I had a great Time in Seattle with my family. Pictures of our adventurous adventuring can be found here. We visited Pike's Place Market and watched the people who throw fish around. There were a ridiculous number of LSU people in town for the game, and they were all decked out in LSU gear. Seattle's economy probably had an insane bump Labor Day weekend with PAX, Bumbershoot, and the LSU-UW game crowds. We took a ferry across Puget Sound on a clear enough day to see some of the Olympic Mountains as well as the Cascades. The next day also had pretty good weather, so we went up the Space Needle to see the sights. I love all the free telescopes they have to let everyone enjoy the view. We visited a glassblowers studio and watched them work for a while before perusing all the really awesome and way too expensive for me to even consider work they had for sale.

Since Dad's birthday was at the end of August, we had delicious cake and ice cream for him while in Seattle. It was the only time Mom, Dad, Karen, and I had all been in the same place since Christmas, so we thought it was a good time for cake.

On the day of the game, we went with a group of family friends to Snoqualmie Falls and ate at this really amazing restaurant call Salesh Lodge. The falls were cool to see, but the salmon hash really made the drive worthwhile. Mmmmmm. On our way to the game, we passed a car that was on fire. Firemen were already on the scene but hadn't put the fire out yet. I was rather selfishly pleased about that as this is the first time I have ever seen a car on fire in real life. The game itself was a much closer match than we had been expecting, but I was happy to watch an actual competitive match up that the Tigers totally won. Husky Stadium overlooks Lake Washington, so we could see a veritable flotilla of boats all hanging out for the game.

Sunday we visited wineries. One of them had a peacock roaming the grounds. We tasted some nice wines, but I didn't think any of them were worth the hassle to transport back home. Monday we went to the Experience Music Project and the Science Fiction Museum. I'm not sure why, but they are connected and share an entry fee. This is a totally cool thing, and I recommend these museums to anyone going to Seattle. The EMP has an awesome collection of electric guitars and basses (even stand-up basses) that date back to the 1930s. There is also a bunch of recording studios set up with instruments and tutorials on how to play them. I now consider myself a drumming and rhythm guitar expert after spending upwards of 10 minutes on each tutorial. The Science Fiction Museum lacked any sort of hands-on fun (I'm not sure what it would have been anyway.), but I was quite taken with the general shiny awesomeness of the whole thing. Unfortunately they were very strict about the no pictures policy, so you will just have to imagine the wall of various sci-fi weaponry from various movies and tv shows. There was a section on robots, too.

Overall I enjoyed the trip and spending time with my family very much. One week is a sufficiently long trip though, and I am happy not to see them again until I go home in October for my cousin's wedding.

Comment and get five questions of your very own to hug and squeeze and call them George.

Courtesy of the lovely modillian:

1. Have you ever dyed your hair pink? Ever wanted to dye your hair some unnatural color?
I had hot pink streaks in grad school. I didn't maintain them because I didn't feel like spending the money, but I loved how they looked. Every now and then I think about doing something in blue or purple though.

2. What is the best restaurant in your city? How is it the best?
It really depends on what kind of food you want. Italian Cafe is the best for Italian food. Their tomato sauce is amazing. Matuba's is my favorite for sushi. They have awesome Alaska rolls. Old Ebbitt's is more expensive, thus reserved for when parents are around to pay for it, but it has the best upscale Americana food.

3. If a knick-knack-paddywhacked, would you give a dog a bone or send him rolling home?
I don't take that kind of sass. That dog is rolling home.

4. When you're sporting a red hat and wearing purple and sitting in a rocking chair at the ripe age of 80, what do you want to look back on your life and feel proud to have accomplished?
I don't want to have ever stopped going and moving and doing.

5. Let's say next year there will be another Star Trek movie with the same cast as this year's movie and they're rooting about in the universe in the 23rd century. Who would you most like to see in a role/cameo and why?
I want Shatner and Patrick Stewart to both have ~1 second, uncredited crowd cameos to watch the internet explode with fanboys trying to figure out whether they're actually in it or not.

