Hey Janice,

I love that rainbow picture! I saw a rainbow Friday after our brief rain shower but it was very light and I didn’t think it would make a good picture. My best rainbow pictures are the ones I took at Niagara Falls a few years ago.

We don’t have rain at the moment but it looks like it’s getting darker outside. This afternoon I get to tour the new hospital so I’m wearing my sneakers and taking an umbrella in case it’s raining. Construction sites in the rain and shoes with heels don’t make for a good combination!

I hope you enjoy your day off with your little guy. Happy Canada Day! I’m sure you’ll have a good time with Matt. I got to enjoy some baby things this morning. I’m a member of the Advocacy Committee at work and we just finished up a collection of things for a local crisis pregnancy center. A couple people dropped off stuff a little late but since we didn’t do anything with the items yet, we accepted them. This morning someone dropped off the cutest little outfit. It says “Baby’s first Easter” on it and the feet are little bunnies with ears–it’s adorable! I love baby things so I enjoyed shopping for items last week. What a fun project!

Hi to all the other bloggers out there! I hope things are cooling off for those suffering through the heat. It looked like some areas that had triple digit temperatures were “only” supposed to be up to 97 today! Hang in there.

I hope everyone has a great day!

Margie

I kinda know how you feel, Janice. I’m on the radio, and because of that, I get asked about the forecast all the time. And I’m not even a meteorologist! I get similar comments to yours, and I tell them, “Hey, I don’t write the forecasts, I just read ‘em.” Another line I hear a lot is, “I heard you on the radio!” I never know what to say to that. “Thanks for listening” is the best I can do.

Weather update: now the sun is shining. The weather can’t make up its mind this morning. Just as long as it’s not pouring rain when I have to go over to the new hospital, I’ll be happy.

I forgot to mention in my last post that we have plenty to celebrate in July. I know how we all love food on this blog, so take your pick of any or all of these celebrations to observe:

National Grilling Month
National Ice Cream Month (Yum!)
National Hot Dog Month
National Horseradish Month
Blueberries Month
International Chicken Wings Week (7/10-12) (I know that’s not a week but that’s what the site said!)

And make sure you mark this day down: CHOCOLATE DAY (7/7)

Now I’m hungry so I’m going to have my lunch. Happy eating everyone!

Margie

You can have our summer Janice. Were in the 90’s everyday lately and no rain.

Margie

Blueberries. I have been eating them daily. Even though NJ is the largest grower of blueberries we have had really great tasting ones from NC. The stores are selling them for $2.99 for 18 oz.

For the older generation here.

http://www.billsretroworld.com/RETROLIFE.HTM

Hi janice, and everybody, i have not disappeared off the face of the planet, my computer died on me 2 weeks ago, and i had to go out and buy a new one last friday so there you go!

Hope your well Janice, and little matthew too and sean and your family, love the pic from your neice, i love rainbows!, its been at least 80 for the last week or so here in London, its not great when you have to work outside walking 6 miles a day in the heat, sunblock & water is all i have, its suposed to get up to 40 between july/August , reminds me of back in CA, but over here air conditioning is a rare thing in stores and especially transportation.

In case i forget have a wonderful and safe fourth this weekend to all of my fellow bloggers and of course you too Janice and matthew and sean and all of your family!, im planning, steak, sweet potatoe, potatoe salad, hamburgers and beer over the the holiday weekend!

my God bless you all always

Love Richard King

Looks like you guys had a great time at the Muts er Mets game (Cub fan OK your shot at me) We had summer here till today 70 for today and tomorrow? Supposed to be better for the 4th of July Weekend AH! Fireworks at Grant Park on the Lakefront on the 3rd will be seeing the local fireworks here on the 4th supposed to be going to see Huey Lewis & The News and a few old friends of mine that I havent seen some in 21 years now. Thats on the 5th busy weekend Aunt and Cousin have birthdays on the 6th YIKES!!!!!!!!

