i figure i would post a picture of the newest member of the terrell family. as i said earlier we picked up montana earlier today and as you can tell from the picture she is making herself quite at home. she has already “claimed” a chair.
montana
we just got back home from picking up “montana”, the newest member of our family. she is an 11 month old red basset hound that was at looziana basset rescue society. she is absolutely gorgeous and gets along with all the human members of our family. the cats are a different story. everything is very tentative right now. montana and oreo, our youngest cat, will get close to each other and then pull back in growls or hisses or just outright fear. keebler, our oldest cat, is just doing his normal thing and completely ignoring montana, oreo, and everything else that goes on in the world.
the green machine
the great thing about having kids is that you get to live vicariously through them. when i was a kid we had a neighbor who had a green machine and i loved it when ever he would let me ride it. it is kind of like a big wheel but the steering has been moved to the back of the vehicle. this makes it where the rear will “sling around” quickly. in other words, you “spin out”. it was always a blast. unfortunately i never actually had the opportunity to have my very own green machine.
since, i am the proud father of an almost eleven year old and a recent seven year old my wife and i now get the opportunity to get things for them that we always wanted for ourselves. of course, it is always nice if they like the things that we want to get for them. this year “santa” brought my youngest child a green machine. we have spent about half of the day outside in the freezing cold, sleet infested weather. the boys have been sliding all over the road. the funny thing has been watching all the neighbors come outside and watch the boys ride on the green machine. i had a conversation with one of our across the street neighbors earlier today about how he had a green machine as a kid. he was surprised that they still make them.
the great thig is that they have actually improved the machine. it used to be made almost completely of plastic and it wore down pretty quickly. the new model is about 85% metal and can support up to 180 pounds. it can be stretched out to the point that i think i can ride on it. i probably will later today. i’ll just do this for the sake of testing the safety of the device. these are my children and i have to protect them. 🙂
fine dining
last week, the 13th to be exact, was noah’s, my youngest, birthday. tradition at the terrell household is that the evening of your birthday you get to pick what the family eats – be it going out to eat at your favorite restaurant or having the family cook your favorite meal at home. noah is definitely a child who loves to eat out so pam and i knew that we would be eating out the night of his birthday. in fact, noah had been talking about his birthday for weeks before hand. noah had decided that the family would go to “las palmas” – the best mexican restaurant in baton rouge (which isn’t saying much because baton rouge is not known for mexican food). this was cool because pam and i both like “las palmas” and adam, my oldest, somewhat likes the restaurant also. this seemed be a “win / win” situation and i was excited about that.
of course, noah decided to change his mind the actual day of his borthday. that afternoon after i picked him up from school he announced his decision to change the plan. it went like this. “dad,” he said, “do you know where we are going out to eat tonight?”
“yep,” i said, “we’re going to ‘las palmas'”
“nope”
“what? you said ‘las palmas’ this morning.”
“i changed my mind. now i want to go to my favorite restaurant in the whole world.”
it was at this point that i braced myself. first, i really thought that las palmas was his favorite restaurant in the whole world (excluding rasin canes or mcdonald’s), and second, this was his birthday and our tradition said that he got to pick the spot. what would happen if he picked “ruth’s chris steak house” or some other extremely expensive place to eat? so i prepared myself for the worst and asked “what’s your favorite restaurant?”
noah said “the same place i went for my birthday last year and the place i want to go every year!”
last year for some very random reason noah picked to eat his birthday meal at “the golden corral“. we had only eaten there once before during his six previous years of life. we did not eat there again duriong last year because his borthday meal wasn’t the best experience. i’m not usually a food snob. i like very simple foods and simple resturants. yet our previous experience at “the golden corral” had been such that i could not believe that noah would want to go back there. so i asked him why it was his favorite restaurant.
“because i can get pizza, nachos, and tacos at the same time.”
his answer made sense so we went to “the golden corral” and i have to admit that it wasn’t that bad.
CHRISTmas and family
i’m presently at my parents for the next several hours ending a weekend that has been spent with the two families. i’ll post more about it when i get back home. all and all it has been a good weekend.
side note – i’ve recently fallen in love with photoblogs. it’s cool to check the pictures of people i do know and even cooler to check the pictures of people i don’t know. i’m not sure why it fascinates me to look into the lives of total strangers.
one of the photoblogs that i really like right now is top left pixel.
all i want for CHRISTmas is ….
santa visited noah’s class today and did what santa does best – he asked the boys and girls what they would like him to bring them for CHRISTmas. my seven year old son could only think of one thing to say when asked this question. what did he ask for? what was the only thing on his mind? when noah opened his mouth the words that came out were, “i want a really cool keychain for CHRISTmas.”
why does a seven year old need a “really cool keychain”? even if he really needed a keychain what would make this item rate so high that it would be the only thing that he would mention?
i don’t have the slightest idea.
