Lafayette Life

Did you leave it at our house after the Engagement Party? 

You can watch this video of our friend Mark Pauls who created and starred in this Video. It’s a bit long, 17 minutes, but great fun.  

Here’s a sample. Happy Fourth of July Independence Day Firecracker Day Celebration Freedom Liberty Day, EVERYONE.
The Photos are always linked on the right-hand column below called “Latest Photos”, you have to scroll down just a bit to see them. One of these days I have to re-think the arrangement of all this. 
Part 1 is the Fourth of July SwimParty at Gina and Mike’s
Part 2 is the Michelle and Jon Engagement Party
Sorry, no photos of John getting sick on Monday. He’s much better now. Thanks.  

The founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates, richest man in the US, lambasts Microsoft for its user Un-Friendliness. This is an amazing memo, quite genuine, from Bill speaking as a user. All of us users of Microsoft products know the pain, and Bill spells it out. Whether you are a Mac User or a Windows loser, uh, user, you MUST read this memo, and nod your head as Bill shares his, and our, experience.
P.s. The commenter that said, “Wow, this guy’s good. Microsoft should hire him,” was right on target.  

Now I can check to be sure I am looking my best! I ordered and received the IceCam2 USB 2.0 Web Camera and Microphone. What do you think? Why not IM me and let’s video chat? .

Call the Waaaahmbulance. I’ve been hit! Those dadburned wasps got me on the ring finger, and it’s all swollen up now. I cleverly took off the ring the moment it happened, because I knew it was going to swell up.I tried something different this time to treat it - I read somewhere to squeeze out the poison as soon as you get stung, so I tried that. I will post the results here.
Update No. 1: The swelling is much worse, and I am scheduled for a medical test today, unrelated, which I may have to cancel. Ouch, this thing is bad, like it was when I was a boy.
Update No. 2.I am still swollen, but Benadryl antihistamine has helped. Some. I passed my stress test, so you can relax now.
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If I had a Links page, I could share some great sites I come across in my surfing, such as PhoneSpell, which lets you type in your phone number so you can see what it spells. Mine doesn’t spell much, but by adding a single digit at the end (a common practice, yes?) it spells 9-wet-fool. “Call me today, a 9-Wet-Fool” haha . OK, not that funny. A little funny. But how would you know what it spelled unless you tried every combination, and then weeded out the nonsense ones. I once wrote a computer program that did just that, if you put in a phone number, it told you all 9,999,999 combinations of letters that that number could spell. (ok, it wasn’t that many). So my new favorite website does the work for you, and then eliminates nonsense words like wzdvdmm. Who needs to see that? Unless, um, it spells something mnemonically, like, say, “Wizard Zombies Die Violently During March Madness.” Hey, that was cool, and I made it up on the spot. Another great thing this website can do is take a word or words, and turn them into a phone number, which, um, you could do yourself but maybe you don’t have time or something. So, the phrase “My Computer” becomes 692-667-8837. Boy, I think I’ll call that number and see who owns it, and maybe I’ll be able to get it for my own. Stay Tuned!

They came, they visited, and we took lots of pictures. Enjoy! 

Update: I updated the Alaska Photo page with more photos of. . . the Glacier! and other stuff too. I also put better names on each photo, instead of just P143298.jpg . Now the photos names really mean stuff, like “John admires the Beauty of Nature”. Gives you chills, doesn’t it? 
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I mowed the grass again today, and hooray I did not get stung by a wasp this time. I was pretty scared, though, and gave one wasp a wide berth. 
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The moon on June 19 was so amazingly Orange and full and bright, I tried to get a picture of it. Of course, that was nearly impossible with this little Kodak automatic digital camera thingy I have, but it was worth a try. If I had studied up on the capabilities, I might have found a setting that worked. Of course, the extremely bright street lamps were nearly directly in line, so I had to get around and below them. Note that the summer solstice is the one week of the year that the moon rises directly across the street, between peaks of the homes, so it’s like a celestial event or a Stonehenge thing.

Ouch. I was mowing the grass, minding my own business, not even thinking about wasps. But I’ve always run like a rabbit around them, because when I was young, I grabbed a branch that had a wasp nest, and was stung multiple times, and became swollen up like a balloon and had to get meds and everything.But Monday, even though I was stung and stung again, I finished mowing, saying, “Ow ow ow!” the whole time. Then I went inside and put Lanacaine on the wound, and of course made sure Phyllis heard my cries and could say, “Poor baby.” But really, it wasn’t that bad. And today, 2 days later, it began itching like crazy, which is a sign of healing. So, I lived, and maybe I won’t be so scared of wasps next time. They hurt, but they won’t put me into an anaphylactic shock. Ouch.