Total Comments: 1260
First Post On: 10/21/2004 10:30 AM
Last Post On: 04/24/2024 03:10 PM
#1) Wednesday, October 20, 2004
Are there 3rd, 4th, etc. levels, each bringing you closer to the ultimate level, like in the Church of Scientology, where you finally Learn What It's All About? (Which I think involves space aliens.)

#2) Wednesday, May 04, 2005
It's beautiful, but much more importantly, do the cats like it?

#3) Tuesday, August 30, 2005
The author of the self-defense book, with the aid of the female pictured in the book, gave a class on the subject. I tried out the grip-breaker move on your dad (it worked) but not the ball-point pen gambit.

#4) Thursday, September 15, 2005
Here's to the next 26 years: may they be even better than the first 26, and may they continue to bring you new experiences that result in at least 222 MORE Things About You entries.

Happy Birthday!

#5) Monday, September 26, 2005
So did you PLAY a didgeridoo? If so, how would you rank the following in difficulty of playing: Didgeridoo, Oud, Bull-Roarer, bagpipe, a cat on a leash?

#6) Wednesday, September 28, 2005
To quote the astronauts, air travelers are just "spam in a can".

#7) Thursday, September 29, 2005
A Time magazine article many years ago wrote about how other countries change song lyrics, using "These Boots Were Made For Walking" as an example. One country changed the subject to sadomasochism, another to "I'm Going to Walk Away," and Poland just made it "a song about springtime."

#8) Tuesday, October 11, 2005
You want useless crap to fill up your bookshelves? Watch out what you ask for, you might get it...

#9) Wednesday, October 12, 2005
The 68 degrees is the WINTER temperature. In summer it's 80. On summer nights I sneak quietly downstairs and lower the thermostat to 75.

#10) Friday, October 28, 2005
Driving peeves - (1) incredibly bright SUV headlights in the rear view mirror of my Mercury Tracer. (2) any SUV tailgating said Tracer.

#11) Monday, October 31, 2005
Happy Halloween! I intend to walk through the neighborhood this evening and look at decorations. Of course, they're all bought at Costco, but I still like them.

Nicholas Cage is woefully ignorant. Superman did not say SHAZAM; that was Captain Marvel. Kal-El is not an American name; it is Kryptonian. Does no one study history anymore??

#12) Monday, November 07, 2005
Or as your grandpa used to joke about the old man who said,"I don't believe in all those modern notions like Internet, jetliners, ATM machines. I just want to stay home and watch TV like the good Lord intended."

#13) Wednesday, November 09, 2005
When you become Governor, be warned that I shall insist on the right to install a plaque dedicated to the Flying Spaghetti Monster in the statehouse rotunda.

#14) Tuesday, November 15, 2005
Brian was not sedated before, during, or after tantrums. We found that simply hanging him from the basement ceiling in chains right above the snake pit usually did the trick.

#15) Wednesday, November 23, 2005
I'm thankful that Brian has a house big enough for a pool table on which I can play anytime I am there. I'm also thankful I didn't have to take a class from Kamau Kambon ("Whitey Must Die")--that would have really wrecked my GPA.

#16) Friday, December 02, 2005
Definition of Upper Crust -- "a lot of crumbs held together by dough." This is courtesy of the keynote speaker at my high school graduation in Flint, Michigan, where everyone's parents belonged to the United Auto Workers union and handed out pamphlets showing corporate fat cats wearing top hats and carrying moneybags. Shows you what we thought of upper crust types. Of course, MY dad worked for the US Weather Service which made my family sort of lower-middle crust.

#17) Friday, December 02, 2005
I'm looking forward to my next set of Buffy the Vampire Slayer CDs. A new series called Threshold had promise but the network just cancelled it. Maybe "24" or the BBC's "MI-5"?

Buffy lives!

#18) Monday, December 05, 2005
The winner and first runner-up of the United Nations 2005 Saddam Hussein Lookalike Contest.

#19) Friday, December 09, 2005
I see #6 is tied with #1 -- given the history of all the ex and current Floridians voting, is a recount in the offing???

#20) Tuesday, December 20, 2005
I expect you to contribute to my long-term custodial care in the VERY BEST of senior citizen facilities.

#21) Friday, December 23, 2005
Stupid joke:
20s to 30s - triweekly
40s to 50s - try weekly
60s and up - try weakly

Ho, ho, ho!

#22) Wednesday, January 04, 2006
Yes!! After 33+ years as a Fed bureaucrat, I'm retired. I can now read your blog and write comments like this without feeling guilty for doing it on Government time. (Not that feeling guilty ever stopped me before.)

#23) Monday, January 09, 2006
Every year GEICO prints a copyrighted 1-page calendar on which Federal employees can keep track of holidays, sick leave and annual leave taken. I saved mine since 1979 (coincidentally the year in which Brian first appeared here in Middle-earth.) Those little calendars were a great way to refresh my memory about events like Snow days, trips, chicken pox, etc. One of my first post-retirement tasks is to create something similar for my continued use. It's not exactly Marcel Proust, but what the heck -- works for me.

#24) Friday, January 13, 2006
Alito picture caption contest submission: "Medical research demonstrates that political orientation, like sexual orientation, has a genetic basis."

#25) Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Cold is for polar bears. Cold is being a 7-year-old in double-runner ice skates on bumpy Lake Harriet ice outside Minneapolis in below-zero Fahrenheit in a brisk wind being asked by her parents why she doesn't look like she's having fun. I love hot, humid Northern VA!

#26) Thursday, January 19, 2006
"I don't understand why everyone is so concerned about Endangered Feces.... What? Oh. Never mind!" --Gilda Radner

#27) Monday, January 23, 2006
Grandchildren! Grandchildren! Grandchildren!

#28) Tuesday, January 24, 2006
I liked Brian's living arrangement. It was to his advantage, just as the Boys R Dum study says. While he was out slaying buffalo with a rock, the girls could clean the apartment and police it for any snakes, prepare the food, nurture the cat, socialize, and, later, skin the buffalo.

#29) Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Well, there goes THAT theory.

#30) Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Agree - get that cough checked out. BTW, jever hear the one about the guy with a head cold who goes to the doctor and is advised to stand in a basin of ice water in front of an open window? The guy complains that doing this will give him pneumonia. The doc replies, "True, but THAT I can cure!"

#31) Thursday, January 26, 2006
I'm a member of the "Homo Wait For Another Habilis To Do It" species.

#32) Tuesday, January 31, 2006
The only way I would watch American Idol is if each show ended with the losers being thrown into the flaming belly of Moloch, the REAL American Idol. That would be good. BTW, Webster's Dictionary gives the archaic definition of Idol as "anything that has no substance but can be seen, as an image in a mirror."


#33) Friday, February 03, 2006
People at high school reunions only think two thoughts: (1)Wow, [he/she] sure [looks old/didnt amount to much]! or (2)Wow, [he/she] [looks/did] way better than I ever imagined [he/she] would end up [looking/doing]!

#34) Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Kim is right about the sleeping. When I was a college instructor many years ago, I ignored sleepers unless they snored audibly (or fell out of their chair, as happened once).

#35) Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Congrats on your award! It's also true you lived in the only two-parent household in the USA in which the Dad made the lunches. I will never live that down.

#36) Monday, February 20, 2006
Re: plural marriage and Utah, if I could accept your lifestyle, it would be extremely big o' me.

#37) Tuesday, February 21, 2006
"By the way...Bruce Willis was bald" ORLY? I just saw part of that movie and he had hair, either real or false. Ipso facto, he was not "bald".

#38) Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Eloping is an excellent option!

#39) Thursday, February 23, 2006
It's not nice to make mom do a double-take before she's had her morning coffee.

#40) Thursday, February 23, 2006
Brian's a multitasker and would have no trouble fitting a wedding in between LOST episodes and Ramona Quimby, so my reaction was wide-eyed belief, then realization that he had zinged me again. But long-suffering Mom is used to that.

FYI, I myself married and told my folks after the fact, and it worked out great!

#41) Tuesday, February 28, 2006
If the period in GN&GL annoys the poop out of you, you should love NARNIA's title, because it has a colon in it.

#42) Thursday, March 02, 2006
I would say the cat-bed-prediction method is the most scientific, except you should have used 5 beds and 1 cat.

#43) Monday, March 06, 2006
You also missed the closed-caption version of the song -- if one may call it that -- in which the poor pimp had to put up with recalcitrant "witches" and to "duck" things. It's nice to know that hard of hearing people are protected from the seamier side of life.

#44) Monday, March 06, 2006
Also, in my opinion, Jon Stewart and the others who tried so hard to be funny had a terrible audience to contend with. It was as if everyone in the audience had made a pact not to react, no matter what.

#45) Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Our children are welcome to use the "sun room" anytime, at what I think is a very reasonable discount on usage fees. Because we love them.

#46) Friday, March 10, 2006
I also liked Greek mythology better than Norse, because I couldn't figure out why anybody would worship gods that were destined to lose the Gotterdammerung battle. Since then, though, I've come to think that the world would be way better off if every religion had a Sunset Clause.

#47) Tuesday, March 14, 2006
I remember another favorite kindergarten song of yours was "I'm Being Swallowed by a Boer Constrictor" (mispronunciation, not South African).

#48) Tuesday, March 14, 2006
I also remember thinking every time I heard the Phantom of the Opera's "Music of the Night" song that it was plagiarized from Brigadoon's "Come to Me, Bend to Me."

#49) Wednesday, March 15, 2006
It turns out that I look like Marilyn Monroe, Marilyn Manson, Merlin the Magician, or Bruce Willis, depending on the time of day my picture was taken.

#50) Thursday, March 16, 2006
I like it, I like it! Excellent casting. The only things missing are the cat wranglers and ASPCA credits, assuming that "no animals were harmed during the making of this film."

#51) Thursday, March 16, 2006
Possible cat stars: the cat from Men In Black I, Mrs. Norris from Harry Potter II, Morris (via CGI) from innumerable 70s commercials, and Aslan.

#52) Monday, March 20, 2006
I'm surprised that you, as a Virginia Tech alumnus, never heard of that lovely hymn that begins, "O Shame and Woe Belong to Xenu, Sciento-lo-gy Forever..."

#53) Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Re: Dumbledore; yes, it's too bad Richard Harris died. Lets just hope Maggie Smith hangs in there. While the kids are growing old, certain adults are growing OLD.

#54) Thursday, March 23, 2006
And to add insult to injury, NoVa community busybodies keep looking for ways to ensure each house contains no more than one legally married male-female couple plus their children if any. Other cohabitants not allowed. Take that, you immigrant low-paid service-workers just trying to get by!

#55) Monday, March 27, 2006
I don't own any hand-held gaming systems; however, I do like Banquet chicken pot pies. Whenever I eat one, I also like to play a little game called "Find the Chicken Pieces."

#56) Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Re: the Uri Family Laundry case, the defense asks the court to consider that (1) cleanliness was not adversely affected, (2) underwear was assumed to be worn "under" and hence out of sight, and (3) time and money saved by consolidating wash loads was used to help procure books that improved vocabulary with terms like "recalcitrant." Defense would also point out that "dinghy grey" (vs. "dingy") is a nautical color that seems perfect for Crew.

#57) Thursday, March 30, 2006
Gods bodkin! Swounds! Egad, sir! Watch your scurvy tongue.

#58) Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Let me be the first to congratulate you on finishing the Java certification project!

#59) Wednesday, April 05, 2006
The "His Dark Materials" books have gotten many great reviews in major newspapers, and I definitely intend to read them. The books, I mean.

#60) Wednesday, April 05, 2006
And I see the cats, but then I also see a couple of snakes near the electrical outlet.

#61) Friday, April 07, 2006
We did not have a parachute in gym in any of the 9 different schools I went to as a child. Maybe it is unique to the Washington area; from your description, it seems like an ideal preparatory exercise for future members of Congress.

Happy birthday to all us Aprilians!

#62) Monday, April 10, 2006
Thank you for the Birthday wishes! And you are not messy.

My car is like my mind -- clean, empty, and slow to accelerate.

#63) Tuesday, April 25, 2006
I like V1 of Carry On WS better, but I'd like to hear V2 with the crowd yelling in the background before making a final decision. And the ONLY way to do Carmina Burana is with a huge chorus and orchestra. It's a choral work, period.

#64) Thursday, April 27, 2006
Thor??? I was hoping for Odin, or even Yggdrasil.

#65) Monday, May 01, 2006
Re: MI3 and Alias, what goes around comes around. Alias has elements of the original 1966 MI series (the one starring Martin Landau, Peter Graves, Barbara Bain, etc.) The MI theme of "An elite covert operations unit carries out highly sensitive missions subject to official denial in the event of failure, death or captured" has proven popularity. (Note I do like "Sidney" better than Bain's "Cinnamon" character.)

#66) Tuesday, May 02, 2006
Not to worry; kids won't have to endure actual sightseeing trips anymore, what with the rising gas prices. When parents still force them to take virtual trips over the internet, they can fast forward through the scenery or win points throwing bombs at the virtual landmarks.

#67) Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Why not go for a whole university named after you instead of just a building? Bob Jones did, and so did two dudes named William and Mary.

#68) Friday, May 05, 2006
So nobody ever told you that Booty is a pink cat? I'm sorry!

#69) Tuesday, May 09, 2006
That Math Emporium sounds absolutely dreadful! I didn't know we spent our tax dollars on that. To think it's that kind of boondoggle that gets funded instead of solutions for Northern Virginia traffic problems really torques my jaws.

#70) Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Next soup: how about won-ton?

#71) Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Verbal repartee was the big thing on West Wing in it's beginning seasons, and you might have liked it then. It went downhill after that, as so many series do.

#72) Tuesday, May 23, 2006
I like to think that my impacted wisdom teeth, which I finally had removed at age 34 with no ill effects, meant that I was higher on the evolutionary scale than my big-jawed peers.

#73) Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Re: 24 spoilage, the characters death was also recounted in the Washington Post, which means that DVD viewers will have to avoid reading newspapers too.

#74) Thursday, June 01, 2006
In 1949, to avoid the polio epidemic, I spent the summer with my grandparents in a little prairie town (pop. < 150; Google "Irving Kansas"). No TV or traffic or noise. Freedom to wander anywhere. Books. Secret hiding places. Kittens. Old houses. Barns and fields. Cousins. Picking corn and strawberries. Warm nights and hot days. Fireworks. Playing dolls and Monopoly and cowboys and tag and hide-and seek until dark, all under the huge Kansas sky. Perfection.

#75) Monday, June 05, 2006
Unlike Intercourse PA, whose name has taken on a salacious meaning over the years since its innocent beginning, Hell MI has always existed solely to provide a post office address for tourists (Greetings From, Wish You Were Here, etc.). There is also a Paradise MI.

#76) Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Congratulations on passing the J2 exam!

#77) Thursday, June 08, 2006
That bedroom off your family room would make a great secret room. Just put a bookcase on hinges in place of its door.

#78) Thursday, June 08, 2006
Of course, now it's no longer secret...

#79) Thursday, June 08, 2006
Rachel's right; it's Whistler's Mother. What, you'd rather that I had picked a Madonna and Child? WM adds a little much-needed Culture to this site, while maintaining separation between church and blog.

#80) Wednesday, June 14, 2006
I do my morning routine on autopilot. If I think about any one activity, it will disrupt the rest and raise the possibility of leaving out an important one, like deodorant.

#81) Thursday, June 15, 2006
Here's today's blog expressed in verse:

Cheetos and Fritos and Cool Ranch Doritos rock,
So do Smores, Chocolate Chips, BeefaroNEE;
Nacho Cheese, Barbecue, PB Chunk, Ravioli suck,
But I can't pass up "Buy one, get five FREE!"

(Sorry, I can't control my Muse...)


#82) Monday, June 19, 2006
The window looks great! It's especially nice that you have a view of trees. Well worth the time and effort, for sure.

#83) Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Now if someone would just make a law to standardize females' clothing sizes. Petites, Misses, Half, Women, Plus, etc. so-called "sizes" are too euphemistically non-descript. Small, Medium, Biggie and Great Biggie sound about right.

#84) Monday, June 26, 2006
1 Gazillion: the number of pieces of Scout (Boy, Cub, Girl, etc.) paraphernalia I sewed onto those Scout uniforms...

#85) Thursday, June 29, 2006
One might identify Amber's tail as the San Andreas Fault, since it is prone to twitching.

#86) Wednesday, July 12, 2006
If you guys have trouble now reconciling memories with actual dates, just wait til you're MY age, then you'll feel like everything happened just yesterday.

Thanks for all the pictures!

#87) Tuesday, August 01, 2006
You're welcome! The cats behaved purrfectly while you were away. Glad you like the updated bathroom; think of us every time you use it. Finally, didja hear about the two peanuts walking along the beach at night? One was assaulted...

#88) Wednesday, August 02, 2006
What torques my jaws are the people who build in a hurricane-prone region, then are hit by a hurricane and get federal disaster aid which they use to rebuild at the same location. Our tax dollars at work!

#89) Monday, August 07, 2006
I bet Google employees xerox things (vs. copy), grab a kleenex to stifle sneezes (vs. a tissue), and even fax stuff (derived from Thermofax). Also, they probably go "caroling" every Christmas and don't pay me a cent. Fair is fair!

#90) Monday, August 07, 2006
You're right re: fax. I was trying to think of other trademarks that have taken on generic meaning, like BVDs, simonize, etc. I bet there are a lot of them.

#91) Wednesday, August 09, 2006
I think that I shall never see
A bedroom lovelier than [that of Brian] Ur-ee
However, I understand that you
Had bathrooms renovated too
Would not a bathroom ballad be
A blow for potty parity?

#92) Monday, August 21, 2006
Thanks for your votes! and if anyone voted more than once, thanks again!

#93) Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Re: Inside Man -- I agree about the Jodie Foster character. 1. she didn't fit the role (maybe Faye Dunaway?) and 2. the role itself could have been cut way back. Good movie, though.

#94) Monday, August 28, 2006
Sorry about the cold! Re: cows mooing with accents, Washington Post article yesterday about children learning languages had this quote: "...1933 experiment that a psychology professor and his wife conducted on their child. The couple wanted to see if a chimpanzee baby reared with a human one would act like the human. So they brought a 7-month-old chimp, Gua, to live with their son, Donald, when he was 10 months old. Gua didn't much copy Donald. But Donald started barking for food like Gua."

#95) Thursday, August 31, 2006
Loved your trip down Cat Memory Lane!

Re: Flat Daddy, that's bizarre. I guess the next logical step would be "Stuffed Daddy"...

#96) Thursday, September 07, 2006
That's no moustache -- mom is just having a little trouble tasting the brownie batter.

#97) Friday, September 15, 2006
Happy 3x3x3th birthday! Just think, you won't have another cubic birthday until you're almost my age!

#98) Thursday, September 21, 2006
100% agree with BU. Condensing college to AP tests and a year of cramming is about as productive as speed-reading the complete series of Cliff's Notes.

#99) Friday, September 22, 2006
I keep recommending a favorite classic book, Riddley Walker (http://www.ocelotfactory.com/hoban/riddley.html) but, as BU says, I suppose it's not for everyone. Check it out, anyway.

#100) Friday, September 22, 2006
I'm so sorry -- I didn't realize any of you guys HAD feelings. I loved Farinelli, especially the computer-enhanced super-human countertenor.

#101) Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Who's annexing whom?
BTW I support partitioning VA into North VA and South VA. We already jettisoned West VA.

#102) Tuesday, October 10, 2006
He's the Dept. of Homeland Security anti-Costco-terrorist representative, of course.

#103) Wednesday, October 11, 2006
In defense of dad and to avoid visits from PETA, what young Brian meant was that dad sprays water to wash out the seasonal buildup of nesting materials under the carport eaves. No poison involved.

#104) Wednesday, October 18, 2006
The perfect opportunity to quote my 5 favorites from the Lexicon of Intentionally Ambiguous Remarks: (1) I simply cannot recommend this person highly enough; (2) I can enthusiastically recommend this candidate with no qualifications whatsoever; (3)In my opinion you will be most fortunate to have this person work for you; (4) I'm sure that no matter what kind of work this person is given, he will be fired with enthusiasm; (5) I would urge you to waste no time in making this person an offer.


#105) Thursday, October 19, 2006
You are trying to pray to the Great Kachina God, but you are thwarted by that orange-eyed demon getting in your way. Is that because you always preferred macaroni over fruit?

#106) Monday, October 30, 2006
Re: sleeping American - so my lifelong desire to sleep late isn't laziness, it's patriotism? Thanks for the excellent excuse!

#107) Thursday, November 02, 2006
Actually, my life is more like a game show wherein I generally pick the wrong answers and the audience goes "Ohhhhh...."

#108) Monday, November 06, 2006
I'm sure I speak for most (all?) of your loyal fans when I say we expect high-pay, low-work patronage jobs in your administration.

#109) Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Thanks for such an enlightening, dynamic, high-voltage posting. It also helps to explain the little-known fact that Washington's full name is actually "America's Capital/District of Columbia".

#110) Thursday, November 16, 2006
I want no more than a DVD player has already, namely, the ability to replay, freeze, and fast-forward time. Erase might be good too. I'd like to be immortal, but I'd settle for keeping my own bioclock running normally, per the Theory of Relativity. That way other people would be confused, but not me.
Weakness: abusing the Erase power.

#111) Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Say what you will about Raiders, people LOVED it when it came out. What attracted them was the action piled on action piled on action, each scene topping the one before it, so fast that the viewer had little time to relax. I think Raiders was the first of this kind. Now were used to it and expect it of action films.

#112) Monday, December 04, 2006
At my job, requirements are written as "SHALL statements", e.g. "The system SHALL play Howdy Doody." Saying that the system will play Howdy Doody is interpreted as "we'd like to hear Howdy Doody at startup but if you fail to give us that capability, we have to pay you anyway."

#113) Thursday, December 07, 2006
Just read Gone With The Wind or watch the classic movie. It's a lot cheaper.

#114) Friday, December 22, 2006
"A Saharan catherd tends his flock by night" (National Geographic)

Merry Christmas to you and all your fans!

#115) Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Ha, ha! I especially like the Costco hors d'oeuvres and Disney World slaves.

#116) Thursday, January 04, 2007
Liking the concept of belt, badge and little kids to "respect my authoritah" a la South Park's Cartman, I joined up in 4th grade. Big mistake. I got crossing guard duty. Minneapolis. Winter. Dark. Below zero. Brutal winds. Driving snow. Holding that damn flag. I didn't even make sergeant either.

#117) Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Things Grown Children Can Do For Their Aging Parents That Will Make Them (i.e., the Parents) Happy.

#118) Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Memories, memories! I upchucked in the hallways at least twice in elementary school. I never knew what the green stuff was the janitors used to clean up, but they probably use cat litter now. The "clumping" kind.

