{"id":425,"date":"2010-03-28T23:51:15","date_gmt":"2010-03-29T04:51:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/?p=425"},"modified":"2010-03-29T10:01:42","modified_gmt":"2010-03-29T15:01:42","slug":"adams-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/2010\/03\/adams-family\/","title":{"rendered":"Adams, Family"},"content":{"rendered":"

26 March 2010<\/strong><\/p>\n

Today might be my last full day at work. The folks in charge are announcing the lay-offs on Tuesday (the 30th). But I’m taking Monday off of work, so…you know, stay posted.<\/p>\n

One of my co-workers sent me this link: Click this<\/a>. It’s pretty cool, but you have to make sure you know a lot about the person you have in mind. I stumped him on Mason Jennings, but in Akinator’s defense, Jennings was probably the least-famous person I had him guess, and there might be some sort of popularity-threshold a person must attain to before being considered “well-known.”<\/p>\n

My sister called me this evening and inquired as to whether I’d be willing to videotape a wedding\/reception in July. Yeah…I don’t know. I’m kind of like the guy who owns the really big truck: just because I have the capability to move your furniture, doesn’t mean I want to. My sister promised it would be a small wedding and reception, which makes it a little better, but the tough part comes after – editing can be a pain.<\/p>\n

27 March 2010<\/strong><\/p>\n

Today we celebrated Jennifer’s parents’ 40th wedding anniversary. A bunch of the family went out to eat at some restaurant in Forest Lake, and then we went back to my in-laws’ house. I got to be the designated driver for my in-laws’ car, as they were too intoxicated to safely drive the 1 mile from the restaurant to their home. I think part of the secret to staying happily married for 40 years is to get plastered on your anniversary.<\/p>\n

My brother-in-law, himself somewhat drunk, suggested I needed to rewatch the 6 Star Wars films with a new, open mind. I don’t think I ever said I hated the newer trilogy, I just don’t think they’re that special. It was funny, though, how confusing the discussion was. It went something like this:<\/p>\n

LES: That first episode isn’t so good, you know.<\/p>\n

ME: You mean the first of the newer ones.<\/p>\n

LES: No, the older ones, when Anikan’s a little boy.<\/p>\n

ME: Oh, that IS the first of the newer ones.<\/p>\n

LES: I thought you meant ‘newer,’ like more recent.<\/p>\n

ME: I did.<\/p>\n

LES: Yeah, but the ones from the 70s and 80s are more recent.<\/p>\n

ME: Oh, I get what you’re saying.<\/p>\n

LES: Anyway, I think the second one of the newer ones and the last one of the older ones are my favorites.<\/p>\n

ME: You mean “Return of the Jedi” and “Attack of the Clones”?<\/p>\n

LES: No, I mean the other ones.<\/p>\n

ME: Oh, “Empire” and “Revenge of the Sith”?<\/p>\n

LES: Yeah, them.<\/p>\n

28 March 2010<\/strong><\/p>\n

Today I finally finished listening to the audiobook John Adams<\/a>. I was intrigued by this book for two reasons:<\/p>\n

1) One of my co-workers had this book on his desk for months, reading small chunks of it during lunch breaks. He kept citing fascinating tidbits from it.<\/p>\n

2) I often wondered why Adams was so slighted. I first noticed this on a visit to Mt. Rushmore over 20 years ago. The faces on that mountain are of presidents number 1, 3, 16 and 26. The obvious question then becomes: where’s #2? I actually think it would’ve made more sense to have just put the faces of the first four Presidents on the mountain (and it would’ve made more sense to not put it in the heart of Indian territory, too, but that’s the Federal Government for ya’). While dining in the Mt. Rushmore cafe, I asked my Aunt if she knew why President #2 wasn’t on the mountain, and she said: “Wasn’t Adams only president for 4 years? They probably wanted to put just 8-year presidents up there.”<\/p>\n

This kind of makes sense, except that it begs the question of why not putting up 8-year presidents like Madison, Jackson, or Grant. More importantly, it’s flat-out wrong: only one of the 4 people depicted on Rushmore were President for 8 years.<\/p>\n

But Adams is slighted in other ways, too. Check out our money<\/a>. There’s a place for Presidents 1, 3, and 4, but not #2. Even Franklin and Hamilton are on our money (founding fathers concurrent with Adams), but not Adams himself. (Okay, I suppose Adams is technically on the $2 bill, but he’s not on the obverse.)<\/p>\n

And what about in the nation’s capital? Washington and Jefferson have their monument and memorial, respectively, but what does Adams get? A street<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I finished listening to the book, and I still think Adams has been short-shifted in the Presidential-memorial department.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

26 March 2010 Today might be my last full day at work. The folks in charge are announcing the lay-offs on Tuesday (the 30th). But I’m taking Monday off of work, so…you know, stay posted. One of my co-workers sent me this link: Click this. It’s pretty cool, but you have to make sure you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=425"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":427,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425\/revisions\/427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}