Pumpkin Art and other things

I am not a big fan of Halloween, but we always do carve a pumpkin or two.

I can't do this:

I was intrigued by the artist's use of clay carving tools to sculpt the pumpkins. We may have to try a little of that.

In other news:

 Danjo the Magnificent has downsized from a large, aging minivan to a small, new,  sportyish Pontiac Vibe. We had to fully engage in the process of pursuing our best interests while the dealerships pursued their best interests in order to agree on a mutually acceptable price. One of the dealerships did actually pursue their best interests and thus earned our business. There must be a lot of consumers out there who do not actively pursue their best interests in order for the dealerships to get such a warped idea of what it is in their own best interests to pursue. Don't promise me donuts if there are no donuts. If I request a quote via email, please comply. Don't lie.  Don't follow me out to my car, dropping the price every few feet. Don't call me when I asked for an email. Don't ask me to call you to get your best price. Don't badmouth the competition. Don't email me repeatedly after I tell you I already bought a car from someone else. Let your salespeople treat customers with respect. Don't bring in the manager. Don't tell me the guy I had an appointment with isn't here and that you will help me instead, when I just got off the phone with the guy I had an appointment with. 

All worn out. Pursuing our best interests while shopping for a car is exhausting.

Small things

Today my son found joy in a package of refrigerator biscuits. Apparently I haven't used many packages of these canned treats in the last few years. I cooked some tonight as an after dinner snack and gave the package to him to open. He was quite suprised and thrilled by the mini explosion. 

That may have been the most interesting thing he experienced today, but maybe not. At school, he got his head checked for lice because one of his best classroom buddies has an infestation of the delightful creatures. His head was clear, but it has me a little paranoid (too many long-haired girls here). He wasn't so worried. He googled lice to see what they look like. He also got his flu shot today. He said it hurt but kept smiling.

He found it educational to watch a video of himself playing his two recital pieces on the piano. Before watching he had been under the mistaken impression that he was playing the songs quite well. After watching he agreed to slow his crazy pace a little in the interests of making few or no mistakes.

Adventurer Two had a recital last night. She played beautifully. It's nice to hear the results of all that practice! 

And finally, before I get back to work, two decent photos of the dogs. I take lots of pictures of these two because for me anyway, they are difficult to photograph. They are black, and white, don't sit still enough, and have so much hair. 

International Van of Mystery, your groupies want to know:

Where did you place?

Did you encounter the Jackass?

# Correctly solved clues?

Only two emergency envelopes?

What stumped you?

Fastest solve?

What suprised you?

Best clue?

Pima and Lone Mountain

View Larger Map

One me the static clue...

The Hunt is about to begin

Twitter feed with [almost] live updates from the International Van of Mystery will appear above.

 Pictures will appear as blog posts.

Happy Hunting, Mystery Van!

Coming Soon...

Concrete Pathways will be going off-road to follow the exploits 

of 

The International Van of Mystery

 in it's quest for adventure and intrigue. 

Stay Tuned.

Hmmm. What more does one say?

Man plays banjo while undergoing brain surgery. 

Going Green

Saved gas by riding bikes to soccer practice. Youthful sidewalk driver only fell once, and it was not into the canal or the busy street. Saw a very large toad on the way home. 

Read  The Bible on my cell phone while waiting at soccer practice. That was cool, as I had forgotten to bring The Story with me on my bike (no basket). Also cool to be reacquainted with King James English. Shewed? Still like the scones of the Jerusalem Bible better though.

Missed two messages on cell phone also. If I don't notice the message immediately upon arrival, it is sent to obscurity in the inbox. How come this phone doesn't have the big giant "New Message Received" alert like the old one did? Maybe it's time to read the instructions, since I have already searched the menu for some helpful setting.

The Rain In Spain Stays Mainly In The Plain!!

Adventurer 3 has qualified as the newest sidewalk driver.

We have just returned from our first family bike ride. We rode through our neighborhood to the canal, past the peacocks, down through the Towers of Power, back through the neighborhood to the house. About a mile. A3 is experiencing a huge sense of accomplishment.

This will go on his "what I did for fall break"resume.

Thank you, God, for the beautiful fall weather.

Dinnertime Dialogue

Venom (A1): What are fingernails and toenails made of?

Sidewalk Driver(while cooking spagetti): Keratin, the same thing as your hair.

Venom: Then why isn't our hair hard?

Sidewalk Driver: That's not the way it works

Venom: So if our fingernails got really long would they start to be like hair?

Sidewalk Driver: No, that's not the way it works.

Venom: So, how come we don't have hair growing out of our fingers?

Sidewalk Driver(while heading to computer to log into blog): Uh, I have no response to that.

Anyone care to tackle that last question? Venom is still wondering...

BWDCAB Gets Another Chance

First, some help from his friends:

Second, an opportunity:

Children Can Pet Bison in North Carolina

My Knight in Shiny Armor

This is the Danjo the Magnificent for President '08 Power Wardrobe:

Wouldn't a joust be much more fun than the debates? 

Musings of the Young Adventurer

On the way home from school today, the little guy told me he had something for me to post on my blog. He said that he had read a book today at school and that book was about bison. He learned that once, bison were nearly extinct, and he thought it would be good for you to know it as well, given the collective interest in bison. I may come back and edit this, because I am sure he told me two bison facts and not one, but I can't remember the second one. I'll check with him.

Later in the day, after he had practiced piano, and then put away his Hot Wheels which were strewn all over the living room, and took them up to his room, and was about to put away his laundry, all willingly with no complaint, he asked me if he had been doing better at not sinning today, and then said that he was going to "try hard to sin as little as possible for the rest of the day." I agreed that this was an excellent plan. He carried it out as faithfully as a seven-year-old sinner can, with some help from a Savior, and at bedtime asked me if I could think of any sins he had done today. Thankfully, it was much harder to think of any than it would have been yesterday! God is Good. 

I was thinking that maybe each morning I should resolve to sin as little as possible for the rest of the day...

Adventures in Individuality, Together

Trying Something New

So there is a Quicken alternative worth trying.

Moneydance.

It has a nice name and a good website. It has a free trial.

So far it is easy to use and hasn't crashed. Not everything from Quicken transferred exactly as it was, but it took less than five minutes to get all the accounts squared away with the right balances (a few duplicate transactions that were easy to spot and delete). Another 15 minutes to set up a budget that works right (horray!!). Scheduled transactions seem to have disappeared. So far all the problems I have encountered are covered in the online user guide. I will look for scheduled transactions next.

More later. I am very done with personal finance management for the day.

A plea for good personal finance software

This has me nearly ready to convert back to a PC. Quicken for Mac (whatever version I have, purchased late last year or early this year?) is terrible. It crashes regularly, it is extremely difficult to use (for me, a long-time, proficient Quicken user with a degree in Economics), and it will not correctly print a budget report no matter what I try. What good was it to input all that data if I can't get anything out?

If only I had any assurances that the most recent PC version is any better.

When I first got frustrated with Quicken for Mac I researched to see if there was something else I could use. There isn't.

Maybe i'll just go back to pencil and paper and a calculator.

Banjo Day on Concrete Pathways

I miss the Muppets.

Nagging Fears no.1

That Danjo the Magnificent is well on his way to this: