Debate 2.0.

Just in time for the debate between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin, I received an email from Simon Owens, of Bloggasm, pointing me to C-SPAN's gift to Web 2.0 and political junkies everywhere, Debate Hub. The way the Hub works, and makes the debate more interesting, is by gathering all relevant and irrelevant information from blogs and sites throughout the strands that make up the World Wide Web. This is a very interesting experiment which provides an experience of the presidential debates that you can only get from the web. Gizmodo did a nice, little write up on the Hub.

Chinese imports.

Melamine, an industrial chemical which poisoned thousands of Chinese children, has made its way to the United States and into some candy sold in Connecticut. I understand that large companies need to make products in China in order to increase their profits. But what doesn't make sense to me, as a consumer, is why aren't there more safeguards and controls in place to assure that this kind of thing does not happen again.

Palin replaced by a deer.

This is a work of fiction written by comedian Andy Borowitz. And, like all great works of fiction, it rings very true. It also raises the question: is Sarah Palin the stupidest Republican VP candidate since Dan Quayle? That's up for debate. And it is a debate I would like to see, not Palin versus Biden, but Palin versus Quayle.

Cellphone fiction.

Centuries before the invention of cellphones and text messaging, Japanese poets came up with haiku, a poetic form perfectly suited for these modern forms of communication. Now Jakucho Setouchi, a Japanese novelist turned Buddhist nun came out with a cellphone novel. This novel joins others of its kind which are delivered via text messages and are popular with young Japanese women.

The Japanese have always been early adapters of new technology partly due to the fact that Japan is a major developer of new technology. It would be interesting to see if these cellphone novels would become popular in other parts of the world, like Europe for example, which are massive text message users.

Surreality.

These people now have their own show on TLC. And they are expecting their eighteenth (that's number 18) child. Does anybody have a time machine we can use to send them back to the Dark Ages?

Change is coming.

Land before time.

Sarah Palin was an inspired choice for John McCain's running mate. She is a hockey mom who became a mayor of a small Alaskan town and went on to govern the entire state. This might make you believe that she was chosen for something other than her gender. This might make you believe that you too can rise from obscurity to the second highest office in this country.

The truth, however, is far different than the Photoshopped official portraits and messages approved by the candidate might suggest. The truth is that she believes mankind coexisted with dinosaurs and that the Earth is only 6,000 years old. Despite what the religious right may want you to believe, there is no room for such ideas in government because such ideas are insane. And we, having had eight years of prime, grade "A" ignorance in the White House, can not afford four years of sheer insanity. I believe that everybody's opinion has merit, but ideas like this have no more room in the 21st Century America than the ravings of an Austrian failed artist who attempted to reshape Europe sixty years ago.

We neither need, nor can not afford leaders who will pray for a solution in a critical situation instead of thinking of one. In case the $700 billion bailout of Wall Street didn't serve as a wake up call or a hint, this country is in deep trouble. Besides a two front war we are waging, the economy is slowly taking a trip back to the 1930s. I am not an economist and can not predict if we're heading for another not-so-great depression, but it sure feels like the ship of state soon will not be able to afford the fuel it runs on and run aground.

In this situation we don't need to be told to vote for somebody simply because they are a woman. We need to be told the truth. The truth is that she is wrong for the McCain presidential campaign, for the Republican party, and, most of all, she is wrong for America.

Green ducks.

Paul Newman died.

Paul Newman has died. He was 83 and had cancer. I loved his collaborations with Robert Redford in Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid as well as The Sting. He was menacing as Judge Roy Bean and as unbreakable as he was rebellious in Cool Hand Luke. Even though some people perceived him as a movie star, he was, first and foremost, an actor and he was great at his craft.

Election '08.

If you really want to know what other people in this country think about the upcoming election, Twitter has set up a page with you in mind: Election 2008. It moves pretty fast, but you can pause it by holding your mouse over a tweet.

Space walk.

