In a land far far away....: April 2009

Thursday, April 30, 2009

Sunday, April 26, 2009

Friday, April 24, 2009

Here is the video version which features her saying hi to her grandmas, blowing bubbles, smiling, and solving a Rubik's cube in 22 seconds (oh wait Rx tells me we didnt get that last part on film, damn!)

please let this happen....

Sean Hannity and Charles Grodin... This is a great clip. Keith Olbermann is offering 1000 dollars per second (for charity) if Sean Hannity will get waterboarded.... Sounds like a win-win situation to me!

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

183 times in 1 month?

This seems like a pretty effective "interrogation technique".
"Okay guys, he wouldn't talk after the 53rd time, then he gave us some information after the 89th time that turned out to be false, then after the 111th time I thought we had him because at 115, he was looking like he was going to tell us some stuff... then by 134 we knew he was just playing us, so we really stepped it up at 140-167, we pulled out all the stops... basically now we are just coasting, what # are we at now? 183 ? That seems to be working pretty well. Maybe next month we'll crack him!"

As usual Russ Feingold, my favorite politician ever, is the lone voice in Washington asking that people be held accountable for their actions.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

update: Russ is on the offensive!! Go Russ Go!!

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Ridin' Dirty

They see me rollin
They hatin
Patrolling they tryin to catch me ridin dirty
Tryin to catch me ridin dirty
Tryin to catch me ridin dirty

My music so loud
I’m swangin
They hopin that they gon catch me ridin dirty
Tryin to catch me ridin dirty

Gonna catch her ridin' dirty

She fell asleep behind the wheel.

This month's Cat Fancy Centerfold!!!

Egyptian Mau... more like Egyptian WOW!!!!

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Fear factor?

Here is an exerp from torture memos released (finally) by the Obama administration concerning the Bush's administrations use of torture. Obama's officials were quick to say 'no CIA officers will be arrested!' Funny, I thought in this country we determined if a crime has been committed first and then arrested those responsible... evidently not when you are in power and above the law I guess, you can just get blanket immunity.... anyway... I am getting this all from Glen Greenwald's blog, one of my fav websites (thanks DW). The full story can be read there.

For those of you less familiar with the various torture techniques our government uses on people that may or may not be terrorists or guilty of anything (we have no way of knowing we just have to take the government's word for it which worked real well with those WMDs), walling is slamming someone into a wall by the way and wall standing is chaining one's arms to the ceiling and locking their ankles so they are forced to stand for days on end. Doctors (first do no harm...great job guys!) were actually brought in during the prolonged standings to measure the swelling of the detainee's legs to make sure everything is going well. I wonder if they had a wheel they would spin to see which one you would get that day... I would hope for the insect in a confined box... that one sounds like the easiest one... Except for the guy they used it on who was deathly afraid of bugs, but thats another story.

********************** While on the theme, I wanted to share this "proud to be an American" spreadsheet I came across the other day. Maternity leave by country... this one hits a little close to home. In the US (thanks Clinton for FMLA at least it is something) we finally get up to 3 months off with no pay... good deal right? Well just about every country IN THE WORLD treats their working mothers better than the USA. It makes me sick. Cameroon 14 weeks, 100% pay, Algeria 14 weeks, 100% pay, Nigeria 12 weeks 50% pay, El Salvador 12 weeks, 75% pay, Even Islamic countries treat their women better!! Jordan 10 weeks, 100% pay, Saudi Arabia 10 weeks, 50 to 100% pay, Egypt 50 days, 100%. We haven't even got to the good countries yet.... Austria 16 weeks, 100% pay, Italy 5 months 80% pay! Sweden 14 weeks, 450 days paid parental leave; 360 days at 75%, and 90 days flat rate!!! And here we sit with 12 weeks at 0%... who else is with us in this elite company?

Swaziland & Lesotho. ..In fact the only country worse than ours is Papa New Guinea with 6 weeks no pay.

Also, In Estonia mothers are entitled to 18 months of paid leave, starting up to 70 days before due date! If even 25% of the countries on that list had no maternity pay I wouldnt complain, but it is painfully obvious by this spreadsheet that there is a world standard for maternity leave and we are on the very bottom of that standard. This is disgraceful.

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Gardening

So, I decided that this was going to be the year for me to start gardening, I have been threatening to for years. The harsh Wisc climate, lack of time, and lack of a garden were basically my excuses for not starting sooner. I was inspired by a commercial for upside down hanging tomatoes (see right)... I thought, why would you ever pay for that when I could do that with 5 gallon buckets and stuff around the house. I put my money where my mouth was and decided to do it. I started with hanging tomatoes only at first...

I could use old kitty liter buckets too... here are my first 3 1 dollar tomato plants.

Here they are a couple weeks later... notice the buckets have reproduced and there is one more... this one has zucchini. I wanted to start small, but I got the bug. Then I realized that I could use the top to plant stuff too, so I have Cilantro, banana peppers, and a bell pepper growing on the top of the hanging plants.

They only sold the seedlings for cucumbers and zucchini in 6 packs so I felt bad throwing the rest away, so I rescued an old flower bed by the side of our house for the remaining veggies..

It got close to 32 the other night, so I cautiously covered up the plants on the side

and made cocoons out of the hanging plants. Luckily it only got to 34 degrees.

Here is a close up of my peppers, I am not trying to grow mushrooms, they are just a bonus... I will have to check to see if they are edible too, I think they are straw mushrooms, but I am going to be on the safe side and not eat them.

Here they are in all their glory a month after the first pic at the top of the page...

To my surprise we already have a tomato growing!!! yeah!!

Here is a panorama of the side yard garden with zucchini, cucumbers, and banana peppers, I am keeping my fingers crossed!

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Random Cuteness

Bunny is cute too, we cant forget about her...

Here she is in her swing, she loves the swings.

Monday, April 6, 2009

A day at the races...

Our friends Everett and Katie convinced us to go to the horse races in Manor, Tx (pronounced May-nor) this weekend.

Dispite the wind (evident in the above photo) we were glad we went we had a great time!
Below is Rx holding Everett and Katie's baby Merrit. She is 3 months older than Evie.

Here they are crossing the finish line...

And here they are coming back (slightly slower)

Evie spent most of her time sleeping with occasional spouts of crying. Here is a pic of Sweet Pea sleeping while the rest of us are sinfully betting!

I lost 5 bucks on the day and Rx came out $0.20 ahead. It was a super fun way to spend a Sunday and Evie's biggest trip yet by far.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

J & R baby pics

Recently my mom sent me some pictures of me when I was weeks old.

I then requested pictures of Jack as a baby from his mom.

We decided to post them and let you all vote as to who she looks like most! When she was born I thought she had Jack's nose and mouth and a lot of people said that she looked like him.