A good time was had by all at our annual FensterBeachTrip.
Granted, there was irony in the fact that 4 out of 8 adults brought work on the trip. 3 of them regularly used laptops.
Meanwhile, the one person who would've used his laptop for strictly recreational purposes (that'd be me) was denied permission to bring it along...
Hence:
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Posted in the section Friends and Family on Sun, Jun 29, 2008 at
8:26 AM
Tomorrow our family joins the rest of my (now quite) extended family for a week together in one house at Ocean City, NJ.
There is, admittedly, a sense of withdrawl being without much internet access. I am banned from taking my laptop, even though the house has a wireless network.
My own immediately household does lean toward the geeky as we tend to do visits to parks, libraries, zoos, and other non-beach activities. Some year, though, I'll think of a valid reason for stashing my laptop along for the ride.
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Posted in the section Friends and Family on Fri, Jun 20, 2008 at
7:11 PM
So - I recently heard reference to
this story.The radio spot posed the question:
"Can one man unite the Global Christian Church and lead people to fix the world around them?" (or something close to that)
I couldn't hold back as I shouted back at the radio;
"YES. One man can do this! His name is Jesus!"
Folks like Rick and other "Christian World Leaders" worry me. I worry that folks will put their faith into the plans of one man and be horribly disillusioned if/when some part of the magic formula falls apart... Kind of like those of our nation who think that Republicans OR Democrats have the right plans to solve the "Nation's Ills."
There ain't no fixing. There's only being ready, being aware, being prepared, and being flexible.
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Posted in the section Religion vs. Faith on Thu, Jun 19, 2008 at
9:05 AM
I was seriously looking at our local busing routes to see if I could save money paying for a county-wide pass to get to work daily.
The answer is... no.
I can GET to work, but I can't get home.
The last bus picking up anyone from work leaves at 3:12PM. At the earliest, my contract day doesn't end until 3:15.
So - unless the company changes their bus schedule in the fall, I'll still have to fill my tank. Otherwise, the $65/month county-wide bus pass
might have been useful.
Can't say I didn't try...
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Posted in the section Job Issues on Thu, Jun 19, 2008 at
8:45 AM
The blood tests are in.
There's issues with heart-problems in my family, so when I had my blood-work for cholesterol in December, my Doctor was concerned.
To explain:
The average person should keep their overall cholesterol count down below 200. Mine, in December, was 198.
The average person should keep their LDL (bad stuff) count under 159. Mine was 124.
The average person should keep their HDL (good stuff) count over 40. Mine was 48.
The average person should keep their Triglycerides ("blood-fat") under 150. Mine was 162.
The numbers weren't horrible, but they weren't good. The doctor said the options were:
1 - Drugs.
2 - Low-dose aspirin.
3 - Bring in a dietitian/trainer.
or
4 - Test every 6 months and see what I could do myself.
With my "youthfulness," we went with option 4.
I exercised... um... sometimes...
I, literally, trimmed fat (I used ot just eat whatever was attached to my meat).
Now?
Overall cholesterol: 181.
LDL: 107
HDL: 55
Tri-Gs: 120
It's nice to know I could still do better, but I can do pretty well with little effort.
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Posted in the section Friends and Family on Wed, Jun 18, 2008 at
4:10 PM
So - some bank guy says I should put all of our money from our puny Roth IRA CDs into some sort of ROTH investment/money-market/mutual-fund account to MAKE more MONEY...
Susan and I really never thought about "investing" to "make money." It was hard to explain to the poor guy; I don't want to make money. We're just hoping to safely squirrel money away.
I'm sure that the guy knew what he was talking about and that he truly believes that "now is the time to invest." The economy is so sucky, stocks are cheap, therefore the "law of averages" says that everything should be booming just about the time I'd retire.
My problem is that I have a nagging feeling that this time no one is "bouncing back." I'm of the thought that the "law of averages" should also mean that eventually everything falls apart, entirely. I'd rather not have put any money into that basket.
"A bag of gold will buy a loaf of bread," and such.
Update: We'll likely take Susan's Roth CD and roll it all into some sort of investment package. It's small, but we haven't been adding to it for awhile. So - unless we put it somewhere where it can really grow, it'll be worthless anyway. We'll likely keep stockpiling money into mine.
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Posted in the section Job Issues on Wed, Jun 18, 2008 at
3:28 PM
Interesting.
Visit Blog after Blog and you'll find some sort of badge on the side touting "what I'm listening to."
Music has been important part of personal identities for... who knows... you... you in the shorts.. what do you think?
Having that music badge; is it akin to the lowrider blaring his tunes or more like sharing a mix-tape with the world?
In any case, I've been "hard" at "work" creating a mix using Pandora and was quite thrilled to find the right plugins so that Last.FM would display those tunes.
Watch and see a little more about who I am now and then.
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Posted in the section Media on Tue, Jun 17, 2008 at
4:30 PM
iPhone fans,
have your say with Mr. Jobs.
You didn't write it, because no one can...
I didn't write it because I shun the Bandersnatch...
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Posted in the section Technology on Tue, Jun 17, 2008 at
6:35 AM
Where am I now?
Cleaning my house of crap, 2X, and listening to podcasts from "the God Journey."
See links to the side.
Listen to one or two.
Learn.
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Posted in the section Religion vs. Faith on Mon, Jun 16, 2008 at
10:11 AM
Ahhhh... no more "limbo." The school-board agenda upcoming where I interviewed shows that they are planning to approve filling "my" position by moving someone "up" from a 5th grade position.
Well, give me a call when she turns in her resignation when she decides she's ready to be a full-time mommy.
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Posted in the section Job Issues on Mon, Jun 16, 2008 at
12:20 AM
This is where I live.
This is where I live.This band is my house...(reference: type "This Band Is Our House" i
n the search window)
AKA Welcome to My World Part 2(Link summaries: School Board ignores input from community. 2nd link, budget cuts include NO NEW TECHNOLOGY...or field trips.)
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Posted in the section Job Issues on Sat, Jun 14, 2008 at
6:40 AM
This story illustrates well how things work (or not) where I work.
Let he who has eyes read and understand.
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Posted in the section Job Issues on Thu, Jun 12, 2008 at
8:59 PM
I get annoyed by odd things.
Just the title of
this article annoyed me..."We redid our kitchen for $6000."
See - what irks me is seeing "$6000" as a "good deal."
I see $6000 blown.
I don't care how pretty your kitchen turned out.
Unless your kitchen has recently suffered fire damage, you're planning to move soon (and need to make the house "sellable"), or for some reason the majority of your kitchen is no longer functioning (perhaps you're now in a wheelchair and can't use your current configuration) there's no need for "new and pretty."
Making things pretty, in my mind, is itself gluttonous. If it doesn't work, fix it. If it looks ugly, squint more.
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Posted in the section Nothing on Sun, Jun 08, 2008 at
2:46 PM
Ahhhhhhh... so nice to know that I don't have to worry about voting third-party in the fall.
As long as McCain slips a bit back into his "Maverick" ways and Obama sticks to his "New Washington" ideology, I'm content with either. So, a third-party vote won't be "wasted."
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Posted in the section Government on Sun, Jun 08, 2008 at
1:58 PM