Saturday, June 28, 2008

Royal Standard of the King of Scots


Commonly known as the Lion Rampant, since 1672 it has been illegal for the common people to fly the Royal Standard of the King of Scots, so, of course, they do.

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Worst Drivers

100 Columbia, SC F

99 St. Louis, MO F

98 Greensboro, NC F

97 Jackson, MS F

96 Cheyenne, WY

See article for the complete list.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

I was in a SUV today.

Child seats are supposed to face to the rear.

Rear seat entertainment centers also face to the rear.

So your kid can be safe but really annoyed, or entertained but in peril.

Then we stopped for snowcones.

Monday, June 23, 2008

New at the supermarket

Juke left in shopping carts! Discarded shopping lists. Flyers. Candy wrappers. Why not the 17 year old carts boys toss that junk.

Backing up without looking! Hey! There are other people on the planet but you.

Saturday, June 14, 2008

If you build it, flood will come.

Hey, here's a great idea, why don't we build city hall on an island in the middle of the Cedar River?

You can see the two river bridges in front of the Cedar Rapids City Hall, on either side of that little park.




Hey, it's Flag Day!

The Second Continental Congress
adopted the stars and stripes design
for the flag of the United States
June 14,1777

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Rooty Update

Friday of this week will be Rooty's fourth chemo treatment. He will have a total of 16.

The first treatment was no problem. In fact, the lymph nodes all went back to normal withing 36 hours. That alone is very encouraging.

Each week is a different drug. The Week Two chemo upset Rooty's stomach so we had to make a midnight run to the vet's. We are very lucky -- there is an actual animal hospital where we live -- it has 24 hour emergency care -- and a pharmacy -- and an actual pet oncologist on staff. Rooty had tummy problems for a couple days but nothing serious.

Last Friday was a drug that is milder, his doctor did not expect any tummy problems and there were none.

Rooty still loves going to the vet -- he still pushes the door open with his nose he is so anxious to get inside.

He also still plays as if he were a puppy, so not much has changed, except that I gave him a really bad, bad haircut.

Monday, June 09, 2008

Maybe they glow in the dark?

About 125 scientists and staff are stationed at U.S. base in the Antarctic -- where there will be total darkness until August 20th. The the last plane in delivered 16,500 condoms to the base! That's 132 condoms per person during the next two months.

Exactly what kind of research are these people doing?

SOURCE: Reuters News Service

Monday, you know

Friday, June 06, 2008

A gram of prevention is worth...


Let's visit metric again.

Nixon, I believe, said we had to go metric. I-44 in Missouri even had some mileage signs in metric.

Reagan, I'm sure, nixed the whole idea.

Here's the problem for Americans, metric uses Greek and Latin prefixes:

One Meter is roughly 39 inches.

A Greek prefix mean multiply.
kilometer is 1,000 meters;
megameter is one million meters;
gigameter is one billion meters;
terameter is one trillion meters.

A Latin prefix mean divide.
centimeter is one-hundredth of meter;
millimeter is one-thousandth of a meter;
micrometer is one-millionth of a meter;
nanometer is one-billionth of a meter.

Americans, Greek, Latin <-- see the basic problem.

Plus, the prefixes mean that measurements required polysyllabic words. We don't like that. Except for 'gallon' we're used to single-syllable units of measurement.

inch, foot/feet, mile, quart, pint, pound, ton, -- even ounce is one syllable!

We'll use "liter" but only because it sound like a bunch of kittens in West Texas! :)

Thursday, June 05, 2008

What odd company to be in!

Only three nations have not officially adopted the International System of Units as their primary or sole system of measurement: Liberia, Myanmar and the United States.

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

" Tsvangirai released in Zimbabawe"

another babble headline, maybe I should start watching the news!

"Zimbabawe" sounds like a country (or the sound made by a Swiss baby crying).

"Tsvangirai" might be some kind of bird.

Just the facts

Babies is 1/2 the world are potty trained by 12 months.

Babies in the other 1/2 use disposable diapers.

The average baby boy in the United States gives up diapers at 39 months and the average girl at 36 months.

Then there was the kid that I saw at Wal*Mart yesterday, who had to be four or five years old, and was still wearing a diaper.

He looked like he was shoplifting a ham.

Monday, June 02, 2008

I took this with my phonecam this afternoon!

The lowest I can remember gas being was 14¢ a gallon when there used to be savage 'price wars' along old US 66.

It makes you wonder what they did with Thomas Crapper

Designer of Pringles can is buried in his invention

Source: CNN

Our Monday morning sing-along, and moment of truth

Sunday, June 01, 2008

Austin police responded to a disturbance call at Matthew McConaughey 's home last October, the neighbors were complaining about the loud music. That's not the odd part.

Matthew was naked. Believe me, in Austin it would have been odd if he wasn't.

He was playing bongo drums. Also not the odd part.

There was a naked man with him. Again, in Austin it would have been odd if there wasn't.

Matthew resisted arrest. Again, not the odd part.

Matthew has a brother called Rooster McConaughey. Still not the odd part.

Rooster named his son Miller Lyte McConaughey. Okay, that's the odd part.