Food Trucks

I know it's irrational to have a fear of consuming food prepared in a food truck, but there you have it.

I have never ever purchased food from a street vendor. You know, the hot dog guy or the lady selling tamales or the guy peddling shaved ice on a hot summer's day. I have never ever patronized them.

Never been tempted to try.

My immediately wanders to when was the last time they washed their hands? And, where ARE the bathroom facilities? No one. No one can spend hours on the street without needing to use the bathroom. So where do they go and what's done with the food cart when they're preoccupied?

See what I mean? I can't get beyond these questions. The same thought pattern applies to food trucks. How sanitary are they? How well refrigerated is the food? Is one person in charge of food preparation and another strictly handling currency? You know money is the filthiest thing we handle.

Enlighten me. Am I irrational or can you see my point of view?

PrePaid Broadband

My home wifi connection doesn't penetrate the walls from the den at rear to the front porch, so it's a good thing I have Virgin Mobile Broadband2Go megabytes to blow out. I bought the 250 MB / 30 days plan and it's been more than adequate for my limited weekday use, which averages about 45 minutes to an hour of online surfing.

I'm not committed to a 2 year contract, early termination or activation fees. If I need more megabytes I simply buy them directly from Virgin Mobile's site or I can purchase a Top Up card from any Best Buy. The denominations are: $20 = 250 MBs, $40 = 600 MBs, $60 = 1 GB all megabytes must be used within 30 days or you lose them - no carry over.

If you occasionally need mobile broadband connectivity then prepaid broadband may be a viable alternative.

Cheaters

I read a BBC article that prompted this blog post:

Cheating on exams - whether they're weekly, education certifications or state licensing exams has been available for many years. Cheaters would write answers on their hands or  arms or etch their pencils or pay someone to take the exam for them.

Students who passed the exam would sometimes record their answers and sell or distribute them to others. The cheater could  also easily look at a neighbor's paper and simply copy their answers.

So now we're in the digital age where we have iPods, MP3 players, USB disks, pen drives, mobile phones - many equipped with a Note feature for recording notes, we have texting, we can receive photos via mobile and on and on so cheating has become even easier and more difficult to detect and prevent. Never mind the web sites that purport to have the exam online for would be cheaters to see and memorize for a price.

Today's cheaters are just as dodgy as those from my time. And yes, several of them will gain acceptance into ivy league institutions or colleges with stellar reputations and some will advance the ranks in Corporate America.

The thing is we'll always be able to spot them because they're likely to have administrative staff who do everything for them. Not because they can afford the staff, but because the cheater is absolutely dependent on their skills to compose the memos, budgets, speeches, policies,  etc. that the cheater's pea brain never mastered.

The cheater is likely the manager or director at the office who can't spell worth a damn or compose a standard business letter.  He's the one the staff picks apart his emails and ridicules his spelling and grammar.

He doesn't know how to create  a budget or prepare a proposal. He likely paid fellow students to write his papers and take his exams. Now he's in Corporate America and still at a loss about how to do things.

Look closely and you'll spot him.

Status of New Year Resolutions

So far I'm keeping three of six resolutions, what you ask, you only listed five? Yea, let's talk about that...I forgot to write one down. Doh! The missing resolution has to do with Boo and I doing something new / different each month.

It can be as simple as dining at a restaurant that we've passed multiple times and muttered our intention to eat there someday or trying a new adventure / getaway. We have done two new things this month, in addition to me reading the Bible daily and spending more time with my mom.

So basically I'm at 50% in keeping my resolutions. Not a figure to brag about this is certain, it can equally be said that three weeks into the new year I have a 50% failure rate! I choose to be a glass is half full type of gal so I'm going with the success rate.

Did you make any resolutions? What's your success rate?

You've Got Mail!

I spent the day with my mom and had a great time. We didn't do anything special or different, we dined together, ran errands and did grocery shopping all things that made me very appreciative to have my mom in my life to do these things with.

We watched the film You've Got Mail on the 'E' cable channel and I was reminded of my father-in-law, the only person in my life who used and loved AOL. The man loved hearing three words: You've Got Mail.

Without fail each visit resulted in me repairing his OS, fixing something awry with AOL, reinstalling AOL or uninstalling AO-Hell after an automatic update that wasn't ready for the wild or updating drivers.

The one consistent thing my FIL and I shared was his love and addiction to AOL and my ability to keep his addiction operating smoothly. It might take me an hour or two each visit to get things working again but I never failed him.

He's departed earth for almost four years this February and as much as his AOL-related tech support taxed me and made me nuts, I now reminisce with very fond memories.

Happy New Year!

So 2010's arrived and it sounds so Sci-Fi to me, like I'm not living it but reading about it in a book. I can't believe it's 2010 and I'm living it. It's surreal.

So after last night's celebration and preparing to celebrate with family today, I started thinking about the good old New Year Resolutions. Admittedly I try not to make any because, like most people, I don't keep them.

I've managed to successfully keep one resolution which is to read the Bible daily. I've actually done this several years in a row and then in 2009 I took a break to see how knowledge of the Bible's teachings influenced my life. Had I retained anything? Or, was I simply performing the task of rote reading without learning anything?

I discovered I'd retained many lessons from the Bible and realized that I missed reading it daily. I felt empty.  Disconnected.  Lonely. I can't explain why I felt this way only that I did and I found myself wanting to read the Bible mid-summer.

So I surprised myself when I easily came up with five resolutions:

1. Lose weight


2. Read the Bible daily


3. Spend more time with my mother. Maybe start a new tradition of Sunday dinner.


4. Take a photo a day


5. Learn to play Mahjong (I own two sets and have not learned how to play!)

Let's see how I fair!

Yum-O!

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