My armpits tickle when i cough

No one wants to hear about you being sick. They just don’t, it’s nothing personal, and I totally understand it. One great scapegoat to use is: I didn’t want to call and wake you if you were sleeping. That’s totally the one I would use.

After being cooped up in my house since Sunday a little past midday, without going anywhere other than to walk my dog for a couple hundred yards a few times a day, I think I’ve officially lost my mind. I may not even remember how to start my car, little less make my way out of my neighborhood.

Have you ever been in your house for 4 days without any human contact other than work related phone calls? Let me tell you, it’ll drive you stir crazy. But it won’t drive you to clean your house. Sure, the downstairs is presentable, but if you look carefully, you’ll see that it needs a good vacuuming and the wood floors needs a nice cleaning. Don’t even ask about the upstairs. It’s a disaster. Not so much in terms that it’s gross, but the piles of clean clothes don’t get hung up, the envelopes and left over paperwork from paying bills live here and there. When you feel like crap, you just don’t feel like making things nice. You just don’t.

They’re building two houses on my street. They’re going up remarkably fast. On Tuesday, they put the roof on both homes. If it this week was sunny I would have thought nothing of it, but since I and they and every one in Austin knew big rains were coming as early as Tuesday/Wednesday overnight, I can’t help but think that they may have cut quite a few corners to get the roofs and the protective liner up before the rains to keep the houses dry inside. I bet they did a pretty crappy job, when compared to a 7-day-of-sun week.

Just when I think I’m past my coughing, it reappears. Mostly when I go out to walk my dog. If I just sit silently on my bed working on my laptop, there’s minimal coughing, but out there in the elements, moving forward the coughing is outrageous. So outrageous that my armpits tickle from the coughing. Yes, my armpits tickle.

Earlier this week, I really upset a friend of mine, and it really made me sad. I could blame it on sick-induced-cooped-up-crazy, but nope, it was me being an idiot. I hope that friend will give me a second chance. Only time will tell.

Why do I even bother buying bananas. I like bananas that are still a little green on the edges and are nice and firm. Once they start to get the brown spots, I’m repulsed. I think I buy them because they’re so darn cheap and I think it’s no big deal if I don’t eat them all if they go beyond my liking (which is like, 1.5 days). I’ve started freezing them per suggestions from two friends. They say I can toss them in my milkshakes still frozen. Problem is, how many bananas can one freeze and not feel like you need to buy a couple of spider monkeys?

When you’re sick, you don’t drink. As much as I know I need to drink, I just can’t bring myself to drink. I think I drank 1 glass of water all day yesterday, and that was at 6pm. That’s right, no water at bfast or with my gigantic bowl of pasta at lunch. However I did have 2 yoghurts for bfast and 4 clementines last night so I guess that will have to do.

This older woman that lives a few houses down from me is crazy. She’s nice and sticks to herself, but every few weeks she adds one more thing that tells me she really is crazy. But a good crazy. Maybe I’ll tell you about her and you can decide.

I used to really like Cheetos, but lately they just don’t do it for me anymore. I still had them as dinner last night. Cheetos and clementines, the healthy and nutritious way to go through life!

My dog is awesome. He’s got his flaws for sure, like, he will attack another dog if he enters his “space”, but he’s still the most awesome dog. One thing I really like about him, is he accepts towels. He knows what a towel will do for him, and as soon as I grab the towel, he stops wiggling and moving around and stands motionless letting me dry him off from the rain that fell on him while walking. I actually think he likes it!

A friend of mine had an accident about a month ago, and went from Intensive care in the hospital, to regular room in the hospital to sent home. But he still can’t eat solid foods. I really feel for him, but I also feel helpless. I don’t know how to show him I care other than to tell him I feel for him.

I could go on and on, but I’ll let you go on with your day now, while I go cough and stare at my pile of clean clothes that could use some attention. Meh… I’ll deal with them tomorrow. Time to eat more yoghurts. Thank buddha I loaded up on groceries last Friday!

