Filed May 31, 2006 at 6:17 pm under Family by TJ
Well, we survived Tanner’s first birthday party, what a very busy affair. Aside from the constant running the weeks before to prepare for that many people coming over to the house, we were hit by a sudden heat wave a day or so before. Nobody ended up with heat stroke, there were no fights, and everyone was great, believe it or not. I think there were about 50 people over throughout the day, most of the food was eaten, and lots of beverages were consumed, though I was left with the bigger part of the keg, which will be fine in the garage fridge.
Tanner had a fantastic time, and I’ll have some pictures and the video of her first “cake” posted later; maybe even tonight if I get the time.
Tanner turned 1, and less than 48 hours later, we had the ultrasound for the new baby. Yes, I know what it is. No, I’m not gonna tell. We have a betting pool at: http://www.pregpool.com/online/jaymiet/ If you want to know, go there and register a guess and let me know and I’ll be more than glad to tell you. Yeah, I know, it’s extortion, but it’s for a good cause… We have a hard copy of the pictures, you may be able to find them in the photo gallery in the next week, but I’ll have to warm up the scanner, and that doesn’t seem likely anytime in the next couple of days.
Teressa is up for the summer, except for a few weeks when she goes on vacation with her mom, and the week she will be at camp. Can you believe she’s 13 now? She’s a teenager, and getting TALL. She’s probably well over 5′ tall now. Her goal this summer is to learn to slalom ski, and I guess Jaymie’s goal for her yesterday was to get her to change a stinky diaper (which she did…).
Here in Indiana, we’ve finally had enough dry days that I got the boat out and cleaned up. It rained for like 2 weeks straight, I though I’d never get the boat out. I got a letter from the homeowners association that I needed to move it (DUH!). Monday was nice enough I pulled it onto the driveway and pulled EVERYTHING out of it, and did a thorough cleanup of the inside with Hi-Pro, Bleach and OxyClean (does a FANTASTIC job). I need to get some marine vinyl conditioner on the inside now, as well as wax the outside and it’ll be ready for the summer. Good thing, we’re pulling it down to Cincinati next week for the Buffett show. We got rid of all our tickets for Cincinati, and will be listening from the river behind the stage. I think this will probably be more fun than fighting people for lawn space (don’t get me started on the tickets issue – see the link on the right for the full story).Â
Lets see, what else… I got my truck back a week ago, and it looks like new again. I’ve had a few minor issues… The left rear turn signal bulb kept blowing afterwards, but they fixed the loose wire causing that today. The body guy broke my Sirius One player when trying to remove it, but fortunatly Radio Shack was nice enough to exchange it for me. Also, my gas guage is not working correctly now. My personal thoughts is that when they were welding, they probably zapped the sending unit. The dealership just thinks there is sulpher on the sending unit pickup plate that needs cleaned off with a fuel system cleaner. Either way, it (and, to some extent, the lovely wife) caused me to run out of gas yesterday. If that’s the worst thing that happens this week, I’ll be quite happy…
So, the weather is starting to suit my clothes now. TBear is here for the summer. The local schools are almost out. The pools are open. I played 5 holes of golf on Monday (I’m not quite sure what you’d call the other 4 – defiently not golf). It’s going to be a good summer…
Filed May 24, 2006 at 5:15 pm under Boring Stuff by TJ
Mrs. Peterson phoned the repairman because her dishwasher quit
working. He couldn’t accommodate her with an “after-hours” appointment
and since she had to go to work, she told him, “I’ll leave the key
under the mat. Fix the dish washer, leave the bill on the counter, and
I’ll mail you a check. By the way, I have a large rotweiler inside
named Killer; he won’t bother you. I also have a parrot, and whatever
you do, do not talk to the bird!”Well, sure enough the dog, Killer, totally ignored the repairman, but
the whole time he was there, the parrot cursed, yelled, screamed, and
about drove him nuts.
As he was ready to leave, he couldn’t resist saying, “You stupid bird,
why don’t you shut up!”
To which the bird replied, “Killer, get him!!!”
