tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-57990362007-03-29T16:15:18.804-07:00JosephBlogger811tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5799036.post-63795346380275078612007-03-22T21:00:00.000-07:002007-03-22T21:10:53.715-07:00

The women's basketball team won again tonight. I think I bought the very last reserved-seat tickets. I'm not kidding. Thomas, Ava, and I were in the very last seats of the very last row way up in the corner. The view wasn't all that bad, though. Alas, Johanna was not feeling well, and stayed home with Tami (thanks, Tami!). It was an exciting game, and wasn't really decided until the final minute

Josephtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5799036.post-2449251975282162092007-03-18T10:04:00.000-07:002007-03-18T10:11:30.305-07:00

The South Dakota State University Jackrabbits women's basketball team advanced to the 3rd round of the Women's National Invitational Tournament with a convincing 61-48 win over Illinois State. They'll host the winner of the Indiana-Iona game.

Josephtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5799036.post-3572632485965190362007-03-08T19:57:00.000-08:002007-03-08T20:22:57.580-08:00

What's more annoying than getting Canadian coins in change? I always think "Well, there's another coin I can't use in the vending machine to buy Cheetos!" Canadian pennies are OK, though, since U.S. pennies are just as useless, Cheetos-wise. The other day I glanced at my change, and saw the familiar maple leaves -- wait, this is a Canadian coin. Make that "leafs." It looked a little old, but I

Josephtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5799036.post-26634980528595074142007-02-20T13:41:00.000-08:002007-02-20T14:14:29.319-08:00

Here's an actual Google Groups search I did today, and it solved a problem for me in about 5 seconds: aix fcs wwn It would be hard to explain to anyone from 100 years ago how that seemingly random bit of typing produced, however indirectly, some economic utility.

Josephtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5799036.post-11546940784469146712007-01-08T10:08:00.000-08:002007-01-08T10:22:14.645-08:00

Twice on our drive to California, we bought gas of a certain brand. I don't want to name names, but it rhymes with "Schmillips 66." Both times, the check engine light came on. The owner's manual for our van was reassuring, and suggested that we burn through one tank of gas before flying into a panic. We did just that, and the warning light went out in each case. We resolved never to fill up on

Josephtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5799036.post-53820063261251060442007-01-07T15:07:00.000-08:002007-01-07T16:01:15.765-08:00

We just returned from California. To misquote The Pretenders, 4,000 miles is very far through the snow. Actually, only a tiny portion of that was through the snow. We hit a pretty good snowstorm in Utah on our way west. We had the good luck to drive through Colorado between the two big storms they've had. Not wanting to risk more snow, we took a southern route through Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico

Josephtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5799036.post-1162920256887956422006-11-07T09:08:00.000-08:002006-11-07T09:24:16.896-08:00

We had an unusually long ballot this year, with several initiated and referred laws and proposed constitutional amendments. It took me 24 minutes from the time I walked in the door to when I walked out. Most of that was just standing in line. While I was waiting, a woman appeared outside with a sign urging voters to vote no on Amendment C. Good for her. That's how I voted, and I hope it's

Josephtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5799036.post-1158981433105873912006-09-22T19:51:00.000-07:002006-09-23T21:46:50.820-07:00

Both Tami & I are running a road race tomorrow morning. It's the Jack 15, which is 15.2 miles of lonely county roads. Tami's running in a 5x3 relay, and I'm running the whole thing. Naturally, I've been watching the weather forecast closely, and it's been steadily getting worse each day. Tonight I checked the National Weather Service, and they've finally gone all the way, saying the chance of

Josephtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5799036.post-1157595771395300012006-09-06T19:18:00.000-07:002006-09-06T19:22:51.406-07:00

Josephtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5799036.post-1156996203021891722006-08-30T20:35:00.000-07:002006-08-30T20:50:03.040-07:00

[Click on any photo to see a bigger version] We spent last week on a lake near Brainerd, MN. The water was very shallow for as far out as we cared to go. Thomas probably would have liked it a little deeper, but he had fun anyway. Here he's sitting on the bottom. For Ava, on the other hand, it was just perfect. She really loves the water, and is teaching herself to swim. We often had the beach

Josephtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5799036.post-1145634868402398452006-04-21T08:45:00.000-07:002006-04-21T12:05:21.046-07:00

Twice a year I run in local relay road races. The next is the Brookings Marathon. We usually have goofy team names, like "Junta," "Andante," "The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes," (one of my favorites), "And Hutch," "Starsky" (we had two teams for that race), or "Frank & Beans." We never use the same name twice. This year, there was no broad agreement, so we just combined every idea we had. We are "

Josephtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5799036.post-1145635891916560332006-04-21T08:58:00.000-07:002006-04-21T09:11:31.973-07:00

I've been sitting on this story for two days, trying to come up with a way to tell it that isn't creepy, but I don't think there's a way. So here goes. On Wednesday, Ava & Johanna were out playing on the deck, and Tami & Thomas were inside. Tami heard crying from outside, and figured that the girls were fighting over a toy or something. Ava came inside, saying "Bird!" Johanna was still outside,

Josephtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5799036.post-1143908477652633972006-04-01T08:17:00.000-08:002006-04-01T08:21:17.666-08:00

This photo must be about 40 years old. Neither Mom nor Dad could identify the occasion nor even the location.

Josephtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5799036.post-1143609978887023162006-03-28T21:02:00.000-08:002006-03-28T21:26:18.950-08:00

I secured control of the remote while on the treadmill the other day, and to the chagrin of my fellow plodders, I surfed channels until I found an old Gunsmoke episode on TV Land. I was just in time for the opening credits, and was reminded of a silly little weekly ritual we had when I was a child. We'd wait impatiently as the credits listed Amanda Blake as Miss Kitty, Ken Curtis as Festus, etc

Josephtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5799036.post-1139978662079294852006-02-14T20:41:00.000-08:002006-02-14T20:44:22.090-08:00

Josephtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5799036.post-1133357820421764002005-11-30T05:31:00.000-08:002005-11-30T05:37:00.433-08:00

Jambo reminds us of the horror in Darfur. Please read the piece, and write to your representatives. Thanks.

Josephtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5799036.post-1133248612890164512005-11-28T22:50:00.000-08:002005-11-28T23:16:52.926-08:00

The first big winter storm of the year is passing through, and this morning, the weather guys at KELO-TV could hardly contain themselves. They really enjoy storms. They're like little kids. When I was in about the third grade or so, I remember the first snow of the year. We were in school, sitting at our desks, and some kid happened to look out the window. He yelled out "Snow!" and everybody

Josephtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5799036.post-1131346645908055922005-11-06T22:27:00.000-08:002005-11-06T22:57:25.970-08:00

We spent the day at Disneyland with cousins Andrew, Eric, and Paul, and Uncle Joel & Aunt Patricia, too. It was a long day, but the kids had tons of fun. We were there for around nine hours, and saw a small fraction of the park. That place just goes on and on and on. I can see why they offer multi-day passes. It was a big advantage having the locals along with us, since they knew all

Josephtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5799036.post-1131170514750657832005-11-04T21:23:00.000-08:002005-11-04T22:01:54.806-08:00

Our hotel in San Diego is about one mile from Mission Beach. We walked there this morning, and spent most of our time just playing at the edge of the water. There were several surfers taking turns videotaping one another. Johanna slipped and fell into the water and was drenched. She seemed pretty pleased about it! Ava was covered in sand from head to toe. Is there anything little kids like

Josephtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5799036.post-1131155154063225882005-11-04T17:32:00.000-08:002005-11-04T17:45:54.096-08:00

We missed the shuttle van back to the hotel from Sea World yesterday. (We later found out we weren't two minutes late; we were 58 minutes early.) It wasn't a long walk, but with three little ones, no stroller, one really busy street to cross, and the cool, dark night closing in fast, we took a cab. We struck up a conversation with the cab driver, and it turns out he was originally from Yankton,

Josephtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5799036.post-1127759290139569792005-09-26T11:17:00.000-07:002005-09-26T11:28:10.183-07:00

On Saturday, for the sixth year in a row, I ran the Jack 15 road race on a relay team. The conditions were almost perfect -- cool temps and low wind. It had rained earlier in the day, but the rain stopped shortly before the start. Our team managed to win our division (co-ed 5x3 relay), which we hadn't done before, except for the crazy 15x1 in 2002. That year we had only one team to beat, and

Josephtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5799036.post-1126759414622660672005-09-14T21:26:00.000-07:002005-09-15T15:46:53.380-07:00

We spent a few hours this evening on the periphery of the entertainment business. The TV show Three Wishes came to town. I don't really know much about it other than it's some kind of "reality show" (we called them "game shows" when I was a youth). Apparently they go from town to town granting three wishes to the locals. It's hosted by pop singer Amy Grant. There was to be a concert by Grant,

Josephtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5799036.post-1126824155734056792005-09-15T15:36:00.000-07:002005-09-15T15:42:35.740-07:00

I couldn't get this photo to upload for last night's post. Looks like the problem is fixed.

Josephtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5799036.post-1122476537357453272005-07-27T07:55:00.000-07:002005-08-30T23:33:56.036-07:00

Turns out I'm older than the Pillsbury Doughboy. The Michelin Man is much older.

Josephtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5799036.post-1124986314292727392005-08-25T09:04:00.000-07:002005-08-25T13:07:02.433-07:00

Jambo's at it again. This time, he's making a list of the best movie scenes ever. Make your nominations now; there will be a poll after a while.

Joseph