theparkerfamily.org

A Highland lord, naebody in particular

Naebody in Particular

They're not on a shortbread tin, but the dead live on so long as we keep telling their stories. Scots, Yanks, Canucks and the Auld Enemy. Newest posts are the ancestors, but scroll for the living.

  • books

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    her favorite book right now is a russian-english dictionary.

    seriously, at least twice a day she takes it off the shelf and flips through it, along with “My Life as a Furry Red Monster” the autobiography of the puppeteer behind Elmo. the latter has a big picture of Elmo on the cover, and you can almost see sparklet thinking each time:

    “i know the book will have pictures THIS time — they’ve got to be in here somewhere.”

  • “no, i trust her — why do you ask?”

    [bff]

  • blackberry

    I’ve changed phones, again — temporarily.

    With my new gig, I’ve been issued a Blackberry Bold — a newish model Bb with most the bells and whistles, but a step below the fancy-pants, big/touch screen models you see being pushed on TV.

    so, I’ve packed away my Android and I’m going cold turkey for a month to see what having a Bb is really like. (trying to keep my personal phone going while i learn a new platform is just a recipe for frustration.)

    I’ve actually never had a Bb before, which in itself is amazing. I had an iPhone for two years, and then the HTC Incredible. Bb’s were just becoming a thing when I left the Hill, but at that point only the Members and Chief of Staffs had them — unlike now, where they give them out like candy.

    No reason to panic if you’re trying to reach me — I’ve already forwarded my old phone number, all the texts that may come in, and I’ve setup the Bb to check my person email address to boot. It’s all good.

    I’m strangely excited — we’ll see how it’s going in a month.

  • video: ipad

    httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9TfkNHnvzo

    as a pre-emptive thank you gift, i bought the lady sparkler an ipad — mainly for the near-term pain she’s going to face with me switching from a 35 hour/wk job to one that’s more like 50 hours/wk.

    (she wants it to satisfy her horrible taste in tv/streaming video. the ipad is admittedly much more fun to watch on the couch than watching hulu plus on the computer at a desk.)

    turns out, we had the thing for a sum-total of 72 hours before sparklet learned how to turn it on, navigate to the main menu, load up the photo application, select a photo from the index, and start flipping through the pictures.

    i’m starting to wonder if we’ll ever see it again.

  • fonz, state farm saves the kids farm!

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    The kids farm lives!

    In a move that doesn’t surprise anybody who has ever been associated with non-profit fundraising, a corporation (state farm) has come up with a couple of million dollars to keep the kids farm at the national zoo open.

    My theory all along is that this was all orchestrated — that the budget cut announcement was just the opening salvo of a major donor fundraising effort for the petting zoo.

    At the “we did it!” celebration at the zoo this morning, I actually ran into the Executive Director of FONZ, who was very clear that they started absolutely from scratch when the cut was announced. So if this was orchestrated, they seem to have left out the people involved.

    Regardless, congrats to The Friends of the National Zoo for pulling this off, and to State Farm for recognizing and incredible opportunity and stepping up to the plate to take advantage of it.

    As a result, it looks like we have many more years of our baby girl and her animal friends in store.

    See Slideshow of the Photos on Flickr:
    kids farm celebration, national zoo, washington, dc

  • found: chipmunks in the backyard

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  • out: national building museum

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    See Slideshow of the Photos on Flickr:
    out: national building museum

  • cooking: guacamole

    Ingredients

    • 2 Haas avocados, halved, seeded and peeled
    • 1 lime, juiced
    • 1 teaspoon ground cumin
    • 1/2 teaspoon paprika
    • 1/2 medium onion, diced
    • 2 Roma tomatoes, seeded and diced
    • 2 clove garlic, minced

    Finishing Ingredients

    • 1 tablespoon chopped cilantro
    • 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

    Instructions

    1. Put first group of ingredients in bowl. Mash.
    2. Top with finishing ingredients. Serve.

  • finger painting

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    See Slideshow of the Photos on Flickr:
    finger painting

  • shuttle

    i was a shuttle baby.

    my brother grew up with a photo of the dave scott and the apollo 15 lunar rover tooling around on the moon. (the landing happened on his birthday. for the record, the evacuation of saigon happened on mine.)

    The apollo program was long since gone by the time i was born — but the first launch of the space shuttle Columbia happened a week after my sixth birthday, prime timing for me to become a space junkie.

    By the time the challenger disaster happened — my generation’s analog to the “where were you when Kennedy was shot” question — I was 10 years-old, and well aware of what was going on in the world.

    To answer the “where we’re you” question, we had gotten four inches of snow the night before, so school was cancelled and I was home for the day. my brother and i had just come in from sledding, and had sat down to hot chocolate and the 11:30am showing of “Scrabble!” on NBC when the dreaded “we interrupt this program…” broke into the television.

    i say dreaded, not because we dreaded the news of the disaster — but we dreaded the interruption. at the age of ten, it seemed like the networks were always breaking into my tv shows to cover some boring, only-adults-would-be-interested news event or the other.

    And I remember saying as much when they broke into the programming, closing my mouth just in time to see that twisted, y-shaped smoke trail that came after the explosion. even as a snotty 10 year old, i stopped complaining pretty quickly.

    by the time the second (Columbia) disaster happened, i was just as checked out from the shuttle program as everyone else. the space shuttle was now (wrongly) dismissed as just an elaborate, expensive fedex truck shipping goods between earth and the international space station, and logistics missions weren’t considered news anymore.

    (not to mention, that week I was neck deep in a divorce, selling my home, and moving into my boss’ basement in the city. It was a tough week.)

    that said, by this week i had enough sentimentality to shed a tear while I watched the last launch from my computer at work — with a bunch of 20 year olds who didn’t know why I was so emotional about something that should have already been in a museum.

    I was pretty worked up this morning for the landing, too. I had forgotten it was happening, until I woke bolt upright at 5:45 am, and wondered why I was awake. After a few minutes, I ran downstairs just in time to catch the last glide in towards the last shuttle landing ever.

    If I have a regret on my bucket list, it’s that I never got to see one of the 135 launches or landings in person.