The South Carolina Trip (Finally)

I have been promising to put up the pictures from Kate's South Carolina trip a few weeks ago (at the beginning of July). Well, finally I am putting the pics up from that trip.

First they went down to visit Abbie, Ellie, Nate and Jason in NC and stayed with them for a day or two.





This last picture is of Jack playing with a toy laptop, complete with his tongue out, much like Grandma Witchey when she is at her computer. Genetics are a weird thing.


These are from South Carolina, where they went to visit Battery Park and the Aquarium. There weren't any decent pics of their trip to the aquarium, but a few good ones of the Park.







Jack watching Papu cut the watermellon

Ahhhhh, Internet Access

We finally have internet access back again. We were out for a few days and had sporadic service for the days preceeding that because of a faulty cable modem(s). We got a new one only to have that one fail a few days later. Thanks D-Link.

The router has done fine through all this, so thank you Netgear.

Smile, BooBoo!

Kate took a few pics of the boy earlier this evening. She was trying to get him to curl his tongue, which is a genetic thing.



He sticks his tongue out when he is concentrating on something like working with play-dough or using a fork. His grandmother (Kate's Mom)is the same way, she sticks her tongue out when she concentrates on stuff, like driving.

Update: Lennon

Hey Koko, I heard you liked the Tootsie Pop Art, so here's an update of the John Lennon one I just finished. I heard about Lucky last year and was sad that he had passed. He was a good fella, I remember him from our trip to Atlantic City. :)



I'm a big fan of all the Beatles works, I have been singing some of their songs to Jack at bedtime. He says, "No Sing, Daddy!". Apparently I suck at singing.

Tootsie Pop Art (John Lennon)

The latest addition to my Tootsie-Pop series is John Lennon. I have still got some work to do on him by adding the hair highlights in the top-left corner to show his hair, but its about 80% done. I ran out of Grape wrappers, so if anyone wants to save them and send some more to me, I would like that.

I have some of the ladies at one of our library branches saving them for me and they have sent me about 20 wrappers so far.

The Hill Billy Soap Opera

I walked out to retrieve my trash can earlier this week when my neighbor across the street, a dude named "Rick", was just leaving. He is, in every sense of the word, a "Dude." He pulled over to my side of the road and gave me the latest news in the hood.

Apparently one of our neighbors doesn't live in his own house anymore, he decided to leave cause his wife got a boyfriend - that tends to put a strain on a marriage. The new fella is a friend of the new next door neighbors and they all like to "Whup it up", which is Hill Billy for drinking.

I don't like those new neighbors that moved in recently, they have about six cars which are all 4X4s and sit up high like Monster trucks. They rumble up and down the street which sounds like a NASCAR race. I don't trust these guys cause they are always out front just waiting around in the street. Even when its raining, I have driven by and there was three of them out standing in the light rain talking. Mind you, they have a covered front porch a few feet away.

Anyway, one of these FOHB (Friend of the Hill Billies) has taken up with the lady down the street. She is a regular as far as the city police are concerned, since she tends to get a little rowdy with her kids and regularly "Falls" on them during arguments. Never a punch thrown, but a lot of falling going on, this may be a side effect of the drinking. (The arguments and the falling)

If I get any more updates or developments, I will try to report back here the latest on the Hill-Billy Soap Opera.

Bottled Water Worse Than Cigarettes?

Yeah, I fell for it too. I was channel-surfing on the TV and came across this story on the local news. I thought, Oh, man, maybe its the plastic, or that some water may have been recalled or the found some horrific chemical in bottled water that gives you an extra eyeball?

Nope. Not at all. The story was about how if you drink from those water bottles with the smaller opening, you purse your lips, which, over time, will eventually give you wrinkled lines around your mouth. These lines are known as "Cigarette Lines" from the repeated process of closing the lips around the cigarette while inhaling.

I think the story was designed for maximum impact of life-threatening scare factor rather than to inform or educate. I also thought it was interesting for about a three whole seconds, then it wore off since I don't smoke.

I don't care much for little wrinkles around my mouth, but I am not going to fore-go being properly hydrated to avoid them; seems counter-intuitive. Refusing to drink water would really make you wrinkled, can you imagine?