#119) Wednesday, January 17, 2007
So if LOST doesn't set a deadline for withdrawal, they're going to "surge" more actors onto the island?

#120) Monday, January 29, 2007
I plan on living vicariously through my children's lives, of course!

#121) Wednesday, January 31, 2007
My ambition has always been to live through it, where "it" is any number of things.

Kerry Donley didn't have the ambition to be President although he did have the requisite photogenic features, including blond hair and flashing white teeth.

#122) Thursday, February 01, 2007
Great song, even though you didn't include Macacas.

#123) Friday, February 02, 2007
I don't see how the new state of Virginia can lay claim to VA Tech and Montgomery county, which so clearly should belong to West Virginia.

#124) Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Among my FAA souvenirs is an autographed picture of astronaut Roger Crouch (VT alum, BTW). All these years I thought I was being stalked by aliens from outer space, but now it seems they were only Roger groupies. Bummer!

#125) Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Great pictures!

#126) Thursday, February 15, 2007
Ice-clean clones? Best pun yet, snow lie!

#127) Friday, February 16, 2007
Two punny blogs in a row means I have to bequeath you my best one. "Referees: These are the souls that time men's tries." It's yours, my son. Use it wisely.

#128) Friday, March 02, 2007
Of course your Dad has a spackle tree, what did ya THINK?? It's right next to the Lysol disinfectant pool.

#129) Thursday, March 15, 2007
Marcel Proust's memory was supposedly triggered by eating a Madeleine cake, which resulted in his writing Remembrances of Things Past, a multi-volume opus that nobody except your grandmother actually read all the way through. So be careful of what you eat.

#130) Monday, March 19, 2007
Re: Elder Sex, Elton John: As a bone fide old f*rt, I find that I have become way more tolerant of what people DO but way less tolerant of how people DRESS.

#131) Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Your room is indeed looking great, and I agree with Diana about the curtains. Plus I love the pictures. Those are some lucky cats!!

#132) Thursday, March 22, 2007
My German teacher's favorite joke was about the Frenchman who used his dictionary to welcome an American visitor. He translated "Come in, come in, and take a seat!" as "Between, between, and drink a chair!"

#133) Monday, April 02, 2007
Gasoline? cat food and litter? P.S. thanks for reminding me - your insurance company is late with my March payment.

#134) Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Is that right! Wow. Also, what happens if you copy out of one of your own earlier papers without citing yourself as a source?

#135) Thursday, April 05, 2007
Agree with KBS. I also think you're quieter and more self-reserved than the tone of the first several paragraphs seems to imply.

#136) Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Thanks for the birthday greeting!

The badges made me wonder if there shouldn't also be a badge for earning badges?

#137) Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Very moving commentary. You shouldn't classify your writing in the same category with the media opining and pontificating. There is something almost gleeful about the media reaction - the tragedy provides a ready-made ratings-raising show that costs them very little to produce. Events like these are the media's lifeblood. Your motive is totally different and has nothing to do with personal gain.

#138) Thursday, April 19, 2007
Dr. Seuss -- ha ha! Wish I'd thought of that.

#139) Wednesday, May 02, 2007
If you elope (as we did) you can cut way back on the number of trees that have to die, ending up with the envelope, the after-the-fact announcement, and of course the ubiquitous tissue paper to let folks know the wedding was legit.

#140) Thursday, May 10, 2007
Thanks to you connoisseurs out there who voted for moi! I love you all. Any ideas on what I should buy with my prize?

#141) Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Good idea. Like the fat people who have thin people inside waiting to break out, others have artistic people inside waiting to break out. You can help!

#142) Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Two true stories: 1. When I was a math TA at U of Mich, the "Unabomber" Theodore Kaczynski was a fellow TA. (I never actually met him; he kept to himself.) 2. When I taught evenings in Jeff City MO, I had a student named Vertical Johnson. Really.

#143) Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Very pretty, and evocative too.

#144) Tuesday, May 29, 2007
That music evokes the same annoyed reaction I have when somebody tells me to hurry up and get my butt in gear.

#145) Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Speaking of literal translations, a guy in my brother's Russian class made everybody laugh when he translated the book title "A Farewell to Arms" to Dosvidaniya Ruki, or "Goodbye Hands".

#146) Monday, June 11, 2007
They had the exact same thing 50 years ago in my HS, only they called it "Core Curriculum". "A rose by any other name..."

#147) Friday, June 15, 2007
You've mentioned sniper, rifle, bomb, ransom, terrorist, cell, shooter, Washington Metropolitan Area, subway station, and other key words in one post - AND with a mask on!!! You have probably generated at least 20 alarms and red flags from the FBI/CIA automated web snooping software. Next thing you know, you'll be in a room someplace trying to explain who Goatzilla is to guys in dark glasses and black suits.

#148) Monday, June 18, 2007
I love the fake Exxon people reuse plan. Coming soon: "Soylent Gas"!

#149) Friday, June 22, 2007
Re: 4real -- I love funny names. Here are some real one's of people I or my family have known: Vertical Johnson, Blessed Virgin Bedworthy, Della Dora Dixon Dean, Edith Sunshine Hanson, Deal Six, and Soda Popp (a Missouri legislator; had a sister named Lolly).

#150) Monday, June 25, 2007
My grandmother had to put together the little packets of rice for a family wedding, but she was making cherry pie at the same time and mixed up the rice and tapioca containers. At the wedding, we threw tapioca on the happy couple, then we came home and almost broke our teeth on the pie.

#151) Tuesday, June 26, 2007
This post was hilarious - I laughed so hard my eyes watered!

#152) Wednesday, June 27, 2007
You ate wonton soup. On the other hand, wanton soup may be some kind of Chinese aphrodisiac?
Does ANYONE actually LIKE creamed corn?

#153) Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Q: Why don't [your targeted group] swim in Lake Michigan?
A: Because they leave rings...

#154) Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Favorite language joke --
Messenger: Can you tell me where the mail room is at?
Secretary: Don't you know that you shouldn't end a sentence with a preposition?
Messenger: OK; can you tell me where the mail room is at, asshole?

#155) Monday, July 16, 2007
How about a contest on mating instrumentalists? E.g.: viola damore player + percussionist = a love triangle.

#156) Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Looks excellent! P.S. you were right about clearing the cache first; doing so fixes the Firefox view fine.

#157) Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Alexandria also gloried in its colonial past by naming streets after royalty -- King Street, Duke Street, Queen Street, etc. Little did the Tories and Confederates know that Alexandria would fill up with Yankees and liberals.

#158) Thursday, August 09, 2007
These sure evoke memories; thanks for bringing the past to life again!

#159) Friday, August 10, 2007
They could have named the kid Forreal and met all the constraints.

#160) Wednesday, August 22, 2007
LOVE the cartoons! Google has lots of skunk deodorizing tips; a typical one is http://www.getridofthings.com/getridofskunksmell.html

#161) Friday, August 24, 2007
I can't see stereograms, and I can't be hypnotized either. I'm no fun at all.

#162) Monday, August 27, 2007
1) There ought to be a law against low-cut pants.

2) Michael Vick belongs in a room full of ravenous pit bulls.

3) I hate having to choose between a veggie and a donut.

4) In the future when tasty food is replaced completely by vitamin pills, I will not have to fret about being a lousy cook.

5) The thing about babies is that you can't hire them out to a sweatshop until they're at least 4.

6) Everything would be alright if only a flying saucer full of benevolent space aliens would rescue me.

7) The only thing worse than a politician is a hypocritical religious politician.

8) My life is full of things I haven't gotten around to yet.



#163) Friday, August 31, 2007
You know you've had too much when you can't say "eggnog" anymore.

#164) Monday, September 24, 2007
It shows that people in Sterling have trouble putting things in perspective. Plus, it shows that life goes on even if the streets are flooded.

#165) Wednesday, September 26, 2007
It's a good thing your last name was Uri and not Udink.

#166) Monday, October 01, 2007
"Smokin mirrors"? Good one!
Mom The Pundit

#167) Monday, October 15, 2007
Just like on HGTV!

#168) Tuesday, October 30, 2007
In 1973, when I worked at Military Sealift Command, they were all proud the day they acquired 360K -- yes, K -- core memory for their Honeywell mainframe for about the same amount of money. That was when core memory was comprised of thousands of tiny magnetic donuts (cores, get it?) wired in 3D arrays by thousands of young ladies with, probably, tiny hands.

#169) Monday, November 05, 2007
At a party where celery and wing dip were served, I noticed a guest using the same piece of celery over and over to acquire more dip. He eventually dropped the used celery back onto the veggie tray and headed for the bagels, where he did the same thing with the cream cheese. I myself would never immerse any dipping material after it has touched my lips. Being too tactful to confront him directly, I contented myself with spitting in his beer when he wasn't looking. What would you have done?

#170) Friday, November 09, 2007
If that cactus is from Colorado, it'll probably be fine; it gets cold there.

#171) Friday, November 23, 2007
6'7"

#172) Monday, November 26, 2007
November 1997: still recovering from the annual VT Band Parents' Weekend at the end of October. We made 5 trips to VT that year -- 5 trips down I-81 -- were we dedicated parents or what!!

#173) Friday, November 30, 2007
Hey, I like the natural gas metrobuses! Very Henri Rousseau. Plus they make a very cool "poo, POOOO" melodic sound when they switch gears.

#174) Monday, December 03, 2007
A better comparison would be Yul Brynner; he could play any ethnic role. So could Anthony Quinn. Check them out on wikipedia. You too could go into acting, or maybe the CIA?

#175) Wednesday, December 05, 2007
I loathed PE. My athletic ability was nil and all my classmates knew it and treated me accordingly. In those days they only gave medals for winning, not trying, so I never got one. Steroids might have helped, but they didn't have those either.

#176) Tuesday, December 04, 2007
I like Moodily; go ahead and finish it. Chichi would be my pick of your picks because it's so cheerful on a snowy day.

#177) Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Thanks for the compliment! Yes, Brian paid up. He and his blog are totally trustworthy.

#178) Friday, December 14, 2007
Our office party was on a riverboat! Was that cool or what? See (http://www.potomacriverboatco.com/cherryblossom.php)

In some states which I won't name, "to be" is conjugated: I/you/he is, we'uns/you'uns/them are.

#179) Monday, December 17, 2007
As the candid cookie-making photo shows, I am in the process of preparing to wash the cookies (gentle cycle). One can't be too careful about germs on food.

#180) Friday, December 28, 2007
Really enjoyed the captions! Top 2 favorites: limbo sprints, Chinese simultaneously jumping. Happy New Year!

#181) Thursday, January 03, 2008
Though my big European trip occurred over 40 years ago and prices will have changed, I bet the trains still serve all but the smallest villages the way they did then, and a Eurail pass would probably get you within walking or bus distance to most places. I found the site for rail passes at http://www.raileurope.com/us/rail/about_train_travel/perfect_rail_pass.htm in case you haven't already found that. It appears they also have "rail and drive" passes that combine train and rental car.

#182) Wednesday, January 16, 2008
B is right -- on my big Euro trip many years ago I took a "10-mile walking trip" through Paris that hit most famous spots; e.g., the Louvre, Notre Dame. Of course, you double that by actually walking around IN the famous spots.

#183) Friday, January 25, 2008
Thanks for your votes! It makes ol Mom feel good to get a virtual pat on the back every once in a while.
Speaking of future contests, how about inviting people to make up titles for Harry Potter Book 8?

#184) Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Mom, a resident of Alexandria, Virginia and an established expert on the art of creative procrastination, was presented with the Genentech "Late Bloomer" Award for Overcoming Substandard DNA at a grand ceremony yesterday evening. After attending school at Kalamazoo College, U. of Michigan, and Indiana U., she fell off the radar, but all reports indicate that she has been quite successful in the past few years putting all that education to use by winning Brian Uri's caption contests.

Mom's life changed for the better last year when she finally accepted the fact that she probably won't live to see a Dulles rail line, and her future plans include taking care of her childrens cats and hoping for a UFO to take her away from all this. In her acceptance speech, she thanked her fellow Weenies, and closed with these noble words: "Klaatu Barada Nikto, baby!"

#185) Wednesday, February 06, 2008
A new verb; I love it! Here's a definition for you to use when you submit it to Webster's: "sisyphus (sis ee fuss) vi. [< Gr Sisyphos] to toil uselessly or endlessly -- vt. to keep pushing something with no results"

One could say that I've been sisyphusing my whole life.

#186) Friday, February 08, 2008
Here's another 3-pair-of-double-letter word: bookkeeper. I got this from a story about some guy who took a Mensa test where the question was to fill in the next letter in the series "O-T-T-F-F-S-S-E-N-_" The guy was trying to decode the series by matching letters with a 3-double-letter word, and the only one he could think of was bookkeeper. In fact, the series is simply One, Two, Three, Four, Five, etc.

#187) Friday, February 08, 2008
Sorry, I just reread your paragraph and saw you already had "bookkeeper". I guess my brain can only be described as "seenniile".

#188) Monday, February 11, 2008
Years ago I was promoted to Team Leader, and I rearranged my cubicle furniture to double available space and even allow a small conference table and fake rubber plant which I'd found unused in some dark corner. The cubicle police came and told me to put things back. I pointed out that a Team Leader had to have an office, and eventually they relented. I had to put the rubber plant back though - not allowed at my pay grade.

#189) Thursday, February 14, 2008
I seriously believe that Bush, Cheney, and the gang watched "24" and that it promoted their acceptance of the use of torture to get confessions.

P.S. I like "24", but I always consider it fiction.

#190) Friday, February 15, 2008
Re: Anna's article on WoW effects -- the key word is "moderation". I know people who failed college due to playing bridge 24/7. And I won't even MENTION poker ...

#191) Friday, February 22, 2008
Speaking of interfacing, I once overheard a businessguy-type say, "... and I communicated that to my wife, and she..."

#192) Tuesday, February 26, 2008
I agree with Chompy.

#193) Friday, February 29, 2008
According to Wikipedia, people have been trying to "improve" February since 700 BC (some chap named Numa Pompilius). The last fixer was Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 AD, so it's long overdue for another makeover. First, though, we should agree on how to pronounce it.

#194) Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Nice!

#195) Friday, March 07, 2008
Humans evolved from scooting butts across floors when they developed chairs with wheels. -- Charles Darwin

#196) Tuesday, March 11, 2008
There's a topic for one of your sporadic polls - "Would you want to friend your child on Facebook?"



#197) Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Brian forgot to say that his hardest job was getting permission to use the alpha version of Googles Transporter Earth device to get home on my birthday. He had to agree not to sue for any body parts left behind.

#198) Monday, April 21, 2008
Whilst (that's British) you were noodling around London, cat Booty crept through an accidentally open basement door and broke into the cat chow master lode, eating beyond her fill. Later cat Amber tried to open that door via the doorknob, caught her claw in a tiny invisible hole in the side of the doorknob, and hung suspended until a human in the same room heard her yowls and freed her. Cheers!

#199) Friday, April 25, 2008
Best pictures yet!

#200) Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Re: famous Barcelona architect -- now I know where the word "gaudy" comes from.

#201) Monday, May 05, 2008
I've never tried the accordion; however, my grandfather had a concertina that he let me play with but it was a poor substitute.

#202) Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Ha ha!! Cute.

#203) Thursday, May 15, 2008
Losing contests only makes you stronger. -- Hillary Clinton

#204) Thursday, May 15, 2008
I ate squirrel (hindquarters) once - it was good. Also on the tried once, would eat again are raccoon, frog legs, buffalo. Tried once, would NOT eat again: brains.

#205) Friday, May 16, 2008
Freakouts would be f(r)antastic!

#206) Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Your hardness scale rates at least 10 happy faces on the humor scale! I love it.

#207) Wednesday, June 04, 2008
I remember when some idiot teacher scolded you for illustrating the words on your spelling tests. Talk about stifling creativity!

#208) Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Little-known fact: Ms. Safran's undergraduate research also yielded marketable results (see http://www.buyaustinpowerscostumes.com/accessories_austin_powers_chest_hair.html

#209) Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Thanks to all you Urizone denizens who voted for my caption!

#210) Monday, July 14, 2008
A black olive sub...a black olive sub...a black olive sub...I'm trying to get my mind around it...

#211) Wednesday, July 16, 2008
I watched you play Grim Fandango, not to kibitz but to enjoy the fanciful plot and wonderful background graphics. Who knew the world of the dead could be so much fun!

#212) Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Capturing the CO2 emitted by all the talking heads in congress, lobbying firms, political campaigns, TV/radio talk shows, staff meetings, classrooms, and infomercials would also address a number of problems simultaneously.

#213) Wednesday, July 23, 2008
For the record, Brian did NOT have any of those diseases, nor did he speak Korean. He just spoke Baby. Some months later, the pediatrician tested his intelligence by giving him a little bottle and a raisin, the expected result being for the child to put the raisin in the bottle. Brian ate the raisin.

#214) Thursday, July 24, 2008
All these harrowing tales reminded me of a story my schoolteacher aunt told me: she had invited an anthropologist/explorer to speak of his adventures to her class of 3rd graders. He described a hazardous trip through the New Guinean jungle, with heat, insects, hostile natives, etc. and the children listened with wide eyes until he had finished. After a moment of silence, a little boy raised his hand and asked, "Did you live through it?"

Erin's encounters made me think that maybe she should introduce the dog woman to the office mate and they could fill each others needs.

#215) Monday, July 28, 2008
And whose was comment 666? Could it be...SATAN?

#216) Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Ha ha! Great post. Over my long bureaucratic career, I've endured at least 20 of these courses. They are useless (student: Wow, I had no idea that it is wrong to cheat, steal, defraud, harass, or bribe! Now I get it!) but they do give you a break from real work.

#217) Tuesday, August 05, 2008
If your first comment above shows "717" total comments, shouldn't your second comment above show 718? See, I do pay attention!

#218) Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Greetings from Dayton, OH where we are spending our last vacation night out. I finally got to hear this -- great tune! Make it a full song for sure.

#219) Monday, August 25, 2008
1. Didja hear about the two peanuts walking down the street? One was assaulted... 2. Q: Who are Olympic Referees? A: "These are the souls that time men's tries." (I made that one up.)

#220) Wednesday, August 27, 2008
I love all the comments! A: Daddy says to tell you, "You're doing a heckuva job, Brownie!" B. Mommy's sister-wife said that Billy told the Prophet you liked to see Mommy in tight pants instead of a prairie dress.

#221) Friday, August 29, 2008
One of your chap sticks awaits your next visit here.

#222) Tuesday, September 02, 2008
I'm reminded of that South Park episode in which Satan has his own Sweet 16 party. Unlike Ayse, Satan learns that happiness is not all about excess.

#223) Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Hilarious post! Also agree that things named "new" seldom improve on the original, e.g. New Math, New England, the New John McCain...

#224) Friday, September 12, 2008
♫ HB2U HB2U HBDB HB2U ♫ I♥U!!!

#225) Monday, September 22, 2008
So how do fried Oreos compare to fried Hostess Twinkies?

#226) Thursday, September 25, 2008
A-maaa-zing!!! Congrats to Anna!

#227) Monday, September 29, 2008
Yes, upgrade! Firefox is great, and I don't miss IE one bit. Or even one byte.

#228) Tuesday, September 30, 2008
After visiting the dairy operation at VA Tech, it's fun to envision a series of Dolly Parton-esque milkers lining up twice a day at the pumps.

#229) Wednesday, October 01, 2008
The cow woman must have read your Newsday Tuesday entry,

#230) Friday, October 03, 2008
Mini-contest: if you were Gwen Ifill and a candidate didn't answer your question, what would you have said/done? E.g. "You didn't answer the question, so I'm letting the other candidate make up an answer for you."

#231) Monday, October 06, 2008
What can I say, except that I am ABSOLUTELY THRILLED!!!!! And I promise to be the best future mom-in-law ever!

#232) Friday, October 10, 2008
Ooh, ooh, you missed a great pun opportunity! Allow me to supply it: "...bombarded with wedding ads like a London flat during World War II (if London had been subjugated by The Knot-sies)."

#233) Thursday, October 16, 2008
John McCain reacts to the tranquilizer dart his handlers used when he became "too angry" during the debate.

#234) Monday, October 20, 2008
Sir Francis Bacon look-alike contest

#235) Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Plus, McClane believes in right to life - he never aborts a mission.

#236) Monday, November 10, 2008
Good grammar would dictate "who was boinking whom" -- Miss Manners

#237) Friday, November 14, 2008
Re: homophonic jokes, there's the old one that goes "she has freckles on her but she is nice."

#238) Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Anyone for tiddly-winks?

#239) Friday, November 21, 2008
Speaking of Google's refusal to recognize Sterling - your grandpa's insurance company wouldn't pay for his prostate treatment because someone had assumed his name "Aubrey" was feminine and designated his gender as "F".

#240) Tuesday, November 25, 2008
I don't know whether to be happy or sad that NOTHING has changed in over 50 years, except for music/group faves (then: rock/Elvis) and computers (then: slide rules). Oh yeah, and 12 Angry Men was a new movie then, not an English classic. Everything else is just the same. Mercifully there was no induction ceremony for NHS; we weenies met once for a group yearbook picture and that was it.

#241) Monday, December 01, 2008
Our weekend was GREAT, thanks to you!

#242) Tuesday, December 09, 2008
People who talk loudly on their cellphones, and I think they're talking to me, and I turn to look at them, and they glare at me for invading their privacy. And while I'm at it, people who talk on their cellphones while they are driving.

#243) Friday, December 12, 2008
Excellent pictures. I heartily approve of using the same color wrapping paper -- very efficient. And even more efficiency could be achieved by carefully saving that paper for reuse next Christmas.

#244) Monday, December 22, 2008
I feel so generous this holday season that if my name is picked by the generator, I will forfeit the prize to the person who adds a comment immediately after this one!

#245) Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Caspar, Melchior, and Amber-zar Across the desert they've traveled far The desert has angels, shepherds and flocks, Amber sees the desert as a litter box.

#246) Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Happy New Year to you, too! Love the captions!

#247) Thursday, January 08, 2009
Come to think of it, has anybody ever read about or seen pictures of a female centaur?

#248) Monday, January 12, 2009
Have you tried Breyers Strawberry Cheesecake? It's the best yet.

#249) Monday, January 19, 2009
1996: the year we started driving to VA Tech on I-81, the worst road in the US. 2000: the year made our last trip to VA Tech and thought we would never have to drive on I-81 ever again. 2004: the year we learned our daughter and son-in-law were going to study and work at VA Tech for the foreseeable future and had bought a house in Christiansburg directly across the street from I-81.

