Friday Five

This week's Friday Five theme is: College Days. Good theme for me as this is my third time back in college. Twice dropped out, back one last time to finally get that degree!!

1) Back in the late 70s when I first started college I went to the local community college. At that time my father worked as a civil engineer. Anyway ... the college's parking lot was (is) a nightmare. My class ended at 9 PM but I wasn't home until well after 10 thanks to losing my car in that nightmare of a parking lot. When I got home Dad asked how I liked my first day of college. I swore up and down (literally) at the "moron who designed that blankety-blank parking lot." Dad offers me his hand to shake, "I'm that blankety-blank moron. Pleased to meet you". He's never let me forget it, either!! I just started back at that very same college - different campus. His first words when he heard I was back at OCC were "don't worry, I didn't design that parking lot". Oy!!

2) Also during my first college days ... I was one of the first students in my computer programming class (BASIC language - ah, the good ol' days!!) to actually own a *home computer*. Well, my then boyfriend (later husband) owned it, but I had access to it. LOL. Part of my final exam was to have Exie-poo bring in the computer and do a "Live Demonstration* of a rather simple program I had written. Only problem is, he never showed up! He claims he forgot about needing to bring the computer in. I ended up getting an Incomplete in that class. Grrrrrrrr.

3) One of the classes I took in the 70s was Michigan History. Although I'd lived in Michigan all my life, it wasn't until this class I really studied local history. I was hooked! I really took an interest in local lore that's lasted all these years.

I dropped out of college shortly after that ... until the late 80s when I thought I'd get back to earning that degree. This second time was uneventful. Nothing stands out. My third attempt at getting my degree started two years ago. Originally I wanted to persue a degree in Architecture, but with the housing starts and forecasts the way they are, I decided to change degrees back to my original computer degree from the 70s. Web Design is where I'm headed now. Anyway ...

4) Now that I'm older and at this time sporting an umbilical hernia I used a wheeled backpack to lug my books around. Stashing it under the stairs as usual I headed out to the smoking area between my two classes that day. Next thing I know, there's campus security dashing by - definitely in a hurry. Ten or so minutes later one of them comes up to the smoking area to ask about a bookbag left under the stairs. Said someone alerted them as to a suspicious package left abandoned. Yup, it was my bookbag on wheels.

5) Photoshop class. The teacher was awesome!! We spent a lot of time after class just talking. It was she who hinted I switch my degree from web design over to something to do with digital media. Much better suited for me really. I'm so not a programmer! I've yet to be able to talk to my advisor about switching over. Stay tuned. LOL.

There's been other things that stand out ... instructors that have influenced me, friendships made and lost ... even a love interest gone bad. But these are the five that stand out the most.

Blog Comment Turned Entry ...

Had a few comments I was gonna make to my last blog entry. Decided to make it an entry in itself 'cause it may be a long one, LOL!

I did get some sun yesterday. Didn't help with the blahs a bit. I'm wondering if the blahs aren't because I'm pretty much home-bound now with gas prices being so outrageous. Seems I only get out to go grocery shopping or run to some doctor's appointment or the other.

I'm so ready to be working!! Married Son is busting his butt to get the Pilot company up and running. As soon as that happens, I'm outta here!! On the road!! Yeah, gas prices and all. Of course, finally having an income will help defray the costs.

I think that's part of the reason I'm volunteering more for the Star Trek club - get my arse out more and shake the blahs. Hang out with people I know, meet new people and have some fun. So we're a bunch of SciFi geeks. No Helen, I don't own a specific costume. I haven't yet picked which species I'll be. Can't have a costume if I don't know if I want to be Ferengi, Bajoran, Human, Cardassian, Klingon, or one of about a hundred other species from Star Trek. I do have a "Star Fleet" polo shirt that I'll wear for the occasion. So at least I'll be able to be identified as part of the group. LOL!

Pengy, thanks for the link to Las Vegas. Not only are there Star Trek events, but a Titanic event, too!!! I'd love to go. Funny, I'm so not into gambling. Never had the desire to visit Vegas ever, but these events, now I wanna go!

The odor from the adhesive on the windshield has long vanished. It was fun leaving the windows open for two days without a garage in this neighborhood. NOT! Luckily no one helped themselves to my radios. And the predicted rain pretty much held off until the two days was up, lol. I guess I'll adjust in time, LOL.

Haha, an ingrown toenail, eh, Pengy? I've been seeing a podiatrist for months now for that very reason. If I get a computer generated form I'll know who to blame!!

I still haven't heard from Tiger if he wants to go to the reunion with me. Nothing unusual. It could take a week or more for him to respond to email, LOL. I'm glad they're doing a park reunion. Six dollars park entry fee and five bucks per person food fee. I can live with that!! Our last reunion was in a restaurant that a classmate owns. $70 a plate. Needless to say I passed up on that reunion.

