Root Canal

I just got back from the dentist's office where I had a root canal procedure done on one of my molars. The procedure was not as bad as I feared it would be. In fact, except for a very slight pain when the local anesthetic was injected, there was absolutely no pain at all. However, it was a bit uncomfortable lying back with my mouth open for such a long time. I will be going back to the dentist in a few weeks to get a crown put on the tooth. I am not anticipating any problems with that either.

Happy Halloween!

I hope everyone has a safe and fun Halloween. Just watch out for those pesky evil robots!

Cute Commercial

Here's a commercial from the National Republican Senatorial Committee featuring "celebrities" John Ratzenberger, Victoria Jackson, Stephen Baldwin, Robert Davi (who?), and Pat Boone. They do not want Al Franken to ruin the reputation of everyone in Hollywood as they are nothing like him. I guess I will not hold that against any of them.

Incidentally, Stephen's brother Alec has spoken out on why we should replace Norm Coleman with Al Franken in the Senate.

It is cute how Victoria Jackson concludes the ad by rooting for the Vikings. Sorry, but this won't convert me to a Norm Coleman follower. I will definitely be casting my vote for Al Franken on Tuesday!

Dentist

Until today I have seen the same dentist all my life, aside from the dentist I saw once when I lived in Waterloo, Iowa, (and I believe he lost his license for unnecessarily removing mercury fillings). My experience at this dentist office was good. It was a lot more modern than the office I had been going to in Cedar Rapids. But then, this office did just open up within the past month. Overall it looks like my teeth are in fairly good shape, with a few exceptions. I have a chipped front tooth which I will be getting fixed at some time in the future. I also have a molar which is broken, so I am returning to the dentist this Friday afternoon for a root canal and to get the crown built back up. I am so no looking forward to that. Not only do I think it will hurt, but even with dental insurance, it will be a little expensive!

HOPE

The election is one week from today. Vote for hope!

The Presidential Candidates as Babylon 5 Characters

One of my brothers-in-law sent me a link to this image equating the current candidates for president and vice president of the United States with characters from Babylon 5. If you know little about Babylon 5, this will probably mean very little to you. However, for those B5 fans who read my blog, you may find this entertaining, unless of course you disagree with the original creator of this art.

President Bush Endorses John McCain and Sarah Palin

In case you missed it last night, Will Ferrell made a return to Saturday Night Live to reprise his role as President George W. Bush in a skit in which he endorses Tina Fey's Sarah Palin.

The Sexist Elite Liberal Media

The elite liberal media have really been sexist in their recent discussions about Sarah Palin and the $150,000 the Republican party paid to dress her up for her appearances. The non-elite, non-liberal media would never stoop to commenting on the money anyone spends to maintain his or her appearance.

Ron Howard Wants YOU to Vote for Barack Obama

And here he is with his friends Andy Griffith and Henry Winkler trying to convince you to do so.

Too Early

For the second morning in a row, Emma woke up way too early. Thursday morning she woke up around 4:10. I held her while sitting in the living room in the dark, hoping she would go back to sleep. However that did not happen. After sitting on my lap for half an hour, she struggled to get down, put her pacifier away in her room, and ran off to the kitchen, waiting for me to get her breakfast. She eventually did go back to sleep, but not until 7:10. I normally take her to daycare at 7:20, but I put her back in bed to sleep some more. She didn't sleep too long however, as she ended up waking again at 7:45. I then took her off to daycare so I could get working.

This morning she woke up a little after 3:00! After holding her for about half an hour again, I just put her back in bed. Mel decided we should leave the hall light on and her door cracked open. We returned to bed, and while Emma did whine for a short time, she eventually went back to sleep.

Hopefully she gets over this soon. I don't know how I would handle it if she does this once standard time resumes in a little over a week. At the rate she's been going, she could be getting up at 2:00 or 3:00!

