Oath of Office

This picture was borrowed entirely without permission from Gary Moyers' blog. This is the inauguration of President Obama as seen from a satellite 423 miles above earth. The blue-roofed building to the right is the Capitol Building, and the dark masses are people.

Imagine that you have to write a new oath for the President of the United States to take on Inauguration Day. Write the oath based on what you think is important for the President to promise.

The question above was posed to the children of Liz's second-grade class, and here are some of their best responses:

• "I promise to every one two have 100,000 dollers to have money and two by grocerys with that mony and two techer to take vacatione and free icecream and free bulldog and puppy and I want games for my psp and plastashon and etendo bs. The end."



• "I promise to have ice cream for school only on Friday and Thursday."



• "I promise to ... the teachers to have vacation. Kids to have school. And moms to have works. And dads to have works."



• "I swear that I will give everybody half of my money when I get money."



• "I promise to keep our town clean and let the teaches go ta vacation."



• "I promise to let the techers have a vacation so thay will get a brake of school and we still have to got to school kids have to got to school and techers get $8,000,000."



• "I promise to take care of my family and not go haywire."



• "I will promise to read the Bivle of God."



• "I promise to have vacation every day."



• "I promise Mrs. Kirk that she should have three vacations."

Happy Birthday Liz!

My lovely and gracious wife celebrated her birthday today. I shall not reveal her age, but the theme of the cake was "Area 51". (Scratch & Sniff.)

Christmas in Odessa, Part 1

After thanking God that Christmas is over, I shall now proceed to talk about it some more.

One of our favorite Christmas stops is in fact a private farm-type residence somewhere in Odessa which for many years has opened its gates to the public each December and which is decked out with many small wonders:
The owners charge no admission. It's a labor of love.
There used to be even more decorations at this place in previous years, but the owners have had to scale back for various reasons.
The train has a bell for the kids to ring. Robert is almost too big to fit inside it...
not that he cares.

The ponies are the size of a large dog. They have no known connection to Christmas, but they sure are cute.

An angelic choir rotates and sings.

Thank God Christmas is Over!

Whew!

10 Naughty Things to Do for Christmas

1. Stand in front of a supermarket wearing a Santa suit, ringing a bell and wishing everyone a Happy Solstice.

2. Wrap yourself in swaddling clothes and lay in the manger of the neighbor's nativity scene.

3. Put on a Santa suit and open a mall kiosk that sells reindeer jerky and Easter Bunny filets.

4. Get a job as a mall Santa and then tell all the children that they've been naughty and won't be getting any presents this year.

5. Buy a package of Keebler's E.L. Fudge Sandwich Cookies and hand them out to children saying this is what happens to the bad elves.

6. Decorate your yard to look like a sleigh and eight tiny reindeer crashed and burned. Walk back and forth along the street muttering, "Oh the humanity."

7. Sell jars of water, advertising them as Frosty the Snowman urns.

8. Post a sign in front yard that says "Carolers Welcome." When they get almost to the front door secretly turn on the sprinklers.



9. Randomly replace one bulb in your neighbor's lights so they no longer work. Repeat this every day until Christmas.



10. Decorate your yard for the holidays using your neighbor's decorations.

(Thanks to Rawhide. Sorry it's late. Happy New Year.)

50

God put me on earth to accomplish a certain number of blogposts. Right now I am so far behind I will never die.

Well, you know, it's interesting being 50 ... You start to reflect on your life. And you look back over the years at everything you've ever done. And, with age, middle age, comes wisdom. But I have to say that I'm not sure that 50 for me is the same as 50 in people years. - Kermit The Frog

Yep, that space monkey turned 50 yesterday!  What a deal!

Aw Fiddlesticks!

Fiddlesticks Farms (watch out for that auto-start banjo!) is a great and wonderful place. It's located just east of Midland, Texas in a little village called Greenwood.

Upon admission, we are each issued blue plastic wrist bracelets. Only Robert's bracelet has a star on it, which entitles him to a free pumpkin. He must, however, be able to lift said pumpkin and carry it off the premises.

Part working farm and part amusement park, Fiddlesticks Farms is open from late September through November. Note the hayride in the back.

Note also that Robert is getting way tall, with attitude to match.

Which way to the cornfield maze?

Abandon hope, all ye who enter here!

Cornfield mazes are all the rage around Lubbock, 150 miles north of us, but this is the first one around here.

We answer Halloween trivia questions at selected forks in the road corn, in order to get clues to the way back.

Liz finds a star bracelet in the maze, entitling her to a free pumpkin.

 After about 45 minutes, we are safely out, and we ring the bell.

 

There is also a haunted corn maze, but only Liz tries it, and she quits it 20 feet in, when the Joker from The Dark Knight appears!

Next up is the corn cannon, where Robert gets to fire ears of corn at high speed!

 The pumpkin cannon, which looks and sounds capable of shooting down aircraft, is a bit too much for us.

We get to shoot at our favorite football team's helmets.

Hello Betty_oo!
The kiddie cow train is probably a bad idea in retrospect.

After I pry Robert out of the barrel, we go on to the hayride.

Unfortunately, we forget to tell Liz that we are going on the hayride.

Not good.

From the hayride, you can see the flashlights of unfortunate souls making their way through the corn maze after dark.

 We also see three deer (not pictured).

The hayride stops at the pumpkin patch and lets us off to find a pumpkin.

Is this one sincere enough? And can Robert tote it? Yes and yes to both questions.

We reunite with Liz, who has been looking for us.  She decides to go on the hayride by herself and collect her own pumpkin. 

These goats are suspended in midair for no adequately explored reason.  Actually, as the petting zoo is closed tonight, the goats are probably up in the air so they won't try to chew the clothing of patrons.

I can't think of any good way to end this post, so this is probably the worst possible way: