Personal type stuff
The five photos below are of
three teenagers from Japan who shared our home for 12 days in the
summer of 2008, as part of a Home Stay program between our city of Des
Moines, and the Japanese Sister City of Kofu. These guys weren't
like the average teenager, and were even described as "elite" students
by an administrator from their school district. They were
respectful, polite, mature for their age, yet still playful and fun
loving. In the far left photo below are Kengo (possible future
leader of Japan), Shinya (future computer systems engineer), Hajime
(future scientist),
and our kid Keegan (future teenager). I managed to call each of
them by the wrong
name once, but only once. The second image shows the guys helping
with chores, the middle picture is of Hajime during a badminton match
in our backyard, while the fourth shows Shinya shooting batting
practice at
Kengo in the right image. All three boys liked eating
everything
from our American fast food hamburgers to, interestingly enough,
Brussel's
sprouts. Due to our small home they slept in the basement, but
didn't seem to mind.
|
| The following photos are from
Christmastime in 2007, our slightly skewed idea of Art, kid and
Trish on an average evening out, Trish at Dr. Evermore's place in
Wisconsin, and finally a Jan 2006
trip to Hawaii. |
Next are a few photos of a piece
of Wisconsin we purchased, and will someday build our retirement
mansion upon. It's roughly 2.3 acres in size, sits on a bit of a
slope, and is situated roughly 4 miles as the buzzard flies NE of
DeSoto, Wisconsin. DeSoto resides a few hundred feet from the
Mississippi River and consists of a high school, two churches, one gas
station, and of course, four taverns of assorted quality. This is
Wisconsin, thus the normal ratio of one tavern for every 35
residents. 35 is the number of trees we've planted, mostly
coniferous with a few birches, willows and maples, ranging from 2 to 10
feet in height. The house on the far right is a neighbor roughly
1/2 mile away. Yes indeed folks, this is an interesting area.
|
Below are a few shots taken at Randy Hundley's Chicago Cubs Fantasy
Camp, which I attended early in 2002. 80 of us fans trekked to
Arizona,
were divided into 8 teams, coached by ex-big league Cubs, and proceded
to play baseball against each other on the Cubs spring training fields
for one week. Oddly enough, my team finished with a 9-1 record to
take first place! Our team was coached by past Cubs pitcher and
General
Manager Ed Lynch, and the very successful pitcher Big
Daddy Rick Reuschel . Over the 10 games I batted .561 with 5
doubles and 2 triples. No homers, although I did hit a fly ball
which
landed on the warning track 340 feet away. A pitching machine was
used in place of a human pitcher for all teams, and its speed varied
from
60 mph in the early games to 80 mph in the final ones. http://www.cubsfantasycamp.com/
Below, on the far right, is the Missus, again. Trish and I got
married in July 2003. Notice the resemblance to some famous
actresses
if you were to blend their features together. Amanda Peet, Kelly
McGillis, and Linda Hamilton are shown for comparison.
Click
here
for a picture of what happens when you stick your thumb into a
running
tablesaw blade.
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