The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 3,700 times in 2015. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 3 trips to carry that many people.
Happy Friday and Merry Christmas to you! One of the great things about this time of year is hearing songs you have sung for many Christmases and watching Christmas specials that you have enjoyed since you were a kid.
This week I thought I would give you a special encore edition of a Friday Funny from 2009 (before I knew what a blog was). So, with apologies to Clement Clarke Moore, here is my adaptation of his classic for the digital age.
Enjoy!
‘Twas the day before Christmas, when at my house
I was at the computer, moving the mouse;
It was time for another Friday Funny, does anyone care
If in the morning, the email inbox has a funny there?
Two of my boys were still nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of homemade cookies danced in their heads;
While mamma was working, I was off for the day,
It seemed like there was nothing funny for me to say,
When out on the Internet there arose such a clatter,
I sprang to my browser to see what was the matter.
Away to another window I flew like a flash,
Hoping as always that my computer would not crash.
The back-lighting of the monitor produced a glow
Which gave a slight luster to objects below,
As I wondered from web site to web site what should appear,
But a miniature sleigh jpg, complete with reindeer,
With a little driver icon, so lively and quick, I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
More rapid than dsl downloads his cursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;
“Now, Yahoo! now, Google! now, Facebook and Amazon!
On, ebay! on youtube! on, myspace and ask.com!
To the top of the screen! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!”
As deleted lines that before the backspace button fly,
When they meet with a click, mount to the sky,
So up to the screen-top the cursers they flew,
With a file full of toys, and St. Nicholas too.
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the speaker
The prancing and pawing of each little squeaker.
As I drew in my hand, and was scrolling around,
Downloading an mpeg, St. Nicholas came with a bound.
He was digitally dressed from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were photo-shopped with ashes and soot;
A bundle of toys he had superimposed on his back,
And he looked like a Trojan file just opening his pack.
His eyes — they pulsated! his dimples they grew!
His cheeks had roses painted on them, his nose was blue!
His droll little mouth transfigured to a bow,
And the beard of his chin turned into white snow;
His pipe was a tree stump he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke wafted up and became a green wreath;
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook, when he laughed and turned into jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;
Two winking eyes and a fast spinning head,
Soon gave me to know I had no virus to dread;
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
He backed up my hard drive; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the window he rose;
He sprang to his jpg, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ere he deleted his cookie from sight,
“Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.”
Thought for the Week
There has been only one Christmas – the rest are anniversaries. ~W.J. Cameron
http://www.quotegarden.com
The next presidential election is more than a year away and by all appearances it is going to be a very, very long year. We will hear a whole bevy of candidates telling us how they will solve all our problems and why every other candidate is a low-life scum bag that is not worthy of consideration. There will be name calling, mud-slinging, false claims and smear campaigns. It will not be pretty and odds are most people will be disgusted at some point along the way.
Yet, come November of 2016 we will vote and in January of 2017, a new President will be inaugurated and the “Great American Experiment” will continue. I am not the most politically minded person. Over the course of my life I have been disappointed by Presidents and majorities of both parties. But over the course of the next year I will do what I can to understand the candidates and I will cast my vote.
I am not very pleased with a lot that is going on in Washington these days; however, very recently I was in the nation’s capital to attend a conference. It was a pretty brief trip with not a lot of extra time for sightseeing. Yet, after lunch, I went for a walk that took me by the White House. In front of me was the place that has been the home of every US President since John Adams occupied it in 1800. This is as much a symbol of American and what we stand for as anything. It should remind us of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
This next year will be messy, but the end result will the continuation of a dream that remains the envy of much of the world.
Happy Friday! This week I wanted to share a little story about potatoes that has been around for a while.
Enjoy!
I am sure you know that all potatoes have eyes. Well, once upon a time, Mr. and Mrs. Potato had eyes for each other. They fell in love, got married, then one wonderful day, they had a little sweet potato, whom they called ‘Yam’.