#250) Wednesday, January 21, 2009
SAT question: a baboon on the head is most equivalent to: 1) monkey on the back 2) tiger by the tail 3) bull by the horns 4) frog in the throat 5) bat in the belfrey

#251) Monday, January 26, 2009
I actually listened to those Songsmith renditions. As if there isn't enough sound pollution now -- somebody call EPA, quick!

#252) Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Don't plants have rights too? I think of them as vegetable kittens. Who could eat a sweet little broccoli kitten, let alone a chia pet?

#253) Thursday, February 05, 2009
The ending to this movie was plagiarized from "The Dark Crystal" wherein the evil Skeksis merge bodily with their saintly doubles and are raptured into space, leaving the earth (now in pristine condition with the Skeksi castle's walls nicely sandblasted white) to the little Gelflings. Or it could have been from "The Fifth Element" where all the blocks representing elements are placed into niches in a pyramid so their essenses can combine to make a ray to repel an evil asteroid, or...

#254) Thursday, February 05, 2009
...Or whatever. Anyway, the main difference is that I really LIKED The Dark Crystal and The Fifth Element.

#255) Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Here's your teleportation project: http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/37450. Although "Quantum teleportation is a remarkable form of transport only available to particles at the atomic and subatomic scales", I say today atoms, tomorrow persons! (or at least very small persons.)

#256) Wednesday, February 11, 2009
I took Public Speaking at Mott Community College in Flint, MI. One student brought his lathe to class and spoke on How To Use A Lathe -- with the lathe running all the while. We couldn't hear a word he said over the noise. Best speech ever.

#257) Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Don't be fooled by Ricci Angresano's problem with "germs" on public transportation. I bet "germs" is his euphemism for "minorities".

#258) Wednesday, February 18, 2009
I remember when we hit that dog. We stopped and looked around, but it had disappeared. I always felt bad about it.

#259) Tuesday, February 24, 2009
The piece is really nice. It sounds as if it is in two separate movements, but I like them both.

#260) Monday, March 16, 2009
I too always overroll toilet paper, but that's because I don't have cats. The result of combining a cat and a TP overroll can be expressed mathematically as: TP/roll + cat = sumTP --> floor

#261) Friday, March 20, 2009
Congratulations, Kathy!

#262) Friday, March 20, 2009
Re: the spider on the produce, my grandfather owned a general store in Kansas. He found a tarantula in a banana shipment a couple of times, and once found a rattlesnake in a shipment of potatoes. (No, he didn't get bitten.)

#263) Friday, March 27, 2009
Literature abounds with tales of communities of superhumans hidden among us, e.g. Zenna Henderson's The People books, AE van Vogt's SLAN, etc. We like to imagine being asked to join such a community. But think - would you date a bonobo? For a great story about how a group of elites deals with the rest of us, read "The Marching Morons" by CM Kornbluth. (P.S. If you actually have dated a bonobo, I stand corrected. How did it go?)

#264) Thursday, April 09, 2009
That's "Bernoulli's" principle. Bernanke's principle would be more like "Congressional pressure around banks makes it much easier to buy."

#265) Monday, April 13, 2009
My dad lived for 86 years without eating green vegetables, and darn few orange or yellow ones either unless they were candied. There's a moral there somewhere...

#266) Monday, April 20, 2009
Since I will have to wait a year to see my name in the Birthdays list, I'll ask now: any of you Urizonians share an April 10 birthday with me?

#267) Tuesday, April 21, 2009
"Relative humidity" is also confused with the probability of Great Uncle Fred's forehead being damp when you have to kiss him on it.

#268) Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Sounds like you need a Snoozeday.

#269) Wednesday, May 06, 2009
Do you use catsup?

#270) Friday, May 08, 2009
I figure you're scheming to fill the void left when all the newspapers go bankrupt. Hey, if Arianna Huffington can do it, so can you!

#271) Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Swine flu!!!!! AAAAAAH!!!!!!! (But I hope you feel better ASAP!)

#272) Friday, May 15, 2009
Coming soon: The Babiator vs. Octomom!

#273) Friday, May 22, 2009
Sorry about the tonsillitis; at least they have antibiotics for that. Here's a joke to cheer you up: guy with terrible cold goes to doctor and asks for advice. Doc says, "take a cold shower and stand in front of an open window." Guy says, "But won't that give me pneumonia?" Doc replies, "Yes, but THAT we can cure!" Ba-dump dump. You're welcome.

#274) Thursday, June 11, 2009
I have a T-shirt that says, "VISUALIZE WHIRLED PEAS". Somehow that says it all.

#275) Monday, June 22, 2009
Happy Birthday dear Rebecca; may you have many more!

#276) Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Congratulations to the Ahlbin family!

#277) Thursday, June 25, 2009
I'd grade JP-1 higher because it was the first to portray dinosaurs as they must have actually appeared (except perhaps for colors and feathers). We're used to seeing them now on Discovery Channel, Night at the Museum, etc. but those in JP-1 made my jaw drop with delight and amazement.

#278) Thursday, July 16, 2009
Maybe that "police fine" searcher has had a brush with the law?

#279) Monday, July 20, 2009
Well done! You have defeated the caption queen, but there will be future contests and I shall reign yet again! BWAHAHAHAHAHA...

#280) Monday, July 20, 2009
...And as queen, I shall make Professor Chompy my Prime Minister...

#281) Thursday, July 23, 2009
The person who invents a pill that makes human blood distasteful to blood-sucking creatures, notably mosquitoes.

#282) Monday, July 27, 2009
I have the next 3: Speaker for the Dead (I read it), Xenocide (half way through), and Children of the Mind. Weird, true, but imaginative so far. Note only the 1st two of the four got Hugo awards.

#283) Tuesday, July 28, 2009
I figured the BAF would be a vast subterranean structure beneath a little fake farmhouse occupied by a fake farmer whose job is to steer tourists away and show the real DHS agents into the camouflaged elevator, like in the Andromeda Strain movie. So, no tornado worries.

#284) Monday, August 03, 2009
How does it feel to have a blog that is only slightly less than half as old as you are? Now I'm going to look at my avatar too...

#285) Monday, August 03, 2009
Love it! By the way, your fans should know the story behind it. After I spent all my money on my children, the only work I could get is unskilled construction laborer on the new Wilson Bridge. They've got me painting the outside of the guard rails; the picture shows me standing on the edge.

#286) Wednesday, August 05, 2009
Wings, not arms. The angel moved its wings up and down. It may have moved its arms as well. I think it also sort of moved its head back and forth. It was one *$!@# animated angel.

#287) Friday, August 07, 2009
Q: What's the bank-robbing broccoli's favorite TV show? A: Okra Winfrey

#288) Thursday, August 13, 2009
Seems to me you ran in a track race or two, and you CERTAINLY participated in crew, so I guess 16 is false.

#289) Friday, August 14, 2009
hahahaha!!

#290) Wednesday, August 26, 2009
The cygnus pun is swan for the record books!

#291) Thursday, August 27, 2009
I'm Mom, and I just returned from a week of sightseeing in Tennessee and Kentucky (yes, they have sights too) during which we set a new food frugality record by staying at motels with continental breakfasts and eating a Subway's "Five Dollar Foot-Long" every single night. I'm also looking forward to the upcoming wedding and -- hopefully -- future popping out of grandbabies!

#292) Friday, September 04, 2009
I ate Indian fry bread at a Pueblo ceremony in New Mexico many years ago; it was delicious. You would probably like it better than funnel cakes. Check out http://www.manataka.org/page180.html for some recipes.

#293) Tuesday, September 08, 2009
Washington DC is an example of creationism, not evolution. And strip malls are definitely clones.

#294) Wednesday, September 09, 2009
Fritzi, a stuffed cat manufactured sometime around 1946 and well before child safety rules: rabbit-skin hide, sawdust stuffing, glass eyes set on 1-inch long metal pins. I wore the fur off much of the hide, put bandaids over holes where sawdust leaked out, and often extracted/replaced the eyes while playing "doctor" with Fritzi as the patient. I totally loved that cat and still have it in a box someplace. (And no, it never hurt anybody.)

#295) Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Happy Happy Birthday!!!!! Your Dad's bringing your present tomorrow. I am sure you'll be photographing a portion of it for posterity and all your urizonians.....

#296) Wednesday, September 16, 2009
"That's all there is. They will stay that...?" Either you meant to write a sequel, or your publisher left out the last page of the book.

#297) Monday, October 12, 2009
Truly sorry about the strep throat, but glad you still have plenty of time in Hawaii to enjoy now that you've recovered!

#298) Wednesday, October 14, 2009
DITTO!!!

#299) Monday, October 26, 2009
Speaking of costumes, we went to the Maryland Renaissance Festival on a gorgeous early fall day and had a totally excellent time, and nobody minded our being dressed as tourists rather than as Green Men or wenches. We did yell "huzzah!" during the jousting, though.

#300) Friday, November 06, 2009
Salvation Army, and probably other charities, takes cast-off glasses. -- Saint Mom

#301) Wednesday, November 11, 2009
You make a good point about holidays. Is it a floating point?

#302) Tuesday, November 17, 2009
So are you watching or planning to watch the series FastForward? It's not bad.

#303) Friday, November 20, 2009
News flash - your old elementary school is building an auditorium! (Foot smell does not convey.)

#304) Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Brian introduced this site earlier and it deserves to be bookmarked: http://www.the-editing-room.com/

#305) Wednesday, December 02, 2009
I do too!

#306) Thursday, December 03, 2009
2009 highlights: - I took driving trip through KY and TN and finally saw Opryland - I successfully pulled off a wedding rehearsal dinner and gained a great daughter-in-law - I read an increasing number of obituaries in the Washington Post that made me think "Woah! That dude was younger than I am!"

#307) Friday, December 11, 2009
Yes, by all means visit the Yule Log on the Ellipse. It is very romantic to stand by the huge firepit on a cold night and stare into the flaming embers. Plus it's fun to find your state Christmas tree and see the ornaments with miniature tractors, salmon, corncobs, guns, pink slips, or whatever else your state is famous for.

#308) Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Loved rereading these!

#309) Friday, December 18, 2009
Weather forecast says We will have a record snow. Please go home tonight.

#310) Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Save me a bacon cup when you make them!

#311) Thursday, December 31, 2009
Picture 1: When the Chinese authorities learned that President Obama wanted a hotel room with a better view, they moved swiftly.

#312) Thursday, December 31, 2009
Picture 2: An aging Superman is upset to realize that his X-ray vision is failing.

#313) Thursday, December 31, 2009
Picture 3: A TSA officer demonstrates the Agency's latest security procedure for detecting the presence of nose-bombs.

#314) Thursday, December 31, 2009
Picture 4: Contestant "O" is the favorite in the newest Olympic sport of Competitive Boob-Bouncing. Happy New Year!!!

#315) Wednesday, January 06, 2010
Awesome cat - how much does it weigh? Also, just noticed the quaint 19th century LCD screen on the dresser...

#316) Thursday, January 07, 2010
At least that DC couple on Tarawa lived to tell the tale. Check out The Search for Michael Rockefeller (http://www.agamemnon.com/rockefeller.html)

#317) Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Excellent Memory Day! Loved the ending.

#318) Tuesday, January 26, 2010
It has stayed in my head all morning!

#319) Friday, January 29, 2010
Pictures are worth a thousand words, or even more now that people are reading less.

#320) Friday, February 05, 2010
Love the snow shark!

#321) Tuesday, February 09, 2010
Very user-friendly!

#322) Thursday, February 11, 2010
Big L - agree, not my favorite; District 9 - agree, don't miss it; S & M burger - haven't tried it, but it looks gross.

#323) Friday, February 12, 2010
To reassure all you URIzens, Dad and I (and a reciprocating saw, mallet and crowbar) disassembled the carport by evening and had the car into the shop next day. Meanwhile, we have our good old Ford F-150 which is not as fuel-efficient but lots more fun.

#324) Wednesday, February 17, 2010
English translation of your poem: When the VT'ers beat the Wahoo And the losers are all feeling blue 'Stead of saying "Nice try," They sing "Na Na Goodbye!" And that's not a polite thing to do.

#325) Thursday, February 25, 2010
Your most recent Museday Tuesday composition is way more exciting than Emily Howell's.

#326) Thursday, March 04, 2010
I hope you aren't doing job-related stuff on that computer...

#327) Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Watched the season finale of "Burn Notice". I like that show; they blow up stuff REAL good.

#328) Friday, March 12, 2010
Looks like you had an excellent day, especially the ending!

#329) Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Your father did not raise you to abuse tubas.

#330) Wednesday, March 24, 2010
I need to show this to my FAA customer who is working on something he calls "WSDOM" or web service description ontological model. We've just gotten FAA's first web service metadata standards approved and published. FAA still has quite a way to go to catch up to DoD, but they're starting at least.

#331) Tuesday, March 30, 2010
I really like this one -- it goes with the gorgeous spring day that's just outside my window!

#332) Wednesday, April 07, 2010
Does posting about non-posting count as posting?

#333) Friday, April 16, 2010
I saved a google email "chat" I had with Brian's sister Ellen who was at VT during the lockdown. Rereading it evokes the minute-by-minute events of that day as she was learning about them and giving me status on it. It's still awful and emotional.

#334) Monday, April 26, 2010
I don't have the "Filet-o-Fish Frankie Fish", but I do have the big red Staples "That Was Easy" button.

#335) Tuesday, April 27, 2010
This reminds me of the early SNL show's hilarious parody of 19th century sailors on board the HMS "Raging Queen".

#336) Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Virtual Scouting: a great idea! "Sim" scout camps, online cookie selling, survival games, skill levels, uniforms, roleplaying -- it all fits!

#337) Friday, May 21, 2010
Hope your briefing went well!

#338) Thursday, May 27, 2010
It reminds me of "my generation's" LOST, namely "Twin Peaks". The first season, especially the pilot episode, was simply stunning -- music, atmosphere, location, mood, plot, characters, everything -- then the second just got weird.

#339) Tuesday, June 01, 2010
Not the first time -- Booty figured out how to open our basement door, located the kibble bag ASAP, and had her way with it here, too. If she would only learn to use her superpowers for good instead of evil...

#340) Wednesday, June 02, 2010
I LOVE WEIRD SEARCH DAY!

#341) Wednesday, June 02, 2010
News flash -- I just learned the audition Kelley Corbett won is a place in "Pershing's Own" United States Army Concert Band, the best band in the USA and maybe the world. Congratulations to him!

#342) Wednesday, June 16, 2010
I feel your pain. I really do. At the company I work for, all the required security, ethics, etc. training courses are online.

#343) Friday, June 25, 2010
Can't wait to read your review of Kindle!

#344) Friday, July 02, 2010
I assert that _everybody's_ forefathers went around eating things, burning things, and shooting things. A lot of the time they ate, burned, and shot other people's forefathers (although not always in that order).

#345) Thursday, July 22, 2010
You might like "Xenocide" which is a sequel to "Speaker". I wasn't too crazy about the last one though, "Children of the Mind".

#346) Wednesday, July 28, 2010
I enjoyed your Trip Day series very much! Thanks for posting them.

#347) Friday, July 30, 2010
Again, the pictures are great! You and Rebecca are lucky to have friends and relatives on the west coast; it gives you an excuse to go back often.

#348) Wednesday, August 04, 2010
I notice the number of comments has declined too. Possible reasons: -- The heat -- Vacations -- Babies being had -- Eating (viz. the obesity epidemic) -- Parental controls on Urizone web site.

#349) Thursday, August 05, 2010
1) Who are you? I ask myself that every time I look in the mirror... 2) How do you know me? You're the one with the goatee and the cute wife. 3) How and when did you find this site? In 1996 when I was keeping tabs on what you were doing with our tuition money. 4) Where is your website? I'm more the lurker type. 5) What would you like to say to the rest of us? "I do not believe in an afterlife, although I am bringing a change of underwear." (Woody Allen)

#350) Tuesday, August 17, 2010
84,000,00 miles is a long way to go on any map.

#351) Wednesday, September 08, 2010
Not many 6 1/2 year old writers ever used a colon for punctuation. Pretty shrap!

#352) Monday, September 13, 2010
Hope you're planning a ginormous happy birthday celebration tomorrow! Let me be the first to wish you a pre-birthday congratulations!

#353) Wednesday, September 15, 2010
This is for your birthday feast tonight. Everybody stop eating and sing/clap along: "Happy happy birthday From all of us to you, Hey! Happy happy birthday From all of us to you, Hey!" Hope that brought back memories of those poor waitpersons at the all-you-can-eat places we took you way back when.

#354) Wednesday, September 22, 2010
I love it! It's also conceivable that the two graphs' shapes represent the optimism of the Democratic Party and the GOP congressional voting record.

#355) Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Finally got around to listening; very appealing!

#356) Wednesday, October 06, 2010
What does having a Borgata Red Label entitle you to do? Does it have anything to do with Star Trek ("Resistance is futile!")?

#357) Friday, October 15, 2010
So all those people who were giving me what I thought was The Bird were actually doing arithmetic...

#358) Wednesday, October 20, 2010
1. Nobody grows hair in their mouth! 2. As I recall, we had a little book on BASIC, and you started using it to write short melodies and simple screen displays. Later you wrote interactive fiction. You were like 6 or 7(!) 3. The first 4 symphonies are so gauche. 4. I don't know about concerts, but you used to like throwing rocks in streams.

#359) Wednesday, November 03, 2010
Tea Party Patriots - Don't Tread On Us

#360) Friday, November 05, 2010
Avocado IS un-American -- according to Websters, it's "< MexSp aguacate < Nahuatl a:wakaλ, avocado, lit., testicle; so named from its shape". I still love guacamole.

#361) Wednesday, November 17, 2010
If somehow a ping-pong ball should make its way into your rectum, The only thing that you could do, I guess, is vivisect 'em. The Poet

#362) Friday, November 19, 2010
At airports, saying words aloud like "anal glands" and "rectum", Will keep you off the plane until the TSA has checked 'em.

#363) Monday, November 29, 2010
So did Amber take the head off the middle angel, or did Photoshop? Tell me, I must know!

#364) Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Re: Hauptmann -- since "octave" comes from "eight", half of 8 is a fourth, not a fifth; "Two" may be sad but "One is the loneliest number that you'll ever do..."

#365) Thursday, December 09, 2010
If you haven't already, try OpenOffice.org Writer instead of MS Word. It's free, too!

#366) Friday, December 10, 2010
Jokes about your mother -- http://www.the-top-tens.com/lists/best-yo-mama-so-fat-jokes.asp

#367) Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Excellent piece!

#368) Friday, January 07, 2011
My husband _says_ he bought our Zhu Zhu hamsters at the store, but is that _really_ where they came from? And when they sigh "oh, hum!" and "la-la-li, la-la-li", are they telling us our days are numbered? Be afraid. Be very afraid.

#369) Tuesday, January 11, 2011
A Flat Miner...oooh. Re: ex-roomie's question, the answer is yes; they call it "pot-au-peu".

#370) Wednesday, January 26, 2011
We had no GPKs, but I did have a stash of forbidden horror comics (Tales from the Crypt, etc.)that I got by trading allowed ones like Superman or Wonder Woman.

#371) Friday, February 11, 2011
When you came to my job, you also beat my colleagues in "Star Wars" and programmed (in BASIC) my computer with a screen saver of your own devising. Ah, the non-secure networks of yesteryear....

#372) Thursday, February 17, 2011
I have to ask: was there also a Touchy Award? But seriously, congratulations!!

#373) Tuesday, March 01, 2011
You forgot "cat food".

#374) Wednesday, March 02, 2011
Re the African violet: So I don't have a green thumb. So sue me.

#375) Friday, March 04, 2011
At least "pick the low-hanging fruit" seems to be going away.

#376) Monday, March 14, 2011
Now I'M hungry.

#377) Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Hearty buns -- ha ha!!

#378) Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Yum, yum! Is a lion chop anything like an elephant cutlet?

#379) Friday, April 08, 2011
Recall also that I ran after the family yelling at them to give back the wagon, one of the very few times I ever did something both brave and foolhardy. Now they'd probably just shoot me.

#380) Monday, April 11, 2011
Will your new kitchen have automatic stainless steel cat food dispensers?

#381) Friday, April 15, 2011
Re: the pug/turtle/eagle combo, I was going to say that it looked like a member of Congress...

#382) Monday, April 18, 2011
a) BU getting ready to empty the litter box after Booty and Amber broke into the cat food container -- again; b) The picture on BU's Top Secret DOD Security Badge (along with biometric retinal scan, DNA, stool sample, etc.)

#383) Monday, May 02, 2011
The teenager in the German family I "au paired" for in the summer of '61 was into American folk songs. He liked to sing "Hang On Yo Hat, Tom Dooley..."

#384) Wednesday, May 04, 2011
Best. Analogy. Yet.

#385) Monday, May 09, 2011
What is the source of your avatar "Cattlebruiser": (1) an anagram of "Battlecruiser", (2) a play on "Bulls-hitter", or (3) something even worse?

#386) Friday, May 13, 2011
Thanks for the info, Squiggy.

#387) Tuesday, May 17, 2011
I also heard that you only need to change one gene to get the end result, but that gene has to WANT to change.

#388) Friday, May 20, 2011
I can almost breathe the gypsum dust from here!

#389) Thursday, June 09, 2011
Even in the harshest, coldest, snowiest months, neither birds nor squirrels would eat the Kellogg's Froot Loops we scattered for them. Food for thought...

#390) Monday, June 13, 2011
Given the recent political scandal, I'm surprised you posted pictures of your briefs on the Internet.

#391) Tuesday, June 14, 2011
She was thinking, "plaid shirts... stupid hats... if only some space ship would swoop down and take me away..."

#392) Tuesday, June 21, 2011
I'd like to hear more of this piece :-)

#393) Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Oh no, Boris, ve failed -- ve beheaded de wrong moose!! Natasha

#394) Wednesday, July 13, 2011
If I chose Hungover Pee, would I be going with the flow?

#395) Monday, July 18, 2011
A third chart called Job Advice for Really Rich People: it looks like the Poor People's chart except the quadrants read (clockwise) "Join a Competing Company", "Take Over the Company", "Marry the President's Daughter/Son", and "Exercise Your Stock Options".

#396) Monday, July 25, 2011
Congrats on the new little Ex-Roomie baby!

#397) Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Booty and Amber say, "Wish we were there, "We're doing OK but our food is just fair, "Our keepers have bought us some catnip and treats, "But they don't give us bacon, which totally eats*!" (*We couldn't think of anything that rhymes with "sucks". We're only cats, after all.)

#398) Thursday, July 28, 2011
Ladies and gentlemen, when the presidential candidate said "boiling point", he was aware that water boils at 212 degrees F. He was in fact thinking of ethyl bromide at the time.

