12/30/2003 09:41:00 PM|W|P|Donald|W|P|Three trips to Lowes, a tiny bit of cursing (those shelves are evil), and a fair amount of elbow grease equals one mostly finished family room (the curtains are "on order")! Shown below is the sequence of photos spanning nearly an entire day, although the actual painting process took only a morning.
|W|P|107284211710020168|W|P|The Paint Job|W|P|12/29/2003 08:58:00 PM|W|P|Donald|W|P|We were out shopping today at Lowes (we were there because we decided to paint the family room -- be afraid! -- I'll post pictures once we finish) and Steph received a compliment from someone about her hair. Her hair isn't blonde or brunette. It's "dishwater blonde" -- a term I heard all the time growing up in East Texas. I'm not sure why, but I don't hear that term very often these days. Maybe it's a Texas thing. Maybe it's gone out of style. Maybe "dishwater" is offensive. I, however, think it's cute... :-)
|W|P|107275310216067825|W|P|Dishwater Blonde|W|P|12/29/2003 08:46:00 PM|W|P|Donald|W|P|
This is one of the photos that didn't make it to our online collection of ICE -- but it's still pretty cool. (This Santa is about 7 feet tall)|W|P|107275236374006446|W|P|Ice Santa|W|P|12/28/2003 04:27:00 PM|W|P|Donald|W|P|
This weekend I started reading We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda by Philip Gourevitch. The paperback came out in 1999 and I've been meaning to read it for some time. Jennifer gave it to me as a Christmas gift -- I'll thank her again for it the next time we talk.
The accounts are horrifying -- especially given the number of people who were slaughtered in such short time (an estimated 800,000 in about 3 months). There are times when I have to put it down and wonder why I continue reading it. At the front of the book, there's a quote from Plato in The Republic:
Leontius, the son of Aglaion, was coming up from the Periaeus, close to the outer side of the north wall, when he saw some dead bodies lying near the executioner, and he felt a desire to look at them, and at the same time felt disgust at the thought, and tried to turn aside. For some time he fought with himself and put his hand over his eyes, but in the end the desire got the better of him, and opening his eyes wide with his fingers he ran forward to bodies, saying, "There you are, curse you, have your fill of the lovely spectacle."|W|P|107265046367302271|W|P|Stories from Rwanda|W|P|12/27/2003 07:18:00 AM|W|P|Donald|W|P|What happens when you take 2,000,000 pounds of ice and give it to 42 artisans from Harbin, China? Take a look! Stephanie and I went through the 18,000 square foot freezer (it's kept at 9 degrees they say) while we were in Orlando over Christmas. It's amazing what they can carve: bridges, buildings, people, animals, toys, etc. They even had a few ice slides. Thankfully, they provided this huge heavy parka -- living in Florida doesn't do much for cold tolerance!
|W|P|107253108753950741|W|P|Ice! |W|P|12/26/2003 06:08:00 PM|W|P|Donald|W|P|We're back in town and the photos are posted...
|W|P|107248371004825057|W|P|Disney Christmas 2003|W|P|12/22/2003 09:03:00 PM|W|P|Donald|W|P|
One of the quick dishes that Stephanie made last night was baked brie. It's easy to prepare, bake, and serve. Buy a round of brie, cut just the rind off the top, sprinkle in some toasted pine nutes and/or raspberry jam, wrap it in pastry dough, add an egg wash, bake until done, let cool to set, and then serve. It takes no time. She cut out Christmas cookie shapes from some extra pastry dough and baked those too. She also sliced a couple of granny smith apples to go along with it. Very easy. Very tasty! :-)|W|P|107214861427580902|W|P|Baked Brie|W|P|12/21/2003 09:04:00 PM|W|P|Donald|W|P|This is what happens when you buy a dog too many toys at once (the toys came bundled in a gift bag)... hoarding!
|W|P|107206226730623708|W|P|The hoarding of toys!|W|P|12/20/2003 08:26:00 PM|W|P|Donald|W|P|We are having friends over tomorrow to exchange gifts and have lunch. After my haircut today, I stopped off and picked up Stephanie some loose flowers. She, in turn, put them into a nice little arrangment and made a bow as well... :-)
|W|P|107197359982045306|W|P|Christmas flowers for tomorrow|W|P|12/20/2003 09:02:00 AM|W|P|Donald|W|P|
Third place? What? No way! That's just not possible...
Earlier this semester, Stephanie and I started watching House Rules on Saturday mornings (the official episode is Friday evening, but we always seemed to miss it). Here's the premise: Start with three couples, Lowe's buys them each a house, they compete by renovating the homes -- and only the winner gets to keep the house.