Of course, the parents wanted the very best for Yam and when it was time, they told her about the facts of life. They warned her about going out and getting half-baked, so she wouldn’t get accidentally mashed, and get a bad name for herself like ‘Hot Potato’, and end up with a bunch of Tater Tots.
Yam said not to worry, no Spud would get her into the sack and make a rotten potato out of her! But on the other hand she did not want to just sit around the house and become a Couch Potato. She also decided that she would get plenty of exercise so as not to be too skinny like her shoestring cousins.
Before she off on a sightseeing trip to Europe, Mr. and Mrs. Potato warned her to watch out for the Hard Boiled guys from Ireland as well as the greasy guys from France called the French Fries. And when she traveled to the Western US, they told her to watch out for the Indians so she wouldn’t get scalloped. Yam said she would stay on the straight and narrow and wouldn’t associate with those high-class Yukon Golds, or the ones from the other side of the tracks who advertise their trade on all the trucks that say, ‘Frito Lay.’
Mr. and Mrs. Potato saved up their money and proudly sent Yam off to Idaho P.U. (that’s Potato University) so that when she graduated she’d really be in the Chips.
Yet, in spite of all they did for her, one day Yam came home and announced she was going to marry Tom Brokaw.
Tom Brokaw! Mr. and Mrs. Potato were very upset. They told Yam she couldn’t possibly marry Tom Brokaw because he’s just a……………..Common Tater.
Thought for the Week
Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something. ~ Plato
Labor Day has come and gone and now summer is unofficially, officially over. Most kids have been in school for a couple of weeks and are trying to get settled into the new routines. A new school year brings so many great opportunities: new classes, new teachers, new friends, new challenges. However, a new school year also brings new school pictures.
At first that may not seem like a big deal. Well, yes, it really is kind of a big deal. If you think about it, a school picture is a permanent record of how cool, or usually in my case, how dorky you were each year.
In my early elementary school years, “Picture Day” was a time that all the moms found something nice for their children to wear and sent them off to school where we were marched one class at a time into the gymnasium where we got to stand on risers with our teacher on one end and the principal on the other end to have our picture taken as a class. The great thing about these black and white class pictures was that one was able to kind of blend in with all the other kids so that no one really stood out. There was always going to be a couple of kids with their eyes closed, a couple of kids with an odd expression, and a couple of kids whose mother forgot it was picture day and forgot to dress accordingly. The point being there were always enough “bad” pictures in the class picture that no one kid stood out.
However, during my middle school years, there were two ominous developments related to school pictures. First, the pictures would now be in color and second, and more disastrous, everyone would have their picture taken individually. While both of these may sound like a good idea, remember I was in those middle school years where even the coolest kid, which I was not, looks kind of dorky.
Now there was no place for me to blend in or hide, just me and the camera and the results were not pretty. To illustrate my point, the picture above is what I consider to be one of the worst school pictures I ever had. This picture is a “permanent record” of several things. First, not once in my life was my hair “cool.” Second, I will finally admit that glasses always made me a look a bit nerdy. Third, I have realized that I never had a “fashion sense” (an accountant can play it pretty safe by just sticking with white shirts). They say a picture is work a thousand words, I would say this picture is worth a lot less than a thousand words. I think two words: “nerd” and “dork” come to mind. Along with two questions: 1) Who bought that shirt? and 2) If my Mother loved me, why would she ever let me out of the house wearing that shirt?
Perhaps you never gave school pictures a second thought, just wait a few decades and you will.
Happy Friday! Happy Labor Day Weekend! This week I wanted to share some “facts” about TV and motion picture action star Chuck Norris. In case you have not come across these, Chuck Norris “facts” are satirical factoids about the actor that have taken on a life of their own and spread around the world. Here are some of my favorites.
Enjoy!
Chuck Norris can cut a knife with butter.
Chuck Norris can speak French… In Russian.
Chuck Norris can hear sign language.
Chuck Norris can speak braille.
Chuck Norris counted to infinity. Twice.
Chuck Norris knows the last digit of Pi.
Chuck Norris can divide by zero.
