1. I paid $400 for my first car, a 1980, red Buick Century. After working on it for over a year, it was “road-ready” (for the most part) and was dubbed by my friends, the “Bunzlmobile”.

2. I build computers for fun. May sound like work to others but I love buying components and assembling them into a working (and of course ridiculously high-powered) PC. In fact, I’m typing this blog using a “G-machine”.

3. I love hot food. Tacos must have hot sauce, Thai food must be at least 3 stars (5 being the hottest) and I put Frank’s Redhot or horseradish on almost everything. Jenn jokes that I’ve burned off all my taste buds. Oh, and I loooooooooove this stuff.

4. Not sure how weird this is…but Jenn’s commented on it. I tap my toothbrush on the sink after brushing to expel excess water, before putting it away. I do this because my dad did and the funny thing is, all our kids do it too. Watch out world…a new generation of toothbrush-tappers is on the way!!

5. I like to run the tank down to “E”. Jenn hates this. While I’ve heard this can be bad for the car, and often do this out of laziness, I have this idea that you actually get better mileage doing this. Makes sense since a lower tank weighs less right? While I’m sure the benefit is nomimal at best, I needed another weird thing to add.

6. I have a horrible phobia of bees, spiders and scorpions. I’m cringing just typing this.

7. I have a plastic, yellow chicken toy next to my work computer. This is part of a farmhouse toy set (Fisher Price I believe) that comes with several other farm animals. Doesn’t sound too strange in itself but it is actually a monument to Nick’s toddler-hood and learning to talk. When he was 2 or 3 we would ask him what it was, to which he replied “a quaw-quaw”. Then we would point the red “comb” on top of it’s head and ask what it was. His reply was “um….hai-wuh”, as in “hair” with a “w” instead of an “r”. Jenn and I thought this was so cute and were amused by it for many months.

Most of my friends aren’t bloggers so I will tag Jonspach and Tim.

Okay so the rules are…

Link to the person who tagged you, and post the rules on your blog.
Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself on your blog, we all want to know them.
Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Your results:
You are Venom

Click here to take the Supervillain Personality Quiz

Listening to the radio this morning I heard yet another occurrence of someone mispronouncing the word “February”. As is often the case, they had dropped the first “r” in favor of a “y”, resulting in “feb-yoo-er-ee”. In fact, I think this may be the more common pronunciation and I, myself, am guilty of this most of the time. Do to the prevalence of this mispronunciation and the fact that its just so much easier for lazy- tongued people like myself to make the “r” for “y” swap, I think someone should start a petition to have the “r” permanently removed from February. Now I know this can be a slippery slope. If we concede to our laziness too much, before long we’ll all be talking about the “noo-kyuh-ler” crisis the world is in. I have the utmost confidence that we can be responsible English speakers. Who’s with me on this?

There’s a lot of suspicion, as to GM’s motives with the way it gathered up and and destroyed all of these perfectly functional EV1s. Though many owners pleaded with GM to allow them to buy the cars outright, GM did not allow it. It was a very informative movie and I highly recommend that everyone see it. I remember reading articles in car magazines about electric car technology back in high school (around 1993-1994) and due to the current battery technology, batteries were too massive and heavy for electric cars to be feasable at the time. I seem to remember reading that the required technology was still a decade or more off and certainly had no idea that people were driving fully eletric cars just a few years later.

Anyway, the movie started me thinking about what my home state of Washington is doing to reduce or eliminate vehicle emissions. Apparently California has a new ZEV regulation that will require auto makers to sell a percentage of zero emissions vehicles, starting in 2009. Washington is one of ten states that have adopted this policy. Click here to read to the specifics.

Along the same lines, I also found an article about the state’s largest utility, Puget Sound Energy, and it’s recent initiatives for renewable energy. Apparently it just opened it’s second and largest wind-power facility, named “Wild Horse”. Combined with another, “Hopkins Ridge”, facility, enough power is generated for 125,000 households. The article goes on to say that PSE has plans to build a solar energy facility on the same Wild Horse site. If the project stays on schedule it should be producing electricity late this year and will nearly double Washington’s total solar-power generation. To read the full text of this article click here. I think wind and solar power generation are great technologies and I’m glad to see my state is begining to rely on them extensively.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_names_referring_to_El

Holiday Eating Tips

1. Avoid carrot sticks. Anyone who puts carrots on a holiday buffet table knows nothing of the Christmas spirit. In fact, if you see carrots, leave immediately. Go next door, where they’re serving rum balls.

2. Drink as much eggnog as you can. And quickly. Like fine single-malt scotch, it’s rare. In fact, it’s even rarer than single-malt scotch. You can’t find it any other time of year but now. So drink up! Who cares that it has 10,000 calories in every sip? It’s not as if you’re going to turn into an eggnog-alcoholic or something. It’s a treat. Enjoy it. Have one for me. Have two. It’s later than you think. It’s Christmas!

3. If something comes with gravy, use it. That’s the whole point of gravy. Gravy does not stand alone. Pour it on. Make a volcano out of your mashed potatoes. Fill it with gravy. Eat the volcano. Repeat.

4. As for mashed potatoes, always ask if they’re made with skim milk or whole milk. If it’s skim, pass. Why bother? It’s like buying a sports car with an automatic transmission.

5. Do not have a snack before going to a party in an effort to control your eating. The whole point of going to a Christmas party is to eat other people’s food for free. Lots of it. Hello?

6. Under no circumstances should you exercise between now and New Year’s. You can do that in January when you have nothing else to do. This is the time for long naps, which you’ll need after circling the buffet table while carrying a 10-pound plate of food and that vat of eggnog.

7. If you come across something really good at a buffet table, like frosted Christmas cookies in the shape and size of Santa, position yourself near them and don’t budge. Have as many as you can before becoming the center of attention. They’re like a beautiful pair of shoes. If you leave them behind, you’re never going to see them again.

8. Same for pies. Apple. Pumpkin. Mincemeat. Have a slice of each. Or if you don’t like mincemeat, have two apples and one pumpkin. Always have three. When else do you get to have more than one dessert? Labor Day?

9. Did someone mention fruitcake? Granted, it’s loaded with the mandatory celebratory calories, but avoid it at all cost. I mean, have some standards.

10. One final tip: If you don’t feel terrible when you leave the party or get up from the table, you haven’t been paying attention. Reread tips; start over, but hurry, January is just around the corner.

You can see an entire list of last years top 50 givers here: http://www.businessweek.com/pdfs/2005/0548_philsco.pdf

In a related topic, one of my favorite people (musically and humanitarian-wise), Bono, is involved in a new project that just rolled out called Project (Red). He has worked tirelessy and been a long time advocate for various causes and relief efforts in Africa. This latest one aims at paying for needed Aids medications by consumer spending. Partners include The Gap, Motorola and Apple. So now giving can truly be a stylish effort! Anyway, I applaud the effort of these and other people who don’t just sit on their piles of money (and time) and are giving when its needed…right now.

Having a ridiculously large 4100 square foot, 2-story house, it took most off the day. I borrowed my neighbor’s extension latter (must be about a 60 footer) to tackle the job. With having to reposition it several times, I quickly realized I had to get on the roof or I wouldn’t be able to finish. This was my first time on this roof and I was somewhat uncomfortable. The height was not a problem it was that I had to sit on the edge of the roof (without any harness or rope) and go along with a handshovel and hose and clean a surprising amount of moss, branches and various other debris out of the gutter. I kept thinking to myself, at any moment I could start to slide and could do nothing but fall. Considering the upper gutter goes all the way around the house, I had around 160 lineal feet to cover. Like I said, considering it’s only been about 3.5 years and there are very few trees of significant height near our house, I was surprised how much debris there was, and 2 of the downspouts were completely clogged. While I was up there, I happened to notice that there were several anchors, intended for attaching a harness to. For the past few years, we’ve been wanting to put Christmas lights on our upper gutters but I was paranoid to get up there in the cold, sometimes icy conditions. I’m thinking this year, it may not be a big deal, I will however, be sure to pick up a harness for that task.

Anyway, until next time, Happy Almost Autumn!!!!

P.S While I regretfully haven’t yet caught a Hawks game, I am thrilled at their 2-0 start!