An Arizona Cheesehead's Thoughts

I just discovered a game on my laptop called Spider Solitaire. Sadly, I have become addicted. I had a choice between reading before going to sleep tonight or playing the game. Game won. Over an hour later, I've decided to shut down the laptop or I won't get any sleep tonight...

The topic of the week around here has been whether a woman should pursue a man she's interested in or wait for him to make the move. I was out with a friend on Friday and she told a story about being on a group trip over the weekend where she and one of the guys hit it off. They spent most of their time together and the group was wagering on whether they would hook up. He did proposition her but she said no (what willpower!) because she felt that if they did get together she would rather it be when they're back in town and not on an alcohol influenced weekend fling. When they got back to town, she called him twice and invited him to some social functions. Both times, he declined because of his kids' schedule. I told her she was done, she had shown an interest and now the ball was in his court. The consensus of those surveyed agreed with me. I'll digress a bit on the kid thing. One of the reasons I'm semi-serious about dating someone in their 20s is they usually don...

Committed - Men Tell Stories of Love, Commitment, and Marriage is a collection of personal essays on how men came to be committed to their partner with a few tales of their parents' relationships thrown into the mix. Some of the stories were poignant, David Sedaris' comes to mind, while some are more practical. James McManus, who wrote Positively Fifth Street about the World Series of Poker, states that he's not as attracted physically to his wife as he used to be although he still loves her. He won't cheat, however, and wouldn't consider divorce because of the financial aspect. Sounds cold blooded when I sum it up that way which does a disservice to his tale as he's not as blunt. A common theme through many of the stories was how the man was completely messed up when he met his mate (emotionally and/or physically) and how she (or he) overlooked that deficiency and found something to love. That love turned into being the saving grace that let the man turn his ...

May God bless the souls of all who have given their lives in service to our country, protect the men and women currently serving and give comfort and strength to their friends and families.

The Coca-Cola 600 is one very, very long race. So, when Sugar Daddy said "Let's go out to dinner." around 5, I was happy for the break. Jimmie was in the top 10 and I was confident he would move up. We hit the TiVo to record the rest of the race and went to PF Chang's. When we got home, I started watching the rest of the race. OK, who knew they were going to have 8 million cautions and the race would run so long? My recording ran out with 57 laps to go and Jimmie was in third. I headed over to NASCAR.com and saw the headline: Three Times A Winner with Jimmie's picture. YAY! Maybe I should miss the end of all of the races. Though, it sounds like it was an exciting finish and I am sorry I missed it. I did see Effing Junior punt his teammate, Michael Waltrip which ended the night for Waltrip, Kenseth and Terry Labonte (who ended up in the hospital). What can I say? There's a reason I preface his name with Effing. I've been concerned that Jimmie...

Philip Margolin's latest book, Lost Lake, is an intriguing read with plenty of conspiracies and violence. The story revolves around a member, Carl Rice, of a secret governmental "Unit" set up during Vietnam that engaged in illegal drug running and assassinations. Rice has been on the lam since the 80s but is arrested for assault during a kids Little League game when he defends the coach from a bullying parent. His arrest draws the attention of Vanessa Kohler, his high school girlfriend and the estranged daughter of General Wingate, a Presidential candidate and leader of the secret Unit. Or, is he? While nearly everyone involved portrays Rice and Kohler as paranoid delusional types since there's no concrete evidence of the Unit's existence, their lawyer, Ami Vergano, tries to find a way to prove their story. Good read with an interesting ending. I enjoyed the characters and wouldn't mind seeing more of them in the future.

Sugar Daddy and I just finished watching Sideways . I have to admit it was a let down after all of the hype it got. We both expected it to be a lot funnier than it was. Sugar Daddy said it was like a book and kind of funny, but he also said it was time from his life that he will never get back. Guess you would call that a mixed review. I thought Giamatti was excellent, as well as the rest of the cast, but, eh..., it didn't excite me that much. I did think the pretentious wine talk was hilarious. I've met those people at tastings and they are so full of themselves. You just have to laugh at them. I'm not disappointed that I watched it but I'm glad I didn't rush out and pay $8 for it when it came out.

