Father's Day meditation

Happy Father’s day to all the men out there. As I sat in Church today, I was taken back to February 10th, to a particular moment I’d like to share. * * * The operation was over. Maria was fine–pink, healthy, and squalling. Whitney was holding up well; I hated to leave her, but I wanted to stay with the baby in her first minutes of life. I gazed upon her as she got her first examinations; the pediatrician said she was fine, with a nice twinkle in her eyes. ...

2007-06-17 · 2 min · Harold Combs

Father's Day meditation (Comments)

Good post, by the way! Jeff Roberts - Jun 3, 2007 Good post, by the way!

2007-06-17 · 1 min · Harold Combs

In honor of my pal Susan: Blue people

Blue People Yes, this is an article in Pravda (the former Soviet newspaper) about the blue Fugates from Troublesome Creek, on the border between Breathitt and Perry counties. Fun times.

2007-06-15 · 1 min · Harold Combs

In honor of my pal Susan: Blue people (Comments)

LOL that is great.. Susan - Jun 6, 2007 LOL that is great..

2007-06-15 · 1 min · Harold Combs

Review: "Of Mice And Men"

Gary Sinise’s 1992 remake of the John Steinbeck novel Of Mice and Men was long and boring, but strangely compeling. Sinise plays George, a migrant worker in Californa during the Great Depression. George is joined at the hip to a giant named Lennie Smalls, played by John Malkovich. As the movie opens, we see Lennie and George fleeing from a posse, George has done some very bad thing, and they had to get away, hiding among the reeds in a creek to throw off the bloodhounds. From there, the story revolves around them as they seek work at a Barley farm, doing hard manual labor as they desperately try to stay out of trouble. ...

2007-06-15 · 2 min · Harold Combs

Review: "Of Mice And Men" (Comments)

I enjoyed the book quite a bit and thought it was … Chuck Fouts - Jun 5, 2007 I enjoyed the book quite a bit and thought it was an excellent window into the life of two generations ago. I hadn’t heard of the movie but your “long and boring” along with the “but one worth watching” has me confused. Is this a good movie for the replication of the original story, for the mind set of watching the vagaries of life, or for the performance of the actors themselves. To be honest Malkovich has worn me thin over the years but I could watch Cool Hand Luke every year or so without getting too tired of it. ...

2007-06-15 · 1 min · Harold Combs

Props to EYESUPONUS

From my pal Chris Cool (yes, that is his real name…). His band EYESUPONUS is playing Icthus this weekend Thanks to all your support and all your votes, we will be playing the Ichthus Festival in Wilmore, KY this weekend! The festival is Thursday 14th - Saturday 16th. There are three stages: the main stage, the Deep End stage, and the Edge stage. We are scheduled to play Saturday at 3:40 pm on The Edge stage. If you are at the festival, please come and hang out with us for our 25-minute set. We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you all, and EYESUPONUS truly appreciates the love and support we have gotten throughout this entire process. I hope to see as many of you there as possible. ...

2007-06-13 · 1 min · Harold Combs

Checkin' out 'Safari' on windows

Just downloaded the public Windows beta of Safari from here, and I must say I’m impressed… It’s really fast, and it automatically imported my Firefox bookmarks. Guess this is apple’s plan, eat Windows from the inside out :-)

2007-06-12 · 1 min · Harold Combs

In other news

My daughter is now 14 lbs, 10 oz, and 25 inches long, and 4 months old. Back to your regularly scheduled ranting.

2007-06-11 · 1 min · Harold Combs

In other news (Comments)

You forgot “and cute as a button”. Jeff Roberts - Jun 1, 2007 You forgot “and cute as a button”.

2007-06-11 · 1 min · Harold Combs

Review: "Making Room for Life" by Randy Frazee

Our church Wednesday night group is reading Making Room for Life. The book extols simple living, but not in the systematic, hair-shirted way others have. Instead, it takes some biblical principles as axioms and wraps modern problems around them. The main axiom is the “Hebrew Day”, which you could also rename the “Agrarian Day”. That is, a daily schedule defined, as its name implies, by daylight and darkness–daylight is for productive work, darkness is for rest and individual/communal recuperation. ...

2007-06-11 · 3 min · Harold Combs

Review: "Making Room for Life" by Randy Frazee (Comments)

I’d have to take the “radical” option - move to a … Jeff Roberts - Jun 2, 2007 I’d have to take the “radical” option - move to a condo where the only chores are indoor ones, and where my neighbors are right in my face, since we’re all going to be so neighborly anyway.

2007-06-11 · 1 min · Harold Combs

CPI chart: 1978 to now

Interesting Consumer Price Index chart, from 1978 to now Basically, some items are going up much faster than inflation (Cost of college being #1) and some are flat to declining (cost of cars, televisions). I’ve got this theory that people are buying more expensive cars because of zero down, 0% interest loans that encourage them to get overextended. This leads to debt-slavery, meaning you become accustomed to always having a car payment, even though that (probably) isn’t necessary. ...

2007-06-07 · 1 min · Harold Combs

Review: Night at the Museum

Yes, it had lots of plot holes, but it was light-hearted, escapist fun. I liked it because it didn’t take itself too seriously, electing to scream at the audience “Sure, WHY NOT?!” The special effects are very well done, and the acting’s decent, if tounge-in-cheek.

2007-06-06 · 1 min · Harold Combs

Review: Night at the Museum (Comments)

We liked it, too. “Do they look happy?!” Jeff Roberts - Jun 3, 2007 We liked it, too. “Do they look happy?!” “Naw, they look saaad.”

2007-06-06 · 1 min · Harold Combs

How erlang just blew my mind

qsort([]) -> []; qsort([Pivot|T]) -> qsort([X || X <- T, X < Pivot]) ++ [Pivot] ++ qsort([X || X <- T, X >= Pivot]). (taken from ‘Programming Erlang’ by the pragmatic programmers). That’s just…beautiful. Quicksort in 4 lines. Nothing extraneous, just the pure recursive algorithm. Erlang is bending my mind, but that’s okay…it needs a little kick every so often.

2007-06-04 · 1 min · Harold Combs

Van shopping

As we’re all a little down about Joey leaving for the summer, I suggested we go test-driving. Whitney’s been jonesing for minivans since Maria arrived, and I thought a test-drive of two of these behemoths would get it out of her system, or redirect her at something smaller like a Mazda5. Nope. Her current object d’amour: That’s a Sienna LE.

2007-06-03 · 1 min · Harold Combs

Van shopping (Comments)

That was the best rated mini-van when we purchased… Chuck - Jun 0, 2007 That was the best rated mini-van when we purchased one back in 2003. We ended up buying a Honda Odyssey since was also highly rated but cheaper by a few thousand at the time. Love the Honda except for the fact that there is more road noise than I find acceptable. Friends of mine that didn’t like the stigma associated with a mini-van ended up buying the Honda Pilot. ...

2007-06-03 · 1 min · Harold Combs

Dysfunctional Organizations

Link Teenagers have a wonderful term for this self-deception: “We suck less.” Being less bad is not good. Teens recognize, rightfully, that being better off than terrible is still fairly terrible.

2007-06-01 · 1 min · Harold Combs

Soylent green is PEOPLE!!!!

Revelation of the morning: “Piano Man” by Billy Joel is LIMERICKS! He says, son, can you play me a memory? Im not really sure how it goes But its sad and its sweet and I knew it complete When I wore a younger mans clothes Now john at the bar is a friend of mine He gets me my drinks for free And hes quick with a joke or to light up your smoke But theres someplace that hed rather be ...

2007-05-30 · 1 min · Harold Combs