I'm about to fly home for my cousin's wedding this weekend. It promises to be a good time with nice fall weather. Hopefully my sister has sufficiently recovered from H1N1 to not get the rest of us sick and to be able to enjoy herself at the wedding.

This past weekend I met up with Natalie, Judith, Judith's sister, Judith's sister's boyfriend, and Judith's sister's boyfriend's posse at the Equality March in DC. It was great to see them, but I only stayed for a couple hours before I had to leave for my drumming class. I also ran into another woman who dances at Sahara, and she hung out with us during the march. I wish I had been able to stay for the rally after because there were some pretty interesting people speaking. I also wish I could have seen the Daily Show camera crew that was filming. Maybe some other time.

I finally got around to reading Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula: The Case of the Sanguinary Count. This book was completely unnecessary. It's a retelling of Dracula as though Sherlock Holmes had been involved in the case and had really saved the day instead of Van Helsing. Except, Holmes didn't really do much to defeat Dracula. He doesn't even follow Dracula back to Transylvania deciding that his work is done since Dracula's not a problem in England any more. It's written in the style of the Holmes stories with Watson narrating the events and contains an abundance of references to other Holmes stories, as though the author wanted to make sure you knew that he knew his Holmes canon. If anyone really enjoys Dracula and really enjoys Conan Doyle's stories but wants to not care about either, I highly recommend this book. Otherwise, you might want to read it out of morbid curiousity.

In future good news, Amanda Palmer of the Dresden Dolls and Neil Gaiman's girlfriend (only relevant in that they are both cool people who increases each other's coolness factor) is playing in Falls Church November 19! The club is actually across the street from my doctor's office, so I know I won't get lost driving there. If anyone is interested in coming to the show with me, let me know. Tickets are $20, and for an extra $5 per group, we can reserve a table for dining and sitting purposes.

So things have been going really well for me lately. Yay!
( Job )

( Mt. Vernon )

( Book Festival )

( Zoo )

( Nano )

For future awesome things, I will be home October 16-19 for my cousin's wedding. I'm looking forward to it as I am particularly fond of this cousin, and I know the reception will have good food, good drink, and good music. Any Baton Rouge people want to try and get together Friday night or Sunday, let me know. Saturday's fully booked with wedding and other family stuff, but I'd like to see friends if I can.

Brooke and I are going to NYC for Halloween. We're staying with Natalie and Judith and plan on having an awesome time at the Greenwich Village Halloween parade. I'm pondering costumes and welcome any suggestions on the matter.

I'm leaving for Portland tomorrow early and coming back late on the 14th. While most of my time there will be spent working at the Oregon field office, I will have most of tomorrow, all evenings, and all day Saturday free to check out Portland. Here is my current list of things I really want to do if at all possible:

Drive to beach and check out the Pacific coast
Christian Kane (aka Lindsey on Angel, aka Eliot on Leverage) show Sunday, June 7th at Dante's
See the Sinferno Cabaret at Dante's before the Kane show
Pride Festival Saturday, June 13th
UFO Museum
Powell's book store
Rock Bottom Brewery

If anyone (like Ell who told me at least two other things to do that I forgot about) has other suggestions, let me know! I'm bringing my laptop with me, so I'll be able to keep up with the internets while I'm gone.

Unrelated to Portland, we are having visitors soon! Natalie and Judith are coming to visit again June 19-22. We will probably spend some quality time at the Smithsonians and maybe the zoo. Then my uncle is going to be in town June 21-24 for a work thing, and he's taking me to a Nationals-Red Sox game. Yay!

So I've taken another of my month-long breaks from posting. I think I should just accept that I'm going to do that sometimes and not feel bad about it anymore.

Back in March, I had a conference for work at the National Harbor, a more inconveniently located and cheesily pretentious conference center I've yet to see. (Pics here.) The opening speaker was Dave Barry who was just as funny in person as you would expect from his columns and from watching Dave's World with Harry Anderson. The conference was interesting, and I got some good programming ideas the talks I went to.