#399) Monday, August 01, 2011
1) At least 1997. You were "Zeke" then, anyway. 2) 38? 48' 17" N / 77? 2' 50" W 3) Reading the URI! Zone has slowed my descent into senility, I think... What was the question again?

#400) Wednesday, August 10, 2011
I can tell from your expression that nothing made you happier than having to sell stuff for BSA.

#401) Thursday, August 11, 2011
The Wire can be a downer, but stick with it. The 4th season especially is amazing.

#402) Friday, August 12, 2011
I have seen spider plants take over people's offices...

#403) Monday, August 22, 2011
And while you're answering questions, what is bacon beer? P.S. Thanks again for the sushi!

#404) Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Vielen dank!

#405) Wednesday, August 24, 2011
So THAT's what a Richter Scale looks like...

#406) Thursday, August 25, 2011
Congrats! And the year's not even over...

#407) Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Now I'm so hungry...

#408) Friday, September 02, 2011
Love those kittehs!

#409) Wednesday, September 07, 2011
And those trips were a major reason your Dad got a truck.

#410) Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Nice -- please put this excerpt on your "candidate for a longer version" list!

#411) Thursday, September 15, 2011
You just keep getting better every year! Happy birthday, my dearest son -- I am one lucky Mom!

#412) Friday, September 23, 2011
What a bunch of great kids!

#413) Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Kitty has to be in at least the 95th cat IQ percentile. She is one smart feline.

#414) Monday, October 03, 2011
Absolutely the cutest couple ever! Happy First Anniversary! I think paper gifts are traditional -- paper money, paper stock certificates, paper gift cards, etc..... UPDATE: my dementia kicked in again -- I mean SECOND anniversary! Time flies when you're my age. Anyway, cotton gifts are traditional here. And Wikipedia says banknotes are primarily made from cotton.

#415) Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Chickinara -- isn't she vocalist for The Legwarmers?

#416) Thursday, October 13, 2011
That Google Platforms Rant was incredibly interesting. I'm going to share it with colleagues who are trying to introduce Service Oriented Architecture to FAA's culture. Even though it won't make any difference there, it's still instructive.

#417) Monday, October 17, 2011
The recipe sounds delicious - I will definitely try it.

#418) Wednesday, October 19, 2011
That carpet hid more spills, stains, crumbs, dust, footprints, etc. than any other carpet ever made. It was perfect.

#419) Wednesday, October 26, 2011
And mine.

#420) Thursday, October 27, 2011
Move back to Alexandria and run for Circuit Court Clerk -- Semonian's like 79 years old and has held that office for over 30 years. Plus his signs are lame.

#421) Monday, October 31, 2011
Ha, ha, ha, ha,....!

#422) Friday, November 04, 2011
If a shy professor biking at 12 mph collides with an SUV traveling at 40 mph, what is the maximum height of the arc through the air of (a) the professor and (b) the bicycle?

#423) Friday, November 11, 2011
Terrible to learn there will be few or no weird news links in future! I looked forward to those daily tidbits. Now what do I do....

#424) Wednesday, November 16, 2011
I don't understand the labels on ladders that warn, "Do not stand on any steps above this" given that the higher steps all have perfectly good treads that just beg you to climb them. If ladder companies were serious, they would give the steps sharp edges.

#425) Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Finally got around to listening and voting. Besides my choice, I also liked "Mercurial". I go for the rhythmic ones.

#426) Wednesday, November 30, 2011
According to Wikipedia, Hauptmann "also advocated just intonation and considered enharmonic progressions unnatural." What a dork.

#427) Wednesday, December 07, 2011
Those shirts and pants were selected on purpose to represent CHRISTMAS colors.

#428) Friday, December 16, 2011
Presidential approval rating: 43% Congressional approval rating: 12% Uri!zone approval rating: 110% A clear winner for 2011! Thanks for a great year of blogging.

#429) Tuesday, December 20, 2011
I like it! And I'm not brain dead, at least not yet.

#430) Monday, December 26, 2011
Love the captions! Here's another one for #5: North Koreans, already worried about Kim Jong Eun's immaturity, were not happy at all with his choice for Minister of Defense.

#431) Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Love the captions! Here's another one for #6: "Global warming is a government-inspired fraud," said GOP candidate Ron Paul IV, shown traveling on I-95 between DC and Baltimore in his new 2052 Ford Submersible SUV.

#432) Wednesday, January 04, 2012
Fascinating! It's obvious your mother mistreated you. -- S. Freud

#433) Friday, January 06, 2012
I named you after Brian Boru, the high king of Ireland a thousand years ago. You have a march too -- "Brian Boru's March". Check it out.

#434) Thursday, January 12, 2012
Sorry about your cold! Latest medical recommendation is: chicken soup. In large quantities.

#435) Friday, January 20, 2012
I've never been invited to a costume party. I've also never won a door prize. Am I lucky or what???

#436) Monday, January 23, 2012
I want a copy!

#437) Monday, February 06, 2012
We had a stuffed pork tenderloin. Yum!

#438) Monday, February 13, 2012
Seems to me there was a UNIX "cat" command; Booty might know that one.

#439) Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Great pictures!

#440) Friday, February 24, 2012
That story about a 2-part sleep pattern is very interesting. Most nights my own sleep is like that, but I just lie there. Is that inefficient use of time or what...

#441) Monday, March 05, 2012
Besides the delicious stir-fry, we should mention that there was also a delicious cake with vanilla icing and sprinkles!

#442) Friday, March 09, 2012
Why haven't you gotten a smart phone yet? (I haven't either, but that's because I'm basically a misanthrope.)

#443) Friday, March 16, 2012
It should be sock-shoe-sock-shoe-tie them both. (Who wears socks with shoes that don't have shoelaces?) That way you keep the socks clean. Of course, if you walk around in your socks, all bets are off.

#444) Friday, March 30, 2012
Loved the pictures! So would you like to live on an actual farm or just stick to an occasional visit?

#445) Monday, April 02, 2012
Booty Booty Booty <3 <3 <3

#446) Thursday, April 05, 2012
And I'm still checking your blog...

#447) Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Thanks! Now that I've surpassed the Biblical "three score and ten" limit, every year thereafter is a bonus :-)

#448) Friday, April 20, 2012
A couple more: Where to stand in an elevator, How to use a drinking fountain.

#449) Thursday, April 26, 2012
I thought it was just me who couldn't keep track of events in the movie (I did like the book). Good to hear I wasn't the only one.

#450) Friday, May 04, 2012
Love it!

#451) Monday, May 07, 2012
I've read the first 5 books of the Ice and Fire series, and still think book 1 is the best. Like to know what you think of TV season 2.

#452) Thursday, May 17, 2012
I've read all the books in the series, and each one is exciting with many plots and subplots, but I must say that it's taking a loooong time to bring the various story lines to solid conclusions. BTW (and this is not a spoiler) I read that HBO's second season totally outdoes the first one booby-wise.

#453) Friday, May 18, 2012
Mine would include: lay/lie, "I" used as object (he told my friend and I), nauseous/nauseated. Love the card above!

#454) Tuesday, May 29, 2012
You have an "alias" tag but not a "lost" tag; just wonderin'...

#455) Wednesday, June 06, 2012
Ah, 1996...the college year...we made 4 trips to VA Tech and 2 to UVA. Your grandma died 20 years ago this June; take this opportunity to think about her for a moment :-)

#456) Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Are those actually dragon or tyrannosaurus legs on your office monitor??

#457) Monday, June 18, 2012
My weekend -- prepped for toddler and cats.

#458) Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Can I invest now, or do I have to wait for the IPO?

#459) Friday, June 22, 2012
1) Do not copy "The Scream" by Edvard Munch because the dude who recently bought it for $120M has probably copyrighted it and will sue your butt. 2) Do not copy the fetus-being floating in space from 2001: A Space Odyssey because Stanley Kubrick will sue your butt. 3) Happy Birthday, Rebecca!

#460) Wednesday, June 27, 2012
...And the absent Rebecca a physical therapist, too! That's so unfair.

#461) Monday, July 02, 2012
Thanks again for the Internet connection! P.S. Our power came back on at 4am this morning. :-)

#462) Tuesday, July 10, 2012
What Katie said! I always look forward to reading your blog.

#463) Wednesday, July 11, 2012
That's why I love your posts - they evoke my own memories! I remember 30 years ago when the place I worked used "GCOS" for General Electric comprehensive operating system, and commands began with "G" (e.g. "GXLIT"). One guy wrote a purge program and named it "GXLAX". Programmers are all alike.

#464) Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Regarding Kitty: Your dad (non-cat lover): Goddamit. Me (cat lover): Ooh look at dat kitty! Did she pee on the carpet? Is she a bad puddy tat?

#465) Thursday, July 12, 2012
Excellent pictures! How's the temperature there? Any cooler than NOVA?

#466) Thursday, July 19, 2012
What do the signs on the mountaintop say?

#467) Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Thanks for taking the time to write your travelogue. I enjoyed reading it!

#468) Friday, July 27, 2012
I looked at all the pictures - thanks for the many enlightening captions! It made me feel as if I were there myself :-)

#469) Wednesday, August 08, 2012
I always love Memory Day!

#470) Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Thanks, ex-roomie! The hair was actually dark brown; it just seems black. This was in the days before Photoshop...

#471) Thursday, September 06, 2012
For those movies in which the dialogue is hard to understand, don't forget there is usually a closed captions setting.

#472) Friday, September 07, 2012
Mammal-blind... ha, ha!

#473) Thursday, September 06, 2012
You mean people actually "go" to movies??

#474) Friday, September 14, 2012
Your middle name should be "Photogenic"! Happy Birthday!

#475) Wednesday, September 19, 2012
It's been way too long between Weird Search Days!

#476) Monday, September 24, 2012
You should have a caption contest for this montage. Suggestions: "A Clean Mind In A Clean Bathroom" "The Mirror In The Man" "Blue BU" More?

#477) Friday, October 05, 2012
You always did have a dry sense of humor.

#478) Tuesday, October 16, 2012
I agree with all of them., especially 2 and 3.

#479) Thursday, October 18, 2012
We really liked Homeland too. I hear that next season is just as good.

#480) Tuesday, October 23, 2012
It's the civilized way to criticize. Everybody wins!

#481) Wednesday, October 24, 2012
"Shells and Cheese" would be a nice title for a jazz composition.

#482) Monday, October 29, 2012
That looked like a stunningly awesome party! Aren't you glad you had it now instead of during Frankenstorm?

#483) Thursday, November 01, 2012
Can we borrow Chuck season 1?

#484) Friday, November 02, 2012
If you had decided to go for your PhD in music, this is a great start for an unusual thesis topic :-)

#485) Wednesday, November 07, 2012
Back then I imagined that in the upcoming new millennium, everybody would be wearing velour uniforms like the ones in the original Star Trek series. So I was wrong. So sue me.

#486) Wednesday, November 07, 2012
Really, so do I! :-)

#487) Friday, November 09, 2012
Your post looks almost exactly like my gmail inbox full of Washington Post bulletins on "the morning after".

#488) Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Kelley, I hope that: (1) Melody/Mel wasn't your parole officer (2) Melody/Mel didn't boil your pet rabbit (3) Sally gave your pants back.

#489) Friday, November 16, 2012
It's crappy computers? Wow - all this time I thought it was millions of human brains that were being secretly commandeered and connected together Matrix-style by smartphones.

#490) Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Absolutely love the drawing! VDOT should use it to augment the road signs and markings.

#491) Tuesday, November 27, 2012
I agree 100% with your analysis and conclusions. Your post is a fine editorial. By the way, I liked Koyaanisqatsi. At least I did until I heard Peter Schickele's parody "O hotsy-totsy..."

#492) Friday, November 30, 2012
"A man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?" -- Robert Browning

#493) Tuesday, December 04, 2012
In November you added that very cool dining area light fixture (I love it!). Re: Edmonton mall, is it bigger than the one in Dubai? or the Mall of America in Minnesota? I had no idea.

#494) Friday, December 07, 2012
Not being an overachiever, I'll just share my aspiration: I would like to experience minimal gravity, so I could do somersaults and float effortlessly through the air. I'd probably react like former Utah Senator "Barfin' Jake" Garn, who wangled a space shuttle mission and earned his nickname, but I would try it anyhow.

#495) Thursday, December 13, 2012
Ha, ha!! Love it.

#496) Friday, December 21, 2012
And Merry Christmas to you and all your fans!

#497) Monday, December 31, 2012
Happy Neiiiiigh Year! P.S. I enjoyed reading your Photos of the Year captions; the "Life of Pi" is a hoot!

#498) Friday, January 04, 2013
Maybe Ball State and ISU students are trying to get into Indiana University School of Music. Go Big Red!

#499) Monday, January 07, 2013
Congrats on your upcoming nuptials, Mike!

#500) Tuesday, January 08, 2013
I always liked to sing. I got a cheap guitar in about 1963 and really got into the folksong scene, formed a group of 2 and made at least $100 over the course of the 60's and 70's. I sort of abandoned it over the years and now my fingertips are soft, but I have every intention of taking it up again, really, truly, I mean it... I still sing in the chorus of the local community college, though, and will keep it up until my vibrato gets the best of me.

#501) Monday, January 14, 2013
Charlie, of course, of course.

#502) Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Where's Weird Al Yankovic?

#503) Tuesday, February 05, 2013
When I visit bookstores, libraries, or anything with long aisles of shelved objects I have to walk past and look at, I feel nauseated. It's like motion sickness. Thank you, Google and Amazon, for making my reading/shopping life so much nicer!

#504) Wednesday, February 06, 2013
Mine involved either horses or rocket ships. That was pretty much it, except for the occasional "tornado bearing down on a farm house" motif.

#505) Thursday, February 07, 2013
If you were asked to design a new Monopoly token, what would it be?

#506) Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Ah yes, Bechtel...check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bechtel for its historical dealings with despots, for instance, "In 1988, just after Saddam Hussein had earned international condemnation for using poisonous gas against thousands of Kurds, Bechtel signed contracts with Iraq to build a chemical plant."

#507) Thursday, February 14, 2013
Of the first 4 seasons of "Justified", season 2 is my favorite.

#508) Friday, February 15, 2013
Great answer to my question! I would definitely choose the giraffe over the cat. BUnger Games - ha, ha! love it.

#509) Friday, February 22, 2013
But are you not also in thrall to bacon, KFC, and shells 'n cheese?

#510) Monday, March 04, 2013
By assigning names alphabetically to every little storm that comes along, odds are high that they'll exceed 26. I figure the logical series will continue with "Aaron", "Abner", "Achilles", etc. What do you think?

#511) Wednesday, March 06, 2013
Reading your pun, I can only say, "tusk, tusk".

#512) Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Her name was Canan, pronounced "Chanan". I recall that her mother made matching sweater vests for both you and Yunus, and I heard that you and he took over the kindergarten sand table and wouldn't let the other kids play with it.

#513) Monday, March 18, 2013
A nice balance!

#514) Thursday, March 28, 2013
I have a dog-eared paperback of The Cuckoo's Egg that I bought when it first came out. I agree it's a good story. For me it also brings back memories of minicomputers and VAX VMS and hard-wired terminals. That was hi-tech. It's amazing how far technology has advanced in a couple of decades!

#515) Monday, April 01, 2013
What is an ergonomic chair? "I sit, therefore I am?"

#516) Thursday, April 04, 2013
My sentiments exactly!

#517) Tuesday, April 09, 2013
"Gimme that ol' time aleatoric music, Gimme that ol' time aleatoric music, Gimme that ol' time aleatoric music, It's good enough for me!"

#518) Thursday, April 11, 2013
I'd like to watch it!

#519) Friday, April 12, 2013
Bugle: A search engine for musicians and entomologists!

#520) Tuesday, April 16, 2013
I can definitely vouch for its deliciousity!

#521) Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Obvious question: is the future basement dweller one of your urizonetian commenters?

#522) Thursday, May 02, 2013
The Game of Thrones (or should I say, Song of Ice and Fire) books are the same way - job slices and a tad too much of the supernatural.

#523) Tuesday, May 07, 2013
I would'a thought "frackalack" was something followed by people concerned with oil extraction issues. Shows you what I know.

#524) Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Pepperjack Shiraz Bolton -- ha, ha!!

#525) Friday, May 17, 2013
Congratulations!!! You worked so hard; now go celebrate -- you've earned it!

#526) Friday, May 24, 2013
So do I!

#527) Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Adding a "u" to spontaneity and rearranging the letters yields "yo' pants untie'" which is an old Southern greeting meaning "you forgot your belt".

#528) Thursday, May 30, 2013
I'd like to try the 10oz pie. The 16 is too big. Do they sell them at Costco/Sam's Club, or if not, where?

#529) Thursday, June 06, 2013
You may find some habits changing after age 40; e.g., I too used to eat all of one food item on the plate before starting the next; not so much now. I'd like to change my worst habit, which is procrastination, but I keep putting it off.

#530) Tuesday, June 11, 2013
I don't doubt your loyalty, but I do have suspicions about Amber and Booty as spies - I've watched them carry out clandestine activities like breaking and entering classified catfood containers.

#531) Thursday, June 13, 2013
I did try those chicken pot pies; you're right, they are excellent!

#532) Wednesday, June 19, 2013
I liked your Tallahassee apartment. It was nice and shady. I also liked the cemetery across the street with the Spanish Moss in the trees; very Anne Rice Vampire Chronicles-like.

#533) Monday, June 24, 2013
Congratulations to you and Rebecca (and your friends too) for doing something COMPLETELY different!

#534) Wednesday, June 26, 2013
If you were in 7th grade now, you'd be publishing these electronically. Oh, wait...

#535) Friday, June 28, 2013
Maybe you could photoshop the Martian rover Curiosity (http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/images/?ImageID=5297) meeting something unexpected (your choice)?

#536) Tuesday, July 02, 2013
I like the test where you "open your email" and see a message like, "Hi, this your tech support manager, we need to check your machine for problem. Please click here and enter your userid and password when asked." Then you get a choice of actions. I'd love to choose "Do what the email says" just to see what would happen, except that they score these tests.

#537) Thursday, July 04, 2013
Thanks for the irrefutable proof of life on Mars! Happy Independence Day to all!

#538) Tuesday, July 09, 2013
Pigtails Shorty Frieda

#539) Wednesday, July 10, 2013
Rocks and minerals

#540) Thursday, July 18, 2013
You guys should write more reviews together, like the late Siskel and Ebert pair.

#541) Monday, July 29, 2013
Trust me, the worst phase is the "hey, everybody in the Obituary column is about my age!" phase.

#542) Friday, August 02, 2013
To make sure your Website design book is a best-seller, include "Cuckoo" in its title. The 1989 book "The Cuckoo's Egg" is in 4th place on the most-sold non-fiction books because people are mistaking it for J. K. Rowling's latest mystery, so act fast.

#543) Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Ha, ha! Plumpest cat -- I love it!

#544) Thursday, August 08, 2013
Those who like the American House of Cards would also like the British version. Though the plots are very basically the same, there are plenty of differences to hold your interest. I thought the protagonist's name change was cute - "Francis Urquhart" becomes "Frank Underwood" in American - but they're still both "FU".

#545) Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Wow, that takes me back! Thanks so much for posting the video :-)

#546) Wednesday, August 21, 2013
Looks kind of like my Indiana U schedule of 40 years ago(!): music this, music that, and intro to computers wherein I learned FORTRAN and ALGOL. That's how old I am.

#547) Friday, August 23, 2013
Have you exercised your Greenbrier Resort award yet? and if so, did you see the secret Bunker? and if so, would you please review it on your blog?

#548) Friday, August 30, 2013
Winners all! It struck me while reading them that you might have a contest in which you provide new TV show names and your readers write the concepts. Here are three for starters: "That's Me All Over" "YOLO" "Honey, I Ate The Kids".

#549) Monday, September 02, 2013
"No" is not an option.

#550) Friday, September 06, 2013
I confess that I did not know that about the DASH bus. But then, I take the DASH bus quite often. I confess that I hate, loathe, and despise tipping. They should include them in the service charges. I confess that for years I thought "epitome" was pronounced "epi-tome" as in "home", and that "adamant" was accented on the second syllable like "banana".

#551) Tuesday, September 10, 2013
Ha, ha!

#552) Thursday, September 12, 2013
I've been watching Under the Dome too. It's actually not bad.

#553) Thursday, September 26, 2013
We watched Leverage with subtitles. Might be your TV?

#554) Wednesday, October 02, 2013
Those were the days! (And the trikes were so much quieter than those Big Wheels which, thankfully, seem to have lost their appeal now.)

#555) Thursday, October 03, 2013
Ah yes, a beautiful photo. But where's the Martian Rover?

#556) Thursday, October 10, 2013
Agree totally with your Under the Dome review. I did like the special effects, though. A question: since season 1 had a cliffhanger ending, are you going to watch the beginning of season 2 just to see what happens? "Now You See Me" sounds like fun; I definitely want to watch it.

#557) Thursday, October 10, 2013
You're right; I can wait for Wikipedia. Better yet, I need to read the book.

#558) Friday, October 11, 2013
Hahahahahahahaha!!!!

#559) Wednesday, October 16, 2013
"Penis of participation" -- priceless!!

#560) Monday, November 04, 2013
1. I just looked at your Life photos; loved the pumpkin faces! 2. You mean ... doing yoga DOESN'T invite the devil into your soul???

#561) Friday, November 08, 2013
I add parsley to soups, stews, etc. and if someone puts fresh parsley on my food as a garnish, I eat it to freshen my breath. Parsley is good. Cilantro, on the other hand...

#562) Tuesday, November 12, 2013
Questions: 1. What's the red stuff on the ham? Cranberry sauce? 2. Is Popeye's a place where everybody knows your name? 3. If they take the trans fat out of the fried chicken, will you still order it? 4. Is that trip map part of Colorado?

#563) Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Even more amazing considering he was 7 years old. I think playing these text-based games might have helped teach vocabulary and spelling, and I wonder if today's CGI-based games have the opposite effect?

#564) Friday, November 15, 2013
Obama and the whole ACA fiasco. I have good insurance but I'm disappointed for a lot of people who don't.

#565) Friday, November 22, 2013
The mashup must include cats.

#566) Monday, November 25, 2013
A mocat is better than a mohawk any day.

#567) Thursday, November 28, 2013
Looks like you paid attention in your pre-school Cyrillic enrichment class. Happy Thanksgiving to you too!

#568) Friday, November 29, 2013
I do like the way you can use the right/left arrows to navigate through the pictures. It's much easier now!

#569) Thursday, December 05, 2013
I'd like to see that game with 3D enabled and find out if I could actually see the effects, given that one of my eyes is weaker than the other. (I saw 3D TV once using the accompanying glasses, and it looked great.)

#570) Friday, December 13, 2013
Absolutely agree with Doobie. I always like to see the pictures, and I always learn something new. (What the heck is a tiger trumpet?)

