Hair-Brained

I think underneath all the boring everyday, everyone has crazy ideas.  We all have those desires or insane plans that hang out in the back of our heads; that we day dream about when life gets boring or bland. As a goodie two shoes myself, I have lots of these ideas, and they will most likely never come to fruition, but they sure are fun to think about when life gets blah.

Here are my top 5.  Of course, I tend to day dream quite a bit, so these are just the craziest. This brain is full of all sorts of hair brained schemes...

1. I would love to learn how to fly.  I just love the idea of having my own little two seater plane and flying off to where I want to go.  However, flying is a crazy expensive hobby.  It's slightly doable but not until I raise some serious cash.

2. I kinda sort of, in the back of my mind, want a tattoo.  I have no idea what I'd get but there are some beautiful ones out there.  I'm not talking about sleeves or some crazy design all over my chest, but something small and meaningful.  However, I can't decide where I'd get one - I'd want to be able to hide it without it being called a "tramp stamp."

3. I want to start my own instructional design/marketing/event business only working with charities and non-profits that support causes I believe in.  Specific, huh?  I want to create training and web-design for companies that focus on helping people rather than making loads of money.  Also, that takes tons of money and tons of networking - being socially inept is sort of a drawback when you own your own firm...

4.  I want to take off without a plan to parts unknown - making the assumption I'll be ok.  I can just find a cheap place to live and luck into a dream job easily, and the visa thing woulnd't be a problem.  Yeah, crazy people attempt this and are for the most part fine.  If I ever gave it a shot, I feel I'd be living in a cardboard box working at fast food restaurant.  It would be just my luck.

5. I want to go build a house in Nicragua or volunteer in an orphanage in Haiti, or teach English in South Africa.  I want to do something awesome to help people.  It's fantastic to think about, but how will I be able to pay bills when I have to leave my paying job.  It's a problem.

Alaska, We have a Problem...

I've had a crappy day.  It was one of those Mondays that sucked even more than other Mondays.  Things happened, people quit, meetings weren't attended, nerves were fried and I was stressed.  Basically, your average terrible, horrible, no good very bad day.  

However...

I'm willing to bet, even though I'm wishing this day never happened, I'm pretty sure my day was 100 times better than this dude's...

How exactly does something like this happen?  I mean, really?  I'm curious.  One minute, your friendly neighborhood luggage handler is loading up a plane, and the next moment, you decide it's really time to hit the road.  Honestly, when was the last time a plane left on time, anyway?  And more importantly, why didn't he start banging long before they made it to the friendly skies?  Planes are loud!  If they could hear him while they were flying, why couldn't they hear him when he was taxi-ing?  Just curious.

I'm sure it'll be a long time before this guy can laugh about his terrible Monday, but at the very least it made me feel better!

Jordan!

Absolutely loved seeing Jordan Spieth make history today by winning the Masters.  He broke a boat load of records and still seemed to keep his Texas attitude and easygoing nature while doing so.  Sure I always want Phil to win.  And for a while there, it looked like he might pull it off.  But watching the amazing round that Jordan was playing and seeing as he lead ALL weekend long, it was hard not to root for the guy.  I mean seriously, what's a better Cinderella story than a 21 year old kid, stealing the Prince of Golf crown from Tiger?  I hope that the Golf announcers will now stop mentioning Tiger and comparing every single other player to him now.  That'd be great, thanks.  Let's start comparing him to Jordan.  He's much nicer and at this point in time, a much better golfer!

And honestly, as if Jordan didn't have every other awesome thing going for him, he also has fabulous taste in Baseball jerseys : )

Way to go Jordan!

Not Skinny

There's a blog that I see referenced a lot on Facebook, mostly by friends who are dieting, called Skinny Mom.  And I can't even think of a worse title.  First off, wouldn't you rather shoot for healthy mom, why do you have to be skinny?  I understand wanting to eat healthily and not eating all sorts of fast food, and fried things; focusing on fruits and veggies and not burgers and fries.  But I don't understand this push to be skinny.  Not completely overweight to the point of obesity I get, skinny I don't.  Life's too short focus all your energy on achieving some illusive size you may or may not ever see.  

And secondly, wouldn't you rather be known as fun mom, or funny mom or cool mom or chef mom or loving mom or kind mom or awesome mom or crazy mom or mom that occasionally lets the kids have ice cream for lunch as a treat or working mom or super mom?  Why would you focus on being miserable - because I'm guessing staying skinny once you've gotten that way is no treat - when you can focus on being you and letting your kids see that?

If you're so focused on how many calories that salad you ordered has, what do you think your little ones are going to notice?  They don't care that your skinny, but they're going to learn that food is always a chore and is never fun.  

