Sorry...

I'm too busy to post. To busy reading message boards. K-state fires coach, K-State hires coach, K-State hasn't hired coach... it's making me NUTS. (I know, like I needed any help.)

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Barack and Roll All Nite!

The country has spoken, Kansas just didn't have their hearing aids turned on! I watched results late into the evening. When Pennsylvania went blue, that is when I knew it was over. McCain spent a lot of time in that state in the final week, but he lost by 11% in a state he was counting on. That did not bode well for his camp.

The sales tax issue passed too! By a comfortable margin. Linda L. sent a voice mail last night that she would be happy to support the new pool when she shops at Sam's. She said the old pool was here when she was a kid -- wow, that's a long time!

All of the candidates that we worked with in the General Election won -- Charlie Roth, Pete Brundgardt, John Vratil, Terrie Huntington, Barbara Craft, and Vicki Schmidt. That's why MarketAide slogan is "Join the Winners". I personally helped with the tax issue and it passed too, so it was a clean sweep for us.

I know my in-laws in Ellsworth would appreciate it if you got them a nice gift for Christmas. I think any of these would make a nice gift for them. I think Delmar would look really hip in this one, so don't get it, I think I'm done Christmas shopping for him!

The kids were very excited about the outcome -- National results, not Kansas. Kay was upset yesterday when she came home from school because a young, uninformed, obviously brain-washed boy in her class was talking bad about Barack Obama. She said that she told him he should be nice because Barack's grandma just died. She said no one in her class knew that... she got that from me. I have been a political junkie for the last month. Now I'm going through withdrawal!

Shifting gears -- JD had 4 warts on the bottom of his foot and one on his hand treated yesterday with Canthacur (an acid that destroys the warts). They looked disgusting this morning -- not oh-my-we-need-to-go-see-the-doctor-again disgusting, but wow-those-look-like-they-hurt disgusting. He limped off to school though. He really needed to have something done with them 8 weeks ago, but that was during football and I didn't want him to miss a prolonged period while they healed.

Have a good day, all.

D

We are witnesses to history!

Today is an historic day in the United States, even though Kansas will miss the boat. Today this nation will put racism behind us and elect a president of African-American decent. Kansas will blindly follow the right wing mantra that has gotten us into the mess we are in today, but 6 electoral votes will not stop the coming tide. Even Karl Rove is predicting an Obama Electoral College landslide.

In case you haven't figured it out, I did vote for Barack Obama today. And I voted for the pool sales tax for Salina. I figured Delmar, Jane, Linda, Linda, Darin and Cindy, and Kenny and Carolyn could all help subsidize my children's fun! Nearly $4 Million of the sales tax money will come from outside the city limits. So when Delmar buys that new $200 driver, it will only cost him an extra 30 cents in tax.

I think voter turnout will be high. When I voted at 8:00 I actually had to wait in line -- I think that is the first time in my voting life that I had to wait. There were three people voting and I was next in line. When I left there were eight. I was also #69 on the voter roll. I don't think our polling place has ever had more than 200 in an election and 1 hour into the day, they were over 1/3 of the way to that number.

On the down side, the political work that MarketAide has enjoyed since June will be gone. We've endured well, but now we'll get back to industrial work.

D

This and that...

Remember to vote tomorrow!

Pheasant season opened Saturday. I caught two fish. It was too hot to hunt and have success, so Darin and I spent the afternoon at Grandma's pond. We each caught two.

Today is Kimmie's half-birthday. I got her a corduroy Harley Davidson jacket. She was surprised: she thought her half-birthday was in November, so I caught her completely off guard!?!

The kids had a good time Friday night in Ellsworth. They now have more candy than they can possibly eat.

I did absolutely nothing with my extra hour this weekend.

On Saturday, we visited Drovers Mercantile for closing. It was a fun time. I ate more cake than I should have -- it showed on the scale at the Y. I gained 9/10ths of a pound this week. But I also did not exercise much and ate Halloween candy... I'll lose two by next Sunday!

Here are the kids and Kimmie from Friday. Kaylee was Hannah Montana (and her hair does funny things to my camera), JD was Willie, and Kim was a Hockey Mom (although she was supposed to be a hockey player).





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Boo!

Once again we have ventured into the pumpkin carving tradition. JD carved his on Sunday with Kim's assistance. It is a vampire dog, complete with long ears. Kay carved her's on Sunday too, with Kim's help. The pumpkin looked like, well it looked like a pumpkin with a hole in it. A rectangle shaped void about 3" x 4". It was quite attractive, but I don't think many would-be trick-or-treaters would appreciate the minimalist approach that they had achieved.

So last night, Kay and I went and bought new pumpkins and tried again. I carved a witch. Kay wanted a butterfly. About half way through carving mine, Kaylee said "Dad, can you finish mine?" She hadn't even started, other than to draw a small creature with a sun and a rainbow. To her credit she did scoop the insides out, but that was it. I did finish hers, because that's what dad's do. Pictures are below -- witch, butterfly, and dog (incase you couldn't tell).







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Merry Christmas!

Last night, JD's Cub Scout Pack had their annual trunk-or-treat. A much anticipated party where the adults decorate their trunk and the kids walk the parking lot begging for candy. There are prizes for Funniest, Most Original, and Best All Around Trunk.

I found out last night that 6:00 in the evening, 4 days before Halloween wasn't the best time to try to find decorations for my trunk. Even though the news is dealing doom and gloom, telling me and everyone else that will listen that retailers are having trouble moving Halloween merchandise and are having to offer deep discounts to sell these Chinese-made trinkets. Well, that's not the case in Salina, KS. All of the good decorations were gone.

