The Elders

God has continued to bless me with some very special friends...

These two in particular surprised me with their super-crazy personalities!!

We've had so much fun these last few weeks but all good things must come to an end...

or do they? :)

This is Robert (Elder Gooden) & Steve (Elder Swensen)

These are their serious Latter-day Saint faces

Steve is quite the ham!! He's got many funny faces

Robert's Phase 10 face

Crazy!!

The dealer's face

The Elders "in the raw"

Kittie's got a new friend!!

Bored already

Fernwood Again...Fernwood With Friends!

I had the pleasure of enjoying what is left of this seasons flowers with two of my bestest buds!! It was a very relaxing & fun time at the Fernwood Botanical Gardens...except for my frustration with the lack of experience I have with my Nikon D70! I'll get it one of these days. :) Enjoy!

Very seasonal...I'd say :)

Lovely

Melo's Masterpiece

This little guy had quite the load on those hind legs!

Depth

We couldn't figure out what these were but they're pretty cool!

Can you see this little guy? He could see me.

Takin' a load off in the secret garden...shhh!

I thought these girls looked like angels playing the bongos!!

Sister drum playing angels :)

Soakin' up the sunlight

All alone?

Purple...nice!

Black-eyed Susans in abundance

Thanks for veiwing these lovely gifts from God...have a grrrreat week! :)

JoB CrAzInESs!!!

Work has been quite a challenge for me lately! I've been getting pretty stressed out...very easily! I'm so thankful I have a friend just as crazy as me at the job...it makes things a little easier to deal with...I just thought I'd share some crazy pics with ya'll.

There she is...trying to hide. She makes a very good temp-receptionist while I'm taking a quick break!! Thanks for relieving me Ingrid!! :D

This is us coping with our stress...we hide it very well don't we? Ingrid used to be an actor...me, I just like to smile.

How'd that get in there!?!?! That's not us at work!! That's only crazy us, behind closed doors, in the privacy of our own home...I guess not anymore!! That was chocolate mask on my face BTW! And doesn't Ingrid look like 'The Mask'?

This is where we would normally escape to at lunch...it's so peaceful & out of the "Office Space" type of environment that we're stuck in for 7.5 hours a day!

Enough of that!! Back to work!!

Just another day at the beach...

Staying as busy as I have been...I haven't had too many opportunities to go to my fave place but here's some recent pics of some friends at the beach. :D

This guy's taking a bath

They were all either sleeping or cleaning their feathers!

...that's my friend Ingrid...say "hi Ingrid"!!

I hope I can squeeze some more beach time in before the snow flies!!

Poppy Seeds False Positive Testing

Just under a year ago I was introduced to the yummy indulgence of lemon poppy seed muffins. I had always avoided them in years past because I thought they were sick looking!! When I first tasted the delectable savory flavor my taste buds fell in love!! I recently purchased some lemon poppy seed scones which I had never tried before and shared them with co-workers only to get "you better not have to take a drug test tomorrow!" I've heard things about these wonderful little seeds but never got curious enough to research the idea that they could actually be harmful in the sense of failing a drug test! Well, some days I am blessed to have a quiet enough day at work to surf the net & research these untold secrets. :) Here's what Wikipedia had to say about those tiny little fun-packed seeds:

A poppy is any of a number of showy flowers, typically with one per stem, belonging to the poppy family. They include a number of attractive wildflower species with showy flowers found growing singularly or in large groups; many species are also grown in gardens. Those that are grown in gardens include large plants used in a mixed herbaceous boarder and small plants that are grown in rock or alpine gardens.
The flower color of poppy species include: white, pink, yellow, orange, red and blue; some have dark center markings. The species that have been cultivated for many years also include many other colors ranging from dark solid colors to soft pastel shades. The center of the flower has a whorl of stamens surrounded by a cup- or bowl-shaped collection of four to six petals. Prior to blooming, the petals are crumpled in bud, and as blooming finishes, the petals often lie flat before falling away.

Poppies may be found in the genera:
Meconopsis – Himalayan poppy, Welsh poppy and relatives.
Papaver – Iceland poppy, Oriental poppy, Opium poppy, corn poppy and about 120 other species.
Romneya – Matilija poppy and relatives.
Eschscholzia – California poppy and relatives.
Stylophorum – Celandine-poppy, mock poppy, yellow-poppy, wood-poppy.
Argemone – Prickly-poppy
Canbya – Pygmy-poppy
Stylomecon – Wind-poppy
Arctomecon – Desert bearclaw-poppy
Hunnemannia – Tulip poppy
Dendromecon – Tree poppy

Here's an opium/codeine drug information overload!!!

