Is this Neverland?

Sometimes I walk a few blocks up the hill from downtown Tacoma to the county courthouse. Today while I was walking I suddenly entered what appeared to be Neverland. The Mad Hatter, the queen and those twin guys were there to welcome me. Here's a glimpse.

This was real! Just like those fields full of buffalo, longhorns and emu I used to see all the time.

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Check back soon for more posts.
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

Are we Human?

The term humanoid originated in the early twentieth century to describe things with human-like characteristics. I don't know what they called human-like things before 1912. Maybe they said things like: 'Boy, this here discovery reminds me of something, but I just can't place it' or 'Sure wish there was a word to describe this here fella'. You have likely deduced that the use of 'this here' was very common in the early twentieth century.

As you can imagine, humanoids come in all shapes and sizes. Well, as long as the shape has two arms, two legs, a torso and a head. I guess I should say they come in all sizes.

Early humanoids looked like this:

Hi. I'm Ardi!

and this:

I'm Lucy and Ardi ain't got nothin' on me!

Though the term fell out of favor in the scientific community after its initial introduction, the term humanoid has never fallen totally out of use. Some more recent examples of humanoids include these fine gentlemen:

They hope to one day understand you.

And these cross-over stars:

Nanu! Nanu! (some 2 year olds think the guy on the right is a cow. Be careful...)

Now... Humanoids can be man made as well. Just like these guys:

Hi there!.... Hi there!

And this gem:

Can you guess his weakness? Don't touch my handle!

Apparently, some people have trouble telling the difference between humanoids and actual humans.

Mom always said 'don't talk to strangers'

These humanoids have specialized head attire and one has a robotic arm:

But they do know how to rock!

Be particularly careful around this one:

Not sure what he's conjuring up here, but it doesn't look friendly.

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Well it's taken a while, but there you go. Was it worth the wait? I hope so. Anyway, check back in a week or so and there will likely be another post. I'm going to try to update at least two times a month. We'll see.

Check out the newest poll. This topic won the last one so the voice of the people does count for something here. Make sure to let your voice be heard!

Oh... and for those of you who regularly follow this blog, I know I have used Al Gore in a joke before in the Bankers post. He's just so versatile.

Umm...

So when you get an email on your Blackberry and want to forward it to your other email account, make sure that you select the proper account. In my quest to be more mobil with my blogging, I enabled email blogging. I forwarded the message below to what I though was my work account, which turned out to be my mobile blogging account.

Strange thing is, some of you saw this before I did.

More soon....

Fw: BuDu Racing 2010 Multi-Sport Calendar

Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

---

From: "Deanna-BuDu Racing" <deanna@buduracing.com>

Date: Wed, 9 Dec 2009 10:31:17 -0800

To: <happychowjones@hotmail.com>

Subject: BuDu Racing 2010 Multi-Sport Calendar

	Greetings James! It is time to start preparing for 2010…Are you ready??
	Our 2010 calendar is posted, and if you register online prior to January 1, 2010, you will receive $10 off your registration fee. We are also sending out an email with a link to a survey on the website Survey Monkey, and would really appreciate you taking time to complete the survey. We will be randomly giving away registration coupons to 5 of the people who respond to the survey by January 5, 2010. Thank you in advance for taking time to do this.
	Sun Apr 25 – Mount Rainier Duathlon (long & short) Enumclaw Sat May 29 –Spring Festival 10K Run and 5K Run/Walk Moses Lake Mon May 31 –Spring Festival Triathlon and Duathlon Moses Lake NEW Sat June 12 Moses Lake Family Tri: For the Health of It! Sat June 19 – Five Mile Lake Triathlon Auburn Sat July 3 –Five Mile Lake Women’s Triathlon Auburn Sun July 11 – XTERRA Vashon Off Road Triathlon (still to be confirmed) Sat July 31 –Ellensburg Sprint Triathlon Sun Aug 1 –Whisky Dick Triathlon Vantage Sat Aug 28 – Lake Sammamish Triathlon Issaquah (will be USAT Sanctioned in 2010) Sat Sept 4 – Bonney Lake Triathlon (Olympic and Sprint) Sat Sept 11 –Lake Stevens Triathlon (Olympic and Sprint)
Are you still looking for a gift for someone?  We are offering a holiday gift certificate available through December 31, 2009. Gift Certificate
We look forward to seeing you in 2010. Have fun training!
Deanna Muller BuDu Racing - Event Management www.BuDuRacing.com 206/920-3983

 

Just checking in...

How are you? Good? I'm good too. Pretty good at least. October is a fun month. Some exciting stuff going on. Holidays. My birthday. Other people's birthdays.

