Let's get ethical!

It seems like more and more companies are focusing on their ethics policies, and Dunder-Mifflin is, of course, no exception.

Last week Kim and I watched another entertaining episode of The Office and we still have the "Let's get ethical" jingle that Michael and Holly performed playing in our heads!

Well, along those same lines... I just finished explaining to Kim that I had recently registered to attend a Microsoft launch event and that I was offered several options during the registration process to help me comply with my organization's ethics policy:

1. I could choose to attend the all day event and eat the provided lunch for free, or


2. I could choose to attend the all day event for free, then either pay $50 to eat the provided lunch or just forego the provided lunch, or


3. I could choose to attend the all day event and eat the provided lunch for $150 combined

After crunching the options through my ethics subroutine several times, I realized that it might need to have that new Y2K8 patch applied to it to prevent it from crashing when:

// passed in values: fee=0.0, msrp=150.0 and ethics=truevoid pay(final double fee, final double msrp, final boolean ethics) {
.
.
// exception occurs here trying to assign a value to a finalif (ethics==true && fee==0.0) fee=msrp;
.
.
};

I chose to attend for free and eat the provided lunch for free - but how cool is it that we can now be offered the ability to pay for free things?! This is really neat stuff! (Just maybe not free stuff anymore).
To think that I thought that last week's episode of The Office was just a funny episode - when it's oh so much more than that!
Pressured or not, Microsoft's example is just the beginning of a beautiful new era we should look forward to! Imagine what could be avoided if we all took the opportunity to pay for free stuff in order to make sure we don't violate our organization's ethics policies.
Oh - and speaking of ethics... I actually borrowed the picture for this entry from Tom Coombe's blog. I think that maybe he borrowed it, too - possibly from here.

Ladybug Weekend

This weekend was so warm that all the little critter-bugs decided to come out and buzz about. I had a ladybug crawl on me while I was upstairs and figured it had come inside on me. But when I went downstairs, I saw ladybugs crawling on the walls, the front door, and then all over the living room window sill! I tried to take the crawly ones outside since I figure they do some good. The rest needed to be sucked up with the vacuum. I saw a few more today, but hopefully the indoor ladybug season is over.

Made it to Wednesday

I can't figure out if I should have capitalized "it to." Oh well. So I finally made it to and through Wednesday. It's all hopefully downhill from here.

What did I do today?
1. worked a lot, I even went in early
2. picked up 2 girls from church and helped them buy fabric for Halloween costumes
3. checked out a cool project their mom is working on
4. did more work that I forgot to do before leaving work
5. posted this blog

Whew! Weekend, here I come!

First Comment

Here's a shout-out to Kristina who is the official first commenter on this blog! Thank you! I can't guarantee this will be an interesting place to visit...but I'll try! I'm slightly embarrased about how boring this blog feels, okay a lot. But you can't expect much from the full-time working lives we live. Life.....are you out there???

Four Months & Counting

Why Pumpkins Don't Drink

Really GOOD Chocolate Cake!

Here's a recipe for a really easy chocolate cake, we love it! :)

Featherlight Chocolate Cake

12 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 1/2 sticks), plus more for the pan (I used salted)
1 3/4 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 cups sifted cake flour, plus more for the pan
1/4 cup corn starch
1/2 cup good-quality cocoa powder
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups ice water

Serving suggestion: Dust with confectioners' sugar and serve with milk

Arrange a rack in the upper 1/3 of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees F.

Butter and flour a bundt pan or tube pan. (You can use a mixture of cocoa powder and flour instead of flour, to prevent white spots on the cake.)

In a standing mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, or using a hand mixer, cream the butter until light and fluffy. Mix in the sugar. One at a time, mix in the eggs, then the vanilla, occasionally scraping down the mixing bowl.

Meanwhile, in another bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and 3/4 teaspoon salt. Add 1/3 of the flour mixture; then 1/3 of the ice water. Repeat, mixing after each addition.

Transfer the batter to the pan and bake until springy and dry, about 40 to 45 minutes. Let cool in the pan on a rack, then carefully turn the cake out. Just before serving, sift confectioners' sugar over the top. Serve with very cold milk!

(courtesy of Food Network http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,,FOOD_9936_23846,00.html)