This is the straight and tall snowman we built yesterday. Does he look a little depressed, like he's lost his reason to live. Possibly so. Click "Continue reading" to see what happens to an Oklahoma springtime snowman who is keenly aware of what the future has in store for him.

By dinner time yesterday, we noticed our proud snowman was in need of some serious chiropractic adjustment. He had lost an eye and his nose. The future did not bode well for Mr. Snowman.

I stood watch over Mr. Snowman expecting to document his overnight demise. But, he held in there fighting against the inevitable result of poor construction, leaning just a little bit more between late-night and middle-of-the-night.

Morning brought the tragic news of the loss of all facial features and a list that would have overtaken any other snowman of weaker constitution. Mr. Snowman's nose lays tragically at his feet.

Early afternoon, just a day old, and Mr. Snowman was defying gravity being held up only by divine intervention. A few short hours later and Mr. Snowman's head and torso would separate from his lower body...the pictures are too gruesome for this family site.

[Update:]

Saturday it snowed and Snowman was born. Sunday came and Snowman died. Monday this was all that was left of him. Such is the life of an Oklahoma Spring Snowman.

A springtime snowstorm dumped about 6 inches of snow on Tulsa today, breaking an 83-year-old record. According to the National Weather Service, the previous record for the heaviest snowfall after March 21 in Tulsa was 3 1/2 inches on March 31, 1926, and since then, the city hasn't had more than 1 1/2 inches of snow after March 21. Nine Oklahoma counties, mostly in the northwest part of the state, reported approximately two feet of snowfall. In order to potentially get federal money, Gov. Brad Henry declared a State of Emergency for 50 counties including Tulsa...you know, because the federal government should send us money because we got 6 inches of snow. (Yes, our governor is an idiot and, yes, the entire system is broken.)

Drew and Will were all bundled up to play in the snow...the very wet snow.

Together, we made a giant snowman while it was snowing and blowing fiercely.

Posing with our creation. Mr. Snowman has Nilla wafer eyes and a carrot nose. Unintentionally, he also has a hula skirt due to the wet snow picking up the dormant grass. After the jump, Drew takes advantage of Daddy turning his back.

Daddy turns his back for second and Drew finds a giant snowball to throw my way.

Rocket-arm Drew releases a fastball strike right on target.

Revenge is a dish best served cold...cold like a huge snow-boulder knocking Drew into the snow. (Which was so fun, he insisted I do it several more times.)

Will, Snowman and Drew after their day in the record setting snow. I don't know why they are leaning, but they are definitely foreshadowing the events to come...and the next post.

I've never been able to decide on just one avatar or personal icon. Different places on the web, I use different avatars.

This is an avatar that a friend who is a professional artist created. I really like it, except i don't think it looks like me. What do you think, is there a resemblance?

This one I use a lot, in several places on the web. It's my avatar with the most forum posts associated with it. With a third kid on the way, I think I've outgrown the format, not to mention that I've moved on from the Palm Pilot (officially Tungsten T) to an Apple iPhone.

I just recently made this animated avatar from a movie I took of me flicking my favorite bobblehead. I frequently use my initials as my username, which is the reason for the DWD. I really like this one.

A Simpsons avatar I made which I hope I don't look like.

A South Park avatar I made which I really hope I don't look like.

These are two avatars I created sometime back but never used and found in a folder when looking for icons for this post. This one is me take from a family photo from 1971.

This avatar is taken from my favorite photo of my grandfather and me on his farm with with both of us wearing matching overalls.

Finally, I use this avatar in a number of places including Blogger, Facebook, TypeKey, etc.

Recently, Drew had Crazy Hat Day at school. We don't have too many "crazy" hats, or at least not one Drew wanted to wear. So, Drew wore one of his favorite hats in a crazy way. Will was more than happy to wear his hat too.

I finally signed up for Skype. If you know my name, then you know or can find my Skype number/name/ID. I've included the "Skype Me!" logo on the left with all my other stuff. It's just a link to the Skype website and isn't linked up to my Skype ID since I didn't want to invite any more spam than is necessary. Plus, I've already found the built-in online status indicator to often be incorrect.

So, why Skype? One word...video. Plus, the service seems to have grown more ubiquitous than the various messengers out there for which it has mathematically been proven that for any random group of three friends, a maximum of two will use the same messenger. (Yes, I know about Trillian.)

And, speaking of phone numbers, Donelda and I finally canceled our parents' phone number 358-4277 and their private line 358-4055. It was kind of weird and we thought about keeping one and transferring it to something, but then figured there was no real point. We kept it for over a year with the answering machine on in case anyone called who didn't know about my mom's death.

This morning, Drew said: "Something's poking me in my mouth."

Sure enough, something was poking him alright...Drew's first adult tooth.

