Mind Readers 'n Dinner

On the way home one night I turned on the radio and tuned in for the John Tesh Radio Show. A show that I have found I love and, if I could, would listen to religiously. He has SO many interesting facts and titbits that makes a person look at thing in a new light!

So, while I was listening to him he was talking about waitresses and how they are being trained to "mind read" or as they call it, "Table Reading". All it is is being able to read the body language of the customers so
change you plan of the survive they give. To me, it sounded like the game Dinner Dash in real life!

So when as the "table reading" goes, if you are out on a date how does the waiter know who to give the check to and not seem rude with the growing economy of women paying for things now? Simple. The give it to the person holding the whine menu. At first I didn't think that was true, but I just had a date where I never touched the whine menu and just said, "I will have the same". So yeah that was very right.

Another is what made me think of Dinner Dash, when there is a group of people they tend to stay longer so the waiter/ess will offer more drinks and appetizers to the group were as if there is someone on the phone or has their computer out they will usually skip the appetizers and go strait to the meal. And lastly, you on on your date and the atmosphere is a little heated between you and your date they will tend to say VERY little and only check up when needed and not bug you like they would a group of people out for a good time so they don't make you more mad then you are now.

So summing it up, you have the Teenie Boppers who like to stay long and ask for tons of things, the Business Wo/Men, who are on their phones, and want to be in and out pronto. At one point or-another they all come in as a group! So if you want a glimpse at what it is like to be a waitress, play Dinner Dash it sounds like.

Moving

So life moves on even though I don't get on here as much as I did and would like to. But I guess that is what gets when they have 2-3 jobs and life! So this has been pushing me to leave the area and move on to greener pastures, where ever that may be!

My friends know I have been talking about this for a while and I wanted to move to a warmer claimant. (were I will not freeze my but off) But I thought better of it when curten things happened in my life that made me think it over, so now those things are small and when I moved into this house that I am in, I told myself, "3 places, 3 strikes. If I move from this house I am leaving the state."

Well the time as come to see if I am going to keep with that idea or move into place #4. I also have a few friends that would not mind moving in with me and that makes me excited on that idea. Although there would be a kid in the house with my 3 cats I feel that this is a good choice! So I have been looking for the best why to move W/O movers (cheapest way to go) and have found 2 ways I think I might go! But let me list some of the places, for maybe they would be different for your move!

• So how should I plan for a smooth move? DOWN SIZE your stuff, you will see this everywhere! Make list on WHAT YOU NEED here, there, and now.  Have most things packed that you don't need right now and might not use till after your move but would love to keep.
• See HOW MANY miles it is from your place to (roughly) the place you are moving too, if you have the address of the place all the better for planing! 
• Now, finding the best way to move! Moving from city to city or just over town will ALWAYS be cheapest by U-Haul with their $20 Trucks, Vans, AND Pick-Ups. Yes they now have a regular truck now and vans to help in smaller moves! But this will very from city and state to other city and states. SO here are a list of movers that I looked at!

Budget Truck

Penske

U-haul

For me, unbelievably, I found Budget Truck to be a bit more then Penske. So it didn't get put on my budgeting list. Penske Only out did the others for having a web discount if you set it up there! Also both the 14' & 16' were renting the same, the big difference (beside the size) was the mpg and that the 16' can pull my car. Also, my one friend that is thinking on moving with me lives in another city so I was looking on how much it was for a truck over there and then looked at the ones in my city. There was, at least $60 difference in the reg price for renting and $2 difference in the trailer. So if you want to shop around to see if other places will be different, go and do that if you are looking in just the rental.

If you deiced to go with a truck, cheek out to see how many mpg it gets and how big the tank is. Talk with people, do web searches and so forth see if you can find the average. If you are pulling something it will also
change the mpg. The formula I used was for the basic truck and with what their site says they get. (note: numbers are RANDOM)

• HOW MANY MILES could a full tank get (roughly). Tank Size * MPG (each Gal get X miles, so  how many miles could the full get?) ie 35 gal tank*12mpg = 420miles a tank
• Now knowing how many miles it will take to get to your destination divide that with your per tank miles. ie 1202/420=2.86 fills, round up (you'll never really know how many fills till you need them, and it is better to figure more and come out with less in this case.) So I would plan 3 fills!
• HOW MUCH will gas be? Well, I am glad you asked! Think of when you are moving, gas goes up and down like Michigan weather and my weight! So hit a number you might think it will be and replan it when it gets even closer to that date to get the real amount! I planed on seeing around $4 for reg gas. (Tank Size Gal * $ per/gal) O_O Yep, if you have a 35gal tank and gas is $3.99 you are looking at $139.65 a fill! And what you say? I have do pay that at least 3 time?! Yeah, you will most likely pay around $418.95 just in gas! This is why you should keep an eye on gas and replan when you get closer to the time of the move!
• Do a gas average check for all the states you will be going through (or cities) and find the cheapest places! Then remember those miles to Greener Pastures? 1202miles? With using google map (or other) find places that you would like to refill and make that a stop so you can see where each one and the distance from place to place.

