Random Encounters of We: March 2007

Saturday, March 31, 2007

" It's Not a Pruse, It's a Man's Bag "

Upon occasion I find myself holding my wife's as she is trying on clothes or going to to the doctor or some other event that requires my assistance in this way. But this week I came across a website that listed 10 Weird Handbags for the Manly Man [s]. By far the one at the top of my list was the Decapitated Head in a Bag Purse (pictured below). Coming in at close runner ups were the Computer Keyboard Bag and the Football Shaped Purse (also pictured below).

I would not mind hold any of these bags while I was waiting for my wife to do whatever she needs to do.

Technorati tags: Purse, man bag

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Job Hunt 4th Edition - Irony

Does the phrase permanent vacation mean anything to you? It has a new meaning to us. Before today I used to think of permanent vacation as retirement. As of 9:30 this morning I think of it as unemployment. The company my husband worked for down sized this morning resulting in him being in the ranks of the unemployed. Luckily being laid off is VERY different from being fired and it includes a couple months of pay and our medical benefits, so things will hopefully be okay until he gets another job.

Now I haven't updated you on the job hunting process in about a month or so. Let's get the update now. Luckily we had started job hunting back in November so we have many months of this under our belt. Job hunting, as it turns out, takes a while when you are relatively fresh out of college and don't have much experience. I think we would be more devastated over this lay off if we hadn't already been planning on leaving. My husband does have a gig lined up though. Next week he is flying out for an interview. We have been talking to this new company back and forth for about a month now, so we are very hopeful. It is in a nice, family friendly area and so we are very much hoping for this (we were hoping for this opportunity before the lay off but now we are REALLY hoping!)

All of this comes as a shock to us. His former company has lay offs quite often which is one of the reasons we wanted to leave. We would stress about them, but it always seemed to be something that happened to someone else, not to you. Well now that it has happened to us, we are getting over the shock and moving on. We are going to increase the job hunting efforts so we can be prepared for anything, and we hope for brighter days.

Technorati tags: unemployment,, lay offs,, job hunt

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

American Idol

I was a huge American Idol fan back in the days of Clay Aiken. In those days there were fabulous singers and they deserved the success that inevitably followed the show. Since then I haven't been able to watch American Idol because it really bothers me. Most of the people on the show are so annoying and I cannot stand Randy Jackson. Last night I watched American Idol for the first time in a long time (because Gilmore Girls was a rerun) and I was very disappointed. No one on that show can sing very well. Last night very single song was awful! I am very confused at why those people are on the show. Maybe last night was just particularly bad for them, but it was pretty awful. Last night was just proof positive that I'm being more productive by not watching that show then wasting an hour of my life on Tuesday filling my head with their horrible sounds.

Technorati tags: American Idol

Happy Wordless Wednesday

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Pizza and Mug Shots

Here is the opening line from a Yahoo News article I read today:

Customers at some suburban pizza parlors are getting something extra with their pepperoni and mushrooms — wanted posters for parents accused of failing to pay child support.

First there were missing kids pictures on milk cartons and now there are wanted pictures on pizza boxes. That's just what I've always 'wanted' (I didn't even plan that) some criminals face staring back at me right before I dig into my pizza. The enforcement agency in Cincinnati that is implementing this decided that pizza boxes would be the best place to put the photos because "people running from the law don't eat out, they order pizza." I guess there are not many drive-thrus in Cincinnati or else my understanding of a criminal mind is not the same as those in Cincinnati. I know that child-support money is important for the children who receive it; but how affective is doing something like this? The article reports that the posters started appearing on the pizza boxes last August and since then it is led to one arrest. This is just one example of people trying "to help the kids who have a right to be supported."

