The View From Here

Our house has a fireplace.  It has actually always had a fireplace but it has been covered up by an entertainment center that the people who lived there before us built.  We have now ripped said entertainment center off to reveal a fireplace that needs some work.  We were aware before getting into the project.  Here is the sad part.  We tore the entertainment center down on Monday, hoping to get the people from the Fire Escape out there to give us an estimate sometime this week.  Well, they won’t be able to come out until August 18th.  This means that we won’t be able to put the floor down until then also as we don’t know what all redoing the fireplace will entail.  I suppose I can be patient until then.

The fireplace isn’t the only thing being redone.  In the process we will be replacing some of the floors and putting up a new entertainment center (that was bought from IKEA!).  Since the entertainment center is moving I had to relocate some wires (cable and speaker) which meant that I spent Monday evening in the attic.  Yes, this was the day that it got up to 107 degrees outside.  I don’t want to guess what it was in that attic.

So all we have to do is wait until the 18th of August.  Hopefully after the estimate they will be able to get right to it.  I will try to keep pictures posted so that you can view the progress.  I am excited to get this done!

Oh, and here is a picture of our new entertainment center 70% put together.

Brian

I haven’t done one of these in a while so I thought this would be appropriate.  Did you know that:

If you Google “brian casey” blog that my website shows up first in the search (as of this post, anyway).

How did I find this out? Let me tell you.  I was trying to figure out how people might be able to search for my blog via Google.  I was trying several things and not coming up with much.  If you search for superbrian it is the first item on the list.  This is the only search I had found before that picked my site up quickly.  Today I tried the above search and my site came up first in the list.  I just think this is interesting.  That’s all. You may go back to your lives, citizens.

Brian

I love spur of the moment vacations.  A couple weeks ago (that is spur of the moment for us) my brother and I were talking and he asked when we could come up to Dallas to see them.  I told him I wasn’t sure but asked when would be good for them.  He told me that the weekend coming up wasn’t good but the weekend after was.  I checked with my wife and, bada-bing, we went.  Here is how our extra long weekend went.

Fortunately, both Lacey and I were able to get off work Thursday and Friday so we thought we would drive down Wednesday night when we got off work in order to maximize our time with my brother and sister-in-law (and Crispin, their dog).  Thursday we slept in to start the day.  I can’t do this very often but I am willing to make an exception since we were on vacation.  My brother and his wife had not seen The Dark Knight yet so we tried to go catch it at the IMAX but all showings were sold out until the next Monday.  That movie is going crazy at the box office.  We watched it at a regular theater instead.  I loved it the first time I saw it but the second time was even better.

After the movie we lounged around for a bit before going to (probably) the best restaurant at which I have eaten.  Texas de Brazil is a steak house, but not your ordinary steakhouse.  You start your meal off with their salad bar that could substitute for your whole meal if you let it.  Everything I had off of it was great.  Then they bring out a couple more side dishes.  You are given a token that you put next to you plate that is green on one side and red on the other and when you are ready for the meat you put it on green.  The different cuts of meat are brought around on skewers by servers who ask you if you want some of what they are offering.  If so, they slice you off a piece.  It was fantastic.  I highly recommend it if you are in the Dallas area.  It is expensive so be prepared.  We finished the day off with some Guitar Hero 3.  I haven’t played this game too much so it was really fun to learn it.

Friday, we got up somewhat early and headed towards Glen Rose Texas to the Fossil Rim Wildlife Preserve.  It is set up so you stay in your vehicle and drive around the roads seeing the different animals, sometimes up close and personal.  We had zebras sticking their heads in the truck to be fed.  This was a lot of fun.  It took almost two hours to drive through the whole thing so there was lots to see.  We headed home and grilled out that evening.  Of course we had some time for some Guitar Hero as well.

Saturday was shopping day.  Lacey and I are about to work on fixing the fireplace in our house but that required that we get a new entertainment center since the one we currently used is built in over the fireplace.  So we started looking at IKEA (great store) and the first thing we saw became the item we bought.  We did look at some other furniture stores but didn’t find anything we liked.  After shopping for an entertainment center we went looking for a store for Lacey to look at cellos.  We found one and Lacey played her first notes on a cello there.  I can’t wait until we have enough saved for her to get one.

Next came Half Priced Books, one of the best stores known to man.  We ate dinner at Pasado’s which was good and then we headed home to hang out and to, you guessed it, play some Guitar Hero.

My brother and his wife are trying to find a church to attend in their area so we tried out a new one with them on Sunday.  For lunch we had to go to Freebirds since I don’t get it very often.  Since we were close we stopped by another Half Priced Books (the largest one in the Dallas area).  I always enjoy picking up hardback books for the same price as paperback ones, don’t you?  Next we swung by IKEA to pick up the boxes for our entertainment center we bought.  I am really excited about this since it signifies the beginning of our fireplace project.  After that we loaded up and headed out of town.

I praise the Lord for my brother and sister-in-law!  We had so much fun being with them.  Being on vacation just made it that much better.

Brian

A recent study shows a link between baldness in females and man-made global warming said an unnamed scientist with the Female Baldness and Man Made Global Warming Research Center.  The study has yet to be released to the public but, personally, this author couldn’t agree with it more.

“Over the last several decades we have seen an increase in the number of women who are experiencing baldness, while at the same time we are seeing man-made global warming taking place on a global scale,” said the above mentioned scientist in a phone interview, proof that this is a true and valid study.

The scientist told us that the FBMMGWRC will soon be releasing their study at an undisclosed time and place along with video of polar bears struggling to survive in their (man-made) warming world.

According to the to-be-released report, the increased temperature is causing women to sweat more which is stretching the hair follicles.  The stretching follicles then struggle to hold the hair in place, ultimately losing the battle.

“In order to fight baldness in females we must also fight the growing threat that is man-made global warming.  Not only does it threaten our very survival, it threatens our hair.  And if we are going to survive, we need our hair.”

When we asked the scientist for a recommendation of who to talk to for the other side of this story we fully intended to write we were told that no opposition existed.  We took their word for it.  After all, when someone believes in man-made global warming they must be right about everything else as well, including baldness.

The Earth is warming, isn’t it? Our carbon emissions are causing this warming, right?  As much as some would want us to think that there is a consensus on this topic there is not.  More and more we see dissenters rise up only to be labeled and dismissed.  There is no room for debate when that is exactly what should be happening.  I am no scientist so I do not claim to have any definitive answers on this topic but what I would like to see is some actual debate.  If you don’t agree with human caused global warming then you are labeled a world-hater.  How about instead of labels we let people debate what is actually going on here.  I don’t think anyone in their right mind would think or say, ” You know, I really don’t like this planet I live on.  I want to destroy it.”  No.  I think everyone can agree with responsible conservation.  The question then is what does that look like?  Well, let the two sides talk about it, give us research and then we will go from there.  Instead, people act like there is only one side despite growing opposition and research that doesn’t agree with the status quo.

If you are interested, here is an article that gives a view of the other side of the debate.  I find news items like this one that would seem important to knowing the truth on this topic but it is largely ignored. Why?

Why is this important?  It is important because world leaders are using information (that has never been verified and is now being taken apart) to base policies on.  The two sides won’t even talk mostly because one side simply ignores the others existence.  Let the debate begin!  Take down the smoke and mirrors and give us a bit of truth.

Brian