Another Day... Another Dollar....

The holiday weekend was once again way too short. Saturday was spent doing lots of yardwork. We have a woodsy, brushy area on the back of our lot that butts up against the electric company easement. It is just a mess of crappy trees (with big old thorns!) and lots of underbrush. There are a couple of nice trees that are trying to grow back there if it weren't for all the other crap. So we have been trying to clear out some of the crap. We made a dent in it on Saturday but still have a long way to go. There are a couple of big dead trees that will need to come down eventually. It will make for some nice firewood. (hint, we need strong guys with big chainsaws). I think we even have a grapevine growing back there....

Hubby and I have been gearing up for our big ride next Saturday. The Trek 100 Ride for Hope in support of the MACC Fund (Midwest Athletes for Childhood Cancer). We are riding 37 miles. We are still looking for donations, click here to donate. Thanks to all of you who have already donated! It is much appreciated by us and I know that the MACC fund will also appreciate it as well. So for the last week we have been riding longer rides. I was out yesterday morning and did 28 miles before it got too hot out. I feel pretty comfortable that we will be able to complete the 37 miles without any problems. It is looking like it will be a nice day out, not too hot. I hope that I feel well enough to hit the Admirals game later that nite as they play for the Calder Cup championship. Anyone interested in going??

I read in the paper today that this past weekend saw 28 shootings and 4 deaths in the city of Milwaukee. I just don't get it. Why do people think that killing someone is the way to resolve a dispute. Some idiot shot 5 people in a park yesterday afternoon. Police think it was some sort of a domestic dispute. This is a fairly nice park that we occasionally ride our bikes thru. I think that as it gets warmer outside, tempers will flare and there will be more violence. I just wish that people would understand that there are better ways to do things.....

ZOBMONDO!!

Would you rather....

Always almost have to sneeze

----OR----

hit your funny bone every 15 minutes?

I am going with the sneezing. Hitting my funny bone creeps me out. I hate that feeling! Have a good week everyone.

Random Stuff

Just a bunch of stuff today....

From cnn.com... This may benefit all of my non-Wisconsin readers (all 7 of you according to today's Stat Counter) . It is a website that tells you how to pronounce many Wisconsin cities and name of people associated to the state. The person who I think could really use it is college football announcer Keith Jackson. It seems like he would always be a commentator for the Rose Bowl and would say Wes-con-sen. No E's in the spelling of our state, Keith. Good thing he is retiring again.

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What does this mean??

…employed by a bank or other organization exempt from registration under Federal and/or state securities laws to perform functions that would require him or her to be so registered or qualified if he or she were to perform such functions for an organization not so exempt…

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So you think you where drunk last weekend?? How about this guy?? 18 times the legal limit. He said he had a pint to freshen up in the morning. I know I always have a pint to keep me smelling fresh in the morning as well..

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I was driving home from work yesterday and seen a older guy driving a Nissan with Illinois plates that read 'CMLTOE' Wonder what that meant??

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My co-woker gave her notice today. This sucks. She really knows her stuff and is very good at her job. I will miss her. I will probably end up taking over most of her responsibilities.


ZOBMONDO!!

Would you rather....

Be seasick for three days straight

----OR----

Be drunk and spinning for four hours straight?

I am going with the drunk spins for four hours. Three days is way too long to feel like shit. I can be drunk, spinning and have recovered from the hangover in three days.

Camping... Fun... Work... Sucks

Ahh.... to be home again. Camping was fun. My butt is dragging. The weekend as always was way too short. Everyone had a great time camping even if it did rain. Richard took over StB's spot and answered trivia questions with the famous answer of "my balls" and E brought the nuts. The tops of my feet got really sunburned. It hurts to wear socks and they are so swollen, my right foot looks like I have a cankle. The boys even had fun.. they were pretty good and are tuckered out tonite. Here are a pictures of them 'recuperating' from the weekend.


















I took about a 2 hour nap yesterday afternoon so I could be well rested to put the software release I have been working on for the last few months into production. It was going fairly well until about 11pm.... then... BAM... our paging vendor had a telco issue so no pages were being sent from the toll free modems. CRAP!!! I was unable to test 3 of the paging related enhancements last nite and had to finish them up first thing this morning. As it was I ended up getting to bed about 2am or so. My alarm went off about 5:15 and it was way to early... The other thing that was a major headache was the process owner who had balked at wanting to test because it was soo late and didn't feel testing was necessary had to be walked through almost all of their testing because they did not know how the tool works.. I told my boss that the next release they had better have testers that knew what they were doing. I don't have time to do my job and theirs.

