Monet in Raleigh

Went to the Monet in Normandy Exhibit this morning. Really nice travelling collection. Per the suggestion of GH and AH, got the audio tour which really helped bring the exhibition to life. Paintings were arrayed chronologically which helped explain his different periods and progression over time from realistic to impressionist to early abstract.

Great Show.

Speaking of Pretty Pictures

Grey Goose Vodka bottles have a very pretty image on a frosted bottle. Part of the image is on the outside with the background image on the inside. Yeah, that's a big honking bottle of Vodka. I'll need to go to Sam's Club to get Orange Juice in bulk size.

Christmas present from W and H. Thanks y'all.

Bowl Games

I love watching college football. It's my second favorite time of the year. The best is the NCAA Basketball Championship.

Bowl games can be a blast such as South Carolina 44 Houston 36 last night in a wild offensive game. There were over 600 total yards of offence. In the first Half!

Just finished watching Boston College win over Navy on a field goal with 3 seconds left by a walk on who never played football in his life until he tried out for the BC team.

Former BC coach Tom O'Brien is now NC State's coach. Navy coach Paul Johnson was also in serious consideration. The offer could have gone to either one.

Congratulations SC, BC and Navy and Houston for getting bowl invites this year.

Madelyn is signaling "touchdown".

ROFL

Roomie (JTN) is spending the Holidays with his folks in SouthPort. His dad gave him a haircut, which was mentioned in email traffic. WN writes a pretty good blog - dry wit which often makes me laugh out loud.

First, you have to know that JTN keeps a really short haircut to begin with and complains if it gets over half an inch long. When WN mentioned that the haircut he gave JTN was possibly a bit too short - well, I wondered what that meant.

Today I caught up on reading WN's blog - with photos.

ROFL

I'll bet it kinda reminds JTN of the 14 years he spent in the Army.

PS

In the photos, looks like "Bill" might be trying to use the same type of camera that I bought this month - Casio S600.

At least he sure looks as confused as I get when trying to figure out how to work mine.

BTW - the Casio is also a camcorder. I've generated many minutes of thrilling movies, mostly of my feet with Oscar worthy dialogue such as "Is this thing recording"?

How Many?

I generally avoid politics in my Blog. Political postings in general tend to be rather superficial and are already covered ad nauseam in the blogsphere and AM talk radio

I am against Capital Punishment. It is not a deterrent and is arbitrarily meted out. It simply isn’t needed to protect society. I am more concerned with my own safety than revenge or retribution. Placing murderers in prison for life is perfectly fine with me as it keeps me safe from them. Plus, the very idea of possibly executing someone wrongly convicted is simply awful

Having said that, I am going to place this entry out there simply as a statement of my feelings on Saddam Hussein. I can offer no rational reason or argument for the fact that while I am against Capital Punishment, I completely support his execution. This guy is evil incarnate. I hate to admit it, but I will be glad to see him hanged.

There are other despots out there that surely deserve to be tried, convicted and executed. But Saddam Hussein is the current grand prize winner in the evil category.

Just how many people did he murder?

http://www.moreorless.au.com/killers/hussein.html

Christmas Dinner

We had Christmas Dinner at the Irregardless Cafe.

Photos of everybody except MIH. The photos with her in them all turned out blurry.

The owner came over to speak with us for a few moments and we talked about the original art on the walls. Some of the paintings are pretty humorous.

Food was great.

I got an outdoor fireplace from my niece for Christmas. I've been thinking about getting one and *poof* - one shows up. The same niece who just had her first child 2 days before Christmas.

Thanks CM.

Hmmmmm - I just thought of something. CLA got married to CM. If CLA keeps all her names instead of traditionally dropping her middle name - she'd be CLAM.

LOL

What else?

Later I'm picking up Erika to baby sit while her parents go to the Hocky Game. They have tickets at center ice.

JTN is spending the holidays with his parents in South Port.

The rest of the week will be typical - I'll be at work. Everybody else in my Section wanted off so I have to man the office this week. Should be pretty quite and I hope to get a lot of work done.

I'm doing laundry and house cleaning today and that's about it for now.

Happy Holidays!

Christmas Eve 2006

Georgiana, Chuck, Adrian, Mami, and Erika drove out to Bum-F-Egypt to have dinner with me.

G and C captured the granddaughter and took her back with them to the Embassy Suites in Cary.

ADH and MIH spent some time in the hot tub.

Then they left for Cary.

I'll be driving up there tomorrow morning for Christmas Day.