fight 2 type

Three crazy gringos.

2011-11-19T13:23:00.001-05:00

Recently, Will and the Pink Princess came to visit me in CR. While we suffered many transportation set backs we managed to have a pretty amazing time. On Wednesday, they were due to arrive at 11:50am. I was regularly checking the American Airlines website for flight updates and was a little nervous, knowing that they had a tight connection in Miami, and of course their first flight had left late. I get the text saying they are on the ground in Miami and just reply, "RUN!" They arrive at the gate, plane still sitting there, and 7 minutes to spare, only to be told they cannot board. I'm going to end that part of the story there, and not rant about how incredibly stupid it is that they weren't allowed on the flight because their last flight was late, not because of anything they had control over. STUPID!!

When they finally arrived at 5pm and all of our plans for that afternoon were shot, I showed them around my (at the time) current place of employment and then we headed across the street to show them my work crew's normal Friday night watering hole. I figured it was a good time to introduce them the local beer. We then headed to house for homemade chifrijo with the fam.

The next morning, we got up way too early and started the drive to Manuel Antonio. Sadly, the transportation issue continued and we hit nasty morning rush hour traffic. Then, we passed a bike race (which was actually really cool to see up close) which caused traffic to grind to a halt as the cyclists blasted by in the other lane. When we finally arrived at the park, we had less than an hour before we are supposed to be at the marina for our sail boat. So, we ditched the hiking plan, found some food, and headed to the marina.

We hop on the boat with about 20 other people and head out to sea. The boat crew immediately starts passing out beverages ("happy juice") and we enjoy our drinks and the view while desperately trying to stay under the awning to avoid being soaked by the rain which was totally logical given that we were going snorkeling later). On the plus side, I did get some good pics. Though, the pictures can't begin to do justice to the awesomeness of waves crashing on the rocks.

Just off the Quepos Marina....

.... taken from the boat...

....these pictures don't it justice.

After some sailing, dolphin sightings, several rounds of "happy juice" and some snorkeling we made our way back to the dock, changed clothes and headed to the beach house. Having missed hiking in the park (a.k.a. "monkey sighting" time), we got up early again the next morning an drove back to Manuel Antonio to meet our guide (who I had talked to the day before in the parking lot and called later to set up a tour - thus MOSTLY proving to Will that, I do indeed speak Spanish) for a private tour of the park. Here's what we saw...

DO NOT TOUCH!

Playa Manuel Antonio

Armadillo!

Super cool lookin' lizard.

Didn't realize until a couple shots in that this guy had a friend with him. Two for one!!

We saw several of these guys....

... but they were always very high in the trees and hard to get good shots of.

Pretty butterfly that was not cooperating. This is the best shot I could get of its pretty blue wings.

Lizard hanging out in the hole of tree.

Pretty bird!

Lizard

Tiny little crab!

These little caterpillar type things were hanging ALL OVER the place. Couldn't have begun to count them.

Took our guide quite some time to find this guy. We were starting to get a little annoyed and ready to move on, but glad he was persistent because this little guy was pretty cute!

Porcupine Tree (Somehow I feel like that's not the scientific name, but rather the name tour guides use for dumb gringos)

Because we never see raccoons in Indiana.

Lizard

Best shot I could get of the Howler Monkey (or Congo). But we did get to hear them howling a little which is actually the more impressive part of this monkey.

Super cute dude who decided to pose for me. Thanks monkey!

Adorable little pair.

Going for a stroll.

I need a snack!

These little guys were adorable and fast!

We got really lucky...

...A couple of them came down really close....

And we were able to get some great pics!

We headed back to the beach house for some of my Tica Mom's delicious homemade ceviche and then drove down to the beach for what was SUPPOSED to be time to relax and swim. After chilling on the beach for a little bit, we decided it was time to get in the water. I've been to this beach many many times and it's usually fairly calm. That day I was a little bummed I didn't bring the surf board down, because there were actually some waves for once. We splashed around for a while body surfing in the waves. At one point a huge family of evil little pizotes (there were easily 15-20 of them) came down threatening to steal our stuff. Pink Princess and I ran from the water to the beach to scare them away before anything disappeared. Will supervised from the water... thanks Will!

We headed back into the water for a bit but finally decided to get out to go for walk along the beach. Again, the waves were pretty strong... Pink Princess and I were walking in when a strong waves came. I jumped, but the force of the wave still knocked me to the ocean floor, which in that area was a little rocky. I came up from the water and had the following conversation with the Pink Princess..

Me: Is my back bleeding?

Pink Princess: No, is my face bleeding

Me: (turning to look at her) YES!! Yes it is!!

We head to the lifeguard station and wait as the lifeguard (who I'm pretty sure had NEVER seen blood in his life) and the other random beach employee try to open the bag of plastic gloves, clean the cut a little and proceed to tell Pink Princess that she will definitely need 2-3 stitches. We pack up our stuff hop in the car and after intense security clearance, manage to make it to the little nurses station. The nurse lady cleans it up a bit explaining how to care for it (all in Spanish) while the Pink Princess stares at me waiting for the translation, terrified that we are going to have to go to a hospital to get stitches. As I suspected, no stitches required, just a nice bruised and cut to make the pictures for the rest of the trip extra sexy. (Need permission from Pink Princess to post the damage, it's just mean if she doesn't approve).

We head back up to the beach house and decide it's probably a good idea to take it easy the rest of the afternoon. (Beach run canceled due to Pink Princess face plant!) That evening we have dinner at Los Amigos and head to Le Loft. Pink Princess was (of course!) super excited to "go out" in CR. I could write a whole post about Le Loft, but since this post is already forever long, I'll sum it up like this... If wish you to be the most swankified place in town, bathroom attendants are a good idea, so well done. However, a better idea would be toilet seats!!!

Will, enjoying the sunset and fresh air.

Sunset at the beach house.

The next morning we take it easy and eventually hike down to a different beach with lots of rocks and gorgeous crashing waves.

We finally get on the road on start making the trek up to Arenal. We get to the hotel after a loooong stressful and treacherous drive and they do in fact have our reservation (impressive because I booked it by giving a guy I met on the side of the street my credit card number to make me the reservation - Will totally believes I speak Spanish now!) We spend the evening relaxing in the hot springs sipping on a couple cervezas and call it a night.

Arenal Volcano. This was the view from the balcony of our room.

The next morning we headed to the zip lines, where they did NOT have our reservation (even though I booked that with a travel office - apparently guy on the side of the road is the way to go with reservations) but luckily were able to get us in.

Then it was back to San Jose, with a couple stops on the way for Queso Palmito and other road side deliciousness.

We managed get a little souvenir shopping done in my favorite market and to swing up to visit "base" where I would soon be working an living and then headed back for dinner with family. The next morning was a super early day to catch their flight home. It sucked to say goodbye, but we had a blast.

So... who's coming next?!?

Getting Settled

2011-04-10T19:34:00.004-04:00

After three weeks, I'm finally really getting settled in. I signed up at the gym today. Last week I put a down payment on a car and will get it on Tuesday. Wednesday I'm meeting with a friend who is a doctor to find out if there is anything I can do about my stupid calf. And Thursday I'm meeting with a trainer at the gym so they can do all those terrifying fat measurements and stuff.

Work is going pretty well. I keep myself busy sifting through binders and electronic files and stuff just trying to get everything in order so that I can actually find things when I need them. In the next week or so we should be moving to the new building. I'm very excited about this as there are showers at the new building which will make it really easy for me to go for a run or bike ride during my 2 hours lunches.

Last weekend I participated in a 1500 meter open water swim in the ocean. I had a really great time even though my time was really slow. Arguably, I wasn't really in regular trained condition. One week before the race I swam 3000 meters in the pool, other than that, I hadn't really done any swimming in a few months. I was still a little bummed about the super slow time. Usually I'm not really looking at other people's times, but this time it actually made me feel better. In my age group I finished 11th out of 42. And also finished faster than over half the men in my age group. I was pretty pleased with that.

The gym I joined apparently has a triathlon group and a run club. I'm hoping to be able to join though I don't know that the 8-8 work schedule will really allow for it. Regardless, I'm just excited to finally be able to get back into a workout routine. I started breaking in a new pair of running shoes today on a 40 minute run. The hills and altitude are still a bit of an issue, but too terrible. Once I get going and am really into a routine I want to start training for a race again. The joy of living in the tropics - there's at least one race every month of the year!!!

The Big Girl Job - CR!

2011-04-09T16:18:00.003-04:00

So, I´ve officially been on the job for 3 weeks now. It´s been crazy but good. I currently have a team of 6 teachers, and will likely be hiring one more in who will start in May. I´ve been asked what my job is exactly, and well... it´s a little difficult to describe right now. My official title is Director of National Programs and Academics. It´s a big title and sounds really important, though I don´t know that I feel quite as important as it sounds. But I am enjoying myself, so that´s the important part.

My job, in short, is to manage the English program. There hasn´t really been anyone in this position for several months. As a result, right now I spend a lot of my time organizing. English classes go in one month cycles and at the end of each month the clients have a test or quiz. I take care of all the record keeping, creating schedules for the next month of classes, reviewing the evaluations that the clients fill out about their teachers, making sure the teachers get paid, making sure the clients pay for classes, all kinds of fun stuff.

I spend a lot of time speaking Spanish, which is fantastic! (Though I probably spend an equal amount of time speaking Spanglish which is less effective for improving my Spanish. My favorite moments are speaking Spanglish with other native English speakers.... this happens ALL THE TIME and really makes me laugh). The part of the job that I have yet to tackle, but am rather excited about, is growing the program. Right now we only have about 70 English clients (Peru has over 1100!!!!) The goal is for the program to have 300 clients by the end of 2012. This is my responsibility to make happen. Super excited about the challenge and what it will mean for my resume if I can actually make it happen. I also have little to no budget to make this happen, so we´re talking grass roots marketing methods... oh the challenges and creative opportunity that lies ahead!

Catch up post: the job

2011-03-15T21:01:00.004-04:00

Ever since class started here I've been sure to make it clear to both my instructor and the General Manager (one of the owners) here that I was interested in a position at Maximo in Costa Rica. I quickly found out that the CR Maximo is MUCHMUCH smaller than Cusco. I was kinda bummed, but was confident that I would find a teaching job somewhere as there are plenty of language schools in CR.

Right around the first of the month I sent my resume to the GM here to forward on to CR. The next day our instructor tells me that the GM in CR (another owner) called asking about TEFL students because they need a teacher. I was super pumped! So a couple days go by and I don't hear anything so I decide to send my resume and an email directly to the GM in CR to express interest in the job. I receive a reply, almost immediately asking if I can do a skype interview that day.

Later that evening I get the call on skype. I'm expecting a 20-30 minute conversation focusing primarily on how my TEFL class is going and if I have any other teaching experience. 30 minutes into the call we're still talking about my last job, and teaching hasn't even come up. He's also asked me about my Spanish skills and had me talk to him in Spanish for a few minutes.... even though Spanish is strictly forbidden in the classroom. Finally he asks, "So, are you looking for a teaching job, where you will have weekends free and can just kind of relax and enjoy CR? Or would you be interested in something more demanding." A bit taken a back, I reply, "well, I guess that would depend on the job." He then sends me a PDF with the job description for the Director of the National Program and Academics. After picking my jaw up off the ground I tell him that I would definitely be interested in this position.

We continue to speak for about another hour. He emphasizes that the hours are looooong and weekends are often involved. He expresses concern about how my family in CR will handle me working the long hours, asks about my family back home and the likelihood that in a few months I'll be home sick and ready to leave, asks about what happens if my house doesn't and all kinds of other things that he could never ask in the states. Finally, he says that he thinks this is all good and he would like me to talk to the GM here in Peru. I said that was fine and he replied, "You know where his office is right? He's ready for you now." YIKES!

So I hop up and head down for another 30-40 minute interview that seemed to go quite well. I had been told that there would be a 3rd interview with the GM from CR's wife (the 3rd owner) and that it would be in Spanish, and obviously via Skype or the phone. My Spanish is decent, but I HATE Spanish conversations on the phone, so I was pretty nervous.

The next week, I had my interview and actually thought I did alright. And then the waiting started. When I heard from the GM in CR I was told that they were going to check my references, but also send me an offer letter. The next day we talked again and I officially accepted the job. The offer letter spelled out some benefits that hadn't even been mentioned, like a cell phone and service, and reimbursement for my return trip to CR.

He also had me switch my ticket to a couple days later so that I could stay here and train with the directors here for a bit. So I started training this morning and will continue to the end of the week, flying home on Saturday. Today went well and I'm really excited about the job. Many other things have happened in the past week or so as well.... but those will need to wait for another post.

BIG GIRL JOB IN COSTA RICA!!!! SQUEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

Teaching.... not so bad.

2011-03-01T20:39:00.002-05:00

So, yesterday was my second mini lesson. It was way better than the first one. This was a vocabulary lesson, and we got to pick the topic. I decided it was time for my Peruvian friends to learn about football.... American style. I only had 20 minutes, so I was limited to about 4-5 words. I assumed they knew NOTHING about football, so we went super simple: helmet, shoulder pads, field, football and the possibility of also needing to teach "to protect" (but it turned out they knew that one already - which was what I was hoping for).

I was the last one in our group to go and since we observe everyone else, I had heard one of the students mention that he liked to play soccer. This was the perfect lead in for me. As we've been taught, I wrote my name and our objective "Football Vocabulary" on the board. Before I even finished writing "vocabulary," the same student was saying, "Wait! Football like soccer, or football like you watch in the United States?" (The student happens to be one of the security guards at the school and knows us all, so I had to give him a hard time.) "I'm talking about real football." Lots of laughing and poking fun ensued.

The lesson went great! All the stuff that I sucked at last time, I pretty much fixed this time, a couple slip ups, but HUGELY improved. Pretty much nothing but praise from the teacher this time. She, of course, still gave me a couple things to work on, but from the teaching technique aspect... I totally rocked it!!! YAY!!!!!!!! (of course, it's easy to be awesome when you're teaching football).

Today we went back to grammar! I'm living on the glory of yesterday's lesson because I'm terrified of Friday's lesson. Yes.... I have to teach grammar!! I haven't picked my subject yet, but I'm leaning towards comparative and superlative adjectives. I also have a grammar paper due on Friday, which might be more terrifying than teaching grammar. On the plus side, tomorrow is the last day we are working on grammar in class. I think after that we move on to using games to teach... MUCH better than grammar. Thursday we meet with the teacher we will be teaching for next week.

Monday starts our practical teaching week and we will be teaching real, paying, clients. We basically just take over one of the classes that is currently being taught at Maximo. So we have the same students, at the same time, everyday for one week. Our teacher will be there (not the person who usually teaches the class, but our TEFL instructor), but strictly for observation. We picked our classes today, and I'll be teaching Basico 2 (this is month 2 of the basic level, so while the ages of the students will be 16 year and up, they are all language babies.) I'm really excited. This is actually the level I wanted and the regular teacher is someone I observed last week. I thought he did a great job and I'm sure he'll be helpful in our meeting on Thursday. He just finished TEFL a couple months ago here, so he knows exactly what they will be looking for in observations.

Also, I ran into the Security Guard Student several times today and I'm slowly explaining important terms like quarterback, running back, receiver, tight end, and because he is confused about how the average person plays football - two-hand touch and flag football. He likes to give me a hard time about liking "United States Football" so while he was giving my a hard time I decided he need to learn another new word, and told him he was a "hott mess". HEHE!!! I crack myself up!!

A Photo Blog: Machu Picchu

2011-02-28T13:49:00.007-05:00

Breakfast menu on the train. Train travel is the way to go!!

Creepy crawler I noticed climbing a wall.

Return trip train snack!!

Grammar - uggggghhhhh!

2011-02-24T21:00:00.004-05:00

Today was the worst TEFL day ever. We started grammar. In high school I took an English class from a grammar pirate. We took the test and I did miserably. It counted for a large portion of our grade for the grading period, so if we did poorly we were given the opportunity to retake the exact same test one week later. During that week the teacher stayed after school every day for 2 hours to work with us. I went everyday. I took the test again... and did WORSE!!! Me + grammar = disaster. We spent the ENTIRE class today on grammar, and Tuesday and Wednesday will be the same (today and Monday are teaching days).

Quechu-what?!?!

2011-02-23T17:25:00.003-05:00

Super awesome day of class!!! Most of it was just standard class time, but after lunch, the tables were turned. Most people in the class speak some Spanish, some of us more than others. All of keep wondering what it is like that VERY first day when a student walks into an English class. They know NOTHING, and we're not allowed to use Spanish to help them. How does that work? Today we found, but from the student's perspective.

This afternoon we had about a one hour Quechua lesson. Quechua is a native language used in some areas of Peru. (Many of the people we met last weekend in Lake Titicaca spoke Quechua). That was certainly a fascinating hour!! I didn't learn Spanish using the same method we use to teach English, so this was truly a new experience. The teacher came in and just started speaking Quechua. I had no idea what he was saying! Couldn't really tell where one word stopped and the other started, but he seemed excited to teach us! Within the hour he had us asking one another "What's your name?" "Where are you from?" and "How are you?" AND RESPONDING!! Now.. I don't really remember any of it, but I could probably go back to my notes and get some words flowing. It was SO much fun and very insightful! I'm glad there is little to no chance that I will teach a beginner class anytime soon, but it was really interesting to get a feel for what the students feel like on that first day. WOW!!!

Random Cusco facts

2011-02-23T17:08:00.010-05:00

I started this blog a week or two after I got to Cusco. I´ve continued to add to it regularly and decided that since I´ve been gone for over a week now, it is probably time to post.

1. There are dogs roaming the street - everywhere - all the time. I've seen TONS of dogs, only counted 3 on leashes.

2. Have only seen 2 cats since my arrival.

3. You can buy DVDs (not exactly legal copies) for about a buck a piece on the "black market" - not nearly as scandalous as you think.

4. Sometimes you find a random chicken roaming the street.

5. Taxi's don't always have the nice little identifying "taxi" light on the roof.

6. Taxi's are not all the same color.

7. Taxi's do not have meters. Anywhere within the central area of Cusco (both the school and my house fall within this area) is supposed to be 2.50 Soles (this is written S/. 2.50 and is pronounced two-soles-fifty, which I find funny. This is just under $1) though sometimes the drivers try to get more. If you are going somewhere else, you just ask the driver what it will cost, and sometimes that rate is negotiable.

8. Sometimes they just turn off the water supply. On more than one occasion now, this has led to a conversation with housemates (keeping in mind we'd known each other a week!) in which one stated, "I guess if someone needs to take a dump, we should just dedicate a toilet for that."

9. Fireworks are ALWAYS appropriate. 4am on a Tuesday? Perfect!!!! 1am on Thursday? Why not!?!?

10. The sewer system lacks bit here. Toilet paper is NEVER thrown in to the toilet, but rather in the trash can!!!

11. Speaking of toilet paper... think more along the lines of very thin sandpaper...NOT Charmine.

12. Napkins are apparently very expensive here, as most restaurants have the paper napkins that are typically folded in 4ths, except you only get 1/4 of the napkin. I'm not sure if they are sold like this, or if they cut them, either way, super annoying.

13. Toilet seats, I'm pretty sure, cost more than diamonds. We have them at home and school, but most public bathrooms do not.

14. Few streets are paved.

15. Children of all ages walk the streets at all hours selling things like gum and handmade crafts.

16. One night, I saw a boy who couldn't have been more than 10 years old, walking down the street with a 40 in each hand.

17. The kids who run around on the streets selling stuff will ask you where you're from and then tell you the capitol and name of the president (or prime minister or whatever your country happens to have). I don't really know what they hope to accomplish by this.

18. You can buy a full meal for around $2-3. And that´s for a decent restaurant that you can be fairly certain you won´t get sick from. If you like to live dangerously, you can also find full meals for around a buck.

19. Cuy is one of the typical foods eaten in Cusco. If you own a guinea pig as a pet, I suggest you don´t look up the meaning of cuy. In one of the cathedrals there is a painting of the last supper in which cuy is being served.

20. You should never EVER pay for a rum and coke (cuba libre) at a club (discotech). If you do, you´re just dumb.

21. If you enjoy good beer, Cusco is not for you.

22. If you enjoy good wine, with rare exceptions, you should avoid Peruvian wines.

23. Cusco is swarming with gringos, yet Cusquenians rarely speak English. I only find this interesting, because here (in Costa Rica) the moment someone realizes you´re a gringo, they only want to speak to you in English (even if they only know 5 words).

24. In Cusco, they love their coca. Coca is a plant. They use it to make tea, put it in food, and even just chew on the leaves. It´s said to have all kinds of great medicinal qualities (I´m pretty sure they believe it will cure everything). It´s also what cocaine is made out of.

A TEFL Day

2011-02-22T20:24:00.002-05:00

Today was a loooong day, I don't think they are going to be getting shorter anytime soon. Class only goes from 9-4, but there is so much other stuff to do. Writing up the formal lesson plan and post-class notes for last week's class, preparing for Monday's class (my students will be learning about football -American Style!!!), observing 5 other teachers and writing the 5 corresponding papers, and of course just the daily reading assignments.

We actually had a workshop in class today, which was fun. These are different than our mini-lessons where we have to have a lesson plan and are teaching on our own (sink or swim) for 20 minutes. Today we had students come in again, but we were just working vocabulary. We each picked a word (charades style) out of cup and then had to teach it and concept check it. The whole class was there and could actually help out if we got stuck. I lucked out and got the word "hungry" which was pretty easy. It was really fun though. I wish we could of have done a few more words. I found myself catching my mistakes the first time I made them, and quickly adjusting. Still, I feel like I need a lot more practice to stop my stupid "echo-ing" habit. (In my defense, everyone does it, some of the teachers I've observed did it, and the teacher said it is very common). I just wish I had more time to practice before we start our practical teaching... two weeks from yesterday!