This has been quite a weekend for awesome stuff. Friday night, I saw Arcadia at the Folger Theater, a Shakespearean theater in DC, and it was amazing. Despite having studied Arcadia in undergrad and written my huge honors paper on chaos theory and Arcadia, I had never actually seen it performed. The Folger cast made up for it tremendously with their show. The woman who played Thomasina (aged 13 for most of the play and 17 for the last bit) was fantastic at convincing the audience she was a good 20 years younger than her real age. It was so much fun to watch with a smart and engaged audience as well. I had a great time chatting with the couple behind me during intermission about how we came to see Arcadia. I think I will make a point to try and see more shows at the Folger because the atmosphere is really nice there.

Saturday, Brooke and I saw Star Trek with ell, and it was hilarious and full of awesome. I met up with ell for a very tasty dinner at a pub in her apartment building. They had double chocolate bread pudding. This has inspired me to search for chocolate bread recipes. I think it would taste quite good with honey or peanut butter. So everyone totally needs to see this movie. It really doesn't matter if you don't know anything about the tv series (any of them) because the movie is really funny and accessible. Yes, you will get more jokes the more familiar you are with i>Star Trek</i>, but I think the concept of a switch blade axe should be pretty hilarious to the general public. Also, freaking everybody is in this movie. You will see actors you never expected around every turn. Paul McGillion (aka Carson Beckett from SGA) has a 10 second cameo. (PS. Sorry to everyone in my theater that heard me shout "Oh man, that was totally Paul McGillion in that scene." right after his cameo was over.) Also, I am all about Kirk/Bones their love is so exasperated.

Sunday, I bought a new bathing suit. I realized when we went to Disney that my main suit didn't really fit me right any more. The suit I got from Fashion Bug, it was the first one I tried on, and it was on sale. This does not happen to me when it comes to swim suits, so I will strongly encourage any other women who wear plus sizes to check out Fashion Bug if you are looking for a swim suit.

Today, we went to Rachel's for a Wii Party. Lots of fun, lots of everyone swearing at each other in Mario Kart. I played one round to be a good sport and screwed up tremendously which was fun. There was also delicious ice cream cake.

Yay for long weekends full of awesome!

I have a Dreamwidth account now. Thanks, marcelle42! I'll still keep cross-posting here and there. I think I'm going to abandon the IJ though; nothing's really going on over there.

Yesterday the women's bathroom at work smelled like baked beans, and the floor was sticky. I don't want to know how the two are related. Today it didn't smell like beans, but the floor was still a bit sticky. Ewww.

In awesome money news, all the math stats at my work were supposed to get a pay adjustment upwards effective March 15. Since they didn't really tell anyone about it, none of us knew we were supposed to be getting more money until today. Boss's Boss didn't even know. Now that he does, he has spent the morning contacting the appropriate people to get all of our pay scales changed. I don't know how long it will take the payroll people to make the changes for the ~20 employees affected, but we will be getting a lump sum for the money that should have been added to our last 3 (so far) paychecks. Hurray for finding money I didn't even know was missing!

This weekend was the spring show for the Sahara Dance where I take belly dance classes. Since I wasn't performing, I volunteered to help out for 3 of the four shows (one Saturday and two Sunday) since I wanted to watch the show at least once. It was way more draining that I expected, but the shows were amazing. I actually got to watch all 4 shows because I ran the merchandise booth before, during intermission, and after the late Saturday show, and I took pictures during both Sunday shows. It's been a while since I've been co-opted for my photography skills. I got a chance to delete the obviously blurred pictures before I passed the camera back to the stage manager, but I worry that the rest of the pictures won't be very clear either. The combination of low lighting, shiny costumes, and lots of movement really killed my chances of getting very many decent shots. I'm not sure why they had me do it anyway since they hired a professional photographer to take pictures as well. If the decent pictures get posted online anywhere, I'll link to the ones I'm not embarrassed of later.

