My dad

What's your dad's first name? William. He was Will to his family in Pennsylvania but for some reason, people automatically called him Bill here in Connecticut.

What color are/were his eyes? The most beautiful light blue eyes you'd ever seen.

Was your dad strict or did he leave that wonderful task to your mom? My mom was definitely the disciplinarian but since she died when I was very young, I grew up my dad's gentle nature.

What are/were his father baseball and football teams? One day, when I'm all grown up, I'm going to learn to actually detect errors when proofreading. As of right now, I happliy read right through without picking up on even a hint of an error. Ok, so that would be favorite baseball/football teams.

As I was saying below, my dad is from Pittsburgh so he was always a fan of the Pirates and the Steelers. He was also a big Yankee fan.

What's your dad's best quality? Just feeling loved by him and knowing that his kids were the most important thing in the world to him. When my mom died, since there were eight of us, my relatives wanted to take some of us and the state got involved but my dad fought hard to keep us all together.

Finally, whatcha all doin' for the weekend? I went to my niece's bridal shower yesterday. The thing was at her mother-in-law-to-be's house which is way out in the boonies. They have a donkey and a bunch of goats. The goats are a hoot. They're just like dogs the way they follow you around. We went upstairs in the barn so we could see the bats. The goats just followed us walking up the stairs. It was so funny. I was so freaked at the thought of seeing a bat. I lucked out though. We couldn't find any.

Later, I was holding my 8 year old niece while she was sitting on the donkey, walking very slowly when the donkey suddenly bolted. I snatched my niece so fast that I told her she was now indebted to me for life. I just wish she took me seriously on that.

I was totally lost on the way home but did manage to make it in time to meet a good friend for dinner. Today is just my usual boring day at work.

BTW -
I'm surprised to see so many dad's with blue eyes. Can our unscientific questionaire show that more blue eyed than brown/green/hazel eyed men have children? I might be onto something here. Then again, I might not.

George Bush in the bottom 10% of his class

Kudos to this professor for telling it like it is and showing us the real George W. Note that Bush was in the bottom, repeat, bottom, 10% of his class.

Here's the title and a link to the article.

His former Harvard Business School professor recalls George W. Bush not just as a terrible student but as spoiled, loutish and a pathological liar.

http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2004/09/16/tsurumi/index.html

Just another example of the victim being blamed.

http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=860222006

Blaming the victim really, really ticks me off. Women should be able to do whatever the frig they want without fear of being attacked.

I hired a friend of a friend to do some work on my house some years ago. My friend told me about how this guy had stolen from his parents.

The guy ends up stealing some things from me. My friend's reaction implied that I was at fault because she had told me about him stealing.

That made me crazy. I told her that in no way, shape or form am I at fault. I simply gave the guy a chance to make some money. It was HE that stole from me and it is HE that is 100%, I repeat, 100% responsible.

That person selected the items he wanted, picked up and carried these same items out of my house. There is not a single solitary thing I did to cause that. That is a decision that he made all on his own. Similarly, a person makes the decision to rape someone entirely on his own. Being drunk, just like wearing tight clothing, does not cause rape and trusting someone does not cause them to steal.

I understand this doesn't raise to the level of rape but it makes my blood boil when victims of any kind are blamed.

Certainly we should do everything we can to protect ourselves. However, the perpetrator is no less guilty because you are able to fend him off. I don't believe in equating vulnerability with cupability.

It is in a person's best interest to protect themselves but not doing so does not mean they share the responsibility for the crime.

A stupid message like this will only make women less likely to report the crime if they had been drinking. The bozos will think this means the number of rape cases has dropped and their warning message worked.

Women are NEVER to blame for rape. Have I told you how crazy this makes me?

Just another example of the victim being blamed.

http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=860222006

Blaming the victim really, really ticks me off. Women should be able to do whatever the frig they want without fear of being attacked.

I hired a friend of a friend to do some work on my house some years ago. My friend told me about how this guy had stolen from his parents.

The guy ends up stealing some things from me. My friend's reaction implied that I was at fault because she had told me about him stealing.