After class I started working on my plans for Monday's lesson. It will be a vocabulary lesson. I'll be teaching a few football related words like helmet, field, football, shoulder pads and protect. Kinda silly but should be fun. The students that come are really sharp and always have good questions and seem genuinely interested. I think they will enjoy the lesson.

I went down to the common area and started writing up the first of my observation papers. It's funny, now that we've been in the school a few days, the English students have seen us observing and some have come to the mini-lessons, they recognize us as "teachers" and have no problem asking for help when they are studying. As I was typing up my paper a guy I had never seen before leaned across the table and asked me for help understanding some words. It was kinda cool. While I wasn't using TEFL sanctioned methods to help, I also decided not to just translate the words for him. I had to laugh because after trying to describe the word "slum" to him I watched him write "barrio." Can't really argue!

Now I'm back at the house watching The Fighter with a couple of housemates. Should probably be reading or writing or planning... but my brain needs a break!

Island Hopping!

2011-02-21T13:14:00.013-05:00

I feel like I just crammed a weeks worth of experience into 2 days! Such a great weekend! At 9:30pm on Friday night a car came to pick up me and a couple other people in the house to take us to the bus station. We met up with the other 6 people from Maximo that were taking the trip, hopped on the bus and settled in for a six and half hour overnight bus ride to Puno. We arrived at about 4:30am and were greeted by rain and cold (note the mittens and hat I have on in later pictures). We were shuttled to hotel where we had about 3 more hours to sleep and grab breakfast (typical Peruvian breakfast of coffee and bread) before hopping on a bus for a short ride to the dock.

At the dock, our group of 9 and about 15-20 others climbed aboard a slow moving boat with a bilingual (actually, he spoke some French too) guide and starting heading to the islands. It was still pouring down rain when we started out and the guide suggested we alter the itinerary a bit, but lucky for us it clear up and we were able to make our first stop, as originally planned, to the floating reed islands of the Uru people.

Greeted by the Uru people as the boat comes in.

Adorableness!

This is what the islands are made of. We stepped off the the boat and onto a "ground" made of reeds that must constantly be replenished.

Reed house

Tiny homemade representations of island life. House on the left is the family house. The middle structure is where they cook when it's raining, the house on the right is the "suegra's" (mother-in-law's) house. And the little thing in the front is where they normally cook.

Uru people selling their hand made goods to our group

These guys were just hanging out on the island.

Large reed boat coming in to take people for a ride.

Another set of reed islands across from where we docked.

Reed houses

Adorableness!

Smaller reed boat coming in to take us on a ride.

On our little reed boat, ready for a loop around the islands.

The woman who took us on our reed boat ride.

Reed boat ride photo op!

Adorableness!

Saying goodbye to the reed islands!

Next we were off to Amatani, where we met our home-stay families. Most of us were greeted by the mother of the house. (In a conversation with the mother in our house, I found out that most of the men spend about 6 months out of the year working in factories in Lima because they just can't make enough money on the island. Farming and selling their handmade goods to tourists are their only means of income). We (myself and AussieChef - from my class) had about a 20-30 minute uphill hike in which we huffed and puffed the whole way, while the mother nearly sprinted up with an 8 month old baby strapped to her back.

Map of the island

When we arrived at the house (which I, sadly, did not have time to take pictures of) she made us lunch, DELICIOUS quinoa soup with all kinds of fresh, local, veggies and herbs that I couldn't identify, along with some cabbage salad, rice, and trout. (Yes, I ate the trout and actually rather enjoyed it). After lunch her husband (who will head to Lima in March) walked us up to the community center where some of the group played a little "futbol" with people who were there with a different tour group, and a few locals.

Adorableness!

Once we were all there, we started the trek up to the highest point on Amatani island to watch the sunset. Sadly, it was VERY cloudy, so the sunset wasn't actually visible, but the trip up and the hang out time at the top made for some great photo op time.

The Dentist (here with Maximo on a volunteer trip working in a clinic) strikes a pose in one of the many stone arches on the way to the top.

If I remember correctly, the land right behind me is actually Bolivia.

We made our way back down and met our families who fed us dinner and then helped us get into traditional clothing for to head to a fiesta.

SalsaGirl and the Officer's Wife in traditional clothing

AussieChef

The Dentist and The CrazyBrit

The band

AussieChef tears up the dance floor with our host dad.

Adorableness! This is actually the 6 year old from the house I stayed at. She was SUPER cute and fascinated by my hat, my nose-ring, and my flashlight. Seriously wanted to bring her home with me.

Locals. The woman who is standing next to the woman who is sitting is the mom from the house I stayed in.

Me and the adorableness from my house.

The next morning we had breakfast and then jumped back on the boat to head to Taquile island. It had poured all night and was still coming down pretty hard when we got on the boat. To say the water was choppy would be a huge understatement. The boat rocked in every direction for the entire hour it took us to get to the other island. I've never been sea sick before and managed to hold it together, but others weren't so lucky. By the time the boat docked we were all grateful to be on solid ground. We hiked to top where we had lunch, more trout, not as good as the stuff in the home-stay, and then climbed the over 500 treacherous steps back down to the boat.

At the top of Tequile getting ready to climb down.

The trip finished up with a 3 hour boat ride back to Puno. Luckily the water had calmed and I actually spent most of the trip sleeping and reading on the roof of the boat. We killed time eating and having a few drinks (I tried Peruvian wine! - not bad - fruitier than anticipated) before getting on the overnight bus back to Cusco.

Today I slept in, had breakfast, watched "Love and Other Drugs" took a LOOOONG piping hot shower and blogged. Now it's off to watch other people teach.

Settled in - and off we go!

2011-02-17T23:03:00.002-05:00

Wow! What a whirlwind couple of days. No sign of it slowing down anytime soon either. Wednesday morning we had our orientation, followed by about 2-3 hours of class, lunch, and a city tour. Class was actually pretty fun. We have a GREAT group. 9 in total. The teacher is really great too. You can tell that she really wants us to not only enjoy the course, but be successful.

We have a pretty diverse group. And I’m NOT the oldest one taking the course. Somehow we ended up with 2 people from Kansas and one from Kansas City, MO. Talk about random. At least two people are relocating to Peru and taking the course to help find a job (sounds familiar). We have an Aussie girl whose accent of course is awesome. She’s also a chef and has promised to make us all dinner for “graduation.” One guy is originally from Peru, lived most of his life in Oregon as an attorney and has come back to Peru to teach.

The city tour was pretty awesome, except that I thought it was going to be mostly a bus tour and wore new shoes… there was much more walking involved than I thought and I got blisters on my heels, but it was worth it. Cusco is beautiful. I will post pictures I promise, as soon as I have a chance to take some. I have figured out how to get from my house to school and back by foot and by cab. (If you know me, you know this is pretty impressive given I have NO sense of direction).

Today’s class was really good. It’s kinda crazy though. Many things are the opposite of what you think they should be. Teaching usually involves “lecturing” or “explaining.” The number one rule of ESL is “No explaining.” Which does actually make sense, because the people you are teaching don’t know English. The goal for a 1st year class is that the students actually do at least 60% of the talking in each class. 2nd year that goes up to 80%. We also are not allowed to translate, even if we know the word in the other language. Apparently in places like Korea and China they will sometimes record your classes and if you are caught using anything other than English, your job could be in jeopardy.

I do FINALLY know what my schedule is like. Tuesday through Thursday I have class from 9am – 4pm with one hour for lunch. Monday’s and Friday’s I will either have off or have to teach (I teach tomorrow and have Monday off. But that switches next week so I will have Friday off and teach Monday. So next week I technically only have 3 days of class.) Of course, I also have to observe 5 of the teachers currently teaching at the school and write a paper after each observation. I’ll also have a grammar paper to write (TERRIFYING!) and the last week I will still be attending classes on a regular schedule, but also teaching a one hour class everyday.

Today we got our assignment for our first teaching lesson. We are to teach the class to do something. Only 20 minutes, so, simple tasks. Our teacher did an example lesson today and taught us how to do the Hokey Pokey. I will be teaching the students how to make the most lame trail mix ever (peanuts, raisins and M&Ms). We’ll see how it goes. The worst that can happen is I suck, but at the end they have a snack. There will be 10 students in the class and they are high basic level English students. And again, no Spanish, and they do 60% of the talking.

The teacher and half my class will also be there, but strictly as observers. The other 4 class members that will be there will also do 20 minute lessons. When we have all taught, the students will leave and we will get feedback. Feedback will be directed individually, but given in a group setting. The feedback will not affect our grade in the class but is meant to help prepare us for our week of practical teaching.

I will likely not have internet for the next few days (starting Friday evening until Monday afternoon) because I am traveling to Lake Titicaca. More on that later. Now, to bed, gotta be on my game tomorrow.

Welcome to Cusco

2011-02-15T20:22:00.004-05:00

So yesterday I got to the airport the required THREE HOURS ahead of time. I paid my airport taxes and went to check in and the guy seemed really confused. He asked me if I had already checked in because the computer was saying something weird. I started to get a little concerned and then a woman came over and explained that my flight (originally set to go from San Jose to El Salvador, El Salvador to Lima, and then in the morning Lima to Cusco) was overbooked and they were looking for volunteers to take the direct to Lima flight that was leaving in 45 minutes. I quickly pondered the idea of 5 less hours on a plane and said, “Um, yes, I’d like to do that please!”

The nice woman rebooked me and called down to the plane to let them know I was coming. She handed me my ticket explaining that they would start boarding any minute, that I was at gate blahblah and “Oh, it looks like you’re in business class.” SCORE! I clear security in record time, stop to buy a coke and head to the gate. I settle into my large, cushy, ample leg room seat and immediately the flight attendant is asking if I would like something to drink. It just got better from there. Instead of a tiny bag of peanuts, I got assorted nuts that had been warmed and were served in a lovely ceramic bowl. I was given two options for my meal, which was served in real dishes with real silverware. And had a choice of desserts too!!! THAT is the way to travel.

I made it to Lima, changed some money and then found a pay to call the school’s travel office. Originally I had planned to hang in the Lima airport for the evening, but since I got there so much earlier, I had the school book me a room and caught a taxi to the hotel. The room was adorably tiny, but pretty perfect for what I needed for the night. Oh and the door used an actual key… not a key card!

I spent most my time in the restaurant where there was free wifi. I went out and walked around for a bit to kill some time. Decided to pop into a casino… I mean when the “penny” slots are actually 1 sole slots (about 1/3 of a cent) you gotta give it a shot! I came out up about 3 soles, BIG WINNER!

I headed back to the hotel, got some dinner, and stayed up too late skype-ing with some friends. My alarm went off at 3am and I stumbled into the shower and then headed to the airport. Did not have as good of luck with this flight. No window seats, which was tragic because what I could see around the 11ish year old boy (who thought the appropriate way to get in and out from his window seat was just to climb over me, rather than wait for me to move) sitting by the window was beautiful!

Landing in Cusco is something everyone should experience in their life. First of all, I’m pretty sure that the plane continues climbing for the entire hour flight from Lima to Cusco. Even when the pilot came on and said we were going to be landing soon, I’m pretty sure we were still going up! Eventually the pilot began taking a series of VERY sharp left turns (suddenly my view out of the window on the other side of the plane was awesome!!) We finally straighten out and I can feel the plane actually descending, though from what I can see we are completely surrounded by houses with nothing resembling an airport in sight (of course if that damn kid would sit still I would be able to see more!). We touch down and I swear come to stop within the distance of about a football (yes American football… haven’t been down here that long!) I make it off the plane (though the kid had to climb over me one more time, because it wasn’t good enough to just stand and wait in our row, he needed to move back one row with the rest of his family) and stood around for a while waiting to be picked up. I couldn’t find the guy (though apparently he was there) so eventually took a cab to the school.

They gave me a quick little tour and when the guy I couldn’t find at the airport got back to the school he brought me to the house. The house is about 5 minutes from the school by cab, or about a 20 minutes walk (I’m told). I think I’ve met everyone who is currently living in the house now. I think I’m the only one here for the TEFL course. Everyone else seems to be with the volunteer program (there are a few working in a orphanage, one teaching a class at a community center, and several volunteering at a medical clinic). Everyone else has been here about a week or longer, which is nice because they are kindly helping me out with important information – like how to get a hot shower! I have two roommates and am sleeping on a top bunk (awesome!). All together I think there are around 12 people living here, not including the staff (housekeepers and a cook – not sure if they live here or not).

We have wifi downstairs, a nice tv and a library of dvds. (One girl recently started watching Modern Family on DVD and because it’s a cloudy, rainy, chilly day most of the house joined in for at least portions of a short marathon). Everyone’s schedules are a little different because we aren’t all doing the same thing.

My orientation is tomorrow morning at 9am and then we have a city tour in the afternoon. There are two other “family houses” (hostel style) in town, so I’m assuming some of the other TEFL student are in those since they are not here. Though, some are probably doing home-stays as well, where they live with a local family.

My bed had a huge, thick, doubled over blanket that I’m pretty sure was made from llama or alpaca fur or something. Even with that and the big fluffy comforter it was kinda chilly when I took a nap after arriving. Obviously, I’ve survived many freezing winters back home, but there when it’s only 40-50 degrees we turn the heat on… no heater here! I’ve spent most of the day hanging out drinking lots of warm tea and coffee (though the coffee here is not as good as it is in Costa Rica).

House pics to come soon.

Life's a Beach... and I love it!

2011-02-13T19:42:00.005-05:00

What an awesome weekend! Got to the beach house late Friday night. Saturday morning we had Gallo Pinto for breakfast (classic Costa Rican breakfast, mixture of rice and black beans, cilantro and other various things for flavor, with a fried egg – YUM!). I then spent most of the day laying out on the patio reading and enjoying the sun. For lunch we had Arroz con Palmito (rice with heart of palm), in case you haven’t noticed, rice is a major staple in the food here.

Later I went for a run with PSUBoy and La Hermana (for those of you who are new to my blog, only animals are referred to by their real names, people have nicknames, to protect the guilty). It was an AWESOME run!! We started from the parking lot near the entrance to the beach and ran up the road a little bit before cutting down a path to the beach. The tide was going out so the sand was still wet and a little more solid to run on. There were a few rocks to be carefully maneuvered, and eventually we actually climbed up over and then back down a small wall of rocks, mud and tree branches to the other side of the beach.

Once we got to that side there were less rocks but more “streams” (I’m sure there is a technical term for this, but basically there were areas, about 2-3 feet wide where the sand dropped down just a few inches allowing a steady stream of water to flow in). Because the “streams" weren’t very wide we just jumped over them, trying to avoid having soaking wet shoes. Of course, I’ve never been terribly graceful, so at one point I come up to a stream and plant my left foot to push off, but instead the sand sinks down to the level of the other sand and my foot gets soaked! So now I officially have a pair of “beach running shoes.” Oh and special thanks to La Hermana who was about 3 feet behind, saw the whole thing, and cracked up laughing until she had to stop laughing because she couldn’t run, laugh, and breathe all at the same time.

PSUBoy led the way as we cut back up a path onto one of the main roads. For my fellow runners, it should be noted that, especially here at the beach, “roads” don’t necessarily imply asphalt. These are more like brick, so instead of watching for potholes, you have to constantly be watching for a brick that has decided to pop up a bit higher than the rest. By the time we got back to the car I had worked up a nice sweat, but was still feeling great. Perfect run!

Last night we drove down to Jaco to a place called Los Amigos for dinner. Not only was the food delicious, but they were playing Showtime’s Strikeforce (MMA fights) and I got to watch a few AMAZING fights. Then to make it even better, my favorite female fighter, Gina Carano (okay... that's her real name... I guess "celebrity type people" don't need protection), made an appearance announcing that she would be returning soon! SWEET!! When we got back to the house La Hermana and I headed out to the balcony to enjoy the beautiful night and a glass of wine. The moon was amazing and I managed to snap this shot (a little blurry because I didn’t have a tripod, but I still love it!)

And in case you’re curious, here are some pictures of the beach house.

From the balcony, this is the road leading to the house, and yes, the pool is on the patio.

View from the balcony

Patio and pool, as seen from the balcony

Balcony (and La Hermana)

One of the bedrooms

Master Bedroom

Living room

Kitchen

Amazing View

The Pool

The Patio

Now for dinner, and shoving the last few things in my bag. Apparently I can't read a calendar. I've had it in my head for over a month now that I was flying to Peru on Tuesday, but I'm actually flying out tomorrow.... OOPS!!

Where am I exactly?

2011-02-11T16:45:00.002-05:00

It’s come to my attention that many people are a bit unsure and curious about where I actually am, what it’s like here, what I’m doing etc. If you are curious about these things, this post is for you.

At this moment I’m sitting on the back patio of the house where I will likely be living for the next couple years. The family I’m living with is the same family I spent most of my 1999 exchange student year with. The house and family are both nothing short of incredible (pics to come later) and I feel completely at home here. The house itself is located in the province of San Jose, Costa Rica. The city, Curridabat (commonly referred to as Curri), is somewhere between 30 and 45 minutes from downtown San Jose, the capitol. Costa Rica is directly north of Panama and directly south of Nicaragua. It is bordered by coasts to the east and west and is currently on Central Time (if I remember correctly, they do not observe daylight savings time so will switch to mountain eventually, but I could be wrong about that). The country itself is about the size of West Virginia (at least, I'm pretty sure that's what I remember reading years ago when I was studying up on it).

The province of San Jose is located almost smack in the middle of the country and makes up most of the “Central Valley.” Around the Central Valley are gorgeous, plush, teeming with life mountains. Beyond the mountains to both the east and west are virtually never ending coastlines. Depending on the area of the country you are in beaches can be white sand, black sand, or just your average tan-ish sand. In just a few hours I will be heading to Punta Leana, where my family owns a beautiful beach house that I will be chillin’ at for the weekend.

To answer a specific question I was asked, the government is indeed stable here. Costa Rica actually disbanded their military many many years ago (I want to say in the 1940s) and as result is one of the most advanced and most peaceful nations in this area of the world. As a result of being super awesome, they are subject a lot of illegal immigration from other countries in the area, particularly Nicaragua. There is currently a small border issue going on between Nicaragua and Costa Rica. (According to my Tico Mom, GoogleMaps had the border in the wrong spot and apparently Nicaragua decided that meant that the border should be where Google said it was, so they are trying to claim part of Costa Rica’s land. At least that’s the way I understood it – still working the Spanish skills).

Tuesday (Happy Valentine’s Day!) I’ll be leaving Costa Rica for a month to go to Peru. During that month I will be taking a class to get certified to teach English as a second language. The school I’m attending is in Cuzco, Peru. Cuzco’s altitude is about 10k-11k feet. While I’m there I will be staying in the school’s “family house.” While I obviously don’t really know what that means, the website describes it as a hostel style home, exclusively for Maximo Nivel (the school) students and volunteers. They usually have around 10-15 people staying there and rooms are shared by 2-3 students. I’ve been told that the food in Peru is amazing and am looking forward to the 3 meals/day provided at the family house.

There is apparently a train that goes from Cuzco to Machu Picchu, so I am looking forward to taking that trip in my spare time. I really have no idea how my time will be structured while I’m in Peru, but I’m hoping to get to see other parts of the country as well.

Internet access is pretty spotty at the beach house, so I don’t know that I will be able to post again until Sunday or Monday, but as requested, I will take lots of pics of the beach house and get them posted. I will also plan to post plenty from Peru, as the school has wifi available. Pics of the house will probably come when I get back from Peru and am a little more settled in here. I am really going to try to keep this blog thing going this time (I know… I always say that!). Questions and comments are always welcome and help keep my brain on posting.

I have finally downloaded Skype (though have yet to test it). I don't really want to post my user name on here, so if you want to set up a skype date, email me or send me a message on fb. If you have my gmail address, my user name is the same as the address up to the @. Now, my kindle and the hammock in the back yard are both calling my name.

A Photo Blog: Backyard Life

2011-02-10T19:21:00.010-05:00

This post is mostly for my dad, but I hope you all enjoy.

The lovely Matilda (Mother of Oscar and Stella) munching on some berries.

Stella (Oscar's sister) eating berries.

Chapter One...

2011-02-10T19:19:00.001-05:00

I’m currently on a plane headed to Costa Rica. I can’t believe this is finally happening. Since last April I’ve been talking about moving back to CR and it’s actually happening…. RIGHT NOW!! The last couple weeks have been nothing short of insane. Moving my stuff to Kdog and the Doctor’s basement. Moving Will’s stuff to his new apartment. Trying to spend time with everyone. Cleaning the house and getting stuff together to get it on the market. But none of that matters anymore. I’m on a plane headed south in the middle of a wretched winter. Life is pretty awesome right now.

Perhaps even more exciting is in a week when I fly down to Peru. I’ll spend a month there getting certified to teach English as a second language, then hopefully find a job teaching in CR. Kinda can’t help but laugh at the idea of me teaching, but I guess if you look at my family, it was doomed to happen. I’m fascinated by the program. They haven’t really given me a lot of info, so I have no idea how my days will be structured or anything. I will be doing several hours of actual teaching before the course ends. Apparently there is also an individual project component, but again, have no idea what that entails.

I can’t wait to see Peru. I find it hard to believe I could love anywhere in Latin America the way that I love Costa Rica, but Peru certainly seems to have a lot to offer. CAN’T WAIT!!!

