A friend of mine helps run a really cool financial Web site and I promised her several months ago that I was going to post a blog about its “personal bailout” contest. It’s an awesome opportunity, I just keep forgetting to write about it! (Sorry Robyn!)
So here it is – The Great Geezeo Bailout! The grand prize is $6,000 and you get one entry for each day that you log in and use Geezeo. By the way, Geezeo is a GREAT site to help you manage your personal finances. It has lots of neat features and a community where you can get advice, plus a blog with helpful articles posted frequently.
The contest ends on March 31, so sign up quickly if you want to take part!
So it’s the wee hours of the morning and my wonderfully sweet neighbors are keeping me wide awake. How? Well, they are skateboarding and yelling right outside my window (teens). And another set of neighbors are playing very loud music with a bass that is reaching my ears from across the street.
Hopefully they all go to sleep sometime before dawn…
Since the lovely, fun time is preventing me from sleeping, I thought I would update you on the baby kittens my parents have been raising. Update: They are even more adorable now!
We’ve named them. The black-and-white kitten is Biscuit. Biscuit – the one from the video that was walking over the other kittens – is still an adventurer. He likes to climb tall trees in search of birds.
The grey-and-white tabby is Boots. He’s a sweetheart! Whenever he sees me, he flops down and rolls onto his back with a little “meow.” Such a sweetie.
The orange kitten is Tex. He’s very shy, like his mom. He doesn’t usually let me pet him. But if I reach my hand out to him, he will very lightly bat my hand with one paw. Aww!
Their mom is doing great. She still won’t let anyone pet her, but good meals and medicine have made her coat shiny and pretty. Meanwhile, my parents’ dog (Sandi – very cute!) is learning to tolerate the cats. She no longer lunges at them or barks at them through windows.
To complete this late-night post, here are a couple updated pictures of our baby kittens.
Posted in Uncategorized on December 29, 2008 by Dube
Hey everyone! I’m on Business Week’s home page again with a quote about LinkedIn (and a picture of me!) So much fun! Check it out – I’m on the lower right side of the home page: Business Week.
Posted in Uncategorized on December 14, 2008 by Dube
I remember a few of you asked me to post a link to the page on BusinessWeek that featured a quote from me (my original blog post is here.) Well, after MUCH delay, I finally have it on my website thanks to a friend who saved a screen capture and sent me a PNG of it. Thanks!
If you don’t have a widescreen, you may have to scroll to the right a bit to see my part. Without further ado, here it is! Just scroll down and look to the right of the screen capture.
(PS: If you’re confused by the automatically generated links attached to my original blog post… Well so am I. How exactly did WordPress decide a blog on cancer is related to my post about being on Business Week? I think the algorithm needs a little work… Lol.)
Posted in Uncategorized on December 11, 2008 by Dube
This story just broke my heart… A jet plane crashed into a San Diego home, killing a mom, two children, and her mother. The dad, Dong Yun Yoon, was not home when it happened. He left with everything right in the world and came back to find everything gone…
(Warning: This video is sad, so don’t watch unless you’re prepared to shed a few tears…)
He really needs our prayers right now. In another video, he talked about how he knew God was keeping his wife and children safe in heaven. He also said he doesn’t blame the pilot, but hopes people will pray for the pilot to not be overcome with guilt.
That’s pretty amazing. Honestly, there is no way I would handle a situation like that with the grace this man has. First, to hold on to your faith. And second, to forgive so quickly! Some might say he’s just in shock, but if you watch the videos you can see that the shock has already worn off.
The wife was 36 and one baby girl had just been born in October and the other one, Grace, was 15 months old. The wife would have been just a little older than I am when they had their first child! I just cannot even imagine. In a press conference, the husband had only two requests. One was to pray for the pilot (wow). The other was that he knows there are people who have gone through worse than this, and he hopes they can tell him how.
I’m posting this for three reasons. One is that I’m amazed at how he has already forgiven the pilot. So many of us hold grudges over things that are far, far less. Second, is that life is short. Don’t ever take one second for granted, and don’t put off until tomorrow what you could do today.
