Conan

This article is just one more reason that I love Conan O'Brien....except that I'm not a huge fan of the Tonight Show...but other than that, awesomeness.

Glory Days

I have never been a fitness buff (right, I'm sure ALL of you are surprised by that).

Back in the days of high school sports, two-a-days, sports camps and the like, I could hold my own, to a certain extent....though there was that time that I almost died in the weight room from trying to lift just the bar (I blame that more on my spotter than on my chicken-wing arms, but I've moved on).

And sure, when I was living with a personal trainer, I took advantage of that as much as possible (by joining her gym and willingly giving her lots of my money). She got me in great shape (just in time for my wedding), and while I tried to maintain that routine....let's just say I fell short.

Most recently, we canceled our gym membership. It dawned on me that I hadn't been in about 60+ days, and that I wasn't likely to get any value out of continuing to pay them. It just wasn't fitting into my schedule, nor did I make any effort for it to. So we bit the bullet and dropped out.

I now find myself winded after climbing 3 flights of stairs to get to my desk every morning (cardio has never been my strong suit). But I know that it hasn't always been that way, and I am getting sick of my chicken wing arms (though I will admit, the other night at Bible study, the 9th grade girls were comparing muscles, and they were impressed with mine...ha!).

So, the plan of action:
Amar has tried the 100 push-ups program before and liked it. I just realized that they also have plans for squats and sit-ups. Yippee!!

100 Push ups
I will admit that this is THE MOST DAUNTING thing that I've ever tried to do. I hate push-ups. Can't stand 'em. Am repulsed by the idea of them. But what's more off-putting to me is the idea of being hit in the face with my own flabby triceps when waving to a friend. So onward we go.

200 Squats
Now this is more in my comfort zone. We did tons of these in volleyball. So this will be a bit of a reprieve from the torture of the push-ups that I have to endure.

200 Sit-ups
Ah, the sit-up. Abs of steel, right? I don't necessarily have a lot of belly flab that I'm trying to cut through, but it could be better. So, if this is what has to be done, then I must do it.

Want to join me? These are all 6 week programs. I'm going to try to do them simultaneously, but we'll see how far we get.

Television

As Amar and I were catching up on work email this afternoon, we were watching the 25 anniversary of the Cosby Show on WGN. After about an hour of the Cosby Show, they started running another old sitcom.

Kim: Aww, Family Ties!

Amar: What is this? The white Cosby Show?




Yes, yes of course it is.

Wow

Please tell me that these people have something better to do.

Politico is reporting that the House of Representatives is now outlining how exactly members can and cannot insult the President:

House Rules Committee Chairwoman Louise Slaughter (D-NY) has released a helpful, updated primer for members regarding their conduct on the floor and in committees.

Especially useful: The section on how to properly insult the executive branch in the in the chamber.

"Disgrace" and "nitwits" -- okay.

"Liar" or "sexual misconduct" -- ixnay.

Under section 370 of the House Rules and Manual it has been held that a Member could:

• refer to the government as “something hated, something oppressive.”
• refer to the President as “using legislative or judicial pork.”
• refer to a Presidential message as a “disgrace to the country.”
• refer to unnamed officials as “our half-baked nitwits handling foreign affairs.”

Likewise, it has been held that a member could not:

• call the President a “liar.”
• call the President a “hypocrite.”
• describe the President’s veto of a bill as “cowardly.”
• charge that the President has been “intellectually dishonest.”
• refer to the President as “giving aid and comfort to the enemy.”
• refer to alleged “sexual misconduct on the President’s part.”

Geez.

New Favorite Website

I've added a few sites to my Google Reader lately, but by far my favorite has been My Life Is Average.

(If you're familiar with the (sometimes NSFW) site FML, it's much the same, but a TON cleaner and funnier in most instances).

Readers post in with interesting observations, funny happenings, and general commentaries on how humor and irony play out in their day to day lives.

