Quote of the day

"If you don't stand behind our troops . . . feel free to stand in front of them."
-Unknown

What Next?

So we're done with the Atkins diet and the South Beach diet. Anorexia has not been in style since the days of Twiggy. So what is the new diet fad going to be? The Da Vinci Code Diet.

Yes, that's right. There is a new diet gaining momentum in the subculture of Oprah and all the other perpetual fad dieters. The concept behind this is the "Golden Ratio" which is a mathematical concept used by the builders of pyramids and Leonardo Da Vinci. Da Vinci's use of the Golden Ratio in his paintings was used in the book "The Da Vinci Code."

So apparently if you use the Golden Ratio to restructure your food pyramid, it will help you to lose weight, with the minor side effect of causing you to be gullible enough to believe outrageous and poorly researched heresies.

The proponent of the Da Vinci Code diet is a man named Stephan Lanzolotta from Portland, Maine. I guess we know why it's called the "Da Vinci Code Diet." The "Lanzolotta Diet" just doesn't have the same ring to it, plus it's a pain in the adipose tissue to spell.

The diet consists mainly of fish, cheese, bread, veggies, meats, and nuts. Pretty much the exact opposite of the other recent fad diets.

I'm confused. Is the best diet low fat? or is it low calorie? or is it low carb? or is it low fact and large doses of heresy? I don't know but I do know that these diet gurus need to make up their collective diet-obsessed minds and settle on one lose-weight quick scheme. In the meantime, I'll stick to the "Crispy Creme Diet."

Funny Story

Everything I have posted up to this point has been original. This post is from an email that I received. I hate forwards, but usually read them anyways. If you send me a forward, it had better be funny; if I get to the end and it is sad or sappy, I will not be happy!

A priest, a Pentecostal preacher and a Rabbi all served as chaplains to the students of Northern Michigan University in Marquette.

They would get together two or three times a week for coffee and to talk shop. One day, someone made the comment that preaching to people isn't really all that hard. A real challenge would be to preach to a bear.

One thing led to another and they decided to do an experiment They would all go out into the woods, find a bear, preach to it,and attempt to convert it.

Seven days later, they're all together to discuss the experience.

Father Flannery, who has his arm in a sling, is on crutches, and has various bandages, goes first."Well," he says, "I went into the woods to find me a bear. And when I found him I began to read to him from the Catechism. Well, that bear wanted nothing to do with me and began to slap me around. So I quickly grabbed my holy water, sprinkled him and he became as gentle a lamb. The bishop is coming out next week to give him first communion and confirmation."

Reverend Billy Bob spoke next. He was in a wheelchair, with an arm and both legs in casts, and an IV drip. In his best fire and brimstone oratory he claimed, " WELL brothers, you KNOW that we don't sprinkle! I went out and I FOUND me a bear. And then I began to read to my bear from God's HOLY WORD! But that bear wanted nothing to do with me. So I took HOLD of him and we began to wrestle. We wrestled down one hill, UP another and DOWN another until we came to a creek. So I quick DUNKED him and BAPTIZED his hairy soul. And just like you said, he became as gentle as a lamb. We spent the rest of the day praising Jesus."

They both looked down at the rabbi, who was lying in a hospital bed. He was in a body cast and traction with IV's and monitors running in and out of him. He was in bad shape.

The rabbi looks up and says, "Looking back on it, circumcision may not have been the best way to start things out with my bear".

My Visit to the Modern Torture Chambers

I finally had a dentist appointment today, which is my first since high school. I know that's bad but now that I have dental insurance I have no excuse.

The dental hygenist led me back to the room after I filled out the mountain of paperwork and got me ready for my check up. I leaned back in the nice comfortable chair and looked and the flat panel TV on the ceiling that was showing only a picture of some pink flowers on it; too bad- I wanted to watch CSI or something while I was getting tortured. I guess it could have been worse; they could have made me watch reruns of "The Nanny" with the volume turned way up. Now THAT would have been torture!

Dentist office's have come a long way since high school. I think my last dentist had a picture of a puppy or a kitten on his ceiling.

I didn't have much time to contemplate on the TV screen because the hygenist got right to work. It was at that moment that I remembered why people hate dentist office visits. She said my teeth didn't look too bad for 7 years without a cleaning but she sure did a lot of scraping. The worst part was I could never tell when she was in the room when she wasn't scraping because I was reclined in the chair. I would go 2-3 minutes without seeing or hearing her and just as I thought it was safe to let go of that gas I'd been holding she would pop back into my line of vision and start digging again.

