Twitter observation

The longer I hang out on Twitter, the more I’m learning. Perhaps that has to do with the fact I’m following more than 30 people, mostly journalists & PR people.

Today’s observation: there is a marked difference between what men tweet about and what women tweet about. Women send tweets either seeking inspiration or inspiring inspiration in others. It’s kind of like an instant support network.

Men send tweets about food — what they have for breakfast, what’s being served for lunch in the media room at the US capitol, how spectacular Chipotles is. I find this to be especially true with the journalists, especially “@newmediajim” with NBC. Dude is very concerned about getting lunch every day. And he sends tweets like a dozen times a day.

I don’t know why men tweet about food. I have no insight into this. I just thought I’d throw that out there. Comments as always are welcome.

Olympic fever

I’m not quite the sports nut I used to be in high school, but something about the Olympics is awakening that spirit again. I think it might be an issue of perception. I perceive the Olympics as being more of a pure competition, not so much as a competition against each other as a competition against ideals — records, medals and such.

I guess I was a little jaded from professional sports when Michael Jordan retired the first time. I had made peace with his retirement and had let him go when he came back. I wanted to remember him as #23 with the Bulls, not #45 struggling to relive his glory days. What little was left in my faith in sports died the day Dale Earnhardt hit the wall at Daytona. That was it. I was done.

Now something about watching the 23-year-old Michael Phelps and other Olympians has awakened my hope that some people out there still compete for the pure love of the sport and the comraderie it creates, not for egos or the sponsorships. This is my perception. However flawed, it is my reality.

I just watched Phelps pull in his sixth gold metal of the Olympics. My heart’s pumping. And I don’t even watch swimming. Heck, I can’t swim myself. But this is fun.

So here’s to Phelps and all other Olympians, especially those who are the only competitors to represent their small countries. Be proud. You’re inspiring Average Joes (and Janes like myself) all over the world.

Goat for sale

Make that goats (plural) for sale. My hubby’s weed control experiment has failed, and the dumb animals ate the grape vines on my silo. I intentionally planted them there, so they do not qualify as weeds. The goats failed miserably at their mission.

This whole thing started because we had two problems — hungry goats and too many weeds. Solution: make hungry goats eat the weeds. I mean, really, they’re supposed to eat cans, so what’s wrong with a few weeds? Apparently a lot. The hubby set up a temporary pen in a particularly weedy part of our yard. He used green snow fence, t-posts and zip ties. It looked good and seemed to work — for about a day. By the middle of day 2 of our weed control experiment, the goats decided the grass was indeed greener … well, you know. All it takes is a determined goat with a long neck to break down a fence. They found my grape vines and the hubby’s newly planted trees and feasted. I hope they enjoyed it, because it’s not going to happen again. The hungry goats were put back in their pen, and a few will likely be hauled to the Minnesota sale as punishment.

Goats are still hungry, the weeds are still there. Existing problems not solved, new ones created. Stay tuned for further developments.

To the rescue

I walked in to Cafe DuMond at the totally wrong time on Saturday. The little cafe in my hometown was packed to the gills with people in town for Knife River Days and the All-Class Reunion. Which lead to the crisis I encountered: they were out of fleischkuechle. Now why exactly was that my problem? I can’t even eat those big greasy meat-and-dough pockets. My mom was working at the cafe that fateful afternoon; just as I inherited her occasional spaciness, I inherited her fleischkuechle problem.

“They ordered three, we only have two. Go find some!” she says. It was obvious she wasn’t going to make my lunch until I generated some fleischkuechle. Rather than argue, I decided to embrace the challenge. I raced out the door and up two blocks to main street. I might have almost broke into a run, a first since my pathetic, short-lived track career in high school. I used my only superpower — my people connections — to scare up a whole case of the stuff, and ran back to the cafe, all within five minutes. Not bad for a chick with an office job. My mom was happy, her coworkers were amazed. Erin saved the day. My reward, free lunch. Score! I still haven’t outgrown that college frame of mind — will work for food.

So here’s to my mom and the cafe for giving me something to write about today. Cheers!

Office Space

The past couple weeks, I’ve been knees-deep in a fun little process HR likes to call “team building.” That means me & my coworkers get to talk to all kinds of people and management and … *gulp* consultants. We talk work flow and interpersonal relationships and fun things like that. I had an hour-long chat with a consultant on Wednesday. I survived, though I’m afraid a few of my coworkers didn’t have it as easy as I did. As I was sitting at my desk afterwards, decompressing and digesting what just happened, an absurd thought crossed my mind. I started giggling hysterically. I am living “Office Space.” I just had a meeting with “the Bobs,” or in this case, just one “Bob.”

“So where’s the motivation?” … “My only real motivation is not to be hassled; that, and the fear of losing my job. But you know, Bob, that will only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired.”

Wow. I know I uttered a few of those words to the “Bob.” Maybe I’ll end up with some hypothetical stock options. Or maybe they’ll just take away my Swingline stapler. If they do….

Al Gore is a cult leader

He’s an alarmist. He’s got charisma. It’s a dangerous combination. I get physically ill reading news about Al Gore’s crusades against global warming; lord knows I can’t listen to him talk. Unfortunately he has the exact opposite effect on others. They can’t get enough of this guy. The thing is, he’s somewhat of a genious. He puts a complicated issue into simple terms that people have a hard time arguing with. I mean, who wouldn’t want to secure our children’s future? No thank you. I think I’ll pass. Yeah, right! You can’t be against an ideal like that. At this point in the game, it would take mountains of money to rise above his rhetoric. So onward he marches with flocks of eco-sheep tagging closely behind.

I’m just waiting for the day for him to call for a mass suicide of his followers. According to him, the planet has a fever, and we (humans) are the problem. Next thing you know, he’ll form a compound in South America called Altown or Goreville. The loud speakers will blare, “White knight, white knight!” and he’ll be serving koolaid by the ladel-full to the masses. Scary. If he only would realize the methane gas his rotting carcass would produce is way worse than CO2. Of course that’s assuming he drinks the koolaid, too. He might just drink powerade instead and catch the next rising star.

Trying something out

A coworker of mine does awesome videos for our company. I’m new at this blogging thing, and I’m trying to figure out how to link to those videos on YouTube. So this is a test.

New shoes

Good news — Weather Underground is back. I can sleep peacefully again.

Now, to other news. My daughter is officially walking. In celebration of that and the fact that she’s finally growing a bit, I bought her a new pair of shoes. Nice ones. Pink & brown Nike sneakers. She loves them. Maybe a bit too much.

She insisted on wearing them out of the store. She squealed and smiled when she saw them this morning; she wouldn’t let me take them off at daycare. She wore them all day and showed them to everyone. After her bath tonight, she insisted on wearing them with her PJs. She was almost asleep in my arms and I tried to take them off. She lifted up the blanket, pointed at her shoes and glared at me. OK. Guess you’re wearing them to bed. Wow. She’s a 16-month-old shoe nut.

I have somehow ended up with a shoe-loving girly-girl. It’s just proof that God does have a sense of humor, because I’m not so much. Those Nikes were the best money I’ve spent in a while. They were worth every penny just to see that smile on her face.

Rant of a weather nut

Weather Underground’s Web site has been unavailable for almost 24 hours now. This has completely fouled up my world. You have no idea. It’s my home page on my laptop. It’s a quick link button on my work PC. I heard thunder at 3 a.m. this morning, I had to see what was going on. Nope. No Weather Underground radar. Nothing. The Weather Channel’s radar sucks. It doesn’t have the bells ‘n whistles that Weather Underground has. There, I can track individual storm cells and monitor hail and rotation. I see things on that radar that you never hear about on the weather reports. If I could find a phone number for Weather Underground, I’d be one of those stalker-like fanatics who calls to tell them how much they’re ruining my life.

Wow. I never realized it before, I’m a Weather Underground addict. Say a prayer for me.

The next step

My hubby, daughter and I have a new adventure on the horizon. We’ve decided to take the next step in hobby farming and travel out of state for a sale. Yes, my friends, we’re heading to Barnsville, Minnesota, in September. The  good news is, my hubby wants to “cull the herd”: we’ll be selling off some geese, chickens, goats, llamas and whatnot, and will keep our favorites. The goal is to make enough money to cover the gas for the trip. Rumor has it chickens sell for $15 a piece out there. That would be sweet.

Some bad news goes along with this new adventure. Rick’s on a mission to find an addition to the farm that we don’t have yet. Now I have no idea what that could mean. I mean, geez, we already have snakes and emus along with a pile of other animals. I’m afraid we’re going to come home with … a camel. That’s his goal. If you’re going to dream, dream big, right? Lord help me, I could be a camel farmer in a couple months. I have this ridiculous notion in my noggin that they’re like a cross between a horse & a llama. I know that’s not right, but I have to rationalize it somehow. Maybe I’ll get lucky and we’ll just come home with some fuzzy chickens or something small like that, or maybe even a new donkey or a miniature cow. That would be cool. I’ll keep you posted.