Ho-Hum

Well, I don't know what to say here today even though I feel a compulsion to post.  Life is kind of going back to the same old, same old with a sweet aftertaste from my travels.  Sorting mail, playing volleyball, working, playing racquetball, doing step aerobics, going to meeting.  No big trips are planned for February (yet).  Supposedly the storm of the century is coming, but I doubt it'll turn into much because that's what they always say when we get a couple inches.  This is my reverse psychology.  I'm hoping that by doubting the weather man, who has already jinxed the snow by predicting a big storm, that we actually will get a lot of snow.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I asked the receptionist at the chiropractor in December about tipping the massage therapist, and she told me it was not expected in the medical type setting there.  That's a big relief to know they're not re-using the sheets because I didn't tip them the last two years I've been going there.  I can truly relax now.  That wasn't lotion......that was monkey spit.  :-)  Today's therapist was Holly.  She's in my top three of favorite massage therapists.

Chili's actually has very good burgers.  And strawberry lemonade.  That's all I know today.  Alllll......righty then.

Perfect Man - Found!

Picture of A Perfect Man

Did you really think there was one?????

This prank was just too good to pass up!

Whistlin'

As I mentioned previously, I had a trip booked to go snowboarding in Whistler, British Columbia, Canada.  As expected, it was great fun with a few interesting episodes thrown in.  You never know how good or bad a trip will turn out, do you?  Especially when you don't know all the people you will be traveling with.  The cast this time was a few familiars and a couple not-so-familiars:  Sharin', Jack-E, Rollin', and Orange Blossom.  It was a bit of a nerdy group what with three of the five people being engineers.  Enough of the boring details - here's the top ten (or more) list:

1. Good friends, good company.  Lots of good laughs.
2. Canadians (and Australians) sure do know how to do hospitality.  Everybody working the lift and the shops was very helpful and knowledgeable, eh.
3. The beautiful mountainous scenery.  I didn't have my camera with me when I saw the most beautiful scenery, but I still got a few good shots with the ol' camera.
4. Snacky Cakes didn't want to ruin my trip by telling me what people who live in points east of Whistler call the snow there, but here's my guess:  Coastal Crud.  It's kind of like Sierra Cement in the states:  the snow wasn't the best (wet and heavy and sometimes icy because it's close to the ocean), but it was still a good experience to go there.  The lifts are nice and the runs are super-long.
5. For a high class ski place, the lift ticket attachment method to your coat was the lowest tech thing I've ever seen.  They had this thin, stretchy string stuff that you used to tie your lift ticket to your ski gear.  No fancy zip ties or metal horseshoe things there.
6. We caught a Muslim sit-com on the TV one afternoon after skiing.  I'd never even heard of those before.
7. The Peak2Peak gondola:  awesome.  A very cool ride, great view, and feat of engineering.  It's the longest unsupported span in the world.
8. I played Rook for the first time in ages - I still got the skills, Avis!  Rollin' and I beat Sharin' and Jack-E despite their blatant table talk.
9. A belated birthday sung to me along with two useful birthday gifts.  How nice is that?
10. Expensive chocolates and steak.   Mmmmm....mmmmm....mmmmm.
11. Damaris would have been proud because I was totally hip in my 2010-2011 ski outfit.
12. Condo:  Ski-in, ski-out.  Hot tub.  Free shuttle to downtown.  It was the good life
13. Sweet fellowship on Sunday with strangers who weren't strangers in a tiny meeting about 45 minutes away. We received welcome hugs as we arrived and left.
14. The biggest bruise I got wasn't from snowboarding, it was on my knee from going down the twisty slide at the treehouse.  People said the treehouse was for adults and kids alike, but I'm not sure the slide was really made with adults in mind.

Getting mauled by a bear while Orange Blossom looks on, perplexed.

Sharin' and Jack-E

It Was the Best of Times, It Was the......End of Times?

Tomorrow will be the great whistling post.  To tide you over, here's a snapshot of part of my white board at work before I erased it to prep for the new year.  The blue writing is what The Muffin Man (T) wrote on my board one time when I was a little bit late to work and he was really early.  He was only a few feet ahead of me going in the door, but he figured it was worth a notation.