A Blast From the Past

I found a couple of Star Wars related videos on YouTube today that I would like to share with my loyal readers, and with anyone else who happens by. The first video is the original trailer from 1977 for Star Wars. It sure looks cheesy!

Next, is a clip from Sesame Street from 1978 featuring C-3PO and R2-D2. I don't think I even knew that they appeared on Sesame Street, or if I did, I have absolutely no recollection of it. In this clip, R2-D2 has apparently fallen in love.

New iPod

With money I received for my birthday, I just ordered myself a new iPod to replace my three-year-old iPod nano. I could have just gotten the battery replaced, but newer iPods have features that my old iPod nano does not, such as the ability to play video. Last month I contemplated buying one of the new iPod nanos, but I decided that I would rather have an iPod with a larger capacity, so I decided at that time to buy a new 120 GB iPod classic. Then when I checked out the Apple store online yesterday, I learned that I could get an 8 GB iPod touch for less than the price of the iPod classic. While the iPod touch has significantly less capacity than the iPod classic, it has wi-fi capabilities. However, I realized that I probably wouldn't get much use out of that, so I went ahead and ordered myself a new black 120 GB iPod classic. I should have it before the end of next week!

WCCO - WTF?

While watching Criminal Minds on WCCO, the Twin Cities CBS station, last night, they aired a commercial for an upcoming news story about someone who had ankle surgery performed on the wrong ankle. At the end of the commercial the text "WTF?" appeared on the screen. I was a bit shocked that a TV news station would put something like that in their ad. Did they not realize that WTF is an abbreviation for "What the f***k?"

This did remind me though of something that happened at the last school I taught at. I noticed that several students were wearing T-shirts with the letters WTF emblazoned on them in school. I believe there was also something relating to the school mascot on the shirts as well. Apparently, someone had convinced the school administrators to approve such a shirt, claiming that the letters stood for something completely different. Eventually the administration did catch on however.

The Obama Flag

Radio host Bob Grant recently reported on his radio program that at a recent rally, besides having American flags behind him, Barack Obama also had some flags on which the field of stars had been replaced by an "O" for Obama. Here you can listen to him expressing his concern:

And here is a photo Obama with the of the questionable "Obama flag."

In case you were wondering, the photo shows Obama giving a speech in Toledo, Ohio. Apparently, Bob Grant does not know what Ohio's flag looks like. Is looks surprisingly like the so-called Obama flag.

My Birthday

I had a really good birthday yesterday, for the most part. Mel had taken the day off from work because it had been a while since she had had a day off. I worked in the morning and then took the afternoon off. Mel and I then went to see Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist. I really enjoyed the movie. I had head a good review of it on All Things Considered a couple weeks ago, and my sister said it was good. My only complaint about the movie was that I felt parts of the move were a bit predictable.

After picking up Emma from daycare, we were going to drive to Roseville to go to dinner at Romano's Macaroni Grill. We had fastened Emma into her car seat when we realized that she needed a diaper change. So we stopped at home first to do that and we discovered that Emma wasn't feeling all too great, so we decided to stay home for dinner. We did pick up food from Green Mill in Hastings, since it was much closer and it was the other restaurant I had considered going to for my dinner. The food was good.

After going to bed, my birthday made a turn for the worse. I'd had a pain in my stomach since dinner, but I thought I was just still hungry. Well it turned out that I was sick. I think I may have picked up something from Emma that she got from day care. Not getting much sleep last night, I ended up using some sick time today and getting sleep. I am feeling a bit better right now, but I am not back to 100%.

36

Today is the 36th anniversary of my birth. And for my birthday, Mel baked a cake. Instead of putting candles shaped as the numbers 3 and 6 on the cake, she put 36 individual candles on the cake! I could feel the heat coming off of the cake as I was blowing out the candles.

Mel took today off from work since she hasn't had a day off, except for weekends and days she or Emma was sick, since July. I am taking the afternoon off, and we plan on catching a movie. Tonight we plan on going out to dinner. I am not sure where we will go yet, but I think maybe we will go to Green Mill.

