AF SrA dons rain gear before crawling in turret.

To hear the WUSF radio interview aired Dec 1 & 2 in Tampa, FL, regarding this blog entry, please click on this link:

My Last Tour: FOO Money

Perhaps last night’s downpour of rain or the continual drizzle this morning should have been an indicator for today’s mission.  But a little bit of rain wasn’t going to deter us from fulfilling our mission.  Our plan today was to turn in a HMMVW, get an M-240 machine gun inspected, and clear the FOO account.  My focus was on clearing the FOO

ETT Teammates before mission.

(Field Ordering Official) or special project funds so I can go on leave and meet up with my wife in Germany.  Every month I have to account for $15,000 worth of expenditures.  If I don’t spend all the money, it takes even longer to clear the account and return the money.

Most of my ETT teammates and I wore our rain gear today.  I was really surprised that it rained most of the night and was still sprinkling in the morning.  It was going to be a wet day for the gunners in the turrets.  The seals in the turret hatches are virtually worthless and the rainwater seeped in and soaked my driver’s seat along with the interior.  By the time are turret covers arrive, I will be finished with this deployment.  One would think if you pay several hundred thousand dollars for a vehicle, it wouldn’t leak.   But if it does, then you can pay “additional money” to order turret covers.

Giant mosque in Kabul.

Traffic was pretty normal as we traveled through the city now that the Eid holiday is over.  We encountered a little bit of traffic near a giant blue-colored domed mosque.  But we weren’t in any rush, so I tried to take some pictures.  The rain, mud, and several inches of protective glass tend to distort many of my photographs.

It took us about an hour to reach our destination of Camp Phoenix.  The rain had stopped and it appeared to be a promising and productive day.  My first stop was the contracting office.  I had scheduled an appointment, but when I showed up, I was informed to return in an hour.  So like a compliant airman, I returned in an hour and was able to drop off my paperwork and was told to return in 30 minutes.  After lunch we returned.  The nonverbal gestures displayed by the contracting officer said it all.  We had problems.

I must preface this with a little bit of my background.  I have 2 Associate degrees and a Bachelor of Science degree in management, and I am working on a Graduate degree, along with 26 years of purchasing items for the government.  I have bought everything from administrative supplies to indigenous vehicles, special fountain pens and stainless steel pool liners for general officers and familiar with the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), but I am not a certified contracting officer.  Albeit, I probably know more about the legal loopholes of the FAR to bypass congressionally mandated sources to purchase items and expedite the process, then the average person.

Now back to the “problems”.  The rules changed again this month and now we need an O-5 (Lt Col) to sign a memorandum stating they reviewed all of our purchases.  In my mind, I am thinking this is a minor setback, just wished I had received the policy change before traveling here.  The next problem was with the electrical work and repairs we had done.  Two of our ANA B-huts were destroyed by insurgent rockets and we scrambled to find shelter to protect them against the subfreezing weather.  Note:  If we wait for the Ministry of Defense, it might be several months until any action is taken. We used a base contractor to assist with the electrical work with hooking up heater systems in the tents.  Several soldiers in Iraq have died due to shoddy electrical work and have caused a micro-scrutiny on all contracts involving electricity.  So now I have to provide evidence this contractor is NEC (National Electric Code) certified.  As a result of this new scrutiny, new concrete buildings have been built but have no electricity and there are few certified US electricians in the country.  As a result, military personnel will have to remain in tents and wooden shelters.  No local Afghan is NEC certified.  The problem is with these giant sized contractors that they subcontract all of the work out and this contract is subsequently subcontracted out several times.  Eventually you get a local contractor who gets paid $10-$15 a day to do the work.  Meanwhile these corporate goliaths maximize profits because they charge the US taxpayers an exorbitant rate for these services and pocket the difference by hiring local civilians at below US minimum wages.  Somehow I was able to resolve this by using a copy of the contract the contractor has with the government stating he is qualified for electrical work.  But it probably won’t work in the future without the NEC certification.

