Just Call Me a Slacker

Hello there dear readers! I know I promised a book review today, but I’m going back on my word. Please don’t be mad. It’s been a very busy couple of days at work and I didn’t have any spare time throughout the day to do any writing. Now I’m at home and after spending all day at the computer, I don’t feel much like spending the evening in front of another computer.

I did want to pop in and say hello and that I hope you all have a great weekend! I’ll be back next week with a book review and probably more random ramblings about nothing in particular. Until then!

I Took A Sick Day

The blogging has been sporadic this week - I do apologize - and just when I thought there wasn't anything to write about today, I've managed to write over 1,000 words about nothing. That takes talent, my friends, sheer talent! I went to the doctor yesterday and took a sick day from work and just didn't much feel like writing. The diagnosis is bronchitis. This is the third time in a year - it seems to come around every six months. I'm not sure what's up with that. The doctor said that allergies and acid reflux in combination can cause bronchial spasms - who knew? I guess I'm out of luck for the remainder of my days.

I started out writing today with all intents and purposes of posting another book review; but, I'll save that for tomorrow or the next day and instead just ramble on aimlessly - that seems to be what I do best.

My day at home was rather uneventful. I went to the doctor for a 9:45 a.m. appointment and was out of the office a few minutes after 10:00. Sadly, I wasn't at the prime of my coughing while in the office. Does this happen to you as well? It seems like whatever the ailment is it disappears or lessens when you arrive at the doctor's office. Prior to going in to my appointment I was having some of the most violent coughing I have even had in my life. Then when I got to the doctor, not so much. Although he made comment about how much I was coughing and I said, "This is pretty good. You haven't heard anything."

After my appointment, I went to Target to pick up my prescription which had been sent in via eScripts (I have no idea if that's how it is spelled, but we are going with that for today), only to discover my prescriptions had not come down the electronic line. The pharmacist said it can sometimes take up to four hours to go through because they come in batches. So, I asked them to call me when it came in, bought some dog food and went home.

Around noon the pharmacy called and said they had received the prescriptions and it would take about an hour to fill. I told them there was no need to fill the Prednisone because I would not take it. It makes me hot, gain weight that I can never seem to take off, and also lie awake all night long with my eyes open so wide you would think they were about to pop out of my head. Not to mention the fact that this is my doctor's favorite drug to prescribe and you're not supposed to take it very often because of the side effects on your body. I think I'll pass. I went back to Target around 2:00 to pick up the drugs only to discover that the inhaler he prescribed was $50 with my insurance. I didn't get that either, which was disappointing, but $50 is a little steep for something I'm going to use just a few times. Plus, I have an inhaler from when I was sick with pneumonia back in the winter and so I am just using it until it runs out. That one, by the way, was only $25. Why couldn't he have prescribed that one? So, out of three prescriptions, I only got one, the antibiotic, which thankfully seems to be working as I am already feeling some better.

Other than my two jaunts to Target and the visit with the doctor, I didn't do much else. I did watch a lot of television - all shows or movies that I had stored up on my DVR for a rainy day. DirecTV had a free HBO, Showtime and Cinemax weekend the past couple of weeks and so I was able to record quite a few movies I had not seen. I was really looking forward to watching X-Men: First Class and when I started watching it, it was in Spanish. I thought I had accidentally changed the receiver to Spanish somehow but then I realized that I had recorded it from HBOL, which is HBO Latino! I mean, really, the Latinos now need their own HBO Channel? I was upset about it because out of all the movies I had recorded this is the one I wanted to see the most. Oh well.

I was glad I had a plethora of shows to watch from the DVR, because I am here to tell you, Daytime TV just isn't what it used to be. When I was in high school and college, I recorded soap operas and that was the highlight of my free time. Now, there's maybe one or two on. Of course, I had no interest in any of them because I wasn't familiar with the plots, etc and didn't even attempt to watch. Now, well, there' just not much to choose from. I should have done some reading, but I guess I couldn't get motivated to do that either. Anyway, that was my sick day at home in probably way more detail than you bargained for today.

In other news, and I don't think I mentioned this yet, I ordered a pair of DUO Boots from the UK. These are the boots that Erika discovered on the World Wide Web and you can order per your calf size. I ordered the next to the largest calf size (49 cm) and I'm here to tell you...they didn't fit. It was crushing. I felt like crying. The boots were sent back the next day. I think ordered a pair of stretch boots from Zappos to give those a try. They had a sweater backing with stretch and so I thought they might work. Wrong. Actually, they fit, I was able to get them on and up my large legs, but they were so tight I thought I might lose blood flow in my lower extremities - it would be the equivalent of preparing for an amputation. As badly as I would LOVE a new pair of boots, I would also like to be able to feel my legs and feet while walking. And so, the quest for a pair of boots continues. Wish me luck, dear friends.

