Posts

Showing posts from February, 2006
Image
I did it! I have unplugged our television. Yes, we are those odd people who only have one. I am putting the over/under at six days before J notices. Any takers?
It's vewwy vewwy quiet... We have decied to join the twenty-first century and upgrade our computer hardware. So, thanks to Linda Gentille, we are now sporting an Athlon 64 3500+ with 1 gig of ram and a 200 gig hard drive. Woo hoo! (I know that this isn't really something over which to get completely excited, Rick, but your old sister isn't quite the egghead you are ) No more SLNs from Windows every 40 minutes about disk space, no more shuffling apps and files around like Tetris, and no more holding my breath at start up wondering if this is the time it will go kaput. Yes, life is good. It is so quiet that I literally cannot hear the sucker. I have to stop myself from checking to make sure it is actually on! We made out little field trip to Fry's this evening to pick up said wunderchine. This is always a mixed belssing, as Fry's is crack to my husband. Well, maybe not crack. Ed Roman Guitars is crack. Fry's is something somewhat less insidious
Image
Olympic fever? Not so much, actually. I have been unusually uninterested in these winter games. I watched some of the snowboarding events with awe and wonder- mostly because I cannot fathom why otherwise perfectly sane people, to whom God gave two legs would choose to strap said legs to a single unit of fiberglass (?) and then shove off down a steep icy incline. It is pretty cool, I must admit. But that is it. I watched no skating, no skiing, no curling. I just don't care as much. And I think I know why: the staggered Summer/Winter games schedule. Way back when, when the Olympics only came around every four years, it seemed like more of an occassion. Now, even though it will be four years before the world is again wowed by the likes of the Flying Tomato (is it just me, of does that sound like a crazy Muppet Show parody?), we only have two years until Beijing. Perhaps I am just getting old, perhaps the pall of cheating has tarnished the Olympic charm, perhaps celebrity has finally e
Darn you for making me think!(You know who you are) All afternoon, I have been mulling over what my brother-in-law had to say about one.org and the absurdity of the hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth from our glitterati. A few things are rattling around in my head, and I am trying to make sense of them. First of all, I hate those stupid bracelet thingies. Can I just say that? I am forced to admit that I had to look online to see what that yellow rubber band was that John Kerry was wearing during the last presidential campaign. Personally, I thought it looked a little silly- grown man in a suit that costs more than I make in a month with a yellow bracelet that made we wonder if he had been to Shipwreck Island or something. Ok, that is out of the way. Secondly, how nice that these celebs get such lovely photographs. It reminds me of the early days of the "Got Milk?" campaign, when everybody and his uncle was vying for a spot in the campaign. Why? To promote a healthy lifestyl
20 t0 35 grams per day... There is no official RDA from the USDA for fiber intake. However, many nutritionists recommend between 20 and 35 grams per day. Apparently, most Americans are not even coming close. Well, I have found the mother lode when it comes to fiber sources... Tortilla Factory wraps. This sucker has 14 grams of dietary fiber, baby! And most of it is soluble (good) fiber. I think I must be getting old, because only old people worry about getting enough fiber, don't they?
In case you missed it... Or even if you didn't, it bears reading again. Mr Paul Hewson's remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast earlier this month...
CraigsList has everything! We even found a new church home! A few weeks ago, J was completing his nightly ritual scan of the postings on the Musicians board when he happened upon an ad for a sound engineer. It would seem that a new church plant in the northern part of the valley was in need of an engineer who could mix a rock band. He replied and heard nothing (which is par for the course) until- at last!- last week a response. So, after J talked with the man who advertised, we went to check out Grace Point Church . He was on the board this week and liked the church so much that he didn't even think twice when they asked him to come back. They church meets at a local middle school and is a non-denominational sort. (I figure I can sneak in to Our Lady of Las Vegas if I need a liturgy fix, as it were.) I think that Grace Point has the best of both worlds-- "Big Church" music and, let's be honest, production quality, but "Small Church" friendliness. (Plus, the
Slow boat to... Maybe China? I just cannot contain my joy any longer! Jon has a primo opportunity, which I am totally afraid I shall jinx. But check this chick out. Linda is the lady for whom the Nasty Habits* will serve as rhythm section (They need a different name, though-- don't think that the Sun City crowd will go for Nasty Habits) later on this month . It is pretty standard stuff. Not exactly what Jon would CHOOSE for himself, but it is a great gig. So, for fear of jinxing things, I will withold further comment. I just had to release a little of the pressure. *New project. Basically the Liars minus Betty plus Corey.