My next stop was the Finance office.  They were eating lunch, but the girl behind the desk asked if “Rex” was my first name.  I was a bit caught off guard and inquired how she knows my first name. It’s because she looks at her listings daily and I am several days late.  Anyhow, I can’t clear the Finance office until I get the clear letter from Contracting.  I told them I was going on leave in a few days and they said it could be delayed until I clear.  I informed them nothing was going to keep me from seeing my wife.  Finance said if I leave, they would initiate paperwork to take money from my paycheck.  I wasn’t in the mood for threats, so I turned the tables and exclaimed I would write them a check right now for $15,000 if they wanted.  Everyone in the office stopped what they were doing and stared at me.  They were speechless and asked if I was serious.  I said “Yes”! I knew it was a hollow threat and even if they did take my money, I would get it back because my paperwork is in order.  Except now they want a document with my original signature.  They won’t accept a scanned electronic copy.  Yet, when they receive this document, they scan it and send it electronically to the people who approve the money and expenditures.  So now maybe you can sense my frustration with the layered bureaucracies of this process.  Yet my government can send millions and billions of taxpayers’ dollars to this country and there is no accountability.  But for this small measly sum, I have to jump through hoops and convoy with 8 other people and drive an hour in traffic and expose ourselves to any dangers outside the wire (OTW) to deliver a piece of paper with an original signature so it can be scanned electronically.  I question the logic and common sense of this process.

We arrived back to base without incident.  I conducted my weekly interview with WUSF Bobbie O’Brien.  So if you listen to the recording, you will sense my frustrations.  I really need a vacation!!

Hmmm.  Check out these leak links (or at least the titles) and see if a theme emerges:

Administration plans to punish leakers

Among Obama Aides, Debate Intensifies on Troop Levels

Shut Up, Gates Says Again

Gates Condemns Leaks on U.S. Afghan Policy and Ft. Hood

SYDNEY, Nov 2, 2009 (AFP) – An oil rig burned uncontrollably off Australia Monday as officials warned the massive blaze could not be contained until they plug a leak which has gushed tonnes of crude over the past 10 weeks.

As the government ordered an inquiry into the emergency, environmentalists warned that delays in shutting down the fire and leak would further harm the pristine waters off the northwest coast, which are home to whales and dolphins.

This handout photo provided by PTTEP Australasia shows the West Atlas drilling rig and the Montara wellhead platform before the relief well intercept, with gas, oil and water cloud, some 250 kilometres (155 miles) offshore on November 1, 2009 (AFP photo)

The West Atlas rig caught fire Sunday during the latest attempt to stop the leak, which has dumped thousands of barrels of oil into the Timor Sea since it began leaching into the water on August 21.

The rig’s operator, PTTEP Australasia, said stopping the leak was the only way to extinguish the blaze engulfing the deck and well head platform some 250 kilometres (155 miles) off the coast. It will launch another attempt Tuesday.

“The best and safest way to stop the fire is to ‘kill the well’ by pumping heavy mud into the leaking well,” PTTEP director Jose Martins said.

“The mixture of heavy mud is designed to backflow along the leaking well, stopping the flow of gas and oil at the surface of the H1 well, cutting off the fuel source for the fire at the well head platform.

“This should kill the well and should stop the fire.”

Resources and Energy Minister Martin Ferguson said the accident, the first on such a scale in 25 years of offshore drilling, had “clearly had an impact on the standing of the oil and gas industry in Australia”.

“And I simply say that once the well is filled, the platform is made safe, I will conduct a full and independent enquiry to actually assess the cause of the incident and the manner in which it has been handled over the last 10 weeks.”

A cameraman who flew over the site said the inferno was the biggest fire he had ever seen.

“It was so big we went round it two or three times, and in the end I just put the camera down and I just looked out the window and was awestuck by this thing,” Stephen Cavenagh told Sky News.

Environmental groups have criticised the government’s handling of the spill, saying it is threatening bird and marine life off Western Australia’s resource-rich north coast.

“We are ranking it as a major environmental disaster,” John Carey, a spokesman for the global Pew Environment Group, told AFP, adding that oil was a slow and silent killer for many marine species.

The area was a “marine superhighway for species moving in and out of the region so it’s an area of global importance,” he said.

“In terms of the greater northwest region, you are looking at up to almost one quarter of dolphins and whales in the world in this area.”

Environmentalists such as WWF Australia’s Ghislaine Llewellyn, who spent three days surveying the site, said the size and duration of the oil slick posed a high risk to marine and bird life in the area.

Llewellyn said in many cases there would be no dead animals lying on the water surface or washing up on to beaches because they would sink to the bottom if mired in the slick.

“Operating in a remote situation doesn’t exempt the need for appropriate standbys, safeguards, backups all being to hand,” she told AFP.