How Fargo of You

"How Fargo of You" is the name of a book I just finished reading.  Written by Marc de Celle, it lives up to its subtitle of "Stories from the northern prairie that people who haven't been here will never believe."  It revealed to me why it always irritates me when I drive through Chicago and reach road construction where lanes are merging together.  Being sensible and polite, I merge early because it disrupts traffic when you don't.  The people who go flying by in the empty lane that is ending and then cut in at the last minute always hack me off.  Not only are they contributing to the slow traffic problem, but it's not like they're going to get anywhere all that much faster.  As the book explains, where I come from, it's considered extremely rude to do that.  I would recommend this book to others.  For those of you who grew up on the northern prairie or live there now, you can nod right along with all the stories.  If you aren't familiar with it, then you'll learn something new.  It's a quick, easy, and enjoyable read.

My favorite quote from the book is as follows.  "Living here has convinced me that climate and character, in a free society, are inextricably linked.  To be arrogant, aloof or careless around here, you'd have to be dumber than a skydiver in a snowstorm - and if you're that dumb around here, you're not around here long.  You'll leave one way or another - train, plane, or hearse."  It also helps me like the book when it gives kudos to my former high school and I know some of the characters in real life.  If you want to borrow my valuable autographed-by-the-author copy, let me know and I might loan it to you if I think you'll take care of this collector's item.

The Muffin Man

As I mentioned in November, one of the guys I shared a cubicle with left the company I work for to go on to bigger and better things.  To give him a name, let's call him Terrorist since that was his nickname sometimes.  T for short.  Don't worry, he knew that's what we called him and took it in stride.  I didn't name him that, somebody else did, but let's just say the nickname was a bit stereotypical.  This really has no bearing on the story other than the need for him to have a blog name.

Before T left, he left a legacy behind.  It's the legacy of the muffin.  As has become my tradition the last couple of years, I brought muffins to work one Friday in January to commemorate my birthday and anniversary working for the company.  Last year (2010), I brought muffins in (I didn't make them, they're from a local bakery), and my former cubicle mate took one.  Well, after everybody had at least one muffin and there were still leftovers, he took a second one for afternoon snack.  T put it in his overhead storage cabinet for safe keeping until snack time arrived.  He was a devoted snack timer.  However, he didn't remember he had a snack in storage until two or three weeks later when he opened the storage cabinet again.

Surprisingly, the muffin had not molded and was in "good" condition except that it would have been difficult to chew.  We thought it was funny and wondered how long it would actually last before it got really gross, so we set it on top of the freestanding storage cabinet in the center of our quad of cubes.  We periodically observed it over the coming months.   Visitors to the cubicle marveled at its robustness, and it was cause for some fear too.  As winter turned to spring and spring to summer, it stayed very well-preserved.  During the summer months when it was more humid in the building, it did get a little bit sticky on the outside as it absorbed moisture and continued to be as hard as a rock.  It survived getting a chip broken off and glued back on again.  It weathered getting thrown in the trash by our project leader, Rasper, who was unaware of the experiment we were conducting.  We had to quickly rescue it and explain the muffin's significance.  It survived so long that we dated the bottom of it, and to date it is still "on test" - we even put it on its own tiny display shelf while it undergoes its continued environmental test.

January 2010 Muffin - Aged One Year

Yesterday, the second chapter of the muffin experiment started.  Of course this remarkable muffin generates many questions.  Would all muffins behave the same?  Does it matter which bakery the muffins come from?  What about homemade muffins?  Should I bring muffins from the same bakery this year or from a different bakery?  What would happen if the test started in July instead of January (is humidity a factor)?  I'm not a total moneybags, but I figured I had enough time and money this year to go to two different bakeries so that we could put two muffins on test - one from GBB and one from DD.  The plan is to try to simulate the same conditions that occurred last year, so we are putting them in the same storage cabinet for three weeks, and then we'll review their condition.  And so begins year two of muffin testing....

New muffins put on test for 2011

The test chamber.  You can't read the note because the picture is blurry, but the sign says "Test in progress.  Do not open flipper until February 4, 2011."

That's the news from Lake Whirligan, where all the women are engineers, all the men are engineers, and all the children.....are visiting their parents at work and aspiring to be engineers.

Cryptic

Sorry, but the muffin post will have to wait.  Today I received an e-mail from my boss's boss.  No subject, and nothing else besides his canned work signature and the picture below.  It took me a few minutes, but I finally figured it out.  See?  Life in the engineering world isn't all capacitors and resistors.

Those in the Know, Know

Kadmium, one of my cube mates, bought me a Snickers bar for my birthday today.  I'll use a girly term and say it was "sweet".  I'm pretty sure he went and bought it from the vending machine once he confirmed it truly was my birthday, and then while I was out in the lab he put a sticky note on it that said happy birthday with the date, and it was in a To:  From:  kind of format.  Then, he took some 22 or 24 gauge wire and wrapped it around the candy bar and tied the wire in a bow at the top and set it near my monitor.  He gets points for creativity and thoughtfulness.  The truth is, it really is the thought that counts (for me anyway).  I'm easy - buying me a Snickers with a wire bow is as good as buying me lunch.  Before all my relatives run away with all kinds of flights of fancy, let me just say he's a nice, happily married guy in his 50's.

Tomorrow will be another chapter in the great muffin experiment - there will be more on that tomorrow (very likely with pictures).  Stay tuned - there's lots going on here!

Bathroom Behavior Observation #11

Wow, I haven't done one of these in a long time.  For a while everything was kind of status quo in the bathroom at work.  There weren't any new lotions, signs, or people talking in the stall to themselves or on the phone.  But, the last couple of months there has been a new happening.

In the past I never really "got" why corporations provided those nursing rooms/maternity rooms, whatever they're called.  I didn't understand why recent mothers had a strong desire for one.  But, as Steve B. used to say, "I'm coming to understand...."  How I've come to understand this is through experience.  Before Christmas, one day I went into the bathroom for my usual mid-morning relieving, and I heard this mechanical, rhythmic *whirring* kind of sound.  At first I thought maybe it was some kind of new air handler or some machinery in the walls or room next door that was making the sound, but after a bit I realized that there was someone in the handicapped stall using a breast pump.

Obviously my company is a bit old-fashioned and doesn't have one of those nursing rooms.  So, pumping at work seems like it could get awkward, right?  Do you sit in the stained cushioned chair near the entrance to pump?  Probably not.  First, everybody who goes in and out would get a good look.  Second, if someone was walking down the hall at the right moment when the entrance door swung open, they could possibly get a small glimpse.  I think the angles might be such that it couldn't happen (I haven't measured them to be sure), but the door is kind of close to the sitting chair and may cause an unwanted breeze.  The only other place to sit is in a stall, which is what this lady has chosen to do.  So, I only see her when she's at the sink bottling up the harvest.

All around, there isn't much privacy on either side.  She may not want me listening to that private moment, and I try not to imagine too much of what is going on.  The moral of the story is that they have nursing rooms to give the mother some privacy.  This may also be why women's restrooms often have some kind of sitting area and men's restrooms don't.  Well, that, plus sometimes we need to go in there to swoon - but that would be an entirely separate post.

What's Going On Here!?

I'm being stubborn and refusing to upgrade to the new facebook format.  Why do they have to change it so often?  Just leave well enough alone.  Plus, some of the new upgrades look like more of what I'm not interested in doing such as advertising everything I do (I prefer to do that here), highlighting certain friendships, and categorizing and prioritizing my friendships.  It gets very confusing when some people from work are my friends, some friends are relatives, and some friends are old friends I don't talk to much anymore but I still feel are important while some friends are new friends that are important, and it's very difficult to say which friend is more important.  I'm going to force them to force me to make the switch.  :-)  That's just how I roll.

I clicked on a link yesterday and did a little bit of blog hopping on someone's blog I don't know.  I normally don't do that - usually I just check my favorites of people I know and move on.  But, yesterday I got curious and went to this lady's blog where she was talking about marriage and how much work it is but also how great it is.  There are a couple other blogs I check regularly where the ladies talk about their husbands in glowing terms when they mention them.  As near as I can figure out, there probably are some advantages to marriage.  But, sometimes I realize I have a few advantages in my station in life too.  If I want it quiet to commune with God, I pretty much have total control over that.  If I want to go somewhere or spend money on something, I do it with no permission required from someone else.  There are a few pitfalls too, such as the temptation to fill that quiet and alone time with unprofitable things.  It's too late in the day to be getting into all of that, but what I was really thinking is that it's not worth worrying about what advantages I might be missing, I just need to make sure I'm where I'm supposed to be and doing what I'm supposed to be doing:  making the most of the advantages I have right now.

Miss Snacky Cakes, it appears we only have one degree of association between us (besides the obvious one of the Lord).  Ananias has written to tell me that she has been in your home (possibly recently?) and met you in person (she did not sneak in).  To give you a clue on who Sister Ananias is, we're often told we look very similar.  If you know Ananias's last name, then you could possibly try e-mailing me at mel[last name here without brackets] at gmail dot com.

Farm out, man.

Sunday Snippets

• I squandered a good portion of yesterday reading a book.  It was another Dick Francis book called Longshot.  His writing is very engrossing, so be warned if you pick up one of his books.  I thought there was a good statement on biographies made in the course of reading:  "...I thought that everyone's life was interesting to themselves, tragedies and all.  Everyone had a story to tell: the trouble lay in the few who wanted to read it, the fewer still who were ready to pay for the privilege."  And that is why blogs are free!  :-)
• In other reading, Time magazine named the facebook inventor Mark Zuckerberg to be person of the year, so I was reading one of their articles about it in the December 27, 2010 / January 3, 2011 issue (it was a double issue).  The following statement provided some food for thought; "Friendships multiply with gratifying speed, and the emotional stakes stay soothingly low; where there isn't much privacy, there can't be much intimacy either.  It's like an emotional Ponzi scheme, where you keep putting energy in and getting it back tenfold, even though the dividends start to feel a little fake."
• While we're on the facebook subject, I heard on the radio a few weeks ago that once a person has more than 300 friends, it starts to reflect poorly on them like they're just adding friends for the sake of increasing their friend count.  I checked, and I only have 134.  Whew!  Poor image averted!
• I finally broke down and went to the grocery store yesterday.  It is possible for a person to eat a supper of rice and eggs for almost two weeks straight, but eventually it gets boring and the carton and cupboard get empty.  I spent more than $75, and the fridge is still really empty.
• Yesterday I dashed a young entrepreneur's dreams by declining his offer to shovel my sidewalk.  Afterward, I felt kind of bad for being a person who defers dreams, but it was too late because he was already on his way to the next house.  I guess I helped him learn that not everybody is going to want or need the product or service you are supplying.
• In my previous post I forgot to mention that we were playing a game in Chicago and one person accused another of being a "foil planner" as opposed to a "plan foiler".  You probably had to be there, but it struck my funny bone.

That's all folks.  I'm off to exercise my body instead of my mind.

New Year, New Weekend

I'm not trying to brag, but this was probably the new year's eve when I've had the most invitations to New Year celebrations.  (Is it New Year, New Years, or New Year's?  I'm inclined to say New Year's since the new year possesses the celebration.)  Usually I'm doing good to have one invitation, but this year I had at least four.  Two around town here, one in Chicago, and one with the family.  It's tough to know what to do when you have so many family and friends.  I can hear the violins warming up in sympathy for me now.....

If you must know, I went over to the cheesy state with a layover in Chicago one night.  It was kind of a tropical weekend because both places I stayed had super warm abodes.  One was due to being on the eighth floor of an apartment building, and one was due to having a wood burning stove.  Yah hey dere, it's not da nortd widout a wood burner.  Below is the summary list/highlights.

1. Seeing family, including my three nieces even if one of them does spit on me.  We played school, and I even got to be the teacher.  I gave them a challenge by making my name Ms. Whipenhefner and teaching my niece about negative numbers.
2. My early birthday present.
3. Having a laughing great time with friends in Chicago (Sharin', Jack-E, Jen-E).  I don't know why, but whenever I hang out with those people I have a total blast.  Maybe it's because we're at a similar stage in life.  Maybe it's related to trust and feeling free to totally be myself.
4. Seeing sun-dogs on the drive home.
5. BBQ Little Wienies - it ain't a New Year without eating some of them, especially if you're in the state that's the home of cheese and sausages.

