You know how cottage cheese has that little bit of liquid in it? What's your standard operating procedure on that? Do you leave it alone and kind of scoop around it so that you can more easily use it as an indicator of spoilage when it starts to turn yellow? Or, do you usually mix it in to evenly spread the moisture around in the cottage cheese? Maybe you have some other unique method? An inquiring mind wants to know!
As part of my supper tonight, I had a couple hot dogs that were only a month or so past their expiration date. That got me to wondering - "Can hot dogs ever really go 'bad?" It seems like they're processed enough that they'd never go bad unless they had some kind of bad organism in them when they were made, and in that case they are "bad" to start with. Don't worry, I eat expired/on the edge food all the time. I'm sure I'll be fine. The past due eggs I ate this weekend didn't affect me at all. It's all part of my training regimen for going to third world countries. Speaking of third world countries, it's now the year of the Ox as of today. Happy Chinese New Year!
I can see my readership dearly missed me. I was gone all week and only received one comment. Hmmm..... I am now an officially trained Black Belt (in Six Sigma of course - what else would it be in). This is just the lowest level. The difficult part is putting it into practice in your life. I'm pretty sure I drank too much of the Kool-Aid and won't be going back.
Anyhoo, before I went to the final and fourth week of prison, I mean, training, I did a little blind project that you can see below. It is now even safer to be a guest in my home because you don't have to dress in front of the neighbors anymore.
I got this by e-mail the other day and thought it was funny....
Like a lot of folks in this state, I have a job. I work, they pay me. I pay my taxes and the government distributes my taxes as it sees fit. In order to get that paycheck, I am required to pass a random urine test with which I have no problem.
What I do have a problem with is the distribution of my taxes to people who don't have to pass a urine test. Shouldn't one have to pass a urine test to get a welfare check because I have to pass one to earn it for them?
Please understand, I have no problem with helping people get back on their feet. I do, on the other hand, have a problem with helping someone sitting on their butt, doing drugs, while I work. . . . Can you imagine how much money the state would save if people had to pass a urine test to get a public assistance check?
Guess we could title that program, 'Urine or You're Out'. Just a thought.
I did my first "backcountry" snowboarding this week. I went with some people from work to a nearby state park, and we hiked a ways into the park until we found "Mount Sand Dune". We hiked up the "mountain" with our sleds/snowboards and took a trip down the slope. It may not seem like much to you people out in Wyoming and Montana, but it was strenuous enough that we were too tired after one trip to do a second one. Did I mention that we went after work, so we also did it by moonlight? We've had more than a foot of snow in the last week, so the snow wasn't too bad, although it was mixed with sand in a few places.
The temperature was probably in the teens, which is a respectable winter temperature. But, you know the winters here aren't all that extreme when three of the people who went on the hike didn't wear real snow boots because they didn't have any. Two people wore tennis shows with Wal-Mart bags for waterproofing and about three pairs of socks for warmth. It boggles my mind that these people wouldn't own a nice pair of Sorels. A pair of those is essential winter survival gear.
P.S. New exercise goals have been established. If you're interested, see the sidebar.
Today is the only day in my life (and hers) when my mother will be exactly twice as old as me.
There's always a way to spice things up in life and take a gamble. For example, there are two guys at work who like to have a competition at the water cooler every morning. They play best 2 out of 3, and what you do is dispense water into your cup for as long as possible without the big bubble "boinking" on you. They alternate turns, and you can dispense as much or as little water as you want. If you make the water bubble, you lose. You should try it, it's very entertaining to watch.
A couple weeks ago I took to the bank the two small jars of loose change that I had collected over the years every time I emptied my pockets at the end of the day. My bank has this really fun coin counter machine, so I emptied my jars into the machine and had fun watching it count up. Surprisingly, I had $42.65 total, which I thought was pretty good since the person ahead of me only had like $8.00. No coin in the jar was larger than a quarter in value. I was totally blown out of the water by the guy who came after me with a larger tupperware container though. He had over $212!
I thought you might be interested to know that in the local sporting good store today I saw some hear rate monitor watches made by Sportline that do not require the chest strap thing. Let me tell you, I was sorely tempted to buy one since their lowest end model only cost $40. But, I've decided to give Anna's perceived rate of exertion thing a try and see how that goes. If that doesn't work out, then maybe I'll have to go back and buy one of those fancy heart rate watches.
It sure has been snowing here a whole bunch, which I actually don't mind. It's way better than rain or no snow at all as long as it's going to be cold. Later.
