Belgian sister Johanne Vertomme (L) 29, from Loppem, Belgium is seen dancing with Mark (no surname given), a missionary, during the Catholic World Youth Day, in Cologne Germany, August 20, 2005. The Belgian nun's acrobatic and indecorous dancing with the missionary during the Catholic World Youth Day in Germany over the weekend earned her a reprimand from her mother superior, a Belgian paper said August 22, 2005. 'I wouldn't do this at home but at such occasions I get carried away by the enthusiasm of the group,' the 29-year-old told the paper later. 'My mother superior raised the issue today: she thinks I should watch out a bit and bear in mind that I represent our community,' Vertommen said. Pope Benedict attended the celebration at the Marienfeld, outside Cologne, in the presence of some 700,000 people.
8.25.2005
08.25.05 Sally Field Flies Again!
Belgian sister Johanne Vertomme (L) 29, from Loppem, Belgium is seen dancing with Mark (no surname given), a missionary, during the Catholic World Youth Day, in Cologne Germany, August 20, 2005. The Belgian nun's acrobatic and indecorous dancing with the missionary during the Catholic World Youth Day in Germany over the weekend earned her a reprimand from her mother superior, a Belgian paper said August 22, 2005. 'I wouldn't do this at home but at such occasions I get carried away by the enthusiasm of the group,' the 29-year-old told the paper later. 'My mother superior raised the issue today: she thinks I should watch out a bit and bear in mind that I represent our community,' Vertommen said. Pope Benedict attended the celebration at the Marienfeld, outside Cologne, in the presence of some 700,000 people.
8.24.2005
08.24.05 The Amish
I was doing a real boring task today at work. I had to print out chapters from a book, collate them together using a bookmap that did not at all reflect the actual page numbers of what I was working on. A co-worker saw what I was doing and commented 'The Amish are more technoligically advanced than we are sometimes'. That really cracked me up and made my day. It's so true some days...
8.23.2005
08.23.05 Public Service Announcement - SPAM
SPAM - we all get, some worse than others. I saw on someone's post a solution to make it harder to be spammed. Check out this Link. It has to do with 'Word Verification' . I'm not sure if I will do this, spam hasn't been too much of a problem for me and it creates extra work to resond to a post.
What is the word verification option?
The "word verification" option can be found on the Settings Comments tab for your blog, and it looks like this:
If you chose "yes" for this setting, then people leaving comments on your blog will be required to complete a word verification step, similar to the one presented when you create a blog:
What this does is to prevent automated systems from adding comments to your blog, since it takes a human being to read the word and pass this step. If you've ever received a comment that looked like an advertisement or a random link to an unrelated site, then you've encountered comment spam. A lot of this is done automatically by software which can't pass the word verification, so enabling this option is a good way to prevent many such unwanted comments.
What is the word verification option?
The "word verification" option can be found on the Settings Comments tab for your blog, and it looks like this:
If you chose "yes" for this setting, then people leaving comments on your blog will be required to complete a word verification step, similar to the one presented when you create a blog:
What this does is to prevent automated systems from adding comments to your blog, since it takes a human being to read the word and pass this step. If you've ever received a comment that looked like an advertisement or a random link to an unrelated site, then you've encountered comment spam. A lot of this is done automatically by software which can't pass the word verification, so enabling this option is a good way to prevent many such unwanted comments.
8.22.2005
08.22.05 Little Billy Jokes
I'm too lazy to write on this blog today so here are some 'Little Billy' jokes... Leave a joke if you'd like
LITTLE BILLY ON ...GETTING OLDER
Little BILLY was sitting on a park bench munching on one candy bar after another. After the 6th one, a man on the bench across from him said, "Son, you know eating all that candy isn't good for you. It will give you acne, rot your teeth, and make you fat."
Little BILLY replied, "My grandfather lived to be 107 years old." "Oh?" replied the man. "Did your grandfather eat 6 candy bars at a time?" "No" replied Little Billy, "he minded his own fucking business!!"
LITTLE BILLY ON...PHILOSOPHY
A teacher asks her class, "If there are 5 birds sitting on a fence and you shoot one of them, how many will be left?" She calls on little BILLY. He replies, "None, they will all fly away with the first gunshot." The teacher replies, "The correct answer is 4, but I like your thinking." Then little BILLY says, "I have a question for YOU.There are 3 women sitting on a bench having ice cream:One is delicately licking the sides of the triplescoop of ice cream. The second is gobbling down the top and sucking the cone. The third is biting off the top of the ice cream.
