R.I.P. Dave

Today a friend died. Dave, or Big Dave as we affectionately called him, as he was, well, a big guy. The details are still a bit sketchy but it sounds like he went out last nite and got a bit drunk. Some friends drove him home and when they called him to go and pick up his car this morning, he never answered the phone. His friends got concerned and went to his home and found him. It appears that he died in his sleep. He was 56.

One of my favorite memories of him happened about 10-12 years ago. Hubby and I went with Dave and Debbie to the Franksville Kraut Festival. Sounds exciting eh?? It is nothing more than a festival whose theme is the sauerkraut that is made there. But they have beer and usually good music so we go. Some of the details have faded a bit so not sure about the exact order of events. We spend most of a Sunday afternoon there and when we were getting ready to leave Dave went to get in the car and tore his pants. From the waistband in back to the fly in front. It was hilarious. So we stop at my parents on the way home to say hi and grab a towel so Dave can cover up in it a bit. We make him get back outta the car and come into the house to visit for a bit. He was an ornery crank over that. We leave my folks house and head towards the bar to drop everyone off at their cars. Debbie, hubby and I decide to go into the bar to have a beverage and drag a very unwilling Dave into the bar and he has to sit there with a pool towel tied around his waist, drinking a beer.

Thinking about it today make me realize how lucky we are to have the amazing friends we do. They will do anything for you and are there for us whenever we need them. And always ready to help us drink a beer or two.

Just a Zobmondo

ZOBMONDO!!

Would you rather....

be dating someone who insists that every electric device in both of your homes be controlled by those "clap on, clap off" devices

----OR----

that every piece of furniture have plastic covers?

I am going with the plastic covers. I hate the clapper devices and would probably go postal if I had to use them.

Have a good weekend, folks!

Stealing From Others

Since I cannot think of anything to write about today, I am going to steal some topics from a few other folks. I liked what they had to say and have some to add to it.

Let's start with StB. He talked about things he has learned over the last few days. I can't let a few of those topics go by without commenting on them.

• He could save alot of money by purchasing a hair trimmer thing. Ok, Bruce Clark. You might as well get a Flo-bee not just a trimmer. There are better ways to save money.
• Co-workers not following directions. Some days it seems like I spend most of the time cleaning up after others. Doing the shit that they messed up and can't figure out how to fix. One of the girls (ok, woman, she is in her 50's) on my team is consistently late for things. She has more excuses than Carter has liver pills. We have a daily meeting that starts at 8:15 am. She is almost always the last person on the line. Another example of stupid people at work...One of the guys I work with had to put in some changes to a system that is used by 24 hour banking and this needs to be done off hours. The code migration guy who was supposed to actually do the change failed to show up at 2:00 am yesterday morning. His excuse... he was too tired. WTF??? Two other people who needed to be there to validate the change got their asses outta bed. These are grown men, not 22 year olds who were out partying until then.
• Don't even think about buying your pants outta that flyer. I have seen you when you dress up, you clean up well. Don't ruin it by getting some icky pants. We would have to burn them at the next campfire.

Next blog theft is from DJW. He comments about the PBR Martini. Not a big fan of the Blue Ribbon but that does sound mighty tasty. Also, the power windows in his van got a work out. Dave, you cannot smell as bad as E. Nothing should ever smell that bad and not be dead.

Now for my original (sorta) material.

ZOBMONDO!!

Would you rather....

Have regular encounters with aliens and not have any proof

----OR----

have your best friend invisible?

I am going with the aliens, I think. Well, maybe not.... I believe that there are other life forms in the universe but not so sure I want to meet with them on a regular basis. I am pretty sure that they would not eat Reeses Pieces and revive the yellow flower that I don't know the name of.

