I'm Back!!

Woah woah, lots of crazy things have been happening in this crazy Wisconsin world. We are a busy couple, Sam and I. I don't know how we do it, considering Sammy is a stay at home dad, dad to our laundry! He takes care of the laundry I guess...haha!!

Weekend before last I headed up to Wisconsin Dells for our pal Amber Lovelace's bachelorette party. Amber, who will be getting married on August 9th, has three lovely sisters, one of which I would like to claim as my sweet lesbian lover, Brooke. Here's Brooke and I rocking it up at the Ho Chunk Casino. Pay no attention to the red eyes, I'm too lazy to have them fixed...



And here's lovely Brooke serenading some random fella on our Ho Chunk bus...



Oooh, and the games we played! This one had us tying a hotdog around our waists and swinging it blindfold into a cup of tacks, trying to get as many tacks on the dog as we can. Don't I look lovely!!




And supposedly this guy is Robin Williams's son? Do you see the resemblance??




And here is the bride to be, dancing with her pretty sashes and flowers, in the middle of the Ho Chunk Casino. Yay for her!!




View the complete photo list on our photo site. Stay tuned next week for our Apple River trip update! I'm almost 31, but did I act my age? Hell to the no!!

Celebrating the Anniversary of Bruce Lee's Death

Hello all, I'm a crazy martial arts fan, obsessive about Bruce Lee and Jet Li. I found the below text from a bulletin in Myspace from the Sifu Bruce Lee Myspace page.

Ames


"THE KING IS DEAD:
On July 20 1973, Bruce Lee died. He was found in the apartment of Betty Ting Pei, an actress. His death was attributed to a cerebral hemorrhage or brain aneurysm. None of his fans could believe it, and the hysteria that followed was equally hard to believe. Stories circulated that he was murdered by envious kung fu masters utilizing the 'Death Touch' or poisoned by envious film studio personnel. There were tales of his involvement with gangsters and drug pushers. In short, no one could believe that their superhero had died naturally. He had to have been killed by a super villain... Two weeks later, 'Enter The Dragon' opened in movie theaters. Bruce had finally achieved the level of 'stardom' he'd been looking for but it was bitter sweet.


Bruce stood tall. Bruce is martial arts. He made the form work. No matter who you see doing martial arts, you always compare him to Bruce Lee. Say 'Cowboy' and you think 'John Wayne'. Say 'martial arts' and the name that pops to mind is Bruce Lee. That makes him of the few giants in show business. That's the mark of his influence and his genius.


" -Paragraph from the book "The Many Faces Of Bruce Lee"

Bruce was born in San Francisco on 11/27/40 and died in Hong Kong on 7/20/73.


His death (in my historically found opinion) was from a combination of about four things:

#1 'Cerebral Edema' (caused by hypersensitivity to a unprescribed pain medication he had taken for a headache)

#2 Ingested 'Hashish' (type of illegal drug of which had caused his serious brain swelling headache -later found in his stomach at autopsy)

#3 Additional medication in his system FOR prior back injury due to an improper workout warm-up (in conjunction with the 'Hashish' drug conflicted a serious reaction)

#4 A physically demanding work schedule for himself at that time (summer of '73) without sufficient rest -Lee often tried to test the physical limits of his body.


Other circumstances I could add concerning his life situation at that time (close to his day of death) yet those 'valid opinions' aren't exact causes of death so I won't get into those 'stories'.

I'm sure you'd understand that this is a sad & unfortunate topic to get into yet that point being, I hope this has helped answer your questions about the death of Bruce Lee.



Take good care & Peace be with you all,

TCO with the Sifu Bruce Lee MySpace site

Shift Happens

The following very interesting information is the text of the YouTube video, Did You Know? 2.0 found at http://shifthappens.wikispaces.com/sources

~In the next 8 seconds...
34 babies will be born
5 in India - 4 in China - 1 in the U.S.

~2006 College Graduates
U.S. 1.3 million
India 3.1 million
China 3.3 million

~How many 2006 college graduates in India speak English??
100%

~In 10 years it is predicted that the largest English speaking country in the world will be...
China, because the number of honor students they have in their entire country exceed the total number of students in the U.S.

More to come...

Yay for the 4th of July!!

The 4th of July around Milton is actually pretty fun. They set up a beer tent and have live music. I took Thursday and Monday off, so I was pretty happy about my five day weekend. We hung out, went to a few parties, went to the beer tent, watched the Milton fireworks, which of course can not compare to the Twin Cities. But that is comparing a population of 500,000 to one of 5,000, so don't feel bad Milton. You did alright. Here are some pics, but you've probably already seen them on our new awesome pic page..

Here is Sam's brother Mike hanging out with me:



And here Sam and I are on the 4th of July, hanging out in front of Sam's parent's house where we are staying:




Here is Sam with his Stepdad Richie:


And look, Saturday night Sam and Ryan were beer pong champs. They are so proud of themselves for winning 15 games in a row and getting totally wasted. Good thing I was there to drive Sammy home, and that we were at Ryan's house!!





And this is my favorite pic of the weekend, us at the beer tent the second night of the fireworks. Sam is actually showing his teeth in a smile! All that money his mom paid for braces, let's show them off man!




Oooh OOOH! And it looks like I am NOT allergic to this state after all! My cold has cleared up! Yay!

I Thought All Would Enjoy this One...

Weird Educational Facts that I've come Across

My job as a sales and training representative for Wisconsin Careers is this: I sell and train guidance and career counselors on how to use the Career Development website that UW-Madison has established, called Wisconsin Careers. You can find the site here: www.wiscareers.wisc.edu.

This is a top career development program that although specifically targets students and adults of Wisconsin (it contains a high number of Wisconsin stats and employers), anyone in the United States, or the world, for that matter, can use the site.

I do plan on going into more detail on my job, but in my recent trainings, I've come across a lot of interesting info and I thought I'd share it.

What's new this week?? Apparently every one out of three high school students in this country drops out of high school before graduating; and more importantly, to me at least, every other black, Hispanic or Native American student drops out. 50% of us three minorities drops out. Check out the report here: http://www.gatesfoundation.org/nr/downloads/ed/TheSilentEpidemic3-06FINAL.pdf

I was a member of MMEP a few years ago (Minnesota Minority Education Partnership), and they put out of a State of the Students of Color back in 2006. I graduated from St. Kate's in 2004, and according to this MMEP report, only 338 Hispanic students graduted in the state of MN with a bachelor's degree in 2004. That is compared to 21,916 white students. Wow, lucky me. I feel smart. Yay. 158 Hispanic students graduated in 2004 with Master's degrees. Let's see how many it'll be when I graduate with mine within the next year. Find the MMEP State of Students of Color report here: http://www.mmep.net/sites/aaa55a49-007c-4af4-923a-711964af19e7/uploads/MMEP-SOSOC_2006.pdf

Stay tuned for more fun facts...

New Pic Site Alert!!

Oh my God, so I've been on a search for quite a few months for a decent site to host all of my pics online. I've used Shutterfly, photobucket, flickr and all that other fun stuff and it was all either too complicated or the photo quality was less desirable. But Shutterfly has created a new site spot and it's so cute, AND it's easy for all to use, AND the photo quality is awesome! I've added all my new pics onto my new site.

Check it out at:

www.aimtoothpaste.site.shutterfly.com

It's sooo cute!! I'll be adding my photos to this site from now on.

Tootles!

Week Three in the Good Ole Dairy State!!

Hello to all my loyal blog readers. Who are you? Does anyone even read this thing?? My friend Gina says she does. Haha, only Gina reads my blog! Thanks Gina!