Haven't blogged for a while. Just thought I'd check in with my devoted followers. Still hangin' in there? I hope so.

I'm trying to. Who isn't right?

It's started to rain out here in Washington. The rainy season. Summer was good though. Long days spent doing things people do in the summer. I like to swim.

What are you going as for Halloween? I'm not dressing up this year. Just not that into it anymore. I do like the candy though. Who doesn't. Thank you George Renninger.

Well, good talking to you. Sorry it's been so long since we've just chatted. It was nice wasn't it? I thought so too.

New World Man

So I was just checking out my blog features and found out you can email blog posts. Since I've abandoned the blog for over a month now, I thought I would try something new.

I may just star emailing it in. I could also text it in if I want, but don't think that's necessary.

I am writing this post via email as my first test. Wonder if I can attach a photo?

Anyway, we'll see if this adds any life to my future posts.
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

I'll take "Four's a crowd" for $500...

[Writer's Note: This post was published July 11, 2009. I couldn't figure out how to change it on here.]

In May of 2009 this Blog site had a four way tie on its weekly Poll...









What is Can't we all just Blog along?





Correct!





Thanks Alex...





So I don't know what to do... Sliders/Robber Barons/Game Show Hosts and Jumping on Trampolines?







Sliders are small hamburgers. Often steemed. They are regaining popularity now. Everyone seems obssessed with little burgers.





Here's a photo.











Robber Barons is a term for an industrialist who made a lot of money through unfair business practices.








Not robbers like this:







Robber Barons like this:





Starting with (from left to right) John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and J.P. Morgan

Game Show Hosts:



Alex Trebeck is the best game show host ever. He knows everything. Enough about game show hosts.



Jumping on Trampolines:

Jumping on trampolines is fun. When I was a kid growing up in New Jersey nobody I knew that was actually fron New Jersey had a trampoline. The only people that had them were transplants from the west. For some reason, I thought having a trampoline meant you were rich. I have since come to find out that they aren't expensive. I did have an exercise trampoline when I was a kid. Wasn't that great.

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So I started this post the end of May. I couldn't think of anything to say that was funny, novel etc. but I had to get it done. It was holding me down man. I had to break the chains and set myself free. This is what you get when you have a democratic voting system for post topics and a blogger who just comes up with choices out of thin air. Unfortunately, I don't have a set of rules that come into play when situation like this arise. Someday. I'm determined to bring more next time though. I have had a couple of ideas lately that may appear soon. We'll see.

I did put a new poll up on the top left for you to vote on. Take your time, think a lot, think of all the choices you've got, cause they won't be here tommorow, so vote a lot?...(Do you know where this poorly modified line comes from?)

Anyway, til next time.

The Dead Show!

So I've liked the Grateful Dead for years. One of my favorite bands of all time. A couple weeks ago a friend of mine called me with an extra ticket to their show at the Gorge. Actually, we were going to go to their show in 2004, but Amber was pregnant with the triplets and I didn't want to be 2 + hours away in case she needed me. Turns out, she didn't have the kids for about a month after that. Chalk it up to missed opportunities and fatherly responsibility, I guess?

But, I wasn't going to miss them this time. After all, they're already down a founding member and a handful of keyboardists. And this wasn't just a Dead show, the Allman Brothers were going to be there along with the Doobie Brothers. Is it clear why I couldn't miss this show? (Though I don't necessarily like the Doobie Brothers, they do have a ton of songs in regular rotation on classic rock stations.)

Instead of giving you a complete account of the show, I thought I would address the highlights through 10 Questions About the Dead.

1. What are the Grateful Dead? The Grateful Dead are one of the greatest bands of all time okay.

2. So why do the just call themselves The Dead now? In 1995, lead guitarist, singer and songwriter Jerry Garcia died. Now when the remaining original members play together they are just The Dead.

3. How would you describe their music? I like to describe their music as American Rock. They incorporate rock, blues, jazz, country, bluegrass etc. into their songs.

4. But, aren't they just a jam band? No. They're a jammin' band.

5. What kind of people like the Dead? All kinds. I saw complete families, hippies, bikers and stoners at the concert.

6. But, don't all the fans take drugs? Pretty much. There were a handful of people there that weren't on something. In the old days there was a lot of acid and marijuana etc. Now it seems like its mainly just pot. Though in a somewhat troubling scene, there were two couples in front of us with a 5 month old and a 12-14 month old. One of the husbands came back and I caught: "you'll enjoy your walk much more if..." and then they were chewing, I should say biting into, some tablets that looked like Mike and Ike's but weren't. The left after that so I can't report on the effects. I just hope those babies made it to bed okay.

