No Celery Please

22

Blind Irishman sees with the aid of son’s tooth in his eye

They can build a guy a reasonable working eye from some jaw / tooth / root stuff.

OK… WHERE IS MY MAGIC FAT BURNING PILL AND WHY DO I HAVE TO KEEP EXERCISING AND EATING RIGHT WHEN YOU CAN MAKE SOMEONE SEE WITH SOMEONE ELES’S TOOTH?  HUH?

I’m just saying.  Making the blind see is a really nice, cool, wonderful thing science… and I AM mightily impressed.  Really.

But how about lets put a little more work into making the fat skinny, huh?

If you haven’t seen it on the news… Starbucks closed down all its stores yesterday for 3 hours to retrain all its employees on, well, how to make coffee.

This makes me happy.

Not because I really ever go to Starbucks… I am not really what you’d call a coffee drinker and I don’t really like the way Starbucks roasts in particular.

But because I worked in Starbucks while I was in college. It was the first one in the city.  At the time, it was such a quality company.  I went through a week of “coffee university” to get that job.  I had to know everything about their coffee… I had to be able to pull a perfect 30 second shot of espresso.  I had to learn the secret system for putting the cups up on the bar so that I would know what drink went in them but customers would think I was just remembering everything.  I had to be able to foam, and froth, and put just the right amount of foam on a cappucino to keep it from being a latte.

It was as though the company really cared about its product and its customers.

In the last few years, well… names and drink orders written on cups. Espresso sitting around for more than 15 seconds without being used in a drink… Milk reheated… I would NEVER see anyone timing a shot.  And god help anyone who asked an employee something about the coffee. 

I just found it kind of sad.

So, even though I don’t go there because, frankly, I had just about all the coffee I’ll even need to drink during the time I worked in Starbucks, I am happy to see that they are re-committing to the thing that made them popular in the first place… not weird manes for the cups, or $5 coffee… but quality, caring, and a certain pride for the employees in doing their thing.

Good for you, Starbucks.

I feel like I’ve been processed like a McDonald’s Hamburger.

And I can’t quite decide whether that’s a very good thing, or not.

I had a Dr’s appointment this morning for my annual physical.  The appointment was at 7am, which I like, because it means no waiting around in the waiting room.  But my goodness, I have never been zipped through the doctoring process quite so quickly in my life.

Walked in at 7.  Zing Zang Zoom.  Poked, prodded, cold things where I’d really rather not have cold things, various bodily fluids collected.

I was back in my car at 7:30.

Is this a good thing?  Well… lord knows I loathe going to the doctor, and the whole “annual physical” process.  So getting it done quickly was kind of a blessing.

But on the other hand, did my doctor learn anything about me from this? Is there something she could have asked me that would have uncovered some malady that will now go undiagnosed?  I am guessing not, because I am pretty young and healthy, and maybe they save actual conversations for after you turn 40 and have to go through horrible things like mammograms. 

Still, I felt a bit like a burger on a line.  Person one puts on the ketchup.  Person two slaps on some lettuce.  Person three throws on a bun and shoves me out the door.

And I didn’t even get any fries.

Just having some trouble getting it together this morning.

It’s days like this that I think I ought to be out buying a lottery ticket every day. 

Ergh.

Must.  Work.  Now.

Cuppa Too Tree years ago – can’t remember exactly how long – I went to the Claire’s at the mall and requested that they put me a couple of extra holes in my head to augment the ones already there.

My ears were pierced once -in the fifth grade.  I decided I wanted a second set!   Daring, I know.

I was good about the earring thing for a while, but I recently realized that I am tired of them… and the only reason I was wearing earrings was because I felt obligated to keep the second holes open.

So to hell with it.  I’m not wearing them anymore.  The original piercings won’t close – they are pretty much permanent.  But I imagine these second ones will be done-for in a couple of months.

Just thought you should know.

OK, so not everything, but some things.

After an entire hour at lunch yesterday spent telling the SB that we didn’t really need to have a new TV… that our existing TV was just fine… We went to the Best Buy and the sales lady there sold me a SWEET new 42″ flat screen LCD from the fine people at the HP company.  It was on clearance for $500 off – how could I refuse!? (I ADORE Tax returns!)

It should be delivered today.  Hopefully… they haven’t called yet with our delivery window.  But she said it would be today.

So, in honor of dismantling everything in our TV area, we decided that as we have not watched anything on VHS for about two years, we are going to get rid of the VCR and go strictly to DVD.  This means we will have to replace some of our favorites with DVDs… but that’s the way of it.  There are still things I have on casette tape that I’d like to switch to CD, after all.

Anyway… what this all means is a big pile of VHS movies is going to go to the Goodwill.

I thought, well, perhaps you folks out there in Internat land might still have VCRs and might want a couple of these before they go.

So… if you’d like any of the following movies, let me know and I would be happy to mail them to you.

