Reported Speech Exercises

Reported Speech: Choose the correct answer
Reported Speech: Following Sequence of Tenses Rule, or "Backshift"
A very challenging reported speech exercise
Reported Speech for Simple Affirmative Statements
Reported Speech: Reporting Imperative Commands

Heights of the Message

Height of Fashion?
Dhoti with Zip.

Height of Secrecy?
Blank Visiting Card.

Height of Stupidity?
Looking thru a keyhole of Glass Door.

Height of Honesty?
Pregnant Woman purchases One and a half(1+1/2) Ticket.

Height of De-Hydration?
A Cow giving Milk Powder.

Height of Timewasting?
You reading the whole Message.

My New Old Sewing Machine

Do you have something in your home you hold onto that takes up precious space and may be infrequently used, but when you need it, you are so grateful that it is exactly where you stashed it, if only you could remember where?

Although I may go several months without using my little old sewing machine, I do need it on occasion. So I pull it out, dust if off, drag it over to the dining room table and in seconds I'm threaded and readying the speed controller underfoot. This system worked smoothly until one fateful Sunday afternoon in early December when I was putting the finishing stitches on a simple linen towel project.

The whirring sound of my almost completed gift uttered a grinding, crunching sound. I shook my head in slight disbelief that my reliable Touch and Sew, circa 1968, stopped without my provocation. I checked the thread was unbroken, peeked into the bobbin case for a jam, manually turned the hand wheel and it still wouldn't budge. Not exactly knowing what to do, I lifted all the irrelevant panels and hinged doors to notice absolutely nothing wrong. I tried turning off the power as if to re-boot and make this bad dream go away, but the jam remained.

Disgusted at my mechanical ignorance, I called the local sewing and craft shop. "Sorry dear, we don't do repairs on antique sewing machines here." I called my local home fabric source. "Sorry dear, we don't deal with that here. We have our own workshops to do all the sewing for us."

I sat back down, steeled myself, selected a fine looking shiny needle from my pin cushion, threaded it and started to create my own tiny row of stitches. I felt like I had traveled back in time to the days before electric sewing machines or to the prairie of Laura Ingalls Wilder.

I have looked at new machines, I looked at old machines, I waited patiently for the right solution. This weekend I bought a Singer 522 Stylist for all the wrong reasons. I needed a working machine. I liked the built-in table. THC said he needed something mended. I have a soft spot in my heart for old Singer machines.

It looks great. It seems to run well. But it's a little tricky without a manual. Oh dear, being green is sometimes a steep learning curve.

Farewell sermon

Listen online to my farewell sermon, given at St Alban's Episcopal Church in Arlington, TX on 26 April 2009.

Prom 2009

It was prom weekend in Mt. Pleasant, and both Katherine and Robert went to the event.
This is no mean feat, considering it's "senior" prom, and neither of them are seniors.
Katherine was escorted by the Drummer - no problem. He's a senior.

But Robert and La Madamoiselle both are sophomores. That took some finagling.
Two of their senior friends in the band, Aaron and Mariah, arranged to be their official escorts.
Photos, dinner, dancing, bowling and breakfast - but no one stayed up to see the sun come up.

I must be going

Some of the audio can be hard to make out on the old recording, so here are the lyrics below.

(All)
At last we are to meet him,
The famous Captain Spaulding.
From climates hot and scalding,
The Captain has arrived.

Most heartily we’ll greet him,
With plain and fancy cheering.
Until he’s hard of hearing.
The Captain has arrived.
At last - The Captain has arrived.

(Hives)
Mr. Horatio W. Jamison, Field Secretary to Captain Spaulding.

(Jamison)
I represent the Captain who insists on my informing you of these conditions under
which he camps here.
In one thing he is very strict, he wants his women young and picked and as for men,
he won’t have any tramps here.

(All)
As for men he won’t have any tramps here,
There must be no tramps.

(Jamison)
The men must all be very old,
The women warm, the champagne cold.
It’s under these conditions that he camps here.

(Voice off Screen)
I’m announcing Captain Jeffery Spaulding.

