Last Minute 2004 Updates

1. I got an awesome new digital camera. Eric believes that it's a combination purchase, not realising that I've laid claim to it.

2. The bastard or bitch that stole my Burberry friend and debit cards managed to get $400 more dollars fraudulantly purchased before the cancellation went through. The affadavits are on the way to contest everything though.

3. I'm really looking forward to the next major trip: Mexico. The snow and cold may have impact on that excitment.

4. I never want to relive 2004 again because that would mean re-doing several classes with some nutty people of whom I'd rather never meet. Some were cool though.

5. Ellen just left the house after completely re-vamping her website colours. Unfortunately, I cannot lay claim to more jewelry for doing the work since she's catching on quickly on how to change colours and did the majority of the work.

6. I finally updated the Halloween pictures in the game website!

7. I'm really looking forward to tonight's celebration into 2005 with the Manhattan Brass Band downtown and a party afterwards.

Happy New Years!

Christmas
I'm still smarting over the loss of my Burberry friend, but I got many more friends to help me through this difficult phase :) Clearly the pearl jewelry set, titanium and copper watch, an awesome game that mum and dad built us, and various awesome clothes were good timing. Did I mention the huge bottle of Chanel velvety milk bath? There were other smaller cool things, but then that would start a list that doesn't probably interest anybody but myself.

Note: I was suprised to get a phone call from Ellen on Christmas Day, but when she left a message stating that she got the ROTK extended version and was going to watch it at that very moment, I inwardly cheered. Go Ellen :)

Christmas Eve was a great evening of wine, cheese, and sausage. Christmas Day was of course awesome because I refuse to leave my home on that day, and my parents are cool, as well as their gifts. I think my dad was a little traumatised over the raw oysters I provided, but he inhaled the mussels, as well as the shrimp cocktail. I went very seafood this Christmas. I must really miss the ocean.

The day after Christmas was a trip to his parents. I got lots of hours in playing pool.

I should probably get back upstairs to work on my seasons. Hmmm...Nero Wolfe or Stargate? ...or DS9?

Shattered World

Parties, shopping, dinners, and gifts.

It's been a really awesome couple of weeks, but an event threatened to overshadow all of it in one swift moment. My Burberry purse was stolen, along with my Fendi pocketbook and about $70 worth of makeup. It happened yesterday, but I didn't realise it until today. My world was rocked...badly. Besides being a $400 purse, it was the purse Eric bought for me on our wedding planning trip in London, so there's huge sentimental value attached to that as well. I wept for a very long time, and then got the brilliant idea to check for fradulant activity on my cards. I discovered activity all right...to the tune of $1000+ of money taken from my bank account. Why are people so mean? What is their issue? My credit card actually works as a debit card, thus they only had to sign, and God knows that cashiers check for ID (roll eyes). I really felt badly for my poor banker because in retrospect, he had a real basketcase on his hands. Fortunately, Eric's reaction to the crisis was a little more subdued and orderly, but then he wasn't dealing with the loss of a Burberry purse and a Fendi pocketbook. I think the police were pretty amused at my priority of those losses over the money in my bank account being swiped...but then, the bank's going to cover the money, so that's just an inconvenience. People SUCK. Merry Christmas.

ROTK
It is SO completely and utterly awesome! Well worth the craziness of staying up to midnight before getting to watch it, but I got to see the TTT to entertain until then :)

Now, good night.

mmmmph.
You would think after not blogging for a couple weeks I would be bursting with information. I'm pretty sure that a lot happened during the last two weeks, but I seem to have a short memory because I can't remember too much major happening except for a crazy day testing my afterschool program kids! School still sucks...two weeks to go! I got paid for subbing for the Personal Finance class last month, which was far more than I expected since I was doing it for the experience (I had no idea adult facilitators made such good money), so I'm buying the second season of DS9 and the third season of Stargate, on top of ordering my extended version of ROTK. Those moments will be cherished throughout the Season :) Oh, memory coming in...we decorated the place for Christmas. Another memory stirring somewhere is several hours of DVD watching during T-day, and a very angry last Sunday with 9 hours of schoolwork.