So now that you have an idea on how much it will cost (truck/accessories + gas) you can budget for your move or you can look at u-pods! And they will deliver for you, may take 11days but it will get there or you can store it with them. For my move, pods are looking like best thing. We shall see, I still have 3 cats to plan on with my move!

Book/Series Review! - Miki Falls

Miki Falls, Volume 4: Winter by Mark Crilley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When I read a series of books -like this one, I tend to judge the series as a whole and at first I thought the way the others were going I was going to wind up being weird and boring! I was thinking that this series was just someone trying their hands on being a manga artist. But in the end I was wrong, this book, the last one, help redeemed some part of that for me!

In the first book I thought this guy has an unique way of drawing that he is putting to make his mangas different, distinctive! First off, he doesn't use a lot of blocks, his pictures tend to bleed together where most tend to have blocks on other blocks or over other pictures. Then the other was the art style itself, it was not all "anime-y" as most mangas try to do, even if it is NOT from Japan. So I liked that he was thinking outside the box on it!

The story, really I would of been happy just to jump into this one and be fine, being that some time has passed between each book. I mean look at the titles! Spring, Summer.... But to truly know how Miki felt and how powerful her love truly is you would have to read the whole thing.

There is where it got me! At first in book #1(Spring), I was like what the heck kind of story is this!? This guy, Hiro, gives and takes love away from people? And there is only a set amount of love in the world because it dies, NEVER to come back? I mean I can SEE were the writer got his idea came from with a world with more divorce rates then ever and people always leaving for something bigger and better sometimes leaving over something small. I mean I can see it but really? I never would of dreamed that one up! And prayed that the writer will redeem himself with this twist in the story. To my happiness he did and made me start to think about my own love/loveless life.

There is one part in book #3(Autumn) where Hiro talk about about the four different types of lovers. Sustainers, Wanderers, Selfers and Neverfinds. From the title of these I thought of myself as the first and last finding out that really Neverfinds are just a Sustainer that lost love and will never love again! <_< That hit me like a ton of bricks. And I think there is were I was really getting into the series wanting to know a bit more on this and hope that Miki would not be a Neverfind.

So here in book 4(Winter), we find these two still running away from the world so that they can love one another in peace. (view spoiler)[ How close they come, well needless to say that they don't make it and this looks bad for these two. Really bad. And knowing that she is a Neverfind makes it all the more harder to think that anything good will happen to them. (hide spoiler)] What makes this one so much better then the other three and makes me want to keep reading the pages again and again was that near the end you see her true power of love! (view spoiler)[And a question that everyone who find true love asked themselves, "Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?" And in this final volume we see her answer to this age old question we ask ourselves. And she chose the path I would of if I was her and the guy she loved was the one I fell in love with many years ago. (hide spoiler)] I like the ending! I was so expecting somethings ells by the way the artist was leading it to be and if he did that I was thinking that he could create another series based off of that! He still can, but it is good were he left it. So for the RIPPING emotion that he brought back to me, the creativeness he brought to the art and the story I gave this book high marks!


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Looking Back on the Years and Now Forward ho!

皆さん, よいお年を持っているや明けましておめでとう! Everyone, congratulations on entering the new year and please have a good year! So, 2013 is finally here. Looking back I think that I have lived though an area that will never (hopefully) repeat itself! Yes, I know it is no longer the 1st of the year but it is still the 1st month of the year! I am working on what ever I have... (my computer took a dive and is being fixed)  But on to my thoughts... not that most would care. But looking back on the last 12 years of my life I remember....

Y2k, back when the year 2000 was on the brink of a "world wide" power outage or the "Millennium bug". Basically it would of been much like the TV show Revolution on NBC. I remember My friend's mom having a million types of food that would NEVER go bad in the basement with on a self. The self was much like the selves that my own mother used to store all HER can goods, she did make most of it. All I remember was thinking, "we are never going to get ahead of all this food!" X_x  I think that is way I love this show, it was a "what could of happened but never did." I am a little sad it didn't really happen but in some ways glad. 

As the year 2000 came and left new threats were on the horizon! Mad Cow Disease,West Nile Virus, Bird Flu, Swine Flu, 9/11(USA), 3/11(Japan), threats of ab airborne version of Small Pox, and the dreaded December 21st 2012; the day the Mayan calender ends!