That made me crazy. I told her that in no way, shape or form am I at fault. I simply gave the guy a chance to make some money. It was HE that stole from me and it is HE that is 100%, I repeat, 100% responsible.

That person selected the items he wanted, picked up and carried these same items out of my house. There is not a single solitary thing I did to cause that. That is a decision that he made all on his own. Similarly, a person makes the decision to rape someone entirely on his own. Being drunk, just like wearing tight clothing, does not cause rape and trusting someone does not cause them to steal.

I understand this doesn't raise to the level of rape but it makes my blood boil when victims of any kind are blamed.

Certainly we should do everything we can to protect ourselves. However, the perpetrator is no less guilty because you are able to fend him off. I don't believe in equating vulnerability with cupability.

It is in a person's best interest to protect themselves but not doing so does not mean they share the responsibility for the crime.

A stupid message like this will only make women less likely to report the crime if they had been drinking. The bozos will think this means the number of rape cases has dropped and their warning message worked.

Women are NEVER to blame for rape. Have I told you how crazy this makes me?

fun times

This is like the 897th day it has rained.

I am so through with this rain. There was finally a lull in the action last night so I decided to mow my corn field of a lawn but wouldn't you know it, for the first time ever, I couldn't get the lawnmower started. Then it started raining again and all hope was lost. I've depreciated the neighborhood for another day.

Is this what it's like to live in Seattle?

What shall we talk about today? Coming up with a weekly topic is just as difficult as I thought it would be.

I thought we'd talk about fun.

What was the funnest (is that a word?) day of your life? Not the most special day (like your wedding or child's birth) but just a day where you had a blast from beginning to end.

My funnest day occurred over 20 years ago. One of my dearest friends and I took the day off from work and went to Mystic Seaport. Some of you may be familiar with Mystic, Connecticut from the movie Mystic Pizza.

From the moment I stepped into the car with my friend until the moment I stepped out of it, about 16 hours later, we laughed uncontrollably.

I always think about how we went to lunch at a very fancy smancy restaurant and my friend handed the maitre'd her old torn jean jacket and said, 'Um..please be careful with that'. Just silly stuff like that had us going all day.

Since I really can't explain what was so fun about the day, you just had to have experienced it, I'm going tell about the funnest 3 hours I've ever had.

This one happened over 20 years ago too. I went reluctantly to Brotherhood Winery in upstate New York with a friend, his brother and his brother's wife. It was perhaps a 2 hour drive and the whole concept just seemed so boring to me. But I was a trooper and I agreed to go.

This was way back in the days of disco. When we arrived, they asked us if we wanted to go to the Disco room or to a room with 1940s type band music playing. I like the old disco tunes now but at the time, I hated them. It was rock only for me but considering our options, we went for the disco.

Well, it started our soooo boring. Everyone was just standing around. We started sipping the wine, still bored our of our gords. As time went on, and we tasted more and more wine, things started to pick up, to say the least.

By the end of the three hours, we knew no boundaries. We were dancing with everyone and anyone. The whole place was screaming and jumping. We were out of our minds. That was truly the funnest 3 hours of my entire life. I never went back but I know if I did, I could probably never enjoy myself so much.

Flame me but....I don't agree with celebrating al-Zarqawi death.

I understand that al-Zarqawi has been a major player behind the insurgency in Iraq.

As with any war, it is our obligation to do whatever it takes to silence the enemy.

However, I think it is a sad day when the world rejoices over the death of anyone. Bush stated that death has brought justice to al-Zarqawi.

I couldn't disagree with him more. Capturing al-Zarqawi and bringing him to trial would have brought him to justice. I don't believe that assuming the guilt of any man without a trial, no matter how guilty they may seem, is justice.

Basic human rights for any individual should not change under the guise of war.

I especially don't agree with celebrating his death as some type of victory. What exactly have we won? The insurgency will go on and al-Zarqawi will be seen as a martyr.

al-Zarqawi is simply a casuality of war but I see no justice or feelings of elation in his death.

The only way I will ever feel joy of any kind is when our troops come home.