I had something really funny to post here

But I forgot what it was. Sorry. When I remember, if I remember, I'll post it.

Serial cereal blogging

The other day, Izzy, now 2, was watching me eat Fruity Pebbles out of a bowl. She asked for the same thing and I gave her the cereal and a bowl and some milk, and she ate it. This marked the first time Izzy ate cereal out of a bowl with milk using a spoon.
She also seems to like Apple Jacks.
And apple juice.
And applesauce.
And cooked apples.
Just thought you'd like to know.

Craig Ferguson interviewed

Time Magazine did a nice interview with late night host Craig Ferguson.

A Paul and Storm video

I think we have done this song before under the heading of gleefully beating a joke to death. But now, we have a video! And, the infamous Robert C. Baker song, too. What more could you, and my other three readers, want?

"Weird Al" brings us a new greatest hits album

Here's Al's blog entry about the album. There are 38 songs -- two discs if you don't download it.
To celebrate, here's a video for my favorite all time "Weird Al" song, "Amish Paradise."

More Walson Army Hospital

Apparently it was an Air Force Hospital until 2001. This is interesting. I keep finding a little bit more every time I Google the hospital.

In case you don't want to click on the link, here's most of the post:
WALSON ARMY HOSPITAL
Walson Army Hospital started with a groundbreaking ceremony in 1957 and opened its doors on March 15, 1960. More than 600 people were present on March 15 as Secretary of the Army Wilber M. Brucker dedicated the $10.5 million hospital. Secretary Brucker, who had been instrumental in securing funding for medical facilities throughout the Army, assured the assembled group that he would try even harder to see that the Army received sufficient funds to enable it to replace the hastily built World War II-type wooden hospitals. Mrs. Walson, widow of Brigadier General Walson, unveiled the plaque at the ceremony.
The hospital was named in honor of Brigadier General Charles M. Walson, Surgeon General of the II Army Corps from November 1940 to July 1945. Born in Laurel, Delaware, on August 24, 1883, BG Walson was graduated from the Jefferson Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1906 and from the Army Medical School in 1912. During World War I, Walson, then a major, served with the American Expeditionary Forces in France as an assistant surgeon. At the end of the war, he served with the Army of occupation at Coblenz, Germany, until 1922. While Surgeon General of the II Army Corps, he handled the enormous task of processing 145,000 American patients and 7,000 enemy prisoner-of-war patients through the port of New York. After his retirement in 1947, with more than 35 years service, BG Walson served as administrator of the American Red Cross blood program for the greater New York area. He died on May 14, 1959.
The hospital, sitting on a 13 acre site, has a floor area of some 327,000 square feet. About half is contained in two 9-story ward wings and a 9-story service wing. The 500-bed hospital can be expanded to 1,000 beds.
Moving 233 patients into Walson Army Hospital from the Station Hospital was completed on March 21, 1960 with a minimum of inconvenience to the patients. Hospital personnel worked around the clock so that the transition would proceed smoothly. In addition
to performing their required tasks at the old hospital, they often stopped by the new hospital in the evening to clean and prepare their own sections. With the opening of Walson, the Station Hospital became an annex of Walson Army Hospital.
Scrubbing floors, cleaning windows, and general sterilization functions were necessary before the first patient could be admitted. More than 700 truckloads of equipment were moved to the new hospital. Aiding in this phase of the operation were the personnel and vehicles of the 4th Field Hospital. By mid-morning, 217 patients had been transferred by ambulatory or two litter-bus ambulances, furnished by McGuire Air Force Base and the hospital's metropolitan and field ambulances.
