This is my first post in my web log. I've been working on my website for only three days now. I'm kinda nervous about it. Is that bad? Anyway...I have working pages at the moment, but none of them really do anything. I hope you enjoy! By the way, school is finally OVER!!!! Yay!!!

I would just like to thank Brad Smith for being the coolest person ever and helping me with my Web Log and Guest Book. He has been so incredible over the past couple days, getting me started and helping me understand everything. Don't forget to check out my links page over the next few days because there will be a link to his site there soon. Brad, you're the best! Thanks so much for everything! We miss you tons back at the Nerdery.

I really hate moving. I've realized that it has to be the most annoying, monotonous thing ever. I have to pack everything up and move it out of my dorm and then when I get home I have to find places to shove it because my room is so small that I can't fit everything in it. Also, my closet will be completely full to the point of overflowing. I'll have to move in again in three months which means I have to pack all my shit up from my house and move it all back to the dorm. You would think that with such a civilized society and the obsession we all have with "stuff" we'd figure out a better way to do this...but oh well. Back to packing.

So, I spent most of my day unpacking. Then I went to work for 4 hours. Even though I spent all that time, there is still a ton of stuff in my room. How did I get all this and how the hell did it fit in my dorm room? I really can't figure it out. Also, where am I going to put it all? I have so much crap! I still haven't unpacked my clothes so I have nothing to wear tomorrow to church. My mom will be thrilled to find that out. Ha! Anyway, tomorrow is Mother's Day! And I have to work again. Too bad I can't say in Lincoln to keep unpacking. Oh well...anyway, for all you college people: Happy Moving and good luck!

I'm so excited to finally be able to sleep in and do nothing all day long! I'm finally unpacked and settled back into my parents' house. It's so peaceful without all the homework and deadlines to meet. I also have lots of time to hang out with all my friends and especially my boyfriend (who I've been dating for a year as of yesterday!). Summer's finally here!!!

After doing absolutely nothing for three weeks and sleeping in until 10:30 every morning, I have started summer school. I'm taking two history classes the first five weeks and both my professors are very quirky, but interesting. However, the nine books for one class seems a bit excessive, even for graduate students. Oh well. Yay for making it through the first part of the summer and getting back on a normal schedule without JDE classes to worry about. Anyway, I should probably change and update the website since I haven't done anything for quite some time.

Thanks to Reagan, I have no school tomorrow!!! Yay!
I'm just wondering if they're going to do something this big when Gerald Ford dies. They've had specials about Reagan all week and about all the wonderful and "not so wonderful" things he did for the country. I wonder if this is only because he was a very public person. Or maybe it was because he was charismatic. I honestly don't know, but hopefully I won't have class when it happens.

Alright, so I'm moving again. I've finally finished with summer school just today and I'm moving back to campus on Monday so I can go through rush and start school in a week. Oh, how time flies when you're having "fun." I've been overly busy and I haven't had time to work on my site nearly as much as I had hoped. As I'm sure everyone has noticed. Anyway...I'm just dinking around with things right now, trying to get the web log to a point where it's readable.

Well, the new year has officially started for J.D. Edwards. I'm not sure what I think about that yet. I'm taking some classes that I'm looking forward to and some I'm not so sure about yet. It's only the first week and I'm already behind on my homework. I have a lot of stuff to read this weekend but I'm completely moved in.
I also joined a sorority this year. I'm really excited about it. The girls all seem really nice. I'm still working on time management but I know that this year is going to be so much better than my freshman year!

I just got back from New Member Education at ΦΜ. We have to learn all about who founded the sorority and what the house stands for, etc. We were also given rules we have to abide by including no alcohol and we have to be involved in two organizations...I don't know how I'm going to have time for that! I'm already behind on my homework! Tomorrow we're supposed to go to new member stuff on alcohol responsibility...ugh. At least we aren't required to pay attention and there's no test at the end of it. :-)

I've realized that I'm just one big screw-up. I don't really know what to say in defense of my recent actions. I have hurt a lot of people in the past month and I'm sincerely sorry to anyone who was caught in the wake of my emotional outbursts.

I need to start figuring out stuff on my own...make sure I'm not dependent on other people to make me happy, even if I am depending on a pill. My sleep schedule is so off that I'm not functioning well and I keep waking up feeling really sick. I've had 2 migrains in the last week.

My priorities are all out of order...school needs to come first and I have a hard time concentrating on it.

It's great to be busy. It's also great to have migraines, great to be stressed and great to have acid reflux. It's great to be in the J.D. Edwards program where you're constantly reminded that you aren't working hard enough, there are not enough hours in the day and you really aren't worth as much as they thought you were when you were accepted into the program.

Things are hectic. I've realized that although midterms came and went, more than half my grade, closer to two thirds, in most of my classes is still up in the air. I'm freaking out about grades and hoping I can pull something out of my ass this semester and somehow not end up with a C in my computer science class. We'll see how that goes. Keep your fingers crossed.

Then there's the soap opera called my social life. Everyone has advice and everyone has an opinion but no one has any definite answers. Things are just a mess overall and, right now, I'm taking time for me to figure things out.

It's a busy, busy, busy time for everything. I just hope I can keep up.

Is everything just black and white? Is that the kind of world we're living in? Is my choice between seeing black and white for the rest of my life and living where there is only happiness, no fear, no pain, and no love or color where there will be excruciating pain and immense joy? (The Giver) Is that really the question that lies before me? Is that really what I'm facing or are things just being blown out of proportion? Is the nail in the coffin or in my bleeding heart? Am I dead already or just well on my way? Does God really care? Does he really matter? Is everything a choice or is He really playing both sides of the chess board? "God is just a mean kid with a magnifying glass. And I'm the ant. He could fix my life in five minutes if He wanted to, but he'd rather tear of my feelers and watch me squirm."

Wow...so the week before Dead Week should be called Torture Week or Hell Week, or something of that nature. This week I have so much stuff due! Monday I had meeting at Phi Mu. Then Tuesday I worked on the user's manual for my meeting with the Tech Comm people. Yesterday I had an interview, a play, and a meeting for MRP. Tonight I have to study for a test in Theatre and finish this stupid manual and pray that it doesn't get ripped apart. I have two formals this weekend -- Phi Mu and Beta, so if I can just get through tomorrow's classes, I'll be fine.

Everyone in Kauffman is running around like crazy trying to finish stuff. It's so sad because the 2nd floor lounge is empty and everyone is stressed. People are getting on each other's nerves and more fights are happening. I think we all just need a break...or maybe we're just at our breaking point. I can't wait till it's all over! I don't even care about getting Christmas gifts, I just don't want to do any more homework or open another required book. I think I'll sleep for Christmas break...that's what I want: two weeks of uninterrupted rest. Too bad the holidays are overdone and unreasonably hectic. At least the music is nice though. And I'll do my shopping online so I don't have to deal with the crowds.

My roommate, Meagan and I are sitting in my room studying for our computer science final. We're all freaking out and I think we've decided that a DFS should be used on a sock when we take our showers tomorrow morning and then we'll take a pill and go to sleep. We are all talking about how we just want to die in a heap of ADTs instead of trying to explain them on this test. I heard about how bad Goddard's test was last year. He was looking forward to "killing" us this year on his final. After I'm done with this, I think I'm going to go to sleep till tomorrow at 12. Only 45 minutes till the test... I wish that I didn't have to worry about losing my scholarship gecause of this damn class. I just want to be finished for this semester and go sleep for two weeks over Christmas breatk. Oh well, it will all be over soon.

So, I woke up this morning at 8 (or yesterday morning if you want to get all technical) and I wasn't feeling too well. My stomach had been a bit upset for most of the night last night, but nothing too severe had come of it. Anyway, I was more sick than I thought and I ended up throwing up. I think I scared myself because it has been a long time since I've thrown up. So, I called my mom and I was shaking uncontrollably for about a half an hour. She left work and came down to check on me. Moms are always so wonderful about that type of thing. She made sure that I was okay and checked my temperature and as usual, told me to drink a lot of water.

I have slept on my futon before but never when it was flat, and I decided that today would be a good day to do that since climbing up and down from my lofted bed seemed like too much work. The mattress is really quite comfortable and I really like having the extra room. It does prevent any movement in my room besides the 3 foot radius by the door, but I don't really care.

My dad came by at 12:30 to check on me and brought me a bagel. I kept that down and stayed awake to work on my take-home final. At this point I put in Eddie Izzard. I worked on my final for awhile and then fell asleep at some point. When I woke up again, I worked on my final and started another Eddie Izzard DVD. I fell asleep again and woke up to continue my pattern of working on my final and "watched" the final Eddie Izzard DVD. I have now almost completed my final and managed to watch all three Eddie Izzard DVD's. So, my day wasn't completely wasted. Two presents for my dad for Christmas also arrived. Honestly, despite not feeling well, today was really nice. It was sad that I had to postpone my post-MRP party, but alas, we'll have a steak dinner when we get back from Christmas break. I was fortunate not to have any finals again until Friday. Although I know I really didn't get much done, today was very relaxing and I got A LOT of sleep and I felt like I actually accomplished something.

I was also pleasantly surprised at how many people expressed their concern that I was sick. For those who read this, I really appreciate your concern and it means a lot to me. Thank you so much for caring! So, good things can come from being sick.

My friend Ray came over tonight. It was great to see him! He's been to Australia and Hawaii for the better part of the last year and a half. He finally moved to Hawaii and is living the dream of every person between the ages of 16 and 30, perhaps older. We talked about how things have been and whatnot. It's such a rare occasion to have a deep conversation and walk away still questioning things. Anyway, it was awesome to see him and as usual, the conversation was deeper than most.

On another note, I've been thinking a lot lately. Now that I finally have the chance to let things calm down and I can think. I'm even more depressed than I was before. Do you ever look in the mirror and wonder what you've become? When I look in the mirror, I look exhausted...all the time. It really doesn't seem to make much difference how much I sleep, I still look completely exhausted. I feel exhausted most of the time too. No matter what I do, I can't make it through the day anymore without a nap. I sleep at least 14 hours a day. When something goes wrong, I just want to sleep. I think it's because it's the closest I can get to peace right now. Everything is so tumultuous right now, that I'd rather sleep than do anything else.

There is a sadness inside of me that won't go away. It's rooted in terror. Things that I used to find joy in now seem dismal and uninteresting. I become angry for no apparent reason and I can't figure out why. I don't know what's going on with me. I'm done with school for the semester. I should be feeling excited and ready to go home, but honestly I don't really feel anything. I'm so numb. I'm scared of going home because I might say the wrong thing and upset my Dad. And there's this void when I go home. I feel like I don't really belong there. Nothing really feels like home anymore.

I was sick on Wednesday and it was really refreshing to just lay around and do nothing, but on the other hand...I feel so lethargic now that I just don't want to do anything. I would be so happy if I just didn't have to think about anything anymore. There are so many things that I haven't come to terms with yet and so many things in the closet that are just waiting to jump out at me.

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night sweating and breathing hard. I'm terrified...but I can't figure out what terrifies me. Maybe I'm just scared of living. I can't let myself open up again. The people that I've opened up to in the past just disappeared and I've found myself to be completely alone. There are people around, but I can't bring myself to really trust anyone. I'm always holding back and I'm not sure why. It's a frightening feeling to be all alone. Even when I try to talk to God I feel like I'm drowning in a sea of blackness and I'll never start breathing again. There are no answers for me and I've been looking in the wrong places for so long I don't even know where to start anymore. There are things I should do that I don't and there are things that I do that I know I shouldn't. It's come to the point where I think I'm such a bad person that I just don't care anymore. It doesn't matter because there's nothing I can do to change it. Have you ever thought you were so far gone, that there's no turning back, like you're so ruined that you can't possibly get any worse?

"We long to be known and we fear it like nothing else. Most people live with a subtle dread that one day they will be discovered for who they really are and the world will be appalled."

I went to Closer today. It was the first time that I've ever been to a movie by myself. I thought that I would feel insecure and loneley, but I didn't. However, the movie hurt to watch. I came away from the film with a sick feeling in my stomach. It hurt to see what these four people did to each other.

***WARNING***SPOILERS***

The entire movie is about truth and lies. This is NOT a movie about love. I don't care what the reviews say. The movie has nothing to do with love. The people in the film are all selfish and they are all holding back. They will do anything they can to get what they want and then when things don't work out the way they planned, they use each other as backup. There is no concern for the feelings of others, just their own. The end of the movie results in four completely miserable people. Alice (Jane) is back in New York in the life she ran away from at the beginning of the movie. Dan is alone, still drinking his coffee and he's finally realized that his entire relationship with Alice was a lie because he never even knew her real name. Anna and Larry are still married and he knows she doesn't love him, but he loves her and wants to be with her and he doesn't really care about her feelings, just the fact that he wants to be with her. Then there's Anna...she has no idea what she's doing. She kisses Dan at the beginning of the movie, causing the whole tumultuous problems between Dan and Alice to start. Then, she sees him for a year and even after she's married continues the affair. She is about to get a divorce when her husband forces her to sleep with him again for "old time's sake" and she stays with him out of pity.

***DONE***

I wish I couldn't relate to this movie at all...but I can. I'm sure that it makes me a bad person somehow. It's so sad what people can do to each other and I am so incredibly sorry that I have done this to people that I care about. I'm sorry that I'm selfish and I'm sorry that I broke the trust of the people I care about and I know that they broke mine. I look at the world and I think "wow...we are all so broken." (Thanks Caitlin!) No one is a good person and this movie has no good people in it. There is no "good guy" in this one, much like life. We are all broken, hurtful people and we all hurt ourselves on purpose and hurt the ones we love to get what we think we want. It's movies like this that make me wonder if true love really exists and whether you can really trust anyone, even yourself.

Merry Christmas to everyone! Thank you all for everything and all the support and friendship this year! I love you all and I can't wait to see you when I get back from break (however, I don't really want to start school again). I hope everyone has a wonderful break and you all enjoy seeing your families.

I'm so happy to be home and get away from all the stress for awhile. The break has been incredibly relaxing and it's been awesome to see my family and friends from high school. It's been great to see the ex-JDE students as well, especially Kyros and Brad! I'm finally working things out and I feel good. I love all of you! See you soon!

Have a great New Year if I don't see you!!

It's been wonderful to be home and see my family, but after spending so much time with them and being home for over a week now, I miss my friends. I think of my friends as almost closer than family. Although, the concept of friends is an odd one. Anyone can be your friend if they want to, but they can also leave whenever they want and tell you that they don't want to talk to you. Friends are optional...family isn't. No matter what, you can't choose your family and they'll always be there for you no matter what happens. So, then how do we value our friends? I know that I'm closer to most of my friends than I am with my family. I trust my friends not to judge me and love me no matter what and when it comes to talking to my family about things, I'm terrified.

Raymond went back to Hawaii today. It was sad to say goodbye last night. We had a long talk again. It was good. I cried. I've been doing that a lot lately. Partially because of things that have happened that I'm ashamed of and partially because I'm so happy to be close to people who will love me in spite of all of it. It's going to be hard not to have him around to talk to. I know he's only a phone call away, but it's not the same. He also said that he's going to Afganistan. That idea scares me. I want to have faith that he'll be alright, but you never know what will happen...

Thanks to all my friends who have been asking questions lately. I appreciate even the hard questions that are still making me think. I know that things haven't been easy for all of you, but I thank you for having faith in me and being willing to ask the hard questions. Thinking is good, even when it hurts...especially when it hurts...

I miss you all! I can't wait to see you when break is over!

So...I spent all day trying to figure out why my mom was acting weird all day. I just ate dinner with her and said that I was going to go out. She told me that it was fine as long as I come home sooner than 2am. I didn't even think about the fact that my parents might be up worrying about me. I'm so used to being on my own and going to bed pretty late. Anyway...not good to worry the parents. Oh well, everything will be fine tomorrow. Afterall, tomorrow is another day.

My mom came home sick yesterday and scared the crap out of me. She drove home at 2 in the afternoon and I didn't think anything of it. I thought maybe she was back to take my Dad to a Dr.'s appointment or something, but she wasn't. She walked in the door and she looked so pale. She said that she had gotten sick at work and she had driven home and gotten sick on the way home. I've never been so worried about my mom and I've never known something like this to happen. She spent all day today around the house. She finally ate something at dinner. I'm glad she's feeling better. It's the first time in a long time since I've been worried about my mom. I'm so used to worrying about my dad instead. Anyway, it felt good to help her out for a change. She's always been there for me...now I can be there for her. Hopefully tomorrow will go well and she can go back to work on Monday.

I hate the weather. I wanted snow for Christmas, but NO, that didn't happen. Now I'm looking out my window at a snowstorm that has been going since yesterday. We're supposed to get between 8 and 14 inches of snow. My dad already cleared the driveway this afternoon, about an hour ago. However, it's not really going to affect anything that much because it's snowing so hard. My birthday is Sunday and I'm supposed to go shopping tomorrow and Friday but I doubt that is going to happen because of all the stupid snow. Of course it can't snow for Christmas but it sure as hell can ruin my birthday. Ugh! At least it's "pretty."

Today's my birthday! Yay! I don't think it's hit me yet that I'm not a teenager anymore. I still feel so young. I can't do anything now that I wasn't able to do a year or even two years ago. I can't drink still...well, not legally at least. However, there have been many people wishing ne happy birthday and I still feel special. I feel so blessed to have people in my life who care about me. Thanks to everyone! I love you all very much!

Wow...what a strange week! Abby and Drew were married on Monday. I found out about it at noon and the wedding was at 3:45 at the courthouse. Signing a marriage lisense was not in my plan for the day. The judge was really weird, so we were all laughing through the ceremony.

Now, they have moved to Grand Junction, CO. They seemed so happy and so at peace with the decision. It's crazy to think that they decided this a little over a week ago and then they packed and left. I know I could never do that. However, I'm very happy for them!

Hopefully I can get into a regular routine now. I don't expect any of my other friends to be getting married.

I'm finally to a point where I can either break down or deal with shit. No one can help me with it. I have to do it on my own. I can honestly say that I'm not terrified of it for the first time in over a year and a half. I know it's going to be tough, but I'm okay with that. I can handle the fact that I have shit to deal with and I shouldn't be in a romantic relationship or attempting to dump it on all my friends. I know that I will be much more in tune with myself than I am now and hopefully I will be more content with who I am without needing someone by my side constantly to validate myself.

Finally...I'm actually going to deal with myself.

So, I just spent 45 minutes cleaning out my freezer. Yes, it's almost 3am. I don't know why I did it. And my hands are now not typing well. But my freezer is clean and everything is organized and it all fits in nicely. So...I guess that's good. I also refilled my fridge with pop and other beverages, which I've been meaning to do for the last three days.

Okay, so I was up until 5 last night. I should really go to bed.

Tonight is the 3rd night in a row that I've been up late working on ERP. No one in our class can help but think that we're all totally and completely fucked when it comes to Software Engineering. We have a huge test suite due later today at 11am. Right now, my group has over 80 test cases and we haven't coded all of them yet. There isn't enough time to do everything because we have such huge projects for JDE classes. I'm only taking 13 hours, but because I have 10 JDE hours, I'm doing as much homework as I did last semester with a total of 16 hours of classes and 7 JDE classes. I probably won't go to bed for another 2 hours still. This is fucking ridiculous!

Do you ever wonder...

Why does your imagination fade as you grow up?
Why are we here?
How did we get where we are?
If I had just made one different choice, who would I be?
Does God REALLY care?
Who am I supposed to be?
Where am I really supposed to be?
Am I doing what I love?
What's the point?
Why try so hard only to fail every time?
Am I really a bad person?
Why don't I just stop talking?
Does anyone love me?
Am I doing what I should be doing?
Is anyone else faking it?
Why am I not normal?
What is normal?
Why does every one else have it better than I do?
Why can't I look like someone else?
Why is everything good until you spend enough time working on it?
Does the world make everyone else sad?

I don't know...maybe I'm just crazy...

I'm sitting in the reading room at Love Library wishing that I was actually doing something productive. Supposedly I'm proctoring a study session for Phi Mu, but no one has shown up to "check in" as of right now. I've been here since 7pm and will be here till 10, but I'm running out of things to do. I can't study here as easily as I can in the privacy of my dorm room. Anyway, back to the boredom...

So, I went to a nice little get together, hosted by my friend Julie (who's awesome), and I realized that I hadn't seen even close to half of the films nominated for Oscars this year. While I'm sure they are all "good" films, there hasn't been a LOT of publicity about most of them and overall, I hadn't heard about any knockout performances. The award show was nice to watch, but I don't know that the films were really THAT good this year. Maybe it was just an off year...

I talked to my mom today and it has been confirmed that my aunt's cancer is out of remission. She had cancer on her pancreas in late summer/early fall of 2003. Fortunately, she was able to go to May clinic where the doctors removed it surgically. Now, after two completely clean checkups, it's back. If that wasn't enough, she's waiting for mamogram results because she might have breast cancer as well. It couldn't have come at a worse time for my family. Her husband's daughter is expecting a baby this summer and my cousin is graduating from high school (the last one of the grandkids) and his sister is planning a wedding for June. If things weren't emotional enough and stressful enough with plans, now we all have to figure out how to deal with the pain and concern of cancer.

This week has been incredibly busy. Tomorrow morning at 11am, my ERP group has a deliverable due. We're doing okay on it in terms of getting things done, but I don't know what the professor is going to think of the result. No matter what happens, our class can't seem to satisfy him. There is also a computer science assignment due (another bomb that needs diffusing) on Friday. Just once it would be nice to say that there's nothing that needs to be done...nothing I could be working on.

If that wasn't enough, just when I thought that next week was going to be less hassle, we have a software engineering quiz, a computer science quiz and a business test (yes, I know it's techincally a quiz...but quizzes aren't 10 pages long!) next week. Why can't JDE just leave us alone for once?

My friend Meagan and I have determined that the sophomore year is the worst year of the program and regardless of the class, the sohpomores will always be the most bitter out of all the students. One would think that JDE would try to help the situation, but instead, they add another class to 2nd semester sophomore year, creating even MORE work for all of us.

I've officially hit information and emotional overload.

Life is so very delicate in both senses of the word. The pure nature and exquisite workmanship of the life God created for all of us is just utterly amazing and yet it is so easily destroyed by a few cells slowly multiplying within a human body. You would think that with all the knowledge of "science" we could figured out how to destroy a few cells. Instead, they give us a "painless" death to look forward to preceded by days, weeks or even months of agony of being sick from the drugs meant to slowly kill the disease growing, slowly eating away at everything good and healthy. Then, when things get bad enough, the doctors will provide you with a lovely concoction of drugs to help you forget about the pain while your family looks on in agony wishing there was something they could do to either ease your pain or their own.