Busted

I seen the best thing this morning when driving to work. It made my whole day. I am driving along Rawson Ave approaching 13th St. The light is red and there are two cars in front of me and a cop on my left. As I approach the light, it turns green and a car goes tearing thru the intersection. The cop turns on his lights and pulls the guy over. I loved it. People try blowing thru that intersection quite often and it was nice to see the cops getting the guy. Now if they could patrol 124th and Capitol, life would be great. There are times when 5-6 cars turning left on to 124th blow thru the red.

ZOBMONDO!

Would you rather.....

Stick your hand into a sealed box of rattlesnakes

----OR----

stick your hand into a box filled with an unknown contents that are making a mechanical buzzing sound?

I am going with the buzzing sound. It could be a box of vibrators for all I know. How much fun could that be?!?!

A Milestone

I noticed that this is my 50th post. Wow, who would have thought that I would have stuck with this blogging stuff long enough to do it 50 times?? I kinda like it. It is a way for me to vent.


I got my new bike. It is so cool. I love it. We went with P&K to go pick it out on Sat. As K said, it was so much fun spending someone else's money. It weighs about 15 lbs. Pink and grey as you can see from the pics. Right now it kinda looks kinda freaky/funky with the orange trainer tire on the back and with my blue shoes. It will look better when I ride it outside with the black tire on it. The orange one is for using on my trainer only and not for outside. I am going to put some grey pedals on it and am going to get a pink and grey helmet that will match. I had looked at some either blue or yellow pedals but it kinda looked like someone threw up on it. I figured that if I get the pink pedals it will look a bit too foo-fooey, so I am sticking with the grey ones for now. I rode for an hour yesterday and today and really like how smooth it shifts and rides. A huge difference from my hybrid bike. If you live in southeastern part of Wisconsin, I highly recommend visiting Jesse at the Hales Corners Wheel & Sprocket store. We got a fantastic deal on both of our bikes.

ZOBMONDO!

Would you rather.....

Die before your spouse of fifty years does, knowing he or she will be heartbroken for another twenty years

----OR----

watch your spouse die before you after fifty years together?

Damn, this is a hard one. Do I want to be heartbroken for twenty years or have my hubby heartbroken for twenty years?? I think I would rather die first. I don't know if I could stand being heartbroken for another twenty years. My grandpa had always said that he wished he would have died when my grandma died because he spent almost twenty years after that being so lonely and missed her so much.

have a good week all..

Strange Gum Sayings

A few weeks ago, I went to Sam's Club to buy gum. I tend to chew a lot of gum at work. It is a good stress reliever. Chomp on gum, instead of yell at someone for being stupid. It is easier and cheaper to buy it in bulk. The flavor this time is Dentyne Fire. They have repackaged the gum recently into a little tri-fold type box instead of flimsy paper or push thru tinfoil. One of the things they have started including in their packaging is a thing called Dentyne-isms. Here are the ones in the packs I have opened recently.

#168 - Sticks and stones may break my bones, but rug burn really hurts.
#158 - Surfing used to be done in the water. Now it's done mostly at work.

WTF?!?! I don't get what it has to do with gum. But the first one is a bit odd to put in gum. My first thoughts were "get off your knees!". Maybe that is just my warped sense of humor....

One of the guys I work with in Portland found a link to this totally hilarious eBay auction. He had sent this to me back in November and I just found the email again. You used to be able to see the questions that folks had asked the seller. They were too funny. I wish I wouthought thoguht to post that a few months especiallyspecally love the pirate comments.

It is snowing out again. I had to go out and shovel the lawn so Riley could poo. He had to go so bad, and could barely wait for me to finish shoveling a 3x3 area for him to go. I will have hubby snowblow the rest of the lawn tomorrow morning. I have to say that it is nice outside. The neighborhood is quiet and peaceful.

ZOBMONDO!

Would you rather...accidentallycidently hit in the head very hard with a sock with a potato in it

----OR----

with a rubber hose??

I am going with the rubber hose. Potatos (or is it potatoes?? Damn, where is Al Gore when I need him??) are hard.

The factiod to go with this is 'Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories in an hour.' Who would have thunk it.

