music

There aren't too many songs about the Apocalypse. I suppose that isn't very odd. However there's one that I know of.

This has been a public service announcement by nuclearcowboy letting you know of odd songs. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

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funny.

Here's Ben Bernanke trying to explain to Maxine Waters the difference between the discount rate and the federal funds rate. His explanation didn't take. But you still have to give her an "F" for effort. She's a congresswoman and after repeated explanation, still can't figure out the difference.

Watch CBS News Videos Online

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awesome!

I love this! Here are some of the lines:

• You have the charisma of a damp rag and the appearance of a bank clerk.
• Belgium is pretty much a non-country.

It's just beautiful.

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85

Today is the 85th anniversary of Pella Corporation. I work for a subsidiary of Pella called EFCO Corp.

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last night.

Last night Natalie Herring made tacos for all the faculty at IBS. Very nice of her.

We have a babysitter scheduled for Saturday night. So tonight I'm going to make the reservations.

Patrick was sitting with me last night playing my computer game and pretty soon he says "My head is tired". So I say, "Getting tired huh?" and he says "No. Just my head". He liked the game but then he heard Sissy watching Pink Panther cartoons and that was the end of the game.

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weekend.

Next weekend is turning out to be pretty hectic. The PFF is putting on their annual Pie Auction (I think on Friday night). Saturday I go to Vinita, Miranda is going to some kind of children's party thing. Saturday night we may try to do our Valentine's thing (assuming we can find a babysitter).

I think we may try La Brasserie again. I would like to try some Irish food but Bennigan's Grill and Tavern just isn't a Valentine's Day place. Plus I'm guessing it's not real authentic.

When Lindsay was here she noticed that we had foreign words stuck various places and she asked "Are they learning Spanish?" That of course is part of the joke between Patrick, Nellie, and I. So I took into her in French (jokingly of course). Patrick got the biggest kick out of that.

Speaking of all that... Mom and Dad have consented on going with us (in a couple of years) on a Mediterranean cruise. I found the one that I want. It stops by Marseille. You've probably guessed by now but I would like to time it where I can go to a Marseille game. If it works, I'll probably be going by myself or with a hired translator. I can't imagine that anyone would go with me. The cruise brochure we got in the mail is a little pricey so we'll have to save up for awhile. It goes to Marseille, Barcelona, Tunisia, Malta, Messina, Rome, Genoa. Yes. There are three Italian cities. Maybe authentic Italian will be better.

Of course this is all a pipe dream at this point. I'm hoping it will happen but two years is a long time. A lot can happen. But our cruise coming up July 10th is still on (and paid for!).

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Sunday.

Aaron and Lindsay stopped by yesterday afternoon. They brought a Longaberger basket that Miranda had bought from one of their fundraisers. It was nice seeing them again.

In other news... Team USA beat team Canada in HOCKEY! I wish I could have seen that game. Here's the end of the game.

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weekend.

Apparently Nellie loved skating. The rest of the children didn't. Patrick went out once but that was it. Even Angie's boys didn't like it.

Today I'm going to try to start reading my books. I've got a lot to get through.

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weekend.

Weekend going well. I've made it home from Vinita. Miranda and the children have went to go rollerskating with Angie's children. They'd already left when I made it home. I'm sure they will have fun.

I think I'm going to play some of my game since I have the night all to myself.

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tonight.

Went to Jon and Sheila Wades tonight and had a great time. Shelia cooked us a very tasty meal and we talked. Patrick loved playing with their boys. Their boys are "go-getters"! They are hilarious and the oldest one is a joke machine.

Update on Dad. He is having surgery next month to install some kind of hardware. It's something like a pacemaker/defibrillator but it's not either of them. He wasn't sure.

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genius

This is Tim Conway with Harvey Korman. Harvey Korman is the one that gets me tickled.

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children.

Nellie is feeling better today. Miranda was looking forward to taking a day off of work (this isn't a joke either). But looks like it's going to be school/work for everyone.

Tonight we are going to visit Jon and Sheila Wade. After being over here for 2 years, we are finally making an attempt to visit. Just call us Mr. and Mrs. Sociable.

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Nellie

Nellie is sick. She came home complaining of head hurting and not feeling well. She's in bed right now.

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funny

It's not a huge secret that I'm not a fan of Italian food. It's pasta and tomatoes really. Of course, you can always throw some cat in there.

