Thursday, December 27, 2007

Something to Think About

While driving 38 mph in a 35 mph speed zone on my way home from work late one night, a jay-walking pedestrian yelled at me to slow down. Now, who was more wrong?

Friday, November 30, 2007

Telemarketers

For a couple of months now, I've noticed that I've been missing a call from a California number that I didn't recognized. Like any other number I don't recognize, I would let it go to voice mail, but they never left one. The other night, (during my night time minutes of course!), they called and I answered. It was a telemarketer that was trying to sell me 6 months of "free" magazine, a "free" watch and enter me into a "free" vacation giveaway. I guess I should fill in a little bit. When I answered the phone, what I heard was, "Please hold for the next available operator." from a recording. So I let her go through her spiel, and at the most available moment, I told her that I wasn't interested, and that she was calling my cell phone, and by law, they couldn't call me with an automated calling system. She yelled at me for wasting her time, and that the number is not on the "do not call list". I then told her again that it is a cell phone, so even if I'm not on the list, it's still illegal to use the automated calling system on the number. She starting yelling at me again for wasting her time, but I hung up on her half way through. She did spend about a minute and half on the phone with me, but monopolized the conversation. If she was so concerned about me wasting her time, maybe she should have started the conversation with, "Hi, I'm going to try to con you into magazine that you don't want and a vacation you'll end up paying for. Are you interested?" That would have saved a lot of time.

Friday, November 09, 2007

General Observation

I work at a chemical plant, not a farm, so the hours are set, and not by the sun, but by the clock. I've noticed this week that when I get to work (between 7:45am and 8:00am), there have been significantly more people in the parking lot than there was last week, before we rolled our clocks back. I've also noticed that there are less cars when I leave than there were last week. I guess my plant would never survive in Iceland.

Sunday, November 04, 2007

Sore

As some of you out there in the internet world may know, I have been taking horseback riding lessons (again) for about a year. I rode for awhile when I was much younger, and I have now re-discovered it. I recently (at the beginning of the summer) changed barns and love it. In the past, I had only ridden at Hunter/Jumper barns, but this one is an Eventing Barn. Yesterday at my lesson, we did some fun exercises. They included riding doing some jumping while not holding on to the reins. The last exercise was to jump six stadium style jumps that were pretty spread out so that we could do some cantering between the jumps. I was asked to go first, and the first jump was perfect, the horse refused the second jump twice before I got him over it, and on the third jump, he jumped a little too big which resulted in me seating myself on his back before he had landed. That turned into some bucking, and me eventually on the ground. This horse has bucked on me before, us but I had always been able to stay on. This time, I lost my balance, and while I ended up on the ground, I was still standing. Like any good instructor would do, my trainer came over, asked if I was ok, had me get back one, and take the jumps again. The purpose of this is that I don't have time to think about what just happened, and to get me over the jumps before I get scared of them. I now know that when you fall off, it's kinda like a car accident. You feel fine the day it happens, but when you wake up the next day, you are so sore, you can barely move. Surprisingly, I'm looking forward to my lesson next week!

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Like I don't know already

I love going to weddings. I love seeing people I haven't seen in a while, watching the ceremony (usually crying), and dancing the night away. One thing I do not like about weddings is that I can't make it through one without at least 3 people commenting that I'm not married or engaged. There are always comments about my left hand being empty. I don't understand the point of these comments. It's not like I don't know. I'm pretty sure that if I got engaged, I would realize it. And if I ever get engaged, I'm positive I'm not going to keep it a secret. Maybe people think that I am keeping it under wraps, I don't know. If you see me around, and I am not wearing a ring, chances are, I'm not engaged. No need to talk about it; it will really ruin it if I do get engaged.

Friday, September 14, 2007

And the story goes on...

The morning after my last post, I woke up to this in the office:




He's just a little guy. I decided to let him sleep in there all day and keep Chica company. When he still wasn't up by 7 pm, my roommate decided to squirt him with water. He didn't move, it just made him wet. So I took care of things.

