Blog Number 337

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

I am taking all of next week off.  That will mean that I will have 11 days off in a row (including the Thanksgiving holiday and weekends).  I don't know if I am going to make it as it is only the tail end of day 2 and I am getting a little stir crazy.  We did rediscover Uno though so we have played about 30 hands so far with many more to come I am sure.

Yesterday we started the day with a big breakfast consisting of scrambled eggs, fried potatoes, bagels with cream cheese and some blueberry maple sausage links.  I was skeptical of what these blueberry links might taste like and I can now report to you that the did not really taste like anything (including sausage).  We did manage to eat them all however.

Earlier in last week the wife had asked me if I wanted ham or turkey for Thanksgiving dinner.  I told her that I wanted a meal that I could truly be thankful for and suggested that her homemade pizza would be perfect.  This got an instantaneous yes / yes vote from the kids and just like that (I think) a Dieterman Thanksgiving tradition was born.  Throw in some barbecue chips and some soda and you have a meal that I guarantee everyone was thankful for.

Speaking of being thankful, last week while I was at the Dollar Store, I bought a 100 pack of post-it notes.  Their were 4 different colors in the pack so each of us picked a color.  We had about 10 days until Thanksgiving.  I took a jar down from the cabinet and donned it the Thankful Jar.  I explained that we were to write down something we were thankful for on our color of post-it note and place it in the Thankful Jar without showing anyone what we had written.  I also explained that if you could not spell a word then you were to do your best.  This last instruction passed over the daughter as 5 minutes later (with pencil and paper in hand) she asked, "Dad, how do you spell allowance?"  Fast forward to Thanksgiving and as we finished up our pizza, I took all the notes out of the jar and read them out loud.  We had a few laughs and a few "ahhhhhs" and then I took all of them and put them back for historical purposes (and possible bribery).

Thanksgiving night we walked down the street to the neighbors (with pumpkin gooey bars in hand) for a dessert get together.  We even got in 3 games of doubles table tennis (the wife and I won the first 2 games handily and lost the 3rd in overtime).  The menfolk watched a little football (though all the games yesterday were blowouts) while the womenfolk drank coffee.  The kids just played.  Eventually it was time for bed so we walked the 1 block home.  All in all, a great day.

I will mention that none of the thankful notes mentioned my blog (sigh).

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 336

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

I am beginning to wonder if I am going to make it to 100 blogs this year or not.  There are only 37 days left and I have to average a blog every 3 days to make it.

I just finished reading "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins.  It was a very interesting read and challenged me in my way of thinking with each chapter (as a side note, I have checked out "The Dawkins Delusion" which is a rebuttal of this book).  I forget exactly why but in one chapter he was referring to the (almost) universal concept of North being Up on maps.  I had not really thought about this but he did mention that there are maps in some southern hemisphere countries (he specifically mentioned Australia) where North is Down.  Here is an example...

Looks very strange, doesn't it?  I bet you don't even recognize our world!  I wondered if people in the southern hemisphere really think this way so I asked a lady that I work with who is in Melbourne, Australia if she thought that we northerners were just a little uppity for thinking we were on the top of the world and that they were on the bottom.  She admitted that she had not thought about it that way but then confessed she was really from England (a fellow northerner).  I then remembered that a co-worker just one row of cubes over was originally from Buenos Aires, Argentina.  When I asked her about this she got lost in thought for a moment then exclaimed, "Yes, how unfair!"  She admitted that she had never thought about the whole north-up / south-down thing but I could tell that she was considering being offended on behalf of her mother country and its neighbors.  This discussion segued into a talk on how on street maps it is easier to be going up (even if that makes south up) and how we each would turn a map so that we were going up the map instead of down it.

When I was researching the up side down maps I did see in a side note that some maps originally had east as up.  Now as strange as south being up is, east being up is way more weird.  I think I need to stop thinking about this for now.  On a non related note (and as a way of an excuse to stop typing) we checked out a DVD with 7 episodes of season 2 of I Love Lucy and the kids love it.  We have time to watch the last 2 remaining episodes yet this evening.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 335

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

It is time to clear out my cell phone's micro SD card with another installment of...

Random Bad Quality Pictures With My New Cell Phone

Just to prove that I did indeed vote back on November 4th.  With all the concerns about long lines and massive turnouts I was pleasantly surprised (and a little shocked) to find out that I was the only person in the gymnasium (other than the poll workers) when I arrived to vote around 2:45 in the afternoon.  The poll workers seemed excited to see me and by the time I left there were a few others that arrived (looking equally shocked and surprised as I was).

The daughter and I were at Dollar Store last Sunday and the man wearing these M&M pants was acting a little too friendly with the people in line.  So much so that I thought he might be mentally unstable.  The pants he chose to wear in public only adds to my side of this argument.

I was shocked to learn of the "2008 Meal Worm Shortage" as it has been left off of the major news networks.  Fortunately there was this warning in the local PetSmart to keep me informed.

