Best Layaway Deal

I was speaking with a friend of mine today who's currently in the market for a new HDTV (let's call her/him Jimbo).  The problem is, Jimbo doesn't have the cash readily available, and he doesn't want to put the TV on a credit card since it's almost never a good idea to flash the plastic if you can't pay for the item outright...right?

He was shopping at Sears because Sears has some pretty good prices on the latest brands of TVs and they have the option to put items on layaway. Unfortunately every time Jimbo found a TV he was satisfied with, it seemed that particular TV was not layaway eligible.  Jimbo was sad, thinking he'd just have to save money the old fashioned way which works for some people, but not for others.

So I came up with an idea for Jimbo.  "Jimbo," I said, "why don't you just take a chunk of money every month, the same amout you would put towards your layaway payments, and email yourself an Amazon Gift Card with that money?  If you buy a $250 gift card per month, in 4 months you'll have a nice $1000 to spend, and could probably get a TV 46" or bigger!"

"Huh, I never thought about it that way," said Jimbo.  Jimbo was back to being happy.  He knew that if he just socked away $250 cash each month that he'd probably dig into the cash on days he wanted to get a nice lunch, buy a video game, or order the latest hamburger earmuffs instead of using it towards his ultimate goal - the HDTV.  This way it made the money a little less "liquid" and easier to forget about, which would allow him to reach his goal as quickly as possible -- all while not having to pay any fees or worry about losing his hard-earned money.

A happy Jimbo is my kind of Jimbo.  Best of luck to you buddy!

How I Ate Baby Puke

When my wife and I are hard up and looking for a meal to feed our 15-month-old Cameron, we usually turn to a nice and light frozen dinner. They're cheap, usually nutritious, and sometimes even tasty!

Well today we've been cleaning the house all day and didn't have the time or energy to make a nice meal so we heated up Michelina's Five Cheese Lasagna for the little guy. He loves pasta and we figured this would be right up his alley.

Tastes better without baby bile.

At first Cameron didn't take to it very well because he just had his 15 month vaccine shots, and his last 2 baby teeth are cutting through (yeah, the last 2 at 15 months old...jeepers) so he's a little crabby, has a slight fever, and a little cough...all expected. To get him to taste it I put some lasagna on his spoon and let him feed it to himself since he enjoys having control (I wonder who he got that from?)

He did well with feeding himself for his standard amount of time, about 5 minutes...after that I had to think of something else to make the food interesting, so I decided to pick up the lasagna with my bare hands and feed it to him like a wrap/sandwich. This 2nd feeding phase went very well, he had 3, 4, maybe 5 bites and loved it.

As a new parent, one of the best parts about having a new human in our lives (besides the love, compassion, teaching, blah blah blah) is eating whatever leftovers Cameron leaves on his plate, or even eating his food along with him. Sure, I'm probably the heaviest I've ever been, but for now I'm blaming it on the holidays and just enjoying the extra 300+ calories I'm eating since Cam never eats all his food. Sorry to digress...

So I was wrapping the lasagna, feeding it to Cam, taking a tiny bite for myself here and there, feeding it to Cam, etc. Cam was coughing regularly while he was eating, and here's where it gets gross. As I was about to give him another bite of his lasagna sandwich, he ended up vomiting up a few tablespoons of digested lasagna on his shirt. "Aww poor guy" we thought, "maybe it's time to stop feeding him." Then I had the bright idea of having one more bite of the wrapped up lasagna in my marina-stained hands...chew-chew-swallow. Uh oh...I say to Allison, "umm, I think I just ate some of Cam's puke." "How did that happen and how do you know it's puke?" she asked. To which I replied "apparently Cam got some puke on the lasagna, I took a bite, and now I can taste the bile I usually taste after vomiting. Awesome."

Allison was pretty disgusted and said she would have vomited on the spot if the same had happened to her, but not this guy...I'm not going to waste a nice bite of lasagna. Sure it had a bitter aftertaste from the bile/acid in Cam's stomach, but overall I'd say it was pretty tasty.

This is what happens when you have kids, beware youngsters!

Pugs Rule!

 

Pasco County Trick or Treating Hours

I called the Pasco County Sheriff's Office today to find out what the hours are for trick-or-treating this year. After getting laughed at by the operator, I talked to someone else that informed me there are no set hours for trick-or-treating here in Pasco County, Florida.

I'm just writing this post to help anyone else out that may be looking for the same information, as it's not really readily available anywhere else. So if you're waiting for a certain time to take your kids out...just go! :)

Happy Halloween!

Better Bet?

What's the better bet this weekend?

 

1)    Bears at Falcons over/under is 45.5 and I'm thinking of the over - I think it will be a shootout and Matt Ryan is the second coming of Peyton Manning.  I've watched him every game this year and he seems just like Peyton in the way he commands the field and almost always finds someone open down field.  Not to mention his new toy Tony Gonzalez.  The Bears offense is getting better every week, and they have Desmond Clark coming back this week, who seems to always find a seam 15-20 yds down field, not to mention the emergence of Johnny Knox, and the sure handedness of Earl Bennett...and there's always Devin Hester speeding down the field.  This team will have no problem stretching the field on a questionable Atlanta secondary -- as long as Cutler gets his protection.  Did I mention Matt Forte is finally starting to break out? 

 

2)    This was a better bet yesterday so I'm off of it, but Packers are -13.5 (yesterday they were -14) at home vs. the Lions.  The Lions have showed their offense isn't exactly horrible and the Packers are coming off a very emotional loss against the Vikings.  The downside is the Packers have had 2 weeks to prepare for the Lions and they absolutely must win this game to stay part of the NFC North race.  Ok I just talked myself out of it...

 

2b)    Cardinals at Seahawks -3 -- Matt Hasselbeck is back and ready to take some names in Seattle.  They're getting healthier every week with a good defense and arguably the best home field advantage in the NFL.  The Cardinals are so up and down that you can never count on them, and I think they'll have a horribly tough time once they get down early in Seattle.

 

I haven't placed a bet on a sporting event in a couple years, but I think about it every weekend during the NFL season.  We'll see if I pull the trigger this weekend, TGIF!

 

 

Easiest Way To Make a Free Org Chart

I searched around the Internet for a few minutes trying to find the cheapest/easiest way to make an organizational chart / structure chart / hierarchy chart in order to visually show my company's hierarchy structure.  I found a lot of downloadable programs, but I'd hate to download a program from a company I don't trust, so I kept looking.

 

Turns out it's pretty easy to make an Org Chart in Microsoft Word, and I found it at this website.  Here's the gist, written by Ugur Akinci, PhD (great guy I'm sure):

 

You can create an amazing variety of fantastic-looking Organization Diagrams in Microsoft Word 2003 without using any external graphic programs.

 

1) Display your DRAW toolbar by selecting View > Toolbars > Drawing.

2) Place your cursor where you want to insert your chart or diagram.

3) Click the 3-spinning-balls icon on your DRAW toolbar. The tooltip message should read "Insert Diagram or Organization Chart."

4) From the Diagram Gallery window, select the Organization Chart button on the Upper Left. The ORGANIZATION CHART Mini-Bar display automatically.

5) Click Insert Shape drop-down menu on the Mini-Bar to insert "subordinate," "coworker" or "assistant" boxes.

6) Click the Autoformat button on the Mini-Bar to select one of the chart templates.

7) To delete a box, click the Select drop-down menu on the Mini-Bar, then press the Delete button.

8) Click on individual boxes on the chart to add text.

9) Click Layout drop-down menu on the Mini-Bar to change the layout of the whole chart and select one of the following options: Standard, Both Hanging, Right Hanging, Left Hanging.

10) Select a text wrapping option (if need be) by clicking the Text Wrapping button on the Mini-Bar and selecting one of the available options.

11) Experiment with other buttons on the DRAW toolbar for an infinite variety of different effects. For example, select an organizational box and change its color by clicking the Paint Bucket button, or add drop shadows by clicking 3D button and selecting an option.

 

There are several expensive graphic-creation software out there as well. But why spend the extra money when you have great tools at your disposal, already built into the MS Word?

 

 

Song Interpretation - Green Day "21 Guns"

My wife asked me to look over the lyrics of 21 Guns by Green Day and here's my interpretation of what they may have meant when writing the song:

Do you know what's worth fighting for,
When it's not worth dying for?
Does it take your breath away
And you feel yourself suffocating?
Does the pain weigh out the pride?
And you look for a place to hide?
Did someone break your heart inside?
You're in ruins

This was straight-up anti-war, pretty easy to comprehend right? Like a soldier that wanted to go fight for his country because of the pride he feels, but then he gets there and realizes he's fighting for some guy sitting in his office eating ice cream. The soldier panics because he hears gunfire and whatever, and just wants to be back home, so that's the pain...does it outweigh the pride?

One, 21 guns
Lay down your arms
Give up the fight
One, 21 guns
Throw up your arms into the sky,
You and I

EDIT: My interpretation of this one was HORRIBLE, so here's a good interpretation from a commenter...

With war there is death and when you have one gun (participation in war), you get 21 guns (you die), either physically or emotionally.

My interpretation is one = one person. 21 guns MAY stand for the soldier just being young and 21 years old with his whole life ahead of him. Why 21? I don't know, maybe he has a cousin or something that he wrote this for that was 21 when he went into the service. "You and I" = "join me, I'm not fighting in this stupid war for oil, neither should you."

When you're at the end of the road
And you lost all sense of control
And your thoughts have taken their toll
When your mind breaks the spirit of your soul
Your faith walks on broken glass
And the hangover doesn't pass
Nothing's ever built to last
You're in ruins

Again pretty straight-forward...back to the soldier that just keeps thinking and freaking out and finally starts to lose it "end of the road, lost all sense of control, thoughts have taken their toll" and then he talks about how this soldier is questioning his faith in God because of the things he's seeing, dead children, shooting other people in the head that he doesn't even know, etc. "The hangover doesn't pass..." like the next day he wakes up, he's still out in Iraq or whatever when normally a hangover goes away the next day, but not this one. "Nothing's ever built to last" is his faith in God and humanity.

One, 21 guns
Lay down your arms
Give up the fight
One, 21 guns
Throw up your arms into the sky,
You and I

Did you try to live on your own
When you burned down the house and home?
Did you stand too close to the fire?
Like a liar looking for forgiveness from a stone

This one's tough, but here's my first thought: Maybe the soldier FINALLY makes it back to the United States after a few years of being at war....and maybe he has nobody to come home to that cares about him, maybe his parents shipped him off because they couldn't pay for college or whatever, hence his reason for going off to fight...and he's living on his own for really the first time in his life after seeing some truly horrific things in combat. "burned down your house and home" Could be literal or figurative. Literally = he came home to live with his parents and concocted some scheme to burn the house down because he hated it. He hated that his parents for putting him in the situation to go to war and just snapped one night and burned the house that represented some of his anger. Figuratively = "house and home" could be his old ideals (faith in God, love for America and wanting to fight for his country) and childish thoughts. When soldiers come back from war they instantly mature like 20 years because of the stuff they witness every day. "Did you stand too close to the fire" Again literal or figurative 1) he stood there watching the house go down in flames because he was happy to see it go or 2) "the fire" is another meaning for "the war" and he got way too entrenched in the war, which ruined him inside for the rest of his life.

When it's time to live and let die
And you can't get another try
Something inside this heart has died
You're in ruins

Definitely a "shout-out" to the Beatles messages of peace, and this soldier wishes he could just live and let the memories of war die and that he could just get a re-do of his life and get the option of not going to war, but he can't. "something inside this heart has died", more like everything in him has died.

One, 21 guns
Lay down your arms
Give up the fight
One, 21 guns
Throw up your arms into the sky

One, 21 guns
Lay down your arms
Give up the fight
One, 21 guns
Throw up your arms into the sky,
You and I

Same as I said earlier. Just don't go to war, kids! It screws you up!

Chicago Bears Players on Twitter

I did a Google search for Chicago Bears players on Twitter and it seemed a little hard to find a list of Bears players on Twitter, so I thought I'd start one. Here are the ones I know of, please comment if you know of any others (even ex-Bears are cool).

Jay Cutler: @jcutler6 (thanks ScottSandSkokie)

Greg Olsen: @gregolsen82

Matt Forte: @chitownforte22

Devin Hester: @d_hest23

Tommie Harris: @RealDeal91

Jason Davis: @JasonDavis43

Desmond Clark: @tightwork88

Ex-Bears:

Fontel Mines: @FMines89
Jason McKie: @Jmack37
Bernard Berrian: @B_Twice

Kyle Orton (maybe): @kyleorton08

Feel free to follow me @Perno

Black Pug Brewery Logo

My dad said not to send any gifts to him for Father's Day since he has everything he wants/needs so Allison and I are sending him a gift certificate for admission to the Black Pug Brewery in Land O Lakes, FL (my house) along with unlimited beers to be used before the end of the year.  So Allison and I took some pictures last night and came up with this logo for the brewery.

 

Obviously this won't be a final logo of any sort, but it will be the one I put on my dad's gift certificate :)  

 

Happy Father's Day!

 

 

Phish in Asheville, NC

My (future) brother in law Gregg and his (future) wife Lauren (along with Dave) went to see Phish play in Asheville, NC and Knoxville, TN. Gregg just showed me this awesome picture that Lauren took at the Asheville show with his camera, and I thought I would share it:


Click on picture to make biggy

I'm not a fan of Phish, but I don't hate them. Now I can see why the hippies like to go see them so much. Glad you guys had fun!