November 2007 Archives

since I last posted. Yeah, I know. I've been doing stuff. I also noticed that it's been a real long time since I posted any photos . . . so here goes . . .

I found this guy at the annual, Miracle on Kansas Avenue Christmas Parade on Saturday night. My daughter was in the parade with the rest of her gymnastics team. It was cold, but fun. You can see the rest of these photos in my set at Flickr.

Today is the day that the United States Marine Corps celebrates its birthday. On November 10, 1775, under authority of the Continental Congress, the USMC was founded.

There are several slangs used to describe Marines. The term "leatherneck" comes from the history of Marines wearing leather collars during the Revolutionary War period. Marines have also been referred to as Devil Dogs ( "Teufel Hunden" ) or stormtroopers by the Germans. Other, less flattering terms such as "gyrene" and "jarhead" have been attached as well.

The Marine Corps motto is Semper Fidelis: always faithful. By the way, the guy to the left there, is R. Lee Ermey. He was the drill instructor in Full Metal Jacket. If you thought he was really convincing in the movie that's because he's a retired Marine Drill Instructor. Some other Marines you just might have heard of include: Steve McQueen, Gene Hackman and Drew Carey. The USMC shares its birthday with a few people:

• Ellen Pompeo
• Russell Johnson
• Sinbad

Some USMC blogs:

• Devil Dog Marines
• SandGram
• The Gunner's World

My son started wrestling this year on his middle school wrestling team. They traveled to Manhattan, Kansas for the Little Apple Grapple. He's never wrestled before, but I encouraged him to give it a shot because I think the best athletes expose themselves to a lot of sports. He did pretty good, as far as I'm concerned ( I'm a bit biased of course ).

He won his first match ( by pin in the first of three rounds ), but lost his second two to some pretty experienced wrestlers. Regardless, he didn't get pinned and never gave up.

Here's the video of his first match. He's the one in the blue singlet without the stripes on the side. Or a link if you prefer it that way.

 

All I can say is, "It's about stinking time." Finally, someone gets the backbone to take these people to court and kick their stinking butts across the floor. In case you're not familiar, this is the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, KS that likes to go to the funerals of dead soldiers to protest homosexuality. Since I live in Topeka, I have to see these people all the time. It sickens me. Why KS has never really taken a stand against them, I couldn't answer. I haven't lived here all my life. I heard that Westboro handed Topeka's ass to them in a court case quite some time ago, but I don't know the details. However, here's the meat of what happened today:

A Baltimore federal jury awarded nearly $11 million Wednesday to the father of a Marine killed in Iraq, deciding that the family's privacy had been invaded by a Kansas church whose members waved anti-gay signs at the funeral.

Good on ya' Maryland.

Were you watching Phenomenon tonight? What drama. This show is kind of like the American Idol for magicians. A few of them are pretty good too. One of the judges is Criss Angel who also happens to have his own show, Mindfreak, on A & E. The other judge is Uri Geller.

On tonight's show some guy, Jim Callahan, who claims to be able to speak with the dead, as if there were a seance going on, performs his act. Supposedly he talks to the the spirit of some dead author who is able to allow the magician to write a description of an object that a volunteer puts into a box without the magician's knowledge.

After the act, Uri and Criss critique the performance. That's where the drama comes in . . . In no uncertain terms Criss calls the guy out. Criss pulls an envelope out of his pocket and says he will pay the guy one million dollars if he can tell Criss what is in the envelope. For all intents and purposes Criss calls the guy a fake, a loser, a hack. NBC even has to bleep Criss' comments out at a point. However, I could make out that Criss basically called the guy's act "bullshit." That's where the two of them almost came to blows. It was like some episode of Riki Lake or something.

Seriously, the host had to get into the mix and pull the guy back from trying to attack Criss. It was hard to tell if it was staged, but I did get the impression it wasn't. Regardless, it was entertaining.