Momma Needs a New Pair of Shoes

I know it has been a few days since my last post. It seems like the evenings just race by and soon it is time for bed. That and American Idol was on for the last couple of nites. It was too much fun to watch how bad some of these people are. I loved the guy from Chicago that sang "I Shot the sheriff" and the only words he knew were "I shot the sheriff but I did not shoot the deputy." He must have repeated it about a dozen times. He would sing the line, wait about 5-6 seconds and sing the rest of the line. The look on Simon's face was priceless. Then last nite was good as well. I am not sure what makes these people think they can sing. There was one girl who had a really bad tan and really bad blond dye job. Simon asked her about her tan and she said that she was from Chicago or something. Then he asked her again about her tan and she replied that she was going to sing some song. The third time he asked about her tan she is like yeah, I'm tan.... When she was done singing, the judges asked to speak to her mom and she was just as ditzy as the daughter. boy, oh boy.

We went to buy hubby a new road bike last nite. He got a really good deal on it. He can pick it up next week and can't wait to use it once it warms up outside. I bought a new pair of shoes for my bike. I have to say that this was the most expensive pair of shoes that I have ever bought before. I am not a shoe person and own more athletic shoes than I do other shoes. They are a very pretty blue. I can't wait to get my new bike and ride it, hoping that I can used to riding it inside on my trainer with my new shoes so that I don't fall on my ass when I can finally move outside and ride.

ZOBMONDO!!

Would you rather....

Walk around from now on wearing shoes with little suction cups

----OR----

metal cleats on the bottom?

I am going with the metal cleats. That would kinda be like walking in my new biking shoes.

Happy MLK Day

Federal Holidays.... gotta love them. When you work for a bank, you get all these crazy federal holidays off. I'm not saying that the reason for the day is crazy or a bad idea, just that I would rather have the day after Thanksgiving off than today.

It was a productive day tho'. My cd burner in my pc is on its way out. I was going to buy a new one but figured for the extra 30 bucks I could get a dvd burner instead. So that was my project for today. I get my screwdriver out and the vacuum cleaner. I know from experience that the inside of the case is going to be dusty. OMG!! I could have had a family of dust bunnies living in there. No wonder it has been crankin' lately. It took me about 10 minutes to put the new burner in and take out my old cd drive. It took me 30 minutes to get all the crap out from the inside. I highly recommend taking the cover off of your pc every so often and cleaning it out. Air in a can is good for that as well. Now it runs like new. I am getting to the point where I am running out of space. My main drive is a13 gig drive and I am getting very close to running out of room. My second drive is a 60 gig and I have about 18 gig left. Do I get a new pc or get another hard drive?? I just hate the thought of configuring another pc to get all the garbage off of it that they stick on there.

Once I took the old drive out , I put it in the box with all my other spare parts. Which led me to cleaning out my old software bucket. I threw out several copies of Windows 95/98. There was a bunch of crap software that I had from my techie days. Most of it is now in the trash. It felt good to get that stuff cleaned up.

Had the gang over for a 'football' party on Sat. It was a fun time. Played some poker that went on way too long. I took out hubby ( pocket A to his pocket K) , Tim (I had quad 9) and Andy (pocket A). StB and I ended up the last two and just split the pot cuz we were both tired of playing. I would have these type of evenings every weekend. Just hanging out with good friends and beer.

Sunday was a lazy day. Did nothing except the dishes left from Sat.

ZOBMONDO!

Would you rather....

While trying to fight off a polar bear, be armed with a stun gun

----OR----

A spear?

I am going with the stun gun. I am not sure I would be strong enough to kill the bear with a spear.

Another Day, Another Dollar

I am going to start today's post out with a message to DJW. QUIT DELETING YOUR BLOG EVERY FEW WEEKS. We enjoy reading it, most of the time. Yeah, you may have a few drunk and stupid posts but hey, don't we all. That is the fun of it. You can look back at it and say WOW! How drunk was I?? PS I hope you are still going to be at the party on Sat. It should be a good time.

