An excerpt from an e-mail my sister sent me this morning:

Shawn said out of no where this morning while lying in bed, I wish I could see Uncle Brad....

Now that I am a proud owner of an air compressor I can buy cool pneumatic tools like:

Only $9.99 at Harbor Freight!


Also only $9.99!


The compressor only has a 2 gallon tank, so I would expect to run out of pressure after just a minute or so of use, but for my little tinkering-type jobs it should be adequate.

Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try.

Jays Potato Chips (Chicago's home town potato chip) just introduced Sweet Potato chips. Very good! A 21 gram serving only has 5 grams of carbohydrates and 50% of the RDA of vitamin A.

Right now they only sell them in Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, Iowa and Missouri.

A few things I found out about cargo pants:

• Cargo pants hail from World War II, when the military used only olive drab, or "OD green" fabric. Now official cargo pants are available in camouflage colors.
  
  
• Cargo pockets were designed for utility. The deep pockets on the legs could tote plenty, and they were easily accessible.
  
  
• Official Army cargoes are six-pocket pants with a double seat, double knee, pull-tab waist and drawstring bottom.
  
  
• Zippered pants were a staple during WWII. Now buttons are the norm, because in battle it's easier to replace a button than a zipper.
  
  
• Computers have made their mark on military garb in the form of digital camouflage.

I got my cargo pants in the mail today...and I think I'm in love.

Please read this guys thoughts on cargo pants. (He is a good writer. You will enjoy reading him.) It is exactly what I went through and feel. I think I will be ordering a blue pair and an olive drab pair very soon.

They are so comfortable. I can dress them up a bit with a tucked in sport shirt and some nicer shoes, or go totally casusal with a t-shirt and sneakers. Plenty of room. Soft. The practicallity of the large side pockets. All this for only $20 at Old Navy.

I think James Carville is so ugly it makes him cool. He also talks really fast, and can be difficult to understand at times, which evokes images of Hunter S. Thomson or Keith Richards which makes him even more cool.

I just scored about a $1,000 of consultant work from another agency! It will be fun stuff too.

I am thinking about ordering this t-shirt. Those Jesuits are something else.


(St. John's is my high school.)

I don't belong to an organized political party; I'm a Democrat.
--Will Rogers

What hurricane Ivan left behind in Point State Park in downtown Pittsburgh.

I ordered my first pair of cargo pants from Old Navy tonight.



I also ordered a pair of regular fit jeans:



I also ordered a pair of classic fit jeans which are slim through the thigh and have a tapered leg. If I don't like the way they feel we can just return them to the local Old Navy store.



We ordered from their website because they usually don't carry my size in their stores.

There were two goldfinches that spent about 10 - 15 minutes hanging on our feeding sock together this afternoon. I got the binoculars out for a better look. It is amazing how they can get those little thistle seeds open so fast.

May I introduce Jeanne to you...

Here we go again...


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Just when you thought it couldn't get any more ridiculous than the Hummer...



It weighs 6 tons!

A production company needed to shoot a commercial for Meijer today on one of our roads but forgot to pull a permit. Our permitting department took care of them, and to show their appreciation someone came back with three large deluxe pizzas for the office. Cool!

When Goliath was around we had to be careful about where we threw out used bars of soap. For some reason he liked to eat soap, and he would dig through the trash if he smelled soap. He would then eat the soap, and about half of the time get sick and throw it back up. Surprisingly that is a good memory. At the time it was a pain the in the butt, but now it was just one of his cute quirks.

I haven't worked out on the exercise bike for quite a while. I just got done doing 20 minutes on it and kept my heart rate at about 130 bpm for most of the time. I wanted to do 30 minutes but at 20 I started to feel like I might be pushing it a little bit.

After a few more 20 minute sessions I should be back up to a comfortable 30 minute session. I should also be able to comfortably get my heart rate up to about 145 bpm. I feel pretty good right now too. I always feel good after exercising, it's just getting motivated to do it that is tough. It's also easy to fall into a slump.

I don't know anything about the picture, I just think it is cool.

Earlier this spring we were at a friend’s house, and in their backyard they had a leg from a pair of lady’s nylon stockings filled with thistle seed and hung from a post. The thing was covered with (OK, three) goldfinches plucking the seeds that would stick out of the stocking. I thought that was so neat and intended to do it too.

Fast forward several months to last night in Meijers. We were doing some late night shopping when I noticed a big display of feeders and seed. We spent some time looking things over and were about to get a plastic goldfinch feeder and a bag of thistle. I had the feeder picked out and then I was looking over the seeds. I noticed a five pound jug of thistle with a free sock feeder stuffed inside. We put the plastic feeder back and got the seed and sock feeder combo instead.

At 10 PM last night was hanging it in the tree that is right in view of our family room window. I was thinking that maybe the birds would not find it because it was too late in the season (what season I do not know), or that it was too hidden, or not out in the open enough, or too close to the house, or maybe you need a certain kind of landscaping to initially draw the goldfinches to the area, etc. Also, how do goldfinches know that a white sock has thistle seed in it? The seeds don’t have any smell, and I never heard of birds having an acute sense of smell.

Anyway, at 6 PM today I saw a goldfinch hanging upside down on the sock eating away at the thistle seeds! Cool! I am going to make sure I keep it filled up all winter.

I read online that goldfinches molt for the winter and turn an olive-drab color, but come springtime they turn back to a bright bright yellow.

