company fun

Pics from Auntie Deborah Poppins' trip: presents, a trip up Camels' Back (with a thunderstorm lurking above and the remnants of a park fair below), and a trip on the Boise Train. So much fun that we can't hardly believe how lucky we were; Deborah and I even snuck out for a morning of shopping in downtown Boise! The kids loved every minute and so did we.

First day of preschool...

They're getting big, of course. Buddy wouldn't keep his eyes open for anything. Girly is holding "Tarissa Parissa," her favorite kitty. We have no idea where the name came from, of course.

Both are loving being back in school and say goodbye with just a wave--it's fun to see!

catching up--a few pics for the fam

Some pictures from the past month or so...

...Lining up their 'babies' on the couch (a favorite past time, this lining up activity. Takes lots of time and energy!)

An early am Tin-Tin reading session by two superkids...

The Swiss arrives!

Kids' Room

The bedroom pics are in the house renovation blog, which isn't listed here yet,
Extrem4 House Projects:
http://extrem4-houseprojects.blogspot.com/

August kid fun

Yes--that's ketchup, mustard, and pasta sandwiches. Yum!

So this is what happens when I'm at school in the summer and Extrem is with the kids....

...and yes, the nickel came out

...nothing like a little suspense for a few months!

So: Con's added me to the family blog. Remy passed the nickel 3.5 days later--some fun poop-digging, that.

May/June: cousin time, much fun was had with lots of time with K/A and kids. We're still talking about it! This is a Lakeport pic:

June/July: I traveled a little, Con worked a *ton*--so I took the kids and we did our first solo car trip all the way to mom and dad's place. We were there over the 4th and had a ball--a day at the Oregon coast (where it was actually warm enough to go in the water. In a swimsuit. Amazing!), a small-town 4th parade, dinner with Hamiltoes, and an afternoon of...kid-free shopping. Ahhh....

I brought mom back with us and she was here for 10 days or so. In that time I had a 2-day trip, so it was great she was here. Unfortunately it was the hottest part of the summer and she melted! :( The kids loved the extended gramma/grampa, and then gramma, time.

Con started the porch project then. It's almost done now--just needs a few finishing touches--and we like it. It's a nice outdoor space--nicer than our indoor spaces :) I wish I had another month and I'd paint the whole house inside--ah well.

August: we went boating with Spam and Banana and co., which was tons of fun. This last weekend we cleaned and cleaned on Saturday and then had Vogts over for swimming and dinner. That afternoon, Remy *finally* ventured off the second step (we've been going every day for the whole summer. Good night.) He went from clutching the step to asking me to "throw him to the sky!"....so that was major progress! Yesterday afternoon at Karl and Sonja's, after union mtg., Siena decided to ride a bike on her own. Another big breakthrough! Wow!

More coming...

(by Heidi)

Hey it has only been 2 months since the last post...

Ok 2 months and 1 day but who is counting. Many things have happened over the summer and I will try to do the readers digest version mostly by photo if I can get it together. We have a week before ourextended company returns from Switzerland to start school at BSU. We have been working on the house and have nearly got our porch project done and have a new project to start on the front porch. The kids are learing to swim slowly but surely. We took a trip to SLC to see cousins and go to IKEA. There have been blogable experiences but blogging has not been a priority for some reason. I will try to better in the future. I w do will probably start a new blog to chronicle the house updating and link it here.

No change........yet

Well, the other night I was getting our little 2.5 yr old ready for bed. He decided it would be interesting to swallow a nickel. I heard him make a funny gulping noise and what had been a nickel in his hand became a nickel in his belly. So far no nickels have reappeared but no problems either. We called and the recommendation was to watch and wait if there were no obvious problems. So we watch and wait. What fun to search for hidden treasures.

Holiday Over

Well the inlaws and outlaws have come and gone. We had a great trip to CA and to the ranch for a couple days. We then drove back to Boise and brought the whole family with us. It was a quick couple of weeks but very enjoyable. Boise has been hot and we came to really enjoy the pool and our big girl is really taking off. She went from a timid swimmer needing both noodles and water wings to swimming with wings only. It has cooled off with snow anticipated in the mountains. I will work on getting some pictures up on my next day off.

