Congrats!

Kudos to Entourage's daughter Meadow for her MLK Day essay, which won an MPS contest and was published (with her picture) in the Journal-Sentinel.

A Great Quote

"History doesn't repeat itself - at best it sometimes rhymes" - Mark Twain. One of the smartest quotes of all time.

Cloud Atlas

I watched "Cloud Atlas", the Tom Hanks/Halle Berry movie based on the great book by the same name. It's a long film with characters and storylines inter-weaved across centuries. I liked it, even if I think it would have been better served by trimming a few scenes, like the Cavendish adventure. I don't quite understand why the film was ignored by the Oscars. Worst case scenario it's an ambitious film with stunning visuals, and certainly worth a nod in (at least) a technical category.

 2013 tally to date: 4 books, 21 movies

Earl Weaver

 RIP Earl Weaver, age 92

Stan Musial

 RIP Stan The Man Musial, age 92. Baseball - and the world of harmonica players - will miss you.

Oh Boy

The school had standard lice checks today, and while LuLu was being examined her teacher asked the nurse:  "How did you learn to be a lice checker?"

To which the nurse replied- : "I grew up in South Milwaukee". 

Priceless.

Tired of people who lie to make themselves feel better. Just tell the truth, plenty of people can relate to the truth. For instance, car accidents....notice how it's never really anyone's fault? Well here's a confession: I once hit the person in front of me because I was looking down in my lap putting a sauce packet into a taco. Now that's a fault to an accident. I learn from my mistakes, not lie about them. - Lisa

Boxing Day 2012

It’s a Boxing Day Tradition for Team Slap: each year on the day after Christmas we take a road trip. 2012’s destination was supposed to be the Cave of the Mounds, but financial concerns scratched that trip. Instead we headed down to Gurnee to dine at the Rainforest Café.

I’d been there before a couple of times, but I must not have been paying attention, because I had no memory of how cool it was. Robotic jungle animals sit just out of reach (we dined near the tigers). There’s a ceiling of stars. Jungle vines hang from the ceiling. Giant aquariums grace the entrance to the dining room. Every 15 minutes a crash of thunder is heard, and ‘rain’ falls in the jungle areas.

The company was great and the food was yummy!

We ended our meal with their signature desert, a mountain of brownies and ice cream topped off by a sparkler. Deeeeeelish!

What a great Boxing Day, even if it wasn’t the one we had planned.