Big Spenders

is anybody here really really truly surprised? ugh.

AIG has used up about 3/4 of it's $123B bailout loan.

come for the cycling humor...

...stay for the poignant medical drama and love story.

i began reading the fat cyclist blog quite some time ago. i don't remember how i found it, but i stumbled across it somehow. it was hilarious. the author, fatty (elden), does a great job of writing up his cycling adventures and poking fun at the dorkiness of bike riders of all kinds. even heath, with his minimal familiarity with cycling and its mini culture, has found a number of his posts entertaining.

a great proportion of his posts are humorous, but there is a subset that focuses on the events surrounding his wife's battle with cancer. it's touching and heartbreaking and so raw and real to read about the challenges and fears and joys and ways of coping as they go through this illness. the family's strength is amazing. fatty's experiences are real and vivid. he admits that he needs escape from the situation sometimes, which he gets through mountain biking, he admits the guilt he feels, he admits his fears and celebrates small victories. his wife, susan, was in remission when i started reading the blog. she has since had a relapse, and things are not looking good. they have recently had a pretty significant scare, which is what prompted me to post this. last night's post was so touching, it brought tears to my eyes. definitely worth checking out if you have a few minutes.

needed a laugh/pick me up

feeling a bit clobbered at work today, so i needed a laugh. checked my google reader and found this on boing boing, which did the trick. hooray for rss!

also found this site with 25 cool pumpkin carvings via digg.

which reminded me of this link i sent to heath yesterday. i have NEVER seen such amazing pumpkin carving in my life. it's hard to believe that's wha they are -- look at that detail! he even includes a tutorial, so now YOU can be awesome at carving pumpkins, too!


i'm feeling better now.

worthwhile article

great article. it's a bit long, but really well written. i'm partial to it because it involves triathletes. i remember seeing the articles on the tri forums when a man in san diego was killed in a shark attack. this article tells his story and the interesting stories of people close to him.

blast from the past

piece on the most influential early educational computer games.

if you're feeling nostalgic, click here.

call me queen kelly

because now i have a crown. ugh. finally got the temporary one replaced with the porcelain one. this visit (cementing of the actual crown) was not fun. but it was not nearly as unpleasant as the crown buildup visit. double ugh!

i have totally capitalized on my dental benefits. booyah!

model-actress

so i was clicking through the news on cnn.com this morning and saw the breaking headline about hugh hefner losing one of his "girls next door." apparently, one of his three live in girlfriends, holly madison (age 28 - he's 82), has decided to break off their "relationship" (quotes are mine).

Hefner was surprised to hear Madison discussing their breakup, but acknowledged he knew a split was imminent after he told Madison that they would never wed or have children.

holly. please.

what does it say about my generation that a woman of this age is THAT out of touch with reality? i used to think that these girls were just money and attention grubbing and that everybody involved was on the same page with that and thought it was a just dandy agreement. this is evidently not the case for holly. it's pretty sad, really. she was really thinking they would get married and have kids. when she shared a bed with him and his TWO OTHER GIRLFRIENDS. oh, and it's HUGH HEFNER. wow.

eBags Gripe

so here's the deal. i signed up for one of those "do surveys to earn money" deals a while back. i recently got an email notifying me that some of my $90 that i had earned was going to expire so i'd better redeem it. rather than paying you cash, you have a number of gift card/coupon/discount offers to choose from. needing a new "nice" bag for school (i.e., north face backpack isn't quite stylish enough for me to bring to class too much longer), i figured i would go with the $75.00 ebags.com voucher. only after i selected this option did i notice the caveat - $75 off a $200 purchase. doh! so, i poked around the website and found some things that got me to $200 (harder than it sounds even with a $100 business case in the mix). i thought - hey bonus - everything is an extra 20% off. So, thinking that it would be approx $200 - $75, plus shipping, i figure my total will be somewhere in the $140 range. right?

wrong. apparently the $75 can't be combined with the 20% discount, so it was still going to cost me close to $200. Ugh! Not sure how to proceed. I suppose the best solution is to not do anything, but i hate giving up my $75, especially when i do need a new bag. maybe i could take a few items out of my shopping cart and see what happens. grr. i hate stupid fine print stuff like that. i could've gotten subscriptions to Maxim AND Computer shopper AND Shape AND a free year of the Blockbuster improved membership. Who knows that the fine print on those is, though!

update your links!

we had some issues with our wedding blog, so it now has a new address -- http://heathandkelly.blogspot.com (as opposed to what it was before: kellyandheath.blogspot.com).

sorry for any inconvenience!