(I’m normally a big advocate of NOT following chain letters. But this one was funny and I had to share.)

TYPE ONLY ONE WORD. IT’S HARDER THAN YOU THINK.

1. Where is your cell phone? DESK

2. Your significant other? HERE

3. Your hair? NONE

4. Your mother? SHORT

5. Your father? IRISH

6. Your favorite thing? ANGEL

7. Your dream last night? DREAM?

8. Your favorite drink? CORONA

9. Your dream/goal? HEALTHY

10. The room you’re in? COMPUTER

11. Your fear? INJURY

12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? HERE

13. Where were you last night? WORK

14. What you’re not? MEAN

15. Muffins? BLUEBERRY

16. One of your wish list items? FORTUNE
17. Where you grew up? HOME

18. The last thing you did?  EXERCISED

19. What are you wearing? SOCKS

20. Your TV? BIG

21. Your pet? CATS

22. Your computer? GATEWAY

23. Your life? FULL

24. Your mood? EXHUASTED

25. Missing someone? GRAMMIE

26. Your car?  FORD

27. Something you’re not wearing? GLASSES

28. Favorite Store? DUNHAMS

29. Your summer? SUMMER?

30. Your favorite color? BLUE

31. When is the last time you laughed? TODAY

32. Last time you cried? DUNNO?

33. Who will/would re-post this? NO ONE

A) FOUR PLACES I GO OVER AND OVER? WORK, GYM, HOME, CAR

B) FOUR PEOPLE WHO E-MAIL ME:  FRIENDS

C) FOUR OF MY FAVORITE FOODS: ITALIAN, MEXICAN, HOMEMADE, ICECREAM

D) FOUR PLACES I WOULD RATHER BE RIGHT NOW:  GULF, HAWAII, BEACH, VACATION

E) FOUR PEOPLE I THINK WILL RESPOND: NO ONE

——————————————————————————-

Yep, it WAS harder than I thought.

Heh heh. Have a great night. Carpe Diem

Well I just got finished posting about FireProof, when I realized what today was.

Today is August 15th. The 15th of the month has become somewhat of a urban legend in my life.

Let’s see.

I was born March 15th.

My re-birthday is September 15th. (I plan on blogging about that closer to it’s date)

August 15th is the anniversary of my car blowing up in flames.

UPDATE: I also sat for my CCRN exam August 15th of last year. I studied for the exam all summer and took it the day before we left for vacation. And I passed!

Yeah, that’s right. Today, after I just blogged about being FireProof. On this date in 2003, my car, a 1997 black Toyota Rav4 went up in flames spontaneously!

LOL.

Here’s the short-long version of that story.

I was working for a certain retail chain. It was my lunch break, and I was going to head home for lunch. (Back then I actually lived close enough to my job to be able to do that!)

I walked out into the parking lot being my crabby self. Mumbling under my breath about something going on with work when I noticed a puff of black smoke emanating from the parking lot.

I thought to myself… "Hmm. Is someone burning leaves on the other side of the fence in their back yard?"

I strolled down the parking lot aisle closer to my car, when I realized that the smoke was coming from the actual parking lot?! I thought, " DAMN. So poor chap’s car is on fire. Wow. That’s gotta suck a lot"

I drag my butt a lil closer to where I parked my car.. and as I get closer and closer to my parking spot..

I realize the source of that black cloud.. is none other than the hood of my car!!!

Do you have any idea how it feels to be watching your car go up in flames and not be able to do anything about it???

The end result:

A totaled car. The fire department of course showed up to do their thang. They ended up breaking out a couple windows to get to the source of the fire.. blah blah blah.

Thankfully I had insurance.

And more thankful that no one was hurt or injured. Especially me!!

Here are the aftermath pics. They may be kinda blurry. Yep. I keep these pics to help remind me of what’s important in life.

Carpe Diem

Did ya notice anything different? Have a look see on the bottom right corner of the page.

Yep. FireProof.

I just heard of it the other day while I was doing my usual Google Reader reading. I read a blog titled I Watch Stuff. Of course like the title implies, it’s all about upcoming movies. And this particular one sparked my interest for some reason.

It initially looked like another BackDraft’esque type movie with the Fire Fighter undertone. But it turned out to be something completely more interesting, at least to me.

Strong’s comment: For those that don’t know me, I’m a closet movie-geek.

Here’s why this seems so far out there.

First of all, I myself am not a very religious person. In fact I have this face I make every time religious-themed conversation comes up, or anything that refers to the ‘Lord’, or ‘God’.

Let me make things clear here. I’m not an atheist, I simply have my own opinion of things related to religion, the different cultures, the different religions, their individual beliefs and the notion of a higher power. You can blame my social upbringing, my college experiences, my college class work, and just my general bull-headedness for that.

Second, I take great pride in my marriage. I boast and brag not only about the woman I married, but how our marriage works. Somebody was looking out for me when our paths crossed, because up till that time, I was one sad and lost puppy bumping into walls and stumbling over my own paws and tail!

