Belly pics - Week 12.......

Slight bit of growth. Mrs. Lime says she's now noticing that it's tough to sit certain ways without being uncomfortable.

Bedtime battles........

This seemed to hit home for me.

From the BBC website.....

Bed sharing 'drains men's brains'

Bed sharing disturbed sleep quality
Sharing a bed with someone could temporarily reduce your brain power - at least if you are a man - Austrian scientists suggest.

When men spend the night with a bed mate their sleep is disturbed, whether they make love or not, and this impairs their mental ability the next day.

The lack of sleep also increases a man's stress hormone levels.

According to the New Scientist study, women who share a bed fare better because they sleep more deeply.

So, this doctor now has a study proving that sleeping together actually drains a man's brainpower?!?!?!

Let me back up here. I'll first explain that my wife is one of those types of people that like to 'snuggle' when she goes to sleep. I, on the other hand, am one of those people that simply likes to lay down and go to sleep without another person having their arms, legs, etc. laying upon them. So we always have this amusing tango of bed positioning.

It always begins with me on the left side of the bed. My wife lays down on the right side of the bed, but within seconds, she quickly creeps across the bed to the point where she is laying right next to me. The amusing part is that we have a king-size bed, so literally, when my wife finishes moving over, the entire right side of the mattress is literally empty. My obvious thought on this is that I'm not sure why we didn't just buy a double mattress and avoid spending money on the other half of the bed that never gets used.

By the middle of the night, I often find myself literally hanging off the left edge of the bed as my wife has further creeped towards me over the next few hours. I have actually fallen off the bed twice in our marriage because I obviously kept moving over in my sleep until finally I simply ran out of room. Who would have known that sleeping could be hazardous to your health? Couple that with the fact that the dog sleeps on the floor on my side of the bed, and you have a situation where the dog could be crushed to death because of my wife's need for cuddling!!!!!

I have taken steps to combat the slow movement off the edge of my bed. My most efficient positioning maneuver is definitely where I lay down in the bed in the center of the bed before my wife shows up. This gives me more room to move over the course of the night as my wife makes her nightly progression from the right to the left side of the bed. I have also made sure to move her pillows to the far right side of the bed. It makes her lay down a bit more to the right and also allows more room for the right to left movement.

I hope that some of you benefit from these suggestions. For some of you, it may literally save your dog's life.

Cooked up some BBQ ribs last night.......

Ah, it's the recipe that is easy enough for just about any person to make, but the results are simply fabulous. I cooked a full rack of BBQ baby back ribs last night. The meat fell right off the bone after it was all done. Here's how you do it.

What you need:

1 bottle of BBQ sauce
1 rack of ribs (beef or pork)
Note: Do not remove fat from ribs. Doing so will dry out the ribs during cooking.

Directions:

Preheat oven to 300 degrees (use 325 degrees if you like you ribs with no pink inside). Place rack of ribs on a baking pan uncovered. Put the ribs in the oven for 2 hours. At two hours of cook time, remove ribs and pour 1/3 of bottle over top side of ribs. Put the ribs back in the oven for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, remove ribs again and flip them over on the pan. Pour 1/3 bottle over the other side of the ribs. Cook for 10 more minutes. Use leftover sauce as needed.

That's it. Really easy to do and plenty to eat when you're done. Add in some baked beans (if you shop well, you can find beans with as little as 2% of all calories coming from fat) and you've got a meal.

Note to my East Coast friends: Kraft BBQ sauce is not actually edible. Do not ruin a perfectly good rack of ribs by smothering it with Kraft BBQ sauce. If you are that desperate, e-mail me and I'll send out some acceptable BBQ sauce free of charge.

Belly Pics - Week 11

The belly watch is back on. Week #11. Due date is around the start of February.

The great conspiracy.........

There's trouble brewing here at the workplace (pun intended). It would seem that there has been a sudden spike in coffee costs. I am personally not a coffee drinker, so I wouldn't know anything about the rising cost of coffee beans. But evidently, due to rising costs that are caused by a supply problem in South America, the cost of coffee has risen in recent months.

Here at work, they rely on the honor system when you drink coffee or hot chocolate (it's the individual portion packets for hot chocolate). There's a large sign in the kitchen area that says 'Coffee 20 cents, Hot Chocolate 20 cents'. They have a bucket right next to the sign where you can dump in your loose change to pay for anything you take.