China has reached the next milestone in their exploration of space. Even though it has been almost fifty years since Russia and the US achieved this, it is still an impressive achievement considering that China is only the third country in the world to put a man in orbit. I wonder if they are going to go to the moon next?

Sunset.

Show me the money.

According to CNN, the $700 billion that is needed to bail out Wall Street amounts to $2,000 per each taxpayer. That is not a lot of money if you think about it. What's $2,000? It's a used car, or a cruise, or a Swiss watch.

However, this is not the money I am willing to spend helping out the people whose incompetence and/or greed got them in this situation in the first place. If each taxpayer gives Wall Street $2,000 there is no guarantee that they will not blow the save and find themselves in this exact situation again.

So the best solution in this case is to turn the ownership of these troubled financial institutions over to the taxpayers themselves after the bail out. If the government, who officially will be bailing out Wall Street, does not like this idea, they need to take these banks over. This is the only way anybody will see a return on their investment.

Riding longhorn.

Making connections.

Email Our Military, or eMOM, a Miami based organization that supports American troops via email and other forms of morale boosting correspondence has partnered up with Tatango. Tatango is a Seattle based company which connects groups via text messaging. Read the eMOM blog for more details on this partnership.

Giant pumpkin.

Unofficial merchandise.

This is a sign that hangs by a booth selling Bloomsburg Fair t-shirts. If the significance of this picture escapes you, check out The Blog of Unnecessary Quotation Marks.

Talk like a pirate.

Today is the Talk Like a Pirate Day. So here is the picture of the two guys who came up with this holiday back in 1995. Now go out there and and talk like a pirate before I make ye walk the plank, ye bloody land lovers. Arrr!

Giving it away.

Rookie receiver started celebrating before making a touchdown. I know that the protective mask obstructs a player's view, but I don't think it would be difficult to tell you're not in the end zone. This, to me, is a typical Philadelphia Beagles moment.

To boldly go.

George Takei married Brad Altman, his partner of 21 years, in Los Angeles on Sunday. Forty years ago, when Takei was playing Sulu on the original Star Trek, this was an impossible dream even in the idealistic future depicted on that show. This was an impossibility even a few years ago, but it seems that, at least in a small way, the future Gene Roddenberry envisioned is becoming a reality. And this wedding, to paraphrase a famous quote, is a small step for two men, a giant leap for mankind.

Oops, she did it again.

It seems the Republicans might get more trouble from Palin than they bargained for. Alaskan lawmakers decided to subpoena her husband as part of their abuse of power investigation against her.

Read before you leap.

Recently I wrote about how it is important for bloggers to check their sources prior to posting. And then I almost did not follow that rule myself. This is what happened.

I was checking Twitter before leaving to go pick up my wife from work and saw this post:

BreakingNewsOn : Republican VP nominee Sarah Palin tells ABC News that war may be necessary if Russia invades another country.

Reading that made me nervous because the idea of a potential Vice President who supports a war with, or rather against, Russia scares me more than the idea of war with Russia. So I, upon arriving at my wife's work, proceeded to tell her about this gem of a news story. As somebody who is familiar with Russian history and its military I was convinced we're all doomed if Sarah Palin gets to be the second banana.

After we got home I sought out the article which would back up the quote I read. My search lead me to a number of videos I did not want to watch and then to a story that answered all my questions. The quote, it turned out, had to do with Georgia joining NATO and the US defending George in case of another attack by Russia. Palin was talking about defending one's ally which is a completely rational reason to go to war against a nation such as Russia.

I am really glad that I did not get on my little soapbox, waved my banner in the air, and proudly thumped my chest declaring for one and all to hear that the Republicans made a huge mistake with Plain as a running mate and that she, if elected, will upgrade this smoldering world wide conflict into global war.

So, like the title says, read before you leap. You'll be glad you did.

Unhappy anniversary.

This photo was taken by Mustang Gal.

Shopping.

Brand, Bush, and bull.

Today, on the Rick Sanchez 3 o'clock CNN show a topics of Russell Brand and his comments during the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards were discussed. It seems that Brand called George W. Bush a retarded cowboy. I would love to agree with Brand, but calling Bush retarded is unfair to people with mental retardation because I am sure they have more higher brain function than Bush.