Sunday, August 26, 2007

A bit creepy

Yesterday, my roommate left to go shoot clay thingies and to spend a night out camping and drinking. I spent the day patching cracked plaster and taping of the trim in preparation for painting. When I decided it was time for some sleep, I went into my bedroom, lowered and closed to blinds but when I went to turn off the light, something caught my eye. In the office, Lilly was watching something in the air. At first I thought she was chasing a fly, because she goes crazy when there are flies in the house, but then I saw a shadow of something much larger than a fly. I walk into the room and turn on the light. Flying around in circles was the only mammal with wings. That's right my friends, a bat.

Now the room he was flying around in was the same room that has the door to the attic. I had gone up to the attic much earlier in the day, but I had shut the door behind me on the way up and on my way down. Actually, there are two doors to the attic, and I just closed the bottom one on my way down. At any rate, I don't recall a bat flying out either time.

But now I had three cats watching a bat, all waiting for it to come down low enough for them to take a swipe at it. How do you catch a bat? Thoughts went through my mind of getting a blanket and netting him, but with my ungracefulness, I knew I'd probably break something. So I shooed the cats out of the room, and opened the attic door. If I could just get this little guy to fly into the attic, I'm sure he could figure out how to get out from there. He flew around and around and kept trying to hang on the walls, but would just slide off. I knew he must have been getting pretty tired. Finally, he flew through the open door and I went to go close it up, but then he flew back out and straight at me! I waited a bit longer as he continued to fly around the room in circles. He was starting to make me dizzy. He flew back into the attic and I shut the door.

I have to admit that thought of sleeping with the covers over my head ran through my mind all night, but as far as I know, he never came back. Now, sometime today, I have to go up and close the second door... I hope he's not planning an escape. I think I will name him Jake.

Friday, August 17, 2007

City Wildlife

I know what you are saying... "City Wildlife, you have GOT to be kidding." But no, I'm not. Living "downtown," Andrew and I have enjoyed the company of some of our favorite wildlife. They inclued:
the squirrel couple, Francis and Penelope,
the mourning doves, Edwardo and Phylis,
the sharp-shinned hawk, Chester,
the Siamese alley cat, Sampson (the name on his tag),
the stray dog that used to live under our porch, Shenandoah
and many more that have gone unnamed. We have a cardinal family, a purple finch couple, a flock of wrens, a momma rabbit and her 3 little ones who have recently left the nest. There is one member of the wildlife that we have not seen yet, but we know he exists. He likes to dig through my potted plants, tip over my water-starters, and eat our welcome mat. Andrew said that he would put up a webcam so we could catch him in action. I will keep you posted!

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Such a Bad Afternoon on Such a Pretty Day

So, after a drive up to the doctor that wasn't worth the gas I burned getting there, I went to Keystone at the Crossing to check out the final days of the Parisian store closing event. After spending about an hour and a half in the mall, I came out to find my car had been broken into. The thief broke a small window in the back, but instead of smashing straight through it, he swung at it, and as a result, gashed the door in addition to breaking the window. He took out my back speakers, which I think cost me $70 about 6 years ago. He then rifled around in my glove compartment and in my work bag. He took my CD holder full of burned CDs, most of which were scratched so badly that they wouldn't play in the CD player, or they have epoxy on them and stick together (don't ask). He also took the brand new set of stirrup leathers that I bought last week. That probably pisses me off the most. But he did leave the stereo (which practically falls out on it's own) and the faceplate (which was laying on the floor). The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police came out, and was very prompt and polite. All-in-all, I guess I got off light. At least I didn't go to the gym this morning. If I had, my gym bag would have been in the car with my iPod. One good thing about being lazy.

Filling the House, Part II

While the Meyers family is filling their house with little human creatures, such as Jacob,


Congratulations Liz and Scott!!!

Jacob was born at 7:19pm Friday, July 6th, 2007. Weighing in at 8 lbs, 8 ozs, and 20.5 inches long. More pictures are on the web album


Andrew and are are filling our house with little kitty creatures. Meet Zoe.

Sunday, June 17, 2007

Filling the House

I am experiencing something I haven't lived through in a while. A "bare" looking house. After graduation, of course I had the near-empty apartment, but it didn't stay like that long. Then when Andrew and I combined two 2-bedroom apartments, in to one 2-bedroom apartment, things were pretty out of control. Now, in a 3 bedroom house, things feel a bit empty. So, I bought a piece of furniture yesterday.

