Living In the World, Not on It

People Magazine and every other magazine has the year in review, so why not me? I did this last year, too. It was very satisfying. 5 February 2007 Things can only get better! Why dwell on last year (especially now, when I have easily forgotten it all)?

My circa 1968 bathtub is wholly inadequate to hold anything more than a good-sized watermellon. (Why does that not look right?) I have a good-sized watermellon just around my mid-section. Getting in the tub is generally not too bad; getting out is an entirely different proposition. The MD and general lack of strength does not help. We want our bathrooms done in a huge way, but no one I know can recommend a good general contractor or a good bathroom guy to do this. The few we have tried to contact on our own clearly aren't interested or have too much good work pending, since none got back to us. We are stuck - and have been for about two years. The guy that did our bathroom in 2002 was OK, but not good. He was slow to do it and then did - and justified - doing a really piss-poor job on the tiling in the bathroom. Unbelievable. We even bought real spacers for those very expensive tiles and he still used TOOTHPICKS to space them - so naturally the job was very crappy looking. Needles

Everyone keeps telling me I look great and I've lost a lot of weight. They are right that I have lost a lot of weight. I have been weighing myself and eating differently and working out, but I can NOT see the difference. I never can. I know why that is, but it is not fair and I wish I could see it. Almost everyone else I know does. So here is a little experiment. I'm putting up two images: one taken in late August, and one taken on Christmas Eve. OK. That is me at our Employee/Caddy Appreciation Day, wieghing in at just about 205lbs. (yikes...) This is me on Christmas Eve, and I think - I'm not sure, but I think - it was taken right after I was blinded by my own flash on my camera. Luis took the shot, no doubt. The double chin is a little freaky... but this me weighing in at 170lbs. That is about 30lbs difference. I don't know. I still see a fat woman. And I still have 30 - 40lbs to go. It is a journey that is hard but worth it. I'd like to look slimmer - slim eno

Wow, it is almost 1500. Where does the time go? Time to relate Christmas Eve, always a fun adventure every year. I love my family but there are a lot of things that go on with them that I find mystifying. The alcoholism is amazing. We always had one alcoholic but now we are up to two. The rest of us are not only not alcoholics, we don't drink at all. It is an all-or-nothing proposition with us. We headed to my parents' house at 1330 because my father was upset. He just got overwhelmed with the Christmas insanity, the overload of dogs (he swore earlier in the month that he would turn people away, but of course he did not), and the constant care of my mother. It just really got to him, so we did stuff and went to the store. We finally left the house around 1540 to go out to Long Island and we made excellent time. We plugged my mother into the DVD and left her watching The Black Stallion in the back seat (no back seat driving this trip), while Luis played with the traffic feature

This is about the weekend right before Christmas. Next year the Christmas weekend will be right after Christmas (thanks to 2008 being a leap year, there will not be Christmas on Wednesday. My plan is to save two days and use them the two holiday Fridays - 26 December and 2 January 2009 - wahoo! I won't be the only one. And four-day weekends are not to be squandered. Back to this year (best not to squander all of 2008 awaiting the holidays that I have just so happily survived!), the weekend prior to Christmas was really the start of the holidays, more so than just Monday night and Tuesday. On Friday, 21 December we had Luis' work holiday party at a restaurant LuNello's. Do not waste any day or evening going there. The food was OK. As with any event, the hors things that I can never spell (isn't that staggering? There is a word I can't spell) were pretty good (although mostly fried and so avoided by me) and the sit-down dinner was up there with sawdust. This is not un

I am not cut out for this late night crap. I stay up later on weekends just because I can. And also because I go to bed so early during the workweek (except for Thursday, when I am tortured by people with communicable diseases and frequent fliers late at night). I went to bed around 2330 last night and was up around 1930. Now it is 0000 and I have a headache and I keep nodding off. It seems to have been dark outside forever. (Although I did notice toni--last night, that the sun is setting just a hair later than before.) I'm soooo tired. I just want to make sure that I win this little bid and then that is it. Off to bed! I can sleep until whenever I want. I really should run down to the car and get my water out of the trunk. I'm down another 3lbs and that is not just me cutting out sugar and eating mostly protein but also thanks to drinking a boatload of water that is flavoured and doesn't have sugar! 0038 I did it! I carried the three flats of heavy water up here! They wei

I thought I might have trouble getting in an average of a post a day, but on 29 December I managed five posts (unless I sneak one last one in after this), and yesterday I got in - what - seven or eight! There is still tomorrow and Monday. Tomorrow we are slated to get snow and ice starting either 1300 (if you listen to NOAA) or 1800 (if you listen to weather.com). I don't know if either is right... I'm going with 1500 - right smack in the middle! Naturally this will be on Sunday, just to make my MONDAY commute more exciting! Hmmm... how did I know this would happen?! And there is more on tap for Monday and Tuesday. We have certainly had a lot snow in December... not that this shouldn't happen. It is a winter month. However, we have not typically had much snow in December. Mostly it happens in January or February. Maybe we are getting it out of the way sooner rather than later. (I'm too funny, right?) Anyway, it seems that the weekend and the holidays have allowed me to

