Nadjet and Sara found their way to the lake.
Lake Ray Roberts - Isle de Boise: 
Nadjet and Sara left early this morning to meet one of her co-workers and her co-worker's family at Lake Ray Roberts for a 4th of July picnic. I wasn't interested in going on account of the fact I don't like dealing with bugs and crowds in 100-degree weather. Lake Ray Roberts looks like a fun place to go hiking, but I'd rather go when the weather's cooler and the 4th of July crowds have gone away.
We looked up the directions on Google Maps last night, which looked pretty clear. Didn't appear to be more than an hour's drive from our house:
So Nadjet loads up the car and Sara early this morning in the darkness and heads off on northbound I-75. Plan was to take it to 380 and then head west.
She calls an hour later and says she's just driven past Sherman and was wondering if she's near the exit yet. Sherman is about 45 minutes past the exit she was supposed to have taken. So I tell her she needs to turn around and head back south.
She isn't more than 20 miles from our house, and she's already hopelessly lost. I ask her if she wants to come back home and let me drive them to the park. But she's adamant -- she wants to see if she can find the place herself.
I hope she finds it in time to see the fireworks go off.
Eating pizza for lunch today with Sara, she says, "How come there's no extra medium?"
"Huh?" I mumble through a mouthful of pepperoni and scalding hot cheese.
"Well, there's extra small and extra large, but there's no extra medium. How come?"
No question Michael Jackson had a profound impact on popular culture. You don't have to look farther than all the lip-syncing poseurs at the BET Awards last night.
But I always thought Prince was a better performer/artist/musician. I thought "1999" was more ground-breaking than "Thriller." "Purple Rain" had more groove than "Bad," and "Diamonds and Pearls" had more funk than "Dangerous."
Michael Jackson could dance and sing, but Prince could do everything else.
testing new code that automatically emails updates from my website to twitter...
June 25, 2009 19:40
Question: What famous 70's icon passed away on the same day that Michael Jackson died on June 25, 2009?
Answer: Farrah Fawcett
June 25, 2009 07:05
"Travel is at best a solitary enterprise: to see, to examine, to assess, you have to be alone and unencumbered. Other people can mislead you; they crowd your meandering impressions with their own; if they are companionable they obstruct your view, and if they are boring they corrupt the silence with non-sequiturs....
"It is hard to see clearly or to think straight in the company of other people. Not only do I feel self-conscious, but the perceptions that are necessary to writing are difficult to manage when someone close by is thinking out loud. I am diverted, but it is discovery not diversion that I seek. What is required is the lucidity of loneliness to capture that vision which, however banal, seems in my private mood to be special and worthy of interest. There is something in feeling abject that quickens my mind and makes it intensely receptive to fugitive impressions."
-- Paul Theroux, "The Old Patagonian Express"
June 14, 2009 08:16
Watching a teaser for the next episode of "Expedition: Africa" on the History Channel, I say to my wife, "You see, each of those people on that show has traveled all over the world."
"So?" she says, and walks away laughing.
June 05, 2009 06:50
Found a copy of James Joyce's "Ulysses" at the thrift store for about $1. Tried reading it 20 years ago but couldn't get past the first few pages. Will try again and see if I get further.
May 23, 2009 07:17
Why do some people say "we" when they mean "I"? Insecurity issues? An inherent need to bolster a weak argument or point of view?
"I think, therefore I am."
Not "We think, therefore we are."