These always crack me up

I like my job, and not looking for a new one, but when you're as popular as I am, recruiters contact you all the time.  The job descriptions always make me laugh.  Here are some funny sentences... at least they're funny to me:

• Our client is looking for an extraordinarily talented individual to join their world-class sales team. 
  
• They are looking for a unique sales person.   
  
• Flexibility and a desire to constantly learn and push yourself is absolutely required.
  
• We prefer that you blah blah blah and we are looking for a candidate that is extraordinarily bright and flexible. 
  

Flexible? Me?  Yeah... uh huh.  Not sure why they thought I'd fit into that role, since they obviously didn't hear about me messing up my back just trying to stretch my Quads.  

Sounds to me like they're looking for an Olympic Gold Medalist, who has competed in international selling contests, and also moonlighted as a chinese female gymnast acrobat in the circus. 

Good luck in your search, Deborah!

Life so simple

A few weeks ago I was enlightened by my friend Erin on two sentences that make the world easier to deal with.  I'm actually not sure who said them first or if one of us saw them on TV, or they just came out of someone's mouth, but they were both sentences that had us rolling on the floor at dinner. ( you kind of had to be there)  

In any case, they work magically well to bring peace and a sense of calmness to difficult or annoying situations. 

So next time you want to yell at traffic because it's not going fast enough, or something doesn't go your way, or you have a bad day, or you have a bad workout, go ahead and use one or even both of these.  Say them outloud to yourself, (adding a little smirk, tilt your head a tad, and lift both your hands up while shrugging your shoulders) and you'll see that even YOU can take life a little less seriously. 

eh, what you gonna do?  

It is what it is. 

Jenny kicks neighborhood butt!

Ever had doubts about the tree food you see along the aisles of Home Depot or plant nurseries? Ever think to yourself: Does that stuff really work?  

Well, I'm here to tell you that I know they work, and I'll prove it to you now. 

I buy the tree food stakes, and not pellets or liquid.  You know... those food sticks you hammer into the ground, every 4 to 6 months.  The brand I last bought was Vigoro, but i've used others in the past.

Evidence #1:  This my neighbor's tree.   It's got some decent height growth, and on it's own, it would look like a nice looking tree with good potential. 

Evidence #2: This is my tree.  The same type of tree, watered the same way, by automated watering the neighborhood controls.  But my tree has the added advantage of 3 food sticks in the ground, and I think it's pretty clear how much thicker, and happier my tree looks.  

I guess it also helps I say good morning and good night to her every day when i take Karma for his walks.   I doubt that other tree has ever had anyone talk to her/him/it.  

Both trees were planted the same week in early November of last year, maybe even the exact same day.   I can't wait till it's time to hook Jenny up with a few more food sticks!

He's got more piles than you do!

I somehow ended up on Al Gore's website while looking for some work related stuff and saw this photo on his front page.  Wow!  And I thought I had big piles of stuff on my desk!

This is why you're fat dot com

My friend Kenny posted this website on his Google talk blurb, and because I spent about 20 minutes scratching my head over the things people have invented (but hopefully didn't eat), I thought it would be important for you to take a look at this website too.
CLICK HERE

Cereal trampoline dilemma

I've made progress with ideas, but it's not quite there.

 

Mus, John, Ramon and Ken gave me some decent ideas on how to fix my inability to pour milk into my cereal bowl without the cereal flakes acting as trampolines and shooting milk onto the counter.

Last thing i want to do at 4:45am when i'm still half asleep is clean up spilled milk, and it's become a stupid re-occuring issue I'm simply no longer interested in doing.  It just dawned on me, that I've been wiping milk up almost everyday for god knows how long.  

There is not the option of using a different style of bowl, cereal or milk.  Yes, I'm stubborn.  At 4:45am, I deserve to do things i like.  I like the bowl, milk, cereal trio, just sick of milk spillage.  Feel free to post your ideas. on how to eliminate the spillage. 

