February 2009 - Posts
Let others know a little MORE about yourself, re-post this as a note, with your name
followed by "ology"...
FOODOLOGY*
What is your salad dressing of choice?
-Blue Cheese or Balsamic Vinaigrette.
What is your favorite sit-down restaurant?
-Anywhere I can get a good steak.
What food could you eat every day for two weeks and not get sick of?
-My chicken divan
What are your pizza toppings of choice?
-Hot banana peppers, bacon, pepperoni and green olives.
What is the most disgusting food you've ever tried?
-Chicken tendons
TECHNOLOGY*
How many televisions are in your house?
-1
What color cell phone do you have?
-Black
Do you own an iPod?
- Nope
Do you know what one is ?
- LOL...Of course.
BIOLOGY*
Are you right-handed or left-handed?
- Some of both, mostly right.
Have you ever had anything removed from your body?
-My offspring.
What is the last heavy item you lifted?
- I avoid such things
Have you ever been knocked unconscious?
- I can't remember. Wait. What was the question? Who are you? Um, no.
DUMBOLOGY*
If it were possible, would you want to know the day you were going to die?
- Absolutely not.
If you could change your name, what would you change it to?
-I like my name, as is.
Would you drink an entire bottle of hot sauce for $1000?
-No. I'm not motivated by money, and I'd like to be kind to my rectum.
How many pairs of flip flops do you own?
- I dunno. I think one or two.
Last time you had a run-in with the cops?
-Last time? I don't have run-ins with cops.
FAVORITOLOGY*
Season?
- Fall
Holiday?
- Thanksgiving or Christmas. Hard to choose.
Day of the week?
- Saturday night.
Month?
- October
CURRENTOLOGY*
Missing someone?
- Oh yeah.
Mood?
- I'm not moody.
What are you listening to?
- Washing Machine, by Kenmore.
Watching?
-My computer monitor as I type.
Worrying about?
-I don't participate in worry.
RANDOMOLOGY
What's the last movie you saw?
- 3 Days of the Condor, Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway.
Do you smile often?
- Yup. Lots.
Do you always answer your phone?
-For the most part, yeah.
Its four in the morning and you get a text message, who is it?
- People don't text me at 4AM.
If you could change your eye color what would it be?
- Are you kidding me? I have hazel eyes. Not applicable.
What flavor do you add to your drink at Sonic?
-I've never eaten at Sonic. I don't even really understand the question.
What's on your wish list for your birthday?
-Jewelry is always good. Earrings, I guess. Or maybe that iPod up there that I didn't have.
Can you do push ups?
-Of course. How many, is the real question.
Can you do a chin up?
-Never tried since, like, 4th grade. I have no idea.
Does the future make you more nervous or excited?
-I try not to live in the future. But I'd say excited, because I exercise a lot of proactive behaviors to influence my future.
Ever been in a car wreck?
-Yup. A rollover when I was 17. A fender bender in Seattle, and I got t-boned when I was about 21.
Do you have an accent?
-Doesn't everyone?
What is the last song to make you cry?
-Songs don't usually make me cry.
Name 3 things you bought yesterday?
-Nothing. Nothing. And nothing.
Current hate/dislike right now?
- Hating is bad. I dislike mushrooms.
Someone who changed your life?
- Jesus
How did you bring in the new year?
-Sleeping comfortably in my bed.
What song represents you?
-Haven't heard one yet that does.
Name three people who might complete this?
- No clue. But Mary Milleville would if I were to email it to her.
Would you go back in time if you were given the chance?
-Nope. I don't look back.
When did you last cry?
- Wednesday. Briefly.
Who was the last person you took a picture of?
- I don't remember.
Who is the last person you talked to?
- Caroline.
Who is the last person you hugged?
- Tristan.
Do you believe in staying close to your ex's?
- Nope
Are most of the friends in your life new or old?
- A mix of both.
Do you like pulpy orange juice?
- Either way. Pulp or no, I like both.
What is something your friends make fun of you for?
- Hmmm. My dislike of clowns. And my germophobia, mostly.
Have you ever ridden on an elephant?
- Can't say I've had the compelling need to, no.
What are you saving your money up for right now?
- I owe $3,000 to the federal government in taxes. Don't get me started.
When is the last time you ate peanut butter and jelly?
- Yesterday, in fact. And it was fabulous.
What song(s) do you want played at your funeral?
- Ehh...I don't care. I won't be there.
What is the most fun thing you did this week?
-Learned how to play Mint Car by The Cure on my guitar.
What is the worst/hardest thing you did this week?
- Wrote an essay for school. Still working on it, in fact.
What was the first thing you thought of when you woke up?
- I'm still tired.
I've done Gallup's StrengthFinder assessment twice. I can't believe how much insight I've gained into my own innate strengths as a result. I applied for a job yesterday (internal posting at my current employer) and I can know with confidence that it's a good match for me based on my results. Seriously.
Here's more information about my own results, and some background info on strengths.
Skills can be learned, and knowledge can be obtained. However, talent – the key to strength and peak performance –
must exist naturally within a person. A talent is a naturally recurring
pattern of thought, feeling, or behavior that can be productively
applied. They are spontaneous, top-of-mind, perhaps even subconscious,
reactions to situations. Talents are what one does well “without even
thinking about it.” They are innate, non-teachable.
