Wednesday

Another week is half over, but that doesn't mean that it is slowing down by any means. Lots to accomplish by Friday.

Tomorrow is going to be a big day. Mom goes in in the morning for knee surgery. I don't expect to talk to her until sometime on Friday.

Email & Newsletter Gleanings:

Very Interesting Video - The Second American Revolution

New Character

Whitney thought that her character needed a little revamping so this is what she came up with this afternoon.

I also had put together a character for Kirsty, who's no longer with us. I did a few PhotoShop additions, adding some jewelry. Since Kirsty is from Zimbabwe, she thought the spear was appropriate. It was so cute I had to include it.

After work with some urging from Pam, I headed back out to Dress Barn to see if they had a second blouse that I had looked at on Saturday. They did and as an added bonus, there was another blouse there that I hadn't seen before. So two blouses for one trip.

I talked to Mom this evening, she was out on the deck waiting for the owl to show up. We had a nice chat, right up to the time that he landed in the tree. An instant conversation ender. Hope she gets a good shot.

Email & Newsletter Gleanings:

Thought For the Day: “If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy.” — Thomas Jefferson

”Yoga Nails”
A young woman who was worried about her habit of biting her fingernails down to the quick was advised by a friend to take up yoga to ease her nervousness. She did, and soon her fingernails were growing normally.

One day her friend stopped her and noticing her long, groomed nails -- asked her if yoga had totally cured her nervousness.

"No," she replied, "but now I can reach my toe-nails so I bite them instead."

"Paint Bonus"
The homeowner was delighted with the way the painter had done all the work on his house. "You did a great job." he said and handed the man a check. "Also, in order to thank you, here's an extra $80 to take the missus out to dinner and a movie."

Later that night, the doorbell rang and it was the painter. Thinking the man had forgotten something he asked, "What's the matter, did you forget something?"

"Nope." replied the painter. "I'm just here to take your missus out to dinner and a movie like you asked."

"Nervous Taxpayer"
A nervous taxpayer was unhappily conversing with the IRS Tax auditor who had come to review his records. At one point the auditor exclaimed, "Mr. Carr, we feel it is a great privilege to be allowed to live and work in the USA. As a citizen you have an obligation to pay taxes, and we expect you to eagerly pay them with a smile."

"Wonderful," returned Mr. Carr, with a giant grin on his face from ear to ear, "I thought you were going to want me to pay with cash!"

Happy Birthday Alice!

Hummers

Here are a couple of pictures of hummers that I got at Mom's yesterday.

Saturday Outing

I goofed off at home this morning, then headed out to do some clothes shopping for the big upcoming trip.

Dress Barn had a number of things, but only one blouse made the cut. Maybe next week I'll see something new.

I took the opportunity to run out to Mom & Dad's to visit and pick up some tomatoes. While there I snapped a few pictures. Mom even set me up with her tripod so I could try to get a photo of the hummingbird that has been visiting their feeder. Mine are in no way as good as hers, but then again, she's had LOTS.... of practice.

Back Office Staff

I've had too much fun playing with an online program that creates South Park like characters. Enjoy meeting my office mates, Brian and Whitney.

Richmond Smile Center

Meet the Doctors and Staff

Dr. Martin	Dr. Roy

To meet the actual doctors and staff of the Richmond Smile Center visit them online, or call and schedule an appointment.

Date Night

Lucky is coming over this evening for dinner. We're having a "garden dinner", fresh corn, tomatoes and green beans. Yum. Nice & Simple.

Wacky Wednesday

It has been a wacky day at the office. I've been working on the marketing website with the programmer. There are still a number of graphic elements that I need to finish up for him. I finalized a couple of book cover designs and have just about got Dr. Martin's new book ready to go to the printers.

It is going to be an odd day at the office tomorrow. We're hosting a mini-conference beginning tomorrow, and this is the first one that I will not be attending. There is a new employee that has come aboard that is dedicated to working with this group. I wish her the best of luck. I know that the first time that I ever did a conference day alone it put me on edge.

I had a very nice email on the weekend with a request to do business cards. It seems that Brian & Jaclyn have been very busy at passing out my email and making recommendations. If they keep it up Crossed Brush Studio/Blue Crescent Marketing & Design/Alice Pettey Designs is going to be quite busy.

Mom on the other hand has been out and about this evening chasing the owl that is hanging out the edge of the woods near the house. She even gave me a window of time this evening that I "couldn't call", because she'd be outside. Well her persistance paid off - she has another great picture that she posted on her blog.

Email & Newsletter Gleanings:

How To Spot A Gay Terrorist

Tuesday Tidbits

Today was Kirsty's last day at the office. Brian and I went out to lunch with her to the Mongolian Grill. I do believe that it would have become one of her favorite places for lunch if she had stayed at the office. I wish her well on her new position.

This evening as I left for home I found this fellow hanging out on the antenne on the back of the car. He was pretty cooperative.