The End of an Era

In case you haven't heard, over the past couple of weeks, there have been a lot of changes in the newspaper business here in Alabama; well, in three major cities anyway, Huntsville, Birmingham, and Mobile. All three papers are owned by the same company, Advance Publications

A few weeks ago, al.com launched a revamped site, which quite frankly made my eyes bleed when I looked at it. The color was a bright yellow. So bright, in fact, that you needed sunglasses to even look at the screen. Honestly, I have no idea why "they" decided a re-vamp was needed because I liked the site the way it was before. Now, I have no idea where anything is. All the places I used to go for deals, recipes, etc. have vanished from their former spots and it might take a modern day miracle to locate them. Thankfully, after numerous complaints on Twitter and undoubtedly via email, the color was toned down to a much more bearable beige. (Thank you powers that be!)

A few days after the revamped site was launched, another announcement was made - these three papers would be going from a daily circulation to a three-day circulation beginning in the fall. Say what? Some folks I know were raging mad about this, others were indifferent. The majority of people I know felt like the newspaper here in Huntsville didn't provide enough coverage of local stories. I agree, it's definitely not the newspaper it used to be; but that was pre-internet when people relied on the daily delivery to actually deliver the news. Remember when Huntsville had two papers? A morning and an afternoon paper? Those, my friends, were the days.

This past week, 400 newspaper employees including columnists, photographers, circulation department folks and everyone in between lost their jobs as part of this new al.com/three-days a week circulation nonsense. Call me old fashioned, but I do not think this is a change for the better. I'm not an idiot; I realize that everything is going digital and I have even been a contributor to the change to digital with the purchase of a Kindle. However, there's just something about the loss of a hometown newspaper that is really heartbreaking to me. Maybe I am too close to the situation. After all, I have written for the Huntsville Times for the past four years covering high school football and sometimes basketball and as a result of that work have made many friends, all of whom will not have a job come September 30. That's a lot of local knowledge thrown out the door. As my dear friend Mary put it, " I’m curious how on earth they think they can publish a paper 3 days a week AND have 24/7 updated content with so few people!" Mary's husband also worked for the newspaper and will also be shuffled out the door on September 30. Less than 20 writers were retained - that is really hard concept to grasp.

I know a lot of you don't care much about local high school sports, but there are a lot of people in this city who do and have increasingly complained about the lack of coverage in the newspaper. It wasn't the writers' faults, it was the editors and other upper management who made those cuts. Now I wonder if there will be any coverage at all. "They" axed the one guy who had more local high school sports knowledge than anyone I've ever encountered. As for me, I have no idea what the plan is for those of us who helped with high school football, etc., but even if they do call and ask me about coming back (which I seriously doubt will happen), I will decline their offer, just on principle alone. I also don't want you to think I'm writing this for your sympathy on my behalf - my writing job was just for extra money and I didn't need it to feed my family. What "they" have done to these people and their livelihoods is wrong in my opinion. Sadly, there probably won't be many repercussions for the owners of the newspapers because eventually everyone will become accustomed to the digital editions and very few people will remember what it was like to hold a newspaper in their hand every day.

Change is hard for a lot of people, myself included. In these difficult economic times, there are now 400 more people without a job; 400 people who will more than likely have to relocate their families or make a total career change. To me, that is so heartbreaking. For whatever reason, these lay-offs have struck me to my very core and I have shed more than one tear over the loss of my friends' jobs. Working in a newsroom is like working with a family and it saddens me that I will never be a part of that again. No late night deadlines, late night laugh fests or late night pizzas or late night debates. Truth be told, a lot of them I will never see again because I only saw them in the newsroom in the fall - I wish each of them a fond farewell.

I wanted to bring all of this to your attention primarily to ask that you keep these people in your prayers. Being laid off is difficult in and of itself, but being laid off from an industry that is more or less fading is even harder.

A Post For Monday

Well, hello there! I'm late posting and for that I do apologize. I am not feeling too well you see, so, I didn't write anything Sunday night. I've had a terrible cough for the past four weeks as well as some chest congestion. I'm sure my friends, family and the people I work with are tired of hearing me cough. Yesterday I started feeling bad and then last night I got a collective amount of about two hours sleep. So, needless to say, I'm struggling to make it through this Monday. The girl I work with is out today, otherwise I would have taken the day off to sleep and visit the doctor. I have an appointment for Tuesday morning so I'm going to work for a couple of hours, go to the doctor, and go home for some rest. I am really looking forward to it and the folks I work with are probably looking forward to it as well.

I really don't have all that much to write about today as the weekend wasn't too eventful. I mowed the grass on Friday night and I think that helped contribute to my feeling bad. I'm beginning to think I have a grass allergy because I always have congestion afterwards and I had not taken my allergy medicine last week - on accident - and so I feel pretty positive that the grass helped moved my illness along. Saturday was spent cleaning, going to the grocery store, cooking and napping. See, not much to tell.

On Sunday we had our annual Father's Day lunch of Meatloaf, Green Beans, Okra, Corn, Cornbread, and Strawberry Cake. It was quite enjoyable if I do say so myself. I got my dad a bow tie for Father's Day. I had given it to him earlier in the week so he could wear it on Sunday. I think he pulled it off well.

That's about it for me. How about you? Hope you all enjoyed a nice weekend.

Side note: It's officially summer on Wednesday and it's heating up here in Huntsville which means that Cooking in the Car will soon be making its return to the blog. I've got quite a few items lined up, so bring on the 100 degree days... I guess.

Book Review: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Seems like the end of the week has become a good time for a book review - for now anyway. I'll keep it up as long as I can either find something interesting to read or have an assignment. This week's book review is about a book that I read for pleasure. I saw someone I follow on Twitter mention it and I looked it up on Amazon and it looked interesting to me so I downloaded it to my Kindle and soon after started reading. The name of the book is The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and it was written by Rebecca Skloot.

Have you ever heard of Hela cells? If not, then you are probably not working in the field of science because I had never heard of Hela before reading this book. If you haven't guessed yet, this book is a work of non-fiction, and is about Hela cells, which came from Henrietta Lacks. When Mrs. Lacks was in her early 30s, she contracted cervical cancer. She lived in the Baltimore area and she sought treatment at Johns Hopkins hospital which provided medical assistance to the poor. In the 1950s, which was when Mrs. Lacks' cancer was discovered, treatment for cancer was still experimental, more or less. Radiation treatments were given to Mrs. Lacks, but sadly, the treatment did not work and she passed away.

During the time she was being treated at Hopkins, a doctor took a sample of the cells of her cervix, and the first two letters of her first and last name were written on the vial in which the cells were stored (HeLa). Until this time, the doctor collecting samples had not been able to keep any cells alive for more than a day or two; but there was something special about Henrietta's cells. Not only did they live, but the multiplied, flourished and have continued to replicate over the years and are still used in labs all over the world today - almost 60 years after her death. Henrietta's cells became instrumental in developing a vaccine for polio and were also used to develop many chemo-therapies used to day as well as a plethora of other drugs and solutions to the medical problems faced by society.

Although a work of non-fiction, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks reads like a novel, which is part of the appeal. Ms. Skloot heard of Hela in her college science class and soon after began a discovery to find out about the person who was behind Hela. The novel took years of research and years of spending time with Henrietta's uneducated but very interesting family. I make the point that they were uneducated not to be rude, but because truly, this is one of the major parts of the story. These people were not blessed to have access to education and were often confused and misled about what happened to Henrietta. That in itself makes for an interesting story.

The book details, as much as possible, the life of Henrietta from her childhood to when she married, to her cancer, and then her untimely death. It also goes into detail about her children and her husband and what happened to them after she died. I never thought a book about science and cells could be so interesting, but this book was fascinating from beginning to end. I don't know that I would put this book in the category of the ever popular "summer beach read" but you should definitely put it on your reading list, especially if you like to read non-fiction.

Music Review: Born and Raised by John Mayer

I've got a music review for you today, which probably makes no one happy because it's rare that anyone comments on a music review here at The Chronicles of Nat. I'm okay with that. I understand you may not like the same music as me or may not have yet listened to an album if you do like the artist and therefore have nothing to say. Listen, there's just not a lot going on in the life of Nat these days. It's the dog days of summer so to speak and I haven't been doing much other than going to work, going to the gym, and coming home. So, you are stuck with a music review. I hope you are okay with that and will stop back by on another day when the subject may be more to your liking.

I've been a John Mayer fan since his first album which feels like it came out 100 years ago but really it was only 2002. It was at the Conference USA softball tournament in Tampa while I was sitting in the press box that the announcer played a John Mayer song, I asked who it was and the next day he had a burned copy for me. Ah, to be young and pretty again. Anyway, since that few days in Tampa (which coincidentally was also the first time I ever ate at a Jason's Deli) I have been a fan of John Mayer's music and his guitar playing - he rocks, y'all!

I really couldn't say which of his albums is my favorite, but I can say I do not think it's this one; maybe because I don't yet have any memories tied to this particular album; whereas the others I do. The lyrics on this album are very meaningful and my word, it seems like dear John has really done a lot of soul searching and poured his findings out onto the music sheet. One song in particular, Shadow Days, which is the first release off of the album, he sings about being, "a good man, with a good heart," and you know what? I believe it! He speaks about the mistakes he has made and how he learned from them and if you can't relate to that then you must be perfect, or at the very least, not learning any lessons in life. I think this song might be my favorite off the album which seems a little cliche considering it's also the first release, but c'est la vie!
This album has a different sound than any of John's (yes, we are on a first name basis) other albums; but, then when you really think about it, each of his albums has a different sound as his music grows and his mind matures. This album has more of a folksy feel too it, which I happen to like quite a bit.

Sadly, John won't be touring any time soon as he is having some issues with his vocal cords and had surgery a few months ago but apparently the problem is back - I read all of that on Wikipedia; sadly, he didn't call to tell me about it. I did see him in concert when he came to Huntsville back in 2007. I went by myself - I had gotten a ticket for Christmas - which let me tell you was quite a lonely experience. Anyway, I won't wallow in self pity. This album is worth purchasing if you a John Mayer fan. If you had never heard of it, I wouldn't necessarily recommend it as the first one you should listen to, but it is still good and admittedly, I've listen to it probably 10 times or more since purchasing it. I, however, will listen to an album until I'm sick of it and you may not be like that. If John's vocal problems don't clear up, this may, sadly, be the last album he ever sings on. I feat the thought!

Available on iTunes, Amazon, and wherever you pick up your music favorites!

Two More Favorites

I have a couple of more favorites to share with you this week. These are new favorites and are likely to remain favorites for a while. One is a food product (no surprise there) and the other is a TV Show (probably no surprise there either).

Biscoff Spread - Have you ever heard of Biscoff cookies? I'm sure if you have ever flown on Delta Airlines then you have most assuredly heard of them, as they are one of the treats that is almost always available on the Delta flights. Other airlines may use them as well but I honestly cannot remember. Seems like I may have had them on US Airways before - at any rate, they are known as "The Airline Cookie". I remember the first time I saw Biscoff in stores and I was pretty fired up about it because I have always enjoyed the cookie but Biscoff wasn't always sold in stores. So, you had to take a flight somewhere to enjoy the deliciousness that was Biscoff. After seeing them in the store for the first time, Biscoff has on and off been a staple in my pantry. I don't always have it on hand because I don't want to grow tired of it, but at the same time, it is purchased on a pretty regular basis.

A while ago I had heard something about Biscoff spread and then a couple of weeks back, a blog I read mentioned Bisocff spread as one of the ingredients in a recipe. This past Saturday on my weekly Publix shopping trip, I was buying some peanut butter and noticed the Biscoff spread and got a little excited about it. I wasn't too excited about the price of almost $5 for just ____ ounces, but I decided to go ahead a splurge because you only live once (which has become our family motto as of late - I have no idea how that happened).

When I got home and unpacked the groceries and came across the spread, I immediately opened it, grabbed a spoon from the drawer and gave it a go - it was indeed just as wonderful as I hoped it would be. The spread tastes just like the cookies in a smooth creamy peanut butter type form. It comes in creamy (this is the one I got) and also a crunchy (not sure what it's like). The jar says it's good on apples, bagels, toast, etc. I prefer to eat it straight out of the jar. It is truly delicious.

Grimm - This TV show premiered in last fall and for whatever reason, I didn't watch it. A couple of weeks ago, the premier re-aired on NBC and so I recorded it to see if I would have any interest in adding it to my line-up. The first episode intrigued me and so I got online to watch the others. The first season had 22 episodes and I am here to say that I have already watched all 22 and am now anxiously awaiting the beginning of season two this fall.

The show is about detective Nick Burkhart who works for the Portland PD. In the first episode he discovers he is a Grimm, which is basically the dude who keeps order among the Wesin (pronounced Vesin). Wesin are humans who also have a mythological creature side to them. Nick encounters all kinds of crazy after his discovery. His partner at work, Hank and his girlfriend, Juliette have no idea that Nick is a Grimm which makes for many misunderstood and interesting scenarios. There is a more in-depth plot line that is carried out throughout all episodes in addition to the individual plot line of each episode. My favorite character is Monroe. He is a Wesin and becomes friends with Nick and helps Nick learn about the other creatures and also helps Nick solve some of the crimes.

I wouldn't say this is my all-time number one favorite show, but it is quite enjoyable and it has caused my heart to race and has also made me gasp out loud on more than one occasion. The dark undertones and constant suspense make it scary at times. I'm really looking forward to season two which will start in late August or early September. If you have some time, check it out on the NBC web site and watch the first season before the next one starts.