How Could I NOT Talk About It? The Penn State Sex Offender Thing.

10. November 2011 · Comments Off on How Could I NOT Talk About It? The Penn State Sex Offender Thing. · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,

It’s worth discussing.  And since I have to come up with 30 days worth of material for this month’s NaBloPoMo, this presented itself at an opportune time.

The web world is all aflutter with the Penn State Athletics Sex Scandal.  Or whatever you want to call it.

This makes me ashamed for all the times I’ve called Florida State’s mascot the “Criminoles” and equated red sweater vests with “Liars”.  What Penn State’s leaders have done makes all those NCAA violations child’s play.

Via e-mail, Twitter and Facebook, I’m commiserating with my PSU classmates.  We’re convincing each other that the university will dust off, move on and continue to move forward.  We’re pondering amongst each other what the leaders must have been thinking to cover up something like this, whether JoePa will receive any traditional retirement benefits, and all those great Linebacker U players who regarded Sandusky as a mentor right up through this year! The alumni association is pleading with their membership to continue support to the association and university.  Ironically, we received an Penn State Annual Gift letter on Tuesday.  We typically give a modest amount every year, specifically targeting the meteorology department and AFROTC.  This likely won’t change…those departments still need support.

But other thoughts have entered the mothering side of my brain.  I had these same thoughts in 2008, which is when we learned through our local TV station that Jacob’s soccer coach in Apex, NC was arrested on sexual misconduct charges.  Thoughts like “How can I trust any other athletic coach?” and “How do I know that ANY adult my child interacts with isn’t a sexual offender?”

So now I’m getting nervous thoughts about my kids going off to school each day, going off to college in the future, headed out to Boy Scout camp — without the parents — by the time they’re in 5th grade.

I won’t want to go through life like this.  I want to trust people.  After all, I trusted a 19-year-old with my sons for a few days in September while Dave and I traveled to Omaha on AF business, right?  I trust my sons on a school bus every day, I trust them at birthday parties, at school, and at those occasional trips they take with friends’ parents.  Other parents trust me with their kids.

I’m not happy with how one guy’s evil, and the witnesses who did nothing about it, turned into a huge Joe Paterno drama.  Joe Paterno may be part of the cover-up problem, but he is NOT the child rapist.  Last night CNN was airing stock footage of JoePa while discussing the graphic descriptions of those terrible things Sandusky did.  I call foul on that, CNN!

JoePa was fired first, while even Sandusky continues to receive benefits from the university for his defense, since he’s “innocent until proven guilty”.

Pardon the babbling here, pride in my alma mater has been shattered just a little.

Pardon Me While I Vent a Little

10. September 2011 · 4 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,
The box on the right was purchased in mid-July.  I thought I needed two boxes of cake mix for something, but I only needed one.  The box on the left was purchased this morning.  Darned straight I took the box tops!  But note the size difference….did someone think we wouldn’t notice???

I’m baking Jacob’s birthday cake right now.  The final product is a surprise — even for me, since I don’t quite know what I’m doing yet — but I needed two boxes of cake mix for this.

I had a box of mix in the pantry from a couple months ago (the one on the right), and I prepared it as on the back of the box.  1 1/4 c. water, 1/3 c. oil, 3 eggs.

Just before I took the first cake out of the oven, I prepared the batter for the second part of the cake.  I was just about to add the same ingredient amounts as above, but I caught a glimpse of the instructions on the box on the left: 1 c. water, 1/2 c. oil, 3 eggs.

I fished the first box out of the recycling bin and placed them side-by-side: you see that photographed above.  Somewhere between July and now Betty Crocker decided to knock 3 oz (1/6th!) from their cake mix.  And I didn’t see a difference in a price.

Isn’t this the same thing that been happening with ice cream and salad dressing?

RRRR!

Thank you for letting me vent…time to get part 2 of the birthday cake out of the oven…yes, at 10pm!

Major Tom Made the News Again…

04. September 2011 · Comments Off on Major Tom Made the News Again… · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , ,

Canadian illustrator Andrew Kolb decided to illustrate a children’s book with the story told in David Bowie’s hit song “Space Oddity“.

Now, you should know why this is interesting to me….

Mr. Kolb had put a link to the PDF of this book on his homepage earlier this week, but then he received a cease and desist request from the song’s copyright owner and he’s since had to remove it. According to the news article linked here, he’s working out the legality of this, and he’d like to illustrate more ballads of classic songs.  Here is a You Tube video with the pages of the book set to the song that might or might not be available for very long.

I noticed the lack of capitalization of the words “Major” and “God”, that the spaceship looks like the Death Star, and that the spaceship is ENORMOUS, but the illustrations are very cute and my sons would enjoy this very much.