Here are some of my recent favorites, many of which brought smiles to my face over the last few dreary, Seattle-ish days (titles are of my own making:

Harry Potter in Real Life
Last night, I was at a high school football game. My friend paid the announcer in the booth fifteen bucks to say, "Ten points for Gryffindor!" every time our team scored. He did. It was the best night ever.

Shout out to Justin Timberlake
Today at work, I found a sign up sheet for a company barbecue. We were supposed to write what we were bringing. I wrote "sexy back". Everyone is looking forward to my dish. MLIA

An Epic Battle
Today I wore a shirt that has the "Hello my name is:" sticker filled in with "Ninja." I saw a guy with the same shirt, but instead it said "Jedi." Although I intended to have a staredown, he nodded at me; causing me to nod back. I think he just used the force on me. Well played, Jedi. This battle is not over. MLIA

Necessity: The Mother of Invention
Today, while driving to school, I saw a man driving a motorized scooter down the sidewalk. I didn't think much of it, until I noticed he was pulling behind him a man on a rolling office chair. Best. Idea. Ever. MLIA.

Again with the Harry Potter Awesomeness...
Today at school there were army recruiters. I jokingly said to my friend "the only army I'll be joining is Dumbledores". One of the recruiters overheard me and walked over. I thought he was going to give me a huge speech about how important the army is and we need to respect it. Instead, he high fived me. I think Im in love. MLIA


And now for a random picture of a donkey:




P.S. It is officially pouring.

September Flood

It's no secret that we've been very much lacking in the rain department lately. It is so dry, in fact, that not only does Lake Travis have islands...but those islands now have weeds growing on them.

Yes, they are now inhabited by wildlife.

Anyhow, the exceptional drought means that we wildly welcome any precipitation, no matter how much or how little.

But what is it they always say? When it rains, it pours.

About a week ago, it most definitely poured.

We live in an area that is near two creeks, one of which is known for flooding*. While we were in no danger of having water rush through our house, it was still pretty impressive. About 20 minutes after it stopped raining, I went out to take pictures (I'm a bit of a weather nerd...).

This was the scene in our neighborhood:


This is at the end of our street - waters were moving pretty quickly:



A few blocks North, Shoal Creek was definitely a river:


A few South away, the water was even closer to street level:



Sunrise the next day...beautiful!





*No - we are most definitely not in the flood plain. We made sure of that before we bought the house.

8 Years

I was having lunch at my desk as it poured down (much welcome) rain outside. I noticed a few friends posting Facebook statuses about where they were 8 years ago today. I don't have a great story, but it's my story, so I thought I'd share it with you.

September 11, 2001
I was a Senior at Texas A&M University, and I had an 8 o'clock class that morning. It was an Anthropology class, and we were watching a video about a tribe in South America. While not exactly compelling, it wasn't a bad start to the morning.

After class, I rode my bike across campus to the Business school where I had my next class. As I would typically do in between classes, I ducked into the library to check my email in the computer lab.

It was typically busy at that time of the day, so I didn't notice anything different that morning. I checked my email - again, nothing out of the ordinary. Then I tried to access CNN, and the page was taking forever to load. I asked the guy next to me if he was having computer problems, but his English wasn't the greatest.

I gave up, and started making my way into my next class. That's when things started falling apart a bit.

There were t.v. sets in the hallway of the building that my class was in, and as soon as I walked in, I could barely move for all the people who were just standing in the hall watching the news.

I looked up and froze: iconic buildings in New York were on fire. People were jumping out of buildings. We were clearly under attack and no one knew what to do.

We all just stood there: mouths hanging open, some people crying, others in disbelief.




I think I remember us seeing the first tower fall.




Do I go to class?
What happens next?
Do I know anyone in New York?
Will there be more attacks?





What does life look like now?








After watching for what seemed like an eternity, I decided to go to my next class. I couldn't even tell you what we discussed.

Once that class was over, probably about 20 minutes after it began, we all found ourselves once again staring at the news in the hall. Another building had fallen. I didn't even know that was possible. We were all in a state of shock.