The ultra-modern Walson Army Hospital made use of the latest medical and recreational equipment and facilities. These were contained in a spacious sunbathed building surrounded by crescent shaped, tree-shaded parking areas at New Jersey Avenue and West Third Street. The medical staff could hear themselves being paged over individual pocket-sized transistor radios. They could dictate letters by telephone to a central dictation pool. Medicines and messages were whisked to all floors through pneumatic tubes.
Patients were entertained and informed by a closed-circuit radio station with bedside speakers, including a channel for television sound. Televisions were available in all wards, room, and lounges. Accommodations for patients included private, two, three, and four-bed rooms and 8, 16, and 24-bed wards. Steam for winter heating and cool air for summer air conditioning was piped through the building from boiler and refrigeration houses on the hospital grounds. A diesel-powered generator supplied emergency power. Surgical facilities included eight fully equipped operating rooms. X-ray, dental, eye-ear-nose-throat, childcare, neuro-psychiatric, and therapy clinics were included. An emergency operating room was located near the ambulance entrance. A central food service section in the hospital handed the preparation and serving of all food, eliminating the need for special diet kitchens.
In its first full year of operation, the hospital admitted 22,999 patients. Four Army doctors were participating in a two-year residency program -- two in general practice and two in preventive medicine. In October 1966, the expanded residency program included four Army doctors in the one-year Pre-Specialty Surgery Residency, four in the two-year General Practice Residency and three in the nine-month Preventive Medicine Residency Program.
Improvements and expansion of the hospital complex were made. The nurses' quarters were completed in 1963 and the enlisted quarters were ready for occupancy the following year. In June 1965, a $1.3 million construction program began on a two-story addition for clinics and a one-story Air Evacuation Section.
The two-story addition, which increased medical facilities by 32,000 square feet, was occupied on June 22, 1966, and contained a pediatric clinic, obstetrics and gynecology clinic, a neuro-psychiatric clinic, a dental clinic, a preventive medicine department, a physical examination section, and a pharmacy. After the clinics moved into the new addition, the builders returned to expand the areas vacated by some of the clinics and modify activities remaining on the first floor of the original hospital.
The 150-bed Air Evacuation Center was a joint operation involving Fort Dix and McGuire Air Force Base. It became operational in May 1966. The Center provided medical care to Air Evacuation patients en route to their final destination.
At the height of its operation, Walson Army Hospital provided out-patient and in-patient care for personnel stationed at Fort Dix and small units located nearby, as well as Army dependents and other authorized personnel. Air Force and Navy personnel stationed at McGuire Air Force Base and Lakehurst Naval Station provided hospital and specialized clinic services. Specialized clinics included dermatology, gastroenterology, internal medicine, obstetrics, cardiology, radiology, gynecology, orthopedics, urology, neurology, psychiatry, pediatrics, eye-ear-nose and throat, surgery, preventive medicine, anesthesiology, and veterinary medicine.
In 1992, at the recommendation of the Base Realignment and Closure Commission (BRAC), Walson Army Hospital was transferred to the Air Force (McGuire Air Force Base) and was renamed Walson Air Force Hospital. On 30 April 2001, Walson Hospital closed its doors as the Air Force vacated the building. The former hospital was turned over to the BRAC Committee.
The Fort Dix Museum is undergoing a renovation and name change. It will become the Army Reserve Mobilization Museum. The exhibits are being redone and renovations to the building are set to begin. The museum is currently 17,000 square feet, but will expand to 22,000 square feet.
Daniel W. Zimmerman
Museum
Fort Dix, NJ 08640

