Back in the Summer of ’94, I was 11 years old and I knew how to have a good time. My Dad and Stepmom both worked nights so when they took vacation time during the summer they would normally keep their same hours because that’s what they were used to. And during the summer, my brother, sister, and I kept their hours too because we thought we were the coolest thing since sliced bread to be able to stay up super late.
It wasn’t just that we stayed up late, we went out on the town too (a.k.a. going to Taco Bell for the 4th meal or Dunkin Donuts for tomorrow’s breakfast). We would take advantage of the cool 84 degree Oklahoma summer nights and drive to Taco Bell at 12 am in the Chrysler LeBaron with the top down. Oh yeah.
Even though we were with our parents, we didn’t care. We were the coolest kids around because we were out way past our curfew. Once we got back from the “Midnight Run” were were so hoped up on Mountain Dew or donuts that the only logical decision was to make a pact to stay up until dawn for no other reason other than that we didn’t have school the next morning.
But how do you waste away 6 hours in the dead of night? By playing copious amounts of board games and video games, that’s how. We played Wahoo, Monopoly, Mario Bros. But the game we played the most, for one reason or the other was Mortal Kombat. Yup. As an 11 year old girl, I was spending my summer perfecting finishing moves, impelling my enemies with spears and burning them to death with the fire breath from my skull head. All of which were moves for my favorite character in the game, Scorpion. Undoubtably these are things that probably wouldn’t be allowed in this day in age. But back then it was no big woop.
Recently, when the new disgustingly gory trailer came out for the new Mortal Kombat movie, the strangest thing happened. I was filled with so many fond and pleasant memories of being 11 years, addicted to Mountain Dew, playing games with my siblings until the wee hours of the morning without a care in the world. Aren’t violent action films great?
I’m an awful planner. It happens time and again in every aspect of my life. I make plans. Then my plans don’t quite work out. This weekend was no exception. My husband and I planned to go to a hot air ballon festival and perhaps even take a ride in one. We did kind of take our sweet time actually getting in the car. And even on our ride to the festival we stopped to ran errands, eat lunch, and jack around. By the time we arrived at the festival, all the hot air balloons were packed up and put away. Ha ha! It took us four hours to get to the festival to see some hot air balloons and they were already gone.
So no, I don’t have awesome pictures of hot air balloons or some kick-A photos of scenic northern New England from hundreds of feet in the air. But what I do have are some last minute pictures that I took from the car on our way home in a lame attempt to have something for the blog. So if you’re planning on starting off your week with a post from jescady.com full of nifty pictures of The Great White North, I managed to mess up your plans too. Oops. Sorry about that. Have a great week!
Oh, so you forgot Father’s Day is Sunday, June 20th. And now you’re scrambling because you only have a little over a week to get a gift for dear ol’ Dad. Well don’t fret, I got you covered with my (said in a low booming voice) Father’s Day Gift Giving Guide 2010 !
For The Well Read Father:
If your Dad needs some new literature for what he calls “the reading room”, here are a couple of books to add to his library.
Awkward Family Photos, Mike Bender and Doug Chernack - Instead of giving your Dad lame photos of you and your family, give him this book of hilarious photos of someone else’s family.
Sh*t My Dad Says , Justin Halpern – Little jewels of wisdom I’m sure any Dad can appreciate.
Photo Credit: Awkward Family Photos, Mike Bender and Doug Chernack
Wow! Has it really been a month since my last blog post? Apparently so. That’s a bit embarrassing. My first excuse was that “I haven’t had anything interesting to blog about”. But when I look back at the past month, that really isn’t the case. The truth is that there has just been so much going on that I haven’t had time to think about it let alone disseminate it.
Unfortunately, this past month there was a death in the family. As a wise friend told me, “weddings and funerals bring out the worst in people”. Yup, she got it right and that’s all I’m gonna say about that.
We had a couple of puppy health issues that some quick vet visits were able to fix. These girls look all sweet and innocent, but they sure know how to find trouble and find it good.
