Double Upwords

Makenna threw up this morning. I stayed home with her while Kristi took Kylee and Landen to church. Makenna and I decided to use the extra Upwords game (that we bought at our church's resale yesterday) to play Double Upwords.

We used both sets of letters and one board. We made one rule change, the stacks could be seven letters high, instead of five high.

Makenna won 579 to 547. I had a 'U' left.

We Didn't Start the Fire - What I Think - Part 12

This is the twelfth post in my blog series about the song We Didn't Start the Fire by Billy Joel. I am writing about the significance of each item mentioned in the song. That is, what significance I THINK they have. I am not doing any research or looking anything up, so I could be totally wrong.

More information about this blog series can be found in the series' first post.

U-2 - The U-2 spy plane flew at an altitude of 60,000 feet. The United States developed the plane as a way to spy on the Soviets. The plan was to fly U-2 missions over the Soviet Union and take photographs of Soviet nuclear development sites. The United States believed that the Soviet Union did not posses a missile capable of shooting a plane down at the U-2's altitude. However, the Soviets did successfully shoot down a U-2 spy plane. The pilot parachuted to the ground safely, where he was captured by the Soviet military, then interrogated and killed.

Syngman Rhee - Rhee was a famous Russian composer.

payola - Payola was the nickname United States military personnel gave to bombs dropped on North Korea.

Kennedy - President John F. Kennedy and Senator Bobby Kennedy were both assassinated in the 1960s.

Chubby Checker - Chubby Checker sang the popular 1960s rock and roll song, The Twist.

"Psycho" - Psycho was a popular horror movie from 1968. It was directed by Rod Sterling and is especially famous for the "shower scene."

Belgians in the Congo - In the late 1960s Belgium had troops stationed in El Salvador. El Salvador was a Belgian territory. The military was trying to stave off the Salvadorian push for independence.

Running the Past Month

I didn't run a single mile the past month. Towards the end of July I developed a stress fracture in my lower right leg. My doctor agreed with my self diagnosis and encouraged me to continue to rest it. I'm hoping to start light running in the next week or two.

I have been doing some strenuous biking. I have ridden 97.5 "for exercise" miles since I injured my leg, averaging 12.4 mile per hour - with an average heart rate of 132 bpm, which burnt 3,569 calories. (About 22.5 of those miles were actually riding the tandem with one of my daughters- which is a real work out to try to ride fast - that bike is a beast.)

My Son Loves My Hair

Today my three-year-old son told me that he wants to have hair just like me when he grows up.


He even added, "I'm gonna talk to God about wiping all the hair off my head."

I think his prayer will be answered.

We Didn't Start the Fire - What I Think - Part 11

This is the eleventh post in my blog series about the song We Didn't Start the Fire by Billy Joel. I am writing about the significance of each item mentioned in the song. That is, what significance I THINK they have. I am not doing any research or looking anything up, so I could be totally wrong.

More information about this blog series can be found in the series' first post.

Buddy Holly - Buddy Holly was the first rock-n-roll star. He had the first hit in rock-n-roll history, "Rock Around the Clock."

"Ben Hur" - Ben Hur was an epic movie starring Charlton Heston. It was lauded for the amazing (for its day) chariot race scene.

space monkey - Just a few years after launching the first satellite, the Soviet Union launched a satellite "manned" by a monkey. The experiment was considered a success, however the monkey did not survive the mission.

Mafia - After a drop from organized crime's hay day in the 1920s and 30s, the mafia once again started to proliferate America's Midwest and eastern cities during the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Hula hoops - Hula hoops were a fad in the 1960s. Everyone had to have them and hula hoop contests were all the rage.

Castro - Castro was the communist leader of Cuba. He took control during the Cuban Revolution in 1948. During the 1960s Castro led Cuba into closer relations with the Soviet Union. This made the United States uncomfortable.

Edsel is a no-go- The Edsel was a make of vehicle produced by Ford, debuting in 1967. Ford expected it to be extremely popular, in realitly the Edsel was a flop.

What I've Been Reading

Here's a glimpse of what I've been reading lately.

Miles to Go by Miley Cyrus - I just finished reading this book, which I reviewed in May, to Kylee and Makenna. We seemed to be out of our bedtime reading routine during the summer. I think it took me three months to read this book to them. They did a lot more reading to themselves than me reading to them over the summer.

Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis - This book won the Newberry Award in 2000. I read it to myself about five years ago and thought it was great. I started reading it to Kylee and Makenna this week. They are enjoying it so far.

Closing the Achievement Gap: No Excuses by Patricia Davenport and Gerald Anderson - The school district I work for is using this book as a model for taking our district from a "good one to a great one." My take? It's a good book that describes an excellent school improvement system. I think my school system will implement the plan well.

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer - This book was different. I missed the suspense that this type of book would usually have, but I did like it. Mainly, the book offers a glimpse into the mind of a vagabond.

Season of Life by Jeffrey Marx - After reading positive reviews by both Derry and Rob, I'm reading this book right now and enjoying it.