Dear MelBMarvis readers,
I sincerely need some input here on how to measure my exercise activity for the year of 2009. In 2007, I only tracked the number of days I exercised 30 (maybe it was 45?) minutes or more per day. At the end of the year, it didn't seem like this gave me the "true" picture of my exercise, so in 2008 I tracked the days again plus the number of minutes I exercised each day. This was somewhat more satisfactory in giving me a picture of my exercise situation. I showed this data to one of my Six Sigma instructors, and he said it was a good start, but was there something more meaningful I could measure? What am I trying to accomplish? That would maybe tell me what I need to measure.
The truth is, my main goal in tracking my exercise was just to try to make sure I get some exercise every day. I'm not really training for anything specific, I'm only attempting to be a relatively "fit" person who maintains her weight, doesn't get the "weekend warrior syndrome", and has fewer back and neck problems. Maybe the problem is that I don't have a well-defined goal. I could measure my heart rate when I exercise, but that involves a significant cash outlay for the monitor plus a lot of hassle of trying to remember to take it with me any time I go anywhere I think I'll be exercising not to mention the hassle of hooking the monitor to my chest every time. That sounds like a lot of work. I could measure my body fat percentage. That would only involve a small cash outlay and taking a quick measurement every week or month. Ananias has suggested a pedometer in the past. My only issue with that (beside the small cash expense) is that it may not be accurate for some of my sports like rock climbing, weight lifting, or doing the abs class at the Y. Or, I could continue with the same measuring of minutes. That way, I can continue to be random in my exercise program.
Do any of you have some other suggestions on what to measure or a better goal I could set for myself? What's your personal exercise goal? FYI, I do NOT do 5:00 AM or 6:00 AM exercise programs. I am NOT interested in starting one either. Don't go there.
Thank you in advance for your input.
MelBMarvis
P.S. BIL-Dan, I named my new alarm clock Hamish since it is a supplanter also. I've decided to go with Devin's suggestion of a name for my car: Herman. Uncle John, maybe I'll have to name something else "Clyde" in honor of you. :-)
The parental units made the long journey to come and visit over New Years, which was very nice. We really whooped it up for New Years Day by eating lots of food and having some friends over. While they were here, we also spent significant time doing lots of "fix-it" jobs that are much easier done with three or more hands, two heads, and lots more combined experience than I have by myself. I'm still planning to track my exercise this year even though I haven't gotten off to a very good start. Any suggestions on exercise goals this year?
A few of you may be acquainted with my tendency to be frugal, but I'm here to tell you I "splurged" over the new year holiday. We spent some time *gasp* shopping again. I bought some raw materials and sent them back on the ND trip so that others can make some stuff for me. :-) Not only that, but I decided that I was finally tired of my old alarm clock not always alarming when its battery was dying, so I retired it and bought a new one. It was a tough decision since that clock has been with me many, I mean only a few, years. I received it as a gift for my high school graduation from my great-aunt and great-uncle. It woke me up for many an 8:00 AM class in college. It was tough....real tough....to put it in the trash, but I did. In doing that, I also s
tepped from the analog age into the digital age (although I was in the alarm clock digital age back in high school too). Come to think of it, I got an alarm clock as a birthday present in high school. Are people trying to tell me something?
Anyways, the 'rents and I went to Mowla and Juff's for one night too, and I got to spend some time with some great WI people visiting and playing games. Avis, FYI, my team won at Rook. So, here's the new year whether we're ready for it or not.
This is how I spent my NDWH four-day weekend with my new boyfriend. Needless to say, he can be a bit of a sourpuss.
Other highlights included an arctic exploration with my cousin who was visiting from potato land. I told her she was crazy to leave so much skin exposed in those arctic winds, but she wouldn't listen.
We also baked a NDWH dinner of sorts. Yes, we had stuffing, mashed potatoes, squash, and chicken. Here I am anxious to "dig in".
Some additional scenic arctic pictures for your enjoyment. We also played a few games, did a puzzle, ate some good eats at local restaurants, and (*gasp*) I shopped a little bit. Hopefully you and yours had a good NDWH too.
I'll post my Thanksgiving summary today so I can stay up-to-date on my holiday summaries seeing how Christmas is bearing down on us quickly. I went back home to ND for the aforementioned holiday. I won't go into a lot of specifics since they're mundane. Mostly I ate a ton of food (mmm....stuffing, squash, Pizza Ranch), saw some relatives and friends, played "chase me" and hide-and-seek with my nieces, rode in the combine for a bit, and did a little of this and a little of that. My nieces like to take pictures, so I thought I'd post a chronicle on "how the world looks to someone less than three feet tall".
Today we have a philosophical question to ponder. Here's the scenario: suppose you lived in the same town as someone and dated them for a good-sized chunk of time, say a year. Then, one of you moved several hours away for employment reasons. You tried to maintain the relationship, but you broke up and got back together several times over the course of about a year when you lived apart. Then, for other employment reasons, you once again live in the same town. What's the percentage of likelihood that the relationship will last for real now that you live near each other again? Is it a bad sign that you had trouble maintaining a long distance relationship?
