I'm a hot toe-picker!

I know it may seem hard to imagine, but growing up and living in Topeka is not the cat's meow it may seem to be on the surface. This is not a destination town for anyone (okay, except maybe state politicians...but they are barely people anyway). Topeka is, for lack of a better word, boring. When you tell someone you are from Topeka, the silence is so loud you can barely hear the crickets chirp.

Television and movies use all kinds of different places in their plots. Almost never do they ever use Topeka. Sometimes they might mention Kansas. I think the problem is that they don't want to have to explain to the folks watching the movie or TV program that Kansas is not the mythical state where Marshal Dillon lived, but instead a real, live state. Heck, most people don't even realize that Topeka is the home base for the notorious Phelps cult of 'god caused 9/11' fame.

So, anyway, when Topeka gets mentioned in a national TV show or movie, it is kind of a big deal for those of us who live here. For instance, some time ago, one of the hotel guests on Las Vegas (one of my fav shows) was from Topeka. Heck, the 5/8th and I were so excited about that we even stopped the recording and backed it up to hear it again, and to get a better look at the character's ID. And sure enough, they even had a semi-valid zip code (our zip code starts with 666 - which may explain that Phelps cult thing after all).

Then for quite some time, my kids have, on and off, run around the house claiming "Its hot in Topeka." I wasn't sure what this was, but I found out today. I had some extra time, so I hit the YouTube and put "Topeka" in the search box. What came back was the following animated segment:

I found this segment fairly hilarious, I don't know why. My kids tell me it is from a cartoon called "Foster Home For Imaginary Creatures" or something like that. At any rate, Topeka was mentioned in a national cartoon, maybe the little blue guy caused some kids to google Topeka so they could learn something about it. Probably not, but a guy can dream can't he?

XXXs and OOOs

Little Sister is not big on displays of affection since about the time she was about two. Between two and maybe three and a half or four, it was like pulling teeth to get a hug from her. Oh, for her mother, the hugs and kisses were a plenty, but for anyone else, not so much. In the past four years or so, she has gotten much more liberal with her hugs. Giving hugs to dad, and the brothers and even her Nana and granddad.

I suppose it could be said she gets this part of her personality from me. Rumor has it when I was just a tyke, the only persons in the world who could pick me up were my mother and my gramma Helen. And the only reason gramma Helen could pick me up is because she didn't take jack from anybody, any time, anywhere. She was the kind of woman who could make an IRS agent call her "Ma'am", and follow orders as if he were some kindergartener lining up in the hallway. No, really - one time she caught some guy trying to break into her car, and she attacked him with her giant old lady purse, and this was when she was in her 70s! I'm not kidding, that was one tough old broad. She worked almost every day until she was finally hospitalized, too weak to do most anything, at the age of 97. But I digress. She, other than dear ole mom, were the only two people who could pick me up when I was a baby. At least, that is the rumors - I don't really remember my baby-hood all that well.

Kisses...kisses are another story. Since she was two, I have received two kisses from her. I don't know if she realizes how that feels to a father, to not get a kiss from his only daughter. It didn't seem to phase her in the least. After about a year in kiss exile, she finally let me kiss her goodnight on the head or cheek. I tricked her into it though. I would give her a kiss on the cheek, and she would wipe it off. I explained to her that she could not wipe off dad kisses, that by rubbing the spot she was only rubbing it in farther and that is what helps her to grow. So she quit trying to rub off my pecks.

Once, after she had fallen asleep on the couch and after I had dutifully carried her up and laid her in her bed and told her good night, she gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek. I don't know if this really counts an official kiss because she was tired and mostly asleep and I cannot be certain she was aware of her actions. Several other times I caught her slipping up and almost, but not quite, kissing me good night.

Then last night, out of the blue, as she was giving me my customary good night hug, she tilted her head up, hesitated, and gave me a peck on the cheek. She looked me in the eyes as if seeking approval. It seemed as if she wanted to kiss me good night, but wasn't certain that it was an appropriate action. This struck me as somewhat strange. Maybe I read it all wrong, but that is the impression I received.

For the past six years, I had been pining for that stupid little display of affection. I had been lamenting that I did not receive kisses from my little girl. But last night I realized, it ain't all that. The kiss was nice, it made me feel good. But it didn't make me believe that she had any more affection for me than she did yesterday. It wasn't like it sealed any bond between us. It wasn't like, suddenly she liked me more, or cared about me more. It just was.

I realize now that the kiss I had been wanting was not all that important. Like when one wants something they cannot have, only to obtain it and find out it wasn't all that important after all. The kiss did not change any of my feelings for my daughter. It did not make me love her any more. Just as I realize that the kiss was not a result of her loving me any more now than before. I don't know why she gave me the kiss. I will probably never know. She is a very guarded little girl. She keeps things like that to herself. If I were to ask her, she would simply look at me and not say a word.

