Blog Update

To make some things easier from an organizational standpoint, I'm moving my blog. I created this blog when I still used hotmail, so I log in using my hotmail sign on. Since then I've changed to gmail for my email and use that to post comments on other people's blogs. So it's a little annoying using hotmail to get into my own blog, but gmail for my email and posting on people's blogs.

I tried changing my blog's sign on address to the gmail one, but blogger (a Google product) would not let me use my gmail address (also a Google product) as the sign on. Silly and very irritating, I know. But, to make things easier on me, I'm changing my address. So, here it is:

http://overcookedsushi.blogspot.com/

Words to live by

Never trust a fat doctor.
Never trust a skinny chef.

Never trust a preacher who wears a Rolex.
Never trust an investment broker who doesn't.

Never trust a public school teacher with a child in private school.

Never take a job if the boss calls back too soon.
Never take a job if the boss takes forever to call back.

Eat at places you've never heard of. As long as the street is well lit.

Read a book outside your normal genre.

Watch a chick flick once in a while.
Watch a guy movie once in a while.

Look a gift horse in the mouth.

Accept invitations that take you out of your comfort zone.

Watch something foreign (British counts).
Speak in a foreign accent around your friends (British still counts).

Ask a friend for advice on music and take it.

Wave to a child.
Wave to an older adult.

Get into contact with that friend you've been thinking about.




And just as a PS, Will said his first prayer today. After they blessed the sacrament at church, he kept his arms folded and his head bowed and was talking. I recognized his word for "Simba" from the Lion King, followed by "men", his way of saying amen. So his first prayer involved Simba. That's okay with me.

Memoriam: Michael Crichton

Author Michael Crichton died November 4th at the age of 66. I guess with the election this went pretty unreported.

Michael Crichton had been one of my favorite authors growing up. When people would ask me what I liked I would usually say, "Well, there's Michael Crichton..."

My first introduction to his books came in high school when my English teacher, the wonderful Sara Crump, assigned Jurassic Park to us. From then on I was hooked.

It's unfortunate he went so early. Who knows what he would have come up with given another twenty years of writing.

We now return you to our regularly scheduled commercial

Now that the election is over, all the political ads go away and we can get to commercialism as usual. And if you work nights like me, you get back to the lawyer/technical school commercials. Here's a few examples of my favorites (just pictures, not video, sadly):

Yes, if you're at home during the day, you must not have a job. Hey, the market's rough. That high school diploma just isn't going as far as you thought it would. What do you need? Training! And you know what, for $80,000 we can give you hands-on training. That's right! You actually get to touch the stuff you'll one day be working on. And once you finish your program you can go get a job earning minimum wage. That way you'll have the motivation to keep working forever!

And then we have the lawyers. These guys are Brown and Crouppen. Maybe you're at home because you were hurt. Maybe you got hurt somewhere, like at work. If so, we can sue the heck out of them and then you won't need to work again. Except with steep legal fees, you won't have any money. Then you'll need to go to ITT to get hands-on training. If you have a hand. If you lost your hand, then you can get hand-on training. Or foot-on, or something. Whatever.

I guess the thing these two industries have in common is they get a lot of money. From you. In the case of the technical schools, you don't even have to succeed. Just as long as you pay your bills. With the lawyers, well, sometimes they won't charge you if you lose. But if they win, you better hope they win big just to cover the legal fees.

So, hooray, end of political ad season. I'll see you in 12-18 months!

I can't be too disappointed

I can't be too awfully disappointed about the election. Sure, my guy didn't win, but McCain only became my guy after about four guys in front of him lost. So, there you are. But now that the election is (probably) over, I'll voice the reasons I'm glad McCain didn't win.