How do you live when you know there's not much time left? Is that really life, or are you just passing time? Is it harder to know you're going to die or watching someone you love die with the knowledge that there's nothing you can do to stop it? Why is it that when a life ends, the void is so barren that you know no one will be able to fill it?

Spring break wasn't as wild and crazy as I had planned. However, it was very relaxing, so I'm thankful for that. I went to the doctor at the Health Center here on campus because I thought I had a sinus infection. However, he said that I didn't have one, but I did have an eye-infection. So, I spent the entire spring break putting eye-drops in my eyes five times a day and taking decongestants twice a day.

I slept and watched movies for the entire break. I have now seen Pitch Black, The Chronicles of Riddick, Snatch, Constantine, The Incredibles, Eurotrip (again), Ice Pirates (very stupid movie), Win a Date with Tad Hamilton, part of The Order, Van Helsing, Starship Troopers 2, Gothika (again), and I'm sure there's more but I can't remember all of them. I also had the pleasure of sleeping past 3 in the afternoon on two separate occasions. All in all, a very relaxing break, but I'm still sick.

I did finally go to another doctor yesterday and they gave me even more pills because my eye is still infected and now my ears are infected and I'm still having sinus problems! I'm starting to feel a little better, but we'll see what happens as the week progresses. I feel so old because I'm taking six prescription pills per day...

Just when you think things can't get any worse, they do. Then, when you finally say, "Okay God...I give up," He takes over and the sky finally starts to clear.

I didn't know the definition of overload until I finally saw the edge with my own eyes. It's scary and it hurt.

I've just spent the entire night hanging out with friends and talking. I was so excited to have Kyros come to visit from Omaha. He, Meagan and I all went out to look at the stars after Becca's birthday dinner and ended up sitting in the middle of nowhere for over three hours talking. It's been a long time since I've had such a long heartfelt talk about life. We covered everything from school, to frienships, to relationships, to God, to life and death. It's so hard to find close friends you can trust with anything but so refreshing when you have it. Then, when we got back to Kauffman, we talked with Beermann, Johnson, and Moo for another two and a half hours. It's been a great night. It's nice to have some quality time with people. It's so rare, but it means so much.

It's raining outside. I love it when it rains in the spring. Everything outside smells so fresh and new. You can tell that life is starting over again. It's warm enough out where the rain feels inviting and I just want to change into some old clothes and go splash around in the puddles.

The rain makes me think that either God is crying or he's reaching out to touch the earth with small fingertips of water. I just want to look straight into the sky and smile because I can feel God touching my face with every raindrop.

It makes me think of songs like "Foolish Games" by Jewel or "Kiss the Rain" by Billie Myers or even "If God Would Send His Angels" by U2.

I'm standing in my room in soaked clothes because it started pouring about 5 minutes ago and I decided to go out on the balcony and jump around in the rain. It was SO much fun!!! I wish it would rain like this all the time!

I hate moving. Every time I move I wonder how I managed to accumulate so much shit. Then I wonder how it all fit in the space I had it and how I'm going to fit it into the space I'm moving into. I've just spent the last two days trying to "unpack" and instead of the living room being covered with things and a few boxes in my room, there's piles of stuff in my office, in the living room and in my bedroom.

Today, Meagan came over and helped me move the furniture in my office around so I could fit my futon in here. Now I'm sitting in my office next to my futon and there's two piles of books at least 3 feet high in the corner and four piles of books 2 feet high behind me. My room is cluttered with small boxes that were being stored in my office as well as random decorations that used to be in here and several piles of books all at least 2 feet high. Plus, there are still clothes on the floor. Finally, in the living room is a random assortment of office supplies, books, cooking items and stuffed animals. I have no idea what the hell I'm going to do with all of it, but hey...it's all there.

I got my computer set up and my dad bought me a 300GB external hard drive. I found it in the middle of my stuff in the living room as I was unpacking. It's always nice to find a random present in the middle of your day. I've got that set up already and I've started transferring music from Cd's and my computer already.

I'm relaxed, but busy which is weird because I'm not very stressed. I keep waiting for the stress to pile up again though. I'm wondering when it will. I'm still planning my trip to Europe and I still have to do the recruitment video for Phi Mu. We'll see how that goes.

Regardless, I'm keeping busy and I have to find a place for all my shit.

It's so odd...watching Episode III. Anakin: so like someone I once knew. It's amazing to believe that you can think you know someone.

Anakin starts out wanting to do good, wanting to help his wife and prevent her from dying. Then, before you know it, he's killing children to help her. It's true the he loves her so much, but he lets his fear get in the way of everything.

It's so scary what fear can do to a person...or maybe not even fear, but misplaced emotions. We may want something that is "good" in it's escence, but we have the wrong view of how to get it. I just want to ask why. Why would someone do something so increibly evil and by all definitions wrong to protect themselves or someone they cared about? Why would Anakin strangle Padme if he wanted to save her so much? Why would he hurt the one thing he cared about? Why would he claim to care about someone and then turn around and almost kill them? Why would he want to cause harm to the one person he wanted to spend his life with? Why would he say all the things he said to her and turn around and almost kill her? He seemed to feel bad aobut it, but she never knew that. She never knew what he was thinking. She never knew why the man she loved would kill younglings, why he could harm someone so innocent. She died still wondering why... still wanting to know what happened to the person she thought she knew... still thinking she was wrong about everything... still questioning her own judgement... still wanting to know what really happened...

It seems that all my friends are engaged and getting married. A guy I dated in high school was married last summer and he's already had his first aniversary as far as I know. My cousin is getting married in two weeks, my friend Chris has a baby on the way and he's engaged. My friend Karen is getting married in early July. Everyone's getting married and starting their lives. It's so strange. I can't believe they're all going to be changing their names and starting new lives. It's so crazy. Things do change. It's crazy and I can't make it to all the weddings, showers, etc. this summer because I'm going to be out of the country starting in July.

Is it a bad sign when you have to start scheduling time to hang out with people? I mean...maybe I'm just too busy. Nah! Of course I can join more things! I just found out that I've been accepted in to ODK, so now I'm involved in Phi Mu, ODK and AKPsi! Alright! No worries though, I'm sure I'll manage to make time for everything. I'm so much happier than I've been in a long time. I definitely can't complain about anything other than just being busy. I enjoy all of the activities I'm involved in and I don't regret becoming involved in them either. I know that I have good time management skills, but it's still a struggle to get things done sometimes. I love my design studio team and I'm excited about our project. I'm excited to be the VP of Marketing for AKPsi because I know that there are a lot of things that could be improved and I have some cool ideas I'm excited to work on. I just wish there were more hours in the day! I have so many things I want to accomplish and not enough time to do them in. Anyway, I'm happy and that's all that matters and I'm enjoying life and I'm getting better at taking one day at a time and doing only what's important to me. So what if I might be a little over-involved. I was in high school and I had a great time in high school!

The semester is finally over and I couldn't be happier. I'm just praying that grades come out okay. It has been a rough semester, but there have been much worse times and I've had so much support this semester from people who care so much. To them, I want to say thank you for hleping me make it through everything and for being understanding. You know who you are, but I thought I'd list everybody here because there's nothing better than knowing that you've made a difference.

Meagan:
Thanks for being understanding and cynical when I need you to be. You can always make me laugh even when things suck the most. Thanks for not "counting as people" and reminding me that "I don't count as people" either. Also, thanks for being a child with me when I need it the most.

Aimee:
Thanks for all the hugs and the shared tears. Thanks for always being understanding my huge messes and the fact that I never do the dishes until every single cup, fork and spoon is dirty. I'm going to miss you so much next semester! I hope you're happier without all the computer science and you'd better come by to visit.

Mandy:
I know I'm always busy, but thanks for always being willing to talk and/or listen. I'm so happy for you and so proud of all that you've accomplished. You're an amazing woman and I'm so proud to say that we're related. I know you'll make an amazing mother when the day comes. Until then, enjoy your time with your new husband!

John:
You're a great friend and I still can't believe you let me vent to you for the last two years. You're simply amazing even when you freak out in your own "special mellow way" and I love all the time we spend together. I know you've got to work over the break, but I hope you get plenty of rest because you deserve it. Hopefully two days of work each week won't kill you.

Julie:
I know you'll make a wonderful mother. I look forward to seeing you over the break and I hope you get plenty of rest. I've missed seeing you because this semester was so crazy! Thanks for still having kickass parties though. Even though you couldn't drink, it was still fun and you looked georgeous.

Blake:
Thanks for always making me feel welcome at the duplex. I always have a wonderufl time when I come to visit you. You always make my day whenever you send me a message (usually telling me how cute I look) :-). You're such a sweetheart and I love spending time with you. Thanks so much for all the fun parties and always making sure I'm having a good time. Don't forget about me next semester.

Abby and Drew:
What to say? You're absolutely the best friends anyone could ever ask for. You love me no matter what happens and you've always been there for me even through the tough times. I believe in both of you and I know you'll be wonderful parents. You always make my day when I get to see you or hang out with you two. Zoe is the coolest dog ever and I know you're kid will be awesome when it finally arrives.

Sam:
Samsuls! You're amazing and I'm so happy that you've found someone who makes you happy. He seems very nice and I hope the best for both of you. I know you'll be happy when you've got your own apartment and you're all moved in. I look forward to seeing you more often since you're in walking distance of campus now. Have a wonderful break and I can't wait to see you when you get back to Lincoln.

Brad:
Thanks for hanging out with me all the time and inviting me, Meagan and Kyros over to watch movies. I love seeing you and I'm so happy that you're doing great at work. I hope you have a wonderful vacation and I can't wait to see you when you get back. You'll have to tell me all about how things go. Have a wonderful Christmas and I'm sure I'll see you when you get back.

Jesse:
Thanks for all the help with my finance. I hope you have a wonderful Christmas and I'm sure we'll see each other over break. Thanks for not giving up on me. I really appreciate all the help.

Kelsey:
I had a wonderful time at formal and I'm so glad we all went together. I'm so glad we went to Europe because I would have missed the chance to get to know you. I have such a great time whenever we're together. I hope you have a wonderful Christmas and thanks for listening when I need you. We'll have to do lunch during break sometime.

Mark:
Thanks for all the trips to the C-Store and for listening to me whenever I need to talk. I'm sure I've kept you up many nights whining about one thing or another. However, I appreciate all the understanding and I'm so glad you're on my DS team. It's been a great year working with you so far and I know it will be great in the Spring as well. Enjoy your break. Party hard!

Bryce:
It's been great to work with you during this semester. Thank you so much for all the help on Computer Science. I know I couldn't have done it without you. It's been wonderful hanging out with you this semester and I thank you for putting aside all your homework to work with me on mine. I hope that you have a wonderful break and I know you'll figure out everything that's been concerning you.

Ivan:
Thanks for never giving up on me. I have a great time hanging out and talking whenever we're together. I hope you have a wonderful Christmas and I look forward to seeing you next semester before you move to California.

Byron:
Thanks for being there for all the big stuff. I really appreciate everything you've done for me over the years. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you. I hope you have a wonderful break and it's great to hear that you're doing well at your new job and you're loving where you are. I'm so happy for you and it's great to hear that you're happy and feeling at home in your job.

Johanna, Karen, Chris, Jenny -- Congratulations on your weddings! I'm so happy for you and I hope you have a wonderful new life with your spouses.

Congratulations to Julie Murray and Tyler Moiser on a healthy baby boy! I'm so happy that both mom and baby are doing well even after a little scare and an emergency c-section. I'm very happy for both of you!

Computers are just as much of a miracle as they are a curse. You can talk to anyone anywhere in the world using your computer, but you also have this problem of becoming dependent on it. Everything you work on is on this one piece of equipment and if you lose it or something happens, you're screwed. My hard drive is dying and I'm currently using Meagan's iBook to type a paper I was working on earlier. Thank goodness that Word documents can be worked on regardless of what operating system you have! However, I do need to thank my dad who has already ordered me a new hard drive and it will be here either tomorow or Thursday! The bad news is that I have to re-install everything on the new hard drive. I really don't want to put programs like MatLab on my computer that I won't be using after the first week in May. They're bloated programs and I don't want to install them for only a couple weeks and then get rid of them. That's what can cause your computer to slow down in the first place. Windows really doesn't do a very good job of getting rid of the remnants of uninstalled programs. Oh well, a busy week just got busier and I'm sure I'll figure out how to get everything done. I always do.

- Do you know the most surprising thing about divorce? It doesn't actually kill you. Like a bullet to the heart or a head-on car wreck. It should. When someone you've promised to cherish till death do you part says "I never loved you," it should kill you instantly. You shouldn't have to wake up day after day after that, trying to understand how in the world you didn't know. The light just never went on, you know. I must have known, of course, but I was too scared to see the truth. Then fear just makes you so stupid.
- No, it's not stupid, Signora Mayes. L'amore e cieco.
- Oh, love is blind. Yeah, we have that saying too.
- Everybody has that saying because it's true everywhere.

- Well is it love, big love, or great love?
- What do you mean?
- Well, love you get over in two months, big love you get over in two years, and great love, well great love... changes your life. So which one is it?
- Oh my god, it's great love.
- Yeah, that's just great.

"Like do you know she has six smiles? One when something really makes her laugh. One when she's making plans. One when she is laughing out of politeness. One when she is uncomfortable. One when she is making fun of herself. And one when... she's talking about her friends."

Allana Ann McQuoid was born on July 24, 2006 at 12:40pm. She was 9 lbs. 3 oz and 20" long. Needless to say, she was a big baby. But, her mother is 5' 11" and her father is a big guy, so she follows in her parents footsteps.

There was so much love in one room today, that it just simply took your breath away. You could just see it written all over Abby's face as she held her daughter. You could just tell how much Abby meant to both of them as they were talking. Both parents were tired after not having any sleep for 48 hours, but they were both very much at peace. There was defniitely no question of how much they loved each other and their daugher. Drew, Paula (Drew's mom) and Abby talked about the delivery. Paula is a nurse, but she'd never been present for a delivery. Drew was telling about a few of the contractions that hurt really bad and he said "the worst part was I couldn't do anything. I just wanted her not to hurt anymore. It almost made me cry." And Paula told about how much of a miracle a birth is and the fact that there were no complications at all with the delivery.

Allana is simply perfect. Her head is almost perfectly round and when she looks like she's about to cry she squishes her face together and turns a little pink. She couldn't be more beautiful and her parents couldn't love her more. There were moments when everyone in the room just sat and looked at the baby because she was just so precious. Drew said it was just so amazing to finally see what she looked like after nine months and in spite of being sore, Abby had the radiant glow of a new mother. It was as if just looking at her and the baby could melt all the worries away even if it was only for a moment.

Below are a few pictures. To see all of them click here.

Every once in awhile, someone will surprise me. On my last day of work on Friday, I was in a meeting and I came out to be greeted by a beautiful bouquet of flowers on my desk from my roommate Meagan. She just got back from Chile and sent me flowers for my last day of work. Pretty, huh?

Well, I'm starting a new semester. I'm in my first day of class. All my classes are Tuesdays and Thursdays (well, with the exception of the exercise classes I'm taking). Tuesdays are going to be hell though because I have class from 9:30am to 9:20pm and my last class is on East Campus. You'd think that if you were signing up for a marketing course, they'd have it in CBA like the rest of the business classes. At least it's only once a week.

I'm really excited about Design Studio this year. I'll be a team lead and there are lots of projects to pick from. It will be interesting to find out what project I end up on and who's on my team.

Either way, the year will be interesting, and hopefully better than all the rest of the college years.

Have you ever been sick for so long that you can't remember what pills are supposed to help with what, which ones cause weird side effects, and what it felt like to actually be healthy? I am totally there. After two days at home (Saturday and today), I finally feel like I might actually live through the end of the semester. I feel like I've been having weird side effects from the prescriptions my doctor gave me for over a month now. I just want to be able to identify what's actually causing my various symptoms. Right now I'm on 2 1/2 inches of pills that are supposed to help me get over the flu, not be stuffed up and prevent any infections caused by the antibiotic used to kill the flu.

I just hope all the sickness and side effects from the medications that are supposed to curing it go away soon.

So, my roommate bought us a tree and we even took a break from our homework for about 15 minutes to decorate it yesterday night. So, isn't it cute? Basically, you aren't allowed to disagree because I finally have a draft finished for my retailing management class that it's worthy of being called a "rough draft" and I'm taking a break to post this lovely picture of our weird little silver tree. However, if you hate on it, I'll hunt you down and ... well, I don't really know what I'll do, but I'll figure it out eventually after I analyze my options and pick the best one.

After almost two and a half months of tracking down professors, honors program staff and CBA advisors, I am finally looking at a degree audit that says my degree completion is "In Progress." Yes, that means I'm officially graduating in May!!! All of my classes are applied correctly to my degree and when I have my senior check next semester, it will actually say that I'm going to graduate. It's really great that the JDE students' classes aren't reported correctly on the degree audit. No one really knows what to do with us when we show up at the various advising offices and ask for paperwork. But, I finally managed to get all of my classes put in the right modules on my degree. Who ever thought I'd ever actually graduate?

My parents took Meagan and me to dinner tonight. We went to spaghetti works. On the way back, we walked by Kinko's. There's a small tree outside Kinko's and apparently it's become a bagel tree. Who seriously sticks bagels on a tree in downtown Lincoln? Oh well. Good thing I had my phone with me.

to give you their flower friend and make you take it home with you because they can tell you're stressed. Because then you go from looking like this:

To looking like this:



Still tired, but a little happier...and that's all that counts when you have a busy finals week.

You think that you're going to be able to relax and take a break from everything. Instead, things break. Take, for instance, sleeping...going home after months of being away, the bed is foreign and sleep doesn't come. Or relationships. Holidays cause stress and extra tension and fights. Family gatherings happen where you have to put on a happy face and pretend you want to be there even if you'd rather stay in bed all day. Stress about money because it only seems to flow out during the holidays. Break doesn't mean a break from stress. Break means that things break and as much as you try not to, you'll probably cause some of it. Everyone is busy with family gatherings and obligations, so you can't even see friends you don't see often during the school year. I guess I'm just looking forward to the "break" being over.

Below is part of my Christmas present from John. He and his sister jokingly named him "Fatty McPenguin" and jokingly referred to him as fatty all week before Christmas. Apparently I'm supposed to rename it. But how do I rename the penguin when it really is fat and it bounces like it does in the video.

After so long I finally got the pictures of my cousin's daughter off my camera. I took the pictures on the memory of my camera and I got a new cable for Christmas. I waited so long to be able to transfer the pictures so I could print and post. I went to see her the day she came home. She looked so happy and so proud. Tenley was a beautiful newborn.

So, it's 2007. I'll be 22 in a few days (weird to think about). I've only got one semester left of school and then I'm done with my degree. That's hard to imagine. New Year's Eve was fairly uneventful. John and I were snowed into the house. I hate the cold, so we didn't really do much at all. We played a couple games of Scrabble and I called my parents to wish them a Happy New Year. Mom was definitely NOT awake. Wow. Oops. Oh well. So, resolutions...hmm...they just seem so silly. It's like it's supposed to make them easier to accomplish because you made a New Year's resolution. Whatever. Anyway, my "resolutions" (kind of ongoing from before the New Year):

1. Worry less
......
2. Find amusement in the simple things in life
3. Don't do things just to please the people around me
4. Spend more time with the people I care about most

Well, we'll see what happens with those. All of you reading this probably have an idea of how easily I'll accomplish the first one. But hey, no one's perfect, right? Isn't that why we make resolutions. It's kind of a sad way to look at it, but we make resolutions because we see ways where our lives aren't "good enough." Regardless, life is pretty good overall so Happy New Year to all of you.

So, I'm sitting in my living room this afternoon, working on Design Studio document sections, making lists, editing the Microsoft Project file and this commercial actually made me stop and do a double-take at the TV:

I couldn't believe they actually put the commercial on national television. I actually laughed out loud. Maybe it's because I'm a nerd, but I thought it was hilarious that they said the words "the most advanced technology you will ever pee on". Other pregnancy test commercials always talk about needing to know early or the potential of having cute babies and stuff. This one was a little different (as you can see). Regardless, the commercial made me pay attention.

I went to my first ever beer school tonight with Meagan. Waiting outside was really cold because of the wind. I still didn't find a beer I particularly liked, but it was a good experience. I learned about hops and had some good pizza.

For those of you reading who don't know what "Beer School" is it's a monthly event hosted by Empyrean Brewing Company (they own Lazlo's & Fireworks) that happens on the first Monday of the month. Basically what happens is you go to the brewery and they give you two free beers before they start the "official" Beer School experience. After your first two beers, then they take groups into the brewing area and the brewer talks about a subject relating to beer. They talked about hops last night. They showed us different types of hops and discussed how to choose the type and how long they last, when they are added in the brewing process, etc. During the talk, they give you another beer to drink while you're listening. Then, when they are done discussing the subject for the night, they take you into another area where they have beer tasting. Each month they select five beers for tasting. They talk about each beer as they are handing them out. They talk about the amount of hops, the type of beer, where it's from and how it's brewed. They give you about two or three swallows of beer to try. On the last beer, they provide a food to go with the beer so you can try the beer with the food. The final beer is typically a seasonal beer brewed by Empyrean. I didn't drink a full amount of any of my beers and I only finished one tasting cup of the various beers they let us try. I don't really like beer (because it's too bitter). However, I would suggest going to Beer School for anyone who wants to try something new. It's free and it's a fun learning experience (even if you don't like beer).

Today is my birthday. I'm 22. I really don't feel that old. Do I look that old?

Maybe I'll grow up eventually, but not today. I definitely still have my childish moments. I don't feel like I have anything really in order for my life. I'm still in college. I haven't lined up a job yet. I feel the same as I always did: a little lost most of the time. I've worked hard over the last four years and I'm almost done with college, but I almost feel less certain about myself than I did in high school. Maybe that was because I was still a little naïve at that point in my life. I can tell I've become a bit more cynical over the last four years, but I can look back and see why that is and I don't feel like it's unfounded. However, I'm still entertained by simple things like making faces at my webcam when I'm on Skype with John or even my stuffed penguin that bounces when I pat him on the head. I still like stuffed animals and video games. Oh well, I don't have to act my age yet...

This is just my opinion, so take it for what you believe it's worth. I got a necklace from John for Christmas (seen below) and it's really pretty. I wear it more than all my other jewelry now (with the exception of my silver ring). I don't typically wear jewelry. In the mornings when I'm getting dressed, I see the necklace John gave me and it makes me smile because it's something that will remind me during the day that I'm loved. It's like when you see a photo of you and your best friend and you remember the memory when the photo was taken (except more abstract). That, and it's shiny!

