Jennifer was at a conference in Seattle last week, she's at a training session this weekend, and then next week she's going to be in DC at a customer.  My niece Mollie is staying with us, but she isn't all that helpful (as she is moving to Florida soon, so she has to go and say goodbye to all of her friends). 

To punish her for abandoning us, I took Eric and Alex to watch the Simpson's Movie yesterday, and I think I am moving the xbox360 downstairs to put it on the HDTV.

That will show her.

They are like lolcats, but without the weird spelling and diction.

1.  When people complain about silly stuff.

2.  When someone asks me a question that I don't understand.

and finally...

3.  When people want something that they cant have.

.

The first time I sent one to my manager, he didn't know what I was talking about, and it loses something when you have to explain it.  He also thinks I would send these to people who it wouldnt be appropriate to send them to (i.e. a customer or someone in HR)

We went to see Live Free or Die Hard today, and it was well worth the 20.00 the tickets cost (plus an additional 11.00 for the popcorn &etc).

It's certainly not going to win any academy awards, but it was great fun:  the bad guys got what they deserved, the good guys all kept dropping funny one liners, and there were lots of explosions and stuff.

The only thing that could have made it better would be if some of the women took their shirts off. 

I put some pictures of the trip to Missouri up at loytty.com.  While the 18 hour drives were kind of a drag, it was a good trip; it will be a long time before everyone can get together again.   The last trip was about 6 or 7 years ago, but I was very new to Jenny's family then, so I couldn't act natural.  I didn't have that problem this year. 

We spent  a lot of time on the lake, everyone had fun. 

In this photo, Her Majesty arrived at the boat dock with her entourage.  She had a great time in and around the water.

The only bad thing that happened on the trip was that my father-in-law had a mishap and ended up with 12 stitches in his head and a broken ankle.   I bet that hurt.  I joked with him that if he wanted to avoid the reunion that badly, he could probably have found a less painful way to get out of it.

So, my dad has a habit of daring me to do things.  In 2004, he dared me to put a GW Bush sign on my car (I didn't vote for him, either time, because I wasted my vote on the libertarian.  I hate democrats too).  Yesterday, he dared me to get a tattoo, with "Mom" on it.

How can you argue with "Mom"?  My mother is upset, because she thinks it makes me trashy.  The nice thing about my mother is that even though she has lots of evidence to the contrary, she thought I was not trashy.

She's more mad at my dad, because he 'made' me do it.  Getting a tattoo isn't something I ever thought I would do, but what the heck...my senate nomination hearings for my Supreme Court seat are going to be a mess anyway, one more thing wont hurt.

My wife's family is mostly from Missouri, and every 5 or 10 years, they have a family reunion.  This year, the reunion starts on Thursday, in Branson Missouri.  As such, I get to drive there tomorrow.  I can hardly wait.

The real interesting part is that my wife is leaving on Thursday, and flying up with the two little kids, while I am going with the big kids and Jenny's sister and her kids. 

I told my wife that I was hoping to get injured such that I had to be hospitalized, but not quite life threateningly.  She thought I was joking.  I'll try to update the blog via email when I am on the road, unless I decide to just get a divorce and not go.

I remember, years ago, when it was 12:34 AM on  5/6/78.  I was in about 7th or 8th grade, and the only other person who thought that was cool was my friend Jeff, who was also a geek.

Today is cool too, 07/07/07. 

At the lake the other day, we were discussing who has the Iron Hand in our family (it's me, but people like to deny it).  Anyway, my sister was there with her dog, Toby, and someone said "Bill doesn't have the Iron Hand, Toby does".   Eric kind of got a weird look on his face and said "Well, technically, he couldn't have the Iron Hand, because he doesn't have opposable thumbs.  He could have the Iron Paw".   We all looked at him like he was nuts...so he said "What?".  When we asked where he heard about opposable thumbs, he just shrugged and said "I read it in a book somewhere".

I started feeling poorly on the 4th while up at my mom and dad's house on the lake, and found out today that it was strep throat.  My wife thinks that I am a hypochondriac, but I have proven her wrong!

They gave me antibiotics and some of that good cough medicine:  the kind that you know you are sick, but you just don't care.  Alex has been very nurturing; he has made me a card, toast, and he even wanted to sleep with me last night, in case I needed something.

In preparation for the 4th of July, I went and bought a flag.  I am the least handy person in the world, but it was easy to put up, even for me.

If you look hard at the picture above, you will notice that there is a shoe outside of Alex's window.  None of the kids will admit to how it got up there...when I asked, they all kind of shrugged their shoulders and looked at me like I was an idiot for asking. 

At any rate, happy 4th of July to all of my American friends, and a hearty "PPPPPPTPT" to all my British ones.

One of the things about getting a house in a new development is that your house usually doesn't show up on any of the mapping websites.  Our house in Waxhaw finally showed up, after about a year.

maps.live.com got the house before anyone else.  You can see it here.  They still don't have the street names, just the picture. (you have to switch to aerial view to see everything)