Wife's Day--In Numbers

7--The time this morning I got up and began my day.

55--Dollars I spent at the grocery store for this week's food.
15--Dollars I spent at the gas pump for a week's worth of fuel. Loving the lower gas prices. How did we ever afford gas at almost $4?

5.25--miles I did on the treadmill.
90--minutes I did on the treadmill.
1--Number of episodes of "Law & Order" and "How Clean is Your House?" while on the treadmill.

2--Times I swept the kitchen floor before mopping it.
7--Fridge shelves I removed and cleaned today. This counts the removable ones in the door.

5--Mustards in the fridge as I cleaned it out today.
2--Bottles of fish sauce in the fridge. I didn't think Husband and I had any, but I doubt that Sister-in-law brought two with her.
3--Bottles of soy sauce in the fridge.

85--Percent of the kitchen that I cleaned today. I did not pull out the oven or fridge to clean behind them. That's a once a year cleaning and I have all of 2009 to do that. And the oven is responsible and cleaned itself last weekend.

90--Percent of the bathroom cleaned by Husband. I did the floor and will do the shower doors. House rule#1-put the toilet seat down after you use it. House rule#2-Husband cleans the toilet because if anyone is missing the bowl, it is not sister-in-law or me. I can say with confidence its not me.

0--Number of naps I took today. This one pains me but there is always tomorrow. I will be so happy for our day of rest. Especially that I don't have to teach and we are going to a friends' place for dinner.

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Debt Erradication Made Simple

Given today's market situation I thought it wise to give a few slices from that infinite pie of wisdom I call my brain (mmm...pie). (This post is primarily for our American audience so foreigners just sit back and enjoy the show) First off for our American readers remember, spending money on high ticket things is a solemn duty to protect and preserve our God given democracy. It doesn't matter that the boat you're buying is made in Ulaanbaatar of Jamaican parts shipped using Chechen smugglers. Your purchase is helping to keep salesman who studied English Lit employed.

Also remember that we're beyond the day and age where skills like: sewing your own clothes, fixing your own car, or cooking your own meals are of any real utility. Remember by not doing things ourselves we're helping others make an honest days wage. Lastly remember that the 50-70 hours you work every week while being only compensated for 40 is a noble rite of passage that you must follow in order to rise to the top of the bourgeois trash heap that is corporate America.

Fortunately for most of us (and you'll know this by any new reporting on obesity in America) we're all roughly the size of small blue whales. Thus we can rely on our natural reserves of blubber to get us through the lean times to come, oh and I think I'm going to cut back on toilet paper, no more than two squares a seating.

Here's a bit of SNL prescience from 2006:

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A Nerdsters Paradise

In 1995 I was exposed to the dulcet sounds of west coast rap for the first time. Having been raised in the oh so rural east my exposure to rap up to that point consisted of House of Pain and little else (I think I remember someone mentioning Dr. Dre but I assumed that was some kind of anti-fungal ointment at the time).You can imagine my surprise however when I learned that not all rap included bagpipes and was performed by Irish Bostonians.

The irony that this knowledge came to me in oh-so-very-white Utah (I'm talking polar bear in a blizzard, white)still makes me laugh. I think I'm supposed to say at this point that "I'm not fronting", but if you look at the demographics of my earliest upbringing and my collegial locale you'll understand that I have know idea what that even means. My introduction to hip-hop had nothing to do with Brigham Young University as an institution, but everything to do with my new apartment and my first glorious exposure to Music Television.

For our younger reading audience I know this might seem a bit confusing. Let me explain. There was a time in the mid-1990s when the organization known as MTV played music videos. These videos they'd squeeze in between episodes of Beavis and Butthead. In case you don't know what music videos are, please check YouTube. If you don't know what Beavis and Butthead is...well you're probably better off.

MTV was a revelation for me. Not only did I get to admire the beauty of the ladies of TLC, but I for the first time was exposed to the hypnotic beats of Tupac's "California Love" amongst others. My infatuation with this new media also explains the 2.8 and 2.1 GPAs that I earned during this first year in the halls of higher learning.

Amongst the many great songs released that year was one by that wonderful "purveyor of beats" and original "gangsta" rapper, Coolio. That's right I'm talking about "Gangsta's Paradise". This anthem describing the suffering of the urban poor ranks right up there with such songs as Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth", The Rolling Stones "Paint it Black", The Boss's "Born in the USA", and the Aquabats' "Captain Hampton & the Midget Pirates" in terms of social consciousness.

I bring this up, because today I experienced paradise. No not a gangsta's, nor a celestial, nor even a pizza paradise. Today I experienced a nerd's paradise. Today we got rid of a bookshelf. This meant one glorious thing for me. I got to reorganize my bookshelves. I went with a dual organization. All the fiction went into Wife's office. All the classics and some of the history went on the custom shelves and the mix of religion and history went on the cheapo Sauder shelves. Of course everything was alphabetized by author and then title. I just hope that someday I have enough books to devise my own Dewey Decimal type system....how's that for anal retentive?

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Yen mentioned this song in an earlier comment so here it is. Oh and Christmas was wonderful, Wife made a ham that was out of this world.

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