Meagan and I went to visit Sam (and Olivia) at Sam's new apartment. I hadn't been there yet. Olivia was born about three weeks early but she had a safe delivery. Sam looked good and happy. The baby had a little bit of jaundice and she was asleep the entire time we were visiting. Well, except for when Sam was picking on her. I bet that made her happy. I think I'd be angry if I was a baby taking a nap and someone made me cold and started pinching my cheeks to wake me up.

Sam went back to her hometown for a couple weeks. I'm sure when she gets back, she'll want babysitters. Good thing Meagan and I know nothing about babies.

I thought it was odd enough to be having "Christmas" plans after my birthday, but what felt even more odd than that was getting sick this weekend and missing Christmas. I don't remember the last time I didn't see my mom's side of the family for Christmas. It was a really weird feeling even though I think Christmas would have been a little weird after my birthday anyway. I guess I can find solace in the fact that this weekend actually looked like Christmas unlike most of break. However, things just aren't the same without the tradition of Grandma's house really close to Christmas day with everyone around the big table in the kitchen. I suppose things change and you have to get used to it, but what happens when you're just not ready for the change? What happens when you don't really want to face what the future holds? Either way, it was sad not seeing my family for a Christmas gathering of some sort. It would have been nice to do that. Although, I did hear that the drive was a challenge. Either way, I missed Christmas and I'm not allowed to open my gifts until John and I are together in my parents' house where they can take pictures. ;-)

So, I finally brought my coffee maker to campus. It's been fun to use. Meagan has been talking about how it entertains her because it's fun to look at. It is rather idiot-proof because it won't let you do anything if it needs more water. Meagan made some Gloria Jean's Hazelnut coffee and I've made some English Breakfast tea. I think I could get used to this. However, I need to keep trying new kinds of coffee and I need to get some sugar, cream and milk because I doubt I'll find a coffee I like black. I don't even like tea without at least sugar in it.

Anyway, the coffee maker turns on automatically at 7:45am and turns off automatically at 9:30pm. You can also set it to automatically turn off after a certain time without use. But it keeps hot water in it all day until it turns off for the night. You can also choose the cup size. It came with these things called k-cups that are pre-measured coffee/tea/etc. that you just stick in the top. You can also use your own coffee if you want. Anyway, it's basically the uber-coffee maker. Hopefully I can learn to like some coffees. I haven't found any that I like yet, but I also haven't tried very many kinds.

So, I finally opened Christmas presents at my parents house. My aunt is very artsy-craftsy and she usually makes something fun for the family. This year, all the women got a purse made out of a bra. Yes, a bra. When I pulled it out of the bag, I was just sure that I had gotten a dirty gift from my aunt and I wasn't sure how to respond. After further investigation, I realized that it was indeed a purse and it came complete with tissues and chapstick inside.

It is actually rather cute in spite of being made from undergarments. However, I don't know if I could wear it out in public. I think my entire family is too conservative to actually use them. The funny thing is that I could probably name off girls I know who would definitely wear it out in public and/or even compliment someone who had one and ask about where to get one. I suppose it's not really much different than those corset purses they've had in stores for awhile.

Who knows, maybe someone will read this and call to see if they can buy one? Either way, I don't know that I'll be wearing mine out in public but it will be in my room for a good chuckle every once in awhile.

I need some suggestions. I've got all this coffee and tea and I don't know what to try first. I've got a whole bunch of various brands, roasts and flavors. Maybe I'll find some coffee I like. I've never tried coffee I like before, so I'm open to your suggestions:

• Coffee
  
  
  
  • Diedrich Coffee
    
    
    
    • French Roast
      
    
    
  • Tully's Coffee
    
    
    
    • French Roast
      
    • Kona Blend
      
    
    
  • Goria Jean's Coffees
    
    
    
    • Hazelnut
      
    • French Vanilla Supreme
      
    • Butter Toffee
      
    • Mudslide
      
    • Swiss Chocolate Almond
      
    
    
  • Van Houtte Cafe
    
    
    
    • Kenya Kilimandjaro (Dark Roast)
      
    • Eclipse Blend (Dark Roast)
      
    • French Vanilla
      
    • Pecan Praline
      
    • Chocolate Almond
      
    • Hazelnut
      
    
    
  • Timothy's World Coffee
    
    
    
    • Colombian La Vereda
      
    • Decaf Colombian
      
    • Irish Cream
      
    • Italian Blend
      
    • German Chocolate Cake
      
    • Caramel Vanilla Nut
      
    
    
  • Green Mountain Coffee Roasters
    
    
    
    • Dark Magic (Extra Bold)
      
    • Sumatran Reserve (Extra Bold)
      
    • Colombian Supremo
      
    • Nantucket Blend
      
    • Hazelnut Cream
      
    • Southern Pecan
      
    • Mocha Nut Fudge
      
    • Wild Mountain Blueberry
      
    
    
  
  
• Tea
  
  
  
  • Bigelow
    
    
    
    • Earl Grey Tea
      
    • Green Tea
      
    
    
  • Timothy's World Coffee
    
    
    
    • Decaf English Breakfast Tea
      
    • Lemon Blueberry Passion Tea
      
    
    
  • Twinnings of London
    
    
    
    • English Breakfast Tea (Decaf)
      
    
    
  • Glora Jean's
    
    
    
    • Serenity Green Tea
      
    
    
  • Celestial Seasonings
    
    
    
    • Lemon Zinger Herb Tea
      
    • Mandarin Orange Spice Herb Tea
      
    • English Breakfast Black Tea
      
    
    
  
  

So, Meagan and I were watching "The Wedding Bells", which by the way is really funny. There was this commercial that came on TV while we were watching about the PAUSE campaign. The commercial was very vague but gave a link at the end to go to the Web site. Basically, it's a campaign paid for by the Kaiser Family Foundation and Fox Networks group encouraging people to pause and think about their lives. Apparently this group has decided that people my age don't stop to think about our lives and realize that a single moment can change the future forever. As odd as the campaign is, it's so true. So many of my friends' lives would be different if they simply paused to think about the decisions they made before they made them. If you've got a few minutes, I would suggest going to the site and taking a minute to pause and think about what's important to you.

So, I had my wisdom teeth out yesterday. I can't smile or anything. That's actually me trying to smile. But I guess I finally understand how it feels to not be able to show emotions and I have no idea why anyone would want that. Vanity is just not important enough to not be able to smile.

Of course because I did have my wisdom teeth forcibly removed from my face, my lack of emotion comes with pain and not being able to open my jaw very far (only far enough for a toothbrush and a spoon with very little on it). And of course I would be one of the few people who don't respond well to oxycodone. I think the stuff has been making me sick because I've been throwing up about two hours after taking it every time I've taken a dose. Oh well. I haven't really started to feel much better yet. My face just got fatter. But I did discover that sleeping in my parents' overstuffed leather recliner wasn't too bad.

Oh, and one last thing unrelated: my best friend Abby and her husband Drew woke up last night at 3am. They woke up because the car across the street kept honking. So, Drew went to go check it out. He looked around and then started walking back across the street to his house and realized that the two dogs he'd seen in the car were the ones honking the horn. Who does that and who doesn't notice if their horn is honking? Anyway, I've been entertained by picturing a couple dogs honking a car horn. But I'm entertained by very simple things.

For the fam, and everyone else reading this who isn't Greek (so basically everyone who isn't John), the title is "Christos Anesti!" (pronounced khree-STOHSS ah-NES-tee).

I went to John's Easter celebration this weekend. We went to the St. John's Greek Orthodox Church in downtown Omaha at midnight for Easter service. The Greeks do know how to carry on tradition. When we walked in the door, they handed out candles for the service. The candles were lit at the beginning of the service and stayed lit during the entire 2 1/2 hour Easter celebration. Quite impressive considering the fact that there was a young girl (around 7) who had her own candle in the pew in front of us. The service proceeded in Greek, sometimes followed by an English translation. It was beautiful in spite of the fact that I had no clue what was going on for 2/3 of the time. It was a really cool experience and it definitely made me want to know more about the Greek Easter traditions. At the end of the service the congregation got up and moved towards the front of the church to receive red hard-boiled eggs (red for the blood of Christ, another Greek tradition). And of course, everyone in the line is responding to the priest by saying either "Christos Anesti" or "Alithos Anesti" and I'm such a space cadet, looking around the church, examining all the various religious pieces at the front. I walk up there and he hands me an egg and I'm just like "Thank you!" and John's behind me laughing because I'm not paying attention at all and it's obvious to the priest. The priest did smile and was very gracious in spite of the fact that I butchered the expected response even though it was repeated multiple times during the service. I did manage to respond with "Christos Anesti" to the second priest when he handed me the tsoureki (Greek Easter Bread).

On Sunday, we went to John's grandmother's house for Easter lunch, complete with polish sausage (his mom is polish). All the food was very good and I ate way too much given the fact that we had another meal planned at 4pm. That was fun and everyone I'd met on various occasions on his mom's side were there. They were all really nice to me. Then, we went to a picnic at the Greek Orthodox church where John's Aunt Helen attends. Of course, they had lamb (another tradition) and I thought it was good (I've never had lamb before). Along with the lamb, were other traditional Greek foods and massive amounts of different desserts. Also, unlike the Lutherans where the pastor says "Christ is risen!" and the congregation responds by saying "He is risen indeed." The Greek response (in English) is "Truly he is risen!" and I kept wanting to say "He is risen indeed" to his family when they all greeted me at the Greek Easter picnic so I had to do a double-take. But of course, they were as gracious as always and it was a fun time.

Finally, Sunday night before I left, John and I got our red eggs from church the night before and (according to tradition) we rapped the ends together. It's said that if your egg doesn't crack, you will have a good year. We did small ends first and I hit his egg and his cracked. Then we did the fat ends and he rapped my egg and mine cracked. So, apparently it will be a good year for both of us.

Greek Easter was fun and I'd definitely do it again. I think I want to know more about it before I experience it again. And hopefully I'll be with it enough to follow the traditional responses.

I've been told that I must post photos of my apartment. Below are the before and after photos along with my apartment layout. Enjoy!

My grandma got me one of the funniest gifts I've received in a long time. Attached to my graduation present was a "Grow a Geek." I've never really seen anything like it. You just throw it in some water and it grows. There was some film at the bottom of the cup after about a week, which was kind of gross, but oh well. I took it out of the water when it was done growing and it was really slimy and somewhat hard. I was expecting it to be squishy like a sponge.

It's a pretty weird gift, but I was definitely entertained. Take a look:

I should have posted this awhile ago, but I did finally get my hair cut. I donated it to Locks for Love. Hopefully it will make a nice wig for someone. I know for my part, the summer has felt just a little bit cooler after I got rid of more than half my hair.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Dear American Red Cross,

While it's very nice of you to come out to work sites for a blood drive and make it convenient to donate blood, there are a few things you need to work on.

First of all, I really do not want to have an argument with the check-in person about whether or not I have donated blood before. I have, ok? I know you may find it amazing that I don't remember who I donated to. However, when I tell you I just showed up at the blood drive at school, don't tell me this one is the Red Cross blood drive like I must be a moron for not reading. I know it's the Red Cross blood drive. I called you and made an appointment and walked down here to let you stick a needle in my arm and take my blood. We don't need to talk about the logistics of the last blood drive I attended, what university it was at and the fact that you service UNO when I clearly said I went to UNL. Just for your information so we don't need to have this argument again: I went to UNL for four years and donated several times. The Lincoln Community Blood Bank and the Red Cross both come to the blood drives and you fill out your information and go to whatever bed is open. Apparently I donated to the Lincoln Community Blood bank. I'm really sorry I don't remember what bed I was routed to over the last two or three times I donated. Also, no, I do not have a donation card. They didn't do those on campus, so don't ask me for it three times.

The person who took my information was very nice. It was somewhat of a pain to review all of the countries I visited on my last vacation, but I understand it's important information. So, thank you for your courtesy.

Moving on to my biggest complaint about the whole experience: the giving blood part. First, get some blankets. I'm losing blood here and I already have enough problems with temperature control. Second, I told you which arm I usually use. It was really nice of you to check both arms on the guy sitting next to me, but you didn't even look at my right arm which is the one I said usually works best. You can't see my veins in my left arm. I know that. A simple visual comparison would have worked wonders. Also, spending 10 minutes trying to find the vein, having to write on my arm and have me squeeze the stupid ball and hold 20 times should be a clue that maybe you should take a look at another option since I have two arms. I'll wait for a different chair. Really.

Please do not tell me that I have to hold my wrist very still and then get upset when I squeeze the ball you hand to me. The muscles in my arm and my hand are going to move when I squeeze it. Either I don't squeeze the ball and you can have a perfectly still arm or I can squeeze it and get the blood flowing. It's your choice.

When you finally do decide to put a needle in my arm, try being a little nicer about it. The first clue that it's not working should be the fact that there is no blood flowing into the tube. Walking away to go find someone is not helpful. It makes me wonder if you know what you're doing. To the person who came to "see why it's not working", rooting it around in my arm hurts like hell. Considering the fact that the first person stuck it in the absolute middle of the crease in my elbow, if you push it further into my arm, you're going to go through the vein because it's not flat there because you made me bend my elbow. I'm glad you finally got blood to flow, but you really shouldn't be very proud of yourself because the needle had to be propped up by something to keep it at a 45 degree angle to my skin. That should clue you in to the fact that the end of the needle is probably in the vein, but if my arm moves at all, it's going to come out. But hey, you're the expert, right? Maybe not. I got half a bag full until it the flow slowed down and came to a stop. Hmm...maybe the end of the needle came out of my vein again. Sure, let's root it around a little more to see if we can fix it. Nope. Ok, well, obviously it was my fault that I couldn't give a whole bag of blood but it was sure nice of you to ask me in an accusing tone if donating usually went quickly for me. Usually it does. Maybe if you actually got the needle in my vein rather than just moving it around in my arm it would have worked better. But what do I know? The blood on my arm around the needle wouldn't have been a hint or anything. You know, when I gave blood before, my arm only bled after they took the needle out. But again, I'm not an expert here.

Thanks for the band-aid. It would have been really nice for you to wipe the iodine off my arm before taping all the way around it. I was wearing a white coat today, so the lovely yellow-brown color looks really great smeared on the sleeve.

The guy at the "canteen" was very nice although he couldn't hear very well. But out of almost everyone I encountered with the exception of the nurse who went over my medical history, he was by far the nicest.

I'm very sorry I wasn't of any use to you. I'll spare you the trouble of dealing with me again by just not coming next time. Really, I'm just that nice. Also, thanks for the really awesome bruise on my arm. It goes well with the rest of the ones I already had from volleyball earlier this week. If you do decide that you would like to have me donate again, please call the Lincoln Community Blood Bank first (402-486-9414). I'm sure they can tell you how to deal with me since I'm such a pain. But I'm sure you won't need me until there's a real shortage.

Thanks!

Today was just strange. I guess it technically started yesterday though. John and I went to visit my parents in Lincoln for dinner (another fun story about that later though). We returned to town later than expected so I didn't go up to get my computer from John's (I've never left my computer anywhere). I just dropped him off and went home. I woke up this morning and it looked like my router had broken overnight. No lights came on other than the power light. But I couldn't test it because I didn't have my computer. I gave up and went to work for the day. When I got back, I unplugged my modem and my router to take to John's for testing. He called to say he was home so I should come over, but when I got there, I couldn't get in because he wasn't answering. It turned out that he forgot his phone in his car (which he rarely does), so I had to wait 10 minutes before he realized it and came to see if I was there yet. I showed him my router and we tried a few tests and decided the router was dead. We found another router on Best Buy's web site and I was going to order it online for in-store pick-up. I got my wallet out and decided not to order online. We left to try a few places in town and on road down Dodge. We saw a car with a Hawaii license plates. I wanted to take a picture, but I hadn't put the card in my camera so we couldn't. Then, I realized I forgot my wallet at the condo. So, John said he'd pay for it and I could pay him back when we got back. We arrived at Best Buy and there were two guys outside on a blanket (camped out for Halo, I think). No one else was there. Just the two of them and they were getting funny looks. Again, I wanted to take a picture, but I couldn't. Best Buy's in-store price was higher than the online price so we tried Nebraska Furniture Mart and Office Max but no one had the router I wanted so we ended up buying it at Best Buy. We got back to the condo and John stopped by his car to grab his phone. Then, on the way upstairs, the elevator wheezed. Yes, wheezed, like you'd hear an old man do in his sleep. It was really weird and we were glad to get off the elevator. We finally made it upstairs and John cooked dinner and we sat down to watch Heroes. It was good. However, there were a couple minutes when the feed cut out. I really hope it was just Omaha and someone has a full copy of it somewhere. So yeah, generally a weird day with some frustration and some just very strange things. I wonder if those guys got their copy of Halo...

Yes, that's right I said "Poke Cake." I'm sure there are some of you who are more culinary or baking inclined than I am, but Sunday was the first time I'd heard of it.

John and I were at my parents' house for dinner on Sunday (I mentioned that in my previous and less exciting post). Anyway, we finished the meal and my mom asked us if we wanted some dessert. So, as per usual, I asked what was for dessert before deciding. She said "poke cake." John and I just looked at each other trying to figure out if one of us knew what that was. I certainly hadn't heard of it. So, I asked "what is poke cake." John, of course couldn't help himself and said "is it like *poke* cake?" He always pokes me. :-P My mom started laughing because apparently I've had poke cake before but didn't know it. So, folks, if you want to make poke cake apparently you just make a white sheet cake. You take it out of the oven, poke it with a fork a bunch of times and pour flavored Jello over the top and it will seep into the cake. Then you let it cool, cover it with whipped cream and fruit and there you have it: Poke Cake. Which is definitely worth making just so you can have a poking contest and a strange conversation with someone else who hasn't ever heard of poke cake before.

Note: The picture has toothpicks in the cake, but that's so it would travel well because my mom sent a few pieces home with us. It's not necessary to poke the cake with toothpicks after it's done, but if it makes you feel better, by all means poke away.

This week apparently just isn't my week. Monday was just strange and I had to spend money I wasn't planning on spending for a new router. Fortunately, the new one is working great. After researching my router problem, I found that plenty of other people have had the same problem. This was particularly frustrating considering that the one I own is one of the most expensive and supposedly the top-end of Netgear's home networking. I reported the problem using their online system only to have a reply to my ticket say that it sounds like a hardware problem, but I'll have to call a technician (most likely in India) to have them "troubleshoot" the issue to determine whether it is actually a hardware problem. The stories online don't provide much hope that I will talk to someone competent or even in the U.S. Which will definitely mean at least a very frustrating hour on the phone. I've been putting that off...maybe I'll call them tonight so it doesn't ruin my weekend. The only fortunate part is that buying a router isn't going to break me like it could have in college when I didn't have a consistent income.

Last night I took my car to the dealership because it's being serviced today. They have those envelopes you can fill out and put your key in for "early bird drop-off." Which worked well. Unfortunately, I was using the dome light in my car to fill out the information on the envelope and when I finished, I put my key in the envelope, locked my car and dropped it in the slot. Then, I turned around and realized my car was locked with the dome light on and I had no way of unlocking it and turning it off. So, we'll see if they call me to tell me I have a dead battery. I felt pretty dumb after that one.

However, the icing on the cake is definitely what I managed to do to myself at volleyball. I had been having back pain for the last few weeks, but it was steadily improving because I was making a concerted effort to stretch everyday. But, Tuesday night I played volleyball again and I stretched afterward (like you're supposed to) and I was driving home when I started to get really weird tingly feelings in my stomach and lower lungs and my back felt like I was being stabbed. I figured I had just pulled something so I took a hot bath and then tried to get my back to relax by putting my feed up and letting gravity even things out. That was a bad idea because it definitely hurt. I gave up and tried to sleep but didn't get much. When I got to work, it was still hurting and the spot felt twice as wide as the rest of my spine, which made me worry. So, I went to see the trainer at work (Thank God we have one here!) and she told me I managed to rotate a vertebra and get it stuck while I was playing. She tried popping it back into place, but my back wouldn't pop so she gave me a massage around the area. I'm told that it should rotate back into place on its own, so I'm hoping. Last night I was doing a couple stretches she gave me and my back popped and it moved over about half way. It doesn't feel like I'm being stabbed when I sit against stuff anymore, so I'm going to mark that as a significant improvement. Now instead of feeling twice as wide as the rest of my spine, it feels about 1 1/2 times as wide. However, John was still a little freaked out by it when I showed him so it's at least providing some entertainment value. I've never managed to do this before so it's been an adventure. Ice and ibuprofen are my new best friends. Oh, and for those of you who think I should stop playing volleyball, keep dreaming.

So I answered an interesting phone call last night. My phone rang and I didn't recognize the number but decided to answer it anyway:

Caller: Hi, Sarah?
Me: Yes...
Caller: This is Dennis. I slept with you on Tuesday.

Immediately I'm trying to figure out how who would start a conversation like this. I'm pretty sure I'd remember if something like that happened. Surely he has the wrong phone number. Right? Except he knew my name...crap. Who do I know named Dennis? If he's starting a conversation like this, I don't think it will end well. Maybe he's calling to say he has an STD. Well, I know he didn't sleep with me so I know I'm fine. Oh, I should stop him before he tells me something I don't want to know! What's a polite way to respond?

Me: I'm sorry, what?
Caller: This is Dennis. I subbed with your on Tuesday.

OH! Subbed! That makes things much less awkward. Wait, subbed what? Oh, I get another person's e-mail from time to time and she's a teacher. Maybe he thinks he's talking to her. But she lives in Chicago. How would he get my number. Well, maybe I can see what he wants and I'll figure out how he thinks he knows me.

Caller: In volleyball...

Crap, I waited too long. OH! Volleyball! He's the guy who played with our team because one of our guys was going to be gone!

Me: Oh, Dennis! Hi! What's up?
Caller: Well, we were looking for a sub for Sunday night and I was wondering if you were busy.

So, the conversation wasn't actually as exciting as I originally thought it would be. And Dennis wasn't trying to deliver bad news to a one night stand. However, the few seconds spent trying to figure out how to politely tell him he had the wrong person definitely provided some laughter later. Honestly, if a conversation actually starts that way, it can only go downhill. It did make for a good laugh given that I just have a hearing problem.

The last few weeks have just been crazy. I'm looking forward to a normal evening tomorrow and hopefully a fairly normal week next week.

United Way Week: 1st - 5th

Mutual has a week dedicated to United Way fund raising every year. This year was my first encounter with the food-fest that can only be described as a never-ending schmorgous board of tasty treats combined with raffles. You could get any variety of bake sale items, pie with ice cream, Otis Spunkmeyer cookies, nachos, enchiladas, chili dogs, sloppy joes, lasagna, pizza, etc. They even created a Lotus Notes database that listed the food specials for the day and the locations to find them in the building. Almost every department in the company organized a daily "lunch special" to be served on their floor. I ate lunch at work everyday. A pretty expensive food week for me. I also worked at one of the Information Services sponsored lunches serving food till we ran out. There were also plenty of different things you could register to win. They had two people from the show "The Biggest Loser" visit to promote a gift basket that included a $200 boot-camp. There were plenty of themed baskets too like Halloween, wine, baby stuff, beauty items, cooking, etc. It was a fun week, but also nice to get everything out of the hallways and back to normal work schedules. I don't think many people got a lot done that week.

