Now you can determine Bush’s talking points by generating the text that will appear behind him as he stands at the podium… includes the infamous “Mission Accomplished” backdrop, where you can fill in something more accurate, like “Mission Impossible” or “Operation Vietnam” or make “Total Waste of Taxpayer Money.” My personal favorite, which I tried on all the backgrounds…. “I am a giant moron.”
I drove to my grandmother’s house in Brighton, Iowa on Wednesday last week. Brighton is in south eastern Iowa, an hour north and west of Burlington. My younger brother Gary went with me, and he was very cool to ride with because he’s interesting and funny, despite the constant backseat driving. 🙂 He’s twenty-five, single and a Wabash graduate, BTW, in case you know any single girls. We stopped in Peoria, Illinois on the way to get photos of the Uniroyal Gal. We stayed at the Super 8 Motel in Washington, Iowa, which is about 13 miles north of Brighton, because Brighton doesn’t actually have a motel. It’s rather small.
My three other brothers all drove also; Todd and Paul drove their new trucks, too. Paul hit a deer on the way, unfortunately, and damaged the front of his truck, which I just realized I should have taken a picture of, but didn’t.
On Thursday, we all stayed around Grandma’s and ate dinner, then opened Christmas presents. All the male relatives got gag underwear, which they tried on over their pants for a photo. My grandmother gave us beautiful plates that she hand-painted herself, which will I will be hanging in my dining room.
On Friday, we went to the Amana Colonies to eat at the Ox Yoke Inn and to shop. The Amana Colonies were formed in 1854 by a german religious order who bought 18,000 acres of land in Iowa. They aren’t Amish, although there is a large Amish settlement nearby in Kalona, Iowa. Kalona is where we stop to get cheese curds every year. I bought a lot of great things this year at the Amana Colonies, including wine and beer for New Years Eve.
On Saturday we stopped at my aunt Rosemary’s farm for cinnamon rolls and coffee (recipe for the rolls will be posted soon!) and then started the six hour drive home.
They’re doing a film version of the Chronicles of Narnia.
That’s so cool. I loved these books when I was a kid, and I bought the boxed set a few years back and re-read them. The film version is being done by Peter Jackson, the producer of the Lord of the Rings, and will use some of the same production and design people, which is so fitting, because Narnia’s creator, C. S. Lewis was a lifelong friend of J. R. R. Tolkien.
“The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.”
— Source: The American Heritage� Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright � 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Notice that the object of terrorist activity is “people or property” — people typically meaning unarmed citizens, not members of the military or of the government. My point here is that the word terrorism has been thrown around a lot over the past several years to describe actions that are not really terrorism, most notably anything that has happened in Iraq since we declared war on them.
I spent Thanksgiving weekend at my Grandparent’s house in Brighton, Iowa with the rest of my family. I should post more about it, but I have a ton of stuff to do at work today and not very much time to do it in, so more later.
1) Had fun at Girls Game Night at Outword Bound books.
2) Washed my truck and cleaned it all out.
3) Raked my leaves.
4) Bought a table, a cabinet and copper trellis from Urban Bloom, because they’re going out of business.
5) Visited my mom to take her Dutch Letters, a book, and bought several other books.
7) Helped Dan and Doug unbox ornaments for their Christmas trees.
8) Visited Tim and Avi’s Salvage Yard.
9) Sorted out all the door and window trim I had and picked out enough to put in the living room.
10) Upgraded the operating system on my iMac to 10.3.1
11) Messed up my e-mail so I can’t download it. (That’ll be fixed soon!)
This weeks edition looks at George’s visit to England, where he had to cancel an address to the British Parliament because his handlers found out that some British lawmakers planned on heckling his speech. On camera. Also, the conservative new outlets are thrilled about Michael Jackson’s arrest because it took over the news.
Tom Tomorrow had a great new cartoon about what life is like inside the bubble for our “flight-suit Georgie”.