……

I’m actually here! Got home and pretty much crashed on Tuesday night. Woke up and had fresh strawberries, coffee and bread for breakfast… AWESOME! Played fetch with Stella in the back yard for a little while and then went for a run. I know I haven’t really worked out AT ALL in the last couple months, so I was prepared for it to be a rough run, but add the altitude and hills… YIKES! To top it off my nano was completely dead so it was a music-less run. But I got to run in a tank top instead of layers, and the sun was bright and warm, but not sweltering hot. I have never been able to keep my seasons straight here, but based on yesterday and today, I’m remembering this is my favorite time of year in CR. During the day it’s about 70 and at night it drops into the 50s. Flip flops during the day, but cool enough to curl up and sleep well at night.

For lunch my Tico Mom took me to Tico Burgesas. It’s kind of the equivalent of La Bamba’s in Broadripple. While they don’t have burritos the size of your head, they do have Tacos Ticos. It’s basically a taquito topped with tons of shredded cabbage and some kind of sauce. It’s the messiest food you’ll ever find, and while it sounds pretty weird, it’s one of my favorites.

Dinner was pretty Tico typical. Meat, rice, lentils, yucca (similar to potatoes in taste, but a slightly different texture), avocado (forgot how awesome avocado – and really all fruits and veggies – taste here) and of course, one of my other favorites – patacones! They are made from platanos, or plantains. Here they cook platanos in about a million different ways. Patacones are slices of platanos that are smashed flat and fried. They taste similar to chips but… well… better!

Oh, I also discovered that apparently Motorola made the Droid with no chip slot. Meaning there is no way to use it here. Right now I’m using cell phone that I really don’t know how to use, because it’s so old school. I do have a number here now though, hopefully in the next few days I’ll have the chance to go shop for a real phone. MUST HAVE DATA!

La Loser

2010-06-16T13:20:00.003-04:00

So.. I'm going to skip the part where I say I haven't blogged in forever, but I'm going to try to start doing it again, blah blah blah... because let's be honest, 1. no one reads this any more and 2. you would all know I'm lying and won't write again for another six months... so there you have it.

So, this past weekend I was enjoying a leisurely Saturday (or perhaps Sunday, who knows?) and found myself roaming the Fashion Mall. I have a few essential stops at the Fashion Mall. 1. Coach 2. The Apple Store 3. Teavana There are several others that I visit sporadically, but it's very rare that I don't at least swing in all three of those if I'm there.

As I'm hanging out in the Apple store I happen to notice a woman walk in the front of the store with a green Biggest Loser t-shirt on (as in the t-shirt the contestants wear on the show). I look and don't really recognize the face, but then realize that the man standing next to her also has the t-shirt on (tucked into his khaki shorts... don't even get me started on that!!!). Next thing I know, people are taking their pictures with the man. I finally get a good look at him and decide, yes he does look familiar. I think he was on last season (not the one that just ended a month or so ago, but the one before that). I remember that there was a guy on the show who was from Indiana because it wasn't until he was sent home that we actually realized he was from Indiana.

They eventually leave the store and I finish my conversation with the Apple guy (who couldn't really answer any of my questions, was fascinated by my nape piercing, and I think might have been awkwardly trying to flirt with me) and head out myself. As I step into the hallway I see them, again posing with people for pictures.

So here's the thing.... 1. I get that people want to take pics with celebrities. (I have pics of myself with Brandon Stokley, Dallas Clark, Buckcherry, etc.) But this guy is a reality TV star, who frankly wasn't even that memorable. 2. If he hadn't been wearing the shirt, I seriously doubt many (if any) people would have recognized him. 3. I'm pretty sure he had gained weight back, and I'm not talking 5-10 pounds, I'm thinking at least 30.

I'm trying to go with the theory that he had some kind of Biggest Loser event that he was at or going to, and that's why he was wearing the shirt.... otherwise I think it's terribly narcissistic. Then again, perhaps I'm just terribly pessimistic.

Failing History

2009-11-19T13:43:00.002-05:00

I'm a little confused by my subconscious right now. I've never been a consistent dreamer. Sometimes I'm in a dead sleep and if I am dreaming I can't remember a bit of it. Other times I have very vivid dreams that are incredibly difficult to get out of my head (those tend to be the less pleasant ones unfortunately). Then sometimes I have what I call ghost dreams, I desperately try to remember and figure out what the dream was about but I just can seem to put it together.

So, a couple weeks ago, I had a dream that I was back in high school (nightmare-ish for some, but not really for me). There was nothing out of the ordinary, it was the beginning of the school year (about 2 weeks in) and I went to history class and it suddenly hit me that I hadn't done ANYTHING for the class. I hadn't been reading, doing home work and of course we had a quiz. So I pull myself together and decide I can recover, I just really have to buckle down in this class. End of dream.

About a week ago, I'm back in high school again, and it strikes me that I have still done NOTHING for history class. I start to panic as I realize the grading period is coming to an end my parents are likely going to kill me. End of dream.

Last night... for some reason my parents allowed me to miss two weeks of school to go stay with my grandmother (I think I was going to help her recover from lung surgery. For the record, she had lung surgery this summer... not while I was in high school). I get back home and it hits me that I've never said anything to my parents about my history class. At some crazy hour of the morning (before I got up to get ready for school) the phone rings. When I answer, a woman's explains that she is calling from some company that helps students who are struggling with their classes. She says they will send me a packet of information, but that basically they contact the teacher and get them to work with the student to be able to make up the missed work. Having two teachers as parents, I immediately ask, "does that actually work?" She tells me it does, over 80% of the time. I tell her to please send me the informational packet.

Of course, then the hard part, Dad gets up and asks "What was that all about?" I start to explain that it was a woman calling from a company that helps students and then I painfully explain that I'm probably going to fail history because for some unexplained reason I literally have just been forgetting about the class. His response, "That doesn't really surprise me. Maybe this company can help you. I'm sure everything will be fine." And that's when I officially entered the Twilight Zone, because if you know my dad, you know that is SOOOOO not his reaction.

This whole thing is weird to me. 1. because it's just so random but 2. I've had recurring dreams before, but I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've had dream sequences. It's like a TV show of my life, but my high school life, but not what actually happened in high school. I mean, true I hated history, but ... just weird.

The Tri

2009-09-08T13:12:00.011-04:00

So it just occurred to me that I never really wrote anything about the Triathlon, which seems tragic. So.. I did a triathlon!!! It was a sprint. 500 meter swim, 10 mile bike and 3 mile run. I, of course, prepped for the event with my traditional pre-race tequila shot the night before.

August 22nd at fAAAAAr too early in the morning I got up and threw on the uniform of a high school swimmer... swimsuit, sweatpants, sweatshirt, and flip-flops. I started the trek over to Eagle Creek, stopping at my traditional pre-race breakfast location, Big Apple Bagels, only to discover that they were closed!!! YIKES!!

I head on toward Eagle Creek desperately hoping to pass a Panera or SOMETHING. No such luck. UGH! I get there, park and haul all my gear the 1/2 mile from the parking lot to transition. I get all set up and start searching for some kind of sustenance. I end up finding some sort of gummy snack thing that has caffeine in it.... sure... we'll call that food! The Reverend FINALLY shows up with his girl in tow. Girl comes to the rescue with a cliff bar she happened to have in her bag. AWESOME.

The Reverend and I make sure we are set up and stretched and head over to where the swim starts. Mom and Bange show up a few minutes before I get in the water and I get the chance to say hi, explain to them where to watch for me and see the signs that Bange made me.... AWESOME! (Photo by Mom)

The Reverend lined up with his swim group and I snagged a high five before he jumped in. (not sure how long the links will be good, but here's a pic)

Not far behind, I headed for the water. On the plus side the water was warm that day. Actually, it was warmer in the water than it was out of the water. It was super murky and impossible to see more than about 6 inches. Apparently it's not uncommon for the most seasoned of swimmers to freak out at their first tri swim. Factors being 1) open water 2) group starts - lots of splashing, other peoples' arms and legs flailing about and occasionally hitting you. I had been warned of these factors and was mostly prepared. I had done some open water swimming and we didn't exactly have a group start. They sent one person about every other second. Still lots of people and plenty of accidental foot grabbing etc. The murky water became a frightening factor when a foot suddenly appeared incredibly close to my face. I avoided being kicked in the face and finished the swim in 13 minutes 23.5 seconds and 335th out of 600. The Reverend came out of the water just a few seconds before me, but I actually beat his time (tiny victories... it's the only thing I'll EVER beat him in) of 13 minutes 38.5 seconds 364th overall.

In the transition I did a full outfit change (NEVER AGAIN!) which took 3 minutes 51.3 seconds while the Reverend zipped in and out under 2 minutes! As I took forever changing Mom, Bange and the Reverend's girl stood nearby cheering me on. Mom even asked if there was anything she could do to help me. I explained that would be a one way ticket to disqualification... but thanks mom! I did direct her to my camera so she could get some pics (as seen below).

Finally heading out on the bike, I felt pretty good. Right as I was pulling out I noticed Will and Smutty standing on the sidelines yelling for me. (Thanks Will for this pic!)

It was kind of sprinkling by that point which made me a little nervous as I haven't really done much (read: any) riding in the rain. While still inside the park there were a couple hills that I wasn't exactly prepared for, but I pulled through in one piece and made it to the nice, flat, straight portion of the ride. The route was out and back, so I made the turn around, got back into the park and was about 2/3rds of the way up one of the hills when I went to shift and my chain slipped. NOOOOO!!! Luckily, the Reverend had taught me change a flat a few weeks before so I was able to hop off and throw the chain back on with minimal effort. Unfortunately I had little choice but to run my bike the rest of the way up the hill as I never could have made it up from a dead stop. The Reverend finished his ride in a speedy 31:53.5 averaging 18.8 mph and placing 127th overall. Several minutes later I pulled in with a time of 37:37.2 averaging 15.9 mph and placing 372nd overall. (Photo credits... again to Will)

My second transition was almost as hideous as the first. I once again almost completely changed clothes taking 3:05.9... only 53 people took longer... OUCH! Once again, the Reverend scooted through in a minute and 9 seconds... the 31st FASTEST transition. (It's easier for boys!!!!!!!)

Coming into transition after the bike - photo credit goes to Mom.

Starting the last leg and in my opinion worst leg of the tri. (Photo by Will)

Heading out for the run I felt the familiar (from the couple times I'd done it during training) cramping in my calves. Something about the change in muscle motion from bike to run... it's not fun! Kinda feels like a concrete ball right in the middle of my calf. As I had during training... I just kept running, knowing it would eventually go away. About 3/4 of a mile in my legs started feeling ok..... well ... the concrete ball feeling went away anyway. I was pretty wiped. I felt like I'd been running for about 6 miles instead of one. Breathing was hard and per USTA (United States Triathlon Association) rules, I didn't have my iPod to help pace my running OR my breathing. WORST RULE EVER!!!!!!! At one point there was a woman running to my left and about half a step behind me. We stayed together for about a quarter mile, but didn't have the same rhythm. I finally couldn't take it anymore, she was screwing up my already erratic breathing and slowed down to let her get ahead of me. I honestly was beginning to wonder if I would actually make it all the way to the finish..... I was hurtin'!!! I came around the last curve and saw the finish line (God bless Tuxbro and their big blue inflatable finish line) and knew I could do it. (Photo by Will)

As a bonus, the last 100 yards or so was a slight decline. I kicked it up a notch and heard Smutty yell "Go mama!!" as I went flying across the finish line. (The Reverend said I "came across the finish line like a raging bull" I'm not sure how to take that).

The neon green bandana crossing the finish line is me. (Great shot... again from Will!)

The guy who crossed right behind me said, "Nice sprint 451" (that was my number). Little did he know I was just trying to keep my feet under me. My run time was 31:48.2. Average 10:36.1/mile (a full minute slower than my normal run time - BOO!) and 484th overall. Total time was 1:29:46.1 placing 407th overall. For my division I placed 4th out of 9, just missing (by 13 seconds... blaming the bike chain) a prize! (It was a super fly plastic cup from Noodles and Company - I guess I'll live).

The Reverend's run (best picture ever!!!) time 24:46.7, averaging 8:15.6/mile and placing 198. His total time was 1:13:28.0 placing him 146th overall.

After hugs (yes... The Reverend, Mom, Bange, and Smutty all loved me enough to hug me even though I was sweaty.... Notice I did NOT mention Will in the group that actually loves me - love you too Will). and horrid pics.....

Not sure who the Reverend is pointing at (guessing mom since I think she took this pic) but it kinda looks like he lecturing who ever it is.

.... I was quickly off to find liquid and banana. Liquid was a success. Banana was a success in finding them and getting the traditional banana shot (courtesy of Will)...

.... eating the banana was a different story. I peeled it, and tried to break a piece off... it bent! Never actually broke... just bent. I don't know what that means, but it didn't seem good. The Reverend's girl brought her dog, an adorable golden named Bella.... Bella wouldn't even eat the banana.... NOT GOOD!

After some dry clothes I met the Reverend and his girl at Bub's for some well deserved breakfast! Breakfast was quickly followed by a lovely 3 hour nap.... again... well deserved!

So there you have it... We came, we swam, we biked, we ran, we conquered... yay us!

Playlist

2009-07-21T15:40:00.004-04:00

I just realized that I didn't post my playlist for the Carmel Freedom Run, which is tragic as it might be my favorite yet.

1. Every Time We Touch - Cascada
2. Let It Rock - Kevin Rudolf featuring Lil Wayne
3. Just Dance - Lady Gaga featuring Colby O'donis
4. Right Round - Flo Rida
5. Take Me On The Floor - The Veronicas
6. Crank Dat - Soulja Boy
7. Girlfriend - Avril Lavigne
8. Fire Burning - Sean Kingston
9. Pain - Jimmy Eat World
10. I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho) - Pitbull
11. Boom Boom Pow - Black Eyed Peas (sadly something went wrong during download or something so I only got about a minute and half of this 4+ minute song)
12. Toy Soldier - Britney Spears
13. Beat It - Fall Out Boy featuring John Mayer (This was my finish line song)
14. Jai Ho (from the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack) featuring Sukhwinder Singh, Tanvi Shah, Mahalakshmi Iyer (Didn't actually get to this one)
15. Forca - Nelly Furtado (Didn't get to this one either which is probably a good thing. I love the song but it takes a little while to get going).

N.I.T.E. Ride, Freedom Run, and other random stuff I want to ramble about.

2009-07-15T13:57:00.012-04:00

The last few weeks have been rather eventful. Let's start with June 27th. Elvis convinced me that I had to do this awesome event that he participated in last year. It's call the Indy N.I.T.E. (Navigate Indy This Evening) Ride. The event begins at 11pm and and consists of a 20 mile bike around the greater downtown Indianapolis area. It begins at the Major Taylor Velodrome (which you can sort of make out in the background of the picture below) on Marion College campus.

Tons of bikes lined up and ready to go.

The Quitter! Ready to ride... and totally NOT a Quitter at the NITE! She was awesome!

Customer Service in a Bad Economy

2009-07-07T09:58:00.004-04:00

When I was about 15 years old a friend of the family hired me to work as a part time seasonal cashier in the luggage store he was managing. Because I totally rock, it eventually turned it into a full time gig. I paid my way through college working retail, starting in high school as that Christmas season cashier and moving on to everything from sales to stock to eventually Assistant Manager. During this time I developed a strong sense of what good customer service is. As a result, I tend to have pretty high standards.

I'm that person who asks to speak to the manager when the customer service rep at the cable company is being rude. I'm also the person who asks to see the manager when a waitress does and amazing job and should be recognized for it.

Recently I've had two customer service experiences that have been really great. My Polar Heart rate monitor was dead. As in, no display. I was fairly certain it just needed a new battery but because I need it to be water proof, I had to send it into a Polar repair center to be fixed. I printed out the repair form from their website and was just about ready to send it in. Then I noticed that they recommend authorizing $75 for the repair. I quickly called the repair center and explained that I only spent $100 on it in the first place and frankly if I was going to spend $75 to repair it, I'd rather spend a little more and upgrade to get a couple extra features. The woman explained that I could just have them call me before they do the repair and that if it was going to be more expensive they actually offered a trade in program that would save me about 30% on my upgrade. AWESOME! I sent it and luckily it was just a simply battery replacement. All said and done a little over $20.

Just a couple weeks ago tragedy occurred when after a run I removed my Maui Jim sunglasses and one of the titanium ear pieces snapped in two. I nearly passed out when I looked at repair instructions on their website and found NOTHING about replacement ear pieces (only the bridge) for my model of glasses. Again, I called preparing myself for the worst. The lovely woman at the repair center informed me that there was no pricing listed for the ear pieces... because they replace those for FREE!!! I should just include the $10 processing fee. I boxed them up, sent them off and about a week and half later opened a box to find my Maui Jim's in a new case, with BOTH ear pieces replaced. AWESOME!

I've also recently heard many stories of people calling to cancel or change services such as cable or satellite radio and the customer service reps bending over backwards to keep them as customers. So my question is, do you think good customer service and a bad economy are correlated? A few years ago I had a tragic thing happen with a Coach purse. Now, Coach is one of those places that I can pretty much ALWAYS count on EXCELLENT customer service. But, I sent my purse in for repair and got back my unfixed purse and a letter for 40% off my next Coach purchase. Talk about disappointment! Coach has a lifetime warranty but wouldn't fix it. Maui Jim has a two-year warranty that had long expired and they fixed it and sent me a new case.

Are companies fighting to keep their customers now? Hoping maybe if they fix the broken item they own today the customer will be more likely to purchase a new one from them when times turn around? I have to say my experience with Maui Jim and Polar certainly gives me more confidence in making purchases from them in the future. Now, I'm not saying I won't buy from Coach again... but it's been a few years and I'm still carrying the 40% letter around waiting for the PERFECT bag.

Costco and Me: A Lover's Quarrel

2009-06-03T13:49:00.002-04:00

For the last couple years I have had a wonderful love affair with Costco. I mean really, what's not to love? Not only can I buy 5 tubes of Crest Whitening plus Scope toothpaste, but frequently, Costco supplies me with a coupon to make my purchase. Because of Costco, I only have to buy Q-tips once/year. And while others settle for the fridge packs or perhaps even 24 packs of diet coke, I buy mine in a case of 32. At the grocery store I buy tiny cream cheese size tubs of feta or blue cheese and it costs about $5. At Costco, I get ice cream size tubs for only a dollar more. Then of there's the cake. I mean first off, why would you ever want to buy a cake that weighs less the 9.75 pounds anyway? That's just crazy. Add to that the wonderful butter cream icing and the cheesecake mousse filling... what better way to celebrate than with a diabetic coma?!?

About a year or so ago I was purusing my darling Costco and came across a 2 pack of Champion brand sports bras for like $20. Awesome deal, so I bought them. Now, I tend to be very picky about my athletic wear. It has to work. There's nothing worse than being uncomfortable during your daily run in 90 degree weather. Turns out the sports bras were perfect. I loved them and bought at least 2 more packs. Then, one day I decided I needed more. I went to Costco only to find they had replaced my beloved Champion sports bras with Adidas sports bras. Still a good deal, I decided to try them out. I thought, Costco wouldn't replace a product with an inferior product. That's just not who they are. I was wrong. The Adidas sports bras suck! I now have to order my sports bras from Champion online. Costco let down #1.

Another wonderful product I discovered is what I call my workout pants. Again, sold in a two pack, these mostly cotton, drawstring pants are great for working out. I run in them, I go to classes at the gym in them, they also make great pj bottoms too. I own at least 8 pair. With the weather getting warmer I've decided I need some shorts to run in. Knowing that Costco doesn't carry the style of shorts I wanted, I headed to Target. I found a couple pair that I thought would work (though they didn't seem great) and I left Target thinking, I wish they just made a short version of my Costco workout pants. Then it occurred to me that I have a fabulous Aunt with a fabulous sewing machine (that I gave her for Christmas YEARS ago) and she could probably turn my beloved workout pants into the perfect workout shorts for me. Off to Costco I go!!! I trot happliy down the aisle where my workout pants belong (same aisle that used to be home to my Champion sports bras!)... back and forth.... around to the other side.... NO PANTS!!!! My workout pants are gone.

I can't take it anymore Costco!! If you are going to get me addicted to your wonderful products, you have to keep carrying them! You're like a drug dealer who gets me hooked on coke and then moves! It's mean!!! I mean really, what's next? My Champion brand socks? perhaps the tooth paste? Or are you gonna go straight for the jugular and stop selling cake?!?! Why must you hurt me? Why?

P.S. I really like the new Calvin Klein 3 pack of ribbed tank tops!

Race for the Cure 2009 - A Photo Essay

2009-04-20T12:24:00.012-04:00

This past Saturday was 2009 Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. Simmonds, Will, and I all participated and had a great time. As usual, there were some pre-race preparations and post-race photos to be taken. It's all explained below...

This is Simmonds and me in the race tshirts the way they were given to us. I didn't much like them, and felt we could do better. We ventured to good ol' Target to buy some new shirts, and then over to Bange's house to make use of her sewing machine and mad creative skills.

Measuring, cutting and pinning - DONE! (With Bange's help of course) I took this picture and the next one with the pins still in before I started sewing. I figured that way if I destroyed the shirt while attempting to sew for the first time since 8th grade, I could still show you what my original design plan was. So here's the front...And the back... and yes, I came up with the design layout all on my own! way cooler than the original tee I was given, don't you think?

And now to the sewing. It all turned out okay. But there might have been a incident where I sewed the shirt to itself and had to use a seam ripper to undo half my work!!!

Simmonds seemed to have better luck on her shirt. No seam rippers for her. Lucky duck!