Weekend!

The weekend was pretty packed (but with mostly fun things). John and I went to one of his friends' house and we played through the entirety of Halo. Yeah, it took quite a few hours. I think we started playing around 10 and didn't leave their house till about 4am. I wasn't as terrible at it as I was expecting. Although, I do have to admit that a lot of my time during the first 1/2 hour of play was focusing on walking and looking (and not getting shot). That was the first time I'd ever played anything on an Xbox of any type. It was fun and the graphics were pretty awesome. John really wants to get an Xbox and Halo so he can play on his own. We'll see when that happens.

We saw Brad and watched part of the game with him. It was pitiful. About half way through it, we ended up looking for something else to watch. Sunday was laundry, cleaning and dinner with John's family.

Dataloads and Training: 8th - 12th

I spent all of last week creating a video using video editing software to teach someone how to use the video editing software to create training videos. Yes, that sentence is very confusing. Anyway, my team supports the software that Mutual's customer service department uses to update customer information. Every time we push out a change that affects how the Customer Service reps interact with the software, they have to go through two weeks of training to learn how to use it the "new way." (This makes me very glad I don't work in that department. I think I'd go nuts having to train for two weeks every time something changed.) We are exploring the idea of creating training videos to show the screens and describe how to use them. The people who facilitate training aren't very technical, so I needed to create documentation on how to create training videos. Well, what better way to do that than create a video using the software you're going to train them how to use? I'm hopeful that it will be easier to understand than a written document (although I made one of those to supplement). It was really easy to do and a nice break from the more mentally intensive tasks I usually work on.

Speaking of which, we also started dataloads last week. Every six months, all the testing data is deleted and a fresh set of data is reloaded to the various environments. Doesn't sound too hard right? Well, the way all the data has to be loaded is by using the mainframe (which I had never even attempted to use until I started work here). Learning hasn't been too bad, but the entire structure and interaction is completely different than anything else I've worked with in the past. The most painful parts are remembering what all the commands mean (many aren't intuitive) and enduring the painfully slow pace at which I do things in this particular environment. I'm sure I'll get faster eventually, but it definitely feels like things take forever for me to do.

Weekend!

Dataloads were still running so I had to check on those a few times during the weekend. We went to Vala's pumpkin patch (my first time). It was a pretty cool place but I definitely wasn't expecting all the traffic. They actually had police out at the place directing traffic. You can definitely tell that we're in the middle of po-dunk when they have to get cops to direct traffic at a pumpkin patch. Abby and Drew came with Allana. She was pretty happy to run around on the hills and look at things. We took her through a haunted house, but she didn't get scared at all. I think she was too young to understand that things were supposed to be scary. She just seemed irritated with a few of the louder noises. Mandy and B.J. were running late and ended up in the middle of game traffic. They arrived right as Abby and Drew were leaving. So, we went through the whole thing again. But hey, I got fudge out of the deal! I've only eaten about half of the first brick I bought (I have four more after this one). Sadly, the weather ended up being pretty bad later in the afternoon. It started drizzling about 45 minutes after we started the second trip through the place. We ended up huddling under some shelter while the boys found pumpkins. Later that night, we ended up stopping at Gamestop to see if they had a Wii. They didn't...but they did have a crimson and black DS lite. Yeah, it was really shiny, so I couldn't pass it up. The good thing is that one of the guys I work with bought my old DS for his kids :-). They've started playing Rocket Slime from what I hear.

Sunday was busy too. We went to church and then ran a bunch of errands. We needed to get a birthday gift for John's mom and get groceries. The grocery store was an adventure because we kept seeing this same couple who should never be allowed in another grocery store when there are more than 20 people in the store! They argued about everything. "Is this the aisle we need to be in?" "Are you sure this is the brand we bought last time?" And of course they'd do this while their cart was in the middle of the aisle and they're bending over in both directions looking at things on either side so you can't get around them. The lady snarled at John and said "Excuse me!" as if he was in her way. This is why I hate the grocery store. John also bought a new microwave so we don't die from the radiation from his old one. It made funny noises and took 12 minutes to cook popcorn. I'd always start it and go across the room. It was also John's grandmother's birthday so we celebrated that on Sunday night at his parents' house with a nice dinner and cake. John and I did the dishes but he did have to scold his mom for not resting and taking a break like he wanted her to. Overall a fun weekend but there wasn't much rest to be had.

Week of Birthdays: 15th - 19th

Along with John's grandmother's birthday, it was also John's mother's birthday and my dad's birthday this week. My uncle was also in Lincoln on Monday because he left on a bus tour with my grandma and one of her friends. I hadn't seen him since my aunt's funeral so it was important that I saw him. John and I drove to Lincoln to have dinner with my parents, my grandma and her friend and my uncle. It was good to see everyone because it had been awhile. We had a really good time.

Yesterday was John's mom's birthday, but I still had volleyball and I was getting ready for my dad's birthday which is today. I had some checks to cash, I needed candles and a cake too. I found some cool candles fairly easily and then went through the bank drive-through downtown. It is a complete mystery to me why they only have two people working at the windows when there is a line of 10 to 15 cars solid from 4:30 till about 6pm. I waited for 15 minutes before I finally got up to the tube to send my stuff off. I was concerned that I was going to run out of gas before I'd make it to the gas station. I did finally get out of there and got gas. But that was a generally frustrating experience too. Kwik shops will take the Baker's plus cards which give you gas discounts. Well, it was before (as in just a few weeks ago) that you'd swipe the Baker's card, then your credit card to get the discount. But it wasn't working. It kept telling me to see the cashier. I was less than pleased to have to go inside, but what made it worse is that she didn't seem to understand me at all. It apparently is a foreign concept that anyone would want to put a full tank of gas in their car. She kept telling me I could either prepay for a specific amount or I could leave the card with her, then pump my gas. I wanted to ask her if I looked like I was an idiot because there was no way in hell I was leaving my credit card with her. But, I didn't. I just went and paid at the pump. So, then I went to Dairy Queen to pick up an ice cream cake for my dad's birthday. Apparently Dairy Queen decided that the log cakes were too convenient, so they've discontinued them. I bought the smallest one they offered and managed to lodge the cake in my freezer, but it will be an adventure getting it out of there. I didn't think it would fit. Then, I had to clean my apartment as fast as possible, run off to volleyball, take a shower, and go over to John's parents' for his mom's birthday. We had cake and sat around and talked for awhile. It was fun, but it ended pretty late.

So, finally the last busy day has come. I'm having lots of fun learning more mainframe stuff (self-study classes). They're about as fun as sandpaper on chafing skin, but hey, I have to learn it sometime. Fortunately, I only have to know enough to start jobs, check and send messages, and verify that a few things are working. I'm very grateful I don't have to program in COBOL. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, think really old in programming languages. My parents should be arriving at work late this afternoon and I'll give them a tour and then we'll have drinks, dinner, cake and presents. It should be fun and I hope my dad has a good birthday, but I'm definitely looking forward to tomorrow when I can go home from work and crash. It should be a fun evening and I'll get to try one of the new Blizzard cakes, so the Dairy Queen adventure wasn't all bad.

But enough about that, I'll have to keep my eye out for some more amusing things to post about so we don't have to many more of these. Oh, also, the new Zelda game (Phantom Hourglass) for the DS is pretty cool. I suggest it to those of you who appreciate a good puzzle game.

We went out for dinner at Anthony's Steakhouse last night for my dad's birthday. It was a really good evening and I think we all had a lot of fun. The funniest part of the evening, however, after dinner. As we were leaving Anthony's, a guy (who I can only assume to be a partial owner) stopped John on the way out the door and said "You are the slowest eater I have ever seen. In all my years here... I could have eaten three meals in the time it took you to eat one." We all just started laughing because almost every single time we're out for dinner, the server tries to take his food and box it up. We thanked him for not trying to steal John's food before he was done eating and we headed toward my apartment.

Good thing John looks like one of those guys who can take a good joke. Otherwise, I wouldn't have fun moments like this when we're out in public.

Last night, I came back to my apartment only to find that the toilet was backed up. I tried using the brush to fix the problem myself, but it definitely wasn't working. So, I called John. Yes, John, not the maintenance guy for the apartment complex. He brought over his plunger and walked into my bathroom where the toilet had slowly been draining (thank goodness it didn't overflow). He looked at me, standing there in my bathrobe and was like "Oh, you want me to do it?" I never thought I would be one of those girls, baffled by a toilet and completely at a loss for what to do other than calling someone to fix it. In theory, I really do know how it works, but I was sure I'd screw something up. So, of course John fixed the problem and then went home.

Yes, I'm posting. It's been awhile and I'm not out of ideas, I just haven't taken the time in quite awhile. As some of you might know, I've been having issues with coming back to my apartment and finding a less than desirable smell in it which subsequently resulted in running to my sliding glass door, flinging it open and quickly packing whatever I can think of and then leaving as quickly as possible before feeling like I'm going to pass out. This was rather frustrating as I pay a rather significant amount to live in a fairly nice place and it's I have been unable to sleep there on multiple occasions because I cannot live in a place where the air causes my throat to become sore, my eyes to get itchy and then I get migraine all the while feeling like I can't take breathe deep enough.

I couldn't find a pattern to the problem, but it seemed to be coming out my heating vents. But only sometimes. I'm sure the manager loves me now because they've checked for carbon monoxide twice, maintenance serviced my furnace, they also had the furnace company come out and service the furnace. Maintenance checked my water heater, my washer and dryer, my stove and my dishwasher, thinking maybe one of them had a problem or was leaking something causing the smell. Then, they also had the water heater company come out to check that again as well. However, no luck. All this on and off over the course of about a month and a half. During the first couple checks, no one could even smell anything remotely close to what I was smelling which could only be described as someone funneled the smoke from their fireplace into my apartment without the actual smoke, just the smell.

Finally, we have a solution. Apparently a guy who lives on the third floor decided that his food wasn't tasty enough when he used his gas grill, so he added wood chips to it (he wins moron of the month). On breezy days, the smoke from the grill would blow up to the roof (directly above his floor) and into my air intake. When my furnace would come on, I would be subject to the lovely aftereffects of his grill pumped directly into my apartment. I've been told he won't be doing that anymore. I don't know how much money my apartment management spent on having things serviced that didn't need to be, but I'm sure they weren't pleased. We aren't allowed to have charcoal grills at the complex, so I'm sure that wood-burning grills aren't acceptable either.

Hmm...we did get a notice that someone started a fire on their balcony...I wonder if it was him? Anyway, I will hopefully be breathing (easier) at my apartment from now on.

I finally found a wii! Well, I didn't actually find it, my friends' mom found it. However, I've been playing all sorts of fun games for the last couple weeks. But, John says I'm obsessed with my miis. Just some forewarning, you must create a mii if you want to play games. I think I've spent almost as much time adjusting and making new miis as I have playing video games. I've created miis for my parents and John's parents and all my friends who have played have created miis. They're just so cute! Oh, and when you finish editing them, they do a dance move. However, I still haven't found the right combination for my mii. It just doesn't feel quite right. Anyone have any suggestions? You can edit my mii or create your own online here.

This weekend I tried to find new volleyball shoes because my old ones have been worn out. After checking online at Dick's Sporting Goods' web site, I decided to go out to Westroads because it was a much shorter drive than the one out to Scheel's at Village Pointe (a note to the people who keep putting random the random "e" on the end of all the shopping malls to make them trendy: It's not cool. It's annoying and it looks dumb). I arrived at Dick's and I wasn't sure if they were really open because the windows in the front of the store is filled with an enormous display and the doors' windows were tinted. But, they were still open, so I went in. Their shoe department takes up and entire wall on the first floor of the store. I was thinking that surely they would have several options to pick from (as I've always had good luck in the Lincoln Scheel's store) given the appearance of the large selection. I looked for a few minutes and couldn't seem to find any volleyball shoes. So, I had to go track down a sales person. I found that there were actually very few of them in the store. When I finally found someone to help me, she pointed me at four shoes on at the very bottom of one row (two different styles in two different colors). I can understand putting them towards the bottom as it's not volleyball season, but they weren't even labeled. I think they were under the heading "running" rather than even "court" or something similar. So, I asked to try on my size in the two styles. She went in the back and came out, handing me a 1/2 size smaller than the size I asked for while telling me "We don't have anything in your size or any of the three larger sizes. We've had these shoes out for a long time and we're out of stock on almost all of them." I was nice and I simply said no thanks, but seriously folks, what kind of sales person tells you that you should have come earlier (yes, weeks earlier) to buy something that isn't even in season, somehow implying that it's your fault they can't sell you something you actually want to buy. Wouldn't you order more stock if you were sold out of several sizes and you still had the shoes on display? Regardless, I left to go find a different store that would hopefully carry volleyball shoes. I tried Lady Foot Locker and Finish Line, but no luck. On the way back out, I decided to stop in Trade Home on the off chance they might have something. They only had two styles of shoes and I ended up buying a pair of Adidas ones, but I wasn't sure I liked them. Plus, they didn't have my size in red, so I settled for blue and it just wasn't quite as satisfying. Because I had the shoes, I picked up a pair of kneepads from Dick's on the way out (although it was somewhat difficult to find that particular section of the store much less an employee to point me in a direction).

After having some time to think about my purchase, I decided to give Sheels a call and see what they had in stock. The shoes I had picked up didn't feel like volleyball shoes as much as basketball shoes tweaked and then called volleyball shoes. I had really been hoping for a pair of Mizuno shoes I had seen online, but neither of the stores I visited on Sunday had them. Plus, I wasn't very happy with the price of the kneepads ($25! -- the last time I bought kneepads, I could have sworn they were closer to $15). When I talked with the salesperson at Scheels, I asked how many styles of volleyball shoes they had in stock and if they had my size in the shoe. He checked and not only did they have five styles (plus some with multiple colors), they had my size in all but one style. So, last night, I returned the merchandise I had purchased on Sunday. I tried on the pair of Mizuno shoes I had initially seen online. They fit very well, plus they were $15 cheaper than the other shoes I had purchased before. Then, I found the same pair of kneepads I had bought at Dick's and purchased those for $18 rather than $25.

So, lesson learned this week: I felt like Dick's would rather focus on looking cool than selling someone something. Their employees seemed much less interested in selling anything than standing in obscure places and talking with other employees. Also, it appeared that they had a lot of merchandise, but it was just much more spread out than the merchandise at Scheels, but the stores did feel close to the same size when I walked across them. Scheels has lower prices, more involved employees, more merchandise, and better prices. Plus, you can actually buy their merchandise because they stock it, rather than taunting you on the little shoe shelves (those things are somewhat weird). After my experience with Dick's, I would liken it to the "Best Buy" of sports equipment and I don't plan on going there again if I can help it.

I don't really feel any different, but I've probably said that every year with the exception of my 16th and 21st birthday. Wednesday was my birthday so John took me out to dinner at Charleston's. The food was very good, I'd suggest it to anyone who wanted to try someplace new. Before we left the restaurant, I went in to use the restroom. As I was leaving, I noticed something on the wall by the door. There was a motion sensor installed next to the door called Sanidoor. So, I waved at it and the door automatically opened so I didn't have to touch it. I really wanted to get a picture, but I didn't think it would be very appropriate to grab my camera at the table and head back into the bathroom. I found a sketch of one (below) online though.

I was amused that a place would spend money on something like this. Wouldn't it be easier to put a trash can right by the door or just design the place so the bathroom doors opened out? I never did understand why you could push to walk into bathrooms and then you were required to touch the handle to exit the bathroom, especially after all those studies about germs and statistics regarding the number of people who don't wash their hands. Oh well, I'm content to wave at the motion sensor and laugh a little I guess.

My parents came up to visit today. I somehow managed to convince myself to clean my apartment for the first time in probably months. I'd been meaning to scrub everything in the bathroom and kitchen for a long time and I finally did it. It felt good to have that done and everything cleaned up. I received some very nice gifts for my birthday that should be fun to use and also good additions to my work clothes. I got a nice pair of khaki colored pants and a nice sweater to match. I also received a funny book from my parents called Funny Business that has been entertaining so far. Oh, and they brought me frosted sugar cookies from Eileen's Cookies and my most favorite candy bar ever -- Godiva dark chocolate with raspberry filling. Then I received some money to buy some Wii games and/or hardware. John bought me Super Paper Mario for the Wii (so i can continue playing the series I like), Pikmin and a Gamecube controller.

We went to dinner at Kona Grill for my birthday. John and I had some sushi as an appetizer. We ordered the caterpillar roll which always entertains me. I think it's because I always think it's so cute how they put the sprouts on the end for antennas and it actually looks like a curvy caterpillar with the avocado on the outside. It makes me laugh every time I order it. I was sad though because one of my favorite fish from the fish tank was gone. They used to have a blowfish in the tank and he always looked like he was singing "la la la la" really slow while floating around. He was fun to watch. They need to get a new one and not eat him this time. I almost ordered a Woo Woo drink off the menu, but I decided on something different. I wasn't in the mood for peach, but it would have been entertaining to tell people I drank a Woo Woo. I think they ran out of drink name ideas. Anyway, the dinner was very good.

After dinner, we stopped by Nebraska Furniture Mart to look around. I bought Wii Play, a nunchuck and Mario Party 8. Then we headed back to my apartment. I started my game of Pikmin which was entertaining. The little men that follow you around are so funny. It's fun to throw them too. Anyway, all in all a good day. And now I have plenty of games to play. Although, I will have to go buy Mario Galaxy whenever I need to return the game to Brad after he gets back from Canada.

Apparently I read backwards if someone is writing on my back. John started writing things last night after dinner and I couldn't figure out what it was (besides the smiley face) until he started writing the letters backwards. I've never been able to figure out what people write on my back before so apparently I'm dyslexic when it comes to "reading" on my back. Who would have thought?

I've been meaning to post about this for almost a week now, and never got around to it. Anyway, guess what this is:

Yeah, that's right it's a rather large ball of lint. And that's only from one load of laundry. The lint catcher couldn't even hold all the lint (as you can see below).

I bought a set of towels because Kohl's was having a sale. I had received a set from my uncle for Christmas and I really liked them so I was hoping to get another set the same color, but unfortunately they didn't have them so I had to settle for a complete set of a different color. However, I like red anyway, so I didn't really lose much. Now when I do laundry, I can completely swap out my towels and rugs and put a new set out. It makes me feel just one step closer to being an adult...plus I have fluffy towels.

Last week John's computer parts showed up and he built his computer. I've known people who have built their own computers, but I've never seen it from start to end. So, I canceled my plans involving physical activity for a more nerdy alternative: going over to John's to watch him put together his computer. It was pretty fun and I got some good pictures as well. I have decided that:

1. The fan to cool the processor looks like a power plant.


2. The motherboard looks like a little city.


3. Translators don't always do the best job of writing instructions that make sense.


4. Computer parts make for some fun pictures.

John started by looking at the instructions (yes, I know, rare for a guy).

Then, he began installing the processor on the motherboard. That's when we came across the protective cover that was used to protect the pins before installation. The translators needed a little help on this one I think. I've never heard of returning something "for after service." (You can click on the picture for a larger version to read the entire text).

I was amused by the processor fan so I attempted a few "artsy" pictures of that while he was working on putting the processor in its slot. Here are a few attempts (some with a flash and one without). Feel free to laugh at my lack of knowledge and ability when it comes to taking pictures.

Then, John installed the processor fan on the motherboard. Just look at that enormous fan.

Then I had to take a few pictures because I decided the motherboard looked like a little town. I wanted to claim it for my own, but sadly, I did not have a flag with me.

After I was done taking pictures of the "town", John installed the RAM.

Finally, he installed all the pieces (motherboard, video card, power supply, hard drives, etc.) in the case. I only have a picture of the case because I couldn't really get a good angle to show what was going on.

I should have taken a picture of the finished product, but I forgot. Maybe John will let me later....anyway, the process was interesting to watch.

Friday afternoon, the insurance adjuster came out to the body shop and declared my first and only car to be officially "totaled." They're refusing to fix it because they say it's not worth the money it would cost to fix. Sentimental value apparently doesn't factor into their calculations for worth of the car.

On Tuesday evening, which also happened to be John's birthday, I had just left my apartment. I had picked up an ice cream cake from Coldstone, filled my car with gas and stopped by my apartment to pick up John's presents. I was headed east on I-80 in the center lane, when the truck in front of me slammed on his brakes. I don't have anti-lock breaks, so I pumped mine and on the third time, they locked up and I went sliding in my lane towards the silver Chevy Silverado in front of me. I don't know who hit first, me or the car behind me.

I wasn't really thinking clearly, so instead of calling the police first, I called John to tell him I'd been in an accident and asked if he could come and get me. The only thing I wanted was to get out of there as soon as possible. Being the nice guy that he is, his first response was "yes, of course." But then he wanted to know where I was. Instead of giving him a mile marker. I told him which two billboards on the side of the road I was stopped between. Very helpful, I'm sure. Then he asked if I could see a mile-marker someplace. Because I was in the middle of the road, I couldn't even find the stupid mile markers on anything, so I couldn't be helpful there either. Finally, I was able to tell him that I was between the 42nd Street on-ramp and the split between I-80 East and 480 North. He said he probably wouldn't be able to come and get me until I was out of the middle of the road, but he could call a tow truck. I assumed my car wasn't drivable, so I told him to do that. But then he wanted to know where they should tow it and I didn't know so I had to think about it and call him back. The driver in the car behind mine got out and checked with everyone to see if we were all okay, which we were. My airbags didn't even go off. While we were waiting for the police to come, I called my parents to tell them I was in an accident but I was ok.

I remember thinking that there was a lot of traffic for 7pm on a Tuesday. And Omaha drivers are rude!. We had a ton of people honking at us and more than a few people yelling insults. I know I heard plenty of "Get out of the road!", "Morons!", "Assholes!", "Idiots", "You're blocking traffic!", etc. It's not exactly easy to get out of the way when you're in the center lane, with two lanes of traffic on either side going 60 mph around you. It's also not very helpful when you've just wrecked your car to have people yelling at you and making you feel even worse than you already feel. I know that I've been irritated on occasion that there's an accident and traffic is going slow, but I'm usually irritated at the people who are slowing down to rubber-neck rather than the people who are in the accident. It's bad enough that your car might be ruined, is it really necessary to yell out the window at them?

