Where's my wood?

Today is my 5 year anniversary at work. I can't believe it. It feels like twice that long. (that's what your suppose to say in regards to anniversaries right?)

(excitement in picture might be exaggerated since it's a Monday, but now you know what my cube sorta looks like.)

According to about.com the traditional 5 year anniversary gift is wood. There are no new pencils in sight right now, but technically I am bumped up to a nicer PTO package so I'll take a day off sometime soon and buy myself some wood. On this auspicious occasion though, I'd rather reflect on what the 5 years has seen.

• One company buyout.
• Two CEO's, randomly enough though the same CEO that was here when I started is now again the CEO.
• I've had 3 different Directors (but to be fair, I was only under the first one for a week), 2 different Managers
• 2 different job titles
• 5 softball seasons
• I've worked in 2 different buildings
• had 4 different cubes
• 3 or maybe even 4 computer upgrades
• 2 office chairs
• 2 name tags and
• 1 business day trip to Chicago on the company dime.
• I've laid out something like 107+ directories, had only a handful of meltdowns, worked with some client's I would swear were smoking crack when they edited a proof
• and made countless friends that have made the time fun.

So thanks for the steady income and saving me from a life of retail work at Target.

Music Monday

With the continuation of winter weather, I'm trying to will it away with "happy, sunshine music."

Seriously, if a 1,000 year-old groundhog can "predict" 6 more weeks of winter, my silly little blog can surely cancel 3 of those weeks out, right?

Here's Sarah Buxton, Lawrence Kansas native, with "Outside My Window."

U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!

I've got it. Olympic FEVER!

About twice a day I check msn to see how many more medals Team USA has racked up. Yesterday, when we won six medals in one day to passed up those dang Germans I did a little chant inside. I'm competitive, but I'm even worse when I'm not the actual individual competing for the win.

But, I'm not all about the medal count. I love watching too. Mostly the skiing and snowboarding events since gone are the figure skating days of Brian Boitano, Scott Hamilton, Kurt Browning, Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya "take 'em out with metal pipe" Harding. I mean what Shaun White did last night to secure the gold was super awesome.

I'd link to a video of it, but NBC doesn't play nice with other sites and to watch it on their web site you have to download a special plugin and it's not friendly for Mac users and blah blah blah, they are on my list. Although, my frustration over that kind of cancels out when I remember back to the live feed of White's win, him and all of his coaches kept dropping curse words in celebration, as you would expect from a group of that sort, and the announcers said, "We are going to have to apologize for the language you're hearing, everyone is obviously very excited and we're on live tv." Pay up, suits!

Oh, and to top it all off, we have some of the best looking uniforms there.

Exhibit A - Opening Ceremony Hats

Exhibit B - Snowboarding Uniforms

So in summation,

• Team USA is awesome and
• My birthday is coming up in something like 17 days, somebody find a much cheaper knockoff of that opening ceremony hat and buy it for me!

The Great Nutella Challenge

Here at unfiltered nonsense we pride ourselves on quality conversations and debating the real facts of life. Recently, I blogged about entering a sweepstakes to win a case of Nutella as a favor to my friend Amanda. Well, my friends, that particular blog spurred a frenzy of activity with no fewer than three friends coming to the defense of Nutella saying it was a delicious treat.

Always trying to broaden my horizons, Becca threw down "The Great Nutella Challenge," try Nutella and report back.

Obstacle #1

Find Nutella in the grocery store. My usual grocery store, The Neighborhood Wal-mart, did not carry it. Luckily, this past weekend I was back home and found a small jar in a Super Wal-mart in Colby, KS.

Obstacle #2

Remember to take the Nutella back to KC with me when I left home. Fail. When I called Mom and told her to try the stuff for me and report her findings, she passed. Apparently, we Garretts like to judge food by it's cover. A 40-50 car pileup on I-70 deterred me from stopping at a grocery store on my way home Sunday night. (Fear not I was not involved in the accident, but it took me 45 minutes to go 4 miles, 5 hours after the initial pileup happen).

Obstacle #3

Try to find Nutella again, this time at Price Chopper. At first look there was no Nutella, but in what could only be described as God's answer to someone's prayers, I looked to the very back of the shelving and in the far back, an entire arms-length reach away from me, was one last jar of Nutella.

I cut up a banana, per Becca's recommendations, and took my first bite of Nutella. Amanda suggested I just eat it by the spoonful, but I wasn't that brave.

(real quick unrelated note, I found out my camera has a "food" setting and I can't wait to take more pictures of food now)

Final verdict?

One thumb up because the other one had to hold the camera. Nutella is surprisingly delicious and wildly bad for you. Seriously! In a 2 tablespoon serving size there are 200 calories and 100 of those are from fat. So eat up friends, but please do so in moderation, you could tub up real fast.

Music Monday

Admittedly, I'm not a huge Uncle Kracker fan, but when you hear a good song, it's a good song. The version they play on the radio always makes me want to dance...unfortunately I can't embed that actual video from youtube. Gah.

Here's to a conscious decision to write a positive song.

Welcome Back, Kotter

Remember that show? With Vinnie Barbarino and Horshack? Great show. Anyways, I digress. Today my boss Cindy returned to work after being on maternity leave for 12 weeks.

My co-worker Ashley and I decided to cover her cube in press sheets as a welcome back gesture. I think it looks great and I'm pretty sure she was excited about it too.

Early Super Bowl prediction

This will be the best commercial in the Super Bowl bunch.

It's no secret to anyone that knows 5 things about me, that I LOVE the Golden Girls. I love everything about that show and the 4 sassy ladies who play them. With only 2 left alive, I find it imperative to support them in anything they do.

Thank you Snickers for putting Betty White in your Super Bowl commercial, I will now only eat Snickers candy bars for the rest of the year to show my support. Thank you Nutella for not having this idea first.

Bazinga!

If you haven't started watching The Big Bang Theory on tv yet, what are you waiting for?

The things I do for friendship

In my inbox this morning I had a lovely ecard from Amanda Gleason asking me to enter a sweepstake for a case of Nutella. Naturally, she'd like to going halvesees if I ultimately win. Never one to turn down such an easy request from a tried and true friend, I entered the contest.

However, I feel like this survey of questions did not take into consideration a contestant entering and never having tasted the product before. I answered the remaining three questions as best as I could knowing that almost anything Gleason deems delicious, *cough* beet root and pineapple sandwich, is probably not that good.

Once I hit the submit button, i got a thank you message.

I'm sorry, does that say CASE A MONTH ?!?! What have I gotten myself into? Am I going to be receiving 12 jars of Nutella every MONTH if I win? Please just be for one month....