• Friday
  • Brenda took Danielle and her friend out to eat and then they were going to go skating at Great Skate.  Great Skate had a line out the door and into the parking lot, so they decided to go shopping at the dollar store instead.
  • Justin, Allison, and I decided to try Ethyl’s Smoke House.  The food was fantastic - I can’t believe it took me this long to try it.  Justin devoured his BBQ beef sandwich (which is saying something - he’s a very picky eater).  The meal I had was more food than I needed - I ate it all anyway, but I was stuffed (and that’s saying something).  The only downside was that the restaurant was smoky, even in the non-smoking section.  I was told that it pretty much turns into a bar later in the evening, so I guess that explains it.  Both Allison and Justin said they would like to go back again.
• Saturday
  • 7:00 AM - Justin had his last hockey game of the season.  His team is finally starting to improve, but he ages up for the next session, so that is no help for him. 
  • 9:00 AM - Danielle and Allison start selling Girl Scout Cookies.
  • 10:00 AM - Pack all three kids in the van and go to Justin’s Pine Wood Derby. 
    • Some of the cars were pretty damn cool.  The best was a bathtub with Sponge Bob and Patrick in it.  It looked like porcelean instead of wood.
    • Justin’s Car took 3rd in his Den, which was good enough to make it into the Pack finals.  Before the finals I got to re-graphite the wheels and noticed that one of them was sticking.  I loosened it a bit, and his car had it’s best time on the first race of the finals.  His other two runs in the finals were good, but not quite good enough.  I think he took 5th overall in the pack.  Next year I will make sure to have the car exactly 5.0 oz’s (it was 4.7 oz’s this year).
• Sunday
  • Cleaning and homework.
  • Picked up dog crap in the back yard.  I think the bag was over 15 lbs. when I was finished.

From CNN.Com -

I guess if they can’t save it, they can always turn it into sausage

It was the beast of Thames, it was the wurst of Thames.

Conversation of 5 minutes ago:

• Me: What are you doing John?
• John: Hiding
• Me: Is it working?
• John: No, because you found me.
• Me: But I forgot to count and didn’t yell Ali Ali Umscum Free.
• Me: Or do you yell that when you give up and you want the person to come out of their hiding place?
• John: I don’t think I would ever yell that.
• Me: Come on, sure you would.

I remember the term “Ali Ali Umscum Free” from playing Hide and Go Seek as a kid.  So the question is, did we yell that when we were done counting and going to look for people, or did we yell it to have people come out of their hiding places because we gave up?

Brenda bought a Word*a*Day calendar for Justin, but the first several words were a bit intimidating, so I was given the calendar instead. I was peeling off the words from the weekend, and came across -

Saturday - 14th: bowhead n. 1) A whalebone whale of the Arctic seas having a very large head and an arched upper jaw.

Surprisingly, they didn’t have

2) A Sorority girl -  a college girl that is a member of a greek society.  So named because they are seldom seen without a large bow protruding from the top of her head (circa 1988-????).

Passive voice is a problem for writers of all ages (<--- NOTICE THE IRONY , so I was glad that Justin's homework last night was to write a three paragraph story using action verbs and descriptive adjectives.  Although Justin is only in third grade and hasn't written very much, I could see him struggling to reword sentences to avoid passive voice.

"It was a cold but sunny day," seems like pretty good sentence to a third grader.  "Cold" and "Sunny" are nice adjectives, but "was" is a horrible verb.  I tried to explain the need for action verbs and suggested ways to improve the sentence - "The sun glared off the morning snow." - now we know that it is cold and sunny, but we have some action - the sun is glaring.  I worked with him as he composed his sentences to eliminate as much passive voice as possible, but I had to keep myself in check, so that he authored the story instead of me.

So, back to the first paragraph of this post - I intentionally wrote as much of it as possible in passive voice.  I should have written it more like this

Many writers fall prey to writing in passive voice.  Justin’s grade school is addressing this problem by assigning writing assignments that focus on using action verbs.  Justin struggled with the concept of passive voice, but with a little guidance he managed to reword most of his sentences to use action verbs.
Your assignment - Look at your own writing.  Avoid passive voice in any emails or blog entries you write today.  Reread each sentence you write and verify that someone or something is doing whatever action, not just that the action gets done. 

In case you didn’t know, Phishing is where you send an official looking email to every email address you can find hoping that someone will click through to your website and provide you with bank account information or login information.  The emails will appear to come from a valid email address (security@BankName.com) but will actually have been spoofed.

I had thought everyone was as paranoid as me about this, but in the past 3 months, I’ve had one friend caught and my manager was nearly caught.  This emails usually make you think that someone has hacked into your account, and you have to “verify some information” or they will shut down your account.  They provide an official looking link, but it actually goes somewhere else. (like in my sample)

Here are some samples:

or
 

Of course the real letter would use the company logo, etc.  I’ve seen phishing emails posing as several banks, Ebay, Etrade, and others.  If you get an email about a bank account, that requires any action on your part, just delete it.  If you are concerned that it might be legitimate, DON’T click through the links - go to the official website (like http://ebay.com, etc.), look for contact information on the site and talk to someone on the phone - unless the official website has been hacked, this should be a safe way to verify if anything really needs to be done to your account.

Dear Gannett Management

The other night I was watching KSDK, the NBC affiliate in St. Louis, when a Pat Robertson infomercial came on. I was disturbed that your company would sell air time to a hate-monger and snake-oil salesman like Mr. Robertson. When I quickly changed the channel, I had to explain to my 8 year old daughter why I consider Mr. Robertson to be the most offensive person alive.

It is bad enough that Mr. Robertson embezzles millions of dollars from the elderly and ill-informed, but to then use that money to spread his hate speech is unforgivable (In case you are unfamiliar, in the past few months, Robertson has called for the assassination of international leaders, has claimed that god will punish Dover, PA, and that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was ’smote’ by god).

In the future I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t give this maniac a forum for his insanity, regardless of what he is willing to pay.

I look forward to your reply.

James Hofer

I’ll let you know if I get a reply.  I think Robertson bought the airtime because NBC was suppose to air “Daniel” and the religious right finds it controversial.

Update - Emails sent to:

Chairman Kevin J. Martin: KJMWEB@fcc.gov
Commissioner Michael J. Copps: Michael.Copps@fcc.gov
Commissioner Jonathan S. Adelstein: Jonathan.Adelstein@fcc.gov
Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate: Deborah.Tate@fcc.gov