I'm sure that you are now asking yourself: "My goodness, I wonder what Dee did?"

I'll tell you. I did the next best thing. I bought a giant red bow, 4 stockings, a Christmas tree, a Santa hat, set of reindeer antlers, and a Taiwanese-made sign that said "Tis the Season". Then I dressed up in my best Christmas tie and every child that came by my truck got a hearty "Merry Christmas" and box of Mike and Ikes. The younger kids were so confused -- it was so funny I almost wet myself!





By the way, I won "Most Original".

D

Soaring like an Eagle

Yesterday was the final game of the 2008 Salina Eagles' season. Yesterday's game was much like others this year, a close loss to a team we could have beat. The Eagles finished the season 2 and 5. JD had fun and he told his coaches that he'd play again next year. He even shed a tear or two at the end of the game, though I am not exactly sure why. He wouldn't say.

One thing that did catch my attention yesterday was his name. Kim and I labored long and hard over his name. Kim insited that it sound perfect when announced over a loud speaker in a stadium. Yesterday before the game, each of the boys lined up on the field and had their name and number called during the pregame festivities. When the announcer called JD's name it sounded perfect!



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Teacher for a Day - Part Deux

K had a blast. I think her favorite part was eating at McDonald's followed closely by visiting the teacher's lounge. When asked, she said she did not see any bunkbeds or the pin ball machine in the lounge. Beyond that, she read to the class, took lunch count, and generally ran the show!

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Mii

On Wii, you build a characature of yourself and call it your "Mii". I am proud of my "Mii" because he looks like me. (I think that's the point). I've been meaning to post a picture of my Mii to see if anyone else thinks that my Mii looks like me. Confused yet? It's not a great picture; I had to take a picture of the TV. Anyway... I now present Dee the Mii.



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Teacher for a Day

Mrs. Heike Daily, Kaylee's second grade teacher, has a special program for the children in her class -- Teacher for a Day. Today was Kay's day. Mrs. Daily picked her up at 7:00 AM; K was up at 6:30, dressed in her best skirt and nice white blouse. She left the house in a very business-like state of mind. No hug for dad, just out the door, "Hi" to Mrs. Daily and off to her SUV. From the house, they went to McDonalds for breakfast, then to the school. Kay will follow Mrs. Daily routine -- to the office, a stop at the library to pick out a book she can read to the class, then off to the room to plan the day. Kay will do a significant portion of the "teaching" today. For her work, Mrs. Daily will take pictures and put together a poster for K to remember her day.

We'll see how it went this evening.

D

A-Maze-ing

Yesterday we trekked 10 miles south to the Sunny Side Pumpkin Patch. Trips to Sunny SIde have become the norm for the last three years. It's very inexpensive and the kids have a great time. $5 per person for everything -- corn maze, gourd sling shot, farm animals to pet, games to play, wagon ride. It's great. Not included in the price are the pumpkins and refreshments. If you want to pick you own, you can.

The maze was long and more difficult than usual this year.  JD insisted on going it alone... he found four of the seven  check points on his own. With MY expert guidance, Kaylee found all of them. The wind was  howling on Sunday, which made navigation a chore.

The pop machine... Kaylee and JD decided that Rootbeer was better than Cider so they opted for that. I brought my own refreshment... Enviga, an energy drink made by Coca-Cola and Nestle that actually burn calories as you drink it. Kim bummed sips off the kids. To qualify for the Agri-Tourism dollars that Kansas offers, your ag-tourism business actually has to be educational. The pens that contained the goats, sheep, steer, ducks, chickens, and rabbits had signs on them detailing the history, benefits, uses, and other important information. I don't think the kids were impressed. They wanted to play.

The wagon ride takes you around the Pumpkin Patch. It's a short ride, but the kids had fun. It was amazing to me how often parents would let there children get too close to the horses. One boy, about 8 or 9 even ran along beside the horses for a short distance. The driver called to him to stay back several times. It makes you wonder where his parents were.


The trip was so exciting, Kim nearly wet herself. Good thing they had a Johnnie on the Spot!



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Looks like there won't be a hat trick today.

JD's team braved the dark, cold morning to play football today. Standing at the gate at KWU's Martin Stadium at 7:00 AM it was 44 degrees. The bad thing is, most of the boys didn't wake up until 8:30 -- the game started at 8:00. They played well enough to only be down 6-0 half way through the second quarter. Then they woke up and won their second game of the season 13 to 6. JD played well, even hurt a kid. He pancaked his guy at the line and then continued 25 yards down field to block for the running back. He clocked a kid that never saw him coming.

At 12:30, Kaylee's soccer team took the field at the Y. We were playing a team that had already beat us twice this year, but they were playing back-to-back games today. This team had beat us 5-0 and 2-1 this year. We had only scored two goals all season. But thanks to their exhaustion, we were able to score two and win 2-0. The girls were excited to say the least, I was even happier.

Unfortunately, :47 before halftime, it looks like there won't be a hat trick today. The 'Cats are stinking the place up at Colorado. We can't run, we can't catch, we can't throw. On top of that we can't stop the pass, can't stop the run, and can't make a field goal. The defensive problems have plagued them all year, but the offenses usually bails them out. Unless they come out motivated after half, it looks like the 'Cats are well on their way to a 4 and 3 record. Hope they wake up...

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