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Mardi Gras

Happy Mardi Gras. Laissez les bons temps rouler (Let the good times roll).

Guess I better stock up on beads and beer. Or neither.

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gun

I'm not a gun guy but this gun would just be fun.

The recoil (or lack of) is amazing for a 12 gauge. I'm pretty sure you couldn't use it for home defense either. I would be scared and pulling the trigger like a madman. I wouldn't have a wall after I was finished. Pretty much just a military gun.

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today.

I'm off today. This is my "unpaid LOA" (leave of absense) day that I have to take off for February. This weekend was somewhat eventful. Friday night was the banquet. Saturday was "tax day" at Vinita. We went through Bartlesville where we bought some books. I got some good ones.

• The Coming Of The French Revolution
• The End Of The Old Order: Napoleon and Europe 1801-1805

That'll keep me busy for awhile.

Sunday we went to church. It was my turn to lead the song service. On our way to church, there is a guy with a sailboat. So two of the songs that I picked were: "Launch Out" and "My Anchor Holds". Then our Pastor (Rev. Albert Schaper) preached about Jesus in the boat when the storm was raging. All purely coincidental, but quite possibly a sign that I need to buy a boat. We went to see Paul and Jane on Sunday afternoon. Her Grandma (McCormick) was doing really well apparently. Her aunt is up from Oklahoma. Paul and I sat and watched Juventus beat Genoa. Miranda and Jane were mostly uninterested.

Today I'm finally going to get to spend some time on my new game (The Saboteur). So I'd better close this up and get playing. I've got a lot to get done. Ha!

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reminder.

Dad.

Remind me that I have some Édith Piaf music to give you.

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vinita

Off to Vinita today. To recap: Monett, MO; Vinita, OK; Parsons, KS. All in one week. I travel way too much.

Went to the IBS Banquet dinner last night. It was great food! I got to see Bill and Valerie Filsinger last night. It'd been awhile since I'd seen him. From our conversation I sorta gathered that they have basically moved to Independence. We'll have to get together sometime if that's the case.

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IBS.

Miranda won "Best Dressed" during Spirit Week yesterday. Today Patrick won "Hillbilly day". He wore a "coonskin" cap, rolled up pants, dirty boots, and carried a guitar. Miranda said that when he was modeling his outfit he was up there playing his guitar.

I think Miranda enjoys Spirit Week.

Tomorrow night is the Valentine's Banquet.

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Monett.

Off to Monett today. Going to be a rotten day. Bleh.

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IBS

This week is "Spirit Week" where the children do various things to show school spirit. Today is "Dress Up Day" and everyone is supposed to dress up. So Miranda make be a cookie and wrote "Love ya" on it (very nice of her). One of the high school students delivered it. I go to the door and there's a younger man dressed in a suit. I thought to myself, "Why are the Jehovah's Witnesses here?!?" I'm not used to seeing people in suits knock on my door. When I opened the door, I recognized him and all was well.

That reminds me of a time when I was single, a very nice looking young lady (VERY NICE LOOKING) showed up delivering religious tracts for something. That's one time where a guy is ready to listen to some preaching. However she was only interested in giving me tracts. Shot down again. To Miranda... PLEASE NOTE THAT I WAS SINGLE!!!!

Thank you for the cookie Miranda. You're the best!

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children.

Nellie just came in and wanted to watch "yucky man". We were confused momentarily. She wanted to watch Dirty Jobs.

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music

I was reading facebook and Diane Baber was singing "It's Such A Pretty World Today". Great song. Here's the original Wynn Stewart with Ralph Mooney on the steel guitar. Wynn Stewart was one of the greatest but he gets no respect.

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sailing

America's Cup is scheduled to begin tomorrow. For those not wanting to click the link, America's Cup is a sail boat race. But I say "boat" in the most liberal sense. It's not much of a boat.

I'm hoping that I can watch it here.

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irritating but funny.

After years of whining about people getting viruses on their computers... yup.... I got one on mine. It jumped from my Virtual PC to my Actual PC. Took me awhile to get it off of there.

*sigh*

I hate computers.

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just a small note.

GEAUX SAINTS! THEY WON THE SUPERBOWL!!!! WOOHOO! BOOGAH BOOGAH!


Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

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hmmm...