• Jesus Christ Super Star
• Men In Black
• Funny Thing Happened on the way to the forum
• Independence Day
• Life of Brian
• Blazing Saddles
• Galaxy Quest
• Conan the Barbarian
• Conan the Destroyer
• Young Frankenstein
• Austin Powers – The Spy Who Shagged Me
• Austin Powers – International Man of Mystery
• Monty Python – The Entire Series (this is 21 tapes… if you want this, I’m gonna have to ask you to maybe cover the shipping
• Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
• Stand By Me
• Dead Poets Society
• The Big Lebowski
• Apollo 13
• Star Trek – Insurrection
• Indigo Girls – Live at the uptown lounge
• Gypsy!
• Into the Woods
• Braveheart
• MASH
• Animal Crackers
• The 39 Steps
• Wild Wild West (don’t laugh, it was on clearance for, like, a buck)
• The Right Stuff
• Mr. Saturday Night
• Three Kings
• 12 Monkeys
• Robin Hood (the Kevin Costner one)
• Raiders of the lost ark
• Star Wars / Empire Strikes Back / Return of the Jedi

Although I do charity walks and whatnot every year, and I have my personal charity donation amount that I put towards causes I think are worthy every year… every couple of years, I like to try and do a fundraising push for a charity I am supporting – to try and raise a litle more than I usually would.

So this year, I am participating in the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Great Strides Walk.

Cyctis Fibrosis is, thankfully, a fairly rare disease.  But because of that, it’s also hard for the foundation to raise the sort of money that, say, breast cancer, gets for its walks and fundraisers.

Before I was born, I had a cousin who died of cystic fibrosis.  It’s not a pleasant disease.  Back then, the treatment consisted of pounding kids with this problem on the back for 30 minutes every morning to loosen the thick mucus that builds up in their lungs.  Kids died very young of CF 40 years ago, and my cousin was no exception.  Because of CF, I never knew her.

Today, thanks to groups like the Cystic fibrosis foundation, the life expectancy of someone with CF can be in the mid-thirties… but that’s still a very short time, and more research and new drugs are needed to find a cure.

So… if you are the sort of person who dontates to charities, and you can spare a little of your charity budget for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation this year, I would surely appreciate it if you could click either on the link below, or one of the links to the right, and chip in a small (or, you know, large if you want to) amount of money to help stop other kids from dying of this horrible disease.

http://www.cff.org/Great_Strides/dsp_DonationPage.cfm?walkid=5269&idUser=138148

OK, so…..

There’s war in Iraq.  And Afghanistan.  And Pakistan. And probably other stans I am not aware of.

Kenyans are killing each other over tribal feuds.

Sudanese are killing each other over religion.

Oil prices are rising.  Food prices are rising because all our corn is being made into ethanol.

One in 7 Americans do not have health insurance.

Drug cartels in South America are now moving drugs into the country in submarines (way to go, so-called war on drugs).

Either Microsoft or Google wants to rule the Internet.

…

…

Thank GOD that Congress is dealing with this whole STEROIDS IN BASEBALL issue, though.  I don’t know where the world would be without these stalwart fighters for truth, justice, and the American way.

Baseball!!!

Q: How long does it take for the people from the power company to remove the wires from a downed power pole, put up a new pole, and reconnect the wires, thus allowing the beautiful electricity to flow once more to all the neighborhoods along the road?

A: 12 hours.

Stupid wind.

Did you know that it can be too dark and too quiet to sleep?

————————————-

Went mountain biking on Sunday. Finally came to a conclusion that I have been working on for a very long time.  I no longer like mountain biking.

I used to love it when I first started.  It was fun, and fast, and the uphills were work, but worth the effort.

Then we went to Lake Norman State Park for a ride.  I fell off my bike on a sharp turn.  Nothing more than scrapes and bruises, but I think it made me realize what could happen in a serious fall.  Since then, I just haven’t been able to go down the hills without putting the brakes on.  Draining all the momentum from the downhills makes the uphills much harder.

So… rather than keep feeling guilty that poor Ethel (my mountain bike – yes – I name everything) was languishing in the garage, unridden, I gave the bike to my niece after the ride yesterday.  That way, my sister will still have someone to go riding with, but it won’t have to be me.

Also – the SB will probably also be happy because no mountain biking frees up more time for hiking.

—————————————

Also from this weekend.  I LOVE mexican food from the Azteca.  But we have GOT to start remembering to not go on Sunday.  The Mariachi band that goes from table to table on Sundays is a perfectly fine mariachi band, if you like that kind of stuff (which I do, for at least 5 or 10 minutes, then I’ve had enough), but they are GOD AWFUL LOUD and it’s almost impossible to have a conversation while they are playing.  Plus, they come to your table and ask you if you want a song, which, given my dislike of fuss, I hate.

—————————————

Why would people at the mall wait in line at the Starbucks for 45 minutes for some coffee when there’s a Seattle’s Best Coffee upstairs in the Borders that hardly ever has a line and makes better coffee? (they may be owned by Starbucks now, but at least Starbucks knew enough not to change their coffee).

—————————————-

Now it’s Monday.  But hey, next weekend is a three dayer for Presidents day, so, YAY!