"Domestic Spying"- Not that I don't care, but... I really don't care. Perhaps I am being silly, but I really have no expectation of privacy anymore. Do I like it? No. But do I honestly think that there is anything to be done about it? Double no. I am, if I believe many MSM reports, to be scared of the evil NSA, scared of the evil executive branch, and scared that MY PERSONAL LIFE is in danger of being exposed by the previous two evils. Again, I have to say that I do not agree with the idea that calls can be wiretapped without due process-- I am just not sure that I really care beyond this disagreement. I choose to put more energy into caring that the abortion rate in this country, while it is dropping, is still 24%. I care more that the homeless girl I pass every day after work might end up forced into prostitution (if she hasn't already) and be at an even greater risk than she is now. I care more that we, as a nation, don't seem to feel the need to ad
Image
From one extreme to the other... This weekend saw us first in Indian Springs (about 45 minutes NW of town) and later in Clean, Green Boulder City (approx 20 mile SE of town). Given the choice, I would take Boulder City any day. We often drive through Boulder City on our way to and from Yuma, but todat we trekked out there just to play tourist. Not the best day of the week to go, as we soon learned. We did, however, do quite a bit of wandering in the historic district and made mental notes for our next trip (which we will make sure is a Saturday). BC is a boomtown that grew up around the camps set up for the man building Hoover (nee Buolder) Dam. Unlike its larger neighbors (Henderson, Las Vegas, et al), Boulder City allows no gaming within its corporate limits. The result is a quaint, albeit expensive, family-oriented town. Crime statistics are remarkably low, and the schools are good. We saw good-sized public parks, just in the three block radius which we walked. Indian Springs, on th
No TV? I am sure many people think MJ and I are odd for not having cable TV or Satellite. Ok, maybe people think we are weird for a myriad of other reasons. Anyway, moving on... I just read about a couple who committed to no television for the first year of their marriage. Not even to watch DVDs. No TV. One Year. Twelve months. Tweny-six episodes of Lost or DH. I want to do it. I want to take our television and put it away in a closet. Better yet- I could donate it to the Salvation Army. When I was in high school, our family did this. My mother bribed each of us with $300 for the year. (My father held out for $500) This was1992, the year that George H.W. Bush was running for re-election. We listened to the debates on the radio, and I had a completely different take on them from my classmates. I didn't get the jokes about Adm. Stockdale being so old. I missed the spin. I was out of the loop, and frankly, better informed for it! I think that this would be just as true, if not more so
Google ads crack me up! I almost miss the ads on blogs. I love the way Google matches up advertising with the subject, title, or even random wording. When I check my Gmail (which I LOVE, btw), I can always count on a different Spam recipe every time. This morning it was Spam Primavera- simply toss with linguini and enjoy! And if I leave the spam folder and go to my inbox, and then return to the spam folder-- voila!! A new, exciting Spam recipe appears. I have a friend who used to put wacky titles on his blog entries, just to see what ads would be generated. Now we are ad free, we have lost a source of amusement. Kinda chokes me up a little...
From Dictionary.com: cri·sis ( P ) Pronunciation Key (krss)n. pl. cri·ses (-sz) A crucial or decisive point or situation; a turning point. An unstable condition, as in political, social, or economic affairs, involving an impending abrupt or decisive change. A sudden change in the course of a disease or fever, toward either improvement or deterioration. An emotionally stressful event or traumatic change in a person's life. A point in a story or drama when a conflict reaches its highest tension and must be resolved. I have lately been giving a lot of energy to this word, and its misuse. Often I hear about the many crises in our society: America's Health Care Crisis, "Google's coming crisis, Energy crisis, Iran's Nuclear Crisis, etc. I confess that I thought that crisis was much more dire than its definition would indicate. I guess that would have to do with annotaion vs connotation? As a result, I am going to reevaluate my reaction to media reports of these