Come ye, all who are heavy laden, and I will give ye a quizzical look

This morning as I came into work, I was walking behind a woman who was carrying a large, bulging purse over each shoulder. My first thought was that one of them could have been a lunch bag of some kind, or maybe her department was having a goodie day and she held a tray of finger food; but upon closer inspection, both bags were definitely purses. Neither was a gym bag, or a diaper bag, or anything like that. Shiny, colored leather with all manner of straps and buckles - that's a purse. I may not carry a purse but I know what one looks like.

Just how much stuff does anyone need to carry at any given time, that they need two huge purses to hold it all in?

I'll bet this wasn't Dave's way

Is there some sort of company-wide rule at Wendy's that all drink orders are supposed to have the maximum amount of ice stuffed into each cup before the drink goes in it? I mean seriously, I just got a medium cup of lemonade at lunch, I have already drank it all in just a few swallows, and there's still a huge amount of ice left.

Come on, Wendy's, your drinks are the absolute least expensive food item you sell, and you already give them a ridiculous price markup, so why not give us a break on the ice for a change? Especially as the weather gets colder?

Click here to check the stock markets on Space Mountain

When I opened the Internet on my phone this morning, in the tiny "attention grabber" section of the homepage, I saw this headline:

Track the roller coaster economy

If I had clicked on the link, it would probably have taken me to a news story about the US's volatile economy as of late. That makes sense.

But here's what dumb Stan thought: Oh, look, it's a story about the financial state of the roller coaster industry.

Nice.

I'm surprised that I could see to type this

Note to self, do not use Puffs tissues with lotion to clean glasses. The lotion part just smears all over the lenses.

Memories of 1992 Portland

In September of 1992, Billy Graham held one of his Crusades in Portland. For a solid week, he preached the Gospel to the immense crowds at PGE Park (then Civic Stadium), as well as an overflow crowd on the Lincoln High School football field. Every night, there was an altar call where thousands upon thousands came forward and decided to either follow Jesus for the first time, or rededicate their lives to Him. When those people came forward, there was a small army of counselors there to pray with each new believer, to offer words of encouragement (and welcome!), and to hand out some "starter" materials - the Gospel of John, and a few pamphlets about how to build on that initial decision. The people were also asked to fill out a basic information card - name, address and phone number - not for any kind of solicitation, but in order to follow up and help each new Christian find a nearby church, in case they did not already attend one.

I volunteered that week on the research team that took those addresses and matched them with churches in the area. It was a great experience, working until three or four in the morning, and bonding with a new friends over a common goal.

Of course, our team couldn't just choose any church for each person on the cards. The "eligible" churches were those who preached only from the Bible, not the Book of Mormon; and no Catholic churches, no Jehovah's Witnesses' Kingdom Halls, no 24-Hour Church of Elvis. Within that scope, however, there were still a wide array of denominations that were represented. And even though everyone on the research team came from different denominations, none of us ever had the thought of channeling those new Christian souls only into churches of our own denomination. I came from a Conservative Baptist church, yet I was hooking people up with Methodists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Baptists, Lutherans, Pentecostals, whoever. It was really more about physical proximity than the finer points of our respective doctrinal statements.

But it's funny to think that if it hadn't have been for our small team of about 10 people, there might have been a lot of people in other denominations than they ended up with!

Who's in your 5?

I just checked out the stat counter, as I occasionally do, and I saw a funny juxtaposition of five different keyword searches that landed on one page or another of this vast Dinglemunch blog:

free sweetmart tamplates (#9)
weight of a stagecoach (#1)
columbia gem of the ocean (#6)
poop straining (#58)
new math (>#500)

It takes real dedication to go all the way to #58 on "poop straining" in order to finally make a decision on where to click. So, thanks for that, Yonkers.

I'm glad that this blog has made such a difference in this world.

"People look at me like I'm a little strange, when I go around talking to squirrels and rabbits and stuff. That's ok. Thaaaat's just ok."

This is the Bichon Frisé, a small, white, ridiculously afro'ed breed of dog. Check it out, it's the Bob Ross of dogs! I had to blog it because it's so cheesily hilarious looking.

Fig. 1. Bichon Frisé; Bob Ross.

