The Doctor Is In

This is a relatively new comic strip to my paper. Probably about a year they've been running it. It's not much on dialogue, usually more of a visual. Its not my favorite, in fact a lot of times it's not that funny. Today's, however, I thought was great.

The Incredible Shrinking Woman

My wife has been dieting and exercising for a bit more than half a year now. So far she claims to have lost more than 90 pounds (I seem to be weighing a bit less, too, but I'm not going to go messing with the wheel on the scale). Her main things are counting calories and fat grams, keeping the calories under 1200 and fat grams under 20 (I think). She also walks around the neighborhood for something like 300 minutes a week. As I said before, I'm not sure about the actual weight loss, but she sure looks a lot better!!!

In addition, she feels better and has more energy.

Way to go, baby!!!

The Ides of March Random Post

Did I actually hear what I thought I heard on the radio after the 2007 Rose Parade??? A storm trooper from the 501st Legion calling Bob Eubanks out over comments he made during the broadcast???

I bought gas tonight. I didn't need to that bad, but I figured it would probably be the last time I would be able to get gas for under $3.00. I pumped until it stopped, and it took 2.92 gallons. After I got my change, I checked the trip odometer, and it was at 92.9. Wild.




Why are there always long lines at Wal Mart, and they never seem to open more than maybe a fourth of the registers???

Didn't the clock in the cafeteria at work used to have red numbers??? They're green now.

There are several staircases to go to the different levels of my area of work. All the ones in the center are split so you come up uneven if you try to skip every other step. The ones on the north and south end work out evenly, though.

If the gas I bought tonight had been selling for $2.92 a gallon instead of $2.999, I might have had to bought a lottery ticket or something.

These chipotle crackers my wife found at the dollar store are REALLY good!!!

A few weeks ago, they were fertilizing or mulching or something (whatever it was, it STANK!!!) out in the center courtyard at work. I think if work were a learning institution, they would call that area the Quad. I was walking through in the morning, and one of the gardeners was dumping the stuff from a wheelbarrow. There was steam rising off the stuff, and I thought to myself, "That's the stink coming off it, you can actually SEE it!!!"

I hope you are enjoying these pictures. I took them all on the same day, and there's more where that came from!!!

A family that we are friends with got a new dog. They named her Olive. The mother told my wife to sing the first part of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer to her while they were walking her one time. When she got the the part that goes "All of the other reindeer", Olive turned around and nipped at her!!!





Now the clock in the cafeteria is back to red. Huh???

I guess Olive was in no mood for that old gag.

That's how the dollar store always gets you. They have something you fall in love with, then they stop carrying it.

Max Would Approve

I took this over the weekend. This was up on the Pasadena end of the 110 freeway, where it's narrow and curvy. Gee, I wonder what happened!!!

I think Mad Max would approve!!!

XIII. Lisey and Amanda (The Sister Thing)

An excerpt from Stephen King's Lisey's Story

Image stolen from GardenWeb user name Kentuck_8b

Lisey's car was the only car in the parking lot, and the picnic area was deserted-not even a single backpacker getting high on nature (or Montpelier Gold). Amanda walked toward one of the picnic tables. The soles of her feet were very pink, and even with the sun hidden, she was clearly nude under the green pajamas.

"Amanda, do you really think that's-"

"If anyone comes I'll nip right back into the car." Manda looked back over her shoulder and flashed a grin. "Try it-the grass feels positively slinky."

Lisey walked to the edge of the pavement on the balls of her feet, then stepped up into the green. Amanda was right, slinky was the one, the perfect fish from Scott's pool of words. And the view to the west was a straight shot to the eye and the heart. Thunderheads were pouring toward them through the ragged teeth of the White Mountains, and Lisey counted seven dark spot where the high slopes had been smudged away by cauls of rain. Brilliant lightnings flashed inside those stormbags and between two of them, connecting them like some fantastic fairy bridge, was a double rainbow that arched over Mount Cranmore in a frayed loophole of blue. As Lisey watched that hole closed and another, over some mountain whose name she did not know, opened, and the rainbow reappeared. Below them Castle Lake was a dirty dark gray and Little Kin Pond beyond it a dead black goose-eye. The wind was rising but it was improbably warm, and when her hair lifted from her temples, Lisey lifted her arms as though she would fly-not on a magic carpet but on the ordinary alchemy of a summer storm.