JD ~ people always offer opinions to me on history and think they know so much. One friend of ours asked me over dinner one time, “So I guess you’re a history buff.” I replied, “Well, I teach it and write about it professionally, but sure you can call me a ‘history buff.’” A little pet peeve of mine.

I just got back with the family from Gasprillia Island (sp?) , Florida. We spent time on the beach
and fishing a lot (we’re total landlubbers!). We caught several small fish including a 2-foot shark
by my daughter. On our last night there, our guide took my father-in-law and I tarpon fishing with
a couple of folks. We drank lots of beer, ate lots of subs, and had a heckuva time laughing. I
was the only one who reeled in a 200-pound beast that I wrestled with for more than an hour. It
was a titanic struggle with this prehistoric fish. I brought him alongside the boat but could not bring
him in because the fish are so nasty. I guess they don’t even do it for tournaments. At that point,
he snapped the line but it was officially declared a “catch” and I sat back with a tired and satisfied
grin on my face happily sipping another Bud Light. I caught the fish at twilight and did my first
night-fishing. It was awesome.

I’ll try and send some pictures, though we didn’t take my digital along. Maybe I can scan some
in and send them along.

More stories later. The fish battle ruined my back so I’m stretched out flat!
Tony

It’s been cooler here in D.C. too with not as much humidity this summer! No complaints here!

I hope you and everybody from Canada have a great “DOMINION DAY”. We’ll run up the old flag tomorrow!

I hope I get to visit Canada again. The last time was about 25 years ago. I had a client in Toronto and visited several times. My client’s comptroller and I shared an interest in personal computers. He had a PC, I had an Apple IIe. We emailed reports and other documents back and forth, saving our client a small fortune in Fed Ex bills. My boss didn’t care much for that because he always marked all client expenses by 20 percent, a common practice among PR and ad firms — then and now.

Toronto is sych a great city.

My parents and I visited Montreal and Quebec in the early 1950’s. I remember both as beautiful cities. We visited a wax museum in Quebec. I was 11 years old. I found some of the wax figures scary and at one point, I fainted, something I had done a few years earlier at Riverview in Chicago when I saw a man stick a sword down his throat. I’ve never fainted since since we visited the wax museum.

I’ve never been to western Canada. Maybe someday. I sure hope so. Perhaps my roommate and I will take a trip up the coast to Vancouver.

Radio

I used to be on the radio, too, Janice — long ago and far away….

In the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, I hosted a three-hour big band show every Saturday afternoon on WBEZ-FM, NPR in Chicago. Then Chicago Tribune media critic Gary Deeb wrote that week after week, according to Arbitron, my show was No. 5 in the ratings on Saturday afternoons during each 15-minute interval I was on the air. And that applied to both AM and FM.

The good news today is that you hear some of my shows online by visiting my big band broadcast blog, The Palomar:

http://thepalomar.blogspot.com/

Once you arrive at this site, scroll down to the bottom. You”ll see four embedded PLAYLIST PLAYERS. Look for the top one called THE PALOMAR PLAYLIST PLAYER. You’ll find four of my shows (#64-#67) and another one further down (#101). Place your cursor in the slider in the scroll bar on the right each player to move up and down.

There is enough big band and swing music in this player and in the other three players to entertain you for days on end.

Have fun!

George Spink

Hi everyone,

Its officially CANADA DAY as JD says, HAPPY BIRTHDAY CANADA. You don’t look a day over a 100.

Tuesday I enjoyed the rain off and on, didn’t do any bike riding.

If we have a nice day later today, I might go look at some fireworks if it’s not raining.

I watched two dramatic films tonight, the kind that rivet you to your chair: “Legally Blond” (2001) with Reese Witherspoon and “The House Bunny” (2008) with Anna Faris.

Being the old lech that I am, I thoroughly enjoyed both.

Good morning everyone,

Happy Canada Day to Janice and Peter! Janice, I hope you have fun celebrating with your little guy.

