Archive for March, 2009
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03.31.09
Off to Des Moines
Time for us to travel up to Des Moines, so will be going there in the morning. Must visit Aunt Louise, who will be 97 April 12th! Still spry and funny as can be. Plus she is awaiting some more food from us. Seems we are her main supplier for good food she can’t get from anyone else. More caramel dip for apples (she loves dipping her apple slices in the caramel dip) and of course, more monster cookies. This time wife changed up the recipe a bit to have raisins instead of the m&m’s. And left out the nuts. This is super for Aunt Louise, as she is a celiac and can not eat anything that has gluten in it or has even been close to gluten. You can get this recipe, the cookies are awesome for anyone, not just celiacs, at Monster Cookies.
If you can count your money, you don’t have a billion dollars.
- J. Paul Getty—–A guy sits at a bar in a skyscraper restaurant high above the city. He slams a shot of tequila, goes over to the window and jumps out.The guy sitting next to him can’t believe what he just saw. He’s more surprised when, 10 minutes later, the same guy walks back into the bar and sits down next to him.The astonished onlooker asks, “How did you do that? I just saw you jump out the window, and we’re hundreds of feet above the ground!”The jumper responds by slurring, “Well, I don’t get it either. I slam a shot of tequila, and when I jump out the window, the tequila makes me slow down right before I hit the ground. Watch.” He takes a shot, goes to the window and jumps out.The other guy runs to the window and watches as the guy falls to just above the sidewalk, slows down and lands softly on his feet. A few minutes later, the jumper walks back into the bar.The other guy has to try it, too, so he orders a shot of tequila. He slams it and jumps out the window. As he reaches the bottom, he doesn’t slow down at all. SPLAT!The first guy orders another shot of tequila. The bartender shakes his head. “You’re really an a**hole when you’re drunk, Superman.” -
03.29.09
Big Hoedown Saturday
Yesterday morning we went out to one of my wife’s brothers’ ranchlet. I call it that, 11 acres out in the wild of SE Iowa with llamas, horses, goats, and a bunch of other critters. He and his wife also raise hunting dogs and other registered dogs like wheatons, yorkies and bichons. No crops, so it is a ranchlet and not a farmlet.
When we left here, it was snowing pretty good, but by the time we got down the road to New Virginia it had stopped. We were a bit worried about the snow, but looked like we were lucky. Hah! Once we got to Dan’s place, it started snowing and the wind picked up, temps dropped below freezing. And it stayed that way until we left about 930PM for the trip home. From his place to the first paved road is about 6 miles of gravel road, all slick and covered in snow. Talk about going slow, never got above 20mph as too often the rear of the van wanted to go in the wrong direction. But again, we lucked out! The paved roads were clean and no snow. So the trip home for us was a lot better than it looked when we started out.
But can’t say the same for another brother and sister who had come down from Coralville. They did not get home until about 230am this morning. Snow covered and ice covered roads all the way north to Newton. Then IH80 was only clear for about ten miles out, then it was rough all the way in for them.
Now back to the hoedown. People showed up from around the area, about half the crowd has guitars and keyboards. It was held in the garage, heated and it was none stop. Even for the buffet, with grilled hamburgers and hot dogs, someone was plinking away and singing. Some good old numbers were played out and sung, plus some damn good bluegrass! Of course, my wife was among the guitar pluckers and singers, not me as I don’t play at all and can’t hold a tune to save my life.
Altogether, we had a blast and a half yesterday. Again, getting to talk with nieces, nephews and cousins we don’t see that often, plus a lot of friends. Wife took a lot of pictures of the going ons. So I imagine at some point in the next day or two, it will mean a trip to Walgreens to pick up prints for everyone.
CRAPOLA! Oklahoma Sooners lost big time today in the march madness. So that threw my wife out of the brackets as Oklahoma was her pick to win it all. Now that leaves only Missouri and they had best do nothing but win as they are my pick to end up champion.
Today, a friend of mine had bought a site for his business (he is an owner of a die casting company in California) and the company he bought it from did not have any backups or cpanel access. Sounds either fishy that a company would have a site and no access, or they were completely taken in somewhere down the line by whomever designed their site. It happens people, designers and web developers will not pass on how to update a site or give out cpanel/ftp access codes. Those types should be shot! Anyways, he had the site and domain purchased and asked me to copy it so when he moved the domain to his own hosting, he could have the site up and running. Well, took me a bit to find a decent solution to download that site, but I found a great free software program that did it all for me in a jiffy. Then I tested the site on a demo site and it looked and worked just like the original site. Now Bob is happy he has the complete site files (zipped up for him by me) to upload once his domain is moved over. Here is that super software to copy a site: http://www.httrack.com/ Free website mirror software.
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03.27.09
Earth Hour
Earth Hour is an annual international event created by the WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature/World Wildlife Fund), held on the last Saturday of March, that asks households and businesses to turn off their non-essential lights and electrical appliances for one hour to raise awareness towards the need to take action on climate change. Based on an idea successfully executed in Thailand in 2005, it was pioneered by WWF Australia and the Sydney Morning Herald in 2007, and achieved worldwide participation in 2008.
Earth Hour will next take place on Saturday, March 28, 2009 at 8:30 pm, local time.
