Elser Family Blog

Get this.

K got a certified letter from Sears yesterday.

She figured it was coupons for when they lost the photos (see the blog from a couple months ago.)

She opens it up, and, it’s notification that a picture of the kids won the grand prize in the Sears Portrait studio Smile Search contest

Can you believe that? 5 grand, a digital camera, a library of children’s books and free photo sessions. I guess the photo will also be used in their national advertising campaign in 2005.

And I got a 150 dollar check for travel to Charleston for jury duty.

Over all, not a bad mail day, I’d say!

This morning, The kids found a spider that had made residence on our porch.

We hear that bangs are coming into vogue… Well, in that case, here is what we think of bangs…

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Sometimes I don’t post because there is a dearth of information.

But this time I haven’t posted because we have been too busy!

Sunday we went to the Circus. (again) Barnum and Bailey came to town, so we went. It was quite a polished show, not as earthy as the other one this year, but quite entertaining. I got some free tickets from work… However, they must think they are going to make all of their money on the klotchkes… They were so expensive!!

A small cotton candy was 6 dollars!! a large was $11!! What the?? The lighting toys were no lower than 15 dollars, and they had a scam going where they advertised special sno-cone cups for 7 to 9 dollars, but they failed to mention that the snocone that goes in them were $3!! So the bill was no lower than $10 for a lousy sno cone.

I had a pocket full of money, and didn’t spend a dime.

At the end, I found a manager and showed him the 100 dollar bill in my pocket and told him I didn’t spend any money, because the prices were beyond reason.

Pictures of the circus to come later…

Sunday afternoon Grandpa Sideikas visited. He rode the sportster from Charleston. The guy has an Iron Butt.

Tuesday, I had to go to Charleston to get kicked off a grand jury (media people just do not get picked to serve on juries.. go figure) So, I took an extra day off work and we went to the beach. We figured we would catch some decent sized waves from the remnanats of hurricane Alex, and we were right! That was quite fun.

(for more of these pictures, check out the cell phone picture page at

elserblog.textamerica.com)

Then, On Wednesday, we had movie night at church again. This time we watched the commercial mouse’s “Dumbo”. It was fun.

Any one recall the mouse’s name?? It was “Thomas T. Mouse”

There really were some adult themes in this movie (As it seems the commercial mouse seems to insist on in just about all of his movies… sheesh.)

Here are the “elephants on parade”, part of the pink elephants that Dumbo and Thomas mouse see when they get Drunk off their butts. Anyone remember where they wake up with a major hangover?? Tell me on the debate page.

Today we went to a local churches luau summer party for the mothers morning out kids. It was quite fun! Here are R and M watching their big sister go down the slide.

And here is a quicktime movie of H going down the slide

Did I forget anything?? hmm. No. Other Than I got a call from Cousin Roy Elser giving me an update on the genealogy search, that is always welcome!

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

We went swimming again today. It’s a good thing to do in the southern summer sun.

Another neat thing about the south is the interesting plants that we didn’t have up north.

How about figs? Man are these things sweet! They look funny but they taste so good. I managed to photograph this one before R gobbled it down…

Here is a picture of M. Is she not the funniest thing you have ever seen? This girl has personality a mile high.

Here is R, I predict he is going to grow up to be a botanist! 🙂

Here are the girls having fun.

Today we ate dinner with Arthur. On the way home H was content to read a book… She REALLY likes to read. I am blessed with smart and interesting children.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

OK, Blog Viewer input being requested.

It occurs to me that Broadcast (over the air) television will probably no longer exist in its current form in 15, perhaps 20 years maximum. I assume that it will be delivered over high speed internet lines (IP) to the home by then. Knowing that, I’m out of a job at the age of 55! yikes! 🙂

Question: How can we leverage this knowledge now? What would you invest in (or even short-sell?) now, if you had the funds to invest? What would you buy? 1500 Foot broadcast towers are out, as there will be a surplus of them in 20 years.

What will be in demand in 20 years because of this seachange?

And on the same vein- Telephone service will no longer exist as we know it in 10 to 15 years. It also will transfer to IP (See

Vonage for the IP based phone service) USAToday says that IP phones will be 50% of all phones by 2009. (see article here)

Knowing that, What would you invest in, (or divest yourself of) to make money when it all hits critical mass.

Please go to the family debate forum and let us know!

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Well.

Everyone remember the Garden Question? (I am sure Tammy does, she has not gotten her prize yet… I know that because it is sitting next to me on my desk 🙂

Dale won two of them. I sent him a shoestring potatoe can AND a Moon Pie.