Hubby and I went to see United 93 a few weeks ago. We don't go to movies very often. I have a habit of falling asleep if it doesn't hold my attention. I slept thru most of Titanic (yes, I hated the movie). The movie was very good. Intense. Even though you knew what the outcome of the movie was going to be, you still had that ray of hope in the back of your mind that maybe, just maybe, it would be different. I really liked how the actors were all unknowns and they never called anyone out by a specific name. If you seen the movie, what did you think??

ZOBMONDO!!

Would you rather....

Have a little man that lives inside your mouth and incessantly hammers on your teeth with a pick

----OR----

coexist with a small bird that lives on your nose and yanks out your nose hairs at its discretion?

I have to go with the bird. My parents spent way too much money on orthodontia for me to have them ruined by a stupid little man....

Have a good week everyone!

I'm a Winner.... Dentyne-isms...Camping

I figured I had better post before the blog police come and get me. The rain has finally ended and the sun has returned. It is nice to see the sun again. Now I wish that I had time to get out and ride. Yard work takes precedence.

Winner, winner, chicken dinner…..The season finale of Survivor was Sunday evening. Aras was the winner. This is good for me as I had him in the pool. The win netted me about 100 bucks. This the first time I have won any money in a Survivor pool. It is about time. Danielle was screwed no matter who she picked. I really wanted Terry to win as he was an awesome competitor but Aras was always right there and deserved to win.

Dentyne-ism #132 – Making faces in the mirror is one of life’s great secret pleasures. I have to admit it is kinda fun.

We are going camping this weekend. I can’t wait. The weather is supposed to be decent. Nothing better than drinking beer for an entire weekend. I may have to stop and pick up a six pack of the new Leinie’s, Summer Wheat. StB compared it to Blue Moon, which I love. Hmmm… I may have to stop and pick some of that up as well. The boys like to go camping as well. This year I picked up a camp chair just for them. Coleman makes a chair called the Bone Lounger. It is perfect for both of them to sit on. Then they are up off the ground a bit. They just got their summer haircuts and look like drowned rats. Rufus especially. He is so small to begin with, now he looks like a Chihuahua instead of a Shih Tzu.

Over the last few months, I have talked about how I am working on software release for work. Finally after two months of working on it, we will be implementing it on Sunday evening. The latest headache with this is that the process owners who requested the enhancements are now pissing and moaning about how they don't want to do testing after implementation on Sunday nite. It is too late... too freakin' bad... they have from 10-11 pm for testing. It will take me until after 1am to finish up. The good thing for me it that I am set up to work from home. They will have to drive into work to do testing. These people have been nothing but a pain in the ass since day 1. I am so glad that for the release in August I don't have to work with them.

Zobmondo!!

Would you rather....

Have your spouse be disappointed in you

----OR----

have your child be disappointed in you?

Since I don't have any real children, only dogs (who are like my kids) I will go with the child being disappointed in me.

Talk to you all soon!

Trek 100 Ride for Hope

On June 3rd, hubby and I are riding in the Trek 100 Ride for Hope. It benefits the MACC fund. Midwest Athletes Against Childhood Cancer. A very worthy local charity. We are riding the 37 mile route and looking for sponsors.

You can click here to go directly to the online donation page or if you prefer, you can go to the page and print out a form to mail in your donation.

I also encourage you to check with your employer. In many cases, your employer will match your donation. It is a plus for all involved. I get the extra sponsorship dollars, your company gets a good name by donating and most importantly, the MACC fund gets more money. Plus you can get your name on the scrolling list on the side of my page.

My next door neighbors have a now 16 year old son who had a bone marrow transplant 2 summers ago due to a rare form of blood cancer. It has been a long hard struggle for them and he is continuing to fight off various ailments related to the transplant. He is currently not in school due to a potential case of the mumps at his school. His body is still not strong enough to fight off this type of illness.

Thanks for your support!!

Dentyne-ism... Family and More

Dentyne-ism - #163 - If a candy bar says "Now with real chocolate" what were you eating before? I'm not sure I want to know. Arnie, do you know what we were eating before??

My sister has three kids, 11, 5 and 3. The oldest one, C, will be entering 6th grade next fall. My sister has been trying, without success, to get C into another middle school than the one she is slated to be enrolled in. According to my sister the school she is supposed to go to is rough and has shootings at it every week. Funny, but usually school shootings make the news. I have yet to hear that on my local news. So in my sister's infinite wisdom, she has decided to pull C out of school and home school her. WTF?!?!? My first thought was that she is freakin' nuts (which she is). If she pulls C out of an organized school environment C will end up no better off than my sister. My sister is not the most dedicated person and would follow thru with the home schooling for about a week. Then it would get too hard or she would be too tired or something, then here sits my niece, not in school and certainly not learning anything. Then if my sister tried to get her back into a school the next year, C would be a year behind the rest of her age group cuz no one bothered to teach her anything. To me, school is also a place to learn social interactions and skills which my sister is lacking in. I told my mom that she better do whatever it takes to keep C in a real school next year.

