My Relationship with Caffeine

Over my lifetime I have jumped on and off the caffeine wagon. As a child my mom never let me have soda, and it wasn't until high school that I became addicted.  It was so readily available in the drink machines in the courtyard at Buchholz High School.  It always gave me that jolt of energy to get through my afternoon which included classes, 2 hours of cheerleading practice and about a 2 mile + run when I got home.
I experience withdraw when I try to stop it.  And withdraw for me is severe migraines. Terrible terrible migraines. So my only chance to ever quit it was when I was sick.  Thanks to my once annual sinus infections, I was able to use how terrible I felt to hide the withdraw symptoms from caffeine. I would do good for a few months.  Then I would just crave one and think "Just one can't hurt."  Then I was done.  Back on that caffeine wagon. Evil!

A few years ago I decided that I needed to cut some calories out of my diet so I opted for Diet Pepsi. I always thought diet sodas were disgusting.  I loved the tasty syrupy flavor of regular sodas. It took a while to adjust, now it's the opposite regular soda tastes disgusting.

I feel I may never truly beat caffeine, but I can at least use it in moderation. I have limited myself to one can a day, and drink water for the rest of the day. Maybe I will get to a point where I won't need that sweet refreshing thirst quenching morning caffeine shot.  That would be nice.  

Buy this mousepad and many other related items at: Cafe Press

Major Geek Out

My trip to Rhode Island was fun and it was great to spend time with Janice and Jason. We saw some cool museums (Culinary Arts and Lizzie Borden), went to see a fire show on the river, ate good food and took 2 trips to the Apple store.
The trips to Apple are just a symptom of a great addiction. (I have many random addictions I think). Steve could not be happy about the ideas that were planted in my head via the geek out of 2010 that Jason and I had.
Janice and Jason should have stock in Apple, and maybe me too, soon anyways. They have the following:
1. Mac Mini: to watch tv shows and movies on
2. Mac Airport Express: that is the wireless internet, that allows printer hookup and they can also hook it up to a stereo with an aux output that then gets music from their iTunes transmitted through it. (AWESOME!)
3. iPhones: have 3G's but ordered iPhone 4's while I was there. Jealous!
4. MacBooks: Pro and Air.

Ok so what do I want? In order of importance:
1. Airport Extreme (I want to also be able to hook up a hard drive to it as a server).
2. iPhone 4: but I want to wait for the 2nd generation of the 4th generation phone.
3. Mac Mini: I so want to store movies on it, I never watch my DVD's, too much work. Having it on the mac mini would be soooooo convenient.
4. A new MackBook, Pro!

Considering my laptop (MacBook) is finally filled up with tons of photos, I need the Airport Extreme so I can have the server. I do believe that will be sooner than later. Then I can check it off the list and move right along.

All photos (c) Apple.com

CNN, news or addiction?

So everyday I read CNN.com. Ok so I don't read everything, but I peruse the entire sight, and pick and choose what news I desire to "hear" about that day. Some days I just want mindless entertainment news, which inevitably leads me to a story that links to People.com. Then there are days when horrifying tragedies catch my attention. A child missing (which always makes my heart ache and which I never have faith that the child will be found alive but hold out hope nonetheless), a plane crash, murders (like the recent Joran VanderSloot story, which makes me mad b/c until this guy came along I LOVED the name Joran), etc.
But I always find it hard to read anything about politics. Warning!! I am NOT looking for a political discussion here. I find it annoying that republicans nor democrats can seem to agree on anything. I heard a great idea on NPR recently that primaries should be dissolved, because primaries require the potential nominee to be decidedly right or left, and there is no room for a moderate in the middle. So people who would be best at making decisions and compromising are left out in the cold or have to become independents, and how often do independents really win? Bi-partisanship BAH!
I digress, CNN.com is a wealth of information that occupies much needed down time, although I think I would appreciate seeing happier stories more often. Also, their video content has increased dramatically, great you made a news segment a video, but add a transcription of the story.

Ooh! A story on how e-reader price war erupts. Must read that now!