The Australian Marine Conservation Society said it hoped the government’s inquiry would force the industry to improve its management of such accidents.

“We don’t know why this disaster happened and we need to understand that to prevent this happening again in the future,” the society’s director, Darren Kindleyside, told state radio.

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Today it snowed. It reminded me of the copy game that kids play. You know where one kid mimics the other and the first kid says “stop copying” and the second kid says “stop copying”. They are similar in that there is no end, it get’s old really, really fast and someone needs to be punched in the face. Fortunately there was no punching today. It just snowed and snowed and snowed. In every way I should have stayed home. I got to work and shoveled the floor. Then shoveled the boardwalk. Then warmed all the tools in my truck for an hour. The rest of the day was a combination of removing fresh snow from pencil markings, draining the cold compressor to let the generator kick in, re-shoveling the floor, building a temporary tool shelter, changing frozen air lines, trying to remember where you put a tool down that is now buried (some stuff I will find next spring), dumping snow out of my pouch, taking gloves off to snap a chalk line, parking frozen air tools in front of the generator exhaust, looking for beams and joist delivered yesterday (now just unrecognizable humps) and slipping off an icy beam (8 feet up, grabbed it on the way down to slow the fall). That was just weather related stuff. I discovered this week that my basement windows don’t fit unless I put in a smaller header, my office floor won’t work unless I drop my the playroom beam, I over poured the foundation where I should have bucked it down for stairs and now have to pay to have it cut out and removed (150 lbs per cubic foot for a grand total of 3150lbs of concrete to go) and my foundation waterproofing membrane is leaking at the form tie holes.
Oh that feels so much better to say it all in a big lump like that. Now I can get over it and move on to tomorrow.
This is what happens around here. Every winter the hardware stores sell hundreds of snow shovels on days like this because, for some reason, we didn’t see it coming. Unfortunately, I wasn’t ready and so now when I build I get to find a board, shake it off, clear a spot on the house and put it in. Well that is unless we get the forecasted rain which means I can add a “chip it free” to that scenario.

Came across this in a book I’m reading and thought it was great:

“A brother… committed a fault. A council was called to which Abba Moses was invited, but he refused to go to it. Then the priest sent someone to say to him, ‘Come, for everyone is waiting for you.’ So he got up and went. He took a leaking jug, filled it with water, and carried it with him. The others came out to meet him and said to him, ‘What is this, Father?’ The old man said to them, ‘My sins run out behind me and I do not see them, and today I am coming to judge the error of another.’ When they hard that they said no more to the brother but forgave him.”

Ibid., p. 117

Published today in Home and Garden blog is a article about the popularity of flat roofs and there use in new developments. We at London Flat Roofing LTD are seeing more destines coming though for flat roofs, flat roofs have numerous benefits over other roofs, cost being the main factor a new flat roof structure and covering will cost up to 40% less that a pitched roof, they also save space and if designed correctly they can be used as a green roof or a garden or balcony area.  Repairs to a flat roof are now a thing of the past; the new flat roofing membranes we use such as EPDM rubber and Kemper are so good that they come with guarantees of up to 20 years. Mineral felt flat roofs and asphalt flat roofs are now becoming a thing of the past because of the environmental impact of striping them and land fill and the fact that they use a naked flame to lay them (now frowned apron on most new developments)

One of the big factors that will come into play over the next 20 years is solar energy, already we have to insulate the roof to part L of the building regulations (please refer to my site for more info on this) so your roof will keep the cold in in the winter and the heat out in the summer, design the flat roof correctly and you will also be able position hot water solar panels on the roof to supplement your energy usage.

zamtimzz

September was a crazy busy month here on the Prairie.  We started another semester with DH teaching and me working on campus; and the adjustment back to “regular” after a wonderful summer took a little getting used to.  But we made it through!

Unfortunately, we can’t say the same for our house.

Don’t freak out, our house is still standing – praise the Lord!  ’Cuz it was close there, for a moment  - but it definitely took a bit of a beating.  Not intentional, of course.

Our house is over 100 years old, so you’d kind of expect it to be full of issues and ready to fall apart.  But sadly, most of the, shall we say, “issues” had to do with more modern conveniences.

I think it all originally started with the dishwasher, or so we thought.

