A mighty fortress.........

I was watching an episode of Gilmore Girls with my wife (yes, I'm embarrassed to admit it). There was a kid on the show that was singing 'A Mighty Fortress is Our God'. Knowing the song quite well, I sang the first verse of the song out loud. My wife was amused by my singing and was smiling.

Me: That was written by?

Mrs. Lime: (smiling) God?

Me: No, God didn't write that song!

Mrs. Lime: (smiling bigger) No, but he inspired it!

I was a bit stunned by her response, as it was probably more accurate than the actual answer.

Me: No, it was Martin Luther.

My knowledge seemed unimportant. Mrs. Lime had one-upped me..........this time.

An open letter about winter......

Dear Citizens of the Midwest,

When you head out to drive your vehicles and there are white flakes falling from the sky, that's a good indication that you should travel at a slower speed because the road conditions are likely to be sub-par at best. That does not mean you should cut off a semi truck. Doing that will often result in a jack-knifed semi closing multiple lanes of a major highway (which is the situation we have on the east side of the city this afternoon).

Semi trucks, this goes for you as well. Don't think you're somehow immune to wrecks. When you jack-knife your trailer all on your own and 15 cars pile into you because they have nowhere to go, that's a bad thing. That may result in the total closing of a major highway (which is the situation we have on the west side of the city this afternoon).

In summary, if you are in a vehicle and wintry precipitation is falling, slow down. All of the people who have to drive home after work will thank you later.

Interesting comparison and cleaning outdoor surfaces.......

Nothing new on the baby front. One of my friends explained to me that if I was around when my wife's water broke, it would be like a big old water balloon just hit the floor. Visualization is a wonderful thing.

It's insanely cold right now in the midwest. Temperatures in the teens or lower at night with the day time temperatures reaching 30 degrees if we're lucky. I went outside with the dog the other day. While he was doing his business of marking his territory just so the deer would know they were in his yard, I was cleaning the glass on the outside of the back door. I sprayed on the Windex and grabbed the paper towels to wipe it off. It was already frozen on the glass by the time I wiped with the paper towel. I will say that Windex does a bang-up job of cleaning, even when in a frozen state. I continued to wipe it down. At first, it left white flakes all over the glass, but as I kept wiping, they came off the glass as well. It left a perfectly clean surface. There weren't even any streaks!

I would like everyone to know that this will be as close as this blog ever comes to advertisements. I've now promoted Windex for outdoor winter cleaning and Magic Erasers. That should pretty much cover most of your house cleaning needs. I'm guessing with a baby on the way that I'll need to know plenty house cleaning tricks.

Nova loves snowstorms.......

My dog will go out on the coldest of days and sit down for long periods of time. It could be a 30 MPH wind on a 10 degree day and he'd think it was just right. I'm not sure how he ended up in Missouri, because he belongs in Canada and points north.

Here's a few pictures of him playing in the snow.....









And just when you think you've seen it all, he takes it one step further. Remember how I said he loves the cold? I started kicking snow on Nova and covering him up. Did he run away? Did he come after me for kicking snow on him? Did he bite the snow as it was flying at him? Of course not. He decided to lay his head down on the snow pile built up next to him and take a nap! Don't believe me? Here's the proof.......

Much better than an ice storm.......

We had a nice steady snow storm the other day. After the inch of ice that we received a few days earlier, a snow storm is a much easier thing to deal with. We ended up with a nice 6 inch snowfall that really made everything look really nice. Note that the white spots in the pictures are actually snowflakes that are reflecting the flash. I probably should have turned the flash off in hindsight.

Hunting at an all-new level........

We all know what a great squirrel hunter my dog Casanova is. He can chase those squirrels down with the best of them. He chased a really fat squirrel (I have no idea what this squirrel was eating in the dead of winter to keep him so heavy) up the tree the other day with ease. Nova has now taken his hunting to the next level. He sat at the bottom of that tree for easily 15-20 minutes in the hopes that he could wait out the squirrel and that it would eventually come back down the tree. The squirrel stared him down from about 50 feet up the tree. Eventually, Nova gave in and headed back inside.

