Threat level orange. Flight full. I changed to an earlier flight. I thought someone should know the details. Delta 1037.

In case my plane blows up... Love to all my peeps!

I'm on MARTA. This guy just got on at Lennox with major bling and a bottle of Cartier cologne. Interesting.

So they want me to be a contractor because their company has a hiring freeze go place. But the guy wants to hire me as soo

Resume Blues

I hate updating my resume. How do you tell someone what you've been doing for the last 11 years in two pages of bullet points? I know this is why you also have face to face interviews. But still, the whole process is incredibly painful.

So I have my first interview this morning at 10. I'm not nervous about the interview. The man I'm meeting with already has a decent understanding of my skills based on the fact that we used to work together and that my old boss and a woman from the software company both recommended me.

Anyway, I'll try to let you know how it went soon afterwards.

You Never Know What You're Going to Stumble Onto!

Have I told y'all about Stumble Upon? It's an add-on for Firefox that I have found to be very useful. You create an account at their site. You tell them what categories of websites you're interested in. You turn on the Stumble toolbar. When you're bored, you simply hit the "Stumble!" button on your toolbar and off you go, stumbling across the 'net. If you like a site that it presents to you, you click "I like it!" on the toolbar. If you don't, you can click a thumbs down button. This is how I found the Like Better site.

Today I Stumbled Upon a site that was totally written for The Polyglot!

Dumb Website, Great Image

I found a website with a fairly interesting concept...if it worked. The theory is that they show you two images and you click on the one that appeals to you. They keep popping up random combinations of images until they have "learned" about you. Always interested to know more about myself, I gave it a whirl. I clicked on my preferred images for a couple of minutes (that's a lot of images) only to be told that I was a religious man. That's all they had gleaned from two minutes worth of me clicking away - and they got half of it wrong.

However, they did present me with one set of choices that was simply hilarious. I captured the set of images and will now show it to you. (The whole image is a link to the dumb website. Maybe your choices will make you more knowable.)

I mean, come on, how can you choose between David Hasslehoff and The King?

A Link for The Polyglot

I thought you'd particularly enjoy this.

By the way, did I Dunno see that Signs was on again last night?

Keep 'em Handy

Don't you wish we could really slap these on the bumpers of other people's cars?

Stupid Joke Time

I have a fairly large collection of inane jokes from when I used to post them on our corporate intranet. The following joke is the one that caused that practice to cease. Someone was offended by it. Let's see what you think:

During a dinner party, the hosts' two young children entered the dining room totally nude and walked slowly around the table. The parents were so embarrassed that they pretended nothing was happening and politely the guests followed suit. After going all the way around the room, the children left. In the ensuing silence of the dining room, one of the children was heard from the hallway, "You see, it IS vanishing cream!

Was that offensive? I don't think so. From time to time, I may post some of these winners here for your enjoyment...

Hump Day Photo

This is not a great Hump Day Photo. But it let's you see the progress we've made on my house. I have never had my office so clean. Look, even the bookcase is neat.

The Roller Coaster of the Redundant Life

I've never really learned to apply Psalms 55:22. It is SO against my nature.

I am going to try to rely on my heavenly father. But how do I know what is right? Here's where the roller coaster comes in:

On Tuesday, I was sent a vague message that a company half-way closer to me than the old office may be in the market for someone with my skills. A former business contact is going to forward my contact information to them. I don't know who they are or if they are actively looking for someone. I mentioned to the business contact that if they don't really have an opening right now, I'd be willing to work part-time. Who knows what that will bring?

This morning, I got a message from a guy who worked with me a couple of years ago (although I barely knew him at the time). He's now the VP of Finance at another homebuilder. His company is going through the implementation process for some software that I have about 10 years worth of experience administering. Seriously, there are maybe two people in town who have as much experience with this program as I do (one of whom is the guy who just fired me). And nationwide, I'm definitely in the top 20 for knowledge of this system (if you exclude the people who actually work at the software company). As for the people who work at this software company, the top two people and the head of sales all know me very well. Even though I have disagreed with the head guy on issues of usability, he definitely knows that I was just trying to make his software better. I feel certain that he and his second in command (definitely more sure of her) would recommend me to any company using their software. So anyway, it looks like there is an opportunity doing almost the same thing I did before.

So what's the problem? Will that second opportunity (that looks like it was custom ordered for me) allow me to pursue the other things that I want to do? Would I be getting myself back into a M-F, 8-5 grind that keeps me away from the work that I really want to do? Or is this a good way to support myself and refocus my life? Sell the house, have a less stressful though still FT job, use the remaining time I have more wisely than I did before.

I know I'm counting my chickens before they hatch - I haven't had an interview or even sent off my resume yet. But these are the things that run through my mind when I wake up in the middle of the night. I'm not losing sleep, but when I wake up in the night, I am reminded that I don't have any real reason for getting up in the morning. Then all these thoughts rush at me. I am able to push them aside and get back to dreamland. But they pop up again during the day.

