Linking for thinking ...

Posts from two other bloggers have been stuck in my head for days. The Neaderpundit, Og, has a series of posts going regarding faith, belief, truth, trust and more. I find them good reading, especially for attempting to get my thoughts somewhat in order for Lent.

Phlegm Fatale has a post up regarding the following song. I've been playing it pretty much non-stop since I read her post, so I thought I'd share. As she says, "music expresses what's best in us."

MTA results

We tied for 3rd place out of 14 units, I believe it was, in the cooking contest. This was for all of the pre-Civil War groups. I have to seriously rethink our game plan for next year, but there is only so much you can do and present when you’re limited to 15 minutes with the judges. No, I don't have any pictures. I wasn't about to pull out the camera and lose points for authenticity. It's bad enough we got dinged because the woman around the campfire wasn't very friendly. (Gee, I wonder who that was?)

We also witnessed a freak accident where someone was leaning over the fire and a spark went down the front of his shirt inside his waistcoat. As a result, it wasn’t readily apparent what was happening at first – the guy just knew that something was burning, but he couldn’t figure out where it was coming from at first. There wasn’t any polyester involved so the shirt did not stick and shrink-wrap itself to the skin, but a not-insignificant part of the shirt will have to be repaired. Other than a little singed chest hair and a couple of red spots there wasn’t much damage to the guy. Yes, we had fire buckets handy (and a fire extinguisher, and a wool blanket) but we couldn’t really tell what the problem was at first. It’s not often something catches fire from the inside out. I ended up grabbing the skirts of my gown, reaching inside the guy’s shirt with them and smothering the smoldering shirt between his waistcoat and my skirts.

Lesson learned? We will now keep a dish towel-sized piece of linen in one of the fire buckets for this type of situation. And I get to remind him, quite dramatically, that I saved his life for at least the rest of the season.

          

All the cool kids are doing it

In order to pay the linky-love forward, I'm linking to blog-brother, Borepatch, who's linking to Tin Can Assassin, who linked to Blog-father JayG.

It is April 1st ...

Remeber this guy?

Remember my friend, The Loyal Lurker, and her brother?

Today's snark consisted of the following.

I hear they are planning for another “Day Of Rage” somewhere in the middle east.

Isn’t that like the rest of us “announcing” a “Day of Breathing”?

How about a “Day of Not Having Our Heads Up Our Asses”?

or a “Day of Not Cutting Off Our Noses To Spite Our Faces”?

or a “Day of Acting Like Adults Instead of Irate Spoiled Toddlers”?

Why Colonial Williamsburg doesn't have Monsters

Sweet Daughter and I were driving through Williamsburg (where the hotel was – yes. We hotel it in March. Sue me.) to Jamestown on Saturday morning when I saw a lovely 18^th century house with a very simple sign out front. The artwork consisted of a pineapple and three letters.  “AHA!” I said. I need to get a picture of that. So on Sunday morning, I managed to stick my camera out the window and grab a picture. “THAT’s getting sent to New York Times best-selling author Larry Correia!” I told Sweet Daughter.  She ignored me and continued eating her Froot Loops.

Funny - I would have expected something more lethal than a pineapple.

Living History – Blue Angels and Bearcats

“It’s kind of like having two piranhas chewing at the side of your airplane”

H/T to Neptunus Lex via the ususal suspects.

Not the most fun I've had this week

Sweet Daughter came home last week with a flyer advertising the “planetarium” that was going to be at school tonight. I told her that I was REALLY BUSY this week, and didn’t know if we’d be able to go. She came home from school today telling me I had to read the flyer in her book bag about the presentation in the school cafeteria tonight. Shorter Half had a meeting from 6:00 until 8:00 tonight, so even though I have reports due at work tomorrow, and a HUGE weekend to pack for, and food and clothing to document, I agreed to take her. She SO wanted to go.

We got to the school at the appointed hour and walked in to the cafeteria to find what looked like a giant silver mushroom cap inflated in the middle of the floor and chairs set up in rows behind it. I naively hoped that the presentation would be projected onto the outside of this thing. No such luck. Have I mentioned that I’m a bit claustrophobic? And that it seems to be getting worse as I get older? So when I found out that they expected us to crawl through this tunnel thing like it was some kind of space-age igloo, I asked the parent of one of SD’s friends if he’d mind keeping an eye on her, and told him he was free to rip off her arm and beat her with the wet end if she misbehaved. I went to go sit and wait things out when the Guy In Charge lifted up the side of the giant mushroom for those of us that were old, infirm, halt and/or lame to enter. I thought that I’d try that way – after all, there was plenty of room inside, right?

The good news: I ended up sitting by the fan that was blowing fresh air into the giant Hefty bag. The bad news was that the fan was so loud I couldn’t hear the presentation. We were packed in there like sardines. We had to sit on the floor, and being closer to 50 than I am to 45 these days, that wasn’t terribly comfortable. It was stuffy in there. And when he started spinning the stars across Kinderdome, I thought I was going to hurl. Did I mention that there was no way out that didn’t involve a bladed instrument?

So I sat with my head down next to another claustrophobic mom and waited it out. Then the sick bastard giving the presentation told us those of us ducking under the side had to wait until everyone else had gone through the tunnel before the rest of us could exit. I thought I’d done pretty well until I got home and found that my stomach was still in knots an hour after leaving. And to top it all off? I found out the kids had already sat through the same, if not more extensive presentation, earlier that day.