Brooke and I went to the Inaugural Parade Tuesday and were lucky enough to wander by a volunteer as she was passing out tickets for the bleacher area near the President's viewing area. It was nice to be able to sit and huddle for warmth with all the other people in the stands. We got there around 11.30, expecting the parade to start at 2.30 and get to us around 3. The parade didn't actually start until after 3.30 due to, as we learned the next day, Sen. Kennedy having a seizure during the luncheon. It was totally worth the wait and the cold because Obama got out of his car and walked with Michelle for the last blocks of the parade where we were sitting. I only got one blurry picture of them, but Brooke took video of the whole thing. I'll post a link once she puts it on the internet.

Owing to the delay and the cold, about 90% of the crowd left after the presidential part of the parade was over. I felt really bad for the parade participants because hardly anyone was there to see them. Toward the end of the parade, marchers were thanking Brooke and I for staying to watch them. We were pretty much the only people beside event staff left in a half block space that had been crammed with people earlier in the day. The nice thing about staying until the end of the parade was that there was no crowd in the metro. Pretty much everyone had left over two hours before we did.

All pictures of the parade are here.

After I finished posting all my photos, I started going through the stats on my flickr page and noticed a huge jump in views earlier this month. Before the picture with the most views only had ~650. Now the picture with the most views has almost 3500, and it's one of the pictures of Neil Gaiman that I took at the book festival in September. Looking through the referrer pages, I found out that I had been linked from one of Neil Gaiman's blog posts. Someone had found my pictures and wanted to know what type of fountain pen he was using to sign books. I'm thinking about sending an email to Gaiman telling him he is welcome to use my pictures whenever he wants and maybe he could sign one and send it to me. Still my flickr page got linked on Neil Gaiman's blog, and that is probably the coolest internet thing that has ever happened to me.

I was there, and it was awesome! How awesome? Behold the lineup of speakers and performers:

Denzel Washington
Bruce Springsteen - The Rising
Laura Linney and MLK III
Mary J. Blige - Lean on Me
Jamie Foxx and Steve Carrell
Bettye LaVette and Jon Bon Jovi - It's Been a Long Time Coming
Tom Hanks
Marisa Tomei
James Taylor, John Legend, Jennifer Nettles - Shower the People with Love
Joe Biden
John Mellencamp - Ain't that America
Queen Latifah
Josh Groban and Heather Headley - My Country 'Tis of Thee
George Lopez and Kal Penn
Herbie Hancock, Will.I.Am, Sheryl Crow - One Love (let's get together and feel alright) medley into Where Is the Love?
Tiger Woods
US Naval Academy Glee Club and Renee Fleming - Walk on Through the Wind
Jack Black and Rosario Dawson
Garth Brooks - American Pie, Shout, We Shall Be Free
Ashley Judd and Forest Whitaker
Usher, Stevie Wonder, Shakira - Higher Ground
Samuel L. Jackson
U2 - Pride(In the Name of Love), City of Blinding Lights
Barack Obama
Bruce Springsteen, Pete Seeger - This Land Is Your Land
Beyonce and everyone else (Stevie Wonder on harmonica) - America the Beautiful

That is how awesome it was. You can watch it on hbo.com at 11 EST if you haven't already.

I didn't manage many pictures and managed almost no good ones. What I'm not too ashamed to show other people can be found here.

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.

But not nearly so bad this time. I got a cold while I was in Pittsburgh, and I should be 100% by Monday.

The Mt. Vernon craft fair was a lot of fun last weekend. I like talking with the merchants. Since they mostly all know each other from the fair circuit, they know where to go for various items. I told the soapmaker I was disappointed that the people I bought my cool striped socks from last year weren't there, and he told me about another, bigger craft fair in October that the guy would definitely be at. As my schedule is currently open that weekend, I plan on going, not just for more socks, but because I like craft fairs. I got a cool blown glass pitcher, some Christmas presents, and some candies at the fair.

