Joining iPod Nation

Although my birthday is still about a month away, I picked up an early gift over the weekend – a spiffy new iPod Nano (thanks mom and dad Chase).

I spent a good part of the day yesterday filling it up with music, and in the process rediscovering some CDs I forgot I owned.

The cool thing about the Nano, it also has a video camera and an FM radio that allows you to pause and rewind like a DVR.

Believe it or not, this is the first digital music player I’ve ever owned. The boys each have their own mp3 players, but I’ve never had one of my own before.

Anyway, this allows me to take part in a meme Sarah used to feature on her blog – the “Random 10.” I’ll shuffle the tunes and see what comes out. Here’s our first installment:

1.  “Everybody Has the Blues” – James Taylor
2. “Get Up Jack” – Hair of the Dog
3. “The Power of Love” – Huey Lewis & the News
4. “Spirit in the Sky” – Norman Greenbaum
5. “Bridge Over Troubled Water” – Paul Simon
6. “All or Nothing at All” – Frank Sinatra
7. “Shower the People” – James Taylor
8. “Pride (In the Name of Love)” – U2
9. “Not Even the Trees” – Hootie & the Blowfish
10. “Hannah Jane” – Hootie & the Blowfish

Surprised I got a couple of repeats with James Taylor and Hootie. I loaded up a ton of songs, so I thought my first Random 10 would be a little more…random.

I want my baby back ribs

Nolan's assignment in class was to write a persuasive argument. Here's what he came up with...

Ribs Not Turkey

By: NOLAN ROONEY

If you like turkey, this should be a bad story for you. If you like ribs, this should be a perfect story for you

First of all, ribs can have barbecue sauce (BBQ) and turkey doesn’t. Everything is good with barbecue sauce. That’s my first reason why you should have ribs not turkey.

Ribs are from pigs and pigs have really good food. So, try eating more pig not turkey, ok? If you check, pigs have more meat than turkey. Everyone loves meat. That’s my second reason why you should have ribs not turkey.

Ribs really taste good, and it’s even my favorite food. The secret is barbecue sauce (Explained in second paragraph). Another way to make them taste good is to cook them on the grill. That’s my third reason to have ribs not turkey.

A lot of people love turkey because it is traditional and healthy, but ribs are better.

Kris e-mailed this to me when he came home from school and I laughed out loud.

When I got home I told him he made a very good case...but we're still having turkey.

Mashup mania

Here's another from the Too Much Free Time Department.

I don't know what the point of this video is. I just know that it's AWESOME!

40 years of manipulative Muppets

We all grew up with "Sesame Street." Share your favorite socialist brainwashing tactic of theirs in comments below...

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Piling up the leaves

We raked a ton of leaves this weekend.

Ordinarily I hate, hate, HATE raking leaves. Honestly, I think I’d rather be shoveling snow than raking leaves (I know, be careful what you wish for). I’ll usually do whatever I can to avoid the job and make Kris do it (there, my secret is out).

But with Kris being a little under the weather this past weekend, I stepped up and tackled the yard. She was feeling a little better Sunday. So she did come out and help. I’d say we split the work together.

When it was all done, I could not believe the amount of leaves we moved.

We’re not done. There are still more leaves to fall. And the way it often goes, the snow won’t be far behind them.

Running around

With the encouragement of my coach – Kris – I’ve taken up running. Last weekend I did my first 5K.

Well, my first 5K in a long time. I ran one once before in 2002, but then I kind of gave up after that.

Kris and I started run-walking in September. She steadily increased my running/decreased my walking until I was eventually running a full 30 minutes. Then we started running a full 5K in anticipation of me running a race – the annual Alplaus Run-Around.

The good news is I ran a time that, while not setting the world on fire, was pretty good for me. I only did a full 5K with a Kris a couple of times before the race. Both times it took me about 40 minutes. But when I ran the race I improved to 38:04.

The bad news is I came in dead last – except for Kris, but she doesn’t count because she purposely held back to take my picture. For a while I was pretty grumpy about placing last, but eventually got over it. After all, my time was good for me and it was a small race. There were only about 30 runners and most of them were die hards.

Although I’m trying to get better, I tend to complain a lot while I’m running. I don’t really enjoy the act of running itself. But I do like the way I feel afterward. So I’m not giving up. I’ll keep plugging away at it and I think I will tackle another race one of these days.

'I'm Batman...or am I?'

I'm a couple of weeks behind on one of my favorite new shows, "Community."

I just watched the Halloween episode tonight and LOVED the impersonation Danny Pudi, as the wonderfully wacky Abed, did of Christian Bale's version of Batman...

Yankees win, thheeee Yankees win!