Pay No Attention, Nothing to See Here….

25. July 2011 · Comments Off on Pay No Attention, Nothing to See Here…. · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , ,

This is just a filler post to run a fun little experiment.  I am going to compare RSS Graffiti with Networked Blogs and see which syndication posts to my Facebook page faster.

I’m leaning towards keeping RSS Graffiti because it didn’t require the widget on my site, nor did it require me to pick 5 blogs to follow like Networked Blogs does (note — I proceeded with the registration after only selecting two blogs to follow: Fotomom and Sergeant Major Mom).  If I keep Networked Blogs I will add more to follow.

Road Trip 2011: Traveling Solo With Sons

08. July 2011 · 1 comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , ,
Easter 2011.

I’ve gotta admit it — my boys travel VERY VERY VERY well. From Jacob and the Amtrak Auto Train to see family at 9 months old, to Timmy and a trip up to North Carolina to find a new house at 4 months old, our boys have learned that long automobile trips are part of the military lifestyle…

I also have to admit that I really enjoy traveling and I like to think that I travel pretty well. But probably not as well as I used to travel, when I’d work a full Air Force day and then hop in the car and drive from Fort Polk, LA to Keesler AFB, MS to spend the weekend with Dave while he was TDY.

(Oops, did I say that out loud?)

Right after Christmas 2006, I took the boys on a 2-week trip to New York and New Hampshire to give Dave some time to prepare for his comprehensive exams while he was at NC State. People thought I was CRAZY, but it turned out to be a really great trip.

January 2006.  Jacob has always been such an angel in the car!

Last month Dave and I parted ways about halfway through our vacation.  I continued northward to Vermont, while Dave caught a flight out of Harrisburg back home since he had to return to work.  Again, folks commented about how brave I am…or how crazy I am to make such trips on my own.

I love driving.  I guess I get it from my Dad.  My sister is the same way — after all, she and her husband drove with their THREE sons from North Carolina to Nevada, taking a “southern route” westbound and a “northern route” (including our house in Nebraska) when they returned eastbound.

In every other way, traveling solo with my sons was great.  I only had one issue: rest stop restrooms.

I’ve put up a blog poll about this before: At what age is your child old enough to go into a public restroom on his/her own?

I believe most of my responses were in the 7- to 8-year-old range.

So here I am, stopping on I-81, the New York State Thruway and I-65 rest areas and was just sending my sons into the restrooms.  But I was GLUED to the exit door waiting for them…my ears were really close to that doorway listening for them making sure they weren’t abducted.

Since I made it back to Florida with both boys in tow, it’s safe to assume that my sons survived the rest area restrooms.  But this leg of the trip certainly got me thinking about how single parents do it — traveling and trusting their babies in roadside restrooms.

Some other tips on how we handled the 50+ hours in the car with two young boys:

  • I will admit, we have the built-in DVD player.  But we put some planning into how much the kids use it.  For starters, we have a “30-minute rule” in our SUV: no movies unless we’re traveling more than 30 minutes.  But on longer road trips, I insist that the boys put some space between their movies, especially of there are particularly scenic parts to the trip (such as driving through downtown Atlanta or crossing the Hudson River on this last trip).
  • I will also admit (boy, I’m doing a lot of “admitting” here, aren’t I?) that my boys have Nintendo DSi’s (pardon the apostrophe, not sure whether it’s used here like this or what….).  On the first day of our road trip, I didn’t give much thought to Jacob having played his DSi for nearly the entire day’s worth of driving!  And that was a long day!  Oops…
  • Don’t rule out good-old fashioned road trip games: The License Plate Game, Auto Bingo, and I Spy are all family favorites!  
  • I’ve heard of other families doing this with success, you could try using the rest area or fuel stops as break points between media: perhaps 2 hours for a DVD, then 2 hours of Nintendo, then 2 hours of “looking out the window”.
  • With young kids, don’t forget to try to work in some activity time to make the hours of sitting less terrible.  Stop for lunch at a Chick-Fil-A with a kids’ play area, or find a rest stop on your route with a playground and pack a picnic lunch.  Dave and I used to frequent the Amtrak Auto Train station in Lorton, VA as a rest area when we’d make our drives from North Carolina to Pennsylvania or New York: there’s a nice playground, and at lunchtime the kids would enjoy seeing the vehicles getting loaded onto the train cars.

Google+: Good Idea or Bad Idea?

