Xmas 08

Here it is...what you've been waiting for. Another real video. For Christmas I received a camcorder so I can start doing different types of videos. Pretty snazzy!

It was a year ago now that we arrived in London on Jan 1st 2008. I had to work the very next day. What a disaster. I was so jet lagged and my clients were not in the mood to give any slack. I think my successors learned from my lesson and they have given themselves time to adjust.

The person who is there now was shocked to find that London is basically closed on Sundays. Most of the stores are only open for a few hours in the middle of the day. Its most annoying, but its one of those things you get so used to that we planned around it. I never thought to warn her. Opps.

There are many things I miss from London. I miss being able to hop on the tube or bus and get around. I miss not having to shovel snow, and not having to drive 30minutes to get to a store. We can't find fish and chips that taste anything like that greasy chip shop on bethnal green run by the Asian couple. Lets not forget about the Indian take away. You just can't find that here in the sticks. Most of all I miss having stuff to do. There was always something going on and something to see.

One thing I no longer miss is the BBC. We signed up for Direct TV and one of the channels is BBC America. I get to see my favorite show Top Gear. Joy!

The Ice Storm of '08

Okay, I'm sorry I haven't posted in some time. The holidays and winter weather have kept me away. A few weeks ago we had a freak ice storm that sent us back to the stone age. Here is a poem describing the incident. I can not take credit for it but I thought funny.


Twas two weeks before Christmas and all through the town
it rained and it froze and the trees all fell down.
The wires that were strung on utility poles
snapped like a twig and the houses all froze.

We got our selves nestled all snug in our bed
while visions of warmer days danced in our head,
and me in my thermals and Pa in his cap
stayed huddled together for a bone chilling nap.

The moon on the ice made a crystalline glow
and we thought to ourselves, just how long can this go?
When what to our wondering eyes did appear
but our son with some coffee and donuts and cheer.

We could see our white breath in the darkness above
and deep under the covers I searched for my love.
His feet, they were frozen and so was his head ---
made me think to myself that he just might be dead.

The days passed so slowly, we must be insane
as we waited and wondered and called out by name
"On Thursday, on Friday, on Saturday (shit!)
on Sunday, on Monday, on Tuesday (please quit!)
on Wednesday, and Thursday and Friday (oh dread!)
the kerosene fumes must have gone to our head.

To add to the pleasure of winter's delight
two snowstorms came by - 18 inches of white.
The snowing and blowing made things bad to worse
and we prayed to the heavens our pipes wouldn't burst.

Pa’s eyes now were sunken, his expression --- not merry,
his cheeks had a pallor, his nose like a cherry.
The odd little smile on his face wasn't fun
and he often was mumbling "go get my gun".

Then a rap on the door, and the fireman said,
"Are you sick, are you sane, and is anyone dead?
There's a shelter, there's warmth, you can come if you're able,
we have showers and kindness and food on the table" ---
and we looked at each other and thought --- "what the heck?"
yeah ... eleven days later you FINALLY check!

On night number twelve we heard the faint roar
of a convoy of trucks and we ran to the door.
To the top of the poles, to the stretch of the cable ---
please bring us your power just as fast as you' re able!

They spoke not a word, but went straight to their work
and the power came on with a hum and a jerk.
They heard us exclaim, as they drove out of sight ---
MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!
WE HAVE HEAT! WE HAVE LIGHT!

Pumpkin Assassination

Every year the problem of how to dispose of ones jack o lantern stumps thousands. I would like to offer this video as a suggestion.

Antique Roadshow

Sad news I am afraid. We lost our camera so I have not been able to make my usual videos. My brother got married and I was unable to take any pictures. I suppose it was just as well. I would have had that big bulge in my pocket during the whole ceremony and what would people have thought.

Anyway out of boredom I made this spoof on Antique Roadshow. The intro song is from the British version which I did watch once while in London. It sort of puts the US version to shame. We don't really have anything over 200 years old were as some of the smucks on the UK version were like yeah I think Henry the VIII use to pee in this bucket. Not often you can say something is several hundred years old.

Stairway to Heaven

My cousin Dan is a major led zeppelin fan - as we all should be! I know at one point he had aspiration's to become a singer - he still might, and there is nothing wrong with that. I recall one evening years ago he tried singing the stairway. This You Tube video is a very close approximation to Dan's performance that night.


Enjoy!

Morgan's 6th Birthday

It's mighty weird to see your little girl go off to school. When she tells me stories she expects me to know all about the people she is dealing with and how her school is setup. She hasn't come to the realization yet that others do not know what she knows. Some never come to that realization in life.

Katie went to a "blessing way" Sunday afternoon. A blessing way is like a baby shower but you don't give gifts. Her friend is on baby number 3 so there is no need for more baby crap. So anyway I had the two girls for the afternoon. I thought I would be the good dad and take them to the playground were they could run around get tired out and then nap the rest of the time. We walked down to the playground and Morgan wanted to show me the monkey bars and how well she could climb them. So as soon as we got there she got all the way to the top and promptly fell off landing flat on her back. I had to carry her and Gwen back to the house. That is about 90lbs of wiggling crying children. So the rest of my time watching them was torture as both of them were crying at the top of their lungs. Morgan is fine now...I think anyway.

Also I apologize for the spelling errors in the subtitles. I had to redo them and I was in no mood to check on them.

The 1st day of School

Morgan started Kindergarten today at Spaulding Elementary aka Primary school for you Brits. Katie is going back to work soon and Morgan and Gwen will have to go to daycare in the morning before school starts. This means that even though we live less then 100 feet away from the school Morgan has to take the bus. Oh well its Morgan's first lesson that when you enter the "machine" aka US educational system many things don't make sense. We also got some fun pics and videos of Gwen. She has become very daring recently. There is a shot of Gwen and I going down a slide at the end of the video which is not evident but its a really long tube that twists and turns. After we went down together once she went as fast as she could to get back up to the top and then wanted to go head first by herself. Morgan never would have done that at her age. Its amazing how different two kids can be.