I think there is a large percentage of the population that doesn't really understands what a million of anything is. I also think there are few people who understand the concept of a billion and even fewer who understand what a trillion is...none of whom are in congress or occupy the presidency. From PageTutor.com:

$100

$10,000

$1 million

$100 million (about one standard pallet)

$1 billion

$1 trillion (stacked two pallets high)

Remember, these are all with $100 bills. If the last image was with $1 bills it would be 200 pallets high and if it represented Obama's budget deficit over the next 10 years, mentioned yesterday, it would be 2000 pallets high!

The single most significant event in this entire economic crisis took place Wednesday and it has gone nearly unreported, or, when reported, reported in such vague, generic, terms that what really took place would never be noticed. Today, the Federal Reserve...damn, just lost 90% of my readers...as I was saying, the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury together created $1 trillion out of "thin air." Cool trick, too bad it has horrible consequences for you and I.

The Federal Reserve "purchased" $1 trillion ($1,000,000,000,000.00) of long-term Treasury bonds from the United States Treasury and said it would buy another $300 billion over the next six months. "Wow," you say, "I had no idea the Federal Reserve had that much money sitting around to buy $1,300,000,000,000 worth of Treasury bonds. You silly sheep. You think the rules that apply to you and me, the rules of common sense, the notion of fiscal responsibility, apply to the buffoons in Washington who are driving our nation into the ground? Of course not. The Federal Reserve "purchased" the Treasury bonds with an accounting entry. No money...not a cent...was given to the U.S. government in exchange for the government (you and me) handing over $1 trillion dollars of bonds backed by the full faith and credit of the United States.

"Having already reduced the key interest rate it controls nearly to zero, the central bank has increasingly turned to alternatives like buying securities as a way of getting more dollars into the economy, a tactic that amounts to creating vast new sums of money out of thin air." Source.

So what's the effect of essentially printing $1 trillion dollars and shoveling it out the door of the Treasury Department?

"But there were also clear indications that the Fed was taking risks that could dilute the value of the dollar and set the stage for future inflation. Gold prices rose $26.60 an ounce, hitting $942, a sign of declining confidence in the dollar. The dollar, which had been losing value in recent weeks to the euro and the yen, dropped sharply again on Wednesday." Source.

The amazing thing, 99% of the reporting on this just mentions the "purchase" of the treasury bonds without stating the most important part that the treasury bills weren't purchased with any money, making it all equivalent to the government just turning on the printing presses and spitting out $1 trillion dollars.

If the government's jack-booted thugs broke down your door, put a gun to your head, and took 1 to 3 percent of your money and, at the same time, forced your employer to pay you 1 to 3 % less...that might make the news. But, if the government does that to everyone by tapping away at a keyboard for a few seconds...silence.

What's been the non-stop, around the clock, news coverage today and this week, the AIG bonuses of course. Given that the total bailout commitment is currently $11.6 trillion and the AIG bonuses total $165 million, does it really make sense that all the news is focused on just 0.000014% of the total outlay? Obviously not. Why then is the news focused on such a silly minuscule subject? Two reasons: to distract from the real issues (fault and mismanagement by the Democrats) and to promote the liberal inspired "class envy" to help usher in further "reforms" in the march toward socialism.

Don't believe me? Well, we now learn that the "Administration Seeks Increase in Oversight of Executive Pay":

"The administration has been considering increased oversight of executive pay for some time, but the issue was heightened in recent days as public fury over bonuses spilled into the regulatory effort." Source.

Let me translate: The Obama administration has been looking for an excuse to push their socialist agenda of taking over and controlling private companies, and with the aid of accomplices in the Democratically controlled Congress and the liberal mainstream media, have stirred up in recent days wealth envy over contractually obligated pay packages that Sen. Chris Dodd specifically exempted from the AIG bailout in the "Dodd Amendment" because AIG bought off the lying corrupt politician giving him more campaign contributions in 2008 than anyone else.

Liberal inspired wealth envy that everyone has the right to a home as big and beautiful as they want is one of the reasons we're in the mess we're in right now. Instead of learning from this, the liberals keep pushing the doctrine of wealth envy in hopes of propelling us towards their socialist utopia/nightmare. They don't even bother to hide it anymore, as Obama said: "Out of great crisis comes great opportunity."

We now learn that "Obama's budget will produce $9.3 trillion worth of red ink over 2010-2019."

"Worst of all, CBO says the deficit under Obama's policies would never go below 4 percent of the size of the economy, figures that economists agree are unsustainable. By the end of the decade, the deficit would exceed 5 percent of gross domestic product, a dangerously high level." Source.

In plain English, "unsustainable" means that Obama is putting us so far into dept that there will be no way to get out of it. Our nation's economy will completely and permanently collapse.

I also thought I'd mention that China is now asking the United States government to "guarantee the security of Chinese assets," those assets being the hundreds of billions of dollars of treasury bonds they own, you know, just in case our country goes under. Now what does our government have to guarantee those bonds with...only one thing...land.

