First of all, if you have never had a migraine, please cut a little slack to the people that do get them. When I was in high school, my friend Andrea used to stay home from school with a migraine, and I didn’t get it. My first response was “why can’t you go to school with a headache?” Until I started getting migraines in college, I didn’t get it. I know mine aren’t even as bad as some people. I don’t vomit like some people. I don’t pass out like some people. But I do want to be in a dark, quiet room. I do want it to be cold and have cold cloths on me. And most of all, I don’t want to do anything until it is gone.

I wish I knew what triggered mine. And that’s what a pain about migraines. There is no “cure” because there’s not specific reason for what causes a migraine. For some people, it’s stress, for some, it’s food, for some, it’s genetics, for some, it’s sleep, and for some, it is anything else you could possibly imagine. For me, I haven’t figured it out yet. I’ve tried all of those things that they tell you about, and it’s not working.

Someone suggested Gatorade to me, so I’ll give that a whirl. Any other remedies, I’d love to hear them. Until then, migraines suck.

Don’t get me wrong. I love New Orleans. That might show from the numerous times I’ve been there (how many, Tim? 5 times?). It’s a city full of character—whether it’s the musicians, the food, the architecture, the history or the partying, it’s a great place to visit and I have a blast every time I go there.

Last year, when Hurricane Katrina hit, it was a huge wakeup call for the infamous city “below sea level.” The levees broke, homes were destroyed, people were killed and the city fell apart. Rumors were abound with what would happen to New Orleans, but the city decided to stay strong and start rebuilding themselves—a very noble decision.

But then they get hit by not another hurricane, but the huge storm that has been hammering the Colorado area these past few days is also hitting New Orleans as rain. And the flooding has begun again:

Pumping stations, closely watched since the catastrophic flooding after Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, were working, officials said.

But the rain lasted so long, they couldn’t keep up, said public works director Jose Gonzalez of Jefferson Parish.

“The rest of the day, we will continue to pump,” Gonzalez said. “Hopefully, it’s not going to rain as much as it did this morning. … The amount of rain, that’s what hurt us.”

Seriously. This is just a rain storm and people’s basements are flooding already. People who started rebuilding their homes and their lives after the tragedy that was Katrina. People who deserve to be given a break.

Is the city lying to the residents about what these levees can really handle? New Orleans naturally wants to be a lake—how long do we pretend that it’s not?

Thoughts on this?

Last night recapped another Christmas Dinner with the Carroll College crew. 7th Annual this year–hard to believe we’ve been doing this for that long. Our theme this year (As you’ll see in the pictures) was ugly sweaters–so we requested that everyone come in just that–an ugly sweater. There were some classic sweaters. Most people came wearing a sweater of their choosing, but the Carroll “girls” did an exchange and we were forced to wear whatever our Secret Santa gave us.

You be the judge (vote in the comments below)… who had the ugliest sweater?

Mandy Tomaro	Bonnie Schulz
Amber Roemer	Jenny Hawes
Erica Peterson	Marcia VandenHeuvel

And then there’s the group picture (which you can see my ugly sweater in):

Click here to see the rest of the pictures. Thanks for a great night everyone!

I was trying to think of good phrases today to describe something being slow (and all I could come up with was “slower than Bonnie running to 1st base”… sorry Bonnie), which prompted me to do a google search for “is slower than a” to see what would come up. Some funny people out there and some people where I wonder what their logic is.

• is slower than a quadriplegic gopher crawling through glue
• my dell is slower than a commodore 64
• is slower than a snail
• is slower than a dead snail
• is slower than a dead snail hibernating
• is slower than a comatose snail
• is slower than a Chinese snail race (what does Chinese have to do with it?)
• is slower than a Japanese TV drama (bunch of racists)
• is slower than a dead Llama
• is slower than a Charlie Hough knuckleball
• is slower than a wet Sunday in Wales (I don’t get it)
• is slower than a herd of turtles stampeding through peanut butter (Stampeding makes me think they are moving quickly)
• is slower than a flaming pickle in a snow storm (What??)
• is slower than a retard drowning in molasses
• is slower than a pregnant woman running to first base sometimes
• is slower than a grandma at a green light
• is slower than a constipated 90yr old man
• is slower than a hillbilly reading Dr. Seuss
• is slower than a chimp at an astrophysics session
• is slower than a retarded Grandma on pain killers
• is slower than a sack of potatoes (When is a sack of potatoes slow OR fast?)

