Well the summer is winding down and the Big blockbuster movies are just about done. This week the Olympics are in full force. And we will be getting to the US political conventions very soon.

I can’t think of thing there that I want to put in my blog. I may review a movie or two, but I don’t see any coming out that warrant a review. I’m not at all sure about the animated Star Wars film. I think Star Wars is a but played out. I have a daughter who is really into Star Wars, so I’ll let her handle that review if she wants to.

The movies I’ve seen that may get a future review are few. I had fun in the 3rd Mummy movie, as long as I kept it in my head that it wasn’t the first two. There were some funny parts, but I don’t think of it as a continuation of the series.

Politics… Not in this blog thank you very much. The only political statement I’ll make is that we are subject to a campaign season that is way too long.

Olympics — Well Tiger Woods isn’t in it so it can’t be worth watching.. No wait that’s the PGA.. Anyway, no blogs on the Olympics either.

My favorite team looks to be done for the season, so I won’t be blogging about baseball much. There are some bigger fans of teams that are doing well, so I won’t have to.

NFL — Nah, don’t see it,unless it is the Bears game at C and L’s.. Great fun watching games there.

Maybe as the mosquitoes die off, I can get my telescopes out again. Way to many bugs in the evening to have much fun watching stars. When they can bite through the mosquito suit, there are too many of them.

Oh well, I’ll just watch for strange and unusual news, that may be enough to keep this going. And School is starting and my youngest will be in her High School’s show choir. That should be fun. I’m going to let my daughter blog about her own wedding plans, unless it affects me to a greater degree.

Maybe I will have things to write about. We will see, what we will see.

I tend to scan the web for amusing stories and things that are a bit out of the ordinary. Apparently, it is getting tough in the 100 acre woods. Seems thatWinnie the Pooh was charged with robbery.

Now I know there is a site for stupid criminals, and I think the guys in this story should be in it. Don’t go robbing people in a very easy to identify costume. Sounds to me like a rash act, but I would expect to be stared at if I was dress as a Pooh Bear. Next question, will Disney sue?

I never thought Winnie the Pooh would have been the one to lead a life of crime. I always thought that Owl or Eeyore had the personalities for this. Unless of course the Stuffed with Fluff is all a ruse.

All this reminds me of the gloomy little gray donkey, Eeyore. He was always my wife’s favorite Pooh Character. I really enjoyed giving him ‘voice’ when I read the Pooh stories to my girls. Not sure I ever got totally gloomy, but I tried, and the girls seemed to like it.

In the State of Utah, a rock arch in Utah’s Arches National Park collapsed. Now I never have been to the state of Utah, and therefor have never been to this park. From pictures I have seen, it looks like a place I would like to visit. The pictures made me think of one of my favorite places that I’ve ever been is in South East Ohio. A wonderful State Park area called Hocking Hills. As a family we’ve had many great vacations there.

The story of the collapsing arch, made me remember the rock falls around the hiking trails of Hocking Hills. Going back time after time, you can see how the rock falls change the area. Trails are closed or rerouted and each trip can be different than the last.

The thing is that even with this arch fall, people didn’t see it happen. With all the times at Hocking, I never saw a rock fall but have seen the results. I know people do occasionally see them, most of the time they fall unnoticed. I would like to talk to someone who saw a large rock fall.

One thing I just thought about was the fact that these rock falls occur quite often, but people will go right to the edge of the cliffs, even if they don’t know what is or what isn’t under them. Oh well, I guess if they haven’t seen a rock fall, they don’t know the danger the could be in. And I guess I never saw anyone fall off either.

Last night somebody mentioned something about guys wearing pantyhose. Well, being me, I thought they were talking about Mel Brook’s Men in Tights. Little did I know that it is a new fashion statement for men.

Sometimes enough is enough. Most guys, myself included, have no fashion sense at all. Now people are trying to throw in another accessory for men to wear? I can see it now…. When do we wear our pantyhose? What color is best for my outfit or legs???? I don’t see that happening in NW Ohio anytime soon.

I’ll stick to my kilt thank you very much…..

Yes, this is a picture of me in a kilt on the occasion of my eldest daughter’s wedding. It was a wonderful affair, but that kilt was extremely warm on that 80+ degree May day.
The things that fathers will do for their daughters…., but I draw the line at pantyhose…

I’m not one to drink to excess very often, but when I do, I try to make sure I am in secure surroundings. I am one of those who will make sure I have a designated driver, or a place to stay if I will be having more than 1 drink. Even then, I have the drink finished early. It has been more than a few years since I’ve been intoxicated.

Now I come to the point. Seems like a bunch of kids in England found themselves someplace that wasn’t so secure, and they were too drunk to be rescued. I wonder how that story would have been reported here in the states. Would the rescuers have had that option? My guess is that the story would have been reported that “the conditions were just too hazardous to make further rescue attempts”. I don’t think much would have been made about the condition of the teenagers. Too many times have the rescuers been sued in cases just like this.

