Spring in Utah, a.k.a Crazy Weather

So, the picture here was taken TODAY! Yes, that's right folks, April 18 and we have snow in Utah. This weather is really going to take some getting used to. It's nice, really. I love snow. I didn't get nearly enough of it this winter, but this is a little wierd. Especially since by Thursday it should be in the 70s. Oh well, I'll get used to it eventually. There are more pictures available for viewing at my Flickr site.

Sorry I haven't written in so long. I kept meaning to and then not making the time. Things are going well. Work is good, stuff in general is good. I've been out riding the lovely wonderful Felt bicycle I got. It's a lovely road bike that is so easy to ride and smooth. I see why my mother enjoys biking so much. OH, I went to the ballet. I went to see Swan Lake at Ballet West. It was amazing. It was so beautiful. I've never been to the ballet before, so this was quite the experience. I will definately go again. I'm trying to get more into cultural things here in Utah. I keep looking at the schedule at the University of Utah to look for events and on the local public radio station websites and whatever else I can find.

I can't really think of much else to say. I'll try and post more often.

Not much air up here in the clouds...

Today I experienced the shock of having moved high up in the world. I'm not talking about job status, I'm talking about elevation. My friend Dan was right, it's going to take some getting used to to be able to work out up here. At least aerobic exercise is going to take a little warming up. I went rollerblading today and barely made it 3.5 miles, while back in Valley Forge, PA I could do 6 miles no problem. My lungs felt like they were going to explode. They were screaming "we need air and you just aren't giving it to us"! It was frustrating. So, now my plan is to work out in the gym, where I can find a balance between aerobic exercise and weight training and slowly work up the aerobic stuff to longer and longer times. If anyone has any suggestions (beyond Penny's extremely helpful hydrating suggestion) on coping with this change in elevation on an exercise front, they would be greatly appreciated.

Other than that, work was good today. I got the chance to say "Please give me more to do, I'm bored" (although not quite in those words) and they listened and were able to give me more to do. My boss also praised the fact that I work so quickly. I don't know why I get things done fast, I just do. But, it was nice of him to say in front of a group of managers. I'm really enjoying the job so far.

I also dealt with a minor credit fiasco today and had two completely different experiences with the same company. So, back in October I paid off my Best Buy credit card. However, it seems that the payment got processed ONE DAY late because their payment processing system is pathetic. This ended me up with a $29 late fee, which over the past 5 months has turned into $59 and an over 90 days past due blight on my otherwise fabulous credit report. It lowered my credit score significantly and generally ticked me off. So I decided to call Best Buy about it. I explained to the first woman I talked to that I had assumed it was fully paid off and that I had been traveling and hadn't checked the account. She was a witch and that's being kind. She was evil. She was yelling at me that I was an idiot and that one day late is one day late and so on. She told me I could call customer service but they weren't likely to do anything either. So, I called customer service and got this very friendly man with a very thick accent. He politely listened to my explanation, checked the account and came back on the line and said "we will clear the balance on this and then we will make sure that the credit agencies are told that this was our error and the entire blight will be cleared from your credit report". I'm glad it's cleared up, but I wanted to call the first woman back and say "HA, YOU WERE WRONG!". However, I had not gotten her name, so no calling back. Oh well, probably better anyway.

Also at lunch time today I called and put my name on a list for an apartment here in SLC. Not that there's some kind of waiting list or anything to get apartments here, but I just want a very specific apartment (2 bdrm, fireplace, top floor, east facing windows). I also managed to find the one complex in all of SLC that has gas stoves, so they win my business. I'm planning/hoping on moving into an apartment sometime in late May or June. I'm happy with where I'm living, but it would also be nice to have a place to myself.

Oh, and I think I'm going to try for a little cultural overload. There's a lecture tomorrow night at the University of Utah that I'm interested in going to, they also have a film screening later this week that I want to check out. I'm also going to start going to the library more, cause the downtown library is not only gorgeous, but filled with thousands, possibly millions of books. I walked through tonight telling myself "just keep walking, just keep walking". I am a tad OCD when it comes to books. I LOVE books. I love learning and finding interesting books and such. I'm getting a Utah driver's license purely so I can keep my library card. Going to the library will be so much better than spending money on books. Although I read so slowly I'm going to have to renew them online several times to be able to finish. The nice thing about the library though is that it should force me to try and spend more time reading, so that I can finish it and return it.

First week over, so many more to go!!

Well, one week of work and one weekend since being employed over. The first week of work was good. I really think I'm going to enjoy my job a lot. I'm very happy about it.

I'm also very happy about the location of my workplace. It seems to be situation in an incredibly cultural little corner of SLC. I know, so many of you out there are probably thinking "culture in SLC, what's she talking about? there's no culture there, it's totally white bread". HA!! I thought that once too, I thought that the best culture I was going to find out here was the still very white but slightly open minded bicyclist outdoorsy type. WRONG!!! On my way to and from work there are more than three Asian markets, one of which I think is just Vietnamese, a Halal Middle Eastern market, at least two places to eat Pho (vietnamese noodle soup), at least two places to get Boba (or Bubble) Tea (YUMMY!) and probably much more that I haven't even discovered yet. I am currently very happy with the little city that I've decided to call home. I'm finding it easier to find culturally diverse food here than I ever did in Philly. I know, I know, I'm sure there's just as much, if not more, cultural food options in Philly, but at least here I don't have to worry about getting shot in the sections of town I have to go to to get the cultural food variety.

