Monday, April 22, 2013

Recent Facebook/Twitter Posts

 

I made my own Meme based on a conversation between my cat and dog yesterday (shown above) 

The painting of buildings was definitely conceived of by guys. You take a long tube and squeeze it and white cream comes out and you spread it on cracksin the wall. It's called 'caulking'.

Some days it's important to go to service and here God's word and connect with the community. Other days it's important to be of service to God and to help support your community.

Never thought I'd say this, but why can't Hannibal eat the red-headed reporter chick? She's annoying.

“Socializing is as exhausting as giving blood. People assume we loners are misanthropes, just sitting thinking, ‘Oh, people are such a bunch of a**holes,’ but it’s really not like that. We just have a smaller tolerance for what it takes to be with others. It means having to perform. I get so tired of communicating.”  — Anneli Rufus

Soda: For when you're hungry but you're too lazy to eat.
Misunderstood blessings that are resented become curses. @paulocoelho "Every blessing, when ignored, becomes a curse."
Hannibal's plan for getting away with eating people: Make people he knows unknowingly eat people he cooks. Then they can't judge him for eating people. Genius!
The wind is my mortal enemy. Well technically it can't "die" so I guess it's my immortal enemy. But it does "die down"... but technically it still lives on.
Little kid outside singing, "America, America God shed His grace on thee..."

Whenever I see a crappy pixelated photo someone posts I immediately think, "Oh, they've got a crappy camera on their phone like I do."

Who names a city "West"? Especially when it's in the center of the state...

Twitter and Facebook should have a button that translates posts from other people into whatever language you set it to. Just a thought...

Thoughts on the "Lone Ranger" movie: 1. It's Disney??? 2. It looks like "Pirates of the Caribbean 4". So... not so good.

Technology has reached its peak: Apps now have their own Twitter pages.

Love is a concept, but if that's all it is to you then it may as well be nothing.

My throat's soar/hoarse and I could take something for it... but that would be admitting defeat. It'll get better on its own...

Why whisper having a "private" conversation in a foreign language. That's why you're not speaking English -no one knows what you're saying.

My inner-dog comes out unexpectedly every once in a while. Like earlier this morning when... Squirrel!!!

The internet's like a suction cup for crazy people.

There is no "right of way" when the other driver is crazy. No, you go first..

Why can't new stories titled "Missing Person Found" have a happy ending like they lead you to believe...

Thought "Bates Motel" show would take place in it's intended era: the 1940s. Then a car pulled up with some teen girls texting... dismayed.

Richard Simmons is trending on Twitter and I assumed the worst... Good news! He's still alive. He's the last Golden Girl -after Betty.

Wow. The wind tonight was so powerful it's set off 6 car alarms. Worst alarm clock ever...

"Today the moon narrowly missed hitting a man's eye like a big pizza pie; scientists conclude that's 'amore'." ~MST3K

Last night was the first time I've ever heard a guy and girl crying. And Arguing. Cryguing. In the street. At 3am...Worst alarm clock ever.

So there's a "new" Myspace and you can sign-in through Facebook...

It's the end of the week! The only thing that can ruin the day is a song by Rebecca Black...

Those you really love in life are the ones whose funeral you'll miss because you can't make it through it without them.

Headline: "What Justin Bieber did to his new monkey really upset the Humane Society." We need a better news system.

"Justified Homicide" as explained by my friend Andrea: "If you snore every night and keep your wife awake it's only a matter of time..."

Fixer-Upper: School Edition

Last Saturday I worked with a bunch of volunteers from our church to help beautify a middle school in San Jose. It was the first day in a 2 weekend mission to clean, repair, and repaint the exterior of the school.

Here's how things went down:

11:40pm I show up, sign in, and get a name tag.

11:40-12:00pm I wait for the organizers to get ready for the next shift of people. The 8am-12pm crew of volunteers was just leaving. The crew worked so well that they were ahead of schedule. The morning crew had cleaned the windows and power-washed the walls.

12:00pm I am assigned "caulking" duty. I proceed to find out that caulking is another word for "Wall Wrinkle Remover". Other members of our crew spackled.

12:00-3pm I diligently caulk along the walls of the entire school. Someone mentioned that it would have been better if we had improved the school in sections rather than taking on the entire school in one swoop. I decide that this middle school is better than mine was because they have a ceramics class and a garden area. 




They even have their own wall mural... 



However they also have a large quad area with no shade -which would suck to stand out in during the summer.

3pm I decide I can't take another 2 hours of caulking and call it a day. I then overhear a conversation between one of the Organizers and a volunteer discussing the issues with the school system.

3 streets away stands a newly remodeled high school with solar panels. The volunteer asked, "What happened with this school? Why did the high school get a lot and this school get left behind?"

Organizer: I've worked on several school-remodeling crews and you wouldn't believe the rates construction crews charge schools. They charge twice the price of what I would consider a reasonable asking price.

Volunteer: Well the schools get a lot of money from the state why don't they put it towards those sort of projects?

Organizer: It's a bureaucracy. Anytime you have a large system to manage and politics gets in the way the money never goes where it should. Most of the time they don't know how much is coming in or how much is going out. It's a poorly managed budgetary system.

Volunteer: Man it's too bad they don't have it better managed. All that money is going to waste.

It was after over hearing this conversation that I decided 2 solutions would be good to implement to overcome these issues.

1. Retired CEOs should be asked to volunteer their time to mentor those in charge of running the school system and managing the budget.

2. More people in general should volunteer their time/efforts into schools in whatever way they can be of service. By getting more involved the community would have a greater sense of the issues facing schools and the solutions they can provide to correct them.

