Back From Mexico

What a week it was! Sun, surf, sand…and unfortunately no Canadians hockey updates.

That’s a picture of my feet in a new pair of Croc’s (my shoe collection has now reached a total of 6 pairs if you were listening to Tammy and I on the morning show a week and a half ago), the Mayan Riviera in the background and if you look carefully somebody is swimming by trying to out run a shark I think.

The week would have been much quieter if I had only realized that my week off coincided with Spring Break American style. Several hundred 18-19 year olds from the US learning how to binge drink. It could have been worse, there could have actually been alcohol in the drinks! What they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them…but it was fun watching them run around thinking they were drunk… 

I took a day off from loafing on the beach to get some education in Mexican history and visited Chichen Itza, the remnants of an ancient Mayan civilization about 2 hours West of where I was staying. I’ll have plenty to write about that trip alone, so I’ll save it for another post. I’ve got some great stories and even better pictures to show you. The self portrait below has the Western side of El Castillo (the famous pyramid at Chichen Itza) directly behind me.  

  

And believe it or not, I actually brought along a book to read that was fiction! Yeah, Fiction!! I don’t think I’ve read fiction in about 10 years. I’m almost finished reading A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller. While it is fiction it likewise falls in to the category of “classic literature”.  Written in the 1950′s, it’s a post apocalyptic tale of what life might be like if all technology and all knowledge of what came before was virtually destroyed. Then trying to piece together what had come before the deluge by only small fragments of information. 

 

Considering my visit to Chichen Itza the book was very appropriate.

It’s great to be back! More stories to come…

What Your Co-Workers Hate About You

 

Now, be honest are you a bad coworker?  You might be and not even know it.  Here are the top four “coworkers bad habits”:

Missing deadlines. YOU might think turning in a project an hour late is no big deal, but what you’re really saying is “You can’t count on me!” What if your boss needed that project to be on time so they could take it to a meeting? Now you’ve made both you AND your boss look bad. Deadlines aren’t negotiable – they’re put in place for a reason. So get everything done when you’re supposed to.

Dressing unprofessionally. This sends the message that you don’t take your job seriously. Think about it: Would YOU promote someone to manager if they constantly dressed like they were going clubbing? Save the short skirts, holey jeans, message tees, and tube tops for the weekend. If you’re not sure what’s appropriate, look at what management is wearing – and go from there.

Playing computer games or shopping online during work hours. Last time I checked, most job descriptions didn’t include “play massive amounts of solitaire” or “pick out a pair of heels for your friend’s wedding.” You’re being paid to work, not play. So save the extracurricular Internet activities for your time at home.

Being negative. Everybody complains once in a while, but if someone says “Good morning” — and you shoot back with “Yeah, right. Is it Friday yet?” — people are going to start avoiding you. If everyone avoids you, how can you network and move up in the company? Work isn’t always fun – but try to keep the complaints to a minimum.

So, what stuff bothers you about someone you work with, or used to work with?

The Worlds First Time Machine

Time travel could be a reality within just three months, Russian mathematicians have claimed.

They believe an experiment nuclear scientists plan to carry out in underground tunnels in Geneva in May could create a rift in the fabric of the universe.

Scroll down for more…

Life imitating art? Actors Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd in the movie Back to the Future. Scientists say that time travel could be a reality in just three months

 

The European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) hopes its “atom-smashing” tests – which aim to recreate the conditions in the first billionth of a second after the “Big Bang’” created everything – will shed invaluable light on the origins of the universe.

But Irina Aref’eva and Igor Volovich, of Moscow’s Steklov Mathematical Institute, say the energy produced by forcing tiny particles to collide at close to the speed of light could open the door to visitors from the future.

According to Einstein’s general theory of relativity, any large amounts of matter or energy will distort the space and time that surrounds it.

If the energy or mass is large enough, it is claimed that time can be distorted so much that it folds back on itself – creating a wormhole, or time tunnel, between the present and the future.

But Dr Brian Cox, a member of CERN and one of Britain’s leading experts in particle physics, is highly sceptical about the Russian claims, calling them “nothing more than a good science fiction story”.

 

Wormhole: Scientists plan to carry out tests in underground tunnels in Geneva in May which could create a rift in the fabric of the universe

 

He said: “Cosmic ray collisions in the upper atmosphere are far more energetic than anything we can produce.

“They have been occurring for five billion years, and no time travellers have appeared.

“Stephen Hawking has suggested that any future theory of quantum gravity will probably close this possibility off, not least because the universe usually proceeds in a sane way, and time travel into the past isn’t sane.”

Cynics often point out that if time travel was really possible, we would have been visited by people from the future.

However, Einstein’s laws of physics suggest that time travel is only possible into the past as far as the point when the first time machine was invented.

You can read somemore information here

http://www.analogsf.com/0305/altview.shtml

Strange Beer Names

I guess I should have posted this for St. Patrick’s day, but then again beer is good anytime!AskMen.com rounded up some of the oddest-sounding beers in the world.

Fiddler’s Elbow — Wychwood, the small brewery responsible for this gem, draws its inspiration from the fantasy and mythical geography of the UK. So, while it is a catchy sounding and strange beer name, Fiddler’s Elbow is also a small village in Wales. 