To discuss MTV in general, and this incident in particular, Sanchez called upon Rachel Campos-Duffy, a former Real World cast member. Campos-Duffy, a conservative blogger and mother of five, proceeded to say that MTV has gone down hill in the years since she appeared on it. It's nice to hear Campos-Duffy have such nice things to say about her former employer. Especially since she owes her career to the appearance on Real World: San Fransisco and several subsequent MTV shows.

But what bothers me the most about this situation is that CNN, a serious news agency, considers the comments of a comedian on an irrelevant awards show worth reporting on. This is sad, very, very sad.

Chicken on the go.

KFC moves the secret recipe, Nation holds its collective breath.

CNN and Twitter.

I have been getting my breaking news from CNN via Twitter by following cnnbrk. This is a very useful, not to mention quick, way to keep up with the world as a whole. The way this works is simple. Every time something newsworthy happens, cnnbrk posts it on Twitter and I get a text message on my phone so I don't have to use the phone's browser at all.

I like receiving these updates because when you live in a small town like Bloomsburg, it's very easy to forget about the greater world that lies beyond the county line. Also I don't usually watch CNN or other news channels, but I like to at least try to stay informed. And this allows me to stay informed to a degree.

Now I am following Rick Sanchez, a CNN anchor who incorporated Twitter into his show recently. And even though I have not watched his show yet, I am not surprised by this move because using Twitter makes it faster and easier to communicate with the audience then the more traditional email.

Fall kick off.

Thought of the day.

If today is the first day of the rest of my life, what is the rest of my life going to look like?

New skills.

Watching a child grow is an amazing thing. By now, this is not a new idea, in fact, it has been around as long as humanity itself, but I am sure that every person who has a child comes to this realization at some point.

After my daughter turned 20 months old in August, I started to wonder where the time has gone. I quite vividly remember her birth and her first birthday celebration, she opened all her presents herself. But now I find myself wondering where the time went and, more importantly, what to get her for her second birthday which will be here in four short months.

As my daughter grows, she develops new and astounding, at least to me, skills. Yesterday, for example, she climbed into her high chair by herself. This is like climbing Mt. Everest without oxygen in terms of toddler accomplishments. As I watched her perform this incredible feat, I was both extremely scared and extremely proud because it was something she attempted all by herself and succeeded.

Chrome copyright issues.

In his latest post Wil Wheaton refers to a post by Charlie Stross to explain why he won't be using Chrome. The big problem both Wil and Charlie have with Chrome is the copyright section of the user agreement. Charlie even links to a story in The Register which quotes the following from the user agreement:

11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights that you already hold in Content that you submit, post or display on or through the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content, you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content that you submit, post or display on or through the Services. This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.

This looks like no matter what you do, Google owns you. However, the same story that Charlie links to has been updated as of this morning to show the new version of the copyright section of the agreement:

11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights that you already hold in Content that you submit, post or display on or through the Services.

The problem, it seems, has been solved. It also appears that bloggers, like other journalists, need to check their facts before getting up on their soapboxes and proclaiming their authority.

Google Chrome.

So, like pretty much everybody else out there, I downloaded Google's new web browser Chrome. And now a day later I can say that I like it. I can't say much more than this because I have not had as much time to play with it as I would have liked but it seems to be a good browser. 

At first I could not get used to the tabs being on top of the browser. This is a purely stylistic thing since I was used to Firefox and its tab location. Chrome gives you something that other browsers do not have - you can drag a single tab away from the others making it a separate window. You can also rearrange the tabs by putting them where you want them. This allows you to have a number of sites next to each other to simplify tasks such as comparing prices.

There are other features which I have yet to discover. But restoring the previously opened tabs upon start up is one feature I happily enabled. I used it rather heavily in Firefox and shutting down my PC without it would have proved somewhat difficult.

Blue horse.

Lion.

Musical meerkat.