Earlier this month, our friends, Natalie and Judith, visited us for the Cherry Blossom Festival. We had a great time going around the Tidal Basin and seeing the special events for the festival. The Asian Art Museum had a really cool exhibit on the Shuten-doji with incredible comic style drawings and stories. The American Indian Museum also had a comic exhibit focusing on representation of American Indians in comics and the works of American Indian artists. (Pics here.)

A couple weeks ago, I made another trip out to Mount Vernon to see the new blacksmith shed. They have also added a new blacksmith. (Pics here starting with the blacksmith's shed.) He has a red beard, and his name is Eric. I refrained from making any Viking jokes as he was working with hot metal objects. He is going to be the estate's full-time blacksmith. Apparently they've always contracted the work out to either Williamsburg or other free lance blacksmiths. I think it won't be so pleasant to visit the area in August as it was on the 50F day in April. They have also added short wagon rides by the river.

Belly dancing continues to be fun. I have taken a couple of the weekend workshop classes to check out other teachers. For the summer session, I have decided to take two classes, one for technique and one for performance. The performance class is Hula Belly Fusion, so I will be in a dance during the school's August show. Anyone who's in the area August 15 should come. (I'll remind you again closer to time.) I volunteered to help out backstage for the spring semester show this weekend which should be fun. I've missed being involved in theatrical things.

I started doing volunteer work again. I'm doing clerical work at the National Zoo one or two Saturdays a month to help the volunteer organizers (paid workers) keep up with all their filing and data entry stuff. They don't usually have people request to do office work, so the organizer I interviewed with kept asking me if I really wanted to do it, especially after she found out I've done theater and improv. I reassured her that I really didn't want to deal with kids I wasn't allowed to be mean to. Also, I'd rather do something isn't getting done for lack of volunteers than something that people are scrambling to help with.

Work's been going well. New Boss has finally arrived. It's taking me some time to get used to being supervised again. We went almost 6 months without a direct supervisor, so it's hard for me to view her as anything other than an interruption right now. Probably I'll be used to it again within a month since she has the same laid-back management style as Old Boss. I'll find out in a couple of weeks if I get to go home for work in the beginning of June. It's mostly definite, but I need to call the office down there to make sure they request me.

As some of you already know (because Brooke's been better about posting than I have), we're going to Disney World May 7-10!!! Brooke's dad will be there with MathCounts and invited us to share his hotel room free of charge. We are looking forward to all the rides and the swimming pool with water slide at the hotel.

The Arlington County libraries had their semi-annual sale this past weekend, and I racked up. My best find that would have made the trip worthwhile all on its own: Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula, or The Adventures of the Sanguinary Count. My copy has a way more hilarious cover, a blurry image of which can be found here. I want to put off reading it for a while, so I can savor the possibilities that exist for this book. I also got a Debbie Gibson cd and a book on the 1928 coast-to-coast foot race along Route 66 (main prize $25,000).

Life is pretty good these days.

The library had their annual sale this weekend. So many books!!!!! I also got several CDs, including Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? It is totally as much fun as I remember. I also got a dvd of The Last Starfighter. I look forward to laughing at it hysterically.

Boss got a promotion to another department at work, so we'll be without direct leadership for a few weeks until they decide who will be New Boss. Office gossip says it will probably one of the guys down the hall. I think he's a bit creepy, but everyone else thinks he will do a really good job. Maybe he will be less creepy if I get to know him better. I'm not going to worry about it until I know for sure that he'll be New Boss.

In awesome news, I voted on Friday!! Go Obama!

An important reminder to anyone voting in Virginia, no hats, buttons, stickers, bags, shirts, etc. that explicitly promote one candidate, party, or cause (ex. funding for schools, property tax change, etc.). The poll workers will ask you to remove these items or turn a shirt inside out. I know some polls will have baggy shirts (no idea how big) for people to wear as cover ups if they do not feel like inverting a shirt.

We have some. Yesterday, Brooke and I went out to a pumpkin patch with adjacent corn maze. The corn maze was not as impressive as the one outside Baton Rouge, but it was still fun. We found a deer corpse in the pumpkin patch. It was pretty awesome (pictures to come eventually). There were also a number of pigs wandering about being fed bits of pumpkin and corn cobs by other visitors. They has tomatoes and berries which could be picked as well, but we decided it wasn't worth the trouble, especially since neither of us likes tomatoes.

