Up and Up, but where?

Target, at some time in the recent past decided to have a marketing overhaul to its brand name. Most Target shoppers are familiar with their food line called Archer Farms and the Target brand with the store emblem on it for the sundries. Well, Target decided to change it's namesake brand name to Up and Up. What they probably didn't anticipate were the consequences of that name in the feminine hygene section of the store.

Up and Up super tampons. Nice.

Cross-Dress Burglary

I was reading the news and found an article about a cross-dressed burglary. The incident happened early this morning where a woman in Oklahoma City woke to find a man in a dress stealing her purse.

It turns out the guy was her ex-son-in-law.

The best part of the article is her statement when she aknowledged who he was. She said, "Ends up that's my ex-son-in-law, so that's awesome."

Awesome? Really?

What happens 9 months after a snowstorm?

It's September, and last December, the most snow fell ever on Christmas eve - 14 inches. What do you get when you're cooped up for 3 days on a holiday?

Yeah, I know it's obvious - pregnant.

Earthquake - Oklahoma Style

I was watching the news with Alex this morning and they reported on a 4.0 earthquake that we had in northeastern oklahoma county. This is quite powerful for Oklahoma (although we have many more earthquakes in OK per year than CA).

During the report, they interviewed two ladies who live in the area. One of them said, "I thought that someone took the John Deer tractor and hit ma' trailer."

That's exactly what I think when the ground starts shaking - tractor to the trailer.

Jball on YouTube

I found this looking at funny plays in baseball. Here's the clip. I recommend that you only watch the first part since it's all in Japanese:


So, would this be a catch in the MLB?

Mary Poppins...

eat your heart out

Sorry I couldn't resist

burning carbon

A while back, I bought me a cast iron skillet. Cast iron is pretty nice, if you know how to use it. One thing to know about cast iron, though, is that it has a coat of carbon that is called seasoning. That's what makes them black - and somewhat stick proof.

Tonight, when I got home, I decided to cook myself some chicken. I always like to preheat my skillet, so I turned on the burner and went to watch tv for 5 minutes. I guess that I turned the burner on too hot, because I soon had smoke going through the entire house. Fun.

Anyway, I cooked up the chicken for about 5 minutes on both sides, poured a can of chicken broth on it and then seasoned it with some rosemary and garlic seasoning. (Now, here's the beauty of the cast iron) I put that in the oven for about 25 minutes (12 minutes each side) and cooked up some mashed potatoes on the stove-top. Aside from the smoke everywhere, the food turned out to be pretty good.

Finally, an update

So here's the scoop. For the past few months, I've been working 2 jobs and working my tail off to get a better position at work. I'm now what we call an aligned underwriter at the Hartford. This is to say, I am assigned certain territories and I make decisions on behalf of the company for those states. Good times. I have also given up on my second job which consisted of making leather goods for horses. That was pretty fun, but phew! it was tiring to work 12+ hour days and 6 days a week.

Oh and Alex is working at Jamba Juice.

Oh well, it's probably going to be a while before anyone reads this since I haven't posted in a while.

Seriously?

Please stop the MJ thing NOW!!!

About Rand...

I honestly feel like, after reading Atlas Shrugged that I have discovered a major revelation about society and politics. It is as if I didn't quite understand something, but I do now. I will say, It is a very cumbersome book to read, but completely worth the time and effort.

Atlas shrugged is about the human spirit and how it is giving way to the government. It involves industry versus rediculous measures taken by the government, and as Rand likes to call them, looters. It was written in the mid 1950's for those of you who don't know, and it is scary how things are playing out today are similar to what goes on in the book. I recommend it.

Here's a quote from the book that I thought was great. I'll call this the "title track" of the book. You'll get my meaning when you read it. Francisco, an apparent playboy heir, is trying to explain to Henry Rearden, an entrepreneur/inventor why he should quit his business (even though at this point in the book, we don't understand that's what he's trying to get him to do).

“Mr. Rearden,” said Francisco, his voice solemnly calm, “if you saw Atlas,
the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood,
blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but
still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the
greater his effort the heavier the world bore down upon his shoulders – what
would you tell him to do?”

“I…don’t know. What…could he do? What would you tell him?”

“To shrug.”

Does this sound familiar?

First of all. I've not written anything for a bit because of a 2 job run that's going on right now. While I've been busy doing that and dealing with Alex's surgery, I've also been reading. Here's a bit from Rand's Atlas Shrugged:

It was the chance conversation of two men somewhere behind her that came beating
suddenly against her closed attention.

“But laws shouldn’t be passed that way, so quickly.”

“They’re not laws, they’re directives.”

“Then it’s illegal.”

“It’s not illegal, because the Legislature passed a law last month giving him the power to issue directives.”

“I don’t think directives should be sprung on people that way, out of the blue, like a
punch in the nose.”

“Well, there’s no time to palaver when it’s a national emergency.”