In addition to making sure that I get out in service during this time, I have also not let myself sleep in. I have been getting up before or at 8 every morning. Technically, that is sleeping in compared to what I used to do. I am putting on make-up every day, something I had not done for work for quite a while. But the big thing is that I'm not letting myself turn on the TV during the day. Granted, this here internet can be a distraction, but not as much as TV. I can literally sit in front of TV all day long and do nothing else. I am determined not to do that - no matter how badly I want to.

My head knows that all of this is the right thing to do. But I just can't get over my natural unease with uncertainty. I've had people tell me that I look like I'm handling everything fine. And I know that I am, I'm too much of a T (vs F) to be an uncontrollable worrier. It's just strange to have a new set of worries all at once. The decisive part of me wants the things I've already decided about to just happen. I want my house to be sold already since I've made the decision to part with it. I don't want to be patient. I want it gone. (But I don't want to do the work around making it go away.)

I think I'm rambling now so I'll stop. And I don't want any of you to worry about me. These are just thoughts that I wanted to write down to get out of my system.

Lillian Pic

I finally got this pic of Lillian to post. Can't you see how looking down at this photo on her memorial service program would get to me? This is so Lillian! Goodbye, dear. See ya soon.

Too Tired to Post

I wanted write about some of the funny things that have happened in service over the past couple of days. But I can't put my thoughts together to make them funny enough. Some of them aren't really, uh, chaste enough to talk about here.

You know how a kind older person will say something that has a sexual connotation and not even realize it? Well, that happened today in the car. I didn't catch it, but Li'l J did. He successfully controlled his laughter but replayed the moment for me when Brother Seersucker was out of the car. He could barely control his laughter when he was repeating the comment to me. It was funny. But I won't repeat it here.

I can tell you a different Brother Seersucker story:
On Monday while we were doing phone witnessing, Frau Adorable was leaving a message on an answering machine. Brother Seersucker had been quietly hunting a fly in the background. After Frau Adorable finished her message but before she was able to hang the phone up, Br. Seersucker slammed the fly with a rolled up newspaper (making a really loud whacking noise) and said, "I got him!" He knew that she was finished with her message, but didn't realize that she had not hung up the phone yet. Frau Adorable and I cracked up wondering how that would sound on the answering machine, if it even picked it up.

At 6:00 this evening, there were too many of us to fit into one car, but we were afraid that if we split up both cars wouldn't have enough to keep going. So we did more phone witnessing. It was fun. After one Monday session, I considered myself a "pro" and was helping the young sister in our group figure out what to say. Kimi Stewart jumped in with both feet even though she said it had been a little while since she had done it. Of course, Br. Seersucker got the really good call. He found someone who wanted to talk for hours. He would have done so, too. But he had to conduct the bookstudy at 7:30, so it was only a 25 minute conversation. He's really facinating to listen to. He comes at things from such a unique perspective. I have never heard any of the reasoning points that he uses. He reminds me of a brother from my "home" congregation who was always asking interesting questions. Which reminds me that I will have to steal one of that brother's reasoning points to share with Br. Seersucker. Yay! I can make it seem as if I have deep thoughts!

Anyway, I'm tired ... so this is all you're getting.

Service

We did calls this morning and then phone witnessing in the afternoon. I was out until 4. It was a very pleasant day. I had not done phone witnessing in probably 10 years. I never liked it very much. It was very enjoyable today and not just because I had a good call. It was really nice to be engaged in that work with people who enjoyed it and knew what they were doing.

Then Kimi Stewart came over to spit-shine my living room and kitchen. She's such a fabulous friend. That level of my house is now completely ready to show. I've got to work on the upstairs and garage tomorrow. If I don't have anything to report tomorrow evening, tell me that I'm a terrible person. (But I do have to work on my resume, so that comes first.)

Well...Here I Am...

That's a quote from the greatest cancelled-too-soon tv show, Firefly. (It was cancelled after Fox aired 11 episodes, out of order, at random times. Gee, I wonder why it had trouble building an audience?) Anyway, there's a great episode called "Objects in Space." Basically it's a sci-fi show, but it doesn't bore you with techno-babble. It's really just a character driven drama based on a space ship. The captain is in the "transport" business, which means he will do illegal things when he can get away with it. The rest of the crew love him to death and would follow him anywhere. In the first episode, they take on a couple of passengers who end up being fugitives. But since one of them is a highly trained surgeon, Captain Mal decides to aid and abet them. In this particular episode, a wickedly smart and calmly violent (you have to see the character to understand that description) bounty hunter named Jubal Early has caught up with them. He's going to take the girl fugitive back and get his reward. It's riveting how he proves to be a significant threat and then how they overcome him. The whole time he's taking over their ship, he's spouting deep thoughts, Confucious style. By the end of the episode, he is floating off into space with nothing but the air in his little space suit to sustain him. His final words are "Well...here I am..."

So that was a very long lead in to tell you that I feel like Jubal Early. I had a plan, an objective. But now I'm out floating in space. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be doing or who's going to fly my way. For now, I'm heading out in service. It feels important that that be the first thing I do on my first official day of redundancy.

How Seriously Should I Take These Things?

