Picoftheweek

Picoftheweek
Waaaaaaaay too many to count...

My Statement

"Let me emphatically say that I am not anti-Facebook (Fleecebook), anti-smart phone, anti-Microsoft, anti-Apple, anti-Google or anti-Internet. I do believe, though, that the consumer is being ripped off of his privacy, identity and purchase history. We are being herded into a Facebook corner where what we "Like" and where we go physically and on the net will be scrutinized and sold numerous times to actually corrode and erode our culture while tempting us only with convenience, high tech and flashing video screens. The unsuspecting consumers need to be aware..." - Gary Lapman

Quote of Note

“If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.”-W.C. Fields

"For the strength of the Wolf is in the Pack, and the strength of the Pack is in the Wolf." - Rudyard Kipling

"Common sense is not so common. " -Voltaire

“Fame is vapor, popularity an accident, riches take wing, but only character endures.” - Matthew McConaughey

"In order to keep a true perspective of one's importance, everyone should have a dog that will worship him and a cat that will ignore him"

"Sometimes the road less traveled is less traveled for a reason" - Jerry Seinfeld

"Fleecebook is free, you (and your identity) is the product!" - Gary Lapman


"Christmas is a necessity. There has to be at least one day of the year to remind us that we're here for something else besides ourselves." - Eric Sevareid

"'Smart' phones are only smart for the cell phone providers!" - Gary Lapman

"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." -- Charles Babbage (1791-1871)

“Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. THAT'S relativity.” -Albert Einstein

"Technology creates the illusion of companionship without the intimacy of friendship." - unknown

"No worry, there's an app for that..." - Gary Lapman

Monday, October 11, 2010

A Storybook Wedding...



Well, we have returned safely and it was a good trip. I certainly have much to share, but I am still suffering from a bit of jet-lag. We managed to go to Savannah, Tybee Island, Hilton Head Island, and Charleston, as well as points in-between, and of course, Atlanta for the wedding.

I was a story-book wedding on a plantation outside of Greensboro, Georgia. The plantation mansion is situated on a hill overlooking a large pond surrounded with cattle. The wedding audience chairs were placed in rows facing the front porch of the plantation mansion, with the minister on the porch. The wedding party (groomsmen and bridesmaids) paraded from each side of the house and lined up on each side of the porch, groomsmen on one side and bridesmaids on the other. The groom cam out of the house to stand on the porch adjacent to the minister. Then they all turned to face the audience.

From down the road was heard the clip-clop, clip-clop of two horses. They were pulling a carriage with the bride-to-be and her father. They drove up the circular driveway and stopped at the center aisle leading up to the porch. They got out of the carriage and proceeded to the porch for the ceremony. During the whole ceremony, on could here both the horses neighing and snorting. When the ceremony finished, the bride and groom left in the carriage.

It was very beautiful. Kinda what I would expect in the South for a high-end ceremony. We were certainly not disappointed.

More on the trip (and the South, in general) over the next few days...


I picked up Max from boarding today... He must have thought we returned him to be adopted by some other family...







"Warshing" Clothes Recipe.........
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Never thought of a "washer" in this light before. what a blessing!
"Warshing Clothes Recipe" -- imagine having a recipe for this ! ! !
Years ago a Bisbee grandmother gave the new bride the following recipe:
this is an exact copy as written and found in an old scrapbook -
with spelling errors and all.



WARSHING CLOTHES
Build fire in backyard to heat kettle of rain water. Set tubs so smoke wont blow in eyes if wind is pert. Shave one hole cake of lie soap in boilin water.
Sort things, make 3 piles
1 pile white,
1 pile colored,
1 pile work britches and rags.
To make starch, stir flour in cool water to smooth, then thin down with boiling water.
Take white things, rub dirty spots on board, scrub hard, and boil, then rub colored don't boil just wrench and starch.
Take things out of kettle with broom stick handle, then wrench, and starch.
Hang old rags on fence.
Spread tea towels on grass.
Pore wrench water in flower bed. Scrub porch with hot soapy water.
Turn tubs upside down.
Go put on clean dress, smooth hair with hair combs.. Brew cup of tea, sit and rock a spell and count your blessings.





A cowboy appeared before St. Peter at the Pearly Gates.
'Have you ever done anything of particular merit?'
St. Peter asked.
  
'Well, I can think of one thing,' the cowboy offered.

'On a trip to the Black Hills out in South Dakota , I came upon a gang of bikers who were threatening a young woman. I directed them to leave her alone, but they wouldn't listen. So, I approached the largest and most tattooed biker and smacked him in the face, kicked his bike over, ripped out his nose ring, and threw it on the ground. I yelled, 'Now, back off or I'll kick the life out of all of you!'
St. Peter was impressed, 'When did this happen?'

'Couple of minutes ago.'

The Farmer, Cletus, is passing by Billy Bob's hay barn one day when, through a gap in the door, he sees Billy Bob doing a slow and sensual striptease in front of an
old green John Deere.

Buttocks clenched, he performs a slow pirouette and gently slides off first the right strap of his overalls, followed by the left.

