| Category: General, Sports and Wine, Site-Based Management | 1 Comment
Now that my glasses have been duct-taped back together (Thanks, Tank!), it’s time for a New Web Poll Question. Vote early, vote often, this is Chicagoland.
Have a great weekend!
| Category: General, School Daze, Random, Chomping on Books | 3 Comments
Kenny and I started having conversation #72– good poems. Stop snickering, I’m a man, I like poems. MANLY poems. Here are the two we’re discussing:
For Once, Then, Something
Others taunt me with having knelt at well-curbs
Always wrong to the light, so never seeing
Deeper down in the well than where the water
Gives me back in a shining surface picture
My myself in the summer heaven, godlike
Looking out of a wreath of fern and cloud puffs.
Once, when trying with chin against a well-curb,
I discerned, as I thought, beyond the picture,
Through the picture, a something white, uncertain,
Something more of the depths-and then I lost it.
Water came to rebuke the too clear water.
One drop fell from a fern, and lo, a ripple
Shook whatever it was lay there at bottom,
Blurred it, blotted it out. What was that whiteness?
Truth? A pebble of quartz? For once, then, something.
~Robert Frost
And…
If
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream–and not make dreams your master,
If you can think–and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings–nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And–which is more–you’ll be a Man, my son!
< ~Rudyard Kipling
And just for fun, here are two “grown-up” poems that I’ve done with my kids… we used the visualizing strategy with them, and the kids did a nice job with making mental images:
The Dream Keeper
Bring me your dreams, you dreamers
Bring me all of your heart melodies
That I may wrap them in a blue cloud-cloth
Away from the too-rough fingers off the world.
~Langston Hughes
And…
Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it’s queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there’s some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
~Robert Frost
Good stuff, one and all. Hope you enjoyed this fake, long post. I know I did! 
| Category: General, All about me | 2 Comments
Was blind, but now I see!
Kinda.
Well not really.
So remember when I lost my glasses?
I found them. Unfortunately, I didn’t find the until after they went through the washer and dryer. So, it’s a good thing I made an eye appointment, because I can’t wear these in public:
So at least TLEMK and I aren’t crazy. They must have gotten lost in Mt. Laundry, and then gone for a suds and dry. So the roads are safe (er) again. Just try not to point and laugh at the guy with the taped glasses… he can now see you doing it!
| Category: General, Music and Movies | 0 Comments
1. Glasses= still gone. Setting an appointment tomorri to go get new eyes. Whee.
2. I picked up my trombone tonight for the first time in about a year. TLEMK and I played some duets together, and she was very nice to me in not saying that I sucked (to my face). We start at the COD band tomorrow night. They say they take everyone, but we still have to audition for chairs. I’m wondering if they will change their minds, because the only thing rustier than my horn playing is my running skills. And we know those don’t exist. So, wish me and TLEMK luck as we attempt to not suck at playing.
3. We spent a good part of the weekend in Chicago, going to a murder mystery party, and hanging out with D and C. Turns out I was the murderer. So that happened.
4. School and Grad School are on full-on high tension craziness. Hence the lack of ebjournalling. Some day I’ll get to talk about them more. Things are going to get better… I just need to stay the course.
More to come soon… right. Goodnight.
| Category: General, Random | 1 Comment
Though I’m not one for short posts, unless I’m phebjournalling*, or lijournalling^, here’s my quick thought for the day:
Is it ironic when you’re stumbling around, looking for your glasses so I can see, that the item that would most help you find your glasses, is, well, YOUR GLASSES? Stupid-extra-hard-time finding-something-because-I-can’t-see.
Or is that just unfortunate? English teachers? Grammar snobs?
(FWIW, I didn’t find them this morning, which is unusual. Normally I find them after swearing a little. The drive home should be loads of fun!)
I added a new poll question so you could help me!
Back to under my rock. Wish I could see your responses.
————————–
*phebjournalling= photo ebjournalling
^lijournalling= link journalling
| Category: General | 1 Comment
01-14-06_2200.jpg
Originally uploaded by bonemuse2004.
Chuck
| Category: General | 2 Comments
01-14-06_1701.jpg
Originally uploaded by bonemuse2004.
Mmm live definition
| Category: General | 1 Comment
Stuck
Originally uploaded by bonemuse2004.
Tuh tucka?
| Category: General, Sports and Wine, Entertainment Tonight | 2 Comments
Champange-Banana, here we come. Time to get ready for a pounding of the Cesspool of the West. (that’s M*chigan, for you non-Illini people.) We’re driving down this morning, going to game, and carousing about town tonight. Come one, come all, to the hub of the Illini Nation.
Will we see you there?
| Category: General, Techie, not Geekie, Exploring | 0 Comments
Beam weapons almost ready for battle - Space.com - MSNBC.com
How awesome is that? Yes, war is bad, death is bad, but these have some potential to significantly reduce casualties. I especially enjoyed the idea of the “voice from the heavens”, and the Active Denial Technology… Like a forcefield! And nonlethal! Schweet.
| Category: General, Entertainment Tonight | 0 Comments
I mentioned the other day that I watch a lot of TV. The newest addition to my addiction is Fox’s House. It is quite amusing to watch Hugh Laurie (the title character) berate everyone. Yes, the plot is pretty formulaic, but it’s worth it to see what crazy diagnosisis (diagnoses?) they come up with, and the irreverance Laurie displays through his character. I’ve only watched three episodes, and I’m hooked. In honor of him, and in an effort to motivate you to watch this show, I have created an acrostic:
H- Hilarity ensues
U- Usurps Dr. Cox (Scrubs) in mean-funny.
G- Gregory, the first name of the character he plays on the show
H- House, the last name of the character he plays on the show
L- Laugh Out Loud Lewd
A- Awesome personality quirks
U- Uhhh, U is hard, and I’m feeling Underwhelmed by this acrostic.
R- Righteous, and ruggedly handsome
I- Intelligent humor done right.
E- Excellent maintenance of character.
(Thank goodness that’s over. Go watch the show.)
| Category: General, Sports and Wine | 2 Comments
Although I listen to sports radio as much as the next sub-metro-sexual, I rarely call in or email them, simply because I don’t have the time or energy. I’ve only ever called in once to WSCR 670am (to complain about the Simeon Rice Incident after Tampa Bay went to the Super Bowl wherein Mr. Rice told us he went to the School of Hard Knocks, and forever tainted his legend at the University of Illinois. Incidentally, at the beginning of the Tampa Bay/Washington game last weekend, he introduced himself from “The University. Of. Illinois.” Clinton Portis and Santana Moss introduced themselves from “The U.” Go Canes!)
And today was the first time I emailed into WMVP 1000am to complain about the complete lack of math skills that Fran Fraschilla displayed during the Illini-MSU halftime show last Thursday. Did my email make it onto the popular Mac, Jurko, and Harry bit “Critics at Extra Large?” Oh well.
No.
So now you can read it. I went for straightforward over clever. Obviously my genius is going unpublished. (Just kidding. I’m publishing it here. And it’s not genius.)
Gentlemen, An elementary thumbs down! During the halftime studio session of the Illinois-MSU game last Thursday evening on the television flagship, my hackles were raised as I listened to Fran Fraschilla discuss the Big Ten Conference. He mentioned that conference play would be extremely difficult this year, due to the high number of seniors starting in the Big Ten. He then went on to say that “26 of the 40 starting players in the Big Ten are seniors.” Even though 86% of statistics are made up on the spot, simple math is not. Fran, there are 11 teams in misnamed Big Ten. Five players start a game for each team. How many starters is that in all? My second grade students could figure that (and Jurko could too!) that means there are 55 starting players in the Big Ten, not 40. To Mr. Fraschilla, and to the fact checkers at the mothership, please remember this bit of advice from a second grade teacher (it’s the same thing I tell my students after they’re done taking a test): CHECK YOUR ANSWERS! Thumbs down. Regards, ~It’s Elementary
Oh well.
| Category: General, All about me | 2 Comments
I just realized how much TV has taken over my life, and how strangely ambivalent I am about knowing this. To share my life with you a little more than you really need to know, here’s my regular tv-watching schedule, subject to interruption of playoffs and NCAA tournaments/bowls. Please note: I would link all these shows, but I don’t have the time or energy for that. Y’all oughta know how to Google by now.
