Fallen

KINGSLEY, Iowa -- Spc. Chad Groepper, 21, of Kingsley passed away Sunday, Feb. 17, 2008, in Diyali Province, northeast of Baghdad, Iraq, from combat injuries suffered while serving in the U.S. Army.

Services will be 2:30 p.m. Wednesday at Kingsley-Pierson High School. Chad Groepper was born Oct. 24, 1986, to David and Darcy Groepper in Sioux City. He graduated from Kingsley-Pierson High School in December 2004. During his childhood years, he enjoyed fishing, building, tinkering with anything mechanical, helping his dad with the cattle and his mom with yard work. He loved his pets. His dogs, Jack and Gunther remain on the family farm with mom and dad. His favorite childhood dog, Celie, is buried in the Groepper family year near the pasture. If it were up to Chad, he would have most likely wanted to be laid to rest next to her.

One of the reasons I wanted to share this with you, is to share what some people are planning to do at his funeral tomorrow: The crazed people from Westboro Baptist Church are going to picket at his funeral.

THESE PEOPLE MAKE ME SICK

They have a very sickening website, and even a link to their picket schedule. Tomorrow they are going to protest at Chad's Funeral. Here's tomorrow's listing:
Upcoming Picket Schedule
02/27/2008
1:45 PM - 2:30 PM
Kingsley, IA

I am not sure how these people do this. I suppose the same way I don't understand how terrorists do what they do. Well, one thing I know is, if they showed up at some families I know funerals from Wyoming, IA there would be some physically challenged individuals limping back to Kansas. That is, if they lived. You may think I'm kidding, but for any of you from a small town, imagine some of the people you know having these people showing up at their families funeral. There would definitely be hell to pay. Kingsley is a pretty small town, awfully brave or stupid of these people if you ask me.

Proper Use of the term 'You Guys'

I came across something today that I have thought about before. The term 'You Guys'. I say it all the time, regardless of who I am referring to. Men, men and women, or just women can be 'you guys' to me. Sometimes I have walked away from a group of females after calling them 'you guys' wondering if I might have offended them. Well, I will no longer care, because it's within the appropriate definition. Here are the sources:

Merriam-Webster's:

3 a: man, fellow b: person —used in plural to refer to the members of a group regardless of sex

This is also in other dictionaries as well. So there it is. Guys is an english colloquialism that can refer to groups of men, men and women, or just women.

He-Man undercover? Adam in Drag? Or just their really manly cousin, Tina?

I'm one of those Beta Guys...

Well, the HD DVD vs Blu-ray war is officially over. When Wal-mart and Netflix went solely Blu-ray, HD DVD was dead in the water. So, which losers bought an HD DVD player? ME! Yeah! Ok in my defense, I mainly got it because it upconverted all my regular dvd's, and since I bought it with my TV the discount made it almost as cheap as a regular upconvert DVD player.

Man, the movie 300, Shooter and a few others I have watched in HD DVD have looked fantastic. Oh well. At least I am not old enough to have bought betamax and made the wrong choice twice. Here's to Blu-ray!

Bath and Bumbo Time

Ok, I was supposed to be in Eastern Iowa today celebrating my mom's 50th Birthday. In comes another dump of winter weather that they stated on the news: "Travel is not recommended, and if you do have to travel, bring an emergency survival kit." I am grounded in Sioux City.

So, HAPPY BIRTHDAY Mom!

I know you can't see Olivia today, but really wanted to, and we wanted to be there too. I took some pictures today and from this week and here they are.

This is her Bumbo. Think of it as her workbench.

Getting scrubbed today. She actually loved her little tub.

Geared up to go for a ride while rocking the cute headband. I got a couple of videos too, I will send the links to you once I get them uploaded.

Olivia Says Hello!

Finally, I think I have figured out how to get my videos from camcorder to computer to blogger. Between firewire and vista problems, it was a few headaches. Anyway, solved.

She is really changing every day. Lifting up her head, cooing lots, grabbing things now. It makes it really fun, and worth every minute. Otherwise, all here in Sioux City is good. A little snowy, but I don't have much to complain about with all the snow you have had in eastern Iowa. We are getting about 5" tonight. I have been running a ton, (on the treadmill), and getting in race shape for the spring. I did a long run of 10 miles yesterday, and I am a little sore today. I have to have a better showing this year at the good 'ol Rustic Run, so I have good motivation to keep it up. I'll try to update you, moms and grandmas, with a few new vids of Olivia over the next week.

Maybe I will throw in a good 'ol Political Post too, and poll the Peltgrande viewers, though I know most of you are REAL patriots. The question is though, Barack or Hillary?

Super Duper Snowy Week

Well, it's Super Week. Super Bowl. Super Tuesday. Super Snowy Town in Eastern Iowa. I am currently attempting to upload a video of Olivia if I have installed my firwire PCI card correctly. We'll see.

While I am waiting for that I will just blog my thoughts for the week. First off, Go Giants. Glad to see the Pats lose. Did anybody see much of the SuperBowl commercials? I only saw a few, as I was working in the ER and would occasionally sneak back and watch a few minutes here and there. I liked most of the ones I saw, but I have to say I will now never drink Amp. They had a guy hooking car battery charger cables to his nipples advertising Amp Energy Drink. Well, suffice it to say, when you go battery cables to nipples, I'm out. You lost me on that one.

Super Tuesday. McCain will be the GOP nominee, and the Dems are still too close to call. Daisy, our Beagle has clearly made her choice on party lines. I had a Hillary flyer come in the mail, and she chewed it up. She really doesn't chew up anything anymore, but for some reason she wanted to voice her displeasure for Hillary. Besides, Daisy is a Republican. She really liked Fred Thompson, but he's out, so she's torn. A little known fact is that the reason Daisy is a Republican is because she likes Elephants better than Donkeys.

I spoke with some of you Eastern Iowans today. Holy snow land over there. I believe some schools haven't even had school this week, after 6-10" snows Sunday night followed by 12-14" more the last 24 hours. Nice work. Sounds like fun. My parents are landlocked on Madison Road. Tim Rushford couldn't drive to work today, or anywhere for that matter, so he walked to the 'ol Swinging Door for his snow day. Say hello to the regulars for us Tim.


Ok, so my firwire card worked, I finally got videos from my camera to the computer, but still a glitch uploading. That's ok, I will work on it tomorrow for you mom. In the meantime I posted some pics from Mom and Dad's house from today. The two pics at the bottom here are pics looking up and down THE ROAD. You can't even really tell it's supposed to be a road. Jones county gets all the fun. I love snow pics, so if any of you have any other cool ones to share, email them to me, I will post them if you want.

Groundhog Day!

I have been really wanting to get outside and run, and supposedly this morning Punxsutawney Phillip said 6 more weeks of winter. I believe strongly in the power of the predictive abilities of woodchucks, and so I accept our future as deemed by Mr. Phillip. I however, will not lay down for you, evil Phil, and so I ran my 8 mile run on the treadmill this morning despite your gloomy predictions.