To protest the excessive packaging used by most product manufacturers , the employees at Lush were instructed to show up for work wearing only their aprons. Well, the police department on Nantucket got wind of the Lush protest. And so, they warned the employees that must wear briefs. Anyone exposing their bare butt would be arrested. And so, the employees complied.

Queen Victoria would be proud. Of course, Nantucket boasts that it has 80 miles of nude beaches.  I guess Lush should have been located at one of them.

The sign out side of a Catholic store read “Rosary Pillows”. Now, I am not Catholic so I have no idea what a Rosary Pillow is. I know what a Rosary is and I know what a pillow is but a Rosary Pillow eludes me.

I could envision a home shrine with Jesus on the cross, a candle on either side and a red velvet pillow in front of the cross with a Rosary on it.

Then again, maybe it is a pillow that doubles as a Rosary. That way you can sleep and do penance at the same time.

What will those Catholics think of next, IM for confessions?

Yesterday was nude day a Lush.

It seems that Lush is protesting all of the packaging used on products. So, in a effort to make a statement, Lush asked all of their sales staff to show up for work wearing nothing but their aprons. And apparently, they did.

Now, while their aprons did cover their fronts, most of their butts were exposed. And while I don’t particularly care if there butts were showing, I imagine that there were some mothers with children who did.

I can appreciate Lush’s effort to make a statement, but I think that their method is tacky.

Grayling Mi was once the home of Bear Archery. Now anyone who has ever been to this northern Michigan community will testify that there is not much happening there outside of the tourist trade. So to have a manufacturing facility was a rarity for the community. The only other big operation in Grayling was the National Guard base used for summer camp by the National Guard. And this is where the story begins.

It was one of my first summer camps in Grayling. And I can remember riding by Bear Archery in the back of an army truck. Outside of Bear Archery were picketers. It seems that the workers a Bear were upset over their wages and their Detroit auto union told them to strike. So, there they were, signs in hand, demanding higher wages.

Of course, when you were the only decent paying work place in the area, people were waiting in line to apply for jobs. So, when the workers went on strike, Bear had no problem filling vacant positions. And in spite of the promises of their Detroit auto union, Bear did not settle.

The next year when I went past Bear, the strikers had a trailer parked in front of Bear and were setting up for the long haul. They were determined to win.

The year after that when I went past Bear, the strikers were no longer walking. Instead, they were sitting in lawn chairs with their signs sitting next to them.

The following year when I went past Bear, the trailer was still there and the signs were still there but the strikers were gone. I guess in spite of their Detroit auto union, the workers were giving up.

The next year, the trailer, signs and strikers were all gone.

Eventually, Bear got tired of the unions and moved to a state where unions did not control the right to work.  Lets hear it for the unions!

The spammers are at it again. I  just got hit with about 300 pieces of spam and they all say the same thing.  And, each spam has about 1,000 URLs in them, all porn related.  It would take me hours to sort through them so I just did a batch delete.  My apologies to anyone who sent a meaningful response to my blog.

The Network Operations Center (NOC) recently purchased 5 large screen flat panel TVs. They then hung them high on the walls so they can easily be seen in the office.

Each of the TVs monitor a different aspect of the network. And, in theory, the NOC folks should be able to easily check the network for problems. However, there is no audible alarm for network problems. Instead, the NOC folks wait for someone to call and complain. And if someone does complain, the NOC folks can run over to the screens and verify that the network is down.

Some how, it doesn’t seem very practical.

Kathy’s niece, Betsy Armstrong, just won a silver medal at the Olympics. She was the goal keeper for the womens water polo team. Her hard work and dedication paid off. We are all so very proud of her! Way to go Betsy!!!!

We have started watching a new program on Friday nights on the Sci Fi channel. It is called “Joan of Arcadia”. It is about a teenage girl who’s family moves to a new city. Joan keeps encountering God who takes the shape of various people. God then tells her what to do.

It is a humorous program with a very moral undertone. We really like it.

I picked up a Korean newspaper the other day when I was in Detroit. Now, I had never pictured Detroit as having a large Korean population, but apparently they do. At least it is large enough to support a Korean newspaper.

Now, everything in this news paper was in Korean. Go figure! The exception to the Korean was an article in English from the first Mr., the husband of the Governor. In this article, he claims that people are always more critical of others than they are of themselves and that is why we are so critical of Kwame Kilpatrick and Jonathon Edwards.

Well, since the article was in a Korean newspaper, I doubt that very many people read it. After all, most of the people who read the Korean newspaper do so because they don’t read English. But, I am sure that that fact eluded the First Mr.s press secretary.

The hotel that I recently stayed in advertised a pool and an exercise room. And while I was not particularly interested in the pool, I was interested in the exercise facilities.

I suspected that the exercise facilities would only be aerobic, meaning that they would only have tread mills and exercise bikes. But, I decided to check it out anyway. Just maybe they would have a weight machine of some sort.

After following the signs through the maze of hallways, I found the pool but the exercise room eluded me. After retracing my path several times, I concluded that the exercise room must be in with the pool. So, I entered the pool area.

The pool area was a bit strange. While there were the usual lounge chairs in the area, the pool itself was surrounded by a white picket fence. Very strange.

I didn’t know if the fence was there to keep people from falling in the pool or to keep them in the pool. Regardless, I found the exercise room and it was as I had suspected; several tread mills and exercise bikes.

As I disappointedly started to leave the pool area, I noticed a sign on the wall. “Bathing suits must be worn at all times.”

This got me to thinking. Were they requiring bathing suits for swimming as apposed to shorts or were they saying that skinny dipping was not allowed.

Since the rooms adjacent to the pool had pool access, I suspected that couples were slipping in there after hours and quietly enjoying a dip.

Maybe that is why the place is so popular.