Sunday:
The West Wing, Grey’s Anatomy (so good)
Monday:
How I Met Your Mother, 24, (when it comes back), Medium
Tuesday:
TLEMK watches Gilmore Girls (I just pretend not to), we both watch House, Scrubs, and Commander-in-Chief
(those of you that are astute will note that Scrubs, Commander-in-Chief, and House are on at the same time. We have a TiVo, another DVR, and live tv. Eat it.)
Wednesday: (Formerly Angel/West Wing Day )
Lost
Thursday:
My Name is Earl, The Office, ER (and Smallville, sometimes)
Friday and Saturday:
Catch up for everything else. We also tape (tape? Nay, TiVo) The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, and Jeopardy. Jeopardy on TiVo takes only about 17 minutes. It’s great. We also watch sports. Which brings me back to …
Sunday.
And thus the cycle of doom continues. The sad part is, I know I’m missing some shows, including those we watch on DVD.
Tom Cavanaugh, formerly of Ed fame, and J.D.’s brother on Scrubs, has a new show on CBS, called Love Monkey. I might have to watch it, because I’m betting he plays the same character; lovable, goofy, and always getting into crazy hijinks. And Jason Priestley is on it, too. Who can resist those dreamy eyes?
I heart TV.
| Category: General, Home Improvement | 2 Comments
One of my secret endeavours (well, guess it’s not a secret anymore! {LAME ASIDE}) is to save money so that down the road, TLEMK and I can have nice things. I read several articles in the January issue of Money magazine (which I swiped from our workout room) that gave tips for cutting corners and pinching pennies, including a refresher article on how to use coupons at the grocery store most effectively. So yesterday I ran out to get the early edition of The Chicago Tribune so I could clip coupons of foods/stuff we need to buy. (I know this is rudimentary to many people, but remember, I’m trying to be more organized!) It turns out that there were a decent number of coupons this
week for our grocery list, and we saved about $3.50 on groceries we would have bought anyway.
But that’s not what this story is about.
We’ve been working hard on this as we get ready to buy a house, and recently realized that we need to actually put things in the house. As I perused through the coupons, I came across an ad for World Market, which is Crate and Barrel-lite crossed with the frufy food isle at your local grocery store. However, TLEMK and I had found a dining room table that we liked a couple weeks ago there, and were secretly pining for it. The ad included a 40% off coupon for any item in the store. Um, okay. Any? Even dining room tables?
Apparently, yes. This morning, we went out and talked with one of the friendly sales people, and they sold us the beautiful table. For 40% off. Which is good.
And then, we went back to “The Jewels” and bought another newspaper. And got another coupon. And golly gosh, they gave us another 40% off for the set of six chairs to go with the 40% off table.
Sadly, we don’t get to use it, because it won’t fit into our current dining room, and really, who wants to haul the dining room table up three flights of steps? We took it over to my parents’ place, and put the chairs into the garage attic. In April or May, it’ll be like a wonderful surprise!
Here’s a picture of the table:
Here’s a picture of the chair(s):
Back to homework. Can’t wait for Monday!!!
| Category: General, Sports and Wine | 7 Comments
Because it’s late (for me), you get the abbreviated version of my notes on the Illini’s win over MSU, taken on the back of an envelope during the game:
(In the order I wrote them down…)
1) Paul Davis is big. I worry about the Illini’s size in the paint, even though we’re bigger and tougher than we were last year. However, since we shut down Ager and anti-Dee, our perimeter defense kept the interior from getting good looks. I worry about our inexperience on the inside when Augustine is having a tough night. (um, how many turnovers did he have? I can’t count it on one hand. Yes, yes, intangibles. He’ll be fine.) Tonight, we were lucky because of …
2) The re-Deeculous scoring of Mr. Brown. What can I say? When you make 8 field goals in the first half, and the entire MSU team only had 8 field goals, good things are going to happen. I liked his intensity, and I liked watching him take it to the hole later in the game, once he established that you couldn’t stop him on the inside. He must have been able to see the basket really well…
3) Even though we couldn’t. Kenny mentioned that the AssHall is really dark on TV, and I guess I hadn’t been paying attention, but it was very diffficult to see the crowd as anything but an orange-red blur. This leads me to believe that I think things would have been better in either HD, or LD (Live Definition!) rather than my cruddy SD. I’ll be at the M*ch*g*n game next weekend, and I hope…
4) That Jamar Smith joins us. Welcome to the Big1T1en! How does not being able to get more than one shot off feel? Not Dee-licious. He, along with Frazier, and Arnold will need to get more involved, because Dee will not be able to do that every night. And finally…
(damn my lack of a quality transition!)
