Court Is In Session

Growing up, we always called them tennis shoes.  If you wanted to sound like a hick you could call them tenny-runners.  If you were sophisticated maybe you called them your gym shoes.  Our family not being experts on exercise equipment, we pretty much labeled them all tennis shoes.  Little did I know there were so many nuances to buying a pair of exercise shoes.  For outdoor sports like soccer or softball or flag football you need cleats, and there are several sub-categories such as metal or plastic cleats and soccer vs softball.  For basketball they have special basketball shoes (remember the Nike Air Jordans?).  For runners, they have special running shoes.  They even have walking shoes, but I think they might be the same as running shoes.  And finally, there are court shoes, which apparently are used for racquetball and volleyball and (I think) tennis.

Matt, one of the guys with whom I work and play racquetball, informed me that I needed to buy court shoes for racquetball instead of committing a snafu by using my running/aerobics shoes for that activity like I have been for the last five years.  So, when I went to the sporting good store yesterday to buy some new racquetballs, I decided to check out the court shoes and walked out with a new pair because they actually had my size in the Asics brand.  I tried them out this evening playing some racquetball, and I think they do help you stop quicker and give more support for your ankles, so I'll say they were a wise purchase.  Below is an illustration of the difference in the soles between my running shoes and my court shoes.

Running shoes vs. Court shoes

I've just realized that I don't have a code name for Matt and his wife.  I'll have to contemplate that and see if I can come up with a good one.  Unrelated, it sure warmed up today.  So far the snow is still white and looks good, but give it another day or two and it'll start to be brown with the grass showing through.  This came too soon - I was just starting to enjoy or sub-twenty-degree weather.  I actually prefer those temperatures in the winter because the sun shines more and there's less humidity.  Plus, the roads are more predictably icy.  When it's thirty-two degrees, the cold with humidity soaks into your bones and makes it feel way colder.  It's also always cloudy, and you never know if the roads and sidewalks will be icy or not.

Annual Tax Report

I just finished filing my taxes for 2010, so here are my observations and rantings.  I paid more tax this year, partly because I received a raise while my assessed property value fell, resulting in the loss of my homestead tax credit.  Plus, every year I pay less interest on my mortgage, so that reduces my deductions.  My effective federal income tax rate for the year was 13.85%, which does not include the cut the state takes from me (4.35%) or the Social Security and Medicare taxes (7.45%), and the sales taxes I pay throughout the year (approx 6%).  And of course the sales tax is post-income tax, which increases the tax bite.  This means more than 1/4 of my income goes to the government.  This calculation has not accounted for all the hidden taxes I pay in higher priced products because of corporate taxes and because my employer has to match the Social Security tax that I pay.

I noticed my state provides a tax credit for a stillborn birth.  I'm guessing that's because you can't claim the baby as a dependent that year.  The tax filing program shows where my federal tax money goes, and 51% goes to all the social programs the government funds like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc.  Therefore, it makes sense that the tax "rebate" they're giving us for 2011 is coming out of Social Security - where else can they take it from when it's such a huge chunk of the budget?  I'm not really sure I care that they're taking the funds for the tax rebate from Social Security.  It's going to go broke and I won't see any of the money I'm putting in anyway, so why not hasten it by another year?  I'll just have to pay to support my parents in the future when they're retired.  That would be better anyway.  Then I'd know the funds were going to support Mom and Dad directly instead of dishonest politicians, government workers, and scammers.

In the midst of printing all my tax forms and such, my printer made me replace a couple of the color cartridges.  I was only printing black and white, so how is it possible I need to replace my color cartridges?  The next couple paragraphs were taken from the tax preparing software I used and were what I found interesting about future taxes if Congress does not pass any further tax legislation.  Watch out in 2013!

