Can you believe it. The suburbs were invade by some of those gay folk. They came in a bus to Aurora to see Ms. Dixie Longate, one our great countries best Tupperware seller. They must have felt comfortable in the large numbers because some of them actually showed public affection in the burbs. And you know how I feel about any form of affection being displayed in public.

Well Ms. Dixie throws one of the best Tupperware parties. She had some demonstrations. One nice fellow helped her demonstrate the use of a reverse engineered can opener. It removes the glue instead of tearing apart the can. The poor man must have been intimidated by the gay folk and lesbians, he had some trouble figuring out how to open his can of fruit cocktail. Ms. Dixie felt so sorry for the fellow that she gave him the can of fruit cocktail to take home so he wouldn't starve to death.

Ms. Dixie told us the history of the first Tuppaware Lady and the first parties. Brownie Wise was a pioneer and the first female VP of the company.

Ms. Dixie decided to get the gay folk and lesbians involved in a demonstration/competition. They had to catch and properly rim the Tupperware bowls. Well the same two gay folk that were showing affection actually won the rimming competition.

After the party was over, a couple of the straight folk decided to chat with the rimming champions. well as it turns out, the one guy was none other than the infamous Squarebear. He is like one of the city's social savants - he knows like almost everyone. Well, everyone worth knowing that is. So the straight folk thought this Squarebear person was very nice and they enjoyed Ms. Dixie's Tupperware show. I myself had to indulge in buying a couple of pieces for a house warming gift. And as Ms. Dixie might say, "Hooker, you are going to love this shit."

Today I hit "Race to Witch Mountain" with the nephews. I'm not much of a Rock fan, but I have to admit that this was a good Disney flick. Great special effects, interesting twists to the original story line, and left open for a sequel. I did go into the theater eyes wide open. Realizing that this was more of a kid's attraction I expected a large portion of the audience to be kids. To my surprise, no a single kid issue form anyone. There was however parent that spent most of the movie texting. I was in a perfect position to see the bright blue white glow of the iPhone. So I decided I'd rather have 1 idiot parent than several hundred rude kids.

I love hand me down jeans.

Since moving to the burbs at the rip old age of 4 ½, we have always had cats and/or dogs. I can’t remember one of the cat’s names. When I lived in Chicago, I had alley cats and guard dogs as pets.

On family vacations, If I could I’d buy local rock collections as my souvenir. I’d also try and get my family to visit local caves or go rock hunting. When we were in Bermuda for vacation, I convince my family to go to the Island cave. The cave was closed for the winter season.

I watched Doctor Who back in the day when they would show one 30 minute episode a day. And then on Sunday nights when they started showing complete episodes on Sunday night in the early 80’s I would stay up and be tired all day Monday in high school.

Last time I went out to the bars I was wearing my boxer shorts with bears all over them (under my jeans of course).

I had a set of teddy bears growing up – papa bear, moma bear and baby bear. I still have one of them in my toy box.

I like to collect free gym memberships. I have a Bally’s lifetime membership with no fees.

I used to do a radio show in high school. It was part of DGDWAS.

I was a founding member of DGDWAS – Downers Grove Doctor Who Appreciation Society. The club shirts were designed by DuPage artist Mary Yezek.

Just by random chance, my freshman year room mate in college had attended my high school for 2 years before his family moved to Canada. We have a number of friends in common and didn’t know it.

I was a founding member of my fraternity at NIU.

Was thrown riding a horse and did a mid-air summersault before hitting the ground. Bruised my ribs form the inside.

I have been taking pictures since I was 7. I used a picture I took for my holiday cards in 2008.

Book reading habits include Terry Brooks, Roger Zelazny, Stephen R. Donaldson, Michael Moorecock. Tolkien and John Gregory Betancourt.

Changing careers – after 19 years in the IT industry, I am going back to school for nursing. I started volunteering at Good Sam in Out Patient Lab and the ER.

I have been out of the country 3 times – Canada, Mexico and Bermuda. When trying to leave Bermuda, the taxi got a flat tire on the way to the air port. We would have missed out flight if not for the fact that the plane coming to get us developed engine trouble and had to turn around. It was a DC10 back when they were having engine trouble.

At age 6 months I split my head open on a coffee table. Broken my left arm at 2 by running into a couch playing Ricochet Rabbit. Got knocked backward into a tree at age 7 and had a compound fracture of my left arm and broke the wrist in 3 places. I also have ripped the tendons in my right ankle, broken numerous toes and broke my tooth and jaw.

My favorite saying (this week): “A friend is someone who will help you move. A real friend is someone who will help you move a body.”

I had dinner this week with a nuclear physicist.

Favorite superheroes: Starboy (bronze age version), Dr. Fate, Firestar, Magik. Favorite super hero twins: NorthStar & Aurora.

I’m not left handed, I’m not Chinese and I can’t sing.

Love to wake up to the smell of coffee and bacon in the morning.

I enjoy long bike rides. I generally pick areas where I can pick apples, black berries and bosen berries or see wild life like deer and coyotes.

I would like to learn how to make my own furniture, learn to draw and paint, learn to swim like a fish. I would like to vacation at Crater Lake Oregon.

My big toes had names when I was little – Albert and George.

You Scored as Jack O'Neill You are Jack O'Neill. Good for you. You're special! Jack O'Neill 75% Teal'c 65% Daniel Jackson 50% Samantha Carter 45%

A friend sent me new job site to check out for doing small IT projects at home.

