The Green Bag

I've posted photos from our vacation in The Green Bag Gallery

Since Micah's shot of my new do wasn't very clear, I thought I'd pass these on...

So, just taking a few minutes to bang out a "real" blog posting. I've wanted to blog about our train trip to DC and other exciting things, but haven't had time to write a proper blog entry in what seems like ages.

In the meantime, I've continued micro-blogging in a couple of different ways. As always, my links on del.icio.us continue to be a history of interesting stuff I've been reading and silly videos I've watched. I've also joined Twitter, and I'm using that as a true micro-blog. One-liner postings that fly off the fingers with very little thought or composition, just to capture thoughts of the moment.

And I've become one of those creepy old people who've joined facebook.

Saw this in Monday's paper, and immediately thought of Ryan!

Sometimes you sign your kids up for just the right thing at just the right time. We decided to go with the National Little League for Kate and Caroline. Caroline is playing T-Ball/Coach Pitch. If they can't hit it after 5 pitches, they get the T. Caroline almost always hits a pitch! And Kate is playing softball, majors division. That's always interesting since most of the girls still can't pitch really well, but its better than minors!

Anyway, because some parent was at the right place at the right time and was persistent enough, Brandon Inge, 3rd baseman for the Detroit Tigers, came to our fields today to give autographs. He also posed for pictures and threw out the first pitch for one of the baseball games. What's really neat is that he did this on his own time, he was not compensated and it was his birthday. What a nice guy!

April 19, 2007

“My” cardinals are back this year, as they have been for a long time now, to mate. Sitting on my screened porch just now, I watched their fledglings testing their wings. Small moments such as this remind me of the part of Harrold’s farewell letter to his daughters, where he tells us (paraphrased here) to remember that no matter the ills of the world, i.e. Earth or our personal lives, the sun will still come up tomorrow; there’s so much more out there than our own micro-lives. I’m grateful to be exposed to that in instances of surprise like the one I just witnessed. I’m at peace this morning – well, except, maybe, when I realize I have to learn how to use the digital camera I bought yesterday! But that’ll take care of itself, too.

April 13, 2007

I haven’t been doing too well with my journal, but I want to record what happened this morning so that I can remember the most important part of it as a reminder to myself.

I had awakened about 6:00 and was on my second cup of coffee between 7:30 and 8:00 when the two youngsters next door showed up here at my place.

The unit next to mine, upstairs here in the building and a “mirror” of my place, is still owned by one of the original buyers here – 24 years or so ago. He lived here for a while and then bought a house and began renting the unit out. I had a nice quiet young man as a neighbor for a number of years. Then he bought a house. The unit was re-rented, and Glen and Patricia and her two children have lived there for a couple of years now.

Here is the link to the neato animated "jib-jab" sorta kinda thing that our awesome committee created for the recent Chamber Banquet.
Ric Snyder did most of the work. Kerry Weeman-Pickett wrote the lyrics. Andy Vernon came up with the Green Acres idea. Everyone contributed ideas and we had a ton of fun. The crowd loved it!
We're holding back on posting it elsewhere due to licensing issues. We did buy the song, but from what I understand it would cost us about $1,000 annual fee to post it for sharing with the public at large.

Anyhow - here it is . Hope you can open and enjoy one more reason to love Orrville.

This entry has been brewing since last fall, when Luanne emailed her report of Vicki and Allen's visit during their train trip, and Luanne had mentioned the band that was playing "the jazz that Vicki and I both love."

I think it's safe to say that I've been primarily a classic rock kinda guy since moving here to the Motor City back in 8th grade. But I have always liked good music of just about any genre, and having played some jazz in my high school days, have a fondness for certain types of jazz as well.

Of course, most of the music I listen to nowadays would be properly labeled Contemporary Christian. Granted, my tendencies there still lie more towards rock sounds like Third Day and Petra (with former Head East singer John Schlitt), while Marissa would prefer the edgier sounds of Stellar Kart or eleventyseven.

Unfortunately for me, I have just enough adult-onset ADD (or more likely ADT that I'm easily distracted when trying to listen to talk or music with lyrics when I'm trying to work. This is especially true when I'm typing, and even more so when I'm programming.

I tagged this page on del.icio.us last week, but haven't had time to blog about it until now. This map of the Eisenhower Interstate System is one of the most interesting maps I've ever seen.

When you disregard the actual distances between cities on the map, the relationships between the different Interstates becomes immediately clear. Thanks to some history bits on the radio, I recently learned about Henry Joy and his relationship to the Interstate 80 transcontinental route between New York and San Francisco.