Spring Color Comes To Town

CIMG4692CIMG4690 CIMG4691

With all of the warm weather, it is not unexpected to see the color come to our neighborhood.  The daffodils are very familiar from my Ohio days, but not sure about this other plant.  Very pretty pinkish blooms–I am glad I had my camera on the walk today.

The other “color” of spring is not nearly as pretty or photo-worthy.  As I drove back from dropping the kids off at school yesterday, a buzzard or some other “road kill” eating bird had pulled a squirrel from the middle of the road.  They sat with breakfast in the middle of a neighbors sidewalk eating. It looks like they left the uneaten part of breakfast for the homeowner to find. (Possible the source of “off-color” word choices when the carcass is discovered by the homeowner.)Texas grass will NEVER be the blue grass (It is not really blue) of my Ohio roots.  It is still brown and slow to consider other color choices.

Regardless of grass, blooms, or animal life, my favorite spring (very, very frequently Texas in general) is blue.  I have really become addicted to blue skies.  When the sky is blue, the sun is out.  And, I have about a 90% chance of a good day!

Got to go now – I have a track meet to enjoy under some more blue skies!

 

An Exciting Opportunity To Quote For A Customer

One of those periodical emails came in yesterday.  It is maybe a little different than some of the emails you have received.  (I used to be a member of a promotional products organization.  So, I get the emails you get [if they are not blocked by my spamguard], plus other email based on whatever groups I have been members of.

The email reads like this:

*******************************************************

Hello Sales,

I am making inquire if your company stock below items as urgent
need for my company promotion at an event. Kindly advice pricing on
the items below. 1 color imprint .

USB Flash Drive ( Capacity 4GB )…….Quantity…. 1700 UNITS

Your urgent response will be appreciate  ASAP

Jude Lahm ( purchase manager )
Oriented Standard Inc.
Email : jude.orientedstandardinc@gmail.com

********************************************

Often, this is accompanied by some type of questions about what credit cards I accept and how (if the items are larger) I ship the product.

The top of the email was also accompanied with one of these:

“This message may not have been sent by: jude.orientedstandardinc@gmail.com“
Meaning, this email was not “evil” enough to qualify as “spam”, but you should be cautious.
Lesson Learned:  Trust your Spam filter.  (It may be fun to see what current spam messages are popular.  I have done this a few times.  It seems “new” spam messages come in waves.  A whole page of my spam folder can be filled with nearly the same subject line.)  And, if random emails still come through, don’t be afraid to hit the button to send the email to the depths of purgatory.  (You are not deleting the email, but are telling your spam filter [in my case Google] to look out for more emails that look like this one)

Plastic Cups – You Are Safe Here

CIMG4687 CIMG4689

 

As with many families, we have had the opportunity to acquire a few plastic cups.  Not all cups are safe from disposal, but we do a pretty good job recycling the cups  acquired through various means.  I will try and give an inclusive list of how our cups have found their way into our house.

  1. Restaurants/Fast Food: The participants here are Olive Garden, Whataburger and possibly a few other cups who have had their telltale marks removed by excessive dishwasher washings.
  2. Sports cups:  It is not hard to come home from a major league soccer/hockey/baseball game with a cup.  They may also come from college games, too.  Drinks are WAY to expensive at most sporting events, so we try not to purchase too many of these.
  3. Gas Station drink cups:  These are my favorite.  In the pictures, these are the ones on the counter.  There may be other reasons for hanging on to these cups, but our primary reason is the reduced cost for refills.  Recycling these cups can help us save 15-25% off of the “regular” price  And, it is this discount that has allowed me to justify the development of an iced tea habit – black mango that is.
  4. Walmart: We have acquired a few cups from the store.  My girls just couldn’t resist Sponge Bob.  My son couldn’t resist the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Pitfalls of excessive cups:

  1. To many cups can make it nearly impossible to remember where you put your drink cup after you were done using it.  And, if any of the other family members use the same style cup, it becomes even more complicated.  My favorite milk/water cup are the Olive Garden cups.  But, since we have so many of these, it could easily be the default choice for other thirsty household members.
  2. The cups, when used for one drink only, pile up quickly.  And, lots of cups seem to make the top shelf of the dishwasher fill up much more quickly than the bottom shelf.
  3. When the cups are put in the  cabinet, they have to be stacked.  If someone wants to put the cups away quickly, they just stack them randomly and deposited a mismatched set on the shelf.  If someone were OCD, this might be a problem, Unfortunately, none of the kids are aware of the character flaw that is apparent when they choose to put unrelated cups together.  I generally plan a stack “reshuffle” shortly after each dish washer load.  The good thing about cups is they don’t “clink” together, and they stack.  The more they stack the less shelf space needed.