OMFG!! Teenagers! Can't live with 'em and the last time I looked it was still illegal to kill 'em! Battle of wits big time around here in the last few days! So much for doctor's orders of no stress! It started again today as soon as she walked in the door from school! I'm in tears right now because of her damned attitude. So much so that I just called her father (Bubba) and told him that *we* need to have a family meeting about her attitude. Can someone with adult daughters please tell me this too shall pass? Please???

On that I'm outta here. Alien took off. Gonna go hunt her down.

Ten Thoughts Tuesday

1) OMG!! My 30 year High School Reunion is being planned!! Thirty years?? Where'd the time go? I'll probably go. I haven't been to a reunion since our 5 year reunion. It's a picnic reunion, so it won't break the budget where a fancy reunion would. I'm seriously thinking of asking my friend Tiger if he wants to go with me. He graduated the year after I did, but most of his friends were from my graduating year.

2) Last Thursday night we had our monthly Star Trek Club meeting. I got a promotion to "Chief Warrant Officer 3" and volunteered to be our ship's "historian" (photographer). My first assignment, LOL, is to document our upcoming bowl-athon this weekend. The bowl-athon will be my first multi-chapter *full costume* function. Should be fun!! (Yes, I'm a geek like that)

3) I'm still having trouble adjusting to the new windshield. I don't know if they put some protective glazing on it for all the handling they have to go through before installation, or if it's just because the glass is so new. All I know is it's giving me headaches while I drive.

4)  "Hey Mom. AMC has tickets for $6 right now. That's $2.50 off their regular prices. Oh, and Seniors get another dollar off."
"And I need to know about senior savings why?"
"You're getting up there, Mom".
Can we say O.U.C.H.???
(AMC, for my non-American friends is a national chain of movie theatres)

5) Finally heard from the doctor on my question about heart disease. He's uncertain as to why the insurance company would have sent me a packet on heart disease. He thinks it may have been generated by computer when my prescriptions for high blood pressure medications were processed. Although he wants me to sign up for the program the packet offers anyways. Says that as it stands now I *am* a candidate for heart disease in the future. And since they're offering why not take 'em up on their offer?

6) I've been in another blah mood lately. To the point I have to force myself to do anything. Even blogging has been a challenge. I'm keeping up with ya'll through emails I receive from Multiply, but just haven't the brain power to think of many comments. Not sure why I'm feeling this way. I have a doctor's appointment next week. If the blahs are still around I'll definitely be talking to him about it. But know I'm not ignoring ya'll ... I'm sure 'll get over this blah hump and be back to normal soon enough.

7) Grandson turns three this week! I can't believe how fast he's growing. DIL won't have his birthday party until the 17th, though. She's trying to arrange the party around everyone else's schedules. She needs to learn to start planning something early enough, set a date, send out written invitations and let her guests plan *their* schedules around her event!

8) Grandson's party will be at Chuck E. Cheese. ::groan:: You know you're getting older when you dread going to a place like that because you know the noise level will be unbearable! I'm already wondering how long I'll last there before the noise chases me out.

9) Grrrrrr ... just got another annoying call on my cell ... wrong number. I don't know who had this phone number before me, but she has some very rude friends. Maybe that's why she changed phone numbers, LOL. I wouldn't even have answered it but that certain number kept coming up on my missed call log. Thought maybe it was a friend of mine, lol. I use my name on my voice mail so you'd think if it wasn't a call for me, hearing *my* name in the VM message would be their clue they'd dialed a wrong number? Oy!!

10) Gawd, I really need to find some energy! I can think of a hundred things I need to do this week. It's just mustering up the energy to get more than a few items checked off my to-do list. I hate the blahs!!

Gross Grub - Spaghetti and Eyeballs

Description:
Source unknown. If anyone knows where this recipe originated from please let me know. I'd love to give credit where credit is due.

Ingredients:
1 and 1/2 pounds ground beef
1 cup seasoned bread crumbs
1 tablespoon ketchup
1 egg
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon oregano
7 ounces olives -- pimento-stuffed
14 ounces spaghetti sauce
3 quarts water
1 teaspoon salt
8 ounces spaghetti
2 tablespoons butter or margarine

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Mix the ground beef, bread crumbs, ketchup, egg, pepper and oregano in a large bowl. Then form the meat mixture into about 18 to 24 eyeball-sized balls. Press an olive into each ball, pimento side out. Place the eyeballs in a baking dish, cover them with spaghetti sauce and bake for 45 minutes. About 15 minutes before the eyeballs are done, fill a large pot with 3 quarts of water. Add salt. Set on medium heat and follow package directions to cook the spaghetti. Drain and transfer it to a serving bowl and toss with the butter or margarine. When your eyeballs are done, remove them from the oven and spoon onto the spaghetti, irises up. Spoon sauce from the pan around them.

