Living In the World, Not on It

A very interesting article: Easy ways to cut your energy bill By Gerri Willis, CNN A bill recently introduced in California would ban the sale of energy-hogging incandescent light bulbs by 2012. Aside from changing your light bulbs, there are some other things you can do around the house to save you energy and money. 1: Take an energy audit Your home isn't very energy efficient if you have less than six inches of insulation in your attic, if your furnace is 10 years or older, or you have lots of windows on the North side and you live in a cold climate, according to the Alliance to Save Energy. But, there are some specific calculations you can make to determine just how energy efficient your home is. Take a free energy audit online at the Department of Energy's Web site. This tool can tell you where your home is leaking energy and what you can do about it. 2: Cut the drafts The average house loses up to 20 percent of its heat or air-conditioning leakage from air ducts alone, acc...

The first real storm of 2007 rolled in on Thursday night - well, Friday morning, around 0120. There was a long, low rumble in the distance. Apparently there was more after that but I had been on the verge of falling asleep and this was not enough noise to really keep me up. I always feel cheated when storms happen late at night. I so love thunderstorms so it is better for me if they happen during the waking hours. However, sometimes that happens. Some of the worst storms roll in during the wee hours of the night. Apparently this storm was one of those, but not this far north. Someone who lives maybe 30 miles south of me at work told me that the windows rattled for most of it and there were a couple of peals of thunder that made the floor shake! Now, that's a storm! Good gods. I have taken some amazing photos of storms, although unless I can capture bolt lightning (which I have, a couple of times - not easy, let me tell you!) it is not much to look at! But to experience. Wow! I hav...

My gods, this is it! The final straw of how stupid this society has become. On Sunday, around 0300, there was an attempted rape in Parsippany. The police showed up just as he had the victim's pants off. He's in County lock-up, where he absolutely deserves to be. If no one had gotten onscene, caught this guy and someone had seen it passing by or looking out the window, my gods, I hope - sincerely with every fiber of my being hope - that this person doesn't even think about what he or she has to do. I hope that he or she immediately picks up the phone and calls 9-1-1 and does his or her level best to ID the animal that does this. The police may have some strange directives and yes, racial profiling is an unfair thing. Plenty of "white" scum out there ready and willing to perpetrate criminal activities. Does it matter what colour you are to say or not say anything? What can every make that acceptable? It's just wrong. So completely wrong.

It sounds like a joke, doesn't it? A woman who fires people, is Irish and drives an ambulance walks into a bar... That's a colleague of mine. He suggested that and it sounded really funny, so it seemed like it was something worth posting. I don't know where it will go, but it does sound like that, doesn't it? If anyone thinks of anything, feel free to post it!

Hmmm. My take on weddings are much the same. Fake flowers, cheese factor is super-high, tackiness everywhere. What does this actually accomplish? I really don't know. I've been to a million weddings and they just get worse and worse as time goes on. I guess while most people are wrapped up in "showing" everyone else how deep their love is, I'm thinking that many, many couples (especially the women) are missing the point of this. This is sharing a moment of starting a new life with someone but somehow weddings seem to turn into grandstanding! What is the point of this? And why do men let this happen? Why don't they stand up to the crazy women and say, "Whoa, whoa, what is the big deal? It's just a wedding!" But men seem to be afraid of women planning weddings and don't say anything. And women! This is the biggest day of your life? Really? Is your life so empty and meaningless that this is the be-all and end-all of everything? Oh, come now. Lif...

This is the message that the Pacific Palisades High School (California) staff voted unanimously to record on their school telephone answering machine. This is the actual answering machine message for the school. This came about because they implemented a policy requiring students and parents to be responsible for their children's absences and missing homework. The school and teachers are being sued by parents who want their children's failing grades changed to passing grades - even though those children were absent 15-30 times during the semester and did not complete enough schoolwork to pass their classes. The outgoing message: "Hello! You have reached the automated answering service of your school. In order to assist you in connecting to the right staff member, please listen to all the options before making a selection: * To lie about why your child is absent - Press 1 * To make excuses for why your child did not do his work- Press 2 * To complain about what we do - Pres...