This second book by Jonathan Safran Foer is really good, if you like quirky and puzzling texts. The hero of the story is an extremely precocious 9-year old Oskar Schell who lost his Father in the WTC on 9/11. As he tries to reconcile to the tragedy, he finds a key in his Dad's closet in an envelope with the word "Black" written on it. Oskar decides to visit everyone named Black in NYC to see if they can identify the key. He meets an interesting cast of characters along the way. There are other tales being told in the book - his Grandfather and Grandmother take turns telling their stories that started in Dresden, Germany prior to its bombing by the Allies. All of the stories tie together at the end, although the ending is a bit open. I have to confess, there were several parts that left me quite teary-eyed.

Not that I want to be one of those American Idol bloggers... but, if Bo needs some consoling after coming in second, I am so there for him!

Man, I am torn. Our own Senator John McCain, along with a couple of others, introduced legislation to deal with steroid use in professional sports. You can get the full scoop at USA Today . On one hand, don't our elected leaders have something better to do with their time? Like finding a winning solution to Iraq and Afghanistan so our men and women can stop dying and will not have died in vain? How about working on the economy or social security? On the other hand, professional sporting leagues have let steroid and other drug abuse make a mockery out of sports. More importantly, because there doesn't seem to be any consequence, kids today think nothing about using steroids to be stronger and leaner. After all, their sports heroes are doing it and allegedly, so is their competition. Who cares about the health risks? And, I'm sorry if you're a Barry Bonds fan and think he was clean, but come on! Get with reality. He was juiced and gets paid a gazillion dollars. What'...

I've had a book on hold at the library for almost a week so I asked Sugar Daddy if he minded a little detour on our way home from work tonight. He said he'd be OK with it if I promised to be away all weekend. I countered with the idea that if I had another book to read, at least I'd be occupied. He then said he'd go in with me to make sure I found lots of stuff to read. Usually, he impatiently waits in the car and demands that I'm out in minutes so I was happy with the strategy. You may remember my comments about our library branch before but it's in a high school and pretty tiny. Sugar Daddy actually thought, from viewing it from the parking lot, that the whole building was the library and the actual library was the kid's section. Um, no. The majority of the building is classrooms and the library itself is teeny tiny. We both think our high school libraries were bigger (I went to Coronado and he went to Saguaro. Even in those days, he had more money than I)...

What military aircraft are you? EA-6B Prowler You are an EA-6B. You are sinister, preferring not to get into confrontations, but extract revenge through mind games and technological interference. You also love to make noise and couldn't care less about pollution. Click Here to Take This Quiz Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests. OK, gotta admit some of it fits (yeah, noise is good) but I do care about pollution. I carpool and recycle for goshsakes! Found this at GTL who got it from Ogre .

I went out last week with Ted, an old high school buddy, and his girlfriend Rhena to Rio Salado for a lot of fun and way too many beers. A little background about Ted: he's an engineer (used to be a rocket scientist which was much more glamorous sounding), an unabashed conservative who used to call me Pinkie because he thought I was a Commie instead of a liberal and he's one of the few people whiter than I am. So, there we were laughing it up and telling stories when Ted said to Rhena, "You didn't like my Forbidden Toothbrush Dance of Love". (Or something to that effect, we were drinking microbrews so it was getting a little hazy.) OK, the first thing that came to mind was that old joke where the couple's house got broken into and when they later developed film from their camera they saw a burglar with one of their toothbrushes up his butt. So, now I have this picture of Ted, naked with a toothbrush stuck somewhere I don't want to think about doing the onl...

Poker Guru Dudley and Poker Princess Kathy Official Photographer Pabla and Good Loser Tom Poker Winners: Tom, Annette and Bernie Poker Loser (but a winner in life!) Mark in the Loser's Lounge The club had its first ever Texas Hold 'Em Poker Tournament on Saturday. As the Poker Princess, my job was to get players, coordinate the evening and collect the money. That was easy. Winning was not. I think I was the third person out (of 27 total). Man, I had crappy cards. I saw one face card the whole night (on the hand that knocked me out) and had a wired pair of 7s which ended up being two pair but lost to a bigger two pair. No respect for the Princess! There was a mixture of club members and their family and co-workers playing so I got to meet lots of new people. Eric brought two buddies from his work, Bob who was the unlucky person to be out first and Bernie, the tournament winner. Oh, that Bernie! He was throwing black chips out there like crazy and he was just freakin' hilario...