Have we pitched some cups?  Yes.  Usually after they start cracking or they are used to bail out the toilet or something like that.  I can’t promise we will be a welcome home to any cups left on our doorstep, but we will try to embrace any homeless cups worth saving.

 

No Cookies For The Trackster

My son and I ran a few errands after church.  After the haircut, we ran up to Walmart to get a few items for lunch.  Although Oreos (not really Oreos, but the generic brand) were not on the list, my son could not help but grab a couple of bags.  Not just regular bags, but double stuffs.

We were not home for long before the “tracker” (she runs distance on the track team) saw how we had cookies she was not supposed to eat.  (I can look at them all day and not need to eat them, but this does not apply to the rest of my household.  Gummy bears on the other hand….) She moped until lunch and through most of lunch until I had a genius idea (mother disagreed on the quality of the idea, but big brother embraced it.)  Why not allow each person to grab a few cookies from an open pack and put them in their own bag.  Before placing them in the bag, lick them to keep your siblings from being tempted to eat those you have licked.

Brother excused himself from the meal and immediately ran to the cookies and grabbed a bag.  He grabbed 5 or 6 cookies from a row and just ran his tongue over the whole stack.  (My upset daughter did get her 3 or 4 cookies.  She saw this as a reasonable quantity and not to greedy.) It is not how my parents would have solved the problem, but when all of the kids are happy and mom is rolling her eyes, the idea must have had some merit. 😉

Getting My Hair Cut At The UN

Just across the street (not exactly across the street, but once you wind out through our subdivision, it is across the street with a slight “jig” or “jag” thrown in) is our closest Great Clips.  Their computer can pull all of us up by our home phone number.  They know what attachment to use to get the right length on mine and my sons hair.  (The men of the house are on the 6-8 week haircut cycle.)  And, they know who cut our hair the last time we were in.

Today, I did have an American cutting my hair.  We talked about how good it is in the US.  (I did have to mention, “It is not as good as it used to be.”, but people do still want to come.)  Next door to us was a hairdresser from Nepal.  She has cut my hair a couple of times.  I don’t remember much of what she told me, but I remember her telling me during her last visit, she saw the trash piling up in one city.  In the work station behind me was the hairdresser from South Korea. She has told me stories at past haircuts about relatives in Korea.  (Sometimes it is more answering my questions than telling, but it I don’t want to appear to be to inquisitive.) She doesn’t go back and visit

Lastly, their is a beautician from Afghanistan.  And, this one is a tough conversation for me.   I have to make sure my questions are not overly judgmental. She has been very open about some of the things she experienced there.  Her husband has a back injury, and he is not able to work.   It sounds like she still has a hard life, but not as hard as it once was for her family.

My local Great Clips (and practically all of America) is populated by immigrants.  Our whens and our wheres differ, but likely our ancestors came to this country within the past couple of hundred years.  As legal immigrants, our ancestors worked to become citizens.  And, as citizens, they realized the responsibilities associated with this status.  For the US (or any country who accepts immigrants) to continue to be the force it has been, the new immigrants (and those who are here but never really legal immigrants) must tolerate/accept ALL responsibilities necessary to maintain a countries greatness while embracing each of the privileges the country provides.

Sexual Preference of Athletes

In the good old days, I could assume most athletes were heterosexual.  The athletes took the field for their sport (My favorite sport from the good old days was baseball…the Cincinnati Reds of the 1970s to be particular); they played their best (Despite criticism he has received for some bad decisions, Pete Rose was quite a player.  Not very good at reality shows, but a very good player.), and they went home or their hotel after the game.  I didn’t have the internet to research every aspect of their lives, so I just assumed they had what was considered a “normal” life.  (As an adult, “normal” has a more complicated definition than I used to realize.)

Now, due to political encouragement and what seems at times a “dare” to treat anybody different despite information they have chose to reveal, we are greeted weekly (or more often) by an athlete (or celebrity or politician or someone within our own families) who needs to tell us they are homosexual.  Of course, we live in America.  People have the right to tell me and/or the world anything they want.  They can go to NFL pre-draft events and criticize reporters for asking questions about whether their homosexual admission will affect them in the  draft.  They can try and guilt anyone in the audience into thinking they are a bad person if they don’t want to shed a tear because this athlete is so brave.  The athlete can again dare any NFL team not to consider him because of his off field activities.