7. So, how was the concert? It was a good show. They sounded really good. The guitarist that fills in for Jerry is great. They played a diverse set heavy on the late 70's and 80's material with some other gems thrown in. They played for over 3 hours.

8. How were the other bands. The Doobie Brothers played first. We got there about the middle of their set. They played all of their hits and sounded good, but not interesting. The Allman Brothers were great. Warren Haynes, who plays Jerry's parts with the Dead also plays with them. They played 2 hours straight.

9. So, are you glad you went? Definitely. It was a great show. Even though I got a really bad headache towards the end and threw up out of the car window on I-90.

10. Would you go again? Yes. As they say, "There's nothing like a Dead show".

Here are some pictures:

Here's me. Notice the strollers and kids in the background.

Here's the view of the Gorge:

Here's the stoners that sat in front of us:

I think they just came for the drugs. They didn't seem to be affiliated with or interested in any of the bands.

Here's the band:

Here are some random Deadheads from the show:

I didn't take this picture, but they had better seats than I did.

Here's the blanket I sat on:

That's my leg!

Here's the view from where we sat:

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Thanks for checking me out this week. Sorry for the delay on this one. I started writing it last Saturday before the show with the intent that I would finish it up early in the week. Well, I tried a couple of times and didn't know where I was going with it. But, here it is. Check back soon for other great posts. I put up a new feature last week so I wouldn't forget what has been requested.

Also, check out the new poll and cast your vote. All I can say is that it's important. So VOTE okay. Last poll there was a four way tie, so who knows what you're going to get with that post. I don't know any other blog that allows as much reader interaction as this one. Use it or lose it...

The Art of the Deal...

Alright, so can I brag a little? I know that I have set the bar pretty high here, but this might just raise it again. Possible? Yes!

So, Saturday came around as usual. On Saturday mornings, we clean. I handle a mean vacuum, but that's a topic for another day. We finished early. Before Maggie's nap. Made great time. Friday night Annie asked me for some glue to make a Mother's Day project for Amberlyn. (I presume that most of my readers are close acquaintances and therefore know my family, so for those of you from Waterloo, Ontario and around the world you will just have to bear with the personal references). Unfortunately, we didn't have any except for some rubber cement and you know what a mess that is.

Skip ahead to Office Depot. Now I spent some time as an associate at one of Office Depot's main competitors, OfficeMax. So, you could say they knew I was coming.

I saw it as soon as we got there. It was displayed on an endcap in the electronics. A clearance item, mail-in rebate, the "Last One". Let the negotiations begin. I was ready.

Then I waited. And waited. The kids were restless. I was chomping at the bit to get my claws into the unsuspecting Depot sales team.

I called on my negotiating idols.

Corleone

Trump

Spacey

I got the Department Manager. The Paper Department Manager...

She was frazzled already. They were busy. Did I mention I was ready?

I'll spare you the carnage, buy suffice it to say that I got the winning end of that deal.

The result: I walked out of there with a good laptop for... Ready? $200.00.*

My idols would be proud...

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Hey thanks for stopping by. I know you don't have much time in your day and I want you to know that I appreciate you. If it wasn't for you, who would read this? Anyway, check back soon for some new topics. I added a list of upcoming posts so that I can keep track of the ones I blatantly ignore. You can't always follow the voice of the people. But don't despair, your voice will be heard.

On that topic, make sure you check out the new poll on the top right. Every vote counts. Double votes count twice. Feel free to double up.

*So, they couldn't find the battery so they dropped the price in half. I did get her to drop the price an additional 10% before that happened. Also, the after market battery was only $68. So it's still a great deal, Okay?

J-E-R-K C-H-I-C-K-E-N

Jamaica is an island in the Caribbean.

Early inhabitants of the region included Caribs, the Arawak and the Maroons.

Rarely does one forget to include the Taino Indians in that list.

Keeping up?

Charqui, the root of the English word "jerk", means dried meat in Quechua.

Hot peppers are combined with Jamaican pimento to make the Jerk seasoning.

Incans don't use Jerk seasoning.

Cherokees either.

Kentucky is known for their fried chicken.

Everyone loves fried chicken.

Not everyone loves Jerk chicken.

Well, these people do...

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Well, thanks again y'all. Not sure why Jerk Chicken won the last poll. I thought you would pick Happier Times for sure. Who doesn't like to think about happier times? I sure do. I love it. Feel free to take a stab and this week's poll on the top left. That's top right for those of you seeking relative accuracy. And don't forget to vote early and often. Unlike in national elections, we don't publicly frown on duplicate votes while secretly hoping for them.

Another thing: If you guys are reading this, shouldn't you add your name to the Followers List and "get up on this crazy train"?