Our latest classic book club read was Ernest Hemingway's, The Sun Also Rises. I had tried to read one of his books a long time ago - I think it was The Old Man and the Sea. I have to admit, I couldn't get past a few pages. The prose was just too dense. Ironically, I was the only one who liked The Sun Also Rises. Brooke hated it. Anne hated it. Susan just didn't like it. Their complaint was with the writing style. Almost all dialog, little description and the first half of the book had little action. I thought it was a deliberate style to represent the times. The story takes place in post-WWII Europe and is about a group of Americans and Brits as they visit Paris (to party) and Spain (for the bullfights - so Hemingway). They're displaced and aimless and the writing style is very much symbolic of that aimlessness. I didn't like it enough, however, to go, "Hey, I want to read all of his stuff now!"

What Is Your Animal Personality? brought to you by Quizilla I don't know if this really fits me but I thought it was funny that I was a Badger because, as I'm sure you all know, Wisconsin is the Badger state. I have to admit to that grumpy part. Anyhoo, I got this from Pammy

Sugar Daddy selfishly made plans with his friend Dave to see Revenge of the Sith without me. The nerve! He did tell me they were going to The Pavilions and I could get a ticket on my own and go with them but, by the time I got around to it they were sold out. So, I bought 2 tickets for Steven and me at Esplanade ($10 each!). Then, I emailed my friend Chris to see where she was going and she said the whole group was going to AZ Mills and some of them had been in line since 9:30 AM. Well, I wanted in on that action so I tried calling Morgan's (one of the line people) cell phone but couldn't get through. I then called the theater and they told me there were plenty of tickets available but I had to go through Moviefone. No problem, I was thinking, until Moviefone (after going through the umpteen steps the automated response system made me do) declared that the show was sold out. I finally called Chris' nephew, Ethan, and he got me two tickets at the box office. At least those ...

You scored as Postmodernist . Postmodernism is the belief in complete open interpretation. You see the universe as a collection of information with varying ways of putting it together. There is no absolute truth for you; even the most hardened facts are open to interpretation. Meaning relies on context and even the language you use to describe things should be subject to analysis. Cultural Creative 63% Existentialist 63% Postmodernist 63% Idealist 56% Modernist 38% Fundamentalist 31% Romanticist 31% Materialist 25% What is Your World View? (corrected...again) created with QuizFarm.com I got this one from El Capitan. I have to admit some of the choices were a bit over my head and I'm not too sure of the results since I'm an extreme rule follower and therefore believe in some hard facts. Oh well, it was an interesting way to spend 5 minutes.

Please note the time of my last post. Now, imagine how happy I was to get called by work at 5:50 AM. Sigh. I finally found a way to sleep past 5:30 (by staying up until 4) and they just had to wake me up.

The Phantom Menace - sucked. Attack of the Clones , not much better. Revenge of the Sith , awesome! The dialog was crisper, the acting far above the previous efforts, the light saber fights incredible and the story line did a great job of tying into A New Hope (or Star Wars , as I still prefer to call it). I have to see it again just to catch all of the little plot points that are relevant to the future story line. There wasn't much of the lighthearted humor and slapstick of the other films but it's kinda hard to be light when telling the story of a turn to the dark side. Especially, when the turn is filled with so many violent deaths. There are lots of dismemberments in the movie and a few truly horrific moments among the mayhem. There's also a couple of hanky moments in there, too. This is a fitting end to the saga. The special effects were superb but didn't overwhelm the story. I mentioned the exceptional light saber battles already but there were also so...

Star Wars Horoscope for Taurus You are a dependable creature, but you do tend to be stubborn. You like material possessions and love to win at games. You hate being bossed around or losing. You may succumb to your physical strength when upset. Star wars character you are most like: Chewbacca What is Your Star Wars Horoscope? Got this from Beth who finds such great quizzes. I'm totally good with being Chewbacca - sometimes, I fantasize about tearing someone's arms off. Is that wrong? Oh, and in case you were wondering...I will be at the show at 12:01 AM.

I don't look at summer as starting on a specific calendar date or by when we break 100 degrees as some folks do. To me, the official start of summer is when I have to start carrying a sweater with me. I know, you're going, "Huh, sweater? Isn't it hot in the summer?" You're right, it is freaking hot out here but for some unknown reason half of the businesses in town turn their thermostats even lower or leave them the same when the heat starts building up. Like we really need it to be 72 degrees inside when it's 110 outside. I don't get it. It costs more for them and I end up suffering from hypothermia. OK, well not really but pretty dang close. So, I end up carting around a sweater for when I go into restaurants, malls and grocery stores and even then, I can't wait to get out into the sun and defrost. You should see what I have to wear to get through a movie...the family in Wisconsin would call it a 'snowmobile suit'. I call it summ...

Me, Tyler, Michael and Dave at our Corporate Golf Tourney. This was taken while I still had bad hair and it was really that windy - believe me, that wasn't a style I was going for!

If you've read The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd's first novel, you probably have high expectations for her latest work, The Mermaid Chair . Bees was beautifully written and made you care about the characters so much that you were sorry to have to leave them at the end of the story. I hope she writes a sequel. Mermaid Chair has some of the same elements as Bees: quirky characters, long held secrets, romance and long time friendships. But, I didn't feel the love so much. It was an interesting enough story but I never connected to the main character, a woman in her 40s who's feeling distanced from her marriage/husband and who has to return to her hometown to care for her crazy/ill/somewhat estranged Mother. The hometown is actually an island off of South Carolina and home to a Monastery. Our heroine becomes romantically involved with one of the monks while uncovering secrets about her family. Yeah, I didn't care so much about how it turned out. If you haven...

I've had several people tell me about this great blog, The Darth Side: Memoirs of a Monster and it's absolutely brilliant. It's Darth Vader's blog and so freaking funny. I wish I could write half as well. Check it out and let me know what you think.

I know I'm probably way behind the curve on this one but I finally saw Super Size Me. Sugar Daddy TiVo'd and watched it while I was off gallivanting somewhere and told me I had to see it. It made a huge impression on him, so much so that part way through the movie he signed up for Weight Watchers online. Good news for me since I've been trying to get him to join with me for a few months so he'll stop trying to tempt me with fast food and big pasta dinners. For those who don't know the story, Morgan Spurlock decides to test just how healthy/unhealthy a fast food diet can be. He eats nothing but McDonald's for 30 days, has to try everything on the menu at least once and has to Super Size if they ask him. Wow, what an incredibly interesting film. It was unbelievable how quickly his health deteriorated. He gained 24 1/2 pounds, his cholesterol and blood pressure shot up and his liver was experiencing the same damage that is caused by binge drinking. He also ...

I have fallen into this horrible habit of waking up at 5:30 every freaking morning. Sugar Daddy says it's because I'm old and don't need a lot of sleep. I think it's just some freaky thing my mind and/or body is doing to me. It doesn't matter what time I go to bed, 10, 12 or 2 AM, I'm wide awake at 5:30. I don't leave for work until 8ish so it's a waste during the week and it absolutely sucks on the weekends. Last night, I stayed at Norene's and we crashed close to 3 AM. When I woke up and looked at the clock, it was 5:40...sigh. I forced myself to sleep on and off until 9 but it wasn't easy. Gee, can't wait until tomorrow morning.

Your Political Profile Overall : 15% Conservative, 85% Liberal Social Issues : 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal Personal Responsibility : 0% Conservative, 100% Liberal Fiscal Issues : 0% Conservative, 100% Liberal Ethics : 0% Conservative, 100% Liberal Defense and Crime : 50% Conservative, 50% Liberal How Liberal / Conservative Are You? I got this from A Gun-Toting Liberal who shares my love for these quizzes. I think my answers are not all that surprising though I believe I'm somewhat conservative on fiscal issues and that didn't come through with the question selection.

So, I installed Haloscan so I can use it to Trackback which seems to be very important to other bloggers and I like to play well with others. Well, now all of the comments that were made before I made the change don't display and I'm not getting notified via email anymore when someone makes a new comment. I'd tear the whole thing out but I think I would just hose it up more. I'm apparently not alone in this (no email notifications) as others are reporting it in the Haloscan forum so hopefully, it's all better soon. Update - got the total for old comments to show...now I need to be able to actually see them! The Haloscan forum folks seem helpful and knowledgeable so I'm hoping to get it figured out soon. Another Update (5/15/05)- thanks to artesea in the HaloScan forum, I now have all of my old comments displayed.

Your Deadly Sins Greed : 40% Lust : 40% Sloth : 40% Gluttony : 20% Pride : 20% Wrath : 20% Envy : 0% Chance You'll Go to Hell : 26% You'll die in a castle, surrounded by servants. How Sinful Are You? So, just when am I going to get this castle...? I got this from a new (to me) blog called Lollygaggin . Check it out, I like it a lot. I found it courtesy of El Capitan who's been doing all the work finding good stuff and is nice enough to tell us about it.

