The Random Ramblings of Samm Diep: April 2008

A Very Small Fortune

After lunch with my mom on Monday, I cracked open my fortune cookie to discover most of it was missing! Saving a little money???

WHAT?!??? "Frequent conversations...." WHAT??? What about frequent conversations? I'll never know...

So, after I stole the fortune from my mom's cookie (she never reads them anyway), it read: "Your career is moving more and more towards service to others."
Now how in the heck would they know that??

Get your free granola from Kashi!

Kashi ("7 whole grains on a mission.") is currently offering free samples of their granola cereal. I've personally tried it and am a fan of most of their healthy products.

If you're interested in getting your free sample today, click below:

A day in the life...

I can tell I've finally regained my appetite tonight after my brief bout with some unfresh produce from Carrabba's on Saturday night in Houston.

In an effort to not return home to a completely desolate kitchen, I stopped by the grocery store this evening to stock up on my usual favs: cheeses, my favorite tortillas, some lunch meat, pears (my recent fruit of choice), clementines (not sure if they're still in season but they were so cute), crackers, cereal, milk, eggs, and yogurt. Oh! And I splurged on some surprisingly yummy cookies, too! (OMG! If they're really low-fat can I just eat the entire box???)

SkyRide dropped me off at my car around 2pm. It took about five minutes to find my car, a few chugs to remember how to drive it, and a couple laps around the parking lot to remember how to escape the park-n-ride.

I am happy to be home. Two weeks doesn't sound like THAT long, but it's amazing how quickly we get used to things. It's really nice to see Vegas again and I'm happy to be seeing Dr. John tomorrow. I need it!

I was extremely happy to see my beautiful flowers had bloomed.

Not so happy about the mailbox vandalism while I was gone, however.

I have 10 full days of my space before hitting the road again. 3 1/2 weeks at the Riviera in Vegas makes the two weeks at Mike's in Minneapolis sound like a drive around the block!

I'm not complaining though. I wouldn't trade it for anything!

Dining Out for Life - May 1

Dining Out for Life® is an annual event that will raise hundreds of thousands of dollars on May 1, 2008 to benefit Project Angel Heart clients. It's a fun and easy way to make a difference for people living with HIV/AIDS, cancer and other life-threatening illnesses in Denver and Colorado Springs.

On May 1, more than 350 Front Range restaurants will contribute 25% of their food sales to Project Angel Heart, making eating out a charitable action! This event will raise an average of $800 in each restaurant.

Click here to join as a participating restaurant.
Click here to volunteer to be a restaurant ambassador.
Click here to view the 2008 participating restaurants.

I've requested to work as an ambassador for the lunch shift at Diane's New York Bagel & Coffee Cafe in Aurora that day. If you're in the neighborhood, stop by and see me for lunch for a great cause.

I had plenty of gas -- April Fools!

As you may have deduced from the title of this post, yes, I ran out of gas yesterday, on thus the first day of April. Joke's on me. I don't know if I should admit this, but it wasn't exactly the first time this happened... nor the second... well, and, not even the third... I'll just stop right there.

I was returning from lunch with my friend Mike from up North and ended up taking E470 home. My gas light had only just came on when I arrived at his office. I had forgotten, however, that there's zero civilization on that particular stretch of E470, so unfortunately, well... we know what happened.

I got off on the first exit where I knew there was a gas station, the exit to the airport. Already, Curby started chugging and I let him coast around the curve and drift as far as he would go.

Amazingly, we made it into the parking lot, barely, of the Conoco.
Yep. I ran out of gas as I pulled into the parking lot of the gas station. See photo below for evidence:

After I got enough gas to get Curby goin' again and pulled up to the pump, I looked down to see that we were .2 miles, a mere 1,056 feet, away from:

depriving me the exercise of walking to and from the gas counter, TWICE!
meeting a very nice officer who drove me back to my car, the second time, because I couldn't get the gas canister nozzle to work the first time (you'd think I'd have plenty of experience with such a thing).
spraying gas all over the side of my car, and my hands.
reeking of gasoline for the next 12 hours.
getting a car wash (which, I guess I needed anyway, but I was saving up my MN roadtrip dirt from my most recent drive - BACK IN FEBRUARY!)

On a more positive note, the bulbs I planted a couple years ago are still coming up and should be blossoming any day now.

Sweet corn was on sale at King Soopers and I've been on a complete corn on the cob binge. Is it possible to consume too much corn on the cob??? It is the only food the comes out the same way it goes in.