Gross Grub - Snouts and Beans

Description:
Gross Grub by Cheryl Porter Random House ISBN 0-679-86693-0


Ingredients:
2 cn (16oz) plain baked beans
1 ts Worcestershire sauce
1/4 c Brown sugar
2 tb Bbq sauce
1 tb Teriyaki sauce
8 Beef knockwursts

Directions:
With an adult's help, empty the cans of beans into a saucepan and add worcestershire, brown sugar, bbq sauce and teriyaki sauce to the beans. Stir and set aside.

With an adult's help, slice off the ends of the knockwurst. You do not need the ends for this recipe. Then slice the knockwurst into equal segments about 1″ long, making each cut at the same slight angle. With the round tip of a carrot peeler, carefully hollow out nostril holes into one end of each knockwurst slice.

Place the snouts in a saucepan and cover them with water. With an adult's help, cook the snouts for about 5-10 minutes. Cook the beans on low heat, stirring often, until the saucebubbles and thickens slightly.

Carefully remove the snouts and place on paper towels to drain. Pour the beans into a serving dish and arrange snouts, nostril sides up, on top. Serves 4-6 little porkers.

Sicko serving suggestion: Dab pickle relish pig boogers in your knockwurst nostrils.

Friday Five ...

This week's Friday five theme is : " Five Moments in High School".

It's funny that should be the theme, I was just contacted not two days ago about our 30 Year Class Reunion. Yes, thirty years!! I feel OLD!

1) Seeing "Welcome To The Grand Illusion" spray painted in black on the white stucco building. It was the first vandalism done to the almost new high school.

2) Senior Skip Day. Oy. Back when the drinking age was 18. Yup, I got plastered. Didn't want to get pulled over for drunk driving so I asked a guy I knew to drive back to the school while I sobered up. Little did I know not only did he NOT have a license (and I never thought to ask!) but he was well known by the cops! We got pulled over. I got a ticket for allowing an unlicensed driver to drive. Had to tell my folks about the ticket. Boy were they ticked off. Dad made me to go court, thinking that'd scare me. It did!!

3) "American Problems" class. Senior year. Monday through Thursdays we'd read the daily newspapers. Maybe even discuss something we'd read, but usually not. On Fridays we studied the problem of the American donut - I would bring in donuts for the class (paid for by the teacher). The teacher was the same one as in number 4.

4) In my senior year I was teachers aid to one of the social studies teachers. He was 6'8" tall. I taught the freshman civics class more often than he did!! He skipped class a lot, too. I remember getting into an argument with him in front of the class one time. Because he was so tall I climbed on a chair so I could look him in the eye and gave him a piece of my mind.

5) Senior Year. Skipping fourth hour (lunch hour) on Mondays and Fridays and heading up to McDonald's for lunch. I was also the teacher's aid for the "Child Development" teacher and was able to cut class on those days. LOL.

Okay, so I wasn't the best student back then. Really didn't give a damn about my grades, but only about cutting class whenever I could. Yup, it was the 70s ...

Thursday ...

Don't worry Helen, I doubt I'll be doing the bazillion posts like I did the other day. At least I don't think I will, LOL!

Grades were finally posted to the college website. Man, I'm disappointed in myself. Yeah, got an "A" and a "B" but that "C" in that one class (Intro To Databases) really screwed up my semester GPA. Lowered my overall GPA to 3.24 ... I'm bummed. That means I have to work twice as hard next semester to bring it back up a bit. Grrrrrrr ...

Got up in the middle of the night - well early morning - to take the usual potty break. LOL ... Single Son was just coming in from work and was rather hyper. Half asleep I got to hear all the office politics and gossip. I'm actually gonna miss that when he moves out later this (or next) month ... those late night encounters. I'm glad I did "bump" into him at that hour. He reminded me we have a Star Trek meeting tonight up at the Chinese Restaurant. Yummy, Chinese!! Otherwise I'd have forgotten all about the meeting.

Married Son and DIL have been really active in our local Freecycle and Michigan Cheapcycle lately. When he's not at his regular job he's off with one of his two trailers getting stuff he sees on Freecycle. He turns around and salvages what he picks up. And of course, the two FULL trailers are sitting on my driveway waiting for him to sort through them on his day off.

While they were at the house yesterday a neighbor girl came to the door. School fundraiser time. Instead of fattening chocolates or artery clogging sausages they're selling Eco-bags now. Yeah!! Being I'm broke I didn't buy any. But I'm glad that they're finally are getting smart with what they're peddling! And yes, I've used eco-bags for a few years now. I love 'em.

See Helen, that wasn't too bad!! It wasn't too long, was it?

And now I'm outta here. Went to grab a ciggie and discovered I'm out!! Need to run to the store. Hugs!!