So today, I walk in and head over to the kitchen area to put my lunch in the refrigerator. I look over at the sign and it has changed! It now says.......

Due to the rising cost of coffee, the prices are now...
Coffee.......30 cents
Hot Chocolate.......25 cents

So this brings a couple of thoughts to my head.
1. The price of coffee went from 20 cents to 30 cents. That's a 50% increase in price! What in the world? Are you trying to tell me that coffee prices increased 50% overnight????? I could understand an increase of 5 cents and then another increase in several months. That would imply that the cost gradually went up over time. This 10 cent price increase means one of two things. Either the person who purchases the coffee was not charging enough to cover costs for a long period of time OR the person who purchases the coffee is now making quite a tidy profit. Either way, I think there's something seedy going on behind the scenes.

2. The price of hot chocolate rose from 20 cents to 25 cents. The sign at the top distinctly says 'Due to the rising cost of coffee.....'. Someone needs to inform me how the rise in the cost of coffee beans directly affects the price of a packet of powdered hot chocolate! I have even more problems with this price increase because I can no direct relationship between the two situations.

So, in the end, I have determined exactly what is happening. Evidently the government is paying for that $2,000 toilet (retail price $300) that I use on a daily basis by overcharging for coffee and hot chocolate. It's simply the only explanation.

OK, so this is an unscientific survey.........

I've recently moved to the Kansas side of the Kansas City metro area. While there are not nearly as many bad drivers IMO in this area as there are on the East Coast, there are still some people that do stupid things out here.

But there is one thing that I've noticed since I've been out here in Kansas. I've seen several bad drivers out here in the area. In my unscientific survey of what I have witnessed since I arrived here, approximately 100% of the bad drivers that I have encountered all have on of the following on their car......

-A picture of a Jayhawk on their front licence plate holder
-A Jayhawk bumper sticker on their rear bumper
-A Jayhawk sticker on their rear window

As I said, this is an unscientific survey, but I think the results say all you need to know.

Female-dominated workplaces........

This is now my 7th different working position in my relatively young working career. It would appear that I have bucked the usual trend regarding my managers. I have had a female manager/project lead at every single job I've had. I actually have liked every one of my managers except one. I find that female managers are very fair when you do your work well and reward accordingly. Also, they are generally pretty hard on people who do not do adequate work. The only manager I didn't like played favorites because they had a small core of workers who had been together for 15+ years, so she would reward them despite the fact that they weren't always doing quality work.

I'm now in a government job that is probably 85-90% female. Some obvious things stand out in this job when compared to other jobs. You probably know you're in a female-dominated workplace when.............

-Most of the workers have jackets or sweaters on the back of their chair to keep warm at work.

-Your boss takes you to meet one of your co-workers, you see that the person is shopping for shoes online at work, yet she doesn't even flinch to disguise it when her boss and you walk into the cube.

-No less than 250 romance novels are piled above the coffee maker in the kitchen. Anyone is allowed to take one and read it at their leisure.

-On the counter below the romance novels, old copies of Better Homes & Gardens and Ladies Home Journal are strewn all over the place.

-There are no due dates for any testing/projects. You just simply get it done when you can.

-Chatting for 30-60 minutes with your co-workers after arriving at work is commonplace.

-Playing joke videos on your computer with the speaker turned up is allowed, if not encouraged. Often, the noise and loud laughter encourages others to drop by and ask that the video be forwarded to them so they can watch it as well.

-Pictures of family are so numerous in cubes that it appears that they are wallpapered with photos.

-Free candy to snack on throughout the day is strategically placed at most printers so you can always grab some goodies after printing out each document.

-The men who have been working there for any length of time actually get excited about discussions involving flowerbeds.

Interesting first day of work.......

Just when you think that there's nothing amusing to blog about, a new day and a new job comes along to reward you for your patience.

I went in to my first day at the new job today. Everyone was very helpful. I initially showed up and got a visitor's pass to get up to meet the new co-workers. When I went up, one of my co-workers mentioned that they weren't sure which cube I was going to move into and whether I would have a computer to use. Since I hadn't got my security badge yet, they told me to go down to the security area to get my badge and then hopefully they would have something set up by the time I got back.

