Remember when Top 40 singers could really sing and play instruments and write music all on their own and then sound the same live as they did on the record?
A pure musical masterpiece, here’s Joni Mitchell with a live rendition of “Help Me”. One of my favorite songs of all time.
Back in 2005 when we purchased the Acura RSX I talked about the fact that I had dreams of driving this car in the desert. I wanted to drive fast on the open road where I could legally do so.
It is six years later and I have not made this dream come true yet. The farthest west I’ve been in the car is just beyond St. Louis. Earl and I have been toying with the idea of getting a new car and I have been eyeing a new Jeep Wrangler. While this would be quite fun, it doesn’t quite make economic sense for a couple of reasons, including the fact that gas is damn expensive and I have a lengthy commute.
This morning before work I did a little research into all weather tires for the Acura, after all, the thought behind replacing it is because I don’t drive the car all year ’round. All weather tires aren’t nearly as bad as I thought they would be. I actually could buy all year tires and performance tires for the amount of money I thought just all year tires would be. The car is paid for and running quite well, so why would I want to add a car payment to the budget when I don’t have to? Just to drive something newer?
So I’ve been thinking that we need to keep the Acura for as long it’s economically feasible. Writing this down in my blog is my way of cementing that thought process. Besides, I look damn good behind the wheel and the car still handles like a dream. A little detailing and TLC and he’s ready to go vroom again.
Besides, we still have an appointment with the salt flats.
I’m officially giving up on the American news media. This morning I listened to some woman use her “very spooky and scary” newscaster voice announce that stalkers are using the iPhones of mothers to steal children. The iPhone tags the photos with your GPS coordinates and when you upload your photo to Facebook, bad men are watching and will swoop in and steal your children right on the spot. At the very worst, they know where you have been.
The spooky and scary woman failed to mention:
– any sort of statistic as to how many of these abductions have happened
– how they’re getting the phones from the Moms
– the fact that most phones and many digital cameras do this, not just the iPhone
– the fact that the feature can easily be turned off
– any viable sense of urgency as to why this is headline news
Fox News is known for it’s rampant fear mongering (except to those that swear it’s the gospel) but most other news outlets are in it for the ratings and/or pledge money, so I don’t think any of them can be trusted. It’s kind of sad, but the most unbiased reports come from outside of the country… BBC, CBC, etc. Heck, even the English version of Al Jazeera gives a more balanced view. That’s kind of sad to me.
So for the morning commute I am sticking to tech podcasts, Stars on 45 and some of the GLBT podcasts. When I snap a photo of my ride, you’ll know where I am.
Just don’t steal my iPhone.
I am totally addicted to Words With Friends, the Scrabble-like game on the iPhone, iPad, iPod and Android devices. I seem to recall reading that you could play through Facebook but I haven’t figured out how, yet.
I used to use a dictionary program to nudge me along but I stopped that a while back, it’s better to exercise the brain. I’m still kicking some major butt so all is well. Once in a while Earl will step in for one of my turns he’s gone on business so it’s all me.
If you want to play, my username is imachias.
Back to the game…
The headache was due to a wonky caloric thing. I just had a cheeseburger breadstick at Dunkin’ Donuts and the headache is gone. The cheeseburger breadstick suspiciously looks and acts like a HotPocket but I can deal.
I need to adjust something in the diet this week. It’s fun living as your own science experiment.
The DD site does not list the calorie information for this stuffed breadstick, so I’ll just assign in 300 calories and leave it at that. I have no idea if that’s accurate or not.
The healthy eating bit is moving along fairly well this week. I am maintaining am building new eating habits again. They don’t really stick unless you’ve done them for at least 30 days in a row, and it’s only day 10. Ock. The only issue I’m having right now is I have a constant urge to gnaw on the side of my desk or something because I am always hungry. For lunch I had a beautiful sandwich made by the husbear and a little granola square chocolate thing that I ate in two bites. I have an apple waiting at my desk for when I get back to the office, despite the fact that I am not a teacher. Nevertheless, I am hungry right now, have been hungry for the past 20 minutes (since the completion of said granola square consumption) and I am eyeing the myriad of drive thrus that currently surround me. I am reciting the venomous chant of “saturated fat, saturated fat” to keep me motivated.
I added fruit back into the diet yesterday: a banana at breakfast and an apple at lunch. First of all, I am discovering that I’m not really an apple fan unless it’s in a pie or in a crisp. Raw apples do very little for me. I blame the fruit for making me feel hungry; I always feel hungrier after I eat the fruit versus prior to eating it. I do okay with bananas but the thing that bothers me about a banana is the “banana stomach” that comes about 30 minutes after consumption. Plus, I’ve heard that bananas might not be the best fruit for one to snack on. It’s got to be better than durian.
I’m trying to decide if the oncoming headache is related to being hungry or instead to the fact that the outside temperature yo-yos between 30 and 70 depending on the hour. Today I’m wearing a winter coat, tomorrow I’ll probably be want to be wearing my shorts to work.
I think I need to go through the DD drive thru and get an iced tea or something. I don’t want to be surly.
On the drive in this morning I took the opportunity to listen to the news. I don’t do this very often because hearing about the stupidity that is rampant in our country has a tendency to raise my blood pressure and sure enough, this little nugget of news did the trick.
The Town of Clifton Park (outside of Albany) is defining what constitutes a family in an effort to control the number of people living in a residential home. They’re trying to avoid the problem of single-family homes becoming boarding houses. They’re apparently worried about the wrong kind of urban sprawl (in their eyes). I see a veil of masked white supremacy, but then again, I can be cynical at times.
