Adrienne's Villa

I'm just sayin' . . .

Not to incite all the conspiracy theorists or anything, but doesn't it seem a little convenient that Mexico (a country that is expecting a revolt against the government because it's doing a craptastic job) has this huge outbreak of a virus?  And that, from one eyewitness report in Mexico City, the hospitals aren't even taking care of the sick people properly?  All of this seems a little hinky to me. Was the measles "outbreak" that we had here just a warmup?  Okay, everyone, make sure to get all of the 150 government suggested vaccines up to date! 

Dearest Hilary:  You can't prove that all the weapons in the Mexican drug wars are from the US, so hush.

Dearest Barry:  Our country is not "arrogant".  We just happen to think that we live in the best place on the planet.  You can hush as well.

Is it December 2012, yet? 

Good job, Johnny Hop!

In an apparent effort to reinforce the 'branding' of JHU, the school asked Hopkins Symphony if we would please start calling ourselves JOHNS Hopkins Symphony.  You know, to prevent everyone from thinking we are sponsored by Sir Anthony Hopkins, or to prevent the NFL from suing us just in case they thought we belonged to Wes Hopkins.  Uh, yeah.  The website was already "jhso" anyway.  I think we should have held out for free parking, but as it stands we all get a 150% raise and 2x mileage reimbursement. (Don't get your hopes up, unemployed musicians, it's a volunteer orchestra.)

I swear the media isn't liberal!

Not that I like when it happens, nor do I like hearing about it, but when is the last time you heard how many people died in the war today?  It just hit me this morning that now the top stories are what kind of dog the president got.

On a lighter note, I now have a vacation to look forward to.  Thanks to the help of http://www.bringfido.com,  Jeff and Jake and myself are heading down to Myrtle Beach in 32 days (not that I'm counting).  Hopefully it will be nice, and we can show Jake the ocean. 

Back to work kiddies.  The Army is testing ordnance again today so I've got enough distractions. :)

Do we have enough now?

[Side note: I know the Deacs are out of the tournament, but my dad rocks at picking winning teams so I'm keeping it up.]

According to the USGS, we now have enough domestic oil to be independent.  Can we please drill for it?  Please?  I'm tired of OPEC.  I know that North Dakota can be beautiful places, but wouldn't it be better for the environment to drill there instead of all the tanker fuel it takes to put it on a boat from Iraq?  We could use the extra profit to work on electric cars and all that other granola stuff.

Go Deacs!

You guys know I don't go out of myway to root for sports teams, but both of my parents went to Wake Forest, and they have a team in a sport that doesn't bore me to death so I'll root for them. 

Sometimes at work, someone will ask me to do something that is really not my job.  I usually consider it unless that person is lazy and could do this themselves perfectly well.  In that case, I shove it back over to them.  It's for their own good you know.  They shouldn't be lazy like that.  I usually include language such as "YOU should do this, this, and this . . . isn't that how YOU usually do it?"  Especially if the original needer of the thing to be done asked the lazy person when they would have asked me if it was my responsibility.  But dang it if someone didn't out-lazy me today and chuck it at my head in such a manner that if I don't do it then I look like a total bee-yotch.   So I said we can put it on the agenda for the meeting on Monday.  HA! Now it's his to do again! Zing-a-rooskie!

TGI-diddley-F.

Good news, bad news

I had an HVAC guy check out my heat pump this morning, due to an always-cold bedroom and a stupidly high electric bill (thanks deregulators!!).  The good news: my heat pump is working fine.  The bad news: my heat pump is working fine. <sigh>  In order to resolve my problems I would need to do one or more of the following: a) install a second register in my bedroom,  b) investigate the insulation in my bedroom walls and, if possible, force the HOA to up the insulation due to poor construction, c) get a new back door (which means getting the new one approved by the HOA), rip open the old one and figure out why it is freezing cold on the interior side, and, if possible, force the HOA to replace the door due to cheap construction, d) suck it up, get that 3M film stuff for my bedroom window, maybe blast the exterior of the building with that yellow foamy stuff in a can, save up for the 3 high heating bills every year and use my space heater.   I'm most likely going with option D, because I don't like HOAs and I don't want to try to find the mechanical plan and all the rigamarole involved with option A.

