billandiris.com

Photos HERE

More photos from the month of June. HERE

Gail, Iris and the kids went to Monterey.   HERE are the pics.

Photos from Lily’s Birthday / Father’s Day.  HERE

-bill

HERE

-bill

HERE! -bill

Sorry for not updating more often… I’ll try to get to it this afternoon and upload some photos as well.

-bill

From NASA comes the story of Jupiter’s growing storms: Explanation: For about 300 years Jupiter’s banded atmosphere has shown a remarkable feature to telescopic viewers, a large swirling storm system known as The Great Red Spot. In 2006, another red storm system appeared, actually seen to form as smaller whitish oval-shaped storms merged and then developed the curious reddish hue. Now, Jupiter has a third red spot, again produced from a smaller whitish storm. All three are seen in this image made from data recorded on May 9 and 10 with the Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. The spots extend above the surrounding clouds and their red color may be due to deeper material dredged up by the storms and exposed to ultraviolet light, but the exact chemical process is still unknown. For scale, the Great Red Spot has almost twice the diameter of planet Earth, making both new spots less than one Earth-diameter across. The newest red spot is on the far left (west), along the same band of clouds as the Great Red Spot and is drifting toward it. If the motion continues, the new spot will encounter the much larger storm system in August. Jupiter’s recent outbreak of red spots is likely related to large scale climate change as the gas giant planet is getting warmer near the equator.

A 6-year Army soldier has decided that he now suffers from Bush Derangement Syndrome and is refusing to fight in Iraq.  Fine.  No problem.  If he wants to renege on his oath that’s his call.  He may have to face certain consequences for his actions but he’s free to make his own decisions.  But the best part was the opening sentence from the AFP news service (as reported HERE) :

Matthis Chiroux is the kind of young American US military recruiters love.

“I was from a poor, white family from the south, and I did badly in school,” the now 24-year-old told AFP.

Wow, just a bit bias and narrow mined there, eh AFP?  The AFP is clearly indicating that they believe that the US Army actively seeks out stupid, poor white southerners?  I mean everyone knows that military recruits rank higher in education that the average American of the same age.  And in my opinion our best soldiers are generally from the south (historically speaking the culture of the South where farming and self-sufficiency are soup du jour produces a higher number of excellent soldiers).  And if he did so poorly in school he could not be accepted into the military.  But hey, why report any of that.  It’s far easier to just say that the military only takes stupid poor white trash, right?  There’s no reason for the opening sentence except to further their belief that only idiots join the military, right?  The article is supposed to be about a soldier choice to no longer serve the military yet the AFP has to thrown in a dig at recruitment.  Nice.

Also, and just because I’m hypercritical of everyone else (probably to cover up my own shortcomings) I noted that the journalist failed to show due respect:

Officials take “hard facts and slice them into small pieces to make them presentable to the secretary of state or the president — and all with the intent of furthering the occupation of Iraq,” Goldsmith added.

(you’re supposed to capitalize Secretary of State and President, dur!)

Note: at 17 I started contacting recruiters.  As I qualified for Navy Nuke school the USN recruiter was all over me.  I was stuck at home sick  shortly after contacting him and he offered to go to school to get my books for me!  These guys do have quotas and they will actively pursue a potential recruit if he’s a good fit for the military… sometimes to the Nth degree which is one reason I went into the USCG, the recruiter was nonchalant.  “Join or don’t join.  I don’t care, it’s your life.” (Plus the fact that Louis Gossett Jr looked cool in that go-fast commercial for the CG!)

I’ve got a few minutes while a server reboots so I thought I’d make a quick post.

Will is really missing Iris and asks about her constantly.  I explained that Mommy is working in the big city and doesn’t come home until we are all asleep (LIE) and that she leaves before we wake up (LIE).  I thought this would be easier to grasp than mommy is far away and won’t come home until Friday.  He’s doing okay but he said that he doesn’t like Mommy any more because she works too hard in the big city and won’t come home.  He also asked that Iris buy him a new special car for the beach.  Iris said yes and so this morning at 6am Will came into my room crying because he “looked all over my room and can’t find the special new car mommy bought at the store.”  Poor guy.

At night he says, “Make sure you tell mommy to give me a hug and a kiss when she comes home.”  I asked him why aren’t my hugs and kisses good?  He said, “Because mommy give very good hugs and kisses and I miss her.”

Lily walks around before/after bath going “Ma Ma.  Ma Ma.  Ma Ma.”

I went to Target and got will four little cars to bring to the beach and two big beach umbrellas.  It should hit 100 tomorrow!

I don’t have any plans for next weeks 4 day weekend.  I think I’ll have Iris hit up Pam for use of her pool if she’s out of town.  I’m thinking that during the summer if Vanessa takes the kids swimming that I’ll give Mike $25 - 50 a month to help cover water and chemicals.

