Monday musings:

• Ashley gets cool points for being the best wife ever. She watched Wayne's World with me this weekend. Great movie. Sure, she recognized half the quotes that are in my regular lexicon, but hey -- you gots to remember your roots. I suppose I owe her a night with a chick flick now.
• I am waiting for the Wierd Al parody of the "My Humps" song. Seriously.
• So I went in to ACE hardware this weekend and it is a brand new one. Well, I was just walkign around, and in liek every aisle, they kept askign me if I needed anything. Well, after about th e10th time, I started making up items. And every time they asked again, I got more absurd. For those Back to the Future geeks, out there, I think Martin is still looking for a Flux Capacitor in the electronics aisle.
• I love technology. But not as much as you, you see. Always and forever.
• If you ladies are looking for a way to turn heads: http://www.ebaumsworld.com/videos/headturning.html
• I love spring
• In the last three weeks of crazy events, I have decided to really focus on three parts of my life. The first is my health. Nothing like two parents with heart conditions to scare you into eating better and staying in shape. The second is Asher, sinc eshe' scool like that. The third is my fingers. Looks liek I'm going to have a few projects coming up and I'd really liek to keep my fingers intact.
• No market news this week. Just the price of oil. Bummer.
• My milkshake brings ALL the boys to the yard.

I'm out.

I need to go to drug rehab.

I'm convinced that Easter candy is laced with crack. If it's not, why do I keep eating so much?

I polished off half a bag (maybe more?) of Starburst jellybeans in two days.

This afternoon I went to Shopko to pick up T.P. and shower cleaner. I walked out with another bag of Starburst beans, two packages of Peeps (pink and blue), five snack packs of Cadbury Mini Eggs (for portion control), and one bag of Brachs marshmallow bunnies and chicks.

I do this every year. Every spring, I think, "Ashley, you're going to be strong this time. You're not going to get within 10 yards of an aisle of Easter candy." Then the pretty colors, textures, shapes, and once-a-year tastes lure me in, and I cave. I'm already planning a trip to get speckled crunchy M&M's, Cadbury cream eggs and robin's eggs.

Easter candy is my favorite candy in the whole wide world. The Easter after Andy and I got engaged, Mama Washburn made me a pink Easter basket and filled it with my favorite treats. She told me I didn't have to share with her son. It was the beginning of a beautiful relationship. ;)

Gah, I have to stop. I'm on a mission to lose a few pounds because I'm becoming an obeast (obese+beast=obeast), and eating my weight in Easter candy isn't helping.

See? I really need a 12-step program.

I don't think I need to explain the rare wonderfulness of a snow day at the university. Thanks to the interstate shutting down and the kiddies not being able to drive back to Lincoln from their spring break destinations, we got another one today!

This is how yesterday went:
Read, nap, play with cat, eat a handful of Starburst jellybeans, read, talk on phone with Lindsey, read, eat jellybeans, watch Cheerleader Nation on Lifetime and eat pretzels, play with cat, eat gross leftovers, read BH&G, cat, jellybeans, shower. I hadn't felt that relaxed (and lazy!) in years, probably.

This is how today has went:
Breakfast, check work e-mail and realize my boss dropped the ball on an important project (and she's out of town for two weeks), get angry, send e-mails to mend feelings and rectify the situation, calm down, eat jellybeans, read, eat pizza, check e-mail again and realize my boss forgot several other important details before she left, send more apologetic e-mails, realize that I've become my boss's bitch (i.e., the one who does 85% of the work), watch cat cough up sock fuzz and dried funeral flowers. Don't ask. Damn cat.

I'm signing out now; it's time for more jellybeans and Cheerleader Nation.

Monday Musings:

I love my job in academia. I get snow days, just liek the kiddies, and I just saw that LPS will stay closed tomorrow which means tomorrow is optional for me. Guess who's staying hoem to watch Dawson's Creek and Saved by the Bell again!!!

Sorry for all the typos, but my back is killign me and I don't want to sit here to edit.

So what's on my mind these days? Well....

Hoping that UNL cancels classes tomorrw for two reasons. First, Asher won;t have to go to work either. And second, how much would it suck to have a snow day from work and then still have to go to class at 3:30. I know, right. Plus, if I don;t have to go to class, I may round up Cole and another and maybe start digging out Grandpa Dale -- if for no other reason to see how kick-ass his snowblower really is.

So my momma goes in for a big surgery on Thursday. A heart-cathaterization ink test for of thing for you medical types on here. BAsically, they shoot her veins full of ink and see what's blocled and where. From there, it coudl be this wicked cool angioplaity thingy with a baloon that blows open the clog, or it could be open heart surgery and a bypass on the spot. Crazy stuff. THough, old bag for my family (at least on my dad's side). Hopefully, things will all go OK and she's use this as a wake up call to make some lifestyle changes and whatnot so she can have many many happy years of enjoying grandbabies.

No -- Ash is not pregnant.

I really dig my boss. As much ass-kissing as this sounds like, I like his weather policy, I liek that he let us basically take a three hour lunch last week to watch the NCAA opening round. I liek that I get Fridays off in the summer. I like that he has no problem with employees going to baseball games in the mid-afternoon. But his whole philosophy is great. Give people time off to do the things they love, and they will work their ass off when they are in the building. I knwo I do.

