Air1's Christmas greeting...

Saw this on the Air1 website this morning. Thought I'd share this with you....

This says it all!!!

A comic I recently found. I love the last frame posted here!

Favorite Christmas Tree

This has been one of my favorite Christmas trees in the city of Midland for quite a few years now. You can find it at a house on the corner of Rodd and Indian Streets. No fancy lawn displays, no tens of thousands of lights, no computer controlled choreography to Trans-Siberian Orchestra's "Wizards in Winter". Just your basic Christmas tree that happens to stand 3-stories tall.

In Memory - Majel Roddenberry

Wow! Rather than coming up with something on my own let me reprint the article in this morning's Detroit Free Press that tells about this...

"Majel Roddenberry, 'First Lady of Star Trek,' dies
ASSOCIATED PRESS • December 19, 2008

NEW YORK -- Majel Barrett Roddenberry, the widow of “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry, has died. She was 76. Roddenberry, an actress who appeared in numerous “Star Trek” TV shows and movies, died Thursday of leukemia at her home in Bel-Air, Calif., her representative said.

At Roddenberry’s side were family friends and her only son, Eugene Roddenberry Jr. Gene Roddenberry died in 1991.

Her romance with Roddenberry earned her the title “The First Lady of Star Trek.” A fixture in the “Star Trek” franchise, her roles included Nurse Christine Chapel in the original “Star Trek,” Lwaxana Troi in “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and the voice of the USS Enterprise computer in almost every spin-off of the 1966 cult series. She recently reprised the voice role in the upcoming “Star Trek” film directed by J.J. Abrams."

She will be missed!

Youtube must see

For gameshow fans, this is a must see clip on youtube. It is from a Tom Kennedy hosted episode of "Password Plus" along with panelists Dick Martin and Betty White.

Let's just say that Dick Martin gives an illegal clue and the episode goes downhill from there. It lasts for just over 8 minutes.

View it here...

Annoying Christmas Music...

Maybe it's just me, but I think I found the Christmas song that's annoying me the most this season: The "12 Days of Christmas" as done by the group "Relient K".

Several times in the song after going through a few "days", the group admits that they really don't know what a partridge is or what a pear tree is. Look in the dictionary and try to figure out what they really are.

The only part the group actually gets right is that they really don't make good gifts.

I'm sorry, could you repeat that for me again please?

This was not today's gas price.

I've seen this price sign for many months in Auburn. This was the gas price on the last day of business at one of two Auburn (MI) Marathon gas stations now closed.

When I noticed this earlier this year, the $2.99 seemed like a bargain. Now, it seems like a bit of a rip-off. Amazing what a few months does.

Adult Christmas Party - Floyd Church (12.14.08)

Last night, for me, signified the start of the Christmas fun season (unless you consider gift buying fun). We had our annual Christmas party at church. It's an adult only party (not because it's dirty in anyway) which for the first time in my memory we had on Sunday night. My mother, sister, and I all attended from our family. Here's what typically happens...

Christmas candy preparation - The first event of the party is the annual Christmas candy preparation. This is typically a bunch of different candies and/or sweets that are bagged (or boxed) up for presentation to church attendees the Sunday before Christmas. A couple of people decided to get a head start and start the bagging early. By the time I arrived around 6pm, everyone was well underway in prepping the bags (photo 1).

Food - Anytime you get church members together with food, it's always a treat. And what Christmas party is complete without food. Photo 2 doesn't do the amount of food available justice. Despite the fact that we had nearly 60 people attend (a record?), there was plenty for me to have 2 helpings of food. My favorite was an apple dumpling bean soup prepared by Don (photo 3).

Chinese gift auction - Here's the rules: Everyone brings a gift to exchange (around $5 - though some were clearly more than that) (see photo 4). Everyone is given a number that determines the order you go up to get a gift. Some people had creative uses for those numbered sheets (photo 3). When it's time to go up, you either get a gift from the group in the center (photo 4) or grab one from someone else. The "victim" then has to go up to the center to grab a new gift or grab something from another person. They can not go and grab the gift they just lost.

This year's group (photo 5 panoramic) was large and got almost downright vicious at times. Spouses were working together to get back gifts recently lost (because if one person gets any gift twice, it was theirs).

An admission on my part: The gift I had gotten wasn't even touched by the time I got up there (#46). So I decided to target my gift making believe it wasn't mine (it was that little blue package left and down from center in photo 4). I decided to gamble that if I had that gift out in the open, then someone could make a play for it. The remaining people didn't even think of going for it, so guess what I ended up with. I was needing a new travel alarm clock anyway.

Let's see what happens next year. I may have to get more devious.

In the automotive scene...

While the "Big 3" are teetering with government handouts and possible bankruptcy, imports are actually doing something.

Nissan's Small Commercial Concepts

Nissan's latest concepts take aim at a niche long monopolized by GM, Ford, and Chrysler - the small commercial vehicle. The larger 2500 Concept (according to media reports) can be fitted as a mobile office with a foldable conference table. The smaller NV200 Concept (pictured below) has a cargo bay that extends out from the main vehicle customized to whatever use you need. These aren't probably the final production vehicles but you can almost guarantee if some of these design quirks make it then Nissan has hits on it's hands.

Mazda saves face...

I have never engaged in the practice, but people have been giving their cars names for many years. It also seems that some cars have been developing their own personalities. Now the newest trend is that cars are starting to look like people. I think it started with the original Dodge / Plymouth Neon ('99 Dodge RT pictured below - top). Remember the original advertising slogan - "hi!". Several cars have started to develop faces through the years but I think the 2010 Mazda 3 (pictured below-bottom) takes the cake. It almost looks too happy with that big mouth. I think that this looks like it's going to be a hit anyway - mouth or no mouth.

No aluminum Christmas Trees allowed!

I just watched "Charlie Brown Christmas" for the umpteenth time in my almost 39 years on this earth and each time it's always such an inspiration to watch.

Here's Charlie Brown:

• He's lamenting the commercialization of Christmas (as of when this originally aired) and the fact that his dog's house is probably more decorated than his own home.
• His friend Lucy suggests he does something to take his mind off his troubles - like directing the group's Christmas play.
• When he tries to direct the play, all the kids have their own agenda and do their own thing.
• They send him to get a Christmas tree (a pink aluminum tree) and he comes back with the tiny little Christmas tree from hell.

This is what I like: when Charlie complains that he can't get anything right he asks if anyone knows the real meaning of Christmas. Linus is brave enough to stand up and share a summary of the Christmas story from the Gospels (Matthew/Mark/Luke/John).

The final scenes show Charlie Brown and company taking the tree back to his home and decorating the tree from hell with Snoopy's decorations. Lo and behold a new tree comes forth.

I think there's a good spiritual analogy here - look at John 3:16 recognizing that because God sent his son into the world, He can remake our own personal Christmas trees from hell into something quite beautiful.

I took the camera phone with me to church this morning!

And this is my view of the action. I'm one of two people that work in the balcony during the early service. I work the projection system which displays all the words for the songs we sing and other things. This morning, we sung our songs from the hymnal so I didn't have to do as much. :) Okay, I'm still feeling my way around this camera phone testing it's limits. It did have problems with this photo.