2006-08-03

This is the coolest video I've seen in a long, long time.

Way cooler than that Separate Ways thing I posted a few days ago.

If I were one of those four guys it would have taken about 7000 takes for us to get it right.

File this one under "Count Your Blessings You Weren't Born 100 Years Ago".

Valentin Keller enlisted in an all-German unit of the Union Army in Hamilton, Ohio, in 1862. He was 26, a small, slender man, 5 feet 4 inches tall, who had just become a naturalized citizen. He listed his occupation as tailor.

A year later, Keller was honorably discharged, sick and broken. He had a lung ailment and was so crippled from arthritis in his hips that he could barely walk.

His pension record tells of his suffering. “His rheumatism is so that he is unable to walk without the aid of crutches and then only with great pain,” it says. His lungs and his joints never got better, and Keller never worked again.

He died at age 41 of “dropsy,” which probably meant that he had congestive heart failure, a condition not associated with his time in the Army. His 39-year-old wife, Otilia, died a month before him of what her death certificate said was “exhaustion.”

Read the whole thing.

As I've alluded to, I've been seeing someone. She's awesome. I think the term "perfect" is subjective. You know, perfect for one guy might be utter misery for someone else. Well, I think she's perfect for me.

And just when I thought "there's no way she could possibly be any better", I find out that she can be better. Because I asked her to marry me and she agreed. So on top of everything else she has going for her, she has impeccable judgement and exquisite taste in guys.

So, congratulations to us!