I saw this a week ago at the local Half Priced Bookstore.  Either someone was not paying attention to proper sticker placement or they were trying to make a joke.  For the record, I did not have my cell phone with me so this picture was taken with the wife's new cell phone.

Well that clears out the cell phone.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 334

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

My goodness, is this really ONLY my 2nd blog entry this month? Wow!

About a month ago my wife (and kids) took the dog to the vet for a normal, puppy check up.  On the way home an event occurred that I refer to now as the "4 poo incident."  Evidently the dog had a bad reaction to a shot or riding in the car (or both) and this triggered the "incident" to occur.  The "4 poos" were spread throughout the van and (as the wife tells it) were none too pleasant to be around.  By the time that I arrived home, the wife told me the story but had to pause several times due to laughing fits.  While the incident was not funny, the kids reactions (and her knowing that she would have to tell me what happened) were.  It was at that time that I vowed not to ride in my van again.  A month later, my vow is still unbroken and every time we need to go somewhere as a family, we take the Buick.

Fast forward to today.  Today was another vet visit.  Both the kids (the memory fresh in their minds) opted (wisely, as it would turn out) to stay with a neighbor.  Nina (the dog) "turned it up a notch" this time and even threw in some puke (on my wife's arm even) for good measure.  When they arrived at the vet's office, the wife asked for some cleaning supplies (after telling the story of this new event) and a young guy came out with the supplies and (to my wife's surprise) actually said that he would clean it up.  The wife tried to explain the extensiveness of the damage but the guy insisted.  The wife took the guy out to the car and opened the door.  At this point in time I would like to point out an obvious fact.  This guy (as part of his normal job) cleans up after pets that have unfortunate reactions to car rides.  OK, now that you are reminded of this fact you will appreciate the damage done when I tell you that all this guy could say (after a moment of awkward silence) was, "Whoa!"

The wife explained that she could clean it up but he insisted.  The wife then counter offered by asking him only to take care of a few key areas and he agreed.  By the time that the dog was done with the vet visit and they returned to the car, the car was so clean that it looked like it had been detailed.  The wife was very happy and (fortunately) no further incidents occurred on the ride home.  I have reiterated my vow however not to ride in the van anymore.

I will try to get a few more blogs in before the month's end.  Sorry.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 333

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Well I wish I could say that I did something useful with my extra hour due to Daylight Saving Time ending but that is not the case.  For, you see, Tiger (my cat) has a belly that does not change time automatically like my cell phone clock does.  Nor does it offer the option of setting it forward before going to bed the night before.  As such, my extra hour was definitely not spent sleeping.  Notice the "I don't care what your clock says" look in his eyes (note also the empty food bowl in the background).

For the last 2 months, the wife and I have been keeping a very strict budget.  A few days before the end of the month, we have a meeting and plan out our expenses for the next month.  We have the normal things you budget for (rent, van payment, electric bill, etc) and some other reoccurring things (eating out, gymnastics, books, etc).  We run a $0 sum budget meaning that every penny is allocated (even if it means allocating it to savings).  As the month progresses, we can see if we are running ahead and perhaps can throw a little extra on the van payment.  I have blogged before what happens if there is extra money left in the Eating Out budget.  Anyway, the son has watched us with interest.  He asked me last month if we could do a budget for him.  I explained that since he really had no expenses (oh to be a kid again) that we really could not do his budget.  Since he has been baking (and selling) cookies lately, I offered to figure out the profit margin was for a batch of cookies.  He makes a few different types of cookies so we settled on chocolate chip as our initial type.  Here is the ingredients list...

• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup butter
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 egg
• 2 1/4 cups flour
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 (12) oz. bag of chocolate chips

We got down each ingredient and decided what it cost for a certain measurement (cup, ounce, etc.) so we could figure our per batch cost.  We had to do some converting (the 4lb bag of sugar said that there were 454 tsp. in the bag) but eventually we ended up with our cost as follows...

• $0.17 sugar
• $0.40 brown sugar
• $1.50 butter
• $0.25 vanilla
• $0.16 egg
• $0.34 flour
• $0.02 baking soda
• $0.00 salt (rounding)
• $1.75 chocolate chips

We even calculated the cost of the use of the oven ($0.40) and the dishwasher ($0.15).  These were based on a 2002 report I found so it might be a little off.  The total cost of the batch of cookies totals $5.14.

Since the batch makes 30 good sized cookies and since he sells them for $0.50 each, his revenue is $15.00 and his profit would be $9.86 per batch.  He then figured he put 3 hours into the cooking making / cookie selling process and was quite pleased to see that he makes over $3.00 / hour for his work.

I was ready to quit this exercise about half way through but his enthusiasm spurred me on.  He wants to do the rest of his recipes soon so I will have to keep you posted.

P.S. I still have not got my sweater back (see previous blog).

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon