You Can't Make This Stuff Up

This is cool. I'd like to know what kind of job involves taking an elephant and an orangutan for a walk everyday.

Here You Go Julie...

Molly Ringwald is the redhead....

Where the Wild Things Are

I love this book, and after viewing the trailier, I think I'll have to give the movie a shot. What do you think?

Hilarious

Oh man, this is too funny...

Everything is Amazing, Nobody is Happy

VA-ROOOOM!!!!

It's Blue and Gold time again, and our fabulous scout leaders pulled out all the stops as usual.

The theme this year was Route 66, which I thought was so fun. The boys were supposed to decorate a Route 66 cake to bring, so this is what we spent the morning making:

John did just about everything, from helping with the batter to putting on the frosting. But he did let his little brothers help put on the candies.

And here's what everyone else brought:

I love the one with the road on it. We almost did something like that, but I couldn't resist the lure of cupcakes. Cakes intimidate me, but cupcakes are easy!

The tables were decorated with Route 66 placemats, and these cool centerpieces. Chris W. made them of course. :)

They had plenty for the kids to do, including this bean bag toss. There was candy in each bucket and if you got a ball in, you got to take out a piece of candy. The furthest bucket had full-sized candy bars in it! Ben did pretty good at this - I think he walked away with three prizes.

There were also plasma car races:

Fun!

This Blue and Gold was special because both of John's Grandmas were able to come. Kathy had to leave before I could get her picture taken (I know she's just heartbroken about that) but I got one of the boys with my mom:

But the true highlight of the day (no offense Mom) was this:

No, not the hauler, what's inside the hauler.

Oh yeah...

Oh baby...

See all the grown-ups hanging around the car? That's what it was like the whole time. I just don't think the kids appreciated it the way we did. Although they did "ooooooh" appreciatively when Bro. Foster told them how much the car was worth (a half a million dollars, in case you're wondering). Anyway, my kids looked at it and were gone so fast, I didn't even see them. I had to bring them back to get pictures of them inside:

Then it was MY turn:

Man I wish I could've taken it for a spin!

Take a look at the engine on this thing:

I was going to make a crack about there not being much room for groceries, but I'm not sure these guys would've thought that was funny.

After awhile, the crew turned it on, warmed it up, and revved the engine. (Turn your sound up to get the full effect.)

It was totally awesome.

After I'd had my fill of the car, I gathered the lady folks for a couple of races:

Apparently I thought leaning forward would make me go faster...

It didn't work. What you need to go faster is...

A push.

My mom gave me a push at the end and I was so glad! My arms were getting tired!!


The photographer of the day must've thought I'd like this for some reason:

Dear hubby's foot! :)

Oh yeah, I guess the whole reason for this is to present awards to the boys. John was able to earn his rank advancement in time for the Blue and Gold (just barely!). It's kind of a neat pack meeting to get that kind of award.

This picture cracks me up because John looks mad, but it was just the timing of the camera. I think he's just thinking. :)

Nylene, being the awesome cub committee chair that she is, arranged for the boys to give their parents a thank you note, along with a flashlight for the dads (for lighting the way through scouts) and a flower for the moms (for helping to plant their cub scouts seeds, even though everyone knows it's really because moms love to get flowers for any reason).

It was another great cub scout activity. And just for fun, here's a little Ferrari tribute, courtesy of Ferris Bueller's Day Off:

Happy New Year!

This is one of my all-time favorite songs. This isn't a great video, but the song is fantastic so all is well. I tend to listen to the song without watching the video (one of these days I'll get an iPod like a normal person). Anyway, I found this article that tells more about the song. Somehow, it makes me happy to know this really happened. It's so touching.

Happy New Year everyone!

Dead Poets Society

After my recent post about Miss Potter, I've been thinking about other great movies I love. For some reason, Dead Poets Society has been going through my mind a lot. I LOVE this movie! I've seen it about a million times, but haven't seen it in a few years because we got rid of our VHS tapes and haven't replaced it on DVD yet. Anyway, if you haven't seen it, you should. It's fabulous. (Warning Deb: this will make you cry.)

Here's a couple clips. First, the flying desk set scene:




And the fantastic YAWP scene! (If you only watch one clip, this is the one to watch.)