Orange County

You're rich, pretty, and living a charmed life. (Or you seriously wish you were.) From Disneyland to Laguna Beach, you're all about living the California dream life. Just make sure to marry rich - so you don't have to work for it!

Where Does Your Inner Californian Belong?

A couple of years ago, I interviewed with a company in The Real O.C. I almost took the job. I even found an apartment in Laguna Beach, three blocks off Pacific Coast Highway. I went so far as to visit the Laguna Beach congregation. But I got a strange feeling from the company when they finally offered me the job. I found out a couple of months later that they reorganized their IT department and it would have been really uncomfortable for me to go through that. Now, though? I don't know. I've run into the guy that I interviewed with a couple of times since then. He hasn't been too friendly. Alternately, they have a Hawaiian division. One of my contacts at that division has always been very nice.

Lillian

A sister that I dearly loved died last Sunday night. She was 88. Her memorial service was this morning. It was even more difficult to get through than I thought it would be.

I don't think many people know how much Lillian meant to me. I wasn't one to sit at her feet, basking in her stories. It's safer to say that I loved her from afar. Not too afar, we were in the same bookstudy for years. She lived just around the corner from my family. And we pioneered in the same congregation at the same time. But in the span of her 25 year pioneering career, I was a mere blip. I was a silly 20-something girl who joked around with her out in service a couple days a week.

But I guess I always saw my future in her. Or I should say that I hoped I saw my future in her. I would never presume to actually compare myself to her - she had it too together for me to do that. But as sweet as she was, she had certain personality traits that felt familiar - stubbornness, independence and backbone. The brother kept referring to her as "fiesty" today. And that is the perfect word. She was as kind as they come, but she had a ton of spirit, too.

She had a great memory and talked about people quite often. She'd lived in at least three states, so she knew people from all over. Every time she talked about someone, she described them as "lovely." That was her word. "Lovely." And she meant it. But she also meant it on the few occasions when I heard her talk about people who weren't so lovely. The best example of that was listening to her talk about Lana Turner. Lillian went to high school in California. I am almost positive that she sat behind Lana Turner in one or many classes. She was not impressed with Ms. Turner. If I recall correctly, Lillian thought she was stuck up and rude. I can't ever see a Lana Turner movie without thinking, "She was rude to Lillian as a teenager."

I thought that I was going to be OK for the service. Then after the song, just before the prayer, I looked at the back page of the program to see the photo included with this post. (I can't get it to post, but will try again later.) It's such a perfect reflection of Lillian's personality that I lost it. I felt like such an idiot - people weren't even expecting me to show up and I could barely keep myself together.

I had never actually met Lillian's son (though I'd heard that he was "lovely"). I introduced myself to him and told him that I'd pioneered with his mother years ago. I certainly didn't expect him to recognize my name. He was kind enough to tell me that his mother "spoke very highly of me." Maybe I made a fraction of an impression on her. I know that she made a lasting impression on me.

...I can't wait to see her again.

Found it! You can stop calling.

Could You Call Me?

Not to check on me or anything. I have misplaced my phone. I don't remember the last place I had it. Normally, I would grab my Blackberry and call it myself. But I, uh, can't do that any more. I know I had it with me before I stopped by Stinky Garbage Trailer today. But I don't remember having it since then. I'm worried that I left it there. I really don't want to drive all the way back down there to get it in the morning.

But if you will periodically call me, maybe I'll hear it ringing in the car or under my bed or some other odd place. 'Kay? Thanks.

Absolutely Perfect!

Your Famous Last Words Will Be:

"Tell them I said something."

What Will Your Famous Last Words Be?

Does that sound like me or what?

You know how parents always say,"This is harder on me than it is on you?" I saw that in action with my boss today. He didn't actually cry, but he looked close to it at least once.

You Heard It Here First

I just got laid off! Whoo Hoo! Anyone want to buy a new-ish townhouse?

My Favorite Friday Photo Ever

Jules sent this to me a while ago. I lost it. But thanks to the wonder that is images.google.com, I have it back. And I can post it for you to brighten your Friday. (And you thought GSAM was enough to brighten your Friday.)

Look's Like It's Crazy Quiz Friday!

You Are 24 Years Old

Under 12: You are a kid at heart. You still have an optimistic life view - and you look at the world with awe. 13-19: You are a teenager at heart. You question authority and are still trying to find your place in this world. 20-29: You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel excited about what's to come... love, work, and new experiences. 30-39: You are a thirtysomething at heart. You've had a taste of success and true love, but you want more! 40+: You are a mature adult. You've been through most of the ups and downs of life already. Now you get to sit back and relax.

What Age Do You Act?

I'm Speechless...

Your Musical Tastes Match: Weird Al

See his whole playlist here (iTunes required)

What Celebrity Matches Your Taste in Music?

I swear that I have never listened to Dr. Demento in my life!

For Those In the Know

You know who you are. If you have information leading to the capture of America's Most Wanted KING, please leave it here.

