Hm. My cat loves mint gum.



I try to hide it from her, but if I or one of the kids leaves our gum on the desk, she's right up there to bite it and lick the box!

:S

Maybe the poor lassie needs catnip or something?!

Clark Howard recently mentioned CNN's listing of the best jobs in America, currently. Some of the jobs surprised me (Systems Engineer?), but some did not. Health care is a hot commodity these days, so Nurse Practitioner and Physician's Assistant ranked as #4 and #2. When I was in high school, it seemed that half the females in my graduating group wanted to pursue a career in nursing. Such a career requires training-- back then, it was tough-- the nearest nursing college was miles and miles away and had to make your life revolve around college classes. Now, thanks to the Internet, getting an education is amazingly affordable and convenient.

Take, for example, Western Governors Online University. It's an online university, and you can obtain Bachelor's or Master's degrees with their superior curriculum and training. WGU's nursing programs are accredited by the Commission for Collegiate Nursing Education, and are very affordable. The specialized, unique courses are all online, eliminating the need for relocating, telecommuting, and rescheduling your life around college life. It's pretty amazing, the superior education one can get online!

Demand is becoming extremely high for more well-trained, motivated professionals in the health care industry. This is a great time to seek a degree and take advantage of a career in nursing! Check out the online nursing degree program at WGU for more information.

When I first saw the title "World's Scariest Path" to the video, I thought, "OK, yeah, right."

:| Boy was I wrong to doubt! This path really IS horrible!! It is the walkway of El Camininto del Rey (the king's little pathway). At first I thought it was perhaps near Mazatlan Mexico or some place in South America; but El Camininto del Rey is in El Chorro, near Álora in Málaga, Spain.

The video, below, is amazing. For one, I cannot BELIEVE that this guy carries it with him the entire way, even when he has to jump across gaps in the pathway, held together by mere rebar (*gulp*); two, there are OTHER walkers on the path-- he just says "hi" and walks AROUND them! Wha?!!?! I'd be freaking out or clawing the rock walls by now. See for yourself. It's a long video, but boy, this really is some walkway, lol!

Wikipedia says of it:

El Caminito del Rey (English: The King's pathway) is a walkway, now fallen into disrepair, pinned along the steep walls of a narrow gorge in El Chorro, near Málaga, Spain. The name is often shortened to El Camino del Rey. In 1901 it was obvious that the workers of the Chorro Falls and Gaitanejo Falls needed a walkway to cross between the falls, to provide transport of materials, vigilance and maintenance of the channel. Construction of the walkway took four years; it was finished in 1905. In 1921 the king Alfonso XIII crossed the walkway for the inauguration of the dam Conde del Guadalhorce and it became known by its present name.

The walkway has now gone many years without maintenance, and is in a highly deteriorated and dangerous state. It is 3 ft wide, and is over 700 feet (200 m) above the river. Nearly all of the path has no handrail. Some parts of the walkway have completely collapsed and have been replaced by a beam and a metallic wire on the wall. Many people have lost their lives on the walkway in recent years. After four people died in two accidents in 1999 and 2000, the local government closed the entrances. However, adventurous tourists still find their way into the walkway. The regional government of Andalusia budgeted in 2006 for a restoration plan estimated at € 7 million.

Yikes. Talk about a "tourist trap." :S

Oh remember that old tune? I used to sing it ALL THE TIME when I was a kid. Drove my brother crazy. ha!

Working on the railroad just ain't like it used to be. Trains are a lot faster now... say, 150mph faster. I often wonder about the skin-stretching G-force on those speedy things; does riding in them regularly reduce the need for wrinkle treatments later in life??

I found this video this evening and my heart almost dropped into my shoes. It's a surveillance video of a railroad worker, in Germany, where trains exceed speeds of 180 mph. He's taking his time, checking the rails. Good thing he looked up... and has fast reflexes!! OMG!!



HOLY COW!!! Dude, GET OFF THE TRACKS!! Why, after surviving the second train, does he just SIT on the tracks again?! I'd be running for the hills! Somebody was definitely praying for that guy! A miracle!