• He thought 'No Child Left Behind' was a good idea. Any teacher I've talked to (correct me if you disagree) says that program doesn't work. You focus more on standardized tests than on actual learning and punish schools with low schools. So all the education gets focused on passing one test at the end of the year instead of learning how to think, or you force states to lower testing standards. You allow no flexibility for the needs of the community. I think education decisions should be left to the state so they can decide what's best for them.
• He came up with the immigration reform that failed. I'm glad it failed because it created a guest-worker program (aka, you come do our crap work and we send you home without so much as a thank you when you're done) without trying to secure the border first. He also agreed with amnesty, which is to allow illegal aliens to become citizens. I think there are a lot of people trying to enter our country from Mexico legally. Why should we reward the rule-breakers?
• Tax hikes for businesses is a bad idea. The trickle-down theory works both ways. If you raise taxes on someone's employer, they'll either cut pay, cut benefits, or cut jobs. But I also hate seeing a lot of our jobs going overseas while Detroit and Ohio die. Instead, you should offer a tax cut to businesses that keep a certain percent of jobs in the US, while increasing taxes on those that don't. Motivation can be a good thing.
• I am a conservative with some moderate tendencies. McCain was never a conservative, no matter what he said.
• I think McCain would have been a weak president. I don't think he would stand up to his opponents. I think he would have been great on defense, but I don't think he had enough expertise or interest on domestic issues. Though I still liked his positions more than Obama's.

All of that said, Barack Obama will be our next president. And I will endure. I think the Republicans will keep enough votes in the Senate to protect checks and balances. I don't think Obama is evil, I merely disagree with his political philosophies.

And I will join the throng of Americans counting down Bush's time in office.

Happy Halloween

Well, we made it again to my favorite holiday. And where am I? Work :(

But that's okay. When we started down this path of putting Emily through nursing school and getting out of debt, I knew it would be tough. I work five nights a week, including Saturday and Sunday. I miss most holidays, but it's worth the payoff. Within three years we'll be completely out of debt and able to choose our paths in life. We will start the traveling nurse program in 2010 and I can start taking online classes. By the time we settle two years after that I'll have the time and money to finish school and become a teacher. That will give me weekends, nights, and holidays off. I'll be able to spend time with my friends and family and I'll be able to devote more time to writing.

On the writing front, I'm over 10,000 words into my novel. Things are going well and I think I'm getting better at character development. The thing about being a "cyborg" writer is that, though I know where the story starts and ends, I end up coming up with a lot of neat side developments, too.

It seems our toilet is leaking from the water valve, not the drain. So that means the water leaking is just fresh water, and not toilet water. This may not seem like a big deal, but the quality of water dripping on you can make a big difference in the ick department. I went to Home Depot and actually was helped by someone intelligent. He said I should replace the one line going into the tank first before trying to replace the copper lines. If the water line higher up is leaking, it'll make everything else look wet too. And since we have water in the bathroom, maybe he's right. It wouldn't seem likely that several valves started leaking all at once. But we'll see. If it turns out that the copper lines are leaking I'll have to get help because I'm not smart enough to fix that.

Okay everyone, have fun this Halloween. Eat lots of candy and don't worry about the consequences because Halloween only comes one time of year. You have four weeks until Thanksgiving to work off the calories ;)

You're smarter than people think

Election day is only six days for now. If you live in a swing state (like me) then you may have noticed that most commercials are for some sort of campaign. Ooh, boy. It seems that there are still a whole bunch of people who are undecided in this election. This seems funny to me because you have two very different candidates with two very different world views. But, unlike everyone else, I'm not going to tell you who to vote for.

I've seen celebrities out there trying to tell you that you should vote for their guy. I guess they think they're smarter than you and you should believe them.

There are commercials I've seen out there where candidates slam each other and one local election where the candidate is outright lying about her opponent.

One candidate will be on TV tonight spending half an hour telling you why you should vote for him.

You know what? These ads don't really matter. You basically have two kinds. The first is the "Look how great I am, vote for me", the other is the "Look at what a scumbag my opponent is, vote for me".

If you really want to know how the candidates stand, you need to do your own research. And you can probably do it pretty easily. In fact, I'm going to help you out.

Johnmccain.com is John McCain's official website.
Barackobama.com is Barack Obama's official website.
Factcheck.org is a site you can check what the candidates say compared to their record.
USAtoday.com has a neat game that asks you questions on issues and will match you to either Obama or McCain.

So if you're still debating who to vote for, you have six days to decide. Don't let people tell you they're smarter and you should do what they say. It's your vote and you have the right to exercise it.