Well, that was a short list.  Some of my other highlights I kind of already covered in a previous post, so I won't bother to repeat myself.

Birthday present courtesy of Mom and SIL-Lan.  It's a case for my new travel bible.  And we're not even from Canada!  The fabrics kind of look like some paper from the Creative Memories "Great Escapes" collection.  Homemade - if only I had those skills so I could make some homemade gifts and send them to some people I owe.

Pops, GmaB, and the grand girls.

In case you weren't sure what it looked like before, now you know.

Opining

I'm nearing the bottom of my herbal tea box, which means I'm using up all the unusual flavors like Orange Spice.  I must say, although it's not my favorite, Pomegranate Pizazz exceeds my expectations.

Little Miss Snacky Cakes, thanks for coming out of the woodwork.  I'm guessing you think Whistler is the century's worst tourist trap in Canada, and there's probably a better "local" ski hill we should go to around there.  But, being ignorant of all those things, the trip is booked and paid for, and we're going for the run-of-the-mill experience where we'll pay $15 for lunch at the lodge and get some cement-like snow.  It's probably similar to how I prefer to go to Bridger Bowl in Montana instead of going to Big Sky.  I'll keep your place in mind next time - free room and board sounds very attractive (I'm assuming the hospitality would also be exceptional).  How many people can you lodge at once?  Just wondering how many other friends I can invite along.....  :-P  Oh, and what's your nearest airport?  Are you a serial killer?  How many degrees of association will it take before you know someone I know?


I had to take the eye test to renew my driver's license this week, and there was something kind of strange about it - maybe somebody has knowledge on this.  When I went to read the line they asked me to read, there were three columns in the line.  The middle column was crystal clear, but the two outer columns appeared as though they were flickering at an almost imperceptible frequency to the human eye.  However, you could still see the flickering, and it seemed to make it a little blurry.  Is that some special eye test, or is the equipment made cheaply or have something wrong with it?  Dr. Animal Killer, do I need to come in early for my eye appointment?  I was not impressed with the long wait either - I should have stopped at Subway beforehand and eaten while I waited.  Who would have thought it would be so busy there from 12:45 to 1:45 PM?  I was thinking it would have been after the noontime rush.

New Stuff

A fresh batch of non-denominational winter holiday pictures came in, so I rearranged my fridge.  Mow will be happy to learn that she moved up in the world.  I think I asked last year and didn't get much of an opinion from anybody on this.  Is it weird for a single person to send out a non-specific holiday greeting picture?  To me it seems like it is (people might judge me), but I've gotten the occasional one from a single person and like to receive it.  Even if you like to get the picture, are you still putting them in the "lame" category in your mind because they're single and sent you a card?  "Look at me all by myself in some exotic place having fun and living the single, irresponsible life."  Is that what people think?  If not, what do you think when you get one of those?

My site meter says that someone from Vancouver, B.C. checks my blog.  Maybe it's an internet service provider (ISP) fluke, but if you actually do live near there - do you want to go with us to Whistler later this month?  We still have an opening.....

A new cube mate moved in today.  More on him later after I have a few days to make observations.

Being the new smartphone owner that I am, I downloaded an app today that will help me track my exercise, so I will be re-examining my tracking methods over the next week or so.  Just to warn you, this may cause changes in the side bar.  Or, I may be even more radical and give it its own tab on the blog.

Latron - gots to go meet my pillow for a while.

.....Is A Real Good Tan

By now Esther must have keeled over from holding her breath.  The week of Christmas, my cousin Bethro and I went down to sunny Cozumel, Mexico.  Like "A River Runs Through It" says, "I suppose that an early stage in coming to hate someone is just running out of things to talk about.  Slowly we became silent, and silence itself is an enemy of friendship."  OK, that's not really how it was.  She's still a good friend.  She puts up with me.  We had companionable silences, but we also talked some. She's no slouch at holding up her end of the conversation, but even so, sometimes I felt like I was becoming a chatty Cathy.  Maybe I get that way when I'm well-rested and a bit hyper because of it.

