Hardee's Hamburger : Holy Heart Attack

Matt gets the Wall Street Journal, and this morning there was an article about a new hamburger that Hardee's just came out with. It contains (commence mouth watering): 2 5.7 ounce burger patties, 3 pieces of cheese, 4 pieces of bacon, a buttered sesame-seed bun topped with mayo. Before you jump in your car to the nearest Hardee's drive-thru, know this: The "Monster Thickburger" as it has been named, contains 107 grams of fat. That is almost 5 times the recommended amount of fat per day that you should have. SICK! Also, it has 1,418 calories. That is almost all of your daily allowance as well.
The CEO says he is getting thanks for "putting out a burger that people can actually eat." WHAT?!?!?!?!?! Are Americans really so disgusting that we can only eat a burger that is guaranteed to give us a heart attack?

To see other Hardee's 'nutritional' values go to: www.hardees.com/nutrition
In case you are wondering, here are the suggested guidelines for dietary intake: http://www.health.gov/dietaryguidelines/dga2005/recommendations.htm

Liberty On Fire

This evening, after going to my mom's to borrow a Volvo so Matt can go to work (since my car still isn't working) I saw a horrific accident on the highway. I can over the big hill on 36 heading into Boulder (for those of you who know the area) and saw a Jeep Liberty on fire on top of the cement barrier that divides the direction of traffic. I pulled over and saw, what looked like a BMW SUV, down in a field flipped upside down. When I got out of my car, to check everything out, I had to avoid stepping on different parts of the car and other debris that had been flung from the vehicles when they had rolled. The passengers of the Liberty were out of the wreckage on the other side of the road, and an EMT had pulled over and was helping the driver in BMW. Other people who had pulled over (mostly people who had witnessed the accident) had already called 911 and emergency crews were already on their way. So, I got back in my car and drove away, just as police were coming to close down the highway until they could clear everything up and hopefully prevent the Liberty from exploding. I hope everyone is ok.


P.S. It is things like this that make me glad I donate blood. For those of you who are squeamish about it, just go and do it. Yesterday was my 2 gallon mark!

I Hate Cars

Well, my car still isn't fixed. Everytime the guys at the shop drive it, the car performs fine. So, I went and picked it up today, then went to meet Matt at his parents' house so they could have their car back. But on the way, it started lurching again, so I had to turn around and take it back to the shop... since it is Friday, that means they won't look at it until at least Monday. Damn It!
Tomorrow Matt, Shil and I are all giving blood. WAHOO! Fastest way to lose a pound, short of cutting a limb off! Plus you can save up to 3 lives.... pretty cool.

Long Weekend: Part Two

The weekend started out wonderfully. Matt got his first paycheck of his new job, Sean came up and hung out with us for a couple hours on Friday night, and we headed off to Glenwood Springs on Saturday morning. The drive was great, it was a nice sunny day and the mountains looked great with snowcapped pine trees on them. When we got to the hotel, our room hadn't been cleaned yet, so we just walked around town for a little bit and got a bite to eat. After that, we got settled at the hotel and went to the pool.
If you have never been to a hot spring before, DO IT. Once you get used to the smell (and taste) of the sulfur, it is super relaxing. Since we went when it was so cold out, the pools had a mist rolling off of them. Plus, we went before sunset and got to see the sun go behind the mountains and the clouds turn pink. Then, once it gets dark, you can see the stars through the mist and it's awesome.
After soaking in the pools for a few hours, we washed the stink off of us and went out to an Italian restaurant for dinner, which was really nice. Matt and I stuffed ourselves so much that we ended up passing out before we could even turn the T.V. on back at the hotel. We woke up at 3 a.m. realizing that the lights were still on and we were still dressed from earlier. Whoops. It worked out though, because we ended up getting 12 hours of much needed rest.
When we finally did stumble out of bed, Matt and I headed up to Sunlight ski resort to do some snowshoeing. Neither of us had ever been before, but we decided it was definitely a good winter activity. Being free, it heads to the top of the list. Also, we like that it is like hiking where you get away from everything and everyone. Next time, we are going to bring a sled for the way down and hope we don't run into any trees.
So, up until this point, it was a perfect weekend. We got exercise, got to sit in a hot pool at sunset, ate great food.... but that's too good to be true.... on the way back, around Vail, the car started lurching and jerking. A definite transmission problem. So we stopped at the nearest exit with a gas station (about 10-15 miles because we were driving through National Forest land), and checked the fluid levels. Almost no oil and no antifreeze/coolant. Bummer. So we filled them up and tried that out. Since that didn't work, we made some phone calls and decided to try driving it to the next exit. Still shaking, violently, at times. Matt ended up calling his dad and having him come pick us up and we left the car at a shop up in a ski town, but since it was 8:30 p.m. on Sunday, no one could do anything then. Matt's mom said we could use her car for the time being,which was super nice.
This morning when I called the shop, they said everything was fine. No lurching. Matt and I drove back up the mountain and picked up the car and came home. Except that after about 15 minutes, it started up again, and I ended up driving most the way with my hazards on - afraid the transmission was going to fall out the bottom of my car. Luckily, we made it all the way back to Boulder and dropped it off at a shop where the guy who owns it is a family friend of Matt's.
WEEEEEEEEEEEEE! If Matt didn't need the car for work I think I would have put it in Neutral and shoved it off the side of the mountain.

