Paying Out of Pocket

Have you noticed that we ‘pay out of pocket’ for some things?  I’d like to challenge the readers of this blog to consider paying out of other clothing items’ parts.  For example paying out of sleeve, paying out of hat or maybe paying out of the delicates.  There is so much opportunity here for creativity – because frankly in our modern mostly cashless first world society we’re all paying out of the plastic wether its debited out of our bank account or added to the already limitless [wink, wink – nudge, nudge] amount of debt that we can get into with store specific credit lines, airline specific credit cards or worse: gas cards.

I for one am going to pay out of pant leg patch next time just to see how that feels.

Abby on Snow

“It’s just going to keep snowing forever, mom.”

We’re having a new snow storm here, I think this is the 4th storm in 5 weeks.  I love the snow so this is great, but Abby’s starting to feel like the snow could take a break and let Spring and Summer have a go at things 🙂

Why Dyson’s Suck

My sister brought over her vacuum this evening.  Due to a mixup in communication.  She kindly left it for us to try out.  Here are ten reasons why no one should buy a Dyson:

  1. You like a vacuum that has no suction power
  2. You like to wrestle with suction tubes
  3. You like to leave junk in and on your carpet
  4. You like to wrestle with vacuum bags and get dust all over the place due to that wrestling
  5. You like to replace vacuum bags
  6. You hate to clean your stairs and making it painful will keep that hate alive
  7. You like vacuums that are designed poorly
  8. Easy to clean vacuums that clean easily sound too good to be true
  9. You like vacuums that don’t have a powerful suction power
  10. You’re me and you don’t have enough money right now

I loved this vacuum.  I’m going to save up and get one.

Happy Birthday, Becky!

My sister turned 24 today [the 24th]. That puts her at close to the pinacle of her 20’s as Jessica puts it. Becky got a dress from us any my parents (it was not a cheap dress as the splitting of the gift may imply) and it looked really good. It was weird for me to see my sister wearing something cute and attractive because I’m not sure how to deal with the fact that she’s my sister and a woman. Apologies Becky if that comes across as weird 🙂

I do know that she’s married to a great guy who loves her very much and so I’m thrilled that she’s had a good birthday with a good husband. I’m also glad she invited us over for dinner on her birthday because the food was great and the dessert was even more greaterer ;). I’m not going to try to spell the name of it because I’ll do it wrong and I should be going to bed anyway.

Happy Birthday ‘My’!

WordPress 2.1 Update

I have updated this installation to the very latest WordPress. Its faster for sure. You probably will not, and shouldn’t, see any difference to the site other than it behaves faster. Let me know if you find anything. If you are running WordPress on your own site, you can get the update here: wordpress.org.

My number one reason to upgrade so far?  Re-scanning comments for spam.  If you come back from a trip and find yourself having 200 comments to regulate, you can re-scan them with Akismet in case others have contributed to the akismet comment spam database.

Mandolin

I don’t play the mandolin.  However, I’m going to learn (like the unicycle I have yet to finish learning how to ride – but its hard to practice in the snow we’ve been having).  I got an inexpensive mandolin online.  But its bridge was more warped than Pauly Shore.  That is to say that its very, very much like a human being, only not quite right.  Wait, mandolin bridges are not like humans, but they are like shaped pieces of wood.  Shaped pieces of wood that should probably not be twisted like licorice.  Twisted pieces of rosewood that shouldn’t look like this:

Bent Rosewood bridge

I ordered a new bridge from some online music store (which hasn’t arrived yet).  Total money spent?  $37.00.  Yeah for cheap learning instruments.  Once I get familiar with it, I’ll have to save up and get a top dollar mandolin.  One like one of these.

Mydo Kawa

So I was listening to a station on Pandora.  This band comes on and starts sining, “Mydo Kawa.”  I was thinking to myself, “These guys sound white enough, but that’s surely some oriental language.”  Turns out its the Steve Miller Band and he’s singing “My Dark Hour.”  Enunciate!  Or move to Canada, learn to enunciate and then sing your silly songs.  Mydo Kawa!

Taxes

So today (a day late) we sent in our quarterly taxes to the IRS.  Fortunately for them we’re not one of the huge number of federal employees who are giving them headaches by not filing their taxes… from last year or before.  You can read a little about it here.  I love a good tax story as much as the next person, which is to say not at all.  Taxes are possibly more certain than death because some people have been frozen and aren’t technically dead.  Of course the other side of it is that I’d rather pay taxes than die right now.  To be honest I find that as my finances turn more and more into digital transactions taking place off in the ether of the interwebs and telephone lines on computers run by mega-corporations I don’t think about money like I used to when I was dealing with cold hard cash, so paying taxes has turned into part of being inside of the matrix.  I hate it, but its what makes me feel alive.  And I like this steak – even if it isn’t real.

Pray for My Friend

I have a friend who will remain nameless due to my not having asked for permission to publish any information, but he was one of the ushers in my wedding in 1998.  He is 28.  Last November or December he was diagnosed with cancer in his man-parts, they cut that out and then discovered that he had it in his lymph nodes.  Friday they discovered it had spread to his chest and into his lungs.  Pray for this anonymous guy.  He’s married and has three children.  God knows who he is and what he needs, but in all of this I also know that there are real emotions, real hearts and real lives being effected.  Thanks.