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dad and abby made a 14 hour drive from el paso to my sister’s house this weekend. they broke up the trip and spent one night in oklahoma city. jenny and i took a sunday drive and drove a couple of hours to spend the afternoon with everyone. we ate lunch, told stories, and sang songs that only get sung when families get together. …and this is what happens when you tell everyone “okay, don’t move!” only to find out later that somebody did just that.

no one could suck the life out of a rollicking bluegrass jam like big al. the country bear jamboree was an attraction at disneyland where the animatronic bears would tell jokes, play fast catchy songs, and every time the spotlight went on big al he would start the same slow tex ritter ballad– blood on the saddle. so where did this photo come from? i found it on the facebook page weird second hand finds that just need to be shared. somebody picked up a big al souvenir in portland, but didn’t know where he came from. there are currently 108 comments on that page explaining big al.

jenny and i don’t have biological kids of our own. when someone asks if i have kids i tell them that over the years we became surrogate parents for other people’s kids at the coffeehouse i work at. this photo was taken last november at josh and christy’s house. christy was one of our first coffeehouse kids, and now she’s a mom to ben and katelyn (above). so i guess we’re more like grandparents now.

a cashier at price chopper rang me up for a senior discount wednesday morning. .49 cents?? are you kidding me? i can’t even remember when coffee was that cheap. it had to be back when alaska wasn’t a state yet & eisenhower was still the president. geez! now i understand why one old man flipped out when i charged him three times that amount for a mug of house coffee a few years ago.

i heard a radio ad on monday that hasn’t aired since my first birthday. on an episode of 99 percent invisible, clive desmond was recalling the golden age of radio ads. as he was talking, reminiscing, and making sense of it all, i heard ads recorded by ken nordine, frank zappa, linda ronstadt, and this one by the jefferson airplane.

This guy named Eddie came in yesterday. After ordering a drink, he asked if we roasted our own beans. Chloé and I told him that we buy our beans from Messenger, a roaster in downtown KC. When he said “this coffee is really good! Do you mind if I take a few pictures?” We said “sure!” Then I asked “do you mind if I take a picture of you while you take pictures?” He said, “sure!”

this week the west wing weekly podcast talked about presidental m&m’s that are given away as souvenirs at the white house– then they revealed that before 1988 there used to be white house souvenir cigarettes. yep. here’s the info on wikipedia: “under President Kennedy, guests and members of the press who traveled on Air Force One were given packs of 20 cigarettes in a box marked with the Presidential Seal and the signature of the sitting President, along with a matchbook; it became a tradition that all guests on Air Force One would receive a souvenir of their trip.” the m&m’s replaced cigarettes as the standard gift given to white house visitors and air force one passengers… and the boxes are about the size of a packet of cigarettes.thanks to addiction inbox and wikipedia for the photos. click here to see a pack of white house cigarettes from the reagan administration.

dave harris gave me the heads up on this new precious moments figurine collection. it’s the perfect gift that reflects the criminal, the basket case, the athlete, the princess, and the brain that’s inside every one of us. merry christmas grandma!

“be all that you can be” is playing in an army commercial that bill murray is watching in the opening scenes of stripes. a few minutes later there is a movie score that elmer bernstein created for bill murray’s character, john winger. it’s even listed on the original soundtrack as winger. i saw the movie when it came out in the early 1980′s. a couple of weeks ago i finally figured out how to play this little tune. thanks to imdb for the photo.

the kids were getting carried away at arkadia retrocade last saturday. the vintage 80′s arcade in fayetteville, arkansas draws in thrill seekers of all ages, not just middle aged nerds like myself. as i was  playing rastan (a game that looks like conan the barbarian), i heard a preteen boy exclaim I AM JESUS! because his air hockey skills were so divine.