I think that it was a fabulous find! I went to a yard sale Friday afternoon thinking that I might find a couple of doors that may work as replacements to the 2 we are missing (one to a bedroom, and one to a closet). When I walked into the yard, I didn't see any doors. Even though I was tempted to just leave, I decided to look around a little bit. Then I saw a desk that looked promising. Andrew said that he wanted something to go in the foyer for the mail. Sitting in front of me was a slant top desk that I thought would be perfect. I took some pictures on my cell phone to show to Andrew. After getting approval, we went up yesterday to purchase. We lucked out, and it was still there, and they were able to find the key for it. I talked them down to $125, and now it's sitting in the foyer waiting to be re-finished. I'm really excited about it!!

Thursday, May 17, 2007

Obesity in Children

There have been many reports on how childhood obesity is on the rise in America, and I have discovered why. You may be saying that there have already been explanations given, such as children eating more fast food and playing video games. But I think it goes back much further than that. As many people I know either have small children, are pregnant, or want to get pregnant, I tend to notice children a lot more, and how they behave in public and what their parents are doing. So here are my observations.

Kids are lazy and their parents make them that way. And I'm not talking about the 12 year old that wants to stay in and play Mario Kart all day. I'm talking about the 3 year old that is sitting in the stroller when they could easily be walking. Or the 4 year old I saw being carried from the car into Toys R Us. I have a few general rules now. If the child is old enough to pull down the sun visor on the stroller by him/herself, they are too old for a stroller. If you have to get a stroller that seats more than one child, and you're not the mother or father of multiples, the oldest one gets to hoof it. If the child no longer needs a booster seat at restaurants, he/she no longer gets to boost a ride from mom or pop. If you have to spend $50 on a pair of children's shoes, they should be worn out before the kid grows out of them.

Just think about these things. If the child gets more exercise, then they are more likely to take a nap. And wonderfully magic things happen in our sleep. Our body's recharge, they grow, there's a significant amount of brain activity that's processing the day's events. And, the caregiver gets to take a nap too. Hell, they've been toting the kid around all day, why shouldn't they get a little break?

I think there should be a long-term medical study done that looks at the number of incidents of ADD in elementary school children that did not get regular naps as toddlers.

And, I know what all the parents out there are saying. "How would you know what it's like, you don't have kids. It's easier to push, pull, or carry the kid around because it takes less time/less whining/less catching them when they get away from me." What can I say? I'm mean. Mean Aunt Sara. The kid will have to keep up, not whine and if they get away from me? Well, when they are lost and scared, they will learn not to run off. That, and they can't get too far when I get a tracking device embedded in their shoulder blade. Beep..... Beep... Beep..Beep.BeepBeepBeep. Gotcha!

Saturday, May 12, 2007

Break time!

Take a break and watch this... Something to make you smile...

Sunday, May 06, 2007

Shoes!

Andrew and I had a discussion over dinner this evening and the topic was shoes. Andrew claims that I have "a lot" of shoes. I was able to count approximately 15-17 pairs of shoes, which, I don't think is "a lot". So, in order to put some parameters on the relative term, I'm calling all females to leave a comment stating how many pairs of shoes you own. Of course this count includes flip-flops, athletic shoes, dress shoes, sandals, etc. Help me out girls!

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

For your viewing pleasure...

No, no one is getting naked... not in my little piece of the internet. You'll have to go else where for that nonsense. I wanted to let everyone know that I have updated my online album. It's the first link to the left, that's in German and you've never clicked on because either a) You didn't know where it would go and you didn't want to see nakedness or b) You are afraid of Wiener schnitzel. At any rate, there are new pictures including the not so recent trip down south and house pictures.

Enjoy!

Thursday, April 26, 2007

The Big Move!

Andrew and I are moving into the new house on Saturday. It should be a day filled with fun and excitement! We've already taken down most of the wall paper. A boarder in one room still remains. The new paint colors are picked out, and we're ready to do some priming!

The move starts at 9am on Saturday for anyone who would like to help out. There will be something provided for both breakfast and lunch.

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Crazy Weather!

So the weather recently has been crazy! It's in the 80's one day, and we have freeze warnings the next. And snow on Easter? It shouldn't be like that in Indiana. Canada maybe, but not Indiana. Those Canadians are the ones sending us this coldness. It's probably because we send them our pollution. Man, they fight dirty.