The winner was announced last night -- and it was Bill & Cindy. We both think that one of the judges, Stephen K. Hann, summarized it best when he said that Adam & Katie were most improved, Bill & Cindy were the most lively, and Joey & Rebecca were the most complete (that's Joey & Rebecca in the photo to the left -- taken from the House Rules website...)|W|P|107193256400426679|W|P|House Rules|W|P|12/19/2003 05:51:00 PM|W|P|Donald|W|P|Yes, I understand that sweater weather in florida is the same as t-shirt weather in other places. That doesn't change the fact that when you are used to 70-90 degree weather, you forget what "cold weather" feels like. And it's going to be COLD here tonight!
|W|P|107187789661160131|W|P|Brrrrrrrr...|W|P|12/17/2003 10:13:00 PM|W|P|Donald|W|P|
Held on campus at Florida Tech, the SCT Holiday Party turned out to be a very nice affair.
Faculty, staff, and administrators took time out of their busy day to join us in celebration of successful year. |W|P|107172083938803827|W|P|SCT Holiday Party|W|P|12/15/2003 10:02:00 PM|W|P|Donald|W|P|
|W|P|107154735771419345|W|P|Want to play catch?|W|P|12/14/2003 04:03:00 PM|W|P|Donald|W|P|This is what happens when my wife goes to Essentials in December for her monthly pedicure... Merry Christmas!
|W|P|107143941081761079|W|P|Christmas toes!|W|P|12/14/2003 02:25:00 PM|W|P|Donald|W|P|We froze the leftover honey-baked ham (and ham bone) for sometime after Thanksgiving. That time has come! late last night we put the (thawed) ham bone and a 15 bean combination along with herbs and spices into the crock pot. We woke up this morning to a wonderful smell! It's still slowly cooking. I'm looking forward to ham and bean soup tonight (along with a little cast-iron skillet cornbread!)....
|W|P|107143355892748775|W|P|Bean & Ham Soup|W|P|12/13/2003 07:04:00 AM|W|P|Donald|W|P|
Recently I mentioned Stephanie helping out with Operation Christmas Child by helping sponsor of French Club and Interact at Rockledge High School. Well, guess what? There's a article about them in the local paper!
Here's an excerpt from the article (written by By Nicole Keimer of Melbourne Central Catholic):
Students are not the only ones who participate. The faculty, including Stephanie Dement, the Rockledge High French Club sponsor and co-sponsor of Interact, share in the program.
"We make it a school wide project, collecting in all classes here at Rockledge," Dement said. "This year our faculty, staff and students helped us stuff well over 200 shoe boxes for this project. Our students and faculty are ready to assist those who are less fortunate during the holiday season."
(The photo and article excerpt were taken from the Florida Today. Here's the photo description as well: "Gina Pierce has a gift wrapped at the Melbourne Square mall by Christina Nesbitt and Bethany Witham who volunteer their time to help fund an at-risk childrens nonprofit program.")|W|P|107132065476686775|W|P|RHS, French Club, Interact, and Operation Christmas Child|W|P|12/12/2003 06:01:00 PM|W|P|Donald|W|P|Since I'm talking about words, here are three words that I learned in the past couple of weeks:
Metrosexual - (met.roh.SEK.shoo.ul) n. An urban male with a strong aesthetic sense who spends a great deal of time and money on his appearance and lifestyle.
Marzipan Layer - n. In a business or professional firm, the level of managers and other senior staff just below the topmost level of directors or partners. Also: marzipan set (1984).
Bluejacking - pp. Temporarily hijacking another person's cell phone by sending it an anonymous text message using the Bluetooth wireless networking system.|W|P|107127369199749764|W|P|Metrosexual, Marzipan Layer, & Bluejacking|W|P|12/10/2003 06:30:00 AM|W|P|Donald|W|P|At dinner with friends last night we started discussing how some educational degrees seem to have more of a cachet to them than other degrees (does an M.S. have more value than an M.A. -- or a Ph.D. compared to an Ed.D.?). In the process of doing that we stumbled into a discussion over cache and cachet.
The discussion about these two words is included as one of the entries in the “Pronunciation Challenges: Confusion & Controversy” section of the American Heritage Book of English Usage (cache/cachet is #39 out of nearly 200 entries).