Oh, and I just got an email from my friend Martha who reminded me that my age is now a perfect square! Excellent!

OMG!

I can not believe there are actually people like this in the United States in 2008! Mike Lunsford of Fairfeld, Ohio, has hung an Omaba effigy from a tree in his yard. He stated that the United States is a white, Christian nation, so only white Christians should be president (of course Obama is a Christian, although I would guess Lunsford is not convinced of that). Also, he is concerned that Obama is not a "full-blooded American." Lunsford spoke to reporters of camera because he felt that appearing on camera could hurt is employer's business. Actually it might help it gain in popularity among members of the Klan. At least Lunsford has no problem admitting that he is indeed racist.

Return to the Pumpkin Farm

My sister Rebecca wanted a pumpkin to carve for Halloween, so yesterday afternoon she came over and we all headed back to the apple orchard and pumpkin farm that Mel, Emma, and I went to a few weeks ago. Rebecca managed to find two pumpkins.

We returned to our house and had dinner. After dinner, and after putting Emma to bed, the three of us carved up our pumpkins into Jack-O-Lanterns. Below you can see the results of our efforts.

Finally, after making the Jack-O-Lanterns, I decided to try my hand at toasting the seeds from the pumpkins. I found an instructional video online which was quite helpful in the creation of the seasonal treat.

ZooBoo

Yesterday afternoon, Mel and I took Emma to the Como Zoo for ZooBoo, their annual fundraising event which has costumes characters all around the zoo and which gives children an opportunity to trick-or-treat. Emma's costume for Halloween this year is Elmo. She just loves Elmo, although she did not like keeping the head of her Elmo costume on her head for very long. Despite it being a bit chilly, we had a good time.

Neighbors, Part 2

A few weeks ago I blogged about the neighbors who live behind us. They are still working on the two-story structure that is being built in their back yard. Except for seeing someone on the roof a couple of days ago from my office, there hasn't seemed to be much progress.

Anyway, today I am going to write about another of our neighbors. The neighbors who live next door to us on one side of the house have eight little yappy dogs that run around in their back yard being very noisy. In the few instances when we have had visitors and showed them our new house, it was difficult to show them our back yard because of the loud barking of the neighbor's dogs. I really hope that these dogs do not prevent us from enjoying our property to its fullest extent.

Before moving here, I had checked out the city's website and I had read that no more than a total of five cats and dogs may be kept at a residence. It wouldn't be very neighborly of me though to call the city on our new neighbors, especially since we only recently moved here. I guess it isn't very neighborly of me to complain about my neighbors on the Internet with relative anonymity either through. Besides, that may make it obvious who made the call, and we don't need to start out on the wrong foot with the neighbors.

I have met one of the owners of these dogs, and he seemed like a decent person. While I may not care for the McCain-Palin and Norm Coleman signs in his front yard nor the Nobama T-shirt he was wearing while mowing the lawn, I haven't let political difference ever keep me from getting along with someone.

Battleground for Your Heart

If nothing else can convince you to vote for Barack Obama, maybe the musical stylings of the boy band Boybama can.

Michelle Bachmann 'May' Be Anti-American

So, Minnesota Republican Representative Michelle Bachmann said in a recent interview that she is "very concerned that [Obama] may have anti-American views." I guess if someone's views do not line up with the Republican party's views on issues, they must be anti-American.

In a somewhat related story, John McCain has stated over and over again that he doesn't "care about a washed-up terrorist," referring to Bill Ayers, however his campaign for president sure does. People in Minnesota and Wisconsin, as well as other places, have been receiving automated phone calls from the McCain campaign warning them of the "association" between Obama and Ayers. Yes, they served on a board together, as did a lot of other people, including notable conservatives. But Ayers has absolutely nothing to do with Obama's campaign for president. I really do not see what the big deal is with this issue. Anyway, if McCain doesn't want to make an issue of this, maybe he should put the smack down on his campaign staff!