I found this meerkat at a Syracuse zoo sitting on a bongo drum in the corner of its enclosure. There weren't any zoo keepers nearby to explain the presence of a drum, so this shall remain one of life's great mysteries.

Going backwards.

As I mentioned before I have been spending 10 hours a day for the last three weeks learning to be a truck driver. I am getting pretty good at the driving and shifting parts of the whole thing, but some of the maneuvers we have to perform perplex me a little.

One such maneuver is the alley dock which is a very straight forward, or straight backward rather, bit of driving which requires you to put a truck into a box outlined by four cones without hitting them. If you miss backing the truck into this box, you are allowed to pull up, straighten out, and attempt to back into the box again.

This is not a difficult thing to do, as my classmates demonstrate repeatedly, yet I have not found my key to getting this procedure under control. The instructional designer side of my brain tries to figure out how I can explain the alley dock to myself in terms and concepts that will make the most sense.

I know that everybody learns differently and that simply presenting the material to a learner and telling them to learn it is a lousy way to teach and is bound to fail. I also know that this class did not benefit from the use of such staples of instructional design as the ADDIE model, so I can not expect the pedagogy to adopt to my own learning style (which would be ideal in any teaching situation because it would result in a higher rate of success on the part of the learners, but also would be impractical since teaching the same material using different approaches would not be cost effective) and yet I seem to have a hard time putting the steps together in a successful sequence.

There is one more week of class before the CDL test and by that time I need to figure out how to solve the instructional design problem that lies before me. Whatever the outcome, being both the instructional designer and the learner is proving to be very difficult.

Games and sports.

As I mentioned before, I have been watching the Olympics for 28 years. In that time I have seen many changes take place, many new sports added. So I thought I would put together a list of sports that I think should be included in the future Olympics.

Here is that list:

• Polo - There are simply not enough horse events in the Olympics. There is already Water Polo which means that the regular, or Land Polo, game should also be represented. Besides, if we send multimillionaires to represent the US under the guise of the Men's Basketball Team, why not include some of the super rich, too.

• Bocce - This is a game that combines elements of both bowling and curling. Variations of this game are played throughout the world which means that there won't be a shortage of players. And the best part is: it's really old, the Ancient Romans had a game like Bocce.

• Street Luge - Winter Olympics have Luge, which is not as dangerous and as exciting to watch as Street Luge, so Summer Olympics should have Street Luge. And the host city won't even have to build a venue for this event. All you need is a steep downhill and a lot of hay bails, or used tires, to stop the racers from impacting nearby buildings.

• Shuffleboard - This is a game mainly played by older people. Since 30 is too old in some sports, and people are living longer these days, including it in the Olympics would increase the age of the Olympians. If Shuffleboard is included we might even see an octogenarian gold medalist.

Last two weeks.

I have been busy in the last two weeks. To improve my employability I started a CDL, which stands for Commercial Drivers License, class on August 4th. Since then I have a passed my permit test and am now learning to drive and maneuver a tractor trailer. This is the biggest vehicle I have ever driven and it can be a bit challenging. These classes last ten hours and take a lot out of you by the end of the day.

And when I wasn't busy with that I was watching the Summer Olympics. During the opening ceremonies it dawned on me that I have been watching various Olympics for the last 28 years. I can't remember if I watched the 1976 Summer Olympics since I was only three at the time, but my memory of watching the opening ceremonies of the Moscow Olympics four years later is quite vivid.

There are a couple Olympic issues, such as the Chinese Girls Gymnastics team and the new extra innings rule for baseball, I would like to address, but at present I do not have the time so I will focus on them later. Please stand by.

Holy cow.

This is a lifesized plastic cow that stands outside of a local ice cream shop during business hours. The owners like to dress her up on occasion, but I am not quite sure which holiday inspired this outfit.

Rainbow.

Time capsule.

I came across this sign hidden under a bush in a front yard on West Third Street.

Knoebels at night.

August afternoon.

This is a poem I wrote earlier today. I left the front door open after getting the mail and the lack of street noise inspired me.

