Hear No Evil, See No Evil, and Speak No Evil......but I do see a lot of dead marine life!

Just a short blog for today on the Senate hearings on the Louisiana oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that threatens marine life and sensitive coastal areas.

As we watch three highly paid executives from the three companies involved in the oil spill: BP CEO-Lamar McKay; Transocean LTD CEO-Steven Newman (Transocean owns the oil rig), and Haliburton Executive-Tim Probert (subcontractor for BP that encased the well pipe in cement) sit side-by-side and blame each other for this environmental disaster, I am reminded of the picture of the Three Wise Monkeys that can hear no evil, see no evil, and speak no evil.

We don't give a rat's you know what whose to blame, just clean up the mess you made!

Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill......like deja vu all over again....!!!

How many environmental disasters will it take for the U.S. to decide that stricter laws and proactive measures need to be in place before we allow oil companies to drill offshore?

Just weeks after President Obama announced plans for increased offshore oil and gas drilling (a move that is counter to the environmental platform he ran on during his Presidential campaign), we now have an environmental disaster of biblical proportions threatening the environmentally-sensitive coast of Louisiana. In addition, the oil slick is now threatening the coasts of Alabama and Florida.

So sorry BP, I guess you won't be getting that environmental safety award you were scheduled to receive several weeks ago!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100429/ap_on_bi_ge/us_louisiana_oil_rig_explosion

Sleepy.....?

As misery loves company, I am happy to report that I share a common problem that an estimated 40 million other americans share and that is suffering from a chronic sleep disorder.

I have tried just about every trick in the book to get a good night's sleep: counting sheep, 99 bottles of beer, watching paint dry, reading, watching TV, going to bed at the same time every night and waking at the same time in the morning(well approximately, I do love to sleep in in the morning), warm milk, alcohol(happy to report this works for a little while until the alcohol wears off. Oh, well it tastes good going down!), wine and turkey-but who can eat turkey every day...and besides this only works on Thanksgiving and Seinfeld, etc., etc., etc.

This past Monday, I went to have a sleep study done. I felt that I was in the modern day equivalent of Dr. Frankenstein's lab(but with all the amenities of a Marriott). I was wired up to a monitoring system and had a bungee cord(aka heart monitor) strapped around my chest, with oxygen plugs going in my nose, and glued all over my head and face were contacts to monitor my sleep. The very nice technician got to monitor my sleep for 6 hours via the monitor and an in-room camera. Talk about feeling like Big Brother is watching...and I don't mean the reality series!

Now I will have to wait one to two weeks for the results...oh, great, now I'll something new to worry about and to keep me up.

"Take Sominex tonight and sleep, safe and restful...sleep, sleep, sleep!"

Now that our landfills are filling up....why not use the ocean?

As if we haven't had enough bad news about the environment...scientists have spotted a second plastic garbage patch in the Atlantic Ocean (a similar one was discovered swirling about in the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and California, it's called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch). Both patches consist of swirling plastic pieces that are bound together by ocean currents. The plastic is in all different shapes and sizes and as we can all imagine, is harmful to both humans and non-humans alike.

As we commemorate Earth Day 2010, let's remember to recycle our plastics so we are not leaving behind a size 17 plastic footprint.

A Stress Analyst....my dream job!

Searching for a job can be stressful...it can be an occupation in and of itself. However, today I saw an advertisement for my perfect job, a Stress Analyst. Now why didn't I think of that sooner? Not only can I be stressed out, but I can share my stress with others, report on stress to management via graphs and charts, be the team stress mentor or SME, and get paid for it. And because I am so good at being stressed out, I can surely turn this contract position into a full-time position with benefits (maybe more stress and no vacations).

I wonder if I can telecommute so I can be stressed out in my jammies?

Drinking beer at work....what's up with that?

Here's one from the believe it or not column.....skal!!

Denmark's Carlsberg beer has gone to a "lunch-only" beer policy, which spurred a walk-out by workers and truck drivers today. What does the "lunch-only" beer policy mean, well the workers can no longer drink beer during work hours from the beer coolers placed at different work areas throughout the company. According to the new "stricter??" policy, workers will only be allowed to imbibe during lunchtime and they will still need to adhere to the responsible drinking rule...the workers cannot be soused, toasted, hammered, s-faced, plastered, or otherwise drukken at work. And the best part of this story is the truck drivers are exempt from the new rule because they don't have time to have lunch, so they get to brown-bag their beverages and take them on the road with them.

I'm juss jealush!

Sined,
Tipsy

Easter Memories.....

Easter memories....coloring the Easter eggs, searching for the hidden eggs, black patent leather Mary Janes, a new spring outfit in purple, blue, yellow, a big Easter basket with the fake colored hay, and filled with jelly beans, chocolate bunnies of all sizes (crunchy and non-crunchy), peeps, some cute little gifts such as silly putty, comic books, colorforms, and last but not least, dinner at grandma's house.

Genealogy study....where present meets the past...