#571) Monday, December 16, 2013
Will you review the Hunger Games 2?

#572) Tuesday, December 17, 2013
Pepsi becomes a Poopsi... made my day!

#573) Thursday, December 19, 2013
Thank you :-)

#574) Friday, December 27, 2013
Super captions! I especially like the Texas belts :-)

#575) Wednesday, January 01, 2014
Happy New Year to you! As my new year's gift to you, I won't try to interpret your dream.

#576) Wednesday, January 15, 2014
Loved the last letter. Im glad your on the winning team and not the whining team.

#577) Thursday, January 16, 2014
Yes, season 4 was definitely best of the Dexter series. Not sure about all-time TV bests, though; my contenders would include Breaking Bad season 4, Homeland season 1, and (going way back) season 1 of Twin Peaks. Some of the Homicide series are great too.

#578) Tuesday, January 21, 2014
I love it! Hope you braved Winter Storm Janus to vote. We wusses here in Panem have shut the government down again, although to be fair we do have one inch of accumulated snow as of 1:30 pm.

#579) Tuesday, January 28, 2014
I pity you poor youngsters who had to grow up with Oreo cookies instead of the original Hydrox cookie brand.

#580) Thursday, January 30, 2014
While altering human genetics to add toothpaste sacs is good, how about shark bionics that let us continually shed and regrow our teeth? I guess that's another question that belonged on Questions Day...

#581) Monday, February 03, 2014
Poor Amber! Poor Booty! And poor you -- a cat catharsis is always catastrophic.

#582) Tuesday, February 04, 2014
Ooh, c'est bon!

#583) Friday, February 07, 2014
Superb. Just. Superb.

#584) Thursday, February 13, 2014
Being to the east of I-95, we only got about 8 inches.

#585) Thursday, February 13, 2014
LOL - "naive" is my middle name!

#586) Friday, February 14, 2014
Ouch!

#587) Friday, February 21, 2014
#11. All "-pipe" events must be accompanied by bagpipes.

#588) Monday, February 24, 2014
Thanks again for a great evening, even if "World's End" didn't really measure up to its predecessor "Hot Fuzz" for comedy. But the world did end very satisfactorily.

#589) Tuesday, February 25, 2014
We know all about you. Sincerely, NSA

#590) Thursday, February 27, 2014
I'm so sorry! The virus sounds like a particularly harsh one. Now do what my grandmothers said to do: drink as much as you can and rest, rest, rest. I hope you feel better soon.

#591) Friday, February 28, 2014
Tell me if there's anything in OKC besides (1) State Capitol Building (2) Cowboy Museum (3) FAA Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center.

#592) Tuesday, March 04, 2014
Looks good, except it really should be capable of emitting at least one BTU (Booty Thermal Unit) of heat to compensate for the foot-warming properties of a pet.

#593) Friday, March 07, 2014
Doesn't Booty meet those requirements?

#594) Tuesday, March 11, 2014
We raised our children to worship at Costco every weekend.

#595) Friday, March 14, 2014
When I was very young, I seriously thought that in the 21st century men would be wearing turtlenecks or Star Trek-like uniforms. I still can't believe how neckties have hung on, if you'll forgive the pun.

#596) Wednesday, March 19, 2014
Love the picture of little Booty and her pet human!

#597) Monday, March 31, 2014
Great pictures! The older you and your friends get, the better looking you are. (P.S. based on my experience, that'll be true for about 30 more years, but then...)

#598) Thursday, April 03, 2014
We liked the Veronica Mars TV series and were wondering if we should get the movie, and based on your review, it sounds like a good bet. Thanks!

#599) Tuesday, April 08, 2014
Sounds like you had a wonderful time! Glad you saw the bunker; did they tell you that it NEVER WAS TESTED to see if it could actually accommodate a horde of congressmen and their chiefs of staff/mistresses at one time? Amazing waste of tax dollars, but an interesting slice of history.

#600) Thursday, April 10, 2014
Thank you all! To paraphrase Dennis the Menace, "Oh, to be young again, knowing what I know now!"

#601) Monday, April 14, 2014
Thanks again to you and Rebecca for taking me out to eat to celebrate my birthday! It (the food, not the birthday) was delicious and I enjoyed myself immensely!

#602) Tuesday, April 15, 2014
Next on DIYUri: Building Your Own Outside Cat Enclosure for Indoor Cats

#603) Thursday, April 24, 2014
When I retire permanently, I plan to take some free courses, e.g., "Art History" (see art examples on a big screen vs. in some expensive text); "Care and Feeding of Wombats" (who doesn't Wonder about Wombats every Once in a While?)

#604) Friday, April 25, 2014
The Service Description Conceptual Model (SDCM), a document which I helped create, was posted on the FAA SWIM Website at http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ato/service_units/techops/atc_comms_services/swim/governance/servicesemantics/. While you're there, check out the SWIM Controlled Vocabulary which I actually coded in RDF/SKOS, and the CV FAQ which I wrote. Not so bad for an old lady!

#605) Monday, April 28, 2014
How do you like Orphan Black? It's had some good reviews.

#606) Tuesday, April 29, 2014
6/10 You must have seen Psycho at somebody else's house. Guessed wrong on 1 and 5. Always thought you were an 8D kind of guy. However, I think we're all sick of 9B.

#607) Thursday, May 01, 2014
We just got the first season of Orphan Black, and now after your review I'm really looking forward to watching it.

#608) Monday, May 05, 2014
We're going to record 24 and later we'll watch it minus the commercials.

#609) Tuesday, May 06, 2014
It's nice to see you supporting your local industries! Q: If you had to choose just one type of cuisine, e.g. Chinese, Tex/Mex, American, Italian, seafood, generic fast food, etc., what would it be?

#610) Thursday, May 08, 2014
Like The Following, the CW show "The 100" started with a real bang, good special effects, and promising plot, but now it's starting to drag.

#611) Thursday, May 22, 2014
I have read that the Game of Thrones producers will diverge from George Martin's books and will write a finish to the series (even) if Mr. Martin doesn't get around to it. He's getting pretty old and doesn't want to stop wandering around in Westeros, I guess.

#612) Wednesday, June 04, 2014
And he also has a badge for halcyonry to prove it.

#613) Monday, June 09, 2014
That thing on Rebecca's plate looks like it is about to eat Rebecca!

#614) Tuesday, June 10, 2014
Yay Doobie!

#615) Wednesday, June 11, 2014
There's a film of a famous TV news anchor (I forget who; I could Google it but am too lazy) having a laughing fit during an important VIP interview. I recall an episode of an old TV comedy, the Mary Tyler Moore Show, which portrays this happening at the wrong moment to the heroine. Sometimes these fits just happen for no reason.

#616) Thursday, June 12, 2014
How would you rate Wegmans sushi as compared to, say, Costco's or Harris Teeter's? (I haven't tried the HT version but there's an HT within easy walking distance.)

#617) Wednesday, June 25, 2014
It would have been interesting if you or Ellen had matriculated at URI.

#618) Monday, June 30, 2014
A fine month for sure! (Sorry about your knee injury; it looks painful.)

#619) Monday, June 30, 2014
You could have said you were injured during your camping trip while fighting off a bear.

#620) Tuesday, July 01, 2014
Au contraire - with global warming, Herndonese and other NOVAns will be rushing north to buy beachfront condos on the shores of Quebec's now accessible and ice-free Hudson Bay.

#621) Tuesday, July 08, 2014
Wow, these pictures tell a story.

#622) Tuesday, July 15, 2014
Nothing from your oenophile layer?

#623) Wednesday, July 23, 2014
Very nice interface: fast, compact, and easy to search.

#624) Friday, July 25, 2014
Mom @BlueLineUser @wmata So you've doubled my wait time AND it won't go to Dulles for 8 years. #illbedeadbythen

#625) Friday, August 01, 2014
Your blog still makes my day, although I sort of miss the llama.

#626) Monday, August 04, 2014
Agree with Doobie.

#627) Friday, August 15, 2014
Hang 'em high!

#628) Friday, August 29, 2014
Hope your spider bite heals soon. If not, see a doc. I've read that brown recluse spider bites can cause deep ulcers.

#629) Wednesday, September 10, 2014
Sorry about the rainy weather at the beach! :-(

#630) Monday, September 15, 2014
Make this your happiest birthday yet! You are and have always been the best son ever!

#631) Thursday, September 18, 2014
Will reading all the Grisham books bias you for jury duty? (P.S. I also loved The Brethren.)

#632) Tuesday, September 23, 2014
Sorry about UCore. For what it's worth, my FAA customer still refers to it. :-)

#633) Monday, September 29, 2014
When I was a kid, I liked to lie on my back and imagine how I would arrange my room if I could walk on the ceiling. Just think how much more fun you'd have rearranging if you could use the ceiling too, like astronauts in space.

#634) Wednesday, October 01, 2014
You had some great friends! I remember them all fondly.

#635) Friday, October 03, 2014
I seem to recall the Martian Rover's being there...

#636) Friday, October 03, 2014
And by the way, happy anniversary! That calls for a wooden gift or silverware, according to Wikipedia.

#637) Tuesday, October 07, 2014
Lovely! I'd add more, but the only one that comes immediately to mind is "Kevin Spicy". Sorry about that.

#638) Friday, October 10, 2014
Are you keeping your blog so that you can refer to it years from now to write a multi-volume work akin to Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past?

#639) Friday, October 17, 2014
Thanks for your answer. A suggestion" Marcel Proust "uses madeleines to contrast involuntary memory with voluntary memory" (Wikipedia) and made that cookie world-famous. When you publish your memoir, you might do the same with bacon.

#640) Tuesday, October 21, 2014
Don't...go...in...the...basement...oh my God, they went in the basement!...

#641) Friday, October 31, 2014
Happy Halloween!

#642) Friday, October 31, 2014
I looked at all your new photos; they are simply excellent. Thanks for posting them!

#643) Tuesday, November 11, 2014
Now if they'd just develop something like, say, "Auto-Speak" that corrects the pop stars' terrible grammar ...

#644) Thursday, November 13, 2014
I started watching "The 100" again, though I swore I wouldn't, and have been pleasantly surprised at the improvements. The scene has shifted from the boring space station habitat/earth landing camp into a more interesting and dangerous environment.

#645) Friday, November 14, 2014
I was sure about #6, #9, #10, and pretty sure about #2 and #5, but could only guess at the others. We really must touch base more often!

#646) Tuesday, December 02, 2014
I know I'm old when I have no idea who or what yeezy is.

#647) Thursday, December 04, 2014
Four only, and one of those was just a good guess!

#648) Monday, December 08, 2014
If you liked Setters of Catan, you'll love Retrievers of Labrador.

#649) Friday, December 12, 2014
Agree with Anna. I'd be especially afraid if I came in next week and saw a new nameplate for, say, "A.Nubri"...

#650) Wednesday, December 17, 2014
Yay moms! Your dad would have been not quite 37.

#651) Monday, December 29, 2014
Great captions! I particularly like no. 1 :-)

#652) Wednesday, December 31, 2014
Oh my! I'm so sorry you both caught the flu! I'm glad you're both recovering. We haven't gotten sick yet, but if we do, at least we'll know it's not Ebola. Happy New Year!

#653) Friday, January 02, 2015
1. Write New Year's Resolution list. Status: begun. 2. Learn Tai Chi. Status: Recorded in New Year's Resolution list. 3. Procrastinate less. Status: Not started.

#654) Friday, January 09, 2015
1) 2/2 for inheritance purposes, assuming they continue to treat me nicely. :-) 2) Alexandria VA until they carry me out. 3) I don't understand the appeal of a second Bush vs. Clinton election; aren't there any other people out there? Maybe I'll know in a year... 4) A bedroom rug without paint spots and plaster detritus on it.

#655) Thursday, January 15, 2015
I don't think it's your Y chromosome. I was disappointed with Frozen too. I liked the music at the very beginning and the Ice Palace was lovely, but the rest was blah.

#656) Friday, January 16, 2015
Can't decide whether this is an example of Angst or Weltschmerz.

#657) Tuesday, January 20, 2015
Congratulations, Anna and Ben, on the birth of your new little son!

#658) Friday, January 23, 2015
At least gmail doesn't send me to "mailjail" and shut me down the way my previous employer's Lotus-based mail system did if I exceeded my 80mb limit.

#659) Friday, January 30, 2015
Sorry you can't shake the congestion. Spring can't come too soon.

#660) Monday, February 02, 2015
Sounds like you had a great gastronomic adventure! Could you actually tell the difference between bison and beef?

#661) Wednesday, February 11, 2015
What's really amazing is how the stroller has evolved from a simple light foldable kid-conveyor to a massive multi-purpose complex costly vehicle.

#662) Monday, February 16, 2015
Ellen and the boys And their daddy are still here -- Plane's been cancelled TWICE.

#663) Wednesday, February 25, 2015
When in doubt, just clap on 1 and 3.

#664) Monday, March 02, 2015
Yes, gross

#665) Tuesday, March 03, 2015
What, your broom couldn't perform? Was it a Nimbus 2000?

#666) Friday, March 06, 2015
Very nice! Your video, not the snow.

#667) Friday, March 13, 2015
Congratulations! Re: the cloud, it sounds like a much more genteel response than "Why don't you stick it up ..." It also sounds like the name of a jazz composition.

#668) Friday, March 13, 2015
Aaaah, ha ha ha! I love it. (I would have said ROTFL or LMAO, but your generation is probably way past that, so I better not try it here.)

#669) Monday, March 23, 2015
Did you see where Virginia is one of the top 5 states in which to retire? (The others are: Utah, Colorado, Idaho, Wyoming.) Just sayin'.

#670) Tuesday, March 31, 2015
Forgot to ask, did Sydney the Cat survive her ordeal? Did Booty and Amber survive Sydney?

#671) Friday, April 03, 2015
I'm impressed! If I tried something like that, I'm afraid it would end up more like that "falling cow" screensaver.

#672) Friday, April 10, 2015
That was fun! I always liked Stan Freberg; thanks for including the links.

#673) Monday, April 13, 2015
So you're watching "The 100"? Looking forward to your review of it. I vowed to stop after the 1st season which had begun so well -- 2-headed deer mutants! -- kind of petered out, but then I picked up on season 2 and it held my interest sufficiently that I'll watch at least the beginning of season 3. (I still liked "Falling Skies" better.)

#674) Wednesday, April 15, 2015
Great shot! I'm thinking you ought to have a Caption Contest with this one.

#675) Friday, April 17, 2015
Do you ever regret your career choice? If you could start another career, what would it be? For instance, I once had a job offer to sing in a nightclub after I auditioned at a radio station many years ago; I chose instead to work in IT for the US Government. I don't exactly regret my choice, but sometimes I think about "the road not taken".

#676) Tuesday, April 21, 2015
I'm very glad you chose a career you like. I've known more than a few who felt stymied in theirs and who had no realistic way of getting out and starting over.

#677) Wednesday, April 22, 2015
I'm struck by the different necktie widths. I'm also amused by the devil horns. \m/

#678) Tuesday, April 28, 2015
I have not seen that with my Chrome browser. Re: motivational sayings, someday I have to show you my Humor folder of assorted stuff that made me laugh during my employment as a bureaucrat, e.g., a parody of a Directive about employees dying on the job ("This Practice Must Stop.")

#679) Thursday, April 30, 2015
What was on the High Tea menu, besides tea? What would distinguish it from Low Tea?

#680) Tuesday, May 05, 2015
Wow, I only got about 4. We need to talk. Re: #2, I would have missed that except I knew you didn't paint anything "Llama Bay Gray."

#681) Thursday, May 07, 2015
I considered a memory foam bed pillow, but decided I'm not down with that. (Get it? Get it?)

#682) Monday, May 11, 2015
Wouldn't the three have resorted to "cattibalism"?

#683) Wednesday, May 13, 2015
Don't leave me hanging like this! What happened to the moth? What happened to the chair?

#684) Friday, May 15, 2015
How is Sydney? Is she still going strong or no longer with us?

#685) Tuesday, June 02, 2015
Flush Point: the point at which you realize the automatic flusher is not operating and you are embarrassed by what you've left for the next patron to see. TP Party: people who disregard the poor sap in the neighboring stall who has no toilet paper and is begging for a handout. He should've checked first, the moocher!!

#686) Friday, June 12, 2015
Nothing relieves tension like a cat rubbing his or her head against your chin.

#687) Tuesday, June 16, 2015
Suggest you paint that little white post beside the shed to look like a Minion. (They're way cuter than Garden Gnomes.)

#688) Wednesday, June 17, 2015
Boy, that was a while ago! Don't worry; Ellen was in no danger -- she was too big to fit in the hippo. I do recall that putting trash into the hippo's mouth evoked a roar of satisfaction. The same thing happens today if you feed me certain junk foods.

#689) Monday, June 22, 2015
Happy birthday, Rebecca!

#690) Tuesday, June 23, 2015
It's a...shed? I thought you were building my granny pod!

#691) Friday, July 03, 2015
"Do what you gotta do." "This too shall pass." "Just close your eyes and think of England."

#692) Tuesday, July 07, 2015
5 of 10

#693) Friday, July 10, 2015
You were clever and cautious even then.

#694) Wednesday, July 15, 2015
If I were a psychoanalyst, I would steer clear of that particular artist's subconscious.

#695) Friday, July 17, 2015
Do you remember the "friendly IOMEGA guy" whose smiling face appeared when you started the ZIP drive? He was supposed to allay your fears that backing up your hard drive files would also destroy them.

#696) Friday, July 24, 2015
In Muenschen steht ein Hofbrauhaus, Eins! Zwei! Sofa!

#697) Friday, July 24, 2015
Your comment section doesn't allow for umlauts. Anyway, Prosit!

#698) Monday, August 03, 2015
As I grow old and know that fame will never be mine, I console myself with the knowledge that, because of your blog in the cloud, the funniest thing I ever wrote will live forever in human history or the internet, whichever lasts longer. Thank you, Brian, for allowing me a smidgen of immortality.

#699) Friday, August 07, 2015
All of them! In parallel if possible, otherwise serially.

#700) Monday, August 10, 2015
Few are aware that, prior to writing his famous Fifth Symphony, Beethoven composed an early variation known as the "Three Blind Mice" symphony.

#701) Tuesday, August 11, 2015
The Munich earthquake looks like at least a 7 on the Richter scale.

#702) Wednesday, August 12, 2015
Ha ha, I didn't notice that! Thanks, Mike!

#703) Thursday, August 13, 2015
I'm looking forward to seeing Ex Machina. I've always liked AI and robots ever since I was a little kid reading Isaac Asimov's stories and novels.

#704) Friday, August 14, 2015
I wish I had a wrinkle shield.

#705) Friday, August 28, 2015
Ha ha ha! Take it from an old parodist, these parodies would be great!

#706) Monday, August 31, 2015
Looking forward to seeing Ex Machina.

#707) Wednesday, September 02, 2015
Thanks for the memory!!

#708) Friday, September 04, 2015
Never go anywhere without your Desk Thing.

#709) Wednesday, September 09, 2015
Thanks for the memory! You were a sweet little kid. (And you grew up just fine, too :-))

#710) Thursday, September 10, 2015
Looking forward to Christmas! Sounds like an intriguing book.

#711) Monday, September 14, 2015
Looks like you both had a wild, wet, and wonderful time! Was this an early birthday celebration?

#712) Tuesday, September 15, 2015
Happy birthday! 36 is such a nice number with so many factors, a unit of measure (yard), a square, etc., that I hope you enjoy being it all year long!

#713) Friday, September 18, 2015
Do you think you can answer Mike (and Ghost Chompy)'s question without using my name?

#714) Monday, September 21, 2015
Our bedroom is all renovated -- new carpet, new paint job, new window blinds, new bedspread! Same old occupants, though.

#715) Friday, September 25, 2015
Yay! This means I can keep giving you well-intentioned advice!

#716) Monday, September 28, 2015
I like your digestive metaphor and wish I could say the same. However, as often happens with age, our own system has developed a number of diverticula into which things that otherwise might have been ejected get stored indefinitely.

#717) Friday, October 02, 2015
Happy anniversary! I remember it was hard as heck getting Putin to come, but it was nice of him to offer the use of his bear.

#718) Tuesday, October 06, 2015
The Washington Post said Carly reimbursed her own expenses first. But of course! Under Mr. Cross's logic, the campaign funds should have been returned to the donors.

#719) Thursday, October 15, 2015
Agree!

#720) Friday, October 16, 2015
My real-life outrage looks more like a wave: it subsides, only to rise again when I recall the original event. The frequency and amplitude do diminish with age, though.

#721) Wednesday, October 21, 2015
I remember that day so well! We were running through the parking lot(s) to catch good pictures of you. Were we helicopter parents or what?

#722) Monday, October 26, 2015
Sasturday: a consolation day named for Roman emperor Sasturus Februarius to make up for the fact that Julius and Augustus had each stolen a day from his month.

#723) Thursday, October 29, 2015
I wish you still lived in Alexandria and could make me a cheat sheet!

#724) Thursday, November 05, 2015
I liked the part where Lisbeth decorates her apartment with furniture from Ikea. It reminded me of my first independent living venture in my one-room apartment in Jefferson City MO. There wasn't any Ikea, but there was a Woolworth's five-and-dime.

#725) Wednesday, November 11, 2015
Perhaps if we had been better parents, we would have let you sample Gulf of Mexico surface water instead of the Holmes Run surface water conveniently available at the end of our street. On the other hand, we did protect you from falling water.

#726) Wednesday, November 18, 2015
We tried really hard to be environmentally correct with the live plant-able Christmas trees, but the environment wouldn't cooperate.

#727) Friday, November 20, 2015
I call upon the Powers of Darkness: Ambriel, Sydniel, and Bootiel...

#728) Monday, November 30, 2015
Great pictures!

#729) Monday, December 07, 2015
Pretty!

#730) Tuesday, December 15, 2015
Looks like you had a superlative year, with nothing gross except the 12 of 12's (get it? gross? 144?) Thanks for posting them; I always enjoy them!

#731) Friday, December 25, 2015
Hope you had a memorable merry Christmas! We had a wonderful time with the grandkids, two of whom said they missed you and wanted you to come back and play with them. (The third was too busy with his pacifier to say anything.)

#732) Tuesday, December 29, 2015
Love the captions! I thought of an alternative caption for the pushbroomers: "Employment opportunities for retired Olympic Curling athletes are limited and usually far less lucrative than for other sports figures."

#733) Thursday, December 31, 2015
Thanks for bringing The Code to our attention; we will definitely watch it. We were already planning to watch MI - Rogue Nation and I'm looking forward to it even more now.

