Okay, in an effort to help my gastro problems and just to be healthier I’ve started eating “Healthier” breakfast cereal. I’ve tried four different kinds so far and I’m about to give up on it, especially this last one. Let me give you a run down on what I’ve experienced so far.

A) Kashi Go Lean Crunch: Interesting flavor, I wouldnÂ’t say itÂ’s bad, but IÂ’m not sure IÂ’d say I like it either. There is a very interesting texture to it. It gave me gas.

2) Kashi Go Lean Crunch with Honey Almond Flax: Again interesting flavor, I think this one tasted better than the regular, IÂ’m still not sure I like it. The texture was interesting. It gave me gas.

D) Life: Okay, this one may not be considered a “Healthy” cereal, but it had the green sensible solution box on it and comparing it to “healthy” cereals it matched up pretty good. I liked the flavor, I liked the texture. My family liked the break from the gas.

4) Grape Nuts: How this cereal stays on the market is beyond me. Seriously the smell kind of reminds me of silage. The flavor reminds me of the remnants of the mash they use to make beer. It doesnÂ’t taste like beer, it tastes like fermented grains that were boiled, dried and served with milk. I kid you not I think IÂ’d rather eat the box. I put four packets of sweetener into my cereal container just to choke it down this morning. Now IÂ’m sitting here feeling like there is a lump of soggy cardboard in my stomach. Except the soggy cardboard would probably have tasted better. To make matters worse not only did it give me gas, but it gave me unspeakably foul gas. I emptied a conference room with a tiny squeeker. Fortunately the cheek flapping, sphincter hurting colon bomb I let loose in the bathroom. When I regained consciousness and picked myself off of the floor, I helped the other victims evacuate the restroom.

I just want to know, is there a decent healthy cereal that A) Tastes good and most importantly 2) DoesnÂ’t give me gas.

Posted by: Contagion at 05:58 AM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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1 Grape nuts does not smell like silage. At least it never did to me, and I have literally judged silage in competition before. I don't mind the flavor of it, but it does have a slight resemblance to mash. The best way to eat Grape Nuts is with some fruit in the bowl-usually enough to have a piece of fruit with each spoonful of micro-mountain oysters. When I eat them, it is with a banana, but you could use any fruit, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, kiwi maybe. Possibly even melon. The reason for the gas is most cereals like those you have mentioned are LOOOAAAAAAADDDDDDDDDDDDEEEEEEEEEEDDDDDD with fiber, and when you mix that much fiber with someone as full of s*^t as you, BAM!!!!, mustard gas. Try beano. A bottle with each bowl.*** ***This advice is based on absolutely no medical training. I am not responsible for huge explosions in the sub-cockles of you system.***

Posted by: Petey at June 24, 2008 07:54 AM (tmnSV)

2 Even Wil likes this one, General Mills Oatmeal Crisp. If you must eat cereal this one is healthy & tastes good at the same time.

Posted by: red at June 24, 2008 08:16 AM (Xw6pC)

3 Petey: I will caveat my identifying the smell of grapenuts as silage. I'm a city boy, even though I spent a summer working on a farm as a kid, I rarely had an exposure to silage. I do smell it about once or twice a year when I visit a farm. But to me, the scent is very reminiscent of what my memory of silage smells like. As for eating it with fruit. Well I don't like fruit and I'm sorry there is nothing you can add to Grape Nuts to make it taste edible. You may be diluting the taste, but it's still going to be bad. Red: Once I finish my box of silage I'll have to see if I can find that one and try it.

Posted by: Contagion at June 24, 2008 08:21 AM (Jfxjt)

4 Try Total. And good luck with the gas....

Posted by: Richmond at June 24, 2008 08:30 AM (r5dRC)

5 Honey Bunches of Oats are great. Also, Quaker Toasted Oatmeal is pretty yummy AND good for you.

Posted by: Omnibus Driver at June 24, 2008 10:03 AM (WOXRM)

6 Raisin Bran or Mini Wheats, Brown Sugar flavor. Both Yummy! Adding raisins, fruit or dried fruit to any flake cereal would greatly improve the flavor.

