Stick People T-shirts and Gifts

You Know You Are Addicted To Coffee If...

* You sleep with your eyes open.
* You have to watch videos in fast-forward.
* The only time you're standing still is during an earthquake.
* You can take a picture of yourself from ten feet away without using the timer.
* The Taster's Choice couple wants to adopt you.
* The nurse needs a stop watch to take your pulse.
* You grind your coffee beans in your mouth.
* You can jump-start your car without cables.
* You walk twenty miles on your treadmill before you realize it's not plugged in.
* You've built a miniature city out of little plastic stirrers.
* People get dizzy just watching you.
* Instant coffee takes too long.
* You channel-surf faster without a remote.
* You short out motion detectors.
* You introduce your spouse as your coffeemate.
* You don't even wait for the water to boil anymore.
* You answer the door before people knock.
* Your birthday is a national holiday in Brazil.
* You have a bumper sticker that says: "Coffee drinkers are good in the sack."
* You can type sixty words per minute... with your feet.
* When someone says: How are you? You say: Good to the last drop
* You haven't blinked since the last lunar eclipse.


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When I was a kid, tennis wasn't a sport that was in the forefront like football and basketball. Very few kids learned how to play tennis, because no one taught tennis in those days. I was lucky enough to have grown up in a small town in Indiana, with a wonderful parks system, full of recreational facilities, and two...yes...two tennis courts. During the summer, my high school biology teacher gave tennis lessons at the park, so my sister and I were fortunate enough to have taken a full series of lessons from Mr. Jenkins. Looking back, I have to say he was a kind man with lots of patience, because none of us knew anything about the game of tennis.
I'm proud to say, my sister and I became good enough at tennis to have won several tennis tournaments, during our high school years. I thank Mr. Jenkins for that.

I grew up in Brazil, Indiana, a small town in central-western Indiana, during the 50's. The 1950's were a wonderful time to be a kid. Television hadn't been around that long, so we weren't bombarded with all the ugly news of the world. Instead, we were carefree and able to enjoy life to the fullest, without all the woes of the world coming down on us. Our favorite games in those days, didn't require batteries, and involved interaction with other kids in the neighborhood. Our games of choice were Kick The Can, Hopscotch, Marbles, and a game I thought we invented then, but found out later, we hadn't. We called the game Prisoner Of War, but I
think in other parts of the country, it had several different names. The idea of the game was to choose up sides and draw a line down the center of the yard with dead sticks or something that would divide the two sides. One team stayed on one side of the line and the other team, on the other. Each team had a pile of sticks that were stacked up, toward the back of the playing area. Players were suppose to sneak across the line and "steal" one of the sticks, then take it back across the line to their side. If the opponent tagged you while you were on their side of the playing field, you were "captured" and became a "prisoner of war". The team that ended
up with the most sticks at the end of the game, was declared the winner. I know that probably sounds like a game that would bore the youth of today, but back then, it was one of our favorite games.

Every 4th of July, my hometown would bring a carnival to the park, a highlight of the summer. There were tons of rides like the tilta-whirl, the proverbial ferris wheel, dodge-em cars, a merry-go-round, and all the usual rides carnivals brought to town in those days. Games of chance were bountiful, and they were always my downfall. I was so naive, I thought I could actually win some of the "fantastic" prizes they offered. I went through money like water, trying to win teddy bears, watches, and other prizes that would have been less expensive to purchase if I'd just gone to the five-and-dime. The excitement, though, was winning them, so I shot at little
ducks floating in the water, threw rings over prizes stacked up on wooden blocks, and slowly made my way down the midway until I had tried just about every game of chance at the carnival. Needless to say, I hardly ever won anything, but the hope was always there.

Later in the afternoon, the Brazil Concert Band would give a performance in the park's bandshell, of rousing Sousa marches, and Broadway show tunes. This was one of the highlights of the 4th of July afternoon, as it afforded everyone somewhere to sit down and relax and enjoy some of America's most memorable music. I still think of my hometown to this day when I hear a Sousa march, and drift back to a less stressful time in my life, when people actually enjoyed the company of others.

Almost everyone was "poor" in the 50's, my family not excluded. As a kid, though, I didn't know we were poor, and never really wanted for anything. My parents were able to put a roof over my head, and food on the table, although I know it was a struggle many times to do so. I never went hungry, though, and never had to sleep on the street, so we made it through the rough times, a lot better off for the struggles, I'm sure. Since we were so poor, we rarely ate in a restaurant, so our occasional trip to the "big city" of Terre Haute, Indiana, was quite a treat for all of us. My mom, my sister, and I would take the bus to Terre Haute, and mainly window
shop, since we had very little money. The highlight of the day was lunch at Woolworth's Five-And-Dime store. We always sat at the lunch counter, and I would order the same thing every time....a hot roast beef sandwich, with a mound of mashed potatoes and gravy, and a side order of peas, with a Coke to wash it all down....ecstasy! I loved Woolworth's. It had a toy section to make a kid's eyes sparkle...and mine truly did. I wanted everything I saw, but, of course, couldn't afford, but it was all right. Just being able to see all the great toys lined up like soldiers in a parade made me feel rich. Sometimes my mom would buy my sister and me an inexpensive
toy to commemorate our trip to Terre Haute, and you would have thought she bought us the moon. We were always very appreciative, because we didn't get that many toys, an act that would instill character in us for the rest of our lives.

