Official Entry

You will recognize some of the images below which I have previously uploaded onto past posts. Put together, they form my September contribution to the Artastic Challenge Blog here on blogger. The criteria were that the entries be happy, colorful, whimsical, and/or fun.

Much better than SAT practice questions. :)

What fun and happy experiences are you having this fall?

Rants and Reviews

I spent my morning joyriding around to every store in a ten-mile radius looking for some Cover Girl promotional nail polish for The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. The movie will come out on November 22nd, and I'm very excited about it. After hitting 3 Walgreens stores in 2 different states and coming up empty-handed and bare fingernailed, I came home and googled the collection and saw this ad. Now I'm convinced that the collection has been released, that I saw it in the store and didn't know what I was looking for. It's called the Capitol Collection, and I don't care that Cover Girl is part of a big international corporate conglomerate. Now I know from the ad what to look for, so I'll hit the makeup trail again soon.

How do I know about Cover Girl's evil corporate status? My new previously-mentioned buycott app. I took advantage of my time in the stores to shop for some cruelty-free facial scrub for after my Neutrogena runs out. I absolutely love Neutrogena products, but according to buycott, Neutrogena contributes large amounts of money to Scott Walker. (Pay attention to the "transform education" priority.) I know this because I joined the "Boycott Scott Walker Contributors" campaign. I also joined one of the cruelty-free campaigns, one of the anti-GMO campaigns, and the "We Own You" campaign. In conclusion: I can't ever buy anything at any store ever again.

That's an impractical plan.

I will try to choose the lesser of the evils. I literally scanned EVERY brand of facial soap on the shelves. (Yes, I know Walgreens contributes to Scott Walker, too. Baby steps!)

Pictured below is the only cosmetic product that was cruelty-free and didn't give Scott Walker money.

Look at those prices! I have contacted my friend Chris to see if his wife Angie's company, YB Urban?, features facial cleanser. In the meantime, I found a web page that lists 6 recipes for how to wash your face with food. 

When you can't trust Walgreens, who can you trust? Pinterest. That's right. Inspired by Kristy Phipps's Pinterest Sunday photo, this was breakfast today:

Pumpkin french toast FTW! Frying apple slices covered in pancake batter wasn't half bad, either.
Ms. Whitaker will note that the taffy apples have appeared at the grocery store, as well.

Coming soon: the actual artastic challenge entry for September, and me expounding on my local hometown libraries.

Just another grocery trip

Autumn in the Midwest art challenge preview

I'm only calling this "art challenge preview" because as I downloaded the photos for it, I realized I want to use them in the September Artastic "whimsy" challenge. We'll see what happens. In the meantime...

One of the great causes for celebration in my life at the moment is the fact that it is fall. This past week, the "Adam @ Home" comic strip, run in the Northwest Indiana Times, has featured an Adam obsessed with all things pumpkin. I kind of feel like Adam.

Don't get me wrong. The desert has seasons. One of the things that used to bother me about non-desert-dwellers was their denial of the fact of seasons in the desert. In the fall in the desert, temperatures during the day and evening fall to the dry, comfortable 90s, and the nights cool off. They don't cool off enough to cause hoodies or hot chocolate at football games, but there IS a distinct change. It's not like fall in the Midwest, though. Not at all. Many was the year that I toyed with the idea of flying back home just for some fall foliage, and my friend Caryn once mailed me some leaves from Buffalo, NY, because she knew how much I liked them. Last fall, on Halloween weekend, I had the opportunity to fly home for Jodi's wedding shower, and I'm pretty sure that that trip had A LOT to do with my decision to ultimately move back to the east side of the Mississippi River for the foreseeable future.

I know all you (two) readers out there in the desert are missing me, but I see daily in your facebook updates that life is going on just fine. Please see below still more justification for my transcontinental relocation.

I'm anticipating having gainful and meaningful, if only part time, employment any day now. One of those opportunities required a pre-employment drug test. After the drug test, I decided to hunt for some geocaches on the nearby bike path, and this is what I found. This photo, at least, is legit. It's very near Hammond, where I live. The remainder of the photos are from southern Michigan, where there are, like, farms and stuff. So the rest of them don't really reflect where I live, just like my photos of Zion NP back in the day didn't reflect WHERE I lived, but I believe they capture the spirit of the season here in the Midwest pretty well. 

Yesterday was my dad's birthday, so we went apple picking with Uncle Michael and Aunt Ruth.

The apple trees

The barn at Shafer Orchards. 

I call this guy "jack-o-head," and I'm pretty sure that you'll definitely see him on my challenge blog entry. 

squashes

The resident farm dog, Ivy.

Perhaps a future blog post can celebrate autumn HERE in Hammond and the surrounding towns. In the meantime, this begins a season of apple-and-green-tomato-based diet for me. Please feel free to send me links to your own blogs, where you have posted photos of what fall is like where you are. 