(All)
He’s announcing Captain Jeffery Spaulding,

Oh dear, he is coming,
At last he’s here.

(Spaulding)
Hello, I must be going,
I cannot stay, I came to say, I must be going.
I’m glad I came, but just the same I must be going.
La La.

(Mrs. Rittenhouse)
For my sake you must stay.
If you should go away,
You’d spoil this party I am throwing.

(Spaulding)
I’ll stay a week or two,
I’ll stay the summer thru,
But I am telling you,
I must be going.

(All)
Before you go,
Will you oblige us,
And tell us of your deeds so glowing?

(Spaulding)
I’ll do anything you say,
In fact I’ll even stay!

(All)
Good!

(Spaulding)
But I must be going.

(Jamison)
There’s something that I’d like to say,
That he’s too modest to relay.
The Captain is a moral man.
Sometimes he finds it trying.

(Spaulding)
This fact I emphasize with stress,
I never take a drink unless - Somebody’s buying.

(All)
The Captain is a very moral man.

(Jamison)
If he hears anything obscene, He’ll naturally repel it.

(Spaulding)
I hate a dirty joke I do,
Unless it’s told by someone who -
Knows how to tell it.

(All)
The Captain is a very moral man.
Hooray for Captain Spaulding, The African explorer.

(Spaulding)
Did someone call me Shnorrer?

(All)
Hooray, Hooray, Hooray.

(Jamison)
He went into the jungle where all the monkeys throw nuts.

(Spaulding)
If I stay here I’ll go nuts.

(All)
Hooray, Hooray, Hooray.
He put all his reliance, In courage and defiance,
And risked his life for science.

(Spaulding)
Hey, hey.

(Mrs. Rittenhouse)
You are the only white man to cover every acre.

(Spaulding)
I think I’ll try and make her.

(All)
Hooray, Hooray, Hooray.
He put all his reliance, In courage and defiance,
And risked his life for science.

(Spaulding)
Hey, hey.

(All)
Hooray for Captain Spaulding, The African explorer.
He brought his name undying fame
And that is why we say, Hooray, Hooray, Hooray.

(Spaulding attempts to speak)
My friends, I am highly gratified at this magnificent display of effusion and I want
you to know.........

(All)
Hooray for Captain Spaulding, The African explorer.
He brought his name undying fame
And that is why we say, Hooray, Hooray, Hooray.

(Spaulding)
My friends, I am highly gratified at this magnificent display of effusion and I want
you to know.........

Hooray for Captain Spaulding, The African big hero.....

Well, somebody’s got to do it!

Interesting Informations

* Ants don't sleep.
* Shakespeare invented the word ' assassination' and 'bump'.
* The ant always falls over on its right side when intoxicated.
* Wearing headphones for just an hour will increase the bacteria in your ear by 700 times.
* A bird requires more food in proportion to its size than a baby or a cat.
* The mouse is the most common mammal in the US.
* A newborn kangaroo is about 1 inch in length.
* A cow gives nearly 200,000 glasses of milk in her lifetime.
* There are 701 types of pure breed dogs.
* A polecat is not a cat. It is a nocturnal European weasel.
* The animal responsible for the most human deaths world-wide is the mosquito.
* Cats respond most readily to names that end in an "ee" sound.
* Pigs, walruses and light-colored horses can be sunburned.
* Snakes are immune to their own poison.
* An iguana can stay under water for 28 minutes.
* Cats have more than one hundred vocal sounds, while dogs only have about ten.
* Most lipstick contains fish scales.
* Stewardesses is the longest word typed with only the left hand.
* The electric chair was invented by a dentist.
* The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body to squirt blood 30 feet.
* The biggest pig in recorded history was Big Boy of Black Mountain, North Carolina, who was weighed at 1,904 pounds in 1939.
* Owls have eyeballs that are tubular in shape, because of this, they cannot move their eyes.
* A cat cannot see directly under its nose. This is why the cat cannot seem to find tidbits on the floor.
* The Canary Islands were not named for a bird called a canary. They were named after a breed of large dogs. The Latin name was Canariae insulae - "Island of Dogs."
* The biggest member of the cat family is the male lion, which weighs 528 pounds (240 kilograms).

