Advertising Fail

In honor of one of my favorite sites, FAILblog, I'd like to share with you a marketing failure I spotted in the checkout line yesterday:

I hope you can see the fine texture of the mask. You really want to make sure you smear that on before you apply the grape leaves and fried eggs to your eyes, of course.

The Wrath of Facebook

The mighty fist of Facebook is coming down hard.
In my paranoia of giving personal info to giant companies, I usually lie about addresses, phone numbers and dates of birth on things like Safeway grocery store card applications. That's right, my secret is out. In order to save $.15 on apples, I will falsify information. Why do they want it anyway? And those new promotions where they send you coupons or give you points toward gas are a fairly new occurrence, whitewashing whatever nefarious gains they are receiving from selling our information to...who?? Not to mention that our information is available from way too many sources (anybody ever googled someone and seen 123people.com - creepy!), we've all heard the horror stories of identity theft.
So when I first signed up for a Facebook account and they asked for my date of birth, naturally, I made one up. Then I traveled to Wyoming and tried to sign in to my account. This triggered a security measure I'd never encountered before, I had to enter my name and password, then type in the words I saw in those crazy swirly words, and THEN they asked for my date of birth...
and you see, dear reader, the problem with a fake birthday is that it's even harder to remember than a real one, and apparently lying about your date of birth to Facebook is a violation of their terms of agreement.
And so my Facebook page has been suspended.
Oh the humanity.... what is happening to Deanne in lab? Has Amy posted any photos of Ron dressed as the Easter bunny, distributing candy eggs to the kids? Who has reached 1 trillion points in FarmVille or Aquariumworld or Ninja Wars? Arghhhhh!!!!! It's killing me!
And worst of all, Craig has finally joined Facebook, forming both a personal page and a Craig Okraska Photography page. His friend request is languishing somewhere in the netherworld of the interweb and I am powerless to accept it.
You will all only be hearing from me by...sniff, sniff... phone or email from now on, unless Facebook shines it's forgiveness upon me.

Great Backyard Bird Count

It's almost time for the Great Backyard Bird Count again! On any day during February 12-15th you can make a difference and have fun by spending as little as 15 minutes in your own backyard counting birds!

In the depth of winter I finally learned there was in me an invincible summer.

-Albert Camus

Adventures in Steamboat

We had another heavy snowfall last week, so Craig and I took advantage by heading up to Steamboat Springs (thanks to our new fancy snowtires we had no troubles, even over roads completely covered in ice) to go snowshoeing. Well, it was snowshoeing for me. For Craig it was the ancient pitting of man versus animal, the primordial stalk, ie. elk hunting. Sadly for our tummies it's Craig 0, Elk 1. None of Darrell's green chile elk stew for us this Thanksgiving... but don't despair gentle readers, we will feast on antelope and grouse instead!

Craig on the trail

Aspen

Lunch break in the shelter of a spruce

Our first clear elk track

Elk bed- "He went that-a-way!"


Craig's sweet post-hat hairstyle

16° Fahrenheit!

What a fun surprise to wake up to this morning! Several of the ski resorts have already opened and Craig is getting ready to put on our first set of snow tires....it's hard to imagine how the time went by so fast. If this continues it sounds like I'll be wrapping things up in Wyoming - the survey work that needs to be done requires that the vegetation not be covered by snow, so I might be heading into my winter hibernation! Made an appointment for Sunday to meet a trainer at a local barn. I'm excited to use some of my hard-earned funds to start taking horseback-riding lessons again (after ~ 15 years!). Bought my helmet and breeches yesterday, now am on the lookout for deals on boots over the internet.

Orionids

Just a reminder that Orionid meteor shower will be peaking early in the morning on October 21. Look to the constellation Orion, the meteors should appear to be coming from there (hence the name!). If you are viewing them the night before, look to the east after midnight.
Also around October 13, Venus and Saturn should be visible in the early morning sky very close together.