Gary
4/30/09
Heads up, Star Trek fans: This summer's movie, which seems to be titled simply "Star Trek," opens May 8 -- just a week away. Advance reviews have been very good. If you need to get pumped up about it, go here for an interesting article plus links to all three of the trailers. (The latest one -- Trailer 3 -- is very cool.)
And this site is kind of interesting: It has nine or ten sets of side-by-side comparison photos, comparing the original series with the latest movie. (If you weren't aware, the movie goes way back to the Academy days of Kirk, Spock, and the rest, and shows how they met, etc.)
Grandma
4/30/09
Congratulations, Erika, for your new license!! NOW, when is the car coming??
Donna
4/30/09
Someone just sent this to me. It's pretty cool...
Excellent! Thanks. --Gary
Donna
4/29/09
Erika! Congratulations!!!! That is so cool and the best birthday present you can give yourself. (Sorry my bday card/present isn't there yet, but it will be there tomorrow/Friday.) Are you going to eat out tonight?
Erika
4/29/09
Thanks everyone :)
& Donna I just got my license!
Congratulations, Erika! --Gary
Grandma
4/29/09
I believe the Farmer's Market begins on Saturday, May 2. The one at Old Cheney started last Sunday.
Amanda
4/29/09
Grandma, Donna, do you know when the farmers market starts?
Donna
4/29/09
Happy birthday Erika! Are you getting your drivers license today?
Tristen
4/29/09
Happy Birthday Erika!
Ryan, Amanda, Tristen & Teghan
4/29/09
Happy Birthday Erika!
Emily
4/29/09
Happy Birthday Erika!!
Dad and Mom
4/28/09
Happy 16th Birthday Erika
Gary
4/28/09
Senator and Moron Mike Johanns thinks his fellow Nebraskans are scaredy-cats. If you would like to tell this simple-minded little weasel what you think of his opinion, click here!
And to round out our representation, Senator and Moron Ben Nelson recently was Keith Olbermann's "Worst Person in the World" when Nelson lumped Olbermann and Rachel Maddow together with the right-wing nutjobs Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly. Nelson is clearly the most wrong-headed and worst-informed Democrat since George McLellan ran for President against Abraham Lincoln. If you would like to remind this shoulder-padded doofus that he's supposed to be a Democrat, click here!
Boy, do we need to throw these two bums out!
Grandma
4/28/09
Happy Birthday, Erika!!!
Donna
4/28/09
I heard you get the swine flu from eating a lot of bacon.
Hope not! --Gary
The Hatgidakis family
4/28/09
Happy Birthday Erika!!!
Gary
4/28/09
Ok, you've surely heard them by now, but here are the rules:
While in public, do not touch your face -- especially your eyes, nose, and mouth. If you have an itch, use a tissue or something.
Avoid crowds whenever possible.
Stay healthy, everyone!
Amanda
4/25/09
This probably doesn’t excite all of you as much as it did us, but here's some pictures of the tree we planted on Arbor Day. It’s actually the first tree we’ve EVER planted. We’ve lived in apartments, base housing & an already landscape established house, so we've never had the opportunity to plant one. We've needed to start moving on the landscaping here as all we've had is a-lotta grass and we started yesterday with the first tree, on Arbor Day!
We’ll see how it does, it's very windy out here so we're a little worried about it, but Teghan will make sure it gets watered & fertilized, she's got that down. Anyhow the pictures are a little cheesy, but I wanted to share nonetheless!
Gary
4/19/09
Do not adjust your sets. I am leaving the "birthday" page up one more day (Monday). New page Tuesday.
Gary
4/17/09
Thanks again! I'm discovering that I need to do some repair work on some of the older newsletter pages (after the Alltel/Windstream switch), so if they don't work properly, have patience -- I'm working on them now.
