Year: 2008

On the Couch

Through the magic of a Paint Shop Pro I can paint in watercolor. This is from last Sunday’s visit to Hopeland Gardens home of the Thoroughbred Racing Hall of Fame & Museum.

Having spent the last two nights in separate rooms, me with baseball in one and her with the Olympics in another, tonight we decided to be in the same room at the same time. I’m listening to the FRS on the internet via laptop on one end of the couch and Donna is watching the Olympics on the other end. Right now there is two women beach volleyball on that I keep noticing in my peripheral. All I have to say is with all those players on the sand at one time, it is a good thing they have numbers on their suits, so we can keep track of who is who.

On another Olympics related note, I happened to catch the Nike commercial for the Redeem Team while watching sports center (should that be capitalized? one word?) on ESPN this morning. We have been subjected to many renditions of our national anthem over the years, some very good – Whitney Huston prior to the Super Bowl and some very bad – Rosanne Barr before a San Diego Padres baseball game, but I really like this non-traditional version of Marvin Gaye‘s that is the basis for this commercial.

For some entertaining reading, try the online version of “Seattle’s Only Newspaper”, The Stranger.

Started down, went up, still up.
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Olympics in Pictures

I’m not watching much of the Olympics on TV. It is not that I’m anti-Olympics as much as I’m anti-TV. But I have been keeping track photographically and through that way, I have found out that the Chinese have hired cheerleaders to ensure that there are someone cheering for everyone, not just the home crowd. I have found a couple of interesting photographer’s blogs, Rod Mar of The Seattle Times, Vincent Laforet of Newsweek and three guys from the Toronto Star.

Right now a lot of coverage is centered on swimmer Michael Phelps, and correctly so, as he goes for a record 8 gold medals, but you would think he walks on water. He can’t, but it looks like Aaron Piersol can. I just love these images gathered by the German magazine Stern that capture those moments you won’t see in the mainstream press. When you are a swimmer awaiting to compete what do you do with your goggles and swim cap? Those bathing suits don’t have pockets, here is Amanda Beard’s answer. And Janet Jackson’s equipment malfunction has nothing on this poor water polo player’s problem.

Least you think that from those last two photos my interest in photos from the Olympics is primarily to ogle the female form, here is a great gallery of shots of the opening ceremony from the Boston Globe. OK, so not primarily, but it is right up there. Here (thanks again to Stern) are some photos of four German athletes from their edition of Playboy.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
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Born Salesman

A young guy from Minnesota moves to Florida and goes to a big ‘everything under one roof’ department store looking for a job.

The manager says, “Do you have any sales experience?”

The kid says, “Yeah. I was a salesman back in Minnesota.”

Well, the boss liked the kid and gave him the job. “You start tomorrow. I’ll come down after we close and see how you did.”

His first day on the job was rough, but he got through it. After the store was locked up, the boss came to see him. “How many customers bought something from you today?”

The kid says, “One.”

The boss says “Just one? Our sales people average 20 to 30 customers a day. How much was the sale for?”

The kid says, “$101,237.65.”

The boss says, “$101,237.65? What the heck did you sell him?”

The kid says, “First, I sold him a small fish hook. Then I sold him a medium fishhook. Then I sold him a larger fishhook. Then I sold him a new fishing rod. Then I asked him where he was going fishing and he said down the coast, so I told him he was going to need a boat, so we went down to the boat department and I sold him a twin engine Chris Craft. Then he said he didn’t think his Honda Civic would pull it, so I took him down to the automotive department and sold him that 4×4 Expedition.”

The boss said, “A guy came in here to buy a fish hook and you sold him a BOAT and a TRUCK? Is that right?”

The kid answered, “No, the guy came in here to buy Tampons for his wife, and I said, ‘Dude, your weekend’s shot; you should go fishing.’ “

Loser

I’ve mentioned here before that our company plays a little something called Safety Bingo, everyday we go without a lost time accident, a number is “called” & added to the big Bingo board in the main hall.

Up until last Friday we were playing a game entitled Window which consists of having to fill the squares all around the card and then both the middle vertical and horizontal rows so that your card looks like, well, a window. With each square worth $20 the winner of this game will be four hundred and twenty dollars (minus Federal & State Taxes) richer. When B14 was called on Friday we got that winner.

The nurse posted an 8-1/2 x 11 piece of paper over the Bingo board saying “Congratulations. John Doe – Maintenance. Winner.” Somewhere in between the middle of yesterday and the middle of this morning someone hand wrote after the name “– Looser.”

I’m not sure which is worse, someone upset enough at not winning to write that or that they couldn’t even spell the word.

Started up, went down, went up, back down, still down.
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Why Men Wear Earrings

A man is at work one day when he notices that his co-worker is wearing an earring. The guy knows his co-worker to be a normally conservative fellow, and is curious about his sudden change in ‘fashion sense.’

He walks up to him and says, “I didn’t know you were into earrings.”

“Don’t make such a big deal, it’s only an earring,” he replies sheepishly.

His friend falls silent for a few minutes, but then his curiosity prods him to ask, “So, how long have you been wearing one?”

“Ever since my wife found it in my truck.”

Aiken’s Labyrinth

We went for a bike ride Saturday morning and although the temperature and humidity were lower than they have been on Sunday, we still could not bring ourselves to go for a walk in Hitchcock Woods, so we took a walk around the horse district yesterday morning. It is not far enough along on the calendar for any of the thoroughbreds to be back in town, so the training track was deserted, but there was some action around a few of the stables.

The midpoint of our trek was Hopeland Gardens and we did a bit of wandering around those beautiful grounds. We made a point of checking out the newest addition to the gardens, a brick octagonal labyrinth. The last time we saw it, admittedly, quite a while ago, it was only 1/3 done, but now it was complete. Donna decided to walk it while I sat on a bench and took a photo or two. She got about halfway through and started to mutter to herself, “I don’t get it. I just don’t get it.” Not long after, she took a shortcut to the center. I suggested we start from the end and work our way out. That was fun for about 3 minutes and we both walked away shaking our heads.

On the way home, we made a detour to a quick stop to buy the Sunday paper and finished up with a little more than 4 miles on our feet. Probably a bit more if you count the steps traveled in our aborted enlightenment journeys.

Started down, went up, still up.
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What Is Love?

Sunday nights from 6 PM until whenever, Bravo runs a Law & Order: Criminal Intent mini-marathon and I like to watch the repeats of older shows until 9 PM when USA runs a new episode. The original L & O is still the best (although sometimes their twists at the end stretch credibility), occasionally L & O:SVU leaves me feeling like a voyeuristic pervert, but L & O:CI is a guilty pleasure with Goren, it’s quirky lead detective and Eames his sneaky hot partner poking and prying until they get to the bottom of the crime.

I’m sure because of contractual obligations Bravo only gets to show certain seasons of the show, so nearly all the time I will recognize the episode as one I’ve seen and watch it again anyway. Sometimes I get real lucky and I won’t have seen it for a while, meaning I have forgotten who the killer is, so the show is a real treat. Rarely, I will stumble on an episode I haven’t ever seen at all before. Tonight at 7 o’clock that happened and it was exciting.

At ten minutes after seven my wife came into the living room and asked if she could have the TV, the Olympics were on and there was going to be swimming, diving and gymnastics tonight. I said, “Sure, go ahead.” That my friends is love.

When it turns out they were showing synchronized diving right then I didn’t make her turn it back to L & O:CI. That my friends is true love.

Started down, still down.
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