Cien? Si.

This makes 100 posts here at the blog. Here are a few that people have mentioned as favorites:

• A treatise on spitting
• Toddler potty humor
• Family stories
• Jack's growth in pictures
• Favorite comedy film quotes
• Life and death in one day

That's a suitably random and inconsistent grouping of "best of" postings for someone as weird as me. :)

Rodeo News

The Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo has begun. This thing is absolutely huge, and is a ton of fun for the kids. It runs for about a month and started with a parade last week. For a few nights before the parade, ranchers and farmers come from all over the country to camp out in various places around Houston, preparing for the month-long show.

One of those campsites happens to be right behind our house, in the open area around the little league baseball fields. So last week, when people started showing up, we took the kids for a walk behind our house to meet some real-life ranchers. And their animals, of course.

You'd be hard-pressed to find a nicer bunch of people than these ranchers and farmers. They told us about their animals, played with the kids, and just displayed a genuine love for everybody around them. Why do you think that is? I wonder if life on the ranch just has a way of building character.

Physical labor builds strength of body and spirit. Cattle generations and slow-growing crops might have a knack for building patience. Weather, infections and pests may build a stoic acceptance of things beyond our control. Life outdoors might build a deep-seated appreciation for the beauty of the earth.

I may just be full of dung with all this, but maybe there's something to that lifestyle that provides some life lessons missed out on by urbanites. We'll be hitting the livestock show at least twice this year, and we can't wait! You may think it sounds boring or redneck, but trust me, it's like the best zoo in the world. I'll post pictures and stories after we've had our fun there.

Music News

On the way to the gym yesterday, a local radio station had "Turn Back the Clock" hour. Their first song was by the Smashing Pumpkins. Smashing Pumpkins for turn back the clock? The song they played was released during my senior year of high school. I guess it's finally happening... the bands I love are getting old. Good thing I'm not.

But everyone knows what the huge, huge, music news is from last week. No, it's not Brittany Spears and her new imitation of Kojak on crack. It was the bombshell that Van Halen was reuniting, again, with David Lee Roth, only to back out, again, on the reunion. You know, after the 14th or 15th failed reunion, the fans are eventually going to stop believing it'll ever happen.

I leave it to our tongue-tied President to speak for Van Halen fans everywhere: