Congratulations!

We're all so happy that Caleb and Kate are engaged!

In Heaven There is no Beer (Lyrics) (Inc. Alt. Chorus)

In heaven there is no beer.
That's why we drink it here.
And when we're gone from here,
Our friends will be drinkin' all the beer.

La, la, la, la, la, la.
La, la, la, la, la, la.
La, la, la, la, la, la,
La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la.

In heaven there is no beer.
That's why we drink it here.
And when we're gone from here,
Our friends will be drinkin' all the beer.

La, la, la, la, la, la.
La, la, la, la, la, la.
La, la, la, la, la, la,
La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la.

sweet as kalbi (beef delicacy)

What I've been up to lately

Yup yup yup.

The Obama Antidote

I heard this guy this morning on the Laura Ingraham show. I was bowled over. This man is articulate, eloquent, and plain-spoken. He doesn't hem, haw, mince or parse. Contrast his syle with that of our oily president. No teleprompter here. No faux intellectualism. On the LI show he was calm and straightforward. I can't link the clip from the interview because it requires a subscription. There is more on him here. And a Hannity interview here.

There is hope.

I have a really Bad Feeling...

...that this a**hole will show up at Luke's graduation.

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

What not to do

When stringing lights on the Christmas tree, don't climb cheerfully onto a stepladder without carefully checking it first to make sure those little metal things on the sides are pushed down securely. Doing so is likely to result in a collapsed stepladder, a tumble onto the family room floor, bruises, an increasingly sore and wobbly knee, an evening trip to the emergency room, a nice visit for Dad with his former colleagues, x-rays, the discovery that nothing's broken but a ligament might be torn, some painkiller prescriptions, and a whole new lease on life for Luke's old crutches and knee immobilizer.

I'm just sayin'.

If you Need to Vomit

Watch or listen to some of Barack and Michelle on Oprah. I've heard bits and pieces. These people have absolutely no class or humility.

Sometime Soon

I am going to reach the tipping point on eco-madness and explode.

If you come to a Fork in the Road,

don't use it to eat your lunch.


You don't know where it's been.

It's that time again

If you've had any difficulty getting into the Christmas spirit, this should solve that problem in two minutes and forty-five seconds, flat.

Merry Christmas!

Who Said This?

"I've always loved the flirtatious tango of consonants and vowels, the sturdy dependability of nouns and capricious whimsy of verbs, the strutting pageantry of the adjective and the flitting evanescence of the adverb, all kept safe and orderly by those reliable little policemen, punctuation marks. Wow! Think I got my ass kicked in high school?"

No cheating!

The cake's all gone, the candles are burnt out . . .

. . . but we still hope Luke had a happy birthday yesterday. Sorry this post is late!

two funny videos

sumo rock 'em sock 'em robots

and

kittens riding a roomba Who can stay on the longest?

"This"

Maybe I've mentioned that my cousin Matt Frey is married to a playwright, Melissa James Gibson. Here's the New York Times on her latest play, "This": " Ms. Gibson graduates into the theatrical big leagues with this beautifully conceived, confidently executed and wholly accessible work, which is not just her finest to date but also the best new play to open Off Broadway this fall."

More on Hadley CRU Data Manipulation Scandal

I know this article is a week old now, but it's the best one that I've found on the "Climategate" scandal:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/11/24/the_fix_is_in_99280.html

In case you wondered

why the current administration doesn't seem to know very much about how business works or what creates jobs . . .



. . . it's because they've never worked outside government. See here for more detail about the information reflected in the chart.

What?

Or should I say, "WTF"?

The military is just, like, out of control, man.