(For the blog title, I was looking for a qood, semi-recognizable Bob Ross quote, but when I saw a list of quotes (there are a lot) I realized that none of them were familiar to me. So I just chose one that sounded funny. Here are some others:

• In painting, you have unlimited power. You have the ability to move mountains. You can bend rivers. But when I get home, the only thing I have power over, is the garbage.
• Tender as a mother's love... And with my mother, that was certainly true.
• Little raccoons and old possums 'n' stuff all live up in here. They've got to have a little place to sit.
• Oh, that would make a nice place to fish. I like fishing, but I'm not a very good fisherman. I always throw the fish back into the water, just put a band-aid on his mouth, tap 'im on the patootie and let him on his way. And maybe some day, if I'm lucky, I'll get to catch him again.
• Oooh, if you have never been to Alaska, go there while it is still wild. My favorite uncle asked me if I wanted to go there, Uncle Sam. He said if you don't go, you're going to jail. That is how Uncle Sam asks you.
• Shwooop. Hehe. You have to make those little noises, or it just doesn't work.
• The only thing worse than yellow snow is green snow.
• The trees are oh so soft, oh so soft I freakin' love it.
• Water's like me. It's laaazy... Boy, it always looks for the easiest way to do things.
• We tell people sometimes: we're like drug dealers, come into town and get everybody absolutely addicted to painting. It doesn't take much to get you addicted.

Bob Ross was awesome.)

Three bedroom, two bathroom Ranch, nice neighborhood, washer/dryer hookup, foot-shaped hole skylight in garage ceiling

If you saw my Facebook status this weekend, you may have noticed that I said I put my foot through the floor of an attic on Saturday. We had gone down to Durant, Oklahoma, to help out with getting some stuff organized for some family members' upcoming move. I was in the process of moving everything out of the attic, handing one piece at a time down the ladder. There were a few sturdy boards over the rafters so I could walk around, but there were more than a few gaps, and while I had some picture frames in my hand, I misjudged where the gaps where, and my foot slipped off the edge of a board. Down I went, my weight pushing straight down through the sheetrock garage ceiling. Crunch! Nothing happened to me other than a couple of scrapes and a two-inch strawberry on my leg—thank goodness I was wearing jeans—but the ceiling suffered a nice-sized cavity.

This also happened on the day the house was listed for sale. I'm sure this does nothing good for the resale value of the house.

Putting my foot through an attic floor was never on my list of things to do before I die, but I have to say, I wish I'd thought of it ahead of time. It certainly added some adventure to the otherwise ordinary day. I'm already to the point where I can laugh about it.

Oh, by the way, I'm sure this is wrong, but even while my whole leg was dangling through the ceiling hole, I was already thinking to myself, This would have looked awesome on "Time Warp's" super-slo-mo cameras.

I completely forgot about this

On Monday the 3rd, I passed the one-year mark for not drinking soda.

Let's hear it for WATER!!!

(And lemonade.)

Jumping the gun a bit, aren't they?

via ABC News

(I'm really not going to keep blogging and blogging about the election, I'm just pointing out a bit of the ridiculous.)

Update: Turns out they're doing this with a lot of states. Wisconsin, Minnesota, New York, etc. Hey, networks: "0% of precincts reporting" means zero votes have been counted. Stop predicting the winner until the state has actually been won by someone!

Maybe it's the new math

Apparently, having 44% of the vote yet being behind by 11 points still means you're ahead...

via Fox News

via NBC News

Of course, it's already changed as I write this, but it goes to show that technology ain't perfe

Christmas is in the air...literally

Just for grins and giggles (which is the reason I do a lot of things), I decided to take a look at some live cams for the Portland area. I clicked around, and found nothing too special except for reminders of the kind of traffic I used to wait in. But then I noticed something...odd:

It's raining green and red in Portland!

I know this is some kind of regional thing, but...

From a departmental e-mail, concerning an upcoming chili luncheon:

We still need a couple more people to bring chili. Thanks to all of you who have signed up and for those that haven’t yet, I’m sure we can also use more crackers, cheese, Fritos, pickles, ketchup and onions...

It still kind of surprises me when I see any mention of chili being served with pickles. Now, don't get me wrong, locals here like a dish called Spaghetti Red, which is simply spaghetti noodles with (no beans) chili on top of it, and I think it's absolutely delicious. But evidently it's the norm to serve that dish, or any chili dish, with onions and...dill pickles. Bleahhh.

Photo: Victoria, Joplin Daily Photo blog