Not mine, but I like it…
From Neil Steinberg’s op-ed in the Chicago Sun-Times:
A driver is stuck in a traffic jam on the interstate. Nothing is moving.
Suddenly a man walks over. The driver rolls down his window and asks: ‘‘What’s going on?’’
‘‘Terrorists down the road have kidnapped George W. Bush and
Dick Cheney. They’re asking for a $100 million ransom. Otherwise
they’re going to douse them with gasoline and set them on fire. We’re
going from car to car, taking up a collection.’’The driver asks, ‘‘How much is everyone giving, on average?’’
‘‘Most people are giving about a gallon.’’
Golfing is on hold…
But not the driving range!
I had my second in a series of golf lessons today. My stance is different. My grip is different. My arm position is different.
And just when I had started getting half-decent!
So now, it’s like I’m going to start over, again. I feel, however, that the return to normalcy will happen much more quickly this time!
Two things I learned:
- When they say “keep your left arm straight”, they don’t mean your wrist. This is the only way I can stand closer to the ball, and it depends upon my wrists being fairly relaxed.
- In order to keep from hitting left, I need to remember to “throw the club at the target”.
— update — One week later, the blister I got on my right thumb has started to fade.
If only I had an extra $48,500 lying around…
So there was the big Trek auction at Christie’s last week.
And, the only thing I could be interested in, Picard’s flute from “The Inner Light”, went for $48,000, after being initially estimated at $800-1200.
Oh, to have that kind on money to blow on a non-functioning prop.
Anyone watched Trekkies lately? Or Trekkies 2? How about Galaxy Quest?
Oh, and if I had an extra $48,500 lying around, I’d buy Grace a really nice DVD player and that episode, and put them in storage for when she got older. I’d then put the other $48,000 and change into a nice long-term investment for her.
Musical puns
So, we’re driving home after desert last night, and Grace asks for “Kids music” (preset 4 on the satelite radio).
A song called “Lonely Broccoli” comes on, in a 1950’s style.
I couldn’t decide if it was “broc-a-billy” or “do-wok”.
Two minor firsts
- Grace swam across the deep end of the pool without stopping. Multiple times
- She also dove all by herself for a diving stick.
Revisiting “The Inner Light”
So this morning Grace comes home from Grandparents, stopping with Daddy Cy at the store to get fingerpaints. Oh, some food, too.
Anyway, she’s using a paintbrush with the fingerpaints (Yay! Less mess!) when the brush falls off the table.
Paint-valanche!
she called out. I still hear myself whenever she opens her mouth…and I find myself wondering if she even knows the word “avalanche” that this particular recurring wordplay derives from.
Now, we go back to Friday. Conversation turned to ST:TNG, in particular, the poem about Data‘s cat, Spot, Ode to Spot. Why, you might ask? Oh, yes, now we go back a few weeks. We Grace got a new kitten 
, and named it Thunder. End second level of recursion, so back to last Friday…
While researching the Spot Ode, I pulled out the one and only DVD of ST:TNG edpisodes we have, The Picard Collection. The entire reason we bought it was for The Inner Light – the only Hugo award winning television episode of anything in the past 35 years.
I haven’t watched this episode for years — I can tell from my emotional state. I remember it being good, but not this good. Especially the scene with the daughter growing up (which everyone is still quoting 15 years later).
Seize the time, Meribor. Live now; make now always the most precious time. Now will never come again.
I love you, father.
That scene hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks after the “Paint-valanche” moment.
Stanislaw Lem has died
Extra innings? No, just an extra outing.
We decided to stay an extra day, to take the kids to White Sands.
It also allowed us to split the trip back into two days — a vast improvement over the trip out.
And Grace got to do sledding, without that awful cold that was always involved when I was a child. Lucky girl!
She especially liked the sand rocks!
I thought it was interesting how abruptly the mountains stopped.
