FAIRMONT PARK CHURCH OF CHRIST VBS POSTER

COMING SOON

RHCOC SUMMER SPECTACULAR POSTER

COMING SOON

My Hero?

In some ways, this guy is my hero.

http://dailydancer.com/

To Blog or Not to Blog?

It seems that blogging is becoming some what an old hat. I can already see signs of the blogging trend dying out. Igive it maybe another year before we leave the blog. I guess people have jumped on the my space train. I guess the thought of having MY SPACE seems a bit more exciting than a BLOG. We'll if your out there and you still Blog, I hope you comment on what you think will happen to the blogging trend. If not then I guess a year might be to long.

Im turning 29 and here is what I want for my B-Day.

I am part of one messed up generation. I don't know why but my generation are gamers. We are Gen-Gamers. I am turning 29 on May 23 and I am getting a Nintendo DS from my Mom and Dad and I am getting the New Super Mario Brothers from Katie. Did I mention I was turning 29. I guess the only consolation is that I will be able to compete with my children, if I ever let them have a turn.

Here is a peek at the NEW SUPER MARIO BROTHERS coming to the DS.

What a way to go!

This could be the worst way to die.

Plunged into cement, three die in Bal Harbour construction accident
Miami Herald - May 06 12:20 PMPlunged into cement, three die in Bal Harbour construction accident Three workers were killed Saturday when a floor of a condominium under construction in Bal Harbour partially collapsed and plunged them into drying cement. The victims apparently suffocated in the cement, authorities said.

What do you think would be the worst way to die?

ORIGINAL OR UPDATED?

George Lucas is finally putting out the original theatrical version of the star wars trilogy on DVD.
Many people like me are very happy! Lucas is a tweaker, so finally we get to see what we saw the first time, no tweaking!

I want to know which do you prefer. The original or the tweaked version. Tell me why!

Legal versus illegal

Ok I want to put my two cents in on the immigration debate. It is very simple.

1. Legal - Good for you and thank you for contributing to our great nation.
2. Illegal - You are a criminal. You break American Laws. You have no rights, that includes free speech. Go home and learn English and get here legally. Stop protesting, you look like a bunch of uneducated people. You want real results, throw your Mexican flag away and get an American flag. YOU HAVE NO RIGHTS!

I am sick of the protests and I am sick of freeloaders with NO RIGHTS!

ILLEGAL MEANS ILLEGAL!

Thank you!

FYI my ancestors were immigrants too. They came here legally.

Have you ever wondered...

Why are boogers sticky?


No doubt your child is starting a brilliant scientific career with this question!
"Boogers" are made of mucus. Mucus is made by mucus membranes. Your body has mucus membranes in all sorts of places: The stomach, intestines, nose, lungs, eyes, mouth, and the urinary tract all contain mucus membranes that secrete mucus.

Mucus contains mostly water and mucin (during a sinus or lung infection, it also contains dead white blood cells that have been working on the infection -- see How Your Immune System Works for details). It is the mucin that makes it sticky.

Mucin is a branched polysaccharide. If you have read How Food Works, then you know about saccharides -- they are sugar chains. Starch, for example, is a polysaccharide. As you've probably noticed, if you mix corn starch or flour with water, you get a sticky substance. Mucin is doing the same thing. Mucus is essentially a thin paste made of mucin and water.

Show your four-year-old how corn starch and water is sticky (especially as it dries out) and he will be looking at synthetic boogers! Then ask them if they would like to eat it. If they say no, then tell them not to eat their own.

It's EVEN BETTER

My last post I talked about my MP3 car cd player, we'll I pushed the limits and I still could have had more.
I made an ulitimate country cd with 14 country cds that I owned, legally! It was only 623MB a CD can hold 700MB. So I could have had like 17 or 18 CDs on it. But the total of tracks on that CD was 186. AMAZING!

THE MP3 CD Player In My Car and Why It Rocks!

Ok, so you know I got a new car. We'll I am finding out just how awesome my car really is. The CD player in my car is also an MP3 player. You might ask, so? We'll let me tell you so. An MP3 player is just about like having an ipod inside of your car. Here is the low down...

1. Unlike normal Audio CD's instead of maybe 13 to 20 songs on a disk, you can put over 150 on a CD and not lose ANY quality. The difference is that instead of an audio CD it is made into a DATA CD. Since MP3s are WAY smaller in size than any other audio file it allows for more songs, like 140 more songs. Thus it's like an Ipod for your car.

2. My MP3 player in my car actually tells you the songs your are listening to. Not track 1, but it would say Jesus Walks. On normal Cd's it wouldn't do that, it would just say track 1.

3. Folders, or as I call them albums. When you make an MP3 CD using the data format you can organize your music into albums. Take for instance I am combining all of my Sarah McLachlan Cd's into one. With the MP3 cd, you can actually put the music into seperate folders (albums).
So, each album is individual on the disk, (Solace) (Sarah Mclachlan) (Mirror Ball) (After Glow) etc.. Here is were my car player rocks, It has Folder buttons that let me go from Folder (Album) to Folder (Album) and it has all the songs in that Album under it to listen to. IT ROCKS!

So, having an MP3 player in your car is about the coolest thing ever. It's like having a 14 disc cd changer in your car with out all the CDs. Just thought I'd let everyone know.

Down Grading to Up Grade

Ok, so When Katie and I were at OC and we had a lot of extra cash we decided to go out and buy a brand new car. We went with the Nissan Altima, a great car. It was huge and roomy, great interior and exterior. We loved it. The bad part was that in reality we weren't Altima people. We really couldn't afford the Altima at the time and ended up with a 6 year loan. So fast forward 3 years, the Altima isn't as nice as it was, it has over 50,000 miles, and we still have 3 years left on our loan. So Katie and I decided to see if we couldn't get a deal to correct our spontaneous venture 3 years ago. What we wanted was to get out of our Altima and get in a brand new car and have it paid off in 3 years the same we had on our Altima. We were willing to pay more a month to do it, but it had to be paid off in 3 years. So we went to the Ford dealer in town and told them exactly what we were wanting to accomplish. So After test driving the Fusion and the Focus and getting the number crunched, we came up with this. We were able to get the top Focus and have it paid off in 3 years paying only 58 more dollars a month then we were. So now after six years we will have a 3 yr old car instead of a six year old car and it will have 30,000 instead of 90,000. It will also look much better. Then When we buy a new car we will have a much better second car. This way we will only have one car payment for a while. The dealership gave us 2000 over what our Altima was worth. We also saved on inspection and tags and gas since the filled it up. We also will save a lot on gas. So here you go our brand new 2006 Ford Focus, the Down grade to Up grade.

2006 Ford Focus

This is exactly what it looks like. It has less the 100 miles, man that feels so good!

BLOG HAYWIRE

My blog went freaky on me today and wiped out like 8 of my previous posts. So if you wondering if you went back in time, no my blog just did.

A MUSICAL NIGHT!

Katie and I went and saw Phantom of the Opera last night. It was fantastic! AMAZING! I WAS BLOWN AWAY! From the Time the chandelier (Are you looking for a chandelier? How about this one, or that one, or this one, or that one.) went up to the Phantoms amazing exit from his chair it was AMAZING! I LOVED IT! The Phantom was unbelievable. If you have the chance or the time see this fabulous production.

Stephen's Rating ***** (Five spider thingys)

Rating is based on a * to ***** spider thingy rating

A SEASON TO REMEMBER

I bought Katie seasons tickets to the 2006 Dallas Summer Musicals. I had never been to a musical until I met Katie. My first one was the Lion King at the Dallas Summer Musicals. Then on our honeymoon we went to New York and we saw Chicago and Les Mis. It was an awesome experience. I love the musical experience. This season at the Dallas Summer Musical is going to be the best yet. Especially with Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. I CAN NOT WAIT! We are seeing our first show April 2nd, Phantom of the Opera. So let the season begin, I am ready to be entertained and blown away!

Here is the line up for the season, don't miss it!

Out on Business

I will be out on business today and I will have a guest blogger.

Guest Blogger

A GREAT story from someone who loves Lean Cuisine!

Italian-Style Threats

A few weeks ago, I was enjoying a Lean Cuisine french bread pizza when I noticed these words on the package.









I sent off this prank e-mail to the parent company, Nestle USA.