I went to a book sale today at one of the State Department buildings. The money goes to some good cause, but I forget what it is. I got 4 paperbacks and 3 hardback books for $25! I've already finished Coraline by Neil Gaiman, but it will probably be a while before I get around to American Gods which I also got. I found the 4th book in the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde. Now I need to read the second and buy and read the third book before I touch that one. The sale has everything half price on the last day which is Sunday of next week, so I might go back to see if there is anything I missed.

Work went really well this week. My presentation was well received, and I was able to answer all but one question asked during my presentation. I stayed for all of the presentations though because I thought I might need to answer other questions which I did. There were a few things that I couldn't answer then, so I'll be working on writing up answers to those this week. Another good thing about staying all day for the presentations was the food. Donuts and bagels for breakfast, rice with salmon and chicken and mushrooms for lunch, cookies and brownies for afternoon snack all made the day go by fairly quickly.

ETA: Official birthday party day and time is Sunday, November 9 at 12.30. There will be barbeque, dobage cake, and ice cream.

The forecast said rain all day, so I left my sunglasses at home, didn't wear sunscreen, and brought my umbrella. It sprinkled 3 times throughout the day, and I ended up sunburned. This was all totally worth it.

First talk of the day, I heard Judith Viorst who has written adult fiction and non-fiction, poetry, and children's fiction. Perhaps you have heard of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day? She is an energetic and humorous speaker, and I think her talk was good for kids and adults. She read her new children's book, Nobody Here but Me, about what a boy gets up to when his parents are ignoring him. (Hint: Nothing good.) After that I wandered around for a while collecting free stuff until it was time for her book signing. I got her to sign my copy of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. I like that book because sometimes you just need to be reminded that bad days happen, even in Australia. One kid at the talk asked if Alexander, based on Viorst's son Alexander, ever did go to Australia. Answer: No, but he almost did once.

As Viorst's line was longer than I expected, Neil Gaiman's talk had already started by the time I got my book signed. I decided it would be a better idea to go ahead and get in line for Neil Gaiman's signing than to only hear half his talk since the Library of Congress is going to put up videos of all the author talks later this week. This was a very good idea. I was in line over an hour before he was supposed to start signing, and I didn't get my books signed until almost an hour after he started signing. Now I'm not a very good judge of crowd size, but there were probably well over 500 people in line for Neil Gaiman. The only other author that even came close was Tiki Barber whose line looked about half the size of Gaiman's, and that's only because he used to play in the NFL. Neil Gaiman signed books with a fountain pen which he had to refill just before it was my turn for book signing. I got Fragile Things signed for Ru and Good Omens signed for me. Terry Pratchett signed Good Omens for me at last year's festival with "Burn this book." Neil Gaiman laughed when he saw it and added "* Apply holy match here." after Pratchett's note. I am still very gleeful over this.

I wanted to get Katherine Paterson to sign Bridge to Terabithia, but the volunteers said she was only signing her most recent book. Boohiss. I understand a limit on the number of things an author signs, but I don't understand limiting what those things will be. I hadn't even heard of her new book. It has zero sentimental value for me. So I used the time I was going to spend in Paterson's line resting in the shade before I got in line for Immaculee Ilibagiza. She's a survivor of the Rwandan genocide in the 1990s. Her book Left to Tell is about her life in Rwanda. Mom read it as part of Baton Rouge's Big Read this summer and passed it on to me. I didn't like it nearly as much as Mom did, but I do respect Ilibagiza's current work with the UN. I got Mom's copy of Left to Tell signed which should make her happy.

Since it started actually raining soon after that, I decided to head home. The pictures I got of the day are here. When the Library of Congress does post the videos of the author talks, they will be here. I'm pretty sure it will be sometime this week.

It was quite a dentally focused week as Sebastian, bakanaonna, and I all got shot up by our respective dentists. You will be happy to hear that Sebastian's teeth are now clean, and his eye herpes are clearing up. While he was under for the teeth cleaning, the vet unblocked the duct that was causing him to have eye discharge. My dental experience matched last times, complete with panicky moments when getting shot up. The filling I got last time had been bothering me, but the dentist said I needed to give it more time to settle in. I'll give it another week. If it's still bothering me then, I'll be very tempted to go to a different dentist to get it fixed.

