1st Sign of Spring, Words and a Riddle

I got up this morning, walked out to get the paper and heard my first sign of spring...a robin singing. I had to wonder what it was feeding on as the ground is still frozen as well as being mostly snow-covered.

I've dumped Sitemeter for StatCounter to track the activity on my blog. Sitemeter was always slow to load when I went to view the stats whereas I don't have that problem with StatCounter. Anyway, I started my counter at a conservative zero (edit...as of Monday morning at 10:00) I've never kept a running total of visits so it will be interesting to watch the number grow. I also coded it into the pages behind the scenes on our website so I can see what sort of activity is happening there.

I got out on my bike for a couple hours this morning. I nearly didn't ride as I was tired but once I was on the road I found some energy and was happy with my decision to put in some miles. I saw two other riders. Not that many for as beautiful a day as it was. A clean bike really does ride nicer...just like a clean car.

I'm not sure what I think about Barak Obama and his apparent hesitancy to distance himself from his minister? I have to say that if Bill Boline began making racist comments we'd leave Hosanna before he had a chance to finish his sermon. No question. It wouldn't be the first time we've disassociated ourselves from a church because we felt that what they were or weren't teaching was wrong. It's possible that Barack disagrees with some of the more disturbing comments that Reverend Wright has made. I don't know. I do recall some discussion about Romney's religion when he was in the running. I suppose it's fair to take a closer look at what Barack is embracing. I'm a bit uncomfortable saying that because I thought it was wrong to bring Romney's faith into the discussion. I simply want a level playing field.

I'm dragging this brain teaser back out again. I posted it to my blog when I first began this back in 2003 but I had no takers then or viewers for that matter. Anybody care to take a crack at it? Watch as the drawing shifts from 12 to 13 figures then back to 12. Can you see where the additional person comes from or goes to? I posted this to our family forum and my nephew Tristan said: "We know what it does, we print screened both positions, put them next to each other, and stared at it for 30 minutes, and it still makes us angry." Hmmm, I'm guessing it's something very simple from that comment but something which is very easy to overlook. Maybe I'll just stare at it some more. Maybe I don't really want to know.