During the summer months, my mom and dad would plant a garden in our backyard, to keep our food bill down, and my mom, my sister, and I would trample through the woods behind our house to pick wild raspberries and blackberries, which my mom would make into jams and jellies....if they made it back home before we ate them all. My mom would also can the vegetables from the garden, so we would have them during the winter months when my dad's work would drop off. My dad was a house painter, and business was never good during the winter months, so we had to budget even more. One year, my mom and dad decided they would try to
raise chickens. Now, keep in mind, they were not farmers. My dad was born and raised in California, and grew up in a fairly large city. My mom, although from Indiana, graduated from college and became a schoolteacher, so she was a career woman, and never raised chickens in her life. This would be the experiment to end all experiments. Mom and Dad purchases 50 baby chickens from a local farmer, and put them in a pen my dad built in the backyard. We fed them, and watered them, and nurtured them, until the day came to kill one of them, which my mom did. At dinner that night, she served the chicken, and we all looked at the plate of freshly cooked
chicken, and none of us could eat it...including my dad. That was the end of the chicken raising experiment in my house, and it was back to the grocery store to buy chicken that someone else had killed. Sadly, during a rainstorm one night, all of the chickens drowned. I was devastated, and give that incident credit for my becoming a vegan, which I remain to this day.

Barack Obama's Presidential Inauguration

President-elect Barack Obama will face a difficult balancing act when he puts on his tuxedo for his inaugural ball next month.

Obama will have every reason to be jubilant as he celebrates becoming America's first black president. But he also will need to temper his celebration and avoid appearing ostentatious as he takes office during what many are calling the nation's worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

And that will require scaling back on spending for the inaugural ball -- a gala deep in tradition that has set the tone for every presidency.

President Bush held nine inaugural balls in 2005 -- the most expensive inauguration in U.S. history, costing $42.3 million in private money -- and first lady Laura Bush sported a different gown at each one.

Bill Clinton's inaugural festivities, which cost $33 million in 1993, were decorated with 1,000 floral centerpieces that alone required 250 hours of work. And Nancy Reagan wore a $100,000 gown to Ronald Reagan's three-hour inaugural gala, which featured Frank Sinatra, in 1981.

"We are mindful of the fact that people are really struggling right now in their lives, but on the other hand we see this as a real opportunity for people to come together and share their common values and goals," Linda Douglass, spokeswoman for the Presidential Inaugural Committee, told FOXNews.com.

"To that end, we certainly think that it's going to be a series of events that feel hopeful and optimistic," she said -- ones that underscore Obama's official inaugural theme, "Restoring America's Promise."

Gil Troy, a visiting scholar at the Bipartisan Policy Center, said Obama will be treading a thin line between opulence and common sense.

"Obama has to square a circle," he said. "He has to balance between the joy of his transition and the sobering nature of these times."

"It can't be an inauguration on the cheap, because Americans love the pomp and circumstance.

There will be much pressure on Michelle Obama, in particular, to balance her image as first lady.

"With the Kennedyesque excitement that the Obamas bring, there will be a lot of focus on Michelle Obama's dress," Troy said. "She has to show that she's elegant, but not excessive."

Douglass declined to give details on the inaugural ball plans, saying, "the nature of the balls have not been released as of yet."

But despite the recession, money appears to be plentiful for Obama's inaugural festivities.

Several Hollwood actors have donated $50,000 each -- the maximum allowed -- to the inaugural committee to fund the galas, according to the committee's online database of contributors.

Among the high-end rollers are Sharon Stone, Samuel Jackson, Halle Berry, and Jamie Foxx.

Douglass said the donation cap of $50,000 is "much, much lower than the cap four years ago," which was $250,000, adding that the committee does not accept funds from lobbyists, political action committees and corporations.

Douglass said the inaugural festivities will be "the most open, accessible, and inclusive inauguration in recent history."

On Monday, the President-elect's transition team announced that Obama -- along with Vice President-elect Joe Biden -- will travel to Washington on an Amtrak train the weekend before the Tuesday, Jan. 20, inauguration. The Obama and Biden families will hold events at three cities along the way -- Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore -- before arriving in the nation's capital.

"This is one of the steps that we're taking to try to make sure that we're able to involve Americans who are not coming here to Washington, D.C.," said Douglass.

She said Obama's parade route will be more accessible to spectators, and the committee has been working with local authorities to open up the National Mall for people who do not have tickets. A total of 240,000 inaugural ball tickets will be distributed free of charge through congressional offices.

Courtesy www.foxnews.com

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