Work has been alright. I'll be really freaking glad when April rolls around, and I'm finished with my current surveys for the year. I'm taking off early tomorrow to go get the third shot for my HPV vaccine. I think it sucks that I have to make an appointment just to go in, get a shot from a nurse, and leave. They're open late enough that I could have gone after I got off work at my regular time otherwise. I guess I could have waited until next week, but I'm not sure how time sensitive the shot spacing is. I really don't want to have to start the series over again.

When trying to select a book to read for my commute, I occasionally get sidetracked with all the options. Thus I have implemented a new selection plan. Brooke is requested to provide a number 1 to 13, corresponding to the shelves of my fiction books (excluding the Dragonlance shelf). Then I select a book from that shelf. It's much easier to pick one book out of 30-40 than one out of 550.

I went to get the first cavity filled and the right side of my mouth deep cleaned. It was not a pleasant experience. I have a fear of needles, so I really don't like shots. Usually I can get through them ok by closing my eyes and taking deep breaths, but I freaked out a bit at the shots today. I think it's because I haven't had one in a while, and I forgot how much I don't like them. Also I'm really self-conscious about having a half droopy face from the drugs. For the next two weeks I have to use a prescription rinse twice a day to make sure my gums don't get infected. The stuff tastes nasty, but it's preferable to having infected gums. I am not looking forward to getting the left side of my mouth done on Tuesday. At least it will be over and done with for six months after that.

Mom and Grandmother, her mom, are coming to visit for the Cherry Blossom Festival in April. Yesterday Mom says Aunt Sarah might come, too. Today Aunt Marie might come as well. Our apartment cannot comfortably hold more than four people, so our guests might be getting a hotel room depending on who actually comes. I hope Marie comes as she is a really fun person to be around, and she's always up for some undignified adventuring. She's old enough that she can get away with saying outrageous things to people, too. Having Aunt Sarah would be nice as she's pretty amenable to a wide variety of activities. Of course the weekend will revolve around what Grandmother wants to/can do. This isn't a bad thing as we will probably focus on festival activities. It just means that we'll have to budget extra time for Grandmother to sit and rest when she needs to. She gets around really well for someone in her late 80s, but she broke her hip a few years ago, and it gives her trouble now and then. Regardless of how many people come, I'm very much looking forward to seeing them and showing off my grown-up apartment and workplace.

On the reading front, I recently finished The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith. I've had the book for a while; I just never got around to reading it. I found the book quite interesting, but I don't know if I actually liked it. I'm not sure that I'll read it again though I am glad I read it once. I know they made a movie of it a few years back. Does anyone know if it was any good? Did it follow the book very closely?

I'm currently rereading Captains Courageous by Rudyard Kipling. I read it in high school and enjoyed it. It's a bit more simplistic than I remembered it, but I'm still enjoying it the second time around. I'm interested in maybe reading more of Kipling's novels. Can anyone recommend one in particular? Any I should avoid? I've read some of his poetry in various English classes along the way and feel it has been a sufficient amount.

The trip to IKEA was amazingly successful this morning. I found a bookcase that would work with the space I had and that sort of matched the rest of my room. It was also much bigger than the bookcase it's replacing. The downside is that it was $80, but I decided to get it anyway since I plan on using this bookcase for years to come. Heading toward the checkout, I noticed the "damaged" section where they sell pre-assembled items that have some small damage to them for a discount. They had the exact bookcase I was planning to buy for $50! The back of the bookcase had a small crack in it, but that doesn't effect it's ability to hold books. So I got a pre-assembled, cheaper version of what I wanted in exchange for a bit of cosmetic damage. Woot! The rest of the day has been spent taking all the books of my old shelf, catalogueing the ones I hadn't got to yet, and reshelving all my books. Official tally of fiction books is 544; non-fiction books to be catalogued later. My new bookcase is so much larger than the one it's replacing that I have two completely empty shelves on the first bookcase. Maybe I'll move some of the non-fiction books of the entertainment center and on to the empty space. I'm not doing any more rearranging today, but I'll think more on it when I'm done cataloguing the non-fiction books.

