A Tenuous Hold on Reality

The books, movies, music, and life of a high school ESL teacher.

12.31.2007

Anniversary in WI


April and I celebrated our 1st wedding anniversary yesterday (I'll post more about this later this week). We went to Door County, WI for a couple days to celebrate. We took a tour of the peninsula which included a sleigh ride, a trolley ride, and a nice lunch at a local hotel.

Here's a link to a few more pics from our weekend getaway.
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12.09.2007

from Risen Magazine

I used to be a fan of the hip-hop group Arrested Development. They kind of disappeared for a long time. But after their hiatus, they are now back. The group spokesperson and lead singer, Speech, has had a long road during that time. Today he is a minister at a church and devoted Christian. He spoke to Risen Magazine. Here are a couple of quotes of his I found interesting.

"I find marriage is one of the things, one of the refining things, marriage and kids. A lot of times people don't deny self when they're single, but when you want to do this and the wife wants to do that..."

"I have two kids, ages nine and twelve. I don't know if my way's special, but I believe that children should obey. You see so many families where the kids don't obey. To me that's sad, because there's a blessing in obedience, and kids are more joyful when they obey. I think in our time, having your rights...obedience seems rough; it seems harsh when I say it to a fellow American. I don't know how you or some other American reading this will see it. I know that it's a biblical thing, it's totally healthy, it's loving, it's positive. It's sad that that word has been stolen, the joy of the word, the awesomeness of the word, even when it comes to the joy of adults obeying God."

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12.07.2007

The War

16 1/2 hours. That's the length of the recent Ken Burns WWII documentary, The War. It's a long, difficult, violent, sometimes painful journey through the reality of WWII. Brilliant, thoughtful, intense, complex. It's not easy to describe this movie in a few words, but those would be the closest. (Note: The scenes below contain scenes of intense war violence.)





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12.05.2007

Prince Caspian Trailer

11.22.2007

from Caffe Macchiato to IP

1. Caffe macchiato
2. Beverage (drink)
3. Filtration
4. Slurry
5. Promiscuous lady
6. Euphemism
7. Politeness
8. Speech acts
9. Semantics
10. Programming language
11. Computer
12. Internet
13. IP (internet protocol)

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11.21.2007

from Ward Cunningham to Duodenum

A little Wikipedia game. Here are the rules. Go to Wikipedia.com. Have a friend or family member say the first random noun that comes to their mind. Or grab a dictionary and put your finger on a word. The first noun you come to is what you'll use.

Click on any random link on the Wikipedia home page. This will be your first breadcrumb. Write down this noun. Now, your job is to keep clicking on links until you get to the random noun your friend/family member told you or that you looked up in the dictionary. Write down your links. The more random, the better. Your goal is to get to the noun in as few links as possible.

Here's my list.

1. Ward Cunningham
2. Microsoft Corporation
3. IBM
4. Noble Prize
5. Dynamite
6. Movie prop
7. “Greek Theater”
8. Comedy
9. Shakespeare
10. Ben Jonson
11. Westminster Abbey
12. Burial site
13. Magnolia Cemetery
14. Mobile, Alabama
15. Yellow fever
16. Complete kidney failure
17. Renal function
18. Kidney
19. Organs
20. Duodenum

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11.03.2007

Calvin and Hobbes

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