Bag of Randomness

  • I don’t think I’ve ever been to a national park.
  • When I was a kid, like before elementary school, a common dream I would have would be that of hang gliding.  One day, I think I would like to give that a try.
  • It was tax free shopping weekend in Texas, and one of the items that was tax exempt is clothing.  However, when I bought a shirt off Woot!, which happens to be a Texas based company, I was still charged sales tax.
  • I discovered yesterday that Doc Holliday use to have an office in Dallas not too far from Dealey plaza.
  • Planes, Trains, and Automobiles was on the television last night . . . great flick.
  • Every year the dates 4/4, 6/6, 8/8, 10/10, 12/12 fall on the same day of the week, this year it’s on Sunday.
  • The Expendables won the box office again this weekend, I wonder if that means Steven Segal and Jean-Claude Van Damme will sign on for the sequel.
  • Interesting portrait photo taking tips, here are a few that caught my attention:
    • The type and brand of camera you use has a huge effect on how good you look in your pictures. Panasonic > Canon > Nikon
    • The flash adds 7 years to your age.
    • Photos taken late at night and late afternoon with a shallow depth of field are rated best.
  • Gerald Calente, the guy that predicted the 1987 stock market crash, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the recent subprime mortgage crises, thinks the middle class will disappear and the poor gets poorer and the rich gets richer.  To be more clear, he thinks the ‘Greatest Depression’ is around the corner.
  • Where Wookies Come From . . .  related Wookie The Poo
  • It appears that Megan Fox likes to wear her step-son’s shirts
  • 30 Things You May Not Know About Caddyshack – I thought number 30 was quite interesting, and you know, I don’t think I’ve seen the movie all the way through.
  • 10 Inventions from Back To The Future that Actually Came True
  • Pat Fleet is the voice of AT&T – her fun stuff page is actually pretty funny
  • U.K. Worship Leader to Tweet Entire Bible Chapter by Chapter
Posted in Personal | Comments Off on Bag of Randomness

There are worst fathers I suppose

This is no doubt a judgmental post and I most certainly don’t know all the facts, but these thoughts are derived from what I simply observed.

WifeGeeding and I are at our local Schlotzsky’s (funny name, serious sandwich) for lunch as we see a father and his two kids enter.  I know they are they are his kids because they call him “Dad.”

After all three of them order they sit at the table directly in front of us.  The father and the older kid gets up and takes advantage of the free Internet.  Once their order is ready I see the father and the kids get their food and place it on their table, and only the youngest boy remains seated and eats all alone for what I think is 20 minutes while the father surfs Facebook and the other son plays some sort of online game.

It’s obvious the father doesn’t care that his toasted sandwich gets cold because he remains focused on Facebook the entire time without even turning around once to check on his son that is eating alone.  The other son eventually goes to the table to bring his pizza back to the computer to finish his game playing, and the youngest is still left there eating alone, all alone, without any attention, for what I thought was 20 minutes.

Once the youngest kid finishes his meal he gets a little restless, playing on the floor, but all of this is oblivious to the father as he never turns away from Facebook to see if his son is even still in the restaurant. We eventually left but I never saw the father get to his sandwich or spend time or say anything verbally to his two kids once they got their food.

I found this entire episode heartbreaking, and hope I never adopt some of those attributes I saw in that father.  Perhaps he is a real loving father, perhaps he was having a bad day, I don’t know.  I just know what I saw, and I pray I don’t become that.

Posted in Personal | 2 Comments

Not So Well Known Apollo 11 Facts

  • The Soviets landed there a few days before The unmanned Luna 15 Soviet spacecraft began its own descent to the lunar surface just a few hours before the Apollo 11 liftoff -and crashed. This was widely seen as the climax of the Space Race, but also a moment of unusual cooperation: the USSR released Luna 15’s flight plan to ensure it would not collide with Apollo 11, though its exact mission was unknown.
  • The flag fell over As the astronauts lifted off the lunar surface, film shows the flag whipping violently in the exhaust of the ascent stage engine. Buzz Aldrin saw it topple. Subsequent Apollo missions usually planted the American flags at least 100 feet from the LM to prevent its being blown over by the exhaust from the ascent engine.
  • Nixon was prepared to bury them on the Moon In the event of a catastrophic failure that would leave Aldrin and Armstrong on the Moon, William Safire, President Nixon’s speechwriter, drafted a plan to be followed. Mission Control was to “close down communications” with the Lunar Module. In a public ritual likened to burial at sea, clergyman would then have commended their souls to “the deepest of the deep.” Presidential telephone calls to the astronauts’ wives were also planned. The speech (which we covered here) began, “Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace.”
  • A ten year old kept Apollo in touch After a fairly smooth docking procedure, the three astronauts began their return to Earth. But along the way, the Guam tracking station failed, which would have made communication on the last segment of the Earth return difficult. A staff member had his ten-year old son, Greg Force, do repairs that were made possible by his small hands.

More Apollo 11 facts @ motherboard.tv

Posted in Interesting | Comments Off on Not So Well Known Apollo 11 Facts