Finally, a police officer arrived. He parked his car in front of the accident and he started working on getting us across traffic to the side of the road. However, there were so many people out, that he had to call for another car to come and stop traffic so we could move. In between all of this, I was having hit and miss calls from John to see how I was doing, if I still needed a tow truck and if I did need a tow, where to tow the car to. John was nice enough to call Nissan of Omaha and make sure it was okay that I take it there. Finally, after the second police car came, they blocked the right two lanes of traffic and we were able to move over to the side of the road. One of the officers tried to ask me a few questions, but I was such a big mess, I told them I didn't know what happened other than there was a car accident. I was so out of it, I didn't even tell them that the truck had just changed lanes into my lane. The officer had to tell me to stay closer to my car so I didn't step out into traffic. He asked if I was okay, but I was not thinking clearly at all. The police gave me a ticket for "following too closely." I didn't even think to tell them that the truck in front of me had just changed lanes before braking.

I got another call from John saying that he couldn't find a towing company that could come get my car, but the officer said there wasn't anything dragging, so I should be okay to drive it somewhere. I attempted to pull out to get on the interstate, but the rest of the cars were making me very nervous, so the cop was nice enough to block the lane closest to the right and let me get back on the interstate and get up to speed. I drove my car to John's and called him when I got there. He helped me carry the ice cream cake and his presents up to his condo where I immediately started crying and apologizing for ruining his birthday. He kept telling me not to worry about it and I calmed down enough to tell him to open his presents, which he liked. That brightened my day for a bit.

We talked a little and decided that I would take Dodge to Nissan of Omaha, then John would drive to the restaurant so I could still buy him dinner. We walked out to the parking lot and inspected the damage on my car. My lights were still intact, but the blinker on the passenger side could only be described as a tentacle. I adjusted the back bumper a bit to make sure that it would move okay. Then John went to his car so he could follow me. I waited for a few minutes, but I didn't see his car move, so I called him. His car wouldn't start. He was on the phone with his mother and he told me I had to come and see it for myself, then he flipped back over to finish the conversation with his mom. I walked across the lot, opened the passenger door and got in. It was the most bizarre thing I've ever seen. His key wasn't even in the ignition and all of the service lights were on on the dash (how often do you get to use on on while being grammatically correct?).

We walked back inside his building and we each had a few conversations with our respective parents. After John tried to tighten the connection on his battery, we decided to drive my car to the Nissan dealership and then his dad came to pick us up. We finally ate Taco Bell around 10pm because his dad was nice enough to take us to get some food. He even paid :-). So, all in all, a pretty crappy birthday for John. Sorry!

The next day, I worked from home. My dad came up in the afternoon and we drove over to Nissan to inspect the damage. They said it hadn't leaked anything, so after a long series of phone calls, I determined which body shop to take the car to and drove it over there. I cleaned everything out of my car in case they totaled it (which I really was hoping that wouldn't happen). Then my dad drove me over to Enterprise Rental. Which, I will post about that adventure after this post. Needless to say I rented a car and drove it back to my apartment. Then, I picked up John from his dealership and took him out to dinner for a proper birthday dinner. We went to Hector's. I recommend it if you're ever in Omaha. Although no guarantees on the service at the 84th Street location.

Thursday was generally uneventful car-wise (besides the hatred of the rental car to be described later). Finally, on Friday, I was able to return to the body shop and get some pictures of my baby. I got the call that afternoon that the car was totaled.

So, here are the pictures of the car (I really was hoping it wouldn't be totaled). We'll start with the back first because we're going to say it was all his fault until proven otherwise. I have yet to see the police report.

As you can see, the back of the car didn't look too bad. I'd probably need a new bumper and a new exhaust pipe. The old one looks so sad...

I was concerned about the back passenger side part of the bumper causing friction on my tires, but I made it to the two places I needed to go without any problems.

The front grill was completely in pieces and is nowhere to be found. You can see the right blinker tentacle too. But all my lights worked just fine and the engine didn't sound funny.

The truck in front of me had a hitch and you'll never guess where that went. For the non-car people, that front mesh is part of my air conditioner. The circular thing on the middle-right is my horn (it looks so sad...). I'm guessing that when they opened the hood, they found more problems past what I could see. I'll also have to get my license plates replaced. I'm sure that will be painful.

The hood buckled, but not bad enough to cause any vision problems. But the whole car just looks so sad now.

The insurance company still hasn't called to tell me how much they're willing to pay for it. I think it will be interesting because even though my car was 10 years old, it only had about 88,000 miles on it. Which is 32,000 less than the expected average of 12,000 per year for most cars. Plus, besides needing a wash and a vacuum, there was absolutely nothing wrong with the car before the accident. While most of the people I have dealt with have been very nice, I wouldn't recommend the experience to anyone.

So, I had to get a rental car while I was waiting for the verdict on my car. Anyone can tell you that when the rental agency (the one I am currently using is Enterprise) tells you theyr'e going to provide you with something "comparable" to your car, you should be ready to say to yourself "Comparable, my ass."

Wednesday was an adventure in frustration when it came to the rental company. I was dealing with a guy who couldn't have been much older than me if he was older at all. But all I could think was "do not punch the sales person in the face...do not punch the sales person in the face...do not punch the sales person in the face." Also, I'd like to point out for the record, that the knot on his tie was square and he needs to learn to tie a better knot. Also, he was close to my height so I think I could have taken him if I had to.

That being said, the reason I was annoyed was because it was not only a disorganized mess regarding the billing for the car, it was also frustrating having to repeat myself over and over again regarding the fact that I do not want to pay for insurance that costs more than the total amount of the rental, of which I'm only paying 20%. Because 20% of about $17 a day, isn't too bad. However, you tack on another $18 a day, and someone's getting screwed and it certainly isn't Enterprise. That's $540 a month and no amount of talking is going to convince me that it's a good deal to be paying $540 a month for insurance, especially when my car insurance carries over to a rental car.

I was surprised because the kid (yes, I'm calling him a kid for lack of a better term) essentially tried to threaten me into getting the insurance by telling me that if a rock hit my car, they'd take my $500 deductible that applies towards my State Farm insurance. I was rather impressed my dad didn't laugh at him when he heard that. After three rounds of "are you sure" followed by "yes, I'm sure I don't want the insurance", we went out to inspect the car. There were dings and scratches all over that thing. Dad was kind enough to point out every single one. Unfortunately, we hit the peak of the boredom meter for the sales guy and he gave up writing all over his little piece of paper. I think I'll be getting my deposit back on this one. The thing that was probably the most infuriating though was that he tried to sell me twice again after we got in the car and he was recording the mileage and gas status. After repeating in my head "do not punch the sales person in the face...do not punch the sales person in the face...do not punch the sales person in the face" a few more times, I told him no twice more and he finally went away to talk to his friend who had come to visit him at work. Then I drove the rental car that can only be described as a shoe home. Which brings me to the rental car...or shoe as I like to refer to it.

Before I go into specifics of the shoe, it's important to know what I'm "giving up" to have the wonderful opportunity of using the shoe. My car, while 10 years old, gets an average of 28 mpg for each tank of gas. It has power windows, power locks, and a power sunroof. It came with a cassette player, but my parents bought me a CD player and that was installed shortly after the car was purchased.

The thing I am renting, that is definitely a shoe masquerading as a car is shorter than my car but somehow has four doors. I know Chevrolet wants to call it an Aveo, but it's a shoe. It even feels like how I would imagine riding in a shoe would feel (only with windows and a trunk that was patched onto the back). If you don't believe me that it's a shoe, just look at the pictures below:

Here's the car:

Here's the shoe:

Here's the outline of the shoe on the car:

The "features" of the shoe include circles around just about everything in the car. Even things that don't have a purpose.

Just in case you weren't sure how to get the window to go down, they were kind enough to circle it for you so you would be able to figure it out.

See if you can find the door handle in this picture:

Oh, and there are also random circles in completely useless places that don't do anything. Those black circles on both sides of the emergency flasher button, yeah, they don't do anything. Also, you thought you were going to be able to listen to something you actually liked? Just kidding! You will get nothing (other than the radio) and you will like it!

The dashboard isn't really all that useful. Most of the useful information is by the clock in the center of the car. You know, things like maintenance information, your seatbelt, oil change. Completely not a useful location for that information at all. Because if I'm the driver, I'm looking in front of me for the information I need about my car, not at the clock.

Last, but certainly not least on the feature list, is the fact that the shifter doesn't go straight up and down. I don't know a lot of people who have accidentally shifted their car into the wrong gear, but I'm sure this car was built for them. However, I've never done that, so the stupid gear shift drives me crazy. I can't ever get it from reverse to drive without worrying that I'm going to break the shift stick. Most annoying gear shift evar!

So, if the car is a shoe, then that makes my garage a shoe box. So, here's the shoe in it's box for the night:

The one thing the shoe has provided that my other car couldn't is a fair amount of entertainment. Take these situations:

• While waiting for the car to warm up I can exclaim: "Warm up shoe!"


• When asking friends if they'd like me to drive: "Would you like to take a ride in my shoe?"


• Warning a pedestrian not to step out into the middle of the road: "If you step out in front of me, I will hit you with my shoe!" (Would that be kicking them?)


• After parking the car in the garage: "My shoe is safe in it's box for the night."


• Yelling at someone for tailgating me on the interstate: "If you crawl up my shoe any further...!"


• Driving around to get used to the car: "I need to drive my shoe around so I can get used to it."


• General anger directed at the car: "Stupid shoe!"


• Answering a question about the location of the car: "The shoe is parked over there."


• Trying to coax the car up a hill: "Come on, shoe, you can make it!"


• Explaining the general rental car experience: "It's the shoe experience."

I know there were others, but I can't think of them now. So, maybe, after all the fun you could have with a shoe of your own, you're thinking about buying one. Well, good news! Prices start at about $10,000 so you can buy a shoe of your very own. I do have to warn you, the handling isn't great. You'll have to get used to turning the wheel, then having the car turn. Oh, and I also learned why so many people appear to brake randomly. It's probably because their brakes don't work very well. I'm fairly certain, that the brake lights come on before there is any actual braking with the shoe. Oh, and it's also not the best "fuel economy" car while pretending to be one. So you'll get crappy acceleration without the pay-off of a lower gas bill. Just what you've always wanted, I'm sure.

Oh, also, when Enterprise heard that State Farm had decided to total out my car, they called to see if I wanted to buy one of their rental cars for my very own. I turned them down on the shoe.

I rid myself of the shoe this afternoon. It was a pretty busy, exciting, stressful (in a good way) day. I left work earlier in the afternoon so I could take care of all arrangements regarding transportation. Dad came up to help me with everything. He followed me out to one of State Farm's locations in Omaha and I signed the title of my Nissan over to them and they handed me a fairly significant sized check. You always hope it's more, but it was what my dad called "on the low side of reasonable." My car was 10 years old though, so I couldn't have expected anything too enormous. Of course, they don't factor sentimental value into the equation. If they did, I'm sure my premiums would be a lot higher. I immediately deposited the check in my account. It made me a little nervous having an un-cashed check in my possession that was the largest single check I'd ever been written.

After we were done at the bank, I returned the shoe! It was so nice to say "Goodbye, shoe." and know that I don't have to see it anymore. I was happy to encounter a different sales person than the one I dealt with. He was much more friendly and helpful without being invasive or pushy. I was even more entertained by the fact that the guy I dealt with was at the location, but in the back on the phone. I think the person who helped us was irritated with him because it sounded like it was a personal call and the person helping us made a motion to him to wrap up his phone call several times because they had other customers who needed help. I was glad to know that they had recognized that he has room for improvement regarding his job.

I said my last goodbyes (not that they were long) to the shoe and hopped in Dad's car to go to the dealership to get my new car. We spent awhile filling out paperwork. We were doing some small talk with the guy handling all the paperwork and when I asked who I make the check for the down payment out to he told me to make it to the dealership because I could make it out to him, but his boss would say he's gotten enough big checks this year and he'd have to sign it over to the dealership. He went on to say that he had won the small jackpot lottery this year. It was a fluke win because he wasn't supposed to be at work that day, but he came in because someone was out and then he happened to have $10 on him and had never played the lottery so he thought "What the hell..." and he bought a ticket. At first he thought he'd won $50,000, but then when his wife looked at it they realized they'd won $200,000. He said that they saved part of it for his daughter's college fund and then did a few other things with it like house payments, etc. He said he only missed a single day of work. I know I would have taken a little time off at least. But hey, that's me. I just thought it was cool to actually meet someone who won the lottery. You always hear about it, but that's stuff that happens to people you don't know (or at least to people I don't know). Everyone was very nice at the dealership and I came away very happy with my purchase.

I got a brand new Honda Civic 2-door coupe, 2007. I'll have to take some pictures and post about it soon. But I love the car. However, I did get a stick shift (yes, I can drive one). I actually learned to drive on a stick shift because both my parents' cars were sticks until I was 15. I was actually supposed to inherit my mother's car, and she was planning to get a new one when I turned 16. Anyway, I haven't driven a stick shift in over two years (besides the few test drives I took on a few cars this weekend), so I was understandably nervous about driving one everyday again. However, they do get better gas mileage and I remember them being a lot more fun to drive, so that's what I got.

Well, I killed it once on the way back to my apartment from the dealership. Fortunately, my dad was behind me and he doesn't pull too close. Then, I killed it again heading to John's place. I was at the top of a hill and I accidentally had it in 3rd gear instead of 1st gear. The lady behind me was pretty pissed about it. She threw up her hands at me and yelled something I can only guess was an obscenity. Dad was nice enough to take John and me out to dinner. Of course, I drove. :-) We went to P.F. Chang's by Westroads. To get into the parking lot, you turn left and go up a steep driveway to drive into the lot. I killed it twice more there. I'm always worried that I'll give it too much gas and then I don't give it enough gas. The trip back to my apartment and then to John's apartment went just fine, but then on my way home, I killed it on a hill again. I have a feeling that hills will be the bane of my existence for the next few days till I get used to the car. So, I got rid of the shoe, but picked up a kill count. The kill count for today was 5. Hopefully tomorrow will be better...

Well, today showed some improvement in the kill count for the day. I only killed my car twice today. It was on a hill (stupid hills) and I killed it twice before making it through the light. While, it's still not what I'd prefer to be doing, it's definitely better than 5 times.

I haven't had a chance to take pictures yet because the sun goes down so early and I didn't make it back to the apartment in time to take some good pictures before it was too dark. Hopefully I'll be able to do that this evening. I should do it before the car gets too dirty due to the snow and all the stuff on the roads...

Sorry to everyone who's left comments in the last few months. They'd been marked as spam by my spam filter so I missed them when I was looking for comments to approve. If you left comments (starting in October and forward), hopefully they've been published now and I'll take a look at how the comments are set up on the blog. I'm going to try to adjust a few things so that doesn't happen again. You'll still have to enter the captcha to be able to comment (otherwise I get a TON of spam comments), but they should show up in the pending approval list rather than she "spam comments" list so I'll be able to approve them faster. Thanks for the comments and hopefully I can get the kinks worked out. However, I do believe I'm making progress.

First things first, I didn't kill the car today. Given the snow I was very proud of that, but I do have to admit that it was in for the "scotch guard" treatment to prevent stains, so I didn't drive it to and from work, just to and from the dealership. However, there were many more stops and starts than my commute to work.

Finally, pictures of the new car. My first car still holds a special place in my heart, given that it's the first car ever. I bought a brand new 2007 Honda Civic. The color, according to Honda is "Atomic Blue." I'm not sure if I'd describe it as "atomic" but hey, it's still a pretty cool color in my opinion.

I really like the fact that the speedometer is directly under the windshield which is in your peripheral vision when you're driving. The bad part is that if a cop is driving next to you, they can probably see how fast your car tells you it's going.

As mentioned before, I did get a stick shift. Pretty sweet, huh? Also, the parking break is different than any other parking break I've seen. It's a lot of fun to drive now that I don't have to worry so much about killing the car. I'd recommend that you learn to drive one if you can't. You never know when it will come in handy.

The radio in the car is pretty awesome. It has an auxiliary jack so you can plug your iPod or mp3 player into the radio and listen to your playlists. It also supports mp3 CD's. I'll probably never listen to the radio again!

Even the cup holders are pretty cool. Yes, I think the cup holders are cool. They have the little "grabby" nubs so your cup won't fall over if it's smaller than the hole. Ha!

In general, I love the car because it seems like it was designed by people who actually drive cars and pay attention to the things that bug you the most. They even put extra tint on the wind shield right above the rear-view mirror which is the one spot the sun always gets through because it's the one spot the visors don't block. On top of that, they realized that the radio isn't always great, so they make your media accessible in your car. They also offer satellite radio, but I didn't get that option. I didn't see a need for it. I also like that the center console is very large so you can toss your sunglasses in it along with all your CD's and still have room for your phone. It's a fun car to drive and the best part is that it's rated 30 mpg in the city and 38 mpg on the highway.

My Dad bought me a few car-warming presents to celebrate my first new car and they came in the mail this week. I now have license plate frames and a valet key chain.

I picked out a simple license plate frame. But the really sad, or I should say nerdy, part is that I picked the frames I did because they reminded me of Mario Kart. Ha!

The key chain is really cool. It's two interlocking pieces. I had the back piece engraved with "de mamour soiez sure" which matches the inside of the ring I wear everyday. My dad bought me the ring in New York and the saying is French, meaning "of my love be sure." I've always thought it was really cool, so I put it on they key chain. It came in a pretty little box. Normally, I don't like pink, but I actually liked this.

Sometimes when I'm out at a restaurant, I'll order things because the name entertains me. Well, last night was one of those nights. John and I went out to Kona Grill for dinner. It had been a long week so we had two expensive dinners out this weekend. We had originally hoped that we'd hit Kona's reverse happy hour which includes half price pizzas and sushi. However, we were informed that we were actually an hour early and the reverse happy hour was limited to customers sitting in the bar rather than the dining area. Oh well. We still had a nice time. But, back to the menu. The last time I was there, I noticed a drink called the Woo Woo and last night I was feeling especially adventurous, so I ordered one. It had peach schnapps, cranberry juice, sprite and something else in it. It was very girly, but highly enjoyable. John and I also decided to try a sushi roll with something called yamagobo in it. Sadly, we weren't a fan of the sushi. The yamagobo (which I learned today is the root of a burdock plant which is in the thistle family) was rather crunchy. It didn't mesh well with the generally softer consistency of the rest of the sushi roll. We don't plan on ordering that again. However, it was fun to try something new.

I've been neglecting the blog lately. Not because there hasn't been stuff going on, but more because nothing has happened that's been very exciting. Work was generally more busy because I had the primary pager last week which meant that there are daily things you must take care of to support the production environments. Other than that, I was craving more sushi so John and I went out last weekend so Sakura Bana. The volcano rolls were very good as well as the Philadelphia rolls. However, we weren't a fan of their Hawaiian rolls. Oh well. At least we tried a couple new things. Other than that, I've been studying more insurance stuff. I have another test scheduled for Monday. Hopefully things will go better with this test than the last one, but I have little hope in the corporate learning department. I'm still waiting on a study CD they were supposed to provide me. So, nothing exciting to report. Maybe something will come up...but hopefully nothing bad.

Sunday evening I finally saw my first episode of Dexter. Now, I'm usually open to watching a new show. How can you not be intrigued by a premise of "America's favorite serial killer"? The pull of the show is that the main character is a cop and a serial killer who kills "bad" serial killers. So, you're supposed to like him, right? However, I have to say that I was generally disappointed with the entire show. I didn't even like the main character. I'm open to the possibility that I caught a bad episode, but the show just left me with a bad feeling. I kept waiting for the "funny" moment to cut through the awkwardness of the show, but it never came.

I'm not sure how early the episode was in the season, but I'm guessing it was from the first season. The story line for the episode revolved around an ice truck killer whose victims would end up in frozen pieces. My first assumption was that Dexter would catch the killer, make him understand how much of a horrible person he is and then get rid of him, like the "good" serial killer the commercials made me want to believe. However, he didn't catch anyone. In fact, when presented with an opportunity to stop someone from doing something evil, he just stood there. There was this scene with a woman who is "sort of" his girlfriend. He has an opportunity to help her, but he just stands there with this look on his face like he's trying to make a decision about what to do till it's too late. He even has a shovel! The scene sets you up to think he's going to hit him with the shovel for stealing his girlfriend's car, but he just watches him drive away.

Then, the episode returned to his past to reveal his first victim who was a nurse slowly killing her patients with overdoses of morphine. She was going to kill Dexter's dad, but his dad told Dexter to stop her from hurting him and her other patients. Apparently that was enough to set him off and turn him into a killer. So, his solution is to wrap her living room in saran wrap, awkwardly wrestle her to the floor, then saran wrap her, naked, to a table and force her to discuss her personal photo albums and a few other things before he finally kills her. The nurse wasn't exactly in the best of shape and my only thought was "oh for the love of god, get her off my TV screen." While there's no question that she was a bad person, I wasn't convinced that she necessarily deserved to be emotionally tortured then killed. Adding to the uncomfortable feeling of the scene was the fact that the director led the you to believe that you were going to actually have to watch Dexter murder her. Fortunately, they cut away before you could see anything. Well, besides most of her unclothed body (minus the two most personal parts covered with saran wrap). I was relieved when that scene was over. I'd be glad to never see something like that again. They don't make eye bleach, but I could use some.

The show was just uncomfortable, awkward and icky overall. I really wish I could un-see the saran wrapped nurse.. I also didn't like the main character because I was unable to find a large enough redeeming quality offset whole awkward "serial killer" thing.

It seems like some days the public as a whole decides that their mission for the day is to be as obnoxious as possible which typically involves getting in the way of everyone nearby. Well, today was one of those days. For those of you who don't talk to me about video games, you probably don't know that I've been waiting for Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates to come out for a couple years now. Yes, years. It's been on my Christmas list (yes, I still make them even though I'm 23 now) for the last two years and each year my parents have said "We wanted to get you this game, but we can't find it. Are you sure it's out?" After finally playing through the entirety of the original Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles for the GameCube (thanks Jim!), I couldn't wait for the sequel to come out.

Well, after a long waiting period and too many release date changes that always moved the release date back, the official release date is today! John and I went to Nebraska Furniture Mart to pick up copies of the games. I found the copy of Smash Brothers okay, but we couldn't seem to find Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, the game I was most excited about. I found a sales person and asked where the copies of the game were located (assuming that since it's the release date, that means it will be in stores on this date). He looked up the inventory and told me that the games had shipped today, but they wouldn't have any copies till Thursday or Friday.

To all of the brilliant marketing people, I have a request. When you publish a freaking release date, how about you give the public the actual date when they can expect to have the game in their hands? Would that really be so hard to do?