The 2010 Tax Relief Act introduces a payroll tax decrease for 2010. The Old Age, Survivors, and Disability Act Insurance (OASDI) taxes earned income up to $106,800 at a rate of 6.2%. This tax is decreased to 4.2% for 2011. Employers are to begin this change in January, 2011, but may take longer to do it. Once the change is implemented the employer is to pay back any overwithholding of the tax. The reduction only applies to the employee portion of that tax. The change also applies to the tax imposed under the Self Employment Contributions Act (SECA) and the portion attributable to the OASDI portion. The tax on that portion is 12.4%. For 2011 that tax will be 10.4%. The maximum tax reduction under this provision in 2011 is $2,136 for someone who earns the maximum that is subject to the tax of $106,800. A married couple could have a joint reduction of $4,272.

The new tax legislation stopped the tax rates from increasing as scheduled in 2011. Under the new law the current rates of 10%, 15%, 25%, 28%, and 35% will continue for 2011 and 2012. As things stand now in 2013 the lowest bracket will be 15%. The size of the 15% bracket will decrease from 200% of the bracket size for individual filers to 167% of the bracket width for joint filers and qualified surviving spouses. The changes in 2013 in the other brackets are: 25% increases to 28%, 28% increases to 31%, 33% increases to 36%, and 35% increases to 39.6%. This will result in significant tax increases for everyone.

The new legislation also prevented an increase in the capital gains rates. The 0% and 15% capital gains rates will continue to be available in 2011 and 2012. These rates will continue to apply to qualified dividend income in 2011 and 2012 After that, in 2013, the maximum long-term capital gains increases from 15% to 20%. If the asset is held for more than five years the maximum tax rate is 18%. This implies that taking long-term capital gains in the low tax years will be beneficial to waiting until later. Dividends are scheduled to be taxed as ordinary income.

Makes Me Laugh

I don't know why, but this makes me laugh every time I hear it.  If you want it as your ringtone, go here.  I downloaded the mp3 clip and play it every once in a while if I feel like laughing.  I'm trying to decide if it's too obnoxious to use as a text notification or something on my phone.  Or maybe I should assign it as a special ring tone for a certain person.  Any volunteers for the honor?  The only thing is that voices in your ring tone are a lot more noticeable than a quiet little chime, especially if you forget to turn your phone off during a meeting.

To: Mom From: MelBMarvis Subject: Came In My Inbox Today

Teaching Math in 1970
A logger sells a truckload of timber for $100.
His cost of production is 4/5 of the price.
What is his profit?

Teaching Math In 1980
A logger sells a truckload of timber for $100.
His cost of production is 80% of the price.
What is his profit?

Teaching Math In 1990
A logger sells a truckload of timber for $100.
His cost of production is $80.
How much was his profit?

Teaching Math In 2000
A logger sells a truckload of timber for $100.
His cost of production is $80 and his profit is $20.
Your assignment: Underline the number 20.

Teaching Math In 2005
A logger cuts down a beautiful forest because he is selfish and inconsiderate and cares nothing for the habitat of animals or the preservation of our woodlands.
Your assignment:  Discuss how the birds and koalas might feel as the logger cuts down their homes just for a measly profit of $20.
 
Teaching Math In 2009
A logger is arrested for trying to cut down a tree in case it may be offensive to Muslims or other religious groups not consulted in the felling license.  He is also fined $100 as his Chainsaw is in breach of Health and Safety legislation as it is deemed too dangerous and could cut something.  He has used the Chainsaw for over 20 years without incident however he does not have the correct certificate of competence and is therefore considered to be a recidivist and habitual criminal.  His DNA is sampled and his details circulated throughout all government agencies.  He protests and is taken to court and fined another $100 because he is such an easy target.  When he is released he returns to find some indigenous people have cut down half his wood to build a camp on his land.  He tries to throw them off but is arrested, prosecuted for harassing an ethnic minority, imprisoned for 6 months and fined a further $100.
While he is in jail the indigenous people cut down the rest of his wood and sell it on the black market for $100 cash.  They also have a leaving BBQ of koala and goanna, and depart leaving behind several tonnes of rubbish and asbestos sheeting.  The logger on release is warned that failure to clear the fly and vermin ridden rubbish immediately at his own cost is an offence.  He complains and is arrested for environmental pollution, breach of the peace and invoiced $12,000 plus GST for safe disposal costs by a regulated government contractor.
Your assignment:  How many times is the logger going to have to be arrested and fined before he realises that he is never going to make $20 profit by hard work; he should give up, sign on to the dole and live off the government for the rest of his life?