Another 80's Flashback: Footloose

After watching that clip from Ferris Bueller's Day Off, I wanted to see more clips from 80's movies. Remember this dance scene from Footloose?

(Surgeon General's Warning: smoking, drinking, and high-altitude gymnastics over a concrete floor may be hazardous to your health.)

Too Bad These Kids Won't Know Who Ferris Bueller Is...

This year I'm twice as excited about Art Masterpiece because I get to do the fourth grade rotation with John's class, AND I get to do it for Christopher's young kindergarten class. How fun!

This year I have a goal for myself, but first I have to explain something. When I first started doing Art Masterpiece presentations, I was disappointed that the teachers didn't always pay attention. Then I remembered that they've been hearing about these same prints year after year, and would probably rather get caught up on their work than listen to me talk about Norman Rockwell, again.

Whenever I was doing something different and/or interesting enough to get the teacher to look up from their work, I considered it a triumph. This year, that's my goal for every print. I want to present these prints in such a way that even the teacher is riveted.

Don't ask me how. I really don't know.

But I figure I have several months to figure that out (with a little help from Google, I'm sure), and if I have any hope at all, I'd better start now.

I don't know what the prints will be for Christopher's class, but I do have a copy of the prints for fourth grade. I looked them up online the other day, and can I just say I'm SOOOO excited!! We have some fantastic art to talk about, including Seurat's A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.

If you don't recognize the title, I can almost promise you you'll recognize the print. Every time I see it, I think of Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Who remembers this scene?




Poor Cameron.

When Brian and I went to Chicago for our fourth anniversary, we spent an afternoon at The Art Institute of Chicago (see more of their collection here). As we walked through the different wings occasionally I'd say "I saw that in Ferris Bueller's Day Off!" LOL.

Makes me want to go to the museum again.


By the way, in case you didn't know September 27, 2008 is national Museum Day. You can get FREE admission to participating museums by downloading a coupon offered by the Smithsonian Institution (you don't have to be a member to get the card). For more information, go HERE.

Here He is Again....

I know the Olympics are over, but I had to post one last video of this guy. This routine is the best one:

Now Why Don't We See Routines Like This in the Olympics?

"Second Goodbyes"

Okay, I've just spent the last three hours on the phone with my mother, and I really have a ton to do, but Brian informed me last night that it's been too long since I put up a new post, so here it is. ;) Actually, I wanted to keep my post about Uncle Michael and Michelle at the top for awhile. That whole experience pretty much rocked and I wasn't in any hurry to bury it with new posts. But this IS a blog, so I guess I need to move on at some point! ;)

I've been meaning to post this video for awhile now. It's absolutely hilarious. Now, the bad thing about posting YouTube videos, is that when the video is done playing, YouTube automatically puts up little ads for more videos you can watch. I have no way to control what those videos are, and usually they're pretty lame.

Not so with this, I expect. If you see the other videos by Marian with this same background of books, do yourself a favor and click on them. This lady is seriously funny. Enjoy!

Edit: Egads! Okay, there's a new video up by her that is... um... well let's just say that the videos I recommend are these: Shopping in New York, Designer Shops, Plastic Surgery, Losing Your Passport. Watch the others at your own risk! ;)

The truth about publishing

As most of you know, I'm trying to find an agent for my book right now. It's a tough climb, but I'm going for it anyway. To give you an idea of odds, top agents receive something like 5000-7000 query letters a year from people like me. But they only take on 5-7 new clients a year. So, yeah, it's brutal.

But that's okay, because that prepares you for the brutal realities of publishing in general. I've seen publishing stats before, but these are the ones I've come across most recently (thanks to a random blog I stumbled onto):

* Number of different books (titles) sold in the U.S. last year: 1,446,000

* Number of those that sold fewer than 99 copies: 1,123,000

* Number that sold over 100,000: 483

Egads. That means the VAST majority of published writers, far from being the next JK Rowling, are going through something like this guy in the video.

Pretty funny.

More Magic

This isn't so creepy, LOL.

Rather Cool Street Magician

I like this guy.

Sneezing Panda

Since everyone else is posting up videos on their blogs, I thought I would too. Here's a little something for your viewing pleasure.