Here's Nova staring down the squirrel......



And here's the squirrel staring back down at Nova. He's difficult to see but he's in front of the main tree trunk in the center of the picture......



Now, he's found a new sport: deer hunting. Yes, we have deer in our neighborhood. As a matter of fact, we have a lot of deer in our neighborhood. I'm not sure how many are around in total, but we have one or two in our backyard on a nightly basis. A couple of nights ago, we had no less than 7 deer come through our backyard in a small herd. We have a golf course and a large park near our house, so it's completely understandable why we have so many deer around our home.

Last night, Nova and I decided to look for deer. We looked for a couple of minutes and I saw a shadow that looked just like Bambi. I knew that Nova noticed the movement as well because I heard him whine and felt him bump up against my leg trying to get a better view of the deer. We were both very excited to see the deer. I was very excited because it's great to have wildlife to look at all the time. Nova was very excited because he wanted the hunt to begin (i.e. he runs with reckless abandon towards the deer and the deer quickly runs off).

I've seen Nova actually chase off a deer with antlers (I wouldn't have let him out to chase that deer, but I didn't see him until Nova was already out the door). The boy has no fear. He somehow perceives that an 80 pound dog versus a 300-400 pound deer is a fair fight.

I decided to let Bambi have the night off and keep Nova in the house. The deer are well-aware of Nova's location and know that when the door opens, RUN! Nova whined for awhile, hoping to get me to let him out, but I told him not tonight. I'm sure he had dreams about deer all night long in hopes that he may get another shot at them tonight.

Here's a couple of picture of Nova and I watching the deer. We're on the lookout here....



As you can see from this photo, Nova has spotted a deer. He's whining hoping to go out and chase them down.....

Quiktrip and the spirit of giving.......

I talked to a guy at work who had a hobo approach him at a Quiktrip gas station last night. The hobo was asking the guy for gas money. The guy went inside and borrowed the emergency gas can from the store. He then filled the gas can with gas and walked over to hand it to the hobo.

The hobo's response? "S#^&!!!! I didn't want any gas! I just wanted the money!"

The hobo walked off disgusted. My co-worker poured the gas into his car tank and returned the can to the store. He said the Quiktrip cashiers were quite amused, as they watched the whole thing unfold from inside the store.

Fund-raiser for dancing.......

There's a lady in my general area at work who sets out a box of fund-raising candy in the lunchroom. It's a fund-raiser for her daughter's dance class. Certainly a worthy cause and I'm sure her daughter has a lot of fun doing it.

Being the nice guy I am, I head over to buy a candy bar. The box is set out and it's obviously an honor system with the money envelope sticking up in the box. Each candy bar is $1.00. I look in my pocket and quickly take inventory. Plenty of money in there, but the smallest bill I have is a $5.00 bill and I have no change. So, I pick up the envelope and take a peek inside. I see three $1.00 bills and some silver change at the bottom. Good, there's enough money in there to make change.

I take the envelope and flip it upside down. As soon as I start doing that, an older lady comes around the corner. I didn't look at her directly, but I could feel it. She stared lasers through me thinking that I was just dumping out the envelope and taking the money for myself. I didn't bother to look back. I looked at the contents and found 3 $1.00 bills, 3 quarters and a nickel. What?!?!?! Someone had already shafted the poor little dancing girls! They only paid 80 cents for a $1.00 candy bar! I was outraged. I thought about turning around to the lady who was still staring at me to let her know that someone had ripped off the girls and send her to track them down!

Instead, I took the $3.80 and put it in my pocket and put the $5.00 into the fundraising envelope. The thought of the injustice in this situation enraged me to the point where I just decided to go ahead and make up the difference and pay $1.20 for my $1.00 candy bar. Sometimes, you just have to do what's right. I hope that young girl in a tutu someday realizes the sacrifice I made today by paying a 20 cent premium on a Butterfinger candy bar.

