- I don’t think I’ve flown a kite in 30 years. I have many found memories of my mother and I flying them, and my childhood memory tells me I was scared I’d fly the kite so high that a plane might hit it and I would get in big trouble. So when I saw kites were as cheap as four bucks at Wal-Mart and with the great but windy weather we’ve been having, I knew I had to take advantage of some potential great father-daughter time.
- I chose the Angry Bird kite, it just seemed fitting. When I was a kid, the kites were made out of a cheap plastic, kinda like a garbage bag, but these seemed more durable and made out of something like a windbreaker, and it was inexpensive.
- It’s funny how things can come back to you. You know the adage, “it’s like riding a bike.” I found flying a kite is about the same. There’s this routine where once you have it in the air and it’s starts to lose a little altitude, you take your free hand and pull the string up high with a few good hard tugs and it just seems to correct itself – all that came back to me naturally.
- I seem to remember having to run a lot to get a kite air born. Heck, I don’t thing I had to take but three steps to this one up in the air, but thankfully it was quite windy.
- It was always a goal to reel the kite back in without it hitting the ground, and after 30 years of not flying a kite, it’s not as hard as I remember.
- I think GirlGeeding had as much fun as I did, she seemed to.
- I have no idea why I never took a girl on a date to fly a kite. Cheap. Fun. Outdoors. Low stress.
- If there’s one thing I want to encourage you to do in the next two weeks, it’s to fly a kite. Seriously, embrace your inner child that’s just wanting to get out. Do it before it gets too hot and the mosquitoes get out, and do it without any headphones or music or being tied to your cell phone.
- Of the five stages of grief, I’m still in denial that Google Reader is going away. Part of me thinks that Google will hear the outcry of loyal readers and “do no evil” and save the product, or offer a subscription fee. But in the meantime I’m going to try a few other products for a few days and I may end up writing a review. Basically, I want to be able to use the cloud, view on both a computer and mobile device, and be able to save items to read for later in an easy to use and quick to read interface – all for free. I toyed with The Old Reader, but it seems you have to team up with Pulse to save ‘read for later’ items and there’s no mobile app. Right now I’m experimenting with Feedly, and plan on checking out Pulse.me, Newsblur, and Reader2000.
- It’s funny how out of sorts we can get about losing a free product.
- One note about Newsblur, they were offering free accounts up until Google made the Reader death announcement. However, I found a workaround – I basically followed the signup screens until the payment option and then closed the browser window. I went back into the site and was signed in.
- I recorded the Hitchcock classic Vertigo a while back during the Encore free preview weekend. This weekend WifeGeeding and I tried to watch it but could only make it halfway through. Apparently I recorded the one that lapped into the time the free preview weekend expired, so the DVR only recorded half of the movie and half of “Please contact Customer Service if you would like to order the Encore channel package.”
- Some Mormons were going door-to-door again in our neighborhood recently. This was during a light rain, and I noticed they would bring the paper from the sidewalk to the front door, and even took the time to shake off the water on the plastic sleeve.
- ‘CBS Sunday Morning’ had a segment on cow branding, and how the emergence of computerized ear tagging may might it a thing of the past, and how others want to keep the tradition.
- It’s that time of year again where everyone is filling out their March Madness brackets, well, everyone except for me, because for some reason it’s just something I never cared to do. Freedbirds has a contest and their version is to try to get you to make the worst NCAA March Madness bracket.
- The Cooking Channel has their version featuring the best of college eateries, Waco has some kind of BBQ place included in the bracket and Austin is included with Juan in a Million.
- It’s pretty cool how former Dallas Maverick Adrian Dantley is debt free, lives in a million dollar home, and is just a simple crossing guard.
- I’ve made two posts about Gordon Keith’s column about being open about salaries, and this will most likely be my last. Two of his friends at that dinner he wrote about are dropping their two cents – Eric Celeste and Tim Rogers
- For my high school friends that read this blog, it was 20-years ago yesterday that my parents gave me my maroon Grand Am. Yup, we’re old.
- Why an MRI costs $1,080 in America and $280 in France
- I take it there’s not a liberal version of C-PAC?
- Nicolas Cage Left Behind movie poster
- Michael Jordan Vs. Kobe Bryant – One On One Compilation (1996-98, 2001-03) – YouTube
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Jesus a Shape-Shifter? Author Claims Ancient Egyptian Text Says So
- Late author James Truslow Adams was the one who created the phrase “The American Dream.”
" I recorded the Hitchcock classic Vertigo a while back during the Encore free preview weekend."
I watched this movie about six months ago. A group of movie critics had recently ranked it as number one in a list of the 100 greatest movies of all time. They moved it ahead of "Citizen Kane", which is routinely ranked as the best movie ever. "Vertigo" is a very depressing movie that has a clumsy, unhappy ending that left me really disappointed. I generally DVR and watch movies I like several times. I will never watch this movie again.
ESPN lets fans enter their bracket picks into an on-line contest each year. I can't remember the exact statistics but generally if there are 2 million entries about 4 make it to the final four.
"Why an MRI costs $1080…"
This is a very interesting article. A report came out about a month ago that stated the U.S. ranks 17th among the world's developed countries in terms of health (based on a dozen different measurements) and yet pays considerably more per person in healthcare. One of the responses is to get government out ot healthcare, but then that would knock out Medicare and Medicaid. The biggest complaint about the European healthcare systems is that they are the doorway to socialism. But if the free enterprise system gives you the best product at the cheapest cost, how come we have the worst product at the most expensive cost? Single-payer is probably the only answer and I don't see that America is ready to agree to that.
I like Vertigo. It's a slow moving Hitchcock "think piece" and a visual exploration of a character that was unprecedented for it's time. A big budget Art House film. Who doesn't love a giant floating Jimmy Stewart head?
But, best ever? No. Not even best Hitchcock film. I rank it behind North By Northwest, Rear Window, Lifeboat, The Birds and several others on my Hitch scale.