All inclusive resorts are pretty much like taking a cruise on land.  For those of you that don't know (I didn't know before I went), Cozumel is an island just off the Yucatan peninsula in southeast Mexico.  It's kind of near Cuba where the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea meet, across a small strait from Cancun and Playa del Carmen.  It was also a sort of Mecca for Mayans back in the day.  They were required to go to the island of Cozumel once in their life to sacrifice to the goddess of fertility.  I know you don't want even more boring details like that, so here's the summary list.

1. Eating black olives (with pits) and cucumbers from the buffet at almost every single meal.  How great is that to eat two of your favorite foods 24/7?
2. Chips and guacamole were pretty much my lunch every day.  Can you say rut?
3. Spiritual and other good talks with 'cuz.
4. First scuba diving experience ever.  I didn't hate it, but I'm not sure if I'll be a huge fan in the long run or not.  Getting started was actually a lot freakier than I had imagined, even for my adventuresome soul.  I'll definitely try it again some time I think.
5. Seeing a coral reef up close.  That was super awesome - we saw a nurse shark, giant sea turtles, and lots of cool fish.  My two favorites were these ones that had blue spots that looked like the blue spots were emitting blue light (maybe they were?), and some fish that were almost all black with a couple thin silver/white lines in a couple spots (very elegant).  I sure wished I had my camera, but I didn't, so I had to buy a couple postcards.
6. Pool games.  I never won, but the fun was in trying.
7. Going to the juice bar at breakfast and seeing this nice, frothy pitcher of dark red/purple juice.  It had a little more froth than I would have expected grape juice to have, but I decided to give it a go, so I took a full glass.  Know what it was?  Beet juice.  It was drinkable, but not my favorite.  It should definitely be mixed with something.  I think the best juice combination I found was to mix fresh-squeezed pineapple and honeydew or cantaloupe juice together.
8. 'Da Bears!!  There were some loud fans who were there part of the time (they seemed like college students), and unfortunately da Bears beat the Vikings at Monday Night Football that week.
9. Bananas foster.  Yum, yum, yum.  They also had some good tiramisu one night.  The apples foster was pretty good too, but not as good as the bananas.
10. According to the tequila museum guy, it's the ethanol that gives you the hangover.  If you don't use the peel of the agave fruit, you don't get ethanol in the fermenting process, so you don't get a hangover.  You're on your own if you want to verify that by experience.  Look for the label that says 100% agave - that's the best.
11. Being goofy.  I'll give you one example.  Just for fun I sang the "Good Morning" song to my cousin on a couple occasions.  There are few things more irritating than to be really tired and have someone very chipper come in the room and sing, "Good morning to you; We're all in our places; With bright shining faces; Good morning to you."
12. I'm sure Ananias and Weeds will understand why I passed on the jamon serrano when it was available on the buffet.  Speaking of fancy food on the buffet, why does "fancy" seem to equal "weird raw stuff?"
13. Mayan ruins - it's always fun to see history in real life.  It makes it much more interesting.
14. Evening dance/singing type show.  They weren't quite as good as the ones on the Alaska cruise, but they were still good entertainment.  If I weren't living for better things beyond this life, I would probably do more dancing.
15. I didn't make it to the library before I left, so I had to read some different authors that I hadn't read before.  For being written many years ago, Dick Francis has a good writing style and writes an exciting book.  It's interesting how books change with the technology.  In the book I read, the hero had to rely on the post office for communication on his undercover operation.  There was another author I read that was only so-so.  You win some, you lose some.
16. Lots of new wildlife to add to "the list" before 2010 ended.

I think that will be all before I get too much into the minutiae of the trip.  That's it:  we went, it was good, I didn't get all that sunburned, and we returned.  Here are a couple pictures to give you a visual sampling of the trip.

A different kind of croc that isn't worn on your feet.

More reptilian action.

Beautiful Cozumel (and me too).

The Bethmeister showing off her Skills.

The master diver and I after the second dive.

