abortion, and annoying internet

Do you have any idea how annoying it is to have internet connectivity that flashes in and out so much that you can only load a full web page about once every 45 minutes?

I found this article, "Four Reasons You Might Be Aborted: An Open Letter to Fetal Humans" extremely interesting, and I thought I'd recommend it for your perusal.

Interpretive dancing

My wife, after wiggling around like no weirdo you've ever seen and calling it interpretive dancing: "You should interpretive dance with me!"

Me: "Uh, no."

Inauguration stuff

I watched a lot of inauguration coverage today, and I enjoyed most of it. I mean, it's not a terribly entertaining event, but I certainly found it interesting. I watched CNN's coverage, and they interspersed a lot of historical facts into their broadcast, which might have been why I enjoyed it. I found out that Obama is the third president from Illinois, after Lincoln and Grant (I think I already knew that... but I'd forgotten that Grant was originally from Illinois). I also learned that Reagan was the first president to be inaugurated on the West-facing side of the capitol building. Before him, inauguration ceremonies were on the East side (which apparently overlooks a parking lot... I think it was a good change).

There's an issue that Elizabeth and I have been talking about for awhile. Barack Obama is HALF African-American. I know that some people who have one white and one black parent have a physical appearance that is more white than it is black. If that was the case with Obama, would there be nearly the deal made about his ethnicity? I mean, I'm not trying to criticize anyone, but seriously. If Obama LOOKED white instead of black, would the African-American community and the world in general be talking so much about the realization of Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream? It's just weird to me. And I'm curious. Do you have any thoughts?

P.S. I didn't vote for Obama, and I think I had legitimate reasons why that's true. Still, I don't think that he deserves to be talked about like he's an evil demon who can't wait to invite terrorists to attack our country and to perform abortions in the Oval Office. There are certain conservatives -- committed Christians even -- whom I have read and heard who treat President Obama very negatively. I read one person in particular who is a respected scholar, teacher, and preacher, who wrote about how Christians should avoid the media on this day in order to avoid seeing celebration over Obama's installation into the presidency. I don't know. I'm not crazy about the guy, but I don't think he's the devil. A second request for thoughts?

Flat Stanley's adventures in Colorado

Amanda Salmond gave us a little task to do for a friend of hers who teaches a 2nd grade class in St. Louis. They mailed us a "Flat Stanley" (a character from a book they read who got flattened by his bulletin board) and we were supposed to take him on an adventure or two in our state and take a couple of pictures. Then we sent back the pictures, along with a brief description of Flat Stanley's adventures in Colorado, and the class learns a little something about US geography. What we sent back is below. I can't include the pictures (technological issues). Sorry.

After arriving by mail in Denver, Colorado, Flat Stanley had to get moving quickly. He was performing in a concert that night, and he didn't want to be late. So he darted out the door and traveled to one of the world's best outdoor concert venues, the amphitheatre at Red Rocks Park in Morrison, Colorado. Every year the open-air amphitheatre attracts dozens of music's most popular acts... and that's why Flat Stanley wanted to perform there!

After his concert, Flat Stanley needed to wind down a bit, so he headed to Evergreen, Colorado to do some ice-skating with his friends. They played a game of ice hockey, and Flat Stanley's team won 3-2!

Flat Stanley said he couldn't wait for his next trip to Colorado so he can spend even more time in the Rocky Mountains.

Nothing important

After realizing that although Mr. T is kind of funny, he's also kind of creepy... and having him as a background made it more difficult to customize other parts of my blog, I have reverted back to a rather plain layout that I got from the simple blog templates offered by blogger. I think this one is called "minima blue." I really wanted to go with "minima ochre" because I really like Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and its soundtrack... and one of the colors in Joseph's coat according to the musical is ochre. Unfortunately, it turns out ochre is kind of an ugly color... so I stuck with blue.

On Man vs. Wild the other night, Bear Grylls squeezed the liquid from fresh elephant dung into his mouth in order to avoid dehydration. I've never been in a life-threatening situation like that, but I might opt for the dehydration over drinking animal poop. Especially since holding a ball of pooh overhead and squeezing can easily lead to chunks of pooh falling into your mouth (which Bear found out the hard way). Icky.

The Courage of Detroit

I urge you to read Mitch Albom's article called The Courage of Detroit from Sports Illustrated's web site (found here). It's only a little about sports. It's a lot about a city and its citizens. It's very good.

Mr. T

If you subscribe to my blog in a reader, you should come to the site itself once to see my new background.

I think it's funny.

Robots

I spent a significant amount of time on the phone with publishing companies today for my job, and "on the phone" means listening to holding music and stupid automated robots.

On one particular call I sat there on hold for about 15 straight minutes (I was also the only worker on the floor of the bookstore during that time... it was fairly slow for awhile) and the singing German choir on the other end was periodically interrupted so that some mechanical woman could say, "We know your time is valuable. Please stay on the line and the next available customer service representative will be with you shortly."

I think these companies should be honest. I'd like a publisher much more if the automated voice said what they really meant: "We know your time is valuable, but we obviously don't care that much, and we'll make you wait for as long as it takes for one of our reps to get back from their coffee-and-a-donut break. Keep your shirt on."