Luck of the Irish

On Friday night, Luke lost his car keys somewhere in Ithaca, where he was visiting Wes and doing an ROTC drill competition. He called us Saturday morning. We had some spare keys hanging on a nail in the garage that maybe were for his car, or maybe were for Laura's long-lost Legacy GT, or perhaps for some other car, we weren't sure. AAA got him into the Forester so that he could get his things out of it, but he still had no way to drive back to Rochester Sunday morning. Dad and I got ready to spend Saturday afternoon driving to Ithaca with the maybe-keys and, if necessary, if they didn't work when we got there, hot-wiring the Forester. But just in case, I called Lucy: home in Earlville for the weekend, but not going back to Ithaca until Sunday night or Monday morning. Not soon enough for Luke's plans. She gave me Bryan's number, and I called him, just in case: quite surprised to hear from Mrs. Murphy, not planning to come home for the weekend. Whitney was meeting her mom in Syracuse and if we'd gotten in touch sooner that might have been a possibility . . . but too late. Oh well. We were on the point of going out the door when Luke called: Travis was driving from Hamilton to Ithaca to visit his brother and would pick up the keys. He arrived shortly thereafter. Dad gave him the keys, tools to break into the car, the clicker from my Forester just in case it worked on Luke's (it works on the Outback, who knows why!) Sooner or later, if you look hard enough, Somebody from Earlville will be driving to Ithaca for the weekend. You can count on it.

Luke called a couple of hours later. One of the keys worked and he was safely in the Forester and able to drive it home. Dad and I didn't have to drive to Ithaca after all. Luke is still more or less out of luck because the lost keys include several that he needs back at college and will be hard to replace. But at least he can get into his car and drive it to where it needs to be. Thank you, Travis (and Lucy and Bryan!)

Wagon Road Camp

I'll add to that. Two posts should pull on Google harder than one. Are you out there? Let us know.

Wagon Road Camp

I'm putting this on the blog just so that if anyone googles "Wagon Road Camp" they will see this. We'd love to hear from anyone who worked there in the 1970s, in the William F. (Bill) Brown era.

fOsSiL FuELs

We will NEVER run out.

READ NOW!

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100017393/climategate-the-final-nail-in-the-coffin-of-anthropogenic-global-warming/

a lovely thing to watch

Earlier this morning I found a lovely little video on Boing Boing and I embedded it here for its peacefulness and beauty. However, twice now I have tried to play it from the embedded link in this post and both times my computer froze so completely that I had to reboot. That's not peaceful or beautiful! So never mind the embedding. It plays fine in Boing Boing and it's really a pretty thing, so, if you like, go watch it and then come back and tell me if you liked it.

My Suitemate Wins Programming Competition

http://www.rochester.edu/currents/

My suitemate is Ian, the guy in the middle of the picture. The article says it's the first time a school has beaten MIT at this level of the competition in 6 years.

Ana with her bunny

Figueroa Goes To Ithaca (start at bottom)

Hi, guys. Got room for one more?

You'll never get me on that thing.

Hey! Don't pull so hard.

His last meal with his family. He's the one with the massive head.

Yet More

here.

More Veteran's Day

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7oBeQ4Y6xo

On Veteran's Day

My grandfather, Sebastian Justin Frey, in World War I, which ended at 11:00 a.m. on November 11, 1918. He was born in 1892, so he would have been somewhere between 22 and 26 in this picture.

Uncle Ned at work

Both of these are featured in a collection of funny song graphs and Venn diagrams here, and yes, indeed, Uncle Ned is Mister Hippity. It's possible to vote for your favorite and, even though some of the others are pretty funny (see for example the Meatloaf one), Uncle Ned's contributions currently rank #2 and #7. What a world!

Update:

I am advised by The Artist Himself that he has been even busier than I realized.



Currently ranked #6.

Blog Numerology

The blog passed 50,000 visits the other day. Sadly, I didn't notice in time to figure out whose was the 50,000th visit (SiteMeter only stores data for the most recent 100 visits.) Here are the stats as of today:

Total
50,161
Average Per Day
28
Average Visit Length
1:27
Last Hour
2
Today
13
This Week
197

PAGE VIEWS

Total
111,476
Average Per Day
50
Average Per Visit
1.8
Last Hour
16
Today
46
This Week
352

Now, here's some food for thought: in February 2010, the blog will be five years old. Five years! Pretty amazing. How should we commemorate it? We had a best-post write-in vote for the First Blogiversary but since then we've let it slide. We shouldn't let this one slide. Think about it.

