A dollar a cart for manure? How can anyone afford to live in CT? Or is the grass greener here becuase we can get fundamentally the same manure for free?

It's been an eye-opening week. Ellie decided to folow the exact pizza dough recipie in the book that came with the mixer despite its lack of sugar for the yeast and bland all-purpose flour base. Despite her herculaen effort it was her blandest crust ever. She did spice the outside of the crust in violation of the recipie but at least that gave the crust some flavor. While chewing on a bit of unimproved crust I realized that I had tasted such a plain, flavorless crust at one period in my life. It tasted the same as the pizza crust generated by the dorm cafeterias in college. The slop was served by employees in starched white clothes embroidered SAGA, theoretically an acronym for their employer - Stuart Anderson Gourmet Association. We weren't fooled. We knew that SAGA actually stood for "Suck A Greasy Asshole."

My other eye-opener this week was in reaction to a pleasant SMS message I received from MariRose. She messaged me during a meeting and I was not able to reply. At this point I should also mention that said message was the first SMS message that I had ever received. Today I was evaluating an interoperable communications solution that also SMSed me and left a menu of reply options. After several failed attempts at replying we surmised that SMS sending capability is not activated on my cell phone. How could this happen? I've been building computers for a decade. I almost completed my microcomputer programming degree when I was cut down in my prime by bilateral carpal tunnel surgeries. I knew I wasn't in the fast lane in terms of technology any longer, but how did I become road kill?

Thanks for the link to contemporary X-Squad video. I'm kind of disheartened that a 4 X 4 team became a 2 X 4 team. But many of the old moves are still there and are also still fun to watch.

Entertainment alert to you lucky Berea-ites (Berea-ans? Berea-oneans?). Friday night, August 11 at the Cuyahoga County Fair you'll want to catch the hilarious Pat Dailey. I've wanted to catch his live show for years and he's never been closer to us than his native Ohio (he's from Cleveland). Most of the summer he plays on Lake Erie and his winter shows are in Key West. Do the right thing and catch him! Joe Head and I will be eternally jealous.