I had to take this ridiculous exam at work about corporate compliance, safety, etc. i understand the purpose, but the questions are so dumb. If you get less than 70% you can take it over till you get it right. I am going to be honest and say I didn't watch all the popwerpoints that com with it, because the questions were so easy.

Here is one of the more serious questions as an example:

Which of the following is statements is true?
a. Compliance with HIPAA is optional
b. Noncompliance with HIPAA is a federal offense.

Without knowing much about it, it seems obvious that choice b. is right. You never would phase anything with compliance as optional.

But then I got this crazy one.

Dirty Bombs, although dangerous, are more of a scare tactic rather than a health hazard.
a. true
b. false

I picked false, and ... I was wrong!



It seems pretty crazy to bother with that question. What is it teaching the workers? If someone calls for radioactive materials and says its only for a dirty bomb, then its not a big deal. it just seems like such a stupid question to ask on this type of exam. The exam took about an hour and I was paid to take it. GLad they carefully thought about the important questions like:

It is acceptable for employees to wrestle with their friends on Roswell property, so long as it is break time?
a. true
b. false

It was awesome hanging out with our friend dave today. It's the first time we had him at our house since his accident. He can go up steps now which is kind of a pre-requsite for visiting us since we removed the downstairs bathroom. (e:terry) made turkey enchiladas. I have now eaten Turkey for like 10 meals in a row. I still haven't tried a turkey milkshake and all the jars of broth I made have to be frozen because I only have a water bath canner and not a pressure canner.

If anyone has a pressure can they don't want or I can borrow - that would be awesome.

We watched Wall-e and man did I think it was stupid. Cute but stupid. Was there a message? Yesterday, we worked on the downstairs appartment at the rental prop some more. It's just about totally ready now. We also spent the evening hanging out with James and Robert from work. I drank quite a lot of wine that they brought from a wine tour they were on. On top of that I got a bunch of programming done.

I noticed this morning that my NFTA schedules made easy was broken and fixed it. I hope it wasn't down very long. I don't think it was as I used it one day last week.

While I was in there I fixed a bug that caused route 20 jpg based schedule to show up with route 20 and route 200 schedule data. I think people find it useful because they keep visiting. It is always up to date because it is reading the data directly from the nfta site.



Oops, I accidentally deleted my visitor log, but it get like 200 uses a day.

I feel bad admitting it but one of my favorite parts of winter is that the street crazies go away. I am not sure where they go but wherever it is, it makes walking around Allentown a lot more pleasant.

I was walking home from the gym the other night and I didn't have to cross the street to avoid people begging for (insert wish here) even once. I think it might be the first time ever.

I think the processing part will be much harder.

I am trying to cook a turkey right now. Wish me luck. I am following the instructions found at

I still can't believe what a deal it was so such a quality bird.


The separate the skin from the breast slide butter in stage was such a weird thing to do, but I suppose it will probably taste that much better. Turkey skin is so stretch I am surprised there are not turkey skin condoms.

Its not often that i am totally broke but right now I am mega super broke. One of our rental appartments bathroom and kitchen cost like $3000 unexpected dollars to fix. Hopefully, now after working on it a bunch this weekend, we can actually rent it out again. Having two apartments rented will be a big help to the brokeness. I feel like that place sucks the life out of me.

I wish we just had our house to deal with. Even after all the problems were fixed at the rental prop I found an attic window that was rotting out. Should be a fun weekend of painting, fixing and cleaning. It should be great as I am still sick.

It really sucks to be broke. Luckily, I bought a turkey on super clearance at the lexington-coop so even though we have no more grocery money, we will have 20 pounds of turkey once I get a chance to cook it. It was like $16 instead of $70, the original price but it was frozen and I had to defrost it for 3 days now. The turkey comes from Stonewood Farms In Vermont

On the work front
I worked way late into the evening twice and still have two hours of personal leave I have to use right now before it expires so I figure that tomorrow, I am leaving early in order to cook the Turkey, ya right. We will see how that goes.

I have been programming like mad but its never enough to keep up with the crazy number of requests we have now. I am supposed to be working on one new project but everyday its something else. I hope we et new people before there is a hiring freeze.

For me personally, a $55 wedding ring is too cheap. By me personally, I mean if I got one. I don't have one so I am not an expert. I am not trying to cheapen anyone's else's rings or anything but before everyone just decides that I am purley a materialist, I thought I should explain myself.

I feel like a wedding ring should carry more of a investment than say an mp3 player or cell phone because it shows that the person purchasing worked hard for it and frankly working hard for something equates caring to me.

I am not saying that someone who is poor should have to spend $5000 and go broke, that is ridiculous. And in reference to (e:thelli) I am definately not suggesting it need be diamonds. In fact I don't really like diamonds - I am an emerald guy, lol. But in my opinion it should be somewhat relative to your income and should involve a bit of saving up. Even someone at minimum wage could save $10 a week for one year and get me a $500 ring. Thats like barely a couple beers.

Plus, more valuable rings also appreciate in value over time so that they become things that you can put in your will and pass on to other people.

Now (e:matthew) says he wants this one

I am sick. I decided to stay home and recoup a bit as I have personal day that expires on 12/05. I hope it just goes away but I doubt it. I some how made it through the October sickness this year. Usually, I get sick in October and March. I was kind of hoping that by missing october I was good till march.

I decided to bake tonight. First I baked pork chops with smokey barbeque sauce. Then I decided to make Meringue cookies.

Here is my recipe:
3 large egg whites
1.5 cups of blended sugar
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

Separate out the wegg white. I did this by poking holes in the eggs and letting the whites pour out. It works way better than you would expect.



The bacon grease in the background was from this morning and is being saved for the squirrels who love it. I figure why waste it?

Then take the sugar and put it in the blendar till it is powerdery. Preheat the over to 200 degrees. You could probably start with powdered sugar but I wanted it organic and there was no powdered organic sugar.

Then whisk the eggs white till frothy and then add the cream of tartar. Beat until the peaks are stiff. Then add suagr and continue beating until it is stiff again. I am good at beating things till stiff but my arms were so tired from this we had to keep switching off between the three of us. I refuse to buy more appliances so I use the manual beaters and whisk for stuff.


Then you scoop them onto trays and bake for like two hours. Yes, like two hours. It is insane but you have to bake it so low.


Totally unrelated
Yesterday, at the coop I noticed Guecios deleviering produce. I really should just go there instead. I mean seriously it can only be marked up, not discounted, for them to drive it down the street.



I also bought a turkey at the coop. They were liek $70 for natural ones before but the day after thankgiving they were like $15-$20. I figured they would still be there when I went back today but they were all gone except one which was in the freezer case. I bought it. For $16 we will have enough turkey for the three of us to eat for a week. I just wish it wasn't frozen so I could have cooked it today.

Today, we were at the tenants house scrapping the kitchen ceiling when I was looking at myself in the new bathrrom mirror which lets you see your profile easily. I was amazed at the shape of my ear, which is stunted I feel. I never noticed it before when looking at it from a normal reflection.