I can see my house from here.

So, I finally jumped in with both feet.  I'm fully committed to making this thing work and I'm ready to show the world.   Let me back up just a minute to clarify.... I've written previously about the things people do to their cars, the stickers they paste everywhere to show who they voted for or what kind of a mood they tend to be in, or, and I like these, the ones that tell you "if you're close enough to read this....". I'm okay with all of it, it's your car, your life, and if you don't care that much about resale or that it was a rental and you paid the insurance deposit anyway, so why not...but I've discovered something I had never imagined I would do as well. Stick people. Daddy stick man, Mommy stick woman, and little kiddo stick people--one in a stick stroller...which, I guess couldn't really be illustrated in much more detail than sticks anyway, so I guess it's legit. Stick people stickers are as ubiquitous as hybrids anym...

Oil is over $100/bbl again, the Middle East is in turmoil, everyone in Africa is revolting, somolian (they don't deserve capital letters) pirates are kidnapping and killing anyone within 300 miles of "the horn", New Zealand is getting rocked by 7.0 earthquakes.  Gold is over $1400/oz., gas prices are heading over $3/gallon again, and the market keeps on a tumblin'...down a few hundy in the last couple days.  All that going on, and the fact that there's a Starbucks by my office keeps me feeling safe and secure.  Not that I have one every day, but it's nice to know it's there, like a security blanket on a dark, cold night.  Even better than having a Starbucks, there is a joint called the "Santa Fe Cookie Company"...just throw a dollar in the bucket and leave with hot and fresh muffins or cupcakes or 3 cookies of assorted types...brilliant. I think, if Jesus was physically walking the earth today, and we were hangin' in Denver, (you know how...

I think that sounds like a good substitute curse word--say it with anger out loud...."BUMPER STICKERS!!" Wow, one sentence in and already a tangent. I saw a bumper sticker a few days ago that stuck in my head..."Annoy a liberal--work, succeed, be happy." I thought, now there's a blog topic that would fire everyone up on some level...so I think I want to avoid that, I'm not good at confrontation.  I'm not even sure if the three things mentioned on the sticker are mutually inclusive of each other.   I think I know more people that are unhappy because they're working all the time to "succeed".   Then I tried to think, what would the antithesis of that sticker be?  "Annoy a conservative....". I'll let you come up your own endings, everything I thought of annoyed me.   The larger question to me was, "What is success really?"...no, that wasn't it...the larger question to me was...."What kind of person feels t...

What is it about the "underdog" that intrigues me so?  Why am I so prone to rooting for the player or the team that no one really expects to win?  It's a classic scenario and pretty much a gauranteed movie hit if you write it up for a screenplay.  Maybe it's the fact that I'm tall...for a first grader.   On one level or another, I think I've been an underdog in most competitive situations I've found myself in.  Maybe it's being the product of an off and on Mountain West school...the fans of the Univ. of Wyoming are a special breed and deserve a write up all their own!   Maybe it's ingrained as a result of being born in Minnesota and rooting for the Twins and Vikings with only 2 World Series titles to boast in a quarter century of knowing what I was actually cheering for.   I love movies like Rudy, The Replacements, Field of Dreams...shoot, even Lord of the Rings was an underdog story.  They are stories of people who persevere...

The old saying goes something like, "What do guests and fish have in common?  They both stink after three days!"  Well, we just wrapped up a week up north with family...as the guests, and I'm sure they're relieved to have their homes back.  I don't think we particularly stunk, although Karsten did have a few near record diapers that I still don't understand.  How could something so cute produce something so noxious?  You shouldn't  leave a changing station feeling like you cut onions for an hour then used pepper spray for eye drops.  Nevertheless, we are home again in Denver having been thoroughly spoiled with gifts, and enjoying that we are close enough to visit family on a fairly regular basis.   What remains to be seen is if they keep letting us crash or if we start to receive text messages containing local hotel information...I expect they'll put up with us as long as we bring Karsten :)  A Merry Christmas season to...

Indigestion n~ Technical name: dyspepsia ;   difficulty in digesting food, accompanied by abdominal pain, heartburn, and belching. I remember when I could eat anything I wanted and just about as much as I could fit on a mounded, heaping plate.  No more.  If I don't cut myself off from eating by 7pm I don't sleep, at least not well and probably at an upright angle.  I can't quite place the time or age when it all started, it just snuck up on me gradually and got to this point.  Sometimes it's the best reminder I have that I'm not 19 anymore.  Aging is weird like that, it's sneaky.  There are days you wake up and feel like you could run a 10k, then there are the days you wake feeling like you actually did.  It's a cruelty of life I guess to have to accept you are no longer the youngin' you use to be, that maybe you don't have the flexibility (in your back or your options) you once did.  What do we have to counter those sad littl...

Sitting in church last Sunday, the pastor was telling the story about Mary and Joseph and relating what they went through to why more people wash their hands in public restrooms when someone else is there too.    Impressions; what you think other people think about you alters the behavior you might of otherwise practiced had no one else been present.   Like in this case, I might not write so freely if I thought someone might actually read this blog.   Self-effacement is endearing, maybe I'll get readers that way...but I digress. The pastor went on...Joseph was actually looking to dump Mary, quietly, so he wouldn't have to deal with all the rumors and whispering about Mary having someone else's baby...impressions.     We all know how the story ends of course, and he went on to wrap up the message by pushing us to worry less about what the world thinks..........but of course, I missed most of that because I was constantly wait...