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No meat Fridays

The other fun of Lent is every Friday you avoid meat. The hardest part about this for me is REMEMBERING! This year I have set a phone reminder for each Friday to remind me.

Last week I discovered that the Taqueria across the street has REALLY good cheese enchiladas. Yum. They are on their vegetarian menu and are just what the doctor ordered for Fridays during Lent.

So, today, Lee got off work early and we headed over for lunch. I discovered that they had a dinner meal that was two cheese enchiladas, rice and lettuce. Perfect! I ordered that. When it came out, my cheese enchiladas were totally douched in beef!! DOH! I felt very wasteful as I scraped all that tasty Mexican beef off of my two cheese enchiladas.

So, my question is, if I wanted all that beef, wouldn't I have ordered BEEF enchiladas? Why would I want cheese enchiladas covered with beef? And wouldn't beef enchiladas covered in cheese make much more sense?? Silly Mexicans!

Norfolk has TERRIBLE commercials!

Since I have moved to this area, I have been appalled by the commercials. They are truly awful! Most look like they were filmed at home and then edited by a 5th grader. So, I have decided that I am going to tape them when I see them on tv. (Sorry for the poor quality, I used my camera to record off the tv.)

Yes, at the end of this video, the guy AND the dog are doing the Soulja Boy Superman dance.

More commercials to come:

The rap for the local newspaper.

The car dealership with the skanky sailor chick.

The ghetto dude advertising a community college with his hat on sideways.

Poll: McCain's hard to beat

Maybe it was the month CFunk spent bashing McCain with blogs like "McCain the foreign policy expert?", "John McCain's real views on immigration", and my favorite title: "McCain the jerk"...

Or, maybe it is the fact that McCain is basically my political opposite...

But, I just can't believe that McCain is pulling this kind of approval!

WASHINGTON (CNN) — A new poll out Wednesday suggests Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, will be a difficult candidate for the eventual Democratic nominee to beat in a general election match up this fall.

According to a just released Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll, McCain would be in tight races with either of the remaining Democratic presidential candidates.

McCain is statistically tied with Sen. Barack Obama, 44 percent to 42 percent, and ahead of Sen. Hillary Clinton by 6 points, 46 percent to 40 percent. The poll's margin of error was plus-or-minus 3 percentage points.

The poll also showed McCain with a 61 percent approval rating, a number higher than both Clinton's and Obama's in past polls. (A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll earlier this month measured Clinton's approval rating at 52 percent and Obama's at 58 percent.)

The Arizona senator holds a clear advantage on dealing with the war in Iraq, according to the poll, and holds a 9 point advantage on economic issues over Obama, despite having acknowledged that area is not his expertise. Though the poll finds voters favor Clinton by 10 points over McCain to handle the economy.

The same poll also showed Obama with a 6 point edge over Clinton nationally — a finding that's consistent with several other polls out earlier this week that indicate that the senator from Illinois is the frontrunner in the Democratic race.

The #1 Cougar Dating Community on the Net

As Clint would say, that's like being the world's tallest midget.

Are there really that many cougar dating sites?

I don't think that's a compliment...

I was bored while eating lunch today, so I took the How will you be defined in the dictionary quiz. I don't think you can really call it a quiz since you just put your name in... But, at any rate, I don't think my results were too nice...

Cashmere Mafia

At Michelle's recommendation, I started watching Cashmere Mafia. Now, usually shows like to build up the drama over a few seasons, but the Cashmere Mafia just jumps right in.

To back up, this show is about four successful women in New York City:
Mia - (Lucy Liu's character) she got dumped by her fiance when she got a promotion over him
Zoe - probably the most stable on the show. she is just a workaholic mom.
Juliet - was getting cheated on by her husband and is now going through a divorce.
Caitlin - was dabbling in being a lesbian... until she found out her girlfriend was knocked up.

So, I have pretty much been sucked into the show. As usual. But, the one thing I can't get over is how much Juliet looks and sounds like a grown up Mischa Barton. Does anyone else see this??
Anyway, I would recommend this if anyone has an hour to kill every Wednesday at 10/9c. It is not the best show on tv (that would be LOST), but it will numb your brain for an hour.