And... the big reveal. Final products from the front...

And the back...

Back at home with Will time for the traditional pre-race tequila shot. (Also, check out the rockin' headbands that Simmonds and I found at Target! They totally match our tshirts! And we made Will wear the pink - yay!)

Oh how I love tequila! This will totally make me run faster tomorrow!
RACE DAY!!!!!! Lacing up the shoes and attaching my timing chip. My wonderful time chip that allows me to tell you that I finished in 29 minutes and 32 seconds. That means my pace was 9:30/mile!!! HappydanceHappydanceHappydance!

The three of us walk toward the starting line. Will felt he needed to take a pic as we were walking. I thought this was crazy, (hence the laughing) but it turned out to be a great pic! Nice photo skills Will!

The race route went past the zoo. I did not see this while I was running, but apparently Dumbo came out to support the race.

Will crosses the finish line! WOOHOO!A sweet black lab out to walk in celebration of his aunt

And the masses decend. It's amazing what 40,000+ people actually looks like.

Post-race banana picture. I ran the competive 5k (3.1 miles) in 29:32, a personal best and better than I thought I was capable of at this point. Simmonds ran the route without stopping to walk at all - personal goal acheived! And Will crossed the finish line with a smile on his face (as is evident from the picture above). We deserved those bananas!Back at home, after the race, Will was testing the set up of the camera and caught this AWESOME shot of Simmonds.

And of course, the bandannas must come off!

And the scary hair is revealed!

oh... don't forget Will's scary hair.

Race number 2 down for all three of us! Next up... Relay for Life (at least I think that's the next one).

Oh yeah... and for anyone who is interested, here was my official race playlist (not necessarily played in this order, because I forgot to take it off shuffle)...

1. One & Only - Timbaland featuring Fall Out Boy
2. Pain - Jimmy Eat World
3. I Don't Care - Fall Out Boy (Cobra Starship Suave Suarez Remix)
4. Just Dance - Lady GaGa featuring Colby O'donis
5. Emergency - Paramore
6. Boba Nina Nice - Belinda
7. Toy Soldier - Britney Spears
8. Beat It - Fall Out Boy featuring John Mayer
9. I Turn to You - Melanie C (Hex Hector Radio Mix)
10. Piece of Me - Britney Spears (Bimbo Jones Edit)

I am taking suggestions for my playlist for the next race. I need upbeat! Doesn't have to be dance music (Pain by Jimmy Eat World was actually really great on this list) just really upbeat. I feel like I'm dwindling on good running music. Help dear readers HELP!!

Easter Stalker

2009-04-17T12:59:00.002-04:00

My parents bought the house that they currently live in shortly after my brother Shorty, who is now 19, was born. A year or two after we moved into the house, we all got up on Easter morning and got ready for church. When we walked out the front door we were surprised to find a small box filled with the green grass stuff that you put in Easter baskets, some jelly beans, robin eggs, a couple chocolate eggs, and a small strip of paper that had "He has risen" printed on it. It had no information indicating who it had come from and as result mom and dad refused to let us eat the candy. (MAD!)

We check with friends and family and find that none of them received anything like this. We also established that it had not come from anyone we knew, or if it did, they're keeping it a secret. Within a few days we've all forgot about our personal Easter bunny. The next year, it happens again, and the year after. We eventually suspected that it was coming from the elderly lady that lived across the street. Mom and Dad eventually allowed us to eat the candy (none of us died.. so that's good). As long as I remember, this happened every year. We'd go to bed Saturday night and wake up Easter Sunday morning to our little Easter box.

A few years ago, the elderly lady we suspected passed away... but the boxes kept coming. WEIRD! By this point I've moved out of the house and basically forgotten about it. Until now.

Sunday I went to church with my parents, as I frequently do on Easter Sunday. Mom and I were sitting next to each other and just before the service began she leaned over and whispered "the Easter Bunny came." Sweet! I'm thinking I have a basket full of robin eggs at the house. I smile and Mom whispers "you know what Easter Bunny I'm talking about, right?" My jaw dropped, my eyes popped open, and as silently as possible, I gasped. I realized immediately what Easter Bunny she was talking about. Mom later explained that Shorty had come home at about midnight Saturday night and the box wasn't there, but Dad woke up at 4:30am and it was!

After church I called Will to find out if he was on his way up for dinner. After explaining that he would be coming soon he said, "So, you wanna hear something weird?" "Of course!" I replied. He proceeds to tell me that when he opened the front door that morning, he found a plastic bag full of candy with a paper tag that said, "Yes! He has risen." My jaw dropped, my eyes popped open, and very loudly shouted "WHAT?!?!" Will and I discussed the weirdness for a moment and I eventually told him to bring the bag to dinner.

When Will arrived I grabbed the bag and ran into the house. I asked mom and dad where their present was... same bag, same candy, same tag!!!!!! We've now begun calling the Easter Bunny the Easter Stalker, though the Doctor pointed out that whoever is bringing the bags has clearly put time and effort into it and probably wouldn't like being called the Easter Stalker. I suppose he's probably right. And to be honest, while it is incredibly WEIRD, I suppose it's kinda cool. Someone obviously cares about us enough to do this every year (in the middle of the night too). And while it makes me crazy not knowing who it is, it makes for a GREAT story (I think I would actually be a little sad if I figured out who it was).

If by chance you happen to be the Easter Stalker (or Easter Angel as one of the girls at work suggested) thanks for the candy, thanks for thinking of us, and Robin Eggs are my favorite Easter candy. :-)

Jury Duty

2009-03-30T14:36:00.002-04:00

I meant to post this a couple weeks ago... but I forgot... so here it is.....

Greetings blogosphere. It’s been a while. Today I provide you with a two part blog; a commentary and a question.

Commentary on Jury Duty

It may be my civic duty, but it sucks!

And now a Question…

Is “reasonable doubt” quantifiable?

In a criminal case it is the duty of the state to prove “beyond a reasonable doubt” that the defendant is guilty of the crime of which he/she is accused. It’s not necessary to prove beyond all possible doubt, just all reasonable doubt. Which begs the question, what is reasonable doubt? According to juror instructions it is not enough to find a person guilty if you feel that they are “probably guilty.” So reasonable doubt falls somewhere between probable guilt and definite guilt.

Let’s say for instance you are 60% certain that Defendant A is guilty. This means you have 40% doubt. So then what is the threshold that you consider to be reasonable? If you think that 20% doubt is reasonable, then you must find Defendant A innocent even though you feel it is more likely that he is guilty, than not. If, however, your threshold is 45% then you would find Defendant A guilty.

So my question dear reader is, what do you consider reasonable doubt?

My Kooky Idea

2008-12-19T11:08:00.003-05:00

So... Try to stay with me here. I know it can be difficult to follow my thought process sometimes but if you can hang on... it usually turn out to be entertaining.

So... I'm not a huge fan of Christmas music cuz I just worked retail for too freaking long. Luckily, I've been out of retail long enough that some Christmas music is starting to be aloud in my vicinity. One of my favorite Christmas albums has always been the Trans-Siberian Orchestra's Christmas Eve in Sarajevo. (If you haven't heard it ... find it and listen! Don't let the word Orchestra scare you - wicked cool guitars are involved) So I recently stumbled across their "Christmas Canon Rock." You know the song you commonly hear when the bridesmaids and groomsmen walk down the aisle at a wedding? That's the song. But kind of a rock version. The beginning starts out pretty traditional, but then you get those wicked cool guitars.

Now, for those of you who know me, you know I'm not really a "traditional" kind of girl. I've never really imagined that I would use that song at my wedding (God willing I will get married one day). But after hearing that version, I'm thinking... well maybe.

But it goes a step further. Whilest listening to the wicked cool guitar in the song I think... This should totally be on Guitar Hero. It'd be super hard but OH... SO... COOL! So then I think, well, I've always wanted live music at my wedding ... how cool would it be to have my brother and sister (Shorty and Pop Tart) who are addicted to Guitar Hero play that version of the song on Guitar Hero for the wedding! AWESOME!!! My wedding is gonna be so freakin' cool!!! (God willing!)

Grammy Picks

2008-12-09T14:53:00.003-05:00

Ok, I've always wanted to do this post but never have... so here goes! Grammy Nominations are out! Time to make my picks. If you would like to debate my choices... I invite you to comment. All nomination information is pulled directly from the Grammy Website. Some info has been removed to avoid this post being even longer than it already is. I've also picked only the categories that I actually know something about. So, you won't get my opinion on the best gospel album, best country collaboration with vocals, best tejano album among many others. There are some categories that I probably could have commented on, but I didn't know some of the songs/albums/artists that were nominated, and apparently didn't care enough to look them up.. so I just didn't bother. With that said.. here are my thoughts on the categories I felt inspired to comment on....

Record Of The Year
(Award to the Artist and to the Producer(s), Recording Engineer(s) and/or Mixer(s), if other than the artist.)

Chasing Pavements - Adele Track from: 19
Viva La Vida - Coldplay Track from: Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends
Bleeding Love - Leona Lewis
Paper Planes - M.I.A Track from: Kala
Please Read The Letter - Robert Plant & Alison Krauss Track from: Raising Sand

This is a tough category. The only songs I recognized right off the bat were Bleeding Love and Viva La Vida. When Bleeding Love first came out I hated it, but then I watched Chelsie and Mark perform to it on So You Think You Can Dance and now THIS is what I think of when I hear it and that makes me happy. Viva La Vida is nice, but not particularly my favorite Coldplay track. The rest of the songs I looked up on Rhapsody. I immediately recognized Chasing Pavements and realized that I thoroughly enjoy the song. Paper Planes is kind of a weird song. I don't dislike it, but I don't know that it's Grammy material. Please Read the Letter was way to sappy and slow for me.

The winner: I think it has to go to Adele for Chasing Pavements. She has a great voice and I really enjoy this song.

Album Of The Year
(Award to the Artist(s) and to the Album Producer(s), Recording Engineer(s)/Mixer(s) & Mastering Engineer(s), if other than the artist.)

Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends - Coldplay
Tha Carter III - Lil Wayne
Year Of The Gentleman - Ne-Yo
Raising Sand - Robert Plant & Alison Krauss
In Rainbows - Radiohead

This probably isn't fair for me to judge because I haven't heard the WHOLE album from any of these artists. I'll leave this up to the popular vote. What do you guys think?

Song Of The Year
(A Songwriter(s) Award. A song is eligible if it was first released or if it first achieved prominence during the Eligibility Year. Singles or Tracks only.

American Boy - Estelle Featuring Kanye West Track from: Shine
Chasing Pavements - Adele Adkins & Eg White Track from: 19
I'm Yours - Jason Mraz Track from: We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things.
Love Song - Sara Bareilles Track from: Little Voice
Viva La Vida - Coldplay Track from: Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends

I think this is definitely the toughest category of the year. American Boy (performed here on So You Think You Can Dance) is a great little hip hop tune. It has a pretty permanent place on my workout play list on my iPod, which is a pretty elite list. Chasing Pavements - again - so good. I really love Adele's voice and the song is very passionate without being sappy. And then there's I'm Yours. What's not to love about Jason Mraz? Peppy and upbeat to a certain extent, all around a good song. Love Song - Sara Bareilles has become a new addiction for me this year. Her whole album is fantastic and of course I have an extra soft spot the singer/songwriter type (of course Adele and Jason Mraz get those honors as well). I enjoy the title Love Song when the song it's self says "I'm not gonna write you love song, 'cuz you asked for it, 'cuz you need one." Viva La Vida - again, not bad, just not my fav for Coldplay.

And the winner - YIKES!! So hard! I think it comes down to Chasing Pavements and Love Song, with the winner being Chasing Payments. (I would like to make the disclaimer that these are not where I think the awards will actually go. These are MY picks. My guess is the Grammy will actually go to Coldplay).

Best New Artist
(For a new artist who releases, during the Eligibility Year, the first recording which establishes the public identity of that artist.)

Adele
Duffy
Jonas Brothers
Lady Antebellum
Jazmine Sullivan

Ok.. Jonas Brothers - EW! I've never even heard of Lady Antebellum or Jazmine Sullivan (if you think I need to know who they are, please let me know. I'm always happy about new music) So that leaves Duffy and Adele. Both good choices. Duffy has a very distinct voice that I think you either have to love, hate, or learn to love. I fell into category 3. Again, damn that So You Think You Can Dance. This time it was Twitch and Katee (this video kind of sucks because I can't find any footage from the show so this is something that someone recorded from the tour). And I think I've talked enough about Adele. You know where I stand.

And the winner is... I think I'm gonna go with Duffy mostly for the uniqueness (if that's a real word). So help me if this Grammy goes to the Jonas Brothers... that fate would be so horrid that I can't even imagine it.

Best Female Pop Vocal Performance
(For a solo vocal performance. Singles or Tracks only.)

Chasing Pavements - Adele Track from: 19
Love Song - Sara Bareilles Track from: Little Voice
Mercy - Duffy Track from: Rockferry
Bleeding Love - Leona Lewis
I Kissed A Girl - Katy Perry Track from: One Of The Boys
So What - Pink

Another VERY VERY hard category. I've already covered the first 4 nominations. Katy Perry cracks me up. I Kissed A Girl is a great song (though a bit over played) and it makes me laugh. I've always been a big Pink fan. She's got the right amount of angsty rocker in her to make her stand out from the rest of the girly popsters. I love the song So What - again with the angst, but with a good pop/rock beat!

And the winner is... I'm almost 100% certain that the Grammy association will NOT agree with me on this, but I'm gonna go with Pink's So What. You can't go wrong with a song whose lyrics claim "and you're a tool" (that was for you Quitter).

Best Male Pop Vocal Performance
(For a solo vocal performance. Singles or Tracks only.)

All Summer Long - Kid Rock Track from: Rock N Roll Jesus
Say - John Mayer Track from: Continuum
That Was Me - Paul McCartney Track from: Amoeba's Secret
I'm Yours - Jason Mraz Track from: We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things.
Closer - Ne-Yo Track from: Year Of The Gentleman
Wichita Lineman - James Taylor Track from: Covers

Have I mentioned I kinda hate John Mayer? Paul McCartney - without the rest of the boys you just don't do it for me - sorry! James Taylor isn't bad, just not really my style though. So... that leaves us All Summer Long - great summer tune from Kid Rock. Little spin off from Sweet Home Alabama. Not bad. I've already commented on Jason Mraz - I'm Yours. Finally, Closer - Ne-Yo. You know, I'm not necessarily a huge Ne-Yo fan, but I rather enjoy this song. The beat shifts a couple times from slow to a more traditional hip hop dance beat. Ne-Yo gets my vote for this one. The Grammy's will probably choose John Mayer (they obviously weren't working retail when Mr. Mayer informed us every third song that our "body is a wonderland.")

Best Pop Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocals
(For established duos or groups, with vocals. Singles or Tracks only.)

Viva La Vida - Coldplay Track from: Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends
Waiting In The Weeds - Eagles Track from: Long Road Out Of Eden
Going On - Gnarls Barkley Track from: The Odd Couple
Won't Go Home Without You - Maroon 5 Track from: It Won't Be Soon Before Long
Apologize - OneRepublic Track from: Dreaming Out Loud

I'm not going to pretend. I ADORE Maroon 5. They win. Let's be honest, the real Grammy's are NOT fair and unbiased, why should I be. I did love Apologize by OneRepublic and would accept that as a winner, but..

And the Winner is.. Maroon 5. Why, because I said said so. They make me happy.

Best Pop Collaboration With Vocals
(For a collaborative performance, with vocals, by artists who do not normally perform together. Singles or Tracks only.)

Lesson Learned - Alicia Keys & John Mayer Track from: As I Am
4 Minutes - Madonna, Justin Timberlake & Timbaland Track from: Hard Candy
Rich Woman - Robert Plant & Alison Krauss Track from: Raising Sand
If I Never See Your Face Again - Rihanna & Maroon 5 Track from: Good Girl Gone Bad: Reloaded
No Air - Jordin Sparks & Chris Brown Track from: Jordin Sparks

Many good options here. Alicia Keys loses points for associating with John Mayer. Madonna loses points for all the plastic surgury she's had - though I do enjoy the song. I don't know who Robert Plant and Alison Krauss are and this post is getting really long and it's becoming difficult to look all these songs up and actually listen to them. Rihanna and Maroon 5 - AWESOMENESS! And Jordin Sparks and Chris Brown rocked this song, but again, wouldn't have loved it as much if it weren't for this.

And the winner is... Rihanna and Maroon 5 of course!! They freaking rock!

Best Dance Recording
(For solo, duo, group or collaborative performances. Vocal or Instrumental. Singles or tracks only.)

Harder Better Faster Stronger - Daft Punk Track from: Alive 2007
Ready For The Floor - Hot Chip Track from: Made In The Dark
Just Dance - Lady Gaga & Colby O'Donis
Give It 2 Me - Madonna Track from: Hard Candy
Disturbia - Rihanna Track from: Good Girl Gone Bad: Reloaded
Black & Gold - Sam Sparro Track from: Sam Sparro

You know, I really want to like Disturbia because I typically really like Rihanna, this song just doesn't really do it for me though, especially not as a "Dance" recording. I think this has to go to Harder Better Faster Stronger - rock it out Daft Punk! Thanks to Shorty for introducing me to them.

Best Rap/Sung Collaboration
(For a Rap/Sung collaborative performance by artists who do not normally perform together. Singles or Tracks only.)

American Boy - Estelle Featuring Kanye West Track from: Shine
Low - Flo Rida Featuring T-Pain Track from: Mail On Sunday
Green Light - John Legend & Andre 3000
Got Money - Lil Wayne Featuring T-Pain Track from: Tha Carter III
Superstar - Lupe Fiasco Featuring Matthew Santos Track from: The Cool

Ok.. all honesty haven't heard some of these... but I LOVE LOW by Flo Rida. I've been listening to this song for MONTHS AND MONTHS and I still love it. So yeah.. that's the winner.

Best Compilation Soundtrack Album For Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media
(Award to the Artist(s) and/or Producer(s) of a majority of the tracks on the album, or to the individual(s) actively responsible for the concept and musical direction and for the selection of artists, songs and producers, as applicable.)

American Gangster - Various Artists
August Rush - Various Artists
Juno - Various Artists
Mamma Mia! - Meryl Streep & Various Artists
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street - Various Artists

Ok, haven't seen American Gangster or August Rush. Juno's soundtrack was well... interesting. And what's not to LOVE about Mamma Mia! Only negative there was Pierce Brosnan is totally incapable of singing. It was painful. Sweeney Todd!!!! loved it! I was annoyed with the girl who played Joanna. Her voice was waaaay high and sing song-y, arguably that's what it's supposed to be so I guess it's not her fault, but I didn't really care for it.

And the winner... I think it has to go to Sweeney Todd. Mamma Mia was right up there, but Peirce killed it for me. I think the Grammy's might go out on a limb and give it to Juno though.

Well, there you have it. My Grammy picks. I know I left out A LOT of categories, but this post would have gone on forever and I was getting bored. Sorry! I'd love to hear your comments though. I'm sure Quitter will make a stink about all the hate being thrown John Mayer's way and the Coldplay shut out, but she'd have to be reading this to complain about it. HAHA!

A Photo Essay - Race Style

2008-11-29T21:33:00.006-05:00

Less interesting titles for this post: "My First Race" or "The Drumstick Dash"

If a picture is worth a thousand words this post should get you up to speed. For those who don't know, on Thanksgiving morning I ran my first race. The race is called the Drumstick Dash and it is a 4.5 mile run/walk though Broadripple with over 7000 participants this year. What makes it even more cool is that all the proceeds go to The Wheeler Mission Ministries which is a homeless shelter that provides food and lodging for the homeless in the Indianapolis area.

It seems like a lot of work to rehash all the details of the race and you know I'm inherently lazy, but luckily I (with much assistance - photo credits to the Boyfriend unless otherwise mentioned) documented the whole thing with photos for your viewing pleasure. Oh yeah... the best part... I'm not the only crazy sap who decided to run a race on Thanksgiving morning. Nope, I suckered a couple friends into it too....

Packet Pick-up: Wednesday night before the race Simmonds, Will and Myself head down to pick up all of our stuff for the race and gleefully show off our bib numbers. (photo credit to random lady in the tee-shirt tent)

The Race started at 9am on Thanksgiving morning. We thought, what better way to prep and celebrate, than with a tequila shot...
... At 9pm the night before. Doesn't everyone do tequila shots before a race? I'm pretty sure this is standard protocol.

The next morning we arrived at the event location and headed into the Running Company. Here's us with our bib numbers and crocheted hats courtesy of Simmonds. (Photo credit to Mr. Brown - see next pic for explanation)

While meandering around the store, we ran into my old high school principal, Mr. Brown, and his wife who has worked with Simmonds. We figured that needed a picture too! (photo credit to Will)

We don't all run the same pace, so this was our last pic together before the race. Check out the scads of people behind us. Also, how adorable are our hats?!?! Did I mention Simmonds bought the yarn and cranked out Will's hat the night before the race? She's so cool!

Okay, I know a 10 minute mile isn't really terribly impressive, but had I run this race a year ago, I would have been in the 12 minute mile group and I would have ended up walking part of it, so... I was pretty geeked to line up next to the 10 minute mile sign.

This is me crossing the finish line (sort of). The ever dedicated boyfriend came out and waited at the finish line to take our pictures as we crossed. Unfortunately he didn't realize that my camera had an auto shut off feature. So the finish line is actually about 20 feet behind me. But... YAY I finished!! Distance: 4.5 miles. Official time: 45 minutes 22 seconds Pace: 10 minutes 4 seconds per mile. Finishing my first race at a record pace (for me) PRICELESS!