My generation and the one before me has seen AND lived through all of these, few remember some will never forget. The last 12 years as been very busy with people always in panic mode. I might be missing some, but after all those who wants to remember more? Many deaths have happened with each one. Thankfully I never lost anyone to any one of these. I and a few others I know have had the N1H1 (1 of the 3 strands) but it was after the scare. And 9/11, thankfully a new job position took my family that lived there away before the hit. But for me, it felt like Pearl Harbor.

Now a New year has begone, new chances to change the path you were walking on, change your plans! With the end of there year gone and past we are in a new age! Hopefully with less panicking people. But I am proud of all the people who lived through these fears and has come out on top! Our generation is something that people will be looking back and wishing they could of lived with us. (give them a year and they would change their minds) So now what?

Well for me, I am going to make this the year of my life! I am going to do .... about the same thing I have always done... Work, sleep, see the family, work, work, sleep, play a game, work. But somehow through all that I do wanna make it a year that in between that I will make it a blast! So when I look back on it I will be like, "man that was Soooo much FUN!!! Lets do some of it gain?" And I will find a way to do so the next year.

Some things that would make it a blast (but more then likely wont happen) would be a trip to Japan or to land a HUGE part in something that could get my name out there as an actor! Hey, I can dream right?

But for real, my goal for me this year it to learn Hangul (Korean) and keep up with my Nihongo (Japanese) and French so that I will be able to translate music, mangas/books, and movies.Well, that is one goal for me, Studying of foreign languages! -_^

  明けましておめでとう!

새해 복 많이 받으세요!

Shanghai Girls by Lisa See

Shanghai Girls by Lisa See
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book covers 20 years of the life of these 2 sisters, Pearl and May. Pearl -born in the year of the dragon and oldest of the 2, and May -a sheep and the baby of the family. The hardship they had to deal with over the 20 years from their lives in China to America during WWII. These 20 years covers from 1937 to the late 1950s up and past the second Word War.

As the oldest sister in my family, I felt the pain Pearl does and yelled at her many times for something dumb that she should not of done or something she should of done. I have lived through mine and see simarler ones that I know at one point I may of done the same. I see why she does some of the things she does for I can see her point, but I still know that she shouldn't have done when it comes to those points. I am also born in the year of the dragon and study the zodiacs, so I understand what is expected of the people burn in the year of the dragon. So I knew what to look for in curtain people when she called them by their zodiac.

There are points when she backs down and I yell at her to stand her ground but, I have done the same. So I understand her, I felt the pain/grudge for I know the feeling of backing down on something that you are good or would like to be good at, so that your little sister will be happy. If you could not tell, I also have a little sister that I have back down on things so that she could have what she wants and now that I am older I will fight for her to have that. For those who follow the Chinese zodiac, my sister is a monkey.

I feel that the author got the feelings between the sister as true as one can get! Older sister vs the younger sister, story as old as time and can be spot on or very wrong. The feelings that sister have for each other is hard to explain, you hate their guts but you will give them the moon if they ask. When reading the this book there were times that you would see the green eye monster come out of Pearl but then seeing that herself she would fix that and say something that you would think, "gee, I guess she work that out and things are okay between them with out letting May know she felt that way." But those feelings may "go away" they are never truly gone. Those feelings run so deep that you forget them and when something ells happens it just builds.

Being that this story is written in a 1st person the view we see is Pearl's, and her feelings on every matter. Even the fate that has been dealt to her. There were MANY parts that my heart bleeds for May for the things she had to do as well, seen from the eyes of her sister. And it isn't till the end of the book that we get to see May and what she feels on the things that she has had to do and how she herself sacrificed so that they could live on with a good life.

As I was reading this book, I could see my monkey sister and me in this life and many times throughout the book I would stop and think that this little sheep has to have some hidden strength that she hides, for my sister is the same way. I put the front that I have every thing under control but really it is all I can do from falling and that is times when I reach out my own sister and lean on her for her strength I am not sure she knows she has.

After reading this book I feel like I may know my monkey sister better, I see her in another way and I hope that after she reads this she will feel the same for her dragon sister for there are many things that Pearl and I both have felt, and made the feelings that much more real.

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House Plant - Prometheus

Not to long ago, -before this year's first frost- a lady I clean for gave me this plant they called Prometheus. It had a fall and looked a little worse for wear, but was still alive and needed a good home. For it was getting to heavy for them to bring in every winter and there was a bug/animal living in it and did not want it in their house.

Now, I have sucker written ALL over my face! I saw the plant and thought that it would look nice in my house. I thought, "I have 3 cats, they would get what ever thing lived in it!" But just encase, I left it out in the mud room/glassed in porch, where it was out of the house and protected from the frost. Which happened the night I took it home. (Talk about timing!) And there it sat til a few days ago when I had it placed in my room.