How to fix the military - My observations

Last week Clint posted this blog about how to fix the Army. While I know very little about the Army, I now know a lot more than I would like about the Navy. And I have a few opinions of my own on how to improve the military...

1. Run it a little more like a business. There are so many things that the military does that just would not fly in the "real world". A lot of these are necessary for the country to be protected, but many aren't. If you brought the Bob's in from Office Space, they could have a hayday with the military. There are so many inefficiencies and useless jobs in the Navy. Plus, if someone just plain sucks at their job, you can't fire them. Unless they misbehave or somehow get in trouble, you just have to have this useless person sitting around creating more work for others while still soaking up the income and benefits.


2. The salaries: Instead of offering more money for being married & having kids, make everyone's salary a little higher, but even for single vs. married. Offering more money for people to get married is just stupid. And it probably helps out our country's rate of divorce. You tell a horny, immature 18 year old that he can marry that chick he has been dating for 2 weeks and MAKE DOUBLE his salary. What do you think is going to happen? This is a salary, not welfare. (Although often times it feels like welfare.) The military needs higher salaries. How can you expect to retain good soldiers/sailors if they could make 3 times their salary doing the same job out of the Navy. You are relying on patriotism. And at the end of the day, most people realize that they could go work in a gas station and never have to leave their families and make more money than they currently do in the Navy. (Now, some of the officers, I could argue make TOO much. Just because you have a four year degree does not make you qualified to lead.)


3. Only retain the GOOD people: The Navy tries to get pretty much everyone to reenlist. Numbers are great! But, a huge army of idiots isn't. There is a guy on Lee's ship that everyone complains about. He can't handle the most simple tasks. He totally screwed up the paint locker (seriously, the room where they keep the paint). He can't even keep his own finances in shape, Lee and Jay have to do it for him. (He owes $1k on his cell phone and is in debt because he bought ENCYCLOPEDIAS.) Most say that he is so dumb he shouldn't have gotten INTO the Navy in the first place. But, the Navy will allow him to reenlist and keep on sucking at his job. Also, the Navy allows tons of GOOD people to leave the Navy each year. These are people that are already trained and experienced and are leaving for higher salaries or because of poor treatment.


4. The hours: The working hours are either awesome or horrible. For people on the ships and overseas, the hours are terrible. For the people on shore duty, the hours are so easy. Recently, we have been trying to contact the office in charge of moving. Lee has been out to sea pretty much all week every week since Christmas. He has been trying to call the moving office, but finally realized their office closes at 4:30pm everyday and closes at noon on Fridays. Our friend Tom is an officer who just recently got put on shore duty. He works (and I kid you not) about 6 days a month inspecting ships. And he makes close to the same salary as I do. And if you ask almost anyone in the Navy to do their job, they act like it is a severe inconvenience. Lee complains about it on the ship, and I see it in the hospitals and pretty much every office I have spoken with.


5. Keep it simple, stupid: Every task in the Navy has about 5 more steps than it should. Lee and I have been trying to plan our move back to Indiana. Like I said above, Lee hasn't been able to call because of their hours. So, finally, I called. I hate calling because since I am MERELY a wife, I must be a total moron. (I would argue that I am the smart one for NOT being in the military, but whatever.) They have an automated message that tells you what to do and has different options. Basically, I was directed to one website. Then, after that, I was directed to a 2nd website. Then another phone number. Seriously, why do I need to visit 2 websites and call 2 phone numbers just to get one simple question answered?
6. Re-use, Renew, Recycle: Or whatever that saying is. The Navy wastes more money than I care to even think about. For example, many of the tools that they use are Craftsman. Most people know that Craftsman offers a LIFETIME warranty on all their tools. When a tool on the ship breaks, they throw it overboard (don't tell the environmentalists that one) and order a brand new one. Lee once saw them about to throw a broken Craftsman tool overboard and stopped them and asked for it. That night we took it to Sears and they handed us a brand new one for free, no questions asked. Also, sometimes the ship accidentally orders too many of something. Instead of returning them or storing them somewhere until they need them, they give them away first come first serve to the guys on the ship. Even the uniforms are a waste of time & money. The soldiers have dress blues, dress whites, utilities, coveralls, working blues, etc. They receive a stipend for buying uniforms. But, they hardly ever even wear a lot of the uniforms. I have never even seen Lee in his dress blues since his graduation from bootcamp. They only wear the whites while they are pulling in/out of port during the summer months. I am pretty sure they could narrow it down to just a few uniforms and save everyone a lot of money.