Well here's to you Gina...my third week in this lovely state has begun. I'm rocking it out at work, even though it's getting a little boring. I'm supposed to be perusing the website that I'll be selling, but I can only look at it for so long...really...it makes you very sleepy. Plus, I've looked at the thing 200 times now. The real action will come in a few weeks when I have to head up to Milwaukee to see my first training session. I'm so excited about the fact that I'll have to leave Milton by 5:45am so I can be in Madison by 6:30 so we can be in Milwaukee by 8:30. Thanks a lot Milwaukee traffic. I've been sooo tired lately, completely exhausted. It'll be fun getting up that early!!

I haven't familiarized myself with Madison too much yet. I've been trying to get home to Milton quick every night so I can relax and spend time with Sam, whom I feel like I haven't been around enough lately. I was here for a week, he was in MN, then I had to go back this past weekend to clean the apartment for good. I miss my Sammy! He's so cute and I love pinching his cute little butt. And, we went on a bike ride the other night. Let me tell you...going on a bike ride for the first time in 10-15 years does not feel good for the tush. That was Sunday night and I'm still sore today. I know Sam will want to go on another ride again tonight, as he did last night and all the previous nights before. Good for me, I'll have a sweet hot white boy who's going to be in good shape. That's good for a Latina like me who's all firey all the time and likes to feel him up!! Plus, it's fun going with him and spending time with him, it gets me in shape too.

Anyways..what was I saying?? MADISON!! I did some research on this nice city and it appears it has won some fabulous awards.

These would include:
~Number 8 in the nation's top 10 places for families
~The nation's number one smartest city! (yay, that means less dumbasses that I have to deal with; AND, it just got smarter with me arriving...)
~Number 1 in the nation for BEST TEETH!!
~UW-Madison ranked as America's hottest big state school (there ARE a lot of hot chicks running around here)
~One of the top ten most livable cities in America
~One of ten best ranked markets for women in business
~#1 Walking city

The list goes on. I was doing some research on the state of Wisconsin as well, and it appears that Wisconsinites earn on average, $4000 less a year than of those living in Minnesota. Why is it then, that I got a huge salary increase moving FROM Minnesota to Wisconsin?? I know, it's me, I'm awesome!! Another strange fact that really has nothing to do with anything, 14.7% of the entire 2006 population of Wisconsin is of minority background. That is 816,806 minorities people! Is that a lot?? Minnesota has only 14.6% minorities. Virtually the same. But oooh! Good news!! While I'm used to Minnesota's 3.8% population of Hispanics, Wisconsin has 4.7%. Better watch out for us Wisconsin!! That's 261,156 beaners!! (I bolded that six since I have included myself in that number). Actually, I think only Mexicans call themselves beaners. Do they? Whatever, you get my point.

Ok, I'm done with that for now. On another note: it seems that I am possibly not only allergic to all the dairy in this state, but I might very well be ALLERGIC TO THIS STATE PERIOD. Yes, you read it right. I might be allergic to Wisconsin. I've lived my entire almost 31 years with NO allergies whatsoever. Yet, as soon as I move down here, my throat starts hurting off and on. Comes and goes, gets better then comes back. I'm feeling like I have a cold right now, nose all stuffed up and runny. I was attributing it to just being sick, not fully getting rid of that strep throat thing I had a month and a half ago. But Sam's mom Judy mentioned this morning that there is a lot more pollen down here than up in MN, and could I be allergic?? All the symptoms match. Could it be, people? Could I really be allergic to this state?? I don't want to spend my life popping allergy pills. Come on! Just pray for me please that it's just a cold and will go away.

Thank you and have a nice day. Until next time Gina...
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I was casually informed by my friend Monica Haynes that she reads my blog too. Thanks Monica! I feel loved!!

~~~~~~~~A new reader has announced himself: Mr. Josh Jongewaard--a pal I went to high school with--reads my blog all the way from Singapore. Who else will comment?? Teehee!