This guide says we should clean the toilet every day. Eh, that’s excessive. Once a week is fine, just make sure to flush appropriately. Also, why do laundry every day?
A faithful reader sent me this article since I mentioned teens wearing hoodies and jackets in the summer. I’m fascinated by the weighted blanket theory, but here’s the skinny of the article:
Yesterday, Barry posted his opinion about a human trafficking article being misleading. Well, the woman I had dinner with last week is working on her PhD. in human trafficking at SMU. I was looking for a reason to reach out to her, so I took advantage of this opportunity. So, Barry ended up being an unintentional wingman. This woman is also a college professor who teaches U.S. history, and y’all know how much I love to explore U.S. history. It’s nice getting to know her. She’s just very busy and pretty reserved. But, there’s nothing wrong with taking it slow getting to know a new friend.
Barry is also making the early prediction that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will win the Republican nomination. I totally see that, and I think a perfect running mate would be Greg Abbott. However, Texas is already in the bag for whoever ends up being the Republican nominee, so there’s no real benefit of adding him to the ticket. The smart move for selecting a running mate is to find someone who doesn’t align with you perfectly, but someone who can bring in voters from outside the demographic of the person at the top of the ticket, and what electoral votes you can steal away from your opponent. So, I bet DeSantis will pick someone from a swing state that Biden won. The major swing states Biden won are Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. It’s early, but offhand, I’m going to say it will be former Wisconsin governor Scott Walker. And that’s my arm-chair political pundit thought of the day.
I’m a fan of actress Aya Cash. It was a welcome surprise to find her in the new sitcom Welcome to Flatch.
The roundabouts keep vehicles flowing, but they also slow traffic down, and slower traffic makes the roads safer for pedestrians and bicyclists. Roundabouts don’t require electricity, so they continue to function during power outages and severe weather that can black out a traditional stoplight intersection.
Someone I once admired gave me this bit of advice: “The best time to look for a new job is when you don’t need to find a new job.” With that in mind, I’m job-hunting for the first time in over a decade. I love the company I work for and the people I work with, it’s just I loath this current project I’m on. Management is aware of my unhappiness, but right now, there’s nowhere to move me. Hopefully, I can find something like a project management business analyst role or something to do with training or being an instructor of sorts. For the last twelve years, I worked at the IRS for two government contracting firms. With my security clearance, I can probably find a similar role with another company, but I want to see what’s in the private sector. Before the IRS, I contracted at Southwest Airlines for two years, and before that, I worked at Fidelity Investments for nine. Maybe they will have me back, but off hand, I think I’d be a good fit at Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, with my IRS and finance background. I majored in finance, and my MBA’s focus was e-commerce. Here’s a rough draft of my CV or resume in PDF form if you are interested.
If I ever fall in love again, I’d like to make this pencil and give it to her. But, I have a feeling her second or third sentence would be, “Where did you buy it?”
Several weeks ago I bought a laser engraver. Above is a sample of some of my latest work. The Batman artwork is just a white ceramic tile painted black, but I used the laser to do the etching. Below is a pair of earrings I made using the laser to cut into some basal wood. There are a lot of little imperfections in both, but I’m just starting out. The bottom Batman tile was one I did last week, except I did it in white. It’s way too light in color, so I needed to slow down my laser and increase the power to make the marking more visible. I’m thinking of starting a small side business doing this stuff. Maybe I’ll call it BagOfNothing Graphics or Bag of Nothing Inc. I’ve also used my laser to etch my kid’s names into their pencils and the names of my dogs into their new flea collars.
I’ve gained almost all the weight I lost back. It’s both a good and a bad thing.
I take paying child support very seriously. I always pay at least a week in advance. But I hate the way Texas makes former spouses go about it. We have to log into the AG’s website and go through some protocols that make you feel like you’re a criminal and being punished. If my ex and I would have made arrangements outside of the court, I would have paid her more monthly instead of us having to deplete our savings on lawyers.
I also pay my rent a full week earlier than needed.
I’ve noticed teens these days love to wear jackets and hoodies even when it’s extremely hot outside.
As kids return to school, a new Texas law that was co-authored by Houston State Rep. Tom Oliverson is allowing groups to place “In God We Trust” signs on multiple campuses. The law states that the signs must be displayed in public schools if they’re donated privately to the school district, Houston station KHOU reported.