I went to my next class, where I knew the professor was a Christian. I think we decided to pray in class.

After about 15 minutes, I went back into the hallway.

It's all a blur after that, but it was one of those days you don't forget.

Where were you?

This Old House: Episode 1

Warning: I get a bit nerdy about home repairs in this post...

Our house is about 60 years old, and while I love it, there are some things about it that occasionally need tweaking. The good thing is, I love tweaking things around the house*.

Most recently, I basically took apart the inside of the toilet. I've done some minor plumbing stuff in the past (replacing nobs, handles, flapper valves, etc.), and I thought this would be another routine replacement to fix a drip.

I initially replaced the old flapper valve, but upon testing my fix, I realized that while I had fixed the drip. I had apparently created another issue: the water wouldn't shut off all the way. This was no bueno, and I had definitely not fixed the problem.

I proceeded to do some googling, and found that I should probably also replace the whole valve. However, we've been a bit busy lately, so I didn't get around to fixing things in a super-timely manner (Amar had to bug me a bit...but the delay gave us a clear signal that we would not do to well in a 1 bathroom living establishment for too long).

Today, I (finally) stopped by the hardware store on my way home today and got the necessary parts (keeping my fingers crossed that this was the root cause...). After a few minutes of wrestling with the existing fixtures, I was able to replace the valve and tada - no more dripping toilet!

On the next episode, I'll finish painting the baseboards!

*Note: I do have a tendency to get in over my head at times, but never to the point where we need to call emergency services...at least not yet ;)

Problem Child

For those of you who have met our dogs, you know that they have very different personalities.

Zoey, for instance, is shy but dominant. She is devoted, loyal, and she smiles. She also tends to be the more obedient of the two.

Bella, on the other hand, is a bit of a ditz. She has very expressive eyes, but there's not much going on behind them, if you know what I mean. She is very stubborn, very curious, and very food motivated.

At night, after they play in the yard for a bit, we call them into the house. Nine times out of ten, Zoey is the first one in. Prompt and willing to please her owners, she comes running around the corner and into the house without much delay.

Bella, however, is a different story. Sometimes she comes right away...other times she sees a shiny object and totally forgets what she was doing.

Being the curious one, Bella also tends to hop after things that hop. If she sees an interesting bug, she follows it around. The same goes for frogs. They hop, she hops right behind them.

And we have learned the hard way that dogs have a strong reaction after they come into contact with frogs: they foam at the mouth. Apparently the frogs have a very bad taste, which causes dogs to salivate uncontrollably and then the foaming commences.

The idea behind this, I'm sure, is to discourage dogs from licking frogs.

But Bella doesn't quite see it that way. She sees a frog, and is thus compelled to lick it.

This happened again tonight.

I noticed that she was taking her sweet time getting back into the house. So after a few minutes, I went out to check on her and reprimand her, only to find that yep, she had been licking frogs again tonight.

This happens about once a week at this point.

Cute? Yes. Smart? The jury is still out...

Here's to you, Bella puppy!

An anniversary, of sorts

I stumbled upon this article, alebit a day or two late, and thought it was an appropriate anniversary to celebrate.

The article is about COBOL, a pretty ancient coding language by technology standards. It recently celebrated it's 50th anniversary.

The author states that though most people have never heard of COBOL, it accounts for about 80% of of the world's active code. To put that into context, you need a lot more lines of COBOL code to do the same thing that Java or C could do in about 2 lines.

The author also states that he has never met an active COBOL programmer in his life.

So why did I take note of this anniversary?

Because I was once a professional COBOL programmer. Yes, I was a pitifully awful COBOL programmer, but nonetheless, it was my job for the first 2 years of my professional experience.

Amar actually hates it when I mention that I was a programmer, because he doesn't really think that my "experience" counted. But I beg to differ.