Filed May 22, 2006 at 5:12 pm under Grog and Salmagundi by TJ
I think I’m going to have to make up a batch of these for the party this weekend…Â
Key Lime Cookies
1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg plus 1 egg yolk
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup key lime juice (not regular lime juice, needs to be Key Lime juice…)
1 1/2 tsp grated lime zest
1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar
Preheat oven to 350 F. Spray baking sheets with nonstick vegetable coating.
In a large bowl, mix butter, sugar, egg and egg yolk until creamy. Thoroughly mix in flour, baking powder, salt, lime juice and lime peel.
Spray cookie sheet with non-stick vegetable coating. Form dough into 1/2-inch balls. Place on prepared cookie sheet and bake at 350 F until lightly browned (8 to 10 minutes).
Remove to wire rack. While still warm, sift confectioners’ sugar over cookies.
Makes about 3 dozen.
Sometimes I’ll add white chocolate chips to the mix, and not powered sugar.
Filed May 17, 2006 at 4:39 pm under Geeky by TJ
I was told today that:Â
“If you haven’t moved everything to an IPOD by now you may as well be Amish.”
First I’d have to get one. Until then you can call me Ezekiel.Â
Filed May 15, 2006 at 1:10 pm under Boring Stuff and Geeky by TJ
Last week I was the BuffettNews Person of the week and over the weekend, I had the “interview”. You can see the question/answer session here. There were 25 sets of questions, all about different things. If ya want to know more about me, it’s a good read.
Filed May 10, 2006 at 8:53 pm under Family by TJ
Each guess costs $10.
The winnings will be divided: 70% goes to Jaymie Tryon (let’s help her out ’cause she’ll soon have lots of diapers and sleepers to buy!) plus, 30% goes to the winner of the pool (and that could be you!)*
Place your bets now!
This pool ends: 15 September 2006.
For more info, go to the poll’s webpage here. If you wouldn’t mind, please pass the poll’s info along to others by clicking here.
Filed May 10, 2006 at 7:27 pm under Geeky by TJ
I have been working on getting the hot tub “opened” for the season, and I figured I’d check into what I may be seeing in the sky while enjoying the spring weather. Suprise, I found we get a great view of Jupiter this month.Â
This month’s most prominent naked-eye evening planet is Jupiter. The massive gas planet rises brilliantly just after sunset in the southeast near the moderately bright star Zubenelgenubi in constellation Libra.
He can be found glaring low above east-southeast horizon at dusk during the early evening hours, the brightest “star,” in the sky and inviting inspection the moment you set up a telescope.
Wait, however, until a couple hours after sunset for it to gain some altitude above the horizon haze. Since it will be at opposition on May 4, it will appear highest in the sky, toward the south at around 1 a.m. local daylight time, then descends toward the west for the rest of the night.Â
As seen from Earth, Jupiter is retrograding, or moving west through the dim stars of the zodiacal constellation of Libra, the Scales. Its dark belts and bright zones with their subtle markings resolves into a series of red, yellow, tan and brown shadings in most telescopes, and of course its four large and bright moons can be followed for hours, even in steadily held binoculars. Through a telescope you can watch as they speed in front of Jupiter, throwing their shadows on the planet, or vanish behind its disk or suddenly becoming eclipsed by its shadow.
Jupiter has the largest apparent disk of any bright object in the sky after the Moon and the Sun. He’s truly the superior of the superior planets!
Fun facts
- Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system. Not only would 1,266 Earths fit inside Jupiter, but the eight other planets would only comprise 68.8 percent of Jupiter’s volume.
- Jupiter is 318 times as massive as Earth.
- Jupiter spins (rotates) so rapidly that it is flattened slightly. Its polar diameter is only 93 percent of its equatorial diameter.
- Jupiter is the second most reflective planet (next to Venus). It reflects 52 percent of the sunlight falling on it.
- At this year’s opposition, Jupiter’s apparent size in a telescope reaches the largest of any outer planet. Venus can get larger, but only in twilight and as a thin crescent. This large apparent size offers great opportunities for viewing cloud features in the jovian atmosphere. Jupiter completes one rotation in less than 10 hours, allowing the entire planet to be viewed during a single night this month.
