No Photo, No Filter, No Concert, No Skipping Out

Fans, you are correct. There has been a Bella-less drought of photos on my blog. Luckily, Lyndsay's new entry shows a precious picture of my granddaughter. Jump over there real quick and check her out. You can also see her weird daddy.

G-Dad, thanks for helping replace the pool filter. Hopefully, it will clear up the water by tomorrow morning. And Rick, thanks for getting fiberglass on yourself so I know not to stick my arm down into the filter in the future. I have the same one you do now.

I had to skip out on our Chorale concert tonight. I've got a sore throat that prevents singing. I had to miss my solo, too.

OK, y'all turn up the volume on your machine and listen to my song. I think those of you who work or have worked in cubicles will appreciate The Cubicle Song.

Do the Hustle

Come on. Admit it. Even you young'uns must have heard that classic disco song "Do The Hustle." No? What about you old fogeys in the back?

Anyway, I was checking the amctv website for info about when (or if) reruns of the TV show Hustle are scheduled. Yes, it looks like a few are to be replayed in Aug. While there, I found their rules for husting and thought you'd like to know them. For most of you, rule #1 should protect you from this crew.

1. You can’t con an honest man.
2. Feed the greed.
3. Always give a mark an out.
4. Never give a sucker an even break.
5. It’s all in the detail.
6. Don’t have anything in your life that you cannot walk away from.
7. Always look out for #1.
8. It’s not just about the money.

Voicing My Opinions and Losing My Voice

OK, we'll start with losing my voice. Yup, all I can do tonight is croak and cough. Luckily, or more likely thanks to God, I sang this morning with the folks at Light In The Desert. We did well, and the church seemed to enjoy it. I might have even heard an amen.

Now, it's time for opinions. One, anyway. Lady In The Water, the new M. Night Shyamalan film. It was OK. It was maybe not even as good as The Village which wasn't great.

Kyle, you were correct. I did enjoy Hustle and have set the TiVo to record it each week (on AMC if y'all wonder). It is like Mission:Impossible for Con Artists. Plus, it has the original Man From Uncle.

The stinking pool filter died this weekend. A crack appeared across the entire top of the unit. However, it did so while we were at Lady In The Water (did I mentioned I was disappointed in that?). So, it drained 3/4 of the pool before we got home. Dad is going to help rig a filter bypass tomorrow so I can run the pump and hopefully avoid an major algae infestation.

Memories In Color

When I am playing on the computer, I am usually trying things in Photoshop Elements. Here's a flower from a garden in Scotland. I forgot my camera last night when we ate over at K&L's place, so no Bella shots to release.


Hey, did y'all here we reached 118 today? It is in the top 10 of all time for PHX. Yeah, it is a dry heat, but that's still a lot of heat.

Where Have I Been The Last 6 Days?

Has it been almost a week since I last posted? Obviously it has, or my title and first sentence are both pointless. OK, let me think. I know I saw Bella a couple of times since then. We went to see Pirates last Saturday. I thought it was good, but not as good as the first. Caleb and Lauri were here, and then Preacher Bro and wife came to get them, and so we visited a bit.

Kathie starts school next week! Where did the summer go? Judging from the stinking heat, it's still here.

Hey, it's been over a year since I was laid off. Amazing how different things are now. God was certainly working things out, huh? I'm glad I didn't get in His way.

Almost Bella Time

Oh yeah. Happiness washes over me like the surf did on C and L. I'm heading over to Bellaland.



I need to come up with some new ideas for photo manipulation. Whatcha think?

The Perils of Traveling Non-Revenue

We're back! Did you miss us? Well, we traveled to Big D to see Kathie's mom in the hospital. She seems to not have been eating well or enough, probably due to the pain from her cancer treatments. So, her blood sugars got messed up and they couldn't control them remotely. She is looking better already than she did when we first arrived on Saturday.

Anyway, we got to Dallas on Friday and drove in Alison's car down to Corsicana on Saturday morning. She came with us and we had a good visit with Pa and Grandma and Jim. We drove back to Arlington and had dinner with James and Ali that night. We tried to go see either Pirates or Prada, but everything at this theater was sold out. So, we watched Big Momma's House at their apartment. Our flight was Sunday at noon. Well, our *scheduled* flight. It was sold out. We waited on every flight until the last at 9pm. No deal. OK, I called to rescheduled for Monday. No deal. Everything was oversold. What about Tuesday? We got on the 6am flight! Since we were stuck in Dallas, we drove back down to Corsicana on Monday and had a nice vist with the Hagles. Please continue to pray for Kathie's mom. The family has some decisions about ongoing care to make, too.

Sorry we had no time for Walker and crew. Hopefully, we can catch y'all next time. I want to see Lindsay's tattoo, also.

I have just learned some shocking news. More photo censoring has occurred. Yup, Stumpy was excised from a photo at Rick's house. Luckily, I found the original. Take a look.

Where's Bella 2

OK, I give up. No more reading blogs until I get a Bella fix. Have a Happy Fourth!

Where's Bella

I have not seen my granddaughter in almost a week. I miss her greatly. In fact, I feel like I am seeing her everywhere. I just got through checking everyone's blog for updates and they all made me think of her.











Hopefully, I will see her today and things can get back to normal.

Superman Returned

Superman returned to the movie screens this past week. We decided to take a chance that we could see it on Saturday morning. We could, so we did. In fact, the theater was less than half full (or was it half empty?).

It was good. There were only a few blantantly obvious digital effects. And it wasn't too chick-flick-ish. For me, however, Lex Luthor was the scene stealer. Spacey is a better bad guy that Gene Hackman was in the original. Maybe not quite as funny, but more cerebral.

I'm ready for Pirates next weekend, but we may have to wait a week if we are in TX. And we still have Prada to see, also. And the next weekend is Lady in the Water, the new Shyamalan film. Miami Vice opens the following weekend. And then Talladega Nights.

How do I know all these things? Well, I am not as smart as Lex Luthor, so I looked in up on www.comingsoon.net.

The Truth Rick Tried to Hide

As you can see, somehow Rick retouched the photo when Walker was standing on his hand and edited Kathie and I out! The real picture is shown above, and is even MORE amazing than his little parlor trick.