Happy 2007 from PV (Screaming Hamster of Love), The Wife and myself.

• Pre-Determinism vs. Free Will: Is free will an illusion or do we actually hold our fate in our hands?
• George Bush: Is he really a conservative (as opposed to a Nixon-style Republican)? Why?
• Illegal Immigrants: Legalize, tolerate, or deport? Why?
• What is freedom?

I wonder how this will affect our understanding of near-death experiences?

(For more information on cryonics, see The Alcor Life Extension Foundation’s website.)

Yes, you read that right. The mere mention of Channel 7 weather babe hottie bunny person Elita Loresca (sorry for the objectification) has aparently brought an influx of traffic to Gnorb.NET the likes of which I’d never before seen. (Ok, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. A bit. It’s really not that far from the truth.) The weird part is that she’s never actually been the main feature of on a post.

Never, that is, until now.

(A quick search on the Gnorb.NET will display the total number of posts Loresca’s been mentioned in. Currently that’s 2, not counting this blatant attempt at boosting my rankings within the search engines.)

If you’re wondering how I found out where my traffic is coming from you need to check out MyBlogLog, a site which offers free a Web traffic analyzer (as well as one for $25/year, for all you lazy bloggers). After a quick look at where my traffic was coming from, it was painfully obvious that a good chunk of it — up to 25% of it — was coming from people looking for pictures of Elita Loresca. Most of these were from Yahoo Search. After a quick search on both Google and Yahoo, I found out that I’m ranked pretty highly for both that term and Funky truck 4wd. (Too bad I can’t have the Funky Truck 4WD game on my site; I’d rather not be sending all those visitors off.)

Now, I know The Wife’s going to kill me for doing this, but if pictures of Elita Loresca is what my audience wants, then it’s pictures of her they’ll get. I’ve posted here a number of pictures from around the Net of Mrs Loresca. If that’s what you’re looking for, then by golly here ya go. If you’re not looking for this, then you can safely ignore this post.

If you’re looking for more pictures — sorry, but this is all I found. Well, those and this next one which I’m not quire sure is Elita, but sure looks like it could have been, once upon a time.

Well folks, if you were searching for pictures of weatherbabe Elita Loresca, here you have ‘em. This is really all I could find out there on the Web.

For more information on Ms Loresca, go to Google and type in “Elita Loresca”. I’m sure you’ll find a good amount of links. If you’re lazy, you can start here: “A graduate of the Broadcast Journalism Program at Cal State Fullerton, Elita is currently completing her Masters Degree in Geoscience with an emphasis in Broadcast Meteorology at Mississippi State University. Elita started her broadcasting career in 2000 as a Noon weather anchor and served as a weeknight assignment editor at KGET-TV, the NBC affiliate in Bakersfield, CA.”

Of course this doesn’t answer the questions “is she married” [edit: she isn't] and “are any nekkid pictures of her on the Web?” [edit: there aren't] Frankly, I don’t care for the answer to any of these. But if you do, I’m sure that a few hours of search will turn up stuff I’m too lazy to work for myself. [Edit: Just found out from one of the links at the bottom: she's married, which probably means that the answer to both of these is "no". Good thing, too. I'd hate to see someone like that go the sadly-now-well traversed Playboy route.]

Link to her Channel 7 bio page:
Channel 7′s page on Loresca

Edit, September 16 2005: Looks like Elita Loresca’s been featured as one of the Girls of FHM. As such, they’ve posted a number of pics of her wearing things you’ll likely never see her wear during the news hour. I’ve posted the collage above, along with the rest of the pics. Check out FHM for the same pics, but a higher resolution.

Breakfast: Lime yogurt.
Snack: Big bowl of olives. (Half an hour later he finds that the olives didn’t work out too well, so he decides to cram down 3 or 4 chocolate candy bars to, you know, clean up his stomach a bit.)
Lunch: Pastrami Sandwich and Bowl of Ice Cream.

(I’ll not risk taking a peek at the dinner table.)

As you can see from the menu, he eats just about anything, in just about any combination. In fact, the menu I listed here is only today’s menu. As sick as this sounds, this is actually the norm.

Here’s another example: a few days ago he came in with a big bowl of fried plantains (platanos maduros) which he had for breakfast. For lunch, he had ice cream, which isn’t uncommon, especially when it’s accompanied by chicken wings, pizza, and Thai food.

All at the same time.

Of course, between meals he has to hold himself over with chips, twinkies, and cheese bread. And if something in his stomach starts acting up, it’s just a matter of cramming more stuff down his throat — “sweedish” fish, chocolates, fruits, coffee, soda, chicken, pepperoni, salami, bread, muffins, cheese — even if it means pushing it down with his fist. That way, whatever’s causing the problem will simply be pushed out. (“Mental picture! Mental picture!“)

Food aside, here’s what really makes me sick: the guy’s thin. He’ll eat and eat and eat, and he won’t gain an ounce. Daing it! Why did I have to get stuck with the fat genes?!

