Happy Birthday, Emily!

Today is your birthday!  Do you remember all the details of your birth?  I do – here are the stats: We go to the hospital at 5 AM on July 26, Emily is born at 2:17, weighs 6 lbs, 13 ½ oz and is 20 ½ “ long, she comes home on July 30.

Exciting stuff, right?  Have a great day of celebrating.  In keeping with reviewing the past, here are highlights of July from 1982, 1992 and 2002.  Enjoy.

1982:  We go to the movie ‘ET’.  Emily starts walking the day after her 1^st birthday.

1992:   Emily and Adam take tennis lessons. We go to NE. We go to the Omaha zoo (part of Laurie’s 20 year HS reunion) and to Oceans of Fun & Worlds of Fun in KC. We also go to Lindsborg, KS. While we are gone, Jazz ate M.C. Hampster. Emily has a fancy birthday party and has Adam and Scott serve the guests.  We go to Grisanti's.

2002:  We go to Nebraska. Cousin Lillian from Michigan is there. Larry's Dad has hip replacement surgery. We drive Laurie’s parents Oldsmobile back to Denver to sell.  Laurie and Adam cut down 4 aspen trees in the back yard.Adam moves to NY and begins working at Lehman Brothers.  A hummingbird flies in the cabin and I catch it in a bag. Emily enjoys a birthday lunch at the Brown Palace (Sen. Bob Kerry is there too) and a birthday dinner at Sevilla.  Em & Rosie see Kenny Chesney at Frontier Days.

Here are some highlights of world events from 2002 and 2007, courtesy of Dave Berry:

July, 2002
Two pilots scheduled to fly an America West plane from Miami to Phoenix are ordered from the cockpit at Miami International Airport and found to be drunk. The pilots aroused suspicions when they made a preflight announcement asking if any passenger ''happens to have a corkscrew.''
In financial news, Congress, addressing the corporate accounting scandals, approves the death penalty for anybody convicted of exercising a stock option. As the market plunges 128,500 points, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan, in a move that fails to bolster investor confidence, announces that from now on he wants to be paid in gold.
In sports, baseball immortal Ted Williams dies. His son says the body will be frozen, so it can be revived in the future. A court approves this plan, on the condition that the son be frozen at the same time, so he can be revived in the future to explain everything to his dad. We wish.
In other science news, archaeologists announce that they have discovered a skull that is believed to be more than six million years old. Tests show that the skull does, indeed, belong to Sen. Strom Thurmond.
In political news, the U.S. House of Representatives votes to expel Rep. James Traficant (D-Sopranos) after a House Ethics Committee investigation shows that the thing on his head is a diseased weasel that has eaten nearly 80 percent of his brain. The vote to expel him is 420-1, with the lone dissenting vote coming from . . . Iraq.
Speaking of victims, Michael Jackson tells a New York rally that -- we are not making this up -- he has been oppressed by his record label. Concerned fans from around the world send donations of money, food, sequins and facial implants.
But a month of bad news ends on an upbeat note when rescuers break through to a collapsed Pennsylvania mine shaft and free nine miners who have been trapped 240 feet underground for more than three days. Also rescued are 157 lawyers who have burrowed down there to offer their services in the filing of lawsuits.


JULY, 2007
President Bush undergoes a colonoscopy; congressional Democrats immediately pass a resolution condemning the procedure, while maintaining that they ''fully support the colonoscope.'' Vice President Cheney serves as acting president for two and a half hours, during which he performs what his office describes as ''routine executive duties,'' including ''signing some routine papers'' and ''ordering some routine bomb strikes against Iran.'' France immediately surrenders.
In other executive action, President Bush, on the eve of July Fourth, commutes ''Scooter'' Libby's prison sentence, on the grounds that, quote, ''Hey, c'mon, it's Scooter.'' Congressional Democrats are outraged, but the public is more concerned with the issue of whether to go ahead and have that fifth beer.
On the environmental front, the big story is Al Gore's ''Live Earth,'' a massive rock concert in which more than 150 music acts perform at 11 locations around the world to fight global warming, which is swiftly brought to its knees.
In the arts, July is dominated by the release of the seventh and last Harry Potter book, Harry Potter Spends Half the Book Camping, which enthralls the nation as nothing has enthralled it since the release of the iPhone. The book is generally well-received, although some fans are troubled by the ending, which culminates in the death of Harry's longtime nemesis, Tony Soprano.
In sports, suspicions of doping continue to plague the Tour de France when the grueling 2,200-mile race is won, in a stunning upset, by Barry Bonds. Pro basketball also suffers a blow following reports that NBA referee Tim Donaghy bet on games that he officiated, which could explain some of his questionable calls in critical situations, including fouls for ''bad posture'' and ``dribbling too loud.''

Larry Writes it Down is BACK

It’s been almost a year since I posted my first blog entry, Father’s Day, 2011.  And, it’s been almost 10 months since I posted my last blog entry, our Wedding Anniversary, 2011.  I think I’ve figured out a way to post entries more frequently.  My plan is to draw from previously published accounts, via the big letter, to list important events from the past and remind everyone what was going on 30, 20 and 10 years ago.  I think it will be fun to remember these things and reminisce.  With this in mind, let’s go back to 1982, 1992 and 2002 to see what the Thede family was up to.

June        1982:  We attend Laurie’s 10-year high school reunion.  Adam attends VBS, draws picture of our house and lists the occupants as Mommie, Daddy, Emily, Adam and Fido – the teacher asked Adam if he had a dog and apparently he thought we did so put it in the house.  On the way home, he asked Laurie if we had a dog . . .

