You look half your age...

What do adult brothers do when confronted with a child's play thing?

The Fog of War

I just finished watching a most fascinating movie called The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara. The title refers to the Secretary of Defense during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Only the greatest authors in history could dream up such a hero/villain as ambivalent and ambiguous as real life. To me, he is everything that is great and wrong about America at the same time.

A couple of quotes that hit me:

Referring to this country's unilateral action in Vietnam, he said, "If we can't persuade nations with comparable values of the merit of our cause, we better reexamine our reasoning." Does that sound familiar to anyone?

Regarding his dealings with the press: "Never answer the question that is asked of you; answer the question that you wish had been asked of you." Clearly, this has become one of politic's ten commandments.

There is a whole lot more. You should watch it.

Our next home

Hint: Zion National Park is in the background (right side)


The view looking north from our property

"Cue the Deer"

Sometimes, this city is so gosh-darn baseball-and-apple-pie American that it is a bit surreal. I am reminded of the scene in Funny Farm where everyone acts like the people in Normal Rockwell pictures so their hated neighbor can sell his home. Come to think of it, our neighbors were having an open house as the balloon flew over. Hmmm.

Good night, Liv

Last night: Liv's bed was clean when we put her in it


Tonight: Olivia dreams of being a swimmer

The End of the Day

One day we'll reach a great ocean
At the end of a pale afternoon
And we'll lay down our heads just like we were sleeping
And be towed by the drag of the moon
- Sting




Simon usually likes baths


Olivia trying to look mad

The Tongue

Here's a classic for you

Iowa Skies

There's something about these pictures of my neighbor's tree. Can't put my finger on it...

Comments

I heard from a few of you that the comments require you to sign up for blogger. (You can actually chime in anonymously, but that's no fun.)

Now when you click on comments, you can leave your thoughts without registering and with any name you so desire. You do not have to include your email address or URL. In fact, I recommend against including your email address unless you like more spam.

It's more fun when you post comments, so post away!

I Found Some of Your Life

Via Engadget...

Some guy found a memory card with a year's worth of photos on it when he was riding in a New York taxi. You should go see what he is doing with them.

Update: I guess the guy found where his pictures were. All the pictures have been taken off the site. The only thing left there is a message reading, "That's it. Sorry folks." Too bad.

The Curious Incident

"Prime numbers are what is left when you have taken all the patterns away. I think prime numbers are like life. They are very logical but you could never work out the rules, even if you spent all your time thinking about them."

I'm sure many of you are aware of this controversy, but I need to weigh in. I picked up the first book chosen for Salt Lake City's book club, SLC Reads Together. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is the story of an autistic teen who sets out to solve the mystery of who killed the neighbor's dog.

Nevermind that SLC is promoting literacy and common understanding through a community book club. The important thing here is, *gasp*, there is profanity in this book. What is it with would-be censors these days? Don't they understand that they are just making the book more popular? It's a good thing, though. This was a great book. I highly recommend it, as long as you can avoid having a heart attack when you read the dreaded "c word".

My take on profane words: They are the code words that people don't speak. Some people have decided to identified by the words they don't use, like the Sneetches who are proud that they don't have stars. If you use profanity, you are out of the club. I try not to swear around people because I know they will get offended. But if someone swears casually (i.e., without hurtful intent) around me, I will treat him no differently than someone who says, "Oh, poo."

Bottom line: swear words were invented with the intent to divide us. And it's working.

I know some of you will disagree, and that's okay. I'm probably wrong.

I am a nerd

I am 33 years old today, so I started wondering when I'll be a third of a century old. With the help of this handy site, I know that I should celebrate January 7, 2005. Other fun facts that I learned:

• I turned 1 billion seconds old on my sister Janet's 40th birthday, May 17, 2003. (And everyone thought we were having a party for her!)


• I missed my 10,000th day celebration on January 24, 1999


• I will be 20 million minutes old on September 17, 2009


• I likely won't live to see my 1,000,000th hour. I would have to live to be 114 years old (October 6, 2085), though the website didn't have any opinions of the odds of that happening.

I also found out that I was born the same day as David Arquette, so I am really excited.

Mall of America

We took a short trip to the Twin Cities and had a nice time. Of course, we had to spend a day at Camp Snoopy in the Mall of America. My only disappointment on the trip: no authentic Minnesotan accents. (Brook claims to have heard a "You betcha" at Walmart and was asked if she wanted the wet wipes in the bag--pronounced with a long a--so I'm jealous.)


Okay, so the quality isn't great, but if you take a photo of the TV monitor, you don't have to buy the picture.

Pop versus Soda versus Coke

This has to be one of the best polls ever. I want to know what "other" words people are using. Fanta?

Update: I found the "other" data here. (Warning, some people used some not-so-nice terms for their answers.) Though not common in the States, Fanta is apparently used by Russians as a generic term for soda, er, pop, er, soda pop.

Nuterrific: It's nut very good

I love it when people try to get cute with naming their businesses. We walked by the Dress Barn today. That name evokes a certain dirtiness, or maybe one might think that they sell only large clothing, i.e., we'll dress you if you are as big as a barn. Am I the only one that has had this impression?

There is a hair salon in North Salt Lake called Snarlz. First of all, nice z. Only slightly better than using ks wherever possible, like Kwik-E-Mart. But the dumbest thing is this: isn't a snarl a bad thing with hair? It would be like me starting a medical clinic called The Clap.

Of course, my first choice if I were to start a restaurant in Utah would be Squeat, which is Utahn for "Let's go eat!" I think it would be catchy, but then some guy with a blog would make fun of me, I'm sure of it. Now that it is written down, maybe that word looks too much like sweat, which isn't very appetizing. I could spell it Squeet, which looks more like sweet. Much better.