Family: July 2005 Archives

My regular Monday morning chat with Michael DelGiorno on 1170 KFAQ was postponed until Tuesday this week because of the holiday, so tune in this morning at 6:40 CDT, or listen online live or every three-and-a-half hours thereafter for the next 24. (You'll have to download the Surfer Network application the first time you try to listen.) Undoubtedly the recall election will be the foremost topic, but I expect we'll also be talking about the surprise meeting to extend the airport noise abatement program, looking ahead to the ethics report for the pro-recall forces, due by close of business today, last week's Bartlett v. LaFortune poll, and, if there's time, some observations from my family's visit last week to Little Rock, and some things we can learn from that city. I also hope to introduce the radio audience to prosecutor Lance Salyers, whose firing last week is another example of the cost of standing up for what's right.

Speaking of Lance, be sure to follow his blog for the latest developments. And be sure to read what Charles G. Hill of Dustbury, Joel of On the Other Foot, and Don Singleton had to say about the situation.

(UPDATE 10/25/2005: Lance has taken down his blog, so I've removed the link.)

I'd write more, but we spent the evening at Bell's Amusement Park for their Independence Day celebration. As we left the park after the fireworks had ended, the four-year-old said, "I just can't get enough of Bell's Amusement Park on the 4th of July." She rode every ride she was tall enough to ride -- including the ferris wheel, which bugs Mommy because of heights, and Himalaya, which gives Daddy the whiplash. The eight-year-old finally agreed to a trip on Zingo, the park's wooden roller coaster. It left him laughing, but not enough to want to go again just yet. He took countless rides on Pharoah's Fury and Super Round-Up, and it's a good thing that he's now big enough to ride by himself, so that Dad doesn't have to go every single time. (There's a lot to be said for having kids when you're still young enough to keep up with them.) The fireworks show was spectacular, and it was fun to see it close up, close enough to have some of the fireworks debris drift down on us. After the fireworks, we let the kids have one last ride on Himalaya and the Scrambler before heading for home. For bedtime reading, I read the Declaration of Independence to the eight-year-old, and he was inspired enough to change his plan to listen to Riders in the Sky sing "Jingle, Jangle, Jingle" on endless repeat all night, and instead has the musical "1776" in the CD player.

It's been way, way too long since I posted kid photos. Click on the thumbnails to see the full-sized image:

Here's the eight-year-old getting gang tackled by the German Shepherd puppies at Robinwood Farms.

(More after the jump.)

My four-year-old daughter is a fount of ideas and plans.

She would like to see our church's pews equipped with a drink delivery device. You press a button and up pops a tasty beverage.

Her other idea would help if you've had too many tasty beverages. Walls would rise around you and the pew would open to reveal a commode, so you wouldn't have to leave the sanctuary if you needed to go.

And some people think that cushions on the pew are excessively luxurious.

Don't you imagine that they're already working on this sort of thing in Japan?

The kids' latest amusement: Changing their Windows XP profile names to unpronouncable strings of symbols and letters. The scary thing is that the four-year-old was the first to figure out how to do this. Scarier still: Daddy, the computer professional, hasn't yet figured out how to do this.