Four hours later ( I think) when she was done, the muscles around my mouth were so sore that I couldn't close my mouth and I wasn't sure if I had teeth left. There was no mirror in the room, but if there had been I'm sure I had blood all over my face.

The dentist came in and glanced at my teeth; seeing nothing greatly amiss, he took a quick look at mu X-rays before leaving the room. That was where the problem was. Apparently my two upper cuspids are both baby teeth and the adult teeth above them are perfectly poised to come in when the baby ones fall out. Apparently my dental development gland fell asleep on the job 11 years ago and hasn't gotten back to work yet. You can't see the other teeth or anything and they didn't bother me until today. The dentist told me that if he had only looked at my xray and hadn't seen me, he would have guessed that I was 12 or 13. Of course, if he spent more time with me he really may have started to think that.

We'll see what the orthodontist has to say about my funky teeth. I think they're fine the way they are. Can you imagine how stupid I will look with two teeth missing at the same time? Don't answer that.

Come to think of it, I may just blend right in with some of the people around here.

After all that the dentist office gave me a free toothbrush and some free floss. How cheap is that? They couldn't even give out a little candy or anything.

Lessons Learned

Having grown up in New England, I always knew that when you go outside in the winter you do not touch your tongue to anything frozen, especially metal. I'm not sure why you would want to lick a water pump handle or a flagpole, but it has been done.

Fortunately, I live in South Carolina now so I don't have to worry about those sub zero winters. Of course I don't have to worry about getting my tongue stuck on cold metal. Right?

Well, I learned something new last week. An ice cream scoop that still has some ice cream on it can cause the same reaction to a wet tongue that a frozen flagpole can. I also learned that you should obey your common sense and use hot water to get your tongue off and not assume that it will only hurt for a minute when you yank it off.

Actually, if you yank it off, it will take a small chunk of tissue with it. I have licked off thousands of ice creams scoops and never gotten stuck before; but this time was different. I got it stuck on my tongue and the back of my upper lip; if you put your finger on the inside of your upper lip and feel around for the most sensitive spot, you've got exactly where it stuck. After I ripped the spoon out, my tongue escaped unscathed but my lip was not so fortunate. After the pain subsided, I sat down to eat my ice cream and noticed the taste of blood in my mouth.

Needless to say, I have learned my lesson. My mouth is still very sensitive when I eat, four days later, especially when I eat salty food (or say, the vinegar in Italian dressing at a particular wedding reception!).

The animals at Drayton

We saw quite a bit of wildlife while at Drayton Hall. The one I didn't get a picture of was a large snake that I saw just the tail end of as it disappeared into some bushes.

There were lizards all over the place. They were cool but they kept trying to sell us car insurance.


This little raccon had gotten separated from its family and was sleeping in the grass. I don't think it was hurt but it looked pretty pitiful. It tasted like chicken. Just kidding. We reported it to the park staff.
During our hike in the woods, we happened upon this little rabbit. It kept a wary eye on us but let us get up pretty close.

Charleston

Friday we left for a short jaunt down to Charleston for a friend's wedding. Sarah's brother lives near Charleston so we saved a little money and camped out in his living room.

Saturday morning we went to Drayton Hall Plantation which is "the oldest plantation house in America open for tours." It was old. And beautiful. The interior of the house had not been restored but you could still se the ornate work of the builders. It makes me wonder how they did that with the technology available in that day. It's quite remarkable.

Drayton Hall was on a large plot of land on the Ashley River. After the house tour we walked around and admired the land and the wildlife. Wildlife pictures to follow this blog.

Around noon we left for Charleston. We parked and walked down to Market Street. I wanted to eat at Bocci's, an Italian restaurant that we ate at last time. Unfortunately they are only open for dinner. We ate at the Charleston Crab House instead. I had a Mediterranean Pasta that had scallops, shrimp, olives, and feta cheese in a white wine sauce over fettucine. It was soo good.

We walked down on the water front and down to the battery and then all the way up Market street to where we were parked. Charleston is really a beautiful old city. I don't think I could ever live there- between the $1,000,000 price tags and being in the city- but it is a wonderful place to visit.

We left downtown and went to the park where the wedding was going to be. Since we had just come from walking around I had to change into my suit in the car (Sarah had been able to change more modestly) but I was able to find a remote place to park and change.

Dan and Susan's wedding was very elegant and beautiful, I must say. the ceremony was outside in the park and the weather was perfect with maybe just a little wind.

