Zip code lookup

I went to the US Post Office website today to look up a zip code and they have a form you fill out. The form fields include: Address 1, Address 2, City, State and ... wait for it ... ZIP code! Now really, if I knew the zip code ...

Monster House finale

Goodbye Monster House ... we'll miss you! Steve Watson is a good ol' Tennessee boy and it was always a blast watching him do things to people's homes that make you think "oh, cool!" and "not in my house!" at the same time.

Hidden passageway

This is about the coolest ever! Check out the videos...
(Found this link on Neil Gaiman's Journal)

Wrapping up

Well, the Olympics are wrapping up with just a few events left, so I guess things will be getting back to normal for two more years until Jeni starts another Olympics marathon of viewing. We've got a few recipes to post once Jeni gets back on here. You know life has gotten to be just a little too exciting and on-the-edge when you find yourself cleaning your closet on a Friday night!

Free music

Have you found Amazon's Free Music Download section? I stumbled across this today. You can download select songs from CDs. This is a great way to sample new bands without a big committment. Apollo Sunshine's Eyes was pretty peppy and fun. And Madness has a new CD out. I've always been a fan of them since Our House.

How much free time is too much free time?

You really can't beat a guy who has the time and the Lego figures to recreate Dick Cheney's recent hunting accident (thanks Rocketboom!) Except maybe these two guys who are auctioning themselves off on eBay ... current bidding $2.25 to hang out with them for a day (thanks Doug!). There's also Lego Duck Hunt and the Duck Hunt Dog and the classic Excitebike!

Ty's Asteroid's jacket

I found the Asteroid's jacket Ty Pennington wore on Extreme Makeover:Home Edition from Blacksburg (ok, someone on Flickr found it ...) but it's $249, so as cool as it is, I just don't wear jackets enough to justify this one. But it is so cool!

Haven't been posting

We haven't been posting much lately ... blame the Olympics. Jeni has been absorbed in the Winter Games, and her "The Bob" t-shirt arrived this weekend so now she has gear to watch the games in. She started commentating on the events at the beginning, but I think she is just so absorbed now that this is secondary. Expect maybe a wrap-up at the end.

USB Hot Wheels

Turn a Hot Wheels car into a USB Flash Drive -- perfect for Doug or Evan.

The Flying Tomato

Shaun White (the flying tomato) takes Gold on Sunday in the half-pipe. This picture was from his "victory lap'" down the pipe. Shaun went old school on his Ipod with a little AC/DC Back in Black for his gold metal performance. Who would have thought we would every be saying those words?? I got so teary eyed when he was hugging his parents. Sometimes people forget what the parents put in to the Olympics games, but Shaun sure hasn't. He was so gracious about winning and about his family. He truly embodies the Olympic spirit.

Don't mess with Texas

Chad Hedrick (the exception) blazed his way around the oval for gold on Saturday. As a matter of fact, USA's first gold of these Olympics. You really couldn't help but cheer on this Texan. Four years ago, Chad was sitting in Las Vegas at a Blackjack table watching Derek Parra skate at the 2004 Olympics and he decided that was what he wanted to do. He was a rollarblader turned speed skater. I think the best quote I have heard from him is about his dad. "I was known around town because my dad owned the local skating rink. So when people would talk about me it was 'Oh yeah, his dad owns the skating rink.'" Doesn't get much simplier than that.

Jim Lampley and Sam the Eagle

Does anyone else see a resemblence between NBC Olympics anchorman Jim Lampley and Muppets anchorman Sam the Eagle?

Olympian disqualified by a hair

This morning we were watching the Today Show and they interviewed Skeleton Olympian Zach Lund who was disqualified for using a hair enhancement product which can be used to mask steroid use -- even though the arbitration panel said he didn't cheat. The sad thing is he has reported it for the past six years, and had checked the list of banned substances the past five years, but the substance was just added this year, and in preparation for the Olympics, he overlooked this substance. Ironically, I was just reading on Summer Olympian Scott Goldblatt's blog about the same issue and the fact that he had to give up Propecia for this same reason. If you ask me, Propecia should give Lund a sponsorship (even though if you saw him, I'm not sure it was even working...)

Ink at last

We got a little tired of paying so much for ink for our printer, and tried one of those refill kits (messy) -- at last I found generic ink online on ebay. For what one black cartridge would cost, I got four blacks (oh so tempting to saw black and white...) and two colors. Amazing!

By the way, did you know you can trade your used ink cartridges for paper at Office Max?

Happy Birthday, Tiff!

Happy birthday, Tiffany!

This picture is from Jeni and Tiffany's trip to the beach this summer. In honor of her birthday, we watched TV. Hope she had as much fun as we did...

On a side note, it is also our friend Melanie's birthday today, but to show Tiff how important she is, she's the only one to score an honorary birthday picture.