I really think it may have done those kids a lot of good sitting on a ledge waiting until morning to be taken out. But should someone be billed for the expense of the rescue? I didn’t see anything in the story about this, but I have heard that is happening more often. The rescued party is sometimes charged with the cost of the rescue operation. Hmm, going to have to find a link for that…

Now I fathered my last child when I was early thirties, and I remember being a bit more tired with her than all the rest. Now she did have some special needs being born 8 weeks too early, but even running around after her when she was older seemed to tire me out a bit quicker. I couldn’t imagine trying for more children after my thirties, and I don’t even carry them for 9 months. But I just read about a 110 year old that may have fathered quite a few little ones, after going years with no interest at all. He had a tumor removed and was again interested. Hmmm.

Now I guess I should mention that this 110 year old is a reptile, a tuatara to be exact. While the article headline calls it a lizard, and it looks something like a lizard, it belongs to its own little clan. They also have a life expectancy of around 200 years, so I guess this guy is really just middle age.

I’m going to have to do another internet search soon. This article got me wondering the latest ages that animals will generally conceive. I don’t want to know the rare oldest mothers/fathers, I more interested in the age of general last conception, and what percent this is of the normal life span. People are now normally having babies into their 40’s, and with the life expectancy somewhere in the late 70’s, this makes people clock in at conception at about 50% of the life expectancy. The tuatara, if the article is acurate, has a higher percentage. Not enough information to get a specific number, but it looks like it may be over 50% of life expectancy. Hmm.. I’ll need to keep digging.

The newest Batman movie
The Dark Knight has been breaking all kinds of earning records. The powers of the movie industry do not think that Batman will break the current $ record held by Titanic, a movie I never saw by the way (the boat sinks), but it has a good chance of catching up to the Original Star Wars movie.

But I did some searching, and found out that adjusted for inflation, The Dark Knight is currently in 58th place. The #1 show is Gone with the Wind. #2 is Star Wars.

Just some cool things I found out at Box Office Mojo. If your interested in box office takes at all, this is one very interesting site. They had breakdowns on the days of the week, time of the year and movie ratings. I may spend a little more time there looking for trivial information. (That may help in some games!!)

A dangerous pastime. I know…

My daughters would be able to tell you the whos, whats, whys and whens of the beginning words of this blog. Something we do quite often is quote movies that fit the situation we are in. It is amazing the number of really good movie quotes you can fit into a daily conversation.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking. It could be a good way to get me in trouble, or just a good way to keep me up all night. Actually I fell asleep much earlier this evening while reading a book. I guess the house was just too quiet. I had to get up to make sure my alarm was set for the morning, so here I am wide awake.

I’ve been thinking about this coming year. My youngest will be graduating High School. Sometimes it seems like yesterday I was meeting her when she got off the Kindergarten bus. So very many things have happened since then. Graduations, marriages, deaths, births, have happened. I guess life has happened. Not always what we like, but it is what we get.

Both daughters have been out of the house this week. The youngest left Sunday afternoon, and the older left early Monday morning. So I have had time to think. Many things have entered this head of mine and I am ruminating on them even as I write this. Maybe more thoughts will form, while others fade away. I’m never sure on this.

Good night..

At one time most people thought of clowns as those funny guys who somehow emerged by groups from very little cars at circuses. I realize that some small children were scared of the wild antics of clowns at circuses. This probably was the driving force of the dark turn that clowns took in movies. The latest clown prince was of course Heath Ledger’s “Joker” in “The Dark Knight”. But to keep your interest in clowns going, here is EW’s list of 18 TV/Movie Clowns.

I remember Bozo from my youth.  One not listed was a local clown, I remember seeing him as a kid in his clown suit and in normal person form.  He would always take time to talk to me in his clown voice, and he always had balloons to make balloon animals.  His clown name was Quacky the Clown.  I found a site listing for the for Quacky and a picture at the bottom of this page, but I don’t think it would be the same Quacky from my youth.

The private sector has been in the space race for a few years now. The prize for the first commercial, non-governmental vehicle that made it to space was awarded. And now they are getting ready to unveil the start of the next phase, paid passengers. Virgin Galactic will be unveiling the first half of their attempt for commercial traffic in space. The well named Mothership will be displayed by the company that developed it.

Right now the price for a 5 minute space ride is well out of my budget, but this is hopefully the first step to more and less expensive rides into space. My wife’s great grandmother lived to be 104 years old. She was around (and remembered) when automobiles started to take over the roads, she was around for the first airplanes. She couldn’t afford to ride a plane when passenger travel was first introduced, but when she was in her nineties, she was able to buy a ticket and enter a plane, travel to California to see her sister. Maybe when I am in my nineties, I’ll be able to do something like that and travel in space. I hope it is sooner.