Santiago Dreaming

The Pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela is a centuries old trek across northern Spain done by following "The Camino de Santiago", the road to Santiago. Before February of 2001 I had not heard of "The Camino" nor of the Pilgrimage. By the end of October of that year I was in Santiago after completing the walk myself. I thought that when I reached Santiago my journey was over but I see now that my journey started way before I got to Spain and still has not ended.

Monday, July 31, 2006

Excuse me, Lou, But...

do I have the word "stupid" tattooed across my forehead?

I didn't think so.

Lou Christie's LIGHTNIN' STRIKES (1966)

(Note: Player may take a few seconds to load)
Listen to me, baby, you gotta to understand
You're old enough to know the makings of a man
Listen to me, baby, it's hard to settle down
Am I asking too much for you to stick around

Every boy wants a girl
He can trust to the very end
Baby, that's you, won't you wait,
but 'til then

When I see lips beggin' to be kissed, (Stop!)
I can't stop (Stop!) I can't stop myself
(Stop! Stop!)

Lightnin's striking again
Lightnin's striking again

Nature's takin' over my one-track mind
Believe it or not, you're in my heart all the time
All the girls are sayin' that you'll end up a fool
For the time being, baby, live by my rules

When I settle down
I want one baby on my mind
Forgive and forget
And I'll make up for all lost time

If she's put together fine and she's readin' my mind,(Stop!)
I can't stop (Stop!) I can't stop myself
(Stop! Stop!)

Lightnin's striking again
Lightnin's striking again and again and again and again

Lightnin's striking again
Lightnin's striking again

There's a chapel in the pines
Waiting for us around the bend
Picture in your mind
Love forever,
but 'til then

If she gives me a sign that she wants to make time, (Stop!)
I can't stop (Stop!) I can't stop myself
(Stop! Stop!)

Lightnin's striking again
Lightnin's striking again and again and again and again
Lightnin's striking again and again and again and again

Thursday, July 27, 2006

One More Project Done



Before and After

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

The Dog Kids Love To Bite

-lyric from Armor Hot Dog jingle

I was going to post before and after photos of my fence refurbishing project but Blogger photo uploading has been on the fritz all day so I have finally given-up that idea. Instead I will write about hot dogs.

(I would put a picture of a hot dog here but...you know.)

Today I bought hot dogs for dinner and, of course, I had to buy buns to go along with them. After I bought them both I pondered that age old question:

Why do hot dogs come 10 to a pack while buns are 8 to a pack?

Due to this packaging quirk whenever you buy hot dog buns you have to buy 2 packs (16 buns) in order to have enough buns for your hot dogs. Fourteen of the buns end up sitting wrapped in the plastic bag they came in and tucked in some forgotten corner of your kitchen cabinet until they've grown their own little colonies of penicillin.

The only way to not waste hot dog buns is to buy enough hot dog buns to equal the same number of hot dogs; which is 4 packs of hot dogs for every 5 packs of hot dog buns (40 each) at the minimum. Not too consumer friendly, is it?

So, again, I ask:

Why do hot dogs come 10 to a pack while buns are 8 to a pack?

Straight Dope came up with this answer:

...you get ten hot dogs and eight buns per package because meat packers like things that come in pounds and bakers hate things that come in tens.

And that is how it was until the year 2002 when Ballpark Franks was bought by Sara Lee who decided to market Ballpark hot dog buns. They knew consumers were irritated by the 10 hot dogs/8 buns deal and started producing packs of hot dogs containing 8 dogs.

So now, every time I buy my eight hot dogs and my eight hot dog buns I silently give thanks to Sara Lee.

Thursday, July 20, 2006

Why Is It That...

just when you've cut back on your blogging you find something interesting?

