Music Monday – the Pursuit of Happiness

I must officially be a curmudgeon because this is a whole lot funnier than it was 20 years ago.

Come join Music Monday and share your songs with us. One simple rule, leave ONLY the actual post link here. You can grab this code at LJL Please note these links are STRICTLY for Music Monday participants only. All others will be deleted without prejudice.

All about hummingbirds

Down here in Arkansas, folks just love hummingbirds.

Truth be told, we get all kinds of critters flying, buzzing, crawling and walking around here. One of the favorites of the bunch would be the quick-winged hummingbird.

In fact, if you want to learn all you ever wanted to know about the friendly hummingbird, just head on over to the Hummingbird Migration site maintained by Birdfeeders.com.

In these parts, hummingbird feeders are all the rage as folks like to hang them outside of their windows and watch hummingbirds in action. One of those things makes a dandy gift for mothers, aunts, grandmothers, teachers – anyone who enjoys observing hummingbirds and doesn’t already have a feeder. Hey, those are inexpensive, easy to maintain, make dandy gifts and don’t cost just a whole to fill.

They provide a lot of entertainment, to boot. So head over to the aforementioned site, learn a bit about hummingbirds and pick up a feeder while you’re there, huh?

So, how was your 4th of July?

I think the above video pretty well sums up our holiday.

We shot off fireworks. A lot of them, in fact. Then we came in the house and the kids went nuts.

Who’s in the video? There’s my son, Michael (white shirt), my daughter Brenda (the girl in the black shirt who came in looking confused), my nephew William (green shirt), my niece Meghan (red shirt) and her friend Rachel (brown shirt – the girl who kept eating in spite of the chaos around her).

Of course the constant commentary is from my wife, Marci.

Enjoy!

Lucky kids!

The other day, I went and posted the picture over to the left as my Wordless Wednesday submission.

That’s my daughter (on the left) and one of her friends at the famed Arkansas Skatium in Little Rock. Because of economic necessity, my daughter stays at a Methodist church here in Benton during the summer as my wife and I are both stuck at work all day and no one is home to watch the little nipper.

At any rate, the church hauled the kids up to the Skatium a couple of weeks ago. I was envious as hell, of course because it’s too damned hot around here this year. It’s been pushing 100 degrees regularly over the past couple of weeks and it seemed to me that going out ice skating would be a very good thing to do in all this miserable heat.

My kid had a good time and I got to leave the office for a few minutes and get a picture of her. That’s a pretty good day.

The following week, the church was supposed to take the kids out horseback riding. Because of the heat, however, they chose to stay inside and have snow cones instead. Good choice.

My traffic joke

Folks, commuting from Benton to Little Rock to work every day is rotten. The traffic is miserable, indeed. How bad is it? Let me tell you…

So I was driving to work down I-430 and I saw this fellow walking down the side of the road. Since the traffic was just crawling along, I was able to simply roll down my window and holler at him.

“Hey, man! You need a ride?”

“No, thanks,” he said. “I’m in a hurry.”

Heh, heh.

Destroy those mosquitoes this summer

I do love living in Arkansas, but I could do without the mosquitoes that buzz all over the place in the summer.

Let’s say it’s the Fourth of July. What fun is setting off fireworks when you’re getting gnawed to pieces by pesky mosquitoes? That can put a damper on a relaxing evening quicker than anything.

The same was true when I was in little league as a kid. We had to wear a bunch of insect repellent or get chewed up by mosquitoes. Hey, it’s warm, humid and it rains quite a bit around here – that’s the perfect environment for mosquitoes and the pests can absolutely ruin just about any outdoor activity.

Oh, and let’s not forget about the threat of West Nile virus. Mosquitoes, then, are not only annoying – they can be dangerous carriers of a terrible disease.

Want a good way to get rid of the varmints? Check out this video showing mosquito traps in action. One of those might just take care of the mosquito problem, huh?

Wordless Wednesday – Escaping the Heat

Check out the other Wordless Wednesday participants or submit something of your own!

I’m starting to like Cash4Gold a lot

I can’t help it – I like a company with a good sense of humor.

I used to make my living as a business writer and learned in a hurry that most corporate types are overly serious when it comes to the image of their businesses. They tend to throw around phrases such as “corporate culture” and toss out bits of jargon like “think outside the box” and “leverage the brand across all strata” and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

That kind of nonsense plays well in board rooms but the public couldn’t care less. Want to know what gets a reaction? Humor, kids.

Those folks over at Cash4Gold seem to have picked up on that. Want proof? Head on over here – Cash4Gold Offers to Purchase U.S. Gold Reserves. Make sure to hit the link in their that leads to a video on the Onion.

Seriously. Check it out. Had me laughing for a few minutes, at least.

And, more importantly, that whole thing got my attention. Cash4Gold, after all, simply purchases your old gold jewelry and gives you cash for it. They’ve said that a million times, of course, but the promotional method the company used in the aforementioned link is an attention grabber that forces the reader to pay attention.

And it’s a hoot, too. I respect the heck out of a company that utilizes such extreme and generally amusing tactics to get noticed.