Grandpa Morris visit

My stepdad isn't feeling real good, so we all went to visit him. Here are some pictures.



Charly took this wonderful picture of me and Aydan.









Mike and Luke are so cute together.








Kari and Aydan








Charly was entertaining Grandpa Ken's sister, Joann.








Grandpa Ken enjoyed the visit, I think.

short story - Whose favor should she be in?

The couple was leaving the grocery store. The husband was pushing the cart and the wife was following behind. As they reached the door, an item fell out of the cart of another shopper. The wife stopped to pick up the item for the other shopper, unbeknownst to the husband. As he leaves the store, he turns back to see that his wife is not following as closely behind him and he lifts his eyebrows as if to say "What happened?". His wife replies, "I stopped to help someone pick up something they dropped." Her husband shakes his head in dismay. He is single minded in his need to get out of the store where everyone gets in his way and his need to get home to relax. "I am just trying to find favor with the gods", his wife states. "Well, you are losing favor with me", he tosses back. They both smile. He knows he is intolerant, and she knows that he knows. It is just the way he is. At least he can laugh about his intolerance. She loves him anyway.

Did you watch the Obama tv show tonight? I DID NOT

I am proud to say that I did not watch the Obama paid television show tonight. Where does he get the money for this? I am leery of a person who has sooooo much money that they can pay for primetime television for 30 minutes on seven different networks.

Luckily cable and satellite have hundreds of other networks. Too bad he doesn't have enough money to buy time on every network. For someone who wants the "little people" to feel he knows what they are going through, he sure knows how to flaunt his money.

Biden interview shows his true colors

Interesting YouTube video.


I guess after Biden was interviewed on this Florida TV station, his wife was supposed to be interviewed, but Obama's campaign nixed that idea with this statement:

"This cancellation is non-negotiable, and further opportunities for your station to interview with this campaign are unlikely, at best for the duration of the remaining days until the election," wrote Laura K. McGinnis, Central Florida communications director for the Obama campaign.
McGinnis said the Biden cancellation was "a result of her husband's experience yesterday during the satellite interview with Barbara West."

miss fixit

Dave hates it when I do this, but I still keep doing it and I think secretly he likes it.

This is what happened: Dave wanted to get a bound double-sided copy of the MAC Football Preview to take with him on his job interview. So we went to Office Depot to get the file printed on nice paper and bound with spiral coils. The Office Depot worker was having problems getting the printer to duplex the test pages. It kept jamming up in the printer. I first suggested that maybe since the first page was one large graphic that we needed to try printing the second and third pages on front and back. The paper still jammed. So I suggested that there might be a small piece of paper in the roller. Dave was cringing. He hates when I butt in. But the worker was a smart young man and listened to me and found the offending small piece of paper in the rollers of the printer and the next try worked perfectly. We now have a nice 37 page bound copy of the football preview that he is so proud of.

Yep, my 56 years on this earth, 20 some of it working in an office with many printers, copiers, and computers, has given me wisdom that I love to share with others.

Oh, what else was funny was that Dave made a reference to something that Bender says in Futurama, "It is all everyone else's fault" The Office Depot young man, looked up at him and said, "What? Bender from Futurama?" He seemed impressed that Dave would be quoting from Futurama. Score one for Dave.

joe the plumber

I might be in the minority, but I think John McCain kicked butt last night. Sure there were some discrepancies in both of their statements, but I thought Obama was clearly bugged by how much McCain was on the offensive.

Now, this thing about Joe the Plumber. This is really bugging me. I liked the fact that McCain brought up the incident between Joe and Obama, but the media is taking it way too far. Why is the media crucifying him? He just wanted to ask a simple question. Now people are digging up all kinds of things on him.

Is this what will happen if Obama becomes president? If someone has a differing opinion or questions something the president does, will they be scrutinized and dissected and hounded?

my leaky faucet is fixed!!

My dad has been staying with my sister and she had a meeting to attend today in Pontiac. Cindi brought my dad over and dropped him off and he fixed my leaky faucet. I can't tell you how thankful I am, plus I got to spend more time with Dad and with Cindi. We went out to eat after Cindi was done with her meeting.

All in all it was a nice day.

Thanks Cindi and Thanks Dad.

body aches

I know that I am out of shape. I don't want people trying to be encouraging. I know that my loved ones will love me even if I am out of shape. I am the only one who can make me feel better and for some reason I haven't found the motivation that I need.

You would think that I would want to exercise more so that I wouldn't hurt so bad when I try to do things. I think the problem stems from the fact that I am addicted to my job and the computer. Both of those are not conducive to moving around and exercising. I mean if I had a job where I had to move to actually perform the job, that would be better for me, I guess.

My latest problem with aches and pains stems from two things. A football game and cleaning the cars. Yesterday I walked down to the field at Eastern Michigan from the press box. Now, this should be easy, but for me who is top heavy and out of shape, it is scary. There are no handrails, so I feel like I am going to go head first down the steps. Plus the fact that my left knee hurts, so I have to go down the steps kind of sideways so that my left knee doesn't give out. Well, that made my right thigh cramp up when I finally was on the field. Today it just feels like a deep bruise. But I must of used other muscles also because I was very achy.

But then today I really wanted to get to my projects that I have planned. Cleaning the cars has been on my list for awhile. Not the outside - Dave can take the cars to the car wash for that, but the inside, vacuum and dust. The cars weren't as bad as I thought they were, but it took a lot of bending and pulling and stuff. Plus the garage had to be cleaned up a little so that I could clean the Santa Fe. I did get them all done. But boy, am I beat.

More projects to come:
Clean windows, especially the front windows.
Sweep garage, take cushions to basement, take golf clubs to basement also.
Plant tulip bulbs and clean up yard. Possibly trim bushes one more time.
Clean and organize office closet.
Organize kitchen closet.

