20.2.09

Niagara Falls

For Valentines Day I took my S.O. to Niagara Falls. In three months that she's been here, she has visited 8 states and Canada! WOW! In my 30+ years of living in the US I have visited only a handful more than that! Lucky her! We first visited the Canadian Side. We were there for an entire day...then spent 1/2 day on the American side. This is my forth trip to the falls, my first to the American side, upstate NY, and in the dead of Winter. It was SO cold but oh, so much fun. I will let the pictures do the talking......enjoy!

Rainbow to greet us as we walked along the boardwalk on the Canadian Side!








We were so close we could practically reach out and touch the water! But don't reach too far out...you'll end up at the bottom of the falls with 258,000 L per second of water falling on you!




We went up in the the Skylon! Amazing sights and you could still hear the falls! Boy was it windy up there! http://www.skylon.com/ We could see Toronto and it's famous CN Tower off towards the North. Below is Niagra Falls, NY. Yes there is a town with the same name in upstate NY! On the left is the famous Rainbow Bridge which houses a US/Canadian border crossing.



We watched the sunset!





Tomorrow you'll get to experience the US side of the falls!






























13.2.09

Hero's Walking Among Us

With all the sadness coming out of many places around the world, it's heartwarming to read stories such as these. Knowing many firefighters personally and working alongside them, I know they would all do the same thing...after all who in their right mind would run INTO a buring building.

Here's the news story....
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/02/12/40_years_worth_of_thanks/?s_campaign=yahoo

6.2.09

'Mom cooks me like a turkey in the oven.....

....I felt fire. It burned my back,' " he read. "'She hurts me with a screwdriver all the time.'"

Reyna Valentino, 40, a mother of five, faces life in prison on allegations that she burned her 4-year-old daughter in an oven, used a hot nail or screwdriver to singe her eyelids and beat her 5-year-old daughter's leg with a pry bar


What things to appear in public are much different than what they really are. I never will understand how people could do this to others, nevermind their own kids. Some people are not fit to be parents:
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090206/METRO/902060381/1409/METRO

Would you classify Ms. Suleman the single, unemployed "mother" of the recently born octuplets as a child abuser. I do! She seriously has NO business bringing more kids into the world.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090206/ap_on_re_us/octuplets

10.12.08

Getting the "you know what" scared out of you

Email exchange at work:


To: Dist. List
From: Dist. List Colleague
Subject: Holiday Decorations around the office


Have you guys noticed that a lot of the open space cubicles contain a heavy amount of holiday decoration this year?

I guess you could call me the grinch because I think too much decoration becomes tacky very fast and not festive or fun.

I stayed late one night recently and at around 7pm while walking from the men's bathroom to my office I passed a motion sensor snowman that noticed my presence and started to play a song, move its arms, and it started to talk. It scared the crap out of me as I thought I was alone. My late at work silence was suddenly broken by a snowman robot out to disturb my peace and solitude. Not festive or fun for me.

The company fire department guys seem to agree with me. Below is their article on how too much decoration can create a fire hazard because cotton balls (used to be fake snow) are very flammable. Decorations with lots of paper or lots of electrical connections also can increase the likelihood of a fire.

Did you notice that in front of YFA's office is a whole cubicle wall done up entirely in wrapping paper with a bow?

What do you all think about the increase in decoration this year?
Good thing? Bad thing?
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My reply:


I am sick of the neocons. I am sick of getting a partially meets expectations To give blog readers a reference to what that meant by this. We recently had our yearly performance reviews....but of course I didn't get that low of a review, I got an exceeds expectations! Cream of the crop!). I am sick of working so hard! I am sick of being sick! But most of all I am sick of the religious zealots trying to impose their beliefs on me. If it was me putting up decorations HR would be all over me!!! Let's go around and take them all down!! And that snowman, I put a candle under him…he's long gone! I ruined a brand new pair of pants because of him!




Yep, the snowman got me too! Late at night, no one in the office and that darn thing starts to inflate and sing. *@#&. No I didn't ruin a pair of pants...but my Glock was staring him in the face. Yes a snowman got me to unholster!

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The follow up from the sender of the first email:

I like how you tell it like it is YFA.
No mixed messages. No spin.
More power to you.

You may be right too about what are proper and not proper decorations.
If we do winter decorations with gift wrapping paper, then can we do this again for Diwali?
Can we go crazy and decorate for Diwali? Or what about for Kwanzaa?
Or what about for Hannukah? Or Eid al Adha?

Who decides which decorations can go up and during which holidays? Does HR know?
Is it writing down in an HR policy anywhere which holidays we can decorate the hallways for?

I say allow office decorations for all of them or none of them.
- Colleague R

P.S. Down with snowmen that talk or move around and scare me.

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Got to give him props...this R is well cultured. He knew about Eid al Adha....but then again he tries to get off of work by claiming to be a diciple of every single religion.

1.12.08

Before the Boy Bands....

of the 90's, there were the boy bands of the 80's...which I grew up listening to! I got to attend the New Edition concert...one of my first ones. I won the tickets from a radio station. I was the 96th caller!!! I went crazy on the radio. 4 tickets! They were in such high demand I could have made a nice profit from them...but no way was I going to let them go!

Yeah, make fun of me all you want..but back in the day this was got you a dance with the pretty girls at the school dances! I was in 6th grade and the radio stations were blasting out these tunes....ahhhhhh the memories.....how fast life moves. What I would do to go back in time and relive a few days from that era of my life!

New Edition




And I wanted this played at my wedding...but my wife would have for sure vetoed this request.



Like I told you, no laughing at them or at me!