Although I have very strong personal feelings about heterosexual or homosexual, I think there are other reasons not to consider this athlete (or any athlete who wants to dare/guilt/challenge a team not to actively seek him.  I will list a couple:

  1. An athlete who feels compelled to point out his homosexuality prior to the draft has an agenda.  He could use it to negotiate a higher salary.  He could use it to “blind” the coaches to possible flaws he may have as a member of the team.  I would be very surprised if this particular athlete didn’t reveal this without contacting an attorney first.
  2. Whoever drafts him, won’t be able to cut him.  They won’t be cutting a “regular” athlete; they will be cutting a gay athlete.  And, even though gay athlete are not in a protected class, the present political climate seems to give them more time with a megaphone than a regular athlete who does not reveal with whom he shares a bed.

What am I saying?  When it comes to someone’s sexual preference, I am content being naive.  I will let my conservative Midwestern values assign everyone to the “heterosexual” category.  If I don’t ask you or if your political office or church membership does not give me a reason to know certain intimate details of your life, I don’t want to know.  I am not a stalker.  If you are an athlete and promise to always “leave it on the field”, I promise not to do an internet search on you.  I will not go to any online resources to intentionally seek your marital status.  I will not check which party you make political contributions to.  I want to watch a competitor who plays his best even when he knows his team will not be going to the post-season.  I assume ALL athlete want this too!

If an athlete wants to tell me ANYTHING that doesn’t pertain to his sport, I absolutely have a right to use that information to define the kind of person I think he is.  And, as long as I am given the ability to judge character, I will continue to do it he old fashion way – one observation at a time.

Voting On Primary Day

I haven’t voted on “election day” in quite a few years.  Sometimes, there is nothing on the ballot to even vote on.  Well, this year being an even numbered year, Texas re-elects everything but President and one of our Senators. (I put myself somewhere between President Obama and Senator Ted Cruz politically.  I recognize the two extremes, but it won’t take much work to figure out which one I am closer to.)

As I voted today, I voted early for the first time at the library. (At the other early voting place, they are pretty sedate.  Before I even signed in today, I was warned to watch what I say to “these guys”.  Normally, I would have rubbed my hands together in anticipation.  But, with the need to be so careful what you say when voting, I felt a little paranoid.  They realized my apprehension and made jokes about knitting and drinking too much coffee.)  As I put my code in and pulled the ballot up, I was all good on the first few candidates.  Out of the first 10, I had a cheat sheet covering 8 of them.  Once I got past the “big” candidates, my cheat sheet lost its effectiveness.  (I tried to do some Google searches to find all of the candidates I would find on  my ballot, but the list was not easily available.)  When struck with this predicament, I fell back on my most basic rule:

If they are of my political persuasion (its a primary election, so my respective ballot mostly met this description) and I don’t know anything about them, I will vote for the woman or the person with the “non-white” sounding name. (i.e. a minority)

There are too many white men in politics!  I believe my party (and the other one as well) would benefit by having a less stereotypical politician.  Our demographics show we are becoming less white, so I used my finger to make the voting booth dial more minority friendly.  I realize my little voting game has losers.  I also realize the whole country wins if my politicians in Washington have more mascots of many different minority groups.

The “Custom” Option

FacebookChange_021314I was a little disappointed as I tried to use the great new Facebook feature. (Google+ plus also provides a choice other than male/female, but it offers fewer additional options.)  Previously, I apparently found no need to display my gender.  I attempted to get this set up this morning.  And, it was a little frustrating!

After choosing “Custom”, I wanted to put something that was not entirely “gender” related, but it was something I wanted others to know about me.  (I am definitely a male, but I thought I could use this feature to better describe who I am.  That is what most of the “custom” people use it for, right?)  I attempted to make my own choice of custom gender, but these are some of  the choices I was given:

Gender-A Gender-B Gender-C Gender-D Gender-M Gender-N

Who knew there were so many options?  I don’t think God made this many.  And, if I wanted to choose a gender of “Forgiven” or “Sinner” it is as descriptive as those available options.  Is it possible that by obscuring our gender(our similarities) and trying to over-emphasize our differences, we become less of a country “United” and are becoming more of a country “Divided”.  Certainly, this is not a political issue, but we know it is…..:-(

Love This Story

I can’t help but love how this mother handled this problem.  If something offends you, you don’t like it and none of the stores employees will take action, take out your credit card and purchase all of the offensive items.  The great part is she will return the shirts w/i 60 days for a full refund.

There are different ways of protesting.  Many may involve doing offensive things.  But, this is a simple way to solve a problem w/o whining and making it everyone’s problem.  I need to look for ways to do the same!