Posted by: Quality Weenie at June 24, 2008 10:41 AM (uHRYR)

7 I'm also a fun of the honey bunches...

Posted by: Shadoglare at June 24, 2008 12:23 PM (Volhe)

8 Omnibus Driver: I'll have to add those tot he suggestion list to try. QW: Isn't the mini wheats with brown sugar packed full of sugar?

Posted by: Contagion at June 24, 2008 12:23 PM (Jfxjt)

9 Actually it's Cinnamon streusel in the mini wheats. 180 calories / 10 from fat 1g total fat 0 cholesterol/sodium 44g carbs (5 fiber/12 sugar/27 other) per serving, 24 biscuits equals 1 serving

Posted by: Quality Weenie at June 24, 2008 04:31 PM (BksWB)

10 I eat AllBran and add either raisins or dried cranberries. raisins give me gas.

Posted by: vw bug at June 25, 2008 05:01 AM (FPOeI)

11 What is this fixation people have on eating cereal for breakfast... I hate cereal (guess that's why I don't "get it"). How about eating leftovers from a healthy dinner the night before? I often do that instead of breakfast food. At least when I remember to eat in the morning - most times I forget... LOL.

Posted by: Teresa at June 25, 2008 11:45 AM (mMa3+)

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Today Ktreva decided that I need to get some new clothes. Apparently she decided that a major update to by wardrobe was past due. The last time I went clothes shopping for non-work related clothes was the summer of 2003 before Clone was born. These do not count novelty T-shirts I buy. I'm in my mid-thirties and no longer feel the need to actually dress "trendy". As long as the clothes aren't ragged and fit, I'm happy to wear them.

Since most of my "going out in public" clothes are hardly worn, they are all in good condition. Usually I spend the weekends wearing shirts that really were never meant for me to wear out in public for a social gathering. You know, they look fine, but the message on them is a little "disturbing". IE My zombie, blogger, fire arm t-shirts, etc. Usually on the weekends I wear those or if I'm going out with friends I'll still wear them as Ktreva is not coming with to be embarrassed by me.

Today, Ktreva had enough and decided it was make over time. I was going to get some new clothes that she won't be embarrassed to be seen in public with me wearing them. Ones that are fit for proper social occasions. Not only is she making me get new cloths, she's making me grow my facial hair back. And when I mean making, I really, truly mean making. She vowed never to do that thing she does that I like very much that she doesn't do very often, but she's really good at it until I grow my facial hair back. She also said if I shave it off again with out her permission she'll stop all together. It's amazing what the power of blackmail is.

We spent our entire lunch looking for new clothes for me. I had to try items on pick and choose things... it was hell. There was some negotiation, and I earned a couple of concessions. There was this nice embroidered Jack Daniels shirt I found that I wanted. She wasn't going to let me get it because she didn't want to be seen in public with me wearing it. But I agreed to get this orange plaid shirt she found if I can get the Jack Daniel's shirt. She agreed and I got the shirt I wanted!

I also found a t-shirt that said "Case Worker" on it and it had a picture of a case of beer. She found a green safari shirt she thinks would look good on me. We negotiated and I got the t-shirt and the safari shirt. All in all I picked up a week and a half's worth of new shirts. 7 of them "going in public" shirts. Even though I got some shirts I don't like that much, it's more important that I picked up a couple that I liked a lot. As for the orange shirt and the safari shirt... yea, between you and me, they're never leaving the closet.

Posted by: Contagion at 04:49 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Okay, I know I haven't posted in a couple of days. Sorry, about that. Let me fill you in on what happened.

First Friday at work we had a big meeting about the Hot Dog issue. First the other department had to be included, then they decided not to. Well long and short management said that they had to I got the the pleasure of cooking the hot dogs. We went over logistics and who is going to do what and when. It really was a colossal waist of time.