You don't see this everyday

We heard something out back the other night thinking it might be raccoons we found this instead:

Cousin Pictures

Trader Joe's Boise

I am of the belief that Boise could support 2-3 Trader Joe's and it seems they will eventually get here but for now we are not on the suply line. So it is a little annoying to Boise that Bend, OR has broken gound on a Trader Joe's to open next year. The news it seems is that Trader Joe's plans to put a store in Boise after it puts a store in Spokane. Here are the news clippings that I could find.

Boise Trader Joe's 1
Boise Trader Joe's 2
Bend Trader Joe's

I suppose that Bend is closer then any other Trader Joe's (maybe SLC) and it is on our route to OR and only 4-5 hrs away. On a regular basis we lament the fact we don't have a Trader Joe's and every time we go out of town we make a trip to stock up. I have a feeling that once they do open here they will be overwhelmed by the hordes of shoppers on their grand opening.

Did I win the 5K race? Did I cure Breast Cancer?

The answers are no and maybe. I did not win but did post a personal best. As I have never run a 5k before it must be a personal best, right?
Well, after my extensive training which amounted to 2 short bike rides and wearing my new running shoes for a week to break them in..........I can say we finished. Unfortunately, I can't tell you what place or what my time was. In fact it was not the most organized event and there were 13000 people in the race that just kind of did their own thing. The kids and I hung around for a while waiting for a chance to start the race as people with strollers were supposed to go last but I saw plenty of others with strollers going so I figured I better hop in. The bad part is that a good many of the horde in front of us were walkers and it was next to impossible to pass with a bike trialer turned to stroller. I probably only got to run half of the race because of the traffic.
The winning time was something like 16.06 mins. The course doubled back on itself so we saw the leader coming back toward the finish line. He was screaming at the pace car "GO! GO! GO! for them to hurry up as he was about to run over the top of it. One of my coworkers from the hospital finished in about 10th place at 19 mins and we saw him almost wipeout as a little girl wandered in front of him and he had to essentially hurdle her to keep from colliding with her.

My legs are a little sore but not too bad. That night we also took a 6 mile bike ride that evening with some friends so I guess I am on a fitness kick.........I just need to keep it up.

If you watch all of the video clips you might see us but I didn't bother. Next year we will try it again but with a new strategy. Get out in front of the walkers. The nice thing is that it is just out our backdoor and the race route is the road off our backyard.

You are still wondering about my curing cancer. It is possible that my meager donation will pay for the reasearch for a cure. So, if there is a cure in the next year you can bet it was my 20$ that made the difference.

New Leaf? - We shall see

So here is the deal. Although I have lost a fair amount of weight in the last year the one thing that has not changed is my general couch potato attitude toward exercise (hey we live in ID we have to support potatoes right?). I work in an office where everyone else either plays tennis, mountain bikes or runs. Two are training for a half marathon and I can only get tired when they talk about 10 mile plus runs over the weekend. Now on occasion I do take a little 2-5 mile bike ride but that is about the extent. So at work the other day my coworkers sign me up to run a 5K in the Race for the Cure sponsered by the hospital. That may not sound like much to you but I have not run 5K consequtively ever and not collectively over the past 10 years. I am not really a runner. I tried a couple times in MI but never quite made it. I think I need someone to run with me to keep me going or something. In NV Jim got me to go a few times and I almost got to the point where I felt like I wanted to go but then I remembered that I probably didn't.

So here I am 6 days before my big run. My training has amounted to this:

1. Buy running shoes.

So maybe this is one of my problems. I have lots of shoes (at last count 25 pair or so) but no running shoes. Now that this is taken care of I think I am set. I don't think it makes sense to go out a try to do a bunch of running to get ready as it ain't gonna happen in 6 days.

One of our favorite family stories is about a Swiss brother in law (to remain nameless) that decided to see how many situps he could do in a minute the night before his military duty physical. He did great with 50 some situps that night but the next day struggled to make 10.

I have a feeling that walk or run as long as it is a start in the fitness direction that is a victory. We have no excuse as we are right off a great trial for running and biking. BTW my wife go some shoes as well so no more excuses for her either. I am not so sure that I will ever become a runner and do any marathons or anything like that but I would be happy in being in decent shape and not get so winded just listening to the women in the office talk about there weekend runs.

Blah blah blah

Well it was a very nice weekend and it has been great weather in Boise. The Spring is great except for the assorted allergies that seem to come and go for me but it is beautiful and we had a great bike ride tonight out on the river down to the park.
So I finished my 21 days in a row of work and now have only 8 days on and 1 day off in the middle. The life of a prn SLP. Feast or famine. I am trying to make up for the famine and getput back some of the savings that was sacrificed during the lean season. No home fixing going on until the finances are a little more secure and until we figure out what in the world we are going to do or at least where to start.
The sister, niece, nephew and grandparents were here for a week too bad I work most of the time. I tied to post some pictures but so some reason it is not working i will try later I guess.

What a Croc!

I have finally bought some new shoes for work. The others almost had holes in the bottom and I really needed some new ones but being cheap I didn't want to spend too much money. I just happened to get a dividend check from REI so I decided to buy my shoes there as I had 15$ in store credit to spend. So for 20$ I got a pair of these Crocs. They look a little funky and some would say downright ugly but I like them well eough and they are quite comfortable. They are very light and have little knobbies on the sole that kind of give you a little foot massage as you walk around. You can also throw them in the diskwasher to clean them up. So with 2 days of wearng them I reccomend them.

Work, work, CEU'S and more work

Well, I have gone from being nearly unemployeed to working everyday for what looks like it will be a 14 day strech. When it rains it pours. The sad part is that my sister will be here to visit in the middle of my 14 days. I will get evenings and 1 weekend with her but the weekend I am home my wife will be in TX so it is a bummer. This is all good for the bank acct or I should say the Visa people.
I am quite enjoying work actually as I have fun colleagues and people are generally happy to have you try to help them to get better. I was in a 2 day training course in Seattle this weekend and am now a certified E-Stim provider for dysphagia therapy. It was rather a long trip to Seattle on Fri about 8 hours and an even longer trip home on Sunday (arriving home at 1AM) with work starting at 8AM the next day. They kept us busy on Sat from 7:30 AM to 6:00PM for the course but it was interesting and the time went by quickly. For those interested in Estim I will place a link so you can read more about it. VitalStim

Unfortunately, Bryan of Moments of Adequacy fame was out of town and I did not get to see him. There is not so much to report except to say the weather has been stinky and no roof down driving has been occuring except with heater and heated seats on which is a little silly.

Warning: Ranting and Raving Ahead

Today you are the beneficiaries of a rant. I have cell phone service through Sprint. I can't complain too much but I may or may not stick with them after my 2 yr contract is up. I like them much better then my former carrier AT&T but that is another rant.
Here is the situation. About 2 months ago I started receiving text messages all of the sudden that were your basic spam messages. Not ever using texting I just thought they were annoying because they drained my battery due to the ringer and phone light come on when they are received. I didn't really think that I was paying for the privilege of receiving junk spam text messages. But lucky me I spent between 15-20 dollars last month for this scam.

So I call Sprint and I say, "Turn off the texting which I didn't sign up for." Randy told me I have to call, email, or use website to opt out of the service I hadn't opted into. So I took the 800 number. I call the 800 number. Hmmmmm what a surprise. No such number. So I call back wading through the computer lady asking me to "Para Espanol presione por favor el número dos" and tell me my little problems before I can get to the real person, then I have to give the name number and SS# for the acct holder and explain the situation again. The second time around I get, Ebony, she says yeah, 'Those companies change their numbers alot". Hmmm doesn't sound like a scam to me. This time I get the text number to text and ask them to cease and desist. I get off the phone and try to text them only to realize I have blocked the texting so back through the hoops to talk to Mark. I go through the scenario again (Take 3). Mark agrees it seems like a scam (as if they are not dealing with this daily from disgruntled customers) and he agrees to refund me 5$. Whatever. I am not going to refuse. I get off the phone send my text message (which I don't think I had ever done before) and then hope that Mark remembers to block my text messages in 30 min as we agreed. I plan to call in an hour just to make sure.

In the end I think that Sprint and probably all of the other phone people out there are in cahoots with these companies to make extra money off me. The original scamsters get advertising money for sending spam text messages, sprint cashes in on the charges and tries to look good refunding some minimal charges and bad mouthing these companies but I don't think they try to hard too keep the spam from happening.

