Can is cast free

Can went to the doctor's yesterday and they finally took his cast off for good. The doctor said that he isn't allowed to jump or rough-house with his brothers. Good luck with that! Hopefully Nae can keep him off of the trampoline until it gets stronger. He walks a bit funny. He still point it out to the side like it was with the cast on. The doctor said that this should go away soon.

Rascally Stupidity prevails in the Country

"The Rascally Stupidity which now prevails in the Country at large is beyond all description."

"I despise my Countrymen, I wish I could say I was not born in America. I once gloried in it but am now ashamed of it."

"The Insults and Neglects which the Army have met with from the Country, Beggars all description. it must Go no farther, they can endure it no longer."

"... all this for my Cowardly Countrymen who flinch at the very time when their Exertions are wanted, and hold their Purse Strings as tho' they would Damn the World, rather than part with a Dollar to the Army."

Nope, these are not words written about the current Democratic leadership in Congress, but excerpts from a letter written by Colonel Ebenezer Huntington to his brother Andrew on July 7, 1780, during the Revolutionary War.
(I initially read some of these excerpts on the title page of "Rabble in Arms" by Kenneth Roberts and then found a transcript of the original letter on the web.)

Children are bad for the environment

The population control freaks have jumped onto the global warming bandwagon. From a recent article out of London,

"'Having large families should be frowned upon as an environmental misdemeanour in the same way as frequent long-haul flights, driving a big car and failing to reuse plastic bags', says a report to be published today by a green think tank."

"The decision to have children should be seen as a very big one and one that should take the environment into account."

"as a general guideline, couples should produce no more than two offspring.

Maybe we should all have a few more children.

Images - Dec in the outfield

Dec is having fun in the outfield. He must have been telling jokes with his friend out there. At least he is in the ready position and not playing with the grass.

Family Photos - Goin' around #9

This was from last week's soccer game. I was coaching again, so Nae was taking pictures. She had a hard time getting one of the front of Sul because the field is so big. Sul is just about to juke number 9. They lost this game but the team won the next day (Sunday) when Sul couldn't be there. The team they played today stomped them by a score of 8-0. This team was really good and the defense on Sul's team just couldn't slow them down. Sul got scored on twice while he was in goal, but there isn't much he can do in a one-on-one against a really good shooter.

Images - I can't believe he missed it!

I took this at Mad's game last week too. The ball looks like it is just about to hit the bat, but somehow it he missed it. He ended up getting walked both times up to bat and scored one of those times. His team still lost that game, but won today's game. The team they beat had been unbeaten so far this season, but now they have a 5-1 record. Mad hit one this week, but it popped up and the pitcher caught it.

Family Photos - Dec's first T-ball game

I can't belive that I haven't posted any new entries in a whole week. This picture was taken at Dec's first T-ball game last Saturday. He had his second today. They tied won both games. OK, they don't keep score but all of the kids on both teams think that their team won. I have to say, the kids are cute but it isn't a very exciting game to watch.

Family Photos - Cool Mad

Mads thinks that it is pretty cool that he can wear sunglasses now that he has contacts. (taken 04/06/07).

Images - kinked vine

I just thought that this was an interesting looking vine.

Still in a Cast

Can went to the doctor again yesterday. They took his cast off, which was a good thing since it was getting really dirty and worn out from having him walk on it. Unfortunately, after looking at the X-rays the doctor decided to put another cast back on. Nae said that he could still see the line of the fracture and he is worried that a small jump off of the couch or something similar would put us right back to square one. Needless to say, Can was not happy when they started to put the new cast on. He is, however, getting around pretty well even with the cast. We'll see how things look in two more weeks.

Wipe too much, warm the world

"I have spent the better part of this tour trying to come up with easy ways for us all to become a part of the solution to global warming"

"I propose a limitation be put on how many squares of toilet paper can be used in any one sitting"

-Sheryl Crow

And rationing T.P. is what she came up with? This illustrates perfectly why celebrities should have no place in the real life of real people. Stick to the pseudo-life of the entertainment world.

New music toy

If you look to the right, you'll notice that I found a new music toy. The website finetune.com lets me customize a music playlist with just about any song I want. They also provide the widget that I've pasted in at the right so that anyone visiting my website can listen to my playlist. Go ahead and give it a listen. I can't personally vouch for all of the songs because I made this list by picking a few songs from artists that I like and then I had the finetune algorithm fill in the rest of the songs based on similarity to those that I picked. You can also visit my finetune page to see additional playlists or you can sign up with finetune for free and make your own playlists.

