Month: May 2007

Open source soda


While Laurie and I were in Pagosa Springs we stumbled upon (after looking for a good 15 minutes) a small micro-brewery that was simply awesome.
It had a great atmosphere, friendly staff and we got a personal tour by the owner and founder. Not bad for a Wednesday afternoon.
I told Laurie we should open our own micro-brewery in Waxahachie. I don’t think she was super thrilled with the idea. Although she did enjoy the root beer Pagosa Brewing Company made.
Now, Open Cola has released their “secret” formula so that you too can make your own soda.

From DIY:happy::

The formulas that make up Coke and Pepsi are closely guarded trade secrets – perhaps the most popular and well known trade secrets in existence today. If you want to drink a Cola, you gotta shell out the big bucks (literally, these days) for one of the big guys.
OpenCola is working to change that, having released their Cola formula under the GNU license. Now you can start your own underground neighborhood Cola brewery and give the sauce to your friends and family. The inventors of the drink (is inventors the right word here?) invite people to come a change the formula in hopes of making a more perfect beverage.

So now we just need a root beer recipe and a contract with Blue Bell Ice Cream and we can open our own soda shop.
Wah-la.
Here’s a recipe for root beer too.
Get the formula here
Oh and as DIY:happy points out:

“Many of the oils needed for flavoring can burn skin. Use caution when preparing. They can also dissolve the plastic lining of a refrigerator; store with caution.”

Living with a girl: The bed’s not big enough

Well, my wonderful life posted a funny entry yesterday about the “fight” over the sheet and blanket on our king size bed.
She assures me that it was more in jest than anything else and she’s not upset about me “stealing her blankets” at night. But I’ve enjoyed giving her a hard time about it either way.

I thought I’d add to the story and point out a couple other things I’ve noticed at night (because I honestly have not noticed this struggle for the sheets and blankets that she refers to ;-)).

We’ve both had our own bed for so long. She’s 5’2″ and had her own full size bed all to herself and I’m 6’5″ and have had my own king size bed to myself. Now, not only do we share a house and bedroom together, we share a bed!

I think because of us not being used to sharing a bed, we’ve gotten into an odd pattern of sleeping.
We both have a tendency to wake up anytime the other person wakes up, the only downside is I roll back over and go right back to sleep. She takes a good while longer to fall back asleep.

I remember several nights with this pattern. Fall asleep. Wake up a couple hours later to a pat on my arm, poke in the ribs, push on my shoulder, “Roll over!”

“What?”

“Roll over your snoring!”

“Sorry.”

I roll over and fall back asleep. Several hours later the event reoccurs.

Unfortunately for her, she doesn’t fall back asleep as quickly and getting up at 4:45 a.m. doesn’t help matters.

I’ve also noticed that when I wake up at other times in the middle of the night I have a tendency to accidentally “kick” her with my foot or hit her with a knee or hand or something when I roll over.

It’s in no way intentional. She may not even notice it. But I do and I feel horrible.

It’s not with great gusto – but for some reason my 6’5″ frame has trouble staying on my side of the bed when I roll over and she’s normally right in the middle of the bed when I do.

So for any added “mystery” bruises you might have Laurie – I think I’ve found the problem and I apologize in advance for anymore.

So the moral of the story is… well I don’t know.

How about this, “Don’t sleep on your back if you tend to snore and keep your hands, feet and legs to yourself once the decision to go to sleep has been made.”

Huckabee looking for donations

Press Release: 400 Contributors To Donate Price Of Last Haircut To Mike Huckabee’s Presidential Campaign: Next 48 Hours Critical To Goal
Thursday, May 24, 2007

LITTLE ROCK, AR – Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee’s campaign announced a new fundraising drive late Tuesday to take in donations at the price of an average haircut from at least 400 individual contributors in 96 hours. Now at its midway point, the campaign has nearly hit its target.
The drive started at 5 p.m. ET on Tuesday, May 22, 2007 and will end at 5 p.m. ET on Saturday, May 26, 2007.
Huckabee said the goal of the drive is to underscore comments he made last week at the GOP Presidential Debate in Columbia, SC. “A joke I used in the last Republican debate comparing Congressional spending to John Edwards spending money in a beauty shop seems to have gone over pretty well. While I used humor to illustrate my point, the fact is, most hard-working Americans have to budget for everyday expenses such as getting a haircut,” he said.
“Perhaps if Senators and Members of Congress were more in touch with the real concerns of average Americans, they would be more responsible with the money of their constituents,” said Huckabee, who launched his presidential exploratory committee in late January.
Huckabee said he believes that “connecting with average Americans is critical to the Republican Party’s prospects” of holding onto the presidency in 2008. “I hope my supporters will use this opportunity to weigh in with the campaign while having a little fun,” he said.
Donations in the amount of an individual’s last haircut can be made online at www.explorehuckabee.com or by calling Huckabee’s exploratory campaign headquarters at 1-501-324-2008. Donations are not tax deductible as charitable contributions for federal income tax purposes.
—
400 donations at $10 each (what I pay for a haircut) may not go a long way but it does get a number of average people involved.
In addition, Huckabee has posted a video on YouTube about getting rid of the IRS and instituting a Fair Tax.