#734) Friday, January 01, 2016
Happy New Year to you and all the URIZonians! Our Rhode Island Christmas was great and I got lots of grandchild interaction, but New Year's Eve was so low-key even an elephant couldn't have heard it. We went outside to yell Happy New Year at midnight, and nobody answered, so we went to bed. Poop.

#735) Monday, January 04, 2016
We binge-watched The Code (1st 5 episodes; 6th for tonight) and I really liked it. Thanks for recommending it!

#736) Thursday, January 07, 2016
Agree; getting tired of How to Get Away with Murder.

#737) Monday, January 11, 2016
That's what happened with the company I used to work for - the bigger it grew, the more impersonal and less enjoyable the parties got. But I'm glad you had a good time!

#738) Tuesday, January 19, 2016
I'm also looking forward to self-driving cars. In addition, medical advances like putting "nanobots" in your bloodstream to find cancerous cells or make repairs, or tailoring microbes for this purpose, are exciting. Finally, 3-D printing is in its infancy and it could either end up taking over the manufacturing world or fade into the background; it's too soon to tell.

#739) Tuesday, January 19, 2016
Ha, ha. Now I know what to get you for Christmas....

#740) Friday, January 22, 2016
Congratulations! Not having to fret about being in debt is the best way to be, you can take it from me. (Okay, so I'm better at being thrifty than at writing poetry...)

#741) Monday, January 25, 2016
"Snowzilla" is better than "Winter Storm Jonas" as christened by the Weather Channel. If the channel had asked me for "J" suggestions, I would have volunteered "Juggernaut", but they didn't ask me.

#742) Monday, February 01, 2016
Can you fix Blue Apron meals while wearing a red apron?

#743) Wednesday, February 03, 2016
We had "Brian" and "Noel" shirts too.

#744) Monday, February 08, 2016
Congratulations to Rebecca!!

#745) Tuesday, February 09, 2016
Do you think we (NASA, America, people in general) should work toward sending an actual group of humans to Mars, or just stick to machines and robots?

#746) Tuesday, February 09, 2016
Forgot to ask: would YOU go? To Mars, I mean?

#747) Tuesday, February 09, 2016
Hey, if it was a request. I would have said "Please".

#748) Tuesday, February 23, 2016
4/10. Would have been 5 except that I thought you would eschew Walmart (because your vocabulary includes words like "eschew").

#749) Wednesday, February 24, 2016
It is good you did not use for your tutorial example our International Order of St. Hubertus, an actual secret all-male hunting society established in Austria in 1695, to which our late Ordensbrother Scalia belonged. But we will now be watching you. Sincerely, His Imperial Highness Istvan von Habsburg-Lothringen, Archduke of Austria, Grand Master IOSH

#750) Monday, February 29, 2016
No comments on our "Vikings" shirts? Thanks again for coming!!

#751) Friday, March 04, 2016
Speaking for myself (white and likely part-Neanderthal), I can say that everybody except Donald Trump has better hair than I do.

#752) Tuesday, March 08, 2016
Live long and prosper, Booty!

#753) Friday, March 11, 2016
I love it. BTW, do you remember when I brought home that copy of the map some spy had created to tell his handler where the drop point (an old hollow tree) was, and our family took a day trip and followed the map and actually found it? And I wrote a note in Cyrillic labeled "Top Secret" and left it there? The only time my security clearance refresher course AND my 2 years of college Russian came in handy. That was a fun day.

#754) Tuesday, March 15, 2016
I've done 3,8,9,13,17, and 19, and regretted them all except 8 and 17. I took a so-named "10-mile walking tour of Paris" and must have walked further than that if I add all the extra walking through the Louvre, parks, off-street points of interest. I did get blisters. 17 was a large crowd at a dedication when they named a school after your grandmother and I gave a short eulogy.

#755) Wednesday, March 16, 2016
I'm thinking (a younger) Alyson Hannigan or (a shorter) Jennifer Lawrence.

#756) Thursday, March 17, 2016
I love it!

#757) Thursday, March 24, 2016
I really liked Moulin Rouge, so make that 5 of us.

#758) Monday, March 28, 2016
I await your House of Cards review. Some reviewers have not been impressed with the latest season.

#759) Tuesday, March 29, 2016
Hillary's people should have hired you in the first place.

#760) Monday, April 11, 2016
75th - although it's true that I don't look a day older than 74.

#761) Monday, April 11, 2016
And I really like the new improved porch!

#762) Wednesday, April 20, 2016
I always liked this picture :-) At least you don't look as if you'd had a late night.

#763) Thursday, April 21, 2016
Re: young people swearing, I agree and can't believe anybody, except maybe gang members, Wall Street market traders, or a particular idiot manager I remember from one of my past jobs, ever swears all the time like that. I don't know what TV/movie producers think they're accomplishing by filling scripts with vulgar speech. It's lazy writing and only coarsens our culture. Dammit.

#764) Friday, April 29, 2016
Oh, deer! I hope you didn't suffer major car damage. The deer population is growing in our neighborhood now, too -- last year I saw a little herd of five (5) at the end of our street beside the bike path.

#765) Wednesday, May 04, 2016
You generally looked at activities involving strollers, cars, swings, wagons, or indeed any carriers, as opportunities to grab a nap. This didn't really change until Nintendo invented the Game Boy.

#766) Monday, May 09, 2016
Your own fitting room -- how cool would that have been! Besides simply trying on clothes, you could use it to: - weigh yourself while looking at your backside - watch yourself throw actual fits - conduct secret interrogations - practice important speeches, like asking your spouse/boss/voters for forgiveness - others?

#767) Tuesday, May 10, 2016
What is the relationship among you, chickens, and politics? Or to express it more accurately, the relationship between you and chickens, you and politics, and chickens and politics?

#768) Monday, May 16, 2016
Thanks again for a lovely lunch!

#769) Tuesday, May 17, 2016
You nailed the relationships! John Venn would be proud.

#770) Wednesday, May 18, 2016
My (Michigan) father was thinking "Boy, it's hot...never been so hot..."

#771) Monday, May 23, 2016
For some reason, I've been mentally singing the "Gilligan's Isle" theme all morning and remembering you at about 14 months old singing along with it. You loved it. Here it is for the benefit of your readers: (Original) "...with Gilligan, the skipper too, the millionaire and his wife, the movie star and the rest are here on Gilligan's Isle!" (You, in tune) "...Geegaaaan...tipper tooooo...meeyonair...wipe... a moovie TOP! Anna wet... Geeegaan Eyyyyyyyye!"

#772) Wednesday, May 25, 2016
I still have my Eagle lapel pin that was given to the mother of the candidate :-)

#773) Wednesday, June 08, 2016
The bulk dinner rolls worked better in theory than in practice. Sorry about that. Nowadays it would be bulk croissants.

#774) Wednesday, June 15, 2016
You both look as handsome today as you did then, which is to say, very handsome indeed!

#775) Wednesday, June 22, 2016
Happiest of Birthdays, Rebecca! <3 <3 <3 (Being more than twice your age, I still use primitive emoticons from the olden days, before they became emojis.)

#776) Tuesday, June 21, 2016
Please don't abandon your blog completely! There are too many persons, places, events, ideas, cats, and products out there that need and deserve your critical review. Plus, I always enjoy hearing your take on our mutual family history. "Whenever you feel like it" would be OK as long as you felt like it at least once a week. Less than that, and your disheartened readers might stop checking for updates.

#777) Tuesday, June 28, 2016
Because of you, I used Google to find all the Mitch Hedberg quotes and read them again. Thanks!

#778) Friday, July 08, 2016
I agree with all your choices except Jupiter. You can't learn too much about Jupiter. I mean, come on -- it has a Great Red Spot! It's an almost-star! You can swear by it!

#779) Friday, July 15, 2016
It seems to be a law of physics: open box + cat = strong interactive force

#780) Thursday, July 21, 2016
Sounds good! I'm glad that you're keeping it up.

#781) Tuesday, July 26, 2016
In your administration, could the post of "First Mom" be given some real power?

#782) Tuesday, July 26, 2016
I just had a mental image of Ted Cruz filibustering while naked, and now I can't unsee it. Thanks a lot.

#783) Monday, August 01, 2016
I love the video!

#784) Friday, August 05, 2016
It sounds like fun! Two things: 1) let me know if the mountains are still snow-capped (as they were when we visited Pike's Peak and the Continental Divide in July 1956) or if global warming has uncapped them all; and 2) if you can, take a quick side trip to Vail just for the heck of it and let me know if it's totally for the 0.1%. We checked out Park City in Utah once and were amazed at the fabulous boutiques and such in the middle of nowhere. Otherwise, just focus on having a great time!

#785) Monday, August 08, 2016
Re cheeses: fondue, of course! Excellent picture of Rebecca, Tom, and Char :-)

#786) Wednesday, August 17, 2016
I love your Mills Lake picture!

#787) Monday, August 22, 2016
Congratulations!

#788) Wednesday, August 31, 2016
Sometimes I regret that the Sorting Hat placed me in House Google, but that's how it is.

#789) Wednesday, September 07, 2016
Some more factoids for your readers: 1) you only weighed about 8 pounds, but you quickly made up for it, gaining a pound a week for the next 10 weeks. 2) Your sister was happy to see you, but even happier with the little pink umbrella we bought her to celebrate the occasion. 3) Your middle name honors my uncle Charles Burgtorf, a wonderful kindly man. He was mortally ill but was able to see your picture and was so pleased to know that he had a "namesake" before he died.

#790) Wednesday, August 03, 2016
The lock of hair is yours, from your first haircut :-) Note that your baby hair curled up over your ears.

#791) Thursday, September 15, 2016
Lookin' good for 37 years! May your next 37 -- and the years after that, too -- be full of health and happiness! Enjoy your birthday, Mom :-)

#792) Monday, September 26, 2016
Agree; 10 points.

#793) Friday, September 30, 2016
I enjoyed your latest photos! Do you ever think you would like to do more horseback riding?

#794) Wednesday, October 05, 2016
I just realized that almost none of the kids in the school picture are smiling. You all look apprehensive, as if someone behind the camera was holding a whip or paddle and stroking it meaningfully...

#795) Monday, October 10, 2016
Thanks -- now I can't stop singing "Why don't we put it in the cloud?" Seriously, congratulations!

#796) Wednesday, October 19, 2016
I love reading your memories! One correction: we kept Big Red or Dentyne chewing gum along with the Doublemint, and still do to this day.

#797) Monday, October 24, 2016
You could have done three of those five things if you had stayed at our house! Granted, you wouldn't have had as much fun :-)

#798) Monday, November 07, 2016
2.5/10 I corrected one guess at the same time I hovered.

#799) Wednesday, November 09, 2016
Very, very, very well said.

#800) Friday, November 11, 2016
After all the predictions that failed to materialize this week, I think my predictor's broken.

#801) Wednesday, November 16, 2016
I especially like your Memory Day posts. They really take me back...

#802) Friday, November 18, 2016
It's become a family custom to end a description of events leading up to a mishap with "...then the water tower broke."

#803) Monday, November 21, 2016
Good for you!

#804) Wednesday, November 30, 2016
Re: The 100 -- liked season 1, almost quit season 2, reengaged in season 3, looking forward to season 4.

#805) Wednesday, December 07, 2016
I think your friend Yunus's mother knitted that sweater for you. (See your Wednesday Oct. 5 2016 Memory Day: 1984 entry.)

#806) Wednesday, December 07, 2016
I remember she knitted sweaters for both you and Yunus, so maybe the one in the picture was another sweater gifted by a doting relative. It is a good-looking sweater :-)

#807) Friday, December 16, 2016
Re "3%": it's interesting how many shows build on the idea of a small ultra-wealthy plutocracy vs. hunger games poverty for everybody else. (I've started watching the SyFy channel's "Incorporated", another such.) I know the plots follow the paranoia du jour: 50 years ago it was UFOs and aliens; then it was computer/robot overlords; now it's Citizens United and Trump.

#808) Friday, December 23, 2016
And a very Merry Christmas to you and all the Urizone denizens!

#809) Wednesday, December 28, 2016
2016 -- ups and downs. Most down: the whole presidential campaign. Most up: cataract surgery -- no more need for eyeglasses! Just some cheap commercial ones for reading.

#810) Friday, December 30, 2016
My favorite photo has to be image #290, the decorated cookies. You used the walnut in a whole new context...

#811) Monday, January 02, 2017
It looks just like you! But seriously, we are SO happy for you and Rebecca! :-)

#812) Wednesday, January 04, 2017
Best pun ever!

#813) Wednesday, January 11, 2017
I recall we had some nice camping equipment - tent, lanterns, sleeping bags, etc. - but we only used it a couple of times. I would have liked to have camped out more often.

#814) Friday, January 13, 2017
Great pictures, except the burrito. It probably tastes yummy but it looks like ... dog food.

#815) Monday, January 16, 2017
Re: Consumer Reports, have you NOT bought something because it had a low rating, and saved some money?

#816) Wednesday, January 18, 2017
Update: Nowadays, the University of Rhode Island trash cans are no longer monogrammed. (We checked.)

#817) Wednesday, February 08, 2017
I always opted for comfort over style. Always.

#818) Monday, February 20, 2017
There's still Nathaniel, if only to imagine a future roll call, "Uri, Nate!"

#819) Wednesday, February 22, 2017
Baby will have plenty of tools and toy trucks to play with at our house, in any case! :-)

#820) Monday, March 06, 2017
Except for being the passive recipient of plastic foodstuffs cooked on toy stoves, you won't have to play make-believe; dads don't do that. You will however have to a) put new toys together, b) read aloud the same books over and over, c) let your daughter "help" you.

#821) Wednesday, March 08, 2017
That picture of Arnold and you was Photoshopped. And don't tell me Photoshop wasn't around before 1990, either -- fake news!

#822) Friday, March 17, 2017
You were a better artist then than I am now!

#823) Wednesday, April 05, 2017
Salman -- ouch!

#824) Friday, April 07, 2017
Season 2 of Expanse is better than season 1, in my opinion. Much faster paced.

#825) Monday, April 10, 2017
Thank you for the birthday wish! I'm looking forward to your letting me try out the Oculus Rift too. I think I could handle robot spiders; it's robot politicians I have problems with.

#826) Wednesday, April 12, 2017
I like the ergonomic desks in your new office space. What happened with the car?

#827) Friday, April 14, 2017
Will you let us babysit your little one every so often? Remember, we've been through basic grandparent training with your nephews, so we're qualified.

#828) Friday, April 21, 2017
I went through the whole first season without realizing that the name "Saul Goodman" came from "It's all good, man!" I should change my own name to "Ima Bitslow".

#829) Wednesday, April 26, 2017
My sweet little girl! I can envision your own little sweetie sitting there next year, but I cannot foresee trousers like those ever making a comeback.

#830) Friday, April 28, 2017
Met Doula Oblongata. Oh Lord. BTW, I got my TDAP shot updated too, so that's one less potential TDAP-Mary to worry about.

#831) Wednesday, May 03, 2017
Those years have been great, but the best are yet to come! They'll be different but also very rewarding. Plus, you'll get to relive many of these pre-baby experiences vicariously as your baby grows up to experience them herself :-)

#832) Wednesday, May 10, 2017
Nothing about the ability to appreciate cats?

#833) Wednesday, May 17, 2017
I always liked Ms. Moran.

#834) Monday, June 05, 2017
Here's to Kitty, the only cat I ever knew who was as smart as a dog but as dignified as a cat. An excellent combination!

#835) Wednesday, June 14, 2017
Re phenomenon: Obviously it's trying in the only way that it "can" (get it? get it?) to get your attention. Its only purpose is your enjoyment; be kind to it.

#836) Friday, July 07, 2017
Love the bow!!

#837) Friday, July 14, 2017
I'm not 100% sure, but it looks like Maia has "patrician" toes (2nd toe appears longer than the big toe) vs. "plebian toes" (longer big toe). For the record, I am patrician-toed.

#838) Friday, July 21, 2017
Maia is so pretty!!!

#839) Friday, July 28, 2017
I was 5 when my brother was born. He was so colicky that he seemed to cry all the time, and I told my parents to "take him back to the hospital." (Not to worry; a month or so later the colic went away and I had decided he could stay after all.)

#840) Wednesday, August 02, 2017
I have been following The URI! Zone blog for many years, and I have always found it to be Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean, and Reverent. ~ A Reviewer * * * * * (5 stars)

#841) Wednesday, August 09, 2017
I got to see Maia up close and personal today and can verify that she is indeed a "10" on the CAAS* *CAAS is the official Cuteness and Adorability Scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the maximum. (source: National Institute of Standards and Technology)

#842) Friday, August 18, 2017
Maia is able to curl up her toes, something I never could do. Future tightrope-walker? Mountain climber? Kick boxer?

#843) Monday, August 21, 2017
Booty was a fine cat. She was also an excellent house guest at our house a number of times, and I enjoyed having her over and playing with her. Here's to you, Booty!

#844) Wednesday, August 30, 2017
My four sweeties!!!!

#845) Wednesday, September 06, 2017
Agree. The contraption is way more enjoyable for the carriER than the carriED.

#846) Monday, September 11, 2017
I would totally invest in those.

#847) Wednesday, September 13, 2017
7:55 PM: Maia looks about as sleepy as a truck driver who's just downed a Red Bull energy drink.

#848) Friday, September 15, 2017
~ A Toast ~ Here's to my son whom I adore: A Happy Birthday most sincere! Except for 1984, You grow more handsome every year!

#849) Monday, October 02, 2017
What was up on the day you got 11 hours of sleep?

#850) Wednesday, October 04, 2017
You've been watching Fortitude, haven't you? Happy Anniversary!!

#851) Friday, October 06, 2017
This too shall pass, more quickly than you think! Another 3 months and Maia will be starting "solid" food and developing new sleeping patterns :-)

#852) Friday, October 20, 2017
What a sweetie! Irresistible!

#853) Monday, October 23, 2017
Humans are definitely not an endangered species!

#854) Friday, October 27, 2017
Is that your Halloween costume? I can see it now: (Knock, knock) "Trick or...Aaah!"

#855) Wednesday, November 08, 2017
"Golden days in the sunshine of our happy youth..." Thanks for the memory! P.S. I like sky cars too. They make me feel omnipotent, mistress of all I survey.

#856) Wednesday, November 15, 2017
We bought a new car (Honda Accord) which we had to replace in 2010 after Snowmageddon brought down our carport roof on top of it. Note: 2010 was a way more exciting year than 2007.

#857) Thursday, November 23, 2017
And a Happy Thanksgiving to you and all your blog fans!

#858) Monday, December 04, 2017
I like the i-dee-a of little Ma-i-a learning to sing a Valkyrie ar-i-a...

#859) Wednesday, December 06, 2017
You got many presents because your dad got very few, so your pendulum theory is reinforced.

#860) Wednesday, December 13, 2017
Me neither - keep 'em coming!

#861) Friday, December 22, 2017
Maia will soon be ready for a baby walker and/or jumper; she will not be satisfied with merely sitting!

#862) Wednesday, December 27, 2017
This was a banner year wherein I saw astronomical events: the alien-planet-like landscape of Yellowstone, the unearthly total solar eclipse, and above all little Maia, a new star!

#863) Friday, January 05, 2018
Yep, it's "months" now. At this point, large numbers of "weeks" are mainly used for describing pregnancies, and "days" for describing how long John F. Kennedy was in the White House.

#864) Friday, January 12, 2018
Maia has bedhead! Another developmental milestone reached :-)

#865) Wednesday, January 17, 2018
I remember Sluggy Freelance. You bought me the book "Is It Not Nifty?" It was not only nifty, but great! Thanks again :)

#866) Friday, January 19, 2018
Re: #6 -- I also dream that I'm trying to walk (or climb, sometimes), but I can hardly drag my body or legs, like moving through quicksand. Weird.

#867) Wednesday, January 24, 2018
How do you like Westworld?

#868) Wednesday, February 07, 2018
Get out the playpen and baby gate -- you're gonna need 'em!

#869) Wednesday, February 14, 2018
A perfect match! Happy Valentine's Day to both of you!!!

#870) Friday, February 16, 2018
You forgot to add "looking incredibly cute" to her accomplishments. I rate her performance in that area as "outstanding".

#871) Tuesday, March 06, 2018
How did Maia handle the plane ride?

#872) Friday, March 09, 2018
Maia (thinking): Hmmm...the lady in white just tossed a flowery object and everyone cheered...now they're looking at me...

#873) Wednesday, March 21, 2018
I've never heard of anyone "adulting" either transitively or intransitively; can you provide an example?

#874) Wednesday, March 21, 2018
I went through an extended adolescenting stage and by the time I was finally ready to adult, it was too late -- I had already begun to senescentize. Dammit!

#875) Friday, March 23, 2018
Adorable! (Synonyms: delightful, lovable, cute, appealing; see CHARMING.)

#876) Friday, April 06, 2018
I love the way she checks to see if the other baby in the mirror is keeping up.

#877) Friday, April 06, 2018
Thanks for changing my avatar! It's way more timely than the minion, which is so 2015.

#878) Friday, April 13, 2018
I've been watching Colony; it's not that bad and I plan to watch season 3. Maia is ultra-cute in every picture, but "Good morning" takes the prize!

#879) Wednesday, April 18, 2018
It was shortly thereafter that you got your first crew cut -- much more comfortable and lower-maintenance!

#880) Friday, April 20, 2018
Super, super-cute!

#881) Friday, April 27, 2018
It's a sight I love to see -- sweet Maia under a sweet gum tree!

#882) Wednesday, May 23, 2018
PEPCO may be using your database yet, although they probably re-hosted it from Lotus Notes.

#883) Friday, May 25, 2018
Sounds like fun - I'd like to try it! (Novice level of course...)

#884) Wednesday, June 13, 2018
My very earliest memory may be when my folks took me along to vote in the 1944 election. I vaguely remember drawing on the sidewalk with chalk outside a big building while they waited in line. I would have been 3 and a half. They probably voted for Dewey, since they didn't turn liberal until after Nixon/Watergate.

#885) Monday, June 18, 2018
I know Google will rule the world. I only hope that since I have been a loyal Chrome user for a very long time, the Great Google will forgive my early Firefox heresy and be gracious unto me.

#886) Wednesday, June 20, 2018
Do you get additional points for twerking? Actually, it looks like fun!

#887) Monday, July 02, 2018
My brain does that too. The only song from your list we hear in common is "Sally's Song", but you'll be pleased to know that one of your early compositions, "~7~", still makes a regular appearance. Otherwise it's pre-1980 popular songs (e.g. "Ode to Billy Joe"), ballads, and various Ralph Vaughan Williams choral works.

#888) Wednesday, July 04, 2018
We've got rhythm, we've got music, we've got dancing, who could ask for anything more!

