more quotables from the archives…
“It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up.”
Lowe’s is my new best friend…
See – that’s what you get for being raised in the sheltered midwest!
I went into my first Lowe’s today and I’ve got to say, I really see no reason to ever go back to Home Depot again! You see, I’ve always been stuck on Home Depot because that’s all we had up north and when I got here, I just never bothered to even consider the alternatives.
Well, today I’m certainly glad that I did because in twenty minutes, I managed to find the plexiglass for my panoramas that has been eluding me for weeks, a really cool tropical-style ceiling fan with palm frond blades that will fit perfectly in the prospective bedroom decorating plans, and even cat5 wall mounts so that I can wire the entire house for gigabit ethernet!
Now all I need is the actual house itself… 
the quotable heart
“Trouble is part of your life – if you don’t share it, you don’t give the person who loves you a chance to love you enough.”
how much is TOO MUCH?!
[Disclaimer: don’t read as far into this as your gossipy, little hearts want to – it’s not exactly time to take that step yet, at least as far as I know…]
So we were talking at work the other day and quite the interesting discussion topic came up – “How much should a man spend on his bride-to-be’s engagement / wedding ring?” Of course, the female opinions were all on one side of the table with the guys on the other – we heard everything from two months’ salary to “a couple grand, at the most” to one guy whose girlfriend had already set her heart on a $30,000 rock…
I guess I’m torn about this one and maybe I’ll have a slightly different opinion when I get closer to actually making such a decision, but from my perspective – as I’m just completing a two year effort to pay off five years’ worth of credit card debt and looking to soon sink that newfound income into the purchase of a house – is that it doesn’t make sense to enter into a marriage with someone and already have that kind of additional weight over one’s head. Now don’t get me wrong, she still deserves a nice ring and all, but when you’re talking about price tags that could also represent the down payment or closing costs on a new house, it kind of makes you stop and think – two months’ salary is a lot of cash!
LOL – we also decided that if following the “two months” rule, second and third jobs don’t count and you’re allowed to figure off of your net earnings instead of the gross…yes, have calculator, will geek out…
I read a couple of articles stating that some men…and women…agree that you can’t live in a ring, or drive a ring to the beach, or take summer vacations to the ring, and thus they had agreed together on a set amount to be spent that fit within their budget. While I think that this kind of takes away from the surprise of the whole moment if she already helped to pick the thing out, it might be easier than overspending and then getting in trouble later for putting the new family too deep into debt. And then again, I do believe that this same article can be quoted as saying that our “two months” should be comprised of the man’s and the woman’s monthly salaries combined and I just can’t see that one happening, so maybe that’s what you get for looking to the Internet for advice!
I want to hear some other opinions, especially if you’re somebody who’s already made this purchase! The only people who already had rings and would admit how much they cost were sure to throw in that their husbands had spent considerably more than two months’, so is this just one where us guys have to bite the bullet and commit to eating Ramen for a while or is there a little more leeway than what’s already been spelled out???
freezingly frustrated…
No matter what setting I change the dial inside the fridge to, I end up with a glass containing one large block of ice as opposed to the ice water that I’ve come to know and love in its liquid form.
It’s been fun, but more and more things that I once tolerated around here are starting to annoy – the teeny, tiny fridge, the “not necessarily leaking” air conditioner, the dryer that hums unless you stand there and hold enough pressure on the door to keep the seal. Between you and me, the end of this summer isn’t going to come fast enough!
weight loss update…
Just referencing back to previous posts and other bits of correspondence, here’s where we stand:
begin: 235
May 14th: 228
May 21st: 225
June 15th: 222
June 19th: 219
target: 185 (which equates to a Body Mass Index of about 25 – “desirable” for my height according to this)
A little over a third of the way there – woo hoo!!! Almost enough encouragement to actually want to hit the gym after work tomorrow… 
frogs and bears
a bit of comedic genius from the late Mitch Hedberg…
I like to talk about the differences between frogs and bears…
…like when there’s a frog around, I don’t have to hang my fucking sandwiches from a branch…
…the frog knows that they are for me!
He’d rather have a fly, because a fly zig-zags…and my sandwiches do not.
One comic whom I really didn’t even recognize until after that fateful news report…
for the music enthusiast
This Day in History…
1948 – Columbia Records publicly unveiled its new long-playing phonograph record in New York City, which turned at 33 1/3 revolutions per minute.