HE sent me a email back. Here it is:

One moon pie + 1 shoestring potatoe arrived today.

Light — in a nice sturdy box.Good moon pie =– ok potato.

69BZD DUTY!!The customs form had a value of 69 usd!!!!

That is because I must have put a value of it as 69 CENTS, and the duty guy interpreted it as 69 DOLLARS.

That sucks.

Now I owe Dale 34 dollars.

I hope that didn’t happen to the one that went to Switzerland…. I’ll go broke!!

I like sending things to Dale… why? Because of his address:

Dale Lindmark

Maya Beach

Placentia

Belieze

Central America

Write that on anything, and it always get there.

How old fashioned is that?

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Who is this little cutey? Could it be H,M,R’s First cousin once removed AME? Its birthday season, I guess.

Did any of you see the opening night of the Democratic National Convention this evening? Clinton did a bang up job of stating what democrats believe. Good job Billy boy, you might have a good legacy yet!

The kids made “Ice cream cupcakes” this evening. They really are good… Not as messy as cupcakes and lots more frosting… What a bright idea…

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

My Nephew Greg mentioned that his daughter wanted to have a “princess” birthday party, with the outfit and castle cake, the whole 9 yards. Being that we both have Daughters, I sympathize with him 🙂 (don’t get me wrong, we both have a blast doing this stuff)

Anyway, it reminds me of a particular problem that I have…

As you might know, H was born in the land of Cows.

It just so happened that she was the first baby born in national dairy month, in the land of Cows. So the Dairy council christened her the “Dairy Princess” of 1998. She had her picture in the paper, and got all sorts of dairy related gifts.

Fast forward 6 years….

She knows she was the dairy princess. So, she considers herself a real princess! When it comes up, and kids say “your not a real princess..”, she says “yes, I AM a real princess…” And, I guess, its true! How do you argue with it? Do you think it might cause a problem somewhere down the line?

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Lance Armstrong won his 6th Tour De France. It was quite a race. I will remember it for a long time.

I forgot to Show yall M’s Birthday cake! Better late than never, I suppose.

(click on the picture to see the happy b-day song)

And another one to get a better look at the “Barney” cake. She really wanted that Barney cake…

H did some stitching today.. K did not help her in any way after showing her what to do. Sorta’ neat!

R tried on shoes for the first time today. You should have seen him walk! It was hilarious. He kept on taking giant steps as if he was walking in mud or something.

On a completely different note… The girls just watched a cartoon that had lemmings in it, and of course, they had them jumping off a cliff…

Did you know that lemming cliff jumping is a Urban legend, brought to us by the commercial mouse himself? Its true! Lemmings don’t follow other lemmings off cliffs! In a 1958 Disney nature documentary called “White Wilderness“ the film crews forced the lemmings to jump, creating the urban legend of urban legends.

Just to back it up Here is a quote from Smithsonian Institute’s Arctic Studies Center

…Lemming populations shrink and swell depending on how many plants and berries are available. One type of lemming, the Scandinavian lemming, migrates in a huge group when food becomes scarce. They will run in one direction through meadows, woods and towns. If they come to a large body of water they will swim and swim looking for land. The stories about lemmings jumping off cliffs are a myth.

[beware- Ed’s opinion ahead]

What does any of this have to do with anything? Nature documentaries and parents that legitimize their kids watching cable teevee by saying “but they watch “nature” or “the history channel”…” are a pet peeve of mine. Let them read it in a book- that has a much higher chance of conveying reality. Or better yet, get them out in the woods (Or even zoo) to get closer to the real thing.

Cable teevee is child abuse.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

I have been riveted by the Tour de France.

Did Lance, who has a superior team, get pulled to the front by them, or did he do it on his own?

Did Ivan Bosso, who beat Lance up the first mountain stage, and was the only real contender at a minute down, going to take the lead from Lance in the mountain time trial today?

 

It was all answered today on the L’Alpe d’Huez.

Lance kicked butt and took names! He PASSED Bosso (who left the gate two minutes earlier) in the time trial!! He was the ONLY rider to do the mountain under 40 minutes! On a mountain that is straight up, on a 7.9% AVERAGE grade!

The guy is not normal.

My sister In Law Terri is going to BE THERE tomorrow at stage 17. She is going to take some pictures for me, and post them on her blog at swisstales.com

I cant wait.

VERY cool.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »