STOP! According to the Perpetual Kid fashion police you’ve really crossed the line. Create your own crime scene with this extra-long, extra cozy knit scarf. The coppers may question it, but you’ll get off scot free…we guarantee it (NOT REALLY.) This C
Pros: Quality Materials, Attractive Design, Good Length, Soft, Warm
Best Uses: Cold Weather
Describe Yourself: Trendy/Stylish Dresser
Gear Usage: Cold Weather Living
Was this a gift?: Yes
Got this for my wife, a Florida native, who loves hot weather and thinks “cold” is anything below 75ºF. She’s a huge fan of crime scene investigation and criminal psychology, so I knew this was the perfect gift for her… and I was right. She loves it!
Generic white cotton swabs are fine for everyday use, but for those special occasions use these sleek, Black Cotton Swabs! Put some in a fancy cigarette case and offer them to new acquaintances at parties! One hundred swabs in each 3 inch tall clear pla…
Pros: Works Great, Conversation starter, Comes in its own holder
Cons: Too awesome to wanna use
Best Uses: Bathrooms for Ninja’s, Art projects, Beauty salons
My wife is a makeup artist and hair stylist, so I bought these for her to use for her job. She loves them! They work just as well as other cotton swabs, but look so different that everyone takes notice.
As you may have recently read on my blog, I got a new car earlier this year when I traded in my 2008 Smart car. The new car that I bought is a 2011 Ford Fiesta SES.
When I traded in my Smart car, I figured that my gas mileage (MPG) on the Fiesta would not be as good. however, after crunching some numbers, I have surprised myself. To clarify what I am going to be talking about, I’m going to provide you with a little chart below.
Since the Smart car requires the highest octane fuel, the amount of money spent per mile is actually more than the Fiesta. For proof, I input the gas prices into the Side-by-Side calculator at FuelEconomy.gov to get the following:
So even though the MPG on the sticker looks better on the Smart, when you crunch the numbers, the Fiesta actually comes out ahead in the $$$ department… which is really what matters in todays economy.
If you consider the fuel economy when looking to buy a car, I highly recommend checking out the FuelEconomy.gov website for comparison data before making a decision.
Ever since I was laid off from work at PwC last December, I have had to submit an unemployment claim every two weeks, and had to go to the unemployment office once a month to drop off a job search log showing the nine jobs that I have applied for over the previous month. While there, I also was to sign a waiver for an extension of my TAA/TRA benefits for the following month. Today, when I do my routine meeting with my new TAA coordinator (he was appointed to me last month), he looks at me surprised and says that he does not think that I qualify for any more waivers. Of course, I was pretty much like WTF???
It appeared that I was not supposed to be signing these waivers until my regular unemployment benefits ran out… and even when those run out, I have the option to apply for an extension to my regular unemployment benefits. Luckily, he was able to talk with the supervisor and find a possible alternative way for me to continue with the waivers. Hopefully, the unemployment folks up in Tallahassee approve of the change.
::crosses fingers::
On top of that mess, my coordinator tells me that I might get audited from the unemployment office because I do not have enough job applications for each month. Turns out, I am supposed to be submitting 5 applications a WEEK instead of 9 applications a MONTH… as I was informed when I first started this crap!! When I first started these jobs searches, I was given a form that had 9 spaces on it for me to fill out companies that I had submitted a job application to. My coordinator (at the time) told me that I need to bring the completed form back to her at the end of each month so that I can sign off on another extension waiver… no mention that I had to do anything more than what was on the form. By inadvertently having these waivers submitted each month, I have been effectively cutting short the amount of benefits I get from unemployment. … click HERE for more »
Well, it’s been about a week since I’ve had my new car, and I have been loving every minute of it!
