Christmas Lights

This is a link to some guys who decorate their homes with lights and then time the lights to music to make some very obnoxious neighbors. Go to the video section and get into the holiday spirit. I like the Wizards of Winter one near the bottom of the list (this one has been circulating the internet this year). Have fun and don't let the holidays get ya down!

Pictures of Ryan

Hey, I know I've been slacking with the pictures of Ryan, so here ya go!

Nighttime Adventures
I think it's snack time...	Perhaps you didn't understand me... I said SNACK TIME!!!

Halloween!
Uh... I'm a pumpkin?!?	I wanted to be Darth Vader!!!

Time for Football!
Go Eagles!!!	Watching football is such hard work...

Thanksgiving
No turkey for Ryan :(	I know it's not Ryan, but she looked so cute in her little dress.

Adventures in Boredom
Look ma! No hands!	Hands! Hands! Haaaands!!!!

Smile!!!

Ryan learned to smile...

...from both ends?!?

Multiple Choice #2 - History

Grandpa won the last of these quizzes so he picked from a list of categories for a quiz, and he selected... History (yeah, not my cup 'o tea either). Due to the fact that not all of us are history buffs, I copied three questions from a 9th grade high school history quiz (and yes, I got them all right), the other two questions were taken from a 200 level (mostly sophomores and freshman) college history quiz.

#1. On what religious holiday was Abraham Lincoln shot?

a. Christmas
b. Easter Sunday
c. Yom Kippur
d. Good Friday

#2. Who first said, "All we have to fear is fear itself"?

a. Winston Churchill
b. Franklin Roosevelt
c. John F. Kennedy
d. Martin Luther King, Jr.

#3. What was the name of the plane which dropped the SECOND nuclear bomb on Japan?

a. Enola Gay
b. Memphis Belle
c. Big Boy
d. Bock's Car

#4. The President whose election depended upon the decision of an Electoral Commission was?

a. Rutherford B. Hayes
b. Richard Nixon
c. Benjamin Harrison
d. Andrew Jackson
e. Grover Cleveland

#5. In what city was the treaty ending the Russo-Japanese War signed?

a. San Francisco, CA
b. Portsmouth, NH
c. Washington D.C.
d. Herndon, VA

Same rules apply... e-mail me the answers by the end of this week (12-03-05). Good luck all!

Turkey Day is Coming!

This is a copy of an article that I found to be humorous...

Key to the celebration of Thanksgiving is gathering with family and friends to partake of a sumptuous feast prepared in honor of the day. Central to that feast (or at least to our common mental image of it) is a roasted turkey laid on a platter before the hungry guests, the bird presented in all its mouthwatering crispy-skinned perfection.

Yet not every aspiring Thanksgiving-maker knows how to properly roast a turkey. The bird proves an utter mystery to some, resulting in many a holiday mishap of a culinary nature.

Luckily, those confounded by the fowl can access a great deal of help by calling a number of turkey preparation hotlines. While some offer only recorded tips on how to prepare and roast the bird, others provide live assistance from trained experts well experienced not only with poultry but with nervous and overwhelmed cooks. Over the years, these talk line mavens have fielded all manner of queries from those bewildered by the fickle bird.

One of the more unusual questions handled by Butterball's Turkey Talk-Line (1-800-BUTTERBALL) comes from those who have mistaken a well-traveled joke for an actual recipe: They call to ask if they can pop popcorn in the turkey's cavity during the roasting process. (The joke's punch line is: "You know the turkey is done when the popcorn pops and blows the rear off the bird.").
And no, you can't.

The hotline has heard from a gal who couldn't find the turkey she buried in a snowbank, a guy who wanted to know how to carve his bird with a chain saw, and a mechanic who worried about using motor oil as a baste.

Then there was the young mother who failed to notice her children playing near the oven-ready bird. The kids decided the turkey's cavity was a good place to park toy cars. Their mom didn't discover Ol' Tom was doubling as a garage until after the turkey had been roasted.

