Zathura

Sam watched Zathura at my parent’s cabin about a week ago. Since then, his night time prayers have included the plea that we not be visited by Zorgons or Robots and that our house not drift off into space.

Signs of the Apocalypse

I live in the Phoenix metro area. It is one of the hottest metropolitan places on Earth (add Riyadh, Saudi Arabia & Baghdad, Iraq to get the top three).

On Monday, it was 105 degrees on my commute home. Yesterday, at the same time, it was 57 degrees.

Ladies and gentlemen, hell has frozen over.

Hypermiling

A guy drives from Chicago to NYC -- 800 miles -- on one tank of gas:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/05/19/earlyshow/main4107075.shtml?source=mostpop_story

Watch both videos at the bottom of the page.  The first one teaches you the basic techniques for hypermiling.

Follow Dad’s advice: “Drive as if your car didn’t have brakes.”

Seatbelts

68% of drivers and passengers between the ages of 16 and 20 who were killed in car crashes at night in 2006 were unbuckled.

During daytime, 57% percent of the young motorists and passengers who were killed were not wearing seat belts.

The locked cupboard

An email I wrote to my siblings yesterday…

 

Do you remember how we had a locking cupboard in our old, pre-fire kitchen?  Do you feel like having inaccessible Oreos in our house growing up affected you negatively in any way?

We have a problem in our house with kids spoiling their appetites by eating “special” food items, like granola bars, at unauthorized times (supposed to be for school lunches only).  Potato chips, chocolate chips, and marshmallows are also a problem.  Frankly, I have caught my kids eating regular sugar, powdered sugar, cinnamon sugar, and hot chocolate mix -- all straight out of the container with a spoon.

Becky is afraid that a locking cabinet might somehow mess up our kids psychologically.  I’m tired of walking into the pantry to find my children stuffing their faces with chocolate chips and then throwing their uneaten dinner in the trash every night.

What do you think?

An Open Letter to Shandon, Clint, & Jeff

When are we going to go on a crazy adventure that challenges both our physical endurance and our sanity?

Havasu Pei?

Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim?

The Narrows?

BTW – The Payson Spring triathlon is June 14^th.  Let’s do it!

Rainforest Cafe

Mediocre, overpriced food. 

Deafeningly load dining area.  Is it really necessary to blare hip-hop music over the already load jungle noises? 

Horrible service.  The place was not busy on a Wednesday night, but it took an inordinately long time to get our food.  The waiter never came back to check on us.  We had to go find our own condiments.  Our drinks were never refilled.  It took 25 minutes to get our check…after we told the waiter we were in a hurry to leave.

I don’t plan on ever going back.