As you can see from this picture, it’s not exactly hip and modern.  The thing is probably a good 15 years old, at least.  In dishwasher years, I’m pretty sure that’s close to death.  Because this thing is loud and clunky and smelly.

One happy day, we noticed a nice puddle of water around the base of our beloved elderly DW.  It seeped a bit into our basement and it was wet for a little while.  Deep down inside, I cheered a bit.  I would love to get a new one, and this was just the thing that needed to happen so that we could kick this old fogey to the curb.

But it didn’t happen again.  Bummer.

However, the DW did, for some reason that we still can’t figure out, retain water at the end of the cycle.  There would be about an inch of standing water in the bottom of the basin at the end of each completed cycle, and it would just sit there. And eventually, it was rank. Super duper gross.  The only way to get rid of it, was to find some random teeny tiny part of the cycle on the dial that drained the water (somewhere in the middle of the cycle) and have the DW do it again.  Very high-tech.

So I’m not sure if you would say that our DW is completely kaput, but it’s definitely on it’s last legs.  After the 83rd time messing with the draining water issue, I finally told DH that the DW is the first appliance we’re replacing.

And then we both agreed that we’d wait until our home warranty is up before we buy any appliances

Because the HW is how we got the new garbage disposal that also broke this month.  More on that in part 2.  (There’s going to be 4 parts, because yes, we did have THAT much go wrong…just you wait!)

These days books, DVD’s, and gyms all promote Core strengthening programs. But despite a mom’s best efforts, her Core may not actually be playing along due to the lingering changes brought on by pregnancy (even pregnancies from long ago). Find out if your Core can pass our quiz.

1. Does your belly pooch out while you are doing crunches?

If a bulge resembling a small pup tent seems to form on your abdomen with each rep, then not only is your Core not strengthening but its off practicing Kumbaya. The TA (a.k.a. Transversus Abdominis) is your deepest abdominal muscle and one of your four Core muscles. The job of the TA is to stabilize the spine and pelvis, cinch the waist, and flatten the abdomen. If the TA is active in a crunch, the abdomen would flatten or descend slightly before the crunch begins. As you complete the crunch with the TA engaged, the abdomen will remain taut with some skin folds, but no more campsite on your belly.

2. Do you leak while exercising?

You wish it was just sweat, but deep in your heart you’re bummed because you know what it really is. Everyone leaks after a kid or two, right?? Wrong! The pelvic floor (your Kegel-ing muscle) is another of your four Core muscles. The pelvic floor stabilizes the pelvis, controls leaks, and helps the rest of the Core work at its best. A weak pelvic floor is a sign of a sleepy Core. Closing and lifting your pelvic floor before a rep will make your sweat-only wishes come true.

3. Are you holding your breath to complete even light resistance activities (pulling on your spandex shorts, bending over to tie your runners, lifting your gym bag into your locker, etc.)?

Breath-holding is a built in mechanism that allows us to lift big things, like refrigerators and VW bugs. If you find yourself holding your breath to get out of the car in the gym parking lot or to open the gym door, your diaphragm (another of the four Core muscles) has forgotten that it has another job beyond the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide. The diaphragm plays a huge role in stabilizing the spine and activating both the TA and the pelvic floor. Exhaling with exertions, even small ones, is a good start. Adding a two-count exhale before you begin a rep will link the work of the diaphragm with the TA and Pelvic floor.

4. Does your back feel fragile, like it might snap?

If a back spasm is always lurking, waiting for a misstep, a slipped grip, or a funny twist, your Core is out to lunch. Research has shown that at the onset of low back pain, the TA stops working properly. In addition, the fourth Core muscle called the Multifidus tends to go MIA in the presence of spine pain or injury. The job of the Multifidus is to stabilize each segment of the spine. Finding and strengthening this powerful muscle will help put those lurking spine demons to rest.

5. Are you frustrated by your lack of results at the gym?

If, despite your best efforts and hard work, you have lost all your baby weight but your belly still hangs over the top of your jeans,  your cute bum has disappeared, and your bra size (not cup size, unfortunately) has gone up since kids, then a sleepy Core may be the culprit. The job of all the Core muscles is to activate together before any movements begin in order to stabilize our center (the spine and pelvis). This creates a central anchor, so exercising muscles have something sturdy to pull against. A sturdy center promotes correct form so that exercising muscles maximally strengthen and tone. Your muscles will perform at their best, and you will look your best.