I could probably spend another hour writing about some of the stuff I have seen in the Navy, but I need to get back to work. But, this was a good venting session!!

It's a small actuarial world

When I worked at D&T, I used to get made fun of a lot for knowing all the actuaries in Chicago. I don't think that is all that difficult of a feat when 1) you worked at Unifi/Buck/Mellon/whatever where everyone quit and spread out to different companies and 2) you drink a lot.


This can be bad for people at times. I remember a certain Mercer intern who told a company in Indianapolis that he was interviewing with that he had an offer from Mercer when he DID NOT. Amateur. That kind of stuff is going to come out with one simple email.

This week, I have had two of those experiences that prove, once again, "It's a small (actuarial) world after all." (I can even say most of that in sign language.)

1) A nameless friend from my Mercer days ended up interviewing with my company this week. He had no clue that Katie, Sushma and I all work there! He got referred to the company from someone in our San Diego office! Random. **

2) I was looking through OLD OLD OLD pictures on my computer. (It's Friday.) I came across this picture from our course 3 seminar back in the fall of 2003.

Yeah, I'm not looking at the camera, but anyway, that guy that is standing next to me (not Ahow), is Daniel and he works with me now in our North Carolina office!!** I IM'd him and was like "Did you go to a course 3 seminar in Atlanta in 2003?" He was like "Ummm, remember, I was a lot younger back then." Yeah, it was a crazy week.

** Note, my company is an extremely small company. Like under 50 employees.

I usually don't do this, but I'm gonna make an exception

The Mega Millions is up to $270 million. I think it is time for me to buy some more tickets!! I bought 3 back when it was $170 million and managed to get 1 number right out of 3 tickets... Not good!

Finally, the jackpot is big enough that it is worth it to buy a ticket!!

Ahow and I made an agreement a few weeks ago about sharing the pot. If anyone else is buying tickets for tonight and wants to make a deal... Comment me! I'm trustworthy. And I don't really need THAT much money!!

Too bad this didn't happen before Tuesday!!

Report: Indiana Sampson out as coach

It also sucks that Purdue/IU only play once this season, and it was at IU. Oh well, Purdue is still having an incredible season! Especially for how young they are! It's just always so sweet to beat the Hoosiers!

BOILER UP!!

Weekend in D-Town (it is definitely a TOWN)

This weekend we started moving some stuff into our house in DeMotte, IN. This is by far the smallest town I will have ever lived in. I mean, the closest Wal-Mart is 20 miles away!! Still, I think I am going to like it.

Saturday: Saturday we flew into Indianapolis. We went to see my cousin's new apartment (she moved to West Lafayette from Kokomo), then picked up our U-Haul. First stop was Lee's brothers for a couch & loveseat that we were storing there. Then, onto my mom's for most everything from my Chicago condo that I didn't take to Norfolk... Plus, almost all of our wedding gifts! After that, we headed up to Monticello to get some boxes we had been storing at Lee's parents' house and a couple pieces of furniture donated from the Klemme's. After this, we were beat, but still opted to head back to West Lafayette to hit up Harry's. Harry's was awesome. Lee has given up beer for Lent, and as most of us know, Harry's has some stiff mixed drinks. So, I ended up driving back to Monticello with a passed out husband spilling popcorn all over the car. Lee ended up spending most of his night "sleeping" at the kitchen table.

Sunday: We got up early on Sunday to head to DeMotte. As Lee and I were pulling into our neighborhood, we saw lots & lots of water. I was starting to panic that our house was going to be flooded. We got to our house and sure enough, the back yard looked like a lake. But, the house looked like it had survived the flood well. Our realtor was supposed to leave the door unlocked, but alas, she had not. So, we had to sit outside for 15 minutes while the realtor came over. Not happy! Our families started showing up at this point and the truck got unloaded in record time. Not only did they unload the truck, but they unpacked all the boxes! SWEET! I may not know where anything is in my own kitchen, but I'll figure it out! After paying for their help with pizza, everyone left. Lee and I headed up to the "bigger city" of Merrillville to get a Costco membership and pickup some random goods.

