New Apartment

So I got keys for my new apartment yesterday. It is nice, although definitely smaller than what I am in right now. It is over 500 square feet, so it is not minuscule, but going from 1100 square feet to 500 is a big change. One thing that I really notice is the kitchen. My cabinet space is greatly reduced, so I will have to develop a new strategy for dish placement as well as find a new home for my foodstuffs as I do not have a pantry. My creative juices have yet to flow on this one.

I am still excited though. I moved quite a bit of stuff into it last night, so I have a good start for the impending big-move this weekend. Now I just have to start packing the last minute stuff and also finish packing the kitchen.

This apartment has new carpet. It is really soft and I really like it, but it is brown. I have never seen brown carpet before. I guess that it is good though, because it should be able to hide stains and won't look as dirty. It is very nice though.

I also have to decide what is going to go into my apartment (and where) in the respect of furniture. My former roommate and I have 3 couches, so I think that I will take one and send the other 2 to storage. We have a recliner and I am still uncertain as to whether I will take it or not. Also, I need to figure out which wall my bed will be going on. I really want it on the same side of the door, but there is not enough space. I guess that my best option is for it to go under the window, which is not exactly where I want it, but guess it will have to do.

I am really excited though and ready to get everything settled so life can return to some sort of normalcy.

I will have pictures of the new place up soon..

A true sign of boredom

Did you know that toilet paper has been around since 589 AD? According to Wikipedia, there have been documents written that include talk about the use of paper for toilet purposes.

During the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD) a Muslim traveler made this remark,

"They (the Chinese) are not careful about cleanliness, and they do not wash themselves with water when they have done their necessities; but they only wipe themselves with paper."[2]

The first rolls of toilet paper and dispensers that we know of today were invented by Seth Wheeler of Albany, NY in 1871. He was granted several patents for the actual roll and the dispensers that accompanied them. He sold the product under the name of the "Albany Perforated Wrapping Paper Co."

From Wikipedia :

"It is sold "by all the leading druggists" and is not medicated. It is marketed as being free of "all deleterious substances" which includes printed materials and chemicals "incident to the ordinary process of manufacture (which is) a cause of hemorrhoids." In addition, medicated toilet paper which is "heavily charged with ointment" was offered for "sufferers of hemorrhoids."

From there, toilet paper has evolved. Today, it comes in various forms : Quilted, containing Aloe, "Earth Friendly", and so on. You used to only be able to buy it at a drug store, but now it is practically everywhere.

The advertising of toilet paper has also evolved. Mr. Whipple taught us in a 1970's commercial to "Not squeeze the Charmin." Charmin is teaching us today that there are 2 different types of toilet roll for your needs, as demonstrated by cartoon bears. I wonder which one sold more rolls?

And just in case you go to another country, here are some common names for toilet paper : toilet roll (UK), TP (US Slang), Loo Roll (UK), Dunny Roll (unknown).

Now you can go and impress your friends with your new knowledge about toilet paper! :)

Photo Credit : Chris73 via Wikimedia. This is a picture of Ancient Japanese toilet paper. They were sticks found from a stream. Aren't we lucky that these have evolved?

Good luck with that...

So I am going to try something new on here. I am going to blog about my daily life. I know that I am a boring person, but it will give me something to do. I am starting a new adventure by living alone. I am excited, but also aprehensive at the same time. I have never lived alone for a long period of time, so it is definitely going to be a new experience. And to kill time, I will document it here. I have been reading a blog from a friend that I know from High School. She lives in Chicago and it is interesting reading about her daily adventures living in a busy, "happening" city. If you want to read about her adventures, you can go here : http://cbhoff.blogspot.com/. I am going to borrow her style and try to document my own experiences of living in the 'burbs.

Random Quote for the day

I thought that this was funny... I don't have anybody in mind, but sometimes it could be me...