August Afternoon

My front door is open

but I can not hear the street

that usually flows outside

Its flow has ebbed

on this Summer Saturday and

all the people who travel

Along this street have

gone elsewhere for the moment

leaving an empty quiet

behind them like a wake

Playing dress up.

Thought of the day.

Recently I watched a woman get in her Toyota Avalon and twice drive around the parking lot we were in. After watching her do this, it became apparent to me that she could not decide which way she wanted to go. Why is it that seemingly intelligent people lose IQ points after they get behind the wheel? Are we evolving into a new species, Homo Sapience Vehicular, which will be the same size physically but with a smaller brain completely incapable of abstract thinking?

Jesus and Mary.

I found these two in the toy section of my local Wal-Mart. According to the packaging, they are fully poseable and can talk. Joseph, however, was nowhere to be found.

No coffee for you.

The fact that Starbucks is closing 600 of its stores is not news. But ever since I heard about this I wondered if the one in downtown Bloomsburg will be among them. And, according to The Huffington Post article listing all 600 stores, it is. I am not surprised by this since the downtown also houses Bloomin' Bagels, a locally owned eatery, and Phillips Emporium, a performance space coupled with a bookstore and a coffee shop.

Both of these places serve coffee of better quality than Starbucks at a lower cost. But fear not, coffee lovers. If you desire a cup of Starbucks coffee you will be able to find it in Bloomsburg atop College Hill, on the first floor of the Bloomsburg University Library. It seems that the twentysomethings who inhabit B.U. can not survive between classes without infusions of overpriced coffee.

But, to quote Lenny Kravitz, what I really want to know is what does a character from the original Battlestar Galactica has to do with coffee?

Slow rider.

Life in a small Pennsylvania town can be very unhurried most of the time. But once in a while something creeps in to town to remind you how rural this place truly is. For example, after I parked my car, but before Lili and I could get out, I saw a combine (second in the on-coming lane) making its way down a busy street with its hazard lights blinking as if to remind people to slow down and enjoy this Summer day.

Midnight cookies.

My wife and I are making cookies for a shindig at her work. She found this recipe in a recipe box that takes up most of our kitchen. It calls for an equal number of X's and O's. The idea, I guess, is to play Tic Tac Toe if the cookies taste bad.

Driving.

Lili in a box.

Lili likes to get her toys out and spread them out in the living room. Today she decided to get into the box that used to contain her toys.

Home Run Derby.

In case you are like me and missed last night's Home Run Derby, here is an MLB blog that was created to keep up with the derby as it happened. I don't know how long it will be up, so check it out now.

Celebrity baseball.

Just in time for the All-Star Game I discovered that Alyssa Milano, the star of both large and small screen, is an L.A. Dodgers' fan. This isn't a particularly interesting fact and neither is the fact that she has dated Dodgers' starting pitcher Brad Penny. But what I did find interesting is that she has a blog called Touch 'em All dedicated to baseball.

I have read a few entries and found that they are well written. The part that made me want to read this blog again was that it is written from a stand point of a fan, a fan with really good season tickets, but a fan nonetheless. While I expected to find the ravings of an armchair GM with a Hollywood sized ego, I found a baseball fan who used to watch the Yankees on her father's lap.

The only thing that surprised me the most about Touch 'em All is the name of its author. But, in large part due to that name, I will add Touch 'em All to my blog list.

Convenience Store Day.

Today is July 11th, sometimes known as Convenience Store Day. In honor of this "holiday", I am posting a picture I found via Google. Here is to all the convenience stores and their clerks out there, you make what passes for civilized living possible.

Thought of the day.

If you are going to make mistakes, and chances are you are going to make a few, make them while you are in your twenties. This way, as you get older, you will spend more time remembering them than regretting them.

Coney Island.

After our visit to Coney Island this weekend, I was curious if I can find a video of this piece of American history in its hey day. I got lucky and found one. Here it is, enjoy:

Planet Aid.