For those of you who don't know, my sister is not the sharpest pencil in the box. She dropped out of school during her sophomore year. She never went back to get her GED. She has never really held a decent job, and when she did get a decent job that had benefits and insurance she quit cuz her manager didn't like her. The fact that she called in sick at least once every two weeks and was consistently late was beside the point.

Needless to say, my sister and I do not get along. I have very little to do with her unless it has to do with her kids. I thought for awhile she was on the right track. She had met a guy and they ended up getting married. He is the father of my two youngest neices. He was not the sharpest guy but seemed ok. Most of you know the rest of the story to that one. I can't repeat it here but let's just say... it is not good. He is spending the next 7 years in prison. Another brilliant move by my sister was to get pregnant thinking that there was no way the judge would put him in prison with a new baby on the way. She though wrong. She was 4 months along when he was sentenced. Just what she needed... to bring another kid in the world with no dad. Now she has three kids by two dads, both locked up. It really is amazing the difference between us. One would never guess that we have the same parents. Oh well...on to something less depressing....

ZOBMONDO!!

Would you rather....

Have a Slurpee headache for 12 hours

----OR----

diarrhea for 12 hours straight?

Once again another tough choice.... I have to go with the Slurpee headache... I don't want to deal with a sore ass for 12 hours.

Another Weekend Flies By

Another weekend has just flown by, and I wish it was longer.

Friday evening, hubby played poker and I had the house to myself. I got some much needed cleaning done and it felt good to tackle some of those jobs that I tend to put off. I hate doing floors (kitchen, bathroom) and despise dusting. .... I really need to see about getting a cleaning person. Steve, ask Carol if she is taking on anyone new.

Saturday was spent doing more yardwork and getting the camper ready for our first trip in two short weeks! I can't wait. I had to go to a laund-o-mat and wash the sleeping bags as they needed it badly. First off, I could not find one close to where I had dropped the truck off for an oil change. Since Kevin was nice enough to give me his car to run some errands, I didn't want to go traisping all over town trying to find a laund-o-mat (at least one that it not on 13th and Mitchell). Once I found one I was shocked to see that it cost $4.50 a load to wash them. WTF!?!? I guess it has been a really long time since I had ever been to one of these places and did not realize the prices. It was a good thing hubby had won lots of quarters on Friday. Oh well... they are now clean and all is well. The only thing we have to do yet is pick up the spare tire from the store and throw it on the back of the camper. Did I mention that it is only two short weeks until we go??

While at my parents doing camper stuff, my dad got out his ATV that he bought last year. He uses it for hunting. He offered to let hubby drive it around the fields a bit. Hubby has never ridden an ATV or a snowmobile before so it was kinda funny to watch hubby ride it. He started out putting around and driving over the alfalfa (which my dad told him not to do). Once he got more confident he was able to open it up a bit and take it out around the plowed fields. Some of my best memories from growing up was when I was about 10-12 and my cousins would come over and we would get to take the snowmobiles out without taking the parents with us. We would go all day long, stop for dinner and go until 7-8 at nite. Then the parents got to take them out and they went bar hopping. It is kind of amusing to think that the trails all went from bar to bar...Have to remember this was 25 years ago so, things were a bit different back then with the drinking and driving.

Today was really nice out so hubby and I went for a ride today. We took the bike path from Grant Park to the Coast Guard station. Round trip is about 18 miles. I would have liked to go longer but it was getting late and was getting hungry. Only had one minor issue. Hubby sometimes goes places without realizing were it will take him. He takes the path that goes right along the lake. I am following him, looking at the lake, it was really pretty. All of a sudden he stops right in front of me. I was only about 3 feet behind him and BAM.. I ran into him. Luckily no one fell over but I got my leg banged up pretty good. I have a nice scratch from my frame pack and a bruise from hitting hubby's pedal/chain/leg on the one leg. He had stopped cuz the pavement stopped and we can't take our bikes on the gravel. It would chew up the tires. On a good note, we did find a way to get to the park from our house without riding on a the busy or rough streets . It would add like another 7-8 miles to the trip which would make it a decent ride. We are gearing up to ride in the Trek 100 in June and want to do the 37 mile route.

ZOBMONDO!!

Would you rather....

If attacked in your home by a burglar, defend yourself with a baseball bat

----OR----

an unloaded gun?