Tapioca Pudding....Yum!
Why, you ask? Why does Tapioca pudding sound so good? Because my throat is rougher than a wash board, which is a clear sign that I'm getting another FREAKIN' COLD! It's like every bleedin' time I get the opportunity to enjoy life, my body mocks me and releases the germs that it's been holding without my knowledge. It doesn't seem to be bad, fortunately, and I'm vengefully retaliating with every cold medication known to man.

The good news is that the rumour is true...Marian's stress has lowered to a more manageable level now that subbing for the Finance class is complete. It was an awesome experience though. I've never lectured for three hours (with appropriate breaks of course), but I managed to keep them from falling asleep. In fact, they were writing quite a few notes, so that made me feel worth something. The exciting part was nobody was yelling, running around the room, or other 6 year old antics that I have to manage with Tae Kwon Do :) It was very addicting...

A Great Weekend
Just as I was believing that the world is full of bitterness and meanness, this week decided to prove me wrong! It helps to have two huge stressers out of the way: the self defence program last Tuesday and the fundraiser demo Saturday night. The self defence program went really well, along with some funny moments watching Eric, Howie, and Jon getting maimed by very capable women. One girl apparantly forgot her specific technique and ended up slapping Howie clean across the face. He let go very quickly as a result! I nearly broke in half laughing, while he was soothed by the girl (she felt terrible) and had his face caressed. Please, somebody explain to me why he did not take advantage of this assault and ask for her number. Jon lost some shin skin and Eric lost a couple locks of hair. I was happy to see how well the girls caught on to the self defence techniques :) Friday night was pretty cool too with my first storytelling experience for role-playing. I was really happy to see that we're exactly on schedule for what I planned.

The demo went so much better than I anticipated. I found out that two of the kids couldn't make it when I got there, and then two of the girls had a near panic attack when they were getting on stage involving tears when they saw 300 people out there; however, Eric managed to trick them into being excited and I kept them focused on me. The crowd really enjoyed it and I nearly fainted with relief afterwards. Sadly, the facility was bereft of alcohol, so Eric was a sweetie and took me afterwards to St. Elmo's for their awesome shrimp cocktail at the bar. I highly recommend their Cosmo's.

Only one more stressful event left for this month! It's certainly looking up for my plan of crashing and burning over Thanksgiving.

Confused
I am so confused how I had a nearly empty month, and then suddenly, there's something important each week that takes tonnes of planning and preparation. How does this happen?????? For example, tonight I have to have a speech for self-defence for the University of Indianapolis ready, along with an interactive demo for the group. Everything's pretty well ready, but it took awhile to prepare. Saturday's a demo for Jireh Sports, who wanted their after-school program to be ready for a Tae Kwon Do demo for their fundraiser. May I please interject the fact that these kids have trained a whole six weeks. Getting together a demo that everybody could participate, and be impressive, pretty much stretched my creative abilities. Actually, it's working, but I'm not uncrossing my fingers until after the demo! Oh, Friday, I need to have all of the flavour text completed for my very first RPG session. It's pretty much done too, but getting all these things ready for just this week has been nuts. Again....how is this happening to me?????? Next week, I get the pleasure to sub for Dad's Personal Finance class at IWU, which is completely exciting because that's my major, but completely intimidating too. I have to come up with 2 hours of babbling about taxes, banking and consumer credit. That's not hard, but I have to be ready for interactive discussion, which seems rather scary. Oh, and when did I come up with the crazy notion to make all of my Christmas gifts? I am more determined than ever completely and utterly sluff all four days of Thanksgiving before even thinking about December. Oh yeah, school's in there somewhere. I guess I should add that to the priority list...*grumph*

Cats
While I struggle with my bitterness towards school and other frustrating events, Eric and I were able to enjoy a great Cats show. As I watched, I can't believe I didn't think of naming Q, our black cat, Mistoffelees! The show is certainly not to everybody's taste, but it's definitely worth going to once...I love it though. This season's been pretty cool for shows.

Updated Picture
Since my picture in Rome that has been my blog picture is almost exactly 2 years old, I decided it's time to get a more updated picture, especially since I don't think the other one even looked like me anymore! I recently had some photos taken for the Fall/Winter settings, and I liked this one really well...and it fits the season :)

Killian's
While we all managed to drink a lot of Killian's from the party keg, we still have quite a bit. Feel free to stop over and grab a pitcher! We're here all evenings except Thursday and Friday :)

Halloween Memories
The party was cool, for those of you who couldn't make it. We do have lots of pictures though, and some crazy fun costumes :) I'm scanning them in today. Will those of you who have pictures send them to me? I'd like to add them to our game website's picture collection of drunk people do funny stuff!

