Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Happy Thanksgiving!


First off, Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

Here's a link to a Christmas display on a house in Louisville that is pretty unbelieveable. Apparently the sound and everything is real. This even dwarfs previous displays by Carefree's own Captain Christmas (or Drew Kringle as he's frequently referred to by fellow elves):

Click Here for Christmas lights.

(Thanks to this site for the crazy Thanksgiving picture...)

Monday, November 14, 2005

Congratulations, Eric & Emily!!


Congrats to Mr. and Mrs. Eric Long on the arrival of their daughter, Kaya!! Check out details and pictures at their blog. She's a cutie!!

Saturday, November 12, 2005

Friday, November 11, 2005

Adoption Waiting Game Update

Well, we got the letter yesterday from the home study agency that we're officially approved. Even my comments regarding The Hammer didn't derail our plans. So basically now we're waiting for the California Secretary of State to validate Erin's birth certificate, and we're still waiting for my birth certificate to arrive from Indiana (they cashed the check three weeks ago... Funny how they got THEIR piece handled quickly...) Other than that, we're waiting on one more form from immigration and the draft of the home study. Once all that comes in, we'll get it all validated by the Indiana Secretary of State and ship it all off to the Chinese Consulate for signatures and stamps. Only then will it get sent to the adoption agency for transmission to China. Shew...what a paper trail.

As an aside, has anyone ever dropped a brand new gallon of milk on a hardwood floor while standing in your underwear with a dry bowl of Apple Jacks in your hand at 5:30am? It sucks. A lot. It was like watching Letterman drop watermelons off of the buildings in New York... I'll admit it...I swore. A few times. Then I mopped. A few times. I need a weekend...

Bret

Monday, November 07, 2005

Thanks for lunch, Mrs. Tupper

My lovely wife has developed an interesting new hobby recently. Perhaps inspired by my patent discussion (although this started long before last week), she has begun inventing Tupperware-like devices in which to send my lunches each day. At first, she just bought tons of plastic bowls and cups. Apparently a gremlin in our house eats Tupperware lids (JUST the lids), as we ended up with 2000 pieces of plasticware with 3 matching lids.

So to rectify this situation, and save money, she moved on to recycling other items into containers for my lunch. Now this is nothing new to me. My mom's fridge was full of unidentifiable butter dishes which contained things like applesauce, green beans, or chicken fat (it was a sort of foodstuffs roulette when searching for a snack...) But now, my lunch contains a wide array of containers, none of which gives any hint as to the contents within. Today I had a "Blended Raspberry Yogurt" cup, which was actually applesauce. My favorite today though, and the inspiration for this entry, was that my wife (did I mention how sweet she is for packing my lunch?) sent along baby carrots in a Ziploc bag. She also sent some ranch dressing for dipping. What was the ranch dip stored in? (drumroll, please) A film canister. Yes, one of those tiny black cases you drop your film off in to be developed. I don't suppose there's a problem with this, other than scooping the last 1/2 inch of dipping sauce out of a 3 inch deep container using a 2 inch long carrot was very tricky. I looked like an idiot trying to scoop ranch dressing out of a film canister with my index finger.

Perhaps all of this is a brilliant weightloss scheme on her part. She's sneaky that way.

Bret

Thursday, November 03, 2005

Fun with patents


There are a lot of things in this world that don't make much sense to me -- sweaters for dogs, why women go to the bathroom in groups, etc. Another thing I could add to this list is patents. There are patents for everything imaginable (quite literally). These include patents for a vehicle mounted toilet seat and underwear with a flatulence filter (I can see Erin thinking "Christmas Gift" right about now...). In any case, a guy at work showed me a site with a list of some of these crazy ideas. Pretty entertaining.

One of the things I've learned from my job over the past few years is how to write a patent disclosure. Now my ideas aren't of the brilliance of the "Beerbrella", but I have filed a pile of disclosures on various television related things. This same site lets you track down your own applications. Nothing of mine has actually become a patent yet, but hopefully soon. Here are a few from the past few years...keep in mind, ANYTHING is patentable, as long as it hasn't been done before.

Setup your TV from your PC

Closed Captioning that turns itself on when the volume in your favorite show goes too low

Record a show that already started

Useless ideas, you say? Perhaps, but does anyone really get to patent frosting half a donut?

Bret