Bon appetit. 

Beware the Internet!

This brief post is a warning against all things online.

Please understand that I would NEVER discourage you from using the internet, because if you use the internet less, you are less likely to read my blog!

Speaking of reading my blog, I noticed that I had a phenomenal number of hits on Tuesday after posting my Opportunity Cost post. Surprised at my newfound popularity, I examined the traffic sources and found that the majority of hits were from vampirestat. Notice it's not hyperlinked.

Guess what else exists? Zombiestat. That's right. There's a bot site with "zombie" in its name that seeks to give your blog a virus if you click on the traffic source.

So, I am here to perform the valuable public service of warning my fellow bloggers: DO NOT CLICK ON THE TRAFFIC SOURCE FOR ZOMBIESTAT! Or vampirestat.

I learned this intel from a google search that led me to a blog right here on the Blogger platform, Spam Spoiler.  Sadly, Spam Spoiler's most recent post went live the Monday after the supposed apocalypse during December 2012.

Poor lonely zombie bot.


The "Happiness is Fleeting" zombie by Kerry Callen illustrates the "lonely zombie bot" point.

What else happens on the internet?

Buzzfeed. iOS7 causes the apocalypse.

In other news, I have a new app for my ancient android. It's called Buycott. I'm obsessed with it. I now know how many of the ingredients in my lunch of Green tomato + fakin bacon BLT were produced by companies that use GMOs.

You can choose whatever causes you want. But if Buycott tries to get you to click onto Zombiestat. Don't. I'm off to the store now, to scan barcodes with my phone.

Opportunity Cost

"The word 'opportunity' in 'opportunity cost' is actually redundant. The cost of using something is already the value of the highest-valued alternative use. But as contract lawyers and airplane pilots know, redundancy can be a virtue. In this case, its virtue is to remind us that the cost of using a resource arises from the value of what it could be used for instead."

David R. Henderson

Opportunity Cost

The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics

Library of Economics and Liberty

2008

This will be a post about my cousins, and about opportunity cost. 

If you are a loyal reader, you already know that 1.5 weeks ago, I spent the weekend with my BFF and her family down Indianapolis way, for the purpose of celebrating Alex's birthday with him for the first time in his life. He turned 11. While I was walking out the door, I got a text message from a cousin inviting my family to a barbeque. I declined for myself (obviously), but my parents attended the barbeque and came home with this:

This is a disaster clean-up kit. It's so official that it says "gift" in two languages. Besides an unfamiliar-to-me bottle of surface cleaner and degreaser, the contents are a hard-bristled scrub brush, a bottle of bleach, rubber gloves, and some plastic bags. It came with a box with the same logo on it, which contained a broom and a mop. 

I would not trade playing Fruit Ninja on a larger-than-life screen, geocaching with Alex, or grading papers with my BFF for anything. Even for this bucket. That's not to say that I don't wish that the barbeque (which I keep misspelling, but now I'm attached to my own special spelling of barbeque) had happened on a different weekend. I can assemble my own bucket, albeit without the super official logo. 

In case you don't remember your basic Wealth of Nations (free for Kindle!), the official bucket and the time spent with my cousins is the opportunity cost for my miniature road trip to Indy. 

A different cousin of mine recently posted the following wisdom on facebook:
"The reason why nothing ever happens is because people are too worried about what might be better." Pasting his quote from his facebook timeline totally messed up my font, but is legal because it is less than 10% of his facebook timeline, and I am also going to encourage you to support his photography business by inviting you to like his facebook page. 

As I try to find gainful employment, this concept haunts me because I may be passing up the opportunity of a lifetime and substitute teaching hoping for a call from elsewhere that may or may not ever come. I have the sudden urge to watch Sliding Doors and read Gut Symmetries.

However, as you know, I still have upwards of 200 pages left in 1491. 

What are the opportunity costs in your own life?

It's A Disaster

This post title is the name of a movie that Amanda recommended to me.

It is available to watch on Netflix. Netflix freaks me out. It's like, "Who are you? Where are you? What is your name? Do you have a profile?" These are things Netflix doesn't need to know about me. It already knows too much, like I've been enjoying watching season 1 (the only season Netflix has) of The New Girl. 

You know what's NOT on Netflix? 1492. It's not ANYWHERE. Not even at Video Escapades, where I'm considering applying for a job. LMS if I should apply for a job at Video Escapades. I'm concerned about 1492 because I'm having a hard time getting through the book 1491 (decided to take a photo so you can see my artistic blogging process, but mostly to have a nice thumbnail for the FB post), just like I had a hard time getting through 1493, which was by the same author. So, I figured...movie...1492. I remember that it came out for the 500th anniversary of the fateful voyage. It was then apparently swept under the rug so that future generations would actually have to read 1491 and 1493.

None of that is what this post is about. I am hopped up on expectorant.

It's a Disaster.