Add yours to the comments below.

Here’s an interesting hypothetical that is being put before the Education Reform Commission in Wisconsin.

Would you agree to live and work in Wisconsin for 10 years after college if the state offered to pay your tuition costs for all four years?

It’s an interesting idea. Although it’s only for state schools, I think it would be beneficial to the state for a few reasons:

1. Heck, it’s free tuition. I don’t know the main reasons why people want to leave Wisconsin after they graduate. Maybe it’s the desire for warmer climates, maybe it’s because they are in an industry where you need to be in a “big city”… I’m not sure. But for someone like myself, where there are plenty of job opportunities in Wisconsin for me, I would think that even if the position in Wisconsin pays slightly less than the same position in, say, Chicago, the fact that I don’t have any tuition bills might make that a little more bearable.

2. 10 years isn’t that much. I’ve been out of school now for 5 1/2 years. It feels like I’ve barely been out 2. That puts most people at around 32 or 33 years old–still young enough to move across the county on a whim if they wanted to.

3. The state of Wisconsin has had a huge problem with brain drain. We educate them, then they leave for cities with a better quality of life. This gives smart people an incentive to stay in state, which, in turn, helps the state’s economy.

I don’t know what kind of affect this would have on the private schools in the state. I’m assuming since cost is always a big issue at a private school, this might hurt their enrollments. On the other end, maybe giving free tuition to more students in public schools would free up state funding to be given to private schools, also making a private education MORE affordable.

What are your thoughts on this?

A friend of mine forwarded me an email that they received from another friend of theirs, and I just had to post it. Doesn’t this sound vaguely familiar to Frank the Tank in Old School? And I have confirmed that the writer of this email wasn’t joking nor was he quoting Old School. (Names and locations have been changed to protect the Frank-impostor)

We’re getting up pretty early on Saturday, and kind of have a nice little
day planned out. We’re going to WalMart or Kohls to get a few gifts, and we
might go to a few other places but I’m not sure if we’ll have enough time
since we’re going back to decorate my Christmas tree at home and then later
going to see a musical at the Baraboo Theatre Company early Saturday night.

What?!?!

This deserves a repost–originally posted June 17, 2004… obviously some things are outdated

For those of you that may not know, I live in downtown Milwaukee, so parking is usually a very competitive thing. The visual for tonight though, takes the cake.

I come home, and see this in one of the spots outside of my apartment. Every other spot on the street is filled, yet “Bad Santa” is holding a spot for someone. Complete with a black eye and a gun shot in his hand, Santa is obviously making someone’s parking wishes come true tonight. Gotta love the creativity on this one.

UPDATE:
It was just brought to my attention that the movie, Bad Santa, comes out on DVD this Tuesday. A pretty profane movie, but it has some good laughs if you want to check it out. Maybe this is just another advertisement from Dimension Films to help promote the release…

I saw a commercial today for an Art Garfunkel concert and I realized there is a crazy resemblence to another musician I am fond of. You be the judge.

Art Garfunkel	Pat McCurdy

Art and Pat McCurdy–long lost brothers?

Ok, am I the only idiot that didn’t notice that the Big 10 logo actually has an “11″ in it to show there are actually 11 teams in the conference? Look closely…

I saw an ariticle today that talked about how the state of Maine is banning a certain brewery’s beer label because it shows a picture of Santa’s butt and him enjoying a bottle of beer. From what I can tell, the state is just pissed off because they think kids will see this and either want to buy the beer because Santa is on it, or they will get a bad image of santa in their heads. The beer company says that the state is ruining their first amendment rights. The article (including a picture of the beer label) can be found here if you want to read more about it. I think it’s petty of the state to do… but that’s just my opinion.

That got me to thinking though, about cool names of beer, because I’ve seen a lot before. I did a search, and here’s some cool ones.

1. Aass beer (this one is introduced to me in college, actually. Can you imagine the fun you could have with the marketing campaign of that one?
2. Full Sail’s “Wreck the Halls” Christmas brew
3. Lagunitas “Hairy Eyeball Ale”
4. Terrapin’s “Wake-n-Bake” Coffee-Oatmeal Imperial Stout
5. Rock Bottom’s “Ale Mary, Full of Taste.”
6. Dunkel Sam
7. I’ll Be Bock
8. Salopian Brewing Co Entire Butt Ale
9. He’Brew Genesis Ale
10. Stone Arrogant Bastard Ale

Can you think of some funny names of beers that I’ve missed?