Gift giving occasions on the horizon

Everyone who is anyone knows that fast coming our way is Mother's Day. Now is about the right time to head online and buy a gift for that special mother in your life. I love shopping online. It is easy, saves on gas, and I don't have to go to the mall where the crowds will just tick me off.



Some sites, like Coupon Chief offer special deals. You hit their site, and they have a list of stores for which they have coupon codes. They have deals at places like Sears, Lane Bryant, HP, Diamonds.com, HP.



Come to think of it, just after Mother's Day is Father's Day, and what better place to shop for dear old dad than the HP Store? Seriously though, moms get the good stuff. Diamonds, vacuum cleaners, coffee makers, food processors. What do dads get? Dads get a tie. Dads get gypped. So, head on over the HP store and get dad something he deserves, like digital cameras, or an HP tx1000z Notebook!



This post sponsored by:

Coupon Chief

74.7!!!

Wow, it is amazing what good tires and fresh oil will do for one's mileage. Yesterday to-and-from work, my little roller skate managed 74.7 miles per gallon. This was one of my best mileage days. There was one day, about three or four years ago, that I got - now, I know this is barely believable, but it is true - 100.2 miles per gallon on the way to work. This was before work moved from I-29 and Armour to Mission Towers. I have never, ever gotten even anywhere close to that again. I suppose it was the correct mix of tail wind and humidity and temperature.

Now THIS is cool

The BBC reports that scientists have discovered a new mineral in a mine in Siberia. A mineral with a unique makeup. The chemical formula of the mineral is "sodium lithium boron silicate hydroxide."

For those not in the 'know' that is almost exactly, but not quite, the chemical make of...wait for it... KRYPTONITE. That is correct boys and girls, the evil green crystal rock that makes Superman mere putty in the hands of his enemies.

In the movie "Superman Returns" evil doer Lex Luthor steals a box of kryptonite from a museum, the box contains the formula "sodium lithium boron silicate hydroxide with flourine" - an almost exact match to the mineral discovered in Jadar, Siberia. Sadly, they cannot pay homage to the 'inventors' of the chemical formula:

The mineral cannot be called kryptonite under international nomenclature rules because it has nothing to do with krypton - a real element in the Periodic Table that takes the form of a gas.

Instead, they are going to call it "Jadarite" after the place in which it was discovered. But hey, if only they could merge flourine with this stuff, maybe we'll have a defense when those pesky Kryptonians break out of the Phantom Zone and come looking for trouble!





Technorati Tags: New Mineral, Kryptonite, Jadarite, Siberia, Superman, Lex Luthor

Still learning new stuff

This weekend Little Sister got to pick out the Saturday family movie. She wanted to see "The Ant Bully." It is an animated flick about how ants are better than humans because they all work together for the greater good of the colony. But that isn't what I learned about.

The disc we received was damaged. The first 45 minutes of the show worked just fine, but then started to skip and pause and the sound would cut out and the image would break up. I kicked myself for not cleaning the disc before playing it - one of the kids put the movie in. Usually I clean the discs before watching them because the Einsteins at the video store always seem to manhandle the discs getting them ripe with finger prints.

I removed the disc and cleaned it off, chose the scene from the index about where it was we were at when the trouble started. The cleaning did on good. Still the same problem. That is where the teenager came to the rescue. He took the disc into the bathroom and coated with with toothpaste. After that, the movie worked flawlessly. I don't know what toothpaste does for the disc, and neither does he, but he says it works on his console games, so he thought it might work on the DVD as well.

Toothpaste to fix problem DVDs. Who knew?

Technorati Tags: DVD, Scratches, Toothpaste, Ant Bully

Learn something every day

I learned something I consider rather valuable with my last post. That is, that the OpenOffice document writer makes a pretty crappy editor for writing a blog post before posting it. It puts hard returns at the end of each line, not just the lines you want hard returns at.

Lesson learned. Maybe there is a setting in the properties would would stop this from happening, but I don't really feel much like looking for at this point.

Thanks for visiting - and have a GREAT day!

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UPDATE: Holy Cow! I didn't realize just how bad it messed up the formatting. Looks like is saves everything in HTML, which would be fine if 1) I knew it was going to do that and b) I wanted it to do that. Sheesh.

Waiting at the tire shop

Sitting in the lobby of the Kansas Tire and Auto shop waiting for them to fix the hamster that runs around in the wheel to power my little nothing of a car. I have a Honda Insight - sure it is supposed to be good for the environment, but my purchase of such a vehicle was purely selfish - I had to admit it but it is the truth - commuting 70 miles each way to work everyday, I needed something that would get good mileage, and, seriously, without embellishment, I have a 58 MPG lifetime average on the car. That means over the course of the 172K + miles I have put on it in the past six years, I have saved...well, A LOT of money in gas. I spend about five and a half dollars a day on gas with that little thing.