Anyway, sadly I haven't had much opportunity to check much of these places out seriously yet because on my second day of work a coworkers germs started attacking me. The woman that is training me was sick the week before I started and just kept it all week long. She spread it to me of course, because we spent a lot of time on Monday and Tuesday sitting in her office. So, I spent all week fighting the good fight against whatever evil virus she coughed my way. I successfully managed to not actually get very noticably sick, but I sure felt crummy. But, lots of vitamin C, chicken Pho and hot toddies and I'm much better now. However, this also meant that, just so as not to push my luck, I pretty much did nothing this weekend. Saturday I truly did nothing. I slept in late and then watched DVDs all afternoon/evening. Today I got out of the house, all the way to WalMart, where a bunch of crazy Utahns managed to tick me off. Utahns drive very poorly. Really, they are starting to approach Florida bad. It's awful. I heard an explanation that is really amusing. They are all brought up (as Mormons) to be so nice to people all the time that when they are in their cars and no one knows who they are all their pent up anger and frustration comes out. Seriously, they are mean and terrible drivers. But, I can deal with it, people everywhere are terrible drivers.

Since I was sick all week I really didn't do anything, so there's really nothing exciting to report on other than my first week at work. Maybe next week will be more exciting. We'll see.

I am gainfully employed!!!!!!!

I got a job. The job that I really wanted too!!! I am oh so very excited. I will be working for Franklin Covey, the day planner and organizational tool company. How completely appropriate since I'm such a great organizer. :) The past two and a half weeks have been so slow and long because it's just been the waiting game. Waiting to hear after I send out resumes, waiting to hear if I got a second interview, waiting for the interview times, waiting to hear back after the second interview. I was going a little crazy with all the waiting. Today I decided to walk down to the grocery store and on the way back my phone rang and it was the wonderful woman from Franklin Covey offering me a job. It was funny too, cause she sounded all nervous when she told me the salary, like it wasn't going to be enough, but it was more than I had been expecting to make in this area (since the cost of living is so much lower than in the philly area). So, I'm very excited and very happy to be employed.

Other than that SLC continues to be a lovely city to live in. I'll try to post more now. I've been avoiding post because the only thing I had to talk about was job search stress and I didn't want to jinx it.

Skiing "out west", aka "trying to kill myself"

Okay folks, coulda warned me just a bit that skiing out west not only is totally different, but that the concept of green circle out here is TOTALLY different from the concept of green circle back east. I accidentally went down a green circle/blue square and fell for the first time skiing in probably 12-13 years. The last time I remember falling skiing was when Sarah's dad dragged me down a blue square that I was SO not ready for and I ended up falling and sliding backwards down the mountain about 20 feet. I think I was about 13 then, maybe 14. I did about 5 runs down the green circles and called it quits. Not only had I had quite enough of the scary green circles, but it was also blizzarding out, so that was a little new for me too. I think it's been a REALLY long time since I've been skiing while it's snowing. It let up very briefly while I was up there today, but then it was windy and snowing like crazy again. It made for lovely ski conditions, but not so lovely visability. Luckily I had my motorcycle goggles with the prescription glasses insert in them with me, so those were great. But, all in all it was fun. I will definately go back, hopefully one day when it's not blizzard conditions out there.

Other than that, not much going on. Hoping to hear from some people about jobs tomorrow, we shall see. Think happy thoughts for me. I think I picked up a little good karma today when I gave some people a ride up the mountain near the ski resorts. They were going to do some crazy hiking and backcountry skiing. I'm not entirely sure I understood what they were doing, something with telemark skis. But, they were grateful for the ride. Although I may have used up all that good karma when I got my rental skis for free because I asked if the guy had seen my roommate around.

I may never leave....

Okay, other than the whole not having a job thing, which will hopefully be shortly remedied, I may never leave SLC. I have found a city with good fish tacos, excellent sushi and four real seasons. I may be in heaven. Except for all the mormons. Not that I've had a problem with a single mormon yet. They've all been really nice and polite and helpful. So have some non-mormons. My roommates are great people. So far things are going pretty well. Like I said, just need to get the whole job thing worked out. Anyone got any suggestions on lighting a fire under these hr people?

I live in Salt Lake City!!

I found a place to live yesterday and I slept there last night. Actually I'm typing from my room, so I guess it's here, not there. :) I found a room in a cute house in a nice neighborhood called Sugar House. It seems to be the liberal eclectic part of town. There's a Wild Oats grocery store close by, a $1.50 movie theater that shows second run movies, an amazing sushi place and lots of other fun stuff. It's very exciting. Now all I have to do is find a job. I've applied to six jobs already and hopefully I'll hear back from them soon. A few of them sound really good, a few just sound good enough. So, cross your fingers for me.