Teaching Math In 2010
A logger doesn’t sell a lorry load of timber because he can’t get a loan to buy a new truck because his bank has spent all his and their money on a derivative of securitised debt related to sub-prime mortgages in Iceland and lost the lot with only some government money left to pay a few million dollar in bonuses to their senior directors and the traders who made the biggest losses.  The logger struggles to pay the $1,200 licencing fee on his old truck however, as it was built in the 1970s it no longer meets the emissions regulations and he is forced to scrap it.  Some Vietnamese loggers buy the truck from the scrap merchant and put it back on the road.  They undercut everyone on price for haulage and send their cash back home, while claiming unemployment for themselves and their relatives.  If questioned they speak no English and it is easier to deport them at the government's expense.  Following their holiday back home they return to Australia with different names and fresh girls and start again.  The logger protests, is accused of being a bigoted racist and as his name is on the side of his old lorry he is forced to pay $1,500 registration fees as a gang master.

The Government borrows more money to pay more to the bankers as bonuses are not cheap.  The parliamentarians feel they are missing out and claim the difference on expenses and allowances.
You do the math.

Teaching Math in 2017
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PMP

Like most large corporations, the company I work for has a performance management system.  This is their attempt to appear to be fair and reward people who perform well and to help manage under-performers.  Because my company likes TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms), they call it the PMP (Performance Management Process).  Depending on your manager, the level of conformance to this process varies.  My first two managers moderately adhered to the process.  My third manager was totally gung-ho and assigned us all kinds of special projects as stretch goals, etc.  When we went almost a year without a manager, the absentee manager wasn't real into them (go figure), and the guy they finally hired to be the manager didn't have the time of day for the process.  I have a new manager as of January 1st, and so far he seems like he likes the PMP process, but he won't assign pointless objectives either, which is good.  We'll see how that turns out this year.

Over the years there have been just a few jokes made about what PMP really means.  For example, some people believe it means Prohibiting Meaningful Progress.  Others think it maybe means Proliferating Management Propaganda or possibly Pay Me Please, Producing Mostly Paperwork, or Postponing My Project.  Anyway, today I talked to Barney about his PMP.  I was very disappointed in his performance last week, so I had to talk to him about his Personal Muffin Plan.  He sort of offered to bring in a new muffin so we could re-start the experiment, but we'll see what happens.  It's funny, but he didn't seem to be all that impressed with our experiment.  He said he's seen similar things on You-Tube before.  Yeah, but what about in real life?  Huh?

Da Packers

Not much is new here.  I'll post a picture of my shoveled driveway from Wednesday after the "big storm".  You can see I have respectable snow piles on the sides of my driveway, but they're not all that record-breaking.

And of course there was that thing called the Super Bowl today.  I was torn about who to cheer for.  Should I cheer for the NFC on principle so I can say the champions beat the Vikings?  Or, do I go for being the obnoxious contrarian and cheer against the Cheeseheads (listen to the first minute of the song)?  I decided to hop on the cheese bandwagon because I do like cheese curds and other cheese products.  I watched the game with some friends from work (and their significant others) who live in town here.  Overall not a bad time.  The food was good.  The national anthem wasn't so great.  The game was good - close right up until the end.  The half time show was interesting.....I'm wondering where I can purchase my very own white suit with embedded lights.  The commercials were only so-so.  Not a lot of huge laughs really, but the car manufacturers are back on the screen.  Here are a couple of my favorites.  I work with a bunch of animals, and you're not you when you're hungry.

