An Arizona Cheesehead's Thoughts

There are some sports teams that inspire raging loyalty or intense dislike. The kind where the fans are literally depressed if they lose and their detractors ecstatic. I submit to you that the New England Patriots are one of those teams. While I personally don't hate them with a fiery passion, I kind of a get a kick out of it when they lose. They may be blessed with a bionic QB but they're also cheaters. There, I said it. Fight me. This love/hate was clearly seen with the Facebook series of photos I took a few months ago. The quick story is that my friends who are uber-Pats fans couldn't get in to their hotel room yet so they stashed all of their gear in mine. When they cleared out, they left one thing behind. I posted this picture with the caption, "Anyone have a blow torch?" Most of the resulting comments were, well, let's just say not from Patriot fans. Proceeding from there, I posted this next set of pictures ...

We had a “Welcome to the team” lunch for our newest colleague and I was in charge of the icebreakers per usual. One of the questions I asked was, “What’s your dream job?” The caveat is you can’t pick your current job. That’s just a suckup move anyway. Two people answered they wanted to work with horses (ugh), one said police officer, two said chefs of some sort, another said electrical engineer and one said the answer I had prepared. Writer. Which is laughable in a way because the only writing I’ve done is for our newsletter and (small) pearls of wisdom emails from the President (that’s me) of Parrot Heads in Paradise. I started thinking about what was stopping me from doing any real writing. I couldn’t come up with any good reasons. Oh, I had reasons, of course, but not good ones. Can you legitimately say you want to be a writer when you don’t actually write? I might have well have said I wanted to be an Olympic athlete. Both seem just as likely when you’re making zero effort. I also...

I spent the first part of August in beautiful Detroit Lakes MN (beautiful in August, pretty sure I wouldn't think the same in January) for a super big and long running country music show. It was my third WEFest and I truly love the event. When people ask me about the lineup, I start rattling off all of the acts. Most people, unless they listen to The Highway on Sirius/XM, go glassy eyed and politely nod because there are a bunch of up and comers they've never heard of. There are also always some "classic" country acts that have been around for a long time and that the young listeners may not know. I listen to The Highway about 90% of the time in my car so I know all the newbies. I've also been listening to country since high school which is, sadly, long enough ago to know the classic artists, too. Here are my thoughts on the performances. Any quotes are actually paraphrased because I wasn't smart enough to write them down right away and it's been ...

I was recently in Tacoma, WA and my friends and I played tourist by visiting  The Museum of Glass . You're greeted by pieces by  Dale Chihuly  on display in the walls and ceiling of a bridge from the street to the main building. Then you see an oddly compelling water fountain before you head inside. I could have watched it for quite a while but we were raring to get inside. View of the bridge ceiling. Fountain with polite request to not throw coins in to it.  Because's it made of glass so, duh. It's a very cool place! Also, a literally very hot place as you can sit in on the glass blowing and watch works in progress in the appropriately named Hot Shop. You will break a sweat in no time. Those peeps are tough who are working right next to the fires. The fire is in the "Glory Hole" which makes my inner 13 year old laugh. They have cameras on the work areas and broadcast the images  on big screens so you can see the detai...

I'm slowly cleaning out my desk at work taking an hour here and an hour there. While I know  I'm a packrat, I still surprise myself with how long I keep things so this could be a very long process. For an example of how ridiculous I am, last week I found printed emails from 1999. No lie. This week's find was one that took me on a journey to the past. Yes, turn of the century past. (Am I the only one who hears "turn of the century" and think it refers to 1900?) Back when I lived my life on paper. And, on a school calendar schedule. While these planners did go into the garbage, it was not until after I read through them. What did I learn? I used to go to a lot of meetings. I go to even more now. Man, that Mark Mulligan must be one heck of a great performer because I saw him dozens and dozens of time. Not only on weekends but on lots of school nights. Probably when my poor sleeping habits started. That guy owes me. My range of establishments I frequent...

I came back from my Mexican Vacation to find these all over our workplace. And, I mean all over. There are free standing ones and wall mounted ones and I have several within 100 paces of my desk. I can only assume we're concerned about the Norwalk Virus because of my conditioning from my Norwegian Bliss cruise.  When you hear this song repeated multiple times a day, it sticks with you. Forever.

I had to say a sad goodbye to my most faithful traveling companion of the last 15ish years. One who's been with me to several countries, two continents, many states and countless trips. One who never complained about being abused, being forced to squish into small spaces, getting rained on, being used as a pillow nor having to carry lots and lots of stuff including my jacket, purse and computer. Sniff, sniff. Good thing you always had a tissue for me because I needed it. I bought this classic to replace an almost exact same one that was stolen out of my residence four places ago. Someone broke in, dumped its items then used it to carry out the contents of my ring drawer and my rock CD's from A through K. Jerks. The only difference between the two was that the first was a green plaid. I loved that one but I grew to love this one, too. With only three pockets, there was plenty of space for all of my gear while allowing it to be crammed under the airplane seat in front of...

I don't remember when it exactly started but, for years and years, we've used the phrase "Family Fun Center" as code for "There are kids around so stop your damn swearing!"  I think it might have started back when we bowled in a league at The Memorial Union at ASU and there was a couple that had some wildish kids that inspired the swearing. And, using the term "Monkey dust" as a curse. I thought they were awful children at the time but now I think they were just kids trying to have fun while their parents ignored them. As we were driving back to Sea-Tac Airport this weekend, I spotted this on the side of the road and could barely contain myself. Yes, there's a real place called Family Fun Center. Family Fun Center For Reals! Who knew? Actually, I may have known the phrase was based on an existing establishment but forgotten. Those years at ASU were, well, let's just say a while ago and leave it at that.

I was walking out of work last Friday when one of my Sonata owning colleagues flagged me down. "Kathy, you need to get the new Sonata. It's got all the bells and whistles and it's great!" "Nope. I literally mailed my last car payment in a week ago and I'm going to drive my bitchen' car into the ground which should be many miles from now." That was my first mistake. Actually saying that out loud where, clearly, the Loki of the car gods heard me and decided to make mischief. My second mistake was that I had earmarked next month's car payment to do my final 60K services like a fiscally responsible person would do. Which I am not. And, the car gods laughed some more. Saturday morning, I was heading to Tucson to spend the night at a party with my Parrot Head friends down there. I sent a text that I was on my way then headed to a fast food drive through to get some lunch to eat in the car. Just as I started pulling out of the drive through,...

I've been scouring my digital photos trying to find something to match some of the more obscure Photo A Day themes from Fat Mum Slim  and it has been a delightful trip down multiple memory lanes. I've shared some of the "oldies" on Facebook and I think my peeps have enjoyed that. The following three pictures called out to me for a story, not just a picture post, though. Two of my Iowan friends and I spent a short period of time in Milwaukee back in June of 2011. We roamed the city for a night and day before meeting up with more friends to see Jimmy Buffett at Alpine Valley. So. Much. Fun. We visited the Bronze Fonz statue and each posed for a picture with it. I wonder if our poses say anything about our personalities? I'm just a hugger. (I'm actually not a hugger, alcohol was involved.) Pete is too cool for school. Dawnie is, well, Dawnie. When it comes to counting my blessings, having great friends like these two ladies is very, very ...