Geekery

So I'm giving my 2-year old a bath last night, and in the middle of it, she sticks her two fingers up her nose. Not far enough to plug them, just barely in there, and starts breathing heavily through her nose. It makes this odd rasping noise as the breath rattles in and out. I'm struck with the similarity to a noise I can't quite place, and then AHA! I have it!!

I jump to my feet, strike an imperious pose, look down at my daughter, point my finger at her and proudly declaim...

"I AM YOUR FATHER!!!!"

(blink - blink)

My daughter looks at me like I'm crazy. I hear the faint tinkling of laughter from the living room as my wife makes the connection between the breathing and the declaration. I of course, begin humming the StormTrooper march, and my two year old is still looking at me like I'm just a little on the odd side(this from the one with her fingers up her nose).

When we finish up, and I'm walking back into the living room, my wife is like "you're such a geek!" I'm all, "Hey, you recognized it too!" :P

HEHE

Casey

Salute

The photo from last year, when, at midnight on September 10/11, members of the United States Marine Corps begin lowering the flag atop the White House to half-staff(or half-mast) in honor of those who fell on that fateful day.

The Marine on the left is saluting the flag in that memory.

What else can be said....


Casey

On Palin

So, Johnny-come-lately here, finally getting around to commenting on the nomination of Governor Sarah Palin for Vice President on the Republican ticket. I know, I know, I should have jumped on the commenting band wagon weeks ago, but feh, whattayagonnado?

Anyway, I like it. I think she's a strong candidate. She's the only candidate on either ticket with ANY experience at all in the executive branch of government. I think that in itself is an interesting point. Secondly, she seems to be a bit independant, and willing to go against the crowd, which makes her somewhat of a Maverick, very similar to Senator McCain.

That's actually the one of the biggest differences I see in the VP nominees at this point. Senator McCain picked someone very much like himself, who doesn't toe the party line, will go against the current of mainstream, and do what's right, because it's the right thing to do.

Senator Obama on the other hand, didn't pick a VP candidate based on how similar he was to himself, but based seemingly on what holes he could fill in the noticeable empty spots on his resume. What seemed like a good choice at the time, has turned out to be not so much of a good choice.

Now that the Veeps are chosen, the rhetoric has gone into overdrive, and it seems like the only thing the Dems have is mud-slinging. The Chairwoman of the South Carolina Democratic Party, stated that Governor Palin's main qualification for VP was that "she hasn't had an abortion"...Seriously.....don't believe me? Read about it here.

The Democrats need to be careful. The vitriol with which they're going after Governor Palin is reminiscent of the Republican attacks on Former President Clinton. Republicans were so rabid for Clinton, that they held impeachment hearings for a personal indiscretion on his part. That kind of silliness should have cost the Republicans the White House in 2000. The only reason Bush won, in my opinion, is the fact that Gore was such a non-candidate. He didn't learn to give a stirring public speech until after the elections were over, and they were disputing vote counts. If he had shown up with any kind of oratory prior to the election, I think he might have won. I know I for one, was quite disgusted with how the Republican party had acted towards President Clinton. Now it seems that the Democrats may be putting themselves in that same boat. The blind attacks against Palin aren't going to sway anyone who is already a McCain/Palin supporter, and far from their intent, may actually drive more moderate members of the Democratic party into the McCain/Palin camp.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens. Less than two months to go, and we may have a strong woman in the White House who actually got voted in there :)

Casey

Whew!!!

Another whirlwind week. We had the In-laws down from the "Commonwealth" of Massachusetts. They were here to see their grandchildren, and (and I quote)"those people they live with". But it was good fun all around. We took the kids out to a place called Hollywild. A sort of a zoo kind of place where they specialize in caring for exotic animals that have been used in movies, television, advertising, etc. There's even a petting zoo sort of area where the kids can feed little kibble to baby goats, a llama, some deer type critters, a few burros, and a Zonkey.

That's right, I said Zonkey. read about there HERE.

Apparently, they're what happens when a donkey and a zebra get together. Kinda of interesting, but a bit territorial. The big one kept butting the small burros out of the way to try and get all the food. Interesting looking critters nonetheless.

After that, was all of the family piled into the house as we had a birthday party for my oldest who was turning two. Add that into the fact that I was also trying to get yard work done, i.e. cutting some trees down to restore the view from the back porch, and still had to work my regular job during all of this wildness, and there just was not much time for anything else.

I've gotta get to work.

Casey

Saturday Shooting

Got together with a friend for some shooting Saturday afternoon. Nothing fancy, no ranges or shooting galleries, just some empty cans balanced on an old deadfall tree out back of the house. He was shooting 9mm out of a Glock, I was shooting .22LR out of my Heritage Arms Rough Rider, a nice single-action revolver. It's no Single-Six, but it gets the job done.

We each shot a hundred rounds or so, killing many nefarious cans, then resurrecting them to be killed again. I let my friend take a turn with the Rough Rider, and got a good laugh out of that. He's not really a revolver kind of guy, and I think this was the first time he'd ever shot a single action. As his first shot plowed into the dirt, he turned and said.."This thing has no trigger pull". Hehe, it's a single action revolver, they assume that once you cock that hammer back, you're planning to shoot something with it :) But seriously, it's a great revolver for someone working on getting rid of a flinch. There's no laborious pull to get a bang out of it. I often joke that if you breath heavy it'll go off.

Anyway, big fun shooting cans out back. Looks like I'll need to have a real gunsmith look at adjusting the sights. Even with the blade lined up all the way on the right edge of the rear sight, it still shoots down and to the left. Hope it's an easy fix, and it won't cost too much, as I just don't have the money for big fixins....

Hope your weekend was enjoyable too,

Casey