I get a lot of interesting things in my e-mail... Game on is described like this: Describe me in one word.... just one single word. Send it to me and to me only. Then send this original message to all your friends and see how many strange and interesting things they say about you. This should be fun!! Here's how: 1. Hit the reply key and send me my one word. 2. Then come back to this message, and forward it to your friends (including me) and see what people say about you when limited to one word. The Game is On!

OK. The "Sex" is fine. Change the "Rock 'n' Roll" to "Music" and then drop the drugs. Why ruin the sex and music? Having dealt with drugs (of which alcohol is one), I must say that it certainly does not appear to be all that and a bag of chips. I have had two drunks and a third still running loose to deal with. I don't want to see any more. No more boozers, please. Not at home, not at work, not on the rig, not anywhere. Where do people get the idea that this is a good road to go down? How do people profess to not be alcoholics, they just love wine? There is being a wine connesiuer (sp?) and then there is loving your wine. I get (sort of) the wine connesuiers. I do not get people drinking it to get hammered! Besides, if you are going to down spirits in an effort to make your life more sunny (how stupid are YOU?) just drink any old crap and go for the disgustingly strong stuff... you'll get there faster and not waste so much money doing it......

Someone I know told me a couple of days ago that the difference between a cop and a police officer is that a cop will grab you, kiss you and give you the ride of your life. A police officer will ask permission. Wow... Wow! That is the sexiest thing I have ever heard!

Men and women are not equal. My husband said that last night and he is right. 100% correct. We have the right to do things, to be things, to share in the things that men do. That's fine. I am all for women and men having all of the same opportunities and rights. But to say that we are equal? No, that is not right. Men and women certainly are not equal physically and anyone who says that we are in an overall sense would be full of it. Men are generally bigger, taller, bulkier, stronger humans than are women. To say anything else would be false. It would patently be wrong to do that, to say that. Women are smaller, shorter, not as strong. We aso have higher pain thresholds than men. Men can do heavy lifting, women can do detail-oriented, dexterity intensive work. OK, so physically we are different (besides the really obvious things like gender-specific body parts). Now that we have gotten that out of the way, let's look at the other things. How about how our brains work? Men in g...

Yes, well, I know it doesn't really sound like my sort of reading material and mostly it is not, but I get People Magazine and read it. Mostly I tune out the stuff about famous people and who they are dating (clearly there is something about money and fame that severely clouds general judgment). I like to pay more attention to the stuff with regular people or those few famous and/or wealthy people that actually have a good head on his or her shoulders. So this week's issue had some interesting tidbits... this is the publication dated 16 April (who knows why publications do that), with a heavy-set Valerie Bertinelli on the cover. Apparently she would like to publicly lose weight and they clearly put her size 14 body (which really is not that horrendous - I'm a size 18) in the worst possible shirt ever, to make her look really overweight. To me, this is quite transparent, but there are a lot of readers at the more common denominator level who will buy into the idea that she i...

More good reading! (I've long wondered about this stuff...) " By Greg Toppo USA TODAY Tue Apr 3, 8:21 AM ET Parents fork over billions of dollars for CDs, DVDs, toys and other products that promise to make their babies smarter - and governments invest in programs to maximize children's brain development from birth through age 3. But many efforts to build "brighter babies" are doomed to failure because they are built on misinterpretations and misapplications of brain research, a report says. "While neural connections in babies' brains grow rapidly in the early years, adults can't make newborns smarter or more successful by having them listen to Beethoven or play with Einstein-inspired blocks," says Sara Mead, a senior policy analyst with Education Sector , a centrist Washington think tank. That a baby's first three years are key for brain development is beyond dispute; scientists know that babies' brains change rapidly, growing and prunin...