07. July 2011 · Comments Off on Google+: Good Idea or Bad Idea? · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,

I use that line with my kids a lot when they’re making questionable decisions.  If one of them is feeding grass clumps to the dog, I’ll ask “Good idea?  Or bad idea?”  Usually that’s enough to make them think before continuing.

I got a (not-quite sanctioned) invitation to join Google+, Google’s new social network, last week from GeekMom Jules.  Several of us GeekMoms have been checking out the assorted Google+ features, from the photo sharing, to the statuses to the “Hangout” area where you can web chat with other Google+ users.  The privacy settings are very likeable (default privacy is “no one can see much”, seemingly the opposite of Facebook’s privacy where the default is often “everyone can see everything unless you manually change that”).

Anyway, in terms of the social network, I think Google+ is on the right track for a smoother-running social network than Facebook.  I’m hoping it doesn’t get overrun by corporate pages and multi-player games the way Facebook has in recent months.

However, I’m sitting here with a clenched jaw waiting for the kinks to get ironed out of the other Google products that are supposed to nicely tie into Google+.

A couple days ago it was published that Google will be rolling their Picasa and Blogger brands into their own names, and with it will come some more tie-ins to Google+.

I’ve been slowly-but-surely uploading and sharing my vacation pictures in the middle of this transition and was faced with some difficulty sharing my Picasa albums with my family.  What I have typically done is upload the photos to Picasaweb with captions, then e-mail the album to myself.  Finally, I forward that album to a pre-set list of friends/family.  This week I attempted to e-mail the album to myself and nothing happened after hitting that “Share” button.

Actually, something did happen: the album posted to my Google+ news stream.  Because my e-mail address was tied into my Google+ account, some assumption was made that Google+ news stream is somehow equivalent to an e-mail inbox.  I managed a workaround by using a non-Google+ enabled e-mail address that I have.

But then when I tried to share the photos with my pre-set friends/family e-mail list, several of them couldn’t see the pictures unless they had their own Google.com login/passwords.  This used to not be the case and it’s very upsetting that my parents (among the main audience for my family’s photos) can’t easily see the pictures anymore.

Similarly, this morning I discovered that several pre-sets in my Blogger (soon to be Google Blogs) account were reset without my knowledge.  I used to have 10 e-mail addresses who’d receive automatic copies of my blog posts when published.  Who knows how long they hadn’t been receiving them.  Chances are they missed most of my vacation posts….

Thanks for letting me vent…I’m hopeful that Google is taking in everyone’s feedback (including this post) and will be sympathetic to those who don’t necessarily want a Google.com login/password to enjoy the Internet.

Flashback From 2010: Funny Fireworks!

03. July 2011 · Comments Off on Flashback From 2010: Funny Fireworks! · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , ,

This was from a year ago today, but it’s worth reviving for this year, since I laugh so much from the stupid names of some of these products!

This week I’m volunteering at a fireworks stand. For those saying “Wow! How?”, let me explain a little.

The state of Nebraska allows 10 days per year for free-for-all fireworks sales/use. There are some exceptions: none of this is legal in the Omaha city limits, and Lincoln only allows sales for 2 days. So starting on June 25th, you hear the explosions as everyone’s having a good time with their loot. In our neighborhood, it’s only really loud till about 10pm…except for July 4th, I know last summer we were launching till midnight, at least!

From 2009 07 04 July4thBlockParty

In Bellevue, and perhaps in other cities (but I don’t know for sure), local non-profits can pay the licensing fees and sell the fireworks as a fundraiser. I got an e-mail from the Bellevue Soccer Club looking for volunteers to help man their club’s fundraiser fireworks stand up the road from us. My first thought? DISCOUNTS! Even though I was TDY at the beginning of the week, and we’re leaving on vacation at the end of the week, I still thought it’d be a fun thing to do, so I volunteered to do 2 four-hour shifts.

I did my first four-hour shift yesterday and it was fun. Not super crowded, but not bad either. A steady stream of customers.

Anyway, the point of this blog post is to share some of the hilarious names for these fireworks.  These are all multi-shot small mortar shells.  You light it one time and it launches 25 or so shots in succession.

Some are benign. There’s no doubt what this is, right?

From 2010 07 10 Fireworks Packages

Some are sillier. And we start to lose any sense of what’s in the packaging.

From 2010 07 10 Fireworks Packages

Some are adrenaline-packed! Forget about a description of what this is.

From 2010 07 10 Fireworks Packages

And this one made no sense to me whatsoever. Are these even fireworks???

From 2010 07 10 Fireworks Packages

And here are some others…enjoy!

From 2010 07 10 Fireworks Packages
From 2010 07 10 Fireworks Packages
From 2010 07 10 Fireworks Packages

Road Trip 2011: Thoughts on Kudzu

02. July 2011 · 3 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , ,
This is what much of my drive up I-59 and I-81 looked like last month.