Long Weekend

First, let me say I love the responses about our fellow classmates. Please feel free to update on any posting, it's really cool to see what people are up to now.

Tonight, Matt's brother is supposed to be coming to stay the night. He is in CO on business, and leaves tomorrow, so basically the only chance we will get to see him is sometime this evening. It will be good to see him because he lives in San Francisco, so we don't get to see him very often. The last time was in April, at his wedding, so I wouldn't call it "quality time" --- fun, just busy.

Tomorrow, Matt and I are heading up to Glenwood Springs - for those of you who don't know, there are natural sulfur hot springs there and you get to just soak in this really hot pool for hours. It rocks. We also borrowed some snowshoes and will be trying that out for the first time.

I thought I didn't have to do anything school related because classes are cancelled on Monday, but I have to go in for a lab meeting for my independent study. Bummer. Oh well, that's what I get for bragging about only having classes on Tuesday and Thursdays.

Shil is making salmon for dinner... it is starting to smell good, better go check on it...

Googling

Ok, so now I am offically a weirdo. I have googled people of my past and here are some results:
Daniel Winterhalter: He was a little hard because there is a guy at NASA with the same name, and it took a couple of findings to realize that the NASA D.W. is like 50. Here are some that could be OUR Daniel.
http://setiathome2.ssl.berkeley.edu/fcgi-bin/fcgi?cmd=view_feedback&id=17416
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0BQA/is_5_81/ai_87692990
Jason Backus: All I could really find on him was that he did intramural swimming at UM and won some events, so did his little brother.
http://www.recsports.umich.edu/intramurals/results/archive/2003/winter/swimdive/
Hillary Ward: I couldn't find her, but check out this site and find out how I knew it wasn't our Hillary.
http://www.julietandherromeo.com/actors-credits.htm
Jennifer Bone: I don't think this can be her, but I haven't seen her in YEARS. Please look at this site and tell me if it is really her, because I would have to email her or something. That must be her married name right?
http://comm.colorado.edu/graddetail.htm?index=3&id=2
Sumir Meghani: This guy has done the best. Woah.
http://www.eyepiece.com/pressrel/980813.asp
http://news.com.com/Internet+privacy:+The+danger+of+good+intentions/2010-1071_3-946598.html
Myself:
There are only one or two true postings about me. And it's when I wrote into the local paper to complain. Other than that, it's just a combitation of my first and last name. wahoo.
ok, enough stalking for now. If anyone has any info on someone from West Bloomfield or Keego they would like to share with me, that would be cool.

Mr. Kopec

I forgot to post this story when I got back from Michigan. This one is for all you Abbott Eagles out there.
When I was giving Matt the tour of Keego, we had to stop at Julian's Coney Island for lunch. Now, if you remember, a lot of Abbott teachers went there for lunch because it was so close and quick. So, Matt and I sit down at a table in the corner, and who is next to us? Mr. Finneran (sp?) Mr. Kopec and some other teacher. I notice them, but figure since it has been ten years since I was in Mr. Kopec's 8th grade science class, he wouldn't recognize me. But then, as they got up to leave, Mr. Kopec sees me and says, "Lots of frosting."
I couldn't quite understand what he said, so I said "Excuse me?"
He repeated himself, "Lots of frosting."
When I realize what he said I started cracking up. When I was in his class, I was on this frosting craze, and I would bring cans of frosting to class and eat it with graham crackers or chocolate chip cookies. Also, Pete Gallina would bring in homemade pixie sticks and sometimes we would mix the two together. After ten years, Mr. Kopec still remembered me from my massive sugar consumption, but he couldn't remember my name. What an impression to make.

Well, Kevin left this morning. The poor guy's flight was at 7:45 am, so Matt took him the airport on the way to work and I went back to bed for a couple hours.
All in all we had a good time. I learned something very valuable this weekend: Colorado Springs is super expensive. Matt, Kevin and I drove down to the Springs thinking that we would take the Pikes Peak Highway to the top of "purple mountains majesty", and then decided against it because it was $35 per car and we weren't even sure if we would go all the way to the top because there might be too much snow. So then we thought we would go check out "the cave of the winds" thinking that it would be a cheaper source of entertainment. NOPE. $16 per person. WTF???? So then we went to the "Garden of the Gods" which was FREE. And that was good. On the way back we also stopped at Red Rocks (FREE) and I am definitely have to check out a concert there sometime!
In other news, our downstairs neighbors' apartment flooded. They are both out of town, and if their fire alarm hadn't gone off (all freaking day), we would have never gone down there to investigate. Shil ended up jumping through their window to check it out and discovered that all of the carpet was SOAKED. There was already mildew growing on the walls (SICK). So we let them know, and the property management company know, except that since we found out Saturday night, and no one came to fix it until Monday morning, the place reeks. Hopefully it will be all fixed before school starts. I will say this for those girls - they are really tidy and so not too much of their stuff got ruined because nothing was laying on the floor. So they have that going for them.