My Lucky Day at the Yogi Employer Cafeteria

Thursday was another crappy weather day. There was no ice but a cold misty rain at lunch. I brought my workout stuff but I was starving at 11. So I went down to the good old cafeteria.

Pickings are generally slim down there. Tuesday is meatloaf day and Friday is pizza day and those are good but the rest of the time its dismal.

I lucked out. It was turkey and dressing day. So I had turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, gravy, and broccoli. I had it put in a very politically correct, very green, and fashionable biodegradable to go box and grabbed the similarly biodegradeable, no longer plastic I’m not sure what its made of, plastic silverware and retired to my cubicle to eat lunch. With these new boxes you have to eat fast because the food biodegrades the box quickly! Take my word for it. Small price to pay for sustainability, right?

I had to use my cell camera which has no flash. The food looked and tasted a lot better than the picture indicates. Time for a nap afterwards.

You can deal with almost anything, even $39 per barrel crude oil, if you are eating good and sleeping well.

Operation Actually Read the Bible

I have slowly been making my way through the Bible the old school way. I am starting at the front and working toward the back. Its working out to be about 3 or 4 chapters a week. I have finished Genesis and am now deep into Exodus. I’ve read most of the Bible before, this time I’m trying to read it as if it were a regular book. There is a lot of great stuff in there if you stop and look at the stories. There is also a lot of inconsistencies that I don’t understand.

You can sign up here.

Just for the record: I’m a believer!

This is the home page for the project where I’ll track my progress.

Books Completed

  • Genesis ( one down and a bunch to go) – Main takeaway – Many powerful stories and a hard headed pharoah. Most memorable image, God forming man from mud.
  • Exodus – Could be sub-titled “The story of a stiff nicked people.”I was amazed at the the details of the tabernacle, tents, and such, on an on. The most memorable image was at the when they talked about the glory of god filling the tent. Loved it.
  • Leviticus – I have taken a couple of Bible survey courses and this is one of the books that gets mostly skipped because it has a lot to do with the dietary laws. Well I went threw the whole thing and read every word. It has the dietary laws but also lots of laws about skin blemishes and such as that. Makes me glad that we are off the hook for a lot of the laws. I was impressed though with the scope of the laws. I wonder why though. I suspect just because God is God and that is the way he wants us is the answer. (2/15/2009)

The following list was provided by Into Thy Word that I found via link from Operation Read Bible. I’m going to use it help me chart my progress. The red numbers are the chapters I’ve read. At a chapter a day, 3 or 4 days a week it may take me a while.

Genesis 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50
Exodus 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40
Leviticus 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27
Numbers 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36
Deuteronomy 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34
Joshua 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
Judges 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21
Ruth 1 2 3 4
1 Samuel 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
2 Samuel 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
1 Kings 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22
2 Kings 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
1 Chronicles 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29
2 Chronicles 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36
Ezra 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Nehemiah 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
Esther 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Job 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42
Psalms 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150
Proverbs 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Ecclesiastes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Song Of Solomon 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Isaiah 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66
Jeremiah 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52
Lamentations 1 2 3 4 5
Ezekiel 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48
Daniel 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Hosea 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
Joel 1 2 3
Amos 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Obadiah 1
Jonah 1 2 3 4
Micah 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Nahum 1 2 3
Habakkuk 1 2 3
Zephaniah 1 2 3
Haggai 1 2
Zechariah 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
Malachi 1 2 3 4
Matthew 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
Mark 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
Luke 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
John 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21
Acts 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
Romans 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
1 Corinthians 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
2 Corinthians 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
Galatians 1 2 3 4 5 6
Ephesians 1 2 3 4 5 6
Philippians 1 2 3 4
Colossians 1 2 3 4
1 Thessalonians 1 2 3 4 5
2 Thessalonians 1 2 3
1 Timothy 1 2 3 4 5 6
2 Timothy 1 2 3 4
Titus 1 2 3
Philemon 1
Hebrews 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
James 1 2 3 4 5
1 Peter 1 2 3 4 5
2 Peter 1 2 3
1 John 1 2 3 4 5
2 John 1
3 John 1
Jude 1
Revelation 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22
The Bible contains 1189 chapters: 929 in the Old Testament and 260 in the New. Reading 3 chapters each day and 5 chapters on Sundays will cover the entire Bible in one year. Follow some plan. Even one chapter each day will cover the New Testament in only 9 months. God’s Word is alive. The more you expose yourself to it, the more it will expose itself to you.

Little Dixie Christmas Party

This has been the year for Christmas Parties for the Yogi family. We have had several. Some years we don’t have any. Last weekend we journeyed down to Nana’s house to attend her Christmas Party. A good time was had by all. For me the best part of a party is when most everybody is gone except for a few. Then you can do things that are hard to do during the party.
Here is a picture of the “remnant.” Time for the post party!