Old Speckled Hen — This wildly popular English ale got its name this way. The men who used to build MG automobiles back in the day used one particular MG to zip around the factory. They referred to this venerable, rust-spotted vehicle as “The owld speckled ‘un.” On the 50th anniversary of the car, the tongue-in-cheek brewmasters celebrated by creating a beer with the slightly more marketable name of Old Speckled Hen.

Dogfish Head Snowblower Ale – Dogfish Head is a small craft brewery based in Delaware that is growing rapidly thanks in no small part to its immensely popular Lawnmower beer. So, playing off that name, they decided to go with the winter equivalent for their cold-season offering.

Sick Duck — The genesis of the name of this award-winning beer is shrouded in mystery, but the fact that it’s brewed in casks that previously held rum might have something to do with becoming ill from overindulgence.

Seriously Bad Elf — Beers that weighs in at a hearty 9% alcohol will make just about anyone do something seriously bad. So, Ridgeway Brewing decided to give their bitter-strong holiday brew a suitable holiday-themed name.

Arrogant Bastard — If your beer is really good, you can call it pretty much anything you want and people will drink it. Or, in the case of the Stone Brewing Company in California, you make a beer so good that you basically mock anyone that dares to drink it by calling the brew Arrogant Bastard.

Moose Drool — The owners of Big Sky Brewing Co. got their start brewing in basements and went on to become mini-celebrities in Missoula, Montana, with a public-access cable show called Beer Talk. According to legend, the owners of the brewery were sitting beneath an old painting brainstorming beer names when one finally looked up at the artwork and saw a majestic moose drinking from a lake, and there was a thin line of water running down to the rippled surface. “It’s a moose, he’s drooling, let’s call it moose drool,” he said.

Santa’s Butt Porter — This seasonal beer’s moniker is actually in reference to a large (108 gallon) barrel referred to as a butt.

Spitzer’s “Pretty Woman”

  

Not surprisingly, the call girl known as “Kristen” who brought down New York Governor Eliot Spitzer has been found.  She’s 22-year-old Ashley Alexandra Dupré and she lives in Manhattan and says she comes from a broken home and now worries what people will think of her…uhhh, yeah…

According to her MySpace page, her first love is music and she posted one of her own recordings there. She owns a company, created in 2005, called Pasche New York, which her lawyer said was an entertainment business designed to further her singing career. So don’t be surprised that once all of this settles down she’s going to emerge with a nice fat recording contract.

“I am all about my music and my music is all about me. It flows from what I’ve been through, what I’ve seen and how I feel.”  

So far, she hasn’t been charged in the case, but she has been subpoenaed to testify in a grand jury investigation.

So how do you feel about this lady? Sorry for her, that she got involved in all this? Think she’s a home wrecker…? Would you buy her CD if she ends up getting a recording contract out of all this?

Have a listen to 2 of her songs here

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Surviving An Avalanche

  

Well, considering it’s snowing again this morning, I thought it appropriate to share with you my tips on how to survive an avalanche. And considering the amount of snow we’re going to be dealing with likely until June… To start you can forget about the idea of trying to outrun the snow. An avalanche can accelerate to over 100 km/hr in seconds. But if you follow these tips, you might just walk away from it:

1. Grab a tree. The more snow that slides past you, the less likely you’ll be buried alive. Hang on for dear life until the force knocks you off.

2. Paddle hard. You are three times denser than dry snow, so if you’re not swimming, you’ll sink.

3. Create space. Once the snow stops, it’ll set like concrete. As it slows, inhale to reserve room for the expansion of your chest, and cup a hand around your mouth to leave an air pocket.

4. Raise a hand. Before the flow ceases, get a limb to the surface to help rescuers find you. Between 15 minutes and 45 minutes under the snow, your odds of survival fall from 90 percent to 30.

5. Breathe slowly. To delay carbon dioxide poisoning, stay calm and don’t bother yelling until rescuers are on top of you. Your fate is now in their hands.

Redneck Measuring Tape

Mancold

Finally, Men get a little r-e-s-p-e-c-t!! (click here)

  

Good News, Bad News

 

If you want to surf the web while waiting for your flight at the Denver airport, there’s good news and bad news.  The good news is that they offer free Wi-Fi.  The bad news is, you may not be able to access some of your favorite sites.

It seems the airport has installed an Internet filter that blocks such sites such as the ones for magazines Vanity Fair, Sports Illustrated, Playboy and Penthouse.   So they wouldn’t have to field complaints from people who saw racy images on other people’s computers, the airport bought the same kind of software filters used by repressive regimes in Sudan and Kuwait. 

The good news is that you can still buy the above mentioned magazines most anywhere in the airport.

Momnesia

It turns out that Alzheimer’s may be hereditary – you may be inheriting it from your kids!

A number of new mothers have reported experiencing forgetfulness after giving birth and now it has a name – ‘momnesia.’   Researchers say that part of it is due to the lack of sleep that’s inevitable when the baby comes home.  Another possible factor is all the things a mom has to learn about taking care of the new arrival.  With all the new things occupying a mother’s mind, other information takes a lower priority.

On the upside, they say that once the initial period of readjustment ends, after awhile the mommy brain gets more efficient, and the mother become smarter and learns things faster.

Unfortunately there is still no explanation or cure for Dad-nesia.