Death Masks

Alfred Hitchcock


Benjamin Franklin


General Robert E. Lee


Ludwig van Beethoven


Napoleon Bonaparte


Isaac Newton


Ulysses S. Grant

Eeek!

Hurricane Frances

[click for larger image]

I received my first issue of Roads & Bridges magazine today!

After getting sprayed three times because of Shawn's allergies I said cover your nose when you sneeze. His reply: "No thank you."

Mark your calendars: October 15 is when the CDC will post the first flu activity report of the 2004-2005 flu season.

2004-2005 Influenza Vaccine Production

Vaccine production is on schedule, and no delays are anticipated, according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and vaccine manufacturers. However, it is still early in the manufacturing process, and issues can arise. The three manufacturers of influenza vaccine anticipate total influenza vaccine production of between 90 and 100 million doses. Between six and eight million of those doses will include reduced amounts of thimerosal.
[source]

One year ago today Goliath left us.

I crack myself up sometimes.

Our owl decoy doesn't work. At least it doesn't scare away rabbits. There was one tonight sitting just a couple of feet in front of the post that the owl is on.

The rabbit didn't make it near the trap yet. He went just to the edge of our tomato patch. The trap is on the other side. Right now I have it baited with a piece of asparagus that I had frozen in the freezer. I think I will get an apple for bait.

The instructions also said that apple vinegar works and fox urine will work. Weird. I am fairly attractive, so I think I will try taking a whiz on the trap tomorrow and see if it really does work.

Air France told a woman with no limbs that a "torso cannot possibly fly on its own." Obviously they did not believe that a "torso" can still sue them back to the stone ages.

This is my chipmunk trap that I have have had for a few seasons:


18"x5"x5"

This is the rabbit trap that we just bought yesterday:


24"x7"x7

A quick hit-and-run update:

I bought a rabbit trap and a decoy owl today at Farm And Fleet. Rabbits love hostas and green pepper plants.

We caught our third chipmunk of the season. They have done too much digging under the front porch. Once I think I have caught most of them I need to back fill their digging to prevent a wet basement.

We are going to watch the movie Cold Mountain in a few minutes.

We bought a lot of cool Simpson's action figures at the comic convention yesterday. Pictures to follow.

Beautiful weather.

That's it for now.

Did I mention that I love the Summer Olympics?



Germany's Stephanie Pohl (R) jumps for the ball aginst China's Lu Wang during the preliminary rounds of the women's beach volleyball at Athens 2004 Olympic Games, August 14, 2004.

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Germany's Okka Rau, right, hides her hands behind her back as she sends a signal to her partner Stephanie Pohl, left, during their match at the Olympic Beach Volleyball Centre in Athens, Greece on Saturday, Aug. 14, 2004. The German team beat China's Lu Wang and Wenhui You in two sets, 21-17 and 21-18.

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Australia's Summer Lochowicz, left, hugs teammate Kerri Pottharst as China's Wang Fei watches following their beach volleyball match in the 2004 Athens Olympics in Athens, Greece on Saturday, Aug. 14, 2004. Austrailia won 21-18 and 21-18.

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Dick and Linda are OK per this e-mail:

In spite of what you saw on TV or read in the paper, it was all very anticlimactic here in ######. We had two brief, but heavy, showers before I went to bed at 10:00. The worst of the hurricane was supposed to hit our area between midnight and 8:00 AM. I woke up at 12:00, 2:00. and 4:30. Each time I went to the front door and looked out. The driveway was wet but it wasn't raining. The air was calm.

This morning, there are no branches down nor any sign that there had been a major storm. I haven't turned on the TV but I think it must have veered out to sea before it reached northeast Florida. I guess that makes it a non-event.

People are out on the golf course playing although it appears to be 'cart-path-only'.

Olympic flame?

How many people do you know with a red 747 Swingline stapler? I want to be one of them.

I love the Olympics!

Russian water polo player Maria Yaina prepares for team training at the Athens Olympic Aquatic centre on August 13, 2004. The water polo competition starts on August 15.

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Brazil's swimmer Mariana Brochado stands near the pool before a training session in the Olympic Aquatic Centre in Athens, August 12, 2004. The swimming competition at the Athens 2004 Olympic Games starts on August 14.

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Logan Tom, outside hitter for the U.S. Women's Olympic Volleyball Team, is one of six women featured in the September issue of FHM magazine as part of the magazine's salute to some of Team USA's standout female athletes.

I want a Big-Bang carbide cannon from The Conestoga Company, Inc.



They are very loud, but there is no fire or gunpowder required. You light it with water!

This is the second $4 hanging geranium that we transplanted into one of our pots on the patio. They have both really filled out big in just a few weeks. Surprising.

This is right under our family room window. A hosta on the right; I think another goat's beard in the middle (but I think I am wrong) and I am not sure what the plant on the right is.

This is on the west side of the back yard. There are two peony plants in the center that you can't really see. Right now they are just sticks. The one on the left right above the stone head just sprouted some leaves this weekend. That's a big hosta in the front, and I don't know what the rest of the plants are.

