Riding again.

I picked the bike up yesterday from the shop. It wasn’t too too bad in terms of cost.
I am having so much fun on this thing it is crazy….

Come to think of it, so is my wife. Last night was a family night for us so after dinner, we went to the driving range with the boys and had ice cream. On the way home, Nan suggested that we go out for a little rip on the bike. So we dropped the boys at home, told Jacksy to have his shower and asked Will to watch Jack for a few minutes and off we went.

We just sort of toured about the subdivision a bit and had some fun. When we get home, Nan says to me with a big grin on her face…

That was fun!!! Next time, can we go somewhere where we can go faster?!

Oi vey! She is a crazy gal that one. But that is why I love her so much.

Changes to how we live

Nan and I have been doing some very serious thinking about the priorities in our lives lately.
Somedays it seems simply overwhelming what we are involved in.

I am getting tired of the learning curve that my profession keeps me on. Sometimes, I think it would be really nice to be able to use what I have for a while without having to worry about what is the newest and greatest thing coming down the pipe that I will have to incorporate into my code.
To some, my sitting on the couch with my laptop in the evenings might not seem like work. It is.

Nan teaches piano and loves it. But it keeps us hopping. She is also a full-time mom. It simply amazes me how she keeps the Britton ship running so smoothly.

My boys.
Wow, my boys. They are growing so fast. I simply cannot fathom that Will is going to be 11 next month. This is frightening. Nan and I were talking about it just last week and we believe that we are fast approaching the time when my boys will want to spend more time with me developing than with their mom. That was difficult for Nan. She has been the ONE for the last 10 years and that is starting to change.
That is not a bad thing. It is good. Everyone goes through this and I am looking forward (with a little bit of healthy fear) to seeing my boys grow into young men.

So, I think we are going to make some changes in the decisions we make about how we spend our time. We had a wonderful weekend away this weekend and just had an absolute blast hanging out together. My boys are such fun to be with. Their senses of humour are quickly developing to the point that anyone is fair game now with sarcasm. Sweet.

The boys learned to swim in deep water this weekend. I am so thankful that this finally happened. It is something that I learned fairly early in life as did Nan and we wanted the boys to feel confident near water. They are all over it now.
Good days

Link from a link from a link.

As with most blogs, links are the norm.
I read Topher’s blog.
He in turns reads Coffee Klatch.
As I was perusing said site this morning, I came across this listing of quotes.
They come from a time when words were wittier without being vulgar.

I like it. I need to grow my vocabulary more.

“He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.”
- Winston Churchill

“I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.”
- Clarence Darrow

“He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.”
- William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway)

“I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn’t it.”
- Groucho Marx

“I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.”
- Mark Twain

“He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.”
- Oscar Wilde

“I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend. If you have one.”
- George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill.
followed by
Churchill’s response: “Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second, if there is one.”
- Winston Churchill

“I feel so miserable without you; it’s almost like having you here.”
- Stephen Bishop

“He is a self-made man and worships his creator.”
- John Bright

“I’ve just learned about his illness. Let’s hope it’s nothing trivial.”
- Irvin S. Cobb

“He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others.”
- Samuel Johnson

“He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up.”
- Paul Keating

“He had delusions of adequacy.”
- Walter Kerr

“Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?”
- Mark Twain

“His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.”
- Mae West

“Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.”
- Oscar Wilde

Lady Astor once remarked to Winston Churchill at a dinner party, “Winston, if you were my husband, I would poison your coffee!” Winston replied, “Madam, if I were your husband I would drink it!”

Lady Astor also once remarked to Winston Churchill at a dinner party, “Sir Winston, you’re drunk!” To which, Winston replied, “Yes, Madam, I am. And you’re ugly! But in the morning, I will be sober. And you will still be ugly!”

The language in our culture and society today has nothing on the days of old.
You may disagree, but I am a romantic and will not be swayed in my thinking or opinion so ppppphhhhhhhhhh!

edit: I will not vouch for the absolute infalibility of any site I link to here. I cannot control anyone’s mouth if they say bad things. Please don’t blame me.

Don’t sweat the small stuff right Mom?

That’s what mom used to say….

Well, yesterday was Jackson’s birthday. Great day. We were going to have a fire in the fireplace out in the backyard last night but it was way too hot.

So, we went for icecream instead. As we were in the car, I saw that Jackson looked very warm and said …

“hey, you long haired freak, why don’t you get a haircut????”

His response:

Okay, let’s take it down to the brick.

Well, normally I tell him I shave my head down to the wood, but close enough.
Mommy came out to the car and Jackson informed her what he wanted. Mom thought that a completely bald job might be a bit much of a jump. After all, the kid has been growing a mullett as of late.

How about a mohawk??

the ever funny dad said…

Okay! Sweet!

said Jackson.

Sweet huh??

Is that your final answer????

Isn’t it funny how people remember things just a little bit off?
Like getting a phrase slightly wrong that has been around for a while?

At the breakfast table this morning, Jack did something that was not too bright and I commented on it..
His response…

I’m smarter than your average pear!

What? Wasn’t it “Smarter than your average bear..” (a la Yogi Bear?)
Funny kid.

More Blogs to come.

A while ago, my wife Nan decided she wanted a blog. She has enjoyed it immensely thus far….

It would seem now that she has some of her friends from the boys’ school interested in starting their own blogs. Oh boy. She is a trend-setter huh?

I think I will ask her to start throwing around the idea of supporting web developers just for the fun of it. Maybe that will catch on and we can see some extra income come in.

What in the world were they thinking?

My friend Topher blogged about this the other day. Somewhere in America there are scientists and mucky mucks with weird ideas and WAY too much time on their hands…

On National Public Radio today there was a guy who works to get declassified stuff that shouldn’t be classified anymore. For example, Elvis once met with Nixon on the spur of the moment, just showing up at the front gate asking to see him, and asked to be made into an honorary undercover narcotics agent. They chatted, he got it, gave a gift to Nixon (a pistol!) and that was the end of it. This is classified information by default, and stayed that way because no-one ever asked for it to be declassified.

Acoustic Kitty was another project he got declassified. The project involved embedding microphones under the skin of cats, and then sending them in to curl up near (or in the lap of) The Target. They’d tried dogs and stuff, but cats are more likely to stay in one place and sit still.

So they got the plan all put together, got a cat, trained it, put the microphone in, and took it to a park in D.C. They marked the target and turned the cat loose. It started to move in.

And then got hit by a taxi.

End of project.

Boy, I wish I had time to think up things like that and develop them. There has to be a living in it somewhere, don’t you think?