Bank delay

We're going to have to put off our visit to the bank until later ... but that's not a big deal since our plan is just to be in a house by the end of the summer. Just wanted to let you all know before you asked how things went. Plus, it gives us Saturday to win Powerball -- $250 Million!

Jinx?

I really hope I didn't jinx us ... I just got really excited looking at the floorplan of the house we want to build, so I put that link up, but as soon as I did it I started thinking that I may be putting the carriage before the horse. My thought, though, is if we just think and behave like it is a foregone conclusion that everything will work out, then it will. Right? By the way, we did win Powerball, sort of ... we matched the Powerball and one number -- $4. It's a start! It's up to $250 million ... can you imagine?!?

Radio contest winner

This morning, Jeni was driving in to work with me because she needed the car, and we were listening to her country radio station. The morning program was asking their "impossible question" of the day. The question: In Ohio, it is illegal to mix this with alcohol (or put this in alcohol ... I can't remember exactly). My first thought was "sex" -- of course -- but then I started to listen to people's guesses ... oil ("no, it's not a liquid"), a sock ("no, but it would get stinky if you left it"), a shoe ("no, it's an animate object") ... at this point, it occurred to us. A fish! So Jeni dialed and as soon as it rang, she handed it to me -- thanks -- and we were right. So I was on the radio andwering a silly radio morning show question. Of course it was going to drive me nuts if I didn't call, thinking I was right but not knowing.

Oh, what did I win, you ask? I won ... wait for it ... four FREE extra value meals from McDonald's. Yeah, you heard right. You can be jealous all you want (and you know you are), but we're not sharing! Now, where did I put my goldfish martini?

Building a house

We're getting pretty excited about the idea of being in a house. After renting for so long, the thought of a house again is so wonderful. And this mini water heater in our apartment is just awful! We have found a house we want to build (elevation E, finish the fifth bedroom upstairs, possibly screened in back porch). We plan on talking to bankers this Friday. Keep your fingers crossed for us. (Maybe we'll win Powerball tonight! 210 Million!)

Arrested Development finale

Well, in typical fashion for how Fox has handled the show since it began, Arrested Development's final four episodes will be shown on Friday night, four consecutive shows, during the Opening Ceremonies of the Winter Olympics. Set your DVR and make sure you don't miss this. Hopefully someone will pick up the show ...

Super Bowl ads

I think our favorite Super Bowl ad was the streaking sheep during the Clydesdale's football game. If you missed any ads or want to see one again, they are available online on Google Video.

Talk now ... the Olympics are coming

If you want to talk to Jeni, you better do it in the next week because the Winter Olympics in Torino start in a week and she will be incommunicado from February 10-26. Starting next Friday you will have to schedule your conversations around figure skating, speed skating, snow boarding and anything involving Bode Miller.

Two years of blogging

Two years ago, we had made the big move from a chiropractic education in Davenport, IA to a chiropractic career in Columbia, SC. Around that same time, my brother had discovered blogging and created a blog for us to use, learn from, and create an open line of communication. Our original blog was an experiment for us, dabbling with this or that, a little rambling here or there. It was "bonecrackers" -- created by Doug for us, not really knowing that "bonecracker" to a chiropractor is like "duffer" to a golfer. Then, to top things, our blog got linked to a very hostile anti-chiropractic website, although the only chiropractic thing about our blog was the fact that we are chiropractors.

So we saw this as an opportunity to grow, drop our old cluttered blog and start fresh. We came up with "serendipitous reflections" (no, it couldn't be "jenianddean" or something we could spell...) We have had so much fun in the past two years with the blog, learning how to put up pictures, showing off great meals and recipes, and even helping Nikki start her own blog.

Soon, Jeni will be doing a kitchen specific blog filled with great tips, recipes and advice (and maybe even an easy recipe for Nikki). Watch for this one soon ... We think you'll all enjoy it.

In the meantime, thanks to all the 12,219 unique visitors we have had since February 3, 2004.

Just for fun, here are some interesting stats:
Most visits in one day: 94, November 23, 2005
Most visits in a week: 441, December 18-24, 2005
Most visits in a month: 1384, November 2005
Hour of the day we get our most visits: 11:00-11:59 a.m., 5.75 percent
Day most people visit: Wednesday, 15.72 percent
Keyword we get the most search hits from: cauliflower

New Internet Explorer

Jeni and I differ on our approach to a web browser. I use Mozilla's Firefox while Jeni still uses Internet Explorer. I prefer the tabbed browsing Firefox offers as well as some other subtle features. Now, it appears that Microsoft is playing catch-up. They have released a test version of their new Internet Explorer browser that includes several Firefox features like tabbed browsing and a built-in search window (reference 1, reference 2). Microsoft never seems to be a trendsetter but a fine-tuner of other's good ideas (Windows taken from Apple ... now redesigning their browser based on Firefox and others). This will be interesting to see. As for me, I'm sticking with Firefox. Maybe it's a little bit of stubborn "damn the man" attitude, but I'm OK with that...