ugh...

so my glasses just broke. in half.

i was on the phone with trenda at the time, and i let out a flurry of expletives such that i asked her to wash out her ears before she touches her baby again.

this is such poor timing...

wal-who?

Last October, Scott pledged to transform his sprawling company, which employs 1.8 million people worldwide and ranks No. 2 on the Fortune 500 list, into a lean green machine powered exclusively by renewable energy, producing zero waste, and selling sustainable products. Those goals are so lofty they sound downright deluded, but Scott has followed them up with specific, seemingly achievable commitments and timetables. He aims, for example, to reduce Wal-Mart's total greenhouse-gas emissions 20 percent by 2012, and invest $500 million in environmental improvements each year.

read the entire article here

a gift for the person who has everything...

The problem facing the Asian elephant is simple yet complex. In the age of technology, how does the elephant survive? Man had taken away its way of life when he cut the rain forest indiscriminately until there was little left. Now, the elephant had to find a new way of life or face extinction, or worse yet - degradation at the hands of man. Eventually an idea was formed. The simplicity of the idea (making Elephant Dung Paper) is remarkable. Collect the dung of elephants, turn it into handmade paper and then recycled products. We then sell the dung paper and return profits to feeding and caring for the Thai elephants

more information, plus photos of dung paper production in action, can be found here.

today's heat index...

is a blistering 107 degrees. a plastic cup melted in my car while amy and i were in the grocery store. MELTED!

raise your hand if you're ready for october...

hot dog, anyone?

Man Relishes Wonder Dog
by Mike Peters, Greeley Tribune
June 26, 2006

This is the story of an anniversary.

No, not a wedding anniversary or some company's anniversary.

This is likely the strangest and most bizarre anniversary you have ever heard of.

This is the hot dog anniversary for Richard Carroll of Milliken.

Five years ago, on July 4, Carroll was grilling some hot dogs for a family gathering, and he dropped one of them on the ground.

Josh Severin, a family member, quickly picked it up, and instead of merely brushing the hot dog off and putting it back on the grill as most men would do (remember the 5-second rule), he stuck it, lengthwise, on the radio antenna on Carroll's pickup truck.

That hot dog, after five years, after 80,000 miles, after rain and storm and sleet and hail, is still on that antenna.

And it's not a pleasant sight.

It's shrunken, this wonder hot dog, and it has turned black and kind of fuzzy and hard.

"It kind of makes you wonder," Carroll said this week, pausing to look at the shriveled symbol of picnics everywhere. "It kind of makes you wonder about all the hot dogs you've eaten over the years..."

He doesn't remember what brand of hot dog it was. Whatever brand, there must have been enough preservatives in it to prevent it from simply rotting away and falling off.

Instead, it's stayed on the antenna of Carroll's 1992 GMC pickup, stuck right at the top.

"I kept thinking the birds would eat it, or the wind would blow it off on the highway," Carroll said. "But I've been on a lot of hunting trips with it, and it's been brushed against tree limbs and bushes, and it's still there."

Carroll, 52, is a native of Weld County and worked as a heavy equipment operator for the Colorado Department of Transportation for 22 years.

He said he'll leave the wonder dog on the antenna until it finally falls off, but it appears it's become part of the antenna now.

As for the 5-year anniversary of the hot dog, Carroll said there won't be anything special. They'll just have a barbecue like they always do on the Fourth of July.

Cook something on the grill and have a picnic.

But Carroll said he probably won't be serving hot dogs.

the nieces...

interesting...

Ben Wallace appears ready to sign with Bulls

Free-agent center Ben Wallace is leaving the Detroit Pistons to sign with the Chicago Bulls, a person within the NBA said Monday.

happy birthday, nikki!

introducing...

my new niece, tesslyn scott hazell, born sunday, june 18 to my sister trenda and her boyfriend jacob.

as you can see, she's perfect...

a cacophony of errors...

i just spilled an ENTIRE sonic limeade all over my pants. while driving. and the limey-ness that was once was so pleasurable is now reacting with my freshly shaven legs to give me a nasty case of razorburn.

good grief...

you can take the girl out of the country...

i am currently the inhabitant of a hillbilly fabulous farmer tan (complete with v-neck accents).

it really is so classy.

it's pouring outside...

the evil bird left his poop upon my car
the evil bird left his poop upon my car
the evil bird left his poop upon my car
and the rains came tumbling down

bye, bye hot pink bird poo. while your fluorescent presence was certainly a curiosity, i bid thee farewell.

shat...

is there such a thing as hot pink bird poo? my car has been christened with such a substance, and i'm curious as to its origin.

regardless, it's gross. and fairly substantial.

when i finally get a job, the first thing i'm going to do is pay someone to clean the inside and outside of my vehicle. until then, i'm praying for rain...

recommended reading...

what could closure mean to a believer in an eternal soul? what could closure mean in the shadow of an all-seeing, all-remembering god? even to someone whose faith is as shaky as mine, it seems simply common sense that true stories do not end.

from vows: the story of a priest, a nun, and their son by peter manseau

a cornucopia of musical offerings...

ticketmaster is once again singing to me its siren song. listen to this...

• toad the wet sprocket - sunday, july 23rd at the uptown theater
• lyle lovett - tuesday, july 25th at the uptown theater
• laci's 30th birthday - saturday, august 5th (well, technically, that wasn't on the ticketmaster website...)
• ben harper - friday, august 25th at starlight theater

you have got to be kidding me. how in the world to choose?

happy birthday, trenda!

feliz cumpleanos, grace!

the jukebox in my head...

is currently stuck on one particular line of an alabama song.

i'm guilty of love in the first degree

you have got to be kidding me...

i am a sunburned moron who CLEARLY doesn't learn from her mistakes...

so when my mac died earlier this year, you would have thought that the threat of losing all of my thesis work would have made me religious about backing up my computer.

you would have thought that, wouldn't you...

well, monday i narrowly avoided DISASTER when the blue screen of death appeared on my PC. the PC with ALL my email on it. with EVERYTHING regarding brian's booking. the last time i'd backed that up was in january. do you know how many emails i've sent since january?

i said a very short prayer (over and over and over...) that if my computer would just start for ten minutes - just long enough for me to back this information up, i didn't care if afterwards it burst into flames.

it took about an hour and a half for my miracle to come, but god delivered in spectacular fashion. i now have a comprehensive set of backups. stuff i know i'll need, stuff i'll likely never need again. spare copies of it all.

perhaps you, too, might take the time to back up your computer today. no doubt there are files on it that you would be loathe to lose to the irretrievable ether of a crashed hard drive.

technology - i shake my fist at you!

kerrigan v. harding, the opera...

MEDFORD, Mass. -- When Tufts music student Abigail Al-Doory sought inspiration for her opera, she looked not to Wagner's "Ring" cycle but to the Olympic rings, where themes like power, envy and greed are plentiful.

In "Tonya and Nancy: The Opera," Al-Doory provides 18 movements on the scandal that turned the once-dainty sport of figure skating into a soap opera of whacking, wailing and time spent in jail.

Scheduled for two Tuesday night performances, the production portrays the skaters not as rivals but as a pair, singing for the audience's sympathy as the tawdry affair unfolds.

continue reading...