Sorry you have to see us in our swimming suits, but it was one of the few of us together and it showed some of the fish we saw snorkeling.  In this picture, I can also see how occasionally some people might confuse Ananias and myself.  Everybody we saw also thought my cousin and I were sisters.

Scrambled

I feel like there are a million bazillion thoughts all crashing around in my head, so I'm not quite capable of the promised Christmas post yet.  I'm not sure if I can fully summarize the new year experience either.  But, here are some other random thoughts from the last few weeks that have been collecting.  Maybe this can tide you over until tomorrow.

• In the car this weekend I happened to land on a radio station that was playing a techno/funk version of Beethoven's 5th symphony.  I'm not sure if the link given was the exact mix I heard, but you get the idea.  When I went and searched on YouTube, I found other famous musicians such as Metallica and the Trans-Siberian Orchestra have also done versions of this song.  Who knew re-making classical music was so popular?
• Isn't it handy how there is always a fanatic of whatever subject you're trying to learn about who has posted some video or song on YouTube or has a whole website dedicated to the subject?  I don't remember using the encyclopedias as a kid as much as I use the internet for research now.  I was born in the era when I was in late high school and early college where we still had to cite sources in our research papers that had been looked up in the card catalog or the electronic version of the card catalog.  Maybe they still have that, I don't know.  At the time they were just figuring out how to properly cite a website in a research paper.
• Speaking of researching on the internet, a guy from work was telling me about the Volkswagen "thing" that he owned back in the day. Handily, there was some guy with a website dedicated to pictures of the Thing.
• My home phone was on the fritz several weeks in December, and I finally submitted a service request, so that was fixed last week and was in working order when I returned home today.  I'm still trying to determine if that helped my DSL speed or not.  It seems like it's not as fast as the phone company says I'm paying for it to be.
• I mentioned last month about the start of the 100th year at my company.  Here's the link to see the CEO ring the closing bell at the NYSE.  It's very exciting stuff.
• I called my cousin to see if I could stop by on my way home today to return the sock she left at my house last year (and to visit briefly with them of course).  Our paths didn't match up, but when we talked on the phone today and she heard why I was going to stop by, she laughed.  She told me to go ahead and just throw the sock away!  Can you believe that?  It was a perfectly good sock without holes and everything.  Maybe some people just don't value socks as highly as I do....
• My personal project was completed and ordered by the deadline.  Now I'm trying to decide which book to start on next.  So far the options are:  Alaska, Scotland/England, or 2010.
• During my Christmas vacation I read the book/short story "A River Runs Through It" by Norman Maclean.  It was a pretty easy read and informative about fly fishing and life in Montana in the early 1900's.  A couple of my favorite excerpts from the book follow.  "Painted on one side of our Sunday school wall were the words, God Is Love.  We always assumed that these three words were spoken directly to the four of us in our family and had no reference to the world outside, which my brother and I soon discovered was full of bastards, the number increasing rapidly the farther one gets from Missoula, Montana."  Another quote:  "We were strengthened in this belief by the rumor that Bill had killed a sheepherder.  We were a little disappointed that he had been acquitted of the charges, but nobody held it against him, for we all knew that being acquitted of killing a sheepherder in Montana isn't the same as being innocent."
• I think I've mentioned it before, but I'm not really into New Year resolving.  I'm always impressed by people at meeting who have deep thoughts about the new year and what it means - I typically don't have any of those thoughts.  I start out thinking I'm not into resolutions because I'm not all that into being introspective and looking at my life.  But, then I get confused because by thinking that thought I've just done some introspective thinking on my life.  This results in a circular logic loop that I am never able to exit.
• Even though I didn't make any resolutions, I have good intentions to start a "bucket list".  My friend Avis talked about this on her blog a few weeks ago.  I was going to make the list while I was on Christmas vacation, but that didn't get done.  Maybe I'll resolve to get my bucket list done this year and to finally send those home made gifts I promised to send out a couple years ago.
• A new year, and it's starting off with a clean desk at work.  I took some time between Christmas and New Years when it was quiet to "clear the decks" so that I can start (relatively) fresh tomorrow.  See below.

All for now.  See you tomorrow.  Same place, approximately the same time.