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions,  than a Core makeover may be in order.

A decade of new research has helped us gain new understanding of the critical role that the Core plays in the issues that plague mommies and their pursuit of a return to fitness. Interior fitness is dedicated to helping moms regain their sturdy center again through very specific Core restoration programs, contact julie@interiorfitness.com for more info.

someone call a medic! i’m leaking coloured ink. or ice cream. i actually havent decided what it is yet, but i do love ice cream. and i do eat alot. and i do eat enough to put me into a coma. and id need a medic. so. ice cream it is!

Air escapes through every hole and crack in your home. Warm air leaking into your home during the summer and out of your home during the winter can waste a lot of your money. One of the quickest and cheapest dollar saving tasks you can do is caulk, seal, and weather strip all seams, cracks, and openings to the outside. 

 Tips for Sealing Air Leaks:

1- First, test your home for air tightness.  On a windy day, carefully hold a lit incense stick next to windows, doors, electrical boxes, plumbing fixtures, attic hatches, and other locations where there is a possible air path to the outside.  If the smoke streams horizontally, you’ve located an air leak that may need caulking, sealing, or weather-stripping.

2- Caulk and weather strip doors and windows that leak air.

3- Caulk and seal air leaks where plumbing, ducting, or electrical wiring penetrates through walls, ceilings, and soffits over cabinets.

4- Install foam gaskets behind outlet and switch plates on walls.

5- Look for dirty spots in your insulation, which often indicate holes that allow air leaks.  You can seal the holes with low-expansion spray foam made for this purpose.

6- Look for dirty spots on your ceiling paint and carpet, which may air leaks at interior wall/ceiling joints and wall/floor joists.  These joints can be caulked.

 7- Use foam sealant around larger gaps around windows, baseboards, and other places where  air may be leaking out.

 8- When you’re not using your fireplace, keep the flue tightly close.  Inflatable chimney balloons are designed to fit beneath your fireplace flue during periods of non-use.  They’re made from plastic and can be removed easily and reused hundreds of times.

About one-third of leaking air infiltrates through openings in your ceilings, walls, and floors.   Take a Saturday morning to check your air leaks – it will be well worth your time and savings on your next electricity bill.

Check out my recently published content on AC:

Gorilla Glue Proves True

Just when you thought it was safe to set up your NFL fantasy league roster...

Okay, so Brett Favre is retired, or re-retired, or un-unretired or whatever you want to call it. And for now things seem pretty luke warm on the Michael Vick front too. So we’ve heard the last of Favre and Vick may have to head over to CFL right? Right? Wrong. There’s a good chance you’ll still see both players in an NFL uniform this season and all either of them have to do is wait. The NFL is brutal game, in which men (often) weighing in excess of 300 pounds collide frequently, and sometimes at world class speeds. This of course leads to injuries, and plenty of them. Quarterbacks will be injured this season. And Brett Favre and Michael Vick’s phones will be ringing. In fact it’s not unheard of for a team to lose their first, and second string quarterback. Owners and General Managers might not want to touch Michael Vick now, but when they’re staring down the barrel of handing the keys to the multi-million dollar Ferrari that is their NFL franchise to some fresh-faced, third string kid, straight out of college, they may want to reconsider. And what about the Vikings? Brett Favre has made it clear that he doesn’t know if his body can take the pounding of a full NFL season, but with Brett you gotta read between the lines. He never said anything about whether it could take half an NFL season, did he? So if Tavarus tanks, or gets injured, you may see Brett Favre come running through the Vikes tunnel like Willis Reed in the 1970 NBA Finals.

So for now these two are a no go, but stay tuned. I have the feeling we’ll be seeing them both out there on the astroturf before the season’s over.

Quick Bits:

More problems in Baseball: So now that the supposedly anonymous steroids test of ‘03 is leaking player names one by one from the list of positive tests, there are quite a few out there (Hank Aaron among them) who are suggesting that they just publish the entire list and have done with it. I personally can’t make a case for it, as much as I’d like to see the list and get all this nonsense over with. It’s one thing for anonymous sources to leak  the list (no irony there huh?) but it’s another thing entirely for the league, after promising the test would be anonymous, to go forth and release it. There are ethics at stake here, and even though the list seems anything but anonymous at this point, being unable to protect the anonymity of it’s players is still a lesser crime than intentionally exposing them. No matter what you or I might like as fans, Major League Baseball’s hands are tied on this one.