So my trip to Vegas was pretty awesome. Pictures will be up later this week. We got to Vegas around lunch time on Friday and spent the afternoon checking out the Orleans, our hotel, and gambling a bit. The finals for the National Rodeo were happening that weekend, and all the rodeo pageant queens were also staying at the Orleans. We saw them going out to an event decked out in their sequined and bedazzled suits, sashes, pancake makeup, Aquanet hair, and cowboy hats. That evening Jim and I met up with the people we had intended to meet for dinner and bowling. There was also a birthday cake shaped like a bottle of Miller Lite for one of the guys. I bowled about as well as I ever do (70-80) and really enjoyed meeting these people I had only known online, especially Carren and her friend, Janet, from New York.

Saturday we took the free shuttle down to the Strip to tour the casinos. We went in Paris (extremely well decorated), Planet Hollywood (boring), the MGM Grand (won $25, lots of British people in town for Fight Night), Mandalay Bay, the Luxor (huge Absolut ad on the pyramid), New York New York (they have a really fun roller coaster), the Monte Carlo (quiet and classy), and the Bellagio (so fancy). The Bellagio has a botanical garden that was set up for Christmas with different kinds of pointsettas, reindeer made from pecans, and a huge Christmas tree. After going back to the hotel to rest for a bit and get dinner, we met up with the rest of the group for a limo tour of Las Vegas. We started with the Las Vegas sign to take pictures and met a minister sitting in a lawn chair. Apparently in front of the sign has become a really popular place to get married. Our limo driver told us that the minister had been the minister in the wedding at the end of "Honeymoon in Vegas" which we all thought was pretty cool. After that we went to the Bellagio to watch the fountain show. I'm sure you can see tons of videos of various shows on YouTube. The jets of the fountain move in time with a particular song, and it is amazing to watch. Then we all got back in the limo to go the Mirage and watch the volcano erupt, very cool. Unfortunately the pirate show at Treasure Island was down for maintenance, so we headed directly to Freemont Street for the Freemont Street Experience. There is a canopy that is two blocks long and covers building to building. It is covered with LED lights. Every hour the lights on the street are all shut off, music plays, and there is a light show on the canopy. It is really freaking cool; again you can probably find videos on YouTube. On arriving back at the hotel, all the ladies of the party were presented with red roses!

Sunday we visited Caesar's Palace (won $50, watched the animatronic fountain), The Venetian (amazing decor, spent over 3 hours wandering around), Circus Circus (free circus acts), Gold Coast (boring), and the Rio (awesome show). There is an animatronic fountain at Caesar's Palace that is really cool and pretty good work for animatronics. We went in the Las Vegas Margaritaville, and I got a magnet for the fridge. The Venetian has canals going through the shopping area. There were so many interesting stores that were way out of my price range, but I did get a really awesome, tacky snowglobe as my Vegas souvenier. There was an unfortunate soul dressed as an ice cream cone handing out coupons in front of Haagen-Daaz. Circus Circus was far enough down the Strip that we took a bus there. We saw a juggler, an aerialist, and trapeze artists there. The acts were short, but they were well done and free. The Rio has a show called Masquerade in the Air (or something). They have tracks on the ceiling over one part of the casino floor. For the show, they run several floats suspended from these tracks around the casino. There are dancers on the floats moving to a great dance music compilation. Apparently you can play money to ride on one of the floats during a show. After arriving back at the Orleans, Jim and I decided to play a few hands at a table game since we had only been playing slot machines so far. Jim won some at blackjack. I rocked out at Ultimate Texas Hold 'Em. It's Texas Hold 'Em, but you bet against the dealer instead of the table. I bought in with $20 and finished with $130 about 2 hours later. I came out about $60 ahead on my gambling money which was enough to cover pretty much everything else I bought there.