After work I went out with what was to be some of my peers for drinks and just kind of a"get to know you" think outside of work. It ended up just being me and one of my other co-workers as the rest all backed out. Fortunately Ktreva trusts me because me going out to a bar with another woman could seriously look like a date. However, since I'm completely devoted to Ktreva and not about to screw up the best thing in my life, I was just having drinks with a peer and talking shop. It was fun. My Peer had been going through a rough patch in her life and really needed to go out and get drunk. Fortunately for her, while many of you know me as Contagion... my secret identity... I'm also the heroic (Insert music) Drinkin' Buddy! (insert more music).

Yea, I learned two things about my peer that night. First is that she really has no self-esteem and she gets drunk on 6 drinks... in a 6 hour time span. At least she's not a crier.

Then today I had to go to work and cook the farooking Hot Dogs. I was borrowing a grill from Wes and I had meant to pick it up earlier this week. Unfortunately I had forgotten to, so at 7:30 AM I went to his house and picked it up on my way to work. I found out this evening when I dropped it off that while I thought I was being quiet, apparently I woke up his wife and a neighbor. OOPS!

Work was kind of a joke. I spent 7 hours there not actually working but being more of a morale coach. Of course I was wearing my "The floggings will continue until morale improves" t-shirt from the Bristol Ren-Faire. But I'm not going to go into that, lets just jump to the nitty gritty of it okay, the hot dogs. We had taken a roll call of how many people said they were going to work on Saturday and that wanted a hot dog. It came out to 40, I ended up getting enough food for 45 (feeding the 5 supervisors that were going to be there as well). At two hot dogs a piece, I bought a bulk amount of 90. The other department showed up with 3 packages of 80 hot dogs. So we had a total of 330 hot dogs.

Of course none of them helped me, and to be honest I told them they didn't need to help me cook, but I could use help in shuttling the finished hot dogs into the office. Well, I guess they took that as I didn't want their help at all. So I was cooking from 10:00AM until 1:00PM. It was a long hot day for me.

When all is said and done, at 3:00PM when the office closed, all of the other management but one of my peers from my department stuck around to help me clean up. There was about 100 hot dogs left over. I tried giving them away, I told the employees they could take some home. But no, nobody wanted them. I ended up taking home the left over hot dogs and buns. When I dropped the grill off to Wes, I showed him my gratitude for letting me use his grill by giving him 24 hot dogs and buns. It's not much, but hey I figured he could use them and they'd probably end up getting tossed.

All in all the day sucked. I hate my upper management and the peers from the other department, I'm annoyed at my peers from my department.

The only bright side is that I didn't get one complaint. Everyone like the hot dogs. For which I'm sure upper management will take credit for the idea.

Posted by: Contagion at 03:39 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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My parents took Clone to the Rockford Airshow yesterday. They picked him up around 10 AM. They also kept him so that Ktreva and I could hit the Raptor's game together last night. Since they knew it was going to be a late night they offered to keep him until Sunday morning and they would drop him off after church. Basically we had 24 hours of no kids!

As two child free adults what do we do?

Go for a nice lunch in a sit down restaurant, go see a movie, meet up with two of my three blogspawn, Petey and Bruce at Carlyle's, hit the football game and end up having a camp fire in the backyard. And finally sleeping until a storm called us from bed.

Yea, I realize we were pretty lame.

Posted by: Contagion at 11:02 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Lets see... two days of non-stop interviewing and most of the candidates really just wasted my time. I mean seriously people my partner and I felt embarrassed for these people after the interviews. I finally finished it off. After interviewing 15 candidates I had only one that was passable to the second round. ONE!

If I wasn't interviewing I was in stupid meetings. It was either on topics that didn't involve me or were just so drawn out by the gaggle of women I work with each having to voice their exact same opinion as the person before them only using slightly different word combinations. I seriously started dozing off in one of the meetings. When someone asked me a question and pulled me awake, I just honestly said, "Sorry.... I was sleeping." After that I kept asking some of my peers that I liked if they wanted to go for a beer after work. Unfortunately no one could take me up on it.

Bruce then contacted me and asked if I wanted to go to Fritz's tonight. Hells yeah! So right now I'm waiting for him to get off of work so we can head down for some frosty beer goodness.

And since it's seriously warm in the house right now and humid as all hell. A good beer in a bar sounds mighty perfect.

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