If you take the old Super-Friends cartoon show and recast prominent Republicans as The Legion of Doom and prominent Democrats as The Super Friends, you get the Challenge Of The Super-Duper Friends (along with a good laugh).

April is Autism Awareness Month. Autism is four times more common in males than females.

Originally I wasn’t going to post anything about the tragic shooting deaths and injuries at Virginia Tech. Our friend Hanni is a graduate of VT and after checking with her to see if she had any friends still on campus (she didn’t, thank goodness) I thought I would leave it to others to write about the sad events there earlier this week. And I still will leave that to others.

But then I found out a woman who works in a department I supervise has a son who is a professor at VT. Thankfully he was not on campus the day of the shootings. Then I was told that a man in another department in our office has a son who was shot in the leg during the rampage. Again, thankfully, he will heal. Physically, I’m sure, faster than he will emotionally.

Anyway, the son who is a professor sent the photo below to his mom and she shared  it with me today. In turn, I thought I would share it with you.

April is Autism Awareness Month. The optimal treatment of autism involves an educational program that is suited to the child’s developmental level. 

For citizens of the United States, midnight tonight is the deadline for filing Federal Tax Returns.

Click the image above to see how Superman dealt with the Taxman.

April is Autism Awareness Month.  Autism is more common than multiple sclerosis, cystic fibrosis or childhood cancer.

Saturday we met up with our good friends Kirk and Laura at Universal Studios around 5 pm. We thought the plan was to meet for dinner and to stroll through the Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios. And it was..sort of. It turned out that Kirk and Laura wanted to treat us to dinner for our anniversary and had made reservations at a restaurant that Blog Girl and I had looked at back in October and said we wanted to come back and try; the interesting eatery known as Mythos, Grotto of the Gods.

Mythos is located on the Islands of Adventure section of the park in The Lost Continent. The interior of the restaurant is filled, or rather I should say the walls, ceiling and floor are shaped like incredible statues of mythical creatures and there is a waterway running throughout the restaurant. The water represents the River Styx and the mythical shapes are Perseus, Andromeda and Cassiopeia, among many others. Click on my Flickr Badge on the right and you can see pictures from inside the restaurant of the various mythical gods and goddesses.

I had the filet mignon with asparagus tips and fried onion sticks and it was delicious. Cooked as I asked (medium-well), flavorful, tender and juicy. We enjoyed the food and the chance to catch up with each other (mostly Kirk and I, as Blog Girl and Laura work together). The atmosphere of the restaurant, the decor, the lighting and the otherworldly ambience, made for a delightful experience.

After leaving there we walked through the rest of the Islands of Adventure section, passing through Jurassic Park, Toon Lagoon, Marvel Superhero Island and Dr. Seuss Landing before heading over to Universal Studios to enjoy the fun of Mardi Gras, or at least the early part of the celebration. Lots of pictures over on my Flickr page.

We finished up with an ice cream dessert and left for home around 9:30. We had a wonderful time and appreciated the gift of the fantastic dinner our friends gave us for our anniversary. Thanks, Kirk and Laura.

April is Autism Awareness Month. Autism receives as little as 5% of the research funding as other less common diseases.

A couple of friends have asked how the 10th Wedding Anniversary celebration went, so I guess I should post a little about it.

When Blog Girl awoke on Friday morning I had a nice card waiting for her, but that was all…for the moment.

At about 11am the dozen red premium (premium translates to about $30 added to the price) roses I had asked to be delivered at 9am finally arrived at her office, surprising her and making her the envy of the rest of the staff.

I have a gripe about florists (at least the last 2 I’ve used in the area where Blog Girl works) but this is not the place for that rant. Maybe some other time.

Blog Girl and I each got off work a little early to come back to the Blog Cave and get “freshened up”, as she likes to say, before heading out to a 5:50pm (that’s important) dinner at EPCOT.

Yes, EPCOT.

If you’re unfamiliar with EPCOT, that might seem like an odd choice of location for a 10th Wedding Anniversary dinner. But in the World Showcase section of EPCOT there is the French Pavilion (it even has a scaled-down version of the Eiffel Tower) and in the French Pavilion is a popular French restaurant named Les Chefs de France. Although 5 weeks after our anniversary we would be in the country of France itself (4 weeks now), we thought it would be fun to “visit” a little early by having dinner in a French restaurant.

We arrived a little early for our 5:50pm dinner (that’s important), so we went over to a little theater where they show an 18 minute film about France. Amazingly, in all the years I’ve been going to EPCOT, I’d never known the theater was even there, or what it showed. The semi-circle shape of the seats and screens gives you the impression you are flying through the sky over landmarks, castles, rivers and countryside. It only served to increase my desire to visit this beautiful country.

We arrived at the restaurant at approximately 5:45pm (that’s important) and as I stepped up to the podium where the Maitre’De was standing and greeted him with an excellent (if I DO say so myself) “bon jour”… he actually laughed and then stifled it. I asked him “What?” but he just kept looking down at the reservation book and, while smiling, told us it would be a few moments before our table was ready. I’m still not sure why he laughed. I used the proper form of greeting (if it had been after 6pm, and thus in the evening, the proper greeting would have been “bon soir”) and my pronunciation was decent, I thought. It’s not like I said “Bone Jore” or something like that.

Anyway, the meal was good, the service was excellent, the company was perfect and I discovered I don’t care for Creme Brulée.

After the meal we walked around the rest of the World Showcase, buying some things for Blog Girl at the Moroccan Pavilion and an Easter present for Mikey at the Japanese Pavilion before returning home around 8:30.

More about our Anniversary Celebration tomorrow.

April is Autism Awareness Month. The United States Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimate the prevalence of autism spectrum disorders to be about one in every 150 children.

Most readers know that The Masked Blogger’s beloved grandson, Mikey, is autistic and currently placed on the high end of the functioning spectrum, identified as Asperger Syndrome.

Today kicks off Autism Awareness Month. Take a moment to increase your awareness of “this pervasive developmental disorder which affects social and communication skills and, to a greater or lesser degree, motor and language skills.”

Throughout the month of April, I’ll be dropping in reminders of the observance into posts here.

This month’s issue of Scientific American arrived in my mailbox a couple of days ago and the cover article, of course, jumped off the page grabbing my eyes and my attention. “Mirror Neurons and Autism” is an interesting article, positing the theory that so-called “mirror neurons” of the brain, which help each of us to recognize, mimic and even possibly anticipate behavior or actions in others, may not be functioning in children affected by Autism Spectrum. I haven’t completed reading the article and its supporting sidebar pieces, but the scientists authoring the work present some compelling empirical evidence that this may be a link that deserves further investigation.

If you’re interested in reading about it but don’t want to run out to the newsstand to buy a copy, they’ve kindly posted the entire article online here.