A little break.......

I'm off tomorrow to see some good friends and attend a wedding. Going to make a little vaca out of it! Should be fun! Talk to you when I get back!

So I am not a big beach volleyball fan, in fact I don't think that I have watched a beach volleyball match before this year.....

But I have to say I am really impressed with Kerri walsh and Misty May-Treanor.... They won the gold at the Olympics in Athens and since then have a record of 458-18 and are currently on a 107 win run.

They just won the semifinal round so they will play to defend their medal against a Chinese team for the gold!

You go girls!

The Olympics: Is it fair?

There is this big hoopla about Michael Phelps and his gold medals. And it has gotten me thinking....

Not to take anything from him, he really is an amazing athlete (swim, eat sleep... that is all he does, and he is supposed to ingest 8000 -10,000 calories a day! Can you imagine?!?!?), but this has me thinking.... 8 gold medals is quite an accomplishment but what about the athletes who compete in mutliple rounds all games long just to get one medal -- like volleyball, tennis, soccer..... Are they lesser athletes because they will never have the opportunity to win that many medals in a single Olympics?

Olympic Fever

I'll admit it.... I have Olympic fever....

The second ever black person, Cullen Jones, is on the Olympic swimming team this year. He learned to swim after he almost drowned at the bottom of a water slide when he was 5. He just won a gold medal as part of the World Record setting Men's 4x100 relay team.

Dara Torres has become the oldest person to win an Olympic medal at age 41

Why is the time that Bush has spent at the Olypmics ( 4 days total) the longest time he has spent in any country since he has been president......

I think it is interesting how instrumentals of popular hiphop songs have become the background music for the montages and feature stories during major sporting events -- I have heard Take a Bow by Rihanna, Superstar by Lupe Fiasco (a favorite -- it was also used heavily during the Superbowl) and Apologize by One Republic and Timbaland so far.

Gotta go.... more Olympics to watch!

Some of the best microwave-steamed vegetables ever!

I have been a big fan of the microwave steamed vegetables that they sell in the frozen food section and have been for a while. It is a quick and easy way to get something really close to fresh without having to worry about spoilage.

I have noticed that this segment has really taken off and there is more variety, especially since Bob Green tagged some as "Best Life" products.

The last time I was in the store, I noticed that Birds Eye had created another line extension of these vegetables called "Steam & Serve" that comes in a black oval serving dish. I decided to buy a couple varieties since they seemed a little different from what I normally buy. They are all medleys with a light sauce. The first one I tried was a variety called Beans with a Twist. It is a combination of green and yellow beans, carrots and cranberries (yes, cranberries) in an herbed butter sauce. Can I say that this medley is to die for! They have about 4 or 5 other varieties as well that are very good but this one is by far my favorite.

So, next time you are in the grocery store, think about picking one of these up!

Personally applied restriction

I am going through some financial challenges right now so in an effort to watch my budget, I decided to challenge myself to a little financial exercise this past weekend. --- Go all weekend without spending any money (except for gas.) And I did it, and without really any discomfort. I ate food I had at home. I actually went to a party that a friend had at her house and brought my contribution for the party from stuff I already had and didn't go to the grocery store.

It is easy to mindlessly spend money when you don't really need to --- a $1 here, $5 there --- and I just can't really afford to do that for now.

So, I am glad that I did it. It had taught me a bit about my spending habits.

My grand re-entrance delayed.....

So I had big plans to retroactively post all the blog posts that I have been saying for the past couple months but my plans were foiled temporarily a computer virus. But after consulting a number of personal technophile friends and then some experts, I had to go to the great folks at Bleepingcomputer.com for help. There they provide a great service free of charge which has really helped me twice already.

Not only are they a wealth of knowledge about everything having to do with your computer, they are a real helpful resources when your computer gets "sick" with something that typical antivirus/antispyware programs can't cure.

Basically, to start the process you have to post some logs to a forum and then one of their experts picks up your case and starts working with you. Now, the solutions and steps they have you go through are not for beginners and require a lot of back and forth, posting logs, running programs to get to a complete fix but it is a godsend. So I am back and blogging! Thanks to the folks at Bleepingcomputer.com!