"There are grammatical errors even in his silence." - Stanislaw J. Lec

Caucusing

So I went to caucus tonight. It was an experience to say the least. I got there right at 7pm and had to wait until 830-9pm to even get inside the building to caucus. Once we got in, we had to stand there to wait for some forms to fill out to establish which candidate we wanted to caucus for. We waited there for about 15 minutes to figure out what to do and there was a lot of confusion. Nobody knew what they were doing. After filling out the form, we had to wait and vote for the precinct captain. Again, it was very confusing. There was one guy in a red shirt who acted like he knew what was going on and another with a white shirt who had no idea what was going on. There was one lady who was going around yelling "If you want Obama, vote for the guy in the white shirt." So, when we went to vote for precinct captain by separating into two different lines, the guy with the white shirt won. This is due to the fact that most people thought by going to that one side meant that they were voting for Obama. I wish that I would have yelled at that woman because she was making a confusing process even more confusing.

Overall, it was a real cool process. I now can say that I waited 2 hours to caucus in the 2008 Primary. I got to meet some people from my community and just listen to some like minded people. It also gave me a sense of pride that I never really felt before. It was just a great night to be an American and get to take part in our government. Despite the annoyance of waiting outside for 2 hours in the cold and all of the confusion that went on inside, I am glad that I got to take part of this process. I am also really glad that there were about 1,000 people at my polling place and several hundred people who took time to take part of the caucus.

Only In Texas...

Can it be warm one day and then have snow accumulations the next. It is nice to have snow. It only happens every once and a while and you totally have to take advantage of it when it does come. Good ole fashion snow fights would be fun too, but you just have to be around the right people. If only I was on campus right now, I would be able to go sledding. I am sure that all on-campus residents are taking full advantage of that. I totally would.

In Lewisville, we got about 2 inches. I think that this will be a new one for the record books. If not, it definitely makes for a good memory..

It may snow!

This weekend was gorgeous and now we have a possibility of snow. Saturday made it all the way up to like 78 and Sunday was a high of 70. Today it currently is 39 degrees and is dropping. As the saying goes, "If you don't like the weather in Texas, wait a day and it will change."

It is possible that we will get 2-3 inches of snow. Points near the Red River are expecting 4 inches of snow. It will not affect driving, but we will have accumulations on the grass. I am super excited!

Conversations with students

I went to a High School today to talk with students and this is the conversation that I had with one :

Me -"Hey what's up."

Student - "Yeah, I am here to see what majors you have."

Me - "We have many."

Student - "Yeah, but you don't have one for pimps and ho's."

Me - (blank stare)

Campaign 2008

So yesterday I got to experience 2 rally's for the presidential nomination. It started off with Chelsea Clinton when she came to speak on her mother's behalf on campus in the Union and ended with going to Plano to hear Mike Huckabee speak. It was awesome! It was the first time that I ever participated in anything like this before.

It was really cool to see Chelsea because I remember seeing her as a child when I was younger and wondering what it would be like to be in her shoes in the White House. She was set up on the first floor of the Union where many faculty, staff and students gathered to ask questions and to hear her response. It was basically all of the things that her mother already said and nothing new was really pointed out. It was just a cool event to go to. We also saw her Secret Service detail.

Mike Huckabee spoke at Collin College-Spring Creek Campus and he filled up the entire room. They initially had a small room for him and they ended up pulling out the walls so it could expand into the other adjoining rooms (it has the collapsible walls). This was also another great event. He is a great speaker and really went out of his way to connect with Texas voters by sharing his stories of the times that he lived in Texas and also his close proximity when he lived in Texarkana, AR. You could hear the classic call-and-response form which is essential to the Southern Charm.

AND to top off the night, I caught the end of the lunar eclipse too! All in all, I think that it was a very productive night.

Don't forget that Early Voting goes through Monday night and Election night is Tuesday, Mar 4th!

New/Old show : 10 Items or less

In the subsequent months of the Writers Strike, American's have had to resort to watching re-runs or to actually try to find new shows. In an effort to broaden my scope, I have found a new show. It has been around for a few years (since 2006) and may make a come back due to the strike.