Third, and most importantly, I’m posting this to ask anyone who reads this to keep him in your prayers. Pray that he finds people who can provide him with comfort and the advice he’s seeking. Sadly, the only way to get through something like this is to walk through the pain. As a wise friend of mine once said, “You can’t move on – you can never move on. But at some point, you can find the strength to move forward.”
Oh, you’re not familiar with this case? Well, it all started in 2005 when the Osteens, co-pastors of Lakewood Church in Houston, got on an airplane. Sounds like a joke, right? Two ministers walked on an airplane…
As happens anytime you’re on an airplane, hilarity quickly ensued. I still remember the time a drunk girl was carried to her seat on my plane because she was passed out. Or the time an old man two rows behind me started having a panic attack right before the plane took off. Or what about the infamous flight where two drunk women decided it would be fun to open the airplane doors? Weeeeeeee!
The Osteens’ flight was no exception to the “you’d be lucky if there were just snakes on your plane” skyfaring adventures.
But this story is far scarier. First, the Osteens boarded their plane only to discover that one of their first class seats wasn’t clean enough and then…
Wait. Stop. First Class?
Dang it, I chose the wrong career. Then again, with my luck, if I could afford First Class I’d end up like this poor gal:
But we’re talking about Victoria Osteen, not me. Her Continental flight is a big matter of he said/she said. Both sides have witnesses that claim the other side is lying. Did Victoria get ticked off about a dirty seat, push a flight attendant against a wall, elbow her, and leave her with hemorrhoids? (What is this, an episode of South Park?)
Or was the flight attendant the one who was cuckoo while Victoria was just an innocent bystander who got caught up in the perfect storm of “wrong place/wrong time”?
It’s really hard to tell. The Osteens settled with the FAA and paid $4,000 (or was it $3,000?) over the incident, which makes her innocence very suspect. But the flight attendant, Sharon Brown, has made an accusation like this once before, although it never reached these proportions. And she’s suing for 10 percent of their net worth! What’s the deal Sharon, do you think you’re God and deserve their tithe? Isn’t 10 percent just a little extreme?
Part of the lawsuit is based on Sharon’s “loss of faith.” We can sue for that nowadays? And get money? I can think of 20 people, just off the top of my head, who have damaged my faith in the last 10 years. Can I sue them, too?
All in all, this really seems to be a case of frayed nerves and stressed passengers blown way out of proportion. It never had to get this big. I have no doubt the Osteens would have settled with Sharon out of court, just like they did with the FAA. But I’m sure they wouldn’t offer her multi-millions in the settlement, so off to court we go.
Before I sign off, I just have one thing to say about Sharon’s damaged faith…
Deal with it.
Sharon, if this is the first time in your life that you’ve encountered a hypocritical Christian who damaged your faith, count yourself lucky. This is life. It’s not rainbows, chirping mockingbirds, and butterflies landing gently on your nose.
Well, unless you’re Obama:
So, Sharon (and others like you), sometimes people are jerks. It’s not fair but, really, does adding a wrong make this somehow right? You’re concerned that the Osteens are bad witnesses, but what about yourself right now? Suing for 10 percent of their net worth? Is that really such a good example?
Come to think of it, Sharon’s actions are damaging my faith. Can I have 50 percent of whatever she wins?
In the grand scheme of things, this is not worth a court battle. There are far bigger issues that need attention. Like that McDonald’s coffee I spilled on my leg this morning. Lawsuit please!
These are Chinese acrobats using a Russian bar – the part at the very end of the clip is absolutely amazing! I saw a performance similar to this at Disney World (Epcot) last year. Instead of a bar, they were using chairs, and that was pretty awesome to see in person. But the very last part of this clip just astounds me. I can’t even imagine the amount of practice and discipline needed to be that good.
(Oh, and if you want to know exactly what a Russian Bar is, Wikipedia says: “A Russian Bar or Russian Barre circus act combines the gymnastic skills of the balance beam, the rebound tempo skills of trampoline and the swing handstands skills of the uneven bars and the parallel bars. The barre itself is a flexible vaulting pole around 4 meters long, typically made of fiberglass.”)