Ok, on to other stuff....

A fun little trick to try. Go to Google and type 'failure' in the search box. Then click I'm Feeling lucky! Gotta love the result it returns. Just a bit of fun for today.

My rant for today is about what people wear or don't wear to work. I work for a bank in their IT division. My building for the most part is made up of older programmers and computer geeks. Most of the time, we are lucky they wear clothes. This has more to do with the women who work there. The dress code is business casual. Heavy on the casual. But since when did a scrub top become business casual. Unless you work in a medical facility, scrubs should not be part of your work clothes rotation. I could see this maybe happening on a Friday when it is a jeans day. But a Wednesday?? I don't get it.

The second part to this is the women who still wear the tight stirrup pants with the 1 inch pump and longer sweater. Get into the 21st century lady! This is her attire for at least two days a week. It was not a good look back in the early 90's let alone now. And if you are going to wear light colored pants, wear light colored underwear. Not saying you have to wear a thong but do not wear a light tan pant with a dark flowered underwear. Do you not look at yourself in a mirror before you leave the house?!?! The same thing goes for light colored tops and a dark bra. You are not a fashion model so don't think you can pull off that look.

Now this next part is geared toward the gals who like to wear pants that are cut low in the back. I do not, I repeat, do not want to see the back of your underwear either (also included in this is seeing your crack). Now if we are out in a bar or something, I don't care. I just think that it not appropriate to wear for work. I am no fashion plate and tend to be fairly conservative in my work dressing. But I would like to think that I can dress myself without looking like I just stepped out of the trailer park.

Whew!! Enough about that already!

ZOBMONDO!!

Would you rather...

Slide down a 1,000 foot rope with every part of you body covered except for your hands

----OR----

do the same thing wearing only gloves and shorts?

I am going with gloves and shorts. No real reason as to why.... just cuz..

A Bit of Reality

I am addicted to reality shows. I like the Biggest Loser. American Idol, Survivor and Amazing Race rock. I am gearing up for the new season of these shows to begin in the next few weeks. I am thinking about running a Survivor pool again. Those of you who are interested, drop me a line. I will be sending out an email to those of you who have participated in the past.

So on the Biggest Loser last week it was families competing. There was a teenage girl on there who had a pink tshirt that said 'Trust me, I'm a Blonde' She was not really blonde. But it was a cute shirt. I wonder if this was the inspiration for Blonde to start her blog?? I know she is a blonde as you can see glimpse of her hair on some of her pics. This week was engaged couples. The one couple lost 55 lbs. in two weeks. Now they have to go home for the next five months and continue to lose weight. The winning couple gets a 50,000 dream wedding. It is cool to see how motivated these people are and how well they do. The week we will see who won.

Mike McCarthy. Who is that you ask?? Apparently that is the next coach of the Packers. He was the offensive coordinator at San Fran and was the QB coach under Ray Rhodes. Should be interesting. I wonder if they hired him because Favre will be back next year and they wanted someone Brett was familiar with. Only time will tell.

ZOBMONDO!

Would you rather....
Give birth to a child knowing there is a 25% chance you'll die during childbirth

----OR----
never have children of your own??

Going with the no kid option. Never had 'em, never will. This is intentional. Everytime, I think maybe, just maybe I may want them. I jus have to look at my sister's rugrats. Cures that urge everytime. Plus, it is hard enough trying to find a good dog sitter, let alone a babysitter. I would never stick my parents with that. They watch my sister's kids way too much.

'Having children is like having a bowling alley installed in your brain' -Martin Mull.

Sunny or Not...

So, John Malan said that it was sunny out today. I wouldn't know. It was dark when I left for work and almost dark when I went home. There was just enough light outside for me to do a once over of the yard and pick up doggy doo.