Which one is married?" The teacher, blushing a great deal, replies, "Well, I suppose the one that's gobbled down the top and sucked the cone." To which Little BILLY replied, "The correct answer is 'the one with the wedding ring on', but I like your way of thinking."
LITTLE BILLY ON... MATH:
Little BILLY returns home from school and says he gotan F in arithmetic."Why?" asks the father." "The teacher asked, 'How much is 2x3?' I said 6," replied BILLY. "But that's right!" says his dad."Yeah, but then she asked me, 'How much is 3x2?'" "What's the fucking difference? " asks the father. "That's what I said!"
LITTLE BILLY ON...ENGLISH:
Little BILLY goes to school, and the teacher says,"Today we are going to learn multi-syllable words,class. Does anybody have an example of a multi-syllable word?" BILLY says " Mas-tur-bate." Miss Rogers smiles and says, "Wow, little BILLY, that's a mouthful." Little BILLY says, "No, Miss Rogers, you're thinking of a blow-job."
LITTLE BILLY ON...GRAMMAR:
One day, during lessons on proper grammar, the teacher asked for a show hands from those who could use the word "beautiful" in the same sentence twice. First she called on little Suzie, who responded with,"My father bought my mother a beautiful dress and she looked beautiful in it." "Very good, Suzie," replied the teacher. She then called on little Michael."My mommy planned a beautiful banquet and it turned out beautifully." The teacher responded, "Excellent, Michael!" Then, she reluctantly called on little BILLY. "Last night, at the dinner table, my sister told my father that she was pregnant, and he said "Beautiful, just fucking beautiful!"
LITTLE BILLY ON ...GETTING OLDER
Little BILLY was sitting on a park bench munching on one candy bar after another. After the 6th one, a man on the bench across from him said, "Son, you know eating all that candy isn't good for you. It will give you acne, rot your teeth, and make you fat."
Little BILLY replied, "My grandfather lived to be 107 years old." "Oh?" replied the man. "Did your grandfather eat 6 candy bars at a time?" "No" replied Little Billy, "he minded his own fucking business!!"
LITTLE BILLY ON...PHILOSOPHY
A teacher asks her class, "If there are 5 birds sitting on a fence and you shoot one of them, how many will be left?" She calls on little BILLY. He replies, "None, they will all fly away with the first gunshot." The teacher replies, "The correct answer is 4, but I like your thinking." Then little BILLY says, "I have a question for YOU.There are 3 women sitting on a bench having ice cream:One is delicately licking the sides of the triplescoop of ice cream. The second is gobbling down the top and sucking the cone. The third is biting off the top of the ice cream.
Which one is married?" The teacher, blushing a great deal, replies, "Well, I suppose the one that's gobbled down the top and sucked the cone." To which Little BILLY replied, "The correct answer is 'the one with the wedding ring on', but I like your way of thinking."
LITTLE BILLY ON... MATH:
Little BILLY returns home from school and says he gotan F in arithmetic."Why?" asks the father." "The teacher asked, 'How much is 2x3?' I said 6," replied BILLY. "But that's right!" says his dad."Yeah, but then she asked me, 'How much is 3x2?'" "What's the fucking difference? " asks the father. "That's what I said!"
LITTLE BILLY ON...ENGLISH:
Little BILLY goes to school, and the teacher says,"Today we are going to learn multi-syllable words,class. Does anybody have an example of a multi-syllable word?" BILLY says " Mas-tur-bate." Miss Rogers smiles and says, "Wow, little BILLY, that's a mouthful." Little BILLY says, "No, Miss Rogers, you're thinking of a blow-job."
LITTLE BILLY ON...GRAMMAR:
One day, during lessons on proper grammar, the teacher asked for a show hands from those who could use the word "beautiful" in the same sentence twice. First she called on little Suzie, who responded with,"My father bought my mother a beautiful dress and she looked beautiful in it." "Very good, Suzie," replied the teacher. She then called on little Michael."My mommy planned a beautiful banquet and it turned out beautifully." The teacher responded, "Excellent, Michael!" Then, she reluctantly called on little BILLY. "Last night, at the dinner table, my sister told my father that she was pregnant, and he said "Beautiful, just fucking beautiful!"
8.21.2005
08.21.05 How To Know Whether Or Not You Are Ready To Have Children
THE MESS TEST Smear peanut butter on the sofa and curtains. Place a fish stick behind the couch and leave it there all summer.