The Kennedy Center open house was also a good time. I listened to a western swing band comprised of teenage boys. So cute and tiny! One of the older gentlemen asked me to dance several times, and he made me look like I knew what I was doing. The old guys who look like mechanics are always the best country dancers. The Aspen Sante Fe Dance Company did a very interesting show. I really liked their first two dances, but the third was a bit to modern art/contemporary dance for me. The little boy next to me told his mom that he liked the first dance best because they were wearing the most clothes in that one. It's so nice to see children growing up with a fine appreciation for the arts. I listened to a great Cuban salsa band for a while before leaving to get in line for the step show with Step Afrika which was the big final show. They were amazing. Several fraternities and sororities also performed, but Step Afrika was definitely the best. I might try and make it to one of their shows since they are based in DC.

The conference was not quite as much fun. I planned to take the Amtrak to and from Pittsburgh. 20 minutes before the train was supposed to leave Sunday afternoon, they announce that the train is cancelled. I'm still not sure of the actual reason, but I did hear rumors of flooding in the midwest. After standing in line to talk to a supervisor with everyone else that wanted to take that train (DC to Pittsburgh to Chicago), word filtered through that there was a Greyhound going to Pittsburgh, so a group of us who meant to go only to Pittsburgh got out of line and waited to see if Amtrak would arrange something for us. Not so much, we finally snagged an employee wandering by who told us what counter to go to for a refund and where the Greyhound station was. I found another woman going to the same conference I was, so we stuck together at the Greyhound station and on the bus. Thankfully, Greyhound held the bus for 15 minutes so that everyone coming over from Amtrak could make it. Taking the bus is not nearly as relaxing as taking the train, but I still got there.

The conference itself had a number of very good talks that related to stuff I work on and lots of free food. Unfortunately the rooms were freezing cold, even the presenters were wearing jackets. We got to go to a Pittsburgh Pirates game Monday night. They lost horribly to the Dodgers, but everyone had a good time booing Manny Ramirez, especially the Red Sox fans. Also unfortunately, I started getting a cold at the game. Bleh. The second day of the conference, I slept in between talks but undid the rest by dancing all night at the conference party. In my defense the dj was really good. Wednesday brought more Amtrak stress. The train was supposed to leave at 5.45, and I should have gotten back to DC at 1.30 in the afternoon. Instead, the train didn't leave until about 8.30, and I didn't get to DC until after 5. I slept most of the trip and blew my nose constantly when I was awake. At least I get credit for all the time spent waiting for the train.

Thursday night I went to a reception for the president of my undergrad. He's retiring at the end of this school year, and various alumni chapters are hosting parties in his honor. I caught up with several people I had known at Spring Hill (Chip and Kerry, I will call you later with the gossipy details.) and met an older alum who knows most of both sides of my family. He goes to the same church as my parents. The food at the party was really good, and I had a great time talking to people.

This weekend I do not plan to leave my apartment at all. I need a break from socializing, and I need to rest up for next weekend. The National Book Festival will be an all-day, people-filled event. I'm very excited to get my copy of Good Omens (that Terry Pratchett signed last year) signed by Neil Gaiman. If anyone wants something signed by one of the authors, let me know soon (Ru, this means you!). I'm not promising anything because I have stuff of my own (and Mom's) that have priority, but I will try.

I really haven't felt like going any where or talking to anyone recently, probably a combination of having been sick and dealing with people last weekend.

My friend's wedding was nice. It was weird for me to see the service officiated by a woman as I was raised Catholic and have not attended very many services of other religions. I liked the vows and what the reverend said as advice to the couple more than what I've heard at the other weddings I've been to. I don't know if they were standard vows for Presbyterians. I don't think the couple wrote them themselves. The reception was nice because there were several other people from work (that I like) there, and we had a table together. I didn't get any good pictures though, probably a combination of being sick and having my batteries die early in the reception.