And, on the home front, we bought a house. We're moving on April 28th, and would appreciate any help we can get! We'll think of something to repay you with. Probably along the lines of food and beverages. :)

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Adventures in Driving

If you are not aware, there is a blizzard warning for the northern suburbs of Indianapolis today. And did I go to work this morning? Yes. And just guess what I had to do at 5 o'clock. That's right, drive home in a blizzard. Here are the events that occurred on that lovely drive...

On the ramp from 70 east to 465 north, there were 4 disabled tractor trailers and several stuck cars in the span of about a quarter mile. Some people were waiting patiently for the road to clear and other where trying to maneuver around them. Me? I took the ramp to southbound 465, got off at the next exit and hopped back on north bound. Smart me.

About a mile from home, the roads looked pretty clear, so I sped up to go the speed limit. I'm tooling along, and then there is this truck/SUV thing behind me, following me pretty closely. Knowing that I would have to turn soon, and that my back turn signal lights are flaky, I sped up some more (about 5 mph over the limit) to give him adequate stopping distance. Yeah, I shouldn't have to do that for a tailgater, but in the end, I was looking out for my best interest. I start preparing to make my turn, and when I looking in my rear view mirror, I see cherries and berries. That's right, the tailgater was a cop. He pulled me over, and he just told me to slow down. I didn't tell him that he was the reason I sped up, but he didn't give me a ticket.

When I pull into the apartment complex, I find out pretty quickly that while they have plowed the road areas, there are not clear parking spaces. And it's not for a lack of free spaces, it's laziness from whom ever was in charge of plowing today. So I tried to pull into the short drive way behind our garage, and almost got stuck, so I backed out and pulled into a parking spot. I didn't get very far because my car got stuck in 8 inches of snow. Crap. I go inside and grab Andrew and we start shoveling the short driveway. About half way through, I notice that one of our neighbors are stuck, so Andrew and I go to help out. When we walked up, we soon found out why the 4-wheel drive vehicles wasn't able to move. They tried to drive through a 3 foot snow drift. I'm not even exaggerating. Who does that? So we help shovel them out. We went back to shoveling our drive way. As we finish, another neighbor comes home. The dude driving let his wife out so that she could clear him a spot to pull into. She was clearing it with a kitchen broom. What kind of man would make his wife clear a spot for him with a broom? I'll tell you what kind of man. A man that kept driving back and forth over the same spot in his Nissan Sentra, and when we asked him what he was doing, he said that he was "blazing a trail." There was maybe a half inch of snow on the ground. He was just packing it down so it could get icy over night.

Drivers amaze me.

Sunday, February 11, 2007

Technologically advanced? Not so much...

This past weekend, Andrew and I attended a photography workshop weekend. It was 2 days of classes about taking pictures, from the basic building blocks, to cool techniques to try. One question that opened every class was, "How many are using digital?" and almost everyone raised their hand. Well, everyone but Andrew and I. We are still shooting in film. In fact, we are using completely manual cameras. Manual focus, manual f-stop, manual shutter speeds. I could use my camera without a battery, which is just used for the internal light meter. After one of the classes, I said to Andrew, "We have a robot to vacuum, and another to mop, but we don't shoot with digital cameras. Does that seem a little backwards?"

In related news, Andrew bought a Scooba from woot.com. It mops hard surface floors. Pretty cool.

Monday, January 22, 2007

Greenhouse Gas Emmisions

I read on cnn.com today that Prince Charles has canceled his annual skiing trip to the Swiss Alps in an effort to reduce his carbon footprint. I don't have exact numbers, but from my estimate, the trip would produce approximately 1,200 lbs of CO2. Also, CEOs are calling for action to create mandatory control of CO2 which has lead to the strange weather we've been having. Here's something to think about. First, just about everything that produces heat or energy emits CO2. It is a by-product of combustion and is exhaled from all aerobic beings. Think of that for a second. Any sort of combustion, think hot water, electricity, the backyard grill, all produce CO2. Your loved ones also produce CO2, sons, daughters, mom, dad, Fido too. So instead of Prince Charles canceling his trip to save 1,200 lbs one time, he could just die and save 74,840 lbs/yr. Yet another reason why stupid people shouldn't re-produce; they're using my allotment of CO2.

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Looking...

I am looking for more links for my blog! If you would like to see something linked, let me know and I'll add it on!

