Y is for... Y.M.C.A.

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Last winter, my nephew had a school production titled "On the Radio" where they worked through several decades worth of songs. When they did the 1970s, they included the Village People song Y.M.C.A. Of course, the students made everyone get up and dance with them.

My camera was still really new to me, so I was experimenting a lot with shooting in the gymnasium's available light. I wasn't so pleased with the individual shots I got, so I made this collage. My nephew is the dark-haired boy on the left in all the shots.

The song evokes a distinct memory for me. I clearly remember the Father's Day when my cousins gave my grandfather the 45 version of this song. As we played it on the living room record player, my cousins and uncle thought it was hilarious, but my grandfather didn't seem to get it. I think the 45 wound up in the 45 collection that my sister and I kept (and I still have).

Why did they give him a copy of the song? My grandfather, Noel Hughes, made his career with the YMCA, working for the Y in Evanston, Ill. In fact, the YMCA was the very reason he moved to the United States, as he came to study at George Williams College, which was run by the YMCA.

My great-grandfather, George W. W. B. Hughes, also had his career with the YMCA in New Zealand and Australia, rising to the position of general secretary, and earning recognition for his work with soldiers during World War I.

Oh, I didn't participate in ABC Wednesday last week, so I'm posting my X entry below. It's a literal take on "X", showing the cross supports of a foot bridge in Naperville, IL.

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I'm participating in ABC Wednesday today with the letter Y.
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Setup for a fall

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On Thanksgiving, my nephews amused themselves by playing lots of dominoes. We played the traditional way of matching the dots on the tiles, and we played the really fun way of setting up a chain reaction domino fall, which made a big noise on the glass coffee table.

Here, my nephew has a chain reaction set to go. You can see his hand hovering in the background getting ready to start the action.

I'm participating in Ruby Tuesday today.
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Wordless Wednesday: Cannon Fodder

I'm participating in Wordless Wednesday today.
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Random ramblings ~ Just because I can

Happy Birthday, Big Sis! I hope you're not working too hard today.

Lots of birthdays happening in this two-week stretch. Brother-in-law, nephew Drake, Marriott, Kyle. We're hosting a 40th-birthday party for Kyle tomorrow night. Tying it in with The Guess Who performing at one of the local summer festivals.

Went to a Jack Johnson concert last weekend at Alpine Valley in Wisconsin. Remember that place? It's where Stevie Ray Vaughan's helicopter crashed back in 1990.

Never going back to Alpine Valley for a concert. Two hour drive, and the most unholy system of getting people out of there. Took over an hour to exit, most of which was spent in total bash-your-head-repeatedly-against-the-dashboard gridlock. Didn't get home until 3 a.m.

The show itself was good, though. I'm not the big Jack Johnson fan in the family, but I enjoyed his performance.

Driving up to Milwaukee Summerfest this afternoon. We have tickets to see Rush tonight. I've lost count of the number of times I've seen Rush over the years. Probably about 10 times since Power Windows came out back in the late '80s. Hmm. I think I have that Power Windows T-shirt still. I might wear it.

There's a comic book convention in town. I passed the Green Lantern on the way to work. Nice costume.

I've been really busy at work this week, wrapping up a test plan. Writing test plans is my least favorite part of my job. Thankfully, that's over now -- until next time.

Had some lumps checked out on both dogs. Since Loki had a mast-cell tumor removed last fall, we've been really careful about having the vet look at anything suspicious. He told us that everything looks benign. Whew.

Ted Nugent and Joan Jett are both playing Naperville Rib Fest next weekend. I think we're in for both of them.

Not doing so well reaching my writing goals. Sunday will be my first opening in the itinierary to sit down at the computer. Pencil me in.

Guitar Hero Aerosmith comes out Sunday. Picking up a copy for myself and as a gift for my nephew. It'll be good to have some new songs to work on. Maybe I'll master the hard difficulty level yet. Really want Rock Band for the Wii, but can't justify the expense right now.

I've been listening to an audio course on the History of the English Language. Really enjoying it. Did you know your body is your bonelocker? And your mind is your wordhoard? To unlock your wordhoard is to speak. There were some fun words in Old English.