Okay, so beyond that, I'll finish up a bit about my trip. When last we spoke I was in Santa Rosa, NM. From there I did pretty much just drive and drive to Arizona. With one little detour through the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest National Park. That's pretty cool, really beautiful desert and trees that turned to stone. I think I got a lot of good pictures there. Now I just have to find the nearest Ritz Camera to get them developed. Or some other decent film developing place. Okay, just checked, there are Ritz Cameras here in SLC, YAY!!!!!

I got to the Grand Canyon area round 8:30 Thursday night, so I just found a place to sleep. The Best Western outside the park was very reasonable, since it was off season. They also had a very nice jacuzzi which I took advantage of. The room was decent too. In the morning I got up, got some breakfast (free continental of course) and headed to the canyon. It's pretty cool looking. Definately something everyone should see at least once. I drove around and took some pictures. I didn't really do much hiking or anything, since I was alone and I'm sure that someday I'll drag someone back there, hopefully a future husband and children.

Sidebar: Our washer seriously sounds like it's going to take off for interstellar travel any minute now. Definately can't do laundry at night.

Anyway, left Grand Canyon for the long and GORGEOUS drive to Bryce Canyon area. This country just has some of the most amazing and varied beautiful landscape. I just love driving around the country. I had never seen this part, so it was just an all new awe inspiring journey. Absolutely amazing. Most of what I was driving through was a huge Navajo Indian Reservation in north eastern Arizona. It was amazing country scattered with these little Indian shacks and towns and such. Not very useful land in terms of farming, but ranching seemed good. Although it seemed like mostly the Indians made their money selling crap to the tourists in the summer. There were A LOT of roadside stands set up.

Got to Bryce area around 5:30pm, got a room at Ruby's Inn Best Western, then went and took some more pictures at Bryce. There was a dusting of snow laying around the area, which looked very pretty. The sun was also beginning to set, so that added some nice lighting effects. However, it was REALLY windy and VERY cold, so I didn't stick around for actual sunset. I went back to the hotel, had dinner, went to the indoor pool and jacuzzi and then went back to watch several episodes of CSI before falling asleep. Saturday was just a lot of driving to SLC and then getting to SLC and trying to get a hold of someone with a room and then finding a hotel room when I didn't find a room in a house. Sunday I found my room, moved all my stuff into it and built a futon bed from Wal-Mart. That and watched bits and pieces of the Oscars and then applied to several jobs. I felt very accomplished when I went to bed.

People are leaving North Carolina in droves...

Seriously folks, something wierd is going on with North Carolina. People are leaving the state in what must be record numbers. In terms of out of state plates in every state that I've been through on I-40 so far, I've seen significantly more North Carolina tags than any other. Most of these tags have been on cars being towed behind UHaul trucks. Many others have been cars or trucks so loaded with stuff one can only assume they have left North Carolina for good. Anyone have any thoughts on this subject?

Besides the strangeness of the quantity of NC tags I've seen, nothing particularly odd has happened yet. This morning I went to the Oklahoma City National Memorial. It's the memorial to the Oklahoma City federal building bombing that happened on April 19, 1995. It's a really beautiful memorial and a very interesting and sad museum. I stopped reading all the info about 2/3 of the way through the museum because it was just too depressing. And that was also the point where they started talking a lot about finding McVeigh and Nichols and their trials and such. I remember a lot about that part, so I didn't need to know any more. I was there more for the facts about the bombing. Anyway, from there I just drove and drove through the rest of Oklahoma, the panhandle of Texas and into New Mexico. Now I'm staying at a campground in Santa Rosa, New Mexico which happens to have wireless. So, I'm sitting in the truck typing this. Very nice.

Tomorrow I plan to just drive and drive again and hopefully make it to the Grand Canyon area. I'll either stay in Flagstaff or drive up to the Grand Canyon where there is a hotel just outside the park entrance that is fairly reasonably priced.

Hello from Oklahoma...

OKLAHOMA, where the waving wheat, it sure smells sweet...... and so on...

That song gets stuck in my head whenever I drive through Oklahoma. Which, okay, honestly this is only the third time I've ever driven through Oklahoma, but still, it's stuck there.

Yes folks, I'm in Oklahoma. Oklahoma City, OK to be exact. So, last time I updated was just before Nashville. Nashville turned out to be not particularly exciting, which may have had something to do with the fact that it was a Sunday in February. But, anyway, I got to Memphis Sunday night, stayed at a hotel there, then explored Memphis in the morning and early afternoon. I went to the National Civil Rights Museum, which was really interesting. Then I walked around on Beale Street listening to the song Walking in Memphis sung by Lonestar (also a famous country band). Yes, I'm a big giant dork. :) Then I went to Graceland. Continuing the dorkiness, I listened to Paul Simon's Graceland on my way out there. Graceland was fascinating. Very 70's and gaudy, but interesting.

From there I made my way to Hot Springs, Arkansas. I stayed at a campground, spending my first night in the back of the truck. It wasn't too bad. Slept comfortably and very safe. Today I checked out Hot Spring, AR. It's a very cute little town with a lot of history. Definately worth the trip if you ever have the chance. I got a hot springs bath at the one bathhouse that's still open on Bathhouse Row. There are others being renovated to be reopened, but none are completed yet. There are also other places to get hot springs baths, but there's only one that's on the original Bathhouse Row. It was interesting too. I explored more of the town until about 1:30pm and then I headed off to Oklahoma. That's all very summarized. I hope to expand on these past few days and the days to come later.