#889) Friday, July 13, 2018
Love the cereal-covered mug shot!

#890) Wednesday, July 18, 2018
You forgot the Cuteness scale! Fortunately, I've been tracking that and can report that her Cuteness level has consistently stayed between the 100th and 110th percentile, with a rise to 120% last month. This may herald a trend; stay tuned!

#891) Friday, July 20, 2018
Although I probably won't last long enough to see for myself, I can safely predict that 20 years from now, things will be very different. Better-different? Worse-different? What do you think?

#892) Wednesday, August 01, 2018
No, thank YOU!!!! Just don't stop; I need my URI! Zone fix every day.

#893) Friday, August 10, 2018
While you're at it, can you invent a "Sink n" Low" so that as you get older, the SHELVES get lower to where you can reach them the way you once could?

#894) Friday, August 24, 2018
Booty was a great cat. And yes, mammals make better pets, although I remember the Takayamas' Oscar fish which could recognize certain individuals.

#895) Friday, August 31, 2018
OMG, the first thing I thought of when I saw these intent young ladies is two future CEOs deciding their next corporate move. "So we're agreed, then; we diversify and take over the China toy market!"

#896) Wednesday, September 12, 2018
Love the top-knot!

#897) Friday, September 14, 2018
I hope your birthday celebration was supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!

#898) Monday, September 17, 2018
I've been watching and enjoying The 100. I also got into one called The Expanse (SyFy) which I thought was even better, and I thought it was cancelled, but it's been picked up by Amazon thanks to a fan named J. Bezos.

#899) Friday, September 21, 2018
I believe she says "ba" for banana. At least that was the case yesterday.

#900) Wednesday, October 03, 2018
Now THAT's what I call a destination wedding! Happy anniversary from your loving mer-mom!

#901) Friday, October 19, 2018
Finally -- Weird search day! It's about time that you brought this back!

#902) Monday, October 22, 2018
You deserve a trophy for de-cluttering!

#903) Monday, October 29, 2018
Gotta say Failblog and Badminton player are my faves.

#904) Wednesday, November 07, 2018
Maia is my sweetie!!!

#905) Wednesday, November 28, 2018
Did you ever not get something on one of your Christmas lists that you really wanted? Do you still want it?

#906) Monday, December 03, 2018
Good luck!

#907) Wednesday, December 05, 2018
We knew you were smart because your pictures always contained details, e.g. belt loops. What kid draws belt loops?

#908) Wednesday, December 12, 2018
Maia just keeps getting prettier and prettier :-)

#909) Wednesday, January 02, 2019
"Fortnitrites". Oh God...

#910) Wednesday, January 09, 2019
Loved going back in time and re-reading your badge, Honor Court, and Orge Family blog entries! Thanks!

#911) Friday, January 11, 2019
Totally agreed with your grades on MI:Fallout and Designated Survivor. DS started out really well but faded; too bad.

#912) Monday, January 14, 2019
Maia's really growing! and so pretty!

#913) Monday, January 21, 2019
You'll be able to hold that over Maia's head when she's a teenager and asks you to fund her over-budgeted entertainment expenses.

#914) Monday, January 28, 2019
Best annual party I ever went to was an evening dinner cruise on the Potomac in a genuine riverboat (https://www.potomacriverboatco.com/our-fleet/cherry-blossom/) Very cool!

#915) Friday, February 01, 2019
Amish would be good, but I'm afraid we're swinging towards being flesh-based devices in service to the Great Network. Resistance is Futile...

#916) Monday, February 04, 2019
Who are you? -- One of the few people besides Maia who doesn't have a Twitter account. Where do you live? -- In a state of denial (permanent resident). How does the URI! Zone fit into your daily routine? -- It usually comes right after tooth-brushing and morning coffee.

#917) Monday, February 11, 2019
Yay Katie!

#918) Wednesday, February 13, 2019
Everybody looks so happy!

#919) Wednesday, February 20, 2019
I'm waiting for "Trump upset when front page headlines omit his name"

#920) Wednesday, February 27, 2019
Maia looks so much older! Can't believe how fast she is growing. And I have anecdotal evidence that girls are easier to potty train than boys, or is that a sexist comment?

#921) Wednesday, March 06, 2019
I'm a fan of introducing small children to restaurants at an early age when they still want to emulate the behavior of adults. Ideally they will also offer to pick up the check.

#922) Friday, March 08, 2019
With the right title and narration -- maybe a section from Finnegan's Wake or some other suitably obscure piece -- you could present this at the Sundance Film Festival!

#923) Wednesday, March 13, 2019
When Maia's old enough, you must teach her about the origins of spaghetti. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVo_wkxH9dU

#924) Friday, March 22, 2019
Seems as if you had too much free time back in 2011.

#925) Monday, March 25, 2019
Now garnish it with fresh parsley, or failing that, some lawn clippings! Everybody has those!

#926) Wednesday, March 27, 2019
Captured it exactly!!

#927) Monday, April 08, 2019
LOL!!!

#928) Wednesday, April 10, 2019
Offhand I can't think of any animated movie (e.g. Monsters Inc., Toy Story, Shrek, etc.) whose sequels I liked as much as their originals.

#929) Friday, April 12, 2019
It looks like Maia has already cooked up something better than chicken tenders on her spiffy little kitchen set!

#930) Monday, April 22, 2019
What a beautiful little girl!

#931) Wednesday, April 24, 2019
1. I don't think "got a haircut" qualifies. You got many haircuts. And where are your fish tank and guinea pig years? 2. Who portrays me? I'm thinking Kim Kardashian. That would spice up your lifeline!

#932) Friday, May 03, 2019
Mob Boss: OK, I'm just gonna sip my beverage here while YOU tell ME what you were planning. If you won't tell me, I'll let you talk to my friend, only SHE won't ask you quite as nicely...

#933) Friday, June 07, 2019
You had a tantrum period when you were 2. The solution was to either divert your attention quickly or ignore you completely. Ignoring worked best. The period didn't last more than a few weeks as I recall. Good luck!

#934) Wednesday, June 12, 2019
Thanks again for the delicious burgers; love the pictures!!

#935) Wednesday, June 19, 2019
I remember it well - a lovely wedding!

#936) Friday, June 21, 2019
"Rowomance"?

#937) Monday, June 24, 2019
It looks like you had a lovely cottage, excellent weather, fine food, and lots of cats; how lucky is that?! We don't have any fireflies either; maybe it's the unusually wet weather?

#938) Wednesday, June 26, 2019
Congratulations!

#939) Friday, June 28, 2019
Just realized: if T=Tuesday and H=Thursday (so as not to duplicate Tuesday's "T"), then how come Saturday and Sunday are both "S"? Please explain, otherwise I may not be able to sleep tonight.

#940) Wednesday, July 03, 2019
Beautiful couple then; beautiful couple now!

#941) Monday, July 08, 2019
We had a lovely time! :-)

#942) Wednesday, August 07, 2019
I love to watch a new human mind like Maia's developing in quantum leaps. Today she turned around so I could see the pretty bow tied behind her back -- what an advanced concept: show someone something that you know exists even though you can't see it. The brain is a miraculous thing.

#943) Monday, August 12, 2019
She is so BEAUTIFUL!!! Plus, the topknot/ponytail is really cute :-) (On Maia I mean, not on you.)

#944) Monday, August 26, 2019
But your visits are invaluable!!

#945) Wednesday, September 11, 2019
Your dad developed his pictures in his darkroom for years; had he stopped doing that by 9/11/99? (I know he stopped with the advent of digital cameras, but Costco was certainly economical so maybe it was sooner...)

#946) Monday, September 16, 2019
You always look so good! Aren't you glad now that we got you that nose job back in 1985?

#947) Friday, September 20, 2019
I have eaten delicious coleslaw. I have also eaten delicious liver and onions. The problem is, it's always a gamble...

#948) Monday, September 23, 2019
I'll invest in that! Just bring me the prospectus.

#949) Monday, September 23, 2019
Funny!!

#950) Wednesday, October 09, 2019
I'm so glad you had a good time! P.S. had to google "poutine".

#951) Monday, October 21, 2019
The stream of consciousness you recorded is a perfect example of the young brain growing and learning. The brain is truly a marvelous thing.

#952) Wednesday, October 23, 2019
Nice, albeit minimal, coloring job. Question 3(a): Did he include a package of crayons (+1)?

#953) Monday, November 04, 2019
Where do you stand on drone package deliveries? Far left, far right, or, like, right underneath?

#954) Wednesday, November 06, 2019
When I get enough power, I will decree an end to "spring ahead; fall back" and put the US (or at least VA) onto Daylight Time permanently. The sun should not set at 5pm. So shall it be!

#955) Monday, November 25, 2019
Have a happy Thanksgiving!!!

#956) Wednesday, December 04, 2019
Maia's been listening to Grandpa again...

#957) Friday, December 06, 2019
I recall lying under the Christmas tree and looking up too. The lights make it magical.

#958) Friday, December 13, 2019
Good luck on the Advent of Code! Also, glad to see that K. Bunny is safely belted in.

#959) Monday, December 23, 2019
2019 minuses: (1) hospital adventure + recovery (feeling great now) 2019 pluses: (1) trips to Key Largo FL, Acadia NP ME, Rhode Island (2) acquisitions: new tile floor & area rugs, washer & dryer, sleep sofa (3) 3 visits with my sweet grandsons who unfortunately live 400 miles away (4) many visits with sweet Maia who lives 10 times closer :-) Once more, the pluses vastly outnumber the minuses!!

#960) Monday, December 30, 2019
I hope the record warm temperature and sunshine today help you recover from your colds! Go outside and bask in it :-)

#961) Monday, January 06, 2020
Alexa, repeat: MAIA IS SO CUTE!

#962) Wednesday, January 08, 2020
And don't forget the next total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024! It goes across the US again.

#963) Monday, January 20, 2020
Parasite IS a great movie, isn't it? We watched another excellent one in a totally different vein, the HBO miniseries Chernobyl. Totally engrossing and historically accurate.

#964) Monday, January 27, 2020
I hope the little one is feeling much better by now!

#965) Wednesday, January 29, 2020
From: watch.dogd@fbi.gov Subject: alert Date: 29 Jan 2020 00:00:00 GMT Organization: blackopshq Re: www.urizone.net Action: ***take him out***

#966) Wednesday, February 05, 2020
Our carport fell on top of our car and flattened its roof, as you will recall. Both have been replaced.

#967) Monday, February 17, 2020
Instead of a spyhole, you need a disguised wall safe!

#968) Wednesday, March 04, 2020
Yay! You are going to love it when the gnats, mosquitoes, wasps, etc. season starts!

#969) Monday, March 09, 2020
Why is bunny at grandma's house the only one with acne/freckles/5-o'clock shadow? Or is this like Breaking Bad Bunny?

#970) Wednesday, March 11, 2020
Ahahahahaha! The GOT recap says it all :-)

#971) Wednesday, April 08, 2020
We've started watching Detectorists and I love it already. We definitely need to check out some of the others you mention.

#972) Monday, April 06, 2020
Can't wait until this pandemic subsides so I can play with sweet Maia again! P.S. Is there a kid who doesn't like Berenstain Bears books?

#973) Monday, April 13, 2020
Looks like you had a Happy Easter despite corona! Re: picture 4, that's how I feel in the morning! :-)

#974) Friday, April 17, 2020
Too close to call, but Eenie Meenie Minie Mo (the full version with "my mother told me..." added) says it's Brian on the left.

#975) Monday, April 20, 2020
When Maia is old enough, she will like the old book "Heidi" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heidi). When Heidi, a poor orphan, goes to stay with the Alm Uncle in the high Alps, she wears all of her dresses at once.

#976) Monday, April 27, 2020
1) I really need Eye Poppers. When does it ship? 2) I would eat my pantry dregs, but only if they spark joy.

#977) Monday, May 04, 2020
You can still buy steak????

#978) Wednesday, May 06, 2020
Beautiful eyes (and eyelashes!)

#979) Monday, May 11, 2020
Always liked the caption contests :-)

#980) Wednesday, May 13, 2020
Looking forward to seeing Expanse Season 4 when it comes out for free.

#981) Monday, May 18, 2020
I love it!!! These three pictures made my day!

#982) Monday, June 01, 2020
Very nice! Now all you need are some tiki gods, see https://www.wayfair.com/keyword.php?keyword=tiki+god+statues

#983) Wednesday, June 03, 2020
Hilarious!!!

#984) Friday, June 12, 2020
Great pictures! You are my favorite related entities!!

#985) Monday, June 15, 2020
This too shall pass...

#986) Monday, June 22, 2020
I'm so glad you had fun! Weather Lea Farm looks like a beautiful place to have fun in, too :-)

#987) Wednesday, June 24, 2020
Suggestion: Hold your own Olympics, of course! But mostly have fun :-)

#988) Friday, June 26, 2020
I'm looking forward to watching The Expanse 4 and seeing how they render the planet Ilus. I really liked the corresponding book "Cibola Burn."

#989) Monday, July 06, 2020
Maia looks sweet even in a mask, but I am really missing being able to give her big hugs! This pandemic is awful and I cannot wait until a cure and/or vaccine is discovered.

#990) Wednesday, July 08, 2020
Perfect in every way!

#991) Friday, July 10, 2020
Never worried about steamrollers flattening you?

#992) Wednesday, July 15, 2020
Enjoyed re-reading your Governor's School Memories! Would you believe I can still whistle "Scintillation"?

#993) Monday, July 20, 2020
If it weren't for the half-dozen or so meetings we've had with you and Maia on your porch, I wouldn't have left our house at all!

#994) Wednesday, July 29, 2020
Now that looks like fun!!

#995) Wednesday, August 05, 2020
I'm SO glad you had fun! You all needed this break :-)

#996) Wednesday, August 12, 2020
1) sorry about the AC drain! 2) does Maia have a US states puzzle? If not, let me know :-)

#997) Monday, August 17, 2020
Very nice website! I looked at all of the main topics. Ms. Wurts should be very happy with it.

#998) Monday, August 24, 2020
Maia is old enough now to form permanent memories, and these pictures will definitely cement them in her mind. Plus, isn't it interesting to get a 2-feet-off the ground view of the world?

#999) Monday, August 31, 2020
I take mine with sugar and cream :-)

#1000) Wednesday, September 02, 2020
Perhaps you should had given yourself two initials, like "Brian C. C. Uri"?

#1001) Wednesday, September 09, 2020
Do not EVER let Maia see the movie "Fatal Attraction."

#1002) Monday, September 14, 2020
I hope you are having a happy birthday at this very minute! (6:07 PM EDT) I love you! -BULLETIN- Due to a misunderstanding of how calendars work, the submitter of this comment wishes to amend the posting date to 9/15/2020.

#1003) Monday, September 28, 2020
We're getting along fine, thanks to your giving us opportunities to enjoy visits with Maia, who is totally cute with or without a mask!

#1004) Friday, October 02, 2020
Happy Anniversary to you and Rebecca, my most wonderful daughter-in-law!

#1005) Wednesday, October 07, 2020
Hmmm...what would Freud say about bunnies? (Besides the fact that he would probably say "Haeschen"?)

#1006) Monday, October 12, 2020
You have an avocado tree??? I knew about the fig tree and about global warming, but didn't realize you were going tropical so soon...

#1007) Monday, October 19, 2020
As a Procrastinator's Club representative, I must protest! #putofftiltomorrow #itcanwait

#1008) Monday, October 26, 2020
Excellent perspective!

#1009) Monday, November 09, 2020
Amen to that.

#1010) Wednesday, November 11, 2020
That is a great collage! Sorry you were sick but glad you're feeling better now. Stay safe!

#1011) Friday, November 13, 2020
Re Behind bars: Prisoners of Love! (sorry, I couldn't resist!)

#1012) Monday, November 23, 2020
And a Happy Thanksgiving to you and your fans!

#1013) Monday, December 07, 2020
Make Pluto great again!

#1014) Wednesday, December 09, 2020
Anybody but Meryl Streep.

#1015) Wednesday, December 16, 2020
Maia makes even the worst year seem brighter!

#1016) Monday, December 21, 2020
Love the cartoons, especially the 'rake'!

#1017) Monday, December 28, 2020
Congratulations on your intellect and finger speed!

#1018) Friday, January 01, 2021
I can't wait! <3

#1019) Monday, January 04, 2021
#6, most def!

#1020) Friday, January 15, 2021
Uniform Resource Identifier? Pen, Cent, A. Forti? Furry?

#1021) Monday, January 18, 2021
"Hiding the bunny" - excellent idea! Do you remember the little toy you left in the wall when your dad narrowed the entrance to the kitchen, years ago? It's still guarding the door :-)

#1022) Friday, January 22, 2021
That's going to look nice. Will you get one of those firepits or heaters such as at https://www.lowes.com/c/Fire-pits-patio-heaters-Outdoors?

#1023) Friday, January 29, 2021
Michelangela!!!

#1024) Friday, February 05, 2021
Felt the same way about Fargo season 4. It was OK but just didn't have that pizazz of the other seasons.

#1025) Monday, February 08, 2021
I tried the interactive map - very nice!

#1026) Wednesday, February 10, 2021
Your sister is beautiful in any light! (And I did use the bike a couple of times :p)

#1027) Friday, February 12, 2021
Great 12 of 12, especially the bird dance! Questions: 1. Can Maia read yet? 2. What are those gifts that look like bars of soap? Bars of soap?

#1028) Monday, March 01, 2021
If I had a dog, I'd name him Achilles, so I could say "Heel, Achilles!"* *copyright C. Uri/jokes nobody will ever know I made up myself

#1029) Wednesday, March 10, 2021
Note the real carrot!

#1030) Monday, March 22, 2021
You guys have made my time passage infinitely more enjoyable!!!

#1031) Monday, March 29, 2021
We had such fun!!! Maia is an excellent house guest who, among other things, actually uses her napkin at mealtime. :-)

#1032) Wednesday, March 31, 2021
IMHO this month deserves at least a B+ or even an A-. New patio and firepit! Lots of daffodils! Actual hugs and kisses starting up again!

#1033) Wednesday, April 07, 2021
Yes!!! Also for statistical purposes, I had a sore arm after the first shot, but zero ill effects after the second, whereas your dad felt fine after the first but slightly ill for a day after the second.

#1034) Monday, April 19, 2021
You and Maia deserve a beautification badge for that!

#1035) Friday, April 30, 2021
Not just A, but A_PLUS!!!

#1036) Monday, May 03, 2021
I always liked those age designating blocks - so versatile! (For my age, you would need a "decades" side.)

#1037) Wednesday, May 05, 2021
Evil Mike is SO right! Oh, yes.

#1038) Friday, May 14, 2021
Love Ian's expression in the 3rd picture -- "Did she just threaten to twist my ear if I make a noise?"

#1039) Wednesday, May 19, 2021
I love these pictures.

#1040) Wednesday, May 26, 2021
I did not know this! :-O Is it too late to ground you?

#1041) Friday, May 28, 2021
Congratulations on your trophy plus your two prize-winning kiddies!

#1042) Monday, June 07, 2021
Ian is very photogenic, just like you and Maia!

#1043) Wednesday, June 09, 2021
I learned about Revali the hard way, but what are blupees?

#1044) Wednesday, June 09, 2021
Ah. Thanks!

#1045) Monday, June 14, 2021
Looks like a fun summer day! (Nuthin' beats good leftovers.)

#1046) Monday, June 21, 2021
Ian already looks like he has a twinkle in his eye!

#1047) Wednesday, June 23, 2021
Well of course they are!

#1048) Monday, June 28, 2021
I told my toenail fungus about this, and it just laughed.

#1049) Wednesday, June 30, 2021
Maia helped Grandpa Noel plant these canna lilies; now they'll soon be taller than she is!

#1050) Wednesday, July 07, 2021
And you answered - ?

#1051) Friday, July 09, 2021
I foresee a syndicated comic strip like Calvin and Hobbes, except with a little girl and her bunny. She'll make $$millions!

#1052) Monday, August 02, 2021
"Crusty"? I prefer to think of your fans as "perceptive".

#1053) Monday, August 09, 2021
I hope you have a wonderful time!

#1054) Friday, August 13, 2021
I'm so glad you're all having fun - here it's 99 degrees F!

#1055) Wednesday, August 25, 2021
So happy you can sleep through the night now!

#1056) Monday, September 06, 2021
I love the blockheads!!! Hey, "The Blockheads" sounds like a good name for a TV show, doesn't it?

#1057) Monday, September 13, 2021
Ian is smiling now! And I bet everybody who sees the picture smiles too :-)

#1058) Wednesday, September 15, 2021
Happy birthday and many, many, many more!

#1059) Monday, September 20, 2021
Right on track! Bananas are good; has he tried them?

#1060) Wednesday, September 22, 2021
Maia is amazing, and I love her to pieces!!

#1061) Monday, September 27, 2021
What fun! (Sorry about the yellow jacket; they HURT!) I can't believe Ian is already sitting at the table :-)

#1062) Friday, October 01, 2021
Happy anniversary from Chichen Itza!

#1063) Wednesday, October 06, 2021
It is our professional opinion that you are experiencing some paranormal activity in your yard. -- Ghost Hunters

#1064) Wednesday, October 13, 2021
Wait..."puppies and kitties" pasta, not "bunnies"? Is Maia branching out?

#1065) Monday, October 18, 2021
Maia is multi-talented!

#1066) Wednesday, October 20, 2021
I love it! Here's a suggested second verse: This is Amanda, she is a panda, she has a bag of sweets to eat; She is a panda on the veranda, giving all the little ones a trick or treat!

#1067) Wednesday, October 27, 2021
The usual - we plan on driving around Alexandria environs to look at holiday decorations one night this week, and on Halloween we will hand out the usual treats!

#1068) Wednesday, November 03, 2021
I bet Ian will probably start crawling sooner.

#1069) Wednesday, November 10, 2021
Woah. I am totally impressed.

#1070) Friday, November 12, 2021
As it turns out, we had the best time hosting Maia! Can't wait for Ian to grow big enough to spend a weekend too!

#1071) Wednesday, November 17, 2021
Quite good!

#1072) Monday, November 22, 2021
Maybe if you rotated it in 3 dimensions, you could have the two ears M and N, and the B could be behind it like a tail? (I don't know; I'm not real good with perspective.)

#1073) Wednesday, November 24, 2021
Happy Thanksgiving!

#1074) Monday, November 29, 2021
Yay! We are all boostered!

#1075) Wednesday, December 01, 2021
You crawled early and with such firmness and resolve that we nicknamed you "Tankman". Sounds like Ian will do the same!

#1076) Friday, December 10, 2021
She is much, much prettier than Irina Babb!!!

