Middle America's Worldview

I truly hope everyone has a safe New Year. I am off my main job, but I will be working for Pepsi tomorrow. Today with Pepsi it was busy, but not absolutely crazy. I am still amazed how much soda goes through the stores each day.

This morning, before 8 a.m. two guys were discussing which soda to use for mixed drinks. I guess they will bring in the New Year with a hangover. I am surprised how many actually plan for it. I heard 3 different individuals conveying as such. Not for me. I can do without the mental lapse and hangover.

Kel refilled the fridge and cabinets today with the grub. This time around, she grabbed only the healthy stuff. Starting on the second, I will be going on a detox diet. It will last 3 weeks. The major concern, is No Coffee! You can read my daily experience here. I will post my expectations and the reality of it. (Smile)

The family talked last night. We call them family meetings where we basically discuss what we are doing the following week, or if there is a decision to be made (make the kids part of it).

Last night we had a family meeting to discuss Friday. As we were discussing it dawned on me, this is the last weekend of the year. ( yeah, I know, duh)

I really didn't realize it was already here. So, I guess the New Year resolutions will start next Tuesday.

Christmas is over and in some way, I am glad. I like it, but it's also nice to get the house back in shape. Today, we cleaned house, and took all the Christmas stuff down. I was actually off today, making a 3 day weekend for me (had to work Saturday). I enjoyed being with the family.

We don't have the house tip-top yet, but the buisiness picking up the trash tomorrow will dread seeing our haul. There is a pile and a half of trash bags to haul off. Having my family over one evening and Kel's the other makes for a lot of wrapping paper and boxes.

We also hit the Christmas after sales today. We primarily go for the after shave, bath stuff, ect. We happen to hit Sears on a whim. While Kel looked around for any clothes on clearance, the daughter and I was checking out the exercise stuff. There was a treadmill just sitting there. A motor one, not a manual one. The manual one was priced for 100 bucks. This one didn't have a mark on it. On a whim, we asked. We pulled it over to have them scan it. Believe it or not, it scanned for 120 bucks. It must had been a mistake. Alas, mistake or not, I grabbed it. So a nice Christmas present to Kel. I spent a good hour putting it together While I was putting it together, Kel checked the net for the machine. It was priced 279 dollars at the lowest. Yes, a true find! So now we just need to use it. (smile)

It's back to work tomorrow, but at least it makes for a short week.

"I heard something." The cold hand moved away from mine as I jumped in my skin. " I heard something" was the statement again. It wasn't my wife. It wasn't even 2 a.m. yet.

My daughter stood over me with wideness in her eyes. I still had grit in mine. She heard something and thought it must be Santa. My wife and I tried to suggest we lay here in bed another 30 minutes. Both kids crawled in and there was no going back to sleep.

We came to find Santa had indeed arrived, leaving crumbs and a empty glass behind. We allowed them to open the bags. 30 minutes after that, with a cup of coffee in hand, we then proceeded to give them their gifts from us. The kids had a blast.

Kel crashed around 4 a.m. back to bed. I crashed on the couch as the kids continued to check out their loot. Later I tried Star Wars Lego 2 with them and the Guitar Hero. My fingers are already tired. LOL At least the Guitar Hero has songs from the 80's. (smile)

The living room looks like a explosion of toys.

Merry Christmas everyone.

I woke up around 2:30 a.m local time. I was troubled with the issues regarding my family. Not my immediate wonderful wife and kids, rather my family. In the beginning of the year, I had a foreboding feeling change was upon us. I mentioned it to Kel without realizing just how significant that change would be. Nearly the end of the year now and so much have been changed within our home and hearts.

I am having that foreboding feeling once again. I awoke with arguments still in my mind. This Christmas with my family will become a changing one. Not so much as a dreaded altercation, rather a past due discussion. I will not enlighten my readers on the issues, per se. However, I feel diplomacy has come to an end.

4 days till Christmas and 3 for the Eve. Unbelievable. I hope everyone has their stuff bought, ect. I spoke with a lady last night at church and she still plans to buy Christmas cards. Wow, I thought 'forget it' to myself at this point.

I looked all over our little area ( Fort Smith, Arkansas - Poteau, Oklahoma )to no avail for an item. I was kindof shocked not to find at least one. Crud, when I called a particular store, the lady actually said "oh, we get alot of calls for those, but we don't carry it". WTF? So we have a demand for it, but no suppliers. Welcome to the logic of my neck of the woods.