Talking in your sleep......

It is well known amongst most of my family and some of my friends that I have a knack for talking in my sleep. With that noted, I received the following from my fraternity brother's wife about a situation that occured last night......

So, here's the conversation I had with with Bobby at 12:30-- I couldn't sleep, so I read downstairs for a while. When I got into bed, he said, "I made the switch." I replied, "What switch?" He mumbled, 'You know, the switch." I told him he was talking in his sleep again. He said in a very stern voice, "I am not talking in my sleep. I've got to go pee." He then went into the bathroom. When he got back into bed, he said again that he made the switch. Still playing along with my sleepy husband, I asked again what kind of switch. He said, "I had to switch the pee because it went into the wrong toilet."

Pretty but nasty......

Looks like a postcard, eh?



It may look like snow, but it's actually 1 inch of solid ice.



These pictures are from a week ago. You can be sure we didn't go out in that mess without our 4 wheel drive truck.

Baby pics - Week 37

Probably the last belly picture. There a 6 pound baby in there at this point.....

Still playing the waiting game.....

Still waiting for that baby to get the nerve up to show herself to the world. Mrs. Lime went for her check-up yesterday. Nothing amiss thus far. You'd think that something would be going on in there by now, but this baby appears to want to stay in there as long as possible.

We know she's in there because she's pretty active at this point. Mrs. Lime said the baby nearly kicked the doppler sensor out of the doctor's hand yesterday, so no issues with strength. I can get her to move around pretty easily now, but the problem is that if I get her going, she often gives Mrs. Lime a boot or an elbow to a vital body part, so it's best to not get her too riled up.

Due date is February 8th, so only 3 more weeks to the official due date. I'm guessing that the baby is unaware that the MU/KU game in Columbia is on February 10th. Hopefully, she'll learn to better schedule big events once she enters the world. I'll give her a pass on this one if she happens to come after February 8th.

Stranded in KC........

Got to head over on Saturday for another poker session at the casino. With the baby soon to come, probably one of my last visits for awhile. For the session, I won around $100 in 4 hours, so a pretty good outing from that perspective. I've had three winning sessions in a row. That's a bonus as far as I'm concerned, as I'm really only there to break even and entertain myself. That's rarely a possibility at any casino game other than poker.

I sat down at a pretty quiet table. As I often do, I quickly struck up a lot of conversation at the table. I like playing when there's a lot of talk and it's well known that a happy and talkative table makes a lot more plays that they shouldn't be making. That's obviously a good thing.

Now that I've been there a few times on the weekend, I'm able to quickly recognize a few of the regulars and know how they play. That helps a lot. I was excited to see that the regulars that were at my table were pretty aggressive players, which means I can trap them pretty easily with some of my bigger hands. That was my main strategy and it worked really well.

After a bit, there was a guy that sat down next to me and I said hello. Really nice guy who liked to talk at the table a lot. He was a college tutor who was from Portland, Oregon. He was in town to tutor at a local college for the week. Unfortunately, because of the winter storm in KC, his flight out on Friday and his flight out on Saturday were cancelled. So he was left stranded in KC in a hotel and just decided to make the most of the night and come play some poker.

A dealer's name caused one of the funnier moments of the night. She's a really nice lady who is originally from Thailand. Her name is Wan. My friend from Portland noticed her name.

Portland: Dealer, what is your name?

Wan: It's Wan.

Portland: That's funny. We have the same name!

(Everyone laughed at this point, thinking that Portland was yanking our chain.)

Wan: I don't think your name is Wan.

Portland: Oh yes it is!

Portland then proceeded to toss his driver's license into the middle of the table. His name? Juan. Pronounced the same way, but obviously the spelling was quite different. Wan picked up the licence and the rest of the table got a good laugh when she verified that they had the 'same' name.

Portland mentioned that he had a 18 month old child at home. I told him I was about to have a child. He told me that it was great and that I'd love having a kid around. He said he actually missed having some of the chaos that his kid brings because he'd just been sitting around a hotel room for the last few days. He was ready to get back to see his family.