Vote!

In a recent 20/20 piece, John Stossel questions whether some people, mostly young people, have enough knowledge to vote. Before viewing the video, I assumed he would be asking people what they knew about the positions of the various candidates for whom they could be voting. However, that was not the case. Instead, people were asked how many states there are in the United States, the number of senators each state has, what the Bill of Rights is, and what Roe v. Wade is. He also had people attempt to identify photos of political figures. Everyone identified McCain and Obama, and most identified Sarah Palin. Joe Biden did not fair as well though, and neither did Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (although everyone could identify Judge Judy).

Frankly I don't care if someone can't identify a photo of a Supreme Court justice. I doubt I could identify them all from their photos. Hell, they don't even let cameras into the courtroom! And while the first set of questions are things all American citizens should know, I do not think that lacking this knowledge automatically means that a person's vote will be completely uninformed, although I admit that some people will vote with a lack of any real knowledge of the candidates. This applies to all people though, not just the young people singled out in this piece. Maybe John Stossel should do a piece next about people whose heads are filled with erroneous information about the candidates for president, such as their religion and country of origin.

Great McCain Photo

Check out this great post-debate photo of John McCain and Barack Obama. Does anyone feel like creating a caption for this photo? You can put one in the comments section if you would like.

Justin Timberlake Wants You to Vote In the Box

While not endorsing any particular candidate (unless you bother to check out his backdrop), Justin Timberlake would like you all to go out and vote in the box.

I have to admit that this video did remind me of another song Justin Timberlake sang about something in a box.

UPDATE: The video above appears to no longer be available. Perhaps the connection to the second video I linked to made it unsuitable to be on Obama's YouTube site.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Someone has reposted the Vote In the Box video, so the video player above should work once again.

Hate

Wow! This piece shows some of the extreme hatred that some McCain supporters show for Barack Obama.

The Last Presidential Debate

I was actually able to sit through the third presidential debate after finding the first two to be absolutely unwatchable, and quite boring! I thought both Barack Obama and John McCain came out of this debate without looking too bad. Of course, the debate did little to change my decision to vote for Obama on November 4.

While McCain tried to attack Obama on his "associations" during the debate, I felt that Obama's reply, explaining them, was very good. Hopefully Obama made this a non-issue for the remainder of the campaign, although I doubt that will be the case.

I found McCain's reaction to Obama saying that "Joe the Plumber" would pay zero fines if he did not provide health insurance for his employees to be priceless.

I think McCain has some good ideas, not enough to get me to vote for him though, but he also expressed an idea that I found a bit irritating. At about an hour and eighteen minutes in the debate, while discussing education and how crappy American schools are doing at educating children, in his opinion anyway, McCain said, "We need to encourage programs such as Teach for America and Troops to Teachers where people, after having served in the military, can go right to teaching and not have to take these examinations which -- or have the certification that some are required in some states." So, McCain's plan to improve education is to hire teachers who are not certified in the areas in which they will be teaching. I am sure these programs have done some good, but to think someone can be a good teacher simply because he or she served in the military is ludicrous!

He's an Arab, Don't Cha Know?

It seems that many people actually believe that Barrack Obama is an Arab, not that there's anything wrong with that. This includes Gayle Quinnell of Shakopee, Minnesota, who got lots of information at the library about Obama, including the "fact" that he is Arab. She even let John McCain know that his opponent is an Arab at a recent rally in Lakeville, Minnesota. In his defense, though, John McCain did correct Quinnell, incidating that Obama is not Arab, that he is "He's a decent family man." Hmmm, I didn't realize that the two were mutually exclusive.

Shameless

I saw this commercial from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee on TV last night. It attacks Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman on a couple of fronts. First, it alludes to the possibility that the suits he wears may have been a gift from a local businessman. And secondly, it points out the hypocrisy of his pledging to stop campaign attack ads since practically all of his ads to this point have been attack ads. I suppose he is doing this in an attempt to look good.