Quick update to be expanded later....

Okay, very quickly I'm going to update. I am in Tennessee, just east of Knoxville. I'm about 3 hours from Nashville. Tomorrow morning I will be heading to Nashville to explore the city and then hopefully finding a place to sleep somewhere between Nashville and Memphis, unless some hotel in Nashville draws me in, or I end up staying there very late. However, since everything I want to see closes at 5pm, I doubt I'll get stuck there late. Thankfully time zones are on my side and I will gain an hour sometime between here and Nashville. Going east to west ROCKS!!! It's fun going back in time. :)

Anyway, let me sum up the past few days. Wednesday Jake, his former roommate Matt and I went to Bear Creek Mountain ski area. Jake snowboarded all day, Matt skiied (sp?) all day and I mixed the two. I finally tried snowboarding. It was fun for about 4 hours, then I got tired of falling on my butt, knees and chest and I was starting to get a headache, so I switched to skis for the remaining 2-3 hours that we were there. It was a really great day. I got a good feel for snowboarding and I will definately try it again.

Thursday I tried to pack up the truck, but didn't get all the way done. Friday I tried to finish up and get Jake's taxes done. Accomplished the taxes and most of the packing up, but didn't get it all accomplished fast enough to leave town on Friday. So, I left first thing this morning. That's all for now. Actually, I don't know if any of that needs elaboration. We'll see if I find something more to write about. The only interesting thing that really happened today was seeing a doppelganger of a friend of mine's son. I'm going to go try and sleep now.

Roundtrip roadtrip, country stars and more

So, last week was a very exciting week. Tuesday morning I left early and drove to Lexington, KY. The point of the trip was to go to Paducah, KY (extreme western KY) to pick up a pie safe (large antique cabinet) for friends of mine that they had bought on eBay. I have a friend in Lexington from CMU, so it was a great opportunity to catch up with him. We hadn't seen each other in five years. We went out to dinner together, which proved more difficult than one would generally imagine. I happened to end up in Lexington on Valentine's Day, so every restaurant was totally packed. It was completely crazy. We drove around for a half hour trying to find a place to eat. We eventually found a place and sat down to catch up. It was fun. Then he let me crash at his place which was great. The next morning I got up very early and headed to Paducah. I got there around noon Paducah time (it is in Central time) and picked up the pie safe. Then I headed back to Lexington. I got there fairly late in the evening so I just went to a hotel.

It was a very nice hotel and not too terribly expensive. But, the amusing thing was that the first room they sent me to had someone's luggage in it and smelled really strongly of men's cologne, like he'd just left. That was a little freaky. So, they got me a new room and gave me a card for a free breakfast. That was pretty nice. I slept really well and headed out of Lexington around 9am the next morning. The drive was pretty boring for the most part. However, the one exciting part that I just determined the facts of was that I saw Brad Paisley's tour bus. Okay, so Adam is probably the only person who knows who he is, but honest, he's a REALLY big country star. I was driving along and saw this really huge dark fancy looking bus ahead of me. Eventually I caught up to it and it said "Corvette" on the back. I don't know what that was about, but it was fancy. It had a WVU license plate in a spare license plate holder and then the rim around the real license plate said Brad Paisley. I was all "that's so freakin' cool if that's Brad Paisley's bus". But, I wasn't sure. Then I went to his website and it seems he's from West Virginia and was in the area where I was at the right time. So, I'm pretty much positive it was Brad Paisley's bus. SO AWESOME!!!

Anyway, got back from KY and unloaded the pie safe at my friend's house. Then Friday I got to babysit the youngest baby I've ever babysat. That was a whole new world. I've never heated up a bottle or watched a baby who is not very easily distracted. It was fun though. I had a great time watching him and learning more about what babies that age are like. Friday night I met up with some people at The Drafting Room in Exton and also managed to randomly run into another friend. It's so funny to run into people like that. It was great. I know, lots of things were great this week. I'm terrible at coming up with new adjectives.

Saturday I drove all over creation looking for rollerblade wheels and a cot. That was really frustrating and I don't really want to talk about it. I found a cot, but haven't gotten rollerblade wheels yet.

Anyway, Sunday I did some running around helping people move things with my truck. In the afternoon I rented a Rug Doctor from Genaurdi's and cleaned my grandmother's carpet in her downstairs living room. My brother had spilled a bunch of coke on the carpet and it was bothering my grandmother. The Rug Doctor worked wonderfully. The carpet looks great now.

That's the end of the week really. Yesterday was a holiday though, so the Girl Scouts all had the day off. They had a bowling trip planned and that sounded like fun, so I went along. I didn't think I'd actually be bowling, I thought I'd just be watching the kids bowl and talking to the parents. But, a few kids hadn't shown up, so the girls asked me to take someone's place. I had a lot of fun. I really enjoy bowling. I did pretty well too. It was fun.