In the call, CEO and President Selim A. Bassoul said the company has offered too many discounts and that “the philosophy of filling our parks was not the right strategy.” According to Bassoul, the strategy involves attracting customers who are willing to spend more money inside the parks. “It was a cheap day care center for teenagers during breaks and the summers,” Bassoul said. “… we had to start going after customers who wanted families, young adults who are willing to come and spend the money in our parks.”
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One of last night’s trivia team names was Olivia Newton Gone.
McGriddles have been out since 2003. I’ve always refused to order one because it seemed to be everything wrong with America. This is how the sausage, egg, and cheese version is described on their website, “Sausage, Egg & Cheese McGriddles feature soft, warm griddle cakes—with the sweet taste of maple—that hold a fluffy folded egg, savory sausage, and melty American cheese“. Well, yesterday after my doctor’s appointment, I ordered an Egg McMuffin, but instead a McGriddle was in my bag. What the heck, I gave it a try, and it was glorious. I couldn’t even finish all of it because it would have just felt wrong. Heck, I think I experienced the seven deadly sins upon first bite. I doubt I’d ever order one again,
Longtime Dallas Cowboys radio announcer Brad Sham turned 74 yesterday. America recently lost Vin Scully. There’s no telling how much longer Sham will be with the Dallas Cowboys Radio Network. He seems to be in good health and enjoys doing the good, but I’m just saying we should appreciate what we have while we still can.
In this article about 38-year-old L.A. Rams Super Bowl winning coach Sean McVay, it states his alma mater, Miami University in Ohio, will announce that it’s going to build a statue of him. First off, I always get a kick about an announcement about a future announcement. Just go ahead and make the announcement. There’s no need for a pre-announcement or warm-up announcement. Second, here we go again with statues. Nowadays, there are too many life-size or larger statues of people, who in this reporter’s eyes, shouldn’t get until later in life. A statue should be reserved for someone who’s in or about to retire, or their achievement happened a significant amount of time ago. It’s silly Heisman Trophy winners are getting life-size statues within a handful of years of winning the trophy. Here’s an example of an organization doing something too soon. Tampa Bay not only made a life-size statue of John Gruden, but put him in their ring of honor At the time, he was the youngest head coach to win a Super Bowl (McVay took that honor last year) and won the organization their first championship. Gruden got run out of coaching after the NFL revealed he made racist, misogynistic, and homophobic slurs. Tampa Bay removed him from their ring of honor, but I can’t find anything about the statue, which is/was inside their team headquarters.
She makes me laugh so hard. She’s a kindergarten teacher who makes videos talking to politicians the way she does her kindergartners. pic.twitter.com/INCNXoEEvu
But this failure to get together was not from want of trying on Spielberg’s behalf. In his audio book Tales of Hollywood, storyteller Stephen Schochet explains that Hitchcock’s morning routine was once “upset by an uninvited young man hovering around the movie set” of his last film Family Plot’, released in 1976. The infamous director of Psycho and The Birds” is said to have called a crew member to have the trespasser removed. According to Schochet, that intruder was Spielberg, buoyed by the success of Jaws and anxious to meet his idol.Throughout his later life, Hitchcock repeatedly refused to meet Spielberg. The reason for his reluctance was only revealed when American actor Bruce Dern, who appeared in two of Hitchcock’s films including psychological thriller Marnie, released his autobiography. Dern says that he tried to convince Hitchcock to finally introduce himself to Spielberg: “I said, ‘You’re his idol. He just [wants] to sit at your feet for five minutes and chat with you’,” but Hitchcock refused, writes Dern. “He said, ‘Isn’t that the boy who made the fish movie?… I could never sit down and talk to him… because I look at him and feel like such a whore’.”
Maybe it’s because I’m from this area, but I was surprised to know some people thought Half-Priced Books started in Austin. Either way, she turns 50.
In keeping with the squirrel theme this week (I bet Texas squirrels make fun of NYC squirrels who complain about the heat just like us human Texans) – City tells New Yorkers: don’t panic about ‘splooting’ squirrels – Yes, it’s a real word. Here’s the science (and etymology) behind
This week, with temperatures reaching 95F (35C), the city’s parks department urged residents not to worry about the health of squirrels seen sprawling on the ground, legs extended behind them like a person whose arms gave out halfway through a yoga class. “On hot days, squirrels keep cool by splooting (stretching out) on cool surfaces to reduce body heat,” the department tweeted.
