Let's see...what's going on out there today...geez...it's 28 degrees F outside...I've got body parts starting to shrivel up and fall off if I'm not careful.
In other news, my Mom's having a birthday today--Happy Birthday Mom.
Last year at this time we were getting ready for a big surprise party at the local bed and breakfast inn with her siblings and her fellow Red Hatters. No such luck this year Mom, but happy birthday anyway...stay warm there with the Tom Cat.
What else...
Oh yeah...out in Iowa the media is in a full blown salivating frenzy as something less than 1/2 million people attempt to decide the fate of the governance of the free world in some inane process called a "caucus."
Then this...McDonalds is dumping the McRib Sandwich for good. I can't say that I rue that event, because I never ate a McRib, but I do look forward to the new McPossum and McArmadillo feasts coming out later in 2008.
Meanwhile, I delivered another $300 worth of materials to the job site yesterday, but it's just too cold with the wind chill down in the teens to get anything done today, so I guess we'll stay home and finish tearing down Christmas lights and boxing up decorations. I had to buy four more jumbo storage containers at Lowe's yesterday just to contain the new stuff that arrived by UPS and was lugged home and in through the front door in the process of the seasonal celebrations.
Something else that caught my eye this morning was news stories about the FAA implementing some kind of ban on Lithium batteries in checked baggage. I did a little Googling, and as usual the rocket scientists in the media are all over the map with the details, so I went
Effective January 1, 2008, the following rules apply to the spare lithium batteries you carry with you in case the battery in a device runs low:
Spare batteries are the batteries you carry separately from the devices they power. When batteries are installed in a device, they are not considered spare batteries.
You may not pack a spare lithium battery in your checked baggage
You may bring spare lithium batteries with you in carry-on baggage – see our spare battery tips and how-to sections to find out how to pack spare batteries safely!
Even though we recommend carrying your devices with you in carry-on baggage as well, if you must bring one in checked baggage, you may check it with the batteries installed.
The following quantity limits apply to both your spare and installed batteries. The limits are expressed in grams of “equivalent lithium content.” 8 grams of equivalent lithium content is approximately 100 watt-hours. 25 grams is approximately 300 watt-hours:
Under the new rules, you can bring batteries with up to 8-gram equivalent lithium content. All lithium ion batteries in cell phones are below 8 gram equivalent lithium content. Nearly all laptop computers also are below this quantity threshold.
You can also bring up to two spare batteries with an aggregate equivalent lithium content of up to 25 grams, in addition to any batteries that fall below the 8-gram threshold. Examples of two types of lithium ion batteries with equivalent lithium content over 8 grams but below 25 are shown below.
For a lithium metal battery, whether installed in a device or carried as a spare, the limit on lithium content is 2 grams of lithium metal per battery.
Almost all consumer-type lithium metal batteries are below 2 grams of lithium metal. But if you are unsure, contact the manufacturer!
As is usual with the government, that's certainly nice and clear...isn't it?
I'll keep all of that in mind next time I fly somewhere.
Here's something weird...IBM is paying their employees to get up off their asses and exercise.
How's this for incentive to stick to your new year's resolutions: cold hard cash. Many companies are offering a little extra in your paycheck to help you shed the pounds. Not only does Stefanie Chiras' company pay her to develop computer memory sub-systems, but a little extra to eat right."
Having work sponsor it makes you kind of feel like someone is buying into It," said Chiras. "And then certainly the cash at the end of the day is an incentive."Chiras works for IBM. She gets an additional $150 in her paycheck for tracking her eating habits online and losing weight."
When I reach for that next unhealthy thing, I think, oh, but I have to log it in to the tool."IBM launched its voluntary wellness incentive program four years ago – handing each employee up to $300 a year for completing healthy eating, exercise and preventative care programs.
I guess that makes sense, since IBM apparently spends nearly $2 billion on employee health care annually.
Good thing these people don't work for me, because my idea of a functional "voluntary wellness incentive program" would be to hand your giant lard ass a rake and shovel when you show up at work weighing 350 pounds and not let you back inside to recline in front of a computer in air conditioned luxury until the parking lot and highway frontage was clean and you had sweated off twenty or thirty pounds in a week.
Call me insensitive, I guess...
So any way, in the interest of my own health I guess that I'll spend the day laying around in my PJ's, huddled by some fake logs burning in the fireplace contemplating the things I'm not getting done over on my construction project.
Since I don't even care about the bowl games these days, my life is spent in a catatonic stupor of "just don't give a damn" as FOX News drones on about the 2008 Presidential election.
Is it just me?
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