The rest of the weekend was kind of the routine stuff.  Off to bed for another full week or work!

Foiled!

Things in the office went to pot while I was working from home yesterday.  One of the newer guys (code name Barney) who's going to move into The Muffin Man's cube did a big house cleaning, and guess what?  He threw out the muffins I had under test!  He totally ignored my sign about them being on test and not opening the test chamber until February 4th.  In fact, he threw the sign away too.  I didn't get to talk to him about it today because he was out sick (maybe he ate the muffins?), but I certainly will discuss this with him tomorrow.  Hopefully I can find it in my heart to forgive him, and maybe he has a birthday coming up where he could bring in some replacement muffins.  Let me tell you, that's not a good way to start the relationship with your new cube mates.

But, I might have to take a little bit of blame because I did tell him a couple days ago that we had already scavenged the vacant cube, so pretty much everything else could be tossed.  The ironic thing is that I had the cabinet locked and the key kinda-sorta-hidden.  On Tuesday when I was doing a final scavenge I debated about keeping the key to the test chamber with me until the test time was up, but then I just put it in the lock so that anybody could find it.  I also thought about taking the muffins out of the chamber a couple days early but then decided to leave them in there for the full three weeks.  Bad choice.  Big mistake.  Aaarrggghhhh!  Nearly a month lost in the great experiment!  The good news is that the year-old muffin is still intact since that is on a separate display shelf in my cubicle.

Such is life.  Unexpected things are always happening.

Havin' A Heat Wave

The greatly touted storm of the century.  Was there snow?  Yes.  Was there wind?  Yes.  Were they of blizzard proportions?  Yeah, probably.  Did I have to shovel an hour to clear the driveway?  Yes.  Was it the storm of the year?  Maybe.  Was it the storm of the decade?  Likely not.  Was it the storm of the century?  I say definitely not.  We got at most a foot of snow here, and the wind was at a respectable speed, but it lasted for less than a day here.  We got enough snow that I wasn't able to drive to work since the plow hadn't come by on my road yet, but that's not really saying much since I don't have a SUV or a four wheel drive.  I didn't "conveniently forget" my laptop at work last night, so I worked from home today.  I also checked the waves at the beach this evening, and there weren't any ten-foot remnant waves, so I'm pretty sure we didn't get the twenty-five footers that were predicted.

This may surprise you, but I don't think I'm really cut out for working from home or for being a hermit.  I think if I worked from home all the time I might end up stir crazy inside of a month, possibly a week.  It might not have helped that I went to all the effort to shovel my driveway early so I could be at work in time for my 8:00 meeting and I got all dressed up, etc. for work and then ended up working from home anyway.  The snow didn't really look all that deep in the road, but it was deep enough.  I found a possible great opportunity for very localized snowboading, but I'll have to see if it's still there on Friday when I get to it.  This paragraph got totally off topic and I'm not sure how to get it back on track, so we'll just end it there.

Speaking of storms, the one we had really wasn't much by this ND gal's standards.  But, B.S. was canceled because of the storm and instead of being constructive, I watched the movie "Grumpy Old Men" to confirm my opinion that the snow we got was nothing compared to the snow people get in Minnesota and North Dakota.  It's probably not a movie appropriate for kids since there is some crassness, bad language, and name calling, and they'd learn some bad practical jokes.  But, it's still interesting.  Here are a few key things I noticed about why I think the movie is funny:

1. The one guy had a pair of socks almost as holey has mine.
2. The lady star in the show has a 'fessing television
3. Some focus on bathrooms:  the statement is made that you can learn a lot about a person if you just have thirty seconds in their bathroom.
4. Practical jokes
5. Everything I know about ice fishing, I learned from this movie.

All right, that's all I know.  Now I need to go do something constructive like go to bed.

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.