So, after all that fun, I can't wait to get the flip out of town. I'm packing up the truck today and hopefully doing a whole pile of other things so that I can get on my way tomorrow.

Snow and MHS amusement

Okay, first off, all MHSers out there, you HAVE to check this out. It's too funny. There are reviews of a lot of the teachers we had and the teachers that were students with us.

Off that topic now, it SNOWED this weekend. I LOVE IT!!!! 18 inches of snow in King of Prussia and the world is lovely and white and pure. I love snow!! It started Saturday afternoon and went through Sunday midday. Saturday I went out in the snow and picked up some stuff from Trader Joe's. It was so packed, totally crazy. It was just as bad as Genaurdi's had been the day before. But, I got what I wanted and got out relatively smoothly. There were way more people out in the snow than I had expected. But, the roads weren't too bad. I spent the rest of the day and evening at home watching movies and Olympics and Law & Order with my grandmother. At one point Sarah and I were IMing each other and commenting on the pairs skating event that we were watchin and the commercials. That was fun. I've never done remote tv commentating.

This morning Jake kept waking me up. Around 7am he woke me up trying to dig his very lousy vehicle out of the snow. It's a decent enough vehicle when it's not snowing, but it is just not meant for the snow. He and Brandon couldn't get it unstuck so they managed to get it into a sorta parking space on the street. Then they came back inside and made random noises that kept waking me up. The final straw was about 10am he was SCREAMING over his Nextel phone to his boss giving him directions to get to the house. That was the end of all sleeping for me. I got up and made coffee and played on the computer for a while. Then I was really bored so I went outside and cleaned off the truck. There was A LOT of snow on top of it. Seeing as I wasn't cleaning it off for any particular reason I was having a lot of fun. I think if I'd been cleaning it off cause I was trying to get somewhere I'd have been annoyed about it. While I was cleaning off the truck the snow shoveling guy that Gram contracted with showed up. He was very hippy like and we talked about traveling and such. However, he was also very tired and ended up doing a rather pathetic job on the shoveling. When Brandon moved his SUV later I had to do a lot of shoveling around where it had been and then I had to move the truck to do the same. I had offered to move the vehicles for the shoveling guy, but he wasn't interested. But, it's okay, cause I got a great workout. :)

Stealing from Sarah.... again

Sarah finds all the best stuff. See following:

Total number of tracks: 2284

Sort by song title:
* First Song: --Untitled--, Autechre, Autechre
* Last Song: Zoot Suit Riot, Cherry Poppin' Daddies


Sort by time:
* Shortest Song: The End, Maceo Parker, Dial MACEO, 0:04
* Longest Song: drane2, Autechre, Autechre, 18:42

Sort by album:
* First Song: Send Me an Angel - Real Life, Various Artists, '80s Retro (Disc 1)
* Last Song: I have a lot of songs without album data at the end, but the last one with album data is: The Rockafeller Skank, Fatboy Slim, You've Come a Long Way Baby

Top 10 Most Played Songs:
1. 16 Military Wives, The Decemberists
2. All These Things That I've Done, The Killers
3. Narc, Interpol
4. Finding Out True Love Is Blind, Louis XIV
5. Blue Orchid, The White Stripes
6. Going Through the Motions, Aimee Mann
7. Sheep Go To Heaven, Cake
8. Son Et Lumiere, The Mars Volta
9. The Perfect Drug, Nine Inch Nails
10. Forever My Friend, Ray LaMontagne

First five songs that come up on Party Shuffle:
1. Give Me One Reason, Tracy Chapman
2. Mrs Robinson, Lemonheads
3. Pass In Time, Beth Orton
4. Such Great Heights, The Postal Service
5. Cross My Fingers, John Hiatt

Search for:
"sex", how many songs come up?: 3
"love", how many songs come up?: 77
"you", how many songs come up?: 222
"death", how many songs come up?: 7
"hate", how many songs come up?: 15
"wish" how many songs come up? 5

There we go. Anyway.... I'm in the Philly area, which leads to me not posting, cause I feel like nothing is going on. Saturday was the Robert Burns' Supper, which was a great party as always. I made Caledonian Oatmeal Ice Cream that was a huge hit. Not much other than that.

Cruising and Valuable Lessons Learned

I'm back from my 3-night cruise on the Carnival Fascination from Miami, FL to Nassau, Bahamas.

Here are a few things I learned this weekend:

- I will not go on another Carnival cruise

- I will cruise again, only this time on one of the ships I originally wanted to go on, a Royal Caribbean Voyager class ship.

- Cruising alone is not much fun unless you are Pamela Anderson and really outgoing, neither of which describes me. I will take someone with me on any future cruises, even if I have to kidnap someone.

- Green Iguanas spit when it's mating season and you are trying to get a picture from too close up, but... it's not poison spit.

- I will not return to the Bahamas on a cruise.

- I will only return to the Bahamas if it's to stay at Atlantis. It looks very cool and very good for kids too.