After getting everything squared away in Security, I headed back up to where my new group was located. One of the ladies came up to me and said that they had a cube that I could use. She informed me that they had just found out that a worker in a cube adjacent to hers died on Friday night shortly after she had left work of a heat-related heart attack. There were people cleaning out the cube and it should be ready for me after lunch.

Lucky me! I'm now the proud owner of a cube that was occupied on Friday by a lady who is now dead! I'm hoping that this is some sort of good luck thing for me, because the alternative is something I'd prefer not to think about.

Visit to KC's Union Station........

Kansas City renovated their Union Station several years ago. It had been in a pretty bad state for many years. They went to great detail to dig down through the layers of paint and grime to make sure that they accurately recreated the original look of the station. You can see some of the paint work in this photo.



The station now has several restaurants, some shops, a Science City (museum for kids), 2 IMAX theaters and also has large areas to host traveling exhibitions. In addition, the Amtrak railroad station is still in service and a new station area is being created in the station to host the rail traffic.

An interesting side story involves the clock in this photo.....



For many years, a New Year's Eve party was held in the station. The attendees would dance and drink, constantly watching the large hanging clock to find out how much time was left until the new year. It was considered good luck to kiss under the clock when midnight finally came. Mrs. Lime's grandmother has many memories of parties under the clock.

We went down to see the newest traveling exhibit currently at the station. It was an exhibit about all of the First Ladies of the United States. A few facts that stuck out to me.......

-George Washington was actually marrying up when he wed Martha. She came from a family with great wealth and was said to be 'well-trained' as far as being a host and running a plantation. George Washington said that she 'was a good woman to consort with for life'. I'm guessing that was a compliment at that time, but when I said the same thing to my wife, she wasn't too impressed.

-Lou Henry Hoover (I noted that somehow she ended up with two male names for some reason) was a big advocate for women becoming athletic and participating in sports.

-Mrs. Coolidge took advantage of the newly changed voting rules that allowed women to vote. She actively campaigned specifically to women on her husband's behalf. It appeared to work as he won the women's vote and the presidency. She is now directly credited for changing how presidental campaigns work. The spouses of all candidates now actively participate in the campaign, hoping to attract a specific piece of the voting public.

-First ladies of the 1700s and 1800s were required to be the host for all visits by foreign dignitaries. Their abilities were very important, as a good host could cinch a deal, while a bad host could hurt the relationship with that country.

-A first lady is not always a spouse. In two cases, the first lady was not a spouse. President Buchanon was a bachelor. His niece served as first lady during his term. Thomas Jefferson was a widow. He actually had two first ladies. His daughter served as one of them. Also, Jefferson's secretary of state was James Madison. Jefferson asked Dolly Madison to also serve as a first lady due to her excellent hosting abilities. Obviously, she later served as first lady when her husband became president and was well know for being an excellent first lady.

Sorry I couldn't take any pictures of the exhibit, but photos were not allowed. I did take a picture of this old fire engine that has been restored. I would have liked to fire up the siren on this baby, but unfortunately it wasn't allowed.

You can't take the sled dog out of a mutt.......

Casanova has always wanted to be the lead dog. On walks with more than one dog, he'd always be in front to the point where he would pull someone to make sure he was in front. Never will he walk behind the person holding his leash. He's like a sled dog in that he wants to lead the pack. We still don't know exactly what kind of dog mated with a chow to produce his unique look, but it's pretty safe to say that some type of work dog was part of the mix.

So, we took our walk this morning around the 1/2 mile walking path in our area. Nova checked the usual spots along the path, marking them as needed. There was a lady walking just in front of us. Nova, seeing someone in front of him, sped up and passed the lady. At some point shortly thereafter, he had to stop and mark a spot. The lady passed us as we were stopped. Immediately, Nova took off pretty quickly and kept up a pretty good pace until he was ahead of the lady again. Always wanting to be in the lead.

Later, I had to stop and pick up a mess that he made in the grass. Once that was done, we keep on moving forward. As I was walking along, I realized that I had passed the garbage can along the path by about 10-15 feet. I told Nova to stop and he did. I then pulled on the leash to have him come back so I could throw away the bag. Nova wouldn't budge. Finally, I dropped the leash and just told him to stay. As I was walking back to the trash can, I realized that the lady that we had passed saw what had happened and was chuckling at Nova's stubbornness. She said, "It doesn't look like your dog is any more excited about exercise than I am!"

She hit that one on the nose. If it wasn't for the bunnies and puppies on the trail, Nova wouldn't even bother.

Saw Pirates of the Caribbean yesterday.......

It was a fun movie. You need to have seen the first movie to get a lot of the plot because there are a lot of characters from the first movie that re-enter the plot at various stages. It won't make a lot of sense what is going on if you don't know the previously existing relationships between the various characters. Mrs. Lime thought it was a bit long (2 1/2 hours is pretty long to be in a movie), but I didn't think it was too bad. Tons of action throughout the movie with some occasional physical humor to crack up the kids.

Next up, we're going to see Superman Returns in the near future. I've heard it's pretty good, so it should be fun.

The true measure of a storm..........

These pictures of our dog, Casanova, would appear to say it all. Note that Nova is deathly frightened of thunder/lightning. The room that you see him in is actually a bathroom in the apartment that is totally dark. Only the flash of the camera lit his area up.





So, needless to say, Nova rates this storm as worthy of cowering in a darkened bathroom in the middle of the apartment, far away from all windows. We did eventually coax him out to watch TV with us, but it took some convincing that he was relatively safe.

Back in KC with wife and dog.......

Long day on Saturday. Left Baltimore at 7:15 AM Eastern time and got into KC at midnight Central time. Pretty worn out after the long drive and was glad to get back to KC. I think the one that was most glad to be done with the ride was the dog. 17 hours is a long time to ride in a car, especially for a dog.

We took the south route home this time. We drove on I-70 out into western Maryland and then went south on I-81. This highway goes straight down the Shennendoah Valley. The road itself doesn't have many climbs, but rather goes parallel to the mountain ranges. It runs parallel to the West Virginia/Virginia state line on the Virginia side.

After 150 miles or so, we hit I-64 to go west. I-64 runs all the way back to St. Louis. We immediately turned west and began the mountain climbs through West Virginia. It was definitely easier to do with the Expedition truck as opposed to a 26' U-Haul truck. I drove through the mountains and then Mrs. Lime took over about 50 miles into Kentucky.

We drove through Lexington and Louisville. Lots of horse farms in the area. The eastern end of Kentucky is actually not very populated at all. The exits off the highway were pretty limited. Eventually, we ended up in the southern tip of Indiana, which is relatively hilly. We only drove through about 100 miles of Indiana.

Illinois is a relatively drab state. For some reason, there's no hills whatsoever in Illinois. I'm not sure how all the states surrounding the southern end of Illinois can have hills, but Illinois is as flat as a frying pan. Lots of fields with the occasional oil well is about all that is to be seen in that state. We passed by my father-in-law's home town of Centralia, Illinois, so that was at least something to be excited about.

Eventually, we saw the Gateway Arch and entered Missouri. Thankfully, there are a whole lot more trees and hills in Missouri. We drove through Missouri (passing through Columbia, home of my beloved Missouri Tigers) and eventually got back around midnight. I will put a quick promotional plug in for Red Bull energy drink. I drank 4 Red Bulls on the way through Missouri to keep myself awake (honestly, I was even probably wired at some points). You don't want to drink that stuff on a regular basis, but if you need to finish off a long drive in style, there's nothing better.

We're unpacking a few boxes and getting settled in. I took Mrs. Lime on a brief tour of the neighborhood last night, so she at least knows where the basic stores and roads are located. Casanova has already found the specific places needed to mark his territory, so everything here seems to be in good order.

Time to go pick up my new wife!

OK, so it's the same wife I've had the whole time, but after not having her around for a month, it will be good to have her back around. I'm guessing she's probably ready for a dose of normalcy as well.

In addition, Casanova will be returning back to the midwest as well. I'm sure he'll miss the attention battles between he and the other dog in Baltimore, but there are plenty of dogs in the family around here (as well as a cat) that he can play with and/or steal attention from, so I'm not terribly worried. He'll like the fact that there are ducks and geese around as well as a recently sited bunny near the apartment.

Also, I have seen at least 3 other dogs in the vicinity that have a weight issue like Casanova, so maybe they can get together and organize some sort of a weight-loss support group in the area. Who knows, maybe they'll start walking themselves!

Noisy night.......

If it's not one thing, it's another.

Last night, I went to bed around midnight. I went to sleep pretty quickly from what I could tell (not sure how you can ever tell exactly how quickly you're going to sleep when you're the one doing it). At 12:42 AM, someone decided to set off what sounded like dynamite right outside my apartment building. I know the time because I sat bolt upright in bed and looked at the clock. If I wasn't more interested in sleeping, I would have gone out and beaten those people until they got the point that 12:42 AM is not the best of times to be setting off fireworks.

At some point, I ended up going back to sleep. At 5:01 AM, Mother Nature decided that tonight would not be a restful night. BOOM! I think the lightning bolt hit right next to the apartment. Insanely loud. For a moment, I was cursing the dang people that were setting off the fireworks until I realized that it was actually thunder and not fireworks this time. The rain is actually a blessing in this case with today being July 4th. Always nice to have a good soaking rain to make sure there's not a lot of fires from fireworks.

Dana Quigley won at Lionsgate......

A few days back, I went to a charity skins game at a local course.

Lionsgate skins game

I thought I'd give an update on the final standings in the Greater Kansas City Golf Classic. Dana Quigley, who was paired with George Brett in the skins game, won the tournament! He shot a 67 on Friday, a 68 on Saturday and a fine score of 63 on Sunday to win the tourney for the second straight year. He pocketed $250,000 for his win.

Quick FYI on e-mailing posts to friends......

Just wanted to mention that I have added the option to e-mail posts to any friends. You can do that by clicking on the picture of an envelope with an arrow at the bottom of each post. It should make it easier for readers to reference certain posts to their friends.

Proof that intelligent life doesn't consist of all humans......

I have an apartment here in Kansas City where the front door is actually on one side of the building and the garage is on the other side of the building. This is done because the road only passes on one side of the building. In some of the apartment units, the door is on the same side as the garage which means that some apartments have their entrance on the same side as their garage.

So this morning, I open the garage door to head out to the grocery store. I look out the door to see that there is an enormous storage unit on a trailer parked across the entrance to my garage and it is not attached to a truck (i.e. someone decided to drop it off for the day right in front of my garage!). There are three people who are hired help loading stuff into the storage unit. I ask if they can move it. They said that the lady that dropped off the unit already left and won't be back until 3:00 PM. Great.

They also noted that they asked the people in the door adjacent to my garage if they could park the unit there to load it. Evidently my neighbors, who damn well knew that it wasn't their garage, said it was fine. I'm really happy with them right now.

The head guy of the work crew then looks into my garage and asks what kind of car I have. I pointed (since it was right in front of him I'm not sure why he asked in the first place) and he saw that it was a Mustang. He then asked if there was any way I could pull around the trailer and pointed to a space roughly about 6 feet wide. Unfortunately, he was deadly serious. Thankfully, the young guy that was with him chuckled and said 'no way in hell he can get it through there without turning it on its side'. Honestly, I'm not even sure if my Mustang set on its side could even get through the space he was pointing at. I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt that he was wearing Coke-bottle glasses and probably couldn't even see the space he was referring to.

So, thanks to the stupidity of the storage unit manager, my neighbors and hired help, I'm stuck in my apartment until 3:00 PM when they come to pick up the unit. I played a short session of poker online and won $5, so I suppose not all was lost. But considering that I just found out that I'm not interviewing anywhere today, I'd rather be out playing 18 holes right now. If anything, this makes me more motivated than ever to hurry up and get a job so we can move into a house where we have our own driveway as soon as possible.

Party Cove..........

Disclaimer: While I have censored the pictures to a PG-13 level, I would probably advise those of you who read the blog from work to not view this entry at work. There's no nudity per se, but there are some pictures that may raise some eyebrows if someone came into cube at the wrong time.

I haven't posted in a couple of days because I went down to Lake of the Ozarks to help my parents move into their new house. We spent most of Friday and part of Saturday moving stuff from their rental house to the new house that was finally finished on the lakefront.

