Happy St. Patrick's Day 2012

Now New and Improved!

And then there's this dandy piece:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/15/business/a-public-exit-from-goldman-sachs-hits-a-wounded-wall-street.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

In response to this zinger:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/14/opinion/why-i-am-leaving-goldman-sachs.html

Conversation on Yahoo!: SEC charges Thornburg executives with fraud - Yahoo! News

Hi, Judi Stutz is inviting you to join a conversation on Yahoo!. Have something to add? Don't be shy - tell them what you think Started by Judi Stutz Block sender More financial news... SEC charges Thornburg executives with fraud - Yahoo! News WASHINGTON, D.C. (Reuters) - The Securities and Exchange Commission charged three former executives of Thornburg Mortgage with securities fraud on Tue... More What Do You Think?

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I had a dream...

I had a dream and in that dream there was a baby Bengal tiger staying in someone's apartment in a multi story high rise building and the tiger had two keepers that looked over dressed in secret service attire to controlled it with a large baby play area walls. The tiger wanted to find someplace softer than the carpeted floor to lay upon, so it would jump on the couch and then get right off. Maybe there was a scent on the couch the big cat didn't like. There were three house cats sleeping in the hall on piles of blankets and then on top of the piles were the cat beds. The big cat greeted me by trying to jump on me kind of like some large dogs do, but I told it no, and then it sat down. One of the keepers asked me to take off my shoes. The tiger ran to the right through the hall past the sleeping house cats and into another room. One of the keepers said it was ok for me to find a new large dog bed for the tiger. I did not take off my shoes. I left the apartment and went down in the elevator to the city street where it was night, but there were lots of lights. I walked and then I found myself eating a few bites of a grinder sandwich. I threw it away into a garbage can. I walked further and turned left to find a movie theater. It was old so they were showing movies on a screen that was mounted over a stage. I can't understand quite what is going on in the lobby... Everyone is speaking French? around me. I'm feeling a bit clostrophobic.

Conversation on Yahoo!: Bank of America reaches side mortgage deal: report - Yahoo! News

Hi, Judi Stutz is inviting you to join a conversation on Yahoo!. Have something to add? Don't be shy - tell them what you think Started by Judi Stutz Block sender The biggest bank in the US cuts a deal over it's foreclosure practices. Bank of America reaches side mortgage deal: report - Yahoo! News Bank of America has reached a side agreement with US authorities that could reduce the mortgages of some 200,000 borrowers in order to avoid fines of ... More What Do You Think?

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In my face

Maybe its just the fact that Easter is coming, I don't know, but God is in my face today. It happened 3-4 times before 9am. Jesus freaks at the gas station... The gas station. How annoying... I know. They were handing out "awake". No, thank you. Random songs on the radio. Picketing for God. No, thank you.
God should be a personal, spiritual thing, treating eachother right and living right. Why isn't it enough to just believe in yourself? Everyone should be a little more god-like.
When religion turned into a business is where it crosses the line.

My new car is not so new now

Two weeks ago, I was driving to work along on the westbound 22  and there was this huge dump truck in lane three in a construction zone and something flew out from under it's tire and thwacked my windshield like hard and it left a gash and cracks going in five different directions.

I left it alone last week because my rideshare buddy drove. This week, it's my turn and I cannot deal with this growing menace anymore. It's almost doubled in size. Good thing it's more on the passenger side.

I took my car into Guaranty Chevrolet, where I bought it, and I'm having them replace the windshield. I could have guessed it was going to cost a grand to replace, but I would have guessed wrong. It was actually less than $700. 

They gave me a brand new Sonic to drive today while my car was in the shop. It's got a cute but kind of confusing dashboard, but the seats are absolutely horrible. You can feel every little vibration from the engine when the car is still or idling. I hate that. It gets 36 MPG.

And I got my first oil change for free.

Everything You Never Wanted to Know about...

...Tomatoes.

Last year, I bought three plants at a TOMATOMANIA! (http://tomatomania.com) event at Descanco Gardens (http://www.descansogardens.org/) in La Canada-Flintridge. If you view the map below, you can see that's about 46 miles away from my home. This year, I found that same tomato crazy event is going to be held at Roger's Garden's (http://rogersgardens.com/) in Corona Del Mar, which is so much closer.

But, hearing about how my Rideshare buddy just planted strawberries in her grandmother's community garden, I thought I might try to grow some this year in a container.

So, I went container shopping last weekend at this place called Pottery Manufacturing and Distributing (http://potterymfg.com/) Their name says it all. And it's all they do. The place is chock full of pottery. It's great. It's right off the 110 Freeway in Gardena. I found it because I drive that way home from work sometimes.

I was able to locate a beautiful 14 plant container in cobalt blue. Then I trotted over to my local Armstrong Garden Center and found enough strawberry plants to fill my new container. Fast forward to an impending storm, and by the time I got all of my purchases home, it was too cold to plant. I pulled the plants inside last night to prevent them from freezing. Yes, it was that cold. On the news, the snow levels were reported at 3000 feet. That makes Orange County a mighty cold place to be. How cold? As I type this blog, it's 43 degrees. That's cold enough to set off my car's road ice warning.

O.K., so back to the tomatoes. So my three tomato plants from last year died this past weekend. I wasn't sad about loosing the Beefsteak or the Pink lady because, to be honest, they just didn't perform like I thought they should have. Maybe I was giving them too much water because they were planted in a Topsy Turvy, or maybe I didn't feed them enough high test chicken poop AKA Tomato Tone (http://www.espoma.com/p_consumer/tones_tomato.html). I don't know. But the star of the three plants was the Chika Japanese Cherry Tomato plant. That thing grew like gangbusters and had a good amount of fruit. In a last ditch effort, I harvested all of the green and semi green cherry tomatoes and seeded them. Then I read this:
http://www.reneesgarden.com/articles/grow-tomato.htm

So now I have a glass bowl of unplanted tomato seeds.

Dating Sucks, Part 2,364

Two weekends ago, I went out on another date. This one was a coffee date, too, but it ended up being a late lunch as well. He's a few years older than me, a plumber. There wasn't anything particularly offensive about him, but he seems to be a little rough around the edges and maybe lacks some of the social graces. Like using a napkin on his lap when he eats. If you're not taught or even care about whats right, wrong or the expected behavior, then how do you know?

Anyway, I'm getting a bunch of disconnects between his photo, what his writes and then with the way he communicates with me on the phone. These things are not consistent with this man. And then he made an appointment with me last Saturday to fix a laundry room plumbing problem, but conveniently forgot about it and later told he he decided to go snowboarding with his nephew instead. After, he said he was not in contact via email because his cell phone went dead after his car hit a boulder and busted his oil pan and a piece of his suspension.

His drama is not attractive. Maybe that's just my gut feeling trying to tell me "El Flake-o" and move on. He said he would call yesterday, but he didn't. I'm on radio silence.

Dating Sucks

I am a 45 yo single white female in the dating scene once again because I'm bored to hell with my life as I know it. I've thrown caution to the wind and made up a profile on POF.com. I've had one date. I chose him. And this has again proven to me that I constantly and consistently choose bad. Let's say "God of the Geeks" had a back story that you could use to write a sitcom and leave it at that. Three hours later and a maybe a handful of emails over the following few days convinced me that his schedule to fit me into his life was cramping mine and then I told him, "I don't think this is gonna work". Next!