Note:  I like to pour milk all over my cereal and not down the side.  It simply tastes better if they get wet from the top.  So pouring the milk in first, or pouring the milk in down the edge of the bowl is not an option. Sorry, Cheryl.

What are you talking about?

Several years back, I was introduced to this photo.  

I was tempted many times to send it to my boss at work, but resisted for a good 4-6 months until the perfect email was sent to us, and i was able to reply to all simply with that photo.  

We all have probably had a boss that sends the strangest, cryptic emails, where you have no idea what the action item is, or what you're supposed to do.   So to me, it was truly was the perfect way to get away with telling my boss: "I have no idea what the hell you want me to do here"

That went down as one of funnier events at work.  

; )

(by the way, turns out this bunny was called Ooolong, lived in Japan, and was phtographed with many many things on his head.  unfortunately, he's not around anymore, as he passed away in 2003. This is not the official site, as the official site is in japanese, but it gives you a good idea of all the things Oolong balanced on his head. )

What the?

Ok, so I know I had a few beers AFTER I got home from my Bi-Montly USG Meeting, at which I had a few (3)over a few hours(3.5)... (I wasn't anywhere close to drunk when driving, I promise that.)

I needed to eat, so I threw some freshly boiled (prior in the day) pasta and sauce (scratch made prior) into a bowl into the Microwave. 

I then thought... "hey, i bought Parmesan at the store last week!"  which I rarely ever buy.  I just don't think there's a need for parmesan.  So I grabbed the parmesan out of the fridge and poured/shaked/shooked some on my pasta.  I then forgot to put it back in the fridge, which i remember since I put it back in this morning. 

Fast forward to today when I decided to go for Parmesan again, but I noticed that no cheese was sprinkling out of the container through the little holes.   I unscrewed the lid to see what was blocking the goodness, and noticed the "freshness seal" was still on.   (see photo below). 

And now I ask myself, did I not notice that I wasn't getting any cheese out of it last night!?!?   Was I that far gone in my thoughts (about how life deals you good and bad cards) when I sprinkled some on?

I'm getting old.

OFF THE WALL

For some reason, our topics of conversation are quite often completely off the wall things. 

FACTORIALS =

Today, Ken showed us his lack of prowess in math, which led us to try and figure out "26!"  (Factorial of 26).  We made a game out of it, and it turns out that Kristen was only off by 10 seconds, coming in at 341 seconds when the answer was 351.  5min51seconds (She won a swift kick in the rear.)

The only problem with this fdascinating topic, is that I went on to Wikipedia just now, and found out that 5! = 1x2x3x4x5, and not 1+2+3+4+5 as we thought.  So I don't know what the correct math term is for what we were trying to do.  Lesson learned here is that, don't take Ken to the Math contest, Damon doesn't like math at 6:15am, and even though Kamran may be good with Playdough, and red and blue cables in his non-running life, it doesn't mean the fancy words he comes up with will be the correct ones!  I talk a good game and cut corners using approximations but end up 1 minute off, and Kristen takes the long route to count it out, and wins!

MOVIE MAKING=

In other runs, we've invented many movies, and weird uses for the iPhone.  Especially when Booty Call's on the runs, we invent MANY movies and uses for the iPhone.  Most of which are not rated PG13.

WORKOUTS=

Last week Ken, Kristen and had some fantastic miles laughing about the potential uses of a cattle prod during soulbusters.   Putting the grass field next Austin high on fire and running through flames was also a popular idea.

what off the wall topics arise from your runs?

Hudson River Landing audio tapes

CNN has a pretty interesting playback of the audio tapes available on their website.

I think it's really interesting to hear how calm everyone is while they go through landing options etc.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/02/05/1549.voice.recorder.tape/index.html

Who's up for the Tough Guy Challenge next year?

Check it out here.

Mommy, check out all the fancy features!

I like to find out about the buildings i run past many days a week.

Here's an interesting writeup on the Austonian going up on 3rd and Congress. once built it'll be 23 stories taller than the Frost Tower (fancy glass top building on the right in the photo)

Smallest condos start at $550,000, and the top floor condos are priced at around $8 million.

Another article I just read talks about how Austin's new home building (in the last year) dropped 66% compared to the year prior. However, even though that sounds huge, that ranks Austin as the lowest percentage decline in the country. Based on 81 markets studied, South Florida came in at #1 with 96.5% drop. ouch.

New word invented today: miscelleanousry

Miscellaneousry - noun - A bundle of varied miscellaneous stuff.

There is no plural spelling because that is the plural, since it's a bunch of miscellaneouses.

(yet another thing to add to my list for that Nobel lifetime achievement award)

Biophysical 250 - woohoo!!!

"Biophysical250 is the single most comprehensive health assessment available today. Unlike standard physicals that measure only up to 40 biomarkers, Biophysical250 simultaneously assesses hundreds of biomarkers used by 12 different specialties."

I'm pretty excited! I got approved to be part of a local company's (Biophysical Corp) group of people they'll be testing over the next few months!

The study is centered around the Austin Marathon in Feb (meaning I'm running the marathon), looking into biological changes that occur under acute physical stress and how long the recovery process at the biological level takes.

What will they do with the results?
The results will be used by the military and other occupations to predict the readiness for deployment, combat, physical work (such as firemen, police, professional and collegiate athletes, etc) and to monitor the recovery from these occupations.

All they will do, is take about 9-10 blood samples from me. (Each blood sample just being about 2 tablespoons worth) There are 10 blood draws and questionnaires to complete within that time. There is one blood draw/questionnaire per month until January, four draws in February (essentially 2/14/, 2/15, 2/18 and 2/23) and two in March (3/2 and 3/16). I can't handle giving blood (freaks me out), but I can certainly handle giving 2 tablespoons worth in one syringe.

Why are they doing this study?
The study is looking into biological changes that occur under acute physical stress and how long the recovery process at the biological level takes. The results will be used by the military and other occupations to predict the readiness for deployment, combat, physical work (such as firemen, police, professional and collegiate athletes, etc) and to monitor the recovery from these occupations.

At the end of the event, I won't get paid like many other research programs. However, I will get a copy of my report, so i'll know all about myself regarding over 250 different conditions and diseases including:

- Cardiovascular disease (such as risk for heart attack and stroke)
- Cancer (including breast, colon, liver, ovarian, prostate and pancreatic)
- Metabolic disorders (such as diabetes and metabolic syndrome)
- Autoimmune disease (including rheumatoid arthritis and lupus)
- Viral and bacterial diseases (such as mononucleosis and pneumonia)
- Hormonal imbalance (including menopause, testosterone deficiency, thyroid deficiency)
- Nutritional status (such as vitamin deficiencies, protein deficiencies)

Check out the entire list here.

Pretty cool, huh!?

Silly stuff

I got one of those emails with all kinds of sily new reports, or classified ads.
Here are a few of my favorites from this email

Obnoxious

I don't like to write about my job on this blog, but today I can't resist.

We have this one system/aplication at work that requires you to change your password quite frequently. Usually I have 3 work related passwords that I use, rotating them so I don't forget how to get back in to applications/websites, etc. (you usually get 3 chances before you get shut out, hence 3 passwords. Pretty smart, huh!?)

However, this system, is one of those you may need to log into once or twice a month, so it's not a password fresh on your mind.

Here's where it gets obnoxious:

The password MUST be changed every 90 days.
The password MUST be at least 10 characters long. TEN!!!
The password MUST contain at least one number.
The password MUST be a new password that hasn't been used in the 10 prior times. 10 Prior Times!
Talk about the need for extreme creativity!!!

