Sunday afternoon, I took my 4 year old niece to watch our theatre’s annual Children’s Workshop and its presentation of The Phantom Tollbooth (or if you prefer, Toolbooth). It was throughly delightful. The performers ranged in age from 7-17. Although the older cast members showed more seasoning (no… not cooking… meaning experience), the younger thespians were adorable. I particularly enjoyed the two young ladies who played the imprisoned princesses. At times, I thought they came straight out ofThe Shining as the Grady twins who torment little Danny at the end of the hallway. Only the princesses were far less threatening and much more enchanting. I also liked the use of the Giant Roadmap/Storybook and the turning of its pages as the three travelers made their way to the Castle in the Sky. OH, yes… I did recognize the theme from Driving Miss Daisy which accompanied Milo, Tock, and the Humbug on their journey.  As for my companion, she liked it a lot and could not stop talking about it even after we returned to grandma’s house.

I was just doing a little late night surfing and found this in the “Odd News section”. Seems like fighting beetles is a big thing.

After you see the video can you imagine the size of those beetles? According to Wikipedia, the Rhinoceros Beetle are among the largest beetles in the world. I don’t think I want to see something that big crawling around in my house.

I’m not sure I like the idea of beetle fights, but then again we still have one or two frog jumping contests in the US. Probably much the same.

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.

When I sign in to my google account, on igoogle they ave a neat little gadget that gives you links to 1 or more wikiHow articles. Today’s was how to separate an Egg. Very informative article on this somewhat delicate procedure. Now a few years ago I wrote a little post on how to crack eggs one handed. I can’t recall were I put it so I will have to enter it by memory — This is a slightly humorous post, and it may or may not be funny to you. So now that the disclaimer is out of the way, on to breaking eggs one handed.

We’ve all seen in the cooking shows, on movies, or TV where someone is making eggs and cracking them, dropping the egg in the bowl, or skillet and then discarding the egg shell. I’ve tried this many times only to discover that the eggshell is calmly sinking in my bowl of eggs. these could be large pieces of egg shell, or the smaller bits that you only find when eating the finished product. So I always thought that there should be some sort of lessons on the art of cracking the egg 1 handed.

So here goes.

1) It all starts with the egg. Make sure that the egg fits your hand comfortably. If you have small hands, you don’t want to try cracking the Grade A super-duper large eggs with one hand. This will just make a mess. You should grip the small end of the egg with your index and middle finger. Use both, you don’t want to give the egg the finger do you? Grasp the larger end of the egg between your palm and thumb.

2) Make sure your thumb is positioned toward the end of the egg. Give the egg a sharp tap on the side of the bowl you are using to deposit the eggs. You may want to start using a bowl that you will be putting the egg shells in, sometimes this stage will cause shell fragments to drop in the bowl. With practice this is not usually a problem.

3) Pull the egg apart by expanding and slightly straightening out your fingers. Make sure you are holding the egg over the bowl at this point, it may come apart on your first try. If your egg isn’t opening, hit it again.

4) Open the egg just enough to allow the egg to drop through the expanded opening. This allows you to keep a good grip on the egg shell. Do not shake the egg to get everything out until you get comfortable holding the egg in this manner. Shaking the egg shell may cause shell fragments to fly all over the place (take cover when shell fragments are flying).

5) Dispose of empty shell and try it again. Practice, practice practice.

6) What to do with all those eggs? I would suggest in the early stages of your practicing, that you will want to stick with things like egg sandwiches on Melba Toast, Brownies with nuts, Cookies with nuts, Cakes with nuts, and any other egg dish you can think of that also contains explainable crunchies. Can’t be wasting those eggs just because you couldn’t dig out all the shell fragments can you?

Now, the question is, should I post this to wikiHow?

I have found a list of the emoticons used by wordpress.  Check it out:

💡

Say, C, any way we can update these smilies to look like the ones on this page? 

It seems that while I am somewhat of a computer geek, I am somewhat outdated somewhat of an computer geek.  You see, my home network has been a wired network for a long time now.  With this new computer and its wireless capabilities though, it is time to move on.  Plus, my nephew has been complaining about my not having a wireless network- not that it will matter to him soon as he will be off to SIU in a couple of weeks.

So, kind and generous as he is, our admin here donated to me an old router he had laying around, a Linksys type G router.  I let it sit for all of one day 😛 before finally hooking the thing up.  I went through the settings, following the manual as I did so, and thongs seemed to be working, except no internet.  Hmm.  Oh yes, I seem to remember having to turn the cable modem off and back on after several seconds.  Did it, and yes!  Internet.  I was now in the wireless world- for a short while.  After a bit I could no longer access the internet and my computer showed the network as “limited connectivity” or something like that.  Well, the power supply he gave me for it was not the right one, rated at 500mA while the router says it wants 1A.  I read that too low of a current rating may cause flakiness, and the power supply seemed abit warm, so I unplugged it and was going to go to Radio Shack for a universal supply.  However, I dug around first and turned up a few power bricks.  7.5V- no.  14V- not (both AC too, while I needed DC).  12V- yes.  1000mA.  Well, that is one amp, so- double yes!  DC and right size plug- yes, yes, yes!  Plugged it in, connected everything back up to it, and I was good to go again once I power-cyled the modem.

So, I finish a blog entry and click publish.  Can’t connect- aargh!  Tray icon shows limited connection again, and this time I wasn’t even using the wireless, opting for the wired connection instead!  Sigh.  Looks like I may have damaged the router.  I hope not.  I’ll have to do some research,  but once I’m working again I may just have to try another one.  I am now hooked back up to my old router and everything is working again, so here’s my second blog entry for the day.  Two days in a row with two entries?  Definitely not my normal routine.  Don’t worry JustJ, you will bump me to fourth in just a couple days now I’m sure, not that this is a competition.

