Yeah, it’s really long, right? If you’re wondering what to buy me for Christmas, I think you can still buy these maps. However, please coordinate your efforts, as I would hate to end up with, say, two of them.

Your assignment is not quite so long. Watch this one, then watch the rest of them if you have the time/inclination…

We drove all the way around and didn’t find out anything. Lots of houses had their back yard to the hill, but we couldn’t see any reason for the grassy knoll. We stopped a promising spot and walked up to the top. The trip up just kept getting stranger…

We followed that driveway out to the road, and this residential looking house is on the street. But there are no rooms in the house. Just large machines.

However, there are usually never tanks on the train (and by usually, I mean except for this once). I believe they were being dispached to shore up our shaky border with Wyoming.

I am, however, open to other thoughts concerning their destination.

I’ve actually sat outside a few evenings to try and watch bats come out, but either I’m easily distracted by the mosquitoes trying to eat me alive, or I’m just not very observant. (or both.)

I’ve started on the all-encompassing Bat Bug page, but it’s still in the works. I can’t decide if it should be posted as a work-in-progress, or if I should wait until it’s done.

Rachel (Rae to y’all) sent me a book that I forgot at Heit’s Point. My camera is going a little wonky, but it’s fine momento of this batty year. Thanks, Rae. I will cherish it always!

I could have just checked this website. It’s in plain view from when I made the alcohol burner back in January after a bad day. What I didn’t include in the post about was when I took it upstairs to the unusable toy room, where the peed-on carpet is ripped out but unreplaced. That area is covered by a bizarre sheet-wall-creation curtain, so I haven’t looked in there for months.

The cans and cast iron pan surrounding the burner were there for some experimental heat direction. The bear was there for safety. (He’s got a cousin on the force.)

Anyway: found. Now I can cook smaller amounts of things – hooray, right?

Boy, that third picture sure could use a caption.

Flip, flip, flip – all that paper! All that remembering alphabetical order. Pure torture. It wasn’t all bad, though. I found the contender for Best Logo in the Yellow Pages!

Have a face? Send it to me and I’ll add it. (If I’m not at church or napping.)

National Geographic suggested that this map shows that Hawaii is the happiest state, but I think it clearly shows that Nebraska is, if not the happiest, at least the least sad.

I attribute this mostly to the fact that we have more of a representational democracy than the rest of you guys (except for Maine).

Ok. Here’s what I really wanted to talk about – Google Docs rocks! I’ve had to keep track of a lot of different types of stuff lately, and since my little laptop doesn’t have any regular software on it, Google Docs is a great alternative.

They have a Calendar feature so you can keep track of things, a Documents section that is a word processing program, and a Presentation feature (I have a presentation at the early childhood conference this week). All you have to do is set up a Gmail account, and all these wonders can be yours!

The best part is that you can work on your files from anywhere. If you have an internet connection – you’re golden! The only drawback: if you don’t have an internet connection – you’re hosed.

It’s totally fabulous! Well, until our robot overlords take control and delete all my stuff. Then it’s not.

Dear Brad,

You have been way too productive lately. There is a new version of Desktop Tower Defense.

Love, Lloyd

Secondly:

In other gaming news, The Pesters and Curt came over last night to join us (us currently includes my little brothers) for pizza and Settles of Catan. We all agreed that it was an odd game with strange roles and perhaps equally strange play, but in the end I was victorious. I owe my victory to Curt, who was scrupulously honest.

We thought we might break out the other games but decided that it was too late in the evening to learn new rules.

While looking through the window we could see that it was actually in the same room in the strip mall as Sportsman’s Haircuts, so that makes it a little iffy in the respectable department.

Stylist: What can we do for you today?

Customer: Use the clippers – #2 on the sides and #3 on the top, and can I get a paternity test? If it’s negative, I’m not paying for my kid’s cut.

Stylist: Very good, sir.

First of all, Happy Birthday to my brother Phil!

I’m sure it will surprise no one that I do not have a good grasp on world events. (or local events, for that matter) Being a hermit means that I am pretty content just doin’ what I do and not worrying about the rest of the world. However, every so often in preschool a question comes up regarding a foreign place, and Mrs. Sommerer has to foolishly stumble with our giant world atlas and admit that no, she’s not really sure where Bolivia is, and yes – it does rhyme with Olivia.