This story from The AZ Republic just sickens me. Three extremely malnourished children were taken from their home and their parents were charged with child abuse. The children are 3, 9 and 11 and weigh 12, 29 and 36 pounds respectively. The typical weight for their ages is 33, 69 and 87 pounds. The parent's excuse? The kids were on a vegan diet because that's healthier for them. What a crock! Yes, vegan diets can be healthy but how do you not realize you're starving your kids? What I want to know is, how much do the parents weigh? Are they less than 50% than the average weight for their heights? Somehow, I think not. Here's another item that bugged me. Arizona implemented the AIMS test to ensure that kids graduating from our high schools had certain levels of proficiency. Guess what happened? A bunch of kids can't pass the test. So, what's the answer? Lower the passing score, of course. Here's an idea - how about instead of spending money on designing...

I got these from one of my new favorite blogs, The Gun-Toting Liberal . I've added him to my list of favorites. I think he'll make a nice contrast to Beth at My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy . I like both of them, though, because they are clearly not afraid to strongly speak their minds. Anyhoo...here's Test One . It's a Political Typology Test. I scored - Liberal. What a non-surprise. Sugar Daddy didn't believe me - he thinks I pretend to be more Liberal than I am. So, he took the test, answering what he thinks I really believe and it still came out Liberal. So there! Here's Test Two . It's called The Political Guage. My results: On Non-Fiscal Issues, you rank as a Strong Liberal (15). On Fiscal Issues, you rank as a Moderate Liberal (33). Your score is on a scale of 0 to 100, with 0 being fully liberal and 100 being fully conservative. I was trying to decide why I like these tests so much. Is it to learn more about myself or is it to comfirm/justify what I ...

Met up with my pal, Maria, last night at The Monastery. It was a beautiful night to be there. The weather was perfect with just a touch of coolness in the air. Have to enjoy that while it lasts since it's projected to hit 100 degrees this weekend. We had a couple of beers and some popcorn and caught up on our latest doings. Somehow, most of my stories end up being boy related, go figure. We were periodically distracted by the volleyball game...especially by one particular player. Man, what a nice six pack he had (and there I go with the boy stuff again). Ran into my bud, Teddy, in the parking lot. He goes there every Wednesday with his Hash group. If you don't know what Hashers are, they're self-described "drinkers with a running problem". Fun folks and very close to Parrot Heads in their behaviors. The scuttlebutt is that the last big hurrah is the weekend of June 17th so we're passing on the invite to all to join us on that Friday night to mourn its demise. ...

I let Sugar Daddy talk me into spending $900 on my laptop because I was using the lack of one as an excuse to not start writing. I've toyed around with the idea of working on short stories and even had some ideas for novels but never got around to it. I used the excuse that typing on the PC at home is too uncomfortable. Weak. The real reason is that I don't like to do anything that I'm not already good at and I was afraid the stuff I put out would be crap. I also don't handle criticism well (Sugar Daddy would say not at all) so the thought of creating something and then actually showing it to people for feedback was scary, scary, scary. I finally bit the bullet last night though. The night before, I'd had this intriguing story going through my head before I went to sleep. Usually, the details are gone when I wake up the next morning but this time they stuck. So, I took my laptop into my room at 10 last night and spent a big chunk of time working on capturing my thou...

Co-written by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro, 4th of July, is very Patterson-like and I mean that in a good way. Short chapters, red herrings, and a likeable main character in SFPD Lt. Lindsay Boxer (of the Women's Murder Club) made reading this a very pleasant way to spend my Sunday night. There are two concurrent story lines. The first has Boxer being tried for excessive force in the shooting of two teenagers and the second finds Boxer trying to solve ongoing serial murders that appear to be tied to an old John Doe case that has haunted her for years. Having read so much Patterson, I can usually spot the killer early on but this one surprised me a bit which made it that much better.

I read in the paper this morning that Kenny Chesney and Renee Zellweger got married. Sigh. I guess he got tired of waiting for me. (That is a joke - he's 37 and too old for me. Though, he's damn cute.) Not trying to be cynical, but all I can say is, "Start the clock on this one." They met on January 15th of this year . Yeah, way to get to know each other well before making that lifelong commitment. As soon as he goes on tour and she goes on location, we'll be hearing the "It's just too hard to be together in our lines of work." speech that comes out of Hollywood so very often. I know, I shouldn't care about celebrities and their personal lives but sometimes I just have to say, WTF?