Monday, March 26, 2007

In Case of Emergency Contact in Your Cell Phone

One of my favorite sites to check every day is Lifehacker; today I found an article that talked about adding an In Case of Emergency (ICE) contact to your cell phone address book. I thought this was such a great idea because if you are unable to speak or you're unconscious the EMTs working on you would be able to find and use that number to get a hold of your "emergency contact" to let them know what happened to you. There are many different ways of accomplishing this, the emergency number could be listed under 'ICE' or '1CE' where the one looks like an 'i' but puts the number at the beginning of the list. Another way to do this is adding a space before the word like this: "_ICE". No matter how you enter it into you phone it is always a good idea to provide some kind of contact information in case of an emergency or even if your cell phone gets lost.

Technorati tags: ICE, cellphone, emergency

Sunday, March 25, 2007

What does subscribe mean?

Some of you may be wondering what is means to subscribe to a blog or what RSS is. Subscribing to a blog is just like subscribing to a magazine, but instead of getting a new magazine each month you get all the latest blog posts or articles a few minutes after it is posted. The way that you get these posts is through an RSS Feed. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. If this still doesn't make sense, here is an explanation of what an RSS Feed is and how they work:

RSS feeds are used for website syndication, meaning a section of a website is made available for other websites to use. So every time a new post is posted on a blog, the RSS feed is updated to include the new post.

In order to use an RSS feed, a RSS reader or a feed reader is needed; in old school terms they're called news aggregations. There are many feed readers to choose from: Google Reader, Bloglines, RSS Bandit, BlogExpress, Omega Reader and many, many others. Some are free and some are not; the best thing to do is find the one that you like the best.

Almost all sites offer an RSS feed in one form or another, even big sites like Yahoo News and Amazon.com [s].

The greatest features of RSS feeds is that with a feed reader you have all the latest posts and articles from all your favorite sites or blogs without having to go and visit each site.

Now you can even subscribe by email; so instead of using a feed reader, all new posts are emailed directly to your email address of choice. To subscribe by email enter your email address below:

Delivered by FeedBurner

To Subscribe to this blog:

__Subscribe in a reader

Technorati tags: What is RSS, blog, subscribe, RSS, feed

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Skin Cancer and Me

I have been dreading today since September, that's seven months... Count them September, October, November, December, January, February, and March. That is a long time to be dreading something. Today was my appointment to have my basal cell carcinoma (the most common form of skin cancer)removed from my forehead. Now that my appointment is past and I have been through the surgery and stitches, I had good cause to stress for seven months. The site was a lot bigger than they originally thought. I had to go under the knife five times! In MOHs surgery they cut some skin and analyze it on the spot, which takes about 15 minutes, and then they keep cutting until they get it all. I had to go through that five times! It was a very long nightmare.

When all the cancer was finally removed there was a large section of my right lateral forehead missing. I didn't ask how many stitches it required to sew me up but I'm guessing at least 20! That's a lot. The doctor kept giving me lectures on how I shouldn't have postponed this surgery and now I realize I shouldn't have, but I think it wasn't my seven months of postponing that helped it grow that big, I think I have probably had that skin cancer for years and just didn't know it.

I have been going to the dermatologist for Rosacea and on one of my visits that is when they took a biopsy. What I am wondering is what if I hadn't been going to the dermatologist? It never would have been found. I am not educated in the skin cancer business and so I wouldn't have known that I had a troubled area.

I'm glad it is over with and fully convinced that if this ever happens again the earliest moment I can have the cancer removed I will be there. This has been an awful experience, and it isn't over yet. I have a very swollen head and the doctor says a black eye is on the way. I have an in depth way of cleaning the wound for the next couple of weeks until it heals and then I get to look forward to stitches removal! I'm very worried about the scar that will form because of this and so in the next couple of days when I'm not so swollen or in so much pain I am going to get a haircut which will include bangs (which I have never had) and so I am very nervous for that, but I'll do whatever it takes to hide the huge scar that is sure to come.

The moral of the story is WEAR SUNSCREEN! Be aware of what is going on with your body. If you see things on your skin that you aren't sure about go get them checked out. It is better earlier than later. You don't want to have a huge chunk of your skin taken out. Be safe!