Warning
Rumours have reached my ears of a possible costume rebellion. We have some seriously cool costumes, so I would encourage everybody to at least attempt a costume. The Official Halloween Committee has determined penalties for the following possibilities:

An excuse for no costume such as "I came as myself."
Some even crazier thing like "We came as Something, Anything, and Nothing."

:)

Stretching My Wings
I have always love to write ever since I could write; however, I just have to say that my respect for RPG writers has increased dramatically. Coming up with a scenario for each decision that could be made was freakin' hard...starting out with a short adventure is getting to be wiser by the moment, but I'm excited :) Thank you guys who have supported me! I'm reading all the GMing rules, but clearly your support will endure some GMing blunders.

Officially Retired!
I am considered offically retired by the company that paid for my Bachelors at the ripe old age of 25 years old. I received my papers with the vast income I'll receive monthly beginning in 2044: $76.74. Wow. I have the good fortune, however, to have less than $5,000 in retirement benefits since I was only vested for 2.5 years, so I get the cash-out option with 20% FICA reduction. Last year I got to cash out my progress sharing there. I hated working there, but it seems to be treating me well. Rock on!

Costume Woes
If it has not been obvious in the past that I have zero ability with a needle, let me make it perfectly clear how incapable I am with any level of sewing. As a result, a visit to my regular alterations lady was required for my Halloween costume. For the record, she is rude and unprofessional, but a really awesome seamstress, so I put up with it. I was informed that she does not do that "sort of thing" and only sewed professionally. I was in shock because it would have taken her 20-30 minutes for an easy buck, but apparantly she's too good for that. I informed her that since she was doing so well, she wouldn't need my business anymore.

It was all very upsetting and nearly made me cry, although I refused to allow that emotion surface until I was long gone.

Halloween & Autumn!
While the experts dubbed Fall to be here awhile ago, I have only recently dubbed it to be Fall because the weather and leaves are starting to match the season; therefore, it's time for the Fall Facial to my blog :)

My Halloween costume is coming along nicely (in the sense that everything's purchased, but now it has to be put together), but I must warn people of the dangers of JoAnn Fabrics. Those people are simply nuts. Who knew that much fabric existed? Why don't they just go to the store and buy the clothes? I asked one lady where the bells were (hint! my costume has bells!)...she said, quite seriously, that they were in the bell section. Seriously? I wondered if that was possible...now...WHERE IS THE BELL SECTION? Like I said, nutty people.

Copy Cats!
When you learn strictly in an online environment, choosing your own font becomes very important, at least to spaz's like me. I literally spent hours choosing my own identity, and when I'm tired of that particular identity, I spend more hours choosing my new identity. Papyrus has been my latest and greatest discovery of personal identity; therefore, when one collegue asked me for the font name, I was proud to share. I was slightly annoyed that both he, and another guy has started using the same font. Clearly, my personal identity has been tainted and I must go and discover a new one.

Death to a Certain Friend - With Much Fire & Voodoo!
Chicago was a great shopping trip, and I can happily say that my gaming room is nearly completed, and I have very cool new Love Sacs for lounging for either the living room or gaming room, depending on where they are needed :) The filling has a lifetime guarantee, so I don't have to deal with flat beanbags in a year.

Anyway, on to the death-to-a-certain-friend story. IKEA is an awesome store, but is not the type to "run in and grab something." Nothing's simple in that store mostly due to it's huge size and masses of crowds that it attracts. Ellen asks me to pick up Roman blinds and said her windows are 30". No problem. I get 30" Roman blinds. After four hours at IKEA, I move on to Woodfield Mall, then Ellen rings. "I'm sorry! The windows are actually 23"!" I'm quite forgiving at this point, and just plan to go back after a few more shoppes. When I go back to IKEA, I first return the three incorrectly sized blinds. The serving number on the board is #23. Please note that my ticket is #70. This is where death by fire and voodoo began forming in my brain. Once those painful moments, hours, and days pass, I still get the pleasure of going up to the other floor and getting the correctly sized blinds, and fighting my way through to the checkouts.

