SKI U MAH

Even though they are the worst of the best and the best of the worst there's still a big gap.
IAA AGame < IA DGame.
Better luck next time.

The BK did have a nice TD though.

2 Star Luxury

Yesterday I went to our luxurious Hotel Sheraton and parked behind a German Mercedes Benz jeep. The last couple of years the hotel has become a military installation for a handful of German military. They took up residence here because they were not satisfied with the barracks given to them when they arrived. So after a hard day of their soldiering duties they can come back to their rooms and order room service.

Cultural Jottings

Last night I broke the fast with several of the university professors and administration. We are in the last couple of days of the fasting month of Ramadan. Someone told me that the local grocery store sells twice the amount of food during Ramadan than the other non-fasting months. Most people spend a lot of time with their families eating literally all night long…

We get hassled a lot here everywhere we go by people trying to sell there wares. Today as I was waiting at an intersection I was accosted by a man selling baskets and other things. He assumed I was French as is normal here and tried to get my attention by saying “Vive la France.” I told him I wasn’t French. He asked me if I was German and I said no and just to see what he would say I said I was Israeli. His eyes widened and then he said “Allahu Akbar,” which means god is great in Arabic and something else I didn’t understand and then walked away disgusted.

Crouching Abdi Hidden Dragon

Recently our regular guard went to Ethiopia to see his family. He told us he will be gone for a month. He arranged a replacement for us while he is gone. He’s the guy crouching, leaning on the pole on the left.

These guys have their own culture. They all live outside, and sleep under the stars every night. They like to congregate together crouching down in the catcher’s position to discuss everyone’s comings and goings in the neighborhood. They way they crouch look to me like they are birds sitting on a telephone wire.

We don’t speak any common language with him. Tonight I questioned him about a problem with our water tank and had to first ask our Arab neighbor in English who then asked another guard in Arabic who then asked our guard in some strange Ethiopian language.

Les Chameaux

Today I drove by the port where several Ethiopian lorries carrying camels waited to unload onto a ship. The camels were tied down forcing them to kneel.

I think the camel is a beautiful animal but they have bad attitudes.

Six Saltines in Sixty Seconds

I tried unsuccessfully to eat six Saltine crackers in one minute.

Graffitied

Our house in the US was recently tagged by a group of community beautification volunteers.

Win Twins

Yeah Baby. Yeah.

Manifestation

My classes were interrupted today by the first strike of the year. It looks like we are off to a good start since today was also the first day of school. Last year one could count on a strike about once a week. We are off to a better pace this year.

The students are angry because over the summer the administration surprised everyone by charging tuition for the first time. No one was prepared for this. The cost is about $120 per semester for a full load of classes. This is a lot of money for a student here. It�s especially difficult because it was without warning.

The sign says: We chose to study but not to pay.

40° F to 110° F

Extreme Dodgeball

Extreme Dodgeball on Vimeo

Lewis and Clark

Here we are looking for a waterway passage to the Pacific Ocean at the Normal Family Reunion.

email

merickson777@yahoo.com

Ice Lollies

Three cheers for popsicles.

The Birds and the Bees

So why do hummingbirds hum?

8 Seconds

8 Seconds on Vimeo

97% of Yahoo Fantasy Golfers

You can call me a nerd, but only for this.
I'm in the 97% of all Yahoo Fantasy Golfers. I'm in 6,011th place, and I'm in 2,867th place for the second half of the golf season. I think there must be a few hundred thousand players in this. This may be my high water mark.

The Portland Kings

Yesterday I ran into several of my former basketball players playing in a tournament in Minneapolis. I used to coach a group of these young guys through the Park Board in Minneapolis. They were 10th, 11th, and 12th graders back then, now some of them are married with kids. I coached some of the guys for 3 years. We picked up right were we left off joking and laughing. It was fun.
This photo was taken in 2002.

Our digital camera is broken

Please standby.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer Impersonator on the Loose

The Grand Forks Herald reported yesterday that a man impersonating the late theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer was recently apprehended at a Grand Forks Walmart. He was armed and dangerous. Local authorities used pepper spray to apprehend the suspect. He is said to be suffering a serious case of Rogainaholism. The addiction and abuse of the treatment for baldness.

The Dilworth Parade

They love parades around here.

Cleopatra and Friends

Here's another one for your viewing pleasure. Momma Normal is going to love hers.

They are not wearing costumes, this is what they Normally wear everyday.

A Famous Normal Family Member

I think this one is pretty accurate. It would be closer if my Uncle Jesse would also wear a toupee like Burt Reynolds. He sure could use one.

W. Look-A-Like

According to my new favorite website, Myheritage.com, the celebrity I most look like is the president... I guess this explains why several reporters have been chasing after me lately asking me about the war.

I'm glad I got Bush. My brother's look-a-like was Drew Berrymore. He's a spittin' image.

Future Farmer of America

He loved those cows.

30 Years Old Today...

Welcome to old ladyhood.

Happy Birthday Roxy.

Abscessed Tooth

Yes it's true, I have a tooth abscess. Today I went in for the first of three appointments. It's not going to be cheap either. Let's just say I could buy a decent used car instead of getting this tooth fixed... if I had the option.

Tribute to my Friend Zinedine

Land of 10,000 Lakes

Here's a shot of my brother, brother-in-law and me tubing on Ottertail Lake. It was fun.










The second pic is of Jane and Thor with their Grandma riding a pony at the Becker County Fair.

Glaciers in Greenland

We flew over these iceberg making glaciers yesterday. Later we saw these massive icebergs in the North Atlantic. They were titanical.

Le Tour continued

They were going uphill and they were still going way faster than me.