We did have one other guy come over to our table from another table because he noticed that our table was loud and looked like we were having a good time. He proceeded to prove my point that I made earlier. He had a wonderful time and talked constantly at the table. He also lost $150 in the process. The gift of gab is a beautiful thing when sitting at a poker table.

Portland ended up walking away about the same time I did. He was only about $15 down when he left, so certainly a good night of entertainment for him for a cost of $15. He thanked me for keeping the table lively and I wished him the best in trying to get out of town. Hopefully he managed to catch a flight on Sunday.

Near-death experience......

Note to the guy in the blue Mustang who was out around midnight on Hwy 210 near the Missouri River.

When it's sleeting and there is ice on the road, you should be very careful when driving a rear wheel drive vehicle. I thought you were going somewhat fast when you initially went by me. When you decided to speed up once you hit the uphill straight portion of the rode, my fears were confirmed.

When you initially spun sideways and nearly missed splitting your car in half on the bridge railing, you should have decided right then that God had greater plans for you in life. When you then proceeded to spin completely around 3 times and ended up pointing straight ahead on the road without a scratch on your car, you should have KNOWN that God had great plans for you in life.

I hope that is the last stupid thing you do in life.

Still a waiting game......

Still waiting on this silly baby to show up. 3 weeks left until the official 'due' date. I think that's a big farce at this point. Obviously, we're quite happy that the baby is going to make it to full term or very close to full term. The baby's still moving around quite a bit, so we know she's still in there in case the slight increase in size of my wife's belly didn't give it away.

I'm going to have to play my poker game by ear because of the kid's impending arrival. I'm not terribly concerned about not being able to hold poker in the future. I have a feeling that the grandparents don't need much cohersion to do some babysitting on occasion when not playing themselves.

I've got Monday off for MLK Jr.'s birthday. Should allow for a nice 3 day weekend. Sunday appears to be the worst day for this winter storm that is moving in, so Monday will give them an extra day to clean off the streets before I head back to work. Once the baby comes, I'll be taking 3 weeks off to stay at home and take care of the new arrival. I count on sleeping in for most of those 3 weeks. I'm sure she'll sleep through the night after a week or so......

Video game stuff......

I'm going to detour a bit from my usual fare to geek out. For those of you who are video game players, I thought I'd point you to a podcast that I now listen to on a regular basis. It's located on a website called Cheap Ass Gamer.

The website caters to gamers who are looking for cheap game deals. They have a weekly podcast that lasts from 1 to 1 1/2 hours and covers games and deals on all gaming systems. The owner of the website and host of the show is actually located in Tokyo while the second host is located in NYC. I like the broadcast because the hosts are generally 'average Joe' guys. Lots of fun to listen to if you have an interest in video games.

We have a developing situation........

Some days, it doesn't pay to be the reference guide in the family.

I received a call from Mrs. Lime today. It seems that she's somehow reached the point where she's pushed every button on every remote (which happens more often than she'd admit) and she's still not able to do what she wants to do (which was watch one of her Gilmore Girls DVD's). So, time to start debugging over the phone just how bad the situation is.

First, what is she trying to do. "Access the DVD player." Got it.

What does she see right now? "Blank screen." That's never a good starting point.

I ask her to click on the DVD button to switch to the DVD player. "It says 'no signal'." Uh oh.

I tell her to click on the Cable button to switch to the cable feed. "It's a blank screen." Hmmmmmmm.......

I have her hit the power button for the cable box. "OK, I have cable TV." Now we're getting somewhere.

I tell her to click DVD to go back to the DVD player. "It's a blank screen."

I tell her to hit the power button for the DVD player. "Still blank.........oh, wait. It says it's loading. OK, I see the menu now."

So, in summary.......

-Wife tries to turn on DVD player.
-Wife doesn't get it to work right away, so she starts pushing buttons.
-Wife calls husband when buttons don't work.
-Hubby to the rescue.

