10-19-08 Sunday (Cushion Testing Facility)

I've started following several blogs lately. Jim and I spent about 5 hours between last night and today catching up on "Why Women Hate Men". It's written by a very humorous guy who takes men's personal ads and makes fun of them. Some of the photos are disgusting, some x-rated. It's an adult blog with many sophomoric adjectives used to describe anatomy. OK, it's downright crude. (I know that gets the attention of most of you). Visit it for some laughs, stay away if the language and photos will offend. This guy is so descriptive-funny, I can only hope that one day, I can make the creative analogies he comes up with. How did I stumble on this blog? I visited The Blogger's Choice Awards. There's so many great blogs out there, of course keep reading mine, but by all means venture out and subscribe to another feed. Here at the Blogger's Choice Awards webpage, the winning blogs are categorized. I never bothered to pester all off you for votes on this blog, but perhaps I'll start now for the 2009 awards. Vote!

Another reason I bring up this other blog is I noticed that many blog authors do respond to comments within the blog. While I had thought comments were just plain comments with no reply necessary, I think it's time I started doing so. Perhaps not every comment warrants a reply, but I'll do my best.

As Jim and I rested our out-of-shape bodies during our little hike yesterday, my mind started wandering about the blog as a whole. I thought about a blog "Olga The Traveling Bra", and while on a cruise someone took a traveling Gnome with them, and how Laurie and Pearl have Balance Turtle in their pictures. I should have done something similar. While I don't own a bra (what a relief to my parents), or a Gnome (best suited to garden watching), or a Balance Turtle (one of a kind), I guess I'll just have to be happy without an inanimate traveling object.

This is Balance Turtle at the Monte Carlo in Vegas (He's certainly got high style):

Now you've all met Balance Turtle, Laurie and Pearl's travel companion. You can wave at him (is it a him?) but don't expect him to wave back.... he's pretty shy.

It's a pretty laid back Sunday. It's almost noon and Jim and I are still reading other people's blogs. Well, he is, I'm typing ours. In between all this exhausting work, I'm making the attempt at duplicating Aunt Patty's Garbanzo Bean Soup. I'm wingin' it. I threw a bunch of ingredients we spotted (Where's Al with his unique and often amusing ability to identify food ingredients when I need him?) into a crock pot and we'll see what happens. Or I guess taste what happens. Looking back, maybe we needed Aunt P to write it down or something.

I've noticed, we're up to 10 followers-of-de-blog. Thanks! I know all of your lives, people have told you to be a leader and not a follower. Google's Blogger refers to it that way, so ignore that advice in the world of blogging. Our latest follower is Sonia, who still works for Jim's former employer, CitiFinancial. She got to keep her job, while we got stuck having to tour this terribly ugly country from a home on wheels. AND NO Sonia, we don't want to trade. We'd never put you through the visual atrocities we go through daily. I mean, look at the view at our campground. Don't the mountains in the background look dusty? Speaking of the mountains, they totally block my view of the sky not to mention a poor choice of colors for rocks. Sheesh.

So Sonia, please don't be selfish, your view at home is so creative. Faux (ask Tim about this word) painting on the walls, beautiful weaved basket and I'm loving the splash of red in the picture. Your answer to recycling shows in this environmentally friendly lawn. A nice touch!




It's almost 1 pm, and Jim has had an exhausting 2 hours of awake time reading blogs, so he's off to a nap. I know, I know, I'm thinking the same thing, what would I do for a Klondike bar?

It might just be the perfect time for me to handle some projects I've been meaning to do. Like see which side of the couch is more comfy. After that, I might check if the marbleized laminate on the dinette table is a repeating pattern or not. Depending on the time I have left for the day, maybe I'll finally get to synchronize the clocks in the RV. I just don't know why I've been putting these off.

Typically, I don't mind the days of nothing. They seem to be infrequent with us. Who would have thought that being a traveling bum would be time consuming? I can only imagine the other 8 trillion rock formations in Utah we haven't yet seen. Jim's side of the dinette table is littered with his laptop, an atlas, local maps and other assorted papers and writing implements. It's like his sightseeing workshop. He drives, and plans, I blog and do laundry (almost everyday).

I've noticed that I've provided a lot of links within this entry. As a reminder for my technically challenged friends and family (ie, the Cozzolino family, my mom's side of the family), you can click on the links (bold underline wording, usually blue) which will take you to a different website Most often I use them as a link to a previous blog post so that you can read more about it. If you left click on it, the new website will open. Right-clicking and then select "open in new window" will preserve the page you are currently reading. Got it?

Wow the Garbanzo Bean Soup is smelling pretty damn good.....

Many of you know about my mom (JoAnn) through zany stories. This is why I explain how to navigate web pages in hopes that some day, she'll be able to start up the computer on her own, visit the blog and even figure out how to leave a comment, without my father (Gary) worrying about her breaking the computer. At the same time, I'm hopeful that Ann and Morgan (Jim's mom and stepdad) will someday upgrade from a dial-up AOL connection (the 90's called and want their phone line back) and have some Internet speed to see the blog videos and slideshows. C'mon guys, even Jim's Grandmother (Betty Ann) has it down to a science!

While Seinfeld was a show about nothing, this blog entry seems to be on the same track. Maybe I'm taking too long testing cushion softness. If I had a better cell phone signal at this campground, I guess I'd be on the phone yacking away to anyone who'll listen to me. I have one of those odd signals here. If I stand on one leg, with a #2 pencil in my right ear, and a can of creamed corn on my head (for Pearl), I might just get a signal. It's a possibility that ever since Mike broke my phone, it doesn't work as well.

I was innocently looking for the above phone pic and stumbled on this toy. It even takes batteries. I will make no further comments on it:

This huge RV pulled up in a spot beside us. The basements even have drawers. One has a large drawer to accommodate a tool box. I hope Jim doesn't see it, he'll want the RV just for the tool storage capacity. Maybe, I'll need to walk the dog past his coach a few times and scope it out. I'm not sure what he's fixing, but one would think that as much as his rig cost, it would come with a leprechaun to help out. Maybe he's not Irish.

It's after 4pm and perhaps I need to wake Jim up? I guess there's also a point when it's time to end a blog entry and just post the darn thing. If anything shocking occurs after this post, I'll include it in tomorrows. See ya!