More bad news: a couple of years ago I lent my steel design manual to the estimating dept. at work and now it's gone.  I have a sneaking suspicion as to who has sticky fingers, but I would hate to have to show up on his doorstep and demand it back since he told me on the phone (and the response was a little too quick for my tastes) that he didn't have it, never saw it, never used it, never knew it existed.  Office investigation #3 occurs this evening.  If that doesn't work, I'm calling my old prof to see if he remembers how much I paid for it, and then check on the limitations on small claims court. Okay, maybe not, but it makes me feel better to think about it.

Is it just me?

Obama will unveil this great new plan to help people with bad mortgages.  Awesome, but, um, isn't this what the first stimulus package was supposed to do?  I mean, that's how it was sold to the American public.  Are they going to let everyone get reduced rate mortgages, or just the people that totally messed up?  And now that congress-people are reading the bill they just passed, they are appalled at all the crap that's in it.  Including a mag-lev train between Las Vegas and Disneyland.  "Here kiddies, have fun with Mickey Mouse while we go on a train ride to gamble away your college funds!"  What happened to reading stuff before you sign it?  Or rather, letting people read stuff before you force them to vote on it? 

Where are we going and why are we all in this huge handbasket?

Who needs French food and chocolate truffles?

I got German food and double-stuf Oreos.  And Jeff even sent flowers to me at work on Friday:

 

Too bad, girls, he's mine!

Recent Lessons

I've come across some interesting points of trivia lately that I thought I would share, with source in parentheses.

• Most mammals have an even number of "narples" (misspelled to keep skeevy people out), except for a few like oppossums which have an odd number.  The optimum litter size is equal to half of the number of 'narples', which is why human females usually have only one child.  (Fringe on Fox)
• My construction company was bought by a German construction company in 1999 (that I already knew).  This company has been around since about 1875, so it shouldn't be a surprise that they built things for Hitler - most notably the bunker in which he supposedly committed suicide (this I did not know).  Also, we have an entry in wikipedia and two of our big competitors don't, which either means we are cool or wikipedia is written by Nazis.  Your pick.  (wikipedia.org, or course)
• General Electric, maker of lightbulbs, owns NBC, MSNBC, etc and also manufactures trains, planes, and other "green" stuff.  Are they behind all this green, save the earth kick?  (Fox News)
• Cloth diapers are also available in adult sizes, and a typical cloth diaper (well, from that diaper service anyway) will be used and cleaned 42 times before it is sold as a rag (Dirty Jobs).
• People who live in DC are stupid, because they are defending Marion Berry AGAIN.  Earth to DC:  Don't compare Berry to Tom Daschle, who only has been found of not filing taxes once as opposed to eight times.  And hasn't been caught smoking crack.
• My friend Sarah is on Jeopardy! tonight so everyone watch and cheer her on!! All that she'll say about it is, "I didn't embarass myself."  Second place finishers get $2000 and third place peeps get $1000.  If Sarah came in third, she would have taken home about $500, which just about covers the travel expenses the show didn't pay for even though she had to come back to tape a second time because they had a tie for first place the first time she went to California.  Jeopardy! is run by a bunch of penny pinchers (Sarah).

Alright world, get with it

Because I am masochistic, I read the newspapers where I live.  Especially when it snows and I need a crossword puzzle, some sudoku and comics.  Especially when they are free. :)  Enter The Baltimore Examiner.  I was reading the letters to the editor and one letter noticed an interesting juxtaposition (take that, SAT!) between one article discussing a $23 million cut in the budget for Baltimore City Schools, and the end of JHU's Knowledge for the World 8-year campaign which raised almost $4 billion.  Why, questioned the letter writer, can't the state just take money from JHU and fund the schools even though JHU is a private institution.  Maybe because we have a doofus for a governor?  And a criminal for a mayor?  Perhaps?  That's okay, though, because we'll just "cross our fingers"  and hope that the government will bail them out.  Good strategy, Marty.

To end on a lighter note, Autstin, TX warned motorists of an impending zombie attack!