Flashmob randomly chasing people

Quote of the day

Queen spent the time between the shooting and his death in praying and cursing and talking with the women.

- From a newspaper account of the 1888 shooting of notorious Kep Queen by Sheriff E. Sanders, and posse.

Knock knock jokes from 1936

I recently bought what may be the most confusing book of knock knock jokes ever. Many of the cultural references in this 1936 book are lost on me, but that doesn't stop me from appreciating the illustrations by Bob Dunn. Here are the first three of 49 illustrations. I'll eventually get them all posted.

This is my best one yet.
Notice the high class knock with the back of the hand
Who's there?
Chester
Chester who?
Chester song at twilight


Knok knok
Who's there, who's there
Hoffman
Hoffman who?
I'll Hoffman I'll puff an' I'll blow yer house in

Wait'll ya hear this one
Knock knock
Who's there?
Shixa (high voice)
Shixa who?
Shixa one - half dozen of another

Park that car

Here's a fun game where you try to park a car in various situations.

Headlines ripped from the history books

A boy is held captive and assimilates with his host. No, not Shawn Hornbeck in Missouri. I'm talking about Santiago McKinn, who in 1885 was captured by Chiricahua Apaches. When he was returned to his family the next year he was so distressed he began to cry. He had even learned the Apache language during his captivity. This fascinating true story from the American West can be found at Ghost Cowboy.

Watch out for the ice

Video of an icy intersection in Oregon.

The myth of the boiling frog

Another myth busted. Apparently if you put a frog in cold water and slowly bring it to a boil it will, indeed, jump out.

Gator done!

Gator championship highlights

A tribute to Ohio State

FM frequency finder

If you are using an FM modulator in your car to broadcast either satellite radio or mp3 player audio through your radio you should check out the SIRIUS FM frequency finder.

Build your own icons

The Tiny Icon Factory is a fun site where you can produce 13 x 13 black and white icons for any use. Plus you can browse and remix the thousands of icons already created.

North Carolina skiing

The first week of January my family went skiing in North Carolina. We wanted to introduce our children to skiing and make sure they enjoyed it before booking an expensive trip out west. The temperatures over New Years weekend were getting pretty warm and we were concerned they wouldn't have any snow on the slopes. Luckily they were able to make snow the two days before we arrived.

The first day we went to Ski Beech and put our children into a one-hour lesson. After that my wife and I walked up a short slope with the kids and gave them our own private lessons, getting them to make snowplow turns.

The conditions were actually better than we expected in the morning and Ski Beech had two slopes open. But as the day progressed temperatures in the 40s created some thin coverage across the mountain.

The next day we figured there would have been too much melt at Ski Beech to make it pleasant. We looked at the web cam at Sugar Mountain and headed over there instead. We were glad we made that decision, as they obviously had more snow on the ground. But by the end of that day the Easy Street run we had our children on was turning into a mud hole. Luckily we got to ski it most of the day. The other run they had open, Flying Mile, looked like it might survive for another day of skiing. More photos from the trip can be seen in this gallery.

We're glad we made our reservations at the last minute. We were able to get a discount on lodging. I don't think I'd ever plan a trip in advance to any of the North Carolina slopes. It's just too hard to predict in advance what the conditions will be like. We certainly had a lot of fun teaching our kids to ski and the mountains were good for that.

Photos of Bisbee

The header image at the top of this blog was taken during a vacation to Bisbee, Arizona in April 2006. The original light fixtures hang in the Copper Queen Plaza. Bisbee grew up around the Copper Queen Mine and is now an artist colony and a great walking town. You feel like you've travelled back in time to the early 1900s when Bisbee was the largest city between St. Louis and San Francisco. I took a lot of photos of the wonderful architectural details to be found in the city and posted them in a gallery.