Sunday evening, we went to a bar called Holley's Restaurant & Lounge. It was your classic Indiana bar, where NASCAR is the hot topic, Toby Keith is playing on the juke box, and the big argument is over who will win tonight's Purdue/IU game. There, I pointed out a cardboard sign to Lee that said:

As of February 1st, the price of domestic beer will go up to $2.25.


Phew! Don't know if I can afford those new stiff prices!!

Monday: We got up Monday morning and drove up to Hammond so Lee could visit the Calumet College of St. Joseph's, the school he plans to attend. We got good news there! Lee has earned enough credits in his couple semesters at Purdue and his time in the Navy that he qualifies for the "Adult Accelerated" program. This means he should wrap up school in 18 short months!! Awesome!

After this, we made our way back to Lafayette. We were about to head to the Indy airport when we got an automated phone call saying that our flight had been cancelled. (WHY DID I GIVE UP SWEARING FOR LENT?) After quite a few schedule changes and delays, we finally got a flight into Newport News, VA (about a 1/2 hour from where our car was parked at the Norfolk airport). Finally made it home at 12:30am. Just in time for 4 quick hours of sleep before we both had to be awake. Lee was headed out to sea and I was headed up to DC. So tired!!

Update on the hippies in Berkeley

Things really heated up out in Berkeley. The other day things came to a head. We had the pro-military folks there to go up against the nut jobs in the Code Pink group.

In a summary from MoveAmericaForward.org:

The anti-military activists who had worked with the City of Berkley to first pass the anti-Marine resolution burned multiple U.S. flags that day. What was most offensive is that they were flags that they had stolen from Move America Forward's booths. Apparently there's a shortage of U.S. flags left to burn in Berkeley, CA. In one instance their pyrotechnics got so carried away that they burned down a sign for "Peace Wall" while trying to burn a U.S. flag.

Ridiculous!

At the end of the day, Berkeley said that the Marines could stay. Gee, thanks! I guess YOU can stay part of the USA. But, they did want to reaffirm that they are against the war... In case we hadn't figure that out yet.

Don't know who to vote for in '08?

Give the Candidate Calculator a try.

Basically, you put in your opinions on the issues and rank them as high/medium/low importance.

I'm not sure about the accuracy of it. It said that I should vote for Ron Paul because we agree on 70% of all topics. I am guessing I won't get the chance!!

My next highest were:

Mike Gravel - 66.67%

Barack Obama - 59.26%

Not surprising, the candidate to come in DEAD LAST was:

John McCain - 33.33%

* If anyone else uses the calculator, leave me a comment with your results!

Kitty-cam!

My dad brought me an article about this website. Basically, a German artist put a digital camera on her cat's collar and sends the cat out into the neighborhood. The camera is set to take pictures every 15 seconds. It is pretty interesting to see all the stuff that a cat encounters.
Now, if only we could set something like this up for Fubar. It would be pretty entertaining to see what happens to him on a random weekend-night out. Especially on a night like in Nashville when he was running around the strip-club parking lot, fell down on his way back from getting fast food, lost his phone, etc.

Kevin Hart @ Lent Update

My dad came to visit this weekend. It is only a 6 hour drive for him from NJ, so he has made a couple visits since we have been here in Norfolk. On Saturday we went to the Funny Bone, a comedy club in Virginia Beach.

My dad loves comedy clubs. I reluctantly have been to a lot of comedy shows with him. My favorite was probably Darrel Hammond at Caroline's in New York City. I have a little bit of a fear of comedians. Basically, I am afraid that they will make fun of me. Well, my dad is one of those people that laughs hysterically at the comedian and says things back to them like "Yeah, I know, hahaha!" So, he totally asks for them to make fun of him. Then he laughs even more when they DO make fun of him. Too much stress for me.