So anyway, I'm sitting in the lobby of the Kansas Tire and Auto while they are replacing the front tires of my roller skate, and my mind starts wondering. They have no TV for those waiting and no free coffee (or even pay-for coffee) like most places do. So my mind starts thinking. This is usually a fairly dangerous thing. My mind goes places that Angels fear to tread when it is without stimulation. It makes it's own stimulation, and then takes some wild turns down tangents most people have never considered.

Luckily, this time, my mind was still mostly asleep after staying up so late playing Raven Shield with my buds, and getting up early to get the car here for the new tires, so I started thinking, and I mean seriously thinking, about what I would do if I won the lottery.

What I would do if I won the lottery:

Really, my plans for any lottery winnings would depend on how much was won. But lets pretend it is the $300 million lottery. Taking the cash and after taxes, I'm guessing there would be about 125 million simolians in my bank account after all the dust settled and Uncle Sam got his share.

First, I would give ½ to charity. That would be about $62.5 million dollars (I think most of it to charities the help the families of US service men and women who have been killed or injured). Then I would openly challenge John "you little people don't do enough for the poor" Edwards to match the donation.

Second, I would setup a college fund for any and all family members. The fund would be such that any family member who wanted to tap into it could. It would be a small interest loan (like 1.5% or something ridiculously low), unless the student received at least 4.0 GPA, then the loan would be forgiven and they would not have to pay any amount back. This might seem like a high GPA, but when one doesn't have to work, and all of their expenses are paid, and they get a monthly allowance for pocket money, there should be absolutely no reason why one cannot get a 4.0 GPA.

Third, I would hire a plumber and have all the plumbing in my house re-done.

Fourth, I would hire an electrician and have my entire house re-wired.

Fifth, I would quit my job and tell the little dictator in the corner office to 'have a nice day'

Sixth I would seriously investigate what it would take to get a fuel cell generator for my house. Not only would it generate electricity, but also produce water. And, if rumors be true, any electricity one produces but doesn't use, gets pushed back onto the grid, so the electric company has to pay them for the power (it would be SOOOO cool to get a check from those folks for once!). And for water, if I could get off the city water supply and have pure H2O - well, all the better.

Seventh, I would get the 5/8th that Jaguar she has always lusted after.

Eighth, I would by myself a big fat Harley-Davidson motorcycle, and ride the Al-Can highway on my Hog, camping from here to Alaska. Well, okay, I can get one for the 5/8th also, and she could come if she wanted to (I guess).

After all that, I figured I'd have about 20 or 30 million clams left, and I could use part of that to open a coffee shop. A roomy place, with tons of hard back books and giant, comfy leather chairs and big couches. Like those libraries one sees in those movies made from Agatha Christie novels. People could come in, be comfortable, enlarge their knowledge with old dusty books, drink coffee (or chai tea or whatever else suits them) and surf the 'Net if they so wanted. Oh, and board games, I'd have board games for people to play, checkers, chess, Chinese checkers, pente, Monopoly, stuff like that (hey, anything to keep them in the shop drinking coffee or what not). I'd need the business because, with only 20 or 30 million bucks left, even if on got only 5% interest on investments, that is only about 1 or 1.5 million dollars a year, and who on God's green earth can live on that pittance? I'd need the business to supplement that measly income.




Technorati Tags: Honda Insight, Winning The Lotto, Charity, Dreams

Religious History

I have, for years, been interested in apocrypha and the gnostic texts and other books of antiquity and scripture that is not part of the canonical bible. There is a very good website which hosts these texts at the Internet Sacred Text Archive. The texts contained in that site are all in the public domain. One can also get a CD or DVD of the site's content.

At about Easter time (which is the usual time for this stuff) the History Channel aired several shows, "Banned From the Bible" and "Banned From the Bible II". Four hours of information discussing ancient texts which, while widely read and well known at the time, were for whatever reasons not included in the official canonical bible we all know and love today.

There are a variety of reasons why these books were left out. Some, especially the gnostic texts, were (and still are by some) considered heretical. As more and more of the earth is used and settled upon and trampled, more and more of these ancient writings are coming to light. They are being found where they were left thousands of years ago. This is terribly fascinating to me.

One of the books discussed in the section we watched last night (we Tivo'ed the shows for later consumption) discussed the "Testament of Solomon". This is one book I would like to read. I couldn't find it on the Sacred-Texts archive, but I'm certain enough of an internet search will reveal one or more translations. In this book, which was discovered as a 14th or 15th century manuscript, but is believed to me much older due to several early AD and even some BC texts that reference the writing.

In "Testament of Solomon", Solomon is not only super wise and super rich, he is also quite the wizard. He is given (I suppose by God or an angel) a special ring which gives him the ability to control Satan and the demons (like "Lord of the Rings" - kinda). He uses the demons as slave labor to build the great Temple of Solomon.

Sheesh, sometimes I just ramble don't I.

Hey, thanks for visiting!





Technorati Tags: Religion, Apocrypha, Ancient Scripture, History, Gnostics