Okay, so I couldn't get my video game. I was planning on buying Smash Brothers anyway, so I went to check out. Failure at every single open check-out lane. The first lane apparently didn't have the correct change, so the guy was asking the 2nd lane for change. However, the 2nd lane had multiple people in line, and didn't want to give change until they were done with all of their customers (of which there were three). The third lane only had two people in it and they were checking out with one item. The fourth lane apparently knew the customers and had no interest in doing any more work until they were done with their conversation. At first I got in the first lane, but when the change problem came, up, I went over to the third lane, assuming that it wouldn't be that difficult to check out with one item. However, after letting the cashier scan the item, tell them the total, handing over their credit card and signing the receipt, THEN the customer decides to complain that the price of their ONE item isn't what it said on the shelf. You would think that if you only have one freaking item you'd notice that the total doesn't sound reasonable and say something before handing over your credit card or at least notice the total on the receipt before signing the thing. Anyway, after more wasted time, the guy needing change had finally gotten his change and his line was empty so I checked out there. The people in lane four were still talking when I left and the cashier and security person were trying to figure out what to do with the people in the 3rd lane who'd already signed the receipt. The 2nd lane was checking out it's last customer in line after taking a break to provide change for the first lane. Regardless, it all too longer than it needed to and I wasn't satisfied because I didn't get the game I actually went to the store to buy.

I'm looking forward to getting out of the store after the combined annoyances. As John and I are walking towards the doors out, we ended up behind a woman who decided the perfect spot to stop and examine her receipt is directly in front of the door to get out. One second, she's walking, the next second she's just standing there causing congestion. The people next to us almost ran into her.

So we finally escape Nebraska Furniture Mart and we're heading to get food. I want Chipotle and John wants Runza, so we're trying to get to Chipotle because it's closest but we run into even more morons. There's a long line of cars trying to get into the poorly designed parking lot, causing a small traffic jam in the street outside the little strip mall. The way that the parking lot is set up is there is one row, barely wide enough for two cars with parking spots on either side. Adding to the mix is that on one side the parking ends so that cars can essentially do a U-turn to go through the Starbucks drive-thru. So, there isn't much room. And who's at the front of the line? Some lady who has decided that now is the perfect time to back her SUV into a parking spot after making a four-point turn. John is finally able to pull into the parking lot and we see a spot, but the giant extended-cab truck in front of us decides that they want to back into their parking spot too. We wait five minutes for him to get his truck turned around and by some miracle, the spot is still there. I ran inside and go my burrito.

We managed to make it to Runza without any significant problems. Then back to my apartment. Unfortunately, John had to go back into work to do an upgrade so I didn't have a friend to play Smash Brothers with. After he'd finished the upgrade, he got online to talk.

John: how is smash brothers?
me: haven't opened it
John: sad
wait
if there can be cool beans
there can be sad beans
so my reply is actually "sad beans"
the beans are very sad because you haven't played yet.
do you want the beans to be sad?

So, I apparently made the beans sad. Oops.

So, after too much ranting, the moron count for today is: hmm...we'll say 100 for the marketers who don't give you an actual release date (but that's probably low), five for the people in the various check-out lanes, one for the lady stopping in front of the doorway, two for the people backing into the parking spots, and I suppose one for me making the beans sad by not opening a brand new video game until a day after I bought it. So, that brings the total to 109. That's a lot of morons.

Before my post about sad beans had been published, I changed my away message on my chat client to read "Do you want the beans to be sad?" Well, thanks to Meagan's curiosity and google searching, here are what sad beans look like:

Last night I cooked two new things. John thought the presentation of the plate was so pretty, I just had to take a picture to commemorate the occasion. Honestly, I just dished it up like I normally would, it just happened to look like that. I personally don't think it looks very pretty, just colorful. I don't do the whole "plating" thing. It's a waste of time and effort because you're just going to eat it anyway and the plate will be a mess when you're done. Regardless, here's dinner from last night:

I've been trying to find more vegetables to make and add more main dishes without pasta (or cream cheese) to the list of things I make. So, last night's dinner was meatballs with sauce. The meatballs had egg, oatmeal, hamburger, and spices in them (thanks Aunt Karen for the recipe). The sauce was mostly ketchup (Heinz only!), some brown sugar and a couple spices. They were very good and very moist. The broccoli, I boiled, then made the topping with cream cheese, a ranch packet and some milk, then topped with cheddar cheese. It was good, but a little rich. Maybe a little less ranch mix on top would have been better. Then I just made garlic bread with some Brummel & Brown (yogurt butter), and garlic powder.

I didn't exactly succeed in removing the cream cheese from the dinner. But I can pretend it's healthy because it has broccoli in it.

So I've managed to become addicted to this Facebook game called Packrat. The cards are so cute and I can't help but wonder if the next pack might have something I need in it or more credits I can spend. The game is generally simple. You want to collect all the sets of cards available. You can have up to 15 cards in your pack and then once you have a set of 5 or more of either the same card or different cards from the same set, you can vault them. You get points for vaulting things, stealing things and making things. You can make things by getting the right combination of three cards and then combining them to make a new, single card. Besides the general appeal of the cuteness of the cards and the fact that it's a collecting game (which is why I always liked games like Animal Crossing), how can you not be entertained by friends you can steal from with names like Shakirat, Rat Cassidy, Ratty Crocker, Captain Ratbeard, and Rattori Hanzo.

When I get home from work, I plop down in front of the computer and start clicking away, hoping to complete more sets. Each set has a theme. One of the sets I've completed is below. Obviously I like it because it's got a penguin. But I do think the abominable snowman is cute. The nice thing is that if you have a cute card, you can open it in a "bigger" version to see the detail on the card. And they keep adding more cards, because the team that created the application is a team of designers.

If anyone decides they want to play, let me know and I'll send you an invitation. I get more credits I can spend if you accept. ;-)

Besides the game being fun, I've found that they're also entertaining when the application is down. Over the weekend, the servers were down for an upgrade and they put up a notice saying they'd be back soon. I have to say it's one of the more entertaining upgrade notices. Ha! Gathering cheese...so cute!

All in all, a good (and addicting!) game. But I have to get back to clicking. I need more credits!

I've been playing plenty of FFCC: Ring of Fates. The game is awesome! My only complaint is that it's not as long as the original GameCube version. However, the graphics are really sweet and the game has the same feel as the original. I've heard that you can play through it again twice more and you get two more areas to explore, so that will be cool. John and I haven't done a lot of multi-player stuff yet, but I'm sure we will after we finish the story. Anyway, to give you a hint of how shiny it is, take a look at this:

That's the intro video that plays every time you load the game (yes you can skip it). The game-play doesn't look quite as good as that, but it's close enough to make me happy. The story is great and the characters are amusing. The fact that the game is cooperative is a huge plus for me. I like playing through a game with someone. Now I have to wait for the Wii game to come out. Sadly the release date is still TBA. Even the release on this game was pushed back several times. Oh well. This one was worth waiting for, so hopefully the next one will be too.

But, for anyone who's considering buying a DS, I'd highly recommend one (or two so you can play with a friend). They just came out with a cool blue/black combination similar to my red one. They're much less expensive than the consoles and the games are typically less expensive as well. So far I have played and would recommend:

• Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates (obviously)


• Mario Kart (A classic. This one is download and play, but the full experience is better if you both have the game.)


• Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (Great Zelda game! I've heard it's similar to the Super Nintendo one.)


• Animal Crossing: Wild World (A collector's dream, plus it's so cute!)


• New Super Mario (Miss the original Nintendo stuff? You'll like this.)


• Rocket Slime (Those slimes are so cute and the story is pretty entertaining.)


• Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time (A good RPG, but the last boss battle is annoying.)

I bought a new shirt last week. I wasn't planning on buying the shirt, but one of my friends sent me a link to this web site saying I should order the shirt. After seeing the design, I couldn't really help myself. Besides, there was the added bonus that he was already ordering stuff, so I only had to pay $1 for shipping. Here's the shirt design:

One of the most amusing parts of the shirt is right below the tag. I didn't realize that threadless.com did this, but it would be really cool (if I were more artistically inclined) to have one of your designs printed because they tell you who designed the shirt, what edition the print is and the title of your design. Plus, it has more penguins on it, so how could you not like that? Also, I ordered a large. The baby-t's can run a bit small at times so I played it safe. I wasn't anticipating the tag to say "girly large." Generally amusing.

I found a few other shirts (Arctic Spa and Penguins on Holiday) I liked on the site, but sadly they don't have my size right now. If enough people request a re-print, they will make them available again (hint, hint).

I've been neglecting the site for awhile. Although, I did update the penguin of the month picture for this month and I also decided to take down the kill counts graph. I haven't had problems with killing my car much lately so the graph would be rather boring. That, and I stopped keeping track of it.

Anyway, today we're going to pretend that we're in grade school and tell about what I did with my tax refund. Well, part of it. Some of it will be going toward the car loan. Anyway, on to the fun stuff.

When I started college, my parents took me out to Bed Bath and Beyond in Lincoln and we bought the cheapest set of pots and pans we could find. They worked while I was in school (not that they were used all that often) and they're still a decent set of pans. They do the job, but shortly after I moved into my apartment, I had a hankering for pancakes and made the mistake of thinking I could make good pancakes in my non-stick skillet. The sad half-burnt, half yummy pancakes (and when I say half, I don't mean half of them sucked, I mean half of each pancake was burnt) made me think about getting new pots and pans. So, I found a set that I liked and bought those this month. After the tax refund was deposited, of course.

I purchased the new Calphalon CS Non-stick dishwasher-safe set. They were pretty expensive, but totally worth it! They distribute heat evenly. Each pan is non-stick on the inside, steel on the outside and every single one goes in the dishwasher with no issues. I can even wash them with either gel or powdered soap. Below is a picture from an online catalog of the set I purchased. It came with two skillets (omelette pans), two sauce pans with lids, a stock pot with lid and a sauté pan with a lid. I'm debating on whether to order a mid-sized sauce pan and a larger sauté pan. We'll see how the cooking goes for now. Below is a picture from an online catalog of the set:

I also purchased a new set of knives. I had purchased a set of Chicago Cutlery knives when I moved and had problems with them from the start. I was shocked to find out that every single knife in the set was serrated. I found out later (after it was too late to return them) that it was a "feature" of the set. Although not prominently displayed on the packaging. After avoiding purchases of chicken and steak and basically any other meat I'd have to cut for months, I finally decided it was time to get a better set of knives so I didn't have to avoid cooking yummy things. So, I bought a set of Wüsthof Classic knives. Consumer Reports rated them as one of their "best buys" so I went with them. Plus I didn't want to spend an arm and a leg and these were plenty expensive from my viewpoint. Anyway, I can't even begin to explain how much better it feels to slice smoothly through a piece of raw meat before cooking rather than having to saw through it. It's like a breath of fresh air and now I can cook a wider variety of things without having the annoyance of a serrated chef's knife.

Bravo has been one of the kings of crap reality TV in my opinion. They keep making more and more crap reality shows. Specifically, reality contest shows. And I would pretty much watch them all...even some of the non-contest reality shows. But, I have finally drawn the line and found a reality contest show I can't stand to watch on Bravo, which is quite a feat for me. I've watched everything from Project Runway to Make Me a Supermodel. The shows are generally pretty formulaic in the way they're presented. There are typically around 10 contestants for each show. They bring in "industry experts" to be the judges and then they have a mini-challenge early in each episode followed by an "elimination challenge" at the end of the episode. The judges say what they think about the results and one person is eliminated till someone wins. Anyway, I watch a lot of these crap shows. And trust me, I know they're crap. Most days I don't want to have to think or actually pay attention to the TV while it's on, I just like the noise and it's pretty easy to keep track of what's going on when they're playing in the other room or across the room while I'm cooking or something. Anyway, on to the list of reality contest shows I've actually watched on Bravo:

• Top Chef: This one's a classic. Probably the one that started the rest (besides Project Runway). It is actually interesting to see what the chefs come up with each week. The drama gets annoying sometimes. All I really care about is the ingredients, how it looks and how it tasted. Then I get to wish I could cook something like it.


• Project Runway: Another classic. Designers make all sorts of weird clothing for various occasions and various people ranging from prom dresses, WWF women's outfits, men's suits, etc. It's always a good time to make fun of the weird stuff people like to pretend are clothes coming down the runway.


• Shear Genius: Modeled after the first two. They gathered a bunch of hair stylists and made them cut hair! Novel idea.


• Top Design: Again, modeled after the first two. A bunch of interior designers have to design various rooms/spaces.


• Make Me a Supermodel: sort of a cross between Top Chef and Tyra Banks' 'America's Next Top Model'. There's guys and girls all living in the same house. Guess what, they all want to be models!

One of the similarities between all the shows is that there's always one judge that you wonder why they're on the panel because they haven't actually worked in the industry, they just judge the industry. The shows also have the habit of replaying the same theme music over and over again.

I've also been known to watch some random reality shows on Bravo as well like Tim Gunn's guide to style. You know, those style shows are kind of mean. Essentially your friends think you dress so crappy they have to contact a TV network to do something about it and then they show up and tell you how crappy your clothes are, make you throw them all away and spend way too much money on new clothes and you end up with 1/2 as many clothes as you started with. I'm not sure I'd necessarily view that as a good thing. Anyway, I also watch (and by "watch" I mean not change the channel and tune out about 70% of the show like the rest of anything else on Bravo) Workout and pretend it's helping me exercise. It hasn't worked yet, but I have hope that someday it will.

Anyway, as I was saying, I "watch" a LOT of crap TV on Bravo, but I've finally found a show I can't leave on the TV for more than 30 seconds without having that feeling that someone has just scraped their nails on a chalkboard. That show would be "Step It Up and Dance" with Elizabeth Berkely. I can go on about reasons why I can't stand the show, but I'd almost suggest you flip past it yourself. Maybe even see how long you can stand to leave it on the channel. I can't stand those "Real Housewive's" shows, but I can last longer on those than I can if "Step It Up and Dance" is on.

Anyway, if you want crap TV you don't have to, or don't want to pay attention to, generally Bravo's not a horrible choice. I wouldn't suggest trying to devote your full attention to most, if not all the shows on Bravo though. But they are generally good filler/background noise. Except "Step It Up and Dance".

This weekend was Greek Easter (much further apart from traditional Easter than last year). John and I went to the Greek Orthodox church for midnight service on Saturday. The service was about 2 1/2 hours and this year. Fortunately for me, I remembered the correct response when I got my egg after the service this time.

John's mother was telling me about past Greek Easters, before John's grandmother passed away when they would go to midnight church, then to his grandma's for food and wouldn't get home until 5am. The Greeks do know how to celebrate.

Sunday, we met his extended family (and other church members) for lots of Greek food. I tried the lamb again this year. I wasn't a huge fan last year because it was a bit dry, but it was very tender and moist so I'd have to say I like lamb.

So, I'm not really sure where May went. May was so packed full of things, it felt like I didn't really have a real month at all, just a long series of events.

Let's see, there was my mom's birthday. Happy birthday Mom! Then, Mother's Day. Then Brad went to Canada and rented an apartment (he's moving soon!). Then, I got sick right before vacation in San Antonio. Flew to San Antonio (flights complete with tornadoes in Denver!). Then, my uncle got married. Congratulations Uncle Rod & Diana!

Everything was fun, but I'm ready for some rest and relaxation where I don't have to do anything or go anywhere. In the course of the month, I had the opportunity to experience Redbox and What-a-Burger, finish the Chronicles of Narnia (finally), and see just how big things in Texas are (including Sea World).

I plan to post about such things soon. However, it's been so long since I posted anything (given the crazy month that was May, I figured I'd just update a few things first).

I have discovered the glory of Redbox. They are in pretty much every HyVee in Omaha, which is fairly convenient in my opinion. The rentals are only $1.07 ($1 + tax) per night. So, if you have a grocery store on the way home, or fairly close to your home it's pretty easy to grab a movie or two, take them home, watch them and return them the next night. You have to return the movies by 9pm the next night or you're charged for another night. However, I rented 3 movies when I was sick and returned them after 9pm but only paid $6.42 for all three movies. Still a pretty good deal. Less than Blockbuster.

The way it works is you can either reserve your movies online by creating a login and picking out what you want to rent or you can pick out your movies in the store at the kiosk. The good thing about creating a login online is that it will e-mail you when you've made your reservation, when you've picked up your movie, when you've returned your movie and when they've charged your credit card so you have a paper trail for the whole process. All you have to do is walk up to the kiosk, swipe your card and it dispenses your movie(s).

They kiosks look something like this:

The disks dispensed look like this:

When you return them, you just hit the return button and stick the disc in the side of the kiosk and you're good to go.

So far I've rented 27 Dresses, P.S. I Love You, Atonement, and Waitress (yes, all girly movies because John wouldn't want to watch them with me so I watched them while I was sick). I liked 27 Dresses the best out of all of them and honestly that's the one I expected to like the least. I thought the other three were too depressing.

Tonight, or rather last night as it's obviously this morning, Jim hosted a party for my friend Brad who is leaving for Canada next week. We arrived rather late and left later than anticipated. We had almost made it back to my apartment in Omaha. We were almost to Exit 402 (by Cabella's). The next exit was the "L" Street exit. I was in the far left hand lane.

All of a sudden, I see something move in the middle of the road by the concrete barrier separating eastbound and westbound traffic. Then I hear John yell "Deer!" "Deer!!" In a split second I thought "What is that? That can't possibly be a deer. What the hell is a deer doing in the middle of the interstate?! Oh, shit!" I tried to dodge the deer by braking and steering to the left. The point of impact was my left headlight. I think I knocked the deer around and I'm guessing it died on impact.

I pulled over to the side of the road, directly in front of the Exit 402 sign and I looked at John and said "What is that smell?!" John handed me his phone and I called the police. Then, he got out of the car to look at the damage. He came back and said it didn't look too bad, mostly cosmetic. I got out of the car to look and I couldn't really say anything. As I was getting back in the car, I noticed something on my mirror. It looked like dirt or tar under the light on the interstate.

I had the car towed because the seat belts had locked up and there was no way we could breathe and have them on. Plus, the front bumper was rubbing against the front tire. The tow guy was nice enough to drop us off at my apartment complex and then we followed him to the dealership. As he was unloading the car, he noticed me looking at the mess on my car and he looked at me and said "Yup, that's deer poop."

So, not only did I hit the deer and kill it, I actually did scare the shit out of it. All the way down the driver's side of my car.

Without further ado, here are the photos:

The white thing you can see is the container for my windshield wiper fluid. Directly behind that was my battery from what I could see.

The beginning of the poo:

And, most of the poo...yeah, that's gross:

I swear I have some of the worst luck with cars. My poor baby...

John bought a wet/dry vacuum recently. His air conditioner had started to leak and he wanted a quick and easy way to clean it up if needed. We actually tried to get a vacuum twice before he finally bought what he was looking for. We went out to Home Depot on our first try. As we were parking in their parking lot, the weather sirens started going off. We walked into the store to be greeted by an announcement over the loud speaker saying that everyone was supposed to report to the break room. So, our options were to cower in the break room (above ground) with everyone else or we could leave. We left. The break room wasn't going to be any safer than the rest of the building. On our second try, we stopped at Wal-Mart, but their selection was lacking some. We went back the next day to Home Depot and bought what he had attempted to buy the first time.

Anyway, after he opened the box and started using it, John came to the conclusion that it reminded him a little of a baby elephant he could drag around by the trunk. He brought it over this weekend and used my garage to clean out his car (given that mine is at the body shop...poor car). While he was over, I made some eyes, which we stuck on the vacuum. I think it does look surprisingly like an elephant. Perhaps we need to move the "tusks" to the front though.

We decided to name it Walt. It sounded like a good name for an elephant-vacuum. So, here is Walt, John's baby-elephant-vacuum:

Now we can be like Michael (in the show Lost) and run around frantically yelling Waaalt! Waaalt!

In case you didn't know, Mutual of Omaha sponsors the U.S.A. Swim Team. How could you miss the billboards, city buses, news reports, and commercials about it? Oh, and of course, Mutual itself. Yes, that's right, the Mutual of Omaha building has a swimmer on the front of it. This photo was taken by a guy in the Mutual media department. I was too lazy to find someplace to park with all the construction so I could get a good photo.

Mutual hosted an invitational swim meet over the weekend. As an employee, I received two free tickets. John and I went on Saturday night. They built an Olympic regulation swimming pool inside the quest center. Pretty impressive:

It was my first swim meet. Things ran similar to a track meet and I definitely enjoyed the experience. I'd definitely go to another one given the chance. I even had the opportunity to see Michael Phelps swim and speak after his race was over. So, all in all, a cool experience.

So, for those of you who don't live in Nebraska, you may not know that there has been a ton of storms in the last few weeks. Monday night, John took some cool pictures of the weather (and the Mutual condo work site).

Surprisingly, nothing really happened Monday night. The worst night was definitely Wednesday.

Well, this time I acquired my rental through Hertz. I have to say, the experience, and the car is much better than my experience with Enterprise. Not only did the guy stay after closing time by 15 minutes because I was caught in traffic, he didn't try to push their crappy insurance on me.

So, the car is: a VW Jetta. So, first and foremost, the things I like about the car (besides the fact that it definitely doesn't look like a shoe, as you can see).

I like that I can adjust the seat height. This works just like my Civic. Pull up to lift the seat and push down to lower the seat.

I'm happy I have power windows and locks (another thing that was annoying about the shoe). Plus, there's plenty of room to stuff things in the door.

I'm also a fan of the extra blinkers on the mirror. It took a little time to get used to the blinking in my peripheral vision, but it's pretty cool.

And my favorite feature: the key! I have been playing with this thing since I got the car.

I do have some features of the car, I'm not so sure about. They're okay, but I'm not sure that I'm just totally enamored with them.

First would be the trunk. I haven't decided if I like that the trunk completely opens or not. My trunk key on my Honda pops the trunk open, but you have to lift the lid. I think I lean more towards my Honda because then the trunk is open when I get to it, but you'd only know if you were standing next to the car. With the Jetta, it's going to be completely open for anyone to steal something out of it. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that unless I'm very close by.

The radio would be another thing I'm not so sure about. It's not bad. It has an mp3 CD player (another huge step up from the last rental). I'm not sure I like the buttons. They almost scream "We didn't want you to get lost so the buttons and the text is huge!"

The shifter is okay. It's not as stupid as the shoe. It's a little odd because you have both Drive and a "Sport" option. I looked up the difference between the two in the manual. Basically, the Drive gear is more fuel efficient than the Sport gear. They claim Sport is supposed to be more "fun" to drive but suggest you leave it in drive. Yeah...no idea on that one. Plus, it's sort of like a weird half-ass manual. It doesn't even have a clutch. You can move the shifter to the right when you're in drive and then you push up to go up a gear and down to go down a gear. It just makes me miss my manual.