I suppose the reason for his calling attention to the stopping of the attack ads might be due to the recent publicity that one of Coleman's ads attacking DFL opponent Al Franken used a story Franken was telling about Paul Wellstone to make Franken look angry.

Happy Columbus Day 2008!

I hope everyone had a happy Columbus Day. I actually took part of the day off from work, not to celebrate today's "holiday," but to watch Emma since her daycare was closed for staff development today. The two of us had fun. We started the day at the Saturn dealership getting the SUV serviced. Then Emma got a haircut, although Mel tells me that I didn't get enough cut off. I guess her next haircut will come earlier than we had hoped for. After that, Emma and I went to the Lookout Ridge indoor playground in Woodbury since it was raining outside. Emma had fun playing there, but she seemed scared of the tube slides and of some of the other features. Maybe in six months or so, it will be somewhere more suitable for her to play. While Emma napped after lunch I was able to get some work done so I did not have to use a whole vacation day.

This past weekend, we found ourselves back in Cedar Rapids. A former coworker of Mel's was getting married. Their wedding had originally been scheduled for June 14 at Saint Patrick's Catholic Church in Cedar Rapids. As you may remember, that was at the height of this past summer's record-setting flooding in Cedar Rapids. The wedding ceremony had to be postponed. They actually got married on that date, in a very small ceremony, so we actually attended a blessing of their marriage. It had to be held at a different church, since Saint Pat's was damaged in the floods and won't be ready for quite some time yet.

The ceremony was nice, and not too long. We also had fun at the reception, although I managed to eat way too much. And because we got to sleep late the night before since Emma refused to go to sleep at a reasonable hour, we were tired and therefore left the reception at 8:30 to retire to our room.

Emma stayed at my mother's house for the weekend, and both my mom and Emma seemed to have a lot of fun.

Patriotic Drunk Redneck, Part 2

Here's more of the patriotic drunk redneck woman I posted a video of yesterday. She is still ranting on about how Barack Hussein Obama is an Arab, saying that while we are at war with Iraq and Iran (Hmm, I didn't realize we were at war with Iran. I guess this woman knows something I don't know.) we shouldn't elect someone from there as president. I may not be Obama's personal biographer, but I do not believe that he is from either Iraq nor Iran, nor has he ever lived there. Oh, and she claims that Obama's father is from somewhere around Saudi Arabia

She goes on to say that electing Barack Obama as president would be similar to us doing something such as hiring the Japanese president (Do they even have a president?) to be our president when WE (the United States) bombed Pearl Harbor! This woman should probably brush up on her history, as well as a little geography before she decides to show her ignorance before the videographer's camera.

Oh, and I like how she tries to get the dog to drink her beer.

The McCain-Palin Mob

In this video, people were interviewed outside a Sarah Palin rally in Strongville, Ohio, about their knowledge of Sarah Palin and whether they think that Barack Obama is a terrorist. I found it really scary the number of people, such as someone identifying herself as Mindy Green, who think that Obama is a terrorist simply because of his name. Ludicrous! And then there is the woman who thinks that there have been a lot more interviews with Sarah Palin then there has been with Barack Obama.

For All You Lab Techs Out There

Do you work in a lab and are tired of pipetting? Maybe you should put down your pipette and try epMotion. This music video states the benefits of epMotion.

OMG!

I caught this video online today about some drunk redneck woman from Kentucky talking about that "Arab" Barack Hussein Obama. She rambles on for over three minutes about how we shouldn't want someone with the name Barack Hussein Obama as president. Although to be fair, despite what one of her companions on the ATV says, her dislike for Obama has nothing to do with his being black. By the way, she was for Hillary Clinton. I just can't believe that there are people like this in this country! If she weren't serious about what she was talking about, this could be funny. I only hope that come November 4, she is too drunk to hop on her four-wheeler to make her way to vote.