MFYs/Colin WIN!

The best team won. Johnny Damon was a hero. It's time for a little humble pie, Red Sox fans.

One more

I couldn't get Blogger to let me put three videos into the previous post, but I really wanted to add this one: "Danny Boy."

Dad in concert

Earlier this year, Dad met Red Raville when we joined the Sherburne Community Chorus. Shortly thereafter, Dad played the piano at a gathering at Clippingers' that Red attended -- and here's a result. On Saturday, Dad played with Red at the Vet's Home in Oxford. They sounded lovely. It didn't occur to me to bring the video camera, but once we got there I remembered that the regular camera can take short videos. Here are some clips. They're truncated and the sound may not be the greatest, but it'll give you the feel.

End the Ban on Compensation for Organ Donors

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/op_ed/view.bg?articleid=1207718&format=comments#CommentsArea

The nationalization of your children

The nationalization of your children

Best of the Web Today

"But that's not really fair to Obama. After all, he has a busy schedule, what with golf games and pitching the International Olympic Committee and date nights and Democratic fund-raisers and health care and the U.N. Security Council and Sunday morning talk shows and saving the planet from global warming and celebrating the dog's birthday and defending himself against Fox News and all."

Baseball contest

Correct me if I'm wrong:

If the Angels pull out the ALCS, Caleb wins.

If the Phillies win the WS, Anna wins.

If the Yankees win the WS, Colin and Laura will use the tiebreaker. Unless both agree to share the Prize.


Hasn't the umpiring just been awful? Aside from the obvious plays at the bases, which have been many, the calling of balls and strikes has been horrendous. One pitcher two nights ago had the batter struck out according to Pitchtrax but the count was 3-0. I am now of the opinion that balls and strikes should be called electronically.

Amherst

It's the 60s gone bad.

Hugo Chavez: "We are not in times of jacuzzi!"

Yup.

The waterfall

Dad and I walked through the bright, crisp October afternoon to the falls today. In all these years, Dad had never been there before. We took a shortcut across Julio's land and through his woods rather than walking upstream from the River Road the way we have before. It's right there, just a short walk and a slither down a steep bank from the back of the field.

I didn't get a good picture of the whole ravine -- I'm having lots of trouble lately getting my camera to take non-blurry pictures. But here's how it looked in 1912:

There's much more water going over the top today than there is in the old picture, and a smooth surface of shale with one big boulder rather than all those broken rocks. It almost looks as if the falls were not as high then as they are now.

Looking upstream, the water has worn a hole right through the cliff wall on the north side of the stream. Again, I had trouble getting a non-blurry picture:


This is looking back toward the falls through the hole. Hey, who's that guy?


Above the big waterfall is a smaller waterfall, trying to catch up:

I had fun taking pictures of the water going over the falls.

We live in a beautiful place.

Robert Reich: Advisor to Obama

Dale and Leilani Neumann Should Get Death Penalty by AIDS Infection

Or something like that. Seriously, let's figure out how to kill someone as slowly and painfully as possible, and then do it to Dale and Leilani Neumann. This couple let their 11-year old daughter Kara die of a very treatable form of diabetes without ever taking her to a doctor. Instead, they just sat there and prayed. How can this Judge have the nerve to sit there and say they are "very good people, raising their family who made a bad decision, a reckless decision." They are NOT good people. They are evil backward savages and they don't deserve to live. You can NOT grow up today in the United States and make a "mistake" like this out of pure stupidity. If you grew up in Saudi Arabia, one might be able to attribute something like this to pure ignorance, but NOT here. I don't care what they say, Dale and Leilani Neumann did NOT love their daughter.

http://www.postchronicle.com/news/original/article_212260610.shtml

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/08/us/08sentence.html

And this is not Christianity "taken to an extreme." It's religion of any kind practiced correctly, plain and simple.