June        1992:  Laurie and Emily go on an overnight scout camping trip. Laurie’s parents visit and bring us Nebraska peony plants.  Laurie’s hip bothers her. She gets a cortisone shot. We see ‘Sister Act’ for her birthday.  Larry gets a leaf blower for Father’s Day.

June        2002:  We host an end of year potluck party for the Meistersingers. Emily begins working at the Spanish TV station. Rosie takes a job at Park Meadows.  Larry begins a new job at Quovadx on June 10 and goes on a trip to Detroit, Milwaukee and Minneapolis on his second day on the job. The biggest wild fire in Colorado history starts – the Hayman Fire. It burns 138,000 acres and 133 homes.  Laurie and Adam go to Omaha and move her parents to Brighton Gardens. They bring the trailer home with furniture, etc.  Emily and Rosie clean the house, mow the lawn and wash both cars for Larry’s Father’s Day present, and Rosie makes a strawberry rhubarb pie. Adam attends a Semester at Sea reunion in Las Vegas.

In addition to family history, I think it’s important to highlight significant world events in my blog.  With this in mind, here is an account of June 2002 and June 2007 from Dave Berry:

June, 2002

. . . Britain's Queen Elizabeth II celebrates the 50th year of her reign at a star-studded gala concert featuring performances by Paul McCartney, Phil Collins, Eric Clapton and Ozzy Osbourne, who, in the dramatic highlight of the evening, bites the head off one of the Queen's Welsh corgis.

But the mood is not so jubilant in the Middle East, where, following a series of Palestinian attacks, Israeli tanks again surround the headquarters of Yasser Arafat and slowly press against it until it is the size of a twin bed. The crafty Arafat escapes again by claiming he has a dental appointment.

Speaking of close calls: On June 14 a giant asteroid, discovered only three days earlier, passes within 75,000 miles of the Earth. Congress immediately holds hearings, with the Democrats charging that the Bush administration should have known about it sooner, and the Republicans noting that the asteroid had been heading this way during all eight years of the Clinton administration. The CIA acknowledges, under questioning, that at one point it was tracking the asteroid, but lost the file. In the end, all parties agree that airport security needs to be tightened.

In another alarming story, wildfires rage out of control in Colorado and several other western states, burning thousands of acres and destroying dozens of homes. Investigators searching an area where one of the largest blazes originated find a Zippo lighter bearing a thumbprint belonging to . . . Iraq.

The nation's Color Code Security Status is quickly raised to Maroon (''Dark Brownish Red'').

On Wall Street, the bad news continues. First, WorldCom announces that it has improperly accounted for $3.9 billion and has ''at least six'' movies seriously overdue for return to Blockbuster. Next Xerox, under pressure from investigators, admits that its second-quarter profits were actually a copy of its first-quarter profits. Next Martha Stewart is linked to a string of bank robberies. The stock market drops 11,600 points.

Ann Landers dies, but continues to dispense common-sense advice.

In legal news, a Dayton, Ohio, jury, in a unanimous verdict, orders five cigarette companies to pay $128 billion to a 67-year-old man, despite the fact that the man (a) is not a smoker; (b) has not sued anybody; and (c) is in fact on trial for littering. The American Trial Lawyers Association hails this as ''a major victory for our Porsche dealership.'' In California, a federal appeals court rules that schools cannot compel American schoolchildren to say the Pledge of Allegiance, on the grounds that ''allegiance'' has too many syllables.

JUNE, 2007
. . . the nation is riveted by the drama of Paris Hilton, who, after a string of motor-vehicle violations including driving with a suspended license, driving at excessive speed through a nightclub, driving over the young of an endangered species and driving with the brain functionality of a cabbage, is ordered to go to jail, then is released from jail, and then -- in what many observers see as an unfair punishment, based solely on resentment of her celebrity status -- is burned at the stake.
No, seriously: Paris is sent back to jail for several brutal weeks, during which she is repeatedly subjected to a harsh generic hair conditioner. Somehow she survives this ordeal and, upon leaving jail, adopts a low public profile, except for appearing with Larry King, who does a fine job once he realizes, about 40 minutes into the interview, that she is not Goldie Hawn.
In other June TV highlights:
• Cuban television broadcasts an interview of Fidel Castro, apparently intended to prove that the ailing dictator is still alive; cynics note, however, that the interview was conducted by Edward R. Murrow.
• The hit HBO series The Sopranos comes to an ambiguous end when, in mid-scene, the screen goes black. Many viewers at first think this is a technical problem; cable-TV companies log 3 million complaint calls, nearly 30 percent of them from the White House.
In other government action, the U.S. Senate discovers that its comprehensive immigration reform bill, despite having been painstakingly crafted behind closed doors by veteran bill-crafters, is unpopular with a segment of the U.S. population defined as ''the public.'' The Senate responds swiftly, dropping the immigration issue like a bag of rat sputum and returning to its traditional role of funding large unnecessary projects in West Virginia named after Robert Byrd.
In sports, the Anaheim Ducks defeat the Ottawa Senators in a Stanley Cup playoff series watched, worldwide, by most of the players' parents.
But the biggest story in June, as well as the history of the universe, is the release of the Apple iPhone, which, in addition to enabling you to make phone calls, has all kinds of brilliant and innovative features, including AutoFondle, an application that enables the iPhone to fondle itself during those times when you are unable to fondle it manually because you're sleeping or undergoing surgery from wounds you sustained when friends or co-workers finally lost it and beat you senseless to make you shut up about your freaking iPhone already.