v 7.8 - Extreme

Morning folks,

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Happy Thursday morning to you all. I''m looking forward to tomorrow being over already. :)

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Last night Katie and I were watching some TV after an evening of packing and cleaning. Most of the time we just sit down and fire up the Gameshow Network and watch "Who wants to be a Millionaire". During one of the commercial breaks there was an ad for Extreme Dodgeball. I''ve watched Extreme Dodgeball a number of times but I don''t think Katie has really paid much attention to it; until last night. She made a comment about how people will make game shows out of pretty much anything. Then she came up with a fantastic idea for a new game show.

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EXTREME JACKS!

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Basically, the same rules to Jacks would apply, except you would have this HUGE ball (maybe 4-5 feet high) and you would need maybe 2 people to bounce this big ball into the air and push as many of these huge jacks into specific areas. The team who could get the most Jacks without getting crushed by the massive ball would win.

I''m sure you could spice that game up a bit, but that is the basics of the idea. ;)

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Right now we are in super packing mode at home. We''ve gone through quite a few of the areas in our basement and main floor and have started packing up most of our stuff that we don''t use on a regular basis. I think I packed a good dozen boxes myself last night and I went through ALL my old computer related crap. Let me start off by saying I''m a pack rat. I had all kinds of stuff down there and most of it related to some computer somewhere. Hell, I even had an old Pentium 133 processor sitting at the bottom of one of the boxes (all pins intact). I spent a lot of time trying to sort cables and such. I ended up keeping a couple power cords, a couple network cords and threw away everything else. Out of my huge box of computer gear I had, I ended up filling one small box with keepers and 3 boxes to throw away and I still have another box of computer crap to go through.

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VHS tapes. I think we have a couple hundred of them scattered throughout the house. I remember back when Katie and I first met. There was this little bookstore across the bridge from our apartment called "The Wee Book Inn". They sold movies there as well (kind of a second hand book store). You could walk away with 3 VHS tapes for $20. Almost every evening, a couple friends and I would go down there for coffee. On our way home we would stop off at this book store and I would always pick up 3 new movies for us to watch; it was great!

Now, I have 2 VCRs (on in our bedroom and one in my son''s bedroom) and hundreds of these movies that I no longer watch. On the odd occasion I''ll throw an old movie in like "Rounders" and watch it before I goto sleep. My origional goal was to keep them and make a movie collection I could display. Unfortunately, my kids found my boxes of movies and now most of them are missing their covers and some have been disected in some evil child experiement.

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How to destroy a VHS tape in 1 minute.

What you need:

2 children
1 blunt object (toy or rock or something)
1 VHS tape

Place the VHS tape in the middle of a room with a blunt object beside it. Open the door and allow the children to play in the room for 1 minute. After a minute has expired, promptly open the door and check on the status of the VHS tape. I can almost guarantee that tape will either be:

a) have all the tape pulled out.
b) smashed into a thousand pieces.
c) the children somehow crafted a TV and VCR out of the blunt object and are watching the VHS.

Either way, I think you will find this a fun experiement. :)

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I must admit, packing has been a great cleansing experience. Katie and I have had boxes in our basement that have been there since we moved from our last place. We were going through some of these old boxes and we have found a lot of things we had totally forgot we had. We''ve found old pictures, toys, our son''s baby clothes and a ton of other stuff. Most we have thrown away or are donating, the rest is getting repacked and labeled for the big move.

I hate moving, but I think if we do this one right, it should be a pleasureable experience and fairly quick. We have designated the hallway on the mail floor and the front doorway area as storage for all these boxes. When the day of moving comes, I don''t want to have to walk up or down too many steps in order to get stuff. All the boxes on the main floor will help when moving as we usually load those in last. After moving 2 couches, chairs, tables, desks, 1 King sized bed, 2 single beds and dressers, shelves, etc. Last thing I want to do is go up or down stairs to get boxes of books and other various things. I was this move to be quick, painless and as enjoyable experience as moving can be. :)

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Anyway folks, I''m Prarie Dogging here so I need to run (fast). Hope you all have a great day and we''ll see you here tomorrow.

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Cheers,

Al