I guess I will wait for the next class action suit in which I will receive my 32 cents and feel only slightly vindicated. The moral of the sorry respond to any junk email with the reply "STOP/CANCEL/UNSUBSCRIBE". You will be out 30 cents for the 1 incoming and one outgoing message unless it is a premium message which is 9.99. Then you can wait 2-3 years for your class action suit check of 32 cents and make about 2 cents on the deal. This is just my 2 cents.

IKEATOWN - Bloklok

I came across this at another blog. IKEA sells prefab homes (apts). I guess it is not really new in Scandinavia(1997 first one built)but they are expanding to the UK. No talk of coming to the US. You can put them up in about a day. Ships in flat boxes with one allen wrench. Just kidding. (I guess the IKEA prefab house division is pretty sick of that joke). The concept is interesting with the idea behind it being inexpensive and compact. My wife and I have been interested in the concept of living big in a small place. I am not saying that is what IKEA does but if you look at books by Susan Susanka. Her ideas are interesting although we have no plans to build any "Not so big houses". For now we are sticking with our 80's home with the goal of doing some upgrading some day as finances allow.

Talk about insulting!

I am approaching one of those monumental birthdays. It is in the distant future not until December. So at this point it is not too much of a sore point but you really don't want to think about it and you certainly don't want people pointing out your advancing age.
So today I got this letter that I find highly offensive:

I am not sending any of my money away but I think I will carry this card around and see if it will afford me any senior benefits.

Out with the old in with the new

After the last 6 months we have been sitting up to a metal patio table to eat our meals. We have had plans to get a new table and we finally had an excuse to go to IKEA in Sacramento and got a new table and chairs. Here is a picture of the old and the new.

Assorted pics from vacation

HAPPY BIRTHDAY UNCLE DUSTIN

CHEESER





CINDERELLA




Robinhood and Little John

Fireman

We had a great trip to CA and back. It was short but sweet. Too bad we didn't get up to the ranch but we were all sick and not too excited about spending more time in the car. We did manage a trip to IKEA and Trader Joes. We got a new table which I will feature in the next post.

If you have some time a fun thing to do is to spend 15 hours in a sitting behind the wheel of a car. It is even more fun if you you choose to drive southeastern ID and northwestern NV. So basically the route was Boise to Stockton to Oakland and back to Stockton. With 2 previous nights of short sleep it was actually not that bad. It is also better considering that we are in a nice car and that we are not driving a wagon with a team of oxen.

Grandparent plague

It has been a consistent pattern. The grandparents come and everyone gets sick. We made it through the entire winter without a single cough or runny nose since the grandparents left last fall. As I predicted within a week of the grandparents arrival the noses started to run and the coughs started to bark and throats turned sore. It starts with the kids, then moves to the the grandpa and the dad and eventually to the grandma that has the cold until the next season we see them. So no more sickness is expected until later this summer when the granparents might return.

For those requesting pictures of the "No Roof Car"

I have posted a few pictures to the new blog "No Roof Car". I decided to document improvements and maintence etc on the blog so I can see how far we have gotten and where we have been. So far a few little things have been fixed and the 5 times over the car washx2, clean, polish, wax. There are many things to get it into the shape it should be but these things will take time and money. At least it is now able to legally ride on the road and it doesn't act like it will leave me stranded yet.

Back from blogging vacation

I am back froma blogging vacation. It is not as if I have been too busy working or due to lack of Bloggin ideas it is merely laziness and time spent doing other things. the grandparents are here and we try to get in a Settlers game each night. I finally lost tonight. We have done a couple of home projects and also some auto work. I will try to get some pictures up tomorrow.

I have also been losing weight which takes up a lot of my time. In the last year I have dropped around 20 lbs. So you are all dying to know the answer. For me it has amounted to portion control and watching what goes into the mouth. the less you eat eventually you get used to it and aren't as hungry. So now I am in the normal weight range and no longer over weight. I am guessing it has been about 13-14 yrs since I have been at this weight and I am still losing. Now if only I could get myself to exercise and gain some muscle mass I will be set. The weather is great so that excuse is gone. So for those of you keeping score at home I am at 191. Ten years ago at my fattest I was pushing 230. I was looking at my passport photo today and noticed my face was pretty chubby.

Ok enough of that. I will try to get some pictures up.