This week I’m finishing up a very laborious term of grad school. I’ve had a lot of projects, presentations, homework assignments, quizzes, and essays this term. I’m officially taking a break this summer so I can kick back and relax a bit. I really love school and would have no problem going all year long, despite the added stress. But when I was in school full time for my undergrad, I busted out a 5 year program in 4 years and looking back, I wish I would have taken my time and enjoyed the scenery a bit. So this time around, I’m going to take that approach. I think I’m just going to take 2 or 3 classes a year and if it takes me 8 years to get my masters, so be it. I’m going to enjoy every minute of it.
We did some work on our house this past month too. We finally re-did our kitchen floor.
The new floor hides the dog fur, the muddy footprints, and the food stains on the floor which means I don’t have to mop the floor any more. If you can’t see it, it doesn’t exist. Win for me!
Last, but definitely not least, we have had some major advancements with fertility issues. We changed up the entire game. We found a new doctor. A much more aggressive doctor who agrees with us and is ready to get this done. This game changer was the shot in the arm we desperately needed and we have some much hope with the promise of resolution.
I’ve missed you internet friends! I can’t wait to catch up on what you’ve been up to!
Last night I had a dream about this new tool that Twitter launched. I hadn’t had a chance to check it out and been hearing a lot of hype. In my dream I got to use it and it was like an angels singing, cure of cancer type of moment. Today, I actually got to use it and to be honest it was kind of a let down from my dream, but it had a lot to live up to.
On May 4th 2010, Twitter announced a new tool that would allow you to embed tweets in your blog posts and websites. The reason for this is because it has been mentioned that “tweets are the new quotes“. And in the past, people were just taking screen shots of the tweets. But now they can do much more. The actual tweet itself and all of it’s clickable links can be incorporated on your site.
One thing to note is that it’s not officially a Twitter “feature”. It’s just a hack that someone who works for/with Twitter created and shared. It is a rough prototype of a simple script, but it allows you to have click-able links and it takes on some of the styling of your site to provide design continuity on your site.
How it works is you just visit Blackbird Pie (I have no idea what that even means). Once there, enter in the tweet url and that’s it. The tweet URL can be found when clicking on the timestamp of the tweet. You will be brought to a page that contains only that tweet and it will have a url that looks something like this http://twitter.com/jes_cady/status/13428883539. Copy and paste that URL into Blackbird Pie. It will automatically generate some code for you then you can embed it into your post or web site.
This is what it looks like embedded into my post and taking on the style of my blog.
If you find this blog post lame, then maybe you might find my yellow lab playing in her pool entertaining. And if you don’t think she is the cutest thing ever then you are just cold and heartless.
Those of you that know me personally, know that I have a bit of competitive streak. Okay, that might be an understatement. To give you an example, my brother and I would tease each other about who was on our parent’s sh*t list and who was the favorite. While we were kids, the power struggle was quite dynamic and could change daily. But now that we are adults the status only tends to change on an annual basis. And this year I have been beaten, royally. My mother’s birthday is today and Mother’s Day is this Sunday. My dad’s birthday is next month and so is Father’s Day and I will not be sending either of my parents a single thing. No cards, no letters. I may not even call them. All because my brother decided to up the ante of our competition and have a child. Yup, that’s right. On Monday, my brother and his wife gave birth to an 8 lb 11 oz baby girl. He made my mother a grandmother and my father a grandfather. There is nothing that I can do to beat that. I’m throwing in the towel this year. I’ll be surprised if my parents even know I exist anymore especially since I live a billion miles away from them.
So this solidifies it for me. I definitely have to have fertility treatments so that I can become a modern day marvel and give birth to sextuplets. Then I can get in my brother’s face and be all like “what! Look at your measly one baby, I have 6 babies. At one time, mind you. Suck on that”! (yeah just a little competitive). Not only will my parents be all like “you’re the best daughter ever for giving us SO MANY grandchildren so quickly, but you are a TV star now too”. Because all women that give birth to sextuplets become TV stars right? This is a warning for anyone reading this post today. You had better start sucking up to me with a quickness because pretty soon I’ll be a star and I’ll probably forget you unless you buy my love and affection with root beer floats and Lucky Charms.
So happy birthdays and Mother’s/Father’s Day to my parents. Sorry my gifts sucked really bad this year. Here are some stupid pictures I took of things that aren’t your grandchild. Love you!
As many of you know I am a super hero. I’m not quite as awesome as Superman or Spiderman, but let’s face it those guys aren’t real and I am. You may be asking what my super power is but I actually have quite a few. One can be seen in this picture. I’m like a chameleon and can change the color of my skin. I can really only change it between cardiac arrest red and translucent white, but you get the idea. My other super power is being a mediocre runner. This weekend I flexed my running super power and competed in a 5k road race in Massachusetts. I ran it in a little under 30 minutes and came in 146 out of 250. Oh yeah. Let’s just say that an eight year old beat my time by about 8 minutes. Eight years old dude! He has far less weight to carry and far more energy. It’s not really fair. Pretty soon, expect to see the Jes Cady action figures, coming to garage sales and flea markets near you.
Also, check out my new killer tat. It’s a heart with “mom” in it. Yeah, I’m tough stuff.
The Facebook F8 Conference really fed my suspicions that Facebook is taking over the planet, or at least the internet. The big hype from the conference was the release of Facebook Social Plugins. The plugin of particular interest to me is the “Like” button. According to Facebook, the Like button enables users to make connections to your pages or posts and share content back to their friends on Facebook with one click.
So now, rather than just “liking” someones status update, pictures, and links, I can actually start “liking” stuff that I read, see, and experience out in the great wide web.
If you doubt the power of a simple “like” button, then you must still be browsing the internet with IE6 on your Gateway desktop computer. According to TechCrunch 50,000 websites have already integrated Facebook’s social plugins. Think about that for just a second. In one week, 50,000 websites began utilizing these tools. And beyond how many websites are using the application it was estimated that there would be 1 billion “like” buttons scattered through the internet within 24 hours of the release of the plugins.
I’m pretty geeked up at the potential this plug in holds. It is a great marketing tool for websites and bloggers because it allows you to tap into the 400 million members of the social networking site.
Do you use Facebook? If so, do you think expanding the “like” button to the internet is a good idea?
Even though I’m not a mom, I have a mom and have had one for over 25 years. So that makes me an authority in Mother’s Day gifts. Mother’s Day gift ideas
For the gardener mom:
Potting Shed Creations – All of the flowers, herbs, fruits, and veggies they offer can be grown indoors, in the container they come in.
Decorating with Flowers – A beautiful book that provides insight on how to create beautiful flower arrangements.
For the sentimental mom:
Charm Bracelet – this gift would be good for a new Mom. That way each year, special occasion, and milestone you could get a charm for her to add to her bracelet.
For the dramatic mom:
If your mom loves movies here are a few she might like to own.
This week, the hubs and I got a taste of the good life. We got a pair of Red Sox tickets from a friend of a friend’s friend. We try to go to one game a year and every Sox game I’ve been in the cheap seats. You know, out in the far way outfield or obstructed view. But the cheap seats were affordable. So I thought this game would be no different. I didn’t really even look at the tickets until we got to the game. When we were looking for our seats we kept walking closer and closer to home plate and were never. When we finally got to our seats, we were both shocked to see that we were sitting 8 rows from home plate. I am a bit of a star stalker and was drooling at being so close to the players that you could smell their Bengay.
The game was great. We sang ‘Sweet Caroline’, we laughed at the ‘chowdah’ guy, we cheered, we yelled, and the Sox won! So apparently, to me the good life tastes like beer, hotdogs, and great seats for the game.
My name is Jes. I'm a web and numbers geek. I live in The Great White North. I've always dreamed of being a blues singer in a rockin' band. But I guess if you're the kind of person who uses the word "rockin", you were never meant to be in a band; so I blog instead. Thanks for visiting. Enjoy!