“But I don’t think it’s right and it doesn’t jibe. How is Rearden going to do it, when it says here—“

“Why should you worry about Rearden? He’s rich enough. He can find a way to do anything.”

Instructions: Replace "Rearden" with "America." Think cap and trade. Fabulous.

Swine Flu

With all of the fuss about the swine flu going on. I have to ask the question: Why do they hand out anti bacterial handwash when dealing with a virus?

Murphapril

Yes, I just made up a word, terribly. What I am trying to convey was that I've had a Murphy's Law April. Let me begin with my post earlier this month. That, I will call, the starting point. The following Monday, Alex went into the ER for a pain in her abdomen and missed 3 days of work. She fell and banged her knee real bad that same week, then the following week, she was in the hospital again because she fainted at work.

And, oh yeah! Don't forget Mini's trigeminal neuritis. Then we had a flat tire from a nail on Saturday - which was fixed yesterday - to only be punctured and ruined today by a screw.

Causes for fainting

Alex, as you may already know, fainted at work in the bathroom on Tuesday. We were compelled to go to the ER for the second time in two weeks and the doctor there said that it was most likely due to her taking Ultram, a perscription painkiller. Since Alex has had such a hard time in the past two weeks with her fall and her crazy ovaries, etc, etc... I decided to go online to find what I could on the condition.

What I found was pretty interesting. Apparently, sudden hypertension is the leading cause of fainting. In addition to cocaine induced hypertension, I found this article. Apparently licorice can cause fainting. Who'd have known?

My house = Leaky Bucket

Today was a big day for Alex and I. We, for the first time in years are now able to shower in the Master Bathroom. It's not like we didn't want to, no. It's that the shower first had a messed up drain, then leaky fixtures that prohibited use. We've been trying to do Dave Ramsey. The mantra for Dave Ramsey is live like no one else, so that later you can live like no one else. Get it? So, we haven't gotten it fixed.

Luckily for me, I won a huge bonus at work that made it feasible to meet our debt goals and also get the bathroom fixed. So we called the plumber and he came to replace our 3 fixture shower. It cost us $600 to get a plumber out here and get it done (I couldn't do it since I'm no good with copper work).

Anyway, we got everything adjusted and sent the plumber on his way when I decided that since the shower was fixed, we should clean it up and use it. I went to the kitchen for the softscrub and discovered you guessed it, a ton of water under the kitchen sink. I was curious to see what happened, so I turned on the faucet and all of the sudden tons of water came shooting down. Profanity was near my lips is all I can say.

So, I put my hand around to feel where the water was coming from and discovered that it came from no other than the garbage disposal. I've never done a garbage disposal. I've heard that they're quite the pain, so I started to panic. A while back, though, I bought this book:








I found out that this book has a step by step instruction on how to replace a garbage disposal. I looked it over, got some confidence built up, and went to the Home Depot.

I bought me a garbage disposal and surprised myself. It took about an hour and I have a new garbage disposal. Too bad today's adventures weighed heavily on the pocketbook.

Jupiter = Climate change humor

Scientists have found that the great red spot on jupiter has been shrinking since the beginning of the 20th century. CNN decided to do a story on it. I was reading some of the comments and busted up laughing. It was pretty funny. here are some of my favorite examples:

I haven't seen these two solutions:
We can send a ship with a huge quantity of red dye (or some other color just to make it interesting),

or

We can send a shipment of viagra to deal with the shrinkage.

and

I think the sun is affecting our solar system...global warming and now the red spot...thats why all the water from mars disappeared...=)

and

I'm guessing all of the locals on Jupiter are driving too many Hummers and causing greenhouse gases (or redhouse?) to build, thus throwing the climate into more turmoil. You'd think they'd learn from us Terrans.

Then you have the silly people who can't take a joke:

I don't know what's funnier, some of these global warming jokes or the folks who are actually taking the jokes seriously! :)

and

Come on. One more person make a joke about global warming. You're so original.

Stupid and humorless is no way to go through life, folks

Oh poo poo :( Cry baby.

Anyway, I'm not a climate change denier, just sceptic that we have any control over it. I thought this was pretty funny.

At least he was killed by a dragon

Check this out. This guy actually got killed by a dragon. I knew that they were big, but was heretofore unaware how dangerous they were.

The Wii

As most of you know, Alex and I bought a WII. It's a pretty fun system. My dad has a PS3 for the blu ray feature which is pretty impressive. Alex and I haven't quite bought in to the blu ray thingie yet, and we had a gamecube before the WII, so it made sense to get the WII since it has the backwards compatibility thing and all. We had to completely rearrange our furniture which was a pain, but once that was done, we've been enjoying the thing. It's definitely a different sort of toy. Anyway we got tetris party which has a balance board game. It's pretty fun and if anyone else out there has one, we'll play against you online.

The waiting game

I applied for a new position within the company. I would be an underwriter for the territories that encompass southern Utah and Nevada. I'm waiting to hear back. Keep your fingers crossed.