I was a business major in college, and for some reason, my employer thought it best to put me into a very technical role. I floundered for quite awhile and asked pretty much anyone I could find if they could assist me. I wrote my first algorithm in COBOL. I ran my first batch job in COBOL. I performed my first 20 installs for COBOL projects.

And I hated it for the most part.

But looking back, I can see how has contributed to my current job as a Project Manager. In short, it has helped me be a better Project Manager.

Anyhow, sometimes you have to go through some messy stuff to get to the good stuff. It was just funny to realize that it's a 50 year old programming language that gave me my first foot in the door to corporate America.

Camp Braveheart Pictures

Hey folks,
Here are some pictures I took at Camp Braveheart (see my last post for details).

I'm still getting used to my new DSLR (a fantastic Nikon D90!). And as usual, I had some fun in Picasa with the originals.

I uploaded some of my favorites to the link above, rather than post all 2,400+ of the original shots.

Enjoy!


P.S. Upon posting, I'm realizing that Blogger is not a fan of publishing my pictures in any way that looks good on this entry. So, just go to the gallery link above :)

Back from "vacation"

Amar and I have been volunteering with the Youth Group at our church since about February. Most recently, we got to go to Summer Camp (aka Camp Braveheart) over the last week, and we had a blast.

The theme was Saul and David, and subsequently, we were asked to be characters that represented each of those figures (I was Saul, General McKinsie; Amar was David - General Callahan). Our roles mainly consisted of leading groups of students during game time. We each led our team like Saul or David would have led their army.

Amar was victorious occasionally, followed the rules, sought guidance from God and was generally pleasant to be around.

I, on the other hand, apparently scared the 8th grade boys.

I won most of our face-offs, not due to the talent of my team so much as due to my ability to cheat, be ultra-competitive, refuse to accept defeat, and focus on giving playing time to the known athletes. Also, I did a lot of screaming.

All in all, it was a ton of fun. But I was quickly reminded by about day 3 that I'm now an "old person" and thus, can't play 3 hours of volleyball in 100 degree heat like I used to.

I'll post some pictures soon, but wanted to blog because it's been, well, eons since I last posted.

Much love to you all. And if you have a rag-tag group of teens that you need motivated, don't hesitate to call!

Wordle

Amar sent this link to me today, and I think it's pretty nifty. It generates "word clouds" based on text that you point it to. In this case, I pointed it at my blog. Guess what's been on my mind lately? ;)



Check it out at Wordle.

Updates

If you're keeping track:

• We have working reverse lights on the Pathfinder, complete with a light-up toggle switch and everything. Who could ask for more?



• We have working AC in the BMW, just in time for the temperature gauge to read 105 on the way home from work yesterday - Yippee!



• We recently found out that our dogs are overweight, so that's a bummer...they're gonna have to cut back on the peanut butter. More for me!



• We'll be leaving for the doctor's office in just a few minutes, as most of the morning has thus far consisted of Amar's thumb bleeding profusely after he attempted to cut an apple for breakfast. Seriously, the fun never stops around here.



• I got to hang out with high school girls for 2 hours last night and we had a blast. I started losing my voice about an hour into it...but, we came in 2nd in the scavenger hunt!



• I'm 2/3 of the way through Harry Potter, book 6. Trying to refresh my memory before the movie comes out in July...get excited.



• Our small group is going kayaking on Town Lake this Saturday, and I'm looking forward to that. Too bad we can't take the dogs, though...there's probably a weight limit on those things... ;)

That is all.

Order of events

Background Info:
About a year ago, we lost the key fob for the Pathfinder. At this point, we have 1 key for the car. No unlock/alarm thingy. Just a key.

Also, we have a 1 car driveway, as in, we have to pull one car in behind the other car. In this instance, the Pathfinder was behind the other car.

Monday Night:
8:30 PM
Kim leaves Bible study and heads to the grocery store in the 12 year old Nissan Pathfinder (which she loves dearly, but has been a bit iffy lately).

8:45 PM
Kim loads groceries into the back of the Pathfinder, including a 40lb. bag of dog food.