I like how the domestic retial markets are coming back. Especially bood old Buckle (BKE) which has jumped 18% in 6 months. Tech is just too risky until Apple and Google start to level out, and oil -- no thanks.

My wife is addicted to some Cheerleader reality show. Sad.

I am becomming more convinced every day that I should quit my day job and open up a business that will help young people with their finances. So many people just out of school are screwed. That's not counting you doctor and pharmacy types that will be able to pay off their student loans after like a week of work and then by a mega house the second week. (I know its really not THAT great).

I smell like snowblower gas.

Ok -- back hurting. Bye.

It's hard for me to adapt to this blustery, snowy weather when I was just at the beach a mere 4 days ago. This past week I went to Texas with Cassondra, my roommate, and her cousins. It was a wonderful time of relaxation, attempts at tanning, and eating too much good food.

The area that we stayed in for the greater part of the week was near Orange, TX, which is about 12 miles west of the Texas/Lousiana border. The weather ranged from 75 to 87 degrees. Each night we'd sit outside on the back porch and it felt just like summer. Texas also had a lot of nightlife options. Every club down there is 19 and over so Cassondra and I could go have fun with her 24/25 year old cousins. Overall it was a great time and I'd love to show pictures to anyone who would like to see them!

Lastly, I have to thank my lucky stars though because a lot of the area we stayed at was still cleaning up from Hurricane Rita. Many people still don't have roofs (just bright blue tarps), many trees are still down, and people are still working on getting their lives together. It was just cool to see this all up front instead of just on CNN. But no matter how devistated their property is, everyone still has a great attitude and just deals with what they have.

So that's the overview of my Spring Break 2006! A lot of fun, food, and relaxation was just what I needed!

I'm giving Julie some serious Princess Points.

Why? Because thanks to her, I figured out that O.A.R. sings that kickass Love and Memories song. I am so hooked and can't wait to discover more.

Nebraska weather is crazy in early March. It was 60 degrees yesterday, we had thunder/lightning/hail/rain/snow this morning, and it's supposed to snow tomorrow.

The weather reminded me of one memorable birthday celebration with Grandpa Meyer. We went up to Grandpa and Grandma's house to have supper and open presents. About as soon as Grandma put away the last sliver of angel food cake, a huge, nasty thunderstorm rolled through. There were tornado warnings in the surrounding counties, and I was secretly hoping some of the excitement would come our direction (not because I wanted the house to blow down, but because I'm a screwball who loves bad weather simply because it's interesting).

The storm was powerful enough to knock out the power. Cole, Hayley and I were shrieking in the basement, so Dad came down with his flashlight and led us back upstairs. Lindsey was really little -- maybe 2? -- and she wouldn't stop crying because the thunder was scaring her. We all huddled in the living room and waited for the power to come back on. And waited. And waited some more.

Finally, Grandpa announced that he was opening his presents, electricity be damned. I can still picture him holding a flashlight in one hand and polishing off half a package of Peeps with the other. :)

It snowed the next day. (Happy birthday, Grandpa -- even if I am one day early.)

Early Monday Musings, since I'll be way slammed at work tomorrow (but that's OK).

- Still feeling good for winning my speedign ticket case. I didn't get off on a technicality, I got off on the officer's incompetance.

- This week has been an intense time of reflection. I consider myself very lucky to have such a wonderful wife, brother-in-law, and pair of sister-in-laws. Not that I don't already know you well already, but some of the conversations I had with a few of you this week were actually meaningful and had some depth to them. Good stuff.

- I really like Pastor Ed more each day.

- I now know what a Kaddish is.

- If you are bored and with an uber-high speed internet connection, check out my latest video-editing job from an event a few weeks back. I'll have another one up this week. http://www.huskeralum.com/events/redgala/video.htm IF this is too big, check out the low res link on the page. I'll be waiting for my academy award.

- Cole. No pressure, but hang on to that gal of yours. To be able to handle Uncle Jeff, Uncle Joe and the relatives in a fairly emotional time is not somethign you will find too often.

- Cole. We were sitting with some friends the other night debating on whether or not to call you up and see if the hot tub was occupiable. We may still do so some time before spring gets here. Be ready.

- Current students, after some of my other activities this week not family/funeral-related, remind me to give you all a personal finance lesson after you gaduate. There's some relatively simple stuff out there that I think you all know, but I want to be sure so you are not in the same spot as some other folks out there.

- I don't type very well.

- It's about time for me to get a new cell phone. This one is so old, Zac Morris could have used it to call Kelly or Screech at the Max.

- Don't you love how college has its spurts. Two tests and a paper all due in the same week, and then nothing for like 5 weeks. Then it all happens again. What the hell? Just Karma I guess.

Test Yourself!

http://members.iinet.net.au/~pontipak/redsquare.html

Supposedly airforce pilots can keep this up for 2 mins or more. It's very addicting :D

Bringing you some kitten cheer.

Our neighbor cat Carrot came onto the deck to invite Blue out to play.

Linzo, will you show this to Dad?

Update:

Well, I fought the law, and the law can kiss my ass. Yup, the ticket got dropped. I got to do the whole bit: opening statement, cross examination of the officer, everything. The officer admitted that it is possible he pulled the wrong vehicle over and made errors on my traffic stop. Whee.

So, I am trying to reach the Isreali-Canadian professor. Dude does not check his voice mail or e-mail. I have test scheduled for Thursday night, but would much rather be with family that evening.