He then hunches his shoulders forward and in a classic striptease move, he lets his overalls fall down to his hips revealing a torn and frayed plaid shirt.

Grabbing both sides of his shirt he rips it apart to reveal his stained tee shirt underneath.

With a final flourish he tears the tee shirt from his body and hurls his baseball cap onto a pile of hay.

Having seen enough Cletus rushes in and says, "What the heck are you doing, Billy Bob?"

"Jeez, Cletus, ya scared the heck out of me," says an obviously embarrassed Billy Bob. "But me and the old lady been having trouble lately in the bedroom department, and the therapist suggested I do something sexy to a tractor."






Electronically-Challenged
Things are spiraling out of control. I think I have become lost in a world of electronic madness.

One of my sons informed me this week that my cell phone has become obsolete and I must head down to the cell phone store and get a phone that is contemporary with the time.

I pointed out that the fancy razor/slimline phone with camera built in that he made me trade my perfectly good flip-top Motorola cell phone for two years ago still works perfectly fine. Well, except for the camera thing Never could figure that out. Even the few times I actually did take pictures I couldn't figure what to do with them and gave up.

That is except when I would push the wrong button and take a video of the ceiling or my feet.

Seems the issue is that I am unable to text with the tiny little 3 character buttons. "Hi, son," would come out looking like, "Gh Qmo." My grandkids have even spoken to my wife about Poppa's crazy text messages. Give me a break. Whatever happened to actually talking on a phone? Isn't that what they were invented for?

They want me to get one of those phones that you can turn upside down and sideways and has a typewriter keyboard with keys about one-eighth the size of my pinky finger.

One of my four sons is a realtor whose real occupation is fly fishing. "Way to go, son." Or in my text language, "Xbz um Io, rmo."

We were floating the Yakima River in his guide-quality drift boat south of Ellensburg, Washington. We were miles from anything remotely resembling civilization. Rock canyon walls were on either side of us. Bear with me as I try to explain this strange thing.

His "Blackberry" rang. It was blue and I asked him why it wasn't called a Blueberry. He shook his head with that "dealing with an elder" despair look I get a lot these days. It was another realtor who called to say that the sellers he represented had agreed to my son's client's changes and he had the signed documents in hand.

My son told him to FAX the papers to his office and he would get them signed and faxed back to close the deal that morning. A minute later the phone rang and he hit a few buttons and looked over the FAX, now on the Yakima River with us.

He then called his clients and told them he was faxing the papers to them to sign and asked them to FAX them back to his office. While he was waiting, he hooked into a fat rainbow and was just releasing this 22-inch beauty as his phone rang again with the signed FAX from his clients.

He called the other realtor and told him he was sending the signed papers back by FAX. The deal was closed. He smiled and just said, "You are a little behind the times, Dad." I guess I am.

I thought about the sixty million dollar a year business I ran with 1800 employees, all without a Blackberry that played music, took videos, pictures and communicated with Facebook and Twitter.

I signed up under duress for Twitter and Facebook, so my seven kids, their spouses, 13 grandkids and 2 great grand kids could communicate with me in the modern way. I figured I could handle something as simple as Twitter with only 140 characters of space.

That was before one of my grandkids hooked me up for Tweeter, Tweetree, Twhirl, Twitterfon, Tweetie and Twittererific Tweetdeck, Twitpix and something that sends every message to my cell phone and every other program within the texting world.

My phone was beeping every three minutes with the details of everything except the bowel movements of the entire next generation. I am not ready to live like this. I keep my cell phone in the garage in my golf bag.

The kids bought me a GPS for my last birthday because they say I get lost every now and then going over to the grocery store or library. I keep that in a box under my tool bench with the Bluetooth [it's red] phone I am supposed to use when I drive. I wore it once and was standing in line at Barnes and Nobles talking to my wife as everyone in the nearest 50 yards was glaring at me. Seems I have to take my hearing aid out to use it and got a little loud.

I mean the GPS looked pretty smart on my dash board, but the lady inside was the most annoying, rudest person I had run into in a long time. Every 10 minutes, she would sarcastically say, "Re-calc-ul-ating." You would think that she could be nicer. It was like she could barely tolerate me. She would let go with a deep sigh and then tell me to make a U-turn at the next light. Then when I would make a right turn instead, it was not good.

When I get really lost now, I call my wife and tell her the name of the cross streets and while she is starting to develop the same tone as Gypsy, the GPS lady, at least she loves me.

To be perfectly frank, I am still trying to learn how to use the cordless phones in our house. We have had them for 4 years, but I still haven't figured out how I can lose three phones all at once and have to run around digging under chair cushions and checking bathrooms and the dirty laundry baskets when the phone rings.

The world is just getting too complex for me. They even mess me up every time I go to the grocery store. You would think they could settle on something themselves but this sudden "paper or plastic?" every time I check out just knocks me for a loop.

I bought some of those cloth re-usable bags to avoid looking confused but never remember to take them in with me.

Now I toss it back to them. When they ask me, "paper or plastic?" I just say, "Doesn't matter to me. I am bi-sacksual." Then it's their turn to stare at me with a blank look.
 

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