This is taken from the Turkish Daily News: Astrology is actually considered a pseudo-science whose practitioners study the planets and other celestial bodies and their effect on humans and human affairs to predict the future. It used to be considered the same as astronomy Astrology is strictly forbidden in Islam, in the Qur’an and in the hadith or traditions that were written down and offered guidance for Muslims’ daily lives… Mohammed believed that astrology was some kind of sorcery. GÜL DEMIR and NIKI GAMMISTANBUL – Turkish Daily News Is it possible to meet someone who could tell one the future and then have that future come true? Would one believe anyone who said such and such was going to happen? And if it did happen, how would one feel? Astrology has been around for some 10,000 years and astrologers believe that they can predict an individual's future (This could be a city or even a country) by determining the position of the planets and stars. Certainly it is based on obse

SAN FRANCISCO - The director of the San Francisco Zoo said Thursday that he had overstated the height of the sheer wall in the tiger grotto - and that the tiger that killed a teenage visitor on Christmas Day may have been able to escape over the walls. Manuel Mollinedo said the height of the sheer wall in the tiger grotto was 12 1/2 feet, not 18 feet as he previously stated. Outside experts immediately questioned whether that height was adequate. But zoo and police officials stressed at a news conference that they still have not determined exactly how Tatiana, a Siberian tiger, escaped from her cage to kill 17-year-old Carlos Sousa Jr. and badly injure two others. At the news conference with police outside the gates of the closed zoo, Mollinedo also corrected his previous figure for the width of the grotto's dry moat. He said it was 33 feet across, not 20. Mollinedo said that inspectors from the American Zoological Assn. had not raised concerns about the security of the structure i

Ray was telling me about animals that showed up in the news in 2007 - there was a show on the telly that was reviewing this. At this point in the year, in any year, the telly is overloaded with stuff that happened over the course of the year ending. People who died is usually the biggest topic, but frankly, you can do this with anything. And then Ray asked me if I'd heard about the San Diego zoo. You know me - the answer was no. I never watch the news, I only ever see snippets on the Yahoo! main page or from other people. Since I don't see the Yahoo! main page that often, I get most of my news second- and third-hand from others. It turns out that this bit of news escaped from my notice. I guess no one I know thought it was much news. So it seems that a tiger went nuts and killed one man and seriously injured two brothers. Here's one original news article about this: SAN FRANCISCO — The big cat exhibit at the San Francisco Zoo was cordoned off as a crime scene Wednesday as i

I shuffled out here this morning to check my e-mails while eating my breakfast (hey, I'm down below 170lbs now! OVER 30lbs gone! Life is good! I have only been to the gym to do yoga once a week and not any other day to just work out and get fit. Despite that, I'm still losing weight! Yahoo!) OK, back to the topic at hand, which is much more serious, I had a response to my C. Diff posting from last night around 0040. Last night? No, it was way too late on Thursday night, which had turned into Friday morning before I knew it. I was bloody tired, but still managed to do a little research and then post about it. Amazingly enough, a blogger in Canada saw my post! I'm pleased that someone outside of the close circle of friends and some great bloggers saw it, but the reasons for finding my blog were not the best - not for the Canadian blogger. This person contracted Clostridium Difficile in 2007 after having to take an antibiotic which - typical of antibiotics - killed the "

Obviously this was not an advert to encourage drinking! No, it was a great bit of work. The car with the drunk driver was full of liquid, and this guy is driving while mired in alcohol, his head just above the liquid line. The narrator went on to say that the police are much better and will get you for driving over the legal limit. The police are shown triangulating in on locations, and then out in the field, the policeman's back to the camera and the driver rolling his window down with alcohol pouring out. My gods. A little stereotyping here: the redneck rolled down his window and beer poured out. The businessman rolled his window down and clear fluid with olives poured out. The young, popular, good-looking guy opened his door and red liquid came flooding out. Some popular kid's drink. It was very obvious what they were saying there (and it wasn't good). But the advert was very effective and I certainly hope it works. A New Year's with no drunks? Naaaaahhhhhh!

When shows air, everyone wants to see them. When shows end and show the credits, everyone wants to leave. Especially when they go to see movies. I insist on sitting through the credits. Granted, I have extra incentive now, as they list HR people at the end (or near the end, anyway) and they also list "film babies" - all the children born during the making of the movie. Now, when I watch CSI: Crime Scene Investigation on Spike, the next episode starts while the credits play from the previous episode played. What is up with that? People other than actors and writers work very hard to make these shows happen. Electricians, sound people, stage hands, you name it. These are all major components of making any show, whether it is telly, movies, an advert (gods help me for saying that , you know how I feel about adverts...), whatever. The people behind the scenes make that as much possible as the front line staff. Not reading the credits is just wrong. And besides, they have Human Re

