Sleeping Pug

I'm staying home from work today, taking care of our sick little boy.  As I was sitting on the couch, I looked over and saw Dempsey's sweet little sleeping face and thought I would share.  Happy Friday!

Leftovers at Work

In this day and age, it's important to find ways to stretch that dollar as far as possible. Something we all have to spend money on is food. I'd even go as far to say most of us eat food every day!

As my wife will tell you, I hate wasting food and I try to be frugal whenever I can. Sometimes I'll eat leftover Chinese food a good 10 days after it's born-on date. With fish-related leftovers I'll usually give it 5 or 6 days and then really make sure I microwave it to make sure all the "baddies" are eradicated. "Oh today is the 25th and the milk 'expired' on the 13th? Hey it still smells ok, bring on the cereal bowl!"

I follow these guidelines at work and all my coworkers know it. When I first started my current job a few years ago, I made sure to get it all out on the table. For example, I noticed a couple of my female coworkers had gone out to lunch at Chili's and came back empty-handed. I asked them how their lunch was and -- knowing out of 2 females one of them should have leftovers -- what they did with their leftovers. They told me they each left half of a chicken sandwich since they knew they would not eat them later. I looked at them in disbelief and said "PLEASE don't ever leave your leftovers from lunch at the restaurant again. I will gladly take them off your hands as long as they weren't molested too badly."

Ever since that day I get offers from all my coworkers to take their leftovers off their hands. Hey I'm not saying you should try this out or anything, I'm just saying it works for me and I've probably saved somewhere in the neighborhood of $2.3 million by just letting it be known to my coworkers that I'll eat any leftovers they don't want.

Beautiful Day at the Beach

I'm sitting up in Allison's parent's condo in Indian Rocks Beach, FL (maybe Indian Shores, I can never remember) while Cameron is napping in one of the bedrooms.  The water isn't normally this turquoise, hopefully the colors I'm seeing come through in the pic from my phone.  Reminds me a little of Cancun.

Happy Mother's Day to all you mothers out there!

Love Bug Infestation

We're not big fans of this whole love bug thing.

EDIT: Lovebugs are these flying insects that grace us with their presence in two "flights" per year, usually late spring and then again in late summer. They're referred to as "lovebugs" because there's almost always two of them attached to each other, in the process of mating.

You seriously can't walk around our house without having some land on you. Luckily they don't but or anything, they're just really annoying. Ahhh, just one of the joys of Florida I guess.

Guess What's Coming in 4 Months?!?!

Here we are the the Dog Days of Summer (yes, it's already considered the Dog Days here in Florida, we're hitting 90 almost every day already), and a great thought entered my mind yesterday while at home with my wife. In just a hair over 4 months we'll have the regular season of NFL upon us!!!

The Chicago Bears signed a great talent in Jay Cutler (another frequent reader of this blog), and made a few other moves that have us Bears fans very excited. I was reading one of the Bears Blogs I frequent and stumbled upon a link to some pictures of Jay Cutler in a Bears uniform!!! It's really real!!!

Looking forward to getting past this NFL Offseason (baseball) and getting into more Chicago Bears talk.

Homebrewing Kit Arrived

I'm very excited since my beer homebrewing kit has arrived from Midwest Supplies in MN.  I'm hoping to have everything necessary to brew this weekend. 

The only thing holding me back is I need to figure out how to keep the fermenting beer cool (between 60 and 70 degrees F) here in Florida.  Most homes don't have basements and there's nowhere in the house that comes close to remaining at that temperature.  I'll be looking for suggestions on the Internet today, wish me luck!

Welcome Back Tropicana

I think Tropicana made the right move switching back to the old packaging. The new packaging seemed too generic.

NFL Draft 2009

I just finished reading a great article at Pro Football Talk by Mike Florio that Brad Biggs at the Chicago Sun-Times mentioned in his coverage of the Chicago Bears 2009 Draft Pick possibilities.

Florio talked about players testing positive for marijuana prior to the draft, and how the main concern of NFL teams was not that the player smoked weed - rather that the player is either 1) too stupid to stay clean for a certain period of time before the biggest test of their lives, or 2) addicted to the drug in question.

Obviously, all things being equal, if an NFL team has a choice of choosing someone that smokes or drinks vs. someone that never touches the stuff, they'll go with the "clean" person...but it's just mind boggling how someone like Percy Harvin from the University of Florida could test positive for marijuana right before he has the opportunity to sign for millions of dollars. Hopefully he's not addicted, because his possible stupidity just cost him a few million in the bank.

6 Month Stats

Cameron went in for his 6 month well visit at the doctor's office this morning, here are his stats:

 

Length = 28"  --  91st percentile

Weight = 20 lbs  --  86th percentile

Head Circumference = 18.3"  --  98th percentile!

 

That's our large-headed, growing boy!

GAVT = Generally Accepted Vampire Traits

I'm sitting here in Land O Lakes, FL with some friends discussing whatever people discuss while sitting at a kitchen table with friends. My friend's wife is a HUGE fan of the Twilight series of books featuring vampires, and my friend has coined a new acronym. The acronym is GAVT and it stands for Generally Accepted Vampire Traits, and my friend is M. Will Tammaro.

Unfortunately Twilight doesn't seem to adhere to GAVT. These vampires have to be torn into pieces and burned in order to die. A wooden stake through the heart just doesn't work on these poor saps. They can eat tons of garlic in their pasta and gravy and not blink an eye...the only thing is they don't eat (weird!) Crucifix? No dice! They can even go into the sunlight without worrying about that pesky burning of the flesh. It's just not right, and anyone who thinks otherwise is mistaken.

Thank you for stopping by, and thank you to my friend, M. Will Tammaro.