Merry Christmas Sunrise

Merry Christmas to all the friends of the Murphies. Sadly, the sunrise had diminished some by the time I got the camera.
Notice the trail of jet spew. It's ok, though, because Al Gore's on the plane, busy fighting you-know-what.

Sandy Berger

This guy was National Security Adviser to President Clinton.

What a great family I have!

I like it that my children are on the cusp of adulthood. I like their centses of humor, their rationality, and their warmth. This may turn out to be the best Christmas ever!

experiment

I am trying to see if this will make the blog come back.

OK, whew, that did it. The blog was broken -- neither Dad nor I could see the front page properly. But putting up a post brought it back.

Talking dogs

Perhaps we should train Panda to do this?

Saying thanks

Here is a site where you can send a free postcard to say thank you to someone serving in Iraq. You cannot choose to whom the card will be sent, but it will be sent to a member of the armed services. The site is sponsored by Xerox and is for real. It allows you to choose a postcard design and offers some ready-made messages, but it will also allow you to write your own if you choose. It takes only a minute and might add some encouragement to the day of somebody who needs it. Send the link to your friends!

Lions and zebras and giraffes, oh my!

Caleb found this link, not me, but he is too busy being a studious vet student to post it, so I will. It's a live webcam pointed at a watering hole somewhere in Africa. It has night vision, so you can see whatever might visit the watering hole 24 hours a day. (If it's in spooky-looking black and white when you visit, that's why.) A person operates the camera, so if there's something particularly interesting, you might get a closeup - see above.

So far I have seen an elephant, giraffes, antelopes, wildebeests, hornbills, a hyena or jackal that entered the frame and left too quickly to be sure what it was, and I have lost count of what else. The sounds are beautiful and hypnotizing. And once I just watched the sun come quietly up in Africa, slowly turning the frame from black and white into full color, while it was dark and cold outside here. It is mesmerizing. Thank you, Caleb!

White Christmas

Remember this?

Yum!

The best part of this picture is not the cat in the dog's mouth, but the kitten sitting next to them. He is so funny.

I can't take credit for this, I got it from Anna.

Look for the Northern Lights tonight.

If you are outside tonight around midnight or thereafter, especially if you can get away from lights, you may well see the Northern Lights. There's a solar storm underway. See a more detailed explanation here.

By the way, all of a sudden it seems to be possible to copy and paste images into Blogger posts. Now THAT'S an easy way to do it!

A Poem from Grandpa Frey

Carnation milk is the best in the land.
Here I sit with a can in my hand-
No tits to pull; no hay to pitch.
You just punch a hole in the son of a bitch.

Anon.

Helaine meets Obama!

The last time my Lexis friend Helaine made the blog, it was because she had her picture taken with Johnny Damon. This time, it's another brush with fame. Helaine lives in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where presidential candidates show up early and often to court the voters. Yesterday, Barack Obama hit the state, and she had tickets to his book signing. And today, she's in the New York Times. This video (click on the video link in the right-hand column) requires a little bit of patience because, first, you have to sit through a brief commercial (for a movie about Idi Amin?? I guess I haven't been paying attention), and then the Obama story itself is several minutes long. But at the very end . . . the woman in green who wants to wait and see is Helaine.

Of course, we all know what happened to Johnny Damon after she met HIM, so this may not augur well for Obama. But I guess, as Helaine says, we'll just have to watch and see.

Crime among snowmen

You will eat what we tell you to eat

I'm not sure what motivates people like this, but I think that it really makes them angry that people are getting more pleasure from eating donuts than they are from eating celery. Click here.

It's a...

big ad.

An honor for Colleen Law-Tefft

This award given to Colleen is pretty impressive. Look at the company she's keeping with prior award winners -- "Governor Nelson Rockefeller, Sir Mort Clark, Kitty Carlisle Hart, Cornell University, and the Corning Glass Center." Those of you who've been taught and helped and supported by Colleen over the years will definitely want to send her a note acknowledging this recognition.

The Evening Sun won't leave this page up long, so here's the article:

Local thespian wins highest state community theatre award

Published on: Thursday, December 7, 2006

SHERBURNE – Colleen Law-Tefft received the Mary Eva Duthie Award at the 47th Annual Theatre Association of New York State Festival in Glens Falls on Nov. 19. The Mary Eva Duthie Award is given to an individual or organization who has provided outstanding service to community and academic theatre in New York State. Past recipients of this award include Governor Nelson Rockefeller, Sir Mort Clark, Kitty Carlisle Hart, Cornell University, and the Corning Glass Center.

