Our cat, Smokey, made famous

September 22, 2007

Can’t figure out how to embed this in WordPress (there’s gotta be a way).  You need to see it, especially if you are owned by a cat like our Smokey.  Fortunately, Smokey hasn’t found the baseball bat, but she plays mantle hockey with anything and everything.  Plus, she’s fond of shredding paper — books, magazines, bills to pay — knowing that such noise usually gets us out of bed.

It’s a production from an English group.  Big money, no doubt — could we ever hope to find such productions for classroom use?

3 Comments | Personal, Video and film | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Truth? Try here . . .

September 4, 2007

Truth.

And if you come back to check, you’ll note that the truth changes, occasionally.

Truth is, I’m just going for the iPod.

Leave a Comment » | Accuracy, Administrivia, Personal | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Happy birthday, Kathryn!

July 4, 2007

The rain in New Mexico is more spectacular than the rain you’re getting in Dallas, especially with the lightning.

So on your birthday we both get rained on, but a few hundred miles apart. I’d prefer we get rained on together. Dinner when we get back. Out.

[Dear Reader, you can’t know what this dear woman has put up with. It was love at first date. Even despite our seeing “Quadrophenia.” We’ve enjoyed so much together — Washington, D.C., life in the Senate, birding the east, camping in Utah and Texas, two wonderful kids. And you know, with the celebration the nation does on her birthday, it’s still not really adequate.]

kathryn-and-cameras-at-church-sendoff.jpg

Kathryn photographing her son and husband off to New Mexico for a week. Click photo for larger version.

1 Comment | Family, Personal | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Taos is beautiful this time of year

July 3, 2007

Posting is light — I’m on the road and relatively incommunicado. We’re in New Mexico, building houses with Habitat for Humanity. It’s great stuff.

Taos adobe wall

Adobe construction is amazing. It’s hitting 90 degrees Fahrenheit here by noon — adobe houses, without air conditioning or forced air of any kind stay cool well into the afternoon. Amazing.

My apologies for light posting; comment away on the stuff that is here. I’m running a few posts from the past that deserve wider audience (and more comment). And I’ll try to post from the road. So much to see and say.

  • Photo of adobe wall in house under construction in Taos, New Mexico.  Copyright 2007 by Ed Darrell.  Feel free to use it, with attribution.

4 Comments | Administrivia, Personal, Travel | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Odd connections: Franklin, Rand, and a great kid

January 17, 2007

Ben Franklin, portrait for Time, by Michael J. Deas

Ben Franklin on the cover of Time

Ben Franklin’s birthday is January 17. He was born in 1706.

The drama department at Pleasant Grove (Utah) High School put on Ayn Rand’s play, “The Night of January 16th” when I was an underclassman there. It’s an interesting play — a murder mystery played out in a courtroom, with a jury drawn from the evening’s audience. The play’s ending differs almost every night, with a different jury coming to slightly different conclusions. Suggested posters for the play asked, “Where were you the night of January 16th?”

Ayn Rand, Ayn Rand Institute

Ayn Rand

Years later that question came back to me as I rushed my wife to the maternity room at Charlton Methodist Hospital with contractions coming in quick succession, with a few minutes left in January 16th. The question made a good mnemonic to remember the date of the birth of our second child. Only later did I recall that the day is also Ben Franklin’s birthday — Ben being an object of some study and significant space on my personal library shelf. Read the rest of this entry »

7 Comments | Ben Franklin, Family, History, Personal | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

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