So, as you can see the cruise was a valuable learning experience. It was good for the most part. Not particularly exciting though. There's not a lot to do on that ship besides eating and drinking. Neither of those really appeals to me. The food is not good enough to eat constantly. The drinks were also weak and too sweet. The bed was nice, very cozy sheets. The room was small, but not too bad. The biggest problem was that the public places smelled like urine. I'm serious. It was really gross. That's definately why I will not go on another Carnival cruise ship again. They are old and they obviously don't care much about keeping them up. The lack of things to do is also a big problem. They have a lot of cheesy games and activities planned. LOTS of bingo.

Saturday was the day in Nassau. It's not that great. Really not my style. Very geared towards shopping. The only thing I got was a present for Sarah which I can't talk about here yet cause she hasn't seen it yet. I'll tell everyone about it once she's seen it. I hope she likes it.

Saturday started out with my massage. It was decent. It was a massage and facial combo. The facial part was much nicer. She didn't seem to know what she was doing really with the massage. I will probably not get a massage on a ship again. There are much better ways to spend money on a good boat. Then I headed off to the island. It was around noon, so I didn't want to head to the beach yet and get burnt. I found lunch at Twin Brothers. It wasn't very good, it was expensive and the waitress forgot about me. After that I walked over to the Ardastra Gardens and Zoo. That was cool. They had some interesting animals. I was trying to get a picture of this huge iguana's head. I couldn't get the camera to focus right. The iguana got sick of me being that close and spit on me. Seriously, it was funny. He shook his head a couple times, geared up and spit at me.

After that adventure I walked back and tried to make my way to the beach on Paradise Island. FYI, if you want to get to PI quickly, don't take the ferry unless you get there just as they are about to leave. A taxi would be much quicker. They sit around until the boat is overloaded with people before they leave. Once I managed to get to PI it was a whole other thing trying to find the beach. I managed to end up on the Atlantis property. That was a big whoops! I don't think I was supposed to be there. But no one seemed to notice that I didn't have a bracelet on. It's a very cool looking hotel. They have great looking pools and water slides and seperate pools for different ages. It's great. I would really like to go back. It will definately be on the option list for a honeymoon, if one ever happens. :)

Anyway... I finally found the beach and most of it was private Atlantis beach. Once I walked really far down the uncomfortable-to-walk-on white sand beach I found the public beach. I also found a guy renting out jet skis. He coerced me into renting one for a half hour. Luckily I didn't have enough money on me so he rented it to me for $40 instead of the list price of $60. That was actually A LOT of fun. Jet skiing on the ocean is quite a bit different from jet skiing on the Schuylkill.

After that I was totally soaked, so I had to get back to the ship to change. I was going to walk all the way back but then I saw that they were loading up one last ferry. So I ran down to chatch it. The captain was a total jerk to me because I had some sand on my bag. He was whining about getting the ship dirty. Stupid ferry guys. Once I got back to the ship I got a shower and got changed to go find some dinner. That proved far more difficult than I had expected. The area near the docks shuts down in the evening. Nothing was open except Senor Frogs. But the food there turned out to be pretty good. It was Mexican. I had tortilla soup and veggie fajitas. It was good. I also got a completely non-alcoholic iced tea, which came in a big plastic souvenir cup. On the way back to the ship I emptied the melted ice down a rain water drain. From behind me some guy yells "Hey, that's alcohol abuse, I saw that!" I yelled back that it was just water abuse and ended up walking back to the boats with he and his friend. They were on the Carnival Celebration though, not my ship. The other problem was that the cute one was married. Oh well. So, I just went back to my boat and watched Mr. and Mrs. Smith.

Sunday I slept in late, which was great. I went and got lunch and had a great conversation with a couple from Chicago about other cruises and vacations and such. The wife was telling me that there was definately a lot more to do on Royal Caribbean cruises than on the Carnival cruises. She thinks that I would enjoy a Royal Caribbean cruise a lot more. I think so too. Since it was my birthday I decided to do a little shopping after lunch. Everything on the ship is duty free and also discounted (supposedly) from US retail prices. Most of the stuff I agree on the discounted part, but I'm not so sure about the alcohol. It didn't seem that much cheaper to me. But, I also don't buy much alcohol, so maybe I'm wrong. Anyway, I looked around and found a very pretty Hot Diamonds necklace for myself. Hot Diamonds is a company that puts very very tiny little diamonds into sterling silver jewelry. I like it a lot and it's pretty inexpensive. My necklace was only $78. It was a lovely present purchased with the ship board credit that my mom gave me. I took a picture of it on me that I'll probably put up on Flickr.

Not much else happened on Sunday. The Steelers won the AFC Championship, so that's very exciting. GO STEELERS!!! Hey, at least they are still from PA. The Eagles aren't worth rooting for at this point. I watched Bewitched, which was eh. Dinner was also eh. They brought out Baked Alaska for dessert, which was terrible, and then they wouldn't take orders for dessert from the regular menu until they got done with this horrible cheesy dance number. I almost got up and walked away, but I had to get the taste of the Baked Alaska out of mouth. After that I walked around the deck, took some pictures and then went to bed. I had to get up really early so that I could get into the Early Bird line to get off the boat. If you could carry your own luggage you could get off the boat at 7:00am. Otherwise you had to wait until after 8:30am and after your tag color was called. Since I was in the basement of the ship basically, I figured it'd be a while till my number got called. My luggage wasn't that hard to handle, I hadn't taken much. So, I just got up at 6:00am and got off early. I was back at my dad's house by noon on Monday, so it worked out well.

