Category Archives: Friends & Family

Excellent news: Stefan Robichaux, my fellow Cajun Marine, is off the hook for borrowing a picnic table for his marriage proposal.

Yet another test.
Update: chmod u+x is your friend. Comments should work now.

My wonderful wife Arlene now has a blog: arlenesplace.com. Feel free to drop by and leave her a comment saying “hello”.

I recently finished helping my friend Brian Dreier build a new web site for his Japanese sword business, Ronin Swords. Along the way I learned a ton of new vocabulary (for example, I now know what tsuka-maki are, not to mention same). If you’re into actual or reproduction Japanese swords, check out Brian’s site at roninswords.com.

Newegg has the Samsung ML-2010 laser printer (review here) at $127.95. Scroll down to “Combo Specials” and pickup a free Rosewill Wireless Keyboard and Mouse combo. Enter promo code “sam2010” during checkout for $40 off the printer. Send for the Newegg-exclusive $50 rebate. Shipping is $14.95. Your net cost: $53 or so.

The Greater Toledo chapter of the American Red Cross is low on blood… again. They’re operating a blood drive at the St. George Orthodox Cathedral building (738 Glenwood Road, Rossford) on Saturday, August 20, 2005. Hours are from 0830-1330. If you’re eligible to donate (over 17, over 110lbs, good health), please come by and donate– donated blood saves lives. If you want to reserve a specific time, you can make an appointment on the GiveLife web site– just use TOLEDOROTARY as the sponsor code.

Day 2 of our trip! I almost forgot to blog it, but then I saw a Wall Drug brochure on the table and that sparked my memory. We woke up in Worthington, had a delicious [sic] hotel breakfast, and hit the trail headed west.

Some things in the world stand up well to repeated viewings– places you’d be willing to see again. Others are worth one visit, no more. Our first stop fell into the latter category: the world-famous Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD. I’d never heard of it before; it’s basically a small sports arena whose outside is decorated with (you guessed it) corn (see picture below). It was fun, and there were lots of other Nice Things in the surrounding area, including statues of Elvis and the Blues Brothers. Mom got some pictures of the boys with Mr. Corn, the Corn Palace mascot, but I don’t have them here.

After a long and not particularly interesting drive, we hit our second planned stop: Wall Drug. This was another category-2 attraction; they have every kind of western-themed souvenir crap you can imagine (and a lot you probably haven’t), plus some mildly interesting curiosities. The boys loved it; my favorite part was the ice cream we had there. Then it was back on the road, a dinner stop at the Fuddruckers’ in Rapid City, and on to the campground!

It’s made of corn!

Tim with the King

The Greater Toledo chapter of the American Red Cross is low on blood… again. They’re operating a blood drive at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints building on Ohio Route 795 in Perrysburg. The drive is on Saturday, April 30, from 10am to 3pm. If you’re eligible to donate (over 17, over 110lbs, good health), please come by and donate– donated blood saves lives. If you want to reserve a specific time, feel free to email me and I’ll get you signed up.

After seeing SantaSpeaking.com mentioned in the WSJ, I decided that Thomas might need a call from the Big Guy to help focus his attention on his behavior a little bit. I booked him for a call between 4-5pm on Saturday, which meant he had to miss part of a friend’s birthday party. He wasn’t very happy, especially when we wouldn’t tell him why he had to stay home. About 4:58pm, the call finally came. Earlier in the day, I’d dropped by Radio Shack and got the cable necessary to hook up my phone to the computer (courtesy of my Griffin iMic). While Arlene answered the phone, I ran downstairs and fired up Audio Hijack; I was a few seconds late, but I caught most of the call (including the part where Santa says Thomas needs to “exercise more.. exercise more self-control”). Enjoy!

Courtesy of my friend (and fellow MVP) Martin Tuip, this video of water going over Snoqualmie Falls, which are more impressive than usual thanks to a large mass of unexpected snowmelt.

All you have to do is play a simple board-game trivia contest. See http://www.delta.com/dashtothegate. It takes about 5 minutes. Now Arlene, David, Thomas, and I all have more miles than we did before! Yay! Let’s go to Hawaii!

Thomas doesn’t eat lunch at school until 1:30, so his class has snack time about 11:00. He’s been taking bananas, but recently decided that he didn’t want to because they sometimes get squashed in his backpack. The natural solution: I’m getting him a Bananaguard for Christmas. Those wacky Canadians!

For some reason, MasterFoods (the fine folks who bring us, among other things, M&Ms) don’t have a MasterList of their gluten-free products on their web site. I called their customer care hotline and spoke to Tammy, who told me that they don’t make the list broadly available. However, when pressed, she admitted that plain and peanut M&Ms (but not the crispy kind, which are nasty anyway) are gluten-free, as are Snickers, Skittles, Starburst, Milky Way bars, Dove bars, and 3 Muskateers bars. So, if you need Arlene, you might be able to find her by following the trail of forbidden candy wrappers…