You know you're a geek when...

... you want to buy a board game about computer programming!!

One of the social network sites I browse had a post today about a board game called C-Jump, which teaches kids (and adults!) the mechanisms behind computer programming. It uses the analogy of ski-ing, and as you navigate around the various ski trails, you have to complete various logical problems (which is essentially all that computer programming is).

I went to the site to check it out for myself, and now I WANT ONE!!! It looks so cool!

Return of the Hoola Hoop

At family lunch this afternoon, there were moments of hilarity and moments of sheer frustration. Frustration, because 3 of our cars had windows smashed and stuff stolen from them (including ours). Fortunately, we only lost our jump leads. The others lost radios and CDs. Hilarity because several members of the family got involved in hoola hooping. Yup, and I've got the evidence to prove it. The 80's lives again!

Once again, no idea why YouTube (and Blogger, for that matter - tried it with both) insist on turning the video round. I've edited it to be the right way round, but for whatever bizarre reason, they insist on ignoring my edits. Sorry. If you know of a way to prevent this from happening, please do let me know.



PS There is a video of Trish and Cath doing this on Facebook. Thought I wouldn't put both up here again.

What's in a name?

OK, so let me ask you: what is a French door? Give me a proper definition. No wait, let me guess - you probably think that a French door is any set of double doors, with lots of little glass panes in it, leading from the interior to the exterior of a house. Right? Well, let's just say that if you think that, then you are as ignorant as I am.

A French door is any door, double or single, interior or exterior, that has multiple lites in it (and yes, they are spelt l-i-t-e). Lites are individual glass panels, which range from teeny tiny to the full length of the door. Now, and this is where it gets interesting, the TYPE of French door you have depends on the number and size of the lites.

Why am I telling you this? Because I discovered that the doors we're putting in as our new front doors (and maybe from our bedroom to the garden too) have a very special name. So picture this scene...

I'm saying goodbye to my dad, who's just been over to discuss the costing of our building works (did I mention that my dad is our builder??) as we break ground on Monday (YAY!!!). As he's leaving, he mentions that he's got some doors he took out of another flat we might be able to use. Except, he calls them... happy doors. I kid you not. I thought he was joking! I mean, who calls doors happy doors? But no, the joke was on me. Apparently, we are installing happy doors. Needless to say, I had a bit of hysterical laughter over that one.

So what exactly are happy doors, I hear you ask?THIS is a happy door. And the one below is a Kentucky door. The last image is of a Carolina door. All of these, apparently are french doors. The trad french door is given a very boring name, e.g. 10 lite, or 18 lite, depending on the number of individual square or rectangular panes.
But wait, there's more. Our happy doors also come with parliament hinges. Yup, no ordinary hinges for our happy doors. Nope, they get parliament hinges. What are parliament hinges? They're the hinges that stick out from the door, to enable you to open the doors flush to the outside wall, so they don't stand out at an angle to it.

Don't ever let me hear you refer to french doors again. No-one wants to be an idiot! And when we have our housewarming, I want to hear you refer to the parliament hinges. Yup, we're quite proud of our happy doors with parliament hinges, thank you!

Ask yourself: do you feel lucky, Punk?

This was sent to me as an email, and I just had to post it. I verified that this took place on 30 Dec 2006, and that these photos are the real, untouched deal. This is not just an urban legend. The email, however, did contain false info, so I've corrected that.

Look at the picture below and you can see where this driver broke through the guardrail, on the right side of the culvert, where people are standing on the road, pointing. The pick-up was traveling about 83 mph, from right to left, when it crashed through the guardrail after skidding 92 feet. It flipped end-over-end, bounced off and across the culvert outlet, and landed right-side-up, 20 feet away, on the left side of the culvert, facing the opposite direction from which the driver was traveling. The 22-year-old driver and his 18-year-old passenger were unhurt, except for minor cuts and bruises. Just outside Hurricane, Utah, on State Route 59.

Now look at the second photo...

If this guy didn't believe in Jesus before, do you suppose he believes now?

I certainly feel smaller!

If you want to see what a really large baby bump looks like, check this out! This woman had octuplets. (She already has 6 other kids, and she's a single mom.) Tell you what, makes me re-evaluate my complaints about the size of my bump!

So you feel small?

When you look out the window, the earth is so huge you can't see the end of it. Even up in a plane, you can't really see very much of the surface of the earth at once. It takes you 8 hours to fly at 300km/h from Cape Town to London - a mere 6012 miles. Yet our experience of the earth is that it's actually quite small... the Global Village. How small is it really?

One of the blogs I read regularly, Domkop, posted a link to a site with a gif about the relative sizes of things in the universe. You have to see it! I don't know where or how he found it, but it's incredible. Even for someone like me, who supposedly understands something about the relative sizes of things, I found this gif amazing. On the one hand, it's incredible how small our sun really is, in relation to other stars. It's amazing that something that feels so physically large to us (like the earth) is actually small. How small are we then?

On the other hand, what I find incredible is that God thinks we are more important than the largest star. So much so that he chose this little insignificant planet to put us on, and then chose to step onto it himself, to save us.

Really makes you think.

Farewell Angela

In December last year, I blogged briefly about a friend (one of Graeme's ex-girlfriends) who was battling ovarian cancer at the local hospital where we'll be having Baby 3. Sadly, she died this morning at about 5am.

Angela had only been married a year when her cancer was discovered. She was an incredibly brave woman, who suffered through every different variation of radiation and chemo possible - all without success. When I first heard that she had cancer, I knew immediately that she wouldn't make it. I don't know how I knew, but I knew. I desperately hoped she would. I prayed she would, but as every treatment failed, I became more sure of what I was trying to hide from. And now she's dead.

Thankfully, she died in peace, without pain, surrounded by family. I guess, under the circumstances, one can't really ask for more.

Yet I wonder - should I have said something to her 15 months ago when all this started? Should I have said anything to her at some point along the way? Would it have been better for her not to bother with treatment and rather enjoy what time she had left, rather than being constantly tired and nauseous and unable to do anything? Maybe she wouldn't have had as much time, but should I have said something anyway? Probably not, but still I wonder...

I guess if I were her, I would have opted for every treatment, no matter what someone else told me. I would have fought as hard as I could. She fought incredibly hard.

Mostly, I feel so sorry for her husband. They only had 1 year together. They never had children. Those are tragedies that only add to his grief and loneliness. I can only pray that in time he is able to find someone else to love and share his life with. Not because I want him to forget Angela, but because I want him to experience the joy of a lifetime spent with one person, and I want him to experience the joy of children.

Farewell, Angela. Rest in peace now and for eternity. The world is colder and darker for your absence from it, but we hope to meet again one day.