Steven took me to a Diamondbacks game on Thursday for my birthday. We had a really nice time despite their 4-2 loss to the Pirates. There were two Exclamation plays, one by Counsel and the other by Cintron. Exclamation plays are my own scoring invention. When the play is exceptional, I put an exclamation point on the scorecard. Not exactly official but it works for me. On Sunday, I took my parents and my uncle to a game. Ohmigod - was that painful! 16-2 and it was even worse than that. No offense and oy vey, the pitching was simply awful. We stayed for the whole 9 innings though. Probably because we were going to have to wait for Steven to get home for dinner anyway. Sitting through two games in one week back memories from when Sugar Daddy and I had partial season tickets for several years. (Full disclosure: he paid for them except for the last year. Yes, I am really spoiled.) We have very different ideas of what makes for a perfect baseball game. He loves a 10-1 win with all home runs...

I got some very nice birthday cards this year but two of them were just so appropriate, I had to share. The Jello Shot Queen picked out this one: Front: "Queen for a Day" with a picture of a kitty wearing a big crown Inside: "then right back to being a Princess!" From Pabla: Front: "You have 17 new messages." with a picture of an answering machine. Inside: "Looks like little Mis Popular Pants is having a birthday." Are those both me, or what?

Antsy and Flem of The Troubs I was a half hour late to The Troubs show thanks to golf and a wrong turn. Do you ever fantasize about what you would do if you won a big Lotto? The first thing I would do is hire a driver. But, I digress. So, I was trying to very quietly sneak into the Cave Creek Coffee Company when the lead singer, Antsy, called me out, asked me my name and made me sit in a chair in the first row. So much for sneaking in. The show was great as usual. These guys are really good musicians with a funny schtick. Their lyrics are hilarious. Some of my favorite tunes are It Ain't Home Til You Take The Wheels Off, Trailer Park in Heaven and Big Haired, Redneck Woman. Antsy periodically goes into these Elvis like dance moves and pulled me up on stage to dance with him at one point. Things were going swimmingly until he said he wanted to dip me. I vetoed that. I got a rash of shit from everyone afterwards for being a glory hog. Look, I don't seek out celebrity, but if it...

We had our corporate golf tournament on Friday afternoon. The weather was beautiful and my team was made up of people who didn't take it all too seriously. I have a standing teammate, Tyler, and each year we hold auditions for folks to golf with us. Last year, we golfed with James (who hates to be called Jimmy so that is, of course, what I call him) and Jeff. Jimmy was waaaaay too serious for us so we dumped him this year and, yes, he is bitter. We teed off at 1. Well, everyone else teed off at 1. Tyler was still in the clubhouse ordering a round of Bloody Marys for us. We were only a couple of minutes off the start though. Our other players, Michael and Dave were about as good as I was. Which means they're not very good. Thank goodness we had Tyler who can drive and pitch. None of us had a good short game, though, so I don't think we birdied a single hole. Not that we cared...we didn't even turn in the score card. Jimmy and Jeff's new team was behind us and caught ...

The Full Cupboard of Life is the 5th book in the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith. I have to say the series is wearing a little thin for me. Nothing much happens until the last two chapters, to be perfectly honest. I'll try the next book, but if there's not a little more action there, I think I'm done with these.

I am so hating my hair these days for many reasons.... First of all, thanks to my outdoor activities (NASCAR weekend, the House Concert, PHINS, Buffett show) I've managed to repeatedly sunburn the part in my hair. Since it's somewhat of a random part, I've gotten a bunch of different lines burned...and they've all peeled. It's so gross. I have these big flakes coming up off of my scalp and I feel like they're horribly obvious. I want to wear a headband that says "It's not dandruff, I swear!" Secondly, the friend who does my hair had back surgery so she hasn't been able to work. This is the only time I've been happy to have gray hair since it makes the brown roots somewhat less obvious. She's back on her feet and I have an appointment next week - I can't wait to be fully blonde again! Finally, I haven't gotten it cut either. It's pretty much a big mess which I compounded by trimming my own bangs. Rather unevenly, I might add....

