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Actually, my boss' daughter's reading buddy did a book review for a contest and we want her to win.
Please to go the following link and vote for "The Thief Lord"
http://www.storytubes.com/vote/hrt.php#
Thanks!
An old man and a young man work together in an office. The old man always has a jar of peanuts on his desk, and the young man really loves peanuts.
One day, while the old man is away from his desk, the young man yields to temptation and scarfs down over half of the contents of the jar.
When the old man returns, the young man feels guilty and confesses to his crime.
"Don''t worry, son. I never eat the peanuts anyway," the old man replies. "Since I lost my teeth, all I can do is gum chocolate off the M&M's."
Okay, stop asking. You've all heard the radio ads from the yellow pags where Rick Root, DDS, talks about how business has improved since he started advertising in the yellow pages.
No, it's not me. No, I haven't changed professions!
If you've surfed into this page after doing a google search, I suggest you hit your back button and try another link =) I think he's in Vero Beach, Florida.
We're using some timeshare points with our Wyndham Vacation Resort timeshare to go to Williamsburg this weekend. I got an email about a month ago saying that there were some points discounts for various resorts, and that included a 40% discount at the Wyndham Resort at Kingsgate in Williamsburg, a very nice older resort that has been renovated to be a "Gold Crown" style resort (like all of Wyndham's newer resorts). Last time Emily and I stayed there last year, we were in a 1 bedroom lockoff, but even the half-kitchen had granite counter tops, and the TV in the living room was a flat panel! Anyway, the 40% discount ran through the last weekend in April, so that's when I made the reservation for.
We filled out an educational leave form for Emily so we can take her out of school on Friday. We're going to take her to Colonial Williamsburg. We'll see if she finds it interesting. I've never been there.
Saturday we're going to go to Busch Gardens and ride some rides!
The forecast for the weekend looks decent.. Partly cloudy and 78 on Friday, and then cloudy and 78 on Saturday - and only a 20% chance of precip both days.. then Sunday it says "Few showers" and a 30% chance of precip but we'll be coming home Sunday. If that forecast holds out, I'll be perfectly happy.
Hey Steve, wanna hit Busch Gardens with us on Saturday?
I mentioned a week or so ago that candidate Pat Smathers spammed me, and I hate spammers.
Add Fred Aikens to that list, a candidate for NC State Auditor. Mr. Aikens spammed me today.
If you don't like spam, don't vote for spammers like Fred Aikens.
Typical.
On my way to the boat ramps Saturday morning (around 9am) I stopped by the gas station to fill up a small (2 gallon) gas can. I have no idea how big my boat's tank is, nor do I know how much gas I use or whether or not the fuel gauge works. So I wanted to keep a few gallons of gas on the boat with me in case I run out of gas, that way when I fill up next time I'll know how big the tank is - and whether or not my fuel gauge works. I suspect that it does not.
I get to the boat ramp at Jordan Lake (Seaforth recreation area) around 9:15, and get the boat into the water by myself. It's a little tricky to do by myself - takes a little more time because I basically have to get the boat off the trailer and get it tied to the dock and THEN drive the truck up and park it. So I did this and just as I was driving up to a parking spot, my sister Laurie and her boyfriend Charles show up. Charles is a mechanic, he owns an automative shop in Cary.
I hate spammers.
And now, you can add Pat Smathers to that list. I've never heard of him before and I don't know why he emailed me but somehow I'm on his spam list. Smathers is a candidate for the Lt. Governor of North Carolina.
If you hate spam, don't vote for spammers. Don't vote for Pat Smathers.
Okay Jordan Lake is still cold (58 degrees as of Friday). But it's warming up and the weather is certainly getting nicer - it was 80 degrees here yesterday!
Last year, I didn't get the boat ready until Memorial Day (by then, around here, it's summer and the water is plenty warm to swim). But that's because I was having the upholstery redone, and though the guy who did it did a fantastic job at a VERY affordable price, he did have the boat for like 8 weeks!
I got the boat from the dry storage at the Marina yesterday and brought it home. For those of you not in the know, it's a 1986 Glastream 172 (17" bowrider) with a 140 horsepower Mercruiser stern drive. Nice little recreational boat, good for tubing, runs fairly well.
Okay, so as you know, I work at Duke University. This means I have a ridiculously nice 403b retirement plan (that's 401k for you for-profit folks!). Regardless of my contribution (as long as it is 5%, I think), Duke puts in something like 7.3% of the first $45,000 of my salary, and 13.3% of everything above that. For me that works out to about 10% of my salary. Since I'm currently contributing 10% myself, that means I'm getting approximately $1 of Duke's money for every $1 of my money. That's a good match.
By comparison, Adrienne gets a 50% match up to 6% of her salary, so even though she's putting 15% into her 401k, she's only getting 3% from Wyeth - meaning she gets 20 cents for every dollar of her money.
Well, we'll take it anyway.
But the fact is, we're not investors. I don't have the time to investigate the 70 different Fidelity funds that I can choose to invest in. I think the vast majority of 401k and 403b investors are not knowledgeable investors. I mean, I know I'm 30 years from retirement and I'm able to be somewhat risky with my investments, and I know how to look at historical returns and such but I really just don't have the time to be a fully-informed invester.
Enter www.Smart401k.com.
