BilikFamily.com

Saturday - Not much to report on the home front today. The girls went to their gymnastics classes. Prior to dropping them off we stopped in to see if we could save money on wood by having two tons dropped off in one delivery, thinking the delivery fee is fixed. It's not though, so the savings of "buying in bulk" is minimal. While the girls were at gymnastics, I put some more time in on their "some assembly required" Christmas gifts. Of all the assemble-yourself stuff I've built in the past, this has to have some of the clearest instructions I've come across. Clear diagrams, no hard to read "Engrish", everything lines up well, and all the major parts are labeled. How unusual!

Cell phone - Mid-afternoon some of the girls' friends came over. I finally got around to activating a Boost Mobile phone I had purchased a couple of weeks ago. It really makes me roll my eyes how the pre-paid cell phones all struggle to be so hip. Boost's "Where you at!" tagline is an example. Failed earlier Boost marketing campaigns: "How's it hangin'?" and "Whazup!". The phone is predominantly intended to stay at the house for those times when Michelle leaves Claire or Abby at home for a few minutes while running a quick errand. Since we have no "land line" we wanted to have some way to be able to connect to home for those rare occasions. Boost Mobile being the pre-paid division of Nextel (now Sprint Nextel), it seemed a cheap way to get that third line.

17 - Thanks to Stu for pointing me to the stories coming out about the Chernenko family. They just overtook the Duggar family of Arkansas by having their 17th child, making them the largest family in the USA. While we have no intentions of competing for such a distinction, it's nice to read about their perspectives on family life.

Retouching - I know that in the past I have mentioned how much digital retouching is going on with modern media, especially in "women's magazines". A site called GirlPower has a nice Flash presentation showing step by step how they can take an average looking 14 year old girl and make her magazine cover "perfect". Review the side by side steps to see how much lying goes on.