As the page started in April of 2000, you may wonder why the earliest page I have here is June of 2003. Well, you may not remember this, but when the page first started it was just a blank static page - i.e., no pictures, no backgrounds -- for the first many months. I was concerned then about slow loading times for our antique computers using dial-up. And then when I did start using pictures, it didn't occur to me to save the pages for posterity. And, when it did occur to me some months down the road, I saved them in a format which is now obsolete. I do have a few print-outs of older pages, but this June 23, 2003 page is oldest one I have which preserves all the formatting.
Donna
4/17/09
Great front page! Happy 9th Anniversary!
Karen
4/17/09
Great front page, wow can't believe it's 9 years!
Gary
4/17/09
Thanks. It was fun to put together. If you're like me, it will send you back to old newsletters from time to time, to refresh your memory on what was going on then. So it will take some time to check it out. It will be up all weekend, and I could leave it up a day or so longer if there is a desire for that.
When I began this project a few weeks ago, I somehow had it in my head that this was the 10th anniversary. It was only after I had gotten it almost finished that I did the the math and realized it was the 9th.... So I don't know what I'll do for next year. :-)
Amanda
4/17/09
Gary, what a cool front page! I can't wait til I have more time this weekend & can look at it closer!
Gary
4/17/09
Let me take you back to April of 2000. Or to put it another way, the year 1 B.T. (Before Teghan)....
Arnold Schwarzeneggar was an actor, not a Governor.
There was no Google, or YouTube, or MySpace, or Facebook, or Twitter.
There were no iPods. If you wanted to listen to music while on the move, you carried one of these cool devices.
For those of us who even had computers, the display looked like this.
There was no wireless internet. It was coming some day, but experts thought it would be "a long time" before it arrived and even then might be a "catastrophic train wreck."
There was no TiVo. If you wanted to record a program, you'd better have a blank tape in the VCR -- otherwise, you'd have to tape over something....
There were only three Harry Potter books, and no Harry Potter movies. The Lord of the Rings movies were being filmed, but hadn't been released yet. Spiderman didn't exist, nor did Pirates of the Caribbean, nor Shrek.
Nobody had heard of The Da Vinci Code.
There was no such thing as "American Idol," but "Survivor" was in its first year. (Remember this guy?)
Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman were still together, and so were Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston.
Enron and AIG were still solid investments.
On TV you were watching Friends, Baywatch, The X-Files, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (which was on 4 nights a week), Ally McBeal, Frasier, West Wing, Will & Grace, and ER. Peter Jennings was the ABC news anchor, and Dan Rather was the CBS news anchor; Katie Couric was on "The Today Show."
The twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York were the tallest buildings in the world.
The Patriot Act hadn't yet been passed into law, so the government did not have the right to read your mail and email, listen to your phone conversations, search your financial and medical records, and arrest and imprison you without informing you of the charges or letting you speak with a lawyer or giving you a trial.
Amanda
4/16/09
Grandma, I know you don't check email daily, but I just sent you one, so you might want to check!
Donna
4/15/09
Just saw this mentioned on CNN and then got the entire clip on Youtube. UKs version of American Idol. It's long but really good!
The Today Show did a piece on her this morning. Wow. I tried to "embed" the link you sent so the video would appear on this page, but they diaabled it for this clip for some reason. So click the link above to go to YouTube. --Gary
Dad, Mom & Teghan
4/14/09
Happy 12th Birthday Tristen!!!!!!!!!!
The Hatgidakis family
4/13/09
Happy Birthday Tristen!!!!!!!!
Nelsons
4/13/09
Happy Birthday, Tristen
Grandma
4/13/09
Happy Birthday, Tristen!!
Donna
4/13/09
Happy birthday Mom!
Happy birthday Tristen!
The Hatgidakis Family
4/11/09
Happy Easter!!!!!
Ryan, Amanda, Tristen & Teghan
4/11/09
Happy Easter!
Ryan, Amanda, Tristen & Teghan
4/12/09
Happy Birthday Grandma!
Nelsons
4/11/09
Happy Easter!!
Nelsons
4/11/09
Happy Birthday Grandma!!!
