Baking Results

Well, my baking adventure seemed to be a success. People in the food club seemed to like my mini cinnamon rolls, and a few people asked for the recipe. So I take that as a success.

Current mood: relaxed
Current music: iTunes on shuffle—Maroon 5 "Harder to Breathe"
Current drink: coffee

Um...What?

Is this lady for real? Or is it a Saturday Night Live skit? This woman has no idea what she is talking about. Could she possibly be dumber than George Bush?


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Reminds me of a certain commercial..."No Katie, I don't know anything about politics or foreign policy, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night..." If somehow, someway McCain and Palin get elected, I'm moving to Amsterdam!

Baking Adventures

As I might have mentioned before, I'm part of the Special Treats Club at work. This is a little—actually pretty big—group of co-workers who like to cook and who especially like to eat. So every Friday, two people bring in treats to share. The last time I had to bring in treats, I brought in my, now famous, baklava bars. Prior to that, I never really baked at all, but it ended up being a success. Tomorrow is my turn to bring in treats, so I thought I'd try another baked good, and on this menu are Mini Cinnamon Rolls.

I used some premade dough courtesy of Pillsbury Crescent Rolls. I followed all of the directions and rolled everything out and cut everything up into mini rolls. Well, the prebaked rolls were about the size of a quarter or silver dollar, and I started to panic. Even with two batches, I was beginning to think that I would have to make another two more to have enough to feed everyone in the club. But after looking through the oven window, I was comforted to know that the cinnamon rolls were growing. Whew! Yes, I really am that dumb. But pasta is my thing, and I really don't know what the heck happens when you put a baked good in the oven.

They are still in the oven and my apartment is starting to smell like cinnamon. Hopefully they taste as good as they smell!

The Value of Copper

While tidying up around my "office" at home, I stumbled across a newsletter that comes with my energy bill. There was one mini-article about copper, and it mentioned that stealing copper has become a really big "business" lately. It said that because of the price increase for copper, people are taking even greater risks at trying to get their hands on it. People have been trying to steal copper from electric equipment including switch cabinets, transformers, and utility poles. According to the article, these crimes can result in power outages, fires, and explosions. (That would be a bad thing.) It can also result in serious injury and even death to the criminal (that would be a good thing), so the energy company encourages people who witness such crimes to call 911. Or you can throw a bucket of water on the crook while he/she has his/her hand on a live wire, which is what I would be tempted to do, provided it doesn't result in the loss of power to my home. But maybe that's just me...

Best Laid Plans and Being Laid Out

This was another long, busy week at work, and all day on Friday I was looking forward to the weekend and planning what I would be doing. I had grand intentions to go on a bunch of hikes this weekend, but my plans didn't exactly fall into place. For the past week I've been having headaches that have been lingering and not going away. I never get sick with colds or the flu, but I do have frequent (and nasty) headaches. They usually come on at times when I'm most stressed, and because stress and tension have been somewhat high lately, I've been getting headaches more frequently. On Wednesday I actually had to leave work early because I was feeling so bad. The headache alone was bad enough, but then I started to feel light headed and nauseated, so I thought it would be better to either faint or throw up at home rather than at work. I felt a little better on Thursday and Friday, but the headache came back on Saturday—it's common for my body to completely shut down when I'm resting—so instead of hiking on Saturday, I rested or slept for most of the day. My headache is better today, and I mostly feel tired and achy, but at least I'm not as bad as I was. I guess I'll be saving my hike for another day.

Current mood: tired and achy
Current music: iTunes on shuffle - Loreena McKennitt "The Lady of Shalott"
Current drink: orange juice

On Death and Taxes and People Who Deserve to Die

This week at work were very fortunate to get our little bonuses for the year. I was very excited about it until I opened it up and was reminded that bonuses are subject to federal and state taxes. So about 40 percent went back to the government. Yipee! I suppose I can't complain too much because I'm very fortunate to have a job in the first place and this (heavily) taxed bonus is a lot more than some people are getting right now. So I should (and I do) feel blessed.

However... It is too bad I'm not the CEO of one of these big corporations that is collapsing in the latest economic crisis and financial meltdown. Those idiots seem to be getting multimillion dollar severance packages just for running a company into the ground. I highly doubt that the people who have lost their jobs or the people who have lost their homes are weeping for these CEOs. They walk away with millions of dollars, the government bails out the companies they left behind, and most likely the "regular" people of the world will pay more taxes to fix everything. Something doesn't seem right about this picture...

Current mood: happy and bitter
Current music: iTunes on shuffle - David Gray "This Year's Love"
Current drink: soy milk - something healthy before I pour a glass of brandy

Stubbornness and Shallowness

Stubbornness: With Hurricane Ike approaching the Gulf Coast, many people were given mandatory evacuation orders. They were told to leave because this hurricane could be one of the worst in history. However, many people insisted on staying behind to "ride out the storm" or to protect their homes and belongings. I've been watching the news this morning and there is one report that some of the people who stayed behind are now trapped because the roads or bridges are washed out. They most likely don't have power and the phone lines are probably down. So there were reports that these people were standing on their roofs trying to flag for help. Part of me feels sorry for them, but another part of me doesn't. They made the choice to stay when they could have evacuated. And now other people will have to put their lives at risk to rescue these people. All for stubbornness and, quite frankly, stupidity.

