Harold stopped by today on the way through Southern Illinois.  Sube and I got to eat dinner with him and talk LiveCloud.  Hope to see him again soon.  Let this serve as an open invitation to other Clouders to come on down.

 

This is a very easy way to visually thank a member of the military for what they are doing for us.  Take a couple of minutes and learn how.


Click for Link

Checking to see if I can post photos.  

Apparently the photo must be on the net with a proper URL. Not able to find "Upload and attachment."  Hope is just a glitch.

 Last week, Sube, our son Chris, and I were sitting in a local Steak n Shake  at about 10:00 pm.  We had just finished the last of our Christmas shopping and we were looking forward to a delicious steakburger and chili.

About the time our food was being served, a party of about 10 Carnival workers entered the restaurant with great fanfare. The Carnies were dressed as if they had just got off work.  Rhinestone collars and elaborate uniforms with the name of a touring "Exotic Animals Exhibit" festooned on the back.  As they were being seated, one of them took off his uniform jacket.  He had a huge set of black eagle wings tattooed on  his back showing clearly underneath and creeping out of his wife-beater teeshirt.  

He rose and went back to the front of the restaurant and began putting money into one of those novelty claw machines.  The kind that took his money and gave him about thirty seconds to pick up a stuffed doll and transport it to the drop slot at the front of the machine.  Apparently, he REALLY wanted the Santa Claus stuffed doll.  He put dollar after dollar into the machine. Each time the claw would try to grab the Santa but just barely slip loose. The Carnie played the machine untill he realized he was out of money, he began borrowing money from others in the group.  Soon, nearly the entire party was gathered around the machine helping to urge him on.  It was quite the bonding moment. Other customers in the Steak n Shake began to take notice and offer encouragement (if not dollars). 

The suspense was palpable as the doll would fall from the claw at just the last second, prompting another round of pocket searching and pooling of quarters. As we finished our meal and exited, the Carnie was left alone at the machine, leaning on the front of the glass wall staring at the Santa doll.  It was sad to see the Carnie get outplayed by the Steak n Shake Carnie machine.  Seemed almost poetic.

I wonder about what a typical history class looks like in your part of the world.  Does it focus on National, local, county, state,  or provincial?  How far back does it cover? Is it Politically Correct (PC)? 

U.S. History tends to break down into 2 parts, up to the Civil War then after the Civil War.  Civics classes tend to touch on Current events and news stories.  Students take the Constitution test in Civics class as well.  

A lot of U.S. History revolves around involvement in war and the slow progression to equality.  Since our country is pretty new in the world scheme, we can cover it in one year.  

Let me know about your curriculum.  Kids in class and some of the teachers were wondering.

Barbers of a certain age, around the area I live, are passing away.  Lindall Taylor, fairly young man, gone.  Bruce Boone, been semi retired for awhile, gone.  Jon Martin, been barbering (and fishing) forever, gone.  Ron Seets Jr. has quit working at the shop and only cuts hair at the prison outside of Vienna, Illinois.  Ron Seets Sr., (my barber for about 30 years) still cutting hair, but is scaling back.  Upshot?  Time to start considering a new hair cuttery.

Ron Sr. KNOWS what I want done to my hair. It's the same every time. "Get it off my ears and neck, and THIN IT OUT.  Mostly, thin it out.  Then thin it out some more.  Sure, he may ask my opinion, but it isn't going to have any effect on how my hair is cut.

Ron Sr. talks about local politics, state, city and county.  I catch up on people who have come in lately. Folks that have retired from where I work that he sees weekly or so.  We talk about our kids, grandkids and other's kids and grandkids.  Know what we don't talk about?  WHAT A HAIRCUT IS!.

Ron Sr. is always closed on Mondays.  Always has been. Some kind of union thing maybe.  Saturday morning has always been my day to go hang out at the barbershop, read the newspaper and talk about the Friday night High School game.  Well, Ron Sr. has quit working on Saturdays.  Claims he has been cutting hair on Saturdays for 43 years, and he is tired. Not going to do it anymore.  Furthermore, he is going to close at 4:30 pm instead of 5:00 pm.  Well that does put a cramp in my style.  I get off work at 4:00 and there are usually several guys ahead of me, no matter when I show up.  After he told me that, I figured I may want to get someone new lined up in the wings to cut this mop of hair. Have I mentioned that my hair feels like the rear end of an unsheared poodle?

Well, upshot is, I went to a clip joint in the Walmart store.  Great Clips or some such.  Lady called me right back to the chair.  I was kind of nervous having never been in a clip joint like that before.  She asked me,  "So what do you want done with your hair?"  I replied, "A haircut." She wanted to know if I wanted to look at a style book.  "No, just get it off my ears and neck and thin it out." She answered with "But, how do you want it styled?"  I nearly ran from the joint.  "Uhhhh.. just a haircut."  Don't they teach Haircut 101 in Cosmotology any more?  Seems like there should be Basic Haircutting, then all the fancy stuff. 

I now make it a point to hurry on down to Ron Sr. straight after work to get my hair cut.  I don't know what I will do when he hangs up the apron.  Maybe he could do some index cards with our details, for us to take with us after he quits.

We have turned the corner on the back bedroom renovation. We are starting to put stuff back in.  The paneling is gone, the carpet is gone, the old drywall is gone, ceiling tiles and subfloor out of there.  So, Sube and I logged off of the Clouds long enough to drive to the Go to Place - The Home Depot.  

Sube and I picked up:
A  52 inch ceiling light and fan                   139.00
Drywall Screws                                        56.96
16 p nails                                                11.94
Wire nuts                                                 3.80
Folding Razor                                            8.78
250 foot of 12-3 wiring                              84.26
A couple of dang deals for the ceiling           53.94
Bunch of gang boxes, plug ins and switches   21.97

Total      with tax                                    423.57

Ouch.  Still have to get 20 sheets of 12 foot Drywall, OSB for the floor, luann (How do you spell that thin wood material that goes under the laminated flooring?)  Laminated flooring, mud and tape. Estimated expense left to put out $800.00  

I don't have to mow the yard today.  I managed to stall around surfing the clouds until it started to rain.  I RULE!  Here's what is looks like from our front porch.

Do you put them on one leg at a time?  Do you put them on while standing up? Then you may have had this happen to you.  I'm getting a little older now. (hold it down, it's the truth)  You know that part of dressing where you hold the underwear by each side and spread them open in order to make the best possible target for poking your leg in the leg hole? (left foot first, or right foot first?) ONCE in a while the foot will miss the hole and get tangled up in the underwear, or leg portion of the sock.  Why does one feel it so important to BEAT the underwear?  I WILL PROVE TO THE UNDERWEAR THAT I AM THE BETTER MAN!  So I continue to try to force my foot into the hole, even as I hop around the room or even worse start to fall over to the side.  THE UNDERWEAR WILL NOT BEAT ME!.  Why can't I just let them fall and bend over, pick them up and start over? It that such a crashing defeat?  One of these days I will go crashing out the French doors and be found bloodied on the back deck.  Police will arrive and wrap yellow DO NOT CROSS tape around my lifeless body.  Coroner will arrive and take one look. "I can tell you right now what happened here" he will see after taking note of the underwear still wrapped around my foot.  "It has nearly happened to me a hundred times"

Just let them go.