Marsha, John, Zach, Samantha, Anna & Sunny
4/10/09
Happy Birthday Mom/Grandmom!!!!!!
Amanda
4/7/09
Oh, and Donna, I got your message last night, sorry I didn't get you called back. I'm sure we can work something out for Friday. Ryan is off work & home, but will definitely take the time to get some homework done, or whatever. We'll work out times a little closer to Friday, cool?
Amanda
4/7/09
Gary, that's awesome! Fantastic seats! Yea, Donna, I knew about the $4($2) deal, and the charity is something he started after his son was diagnosed with hip dysplasia. And Comedy Central, yes, but nothing beats seeing it live. Seeing Seinfeld is something I'll never forget, and those tickets were NOT even close to $6. :-) And the fireworks deal is nice that they worked out. The Saltdogs will have fireworks that night too I think (the 4th). We're very excited!
Donna
4/7/09
Amanda, looks there may be a surcharge for having Gary get the tickets for you. The price is only $4. All money goes to charity. And it's going to be taped to be shown on Comedy Central. And they're trying to break a Guinness world record--most people to see a comedian. And they're having the city's fireworks show on the 3rd because this is going on on the 4th.
Hey, I resent that imputation of malfeasance! The ticket price is $4, yes, but with a $2 "handling fee" -- which goes to the University, not me! :-) Anyway, the tickets have been purchased, and the seats look very good: You get seats 9 through 16 in Row 3 of Section D, which is up front and right down on the field. It is entirely possible you will be on camera for the Comedy Central taping. If this was Gallagher, you'd have to wear a raincoat. Check this seating chart. --Gary
Amanda
4/6/09
Who is the football season ticket holders, Gary, or Grandma? Or both? Larry the Cable guys tickets go on sale tomorrow at 8 am to season ticket holders & we'd like to go would one of you call & get us tickets? if so, I'll let you know how many. The announcement is in the Journal Star online. But, it's a 4th of July show, Memorial Stadium, $6 a ticket. I listened to him before he got famous & called into a local radio show every morning when I lived in Lincoln.
We both have season tickets (though both sets are already sold this year). Tickets for the Larry the Cable-Guy show go on sale tomorrow for season-ticket holders at $6 each, limit 8 -- so between Grandma and me, that's a maximum of 16! Give me the details (i.e., how many) and I will order 'em for you. --Gary
Amanda
4/6/09
I totally agree about the weather being blown out of proportion. However, we still enjoyed an all day fire Saturday. We haven't had one in awhile, and it might have been our last for the season & on a rare occasion, we were home all day with no plans & Ryan was awake! So, we enjoyed lots of tv by the fire. We rarely get to just sit.
Grandma, did you make a fire with the wood Ryan brought over? A little late in the season, but the thought was to have one last fire for anyone who could!
On Sunday I had to take Tristen to Omaha for competition & the wind was brutal. My neck ached from the tenseness of keeping the car on the road! Teghan had her first volleyball game at the same time so Ryan was taking her to that. She liked it & dad, Lori, Liv, Linz & Matt went & said she smiled the entire time.
I'm glad for Easter weekend, it means a weekend of no dance, sports, etc. maybe some more vegging can happen! :-) Grandma, any plans for your birthday? Tristen can't decide what to do with her friends.
Gary
4/5/09
So, has everyone dug themselves out from today's blizzard? All day yesterday, the weather guys were predicting an all-day snow, with accumulation in Lincoln around 6 inches. On the other hand, Grandma and I both predicted: "Not a flake." Well, we did get a brief flurry in the morning -- which melted on contact with the ground. Otherwise, nothing. Maybe the weather forecasters are failing on purpose so they can line up a government bailout. Just a theory.
Amanda
4/1/09
Gary, that's gross on the front page, is that an April Fools' thing? It looks like a cockroach....
More like a gnat, I'd say, but anyway: April Fool! :-) --Gary
Emily
4/1/09
That little bug on the front page really just freaked me out... :)