Shallowness: For the past few weeks, I've been wondering why so many people seem to be crazy about Sarah Palin. I just don't like her. For one, she is a hunter, and I just don't like hunting. I just don't see why it is considered a "sport." If the animals had weapons, then it would be a level playing field. But they don't have weapons. And when the animals are shot and killed it's usually when they are doing what comes naturally to them—looking for food, looking for water, or just wandering about. They are just minding their own business, so to speak, but apparently in the minds of some people they still have the right to shoot these animals. And the bigger cowards and lazier of the hunters shoot animals from helicopters.

But that is a digression to what I title "shallowness." As I've said, I've been wondering why people are crazy about Palin. It occurred to me that people are crazy about her because in general the American public is shallow and everything is based on how you look. Palin has that girl next door, homecoming/beauty queen, class president, librarian, "hockey mom" look about her. She might be inexperience and ill-informed on what is going on in the world outside Alaska, but she's pretty and that's all that matters. She has power (as governor), she's sassy and feisty, she's challenging the boys, but she does it with a cute little smile and laugh that some women just seem to love and admire. She is totally clueless and classless, but people don't seem to care. But my theory is that if Sarah Palin looked like Janet Reno, she would not be getting this kind of reception, because I have a feeling that if she did, women (because let's face it most women are catty) and the media would be ripping her apart and tearing her down. Instead of being cute and sassy and feisty, she would be considered rude, bossy, pushy, and butch and mannish. It's maddening and frustrating for people who are smart. But Let's face it, there are a lot of stupid and shallow people out there in the word. Let's just hope they don't ruin the election for the rest of us!

Current mood: "feisty" and unforgiving
Current music: iTunes on shuffle - New Order "True Faith"
Current drink: coffee

Morning Hike

I woke up early this morning because I wanted to take a hike around Chautauqua Park and up into the Flatirons. I got to Chautauqua at about 9:30 and the parking lot was already full. The trails, though, were surprisingly quiet. I'd occasionally see people as they passed, but it wasn't crowded at all, and that made it really nice. I walked up the Chautauqua trail, then turned down the Bluebell-Baird trail. I then went halfway up the 2nd and 3rd Flatiron access trail. I didn't want to go all the way to the top, so I turned around and came back down. I then took the Mesa trail back to Chautauqua park.

It's been a while since I last hiked, so in the beginning I was pretty tired and out of breath, but then I started feeling better. I'm definitely not as young as I used to be. But I suppose if I hiked more often, I wouldn't be tired in the first place. So that's probably incentive to hike more often.

Another incentive to hike more often is because I just enjoyed myself. I took my time and enjoyed my surroundings. Some people hike purely for exercise or because they want to "conquer" nature. I hike to enjoy everything. I took my camera and got a lot of great pictures. I was also completely absorbed with everything around me and I was absorbed with myself. For the first time in a long time, I wasn't thinking about work or any of the other things that stress me out in life. I wasn't thinking about anything other than what would make a great picture. And I wasn't thinking about anyone other than myself. That, for me, is strange and rare!

Here are a few pictures from my hike. If you want to see more, you can click on the link to the left to see more pictures on my Flickr page.

On the Chautauqua Trail heading toward the Flatirons

Two deer. I took this with my zoom, but I was only about 10 yards away from them. They kept grazing and didn't seem to mind that I was standing there taking pictures of them.

Heading back to Chautauqua Park. The Flatirons. Notice the heart-shaped cloud!

So all in all I had a great time!

Early

So I woke up early today, a Sunday. For me and my standards, waking up at 7:30 on a Sunday is early. For normal people that time might be, well, normal. But I decided to wake up early because I want to go on a little hike. I might as well take advantage of the weather before the winter starts to hit. I'll be back later in the day, hopefully with stories and pictures.

Dreams

So one of my co-workers, who is becoming a good and loyal friend, just told me that she had a dream that I was a school shooter. That's pretty disturbing, but the fact that it made me laugh probably makes it even more disturbing. I wonder what it all means, other than I'm probably slightly crazy...

Current mood: glad it's a sunny, pleasant day
Current music: iTunes on shuffle - Tori Amos "Raspberry Swirl"
Current drink: Barq's root beer

Photography Excursion

I woke up early today to carry out my plans to head up into the mountains to take some pictures at Boulder Falls. As I said before, I wanted to play around with my shutter speeds and aperture settings. I was hoping that if I got there early enough, the light in the canyon wouldn't be so harsh. I got there at about 10:00 and I guess I was a little too late. The sun just crept over the mountain and the light was shining directly in the canyon but the falls were hidden in a shadow. That made playing with my shutter speeds and aperture settings pretty difficult. Actually, it was a disaster. When you slow down the shutter speed, more light gets into the camera. Usually you can balance things out by increasing the aperture number (making the aperture smaller). My whole purpose for using a slow shutter speed was to try to get that silky effect that you see in some pictures of waterfalls. I tried to slow down my shutter speed and set the aperture at the highest setting (smallest opening), but too much light kept coming in. Everything was washed out and too bright. Sigh. I suppose that I need to get to the falls a whole lot earlier or much later in the afternoon when the sun isn't shining directly into the canyon.

Oh well. Here is the best of all of my efforts: