Election Mania

I am not looking forward to the next few months. I am so over the mud slinging and cat fighting and he said/she said garbage. I watched the Republican debate tonight, and Sen. McCain just kept saying the same things over and over again. No matter what the question was, he found a way to bring up "timetables" in an effort to discredit Romney. Now I am not a Romney supporter, but I feel like I am less of a McCain supporter after watching him tonight. The whole thing kinda makes me tired. I know I need to vote, but I just have no idea who is worth voting for. Besides, the Democrats are going to win... so my vote will probably be wasted anyway.

(how's that for a cynical view?)

It has finally arrived...

I have been hearing stories about temperatures as cold as -40... and I was starting to think it was all a lie to scare the Louisiana Heat out of Texas Todd. Well... we are there. We are not quite at -40 in the pure sense, but we are there if you factor in the wind chill. I think the high tomorrow is -26 C (-15 F). So it is cold. Just walking from the street to the door of my building (like across the sidewalk) was enough time for my nose to freeze a little. It's true.

Early reports are that it will "warm up" by Thursday to a refreshing -10 C (14 F). Nice huh?

But I still say I prefer this weather to the heat. I will check back in on Friday and let you know if I still feel that way...

You put WHAT in the cake?

I just learned first hand that Canadian French culture and Cajun French culture are worlds apart.

One of my co-workers told me that there was a cake in the break room. So I made way over to check out what kind of cake was available. To my surprise, it was a King Cake - one of my favorite desserts of all time. I cut a slice and went to tell my co-worker that this was not just a cake, but it was a King Cake.

I then started explaining the traditions surrounding King Cakes. I told her that it symbolizes finding the Baby Jesus... and that you put a baby in the cake. It was at this point that things took a turn. Her face was full of shock. I went on to tell her that they used to bake the cake with the baby inside it... she had had enough at this point. She exclaimed, "A real baby?!?!"

I quickly explained that it was a porcelain baby... and then I was able to finish my story. We had quite a laugh over that. I guess she thought the tradition was started by Sweeny Todd and Mrs. Lovett.

No really... what's in a name?

I have been given many nicknames over the course of my 31 years. I think I may have even blogged about them early in my blogging days.

Well, this past weekend I was given yet another one.

I went out for drinks with some people from work, and one of the people happened to be a single girl who used to work for the company I now work for. So my boss up here knows her pretty well... and has a good rapport with her. Oh, and she happened to be the only female at the table.

My boss commences to try to set us up right there at the table... "she's single, you're single..." It was at this point that he referred to me as Louisiana Heat. I was actually speechless....

I know what a reservation is....

'No, I don't think you do."

This very scene from Seinfeld actually happened to me this morning. To the dismay of at least one person, I can't say that I reenacted the dialogue; I was just too frustrated to find humor in it at the time.

Last night, I reserved a car for this weekend. I booked it for 9:00 am because I had plans to meet someone for breakfast at 9:30.

*Sidebar: We met at a place called Diner Deluxe, and I am not sure I have been to a place that serves better breakfast. Buffalo Grille in Houston comes close, but this place is at the top of my list.*

So I show up to Avis promptly at 9:00. The kind young lady behind the counter (with whom I have had other "service issues" in the past) proceeds to tell me that she does not have any cars to give me. Now I walked right by the holding lot, and saw plenty of cars; but none of them were compacts (which is what I had reserved). Rather than give me a free upgrade, she tells me that I have to go to another location to pick up my car. So she gets one of the guys from the back to drive me to this other location. He does not speak English very well, so I was not sure where I would end up. It seemed like a simple (albeit inconvenient) plan, but he just didn't seem to grasp what was happening.

In the end, I got my car and made it to breakfast by 10:00. This is why Seinfeld was such a great show. It captured moments like these and made them funny.

So now, I am sitting in my appartment watching the snow come down... it really is a nice site (especially from the comforts of my livingroom with the fireplace roaring). I am living the hard life for sure.

Fish out of water... but loving it

Around 4:30 yesterday afternoon, I was talking with a co-worker and noticed that it was snowing outside. I expressed some excitement/pleasure over this, and he basically said I was weird for liking the snow. I told him that for those of us who rarely see white stuff on the ground (that wasn't used as packaging), it is a bit glamorous. Of course, as one of my lurker friends said some weeks ago - it is just water on your shoes and windshield. That is true in the physics realm, but snow is just good times. I went for a run in it last night... and it was great. It is so much more enjoyable to run in sub-freezing temperatures with snow falling than in 95 degree heat with 100% humidity.

Of course, I got reflective as I watched the snow fall and stick on the ground. I likened it to God's Word in a round about way. Under the right conditions, snow sticks to whatever surface it fall on. Every once in long while, snow will fall in Houston. But it rarely sticks for any length of time. The reason - the ground is just not cold enough. It is not prepared to receive the snow. And it occured to me that our hearts are the same way with God's Word. We can read it every day, all day. But if He has not prepared our hearts for what His Word has to say - there will be no long term effects or changes.

What's in a name...

Two posts in one day? Holy Free Time At Work, Batman... what's going on?

We have a consultant up here helping us find my replacement.

*This just in - I do not plan to be up here forever. *

Well, her name is Eva. I keep wanting to call her Eva Longoria.

No, guys, she doesn't look anything like her... otherwise, I might consider relocating.

I'm just sayin'...

When in Rome....

"Yes? Please continue...."

So this post really doesn't relate to the saying "when in Rome, do as the Romans do." But since it does relate to me not being in the USA, I wanted to title it that. And the reader who guesses the context of the quote above gets extra blog points.

Since I am working in another country during an election year, I am getting a lot of questions about our political process. The two questions of note so far are as follows:

1. What is going on with all these primaries and caucuses?
2. What does G.O.P. stand for?

My favorite response was the one I received to my answer to the second question. I told this guy at work that it stands for Grand Old Party (which I later found out is only partially true - it was believed to stand for that, but the original meaning was Gallant Old Party). Regardless, the guy was shocked. He thought it was something much more official - where the G stood for government or something like that.

I told him that all his questions are really testing my civic knowlege... and I like that. I also found myself saying that the primaries are part of what makes our political system so great in that they force the candidates to go to all the states - not just the most populated ones.