Some things you never knew you didn’t know

A shrimp’s heart is in its head.

The “sixth sick sheik’s sixth sheep’s sick” is said to be the toughest tongue twister in the English language.

Rats multiply so quickly that in 18 months, two rats could have over a million descendants.

Wearing headphones for just an hour will increase the bacteria in your ear by 700 times.

If the government has no knowledge of aliens, then why does Title 14, Section 1211 of the Code of Federal Regulations, implemented on July 16 1969, make it illegal for U.S. citizens to have any contact with extraterrestrials or their vehicles?

In every episode of Seinfeld there is a Superman somewhere.

A duck’s quack doesn’t echo, and no one knows why.

23% of all photocopier faults world-wide are caused by people sitting on them and photocopying their butts.

Most lipstick contains fish scales.

Like fingerprints, everyone’s tongue print is different.

If you sneeze too hard, you can fracture a rib. If you try to suppress a sneeze, you can rupture a blood vessel in your head or neck and die.

If you keep your eyes open by force, they can pop out.

In a study of 200,000 ostriches over a period of 80 years, no one reported a single case where an ostrich buried its head in the sand.

It is physically impossible for pigs to look up into the sky.

A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.

More than 50% of the people in the world have never made or received a telephone call.

Horses can’t vomit.

Butterflies taste with their feet.

In 10 minutes, a hurricane releases more energy than all of the world’s nuclear weapons combined.

On average, 100 people choke to death on ballpoint pens every year.

On average people fear spiders more than they do death.

Ninety percent of New York City cabbies are recently arrived immigrants.

Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married.

Elephants are the only animals that can’t jump.

Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.

It’s possible to lead a cow upstairs…but not downstairs.

Women blink nearly twice as much as men.

It’s physically impossible for you to lick your elbow.

The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because when it was built, engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building.

A snail can sleep for three years.

No word in the English language rhymes with “MONTH.”

Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.

The electric chair was invented by a dentist.

All polar bears are left handed.

In ancient Egypt, priests plucked EVERY hair from their bodies, including their eyebrows and eyelashes.

An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain.

TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard.

“Go ,” is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.

If Barbie were life-size, her measurements would be 39-23-33. She would stand seven feet, two inches tall.

A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.

The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.

Americans on average eat 18 acres of pizza every day.

Almost everyone who reads this email will try to lick their elbow. ~HAHA

Who really fuels this fire?

One of the many stories.

The six black teens were charged a few months after three white teens were accused of hanging nooses in a tree on their high school grounds. The white teens were suspended from school but weren’t prosecuted. Five of the black teens were initially charged with attempted murder. That charge was reduced to battery for all but one, who has yet to be arraigned; the sixth was charged as a juvenile.

The beating victim, Justin Barker, was knocked unconscious, his face badly swollen and bloodied, though he was able to attend a school function later that night.

District Attorney Reed Walters stressed on Wednesday that race had nothing to do with the charges in Jena.

Walters said he didn’t charge the white students accused of hanging the nooses because he could find no Louisiana law under which they could be charged. In the beating case, he said, four of the defendants were of adult age under Louisiana law and the only juvenile charged as an adult, Mychal Bell, had a prior criminal record.

Sharpton said Bell, whom he spoke with Wednesday, was heartened by the show of support.

“He doesn’t want anything done that would disparage his name — no violence, not even a negative word,” Sharpton said.

Disparage his name??? Perhaps he should have thought about that before he (allegedly) participated in beating another human being.

unprecedented

I know I have posted today already, but something happened on the way home that I just had to share!!

Guess who I saw walking his beat??

Perhaps he was just on vacation.

Yay!!

Told you I needed another job…

I found this link over at Joy’s place. And I am a sucker for IQ tests so I took it. Joy had taken it over a month ago, so if you go looking for it over there, you have to go back to August. Hey, it’s an IQ test, not a punctuality test.
You have to register to get your score but it’s not that big o’ deal. Just keep clicking “pass” on all the “cool” offers they send your way and after about 6 or 7 clicks, you get your score.

Ode to a turkey

Every day for the past few months, I have seen a turkey either on the side of the road or in the road that I take to get to Hunter’s day care.

Now this turkey has become a huge sense of enjoyment for me. The road I take to Hunter’s daycare is mostly traveled by truckers who are dropping off loads either to the dump or the metal recycling place. I’m talking big semi’s with large dumpster like containers. On more than one occasion I have seen my buddy the turkey have traffic all fuckered up. One semi on one side of the road, another semi on the other side of the road, semi drivers out of their cabs, trying to coax my little feathered friend out of the road. Hilarious, really. And amazing that these guys didn’t just run him over. I’m guessing they enjoyed seeing him as much as I did.

I had been telling Kev about how funny this was. And on Saturday, two weeks ago Kev and I drove by and sure enough, Mr. Turkey was walking his beat down the side of the road. So I was able to snap a few pictures of him. Of course the pictures really don’t do him justice. He was about 2 ½ feet tall and always alone.

I’ve seen wild turkeys before, but never one this big.

Two weeks ago Monday, when I drove down the street I didn’t see Mr. Turkey. I saw some feathers on the side of the road, but no obvious signs of foul play… ha… oh sorry. Anyway, I thought about going back and looking at the feathers, but something inside of me said I just don’t want to know. A whole week has gone by and I still haven’t seen my turkey friend.

Thank you my feathered friend for making me laugh on so many mornings. I hope you are somewhere safe and happy. I miss you.

Set up to fail?

You know, I have really been trying to hone my photographer skills. I don’t do a lot of Photoshopping to my pics. Mostly because I don’t have the time to master PS but also because I want to be able to take great photos without all the enhancements.

Don’t get me wrong, I do believe the enhancements have their place, but for me, right now, I just want to take better photos.

One of the things I do is look at other people’s photos: professional photos, blog photos, forum photos… I think you get the idea. I know what appeals to me and then I keep what I see in the back of my mind and try to expand on it and incorporate it into my own pictures.

Today, in the process of doing some surfing I happened across a couple of sites that feature some before and after photo retouching. I could take you through the whole process in my brain that got me there, but believe me, you don’t want that close of a look inside my brain… it will scare you.

I ran across this site that a section entitled retouch-o-rama…how could I not read it?

There are several professional photo retouching sites listed.
To show you how good they are they post their portfolios, which are primarily celebs retouched photos. But to prove how good they really are they have to show you the before AND the after. Talk about some interesting clicking. Here’s another one, click on the word “Portfolio”.

Now this bothers me on all sorts of levels. The better photographer angle isn’t that big of a deal.

My own personal struggles with body image, now that’s a big deal!

Down deep in my subconscious I have struggled with my weight forever. Even when I weighed 135 lbs (a VERY long time ago) I thought I was fat. Was I? Probably not. Maybe I just hung out with really skinny chicks. Or maybe the media influenced what my subconscious brain thought was acceptable. Who knows?

I used to look at these photos and wonder how in the hell could Cameron Diaz even open a jar with those skinny arms? But the reality is her arms aren’t that skinny

… and I’m not really that fat.

Why does the media think it’s so wrong to be a woman of substance?

Why does the media think we want to see unattainable body images?

How can a celebrity look at one of those magazine covers and even recognize the person in the photo. But boy, what a great way to show a celeb going off the deep end… just publish an un-retouched photo and have a whole article about how bad so & so looks.

In my perfect world I would make some changes and they wouldn’t start with my body.

Tomorrow: Ode to a turkey.

September 12 of 12

Here it is, my 12 of 12 for September. For details or to participate yourself, just mosey on over to here and check it out.

{Click on the photos for larger, clearer views.}

7:48 AM – here is where Hunter’s day begins most days. Today tho, he appears to be giving me the what for… I think he wants pears today.