So I conducted this poll on preferences in reading. The poll is closed. Not sure what I'm going to do with the results yet.

I've been looking at my site stats again. Surprised at the number of people looking for photos of Lindsay Wagner. People with a lot of celebrity news must get a lot of Google hits. I'm intrigued, through, at the person who was searching "demonstration speech on how to stack a dog". How do you stack a dog? Why would you stack a dog?

Finally got new sofa cushions installed on our sofa. A certain dog managed to vomit on one of the cushions three months ago. It soaked into the core and could not be cleaned. Fortunately, we had bought the upholstery protection, so the cushions were covered. Oh, the joys of dog ownership. :)

And now to totally bring things down...

Good friends (the Hillies) had a fire at their townhouse last night. Their grill started it. Everyone, even the cats, got out OK, but there's lots of damage. Like total loss between the smoke and the water damage. Husband's with them this morning helping where he can. That's all I know for now.

A garage sale tale

Almost every year my mother, my sister and I get together for a garage sale. We've been doing this for many years.

This time, there were four families contributing toward the sale, with my Mom's cousins joining in. All told, we made about $450 for two days of work last weekend. My take was about $90, which is actually a bigger percentage of the earnings than usual.

Usually, when I bring home my meager earnings, my husband will wonder why we even bother, because it's surely not worth the money for the time we put into it. But lately, he's caught on that there are many reasons why we hold our annual garage sale, and money is only a small one.

Recycling

To me, it's recycling at its most satisfying. Not only do I have a reason and a deadline for sorting through my closets and such, but I also get the satisfaction of seeing my treasured junk find its way into the hands of someone who wants and/or needs it.

This year there was the family buying up kids clothes for their grandson who was coming for a long visit, but his mother never sends along enough clothes.

There was the single father setting up a new home who needed a kitchen table.

There was the young couple with the cute little girl who snatched up the window air-conditioning unit. They had me stretching my memory for the right words to assure them in Spanish that yes, indeed, it did work. I managed to come up with trabajar. I couldn't conjugate it, but it got the message across.

And there was the lady who liked the three wavy-shaped glass jars as much as I did and was willing to pay 75 cents for them. Hopefully, she'll find a better use for them than I did (see Wordless Wednesday: Trapped, but without the Beanie Babies).

Truthfully, we practically gave our stuff away. I wrote out a lot of price tags at 50 cents, $1 and $2, and was happy to be haggled down. Even though there were a couple large-ticket items that sold, there were hundreds of small things that found new homes during those two days. In the end, what didn't sell was boxed up and donated to charity.

Socializing

But then there's also the social aspect of the garage sale. It's an excuse to sit around with my mother and sister all day. We talked a lot, but we also kept busy with the business-related tasks.

We also got to see many of my Mom's neighbors. My Mom has lived in the house for 30 years, so I remember many from my own childhood in the house, or I've heard my Mom talk about them.

The people watching was pretty fascinating, too. People of all different ages, ethnicities and financial situations came through. They didn't necessarily need what we were offering, but they were curious to see what we had.

One of the best things this year, though, was seeing my nephews get into the experience. My 8-year-old nephew, Louis, ran a lemonade stand. He didn't do great business, but he was diligent about trying to sell. My almost-12-year-old nephew, Drake, manned the our bank and worked as our cashier. He was a dedicated worker both days, and a lot of the customers got a kick out of watching him take the job so seriously.

One of the my favorite memories of the weekend was watching Drake and my sister count and recount the money and tally the books at the end of the sale. There was a lot of high finance going on there as we tried to figure out how much each of us made. Which, of course, left me free to take photos. :)

Things I've discovered this week

All 5th- and 6th-grade girls have long hair
It's not a scientific sampling, mind you. But, when I went to my nephew's school production the other night, I noticed this trend. Of at least 150 students in 5th and 6th grades, half being girls, I only noticed *one* girl with short hair. One.