A group of friends meets for a couples' brunch. While they are getting ready to eat, events unfold and interpersonal drama is revealed. Then the lights go out, and the neighbor Hal appears in a HazMat suit. Hal only appears in the film for about 20 seconds, but he's the character I relate to the most. He informs the group that some dirty bombs have hit downtown, and everyone is going to die. The remainder of the film chronicles how the friends deal with this devastating news.

Amanda says, "Fairly entertaining ideas for the end of the world. Not sure how realistic, though."

I would agree with that. It's the kind of quick banter-y humor that reminds me of Sideways. I don't know why I think this, but I think that if you liked Sideways, you'll like It's a Disaster. I did not regret spending 1.5 hours of life watching it.

Do you have any more film recommendations for me? I will be happy to watch and review them, and to shout you out on the Memoir of Narrow Escape. In the meantime, I shall be engrossed in the drama that was ... 1491. 

Exactly 7 Days Ago

I began coming down with a Plague.

So I did what everyone who doesn't have health insurance does. I went on midnightremedies.com. I made a concoction of apple cider vinegar and honey, chugged it and hoped for the best.

Six days ago, I was still sick. Four times last Friday I dosed with the apple-cider-vinegar-and-honey.

Late Friday night I snuck downstairs and made a different concoction, introduced to me by Natasha from BCA: very hot vodka with lemon and honey.

Five days ago, I woke up feeling better, but instead of resting, I drove down to Indy for Alex's party. After the party, Jodi having run out of vodka, I tried a mixture of hot spiced rum and Throat Coat. It was terrible. Absolutely terrible.

I taped on some leftover Kinoki detox foot pads that were lying around Jodi's house.

Four days ago, I woke up feeling not good at all.

Since then, I have been sticking to good old all-American Nyquil and Vick's Vapo-rub, and I seem to be on the mend. I am not completely well yet, and I plan to milk my illness for a trip to the farmer's market in Griffith, where I can buy some more honey from the farmer that I like.

My cousin Leah (who just celebrated a birthday within the last 24 hours) has posted warnings on facebook regarding honey: some "farmers" are selling store-bought honey as if it were theirs and making a profit. Let this not be the guy in Griffith.

In most cases, things like colds and the flu, and even ailments as severe as acute bronchitis, will simply run their course if given time and fluids. I think it makes me feel better to pretend that I'm being proactive with the cider vinegar and the foot pads and everything. Why not? Half of wellness is positive thinking. I think.

At any rate, I expect to be better by the next time I post. I think it is time for an entertainment review.

Time for the Story of Texas

I have just returned home to Hammond after a fabulous weekend celebrating Alex's 11th birthday in Indianapolis.

In celebration of the fact that Alex is 11, I think the time is nigh to tell you what happened in Texas, besides nobody using their turn signals. Alex tells the story better than I do, but I'll give it a try.

We drove all day into lightning, but there was no rain, so we went ahead with our original plan to camp at the KOA in Amarillo. We pulled into the campground around 11 p.m. and found our names on the welcome board along with a map to our campsite.

We had the tent set up but not staked yet when a huge gust of wind came and (drum roll please) blew away Ace's tent! Jodi and I watched as it started to fly away into the Texas night, until Alex heroically ran, jumped up, grabbed it and then body-blocked it. 

We staked it down and unrolled our sleeping bags into it. I went to brush my teeth and put my pajamas on and met a woman who was hiding in the bathroom reading a book. "I'm from Minnesota, where storms like this come up and then pass all the time. This is the safest place to be."

I kept this information to myself for the moment and returned to the tent. No sooner did Jodi leave to brush her teeth than the skies opened up. I said to Alex, "We'll be fine. We'll stay dry because we're in the tent." I then looked up and saw that it was raining on Alex's head. Inside the tent. 

"I think it's time to go to the Super8," he wisely stated. I agreed. We informed Jodi that we were aborting our camping mission. In the midst of the downpour, we removed all of our things from the tent and disassembled the wet shelter. Rather than organize everything in the rain, we opened the back of the Penske truck and threw most of the things inside. Some of the tent poles ended up in the Subaru as well. We made our way to the Motel 6, where Jodi advised Alex to "act sick and pathetic."

His act was so good that I thought he was actively getting pneumonia and this trip would be the end of him. 

The night desk lady at the Motel 6 was very nice. She gave us extra towels and we checked in for the night. 

On our way out of Amarillo, we grabbed a geocache, and continued making our way east toward Indiana. 

Alex declared the rainstorm an amazing adventure. 

Sadly, that was our last amazing adventure, partially thanks to the Baptist Convention in St. Louis. 

Happy 11th birthday to Alex. 

To my readers, enjoy the photo from our Amarillo geocache. Next up in the Memoir of Narrow Escape: More Home Remedies to try. 

Gun Giveaway!

http://americanhandgunner.com/giveaway/

You can thank me later, when you win a gun or a survival package!