Anyway, Kevin Hart was the comedian. He is really short and has been in quite a few comedies. You have probably seen him in a few movies without really knowing it. We actually saw him yesterday while we were watching 'Along Came Polly'. Anyway, he was good. My favorite part was probably when he talked about getting into an argument with his 3 year old daughter that can't really talk. I guess she said some gibberish and he was like "I KNOW THAT MEANS F*CK YOU, YOU MIDGET N-ER BASTARD." You kind of had to see it, but it was hilarious. And we were far enough from the stage that my dad couldn't get us made fun of by the comedians.

And a Lent update... As you can see in the top right corner, I am racking up the $ pretty quick. I went two days without swearing, mostly because Lee was out to sea and I didn't really have anyone to talk to. As soon as he came home, I ended up swearing like 7 times that night. This weekend, between the drinking and a political dispute we got into on Saturday night, I fell off a cliff. I am going to really focus this week, though. I hope to not add anymore to my count.

Some more exciting news in my life, we closed on our house this Friday. We will be going back to Indiana this weekend to move some stuff into the house. Basically, we have stuff scattered between my mom's house, Lee's parents' house and his brother's house. So, we are getting all of that moved up to the house this weekend. My mom will be VERY happy to have her closets back!!

Welcome back Mich & Reuter! Hope the cruise was great! Mich, I'll be happy to get back to our daily emails!! I've actually had to WORK this last week!

Berkeley Could Lose Funding Over Anti-Marine Stance

This article really annoyed me. Berkeley, CA is trying to force the Marine recruiters out of their town.

The controversy erupted last week after the City Council passed an item condemning the Marines' downtown recruiting center on Shattuck Avenue. The item told the U.S. Marines that if its recruiters choose to stay in their rented downtown space "they do so as uninvited and unwelcome guests."

This is a Marine recruiter, not a whore house or strip club. How can you kick them out of town?

GOP lawmakers are now trying to take away Berkeley's funding for a bunch of programs. I guess taking away their money is the only thing they can do to punish them. I wish we could let al Qaeda take them over. Ok, maybe that is a little harsh and drastic. But, I'm sure they would be welcoming the Marines with open arms THEN!

Mayor Tom Bates says he hopes the city can clarify it's position: "I'm not saying we're anti-Marines or anti armed forces. We're just trying to set the record straight that we're against this war. We think it's illegal. We think it's immoral. We think it's wrong and we think we've been lied to. We want this war to be over."

I just wonder how the Mayor can speak for EVERY person in the city. I know it is a liberal majority, but that doesn't mean that everyone thinks exactly the same in the city.

"I'm against war, but I think if we didn't have the Marines we'd probably all be speaking German," said Ralph Kratz of Richmond.

Amen, Ralph. Amen.

Lent 2008 - UPDATE

It looks like I will be giving up swearing for 40 days. I have a feeling the first week is going to be the worst. At least the football season is over so I don't have to rant about Brady anymore.

I have made the following rules for myself:

• It only counts as swearing if I say it out loud.
• If I say it out loud and no one is around to hear me, it still counts. There is no cheating in Lent.
• I am going to keep a tally of how many times I swear and then give that much at church the next week. (This will be more efficient than putting aside $1 each time. I don't carry around that many singles!)
• Saying "mother f-er" or "son of a bee sting" are perfectly acceptable alternatives to swearing.
• Swear words that will be penalized include: F*CK, SH*T, D*MN, H*LL (unless used in a religious reference), and any combination of the above. I'm sure there are some others that are less used that will be included.
• I'll update the count at the top of this page to update you on how I am doing.

Our church will probably be able to get that new A/C unit they've had their eye on after this...

Week in Review - Mexico!!

Saturday - We left Norfolk at about 7am. We had a quick layover in Charlotte, and then onto Cancun. We stopped in the Duty Free area and got some Absolut Mandarin vodka. Then, a HUGE line in customs. We finally got through and couldn't figure out where to get our car!! I knew I should have gone with a company I knew like Budget!! Anyway, we finally got directed outside and some guy holding a clipboard with the company's name was there. He found us a van and took us to get our itty bitty little orange Chevy. Lee and I named the car Absolut Mandarin... I see a theme with this vacation.