Footloose represents the entire decade of '80s music
Yellow Submarine represents the '60s, the Hustle and Y-M-C-A represent the '70s, and Achy Breaky Heart sums up the entire '90s. At least they did at my nephew's school production of "On the Radio", about music through the 20th century. Granted, it's an elementary school production, and these songs have a distinct visual element that's fun for families, but it still disturbs me. Did I mention how much I enjoyed my nephew's performance?

Playing is more fun than working
Duh. Everyone knows that. But I mean it more in the sense that sometimes I'd rather spend hours manipulating my photos than connecting three sentences together in an effort to write. How's my novel coming? Don't ask. But look what I made.

I can't sleep late any more
I was thrilled to have Monday off for President's Day. I didn't have to get up for work, and I didn't have to get up to go to my workout class. A true day off. Except, I woke up at the same time and couldn't get back to sleep. Bah.

BlogCatalog
I signed up with BlogCatalog. It's kind of social networking for bloggers, and a good place to browse blogs. Haven't played around with all that much yet.

BlogRush
I also signed up with BlogRush, which is a syndication service for bloggers. There's a widget in my right column that shows headlines from five other blogs. Somewhere out in the blogosphere, a headline of mine appears on someone's widget. Hopefully, someone or two will click through and find this post.

Mosquito Ringtone
I'm not buying this ringtone. It's just that I've been reading about the mosquito on news articles online, and was intrigued to actually get to hear it. The mosquito is a high-frequency noise that most adults can't hear because we lose that frequency as we age. It was developed as a tool to deter teens from loitering outside businesses. So, on the ringtone site above, they have samples of the mosquito played at different frequencies. I can still hear the mosquito at the 40 and younger frequency, which is good, because I'm still under 40.

Australia - Day 12 - Ayer's Rock

Dave and I overslept and missed our morning tour and 9-kilometer hike around the base of Uluru. I was disappointed that we wasted the money and missed out on an opportunity to be active, but the upside was that we didn't have to freeze in the desert darkness again and we had a much-needed leisurely morning.

After breakfast, we checked out of our room, put our bags in storage, and hopped a shuttle bus over to the Aboriginal Cultural Center near Uluru.

We didn't spend long in the educational portions of the center, since they were all open air and we were cold. We spent much longer in the Aboriginal art galleries and stores, since they were heated. Strangely, we didn't see a single person of Aboriginal decent anywhere in the center. And for cultural reasons, photography was strictly prohibited.

On the upside, we ran into Mom, Heather, Jeff and the boys there when their tour group stopped to look around. They'd taken a sunrise/breakfast interpretative excursion, which they all said was great -- but they'd frozen their butts off.

From the cultural center, Dave and I decided to take the half-mile or so hike to the base of the Uluru climbing area, which is the only part of the rock that looks remotely climbable, and it has a chain rope to hold on to on the way up.



The problem with looking at photos of Uluru is that you have no basis of comparison for understanding the size of the rock. Because it's out in the middle of nowhere, with total flat land around it, the photos don't make it look that big. (To get an idea of how flat it is, see the panorama above that I stitched together from eight photos I took yesterday.) Well, it's big -- 348 meters (1,142 feet) high according to Wikipedia. (By comparison, Wikipedia puts the Sears Tower at 442 meters [1450 feet] tall at the roof, and the Sydney Harbour Bridge at 134 metres [429.6 feet] tall. My own knowledge puts the Sears Tower at about 110 stories tall and I've heard that the Sydney Harbour Bridge is about 40 stories tall.)

The confusing thing about Uluru is the contradictions coming from official sources regarding climbing the rock. First, the literature tells you to respect the Aboriginals' wishes and spiritual beliefs and not climb, but that's followed up with instructions on how to climb and safety precautions to keep in mind.

Well, I respect the Aboriginal beliefs, but I wanted to climb Uluru this visit as sort of a debt of honor to myself.

Twenty years ago, I attempted to climb Uluru. I think I made it about half way up the steep slope, then I stopped to rest. My cousins went on ahead. As I sat there, I over-thought the danger of the climb and listened as everyone else resting near me expressed their fears. I thought about all the people who'd died climbing the rock (there was a plaque at the base listing dozens of names). After a long while, I ended up talking myself out of the climb and scooted down the rock.