*sigh* Then again, I can take comfort in the fact that unlike him, and like most Americans, I’m both pleasantly plump — and famine-proof.

Now, this wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t have to get up early tomorrow morning. I promised to help The Wife finish setting up her classroom before school starts on Monday, and so I’m stuck getting up at a time I don’t want to do something I don’t care to.

As great as marriage is, sometimes it isn’t all that great.

The Wife’s embarking on a new employment venture this week, as she starts her life as an elementary school teacher. Disenfranchised by the corporate system of managerial governance, she’s decided to run back to the safety of government run institutions. (If I were a libertarian I’d call this socialized education, but since I’m not I’ll just use the term “public school.”) I say “run back” because this isn’t the first time she’s worked for the local government.

A couple of years ago, when we were still dating, The Wife (then The Fiancee) was working at a women’s residential center. In other words, she got to babysit a bunch of (ex?)drug addicts, (ex?)prostitutes, and (ex?)alcoholics. Needless to say, this took a toll on her persona. After a little while working there she suddenly started thinking that just about everyone had some kind of psychological or drug related problem.

“She’s too skinny. She’s probably on crack.”

“He looks like he’s been doing meth.”

“I think she’s dealing with bi-polar issues…”

(Announcement: I was just informed that I don’t have to get up ’till about noon tomorrow. Regardless of the fact that I never really sleep that late, that’s still good news. Yae!)

The once cheery, fun-loving, and relaxed girl had started to become a pretty bitter woman. “It’s ruining who you are,” I remember telling her once. She didn’t take to that comment particularly well, but I stuck to my guns. “You’re becoming… bitter. It’s scary. You’re not who you used to be.”

Right before we got married she left the place. It was then that she started to see just how much being surrounded by that much negative crap was poisoning her mind. She got an ever bigger kick in the pants when she started working for an online university (based out of Arizona, though I won’t say its name.) That’s because everyone there was very positive, very full of life, and very, very supportive. Or so she thought.

It wasn’t too long before seeds of dissent began to take root, when she began to see the corporate backstabbing and blackballing that occurred in that place. She was told to call people who had contacted the university for information. Three years prior. She was forced to make at least 100 calls per day. She was pushed into salesenrollment quotas that none but the most experienced of sales persons would meet. (No, they don’t care about you. They only care about their numbers. If they help you out too, well then that’s just dandy.) Eventually, the process of enrolling a student became synonymous to selling a car. An old, junky car that didn’t meet all the person’s needs but helped the boss look better to her bosses.

Of ethics there were none to speak of. Neither was there of honesty, of respect, nor of the intrinsic value of a person as a person, instead of as a number with a bank account attached. Indeed that job introduced her to another poison: the nasty, controlling, and mentally abusive boss.

Ironically enough, during that time I too had a nasty, controlling, and mentally abusive boss, one for whom I various times violated my own code of ethics. (I admit that with some shame.) One for whom I thank God every day, because he defined the very things that I was against, and the very thing I didn’t want to become.

The scary part was that I found myself becoming more and more like him. I first noticed it during one of the hurricanes that plowed through Florida last year. My parents were in town to help The Wife and I move to a new apartment. The hurricane was scheduled to start affecting our region any time now, and the movers were supposed to come at 2pm. Well, wouldn’t you know it, the movers called at about 1:00 and said that they wouldn’t be able to do the job then because they had their families to attend to.

I blew up.

Suddenly, the understanding side of me moved over and a Napoleonic, raging, control monster took control. In retrospect, I can’t believe some of the things I was demanding. But it wasn’t until a week later, when I realized that the delay was a good thing since the carpet in the new apartment wasn’t ready, what had really happened: I was acting exactly like my boss. Just as demanding, just as unforgiving, and just as dictatorial.

That’s when I knew it was time to go. The Wife’s job wasn’t too stable, since she noticed herself starting to be blackballed by her boss (forced to stay overtime with no pay, forced to seek out her own contacts instead of allowing her to access the contacts database they had, forced into routine meetings where she would be reminded how badly she was doing and that she didn’t really want to succeed in life). This meant that I couldn’t quit. At least not yet.

