Ryan, Amanda, Tristen & Teghan
10/31/09

Happy Birthday John! And Happy Halloween everyone!

Thanks for the Halloween pics! --Gary

Tristen: I'm making a pumpkin person.

Teghan: I am making a girl pumpkin.

Tristen: I'm making a rainbow out of colored paper clips.

Teghan: I'm playing with acrobots!

Congrats, Erika! Getting in on the ground floor is a fast route to management. --Gary

Thanks, Lindsey! Put some pressure on your parents, too. :-) --Gary

No deadline for the pictures -- just the sooner I get them, the sooner I can get working on them. Thanks for yours! (And, I assume, Emily's and Erika's and Brent's...?) --Gary

He was in Montreal yesterday to give a speech at a $400-a-plate lunch. To their credit, about 300 Canadians protested his appearance by throwing shoes and burning effigies, but this was outside. Inside, he started off with an anecdote that I don't think he really "got." He said a little while after leaving the White House and moving back to Texas he went into a hardware store, and one of the employees asked him if anyone ever told him he looked a lot like George Bush. He replied, "Happens almost every day" (har har). And then, Bush said, the employee said, "Sure must make you mad!" Like I said, I don't think Bush got it.

But the foot-in-mouth moment came later, when he was talking about any regrets he had while he was in office. He said he regretted standing in front of that "Mission Impossible" sign on the aircraft carrier in 2003. Ooops. The sign, of course, said "Mission Accomplished." :-) Gee, I ... I kinda miss him....

If you're interested, full article here.

Now I'd like to make a new set: Some of these are getting a little dated, and this time around I would like to include everybody, from Grandma on down. I would also make these available to you all on a private website where you could choose which you might want -- e.g., your own family (or just yourself!) -- and purchase however many you want (if any!). They would cost around $3 each.

Here's where I need your help: I need a current photo of each of you. School pictures are fine. For you non-students, any reasonably current photo of yourself that doesn't make you go "eewwwww!" We all have digital cameras or cell-phone cameras around now, so it shouldn't be too difficult to come up with a photo you like. Of course, the more crisp and clear and bright, the better. If you happen to want buttons of extended family members, girlfriends, boyfriends, pets, automobiles, or houseplants, send me those too and I'll make 'em up for you. But I definitely want photos of the 21 of us who appear on the double-secret Contact Page.

Your help is appreciated! And I'll be glad to address any questions or concerns you may have. I thank you.

One of the things I like best about fall is the dry leaves blowing around on the ground. This year, it's all just a wet slippery mush. Dang!

We're thinking about taking an intermediate class, but not quite sure yet. The last pictures are of my bathroom--we're not completely finished, but close. Just the countertop and floor we need to re-tile. They're actually just stickers on the wall, not paint. We ordered from an online site. And we also added shower doors instead of putting a curtain in, and I think that's about it. So I'll talk to you all later!

The flu sounds awful. Kids going out for recess and then sitting in a corner -- that's a pretty powerful image. I've been lucky so far (knock wood). I got a flu shot about three weeks ago, and then I've been pretty much out of the mainstream: I haven't been in any crowded public areas for a while, not even to do shopping. Thank you, Amazon.com! :-)

So those of you who are sick, get healthy soon! And those are who are healthy, stay that way!

Oh, and if you thought the fans were booing the Huskers as they left the field at halftime -- which is how it looked on TV -- I heard that in fact the fans were booing the refs. The team had almost all left the field when the booing started, and it was directed at the refs who were gathering on the sideline.

Next week, I'm betting Cody Green starts. The only touchdown we scored in this game was thanks to Green, after Zac Lee was benched in the last few minutes. In seven out of the past eight quarters of football, our offense under Lee has scored no points. And that was against two teams ranked lower than us. I say put Green in, and hope for better!

So far Ryan & I are good, I think we missed it. What a long crazy week. But, hopefully, it’s come & gone & we’ll be good to go for the winter!

Grandma, unless something major occurs, we’ll see you Tuesday & I THINK this week Ryan will be with us, as it’s “fall break” for students at UNL.

Gary, Teghan’s counting down the days til their fall break, they’re looking forward to “work.”

Go big red! Excited for the game!!

Should be a good game. The Lincoln school fall break is week after next (26-30), right? I'm looking forward to it, too -- we'll have a great time! --Gary

Thanks for the new recipe! (Sorry the page wasn't working earlier, but it is fixed now.) --Gary

Erika, are you feeling better?

Someone at work was just told she has the swine flu and possibly strep too. What a bad combination.

Mom, that soup was even better warmed up for lunch today. While I was microwaving it, someone asked if they could just look at it because it smelled so good. Would you put the recipe up? I may try making it myself.

He criticizes CNN for not fact-checking what they report -- and states that fact-checking is the main job of journalism. Once again, it's a sign of our times that it takes a comedy show to teach the journalists how to do their job.