We Didn't Start the Fire - What I Think - Part 10

This is the tenth post in my blog series about the song We Didn't Start the Fire by Billy Joel. I am writing about the significance of each item mentioned in the song. That is, what significance I THINK they have. I am not doing any research or looking anything up, so I could be totally wrong.

More information about this blog series can be found in the series' first post.

Lebanon - Lebanon is the capital of Beirut. It is mentioned in the song because it was a center for the Palestinian movement against Israel, which had regained its status as a sovereign country following World War II.

Charlse de Gaulle - He was the president of France. He oversaw the rebuilding of France following its near destruction by Nazi forces in World War II. The airport in Paris is now named after him.

California baseball - This phrase in the song quite simply refers to the Brooklyn Dodgers moving to Los Angeles.

Starkweather - Long before fears of global warming became predominant, many scientists believed the earth was heading into another ice age cycle. These scientists believed that such an ice age could come on quite abruptly, thus they called the phenomenon, "starkweather."

homicide - During the early 1960s the violent crime rate in the United States began to edge up on a yearly basis. The homicide rate in particular began to climb. A trend that continued into the early 1980s before finally beginning to reverse.

children of thalidomide - Thalidomide was a chemical used in the 1950s in the manufacturing process of plastics. Many factories dumped the chemical into fresh water rivers. The chemical eventually ended up the municipal drinking supplies. Pregnant women who drank the contaminated water delivered babies with incredibly high incidence rates of birth defects.

Trip to Chicago

We took a short family trip to Chicago this week, riding the South Shore Railway from South Bend to Chicago on Tuesday and coming back Thursday afternoon. We stayed in the Loop at the Palmer House Hilton. Here's a slide show from our trip along with some captions.

We Didn't Start the Fire - What I Think - Part 9

This is the ninth post in my blog series about the song We Didn't Start the Fire by Billy Joel. I am writing about the significance of each item mentioned in the song. That is, what significance I THINK they have. I am not doing any research or looking anything up, so I could be totally wrong.

More information about this blog series can be found in the series' first post.

Little Rock - This city is the capital of Arkansas. It is mentioned in the song because in the mid 1950s the Supreme Court ordered that Little Rock Central High School be integrated. Three African-American teenagers started school there in the fall of 1956.

Pasternak - Pasternak is what the people around Berkley, California called "pizza cheese." The word was ushered into the American vocabulary along with the rise in popularity of pizza.

Mickey Mantle - Mantle played professional baseball for the New York Yankees. He was the greatest player of his time and was also known for his life off the field. He dated Marilyn Monroe. An unflattering book about his life was published early 2000s.

Kerouac - Jack Kerouac was a beatnik author. His book, Dangerous at Any Speed, published in the 1960s spotlighted how the automobile industry was intentionally overlooking a variety of safety issues.

Sputnik - Sputnik was the first satellite in space. The Soviet Union launched it in 1956. This was during a time of tense relations between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. The nuclear arms race was in full swing and the launch of Sputnik meant that the Soviets were winning the "Space Race." This SCARED Americans. They were fearful that the Soviets would soon use their knowledge of rocketry in conjunction with their nuclear arsenal; making it possible to launch an attack from a great distance and obliterate the U.S. before America would even have a chance to respond.

Chou En-Lai - Followed Mao as the communist leader of China.

Bridge on the River Kwai - This was a bridge in Korea that was strategically significant to America's chances of success in the Korean War. The U.S. military lost the bridge and the northern portion of Korea to communist advances as well.

The Last 20 Movies I Have Seen

These are the last 20 movies I have seen, ranked in order by how much I liked them - using my "How Much I Liked a Movie 1 to 10 Rating Scale." (Explained below.)

10 = One of my all time favorites.
9 = Fantastic.
8 = Really, really liked it.
7 = Thought it was really good and liked it a lot.
6 = Liked it pretty well.
5 = Glad I saw it, but not one of my favorites.
4 = Didn't hate it, but wish I would have spent the two hours doing something besides watching that lame movie.
3 = Thought it was pretty stinking bad.
2 = Really, really horrible.
1 = Unspeakably bad.

Slumdog Millionaire	9
Up	8
October Sky	7
Enron - The Smartest Guys in the Room	7
We Are Marshal	6
Pearl Harbor	6
Hannah Montana: The Movie	6
Vantage Point	5
The Negotiator	5
Sunshine Cleaners	5
Marley & Me	5
True Lies	4
Hancock	4
Edtv	4
Dead Poets Society	4
College Road Trip	4
Adventures in Baby Sitting	4
The Proposal	3
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles	3
Coraline	2

Searches for July

July 2009 was the month I changed my blog address from iblogdoyou.com to stevegall.com. For the month iblogdoyou.com received visits from 160 different searches. Stevegall.com recieved nine visits from searches.

Some of the searches for iblogdoyou.com.

• the unlikely disciple anna
• running songs \ hey mickey\
• dale snavely cherished children
• steve gall blog do you
• archie glass
• can i read charlotte's web to my 5 year old
• mall gall girls

Not much of interest in the way of searches leading to stevegall.com yet.

• petsmart mishawaka comments