The ceremony was at a nice hotel on the other side of the river.We had a choice of chicken or beef for dinner and both had the chicken. We had a great time catching up with some other friends from school.

Well, the party's over and we are safely home. With Nathan living so close to Charleston we will definately be visiting with him a lot. Maybe next time he and his wife can accompany us.

The Downside of a Good Day Out

After I returned from the baseball game yesterday I found one of the unpleasant results of spending a wonderful day outside having fun. I was playing with Carina and she jumped up and scratched my leg, just above my knee. It was at that moment that I realized that sitting down at the game for 3 hours had caused my shorts to come up a little bit, exposing about 4 inches of the untanned skin of my upper legs- for three straight hours. My legs were bright red and quite warm. Ouch. This morning in the shower I also found out that my arms were burnt too, even though I con't see any redness. Either that or the water in the shower had turned to some sort of corrosive acid that was burning its way down my legs and arms.

Wahoo! We won!!!!!

My friend (and former roomate in college) Jared and I went to a Greenville Drive game today. It was supposed to be a large group of us but in my infinite wisdom I chose a time where no one else could attend. Well, the two of us had fun.

The Greenville Drive are a Single-A affiliate of the Boston Red Sox.

We arrived at the stadium early to buy tickets and made our way to the ticket booth. I ran into a nurse I know from the ER and we got to talking. It turns out they bought tickets for a group and had two extra tickets that they gave us. We got in for free; how cool is that? The seats were awesome too. Just on the outfield side of first base.

The game got started off well with the Drive taking the lead. After the second inning some of the PR people came out on the field and threw T-shirts into the crowd. Apparently I made enough noise because they threw one to me ( I know I made some noise because my throat hurts now).

The visiting team (Hickory Crawdads-yes, you can laugh, we did too) took the lead in the top of the fourth but the Drive came back and tied it 2-2 in the bottom of the 4th. No more runs were scored all the way into the bottom of the ninth when the bases were loaded with 2 outs. The wind up, the pitch . . . hit deep to center field, WAY DEEP TO CENTER FIELD, IT'S GONE! WALK OFF GRAND SLAM!!! (I may have made some noise here too)

How cool is that?

Anyway, the Drive's brand new ballpark is built in the middle of downtown Greenville and is modeled after Fenway Park in Boston (if you didn't know Fenway was in Boston, you can leave my blog now and not come back), complete with a Green Monster. It's not quite Fenway but the best seats in the house are $8.00 so it's a good substitute. No Boston Baked Beans though.

I forgot my camera so I downloaded this picture. It is on my blog courtesy of Ballpark Digest. We pretty much sat right in front of where this picture was taken; right where that bald guy is (no, that's not me).

You're Interested in what?!?!?

I have been searching on blogger.com under people's interests, just to see what kind of things people put down. (I am supposed to be working in the yard right now but it is hot and I am tired.) I came inside, poured a mixed drink (kool-aid and Sierra Mist-try it sometime!) checked my email, and got distracted.

There is a lady from North Carolina who listed "Cloth Diapers" as one of her interests. Now, I don't know how many kids she has, but I really can't see cloth diapers as interesting regardless of how many stinky rugrats you have. I wonder if this is a common interest; is there a Cloth Diapers magazine? Support groups?

One person listed"linux, guns, electronics." That sounds like a very dangerous person to me. they probably have their own personal agent in the ATF (whether they know it or not).

There is an 18 year old who listed 80s music as an interest. Now I can see having an interest in music in general, or a genre of music, or even a particular decade of music-like the 50s, but 80s music? 80s music sounded bad in the 80s!

Here's another good combination- "pokemon, grapefruit, dinosaurs." What?!? Believe it or not, this person was over 18.

How about "fire twirling"? That sounds like a winner. I can imagine how that guy's dates go.
Girl: So what do you like to do for hobbies?
Guy: Well, I like fire twirling.
Girl: What's that?
Guy: Well, it's where you light sticks on fire and spin them around and try not to drop them. If you're really good, you can juggle them and stuff.
Girl: Oh, you know what? I just realized I'm supposed to have a colonoscopy today. I have to go.

How can one admit to having an interest in "rare chickens"? I have nothing to comment on this one. I can't even think of how to mock this hobby.

"Tatoos, crocheting, breastfeeding."

I think that's about all I can handle right now. I know that these people probably look at my interests page or read my blog and laugh at me, but seriously-cloth diapers?