Boston Comes Through

-Good morning … and welcome to our blog.

-Rainy, cold, wet miserable weather out in our back yard this morning with only 34 degrees. We are just two degrees shy of freezing.

Color weather radar shows snow over a large portion of north eastern Minnesota this morning with sleet and then rain going into the southern portions of the state.

-Today’s weather forecast for our location is:

Light rain and snow in the morning…then light rain likely in the afternoon. Little or no snow accumulation. Highs 38 to 43. Southwest winds 10 to 20 mph.

-This afternoon Steve and I leave about 1:00 p.m. for Minneapolis and St. Paul, MN for the weekend. We are seeing a Minnesota Wild Hockey game tonight and perhaps a Minnesota Timberwolves Basketball game on Saturday evening.

In addition Steve is going to a “horror convention”, while I just kill time going to a movie or walking around the Roseville Shopping Mall.

We are just getting away for the weekend and spending some tme in the big twin cities. We will return home on Sunday in the late afternoon.

-A Superior Court judge has set the date when same-sex couples can begin tying the knot.

Superior Court Judge Jonathan Silbert, has set the date when same-sex couples can marry in the state of Connecticut. Yesterday, November 12th was that day!

-The state of Illinois has taken many steps to protect GLBT individuals and their rights, including allowing domestic partnerships in Cook County (Chicago area) and the Illinois non-discrimination bill that was passed and signed into law in January 2005.

According to the Equality Illinois website, same-sex couples living in Cook County have been able to document their partnerships since 2003. Cook County’s Domestic Partnership Registry established a record of same-sex relationships and provided those couples with domestic partnership certificates.

-Steve and I were tuned in last night to watch our Celtics send the Atlanta Hawks their first season loss. Paul Pierce hit a fallaway jumper with 0.5 seconds left, scoring 34 points in all as the Boston Celtics overcame a 16-point, second-quarter deficit to beat Atlanta and send the Hawks to their first loss of the season.

Final score Boston 103, Atlanta 102 – great game!

-Things we’ve read…

* The U.S. Government spent $277,000 on pickle research in 1993.
* An ounce of platinum can be stretched 10,000 feet.
* Penguins can convert salt water into fresh water.
* The most powerful electric eel is found in the rivers of Brazil, Columbia, Venezuela, and Peru, and produces a shock of 400-650 volts.
* It is illegal to mispronounce ‘Arkansas’ while in the state of Arkansas!

-Here are eight (8) things you probably didn’t know morning. Nothing’s more fun than knowing the real scoop and using it to shoot down some misinformed bozo at the bar. In our noble effort to know something about everything, we guys have perpetuated some major misconceptions….

1. An American, Abner Doubleday, invented baseball. This myth was purposely fabricated by the dangerously patriotic founder of the Spalding sporting goods company in the early 1900s. In reality, 250 years ago the British were playing a primitive version called both “rounders” and “base-ball”, and Jane Austen refers to baseball by name in 1798’s Northanger Abbey, 40 years before its supposed invention at Cooperstown.
2. The Sphinx’s nose was shot off by Napoleon’s troops. Actually, it was busted off in the 1300s by an Islamic militant—they were trouble even then—who considered it a pagan idol and therefore blasphemous.
3. A captain of a ship at sea can perform weddings. Seems logical enough, the couple being in international waters and all, but it ain’t true: In fact, U.S. Navy regulations, and those of the navies of many other countries, specifically prohibit ships’ commanders from joining people in marriage.
4. Your hair and nails continue to grow after you die. Nope—but the fleshy parts of your body recede from your hair and nails, making them appear longer.
5. Bumblebee flight violates the laws of aerodynamics. Nothing that flies violates the laws of aerodynamics—that’s why they’re laws.
6. Humans use just 10 percent of their brains. Only true of Home Shopping Network customers. Because the brain’s highly specialized, we only use a tiny fraction of its cells at any one time—it’s closer to 5 percent—but we use virtually all of it over the course of a day.
7. Cutting/shaving hair makes it grow faster. Not by the hair of your chinny-chin-chin: How fast hair grows back, like how quickly a man goes bald, is simply a matter of genetics.
8. Einstein was a crappy student. You wish. He was gifted at Latin and Greek as a boy, and doing college-level physics at 11. Yes, he got expelled from high school, but only because he couldn’t master French—and as a pre-WWI German, he probably assumed France would be speaking German soon enough anyway.

-Just a final reminder as we slip on out of here this morning … we will be gone the next four days – so there will not be any blog postings by us.

Our blog will return next Monday – November 17th, 2008.

Steve and I wish each of you a great weekend … if the weather is nice in your part of the world – get out and enjoy the late days of fall.

-On that note guys, it is about that time of the morning when I am going to look for some breakfast, then after Steve gets out of the shower – it’s my turn to shower and get ready for the day.

Steve … will be up in a few more minutes, and together we’re embarking on another great day of life … home for me and a work day for Steve.

Have a nice Thursday, where ever it is that you live. Enjoy, smile, be happy and most of all be good. We certainly will – because we are together always in love.

-Until next time…