I'm not sure I'd be much use to this relationship if I didn't have tech savvy, so I suppose I should count my blessings. Thankfully, all is now blissful in the Lime home now. Mrs. Lime is happily watching the Gilmore Girls DVD without any further issues.

Poker tourney weekend......

We had our monthly poker game Sunday. It was a lot of fun. We had a great turnout of 19 people with a few new players. Always nice to inject some new people into the mix. It went pretty smoothly overall. I played well. I had solid cards and made it count. Knocked out a couple of players.

My key hand was against my sister. I started with AA and she called my preflop raise. The flop was T63 and didn't look all that threatening. I bet and she called. No concern there. The turn was a 9. She bet and I raised. She called the big raise. Warning! Warning! The river was a 6. She bet very little and I called to see her flip over 4 6's. Ouch.

I actually did well to not go broke in that hand and built my stack back up, but went down eventually. Still got to play for a little over 4 hours. It was a lot of fun.

The tangents of a discussion.........

While riding down to a Mizzou basketball game on Tuesday, we ran into an interesting discussion. My friend Rudy and his son went down to the game. I quickly learned a little-known fact from Rudy and his son. We drove by a building that had a 'XXX' sign in front of it. Rudy and his son quickly informed me that we had just passed by a bowling alley.

Me: A bowling alley?

Rudy: Yes, that building with the 'XXX' on it? That stands for strike, strike, strike!

Rudy's son: Yeah!

Me: Oh, THAT bowling alley!

Rudy: Are we going to stop on the way back and bowl?

Me: Depends on what time the game gets done I suppose.


I then quickly moved the topic to a separate discussion........


Me: So do you know what bowlers call it when they get three strikes?

Rudy's son: Ummmmm...........

Me: It's also a type of bird.

Rudy's son: A birdie?

Me: Nope, but good guess.

Rudy's son: A chicken?

Me: Think Thanksgiving.

Rudy's son: A turkey!

Me: Nice work.

Amazing how much can be discussed with a kid just by the simple sighting of a sign that says 'XXX' along the road.

One month to baby D-Day.........

Ah, the day is quickly approaching. In roughly a month's time, I'll be a father. I'm pretty tired of waiting at this point. I'm ready to get this whole process started.

The baby's just over 5 pounds right now. She flipped over and actually is oriented correctly with her head pointing down. Hopefully the baby maintains that position and we get a baby coming out head first to make things easy. The doctor said that 6-7 pounds will probably end up being the delivery weight. After feeling the strength of some of the movement and kicks in Mrs. Lime's belly, I wouldn't be shocked if a female weightlifter tumbled out when that day arrives. There's a strong kid in there.

I've practiced clicking in the car seat into the seat holder. I've got that down pretty well. Mrs. Lime and I watched the first lesson in the Dunstan Baby Language DVD series. If you don't know what that is, click here to visit the website. It's amazing that someone didn't make understanding your baby this easy before now.

We're also going to go through the steps to teach our baby how to sign. It'll make it a lot easier to work with the baby during the language formation years and also helps the baby with learning and motor functions by using their hands and arms to communicate. We'll probably end up with a baby that teaches her grandparents how to communicate with sign language. That'll be interesting to say the least.

I'm pretty sure we're not prepared at all for what's to come. At the same time, I think we'll do just fine.

Tigers doing well this year.....

Well, the Mizzou Tigers are off to a flying start now. They're 11-2 after their non-conference portion of the season and probably only need 9 or more wins in conference play to have a shot at heading back to the NCAA tourney for the first time in 4 years. It's been a rough couple of years and it's great to see the team playing with a lot of effort.

Quin Snyder once said while he was the coach at MU that 'you can't coach effort'. After watching the team play under Mike Anderson's leadership this year, I can say for certain that was totally wrong. I do agree somewhat that players have to motivate themselves at some level, but a strong coach can get that effort out of his players with increasing frequency. Hopefully the second half of the year is just as good as the first half.