My “to read” book list is always growing faster than I can read.  From time to time I just buy a bunch of them in the Kindle format to keep my wish list down.  I now have over 20 books I haven’t read yet on my iPad, but getting them on my iPad is the first step.  Once they are there, I will read them eventually.

For some reason, I haven’t gotten around to reading any of Phil Plait’s books yet.  I have no idea why I haven’t.  I read his blog every day, and love everything he does.  His first book, Bad Astronomy, is not available on Audible.  I moved it right to the top of my Audible Wish List, which is another wish list that grows faster than I can keep up with.  It will be my next Audible listen when I get my next book at the end of the month.

The iPad might not be the most perfect ebook reader, but it works great for me, and has more uses than just an ebook reader.  I now seldom read paper books.  It’s either an ebook, or an audible book. 

I hate the fact that Audible, and Amazon’s Kindle books contain DRM though.  In the past I refused to spend money on DRMed products, and probably still wouldn’t if it wasn’t so easy to remove.  It’s a little bit of a pain, but I strip off the DRM from my Audible, and Kindle books right after I download them.  I want to be able to read or listen to my media the way I want.  I prefer the iBooks app on my iPad over the Kindle app.  Once DRM is removed, I can read Kindle books in the iBooks app.  Just like Amazon’s MP3s, and now iTunes, as soon as a non-DRM book store opens I am there.

So there is this company in town that tests generic versus brand name drugs.  I am sure everybody from Fargo knows what I am talking about.  Basically they pay people to be guinea pigs.  The studies are about as safe as can be.  It’s not like they are testing untested drugs.  They just compare brand names versus the generic to make sure they are similar so the generic can get onto the market.  Most of the time you are given a low enough dosage that you don’t feel any affects, at least I have never felt any.  I usually do a few a year when some easy ones come up.  It’s not like we need the money.  We are doing pretty well, but it’s hard to pass up an easy $1000.

The one I am doing now is a patch study.  I just have to wear patches on my hips, and go in on Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays for a check and replacement, for four weeks.

So for the last three weeks I have been going in three times a week to let people peak at my underwear and hips.  Yesterday I was getting a little reaction, so they had to move my patches.  They moved them in an inch or so, but now they are only and inch or so away from my pubes.  I am not a shaver.  I don’t know if many guys are, but I’m not.  I am all natural down there.  Now I am wondering if I should trim them back a little.  It’s going to be a little tricky to expose the patches without exposing some pubes.

I guess I will have to make the call when I am in the shower tomorrow.  I don’t think my decision will be blog-worthy though.

I finally have a day off, and I am sick.  I probably caught something from all the people I was around last week.  I had three long days at a conference for work.  The crappy part is they are only paying me for 16 hours, since that was the amount of time spent in classes.  I totally understand that, but I had to take 20 hours off work to go.  They should have at least paid me that.  I probably spent 28 hours doing conference stuff, and then worked my usual 36 hour weekend, and had to use 4 hours vacation.

Today is a well needed day off, lots to catch up on, and I feel like crap.  I rarely get sick, but I think I found out why.  I work with very few people, and am never really around people very often.  So actually I may be more susceptible since I don’t get exposed to as often.  Just two weeks until I get my flu shot though.  Hopefully that keeps me free from the flu all winter, because I don’t even have the flu and this sucks.

It’s been a crazy week, and the next few weeks will be crazy too, so it will be a little quiet around here.  I worked all week, and my crazy family will be here all weekend. 

Then next week I will be at a conference for work all week, and then work all weekend.  I will be glad when this week is done. 

For work we need continuing education credits every three years.  We can get them either by going to classes in Bismarck, or going to the yearly conference in October.  This year the conference is in Fargo, so a bunch of us are going.  Most people would rather go to the conference than the classes.  The classes take attendance, and you have to be there.  The conference is mostly just eating and drinking, and maybe attending a few of the talks.  It’s a lot of socializing with people, which I hate doing.  The free meals are usually pretty good, and Wednesday night the beer is free supplied by the venders, but honestly, I would rather just sit in a class room and maybe learn something.  Socializing with people I don’t know, and don’t have much in common just isn’t my kind of fun.

I have never bought a lottery in my life.  I — unlike most people — understand math, which probably takes a lot of fun out of my life.  I don’t play anything where the odds are stacked against me.  I have no fun in casinos, and lottery tickets are about the worst.

I am the only one at work that doesn’t put money into their lottery pool.  They all think I am stupid, and will be the only one left at work when they all win.  I think they are the stupid ones though.  I calculated how much each one of them have spent over the years, and it was well over $500, and they are never going to win.

The lottery is just a tax on the stupid.  Sure someone’s got to win, but it’s not going to be you.  This week I ran across a nice little lottery simulator.  You can play twice a week for 10 years in just seconds for free.  I did it and won $81, but spent $1040.  Try running it over and over, then you will see how stupid it is to play the lottery.