So here comes the internet to the rescue, yet again. I had found it online, called the store the following morning, requested it shipped out, and it came in last night. I had to sign for the thing to prove I acquired it. So, last night I rested easy, knowing Kel had another item under the tree. (smile)

Personally, I enjoy acquiring the gifts for the kids and Kel. It's the one time of the year, I actually buy something without feeling guilty. I never had much when I was a kid, and it makes me feel good to be able to provide those things to my family and others. Call it a selfish act on my part ( in some way ).

If I don't get around to blogging again, I wish my fellow bloggers and readers a wonderful Christmas and my joy, blessings follow you to the New Year.

Christmas = Christ should be first.

"I appreciate you working so hard." There were the words I heard at 5 a.m. this morning. These words were spoken by my wife as I rolled out of bed to my part-time Pepsi job. I work full time during the week on the primary job, and 20 hours on the weekend for the part-time. I don't mind really. Except some mornings are a bit harder to get out of bed than others, like this morning.

I was thinking about this today. I have a great wife who is supportive, trusting, great mother, and a true friend.

I am reminded of Proverbs chapter 31 verse 10; "Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies."

I feel my wife is my deepest treasure on this earth. I honestly do. I look at these other marriages (they mainly keep together for some other reason than love) and it's a continued reminder of how good I have it.

We have differences and we have arguments, but in the end, we still love each other. And somehow manage to go to bed together. (smile)

In reality, every time I go to work on the weekends, she works just as hard with the kids and house. So when she tells me again "I appreciate you working so hard." I will have to reconvey to her "I appreciate her work just as well."

I have to tell you this one. Dealing with interfaces, we pretty much move data around. Getting the data, massaging the data, and moving the data from point A to point B in the correct format.

Today, I had a facility reset their FTP connection, because it just wasn't happening. Once it was reset, boom, access and I was able to get the files and send them on their merry way.

Having to look on the server for those files (manually and to verify I have access), I happen to note a folder named "Pearl Jam". Hmm, that's a rock group. ( I always liked 'Rooster' ). I happen to check in the folder and to my surprise, 4 CD labels with files in mp4 formats. Ahh songs on the server.

I had to ask.

I asked the tech, via instant message, if he had a honeypot on the server. ( To explain, a honeypot is a tempting file for a hacker or someone lurking on a server. Once the trespasser attempts to pull the file, a log is kept and the lurkers IP is captured )

He didn't know what I was talking about, so I asked about the 'songs'. He promptly told me "it was put there for a co-worker of mine, who will remain nameless".

Needless to say, in about 3 minutes the files were gone.

Another week is simply flying by.

I had received my new laptop from work last week. As of yesterday, I have all my info and programs transferred over. So, my Christmas came early. (smile)

I will be sending the old one back, probably today.

I made some additional edits on my Get Rid of Toxins website. I placed a feedback form on it. I also created another article and submitted it to Hello Healthy. I guess we will see if it's accepted. I wrote about the increase in organic foods being availible in the market.

Work is still going like crazy. I'm trying to get some projects done prior to end year.

The family is doing well in health. Just crazy to get everything done.

Now I heard everything, almost.

BERLIN (Reuters) - German sex educators plan to launch a spray-on condom tailor-made for all sizes.

Jan Vinzenz Krause from the Institute for Condom Consultancy, a Singen-based practice that offers advice on condom use, told Reuters on Thursday the product aimed to help people enjoy better and safer sex lives.

"We're trying to develop the perfect condom for men that's suited to every size of penis," he said. "We're very serious."

Krause's team (spraykondom.de) is developing a type of spray can into which the man inserts his penis first. At the push of a button it is then coated in a rubber condom.

"It works by spraying on latex from nozzles on all sides," he said. "We call it the '360 degree procedure' -- once round and from top to bottom. It's a bit like a car wash."

Krause said the plan is to make the product ready for use in about five seconds. He said it would function more effectively as a contraceptive because it would fit better and not slip.

However, before the new condom can be sold in shops, the firm must ensure that the latex is evenly spread when sprayed, as well as optimise the vulcanization process.

Krause hopes the high tech condom, which will be available in different strengths and colours, will on the market by 2008.

He said the spray can would likely cost some 20 euros ($26) as a one-off purchase. The latex cartridges -- sufficient for up to 20 applications -- would cost roughly 10 euros, he said.

Krause said he had hit upon the idea when considering the difficulties some people faced using condoms, and drew inspiration from spray-on plasters now used in medicine

I am beat today. Pepsi was busy today. The day went quick though.

Last night was pretty cool. We drove to Muskogee to check out the Garden of Lights and the castle. There were tons of those blowup yard christmas things. I am not sure what they are called.

I have found all the ingredients of the Lemonade diet. I noticed the lemons at Walmart were 44 cents each! Un-freaking real. I will be waiting till they go on sale. I really cannot do it till after the holidays anyway. However, I was surprised to find the sea salt and pure cayenne pepper.

I have been busy on my Get Rid of Toxins website. I have added additional pages and created some video's to show the products.

I also created an article that was posted on Hello Healthy. You can check my article here if you want too.

I was scheduled off today and tomorrow. However, I seemed to have worked enough today that it didn't feel like I was off. I am looking forward to being off tomorrow.

We drove around tonight looking at the outside Christmas lights after basketball practice. A local church also had a drivethrough that was really cool. They do it every year and this makes the second one we went too. Tomorrow night we plan to drive to Muskogee to a castle. It suppose to have alot of lights, ect. as well.

The product is the compact fluorescent lightbulb, a quirky-looking twist of frosted glass. In the energy business, it is called a "CFL," or an "energy saver." One scientist calls it an "ice-cream-cone spiral," because in its most-advanced, most-appealing version, it looks like nothing so much as a cone of swirled soft-serve ice cream.

Check out this little fact on them.

One thing hasn't changed: the energy savings. Compact fluorescents emit the same light as classic incandescents but use 75% or 80% less electricity.

What that means is that if every one of 110 million American households bought just one ice-cream-cone bulb, took it home, and screwed it in the place of an ordinary 60-watt bulb, the energy saved would be enough to power a city of 1.5 million people. One bulb swapped out, enough electricity saved to power all the homes in Delaware and Rhode Island. In terms of oil not burned, or greenhouse gases not exhausted into the atmosphere, one bulb is equivalent to taking 1.3 million cars off the roads.

How it works.

A "normal light bulb" is also known as an incandescent light bulb. These bulbs have a very thin tungsten filament that is housed inside a glass sphere. They typically come in sizes like "60 watt," "75 watt," "100 watt" and so on.

The basic idea behind these bulbs is simple. Electricity runs through the filament. Because the filament is so thin, it offers a good bit of resistance to the electricity, and this resistance turns electrical energy into heat. The heat is enough to make the filament white hot, and the "white" part is light. The filament glows because of the heat -- it incandesces.

The problem with incandescent light bulbs is that the heat wastes a lot of electricity. Heat is not light, and the purpose of the light bulb is light, so all of the energy spent creating heat is a waste. Incandescent bulbs are therefore very inefficient. They produce perhaps 15 lumens per watt of input power.

A fluorescent bulb uses a completely different method to produce light. There are electrodes at both ends of a fluorescent tube, and a gas containing argon and mercury vapor is inside the tube. A stream of electrons flows through the gas from one electrode to the other (in a manner similar to the stream of electrons in a cathode ray tube). These electrons bump into the mercury atoms and excite them. As the mercury atoms move from the excited state back to the unexcited state, they give off ultraviolet photons.

The thing I find fascinating is on each package you see the output (60, 75, 100 watt). The amount of electricity for the regular bulb output is more than these new fluorescent bulbs. This is the main thing that sold me. Plus the bulbs last either 5 or years, dependant on what you buy.

Currently we changed out our office, living room and kitchen. Kel noticed the 60 watt bulbs having a yellow hue to them (I didn't notice). The 100 watts are Kel's favorite. We have them placed in the living room. I have 75 watts in the kitchen and office. Just be sure not to look straight at them. They are bright!

It was a nice weekend. We traveled to Hooker, Oklahoma to visit some of Kel's family. We made it rhrough Tulsa even though the "blizzard" went through Oklahoma the night before. Once we passed I-35, it was clear all the way.

Just the fact of having a sit down and nice talk with the family was nice. No stress. No 'have too' todo's. Yeah, it was nice. We played some spades and a horse racing game.

We made it back home today before 6 p.m. I told the kids, I had a movie for us to watch. I pulled out our 2001 Christmas video of the family Christmas. It was wild to see the kids so young. LOL