9:00 PM
Kim pulls into the driveway, gets out of the car and doesn't realize that she's locked the driver side door. She goes into the house to ask Amar for help unloading the groceries.

9:01 PM
Amar and Kim go out to the car, and open the back door of the Pathfinder.

9:01:01 PM
Pathfinder alarm goes off (horn honks, lights flash, annoyingness commences).

9:01:10 PM
Kim debates about how to turn off the alarm since there is no key fob thingy. Should they crawl through the car and try to hit the 'unlock' button? That usually does it.

9:01:15 PM
Amar crawls through the car to hit the unlock button. No dice. Horn still honking. Loudly. At night.

9:02 PM
Kim runs into the house to get the keys.



Summary of the next 10 minutes:
We try to unlock the door with the key. No luck.
We try popping the hood. No luck.
We try starting the car. Not only does the alarm keep going, but the car won't start.

After 4 minutes, the alarm stops.
We frantically unload the groceries while we have a window of opportunity.

Then it starts again.
We try all of the above items again, except of course, the grocery unloading.
After 4 more minutes, the alarm stops again.



We stand quietly beside the car praying that the worst is behind us.



Silence.



So, it stopped. No idea why, but it finally stopped. We decided to just leave it be for the night, not sure what the morning would hold. Would we be able to start the car? Would we be able to even open the door? No idea.

I started dreaming about different ways to get the car out of the driveway. If the Pathfinder wouldn't start, how could we get the other car out? Could we push the Pathfinder out of the driveway and then drive the other car through the yard? Oh, yeah, that would be really inconspicuous...


Tuesday Morning:
7:30 AM
Amar goes out to the car and gently unlocks the door. No alarm.
He hits the "unlock" button to open the other doors. No alarm.
He opens the other doors. No alarm.
And finally, he tries to start the car: SUCCESS!

Happy Tuesday!

Alert: Free Food Tomorrow

It's no secret that I'm a fan of the doughnut.

Love 'em.

So, I felt compelled to let you all know that apparently tomorrow is National Doughnut Day. Both Krispy Kreme and Dunkin' Doughnuts are participating.

Unfortunately, I don't live or work near a location for either of these chains, but if you do, you should totally take advantage of the holiday.

Enjoy!!

More info @ The Consumerist.

TV Addict

I grew up watching a lot of tv.

And I have a bit of an addictive personality.

Thus, there are several shows that I watch quite frequently.

I'm trying not to add any shows to the schedule. After all, there are occasionally other things that I like to do with my time. Like watch movies.

Anyhow, there's a show that I stumbled upon last summer, and I just now noticed that it's back, and yes, it's better than ever.

It's called Wipeout and it's on ABC.

I mean seriously, this is good television.






It's a ridiculously-constructed obstacle course, complete with commentators (who yes, occasionally make some questionable jokes). But it is hilarious. The stuff that they make these people do is just insane.

Side note: while Amar and I were in India, there wasn't much on tv that we could both watch and enjoy (the Indian ones were hard for me to follow, and the English ones were not incredibly compelling). The two shows that we could agree on were 1) BBC World News and 2) Takeshi's Castle. Hopefully you can figure out the former. The latter? Potentially the most awesome Japanese gameshow of all time. Needless to say, hours of entertainment.

Anyhow, you should check out Wipeout. Just give it a shot for 5 minutes and you will be sucked in.

Or, maybe it's just me. Is it just me?

Inbox insanity

Several of my co-workers have recently started using Xobni, which is a MS Outlook plug in that claims to keep you from drowning in your inbox.

I don't normally have a problem with drowning, as I try to stay fairly organized most of the time. However, today I found myself digging through a folder that had about 2000 emails in it, trying to locate one specific email from a person whose name I couldn't remember.

And then I thought of Xobni, and thought, "What the heck, why not give it a try?"

I downloaded it, and after about 15 minutes of having it index my emails, I was able to locate that missing email in about 30 seconds.