It is TBS's 10 Items or Less.

It is very similar to NBC's The Office, with similar type characters, but in other ways, is not like The Office. It takes place in a grocery store and revolves around the manager (John Lehr) and his employees. The situations and how Leslie (the manager/Lehr) acts is very similar to Michael Scott and some of the antics that he would encounter in Scranton. Despite being in a grocery store, they come up with some good story lines and situations : a water-mark that looks like Jesus and helps boost sales during a lackluster time, start feuds with the competing grocery chain manager, etc.

I really like the show. It is really funny. The characters are great and they have a great group of actors. They are not really know, nobody big is on the show, but it is still very well done. John Lehr helped create the show and also does some writing for the episodes, so I think that makes the show more genuine. (It seems that there are a lot of comedies that are going in that direction, using the writers/creators as actors in the show. It makes since as nobody knows the character better than the writer.)

There are new episodes that are being shown along with older episodes, so hopefully TBS can keep at it for a while with new episodes. If you have not seen it, I would definitely check it out! As TBS claims, "Very Funny."

The wind is blowing

And blowing it is. Wind gusts have been up to 50 miles an hour. I went out to visit a school today in Denton and was blown all over the road. I approached the corner of Carroll Boulevard and Eagle and found the the traffic lights were out along with the electricity at QuikTrip. Before I left the office, our power in the building flickered several times.

When I returned to the office, I encountered a lot of smoke. Come to find out that there was a fire north of Denton up near 380. It jumped the freeway and closed down 35 in both directions. I looked out the window and the trees were still blowing in the wind. Needless to say all of the dirt that has settled due to the low amounts of rain combined with the leaves and made some nice dust storms. Oh how I love the taste of leaves in the Spring :)

The winds should die down later tonight around sundown. But be prepared, this weather will be consistent for the next few days and the winds will return in 48 hours...

Politics

Tonight, the President will be giving his annual "State of the Union" speech. It will be interesting to see what he says due to the fact that this is his last year in office and there is much strife in the good 'ole USA these days. We have economic troubles, of which, Mr. Bush is trying to take care of by giving Americans money to spend (which most will go to foreign made goods or saved due to the instability, thus not really helping the problem) which is suggested that it will be a day late and a dollar short because it will be June before the rebates come due to the Tax season. It has been suggested that the economy will already be returning to normal by that point.

Also in the news, Barack Obama has won the Democratic Primary in South Carolina, which was a shock to the Clinton camp as they thought that they would fare well. Even John Edwards, a South Carolinian, came in 3rd place. Today, Obama has also secured a nod from Edward Kennedy, one of the long standing Democrats to this day. As Super Tuesday looms in the fore ground, it will be exciting to see who is in the lead by the end of Super Tuesday. It may be the foreshadow of the nod of the Democratic Convention. Will Edwards give up before then or will he stick it out to the end? Only time will tell...

Photo Credit : http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/World/2008/01/28/4798531.html

All eyes on the Granite State

Today is Primary Day in New Hampshire. All eyes will be here again tonight to see what happens and who is selected by delegates of NH. Mike Huckabee and Barack Obama were the winners in the Iowa Caucus. The polls are indicating that John McCain will win the Republican vote and there is a tie between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. It will be interesting to see what happens between the 2 Democrats vying for the vote. Yesterday, Hillary Clinton got emotional when responding to a question from a resident regarding campaigning. She choked up and her voice wavered as she said that it was hard and that she cared for this country so much.

I am curious if this show of emotion hurt her or not. It is definitely nice to see that she can show emotion and to know that she truly cares and wants to better this country. However, with all of the debate about a woman candidate, some may see that and apply it to other situations and make it negative.

An interesting tidbit about New Hampshire... They only have 2 network affiliates that are based in NH: PBS (operated by the University of New Hampshire) and ABC (via WMUR). NBC coverage comes from either Boston (WHDH) or Portland, Maine for Northern NH via WCSH. CBS coverage comes from Boston via WBZ. Being that the state is so small, coverage comes from the larger markets surrounding the state. I think that it would be really weird to get local news from a TV station outside of the state..