Incoming Theatre Association of New York State (TANYS) President David Grayson presented the award to Law-Tefft, citing her long time involvement in community theatre, academic theatre, and service to the TANY organization. Colleen has been active with Sherburne Music Theater Society for seventeen years. She has served on the Board of Directors of Sherburne Music Theater Society for sixteen years and has served in nearly every official capacity on the Board. She is currently Secretary and Chairperson of the Artistic Committee. She has appeared in many Sherburne Music Theater Society productions including “On Tidy Endings,” “Brighton Beach Memoirs,” “Crimes of The Heart” and “A Comedy of Errors,” for which she received TANYS Roving Adjudicators’ Merit Awards for acting. In addition, Law-Tefft directed the SMTS production of “I Hate Hamlet.”

“I am overwhelmed,” said Colleen. “I do theatre because I love it and want to share it with others, but it is nice when someone notices.” In addition to her commitment to community theatre, Law-Tefft has served as the Drama Club Advisor for the past eight years at the Sherburne-Earlville High School. Under her guidance, she has developed the Drama Club into an award winning organization. Colleen’s students have received TANYS Roving Adjudicator’s Merit Awards for their performances in “The Crucible,” “A Midsummer’s Night Dream,” “Great Expectations,” “Acting Up,” and “Chicken Wings,” which was selected for performance at the 2005 TANYS Festival in Auburn,. The performance of “Chicken Wings” at the TANYS Festival marked the first time in many years that a high school production was selected to perform. In addition, Colleen is a member of the New York State Theatre Educators Association (NYSTEA). Through NYSTEA, she has taken many students to the NYSTEA Student Conference which allows the students to attend many workshops in all facets of theatre.

TANYS President Grayson also cited Law-Tefft’s involvement with the TANYS organization. She served for six years as the organization’s first administrative secretary. These duties included running the TANYS office, designing and compiling the organization’s newsletter, and acting as the central point of contact for TANYS. Since stepping down as administrative secretary, Law-Tefft continues to serve TANYS as the Central Southern Tier Regional Representative for Broome, Chenango, Delaware, Otsego, and Tioga counties.

South Park, out in front.

Jay Nordlinger reports this conversation sent to him by a reader. Note the location, Caleb:

Finally, a reader from Philadelphia wanted to report a conversation he overheard on the Penn campus — Locust Walk:

Student 1: “Because if Israel and Iran go to war . . . the United States is in a war too, you know?”

Student 2: “Yeah.”

Student 1: “And then Iraq and Syria get involved . . .”

Student 2: “Yeah.”

Student 1: “And we’re not paying attention to North Korea, you know?”

Student 2: “Yeah, dude. South Park was talking about this stuff years ago.”

Happy birthday to you,

happy birthday to you,
happy birthday, dear Luke,
Happy birthday to you!

Heifers. At night. In the snow. 7 degrees.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas . . .

. . . finally!

Some news: Mom has a new job. As of January 1, I will no longer be a home-based employee. I am going to go to work for Elizabeth Garry, the newly-elected Supreme Court Justice for the Sixth Judicial District of New York, as her law clerk. I don't know too much yet about the details of the job, but I do know that I will be working mostly in Norwich, with some travel occasionally to other parts of the Sixth Judicial District. My work will be mostly legal research and writing, so you know I'll like it. For now, there is some information here about Justice Garry, but it's a campaign website from before her election, and I wouldn't be surprised if the website disappears soon. More info as I get it!

Oh yeah

I forgot. Here we are with our animated deer, Bucky.

Howard Cont.

Us with Howard. A nice man offered to help us tie him down but we said NO!















Topping the Tree!





















Howard is so pretty!

Howard

Yesterday we went to get our Christmas tree. He is a lovely Douglas Fir, about 8 feet tall. His name is Howard.














We sawed it down ourselves.















Timber!
















Oh No Courtney!















Swallowed.



















Who needs men? Seriously, we just cut down our own tree.

A couple Jokes

A little boy asked his mother, "Mommy, where did my intelligence come from, you or Dad?" She replied, "Well you must have got it from your father because I still have mine."


Two buddies were hiking when a Grizzly bear crossed their path and started toward them. One of the hikers threw off his backpack, grabbed his sneakers from it and started to put them on. His buddy said, "What are you doing? You can't outrun a Grizzly!" The reply: "I don't have to outrun the Grizzly. I just have to outrun you!"

Got Malaria?

Thank an environmentalist. This is so disturbing. Chasing the global warming bugaboo, denying life-saving DDT to third-world countries, demonizing scientists who express doubts about global warming, all the while living the high life.