Apple Orchard

Last weekend, Mel's parents came to visit. While they we were here, we all went to McDougall's Apple Junction to pick out some pumpkins to carve for jack-o'-lanterns. We had a good time looking around. We ended up buying two pumpkins with a combined weight of 41 pounds. If only we had know we would get such big pumpkins, we probably would have grabbed a wagon with which to haul them back to the car before we ventured down to the pumpkin patch.

Luke's Parental Advisory

Since discovering Luther Campbell's new reality show, Luke's Parental Advisory, on VH1 yesterday, I have had the opportunity to view the first three episodes of the series. As I wrote yesterday, the series follows the daily life of former 2 Live Crew lead Luke as he raises his 17-year-old daughter and 15-year-old son, as well as preparing for his wedding and running his adult entertainment business.

The first episode basically just set up the premise for the series, which I wrote about in the previous paragraph. In the second episode, Luther finds out that his daughter, Lacresha, is going to have a party at his house. He learns this when his son, Luther Jr., snitches on his sister. Once Luuther learns of the party, he is going to have Lacresha un-invite everyone, but he relents and decides to let her go ahead with the party. Of course, Luther cancels his plans to be out of town so he can be at home to supervise. Luther discovers that the party seems kind of lame, so he tries to liven things up by playing some of his own music, much to Lacresha's embarrassment. None of the guests seem to care for the music, except for one boy who eventually gets out and dances to tunes such as the song "I Wanna Rock" from his solo album I Got S**t On My Mind. He then ends the party, causing everyone to leave earlier than Lacresha would have wanted. Later on in the episode, he comes home to find Lacresha and her "boyfriend," as well as another couple, in the hot tub. He decided that he should invite the boyfriend to a family get together at which Lacresha's relatives grill him about his intentions toward Lacresha.

In the third episode, Luther thinks that his 15-year-old son, Luther Jr., does not know how to talk to girls. So he begins by calling up a woman he knows on the phone then having Luther Jr. talk to her. That does not go well. So next, Luther takes his son to a bowling alley where he really finds out that Luther Jr. has no clue about talking to girls. It was at this point when Luther comes up with a plan. He has Luther Jr. carry one of the walkie-talkies his security guards use, wearing an earpiece. Luther can then give his son advice as to what to say from a distance. They go to Gameworks to try out the plan. Luther gets caught early on when one of the girls Luther Jr. is talking to asks why the guy in red, who Luther Jr. has identified as his dad, has a walkie-talkie. Later on, Luther Jr. talks to a couple of girls playing basketball, and does a bit better. Finally, Luther Jr. goes to a table with a couple of girls and talks to them, abandoning the script that his father gave him. He does well nonetheless, and even gets their phone numbers. Luther then tells his son that he has passed. All of this seemed to have the effect of boosting Luther Jr.'s confidence in talking with girls. At the end of the episode, Luther Jr. is outside playing with a couple of friends when he sees a couple of girls approaching walking a dog. He ends up going up to them and striking up a conversation.

Luther Campbell seems to be doing a fairly decent job of raising his kids, despite the fact that he seems to employ a bit of a double standard in their relationships. In one of the episodes, I do not remember which, Luther's fiancée finds a porn video in Luther Jr.'s room. When Luther discusses this with his son, and the son tries to use the excuse that it is what Luther does for a living, Luther comes back with the comment that what he produces is for adults, not for children, and his son can view these types of materials when he is older, but not now. Luther does separate his business life from his home life. His house is not full of strippers pole dancing.

So, while Luke's Parental Advisory is definitely not a TV show that is going to have any major cultural impact, I have found the first three episodes to be somewhat entertaining, and I will probably continue to watch it.

