Spelling Lucy

Lucy can spell, "cat" and "dog" and "Lucy" and "I want a skateboard for Christmas."


Mary made this chalkboard. It's magnetic.

The Kittens

Here are the two kittens that thrust themselves into our lives this year. Shandy, on the left, came first in August. Scaredy, who lives under Lucy's bed, came second at the end of September.
I think they might be sisters. I am convinced that if I had not found Scaredy when I did, she would have died soon. She was very skinny and scared and about half the size of Shandy who we had been feeding for a month.
Now we have three cats.
Three cats are a lot more than two cats.

New dining room and Christmas

Mary's mom and dad helped us put down a new floor in our dining room and helped us acquire our first dining room table. We have been slowly putting up Christmas decorations.
I took this photo. That's why it sucks.


When I say that Mary's mom and dad helped us, I mean that Mary's dad did most of the work. I held the light a lot. Mary's mom watched Lucy and cooked. Mary did the sanding and painting that was necessary.
And when I say that we have been slowly putting up Christmas decorations, I mean that Mary has been slowly putting up Christmas decorations.
And when I say that this picture sucks, I mean that I don't know what I am doing.

Everyone loves leaves or loves then leaves

There is about an inch of snow on the ground this morning but we just got the fall leaf raking photos back. Ah for the halcyon days of leaf raking.


As I snapped this photo I was guessing that she was about to jam her knees up into her chin. In my mind, I was mapping out the route to the emergency room.


Fortunately, she landed safely. We have been seeing a lot of that grin lately. She looks like her cousin Marley, I think.


Leaf angels are a good idea, in theory only.

Lucy's Room

Still don't have a working digital camera so we are limited to when we get photos.
Let's start out with a look at Lucy's newly decorated room.

Here is how it looks as you walk in the room. The whole room is sort of built around the Gary the Snail table.


Here you are a few steps into the room. If it looks a little busy, it's because Lucy is a busy little girl.


Here is a shot of Lucy's bed. Under the bed is Scardey the cat. The floor was, until recently, covered up with a very old carpet. We didn't to do anything but pull it up and mop a little.


This is a shot looking back at the closet. Notice the magnetic chalkboard on the wall. I think Lucy is a pretty lucky kid.

I created a slide show

This is our trip to Notre Dame in a slide show. Not a lot of new photos, but a fun way to view them.

Now I am having too much fun

The kid gets around

Goodness

fun with flickr

Notre Dame Vs. Syracuse

We knew it wasn't going to be much of a game. Syracuse made it interesting by scoring first, but then they didn't score again until the Notre Dame second team defense took the field in the 4th quarter.
Still, we had fun.

Here we are posing at half-time. The Notre Dame marching band played a selection of journey and Def Leppard songs for some reason.


I took this photo so I couldn't tell that the little Irish fan in the background was sneaking into my view finder. The Notre Dame fans were all civil. I think it might be because we posed no threat.


We were sitting up pretty high.


It all started out with a tailgate party. We got there at about 10 a.m. and the game did not start until 2:30. We really had some time to kill.


These guys were actual Irishmen, who now live in Chicago and root for the Irish.
Go figure. They were two cars down from us in the parking lot.



We didn't want to pose before the Touchdown Jesus, but we felt we had to. You can click on these photos for some enlargement goodness. The detail is incredible.


If you were wondering were you sit with a $56 ticket at Notre Dame - this is it. You would think they would have a better scoreboard.


I have no idea what it takes to get a seat over in the enclosed area. It looked like they might have been warm. We were in the shade for the entire game and got pretty cold when the sun went down.


It was bright and sunny when the Notre Dame Marching Band took the field before the game.


The shade moved in pretty early in the game.


It got dark before it was over.


Mike got the tickets and did all the driving. What a guy.


Dad and I were just along for the ride.


We tried not to draw any attention, but Mike couldn't help himself.

The Greatest Song Title of All Time?

From the Cramps of course.

"Her Love Rubbed Off"

Discussion?

Lucy's first school photo

Insulation

I spent much of the day Saturday and part of Sunday installing insulation in my attic crawl space off our spare bedroom.
I am now waiting for someone to say, "R-19? You might as well piss in your pants to stay warm this winter."