I’d like to build Will and Lil a fort in our backyard.  Maybe that’s a good project for Grandpa Al this fall!  Hint Hint, Wink Wink, Nudge Nudge.

Iris and I are excited about going to Texas for Leslie’s (bill’s sister) wedding.  Although Texas in July sounds like hell, it’s still going to be a good time.  Why doesn’t everyone just get married in Minnesota in December!?!?!

With Iris out of town I’ve watch a few movies this week:  Jumper was so-so witha gratuitous set up for a sequel; National Treasure: Book of Secrets was pretty weak with a number of plot holes and lack of imagination; and finally I saw Iron Man.  While the move was good I would have like to have seen Stark go after more sites and take out more of his weapon systems.  After the trailer they did a nice little teaser with Sam Jackson playing Nick Furry.  The future line-up schedule from Marvel Studios got the confirmation on film.

I dropped the S40 off at the mechanics for a 15k tune-up.  I don’t know what I’m making for dinner tonight.  Maybe Chicken Quesadillas?

I’ve got another couple of downloads going on right now at the house including the entire series of the short-lived but excellent Profit.  For those of you that don’t recall the series (8 episodes) it centered around an amoral business executive with motives that are shocking; you end up rooting for the bad guy… something that primetime was not ready for (until 3 years later with Sopranos and later The Shield).

Today, Serbia elected a new president and guess what?  He’s pro-American!  And this year also saw all of the Communists thrown out of the  Italian government for the first time in 50+ years and a pro-American was elected to the highest office in France.  Meanwhile, London elected its first conservative mayor in a long, long time (albeit not a bright conservative and a bit of an appeaser).

Hmmm.  Maybe some folks are tired of seeing the influence that terrorism, Islam and Sharia law are having on their country?

Too bad we can’t elect a single smart conservative into power in this country.  McCain is a old fart that is a liberal in disguise.  He’s also an appeaser and it’s a sad state of affairs when he’s the best the GOP can offer up.  Oh wait, we offered up other candidates but the media decided that McCain would more likely fail against the Dems so they picked him for us.  Thanks!

I got home at 5pm tonight - with Iris out of town I need to be home so that Vanessa can get to school in time - and now I’m sitting here outside while the kids.  It’s about 90 degrees outside; summer is finally here!

I’m working on my house ‘to do’ list.  So far I’ve got:

• Re-align the light switches to on is up and off is down on all of them
• Paint and rehang our entry way shelf (for keys)
• Call tree trimmer
• Call about solar tinting on the kid’s windows and get quote
• Move and sell our own room screen (doesn’t go with the decor)
• Order the artwork we found (canvas wrap) and hang it
• Take the S40 to the dealer for 15k tune up (tomorrow)

I’m planing on going to Moss Beach next weekend to spend the day at the beach.  Will loves the beach and Lily needs more exposure but I’m sure she’ll warm up.

Okay time to make dinner.  Bye

-bill

You’ll find some photos of our new paint job, camping, and the kids being kids.

HERE

I read a story linked from the drudgereport on the Boston Globes website.  I submitted my rebuttal to newsbusters.org as follows:

The Boston Globe has a ‘waaaaaaa’ story that highlights the plight of gas guzzlers and the cost of fuel.  The story by Jenn Abelson of the Globe starts off by telling the story of poor Douglas Chrystall and his Dodge Ram.  Reportedly, Douglas pays $75, three times a week to “fill his black Dodge Ram pickup truck.”

This really seemed odd.  $225 a week in gasoline?  Only $75 to fill the tank of a Dodge?

Without knowing the age of his truck, let’s look at the photo on the website… looks like a newer Ram - he’s got some nice rims and tires too - so we’ll say a 2006 Dodge Ram 1500.  Now this truck has a 26 gallon fuel tank.  The average price of gasoline in Massachusetts is $3.63.  To fill up his tank should cost him almost $95.  Hmmmm, maybe he’s got a good coupon book.

Okay, let’s say he does pay $75 (three times a week) and his truck averages around 15.5 MPG.  He must be driving around 961 miles a week; that’s almost 50,000 miles a year.  Wow.  And it’s costing him around $11,000 to do that much driving.

So basically the story from the Boston Globe is that consumers that drive over three times the yearly national average are facing a financial burden.  Yep, sounds like NEWS to me.

sources: www.edmunds.com
www.boston.com
www.bostongasprices.com

edit:
Ken Shepherd at newsbusters.org points out that it is possible that our ‘victim’ of the vicious oil companies may have been using high-octane, but like he said it still doesn’t account for the total miles driven in as a consumer that is supposed to represent the average American.

Also, this makes for my third wide-spread blog (Horray for little old me). My first entry into the blogosphere (versus just my ramblings to friends and family) was my analysis of the 2004 Election when compared with the U.S. Generosity Index (my work was highjacked and hot linked by Huffington posters) and my work on identifying Wikipedia edits featured on Michelle Malkin’s website.