A recent addition to the sights I pass on my walk is this container for recycling of clothing and shoes. What I can't figure out is, how is this different from giving your old stuff to the Salvation Army?

Thought of the day.

A year ago, on what was supposed to be the luckiest day ever, an extremely large number of couples took the plunge and got married. I wonder how many of these people are now divorced?

Parachute jump.

Wonder Wheel.

Original Nathan's.

Coney Island boardwalk.

Mother and daughter.

Independance Day.

We are visiting my mother in Brooklyn. Earlier we stopped at a playground in Sheepshead Bay where I took this picture.

Trade agreement.

John McCain is in Colombia advocating a trade agreement between that country and the US. Doesn't he know that we already have a trade agreement? Colombians send us coffee and cocaine, then we send them currency. However, this trade benefits Colombia more than it benefits us. So a change of terms is in order.

Stroller test drive.

This morning Lili and I took a walk to the bustling Bloomsburg downtown to run some errands and to see some people. We recently purchased a sun stroller to replace her original stroller as the go to conveyance and to take up less space in the trunk. So today, after I assembled the new stroller, Lili and I took to the streets.

A few things became evident right away:

1. The handles are a little low for my comfort. I am 6 feet 1 inch tall and have to stoop to hold the handles of the stroller comfortably.
2. When you hang a diaper bag on the handles it tends to become inconvenient. It bumps against the rear wheels and slows the stroller down.
3. The wheels are small which makes them unsuitable for off-roading or for the uneven sidewalks of Bloomsburg.
4. The stroller is much smaller than the old one which gives it amazing maneuverability. This is a big bonus since Lili and I frequently enter stores on our journeys.

This concludes my report on the sun stroller test drive.

Summertime and the living.

It is, in case you haven't looked at the calendar, July. Summer is starting to fly by and head for its twilight. And once again I find myself wondering what have I done so far. The answer is as usual - nothing. My daily ritual is not filled with glorious adventures to say the least. I rise from my slumber, go to my part-time (at best) job, and spend the rest of my time trying to wrangle my daughter while doing battle with the apartment.

The battle against my apartment has grown beyond just a mere conflict and into an all out war. Every day, armed only with my wits, I attempt to keep the apartment clean before the three of us mess it up again. I mostly fail in my attempts because chaos rains supreme in this dwelling. The idea that I, without my wife's help, could get this mess under some form of control is as laughable as the new CBS show, Greatest American Dog.

Cell phone use.

This article says that 25% of European Union households prefer mobile phones to their land line counter parts. My wife and I have only been using cell phones for a few years. We got rid of our land line after we realized that we were only using it to get on the internet and paying more than a cable modem would cost. At this point, we wouldn't even know what to do with a land line phone if we got one again. I wonder how many other Americans have also cut the line.

Old Ford.

18 months.

This is Lili. Today she is eighteen months old. In, what seems like, a very short time my wife and I went from having a baby to having a toddler. Soon she'll turn two and drastically change our lives once again. Happy half-birthday, Lili.

New glasses.

Book titles.

These are the titles of books I would like to see printed:

• Complete Idiot's Guide To Complete Idiots
• Left Hander's Guide To The Right Wing
• Chicken Soup For The Chicken's Soul
  
• Ventriloquism For Dummies
• Cat Skinning For Beginners
  

Flower stump.

RIP, George.

George Carlin, perhaps the greatest American comedian, has died at the age of 71. He not only made me laugh, he made me think. When I was in college, the highlight of my career as a college journalist was covering his concert on the campus of Bloomsburg University for our school paper. Thank you, George.

Puddle sky.

This day in history.

Operation Barbarossa was Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union. The invasion was made possible by Germany and the Soviet Union dividing Poland therefore bringing the two countries into physical proximity to war. This was the beginning of The Great Patriotic War as World War II is known is Russia.

Automotive stuff.

I found this very useful article on Lifehacker, the site that has "tech tricks, tips, and downloads for getting things done" as its motto. I guess if you can't get there, getting things done is out of the question.

Waiting.