Time to make, and drink, chocolate martinis. Sweetie is getting good at them. Note the “real” half and half. Lots and lots of fat grams!
And I can put on my favorite and most comfortable shoes. Sweetie hates them. I don’t think that Nana likes them too much either. But they are very comfortable. You can get your pair here.


A dog breeder friend of Nana’s brought over a $2300 maltese puppy. Sweetie fell in love with it. Made me kind of nervous. She gave it back though. Sweetie is going to make do with our two mutts.


Post Post party photo. Where is SuperPizzaBoy? He might have been taking the picture. Notice my favorite hat. A Dallas Cowboys Santa Hat. Sweetie gave it to me so I wouldn’t wear my Antlers Bearcats hat. She doesn’t show any pride in her school so I have to wear the hat. Except now I have my Cowboys hat.

Hello, is anybody out there?

I’m still trying to figure this blogging thing out. I’ve been at it for several months now and I really like it. Not only writing my own posts but reading those of others. I have come to find out that there are lots of really good writers out there who are worth reading. I have also come to know a lot of very nice, generous, and helpful people.

Two of the questions I have had is “How do people find my blog? And how can I make it easier for people to find?” I mean quality of writing and creative composition and hilarious jokes are fine, but how do you get people to your site? If your blog is lame then they will leave but the challenge is to get them there in the first place.

One good source I found is Michael Hyatt’s Blog, From Where I Sit. Mr. Hyatt is CEO of Thomas Nelson Books, a Christian Book Publisher. He has a lot to say about various things plus he gives out free copies of his companies books to blogger in exchange for reviews. One of his emphases is what authors can do to help themselves in the online world. As far as I am concerned all bloggers are authors, right? He had a series of posts on online marketing in November. The one I found most helpful is this.

Basically he talks about services that will analyze your blog for you, for free. This is a lot of fun. When you realize that you can submit blogs besides yours for analysis its even more fun! The site he uses is WebsiteGrader.com. This site analyzes your (or a friend of yours) blog and gives several metrics to evaluate your blog.

Mine turned out like this:

Website Grade 48
Google Page Rank 2
Google Indexed Pages 145
Traffic Rank Not Ranked
Blog Rank 870,402
Inbound Links 190
del.icio.us Bookmarks 0

The site describes what all this stuff means.

If you like run your blog through the evaluation. Let us know what the results are.

“The Woman of the House” by William Trevor

Pardon me while I try and work out how all the links are supposed to work on this reading challenge thing.

“The Woman of the House” is a short story set in modern day Ireland. Within the story are two parallel stories. That of a “crippled old man” and his female cousin living with him and two house painters from “Carinthia” (Wikipedia says Carenthia is a real place) but who pass themselves off as Polish.

The story is about the bargains people make with each other and themselves and the consequences of those bargains.

Not a whole lot of action here but the two stories slowly merge in a very clever and satisfying way. Not to say that everybody is happy.

I loved it.

I’m listing this story on my “100 Shots of Short” reading challenge list.

100 Shots of Short Reading Challenge

Way back in December I entered this reading challenge. When I updated it, I found that for some reason I didn’t have the orginal post but I had this copy. So I’m posting it now.

I have decided to enter yet another Reading Challenge. This is is called “100 Shots of Short” and it is geared to short stories. There is no time period and the rules are very flexible. I don’t have a predetermined list so I’ll list them as I read them.

My first one is in this weeks New Yorker:

  1. “The Woman of the House” by William Trevor. Read 12/15/2008.
  2. “Another Manhattan” by Donald Antrium. Read 12/22/2008.
  3. “Some Women” by Alice Munro, read 12/23/2008.
  4. “Meeting with Enrique Lihn” by Roberto Bolano, read 12/24/2008.
  5. “The Gangsters” by Zadie Smith, read 12/25/2008
  6. “The Limner” by Julian Barnes, read 1/9/2009.
  7. “Al Roosten” by George Saunders, read 1/31/2009.
  8. “The Slows” by Gail Hareven, read 5/3/2009
  9. “The Use of Poetry” by Ian McEwan” in the 12/7/09 New Yorker, read 12/5/09.
  10. “Wiggle Room” by David Foster Wallace from the New Yorker
  11. “Distant Relations” by Orphan Pamuk

Ron’s Hamburgers

I hate ice storms. We had sleet Sunday night and ice Monday morning. I stayed at home until 10 and then went to work. Very slowly. I hate ice.

At lunch I was going to walk to somewhere downtown. Problem, ice everywhere. So I walked through the tunnel to the parking garage and drove to the Ron’s Hamburgers on 15th street.

