Iced Tea Forever

My Wife: “We need a new washer and dryer.”

Me: Shocked. “Why?!”

“Because they eat socks!”

“They do not!”

“How many socks have you thrown away recently?”

“I just threw a pair away last night.”

“See?!!!!” –implying a lot more than that are missing.

“They do not eat socks. Stepping on them does.”

“Maybe you, fatty.”

Recently I was unfortunate enough to find myself trying to buy airline tickets online. As usual, it was an awful experience. This time happened to be the worst ever though, it was terrible.

Priceline gave me some excellent prices, so I tried to buy. Error error error, sorry, too bad. I went back and tried again. The offer I just tried was now gone, but several others of the same price were there.

I went through this same procedure about 4 times, finally with the last one I got a different error message. I was emailed a customer support number, so I called it to find out that the last deal didn’t go through either. Sorry, tough luck, we just put those really cheap prices up there to mess with your head.

Poozer slackers.

Then I went Sidestep (I’m not giving any of these outfits the dignity of a link) where I found some more smokin’ deals. Now near as I can figure, Sidestep finds you a deal then forwards you to the airline or the site with the deal and you buy it there. So I clicked through the dirt-cheap tickets they told me I could get, only to find that the price was $111 more than Sidestep said it was.

Not impressed. What a bunch of raging incompetence and deception.

Went to visit By and Amy this weekend. We drove a total of 1,127 miles, much of it in pouring rain and limited visibility. We spent $32.95 on tolls (legalized robbery), and $93.73 on gas (more of the same). Driving our ‘98 Chevy Monte Carlo (overrated GM product), we got 26.38 miles per gallon. That’s not too bad, I figure.

For a Chevy.

Sunday morning I went to the youth guys Sunday School class with By. This little guy who I didn’t know from Adam sits by me and whispers, “This is the youth class, what are you doing here? You’re old!”

I got him back later.

Here’s a collection of things I want to accomplish in my lifetime. Strikethrough indicates completion.

Become an official endorser of Campbell’s Chunky Soup.

Become an unofficial endorser of Raspberry Cow Tracks Ice Cream.

Get a book deal based on material from ITF.

Become a published poet.

Sing the National Anthem at a Super Bowl.

Sing the National Anthem before a youth group basketbrawl game.

Record a Platinum-selling album.

Record myself.

Sing in a quartet at the White House.

Sing in a quartet at the Nursing Home.

Sing on a Veggie Tales show.

Sing for chapel at the local Christian school.

Lose 50 pounds.

My wife and I occasionally babysit three small children. They come from a sad situation and can be sometimes difficult to handle. My wife does very well with them.

The oldest (about 3) is a drama queen. The next (around 2) is amazingly, alarmingly, devious and cunning. Maybe devious is too strong of a word, but I never would have thought a child that young could ever be capable of some of her shenanigans.

Anyway, one recent Sunday we had them all day. Took them to church. What a disaster that was. I thought it was anyway, Jewel didn’t.

I was playing with them that afternoon, and the oldest and I sat down at a VERY small table with paper and pens to draw. It is with considerable pride that I give you the fruits of my labors.

Notice all the livestock in this piece. I usually don’t enter a work with preconceived ideas of themes or messages to explore. I’m not sure what brought this out, I usually prefer meat-bearing livestock.

Of particular note here I think, is the incredibly accurate dimensions and proportions evident in this piece. It was all done freehand with no assistance from a mechanical device, such as straightedge or measuring instrument.

Notice how I display my artistic ambidexterity by flaunting my mastery of multiple genres. B&W as well as color are in my stable of tricks.

I was bragging about these to a friend, and then showed them off. Pseudo-friend agreed, they weren’t bad. Then one thing or another clarified the situation for them, and they said “Oh! You just drew these! I thought you must have done it as a child. That’s not nearly so impressive!”

With friends like that, my goodness!

Speaking of farming, take a look at my new desktop. It’s sure too bad I have so many icons on there messing things up. But at least I’m not the mess that Hans is!

Thanks to my buddy Stanny for this great Utopian pic. Stanny took most of the Snow Peak shots I use for ITF headers now, you know.

I wish I could drive tractor again, that’s my favorite farm thing to do. I used to be a farmer, you know.

My buddy Brandon Mullet does a men’s chorus weekend every year. I was privileged to participate a couple of years ago when he held it in Indianer. I wasn’t able to make it last year, but this year I’m going to PA (at Faith Builders) to sing with the chorus once again.

Brandon’s a great guy and a great director, it’s fun and challenging to sing under him.

I’m riding out this Friday morning with my buddy Trell and his wife, unfortunately Jewel has to work this weekend.

I’ve never liked the artwork on CLP materials. It always seemed really elementary or something, at least to me. Maybe that’s changed though, I don’t know.

But especially thinking of their Sunday school quarterlies, I never thought they looked like much at all.

However, we got this last one, and I was impressed! I thought, wow, that’s the best looking cover on anything I’ve seen from CLP! They used an actual photograph, that’s very rare.

And it seemed somehow familiar to me.

I looked at it and thought, “I know what that looks like.” I dug around on my computer for some pictures, and sure enough. I was right.

It’s a shot of an arbor at the Biltmore Estate. I took this picture from the opposite end of the arbor, but there’s no doubt that it’s the same location.

When Mrs. ITF and I were on our honeymoon, we took one day and visited the Biltmore Estate. We had both wanted to see the place, and we really weren’t that far away, so we made the extra drive down there.

This place is nothing short of astounding!

At 175,000 sqare feet, it’s the largest privately owned home in the United States.b

I thought about this a lot while we were there. I’m all for raging capitalism and prosperity, but I can’t imagine people spending such a staggering amount of money on themselves. It’s unreal.

I love tourist attractions like this. We had a great time.

The grounds were enormous also. There was a huge garden, greenhouses, a lake, and who-knows-what else.