The control for the wipers is okay. Nothing really special to note. You can pick the frequency they clear the windshield like most cars.

The Jetta has cup holders. But I'd definitely say my Civic's cup holders are better. They limit the size and I miss my cute little sliding door.

Finally, things I'm not so crazy about. First would be the dashboard. It's not bad, but it's certainly a step down from the design inside my Civic. I've been spoiled by the digital speedometer and the digital face on the Jetta's dashboard looks cheesy in comparison to my car.

I'm not so much a fan of the crank on the side of my seat. The one that helps with back support makes sense. The one that cranks your seat angle forward and back is annoying.

Yet another dumb feature is the light above the visor. My thought was that the goal is to have the light shine on your face. This light isn't all that helpful. Plus, it's just one more thing that can break. Are you really going to take your car in because the sliding door on the mirror doesn't turn the light on anymore?

Another thing that has gotten in the way and also confused me when I first got the car is the center console. I'm sure it's supposed to be clever, but it's just generally annoying. If you don't pull the lid up high enough, it won't go back down.

I also hate the turny-button for the lights. Yes, that's right a turny-button. But it doesn't lie. However, it's below the dashboard, between the driver's side door and the steering wheel. I am so used to turning the end of the blinker stick towards the front of the car, that this is annoying, plus what is on the blinker stick is probably what makes this worse.

That brings me to the stupid blinker stick. Which also has the cruise control on it. Yes, the cruise control. This is where you turn it off and on and you set the cruise speed or resume your speed. Putting the cruise control in this stupid location means you have to tap the breaks to cancel your cruise or you risk accidentally turning your cruise control on. Oh, plus, if you nudge the blinker, it blinks like 4 times after it's already been returned to the "neutral" position. Yeah, this thing drives me crazy.

Last, but certainly not least, the Jetta doesn't get nearly the gas mileage my Honda does. So, while I would definitely agree that I was given a "comparable" car for a rental, I am glad I didn't buy one. I had considered it for a bit when I was looking at cars, but I'm not so sure I'm the type for "German engineering in 'da house." However, I hope you enjoyed your tour of the Jetta. It's a nice replacement, but I miss my baby.

I'm looking forward to getting my car back. However, it sounds like they were just able to start work on it this week and the stupid deer caused about $4,500 worth of damage. The body shop cited me about 9 days of work.

So I've been ignoring the blog a bit...oops. But it's for a good reason, really. I repaired my laptop and built a new computer. I'd been trying to decide what to do about my laptop. The nub mouse was in bad shape, the battery was dead and the CD drive didn't work anymore. I'd actually priced a new laptop, but I wasn't sure I really wanted to do that. I ended up calling HP and found out it was still under warranty and they sent me a new CD drive. I ordered a new battery and a new mouse and decided that a desktop would be a good investment. I also needed to reload Windows on the laptop and it's good to have a back-up computer if things don't go well. So, I built a desktop. It's been years since I've had one. I've had a laptop with a docking station since before college. John helped me research parts and they finally came on the day of the big storm in Omaha. I was so excited. I had everything and then the storm hit and I didn't have power for a little over a day.

For the less technical people reading this (yes, this was a learning experience for me too), here's what I bought and how I put it together:

From the top left, is the case. Under that to the right is the box with my new laptop battery and the envelope with my new mouse nub. Up and to the left of the case is my new keyboard and mouse (that was my splurge in the whole deal). Under the keyboard is the processor and the video card to the right of the processor followed by the motherboard. Under the motherboard is is two boxes each containing two GB of RAM. The final row is a power supply, a DVD/CD burner, a DVD drive, and three hard drives.

When you put together a computer you have to start by assembling the pieces that attach to the motherboard. The box comes with lots of stuff in it. The motherboard comes with a faceplate you install in the back of your computer that labels all the connections. It also comes with cables to connect your hard drives, floppy drives (who uses those anymore? ;-) , and your optical drives (CD/DVD drives). They also give you cute little stickers you can put on the outside of your computer so everyone knows how awesome it is. There is also a book that comes with it as a reference and an installation guide (that's the big one on the bottom left).

My motherboard supports either a Duo Core or Quad Core processor. It has built in energy efficiency (in case you couldn't tell by the stickers on it). I took it out of the box and took some pictures.

I think it looks like a little town. Yes, I know that's silly, but it entertains me. So, here are some "artsy" pictures.

Along one side of the motherboard is the connections. That's all your input devices (mouse, keyboard), USB ports, printer, monitor connection (but I have a separate video card), audio inputs and outputs, etc.

The first thing I installed was the processor. That little square is the processor and the big round thing is a heat sync with a fan. You do not want your processor to overheat!

To install the processor, you have to take that wonderful plastic piece out of the processor's home.

Yeah, that's right, Core 2 Duo. Isn't it shiny?

Here it is before I shut the door. There's a hinged door that keeps the processor in place so it can't move.

After the processor is installed, you install the heat sync on top of it. Here is my nerdy self worrying about how I'm going to get the pins to snap into place on the motherboard without cracking something. The motherboard certainly didn't seem very stable, but it's tougher than it looks.

I did get it installed and the fan plugged in.

Then, I installed my memory (RAM). It was much easier than I was expecting. They sort of make it idiot proof. It only goes in one direction because there's a little notch in the bottom that matches up with the holes. Then you just push down till the clips snap into place.

After the processor and the memory was installed, I put the motherboard in the case. You have to lay the case down flat and use screws to attach it to the case.

Once the motherboard was fastened to the case, I installed the video card. That is one shiny video card. Wiring everything proved to be a challenge because the video card was 9" long. But, the card is really quiet.

I put the rest of the pieces in their places inside the case. The cables at the top-right of the photo are my optical drives. My Hard drives are in the bottom right. Once everything was put into its place I connected all the cables. There are a lot of them. You've got a cable between each hard drive and the motherboard. A cable between the power supply and basically everything in the computer (fans, hard drive, motherboard, optical drives, video card, etc.). Then you have cables from the motherboard to the video card, optical drives, hard drives, processor, etc. It's a little difficult to see in the photo, but the cable that came with the motherboard was a little tight going to the optical drives because it had to go around the video card (it's the big blue one). The motherboard also only came with two hard drive cables but I bought three hard drives.

When it was all said and done, it ran! I was so excited! I did decide to get a couple cables though. I bought a thinner cable to the optical drives which worked out well. I also bought a third hard drive cable and a monitor cable. John and I ended up going to DIT because there aren't many places in town who carry that type of stuff. Their prices weren't awesome, but by the time I would have paid shipping on new cables it would have come out the same. I think part of their mark-up is to cover the cute little bags they give you to put your stuff in.

I made an enormous mess. Got pretty nervous and frustrated a few times, but it was all worth it. I priced a computer on Dell's web site with the same specifications as the one I built and I saved over $1,200 by building my own computer, which is more than I spent on everything together including the laptop fixes. I sent in quite a few mail-in rebates and should be getting about $150 back as well. Plus, my new desktop has been in the living room since I built it. I can't seem to convince myself to unplug it from my new TV. It's just so shiny!

I have since cleaned up the mess in my apartment. I kept all the boxes for the internal parts and the case. Oh, I also got my laptop completely fixed. The new nubbins are an enormous improvement over the previous one.

The old one:

And the new one:

Money well spent. Oh, the amount I spent to fix one computer and build a new one was also about $700 less than a new laptop I was considering. :-)

I invested in some at-home exercise equipment. I bought some dumbbells, a Bosu, an ab ball with a stretchy band, and a medicine ball. I didn't realize how girly it all looked until I got it all together.

The dumbbells are decidedly girly. Even the manufacturer thinks so. As I was opening each of the boxes I noticed that the two pound and three pound dumbbells had photos of a woman on both sides. However the five pound and eight pound dumbbells had a picture of a guy on one side and a woman on the other.

Is this not the girliest set of equipment you've ever seen?

I was really glad that the Bosu came with a foot pump and the ab ball came with a hand pump.

The weights and the medicine ball also came with suggestions for lifts. I have four hand weight posters because one came in every box. I also have a poster for medicine ball exercises.

Oh well. Even if it is girly, I've got plenty of exercises I can do. It should help since I spend most of my day sitting now. At least it's something to laugh at.

For those of you who don't know, Jeff Detweiler was killed in a motorcycle accident last week. He was my friend's brother. Prayers for the family are greatly appreciated. The Journal Star paper published an article about him last Friday. The article is as follows.

Lincoln man dies in Omaha crash
By The Lincoln Journal Star
Friday, Sep 19, 2008 - 02:49:18 pm CDT

Jeff Detweiler was never good at keeping secrets from his girlfriend, Alyssa Elwood.

“He would just blurt something out and then say, ‘I shouldn’t have said that,’” Elwood said.

About two weeks ago, Detweiler blurted out another secret — a really big one.

“He told me he’d started saving for an engagement ring,” Elwood said.

But Detweiler never got the chance to buy that ring and propose to his girlfriend.

Detweiler, a 2005 graduate of Parkview Christian High School, died Tuesday morning in a three-vehicle collision in Omaha.

According to Omaha Police, Detweiler was driving a motorcycle west on Leavenworth Street around 7:55 a.m. when he ran a red light at the intersection with 50th Street and struck a black Chevrolet Blazer driven by Catherine Hammer Ortiz, 66, of Omaha.

The Blazer, which was northbound on 50th Street, was pushed into a southbound Silver Honda CRV driven by Jodi Gentleman, 38, of Omaha.

Neither Hammer Ortiz nor Gentleman was injured, but Detweiler was taken to the University of Nebraska Medical Center, where he died from his injuries.

There is no indication alcohol or drugs were factors in the collision, and no charges are expected police said.

Elwood has known Detweiler since they were in seventh grade, but they became good friends around their junior year in high school, she said.

“It’s kind of funny — I was dating his best friend and he was dating my best friend,” she said. “Neither one of those relationships really worked out, and somehow we ended up together.”

The summer after their sophomore year in college, Elwood and Detweiler ran into each other again at a friend’s house, Elwood said.

“For some reason we really hit it off, started hanging out all the time, and less than a month later we were dating,” she said.

Elwood remembers being impressed with how much Detweiler hanged changed and grown up.

“He taught me how to strike out on my own,” she said.

Detweiler was majoring in architectural engineering at the University of Nebraska-Omaha, and he had an internship with the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

He really enjoyed his job, said his mother, Beth Detweiler.

“He realized you have to graduate, but he said he was learning more in work than he was in school,” his mother said.

Detweiler loved outdoor activities such as snowboarding, fishing and riding ATVs, said his father, Gary Detweiler.

Jeff Detweiler was “a real gentle soul,” and people didn’t always realize how bright he was at first, his father said.

“As he started to mature he put a lot more of his horsepower to work,” Gary Detweiler said. “I think we’d only seen a small part of what Jeffrey could accomplish.”

Funeral services are at 10:30 a.m. Saturday at Calvary Community Church, 1st and Superior streets.

Detweiler would have turned 21 on Saturday, his father said.

“We’re going to celebrate his going to Heaven instead,” his father said. “That’s what makes this bearable is knowing his eternal destiny was secure.”

Today John and I have been dating three years. So, a couple weeks ago I decided I wanted to make a cake. We've both played Portal and we reference the companion cube in the game in conversation on a somewhat frequent basis (yes, we're kinda nerdy).

Companion cube in the game, for reference:

I was reading reddit and saw a companion cube cake that someone had made. They decorated it with fondant. I'd never tried using fondant, but thought it could be fun. Little did I know that I was in for very long messy process. So, following is my adventure making fondant, and using it to decorate a companion cube cake.

I had to do some research to figure out what fondant was, then figure out how to get some. I found a great website that describes everything you'd ever want to know about the stuff. I probably read the entire "Fondant 101" section four times before deciding to try it and making a list of things I needed. It's surprisingly simple. The main ingredients were marshmallows and powdered sugar. I needed to buy some pyrex mixing bowls because mine weren't microwave safe and the idea of putting marshmallow's in the microwave in a non-microwave safe bowl didn't sound fun. I purchased that and a fondant rolling pin.

Friday, I started the whole cake/fondant "process". I put the marshmallows and a little water in the microwave to slowly soften it up. Then, once they were melted, I added the powdered sugar. It sort of got all over. I kneaded it for awhile, using Crisco to prevent it from sticking to the counter and my hands. I had a LOT of Crisco on that counter and my hands were very soft by the time I finished the first set of kneading. I had a pretty big mess to clean up after the initial creation.

I wrapped the fondant in saran wrap, then put it in a plastic bag to sit overnight in preparation for adding coloring. The when I was out getting supplies, I had purchased some gel food coloring. Saturday afternoon, I started to color the fondant. I split my double batch in half, then split one of the halves in half. I used the entire tube of black gel icing on the big portion. But I couldn't figure out why it wasn't getting much darker. Then, I used the entire tube of pink color on my smaller pink section. It was barely pink. So, I wrapped everything back up and drove back to Mangelson's.

I was in a panic when I saw that they had no black gel color left. I started looking for other options when I came across what I had anticipated finding during my first visit. In my research, I had seen little jar-like containers for the coloring, but when I first looked, I purchased a tube of color. As I was looking in the cake section, I found the jars I'd seen online. I purchased more black and more pink color. I also came across a happy circumstance while I was there (on top of finding the right coloring) and purchased a cake circle and a cake box. I had been worried about how I was going to cover it and what I was going to put it on so the extra $1.50 solved those two problems.

I made it back home and got back to coloring. The new stuff was much more potent. I barely used any and got a much darker grey out of it. Same with the pink. After more kneading, another big sticky mess on the counter, and the new food coloring, I had my lumps of colored fondant. One big dark grey, a smaller light grey and a smaller pink.

I put the fondant in the fridge to keep until decorating time came.

Sunday, I made the first of two cakes. John's favorite cake is the Pillsbury funfetti cake. One box makes two 9" round pans. I mixed it up and let them cool. Then put them in the freezer. Freezing cakes makes the stacking, layering and cutting processes much easier. I repeated the process on Monday.

Tuesday I made a recipe of cream cheese frosting. I used Mascarpone cheese, whipping cream and of course cream cheese. I would challenge the average (non-cheese snob) person to find Mascarpone cheese in the grocery store. I walked all over HyVee the first time I tried to find it. I had to ask someone and then they followed the same hunting steps I had taken and had to ask a manager. In the process of making the cream cheese frosting, I had to whip heavy whipping cream. Let me tell you, if you want really good whipped cream, the stuff you get from whipping heavy whipping cream (say that fast 10 times) is amazing. I was also surprised at the lack of horrible things in heavy whipping cream. The only downside to making your own is that it takes a really long times. I don't have a stand up mixer, so I got to stand there with my hand mixer for a good 15 minutes. But, it did turn out yummy. I tried a little before sticking the frosting in the fridge.

Finally, Wednesday I did the big assembly and decorating. I only needed three layers. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the fourth one. I started by frosting the top of the bottom layer, then stacking the other two on top of it.

Then I measured the height to determine how wide to cut the square. I cut the sides off, shaping the cake into a cube, sort of.

I had a bunch of pieces left over.

After I had cut my shape, I frosted the entire outside of the cake. The fondant won't stick to the cake without some frosting to help.

Then I had to shape the fondant. I can't even count the number of times rolled the whole thing out and then tried to pick it up using the fondant rolling pin. I got so much stuff stuck to that stupid counter. When they say to use plenty of cornstarch, they weren't kidding. By the time I was finished with all the fondant, I used 1/3 of the box I bought.

When I got the fondant rolled out, I had to lightly roll it onto the fondant rolling pin. Think of rolling fabric. Then, I picked it up and draped it over the cake.

I needed to even out the sides and top. I carefully pushed the fondant flush to the outside of the cake. I carefully cut around the bottom to remove the excess fondant. I probably made too much, but I wanted to err on the side of having too much, rather than not having enough.

Then, I went about adding the "decorative pieces" to the outside. I used a little water to get the fondant to stick to itself. Cutting took a lot longer than I anticipated. It kept sticking to my knife.

When the cake was complete, I put it in the box. Putting a cake in a box...feels so official!

Then, I had to start cleaning up my mess. I had cornstarch everywhere! It took almost an hour and a half to clean it all up.

So, there's my fondant adventure. Hopefully John will like the cake. I think it resembles the companion cube. The hearts and circles stretched a little so they ended up being slightly bigger than planned. Hopefully the fondant will taste ok. I tried some, and it wasn't bad, but I'm not sure I could eat a lot of it.

Apparently there are these cute little machines that will do all the hard work and cut out things for you, like shapes and letters. I didn't even know they existed two weeks ago and now I have apparently purchased one.

I've finally started working on my scrapbook for my trip to Europe. Yes, I know I went in 2005. I know the pictures are on Flickr and I need to renew my pro account. Anyway, now that I have a job and I'm making money, I can afford to scrapbook again. Seriously, this stuff gets expensive. You want 15 sheets of that cool paper? 47$cent; per sheet, please. And some are more expensive than that. You want alphabet stickers so the titles on your pages look cool? $2 to $5 per set. And you'll probably only use half of them because they don't give you enough of the common letters and I really don't need four Q's or three X's.

Anyway, I was talking about the enormous mess I made in my living room with my cousin and she mentioned she was working on a scrapbooking project herself. However, she has a machine that cuts stuff out for her. Yeah, I didn't know they made those either. I started doing a little research. There are a variety of machines on the market. Xyron makes a couple. Cricut (pronounced like cricket...yeah, I pronounce it cry-cut in my head) makes a few. And a company called Graphtec makes one. All the Cricut machines and one of the Xyron machines require that you buy cartridges you plug in the front of the machine. Then you use the keys and screen on the machine to determine the size of what you want to cut and you can only pick from what's pre-programmed on the cartridge. I could see that adding up fast. The machines got great reviews on every site I read. I have no idea how people made peace with buying a new cartridge every time they wanted a new font or a new set of shapes. Everything I read about the Craft Robo and the Xyron Wishblade said that they were the same machine. You plug them into your computer and essentially "print" to them, except they cut out your stuff. They were both made by the same manufacturer, but the Craft Robo wasn't marketed in the U.S. The only people who didn't like them were the people who couldn't figure out the software. However, I thought both the Craft Robo and the Wishblade sounded cool because you can create whatever you want on your computer or use any True Type font and it will cut it out. Sounds better than buying cartridges for a minimum of $40 a piece.

So, how did I manage to accidentally buy one of these gems? Well, Microsoft is trying to get people to use their search engine by offering cash back on specific web sites and items. So I used their search to find the Craft Robo (which is priced more than $200 less than the Wishblade). I went on eBay, because I could get 25% cash back on my purchase and while I was looking, John sent me a coupon code. If you click the "Buy it now" button, it shows you a sub-total before you buy it. But I wasn't paying attention to what I was doing and I wanted to enter my other coupon code. Especially since it was supposed to save me another 20%. So I clicked the button to go to the next screen and I get the lovely message "Congratulations! You've purchased this item!" Well, shit. Ok, I hadn't exactly decided I wanted one. I was still trying to figure out how to get it cheap and if I was sure I would use it, that it was the best one, etc. So, now I've purchased it.

I had to figure out how exactly I was going to pay for it. That required remembering my username and password for PayPal. I managed to get logged into my account...no small feat since the last time I logged in was 2003. I started updating my information. You know, address, phone number, new credit card, all that. And I went to update the e-mail account and I used gmail's lovely feature where you can add a +blahwhatever before the @gmail.com. Very handy. I'm trying to do this fairly quick because I have to finish the checkout process within 60 minutes or I don't get my cash back and that's a good $71. I got checked out and I receive the e-mail from eBay saying that I've earned cashback points and I try to log into that. But the link they sent me was for their German website. Yeah, good work guys. I finally figure out how to sign into the cashback site and it says that my e-mail address is invalide (because it has the +words in it). So, I have to go back into PayPal to change my e-mail address to remove the extra text. And I'm told that there is already an account open with my e-mail address. I realize that I've set up another account. I have two of them. Awesome. So, to change the account information on the newer account, I have to add a new e-mail address, confirm it, and then set the other e-mail to the primary e-mail, then delete the original e-mail. And every time I do this, I get an e-mail from PayPal. Then I had to go into my other account, and you aren't allowed to change an e-mail, you have to go through the add/delete process all over again. So I pretty much filled up my inbox with e-mails from PayPal.

I finally got the whole thing ironed out. I should be getting my cash back fairly soon. And my purchased ended up being only $40 more than the least expensive Cricut machine (the cheapest of all of them I could find) and I won't ever have to buy cartridges. After reading a bunch more reviews (after purchasing the thing), I haven't found anything bad about it so I'm hoping it's as awesome as the obsessed scrapbookers seem to think. It was delivered today, so I'll pick it up after work and check it out. I do feel pretty dumb ordering something on accident and I'm sure I could have called someone to cancel the order, but it's not going to break the bank and I don't want to screw up my eBay rating. Plus, it could be really awesome. I just need to not make a habit of accidentally buying things.

Last year for Christmas, John's sister gave me a blow-up penguin lawn ornament. I finally decided to get it out this year. Sadly I picked the night before one of the windiest days of the year. But they looked really cute when I first put them up!

I came home and they had blown into the corner of my patio and deflated. So I had to take them inside. Now they are just a sad lump in my living room...waiting to go back outside. Maybe after the sleet tomorrow the weather will be a little better and I can put them back out. But we'll have to see.

I can hear the mailman putting mail in the mailboxes through the wall in my living room and he's definitely singing loudly off-key. It makes me giggle a little. Tee hee!

We usually don't make a big deal out of Valentine's Day and this year we really didn't either. However, we did decide to make reservations and go out for a nice dinner. I'm not sure if we'll be doing that again next year... We both like sushi (only the cooked kind because we don't need any more heart viruses). It's one thing I crave a lot. It's generally pretty healthy for you so it's not necessarily a bad thing. Blue Sushi sent me an e-mail a little over a week before Valentine's Day saying they were taking reservations. So, I figured "What the heck? I like sushi, let's go out for a nice dinner. It is a Saturday after all." We normally have a good experience at Blue and we've always gotten good service at all their locations. You would think that Valentine's Day would follow suit. This apparently wasn't the case.