How many of you honored Earth Hour last year? And how many of you will do the same this year? To be truthful, just like last year, my wife and I can do little as most lights in our place are already off, with just the computer room lights on, the computer on, two televisions going, plus one light in the living room. Usually our kitchen at the most has the light over the stove on. But last year we did actually shut down the computer, the computer room lights and the television in here. Small but it helps and we will probably do the same this year. Of course, we have changed all the light bulbs here as they died out with new energy savings bulbs. Last count, we have only the refrigerator light, one bulb in the hallway and the pantry light left to switch over. Maybe you should be switching to energy saving bulbs? Not hard to do at all.
Hey, tonight did okay on the March Madness games, with our picks Villanova, Uconn and Missouri winning. It threw out son-in-law out of the running for good since he picked Duke to win it all and they lost. Now for tomorrow night and Oklahoma Sooners better win!
Now this is weird. You would have to live in Houston or around Houston to know this lawyer. His name is Dick DeGuerin and he is going to defend R. Allen Standford who is accused of running a ponzi scheme. Now the weird part? Dick actually was the lawyer my first wife hired in our divorce case.
South Park offered this concise explanation of the banking crisis.
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03.25.09
Obama a one-term president?
Very interesting reading here. Face it, I am not the only one that thinks the government giving away money is bad for me, you and the economy. But for some reason, our president and all the democrats really believe the way out of all the problems is to spend like there is no tomorrow! How giving money to companies that cheated us, companies who pay bonuses to the same people who lost billions, and banks who did not follow the rules and lost money is going to solve the problems is beyond idiocy.
This is just an excerpt from what I just read. There is a link below to read the full article. I am thinking that the real brains are those NOT in government service and that the non-brains in government should be listening to these people and getting advice and a schooling. But then, that would show our president and the democrats as actually having a brain.
Things I learned Tuesday night from President Obama’s press conference:
Obama and congressional Democrats are angry that greedy Wall Street executives took $165 million in bonuses that the president and congressional Democrats gave them.
We have made them give it back, but they have to keep the trillion-dollar bailout.
Apparently, our education system is worse than we thought. Neither the president nor Democrats in Congress actually read the bailout-bonus bill.
Per-family household debt more than doubled from 1989 to 2007, going from $42,000 per family to $97,000 per family, in inflation-adjusted dollars. Most of it, 85 cents of every dollar, is home equity or mortgage debt. This is not the consumer’s fault for borrowing it, nor Congress’ fault for legislating it, nor the Fed’s fault for enabling it, nor Fannie Mae’s or Freddie Mac’s fault for packaging it. This is all Wall Street’s fault.
It is also all George W. Bush‘s fault.
Finish reading here: One-term President
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Today was a nice day. Sunny most of the time, but that wind kept it very chilly outside. Opening a westward facing window would have cooled down our place real fast. Now the past two days, the weather service says our town got a little over 2 inches of rain. I know they estimate it, but geesh, think they would actually call or visit people in our town and ask what our rain gauges measured. Just checking with two neighbors, the rain gauges showed over 3 1/2 inches of rain. Oh well, we know how much rain we got even if the weather service doesn’t.
America had often been discovered before Columbus, but it had always been hushed up. Oscar Wilde
My husband gave me a necklace. It’s fake. I requested fake. Maybe I’m paranoid, but in this day and age, I don’t want something around my neck that’s worth more than my head. Rita Rudner
I don’t know if God exists, but it would be better for His reputation if He didn’t. Jules Renard
And I see that the US Postal Service, of which I retired from a bit over 4 years ago, is losing a ton of money and needs help. Bah, they should know that the congress is not going to help them. After all, thanks to former presidents Reagan and Clinton (and no help from Bush) the USPS has been a steady cash cow, relieving the government of a lot of spending. It was bound to catch up with the government, and I do hope the president and congress will help the USPS in their problems by reversing a few acts of the previous administrations.
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A couple lived near the ocean and used to walk the beach a lot. One summer they noticed a girl who was at the beach pretty much every day.
She wasn’t unusual, nor was the travel bag she carried, except for one thing; she would approach people who were sitting on the beach, glance around furtively, then speak to them. If they seemed to respond negatively, there would be a quick exchange, she would nod and then wander off. The couple assumed she she was a cop, but since they didn’t know for sure they just continued to watch her.
“Honey, have you ever noticed that she only goes up to people with boom boxes and other electronic devices?” He hadn’t and said so.
He said “I’m going to get a towel and our big radio and go lie out on the beach. Then we can find out what she’s really doing.”
The wife was hopping up and down with anticipation when she saw the girl talk to her husband and then leave. She ran down to the beach and asked her husband to give her the full story.
The man grinned and said, “She’s a battery salesperson.”
“Batteries?”cried the wife.
“Yes,” he replied.!
OOOOOOOH!!!!!!, said the wife. “She sells C cells down by the sea shore.”
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Today started up a new blog. The blog will be one where I will be posting domains that are available to register. No, you will not be buying from me, but rather going to your favorite registrar and registering the domain or domains you see in the lists that you want. The lists will be domains that have been dropped. Most of the lists will be domains that have a keyword in them, like “blog” is the theme today. Great list of domains now there if you are looking for a nice domain for a blog. Bookmark my new blog so you can come back often to see the new available domain lists I post.