Oh, wonderful words

To honor today's kickoff of the Scripps National Spelling Bee, truly one of my favorite sporting events of the year, I am going to share a bit of a new nerdy love with all of you. Yes, I was a local spelling bee competitor decades ago. Yes, I have a journalism degree from the Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University. Yes, I may be somewhat cursed with an obsession for words.
I have found something clearly created by someone with a warped mind, such as mine.

I dig using a thesaurus—always have, always will. Thanks to the "Internets" I don't always have to rely upon that paper copy from 1992. There are lots of great resources out there with different databases and words. I have found one that is just so much darn fun to use. If you like words at all, give a try to the Thinkmap Visual Thesaurus. See the photo I have posted here for an example of the word cantankerous. They claim that it "works like your brain." They also offer a fun word of the day email so we can all enrich and expand our vocabularies; I would suggest this at a minimum. It would do us all some good if we knew more words in this crazy English language of ours.

Nothing says fun like duct tape

As you know, sometimes I really enjoy sharing little tidbits from the great state of round on the ends and high in the middle, Ohio. I couldn't pass up an opportunity to share with all of you some of the things we do around here for fun in the summertime. You know about the boats I watch out my window, the lovely and always fun Cedar Point, but did you know about Avon's Duct Tape Festival? In addition to the standard Ohio festival fare of rickety rides, money-sucking games to win goldfish that will die before you get them home and grea-zy fried foods, this hotbed of activity features a Duck Tape Parade (the Duck Tape Company is located in Avon, Ohio).
However, most importantly, they had me at "Duct Tape Crafts." I'm so there. Catch ya' on the sticky side.