MMXI

Happy New Year everyone! I hope 2011 is a better year for you than last year was. I'm certainly hoping so. A lot of changes in 2010, some good some bad. Hopefully more of the good and not so much of the bad. But someone once said if life were easy it woldn't be as worthwhile. Sometimes I want to punch that person in the chops, y'know?

CCXXXIII

That's a pretty cool looking Roman numeral for 233 - the age of the United States today.

Happy 4^th of July, everyone!

12.....twelve.......12!.........twelve?

I find it hard to believe that my oldest child, V, turns 12 years old today. Yet it is an unavoidable truth.

How in the heck did that happen? Where has the time gone?


V,

Happy Birthday sweetheart. I hope you have a great day today. I'm so proud of you. You're growing up so fast. I love you, always.

Love,

Dad

---------

My dad's birthday is tomorrow. Happy 65^th, Pop.

Vernal Equinox

Spring begins right now in the Eastern United States.

Not a moment too soon, I'd say.

I'll happily be done with winter for a while.

Won't miss it a bit.

Barack Obama, 44th President of the United States.

Has a nice ring to it, does it not?

Now I can take the bumper sticker off of my car that promotes today as King George's last day. But that will have to wait until tomorrow because the Jag is in the shop, as the saying goes.

----

I think that Inauguration Day should be made into a National holiday, where businesses and government offices must close. I would have liked to watch today's festivities live, but instead had to settle for a clandestine, choppy Internet feed on my work computer. I'm going to find the video on-line again and watch the swearing in and inauguration speech again - uninterrupted.

I would have loved to have been there freezing my butt off standing on the Capitol Mall listening to everything going on - and enjoying the celebration.

However, now we must take care of some unfinished business!

In honor of Sir Deer-in-the-Headlights, his not-so majesty King George, leaving office at noon today, I'd like to present him with a choice of his very own Presidential seal:

Choice #1

OR

Choice #2

What do you think? They're both real nice but personally, I like #2 best!

Now let's leave the real Presidential Seal to a man who was not controversially elected by Hanging Chads, Supreme Court votes or Ohio recounts. To a man who I believe, some 25 years from now, history will judge as one of our best Presidents.



Did you notice that indeed Obama said "So Help Me God." at the end of his taking of the oath of office? I sure did.

get ready for the transition...

....or you'll miss it.

....from this year to next.

....from December to January

....from 2008 to 2009.

....from MMVIII to MMIX (gawd, I looooove Roman numerals - their so kewl!)

Any way you slice it though, it's just another flip of the calendar page to a new month. No big deal. Just so happens that we add one to the year. It's like the odometer in your car (the old kind with the actual numbers on little plastic discs that actually flip, not this digital stuff.)

I wonder what 2009 will bring?

My guess is more of the same... for most people. Those of you who will be fortunate or not so fortunate, depending on your circumstances, enough to go through some significant change in the coming year ought to realize how lucky you are.

I want change, but am I man enough to do it? Time will tell.

If you want my resolutions from 2008, go back here. I 'm not telling which of these I did or didn't keep last year. These are good resolutions and times are hard, what with the economy and all a goin' down the hopper and all, so I'm going to recycle those 2008 resolutions and use them again this year.

Independence Day

With the weather here in this part of the country being cool and overcast with some light rain today, I wasn't sure if I wanted to go to see the fireworks with V and M tonight.

Sure it's the 232^nd birthday of the United States - that little thing we call Independence Day. And what fun would this holiday be with out fireworks? Then I decided that we should go, since the last time I watched fireworks was with V and M - in 2005 and they were really looking forward to going with me.

The fireworks in Nashua began at 21:00 at Holman Stadium. We had to park about a mile away since the main parking lot and all of the streets close to the stadium were full. It took us about 30 minutes to walk to and from the stadium, which was actually fine, since it was good exercise and it did not rain the whole evening.

The fireworks actually lasted for a full 30 minutes and were excellent. Lots of bright colors and lots of loud noise. I was worried that we wouldn't get good seats on the lawn surrounding the stadium but we actually managed to find great seats. So good in fact that the fireworks were going off literally above our heads. We managed to have some of the firework debris/ashes land on our blanket and in our hair.


The pictures here are not from the fireworks display we saw tonight but rather just some random pictures I found when I googled images of fireworks tonight for this post.

I hope you all had a wonderful 4^th of July celebration, where ever you are.

===

Today is also Aphelion, which is when the Earth is as far away from the sun as it will get this year, a distance of 94,513,190 miles.

grad-yee-way-shun and a no-no

Yesterday my youngest sister graduated from college... again. This time with a Master of Arts in Clinical Mental Health Counseling.

Everyone say "Oooooooh! Aaaaaaah!

Actually I'm very proud of her accomplishments. Congrats, C. All the best to you.

I have to say though that as I was listening to all the speeches and associated graduation crapola that goes along with it, I couldn't help but chuckle at the idealism, hopefulness and anticipation of going out into the "real" world that I heard laced in every speech.

