Pumpkin Carving

Wednesday night we had all the kids home (with significant others) for a night of Taco Soup and pumpkin carving. The soup was delicious, (if I must say so myself), and the carving was a lot of fun. I thought I would share some pictures of the festivities with the two or three people who still visit this blog.

At work on the pumpkins. As any experienced pumpkin carver knows, the job begins with cutting into the gourd and pulling out the lovely stuff inside.



It is very important that you keep your head down and follow through on your scraping motion. Here, Stephen helps me keep my head down. This was, in fact, the first of two pumpkins which I cleaned, a certain someone, who will remain unnamed, batted her eyes at me, much the same way she did some 27 years ago, and I caved in and relinquished my cleaned out pumpkin.



Scott shows some natural Gohring scraping abilities. (Note the powerful elbow motion, you just can't teach this stuff.)



There was some concern as to whether Brittany would complete her pumpkin by Halloween.



Scott let Chelsey share in the joy of cleaning out the seeds and goo.



Chris is something of a speed-carver. He was the first one finished. Staci, as you can see, was a bit more meticulous.



Heads down and working, Stephen is nearly finished carving, and Brittany is still working on the design.



Jan eschews the traditional carving implements and works exclusively with power tools. She has recently bought a full set of pumpkin bits for her Craftsman Router.



My pumpkins always tend to look like this.



The completed Jack-o-lanterns!



Illuminated!!!



Scott and Chelsey - Skeletonish



Staci - spooky



Chris - Sic 'em Bears!!!!



Brittany - well worth the wait.



Stephen - a chip off the block, huh?



Jan - artsy fartsy



Steve - no comment



Now they are all ready to line the steps for Halloween tonight.

Bring on the Trick-or-treaters.

Driving in Texas - A Primer for those not from here.

Since adding the Feedjit Widget to my blog, I have noticed that I have received visits from Canada, Ireland, UK, Norway, Germany, Venezuela and France. Not to mention such foreign places as New York and Oregon. This got me to thinking that I should advise any of you that might be planning on visiting our fair state that you should be aware of some of our driving habits. For this purpose I offer the following tips and advice for driving in Texas. 

1. Speed Limits - Posted throughout the state are signs which indicate the posted "speed limit" for the road that you are driving on. If you notice that you are going the speed posted on the speed limit sign, you will also notice that you are a.) being passed as if you are standing still and/or b.) getting honked at continuously and receiving various gestures, most of which appear to involve only one finger. This is because if there are no state troopers present, you are expected to exceed the posted limit by at least 10 miles per hour. In the event that a trooper is seen, then the standard protocol is to slow down to a speed approximately 5 mph slower than that posted, and to do so suddenly, so as to cause the cars coming up behind you to have to slam on their brakes. 

2. Traffic Lights - Located at numerous intersections, these multicolored lights are used to indicate instructions to drivers as to when it is safe to proceed through the intersection. Like all other states, Red = Stop, Green = Go and Yellow is meaningless and considered to be green. There is a major exception to these standard rules in Texas. Red still equals stop, but only after it is "good and red". You generally assume that you have a good 2-3 seconds before it is red enough to stop. Green means go, but, due to the interpretation of red mentioned above, it doesn't mean go right away. As also mentioned, yellow means green, but hurry up and go, because red is coming. So long as you have any part of your car into the intersection before the light turns red, you made it.

3. Exit Signs - These signs are located on the highway, indicating to the driver that there is an exit approaching on the right or left that will take you to the place indicated. You might be fooled by this to think that it means that you should change lanes and move to the extreme left or right (as the case may be) so as to be able to exit. But this would be a mistake. In order to drive like a Texan you should speed up around the cars that are lining up on the right (silly foreign drivers), and then, at the last possible moment,  attempt to change lanes into the exit lane. There will inevitably be someone there to let you in, and you just got ahead of all of those other people who foolishly queued up for the exit.  Do not lose sight of the fact that this is, after all, a race to see who can get where you are going the fastest. Do not let the fact that the others are not aware that they are racing you dissuade you from this.

4. White Lines. - Are pretty, other than that they have no meaning. 

 

5. Double White Lines - Are twice as pretty. 

  

6. Right of way - Is  something that people should give you. It is not something anyone should ever expect from you. 

7. Yield Signs - Intersection indicators that indicate that there is no need to stop. They are fairly well universally ignored. 

8. Stop Signs - Intersection signs that are placed there to make you slow down, until you determine that another car is not coming on the intersecting street. So long as there are no other cars, or in the event that it is a four-way stop, and those cars are already stopped, they can be ignored, other than a brief slow-down. 

9. Turn Indicators - You basically have two options. If you are under the age of 70, you do not use them. Over the age of 70, you turn them on in one direction, and do not turn them off until you reach your destination.  

Hopefully these simple rules will enable you to successfully operate a motor vehicle in the State of Texas. These observations are based on the experiences and knowledge of the author, your results might vary.  

UPDATE:

I left out one important fact. Like many other places, we have a 'right turn on red" law. But, of course, ours is slightly different. While in other places the general rule is that you can turn on red if no cars are approaching, here you turn right on red if you feel like you can make it, or if "that car were going slower, I would have made it easy". The important thing is, as long as you can get your car in front of the other one, then it probably will be their fault if they hit you. Good Luck.