I received a nice surprise in my email today. A request for a business card design. It seems that Brian and Jaclyn have been busily sharing my contact information with people they think that I can help. Of course, when I need some help, I get to call on my sis. Who more than willingly helps out. Thanks so much Alice...we may just get a graphics business off the ground yet.

I just finished tonight's teleconference for work. It's downloaded and ready for redistribution to the group. I do hope that they will download it and utilize it. Loads of good information.

Email & Newsletter Gleanings:

Are you lonely ???
Don't like working on your own?
Have making decisions?

Then call a MEETING!!!
You can ...
SEE people
DRAW flowcharts
FEEL important
FORM subcommittees
IMPRESS yoru colleagues
MAKE meaningless recommendations
ALL on COMPANY TIME !!!!

MEETINGS .....
THE PRACTICAL ALTERNATIVE TO WORK.

Office Signage












This one had me rolling in the floor.

Monday

It has been a truly different day. Things that I have been working on for the past three days turned out not to have been necessary. A big waste of time - it would have been nice to have had the information on the project fiqured out prior to today.

This evening I headed off to a RAUG meeting with Alice. The speaker was from the Martin Agency and he went over using After Effects. It was exciting to learn something new. I could see a number of uses for it in the future, but I'm going to have to practice a bunch.

A mini rant

There is nothing worse than being late for an appointment. I scheduled a meeting after work hours this evening and had a really difficult time getting out of the office on time. I had a 4:30 meeting sprung on me at 3:30 and then it didn't let out until 5:45. That only gave me 15 minutes to get to downtown Richmond. It was just plain annoying that I wasn't able to get there when I was suppose to.

Deep cleansing breaths and I'll be better....

Walter's Trip

Walter and Patrick got back in this evening around 6:30 p.m. This is a photo from the cabin that he took while he was there. It's located outside of Lynchburg, VA.

They had a grand time target shooting and just being silly in general. I do believe that there was some work also involved. Walt was telling me that they cut some of the overhanging branches off the driveway up to the cabin.

New Tools

I read in the Wall Street Journal at the end of last week about a cool plug in for Outlook, called Xobni. It manages your emails in a whole new way. It shows the email conversations, files shared, others that are connected relational to the sender. It even gives you the total number of emails that you have sent to them and that they have sent to you, with a graph showing the times that the emails were sent. Very cool.

Alice & I had a paper discussion yesterday afternoon. It was so nerdy...

We talked at length about the synthetic papers the are available from Yupo. One of the more interesting papers is waterproof and tear resistant and can be used by scuba divers. Alice has come up with a use for the waterproof paper - they have cards that their road crews use out in all kinds of weather. I even ordered samples....

Then there was Laser Excel. They do fantastic looking laser cut work. The samples that they have online are spectacular. Of course, ordering samples was a must. They would be good to use for Christmas cards, just as a start.

Alice even found a place that we can join, PaperSpecs, to have access to virtually all the specs for papers in the country. The swatchbook is terrific. It'll help in having the conversation with the printer.

Email & Newsletter Gleanings:

Thought For the Day: “I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents...” — James Madison

Charlie Daniels Band Concert

I went to the Charlie Daniels Band Concert last night on Saturday night with Roz and Vinney.

I took other videos, but they were too large to post here. Photos from the concert.



Vinney, myself & Roz after the concert.

Ahh..Saturday Morning

The morning has begun spectaularly. I was able to sleep late, at least to me. 5:45 a.m. comes early, so to sleep until 7:00 a.m. was a treat. Carla is back out enjoying the time outside.

I'm going to put some laundry in and finish that up, before heading off this afternoon with Roz and her sister to Bush Gardens to see the Charlie Daniel Band concert. I suspect that we will have a fantastic evening. I'll post photos later.

Date Night

I got out of work early this evening - it was quite an unusual event for me even to leave early. I think I surprised one of the co-workers just shortly before 4, she came in asking what I was doing. When I told her leaving, it seeemed to throw her a bit. (But then again, it is very unusal for me to leave early.) Then of course there was the requesite, why? I told her I had a date. Which led to her asking, what time? This is when I should have been a bit more...I don't know what...well, I said, "When he gets there." On reflection it was probably a bit more curt that I normally would have...then again it had been a hard day.

I did get out of the office just after 4 and was able to get home and have things all prepared for dinner. As an added bonus it is also going to make the weekend a very relaxed one. All the cleaning is done, and the only thing to finish left is laundry, and Saturday will be the perfect time to get it done.

I put Carla out on a lead for the evening. She enjoys hanging outside so much. As Lucky arrived she barked one time. It was so funny - she was my doorbell. I prepared a pan of lasagna and some bruchetta for dinner. I was so nice to cook for someone who really appreciated being cooked for. Really, nice.

The evening was very nice, great company and terrific conversation. Very nice....