Jimmie's car - so pretty!  Me and Pab looking like real race fans with our headphones and NASCAR koozies.  Janice and Pabla on the start/finish line.  Tommy and Janice in front of Rusty's pit.  Chad Knaus, Jimmie's crew chief.

One of my bookclub pals, Ann, told us about the second annual McDowell Mountain Music Festival a while ago. Her company puts it on and the proceeds go to charity. The event is two days of music on an outside stage at Westworld and it sounded like it was right up our alley. When she asked if any of us wanted to volunteer to work the beer booth with her, I was in and Paula was, too. (Note: Sugar Daddy told me I should put a disclaimer in at some point that Paula and I are not life partners, not that there's anything wrong with that, because we do a lot of stuff together but, well, you know how you people think.) I headed out of the house on Saturday afternoon to meet Paula at her office so we could drive to the fest together. I had to hit the Sugar Daddy ATM on my way out for $60 (see, he is sometimes nice to me) then I got lost...I can never remember to drive that little extra bit on the frontage road to get to Bell Rd. Sigh. We got to the parking lot and nabbed a great spot by tra...

The last of the spring House Concerts at John and Jeanne's was on April 22. I worked the door again which is a perfect job for the social butterfly and Connie and her steady, John, headed up merchandise sales which freed up the performers to interact with the audience a little more. It was a beautiful day out on the patio and the three guys were great. All of the shows have been fun, but this was my favorite so far. Mark Mulligan released his new CD, Journey Around The Sun, on April 20th and it sounds great. He recorded it in Nashville and there are some wonderful tunes on it. Mark opened the show and did several of the new songs and some of his older classics while telling us some great stories about living in Mexico. Gary Seiler was up next. No, he didn't remember me (for the 8th time now?) but this time I gave him so much crap that I think I'm going to stick for a while. He and his road manager, Lenny, are traveling across the South from CA to FL to promote Gary's...

You scored as Ariel . Your alter ego is Ariel, the little mermaid! You are a dreamer, and you often want what you can't have. You can be rebellious and sometimes disobey your parents to get what you want. The Beast 69% Ariel 69% Peter Pan 69% Donald Duck 56% Goofy 50% Cinderella 50% Snow White 44% Cruella De Ville 31% Pinocchio 31% Sleeping Beauty 25% Which Disney Character is your Alter Ego? created with QuizFarm.com If only my hair looked as good as Ariel's...yeah, still bored but now I have Sugar Daddy doing these with me. We have no lives.

You scored as Democrat . Imunimaginative's Deviantart Page Democrat 83% Anarchism 67% Communism 42% Green 42% Socialist 33% Nazi 17% Fascism 17% Republican 8% What Political Party Do Your Beliefs Put You In? created with QuizFarm.com Yes, I am a bit bored at the moment but it's back to work now!

You scored as Bright Yellow . You are bright yellow! You love everything in life! You hate to just sit around, you like to make the best of every day. You love everyone. Bright Yellow 88% Hot Pink 75% Turqoise 75% Lime Green 75% Carrot Orange 63% Royal Violet 63% Blood Red 50% Jet Black 38% Pure White 38% Gloomy Grey 13% Which Crayon Color Are Youu?? created with QuizFarm.com You scored as Royal Violet . You are royal violet. You think very highly of yourself and so does everyone else. People look up to you for your class and confidence. Royal Violet 75% Jet Black 63% Turqoise 63% Gloomy Grey 63% Carrot Orange 63% Pure White 38% Lime Green 25% Hot Pink 25% Blood Red 25% Bright Yellow 0% Which Crayon Color Are You?? created with QuizFarm.com The above was Sugar Daddy's result. Notice the difference in our Bright Yellow results. Man, could we be any different?

Malcolm Gladwell got a lot of positive press for his previous book, The Tipping Point, that analyzed social epidemics and the science of manipulation. I haven't read that one, but I did pick up his latest, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking and found it fascinating. The gist of it is that our subconscious makes up our minds with just a sliver of data. Some people are more effective at this than others, though. An example he provided was about a statue that the Getty Museum in CA purchased after their extensive analysis said it was from the sixth century BC. Several experts, however, could tell after one quick look that something just wasn't right about it. They couldn't pinpoint why, exactly. One said the fingernails looked too clean, another said it looked 'fresh'. After further review, the latter experts were proved correct and the statue was a fake. Our subconscious doesn't always make the same decision our conscious mind would like us to, howeve...