so... on the way home daycare today I-Man once again floated out that he wanted to ride the bus to school when it starts 4 months from now in this strange school district. We live less than a minute from the school yet they fail to understand that by the time they wait for a bus, then ride the bus to school, they could have driven by car there and back 25 times... but what do I know... i just rode a school bus for 10 of 12 grades even though...EVEN THOUGH... my mother and grandmother both drove either right past the school or taught at the same school. A few years have past and the details are fuzzy..but how is it I rode a bus an hour to a school that took only 15 minutes to get to by car... a car that my grandmother who was teaching AT THE SAME SCHOOL used? I think about this and just simply shake my head....

at any rate, Santa has confirmed to me that he is 90 percent DONE with toy creation for Xmas this year, extrapolating requests based on careful questions by me, since I have developed a somewhat close relationship with Mr. Claus over the past 7 years. Santa tells me he is confident that he will be spot on when the official lists get to him come November. in similar news, I am pretty much finished with Christmas, except for a family gift when we draw names ( if we still do that... that seems to be in limbo... might have to figure that out on Labor Day.) and Jessica wants me to do something with a ring. That will be a late Fall endeavor...

by the way, it seems charter changed their lineup with out any sorta notice... get home and all of sudden none of the channels ae in the same place. At least they added a couple of more HD channels... FOXNEWS is in HD, which while it is good isnt extremely necessary. Funny that they didnt give us MSNBC in HD. Guess that shows where the demand is with that one, And... SPEEDCHANNEL is in HD. Slowly but surely charter might give me reason to drop my lingering thoughts of putting a dish up on the roof... also some Smithsonian Channel in HD that seems fairly interesting...

As I said before, the Frat got off to a halting start but got a couple of issues resolved fairly quickly. I have big hopes this year for the chapter and I think that they are poised to recruit big numbers as well as renew emphasis on Service. I am hoping to direct the chapter to focus on a few key points this year instead of trying to spread themselves thin with too much stuff.

...did I mention that a put a quote on Facebook from Animal House about the Germans Bombing Pearl Harbor and I had one of the Actives correct me and tell me it was the Japanese? When I asked her if she had ever seen the movie, she hadn't. THAT was an eye opener...