Our List of Companies

Furniture:
Amishtables.com
Vienna Woodworks


Rest Stops/Texas Souvenirs/Clean Bathrooms:
Buc-ee's

List of Worthwhile Articles

Here Marc and I enjoy a good read together(circa 2003 or 2004):


Here is a list of articles I have long wanted to compile for my edification. I shall put this blog entry eventually on the sideboard, so that folks do not have to search through my entries.

I also want to make a list of recommended restaurants, some day....

So here is one on education which I found useful for home schooling:

The Lost Tools of Learning

Thoughts on Jane Austen's Novel 'Persuasion'

Every year, about this time, Turbotax sends me their income tax CD so I can do my own taxes. By some happy coincidence my accountant's worksheet arrived the same day, so I took a few minutes(more like an hour) to run some hypothetical numbers.

Turbotax is really cool. As one starts to use the program, the amount owed or to be refunded is displayed in the upper left corner. The numbers are red if one owes money, and green if one should receive a refund. I enjoy using Turbotax to estimate how things will be this year, and as I put in all sorts of approximate data, I enjoy watching the numbers change. Wipe out my dependents, and my amount owed becomes huge. Donate a large sum to a fictitious charity, and watch the numbers turn green. Finally I got tired of playing, put in the correct numbers, and watched the numbers turn green and grow just a little. At this point I tossed the CD and finished filling out the CPA's papers.

Accountants and lawyers are two groups of people who have my respect and deepest appreciation. They know things which would never have occurred to me, and I have benefited greatly from their help. I was reminded of the service that lawyers and accountants have provided me today as I started reading Jane Austen's novel Persuasion. For those of you who live under a rock, Persuasion is the story of Anne Elliot, a woman who was persuaded to break off an engagement with her love because he had no prospects, no future, no wealth; in short, a nobody. But that is not what reminded me of lawyers. Like other Jane Austen novels, the side stories are sometimes more interesting than the main one. In this case, the novel opens up with Anne's father, Sir Walter Elliot, being informed that he has no money. He has to resort to drastic measures in order to pay off his creditors; he has to leave his home and take up residence in a smaller abode. There is a word in the book for it: 'retrench.' It sounds bad.

Since he can't afford to live on his estate, Sir Walter's LAWYER finds a tenant for it. The prospective tenant is the ideal candidate for Sir Walter's estate: married with no children. I would have to agree with this assessment. A wife will look after the house while the non-existent children will NOT destroy the furniture, draw and color on the walls, put holes in places where there were none before, flood every toilet, and dig up every plant in the garden. I am not speaking from personal experience here; I have heard that children can do these things even under close supervision.

(It reminds me of the time I tried to rent a house while I was a resident - I still recall the change in the landlady's voice when I mentioned the ages of my four children. Even more painful was renting a house with ten children. But I digress.)

There is only one drawback to the tenant, and that is where my thoughts and sentiments and sympathy diverge from those of Sir Walter Elliot. Until he said these words, I thought that Jane Austen was describing me completely. In the eyes of Sir Walter, the prospective tenant is unacceptable because he is an admiral of the Royal Navy, recently home from the sea during a lull in the action. Sir Walter summarizes his regard for the military as follows:

"...it is in two points offensive to me; I have two strong grounds of objection to it. First, as being the means of bringing persons of obscure birth into undue distinction, and raising men to honours which their fathers and grandfathers never dreamt of; and, secondly, as it cuts up a man's youth and vigour most horribly; a sailor grows old sooner than any other man."

Never mind the second point; it is the first that struck me. You see, I was one of those who benefited greatly from serving in the Armed Forces. While I did not raise myself into undue distinction(someone said I did do the best imitation of Yoda they had ever heard), I did have the honor and privilege to care for our country's airmen, soldiers, sailors, their dependents, and retirees. I shall be forever grateful for the opportunity that I received from the United States Air Force. I am also grateful that other folks in Persuasion defend the soldiers and sailors of England. Bravo!


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


As an aside, I commented to Carolyn that Jane Austen had a lot of run-on sentences in Persuasion. I read her one of the sentences which made up the majority of a large paragraph. Carolyn pointed out that Persuasion was published after her death, and so the usual editing was probably not done. I was relieved to hear that, because for a while I thought I was reading the works of Henry James, or even Amanda McKittrick Ros - the inspiration for writing my Bad Poetry.

I wish I could write like Jane Austen, but for now, I have to struggle to attain the heights of heuristic holisticity happened upon by Amanda McKittrick Ros.

Avatar Craze Hits Home

Yes, we have been forced by peer pressure to join the ranks of people
who are just nuts about this movie 'Avatar.' I picked this up at the
local 'Parents R Us' store:

San Antonio, Texas. Summer 2009.

Here is a little photo montage which Carolyn made of a visit we made to San Antonio, our old home town. This was in late June/early July, 2009:

Christmas Eve 2009 Video

Here it is. Facebook's new privacy regulations made it impossible to embed in the sidebar, so we uploaded it to YouTube instead. Enjoy:

Stethoscopes

What one finds in the back of the locker....

Tower

A construction tower at the hospital expansion. Taken out of the sunroof of the Ford Escape.

Spork Diary: I Go To Work

Today was 'Take Your Spork To Work Day' in the United States. Mr. Halitosis Breath kept me in his briefcase until lunchtime.

For lunch, he had 'Orange Chicken' with rice and an egg roll. I don't associate with egg rolls, so I can't comment on what that was like. The chicken was drowning in some sort of sauce with little pieces of orange peel in it. Ewwwwww. It was like playing with marmalade. The rice was dry and tasteless.

I prefer the quiet solitude of the briefcase.

I was supposed to go to a wedding last weekend, but old crooked teeth had to stay home and watch the sick children. A likely excuse.

Here I am with the orange chicken and rice. I do not know where the egg roll is.

Bernard's Birthday Video

Here it is. Enjoy:

Bad Poetry About Flowers

Not Enough Flowers

There aren't enough flowers in the world
to give to you

for all the times I was a jerk
and you were sweet anyways

for all the times you made me smile
and made our home Heaven on Earth

for every sacrifice you made
and every child you gave me

and every other thing you have done
that makes me thank God for you.



SMD
1.8.2010

Spork Diary

My work began January 2, 2010, when I was used in a sample of gourmet
mashed potatoes. Rather than tossing me in the trash with the wax
cup, this lunatic kept me, washed me, and decided to keep a log of my
activities over the next year. That is assuming I last that long....

Was It Something I Ate?

Last night I dreamed that Mass was at a church where Louisiana
Governor Bobby Jindahl(sp?) was the deacon, incense was being tossed
onto open flame bowls carried by altar servers dressed up like Kabuki
theater players, and all the lights were orange. The church bulletin
had built-in Internet access and I spent most of Mass 'googling'
things which caught my fancy and listening to music on iTunes.