Monday Is Here Again

Ugg Boot

Are you a Beatles fan? Check out this version of Norwegian Wood by Victor Wooten.


Today in History:
307 - After divorcing his wife Minervina, Constantine marries Fausta, the daughter of the retired Roman Emperor Maximian.

1146 - Bernard of Clairvaux preaches his famous sermon in a field at Vézelay, urging the necessity of a Second Crusade. Louis VII is present, and joins the Crusade.

1492 - Queen Isabella of Castille orders her 150,000 Jewish subjects to convert to Christianity or face expulsion. Believe what I believe or else.

1774 - American Revolutionary War: The Kingdom of Great Britain orders the port of Boston, Massachusetts closed in the Boston Port Act.

1822 - The massacre of the population of the Greek island of Chios by soldiers of the Ottoman Empire following a rebellion attempt, depicted by the French artist Eugène Delacroix.

1889 - The Eiffel Tower is inaugurated.

1903 - Richard Pearse alledgedly makes a powered flight in an early aircraft.

1917 - The United States takes possession of the Danish West Indies after paying $25 million to Denmark, and renames the territory the United States Virgin Islands.

1918 - Daylight saving time goes into effect in the United States for the first time.

1930 - The Motion Pictures Production Code is instituted, imposing strict guidelines on the treatment of sex, crime, religion and violence in film for the next thirty eight years.

1951 - The first commercial United States made computer, the UNIVAC I, is delivered to the United States Census Bureau.

1966 - The Soviet Union launches Luna 10 which later becomes the first spaceprobe to enter orbit around the Moon.

1968 - President Lyndon B. Johnson announces he will not run for re-election.

1970 - Explorer 1 re-enters the Earth's atmosphere (after 12 years in orbit).

1990 - 200,000 protestors took to the streets of London to protest against the newly introduced Poll Tax.

1994 - Human evolution: The journal Nature reports the finding in Ethiopia of the first complete Australopithecus afarensis skull.

1995 - In Corpus Christi, Texas, Latin superstar Selena Quintanilla Perez is shot and killed by Yolanda Saldivar, the president of her own fan club.

1998 - Netscape releases the code base of its browser under an open-source license agreement; the project is given the code name Mozilla and would eventually be spun off into the non-profit Mozilla Foundation.

The Truth Shall Set You ...... Ablaze

Ugg Boot




Need I say more?

Wanted!!!

Ugg Boot

Every year, English teachers from across the country can submit their collections of actual analogies and metaphors found in high school essays.

These excerpts are published each year to the amusement of teachers across the country.

Here are last year's winners.....

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country
speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. Coli, and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.

5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.

8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.

9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.

10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. Instead of 7:30.

12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. Traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. At a speed of 35 mph.

15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.

16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River .

18 Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.

19. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

20 The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

23. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.

25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

Second gunman involved in RFK's assassination? Check out this news story.

Today in History:
1513 (not 1512 as often cited) - Explorer Juan Ponce de León sights North America (specifically Florida) for the first time, mistaking it for another island. Crazy Ponce. He he he

1613 - The first English child born in Canada at Cuper's Cove, Newfoundland to Nicholas Guy.

1794 - The United States Government establishes a permanent navy and authorizes the building of six frigates.

1834 - Andrew Jackson is censured by the U.S. Senate for his actions regarding the U.S. National Bank.

1836 - Texas Revolution: Goliad massacre - Antonio López de Santa Anna orders the Mexican army to kill about 400 Texans at Goliad, Texas.

1846 - Mexican-American War: Siege of Fort Texas.

1851 - First reported case of Europeans seeing Yosemite Valley. Did the others just hear it? C'mon?

1958 - Nikita Khrushchev becomes Premier of the Soviet Union.

1968 - Yuri Gagarin, Soviet Cosmonaut, first human in space dies in aircraft training accident.

1969 - Mariner 7 is launched.

1970 - The Concorde makes its first supersonic flight.

1977 - Tenerife disaster: Two Boeing 747 airliners collide on a foggy runway on Tenerife in the Canary Islands, killing 583 (all 247 on KLM and 335 on PAN AM) and 61 survived on a PAN AM flight.

1998 - The Food and Drug Administration approves Viagra for use as a treatment for male impotence, the first pill to be approved for this condition in the United States. See picture above.

Great Commercial

Ugg Boot




JUST WATCH THIS COMMERCIAL!!!

Crazy Cats

Ugg Boot


Tom thought back to events in the recent past. What was Reginald up to, he wondered.


Reginald planned his attack with his buddies Waldo and Fluffy. He tried everything he could to persuade them to help. They had other problems to deal with.

