Toothy Worry

A little post-report-writing doodle before bedtime.

Jawless Drooler

Gearing up for the Halloween stretch now. This was the first thing that popped into my head on the sticky note pad.

[the piX in the background was an eBay HR thing (people interexchange? (not as lame as RASCI the Process Weasel stuffed animals they handed out) a few years back. they gave us giant sticky note pads with piX on it that I am still working through.]

Victory Barkeep Shocker

Reaction of Victory Brewing Co. bartender when  my visiting-from-Texas brother pointed out that she had been included in a snapshot of the Victory Growler Filler on Feed The Ogre soon after Victory reopened in May.

[sincerest apologies to the barkeep for the unflattering and/or lack of likeness of this illustration! that's just how i roll my Pentel e-Sharp mechanical pencil.]

True Horror Stories

We were at a dinner part this past weekend with friends. The weather was May perfect sunshine, light breezes and nice chill in the air. We pulled out their chiminea and got a fire stoked. At one point the conversation turned to movies and there was a survey of "who likes horror movies?" Some said they enjoyed a select few, others said they had no time for the genre.

Horror movies turned to talk of Jaws which, in turn, turned to an episode of MythBusters where they tested the idea of shooting a scuba tank with a rifle and making it explode. That brought about some chuckles about the whole concept.

Then one of the guests talked about how he witnessed his uncle's house in Lebanon being blown up by men shooting the butane tank outside the house during the war. Apparently, they use butane rather than propane for heat/cooking in that region. He remarked that that was horror and one of the reasons he left Lebanon.

That conversation's been bouncing around in my head for a few days -- how many of us here in the States and other 'stable' lands have never witnessed true horror -- is that why we have a love affair with horror movies and scary rides? Most of us don't know what it means to be scared in real life, day-in and day-out.

What happens when our troops come home from living in the horror of war? While they have 'normalcy' to come home to -- what's left in and of their minds? What about their families? What about their community? For that matter, what's the lasting effect on those people that live in lands where war is 'normalcy'?

I just need to appreciate more the lives we have.

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Along those lines, here's a shout-out to a charity that does good work for the US troops and their families: Fisher House Foundation. Here's a review of the charity at Charity Navigator. And here's a charity, American Near East Refugee Aid (their review on CN) that works to improve communities in the Middle East ravaged by war.