Le Tour

The Tour de France came by today. As you can see from the photos the Green Shirt Man Group ran along side the leaders for awhile. As you can also see le flic came over to reprimand us afterwards. But French cops don’t really care about stuff like that.

We saw Lance Armstrong follow in a convertable.

If you are going to watch the tape delay of the race tonight on OLN, (as I previously posted) watch for me just as the riders are leaving Albertville. It might be in the first half of the race today. This is how you can find me…The pelotons as they are called here, race down a straight away for probably a couple of miles then turn right and go over a bridge and then take a quick left and start up a hill. I am on that straight away maybe 150-200 yards after the corner as they go up the hill on the left side of the road. I ran with the leaders when they came by but just stood videotaping the rest of the pack when they came 8 minutes later.

Just after Floyd Landis passed us he went on his miracle comeback. OLN picked up its race coverage just after they passed us.

I’ll put some better pics up later that I captured on my video camera. It was fun but it was over in 10 seconds.

Let me know if you saw me.

Tour de France

The Tour de France is coming through Albertville on Thursday between 11:30 AM and 1:00 PM my time (-7 hours central time USA). Look for me along the road. I will be wearing my light green shirt that I wore in previous posts on this blog. I'll also try to make a "scene."

I think it is on the Outdoor Life Network in the U.S. tape delayed.

This is what I found on Yahoo:
"Tour de France: Stage 17 - Saint Jean de Maurienne to Morzine Avoriaz" OLN, Thu Jul 20 11:00pm-3:00am CDT

Frosty the Snowman

We built a summer snowman in the mountains. It was the first time Thor had ever seen snow.

Happy Bastille Day

Here are the Normals at a vineyard in France.

The weather outside is frightful…

This is the first snow I’ve seen in several years; strange for a Minnesota boy.

I believe that is Mount Blanc in the background, the highest point in Europe according to Carl Selvig, my geography teacher.

We are here in France studying French for a few weeks.

Rap Song

If you know who Sir Mix-a-Lot is then you will probably find this funny.

http://www.gizzar.com/random-thoughts/sorry-chump-big-bibles-dont-get-ya-saved/#comments

Zizou II

I thought this might be the case...

"The Paris-based anti-racism advocacy group SOS-Racism issued a statement Monday
quoting "several very well informed sources from the world of football" as
saying Materazzi called Zidane a "dirty terrorist." It demanded that FIFA,
soccer's world governing body, investigate and take any appropriate action."

-The Zidane Mystery: What Set Him Off? By JEROME PUGMIRE, AP Sports Writer

http://www.comcast.net/sports/index.jsp?cat=SPORTS&fn=/2006/07/10/431039.html&cvqh=itn_zidane

Zizou

I could relate to Zinedane Zidane getting kicked out of the World Cup Final. Of course I’ve never played at that level but my blog entry from June 19th relates to it. http://thenormalfamily.blogspot.com/2006/06/national-championship.html

It’s just a few minutes after the game and we don’t know why he head butted Mario Materazi in the chest but I’m guessing Materazi made a racial slur at Zidane.

Being in France I was pulling for them. If they would have won this place would have gone crazy even more than it did last week when they beat Portugal. But I can hear celebrations going on out my window now from Italian fans. We are close to the border here. Someone just shot off a cannon and there was cheering.
(see http://thenormalfamily.blogspot.com/2006/07/post-script-french-lightning.html)

Geneva, Switzerland

I had a rendezvous at 1400 with Arvin Sloan in Geneva regarding the final piece for the Rambaldi device called the Relic. I was wearing a wire so Marshall from Op-Tech could guide me to the safe behind Mr. Sloan’s Renoir in his office. My iPod was fabriquated to read the Fibonacci sequence for the password. But while I was in the process of cracking the code one of Mr. Sloan’s men, Julian Sark, intercepted the device but my backups Dixon and Bristow were there and took care of Sark.

Afterwards I went swimming with the other Normals and we visited the church where John Calvin took over Switzerland. This panorama photo is from the bell tower from the church building where he preached at. It was Catholic before he and his boys made it Protestant. It was quite interesting.

Post Script: French Lightning

We noticed that the thunder was very loud during thunderstorms. It turns out it wasn’t thunder at all. I found out that when it rains in the valley here in Albertville that some of the grape farmers on the side of the mountains shoot off cannons into the thunderstorm. They do this because they think that the hot air from the cannon will go up into the clouds and warm them up and prevent hail. Hail destroys their vineyards. They make a lot of wine here in this region. Some people say that these guys are crazy and that they know it doesn’t work but just shoot the cannons off for tradition.

Nazis No Longer Welcome

I found this house today as I was walking down the street here in Albertville France, home of the 1992 Winter Olympics. This house was the headquarters of the local Gestapo during World War II. They used to torture people in the basement. Supposedly this region had a strong resistance during the war.

Rumor has it that the family who owns the house has been wanting to sell it for years but every time they put it on the market someone in their family dies, so they are not selling it. These French are a superstitious lot.

French Lightning

Here is some 4th of July lightning in the French Alpes.

Americans in Paris

The Hunchbacks of Notre Dame

Here are Jane, Thor and their grandma Ginger. You can't see their hunched backs in this photo.

Storming the Bastille

217 years and 12 days after the event the changed Western Europe, it was my turn to have a shot at it.

After France's shocking victory versus the heavily favored Brazilians, les Francais took to the streets as only the know how to do and caused a huge ruckus. Many climbed up the statue at Place de la Bastille and went crazy. I thought I should try it too. Quand en France, fait comme les Francais. It was crazy... or I was crazy to do it.

Le Penseur

It's good to be raising "thinking" kids.