We need this here.

Socialized medicine.

Do You SHop at JCrew?

A Mao jacket is next.

We have gone insane.

It's over and we lose. The insanity, from global warming hysteria to "health care reform" is now permanent. Your lives are being controlled by forces beyond your control. I hereby "give up." The weenies of the world win.

The Standings

After the first round, Caleb is in the driver's seat with four points. Colin, Luke, Laura, Mom, Mary and Anna have three. The rest of us have two points.

Best I can tell, all of us with two points are eliminated. Luke and Mom look to be virtually eliminated, also. That leaves a field of Caleb, Colin, Laura, Mary, and Anna.

Oh, Dear.

Well, I was hoping for more exciting baseball this post season for us Red Sox fans. Things could not have turned out any worse. The game was won yesterday, but for Papelbon, who has been stalwart, but who also talks a little too much. And the MFYs swept the Twins and look invincible. Hats off to them.

Caleb looks to be in the lead in the contest, being three for three.

Anybody wants to make comments on the Red Sox collapse, I'd be interested in your take on it.

If You Haven't...

...watched the video of the Tchaikovsky concerto being played on the accordion(below), you should. It's phenomenal.

If you DON'T Ever worry about the future of humanity...

watch this kid. He's the orchestra and the soloist combined. The music is the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto 3rd movement.

If you ever worry about the future of humanity

. . . listen to these kids. They are in high school.

Tiebreakers

#1) Of those tied with the most points at the end, the winner(s) will be the ones who picked the winner of the World series.

If more tiebreaking is called for:

#2) The number of runs scored by the winning team in the World Series. You must pick this number before the start of the WS. The closest person wins.

Baseball Playoffs Contest

Pick the winner of each series. Two DS, two WCS, two LCS, and the WS. Make your picks before the start of the Red Sox game on Thursday. (((*****NEW DEADLINE-THURSDAY AT NOON!)))) Yes, that means you will have three games under your belt, but I want to leave enough time for entries. The prize, the only prize, is $50 of NYS instant scratch tickets, chosen by me. I will be entering, too. Tell your friends and relatives. Your entry should be made here in the comments and should look like this:

Yankees, Red Sox, Yankees

Phillies, dodgers, Phillies

Yankees

or something similar. just make it simple and easy to understand, please.

The UPS driver, my buddy and a Yankee fan was telling me about a bar he goes to where they have a football pool every Thursday for the first 100 players. Entry is $20. The winner(s) of the week get $1500 to split. No spread, just pick the winners. At the end of the season, there is enough money for the grand prize of $10,000.

Edit-Note the new deadline of Thursday at Noon.

Bush Cost us the Olympics

Oh, we'll never undo the damage.

Somewhere Over the Truck

A double!

Beedle-e-dee-dee-dee!

Two Ladies!

Grandma Sez

"People are funnier than anybody."

And One More

More G'ma

I taut I Taw a Putty Tat

I live inside my birdcage a hanging way up high
I like to swing upon my perch and sing my little song
But there's a cat that's after me and won't let me alone
I tawt I taw a puddy tat a creeping up on me
I did! I taw a puddy tat as plain as he could be.

That puddy tat is very bad he sneaks up from behind
I don't think I would like it if I knew what's on his mind
I have a strong suspision that his plans for me aren't good
I am inclined to think that he would eat me if he could

New Country Cornflakes

Please buy our cornflakes. They're made from corn.

Rumba

Rumba is a very exciting first calf heifer. She is in the top 0.5% of the breed. She rocks.

Juliet

The blog has been facebooked.

Not to worry. I'll stay here.

Grandma Visits

More pics to come.

Staggering.

Maybe there isn't even any global warming, anthropogenic or otherwise. It may not just be trumped up, it may be entirely fabricated, or, as it says, quality controlled and homogenized.

Destroying the Environment to Save It

Go stand under a windmill sometime and then tell me they are benign.