In addition, when you log in, it sometimes asks you for your Company ID:

aemcrbdfxbavcgec (this is not the actual ID, I swapped out 4 letters.)

Seriously, do we need this type of extreme security for my expense reports? I mean...
- It's not like they ccould change the way the money gets reimbursed to me since it comes to me as direct deposit like my pay checks.
- It's not like they can submit an expense report to try and get money, because I have to email, fax, or mail in all the receipts to get it approved.
- It's not like they can pull anything interesting out of there, unless they want to know where I ate lunch in Dallas, how many water bottles I buy at the airport, and how much car rentals and cabs cost in different cities.

That's just plain obnoxious by the company who makes that software. Seriously, they think way too highly of themselves.

why Luke Skywalker is an idiot

A friend sent me a link to this and it cracked me up...

Let us imagine that Luke Skywalker is trying to tell you his plan to rescue Han Solo from Jabba the Hutt.

Luke: “Okay so, first we get Lando Calrissian posing as a guard inside Jabba’s Palace.”

You: “How do we do that?”

Luke: “We just get him a costume and he—just walks in.”

You: “Um, okay, say it’s that easy. So then Lando gets Han out of the carbonite and we pick them up and get away?”

Luke: “No. What happens next is that I put my lightsaber in a hidden compartment in R2-D2 and send R2-D2 and C3PO to Jabba the Hutt as gifts.”

You: “Wait, why-“

Luke: “Just listen. Next we have Leia pose as a bounty hunter arriving at Jabba’s palace with Chewbacca captured. She’s going to hand over Chewbacca to Jabba.”

You: “Wait, why? Wouldn’t that mean we would now have to rescue Han Solo, Chewbacca, R2-D2 and C3PO? That just makes it more difficult, right?”

Luke: “Just go with me here. Next, Leia is going to sneak around at night and get Han Solo out of the carbonite, but get captured.”

You: “What? Why would we get everyone captured like that?”

Luke: “Now I’ll show up, use my Force powers to get in to Jabba’s fortress, get past the guards to an audience before Jabba and then use my Jedi mind trick to get Jabba to release everyone. If that doesn’t work, then I’ll get captured.”

You: “Okay, if you can just use your Force powers to get in to the palace and all the way to Jabba, then let's just have you go in right now and get Han out."

Luke: “No, that's stupid. I’m going to get myself captured. Because then you see, we’ll be taken to the sarlacc pit and then, when we’re on the skiff, I’ll get sent out first and then R2-D2 will manage to get to the top of Jabba’s sail barge and shoot out my lightsaber, and then with Lando’s help, we’ll just—rescue everyone and then everything will be fine!”

You: “That is the stupidest plan I’ve ever heard of.”

Luke:“I’ve thought of everything.”

You: “Clearly you didn’t.”

want to read more reason why Luke is an idiot? Click here.

I know my speling and grammur is terrible...

By the way,

I'm fully aware that my typing skillz aren't exemplary, but thought I'd just mention that I type at full speed, and type as I think/talk.

I'm not looking to win some job at the Wall Street Journal, and I re-read my posts quite often (after i launch them) and cringe over all the typos, and terrible grammar. But whatever.
And yes, I know there's a spell check button, but I don't have the patience to mess with that.

Just read and figure it out. Or don't read it. See if I care!

(Oh yeah, English was my third language learned to speak, and I do get confused at times on/over/about some things like for example, but not limited to the use of on/over/about like just now! ha!)

An I'm an expert on There Their They're and Your You're, but don't worry about mistyping on this blog. My work emails are correct, however.

I'm a sucker for informercials, and I'm tempted.

I'm planing on painting a wall or two in the somewhat near future, so I'm really tempted in buying this.

It's only $20 (+ $8 shipping and handling), but then again, maybe it sucks and even $28 isn't worth it???

Does anyone have any experience with this thing?
Looks pretty decent???