The Associated Press reports that a man was stuck in an elevator for 3 days following delivery of Chinese Food.

NEW YORK — A deliveryman who vanished after taking Chinese food to a Bronx high-rise apartment building was found alive Tuesday after apparently spending more than three days trapped in an elevator that had become stuck between floors.

This poor guy must have been having a 3-day streak of bad luck. 

• First he gets stuck AFTER he delivers the food
• No one found him even though he repeatedly cried out and pushed an alarm button in the elevator (yes, it was determined that the security camera and the elevator alarm were both working…um, I would beg to differ, wouldn’t you?)
• Authorities conducted a door-to-door canvass of the complex over the weekend specifically looking for him and DIDN’T FIND him
• Most notable:  "Even maintenance workers who were called to check out the disabled elevator on Monday missed Chen, police said."  WTF?!?!?!

So, this guy was stuck on the elevator between the 3rd and 4th floors for 3 days.  This was a 38-story building.  Either there was more than one elevator, or all of the tenants, police, security team members and other delivery people must have taken the stairs!

Those questions aside, Mayor Michael Bloomberg marveled at Chen’s good luck.

Don’t know that being stuck in an elevator and being missed by everyone who lives there, has a beat there, delivers food there and REPAIRS ELEVATORS there would constitute good luck, but I suppose we could agree to disagree.  Luckily the poor guy ended up being okay.

I will bet that Mr. Chen takes the stairs for awhile.

Tomorrow, April 6, 2005 is "Paraprofessional Appreciation Day."  I got confused, as Administrative Professionals Day is usually toward the end of the month of April.  So upon further research, I discovered that "Paraprofessional Appreciation Day" is on April 6th and "Administrative Professionals Day" is on April 27th this year.

Just to be sure I was being politically correct and recognizing all levels of people related to professionals in my ever politically correct work environment, I decided to investigate the differences between these two iconic days of recognition.  Webster’s Dictionary helps us define the differences between these two professions:

Administrative Professional:  A person employed to handle correspondence, keep files, and do clerical work for another person or an organization  (for those of you in a non-politically correct setting, this would translate into the word "secretary").

Paraprofessional:  A trained worker who is not a member of a given profession but assists a professional.

Hmmm….I wonder where fetching coffee or washing the car fits in?  Of course I’m kidding, but when *I* was a secretary Administrative Professional, I did take care of the house and the cat for my boss. 

For me, I always need to understand things visually, so thought I would include a hypothetical organizational chart in a hypothetical situation:

So here are my points to ponder:

Since Fred has "professional" in his title, wouldn’t it seem natural to have paraprofessionals report to him, since they are required to work for a professional?

1. Would Jack or Jill be able to report to Merri, or are they unable to since she truly isn’t professional? 

What is the point of this post, really?

Anyway, what I’ve concluded is that the florists, gift shop owners and Hallmark all got together and came up with another day in which to send cards, flowers and gifts.  Oh, and the restaurants - let’s not forget them either!

Don’t forget to hug your paraprofessional on Wednesday!  They truly do need a hug, as they aren’t really a member of any profession, but have to work anyway.   

Algore, the self-proclaimed mastermind behind the Internet, is now broadening his scope.  The Associated Press reports that he is launching his own cable television channel.

Associated Press — Al Gore has a plan for luring the Internet generation back to television: make it more participatory by having viewers contribute their own video.

You wait and see…some time in the future, Al’s resume will also broaden its scope.  I’m sure if you turn to page two - buried somewhere in between inventing the hubble telescope and launching the first mission in space - will be Al’s most amazing feat:  the invention of television.

UPDATE:  Read more at Preston’s site…you won’t be disappointed!

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I wanted to remind everyone that tomorrow, April 4, 2005 is National Workplace Napping Day!

Apparently, there are many places that celebrate this annual holiday, which occurs on the first Monday following Daylight Savings time.  When I scoured the official website of National Workplace Napping Day, I found it to be extremely informative and wanted to share it with all of you. 

National Workplace Napping Day is designed to make more people aware of the health and productivity benefits of napping. It is the perfect day for workplace nappers to lie down and be counted.