If you’re unfamiliar with the southeastern U.S., you might have never seen this.  Having lived in North Carolina for 3 years, there were areas where we came to expect it.

So…what is kudzu?  You can read the details, from the taxonomy to the history, on Wikipedia.  To summarize, kudzu is an Asian-native vine that was introduced to the United States in the late 1800s and was encouraged as a soil-erosion control near interstate highways.  Today, the vine is significantly invasive, covering complete mountainsides throughout the Appalachians.

I saw it all over the place on our drive up I-59 and I-81…and it was disturbingly fascinating seeing it in its prime after living in non-kudzu-infested Nebraska for 2 1/2 years.  The vines allegedly can grow one FOOT per day…and there are even legends of folks hearing the vine as it grows!  It covers hillsides, meadows, trees, buildings, power poles and even electrical lines like an enormous plush green blanket.

Kudzu is indeed edible, and on Alton Brown’s 2006 television special Feasting on Asphalt, Brown stopped in Cashiers, NC and demonstrated how you can cut the youngest leaves for salad.  Kudzu is also used to make jelly, soaps and lotions.  The Asians have claimed kudzu’s medicinal benefits.

There’s been recent research about letting cattle graze on kudzu, both as an attempt to control the plant, but also for the benefit of the cattle, since it would be cheap, nutritious feed.  Others have come up with ways to profit from kudzu.

This biking blogger offers some more history and perspective on the weed.  In particular like the map he cites showing the kudzu growth areas in the U.S.

Blogger Problems, But Here’s a Pretty Gardenia

27. May 2011 · Comments Off on Blogger Problems, But Here’s a Pretty Gardenia · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,

UPDATE: Whatever is going on is related to my Safari browser. So here I am using Firefox and everything seems fine. Phew!

Apparently my Blogger account (not Google account, just the Blogging part of it) is having some problems, so I will be attempting to do some blogging via e-mail, which is the only way I know how to get posts in at the moment.

This won’t look very good, and I don’t know how many pictures I can incorporate this way.
Until Blogger figures out which way is up…we’ll muddle along.

Coming soon…black-velvet slugs, garden updates and the CREPE MYRTLES are starting to bloom!
I’ll leave you with this pretty picture of a gardenia from my garden that I took last week just before I headed to Nebraska.

Thoughts on Corn

22. May 2011 · 1 comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,

Corn’s been in my mind a lot this week.

“Yeah, being in Nebraska will do that to you….”

As I was saying, some corn-related items have surfaced these past few days, not just from being here, but I guess in general.

Corn thought #1: In Florida, local corn harvests are in full swing, with our local Publix grocery store offering yellow, white and bi-color corn from a farm in Belle Glade, FL.

Okay, so that isn’t super local.  I realized that I could drive to Houston in less time than it would take me to drive to Belle Glade, which is west of West Palm Beach along Lake Okeechobee.

It’s been great having fresh corn available to us for as little as 10 cents per ear!

Corn thought #2: This week The Pioneer Woman held another Kitchen Aid Mixer giveaway, and she randomly selects the winners from the folks who answer simple questions in her comments section.  Here’s the giveaway post, and you can see how many comments it generated.  Yep, you read right…over 51,000 comments!  The question was “What’s your absolute favorite vegetable?”

The following day, she not only posted the randomly-selected winner, but she also offered the statistical distribution of what answers she received.  Number one on the list?  Corn!

Potatoes were #5 on the list, and I don’t agree with that one either.

Last summer, when Nebraska corn was available at roadside stands, I had set up a quickie poll to ask about whether corn should be treated as a starch or a vegetable at the dinner table.  My family’s inclination is to use it as a starch, although I know that school cafeterias and 2/3 of my poll respondents treat corn as a vegetable.  I wrote up the results, along with a ranting about Florida corn being available at my local Eastern Nebraska Wal Mart (and how stupid that seemed).

I think I’m going to present that poll again…I have a pretty wide range of readers now.  Look to the right of the ORIGINAL blog post (it won’t work if you’re viewing this on Facebook or via RSS/e-mail) and answer my non-scientific poll question!

Corn thought #3: Enjoy a picture the gift I bought for my boys today at Chocolaterie Stam in Papillion, NE.  They’re filled with a hazelnut chocolate creme…yum!  These chocolates give props to the first American Chocolaterie Stam store in Des Moines, IA.  Jacob asked me to bring some of these back from Nebraska for him.

Aren’t they cute?  Each one is about the size of my pinky finger.
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