Why is the world out of focus?

Could it be abnormal dilation due to excessive sinus pressure?

Elephant Racing

Elephant Racing... 'nuff said.

July 21 Dallas Zoo. Treo Camera

she's not my girlfriend anymore

It wasn't meant to be a test, but I guess dragging your girlfriend on a 1,000+ mile trip WITH your three kids to stay as a guest in the home of one of your closest friends can be somewhat daunting...

We went to DC.

With stops, including Mass at St. Paul's Cathedral (Yea! MassTimes.ORG), it took 27 hours to get there.

Our site-seeing party included 5 adults and 8 kids. There was much potential for many problems. By day three, we had been threatened with heat stroke and lightning and deviations from the spreadsheet.

But day three also found us in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History (http://www.mnh.si.edu/exhibits/current.html) The Janet Annenberg Hooker Hall of Geology, Gems, and Minerals (http://www.mnh.si.edu/earth/text/2_1_3_2.html)...
past the Hope Diamond...
and the Tiffany Diamond...
and the The Carmen Lúcia Ruby,
somewhere near the giant beryl crystal. And I said:

All of these gems remind me of what is truly precious in this world and what a gift it is to find you. So to paraphrase our late Pope (John Paul II), will you do me the honor of joining me in the *gift* of matrimony?

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Marriage is an act of will that signifies and involves a mutual gift, which unites the spouses and binds them to their eventual souls, with whom they make up a sole family - a domestic church. -- Pope John Paul II

Orange

Today we went to the National Museum of Natural History. We wore orange.

We saw an Arma'posum (or Pangoron?) and mummies and elephants and shiny things.

Ben liked the skeletons. But I think he expected them to move like zoo animals.

Paul held a cockroach.

Yep, we wore orange.

A man with a M16 just told us to have "an exciting day..." but I was so looking forward to a nice sit down at Becca's.

Joined another family

While waiting in line for the Capitol Tour, Patrick joined a new family...

Well at least he joined their game of "Bubblegum Bubblegum in a ditch."

The long long march

First day in DC... What should you do? Take advantage of the fact that the kids are still niave and don't quite know what "walking" means.

It took an hour to get from the middle of The Mall to The Lincoln Memorial via a sculpture garden and sprinklers. The Washington Monument was halfway. We did not go up but we did get quizzed by Russ.

The Washington Monument from Mid-Mall'ish

Srinkler below the Washington Monument

The Washington Monument from The Lincoln Memorial

Pooped at the Lincoln Memorial

(I promise we won't walk -as far- tomorrow)

Lunch @ the NAAS Museum

You can get McDonald's at the National Air and Space Museum.

The trashcans open automatically!

And we all touched the moonrock.

Smithsonian

Today we went to museums. Paul read everything.

Lainey found cool things like ruby slippers and Princes' guitar.

James really liked Barbie.

stress test

The picture below has 2 identical dolphins in it. It was used in a case study on stress levels at St. Mary's Hospital.

Look at both dolphins jumping out of the water. The dolphins are identical. A closely monitored, scientific study revealed that, in spite of the fact that the dolphins are identical, a person under stress would find differences in the two dolphins.

The more differences a person finds between the dolphins, the more stress that person is experiencing.

Look at the photograph and if you find more than one or two differences you may want to take a vacation.

Don't you wish you had a sticker?

Don't you wish your sticker was cool like mine?

Making groceries

Ah, to be able to get liquor, groceries and a meat pie at the same place. Sweet, Sweet Louisiana.

Fwd: Ice cream

We now have a workaround for the problem of having yummy ice cream left in the bottom of a nasty-soggy cone!

embedded?

Well I spent a little time setting up VersaMail on the ol' Treo. I hadn't worried about the mail client before. Blazer seemed good enough to properly display the web-based mail I use. BUT... I wanted to be able to attache camera phone pics WITHOUT relying on Sprints horrible picture share system.

I could not get sprintpcs email to work on my sprint-branded Treo. It seems my pop/smtp password (and even user name) differs from my "Vision" account. But the tier one reps (even the ones in The States) can't seem to get past the word "Vision."

My local ISP to the rescue. Say what you will about cruddy customer service and spotty download spreeds, at least you get sub email accounts. Wheeeeeeee.

So I set up the Treo with a sub account from my ISP. Voila! Blog posted mobile-style. But alas, I still had to get to the PC, and manually insert the picture. Apparently Blogger doesn't recognize attachments and VersaMail is not robust enough to embed objects in the text of a message.

Such is life.

AH HAH! While the normal email directly to your registered blog doesn't work with attached pictures, the generic email to go blogger.com works quite nicely!