here’s looking at you
it’s time for a dog update. above is a picture of the basset hound that we are considering adopting. her name is montana and she is 10 months old. she was rescued from a “puppy mill” and has been staying with a “foster” home for the past three months. our kids don’t know about her yet. i can’t wait to tell them but that won’t be for a while.
the above photo was taken by a very cheap, junky intel digital camera. i’ve been wanting to get a better camera for taking pictures within the youth ministry but my overwhelming cheapness (which i inherited from my dad) has kept me from spending the money necessary to get a decent digital camera. today i found and purchased from ebay a canon powershot sd100. it’s a 3.2 megapixel camera with good reviews. it should beat the baloney out of the intel camera (which is 1/3 of a megapixel). i love ebay!
the only thing i don’t like about ebay are the snipers. a sniper is someone who sits and watches your auction until the last second and then places their bid. i lost two cameras to snipers before finding this one. of course, the sd100 is a better camera than the other two that i had bid on so the snipers kind of did me a favor. even with the favor i still don’t like them. down with snipers!
pam – the weird person
my wife is weird! plain and simply she is strange. that’s okay with me because i like strange people. yet, let me show you why pam is weird. this week she found out about a strange website called catster. this website is where people post profiles of their cats for other cat loving people to be able to read. people who love cats are a strange lot and thus a website made of cat lovers will be natural odd. of course, pam loved it and wanted to join in the fun. she made a page for both of her cats – keebler & oreo.
on the good side pam’s not quite to the crazy, old cat lady stage yet.
i am pasting links to these two pages below so that you can enjoy the oddness that is my wife.
has the government gone mad?
today my two brother-in-laws, my father-in-law, and i went skeet shooting. this is not something i do a tremendous amount of the time but it is something that i enjoy doing when i get the chance. i get the chance about once or twice a year. needless to say i’ m not the greatest at it.
while i was there i spent a little time talking with the guy who was operating our range. he told me that if they closed the facility (which they might in december of 2004) the guy who owns the property will be forced by the e.p.a. to clean all the lead off the property from the shot that has fallen from the shotguns that are fired there. according to the e.p.a. the approximate cost for this clean up will be between $8 and $22 million. the second the range closes the owner will have to begin with the clean up. if he doesn’t then he will lose the property to the e.p.a.
i personally believe in keeping our environment as clean as possible. i truly believe that we have been given a scared trust by GOD the FATHER to be stewards of HIS creation. we have a responsibility to protect the earth – from those who would abuse it and from thus who would unintentionally hurt it. i understand fining and stopping those who would damage creation. of course, i also think that we should use our brains.
this shooting range has been going on for 50 years. yes there is a lot of lead in the ground because of that. i just can’t believe that even 50 years of lead shot would be so dangerous to the health of society that it must be removed at such a high cost. the e.p.a. says that the owner will have to remove all the trees from the area and then scrape three feet of the topsoil off. surely the resources that will be used to clean this site could be better used in other more environmentally dangerous areas. the real irony of this whole thing to me is that the e.p.a. says that if the site continues to be a trap shooting site then everything is okay. they only have to clean up the site if they stop being a trap shooting facility. if they continue then everything is okay and no clean up needs to be done.
i hate this because it’s stupid things like this that cause sensible people to dismiss all environmental concerns. the stupid things like this keep some people from standing up for the really important concerns.
a powerfully true statement said in an incredibly sad way
i just saw a toys r us commercial that ended with the following statement that saddens me:
the only thing better than seeing joy on a child’s face is knowing that you put it there
in my opinion, the statement is very true. seeing joy on your child’s face and knowing that you were able to produce that joy is amazingly pleasing. just consider how hard people will work to produce a smile on the face of an infant. there is an immense sense of pride that comes from being the one who is able to bring a smile to a child’s face. i’m not sadden my the statement in and of itself because i agree with what it is saying.
what saddens me is the connection made between producing joy merely by buying something for the child. the whole commercial is about waking up early so that you can be the first to toys r us to buy the most sought after toys first. the implication is that if you rush to toys r us and obtain the most sought after toys then you will be able to produce joy within your child.
what a bunch of baloney.
toys don’t last and neither do the smiles that they produce. of course, toys r us isn’t going to tell anybody that. nope, toys r us (and walmart, target, etc) are going to try and convince people that buying things will bring the joy that parents want their children to have.
i saw a ton of smiles on the faces of my boys today and it had nothing to do with buying anything. instead, it involved having a b b gun shooting competition and involving them in a family wide game of trivial pursuit. my kids will remember this day for the rest of their lives. yet, toys r us wants us to think that buying something is what is most important.
don’t swallow the lie.
a side note
i watched the iron chef tonight for the first time in over a year. i had forgotten how much i loved this show. it is the wwe of the cooking world. i laugh just thinking about it. whose cuisine shall reign supreme?