Thankful

Had a wonderful Turkey Day with the family here in warm, sunny Palm Springs, with the weekend only mildly marred by violence here and abroad. My brother and his wife fortunately joined us from Mumbai, India. They arrived earlier this week prior to the terrorist acts that occured there. Dave seems much less concerned than the news media due to the fact that this type of activity is much more commonplace than we would think. The primary difference seems to be that the targets were much more associated with Western portions of the city. The second unfortunate incident was the Toys-R-Us shootings a couple of miles from here (drove past twice this morning). It appears they were likely gang/stupidity related and the shooters only killed each other, but it is sad that there were children so close to such a violent event. Glad everyone in my family is safe. More on our trip to Disneyland to come.

Watch 30 Rock.

Unnecessary Force

One of my co-workers has far too much time on her hands...

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Seriously...far too much time. At least she is funny.

Attaques

The dude next to me on the eliptical trainer totally had a seizure the other day. Not like a figurative seizure, but a real, true life, literal seizure. I was striding away, minding my own business with Vampire Weekend dominating the iPod and heard a thud. As I turned, the guy started seizing, foaming at the mouth and everything. Now, mind you, I am used to this sort of thing at work, but I like to keep my work and private life somewhat seperate. So I, and a couple of other gym rats (yeah, that's me, "gym rat") pushed everything aside and sat by this guy until paramedics came.
The crazy/annoying part was that he adamently refused transport to the hospital and blew it off like nothing happened. Jana is traumatized. I thought I was okay, but this guy keeps showing up at the same time I have been there in the morning. I have to use another machine across the room, almost too far to read the closed captioning at Fox News, because I can't bring myself to work out next to him again. Although I know that I'll be right there when he falls off the machine again. I'm good like that.

100 people surveyed said...

It appears that I rank slightly below Family Feud these days. Not to get into details (or more trouble), but it is at least the version that features that guy who played J. Peterman on Seinfeld. Love that guy. By the way, what ever happened spelling by the I before E except after C? What's with that?

Feeling broke and need a novel way to pay off bills, check this out. P.S. It might not work.

"Helicopter wolf-kills help caribou calves"

Think of the baby caribou...

On a less shooty note, maybe there is a glimmer of hope for Alaskans yet.

I had 'Sea Kitten' for dinner tonight

Create Your Own Sea Kitten at peta.org!

Meet my new pet. Thanks to the good people at PETA, I have adopted a Sea Kitten of my very own. I will love and feed him and keep him and call him George (or 'Dobi' which is what Jackson names nearly every animal he meets). As part of their campaign against eating fish, PETA has determined that

"Sea kittens are just as intelligent (not to mention adorable) as dogs and cats, and they feel pain just as all animals do. "

Therefore we should not eat them. Ya know, I will go on record that I love sea kittens and have an entire freezer full of them in my basement. I will do all that I can to make sure they are well loved in a creamy dill sauce or perhaps kept warm and crispy in a golden beer batter. God bless PETA for their creativity.

The Devil finds work for idle hands...

I'm finding that I don't deal well with idle time. Over the past several years I have been conditioned to work and not do much else. This is why I often don't feel comfortable in social situations. I can't talk about anything non-medical. In my new job, theoretically, I have every other week off, but the unstructured time has not yet been as rewarding as I hoped. Mind you that there hasn't been that much of it (see previous post), but I get a little moody when I don't have some semblance of where my day is going. I know, poor me. The sad part of the matter is that Jana has to deal with me moping around the house all day. I need a hobby, a book to read, oysters to schuck, something. Anyone else have this problem. I trust that it will go away over time, and I may be the conversational wonder I once (spelled n-e-v-e-r) was, but what do I do in the mean time?

Anybody see Heidi Klum in that Guitar Hero/Risky Business themed commercial?

Rest

Just sitting here, realizing that out of the past 8 weeks, I have really only had 3-4 days off where I wasn't working, getting operated on, post-op, or vomitting. Glad I like my job. The vomitting...not so much.

Didn't get enough Palin?

Check out Fox News after the election. Now that Sen. McCain is out of the picture, Palin is being touted as a "Rock Star" and the new face of the GOP in 2012. Mind you that she has only been a mayor of a small town and Govenor of Alaska for less than two years. She still has a lot of tests that lay ahead of her on a local basis. I just hope she doesn't take on that Rock Star mentality, get pissed off when there is a yellow M&M in her contractual bowl of green M&Ms, drink a fifth of Yukon Jack, trash the hotel room, and vomit all over the state of Alaska.

Almost forgot to mention that my favorite mention on Fox this morning was the idea that although Ted Stevens may be elected to return to the Senate, his felony conviction will call for him to step down. Gov. Palin would then have to appoint an interim Senator, who would be...Senator Sarah Palin. Genius. Nothing like the nepotism of Alaska politics. Let's not forget that Lisa Murkowski, our other Senator was originally appointed by immediately former Senator and then new govenor, Frank Murkowski, her father.

Politics as usual

I have a little more hope today than yesterday, with the election of Barak Obama. Although we as Alaskans still seem to be more interested in electing criminals who bring in pork funds than looking at the big picture and the well being of our state and country. The election is far from over up here as the House and Senate races are close enough to wait for all the absentee voting. Hard to believe that Sen. Ted Stevens can still pull a close race less than a couple weeks after being convicted. I don't really know what to think about that. I'm also not to certain that I am happy about Gov. Palin's return.

Just happy.

Another excuse to be a Weezer fan...



and Ben Folds...


I seem to have a thing for ukeleles too, no?

And apparently Julia Nunes.

Election eve

All I can really say is that I am glad this thing is almost over. I am excited about voting tomorrow, although as Alaskans, most of the vote is tallied before we are done voting. I guess we have already unleashed our damage on this election.

More importantly, Jana and I went ice skating today. Lake Otis, a small lake ne' pond in our neighborhoodhas frozen sufficiently and with the lack of snow we have had this winter, the entire lake was like glass (like glass with lily pads...watchout). We had the entire lake to ourselves and were able to scope out all of the lakefront property I have coveted. An inch or so of snow this afternoon ended the opportunity to skate the entire lake, but fortunately in Anchorage there are dozens of outdoor rinks, and several lakes are partially cleared and hot-mopped.

Kind of a pointless story. just ran out of steam. Go vote tomorrow. Preferrably for my candidate, but I'll be happy if you just enjoy the ritual. Good night.