So if I'm already worried about the cough, this might have been a sign.

So, Grandma, cancel us for Tuesday night dinner. We don't want hacking & coughing near you or anyone else! We'll stay close to home for another day.... Oh, and we made pumpkin bars. They were good, a bit dense, we remembered yours being fluffier. I realized later, I used baking SODA, not powder. GRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!! I'll remake them because I had to buy the big can of pumpkin as that's all they had (& I was so lucky to get that that I bought 3! Figured I'd make them again, or use it for pie) and the dense ones aren't bad, just dense... Tristen joked that she called you so many times about the recipe today you might as well have made them! Anyway, thanks for the recipe!

Mississippi, North Carolina, the Philippines, and Guam. I could have added several more southern states, but the internet site where I got the degree from would have charged an extra $15. --Gary

Well, I'm not a doctor (not in Nebraska, anyway), but I would sure let them stay home another day. Both for their sake and the other kids'. On the campus, they were urging people to stay home til they felt like they were over it, and then stay home one more day. BTW, I'm off tomorrow if there's anything I can do to help out. --Gary

Schools = germ factories. Everybody stop going until I give the all-clear!

But seriously: Feel better soon, Erika! --Gary

I am still trying to decide if I should get the H1N1 shot, I do think Brent should get it. Guess we will have to wait to see if enough are available.

Feel better soon, you two! --Gary

I came with a cool football-related story: I went to my usual place for a haircut after work tonight, and the talk soon got around to last night's game. The girl cutting my hair said if I had come in just a bit earlier I would have run into four Huskers who played in the Missouri game, including quarterback Zac Lee and running back Roy Helu, who had all come in for haircuts. (She didn't know the other two.) I didn't expect her to know this, but I asked something I wondered about last night: Did the team stay overnight in Missouri and come back this morning? She told me she asked Helu the same thing. He said, no, immediately after the game they got on the bus and drove back to Lincoln. And when the bus arrived, the coach had them all run some laps! And then, all four of them had classes today, and two of them had tests. Yeesh!

Photo-Spot Week #3 draws to a close today, and I hope you all had fun with it. For those of you who may have missed an item here and there, here are the answers!

Carter won 20-some years after he was out of office. Theodore Roosevelt won while in office in 1906, and Woodrow Wilson won while in office in 1919. Kind of repugnant to see most of the mainstream media this morning (everybody on CNN, Chuck Todd on MSNBC, etc.) wrinkling their tiny brows and wondering why Obama was given this honor. Of course, they were just (as usual) going along with the Repugnant Party -- oops, make that Republican Party -- in their never-ending crusade to diminish everything Obama does. I'm always reminded of what they used to say about Ginger Rogers: She did everything Fred Astaire did, only she had to do it backwards and in high heels. No matter what Obama accomplishes -- and already he has phased down our presence in Iraq, closed down Guantanamo, averted what would likely have been a wordwide economic crash, and is close to signing into law a historic health-care bill, among other things -- the Republicans will insultingly dismiss it. By this time in his own presidency, Bush had ignored the CIA warnings of a terrorist plot to fly commercial jets into American buildings, and then later sat on a kindergarten chair with a storybook in his hands while two American buildings burned and collapsed. Oh, also he had cut a lot of brush. As the great Alan Grayson (Democratic Representative from Florida) said in the House today, "If the President has a BLT today, the Republicans will try to ban bacon tomorrow." --Gary

I don't get ESPN, so I hope I can at least see highlights. It sounds like it was a great game.

Way to go, Erika! As to the photo game, all will be revealed this weekend. :-) --Gary

Shadow is now 7 months old and weighs 40 lbs. We're still taking puppy classes every Monday night--which actually are about over. He's doing great--he knows how to sit, shake, and lay down, and kind of stay. He is getting better at drop it and leave it. We're still trying to teach him to catch a frisbee in the air and to fetch, but he is still jumping up on people so we have to break him of that. He just got back from the vet a few days ago, he got neutered and his dew claws removed. He is definitely twice the size of Max!

I found all 7 differences on today's picture!

I think that's about all I have to say, so I'll talk to you all later!

Livy, your pics arrived just as I was getting ready to leave for the day so I didn't have time to put them on the photo page. I will put them up first thing tomorrow, ok? Thanks for sending them in! --Gary

Good to know it's a challenge. :-) They always look waaay too easy to me, but of course that's because I made 'em and know where everything is. --Gary

Hey, if you are a fan of the Photo-Spot game, be sure to tune in Monday. Got some good pictures lined up for our third week of that game.

Check out the fall webcams when you get a chance. I've deleted a few old ones and added several new ones -- including some high-definition wide-screen cams. Pretty cool, and should be beautiful as the season progresses.