Waldo and Fluffy had lost control of reality.

Today in History:
1199 - Richard I is wounded by a crossbow bolt while fighting France which leads to his death on April 6.

1306 - Robert the Bruce becomes King of Scotland.

1584 - Sir Walter Raleigh is granted a patent to exploit Virginia.

1634 - The first settlers arrive in Maryland.

1655 - Saturn's largest moon, Titan, is discovered by Christian Huygens.

1655 - Protestants take control of Maryland at the Battle of the Severn.

1807 - The Slave Trade Act becomes law, abolishing the slave trade in the British Empire. We work a little slower than the British, as history shows us in this case.

1807 - The Swansea and Mumbles Railway, then known as the Oystermouth Railway, became the first passenger carrying railway in the world.

1865 - American Civil War: In Virginia, Confederate forces capture Fort Stedman from the Union in a bloody battle.

1931 - The Scottsboro Boys are arrested in Alabama and charged with rape.

1955 - United States Customs seizes copies of Allen Ginsberg's poem "Howl" as obscene.

1965 - Civil rights activists led by Martin Luther King, Jr. successfully complete their 4-day 50-mile march from Selma to the capitol in Montgomery.

1969 - During their honeymoon, John Lennon and Yoko Ono hold their first Bed-In for Peace in the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel (until March 31).

1979 - The first fully functional space shuttle orbiter, Columbia, is delivered to the John F. Kennedy Space Center to be prepared for its first launch.

1990 - In the Bronx, New York City, a fire at an illegal social club called "Happy Land" kills 87 people.




Happy Birthday:
1911 - Jack Ruby, killer of Lee Harvey Oswald (d. 1967)

1918 - Howard Cosell, American sports reporter (d. 1995)

1942 - Aretha Franklin, American singer

1947 - Elton John, English singer and songwriter

1966 - Jeff Healey, Canadian guitarist (d. 2008)


Deaths on this Day:
2006 - Buck Owens, American singer and television personality (b. 1929)

It Was a Good Weekend

Saturday afternoon, while walking in the yard playing guitar and listening to the ipod, Uncle M asked me to go fishing with him. I don't fish often so we were off to the lake. We caught 2 Bass and 2 Jack. It was a blast.

Uncle M and I 3-22-08




Us again 3-22-08





I spent Easter with the Sullivans. 3-23-08






They had Green Eggs and Ham. Gotta love their sense of humor.


Mitsy thought it was corny.





I Love Cupcakes!!!!!



Getting ready for dinner. Mmmmmm!!!



Mmmmm Good!!!!


A Blonde Moment



After dinner hickups.


Too full to do anything else, we played Mexican Train (dominos).
Nap time!!!!



Today in History:
1603 - James VI of Scotland also becomes James I King of England.



1765 - American Revolutionary War: The Kingdom of Great Britain passes the Quartering Act that requires the Thirteen Colonies to house British troops. Crazy Red Coats.

1882 - Robert Koch announces the discovery of the bacterium responsible for tuberculosis (mycobacterium tuberculosis).

1944 - World War II: In an event later dramatized in the movie The Great Escape, 76 prisoners begin breaking out of Stalag Luft III.

1965 - NASA spacecraft Ranger 9, equipped to convert its signals into a form suitable for showing on domestic television, brings images of the Moon into ordinary homes before crash-landing. How cool.



1989 - Exxon Valdez oil spill: In Prince William Sound in Alaska, the Exxon Valdez spills 240,000 barrels (42,000 m³) of petroleum after running aground.

1998 - Jonesboro massacre: Two students, ages 11 and 13, fire upon teachers and students at Westside Middle School in Jonesboro, Arkansas; five people are dead and ten are wounded.


Happy Birthday:
1725 - Thomas Cushing, American Continental Congressman and acting Governor of Massachusetts (d. 1788)



1874 - Harry Houdini, (Weisz Erik), Hungarian-born magician (d. 1926)

1887 - Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, American actor (d. 1933)



1909 - Clyde Barrow, American crime figure (d. 1934)

1911 - Joseph Barbera, American cartoonist (d. 2006)

1930 - Steve McQueen, American actor (d. 1980)



1944 - R. Lee Ermey, American actor

1951 - Tommy Hilfiger, American fashion designer

1953 - Louie Anderson, American comedian


1970 - Lara Flynn Boyle, American actress


Deaths on this Day:
1603 - Queen Elizabeth I of England (b. 1533)

1776 - John Harrison, English clockmaker (b. 1693)

1882 - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, American author (b. 1807)



1905 - Jules Verne, French author (b. 1828)

1953 - Mary of Teck, queen consort to George V of the United Kingdom (b. 1867)

The Long Weekend Awaits

Ugg Boot

Do you watch Survivor? What did you think about last nights show?