Postponement

I know I promised a post last night, but I'm busy right now trying to meet a deadline on a personal project that will save me $40 if I meet it.  So, my Christmas summary post is on a back burner for a little bit longer.  There will be one, I promise.  Linda, I accidentally threw you off track.  I was only linking to the song and didn't pay attention to the pictures, so any pictures you saw may be irrelevant.

In other news, we have a dropout on a planned vacation.  If you or someone you know is single, male, and has money and time in January to ski/snowboard at Whistler, let me know.  We are taking applications if they are interested and his character can be vouched for.  Send me an e-mail or call me or facebook me or something.  If you don't have any of that contact info, ask one of your friends that told you about this blog and they probably have it.  It would probably be best if the person isn't a beginner that would be on the bunny hill, but any skill level above that should be fine.  I guess we could work with someone who is married, but a discussion may be required on sleeping arrangements as all the other people going are not married.  And now I am back to my project....

All I Want For Christmas...

I just returned from my Christmas vacation.  To give you a hint of where I went, this song would probably be the best song for describing it.  I'll try to do the complete summary post tomorrow.  I'm sure you guys can wait that long since you probably haven't been missing me much what with all your own Christmas plans going on.  Maybe I could even wait until after New Years.

Work tomorrow should be OK since I'll probably be there pretty much all by myself.  It's almost like taking a vacation at work!  I thought I had some other clever thoughts, but they escape me at the moment.  Later gators.

Wandom Wednesday

I'm liking the crisp air tonight, and you know it's starting to get cold when the snow finally squeaks and is fluffy instead of heavy and wet.  I thought the load at work would start to taper off this week, but so far it's been busy busy with a little extra busy thrown in for good measure.  I will have to extend my apologies in advance to T and M for the "carefree housekeeping" they will experience tomorrow evening.  Now I must quit procrastinating and go clean the bathrooms.  That's really my only gold standard for cleanliness.  As long as the bathroom is clean and you can see part of the kitchen counter, it's OK for the dust bunnies and cobwebs to hang around.

Old New Thing

I may have mentioned that I got a new bike in August, but I don't think I ever showed a picture of it, so while I'm in the "displaying new stuff mode", I'm posting one now as I promised the Big Cheese a while back that I would.  The new one is on the left.  I had my old one fixed up so that I have an extra for any guests that might happen to visit.

Give Me A Ring

I bit the bullet and finally did it.  I bought a new phone.  Actually, I didn't even do that.  I signed up for two years and the phone came with it "free" (even though we all know it's not really free).  When I went into the store I kind of had my heart set on getting the Motorola Droid2 because it's buying American (at least the profits come back here even if the phones aren't made here), it has a touch screen, but it also has a sliding screen with a tactile keyboard for us old fashioned people.  I had decided to go with a smartphone for a few reasons:

1. I can use it as a replacement for my aging Palm Pilot, which still works, but I fear it could go on the fritz any time since it is eight years old.
2. Instead of buying a laptop to check my e-mail while traveling, etc., I can use this.
3. Alternative to a GPS when traveling where you can look up maps, nearby restaurants, etc.
4. Literally a dictionary and encyclopaedia at your fingertips at all times.
5. Has a built-in MP3 player.
6. Has a built-in camera for those times when I've forgotten my "good" camera.
7. Although I don't have a texting plan, on the rare times when I do text I can more easily do punctuation and spelling checks, which I used to get frustrated with on my old phone.
8. All the young, hip kids have them.

When I arrived, the yellow price tag store was "giving" away this other phone that didn't have a tactile keyboard but had pretty much everything else and was a bit thinner.  So, I went with the free one even though the Droid2 was only $100 and the DroidPro was $50 with the two year agreement.  The guy I carpool to SMM with got the biggest kick out of my frugality because he said I was willing to compromise my happiness for $50.  He might be right, but I got a different kind of happiness from saving $50.  Other people said you get used to the touch screen after a while, so I was willing to get with the times and give this new-fangled technology thing a go.  I even sprang for the unlimited data plan.  I think I still might be just tight enough that I squeak when I walk.

