Saturday, August 26, 2006

Trying hard not to spend money

I made a commitment to myself last weekend, starting Sunday, that I would not spend any more money at restaurants or the cafe at work or anything similar until I got to Philly. I know I'm going to end up eating out A LOT there, so I'm trying to save up. Sadly, my last meal at a restaurant was pretty terrible, so it's been hard to hold out, but I keep thinking of how great it will be in Philly. Last Saturday night I ended up in Park City and we went to a restaurant that was out of most of their more popular food items, including the only things that looked interesting to me on the menu. I ended up with a salad that was boring and not very tasty. Oh well. At least the beer was good. :) I just keep thinking... sushi bib bim bap, Qdoba naked burrito, Paradise taco pizza, mmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

I am sooooo looking forward to going back to Philly. For so many reasons, I miss it terribly. I miss people and places and the comfort of knowing your surroundings. Here I don't know the good restaurants yet, I don't know the best places to just casually hang out. The closest Target is 20 minutes away and really inconvenient to get to. I don't have anyone I can call to hang out with at random. It's going to be very hard to be back in Philly for 4.5 days and then come back here to Utah.

It's been 4 months since I've been in Philly, and that was only a short visit. I've "lived" here in Utah for almost 6 months. I've just realized that this is the longest I've ever spent away from the area that I was born in. Prior to this I'd spent two seperate 3 month stints in CA, but that was also living with my mom, so there was a huge comfort level in that. There is no comfort level out here.

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

OMG I <3 BENJI!!!

I am going to be a big dance dork here and blog about So You Think You Can Dance. I was figuring it was going to be either Heidi or Benji as the winner on So You Think You Can Dance. When they told Heidi that it wasn't her, I was bummed for her, but excited for Benji. He is awesome. He has such an amazing personality. The whole finale of SYTYCD was great. All the top 20 came back and the judges and the top 4 got to pick their favorite dances. They even did the dance to Roisin Murphy's Ramalama (Bang bang) again, which was awesome. I love SYTYCD and am very much looking forward to next summer.

Other than that, all I have to say is WHY? why? relative to neighbors... why? relative to boys... why? relative to work. I can't explain it, I'm just wondering about a lot of whys. But, I don't think there is really an answer, which is why I'm not going to explain any of it.

P.S. Afterthought, this is a repost. Snakes on a Plane, ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!!! Who's freakin' idea for a movie was this? It's going to be the highest grossing completely terrible movie ever. No one is expecting it to be good, but everyone is going to go see it (except me, I'm too broke to have any interest) because of all the ridiculous hype. I just watched Samuel L. Jackson on The Daily Show repeat from last night and he and Jon were like 10 year old boys about to blow something up with a firecracker. It's completely crazy. Honestly, when Mark first mentioned this on his livejournal I thought it was a joke. I've been waiting for the past 6 months for someone to tell me that it's a joke, that no one would really make a movie that terrible, with that awful a title and that awful a logo. That's all I have to say on this subject.

Monday, August 14, 2006

Oh how I love living out west!


This picture was taken while hiking this past Sunday. This is Lake Mary, which is on the Brighton Ski resort property. This lake was maybe halfway into our hike. Yes, folks, that's right, I said "our". I finally had a hiking partner. Rich, who I've been emailing with from craigslist, emailed last week and we got together on Sunday. It was really great to have someone to hike with. Great conversation, pictures of myself hiking and someone to push me that extra mile.

We made it to the top of this peak. The only reason I went to the top of this peak is because Rich said "you can do it". I would have turned around long before this point. But, I am SO GLAD that I went. The view from the top of that peak was amazing. There will be a picture or two up on Flickr. I had such a great time on Sunday. At the top of the peak we met this really nice couple. The husband starts talking about this great way to get down without going back the way you came. It involved going down and then up and then down and then up another couple of ridges. Rich was all "let's go" and I'm of course "I'm going to die if I have to go up one more peak". So, I forget who came up with this idea, but it worked out well. Rich and the husband went his way and the wife and I went back the way we came. It made everyone happy. I had a nice time walking back with the wife. She gave me a great Utah native flower lesson. We reconnected with the guys about 80% of the way down the mountain.

After the hike we went over to Liberty Park and checked out the Sunday evening drum circle, I introduced Rich to bubble (boba) tea (he had never heard of it, totally shocking, I threw together some dinner at my place and Rich showed me some great line dancing websites (not country, pop). All in all it was a very fun day.

That's really all that's worth talking about lately. :) Work organized a big trip to Lagoon (a local amusement park, kinda like Dorney Park, only a lot smaller) last week. I went on my own and group hopped all afternoon. It was fun. They had a couple cool rides. Mostly I had a lot of fun seeing a lot of my coworkers families. It seems that 5 is the average number of kids for families out here. That's a lot more than I'm prepared to have. I'm impressed at the people who can coordinate that many.

Other than that, I am REALLY looking forward to August being over, because that means I get to go to back to Philly. Labor Day weekend folks. If anyone from Philly that doesn't already know about this reads this, let me know if you want to meet up. I am going to try my best to hang out with everyone who wants to hang out. I'm just really looking forward to seeing people and eating. There are a lot of food places that I miss a lot. Q'doba, August Moon, Fuji San (a.k.a. Royersford sushi), Paradise Pizza. I have not found replacements for these places here in Utah. The pizza is the worst out here. I have not found a single decent slice of pizza yet.

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Nothing specific

I don't have anything specific to post about today, but I've been reading a lot of other blogs, so I felt like I should post. I've been blog hopping of late with my down time. Generally it happens like this... I start at one blog, then go to the blog of someone who commented on that blog, then on to someone who commented on the second blog and so on and so forth. Most of them have all spawned off dooce.com which Sarah introduced me too. I have found the blog of a woman living on a ranch in Oklahoma with her adorable husband and four beautiful children, a newly ordained minister in Canada, a New York lawyer and a woman and her husband going through the process of adopting from China. All these people's lives are completely normal and completely wonderful to read about. It certainly makes my day more interesting.

Outside of blog hopping, work is good. I've been playing more tennis and even finding some people to play tennis with. I love playing tennis, even when I get soundly beaten. I'm trying to figure out ways to get out and meet more people. I'm just not very good at meeting people when I'm not traveling. When I'm traveling I can meet lots of people. Maybe I just need to figure out a way to travel for a living. That would be wonderful. Well, that's it, this is a very brief update. If I keep typing I'll end up talking about So You Think You Can Dance. I feel like a big enough nerd watching it, blogging about it would just be awful. :)