I would be interested in hearing how the masses are celebrating this day - please share in my comments.  I, personally, won’t be celebrating this holiday because I own a Select Number Bed and will be fully rested, of course!

This is how we arm ourselves when we go out on the town in Omaha - especially on the North side…hehehe

h/t to Beth….what fun!  I had a blast creating my own Southpark character!

So we had parent teacher conferences for our 2nd grader, Bradley.  He’s very smart - he started proving that at oh, around birth.  I love to go to conferences for Bradley because the teacher always has something great to say about him.  He does great in reading, spelling and math (he comes by this honestly - my hubby and I have been avid readers and both started reading early).  He actually blows my mind as he does addition and subtraction in his head while we drive around on errands. 

So, at conferences this week, we saw the usual outstanding grades.  But in particular, the teacher wanted to show us Bradley’s latest spelling test.  He had gotten all four bonus words right and was amazed that anyone at the age of 7 could get them right.  Here they are:  Archaeologist, Archaeology, Paleontology, Paleontologist.  Hell, I had to get spell checker heated up to be sure *I* was spelling them right.  What an awesome kid!

On a different note, our three year old daughter Emily declared today "Butterfly Day."  She says that tomorrow is "My Little Pony Day."  You should all be prepared for such monumental events…we sure are!

                          John 3:16 

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Today would have been Mom and Dad’s 49th Wedding Anniversary.  Dad says "today is just another day to me."  I’m not certain I believe him fully, but he has been doing well in the recent months since Mom passed away. 

Mom and Dad got married 6 weeks after they met.  They met in El Paso, Texas.  Dad was a GI stationed down there, and met Mom when she was a car hop. 

Dad thought his Air Force buddy needed a wife, and tried to set them up.  Dad happened to slip and tell someone he liked Mom and they were together ever since. 

Their marriage survived many ups and downs - military life takes you so many different directions in terms of travel, tours of duty without the family, war.  They survived it all - a little bumped and bruised at times, but they made it.  I loved to hear their stories about their life while in the military - boy it was a wild ride!

He stuck by her side as their vows said, through sickness and in health.  When sickness came, and consumed Mom, Dad was at her side, helping her every moment of the day, putting his own needs off indefinitely.  I admire my dad, seeing what he endured and what he very willingly sacrificed.  I really loved my Mom, but she was a bit "feisty."  Dad took the brunt of her pain and her ire as she got sick (okay, he also took the brunt of her feistiness even when she was well..ha!).  I can’t even begin to imagine the challenges he had, seeing the woman he loved for almost 50 years slowly and painfully leaving this world. 

Dad has now entered another station in life and he’s doing well.  He’s starting to make things at home and in life "his" instead of "hers" or "theirs."  He’s enjoying some of the changes - he just bought his first computer ever, at the age of 72!  He’s going to get to go on his fishing trip this summer, and go deer hunting in the fall, both things he was unable to do last year due to Mom’s illness. 

Happy Anniversary, Dad.  I know you said it’s "just another day" for you, but the date on the calendar is one I’ll remember every year.   

The first thing that comes to mind is the fact that this has GOT to be an April Fool’s Day prank.  Then I realized that Hanoi Jane just wants to sell her book (her memoirs come out next week).

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I wanted to extend a welcome to you!  Many of you know me for my alter ego Rachael Ray Redux, but I realized that in that venue I’ve limited my scope and hope to be able to rant and muse about everyting (and I’ll still talk about Rachael Ray and recipes here).  So here I am!

Musings, you might ask?  Why musings?  When I looked it up, here’s what came up: 

A product of contemplation; a thought. “an elegant tapestry of quotations, musings, aphorisms, and autobiographical reflections” 

So, I got to thinking about tapestry and thought of the Renaissance/Medieval time frames.  Hence the theme of the site.  Well, and "musings" goes so well with "Merri." 

More to come - and I’m certain much construction.  Thanks for stopping by and I look forward to any insight or suggestions you may have to continually improve this site!