Not that I couldn't stand to lose a few pounds, but I'm pretty secure in the fact that I'll never be the skinny mom.  And I'm hopeful that the future kids won't care so much.  Afterall, I'll let them have ice cream for lunch sometimes, why wouldn't they love me for who I am? : )

Friday Five: Master's Edition

1. How can you not love the Big 3 of golf?  Arnie, Jack and Gary are the godfathers of golf and they're treated as royalty each year.  I love seeing them together reminiscing, joking and basically having a grand old time.  They so deserve all the love thrown at them!

2. The Par 3 Contest: How can you not love a golf match full of little cuties in caddy smocks? They're adorable!  Also, what better way to kick off Master's week than being surrounded by your loved ones?

3. Jordan Spieth!  The kid's 22 years old, playing in only his second Masters (have I mentioned he came in second in his first Masters?) and he's already tied the course record 2 days in a row and is leading the pack by 5.  Not that I'm not rooting for my Phil, but I'd love to see Jordan take it out right.  He's been on fire for the last year.  I'm sure he'll have many Masters ahead of him, but he's playing his heart out.  He deserves this win.  (However, I'm still pretty happy that my Phil is doing so well and Tiger is, well...not so much : )

4. The course itself - Have you seen Augusta?  The course's greens are so spotless they look like they've been painted. Not to mention the gorgeous pink azaleas that cover the course. It's just beautiful and serene, and I can only imagine what it's like to get the chance to play there.

5. Ace in the Hole - Jack Nicklaus not only got a hole in one on Wednesday, but a few hours before hand he told the press he'd work on getting one.  The man is 75 years old and is still schooling the pack.  Go Jack!

6. And an additional bonus for the Masters - I love watching it with my dad.  Love that we both love it!

All photos are from Golf.com.  

Cyber Security

It may be because I work for a cyber company.  Or it may be that I'm naive.  But when all of these people start complaining that the government is listening to their calls or scanning their emails - the only thing I can think of is, thank goodness.  Thank goodness because by doing so, they may catch a bad guy doing bad things.  And also, I'm not doing bad things so what the heck do I care?

I know that net security is a big topic, and I also understand why people have a problem with big brother watching 24/7.  And I sort of get it.  But by my matter of thinking, we'd all have a much bigger problem if those terrorists that the FBI and DHS were watching on the internet were free to complete whatever nefarious plans they had in the works.  Law Enforcement's job is hard enough already.  Why should we make their jobs any harder by questioning every single move they make to keep us safe on the internet? 

This topic sort of came up today at lunch (like I said, cyber company therefore computer nerds).  We were talking about whether or not to have social media accounts.  We all thought you should definitely have them - but don't be stupid.  Understand what you should and shouldn't reveal on a public forum. Duh!  If everyone would just abide by the the Don't be a dummy rule, maybe they wouldn't be so up in arms that big brother was looking at their data.

PS: And as a simple point of contention - why do you think you're special enough that you think the entire Department of Defense wants to scan your vacation photos or your travel spreadsheets?  They're just looking at ones and zeros people!  

News of the Day

It seems my Twitter feed is a whole smorgasbord of "Important" stories today - some actually important and some fairly ridiculous...

~ First off, Dzhokar Tsarnev was found guilty - Considering he plead guilty, I think we all sort of saw this coming.  Though, I'm sure it helps the people of Boston to hear the verdict with their very own ears.

~ In South Carolina, an unarmed man was shot in the back and killed by a police officer, who's now been fired and arrested for murder. - How does this keep happening?  The video is violent and horrible, and it's completely shocking that "murders" like this are occurring in the United States in the 21st century.  What's wrong with people?

~ Apple has released a new Emoji keyboard for its iOs 8.3 update.  - Most people seem to be quite annoyed that there isn't a taco emoji.  I love Mexican food but honestly, I'm not sure a taco emoji would ever come in handy.

~ Barry Manilow married his longtime manager. - I'm happy for him, but I have a question.  Did we know he was gay?  I feel like this would have stuck in my brain if I'd heard it...

~ UConn won the NCAA women's title last evening. - Unfortunately, the Lady Terps didn't make it to the final, so I sort of let this one slide under the radar, just like the men's game when the Terps were ousted.

~ In Sports news, for some unknown reason, Rory McIlroy thought it'd be a good idea to have a member of One Direction be his caddy at the Masters Par 3 Tournament. - I like Rory.  I really do.  But isn't the Masters press crazy enough, without the added insanity of a boy band member?

However, even though, all of this news is important to a lot of people, I'm most interested in one particular story which should be the story of the day!
At the Masters Par 3 where crazy things have been known to happen, and the day is led by the Kings of the game (Arnie, Gary and Jack), Jack Nickalus managed to sink an Ace.  Not only did he get a hole in one, but he had just said to the press in an interview, he'd work on getting one in the Par 3.  How awesome is he!?  I love me some Phil, but Jack's got some moves : )