Saturday, my sister and her friends decided to go on the boat over to Party Cove. For the uninitiated, Party Cove is a specific cove on the lake where people congregate to just tie their boats together and literally just party. We headed over and made the slow journey over to the cove. The lake was extremely busy and therefore, very rough, so it was best to take our time. The Lake of the Ozarks is a man-made lake that weaves through the mountains in southern Missouri. Here's some pictures of the lake just to give some of you the idea of what the lake looks like......





We got to the cove and noticed it was already starting to fill up even by noon. The boats just pull into the cove and look for a place to park. Generally speaking, one boat will anchor in an area and then other boats will just pull up and tie on to the other boats. Before you know it, you have a long row of roughly 30 boats in a row. This just keeps happening and before you know it you have well over 1,000 boats all over the cove and people just walking and swimming from boat to boat and just stopping to party about anywhere they please. It's surprisingly open in that you have people walking across your boat to get to other boats all the time. Most say hi on the way through as well.

























In addition to all the boats that are parked in the cove, you have many 'sightseeing' boats that come into the cove, take a peek much like voyeurs to see what's happening, and then head back out of the cove onto their next stop. The size of the boats at the lake are simply amazing. There are 40-50 foot boats parked all over the place. The cove sounds very similar to a city nightclub in that there are thousands of people talking, laughing, dancing, etc. In addition, many of the boats have loud music playing, providing even more of a party atmosphere. Also, plenty of people are swimming in the water to get a break from the heat. Here's a couple of ladies taking it easy in the water.



And here are some other people swimming........







Some of the people on the boat were discussing how relatively tame the area around us was from a party standpoint. It would seem that just the mention of how easy-going our area was triggered a whole new level of partying.

On the left side of our boat, we noticed that there appeared to be a boat with about 12 young guys who looked like they were on a bachelor party. While they showed up with no ladies on the boat, before you knew it, some ladies showed up and a bachelor party broke out. Strangely, the boat had a few containers of whipped cream on it. I'm assuming that initially packed for the ice cream sundaes that they were preparing. Thankfully, whipped cream serves a dual purpose. The poor girl in the photo below had her bikini bottoms sag down. Thankfully, one of the young men was able to use the whipped cream to cover her up her exposed areas. Also, you can see a hand holding a drink below her. Another one of the young men had laid down below here to make sure everything was covered properly.



Thankfully, another young lady came over to make sure the the whipped cream was properly covering the exposed areas.........



As if all that excitement wasn't enough, on the other side of our boat we had a group of women who had the worst time keeping their bikini tops on. I'm assuming that it was the brisk wind that was causing the problems, because this young lady finally gave up at some point and simply kept her top off. The amusing part was that she and her friends began an immediate discussion about the details of her breast enhancement. They even went to the point where they felt them to judge just how good the surgeon did his work. I have censored these pictures because it was obviously not her fault that her top kept falling off.....



In this photo, there are a couple of amusing people that just wandered into the photo. It seems that when a woman's top falls off, people suddenly start looking in that direction for some reason. I wanted to point out two couples in this picture. First, note the younger couple just to the right of our topless lady's shoulders. You'll note that the young man has a serious look on his face and is staring in her direction. His wife/girlfriend is right next to him and has a big smile on her face. You decide what those two people are thinking. Also, if you look in the top center of the photo, you will notice two older people inside their boat. While the older lady is simply staring in that direction, her husband cannot be seen because he has his camera out memorializing the moment. I'm sure that I looked like him in his photo of that moment.



In addition, there are multiple pontoons that drive around the cove that are actually floating shops for all of the people in the cove. They sell things like ice, drinks, food, inflatables, etc. Here's a picture of one of the pontoons. Please excuse the fact that the young lady seen previously somehow snuck into this photo........



Also, the Marti Gras traditions are carried on here in Party Cove. If a young man or lady show their breasts, backside, etc., people in the cove will throw them beads. In these photos, there are two young ladies who are simply riding along with their tops off through the rows of boats. There were beads flying onto the boat from all directions. I'm pretty sure they had more than enough to go around by the time they left the cove.......





We finally wore out after about 5 hours of Party Cove. We headed back to the house for dinner and some late night celebrating in the form of fireworks.