Simmonds crosses the finish line! This girl kicked ass. She ran the whole thing with no walking breaks. The farthest she's ever run before. AND... she did it in less than an hour. Official time: 59 minutes 18.5 seconds. Way to go Simmonds!

Will crosses the finish line! He did the event as a walk/run and while he opted out of a timing chip so while we don't have an official time, we think he was around an hour and 17 minutes.

Post race banana!! WOOHOO! You must eat a banana after you race. It's a rule.

Back at home, we wanted to show off our free t-shirts. And of course.. those awesome hats we'd been running and sweating in...

Well, they had to come off sometime! How sexy are we!!! Yeah baby!

Countdown to....

2008-11-25T12:00:00.004-05:00

.... Finishing Twilight.

Negative 55.5 hours. That's right... somehow I got sucked in (no pun intended). I ended up reading Twilight. When I started it was basically enough to hold my attention, but not a huge page turner. Saturday night, I told Brad I was going to go read in bed until I fell asleep. Around 4am he came in shocked to see me still curled up reading away. Around 4:30am I finally finished and went to bed.

.... Seeing the Twilight movie.

Negative 41 hours. Yeah, I'm that much of a dork. I finished the book at 4am and went to see the movie at 7pm. I won't give anything away for those who haven't seen it. Overall I thought it was alright. Book was definitely better though.

.... The Drumstick Dash.

45 hours! I'm TERRIFIED!!! I can't believe my first race is less than 2 days away. 4.5miles!!! Not that I don't think I can do it! But there will be people! and timing chips!!! and a six-foot turkey. Reason to be terrified!

.... Turkey Day.

48hours. Well, that's the time 'til our first Turkey day meal anyway. Holidays are always crazy. This year is the boyfriend's mom's side of the family at noon. My fam at 4pm. And then the boyfriend's dad's side on Saturday. CRAZY!!!

.... Black Friday.

72 hours. That's when it will start for me anyway. I refuse to participate in that crazy shopping crap. I worked retail tooooooo loooooooong for that. I'll wake up around noon and probably spend some time cleaning the house or maybe just reading a book.

.... Shopping wine down.

79 hours. While I don't participate in the crazy shopping, other girls I know do. So we are having a post shopping "wine" down party. Wine and girlie movies. YAY!

.... Company Christmas Party.

14 days. Let's just say... it should be interesting.

.... Christmas!!!!

30 days! OMG! Christmas is a month away. Who let that happen? Wasn't Halloween last week?

.... Will's B-day!

30 days!! Poor kid has to share his birthday with Jesus. Tell me that ain't a rough gig!

.... MY BIRTHDAY!!!

32 days! WAHOO!!! No idea what I'm doing for my birthday yet. But I was born... that's cause for celebration.

.... 2009.

37 days. I can't believe another year has almost passed. How does this happen??? I don't understand!

You can vote however you like

2008-11-05T13:56:00.002-05:00

Ok, I wish I had found this before the election, but I still think it's relevant (and cute). It's kids from the Ron Clark Academy performing a parody of T.I's "Whatever You Like." Here the link...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxlwYP0HNdc

And because the sound isn't great, here's most of the lyrics (I can't find any where that has the first couple verses... sorry)..

Obama on the left
McCain on the right
We can talk politics all night
And you can vote however you like
You can vote however you like, yeah

Democratic left
Republican right
November 4th we decide
And you can vote however you like
You can vote however you like, yeah

(McCain supporters)
McCain’s the best candidate
With Palin as his running mate
They’ll fight for gun rights, pro life,
The conservative right
Our future is bright
Better economy in site
And all the world will feel our military might

(Obama supporters)
But McCain and Bush are real close right
They vote alike and keep it tight
Obama’s new, he’s younger too
The Middle Class he will help you
He’ll bring a change, he’s got the brains
McCain and Bush are just the same
You are to blame, Iraq’s a shame
Four more years would be insane

Lower your Taxes - you know Obama Won’t
PROTECT THE LOWER CLASS - You know McCain won’t!
Have enough experience - you know that they don’t
STOP GLOBAL WARMING - you know that you won’t

I want Obama
FORGET OBAMA
Stick with McCain and you’re going to have some drama
We need it
HE’LL BRING IT
He’ll be it
YOU’LL SEE IT
We’ll do it
GET TO IT
Let’s move it
DO IT!

Obama on the left
McCain on the right
We can talk politics all night
And you can vote however you like
You can vote however you like, yeah

Democratic left
Republican right
November 4th we decide
And you can vote however you like, I said
You can vote however you like, yeah

I’m talking big pipe lines, and low gas prices
Below $2.00 that would be nice

But to do it right we gotta start today
Finding renewable ways that are here to stay

I want Obama
FORGET OBAMA,
Stick wit McCain you gone have some drama
MORE WAR IN IRAQ
Iran he will attack
CAN’T BRING OUR TROOPS BACK
We gotta vote Barack!

Obama on the left
McCain on the right
We can talk politics all night
And you can vote however you like, I said
You can vote however you like, yeah

Democratic left
Republican right
November 4th we decide
And you can vote however you like, I said
You can vote however you like, yeah

I wouldn't be a hoosier if I actually Mattered

2008-11-05T11:37:00.003-05:00

I know that most people are probably more than over the election by this point. Enough with the debates, the nasty commercials, the he hangs out with so and so, but he's gonna raise my taxes. It's finally done! Some people are thrilled, some terrified, some indifferent. For me, it's kind of bitter sweet...

Living in Indiana it's always been a little hard to get excited about the Presidential election. Since 1964 Indiana has voted red EVERYTIME! Now, I don't consider myself a republican or a democrat. In my opinion both parties are way to screwed up for me to associate myself with them. None the less, Indiana has always been completely ignored in the Presidential race. Republicans don't visit here, because they know they have our vote so why waste the money. Democrats don't visit here because they know they can't get our vote so why waste the money. Basically every campaign just assumes we are a red state and always will be. Heck, Bush beat Kerry by 20 points in Indiana in 2004!

I'd like to thank Hillary Clinton for changing that. While most people think that Senator Clinton should have dropped out of the primaries loooooong before she did, by staying in, she forced Barack Obama to come to the Hoosier state. Once he got here he must have realized that hey, there are people here who care. There are people here who want to see change. There are people here who more than likely have voted Republican their whole life because that is what their parents did and no candidate ever made the effort to come here and say... "Hey, How 'bout me."

Typically, the polls close at 6pm and Indiana is called at 6:01pm (even though the polls in some counties don't actually close till 7pm because they are on central time). Last night was different though. We weren't the first state called, or the second. It looked like Indiana mattered. CNN, FoxNews, MSNBC.. they were all talking about us. It seemed as though our vote might actually matter. It was AWESOME!!!! Then we hit a snag....

It was soooo close, that they refused to call our state!!!! Sometime around 11pm MSNBC declared that Barack Obama would be the President Elect. While I was excited, I still wanted to know about Indiana. I finally came to terms with the fact that once again, our little state didn't really matter much and went to bed. The Boyfriend informed me that around 2am they FINALLY called Indiana. BLUE!!! IT WENT BLUE!!! That's historical for us! So... in the long run I guess we still didn't matter (not that votes don't matter - but we didn't truely affect the outcome) but for a little while at least, we had the nation watching. And because of what Obama was able to do, I suspect future candidates will stop writing us off. AWESOME!

One more thing... favorite quotes of the political seasion... First, I guess this isn't really a quote because I can't remember what was said exactly, but Hillary Clinton at a rally in Kokomo said "incentivizing." I had to come home and look it up to make sure it was a real word. I was a little disappointed when I discovered that it was. I like it when people make up words and use them like they are real. Ok... #2... From my dear Lizzie Jane with whom I always have fascinating conversations (we seem to agree on very little, yet get along wonderfully.. it's awesome!) "I lived in Florida for the last one [Presidential Election], so my vote counted twice." HAHAHA!!! Score one for Lizzie Jane and her endless wit. And finally, my own quote, and the title of this post... "I wouldn't be a Hoosier if I actually mattered."

Happy end of election season!!! (Indiana counts!!! ... well... sort of.)

WOW!! ... Just.... WOW!!!

2008-10-29T13:31:00.003-04:00

Where do I start with this post? I guess I should start waaaaay back at the beginning. For those who don't know.... My mom got married right out of high school and had me. Mom and the man I now refer to as my sperm donor were divorced by the time I was 2 and he was quickly out of my life. Lucky for me, my mom married an amazing man who wasn't afraid to take on the responsibility of a 5 year old little girl. This is, always has been, and always will be... my dad.

Sometime when I was in junior high, my sperm donor's father passed away. I felt that because the man was technically my grandfather, I should go pay my respects. During what turned out to be a rather crazy few days, I met my sperm donor and his 2 other children from 2 other marriages. That's right... I have a half brother and a half sister. My brother (Let's call him Big B) is about 6 years older than me and my sister (She'll be Supermom... to be explained later) is about a year and half young than me. (whoa! does that mean I get to have middle child syndrome? just thought of that!) Anyway... we foolishly did not stay in contact with one another at the time. (we were all kids with no idea how important family is)

Over the past... oh about 15 years I guess it's been, I've often thought of Big B and Supermom and wondered what happened to them, where they were all that good stuff. I've tried to search for them online before but have had little luck. Supermom's last name was changed after Sperm Donor left her mom, so I REALLY had nothing to go on with her. Big B kept the last name (thank goodness!) Well, the other day I decided I should try to look them up again. It occurred to me that I hadn't tried facebook or myspace. Well, after a few hours of searching, texting mom to see what she could remember, and putting pieces of the puzzle together... I found Big B on Myspace (at least I was pretty sure it was him... his profile was set to private).

I sent him a message on Myspace and then patiently (i was going nuts! he doesn't log on very often so it took him a WEEK to respond) waited for a response. He (FINALLY) wrote me back with his phone number. We ended up talking one night for about an hour at which point he said said he was actually going to be coming to town the next weekend. WOW!

So... fast forward through a week of us texting and talking on the phone... Saturday afternoon he made it my house! We had lunch, I showed him the house and around town. We basically spent the whole day together just catching up on ... our lives. That night he was supposed to go up to "The Big City" where he grew up to go out with a bunch of his friends and he invited the boyfriend and me to come along.

I should probably point out at this point that "The Big City" has a population of 1,848. yeah! This is where the adventure begins. We arrive at bar number one and are introduced to Big B's cousin, his cousin's girlfriend - Soto, and Soto's friend SpiderMonkey (I'm soooo not telling that part of the story... trust me). We're all hanging out talking and all the sudden... I see this guy walk in with a baby in his arms. Weird. It gets better... The baby is Soto's 5 WEEK OLD niece! There was a 5 week old baby.... in a BAR!!!! WHAT?!?!?!

We eventually move on to Bar #2 (where SpiderMonkey works). We're having a great time and all is good until everyone decides to head across the street to Bar#3. I had just ordered a drink (a strong one) and didn't want to chug it down. Soto looks at me and says "Just get a to-go cup." I'm sorry what?!?! I'm in a bar. Bar's don't have to-go cups. OOOOHHH BUT THEY DO! Welcome to "The Big City." Soto pours my drink into a to-go cup, we all leave our tabs open and head across the street to bar #3. Within seconds of walking in, I turn around to find SpiderMonkey holding a kitten.... in a bar!

Let's re-cap.... 5 week baby... in bar, to-go cups... from a bar, and a kitten... IN A BAR!!! Seriously, they should require a passport for this place! Oh... to top the whole night off... we went to waffle house at 3 am. AWESOME!

So, Sunday, after recovering from the mind warp of the night before, Big B and I head to A-town to visit a reletive we haven't seen in years, in hopes of getting info about Supermom. It worked. We soon had Supermom's mom's phone number. That night we had planned for my family (Mom, Dad, Shorty, and Pop Tart) to come over for dinner so they could meet Big B.

We get back to my place and Big B calls the number we got and within a couple minutes is talking to Supermom. AWESOME! He eventually put me on the phone and I dropped the bomb that the two of us were only about 45 minutes away if she wanted to join us for dinner. After a little bit of freaking out (by all of us) Supermom was on her way. So... here we are...

Me, Big B and SuperMom

Of course mom and dad and the kids still came too. (I didn't tell them that Supermom was gonna be there too... Surprise!) So... here's the "kids" ... we're all related somehow right?

PopTart, Shorty, Me, Big B, and Supermom

Oh yeah! So... Supermom has that name for a reason. She's got 2 little boys! Meaning... I'm an AUNT! WOW! Actually Big B has 2 girls and a boy... so I'm an Aunt times 5!!!!! I think my Christmas shopping list just got longer.

Domo and PillowKing (my nephews!!!)

The reason PillowKing got his name.

Seriously.... WOW! What a weekend. That's crazy right? AWESOME!

Weekend re-cap

2008-10-20T11:50:00.007-04:00

Thursday night Dad calls to ask what I'm doing on Saturday. Turns out that a good portion of the family that lives in Savannah, GA is going to be in Southern IN visiting. And as a bonus, Aunt Jan-Jan (my dad's sister) is going to be driving up to A-town on Friday. So, Friday was work, ditched running with Simmonds (who was pretty grateful cuz she really wasn't in the mood to run) to have a margarita with Jan-Jan. Drove around town a bit to show her what has happened to little A-town since she left over 10 years ago, and then headed to play Texas Hold 'Em.

I was quite proud of myself this time. I played a lot smarter. I folded stupid hands that weren't going to pay out instead of betting to at least see the flop which is what I typically do. I also got lucky in that I actually got some good cards. In the end it was down to me and one other person (after we knocked out my mom - she ALWAYS makes some amazing come back and knocks me out!!!) He was definitely leading me in chips and we were both tired. After going all in (in hopes of losing and just ending it) from just seeing the flop (I was holding out for a straight... that NEVER works!!) the straight hits and I win the hand. Winnings were supposed to be $45 for 1st and $25 for second. He was still leading me in chips, but we were both over it, so I asked him if he'd take $40 and I'd take $30 and call it a night, which we did. 2nd place is pretty good for me though. I was happy.

Jan-Jan stayed the night at my place and in the morning we headed to the Louisville area where my dad's brother and sister-in-law live. My grandparents (from Savannah) were already there and Mom and Dad and my brother and sister were right behind us. We had lunch and lounged around the house together, catching up, and then headed out to this orchard/winery that is nearby. Mom, Dad and I did some wine tasting and then our whole crew headed out to the pumpkin patch to pick pumpkins. YAY for pumpkins! Pumpkins = roasted pumpkin seeds!! AWESOME! Here's a couple pics of my adorable little cousin trying to find just the right pumpkin.

They aren't great pics, but she still adorable! Mom took some pics too that I'd like to post if she sends them to me.

Sunday was pretty laid back. The boyfriend and I went to "Breakfast" which has become rather routine for us on the weekends. The people know us now. We're like and old couple except we don't eat at Denny's. Who cares. Bub's is AWESOME. Oh yeah.. the Colts lost.... AGAIN! stupid!

A picture blog

2008-10-13T14:43:00.006-04:00

I can't really make up for not writing for the past several months, but I can give you snapshots of some events that have happened...

Mr. Bones found a forever home!

My baby Brother Graduated!

Will and I went to ....

ROLLERDERBY!!!

I got SCUBA certified! I also got to go diving at the Living Seas at Disney World, but I refuse to allow the public to see post-dive pics of me in a wetsuit... sorry.. and you're welcome!

Rica came to visit and we...

Got to go see Missy Higgins together!

Will was able to come to the Missy concert too!

Lucas Oil Stadium (The new home of the Colts) opened and we got to go on a tour.

The K-dog, Rica and I got to go to Vegas for the Photoshop World conference. This is us at the After Party at the House of Blues. SWEET!!

Raina became foster number 3 and eventually found a new home where she is being treated like the princess that she believes herself to be.

Joey became foster number 4, and while he was certainly the most amusing foster we've had (you can't tell in the picture, but he has the body of a husky, the markings of a German Shepard, but has little tiny Corgi legs - hilarious!!) he was a little too interested in Neo, so he went to live with another foster family.

And most recently, we brought home foster number 5. Harper. Isn't she cute?!

Well, that pretty much sums it up. Hope you enjoy.

Yay for Concerts!

2008-10-13T13:42:00.005-04:00

If you've read my blog much before, you probably already know that I'm a little obsessed with this chick. She's frikin' awesome! This past weekend she was once again in Chi-town and considering it takes very little to convince me to head that way anyway... I went. She was opening for Ben Folds. Remember that band from like back in Junior High or something? Ben Fold's Five? Well, I guess they are no longer "five" but Ben has a band and they record albums and do tours and you know... stuff that bands do. So... Simmonds and I head up to the Windy City for some musical entertainment.

Before heading to the concert we went to check out the final contender for the bridesmaid dress for Beana's wedding next year. Here's a pic... Ignor the size 14 girl being pinned into the size 8 dress if you don't mind.. thanks!

Aside from the dress obviously being waaaay to small for me, I really like it. It's not going to be this color, but I still think it will be cute.

After dress shopping, it was off to Gino's East for lunch (cuz that'll help the dress fit! haha!). Then we headed over to the Congress Theater to get tickets. We had tons of time to kill so we ended up tooling around that area until we found a comic book shop that got Simmonds all geeked out. We finished up there just in time to throw some more quarters in the meter and split a pitcher of margaritas before the show started.

Missy ROCKED! of course. It was really cool to see her playing such a big venue (compared to the other places I've seen her play) and to see so many people there. I don't have many good pics because we were waaaaay farther back then usual. The stage looked pretty when we got there though, so I snapped this...

I actually have a couple decent videos, but I don't know if it's actually legal to post them. I just don't know the rules here. Ben Folds was quite amusing. He has a song called Effington and the opening line is "If there's a God, He is laughing at us, and our football team." Cracks me up! He also introduced a song by saying, "I fell of the stage, and I wrote a song about it." That's funny! As if he hadn't won me over with the comedy, he brought Missy Higgins back out on stage to sing
"You Don't Know Me" which is record with Regina Spektor on the album. It's a nice song, of course I wish he had orginally recorded it with Missy.. that'd be awesome.

Bottom line, Missy does it again. Last time I went to see her Eric Hutchinson opened for her - consequently, I now LOVE him! This time she opened for Ben Folds and I'm thinking there's a good chance I need to buy his most recent album... and maybe even some of his older stuff. I leave you with the one picture from the show that is at least half way decent. I don't remember what song they were singing, or why the costume was necessary (too busy laughing) but I found it amusing...

I Miss My Blog!!!!

2008-10-01T14:37:00.002-04:00

I can't believe it's been almost a year since I've blogged! I miss my blog. I refuse to make any promises about how this will be the beginning of me blogging again. But I guess it's a start. So, what's new? We're on foster dog number 4 - Joey. He's absolutely adorable. Husky body, German Shepard markings, and little stumpy Corgi legs. HILARIOUS!!! Raina - foster number 3 went to her forever home a couple weeks ago. Single guy with no other pets who will treat her like that princess she believes herself to be. AWESOME!

At the beginning of the year I started working out pretty hard core. I did a pretty good job sticking to it until about June or so. Then I just totally crapped out. I'm back into the swing of things now and Simmonds and I are actually running almost everyday after work which has been highly motivating. Now my legs are being STUPID and they hurt really bad. It's really frustrating. I'm trying to be healthy and active and all that crap, and my body seems to be rejecting it.

Work... hmmm. In a word... LUNACY! I think I should probably leave it at that for now.

Will and I joined a fantasy football league. It's freaking AWESOME. Highly addictive. Our neighbors got us sucked in. Will is really bitter because I'm 4-0 even though I should have lost every game. He thinks I should rename my team, "Team Bullshit" because that's how I win. It's true, but... mostly I think he's jealous.

Over the summer the Boyfriend and I have started watching The West Wing on DVD. I never watched it while it was on TV, so it's been fun. It's an interesting show. I'm excited that new shows are finally coming back! Damn writer's strike! Heroes is off to great start. New characters, new powers, old characters getting new powers. YAY!

Ok... my brain is officially dead.

Texas according to Karen

2007-12-23T21:31:00.000-05:00

So, for those of you who still read even though I rarely post... You know my theme of using nicknames. Will is my gay roommate who on his blog calls me Grace. Well... we have an announcement. We've found our Karen! She lives in our neighborhood and we LOVE hanging out with her and her husband. So, the other night the five of us (Karen and her husband, Me and the boyfriend, and Will) all went out to dinner. At some point we were talking about traveling to different places and Texas came up. This was Karen's statement about Texas. "It's Flat brown and ugly with dead armadillos everywhere!" HAHA I don't know if it was the 2 glasses of wine or the fact that the service had been terrible and I needed something to laugh about, but i thought it was hilarious, so I thought I would share.

How many dogs does it take...

2007-12-20T12:14:00.000-05:00

I know this isn't a real post, but let's be honest... you haven't seen a real post from me in months. I saw this posted on Northern Lights Sled Dog Rescue message board and it made me laugh, so I thought I would share. Hope you enjoy.

How many dogs does it take to change a light bulb?

1. Golden Retriever: The sun is shining, the day is young, we've got our whole lives ahead of us, and you're inside worrying about a stupid burned out bulb?

2. Border Collie: Just one. And then I'll replace any wiring that's not up to code.

3. Dachshund: You know I can't reach that stupid lamp!

4. Rottweiler: Make me.

5. Boxer: Who cares? I can still play with my squeaky toys in the dark.

6. Lab: Oh, me, me!!!!! Pleeeeeeeeeze let me change the light bulb! Can I? Can I? Huh? Huh? Huh? Can I? Pleeeeeeeeeze, please, please, please!