Sure, some in her graduating class might make it big or make a noticeable impact on society, but more than likely most of her graduating class will struggle to make ends meet and suffer through interminable job after interminable job, like most of us inevitably do.

Gee, do you think I'm a wee bit jaded, or what??

=======

Unlike last time, I didn't miss this one. (hello, Esther!)

Well, at least I saw the last three innings of Jon Lester's no-hitter tonight against the Kansas City Royals.

Because I'm a sports geek, one thing that I love is all of the neat statistics that ESPN and other media outlets dig up when someone pitches a no-no, like:

The Red Sox, as a team, have thrown 18 no-hitters in their history, second only to the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers.

The Red Sox are tied with the Yankees and Marlins for the most no-hitters since 1993 with four.

Lester's no-hitter was his first complete game in his major league career. He's 24.

Lester is the first Red Sox lefty to throw a no-hitter since Mel Parnell did it on July 14, 1956.

Jon Lester's no-hitter was the first no-hitter in the majors since teammate Clay Buchholz threw one last season. The last team to have two straight no-hitters was the Angels in 1974 and 1975, when Nolan Ryan threw both.

The Royals were no-hit for only the second time in franchise history. The first time was in 1973 by the Angels' Ryan.

It was only the second time that there has been a no-hitter in consecutive seasons at Fenway Park (1916-1917).

Red Sox Catcher Jason Varitek set a major league record, catching his fourth career no-hitter with four different pitchers (Hideo Nomo in 2001, Derek Lowe in 2002, Clay Buchholz in 2007 and Lester).

MMVIII

Out with the old and in with the new.

In years that is.

It's now officially 2008 in the Eastern Time Zone. The ball has dropped in New York City and Dick Clark sounds better this year than he did the last few years. How old is he? 80 something?

Many of you have brought in the New Year already, some of you have a few hours to go yet in 2007. Still I say, "Where has the time gone?"

Seems like we were hailing in 2007 only yesterday, yet it is now 2008.

I'll have more to say [look for updates in various colors] as the day progresses, but that will suffice for now, since I need to get some sleep.

Happy New Year, everyone.

[14:30] Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

Well, I'd rather not let it snow again, {sigh} but since I wasn't consulted, I'll just have to deal with it. The weather gnomes are prognosticating a dusting to two inches for this area. With the way it's steadily coming down now, I'd say we're going to get more than they predicted today. The precipitation we got on Sunday night/Monday morning was less than expected and was actually a wet, heavy snow. What snow is falling now appears to be more of the dry, fluffy stuff.

I, of course, don't like snow or the cold weather so I've had my fill of both for this winter already. One snowfall per year is pretty much all I can handle, so spring can't come soon enough for me.

I don't recall the specific amount of snow the Boston area had in December, but I do know it was .2" less than the record snowfall amount, set in 1970.

I just got back from dropping off V and M in Nashua. K was supposed to go to her grandparents house today (and pick V and M up along the way) but with the weather/roads being so bad and her not feeling well necessitated a change of plans. I'll see them again on Friday night, as always.

[16:40] As it would turn out, the weather gnomes were right - the snow tapered off quickly and we only got about an inch. More wet, slushy stuff though. No fun to shovel and not enough to break out the snow thrower. Good thing I'm not a weather gnome, then.

New Year's Resolutions:

i. Adhere to my daily Bible reading program. To say that I slacked off tremendously in 2007 would be a gross understatement. Now, which translation to use...

ii. Write for at least 15 minutes every day. No matter if it's Blogger, or in a notebook, or elsewhere on the computer, write whatever comes to mind. I found a years worth of daily writing prompts from 2001 that I halfheartedly worked on seven years ago, so I'll work on those. That novel I want to write just isn't going to evolve onto the paper with out thought and effort on my part..

iii. Aside from i. above; set aside time to read something else every day. The Sports page in the Boston Globe doesn't count (though I will read that, too!). Before bed is probably the time I will do this.

iv. Be less obsessed about surfing the Internet. Wow, this one's going to be hard. It'll be like quitting smoking, I think. Lord knows I've got other stuff that I can do instead. Heck, maybe I'll even go to bed earlier...

v. Get my financial self in order. An uphill battle to be sure but one that can be accomplished, with effort and a lot of discipline.

I was going to add that I should resolve to lose weight and quit smoking, but since I don't need to do either of those things, I won't worry about them.

[22:44] And finally, two bad jokes to begin the new year...

Su Wong marries Lee Wong. The next year, the Wongs have a new baby. The nurse brings over a lovely, healthy, bouncy, baby boy

But definitely a Caucasian, WHITE baby boy. "Congratulations," says the nurse to the new parents. "Well Mr. Wong, what will you and Mrs. Wong name the baby?"

The puzzled father looks at his new baby boy and says,

"Well, two Wong's don't make a white, so I think we will name him..."


Are you ready for this???




Are you sure you are ready??



Well.... here it comes...




"Sum Ting Wong!!!"

and

What's Irish and stays outside all of the time?











(In your best Irish brogue:) Patty O'Furniture