Flower or weed?

The last year or two we've noticed very early in the spring, a purple flower popping up right in the middle of our lawn.  This year is no exception, except due to the warm weather, they have arrived sooner.  I'm wondering if this is truly a "flower" or just a weed that disguises itself as a flower so we don't harm it.  If you know, please share.

London Olympics

If you were wondering what to eat while watching the 2012 London Olympics following are some popular sandwiches from Great Britain.

• Breakfast Roll  The breakfast roll is a bread roll filled with elements of a traditional fry-up, designed to be eaten on the way to school or work. It can be purchased at a wide variety of petrol stations, local newsagents, supermarkets, and eateries throughout the Ireland and United Kingdom.
• Bacon Sandwich Bacon sandwiches are an all-day favourite throughout the United Kingdom. Rarely found on the menus of high class restaurants, they are often served in greasy spoons, and are anecdotally recommended as a hangover cure.
• British Rail Sandwich In British humour, the phrase British Rail sandwich refers to sandwiches sold for consumption on passenger trains of the former British Rail (BR). Its use principally arose in British popular culture through comedic references to the food item as emblematic of the unappetising fare available aboard Great Britain's railway service during the period of nationalisation from 1948 to 1994.
• Chip butty A chip butty, is a sandwich made with bread or a bread roll (usually white and buttered) and hot chips (i.e. French fries), often with some sort of sauce such as tomato sauce (i.e. ketchup) or brown sauce.^[1] The word butty is a contraction of "bread and butter" that came from northern England, perhaps Yorkshire or Liverpool.^[2]
• Crisp Sandwich A crisp sandwich is a sandwich that includes crisps (potato chips) as one of the fillings. In addition to the crisps, the other ingredients may be peanut butter, meat, cheese, tuna, ham, bologna, tomato, pâté, cucumber, or any other common sandwich ingredient. Potato chip sandwiches are sometimes referred to as "trailer park cuisine".
• Cucumber Sandwich The traditional cucumber sandwich is composed of paper-thin slices of cucumber placed between two thin slices of crustless, lightlybuttered white (or wheat in some cases) bread.
• Marmite   Marmite is the name given to two similar food spreads: the original British version, first produced in the United Kingdom and later South Africa, and a version produced in New Zealand. Marmite is made from yeast extract, a by-product of beer brewing.
• Ploughman's Lunch It is a common menu item in English pubs, where it is served with a pint of beer. It is considered a cultural icon of England.^[2] The familiarity of the ploughman's lunch has led catering companies to describe a sandwich containing Cheddar cheese, pickle and salad as a "ploughman's sandwich".
• Tea Sandwich A tea sandwich is a small prepared sandwich meant to be eaten at afternoon teatime to stave off hunger until the main meal.

Academy Awards - Carol's picks

At this year's AMC Best Picture Showcase we were given a mock ballot to play along with the Academy Awards.  While I've seen all of the movies up for Best Picture, I have not yet seen all of the movies that some of the Best Actors or Best Actresses are in.  However, based on what I have seen so far, if I were allowed to vote, I would pick these.

Best Actor:  Brad Pitt, "Moneyball"
Best Supporting Actor:  Max von Sydow, "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close"
Best Actress:  Rooney Mara, "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"
Best Support Actress:  Berenice Bejo, "The Artist"
Best Cinematography:  "War Horse"
Best Costume Design:  "Hugo"
Best Director:  "Martin Scorsese, "Hugo"
Best Film Editing: "The Artist"
Best Music: (Original Score) "Hugo"
Best Writing: (Adapted Screenplay) "Hugo"
Best Writing: (Original Screenplay) "Midnight in Paris"
Best Picture: "Hugo"

As you can see I really enjoyed "Hugo".

RESULTS:  The Academy only agreed with one of my picks.  "Midnight in Paris" did receive an Oscar for Best Writing.

Helicopters

Helicopter Launch Pad

Our living room has been buzzing lately.

The small red helicopter given to Pete for Christmas has been buzzing me daily. It is great for indoor use.  

The middle red helicopter is a birthday gift for my brother. It can be used indoors or outdoors. Originally we had purchased two of these, one for him and one for Pete. Unfortunately they were both defective so they were returned. We ordered a new one and had it delivered to us so Pete could test it out.  It arrived in good shape and is now in North Carolina with my brother.

While we were waiting for the replacement to arrive, the large yellow helicopter magically appeared.   Apparently it was in our basement for the past few years waiting until Pete had time to work on some modifications. This one is for outdoor use and he did get it to fly for about 5 seconds before it crashed.  More modifications...

I've not attempted to fly any of them, as I prefer to be the co-pilot; meaning that when they crash I run and pick them back up.

My Camera Is Back!

Yippee, my camera came back from FUGI on Valentines Day all fixed and ready for action.   Here are a few photo's I took right away. 

1.  I took a picture of the box my camera came in.  Isn't it slick?

2. Zooming in on flowers and testing some of the settings.  Julia gave me these - aren't they colorful?

3.  More zooming in on the yellow roses sweetie gave me for Valentine's Day.

4.  Just for fun - sweetie bought this statue awhile ago on one of our many trips to Las Vegas.  It makes me smile because it is so different from anything else we have in our house.