Monday, April 15, 2013

Garage Sailor

Ok so last Saturday I got up at 7am to leave to go to a Garage Sale that my step-mom, our friend Nancy, and I were hosting. So I'm going to share what does/doesn't make a garage sale successful since I'm essentially a guru now.

Step 1: Alert the Media

Find a scenic location with enough space that's neat enough to frequently used roads. Then post flyers, post on Craigslist, post on Facebook and Twitter, tell your friends... Pick a date and let the world know when the magical event is set to go down.

Step 2: Selecting Items to Sell

Imagine yourself as the new, proud owner of your very own Dollar Tree. Nothing sells for more or less than a dollar. Ok $5 at the most, but forget quarters and change. Only sell things you don't need and are willing to part with for a dollar.

Step 3: Partner Up. 

The more successful garage sales have a LOT of items. Like a Dollar Tree they need to appeal to a wide audience -not just a man/woman like you but to kids and elderly and people of different ethnicity... try to get a variety going. Find a friend or 2 who has stuff to sell with the same philosophy you have about pricing and pair up.

Step 4: Set Up 

NEON is your new best friend. Bright eye-blinding colors of orange and green and pink are your "Garage Sale" sign colors of choice. Then remember to use BOLD Black Sharpie that can easily be seen. Post the signs on main roads and lead the potential customers to the garage sale with arrows and bright colors rather than an address. Make the path easier to follow than Google maps...

Next set up tables before the desired "open" time for your garage sale. Never underestimate the earliness of the early riser. 7:30 or 8am is good. Tables should host similar items on them to make things easier for the customers.

As for your "seating area" -make sure you put your lawn chair as far away from the showcase areas as possible -like the register kept at the end of the store. You are there for people to come up to and purchase items from. DO NOT stalk people around as they check out your items. It's creepy.

DO NOT tell customers where you got the items from and what random stories you have associated with them. It implies your ownership of the item -not theirs. You WANT them to buy...

Step 5: Handling the Money

NEVER under any circumstances do you count the money in front of the customers. I don't care if you feel like a new millionaire and want to swim in the pile of $1 bills you now have -DON'T count it in front of people.

DO keep a "cash register" of some sort that will make it easy to store your money and keep the $10s away from the $5s and the $1s. Nice and organized.

Step 6: The Weather

Plan for a time when you know it's going to be sunny and warm out. ALWAYS remember to wear sun screen. It hurts when you don't, trust me...

Step 7: The Over-Achiever

If you really feel like going above and beyond and making this the best garage sale in the history of garage sales -place free snacks and drinks out for people to grab, like Costco. Remember to have a trash can nearby. also remember to have snacks and drinks for yourself so you're not constantly going back inside the house.

Decorate the tables. The flashier the better -remember NEON is your new friend. You want people to instantly know when they drive down your street where the garage sale is at.

Step 8: Have Fun

The more fun you have with it the warmer and more appealing you will be around people. Customers will feel comfortable coming up to you, paying you, and maybe stopping to chat with you. It's a great way to meet the neighbors and have the community come together. Enjoy the process. :)

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Recent Tweets by Me Continued

- Andrea in defense of all women: "When a talking snakes tells you to eat an apple... You eat it!"

- "Anything can be a weapon if you're holding it right". The same principle works for chopsticks as it turns out... Hello mechanical pencils.

- Reason # 435749 why Google+ fails: You can't copy/paste to your Google+ status update (let alone copy/paste anything else)...

- Apparently we're living in the age of the "Boomerang Generation". Kids move out then come back home. Clever way to put it.

-I tried to wake my sister up. You know what she said to me? Nothing because she refused to gain consciousness.

- 'Dairying is not a crime'. Bumperstickers in the country...

- Telemarketers don't make it easy to be polite. They interrupt you and they don't listen. Infommercials are more personable.

- "When am I ever going to use these math formulas?" -Student training/studying to be a high school math teacher learning beyond Algebra 2.

- People who are insecure "know everything". People who are secure admit they don't know everything.

- "If you want to fly, don't be afraid of the heights. If you want to shine like the sun, don't focus on your shadow."


-Putting a shirt on that you then realize is too small and tight and having to reverse-birth your way out of it.

-FYI: "My Week with Marilyn" is not about hanging out with Manson...




-The blessed live a life that is cursed when they fail to see the blessings they have in their life.

-They should have a disclaimer with some shoes. *Do not drive heavy machinery in these heels*

-Is it just me or is Instagram having issues this morning? I hope it's not just picking on me...

-Sometimes we need to set ourselves aside for greater things to happen through us.

- Putting in the cheat codes and flying off in my car like Harry Potter...

-Internet speed is relative to location. 5 minutes to load in the city = slow. 5 minutes to load in the country = lightning speed!

-Jimmy Fallon, Justin Timberlake, and Joseph Gordon Levitt should create their own super band together.

-I came up with a new phrase today: "If you can't beat them, make them join you."

-What, there's a Jurrassic Park 4 on the way???!... Yesss!

-Email received started: "Dear Sir/Madam..." I believe you meant "or" not "/"...

-Liam Neeson and Robert Downey Jr. need to star in a movie together. Like yesterday...

Peace

There are 2 kinds of peace.

The first is Secular Peace. This kind comes when wars end, conflicts are sorted, and arguments are replaced by understanding.

The second kind is Spiritual Peace. This kind comes from within the soul itself when it is "enlightened" and you make peace with everything that is and everything you are.

Worldly, tangible peace is not guaranteed. Hence the reason news stations don't go out of business. There has always been disorder and pain around.

The only way to maintain any kind of peace consistently is to retain the only peace you have control over -and that's the peace that comes when you make peace with your life.