman's face is frozen in a ghastly grin, the back of her head is open, revealing an empty theatre.

It's freakishly fascinating, like watching an autopsy. But is it good advertising?

There are those who would say, since people are talking about it, it's good advertising.

I would say if it dehumanizes us, if it portrays the human brain succumbing to the machine, it is bad.

Perhaps what's most disturbing about the ad is that it is probably accurate. Turn on the electronic game system, and the brain hollows out.

Princess Bride Shirts

We watched Princess Bride with our kids last week, and they really enjoyed it. It was fun seeing it again -- it'd been too long.




And I got a T-Shirt from Larry for Christmas. (Not the one pictured above.)

Swimming in the shadow of the capitol - and just 7 degrees outside.

Gumdrop Tree

We have a gumdrop tree as a Christmas decoration, similar to this one.


Correction ... we *had* a gumdrop tree. We left the tree within reach of the labrador retriever, who eats everything.

Trouble is, the gumdrops are held into the styrofoam core of the tree with toothpicks. When the doggy helped herself to the gumdrops, she injested maybe two or three dozen toothpicks.

2 days later she's barfing up toothpicks! Yuck! Hopefully she won't have any lasting medical issues from this tasty Gumdrop Treat.

It may be hard to see, but this craft of Emmalee's says "My Mom loves cars". Does she have my number or what?

Girl in the snow

The crazy girl.

Feats of endurance. Emmalee demonstrates her tolerance for cold by taking a hundred steps in the snow in her bare feet.

Star Trek 2009

I'm way more excited about the new Star Trek movie than I thought I'd be. I felt that they had run the Star Trek franchise into the ground.

I like Zachary Quinto and think he'd make a good Spock.

But not until I saw the trailer did I say .... I HAVE GOT TO SEE THIS MOVIE.

John's mohawk gone horribly wrong. Extreme hat head.

Wind Power

Wind turbines under construction in Fowler, Indiana.

Sites about learning

Here is a list of interesting sites I've found on the subject of learning.

sunset on the dunes.

beach house in november

Carolyn walks the dog on the shores of lake michigan.

Emmalee enjoys ice on the beach.

Chess

Emmalee came very close to beating her dad in chess. it won't be long now.

John made this jewelry holder for me for my birthday. He used some Harley stationery and crafted it into a pedestal and bar to hold rings and bracelets. Note the Harley logo cut out and used to decorate the top. It was a painstaking labor of love.

I wanna be a Cowgirl

Emmalee loved the cowboy boots she get for her halloween costume so much she word them for days with a wide variety of outfits. this was actually not her halloween costume, just one of many permutations of the Cowgirl theme that led up to halloween.