While checking completed and canceled projects, I saw a couple of odd things. The first job that I looked at was for 1 months work for $500. That would be $3.13 per hour assuming 160 hours, $6.25 per hour assuming 80 hours of work. Current minimum wage is $6.55 per hour. This position was located in Albany nd I had all the skills. The local grocery store pays better.

The next job I looked at was a project manager with my mainframe skill set. Time period 1 month, budget $10,000. Location of request origin - India. So this posistion was payig $62.50 an hour (low by US terms for a full project manager).

These jobs struck me funny for a couple of reasons. First, the pay rates are groslly out of whack. Who would code for $6.25 an hour and what company would want a software developer that is asking htat little. Second, now we are seeing job requests coming out of India for high end professionals. Wasn't corporate America's reason for out sourcing to India to get the high tech market cheap? If the jobs are just looped around the planet where is the savings? Average bid by US and Indian project amangers was $21,774.86. The position was cancelled due to lack of interest at the rate offered.

Here are some of the details from yet another position: we are looking for Mainframe expert in the below areas. COBOL II and above, CICS, EZTrieve, SQL, DB2, JCL, Abendaid,CA7, FileAid, ISPF, SPUFI, IBM Utilities (Idcams, Syncsort, IEFBR14). Experience in an environment using IBM Mainframe Hardware and IBM Z/OS, TSO, IMS, WIndows XP Ope .. ready to pay top $$, 30-50/hr depending on experince. project could last 6-10 hrs. involoves
teaching one person on this topics remotely. we will provide you remote teaching tools. you need to have knowledge of these subject.

So what they are looking for is to have someone come in, spend 10 hours rianing and having staff up to spead on these technolgies. First of all, i could spend 10 hours on DB2 alone and still have more to teach for an intro class. Second, 10 hours at $50 an hour is $500 for a training course. This one is best described as clueless.

So any wonder why I am thinking about switching careers?

There is a house in Bolingbrook that decorated with "A Christmas Story" theme. I'm still trying to figure out how o get my camera to take good pictures of XMAS lights.

Cylon So I got back to my house yesterday and had a package waiting. Inside was a toaster and no note. I picked it up and still couldn't figure out who sent it. When I turned it around I saw the cyclon symbol. It took about 2 seconds to figure out who sent me my own personal cylon (AKA toaster). It's the year of the nerd gifts. I also got star trek pez dispensers.

I have never been a advocate of the "do it yourself" fast lanes at the stores. Today I got 5 visitors at the same time to check on my mom. his allowed me to grab a quick shower, have some Taco Bell and run out to the store to grab a new script for my mom and some gatorade. I decided to use the fast lanes.So with 5 fast lanes, there were 5 people with issues and one 'gate keeper' to help out.

One person was handicapped and in a wheelchair. He needed less help than the other 4.One woman had 2 carts worth of crap and was taking forever. She and her kid were blocking most of the aisle to get out of the fast lanes. Another woman had coupon issues. Granted with about 20 or so coupons the odds of an issue are fairly high. She had so many issues her huge order suspended because she walked away and didn't see the warning about waiting too long.

With no one in front of me, it took almost 15 minutes to get thru the fast lanes. In retrospect I should have gone to one of the regular lanes (no 15 item or less since they have fast lanes).

On a separate note, Kohls has started the new holiday line system. Instead of lining up for a specific register, everyone goes into 1 huge line and the person at the front goes to the next available register. I started counting as i was walking out - 72 people in line, 6 registers open. Th people waiting to check out where blocking the main (left right) isle of the store). Makes me not want to shop at kohls. Best Buy does the same thing.

On Monday, I set up an evening appointment to have my furnace serviced. When I got to my house and opened the door, I was hit my a heat wave. I heard the furnace running so i ran down stairs and turned it off. When I went upstairs, the thermometer read 122 degrees. My house smelled like Yanke Candle X100.

Most of the candles in my house melted and caused secondary damage. I now have a purple fridge that smells of wild berries (this was a huge candle) and my couch had the big purple wizard candle on top of it (melted from the table and fell on to the arm of the couch). All of Allyson's canles form her candle business melted.

The Tiki Cnadles became Tiki puddles. I dont even want to think what the XMAS and Halloween candle messes will look like when I finally find the boxes.

The Dawn of Amber "Nice princes of Chaos, all torn asunder; Six Princesses of Chaos, where do they wander? Fly falcon, stout hart, and unicorn brave; Between the shadows, to escape your grave." I just finished reading "The Dawn of Amber" by John Gregory Betancourt. It is a trilogy set at the beginning of the Amber history, actually the pre-Amber history in the first book. Only the Logrus in the Courts of Chaos exists at this point. Basically the Chaos version of the pattern Amber readers are familiar with. The Logrus grants different powers than the Pattern of Amber. There are a couple of familiar characters from Roger Zelazny's Amber series. We get to met Dworkin before while he is still sane. Okay maybe it would be more correct to say less insane. We also get to see a young Oberon as a soldier in shadow unaware of his family legacy. When he does meet the family, he is crippled and much less of a threat than some of the family members originally considered. There are a number of similarities between the early family of Dworkin and the characters of Zelazny's books. And of course we have lots of intrigue and court going on's. There is also a sub plot with Oberon concerning his family, or lack thereof. From 14 years on he believed he was orphanede. As an adult he finds out about all these brothers and sisters he never knew and his his father! This book basically introduces the characters and sets the scene. It's really more of a launching point for the next 2 books of the series. This is an easy read and a reader need not read the Zelazny series to understand the book. I personally would recommend reading the Zelazny series first than the Betancourt books. That way yo won't spoil some of the mysteries in the Amber series.