New Icon for Someone

I found a new icon for someone to use. It is fab-oo-luss! If no one wants to use it, at least think of it each time you hear the song "Cannonball" by Damien Rice. :-)


"Stones taught me to fly ... it's not hard to fall when you float like a cannonball..."

Rhymin' About Good Soup

Next week is cancelled, but this week is shaping up to be a good group. For good soup. Bring your whole troup. For good soup. We even got a cute coop. For good soup. We'll all take a big poop. From good soup.

Sorry, I started writing about the good group, realized that it rhymed with good soup and it just kinda went from there. I normally do not write poetry (if that's what this is) about bowel movements.

You're Turning Violet, Violet

According to this article, blueberries are the "perfect" food. We all need to eat one cup per day (wild, low-bush variety, if possible) to improve blood flow and reduce the effects of aging.

File This Under R

For Really Bizarre.

According to this news article, David Copperfield (yes, the illusionist) has found the "Fountain of Youth." It does not appear that he's speaking metaphorically, either. He seems to think that he has actually found a source of water that rejuvenates lifeless leaves and bugs. He has not yet tested how the water affects humans.

Let me save David the trouble of testing it. I saw this on an episode of Stargate SG-1. It's not good. People freak out and get all super-human and evil. OK, actually, the water downstream from the alien device is safe and has some decent side effects. But the alien device sitting further upstream...don't touch it, don't activate it, don't even look at it. Call in SG-1. They can properly dispose of it for you.

This One's For All of You

You must take this test and tell me the results (in detail if there are any details).

Once you have the results, you can go here to find out about yourself.

This link tells you about me.

This One's For the Polyglot

I found a link that seemed intereting at first, but then just began to drone on and on. Then I thought, "Hey, The Polyglot would love this!" Not that I'm saying The Polyglot drones on and on. I'm just saying that the subject matter is right up his alley, or in this case, aisle.

Link for Poly (and maybe Bookie).

Link for the rest of you (but probably not Mehsha).

Kickin' and Bustin' Balls

After we ate, A Woman Like That and Benjie told me that there was a group of people playing kickball at an elementary school. It sounded like fun. I had heard another sister talk about it and I'd heard Sporty Nice talk about it before she moved. So I changed clothes and headed up there.

I totally didn't expect to only know 3 people. I thought it would be a group from our congregation. Uh, no. When I got there, there were only 2 people from my congregation there. (There? There.) The third person I knew was a girl from my last congregation who has moved up here to live with her sister and brother-in-law.

Eventually, my friends showed up. I watched for a while before I decided to join in the fun. I had a headache and wasn't sure I could handle it. But it did look like fun and most importantly, they really didn't look like they were taking it too seriously. I played a couple of innings (I guess they're called innings in kickball) before the ball actually busted. Someone kicked it and it just popped. I never got to kick. Oh well.

As soon as the ball busted, the guys whipped out a football. I figured the fun for the girls was over. But no at least three girls played football with the guys. They even asked me to play. I couldn't tell you the last time someone asked me to play football. All the guys I know want to play only with guys. There may be one or two really good girls that they will let join a game of touch or flag. But they never want me to play. I still couldn't bring myself to play, but after the game broke up, I went out there to toss the ball around with my friends. It was fun. And really really nice to know that I wasn't being judged as a fat worthless piece of crap.

I did shoot a photo of one of the girls on the phone while the guys were huddling. But I must not have saved it because I can't find it now. That makes me sad. It was funny, but I guess the photo wasn't good enough. Duh! I took it with my real camera. I will have to post it later.

Meeting T

After shooting T, we went to the meeting. YaY! T stayed for my meeting! I was very proud of the congregation. They were all very welcoming. I noticed that in many cases that when I couldn't get around to introduce T to a particular person, they took the initiative and introduced themselves.

After the meeting we went to Golden Corral with two couples, Bridget Jones, A Woman Like That and her husband (Benjie?). Benjie's sister and a friend were also "in town" (up from the southside) and at dinner. Another young brother and his mom showed up later, too. It was a nice group and the food was much better than I expected it to be.

I was really glad that T got to meet so many people from my new congregation. I was disappointed that she didn't get to spend time with Kimi and The Polyglot, but there will be time for that later.

I Waited Until Sunday to Shoot T

Saturday ended up being such a gray nasty day that we couldn't do any good shooting. So we decided to get up early and get it over with before the meeting on Sunday. Sunday morning was still overcast, but not rainy or humid. We went to a local high school that looks like a junior college - lots of brick and columns. Since I was using black & white film, it should be a good setting. But I'm a little worried because I don't know if I had enough light for catchlights.*

After we tired of the high school, I was a little stumped about where to go next. I thought about the road that The Doctor lives off of. It is really lovely, particularly in fall. But it feels more like a color film road to me than a black & white setting. I was suddenly struck with inspiration. Marzipan and I Heart Kids live just around the corner from that high school. They are out of town and they have a gorgeous front yard.

We went by there and I couldn't believe how perfect the setting was! I was 99.9% positive that they were not home, but just in case they had come home, we made sure to stay out close to the road. The yard would have been good in black & white or color. I found all kinds of great places to shoot. In fact, I think this is my new favorite place for portraits - not that I shoot portraits all that often.