I still love you Ellen. I just dreamt of death by fire and voodoo for that time period :)

Chicago (the city, not the show!)
My game room conversion is coming along very nicely, but needs some additions to the room that Chicago, namely IKEA, will provide nicely. One of the four major malls is right by IKEA also, so it's going to be a very nice day.

Message to IKEA lovers
If you want stuff from IKEA and want to avoid shipping, let me know and I can grab it for you!

Postscript: *yeesh* This post might have made more sense if I had explained that I'm going up there Saturday!

Desperation
It's amazing what happens when you're desperate. My latest desperation was getting rid of the crazy hutch so we can have more garage space and getting rid of the four dining room chairs (I'm replacing them with more folding chairs). Eric rang Goodwill since they give donation receipts for tax deductible purposes, and they said they would pick up the items.

Who said they'd be here a 9am? Do they not realise how asleep I am at that hour, especially after this exhausting week? I never heard them, so Eric rang my cell 4,541 times until I got sick of hearing it and answered it. The news that Goodwill was standing on my doorstep, ready to leave, sent me into panic mode enough to just throw open the door (yes, I'm in my nightclothes) before I even thought. After about 2 minutes of awkward silence, I managed to get out that I didn't realise they would be here this early, and if they drive around back, I would run up and change.

I really hope that I never see them again. I'm 99% sure they thought I was a completel freak.

Nasty Horrible Beastly Intolerable Flour Bugs
Did God really create these things? They must have come with the Fall of Man because I see no purpose for them except to waste Lysol on them. Lots and lots of Lysol. I lost my Rye, Wheat, and Pastry flour to them. I also lost a box of Bisquick to them, but I was more enraged over the loss of the other flour. I'm not even sure why we have Bisquick, to be honest. The survivors of the Flour Bugs of Doom were my White, Bread, Cake and Pasta flour.

The transition to airtight canisters is clearly a necessity.

Stick around for more news of Marian's eventful life.

Ribsssssssssss
I am so confused why the Flamin' Shrooms has not discovered Sheehe's fantastic, out-of-this-world, forever-glorious ribs before last night. Trust me. You must nag him to fix them for you. He had two racks, and they disappeared completely within 5 minutes with 6 people. It was very upsetting for all of us to look up for seconds and be peering into an empty dish....

Actually, everybody's dish was pretty much perfection, but the ribs must take first place.

Halloween Party
In case you haven't been to the gaming forum, there's a party conflict on my planned Halloween Party on Saturday, October 30. The choice seems to be between the prior Saturday or the Friday before the 30th. If you plan on coming, which I hope you are since it'll be fun costuming and prizes along with games, please give us your opinion either through the comments or the forum. I have some non-computer geek friends, i.e., SEP, wanting to come as well, and are waiting to see what works for the SEP gang.

Thank you :)

STOMP rocks!

Tragedy Strikes
My little break from school has taken a turn for the worse, and I have rejoined the forces of evil.

*two more courses...two more courses...two more courses*

Tragedy is an understatement when I realised that the current prof requires papers and other paraphenalia on Tuesdays, rather than the more convenient and traditional Wednesday. Let's see...Monday night is Tae Kwon Do and weights, Tuesday night is STOMP (yay!)...so my conclusion is that I will have to complete this first paper in the mornings since the TKD after school programs have begun.

I believe I shall meditate on my outline by watching another Highlander...

Broadway Rocks
I really wished I lived in NYC in order to have access to stunning shows like Chicago that played at Clowes Hall tonight. You would think that after the movie, it would be tough to still make the musical really awesome, but this company did it...with a bang :) It was a great way to end the weekend!

If you're wondering if Ellen still liveth, she did fantastically at Oranje. Hopefully, she will be able to come out of her Studio for air now...I got a totally awesome table there too for the pending game room in which we're converting the dusty second bedroom. It's all very exciting...

*freaked*
I made the appointment. Friday at 10am.

While this post is extremely elusive in what the appointment is, I can assure you that it will change my appearance for the next 4-6 weeks. It's very frightening and exciting!

Love September!
September is the beginning of Fall, with festivals, fairs, events, and shows. That alone creates a bond for me, but it's also the beginning of school, which means my Tae Kwon Do after-school programs start today. While that's exhausting, I'll be glad to be much busier.