Since Prometheus has been sitting happily in front of my window, I have been battling cats who think it would be fun to chew on the leaves -not that they are ever feed enough food! And the urge to dig in it!! (By the way this plant is poisonous to eat for pet and humans.) But I sit by guarding Prometheus, making sure he will live to my next move!

As I sit by I wondered what type of plant it was, I had my guesses and thought to see if I could find it! My guesses that it was a palm of sort was off, the guesses that it was in the same family as another one of my plants that my mother killed, wrong. They were all wrong. The only one that was right was that it is a tropical plant of some kind. So I went from there. After searching all over gflora.com I looked in my houseplant book and saw a VERY small picture of a plant that "might" be it but still not finding it by the name in the book. So, I looked under one that I knew would be on there, philodendron. At the bottom of the page I saw Prometheus under the name "Philodendron bipinnatifidum (selloum)."

So there, I had a name of this unknown plant from the Araceae family but not enough info on how big this plant will get and what it likes. So I looked over google for this philodendron. I found this beautiful picture showing what my plant SHOULD look like!




 

But mine looks far from this......

Yeah, it has a long way to go before it gets back to its fulness that it had before it's dramatic fall. Well, I have something I get to strive to do with this lovely plant, Prometheus!

So on ward I went to find out how to keep this plant alive, that is when I read that this plant is poisonous to eat for pet and humans if eaten, and for some people may cause skin irritation or allergic reaction. For me, I can rule out the last part; I have handled the leaves to try to keep them out of the way of my cats. Wiki had little to say other then its history and its common use as a landscaping plant in Florida. It also said that this plant may take Approximately 15–20 years before it begins to have flowers on it, being it is potted. But the site I found most helpful to my quest was davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/37036/. There I found its other names, Tree Philodendron, Cut-leaf Philodendron, and Selloum. (the one in my book was Splitleaf Philodendron)  I also saw that it is a shrub, and can get as tall as 15 feet high and wide, I then recalled that I have seen this plant in Florida before. To give you an idea on size it is talking about......

 

THIS plant is the sad little thing I have sitting in my HOUSE!

Back to the idea of it having flowers I went looking for them, hoping that it would be like a Hibiscuses' flower. No such luck....

Words could not explained how I felt about this.....

At first I thought this was a bad joke, but as I read on blueboard.com, botanicalgarden.ubc.ca, and centerofthewebb.ecrater.com, this is the real flower that blooms in the summer at the base (it seems). So this... weird looking flower will be the flower that my dear plant Prometheus will someday have. (If he lives that long) 

To top that off, these flowers also produce heat when it blooms....

Tying a Tie

I have seen people in movies a hundred times tying a tie and then having the wife tie it becouse they failed at it. My younger brother also found out that he LOVED to wear them and learned how to tie them when going on future interviews. Well, one day I help my mom tie my dad's tie never tying one before but doing it with out much trubles.

Since I am planing on being Maka from Soul Eater, I was in need of a tie and went on a man hunt for the tie. I did find one. (But I got a pattern to make one if it came down to it.)

But when I was looking for this tie I found that there are more ways on tying a tie then I ever thought, some really unique and they each have a name. Yeah, I thought I knew how to tie a tie. I only ever hard, "THIS is how you tie a tie!" Making me think MOST people tie ties like that, I guess. But I thought there could be others who tie ties slightly different, like how I am "Suppose to" do a math problem one way but I in reality did it in another way that got the same answer! I really never gave it much thought that there are many ways to tie a tie for what shirt you are wearing that day, like how women chose a purse to go with their clothes.

The two of the three main tie tying ways are the Windsor, and the Half-Windsor.

Windsor
http://www.cheap-neckties.com

http://briteties.com/halfwindsor.ivnu

 

An other main one is the Four-in-Hand.

http://a-la-louche.typepad.fr/tie_knot/2008/06/how-to-tie-a--8.html

No matter where I go I find these three at the top of every list! There are many others out there as well such as the Shell, Atlantic, Onassis, Pratt, Italian, and MANY more can be found in may forms!
There are webpages, blogs, videos, and -believe it or not, an app for you phone or tablet. I would of never thought about an app but this is the modern world that which we live in, there are apps for every thing! And as weird as it may be there is a song called, How to Tie a Tie. No joke!

If you would like to see the sites that I looked through and the links to all that plus movies and apps they fallow below. Good luck on your tie tying!

Webpages (Some with videos on it)
Briteties.com
a-la-louche.typepad.fr
www.wearjack.com
www.cheap-neckties.com
www.medliorate.com

Fellow Bloggers
cool4urs.blogspot.com
www.visualinformation.info

App
How To Tie A Tie