Well, teaching in Sunday school that is.  Unlike last time I taught a month ago, I felt I did pretty well this time.  I was able to do 1½ lessons this weekend.  The ½ comes from last night, when I taught only half of the lesson.  Why?  Well, there was a shortage of leaders due to many taking the night off for this or that reason.  In fact, one who had off rearranged his schedule so he could be there after all.  Anyway, it was decided that we would spend most of the night with the younger kids (1st-3rd) as a result and not have small groups.  In the end, we did wind up with enough help from last-minute volunteers to do our normal thing, but the wheels were already in motion.  I really don’t think 4th/5th grades got much out of the younger lesson, but fortunately we had time at the end to do the intended lesson, well half of it anyway.  It was an important lesson so we had to fit it in.  I taught them the Romans Road to salvation.  This is a series of four key verses from the book of Romans.  Here’s where I get lazy now and cut-n-paste from another site.  You may notice that there are five verses here (6:23a and 6:23b are one), but Romans 10:13 is covered by 10:9-10 so as a “repeat” it doesn’t count:  😛

Tollbooth.

The current wonderful production by the WCCT children’s workshop, is the Phantom Tollbooth”. Performed entirely by young people between the ages of 7 and 17, this little production is quite charming. While it is the culmination of 1 month of hard work by children and parents alike, the show is not the whole story. The children learn a little bit about the workings of live stage productions (Yes, things go wrong… more on that later) both on and off stage. They get to work at finding some of their own props, costumes. They help build (sometimes) and paint the set. Most of the kids I talked to think it is a great experience and many come out year after year.

They find out, year after year, that sometimes people forget their lines, and someone else needs to do something to help out (Good life advice there too). They find out that sometimes the props they need aren’t there, and they have to improvise something (sometimes this works, other times it doesn’t–sounds like real life again doesn’t it?). The find that sometimes things break, and you have to get along without it for a while (More life lessons..). It looks like in a one month period of time, they learn a lot about the theater, and even more about life. Most of them don’t realize they are learning anything but their lines. Good for them and their futures.

I should have written this sooner, so some of the background readers would have had a chance to see this show. Tomorrow is the last show, and I’m not sure how many seats are left.

I wouldn’t be a father if I didn’t say the best Humbug I ever saw was the one portrayed by my youngest. Not so young anymore, this is her final Childrens’ theater workshop. Now she will have to earn her roles if she decides to stay active in Community Theater.

Yes, death is an interest of mine. Years ago, when I got married, there were many deaths among family and friends. There were so many deaths, my wife and I joked about our marriage ending the same way. Unfortunately, we were correct. Many deaths in a few short years, with hers as the final death in the line. So yes, I have a morbid interest in death.

My interest this evening is Cryonics or the freezing of human or animal bodies with the “possibility” of bringing them back to life.

Why? Currently there is no known reversal method, so why do it now. It costs a lot of money to keep a body/head in a ‘suspended’ state, and there is no and may never be a reversal method. Sound like someone is playing with the emotions of people near death, or their families.

Even if there ever is a reversal process in the next 50 to 100 years, why would anyone want to revive the “dead” people? There are complaints of over population now, do we really want to have an alternative way to put more bodies on the planet. We do well enough now with the usual approach (having babies — explanation for those who weren’t sure what method is used). I can’t see that happening, unless they want something.

How will you fit in? The future will be different than life now, how will you cope? 25 years ago, personal computers were in their infancy. Now just about everyone has one. What changes will occur in the next 25 years? Next 50? Next 100? 200? If you are having trouble with text messaging on a cell phone, or wonder about all these people with things hanging out of their ears, will you be able to cope with things going on around you in the future?

And the real thing I wonder about is what is the ego of a person who wants to be frozen and thawed later. I’m not saying anything about family decisions (later…), but about a persons desire to put off death to be cured at a later date. Is anyone really that important?

And about a family that decides to keep one of their relatives, do they love/need the person so much to try to keep them around, or is it a comfort that just maybe? I could never see doing this for myself or for someone I care about. I think there would be too much anguish on both sides if and/or when the body can be thawed.

And I haven’t even touched on any religious aspects of this. I think that may be the start of a different post. Many things I would have to wrap my mind around for that…

This evening, I had the pleasure of added responsibility at work. Years ago, I closed the store quite frequently (under different management, however) . Tonight, I was given a five minute refresher. Nothing Earth-shattering. Basically, make sure that everything was locked up, put away, doors locked, etc. Of course, the process was aided by the help I had. I would have felt a little insecure with someone who had not known what was expected of them; I just had to make sure that the teenage fellow did what was expected of him (I’ve been there).

During our brief moments of downtime, my co-worker and I discussed one of my favorite subjects. He asked me what my favorite part has been. My normal readers already know what that is. For the sake of one, I will refrain from going into detail (although I was once again able to break into him to the delight of my companion). We then discussed what our favorite musical to watch has been. He saw Wicked in Chicago a few years ago and said it is really awesome. He also mentioned a high school marching band show in which they performed the music of Jesus Christ Superstar (another show I would like to be in). I have to say that my favorite to watch has been Les Miserables. But there are soooo many shows that I would love to see or be in. One such show is the Stephen Sondheim musical Assassins . I suppose I could say that I have been in a small part of it. Back in my days at BGSU during an evening of montages for a musical theatre course, I performed the role of the balladeer in the song “Ballad of Booth” which features John Wilkes Booth following the assassination of President Lincoln.

Wicked Tickets at *** All Venues ***