Main Entry 1: cache
Pronunciation: 'kash
Function: noun
Etymology: French, from cacher to press, hide, from (assumed) Vulgar Latin coacticare to press together, from Latin coactare to compel, frequentative of cogere to compel
Date: 1797
1 a : a hiding place especially for concealing and preserving provisions or implements b : a secure place of storage
2 : something hidden or stored in a cache
3 : a computer memory with very short access time used for storage of frequently used instructions or data -- called also cache memory
Main Entry 2: cache
Function: transitive verb
Inflected Form(s): cached; cach·ing
Date: 1805
: to place, hide, or store in a cache
--------------------
Main Entry: ca·chet
Pronunciation: ka-'shA
Function: noun
Etymology: French, from cacher
Date: circa 1639
1 a : a seal used especially as a mark of official approval b : an indication of approval carrying great prestige
2 a : a characteristic feature or quality conferring prestige b : PRESTIGE "...being rich... doesn't have the cachet it used to -- Truman Capote"
3 : a medicinal preparation for swallowing consisting of a case usually of rice-flour paste enclosing a medicine
4 a : a design or inscription on an envelope to commemorate a postal or philatelic event b : an advertisement forming part of a postage meter impression c : a motto or slogan included in a postal cancellation
Taken from Merriam-Webster Online
|W|P|107108823964975206|W|P|Cache & Cachet|W|P|12/09/2003 07:47:00 PM|W|P|Donald|W|P|
On Saturday when we were trimming the palm trees and removing older fronds in preparation for hanging the green lights, Maxx grabbed one of the fronds... and ran off with it! We can only assume he took it for one big stick and decided that he really needed to have it for himself. Crazy dog! Take a look at the size of Maxx relative to the size of that palm frond. Despite the difference, he carried it 'round and 'round gnawing and pulling at it!|W|P|107102087570549180|W|P|Fetch!|W|P|12/08/2003 07:40:00 PM|W|P|Donald|W|P|On a whim, we decided to put up lights Saturday. This was decided Friday night shortly before midnight, but never mind that. Luckily, our fearless neighbors offered a hand and helped put the green lights up in the fronds. In addition to being experienced and savvy home owners, Tom is a Lt. Col. in the Special Forces. Given that he's jumped out of airplanes at who knows what heights, mastering a 20 foot palm tree was nothing. The green lights were up in less than an hour practically. However, I've sworn that rather than try to balance perilously from a ladder ten feet in the air and delicately remove the green lights after Christmas, I'm just going to cut down the guilty fronds. Hide and watch.
|W|P|107093404915727623|W|P|Finally... lights!|W|P|12/07/2003 08:37:00 PM|W|P|Donald|W|P|
This afternoon, Stephanie and Ginger went over to a friend's house and made gingerbread houses. They were there for nearly four hours before Stephanie arrived home with this huge house. It's totally cool -- sugar wafer for the tiles, windows made from peppermint gum, a door and door frame from chocolate and protzels, and cotton candy smoke coming out the chimney. Look closely and you'll see a dog that the gingerbread man (that would be me...) is playing catch with...
Take a look at the other photos. Some of the women at the party were creative. There's a house that's about to be hit by a giant twister (complete with people who were sucked into the twister) and a house that one of the woman who created it called a "white trash house" (notice the broken down cars out front sitting up on blocks).
|W|P|107085103323072294|W|P|Gingerbread houses|W|P|12/05/2003 11:00:00 PM|W|P|Donald|W|P|
|W|P|107068685601654887|W|P|Our little tree|W|P|12/04/2003 04:54:00 PM|W|P|Donald|W|P|
|W|P|107057845105127060|W|P|Hard working shoes!|W|P|12/03/2003 10:49:00 PM|W|P|Donald|W|P|
OK, it's not much. Heck, it's not even our house. But I figured I should at least post the final product of the house lighting that we helped out with. The discussion about whether or not to put out yard art continues . . . |W|P|107057819211708873|W|P|The Final Product|W|P|12/02/2003 07:01:00 PM|W|P|Donald|W|P|
This semester, CTLE adopted a student group in need of a PR project (they enrolled in Judy Strother's Public Relations course which has an applied component). This evening was the big presentation for them, so I attended as a show of support. They did a great job. It was brief, but to the point -- and professionally done. Congrats guys!|W|P|107041326948707536|W|P|CTLE Public Relations Project|W|P|12/02/2003 06:26:00 AM|W|P|Donald|W|P|
Maxx was unconcerned about whether or not the lights were put up over the weekend. He just enjoyed being outside (out front even). |W|P|107036797244682576|W|P|Unconcerned about lights|W|P|12/01/2003 06:21:00 AM|W|P|Donald|W|P| 
|W|P|107029272136384432|W|P|Today is World AIDS Day|W|P|