Once a rattlesnake bit Chuck Norris’ leg. After five days of excruciating pain, the snake died.
Chuck Norris can kill two stones with one bird.
Chuck Norris doesn’t wear a watch. He decides what time it is.
Big foot claims he saw Chuck Norris.
Chuck Norris makes onions cry.
When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night he checks his closet for Chuck Norris.
Chuck Norris tells Simon what to do.
Chuck Norris is the reason Waldo is hiding.
Chuck Norris’s Blood Type is AK-47.
Chuck Norris can strangle you with a cordless phone.
Chuck Norris can do a wheelie on a unicycle.
Chuck Norris doesn’t dial the wrong number, you pick up the wrong phone.
Chuck Norris won the tour de France, on a stationary bike.
Chuck Norris can slam a revolving door.
Chuck Norris can start a fire by rubbing two ice cubes together.
Chuck Norris made a Happy Meal cry.
Chuck Norris Runs until the treadmill gets tired.
Death once had a near-Chuck-Norris experience.
Thought for the Week
“Bacon is the Chuck Norris of food. There’s no reviewing it. It’s bacon. It reviews you. Now go.” – Anonymous
It occurred to me the other day that it was thirty-nine years ago this month that I first joined the ranks of those who are gainfully employed. It was just about the time that I was beginning my senior year at Meadowdale High School when my Dad came home from Sherer’s with a couple of hot fudge sundaes and a scoop about a job. He told me that there was a sign taped on the cash register at Sherer’s that they were looking for help. Now if there was ever a job that I was destined for, this was it! I got up right then and went to talk to Mr. Sherer. I came back ready to join the work force at a whopping $1.30 an hour. I still have my first pay slip and a $1 from my first pay. For some reason, Mr. Sherer did not have ice cream sodas on his menu board, so I guess technically I was not a soda jerk. I guess I was just a plain jerk.
I always enjoyed going to Sherer’s as a kid to get a cone or a malt or a sundae or to bring home a half-gallon of his ice cream that was made on the premises in a ten gallon freezer. Sherer’s stood on North Main Street in Dayton for sixty years as a constant in an ever-changing world. Many other businesses came and went, Forest Park Shopping Center cropped up and crumbled down, but Sherer’s was always there. It was the place to go in Dayton for real home-made ice cream.
We pretty much always have some Ice Cream around my house these days and the stuff you buy at the grocery is pretty good. But as a kid, the stuff at the grocery store tasted more like fluffed air than ice cream. So, it was a treat to go to Sherer’s for two scopes of chocolate ice cream on a cake cone, back before my first job opened my eyes to the wonderful world of flavors that existed beyond chocolate, vanilla and strawberry.
I learned a lot of things working at Sherer’s, skills that have come in handy at just about every job I have ever had: to listen and be polite to the customer, to make change (without a screen telling me how much the change was), answering the hard questions like “What does the root beer ripple taste like?” (Gee, it tastes like vanilla ice cream with root beer mixed in.) I also learned how to put whipped cream on a sundae so that it doesn’t immediately slide down the side, a skill that I can still use to impress friends and family. I learned that the ice cream business is a little slow when it is twenty degrees below zero as happened that winter. I learned that you have to work a little faster when it is eighty degrees outside and you have a room full of people waiting to order ice cream.
I learned that hot fudge is good on just about any ice cream flavor with the possible exception of rum raisin. I leaned that marshmallow topping should be part of any ice cream fan’s topping arsenal. I did not make a lot of money, but I learned what it was like to have a job, to show up on time, to help keep the store clean. Perhaps I did not realize it then, but I also learned that it is a tremendous benefit it is to work for good people.
One thing I am pretty certain of is that I will never again have a boss who every time he comes in after his dinner break his first words will be “Why don’t you make us a chocolate malt and put a little whipped cream on top.”
Today is Memorial Day, a holiday that for many people signals the beginning of summer. Amusement parks and pools are open. The school year is winding down. Many people gather with friends and family to cook out and eat a picnic. However, we would be remiss it we did not stop to ponder for a moment what this day is really about.