THE TOY TEST Obtain a 55 gallon box of Legos (or you may substitute roofing tacks). Have a friend spread them all over the house. Put on a blindfold. Try to walk to the bathroom or kitchen. Do not scream because this would wake a child at night.
THE GROCERY STORE TEST Borrow one or two small animals (goats are best) and take them with you as you shop. Always keep them in sight and pay for anything they eat or damage.
THE DRESSING TEST Obtain one large, unhappy, live octopus. Stuff into a small net bag making sure that all the arms stay inside.
THE FEEDING TEST Obtain a large plastic milk jug. Fill halfway with water. Suspend from the ceiling with a cord. Start the jug swinging. Try to insert spoonfuls of soggy cereal into the mouth of the jug, while pretending to be an airplane. Now dump the contents of the jug on the floor.
THE NIGHT TEST Prepare by obtaining a small cloth bag and fill it with 8-12 pounds of sand. Soak it thoroughly in water. At 3:00 pm begin to waltz and hum with the bag until 9:00 pm. Lay down your bag and set your alarm for 10:00 pm. Get up, pick up your bag, and sing every song you have ever heard. Make up about a dozen more and sing these too until 4:00am. Set the alarm for 5:00 am. Get up and make breakfast. Keep this up for 5 years and look cheerful.
THE INGENUITY TEST Take an egg carton. Using a pair of scissors and pot of paint, turn it into an alligator. Now take a toilet paper tube and turn it into an attractive Christmas candle. Use only scotch tape and a piece of foil. Last, take a milk carton, a ping-pong ball, and an empty box of Cocoa Puffs. Make an exact replica of the Eiffel Tower.
THE AUTOMOBILE TEST Forget the BMW and buy a station wagon. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment. Leave it there. Get a dime. Stick it into the cassette player. Take a family size package of chocolate chip cookies. Mash them into the back seat. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car. There......perfect.
THE PHYSICAL TEST (Women) Obtain a large bean bag chair and attach it to the front of your clothes. Leave it there for 9 months. Now remove 1/2 of the beans. Leave it on for the rest of your life.
THE PHYSICAL TEST (Men) Go to the nearest drug store. Set your wallet on the counter. Ask the clerk to help himself. Now proceed to the nearest food store. Go to the head office and arrange for your paycheck to be directly deposited to the store. Purchase a newspaper. Go home and read it quietly for the last time.
THE FINAL ASSIGNMENT Find a couple who already have a small child. Lecture them on how they can improve their discipline, patience, tolerance, toilet training and child's table manners. Suggest many ways they can improve. Emphasize to them that they should never allow their children to run wild. Enjoy this experience. It will be the last time you will have all the answers.
THE TOY TEST Obtain a 55 gallon box of Legos (or you may substitute roofing tacks). Have a friend spread them all over the house. Put on a blindfold. Try to walk to the bathroom or kitchen. Do not scream because this would wake a child at night.
THE GROCERY STORE TEST Borrow one or two small animals (goats are best) and take them with you as you shop. Always keep them in sight and pay for anything they eat or damage.
THE DRESSING TEST Obtain one large, unhappy, live octopus. Stuff into a small net bag making sure that all the arms stay inside.
THE FEEDING TEST Obtain a large plastic milk jug. Fill halfway with water. Suspend from the ceiling with a cord. Start the jug swinging. Try to insert spoonfuls of soggy cereal into the mouth of the jug, while pretending to be an airplane. Now dump the contents of the jug on the floor.
THE NIGHT TEST Prepare by obtaining a small cloth bag and fill it with 8-12 pounds of sand. Soak it thoroughly in water. At 3:00 pm begin to waltz and hum with the bag until 9:00 pm. Lay down your bag and set your alarm for 10:00 pm. Get up, pick up your bag, and sing every song you have ever heard. Make up about a dozen more and sing these too until 4:00am. Set the alarm for 5:00 am. Get up and make breakfast. Keep this up for 5 years and look cheerful.
THE INGENUITY TEST Take an egg carton. Using a pair of scissors and pot of paint, turn it into an alligator. Now take a toilet paper tube and turn it into an attractive Christmas candle. Use only scotch tape and a piece of foil. Last, take a milk carton, a ping-pong ball, and an empty box of Cocoa Puffs. Make an exact replica of the Eiffel Tower.
