Today, I woke up to my darling husband and breakfast in bed. Let me tell you about my man since he won’t toot his own horn (which is good. :P). We met via an online dating service (Match.com) over 4 years ago and it was attraction at first sight. Many dates and a year later, we got married. It’s been a thoroughly rewarding journey that I wish for everyone i.e. finding that someone who would cross rivers/highways to be with you and that you’d do the same for. Happy Val’s day. I don’t care about the origin of this day, but don’t get sucked into the trap of reserving your displays of affection for “special days”. Never ever stop letting him/her know just how much they mean to you.
I love you, Man/Matt. 😛
Tag: matthew
Evidence
Another sick example of the left wing media establishment attacking a brilliant independent thinker happens yet again. The liberals want you to believe that they are the open minded representatives of peace and a voice for the intellectual progressive youth. That they are the defenders of truth, freedom, freedom of speech, the children, and the environment. But it is these same “open minded” liberals who attack talk show host Michael Savage when he exposes corruption in the medical industry, the government school institutions, and the media. Why? This could be a perfect example of what you call irony. I consider that an understatement. But they will call it “hate†speech. You be the judge.
Since when did these delusional “progressives†care so much about preserving the ethical values that are essentially derived from nature? This would require a respect for the freedom to operate within the limitations of a natural law and perhaps a belief in something that is for many “progressives” incomprehensible, simple minded, or foolish. A belief in a system of natural laws that stem from one essence. Dare I say?
With a little innate knowledge of this system, and an elementary degree of understanding of a cause and effect sequence, One is equipped with common sense. He certainly need not be religious or spiritual in order to exercise common sense, but it is those who arrive at a greater understanding of the spiritual laws that are equipped with the tools necessary to more accurately see things as they are. Not the spiritual derelicts that dwell in the mundane.
What we have here are those interested in restricting the voices and views that are contrary to their own. Especially views of those dedicated to the protection and preservation of this freedom. Don’t let these vultures fool you!  They take Savage’s words, which are out of sincere concern and brilliant observation, totally out of context, to make you think that he is ridiculing autistic children. Lies, Lies, Lies!!!  As Savage says, how in the hell can Howard Stern, with total impunity, make a living out of showcasing, belittling, and ridiculing those who are misfortunate and handicapped? While he(Savage), a voice for many conscience driven free thinkers around the country, is attacked and vilified with the worst intentions in mind? There can only be one logical explanation. Howard Stern shares the same political views. He is a part of the left wing entertainment media establishment and voice for the degenerate American. The desecration of truth has come to fruition, while it awaits a new morality, a new leader will rise… God Forbid!
Foolish banks (Bank of America, I’m looking at you)
I realized I hadn’t kvetched in a while about finances. In this case, it’s going to be a very good kvetch. lol. You probably know that I’m not too fond of Bank of America any more. Yes, they were the first credit card provider that took on this poor needy post-college student, but now, I’m grown but they don’t want to acknowledge it! I think I can feel free to say that my card has a $1,000 limit. I currently owe nothing (zip, zilch, nada) on this account and right now, I’m only keeping the card to make my credit to debt ratio look good for my credit score’s benefit. Which by the way, according to all 3 credit bureaus, is so close to 700 that I can taste it. That’s awesome considering I only had credit starting in late 2006. The other credit card is on its way to being paid down and I anticipate keeping this other card because they have a way more reasonable APR (13.99%) than Bank of America’s eye-gouging 20.49% for purchases and 23.99% for ATM withdrawals, etc. I’m just glad that I got rid of that debt and can focus on Sun Trust. I plan on closing out the account right before they have a chance to charge me almost $30 for the "privilege" of having an account with them. They can suck lemons. I plan on calling every month till about June to ask for an APR decrease or try to have my account converted (hopefully without a hard credit pull) to a credit card account without the annual fees & hopefully a reduced APR too. However, with the folks I’ve spoken with, I don’t think they’ll bite so the alternative: they’ll lose me as a customer. Just not yet. I’m going to milk this cow till I’m good and ready. Once again, let me see them collect fees on a $0 balance account. LMAO.