Today is Memorial Day, a say set aside to honor those who have given the ultimate sacrifice in service to their country. The origins go back to the mid 1800’s during the time of the War Between the States when flowers were placed on the graves of those who had been killed in battle. Many will visit cemeteries and place flags and flowers on the graves of those who served in the various military branches. The President traditionally visits the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery to place a wreath. Around the nation there are parades and services to commemorate the day. It is worth noting the word Holiday is a combination of two words “holy” and “day” and was originally a day of dedication to religious observance.
However, it is easy to get so caught up in the thrill of a three-day weekend that we forget what this holiday is about and the price that has been paid so that we can enjoy it. It was recently pointed out to me that wishing someone a “Happy Memorial Day” is a bit of an oxymoron. Happy is a word that has connotations of pleasure, enjoyment, gladness; hardly words that fit with death and battle. Memorial Day is a day that reminds us that our history is “messy.” Ours is a country that was born out of struggle and has been in and out of struggles since 1776. The price of freedom and democracy is high and this is a day to remember those who were not only willing to pay the price but did pay the price.
Yes, our history is a messy and we are tempted to forget that. The result of the Revolutionary War produced a republic that is itself rather messy. In fact the only thing messier than democracy is the lack of democracy. Today, we continue to see those around the world that fear freedom and democracy and instead seek to intimidate through fear. We must continue the struggle for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and ability to continue this struggle is made possible by those we remember on this day.
So, I would encourage you to take time this day to remember the sacrifice that those have made for the greater good and I would say to you, “Have a Good Memorial Day.”
Happy Friday! Congratulations! You have made it to the end of February! Hang in there winter is almost over, even if it does not feel like it or look like it. We cannot change the weather, but we can laugh at it. So, here are some snow jokes. Enjoy them before they melt!
The stressed out snowman was acting flaky. That was, until he had a meltdown. And finally he was indicted for having a slush fund.
What do snowmen eat for breakfast? Frosted Flakes
What did one snowman say to the other snowman? Do you smell carrots?
How does a snowman get to work? By Icicle.
What do you call a gangsta snowman? Froze-T
Where does a snowman keep his money? In a snow bank
What do you call an old snowman? Water
What do snowmen call their offspring? Chill-dren
Where do snowmen go to dance ? Snowballs
What do snowmen wear on their heads? Ice caps
What did the snowman and his wife put over their baby’s crib? A snowmobile
What do snowmen eat for lunch? Icebergers
What is the favorite Mexican food of snowman? Brrrr- itos
What did one snowman say to the other snowman as they parted? Have an ice day!
Thought for the Week
“People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.” ~ Rogers Hornsby
At this time of the year, we are bombarded by holiday music. Some stations have had Christmas music nonstop since the end of November. Perhaps, like me, you find yourself singing along once in a while with one of your favorites. Perhaps certain songs bring back a special Christmas memory. Perhaps, by now, you have just become numb as all the songs have just blended into white noise in the background.
Yet, even though we cannot get away from the Holiday songs, do we really “hear” them? Even though we might sing along with the lyrics, do we really “know” them? One song comes to my mind today. It is a song that you hear occasionally this time of year, “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.”
This lyrics were written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow on Christmas Day 1863. He wrote at a time that this country was torn by Civil War and just several weeks after his son had been severely wounded in the war. He wrote it not too long after he had lost his wife in an accidental fire. Mr. Wadsworth’s world was not full of candy canes and gum drops, it was full of hurt and pain just like the world that we live in. Yet, he did not let his gloom get the best of him, he struggled on until he could hear those “bells peal more loud and deep.” This Christmas Eve my wish to you is that you might hear “a voice, a chime, a chant sublime, Of peace on earth, good will to men.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
I thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along the unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
And in despair I bowed my head:
“There is no peace on earth,” I said,
“For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.”
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth he sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,
With peace on earth, good will to men.”
Till, ringing singing, on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime, a chant sublime,
Of peace on earth, good will to men!
Leonard's Lines 