THE AUTOMOBILE TEST Forget the BMW and buy a station wagon. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment. Leave it there. Get a dime. Stick it into the cassette player. Take a family size package of chocolate chip cookies. Mash them into the back seat. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car. There......perfect.
THE PHYSICAL TEST (Women) Obtain a large bean bag chair and attach it to the front of your clothes. Leave it there for 9 months. Now remove 1/2 of the beans. Leave it on for the rest of your life.
THE PHYSICAL TEST (Men) Go to the nearest drug store. Set your wallet on the counter. Ask the clerk to help himself. Now proceed to the nearest food store. Go to the head office and arrange for your paycheck to be directly deposited to the store. Purchase a newspaper. Go home and read it quietly for the last time.
THE FINAL ASSIGNMENT Find a couple who already have a small child. Lecture them on how they can improve their discipline, patience, tolerance, toilet training and child's table manners. Suggest many ways they can improve. Emphasize to them that they should never allow their children to run wild. Enjoy this experience. It will be the last time you will have all the answers.
8.20.2005
08.20.05 Driving (me crazy)
This post is not an attack on anyone's race, gender or social background. It is just my observation of my life's situation. I will also add that I love my wife very much. She's a great friend, lover, companion, mother to our kids, she's a talented musicain, she puts up with me, not the best cook - see earlier post (OK, the disclaimer is out of the way). Her driving makes me nuts. I think it's safe to say that most of us feel we are better drivers than we actually are. You can also tell a lot about one's driving ability by how many tickets or accidents that they have had. My wife does not have too many speeding tickets (they can't seem to catch her), but during a 5 week span last fall, she managed to have 4 accidents, 1 speeding ticket, and knocked the rear window out of my Volvo 240 DL station wagon. The first occured when she was coming into the city to pick me up from the hospital. I can understand this one because I had been in the hospital for 16 days os she was a little stressed to day the least. She was driving down a side street looking for the hospital parking and she took off the passenger side mirror and scraped the entire side of the van. Ok, then 2 weeks later she was going to work on a Saturday morning. It was cold out and it rained the night before. I get a phone call. There was ice on the road and her, not being one of those cautious drivers, figured ice-schmice, I can still drive 70 mph so she hit the ice and did a few bounces off the median and the side retaining wall. Luckily, she was not hurt and no other cars were involved. Our van had two rear windows blown out and as it turned out, both axles bent. Cost to repair, over $5000. It is an 98 Villager and we don't have collision on it. Alrighty, that was 9 am. I drove down, with the 2 boys and my rather fresh staples in my gut while I was calling an autobody shop and a car rental place.We were able to drive it to the autobody shop, but she still wanted to get to work and there was something she had to do afterwards, so we went to Enterprise to rent a car for her. After about an hour or so, we got her a car. She went off to work, and I went home to take more percocet and valium. I get a call about 7 pm that night. She was in a gas station getting gas, and she opened the door without really checking and some guy was driving where he really should not have been and wham! The side of the door is dented and his mirror is history. She managed to drive home without another incident. So a week goes by, we still have the rental, she is out at a rehearsal, the phone rings. Yes, another accident. She was pulling into an empty (yes empty) parking lot and pulled up to park underneath the light and hits the bottom of the light post. I think it was between the last two accidents, she got a speeding ticket for going 68 in a 45 zone. I was so afraid to answer the phone, I never knew what it was going to be next. We returned the rental, our van was still in the shop and she started using our 89 Volvo wagon. She was getting something out of the back, and slammed the tailgate down and the rear window shattered and imploded.
Needless to say, we are banned from Enterprise car rental...
Needless to say, we are banned from Enterprise car rental...
8.19.2005
08.19.05 Loose Specs
specifications: A detailed, exact statement of particulars, especially a statement prescribing materials, dimensions, and quality of work for something to be built, installed, or manufactured.