Today in History:
1600 - The Linköping Bloodbath takes place on Maundy Thursday in Linköping, Sweden. I hope they brought soap.

1602 - The Dutch East India Company is established.

1616 - Sir Walter Raleigh is freed from the Tower of London after 13 years of imprisonment.

1760 - The "Great Fire" of Boston, Massachusetts destroys 349 buildings.

1815 - After escaping from Elba, Napoleon enters Paris with a regular army of 140,000 and a volunteer force of around 200,000, beginning his "Hundred Days" rule.

1852 - Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin is published..... pissing people off for over a century. Have you read it?

1913 - Sung Chiao-jen, a founder of the Chinese Nationalist Party, is wounded in an assassination attempt and dies 2 days later.

1914 - In New Haven, Connecticut, the first international figure skating championship takes place.

1916 - Albert Einstein publishes his general theory of relativity.

1933 - Giuseppe Zangara is executed in Florida's electric chair for fatally shooting Anton Cermak in an assassination attempt against President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

1942 - Holocaust: in Rohatyn, western Ukraine, the German SS murder 3,000 Jews, including 600 children, annihilating 70% of Rohatyn's Jewish ghetto.

1952 - The United States Senate ratifies a peace treaty with Japan.

1964 - The precursor of the European Space Agency, ESRO (European Space Research Organization) is established per an agreement signed on June 14, 1962.

1969 - John Lennon and Yoko Ono marry in Gibraltar.

1999 - Legoland California opens in Carlsbad, California.



Happy Birthday:
1811 - Napoleon II of France, (d. 1832)

1856 - Frederick Winslow Taylor, American inventor (d. 1915)

1922 - Carl Reiner, American film director

1928 - Fred Rogers, American TV host (d. 2003)

1937 - Jerry Reed, American singer and actor

1945 - Rick Berman, American TV and film producer

1948 - John de Lancie, American actor

1950 - Carl Palmer, English drummer (Emerson, Lake & Palmer)

1951 - Jimmie Vaughan, American blues guitarist.

1958 - Holly Hunter, American actress


Deaths on this day:
1413 - King Henry IV of England (b. 1367)

1855 - Joseph Aspdin, English mason and inventor (b. 1788)

1991 - Conor Clapton, son of Eric Clapton (b. 1986)

One Of Those Days

Ugg Boot

It's just one of those days, isn't it.



McBurnt!!! hahahahahaha



I knew I should've went back at the visitors center. Doh!!!

Thanks Mandy for the pics.

Today in History:
1687 - Explorer Robert Cavelier de La Salle, searching for the mouth of the Mississippi River, is murdered by his own men.

1863 - The SS Georgiana, said to have been the most powerful Confederate cruiser, was destroyed on her maiden voyage with cargo of munitions, medicines and merchandise then valued at over $1,000,000. The wreck was discovered on the same day and month, exactly 102 years later by then teenage diver and pioneer underwater archaeologist E. Lee Spence.

1915 - Pluto is photographed for the first time but is not recognized as a planet.

1916 - Eight American planes take off in pursuit of Pancho Villa, the first United States air-combat mission in history.

1918 - The U.S. Congress establishes time zones and approves daylight saving time. Benjamin Franklin would have laughed. Did you know he came up with the idea of daylight saving time as a joke?

1920 - The United States Senate rejects the Treaty of Versailles for the second time (first time was on November 19, 1919).

1931 - Gambling is legalized in Nevada.

1932 - The Sydney Harbour Bridge is opened.

1941 - World War II: The 99th Pursuit Squadron also known as the Tuskegee Airmen, the first all-black unit of the Army Air Corp, is activated.

1943 - Frank Nitti, the Chicago Outfit Boss after Al Capone, committs suicide at the Chicago Central Railyard.

1945 - World War II: Off the coast of Japan, a dive bomber hits the aircraft carrier USS Franklin, killing 724 of her crew. Though crippled, the ship is able to return to the U.S. on her own power.

1945 - World War II: Adolf Hitler issues his "Nero Decree" ordering all industries, military installations, shops, transportation facilities and communications facilities in Germany be destroyed.

1969 - The 385 metre tall TV-mast at Emley Moor, United Kingdom, collaspes caused by ice build- up.

1987 - Televangelist Jim Bakker resigns as head of the PTL Club due to a brewing sex scandal; he hands over control to Jerry Falwell.