I’m not sure when it all started, but for some reason I have been giving my cars names like one would do for a pet. For example, my 2002 Mini Cooper was named “Stitch” because he was blue and reminded me of the character and the Disney movie “Lilo & Stitch”; my VW GTI was dubbed “Edmund” (for the character in the TV show “Blackadder”); my Smart car was named “Gus” after a character in the TV show “Psych”; and now I am still trying to figure out a name for my new Ford Fiesta…
Just like with naming the pet, I don’t try to force a name on something. … click HERE for more »
It has been a while since I last wrote in my blog, but then again, not much is really happened in the past few months for me to blog about. Aside from a 1 1/2 week stint at Publix as a wedding cake decorator, I have remained for the most part unemployed. Furthermore, since we have used most of my severance from PwC to pay bills and other debts, I have started to entertain the idea of working in the IT support sector again. Probably one of the major reasons why I’ve even decided to go back into the IT world, much less even consider doing so, is because of what my friends and former PwC coworkers tell me what the world is like in a “real” IT shop. apparently it’s a much different world out there than what PwC had to offer us… and it is for the better.
Anyhow, that is pretty much the only major thing that has happened over the past six months up until a few days ago. Earlier this week, I received a phone call from my smart car dealership to see if I was interested in trading in my old car. The car that I had at the time was a 2008 “Smart fortwo Passion” in yellow. 2008 was the first year that the Smart car was offered in America… It was also the only year that yellow was offered. So out of curiosity, I decided to take them up on her offer and come down to see what they have him a lot and to possibly test drive one of the new 2011 Smart cars. … click HERE for more »
So, I put together a prototype/proof-of-concept of the outdoor lights. I uploaded the video to my YouTube channel to show you a bit more of what I did.
On July 29th, my employer, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), informed it’s US IT employee’s in Tampa that they would either no longer be employed or in the same role that they are in now. Of the 1,100 IT staff in the Tampa office, they said that they plan to cut approx. 500 jobs in favor of outsourcing/offshoring those positions. Unfortunately, that number seems to be closer to 800 people… including my team.
My team, known easiest by its short name “Platform Services”, was comprised of a small group of Unix and Windows system administrators. Our job, in a nutshell, was to build/maintain/manage the OS and hardware for ALL of the servers in the US IT infrastucture…. this number was well over 5,000 systems. Figure that the ratio of techs to servers was about 1:900. We are a very self-sufficient team that had always been a favorite in US IT for our expertise and willingness to help those in their time of need. The only time we would record anything near 40 hours a week on our timesheet was if we were out sick or on vacation for an entire week. Most of us had 60 – 80 hour weeks on a consistent basis due to the number of systems we managed. I think one of our guys went several months without a single weekend off because of this. … click HERE for more »
So… March 6th, Miranda and I were invited to an “Alice in Wonderland” Tea Party being held at a friend’s house along with going to see the Tim Burton movie in 3D at Channelside in downtown Tampa. I had been asked to use my imagination and come up with a cake for the party… and boy, did I ever! My first thought was to make a topsy-turvy whimsical tiered cake, but then I thought I’d try my hand at something a little harder… the Mad Hatter’s HAT!
I baked up three 9″ rounds and one 10″ round yellow cake… all 2″ tall… and filled between the layers with blueberries (the kind used in pies). I bought an electric carving knife to help sculpt out the hat shape and went to work on rolling out as much dark-chocolate fondant as my small counter space would allow.
… oh, I also whipped up @ 5 lbs. of vanilla buttercream icing to “hold” the cake together under the fondant.
One of our friends had a distaste for blueberries, so I made a small 6″ round cake with no filling for her. I did, however, flavor the icing with Creme de Menthe to accentuate the dark-chocolate fondant. Since I had my hands full with getting the hat sculpted, Miranda offered to decorate the small cake… which she did rather well for her first time at REALLY decorating a cake. She turned the small round into a pocket watch and even made some “pills” out of marzipan.
Here are a few pictures of the cake in progress and the results:
Now, the part of this story that SUCKS is that Miranda and I did not get the chance to eat any of our cakes, nor did we get to see the movie OR go to the Tea Party.
Thanks to closed garages, full pay lots, and full valet (due to hockey and some arts festival), we drove around for an hour without finding a place to park. Miranda called the theater manager and he refunded the $30 we spent on tickets AND sent us free passes to see the movie again another day. So instead of seeing the movie and attending the Tea Party afterwards, we dropped off the cake first… drove around downtown Tampa for @ an hour looking for parking… decided to leave because we already missed the first 20 minutes or more of the movie… went to Mimi’s Cafe to have a dinner and go home.
I think we’re going to go try seeing the movie again on the 21st… we’ll see how THAT goes.
