* July 31, 2012 *

What a long day yesterday, especially for Pete who only got 3 hours sleep & then instead of being able to come home earlier than usual & get to bed early, worked until 1:a, didn't get home until 1:30a, then we ate, watched only a few minutes of TV before we started nodding off on the sofa, & got to bed at 3:a. This is also why I slept through an unauthorized burn FD call this morning darn it! I'm still #2 in call volume & overall participation, but I really don't like missing calls. I joined the department to help them & our community, not sleep through it! Anyway, while I was waiting for Pete to get home I completed 2 more panels on the afghan & could have done a 3rd, but I had no idea Pete was coming home THAT late. I got to speak to Eve on the phone & it was great to hear from her! Yeah, I know, it had only been less than 24 hours. I do NOT have separation anxiety! OK, maybe I do. Shut up. It was great to hear her voice & I miss her. There isn't good reception where she is in Conway, so she was really fuzzy & hard to understand a lot of the time. If she called from the house phone that would be better, but I don't know what kind of long distance plan they have or how many minutes & I don't want to run their phone bill through the roof. She's having a great time so far & told me how much she liked Cracker Barrel (we've never been there). She's not the 1st one to tell me the place is good, so I've added it into my list of restaurants for when we have dinner out (which is extremely rare). Lunch out is more common with us due to our hours & other factors & lunch is usually at fast food places. Registration for school is tomorrow here, so I hope she gets to the university or college out there FAST so she can get enrolled for this semester. Even if she doesn't know what she wants to do yet, getting enrolled & taking the general classes will get her started towards anything she decides to do later. That's what I did, I signed up for the basic classes while I decided what looked interesting. I ended up deciding on psychology because it was VERY interesting (to me). Of course I found out the hard way that working full time, & trying to go to college full time was stupid. I was paying for college myself & it was $600 for the semester plus all the books & materials. What I SHOULD have done was knock both the job & the college credits to part time. Knock my hours back to 20 hours a week & the credits down to 6 & I would have been just fine, but NO. I had to have it all right now. Guess what? Work was 50+ hours a week & college was full time which included more homework than I've ever seen. It wasn't like high school. This was insane homework. Like ... read half the damn book & write a 100 page thesis by TOMORROW (per class!). OK, it wasn't THAT bad, but it sure seemed like it. Especially when you're in class / working for a total of 17 hours per day & then have homework & then realize ... uhhh ... wait. I need to SLEEP! When?! It didn't work out. Something had to give & rather than do the smart thing & cut back on both, I cut college OUT. I never went back & tried again because I decided to stick with working. Not one of my brightest moves. I should have chosen college. I was chasing the money & didn't think far enough ahead to realize that less money now to go to college equals more money later after I graduate. I mean, I knew that ... but I've always been impatient & wanted as much money now as I could get my hot little hands on, so I worked & worked & worked. I also liked my job & the people I worked with & didn't know ANYONE at the college, so that swayed my decision also. Hopefully Eve will make smarter choices than I did. :) Anyway ... good luck today Eve! Check out the college, go job hunting, & check out the university today. Keep me posted! Kyle is doing great & is working 2 different jobs. He worked at one of them this morning, is home now for a little bit, then goes to work for the other this afternoon. He's a hard working young man! Not bad for 16. Reminds me of me. :) My 1st job was at 16. I worked at an Amoco station in Nanuet on the weekends & loved it. It was cash off the books & earned me just enough money for fuel for my dirt bike & lunch during the week. Being it was a gas station, fuel was free though. Yes, my boss knew & was OK with it. I never stole any. He said it was a little dirt bike & didn't take enough fuel to care about. I remember riding that dirt bike around & around that building until a car came in & I had to go back to work. That was fun! We didn't have many customers there because the price per gallon was much higher than any of the other stations at that intersection, but the ones we did have were either motorcycles or show-ready muscle cars. SWEET! A job with a view!! Dad's birthday Friday!

4 Ingredients:

Featured in Apple's 'Apps for Foodies - Apps for Cooks' promotion! Kim has appeared on TV & Radio, including A Current Affair, 2GB, That’s Life Magazine, Today Tonight, The Morning Show and The Today Show (MSNBC).
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* Links to 4 Ingredients Twitter, Facebook and YouTube pages
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A bandanna in your pocket of tied around your neck makes for a handy towel, hair covering, flag ... you name it.

Butter plate is placed to the left of the place setting, above the forks. Lay the butter knife diagonally across it.