I used to go there a lot but they are very bad for you even though they taste good. My favorite was the chili cheeseburger. I have not eaten at a Ron’s for close to 10 years, so it was about time.

I ordered the sausage cheeseburger. Half beef, half sausage, mashed together and grilled. Take a look. I gained half a pound just by ordering it. It has onions grilled in the meet, cheese, pickles, the whole deal. You eat it with a fork by the way.


I shouldn’t have done this. I’ll be back a lot sooner than 10 years I guarantee you that.

I rate this place 3 stars out of 4.

Ice

Woke up this morning to ice. The ice on the road doesn’t bother me as much as the ice on the driveway. We have a pretty good slope to the driveway and I can see my pickup sliding out of control into our neighbors mailbox across the street.

So I’m going to have another cup of coffee and see how things go. I generally wait until everybody plays bumper cars at rush hour and then I’ll go in. I’ll probably stop at Lowe’s and see if I can get some sandbags for the back of the truck. It makes a huge difference.

Happy Birthday Sweetie!

It is Sweetie’s birthday today. I hope that she has a good one. She says that she is not looking forward to this one. Maybe, but nobody enjoys birthdays more than she does.

I was looking for some pictures of her. It is hard. She is not one to sit around. If you want a photograph of her you better be prepared to run like crazy to keep up with her.

She is in constant motion. Organizing this, cleaning that, picking up a kid, calling or emailing somebody. Always working, caring, loving.
She likes to have fun with SuperPizzaBoy. The kid is spoiled. Like for Halloween. I think that he has maybe one store bought outfit in his life. (Buzz Light Year). She made Link the Windwaker this year. A couple years ago she actually made a SuperPizzaBoy costume.

No child had a more hardworking advocate for them than Sweetie. She works all the angles. She doesn’t get mad, yell, and scream. She rolls her sleeves up and works with the school to make things right.

Sweetie is a favorite for SPB’s friends also. Whatever they want, they get. They feel safe at her house. They’ll tell me right to my face when I’m trying to impose myself “Miss Sweetie says its ok.” OK with her, OK with me is my motto.


She is my best friend. I would rather spend time with her than anybody else in the world. I have more fun with her than anybody I can imagine.

I cannot imagine anybody else putting up with all my crap, especially geocaching and blogging. I have reapeatedly broken the no blogging and definitely no blogging picture rule multiple times.

She is my favorite subject!


She is the original critter advocate. She loves them all, nice ones, mean ones, friendly, shy, cute ugly, it doesn’t matter. Sweetie has a heart for the animals. How many cats do you know would put up with a haircut?

Happy Birthday Sweetie, I love you very much.

2009 Pub Challenge

I peruse so called “reader blogs” with great interest. I am always interested in what people read and why and am astonished by how many books some of these folks go through. Many of these blogs have “challenges” listed on them regarding goals for reading books. These can be for a specific time or specific theme or both, like “2009 Romance Novels.” Each challenge is sponsored by somebody and they lay out the guidelines and rules.

I’ve decided to do the 2009 Pub Challenge as my first challenge. I first saw it on the Oklahoma Booklady blog. You sign up for the challenge here.

Basically you read 9 books first published in 2009. Five must be fiction and no Young Adult titles are allowed (it is a pub.) (Is the Twilight Series YA? I know that what has been published so far do not qualify)

I checked my local library books ordered list for my account and the following is what I have ordered that are due to come out in 2009. So I guess that this is my starting list. Note, I feel absolutely free to change my plans at any time, for any reason.

The thing about Challenges is that many of them allow crossovers. So I will be adding challenges as I learn more about them.

Wish me luck!

– “Runner” by Thomas Perry, due January 2009 – finished 3/2/2009

– “Murder in the Latin Quarter” by Cara Black, finished 5/2/2009.

– “The Associate” by John Grisham , finished in April 2009.

-“The Monster in the Box” by Ruth Rendell, finished November 2009.

-“The Year of the Flood” by Margaret Atwood, finished November 2009.

-“The Associate” by John Grisham

-“The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power” by Jeff Sharlet, 2009

– Fearless: Imagine Your Life Without Fear by Max Lucado. 2009

-“The Lost Symbol” by Dan Brown 2009

-“War Dances” by Sherman Alexie 2009

-“The Scarecrow” by Michael Connelly 2009

-“Roadside Crosses” by Jeffery Deaver 2009

-“Road Dogs” by Elmore Leonard 2009

-“Parallel Play – Growing up with Undiagnosed Asperger’s” by Tim Page 2009

-“Runner” by Thomas Perry 2009

-“That Old Cape Magic” by Richard Russo 2009

-“Rough Country” by John Sandford

-“The Addict: One Patient, One Doctor, One Year” by Michael Stein