8:16 AM – BONUS – The bonus word this month was unexpected, here is my unexpected passenger, Jakey-Jake.

8:24 AM – This is where Hunter gets out: daycare.

8:48 AM – Starbucks seem to have made it’s way back into my morning routine – with some changes. Now, instead of a Triple Venti Carmel Macchiatto, I get a Grande Soy Latte – several hundred calories less.

1:55 PM – Just finished lunch at Leo’s. A nice private lunch with me and my book.

5:45 PM – is the deadline for picking up your child at daycare. I just made it there on time. (oh and yes, that is X202 on my radio presets – I like Opie and Anthony… so what… they’re funny. (even tho I only have XM for 2 more months for free, then it’s back to Sirius for me.)

5:50 PM – the ride home always includes some milk, it’s just not necessarily always on his lip, oh and on the window, in case you can’t tell.

6:12 PM – DAD’s HOME!! (and look… Dad has a shirt on!)

6:12 PM – the High-five!

6:14 PM – Hunter in his new (to him) truck. Tyler: “hey.. you got room in there for me?”

6:15 PM – Tyler playing catch, pretty much a 12 of 12 tradition picture.

6:21 PM – Finally everyone is in the house. But we won’t turn the TV on for Hunter so he is trying to figure the remote out with the instructions. Dad hasn’t had a chance to teach him that those are called “suggestions” and men don’t read ‘em.

8:22 PM – leaving Longhorn where we had dinner. It sure does get dark early now. We were supposed to go grocery shopping, but I didn’t feel like it and it was Hunter’s bed time. I honestly don’t think I was even awake for another hour.

There you have it, my day in 12 pictures. I hope you enjoyed it. And don’t forget to go and check out some of (all) the other 12 of 12 participants – it’s a very cool project.

As an additional note, I would like to again thank Chad for hosting these 12 of 12’s. If it weren’t for these posts, I don’t know that I would have forced myself to take some of these pictures. And this month, I have some fantastic shots of my family. As I was going through my photos (I took 56 shots yesterday) so many of them make me smile. Just look at this great shot of my son and my husband. The reason I had my camera out was specifically to capture some shots for 12 of 12. Thank you Chad!

A little advice from your buddy Sheryl

1) If you ever notice that Steph is having a contest, be sure and enter it.

I got the greatest package full of stuff when I became one of the winners of this contest. Here’s a list of all the cool stuff I got:

Sweet tarts
Chocolate covered peppermint sticks
Smashed (hee) almond Joy
Trident Strawberry Lime sugar free gum
Shame on you for sending me candy! But that’s ok, I have power over me and my co-workers will love the addition to my candy jar (that has been empty for ages). And the gum… all mine!!

Magnetic “To do today” notepad
Crazy straw
Winnie the Pooh jiggly light up pen (which I can’t figure out how to get it to light up)
Butterfly stickers
a few assorted ribbon wrapped note cards
Sweet little note on one of the above mentioned cards.
Last, but not least…
Sarah McLachlan cd – Surfacing – which is hilarious because that is the same CD I sent her. I bet they crossed in the mail.

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2) Turn your vehicle off when exiting the vehicle.

People, gas is $3 a gallon here. Why on earth would you leave your car running when you go into Starbucks? Are you trying to get someone to steal your car? If you have that kind of money to throw away, follow me to the gas station and fill MY tank. Also – bad for the environment. And lastly, I’m sure the folks over in Iraq, fighting a ridiculous war, would not be happy to know that you are wasting this precious commodity.

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3) If you look like this…

or this…

in your medieval costume, either buy a new one (different size) or just wear street clothes.

Please don’t misunderstand me, my issue here is not with the size of these folks, but with what they have decided to let hang out for all to see.

Oh, I could have done a whole post on what not to wear to the Renaissance Festival – but I didn’t start taking pictures until later.

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4) If you have four generations together, photograph it!

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5) If things aren’t looking great to you, change your perspective.

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Don’t forget: tomorrow is September 12th… 12 of 12!!