Two Wins

Today was another game day and both boys won. Sul's team shut out the opposing team with a final score of two goals to zero. He made one good save in goal where he had to dive on the ball to gain control of it. Afterwards he punted the ball all the way to the other end of the field. He also had an assist on one of his teams goals, so he had a productive game.

Mads' team won by a score of 3 to 2. They were leading 3 to 0 for most of the game but their last pitcher hasn't had much experience and he let a couple runs in before he could stop them. The final play of the game was a big pop fly to right field. It was actually going foul but the boy out there caught it. He looked in his glove and realized that the ball was in it and then got really excited. The whole team ran together into a big pile. A much better day than last week. Each team now has a 1 win and 1 loss record.

Can has started walking on his cast. He and Mom are counting down the hours until his visit to the "broken-leg fix-it doctor" on Tuesday. Hopefully the cast will come off and stay off so that he can go back to running instead of hobbling.

Lifetime book reading list

Highly suggested reading by David Allen White and John Mark Reynolds from a recent Hugh Hewitt show. It is suggested that every college freshman and sophomore should read the books discussed in these transcripts.

Family Photos - Sul Posing

(taken 04/06/07)

Images - Bridge over Reedy Creek 2

Another view of the bridge over Reedy Creek (taken 04/06/07 at Umstead State park, NC).

Family Photos - Riding the Bent Tree

We found this funny bent tree on our hike through Umstead State Park. It looked like a good place to have the boys line up for a picture (taken 04/06/07).

Images - Bridge over Reedy Creek

We crossed over Reedy Creek on this bridge as we hiked through Umstead State Park (taken 04/06/07).

My ignoble debut as an assistant soccer coach

Saturday morning marked the start of baseball and soccer games for Mad and Sul, respectively. We were supposed to be at the baseball field at 8:15 for an 9:00 game. The coach is a pretty zealous and wanted plenty of time to warm up and go over strategy. I was on my own with all four boys for this game because Nae was busy running the Cary Road Race 10K, which she completed in just over 50 minutes (I told you that she is a wonder woman). I brought gameboys for the non-baseball playing boys, which seemed like a good way to keep them entertained except that they spent most of the time fighting over who got to play which games. The only toilets available at this field were porta-johns, so I had to force Dec, kicking and screaming, to stand in one long enough to complete his task. After I got to the field I realized that Can hadn't gone yet that morning, so I tried to get him to go in and he wouldn't release the death grip from my neck long enough for me to get his pants down past his cast. I tried to talk him into peeing on a tree but he didn't want to do that either. Fortunately, he has an iron bladder when he wants to hold it, so we didn't have any problems there. Oh, the baseball game. It wasn't a very good start to their season. Mads' team lost 4 to 1. There wasn't much action on the field for most of the game. Nobody could get a hit on either team because the pitchers were throwing too fast. They've instituted a new rule where each boy can only pitch 2 innings, so after four innings we had to resort to our third string pitchers and they walked a number of runs in before we could get out of the fifth inning. We managed to get one run in the sixth, but that just wasn't enough. We all survived, despite the fact that I was on my own.

In the afternoon we went to Sul's soccer game. I sort of wandered into being appointed as an assistant coach, since no other parents stepped up to help the only coach. I'm not sure that you can blame me for the 4-1 loss of this game, but I probably didn't help much either. Sul played two quarters in goal. He was scored on twice in the first one, but he had no help from the rest of his team and the goal is at least twice as big as the ones he was defending last year. He made several really good saves and even stopped one with his chin. After the game the ref said that the other team was the best he had seen all day. They had better ball handling skills than our team and they definitely out hustled our team in getting to the ball.

Dec doesn't start his T-ball games for a few weeks, but he had his first practice on Friday night. Although he is catches and throws the baseball right-handed, he has always swung the bat left handed. Nae said that when the coaches put him up by the T to hit the ball, they lined him up right handed and so he had a hard time swinging the bat correctly. We'll get them straightened out at the next practice.

Dream of what the western world used to be

Another good post by Victor Davis Hanson on his dream that the western world of old still lived on today.

And then I woke up, remembering that the West of old lives only in dreams. Yes, the new religion of the post-Westerner is neither the Enlightenment nor Christianity, but the gospel of the Path of Least Resistance — one that must lead inevitably to gratification rather than sacrifice.