Another confused cook called the Butterball line after cleaning her turkey because she wanted to know how to get the metal pieces out. "Apparently," said one of the Butterball economists, "she had scrubbed her bird with a steel scouring pad." A West Coast woman who had taken anti-bacterial precautions too far called Butterball to find out how to get the bleach she'd used off her bird.

Butterball turkey experts still talk about the Kentucky woman who called in 1993 to ask how to get her dog out of her turkey. It seems the woman's Chihuahua had dived into the bird's cavity and become trapped there. The woman tried pulling the pooch and shaking the bird, all to no avail. A Butterball economist finally suggested the woman carefully cut the opening in the turkey wider to release the captive canine.

The Reynolds Wrap Turkey Tips Line (800-745-4000) took a query from a woman who wanted to know if she could cook her turkey by placing it in a Reynolds Oven Bag, putting it in the window in the back of her car, and letting the heat from the sun bake the turkey. (She was told that would be an uncontrolled heat source and was instructed to use an oven instead.)

The folks at Butterball have also dealt with cooks determined to roast turkeys on the back ledges of their cars. And they've had people call to ask if they could cook their holiday birds on radiators. Then there was the bride who had a small, apartment-size range and was worried the turkey would get larger as it cooked (similar to a loaf of bread rising) — she was fretting she wouldn't be able to get it out of the oven after it was done.

There are those whose problems are not how to get the turkey out of the oven, but when. Said Nancy Rodriguez, coordinator of the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line in 1985, "One lady in Arkansas had her five-pound turkey in the oven 24 hours — did we think it was done? Another caller wanted to know the best method for reattaching the thighs and drumsticks when they fall off. His 12-pound turkey had been in the oven since 8 a.m. the day before."

The self-cleaning option offered on a number of ranges has caused its share of Thanksgiving troubles when confused cooks have inadvertently started its cycle while their birds were in the oven. Others have different range-related questions, such as: "Your directions say to roast the turkey, but my oven says only bake or broil; how do I set it?"

We'll leave it to others to provide the more mundane advice regarding thawing and cooking times, how to prepare the bird for roasting and how to prepare stuffing, and instead offer these useful tips, as gleaned from the experiences of turkey hot line counsellors:

• Do not leave your turkey on your back porch, either to slow thaw it or to keep it chilled until the big day. Those who have failed to heed this advice have discovered themselves birdless on Thanksgiving morning. Their loss was the local raccoons' gain — those masked marauders celebrated the day in fine style.
• If you choose to bring home your frozen bird within the car proper rather than in the trunk, do take care to seatbelt the fowlsicle lest a sudden stop transform the star of the upcoming dinner into a weighty frozen projectile. One woman who failed to belt down her bird was rewarded for her lack of foresight with a broken toe when a sharp tap of the brakes caused the iced fowl to slide off the seat and onto her foot.

More Site Updates

Over the last few weeks I have tweaked the site a bit... here's a rundown of what's goin' on:

Google Search Engine

This has been added to the top of the sidebar for those of us who tend to keep this page up for easy searches.

Scoreboard

I have put up two scoreboards - one for the football 'pool' and one for the trivia questions contest. These are located just above the icon that you use to log in. These scoreboards will be updated weekly.

Word of the Day

I have also added a little 'word of the day' generator near the bottom of the sidebar. This is just for fun (a.k.a. Movie Quotes), but I also figured that learning something can't hurt too much (especially when we 'help' Grandpa with his crosswords).

Recent Comments

This has been complicated since I started working on it right after starting this page. I've finally fixed all the bugs except for one. "Mama's House" comments will not show up. This is due to the fact that she has an apostrophe in her name. This generator can only handle numbers and letters so any comments by her will NOT show up. So, Mom if you would like to have your name show up when you post a comment you will have to edit your user name to not include any symbols or punctuation marks... Recent comments should also now show on all pages which means that if you click on an Archive link the "Recent Comments" section will show the most recent comments for that archived page.

Sidebar

After all these little changes the sidebar began to look messy. I rearranged things a bit to make it more pleasing to the eye and added some more seperator lines.

Questions? Comments? Concerns? Something else you would like added? Let me know.
Later!

