Whew! I was in New Jersey yesterday visiting my friend and his wife (who's also my friend ). This guy is only two years younger than me but he has two small kids. Two boys, ages 5 and 7. I don't know how he and his wife do it! I was there for like 6 hours and I was exhausted after playing with the kids! They have a boundless amount of energy! They never tire!

But they have a lot of kool toys and video games!

Luckily my friend Neal drove. Otherwise I would have had to sleep over!

Well, it's back to the old grind tomorrow! Seems like I last worked on Friday...

Oh yeah...I did!

Before I mention some more about my friend the millionaire I wanted to say that this past Sunday I made corned beef and cabbage for my folks. This was a special request by my Dad! I never made it before but I was willing to try. It actually turned out pretty good. At least my parents liked it!

Anyway, like I was saying in my last entry my friend Ted made his second million in the stock market this year. He made his first in the mid-1990’s. In the early ’80’s he was homeless. I met him in a soup kitchen I worked in around 1983. He told me he’d lost all his money (which was mostly inherited) in a bad investment deal and most of his family had abandoned him. He said once he got back on his feet he would do things his own way and never listen to anyone else’s advice again, I guess it worked because just a little over 10 years later he was rich! But money can’t always buy happiness and he’ll be the first to tell you. He goes to a psychiatrist once a month and suffers from depression, anxiety attacks and insomnia. He’s a nice guy but sometimes he acts a little weird. Like when we go to a restaurant. He doesn’t bother to wait for someone to show him to a table. He’ll just walk right in and pick his own. Then when we sit down he says he doesn’t like the table and thinks we should switch to another. He often complains how “abnormal” he is. One of his favorite lines is “This is no life for a real person!”.

Sounds like a plot for a movie a little bit....

Whoa! Listen to this! In the mid-1990's my friend Ted made a million dollars in the stock market! Yeah, I know a millionaire if ya can believe such a thing! He did it legally! Not through any insider trading or anything like that. It had to do with stock options and a bunch of stuff I don't understand. Anyway,I was just talking to him on the phone (I haven't seen him in about 4 months) and he said he wants to take me and a bunch of mutual friends out to dinner. I asked him what the big occasion was. I'm glad I was sitting down when he told me. He said over the course of this year he has made his second million in the market! Now I know a multiple millionaire!!!

Ah, it's only money!

This is something I got from a newsletter called "Word-A-Day":

Bonfire comes from the words bone and fire ("fire of bones")
and originally indicated a large open-air fire on which bones
were burnt, either as a ceremony (like a funeral) or for
burning heretics or banned books. The Halloween bonfires were
lit to scare away evil spirits. Nowadays, bonfires are also
celebratory - after a day at the beach or for a homecoming
football game.

The word costume came to English via French from Italian for
"fashion" or "custom, habit," from Latin consuetudo/
consuetudinem meaning "custom." Mask also made a trip through
French (masque) from Italian maschera/mascara, perhaps from
Latin masca, "evil spirit, witch."

Ghost comes from an Old English word gast/gost, "spirit,
soul" and has related forms in other West Germanic languages.
These related words appear to be connected with Sanskrit hea,
"anger, fury." Goblin is from French and it may be related
to the German Kobold, a mythological spirit who haunted homes
and lived underground in caves and mines. Etymologists
believe it may be related to Greek kobalos and to Latin
Gobelinus, mischievous spirits. The goblin carries the
connotation of being grotesque and ugly, evil and malicious.
The ghost is just downright scary, being the supposed soul
of a dead person.

A jack-o'-lantern (also jack-a-lantern) is a hollowed-out
pumpkin, originally a turnip, carved into a demonic face and
lit with a candle inside. Light from a candle inserted inside
can be seen flickering through the jack-o'-lantern's cutout
eyes, nose, and usually grotesquely grinning mouth. The
custom originated in the British Isles, with a large turnip
or other vegetable rather than a pumpkin. The original mean-
ing of the word jack-o'-lantern was "night watchman" or "man
with a lantern," but it took on the Halloween sense by 1837,
first in Nathaniel Hawthorne's Twice-Told Tales.

Pumpkin - the large fruit of the plant Cucurbita Pepo - is a
word evolved from the original English spelling of pompeon
or pumpion or pompion to pumkin and finally to pumpkin. The
word pompion came from Latin pepo/peponem from Greek pepon,
"large melon, edible gourd," from another word pepon, "cooked
by the sun; ripe." Another spelling variant is punkin.

In Old English, witch was actually wicca and originally (c
890) was a man who practiced magic or sorcery, which we now
call wizard. By the year 1000, witch came to be defined as
"a female magician or sorceress."

How important does a person have to be before they are
considered assassinated instead of just murdered?

Why do you have to "put your two cents in"...but it's only a
"penny for your thoughts"? Where's that extra penny going?

Once you're in heaven, do you get stuck wearing the clothes you were buried in for eternity?

Why does a round pizza come in a square box?

What disease did cured ham actually have?

How is it that we put man on the moon before we figured out
it would be a good idea to put wheels on luggage?

Why is it that people say they "slept like a baby"
when babies wake up like every two hours?

If a deaf person has to go to court, is it still called a hearing?

Why are you IN a movie, but you are ON TV?

Why do people pay to go up tall buildings and then put
money in binoculars to look at things on the ground?

Why do doctors leave the room while you change? They're going to see you naked anyway.

Why is "bra" singular and "panties" plural

Why do toasters always have a setting that burns the toast
to a horrible crisp, which no decent human being would eat?

If Jimmy cracks corn and no one cares, why is there a stupid song about him?

Can a hearse carrying a corpse drive in the carpool lane?

If the professor on Gilligan's Island can make a radio out of a coconut why can't he fix a hole in a boat?

Why do people point to their wrist when asking for the time,
but don't point to their crotch when they ask where the bathroom is?

Why does Goofy stand erect while Pluto remains on all fours? They're both dogs!

If Wiley E. Coyote had enough money to buy all that ACME crap, why didn't he just buy dinner?

If corn oil is made from corn, and vegetable oil is made from vegetables, what is baby oil made from?

Do the Alphabet song and TWINKLE TWINKLE LITTTLE STAR have the same melody?

Why did you just try singing the two songs above?

Did you ever notice that when you blow in a dog's face, he gets mad at you, but when you take him for a car ride; he sticks his head out the window?