Walmart takes over!... in Houston that is..

Walmart now has the majority market share in the greater Houston area. They have had the majority market share in the Dallas-Fort Worth for at least the last 2 years. It is not a great majority, but good enough to do the job. This year, Walmart, with its 50 stores in the Houston area, had 28.5% of the market share. Second is Kroger with 101 stores, had 25.6% of the market share. Third was HEB, 45 stores with 14.7% of the market share.

This time last year, Kroger was in the lead and Walmart was a close second.

This year in the Metroplex, Walmart's market share was 32.3% with Kroger at a distant second at 15.3%. That is a HUGE difference!

In both markets, the grocery industry is really competitive, especially in the Dallas-Fort Worth where the market is extremely saturated with many different grocery retailers.

I guess with the gas prices and the current perceived instability in the economy, it has driven people to Walmart where they can find low prices on food stuffs. In addition to the economy, recent weather patterns have not helped some crops forcing those prices to rise. I know that I have shopped more frequently at Walmart than in the past, but that is because I recently moved close to one. It is just an necessary evil. For frequent grocery shopping, I do take my business to Kroger or another major grocery retailer where I know where I will get quality food. Personally, I do not like to buy meat from Walmart because I can tell a difference between what I get at Walmart and what I can get at Kroger.

No matter where you go, it is not going to matter. It will take a great majority to bump these numbers. However, remember where your dollars go and the quality of goods that you receive before you spend your all important dollars on grocery needs.

Caucusing

You know, I think that this is the first time that I have ever heard the word "Caucus" used as a verb. "Caucusing" is the act of choosing a candidate for a "caucus". This is Iowa's version of a primary. Basically, this vote is supposed to indicate who will be chosen by the different parties (mainly Democrats and Republicans) to lead their party in the Presidential race.

This is one of the most heated races in a long time. According to WCBS 880 AM, the news media has focused on this primary longer than any other caucus/primary season in the last 10-15 years. I think that this is due to the increased reliance on the television news media for news as opposed to the use of newspapers to receive news. In addition, there has been a great movement for change in political policies, so I am sure that has caused this presidential season to be more heated than the ones in the past.

Iowans may set the trend for who may possibly be up to lead our country. It will be very interesting to see what Iowans think of the candidates. The whole country will be tuning in to watch the "caucusing" in action. Will you?

Late Night is back

Well the late night talk shows are back. I watched Jay Leno and it actually was the same as if he had writers who were not striking. He started out with the monologue (of which he blamed the success/failure on his wife, who moderated it for him) and then moved on to the interviews just as usual. From what I have read this morning, that is what happened on the other shows. David Letterman and Conan O'Brien both came out with facial hair instead of their usual clean cut look. I guess that is a way for them to show support for their writers. We will have to see if they will still have this look tonight.

There was a lot of speculation about what would be talked about on the shows; what would be said about the strike. Jay Leno made light of it, claiming that he was not as funny without them and blaming his wife if he was not funny. He did say that he supports the writers, but beyond that, he did not say much else about the strike. There was some talk in the blogs yesterday as to whether the networks would allow them to say anything in support or against the strikers. I guess that at least NBC did not restrict Leno from saying anything about it. I will have to see tonight about the others..

What do you think about this strike?

Oh Brian Williams...