Out with the old, in with the new.  Good-bye Samsung and AT&T, Hello HTC and Verizon.

Deferred

In general I'm not a huge poetry fan.  My taste normally runs along the lines of Shel Silverstein, Jack Prelutsky, and Dr. Seuss.  I might be able to get into Robert Frost if I ever sat down and truly tried to read him, but I haven't so far.  There were a few other poems I was required to read in high school that occasionally come to mind and I usually appreciate the poems that Avis writes, but as I mentioned I'm not an avid fan.  I (almost) always dislike poetry that doesn't rhyme.

Sometimes at work "issues" come up in the products that we make that could barely be called issues or are considered minor.  Either the customer will never notice or we have reason to believe the things we have observed in our testing will never occur in real life.  Of course there are major issues that we do fix, but the really minor ones we enter into the "issue tracking" system and then defer them to a future quality update project or something like that.

In my opinion, the word defer is not one commonly used in general conversation unless you're deferring the answer of a question to someone else.  It just seems like a unique word, and it always reminds me of that one poem we read in high school that was written by a black writer during the civil rights struggle last century.  I mentioned this word association that always pops into my head to another guy at work, and we were joking about our issue tracking system causing riots because of the issues we have deferred.  Engineers are nerds.  Anyways, that's how this poem came to mind.

A Dream Deferred
by Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

Mexican Lion

This post is dedicated to my dedicated reader LinDee.  This one came to me through my e-mail inbox at work today.

This is the true story of a Garage owner in the Southwest (New Mexico).  He was sick and tired of thugs breaking into his garage shop to steal tools, etc. So he came up with this idea.  He put the word out that he had a new Mexican Lion that would attack anyone that would break in or climb his fence. Would-be thieves saw the "Lion" from a distance and fled the scene.

 
 The dog is probably trying to figure out why his head is so hot and his butt is so cold.
 

Good Stuff

The sunset, although awfully early, was absolutely beautiful today.  It looked like somewhere beyond the horizon was on fire.  Unfortunately, I was driving and didn't have my camera.  My zest for taking pictures is in a waning phase at the moment I've noticed.

Around the same time as the sunset I also saw four deer.  They were either unemployed or teenagers because they were just hanging out by the road.  They didn't make a single move as I drove by.

I'm almost mentally prepared to buy a new cell phone.  The 3 month percolation and contemplation period is done and I went into a store and played around with phones trying to decide which one I want.  I'm even contemplating getting a data plan - am I a big spender or what?  Well, not extremely big.  I would get the cheapest data plan.  Have a good night chickadees.

More Music

Tonight I went to a John Berry concert.  For those of you that weren't country music fans back in the 90's, he was one of the stars back then with a great singing voice.  The YouTube videos I've linked to don't do justice to the real sound quality of his voice, so I would recommend going to iTunes or Rhapsody or whatever your music location of choice is to listen to some of his music.

The first half of the concert he sang his hits and some songs off his latest album.  One of his songs that wasn't released as a single and is lesser known but, in my opinion, is one of his best ones, is called Forty Again.  For anybody who has good memories of their dad, I think everyone has felt the emotion the song expresses.  I have his "Faces" CD, and there's not a bad song on it.  Of course, I think that about all of his songs, so I might be biased.  One of his great high-energy songs that he played tonight was What's In It For Me.  The lady in the video singing the backup vocals and playing the tambourine is his wife - she was on the stage doing the same tonight.

The second half of the show was all Christmas songs.  One that I had never heard before that has potential is called "My Heart is Bethlehem."  The Christmas song that best displayed his soaring tenor tonight was "O Come Emmanuel."  But, YouTube wasn't very accommodating in this case, so here's the second best example.  I have to admit I was never much of a fan of the "Little Drummer Boy" song in the past, but John can make that song seem appealing too.  I had never realized before that the song is about a little boy not having any physical gifts to give to Jesus, so he gives what he can, which is a song on his drum.  Isn't it weird how lyrics of a song can just pass you by?