Strong’s comment: I married my best friend, and my equal. She is the most genuine, beautiful and strongest woman I have ever met

So here you have a religiously themed movie all about marriage mixed in with some great comradery and Fire Fighting action. Outside of my hang-up, I was hooked immediately.

It stars one of my all time favorite child-hood actors, Kirk Cameron. C’mon we all know and remember Mikey Seaver from Growing Pains.  I grew up loving that show. I watched it religiously! (no pun intended)

I do remember reading about how Kirk Cameron converted to Christianity.  I remembered that he married his on-screen love interest in real life and they had a very large family. And I vaguely remember reading about his decisions to leave Hollywood to pursue his belief full time.

So when I saw that he was the lead role in this, it only added fuel to the fire.(yet another pun) The movie looks pretty good to me. It’s all about saving and cherishing one’s marriage. Learning how to make your marriage FireProof!

The website is pretty slick too. It’s full of media information as well as some great video’s from the movie. You gotta watch the Salt and Pepper movie clip. The music isn’t too shabby either.

For all my married readers out there, this is a must see. No matter what your view is on Fire Fighting, or religion, or heck even Kirk Cameron. I think we could all benefit from learning how to FireProof our marriage.

As always take care of yourselves and yours. Carpe Diem

I’m talking about a Hug. I have 2 very close friends of mine that view a hug from the opposite ends of the pole. One avoids it like the plague and the other uses a hug as his hand shake.

Now my close circle of friends have always given him a hard time about this need and requirement for hugs. It was a personal joke that he did it for the attention from the ‘ladies’. In reality he hugs everyone the same.

The other friend simply is not a fan of hugging, she’d rather a handshake. She’ll hug ya whenever you give the call sign, but you can tell she’s simply ‘helpin’ a friend out’.

I for one trot down the middle of that road. I hug. And I don’t hug. I guess it was always based on the person or persons you were hugging. Whether or not I initiated or received the hug, it usually came down to who.

Idle chit-chat amongst our circle would determine that their hug-tendency was based upon their up-bringing. Hugs were standard in one home, while rarely seen by the other. I can’t say I gave it much thought.

Until now.

I was doing my usual Google Reader reading, visiting my usual blogs, news and other sites of interest. And like I always do I visited ZenHabits.

Today’s post really impacted me more than usual.

Thus the reason for my post. Not only due to the nature of Leo’s post, but the application it had in my life. More specifically the difference in my two friends. As I watched the last video I couldn’t help but start feeling better. I started to smile, and even chuckle at some of the parts of this video. And this was just watching a video on hugging, not actually performing a hug!

It took some reflecting and some self questioning, but the reality is, hugging makes you feel better. In this day and age of human disconnection and pseudo-human interaction, It doesn’t matter if you’re doing the hugging or receiving the hugging, the human contact impacts you. Whether temporary or not, it impacts you. And that my friends is powerful.

Just think what could happen if we all put down our fear of touching a stranger, and simply offered anyone willing to accept it, a Free Hug. Not only would you smile, but so would they.

While most will feel uncomfortable, and probably be smiling out of laughter and using the ‘goofiness’ factor as great coping mechanism for our fear of the unknown. It still leaves you feeling a tad bit better than you did before the hug.

How can that be a bad thing? How can that be wrong?

The act of hugging subliminally tells you and the person you are hugging that you care. You care, not only about the person you are hugging, but about yourself.

I don’t know about you, but the last time I checked caring for someone was never a bad thing.

Why don’t we do this more often?

Strong’s Comment : I unfortunately tried to find out more info on the Free Hugs Campaign, but the site was having problems last I checked.

As always take care of yourselves and yours.

Carpe Diem

I’m talking about a Hug. I have 2 very close friends of mine that view a hug from the opposite ends of the pole. One avoids it like the plague and the other uses a hug as his hand shake.

Now my close circle of friends have always given him a hard time about this need and requirement for hugs. It was a personal joke that he did it for the attention from the ‘ladies’. In reality he hugs everyone the same.

The other friend simply is not a fan of hugging, she’d rather a handshake. She’ll hug ya whenever you give the call sign, but you can tell she’s simply ‘helpin’ a friend out’.

I for one trot down the middle of that road. I hug. And I don’t hug. I guess it was always based on the person or persons you were hugging. Whether or not I initiated or received the hug, it usually came down to who.

Idle chit-chat amongst our circle would determine that their hug-tendency was based upon their up-bringing. Hugs were standard in one home, while rarely seen by the other. I can’t say I gave it much thought.

Until now.

I was doing my usual Google Reader reading, visiting my usual blogs, news and other sites of interest. And like I always do I visited ZenHabits.

Today’s post really impacted me more than usual.

Thus the reason for my post. Not only due to the nature of Leo’s post, but the application it had in my life. More specifically the difference in my two friends. As I watched the last video I couldn’t help but start feeling better. I started to smile, and even chuckle at some of the parts of this video. And this was just watching a video on hugging, not actually performing a hug!