Now, some of you done talk about my fine and speshul jus. Any of you who partake in my elixur will know that it can give you some mighty fine powers of pursepshun. Things have a way of turning out how you want it when you’ve done drunk yerself into a frezy. I’ve had some of my friends done talk about this. Here is what they spoke of:

Family Pet Afore Dan’s drank the speshul jus:

Family Pet After Dan’s bender:

Ain’t that some magic? How about this? This is my cuzin Beula Mae’s boyfeller afore she drank the jus:

And lookee what a little jus will do fer him:

Well, it ain’t much better, but she didn’t drink enough, I reckon.

A since this is more like a food site, I recon I should show you what that thare Preston tried to eat. He had been on an 8 hour drunkfest and thought he was eating this:

This is what he actually chowed down on, and mind you it ain’t purty:

That damn Preston ate up Bit-Bit!!! Brittany, she was done pissed. But that nice feller, her man Federline got her another one. They named him Bite-Bite, in memery of dat traguty.

Hmmm…I’ll bet yer wonderin’ why I put that damn picture there. Well, just gotta say I’ve had a coupln nips of the juice myself and find that picture to be, well, just damn freaky. Looks like my idiut ex, but my ex had the eyes tattooed right on his face.

Now, doncha all know that ole Hector loves a lookin’ at them girly magazines. He had a few chugs of my magic jus and thought he was lookin’ at this:

You may not have this learnin of Hector, but the poor boy can’t read - not enough skoolin’ for him. So here he goes thinkin’ he’s lookin’ at a mighty fine piece of girlflesh and he actually picked up a copy of "I’m an Ugly Girl Dog:"

Now lastly, my ole man done decided that he wanted to get us a new home. Afore he and me drank my magic poshion, this is what our new surroundings looked like:

Now ain’t that just a nightmare to yer eyes. Thank the good man upstairs we had ourselves a whole gallon of my joy jus. Once we drank it, our home looked much better:

Ahhhhhhh….now THAT’s livin large, ain’t it?

Love,
Ray Dawn

There are a lot of people hitting my site due to their search for photos or information on John Cusimano, Rachael Ray’s husband-to-be. He does vocals and guitar for his band "The Cringe" so I thought I would include a link to the band’s bio page. John’s picture is the one on the left. ENJOY!

http://www.thecringeband.com/bios.htm

:: how jedi are you? ::

I thought this was a cute little quiz - and can’t help that I like the Star Wars movies! In light of III coming out in May, thought I’d take the quiz….I am Yoda. HEHEHEHEHEH

Thanks, Emma!

UPDATE: I know I’m probably behind the times, but the trailers at www.starwars.com are awesome. You should check them out!

I’m bleary-eyed as I finish up my Easter Sunday preparations! Easter baskets are ready, the Easter bunny stopped by to deliver those and to hide the eggs. I know the kids are going to be so excited in the morning! I’ve got one cake done, pie dough in the fridge, deviled eggs ready to be, um, deviled and strawberries ready to be put into a pie. So many of these things tradition that was set when I was a girl. I’m so happy to share them with my kids and hope they can carry on some of those traditions.

This is also a time to reflect on faith. With the passing of my mom in January, I have experienced so many things that affirm my belief that we are all here for a purpose much greater than we can imagine. I firmly believe that there is something beyond this life on earth.

God bless you and your family this Easter and always. May you find a moment to reflect on life and its blessings.

I have this neighbor named Bette who dun lives across the way. Awhile ago, she sent me this right nice note about how us White Trash folks are infultratin’ all necks of society, even high falootin’ society. This is what she sent to me:

The National Poetry Contest had come down to the final two contestants, a Yale graduate and a redneck (also known as White Trash iffin you didn’t know that) from Texas. They were given a word, then they were allowed two minutes to study the word and come up with a poem that contained the word. The word that they were given was "Timbuktu."

First to recite his poem was the Yale graduate. He stepped to the microphone and said:

Slowly across the desert sand
Trekked a lonely caravan;
Men on camels, two by two
Destination Timbuktu.

The crowd went crazy! No way could the redneck top that, they thought. The redneck calmly made his way to the microphone and recited:

Me and Tim a huntin’ went.
Met three women in a pop up tent.
They was three, and we was two,
So I bucked one, and Timbuktu.

The redneck won hands down!!

See! I done tole you that we’d perversere (oh hell, we’d win)! Ain’t no high society trash person gonna win with our wit and worldyness.