Penrod was a successful fair in the sense that I only bought three smaller things. No mortgages on the house had to be made, or selling of cars. I was extremely proud of myself, especially since Oranje is this weekend, and I can lose more control there now. While I'm slighly panicked over getting my Oranje outfit ready this week, party Friday, watching Ellen's booth at the French Market Saturday, then Oranje Saturday night, I'm thrilled to have things to think about besides school. So, no complaints from me right now :)

Diverse Music
The music for the weekend has been very diverse, but fun. Thursday involved listening to Marko, and his friend from Paris, Matthew, play gypsy music at the Melody Inn. They were playing for the rock band break, but were immensely popular. The crowd kept yelling for more, and Matthew would say the song name, and everybody would yell with excitement, even though they had no idea what he was saying :)

Last night's music involved following up the Rathskeller to the Slippery Noodle for a couple hours of excellent Blues. Even Matt was impressed, which is impressive. Now Eric and I go hear the River City Brass tonight at Conner Prairie. Three different and very cool live music bands three nights in a row. That calls for an excellent weekend.


PS I was highly complimented on the way to the Slippery Noodle when Matt told me that I drive like a European. I was relieved that I don't drive like crazy Americans!

Double Take
Some people shouldn't be allowed to graduate, especially when they say retarded statements like this. I can see how individuals may not understand the differences between HTML and scripting languages, but I see little excuse for this brainless statement since the lecture stated the differences, and several people clearly discussed the differences.

Please laugh or mock or something because I want to cry that I am sharing the same classes with creator of the statement...

Yahoo is supported by HTML scripting, which allow individuals to complete many things that require that scripting code.

Quest for the Apple
My fettish for Macs finally got the best of me when I requested Eric if he would be so kind as to buy one for me last night. After a fit of laughter, then the realisation that I was deadly serious, he said that an Apple would be considered if an extremely strong case for it's purpose and potential in my life. Somehow I doubt that decoration will work for it's purpose, and giving me a cute toy will suffice for "potential in my life."

Onward to discover the qualities of an Apple...besides looking cute.

Computer Game Priorities
Sometimes the urge to game is irristable. Unfortunately, the urge always kicks in when I should focus on something else. Hmmmm. Such a common coincidence. Like tonight, I'm supposed to be focused on editing a project paper for school due tonight. As my teammate and I are IMing the details of the final edit, I just wanted to scream, "who cares whether web authoring tool needs hyphenated! I just want to play Sacred!" I dare not tell her to hurry it up because I need to play since she's been the predominant slave on this project, and I think it would shove her over the edge. So I sit here and wait for hyphenation and citation panics.

*tuttles off to make another Sidecar*

*smacks head*
While sometimes I try to not publish my stupidity, this stupidity is kind of funny. I signed up for a hidden counter from zcounter.com for Min's Journal. I check zcounter.com almost daily for hits, so I was really confused when Min's Journal wasn't getting read, but people had commented to me personally about it. While I was going through the pyschological implications of people possibly just being nice to me but not even reading it, I realised that I didn't put the code that zcounter.com provided in the journal. Clue: I guess you do have to have before hits can be counted. *smacks head*

*delete Saturday*
Some days are simply not worth existing, thus I believe we should have the ability to delete a day once it's painfully obvious that the continuation of such a day is only going to worsen.

Let's review the first 4 hours, and we'll see if you can agree with me. I woke up in a panic because I needed to post several important letters before Tae Kwon Do because I thought the the Post Office closed at noon. Since we could never get ready and post the letters in time together, I sent Eric to the PO and planned to meet him at Jireh. I was determined not to be late to class for the 4th Saturday in a row, especially since I was the instructor.

Eric's gone, uniforms are in hand, I have the Jireh keys. What could possibly go wrong? You can shut the door, lock it, and then realise that your house and car keys are on the other side of the door. Swearing doesn't unlock doors either, in case you ever experiment with that method. A panicked phone call (thank God I had the cell) to Eric quickly brings him back to the house without getting time to post the letters.

We rush down to Jireh, and on the way, I realise that class doesn't start at 1030, but 1100. We were not 3 minutes late at 1033, but were actually 27 minutes early. This realisation nearly broke my sense of existence, as I was instantly newsflashed that I got up too early and was at class way to early.

Does it get worse? Oh yes, much worse.