For those of you that are wondering we did get a "No roof car" and it has been pretty fun. It needs some working over and the projects have begun. I will get some pictures up tomorrow.
I am comtempating a blog regarding the car to help me document resoration and maintenace etc. I haven't thought of a perfect title for the blog but am thinking about "The no roof car" as this is what we refer to it in our house. I will keep you posted.

Howdy Pardner!

Spring has almost Sprung

This is the time of year when you think it should be spring. When we lived in MI it was hard to get to March and know that spring was really another month and a half away. Well, apart from having an easy winter it is exciting to see the bulbs poking up and buds swelling on the trees and a weather report that says 67 degrees by Sunday. And the good news is that I don't have to work this weekend. Anyway, the worst part of the MI winter was that it would not go away. There was usually a thaw this time of the year followed by a couple other winters before spring came. When spring did come it was wonderful.
The old grandparents are coming on Thursday afternoon for a few weeks. That will be fun as we have had no company since late summer except for a one night stay by the FIL sometime late fall. No one in the house has been sick this entire winter. That is a new record since kids have been with us. I am sure that when the grandparents come everyone will get sick as this has been the general pattern. Well, I think this post is dull enough for 2 or 3 of my usual posts. I will sign off for the night and remind our dear friends in MI that time cannot be stopped and spring will be there soon......only another month or two.

Confucius says: "Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart."

Figured I would start out with a quote....Not that it means much of anything in relation to the post but we met our son's Cardiologist today. Many of you know that when our son was a 20 week old fetus we found out that he had some interesting abnormalities. Not what you want to find out about your 20 week old fetus. Anyway, to make a long story shorter he has a number of abnormalities that are totally functional and the only thing he has to worry about is Endocarditis with dental or other invasive medical work that could cause infection. Given all the other scenarios this is pretty easy to live with. Our son will have a repeat cardiac echo in the next year to determine if he has a bicuspid or tricuspid heart valve.
The Cardiologist was a young personable man that went over everything with us and talked about what further plans might be. I already mentioned the need for my son to take prophylactic antibiotics but the other main concern of the doctor was not medical but financial. We hadn't even remotely thought about this. He said that people like our son can have a hard time getting life insurance if it is not spelled out in black and white that his condition is not really any great threat to his life expectancy. We had never even thought about that but interesting none the less. The other interesting thing we found out is that we found out that our Pediatrician (who we haven't even met yet) is the fairy God mother of the Cardiologists son. Small town, small world.

The case of the wet underwear

It is 2AM and as my conciousness rises to the surface I hear the padding of feet. It is not the sound of solo feet but of two kids runnning into the bedroom. My wife is the first to respond. "You guys can lay down here on my side of the bed but you need to go get your pillows and blankets." The padding retreats except I notice one diverts to the bathroom. In a minute there is the unmistakable moan/cry of someone half asleep that has wet their pants. So the dad jumps into action. He finds the girl in the bathroom with the classic jumpsuit footy pajamas zipped to the very top with the girl standing and moaning, "I wet my pants". Yes this is obvious and we start to take off the pajamas. At this point I say, "You need to get your underwear off and get new ones." To this she acts very suprised and says, "But my underwear are not wet." Hmmm. Not wanting to start a debate about how it is not possible to have wet pajamas and dry underwear I decide to take another approach. "OK. I am going to go get some new pajamas then" Of I go to get pajamas and underwear. By the time I get back an astonished girl exclaims. "Daddy, my underwear are wet." Yes, I know and here we have a new pair." Isn't it amazing the things parents know. Sherlock Holmes she may not be yet but perhaps a strong Dr. Watson in the making.

Budding Artist

This post needs a little background. Our son is 2 and a 1/4 yrs old. He still takes a nap each afternoon from 2-3 hours. We have found recently the longer the nap the longer it takes him to get to sleep at night. He and his sister sleep in the same room. She goes right to sleep. She no longer naps. She does not allow the door to be closed and I think this keeps him up. It didn't used to bother him to have the door closed when we had an extra bedroom. So usually she goes to sleep and he plays around in his room with cars or something and eventually goes to sleep. He will sometimes come out and get taken back to bed 2-3 times but it hasn't been a big issue.
So.........tonight we hear the little whispers of conversation with himself and we tell him from the living room to be quiet and go to bed. We figure he is up to his harmless play and will eventually fall asleep. Well, eventually he pops his head out of the room and in the faded light I can tell something is not quite right. I ask him to come a little closer for inspection. This is what I find. I am guessing this is is his self portrait (literally).
So we go to the bathroom and wash up and find he had already been working on that project with red hue soap all over the bathroom. He also had done some nice free hand work on the bathroom door. I got his hands clean and the door cleaned while giving the lecture (probably for the 100th time) about how we only write on paper. Then it is back to the bed where I find his masterpiece on the popular pillowcase medium. He may be the next Christo.

This time we click a few pictures, try not to giggle, while continuing the stern lecture about it is not ok to write on things other then paper. The door was closed and a budding artists creativity was stifled for another day.
The plan is to skip the nap, endure the late afternoon whining and put him to bed early without late night adventures in his art studio.
P.S. And yes there are worse things for toddlers to paint/draw with than markers that wipe clean with soap and water.

Tintin Addicts

Sleeping poses

Hmm..... So what's new?

I have been shirking my blogging duties and am not sure I have much to add today but feel guilty for lack of posting so I will pretend to blog something of interest. I am going to go with the hodge podge approach today.

1. I had a good laugh this last week when I decided to measure the kids to see how tall they were. Girl= 43 in and Boy= 36in. Then I thought I should see what the height limit is for tubing on the ski hill. It is 36 inches. So the kids and I checked out the tubing hill and looked at pictures online. Later on we were talking about someday else and my daughter said, "Dad I think that Tuliping really looks like fun!" I gave her a confused look. "You know tuliping on the ski hill."

2. I am in my classic long planning stage for some home remodeling. Yes, I went to the art store and got grid paper and measured out the entire house to try to figure out what to do. By the time we figure out what to do we won't have the finances to do it.

3. Speaking of finances I am planning to sell my Passat. So if any of you are interested in a fine European Sport wagon let me know. It is a great car but the verdict is that we don't need two expensive late model cars but rather sell one and get a little runabout as my wife is now just 2 miles from work and I am just 5 miles. My wife also claims she is going to ride her bike to work but I will wait to see the day on that one. So we can bank the money from the Passat for more home remodeling. So the question remains...what are you going to replace the Passat with? Well, this will shock most of you but I am thinking about a VW. So you are probably wondering about my past cars (or not) I will list them here for you:

1. 1978 VW Rabbit diesel

2. 1986 VW GTI

3. 1990 VW Golf

4. 1990 Ford Explorer

5. 1997 VW Jetta

6. 1997 Jeep Wrangler

7. 1991 Honda Civic

8. 2002 VW Passat Wagon

9. 2005 Honda Pilot

So you note a certain pattern here. Mostly German with a few Japanese and American cars thrown in. So I figured that I should go back to our roots and get a classic. I am in the process of looking for a 1992 or 1993 VW Cabriolet. This would be the car to run back and forth to work with. It will take a little work to find a good one. Let me know if anything pops up in your neighborhood. I have a few helpers looking for me and I check craigslist often. I found some guy that bought a 1992 for less then blue book with 10,000 miles on the odometer. Not likely to find one of those but will keep looking.

4. Winter has returned unfortunately. We have had snow the last 2 mornings. It is not supposed to be above freezing tomorrow. So much for our 60 degree days last month. Although I think it is still warmer than Michigan. One of our recent bedtime routines is to warm up these hot packs (the kind that have rice in them) in the microwave and take them to bed for our feet to keep our toes warm. I need to improve on the concept so you can actually get your feet all the way inside. I can make up some catchy marketing phrase and sell them by the millions.

5. Speaking of making my millions. I was looking on CafePress the other day and saw that someone had stolen my Obama campaign slogan and put it on a tshirt. So much for that get rich scheme.

Ok that is enough for one night. Maybe I will try to add a hodge podge of pictures tomorrow.

For those of us that have more education then smarts

What Is Intelligence, Anyway?