Eventually I left that job. I won’t say how or divulge the details of what happened — I’ve sworn not to talk about my job(s) here, for a number of reasons. But this should tell you something: Whenever I’m in a slump, whenever I’m in a bad mood, and whenever I don’t want to get up to go to work, I just pick myself up and say, “You never have to go back to that crap hole ever again.” That’s usually enough to put a smile on my face and get me on my merry way. Besides, the place I’m working at now is Heaven compared to what I had to endure before. Sure, business is business, but I don’t have someone constantly at my back telling me:

• how to organize my desk,
• how many windows I can have open at a time on my desktop,
• how my email should be organized,
• how much time I should spend working with subordinates,
• how I should organize the way I look at my calendars,
• how I should come back to work at 7pm at night to throw a little bag of paper garbage away because the boss didn’t like to see it there (and no, it couldn’t wait until morning, despite the fact that I got there before he did),
• how often I should consult my writing books,
• what I should read for entertainment,
• how often I should communicate with authors (apoparently, I didn’t know how to do my own job, even though I seem to have been doing quite well for myself — and for him — up to that point),
• how I should be vague with the facts of a news story (you know, to kick up interest),
• and how whatever it is I’m doing, I’m doing it too slow because I’m disorganized and need to be “enlightened.” (Yes, that was a word used to described things that I lacked.)

Yes, it sucked working at my job, BIG TIME.

But back to the issue that brought all this up. After The Wife no longer had to work for the “university”, she decided she’d try her hand at teaching. She already had enough degrees (four!). She just needed some training and she’d be set to go. Well she got it, and she is. Starting Monday, The Wife is a first grade teacher at a local elementary school. To quote Goldie Locks, let’s hope this one’s “juuuust right.”

As I logged in, I was expecting to see a lot of spam. To my surprise, there really wasn’t much there. (Hurray spam filters!) What I found instead was a couple of messages from would-be writing contracts and — to my surprise — a LinkedIn invitation from an old acquaintance of mine, Wayne H. Wayne is the owner of Blog Business World, a SEO/SEM firm based out of Canada. Previously, he was also a writer for a SEO website, which is where we met. (I used to be that site’s Chief Editor.)

It was surprising to see his name on my list of un-read emails, especially since it was there three times. The emails were invitations to join the LinkedIn network. Apparently, LinkedIn doesn’t take its invitations lightly. (I’m now glad they don’t.) Since it was Wayne who sent them, I said “What the heck. I’ll bite,” then went ahead and signed up with the program.

For those of you who don’t know, LinkedIn is basically a network-building tool. Looking for a job? Looking for an employee? Looking for someone with similar interests? Chances are that if you’re looking for someone to fit one of those bills, you probably know someone who knows someone who is looking to fit that bill. What LinkedIn does is that it helps you create a network and helps them create a network and helps them create a network, and by using all those network connections, eventually, somewhere down the line, you’ll be able to find someone via that network who fits your need at the time.

On its face, the service looks really useful for anyone trying to build any sort of business. After all, networking is at the core of just about every business relationships. 90% of all jobs come from networking. Sales is all about networking. And SEO is definitely a networking game. The service relies on the old sales adage that everyone knows at least 250 people, and those people all know 250 people, so your initial network is something like 62,500 people. (Can you imagine if each of those people spent only one dollar with you per month?!) Although that number may be a bit high (I actually believe it’s way low), the principle is still a sound one, relying on the six degrees of separation theory.

(What is “Six degrees of separation”? The six degrees of separation theory states that every one on Earth is connected to everyone else on Earth by no more than about six people. For example, let’s say you are a Florida resident, and you want to find out whether or not you’re connected to Vladmir Putin, the Russian Premier (President?). You think back to anyone who may have been in Russia. Turns out you don’t know anyone who’s been in Russia, but you do have a friend who’s met President Bush. That right there means that you are separated from Bush via two degrees of separation. President Bush has (very publicly) met with Mr. Putin. That means that technically, although you’re not likely to be able to access Putin this way, you are connected to Vladmir via three degrees of separation, your friend, who knows George Bush, who knows Vladmir Putin. Can you think of another international figure you may be connected to? And by the way, no, this doesn’t account for pockets of lost human tribes living in an undiscovered island in the middle of the Pacific. Stop being such a jerk.)

As I mentioned before, I’ve just signed up for the service and the more I look at it, the more I’m liking what I see. For now, it looks like I’ll be sending out a few invitations to people who may just need the connections. As a matter of fact, I know they do.

If you’ve ever had any experience with the service, or a service like this, I’d definitely be interested in knowing about it.

A few years back, Skater’s mom (who according to Skater is “hot”) was driving around in her old, engine-in-the-back VW Beetle, when a guy pulled up to her at a red light and yelled what sounded like “Hey, Baby!” Skater’s mom had her window down, but was rocking out pretty hard, so she pretended not to hear the guy and drove off when the light was green.

At the next light, Skaters mom once again had to stop, and once again, the same guy pulled up next to her and yelled, “Hey, Baby!” Annoyed, she rolled up the window and ignored the fellow.

Eventually, (the details of which are unknown to me) Skater’s mom found out what the guy wanted to tell her; It turns out that the guy wasn’t yelling “Hey, Baby!”, he was yelling “Hey, Baby — your car’s on fire!” Apparently, the straw used to pad the seats in old VW Beetles had burst into flames and her car was spewing flames from the backside.