As We Speak...

Kate is, as of the very writing of this post, getting her cast sawn off and the pins yanked out of her elbow. All should go well, but I'm a bit distracted thinking about it.

It's been an interesting six weeks, and I've been so impressed by Kate's endurance and good naturedness about it. She only used her cast as a weapon a handful of times.

I've also been touched by her sisters' empathy (Sam doesn't seem to care). Genna only used Kate's cast as leverage to throw her to the ground a couple of times.

Here is Julia expressing her solidarity with her big sister. I'm not sure what the headband is all about, but I'll chalk it up to her being cute (along with her Tinkerbell dress).

A Novel Idea

Some of you have read it. Some of you are reading it. And the rest of you will have to wait until it becomes an international best seller (unless you receive one of the coveted copies below).

I'm wrapping up the final edits to my first novel manuscript (working title, Outremer). Below is a shot of several copies I had printed for editing purposes. Note the beautiful cover, one of my brother-in-law (Brian Swisher)'s creations.

Now begins the tedious, laborious, tortuous, and noxious effort of finding a literary agent who will give me the time of day. The odds of me actually getting it published would make a compulsive gambler push back from the table, but I'm going to give it a go.

In the words of Miracle Max and his wife: "Think it'll work?" -- "It'll take a miracle."

I'm sitting here with a chocolate-covered walnut in my mouth, so I'm hoping for the best.

Narnia II

What's all this talk about Narnia 2, Prince Caspian?

I thought Ian said that Narnia 2 involved Predator, Snuffy, and Sadam.

Dos and Dos at Dos

There was a massive gathering of family at Dos Coyotes earlier this week to see Becky off as she and her husband and new baby make their way back to Missouri to resume a normal home life.

Many, many photos were taken, so I chose the best ones. This first shot is of Sam and Veni (Becky's new baby). Note their matching outfits. I see the beginning of a lifelong friendship here, maybe even a primetime sitcom in the making.

Regarding this second photo, there were 23 photos taken of Sophie and Nora. I scoured them, looking for the best one, for the shot that showed them in the best light.

This was the best one I could find.

Uphill to Masculinity

This is proof that the road to masculinity for Sam is going to be an uphill battle with so many girly girls around him.

My hope is that with all this adversity, he'll really have to flex his manliness to its utmost, thereby creating some sort of uber-man (dare I say, superman?).

















I'm not interfering with my daughters' attempts at feminizing Sam. Instead, I am giving Sam the tools he needs to maintain his identity as a boy. This includes roundhouse kicks, munitions knowledge, wilderness lore, training in Israeli Krav Maga, and how to configure a PC in under two minutes. These skills, coupled with feats of strength, grappling techniques, and knowing how to pee while standing should be all he needs to foil his sisters.

Frankenkate

Yesterday was Kate's follow up appointment for her broken arm surgery. You'll see in the x-ray to the left that the staff accidentally used sandwich toothpicks in place of pins to keep all the parts together.

Annie and Kate got to see the heads of those pins sticking out once the doctor removed Kate's splint, and it was...Frankensteiny (the mound around the head of the pins is from the splint, not her swelling. Or maybe it was bionic...I see a TV show in the making. I'll contact Nickelodeon.

Everything is healing just fine. The doctor was pleased with Kate's progress. After cleaning the wound up, the doctor elected to put a cast on in place of another splint. Kate was hesitant at first, but as you can see, she enjoys the hot pink.



The cast and the pins will be removed at the end of the month. That will be the best fifteen minutes of Kate's life. Nothing like pliers and saws to make your day. That reminds me, the Inquisition called, and they want their training manual back.

Gmail's New Service

Gmail is offering a new service as of today, April 1. You can send up to 10 pre-dated (choose whatever date or time your want) emails per year, going back to April 1, 2004, and even mark them read or unread. If they allowed you to do more, you would distrupt the universe's space-time continuum. Thankfully, they are using their e-flux capacitor to "resolve the issue of causality."

Check out the link above and read the testimonials.

I knew Google would be the first to invent time travel, even if it is only for email.