Free to me!

Last Friday I received a banquet ticket worth $80.00 for the local Sister Cities branch. I wanted an excuse to wear a suit since I hadn't worn one in almost a year. I felt like I wasn't giving them the attention they were used to when I still lived at home and wore suits every Sunday. Anyway, I was happy to be at the banquet with Kristin and her family because I looked snazzy. But the night kept getting better and better! First, there was wine. Secondly and most importantly, they served filet mingon. Unfortunately, it wasn't wrapped in bacon or seasoned generously like I like it. But I've never gotten such nice meat at a fund raiser banquet! And to top all that off, they had performances from cultures around the world including Japanese drummers, African dancers, Aztec recreation dancers, and Chinese New Years style dragon dancers. Those were my favorite because the dragons were so intricately designed and their faces moved too!

After the dinner Kristin and I were going to drive back to Iowa, but my parents convinced us that it was too late, so we decided to leave the next day. But during the phone call I got all excited because I saw an accident were some dude rear-ended a police car and there were like 10 other police cars monitoring and directing traffic. I was so excited that when the guy in the left turning lane got the green light, I started going too... Then I realized I wasn't supposed to and I slammed on the brakes, right in front of the cops. I then proceeded to hang up the phone and whistle innocently, like that would make a difference :P

The next day Kristin and I headed to Iowa. I had work to do, so we left pretty late, but that's ok. I ate so much food that weekend, which was also free to me because I didn't have to pay for it! I love my dad's grilling and my mom's cooking. We ate pot pie, ribs, homemade cream of broccoli soup, collard greens, sweet potato pecan pie, apple kringle, and I'm sure a couple other things I forgot. And I loved it all. mmm mmm. Instead of watching TV we all finished a 750 piece CSI puzzle, which didn't even have a picture on the box because that was part of the mystery! Then once we put it together, we had to look at the crime scene and find evidence to prove who the guilty party was! It was a lot of fun and I think everybody loved it!

David Beckham to visit the office

So on Monday David Beckham is coming to our office to say hi and talk about who knows what or maybe just stand there and look pretty. Well pretty to whoever would find such a guy pretty, I'd much rather stare at his wife, but whatever :P Anyway, I have normally been ignoring the "buzz" emails about our company in ads and what we sponsor, but I realized that they actually have famous people come to the office these days, so now I actually read them. I went to see Danica Patrick when she came to talk about her racing style and how much she loves us for throwing money her way. Well because I am a guy, I decided to go and see if she was as good looking as the poster in my cube. Well from 200 feet away, she looked great and I have proof, look!


ok ok, so the picture is a little small and that could be any burnette with that resolution and blur, but think of it like a big foot sighting or the lockness monster. You just can't get a good shot off when you need to... and cameras are banned from the office, luckily we make camera phones so everybody can use them.

'Bionic' Nerve To Repair Damaged Limbs and Organs

University of Manchester researchers have transformed fat tissue stem cells into nerve cells -- and now plan to develop an artificial nerve that will bring damaged limbs and organs back to life. In a study published in October's Experimental Neurology, Dr Paul Kingham and his team at the UK Centre for Tissue Regeneration (UKCTR) isolated the stem cells from the fat tissue of adult animals and differentiated them into nerve cells to be used for repair and regeneration of injured nerves. They are now about to start a trial extracting stem cells from fat tissue of volunteer adult patients, in order to compare in the laboratory human and animal stem cells.

Source: Slashdot

Maybe soon they'll be able call root canals an "outdated" practice and people parallelized in accidents will be able to walk again. I hate to say it kids, but seriously, stem cells are cool. Anybody that is afraid of stem cell research is silly. I don't want to sound calloused, but when doctors today artificially inseminate a woman by in vitro fertilization, they take several eggs and fertilize many and then throw away the rest (full of stem cells). If people really are so opposed to killing a living being, then this should also be outlawed in the U.S... And according to that article, you can harvest stem cells out of adult animals, maybe that means that you won't even have to "kill" anybody at all. So next time you decide to get on your high horse and preach about how stem cell research is evil, do some real research. I'm just saying. *climbs off high horse*

New 2008 Challenger

Well, in my opinion Dodge kept to their word about making the production version of the car look very similar to the concept. Except, it just doesn't seem look as cool :( They reduced the size of the rims, gave the car a bigger rear bumper, and they added the B-pillar between the front and back windows. I think they also switched out the headlamps because they don't look quite as cool either. I really didn't notice how lame b-pillars make cars look until I took a look at the concept picture. It looks like if I get this car, I'll be tinting the windows to hide the pillar. But one surprising apparent change is that they decided to go with the classic grill instead of the one on the concept. Well if they're going retro with this car, it gets my thumbs up for the modification! Here's a couple comparison shots with the concept on top and the production version on bottom.