Knowledge and skills, on the other
hand, are teachable and learnable. Knowledge may be purely factual
knowledge. Or it may be how you make sense of what you know –
your understanding. Skills are the capacity to perform the fundamental
steps of an activity. They may include the “how to’s” of a job. Both
knowledge and skills are critical to the development of strength, which
is the ability to provide consistent, near-perfect performance in a
given activity. The key to building a strength is to identify your
dominant themes of talent, then refine them with knowledge and skills.
The best in a role deliver the same outcomes, but use different
behaviors. Weakness-fixing prevents failure. Strengths-building leads
to success.
Here are my strengths:
Input--People
strong in the Input theme have a craving to know more. Often they like
to collect and archive all kinds of information.
Intellection--People
strong in the Intellection theme are characterized by their
intellectual activity. They are introspective and appreciate
intellectual discussions.
Learner--People
strong in the Learner theme have a great desire to learn and want to
continuously improve. In particular, the process of learning, rather
than the outcome, excites them.
Maximizer--People
strong in the Maximizer theme focus on strengths as a way to stimulate
personal and group excellence. They seek to transform something strong
into something superb.
Strategic--People
strong in the Strategic theme create alternative ways to proceed. Faced
with any given scenario, they can quickly spot the relevant patterns
and issues.
But I'm very agitated right now and so I can't sleep. I'm having one of those moments where I want to just scream at the top of my lungs until I pass out.
This video is too bloody hilarious. I think I may have wet my pants laughing the first time I saw it.
Oh....I'm writing a paper on offshoring, which is how I came across it in the first place.
Of drinking red wine while I write my papers for school. Well, I suppose I shouldn't say it's a habit, per se. That would imply I can't help myself. In any event, I guess I won't know if it's a good idea or not until my grades come back. Ha ha ha.
If I get an A, and I have a lot of papers in my courses, I'll have a master's degree and a bum liver. In all seriousness, I've found that listening to music and having a glass of wine gets my creative juices flowing. I stop at one glass. It would be a funny experiment to write an essay on 3 glasses, then post the result up here. Scary.
I went back to using my maiden name, Spear, today. I put in a request with our HR department and my email is being changed, as well as all of the other gazillion places it needs to be.
Hopefully it's not too confusing for people...
The kids and I are so very weary of apartment living. It's hard on the kids, sharing a room, and always having to get yelled at to watch their footsteps.
The kids have a good friend, and I'm also good friends with his mom, and a house three doors down just went up for sale today. I want it so bad I can taste it. I want to settle in and stop living a transitory lifestyle.
Here is a picture of the house. I'm going to call for an appointment to go view it. It's beautiful, in a great neighborhood. Funny thing is, the first time I went to her neighborhood, that house caught my eye. I wanted it immediately.
I ordered my books for my next grad school course, Social Dynamics of Communication Technology. From what I can tell it looks pretty good. The reading appears to be lighter than the theory course I'm finishing up now. I only have two weeks left in the course!
Here is my reading and viewing material for course two:
Media Unlimited: How the Torrent of Images and Sounds Overwhelms Our Lives
Computer Mediated Communication
Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology
Outfoxed - Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism (DVD)
Manufacturing Consent - Noam Chomsky and the Media (DVD)
Front news story today; a plane crash outside Buffalo. These little twin prop planes are the exact same ones I take when I fly back home to Buffalo. You have to walk out on the tarmac to board the plane--no jetway even.
Makes me want to pay the extra for a non-stop flight, on a larger plane. Yikes.
The crash actually happened in Clarence, which is a small suburb of Buffalo (about 26,000 people). I used to work in Williamsville for 4 years before I moved to Charlotte, aobut a mile from there. My good friend, Bob, lives there.
Crazy.
It's becoming absurd how hyper-sensitive, and in some cases, greedy, our society has become. Not sure which one is the deal with this woman.
Tonight Justin asked me, "Is it bad to have a silver tooth?" So I said, "Well, I don't know if it's good or bad, but you'd have to have your tooth pulled to have it replaced with a silver one, so that's not good."
Then he said, "It's already started. I can't wait to have a silver tooth."
And I said, "What? Why would you say that? What do you mean it's already started?"
So he came over with his mouth gaping wide, pointing to one of his teeth.
It's a filling he got a few years ago, which he doesn't remember getting at this point because he was too young to remember.
He thought his tooth was turning silver on its own, and the entire tooth would eventually be silver. Hee hee hee.
It's such a shame. I have such an awesome apartment, with the best 25' wrap around balcony, where I love to play my guitar on summer nights. However, I have a neighbor below me who is a night owl, and runs his TV and stereo through surround sound, so that I feel the pulsating bass through my floor. Argh!
If I weren't such a nice person, I'd go down there and tear him a new one. Instead, I'll just go to bed and fantasize about snuffing him with a pillow.
I listen to this radio station called The Ride on 95.7 FM. This morning's drive to take the kids to school was a delectable audio buffet of Fleetwood Mac (Dreams), Peter Gabriel (Games without Frontiers) and Stealers Wheel (Stuck in the Middle with You).
There's nothing like starting the day with great tunes.
Lately, I've been listening to Jason Mraz. My friend and co-worker, Rebecca, played one of his CD's when we went hiking in the mountains a couple of months back. He's very talented.
It's been a long while since I posted. Life has been busy!
I watched Fierce Creatures this past Saturday for movie night. It was hilarious. I laughed hysterically at one scene in particular, involving a sheep.
These days I've been busy with school, and I'm going to be moving into a new role at work, which is also a promotion. I'll post more details about it when it's finalized.
Well, I need to go chill for a bit.
Peace.