26 Hours in New York: Reality

More than 30 years ago, I dated a woman who once casually said, "Oh, whenever I go to New York, I lose touch with reality." I believed it then, and I believe it now. The reality of the city is hard to grasp. Even standing on the 102nd floor observation platform of the Empire State Building at midnight, with the awesomeness of New York spread out below, it's impossible to begin to grasp.


The place is a concentration of dreams. Both physicists and social scientists talk about "critical masses" necessary to make certain things happen. The sheer concentration of people - one of the densest concentrations on the planet - produces many critical masses.

It is a place of sheer contradictions. The streets are mean and tough, but the music is beautiful and the art is unrivaled. The most regulated, socialist city in the country is the heart of capitalism for the world. The most Democratic city has a Republican mayor. The most crowded city is the place where people can feel most alone.

And it works its magic. The choir could have sung anywhere - in Atlanta or Los Angeles or Detroit. The Temple Theater in Saginaw has about as many seats as Carnegie Hall. The sound in the Mt. Pleasant High School Auditorium is almost as good.
But none of those places strike the same spark in the soul as the words "Carnegie Hall" and all that goes with that.
Reality is standing on that busy street in Astoria, Queens, at 7:30 on Monday morning, waiting for the M-60 bus to LaGuardia as the newspaper hawkers peddle the Daily News and A.M. New York, and everyone is cold and tired and not ready for Monday. Reality is noticing that the industrial parts of New York are just as battered as anywhere in Detroit. Reality is the screaming bag lady, the loose electrical plugs in the midtown hotel, the brokers, the geeks and the junkies.
Reality is the sheer extremes, the sheer range of everything, the exhilaration, the fatigue, the sense of living life to its fullest.
I fell asleep, overwhelmed, before the plane left the runway.

26 Hours in New York: The show

The sun was setting as we walked from the Columbus Circle station back to 57th Street, the hotel and Carnegie Hall.
It was almost showtime.

The show was to begin at 8:30 p.m. We were directed to the third tier - the balcony.


Talent, practice, hard work, rehearsal, dedication. The Mt. Pleasant Concert Choir members were easy to spot among the other choirs that comprised this year's National Youth Choir, even from the balcony, by the confidence with which they moved. And when the Youth Choir sang, and my daughter was in it, I felt the tears.

It was real.

26 Hours in New York: Crazy

I didn't notice the bag lady in the back of the subway car until I was already seated. That's when the, uh, distinctive scent wafted past.
She didn't want company. The madwoman made that clear, with cursing and yelling and twitching and general unhappiness.
There were about 10 of us in the car. As one, we calmly went out the door - we were still at the station - and moved to the next car.
Not a word was said.

26 Hours in New York: Grand Central Terminal

Few pieces of architecture provoke the kind of reaction produced by Grand Central Terminal, with its God's-eye astronomical ceiling, the crowds, the history. We changed subway trains here on the way back to the hotel. It's as awesome as the stories say.

Now serving only Metro North trains, it still carries itself as if all tracks in the country lead here.

26 Hours in New York: Mammon

Wall Street is a real street. It's narrow and old, but it's a symbol. Because that symbol of evil, capitalist excess and immorality, the New York Stock Exchange, is located there at the corner of Wall and New streets, it's also a target. Automatic barricades rise out of the street, and remain up most of the time, blocking out potential truck bombers and maniacs. Visitors on foot with cameras, however, are welcome.

Only members of the exchange and their invited guests may enter into the exchange, but surely, the street outside is a great place for a photo.

Especially for someone with an MBA. Capitalism lives! It's worth noting, that the Paris stock exchange was called La Bourse de Paris before it changed its name to the Euronext Paris in 2000. La Bourse en français translates literally to "the purse."

Did someone say "purse?" Oh my! A street vendor in front of Trinity Church! It's heaven on the streets of New York!

Of course, it's a designer knockoff, but Kissy Missy says it's beautiful. And it's big. I suspect there's more room in there than in the trunk of my Ford Escort.