Oh, and a few bad things about the resort:
- It was a pepsi place
- Being a casino on a reservation in a state that hasn’t legalized gambling means that they cannot allow alcohol in the casino. How lame is that?
- They ran out of hot water the last day we were there
- It was cold most of the time
Still, it was quite pretty, except for the lack of ocean.
Now, my revenge is complete.
So, Cy and I played a full 18 holes together today.
Having never played the back 9 before, we were both pretty amazed when I parred hole 10.
And, to make my revenge complete, it needs to be noted that I outdrove him on 15 of the 18 holes.
Oh, and we took Grace for a walk to feed the ducks popcorn!
Finally, I got to play craps, and we left the table up $450.
Panic, then an interesting round…and as good a happy ending as one could expect!
Why did we go to the mountains for spring break? To let Grace play in the snow!
So, this morning, we joined up with Cy’s sister’s family, and caravanned mostly up the mountain.
Several miles into the 12-mile trip up, Cy started feeling odd. He had just taken his blood pressure medication, so I told him to pull over and let me do the driving. So, off we start again, with me at the wheel. It’s a new car — this is perhaps the fifth time I’ve ever driven it. Well, let’s make sure it’s known that it is a truck. The two-lane road — actually, more like one and a half lanes — has no guardrail. It’s a mountain, so of course the road twists and turns, often sharply. I’m trying to stay as far from the edge as I can, but there is traffic going down.
That’s when I announce, as casually as I can:
I’m having a panic attack.
Cy’s response?
No, you’re not.
Oh, yeah. Let’s have an argument now! Have you ever tried to shut a stupid fscker up? And no matter how many times I told him to shut up, he just had to have the last word.
Finally, we got to another stopping point. Out we go, and Grace throws some snowballs at Cy while I calm down. We give Cy’s sister, who had stopped to let us catch up, the sleds (prompting the heartbreaking question “Why are you giving aunt Judy my sleds?”) and they continue on their way.
We, meanwhile, let G play for a few moments before we turn around. Let’s face it — we couldn’t go on.
Later that afternoon, Cy went to play golf. I thought it was too cold — and it was, when he started. He played the back nine, but I joined him for the front nine.I started out with 3 balls, marked “Top-Flite 3”. I ended with 3 balls, marked “Top-Flite 3”. I played nine holes without losing a single ball.
And, of course, my revenge is not complete, despite mentioning that Cy lost one on the front nine today…
And, when Judy got back, she told us it was too cold and windy to let the kids play in the snow.Yay! We did the right thing!
And the kicker is: she wasn’t even vaguely overweight!
So, we went golfing today. Actually, I caught up with Cy on the 10th hole, where we had to play from the red tees, because a wedding was taking place on the gold tee box there. Nice set-up.
Then, we play the back nine, and as we’re driving back to the car from the 18th hole, we pass the bride, waiting in the passenger seat of another golf cart.
In my mind, I immediately saw that the driver was the person who was going to give her away, and he was going to drive her up the aisle in the cart. She would get out, and the rigamarole about “Who gives this woman…” “…I do” would be followed by the protracted beeeeeeeeeeep as he put the cart into reverse and backed up to his seat.
I know I’d love for that to happen at my wedding!
Pun + lunch = punch
So, Damon and I go to lunch today. At Zen.
He orders the spicy chicken bowl, white meat, white rice.
I order the spicy chicken bowl, white meat, brown rice.
He comments
Ah, one of those brown-rice heathens, eh?
To which my reply is:
Hey, I’m not a riceist!
He’s still trying not to hit me…
Browser crash reduces humor effect
But I read a line on slashdot that I wanted to share:
You should have let Schrodinger look after it.
So, Grace is 4 today
So that makes it 4 years ago yesterday that we made our first visit to the hospital to let them know what was coming, and 4 years ago today that we got caught in traffic on the way back to the hospital for the third time in 24 hours…
She likes her left-handed clubs, however!