Sounds pretty clear, doesn't it? I work in publishing, textbook publishing to be exact. This industry is so particular as to having set specs it can make your head spin, which it oftens does. There are discussions as to what font size and leading (the space between the lines) we must use because certain grades can't seem to understand text if the font is too big or too small or if the lines are too close together. My job here is to help with the process of putting the editors words, and the designers design together in one big happy textbook. I'm not really a layout person (unless needed) but more of a let's see what technology we can use to do this kind of guy. It's a position I love, I work with just a few really great people, we are like the special forces, it's cool. The only thing with developing templates for creating books is that we need to have the specs from the designers before we can create a template to reflect their design. The way it is supposed to work is that they book is designed with every possible type of layout already thought out and documented and specs created. Then the specs are signed off and we are set to go and develop templates, etc. Well, I have never seem this happen in the 4 years I've been here. We can be near the end of the creation of the book, and they are still creating specs. It's rather amazing. After each book, there are meetings where this issue comes up and it is determined that it will never happen again and sure as the sun rises, here we go again. But I heard a new one the other day as far as specs go. I was working on a customized book for the state of Illinois. When I handed off my work to my manager, it was basically right except I was told the positioning of certain elements was not correct. I asked if there were specs for this. I was told there were 'loose specs'. I had to laugh, what the hell is a loose spec? It's either positioned exactly here, or it's not. I guess that falls under the category of politicians lying. Well, I didn't lie, I mis-spoke. Time to get to work, loosely speaking of course...
Sounds pretty clear, doesn't it? I work in publishing, textbook publishing to be exact. This industry is so particular as to having set specs it can make your head spin, which it oftens does. There are discussions as to what font size and leading (the space between the lines) we must use because certain grades can't seem to understand text if the font is too big or too small or if the lines are too close together. My job here is to help with the process of putting the editors words, and the designers design together in one big happy textbook. I'm not really a layout person (unless needed) but more of a let's see what technology we can use to do this kind of guy. It's a position I love, I work with just a few really great people, we are like the special forces, it's cool. The only thing with developing templates for creating books is that we need to have the specs from the designers before we can create a template to reflect their design. The way it is supposed to work is that they book is designed with every possible type of layout already thought out and documented and specs created. Then the specs are signed off and we are set to go and develop templates, etc. Well, I have never seem this happen in the 4 years I've been here. We can be near the end of the creation of the book, and they are still creating specs. It's rather amazing. After each book, there are meetings where this issue comes up and it is determined that it will never happen again and sure as the sun rises, here we go again. But I heard a new one the other day as far as specs go. I was working on a customized book for the state of Illinois. When I handed off my work to my manager, it was basically right except I was told the positioning of certain elements was not correct. I asked if there were specs for this. I was told there were 'loose specs'. I had to laugh, what the hell is a loose spec? It's either positioned exactly here, or it's not. I guess that falls under the category of politicians lying. Well, I didn't lie, I mis-spoke. Time to get to work, loosely speaking of course...
8.16.2005
08.16.05 Some Music...
I was messing around on my guitar last night and threw together 2 songs very quickly. These were recorded on the first try after little practice, so they are what they are.
Hope you enjoy them....
YIKES, I just listened to them, they need work...
8.14.2005
08.14.05 Days Gone By
Okay, I wasn't sure what I was going to post today. My first idea was to talk about this great little japanese maple tree that I planted 2 years ago that has survived 2 winters and is now about a foot tall. Last night, the deer ate all of the leaves off it! I was pissed. But, while looking for pictures that I had of it, I came across these old pictures I had of a bike trip I had taken back around 1980 with my buddy Henry.This top picture is of us on top of Mount Mansfield in Vermont (the highest peak in VT). We snuck our Ross mountain bikes past the gate at the bottom, then rode up to the top. Once we got there, a ranger came over and yelled at us,
so we took off down the mountain, riding the ski trails. The second picture was taken on top of Mount Washington, NH, the highest peak in the northeast (6233 ft) and the place on earth where the highest wind speed was ever recorded. You used to be able to bike up it anytime, now I think they only open it a few times a year. The last picture is one of me taken of me in the Adirondacks (somewhere). I took a couple of great vacations with Henry. We rode from northern NJ to Lake Placid NY one year and to Ithaca NY another year. He lives out in Oregon and I don't see him too often, but we still keep in touch. I miss Hank, he's was a great traveling buddy!
8.12.2005
08.12.05 Finally!
Well, It has finally happened. We were able to get the little guy in the pool. He would go into my brother-in-laws pool, probably because it's in ground and he can walk in at his own pace. Our pool is above ground, yet he can stand and the water is almost up to his chin. I'm sure it's an issue of being in control. But anyway, he started this week by lowering himself down the ladder. then he realized he could touch the bottom. Step one. Then he started to ride the noodle (one of those foam noodles that float) like a horse but he would not venture far from the ladder. Step two. Then he started to ride the side of the pool on the noodle. Step four. The next thing you know, he was walking around sans noodle (for obvious reasons, I left out the parts with myself and my wife coaxing him on, but he did it last night) Today, his friend Jason is coming over to go swimming.