Read this article. It was written more than a week before this week's revelations and essentially asks the question, if Obama were trying to destroy our country, what would he do different? Answer...nothing!

At dinner Will was being a typical 2 year-old, not eating, playing and not listening. After repeated insistence by Mary and me to get him to eat and stop playing around, I asked jokingly:

Daddy: "Do you want a whoopin'?"

Understand, Will has never heard this term before. We've not yet had to strike our kids and, if all goes well, we will never have to...although, I hold the option in reserve. Since Will is generally only offered good things, it's entirely logical, even if comically wrong, to state affirmatively that he wants something even if he doesn't know what it is. So, Will responded to the question, "Do you want a whoopin'?" with:

Will: "Yes. Go get it."

I couldn't stop laughing.

President Obama is a clumsy dork...or, at least, that's what Hollywood and the Mainstream Media (MSM) would have you think if he were a Republican and/or his name was Bush.

February 10, 2009, President Obama hit his head going into the presidential helicopter Marine One.

January 28, 2009, President Obama tried to enter the Oval Office of the White House by going through a window.

During the presidential campaign, Senator Obama went bowling while campaigning in Pennsylvania to show how in touch he was with blue-collar voters and bowled a 37 for a full 10 frame game...a 37!

President Bush was, and still is, repeatedly and continuously portrayed as a clown for not being able to open a door after a Chinese Press Conference. But, Obama makes similar gaffes and stumbles and the media looks the other way. Either both men are idiots deservingly the subject or ridicule or they are both simply human and under the intense microscope of imaginable media scrutiny. I believe the latter is clearly the answer and such gaffes and stumbles should be ignored...for both parties. It's just too bad the media only gets it half right.

I've got to say though, there really is no excuse for the 37 bowling score. I don't know another physically fit adult male who would only score a 37 bowling. Obviously, he's never been bowling before, which by itself, is no big deal. The problem is that Obama thought he could just go bowling for the first time, in front of all the cameras, and not make an idiot out of himself. This requires a special kind of arrogance, some combination of thinking bowlers are a bunch of clods and believing himself to be so athletic he can do anything well the first time he tries. Any normal person knows if you've never done something before, the first time you do it, you are likely to perform somewhere between looking silly and making an idiot out of yourself. No one would ever try something completely new and foreign for the first time on a campaign trail unless...think about this for a second...unless they were so arrogant and utterly clueless about their own limitations that they have a false sense of their own abilities. When it comes to bowling, its pretty funny. But, such a serious character flaw when it comes to pulling a nation out of an economic crisis or dealing with foreign powers over nuclear weapons...not knowing your own limits and weaknesses...could be disastrous.

I won't even begin to try and cover Obama's continuous oral gaffes as entire website are devoted to the subject. Just off the top of my head I can recall Obama saying there are 57 states, misstating tornado casualties by three orders of magnitude, seeing dead people in his audience, and not even understanding what is a price/earnings ratio. I'd give my right arm for an unbiased entertainment industry and media.

Mama took the boys to the park last week they had the whole place to themselves. (That's Spider-man on their t-shirts.)

Will showed off his mastery of the curved rock climb.

And, Drew showed off his mastery of the vertical rock climb.

We've been slowly...very slowly...going through things that we acquired from my Grandmother's house. This is me just a year and a half old with my Grandfather "Spiv" Buller taken in 1967 when my mother's parents came to visit us while we were living in Holland.

We really enjoy receiving Hallmark E-cards. They are very well done and never fail to crack us up. And, that's all I have to say about this particular day.

Thirty years ago today I made my television debut as a magician...

...unfortunately, or fortunately, my interest in magic pretty much peaked at that moment and I don't recall performing much, if ever, after that. Basketball pretty much dominated my interests for the next decade. My parents were still a year or two away from getting their first VCR so all we have are these two pictures of our television during the broadcast.

The television show, called "Kidding Around," was a highly regarded childrens program which won 5 Emmy Awards during its 7 year run (1978-1985) on the local NBC affiliate in Chicago WMAQ. The show was co-hosted by Steve Smith who went on to become Director of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College for ten years and an inductee to the International Clown Hall of Fame. Along with Steve Smith, the program had a number of young female co-hosts including, at the time of my performance, Shawn Gourdie, who later turned out to be a classmate of mine in high school.

Gabriel Paul Madison was born today to Aunt Michelle and Uncle Matt! From their website A day in the life...:

Gabriel was born at 11:22 PM on March 3, 2009 (a square root day, as it was affectionately called). He weighs 8 lbs. 5 oz. and is 20" long. Mom is doing beautifully, and was (once again) a champ through delivery. The nurses kicked visitors out around 11:10 and Gabriel was born a mere 12 minutes later. Quick indeed.

CONGRATULATIONS Matt, Michelle and cousin Gillian!!!