I'm In A Haunted Building

Ugg Boot

"How miserably things seem to be arranged in this world. If we have no friends, we have no pleasure, and if we have them, we're sure to lose them and be doubly pained by our loss."
Abraham Lincoln to his wife Mary


I'm sitting at work listening to Beethoven listening to the wind howl. I hear doors opening and closing although I am alone. Does this frighten me? Not in the least.

Today in History:
1314 - Jacques de Molay, the 23rd and the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, is burned at the stake.

1673 - John Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley of Stratton sells his part of New Jersey to some Friends (Quakers).

1766 - American Revolution: The British Parliament repeals the Stamp Act, which had been very unpopular in the British colonies.

1850 - American Express is founded by Henry Wells and William Fargo.

1865 - American Civil War: The Congress of the Confederate States of America adjourns for the last time.

1893 - Former Governor General Lord Stanley pledges to donate a silver challenge cup, later named after him, as an award for the best ice hockey team in Canada; originally presented to amateur champions, the Stanley Cup has been awarded to the top pro team since 1910, and since 1926, only to National Hockey League teams.

1906 - Traian Vuia flies a self-propelled heavier-than-air aircraft.

1909 - Einar Dessau uses a short-wave radio transmitter, becoming the first radio broadcaster.

1913 - King George I of Greece is assassinated in the recently liberated city of Thessaloniki.

1925 - The Tri-State Tornado hits the Midwestern states of Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana, killing 695 people.

1937 - The New London School explosion kills three hundred, mostly children.

1937 - The human-powered aircraft, Pedaliante, flies 1 kilometre (0.62 miles) outside Milan.

1944 - The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in Italy kills 26 and causes thousands to flee their homes.

1989 - In Egypt, a 4,400-year-old mummy is found in the Pyramid of Cheops.

1990 - In the largest art theft in US history, 12 paintings, collectively worth around $300 million, are stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Massachusetts.

2003 - British Sign Language is recognised as an official British language.




Happy Birthday:
1496 - Mary Tudor, daughter of Henry VII of England and queen consort of Louis XII of France (d. 1533)

1603 - Simon Bradstreet, Massachusetts Bay colonist (d. 1693)

1837 - Grover Cleveland, President of the United States (d. 1908)

1926 - Peter Graves, American actor

1938 - Charley Pride, American musician

1941 - Wilson Pickett, American singer (d. 2006)


Deaths on this day:
978 - King Edward the Martyr of England

1584 - Tsar Ivan IV of Russia (b. 1530)

2001 - John Phillips, American musician (The Mamas and the Papas) (b. 1935)

Did You Wear Green?

Ugg Boot

I test drove an amazing car this weekend. Not practical at all but a ton of fun. I drove a Toyota Spyder convertible. I miss my Chrysler convertible. What a fun drive.

...and the random video of the day comes all the way from the boardwalk in Bossier City, La. Enjoy...

Today in History:
45 BC - In his last victory, Julius Caesar defeats the Pompeian forces of Titus Labienus and Pompey the Younger in the Battle of Munda.

1756 - St. Patrick's Day is celebrated in New York City for the first time (at the Crown and Thistle Tavern).

1776 - American Revolution: British forces evacuate Boston, Massachusetts after George Washington and Henry Knox place artillery overlooking the city.

1805 - The Italian Republic, with Napoleon as president, becomes the Kingdom of Italy, with Napoleon as King.

1845 - The rubber band is patented.

1901 - A showing of seventy-one Vincent van Gogh paintings in Paris, 11 years after his death, creates a sensation.

1960 - U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the National Security Council directive on the anti-Cuban covert action program that will ultimately lead to the Bay of Pigs Invasion.

1966 - Off the coast of Spain in the Mediterranean, the Alvin submarine finds a missing American hydrogen bomb.

1985 - Serial killer Richard Ramirez, the "Night Stalker", commits his first two murders in Los Angeles, California murder spree.


Happy Birthday:
1473 - King James IV of Scotland (d. 1513)

1804 - Jim Bridger, American trapper and explorer (d. 1881)

1919 - Nat King Cole, American singer (d. 1965)

1941 - Paul Kantner, American musician (Jefferson Airplane)

1942 - John Wayne Gacy, American serial killer (d. 1994)

1944 - Pattie Boyd, British photographer and model

1949 - Patrick Duffy, American actor

1951 - Kurt Russell, American actor

1955 - Gary Sinise, American actor

1964 - Rob Lowe, American actor

1967 - Billy Corgan, American musician (Smashing Pumpkins)


Deaths on this day:
45 BC - Titus Labienus, Roman leader

1040 - Harold Harefoot, King of England