Random Thoughts From Marybeth

Golden Ticket Award Winners

Amusement Today has announced this year's best parks and rides. Cedar Point (Sandusky, Ohio) won for best park and Schlitterbahn (New Braunfels, Texas) won for best waterpark. Holiday World (Santa Claus, Ind.) won for Friendliest Park Staff, Cleanest Park, and Best New Ride of 2006.

My favorite park destination is still Walt Disney World. With four parks (and two waterparks) it's easy to keep everyone in the family satisfied. My oldest son gets to go on all the thrill rides, my younger son gets to enjoy the waterparks, and my daughter gets her "princess fix". And I get pins straight from the source.

Only 50 days until we're there.

Like Most of the 14 Above It...

It wasn't what I had started out looking for but I ended up clicking on a video of Country Joe & the Fish at Woodstock. I'm not linking to it because of the video but because of one of the comments that I found amusing - "(insert cliche anti-Bush comment here so the ppl on the internets will know I'm l33t)"

(Audio NSFW at beginning)

Another $69,950+ and It's Mine!

Ask any 16-year-old what the worst part of the driver's licensing test is and the answer will probably be parallel parking. Gizmodo has a video of a car (Lexus LS 460 L) that will park itself. Now, even if a teenager (or his/her parents) can afford the $70k+ price of the car, I doubt this feature could be used during the test but I wouldn't be surprised if it's a standard feature of many cars by the time this generation of teenagers has children old enough to drive. Eventually the idea of not using an automatic parking feature would make as much sense as using hand signals instead of the turn indicators now.

He Said, She Said

Chavez said, "Israel often criticizes Hitler ... but they have done the same thing, perhaps even worse."

Marybeth says, "Chavez is an idiot."

Caracas pulled the Venezuelan charge d'affaires out of Israel in early August to protest its operations inside Lebanon, with Chavez charging that Israel "had lost its mind".

I don't agree with that statement either but I have to add that the phrase "it takes one to know one" comes to mind.

Don't Worry, Be Happy

Twenty strategies adapted from the scientific research and applied to New York living. The theory is that too many choices produce stress and we are always comparing what we did with the imagined benefits of the choices we didn't select.

Decide where to go to college by picking two decent schools and flipping a coin.

If someone tells you he’s still pining for his ex, ask the ex out.

Send the kids off to day care, summer camp, and boarding school.

If you go on a shopping spree, throw away the receipts.

Patronize King Cole’s and other establishments that employ a “mixologist”; avoid any bar named after an Irish person.

The last one doesn't seem to fit the "limited choice" theory but it's included because "Spending your alcohol allowance on a few finely crafted cocktails is probably better than guzzling giant troughs of beer, since the ability to limit one’s indulgence is one of the baseline characteristics of happy people. Researchers aren’t sure whether moderation is chicken or egg, but they do know that teetotaling doesn’t confer any particular advantage."

OpenRange Day

OpenRange, a gun range and paintball reball arena has finally opened (I've been waiting for this since January 2005) and I went for my first class yesterday. It was a gun safety class for women and I would highly recommend it for any woman that is interested in learning to shoot. (They also have similar classes for children.) We spent the first couple of hours learning about the parts of guns, how to handle them safely, and how to shoot. Then we went to the firing range to try out our new knowledge. I think I did pretty well for my very first time with a handgun. Here's my target:

If I'm ever threatened by a giant bowling pin, that bowling pin better beware!

I plan on returning and renting a few different types of guns to see what I like the best. Our class used S&W .38 revolvers and I want to compare those with a few others before I decide what I want to buy.

10,000 Reasons Civilization is Doomed

There's only 2040 reasons now (and not really that many, MTV is listed at least two times and there may be other duplications.) I don't think any of them foretell the doom of our civilization although some do highlight individual/group stupidity. Some are signs (to me) that our civilization is strong and vital.

You can submit your own harbinger of doom if you want.

More Sam Elliot Would Have Been Good Too

Yesterday I took the two youngest kids to see Barnyard. I still haven't decided which is more absurd: that the bulls have udders or the line, "the best leader is the one who cares the most".

The movie does have a few cute moments but not enough to balance out the stupid ones.

Wanted!!!!

I could use $3,000,000. I'm going to begin by checking small town diners....

I just retried the link and got a "Bandwidth Limit Exceeded" message. I better get busy, it looks as though I'm going to have some competition! Or maybe Elvis has learned some hacking skills and done this to try to keep from being found!

(Crazy Interesting theories always make me use more exclamation points!!)

You can read an article about the site here.

Maybe He Just Had a Bad Trip

Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck, just back from his summer vacation, urged fellow Germans Thursday to give up their holidays and save the money for their retirement.

According to the article, "German politicians enjoy healthy pensions" so I guess Steinbrueck doesn't have to make a choice between a vacation now or a comfortable retirement later. The taxpayers who make his vacations and his retirement possible might be thinking that the latter can't come too soon.

PTS: A More Believable (but Still Significant) Number

If the estimates had gone up I'm sure I would have heard about this from every media source. As it is, I'm happy it was reported at all.

Far fewer Vietnam veterans suffered from post-traumatic stress as a result of their wartime service than previously thought, researchers are reporting today, in a finding that could have lasting consequences for the understanding of combat stress, as well as for the estimates of the mental health fallout from the Iraq war.

An earlier study had found that about 30% of Vietnam veterans suffered from PTS at some point, about twice the percentage of vets who served in combat roles. The new study brings this down to 18.7% with 9.1% having a continuing disability.

Some people are upset by this new study and are worried that this will lead to cuts in funding for PTS treatment but I agree with Dr. Bruce Dohrenwend, a psychiatric researcher at Columbia University and the New York State Psychiatric Institute who said, "I’d like to think that this study would help settle the debate, and that both sides would see that this was good science."

All Homework Ever Taught Me Was That I Have to do Boring Stuff "Just Because"

Two schools in our district have stopped giving "D" grades. (Neither is a school my children attend.) In these schools, anything below a "C" is a failing grade. The idea is to encourage the students to put in more effort and to make the classroom grades align with those given for the Kentucky's Commonwealth Accountability Testing System.

Having the same expectations for classwork as for the standardized tests is reasonable but as for making the students want to work harder, good luck with that. Class grades are usually based on a combination of classwork, homework, and tests. A student can do well on all the tests but still receive a low grade if he or she doesn't do enough of the homework. The theory is that homework reinforces what was taught in class but if a student gets an A on the tests without doing the homework, is homework really necessary or just busy work?

If they want the class grades to align with the standardized test scores, the class tests should be the major part of the grade. It seems silly to insist that a four grade system better matches the four grade test score if you are measuring different things.

Fists of Tickle Fury

There's been an ongoing debate on whether pirates or ninjas are cooler. I don't know the answer, but it seems that ninjas are cuddlier.

August is National Peach Month

I have some recipes using peaches on my cooking blog plus links to peach recipes that have been submitted to the Carnival of the Recipes.

PKI (II)

We went to King's Island on Sunday. (Our last attempt to go had been rained out.) Jeff and Trevor spent most of the day riding the roller coasters while I took Emma and Conor to the water park*. The weather was perfect and it wasn't too crowded, although the lines did start getting long about mid-afternoon.

The only downside is that it's made it even harder to wait for our trip to WDW in October.

* Public service announcement - if you're going to a water park, please wear a swim suit that fits. One that is a couple of sizes too small isn't comfortable for you nor for those who are behind you in line. Then again, taking bets on whether or not your seams will burst does give us something to do while we're waiting for our turn.

More Fauxtography

See the 2006 Photo(shop) Journalism Awards at Banterist. I'm surprised the middle one hasn't made the cover of Newsweek.

Let's Say Thanks

I found out about this site from someone in my bookclub this evening.

Let's Say Thanks, in partnership with Xeros, allows visitors to the site to select an image (selections are drawings submitted by children) and add a message. This will be mailed in care packages by military support organization Give2theTroops.com.

I sent a card and made a modest donation. (They take PayPal along with MasterCard and VISA.) I usually keep a few dollars in my PayPal account so I don't have to go searching for my wallet when I want to make an online transaction and donating here seemed more worthwhile than spending the money on another case of Bawls.

Proud of Our Troops

TakePride was founded by a group of friends who wanted to start a business and at the same time, try to do some good. Some of us have military experience, others don't but we all share the common belief that the more difficult the mission facing our military, the more deserving they are of our thanks and support. We feared, however, that to some extent, the opposite might be happening: That because of the duration of the conflicts, distressing news of casualties and frustratingly slow progress (especially in the case of Iraq) that some Americans were beginning to tune away from the story.

Our two goals were to help people re-connect to the experiences of those serving overseas and to create a symbol of support that people, especially younger Americans genuinely enjoyed putting on. T-shirts, we hope, allowed us to accomplish both. Each shirt design provides a glimpse into the life of a different US Service member who served in Iraq or Afghanistan. Although we really admire the individuals we profile they are not in our eyes greater heroes than others. We think most everyone over there is a hero these just happened to be the people we knew or contacted and are meant to give a human face and be representative for all the Americans currently serving in war zones.

At least 20% of the profits are donated to charities. Current charities include: Disabled American Veterans, Wounded Warriors, Fisher Houses, The USO, and Any Soldier.

T-shirts are $20 to $22 each and payment may be made by credit card or through PayPal.

Fasting Nuts Segregate Fruits and Vegetables

CodePink "has issued a nationwide call for people to go on at least a partial hunger strike, if only for a few hours, to show their opposition to the war in Iraq."

If they consider not eating for a few hours a sacrifice, they either have a very high metabolism or might want to give a little thought to their normal eating habits.

I checked for more information from codepinkalert.org which sent me to troopshomefast.org which sent me to another site that has a place where you can search for people in your state who joined the fast (just enter the state or narrow it more by adding the city.) Going back to the troopshome site, I didn't find anything about the "few hour fast" but I found some fasting tips.

One (for long-term fasts) that I found particularly odd was "[i]f you decide to make your own drinks from fruits and vegetables, make sure not to mix the two (make drinks only out of fruit or only out of vegetable)." I couldn't think of a health reason not to mix the two so I Googled for an answer. The only things I found were from "Real Magick: The Occult Library" and "Gaia Garden Herbals: Detoxification". Neither would be first (or anywhere) on my list of places to check for health information but I was hoping for a reason, even a poor one. No luck, while both said not to mix fruits and vegetables neither gave a reason.