Once a Rat, Always a Rat

I talked to a colleague of mine today at center that helps pregnant women that I used to volunteer at. She told me the "rat" (pictured left, identity not hidden) has kind of royally screwed them over.

I got involved with this center a few years ago when they needed bilingual volunteers. They would simply come next door, where I worked for the rat, and get me when they needed someone to translate. The rat would let me go without saying anything about it so he keep up his good image. I could not stand working for the rat after a while because of his poor morals and corrupt business practices that I am sure are going to land him in boiling, hot water sooner or later. I didn't want to stick around to get stuck in anything I don't want to be a part of.

Anyway, fast forward three years. After a divorce, losing his house to his ex and grown children, his spot on various city committees, etc., one would think he would have thought, "Hummm, maybe I should not act like such a jerk so I don't lose things that are important in my life." Nah, he's still out trying to make a buck anyway he can.

His latest shenanigan is hurting a non-profit I care about. He rents space to the pregnancy center and recently raised their rent. He did this after they signed a 2-year agreement to stay in the building. The building is awful, too. It has a few parking spot that are taken up by the rat's employees, so the pregnant women have to park across the street and waddle across a very dangerous highway (that has no crosswalk or lights) that frequently has accidents. On top of this, maintenance is not provided. Okay, so this is the normal stuff that has gone on forever.

What gets to me is that now the rat is telling the center that they have to give up about 40% of their space because a massage therapist is going to rent that space from him. One would think: 40% less space=40% less in rent payment. The rent amount has not budged a bit. On top of this, the privacy of the center's clients is now compromised because the clients of the massage therapist will be accessing facilities that are supposed to be exclusively for use by the center's clients.

Needless to say, those involved with the center are about livid about this situation. I told my colleague to pack up and move anywhere else because I'm sure that anywhere they go there will be better parking, building maintenance, facilities, rent prices, and landlords.

How can people take advantage of non-profit charitable organizations and sleep at night? I guess you'd have to be a rat to do so.

Animals in Clothes

 













 I love to dress up animals. I know some people hate it and think it is stupid, but I think that it is stupid only sometimes.


 










I wish I had a pug baby and knew how to knit cat hats. CUTE!

Your Happy Pills May Not Work

Big health new scandal of the day: antidepressants could be just a trick of the mind unless you are severely depressed.

A study was done on selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, (which about 118 million Americans take now-a-day) and the story was published in the "Public Library of Science Medicine" journal. I think the story and/or the findings first came out in Australia, but am not 100% sure about that. MSNBC and ABC both have articles about this.

Basically, the researchers say that a lot of people who use antidepressants feel better simply because they think/believe the meds will make them feel better. They have faith in the pills they take--kind of like a placebo effect. The researchers also say to not just stop taking your meds because of this study: talk to your doctor first. Going off your meds all of a sudden can bring about some crazy withdrawal effects.

The placebo effect thing is something that is also argued about a lot in terms of homeopathic medicine: the little round sugary beads you let dissolve in your mouth simply make you think your are healing, therefore, you heal. I've used homeopathic medicine and can't say that they did or did not work--but I'm sure something happened. I'm big on natural remedies and have read that St. John's wort and L-theanine can have some positive effects on those who are feeling blue. I've never taken St. John's wort because it can counter act another medicine I use, but I have used L-theanine for stress relief and have found it to be very helpful. But that's just me--don't take my word for it.

Super Cool Project

I love to make things...especially if they are like things you can't find anywhere else or buy in stores.

I just made a bracelet that is really awesome looking that I need to get a pic of up on here, but I saw this project on TV today and now I have to do it: Glove Animals.

The project was shown on Martha Stewart's show on TV and it is a spin off of the sock monkey, but with gloves. The pic on the left is from Martha's site. This would make such a good present, especially now that gloves are on sale and cheap. On the show, they made a rabbit and a dog (I hope the PDF files load okay).

The woman who came up with this project, Miyako Kanamori, also has a book called Sock and Glove. I really want to check out this book and start making cute things!

Birthday Shopping

Well, I changed my settings on this blog and everything started showing in up in Hindi. This was pretty cool except for the fat that I can't read Hindi...maybe someday.

A very important birthday is coming up at the beginning of March. I've asked this person to give me a wish list and I still don't have one (hint, hint: if you're reading this). What do you get a a guy who is turning 26 and is very picky??? Any suggestions? He likes computer stuff, building models, movies, being lazy, and things that look evil (i.e. Foamy the Squirrel).