Sometimes local residents display peculiar behavior like gathering in front of an empty stage in lawn chairs. Since there have not been any recent crop circles or UFO sitings, the only reason for this gathering is a production of Waiting for Godot. In the summer, around here, there is never a dull moment.

Thought of the day.

The Roman Empire conquered what was then the known world using horse carts and wearing sandals. The roads and structures that they built still stand pretty much unchanged after centuries. When the Roman Army would take an enemy city they would raise it to the ground leaving nothing behind. Sometimes we should take a lesson from history.

Carnival.

Summer time around here means fire company carnivals. These are small events that usually last four or five days and raise funds for a fire company that holds the carnival. Since the majority of towns around here are small, we don't have professional fire departments. Local fire companies, as the saying goes, are professionally staffed by volunteers. These fire companies have the proper training and the right equipment but because they are volunteer, money for new equipment is very difficult to come by which is why they hold carnivals.

Father's Day.

Today is my second Father's Day. Last year my wife surprised me with a weekend trip to Gettysburg, my favorite town in Pennsylvania. This year we did not make any concrete plans so we are still working on getting out of the house. Yesterday we ordered new glasses, went strawberry picking at a beautiful spot atop a huge hill, and swam for the first time this summer. Now, having been exhausted by all that activity, we are hanging out in the bedroom. Lili is only one who is actually dressed and ready to go. We must venture out and do something. The question is what.

Picking strawberries.

Flag day.

Storm damage.

We just had a thunderstorm that lasted about fifteen minutes. In that time we were subjected to rain, hail, and lightening strikes less than a mile away. When we got home we found this sight around the corner from our house. This tree is completely blocking a street.

Tennis courts.

Eye.

This is going to be my new Twitter photo.

Indiana Jones and The Ignorant Immigrant.

Last night, as part of my 35th birthday celebration festivities, my wife and I went to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. This movie was as good as The Last Crusade and Raiders of the Lost Ark, leaving me to wonder what were Spielberg and Lucas thinking when they made The Temple of Doom.

I was particularly impressed with the Russian spoken by the KGB agents and the Soviet soldiers in this movie. As a native speaker, I see a lot of movies where the Russian spoken by the characters is far from anything I even remotely recognize as Russian. In most cases, what supposed to be Russian turns out to be gibberish that happens to sound Russian without making any grammatical sense.

On the other hand, I found a few things a little unbelievable. My friend Carl warned me about two things that made him roll his eyes while watching this movie. They were the refrigerator and the monkeys. I had to agree with him about the refrigerator, but the monkeys I thought were just a cutesy break from the action. They were completely unnecessary, but not entirely awful.

My own list of things that made me roll my eyes is a little bit longer than Carl's. First, the English spoken by the KGB agents was quite bad, in reality these people were highly trained and spoke excellent English. Second, the sword worn by the female villain, Soviet officers did not wear swords, let alone rapiers, unless they were cavalry officers especially in 1957. Finally, the vehicles used by the Soviet soldiers did not remind me of those I was familiar with while growing up in the Soviet Union.

I was looking forward to seeing this movie since I didn't get a chance to see any other Indiana Jones movies in theaters. It was worth the price of admission and then some, the price of popcorn, on the other hand, was ridiculous. If you haven't seen the movie yet, I haven't given anything crucial away. And if you have seen it, you know exactly what I mean.

City slicker.

Cars like this, even though perfectly normal in places like Philly and New York, seem completely bizarre in rural Pennsylvania. Here, trucks and SUVs dominate the roads. That's because in Winter it's almost impossible to get around without a front wheel drive at the very least.

Since the snow removal crews do not believe in plowing every street, sometimes the snow you shovel off of your vehicle is the only snow removal that takes places. Out here, you and your car have to fend for yourselves and it helps if your car can get you through the snow.

Bag.

Lili got a hold of my phone and took this picture earlier today.

Twilight sky.

At the circus.

Future alpinist.

Lili and I went for a walk prescribed to us by my wife. However, Lili is far more interested in climbing the porch steps.