After respectfully tromping around in their front yard, we did go over to the other road. We found at least one nice spot. But then the sun came out, which you would think would be a good thing. But not at that time of day. By then it was almost noon and you can't shoot portraits outside at noon - you get squinting and deep shadows under the eyes. I really want to shoot someone on this road in the fall. Any models out there?

* Catchlights are the little lights that you see in people's eyes reflecting the nearest light source. You may not notice when they are not present, but without them, the eyes (and face) look "dead."

Books and T

Saturday night T and I hung out at Barnes and Noble. We looked through several photo books including one on Ireland (imagine that) and one of aerial photography. I looked through one that was already on my amazon.com wishlist and decided that I would go ahead and buy it from amazon. (Isn't that bad?)

I did buy a lovely set of Cloud notecards. The problem inherent in notecards is that I only buy cards that I really like. If I received one of these from someone, I would be ecstatic. But I don't want to waste them on someone who won't genuinely appreciate them. So if you ever receive one of these cards from me, know that you're really really really special to me and act like you're thrilled with the image on the card.

I also bought these two books:

Adventures in Ocean Exploration by Bob Ballard
Images of Movie Stars (even though there's only one photo with Bing in the background)

Posting from my phone. Comment if u can read this.

Slide Shows and T

T and I finally put my new(ish) slide projector to use. In the past, we've always used my lightbox and a loop (a little magnifier) to view each slide separately. This is effective, but after a while you get a serious crick in your neck and back from leaning over. A slide projector is certainly more comfortable, but as we found out, it comes with its own drawbacks. It's not very speedy.

We already have all of our slides in "slide pages." Each individual slide is in its own pocket in a clear plastic page. To pull out the slide takes a little bit of effort, not a lot, but enough that repeating the process several times starts to add up. See, with the light box, you just throw the whole page down and view the slides without removing them.

The slide carosel for the projector holds 99 slides. But you don't necessarily want to look at every slide you shot. Some are too similar and some you know are no good. So you first have to look through all your pages (in the dark) to pick out the slides you want to view. Then you pull them all out and load them in the tray. Then you load the tray and view all the slides. And if you're trying to compare a couple of similar images, you've got a little problem. There's no way to tell which slide is in which slot while you're looking at it. So if you're comparing three images, you get easily confused. Wait, did I like the first or the second? Am I going forwards or backwards through the slides?

So I think I've learned that the old lightbox is still a necessary evil in helping identify which slides you want to print or view. The projector really is a tool for showing other people your images. But I probably need to get a few extra carosels to speed up the loading and unloading process.

Anyone up for Good Soup and a Slide Show?

At Least I'm Instructional

Turks, Soccer, Hummus and T

We got some seriously thick rain on Saturday around noon. It came just as we were finishing up service. T and I were headed back home when she announced that she really didn't feel well. I kinda anticipated that would happen. We have pretty curvy roads up here and our driver was just a tad wild. T needed food, quick-like. Well, we just happened to be near the "Mediterranean place" that Kimi and I have been talking about going to for months. T loves hummus, so she was up for the experience.

Well, this place is run by Turks. And yes, the "Turkish theory" is basically still in tact. Most of the men were a little older, but what they lacked in actual drop-dead-gorgeousness, they more than made up for in charm and hospitality. I ordered something that the very nice Turk recommended. Sidenote: I think it is interesting how often I am willing to do this now. I used to be a very picky eater. Basically I still am, but I am much more willing to experiment now than ever before.

We sat out on the covered deck and guess what was playing on the ginormous TV?!?!? Soccer. (How'd you guess?) T laughed and asked if she was going to have to get a book out of the car to read. No, no. It was German soccer. If it had been Arsenal, uh...maybe. I got a little freaked out when they changed the channel. But it turned out that a younger Turk (who definitely fit the theory) had driven all the way down from Rome to watch a "live" soccer game on the satellite. OK. He wins. I'll watch Turkish soccer.

It was a nice little place. I plan to return there many times.

This Just In....

Coming to you live from the middle of the weekend...is...an update!

I thought I'd give you a little update on how the weekend is going. T's here! Yay! We had dinner with Mandy Moore last night. Then Mandy Moore came over and we watched a movie, looked at photographs and talked for hours. I really really like that Mandy Moore, but I think I may have to change her name to Bridget Jones. It just suits her better.

Anyway, we're about to head out for bookstudy, service and then we're gonna take T out back and shoot her. It should be a thoroughly enjoyable day.

Yippa! Yippa!

You Are Mexican Food

Spicy yet dependable. You pull punches, but people still love you.

What Kind of Food Are You?

Me a Happy Happy Grrrl

Go buy yourself this and join me in my happy grrrlness. Mehsha, you should especially like this.

You've Been Busy Readers

As you all know, I track the traffic on this here blog. I meant to congratulate y'all that on July 25th you set a record for activity, something like 54 page views. Well forget that. YESTERDAY y'all set a new record - 75 page views! On a Tuesday. With The Polyglot out of town. I'm so proud of you. (We won't mention that I add to the total number of page views when I add my comments to yours.)