I Love This Show

My PBS station here shows British comedies on Saturday nights and I love to watch "My Family". I wonder how popular this is in the UK. My favorite characters are Nick and Ben Harper (father & son).

My favorite episode that had me rolling on the floor is one where there was a rat in the basement and Ben went after it and was screaming and stuff.

I have to wonder why Janey all of a sudden disappeared and then reappears now and then and was basically replaced with Abi. I don't think the shows are shown in order here, so things are a little confusing at times.

I want to get the DVD set of this show.

Oh...I really liked the new "Doctor Who" shows, too. The only ones I've seen are the ones where Christopher Eccleston (who is also on NBC's "Heros") is The Doctor. The latest shows have not aired here yet. I want to see the Doctor Who exhibit that was featured after one of the shows once. I wish I had one of those little tools The Doctor has called a Sonic Screwdriver.

Is it Friday Yet?

I am so tired and I don't know why. I even just had a three-day weekend, but it feels like I've been working for three weeks in a row. Geesh. Well, it's Friday somewhere.

The Great Backyard Bird Count

This weekend is The Great Backyard Bird Count across the continent! The Great Backyard Bird Count is led by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and National Audubon Society, with sponsorship from Wild Birds Unlimited.

The neat thing about this event is that anyone can participate in it and it is free. So what is this bird count thing? Basically, take at least 15 minutes of time between now and the 18th of February and stare into your backyard. Notice any birds you may see and record them on a tally sheet. After gathering your data, report it to the GBBC. Now you are a citizen-scientist!

The data you report will help bird scientists keep track of migration patterns, disease, bird populations, invasive species, etc.

In my neck of the woods, I see Canadian geese flying overhead, crows, blue jays, and little brown birds that jump around (??).

Look in your backyard and be a citizen-scientist today!

Strange Gifts

I love to get gifts! Valentine's Day made me think of all the strange gifts I have gotten.

Most recently, a little kid gave me some cheese as a gift. It was kind of weird, but cute. He told me he had gotten some Parmesan cheese, but it was a wedge, not grated. He had never seen this before and thought it was fantastic. He knew he was going to see me later on that day and brought me a chuck. This is one of the more strange and thoughtful gifts I have gotten. The cheese was good!


Another strange gift I got was a set of cheap chairs with a table. They were actually a really lame wedding gift. Needless to say, these items were exchanged for something we actually wanted that wasn't crap.

I don't know why so many chocolates are given on Valentine's Day. Frankly, chocolates should be given all year round.

Animal Hearts

Animals know how to love. Take a look:

St. Valentine was a Troublemaker

Cat, the missioner with youth in my area, sent me funny email. She is a funny girl. In an email, she wrote about St. Valentine: "What a punk.Being associated with New-Agey fertility festivals? Giving his blessing to non-state-sanctioned marriages? Didn’t he care about the unity of the Church?". I like her writing style;she cracks me up!

Interesting fact I learned #1: St. Valentine is not recognized as a saint by the Anglican community, but is recognized as a saint by the Catholic community.
Interesting fact(s) I learned #2: Tomorrow is also the feast day of Saints Cyril and Methodius (pictured to the left), both are recognized as saints in the Catholic and Anglican church. These guys invented the Glagolitic alphabet, which evolved into the alphabet we use today. They are the patron saints of Europe, so they must have been awesome & smart guys.

So, if you hate Valentine's Day, celebrate Saints Cyril and Methodius Day instead! Congratulate your friends and family for knowing how to read and write...partly thanks to these guys.

Here is an interesting picture from "Harper's Weekly". It was for their Valentine's issue on February 16, 1861, during the Civil War. The top has some geese, then people at the post office, I think. The middle image has a couple of girls reading a letter and it says, "In the Boudoir" under them. Then there is a cupid painting next to the two girls. At the bottom, there are two girls standing and reading with the caption "In the Kitchen". The last image is of a young man overloaded with cards that says "With a Postman". What are all the captions supposed to mean? Maybe all the places you can read your Valentine's Day mail?

Sweet Weekend

My weekend was pretty awesome...and it's still not over. I still have the laundry to do.