Dear Lean Cuisinarts: Yesterday I was eating a Lean Cuisine french bread pizza when I noticed the words "New! Italian-Style Flavor." I'm completely baffled by this. What's new about Italian-Style Flavor? Were the old Lean Cuisine pizzas made by Indians, or Israelis? Were they manufactured in a Korean sweatshop? You don't advertise "New Chinese-Style Flavor" on your frozen eggrolls, or "New Hispanic-Style Flavor" on your beans and rice. Italian-Style Flavor has been going on for over 2000 years, and here you come along and act like you invented it. As a fifth-generation Italian-American, I take the deepest offense at this thoughtless, insensitive product packaging. If I do not receive a prompt reply, I will be forced to switch my loyalty to Hungry-Man. They're not as healthy as your frozen dinners, but at least they respect Italians. And you'll be getting a call from my uncle.

That's a promise, not a threat, John Spinelli-Hargrave

I received a typical form response from Nestle, which I'll spare you, telling me to call their 1-800-number. This always cracks me up, that companies set up a team of workers to respond to complaints via e-mail, then have them refer customers to another team to respond via telephone. Well, that wasn't going to work for my website, so I persisted.

Dear Nestle/Stouffers/Lean Cuisine: Thank you for your form letter, but I must insist that you answer my original question, which was regarding your "New! Italian-Style Flavor" claim on your Lean Cuisine french bread pizza. Why are you just now getting around to making your pizzas taste Italian? Was the old flavoring Japanese? And why would you flavor a FRENCH bread pizza with ITALIAN seasoning? It's like freaking Epcot Center in there! As a fifth-generation Italian-American, I am highly offended by this desperate attempt at ethnic marketing. It takes a lot more than a few extra dried spices on your soggy hunks of lifeless bread to capture real Italian-style flavor. It takes hours of simmering, a few good bottles of wine, and a loving Italian grandmother. I expect a proper response this time, or I will paying you a personal visit.

John Hargrave-Spinelli

This time I switched around my last name just to see if they were paying attention. Finally: the payoff.

Dear Mr. Spinelli-Hargrave, Thank you for contacting Nestlé on the Internet. We welcome questions and comments from our consumers. Upon receiving your e-mail, we attempted to contact you by telephone to discuss your comments regarding the statement, "New! Italian-Style Flavor," which appears on our LEAN CUISINE Pizza package. Please be assured, when we added the statement to our package, we did not intend to insult anyone. The statement was added to the package because we increased the spice profile of the product, which enhanced the flavor of our sauce. I sincerely apologize that we offended you and have reported your comments about the statement being insensitive to the appropriate personnel within the company for their review. Once again, thank you for bringing your concern to our attention. In addition to reporting your comments, I have sent via regular mail a letter with several full-value coupons to encourage you to give our products another try. I trust that these actions express our desire to respond to your concerns and I hope that we may serve you as a satisfied consumer in the future. If you would like to discuss this situation further, please do not hesitate to contact me, Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., Eastern Time.

Sincerely, Dawn Schneike Consumer Response Representative

A few ZUG readers expressed disbelief that I would actually receive the coupons in the mail. Well, lookee here, suckahs: I now have enough free Lean Cuisine coupons to last me through a small famine.



















In my seven years of doing prank e-mail, I have never seen such a thorough response to my silly requests. I hereby proclaim Nestle's to have the best customer service of any consumer goods company in America.

Apparently there is such a thing as a free lunch. You just have to pose as a deranged Italian mobster in order to get it.

Strong Bad What?

Do you know this man? If not and you have ever wondered about the link on the side that says Strong Bad Emails, then click on it and meet the greatest cartoon character ever created. You might need a couple of hours, because it can get addictive. So, in the words of Maisy,

Introducing Strong Bad!

Living again.

I normally don't write personal blogs, I leave that to people like Lindsay. But as I sit here thinking about my next post, I wondered if it is right to post again after something like what Katie and I went through. I mean here on my Blog are my most highest highs and lowest lows. How do you move on. I came to the realization that it is not moving on I have to do, it's to keep on living. Our lost baby will always be a part of Katie and I. We will have always lost a child. It is the hardest thing. But you can't stop moving, living. So as I start posting again I am not moving on, but I am living. I loved my baby that I never knew, like I will love the children I will know. I know there will be times Katie and I will cry about this in the future and that's okay. So I am living again. Thank you so much for all the support. We love each and everyone of you.

- Stephen