[in heavy drawl]Anyways,[end of heavy drawl], I’m doing fine. I just saw a brief glimpse of my sister and her husband (dang, we’re both off the market now) and she looked simply put, beautiful. I’m itching to get my hands on some video of the event. I’ll put up bite-sized chunks up on my gallery (password-protected, obviously). Life is good at Hotel California (inside joke) and I’ll tell the joke. In short, we (all the residents of the house we live in) got T-shirts that read "Hotel California" from one of the residents (JH) and that’s what we’re calling the place we live in: Hotel California. Where the thermostat goes straight up to 72 degrees Fahrenheit at the whisper of lows of 62F in Winter. Jeez. lol. Don’t get me started on this heat rant again. Our utility bills went up quite appreciably for January and I can tell you that that was not appreciated by yours truly. PC came over and kept trying to explain the reason for the jump and while there was one particular reason for it to go up (a leaky faucet that dripped hot water), I truly think it was the fact that I eased off on my fanatical monitoring of the thermostat. Well, that’s over. I gave PC the benefit of the doubt that he wouldn’t abuse it i.e. switching it to higher temperatures unnecessarily, but I can honestly say that there were several occasions that that heater did not need to be going on!! I mean, I just have to vent here because I can’t express myself to him without feeling like I’ll be construed as "ungrateful". Again, it’s going back to the whole mentality of knowing that he’s got tenants who will bear the major brunt of the utility bills and thus, feeling free to go crazy with the thermostat. Don’t tell me: it’s his house, yes and we can put up or shut up. Well, as it is, we’re in a symbiotic relationship and he needs us just as he needs him. We have a common ground even though I make Hotel California sound like a war zone. It’s actually nice and definitely keeping our living bills still below $450 monthly (I can’t say that for the summer though. It was awful). So, I’m not in too much of a hurry especially as the "deals" we’re seeing for housing aren’t that great i.e. ~ $455 just for rent and water excluding utilities. Right now, we pay for water and trash and they probably amount to ~ $60 so it’s a relatively small price to pay versus the ~ $100 utility bills we may be receiving in an apartment complex (that’s without cable). It shan’t be for long though and I’ll leave it at that. 🙂
I’m currently embarking on an "experiment" that’s leaving me a little bit more tired than I’m used to being. So, I’ll monitor the situation and then, make a decision to take it or leave it. Dad/Mom, don’t freak. I promise it’s nothing crazy. lol.
Finally, I need to put M on blast. lol. What did he do? Where do I start? 😀 Okay, I got a coupon book from a lab mate who was gracious enough to spare from her excess. It has great deals like buy one/get one free (BOGOF) from places we eat at (I believe I’ve mentioned this book before). Well, M decided to go eat at Subway (bearing in mind I’m not too big on the whole subs idea especially Subway’s subs). I went along because he’d been dropping mad hints that he wanted to scratch his sub itch. So, we broke out the coupon booklet and behold, we had a coupon for a BOGOF on 6-inch subs. Well, I decided to substitute my free sub for a salad which cost a dollar more. Then, suddenly and inexplicably, M asked me if I wanted a drink. lol. You have to be with us to understand why this was so earth-shattering. We never get drinks at fast food restaurants because we’ve both concurred (a long time ago) that those deals were rip-offs. Now, in his defense, he had just done an intense workout and I was even extra-tired too and we were both acting loopy. So, he got 1 sub, 2 small drinks and a salad that was essentially $1. The bill totaled to approximately $8.50. I literally did a double-take as did M. You guessed it, the two drinks were $2.60 and the sub was nearly $4!! That was what threw me for a loop. I didn’t know subs had gotten so damned expensive which is a testament to the truth behind my assertion that I really don’t do sub shops. 🙂 Anyhow, lesson learned: avoid getting drinks when getting meals. The main redeeming aspects of our trip to Subway were the awesome salad, the free refills which I took liberal advantage of (I made M get his refill too) and the pleasure of knowing that M was going to be hungry again due to the malnourished looking sub he got (I love you Matt!!).lol. I was right. Just kidding. I wasn’t being a downer, I promise. I took it like a champ and we had fun. Now that I’ve put him on blast, I know I’ve jinxed myself and will slip up on something. 🙂 *crosses fingers and toes*
And that’ll do it for now. Peace!