I ran 5k yesterday. The weather was prefect for running. Sunny and 50-degrees. I had originally planned to only run 2 miles, but gave in at the end. I might as well since I am thinking of doing the 10k run at Hagg Lake in May. I had NO pains at all during or after the run (I am sore today, though). The only body ache I had was from a couple of days ago from moving furniture around. My thigh muscles were achy...lift with the legs, not the back. Right?

Also yesterday was a George Fox University alumni pizza party. Kyle and I went there and met up with some of our friends. There were maybe 3 other people there that I knew.

I also started making my yummy dark chocolate cupcakes and let them cool overnight.









I went to church today and led youth group and there were all of these cool things to take home for free that my Latino amigos brought in to share at church. I got onions, jelly, and a couple of calendars that show the whole year. I was also given a t-shirt from Cat at the Diocese. The calendar is the coolest thing, though! I titled it: "Jesus in Outer
Space". Here's a picture of it:















When I got home, I finished up the cupcakes.










Scoop out a hole with a melon-baller. Save what you took out to plug the cupcake back up at the end.






Scoopy-scoop-scoop









Where are the cupcake guts?









Here they are!











Prep the filling.










Fill in the holes and plug them back up with what you scooped out.








Eat!




One definitely needs milk with this cupcake. It is super rich and sweet. Too sweet, I think, but still really YUMMY. I stored the cupcakes in a long tuperware type of thing, but placed them upside down so the filling doesn't ooze out the bottom. It doesn't say to do this in the recipe, but it just made sense to me to do this.

Dumb Business?

There is a bill attempting to be passed in Mississippi that would make it illegal for obese people to be served certain types of food (i.e. fast food) at restaurants.

Part of this bill reads:
"AN ACT TO PROHIBIT CERTAIN FOOD ESTABLISHMENTS FROM SERVING FOOD TO ANY PERSON WHO IS OBESE, BASED ON CRITERIA PRESCRIBED BY THE STATE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH; TO DIRECT THE DEPARTMENT TO PREPARE WRITTEN MATERIALS THAT DESCRIBE AND EXPLAIN THE CRITERIA FOR DETERMINING WHETHER A PERSON IS OBESE AND TO PROVIDE THOSE MATERIALS TO THE FOOD ESTABLISHMENTS; TO DIRECT THE DEPARTMENT TO MONITOR THE FOOD ESTABLISHMENTS FOR COMPLIANCE WITH THE PROVISIONS OF THIS ACT; AND FOR RELATED PURPOSES."

Hummm...we think the economy is bad now. If this law actually passes with the percentage of over-weight people being higher than that of healthy-weight people in this country, the economy is going to get even worse. I can't stop laughing because just thinking about this bill makes me crack up. It is so stupid.

You have to be a certain age to buy cigarettes and alcohol and then you would have to be a certain WEIGHT to buy food. What are they going to do? Weigh you at the register? Who would even think to write something up like this and think it is going to be made into a law?

I had heard about this craziness earlier on this week, but then saw this post. A lot of people think the way I do.

Don't take away my "Mickey-Dees"! I'll pay full price if I have to. Ha-ha-ha!

Smart Business?

A noticed a news story today that was kind of funny to me. Not funny-ha-ha, but funny-that's-kind-of-a-good-idea funny.

Shops in New York City are now accepting euros when people buy things. I guess this is good for tourists and for shop keepers who would keep the euros because of the current weak US dollar and profit from that transaction. Hum...from a business point of view, this is a good idea.

On the flip-side, how does it impact the US economy to accept foreign currency? I can't be helping it...I'm pretty sure. (Honestly, economics is not an area I know a ton about...but I know the basis.) A lot of shops in states that border Canada accept Canadian currency and some places accept pesos, too. I heard a story about a pizza place that was accepting pesos and some people were mad about it and the owner was accused of being unpatriotic.

A lot of countries have shops that accept foreign currency. In Costa Rica, there are many (souvenir) shops that have prices posted where the buyer can pay in colones (CR) or dollars (US). The price in dollars a lot of times is not equal to the price in colones (duh....gotta make an extra buck somewhere). Has this hurt the Costa Rican economy or helped? I've never really thought about it enough to know.

So if I'm working in a store in the US that accepts euros, can I ask my boss to pay me in euros? I'd want to make a buck too?

"Yes We Can" Barack Obama Video

I have not decided about who I want to vote for president. I think it's still too early to make a firm decision (for me). I am posting about Obama because of something I thought was interesting.

