Now let me say up front: I can cook. Nothing spectacular, but I can make standard dinner fare. If you stick a recipe in front of me, I can follow it once and then modify it to my liking at a later date. Right now, since I'm not married, I am very handy with the microwave. It's no fun to cook for myself, so I would much rather heat something up in the microwave and be done with it.

Now that I have that out in the open, I'll set the scene. I'm on break from my class and I go to get a cup of coffee. A young man walks in and has a question about using the microwave. He says, "You look like you know how to cook. Do you think I should leave the lid on this when I heat it?"

I'm sure that it must be somewhat embarrassing to have to ask someone for help with using a microwave. I give him credit for asking. But saying "You look like you know how to cook"... hmm, is that because I'm a little chunky or is it because I'm a woman?

I thought it was rather funny in the way that he put it. I'm sure he didn't mean anything by it, but still. Yet another example of how you probably mean to say one thing and it comes out completely different.

British Transport Police Detective Inspector Dave Crinnion, who investigated, said: "I saw the goat the next day — it did not seem too upset but it is difficult to tell."

Ya know... it's ok to love your pet, just not love your pet.

via fark

I'm still making minor changes to my site. I removed the archive calendar because it seems to make the page load a little slower. Must tinker more!

Somehow, words failed me after reading this. Maybe because it was so funny.

Via Fark.

Do not read this article if you suffer from dirty mind syndrome.

Am I the only one that thinks that Joan Rivers has lost her mind? Someone needs to tell her to give it up already. I happened to be flipping channels the other night and caught her show on the Golden Globes and let me say that she has cracked under the strain. I think she needs to cut down on the caffine or something. Her daughter, Melissa, kept looking at her like she was insane every time Joan made a comment. Yesh.

Ok, so what is proper elevator etiquette? If there is more than one person in the elevator and all of you are getting off at the same floor, who exits first? The one in front of the door, right? But what if all three of you are standing against the walls, then who goes first? Is it the one at the back or the one next to the controls?

This is what happens when you are really bored in class and have nothing else to do than to ponder elevator etiquette.

And on tonight's news: Studies show that drinking can ward off dementia. Party at 11.

Here's a creative way to get your computer back after it has been stolen... and a mac user came up with it. ;) That was definetly one dumb thief.

Working with horses, I've learned the cardinal rule, which is: If you fall off the horse, you need to get right back on. Otherwise, you'll be scared the next time. Here's yet another good reason to get back on: If you are in a race, and you get unseated and get back on to finish the race, you could win the race! Yesterday, Tony McCoy learned this first hand in a horse race in England.

Horse racing in England is a little bit different from what we do here in the states. England's races have fences that the horses have to jump. In this particular race, Tony went off his horse at the 10th fence and found out that most everyone else ahead of him had gone of their horse as well. Someone drove him up to where his horse was, he got on it and rode it back to the fence he went off at and then finished the race. Surprisingly, everyone else had fallen off their horses, so he ended up winning the race! How's that for a weird race.

Ok, so I lied. I decided to go ahead and add the links tonight. I have noticed that there is something strange going on, which may be because I'm very tired. When you first pull up the page, it doesn't show all of the enteries that should be there. However, if you resize the page, the scroll bar will allow you to scroll down to the rest of the enteries. Guess I need to bother Xkot about it tomorrow.

Anywho, I'm goin to bed. :)

Ok, there's going to be a little bit of weirdness going on until I'm happy with the layout of the new site. I'm too tired to get the links up here tonight, so I'll be moving them tomorrow after class. Also, the blogger enteries came over, but they don't post the title information very well, so that's why that looks strange. I'm sure that I can tinker with it a bit more to get it looking the way I want it to look, but in the mean time, gimme a break. ;D

I've moved into Movable Type, and I'm liking it quite a bit. This is still the generic template, although I have made some color changes to it. I will be messing around with it more this weekend and making it more "me". Migrating my blogger enteries into MT wasn't that difficult at all. I'm vera happy!

Well, I have made it big time

You know you have made it big time when you are at the top of the search for Cave troll in Lord of the rings movie has a penis.

Woohoo!

I was informed by my friend Xkot that my domain has been set up. This is a good thing, since my current provider is getting ready to migrate us anyway. and there was much rejoicing. :)

How good of a driver are you?

I was watching the Extreme Driving show on TLC the other day and learned some pretty interesting things about extreme driving conditions that you don't get from the driver's license book. I was actually surprised at how much I actually do know about driving in extreme conditions. For example, if you are driving in a downpour and suddenly your car starts filling up with water, what would you do? First, don't panic. Secondly, wait till the car fills up with water and then open the door. Once the pressure is equalized, you will have no problems getting out of the vehicle.

They had this quiz going on throughout the show. Take the quiz and find out just how good of a driver you really are in these types of situations. I scored a 15 out of 17, which rated me as an excellent driver.