We've got an active little community here and I like it!

I should mention that it's usually T who puts us over the top. On both record setting days, she was reading and commenting on several days worth of postings. See how powerful you are T? (I guess she won't see that until next week when she reads again.)

More She-Male Stuff

Your Brain is 47% Female, 53% Male

Your brain is a healthy mix of male and female You are both sensitive and savvy Rational and reasonable, you tend to keep level headed But you also tend to wear your heart on your sleeve

What Gender Is Your Brain?

Hump Day Photo

OK, so this photo is kinda lame. The setting sun was so lovely on this cloud as I returned home from service last night. I had to shoot it. This image is perfect as a wallpaper on my phone. It doesn't work too well in any other format. But it's what you're getting this week.

I Thought For Sure I'd Be Jan

You Are Bobby Brainy

Ultra competitive, you will do almost anything to win. From pull ups to pool sharking, you're very talented. And while everyone is aware of your victories, they still (affectionately) consider you to be a little brat!

What Brady Are You?

How did it know that I was a pool shark?

Six Degrees of Horse N. Buggy

My First Blog, "My Opinion Counts"
T started "Ponderer of the Immense"

My Second Blog, "Private. Do Not Forward."

My Third Blog, "Me and My Imaginary Friends"
The Polyglot started "Foreign Words"
Affable Olive started "Shmear on Bagels in the Other O.C."
Mehsha started "The Mehsha Massacre"
Book Reader started "Tomorrow is Another Day"

Sometime after I started my third blog, but not directly as a result of it, Wartney P. June started "Life ... in a nutshell."

There are now links to all these fabulous ramblings on my sidebar. Read til your heart's content. (But you should understand that your heart is never content - you always want more updates!)

Kimi, Jules, Hoops, T, you're making me look bad. All of these people came to my blog through The Polyglot. Why is he more inspiring than I am? And Hoops, I'm specifically calling you out on this one. I know you gots plenty o funny to share. (Though I don't know why I would expect you to keep up a blog when you can't find the time to even comment on mine. But don't you, like, DO "webstuff" for a living?)

Again With the Obvious - I'm a Eunuch!

You Are 60% Boyish and 40% Girlish

You are pretty evenly split down the middle - a total eunuch. Okay, kidding about the eunuch part. But you do get along with both sexes. You reject traditional gender roles. However, you don't actively fight them. You're just you. You don't try to be what people expect you to be.

How Boyish or Girlish Are You?

Uh...Not So Much

You Are Big Bird

Talented, smart, and friendly... you're also one of the sanest people around. You are usually feeling: Happy. From riding a unicycle to writing poetry, you have plenty of hobbies to keep you busy. You are famous for: Being a friend to everyone. Even the grumpiest person gets along with you. How you life your life: Joyfully. "Super. Duper. Flooper."

The Sesame Street Personality Quiz

I thought I was the grumpiest person. And trust me, you don't want to see me ride a unicycle! "Super Duper Flooper?" I'd rather be "Sensational." :-)

Tell Me Something I Didn't Know

Your Blogging Type is Social and Responsible

You enjoy blogging and do all you can to advance the blogging community. From helping friends set up blogs to getting rid of spam - you take a leadership role. A super blogger, you tend to blog regularly. You'd hate to disappoint your audience. And always appropriate, there's no way you'd blog something too personal!

What's Your Blogging Personality?

The Polyglot Says Hi

The Polyglot wanted to make sure that you all wander over to his blog to see the txt message he sent me last night. It sounds like he's having fun.

Silly Quiz Time

I love these silly quizzes but rarely find them any more. Well, I found this one over on P. June's blog and couldn't resist taking it. Now I can't resist posting the result. It cracks me up in so many ways (which I will enumerate below).

You Are Lightning

Beautiful yet dangerous People will stop and watch you when you appear Even though you're capable of random violence You are best known for: your power Your dominant state: performing

What Type of Weather Are You?

1. "People will stop and watch you when you appear?" Uh, only because they think I'm going to do something funny like fall down or start River Dancing.
2. "Random violence?" When was the last time I hit any of y'all?
3. "My power?" I just told Kimi the other night that I try to use my power for good rather than for evil. But honestly, I haven't felt very powerful since my "power shoes" broke a few years ago. I haven't been able to find a good pair of "power shoes" since.
4. "Dominant state: performing" Whoa. OK, so that one's right.
5. Lighting in general. We were driving in a very bad lightning storm the other night. Kimi was freaked out. I was not. Perhaps this is why. I am lightning. I don't scare myself (except when I look in the mirror, especially while River Dancing).

Entertaining the Troops

You all know I'm full of it, right? I want to clear this up right now. When I tell stories involving people I love, I'm gonna embellish to make it funnier. So if you read a story I've written about you and I've put thoughts into your head during the retelling that were not originally there, please see the humor in it. Or if make you look a little goofier than you really were, it's all for the entertainment of my readers. Understand that I do the same to myself. I mean you've all read the ham story, right? Know that I would never retell that story with one of you as the main character. That kind of embarrassment is reserved only for me.

Poor T use to have to put up with this all the time and she still loves me...right?

Love to all my peeps,
HnB

Nekkid as a Jaybird*

I'm at work and I feel naked. You may think I feel that way because it is still 68 degrees in my office and I'm shivering. But that is not the case, I actually remembered to bring a sweatshirt in today and wore socks. No, I feel naked because I left my cellphone at home. On GSAM day.

Just a note that you won't be able to reach me through my regular number until after 4. Although, I'm going to investigate forwarding that number to my Nextel (which I didn't charge last night). So, no calls or text messages please. Only email today. Thanks.

* Another Southernism for Book Reader's collection.

Everything Old is New Again

(Except for T and Jules who lived through it the first time around.)

I started thinking about my blogging history. This is my third blog. I used to be a stickler about who read my blog. I talked quite a bit on my first blog, "My Opinion Counts", about a medical condition I have. At the time, I was keeping it a secret from my family. I didn't want them to even know that I had a blog because then they'd want to read it and then they'd be all, "WHAT?!? You've got Fat White Girl's Condition? You're such an embarrassment to the family. Why can't you just be like all the other people in the family - skinny, athletic and beautiful?"

But now it's out in the open. It rarely affects me since I'm on my meds. So it's just not an issue any more. I re-read the old blog and there is nothing on there that I object to people seeing. I've lost the comments, which really makes me sad because Mike Wolf used to read and comment on that blog.

Why did I stop that blog? Well, I posted some pretty funny stuff about a vacation that I took to Malibu with a couple of friends. One of the girls sent the link out to, like, everyone she knew, including Xoomie (whose old nickname was He Cracks Me Up). I got all wiggity whacked and abandoned that blog for a new one. I did not give her the address to the new blog. (I paid for that blog, so I'm still trying to figure out how much I can recover from it.)

What's interesting is that I began the blog using people's real names, but a few months in adopted the practice of giving nicknames. Many of the nicknames are the same. Two noteable exceptions are The Polyglot and I Dunno. Since I rarely saw them, I didn't talk about them often, but they went by the names Reads Alot and He Finally Knows My Name. I'll let you figure out which was which. T and Jules were already established commenters, so they didn't get nicknames - though T's would be Ponderer of the Immense.

By the way, "Ponderer of the Immense" was the name of the blog that T toyed around with. But she eventually got tired of me screaming, "UPDATE!" and abandoned blogging completely. I am still an admin on her old blog. I may throw up a link to it just for kicks.

Anyway, I don't expect y'all to go rushing over there to read 10 months worth of blog postings from 3 years ago. But I thought I'd link it just the same.

Memories of Ireland

According to this article, a public toilet in Lahinch, Ireland is going up for sale for almost $400,000 dollars.

Ah, I remember Lahinch well.

Wait, actually, it's kinda a blur. We had just hiked/walked for about 5 hours on the Cliffs of Moher, known better to some as The Cliffs of Insanity!, so I could barely put one foot in front of the other. We were supposed to stay in the lovely little town of Limerick that evening. But we just couldn't make it. This was the only night that we just winged it and pulled into a hotel to ask for a room. Thankfully, the price was decent and the rooms were clean. Come to think of it, that turned out to be one of the best places we stayed because it had a fairly Americanized bathroom. Anyway, we had to drive through Lahinch to get to that hotel. In fact, I think it was just on the outskirts of the town. But thankfully, they did not charge us $400K to use the aforementioned cushy bathroom. However, I do remember thinking that their breakfast was pretty nasty. And come to think of it, the place didn't have much atmosphere, unless you call Convent Chic atmosphere.

An Open Discussion

Book Reader said that she's had many discussions with The Couple Too Cool To Name about who should wear seersucker. She recommended that we open a dialog about it.

I would rather open a dialog to settle on some names for this particular couple. I've been kicking around a name for him for a while that I think I really like. But I just can't come up with a single name to embody all that she is.

So I would like to call him: I Heart Kids. Imagine it as a bumper sticker on his G-Wagon. See, that got you laughin'.

But what about her? I asked Google who the coolest person was. I was led to a similar question on Yahoo Answers. Someone answered Strongbad. So that got me thinking...Marzipan? Watch her character intro before you reject the name.

Or there's always Leather Tuscadero, a hip motocycle riding, reform school girl from "Happy Days." (I think Leather is cooler name, but Pinky Tuscadero was actually one of Fonzie's old girlfriends.)

What do you think?

Well, Duh

According to this article, women have finally said that they prefer technology to luxury items, designer items or travel.

They asked if women would prefer a large screen plasma TV over a diamond necklace, a pair of designer shoes or a weekend in Florida. The TV beat each of the other choices.

Let me break this down for them:

1. Diamond necklace. Did it come with earrings? It doesn't look like it. So what am I supposed to wear it with? The silver hoops I bought at Target? A necklace is worthless without the earrings.