Monday we flew back, and I slept lots. Tuesday work was slow, but I was kind of muzzy headed from the weekend, so I didn't mind. Tuesday night, I got to see Spamalot for free with Toni since she had gotten some comp tickets. It was just as much fun as the first time I saw it, and we had really awesome seats. Today I hardly got any work done because I went with Coworker L to donate blood in the morning, then we had a department lunch, and I had a meeting this afternoon. This only left about 2.5 hours available to me for actual work. Tomorrow will be better, but I do have another meeting. Friday I'm getting together with Toni to go over her thesis (needs so much help, omg). Saturday hakudoushi is having a gaming party. Maybe I will make my pineapple dish, maybe not. Sundaybakanaonna and I plan on seeing The Golden Compass and checking out the National Christmas Tree. I just finished reading Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, and I highly recommend to people who like fantasy books.

Only a little over a week before I'm home for Christmas! Anyone who's in Baton Rouge on December 22 is welcome to come to Uncle Jim's Christmas party. Call or email me, so I can give you the details. I plan to be in Mobile to visit Chip and Kerry Dec. 27-29, so make plans to see me if you'll be in the area.

My birthday present from bakanaonna finally came in the mail this week. She got me a bookstamp! Now I'm going through all my books and stamping them as I build a database which includes author, secondary author, title, genre, subgenre, series, read, and price. These categories are all necessary, people! I got through one whole bookcase already.

I've been reading a lot more recently since I discovered I can read on the metro without getting motion sick.Castle in the Air, the sequel to Howl's Moving Castle, was just a endearing as I expected from reading the first one. Apparently there will be a third book out in the summer. Yay! I'm going to reread The Golden Compass this week since the movie's coming out soon.

Speaking of movies (that's a fine segue, right there), Brooke and I just got back from seeing Enchanted. It was funny and cute, and I highly recommend that everyone go see it. You'll leave the theater smiling and laughing and generally feeling good about life. James Marsden and Amy Adams really made the movie.

This has been an exceptionally awesome weekend. The National Book Festival on Saturday was great. I had promised video of Terry Pratchett's talk, but I didn't take any. The Library of Congress was kind enough to film all the author talks at the festival and upload them to their website. You can watch as many or as few as you'd like. The videos are approximately 30 minutes each. I recommend Pratchett (of course), Diane Thiel (one of the poets), and Lalita Tademy (fiction). The picture is small, but the sound quality is great. You can save the videos to your computer as well. I hope this makes up for the fact that I didn't film anything. I did, however, take several pictures which I have uploaded to my flickr page. I got Good Omens signed for myself and Guards! Guards! signed for rudebega who is a huge Pratchett fan. I also got Freedom from Fear signed by David M. Kennedy. It's nonfiction about American history from 1929 to 1945. I had to read it for one of my history classes in undergrad, and I really enjoyed it. He won the Pulitzer prize for that book, and he has written several others as well.

Today Jim and I saw Eastern Promises with Viggo Mortensen and Naomi Watts. We both enjoyed the movie. It was more graphic violence than I was expecting, but it all had a purpose in the plot. There was also a lot more Viggo nakedness than I was expecting. I thought the ending was somewhat unexpected, and it worked really well. I might have to rent A History of Violence to see if I generally like Cronenburg's directing or if I just liked this movie.

PSA: I have finally finished captioning all my World Cup pictures and have caught up to pictures taken in this calendar year. I still have a ways to go, but the biggest single batch of photos is done.

I have been having them since Sunday. I took off work today and went to the doctor. He said they seemed to be tension headaches and gave me prescription strength ibprofen. It has helped, but the doctor said if I was still having the headaches in about a week then I should go back to see him again. We shall see.

Last weekend was Jim's birthday, and his mom and sister were in town for the festivities. We watched the Penn State-Michigan and the LSU-South Carolina games at his apartment and ate lots of food. His mom brought cake, and we all helped make shrimp stir fry for dinner. Mmmm. Sunday Jim and I met his mom and sister in Baltimore. We went to a really great farmers' market and then walked around Ft. McHenry where the national anthem was composed. Since the weather was so nice, we ate outside at a restaurant on the Inner Harbor.