5) Why didn’t MSU foul with less than a minute left, down only five, against a team shooting 62% from the from the free throw line? Then, once McBride is poked with a stick and makes a three to make it an 8 point game, MSU fouls with 18 seconds left. Can anyone Logick (sic) that for me? Definitely a few kinks to work out for Tom to the Izzo and P to the Neitzel as they run through their end-of-game scenarios.
Alright. Iowa Saturday. Good night.
| Category: General | 2 Comments
Testing
Originally uploaded by bonemuse2004.
Hook ‘em? And test
| Category: General, Entertainment Tonight | 0 Comments
In case you wanted to see it. Have a terrific evening!
~T~
| Category: General, Entertainment Tonight, WTF? | 0 Comments
I’m sure Frank will get into the actual game, and I’m sure I could be writing about a great Rose Bowl too, but USC’s marching band halftime show was quite possibly the worst showing I’ve seen since the Stanford trombone player missed a tackle. I’m speechless. Thankfully, I’m not unable to type.
Now, I know that ABC had at least two mics going at the same time, and it made it seem like phasing, but they were still much worse than the Longhorn band.
Things I should NEVER see or hear at a halftime show:
1) Lame ass Elvis sunglasses.
2) Hearing Michael Jackson’s Beat It.
3) Saxophone, in a singular event. Multiple, fine. Lone tenor wandering around, NO. NO. NO. NO. (honk) NO.
4) Crotch-grabbing, of any kind. Especially to Michael Jackson.
5) All of the above.
Texas, didn’t sound that much better, but better enough to notice a difference between the two bands. And they played a Beatles medley, which seems very un-Texas like, but they made up for being cooler by playing it very square, and wearing the hideous Longhorn marching band uniforms.
In honor of the band…
“This is the only song we know how to play.
We really, really like it so we play it all day…..
HurrAY!”
Sorry, USC fans. You lost the battle of the bands. Time to go bang my head against the wall to get Beat It out of my head.
| Category: General, Site-Based Management, WTF? | 2 Comments
So, I got my comment email from Waj and Frank the Tank. Yet, when I go to the site, it says there are no comments. Then, if you click on where it says “No Comments”, it then shows the two aforementioned comments. If you go back to the main page (and refresh) it still says “No comments.” I allowed comments on the original post, and I loaded the page in different themes. Any suggestions, oh mighty smart people?
Back to work.
——–
Update: After checking the ‘boards on wordpress.org, there are people having the same problem. Stupid Spam Karma. Just kidding, Spam Karma, you know I don’t mean it. I’ll fix it tonight.
———
Update, again. Fixed. Whee.
| Category: General | 2 Comments
Three posts in one night? Am I avoiding the dreaded return of the children tomorrow? Nope, just avoiding my grad school homework.
Open road tolling in Illinois is supposed to relieve traffic congestion along Illinois’ toll roads. So far, all it has done is make driving miserable as construction has restricted those usual free flowing lanes of speedy goodness into bastions of brakelights.
Finally, my personal artery clog, the Army Trail toll plaza, has undergone bypass surgery, and is now cholesterol-free. (of construction) Now I just have to see what happens when the fat burrito of traffic driving home tomorrow does to it. (What a terrible analogy.)
Thanks, Dr. Rod!
In case you’re interested, IDOT launched a new website that tells you about construction in Illinois. I’ll be interested to see if it keeps updated.
Back to school tomorrow. Time to make the doughnuts. Goodnight.