26 Hours in New York: The Preacher

We headed for Wall Street - and we found Pastor Benny.
I'm still not quite sure how Pastor Benny latched onto Kissy Missy, but when I turned around, he was explaining how Jesus could save her immortal soul.
Pastor Benny had run a storefront church that had burned for five days in the wake of 9/11. But faith had kept him going.
Ordinarily, I will thank a street preacher for his time and his faith, but something about Pastor Benny's face drew me in. He has a face that says New York, a beautiful face.
His dogma is interesting - a mix of messianic Judaism, it appears, and evangelical Protestantism. He mentioned "66 books" of the Bible - the number of books in the Protestant canon, but talked about translations directly from Hebrew.
We met a small number of his followers in a deli - and promised to send him a photo.
And, of course, he wanted to know if we were saved. The answer: "As the Bible says, I am already saved (Rom. 8:24, Eph. 2:5–8), but I’m also being saved (1 Cor. 1:8, 2 Cor. 2:15, Phil. 2:12), and I have the hope that I will be saved (Rom. 5:9–10, 1 Cor. 3:12–15). Like the apostle Paul I am working out my salvation in fear and trembling (Phil. 2:12), with hopeful confidence in the promises of Christ (Rom. 5:2, 2 Tim. 2:11–13)."

What love is all about

Here are two videos that I often use during marriage prep. (That's one reason I wanted to do an entry on this, so I could easily find them.)

The first is a music video of the song "My Idea of Heaven" by Leigh Nash. The video shows examples of couples writing down their idea of what heaven is like to them and then revealing to show how their ideas compare (like the Newlywed Game). There is a story to the expectations and compatibitly (or lack thereof) in the couples and in the beauty of growing old together (see Tobit 8:7-8). I find the song beautiful and moving.

"As it is written: 'No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him'" (1 Cor 2:9).

The next video, titled "99 Balloons" is of a young couple and their firstborn son, Elliot, who lived 99 days after birth and what a blessing he was to their lives. Warning, you will cry, but you ought to watch this. What a Christian perspective this is compared to the kind of sickness we have seen lately! God helps us value the very gifts that some want to throw away.

"We love because He first loved us" (1 John 4:19).

26 Hours in New York: Late afternoon

Nearly eight years after the attacks on New York and Washington, Ground Zero, the site of the World Trade Center, remains sacred ground, a blank spot in the New York skyline surrounded on the ground by other buildings that survived.
The debris from the Twin Towers has been gone for years, and the site is essentially a construction zone now.
But every day, hundreds of people come to visit, to gawk, to stand on the steps of Brooks Brothers or to climb to the second floor of the Burger King across the street, and remember that strange, horrifying day.

No one needs to explain what 9/11 means. As we walked by, a TV crew from Japan was shooting some sort of story. The story, clearly, is not done.

Flowers still decorate the fence outside the site. We gladly bought a magazine that carried the most iconic images of the day.
There's a sense of loss, a spirit that pervades the air. Others have written about it, and it's real.
The people, like us, who come from far away to see are not gawkers or tourists or ghouls. We are pilgrims, and whatever replaces the Twin Towers - as something inevitably will - must preserve that sense of place and spirit.



But it's New York, and commerce goes on. The choir's hotel was just a couple of blocks away from Ground Zero.
And Katherine says she had the best pizza she's ever had from Steve's, and other choir members raved about Charlys burgers - both located across the street from Ground Zero.

COMING UP: The preacher, the purse, and things get weird!

26 Hours in New York - afternoon

The Village has its own character, but 50 years of Bohemian chic has left it gentrified and expensive.

But there's no doubt about the politics. We wandered around, absorbing the sense of the place, then found the Washington Square-NYU station and headed for the financial district.


The choir's hotel was located less than two blocks from Ground Zero, just down the block from the devastated DeutscheBank building, which is now being carefully taken down. On the sidewalk beneath the protective shield that keeps stuff from falling on pedestrians, we ran into Katherine and some other choir members.
They had a rehearsal coming up.

The National Youth Choir's director, Eph Ehly, is exuberant, outgoing, over-the-top, but he is "one of the most sought-after choral conductors/clinicians," according to the American Choral Directors Journal. He taught at the University of New Mexico, the University of Missouri-Kansas City and the University of Oklahoma, and more than 90 students have earned their doctorates under his supervision.
Katherine says he reminds of her Robin Williams.