Weird marital issues
Okay, so I think I probably should have not gotten exempted from my Oral communications class. 🙂 Matt & I had a blow-up earlier in the day and it all revolved around a word: car(t). Basically, I was at the World (our slang) and I was frazzled that (i) I had so much shit with me and no one volunteering to help with baggage (ii) a customer service person who was just scanning items & who seemed content with letting my shit pile all over the counter, etc. So, I buzzed Matt and told him to bring a second cart into the store. I figured I’d see him in less than a minute. When I didn’t, I told the “scanner” to pause while I ran out of the store to retrieve a different previously-requested cart. However, this cart was messed up because some customer couldn’t be bothered with cleaning up a mess of crushed strawberries that were all over the cart (slight exaggeration. Point is, I didn’t discover the crushed strawberries part till I was back in the store and ready to stash my goodies). So, I’m feeling slightly more frazzled than I should be. I pay for the stuff and get out of the store. And ready to war with M as to why he didn’t respond to my S.O.S. By my admission and his earnest remonstrations, I was wrong for blowing the issue out of proportion. I said “cart,” but he heard “car” so he drove around looking for me. Needless to say, he couldn’t have found me because I was inside and not outside the store. Knowing when to eat humble pie is a pre-requisite for marriage and I did it very willingly this time. Being the sweet man that he is, he didn’t rub it in too much and even apologized for rising to the bait of my spiked words. It’s truly weird how little stuff can bug the beejeezus out of me sometimes.
I got to talk with my parents and two of my brothers today (Donald and ben). Man, just hearing their voices, at the right time(s), makes me want to just Go Home. Of course, I have a figurative home here and now with my husband. However, I know that my real home is in Nigeria. As my mil let me know, her casa is also my casa and I do cherish her warmth & sincerity. I honestly couldn’t have asked for more real in-laws. From a sister who point-blank-“edly” asked me & M the baby question (lol) to M’s sisters who are so fun to be around, life is looking up. Despite my kvetching about the living situation, I think with a more positive outlook, my health (mostly mind) will soar through the roof. Work is going although I had been plagued by a certain experiment not working.
Seriously, I repeated this experiment (which is a biological version of cutting and pasting things out on a DNA level) over 4 times now. The first two were theoretically my fault. However, I am doubting that I had ever slipped up because my main supervisor took over the reins and the darned thing didn’t work either!! Well, my supervisor is one who knows her stuff and takes pride in the quality of her work. So much so that she can definitively rule out issues of error on her part or her reagents. So, to make this long story short, I’d been feeling pretty bad that this “simple” experiment had failed to work. Being the kind of person she is, it’s safe to say I’ve heard my fair share of subtle nods as to questions of competency a la alluding to the fact that others other than me and maybe “less” experienced have had phenomenal success. I’m a “the buck stops with me” kinda person and sometimes, I just need to trust in myself that if I did all I was supposed to do, then the shit did not hit the fan while I was on duty. Ergo, I cannot take the blame. Anyway, she thinks she’s narrowed the problem down. I think I know what else I can do to ease my heartache/bruised ego: positive & negative controls. See, in science, for your work to be publishable, you need your work to be reproducible and free of doubt or questions of it being a fluke. For instance, if you are doing a digest of DNA (digest means you’re using enzymes to cut DNA strands in specific places), your “positive” control would mean you would set up a reaction where you would expect your DNA to be digested. For your samples, you can posit as to whether their DNA will be cut or not. Your “negative” control will be a reaction where you would not expect your DNA to be digested. In a nutshell, you would need to control for the variables in the experiment: DNA and your restriction enzymes doing the digestion. I know I’m doing a crappy job, but this is the best I can come up with. When I’m less lazy, I’ll put up links that explain what I’m trying to convey to you. Back to my original point, I will essentially be including positive and negative controls this time. And will be keeping my fingers crossed. That’s all for now and have a good weekend folks. PS: I love Athens, but on game days, people just lose good manners. Sheesh.