Definitely worth it.

But the goodness didn't stop there. They have this feature called Xobni Analytics, which basically shows you a bunch of cool stuff about your email habits and trends. You can find out who you send the most email to, who sends you the most email, what your high volume hours are over the day, etc.

One thing I found curious was the "Time to Respond" metric, as I try to respond in a timely manner to most things. Here's my analysis:




If you click on the picture, you'll see that back in November, I had an average email response time of ~4 hours. Compare that with my average response time in May of ~30 minutes. That's what I call progress ;)

If you look at the data another way, you can tell the times that I'm more likely to respond quickly to your email:



You'll see that if you send me a email at 3AM, it might take me 3 days to respond to it. But if you send me an email between 6AM and noon, you're looking at an average response time of less than 15 minutes.

Is it just me, or is this cool?

It's ok, I already know I'm a nerd...this is just official confirmation.

More nerdy goodness...

Average email volume by day:



Average email volume by hour:

Twisters

Is it just me, or does anyone else have recurring dreams?

It's not that I have the exact same dream on a recurring basis. It's more like, I have recurring themes in my dreams (and no, I didn't intend to rhyme there...).

The theme: tornadoes





I think the earliest I remember having a tornado dream was in college. Since then, I can recall about 10 or so variations on that theme.

Usually when they're in my dream, they are far away. I'll be looking out over the city, or over a field and they will be there. Sometimes just one, sometimes it's a whole gaggle.

A tornado made a guest appearance earlier this week in one of my dreams, and it was pretty vivid. Rather than it being far off, I was in it. I was in the wall of the tornado and I could feel the air almost getting sucked out of me.

I'm trying to figure out if the dreams correlate to anything going on in my life, but I'm drawing a blank.

So I'm curious to know if y'all have any thoughts on this. Do you have recurring themes?

On a side note, based on a very informal survey of the couples in our small group, it turned out that most of the guys in the group didn't dream very often. This was in stark contrast to the girls in the group, most of whom had vivid and memorable dreams.

Interesting.

Telling stories

I've been noticing a personal and professional trend over the last few years: I'm getting nerdier.

Sure, I've always been on the nerdy end of the spectrum. 3 years ago when we were buying a washer and dryer, I did lots of research and put everything into a spreadsheet. Probably overkill, but it helped me think more clearly about the various facets of the purchase.

I now have an Excel addiction.

But more than that, I find that I've become a bit of a snob about spreadsheets. Everyone has their own preferences, sure. But spending 5 minutes doing some minor formatting really makes a huge difference in getting your audience to understand your data.

The same can be said about presentations, and I'm becoming increasingly nerdy about those as well.

Why spend hours crafting a deck that no one will remember? It's a waste of time and money, and it sets a tone for your future pitches. Polishing things ever so slightly can turn a bad presentation into a decent one.

But why stop at decent? What really makes things stand out? What makes them memorable?

Sure, fonts and images go a long way there. But I'm talking about really crafting your message. Telling a story.

This goes for more than PowerPoint decks. I'd argue that telling stories is most of the battle. Drawing people in, getting them to understand the context, the tension, the climax and the resolution...this is what makes it interesting...what makes it memorable.

We've all been to bad presentations, attended bad meetings, or read bad emails. That's part of what makes work feel like work.

But it doesn't have to be that way. A post from the folks at Duarte reminded me of that today. The post is about hiring professionals, knowing when you're in over your head. Check it out: here

Now, let me say this: not everyone can hire professionals. Heck, I know there's no way that would fly in my corner of cubicle city. But just changing our mindset about what we want to communicate can really help get us on the right track.

I want people to look forward to communicating with me, whether that be over email, via spreadsheets, in staff meetings or at coffee shops.

If you're digging this line of thinking, you should also check out "Death By Meeting" by Patrick Lencioni. Good stuff there as well. Very readable business fiction that will get you thinking about changing things up a bit...

Good luck out there.