Although the drug opium is produced by "milking" latex from the unripe fruits ("seed pods") rather than from the seeds, all parts of the plant can contain or carry the opium alkaloids, especially morphine and codeine. This means that eating foods (e.g., muffins) that contain poppy seeds can result in a false positive for opiates in a drug test.
This was considered "confirmed" by the presenters of the television program MythBusters. One participant, Adam Savage, who ate an entire loaf of poppy seed cake, tested positive for opiates just half an hour later. A second participant, Jamie Hyneman, who ate three poppy seed bagels, first tested positive two hours after eating. Both tested positive for the remainder of the day, but were clean eighteen hours later.

The show Brainiac: Science Abuse also did experiments where a priest ate several poppy seed bagels and gave a sample, which also resulted in a false positive.
The results of this experiment are inconclusive, because a test was used with an opiate cutoff level of 300 ng/mL instead of the current SAMHSA recommended cutoff level used in the NIDA 5 test, which was raised from 300 ng/mL to 2,000 ng/mL in 1998 in order to avoid false positives from poppy seeds.

However, according to an article published in the Medical Science Law Journal, after ingesting "a curry meal or two containing various amounts of washed seeds" where total morphine levels were in the range 58.4 to 62.2 µg/g seeds, the urinary morphine levels were found to range as high as 1.27 µg/mL (1,270 ng/mL) urine .

Another article in the Journal of Forensic Science reports that concentration of morphine in some batches of seeds may be as high as 251 µg/g. In both studies codeine was also present in the seeds in smaller concentrations. Therefore it is possible to cross the current standard 2,000 ng/mL limit of detection, depending on seed potency and quantity ingested. Some toxicology labs still continue to use a cutoff level of 300 ng/mL.
The sale of poppy seeds from Papaver somniferum is banned in Singapore due to the morphine content. Poppy seeds are also banned in Saudi Arabia due to various religious and drug control reasons.

Whoa man!! Where'd that come from!?!? Too many poppy seeds for me...how bout you? :) Well, just think long & hard before you indulge the next time...you never know when you'll have to pass a drug test. :)

Random Recent Pics

Life is busy as always! Here's some recent pics I thought I'd share...enjoy. :)


Ingrid & I made a wonderful, rainbow fruit salad for the last weekend of camp meeting!! We had way too many fruits to mix in so Ingrid came up w/the rainbow idea. You can see excluded bananas...don't worry, they were eaten for breakfast!! We were so proud & amazed that we had to take a picture! We call it E & I's rainbow fruitsalad. It was quite a hit w/our lunch group that day. Praise God for such wonderful & tastey fruits! Imagine what the fruit from the tree of life will taste like in comparison to these!!

This is what we came home to after camp meeting...the promise that God so graciously gave us, right over Berrien Springs! I've never seen a rainbow with each color so defined & bright as this one. It was indeed a beautiful blessing!

The other end of it over BTCU...it was too big to fit in one frame!

I told you they were random!! I love my kitty-cat! Isn't he so cute!?!?


This last weekend I was graced with the presence of an old friend. We dined at the fairly new Nacho Papa's in Stevensville. Considering how crazy/funny this friend is the name was quite appropriate! :)

I unfortunately corrupted the pic w/me in it but at least I have this one! A little less than half this group has worked (or still does) at the Herald Palladium. That's where I met my crazy friend. It was great catching up & meeting my friend's bride to be. Congrats Eric!!

Later that evening we all enjoyed sundown worship at the Grande Mere beach! Thank you to everyone that was able to come.


In another two days I will be praising the LORD ecstatically!! They are removing the ignition interlock device from my car!!! WOO HOO!!! It has been one fast year yet those suck & blows every 15mins have been more than plenty!! I decided that I would capture some of these last intimate moments w/my ball & chain...

Give it a good, long blow & then suck in!!

I'm excited!! Another alcohol-free start!! Wait until you see Ingrid's version!! I'll be adding a video tomorrow. :) FUN FUN!! But I sure will be glad to see it go!!!!!

I'm having technical difficulties loading the hilarious suck & blow videos...patience please. :)