Sunday, July 18, 2004

Leaving on some jet planes

I am about to embark on a long journey or two. The family is heading out west Tuesday for California and then Hawaii. Pretty sweet eh. Well it remains to be seen. We've flown with Sophie before, when she was 5 weeks. Now that she is 8 months we are a little worried. RDU - CHICAGO - OAKLAND- MAUI and back...yikes. Well, we shall see.

Posting may be sporadic or non existent over the next three weeks.
Thanks in advance to Brenda and Colin for taking care of Chicken.

Aloha!

Friday, July 09, 2004

Yardwork God...er scratch that

So I did a load of yard work yesterday and today. I trimmed the hedges by our AC, faught off some kudzu creeping in from our neighbor's yards, pruned some trees, edged and mowed the lawns. It was a lot of work...keep in mind it gets to be 90 degrees and 90% humidity by about 9am, so it can be pretty scary. How landscapers work here I can't imagine.

It took a little longer thatn I expected due to my Low Dexterity. Not once, but twice, I severed the power cord to the hdege trimmers. Twice! The first time made sense, well, it could be explained. I was deep in the hedges clearning a path (at least one foot wide for meter readers). Wielding the power trimmers in the close quarters (-4 To hit and AC) was difficult, not to mention the low visibility (20% miss chance). I over course thought I had broken both the wire and the trimmer (borrowed from my cousin), I check the latter with another cord and it wouldn't work, so in anger and guilt I went to Lowes to get new ones. I did.

Then Carly reminded me that the power outlets might have tripped a circuit breaker, which they did, so now I have a new trimmer! Back to work I did it again. This time I was balancing on a ladder swing the trimmers, reaching as far as I can. Sigh. Luckily the cords are cheap, I just feel pretty stoopid. But the yard looks nice. I filled six big bags with waste which will have to sit in my back yard until next week for pickup.

I was so hot and sweaty. It was ridiculous. My blue jeans were soaking wet. That is a first.

Sunday, July 04, 2004

God Bless America!

So it is Independence Day, or for the more calendaric among you, Fourth of July. It always annoys me when people refer to it by the date. Who cares what the date is? Nobody wishes you a merry 25th of December. Any way, I had a plan to write a diatribe/rant about the expression "God Bless America." But I thought I would do a quick check to see if there was anything written about this already. Well someone did, and we are pretty much on the same page with this one.

irregular times

So... might as well send you there instead.

Friday, July 02, 2004

Safer World

Okay... so A justification of the Iraqi war is that with a "democratic: Iraq the world will be a safer place.
I assume that the apologists for Cheney and co will vigorously defend this idea.
So to all people who support this war and this administration I ask this simple question

Now that Iraq is free, should we allow regular travel and immigration for Iraqis to the US?
What if we did not allow former Bathists?
What if we made them undergo some additional security check?

When do you think this will happen?

My answer is probably never. They know that they have created a state filled with people who hate us, so anyone from Iraq now is probably 'a suspected terrorist'. They reopened the Iraqi embassy in Washington DC. I wonder how many VISAs they process each month, or plan to.

If Iraq is now free, if the vast majority of them love America, why should they be restricted from coming here...any more than say the French ( I mean Libertines...)