No question, I am going for the bat. What good is the gun, if I can't shoot it??

Have a good week everyone!

Cube Etiquette

The following was posted in our building newsletter, I though it was funny so, I am plagerizing it and posting it here with my comments.

Cube etiquette.

• Speak softly so you do not disturb your co-workers. Translation: Shut the fuck up!
• Conference rooms are for meetings, cubicles are not. For confidential discussions reserve a private spot where the conversation will not be overheard. Translation: Wait, how I am ever supposed to know what the hell is going on around here if you can't shut up??
• If you overhear a private conversation, don’t repeat it. Better yet, pretend you never heard it. Translation: or put it on your blog
• Keep your private life private. Limit personal phone calls to your lunch hour and breaks. Translation: That means you 'mister-I-am-building-a-house so I have to spend 3 hours a day on the phone with contractors'
• Turn your cell phone off or take it with you when you leave your cube. Translation: Your co-workers don’t want to listen to it ring Christmas music in April.
• Respect other people’s space: Wait until your neighbor is off the telephone before approaching the cubicle. Translation: Go back to your cube and send them a million IMs wondering when they will be free... much less annoying.
• When your neighbor looks busy, don’t interrupt. Translation: Someone has to work around this place.
• If you talk ‘over the wall’ without checking your neighbor’s availability. Translation: yeah, you might be talking to yourself and pissing everyone around you off.
• Respect your space: Find a place for your things and put them where they belong. Take some time to clean up after yourself so your cube is presentable. Don’t disturb your neighbors with renovations: reorganize your cubicle after hours or on a weekend. Translation: Or just wait 6 months until they re-org the cubes again. Then you can pack up all your shit and move it somewhere else, if the movers don't toss it out for you.
• Working parents please plan for childcare. Your coworkers might enjoy children, but a nursery in the cubicle next door makes it hard to be productive. Translation: keep your stinky rugrats away from me! If I wanted kids around me, I would have had them by now.
• Be aware of smells, snacking, and screen savers. You might like the aroma of favorite cologne or food and crunchy snacks, but your neighbor might find it offensive. And if your screen saver makes noises, you might drive your neighbor out of his or her cube! Translation: No one wears Drakkar any more and neither should you, sexc1.
• Finally, if you are sick, please stay home until you are past the contagious period. Translation: I don't have kids to contaminate me, why should you! and if you are still hacking up a lung after three freaking weeks... GO TO A DOCTOR!

ZOBMONDO!!

Would you rather....

Forget everyone else's name all the time

----OR----

have everyone forget your name all the time?

I think I would have people forget my name. I am pretty good with remembering names....

Gotcha!

Gotcha!

That sums up the weekend in one great word. I know A won't like that I advertise her age, so let's just leave it at a nice round number that is older than me. It started with Friday nite happy hour, which hubby and I missed due to a family commitment. Sounds like there were some nice hooters being shown and lots of booze going down. Kimmie, I will take bribes to not post the picture of you all hung over! Later in the evening, Gambino's Landscaping Service proceeded to "landscape" A's front yard with all sorts of lawn ornaments (some were a bit tacky, gaudy and flashy). How they never got caught still remains a mystery, but A has a yellow lab that sucks as a watch dog.

Fast forward to Saturday evening. Gambino's folks just bought a new house so, being the nice parents they are, they let her daughter have the surprise birthday party there. Now, the gang is all there and sitting in the basement, trying not to make any noise. That lasted about 5 minutes until Richard had to show off the central vac system and it makes this really loud noise in the basement. That started the giggles. We finally managed to keep under control and eventually A makes her way down the stairs commenting on how it smells like pepperoni and popcorn, of which we had neither. About 2 steps from the bottom A realizes that Gambino is sitting there with a camera looking at her. GOTCHA!! Needless to say, she never had a clue! I felt bad cuz I don't keep secrets really well (just add alcohol) and I had tried to do my best to avoid A for the past two weeks. I think she thought I was mad at her.

A good time was had by all. We had some fun with the magic chute and learned that something called 'pumpkin smash' sucks even if it is cold. We even taught Connie how to play poker.

Now I have pictures but knowing how much A hates to have her picture taken and displayed I will not post them. I will just save them for her viewing pleasure (and anyone who wants to pony up some blackmail cash :)

ZOBMONDO!!

Would you rather....

Have a fly fisher catch you solidly in the eyeball with his or her hook

----OR----

have someone jam an icepick up your nose?

I have to go with the icepick up the nose. I had the laser eye surgery two years ago and want to enjoy my great eyesight as long as possible.

Have a good week everyone!