"Whiteout" artist interviewed in cartoon form

Here's an interesting interview with "Whiteout" artist Steve Leiber. The move came out last week, but got mediocre reviews. The graphic novel, however, is truly awesome. It came out more than 10 years ago, and is well worth checking out. This is one of those comics I remember, even though it's been more than a decade, without having to find it buried in the pile and think, "Oh yeah! That was awesome!"
It's the first thing I ever saw from writer Greg Rucka, who has gone on to more fame and fortune in comics and elsewhere.
Here's the summary from Amazon.com (I am too lazy to summarize it myself):
You can't get any further down than the bottom of the world - Antarctica. Cold, desolate, nothing but ice and snow for miles and miles. Carrie Stetko is a U.S. Marshal, and she's made The Ice her home. In its vastness, she has found a place where she can forget her troubled past and feel at peace... Until someone commits a murder in her jurisdiction and that peace is shattered. The murderer is one of five men scattered across the continent, and he has more reason to hide than just the slaying. Several ice samples were taken from the area around the body, and the depth of the drilling signifies something particular was removed. Enter Lily Sharpe, who wants to know what was so important another man's life had to be taken for it. But are either of the women prepared for the secrets and betrayals at the core of the situation?

Our pal Sala returns with "Cat Burglar Blue"

Here's the scoop about a new graphic novel by Richard Sala, whose comics are always unbelievably cool.
Here's the Amazon link.

Serial cereal blogging

A few days later (I had eggs and a TV dinner breakfast in between) but the Fruity Pebbles tasted fine this morning. I wonder what was wrong with me the other day?

Serial cereal blogging; or, "Everyone has a Facebook page (except me)."

Did you know that the cereal "Fruity Pebbles" has a page on Facebook? It has 8,296 fans.
Did you also know that the cereal was introduced in 1971?
From Wikipedia:

The cereal started out with three flavors: Orange, cherry, and lemon. New flavors were added over time such as grape in 1980, lime in 1984, Berry Blue in 1994, Incrediberry Purple in 1995 and Bedrock Berry Pink in 2005

Interesting, eh what?
I just opened a box of them this morning, and oddly enough, they didn't taste quite right. They weren't as sweet as usual. I went online to see if they had altered their recipe (perhaps removed gluten?), but there appears to have been no recent change. I am recovering from a cold, and my nose has ben stuffed up, so maybe it's me.
I'll try again tomorrow and see if it's a bad box, or if I was just having a bad taste day.

Just because ...

I just thought we needed a picture of "Weird Al."

Listening to bricks, mortar and deer

I didn’t know anything about Fort Dix until I went there a few weeks ago.
I assumed it would be a run-down Army post, since it was “closed” by the Base Realignment and Closure process in the early 1990s.
I was surprised to find a lively, well-kept training base when I arrived.
There was, however, one BRAC casualty. (I assume it was BRAC, anyway. ) Walson Army Hospital can be seen from almost anywhere in the cantonment area. It’s a nine-story -- now empty -- building.
What struck me about it was how closely it resembled Ireland Army Community Hospital at Fort Knox, where Izzy was born. Ireland opened in 1957.
According to a marker (which looked suspiciously like a gravestone) outside the hospital’s old front entrance, Walson opened in 1960 and closed in 1992. It was built at about the same time, anyway.
When I first saw the old Walson Army Hospital building, I kept thinking about how my dad occasionally says, “If walls could talk … ” I walked around the hospital building several times and drove around it even more wondering what those walls might say.
Babies were born there, doctors put casts on the broken arms and legs of Soldiers and their family members alike. The emergency room patched up people horribly injured in car crashes.
Although it has been closed for 17 years (oddly enough, the same amount of time I have been in the Army) the curving sidewalks and benches are still in the back of the hospital. You can still see where people may have sat while awaiting surgery, or holding a baby for the first time or learning how to walk with a prosthetic leg.
The building is surrounded by a loop road which separates the hospital from its now-empty parking lots. There are still crosswalk signs that caution drivers not to hit pedestrians, even though there are few drivers and almost no pedestrians.
The emergency room doors still looks like ER doors.
The brick on one side has a rust-looking stain below some windows. The letters “WALSON” are still on the side of the building you see first when you come in the main entrance. However, only a stain remains displaying the words “hospital” below.
There were a couple of open windows on the higher floors. I wondered if they were broken or if someone opened them. I wondered if there were ghosts of people who died there watching me walk past.
Looking around the hospital grounds, you can almost picture basic trainees who shuffled past during early morning runs with the warm, yellow sunlight behind them.
Every night, at dusk, a herd of deer ate grass in a field across from the hospital. One night, I counted 14 of them. Several nights, I sat and watched them from my car for quite a while. When I walked around the hospital, four of the deer were eating grass very close to the sidewalk on which I was standing. I felt the wind shift. The deer could smell me. They all turned and gracefully ran away.
Maybe the hospital’s ghosts aren’t on the inside.
What would those old walls tell me?

Interesting link

Go read; go play; have fun.
If this site works, it should be cool. I had trouble getting to see the images.

Said by me during "Food Network Challenge:"

"If I had to make a Disney-themed cake, I'd make a cake of the MGM lion with Mickey Mouse's feet hanging out of his mouth."

OK, it's been a while ...

... but what better way to re-start this thing than with a "Batman" TV series clip?
(Between vacations, schools and trips, I have not been home for any length of time for something like five weeks.)