So I’m working on fixing that. I found an amazingly fun site that will beat the stupid out of me while I’m having fun! I’ve pretty much mastered Asia, North America and South America, but I am losing hope with the rest of the world. Europe and Africa are beyond me besides the big countries, and I defy you to learn the Australia page with Oceania’s gazillion islands! Well, I don’t defy you, I defy me. Maybe over the course of a year. Maybe.

Do you want to know how really stupid I am? When I decided to learn North America I thought, “How hard could it be? There are only -like – three countries, right?”

Drat our living in the Midwest!   I’ve bemoaned the lack of a close Ikea, and we also don’t have cool stores like Trader Joe’s, and probably never well.  (Although I see that there’s on in St. Louis where my brother lives, so maybe I’ll have to plan a road trip.)

An extremely clever man wrote the world’s best non-endorsed commercial* for the store, and I’ve been searching for the lyrics.  Either my search skills stink or  they’re not out there, so here they are:

(Please don’t sue me, Carl Willit.)

It’s milk, it’s bread, it’s the stuff on your list
It’s the strange little snacks you end up buying instead.
It’s booze, it’s nuts, it’s pills, it’s peas
It’s the peanut butter made of sunflower seeds.
It’s a box of soup, it’s a bell from a boat,
It’s yogurt made from the milk of a goat.
A bottle of juice with a crazy name,
Ten kinds of soy milk that all taste the same.
A two-dollar wine that tastes like four,
All your favorite stuff they don’t have anymore.
It’s the cashews flavored with chili and lime,
It’s the bunch of bananas you buy one at a time.
It’s the stuff that’s organic and the stuff that’s not.
It’s the cars that won’t fit in the parking lot.
It’s the bottled water they keep by the door.
It’s the ginger soy dressing they don’t have anymore.
A snort, a sniff, a gourd, a snack,
It’s the apple juice that’s addictive as crack.
It’s cilantro pizza, it’s organic lox,
Four Fuji apples in a plastic box.
It’s all the new products that come and go,
The exact same sample five days in a row.
It’s mint flavored dog food, it’s an ear from a pig,
It’s your morning coffee in a cup this big.
A handle that rips on a paper sack,
That checker you like – who’ll never be back.
It’s the plastic grapes hanging over the wine,
It’s the guy with twelve items in the ten item line.
The electronic field that stops your cart,
The blackboards covered with employee art.
It’s a ball of ice cream that’s covered with flour,
It’s the shelves that are empty by the dinner hour.
It’s the beautiful moms in their yoga clothes,
It’s our favorite place – it’s that store, Trader Joe’s.
It’s the cage-free eggs that aren’t free range,
It’s the canned corn label that they never change.
It’s the cereal shaped like a little man,
It’s those great tomatoes for just a dollar a can.
It’s five different flavors of lemonade,
It’s dried bull penises done up in a braid.
It’s the organic sugar that just won’t pour,
It’s the aged gouda cheese they don’t have anymore.
It’s cylindrical salmon, it’s pills that fizz,
It’s aloe chunk juice – whatever that is.
It’s the information that nobody reads,
It’s a small watermelon without any seeds.
It’s the oldies music they always play,
It’s the guy who says, “Put that camera away”.
It’s the workers who smoke in the back of the store,
It’s that guy Trader Joe who’s not there anymore.
It’s the manager who asks you to go,
It’s our favorite place – it’s that store, Trader Joe’s.

The music is Aguas de Marco – very nice!

* By the way, he also made the Christmas Hershey’s kiss commercial where they play like bells.  Cool, huh?

(UPDATE: I see you out there in cyberspace searching for these lyrics. What brings you here? Is it the new Trader Joe’s going up in Lincoln? Can I get a woo-hoo?)

So this guy setup a webpage where you say what region, state, city (and so forth) of the country you most identify with and he turned that data into maps. I like maps of all sorts anyway, so I thought this was interesting. In addition to maps of regions, he also does maps of MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL and NCAA teams.