Since I have some free time on my hands I decided to start a genealogy study of my family. Oy veh, what a task! The easy part was getting into one of the genealogy websites to start building a family tree. The hard part is to try and locate your ancestors without having to have a seance with a spriritualist in attendance, or digging in the old family trunk, or calling Ghostbusters...somehow I don't think Bill Murray will be much help to me right about now.

Are you ever too old to read teen Vampire stories....?

Okay, so I'll admit it, I have crossed over to the dark side! I recently started reading the Twilight series of books by Stephanie Meyer (please, no comments from the peanut gallery!!) I will condescend to admit that I have been borrowing these books from the "Teen" section of our local library and have been brave enough to go without disguise into this section whilst enduring strange looks from the "Tweeners" sitting in the area.

The books are a heavy mix of teen angst, laced with an unrequited love-triangle, and topped with a heavy dose of vampires and werewolves. I am currently reading book 3, "Eclipse", so that I can be mentally prepared for the movie opening on June 30, 2010. Yes, I will be going with a friend of mine so that we can partake in the whole "Twilight" experience. Though this will date me, I am envisioning shades of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show", but without the toast and toilet paper throwing.

As to which team I am on...well I am leaning towards Team Jacob after seeing his new buff image in the "New Moon" movie, but Team Edward is still on the leader board. Oh decisions, decisions...!!!

How do you know if your living in one of America's Most Miserable Cities?

Okay, so I am scrolling through the list of America's Top 20 Most Miserable Cities and I see the likes of NYC, Philadephia, and St. Louis. So I ask myself what if my city didn't make the list, does that mean my city isn't the most miserable or that it just isn't miserable enough?? Are there degrees of miserable???

I guess I can go back to whistling my happy tunes again, phew!!!!

Happy Birthday Canyon!!

To one of the loves of my life...my great dane Canyon! You have made me laugh when I felt like crying, loved me no matter what, and given me great big sloppy kisses.

Happy 6th birthday to my big ol' couch potato!

Love,

Mommy

The Academy Awards Show of March 7th, 2010

Well, another show has come and gone and lasted longer than any in recent history. As awards shows go, this is the King, as long as you can get past all the back slapping and high fiving...! Liked Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin as hosts, just enough sarcasm to keep things a little humble.

Not sure I like having 5 actors/actresses get up to each talk about a particular Best Actor or Best Actress nominee, too much time wasted on that. As usual a lot of extra fluff was included in the show that wasn't necessary.

Glad to see Jeff Bridges and Sandra Bullock win for Best Actor and Best Actress, these honors were well deserved.

Too bad they could not find enough time in the show to include all of the people that passed away last year in the "In Memoriam" segment such as, Farrah Fawcett and Bea Arthur...it surprises me that the Academy says they cannot include everyone who passed?! Isn't that what this segment is all about, saying goodbye to people who made a lasting contribution to motion pictures?

Planes, Trains and Automobiles...Guess who is in the driver seat now!

Do you remember the wooden balsa wood planes that came in pieces that you could put together and had a propeller that worked when you twisted the rubberband? Or how about paper air planes, for the origami-challenged among us. How proud we were when we could get these two to actually fly for 3 seconds.

Well now, forget all of that because apparently kids can now be Air Traffic Controllers. Gee, if only we had that option when we were younger. And the best part is, kids can do this on their vacations and days off from school. I wonder what the starting salary is and if there is any age restrictions?

Getting in touch with old friends...

Is there anything better then getting in touch with old friends? I like to call them "nold" (new-old) friends. The finding or locating part is often harder than the keeping in touch part, but oh, what a joy to talk to someone you haven't talked to in 20 or 30+ years. Of course, we all look a little bit different now, but who cares, as if we liked wearing our hair long and parted in the middle, bell bottom jeans(okay, so they still wear these, everything old is new again), polyester shirts, gauchos, platform shoes, and the Elton John glasses.

If I really concentrate I can still hear the faint sounds of the Doobie Brothers, "Old Black Water...", The Commodores, "Brick House" or Donna Summer, "Bad Girls". And who can forget all the great Village People hits....?

This is a nod to all the great "nold" friends I have heard from lately, let's keep the momentum going!

Keep it cool!

Colleen

The Great Depression......

I was just doing some research on the Great Depression of 1929 and came across this interesting factoid, that unemployment grew to about 25% in the USA and in some other countries up to 33%.

That the average annual salary was $1368.00, probably if you were lucky. And the price of milk was $.14 cents a quart, and bread was $.09 a loaf. If only we had these prices today, we wouldn't have to clip coupons. By the way, whatever happened to triple coupons? Does anyone remember triple coupons? That's when you actually felt like you were saving some money on food.

The Job Search

Looking for a job can be a real drag...hours spent networking and searching the job sites. It's almost mind numbing. Gotta keep at it though if you want to be successful.

Some of the good things that have come out of this down time are: a lot of introspection, taking stock of my life and things I want to do and things better left to others, reading great books, and spending time with my dogs.