Tires are expensive

I just bought some new Dunlop Radial Rover A/T tires online because they had a $100 off 4 discount with free shipping. I did some quick research and found that this was in fact the best deal online. And typically buying stuff online is always a better deal than buying in a store. So I decided to buy them. But then, the fun really started. I figured it wouldn't bee too expensive to mount, balance, and align 4 tires, you know, because they're just tires. But I was wrong. So I quickly learned that buying from a tire store that offers free mounting/balancing, alignment or a free tire, wasn't really as bad of a deal as I thought.

	Online	NTB (cheapest store)
Tires + Valve Stems	$88.00x4-$100.00 ______________ $252.00	$91x3 (Free Tire) ______ 273.00
Mounting + Balancing	$75.00	14.95x4=$59.80
Total	$327.00+tax (on $75)	$332.80+tax

Phew, it looks like I still saved a whopping $5.80! With that kind of cash, I guess I could buy a whole meal at McDonalds! Luckily for me, either of those prices are better than the original $600 I was quoted by Midas for tires, mounting, balancing, and alignment. Midas charges $89.98 for alignment, but I found a price as low as $58.00. Funny, that's exactly 10x as much as my savings from buying online. Now if only I could find an alignment for $5.80 and I'll really have a deal on my hands.

Zoo and Geneva Lake

I was up in Geneva Lake again this weekend. James came back into town along with just about everybody. The wedding was canceled, but not the plane tickets. So we just all hung out and did random stuff. It's always nice being up there because there is so much beautiful scenery. Everybody had a good time as far as I could tell and this time Kristin came along!

Kristin and I also went to the Lincoln Park Zoo. It has been a long time since I have been to the zoo. We saw a lot of fun animals including a roaring leopard. It was so loud. I was glad to have been there when it roared! We also saw a bunch of sick looking animals. There was a bear that just had jaw surgery and its tongue was hanging out about a foot out of its mouth with its back all hunched. I thought the poor thing was going to die. There was also a camel with one saggy hump. I felt bad for it too :( But it didn't look sick so I wasn't so worried. But even with the sick animals, I still saw plenty of healthy ones and got to see some cool primates.

I wonder what other fun stuff I'll be doing in the near future

Productive at work

I've been super productive at work this week. It's great having a job where you actually have to use your brain every once in awhile. I got to fix some bugs in a SW program that we're working on. You know, programming may not be my dream job, but I forgot how much better work is when you have to think just a little bit. I'm already satisfied with my new job! Now if only I could find a house to live in that I actually was impressed with when I went to the showing!

:(

My buddy Kristin had to delete her journal because one of her client's parents snooped online to find it and sent it to the VP of her company complaining. She had nothing offensive, confidential, or specific that could be used as identifying information about any of her clients, but they still complained and made it a bad day for her. I hate people that think that anything published on the internet will ruin RUIN their lives. 90% of the journal was just about her daily happenings and mostly about weekends, but that didn't matter, she mentioned her job once or twice and that was enough to make her a target for unfair accusations. Old-fashioned people that are afraid of change suck. I dare any one of you crabby-@$$ old people to take this tame old blog down just because I made an obscure reference to your family member in a non-demeaning or confrontational manner.

Weekend, The

Friday was pretty uneventful. Kristin and I hung out, but we didn't really do anything besides watch TV. I ordered pizza and ate it. It was good.

Saturday we went shopping for a track jacket for myself. I found one that I liked a bit and it was on sale for only $30, but Kristin wasn't digging it so we didn't get it. The other ones I saw were around $70, yikes!!! After that we did the whole youth group leader thing and I brought donuts. They were hyper little boogers and they also scratched up one of those thin plastic table cloths. I told them to stop, but at the same time, I was remembering how I used to do that so I kept laughing and they took it as a sign of my approval. ooops. I guess I'm a little immature for my age! After all that fun, Kristin and I went to a haunted house with 3 separate attractions. Kristin got scared, I keep talking to the people running around trying to scare us. Only once did I jump slightly. It was fun though!

On Sunday Kristin and I bought two pumpkins to carve since they were on sale at the local grocery store. After that We went to Oktoberfest at Lynfred Winery and walked around the area and looked at some of the older architecture. We then rented a few scary movies to watch. Kristin got scared again, but I was A-OK. Kristin even got scared of Dino, her beloved stuffed dinosaur. But after some coaxing she came to love him again. I was worried because Dino was the first "sweet" gift I got her and if she didn't like it anymore I'd have been sad :(

But on a sad note. during that weekend a friend of mine called off his wedding a week before it's scheduled date. I dunno what happened, but I'm sure there are some very hurt people. And I hope that their emotional wounds will heal over quickly.