Time to upgrade

While I was out of town on business, I shut down my computer so that the power outages that we have once a week around here wouldn't fry my system. On friday night, I sat down at my computer so that I could blog for a while, hit the power switch, and waited for my computer to come up. And waited, and waited, and waited. Suddenly, the black screen appeared with the message "Operating system not found." Damn it.

So I put in my handy dandy boot disk and restart, at which point it tells me that it can't find the hard drive. Now, being that this is a 4 year old HP, I have a really crappy hard drive in this computer since HP can't see to spend decent money on a good hard drive (it's a bigfoot drive). Hoping against hope that the drive hasn't actually crashed, I go into the bios and find that for some reason, it doesn't see the hard drive any more. I go in, set the settings manually, and my computer boots up fine. I just love this computer. ::sigh::

I am planning on upgrading eventually, but there are so many other things that I need to do right now. I guess I'm not as much of a computer nerd as some people claim I am. I mean damn, this system is 4 years old, you would think that I would have gone and built myself a new computer right now. The sad thing is that I know people that have less of a system than I do. Ah well, as long as it keeps booting up and running, I'm going to continue to use it until I go crazy for wanting a new system. :)

Riding

Ya know, not riding your horse for a month and then going out on a 3.5 hour ride makes you very sore the next day. I am so incredibly stiff right now it's not even funny. Ugh.

Yesterday we went to a new place to ride called Moses Creek. This place is in the St. Augustine area, which is about 45 minutes from me. The trails were very nice with enough room for you to ride next to each other instead of single file. There are a couple of spots on the trail where there is access to fresh running water so that you can water your horse. Unfortunately, the trails do not loop back to the trailhead, they all deadend at this point. It appears that they are still developing the trails, so it is possible to that this may be changed in the future.

As you can see from the link, the place is quite beautiful. A lot of the trail reminded me of the Guana in that there were a lot of old Oak hammocks. The footing was really nice and we got a chance to let the horses really move out yesterday. We stopped at a couple of places where there were picknic tables set up, so if you go out there, you may want to bring your lunch. :) The view at these places was really beautiful, I wish I had brought my camera!

I'm baaaaack!

Hey all, sorry about the lack of posting over the last couple of days. I was out of town on business and had no access to blogger. ::sigh:: Not that there was much to write about while I was down there, other than the fact that it was 78 degrees in S. Florida yesterday! Yeesh. At least we have some change in temperature up here in N. Florida. I don't realize how much I like the break from the heat until I get down there.

System problems

So here I sit at work, waiting for my slow system to bring up a screen so that I can close out a customer, and I thought I would write a little bit about what's been going on this weekened.

Friday night I went and saw Lord of the Rings for the second time, and each time I watch it, I like the movie better. It's nice to watch a movie that is able to combine computer graphics and reality to such a point that it looks real. I am planning on going to see it at least one more time before it leaves the theater.

Saturday came bright and early with me still suffering from that friggin cold. My mom was entered in her first Endurance race and I had promised to crew for her during the race. When I got to the race, I found my mom's trailer but I had no idea where she was. After walking around for half an hour, I found out where the vet checks were and also located my mom. Just so you know, the races are divided up into legs. Each leg is either ten or fifteen miles, and depending on which race the rider is in, that determines how many times they have to ride that leg of the race. Also, between each leg of the race, the rider is required to bring their horse in for a mandatory 30 or 40 minute rest period and vet check. However, the rest period does not begin until after the horse's pulse and respiration are below a certain point. The more in shape your horse is and the better you ride, the quicker you can begin your rest period and the quicker you can get back out again. It's during the rest period that my mom needed me the most.

By the time I got there, my mom had already completed the first leg of the race, which was 10 miles. She was in the last ten minutes of her break, so all I really could do for her was hold Tzar while she took a nature break. Right after my mom left, my aunt and the girl that she was riding with arrived, so I crewed for them. This consisted of unsaddling the horse, sponging down the horse's chest and legs with cool water to help the horse cool down, and helping out my aunt and the other rider with whatever they needed. We ran out of water, so I got the fun task of toting water from the hose that was on the other side of the camping area (fun!)

Midway through my aunt's break, our friend Cheryl came in for her break. She was riding in the 50 mile race, which is the first time she had done so with the arabian she was riding. I went ahead and crewed for her as well, and really learned what I needed to do when I'm crewing. She was very helpful and gave good instructions, and by the time everyone and come in again, I was getting pretty good at it. Horse and rider come in, saddle comes off, water goes on horse's neck and chest. Lead the horse over to water and encourage them to eat anything they want (wet hay, carrots, apples). Hold the horse while the rider takes a short break, then saddle the horse back up and wish everyone luck. It was definetly a lot of fun.

My mom ended up 27th out of a field of 40, which is pretty good considering it was her first time. She loves it and is planning on attending another race in about 2 weeks, and hopefully I'll get to crew for her again. I really had a good time.

I don't know what is sadder

...the fact that my site is showing up in Google under "Spank my buttom" or the fact that someone has hit my site TWICE from that search. Whoever you are, it's bottom, not buttom.

Now if we can just get him to kill Jar Jar

And it related news, Nsync has been cut from Attack of the Clones. And there was much rejoicing.

Ugh

Sorry I haven't posted much the last couple of days. I have had a nasty cold and I haven't felt like doing much of anything when I get home from work except sit on the couch under a blanket and veg out. I'm feeling better today and I think I might be beating this thing.

My guy is now hauling full time for a company and he's also moving to S. Florida. I was a little upset to hear this at first until I learned that quite a few of his routes have him passing through Jacksonville and he is determined to spend as much time with me as he can. The company that he hired on with has an office up here in Jax, so if things work out between him and I, he can transfer back up here and be dispatched out of this office. It should be interesting to see what happens.

Ok, lunch time. More later! :)

Another Ocala trip

Had an interesting time this weekend. Other than trying to get rid of this cold and keeping my animals warm (it got down to 25 degrees here in Florida), we made another trip to Ocala. We usually try to go once a month and this time I had a little bit of money to spend.

The main reason for this trip was that my Aunt was taking the big rig (4 horse Exis Event trailer with living quarters and the 99 Dodge Truck) down to Nelson's Trailer Sales so that it can be sold. It's sad to see it go as I have some good memories of camping in that trailer as well as when we took it up to North Carolina for our vacation last year. My mom and Aunt decided it was time to sell it because we don't need the 4 horse. My mom usually goes one way and my aunt goes another when we are trailering our horses, so it's just better for them both to have a 2 horse trailer each. My aunt got a really nice 2003 Exis two horse straight load trailer with a dressing room and a ramp, similar to my mom's trailer.

After getting the trailer, we hit the tack shops yet again. My only problem with going to the tack shops with my mom is that I find the stuff I want quickly and then I want to get out of there so I don't spend any more money. My mom likes to look a lot so then I end up buying more than I should get. Ahh well. :) It's all fun.

The interesting thing that we did that day was we saw the mustang action. It was very interesting to see the differences between the mustangs and the domesticated horse. The mustangs have strong legs and of course their hooves are tough as nails. They are also smaller... the ones we saw were in the 14 hand range. Of course, a lot of them had already been taken home, so it's possible there may have been larger ones that had already left.

All in all, it was a fun day. :)

Temptation!

I would like to say, for the record, that the person at SaraLee that came up with the mini individually wrapped cheesecakes and other little things is a genius. Having been through the wonderful world of Weight Watchers, I completely understand the need for portion control. Since these things are individually wrapped, it's sooo much easier to eat only one or two of these things instead of scarfing down half a cake (not that I would ever do that, but you get the point.)

You must try some... go do it now. They are calling your name. Why aren't you gone yet?

Going the distance

My mom has been working with her Paso Fino, Tsar, to get them both ready for Competitive Trail. Unlike Endurance riding, which is a race, Competitive Trail is based on the rider's interest in how best to condition and care for his horse under trail conditions. All of the horses are worked over the same course in the same amount of time giving a basis for fair comparison for determining the horses' soundness, condition, and manners. Timing and pacing are important; the winner is usually the one who rides a consistent pace rather than hurrying and waiting. No special breed of horse is necessary or favored. The most important requisite is a well-conditioned, well-mannered horse.

She has been riding every day and working with Tsar to get him into condition. During the weekend of 1/12, she is going to take him on her first 25 mile Endurance ride. Even though she is working up to Competitive Trail, the Endurance ride is going to be at Jennings Forest, which is only about an hour from us. We've ridden there numerous times, so she couldn't pass up the chance to see what her and Tsar could do.

I'm a little nervous because I've volunteered to crew for her and I've never done it before. From the research I've been doing on the internet, my main responsibilities will include cooling down the horse during the breaks, providing water and electrolytes to the horse during these breaks as well as whatever else my mom needs me to do to help her out during the ride. I've found out some good information and I plan on sitting down with my mom this weekend and working out everything that she will need me to do to help her. I'm still nervy about it though... hehe, it will be a learning experience for both of us.

Uh...

Well, I'm starting to get some hits from Search Engines, which is pretty cool. It's amazing what the search engines put together in order to meet your search request. However, I just wanted to let whoever it was that is searching for "Frodo Penis" know that I don't think I can help you.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, everyone. We had a very subdued family get together down at my aunt's condo. It was nice visiting with my family, although I wish my guy had been there. He finally got back from Kentucky on Sunday evening so we got to spend some quality time together before he left yesterday morning to visit his family.

Memories from last night:

Watching the moon rise last night through the trees and the clouds
Visiting my Aunt and Uncle that were out of town for Christmas
Explaining the Lord of the Rings movie to my Aunt so that she understood what was happening better
Laughing about the numerous experiences that we have had with our horses
Going out on the balcony at midnight and looking at the moon reflection off the ocean while watching the occasional fire work go off
Being blessed with having my family near me for yet another year

I hope that all of you have a wonderful year this year. Happy New Year. :)