"Manda!" she said. "I'm glad I'm alive!"

"So am I," Amanda said seriously, and held out her hands. The wind blew back her graying hair and made it fly like a child's. Lisey closed her fingers carefully around her sister's, trying to be mindful of Amanda's cuts but aware of a rising wildness in herself all the same. Thunder cracked overhead, the warm wind blew harder, and ninety miles to the west, thunderheads streamed through the ancient mountain passes. Amanda began to dance and Lisey danced with her, their bare feet in the grass, their linked hands in the sky.

"Yes!" Thunder cracked and Lisey had to yell it.

"Yes, what?" Manda hollered back. She was laughing again.

"Yes, I mean to kill him!"

"That's what I said! I'll help you!" Amanda shouted, and then the rain began and they ran back to the car, both of them laughing and holding their hands over their heads.

Level Up!!!

I got my smithing level up to 73 on Runescape last night. It takes a while to increase your level once you get to the higher levels. It says I can now make adamant medium helmets, but really I can make swords by drinking a dwarven stout. I've got something like 600 adamant maces and 1150 adamant medium helmets in my bank right now. Those shall be converted into gold coin in due time.

My Nerdy Shortcoming

On my last completely random post (of which I would like to make another post like soon, this is Aye's Random Ravings, after all), I posed the question, "What are the differences between being a geek and being a dork??? Is there a quiz that you can take to determine which one you exhibit more characteristics of???" This was precipitated by my oldest sister trying to label her boyfriend during our Christmas gathering. Well, I found a site called OK Cupid that has the quiz finally!!! Turns out that I'm not really any of the above, but I do tend heavily towards nerdiness. Here's how it broke down:

Joe Normal

47 % Nerd, 34% Geek, 39% Dork

For The Record:
A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.

A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.

A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.

You scored less than half in all three, earning you the title of: Joe Normal.

This is not to say that you don't have some Nerd, Geek or Dork inside of you--we all do, and you can see the percentages you have right above. This is just to say that none of those qualities stand out so much as to define you. Sure, you enjoy an episode of Star Trek now and again, and yeah, you kinda enjoyed a few classes back in the day. And, once in a while, you stumble while walking down the street even though there was nothing there to cause you to trip. But, for the most part, you look and act fairly typically, and aren't much of an outcast.

I'd say there's a fair chance someone asked you to take this test. In any event, fairly normal.

Why Is There A Propeller On The Front???

Because there is a barber pole on the top, of course!!!

Black Wednesday???

This has been something of a strange week for me. Last Friday they asked me if I could work an earlier shift this week. I said sure, just tell me when. They said, how about Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday for middle shift. OK, I'll be there. On Tuesday, they asked me if I could work an hour of overtime on Tuesday and Wednesday morning, so I would be going in at the same time as first shift, but leaving with the middle shift. I was looking forward to today, finally be able to stay in bed a bit longer and have a more leisurely morning. Yesterday they asked me if I could come in an hour early today, too. OK, I'll take it when I can get it, but it did mess up my sleep plans. Oh yeah, they do something pretty cool when you do overtime. Not only do you get time and a half on your next check, but at the end of February, they pay you the half again for your previous year's overtime, so in effect you end up getting double time.

One of my co-workers was telling me on Tuesday that Wednesday the 28th was going to be our busiest day of the year. Historically, it has been so, so that was the reason for that. It seemed odd to me that the 28th would be our busiest day. It didn't seem especially busier than normal to me. I wondered if it was because of the stock market's downturn the day before. Seems to me that if you get spooked by what turns out to be about a 4% downturn, maybe you shouldn't be in that business.