- Jupiter’s four bright moons, Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto, can be observed easily through small telescopes. Io takes less than 2 days to orbit, so you can see its relative position change in an hour or so — less when it appears close to Jupiter. Our line of sight lies in the plane of the moons’ orbits, so we see occultations (when a moon goes behind Jupiter), eclipses (when Jupiter’s shadow falls on a moon), and transits (when a moon passes in front of Jupiter) at various times.
- The solar system’s largest satellite is Ganymede, with a diameter of nearly 3,300 miles (5,270 km).
Filed May 9, 2006 at 10:03 pm under Boring Stuff by TJ
Last month, I had nearly 65,000 hits to my website. I greatly thank everyone who stops by to read the crap that flows out of my head. I figure with this many people, I can get some good advice here as well. As I already mentioned, I’ve just finished the Davinci Code. Being on a screwed up work schedule, as well as having quite a bit of neck pain from my injury last fall, I’ve been dealing with a bit of insomnia. I rarely sleep anymore, so I sit up reading in bed, and now I’m all out of books. I’m looking for a new book to poke my nose into for a few weeks, and want your advise. I have been enjoying some good fiction novels, but non-fiction is fine too. Leave me a comment with some book suggestions please. If it has something to do with sailing, pirates, or is set somewhere in the Caribbean, that’s a bonus.
Thanks again to all of you that stop by, and thanks in advance for your reading suggestions.
Filed May 9, 2006 at 6:30 am under Boring Stuff and Geeky by TJ
You guys know I’m a little nuts in the context of conspiracy theories. There are frequently silent black helicopters hovering over me watching my every move.  Well, boy did I pick the correct book to read this time. I’ve been putting off reading the Davinci Code for a couple of years now, but since the movie is due out later this month, I figured I’d better read the book, so I knew where they screw up the movie.Â
All I have to say about the book is “Wow!”
I’m terrible at doing book reviews, so be sure to read this book before seeing the movie.
From Publishers Weekly
Brown’s latest thriller (after Angels and Demons)is an exhaustively researched page-turner about secret religious societies, ancient coverups and savage vengeance. The action kicks off in modern-day Paris with the murder of the Louvre’s chief curator, whose body is found laid out in symbolic repose at the foot of the Mona Lisa. Seizing control of the case are Sophie Neveu, a lovely French police cryptologist, and Harvard symbol expert Robert Langdon, reprising his role from Brown’s last book. The two find several puzzling codes at the murder scene, all of which form a treasure map to the fabled Holy Grail. As their search moves from France to England, Neveu and Langdon are confounded by two mysterious groups-the legendary Priory of Sion, a nearly 1,000-year-old secret society whose members have included Botticelli and Isaac Newton, and the conservative Catholic organization Opus Dei. Both have their own reasons for wanting to ensure that the Grail isn’t found. Brown sometimes ladles out too much religious history at the expense of pacing, and Langdon is a hero in desperate need of more chutzpah. Still, Brown has assembled a whopper of a plot that will please both conspiracy buffs and thriller addicts.
To further add to the conspiracy of the book, be sure to read what the Catholic Church has to say about the book here (from the real Opus Dai).
Filed May 9, 2006 at 6:00 am under Geeky by TJ
I don’t think I’ve seen this side of the morning in quite a while. I tried to drag my ass out of bed about 3am this morning, as I have a server with a corrupt file system that needed maintenance starting at 4am. So, it’s early, I have a lot of time to wait on a 1T filesystem to rebuild, so, looking for something to do, I found Sudoku. It’s a quirky little numbers game, where you have 3 rows of 3 tick tack toe boards with numbers. Each row can have only one instance of a number 1-9 and each tick tack toe board can only have 1 instance of each number as well. It’s quite addictive, and makes you think. My best so far is about 17 minutes on the easy level, which means I suck, as the average is about 6:30. Check it out at http://www.websudoku.com/ Below is one for your morning mental workout.