Multiple Choice #1 - States

How well do you know your state?

Okay, I know that all of you could answer these questions by looking them up online, but I trust that you will use your own knowledge...

#1. The cardinal is the state bird of several states, but only one of the states that we live in has it for it's state bird.

a. Delaware
b. Florida
c. New Jersey
d. North Carolina

#2. Which of these states is the state flower the violet?

a. Delaware
b. Florida
c. New Jersey
d. North Carolina

#3. The mockingbird is the state bird for which of these states (like the cardinal it is the state bird of many states but only one of the ones we live in)?

a. Delaware
b. Florida
c. New Jersey
d. North Carolina

#4. The Longleaf Pine is the state tree for which of these states?

a. Delaware
b. Florida
c. New Jersey
d. North Carolina

#5. As of the 2004 Population Density report by the Census Bureau, which state has the highest population density (population per square mile)?

a. Delaware
b. Florida
c. New Jersey
d. North Carolina

Bonus Question (additional 1 point):

Bud Abbott, Jon Bon Jovi, Aaron Burr, David Copperfield, Lou Costello, Whitney Houston, Jerry Lewis, Jack Nicholson, Joe Piscopo, Norman Schwarzkopf, Frank Sinatra, Kevin Spacey, Bruce Springsteen, Meryl Streep, and Dave Thomas all called one of our states home, which was was it?

a. Delaware
b. Florida
c. New Jersey
d. North Carolina

There... general knowledge and hell, you might learn something... Good luck all... And for those of you who need it here is my e-mail.

Questions #1

This will be a list of 5 questions (hint: most are trick questions). Same point system applies as before. Good luck all.

#1	A man and his son were in an automobile accident. The man died on the way to the hospital, but the boy was rushed into surgery. The emergency room surgeon said "I can't operate, that's my son!" How is this possible?
#2	A 10 foot rope ladder hangs over the side of a boat with the bottom rung on the surface of the water. The rungs are one foot apart, and the tide goes up at the rate of 6 inches per hour. How long will it be until three rungs are covered?
#3	Is it legal for a man to marry his widow's sister?
#4	If the Vice President of the United States should die, who would be President?
#5	A light-tight wooden box has three switches on the outside that control three light bulbs on the inside. When the box is closed you can turn the switches on or off but when you open the box how can you tell which switch controls each bulb without touching the switches (the box can only be opened once)?

Basic HTML Commands

I was over at Grandpa's on Sunday for dinner and he asked me for some information about fixing some posts. I gave him a few pointers last night and when I arrived at work this morning I thought that for those of you who want to do a bit more with your posts and need some basic knowledge of HTML I'd provide a link, so... here's a link. C-ya!

Hallowe'en

I carved a couple of pumpkins for display on Hallowe'en for the trick or treaters. I had about 75 kids, from toddlers with their parents, to teens, in costumes ranging from a Power Ranger to witches, goblins and, cutest of all, Samantha in a pixie costume. I think she was supposed to be a ballerina, but since she had wings, I thought she looked like a pixie. I was going to be lazy and not carve pumpkins but Debbie said I had to uphold my tradition, so I played golf in the morning and carved pumpkins in the afternoon. I finished about 30 minutes before the first trick or treaters showed up. Here they are with a picture of Samantha in her costume. It is pretty dark but you can see the wings.

Word Puzzles #1

Okay I am going to post 5 puzzles (they will vary in difficulty from fairly easy ones to head scratchers). Do NOT reply your answers to the post, but instead E-Mail me your guesses.

This is how the points will be assigned:

• 1 point for every right answer
• 1 additional point for getting them all right
• 1 more additional point for being the first to e-mail me all 5 right answers
• 1 point will be assigned to me for every one guessed incorrectly or not at all
  

#1	operation
#2	ch poorri
#3	knee light light
#4	Beating Beating Bush Beating Beating
#5	long do

Remember to E-Mail me your guesses. I will post the correct answers and the totals on the 7th so you have until then. Oh, and no fair looking the answers up online either... Good Luck.