spammed

I never have liked spam. Which spam, you might ask? Either. One clogs arteries, the other message inboxes. One creates apprehension from bad breath, the other apprehension from unsolicited friends. There's no good way to slice it.

Now I did a funny post long ago on potted meat product (you'll have to look it up), but I haven't yet written of email spam woes. Beings that you all know what spam is, I'll just suffice it to say that among my four major email addresses, I acquire approximately 2000 unwanted messages every week, which would be completely unconcsionable without built-in filters and safety guards. Thankfully, the filters are so good that all I have to do is empty my bulk mail folder and occasionally delete a pesky letter that managed to slip through the cracks. Certainly spammers are persistent, but at least for now it seems technology is allowing us to survive.

This past week though, I was exposed to a new form of spam. On Wednesday & Thursday, I came home to search our daily mail and found these solicitations:

Come Visit the Outer Banks (NC)!
Visit Flagler County Florida!
Sequatchie County, TN Chamber of Commerce
Arkansas State Tour Guide
Find Your Spot in Charlotte Harbor, FL!
Historic Mississippi Barge Tours!

I think there were more, but I threw them all away. Who signed me up for all these visitor guides? We're not talking a tri-fold brochure with a couple of scenic photos. We're talking large packets of information with muliple viewbooks and calendars of events. We're talking state road maps and completely packed adventure guides. All six of these places were incredibly driven to have my business, and I don't even know how they got my name.

Have you ever gotten junk mail that you really liked?

finishing what we've started

A year ago when we were first dating, tiffkin and I chose the movie Back to the Future for our date night. It was safe and fun, and the trilogy aspect gave way to excuses for future dates.

Well future dates did happen, and we certainly had have our share of movie nights since then, but for some reason the remaining installments of the original series were left unwatched. We always talked about watching them when we thought about movie choices and options, but they just seemed to slip through the cracks.

Well, finally, after a year, we finished what we started. This Sunday marked the joyous occasion. Marty dressed as Clint Eastwood and Dr. Brown figured out how to make an 1880s steam train fly. We did manage to find two additional gaps in the crazy storyline, but it was a mile marker we were happy to reach. It just seemed to bring closure to something we'd kept open for so long, even when we didn't have a strong reason why.

Do you ever celebrate silly milestones or victory in unimportant contests?

ho ho NO!

I am so not in the Christmas mood. I was cleaning out old emails today when I ran across one from November that read, "Get such and such in time for the holiday season," and I thought, oh no, I don't want to think about Christmas right now. What if it were really here? What if I had to go shopping and write out cards and decorate my house? What if I had to plan for all the Christmas parties and winter get-togethers characterized by chocolate teacakes and mistletoe? Oh, I would groan for certain. Even looking at this kitty makes my lips droop.



Do you ever fret things that are completely irrational?

happy may day!

liberate me!

This is a picture of a woman who won the London Marathon yesterday. Yep, look closely. She has underarm hair. Now I know she's from China, and maybe social expectations are different than they are here, but I wonder how the media in posh London accepted this free-spirited soul.

And it makes me think of other situations where women either intentionally or unintentionally brush up against expectations we sometimes have for them. Tiffkin and I saw an article last month from a woman who was teaching young girls that bras were medically dangerous and demeaning, and how she wished we had a world where we didn't need them. That's similar to the valedictorian of my high school class, who told us in her graduation speech that she hadn't shaved her legs in two years.

Now on the complete opposite end, in Mexico we saw a woman who was the epitome of a self-made goddess: long, cotton blonde hair; an obvious breast augmentation; a tummy tuck; a constant string of "elegant" cigarettes; a wealthy, snoody man at her side; and the most telling feature: a deep deep suntan that only was enhanced through the hours she spent laying outside. The tan was the thing that kept getting us, like she was scoffing at the sun and the world, defying the danger and throwing caution to the wind. She was brown on the outside, brown on the inside, plastic, inflated and dyed. In some ways, I guess she is completely free from outside expectations, or you could say that she was even more submissive to them.

We're often judged by how we change who we are when we relate to different groups of people. What is the definition of healthy liberation?

under a rock, up in a tree

On Thursday, I led a team of international students around campus on a scavenger egg hunt. We were given an egg at the beginning, and inside was a clue that gave us a hint as to where we could find our next clue. One was on a painted bench, one under a stripe-tied statue, one in a campus locker, one at the feet of George Mason, and one at the campus information desk. For the second year in a row, my team was the winner!