It's bothered me for years that I didn't finish the climb. This trip, I'd hoped to have the opportunity to get that failure off my back.

But, the decision was taken out of my hands, as the climb was closed both days because of strong winds at the summit of the rock. (A convenient exaggeration to keep the climb closed? my husband might argue.) Regardless, the decision was taken out of my hands. I guess I'll have to continue to live with myself. :)

Instead of climbing, we poked around the base of the climbing area, taking photos, until the shuttle bus arrived to bring us back to the resort.

This is where I go into an aside about red dust. We had it everywhere. In our shoes. In our socks. And for those who did the morning excursion to watch the sunrise, in other places, too, I'm willing to guess. I was lucky, because it wiped off my leather gym shoes just fine. Jeff ended up throwing away his shoes in the hotel lobby, figuring they were old, he wouldn't need them any more this trip, and he had a replacement pair waiting for him at home.

After what felt like a really long wait, the shuttle bus showed up to take us to the airport. We crossed all our fingers that the bags would make the airline's weight allowance (since we'd acquired more stuff) and we got on our Quantas-link flight for Cairns on the Great Barrier Reef. Finally. Some warm weather ahead in the tropics.

In the Cairns airport, we were met by the transport service and taken to our beach front apartment in Trinity Beach, which is a beach town north of Cairns.

We were greeted by the proprietors of the Meridien, Ian and Barb, and their animal ambassadors Charlie the dog and Midnight the cat, and shown our three bedroom apartment. It was perfect. Warm weather. Our own kitchen. Cable and wireless internet. The beach a short walk out the patio door. And warm weather.

For dinner, restaurants were only a short block or two away. My nephew "Drake" expressed fears that we'd have another dinner fiasco, but we quickly found an outdoor table (yes, it was warm enough to eat outside!) at an Italian restaurant and sent a contingent off to the bottle shop to buy our wine.

Then it was back to the apartment to vegetate in front of the television and watch "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban".

The vacation preparation frenzy

The past several days have been busy as we've scrambled to get ready for vacation.

There was "Drake's" birthday on Friday night, Heather's birthday party on Saturday night, and double barbecues for family and friends on Sunday - the first because Dave's Dad was in town visiting, and the second just because we could.

We've had to-do lists to finish, laundry and packing, not to mention work to wrap-up. In fact, I'm still wrapping up work, and our flight departs in 12 hours. Even if I were in bed right now, I'm sure last-minute to-do lists would still be scrambling through my brain.

Isn't that usually the way vacations start?

Summer celebrations

Lots of birthdays to celebrate again.

Happy Birthday Heather, "Drake", Eddie, Kyle, Tommy, "Marriott" -- all within a two-week span, and to Peyton, who celebrated earlier this month.

It's Heather's 40th. I'd taunt her, but that sets a bad precedent for when it's my turn.

The Super Flying Screaming Monkey vs. Godzilla

Have you ever seen or heard a Super Flying Screaming Monkey? It's a stuffed monkey wearing a super hero cape and mask who has a sling shot for arms. When you shoot him across the room, he lets out an ear-piercing scream. Extremely hilarous the first few times. Annoying as all get-out every time after that.

In April, my sister sent me this story that my then-first-grade nephew "Louis" wrote and my other nephew "Drake" typed in.

The Super Flying Screaming Monkey vs. Godzilla


Once there lived the Super Flying Screaming Monkey. He is annoying because he screams in everyone’s face.

One day, he looked outside and saw … Godzilla! Godzilla was terrorizing the city! So he said “This looks like a job for … The Super Flying Screaming Monkey!” He puts on his helmet and cape and dashes out the door. Then he flies through the air and hits Godzilla in the face. After that the monkey starts screaming. Godzilla couldn’t stand the ruckus, so he fled from the city, cupping his hands over his ears. Godzilla was never to be heard from again. The Super Flying Screaming Monkey saves the day!

Maybe "Louis" realized it and maybe he didn't, but when you put the King of Monsters in a story and make him lose, that will get a reaction from the uber-Godzilla fan in the family.

So, on a trip to the mall, we purchased a few Super Flying Screaming Monkeys and that uber-Godzilla fan set to work on the sequel ...