From today's Denver Post


Tiny Titans Of The Tracks




Kurtland Larke, 6, sits atop his half-scale Monte Carlo mini-cup racer at IMI Motorsports Complex in Dacono. He races the car at speeds over 80 mph. Kids' racing advocates say firesuits, harnesses and restraints keep them safe. (Post / Helen H. Richardson)






Maybe it is just me but I don't think the words, races, car, 80 mph, firesuits, harnesses, and restraints, belong in the same paragraph as the phrase Kurtland Larke, 6. I would not trust a child with a book of matches at this age.

His father says, he has no worries when it comes to his son's safety.

"We started him off slow. He couldn't go faster than 15-20 mph at first," Larke said. "He uses a professional helmet, fireproof suit, gloves, shoes, and head and neck restraints."


Another father, who's six year-old and five year-old also race, said about the sport, "It's a big family thing. It forces you to spend time with your kids, and it keeps them out of trouble."

It forces him to spend time with his own children? Is he actually implying that if having his children in this "sport" wasn't interesting to him, he would not be spending any time with them at all?

If you still think these kids are old enough to be zooming down the track at speeds over 80 mph, read what professional race car driver Milka Duno has to say about racing:

"To be a race car driver you need to work on your concentration. You have to make quick decisions while driving at very high speeds. So you must be very focused. You must be disciplined and very responsible, because any distraction could have serious consequences."

As we all know six year-olds are known for their ability to concentrate, stay focused, and make quick decisions. But, as the Post article points out, that is not what is going on here anyway:

Before the car leaves the pits, Larke preps his son, making sure he understands the tough areas of the track before he is off and running. Larke uses hand signals and yells motorsports jargon to his son, instructing him on how fast he should be going and what he needs to do.

These kids are just live remote control car drivers with Daddy as the puppet master.

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

There's A Signpost Up Ahead


















One of these signs is not like the other,
One of these signs is so PC wrong.
Can you tell which sign is not like the other,
Which really doesn't belong
?


Well, let's see:

Both are warning signs.

Both are about children.

The child in the sign on the left seems to have no hands or feet.

The child in sign on the right seems to live somewhere in the The Twilight Zone as his clothes are from 1930/1940's. Any neighborhood that has 80 to 90 year-old children running around it is one I want to stay out of.


But which one is politically incorrect?




Why the second one, of course. It is rudely stating that the children in this neighborhood are slow. Pointing out their mental deficiencies is wrong, just wrong!

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Small Town Life

Headline in this week's paper:

Candidate Comes to (town) in bus on Saturday


I haven't figured out if the news part of this headline is the fact that a candidate for the office of state governor is coming to our town or that he is in a bus. What I also don't know, after reading the story below this headline, is what political party this man represents. But, since I live in a Red state and we have a Democratic Party governor right now, I'm guessing that he is a Republican.

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Today I Am

Thursday, July 06, 2006

There's A Little Ditty They're Singing In The City

Suffocation game of fascination,
Suffocation game that we all love.
First you take a plastic bag,
Then you put it on your head.
Go to bed.
Wake-up dead.
Oh, oh, oh, oh,
Suffocation game that we all love.
*
(sung to the tune Alouette)

NOTE: Kids, if you sing this song at least 10 times in a row it will drive your parents crazy. There are two reasons why this is so. First, because hearing any song sung 10 times in a row if you are not singing it too is crazy making. Second, because this is the kind of song that worries parents. Since they are now adults they have forgotten just how funny a song like this is to you. Instead they worry that just hearing the song will make you want to try to do this yourself. Let's face it. Most adults think kids are morons. That is why the don't want you watching when Wile E. Coyote gets an anvil dropped on his head.


They think that you think dropping an anvil on someone's head would not hurt the person or coyote that the anvil is being dropped on. Like you don't know cartoons are not real life. Anyway, because of this false belief I must write the following. Remember, it is not for you but for your parents.

*Warning: Kids- Do not try this at home!

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred. to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

— John Hancock

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

Saturday, July 01, 2006

Work

Work is either fun or drudgery. It depends on your attitude. I like fun.
-Colleen C. Barrett

One fence:

Plus one drill and one nail(times 400):












Gets you this(times 2):


and this(times 200):