Vana sent this to me. I loved it... "This should probably be taped to your bathroom mirror where one could read it every day. You may not realize it, but it's 100% true. 1. There are at least two people in this world that you would die for. 2. At least 15 people in this world love you in some way. 3. The only reason anyone would ever hate you is because they want to be just like you. 4. A smile from you can bring happiness to anyone, even if they don't like you. 5. Every night, SOMEONE thinks about you before they go to sleep. 6. You mean the world to someone. 7. You are special and unique. 8. Someone that you don't even know exists loves you. 9. When you make the biggest mistake ever, something good comes from it. 10. When you think the world has turned its back on you take another look. 11. Always remember the compliments you received. Forget about the rude remarks. And always remember, when life hands you lemons, ask for tequila and salt and call me over! Good f...

Gods know, I get all sorts of unsolicited advice from Luis and (of all people) my mother. So here I am reading (and spreading) an article about finances! "What Debit Card Companies Don't Tell You by David Bach Posted on Wednesday, March 21, 2007, 12:00AM My last column, " What Credit Card companies Don't Want You to Know ," received an overwhelmingly positive response, with close to 4,000 comments posted in a matter of hours. It's exciting to see so many Yahoo! Finance readers taking an active role by posting feedback and suggestions. One reader named Carol wrote, "I do not use credit cards because like a lot of others I got into a lot of trouble using them. After digging myself out, I cut them up and now I only use cash or my debit (bank account) card with a MasterCard logo." A Debit Card Boom I can relate. I also switched to a debit card after getting myself deep into credit card debt when I was in college. By using only my debit card, I became m...

Too many people put off something that brings them joy just because they haven't thought about it, don't have it on their schedule, didn't know it was coming or are too rigid to depart from their routine. I got to thinking one day about all those women on the Titanic who passed up dessert at dinner that fateful night in an effort to cut back. From then on, I’ve tried to be a little more flexible. How many women out there will eat at home because their husband didn't suggest going out to dinner until after something had been thawed? Does the word “refrigeration" means nothing to you? How often have your kids dropped in to talk and sat in silence while you watched 'Jeopardy' on television? I cannot count the times I called my sister and said, "How about going to lunch in a half hour?" She would gas up and stammer, "I can't. I have clothes in the dryer. My hair is dirty. I wish I had known yesterday, I had a late breakfast, it looks like rai...

This is it - the full-stop in unbelievable television viewing. I hate to admit, I watch this. It is the living end of stupid, but there is something fascinating about it. I would rather be me - the overweight, not pretty person that I am - who is happy, enjoys life and is at least semi-intelligent, than be a beauty. These women are pretty to stunning, but they are almost all abysmally stupid. And no, I am not being cruel and I do not mean ignorant. Just as I said it. They are stupid. Maybe one of them is hiding a brain, but honestly, if one is, she deserves an Emmy. These women are vacuous, self-centered and shallow. It is frightening how simple these women are! And capricious. Some of them learn that being a stunning looking guy is not all there is. But a lot of them come away having not learned anything. But then, how capable would they be? I'm a geek (no one's going to mistake me for a man anytime soon. I'm fat, but I'm clearly and distinctly shaped like a woman) - I...

The time approaching the full moon can be as insane as the time of the full moon. Considering that the moon is truly full for only a moment before beginning its waning journey through the sky, this is not saying something surprising, but most people think that the moon is full for the whole day/night. In actuality the moon will be full some time tomorrow night. That did not change last night. Our first call went out at 1920, a female with low magnesium. What the hell that meant, I did not know. That was a first for me. I have not been trained to recognise that nor have I heard of it on my own. Well, OK, that doesn't mean that this is not the case. But there was more to that situation, than meets the eye... I called it in to St. Clares as a low magnesium, possible PES (psych) call. I had no way of knowing the patient was not potentially PES and she was quite high-strung and certainly presented like a psych patient. We were out with her until around 2020, and then when we got to the ...