A Public Service Announcement

Those of you who have read my blog for some time, or who know me personally, know that I am a fan of "Weird Al" Yankovic. Well, within this morning I got an email from Mr. Yankovic himself informing me that he has a new single that is available for sale on iTunes. The song is titled "Whatever You Like" and is a parody of the song "Whatever You Like" by hip hop artist T.I. In T.I.'s original song, he talks about giving his girlfriend, or maybe it's just some girl he wants to hook up with, whatever she wants. Of course, he talks about giving her all sorts of extravagances. The Weird Al song is also about providing his female companion with whatever she wants, however the items he suggests take into account the current situation of the economy. They include such things as going out to dinner anywhere she pleases such as Burger King or Mickey D's, staying home and playing board games, splurging for the triple-ply toilet paper, and even buying day-old bagels.

I had not heard the T.I. song before listening to Weird Al's parody. I managed to find it on YouTube. I have to admit that listening to the original version of the song made me enjoy the parody even more.

WTF?

While watching a news story on the FOXNews website today, I learned that Luther Campbell, aka Luke Skyywalker, the former lead singer of 2 Live Crew has a reality show on VH1 called Luke's Parental Advisory. The show follows Mr. Campbell as he runs his business and plans his wedding, all while dealing with raising two teenage children.

Here's a clip of Luther Campbell on FOXNews's Red Eye.

By the way, full episodes of Luke's Parental Advisory are available for viewing on the VH1 website.

Enjoy These Clips

I don't have much time for original blogging today, so please enjoy these two video clips until I write something of substance.

The first gives John McCain's view on campaign attack ads, which he is focusing on at this point.

The second is some video of Sarah Palin from Late Night with David Letterman.

Credit Card Dispute

This morning I called one of my credit card companies to dispute a couple of charges. This is the first time I have ever had to dispute a charge. In August, I got a call from one of the major newspapers in the Minneapolis/Saint Paul area asking me if I would like to subscribe. I decided to go with their Thursday, Friday, Sunday subscription. After a couple of weeks, I still had not received any newspapers from them. I called the paper at the beginning of September to inquire about my subscription only to discover that they had no record of me. I was asked to fax to them a copy of the credit card statement that showed the charges. I did so and did not hear from them again. So on Monday of this week, I called again and eventually was told that they would have to send the issue to their accounting department as they had no record of the transaction or of me as a customer. I still have not heard back from them, nor have I received a newspaper. Because of this, I decided to call my credit card company to dispute the two charges; the newspaper charged my credit card, not once, but twice! My credit card company will be crediting the amounts to my bill and sending me the necessary paperwork. I do not think that the newspaper with which I was dealing can really stop the charges from being reversed as they have said themselves that they have no record of dealing with me. Needless to say, if I decided to subscribe to a newspaper here, it will not be the one with which I have had these issues!

Happy Rosh Hashanah

Ok, so Rosh Hashanah ended at sundown yesterday, but I thought I would share a Rosh Hashanah greeting from the presidential and vice presidential candidates with you.

1,000th Post

I began this blog on August 18, 2004, and in that time I have written 999 blog entries prior to this one. And now, for my one thousandth blog posting I thought I would share with you this video. For quite some time now, I have been convinced that I would be voting for Barack Obama this November. However, this video gave me several compelling reasons to switch my vote to John McCain.

Neighbors, Part 1

When we lived in Cedar Rapids, we lived in a terrific neighborhood. Everyone was really nice and looked out for each other. The neighborhood we live in now seems nice as well. It has been fairly quiet.

Last Saturday morning, before we left for the Renaissance Festival, I heard the noise from power tools coming from the yard behind ours. That yard had a small, homemade, wooden play structure in it, so I figured that they were adding on to it. Sunday morning, I discovered I was wrong. It looks like the neighbors behind us are adding a two-story structure to the rear of their back yard. From what I can see over the fence from our yard, I am guessing that they are going to use the ground floor of this structure as a garage or something of that kind. I am not sure what the top floor will be used for. I guess the view from the rear of our house will be forever changed.