We found our resort. The Grand Mayan. We could tell right away that this was the type of place where everyone is looking for tips. They insisted on taking us to our building in a golf cart and carrying our stuff up to our room. They wouldn't just TELL us where our room was. Oh well, I brought a lot of singles!! Our condo was awesome! Really big with a living room, kitchen, huge bedroom w/ a tub in it, and a porch with some chairs and a wading pool. Sweet!!








After getting things unpacked, we went and found dinner. Yummy Mexican food... IN Mexico!


Sunday - Sunday morning we headed into Playa del Carmen to find the Wal-Mart. We wanted to pick up some cereal and whatnot. From the map, it appeared that it would be really easy to find... Not so much. We ended up in Podunk, Mexico, a place with ZERO street signs. We saw chickens in the road, tons of stray dogs, and at one point a random horse. We finally realized we had turned off too early and found the nicer area where the Wal-Mart was.

When we got back, we ate some lunch and headed to the pool. I was pumped to try out the pool bar. When we swam up to the bar, we ordered some Hurricanes. "1 is 2, 2 is 4." Oh boy! I love happy hour! There were two couples there. One of the girls, Lindsay, was HAMMERED. Mind you, it was only about 12:30pm. Shortly later, Lindsay ended up outside the pool throwing up. Yuck! So, the other couple, John & Lea, looked at us and said "You're our new couple to drink with." Oh boy... I don't want to end up like Lindsay!! A couple hours later John could barely keep his head above water. We were basically holding him up so he wouldn't drown. We finally got him out of the pool where he passed out on a random lawn chair. His wife Lea couldn't figure out how to get him back to the room, so she just left him. About two hours later, Lee in I were blacked out... We don't fully remember the walk back to our room. We were passed out at 6:30pm. I woke up at 2am. DOH.

Monday - I wish Monday had been bad weather, because we didn't do crap. Merely recovered from Sunday's pool bar incident. We were hanging on our balcony, when all of the sudden the power went out. I looked off the balcony, and a big cloud of smoke was going over. I said to Lee "I think something is on fire." We didn't think much of it. A few hours later we went to go to dinner and discovered that the lobby had burnt to the ground. We're pretty oblivious, apparently!!!












Tuesday - This was my 27th birthday. Ugh... We drove to Playa del Carmen and took a ferry over to Cozumel. We walked the streets and chilled with some awesome birds.

We bought some souvenirs and then hit up Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville. It's always 5 in Margaritaville!!! (Oh, and Lee loves these bars that have swings as seats.)

Wednesday - My dreams finally came true... We went swimming with dolphins!!! It was awesome. Their skin felt slippery and rubbery. Their whole body was like one long, lean, muscle. Their power and speed was amazing and a little intimidating. At one point, the did what was called a "foot push". This is where you lay flat on your stomach in the water. Two dolphins come up and use their noses to push you through the water. You go FAAAAST! So fast that my bathing suit bottoms came down. I caught them somewhere around my knees, but couldn't pull them back up. The unfortunate part was that there were Mexican dudes taking pictures and videos of the whole thing. Super!!









Thursday - We just hung by the pool and chilled. We steered clear of the pool bar this time and just brought some beer with us. Then we got the Mexican Dinner for Two from room service. Delicious!!

Friday - We took a catamaran trip down to Tulum. This had an open bar, free lunch, snorkeling at a reef, a GORGEOUS beach and a tour of some Mayan ruins. It was an awesome day!!
Saturday - We got up early and got on the road. We had to get gas in our rental car, get it dropped off and get to the airport. The day was full of challenges. For some reason there were like NO places to make a U-turn on the road and no gas stations on the right side of the road. We also tried to get breakfast at a Burger King & a McDonalds and failed both times. Burger King didn't have breakfast and McDonalds didn't take American $$. Argh!! But, all ended well and we got to the airport and made it back to the US of A!!
Mexico was beautiful and warm and great, but it was nice to get back to the US and know that my money would work, the people would speak English (in general) and the roads would have signs!!

Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes!! This was definitely my first birthday ever wearing shorts and a tank top.