Prince Perturbed by pitcher’s plunking: It seems Prince Fielder took umbrage to being hit again this season by an intentionally errant pitch. He seemed calm enough right after the event but after game he reconsidered and made a bee line for Dodgers locker room. I for one don’t blame him. They threw at him because the Brewers pitcher grazed Manny Ramirez with a pitch, but at the end of the day I feel that the notion of getting hit with a baseball at speeds that can exceed 100 mph and not doing anything about it is ridiculous. Now maybe I just don’t understand the game, or the unwritten rules or the subtle nuances of America’s past time. But I do understand being a man. And when one man hits another, especially with a weapon, the offending male should prepare to defend himself. I don’t care about the unwritten rules of baseball. Man law supersedes baseball rules. And I’m sorry, but man law clearly states that when stricken with a hard spherical object with any velocity greater than what is considered “playful” the offended party is authorized to administer a sound beating. But just to get everything straight, Baseball should clear all this up by forcing every pitcher to get into the batter’s box. I think when they are no longer allowed to hide behind the pitcher’s mound, hurler’s league wide will develop a natural reluctance to strike their fellow man.

Is Eli worth it? The details of Eli Manning’s new contract extension have been released and he’ll make a cool 97.5 million over the next six years. Prompting the ever popular question. Is he worth it? Well the answer is no, probably not. But here’s a fun fact: The only two guys ahead of Eli in salary (according to ESPN) are Julius Peppers and Carson Palmer, in that order. Now, I don’t think if  you polled 100 people, or even a dozen you would get a consensus that those are the two best players in the league. But they make the most money, and now Manning is right behind them. As the late great, Pistons coaching legend Chuck Daly once said: It’s not what you’re worth, it’s what you can negotiate for.

Is Your Basement Leaking?
You may not need to pay an expensive contractor to install a drainage system into your basement. If your house is older, you may need a simple solution.
http://www.associatedcontent.comarticle/1911770/is_your_basement_leaking.html

Truck left hanging off Gateway Motorway after crash | The Courier-Mail.

Before I had my first baby I created a breast feeding arsenal and filled it with every imaginable tool I’d ever need including tubes of Lansinoh, nursing bras, a nursing bracelet to keep track of feedings, and boxes of traditional, bulky nursing pads. Just days before my daughter was born I heard about a product called Lilypadz. Hedging my bets and wanting to make my intro into breast feeding as painless as possible (Ha! AS IF!) I bought a pair and threw them into my handy box of nursing supplies too.

It’s a good thing I did. My breast feeding experience would have been a whole lot less pleasant without Lilypadz. I did try traditional nursing pads because I had some on hand but I hated the bulky, scratchy pads because they leaked, chafed and make me look like Madonna during her unfortunate cone-bra experiment.

But once I used Lilypadz, I never went back to traditional nursing pads. Why would I? Lilypadz are comfortable, reusable and, most importantly, effective. And as any nursing mom who’s had an embarrassing breastmilk leak in public knows, effectiveness in a breast pad is worth its weight in gold.

Lilypadz adhere, gently, to your skin and halt the flow of breastmilk. They keep your breasts from leaking and, because your nipples aren’t sitting in soaking wet cotton for hours on end, there’s no chafing either. 

Lilypadz are reusable so, at $25 per pair, you end up saving money in the long run because you don’t have to keep buying disposable nursing pads. I got at least 4-5 months of wear out of each pair I purchased. Lilypadz are also easy to clean: just wash them in hot, soapy water and dry them thoroughly after each use and be sure to boil them for a few minutes every few days. You’ll be amazed that their adhesive stays effective and holds up over several months of use.

Now, whenever my friends get pregnant, Lilypadz is my go-to baby shower gift!

Lilypadz are available in our store and online at Bloom Maternity.

Madonna image courtesy of OC Register. 

This package design was submitted to the Die Line (the comments on this project are worth the visit!) by a student of design in Israel, at first I was impressed with the cute bottles and bright logo…but something was wrong…whats that stuff leaking out? I don’t know how they did this, but that blobby glob is part of the packaging…and its packaging for yogurt. Somehow this dosen’t say yummy delicious yogurt…to me it says don’t pick me up, I’m broken…and probably sticky. I like the shape though, its looks more like packaging for a toiletries/cosmetic product…with lotion squirted on it…