Today I just relaxed around the house, did laundry, and now I'm going to go pack up. I'm heading back to Philly tomorrow for hopefully a week or two. When exactly tomorrow I leave is entirely dependent on the Adelphia cable guy. We've been having problems here at Turk's house with the cable going in and out. It'll go out for hours at a time, which is a big pain in the neck, especially if Turk is trying to work from home. We've tried several different things, including getting a new modem, none of which have helped. So, tomorrow comes the cable guy, hopefully he can figure something out. Hopefully he also comes really early in the morning so I can head out nice and early. Wish me luck!

On a Boat

Yes indeed, I am on my cruise. Yes, it's only 6:45pm and I have already made my way to the internet cafe. So far not off to a thrilling start, but I'm looking forward to things getting better this evening, I hope. I also scheduled a massage for tomorrow morning, so that will be really nice. Then it's off to hang out on lovely Nassau, Bahamas for the day. I'll keep you posted. I bought a 30 minute internet cafe pack.

New Adventures all around!

Well, I know I haven't updated in a bit. That's because things were pretty boring and frustrating and annoying for a while down here. The truck ended up needing parts that are taking a while to order and it's just making me nuts. I really appreciate that my dad is putting so much effort into making the truck ready to go for me. It's a really awesome birthday present. But, it delayed my travel back to Philly and changed my birthday plans again. But that turned out really well anyway, so it's pretty much all good in the end.

I'm going on a cruise after all. Three night cruise to the Bahamas on the Carnival Fascination. I'm really looking forward to it. It should be really nice. I will definately update either from the ship or as soon as I get back and let you all know how it goes.

On another completely FABULOUS note.... one of my absolute favorite people in the world called me today and told me that she asked her girlfriend to marry her. I am SO HAPPY for both of them. They are so happy together and so perfect. I am so so so happy for my friend (who's name I will mention if she gives me permission). She deserves this happiness so much!

So, that's the new adventure news for today. I'll try and keep you posted as my adventures progress.

Help!

I need ideas! Or a cruise buddy. I'm trying to figure out what to do for my birthday, which for those of you that don't know or don't remember is January 22. It's my 25th birthday. I want to do something cool. I wanted to go on a cruise, but I can't find anyone to go with me. The cruise I want to do is January 29-February 5, Royal Caribbean Western Caribbean cruise on the Explorer of the Seas (one of the big ships with the ice skating and rock wall and mini-golf). It stops in Belize City, Belize; Costa Maya, Mexico; Cozumel, Mexico; and Georgetown, Grand Cayman, all starting and ending in Miami, FL. If anyone seriously wants to go with me, let me know. I'm sure there are many that would love to go, but can't.

But, that's besides the point. Seriously, I'm asking for suggestions. Any thoughts as to what I should do for my big quarter century? Did any of you out there reading that have already passed this number do anything big for your 25th? I was thinking about maybe learning how to snowboard. Any thoughts on that? Feel free to either leave me a comment, or just email me.

Other than stressing trying to figure out what to do for my birthday, there's nothing really going on here. I'm taking the truck to get fixed/looked at next week. After that, I have no clue.

The year in interesting questions... or stealing great ideas from Sarah

I stole this off of Sarah, but it was interesting. I'm curious to see what my own answers will end up being to some of these questions.

1. What did you do in 2005 that you'd never done before? Quit my job without having another job to go to.

2. Did you keep your New Years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I don't really do resolutions, never have. I think I've always known I wouldn't be any good at sticking to them.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? Stacey, one of my very cool quasi co-workers. I've also known Carin (Sarah's cousin) for practically as long as I've known Sarah, though not as well certainly, so that sorta counts too. Oh, and Jen just barely made it into 2005, giving birth on Dec. 29.

4. Did anyone close to you die? My father's half brother died, but the last time I'd seen him I think I was about 18 months old, so we weren't close emotionally and I didn't go to his funeral. Other than that I can't think of anyone. Definately didn't go to any funerals, thankfully. God willing, 2006 will be the same.

5. What countries did you visit? Canada, a beautiful and friendly country.

6. What would you like to have in 2006 that you lacked in 2005? Sanity... :) I don't know, a quiet place to live.

7. What date from 2005 will remain etched upon your memory? October 21, my last day at my job.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Quitting my job, which took more thought and questioning and reasoning and guts than anything I've done in a really long time.

9. What was your biggest failure? The bus.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? Thankfully no, at least nothing major.

11. What was the best thing you bought? ipod. laptop.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration? Sarah, she worked harder than I've ever seen her work and did it with grace. She has totally amazed me this year, from beginning to end.

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed? George W. Bush

14. Where did most of your money go? into my house

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? buying the bus... and then going to Canada.