Seeing The Dark Knight in IMAX was a completely awesome experience. If I see it again in theaters, it will definitely be in IMAX. The big sweeping panoramic shots scattered throughout the film are so amazing on the extra big screen. We did end up going to the late showing because the earlier one was sold out. Brooke and I ate dinner and hung out at Barnes & Noble while we waited. As we ignored one of the beggars we walked past, he shouted "Thanks for being modest." after us. I don't know what word he meant to say or if he thought modest was a bad thing, but he sounded like he meant it as an insult. We were both very o_O. At the theater, the usher had to yell at people to shift seats so that 3 deaf guys could sit together with their close caption filters. They have these screens that attach to the seat arms that let a person read the close caption on the bottom of the screen. It's a very clever way to allow everyone to watch the movie without having some tool complain about the words on the screen getting in the way of his movie.

Work was hectic when I was there this week. I missed more time due to sickness. I spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to debug a problem with my code, only to find out the problem was with the data set I was given. Rar. I did have other things I needed to work on, too. They won't all get done this week either because Mom and Dad are coming in on Wednesday; I'm taking Thursday and Friday off. We have a list of stuff we're going to try and do, including getting my new car.

I did put some new pics up on flickr, all of the cats though.

In less than awesome news, SGA is being cancelled at the end of this season, a season which has so far contained some of the best episodes of the series. I understand they're doing it for financial reasons, but I don't have to like it. They are going to make a movie after this season and start up a new Stargate series. I don't know if I'm going to be able to get behind a whole new cast of space adventurers with such an abrupt transition.

Wretched sore throat plus earache kept me home from work today. I couldn't get a doctor's appointment until 6 pm though, and I called when they opened this morning! They did a strep test which came back negative, so they did a mono test as well. Apparently sore throat with swollen lymph nodes is a symptom of mono. I'm not any more tired than usual, so I doubt that test will come back positive. Usually I would just wait this out with tylenol and juice, but my friend is getting married tomorrow, and I'm going to see Batman in IMAX on Sunday with Brooke and Toni. Thank goodness for prescription drugs.

Otakon last Sunday was fun. It was great seeing Natalie and Judith. I spent way more money than I should have, of course, but I'm very pleased with my purchases. Particularly pleasing is my new red shirt. It has a drawing of a strawberry dressed as a ninja and reads "Berry Ninja for Great Justice." Awesome.

The latest news from work about telecommuting computers is interesting. I can have a tower, keyboard, and mouse right now. However, there are no available monitors until October when the new fiscal year starts. Whatever. I went ahead and bought a desk from IKEA because I wanted to do that while I still had the truck. It has been assembled and will, presumably, sit empty until I can take a complete computer home from work. The office area of our apartment looks much more office-like now though. The desk comes with a whiteboard section. Once I buy some dry erase markers and an eraser, I'm sure the board will quickly fill up with drawings of dicks, boobs, and stick people in inappropriate positions.

Woohoo, men's gymnastics! The opening ceremony was pretty freaking cool, not nearly as crack-inspired as Turin's, but quite impressive. I love how they lit the stadium torch. The irony of McDonald's being an Olympic host continues to amuse.

Tomorrow is Otakon in Baltimore. Brooke and I are going to meet our friends, Natalie and Judith, there. They've been there for the whole con, but we didn't want to pay the $65 to just go Saturday, so we're going Sunday for $20. I don't really know what I'm going to spend the day doing, but I'm sure it will be interesting.

I finally caught up with Toni, my other high school friend who lives in the DC area. She's always so busy with the 14 million things she's involved in that we hardly ever see her, even though she lives so near by. She took me to the woman who does her tattoos up here. I'm still trying to decide on the exact design of my theater mask tattoo. I keep googling for images, but nothing looks right. Having me try to draw what I see in my head is about as useless as asking a cat considering my drawing skills. I'll probably end up bringing her the closest image I can find, then tell her what I don't like about it.

I know it's been over a month since I posted. I went on family vacation, and I wanted to wait until I'd put my pictures up on flickr before I wrote about it. Still haven't gotten the pictures on flickr yet. Maybe that'll happen later this week.