I will keep you all posted on how this all goes.

MAC Football Week Five Preview

Probably the biggest celebrity alum to come out of Ball State, late-night host David Letterman, gave some publicity to his alma mater's team recently, talking up the Cardinals' win over Indiana on his CBS show. Can an appearance from Brady Hoke on the show be far behind?

read more | digg story

What I did today

Dave didn't have anything planned as far as football games, so he was going to watch all the games on TV. I thought I would try to get things done that I have been putting off. Here is my list:

Fix leaky bathtub faucet
Clean both cars (vacuum and dust)
Give blood
Do the grocery shopping
Finish the final touches on the manuscript that I am editing for someone.

So far I have only done the "give blood", grocery shopping, and I am working on the manuscript.

The give blood made me really tired. I hope to do some of the other things tomorrow.

I like to give blood, I feel righteous about it, plus I am O negative which means they really like by blood, but boy I am so tired from it. I think I have blogged about this before. Oh well.

Grandpa McMillan

Grandpa McMillan came up to Michigan just before the first hurricane and came to visit me on Friday. On Sunday all the kids and their kids converged on Mindy and Mike to hang out for a few hours. This picture is missing the husbands of Mindy and Kari (Mike and Mark) and me.

freezer kitten

Dave and I and my dad went over to Les and Joannie's last night to chat for a bit and introduce them to my dad. When we got there, they mentioned that they couldn't find one of their two kittens. They said they looked everywhere, but couldn't find the little fella.

Well, we all sat down and started chatting and then Joannie asked us if we wanted anything to drink. Dave got up to go to the refrigerator to get a pop. When he opened the door, he hollared, "The cat is in the refrigerator!"

The kitten had crawled into the refrigerator when Joannie had put some pops in the refrigerator and she didn't see him.

He probably was in there only a little bit and didn't seem fazed at all. He wasn't even cold. Crazy kitten.

one reason I like cornergas - witty repartee

Brent, the gas station owner has a scheme to find out how tall Wanda, his employee, is. He elicits the help of Hank the handyman/loafer that hangs out at the gas station and the cafe. When the plan doesn't work, because Wanda tricks Hank, Brent says: "Why do I even involve you in my schemes?"
Hank replied thoughtfully: "Maybe you are afraid of success on some level."

Don't know if it will come across as funny as it did when I heard it in this blog. Maybe you had to be there. But really, that was a classic response.

psycho

We were watching the original Psycho and then Dave flipped to the local news where they were showing a clip of Hillary Clinton giving her DNC speech... but I thought we were still watching Pscyho.

Scary.

If you look real close you can see me

The MAC is running a MAC on TV and I am in there somewhere. Maybe about half way through they are showing pictures of all the people interviewing people at tables. I am in the far back. I will try to get more information if you are interested. LOL

The link below describes the TV schedule for the MAC preview.

http://macreportonline.com/index.php/20080818338/Football/MAC-Gridiron-Preview-Set-to-Air.html

New additions to the Les and Joanne family

Les and Joanne have new additions to their family. Ollie and Stanley are Maine coon kittens.
I believe Ollie is the lighter colored kitten and Stanley is the darker one.


I think this is Ollie.
And this should be Stanley, unless I have them confused.

Steven Banks/Olympics

Every time I hear the olympics theme, I think of Steven Banks. My kids will understand.

I want control of the TV control

Dave has control of the TV control and he keeps checking back to the Olympic coverage. Each time they start a little human interest on Dara the swimmer he flips back to something else. It has happened twice. I guess I will never find out her "story".

Random acts of kindness, part 2

I have to preface this blog with mentioning that I am fine, I did not get mugged, robbed, or raped while committing a random act of kindness. I say this for Dave's benefit because he thinks I am way too trusting.

What happened was that I had to run some errands after work. I went to Walgreens and then was headed back west toward the grocery store. The street is a four lane street and I was in the far right lane. Up ahead I saw a car that either seemed to be going very slow or was stopped. As I got closer I realized that the car was stopped (there is no stopping/parking on this street) and I was going to have to get into the other lane - fast. I was worried about this car sitting there, as most cars on this street go faster than the posted 40 miles and it is not always easy to pull into the left lane. Should I call the police and let them know an abandoned car is on Joy Road? No, I don't have the number. I guess I could have dialed 911, and I was considering that as I pulled into the grocery store parking lot. As I parked, I noticed a man and a woman head back down the street walking as fast as they could, carrying.....yes, a gas can! I pulled out of my parking spot and drove over to them, honked my horn and waved them over. I asked if they were going back to the car stopped in the street. Yes, they were. Hop in, I said. The woman got in the front and the man in the back with the gas can, and I carefully pealed out to get back to the car as fast and carefully as I could. It was 0.2 miles back down the road and luckily no one had crashed into it. Did I mention that the emergency flashers were not on? Yikes. As I pulled up behind the car and put my flashers on, the lady asked me how much she owed me. I laughed. Sorry I did. I never even thought of charging them to drive them 0.2 miles. Crazy. I assured her that she didn't owe me anything and in fact, I was going to stay behind them with my flashers on while they put the gas in the car and then drive off. Which is what happened.

Wow, what a good feeling that gave me. Not only do I feel like I helped those two people, but probably some poor person who would have hit that care while coming home from work and not really paying attention to the traffic.

Letter to Barack Obama

July 31, 2008



Dear Mr. Obama,

You don't need to keep playing the race card. You are a human being. It doesn't matter what color you are. I don't care whether you or anyone else is black, white, or green. I just want to know that you would have the ability to lead the USA. I don't see where you would be able to do that if you are constantly worrying about whether someone is picking on you because you are black. Sheesh. Grow up.

Deb Ruthenberg
Dearborn Heights, MI