My dad sent me an email that said, "I was watching T.V. this morning and saw a different kind of Easter Egg Hunt. In Key Largo, they were hunting Easter Eggs off shore and finding them among the coral and ocean floor structures. Can't say that I have done that yet, but sure would like to try it sometime. So where would you pick for new location of Easter Egg hunting?"

And to that, I ask you the same. What would be a new way to spice up the practice of Easter Egg hunting?

a random quiz while eating hamburger helper

1. if you were to create an entirely new brand of frozen foods, what would you make?

2. if you could have one of the following in your house, what would you choose? A. 12' hot tub B. 70" plasma tv w/surround sound C. laundry shoot with automatic cleaning system D. an entire pantry system that swiveled on a lazy susan

3. if you could pet any animal at the zoo, which would you pet? which would you NOT pet?

4. let's say an elderly relative miraculously gave birth to a bouncing baby boy/girl, and in her senility, she let's you choose the name. what would you choose?

5. if you were to undertake one of these adrenaline-pumping aquarisks in the next year, which of these would you choose? A. Cliff diving B. Speedboat racing C. whale riding D. shark fishing E. Underwater photography in caves

and coming in third

Today we saw a commercial on the weather channel for an upcoming show entitled "The 100 Biggest Moments in Weather." It made me think about the importance of lists and rankings in our culture, and how it's one thing to talk about a person or thing that was "pretty interesting," or "above average," or even "outstanding," but how it fails to captivate our attention as if we were to call it the greatest/biggest/tastiest/sexiest/most scenic/most substantial person or thing in the entire neighborhood/city/state/world. One word can make an item stand out, possibly much farther than it ever intended to stand out.

So with that I wondered what other lists we could come up with. What list could we create that would find an audience in the world, even if it was just for the fact that we called it the greatest? We'd need experts in each field to debate these rankings on tv of course, but do you think we could build a following for ............

Top 10 Worst Horse Stall Disasters
20 Moments in Knitting That Took Your Breath Away
The 100 Greatest Bullfighters of All Time
The World's 20 Most Important Math Problems
Top 15 Most Unromantic Flowers (and the guys who gave them)
5 Best Uses for a Lima Bean
20 Most Useful Things to Do While Debilitated by Kidney Stones
100 Most Annoying Sounds on the Planet
15 Great Moments in the History of Pet Breeding
State's 20 Most Handsome Poodles

rise and shine!

I admit I have trouble getting up in the morning every now and then. The more comfortable the bed, the better the covers-tempurature ratio, the greater the hindrances the night before in getting a full, satisfying span of rest, the unispiring appointments to go to in the morning ..... the excuses can add up easily. Sometimes it helps to have a little prodding to get out the door.

When I was little, my mom used to give one call into the room (hey, it's time to get up!), and then would come in and pull back the curtains. If I was having additional trouble waking, she would come in and sing:

Mr. Sun, Sun,
Mr. Golden Sun,
Please shine down on me.

The other day I employed the tried and true "Skillet and Spoon" method to wake someone from her dreaminess. What methods have you used, or have been used on you? What method do you least prefer?

across the border, over the hedge

It's always amazing to me that certain songs/stories are known by people from all over the world, some with completely different backgrounds. How is it a joke I heard as a kid was a joke heard by a kid in Connecticut? How is it I can meet someone in Virginia today who knows the same stories my Sunday School teacher told me when I was a kid in Wyoming? It just seems strange.

Tiffkin and I found out we both know this random song:

Little Bunny Foo Foo
Hopping through the forest
Scooping up the field mice
And boppin' 'em on the head

Down came the good fairy and she said

"Little Bunny Foo Foo
I don't want to see you
Scooping up the field mice
And boppin' 'em on the head.
I'll give you three chances
And if you don't behaveI'll turn you into a goon!"

The next day:
Little Bunny Foo Foo
Hopping through the forest
Scooping up the field mice
And boppin' 'em on the head

How is it some random stories/songs travel so well? Any instances where you were surprised someone knew something you knew?

i'll think of something in a minute

this was a post i made the other day when i couldn't think of anything to write. on a search for inspiration, i ran across this picture.

wagered

I have never been a fan of placing bets. As a kid, I was always scared of losing money (or whatever else was valuable), and fear of throwing away my personal goods just to avoid looking sheepish didn't make sense. I treasured money, even a little, and even if the bet looked fail-proof, I was either wary of some unknown entity changing my fortune in an unexpected rush of disaster, or the altruistic heart in me would invoke pleas of empathy for my much too undereducated counterpart. I couldn't just stand there and let fate (or some cleverly crafted scheme) determine where my goods ended up, even if I thought for certain I knew the outcome.

The most famous of the many bets I didn't take was the summer after my freshman year of college, when I was confronted with what seemed to be a certainty in the world of country music. We were listening to the radio when a commercial came on highlighting a concert that was coming up during the National High School Finals Rodeo, which were held in my home town. A male voice was singing a country tune, and the announcer said something to the effect of "Terry Clark! Come see Terry Clark in concert ....." Then later a woman's singing voice came on in a new song and the announcer said, "... and special guest, Dani Hoover."

Now I had absolutely no idea who either of these people were, and neither did the college guys I was working with, but it seemed completely obvious that the male singing voice who opened the commercial was the first name mentioned: Terry. The second person, as unique as the name Dani is for a female, definitely lined up with the female voice at the end of the commercial.

But for some reason during the day, we started talking about the plausibility of a man being named Terry and a woman named Dani, and one of the guys I worked with decided he thought it would be cooler to start calling the female's voice "Terri" and the male's voice "Danny." Well I started ribbing him about this because of the order on the radio commercial, and we had a silly argument going for the rest of the day.

He finally got so fed up he said, "Well, if that's what you think, then bet me $100."

One hundred dollars was a lot to me then (and still is), so even with frequent appeals I wouldn't give in. I was dead dead certain that I had enough on my side to with one bet be $100 richer, but a lingering sliver of doubt and a love for things that are mine made me hold off.

Several days later, by mere accident, we found out the results. Terri Clark is in fact a woman. Woops.

What does it take for you to take a bet?

shame double shame

Today I got a scornful gaze from those in line behind me when I decided to check out at the 15 items or less counter with 19 items in my cart.

What rules do you sometimes feel little or no shame when breaking?

"together" is more than i expected

It has been two weeks since wedding day, and it's interesting to see the interactions we prepared for finally coming to light. An obvious example: During the ceremony we both read off a pre-vow speech, highlighting our excitement over the upcoming marriage and declaring some of the things we were looking forward to. I made this statement:

I look forward to the things we now can share: our home, our bed, our checkbook, and, if I sometimes have need, your toothbrush.

Of course, everyone laughed at the silliness of it, knowing we were sure to have many interactions that two people usually don't have, but realizing a toothbrush is typically off limits. The words were apparently prophetic though, as within 7 hours I had to use my wife's toothbrush!! Talk about starting a relationship off by sharing everything!

today

Is it here? Is it here? Whew .......

I'm getting married today!

it may smell bad, but it'll save your life

I recently returned from an enjoyable trip to Denver, which was highlighted by two brief layovers and widespread pandemonium as the city was smothered in blizzard. On the day we arrived, we were greeted at the airport by hundreds, no, make that thousands of passengers who were trying to leave the city but couldn't get out. The security lines wrapped around the terminal. Suitcases lay neatly scattered all over the baggage claim. Had we been going in or out a day earlier, we would have been stuck.

The interesting thing I noticed in all this happened to be a little sign posted on the entryway to the bathroom. It showed a miniature tornado and words that read "Severe Weather Shelter," with the sign proceeding to lead deeper inside.

Now it's one thing to be stranded at an airport when severe weather is happening nearby. Even though you have the tremendous capacity to leave and fly far far away (on massive metal airplanes with enormous quanitities of gas), you are restricted to the limited mobility of your head, shoulders, knees and toes. No matter how strong the plane, a good wind gust or a funnel of fog and you're left at the ticket counter. That's tough.

But I think it struck me even more, when I was wandering through passengers on the way to our community storm shelter commode, that having a bathroom as your designated area for disaster recovery is not entirely a good idea. It's mind boggling. To begin with, airports already are areas that people come to to wait, many often for longer peroids of time than they'd like. Is it really a good idea to accentuate that wait by sending people in varying levels of panic (whether they have to go to the bathroom or not) into the one area where waiting is all the more highlighted by a natural urge to do your business and leave? That doesn't make sense. And then secondly, and even more obviously, the bathrooms are way too small. They could hold 35-40 people ... tops. I would imagine among the three concourses and with counting both male and female restrooms, there are about 24 bathrooms in DIA. Maybe there are some behind the scenes that the public can't see, but I'm still wondering how they will account for thousands of passengers in the event of incliment weather.

So here's the big question: Let's say at the time of a hurricane/tornado/snow storm/earthquake/mountain fire/moose attack they have enough room in the restrooms to accommodate half of the people currently in the airport. The security guard comes up to you and your family and says, "I'm sorry, we only have room for half of you. Some of you can join us in the handicap stall. The rest of you can go hide out in the McDonald's kitchen." What would you do?