The end of another week closing in...

Another productive day. The website stayed up and didn't appear to have any issues. We'll see how that goes tomorrow. We're now working on another site. Getting together all the necessary content and organizing it into the proper places.

I met up with Dad after work at the ballfield to pick up some fresh corn and tomatoes. His garden has been producing well so far and I really appreciate the fruits of his labor. I'm thinking that corn on the cob, fresh sliced tomatoes and green beans with diced onions sounds like a wonderful summer dinner. Hmmm...

As I pulled up to the field it dawned on me that I hadn't been at a Little League field since Sean had quit playing for the Junior Yankees...almost three years ago. Wow! It seemed like it had only been a season since I'd been there. If I hadn't of had to work it would have been a good evening to stay and watch.

Oh! At the ballfield the nephew was getting ready to play one of his last Little League All-Star games. I wasn't able to stay, but he seemed to be doing well in practice before I left. I hope that they were able to pull off a win this evening.

I went by Ukrops on the way home to pick up supplies for tomorrow's dinner. I'm fixing lasagna for Lucky. I have made it quite sometime, in fact, I had to pull out the very old Three Chopt Elementary School Cookbook that had a copy of the original recipe in it. Of course it never stays exactly the same, but the recipe is the starting point.

I got the sauce well underway before it was time for me to begin working a teleconference at 8 p.m. I was able to let it simmer the whole time the call was going on. The house is really smelling good. I'm about ready to put the noodles in and get them rolled up.

The lasagna went together wonderfully. It is all set and ready to go for tomorrow. I'm pretty sure that it is going to be a great dinner.

Walt & Patrick are heading back here this evening so that they can leave from here to go camping for the weekend. It'll be a nice getaway before Walter heads out of town for work next week, and the next, and the next....

Email & Newsletter Gleanings:

Thought For the Day:

SIGN IN A PHILADELPHIA STORE WINDOW

"WE WOULD RATHER
DO BUSINESS WITH
1000 ALQAEDA TERRORISTS
THAN WITH ONE SINGLE AMERICAN SOLDIER!"
This sign was prominently displayed in the window of a business in Philadelphia. You are probably outraged at the thought of such an inflammatory statement.

However, we are a society which holds Freedom of Speech as perhaps our greatest liberty.

And after all, it is just a sign. You may ask what kind of business would dare post such a sign.

Answer: A Funeral Home

Who said morticians had no sense of humor?) You gotta love it!!!

Barack's cabinetAnother Maxine Moment
No matter where you stand on the immigration issue this is a uniquely presented solution...

Everyone concentrates on the problems we're having in this country lately: illegal immigration, hurricane recovery, alligators attacking people in Florida .

Not me. I concentrate on solutions for the problems. It's a win-win situation.
+ Dig a moat the length of the Mexican border.

+ Send the dirt to New Orleans to raise the level of the levies.

+ Put the Florida alligators in the moat along the Mexican border.

Finally Finished

We finished putting up the DentistryForDiabetics national website this morning. It looks pretty darn good, and has loads of information on it about the connection between diabetes and dentistry.

Sunday

The day has gone along quite well. I got Walter out of the house this afternoon to do some grocery shopping. We got things to put together for the coming week. Before I hit the bed tonight I'm going to put in a nice roast for tomorrow's dinner.

I was heading down to Bush Garden's this evening to see Grand Funk Railroad, but the weather didn't seem to be very cooperative, and I didn't want to get stuck down there particularly late on a Sunday night. Here it is 8 p.m. concert start time and the rain is coming down in bucket loads. I'm so glad that I didn't venture out.

Email & Newsletter Gleanings:

A Dumb Question
The next time someone asks you a dumb question, wouldn't you like to respond like this?.....

Yesterday I was buying a large bag of Purina dog chow at Wal-Mart for Athena the wonder dog and was about to check out. A woman behind me asked if I had a dog.

What did she think I had -- an elephant? So since I'm retired, with little to do... on impulse, I told her that no, I didn't have a dog, but I was starting the Purina Diet again. Although I probably shouldn't, because I'd ended up in the hospital last time... but that I'd lost 50 pounds before I woke up in an intensive care ward with tubes coming out of most of my orifices and IV's in both arms.

I told her that it was essentially a perfect diet and that the way it works is to load your pants pockets with Purina nuggets and simply eat one or two every time you feel hungry, and that the food is nutritionally co mplete so I was going to try it again.. (I have to mention here that practically everyone in the line was by now enthralled with my story.)

Horrified, she asked if I ended up in intensive care because the dog food poisoned me. I told her no; I stepped off a curb to sniff an Irish Setter's behind and a car hit us both.

I thought the guy behind her was going to have a heart attack, he was laughing so hard!

WAL-MART won't let me shop there anymore.

(Better watch what you ask retired people. They have all the time in the world to think of crazy things to say.)