While you're down there...

Lately I've been reading Talk to the Hand by Lynne Truss. Truss is the author of the critically acclaimed Eats, Shoots and Leaves which is an amusing book about the abuse of grammar and punctuation in modern society. I enjoyed Eats, Shoots and Leaves so when I saw Talk to the Hand at the local DollarTree, I picked it up. It's amusing...but not as interesting as Eats, Shoots and Leaves. Talk to the Hand is mainly a commentary on how rude we have become. Today I was reading and got a good laugh over her comments on this Ad campaign from UK's Keep Britain Tidy organization.

From Talk to the Hand: "I have to report that my reaction to 'While you're down there...' posters is, to say the least, mixed. I am actually revolted by their cynicism, disgusted by the explicitness, concerned that teenage promiscuity might be a high price to pay for less litter, but on the other hand relieved and pleased that, in a poster aimed at young people, the ellipsis has been used correctly and that there is an apostrophe in the 'you're.' In other words, it actually could have been worse."

Updates and Such

I had to delete the article that I was in process of posting because I started having problems copying and pasting (my problems led to me accidentally posting it for a few minutes, even though it was incomplete--so I apologize if you ended up with it in your feeds). I'm wondering if it has something to do with downloading the newest version of internet explorer yesterday...I don't know that they have all the kinks worked out.

At any rate. I'm back at school after my break. We had a great time at the Ben Folds concert last Wednesday. I got about 10 feet away from Ben Folds and he sang all of my favorites. The crowd was a pretty good one too...mostly 20+ and not a whole lot of pushing.

This week I've been thinking a lot about my friends and family in the Fargo area.

They are making the national news again...just like in 1997. The flooding there is expected to surpass all old records.

I even found an article from a Canadian newspaper that refered to Argusville as a "new residential development." :) But kidding aside, I hope that everyone stays safe and that your houses are spared. Mother nature is one fickle woman.

Weekend Away in Iowa

Rob and I took advantage of a weekend getaway package at the Royal Amsterdam Hotel in Pella, IA. As many of you know, we haven't lived in Iowa all that long, so we still have many places to explore. Pella touts itself as a touch of Holland in Iowa, so we thought we'd check it out :).


The downtown is full of old historical buildings and new buildings made to look historical. The whole town is filled with step-gable facades (even the McDonalds and Wal-mart take part in the local Dutch Flavor). There are windmills ALL over the town. Including a real windmill and one that houses a bank and another that houses the tourist information center. We had a delightful time going to the local food specialty shops. Rob came home with Beef Jerkey from the Ulrich Meat Market and we had lunch at In'tVeld's Specialty Meats. The Jaarsma Bakery was so wonderful that we went twice so that we could get more goodies (and breakfast danishes for Sunday morning)!

In addition to exploring downtown, we also went out to Lake Red Rock on Saturday afternoon.

On Sunday, we saw the Watchmen at the local movie theater (movie tickets were part of our package). It was great to get away! We look forward to visiting Pella again when they have their tulip festival some year (or at least to return when the tulips are actually blooming :).


Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarahjanesetnes/sets/72157615271223953/

First Family gets a Rainbow Swing Set

http://www.mcall.com/news/nationworld/politics/sns-ap-obama-swing-set,0,1199711.story

Jimmy Fallon Sets Rachael Ray on Fire

Rob really likes this promo...it makes me laugh too. :)



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRYU23Q8pGU

The Equitrust Penny Wars

Rob's JDRF fundraising has now drawn to a close. On Tuesday, Rob brought home the coin jars that they had had up since the begining of their fundraising campaign. They had penny wars between the different sections/departments at Equitrust. Whichever department had the most money in their jar after the pennies were subtracted won a bagel breakfast. I offered to help Rob count out the change, since we had to seperate the dollars and silver change from the pennies and count them seperately (we probably would have just taken it to a coinstar if we didn't need to get seperate counts :) ). I volunteered to count IT's jar so that Rob wouldn't get as much trouble from folks at work about "fixing the count" if they won. The IT jar was the fullest.

Here we are counting out the change. Rob has ALL of the Marketing jar in front of him. I have all of the IT jar in front of me. It took us an hour and a half to count the jars. I only counted IT. It took me almost as long as it took him to count the other three jars.

IT won the penny war by a lanslide and earned the most amount of money overall (something like 63 dollars--most of it in change). I counted over 20 dollars in pennies. The whole fundraiser made just over $138. Last year they had a coin jar for donations that made 7 bucks.

Rob enjoyed heading the fundraisers, but is glad that the campaign is over. They made about $1,600 total after expenses were deducted. They beat last year's total by over a hundred dollars, so he's calling it a success (especially considering the economy).

...time has gotten away from me

I'm starting to pull back on the reigns a bit. The last few weeks have been a blur.

Valentine's was a nice lazy weekend. I got my Dove truffles (which are divine really). I got some purple ear buds for my mp3 player and Rob bought me purple meeples (and he got me roses too :). We went out for lunch at our favorite asian restaurant. It was nice to avoid the crowd and to be able to just enjoy each other's company.

Midterm grades (which are done very early at DMACC) were completed and sent out. I have gotten through both classes' first essays, and I'm dreading the second set that will start coming in tomorrow. I have made it through 3 of the 4 Composition Portfolio reading and training Saturdays...this Saturday will be the last.

Other than that...not much to report. We picked up a recumbent exercise bike. Rob had been wanting one for a while, so we used some of his annual bonus to buy an inexpensive one. Oh, and I got my purple converse sneakers that I've been wanting for forever. :)

Back to school work...hope you are all well!

The Caf-Pow

Last week we went to pick up some burgers and get some gas for Rob's car. Conveniently enough, there is a local Kum & Go that has a Burger King attached to it. So Rob started filling up his gas and I ran in to get the hamburgers. Well, the service was a bit slow and Rob came in to join me. I suggested that he run over to the Kum & Go side and get us some fountain pop (since it's way cheaper there than at Burger King). He asked me what size I wanted and I told him to surprise me. After I got the burgers, I walked over to meet Rob...and there he was filling the largest plastic glass I've ever seen.

"Dude! It's a Caf-Pow!" I said.

"That's what I thought!" he said.

Now, if you don't immediately know what that is, a Caf-Pow is what Abby drinks on NCIS. It's a running gag that she's always hyped up on caffeine and folks (especially Gibbs) bring her Caf-Pow's to keep her working and at her best. The 64 oz "kup" from Kum & Go is as big as a juice/koolaid pitcher--it's enormous. The really amusing part is that it only cost $1.18. That's a heck of a lot of soda for a little over a buck. I, of course, did not finish all of that pop....I only made it a little past half before I had to toss it out, but it was well worth it--just for the amusement. :)

Under Construction

If you don't read my blog in an aggregator or on facebook, you may have noticed some changes lately. I've been trying out some new headings and color schemes. Feel free to weigh in with comments :).

We've been fighting some crappy health lately, so both Rob and I have been just wanting to chill out at home and go to bed early lately. We've been watching NCIS from Netflix. We are all the way up to the end of season 4 now. Today we started watching the second season of Dexter. I can't seem to get enough of the crime dramas :).

This morning, I had my root canal. My tooth is a bit sore, but otherwise everything seems to have gone smoothly. It certainly took less time than the bifurcated root tooth.