( Vacation )

( Work )

( Anonymous )

( Fangirling )

( Family )

The Friday night Mystics game was fun. Like with all his season tickets, Stewart had the best possible seats, right behind the opposing team's bench. May I just say that both the Atlanta Dream and the Washington Mystics are comprised of very attractive ladies. The first half was badly played by both teams, but the second half was really good. The Mystics won, mainly by being more proficient at free throws. Now I have been to at least one game of each professional sports league in the US. I'm quite proud of myself for this.

This afternoon I went to a Can't Stop the Serenity showing at the Arlington Cinema 'n Drafthouse a few blocks down the street from my apartment. I didn't get to see Serenity when it came out in theaters because I was in Germany, so I was happy to get the chance to see it on the big screen. The Drafthouse is pretty cool and in walking distance. They show a small number of movies after they've stopped running in regular theaters, tickets $5, and they have live shows, usually comedians. The seating is at staggered bars and tables throughout the theater, and the waiters serve food and drink throughout the shows. I had the mozzerella sticks, and they were quite good. On my way into the show, I noticed a street festival which I explored after the movie. It was a blues festival with a live band playing. Many of the area restaurants had booths. One place was selling quarts of fruit salad for $1! That's an awesome deal for a mixed quart of grapes, strawberries, and pineapple. I stayed until the festival ended at 8 then came home to tell you all about my awesome day.

This weekend was both busy and awesome. Friday night, I had dinner at the lovely shrieking_ell's apartment with her, temve, mrshamill, and katbear. There was so much delicious food and fun conversation. All their talk of con going made me quite jealous. Although, I think Brooke and I might be going to Otakon and meeting our friends, Natalie and Judith, there. (Is that still happening?)

Saturday morning, I baked macaroni and cheese for a bbq/pool party with some non-lj friends. More delicious food and drink were had. Everyone ended up in the pool at some point during the day, willing or not. I was prepared and brought a bathing suit, so I didn't have to worry about going home soaking wet. It was nice to hang out and relax, though I am still sore from all the roughhousing and horseplay in the pool. My muscles are not used to such (any) exercise!

I am very much looking forward to my trip home on Friday. I'm still not sure what plans my parents have made for me with regards to seeing family members. Once I find out, I will be calling several of you about when we can hang out.

I so needed this past weekend. I slept so much and was generally lazy when awake.

Friday I went directly from work to meet Brooke for Indiana Jones. It was fun and awesome. Karen Allen and Cate Blanchett totally made the movie for me. There was an unfortunate incident involving grape Fanta and my jacket. The jacket is currently in the wash. It took me this long to build up a full load of clothes. If it's still stained, I'll bring it to the cleaners tomorrow when I pick up a couple pairs of pants that got grease stains from the metro escalators.

Saturday morning I drove out to the nearest Mini dealership because I wanted to test drive either the Cooper or the Cooper S. I drove the Cooper S and was generally unimpressed. It wasn't bad, except for the slow pick-up, but it wasn't better than any other car I've driven. What really threw me was that the RPM gauge is right above the steering wheel, but the speedometer is in the middle of the dash above the radio. As cute as the car is, I don't think it's worth the extra money over an Accord or something. I think I'll start checking out the Toyota and Honda dealerships in the area and see what kinds of deals they're running this summer. It would be nice to get the car before my parents visit at the end of August since driving around guests is the main reason I want something other than the truck. We shall see.

Saturday night was Rachel's birthday party. It was very fun. We played Apples to Apples for over an hour. Brooke and I won all the games. There was delicious food, and we finally got to meet Rachel's boyfriend. He seemed like a pretty decent guy.