7. German Shepherd: I'll change it as soon as I've led these people from the dark, check to make sure I haven't missed any, and make just one more perimeter patrol to see that no one has tried to take advantage of the situation.

8. Jack Russell Terrier: I'll just pop it in while I'm bouncing off the walls and furniture.

9. Old English Sheep Dog: Light bulb? I'm sorry, but I don't see a light bulb!

10. Cocker Spaniel: Why change it? I can still pee on the carpet in the dark.

11. Chihuahua: Yo quiero Taco Bulb. Or "We don't need no stinking light bulb."

12. Greyhound: It isn't moving. Who cares?

13. Australian Shepherd: First, I'll put all the light bulbs in a little circle...

14. Poodle: I'll just blow in the Border Collie's ear and he'll do it. By the time he finishes rewiring the house, my nails will be dry.

How many cats does it take to change a light bulb?

Cats do not change light bulbs. People change light bulbs. So, the real question is:
"How long will it be before I can expect some light, some dinner, and a massage?"
ALL OF WHICH PROVES, ONCE AGAIN, THAT WHILE DOGS HAVE MASTERS, CATS HAVE STAFF!

Disconnect

2007-10-04T10:06:00.000-04:00

Have you ever been in a situation where you think you know someone, and then something comes spilling out of their mouth that causes you to have a major mental disconnect? Well, it just happened to me. I should probably warn you now... this is not going to be a light bubbly post that typically appears on this blog.

This country (and many others) has been plagued by a nasty thing called racism for more years than I think most people would like to admit. It comes in many flavors, from blatant to very subtle. It's shown in both words and actions. What I think some people don't realize, is that no matter what, it hurts. It hurts the person it is being directed towards and it hurts our nation.

I was just a part of a conversation in which someone stated that perhaps different races shouldn't get married, because maybe God made us different for a reason. This person went on to say "it's like different animals don't mix together." I was appalled! I have a hard enough time swallowing the fact that in 2007 people still believe in division of races, but to use God to justify it and to go on to compare it to animal behavior? I'm honestly having a really hard time putting this into words. This person continued and said that they don't want to discriminate, but they don't think it's right for different races to marry.

Am I just not understanding something here? Didn't we have a civil war surrounding this very issue. I'm so frustrated that people can still think in these terms. Are we not all human? Do we not all have the same rights? Something like Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness? Is that only applicable within your own race? You have the right to pursue happiness but only if that falls within our discriminatory guidelines. How is it that the human race continues to disappoint me after 26 years of life? Am I stupid to hold on to belief that in my lifetime we could live in a world where race doesn't matter?

How many "purebreds" are there in this country anyway? I'd venture to guess that there are few if any people in this country whose lineage traces back to only one culture. If we're going to draws lines by skin color, shouldn't we also divide ourselves by country. So, if you're a US citizen you can only marry another US citizen. But you know... in the south they have a different accent so people should really only marry people from the same region of the country as them. Then of course there are social classes - rich folk definitely shouldn't be interacting with the poor. Let's not forgot politics, a Republican should never marry a Democrat, imagine how confused the children would be. Oh education! how could I forget education?!? Don't dare marry someone who has a different education level than you. Are we really this ignorant people? We are humans! It's called the Human Race!!!!

Ok... enough with the soapbox, but seriously, can't we just learn to love?

Drink spittingly funny - almost!

2007-09-12T10:49:00.000-04:00

First of all... yes, spittingly is a word. I just made it up. Don't argue with me! Second... I know this is my 2nd post in two days. Don't get scared and don't get used to it. It's just that I actually have something to talk about for a change. So here goes....

The other day the boyfriend comes home and tells me that during the Jets vs Patriots game on Sunday, someone spotted a person on the Pats side video taping the Jets sideline. The tape was confiscated by the NFL. I figured it was a bunch of hype and they were going to come back and say it was just some crazy fan who thought he was going to help the team or something.

So yesterday, Will and I are playing racquetball at the gym and the boyfriend shows up so that we can both kick his butt. (He's not very good at racquetball). Will and I finish our game and come out and the boyfriend says he has news. I take a swig of my water as he proceeds to tell me that the NFL has determined that the guy (who apparently is a Pats video assistant) was recording defensive signals. I seriously almost spit my water across the basketball court. I did not see that coming! The NFL Commissioner is supposed to hand down the punishment on Friday. The speculation at this point is that he will fine them and probably take away some draft picks (big deal!).

I think their season should be over. They're freaking CHEATING! And apparently this isn't the first time this guy has been caught with a camera pointed at the opposing team's bench. I do understand that it's hard to know what to do in this situation. Who all knew this was going on? Obviously the Pats coach Bill Belichik knows about it. They should just kick him out of the league. But did they players know? I hate Tom Brady.. I would LOVE for it to come out that he knew! JERK!

I've only looked at a couple sites, but I'm fascinated by the way New England fans are reacting. When Michael Vick took a plea bargain in the dog fighting case, Falcons fans started sending their Vick jerseys to dog shelters to be used as lining for their crates! Way to go Falcons fans! As much as I think Vick should be coated in meat and shoved into a cage full of pit bulls that haven't eaten in three days, I could almost forgive the league if they chose not to punish him. (Though I guess the gambling charges are an issue that the league does need to address). What he did had no effect on the game. If something like this happened with the Colts, I'd be devastated! I honestly would probably start watching college football instead. I've gotten to the point that I honestly LOVE football too much to give it up, but I don't think I could continue to support a team that was cheating to win.

The Pats need HUGE punishment. And their fans need a reality check. The sites I've seen so far... fans are defending them. I understand innocent until proven guilty, but according to ESPN.com " NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has determined that the New England Patriots violated league rules Sunday when they videotaped defensive signals by the New York Jets' coaches, according to league sources." Sounds to me like they've already been proven guilty. How could you continue to support a team that is willing to do that? I do feel a little sorry for the fans who have supported them all these years and now it seems their victories are tainted. 3 Super Bowls? but how'd they win them? Even if they weren't cheating at that time... there will always be a question. What a bunch of idiots. As much as I hate them, they have some talented people. Did they really need to do this?

I guess this isn't really drink spittingly funny... It's drink spittingly sad.

MTV VMA recap

2007-09-11T10:47:00.000-04:00

For those of you who missed it, well... you didn't really miss much. I'm sure you've all heard by now, but just in case... Britney sucked! I'm sure you all know... I'm a Britney fan. Not even a closet Britney fan, i don't try to hide it. I own all her cds, I've even seen her in concert (i won the tickets on the radio, but still). It's sucked watching her derail into a giant self destructive disaster, but part of me (and i think of a lot of people) really thought she was going to get her stuff together and make a come back. Luckily, the industry and her fans especially are pretty forgiving. If she can come back and do something right she'll be worshiped as the pop princess that she is once again. Don't believe me? Look at Madonna (once Brit's role model). She certainly had her transgressions, but I still belt out Material Girl at karaoke from time to time and the whole bar is usually singing along. Britney can still rescue herself... she just has to want to.

Sunday night's show was all around sad if you ask me. I usually love the VMA's. It's always been more about the performances than the awards (as awards shows should be if you ask me, I don't really care that Justin Timberlake wants to thank he hair stylist who convinced him to buzz off his boy band curls). The show opened with Britney which of course i was super excited about, but then completely let down. One thing I've always like about Britney is that she can dance. I forgive the lip syncing because the girl is dancing her ass off and I don't know anyone who could sing and still dance as hard as her back up dancers. She totally mailed it in. I kept waiting for the cool thing to happen. The big "surprise" she had promised her fans. After her lackluster performance they sent Sarah Silverman (refuse to link to this because it's terrible), whom i CAN. NOT. STAND. out to bash her. I could get over some of her comments, I get that she's a comedian, but do you really need to bring a person's kids into your jokes? That's just hitting below the belt and if you ask me... it's not funny.

As I said before, the whole show kinda sucked if you ask me. There were a couple of highlights, but for the most part, MTV screwed it up. VMA performances are ALWAYS over the top. It's what we expect. It's why we watch it two or three out of the 87 times that you rebroadcast it. This year the show was at the Palms hotel and casino in Vegas. Sounds cool. But instead of having the main stage that everyone performed on, they had 4 suites throughout the hotel that had bands playing basically throughout the show. Fall Out Boy was in one, Justin Timberlake in another, I think the Foo Fighters had one too. They would occasionally cut to the suite so you could see a performance, but the sound quality wasn't as good and the bands we jammed onto little stages with a ton of screaming people around them. It was kind of like if your favorite band came to play in a small venue (like a bar or something) but you couldn't get tickets so you had to watch it on tv. I'm sure the people in the suite had an awesome time, but it did nothing for me.

So like i said, there were some highlights. Alicia Keys did a pretty good performance on the main stage. Jamie Foxx went completely of script and totally confused Jennifer Garner who he was presenting with (he was shameless plugging their upcoming movie The Kingdom). At one point they cut to the Fall Out Boy suite and Rhianna was actually performing with them. That was cool just because I never would have pictured them performing together. Good way to switch things up. That pretty much sums up the good parts. Rhianna and Justin Timberlake both took home 2 awards. (It seemed like there weren't as many awards as in the past too) I do have to give JT credit, both times he accepted his awards he said something to the effect of.... MTV, play more damn music videos!

Oh yeah one more weird thing... Carrie Underwood was a nominee for best new artist. Was MTV not watching American Idol 3 years ago or whenever it was that she was on? She's not new! Don't get me wrong... I like her... as much as I like any country artist, but she's NOT NEW! And they also had that dumb Miss Teen South Carolina on. I know she was trying to make it sound like she was making fun of herself.... but i think if it's possible, she just sounded even more stupid. Ok... rant over!

----------------
Now playing: Fall Out Boy - Of All The Gin Joints In All The World
via FoxyTunes

Coasting

2007-08-28T10:43:00.000-04:00

You may be wondering why I haven't posted in freakin' forever! Or the more likely scenario, you've just given up on me and aren't visiting my blog anymore in which case I'm really just talking to myself. Not that that would be unusual really but still. So what's my excuse for lack of blog? I have none. Well, laziness I guess, but I have no GOOD excuse. I feel like I've been coasting lately. Nothing exciting is really happening and I've basically just been too lazy to try to find things to entertain myself.

I'm part of our neighborhood book club. We've met twice now and both meetings have involved large amounts of Margaritas which is cool. We've read Kite Runner and My Sister's Keeper, both of which I thoroughly enjoyed. Next we're reading A Thousand Splendid Suns which I'm looking forward to.

I've tried to get back into some kind of workout routine though I'm not doing very well at it. The new season of TV shows hasn't started yet so there's nothing going on there. Work is pretty much the same old stuff.

We do have a new foster dog named Mr. Bones. He's about 5 years old and has never been taught to sit so it's been an adventure. Other than that I feel like my life is on auto-pilot. What's worse, there's no one to blame but myself. There are plenty of things I could do I'm sure, but I'm just not getting out there and doing them. I feel like I'm coasting through life rather than living it, which is rather odd for me. Maybe it's a sign that it's time to go back to school. I certainly never coasted while working full time and going to school full time. Alright.... enough whining from me.

Weird!

2007-07-16T23:35:00.000-04:00

Why does the Detroit Airport have a scary Willy Wonka tunnel? Don't know what I'm talking about? There is a tunnel that connect one set of terminals to another. You go down a set of escalators, across a moving sidewalk and up another set of escalators. But while you're trapped in the scary tunnel it's dark except for the weird wall art that changes colors and there is weird music playing. It's very reminiscent of the scene in Willy Wonka (Or Charlie - both versions have the scene) and Chocolate Factory when they are on the boat thing going through a tunnel. Creepy!

My latest Obsessions!

2007-06-29T16:01:00.000-04:00

It occurred to me that recently I've become enthralled with some new things and I haven't taken the time to share them with the blog-o-sphere. How can I expect to dominate the world if I can't suck you into my addictions? Crazy! So here goes!

Queen Triggerfish

A couple weeks ago Dad and I went to Denver for a conference. We were looking a place for dinner that ideally would be located near something that would provide us entertainment after dinner. The girl at the front desk recommended the Downtown Aquarium. In the restaurant, an entire wall, floor to ceiling, is an aquarium including sharks and puffer fish. Sweet! (though i find it a little cruel that the restaurant specialized in seafood). In addition to the restaurant there is a pretty decent size aquarium that you can go through. Being that I kinda wish I could just live underwater and I positively adore going to aquariums, and oh yeah, dad's a biologist, it seemed perfect.

We sat down for dinner and our waiter came over and rattled off a bunch of info about the 150,00 gallon aquarium in front of us. And then he made his fatal mistake... he said if we had any questions about the aquarium, just to ask. STUPID! The evening goes on and I have to know.... do they name the fish? If I worked there I would name the fish. I mean obviously not all of them, but unique and easily identifiable ones. So he starts to tell us what they have named some of the fish. He said there was one named Molly and she was the most expensive in the tank. $9000 to be exact! I was fascinated! I needed to know what a $9000 fish looked like. So our waiter took me on a walk to find her. She was really pretty. I didn't get a good shot of her, but here's what her breed looks like (is it breed if it's a fish? i'm such a dog person)

So, where does the obsession part come in? Well, it occurred to me why not make a $18,000 investment, and buy 2 Queen Triggerfish and breed them. Ok, I understand that it'll be more than 18k because there will be the purchase of a huge ass salt water tank and all... but seriously... $9000/fish. That's some bank! Of course dad and the Doctor have both tried to steal my thunder by pointing out that these fish don't breed in captivity... WHATEVER!

Obsession # 2 - Ok, I'm a little embarrassed to admit this, but I'm totally addicted to :

So You Think You Can Dance

I LOVE this show. Can't get enough. Mad that I only get one regular show and one results show/ week. Oh and since it's a holiday week... I get NONE this week. This show is basically American Idol for dancers. I never really got into American Idol (though I do thank them for giving us Kelly Clarkson... and a few others, but mostly Kelly) First of all, I love dance. If i believed in reincarnation, part of me would want to come back as a dancer. The show is especially enticing because I love watching a ball room dancer paired with Hip Hop dancer, told to do a contemporary dance. And more specifically, watch them TEAR IT UP! The choreographer obviously gets a lot of the credit for this dance... but check out this video of Kameron and Lacey. I LOVE THEM! Keep in mind this is a contemporary dance so it is a little weird at first but stick with it, it's only about 2 minutes and it's AWESOME! Also I'm now addicted to the song as well. Enjoy!

For anyone who is actually watching the show regularly... here's my short version of my thoughts so far. Kameron and Lacey are obviously my favorite couple. Pasha is DEFINITELY my favorite guy. Shauna and Lacey are probably my favorite girls. And Jessi did NOT deserve to be sent home last week.

Third and Final Obsession

Mac Cosmetics Pro Longwear Lip Colour

My lips have found their match. I've been tirelessly searching Clinique Counters, Sephoras, and Ultas for the perfect lip color. I just want something that I can put on once in the morning and not have to mess with it the rest of the day. Is that too much to ask for? It seemed as though it was. See, I'm addicted to chapstick but I still wanted some color. So I needed something I could put on and then continue to use my chapstick throughout the day without losing the color. This may seem picky, but I assure you I'm not the only girl who knows what she wants for her lips and searches endlessly. Case #1: The Quitter. Case #2: The Quitter again (this girl's persistent). I have finally found it. Mac Cosmetics Pro Longwear Lip Colour. It goes on like a gloss and you let it dry for a couple minutes. It becomes kinda sticky and then you know the color has set. After that you can put on gloss (which comes with it) or if you're a chapstick addict like me just use that. The color lasts all day! It made it through my diet coke sipping and lunch! Yesterday I put it on right before church. After church we went to a cook out - hot dogs, macaroni salad, chips, the works. Later that night we had pizza for dinner and when I went to get ready for bed you could still see the color (it had faded, but it was still there). I LOVE this stuff. My color is "Legendary" but they have lots to choose from. Lip Color from Mac: $20. Not having to reapply every time you take a sip of coffee: Priceless!

Alright, I shared my obsessions. Your turn. What should I obsess over next?

Bar Hopping with the Boss

2007-06-11T21:14:00.000-04:00

Ok, this past weekend was supposed to be my weekend off. Long story short, instead of laying around watching movies I went to Boise Idaho for work. Now, I could write a blog about the bad parts, long delayed flights, forgetting my sunglasses in the rental car, thinking I lost my keys, an incredibly BORING conference, etc. But instead I'm gonna focus on the good.... I went bar hopping with my boss!!!!!!!

Apparently, Boise has the largest Basque (look 'em up I'm too lazy to explain) community in the U.S. So The Doctor and I decided we should check it out and definitely partake in the unique Basque food. So we headed to downtown Boise where we parked the car and walked through the Basque District to Bar De Ney. The food was incredible! I had a black bean an sweet potato chimichanga with chipotle sauce and mango salsa and a side of apricot almond couscous. AWESOME!

After dinner we decided to walk around and check out the area. We stumbled upon the Basque Cultural Center which was mostly closed, but the front part was open so we went in to check it out. It was basically an American Legion. There was a bar, some tables and chairs and a pool table. I half jokingly suggested we play a game pool and the Doctor replied, "I'd kick your butt at pool." (That is a direct quote, don't try to deny it Doctor) So of course I had to take him up on it. The first game he scratched on the break and then proceeded (about 2 or 3 shots in I think, to hit the 8 ball in.) We were having fun and I felt it only fair to give him another shot so we played again and he won. Now tied 1-1 we had no choice but to play a third game. I thought I was toast. He was stripes and knocked in 2 or 3 balls on his first turn. I followed by completely missing on my turn. Each shot he took after that was started with the phrase, "I might be able to make a shot if there weren't so many solids out here." In the end I made 2 AMAZING (for me) shots and finally sunk the 8 ball to win the game! Take that Dr. "I'd kick your butt in pool."

With him feeling so defeated, and me not wanting to make him feel too humiliated (I can't even type that without laughing) we decided to move on and see what else downtown had to offer. As we were walking I suggested (again half jokingly) that we should find a place to sing Karaoke. We both laugh and keep walking until we hear music coming out of a bar. We look through the big window in the front of the bar and realize it's a live band. The Doctor notices a sign that says, "NO COVER" and says let's go check it out! The bouncer cards both of us and as the Doctor and I start talking about how young he looks the bouncer points out that Idaho state law says EVERYONE must be carded! HAHA! Sorry Doctor.

The band playing had a very Reggae feel which I found interesting given the multitude Guinness banners and the GIANT Irish flag hanging over the stage. Regardless, they were pretty good. We stayed for about 6 or 7 songs before the Doctor leaned over and said, "So, if we go to a Karaoke bar, are you actually going to sing?" Clearly this is first time bar hopping with me. I reply with an enthusiastic "HELL YEAH!" "Let's go" he said. Following the advice of the bouncer we headed to a place that has Karaoke 7 nights/week (just the idea is like a little slice of Heaven for me). We arrived just on time for the DJ to do a sound check and kick things off. Most of the people there were singing songs by bands like Adema, Blue October, and Hatebreed. But if you know the Doctor, you know that didn't stop him from "rocking out" in his own way by singing Neil Diamond's "Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show." AWESOME!

I managed to butcher Carrie Underwood's "Before He Cheats." For round 2 the Doctor decided to go from Salvation to the Devil, with "The Devil Went Down to Georgia." As much as I've made fun of him in this post, this is one of my favorite karaoke songs when done well, and he did a great job. I finished up with Kelly Osbourne's version of "Papa Don't Preach" (a karaoke classic for me) and being that it was some time after midnight and my flight was leaving at 5:50am, we decided to call it a night.

Now, having a drink with the boss isn't that unusual. Wine with dinner is almost a must, especially after dealing with homeschoolers all day. But, I actually went bar hopping with my boss. Sweet!

Ok so I did make fun of the Doctor a little bit in this post. So in fairness (and in attempt to keep myself from getting fired) I should also mention that he was officially my "Hero for the Day" 2 days in row. Saturday after the conference the conference organizers wanted to take us out to dinner. Sounds fine.... yeah they wanted to go to Cracker Barrel! Now don't get me wrong, I love me some bacon, eggs and cheesy grits, but I can have that any day of the week. The Doctor got us out of dinner with the organizers because I was excited about checking out the Basque Community. (Also, I don't think he's a fan of Cracker Barrel but whatever.) Hero for the day on Saturday!

Sunday morning my flight leaves earlier than his so he drops me off and goes to drop off the rental car. Of course at 5am the Hertz counter isn't actually open so he slides the keys in the drop box and goes to check himself in for his flight. As a TSA agent is rifling through one of my carry-ons it hits me... CRAP (yeah i said crap out loud, probably not the best thing to do when a TSA agent is searching your stuff but apparently it didn't matter) I left my Maui Jim sunglasses in the rental. The Maui Jim Sunglasses that Will gave me 2 years that while they didn't actually cost him anything, are worth $250. The Maui Jim Sunglasses that Will has threaten to kill me if I ever lose or break. So, seriously, CRAP! I get through security and onto my plane (which was already calling for the final boarding call) and call the Doctor in hopes that he noticed they were there and grabbed them. Yeah that didn't happen. He did however tell me that he thinks he forgot to lock the car so after he gets checked-in he'll go back to the car and see if he can get them. My plane was leaving so it wasn't until i touched down in Minneapolis and could turn my phone back on that I got the voice mail.... He didn't lock the car! He had my sunglasses!!!!!!! Hero for the Day - 2 days in row!

The End!