Isaac Asimov

What is intelligence, anyway? When I was in the army, I received the kind of aptitude test that all soldiers took and, against a normal of 100, scored 160. No one at the base had ever seen a figure like that, and for two hours they made a big fuss over me. (It didn't mean anything. The next day I was still a buck private with KP - kitchen police - as my highest duty.)
All my life I've been registering scores like that, so that I have the complacent feeling that I'm highly intelligent, and I expect other people to think so too. Actually, though, don't such scores simply mean that I am very good at answering the type of academic questions that are considered worthy of answers by people who make up the intelligence tests - people with intellectual bents similar to mine?
For instance, I had an auto-repair man once, who, on these intelligence tests, could not possibly have scored more than 80, by my estimate. I always took it for granted that I was far more intelligent than he was. Yet, when anything went wrong with my car I hastened to him with it, watched him anxiously as he explored its vitals, and listened to his pronouncements as though they were divine oracles - and he always fixed my car.
Well, then, suppose my auto-repair man devised questions for an intelligence test. Or suppose a carpenter did, or a farmer, or, indeed, almost anyone but an academician. By every one of those tests, I'd prove myself a moron, and I'd be a moron, too. In a world where I could not use my academic training and my verbal talents but had to do something intricate or hard, working with my hands, I would do poorly. My intelligence, then, is not absolute but is a function of the society I live in and of the fact that a small subsection of that society has managed to foist itself on the rest as an arbiter of such matters.
Consider my auto-repair man, again. He had a habit of telling me jokes whenever he saw me. One time he raised his head from under the automobile hood to say: "Doc, a deaf-and-mute guy went into a hardware store to ask for some nails. He put two fingers together on the counter and made hammering motions with the other hand. The clerk brought him a hammer. He shook his head and pointed to the two fingers he was hammering. The clerk brought him nails. He picked out the sizes he wanted, and left. Well, doc, the next guy who came in was a blind man. He wanted scissors. How do you suppose he asked for them?"
Indulgently, I lifted by right hand and made scissoring motions with my first two fingers. Whereupon my auto-repair man laughed raucously and said, "Why, you dumb jerk, He used his voice and asked for them." Then he said smugly, "I've been trying that on all my customers today." "Did you catch many?" I asked. "Quite a few," he said, "but I knew for sure I'd catch you." "Why is that?" I asked. "Because you're so educated, doc, I knew you couldn't be very smart."
And I have an uneasy feeling he had something there.

Favorite games?

This is a poll to see what are people's most favorite games. We go through phases and then get bored and then modify the games and then eventually start on a new one (or Spring comes and we go outside). Winter time is the perfect time for playing games.

Currently, we are on a Settlers of Catan kick which we have been on for a while. We have recently been introduced to Blokus which is fun but we are still in the learning curve for strategy. We have been reintrduced to UNO because it is a game 4 yr olds can almost play.

So, I guess I am looking for a list of games from people that include games we don't know or forgot that are fun to play. Please indicate how many players required. My wife and I are also looking for good 2 person games that we can play without adding too much marital strife. Here is a short list of games I came up with.

1. Settlers of Catan - A fun boardgame that in our opinion best with 3 or more people.

2. Blokus - board game we have just started to learn. Not bad with 2 people. As I said we are still learning.

3. Rook- old standby card game that I could play in my sleep. It is nice because I don't have to think too hard and so it can be more social.

4. Books and Runs - this cardgame we played with regular cards but it looks like somegame company marketed it as Five Crowns. It is another old standby that it fun

5. Canasta- here is a card game that we used to play a lot but haven't played for years

6. Euchre - this is a Michigan favorite card game that we played a couple of times and I think we could have gotten into it but just never played enough but we could always try it again.

7. Cribbage- I found this board/card game in the closet. We bought it years ago to play as a couple and now we have forgotten how to play.

8. Spite and Malice - This is a card game that we played with my Great Aunt after school. My great Aunt was a great game player.

9. Aggravation - This is a board game that we played with my great aunt. It is a Milton Bradley version of Parchesi also known as Wahoo. My Aunt had her own custom board made out of board and had a whole bag full of dice some of which she had named. Some were probably loaded as she used certain die to roll certain numbers. My favorite wass "Dead Eye Dick" used to roll "1" when needed.

10. Clue - There was a version of Clue that was different then the basic board game that some friends of ours had in Reno. We were never able to find it to buy for ourselves. The unfortunate part is that I don't really recall what was different about it except that it was more fun then the original. I just tried to look on Ebay w/o luck.

These are just a few I could come up with over my years. Let me know if anyone else has some favorites. We are always looking to learn a new one or relearn one we forgot.