It took some reflecting and some self questioning, but the reality is, hugging makes you feel better. In this day and age of human disconnection and pseudo-human interaction, It doesn’t matter if you’re doing the hugging or receiving the hugging, the human contact impacts you. Whether temporary or not, it impacts you. And that my friends is powerful.

Just think what could happen if we all put down our fear of touching a stranger, and simply offered anyone willing to accept it, a Free Hug. Not only would you smile, but so would they.

While most will feel uncomfortable, and probably be smiling out of laughter and using the ‘goofiness’ factor as great coping mechanism for our fear of the unknown. It still leaves you feeling a tad bit better than you did before the hug.

How can that be a bad thing? How can that be wrong?

The act of hugging subliminally tells you and the person you are hugging that you care. You care, not only about the person you are hugging, but about yourself.

I don’t know about you, but the last time I checked caring for someone was never a bad thing.

Why don’t we do this more often?

Strong’s Comment : I unfortunately tried to find out more info on the Free Hugs Campaign, but the site was having problems last I checked.

As always take care of yourselves and yours. Carpe Diem

I had to share this with everyone. It’ totally unrelated to anything I blog about, but this just blew my mind. I had to watch it twice.

Here’s what this girl can do in less than 8 seconds:

Nuff’ said.

Take care of yourself and yours. Carpe Diem

‘Life isn’t about how to survive the storm, but how to dance in the rain.’

Storm:

: a serious disturbance of any element of nature

: a disturbed or agitated state

: a sudden or violent commotion

: a heavy discharge of objects

: a tumultuous outburst

Dance:

the movement of the body in a rhythmic way, usually to music and within a given space, for the purpose of expressing an idea or emotion, releasing energy, or simply taking delight in the movement itself.

Everyone has ‘storms’ in their life. Everything and anything that can wreak havoc on your daily life. It can be self-induced, or can be caused by outside sources. No matter what your storm may be, it’s what you do with that storm that matters.

“Life is 10% what happens to you, and 90% how you react to it”.

Do you Dance or do you Survive?

Do you know the difference?

Making lemonade out of lemons its not always easy, but it sure makes the ride more bearable, and not as long!

The next time it rains on your parade, don’t be mad at the rain. Don’t be mad that it’s not clear and sunny. Don’t point fingers and place blame.

In the end, you can’t change the rain, but you can change how the rain affects you.

As you’re cleaning up the ‘mess’ that the rain left. Do you want to laugh at the thoughts of your dancing, or will you remain angry at what you didn’t have?

Get up and dance in the rain!

Strong’s Comment, " I wrote this blog while I was dancing in the rain of my own storm"

As always take care of yourselves and yours. Carpe Diem

Well it’s 08.08.08.

- Is anyone watching the opening ceremonies?? For the life of me, could never understand how the put so much emphasis on opening ceremonies. I think they’re great and all… but for them to last that long… Can be quite tortuous.

I can’t wait to watch the swimming events!!!

– I discovered how cool, and how much I like Tweetdeck.  I had heard about this Adobe Air Application when it first appeared, but I pretty much ignored it. I have always been a Twhirl fan because of it’s simplicity. It had great features and easy to use functions for Twitter. Well Tweetdeck does that and more. Tweetdeck has the ability to be Twhirl times 4. It does all Twhirl does, but can also perform a search function. It also lists your replies and direct messages separately. The really cool thing I like about Tweetdeck is the ability to scroll back through your timeline of tweets for up to 48hrs! And for someone who pops in and out of Twitter… it’s a great thing to have.

- Being in pain sucks. And nerve pain is the worse. I ‘tweaked my neck a couple days ago, and it just doesn’t seem to want to give. The short-short version of that story is that I suffered an injury approximately 6yrs ago. It caused enough nerve damage to my body, that I lost temporary feeling to a greater portion of my L hand and arm, I lost muscle mass to my left Pectoral muscle. It was so bad at one point, I couldn’t hold up a glass of water with my left  hand. I have since recovered for the most part. But every so often I irritate my neck that causes me some serious nerve pain that travels down my neck and sometimes to my arm and/or arms. So this time around I’ve irritated it enough that it’s lasted me roughly an entire week now. Grr. 

- I really acted like a complete lazy, non-motivated, uncontrolled slug today. LOL. I had a project due for work. So I spent the day dealing with my neck pain, and working in front of the computer. I didn’t go to the gym. I had pizza for dinner. And I ate an entire pint of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream for dessert.

Did I mention I also had a cheeseburger, fries and chips for lunch yesterday. Then for dinner yesterday I had a deep fried steak sandwich, some hot wings and a handful of Coronas.

So much for being an inspiration for motivation to lose weight.

Sorry Tweightloss. I had a 2 day span of weak moments.

I haven’t had days like that in…uuhh forever!

Tomorrow is another day.

Have a great night everyone. Go USA!!!

Take care of yourselves and yours. Carpe Diem