Behold The Nipple Salad

06.05.2008

Just to show that not all of my salads end up on the floor, here's a successful attempt from Wednesday. People at Westar remark on how pretty my salads are, and Jose says I put just the right portion of each ingredient in the salad. It wasn't until looking at this picture that I noticed the dollop of bacon bits in the sea of shredded cheese looks a little nipple-ish. I'll have to put 2 salads side by side and see if it looks any different. I may end up sliding a dollar between the bowls if I do that.

Tuesday ended up being errand day. A trip to the eye doctor (new glasses coming in next week!). Returned a book I already had at Books One Million. The air conditioner guy came by to tell me not to worry about the hum I was hearing from the outside unit. Dropped of the red-ringed 360 at the UPS drop off emporium. I managed to spend close to $500, yet all I've got is a stack of papers to show for it. To balance it out, I deposited my economic stimulus check in the bank while I was running around (new glasses coming in next week!).

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By Request!

06.02.2008

Due to some text messaging with WWE Jason, I found out that I need to post more pictures. So with that in mind...
Pyrex, the less breakable glass

Friday I was getting ready for work, trying to be good and making myself a salad instead of finding an excuse to go get some fast food. I made one of my Westar-heralded salads. Lettuce, cucumber, turkey, cheese, Ranch dressing, a dollop of bacon bits, portabello mushrooms. It takes 8 minutes to make my salad in the morning, I've got it down to a science. After I made my salad I put it on the counter, then went to look under my computer bag to get my little lunch bag into which I would put my salad along with a fork and something to drink. While moving teh computer bag, I noticed that something slid.

That something was the above pictured salad. The Pyrex bowl fell 3 feet to the kitchen floor. I was expecting a thud followed by the bowl bouncing around. Instead I got a thump as the Pyrex shattered and the salad was set free to road the kitchen floor. I stared at floored salad, the 5-second rule quickly running through my head, followed quickly by the thoughts of eating Pyrex. I cursed the broken Pyrex, for not only was my salad ruined, but since there was Ranch dressing on the floor I was forced to clean it up immediately. 8 minutes. Wasted.

As I cleaned, I noticed the way the Pyrex had broken. I've had a lot of broken glass in the house over the past few years, with the last coming from a frame in the hallway I bumped into on my way out one morning; An event I didn't clean up until after I got back from work, since broken glass doesn't stink up the housed. Curse you Ranch dressing! But I digress. The Pyrex had broken into chunks, kind of like safety glass would (I think). In fact, looking at the picture the broken chunks of Pyrex look a lot like ice. The Pyrex, along with the salad, swept up easily. I had to run the Swiffer afterwards to (hopefully) clean up whatever liquid residue the salad may have left. After all the cleaning, I really didn't want to make another salad, so I made the guys at work go to lunch with me to Schlotzsky's. I did not have a sandwich at Schlotzsky's.

I had a sammich. I large sammich. A great big $10 sammich. And it was a goooooood sammich.

We'll see how successful my salad gets made this Friday.

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Do You Need A Lobby For Your Hobbies?

05.22.2008

This is a summary of conversations I've had with Jerry over the past year. Or three.

When is a hobby not a hobby? How often have you had a hobby slip to the wayside, yet still consider it a hobby? Do you have to go to a hobby store for something to be considered a hobby? Well I'm here to tell you the Russellmania Rules of Hobbydom that will let you know when your hobby really is a hobby.

For example purposes, I will use my collecting of original comic book art as a test to see if it is a hobby.

Criteria #1 - The majority of people can't do it. Watching TV isn't a hobby. Reading isn't a hobby (in general, there are exceptions). The "majority of people" are considered people within your peer group, not the world population. In my example, I am the only person I know that collects comic art, thus it meets the first criteria.

While "reading" isn't considered a hobby, specialized reading may be. If you only read mysteries or sci-fi, then that could count, too.

Criteria #2 - you have to spend money on it. Mowing the grass isn't a hobby if all your friends live in apartments. These are chores. According to eBay, that comic art is costing me money.

Criteria #3 - you have to actively pursue it for more than a month. Ah, the minimum time requirement. I went out once and bought a lot of miniature gaming pieces for a game that looked interesting. Over the course of a week I spent $100 and got the rules and everything I needed to play it. Then it all sat on a shelf. Instead of a hobby, I had an impulse purchase. The comic art example covered at least 5 years, so the hobby definition is still good!

Criteria #4 - you have to spend money on a regular basis. The regular basis part can be a bit fuzzy. General there will be some type of monthly payment involved (cable bills don't count!). At the very least money should be spent annually. I haven't bought any comic art in over a year, so here I would say that my example no longer qualifies as a hobby, but for 3 years I was actively seeking out and purchasing art work, so at that time it was a hobby.

But what if it's not a hobby? In my example, my hobby has slipped to a pastime. Pastimes are hobbies that are infrequent and/or cost little money. Once you slip to no regular activity and spending no money, it becomes a fond remembrance. But that's a story for another post.

Taking this into account for Jerry:

• R/C planes are a hobby.
• HAM radios are a pastime.
• Raising kids are a chore.

For myself:

• Hobbies: collecting DVDs, comic books, wrestling figures
• Pastimes: collecting comic book art, playing WoW (time spent on that one so far)
• Fond Remembrances: R/C cars, GI Joes
• Chores: not as many as I need to be doing.

There's all kind of loopholes, but this is a work in progress. Hmmm, I bet "work" needs to be in there too. I bet that's where web pages fit! Sometimes.

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SWM Looking For: More Hours In A Day

05.12.2008

The following is a "Mom, I'm Alive" post.

Busy busy busy.  That's me.  Here's what all I'm trying to do:

• Work a 40+ hour week at Spiritus, home of the most understanding boss ever
• Work a 20 hour week at Westar
• Help take care of Gina, now recovering from woman surgery at the hospital.
• Finish working the examples in the Ajax book I'm reading.
• Go to the web developers group lunch Tuesday and learn some MySql tricks.
• Play some more World of Warcraft - I'm liking that game.
• Call Microsoft to get a box to ship off the dead 360

At least I finally went and saw Dad this past weekend for the first time since Thanksgiving. I always seem to go see him around Mothers Day. I'm backward like that.

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Remote Update

05.02.2008

Since returning from the beach with my new (refurbished) Blu-Ray player, I've been hesitant to hook it up, mainly because it meant I would have to unhook one of my other HDMI linked components.  Either the Xbox Three hundred and Sixty or the Betamax-like HD-DVD player.  Not being one to unhook things, I found myself on the eBay and purchased an HDMI switcher.

Last night I started hooking all the components together, and along the way decided that there really were components I didn't need any longer.  VHS recorder: Not sure I ever used the one hooked up now.  GONE! 5-disc cd carousel: I haven't played a real cd anywhere but the car for at least a year. GONE!  Big honking receiver/amp hooked up to the cd player.  GONE!

Once all of my components that survived were re-hooked up, it was time for me to update my remote.  The reason I got the Harmony 880 remote was that the drivers (I guess commoners would call them instructions?) are downloaded form the interweb, so in my mind it will always be up-to-date and you shouldn't have to hope some generic numbered code will work for what you need.  I plugged the remote in to the PC, connected to Mr Logitech, and told them I now had a Blu-Ray player and Psyclone HDMI switcher.  Wham bam download you ma'am and I'm good to go.



I love it when technology uses its powers for good.

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