Conversations with Tajikistan

2007-06-08T23:26:00.000-04:00

Ok a normal person would explain, but i prefer randomness... so here are 2 quotes from a conversation with a person in Tajikistan:

1. "So you were grazing with the cows?"
2. "Oh, so it was that kind of toilet."

HAHA! they make me laugh. have a lovely day!

Even geeks can be Rockstars

2007-05-02T16:27:00.000-04:00

I know this seems like an odd title but stick with me here. This actually should have been included in the last post, but i forgot, so here ya go. According to wikipedia.com "A rock star or rockstar is a member of a rock and roll band, or a solo artist in the genre (the term usually implies celebrity status, or 'stardom')." For the purposes of this blog we're going to focus on the "usually implies celebrity status or stardom." Generally the people put in this category are musicians and singers but I think the term can be expanded. I tend to think that people can be rockstars of their particular art or talent. For example, I think Rachael Ray is the Rockstar of cooking, Paris Hilton is the Rockstar of trashy celebutant hookers, you get the idea.

Until recently I thought these "Rockstars" could only be famous people. You know the ones that regularly appear on E! or on the front cover of US Weekly or Glamour magazine. Lately my eyes have been opened. I've discovered at least 2 geeks who are total Rockstars. The first was when I started my current job a couple years ago. I attended my first conference with The Doctor and it became abundantly clear to me that he is definitely the Rockstar of Homeschool Science. Kids flocked to our booth the meet him, shake his hand, even ask him to autograph their books (FREAKS!) I understand that most of these kids will never understand what a real Rockstar is because listening to "rockstar" music would cause them to Go To Hell, do not pass Go, Do not collect $200, but still it's kinda scary. I think my favorite moment was when I saw a group of three pre-teen girls giggling and whispering while trying to get up the nerve to approach the booth and talk to "THE DOCTOR." (P.S. to The Doctor - Please don't be offended by the term geek, it's said with respect and affection I assure you)

At the time I thought this was a fluke. He only achieved Rockstar status because these kids didn't know any better (nothing personal Doctor, but let's be honest most other people wouldn't classify you as a Rockstar). A few weeks ago though, I discovered another Geek Rockstar. K-dog, Rica and I attended the Photoshop World convention in Boston. It was here that I attended my first seminar from Mr. Scott Kelby. Take one look at this guy and you know he's a geek. Listen to his jokes, and it confirms it all. You can almost picture a younger Scott Kelby getting his butt kicked by a group of bullies everyday on the play ground. But at Photoshop World, he was a Rockstar. Every one of his seminars were packed to standing room only and people would hang around afterwards to ask him questions, get autographs, and take pictures. It was crazy!

So there you have it. If you're a geek but you want to be a Rockstar, find a group of geeks with interests similar to yours and just become a bigger geek than them.... instant Rockstar-dom!

It's about BLOGGIN' time!

2007-04-09T14:58:00.000-04:00

So, it's kinda been forever since I've blogged! For once though, it's because I've been busy, not just because I've been lazy which is usually the case. So, in an effort to re-cap I'm going to repeat this method, where i combine several blogs into one, with each blog getting it's own title. Here goes:

Aloha and Mahalo!

I went to Hawaii!!!!! I went for work but still... it's Hawaii! I had a pretty good time. I did manage to get a little sun despite the fact that it rained EVERY DAY i was there. I discovered how much I really HATE traveling alone. I was there for a week, again, not really complaining, I was in Hawaii, but I am faaaaar too social of a person to spend a week alone. Highlights of the trip... visiting Pearl Harbor. It was an interesting experience. They have about a 20 minute movie about it and then you get on the ferry and it takes you out to the memorial. Before the movie starts someone introduces it and makes some announcements. He reminded people that there were still soldiers trapped under water and that when we went to the memorial it should be treated as any other grave site, including keeping conversation to a minimum and speaking in hushed tones if necessary. That seemed perfectly reasonable to me, but apparently not to others. I was pretty annoyed. I'm standing in front of a wall of names of people who died and the people behind me were talking about their tee time the next morning. It's called respect people. Give it a try.

Moving on... I drove out to North Shore where they were expecting 20 foot waves. The waves were a bit bigger than in Waikiki, but no dice on the 20 footers. Still, had a great scenic drive out there.

At the conference I gave a workshop and at the beginning I tried bribing people with discounts in exchange for surfing lessons. Apparently there weren't any surfing families there. I did however meet a military family who said they were going boogie boarding on Sunday and would be willing to take me. So Sunday morning I drove out to the other side of the island which was awesome. North Shore was pretty, but it had nothing on this.

Since they were in the military they had access to a military recreation center including a beach that you could only get to if you were in the military. It was pretty fun, there weren't very many people there, and we just hung out and boogie boarded until it started raining.

The next morning I was supposed to fly out, but not until 5pm. So I walked down to Waikiki and signed up for a surfing lesson. They put us on boards that were about 12 feet tall (that's not an exaggeration by the way). I think you would have to be armless and legless not to catch a wave on this thing. So anyway, got to surf for about an hour. It was quite fun. A little on the dangerous side though. 1) there are rocks not just sand at the bottom, I was lucky enough not to get slammed into them by the waves, but my feet suffered a couple of painful pokes. 2) All up and down Waikiki are places offering surfing lessons. What that means is that at any given time there are (i would guesstimate) at least 200+ people (most of whom have never surfed or are definitely amateurs with no clue what they're doing i.e. me) with 12' tall boards all trying to paddle, catch a wave, manage to stand up, stay up, and desperately try to avoid slamming into one another. Many of these things don't happen, especially the last one. I had bruises for a few days to prove it. Bottom line, I got to go to Hawaii. It was fun, but next time the goal will be to not go alone.

You can always count on...

Have you ever noticed that you can always count on certain friends for certain things? The Reverend for instance, I can always count on to be up for just about anything.

Exhibit A:
Me: Hey I just found out that this chick named Missy Higgins is going to be in concert in Chicago. I know you've never heard of her, but I LOVE her! Let's drive up and see her show.
Reverend: Okay!

Exhibit 2:
Me: You know how our friend Beana is half way across country right now?
Reverend: yeah
Me: Well, she's kinda going through a rough patch, let's fly out to Denver for New Year's to cheer her up.
Reverend: Okay
Me: Oh, and even better, let's not tell her you're coming, she'll be totally surprised.
Reverend: Awesome!

Exhibit B-3:
Me: You know how I've been in Costa Rica for a year and everyone is expecting be to come home in about a month?
Reverend: of course
Me: How 'bout I switch my ticket to come home a few days early? You pick me up at the airport and then drive me the 4 hours home so we can wake my mom up in the middle of the night and surprise her.
Reverend: Sounds good to me!

You get the idea.

Then there's Will. There are many things to be said for Will, but the first one that comes to mind is, you can always count on him to bail on the stuff that doesn't matter...

Exhibit A
Me: You said you would watch Criminal Minds with me tonight. You know I can't watch it alone it scares me.
Will: Yeah, I lied. I'm going to bed.
Me: It's only 8:30.
Will: Yeah. And I have to get up at like the crack of noon tomorrow. Night.

But always be around for the important stuff.... Like painting diamonds on a textured walls and taking the dogs to the dog park.

I could go on and on about different friends, but I'm gonna cut to the chase. I recently discovered what it is I can always count on the Quitter for. (I used to think it was never answering her phone, which is still mostly true. Love you Quitter!) The fact is, I can always count on the Quitter to be the most excited for me.

Exhibit A:
After a Colts game, waiting for autographs, Quitter did the happy dance with me after Brandon Stokley signed my jersey and she did it with almost as much enthusiasm as when Joseph Addai signed hers. (Meanwhile the Boyfriend just stood there shaking his head at us. whatever!)

Exhibit 2:
Quitter came over because I told her I had something to show her. When she arrived she starting telling me a story and as she talked I casually walked to the back of the house toward the garage. She followed me and as i opened the garage door, stepped in and flipped on the light she stopped mid-sentence to squeal and jump up and down at the site of my new car. And then of course she raved about how great it was and how excited she was for me as we took it out for a spin.

The most recent excitement:
I asked the Quitter to come over because 1) I hadn't seen her in a while and 2) I knew something might be happening that night that she would love to be a part of. I got the confirmation call right before she arrived. When she walked in I asked if i could kidnap her. I told her I should have her home by the time her husband got home. When she asked where we were going and I replied, "it's a secret." She got even more excited. As we got in the car and I proceeded to drive half way around the city I was beginning to think she might be over my scheme. She seemed even more thrilled when I pulled into the wrong place and said, "hmm guess this isn't it. Well, it's around here somewhere." Finally, we started to pull into a storage unit place. She seem utterly confused until she noticed an adorable Husky sitting at the front door of the office. Her jaw dropped open, her eyes got huge and she squealed, "Is that gonna be yours?" I smiled and nodded and before I even had the car in park she had the door open and was running to see our new dog.

So there you have it. You can always count on the Quitter to be the MOST excited for you.

The New Babies

You didn't really think I was gonna tell you I got a new dog and not show pictures did you? We actually ended up getting 2 dogs that night. We adopted Scout from a rescue organization called Northern Lights Sled Dog Rescue. They are an incredible organization that rescues Huskies and Malamutes. Scout was found severely under weight and taken into the rescue program. He eventually was adopted by a family who later also adopted Yoshi, a female Husky who was brought into the rescue program. Scout and Yoshi had been with the family for about a year when the mother/wife became ill and had to be hospitalized leaving the dad and daughter forced to move into an apartment that wouldn't accept Huskies. So, long story short, the boyfriend and I adopted Scout and are currently fostering Yoshi until we can find her a good home. The good news is, it looks like Will's parents are going to adopt her. She may be going home as soon as this weekend. Ok... here's the pics...

Yoshi is our brown eyed girl on the left and Scout is our blue-eyed boy on the right.

Yoshi - ready for her close up!

Scouty-boy - this picture cracks me up.

And finally, Scout in husky stalking mode (yeah right!)

So, there you have it. I finally blogged! hope you enjoyed!

Funny quotes (and thoughts) from Yesterday

2007-03-09T08:34:00.000-05:00

"I think Adobe is my abusive boyfriend." If you've ever used Adobe products, I'm sure this quote needs no explanation. It came from Rica whilst working on altering an ad that she really didn't want to alter in the first place.

"Nobody yells about dog balls, but girl boobs, that's a problem." This too came from Ms. Rica. It seems complicated to explain and might even be funnier out of context, so I'm going to leave it at that. If you want to the full story, you'll have to coax it out of her.

Finally, this wasn't a quote but rather a thought that I just found a bit ironic. I've mentioned that Will and I have been trying to eat healthier. As a result I could probably count on one hand the number of times i have had fast food in the last 3 months. The few times I have had it, my body has been pretty unhappy with me, so I've gotten to the point that I don't even want it any more. (Trust me, while I know this is a good thing for my health, it really freaks me out. I love me some good greasy fries! Anyway...) So last night I'm at my yoga class and we are at the end doing final relaxation (I'm all about workouts that force you to relax). The instructor is saying things like, "this is time for you," "feel the body relax into the floor," and then she says "allow yourself to go to your favorite place." Now, normally I just sorta zone out during all of this. I can't really explain what happened, but the second the words left her mouth I had an image of myself sitting at In-N-Out Burger with both hands wrapped around a double-double. There was no one else around, just me and double-double. Sweet action!

Well, that's all. If any of this made you laugh a fraction as much as i did, you're likely in a better mood now. YAY!

I heart the Faux-hawk!

2007-03-07T19:56:00.000-05:00

So, Will has a tendency to not visit The Hair God (our stylist) as often as he should. In his defense, it's freaking expensive, and let's be honest, I don't go as often as I should either. He's also got the same problem I do, in that our hair grows really freaking fast. Great if you get a bad hair cut (which NEVER happens with the Hair God), but means more frequent pricey trips. So, pretty regularly Will's hair get on the long and shaggy side. Not long like some skater punk long, but long enough to make styling it challenging if not pointless. Eventually he goes to get it cut and always gets the gay man's hair uniform, short and spikey with blond highlights. I recently tried to get him to dye it black, you know the super deep black that makes it look almost blue, but the Hair God said it wouldn't come out right so he bailed on the idea. So this time i convinced him it was time for a Faux-hawk!

He's done this before but it usually only lasts 2 days before he's back to the short spikey mess. I think it looks really great this time and it makes me happy! It also made me happy to take ridiculous pictures of him so I could memorialize this moment on my blog. This is my favorite pic....

After checking out Will's new do Oscar decided he wanted to jump on board... (or he might have given me dirty looks and tried to bite me the whole time i was messing with his fur, but whatever)
My boys and their Faux-hawks! I LOVE IT!!!!!

Day of Mourning

2007-03-02T10:21:00.000-05:00

Last night I was cozied up on the couch buried under blankets and Oscar, watching The Black Donnelly's. (New show, seems interesting, we'll see how it goes, it's on Thursday and that's already filled by CSI and Grey's Anatomy which were both re-runs last night, hence checking out the new show) Suddenly my phone was trumpeting the tone that alerts me to the presence of a text message. It's from the Reverend and simply says, "looks like you'll need a new jersey." I immediately pause the TV (God bless Tivo technology) bolt up and order the boyfriend to go to colts.com. He hangs in head because he had gotten news a little earlier from a friend and had opted not to tell me.... Brandon Stokley's contract with the Colts has been terminated.

It's devastating! The day after the Superbowl the bosses were kind enough to give us the day off to celebrate. I thought it only appropriate that I have a day to mourn my loss. I called the Doctor, who hadn't heard the news yet, and made my request, explaining the situation. His response, "Well it sounds like you just need to work extra hard so you can save for a new jersey." ggggrrrrr! Well played Doctor, well played. Not the sympathy that I was looking for, but well played indeed.

I'm not holding my breath, but there is still a chance that the Colts could re-sign him for less money. He's an awesome player; he just had a rough season because of injuries. I expect some other team will scoop him up and I'll be forced to move on. If so... Dallas Clark, you've got a new #1 fan.

Things I find interesting...

2007-02-26T10:24:00.000-05:00

1. The guy that cut me off and gave me a nasty look while I was driving to the gym had a "In God We Trust" license plate. (And God bless you for being rude to me sir).
2. I saw an empty cigarette box littered in the parking lot.... of the GYM!
3. (This is my personal favorite) H2 Hummers with evironmental license plates.
4. (On the same note...) Thinking of all of the SUV's, limo, etc. that shuttled celebrities to the Oscars while Leonardo DiCaprio thanked Al Gore for making us more aware of global warming.

There are more but I can't think of them right now...

The Great Snow of 2007

2007-02-20T09:48:00.000-05:00

Life around here has been... well... snowy. On Monday Rica, K-dog and I headed to Cincy for press check on the new catalog. It was a pretty fun trip, good conversation, lunch at an awesome Thai restaurant, and a pretty quick turn around time on the actual work part of things. We did end up leaving a little early because of a looming snow storm. Luckily, the storm came later than the weather people anticipated so we were able to make it back home without event.

The next morning however, I woke up to this.....

This is a shot between my house and the neighbor.

While this isn't Oscar's first snow by any means, it is the first real snow of the year, and he always reacts the same way. Plunge nose as far into the snow as possible! We didn't get a shot of it, but when he come back up it looks like he has a cocaine problem.

This is one of the dumb people who parked on the street. The best part is, this was taken before the plows came.

I am lucky enough to have awesome bosses who think that keeping their employees alive is more important than the office being open. So, Tuesday and Wednesday were declared snow days. WOOHOO!!! I did have to do some work, but most of it involved talking to Rica, so I don't know how much it counts as work. Will managed to get out of going to class too. I'm still a little bitter about that. I remember snow worse than that when I was there and the NEVER closed. Hell, they didn't cancel classes on Sept. 11th. Anyhoo... We were both home and by day 2 we kinda had cabin fever. We shoveled the driveway and made the 4 mile trek to Blockbuster. Season 2 of Grey's Anatomy! yay!!!!! When we pulled back in we noticed just how giant the snow piles at the end of the driveway were..... Time to play!!!

Will victoriously charged up the snow pile.

Oscar decided he should help.

I started to make my trek up the snow pile.

And, Oscar decided he should help.

Finally, I try to make my way out of the snow pile. Trust me, it's not as easy as I made it look here.

After such a long day of snow play, Oscar passes out on the couch. My favorite part of this picture is that his nose is smooshed against the coffee, and he obviously just doesn't care.

So there you have it. Yay for snow days and fun with puppies.

Blog-o-versery

2007-02-15T19:40:00.000-05:00

Guess what kids?!?! It's my blog-o-versery! Can you believe it? I made it a year. A whole year of entertaining the Blogosphere (or at least the 5 of you that read this). It seems I should blog about something exciting or tell some hilarious story or something, but i totally have writer's block. I have for a while now. About a week ago I wrote an emotionally charged post about some stuff going on in my life. After talking to my "advisers," I've (at least for the time being) decided not to post it.

So here's the question pose to you, my dedicated readers, where's the line? Different people blog for different reasons. Some use it as a teaching outlet. Some use it for business purposes. There are a lot of other reasons, but most people I know blog for a combination of two reasons, to share there life with others and as a personal journal. I fall into this combined category. I've tried to keep journals before but have never been successful. I think part of the reason that i have managed to keep this blog going for a year is because of my dedicated readers, (because when I don't post for a while I get yelled at). But where do you draw the line between personal journal, and entertainment for the blogosphere.

I strive to keep a certain level of anonymity to my blog. The people who know me know who the other people I blog about are, but if a stranger randomly stumbles upon my blog they are unlikely to find my name, where I live, who my friends are, where I work, etc. This gives me a fair amount of freedom when I write. But what happens when I want to write something more personal? If I have a fight with the boyfriend (which never actually happens) is it fair to blog about it knowing that our mutual friends read it? If something is going on at work and I want to vent, should i do it, knowing that both of the owners, and some co-workers read it? If I think one my friends does something stupid, do i get to share that with the world (and their other friends who read this?)

This is an outlet for me, yet somehow I'm beginning to feel stifled. I would hope that people reading my blog could understand that sometimes I write when I'm emotionally charged. If someone read something that upset them, I would hope they would come to me and discuss it. Unfortunately, I don't think that is reality. Ideally my life would be an open book (or ebook as the case may be). I am a very open person and don't like to hide things. I feel like I should be able to write about anything I want to, but is writing about my personal life somehow crossing the line?

These aren't hypothetical questions people, I'm seeking insight from you. Please share!

On a happier note... Happy blog-o-versery to me! Happy blog-o-versery to me! Happy Blog-o-versery dear mmmmmmeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. Happy blog-o-versery to me!! HUZZAH!!!! I rock! You Rock! We all rock! Also, big props to Rica for updating my banner for me! sweet action! she rocks too!

As a side note, the Quitter has introduced me to the music of T.I. He's a rapper. I finding it amusing that i like him, but I do. I'm terrified! Ok. I'm done now! I await your responses.

I don't speak French!

2007-01-28T01:24:00.000-05:00

I know this probably doesn't come as a shock to any of you. And it's really not a shock to me... but I don't speak French!

I blame my parents (because that's who you are always supposed to blame) that music is like air for me. It's incredibly challenging to live without it. I listen to music when i shower, drive, work, when i'm on a plane, sometimes when i'm sleeping, while i cook, clean, paint, workout, even when playing racquetball (which requires a small amount of communication with your partner). I LOVE music.

I somewhat recently blogged about Finale night. One of the shows we watched at Finale night was Sex and the City. A good portion of the Finale takes place in France. Toward the end, there was a song in the sound track that i fell in love with. It was French, and it was Rap/hip hop. It was an amazing sound and i quickly became obsessed. With Will's help (meaning... it was all him) I was able to find the artist and the cd that the song came from. Since the song was so great i felt like i wanted the whole cd. That's not typical for me, but it was such a unique sound (the brash rap/hip hop beats combined with the soft romantic French language.... AWESOME!) that i was pretty sure i would like it.

The easiest option seemed to be iTunes. The problem was, they didn't have the entire cd, so they refused to sell it at the "album price" of $9.99. Instead they were selling it for $0.99 per song.... I don't like paying $16 and not even having a physical cd to show for it. (I'm weird like that i guess). I called a Luna Music who said they could order it for me, but it was on backorder and could be weeks. I checked Rhapsody... no dice. Amazon had a few copies listed ranging from about $13 to $50 (did i mention it was import only and therefore generally more expensive than a typical cd?) The $13 amazon offer didn't have the greatest feedback record so i kept waiting. Finally ... I found a copy on ebay for about $15.

Let's go back to the constantly listening to music thing for a minute. Because I listen to so much music, it sometimes occurs to me that i have no idea what a song is about. I get caught up in the beat and the flow and after listening to a song several times i catch on to the melody and am suddenly singing along. I've discovered that simply knowing the words doesn't translate to understanding the song. On more than one occasion I've been singing along to song for the 400th time and out of no where the meaning of the words finally sinks in. It sounds ridiculous... but hopefully at least one of you can understand what I'm talking about.

About 80-90% of the music i listen to is in English, most of the rest is Spanish. Because i speak Spanish it's really easy for me to start singing along with these songs too. However, in Spanish, it's even easier for me to have no idea what I'm singing about, because it takes a bit more mental effort on my part.