1328 I have three and a half days of 2007 left and I'm up to 360 posts. Slapping five more posts in this amount of time with most of it being weekend will be too easy. (You do realise that now that I have thought/said/posted this, I'm doomed, right? Murphy's law...) Really, though. I have managed, in the space of two evenings, to really catch up - and the posts are not all cut and paste type things, but my usual endless blathering about... whatever! I have been VERY bad today. Very bad. Between the lack of sleep and the upcoming remainder of the holidays I am completely uninspired to work. I suppose this happens to everyone. I hate when it happens to me. This is not to say I've done nothing. I haven't done anything truly noticeable. I did my filing. Let me rephrase that: I did my gawd-awful, piles to the cieling, unvbelievable pile form hell of fucking filing. How's that? Are you getting a better image of just how much filing there was? I hate filing! Hate it!

I'm not sure how brutalised ebay is - I'm putting someone's kid through college, at least collectively. I discovered ebay in late September while searching for Old Farmers Almanacs online. They had them and dating back considerably farther than I thought I'd find them. As it stands, I have an Excel spreadsheet to keep track of them. It was getting too confusing and I was getting repeats. I may need to part with a couple of those. The oldest one I have to date is 1814 - yowza! They are really interesting, especially those very early ones. I have not been at all successful in finding any from the late 1700s. If anyone has them, they are not parting with them. The Old Farmers Almanac started it but by no means does it end there. I briefly got into bidding on some of the crystal balls (that is an extraoridinarily broad term) and found a couple of montrously gorgeous flourites and one carnelian that is breath-taking. That was fairly short-lived, though - most come from the A

Usually I'm a little abrasive and can turn people off a little too easily with my strong opinions. But the posted comment below proves that there are some wonderful people out there who won't be put off by my rantings and often heretical statements even if it is not positive about something in which they may be interested. Enter Mary, or "Crystal Chick" (the blogger name makes sense if you go to her blogs); Mary seems to take me and my less-than-positive remarks about astrology in stride and even agrees with some of what I feel (too many people making a quick buck here or blindly believing), and posted this back. I loved reading it and will reply when I can! Happy and healthy and fun 2008 to you, too! Always hold onto that sunny attitude! CrystalChick has left a new comment on your post " Astrology is Perfect Science Like Astronomy ": Fascinating article. Originally, astronomy and astrology were one science as far as I know. For a time I guess there were o

We all carry our mobile phones with names & numbers stored in its memory but nobody, other than ourselves, knows which of these numbers belong to our closest family or friends. If we were to be involved in an accident or became ill, the people attending us would have our mobile phone but wouldn't know who to call. Yes, there are hundreds of numbers stored but which one is the contact person in case of an emergency? Hence this "ICE" (In Case of Emergency) Campaign The concept of "ICE" is catching on quickly. It is a method of contact during emergency situations. As cell phones are carried by the majority of the population, all you need to do is store the number of a contact person or persons who should be contacted during emergency under the name "ICE" ( In Case Of Emergency). The idea was thought up by a paramedic who found that when he went to the scenes of accidents, there were always mobile phones with patients, but they didn't know which n

Luis can do this with a deck of cards and quite frankly, I have no idea how he does it. Same with this Website: it is clearly a process of elimination, but how? And there are still enough variables that this should not work so well. Still... I tried it and it is really neat! http://www.quizyourprofile.com/guessyournumber.swf

Mark Kidger of the European Space Agency confesses to a certain obsession at this time of year -- one that has nothing to do with the big bang or dark energy. "It's probably the oldest mystery in astronomy," the British scientist said. Kidger is speaking of the "Star of Bethlehem," the heavenly sign in the Gospel of St. Matthew that guided the wise men in their search for the baby Jesus. Although it is no longer a staple of planetarium shows, the star and its story remain as fascinating for astronomers and historians on this Christmas Day as they have for almost two millenniums. Modern technology and scholarship have opened many new windows on the event -- and a bibliography on the topic runs into the hundreds of titles. Kidger has been hooked on the subject since he was 17. "It's a fabulous story," he said, and "at the moment, it's almost impossible to prove one or the other of the rival theories is right. You can have your opinion, but n

If you speak English, you know words from at least a hundred different languages. That's because English has borrowed words from languages everywhere, and continues to do so. All living languages borrow, though not to the same degree. Each new word brings its own color to the mosaic of the language, just as each new person does to a population, making it richer and vibrant. We see words derived from Greek, Latin, Spanish, French, etc. every day, but this week we'll look at a few words from languages that are not so well known -- Javanese, Coptic, Tamil, Shelta, and Hawaiian -- and also learn a little about those languages. lahar (LAH-har) noun An avalanche-like mudflow composed of volcanic debris and water, originating on the slopes of a volcano. [From Javanese lahar (lava). Javanese is a language spoken on the island of Java, Indonesia. It has about 80 million speakers.] adobe (uh-DO-bee) noun 1. An unburned, sun-dried brick made of clay and straw. 2. Silt or clay deposited by