Bravo

I was sad to see that Project Runway would not be seen again this year on Bravo (and I still can't picture it on Lifetime...but that's another blog entry for another day). However, I gave their new show, Fashion Show, a try this week.

Let me just say this: I cannot fathom a world in which a grey satin harem pant is a "must have."

The challenge was to create a "must have" item and build five looks around it. Now, I might not be as fashion forward as the next girl, but harem pants in the first place are just not must-haves. The other items created were ok. Jacket? Yes, it could work. The concept of a skirt? Yes, could work. But I agree with the judges on this one: the way that these looks were executed leaves something to be desired.

Granted, they only had about a day to do it. So you have to cut them some slack. But seriously - it got a little crazy and unwearable pretty quickly.

And if any of you watched the show, please try to explain to me what Merlin is. I really can't understand it.

Will I tune in again next week? Most likely.
Do I like it as much as Project Runway? Not just yet.

Your thoughts??


Harem Pants Montage




*Images courtesy of Bravo

Yankee Stadium: Predictions

Not sure if you follow sports, but it was hard to miss the recent thrashing(s) that took place in Yankee Stadium.

Given that home runs in the new park are up 250% from last year (currently averaging 5 homers per game in the first 5 games played there this season), it would not surprise me in the least if:

1) There is some sort of lawsuit against the architect, design firm, construction company, etc.

-OR-

2) There's some legislation floated about standardizing the existing and/or future designs of ballparks such that they all play in similar manners.

Just putting it out there...



But seriously, if I were a Yankees fan, I'd be a bit ticked off right now.

Happy birthday to me!

So I aged on Monday. Monday specifically. I don't age everyday. It's just the one time each year. Blink and you may miss it.

Anyhow, in honor of aging day this year, Amar got me a super-sweet Nikon D90. Yes, I'm spoiled.

It came in the mail on Friday, and the weather turned nice enough this afternoon to test out the new guy in the yard. Here are some of the results:

Don't mess with Texas

Yay Texas! Way to stay sane.



Image courtesy of NPR.

Is it really the thought that counts?

When the efforts to greenify the office mean that employees who have to come in on the weekends, overnight no less, cannot get any lights to turn on in the building...you just might want to reconsider just how green you want to be.

I'm just sayin'...



Slightly ironic that this comes on the heels of a previous post about recycling?

Nah.

You miss 100% of the shots you don't take

That being said: I'm entering a photo book contest

Wish me luck!

For more info on my particular book, this would be a good place to click.

The Three Rs

In today's ever-greening society, I think it might be appropriate to redo the Three Rs to mean Recycle, Reduce and Reuse.

That being said, I want to give a quick shout-out to a company that it walking the walk: Preserve

Their motto is "Nothing wasted. Everything gained"

The deal is this: they recycle plastic into everyday, household items that you can buy. And then, when you're done with whatever it is that you bought from them, guess what? You send it back and they recycle it.



In checking out the prices, it seems reasonable: 8 plastic plates for $7, food storage items starting at $3.

You should check it out. If you don't check it out, you are essentially wadding the planet up and tossing it in the trash. Happy shopping ;)

Cube Envy

So I read this article over on Lifehacker and I now have cube envy.

I think this one is my favorite....but oh! To have a window (check out the other pics)!





I want to be able to decorate 8x6 square like that!

Things

Item 1:

I keep thinking today is Thursday. I woke up thinking it was Thursday. I cancelled a meeting thinking it was Thursday. I went to a different meeting thinking it was Thursday. Help.

Item 2:
This made me laugh. Let me know what you think.

Item 3:
Very excited about this. I (heart) George-Michael!

Maybe this is why I'm afraid of bugs

I just got this error message while at work:



Gotta love pessimistic developers!

I'm still alive - FYI

I'm still alive.

I just haven't had the time/energy/attention span/inspiration to blog in awhile.

I should be able to come back up for air after February 8th. Drivers for that include: work, church, reading list, sleeping, etc.

Peace out.