Fuliginous:

1a: Sooty. b: Obscure, murky. 2: Having a dark or dusky color.

Julia peered into the fuliginous darkness of the barroom, but she could not locate her companions.

"Fuliginous" is a word with a dark & dirty past - it derives from fuligo, the Latin word for "soot." In an early sense (now obsolete), "fuliginous" was used to describe noxious bodily bapors once thought to be produced by organic process. The "sooty" sense, which English-speakers have been using since the early 1620s, can be used to describe everything from dense fogs & malevolent clouds to overworked chimney sweeps. "Fuliginous" can also refer to something dark or dusky, as in Henry James's novel The Ambassadors, in which the character Waymarsh is described as having "dark fuliginous eyes."

Herbie Rides Again:

Herbie the Love Bug's new owner, strong-willed Mrs. Steinmetz (Helen Hayes), rejects developer Alonzo Hawk's (Keenan Wynn) offer to buy her home. Lawyer Willoughby Whitfield (Ken Berry) steps in to help his uncle Alonzo, but ends up siding with Steinmetz after falling for her niece (Stefanie Powers). Ruthless Alonzo will stop at nothing to get what he wants, until Herbie enlists the help of every Volkswagen around to foil the developer's plans.

If you have an item someone wants, make sure they understand you want to sell it but that you'll keep the item if you don't get a fair price. Make up your mind what you'll take for a particular item before any negotiations take place.

Make it a habit to check your receipts before leaving stores. Check to make sure prices are correct, sale items were rung up at the discounted price, & you were not charged for items that you didn't purchase.

Nolan Ryan wins 300th game (1990):

On July 31, 1990, Nolan Ryan wins the 300th game of his career, throwing 7 2/3 strong innings with eight strikeouts to lead his Texas Rangers to an 11-3 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers.

Lynn Nolan Ryan, Jr. was born January 31, 1947, in Refugio, Texas and raised in Alvin, southeast of Houston. As a high school sophomore, he was scouted by Red Murff of the New York Mets. Ryan’s coach told Murff of the young pitcher’s intimidating fastballs, so powerful they had broken catchers’ bones. Murff was impressed: His report to the Mets said Ryan had the "best arm I’ve ever seen in my life."

Ryan’s work ethic was the secret to his success. A believer in the theory that pitching power, as well as consistency and endurance, comes from the legs, not the arms, Ryan ran every day. In 1983, he broke the legendary Walter Johnson’s career strikeout record. His historic 300th victory came in his 24th season in the majors, his second with the Texas Rangers.

Ryan had failed in his first bid for a 300th win the week before, pitching at his home stadium in Arlington, Texas. His second attempt came against the Brewers in front of a friendly crowd in Milwaukee. Ryan improved as the game went on, and by the fifth inning, the Rangers had taken a 5-1 lead. Ryan rung up two strikeouts in the fifth, one in the sixth and two more in the seventh inning. With two outs in the eighth, a defensive error put two runners on base, but with a crowd of 55,000 rooting him on, Ryan once again summoned the fastball that had won him 299 previous games. The talented young Gary Sheffield popped-out on a 96 mile-per-hour fastball to end the inning. After the Rangers tacked on insurance runs and the bullpen closed it out for an 11-3 win, Ryan became the fourth-oldest 300-game winner in baseball history after Phil Neikro, Gaylord Perry and Early Wynn.

Nolan Ryan pitched for 27 years in the big leagues, with the Mets, Angels, Astros and Rangers. He struck out 5,714 batters in his career, breaking his own record 2,206 times. Nolan went 324-292 for his career, with a 3.19 career ERA. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1999.

Some men & women are "chubby chasers." Fine 1 of them. Stop dieting.

What was the legal capacity of the bar featured in the TV sitcom Cheers?

When deciding how to store & organize your child's toys, get down on your knees or lay on the ground to visually see what they see. When you give yourself the same height of vision as your child it may inspire you for a new place to store toys or a place to not store toys.

Which 6 letters did Benjamin Franklin propose eliminating from the alphabet?

C, J, Q, W, X, and Y. He considered them redundant. He proposed the addition of six new letters for sounds he felt needed representation.

Which album came 1st, 2nd, & 3rd?

A. A Hard Day's Night

B. Please Please Me

C. With the Beatles

BCA. From there, about all the boys did was totally define the 1960s, & become the most critically acclaimed & successful band in of the 20th century. That's all.

Which composer lived 1st, 2nd, & 3rd?

A. Mozart

B. Tchaikovsky

C. Beethoven