We get down to Jireh, only to realise that there are only some 500-600 people milling around the facility as it was a giveaway day for backpacks. How our training area was untouched is beyond me, but the challenge of getting students through that crowd was more than frustrating. Since I had no warning, it's tough to post a warning to the students.

I decide to try and start this miserable day over through disc golf. Warning: never try and improve a day with a sport of which you're not especially proficient. It just causes anger. I managed to dump 4 discs in the creek and lose 1. Feeling guilty over Eric's complete kindness to me throughout the loss of his discs and my random mistreatment of him during the morning, I decide to go into the woods to help retrieve the discs. Please note that I was wearing a brand new exercise top. My fear of poison ivy is beyond proportion, so I was carefully tiptoing through the forest (well, it seemed like a forest) as much as I could with sandels. I successfully got down a muddy hill without a smudge on my shirt. The only misconception that I had was that I could get back up, and since I was trapped between this mud hill and a fast flowing 3ft deep creek (it seemed that way at least), tears began to appear since there was a distinct possibility of cool new shirt getting dirty, or worse, ruined.

Eric wisely assumed that post-mud/creek trauma, Broadripple shopping would be a good choice, therefore some of the day was saved.

Oh, did I mention that distinct symptoms of a cold started that day too?

Marian's TV Reviews
Sometimes I wonder why I have a TV (w/o cable), then I realise that it's necessary for the millions of DVDs that I go through. Since I was too sleepy/lazy/tired to get up and walk across the room to put in a DVD, I decided to flip through TV channels. What a waste of valueless time.

The View - Some stupid talk show with a bunch of ladies all talking at once around a table. I understand very few words b/c, well, they were all talking at once.

The Wayne Brady Show - Actually had some promise with Fergy as a guest. Fergy's my least favourite Royal, but it's always fun to watch them...for a few minutes at least. I'm usually more concerned with what they're wearing. She had a gorgeous pinstripe suit.

The Berstein Bears - Brought back memories of my extreme younger days, but it seems that I've grown up some because I got bored quickly.

Scariest Talk Show Yet - Some people on couches that couldn't decide if they wanted to talk about scripture or the stock market.

Bible Thumpin' Moron - Such a waste of airspace

Springer - Was refreshed from the horrible Bible Thumper that actually managed to capture me for 2+ minutes b/c I was in numbed shock, by two gigantic black women body slamming this skinny guy into a sandwich. The body slam/sandwich took the breath out of him as he crawled to safety. I think those women were slighly irritated. I really wouldn't know what was being said because the entire snippet of time was bleeped out. I had to assume there was a lot of anger on that stage.

In retrospect of about 10 complete wasted minutes, I shall be sticking to DVDs.

Poaching
I never realised how fun poaching was until I got experience it on a massive level last night. Super big mean nasty Chorrim...last Big Boss of AU...big warrior Tal (eric) disabled on the ground...slithery quick Cathar (John) disabled on the ground...fluttering 1'3" mindwitch spyte completely out of spells with only a final stab left in her, and he falls. Rock on. That will be a night to remember for a few days at least.

Studying...for pleasure?
Sometimes I step back to look at my life in a nutshell, only to discover activities that don't seem normal. For example, as I stew over hand combat rules for my Eberron Monk, I find myself surrounded by books, online resources, and personal tutoring so I can play a hand combat game correctly. Hmmmm. That sounds familiar, but only for required research papers. I realised that I have recently spent more time making sure I understand rules of combat than on my current masters class. Isn't there something a little off balance there? It's not that I'm adverse to study for pleasure, but everybody has 10-15+ years on me with D&D games. I suppose I should focus on my research (real research) paper sometime today...

Normal Life Again?
Kick to the Stars so rocked last night. I couldn't believe how fast the time flew, how many people showed, how totally awesome the Silent Auction was, how cool the band was...oh, and all the money we made! $2,000 was pure profit. Actually, it's not completely counted yet, so that's on the low side. We're so excited about planning next year's and improving the event. It's going to be so much easier now that we're clued in a little bit about planning events.

In-laws have had breakfast and are on their way home. I'm going back to bed now. Let's see if I can tone down my life and stress a little this Fall...

