Yeah, it was about time. I made a new theme. I’ll have it up on WPThemes and on my wiki soon. Don’t have the time to package it all up right now.

John the farmer was in the fertilized egg business. He had several hundred young layers (hens), called “pullets”, and ten roosters, whose job it was to fertilize the eggs (for you city folks).

The farmer kept records and any rooster that didn’t perform went into the soup pot and was replaced. That took an awful lot of his time, so he bought a set of tiny bells and attached them to his roosters. Each bell had a different tone so John could tell from a distance, which rooster was performing. Now he could sit on the porch and fill out an efficiency report simply by listening to the bells.

The farmer’s favorite rooster was old Butch, and a very fine specimen he was, too. But on this particular morning John noticed old Butch’s bell hadn’t rung at all! John went to investigate. The other roosters were chasing pullets, bells-a-ringing. The pullets, hearing the roosters coming, would run for cover. But to Farmer John’s amazement, old Butch had his bell in his beak, so it couldn’t ring. He would sneak up on a pullet, do his job and walk on to the next one. John was so proud of old Butch, he entered him in the county fair and he became an overnight sensation among the judges.

The result…The judges not only awarded old Butch the No Bell Piece Prize but they also awarded him the Pulletsurprise as well. Clearly old Butch was a politician in the making: Who else but a politician could figure out how to win two of the most highly coveted awards on our planet by being the best at sneaking up on the populace and screwing them when they weren’t paying attention?

(Thanks, Ron!)

Randy and Julie came over yesterday and stayed all night last night. Randy is KC’s brother (and Julie is his wife!) and he’s really into cycling. That’s bicycle riding. Today, Muscatine hosted the Melon City Criterium. Muscatine is known throughout the midwest for its particular cantelope which we locals call muskmelon; there is also a lot of watermelons grown around here. We have a particular area just south of town called “The Island” (no reference to the movie!) that due to flooding over the years has very rich yet sandy ground which is ideal for growing watermelons and muskmelons. Thus, Muscatine is sometimes called Melon City. Anyway….

Randy rode in the Masters division. This is for riders who are 50 or older; Randy says it’s code for “really fast old guys”. He finished 15th, which he wasn’t happy about; he got a major leg cramp on the last lap going up the biggest hill of the course. Other than that, the last two days have been really great. It was nice to visit with Randy and Julie. They hadn’t been over since Breezomatic’s graduation and they got to see all the changes we’ve made around the house over the last year. But it was the visit with them that I enjoyed the most – I can’t speak for KC (and I’ll never try that either!!) but just sitting around visiting with them was great for me.

We stayed and watched a few other races. It’s really kind of neat to watch. I walked over to the tightest corner of the course and sat and marveled at the cornering of the cyclists. This corner is a “T” intersection and the road itself isn’t very wide. To watch the cyclists take that corner at breakneck speed and be so close to other cyclists….. well, it was amazing. I imagine you have to have a lot of trust in the abilities of the other cyclists in order to corner as they did. There was a speed indicator out near the start/finish line and most of the time it was about 25-27 mph; and this was the slowest part of the course as it was just before the “T” intersection corner. They got over 40 mph on the long, fairly straight run on the back side of the oval. Wow!

Happy anniversary, Michael and Carrie!

NO! It’s my niece Michaela!! She placed third in class 2A in the 400 meter hurdles in the Iowa State Track Meet. Check out the event recap here. She had the eighth fastest time going in to the finals, so she got lane 8 in the fastest heat. Didn’t seem like a good place to run, but she’s a VERY determined young lady. One cool thing about this is that she’s just a sophomore and the gals who placed first and second are both seniors; of course, the two girls who placed just behind her are also sophomores. (I guess there won’t be much room to slack off, huh? Not that she’d do that anyway!)

Congratulations, Michaela!!

Happy Birthday, Breezomatic!!

Looky, looky!! It’s WordPress 2.2!! Just out hours ago and installed here for your viewing pleasure.

Mother’s Day ended up being a pretty nice thing. It all started on Saturday. KC was on a hiking outing with some of her Jazzercise friends, so I was all by my lonesome. I decided that for her, the best thing I could do was to get all the chores around the house done so I….

• Mowed the yard. (KC normally mows yard as she considers it one of her workouts)
• Did the laundry.
• Cleaned the house including scrubbing the kitchen floor.
• Bought groceries (this is normally my chore anyway)

We also needed some things we normally buy at Sam’s Club, so while I was on my way there I got on my cell phone and set up a Mother’s Day cook-out at our house with my brothers. At Sam’s Club I picked up an extra package of frozen sirloin burgers (really great for grilling) and kaiser rolls (instead of plain burger buns) for the cook-out. I had asked each of my brothers to bring a side dish; I made potato salad, which is adapted from Mom’s excellent recipe (I don’t include onions – eggs and onions are deadly when I eat them!!)

It all came together great. Mom showed up a little early and we got to visit before the brothers and their families started showing up. Of course Mom was the center of the Mother’s Day celebration, but each of our wives was also being celebrated. My brother in Colorado even called to wish Mom a happy Mother’s Day. All in all it was a great day. Afterwards, I cleaned up and did the dishes that wouldn’t fit in the dishwasher (large serving bowls, grill utensils, etc.) and also set up the dishwasher to run. So KC had a day of relaxation and Mom got a nice family get-together with all of us AND we all got full bellies! What could be better?!

Looking at my WordPress Dashboard stats:

It’s kind of disheartening to see that I have nearly four times as many spams blocked from my site as I have posts AND entries! Makes me think the spammers and spambots are winning.

A boy goes to the drug store with his dad and sees the condom display.

• Boy: “Dad, why do they do packs of one condom?”
• Dad: “Those are for the high schoolers — you know, Friday nights.”
• Boy: “So, why do they make packs of three?”
• Dad: “For the college guys — you know: Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights.”
• Boy: “Then why do they make packs of 12?”
• Dad: “Those are for married couples — you know, January, February, March…”

(thanks, Ron!!)

No, not KC and I. Breezomatic is moving again. She was living in an old farmhouse out in the country. KC and I saw the place and were not happy when she first moved in (we let her know but that didn’t stop her!). This place is a whole lot nicer. It’s a small two bedroom apartment in North Liberty, a small bedroom community north of Iowa City. She’s got a lot of work ahead. Today after work, she’s got to go to the old place and clean up as best as she can. All of the people who have lived there over the past few months (about ten or so) did not pay their share of rent and are long gone so won’t help her clean. She’s got today to finish getting her stuff out of there and cleaning the place.

Over the next several days she’ll have to straighten out and set up her new apartment. It won’t be easy, but it WILL be just her with some help from her friends. The biggest thing is that I hope she gets to the city offices this morning so they turn the water on (she doesn’t have any water in the apartment other than what’s in pitchers and a small bucket). It will be really interesting to see what her apartment looks like in a couple of weeks; it was very cluttered last night when we were done but that’s true of any place when you first move in.