Coming up....probably a belated Thanksgiving summary and more bathroom behavior stuff. Stay tuned.
Remembered thought from yesterday: You know you have had too much of the six sigma Kool-Aid when you see "The Biggest Loser" on TV at the Y and wonder if they've done a measurement system evaluation on the scale they use on the show.
I saw a bumper sticker today that said "My kid has more chromosomes than yours", and then there was some small text underneath it that I couldn't read. I think this is maybe referring to down syndrome? But why do they say chromosomes? Don't they only have one additional chromosome? Maybe you could say chromosomes if you consider that every cell has an extra chromosome time a bazillion cells.... A more fun theory is that their kid is a different species and not human. I don't know how that's possible, but it would be interesting to see. Adopting a pet doesn't count.
I had another profound thought, but it escapes me at the moment. That's all for tonight, folks.
My faithful readers may have noticed a dry spell the last week or so. My not-so-faithful readers probably didn't notice any difference. It was that time of the month again - time to go to prison for a week. It actually was relatively "easy". We only worked half days - you know, we didn't work past 10:00 P.M. I even had time to play a game of pool.
It was kind of interesting because there was another class at the training facility that was doing the balsa wood airplane experiment we did the previous week. They were in the "sissy" version of the training for people from the business side of things (marketing, procurement, human resources, etc.) instead of engineering. It was fun to watch somebody else struggle with trying to figure out how to fly those planes. We could feel their pain. I think the funniest part was watching someone "step off" the distance the plane flew when there was a 1'x1' grid right there on the floor to do the measurements. We got to watch them launch their planes this morning too. I think engineers do have a tendency to be a bit arrogant about their superior problem solving skills. Of course, that's because our skills are better.... ;-)
Here's a couple for ya:
1. Do not take a full dose of Nyquil if you expect to be coherent an hour later.
2. Don't leave your cell phone in vibrate mode if you're going to use it
as an alarm clock.
BIL-Dan was telling me about this when I was home over Thankgiving, so I went and found it on YouTube. I haven't decided yet on what format my Thanksgiving post should take, so maybe I'll just not talk about that at all unless I get sudden inspiration. That's all for today, folks.
You know that mask thing the hygienist puts on before she works on your teeth? I don't think that's to prevent germ exchange, I think that's so they don't have to smell your breath while they work in your mouth - and to prevent their drool from dripping on you. Has anyone ever had a male dental hygienist work on their teeth or even met a male hygienist?
On a different topic, I made some ham and bean soup yesterday, and even if I do say so myself, it had almost the perfect taste. But, while I was making it, I felt a compulsion to add something to it, but I couldn't figure out what that something should be, so I didn't put it in. It felt like maybe it should be a vegetable or a spice. Green beans? Corn? Peas? The veggies I did put in were onions, celery, and carrots. Spices were bay leaves, parsley, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. Of course, there were ham and beans in there. Does anybody have any other secret ingredients they like to add that I could try next time? Since it tasted so good, maybe I should leave well enough alone though.
Don't you just love the first substantial snow of the year? It always makes everything look so fresh and new and starts the snowboarding juices flowing. It's even better when the sun shines afterward and makes the world really bright. It snowed 6-12 inches overnight on Thursday night, and I woke up to it on Friday morning. I didn't even care that I had to shovel my driveway to get the car out of the garage (making me a little late to work) or that my oatmeal overflowed in the microwave that morning. The local government must be trying to save money. They did one initial pass with the snow plows, but then it looks like they haven't done anything else, so some of the roads are kind of treacherous in places where the snow turned to slush yesterday and today and then turned to ice. That's it - no real point to this post.
This past weekend I added a couple notches on my "states visited" belt. I went to see my former (not old, although she did just have a birthday recently) college roommate. She lives out on Cape Cod, so we hung out with the Kennedy clan and other muckety mucks - you know, the usual. Kidding! We hung out with our own cool selves. For the geographically challenged, Cape Cod is part of Massachusetts (the handle of the gun), and we also ventured briefly into Rhode Island. Anyways, you don't want to hear all the details, you want the highlight list, right?
Not a good picture, but the only one we took of the two of us - outside Davy's Locker.
This speaks for itself.
Yummy....
What do Mayflowers bring? Pilgrims, of course.
Ahoy, mates! I see land!
While I work on preparing my "weekend summary" post, these videos will have to tide you over. I think the wireless one out of the three is the best. Check back tomorrow for a possibly more interesting post, although we all know humor is in the eye of the beholder. Any guesses on where I went for the weekend? Hint: I didn't stay home.
