• Connections - Home Improvement

    Self Sufficiency Trust for Handicapped in Illinois

    A family member may be benefiting from this program; they live in a group home in a distant town in Illinois.  Or maybe not – need to know more. Illinois Project Gives Families a New Way To Aid Disabled Kin – New York Times Danny and Fay Moore have lived with anxiety since the births of their daughter and their son, both mentally retarded as a result of the genetic disorder Down’s syndrome. The Moores shape their family life around providing special schooling and counseling for Stacey, 7 years old, and Aaron, 4, who are growing into adventurous, fun-loving children.”Our…

  • All Things Interesting - Dear Mom

    Happy New Year!

    We’re just back from our New Year’s visit to David’s parents; we took the new route and once again, it was no faster, but is a lot less complicated. It’s cold, cold, cold, and it snowed all last night and most of today. As we came back, along a long, 2-lane country road that leads to the new extension of I-355, we watched threads of blown snow whip across the blacktop. There are still farms out there, but the blight is already taking root: all kinds of chain restaurants and big-box stores are creeping along, with more construction obviously coming. Still,…

  • Blogs Wot I Read - Episcopal

    Santa Goat versus Saint Nicholas

    Here’s one version of jolly old Kris Kringle: a cute little white goat with golden horns wishes the whole world a Keroppi Christmas, via Joi Ito’s Web: Merry Christmas [kml_flashembed movie="http://video.sanriotown.com/flaon/us/loader.swf?key=5f1c1545436c043f" width="400" height="300" wmode="transparent" /] And here’s another version, which I also put in a post at the Holy Moly site, seeing as it’s a video of the Feast of St Nicholas as celebrated at Canterbury Cathedral, and we’re actually St Nicholas’ little Episcopal church in Elk Grove Village, IL: [kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/bjSAn7piFIk" width="400" height="326" wmode="transparent" /] The video is narrated by the Archbishop of Canterbury, also known as “the ABC”…

  • Dear Mom - Uncategorical Weirdness

    The Xmess Box

    Wow! In spite of my sister Timmy’s poor opinion of my housekeeping skillz, the Xmess box is all packed up and sitting in the hall! Where it’s been for the last year. Actually, more than a year. Last year, I hauled it out of the garage sometime in early December, thinking that if I felt like it, I’d get around to putting up the Christmas tree and decorations. But last year was the first one after Mom passed away, and I never did get around to it, although I felt horribly anxious about the countdown to Christmas, and positively in…

  • Dear Mom - Only in Utah... - Random Access Memories

    Christmas memories about to go up in smoke

    Salt Lake Tribune – As Cottonwood Mall is demolished, firefighters will train in the crumbling buildings As shoppers flood stores in search of last-minute gifts, firefighters already have bagged the perfect present: They got a mall. Through the end of January, the Unified Fire Authority will conduct extensive training exercises in Holladay’s now-nearly-empty Cottonwood Mall at 4835 S. Highland Drive. “It’s a once-in-a-career opportunity to go there and do drills and practices,” UFA Capt. Troy Prows said Friday. “We use structures that are ready to be destroyed for practice.” But rarely do those buildings come so super-sized – with 700,000…

  • Blogs Wot I Read - Hot Off The Presses - Politics, Schmolitics

    Things To Be Thankful For

    I am thankful that so far, the administration of this country hasn’t found a way to blame the following on a Congress that won’t hand him their war budget on a silver platter: kdka.com – Military Asks Wounded Soldiers To Return Portions Of Signing Bonuses PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ― The U.S. Military is demanding that thousands of wounded service personnel give back signing bonuses because they are unable to serve out their commitments. To get people to sign up, the military gives enlistment bonuses up to $30,000 in some cases. Now men and women who have lost arms, legs, eyesight, hearing…

  • Blogs Wot I Read

    HULK’S PUNY HUMAN HANGS UP THE OVERSIZED KEYBOARD

    HULK’S DIARY THAT IS ON THE INTERNET Hello. Kevin Church here. If you didn’t know, I’m the guy who helps Hulk write this diary and it’s pretty obvious that old Jade Jaws isn’t going to update any time in the foreseeable future.First of all, I’d like to apologize to the fans that (still) come back to check things for not making this post earlier. I’d also like to thank them for their continued support of this silly little project. I do notice that this site still gets hundreds of hits each day, and am very sorry that there’s not been…

  • Blogs Wot I Read - Hot Off The Presses

    Fun with Find and Replace

    After reading Joey’s inaugural Excited States post, I ran across something in David Beard’s Archaeology in Europe blog that got me started thinking about Neanderthals, mice, FOX News reporters, and Democratic Congresspersons. Fooling around with “find and replace” in Wordpad is childish good fun. Neanderthals had key speech gene, researchers say | The Register http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/19/neanderthal_speech/ FOX News reporters may have a reputation in popular culture as a lumbering, grunting people, but researchers have discovered that they did have a gene thought to play a key role in speech. Samples of DNA were retrieved from two FOX News reporter fossils found…

  • Blogs Wot I Read

    Critical Manners: Less Testosterone, More Courtesy

    Critical Manners Critical Manners: a revolutionary act of courtesy. Come put the nice back in the bike world with Critical Manners! A helmet-wearing, bell-ringing, blinkie-sportin’ good time for you and all your bike friends. Practice synchronized signaling, single file riding, stopping at stop signs and NOT blowing red lights. Critical Manners will brake for pedestrians, trolleys, and even the occasional SUV. If you’ve ridden in Critical Mass, you know about the “testosterone brigade”. Maybe it’s time you rode with Critical Manners — We take obedience of the law ridiculously seriously. As seen at Accordion Guy… my husband David wants the…