Bah
It's rainy and grumpy this morning. Normally I love the rain, but I'm just overall grumpy, so the rain made it worse. Although rumours of my sleeping in to 11 are greatly exaggerated, they are well founded today. Perhaps an hour of rest and Highlander will improve my mood before I throw myself into cleaning for in-laws...

Stress: <>?
Things are coming together. The soda and wine are purchased and in my house. The band is ready to roll. The tent and minor rentals are contracted. Tickets are being sold. We have a cool auction list. We have doorprizes and a cool raffle. All of the essential components are complete! The only stress left is getting food together, decorations, and set-up, and and the first two have been skillfully delegated, so....ahhhh...

In-laws are coming to stay overnight so they can come to the event.

*stress returns to skyrocket levels*

I have decided that I am going to be a hibernating fuzzy bear during Christmas. No trips, no planning, no stress. Happy sleeping times with lots of DVDs.

Lawsuit Settlements

*shove soapbox out*

You just have to laugh at class actions. One of my favourites is when I won $.37 with a class action against my credit card company, of which I had no idea until, yes, they sent me a check. The latest with Paypal isn't quite to that level of mockery, but I remain in awe how attorneys continue to utilize this cash cow without people waking up to realise that it's really not worth it. After an extremely lengthy read of the suit and settlement (I should have known better), it finally relayed the only detail I really cared about after I realised I was eligible: money. I get $50 whole dollars if I complete a rather annoying set of forms and claim. Hmph. At least the credit card company had the courtesy to send me my $.37 right away. I realise that they have to screen who's "eligible within the eligibility", but I'm here to yell to the world: "Class actions are retarded and supply attorneys with cool boats and planes!" The day of class actions actually benefiting the People is long gone.

*shove soapbox back*

Terminology Clarification
Ellen needs some terminology clarification....or perhaps I do.

Marian believes that a geek is a "OK" in that they can be cool, but are extremely focused in a particular hobby or career. Nerds are not all right in her book in that they are generally losers.

Ellen desires to be a science nerd, believing that nerds are all right, but being a geek is weird.

If my definition is correct, I will correct that millisecond of "whhaatt?" when she posted "Nerds" to my very cool, but geeky binary post. Lots of research went into that....*miffed* ;)

Marketing Question
Since all of my readers (except for perhaps the ones in Washington State, Scotland and England) are coming to Kick to the Stars *crosses fingers!*, this would be a good to question post, especially since most of my readers happen to fall in the computer geek realm. Best Buy has donated $100 to this event, and I have the choice of several forms. It can be a flat $100 gift certificate, OR it can be anything in the store that is worth $100 at cost. While cost isn't a huge difference for DVDs, there are some very serious deep discounts that I can get for computer accessories. USB thingamajigs, other confusing computer accessories that would require assistance from Eric, gaming systems accessories, etc are a few examples.  OR I can get one cool item like a flat panel monitor. Howie was kind enough to share a research study that showed people can't make decisions, so multiple items might be more frustrating for people, but given that everything starts at $5, what is there to lose for anybody?
 
I need input people! Should I get the gift certificate, lots of cool smaller items, or one cool bigger item?

Insanity
Perhaps I am going insane. All week I have been hearing telephone ringing and doorbells. I run to answer either, and it's not ringing. It's such a scary feeling to think that you imagined a clearly heard ring. Other telltale incidents have occured, such as putting cupboard items in the fridge, and putting fridge items in the cupboard. These are not positive signs. Perhaps it's just the craziness of the week and the fact that I haven't had any personal time. Oh god, there goes the doorbell again. *sob* I'm getting scared.

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Progress...
The entry way is done...we have about 600 square feet to go!

Hopefully the rest of it will go faster since it's just slapping down wood with no particular design. The front entrance was more than slightly difficult with the two woods in it with the pattern. The tape is supposedly to help it keep together as it dries...

*snap*
Ever get to a snapping point? Mine was definitely reached yesterday. I was in an extremely low point of depression yesterday. I think the only time I smiled was during Arcana Unearthed, but I had a secret desire to break the tables or something rude. Besides an anxiety level that is constantly running through me like a bubbling stream over Kick to the Stars, we brilliantly decide to put in wood floors in our living room and dining room this weekend. Having my home in a complete furniture upheaval is a huge undercurrent stress. I feel very dysfunctional as I try to reach through my couch on the side and the piano that is in the kitchen to get my whisk. While this is probably the best weekend of the month to install the floors, it's probably still not a great weekend to do it. I reached my final snapping point last night (or morning) around 1am when a helicopter kept circling over our house for about 30 minutes. I was really wishing for a bazooka, but since I didn't have one, I went downstairs and printed out invitations for Kick to the Stars. I think that was the most productive thing I did all day Friday, which depresses me further...