Enter my new French cd.... the artist's name is Passi and the cd title is Les Tentations. The song that got me hooked (and according to the reviews on Amazon, i'm not the first to be hooked as a result of the Sex in the City finale) is Il Fait Chaud. Since I got the cd (3-4 days ago) I've listened to it almost exclusively. I love it. I'm quite pleased with my purchase. It has however caused me to realize something..... I don't speak French!!!!!! Again, I never really thought that i did, but it's still weird. Typically after 3-4 days of a new cd i can sing along to at least 4 or 5 songs, and i can tell you which songs are good and which ones suck. I know NOTHING about this cd!!!!!!!! Besides the song that originally turned me on to the disc, I can't name a single song. The only reason i know ANY of the lyrics, is because I remember the "after school special" that taught me how to count to 10 in French. I can't sing along, because the sounds don't compute in my head. I sometimes think i'm catching on to a phrase, and then i realize it's and English or Spanish phrase, and therefore, probably not correct at all.

While I do think that French is a beautiful language, it was towards the bottom of the list of languages I want to learn (and yes, i do have a list, and i'm waaaaaaaaaay behind schedule). The (VERY) little that i know about the French language makes me think that it would be incredibly challenging to learn. I think English would be virtually impossible to learn as a second language, but luckily i don't have that challenge. Spanish, while challenging, makes a lot of sense. Once you learn your alphabet and the phonics behind it, you can read like a pro. You may not understand what your reading, but you can at least begin to imitate sounds easily. Every letter has an assigned pronunciation. Comprehension will come with time. In French they drop off like half the word.... like it doesn't exist. There are multiple letters at the ends of words that get no recognition. It's just weird!!!!

Ok... enough of my blathering. I don't speak French. There you have it. I love my CD, but I have a feeling it will be a loooooooooooooong time before i have the ability to sing along with it, much less understand it. It's like "Joy and pain, like sunshine and rain." Me and my non French speaking self are going to bed. Buenos Noches!!!

Super Bowl Baby!!!!

2007-01-23T13:10:00.000-05:00

THE COLTS ARE GOING TO THE SUPER BOWL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ok honestly, that could be my entire post, but when have you known me to be a person of few words?!? So.... Sunday was the AFC Championship game! The Indianapolis Colts versus the SUCKY New England Patriots. For those who don't know the history, the Colts and Patriots have had a nasty history which consists mostly of the Patriots beating the crap out of us and keeping us out of the Super Bowl. The times, how they change!!

Big Pretty AFC Championship sign!

The Boyfriend and I arrived nice and early, and after a little scare in which we thought he had paid for tickets that didn't exist... we were off to the suite with our friend (I can't believe I've never blogged about him before!) SportsBoy. The suite was filled to capacity because, come on, AFC Championship. There were debates over where to sit, bottom line, I needed to be next to the Quitter there would be hugging, squeeling, and jumping to be done, and it's much more effective when we're next to each other.

To get a full recap of the game, check this out. It's not the best quality, but you still get a nice picture. The first half is rather painful, even when you're just watching the highlights, but pay close attention in the second half. It gets fun!

This game can only be described as a roller coaster. I knew from the beginning that the Colts could do it, but it didn't stop me from being nervous. The nervous energy only grew when the Pats scored a third touchdown leaving us at 21 to 3. There was still hope though, the Colts had time for one more touchdown before the half, and they would get possession at the beginning of the half. Well, the last possession of the half was held to a field goal, leaving them trailing 21 to 6 at the half.

I'm not really sure what happened at half time in that locker room, but it was good. Things started click and the Colts looked AWESOME. My favorite player (that's actually playing right now and not on the injured list), Dallas Clark, made a couple of huge catches. Jeff Saturday, the Center, recovered a fumble to score the first touchdown of not just his Pro career, but of his entire football career, including high school and college. I could keep gushing, but I'm guessing you picked it all up in the video.

So... Here are some pics I snapped that help commemorate the evening........

The Quitter looking very nervous as the Patriots, with one minute left, try to score.

The Quitter looking much happier when, with 16 seconds left, the Colts intercept the ball to end the game and send them to the Super Bowl.

It's kinda blurry... but that's the score board at the end of the game. Colts 38 Patriots 34!!!

Other people cheering in the suite as the team gets ready to accept their trophy.

Check out all the confetti!!!

Shot of the field as they get their trophy and do short interviews.

Me and boyfriend! Do you think maybe i could have smiled a little bigger? I don't look excited at all!!!

The masses leaving the Dome!

Shot of Illinois St. from the parking garage. You'd think a Colts game had just ended or something.

Obviously, it was a great night. Oh yeah... bonus... we convinced K-dog and the Doctor to let us come in at 10am instead of 8am on Monday in celebration!!! Yea!

One more thing, this probably won't be up for long, so go check it out. Scroll to the bottom of the page, or, because I'm sure it will be updated soon, look for the entry on Monday 01-22-2007 at 1:37am. It's my puppy!

Anyhoo... to all the other Colts fans out there..... WE'RE GOING TO THE SUPER BOWL!!!!! To all the Patriots fans.... HA.... HAHA.... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!! To anyone who has an extra ticket to the Superbowl, I will pay you with my un-dying gratitude. That's worth sooooooooooo much more than the thousands of dollars you could sell it for on ebay!!!!!

Most importantly..... GO COLTS!!!!!!!! WOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

Cheat Day!!!

2007-01-15T21:25:00.000-05:00

Will and I have been trying (unsuccessfully) to lose weight. So, with the help and suggestions of our nutritionist (The Narrator) we're employing new methods. One of the methods is Cheat day. Basically what that means is that we eat right the whole week, and then on cheat day we get to eat whatever we want. Now, that may not seem like a big deal, but have you given yourself permission to eat anything you want for a whole day? I mean ANYTHING.... all day long. So... Cheat day consisted of...
1. An omlette from Cafe Patachou for breakfast (trust me when i say that is cheating... those omlettes are faaaaaaaaaar from healthy, but they're sooooooooo good)
2. For lunch we were watching the Colts game (more on that later) so we of course had to order pizza (from Hot Box... mmmmm yum)
3. After playing racquet ball we decided that we really needed to go all out... I mean, it was cheat day and we exercised! That deserves bonus food! We planned to go to Dairy Queen, but they were closed. We headed to Marsh. I got Ben & Jerry's and Cupcakes!!!! yes... i ate both... it was soooo good.

I LOOOOOVE cheat day!!!!!!!

So... besides the food part, Saturday was a pretty awesome day. The boyfriend and I got a new TV. I never really thought that i needed HD. I mean I wanted a bigger TV, but i didn't really understand all the HD stuff. Now... I'm addicted. The boyfriend had the TV up and running on time to watch the Colts came.

In case you don't know yet... THE COLTS WON!!!!! They are going to the AFC Championship. And... to make it even better... the Patriots won. Now normally i would be upset about that. I hate the Patriots. But because the Patriots won, it means that the patriots are coming HERE to play the Colts. HOME GAME AFC CHAMPIONSHIP!!!! And the Pats FINALLY have to come here instead of us going there!!!!! The world is a beautiful place!!!!!

Big Announcement

2007-01-11T10:57:00.000-05:00

NO! I'm not engaged! and NO! I'm not pregnant! (so stop asking, MOM!) Now that we have that out of the way.....

This past week or so my sleep schedule has been kinda screwed up because of the holidays and the not having to go to work and getting to stay up late. So the other night while trying to get myself back on schedule in an attempt to have a somewhat productive work week, I decided to go to bed at a decent hour. Getting to bed wasn't a problem, I'm pretty much a bum by nature and would be fine with never getting out of bed in the first place. The problem came with the sleeping. It wasn't really happening. So as I laid there staring at the ceiling, clock, insides of my eyelids, my mind began to wonder. It wondered to many places that night but one place in particular seemed to be the most important. It was wonderfully brilliant and it is because of that mind wondering that I would like to make this announcement today.

I would like to announce my candidacy for the 2016 Presidential election. (Though Will tells me I shouldn't actually announce my candidacy, I have to announce my intent to form an exploratory committee, so I guess that's what I'm actually doing... but whatever!) Now, I know what you all are thinking, but trust me I've thought this through. Let me explain.....

1. Why 2016?
Simple I won't be old enough to run until then.

2. Since when do I care about politics?
It's not politics I'm interested in, it's the American people. They deserve to have me as their President.

3. Wouldn't it make more sense to start out running for Mayor or something before jumping straight to the Presidency?
Maybe for some people, but not for me. I have a theory. The longer a person holds public office, the more corrupt they tend to become. (I know there are probably exceptions, so don't start throwing out the names of your favorite politicians, because frankly, i don't care.) By going straight to the Presidency, I get to pass the corrupting and the American people get me... an honest person with no hidden agenda.

4. What makes you think you can win?
Well it's me - DUH! But really... I think politicians tend to be extremist. They think if they can't have it their way then it just shouldn't happen. I (and i think the majority of Americans) take a more moderate view. I understand that some times you can't get everything you want, but you can get something closer to what you want if you're willing to listen to the other side and make a compromise. It doesn't have to be all or nothing. Also, I'm cute and sassy... who wouldn't vote for that?!!?

5. How are you going to fund your campaign?
I've already got one person who said they would make a contribution (thanks K-dog) I only need about.... a bagillion more. Besides, I'm in marketing, i'm creative! This is a grassroots campaign. It starts here.... with you... my loyal readers... all 7 (ish) of you! Plus, i've got years to get my name out there... If i start now... I'll be a household name by 2016.

So there you have it. Congratulations! You're one of the first to know! I'm counting on your vote! Isn't it a good thing I couldn't sleep? This might never have come to me. (Anyone think i should consider taking sleeping pills?)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

2007-01-09T10:46:00.000-05:00

I know, i know, I'm a little late. Get over it. So... New Year's Eve! It started with the Colts game. They were playing the Miami Dolphins. Now, normally the company suite bleeds blue. Lots of Colts fans! Occasionally we get a stray Bengals fan or maybe even a Titans fan, but for the most part we have dedicated Colts fans. Well, the Doctor and the Quitter happen to be pretty die hard Dolphins fans. It was an amusing game to say the least. The Doctor who normally performs an emphatic touchdown dance after each Colts touchdown chose to do his dance only for Dolphins touchdowns (or should i say touchdown - singular). I felt the Colts needed the dance so I decided to take over for the Doctor. I did offer to let him do it as he sat pouting in his seat. I received a deadpan "NO" in response. hehehehehehe. The Colts of course won, though it should have been a bigger blowout. I had a great time though. I laughed at the Quitter a lot because she was decked out in Dolphins gear, but she really wanted to Colts to win for playoff purposes. She also couldn't help but get excited when her favorite (Colts) player, Joseph Addai, did well. It was also fun because Rica and her hubby were there, so i got to talk to them a bit.

After the game the boyfriend and I made a dash for Chicago. By dash, i mean we moved like cattle through the massive crowd leaving the dome and then sat in the garage traffic for an hour. We were staying at ArtBoy's apartment and it took us FOREVER to find a parking spot. The Reverend met us there and we all changed clothes and headed to Murphy's Bleachers. It was a cute a sports bar literally across the street from Wrigley Field. We had purchased tickets in advance which entitled us to free drinks and appetizers until 1:30am. The place was packed but we managed to find the Reverend's other friends and stood talking to them for most of the night.

Throughout the night the Reverend kept getting text messages from a friend who had a condo downtown. Once the free drinks stopped pouring at Murphy's, we decided to head to the friend's condo. From here on out, i feel it's best to describe the evening in things that "might" have happened.... (Also, this is where my bosses should stop reading, or if you read it, pretend your reading the blog of some crazy girl you've never met, not your favorite employee)

While at Murphy's I "might" have had a few rounds of a pretty drink called a Tequila Sunrise.
When we got into the cab to go from the bar to the condo, i "might" have been in a REALLY REALLY good mood and "might" have carried on a great conversation with the Cabbie (I actually "might" remember his full name, but you know we don't do names here) He "might" have 3 daughters, ages 15, 17, and 19 and he "might" have been living in Chicago for 15 years. Also he "might" be from Ghana. (Just in case you were wondering). I "might" have told him (several times) that he was the greatest cab driver ever and that i was impressed that no one had puked in his cab yet considering it was New Years. I "might" have been so utterly impressed by his driving abilities that i called the 800 number for "compliments and complaints" and raved about him for 5 minutes.

When we got to the condo we met the Reverend's other friends who "might" have been about as "happy" as I was. We had lots of fun swapping stories about the Reverend and for various reason, which I won't discuss here, we opted to stay at the condo instead of trecking back to the apartment. The next morning the three of us did the "walk of shame" to the train and headed back to the apartment. After showering and changing the Reverend headed out to see some more friends that lived in the area and the boyfriend and I (unable to reach Beana) headed for Ikea. After shopping we went to heaven, I mean Gino's, and had my favorite Chicago style pizza and then we stopped at Jamba Juice to pick me up a Mango-a-go-go for the trip home.

All in all it was a fun trip. I'm thinking back to New Year's past. I think my best New Year's have been in Chicago, Colorado Spring, Costa Rica. It seems to me that New Years should be a destination holiday, as long as that destination includes lots of friends.

I don't do that whole Resolution thing. I've done it in the past and it never works so I've abandoned ship on the idea. i always love to hear other people's resolutions though so feel free to share those and your new year's stories in the comments section. I guess that's about it... Happy New YEAR!!!

Happy Birthday to.....

2007-01-02T09:53:00.000-05:00

Oh yeah. MEEEEEEEEEEEEE!! That's right kids, last week i celebrated my twenty-something birthday and it was GREAT. I was quite excited because it seemed that for once I was actually going to have some friends around to celebrate with. Most years people are traveling for the holidays and stuff and therefore it's usually me and one or two others. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the dedication of those who do come, but i like big groups.

Our group wasn't huge but it was quite fun. To start the night out Will and I went to Kona Grill for dinner. I love that place, thanks to the Narrator for introducing me to it. We each had an appetizer (big enough to be a meal), Will had a margarita and i had 2 and it was only $19. AWESOME!

After Kona we headed down to Average Joe's in Broadripple. The boyfriend and the Reverend met us there and we played several games of pool. The rest of the group arrived (crap, now i have to come up with names for all of them..... ok... there's Art Boy - who is currently in Art school in Chicago and basically just a really cool kid, Comic Geek - Art boy's older brother and one of my former roommates, he's a total comic book geek but we love him anyway. He's actually spending this year in England going to grad school so it was great to get to see him. Then there's Awesome Chick. That really is the best way to describe her. She's beautiful, smart, charming, freakin' hilarious, and just fun to be around. Also, her and Art Boy are totally in love but neither one of them is willing to step up to the plate. It's all very amusing for the rest of us.)

So then we were off to Mineshaft. It was a long journey (next door) and we arrived to find that our group literally doubled the population of the bar. Oh wait, i forgot to mention why we were going to Mineshaft. KARAOKE!!! I love it, i don't care what say, it's AWESOME! Will had done some research before we left and found at least 2 websites saying that this was one of the best Karaoke places in town. With so few people there to be embarrassed in front of, i felt it was necessary to require all of my followers to sing for me. They of course got up as a group and sang Happy birthday, but it made me happy. I sang a few songs, as did the Reverend. Mostly we jumped around and danced and drank and had a really good time.

Will agreed to go sing again but only if Awesome chick would sing with him (mostly because she was totally embarrassed at the thought of doing it) Art Boy jumped on board and the 3 of them sang "It's Raining Men" together. Some people think you don't have to know a song to sing it a karaoke because the words are on the screen for you. This trio is the perfect example of why those people are wrong. It quickly became apparent that none of them realized that there were any words other than "It's Raining Men Hallelujah It's Raining Men amen." But here's the thing, they were committed! They could have just given up and walked away, but they didn't, they stuck it out and butchered the ENTIRE song. It was a beautiful thing (in a really twisted kind of way).

More dancing and more drinking occurred. Crazy things that won't be discussed on this blog were witnessed. At some point this guy came in and it was his birthday too, so we danced together for a couple minutes and i got death glares from his girlfriend the rest of the night. I caught Comic Geek falling asleep at the bar a couple times. HAHA!!! Good times!!!

Kudos to Will who was my designated driver and bought me lots of drinks. Also, he was in it for the long haul. A couple people had to leave early, but Will stuck it out to the end, and then indulged me in drunken conversation at home when i was still far too awake to go to sleep. And finally, Happy Birthday to Will, he has to share his birthday with Jesus, tough gig.

So many blogs

2006-12-20T09:54:00.000-05:00

As is typical for this time of the year... life has been crazy! Luckily for me, it's been pretty much good crazy. However, because of the craziness, i haven't really had the time (or motivation) blog. As a result many events that truly deserve their own post are getting crammed into one. In an effort to be fair to the events of my life, I've decided to give this post multiple titles so that each event feels equally important. That having been said....

I Got My Hair Did!

I had been bored with the old "do" for a while and decided it was just time for something new. I won't lie... it was somewhat motivated by the company Christmas party and the need to look FABULOUS. So armed with pics of what i wanted, i was off to see the hair god. And here's what happened...

I LOVE IT!!! This is honestly the first time in my life that i feel like it's actually worth doing my hair in the morning. I was blessed/cursed with straight hair. As in the kind that no amount of hair spray could even make it hold a curl for more than a couple hours. So the morning routine for most of my life has been wash, condition, brush, let air dry. I've never really used much product except in the winter and that's been strictly to minimize static. Until this hair cut i could probably count on one hand the number times i've used a hair dryer in the last year and i can guarantee that the hair god has used a flat iron on my hair more than i ever had. (i had to go buy one the day i got my hair cut because.... oh i didn't own one!) Now i religiously dry, apply goo, and flat iron and i don't care that it takes me longer in the morning because i LOVE it! Yea for fun hair!

Girls, Drinks, and Finales

Last Friday i finally had the much anticipated series finale party. Over the last several months i've been working my way through the Sex in the City DVD's (dvd's courtesy of the Quitter) I was approaching the end but had been instructed that i wasn't allowed to watch the finale alone (the Quitter wanted to watch it with me). It seemed like a great excuse for a party. Will and I hosted and the Quitter, K-dog, and Simmonds (Weebles' mom) came over. My aunt and our neighbors from across the street joined us later in the evening. We watched the series finale of Will and Grace, Friends, and Sex in the City. We had yummy munchies and experimented with Cosmo recipes (if anyone has a good one, please let me know). I enjoyed all 3 shows, though Friends will probably always be my favorite. Bottom line, it was lots of fun.

The Fit is GO!

If you don't know what that means, you should watch this. Or this. So, I've had my eye on this car for almost a year now. It's a 2007 model but it came out in early 2006. It's the PERFECT car for me. I've looked at other cars like it, and NOTHING compares, a couple things came close... but they just aren't the same. After the purchase of my last car (i got totally screwed) i was ready to play hard ball when i got ready to buy my next car. I decided it was time to check out the cute little Fit. I find out checking them out is practically impossible. They are wildly popular and are almost always sold before they even make it to the lot (so much for playing hard ball... you pay what they ask and you like it!) My best bet was to put a deposit down and wait 2-3 months until the one i wanted came in. Even though the deposit was 100% refundable, i wasn't really excited about the idea of putting money down on a car i hadn't driven.

A couple months later the sales guy calls to tell me that the dealership finally got smart and got a Fit that is strictly for test driving - not for sale. I go in to drive it and of course fall even more in love with the perfect car. I continued to resist the urge to put money down and wait. Then, the phone rings, there is a Blue Fit Sport (exactly what i wanted) just delivered and no one has laid claim yet. I proceed to freak out. I'm not really ready to buy yet (trying to save a little more to keep payments lower), but my current car is fading fast and i'm just not sure it's going to make it through the winter on the interstate. I ponder and number crunch for a full day before finally caving and going to buy my new car!!! She's so PRETTY!!!! I love her! She's FABULOUS!!!! The picture post will be coming soon. I HAVE A NEW CAR!!!!

Final Mission

When I was a kid one of my favorite parts of Christmas (besides of course the presents and the Chocolate chip pancakes that daddy made for breakfast) was when we had real Christmas trees in the house. (Mom and Dad used a rotation system. One year we had a real tree, the next year we used the fake one) I love the smell of real trees. I don't care that i have to vacuum every day and stop the cats from trying to climb it, i just LOVE it.

Last year we moved into the house right before Thanksgiving. We didn't do the tree thing because it was just too much to try to handle. This year I was determined to get a tree. And i wasn't having a fake one. I was all excited about having my own real tree in my house. There was only one problem. I just bought a new car and there was no way i was gonna strap a Christmas tree to the top of it. Will's car has had a desk strapped to the top of it at one point. But he wasn't excited about strapping a Christmas tree to the top of it. So, dutiful old car had one last mission to accomplish.

Who needs a truck when you have a 1996 Honda Accord with 160k miles on it?

Football and Perfection

The Colts played the Cincinnati Bengals on Monday night football this week. I of course couldn't miss that game. Everything was going great there were a couple mistakes made by the Colts, but all in all they were playing great. Okay... I could drag this out.... but ... i can't! Matthew McConaughey was at the game. Matthew McConaughey!!!!! The most perfect male specimen on the planet! After scoping him out with the binoculars, Belle (the girl playing Belle in Beauty and the Beast with the Doctor) noticed that he had left the booth he was in. Nothing more needed to be said, we were out the door and running around the suite level to where he was, camera phone in hand. We got there just as he was walking out of the booth and into one of the suites. I managed to snap a quick pic (though it's not that great) before he disappeared into the suite. A stupid body guard prevented me from tackling him. But i got to see him!!! I was probably about 2 feet away from him. And he was BEAUTIFUL. Belle and I meandered back to the suite high on lust, and tried to focus on the game. It was mostly useless. There were phone calls to be made, picture messages to be sent, and of course the occasional "We saw Matthew McConaughey!!!!" comments to be made. Did i mention he's beautiful?

Oh... in case you're wondering the Colts won! But mostly, I saw Matthew McConaughey!!!!

Well, there ya go. So many blogs in one! Consider yourself updated!