#1077) Monday, December 13, 2021
Re: cookies in the picture - those are "stop and go cookies"; Maia helped bake them by inserting all the stop and go candied cherries and putting the cooled cookies into their bins for storage. Thanks, Maia!!

#1078) Wednesday, December 22, 2021
Since then... > the office has not changed > the tree has shrunk > both of you have multiplied

#1079) Friday, December 24, 2021
(sing) ...And a kiss for sweet Maia Ur-eee!

#1080) Monday, December 27, 2021
Congratulations!!

#1081) Monday, January 03, 2022
Maia will have a hard decision to make with regard to future chocolate Easter bunnies...

#1082) Monday, January 17, 2022
Our weekend was super, thanks to you!!

#1083) Monday, January 24, 2022
Do all bunnies wear plaid coats, or just Mallory?

#1084) Friday, February 04, 2022
I assume Amber has retired from her primary role?

#1085) Monday, February 14, 2022
I prefer pizza crust to carrots too.

#1086) Wednesday, February 16, 2022
And then there's the spiffy screened porch!!

#1087) Friday, February 18, 2022
Sorry that there apparently won't be a 7th season to go with the final Expanse books. (Laconia scenes would make more sense then, too.)

#1088) Monday, February 28, 2022
It's a good thing that February only had 28 days this year!

#1089) Friday, March 04, 2022
We came to the same conclusion about Dexter as you did.

#1090) Monday, March 07, 2022
Look at Ian standing! I bet he walks on or within days of his first birthday!

#1091) Monday, March 21, 2022
I knew she would love riding ponies!

#1092) Friday, March 25, 2022
Maia knows how to cast spells too!

#1093) Wednesday, March 30, 2022
I predict you'll be an excellent board member! Remember: draw a hard line at pink lawn flamingoes.

#1094) Friday, April 01, 2022
I do not remember the film Willow at all. How weird is that?

#1095) Monday, April 11, 2022
Rebecca, I am also a square, if not perfect. Mike, FYI, Maia also ate a big piece of my cake!

#1096) Wednesday, April 20, 2022
Colorado Springs (as a baby), NYC, Minneapolis, Rapid City SD, Irving KS, Prairie Village KS, Flint MI, Kalamazoo MI, Ann Arbor MI, Jefferson City MO, Bloomington IN, and DC. Then I turned 34 and it's been Alexandria VA ever since!

#1097) Monday, April 25, 2022
He's graduated to another Unit of Measure!

#1098) Wednesday, April 27, 2022
In my unbiased (ha!) opinion, both kids are completely and undeniably cuties!!! Happy birthday, Ian!

#1099) Monday, May 02, 2022
I give Maia trophy no. 1 - First place!

#1100) Friday, May 13, 2022
Ian with his hair parted looks like a totally different kid!

#1101) Monday, May 16, 2022
Yes, speak up, because otherwise people may think you left the Urizone in favor of Truth Social!

#1102) Wednesday, May 18, 2022
Oh no!!! You weren't supposed to tell anyone about the data center!!!

#1103) Wednesday, May 25, 2022
Awesome is definitely the word for Maia! Sweetheart is another <3

#1104) Wednesday, June 01, 2022
Well, so much for counting on nepotism...

#1105) Friday, June 03, 2022
I like that all the faces are happy!

#1106) Wednesday, June 08, 2022
Wait - you don't bathe??

#1107) Monday, June 13, 2022
As I recall, Hobbits ate "third breakfasts". Any connection?

#1108) Wednesday, June 15, 2022
Nice HOA website :-)

#1109) Wednesday, June 22, 2022
Happy birthday to the world's greatest daughter-in-law!

#1110) Friday, June 24, 2022
It is so wonderful to see a group of little ones together after these last two awful years. Best birthday party ever!

#1111) Monday, June 27, 2022
Are you letting the pigeon drive the bus?

#1112) Monday, July 04, 2022
Enjoy your holiday!

#1113) Wednesday, July 06, 2022
Happy birthday to my favorite granddaughter!

#1114) Monday, July 11, 2022
Happy MMBP!!!

#1115) Wednesday, July 13, 2022
How did Ian's presentation at your 10:30 meeting go?

#1116) Wednesday, July 20, 2022
Have your "flights of imagination" stats gone up?

#1117) Wednesday, July 27, 2022
Maia is a whiz!

#1118) Monday, August 01, 2022
Day in history is hard to resist! Thumbs up!

#1119) Wednesday, August 03, 2022
Re: cartoon 1, I always knew you had a humorous vein.

#1120) Monday, August 08, 2022
Ian appears to be a gourmet like his folks! BTW, I can see how you might eat a Siglo (Italian for "seal", right?), but a Llama...!?

#1121) Wednesday, August 10, 2022
Nice projects! We should consider #12 in our house.

#1122) Wednesday, August 17, 2022
I'm sorry to say that most of the lodgepole pines you saw then are dead or dying now from the pine bark beetles or forest fires. The damage is shocking to see.

#1123) Monday, August 22, 2022
At least Maia may not remember much, and Ian none at all, of this horrible period.

#1124) Wednesday, August 24, 2022
It sounds like you had a very successful trip! I am so glad that Maia and Ian got to play with their cousins!

#1125) Friday, August 26, 2022
That big eagle would have scared me :-O

#1126) Monday, August 29, 2022
Your description is bringing it all back in my mind. I hope the worst is past.

#1127) Monday, September 05, 2022
Thank you for sharing your excellent retrospective. COVID really is different from past plagues; its coming in the Internet era will change society in ways that we can't begin to imagine. Advice like yours will help us adjust our lives.

#1128) Wednesday, September 07, 2022
These pictures are ultra-cute!

#1129) Monday, September 12, 2022
Re: bug in ear, poor Maia!! Did you get it out OK? Re: Tevye Audition, I should win that because all day long I biddy biddy bum anyway.

#1130) Wednesday, September 14, 2022
These are great!!! P.S. I had to look up "Hestu." OK, (pre)boomer...

#1131) Thursday, September 15, 2022
Happy birthday, my dear! It is wonderful to see you looking so good!

#1132) Friday, September 23, 2022
I like the pictures! The watercolor is very impressionistic :-) You could frame that one. I also like the fish's eye, and the tree escaping its frame.

#1133) Tuesday, September 27, 2022
I had such fun! It was like Encanto - the house was magical, and Maia and Ian revealed their mountain climbing/fire starting superpowers!

#1134) Monday, October 03, 2022
Happy anniversary to a real royal family!

#1135) Wednesday, October 05, 2022
That's a long day for a kindergartener. Seems to me they used to let the little ones go at noon. "Computerized" or gamificated schools will be interesting.

#1136) Monday, October 10, 2022
I had forgotten about Violet. Now I have it in my brain. Darn.

#1137) Monday, October 17, 2022
Will you ever get another pet? If so, what would it be - cat, dog, other mammal, fish, reptile, invertebrate, plant...?

#1138) Monday, October 24, 2022
They are so sweet! Can't wait to see you all this weekend!

#1139) Wednesday, October 26, 2022
My family's dog Susie, a small beagle/rat terrier mix, would bark with her tail standing straight up. We found that holding her tail down changed her bark into kind of a gurgled squeak. Maybe the secret to stopping a dog's barking is in the tail??

#1140) Friday, October 28, 2022
"Those were the days, my friend; we thought they'd never end..."

#1141) Friday, November 04, 2022
Save that wall-worthy one; it's super good!

#1142) Monday, November 07, 2022
Where do you stand on the downsizing of items like soap bars and snack food containers which are then offered for the same price as they formerly had? STOP THE STEAL, I say!!!

#1143) Wednesday, November 09, 2022
Good invention! Now can you invent a device that keeps your sleeping spouse from pulling the covers from your side over to his/her side, ideally without waking him/her?

#1144) Monday, November 14, 2022
Love love LOVE the pictures!

#1145) Wednesday, November 16, 2022
Oh, my, Maia is the cutest little kid ever! She will love watching these herself someday...

#1146) Wednesday, November 23, 2022
And don't forget the turkey's neck meat. I always saved it for you. Now that you're not often here to eat it, I put it in the gravy.

#1147) Monday, November 28, 2022
Fun fact: I learned about a New Hebrides tribe that used the names of body parts/places for 1 through 27, starting at the top of the head and working down and around (e.g., Forehead, L. ear, L. cheek, L. shoulder, L. elbow, L. hand, ... R. shoulder, R. cheek, R. ear). They didn't need any more numbers.

#1148) Wednesday, November 30, 2022
Congratulations on achieving HOA VP-ship! Does this entitle you to SSS protection? (That would be "Sterling Secret Service".)

#1149) Monday, December 05, 2022
I am totally impressed!

#1150) Wednesday, December 07, 2022
Ah yes! I totally remember this picture. I always wondered what the downward thumb signified...

#1151) Friday, December 09, 2022
Re: Tevye auditioner, I have known people like that. Too funny!!!

#1152) Wednesday, December 14, 2022
Totally encanto!

#1153) Monday, December 19, 2022
It's an easy calculation: (chocolate gives Grandpa a headache) + (Grandpa loves cookies) = chocolate-free cookies!

#1154) Wednesday, December 21, 2022
I had such fun at Front Royal! Then there was our visit with you at Lake Anne, then Noel finally sold your aunt Gladys's San Diego house -- all this in September. I think you can safely raise September's grade to "A". :-)

#1155) Monday, December 26, 2022
Congratulations!!

#1156) Wednesday, December 28, 2022
Happy New Year!!!

#1157) Monday, January 02, 2023
Happy New Year!!!

#1158) Wednesday, January 04, 2023
I still laugh about our pre-Christmas dinner at which Baba got out his camera and Ian immediately put on a wide smile and said "Cheeeeese!"

#1159) Friday, January 06, 2023
If you liked Blazing Saddles, you'll like Cat Ballou! Sample dialog -- Sir Harry Percival: That's a Tintoretto. Cat: I'll say it is.

#1160) Wednesday, January 11, 2023
Maia will always be my little bunny! The recording is the essence of pure innocence, and I love it.

#1161) Friday, January 13, 2023
I haven't ridden the Silver Line yet. Bathrooms?!?! Yay!

#1162) Wednesday, January 18, 2023
I'm glad to see that you were able to reverse the effects of your 2013 exposure to HEV (human equinovirus).

#1163) Wednesday, January 25, 2023
Happy anniversary to your steadfast urizone commenter! P.S. I always read the comments :-)

#1164) Monday, February 06, 2023
We had ham and bean soup last night! Coincidence? BTW, mushroom soup with actual fresh mushrooms is my favorite, although I also like "oyster stew" (really soup). A word of advice: when in Dunkin Donuts, just order donuts.

#1165) Friday, February 10, 2023
I love the flamboyant A's! It shows off her confidence and originality!

#1166) Monday, February 13, 2023
Looks like you had a wonderful weekend! Happy Valentine's Day tomorrow! <3

#1167) Wednesday, February 22, 2023
Good thing Ian likes being read to, since I love reading to him!

#1168) Friday, February 24, 2023
Cunk was a hoot! Thanks for recommending it!

#1169) Monday, February 27, 2023
The bouquet of daffodils that Maia brought us lasted more than a week. Thanks, Maia!!

#1170) Wednesday, March 01, 2023
I remember hiking thru the forest to the small bleachers by the river from where we could watch your races from a distance. The only thing less exciting than watching boat races would have been watching submarine races, but we cheered you and your team nevertheless!

#1171) Friday, March 03, 2023
I like the "Despondency" movement the best, I think, especially the two "sighs".

#1172) Monday, March 06, 2023
"Jesus Loves Me" was, according to the Baby Book my mother kept for me, one of my first songs as well!

#1173) Monday, March 13, 2023
How does it feel to be the bottom of the Uri! pile-up?

#1174) Wednesday, March 22, 2023
Thees are grate!

#1175) Monday, March 27, 2023
Nothing on AI? (I don't know whether I should be glad or sad...)

#1176) Monday, April 10, 2023
Thank you!!! Anything over the Bible's allotted span of "three score and ten years" is all gravy now. P.S. I still have that Alaskan gold just in case bitcoin doesn't pan out...oh, wait...

#1177) Wednesday, April 12, 2023
What a happy day!

#1178) Wednesday, April 19, 2023
When future AI bots are producing code and interpreting Spanish or other languages for people, what will you do for fun?

#1179) Wednesday, April 26, 2023
Maia is very talented! I especially like the Surrealism pickchr, but the potato mascot is also great with its leafy hands and feet.

#1180) Wednesday, May 03, 2023
I remember that trip. (I also traveled - a business trip to Brussels.) I also remember your little apartment and the kitties. Booty was a sweetie, and Kitty was the smartest cat I ever met.

#1181) Wednesday, May 10, 2023
I can't tell you how much we grandparents love "Maia weekends!" She is a total joy. Looking forward to when Ian is old enough to join her or have his own separate weekend!

#1182) Monday, May 15, 2023
Happy Mother's Day to my favorite DIL!!! (And BTW, I hope you get over your ILLS!)

#1183) Monday, May 22, 2023
Excellent pictures of Ian!

#1184) Friday, May 19, 2023
I'm intrigued by the series enough to want to read Draigon Weather...

#1185) Monday, June 05, 2023
Wow! I am impressed, not just by the art but also by the descriptions.

#1186) Wednesday, June 07, 2023
Now if you had saved the cut-off hair, you might have had enough for ______ (fill in the blank, e.g., "a mattress" "a felt carpet" "a hair shirt" "wall insulation" etc.)

#1187) Monday, June 12, 2023
I can attest that this was a super great weekend!

#1188) Monday, June 26, 2023
I have called all my grandchildren "Little No-No" when they were around 2 years old. I think that's when they learn that their environment doesn't always cooperate.

#1189) Wednesday, June 28, 2023
Maia has a talent for art, that's for sure!

#1190) Friday, June 30, 2023
$1 from Tooth Fairy? In 1948, I got a quarter for the identically-situated tooth! I think today's TF is definitely taking advantage of us.

#1191) Monday, July 03, 2023
Happy Pre-Independence Day!

#1192) Thursday, July 06, 2023
My dearest Maia is certainly an armor-enhancer for me! I always come away from a hug with her feeling stronger and luckier in every way!!!

#1193) Monday, July 10, 2023
New rock group: "Electric Potatoes"!!

#1194) Friday, July 14, 2023
Love the videos! Future influencer?

#1195) Monday, July 17, 2023
We had a great time at the Smithsonian, despite a great crowd of other tourists there with us. Maia particularly liked the interactive exhibits.

#1196) Monday, July 24, 2023
Like father, like son! You recited all your books too :-)

#1197) Wednesday, July 26, 2023
I see a rainbow too, thanks to Maia!

#1198) Monday, July 31, 2023
Look at that Ian - he's getting so big! P.S. Sorry about your peaches :-(

#1199) Wednesday, August 02, 2023
Urizone.net -- Happy birthday! Evil Mike comment -- Hahaha! LMAO!

#1200) Wednesday, August 09, 2023
The use of LM generation Is much like prestidigitation.

#1201) Monday, August 14, 2023
Re 9:53AM - I hope you feel better! Re 4:31PM - "Diablitos 2"?

#1202) Wednesday, August 16, 2023
I remember your apartment well! What I liked was the Spanish moss that hung from the tree branches between your building and the cemetery. Spooky but pretty.

#1203) Wednesday, August 23, 2023
The water never looked very real to me, nor would I risk crossing the creek on that plank, but I always liked the pathway leading to the Elysian fields. Kind of dreamy.

#1204) Monday, August 28, 2023
They grow up SO FAST!!!!

#1205) Wednesday, August 30, 2023
So sorry COVID keeps visiting! But I love the new pictures in your 2023 album. <3

#1206) Wednesday, September 06, 2023
In your old bedroom is now my Swedish great-grandmother's bed (her 1873 wedding present) that was handed down to me and is now Maia's bed when she visits. It has a similar space underneath for her to hide in. Maybe your grandchildren will be under one or both of these beds in 2073?

#1207) Monday, September 11, 2023
Maybe Maia can be the scientist who resolves the old question of who or what ate hedge apples (osage oranges) in prehistoric times!

#1208) Friday, September 15, 2023
As the Chuck E. Cheese waitstaff once sang, "Happy happy birthday, from all of us to you, hey! Happy happy birthday, from all of us to you!" Those were the days...

#1209) Monday, September 18, 2023
It looks like you had a happy birthday :-)

#1210) Wednesday, September 20, 2023
"I'm a lumberjack, and I'm okay/I sleep all night and I work all day..."

#1211) Friday, September 22, 2023
FYI, we also started and then stopped watching Justified: City Primeval. It was nowhere near as good as the original.

#1212) Monday, September 25, 2023
Excellent pictures! BTW, we also got about 2.5 inches of badly-needed rain from Ophelia.

#1213) Monday, October 02, 2023
I remember it well -- but wasn't there a Martian Rover? In any case, congratulations on your wedding anniversary!

#1214) Friday, October 13, 2023
I've had Myojo Ippeichan Yakisoba Japanese Style Instant Noodles around the house for 20 years, but they are kind of expensive for what you get now. I'm looking for an alternative; any recommendations?

#1215) Monday, October 23, 2023
I know the kiddies were glad to see their Mom!!

#1216) Wednesday, October 25, 2023
So, WAS that a blueberry down there?

#1217) Monday, October 30, 2023
Frankly, I wouldn't want to wear a snout either.

#1218) Wednesday, November 01, 2023
Happy Halloween!

#1219) Monday, November 06, 2023
You got my vote!👏👏👏

#1220) Wednesday, November 08, 2023
Excellent! Maia has quite the imagination! BTW, did you get your costume made in time for Rainbow Dash Day?

#1221) Monday, November 13, 2023
Friendsgiving - I like that! Happy Friendsgiving!!!

#1222) Wednesday, November 22, 2023
Happy Thanksgiving!!!

#1223) Thursday, November 23, 2023
This is such a cute picture! You should hold a Caption Contest the way you used to. I'll start it off: "Tibetan vegans rejoiced at the coronation of the new Tofurky Lama."

#1224) Wednesday, November 29, 2023
You have some really cute pictures from this month. Everyone is so photogenic :-)

#1225) Monday, December 04, 2023
After I saw the 4th cartoon, I just had to sing with the Byrds: To every key (turn, turn, turn) There's a solution (turn, turn, turn)...

#1226) Wednesday, December 06, 2023
Wow! Congratulations!!!

#1227) Monday, December 11, 2023
For the information of your readers, Maia inserted every one of the red and green cherries into these "stop and go" cookies, with a 100% success rate!

#1228) Wednesday, December 13, 2023
So what's the final judgment on the pizza?

#1229) Friday, December 15, 2023
An excellent year with lots of friends - what more could one want? Happy 2023!

#1230) Monday, December 18, 2023
Excellent work, Maia! Grandpa and I love you too! BTW, I just realized the monster is named "Ian". Any relation?

#1231) Monday, December 25, 2023
And a very merry Christmas to you all as well!

#1232) Monday, January 01, 2024
2024 Pprojects: (1) Clean up my computer files (2) Finish downsizing my stuff (3) See the solar eclipse in April (4) Have lots of Maia and Ian visits (5) Celebrate 50th wedding anniversary!

#1233) Friday, January 05, 2024
Looking forward to seeing the dragons!

#1234) Friday, January 12, 2024
These 12 of 12 pics are particularly good of the kids! How photogenic they are.

#1235) Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Awesome. Simply awesome.

#1236) Wednesday, January 10, 2024
I'm glad to see this man is getting the praise he deserves, even posthumously.

#1237) Monday, January 08, 2024
You should be a detective, or at least write detective stories!

#1238) Monday, January 15, 2024
Love the Pet Store! When I was little I took a small box, cut a door and windows in it, and added a big label over the door that said "CAT HOUSE". I couldn't figure out why the adults chuckled whenever they saw it.

#1239) Monday, January 22, 2024
Looking forward to your reviews of the shows/books you mention! P.S. Really liking "Artifact Space", and looking forward to reading the sequel when it comes out.

#1240) Wednesday, January 24, 2024
Майя замечательная девочка!

#1241) Wednesday, January 31, 2024
Hella impressive!!

#1242) Monday, February 05, 2024
1) Be sure to tell Ian that your grandpa was a meteorologist! 2) I also love corn and hate to see boogers, unless it's a booger that I've been fishing for unsuccessfully and finally manage to catch.

#1243) Wednesday, February 07, 2024
We had 3 snowstorms in all; the 3rd one was the carport collapser. We had to buy a new car, and your Dad rebuilt the carport that spring.

#1244) Monday, February 12, 2024
Looks like you all had a happy day! Keep up the good work!

#1245) Wednesday, February 14, 2024
Re: animals, didn't you have a family of bats once?

#1246) Monday, February 19, 2024
It will be time for a real aquarium soon...

#1247) Wednesday, February 21, 2024
Here's a fascinating little article: https://www.pfonline.com/articles/henry-ford-is-still-right-when-it-comes-to-color Check out the statistics of which colors are most popular. BTW, the article also explains why Henry Ford said what he said.

#1248) Monday, February 26, 2024
I'm surprised at the number of deer in such a densely-(human)-populated neighborhood. Not so much at squirrels, though; squirrels have taken over everywhere.

#1249) Wednesday, February 28, 2024
Sorry we had such a short visit on 2/26, but glad you came!

#1250) Monday, March 04, 2024
We are watching Shogun too; it's very good so far and IMO better than the earlier Richard Chamberlain version. I read the book years ago and still have it if anyone wants it.

#1251) Monday, March 11, 2024
This was a totally fun weekend for everyone!!!

#1252) Wednesday, March 13, 2024
These pictures are particularly charming!

#1253) Wednesday, March 20, 2024
Yay! I made the list!

#1254) Monday, March 25, 2024
I am 100% sure Ian will outgrow the tantrums. "Understand that tantrums are normal toddler behavior...They generally begin to occur when children are between 12 and 15 months old, peak between 18 and 36 months, and continue until around age 4, according to the National Association of School Psychologists."

#1255) Wednesday, March 27, 2024
Awesome stories! Maia will be so happy that you have saved these!

#1256) Wednesday, April 03, 2024
Whoa...that wallpaper would be enough to send me running to the Greenbrier doomsday bunker for protection!

#1257) Monday, April 08, 2024
Excellent pictures! And congrats, Maia, for the free dessert!

#1258) Wednesday, April 10, 2024
Not as old as I am, though! P.S. I loved that poem back then and I love it now. Thanks for posting it!

#1259) Wednesday, April 17, 2024
Those are indeed large spectacles. 😎

#1260) Wednesday, April 24, 2024
I was planning a little party for my parents' 50th wedding anniversary in early May. Remember that one? It would turn out to be the last time they ever came to our house.