The other $4 hanging pot on the back fence. I am really surprised (and happy!) at how well they are doing and the amount of flowers they keep producing.

These are three heirloom tomato plants we planted. It was very late in the season to plant them, but Franks had them on sale for something stupid like 50¢, so if we don't get any fruit, no big deal. There is a bell pepper plant behind them that you can't see in this picture that the rabbits have taken a likeing to. It still has leaves and the start of some buds, but I don't know for how long.

Another shot along the back of the yard. That is a type of grass above and to the left of that stone head. A hosta is in the center of the frame. I forget wat the other plants are. There is another grass half out of frame on the left.

This is the bed along the back of the yard again. The exposed phone line is just out of frame to the left. The large plant just above and to the left of the stone head is called a goat's beard. It is one of Mom and Dad's favorites. The plant closest to the top of the frame was transplanted from our front yard. We were going to through it out, but Mom lobbied to save it. I'm glad she did; it looks good there.

Another $4 hanging basket. This is one of the two that is on the back fence. I forget if it is the one on the east side or the west side.

This is from our patio looking directly behind our house (looking south).

This is along the back of the yard facing east. At the top left of the picture is where I dug up the telephone line! They still have not been out to re-bury it yet.

This was one of the $4 hanging baskets. I don't think it was growing past the bottom of the pot when we got it.

I wanted to post some pictures I took tonight after work of the plants and landscaping that Mom and Dad helped us with about a month ago. These geraniums were in a discounted hanging basket for $4! We just transplanted them into our patio pot.

The extremists on both sides, Republicans and Democrats, are very frustrating to me. The political environment has gotten so polarized that the issues are not important anymore. It is entirely their side against my side. There is no more political discourse.

The conservatives entirely underestimate how much society has helped get them where they are. They think everything they have in their lives is 100% a result of their hard work. As a result they are usually against anything that doesn’t directly benefit them. They miss the intangibles in life. Having one less uneducated person in the world means there will be one more person to make a contribution to society, the economy, etc.

People on the far left seem to think the government has unlimited riches that are secretly stashed away and that there should be less income and wealth disparity. There needs to be incentive for risk takers and the people that go above and beyond, other wise our society will be stuck in mediocrity.

When I first became politically-aware, which was right around my last year in college, I was a proud Republican. I voted a straight Republican ticket. Looking back over the last 15 years however, the Republican Party has totally changed. The Democrat party now seems to be more similar to the 1989 Republican Party.

The Republicans now stand for big government rather than smaller government. The economy was the Republicans main focus back then. Now it seems to be short-term benefits to taxpayers at the long-term expense of the country's infrastructure and human capital.

The Republicans will say they are protecting the Constitution, and in the same breath announce an initiative that is blatantly unconstitutional. Then a year or two later, when the Supreme Court rules that said initiative is unconstitutional, scream that the country is being ruined by the courts. Flag burning is the best example of this. I despise flag burners. I love my country. But a law making flag burning illegal is so obviously unconstitutional I am always surprised when a senator tries again to get this ball rolling. If you think about it, if this law did pass, all of the bumpkins that wear black t-shirts with images of the American flag waving above their favorite Nascar driver would be violating the law.

I think the country is in big trouble if we don't get back to a more moderate political climate.

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." -- Aristotle

He's brilliant I tell ya.

U.S. President George W. Bush holds an ear of raw sweet corn that he ate on a visit to the Bettendorf farmers' market during a campaign stop in Iowa, August 4, 2004. Bush is on a three-day campaign swing through middle America in the hotly contested states of Iowa, Minnesota, Ohio and Michigan.

WASHINGTON -- John McCain is attacking as "dishonest and dishonorable" a new ad questioning John Kerry's heroism in Vietnam, but the White House is declining to condemn the ad.

The commercial, which is scheduled to be aired in several cities, features Vietnam veterans accusing the Democratic nominee of lying about his war record and betraying his comrades by opposing the conflict.

McCain said something similar was "pulled" on him when he ran against President George W. Bush in the 2000 primaries.

The Arizona GOP senator is a friend of Kerry's and also a decorated war hero.

"I deplore this kind of politics," McCain said. "I think the ad is dishonest and dishonorable. As it is, none of these individuals served on the boat (Kerry) commanded. Many of his crew have testified to his courage under fire. I think John Kerry served honorably in Vietnam. I think George Bush served honorably in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War."

Asked about the ad as the president flew to Ohio, Press Secretary Scott McClellan said Bush has never questioned Kerry's military service.

But McClellan did not denounce the specific ad.

He did note it is being aired by an ostensibly independent group and Kerry should join in calling for all such ads to be pulled.

Bush has been the object of lots of ads by what McClellen called "shadowy" groups.

Much of the information that led authorities to raise the terror alert at several large financial institutions in the NY and D.C. areas was 3 or 4 years old... NYT Tuesday Page One Splash To Claim: Intelligence and law enforcement officials 'had not yet found concrete evidence that a terror plot or preparatory surveillance operations were still under way'...
[source: Drudge Report]