Fair Tax? What do you think?

Imagination rather than memory


My mate Thomas, from across the pond, has an insightful post on imagination vs. memory.
He brings out a number of good points.
How many times have you heard a great idea, or had one yourself only to be shot down with, “Well we’ve never done it that way” or “Well this is how we’ve always done it.”
I know it can happen every day in a church, business or government setting. I’ve heard many friends complain that they’ve come into a job, anxious and ready to make an impact, they look around, come up with some new imaginative ideas, only to get shot down with similar comments.
Working for two different newspaper companies and being the “new kid on the block” I experienced this a lot. It seemed that 90% of my ideas (at one paper especially) were shot down only because “You don’t know anything about newspapers. When you’ve been in the business as long as I have you’ll know better.” And because of the unwillingness to change, print newspapers continue to see a decrease in their subscriptions and rack sales.
Sure, I may not know as much about newspapers as someone who’s been in the business 20 years, but I do know about my generation and I know they’re not reading newspapers.
Thomas writes:

My friend Stewart over at Scream Without Raising Your Voice made an interesting point in a recent post. He spoke of his church needing to look to imagination rather than memory.
This struck a chord with me… On Sunday, at the Salvation Army in Bellshill, we held a business meeting to discuss some options that have come to light with regards to the new building for the corps.
We can either move within the main street… or move to a nearby location… either way, we’ll need to move from our present position…
What we need is imagination… the ability to design the future of Bellshill… create something new rather than rely on what has been.

Thomas said his church hit roadblocks along the way while trying to find a new location for their church and much of the debate was based on what’s happened historically, not what’s happening now or in the future.
Thomas quotes from Edward de Bono:

Any new idea that does not raise a howl of protest is probably not a good idea. Those who are comfortable in the use of the old idea find it difficult to see the inadequacies of the old idea. If you have to imagine new benefits and you cannot achieve this effort of imagination, you have no choice except to resist the new.

I like that. Granted, just because your idea raises a howl of protest doesn’t mean its a good idea and also realize that just because there’s protest doesn’t make it a bad idea either.
I’m reminded of Paul’s instruction to Timothy:

Get the word out. Teach all these things. And don’t let anyone put you down because you’re young. Teach believers with your life: by word, by demeanor, by love, by faith, by integrity. Stay at your post reading Scripture, giving counsel, teaching. And that special gift of ministry you were given when the leaders of the church laid hands on you and prayed—keep that dusted off and in use. – I Timothy 4:11-14

Finally, Thomas adds:

Imagination is checking out all possibilities… not accepting things as is. Its about looking behind the loin cloth of some classical statue… instead of accepting what should be there.

Read his post for more

After Hours Improv


After Hours Improv
Originally uploaded by laurie416.

Laurie posted some photos from a weekend (or two) ago when we visited Scarborough Faire and saw Shari and Smiley and their improv show at the Texas Theater.
Funny thing is, I’m not sure when she posted these. It says 6:15 a.m. today. I’m quite certain she was on her way to work at that time.
I wonder what’s going on.



View all the photos

At home in bed

Well, it’s 10:15 a.m. and I’m at home in bed. I woke up around 3:30 freezing and I couldn’t get back to sleep. I was doing my best to stay still and not stir too much so Laurie wouldn’t wake up. I guess that didn’t work too well because she woke up around 4 a.m. and couldn’t fall back asleep.
When I finally got up I just felt horrible. My neck and back were aching, I had a cough, sinus pressure and more.
Of course my life, being the medical professional she is, took my temperature and told me to stay home. I tried to fight it and got ready to head to Bible study but after a trip up and down the stairs I was wiped out.
So, four hours later, I’m in bed and I think my fever broke. It’s 98.5 now. So what do you do when you’ve called in sick and four hours later you’re feeling better?
I guess I’ll follow doctors orders and stay in bed. But I’m really hoping I can convince her later tonight that I’m still OK for date night.
We have date night every Wednesday night and I’ve enjoyed each one.
I’m gonna feel worse if I start feeling bad again and can’t take her out tonight.
Anyways, that’s what I’m doing today. I may make some changes/updates to the new Casa de Blundell website. And I may research ways to teach your dog not to bark without using a shock collar.
Otherwise – its me at home in bed, the rest of the day.