Turkey Twenty Ten

I remember again why I usually try not to read any books.  I was really tired on Friday night, partly because I worked a lot of hours this week and traveled, but mostly because books come very close to being a vice for me.  I just can't learn to put them down once I get started!  Who in their right mind stays up until 3:00 AM on a Monday night to finish a book when they know they have to work all week and get up at 6:40 the next morning?

That's not the point of this post though.  The point is to list my top ten from my Thanksgiving trip to North Dakota.  I went to my parents' house, and my dad's five sisters and their spouses (if they have one) were there.  It was just me and the gerries for a couple days.  One of my younger cousins came to visit one evening, and I went to visit a cousin one morning too.  Here's the top ten list (plus a few bonus ones) in no particular order:

1. If I want to know what I'm going to look like in 40 years, all I have to do is look at my dad's middle sister.
2. Lots of pills were broken out at every meal.  I thought about starting a pharmacy.
3. Comparing sleep machine masks - it's the new family pastime.
4. For lack of grandchildren hanging around, the dog(s) were doted upon.
5. My cousin's in-law who came for a brief visit told me I look like I'm 25.  My gray hairs must have been in hiding that day.
6. My uncle said I'm an engineer through and through - from A to Z.  I told him I resemble that remark.
7. FF told me that I look like a Joanna.  That was a new one.
8. I did a quick visit to see cousin Melanaway and her brood.  It's nice to catch up with someone who is both a relative and a friend from the college years.
9. It's sobering to see some of the people who were strong and vibrant when I was young start to become more frail.  As an older lady I went to BS with in Nevada used to say, "Growing old isn't for sissies."  It truly is an accomplishment to grow old gracefully.
10. They weren't shy about giving me some hints/suggestions on certain young men I should meet or get to know better.
11. I only ate dressing/stuffing one day - during Thanksgiving dinner.  That is pathetic and not up to my usual standards.  It it were a proper Thanksgiving weekend, I would have eaten leftover stuffing at least three times.  Put a check mark by eating leftover turkey at least three times though.
12. My only regret is that I didn't have enough time to spend as much time with everybody as I would have liked.
13. The good thing is most of them are able to keep a sense of humor about aging.  Besides, we're all getting older, right?
14. I can't forget to mention that I was privileged too see Muggles and BIL-Dan.

We're big into gambling.  Next up:  Bingo!

Life at Golden Acres.  The lady in the middle is myself in 40 years.

Yabbada yabbada yabbada that's all folks.  Hopefully this passes muster with all my dedicated readers.

Travel at Random

The Thanksgiving post isn't done yet, so here's some randomness:

• Traveled for work this week with three other guys five and a half hours one way to Heavensville.  On the way back we got into an hour-long discussion about religion, what does it mean to believe, etc.  You never know what will happen on a road trip.
• This week is the week of Asian food.  I've eaten at a Chinese buffet, had Thai food, and Mongolian BBQ.
• I now have faster internet for the same price I've been paying for slower internet.  Woo-hoo!
• My boss announced today that he is going back to doing hardware design in our company, so in the next month or two we will have a new manager.  We don't know who he or she is yet.  That's always interesting to see what a new manager's style will be.  One guy at work is trying to convince me to be the new manager.  I'll pass on that at the moment.
• I'm starting to be irritated by my intermittently working cell phone finally, so I think I might buy a new one and get a new plan sometime in the next two weeks.
• Three Poles arrived at work this week and will be here for two more weeks.  In the recent past I usually worked mostly with Brazilians and Indians.  However, now we have some Polish guys in the mix too, which is a nice change of pace.
• How do vegetarians not feel hungry all the time?  It seems like there wouldn't be enough protein in the diet to stave off the hunger pangs.

Toodloo....