Chicken Teriyaki Bowl #7

Snow

Dictionary.com: Meteorology. a precipitation in the form of ice crystals, mainly of intricately branched, hexagonal form and often agglomerated into snowflakes, formed directly from the freezing of the water vapor in the air.

CTB#7: In December, a scene of gentle white beauty, falling as a mesmerizing veil outside the office window.  In April, a friggin’ pain in the ass.

Hail

Dictionary.com: Showery precipitation in the form of irregular pellets or balls of ice more than ¹/₅ in. (5 mm) in diameter, falling from a cumulonimbus cloud.

CTB#7:  A short-lasting weather phenomenon wherein white ice pellets make a huge racket outside, scares the cat and makes the pavement slicker than snot.  Usually followed up by rain and wind.

Sleet

Dictionary.com: Precipitation consisting of generally transparent frozen or partially frozen raindrops.  A mixture of rain and snow or hail.  A thin icy coating that forms when rain or sleet freezes, as on trees or streets.

CTB#7:  WTF?  Helllloooo up there!  It’s April for chrissakes!  What the hell is it with this flippin’ weather?   We have cherries to worry about you know!

There are a lot of things we said we’d do on our mini-vacation that we didn’t do:

• We didn’t walk on the beach.  It was cold, snowy, rainy, hail-y in rotating succession, with wind the only constant.
• We didn’t work out.  The fitness room was adequate and I stepped foot in it exactly once, just to see what it had.  The pool and whirlpool spa, however, we used quite a bit.
• We didn’t eat healthy.  Lots of yummy, delicious, butter-soaked food washed down with copious amounts of various types of alcohol.
• We didn’t go to bed early and get lots of quality sleep.  There was a great band in the lounge that we listened to until last call each night.

Then there are the things I didn’t do, that I said I wouldn’t do.  More success with those:

• I didn’t connect to the internet in any way for four days.  In fact, I didn’t even turn on my computer until this morning even though I got back yesterday afternoon.  The closest I got to a computer was calling for the pass reports before heading home.  The DH checked in once and checked his voice mail regularly.
• We didn’t try to make a schedule.  Very disorienting not knowing what we were going to do at any point.

The only problem I ran into?  Four days was about ten days too short.

I decided to put learning Ruby and Rails on the back burner and learn Cake first.  I primarily code in PHP, so it makes sense to add a MVC system to my skillset.

I had to laugh, though while reading the first section of the CakePHP Manual:

Rudimentary knowledge in first aid (CPR), basic survival skills, dating & relationships is also generally recommended, though also outside the scope of this document.

I’m officially on vacation, but I still can’t stop myself from scheduling my day.  I need to clean house, take the dog for a walk, and finish the laundry.

Some where in all of that, I’ll try and write an interesting post…

I’ve been watching the first season of Stargate-1 (SG-1) and find it necessary to share the things I’ve learned:

I don’t like men who wax their eyebrows.  Michael Shanks (Dr. Daniel Jackson) has perfect eyebrows.  It weirds me out.  He also has wonderfully manicured hands.  I don’t mind that so much.

I like Richard Dean Anderson (Lt. Col. Jack O’Neil) better without the mullet.

Everybody on all planets speak English.  On the other hand, they write in archaic scripts which needs a philologist/anthropologist/archeologist to decipher.  Go figure.

Dr. Frasier is the real boss.

Teal’c should be banned from wearing pseudo cowboy gear with red silk bandanas.  He looked like a refugee from a Village People reunion tour.  (Oops, also from a later season - I’ve been watching SG-1 on Sci-Fi channel as well)

When a babe blows pink dust at your man, grab a weapon.

Be very, very careful about the off-worlders you have sex with; corollary, don’t date Samantha Carter or you’ll die.  Actually the corollary comes from later episodes, but you gotta wonder why she doesn’t have any men in her life.

When unsure what emotion you are supposed to display, scowl (Teal’c), wrinkle your forehead (Daniel) or come up with a sarcastic quip (O’Neil).

No matter what action SG-1 takes, it will mess something up.  Sometimes beyond fixing.  Which is actually impressive - I mean most shows would get it fixed within the hour.  That would be why they call them story arcs, I guess.

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then. ~ Thomas Jefferson

There is no mortgage crisis. What there is, is a set of incorrect beliefs. Here are mine:

• A personal home is not an investment. It never has been and the the past decade is an anomaly.
• Everybody deserves a place to live, however:
  • Not everybody can afford to own a house.
  • Nobody deserves to own a house.
• Live within your means.  Buying a $300K house when you make $30K a year is NOT living within your means (real-life couple I saw on new the other night).
• Don’t enter into contracts you don’t understand.
• Don’t blame your stupidity on entering into a contract you didn’t understand on the other party.
• The only person looking out for you is you.  Hello! The mortgage company, bank and realtor are all making money off of you!  Why should you give them your unquestioning trust?
• People who make bad decisions should receive the consequences that those bad bring.
• The government should not interfere in contractual transactions.  If there is a question of facts, the courts can handle it.  In other words - no bailout!

If you tell people where to go, but not how to get there, you’ll be amazed at the results. - Patton

I saw this quote today and it reminded me of a History Channel show I saw.  It was about D-Day and a group who were parachuted in to destroy a particular big gun installation over one of the beaches.

When they fought their way to the installation, they found out that the gun wasn’t there; it had been moved miles inland.  But here’s the cool thing.  The soldiers’ orders weren’t “go to this bluff and destroy the gun there”.  Their orders were “go destroy this gun”.  So they packed up their stuff and moved inland to destroy the gun.

This made an impression on me because I live in a world where just enough is considered OK.  A world where “nobody told me that” is considered a good excuse.  I like the simplicity of it.  They were supposed to destroy the gun.  The gun wasn’t where they thought it was, so they went to find and destroy it.

Our basic, personal principles work the same way, don’t they?