Both John and I were surprised at how many empty tables there were. We were expecting it to be completely packed all night. Since it was Valentine's Day we decided to splurge a little and get a couple extra things besides the sushi. Usually we just get some sushi rolls to share and that's about it. John picked out some soup and I picked out a salad. We also ordered some tempura. Then, we waited, and waited, for about 15 minutes before anything came out of the kitchen. We watched as the expediters kept trying to deliver everyone's food from our side of the restaurant to the table adjacent to us. After first trying to deliver a salad to the other table, they brought it to ours and asked if we had ordered a salad. I said yes because I assumed it was mine. But upon closer inspection, it was definitely not the salad I ordered and I told the waitress this. She then went back to the kitchen and came back out with a menu to confirm what we ordered. We waited for another five to ten minutes and our tempura and our sushi showed up together. At this point, we really didn't want the soup and salad and we were somewhat irritated. We told the waitress who canceled our order. As we were working on the sushi, I had finished my drink and ordered a second one. We waited on that drink for more than twenty minutes as well until the manager stopped by to ask how things were. We explained the situation and he tried to "explain" to us that sometimes it's complicated to coordinate getting food out at the right time. I think John and I both shot him a dirty look because he immediately started back-pedaling saying "...but the food should have been out on time." He offered us free dessert but we didn't really want it. I did end up getting my second drink for free though.

After the somewhat frustrating encounter with the manager, I thought it would be nice to have a little fun. We never eat the wasabi, so I decided to get creative with it.

So, Blue is sort of on time-out for awhile. It hasn't officially been placed in exile, but I think we would have both been more satisfied if the manager hadn't tried to convince us that getting food out of the kitchen on time and to the right table is hard. As John put it later when we got back to his place, "I work with things I can't see all day and I somehow manage to keep things together. In the time we waited for any food to come, I could have walked back to the kitchen, found a bowl, ladled some soup and made a damn salad myself." I'm sure we'll go back again, because it was definitely not the typical experience we've had there.

After we got back to John's place, I started flipping through the channels. We had planned to watch Lost because we're behind, but I found the Princess Bride and we couldn't stop watching. Every time I see that movie I hear Abby's voice in my head from when she first saw the beginning of the movie "Why is Colombo reading to the Wonder Years kid?" It makes me laugh every time they cut to the scenes they're in.

Overall, a good night despite the bad service but I don't know that we'll be trying to make reservations on Valentine's Day again.

Yes, I know, it's been a long time since I've posted *anything*. I've been working on this post for awhile. There's been so much going on, it's hard to get it all written down. I'll try to break it up as best I can but the posts will probably be long (there's your warning).

John and I are finally moved into our new condo (official pictures coming when I get around to it). Things have been crazy lately. We put John's condo on the market, got married (again, pictures whenever I get around to it) and bought a new condo downtown. Then we moved both of our places into the new condo and I've also been working on plans for a big (2nd) wedding and reception. I think all the excitement of that has been overshadowed for both of us until now by the enormous real estate mess we had to wade through. I was going to write a really long post about all the stuff that happened, but I've decided it's probably best to break it into multiple smaller posts. Otherwise I'll never write the whole thing.

As the buyer of a home, you get a certain amount of time to inspect the home and decide whether or not you still want to buy it. If you find problems you can either ask the seller to bring down the price, ask the seller to fix the problems or take the place as is at the previously agreed upon price. John and I were aware of this going into the sale of his property because we had gone through the process on the condo we wanted to purchase. We made sure the place was nice and clean so the home inspector could come over and take a look at everything. We were told that things went pretty well. They were a little concerned about the air conditioner, but nothing that should hold up the process (or so we thought). For reference, the building is pretty old. The way all the heating and air conditioning works is that there is a central pipe that runs the height of the building and in the winter, the boiler heats the water and in the summer, cold water runs through the pipe. Then there is a heat exchanger and a fan that blows air over the pipe to get circulate it through the places in the building.

The buyer is required to sign an addendum stating the results of the home inspection and their intended action (whether they're requesting fixes, accepting as is or calling off the sale). John and I were expecting to get that within a day or two of the home inspection. Unfortunately, we were sorely disappointed. Even though we got the news that the buyer was planning to sign the paperwork saying they accepted the place as is, it never came. We waited a few days and then heard back from them saying they wanted the air conditioner checked out. They didn't send over any signed documentation (as they were required to do) requesting this. But I called the HVAC company that the condo association usually used to service any air conditioners in the building. The guy came out, charged John $60 and said "Everything is fine. I don't know what they think is wrong with it." John was a little upset because at this point, we had already passed the specified seven days in the contract for inspections. I scanned the sheet the HVAC guy had given him and sent it to our agent who in turn passed it to the buyer's agent.

They called our agent and said "Yeah, we'll send over the signed addendum saying we accept the place as is first thing in the morning." The next morning rolls around and they call and say "Well, we want to come back over and look at the air conditioner again." So Steve, our agent, took them back over to the property and opened up the air conditioner so they could look at it. While they were inspecting the air conditioner, they decided that the water shut-off valve looked rusty so they tried to request that we get someone out to change the valve. John was a little pissed at this point because we're already over a week past the seven days they were allotted for inspections and we've just paid $60 for someone to come out and look at it and we have signed paperwork saying everything is in working order and there's nothing wrong with the air conditioner. Plus, the valve that they wanted replaced was connected to the pipe with water running to the rest of the building. John's place was on the fourth floor and there were at least five floors above him. So they would have to shut off the water for at least all the floors above him. On top of that, according to the condo association declaration and documents, the air conditioner, being part of the inner workings of the building, was the responsibility of the condo association, not the condo owner. So, John, as pissed off as he was, posed the question to the management company asking if they would replace the valve on behalf of the condo association. They just laughed given that we'd just had someone out to look at the air conditioner and the thing was fine. So we sent back and e-mail explaining all of this to the buyer and telling them that they could take it up with the condo association if they wanted.

They said that they'd send over the signed addendum saying they'd accept the place as is. But that was just a ploy I guess because I they calld our agent back in the morning saying that they wanted to look at all the other units on sale in the building and take a look in their air conditioners. So, Steve met them back at the condo building and walked them through all the units on sale at the time and they looked at all the air conditioners. I'm assuming they all looked about the same as John's because they said they'd send over the paperwork saying they accept the place as is. Finally, the next day, they sent over the signed addendum saying they accept the place as is and did not require any work done on the place.

John's only response after that painful three-week-long experience "Seriously! Does he want a hug too?!" We had just wasted an extra two weeks that wasn't really needed. We didn't have much time to work on packing John's place before we needed to get everything out of there.

As a homeowner, one of the most important things you must have in order to sell your home is a clean title. The title says who the property belongs to and if there are any liens against you (i.e. if you didn't make payments on your car and you used your house as collateral, or you didn't make your house payments, or in reference to a condo, you didn't pay your condo association fees). If your title isn't clean, you cannot sell your property without someone else taking their cut first. That being said, one of the steps in the selling process involves a title company doing a title search to make sure your title is clean before the sale can proceed. When they did the title search for the title on John's condo, we didn't exactly get good news which was a bit of a shock. John had made all of his condo association payments on time, every month, in full. He had not received any notifications that he was late on anything or owed anyone any money. So when the title company called our agent to inform him that the title came up with liens on it, we were a little upset.

They called on a Friday to tell us this and that they were looking into where the liens came from. That following Monday, John and I went down to the county clerk's office to get our marriage license since we were planning to get married on Friday (April 10th). Directly across the hall from the County Clerk's office was the Register of Deeds. John thought it would be a good idea to stop in and see if they could shed any light on the situation. John explained the situation to the woman at the front desk saying that he had owned the property for several years, and based on the information he has, the liens have to be old because he wasn't aware of any missed payments and hadn't been notified about them. She said she would have no problem looking up the information. All she needed was an address. John gave her the address and she asked if it was a condo building and he said "Yes, it's the Twin Towers building." Her immediate response was "Oh my god! That place is so messed up!" At this point I'm thinking "Please just let us get this thing sold so we can be rid of it!" They brought up the information on the liens. One of them was from 2003 and one of them was from 2005. John bought the place in 2007 which should have been impossible without the liens being released. They totaled to around $4,300 (which we really didn't want to fork over given that we were getting married, had just bought rings and were buying a condo). We were given a long speech about how this should never happen and John needs to go after his title company because it's illegal to sell a place if there are liens on the property. The woman was nice enough to give us a print out of their information so we took that with us.

I scanned the document we were given and sent it on to Steve who relayed it to the title company working on the sale. I waited until Wednesday to call Steve and see if there was any news. We were set to close on the 17th and it was the 8th so we didn't have a lot of business days left. We knew at this point that the liens had been place on the property by the condo association, but no one in the association had any record of them. No one had any record of any money being owed for John's unit. But no one was willing to release the liens. John called around and spoke with the property management company and the current president of the board for the condo association but because they had no record they wouldn't release the liens on his property (yeah, that sure makes a whole lot of sense). He was told that the only person who would know about them was the former president of the board but she had fallen and broken her hip and was in the hospital. What are the odds?

By the time Wednesday (April 8th), I wanted an update. I called Steve but all he could tell us was that the title company was "working on it." He had good news though - the buyer was willing to pay the liens if we couldn't get it straightened out because he really wanted to close the following Friday. Unfortunately , that didn't exactly make us feel any better because that would mean paying the condo association money that they had no record we owed. We didn't want to pay an extra $4,000 to sell the place. That just wasn't going to happen. Plus, we didn't want to be in the situation where we owed the buyer money after everything was all said and done. I got a little upset at this point and I called John to see what he though we should do. He was pretty angry as well and stressed out due to work stuff so he finally just said "I don't care what you do, just let me know what happens."

I tried calling the bank but I figured they wouldn't be willing to help me since John and I weren't married and I wasn't part of the original mortgage agreement. I was right to some extent, but I got lucky because they said that I could call their title company and talk to them since the title information was public knowledge. I called First National's title company and they told me that they didn't have any information on the sale because they didn't handle the title transition. I looked up the title company's information and tried calling all three phone numbers listed. I got messages saying that all the numbers had been disconnected (this can't be good). So, I called the title company back and told them I tried calling the title company in the mortgage documents and all their numbers had been disconnected . The lady I talked to was nice enough to find out who had taken over the files for the title company. I was told I should call First American Title.

I called First American Title and was transferred to someone named Ellen who told me that the title company who handled the sale of John's condo, LTS Title Services, had their insurance license revoked by the Nebraska Department of Insurance in April of 2008 (you have got to be f*#@&^g kidding me). She then proceeded to tell me that they probably had John's file somewhere, but she would have to go down to look through their files to find it. Because it wasn't a transaction they actually handled, they don't have the records in their electronic record keeping (great, just great). Ellen said she would call me back. In the meantime, I called my friend Mary who suggested that I contact the department of insurance to find out why the company's license was revoked. It might shed some light on things.

I called the department of insurance who were actually very helpful and told me that all complaints filed against the title company would be on their web site. Originally when I went on their site to look for the complaints, I found the last one which was what put them out of business and that was enough to freak me out. I have since gone back and found multiple complaints, all of which the company was found liable for before they finally had their license revoked by the department of insurance. The original complaint I found basically said that they were taking money on behalf of other companies and not passing the money on to the companies to which the money was owed. So, they were embezzling to the tune of over $50,000. Awesome. The other complaints I found (charging twice for services and issuing illegal coupons) pretty much followed suit with the whole "stealing money" thing. I was pretty freaked out after I read that and I was convinced that they had taken John's money for title insurance, but never actually given him any. Which, if that was the case, we were completely screwed to the tune of $4,000.

After totally freaking myself out by reading the complaints against the title company online, Ellen called back to tell me she wasn't able to find John's file and without the "Commitment to Insure" number which would have been provided along with all the underwriting information from the title company, they probably wouldn't have any luck finding it. In addition, she also said that the rest of their Nebraska files had been shipped to Independence , Missouri. At this point I was pretty upset and started crying on the phone explaining that we were supposed to get married in two days and we were supposed to close on John's place and our new place the following Friday and we really don't have an extra $4,000 lying around without going into our savings which we needed in case of emergency and John had looked through all of his files and he had everything except this commitment to insure and we would look again that evening, but he was sure he didn't have it and we just don't know what we're going to do. I felt bad for her because I really didn't mean to upset her. She sounded sort of flustered and said she'd see what she could do. We looked for the title insurance paperwork that night but of course couldn't find it. John had everything except that. He had all the good faith estimates, the warranty deed, the closing papers, a copy of all the checks, everything. I described what the paperwork should look like based on what Ellen had told me and he was certain he never received it. We were sure that we were totally screwed.

The next morning as I was getting dressed to go to work, Ellen called me. She apologized for calling so early but I figured she must have news so I was excited. She asked me which liens we were being told were still outstanding. I was really glad we had stopped at the register of deeds because I pulled up the document in my sent e-mail and read the information about the liens to her. She then told me that one of her colleagues in Missouri had found John's entire file and sent it to her. In the file, there was a letter from the condo association specifying three liens that were on the property in 2007 before John bought the place. The letter stated that the owed amounts had been paid in full and the liens would be released. Two of them were the liens that John was told he owed. I was really excited and Ellen (my new best friend) e-mailed me a copy of the letter which I forwarded to John. Right after I got off the phone, I called John (and woke him up) and said "Tell me I'm your best friend!" He was still pretty groggy and given that I called his work phone thought that I was from work and there was a problem. He woke up a little more and I told him my news. He sent the letter to the management company and Steve, our agent, and we finally had the assurance that the liens would be released and the sale could proceed. Thank the Lord!

So, moral of the story for everyone - make sure you get a commitment to insure when you close on a place because without it, you're screwed unless you find someone like Ellen. Also, I hate title companies (with the exception of First American Title). No one seemed to have any clue what was going on and I was a little cranky about having to track down all this information on my own. I still want to know what the hell the title company handling the sale in April was doing because I found out more information in one afternoon than they found over the course of three days. What a bunch of lazy wankers!

Over the course of the whole buying/selling process, I had been checking with the banker. I called him about once a week to make sure everything was okay, that he had all the information he needed, etc. I was assured that everything was just fine, there were no problems, etc. We had even managed to lock in a rate of 4.625% on our 30-year fixed-rate mortgage. Two days before we were supposed to close on the new condo John and I went out to the CBS Home office and signed all the paperwork for the sale of his condo. An hour after we finished doing that, I got a phone call from our banker, Charlie, who said: "I have bad news. But don't panic, I think I can fix it." After all the stuff we'd been through so far, how bad could it be? Yeah, bad assumption. Apparently the underwriter screwed up and we should have never been told that we were approved for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage because Freddie Mac had a requirement that 51% or more of the units in the condo building had to be sold before they would be willing to back a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage. Oh, but the even better news was that we were going to get an Adjustable Rate Mortgage at a lower rate (4.37%) for the first 7 years, convertible to a 30-year fixed-rate (for free) when the building is 50% sold but at current market rates. Yes, you read that right. We wanted a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, but Freddie Mac said that was too risky so they offered us an ARM. And we were supposed to take all the risk as to what the rates were going to be at closing the second time, even though we had locked in a really good rate. I am so glad that we've learned what got us into this financial disaster! Obviously we told Charlie that we weren't willing to just take the ARM. We told him to figure something else out. After many calls back and forth trying to impress upon him that we really weren't interested in the ARM, he finally called us back at 7pm that night and said that he had put in for an exception with Freddie Mac and he had cleared it all the way through his boss's boss. So we had to wait.

In the meantime, John and I were feeling just a little stressed out. John had to be out of his place by Sunday at midnight, I had given notice on my apartment and had to be out by the end of the month. We hadn't even put John's place on the market until we had confirmation that we were approved for a loan. We had worked with an attorney who looked over the initial offer papers and condo documents for the condo. We really didn't want to resort to a law suit, but we felt like we should at least contact them and find out what sort of legal standing we had. Obviously we hadn't signed the final paperwork, but we had signed the good faith estimate which stated we'd been approved for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage. We didn't know if that was enough to have a case or not (if we can't get things worked out). First thing in the morning, I called the attorney, Andrew, to see what he thought about the situation. I was expecting that he'd say it was something to the effect of bait and switch. Instead, he said that if we had to go to court, we would definitely win, but it would take at least six months to get there which didn't solve our current situation. He used the term "detrimental reliance". He said that because we made our decisions based on the information the bank gave us, we definitely had a good case. So, we had that as or absolute worst situation back-up plan. Our only option was to wait for Charlie to call back and see what he had to say.

We had the walk-through at noon for the new condo. I have to say it was really depressing walking through the place we had fallen in love with not knowing whether we'd have a loan at closing or not. We were in the car headed to get food and John asked me "So, if Freddie Mac comes back and says no, what's Charlie's backup plan?" I told him I thought Charlie was under the impression he could talk us into taking an ARM. Right as I finished saying that, my phone rang. It was Charlie who said that Freddie Mac said no. So, I asked him what his backup plan was and he said "The only thing I'm authorized to offer you is the ARM, convertible at current market rates when the building hits 50% sold." At this point, John was pretty angry. I gave him the phone and he walked Charlie through the fact that he didn't have a house anymore and the ARM was not acceptable because there was no reason why we should be required to take the risk since he's admitting the bank screwed up. John had previously suggested that the bank promise that we would be converted to a fixed rate mortgage within the seven years and regardless of what interest rates were at that point, they would buy points on the loan to get us back down to the rate we were promised. Charlie tried to explain that they just "don't do that". I still have yet to understand why they can't do that. They're a bank. It's not an illegal process. Anyway, Charlie ended up getting flustered enough that he told John that we could call his boss and talk to him if we weren't satisfied. At this point, after we got off the phone, we started going through all the names I could think of that were high up in the bank. That was when John realized that his parents knew the president of the bank. They apparently went to the same church.

John called Charlie's boss and left a message. We decided to give him a half hour to call back. Well, he didn't call back. So, we started calling every person I could think of who we knew would have the power to fix the problem. We were passed around to every secretary in the building. Unfortunately for us, the bank president was out doing charity work that afternoon. I managed to track down the name and phone number of the head of the lending area. We tried calling him but his secretary was very adamant that we leave him alone. Finally, I got so fed up at being passed around to all the secretaries that , I talked to my boss who gave me permission to leave early (bless his heart). I went down to the bank building and politely asked the secretary if I could see the head of the loan department (Mike). At this point, John had spoken with Charlie's boss who was apparently under the impression that we had a loan and everything was fine. It was already 3pm by the time he'd heard back from Charlie's boss and I wanted some answers. The secretary told me she didn't know how long it would be. I responded by saying that I was willing to wait as long as necessary. She hesitantly responded by telling me I could have a seat in the waiting area. I sat down next to another secretary's desk where I could see Mike's office. She was on the phone. After she got off the phone, she asked if I needed anything. I thanked her and politely told her that I had already been helped and I was waiting to see Mike. She then proceeded to call someone upstairs. Her end of the conversation went like this: "Oh, I know. Charlie's been down here all day. Apparently someone complained." "Ooh, that's bad!" "Well, he's been freaking out." I had to keep from laughing because I was sitting right there.

Shortly after eavesdropping on the secretary's conversation, Mike came out of his office to greet me. He had apparently been on the phone with Charlie's boss so he knew a little about what had been going on. But, he asked me to walk him through the situation. So, I told him about how we'd found this great condo, locked in a good rate, been approved for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, put John's place on the market, received and accepted an offer in a little over a week for John's place and then we got the news about the loan. He stopped me when I got to that part and said "I'm going to promise you, right now, that we will fix this. You will close tomorrow as scheduled with the loan terms you were promised. I'm really sorry this has happened. This isn't the way we like to run our business." (Hallelujah! Finally, someone who has the power to fix this!) He said he'd call at the end of the day and give me further information about the loan.

We did get the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage we were promised and we closed as scheduled. But I don't want to do that again for a VERY long time! I think John and I crammed enough stress into the buying and selling process as possible (none of which were things caused by us). I do have to commend Charlie. He showed up on time to the closing and, much to our surprise, it really wasn't awkward. We really didn't want to throw him under the bus, but he wasn't willing to make any concessions. I think he was only offering us what Freddie Mac said he could, rather than talking to the people at his bank to see what the local bank could do. But, thank God that's all over!

To everyone who is considering buying and/or selling a residence, I wish you the best of luck and I hope it is a smoother process than ours was!

Hopefully I'll have pictures of the condo up soon. I have ones I took from when we toured the place. I'll need to take some with our stuff in it at some point.

John and I found a great condo downtown that we fell in love with. But before we could move in, we needed to get married. After the ongoing real estate problems we didn't want to attempt planning a formal wedding during the whole mess as well. We decided to go down to the courthouse to get married before closing on the condo. Then we'd have more time to focus on the wedding after we closed and moved.

We invited only a couple close friends and immediate family. One of my friends from work (thanks GeeMan!) came down and took some candid photos. The lighting in the courthouse was terrible so I think they turned out pretty well given that. I'm sure we'll have plenty more from the second wedding.

I'd only been to a courthouse wedding once before so I wasn't really sure what I was supposed to do. Plus, when I showed, up most of the family was already there. There was a doorbell I was supposed to ring saying we were there. I tried ringing it when I got there, but they told me to go away till everyone who was supposed to be involved arrived. So, we were all standing around in the main lobby waiting.

The moms were worried because John is often late to things. We were discussing whether or not to call him.

Everyone thought it would be best to call, so I did. I love these two pictures. I didn't think about it at the time, but it looks like I'm flipping off the camera because I'm trying to hold on to my flowers and the ring box and talk on the phone. I think I'm leaving a message in the bottom one. But either way it's a funny look on my face.

John did arrive on time. He was even early by a few minutes. His mom pinned on the boutonniere because I have no idea how to do those things. He looked so nice!

Our friends signed and stood up for us as witnesses. The ceremony was very short, but really nice.

When John was trying to put my ring on my finger he sort of hit a snag because it got stuck a little at my knuckle. He was really concerned about hurting me so I had to lean forward a little and tell him to keep trying. We'll see if that happens at the second wedding.

As quickly as it started, it was over. I think some people might have been out in the lobby waiting longer than they were in the courtroom for the ceremony. It's definitely taken the pressure off for the upcoming wedding though.

Thanks to our friends who were witnesses! We love you guys!

Oh, and we couldn't pass up making an animated .gif out of the phone call. I think we've had more laughs out of this than any of the other pictures.

Finally, some condo pictures! These were taken before we moved in. Hopefully someday, after all the wedding stuff is over and we get a chance to actually organize stuff, I'll take more pictures. Right now there are still boxes in every room.

We live downtown. Close enough for John to walk to work and right now it takes me about 10 minutes to get to work from when I get in the car to when I pull into the parking lot. However, I expect that time to go down after the construction is over.

Here's the entrance to our building:

Layout of our place:

A few shots of the main room:

Super awesome kitchen:

One of the bathrooms (they both look about the same):

Laundry room:

And of course the bar that's on the first floor of the building. How convenient!

The pictures really don't do the place justice. I wish I was better with a camera, but oh well. The place is awesome. You'll either have to take my word for it or come visit :-).

John and I received a gift off our Heath Ceramics registry yesterday. We opened up the box and were greeted with some of the coolest packaging I've ever seen. John and I both came to the conclusion that they look like little critters in a box.