Today my family went to a horse show at Tempel Farms in Illinois. My Aunt and Uncle are the head trainers there. They only have Lipizzan horses, and they have the most Lipizzans of any farm in the U.S.
They showed all of their newcomers.
They were kind of curious.
Then they had "All Steps and Movements of the Classical School"
My Uncle then rode a horse and did all of these different steps. One of the steps looked like the horse was skipping!
And they jumped them.....
And finally, they did the School Quadrille.
Lipizzans are born dark, and as they get older, they get lighter, by three they are usually white. Sometimes, there is one that never lightens, but it's rare, this farm has two of them. They are known as good luck charms.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Tempel Farms
Friday, August 8, 2008
Bye Bye Brett Favre, Hello Aaron Rodgers!
Caution: Watching this video will get you excited for the upcoming Packer season!
I am very excited about the upcoming season. If Aaron Rodgers performs anything like he has the few times Brett has been injured, we are in for a terrific season. In this video, Rodgers came into the game after Brett was injured. Favre left the game after completing just 5 of 14 passes, 2 inceptions, and a quarterback rating of 8.9. Rodgers ended up completing 18 of 26, including a streak of 13 in a row, rushing five times for 30 yards, with a quarterback rating of 104.8.
I am sure that even if Aaron Rodgers has a season that is close to, or better than Favre's average season, fans will be upset. Looking at Favre's record since being the starter for the entire season, he averaged 18.2 interceptions per season. If Rodgers even comes close to one interception per game people will think he is not playing as well as Favre. I noticed that the first pre-season game will now be televised on ESPN, Monday night a 7:00CST
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Hollandfest
I've wanted to do this for a long time. I finally got to last weekend. We practiced for four weeks and I learned three of the seven dances. The wooden shoes are really big and I had to wear seven pairs of socks! All the people that look like boys are actually girls!
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Friday, July 4, 2008
"A Good Time Was Had By All"
We were able to attend the June Sprints at Road America a few weekends ago. It is pretty amazing to see these cars run this curvy ~5 mile track in about 2.5 minutes. This guy wipes out at the end of the video, but it looks like it would be a lot of fun driving here!
Stacey was just being herself . . 
We were watching the rain fall from a distance, never thinking that it was coming our way, and then 
BOOM, it was on us! 
We were cracking up pretty good as we ran for cover!
But the rain stopped pretty quick . . . 
and that made for some very interesting racing with lots of spin outs! 
All the photos were taken by Andy.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Legacy? Life from Death?
I am sure you could think up some pretty neat sayings to go under this picture, like . . . "You are as I once was-As I am you will become". Or maybe, "What will you leave behind?" Or, something short like, "After death . . . Life". OK, you might be thinking something like . . . "This is a boring picture".
I may have waited a little too long to take the picture. I wanted to have the leaves just starting to bloom, but they looked pretty full when I took this a couple of weeks ago.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
The Buzz Boys
As summer gets in mid swing, the hair gets a little too hot for Joe and Pip. 
Joe before the buzz.
Monday, June 16, 2008
We Are Alive!
Here are some recent pictures of the kids! Most were taken at the beach at Elkhart Lake a few weeks ago. The beach is a few blocks from our house, so it is pretty handy. Andy got his first job, other than grass cutting, at
http://www.roadamerica.com He is enjoying it a lot. He meets a lot of people and is getting great customer service experience.
Kris is putting in some hours at http://www.cheesetopleaseonline.com
Thursday, January 10, 2008
An essay examining the motives of Long John Silver
NOT WANTED: Long John Silver for mutiny, deceit...