There is a new music video that everyone is crazy about by will.i.am call "Yes We Can". It features a gaggle of celebrities, but I don't know who 75% of them are. The song is okay and is made after the "Yes We Can" speech Obama did in New Hampshire. I posted the video at the bottom of this post along with video of the actual "Yes We Can" speech below it.

I like music and I like John Legend (who is featured in the video), but I thought the all the different people flashing on screen was really confusing. I guess I can't handle a lot of things at once. I had to re-watch...rather, re-listen to it so I could hear the message of the song. I think the makers of the video see Obama as the Martin Luther King, Jr. of our time, which is cool. I thought it was neat how the song was arranged using Obama's own voice along with the singers' voices.

The message is cool...it is time for a change.

Some Cool Stuff I Found Online!

I love good ideas and free things and I found some in the last couple of days.

Let me share:

Scherenschnittie: Paper cutting art
Cut stuff out that looks cool...basically. If you can handle yourself with scissors and/or a exact-o knife, you can do this!


















Free Paterns at Amy Butler DesignsMy favorites are the cat pillow, portfolio covers, and scarves.










A Steno Pad for My Thoughts: Cute downloads
I love this type of simple stuff...and it's stuff I can use.
Check out this business card:

Races

Now that I've twisted and injured my other ankle, I'm looking into races in my area.

One that sounds pretty fun is a 10k at Champoeg Park at the beginning of March, but that only gives me a few weeks to train AND get my ankle to heal. Pass.

So, the next best thing is a 10k race at Hagg Lake. Click the picture of the frog to get some more info. about that one. People can win pies at this race. Sounds good to me! This race is in early May, so it won't be too hot yet and I would have plenty of time to train as I am only running 5k for my long runs. I know....kind of pathetic.

In August is the 5k Crawfish Crawl in Tualatin. I hate any type of seafood or eating things that live in water, but this kind of sounds like fun (if it's not too hot). The only downside is that it is at 8:00 am. This is normal for racing, but not normal for me to wake up before 9 or 10 in the morning. The upside is that every entrant gets a technical t-shirt and a free Jamba Juice.


The tastiest race is in September: Pints to Pasta. This is a 10k where you run around somewhere in Portland and then eat a lot of spaghetti at the end. There will also be live entertainment.

Does it get more exciting than this?

So I went to the Newberg Saturday Market. It took about 10 minutes to get through the whole thing and was disappointed in the lack of diversity. About 1/3 of the stands were for handmade jewelry (all the same type), the other 1/3 were artists selling their work, and then the rest was just different stuff (soap, boxes, pillows, etc). Lame. It felt like I was looking at the same thing over and over again. The food was even blah: donuts from the local grocery store and cupcakes made from a box mix. All the little stands had things to try to draw in customers, like little chocolates. Now that I think of it, all the stands had the same chocolate...no variety. What is going on? There was only one special thing I saw: a silver necklace who had a charm that was molded after flowers (orchids and such that had a mold made from them and then silver was poured into the mold).

I guess I was hoping to see more unique and different things...more variety...than I did. I have been spoiled by the Saturday Market.

I never did get a chance to make ho-ho cupcakes, too. I realized I was missing a few ingredients and didn't care enough to go to the store again just for a couple of things. Hopefully I can make them this weekend.

Oh... but I did make manicotti that was so yummy and cheese-y. It made for a really good lunch today at work. You know how left-overs are sometimes better than the night you actually made the meal?

Snow Teaser

The snow teased us a lot this week.

I thought for sure that the snow would stick on Sunday night and we would all wake up to a snowy Monday. And then I thought that the next night, then the next... No such luck.

Why so gun-ho about snow? Well, it is a rare occurrence around here. The best part about it is getting all cozy in warm pajamas, eating pancakes or French toast, drinking hot chocolate, bake some cookies and watching the news. The news is the best on the first day it snows because it shows everyone freaking out and all of the cars in the area sliding around and running into things (see video below). (I know: funny for me, not the driver).

The snow is gross on the third day because of all the gravel and stuff the DOT has put all over the roads. The snow turns brown and gross and has hints of yellow, too, at times.

Is it too late for snow in the valley this year? Probably.

I hope to go to the Newberg Saturday Market tomorrow. Maybe I'll make some Ho-ho's if I remember. I'll let you know how it goes.