We have beautiful sunshine this morning but there is a chance of showers in the forecast for today. Yesterday was interesting. We had a little rain as I headed to the new hospital for my tour. Well, right after I got inside the office building where our group got together, the skies opened up and we got over 3/10 in. of rain in a short period of time. All I can say is that I’m glad I had sneakers on. We couldn’t get in the entrance we planned on going in because of high water so we took a side door which landed us in a stairwell. It was rather interesting when we couldn’t figure out how to get out of the ICU area! Poor Jo got disoriented with all the construction but when we walked by some windows we were able to signal one of our guys and he was able to come up to rescue us. They better put plenty of signs up to direct people once the construction is done.

I found out none of the shelves are right where the “library” is supposed to be in the physician lounge. I was promised that our maintenance guys would take care of that once the major construction is finished. Whoever designed that obviously had never been in a library and the slanted shelves are too shallow and the flat shelves are too close together. They got it all wrong! Oh well, as long as they fix it I’ll be happy.

Now I’m running out of room so I’ll wish everyone a great day!

Margie

Good morning, Margie! Sorry to hear about your library woes. People just think, it’s a library, throw up some bookshelves, you’re done. While I was a library volunteer in a local middle school a new library was built as an addition to the school. The librarian was fortunately able to give her input from the beginning as the plans were drawn up by the architect and during the entire process, which resulted in a beautiful, well-organized space. It was a very enjoyable place to work. One of my favorite things was a built in viewing screen that came out of the ceiling with the flip of a switch on the wall. It always impressed the 6th graders! So, anyway, I understand your frustration – good luck getting those medical tomes on shelves meant for paperback novels!! :O

I’ll give everyone three guesses what the weather is like here in San Antonio . . . and the first two don’t count!! Actually, they are say we might get a thunderstorm and brief cooling today, although the triple digit highs are still forecast for the week. We’d appreciate the rain on our crispy grass.

Have a great day, All.

Hey Gina,

I think all the bloggers took the day off with Janice. I’m glad you responded earlier so I didn’t wind up talking to myself. I hope you get some rain for your crispy grass! I’m glad I don’t live in an area that gets long stretches of hot, hot weather. We have some hot stretches but nothing like triple digit temperatures for days on end. Hang in there!

Margie

Good Afternoon All,

A very nice day here in the South. 77, breezy and cloudy. A strong thunderstorm rolled through last night…w/heavy rain and wind.

Lightning struck my brother’s house and caught their dryer on fire, and the dryer wasn’t even on. He said it burnt several wires up. So he is working on getting that situation fixed today. I’m just glad they were awake and realized something was burning, and put the fire out quickly.

Happy Birthday Canada!

Have a great day everybody,
Deb…for some reason it feels like a Friday???

Hi everyone I tried to relax on Canada Day, it rained off and on here, further into the capital city it was nice all day, with no rain. Go figure! Perhaps JD demanded the rain to stop directly in Ottawa itself. Some 30-35 thousand people went to Parliament Hill to take in the celebrations, speechs, preformances.

In Kandahar Afghanistan the men and women played some good old fashioned ball hockey while sipping some Tim Horton’s coffee and donuts.

A great day for Canada and Canadians no matter where they may live, all Canadians feel the beat of the Maple leaf in their hearts.

Bonne fête Canada, et joyeux anniversaire

Hey Tony great fish story. I largest fish Ive caught was a halibut up here and it was only 90lbs.

I we dippnetting for Copper River Reds (sockeye salmon) on Tuesday and we ended up with 36 fish. These fish are sold for as little as $20/lbs up to $50/lbs. You do the math. What a great time and a lot of hard work.

As for you Janice, I totally hear what you are saying about being ask about the weather all the flippin’ time. I just smile and tell them, I’ll try to feed the weather mouse a little bit more to get the wheel spinning again. That usually gets a smile. But what are we gonna do? Check out this artical.

http://www.elmendorf.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123154964

That’s me!

Take care