An essay examining the chief antagonist in Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel, Treasure Island
Typically, an author does not create a nice ending for the antagonist. Usually at the end of a story the antagonist pays for what he has done during the story. Usually he is confined for a time, or he is deported and his property taken away, or he is killed. For example, look at Shakespeare’s “Macbeth”. Macbeth takes counsel with the weird sisters (witches), murders the King, and arranges for the murder of his best friend, Banquo and his son. Is he allowed to go free? No! He dies an agonizing death in battle and in the last scene of the play his head is carried in on the end of a spear. This is fair treatment for one so evil, right? Then why was Silver allowed to go free? Why did Stevenson allow the chief antagonist to escape with only an accidental, non-life-threatening, bullet hole in the leg?
Maybe Stevenson pitied Silver. Maybe he couldn’t bear killing him at the end of the story. After all, both the pirates and the protagonists were on the same mission. In fact, Jim, the narrator, is with the pirates on their final search for the treasure. He is there when the location is found, along with Silver and other pirates. If they hated each other, wouldn’t Jim have been shot when the pirates saw that he was with them? He wasn’t.
During the voyage to Treasure Island, Silver makes the following rather interesting quote:
“Here it is about gentlemen of fortune. They lives rough, an they risk swinging, but they eat and drink like fighting-cocks, and when a cruise is done, why it’s hundreds of pounds instead of farthings in their pockets.”
That quote, along with this conversation had by doctor Livesey and the Squire toward the beginning of the novel, helps to form an idea as to why the two groups of men ended up fighting:
“Money!” cried the squire. “Have you heard the story? What were [the pirate who originally hid the treasure and his crew] after but money? What do they care for but money? For what would they risk their rascal carcasses but money?”
“That we shall soon know,” replied the doctor. “But you are so confoundedly hot- headed and exclamatory that I cannot get a word in. What I want to know is this: sup- posing that I have here in my pocket some clue to where [the treasure burying pirate] buried his treasure, will that treasure amount to much?”
“Amount, sir!” cried the squire. “It will amount to this. If we have the clue you talk about, I’ll fit a ship in Bristol dock, and take you and [the narrator] here along, and I’ll have that treasure if I search a year.”
This may provide a clue to why the men commenced fighting, and, knowing that, I will explain why Silver was allowed to go free.
Both Silver and the Squire seem to want the treasure very badly. Thus, they are selfish. As the Squire said, he wanted the treasure so much that he would search for a year until he found it. Silver also wants the treasure very badly, partly because it belongs to Flint, a pirate who he used to sail under and is now dead, and partly because he is a pirate and he wants to get rich! Two selfish men, both used to having people obey them without question, both great men in their ‘professions’, and both on the same ship going to the same island to look for the same treasure. This would cause trouble. In fact, it does cause trouble and many people die in the fighting that ensues.
Could this fighting have been avoided if the Squire had seen past his selfish ambitions and realized that the treasure really belonged to Silver? Of course, Silver shouldn’t have tried to start a mutiny, but should the Squire have built an outpost and supplied his men with guns even before fighting began? The pirates might have misinterpreted this action and thought it was to guard the the treasure from them. They might have got the impression that they were not going to get any of the treasure. Why would this lead to a fight? Because, as I stated before, they wanted the treasure!
If both sides wanted all the treasure, there naturally would’ve been a fight. Is the Squire not at fault also? He did the same things Silver did, although in a different order:
Silver: Wanted treasure || Tried to take over (mutinied) || Fought with Squire’s side ||
Squire: Wanted treasure || Tried to take over (built outpost) || Fought with pirates ||
Although they committed them differently, both men really are guilty of the same crimes. If there was to be a hanging resulting only from this mission, I think that, in the trial, there would be two parties found guilty.
So that is why I think it was right of the Squire to let Silver go free. Actually, the whole mission is a big joke because when the adventurers finally get to the site of the treasure, all they find is three gold coins! Was Stevenson trying to illustrate the futility of trying to build up riches on the earth? Was he illustrating that selfishness and rash ambition will get you nowhere? Whatever the reason for the writing of this book, whether for the fun of the author or the enjoyment of his audience, it is one of the best pirate stories ever written!
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