Have to make some comments about StB's blog today. He talked about how bad Milwaukee radio is. I agree. The first few weeks of the Hog coming on board, I was lovin' it. Lovin' every minute of it. Now it seems like I am hearing alot of fluff. It seems like George Thorogood is on every hour. No more Styx, Robert Palmer and more newer, heavier stuff. I like Jet, System of a Down and Red Hot Chili Peppers. That is why I listen to my iPod most of the time at work.

I have found a station out of Madison that is pretty good. Charlie FM plays everything.... and I mean everything. We found it while camping this past summer. You will hear new stuff, heavy stuff, classic rock, country, 50's and 60's and even a bit of Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. It is almost like listening to my iPod.

He also talks about creepy commercials. How about the Burger King ones. That king dude reminds me of a pyscho stalker. The one where he is in bed with a guy for breakfast sandwiches or the new one where it is a take off of King Kong and he is peering in the window of the blonde.. Just way to creepy. I won't eat there just because I hate their commercials.

Well, enough piggybacking off of StB's blog, it is time for

ZOBMONDO!

Would you rather....

Get a bad case of poison ivy way up inside your nose

----OR----

inside your inner ear?

I am going with the ear. Less gross to scratch all day.

...and the winner is....

DING!! DING!! DING!! the winner is DJW. ok, so he was the only one who ventured a guess. Those were picture of my tulips. I know that I am not a garden/flower growing person but I do know that tulips should not be blooming in January. Our lilac bush is also budding. I am going to have to buy fake flowers to plant this summer as everything is blooming now and will be dead my spring.

ZOBMONDO!

Would you rather....

As a lumberjack 100 feet up a large tree, suddenly come upon a hive of bees

----OR----

come across an angry nesting eagle?

Have to go with the eagle. I do not like bees.

What are you looking at?

I took these pictures today. Can anyone guess what it is??? I seen this and freaked out. I will post the answer tomorrow.

What a Crappy Sunday

What a screwed up Sunday. it started about 8:00am this morning when my pager goes off. We have a issue that no automated tickets are being created from the mainframe. hmmmmm...... suspicious already. Network and Midrange tickets are still being created but not the mainframe. So I get all the people needed together for a conference call. This was about 9:15 am. It is now after 1:00pm and we are still going around and round trying to figure out what the f*#% is going on. Automation is saying that it is the CIC interface, CIC interface is saying that it is OPAS (my app). I am saying it is not me. If it were my app, it would be all or nothing. Not some tickets can be created and others cannot. So, have to join back into the conference line in about 10 minutes to see if there are any updates. The sucky thing is that tonight I have the database maintenance to do. That will go from about 7:45pm until about 11:00pm. What a way to ruin a whole freakin' day. Hubby is so happy (not) that we are not getting anything done today. Needed to go grocery shopping and wanted to get the basement cleaned up for the football party next Sat. I love my job, I love my job, I love my job..... the bad part is I really do like my job but just not this part of it. We are 24x7 support and it is my week for being on call.

ZOBMONDO!

Would you rather....

Be trapped in jail with a guard that hates you

----OR----

with a cell mate who hates you?

I have to go with the cell mate who hates me. No real reason why. Guards tend to have guns.

Being a Nerd

I figured I had better put a new post up before the blog police get me. Thanks for the heads up DJW and Whiskey.

So I found a link to a nerd test. I thought I would share my results for you all to see.

These results surprised me. I thought I would have been nerdier than that. I would consider myself somewhat more of a computer geek that a nerd tho'. I am actually writing this in HTML instead of in WYSIWYG. It is just easier to make it look like I want. You can click on the image and take the test for yourself. Feel free to post your score in the comments.

It is still cloudy out and I am still crabby. I hope we get some sun soon! or I may go crazy....

When driving the to store last nite to pick up dinner, I noticed how many people still have there Christmas lights up and on. The Epiphany was yesterday, time for the lights to come down. That is the last acceptable day to have your decorations up (at least in my book). But then again, these are the same people who had them up and on two days after Thanksgiving. I had my Christmas stuff down and put away on the 26th.