Technorati tags: skin cancer,, basal cell carcinoma,, dermatology,, surgery,, stitches

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Pirates of the Caribbean 3

The trailer for Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World's End just came out at Yahoo Movies, and it looks like it's going to be the biggest of the pirates movies. All the main characters from the previous two films make appearances in the trailer as well as many new characters that will be introduced in this third film. From watching the trailer the main plot of the movie seems to be a final battle between the pirates of the world and all those that oppose them. From watching some of the scenes it looks like there will be some major sword fighting and cannon blasting action. I really hope that this one will be the best out of all three.
I rate this trailer as a "Triple-wide" (i.e. great).

Monday, March 19, 2007

Playing With Water Colors

I as fairly new parent I am always looking for clever ways of handling different parenting situations. One of my favorite places to look is Parent Hacks, "Daily parenting tips and ideas from the real experts -- actual parents."

Today's parent hack was an LED faucet light "changes water color" when too hot. So basically you buy this faucet attachment for $20, and attach it to any faucet in your house, you'll have colored water. For normal water temperatures the water is 'blue' but when it reaches 89 degrees and above the water will be 'red'. ThinkGeek, the company that sells this, says this in their description, "Bored with water that doesn't look like futuristic alien mouthwash? Need to make your midnite bathroom appointments more exhilarating? Then you need to get the LED faucet light attachment from ThinkGeek.". With something like this brushing teeth time could become fun time!! If I had these at my house when I was little I could see me and my little brother racing our faucets to see who could get the water to be red the fastest. Another game parents could 'play with their kids' could be "can you brush all your teeth before the water turns red ?!?!"; and if you are worried about that time not being long enough, just adjust the hot water value under the sink so that when the hot and cold water are on full blast the cold water dominates for a longer period of time. On the side of safety this could really help your child be aware of the water being too hot, one suggestion along these lines is being able to help your older children draw their own bath and not be worried about the water being too hot.
Even if I didn't have kids I would still want this. With things like this out on the market I can see water bills growing bigger and bigger with every stop at the sink.

Technorati tags: LED, faucet, gadget, water

Attention All In N Out Lovers

Living in California has many perks: the ocean, Disneyland, and my favorite, In N Out. We are very loyal In N Out customers. When ever we consider eating a hamburger from another restaurant we immediately think "why would we want that when we can have In N Out?" We frequently visit In N Out also. On our last visit we had a shocking experience. To some it may be no big deal, but for me it is a huge deal. We always order the same things whenever we go there: 2 hamburgers without onion, animal style fries and a side of spread. The side of spread is very important to my In N Out enjoyment. If there are fries lacking spread I have an extra cup of it to dip them in, I also love to put extra spread on my burger. Well on our last visit to In N Out the spread situation had change. Instead of giving you fresh spread in a plastic cup, they now hand you a refrigerated packet of spread. It is like how ketchup comes in a packet except it is three times the size. This was very disturbing to me. First of all I don't want to put freezing cold spread on my fries or burger, secondly how am I supposed to dip my fries now? I am not going to squirt my spread on a napkin and dip it that way, besides it isn't as thick as ketchup so that wouldn't work without making a huge mess. As soon as I got home from In N Out on Friday I brought up their website and emailed them straight away. So far I have only received an email saying "Thanks for comment on our new spread packets, I'll forward your concerns on to the product manager." So no resolution to the matter yet, but I will keep you posted. I would love to hear your comments about the new spread packet. Does it affect your In N Out experience? My husband is unaffected (other than how it affected me).

Side Note: Applebee's has also recently changed their fries, but that's a whole different rant!

Saturday, March 17, 2007

Laser Keyboards

I once saw a TV show where someone used one of these keyboards to to access the internet through their PDA because the company did not allow its employees internet access. When I saw it I thought it was totally cool but figured it was one of those "made for TV" props. But according to Think Geek the Bluetooth Laser Virtual Keyboard is now a reality. Quoting the article:

"This tiny device laser-projects a keyboard on any flat surface... you can then type away accompanied by simulated key click sounds. It really is true future magic at its best."

I think it is so funny that it makes key clicking sounds, my digital camera does the same sort of thing making a shutter sound every time you take a picture; both unnecessary but provides that familiar sound.
I know how hard it is to enter more than a few words into my Palm, but with something like this I could see myself using it a lot more for a lot of different things. If computer companies could come up with a way of integrating this technology into a laptop, it could really reduce the overall thickness of the laptop itself, not to mention being wicked cool. If you think about it the keys on a keyboard have to have room to move up and down in order to be used but if you had a laser keyboard all you would need is a flat surface. Even though you can use the laser keyboard with your phone or PDA through Bluetooth, I am sure one day there will be phones and PDAs that have laser keyboards built in.

Technorati tags: Laser, Keyboard, gadgets

Friday, March 16, 2007

Blog About Your Blog Competition

Over at Blog About Your Blog there is a new competition going on. They are looking to get blogs to write up reviews, including likes, dislikes, advice, anything you want. Once there are 10 reviews about BAYB a panel of judges will read the reviews and vote for the best. There are cash prizes for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place. On top of cash prizes, BAYB gets a lot of traffic and with a review you will get a linkback, so this is sure to help your traffic numbers increase. So head on over and get your review on!

Thursday, March 15, 2007

To Freeze or Not to Freeze, That is the Question

I came across this section of the National Center for Home Preservation site that talks about what food you should and shouldn't freeze in order to preserve it. There is long list of all kinds of foods and if you click on the link it takes you to a page that goes through the best method for freezing that type of food. It was actually pretty cool. Then they have the list of all the things that shouldn't be frozen; althought I wasn't too surprized at what was on the list. The things that they suggest not to freeze are lettuce, cabbage, potatotes, cooked eggs whites, sour scream; but the thing that caught my attention on this list was the conditions after thawing for each items. Some of the conditions were watery, soggy, mushy, weeps, may curdle. After going through this list I am going to think twice before I put something into the freezer.

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Happy Wordless Wednesday

Happy Pi Day

Send this eCard !

Monday, March 12, 2007

Learning to Sign

I have often heard of mothers teaching their infants sign language so that the baby has more power to communicate before he/she is able to speak. I always thought it was a great idea and wanted to try it out with my own children. Of course when I had my baby real life got in the way and since it was a necessity I didn't try it out. Then my sister had a deaf baby. He was born a couple weeks after my baby but we didn't find out he was deaf for a couple months. Now that she knows he is deaf and can only hear 80% with hearing aids she is teaching him sign language so I have finally started to teach my daughter a few things. First of all, since I don't know sign language I have had to learn a little in order to pass it on to my daughter. The greatest website for this is the ASL (American Sign Language) website because you pick the word you want to learn and it shows you a mini movie of how to make the sign. I have also learned some signs from my sister. I have used some of these signs for many months with my daughter but it has just recently been that she has started signing them back to me. She is very good at signing the word more, coincidentally because she always wants more food. She also will sign the word milk. We are currently working on Please and Thank You and names of various foods we eat. She picked up milk really fast so I think she will catch on to these other signs fairly quickly. I just have to get in the habit of using the signs when we are saying those words. It has been really fun and it has made meal times a lot less stressful since she has been able to tell us when she wants more of something. I would recommend mom's to try this out with their children that are not yet able to speak. It is a wonderful way to communicate with your child!

Sunday, March 11, 2007

How are your Hubs?

A while back I told you about Hubpages, a place to share some of your articles and other writings for people to read, but also to have associated with your your google adsense, ebay, and/or amazon. This has been a fun place for me to put some of my favorite articles. Most of the articles I put on hubpages are ones that have been published on this blog so it doesn't require a lot of extra work. I feel like it is a great way to spread more of my writing and have an extra way of generating some income. It is also an interesting site to surf and read other people's articles. Once of my favorite articles on hubpages is called "why is my newborn crying?" it talks about all the different cries a baby has and how to decipher them. I really enjoy hubpages and I thought I would remind some of you that it is available for your reading and earning enjoyment!