The plastic tube feeder we were initially looking at was called an upside-down feeder. The perches for the birds is above the hole were the seed comes out, so they hang upside down while they are feeding. Maybe that is how they normally get seeds from a thistle plant in the wild; hang on the flower upside down while they pluck seeds.

Oh, the five pound jug of seed (actually 4.9 pounds) was about nine or ten dollars and was made by a company called Kaytee. It does not actually say thistle seed on the label either. It says nyjer seed.

These go on sale October 4. I have to get a sheet.

So I call up my preacher
I say, "Give me strength for Round 5."
He said , "You don't need no strength, you need to grow up son."
I said, "Growing up leads to growing old and then to dying
And dying to me don't sound like all that much fun."

I like to go to Ruby Tuesday for their salad bar, and I'll let you in on a secret: There are three different kinds of lettuce on their salad bar.

The lettuce in the biggest and most prominent bowl is your standard iceberg. I don't mind iceberg, but their's has been yellowish and old looking lately.

To the right of this bowl is a much smaller bowl filled with very fresh romaine lettuce. A very good choice, but not the best choice.

Behind both of these bowls, way in the back, is a bowl of very fresh mesclun. Mesclun is my favorite salad base, followed by romaine, spinach, and then iceberg. The mesclun doesn't have frisée, my favorite mesclun component, but it is still very good.

Try it and let me know what you think.

They also have a delicious fresh apple and maple salad. Sounds weird but also very delicious.

Be warned: no more check floating starting next month.

We watched The Triplets of Belleville last night. I loved it! It is a French animated feature and there is no dialog, so there is no language barrier. Good story. Stunning animation. Fun. Rent it!

We also watched Hidalgo over the weekend. I didn't like it. It is about a Pony Express courier competing in a 3,000 mile race in Arabia in 1890. Sounds exciting, but is actually boring.

Hurricane Ivan... Here we go again?

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This map is updated every three hours.

We think we are going to try Jimmy Buffet's restaurant Cheese Burger in Paradise for lunch today.

Dad, could you see me in one of these? I saw a 1994 with trailer and a Honda outboard for only $4,100.

West Wight Potter sailboats

Our Saturday So Far

Today we started out by getting up to go dog walking. We have not walked dogs in two weeks because of Tim, Lisa, and Shawn visiting one weekend, and because of our trip to Mall of America on the following weekend.

We drove through McDonald’s on the way there and each got an Egg McMuffin for breakfast.

Normally when we get to the shelter on Saturday mornings the place is deserted. Maybe one or two cat volunteers and one or two staff members. Today the place was packed. Five people just for dogs. We each grabbed a leash and a dog and went outside. I got a big mild-mannered 10 year old named Douglas, and Sheri got a cute energy filled adolescent named Feynman.

After getting poops out of both of them we met up in the parking lot next door and sat on the curb with our dogs. They played really nice together and had a lot of personality. The young dog needed a bath, and a considerable amount of dander on his black fur. His ears were also very dirty and bothering him. Since there were so many people volunteering we didn’t have to worry about getting all of the dogs out, so we decided to help out Feynman.

We picked him up and put him in the wash tub and I found a nice medicated shampoo. We made sure we worked it deep into his coat so his skin could get healed. After that Sheri found some ear medicine. We squirted that into his ears and then massaged it around for a few minutes. Then we got some paper towels wrapped around our fingers and kept swizzleing out both ears until they came out relatively clean.

He seemed much more comfortable and happier after that. We did our good deed for the day, but I was soaked to the skin; both from him shaking during his bath, and because it was hot and sticky here this morning.

Next we went to the post office to mail a couple of packages.

Right next door to the post office is a Frank’s Nursery store. I wanted to see if they had any tomato cages on sale for next year. They did not, but I picked up a bag of Turf Builder. I will probably put that on tomorrow after I cut the grass.

I was starting to dry out and was getting not so self conscious being seen in public, so we decided to go to the annual Labor Day street party called The Last Fling here in town. We just walked around for about an hour looking at people and ate a corn dog. We like doing that kind of stuff.

By the time we were done we were both really affected by the heat. Sheri’s face was bright red, and I felt a little cloudy-headed. We decided to go find a place to get a drink in air conditioning and read the paper.

On the way to the car I stopped in the gourmet store to look for a bottle of prepared Colman’s mustard. Didn’t find any.

We went to the neighborhood McDonalds, but as we were about to order I noticed that it was very stuffy in there, so we turned around and left to go to another McDonalds.

I got a large iced tea and Sheri got a small ice cream and we read the paper for about an hour. I also called Mom to check in. Shawn was there and I talked to him for about five minutes. When Mom told him that Uncle Brad was on the phone the 3.5 year old said “You’re kidding me!” What a little man.

We were about to go home, but I got the urge to walk through the Best Buy next store. Didn’t buy anything, but was really tempted to buy a $1,000 Toshiba laptop that was on sale for only $700. The sale ends today, but I think we will see similar sales between now and Christmas. We think this will be what we get ourselves for Christmas this year.

My plan was to come home, rest for a little bit, and then cut the grass. I ended up napping for a couple of hours instead. It was too warm to cut the grass anyway, and tomorrow will be cooler.

I took a shower and that brings me to right now, downstairs on the couch, typing this.

I have a few others things I have been meaning to post about: our trip to the Mall of America, my thoughts on George W. Bush and John Kerry, our dinner last night, and a few other random thoughts that have been going through my head.

This entry has 793 words.

Florida ordered a mandatory evacuation of 750,000 residents.

The state as an estimated population of 17,019,068, which means 4.4% of the state's population is evacuated.

Ahhhh Memories....

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