Domestic Geek

It seems that several students attending Longwood University in Farmville, VA are irked at the treatment of current and past students by the school's administration. They've set up a wiki called Longwood University Sucks to try to force the administration to change its policies. While I admire their passion on the subject, I doubt such a move will inspire change. The only thing that talks is money. Only when enough students quit going to such schools and the tuition of remaining students no longer cover expenses will anybody bother to change anything. If these students really feel wronged, however, perhaps they should seek to file some sort of lawsuit or just quit wasting their money on that particular school.

Marcus bought me a yummy caffeinated beverage from Caribou Coffee last night. They opened one up right up the street from us. It's in the same center as Chipotle, Spicy Pickle and soon-to-be Anthony's Pizza & Pasta. Anyway, there is always a "question of the day" at Caribou and if you know the answer, you get 10¢ off your purchase. Yesterday's question was, "What do you call a group of crows?" I knew it was something really bizarre, but I couldn't remember at the time. Marcus looked it up later and the collective noun for crows is murder. Yes, a murder of crows. Apparently, crows kill sick and dying members of their group. Who comes up with these names, anyway?

I'm really hating to have to travel anywhere in the Denver Metro area. Between traffic congestion and road construction, there is no good time to be out on the road. I went to have lunch with Marcus (in exchange for getting his paycheck to put it in the bank before 3pm). I left home around 12:30ish. First, it took 45 minutes just to drive the 18-20 miles away to his workplace. There was a minor accident on I-25. Big whoop. After we got past the accident, would people accelerate up to the speed limit? Oh, hell no! Then, when I got there, they had the street in front of his workplace all torn up and I couldn't even get into his parking lot. After we ate, it took forever to get back to his work because of this jacked up construction that's been going on for over a year at Evans/Broadway. I had three small errands to run on the way back: 1) put his check in the bank; 2) make my car payment; and 3) stop and buy toilet paper. That's all. It took and hour and a half to make my way back across town doing those errands before I finally got home. Grrrr. It's no wonder road range is rampant. I was so frazzled when I got home, it wasn't even funny. What's stupid is, the height of rush hour didn't even used to start until 4pm when I was younger. Now, it doesn't matter. You can have a total traffic snarl at 3 in the morning. It's totally out of control.

If you're working from home and wish you could have a "real" office where you could meet with clients or just get away from your house once in awhile, Offices2Share.com, the folks that operate a free nationwide search engine for short-term, ready-to-use office space, is starting their 2nd Annual "The Home Office From Hell contest" today, 10/23/2006. This is quite the Grand Prize package that they are offering:

• 12 Months Rent in a Real Office at any location posted on Offices2Share.com (Maximum amount $12,000)
• 1 Dell Desktop Computer, 1 Dell Notebook Computer, 1 Dell Switch and Server (Approximate retail value $7,500)
• Tuition For "The Entrepreneurship Mastery Program" at Trump University (Approximate retail value $2,500)
• Trip to NYC and 2 night hotel stay (Maximum amount $2,000)
• Lunch with George Ross, Donald Trump's right-hand man and former Co-Star of The Apprentice, and an autographed copy of his new book "Trump Style Negotiation"

If you're not the lucky grand prize winner, not to worry, they're offering thousands of dollars of additional prizes from Corporate Particpants Dell and Trump University.

What does one have to do to enter? Just compile your top 10 reasons why you need to escape yourhome office from hell. Be as funny, zany or serious as you would like. If words just won't t do it justice, shoot a video of your hellacious work environment. Go fill out their online entry form and you're all set!

If a year of your own out-of-the-house office sounds good to you, hurry and get your entry in...the contest ends on March 31, 2007.

Yesterday I was going though a box of stuff from storage and found some newspaper clippings that my mother had saved. One was from where someone had written into the paper asking if Colorado had an official song. Well, it appears that the state legislature in 1915 adopted a song called "Where the Columbines Grow" as the official state song. There's an mp3 on that site of some elementary school kids singing it. They lyrics are cool, but the melody is totally lame.

I was checking out some of the rest of our official state emblems. Um, we have a state tartan. There is also a state fossil. Who knew? Methinks the legislatures have had too danged much time on their hands.