Technorati tags: money, Hubpages, articles, writing

Remote Controlled Pigeons

In my random internet roaming I came across this article announcing that chief scientist Su Xuecheng of China was able to successfully control a pigeon in flight with a computer. Here's a quote from the article:

"Scientists from the Robot Engineering Technology Research Center at Shandong University of Science and Technology successfully used micro electrodes implanted in a pigeon's brain to make it fly left, right, up or down. The scientists used implants to stimulate different sections of the pigeon brain according to signals that scientists sent via a computer, which forced the pigeon to comply with the operator’s instructions."

So if you see a pigeon flying through the air normally and then suddenly jerks to the left, know that it might be a remote controlled pigeon. The article also talks about in the U.S., DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) trying to develop this kind of technology but they are trying to remotely control shark so they can use them to patrol the open ocean.
After I read this article I thought about all the Christmas' and Birthday's when I got a remote control car and I was so excited to take it outside and try it out. But now I can imagine the day when kids run down stairs Christmas morning to find their new remote controlled animal under the tree and then tormenting your little sister would enter a whole new dimension.

Technorati tags: Remote, Control, Pigeons

Saturday, March 10, 2007

Radio

Last night was Wicked! It was an awesome show! I love it. It was really fun to see it for a second time. We went down to LA to see is. While we were driving around trying to find a parking lot we saw an advertisement for a radio station in LA with a billboard that said "We espeekinglish tu!" It was so funny! We were all laughing so hard. We were wishing we had our camera because I picture of that would have been priceless, but we didn't so you'll have to imagine it!

Wednesday, March 7, 2007

Happy Wordless Wednesday

Monday, March 5, 2007

It's going to be Wicked

This week is my Mom's birthday so all my sisters are coming to town for a couple days of celebration! We are going to do some scrapbooking, make cards, get pedicures, go out to eat, and the thing I'm looking forward to the most is seeing Wicked in LA! I have seen Wicked before on Broadway a couple years ago, but it is such a great show I don't mind seeing it again. I'm really looking forward to having a lot of my family also see it. Wicked is a great show with some great music. If you don't know much about it, I highly recommend checking it out and listening to the music.

Technorati tags: Wicked a New Musical, birthday

Sunday, March 4, 2007

Quilting Fingers

With the hope and possibility of moving soon my mom and I have been making quilts. I don't feel like we have enough bedding in case people come visit us or if there is ever freezing cold weather and we need to have a tons of blankets on our own bed. I like to make my own tie quilts because it is easy, fun, and I like to choose the fabric. A couple days ago we went to Walmart and chose fabric for two quilts. One of them is all tied, it just needs to be sewn up around the edges. The other one will get started on in the next week or two. With having the quilt all tied up for a couple of days finally my thumb and first finger are not tender. They hurt so bad while I was tying the quilt. My mom thought it was the needle I was using, but who knows. I used my pliers a lot to avoid hurting my fingers but to no avail. Happily my fingers have returned to normal except for two small blisters but I expect a full recovery (probably just in time to start on the second quilt!)

Technorati tags: Quilting

Random is my niche...

Subscribe to Random Encounters

Saturday, March 31, 2007

Related Posts

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Related Posts

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Related Posts

Related Posts

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Related Posts

Monday, March 26, 2007

Related Posts

Sunday, March 25, 2007

Related Posts

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Related Posts

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Related Posts

Monday, March 19, 2007

Related Posts

Related Posts

Saturday, March 17, 2007

Related Posts

Friday, March 16, 2007

Related Posts

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Related Posts

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Related Posts

Monday, March 12, 2007

Related Posts

Sunday, March 11, 2007

Related Posts

Related Posts

Saturday, March 10, 2007

Related Posts

Wednesday, March 7, 2007

Related Posts

Monday, March 5, 2007

Related Posts

Sunday, March 4, 2007

Related Posts

Join Me At

The Purse Place

Search this Blog

Blog Archive

Encountered Labels

Random World