Pol X--Ha! I LOVE your description of American English! It's a great big hybrid mutt of a language, reflecting all the different tongues of the people who have come here. Etymology is one of my hobbies, and I'm guaranteed to never run out of material to research.

--TwoDragons

Mike_NC--now THAT sounds much better...

--TwoDragons

Polx--

I heartily agree with you on excess weight except for one minor thing: Trust me, in Texas...AC is a necessity. Admittedly it's an overused necessity in most cases, though. Why people have their windows rolled up and their air conditioner running on a gorgeous Spring day mystifies (and disgusts) me. But in heavy start-and-stop traffic with 120-degree Summer temps and diesel fumes...? Crank that thing up!

Oh BTW--I left a comment at the doughnut-burger post for you, but it got buried under other posts.

--TwoDragons

Cool! Hamilton Pool is on the list! It's every bit as gorgeous as the pictures, too. And there's several tame catfish in the pool, they'll come up and swim around your ankles like a bunch of aquatic puppies.

HUGE three-foot-long aquatic puppies!

It's well worth the quarter-mile hike and occupancy restrictions. (Only 75 vehicles are allowed at a time, to keep the impact down.) You're surrounded by gigantic cypress trees and limestone bluffs and cold rushing water. Ahhhh, bliss...

--TwoDragons

Let's see...*sorts through pockets*...*digs through couch cushions*...*pats down clothes in the laundry hamper*...

...darn, I can only come up with $0.75 and some lint. Maybe if I start donating blood now, I should have enough money for a trip to Vrodandos by Easter...

:-)

--TwoDragons

I just have to speak up here.

You don't combat dwindling congregations by turning the Church into a bar with pews. You don't turn a House of God into some shallow dating venue.

How to combat dwindling crowds? Combat it by not packaging the Word as some fluffy, music-heavy, nicey-nicey-feel-good bunch of quasi-Gospel. You don't dress it up in a $1000 suit and rhinestones and parade it around asking for money. It doesn't have an effervescent smile on the jacket cover and a great review in the New York Times.

And it especially doesn't encourage its parishoners to treat love and marital fidelity as some sort of joke, like Peter Spalton is apparently doing.

It's not an easy thing to do, but it's the honest thing.

--TwoDragons

S--WOW! I've been known to suffer a variation of that one. My version is called "HowFarCanIPushMyDNABudgetOnAccessories"....

I also suffer from a raging case of "TryingToAchieveLevel100InDungeonSiege2"

--TwoDragons

Beautiful architecture! But as for that icky green water at the bottom...ew.

--TwoDragons

Whoops--I meant "I found a whole bunch of old rusty traps"...Preview Is My Friend...

--TwoDragons

*shudders* I found an old rusty trap on our property when I was a kid. Turns out a survivalist "friend" of ours put them out to catch himself some dinner, and didn't think to tell us.

I found several of them around our favorite swimming hole and promptly reported it to Mom. Thankfully, none of us found them the hard way. But for years afterward, we'd find one of them rusting somewhere on the property. It was tragic to hear something get caught in one of those...

Oh, and our "friend" was not very welcome after that.

--TwoDragons

It's missing the proper accessory to make it a Magic Carpet--tassels! Nice, long, golden-threaded tassels. The kind that would whip majestically in the wind as Aladdin cruises through the clouds.

--Twodragons

*snort* Texas weather would break that widget in minutes!

--TwoDragons

LOL--my surname is almost unknown except in Germany. And my maiden name is about as rare as rocking horse dung worldwide.

Funny thing is, I know that the only reason my surname pops up anywhere else is because one of my husband's uncles has multiple residences around the world. (They spend most of their time on a gorgeous 45-foot boat, cruising the world!)

--TwoDragons

Strange that something so beautiful can also bring such distress with it. I'm looking at the likelihood that Ike will smash right into the Texas coast--where my Dad is working, where my Mom will be so she can help her best friend evacuate, and where my In-Laws live.

And yet, I can't help but be absolutely entranced by images such as these. It's like the emotional equivalent of lying in a tub of scalding water and being doused with ice. Has anyone else ever experienced something like this...?

--TwoDragons

Does "Having Two Pounds Of Fetal Hyperactive Night-Owl With Long Legs And A Grudge Against One's Bladder" count...? :-P

--TwoDragons