More on Borlaug

After his triumph in India and Pakistan and his Nobel Peace Prize, Borlaug turned to raising crop yields in other poor nations especially in Africa, the one place in the world where population is rising faster than farm production and the last outpost of subsistence agriculture. At that point, Borlaug became the target of critics who denounced him because Green Revolution farming requires some pesticide and lots of fertilizer. Trendy environmentalism was catching on, and affluent environmentalists began to say it was "inappropriate" for Africans to have tractors or use modern farming techniques. Borlaug told me a decade ago that most Western environmentalists "have never experienced the physical sensation of hunger. They do their lobbying from comfortable office suites in Washington or Brussels. If they lived just one month amid the misery of the developing world, as I have for 50 years, they'd be crying out for tractors and fertilizer and irrigation canals and be outraged that fashionable elitists in wealthy nations were trying to deny them these things."

The author is Gregg Easterbrook, who wrote "A Moment on the Earth."

Tonight's Red Sox Game

Blacked out. Why? Probably because ESPN owns the rights to ALL baseball on Sunday night. That's my working theory, leastways. Hey, MLB, why not alienate some more fans?

Does anyone know what networks the playoffs and WS will be on?

Really Exciting Red Sox News

Heidi just announced this and I was so thrilled I had to put it on the blog. Ya ready? Red Sox Owner John Henry has started his own blog about the Red Sox and actually already has a post up! Heidi's excitement was contagious.

Jesus H. Christ on a Honda 50!

I wonder if it'll include pictures of his new trophy wife.

A Truly Great Man

Here.

Choosing a Wife

In some circles I'm considered an expert in the field, so this interested me.

Quiz

Without looking it up, who played CF for the Red Sox in their home opener, 2004?

RF? 1B? 2B? SS?

More 9/11

Bill Whittle.

Daniel Henninger.

Two pictures for today

. . . of sights never to be seen again, outside of pictures and memory.


More here, and video here.


Please think of Mike's parents and brothers and sisters today.

WATCH OUT!!!!

You're being watched.

The Omnivore's Delusion

Please read this, if you haven't already. It is one of the best things I've ever read about modern agriculture.

If there's anything I can't stand, it's a foodie.

More Van Jones

He has resigned.

Here's an excerpt from a CD he made with Mumia Abu-Jamal (google him if you don't know who he is, esp. if you're a Philadelphian) :

"The American way, manufactuered by these white folks in office. By these rich men here to mock us. The United States is a stolen land led by right-wing, war hungry, oil thirsty. And when it's all said and done they still can't clean their own place because they got people of color playing servant to do that sh*t for them... The true terrorists are made in the US, in this police state..."

He tried to start an anti-war on terror newspaper, because we are the true terrorists.

This guy was chosen by the president to be the Green Jobs Czar. You know a man by the company he keeps. Obama's company list is long and full of America haters.

And that's why the only company I keep is Mom. Everyone else is suspect. Sometimes I even worry about Mom.

Your government at work

These people can't be shamed.

Your "Green Jobs" Czar

Van Jones. And here. Remember Bill Ayers? Reverend Wright?

There were clues.

Raping the Earth with Hybrids

Rare metals becoming rarer. Treading lightly, my foot.

"Jack Lifton, an independent commodities consultant and strategic metals expert, calls the Prius "the biggest user of rare earths of any object in the world."
Each electric Prius motor requires 1 kilogram (2.2 lb) of neodymium, and each battery uses 10 to 15 kg (22-33 lb) of lanthanum. That number will nearly double under Toyota's plans to boost the car's fuel economy, he said."

Hey, does that mean Piouses aren't organic?

More on "An American Hero"

Here. Kennedy was 37 years old, and a US Senator, when he drowned Mary Jo Kopechne. The details are truly disturbing. The guy was a turd. Read a few paragraphs. I don't know if I can forgive the Red Sox for their idolatry.

"An American Hero"

When he wasn't drowning young women, Teddy was a big, big baseball fan.

These guys are, too.

Welcome home, Anna!

A celebratory selection of random pictures of happy times: