Who wants a quiz?

I AM 12% WHITE TRASH! I, my friend, have class. I am so not white trash. . I am more than likely Democrat, and my place is neat, and there is a good chance I may never drink wine from a box. Take the WHITE TRASH test at Fuali.com

Sorry, but I had to steal this quiz from Nora. It's too funny! I'm 3% more white trashy than she is, but we're both in the clear. They got two things wrong in my results, though. I am most likely NOT a Democrat, and my place has only been truly neat for about the past four hours.

Re-Gifting

Let me open this one up to the readers. As a part of my new get-organized kick, I have come across two gifts that I have gotten for Christmases past which I never used, and never intended to use. The person who gave them had good intentions, I just don't have much room or need for decoration items, since I'm not home very much.

Is it okay to re-gift these things, if done in a secretive kind of way? I'm open to suggestions, since I got so many great comments about the muffins (you half-muffin-eating wierdo's!).

End of the End of the Week

It's Sunday evening, and finally some time to sit and update the blog, as several of my inquiring readers have requested. At least it's good to know that somebody's reading. I may as well give them [you] reason to continue doing so.

Friday was... interesting. Anna had a slumber party at her house, "The kind we used to have in the 3rd grade," according to the Evite. Expecting that it would be all girls, I was surprised to see a guy there, wearing one of Anna's outfits, and serving tamales, hostess cakes, and anything else we asked for. One of the best things about Anna's place is the view - her huge patio looks out over the Houston Medical Center and Downtown. We sat outside for part of the evening. When it was time to go home, Wayne picked me up. He knew that we'd have been drinking and wanted me to enjoy myself without having to drive. Isn't he sweet?

My disclaimer here is that Anna's party is not my normal type of weekend. Saturday and Sunday are a lot more in-character for me. Read: boring.

Saturday morning I overslept and completely missed both my running group with HoustonFit and the Toastmasters seminar for contest competitors. Note to self: remember to set the alarm when I have to get up early. That evening Wayne and I took advantage of the gift certificate I had won in last week's Christmas in July raffle: $50 at Rio Ranch Steakhouse. It was more food than two people, or even four, could reasonably be expected to eat. We still had creme brulee for dessert, though. Who could expect us to pass that up?

This morning started with an 'elegant' IHOP brunch. Though it normally wouldn't be noteworthy to have done this, we made an observation. The small restaurant was packed out the door, which would be enough for most people to leave and go some place else. After all, this is IHOP food we're talking about, not something that's actually worth waiting for. When we approached the counter, however, we were ushered immediately to a table for two. The way that this place works is that most of the tables are small, made for two to four people - tops. Perhaps they have one six-person table there, but not more than that. In addition, these tables cannot be moved. Most are booths, but the tables are also not movable, as they are attached to the walls. We also noticed that we fit just about right in the small two-person booth; if we had been any larger than our very average-to-small sizes, we may have been less than comfortable.

It stands to reason, knowing these things, that large groups nor overly large people would frequent this restaurant. However, that's at last 80% of what we saw. As we left the restaurant, there was a family waiting outside with at least 17-18 people. About half were kids. All were more than overweight. We made the observation that after waiting outside for 30 minutes, they would probably have to sit at no less than four separate tables and be uncomfortable. It was doubtful that they'd leave a tip after that. It must be days like today that makes the servers want to work at House of Pies.

Back to how my day went. This afternoon was full of errand-running and being productive. I got my car cleaned out, which is a Herculean feat in itself. My desk and paperwork desperately needed organization. And I went through my clothes and shoes for a second round of charity sweep and got rid of a laundry basket each of clothes and shoes.

I even had dinner with my mom tonight. Since she and my dad have been going through a divorce, she talks to me much more openly now. I have to say, it's strange. My parents, as it turns out, are real people with feelings. Who'd have known?

Join me for more exciting updates this week, as I finish more on my to-do list, including: buy a hamper, send thank-you notes, get a watch battery, and donate my old books. I may have to put an "explicit" warning on this blog! Let me add 'take the dog to the groomer,' because she's here under my chair and smells rained-on. Yuck.

Top of the muffin to you

While at the local grocery store this weekend, I purchased some banana nut muffins, mostly becacuse they were being given as samples and they were fresh. When I later offered one to Wayne, he declined because he's "not really into muffins very much." But he offered to eat the top.

This launched an entire debate about whether muffin tops were better than the rest of the muffin (his position) or if it's just as good all the way through (mine). His argument, which is only mildly valid, is that the tops are where all the good stuff is, like the toppings or fruity chunks. The muffins I had in hand had only a few more nuts on top, but were nutty all the way to the bottom, and softer at that part, too. While I thought that this was absurd, he insisted that he's been to several meetings where the tops were eaten from the muffins and the stumps were left for trash.

One of us finally remarked that we were having a Seinfeldian pointless conversation, and it turns out that Google tells me we were. There was a Seinfeld episode where Elaine and Mr. Lippman open a muffin shop that sells only tops. When they give the leftover stumps to the local soup kitchen, they get nothing but complaints. It appears that the homeless don't like the stumps either.

My solution is to get better muffins. If any part of it isn't good, then it's not worth eating.

This whole debate worked out for the best, though. Wayne and I concluded that if we ever have a muffin together, we can both eat our respective parts. That's good enough for me.

Camel Cup

What are the requirements for becoming an Olympic sport? I'm sure that camel racing is well on its way.

This weekend, Australia hosted the premier camel race, the Camel Cup Carnival. The Afghan ambassador to Australia even flew in for the event.

The last camel I saw was spitting all over the enclosure he was in. He hardly seemed like a majestic animal to me. I guess this is proof that if you can imagine it, then somebody is doing it.

Training the Toastmasters

I went to a Toastmasters training today for the officers of various clubs. Events like this are always neat because we get to network and meet other people. I came out with an invitation to give guest speeches at another club that has about five members out in Tomball and is in a rebuilding stage. The other person there from my club may join this as a second club, which would work out well because he and I both have a lot of speeches to give before June if we're going to help the club with reaching its goals. I would have, but I've already got a second club and haven't got time for a third.

I got an email from Nora asking about Toastmasters. It's interesting to hear that I've been able to share something that at least sparks someone else's curiosity. If anyone wants to know more about it, there's some great information here. That doesn't mean that I don't like getting questions about it, because I really do.

Buy shares of this blog

I found out yesterday that I'm listed on BlogShares. By the description on their web site, BlogShares is "a simulated, fantasy stock market for weblogs where players invest fictional money to buy stocks and bonds in an artificial economy where attention is the commodity and weblogs are the companies." My trading price as of this writing is $47.80.

The way that it seems to work is just like the stock market, except that it's fake. I currently only own about 10 shares of my own blog, because that's all I could afford with the requisite $500 of fake money they gave me. If nothing else, BlogShares could be a good lesson in trading on the stock market.

This reminds me of the movie that Wayne had me watch this weekend called Trading Places (1983) with Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd. It was about what happens when two brokerage firm owners make a bet that they can take their best trader and make him "trade places" with a bum off the street just by changing the environment they're given. Despite all of the bad eighties clothes and pop culture references, it wasn't a bad movie. There is a part where they are on the trading floor, and it reminded me of when Wayne and I went to Chicago last month and visited the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. There were all sorts of people running around in different colored jackets, waving hand signals at each other and frantically filling out order slips. Those bunch of goofy looking people were probably littered with millionaires, though. It was organized chaos.

Good to be back

Apparently, there is an ongoing count somewhere of how many days it's been since I updated my blog. The current count is 13. I apologize to all two of you who read regularly; here is my attempt to update again.

To my credit, there are several external factors upon which I can blame my blogging negligence:

- Kelly having given me the audiobook version (unabridged!) of the DaVinci Code.
- Several things going on at once, including starting a running program, more Toastmasters stuff, more work to do at the office (which hints to job security, so I'm happy), and school.
- Working on getting everything in to UH by the right deadlines for admission into the Electrical Engineering degree program, and subsequent activities after being accepted to said program.
- Editing Kelly's updated resume.

But of course, in the long run, I can only blame it on one lasting factor:

- Laziness.