So I got kinda "griped at" today at church by one of the people because I haven't been working there during the remodeling. I always find this humorous because people think they can use this logic: Bill is a member of the male gender, I (the person who is thinking these thoughts) am a member of the male gender, I (again... the person who is thinking this) can do a remodel, therefore Bill can do a remodel. Apparently everyone who is male is supposed to be able to do carpentry work. They (unbeknownst to me) have been working every Friday night and Saturday. So next Friday night (not this coming Friday but the next one (19th)) they will realize the error in their logic.

Let me put it this way... Suppose I ask someone who doesn't know anything about computer programming for help writing a specific part of a program. I say "there's nothing to it. You simply use the Array class to define the new object, run an intersect over the parameters, and retrieve the list of filenames." So the non-programmer would have the following questions:

1. Huh?
2. What's a class?
3. What's the Array class?
4. etc...

Because this assumes you know the following things: C#, .NET, OOP, and Set theory. None of this is known by your average Joe on the street. They will however assume that I know what a Sink Auger is and how to use it.

Unfortunately they will get more frustrated because they will have to explain every little detail to me but I'm game. On the bright side, once this lesson is learned, it is typically learned very well. Ask Rod Filsinger (since we have worked on many projects... actually he does the work and I keep him company and it works out well for both of us).

So I will be learning some carpentry stuff soon. How well I remember will be up in the air.

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History.

American History in a music video. Very neat.

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free trade.

Here's Milton Friedman:

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hockey.

I found my hockey puck yesterday. It was on my desk. You may think "it couldn't have been that hard to find as it was only on your desk". You have no idea.

Anyway... At the hockey game, Patrick was really interested in them hitting the puck. So I got out the hockey sticks and we went to the tiled kitchen floor. The sticks are way too big for Patrick. I would buy him some smaller ones but there really isn't a point since we would never play with them.

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question.

For Christmas my in-laws got me a "Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader" calendar. It's full of questions that you learn in Elementary school. Today's question was very easy for anyone living in Vinita. Here's the question:

"The Golden Spike" is associated with which of these projects in the development of the U.S.
A) The Golden Gate Bridge
B) The Grand Coulee Dam
C) The transcontinental railroad

Vinita has a restaurant called "The Golden Spike".

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day.

What a day. Nellie was sick for most of the day but is feeling a lot better now. The fever finally broke. Miranda and I are just bushed. We have been up for a majority of 3 nights. 8:00 can't come soon enough. We are going to send the kiddos to bed and we are going as well.

Miranda might be staying home tomorrow just to make sure Nellie is over it. She was the only one running a fever.

I only got to watch the first 1/2 of Groundhog Day last night. Maybe soon.

One little mentioned item is that the New Orleans Saints are going to the Super Bowl. I'm not sure if I will watch it over the internet or not. Marseille is playing that day. By the way... listening to French TV will not help you learn French. I pick out words now and then but they fly by way too fast. Guess we'll just have to move to Marseille.

Trying to decide if I want to buy a Revo or iPhone. Miranda wants me to get an iPhone because she can do Weight Watchers over it. But the Revo would be a nice replacement for Apple TV (actually anything would be a nice replacement for Apple TV).

After a lapse of doing Facebook, I'm starting to use it a bit more. Not a lot more but a bit.

I think I'm off. Hopefully the rest of the week gets better.

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kids.

Nellie was sick most of the night. So today I'm staying home with her.

Here's the week so far:

• Sunday night - Patrick sick and throwing up most of the night
• Monday night - Miranda sick
• Tuesday night - Nellie sick and throwing up most of the night

Guess what I'm expecting for Wednesday night? I've already had my breakfast today (Tums).

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warning to Miranda.

It's Groundhog Day.

Guess I'll have to watch the movie again.

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weekend

Made it up to Wichita this weekend. Went to a hockey game with Aaron and Lindsay. It was a lot of fun. However Wichita has only won 4 games out of almost 40 so it wasn't a very good game. Before the game we went to N&J Bakery to eat. It is a Lebanese restaurant. Lebanese food is one of our favorite ethnic foods. It was very good.

We ended up staying the night in Wichita.

It was nice seeing Aaron and Lindsay again.

The week is off to a roaring start. Patrick spent quite a bit of the night last night throwing up. He's staying at home today. Miranda is staying with him. If he's still sick tomorrow, it will be my turn.

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