Smart401k.com is a company founded by Adam Bold (and others). Adam Bold also founded "The Mutual Fund Store" and has a nationally syndicated radio show dedicated to mutual fund investing. Anyway, the idea is that you sign up - either quarterly or annually - answer a survey about your investment objectives, how willingly you accept risk, etc, and then you tell them how much is in your 401k and what your investment options are.
Once a quarter (or more), Smart401k.com provides you with recommendations for investment allocation. They notify me via email that new recommendations are available, I log into the web site, review the recommendations, then head over to the Fidelity @ Work web site and reallocate my 403b according to their recommendations. It's that easy.
Now I've only been in the service for a month, so I can't tell you how well things are going. Ask me in 5 or 10 years. All I know is that their recommendations are almost certainly better than anything I would come up with.
Check 'em out.
So my friend-in-fandom Trudi posted on the Brian Vander Ark Fan Forums that several of Brian's new announced tour dates are gigs in which he is opening for Edwin McCain. I've been listening to Edwin McCain *ALMOST* as long as I've been listening to Brian and The Verve Pipe - I discoverd TVP in late 1993 and probably discovered Edwin McCain in 1995, maybe 1996. I've got four of his albums - Honor Among Thieves, Messenger, Misguided Roses, and Lost in America.
You may remember Edwin McCain for his biggest hit "I'll Be" which was featured for a while as the theme song to the TV show Dawson's Creek. He also broke into the Top 40 with a song called "I could not ask for more" but that was more popular as a country song by artist Sara Evans.
Anyway, he's a fantastic singer and I've always enjoyed his music. I'm half tempted to buy a plane ticket to chicago to see the House of Blues show... or perhaps a road trip to Cleveland, and a little side trip to Cedar Point would be in order.... hmmm...
I usually watch a bad movie and say "that was bad" and go a bout my life. I wasn't angry with the makers of Event Horizon for making a terrible movie, nor was I pissed off at the makers of Oh Brother Where Art Thou for making a bad movie that a lot of people seemed to like.
But The Mist Sucked, and I'll tell you why. Don't read further you don't want to know how it ends.
I actually was enjoying the movie until the last 5 minutes. It wasn't a good movie by any means, but it was tolerable entertainment.
The main character, his boy, and 3 others escape the supermarket in a car and attempt to drive out of the mist, and eventually they run out of gas - still in the mist, still surrounded by the sounds of horribly nasty creatures.
5 people in the car, and four bullets. The adults all seem to agree that suicide is the best route, and the main character shoots the other four passengers - including his own son.
Then he gets out of the car, and is rescued mere MOMENTS after shooting his own son.
Worst possible ending. No wonder nobody went to see it in the theater.
Nobody wants to see a movie where someone has to shoot their own kid.
Nobody.
So, me and Doug and Crazy John went to the Def Leppard, STYX and REO Speedwagon concert last night. I'm a member of the Def Leppard fan club so I bought us floor seats near the front (row 19). The stage setup during the DL show included a catwalk and a round "outer stage" the came all the way out to about row 13-14. They played a couple of slow songs in the middle of the concert and did them acoustic, and four of the band members (obviously not the drummer) came out to the catwalk stage. I went to the restroom during the "slow" set =)
They played a lot of songs from High N Dry (1981) - Let It Go, High N Dry, Bringin' On The Heartbreak, Switch 625, and Mirror Mirror - probably the most well represented album along with Hysteria. And of coruse they played stuff from Pyromania (Photograph, Rock of Ages), but for me the coolest thing was hearing a live version of the instrumental "Disintegrate" from 1999's Euphoria.
I was a Def Leppard fan in the 80s, of course. Hysteria was released when I was 15, and spent two years on the billboard charts. But I never saw Def Leppard back then, I didn't get out to many concerts at all, really. But I've now seen them 3 out of the last 4 years - in 2005 with Bryan Adams, in 2006 with Journey, and this year with STYX and REO Speedwagon. I actually had tickets to last year's Raleigh date with STYX and Foreigner but wasn't able to make it. But this is a band that I'll probably go see every time they tour. They really put on a great show, and they still know how to rock.
All three shows I've seen, they've ended by saying "Don't forget about us, and we won't forget about you."
This is me not forgetting! See you in NC next summer!
If you've been reading my blog you know I'm an avid fan of Brian Vander Ark, former lead singer of The Verve Pipe and current solo artist.
I recently launched a web site for Brian Vander Ark Fans and, to be perfectly honest, I'm blogging about it to help search engine rankings. =) There are forums for the Verve Pipe, but they really suck. I thought we needed our own place to discuss Brian's olo career, and since he's released 6 albums now (3 studio, and 3 live), he deserves it.
So go check out BVAfans.com.
If you're not familiar with Brian, check out his myspace for audio samples, and his website.
Check out the video for "The Heart That Keeps You", a song from his 2006 album "Angel, Put Your Face On".
Do it for the music, man!
Not like I was doing all that well, I'm only at 15 out of 21 right now I think. But I should be at 16 of 21. Those durned Connecticut Huskies, faced with injury, got taken to overtime by 13th seeded San Diego and lost.
Of course, since I'd also picked #5 Drake over #12 Western Kentucky, I now have neither team in the round 2 game, so there's one completely hopeless game.
The good news is that, assuming #1 UCLA makes it past #9 Texas A&M, they will (in my opinion) be practically assured of a win over either #12 W. Kentucky or #13 San Diego, and I have UCLA going to the final four, along with all of the other #1s. I know it's never happened, I just don't have the balls to pick any upsets this year.