ZOBMONDO!

Would you rather....

Always have to write with your nondominant hand

----OR----

always have to write with your eyes closed?

I am going with the nondominant hand. Eventually my writing will become legible due to all the practice.

Factoids: More than 2,500 left handed people die every year from using right handed products. Right handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left handed people do.

Cloudy and Crabby

I have found myself over the last few days being really crabby and starting to get short with people. I think that it has to do with the weather. It has been cloudy here forever, it seems. I miss the sun. I guess the good part of that is that it is warm out. Today's high was 41 and the low was 38. Not a big change. It has been like that for about two weeks now. Supposedly, the sun may peek out of the clouds on Friday. I hope so. I hate being crabby.

I just finished watching a really cute movie. Calendar Girls. Based on a true story about a group of 50-ish women from England, who put together a tastefully nude calendar to purchase a sofa for the local hospital where one of the women, Annie's huband recently passed away from leukemia. Long story, short, they end up on Jay Leno and make a ton of money for the hospital. It gets two thumbs up!

Was watching the start of the Rose Bowl tonite. Noticed that the USC cheerleaders had on really cute sweaters. They had a rose image behing the USC logo. Too bad they didn't fill out those sweaters better. Most had the chest of a 10 year old. Guess they don't teach Sweater Kitten 101 in college any more :(

ZOBMONDO!

Would you rather....

Have to dangle from a 1,000 foot cliff on a rope tied to a tree and choose to tie the knot yourself

----OR----

trust an Eagle Scout with a knot tying merit badge to tie it?

Going with the Eagle Scout on this one. Some days I can barely tie my shoes. But I tend to be fairly good at tying one on ;)

I Got Nothing

I really don't have much to say today. Sherman was fired as the coach of the Packers (yeah!), Alvarez retired from coaching the Badgers (sad).

ZOBMONDO!

Would you rather....

Show up noticeably drunk on a national TV show

----OR----

roaring drunk at your child's college graduation?

Since I don't have any kids and it is looking like my pups won't get into college, I have to go with showing up drunk on TV.

Happy New Year

Well, it is almost 5:00pm and I have finally rolled my ass outta bed for good today. We got home last nite about 3:30 or so and it was about 4 when we went to bed. Rufus got me up about 6 cuz he had to poo. About 10:30am we got up for the first time. Started watching the Packer game and fell asleep on the couch with the pups. It was about 4ish or so when I finally woke up. What a lazy ass day.

Went to P&K's last nite. Was a blast. We played 'Shout it out' dvd game. Guys won 2 out of 3 games. It was only cuz they had 'Bob, in the back' that they won. He was good.

We took a break for midnight and had to replay it cuz we were not organized enough to have everything ready at midnight. Note to self - keep kimie away from the champagne, makes her loopy.

Then it was time for the White Elephant gift exchange. Be afraid, very afraid. I wish I would have brought my camera. We needed the evidence. Hubby picked up a very handy chest builder exercise equipment thingy. You probably remember it. It has three metal springs that are attached to handles. It was all stretched out and promptly went into the garbage cart when we got home. P&K picked up a very nice set of wall decorations. A two foot tall cactus and matching gecko. K got the 6 pack of tap lights that suck up batteries. But there were only 5 in the box. I lost the other one. and I picked up the ever popular dancing hound dog that sings Elvis along with the freaking bag of used golf balls that keep going back and forth between us and A&A. Just be prepared. You never know when they may show back up again.

All in all we had a great time. I hope every one else had a fab evening and stayed safe.

ZOBMONDO!

Would you rather...
Have to spend an entire pro basketball game with your face sticking right about the rim

----OR----

an entire hockey game with your face sticking out into the middle of the goal net?

I would say the hockey net. There are about 40 shots on goal in a game compared to about 200 per basketball game.