…my Aunt Sofoula (Sophie) died. It was horrible. She was a very important part of my life and my mom and dad’s life, as she was here when my parents emigrated from Greece in 1967.

Blog post about her dying

I am 100% against this. So this kid shoots and kills a man, goes to prison for 8 years, and gets to come out, have an apartment in Bay City paid for and has his schooling at Delta College paid for, FOR THE NEXT 4 YEARS!

I mean, why? Some people can’t afford to pay for rent, food, clothes, etc., let alone for 4 years of college!

Nathaniel Abraham story at the Detroit News

I love Little Johnny jokes. Thanks again, Tortilla!

The Polite way to pee During one of her daily classes, a teacher trying to teach good manners, asked her students the following question: “Michael, if you were on a date having dinner with a nice young lady, how would you tell her that you have to go to the bathroom?” Michael said, “Just a minute I have to go pee.” The teacher responded by saying, “That would be rude and impolite. What about you Sherman, how would you say it?” Sherman said, “I am sorry, but I really need to go to the bathroom. I’ll be right back.” “That’s better, but it’s still not very nice to say the word bathroom at the dinner table. And you, little Johnny, can you use your brain for once and show us your good manners?” “I would say: Darling, may I please be excused for a moment? I have to shake hands with a very dear friend of mine, whom I hope to introduce you to after dinner.” The teacher fainted…

I got this joke from my friend, Tortilla Man!

A little boy walks into his parents’ room to see his mom on top of his dad bouncing up and down. the mom sees her son and quickly dismounts, worried about what her son has seen. She dresses quickly and goes to find him. The son sees his mom and asks, “What were you and Dad doing?” The mother replies, “Well, you know your dad has a big tummy and sometimes I have to get on top of it and help flatten it.” “Your wasting your time,” said the boy. “Why is that?” the mom asked puzzled. “Well when you go shopping the lady next door comes over and gets on her knees and blows it right back up.”

What a wonderful Christmas we had. It was so much more fun this year than it was last year, for Benjamin, and for Michelle and I. I can see how you start to regress in age and mentality when you have kids, as you start to get excited about setting up and playing with the toys the kids get! Benjamin got a Thomas the Tank Engine Wooden Train set for Christmas, and we’ve all been pretty excited playing with it and look forward to building it bigger and bigger. I am also looking forward to getting Benjamin a real train set, from Lionel.

Ben, enjoying Mommy and Daddy opening up their presents.

Click the photo for the entire Christmas (Eve and Day) gallery.

I finally got a chance to put up some photos of what’s been going on the past few months.

During the holidays, we had so much time at home, it was impossible to go back to work!

Benjamin and I at Starbucks in Rochester. We were there to see the cool LED Christmas lights they had up!

This was the photo we used for the Christmas card we sent out this year!

Clicking either of those photos will take you to that gallery!

I haven’t posted anything about technology in quite some time, and I was chatting with my good friend, Norman, this morning, about “high-tech”, and he pointed me to something really cool!This kind of comes on the heels of the Apple iPhone that is getting released to the American public this June, through Cingular (big bummer for me, I have Sprint). The iPhone, as you may have heard, uses a touch screen for input, allowing you to do things like zoom a picture by expanding it with two fingers, or making it smaller using two fingers and “pinching” it inwards.That same technology, on a much larger scale, can be seen in the following video:Related Article - Touch Screens for Many Fingers

This thing is awesome!!!!

Read Story

On New Year’s Day, I was changing Benjamin at my mom’s house and I announced to Michelle, across the room, that Benjamin had diarrhea. A few minutes later, when Ben was back in the living room, playing with everyone, including his cousin, Angelina, he was yelling out, “Daddyrhea, daddyrhea!”. A few minutes later, he says, “Mommyrhea!”.

I could’ve died…it was so hilarious and an awesome climax to the 13 days off I had with him and Michelle over the holidays. I fell in love with the little man.

Hope you all have an enjoyable and safe Christmas!

Thanks JT$ for sending along this fascinating link. This guy draws a monster, right in front of you. Purely amazing!

Daily Monster

I was playing with Comic Life today and came up with this, from our trip to Green Bay a few weeks back!

We went to visit with the Lewis and Mariner family on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Wow, a house with 4 toddlers and an infant is surely a lively place!

We managed to corral them for a quick shot!

Benjamin, Ethan, Owen, Noah, Luke

Man… he’s growing faster than I can keep track of him. We set Benjamin in front of the house on Thanksgiving, to try and get a good shot of him. He sure is an antsy little guy. I had to snap about 10 photos to get this one!

Clicking the image will give you more of our Thanksgiving Day photos!

I got this from my cousin, Demo:

Why Being Greek is Great

• Because we have a small, poor country full of people with big hearts.
• Because we never visit others empty handed.
• Because there is no way to explain to foreigners what is “kapsoura” (burning desire for someone).
• Because in Greece family is still something valuable.
• Because we always make it, albeit in the last moment.
• Because we were slaves for 400 years yet never bring that up as an excuse for our current state.
• Because we are everywhere around the planet.
• Because “filotimo” (friend of honour, helping someone because it is a shame not to) does not exist in any other language.
• Because whenever foreigners cannot find a word, they use one of ours.
• Because we spend our bad and low times with our friends and family, not with shrinks.
• Because Socrates, Plato and Aristotle were Greek.
• Because we invented theatre.
• Because we gave birth to Democracy.
• Because we discovered logic.
• Because we jumpstarted science.
• Because we are proud of our culture, not of our wars.
• Because when we were building the Parthenon, the others were still sleeping on trees
• Because we gave the light to all these leaders who are “striving” for peace by making wars.
• Because we have a distinction between Eros (falling in love) and Agapi (innocent love), while we feel both of them passionately.
• Because Eros was a Greek God.
• Because we gave the oath “freedom or death”.
• Because when others used to be clothed with wolf skin we were weaving see-through linen.
• Because “Greeks do not fight as heroes, heroes fight like Greeks” (Winston Churchill,1941).
• Because we are not ashamed to cry.
• Because we dance when we are sad.
• Because we work to live and do not live to work.
• Because 97% of the stars’ names are Greek.
• Because when you shout “brother or cousin " in the streets everyone turns around.
• Because the inside of all our churches are not dark but full of light.
• Because our parents do not forget that we exist when we reach 18.
• Because when we want to sunbathe, we go to the beach, we don’t crawl on grass or jump into fountains.
• Because our sun is healthy-you know this, bc grandma say it’s good for your bones
• Because we confront every difficulty with humor.
• Because the Olympic games were born in Greece.
• Because, with OUR (Olympic) light, we unite the world and pass the message of peace.
• Because our sky is blue, not grey.
• Because 40% of Oxford dictionary is made up with Greek words.
• Because we know what “Kefi” (propensity to fun) means.
• When you people were eating leaves, we had cholesterol.