Quite frankly I hate this kind of shit.
Here’s the thing. First of all, I have the best biological family and in-laws in the world. I would not change one branch of my biological and related family tree. I love them and they love us and I am always quite grateful for that. But in addition to that which we were born and or married into, Earl and I have our own family. It might not be the traditional family unit that could be found next door to The Cleavers back in 1961 but it’s our family nonetheless and as a family unit, we are quite happy. There’s common ideals, there’s common hope and most importantly, there’s love. So if we lived in the Town of Clifton Park, we wouldn’t be able to have our family living under the same roof. Our home, which contains Earl and me, Jamie, Scott and the regular visits from Dave wouldn’t be possible, because we’re not blood related, Earl and I haven’t adopted anyone and the state of New York isn’t letting anyone of our ilk get married anytime soon. So basically, if we lived in the cranky town of Clifton Park, “do-gooders” (as my grandfather was fond of calling them) would be serving us papers, people would be picketing, Girls Scouts wouldn’t be allowed to sell us girl scout cookies (not even a box of Samoas) and then there would be lawsuits, a lack of a finely manicured landscaping around a beautiful house in ways only the gay can do and then I’d have to end the whole ordeal by firing a shotgun in the air like Ma Ingalls did when they were fighting over who was going to own Walnut Grove.
Why can’t the Town of Clifton Park just let people live and let live and not worry about defining the “family unit”. What makes a family? I’ve seen blood relations damn near kill each other. Would you want your neighbors to be the group that lives with one another in harmony, even though they’re not blood related or married, or a bunch of biologically related people who hate each other, throw knives, blow up cars and let their dogs poop in the lawn, but by god they’re blood related and/or got married in Vegas at a place where the Minister yells the vows back through the clown’s mouth at the drive thru stand?
Thought so.
Just another reason to add to my famous quote of: “Albany blows”. (I know, it’s Clifton Park, but it’s still in the general area, and if they’re going to be general, I’m going to be general).
As we entered the office a week ago last Friday, we found one of our third shift co-workers holding the door open and watching for an ambulance. One of the technicians on the floor was experiencing chest pains, numbness and shortness of breath. The ambulance arrived just after we did, in the meantime I went int my stash of aspirin and offered the technician two of them, because I heard that’s what you should do when you’re having those kinds of symptoms. The ambulance came and the technicians did their thing before taking him away on a stretcher. They took him to a hospital in Albany.
I had spoken with this person only a couple of times since our shifts didn’t really allow us to cross paths, but he seemed nice enough and appeared to have a pleasant disposition. He probably would have been considered a ‘straight bear’. He had thanked me for the aspirin.
He passed on this past Friday evening. He had been in the ICU since arriving at the hospital. We had taken a collection for his family to help with the cost of staying in a hotel near the hospital. This morning one of his sons was given the money to help with the cost of the funeral arrangements. Services will be out of state near Chicago.
The cycle of life.
The kitchen is starting to look like a kitchen again and Earl and I are both thrilled.
Friday evening we received word that the dishwasher and refrigerator had arrived, so on Saturday morning we headed out to Syracuse and picked them up at the warehouse.
Saturday afternoon it was all about teamwork as Earl and I disassembled, moved and then reassembled the refrigerator in the the kitchen. The installation only took an hour or so once we had it in the general vicinity of where it needed to go. After that was done, it was onto the dishwasher where we installed that like the home improvements experts that we strive to be. No leaks on the first try on both the refrigerator and the dishwasher, so we were pleased.
Today we’ve spent most of the day getting the kitchen back into shape and finding new gadgets and doo-dads to populate the countertops.
The observant viewer will notice in the picture above that we are still without a stove. That’s coming from Lowe’s and it will be here within the next couple of weeks. In the meantime it’ll be about the panini grill and the crockpot when it comes to supper assembly.
People fascinate me. I know I rant about people from time to time, and I do subscribe to the theory that our society is in a nosedive at e moment, but on the whole I find people to be quite interesting. I could sit in a secluded spot and watch people all day. I can even be motivated to interact with folks from time to time, but I’m happiest just watching people get through their daily activities. It would seem that this would attract me to the reality shows, but there’s very little that’s real in a reality show.
Sitting in the parking lot and typing on my iPad at lunch time affords me an opportunity to see what’s going on. I park in a corner, facing out, so I can see people come in and out of the stores in the plaza. There is usually a small row of cars situated near me where I presume the occupants are doing the same thing as I am; enjoying their lunch and watching the goings on of the natives. I find this to be very relaxing. Plus, it keeps me on diet.
Earlier in the week I ranted a little bit about parking habits and the disregard of following the law of the parking lot lately. It still irks me, but I have noticed that its more likely to be true the more expensive the car is. There are exceptions to this observation, age seems to play a factor as well, but nonetheless, just formulating the observations is interesting in itself.
One of the reasons I enjoy commercial flying is because I can sit in the airport and watch complete strangers navigate their way through mazes of corridors, expensive eateries and ridiculous security procedures. The way people handle these things is intriguing. It’s unfortunate that the new security precautions prohibit this from becoming a weekend pastime, but those outside of the sacred, radiation/xray free area are not nearly as interesting as those that have had their toothpaste confiscated.
People watching makes me feel relaxed and grounded. It’s probably odd that I want to do this from a distance, but that’s what odd folks like me do.
– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Just a guy with a husband. We’ve been together 28 years and he still makes me see fireworks on a daily basis. Hiker. Storm Chaser. Private Pilot. Tech Guy. Hackerish.
Weird? Eccentric!