Unrelated news... no house yet.

Sunday, January 14, 2007

New Experience

Andrew and I have been trying to go out and see more of Indianapolis' night life recently. Because we live on the far northeast side, getting downtown can be a chore, and we've been home-bodies recently. Last night, Andrew found a cover band that he wanted to hear, so we headed down to the Tip Top Tavern on the corner of Capitol and 14th. As I always do when I walk into a bar, I focused on getting to an area that we would be comfortable. So with my eyes forward, we headed to the bar for some drinks. While Andrew ordered the drinks, I started looking around. My first thought was, "There are a lot of women with short haircuts." Then as I looked around some more, I realized that Andrew was one of maybe 6 or 7 males in the bar. Then it dawned on me. I was surrounded by lesbians. Andrew and I found seats, listened to the band, and discussed why there were so many lesbians at the bar. We decided that it wasn't actually a gay bar, but rather the band had a large lesbian following. That said, I'm not sure if Andrew would recommend going there again. He felt a touch out of place.

Saturday, January 13, 2007

Up in the gym just working on her fitness

When I first moved to Indy, one of the first things I did was buy a bigger cage for Miss Chica. (For anyone who doesn't know, Miss Chica is my pet chinchilla). Her previous cage was ~36"x18"x24" which isn't bad for a smaller pet, but I could tell she just needed much more room. Her new cage is now ~36"x24"x48". Just to give you an idea of how big that really is, when I was putting the shelves in it, I had to get inside of it. Anyway, when I bought the new cage, I also bought her a wheel to run on since she doesn't get much exercise. But I was disappointed because she never ran in it. I could tell from the dust build-up on top. In fact I never saw her even get in it. That is, until last night. When Andrew and I came home from seeing "Happy Feet" at the IMAX, (good times!), I went in to give her a treat and there she was sitting in the wheel. When I reached in to give her the treat, she started running! I was the cutest thing! Maybe her New Year's resolution was to lose some ounces.

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

269999.9.....

My car turned over 270,000 miles yesterday. When I pulled into work, I was 1.63 miles away, and knowing that I would forget about it, I thought about driving around the parking lot until it turned. I didn't. But I am accepting gifts, preferably cash donations which will go toward my new car fund.

Friday, January 05, 2007

A Story

While this may not be as entertaining as Leyer's spider story, it is one that I experienced, and am now telling you...

One morning, a couple of months ago, I was getting ready for work when I heard a strange noise coming from the hall. I walked out of the bedroom and saw a cord plugged into an outlet, going down the hall, and then down the stairs. At the bottom of the stairs, I see Andrew with the vacuum cleaner. I yell down to him, "What are you doing?" Turning off the vacuum he says, "I saw a spider! It was as big as my hand! I had to suck him up!" I reply, "What? A spider as big as your hand? Was it a tarantula? Did you just suck up someone's pet tarantula? Are you trying to clog the vacuum?" Then he carries the vacuum upstairs, and I ask him what he's going to do with it. He replies, "Flush him down the toilet," very matter-of-fact-ly. Peering through the clear plastic of the waste canister, I see a lot of cat hair and other dirt. "You can't flush all of that, it will clog the toilet," I reply. Then we stood there for a minute just looking at one another.
"Can we just dump it outside?" I ask.
"No, I saw this spider outside a few days ago, and it got in, so it will just get in again."

Curious as to what this spider looked like that would make it so memorable, I took the bagless canister out of the vacuum. Just then the spider made a dash for the rim! Startled, I dropped the canister. Thankfully, instead of making a run for it when it hit the ground, the spider stayed inside, and I quickly returned the canister to the vacuum. Then Andrew and I devised a plan. First, Andrew armed himself with a plastic bowl. Then, I removed the canister and dumped it on the floor. As the spider ran from the pile of cat hair, Andrew trapped him under the plastic bowl.


I then returned the plastic canister to the vacuum, and used the vacuum to suck up the spider again.
It was then disposed of via the sewage system.



Lack of Comments

So, I must have offended someone with my last post. Or something. There has been a significant lack of comments on the blog recently. No love being given. What's with that yo?

In unrelated news, I think I'm going to hold public viewings of me on the balance ball. We all know I'm probably going to fall off, and since I'm getting old, I'll probably break a hip or something. Tickets will be very cost-effective.