Did you see him on SNL back in November? I did. I loved every single minute of it. It is the first SNL episode that I have saved on the TiVo and have watched repeatedly. It is just awesome that a major news anchor did something like this. You would never see Peter Jennings (although legend goes he was quite a funny man), Tom Brokaw, Ed Bradley, Edward R Murrow or any other newsman on a comedy show like this. They all seem to stiff and proper to do such a show. Also, it is just not what they do. Newsmen do not show their real personality. They are to just read the news and go on with it. However, maybe things are changing. As the Baby Boomers, Generation X'ers and Millenials get older, the news industry has to adjust to these populations. As a Millenial myself, personally, I like to see the personality of the people that are telling me the news. It is nice to get the impression that the person you see on TV in the suit and tie is a real person and not just some robot who is paid some large sum to read news from a TV screen. I want some personality. I think that all 3 of the major network anchors, Williams, Katie Couric, and Charles Gibson, have the personality and we all have seen it in action.

Couric and Gibson are products of network morning shows. Couric from NBC's Today Show and Gibson from ABC's Good Morning America. With these types of shows, you have to have a personality and also be really good at what you do. You have to be able to go from extremely serious by interviewing the President of the Free World and in the next minute, go to light hearted when you interview some kid who won a worm eating contest. There are also segments that involve cooking and sometimes during the holidays, you will have to participate in some kind of activity. On NBC's Today Show, the main personalities would participate in a costume contest each year on Halloween in which one year Katie Couric dressed up as Donald Trump.

While Williams does not have the experience with the morning format, his appearance on SNL was a good opportunity for him to show his personality. He even made fun of himself several times. My favorite skit is the Digital Short that he did which showed a "behind the scenes view of NBC Nightly News". It is hilarious! He also shows a little bit of himself in his newscasts when he reads letters from the public and issues a response.

Others are starting to like him more too. And it may be in connection with his appearance on SNL. According to the Quick and Entertainment Weekly, Williams' NBC Nightly News won the November ratings sweeps. His viewership was an average 9.3 million viewers, 438,000 more than Charles Gibson's World News Tonight on ABC. Was it his stint on SNL that helped him or are viewers geniunely turning the dial just because they prefer his style of reporting? We may never know, but I like to think that it is due to his stint on SNL.

P.S. Williams' hosting gig was not his first appearance on SNL. He made an appearance on Weekend Update when he first got the gig at NBC Nightly News. I cannot find a clip, but here is a story about it.. http://www.indy.com/posts/1114

Attention DFW Rock Fans!

The Eagle is back! 97.1FM KEGL is now a hard rock station again. I say again because in 2004, Clear Channel in its infinite wisdom chose to change the format from Rock to ACH (Adult Contemporary Hits) called Sunny 97.1. I welcomed this as I really enjoy the Sunny station in Houston (Sunny 99.1/KODA-FM), however, the year range spanned from 1960-1980 and they played a lot of stuff that I did not know and it was really different from Sunny 99.1 in Houston. In the Dallas-Fort Worth area, there is a really strong hold on the Adult Contemporary Hits format via 103.7 KVIL and 98.7 KLUV. With these 2 CBS O&O stations, the format is extremely competitive and there was no room for another station.

After the trial with the Sunny format, Clear Channel execs moved to an All-Spanish format, similar to what happened in Houston to 101.1 KLOL (a Rock station that converted to All-Spanish format that resulted in rage from listeners). Obviously that did not work out because now they have converted back to the old format of Rock music.

I know that there are a lot of people who are excited that the Eagle is back. I have listened to it for a little bit and it is not necessarily my cup of tea, but I am glad that I have another choice available if I am in a Rock mood. Currently, they are running a DJ-less, commercial-less operation, so if you are in a continuous Rock mood, definitely check out the Eagle.

Listen Online : http://www.kegl.com/pages/kegl.html

or

On-Air : 97.1 FM

CAW!

Cali Day 2 and wrapup

Day 2 consisted of going to Disneyland. And that was a day onto itself. You really need the whole day to see everything. We went to all of the major parks within the park and went to almost all of the rides that you could possibly ride. And I actually rode some rides. I rode the Indiana Jones, Pirates of the Caribbean, the Train ride, and a car ride. On the car ride, it was pretty sad. It was not scary, but it did a bunch of stopping and going and it did get petty high. There was a small drop and I screamed. I think that I was the only one who screamed on that ride. Even the little kids in front of me didn't scream. I felt like a looser afterwards, but it was still fun. The Train ride went pretty high and it did go fairly fast, but it did not have any big drops, so I really liked it.

We ate at some good places while at Disney. One was an Italian place inside the park dedicated to the future. I had some pasta with sausage tomato sauce and it was great. It was a big plate but it was $8.99. I thought that was a little much, but it is an amusement park. For dinner, we went to an American themed food venue and it was great as well. I had Pot Roast and it was delectable. A big slab of meat and some potatoes and wax green beans. Needless to say, I left that place full, and again, $15 dollars lighter.

The day was pretty nice, but as the sun went down, around 4:30pm, it started to get cold. It was manageable though and not windy, so that helped. The rides and the buildings helped too.

We returned to our hotel at 12:30 am, so needless to say, I was dead by the end of the night. I passed out right as we walked into the door.

The next day, we had to get ready early, so I had to get up at 8 am to pack and whatnot. Amazingly, I woke up and was not tired. We took the rental car back to Advantage and rode to LAX. I don't know why, but LAX made me really anxious and I was kinda nervous while going through security. There was no need for me to be nervous, but there was a really long line, and it was a new airport, so I don't know what happened. Once I got through, I was ok. It was just going through the process that was a little nerve wracking.

The flight was a little bumpy as we were crossing over weather as we came back, but not a bad flight over all. This was my first time to take a Southwest flight outside of the state of Texas, so that was pretty cool. On the way, we stopped at Albuquerque, NM, and it was really dusty. The airport was pink! I hear that it takes the southwestern theme to the extreme. It would be nice to go back and actually see the city, although, from the sky, it didn't look like there was much to see.

All in all, it was a good trip. I can now cross Los Angeles and #2 DMA off of my "Must go to" list. Next is Chicago....

A Fresh and Easy Trip

So yesterday while I was in California, I put on my "tourist to-do list" a visit at a Fresh and Easy store. This is the US version of the UK's Tesco store. I shopped at Tesco's while I was on my Field School and I was really excited to hear that Tesco was going to enter the US market. As we started to drive up, I was really excited. I started taking pictures, and people were probably thinking that I was crazy. I just wanted to have photographic proof that I was there.

We walked in and immediately I was reminded of the Tesco. They had all of these cold cases up at the front and it was laid out similarly to a Tesco. One thing that I did notice that was different was that they did not have any cashiers. They just had the U-Scan machines, which was ok because it is not that big of a store, and the average consumer of Fresh and Easy will only be picking up a few things, not usually doing their whole weeks worth of shopping.

They had many of the national brands that we are all familiar with, so that was great, but they also had many Fresh and Easy labeled items. Most of these items were organic or had attributes about them that were either guaranteed to be fresh or from products that had no extra fillers or crap in it. This is something that is carried down from mother Tesco because Tesco has a policy about providing the most natural foods possible.

The prices were amazing! Boxes of tea were $2.00, a small bottle of Fiji water was only $0.99. Many of the food stuffs had great prices. Fresh catfish was $2.99 a pound and ground beef was about $1.99 a pound. Fresh and Easy would definitely be a store that I would shop frequently.

I was hoping to see some Tesco branded items or other items that they could import from the UK, but unfortunately they did not have any. It totally makes since because it would just confuse the consumer and it would also increase the prices of the goods and would be an additional cost to the company.

One great thing about Tesco and Fresh and Easy is that they are extremely environmentally friendly. One thing that I noticed about this store is that everything was spaced out appropriately and there was no space that was not unused. This is good because it reduces energy consumption. In addition, I did not see any product on their shelves that had was over packaged, thus reducing waste.

I had a great experience at Fresh and Easy and I hope their ventures in the American Southwest are successful so they can explore outside of this region and make their way to Texas. It would be AWESOME!

You can find out more about Fresh and Easy on their website at www.freshandeasy.com. They also have a great blog from one of the Execs at www.freshandeasy.com/blog