This weekend is the National Book Festival. I am extremely excited to hear Terry Pratchett, fantasy; Ken Burns, Civil War non-fiction; and David Kennedy, American history, talk and to get books signed by them. I'm interested in many of the other authors, but the timing doesn't work out for me to listen to them, too. I think it's cool that Judith Marten aka Miss Manners and Cat Cora, the lady Iron Chef, are going to be there, but they are not my top priority. bakanaonna will be back home for a wedding this weekend, so I promised to film Terry Pratchett's talk for her. I will upload it somewhere, so you can all bask in the glow of awesomeness as well. Though someone will more than likely have a better quality film up on Youtube before I even get home Saturday.

So hakudoushi had this meme going, and I wanted in on the fun.

Comment on this post. I will choose 6 interests from your profile and you will explain what each of them means (and why you're interested in them).

1. natural fibers - I like wearing materials made from natural fibers when I can because they breathe better, and the material feels better on my skin.
2. optimization - Optimization is a field of mathematics dealing with optimizing the output of some process. I studied it when I was at school in Germany and find the concept very intriguing.
3. questionable content - Questionable Content is a web comic I read. The guy who does it is a big indie music fan, so there are sometimes jokes I don't get. The comic's worth it though. I would recommend taking the time to read through the archives.
4. xkcd - xkcd is another web comic I read. As the site says, it is "a web comic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language." I would absolutely recommend reading through the archives on this one as well. Look out for the map of the internet; that's a really good one.
5. tamora pierce - Tamora Pierce is a young adult author whose books I continue to enjoy. She writes fantasy quartets about girls who become heroes by going their own way. If you like fantasy, you should definitely give her books a try.
6. bcs - The Bowl Championship Series (BCS) is used to determine NCAA football national champion. I love college football, so I have a great interest in how the system works. I don't like it at all and wish they would go to a play-off system, but that's not happening any time soon.

So I just finished reading the 7th Harry Potter book.

As for Karen's trip, it was fun. We got sushi for dinner Thursday night with bakanaonna. Friday we went on a tour of the Capitol and had lunch with a friend of Karen's. The weather was really great, so we spent a while wandering around Georgetown. Friday evening we met Brooke and Jim for dinner at Old Ebbitt's Grill which I highly recommend to anyone in the DC area. Saturday evening Karen's friend invited us to a barbeque at her apartment. Brooke decided to stay home and read Harry Potter (totally understandable), so Jim and I met up with Karen and people we didn't know for a low key barbeque. Yay food! Karen flew back to Dallas this morning as she starts her job tomorrow.

In other news, we are getting a second cat. There was talk when we were first moving up here about taking Kumo (former inhabitant of bakanaonna' s and ru_debega's apartment) with us. We decided not to as he was happy with our friend Sarah, and we didn't want to drive in a car with him for 17+ hours. Now that Sara is moving, Kumo needs another place to stay, so he's going to come live with us. He won't be getting here until after bakanaonna comes back from family vacation in August. I'm pretty sure he and Sebastian will get along. At least they will have company during the day when Brooke and I are both at work.

So the EU embassies are having a big open house this Saturday. Each of the embassies will have food, music, and talks relating to their individual countries. bakanaonna  and I are very excited about going, both for the free food and for the opportunity to see the inside of several embassies. We might also go see the new Spiderman as we didn't get to it last weekend.

This week at work I have learned the perils of being efficient. Boss gave me a small programming project to help me work on my programming skills and get a bit more familiar with some of the other surveys. I think he was expecting it to take me about a week, but I finished it in two days. Now he's given me another programming assignment which is exponentially harder. I think this one actually will take me at least a week, probably two. Rar.

For people who love to read, I have two recommendations for you, Alberto Manguel's A History of Reading and Anne Fediman's Confessions of a Common Reader. They are both nonfiction books about reading and the joy it can bring to your life. I recently checked out several of Manguel's other books, but I haven't gotten around to reading them yet. Hopefully they will be just as good as the one I have read.

I keep up with Ken Jenning's (the guy who rocked Jeopardy!) blog and have found him to be an amusing writer, so I got his book, Brainiac, from the library this weekend. It is excellent, and I highly recommend it to everyone. I enjoyed it so much that, later this week, I will be making a trip to Barnes & Noble to purchase a copy for myself.