I had the worst morning ever Friday that put me in a crabby mood that I am just getting over.  I am on the night shift now, so all this happened when I was tired after a 12 hour overnight shift at work and ready for bed.

When I cam home right away I noticed that the dog had gotten into the garbage downstairs, and there was garbage all over the downstairs.  While I was cleaning it up, one of the cats threw up upstairs.  While I was cleaning that up, our other cat threw up.  I don’t know what’s with our cats, but they sure puke a lot.

So after I cleaned up after our pets I was ready for bed.  The Wife always shuts the lights off at the lamp instead of the switch — which bugs the hell out of me — so I have to walk through the dark room to find the lamp.  For some reason last night she put the hamper in the middle of the floor.  I tripped over that damn thing, and smashed into the wall.  My shoulder and knee still hurt a little from it.  Then, as I was laying on the floor, I reached for the lamp, and lo and behold, she had a glass of water right there and I spilt it all over the floor and myself.

I don’t know what else could have gone wrong Friday morning, and really my whole Friday sucked.  I’m sure hoping the weekend is better.

Many people have email overload problems.  So many that Google recently came out with a priority inbox feature.  I haven’t checked out that option because I don’t really have an email problem.  I have great filters setup so I don’t see the 100s of spam message a day, and other then that I maybe get 5 emails a day.  No problem managing that.

My main problem is managing my RSS feeds which includes all the podcasts I watch and listen to.  The other day I checked out my stats in Google Reader, and I have read so many items they can’t tell me how many.  Since last October I have read over 300,000 items in my Google Reader.  I love my RSS feeds, they are always there for me to read.  I really have no problem keeping up with my nearly 700 feeds either.  I hit “RSS Zero” several time throughout the day.  My main problem is spending too much time in Google Reader.  I have a bad habit of wanting to know what is going on in the world — not that that is a bad thing — I’m just too afraid of missing something.  I need to turn off the Google Reader more and realize it’s ok to miss things.  I really need to spend more time on my ever increasing reading list.  Currently I have 15 unread books on my iPad.

My other RSS problem is my podcasts.  I have a huge podcast addiction.  I am always adding more shows, but never deleting.  I hate unsubscribing from shows that I love, but there just isn’t enough time in the day.  Now that football season is about to start, I will actually be spending a little more time in front of the TV, and need to cut back on my podcasts somehow.

The internet is full of good crap.  I love it!  But I need to learn how to take breaks.  I will never understand how people get bored, or like watching mind numbing crappy TV.  I always have way more that I want to do then there is time in a day.  Now I am off to work on that reading list.

Hello from Hawaii.  Actually I am not is Hawaii as I type this, but I should be in Hawaii when it posts.

Today is out 10 year anniversary.  It’s crazy that we have been married 10 years already, but even crazier when I think about how long I have known my wife.  She was 13, and I was 16 when we first met in 1991.  We met about a year after my Mom moved the family from a small northern Minnesota town, to a small town in central Minnesota.  She was the cute little neighbor girl that I wanted to go out with from day one.  She felt the same about me.

We were both to shy to ask each other out.  We became good friends and hung out a lot, but it took five years before we actually started dating.  After she graduated high school she took a month trip to Poland to be a teaching assistant with one of her teachers.  When she was there she missed me more than her boyfriend.  That’s when she knew.

It was probably a day or two after she got back when one of our mutual friends just said, “You know you two like each other, just go out.”

So that day she broke it off with her boyfriend, and I broke it off with the girlfriend I had then, and that was it.  My girlfriend and her boyfriend we actually kind of expecting it.  It was like everybody else knew we were meant to be before we did.  That was in 1996.

We then dated until we were both done with college, and finally got married in 2000.  So while she has been my wife for 10 years, she has been my best friend for 19.  That’s well over half my life.

We are all packed and ready to head off to the airport on our way to Hawaii.  We got the Wife’s cousin staying here to keep and eye on the house, and keep the pets fed.  It should be a fun time, but a week is going to be a long time to be away from home.  I like being at home.

It’s crazy the amount of technology two people need to take with them on vacation.  We have:

• Camera
• 4 disposable water cameras for snorkeling
• Kodak Zi8 video camera
• Two laptops
• 4 iPods (The wife and I each have a touch for apps and internet and another one for music)
• 2 Blackberries
• My iPad
• Our GPS
• and a rented MiFi to share internet to all our devices

It’s going to be a long plane ride, but with my iPad and Audiobooks I have more than enough to keep me busy.  In fact I really wouldn’t mind a longer flight.  The Wife is another story.  I am sure she will be bored out of her mind.

The thing I will probably miss is Twitter.  I may find time to post from time to time, but I wont be able to read and keep up with it.  Normally I keep up with my Twitter stream during my waking hours pretty easily.  It’s going to bug me a bit not being on top of everything, and knowing what’s going on, but I guess that’s what a vacation is for; to get away from it all — or at least most — of it for a while.

My blog will probably be a little quiet for the week.  I might use Posterous to post some pictures if I have time, but I plan on being pretty busy just having fun.