Sunday, December 18, 2005

An Early Gift

What could possibly be in this beautiful box?

During a recent incident on the streets of Nashville I was kindly relieved of all my earthly posessions including a very nice pocket knife that was given to me as a gift, so I was given this set as a replacement. It's pretty cool - it's got a flashlight, a swiss army knife, a Leatherman-type of multi-tool, a little keychain set with miniature pliers and everything, and the standard locking-blade pocket knife. If this doesn't all seem as exciting to you as it does to me it's probably because you have a life. ha,ha Also, I just wanted to take pictures of something.....

Oh, THAT'S what's inside that beautiful box! wow - nice... what an assortment...

Saturday, December 17, 2005

more Brrrrr......

winterthree
I did finally find out that these were taken in Switzerland.....
wintertwo
winterone

Thursday, December 15, 2005

shhhhh.....cra- (continue repeating)

shhhh.....cra-
It's cute AND cymbalic!

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Let Me Paws For Effect.....

There was a pet store that had an ad for seasonal help up on its marquee that read:

Now hiring for the holidays

I thought it would have been hilarious if, instead, they'd said:

Now hiring fur the holidays

Wouldn't I make a great pet store owner?

Monday, December 12, 2005

Life Is A Journey


create your own map

Here is a map of all of the states I've ever been to. I wish I'd had this link (which I found at Nerdgirl) about a year ago when I was putting a similar map on my regular website (which I still haven't really finished yet). Just for the record, here are all the cities I've ever actually lived in: Livermore,CA - San Leandro,CA - Wheatland,WY - Torrington,WY - Gering,NE - Minatare,NE - Austin,TX - Springfield,MO - Rolla,MO - Nashville,TN - Stony Point,NY - Queens(Flushing),NY

Sunday, December 11, 2005

$1,000,000.00 Goal

I saw a TV show about charity a few months ago and there was a story on it about a man (I can't remember his name or where he lives) who has made it one of his life goals to give away $1,000,000.00 to charity before he dies. He's not a rich man, either - he lives quite thriftily in order to make sure he can accomplish his generous goal - I was quite impressed with the idea.....

Thursday, December 08, 2005

Go Greyhound, Go Postal

I read a story recently that reminded me of my most recent attempt to do a good deed.....

I got into Nashville by way of Greyhound bus, put my duffel bag and suitcase in a locker and had taken a walk around the downtown area to stretch my legs, grab a bite to eat, etc. I came back to pick up my things, and ended up having a talk with an elderly lady. It was obvious after a couple of minutes of conversation that this woman was quite senile (at the very least - I'm sure she must have had Alzheimer's or something...) and was very confused about things. She first mentioned that this was her first and only trip to Nasvhille, then would say things like, "That kid is crying every time I come here." When I stated that I doubted it was the same child, she insisted it was. She thought every man in the building was staring at her, either in a perverse manner or sizing up how much money she may have on her person. She then went on to describe how she was afraid to go home (Evensville, IN) because some real estate agent was trying A) to force her to sleep with her and/or B) to force her to sell her home.

Anyway, she ends up asking me if I'd escort her home - and since I'm a rather nice guy (and had nothing planned for that particular day) I agreed. I told her I really couldn't afford to pay for a round-trip ticket (I'm nice, but I'm also sometimes equally as broke...) - she for some reason insisted I had told her I was a very wealthy man (like most people who travel by bus, I guess, lol) and didn't understand why I couldn't afford to buy my own ticket to ride all the way to Evansville, for her sake, and then back. She went to purchase my ticket, and at the last second changed her mind. Long story a little shorter, I stayed and talked with her until about 15 minutes before her bus was to leave. I was worried about her as I left the station, but figured she'd be alright.....

Fast forward two days, and I'm back at the station to head back to the town I'd just moved from. You see, walking from the bus station back to my old neighborhood, I'd been robbed/mugged by two courteous, although brutish thugs (hee,hee) and relieved of all my cash and earthly posessions, and things weren't looking too bright for me (other than the stars I was seeing after the clunk on the head) after that so I had a family member send me money for a bus ticket. So, I walk into the bus station, and guess who's sitting there? Yep, that same lady... I went and bought my ticket, then headed for the little diner/cafe thingy, thinking I'd go see what happened to her after I ate (forgive me, but I had enough of my own problems to worry about at this point). As I'm walking towards the cafe, I kept hearing some man calling out, "Sir, Sir," but didn't think it was anyone referring to me. A security guard caught up to me, demanded to see my ticket and was questioning me about where I'd gotten it? As it turns out, the people at the ticket counter had told him that I'd forced the confused elderly woman to buy it for me!?!?! I explained the whole story from the other day to him, and he finally got off of my back about it. I guess I could see why they'd be looking out for her and everything, but sheesh! I'd tried to help the lady myself - even going so far as to escort her across two states to make sure she got home safely!

I decided not to speak to her again - just to be on the safe side - and the guard later told me that they'd had to call and arrange for the police in her hometown to meet her at the bus station there when she arrived back home. I assume she'd just been hanging out there at the bus station all that time, but I don't really know for sure. Naturally, since I was trying to avoid her, she ends up being on the same bus as me, but didn't seem to remember who I was. As a side note, when we got to Evansville, there were no police waiting to escort her home.....

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

Brrrrr......

never park your car near water

never park your car near water

Monday, December 05, 2005

The Times, They Were A Changin'.....


While living in New York a long time ago, I happened to run across an old cemetery with two graves dated 1774, which I thought was pretty cool since America wasn't even an official country at that time. Anyway, I was telling one of the local senior citizens about the grave sites and this led to him tell me a little about the history of the area.....The first capitol of The United States was actually New York City. At one point during the Revolutionary War, the capitol was moved to Kingston (New York) to protect important papers and what-not from the British. Later, the capitol was moved still further away to Albany because of, once again, the advancing British troops.....after the war Albany remained the capitol of New York State and, of course, the U.S. Capitol ended up in Washington, D.C.

That is all for today's history lesson.....

Thursday, December 01, 2005

Open Source

It's no Adobe Photoshop, but for the price (free) The GIMP is close enough.....

Click for The GIMP

Also, the freeware OpenOffice suite has an excellent spreadsheet and an amazingly convenient automatic .pdf creator.....

Click for OpenOffice

* Note - I was going to add "(the good kind)" to the title of this post, but didn't know if that sort of tongue-in-cheek humor (oops - there I go again hee,hee) was funny or just gross.....anyway, if you have limited funds you really should check out that software.....