For Mum...

Before...


...after.

More questions from the DDD

So, as you are all aware, I like to check out the news from the Decatur Daily Democrat. This picture was on the front webpage. The caption insinuated that this was the means of transportation for some Bellmont High School student. I always joked that kids in my home town drove tractors to school, now it looks to be true.

Second, the paper also discussed that the Democratic Party had announced 4 nominees for candidates for office in the fall. One of the nominees graduated from high school with Margie. I was curious who this person was, so I wanted Margie to use her skills to figure this out for me. Here is the part of the article that talks about this BHS grad.

"The newcomer, selected to run for clerk-treasurer in Monroe, is Rachel Burkhart, 27, who is married to Kris Burkhart and is the daughter-in-law of Democratic Monroe Town Council member Debra Burkhart...Rachel Burkhart is a 1996 graduate of Bellmont High School whose work experience includes two years at Wells Fargo Bank in Decatur and the past five years at the American General Finance office in Decatur. She announced that, if elected, she will quit her current job and be a fulltime clerk-treasurer, adding that she will also be able spend more time with her children: nine-year-old son Alex and seven-week-old daughter Jordan. Burkhart's husband is a fulltime paramedic with the Adams County Emergency Medical Service as well as a member of the Monroe Fire Department and the Monroe Rescue Squad. Her father-in-law, Gary Burkhart, is a longtime deputy and detective with the Adams County Sheriff's Department."

Any clues Margie?

Finally, I'm just glad that picture of meat is no longer on the front page...yucky meat!

Karl the meat man

I got a summer job at Kroger as the meat man. It's... okay. Interesting I guess. I hope I learn a lot about meat, but I doubt it happens.

more pic. from 418 W. Jefferson St.

Buddha's birthday

Thursday was Buddha's birthday, so Richard had to day off of work. He went to the bun festival on an island off of Hong Kong called Cheung Chau to celebrate. CNN has a little video clip of the festival online.

http://www.cnn.com/offbeat/

The clip is under off-beat news and is called Happy Birthday Buddha.

The festival had a parade and a huge tower of buns. At night they have a contest to see who can climb the bun tower and grab a bun that is the highest. Richard did not climb the bun tower, but took some cool pictures of it. Maybe he will post his pictures here :)...

I hope you all are doing well. I leave a week from Saturday for Hong Kong and I am VERY excited to see Richard!

"I think this is very neat."

http://www.decaturdailydemocrat.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5506&Itemid=27

just thought this was funny

-ryan

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MERIDTH!

Let's all sing a round to our beloved Meridth Gimbel who turns 28 today. We love you, Meridth!

Richard in Hong Kong

So here is a couple of pictures of my husband who decided to cut his hair before his first day of work. He didn't check the conversion on the voltage of the clippers and half-way through his hair cut, the clippers explode. Richard was left with half his hair cut. In a moment of "genius" he decided to shave his head. This is the result. Isn't my husband ridiculous?

Biffed it...

So I chewed up some gravel today. Yum. Took a bad step on wet brick and bashed the dickens out of my shin. Owa! Really, it was a boneheaded move; i was valuting a wall whilst on my morning run. The round wound on the lower right was about 3-4mm deep. It still hasn't stopped oozing.

Here's the same wound eight hours later. Still hurts. I'm thinking I'll probably get some vicious bruising. We'll see.

MOM

THANK YOU...

For buying me basketball cards and jerseys even though they are useless, for always telling me I'm handsome, for being so nice to my friends and offering to buy them pizza all the time, for making the best grilled cheese sandwiches ever, for singing to me when I was little... I'm sure I enjoyed it as much as you say, for making me birthday posters, for all the hugs you've given me, for being such a big fan of my basketball playing, for taking me on many memorable vacations out west, for coming in to my 2nd grade class and making bread, for always telling me I'm so smart, for taking your aggressions out on a spoon and not me, for making me food when I whine that I'm hungry, for taking me to Washington DC in 8th grade, for your continuous generosity, for the ability to laugh at farts... you are amazing at that, for the work ethic you instilled in me, for fun car rides in the fiero up to ipfw, for peeling oranges for me because I don't have fingernails and am too lazy, for making a great apple pie, for wrapping presents for us while we all went to see Christmas movies, for all the other things I'm skipping over and for all the things you will do in the future, thank you for loving me so much Mom. I love you too.

Speaking of orange soda...

...I just finished a short shift at the chinese buffet. Good times. About half-way through my shift a handsome young lad made it about ten feet from his seat before he burst in a huge explosion of vomit.

He had just finished a pint of orange...juice.

Close enough anyway. As I mopped up the mess, I couldn't help but think of karma.

-Rusty

Oh the picture. Fanta was actually invented in Nazi Germany when the Coca-Cola GmbH ran out of syrup (imports/exports being restricted) so they came up with a fruit drink from various biproducts of other food-manufacture processes. The poster is a modern invention and, dispite what you might read, and the company was only as complicit in Nazi attrocities as any corporation active in Germany at the time. If you believed eveything you read on the internet, you'd believe that the Coca-Cola company was the driving force behind Nazism, but I guess people don't like big corporations.

Baby Hawkins

Here are the pictures of Baby Hawkins from Betsey's ultrasound on Tuesday. The baby is 11.5 weeks along and is due on November 27. We think that the arrow in the pictures points to the head, but we're not sure. Betsey is convinced that she can see a Gimbel nose in the closeup of Baby Hawkins. Baby name suggestions accepted in the comments. Please don't suggest "Sadie."

I'm off to Hong Kong tonight. Betsey follows in three weeks. We'll be sure to post more pictures.

trip(s) pictures

Here are some pictures from trips I have taken this year. Spring break I went to california and hit a deer. This last week I went to baltimore and NYC to see some baseball games. The pictures aren't really in order. I uploaded them in order, but don't know what happened.

Decatur Daily Democrat

While conducting research (ie surfing the web) at work today, I checked the page for the Decatur Daily Democrat and came across this glamour shots photo

This is Eric (Keebie) Meyer. I'm not exactly sure if "Keebie" is his nickname or maiden name or what, but this is the potential new mayor of Decatur. Mayor Fred Isch, was defeated in the Republican primary.

From the Decatur Daily Democrat, Meyer "carried seven of eight city precincts and defeated Mayor Fred Isch by a surprisingly large margin in Tuesday's Republican primary election. Meyer's stunning victory with 58 percent of the vote insures the city a new mayor after Isch served five consecutive terms. And the new mayor will be only the city's third in 32 years!

Meyer is a detective in the police force, which is no suprise to me considering that awesome hair style he is sporting. You can read the riviting and very well written (sarcasm here for all those who can't tell) at the following link

http://www.decaturdailydemocrat.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5276&Itemid=27

Mom, a '69 Camero, and an Eclipse...

Yep, that's pretty much it.

news from 418 w. jefferson

Thanks to Karl and Brandon we started the new retaining wall along Jefferson Street. It was great to have Karl and Emily, Brandon and Margie this weekend--lots of good food and eating on the deck. It was beautiful weather. Mom got sick on Saturday night. That was the only bad thing. Then I got sick on Tuesday at work and came home early for the first time ever. I slept for 13 hours and feel much better now.

Margie and Lily left this morning, and the house is really quiet without anyone here. We could sure get used to having company more often. Wait--I didn't say that, did I? The "cutest" thing was that Lily left a little present for us. Picture to follow!

The Mormons

I know some of you don't like when I just link to a story on NPR, but this one is really good. The documentary on PBS is supposed to be really interesting...Aunt Mary is recording it for us because Team Hawkins has no TV, but here is a little NPR story about it.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9937615&sc=emaf