Sunday and Monday were made of naps and laziness. Tuesday I took off work and went to King's Dominion, an amusement park outside Richmond, with some friends. There was hardly a wait for anything, so we got to ride all the cool rollercoasters (some twice). Owing to my diligent application of SPF 50, I did not burn at all. I actually don't think I even tanned, but I'm ok with that. One of the guys brought his camera, so he has pictures and video of everyone looking like big dorks. When (if) he shares the pics, I will post the extremely ridiculous ones for your enjoyment.

Awesome fun will continue this weekend as I get to meet temve on Friday!!! She's visiting shrieking_ell, and they have invited their flists to a party. I will probably bake cookies. Am very much looking forward to fangirl awesomeness. Also, one of my friends is possibly having a pool party on Saturday, so I could be partying all weekend long. Woo!

I started coming down with a cold yesterday at work. Unfortunately I still had to go in this morning because I had an important meeting. These next few weeks are a really bad time for me to miss work; of course that's when I would get sick. As it happens, only three of us showed up to the meeting, so it had to be rescheduled to next week. I was extremely displeased as I would have not bothered to go in at all today if I'd known no one else would show up either. I left work early, came home, and slept for a few hours. I'll probably go back to sleep in a little while so that I'll be awake for the SGA finale tonight.

Current plans this weekend are to clean the apartment tomorrow and go to hakudoushi's Sunday to make signs for the Scientology protest next weekend. I think we can put off cleaning until next week. Hopefully by resting all day tomorrow, I'll be well enough for Sunday. bakanaonna and I still have to get masks for the protest next weekend, and I want to get a panda mask for Anonycon, the DC Anonymous convention, in two weeks. I'm planning on going as a sad panda. Also next weekend, hakudoushi and pezlady84 will be staying over after the protest. We're all going to the DC St. Patrick's Day parade together next Sunday. It looks like a very small parade; the route is only 7 blocks. I wonder what sort of things they'll throw. Maybe they don't throw anything. That would be weird. In any case I'm sure I'll get some interesting pictures from all the events next weekend.

In future plans, I'm going with a group of people from work to see The Bible: The Complete Work of God (Abridged) at the end of March. I love "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)," so I'm looking forward to seeing another of their plays. Mom, Grandmother, and Aunt Sarah will be here the first weekend in April. Mom said Grandmother is just so excited about visiting. She loves to travel and hasn't been to DC in years. I'll be visiting my sister in Dallas in the middle of May. It'll be nice for me to get out of DC for a bit. This will be the first time I've visited her in Dallas even though she moved there about 8 months ago. I'll probably have a week-long trip to one of the field offices in mid-June to help out with our big June survey. I'll probably end up in Texas as they always need a lot of help, and they usually send the newer people there to help out. End of June I go to Alabama for the big family vacation. Mid-July is Shore Leave in Baltimore which I am planning to attend pending acquisition of roommates.

Post a comment asking me five questions. I will answer them and ask you five questions should you request it.
telesilla asked me these questions.

1. If you suddenly had $5000 to spend and couldn't spend it on necessities--mundane groceries, rent, bills; that kind of thing-- or put it in savings, how would you blow it?
Travel. I'm thinking an African safari would be awesome, maybe a Mediterranean cruise. Any leftover money would be used to purchase books and DVDs.

2. What's the best/worst thing about living where you live?
Best - so much free entertainment at all the Smithsonians
Worst - having to drive anywhere in DC

3. If you suddenly had all the software and know-how to make a fannish music vid, what would be the first one you did?
I think it would have to be an SGA vid set to an 80s power ballad comprised entirely of the cast looking longingly at each other with hearts, birds, and rainbows added to emphasize the power of their love.

4. What's your favorite comfort food/drink?
Hot chocolate. It's a very settling drink, and the warmth usually makes me drowsy.

5. On a scale of 1-10 where 1 is a total neat freak and 10 is an utter slob, where do you fall?
Probably about a 7. I'm more particular about some things (my library) than others (dusting).


Post something you think I should do or try to do in 2008. Big or small, fandom or rl, silly or earth-changing. I am too lazy to make my own resolutions. Please do it for me. Also I will suggest a resolution for you should you request it.

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 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.