As I go through the pictures, I don't find many pictures of me w/ Naomi due to the fact that I'm always taking the pictures. Anyway, it is nice to see some w/ me in them too…
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Naomi and Her Dad
Ah, Naomi and her Dad…it’s taken her no time at all to be up on her Dad’s shoulders just like her brothers. It’s very sweet. Actually, she’s rough-housing already.
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Have Space Ship—Will Travel
On June 21, the privately-funded SpaceShipOne will launch for a history-making, 100 km (62 mile) altitude flight.
“Our goal is to demonstrate that non-government manned space flight operations are not only feasible, but can be done at very low costs.†(Burt Rutan)
Read the article at MSNBC.com here, and check out the Scaled Composites FAQ and related pages.
Thanks to Phil Luchon for this reference.
The King Returned—at Midnight
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Last night I went beyond mere fandom, and decided that I would head out to our nearby 24-hour Wal*Mart superstore around midnight to pick up the long-awaited Return of the King DVD. As a bonus, Wal*Mart was giving away a small photoframe magnet for those who picked up the DVD between midnight and 6:00 this morning. Both are pictured above.
While I wouldn’t travel very far to do this, and definitely wouldn’t camp out awaiting such a release, there was a certain thrill to owning the DVD almost before anyone else in my area, especially at only $14-something.
We still await word on what will be in the extended edition, due out in the “Holiday Season†of 2004. I keep checking The Digital Bits Web site, and the official Lord of the Rings Web site, but no news has been released yet.
It’s About Time—A 4 Wheel Drive SUV that gets 35 MPG
[doug]I’ve been interested in the Ford Escape SUV hybrid for a while, not because I hope to be an SUV owner, but because the fascinating technology of hybrid and alternative-fuel vehicles is finally hitting the market. This lengthy article is worthy of attention.
Thanks to Phil Luchon for the link.
My First Spam in Hebrew!
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I’m so glad that the Internet allows such rapid intercontinental communication. Imagine a world where one’s inbox would not be regularly populated by the decades-old and now primarily e-mail based Nigerian Money Scam, and the like. Horrible!
Why God Gives Children Mothers
[doug]I don’t think I’m a bad parent, but recent experience has shown me that, without mothers, most children would never live to see their third birthday. Let me explain a couple of incidents that happened with NaNi this week:
Incident 1: I took all the kids, including Naomi (NaNi), Mother’s Day shopping at Wal*Mart Saturday night. The trip actually went pretty well, and the boys’ behavior was not-as-bad-as-usual-while-shopping. On the way out to the car, we started down a small incline, and NaNi’s car seat (with her inside), flipped off of the shopping cart, and she landed face-down (but without a scratch, because she was securely fastened in a 5-point safety harness) on the mulch in an island we were adjacent to.
In the moment afterward, the entire cart flipped over, dumping David, who was riding it, and our merchandise to the ground. No one was harmed, although NaNi cried for about 60 seconds.
Now, I was certain that I had attached NaNi’s seat to the shopping cart—but Nichelle (a Mom), wouldn’t have stopped there: She would have attached the seat, listened for the click of the latch attaching, tried to pull the seat off to verify it was secured, asked 3 people to try the same, and probably avoided the slightest incline when navigating back to the car.
Incident 2: Last night, I was watching the kids while Nichelle went to ladies’ Bible study and then grocery shopping. When Nichelle got home, NaNi spit up, and Nichelle asked me, “How is it that NaNi was eating brown paper?†(Oddly enough, I didn’t get “The Look,†which husbands and children everywhere fear.) Somehow the little weaselette had torn a 1-inch long piece of cardboard off a big box David was playing with, and swallowed it. She did this while being watched by me, and in the presence of both David and Isaac!
You may now go about the process of organizing the lynch mob …
88 Miles Per Hour!
My yaar Mark Sohmer sent me this link. The link went down for a while, but is now back up. I’ve been trying to convince Kevin “Doc Brown†Ilsen to buy this, since he is one of the few people I know who can afford it, and knowing someone who owns one of these is probably the closest I’m ever going to get to owning one, but I don’t think he’s very willing enough to waste money on such an effort.
Naomi’s First BLOG Entry
I have no idea what it means, but here it is:
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Construction of a [Lego] Star Destroyer
I have finally started construction on the Lego Star Destroyer (the “Holy Grail†of Lego) set that Nichelle gave me as an anniversary gift this year.
Click on the image for some photo documentation (and fun) of the project. Woo-hoo!