2. Designer shoes. The majority of women in this country are overweight. Designer shoes look stupid on fat girls. We may like shoes, but not ones with heels so thin they look like they're going to snap under our own (considerable) weight.

3. Weekend in Florida. Where? On the Redneck Riviera? You bet I'd rather have a plasma TV. Two weeks on the Dalmatian Coast in Croatia? I can watch my 19 inch TV for a couple more years. A weekend in Florida is not exciting. It may be relaxing, but it's not necessarily memorable.

Ho

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ho is a two-letter English word

• Ho is one romanization of several Chinese surnames.
• Ho language is spoken in India.
• HO (or H0) is a scale used in railroad modelling.
• Ho is a city in south east Ghana and the capital of the Volta Region.
• Ho is a city in Denmark.
• Ho is the symbol for the chemical element Holmium.
• Ho is an abbreviation for Hosea, a book of the Hebrew Bible.
• Ho is an interjection that is a contraction of the Anglo-Saxon word hoe meaning "high ground", e.g. Westward Ho!
• Ho is the convention to write the way Santa Claus (and the Jolly Green Giant) laughs, as in "Ho ho ho".
• HO or H-O may be an abbreviation for the Heckscher-Ohlin theorem.
• Ho is a spirit in Tsimshian mythology.
• Ho is the African American Vernacular English slang contraction of whore (see prostitution).
• Ho is a greeting found in Orson Scott Card's science fiction series beginning with Ender's Game.
• Ho may refer to Ho Chi Minh.
• HO is the IATA airline designator of Antinea Airlines
• HO is a common acronym for Harmonic Oscillator
• Romanisation of the Japanese kana ほ and ホ

See also

• Hoe
• Whore

I now have two stories to tell you about Kimi "The Ho" Stewart. I couldn't figure out a way to make the first story funny until the second one came along.

Kimi, the Martini Ho.
We were at Martinis and IMAX last Friday night. Kimi Stewart looked very lovely with her long eyelashes and soft tendrils of strawberry blonde hair hanging loosely about her shoulders. Little did I know that "loosely" was her chosen theme of the evening. We each ordered a martini. I chose wisely, she did not. Her martini was a nasty peach concoction that did not suit her palate.

Kimi heard that "they" were giving out free martinis "over there" so she went in search. She returned with a new martini, but "they'd" just "run out" of free tickets by the time she got to "them." No problem, Kimi sucked it up and bought her second, more tasty martini.

Kimi was so thrilled with her improved martini, that she offered free sips to anyone who looked her way. Since I chose wisely the first time, I had no need to stray from my selection. Finally, after we were seated in the theater and Kimi's drink had been amply sampled by many in our group, she found one last person whom she had neglected. "Aww, he looks so sad without a martini in his hand," Kimi reasoned in her beautiful head. Extending her community glass to this martini-less friend (who was sitting on the other side of me), Kimi said, "Would you like a taste of my martini?"

Mr. I'm Not Drinking Tonight took one look at her obviously well-shared glass, gave a little half-snear and said, "No thanks." Then he turned his back on us to continue his conversation with our friends on the other side of him. I looked at Kimi with a mock half-snear* on my face and said, "You're such a Martini Ho. There's no telling where that glass has been."


Kimi, the Texting Ho.
Late yesterday afternoon I got an email message from Kimi Stewart bragging about her latest conquest. She explained that she has a friend whose grandfather just died. Kimi wanted to send her friend an encouraging text message. So she wrote, "Just thinking about you, I love you!" As she was selecting the recipient for this endearing little message, she picked, not her friend, but Brother Seersucker.

Brother Seersucker is a 50-something pioneer in our congregation who is relatively newly married to his 3rd wife. They are blissfully happy and are quite lovey-dovey. This is exactly the kind of message that he would send to his wife at random times throughout the day, if he knew how to text message (and I wouldn't put that past him). They are a cool couple and even made it to the dinner portion of GSAM a few weeks ago.

Thankfully, Kimi realized her mistake before hitting send and selected the correct recipient.

As a fabulous ending to this story, our row of sisters sat in a different place at the meeting last night. We usually sit in the middle towards the front. I wasn't feeling well, so we sat on the side towards the rear. I was on the end with Kimi next to me and then others down the row towards the wall. Guess who sat in front of me just as the song started? Yep. Brother Seersucker. I started giggling and Kimi couldn't help but join in. I continued to tease her throughout the evening since he was carrying the mic on our side of the hall. After the sister on the other side of Kimi commented, I leaned over and whispered to Kimi, "Did you see him staring at you?" She was taken in for half a second and then she giggled.**


* Our friend who wasn't drinking was not rude to Kimi. It's just funnier to make it seem so in the telling of the story. Even though I don't know him well, he seems like a perfectly nice guy.

** There is no illicit relationship between Kimi Stewart and Brother Seersucker.

Guest Hump Day Photo

My cousin Fishroon just sent me a link to the photos of her trip to Croatia. I had no idea how phenomenally gorgeous Croatia is! Forget Ireland. I'm thinking this is the next place I want to go.

This photo is of the seaside town of Hvar. Aren't you blown away?