Another great vid from Uncle N!

Yay!

I know that it's advertising, but it's still fun ...

clipped from www.latimes.com 'Super snake' fears on the rise in Florida Reporting from Fort Lauderdale, Fla. - Fears of a new "super snake" emerging in the Everglades grew this week during a hunt to track South Florida's invasive python population. A three-day, state-coordinated hunt that started Tuesday had, by Wednesday, turned up at least five African rock pythons -- including a 14-foot-long female -- in a targeted area in Miami-Dade County. In Africa, the rock python eats creatures as large as goats and crocodiles. There have been cases of the snakes killing children. Three of the African rock pythons found in the snake hunt this week were captured, and two got away. One had a circumference of 31 inches. Another was bearing eggs.

This morning the local new affiliate did a story about a dog who senses the earthquake in Haiti before it is evident to the people in the video.  As the video plays, the local anchor very seriously tells viewers that the clip shows a dog sensing the earthquake then running around the room in an attempt to find and save its owner.  Watch this video. 

Really ... Did you see the dog running around looking for its owner???  I didn't ...  I mean, for all I know that dog was thinking, "Dude ... Friggin' big earthquake on the way ... I'm outta here ... That fat kid who feeds me is on his own!!!  .... Good luck, sucka ....!!!"

I don't mean to make light of the tragedy unfolding in Haiti, but the reporting that we get in Lala Land can be so trite sometimes that it makes me crazy!!!!

I mean, really, a real shot in the arm!  I got one this afternoon.  I'm a vaccine lover.  I know that there are vaccine doubters out there that think people like me are crazy, but I get vaccines that folk like the Center for Disease Control or my doctor recommend that I get. 

Our school takes really great care of us and every year they have a health fair in the fall where teachers get what amounts to an annual check-up--blood tests, vision screenings, osteoporosis screenings, colon cancer screenings, etc.  Regular flu vaccines and a variety of other vaccinations like hepatitis-B and tetanus are also part of the mix.  Later in the year they actually bring in a mammogram machine and do breast exams for women and have a doctor come in to do prostate screenings for men (it's really surreal to get your boobs squished or have your prostate examined in the conference room of your place of work, but you just have to let your intellect overcome your sense of embarrassment as health screening is about life and embarrassment is about vanity ...).  This year, due to the shortage, we weren't able to get either the regular flu vaccine or the H1N1 vaccine.  We eventually got an email telling us to go and get our flu vaccines and we'd get reimbursed which is what I did that very day.  Today I got word that I could get an H1N1 vaccine so ... I got it. 

I got the shot in the arm rather than the nasal spray.  I trust the vaccine makers, but I still prefer to take the "dead" vaccine over the "live but weakened" one. 

Yeah for vaccines!

As an aside, when I was in Hawaii, I had a chat with my cousin's wife who has lived in Hawaii for almost twenty years.  S. is originally from Canada and she still holds dual American and Canadian citizenship.  During Thanksgiving, S. went to visit her mom back in Canada and her mom had her go down to the local clinic and get her H1N1 vaccination through the Canadian health service.  No wait. No charge. No big deal.  Anti health care reform folk in the U.S. keep screaming about how health care in Canada and the U.K. doesn't work.  There's no doubt that it isn't perfect, but seriously guys ... WTF??? 

Oh my goodness!  I'm so damned popular!!!  I have lots and lots of friends who call me at home on my brand new phone number!!!

One new friend was named Eric and he was from ADT.  He called to offer to help me protect my home from criminals, if I was willing to pay him a little something.  That was really nice of him, huh?

I also just got off the phone with a lovely woman named Monica from  something called Eco Water or something like that.  Even though we'd just met, she offered to come to my new home and test my water for all kinds of bad things that might be in it if I was willing to pay her a little something.  I mean ... How nice is that, huh?

I just have to say, it is so NICE to be welcomed to the neighborhood by new friends in this way!!! 

All of these calls from all of these nice people made me realize that I need to reach out to friends as well so I fired up my broadband connection and sent off a message to my old firends at the National Do Not Call Registry.  I LOVE friends like those guys!!!

Clearly, I love complex carbohydrates WAY too much to ever have visible abs, but being that it is the new year It seemed like a good idea for me to make a new year's resolution at which I can work on failing.  According to Men's Health Magazine (which I would love to subscribe to for the teenagers in my big building with lots of books to read, but for the monthly columns on sexed up topics like, "Your All Day Seduction Plan for For Better Sex" which I'd have no problem with my teenager reading but some mom volunteers might have other opinions. Anyway ...) I should strengthen my core for better posture, health, athletic performance (and probably sex too ...). 

As part of this year's new year's fitness goal I've started incorporating more ab exercises into my workouts including the painful plank:

 The torturous straight leg lifts:

  And the agonizing machine crunch:
 
I know this is supposed to make me feel and look better in the long run, but right now it's just making me feel like I'm nearly incapacitated. So this morning after I did my swim with Scooterkitty I ate half of a maple bar and I feel better.  Which is why even though I want to look like this on the beach:

 

Yeah, no ... Not the group who came from the Land Down Under that took the music world by storm in the early 80s only to disappear and never be heard from again ... I'm talking about real men who work hard.  Last night we had a crew of guys over at the new house pouring a new cement slab.  They had been at the site since earlier in the day, but apparently some issue caused the pad to take a lot longer than usual to dry.  The guys were working on it when I got home at about 6:00pm, left to get some dinner, then came back and worked on it until just after 10:00pm.  I don't know anything at all about cement, so I hope that it doesn't mean that something went wrong with the pour, but I know they worked really hard on it.  They seem like really nice guys who take a lot of pride in what they do which, i think, was what was happening.  

As of today I've been with my significant other, aka S/O, for ten years.  It's gone by unbelievably fast and I'm happier about our relationship now than I was ten years ago (and I was pretty ecstatic about it then ...).  I feel like I won the lotto that really counts in the end!