The 2009 National Youth Choir comprises seven of the best prep choirs in the country, from California, Michigan, North Carolina, Maryland and Florida. Michigan boasts two of these choirs: the Fraser Singers from Fraser High School in Shelby Township, and the Mt. Pleasant High School Concert Choir.
In rehearsal, they sounded awesome:

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The choir's job after rehearsal: Relax until the show. Our job: The adventure continues.

26 Hours in New York - late morning

After Times Square, it was back on the subway to 116th Street. Columbia University has been sending regular recruiting material to Robert, and he thought he might like to see what the neighborhood was like at Morningside Heights.
It's peaceful, a very big change from the bustle of midtown.
Columbia is New York's Ivy League school, very selective, a very, very long history. Lord help my checkbook and pray for financial aid. Robert felt right at home.

As do I. Is this where I finally get my doctorate? Is the J-school founded by Joseph Pulitzer, with the statute of Thomas Jefferson out front, my destiny?

But there's that other school in New York that heavily recruited Andrew, and now is sending its beautiful, enticing brochures to Robert: NYU. It's in Greenwich Village, and its Washington Square campus centers around that public space. It was about lunchtime when we arrived, so at Kissy Missy's urging, we at what turns out to be a campus hangout: the Washington Square Diner on Fourth Street at Sixth Avenue. Sitting at the counter was another New York Experience - the Village experience.
The buildings marked are NYU buildings. The neighborhood is upscale bohemian, as might be expected. Robert said he frankly preferred uptown. I couldn't help but think, however, that Andrew would feel right at home in the Village. But at about $40,000 a year for grad tuition, well, let's hope for a fellowship.

26 Hours in New York - Morning

There was no way that Katherine would sing at Carnegie Hall without our being there. This, of course, involves a trip to New York. The plan: Catch a red-eye from Detroit, fly into Laguardia, and do some quick and dirty sightseeing in the hours before - and after - the concert. Part 1, red-eye: Not a bad way to fly on a Sunday morning. We arrived on time, and decided to take public transit into Midtown.

The New York Metropolitan Transit Authority has a great system for paying for bus and subway rides: The Metropass. A one-day pass costs $7.50, and gives you unlimited rides. We caught the M-60 bus from LaGuardia, which took us to the closest subway station in Astoria, Queens. The view is urban, busy, but the train came in a few minutes.


A taxi ride from LaGuardia would have cost at least $60, and taken about 30 minutes. It took us 20 minutes. Given we'd spent $22.50 for subway fare, we already were ahead.
We came out directly across from Carnegie Hall, right near our hotel. It was 9 a.m.

Sightseeing: First stop, Times Square. Even on a Sunday morning, it's busy, crazy ...


... garish, and just plain American.
Not for the last time, this thought struck me: If all someone knows about America is New York, the picture is very distorted. But leave New York out of the picture, and the image is just as distorted.

Groovy Style

Big, bold and beautiful in purple rings good morning 1975 from Westclox.

Groovy girl gift boxes from the late 1960s deserve a revival of some sort.

Transparency's the key for this acrylic chair, maker unknown, made in Brazil, circa 1970.

Pink, orange, and yellow define this room from Family Circle's Do It Yourself Encyclopedia, 1973.

Great 70s product design for the Uncola - crisp, refreshing 7up.

Milton Bradley was up to speed with its paper dolls, circa 1967.

Very mod Op shades from Argentina, mid 1960s.

For more details on these selections, just click on the images. Thanks for following 973's Groovy Week and our celebration of little known, but undeniably groovy designs.

Happy Earth Day, April 22nd, 2009

Today, we are celebrating Earth Day.

Here is a history of Earth Day from Wikipedia
Earth Day, 2009: Youtube
BBC - Planet Earth: Mountains, Youtube
Planet Earth: Views from Space, Youtube

Birthday festivities

Today I turned a whopping 34 years old. And the girls helped me celebrate by taking me bowling. We had mass fun.