Another online death prediction

How I am going to die

Desert Island digital audio player list

Check out my list
I am still working on it.

I am not sure If I believe this

all-time Non-gender-specific first name baseball team

I was inspired to put this on the blog after watching the introduction of the Latino Legends baseball team before the last game of the World Series the other night.
I have been thinking about this for a long time.
All of these guys qualify because they have names that are just as suitable for girls as they are for boys and they are hall of famers.
Being in the hall of fame was the only playing requirement. After that it was the non-gender-specific quality of their names that got them on the list.
Please let me know if you have any suggestions.

Catcher

Gabby Hartnett


Connie Mack

Connie Mack is in the hall of fame as a manager and all-around baseball legend. When he played he was a catcher.

First Base

Lou Gehrig


Second Base

Nellie Fox

Third base

Brooks Robinson


short stop

Robin Yount


Outfield

Babe Ruth



Kiki Cuyler


Chick Hafey


Pitchers

Christy Mathewson


Jesse Haines


Sandy Koufax

Olympic Stadium Memory

One year my dad, two other fellows (both named Mike) and I bought a ticket for every Sunday home game of the Montreal Expos. We had the same seats every week.
There was no roof on the stadium at the time. But, because of the small roof opening and the angle of the stadium relative to the path of the sun most people always at in the dark. Except us.
On sunny days it looked like this.


In this photo the sun is about two rows from our seats. It got unbearably hot and usually one of us forgot a cap and was forced to buy one. You could get painter caps at the time for less than $5 Can. The sun only lasted for a couple of innings.
Good times.

did one of those personality tests while waiting for Lucy to wake up

ENTP - "Inventor". Enthusiastic interest in everything and always sensitive to possibilities. Non-conformist and innovative. 3.2% of the total population.

Free Jung Personality Test (similar to Myers-Briggs/MBTI)

Ever have one of these days?

Desert Island digital audio player

If you were stuck on a desert island, what 1,000 songs would you want on your digital audio player?

Been busy

I have been busy and not doing anything at the same time.
I noticed that I had been getting a lot more visits to my site even though I had not been updating the blog.
It looks like some of the images from the "who will be in my movie" gag got picked up on google images.
So I was poking around google images today and I found this:


It is the S. Graser Quartet. I guess the fourth guy was taking the picture.

Another thought
There are these gas station/convenience stores here called Duke and Duchess shops. I think Duke pumps the gas and Duchess sells the sodas.
They have signs out front that say "Cold Beer at State Minimums."
Every time I see one I think "isn't 32 degrees about the minimum - what the hell does the state have to do with that. It's common sense unless you're selling beersicles - which, by the way, are impractical."

Back to the original thought
Here are some of the places that have accessed this site lately. Mostly looking for photos of Robin Williams

17 Sesser Illinois United States
7 Asheville North Carolina United States
7 Atlanta Georgia United States
6 Newark Ohio United States
5 Plattsburgh New York United States
3 Sion Valais Switzerland
3 London England United Kingdom
2 Cherry Hill New Jersey United States
2 Toronto Ontario Canada
2 Hyderabad Andhra Pradesh India
2 Houston Texas United States
2 Cazenovia New York United States
1 Cincinnati Ohio United States
1 Leiden Zuid-holland Netherlands
1 Sacramento California United States
1 Ft. Collins Colorado United States
1 Budapest Budapest Hungary
1 Syracuse New York United States
1 Ellicott City Maryland United States
1 Irving Texas United States
1 Las Vegas Nevada United States
1 Germantown Maryland United States
1 Miami Florida United States
1 Jacksonville Florida United States
1 Wellington Wellington New Zealand
1 Cologne Nordrhein-westfalen Germany
1 Tallahassee Florida United States
1 Medellin Antioquia Colombia
1 Berlin Berlin Germany
1 Luqa Malta Malta
1 Madrid Madrid Spain
1 Anchorage Alaska United States
1 Helsinki Etela-suomen Laani Finland
1 Plainfield New Jersey United States
1 Los Angeles California United States

Interesting, isn't it?