16. What song/album will always remind you of 2005? Garden State Soundtrack, particularly Blue Eyes

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? eh, the same
ii. thinner or fatter? sadly, I think a bit larger
iii. richer or poorer? ummm.... that depends on how you look at it, I have more money in the bank now, but I also have no income at the moment.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of? Spent more time with Sarah. Spoken up for myself.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of? Responding to ads on craigslist. :)

20. How will you be spending Christmas? Spent Christmas with Mom and Jake in CA.

21. Who did you spend the most time on the phone with? Probably a toss up between my mom and my realtor's voicemail. Okay, not really, most likely my mom.

22. Did you fall in love in 2005? Nope

23. I had to delete this question for purposes of the possibility of young people reading this, and I wouldn't have answered it anyway.

24. What was your favorite TV program? Lost, CSI, House (discovered late in the year)

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year? no

26. What was the best book you read? The Chronicles of Narnia (the first 6, I don't really like The Last Battle)

27. What was your greatest musical discovery? Matisyahu, that guy is just amazing.

28. What did you want and get? a bus

29. What did you want and not get? a Bentley Continental GT

30. What was your favourite film of this year? oh, dear Lord, that's an awful question to ask me, there were so many awesome movies I saw this year: Unleashed, Sin City, Kung Fu Hustle, etc. etc. But, I guess my favourite would be Garden State, because it really made me realize something about myself. I know that sounds cheesy, but one of the lines in the movie just put into words exactly how I'd been feeling for months, but just hadn't been able to figure out what it was. I saw the movie and a lightbulb went off in my head.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? For my 24th birthday I finally made it to Maggianno's for dinner with a group of my favorite people, it was great.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? The bus not being screwed up, or having been able to get my old bus back.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2005? I really don't have a personal fashion concept, I dress all over the place.

34. What kept you sane? I'm not sure anything did... I guess the hope that things would get better, or I'd find something better.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you like the most? uh, no one really impressed me this year.

36. What political issue stirred you the most? uh, I probably shouldn't talk about that here, it might anger some of my readers.

37. Who did you miss? Sarah, a lot.

38. Who was the best new person you met? Gilly.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2005. I cannot ever buy a car for myself again, from now on Turk will be forced to make every car buying decision for me.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year? "everything in this world, everything in this life has an inner essence, and inner soul… it comes into this world for one reason, that it should transform the darkness into light, so make it light" -Matisyahu

Happy New Year!

So, I've finally gotten around to posting the bus for sale on thesamba.com. It's a VW centered website mostly geared towards posting of vehicles and parts. It's how I bought the bus, so I figure it's a good way to sell it. Wish me luck.

Other than that things have been good and uneventful here in Florida. New Year's Eve was nice. Turk, Theresa and I went out for dinner to a very nice steakhouse in City Place. Then we went over to the Palm Beach Convention Center for the Dave Mason and Leon Russell concert. Dave Mason was great. I don't think I ever realized some of the songs he sang. I recognized several of his songs. It was very good. Leon Russell however was not so good. He's only 63, but he seems more like 83. I think I understood maybe 15 words out of the whole hour+ long concert. He got out there, played through the set as fast as he could without pausing and then left. It was pretty lame. But, Dave Mason was worth it anyway. After the concert the ride home was extremely foggy, so we were quite happy to go straight home and not be out in the fog with all the crazy bad drivers.

My assignment for this week is to take Turk's pickup truck to the nearest, or most highly recommended if Turk can find someone to recommend, Dodge dealership. It needs to be tuned up and it pulls very badly to the right, so that needs to be looked at as well. It will likely need a few things. This is all in preparation for the possibility of me driving off in it for a few months. So, let's hope that goes smoothly as well. Not much exciting going on here. I'm also going to go out hunting for a pair of boots now that the holiday shopping madness and the odd store hours should be over. Not that I need boots in the 80 degree Florida weather, but I'll need them eventually.

Merry Christmas

It was 70 degrees outside on Christmas day where I am. This is still very strange to me. Christmas is supposed to be filled with snow, or at least be cold. I'm not supposed to be spending the entirety of Christmas day walking around in jeans and a tank top. But, it was a lovely Christmas nonetheless. My mom like the presents I got her in Berkeley and the books. I got some shirts from NY & Co., Millions (the movie), a very nice personalized travel alarm clock with a picture inside it of me and my mom when I was very tiny, a 1.0gb card for my camera (which I don't really need so it's going back to Costco today) and some money to buy some boots (which I really do need). We had to wait until almost 11am to open presents because Jake slept in and then decided that Christmas morning, while everyone is waiting to open presents, is the morning he's gonna get a shower. Whatever! He liked the present I got him in Seattle.

Other than that, my time in SoCal has been very nice and relaxing and uneventful. We spent a lot of time chilling out. I did some errands last week while my mom was still working. We ate some wonderful sushi and enjoyed the excellent company of Katie, one of my mom's friends from work. We picked up Jake very late at the airport and then discovered that Manny's El Loco taco shop is either 24/7 or open really late. We've had several wonderful dinners at home, including one which I got to cook. Last night we had a traditional Christmas dinner including a roasted chicken, mashed sweet potatoes, corn, stuffing (yuck), cranberry sauce (double yuck) and rolls.

I really enjoy spending time with my mom, but there's only so much SoCal I can stand. The traffic and all, there's just too many people for my liking. I'm looking forward to heading to Florida tomorrow.