Feel Better About Your Own Looks

You are looking at "Elwood" from New Jersey, the winner of the 2007 "World's Ugliest Dog" contest.

And yes, he is ugly. Quite.

I just can't believe that there's a contest for this kind of thing! And looking through the photo galleries, every entry listed was a "Chinese Crested Dog", a breed which appears to have been created specifically to win Ugly Dog contests.

So look at Elwood.... And feel better about yourself! It's been my pleasure to provide this public service.

Summer Fun in Slow Motion!

Last summer the Mentos & Diet Coke Geyser was a staple of back yard fun... We even did it at the ol' Puddle Jumpers Day Care... Well, for all the people with eyes that are just too slow to see what's really going on, here's a super-slow motion video of the whole process! Enjoy, and happy Summer!!


Slow Motion Mentos Geyser - More amazing video clips are a click away

Amazing Coincidences

We've all had amazing coincidences happen in life... It's one of the things that really makes you stop and look at how the world looks, and how intricate the weaving of God's creation is. Well, I had one the other day that blew my mind so bad that I'm still trying to grasp it all. Here is my mind-blower, in timeline fashion:

Sunday, June 10
At church, Pastor Kevin gives a brilliant message called "God Said, Gone Wrong" about how people do all manner of craziness under the blanket of "but God told me to!" One of the points he brought up is that God nearly always talks to us in very subtle ways. An example he used is that if you find yourself thinking about a friend or relative you haven't seen or even thought about in a long time, you should pray for that person. Made sense. I locked it away under "Useful things I learned in church and will hopefully have a chance to use before I forget." (one of my favorite mind-folders)

Monday or Tuesday, June 11 or 12
As I'm diligently working away, keeping all the servers serving and networks networking, my best friend from high school, Scott Brown popped into my mind. Now this was a particularly odd person to pop into my head, because as strange as it sounds, I had actually forgotten about him the last time I tried to remember highlights of high school. (this was as I was justifying skipping out on my 20 year reunion) I remembered lots of other people and events, but forgot Scott, who was nearly always with me as I celebrated getting my license by driving every waking minute of the day, running the old diesel Chevette out of fuel and learning how hard it is to start a diesel after it had run dry, and so, so many other life-shaping events. The really scary thing is that I'd forgotten about the events as well as the person!

Anyway, it was shocking and appalling to me that I'd ever forget the only person who ever had to get stitches because of riding with me, and in light of what I'd just heard in church, thought I should try to look him up. (and of course, pray general blessings in his direction!) So I went to classmates and created an account, and looked for him. Now, I've got quite a few gripes against classmates. They're rather un-ethical in their "auto-renewal without asking if you want to auto-renew" methods, and even when you pay for their "Gold" membership, you still get at least three lines of spam mixed in with each screen of names when you're going through your class lists. As I browsed through, I didn't see his name, so I quit looking and figured that maybe someday he'd sign up and we'd reconnect. *sigh*

Saturday, June 16
I'm playing bass at church tonight, and am about to leave, when I hear my blackberry do its "Hey! I just received an email for you!" chirp. Instinctively, I grab it and look at my messages. I then proceed to almost drop it, as I see a message from classmates saying "Scott B Has Sent You A Message!" Now, knowing that I need to leave the house within a few minutes to get to sound check in time, I still ran to the laptop and pulled up the email. I clicked on the link. I logged in. I clicked on the message from Scott.

ENTER MY SECOND GRIPE ABOUT CLASSMATES

And I'm greeted by the annoying "Pay now to read this message!" screen. You're kidding me. I'm not trying to be cheap, but really?? I can post my profile for free, but to get any benefit at all out of it, I gotta pay?? AND THERE ARE ALL THOSE @#$%& ADS??? Wow. You guys suck. I'm going to church.

So I go, and I gotta say, we rocked the house. Then I got home, and told Cindy about my amazing coincidence. And that I was going to be paying for a short-term classmates membership so I could get my message. And I did! And then I discovered that Scott had been at classmates all along, (apparrantly hidden amid the ads to find love online) so it wasn't QUITE as amazing as I'd originally thought, but still... the timing of it all was pretty amazing.

So I wrote back, giving a brief update of who and where I am in life.

Sunday, June 17
Playing bass at the Sunday services too, so I'm up early, but check my mail, and Scott had replied. Cool. He jogged more long forgotten memories, and I'm really enjoying getting re-acquainted! My great dislike for classmates isn't fading, but it's really great to reconnect with someone I spent so much time with 20+ years ago!

P.S. To Classmates: (since I'm sure you read my blog regularly) When somebody pays to be a full-fledged "Gold" member, DROP SOME OF THE ADS!! MAN!!! I mean, if you don't make enough off membership fees, here's a suggestion: RAISE YOUR RATES! Or - and I know this is earth-shaking - maybe have "Gold" actually MEAN SOMETHING! You could have a "Bronze" or "Silver" level that lets you access messages and such, but still has the ads. The word "Gold" connotates that you're at the top! And at the top, I'm quite certain there aren't a constant barrage of garbage from True and Match.com. I expect that crap when I'm on cheesy low-end sites, but you guys have been around long enough to have worked out your own existence. I'd consider renewing my membership if it didn't mean I was still subjected to all that crap. Fo'real.