Game Night
I have all the pictures from the last gaming event in the website now. Oh, and a decision for a date has been made. Everybody can run and update their social calendar now ;) Let me know if you can come or not in the forum if you get a chance!

Summer Background
Since the wonderfully girly lavendar represented Spring, and that season has been over for a couple of weeks now, I have switched to a summer scheme. I didn't mean to "Neal", but it just happenened. I'm too tired to re-organise a room, so I re-organised my blog :)

Ahhhh...
The answer to stress is generally to run away. While Ball momentally threatened to take away that feeling of relaxation (see comments in post below), I'm still pretending that I'm walking down Broadway around 1130pm enjoying the lights and city. I also discovered that the wonderful world of Sephora has moved beyond the realm of Paris, and had a wonderful shopping trip there. There's one in Chicago, but it's very small. The Manhattan is full sized in all it's glory. It's not like I won't be ordering from the website anymore given that an 11 hour drive is probably a bit much for just a Sephora visit, but I'm sure there's girls out there that understand my hour of untouchable happiness while I was there. If guys are confused by the whole Sephora euphoria, just ignore me :)

Nothing in Manhattan has changed since the last time, except my anger at prices as I tried to park the car overnight for a mere $30 a night. I wasn't going for the $50 a night. Walking a few blocks was well worth the difference. Eric pronounced his approval of moving there. As soon as his salary triples that may be possible.

Stressed
Why? I don't work! I don't understand this :( Between now and this Thursday evening, I have to:

1. Reserve tent, chairs and tables for Kick to the Stars;
2. Follow-up on wine, food and beer for Kick to the Stars;
3. Compile the team project into something resembling professionalism;
4. Do MY homework;
5. Get ahead in the class since I'm going to New York this weekend;
6. Teach Tae Kwon Do's regular classes and summer classes; and
7. Get the invitations for Kick to the Stars printed.

I'm seeing a trend here with Kick to the Stars. It's going to be an awesome event and loads of fun, but don't ever let anybody tell you that there's a TON of work that goes with it.

I feel better now. Perhaps sharing my stress helped...back to class!

PS Did I mentioned packing? That's just fun though :)

Strange Synergy II
My anger management was much improved tonight, as I crushed Eric once again, even with pretty well balanced cards. I'm starting to like this game :) My hands started shaking for something to rip at one point, but my self control actually won.

We got some good pictures for the gaming website, such as Howie completely upside down in the leather chair, dead drunk, and other fun "forget-me-not" shots. I'll let you know when I post them!

Party Music
The only music that I own that relates to a Hawaiian or tropical atmosphere is the Beach Boys. This will perhaps motivate you to bring music that you have that relates to our rum/tropical party :)

OH!
I forgot to mention...only four pits of hell to cover before graduation from Purgatory. While my sins are probably extensive, I never thought they were this bad. Perhaps it's the fact that I'm just SICK OF SCHOOL! Maybe it's the non-existent break between getting my Bachelors with stupid people and getting my Masters with even stupider people. I think the more educated people get, the stupider they act. Just a hypothesis. It may not be true, but I've got about six years of experience proving that theory correct.

Strange Synergy
Please note that I crushed Eric.
Crushed, rampaged, and burned.
A few ashes may remain.

PS Winning games is not my strong suit, so I have officially retired from playing Strange Synergy. After all, I find it doubtful that I can have one person carrying Inner Peace and Prayer again, ensuring successful attacks, while my other shot everybody (rifle). I found very little need for the third :)

Pleasant Weekend
After many tragic and exhausting weeks and weekends during these past months, my life was much improved with a party that gave me the opportunity to dress up and be with friends, Babylon 5's season four, and some sleep time. I even got the time to rearrange the basement for the 45,365th time. This arrangement is my favourite so far though. It will possibly last the entire summer!

Subject Change
Have you ever noticed that you can be believe that your little world is mierable, then things come along to show you how that your world was actually quite wonderful? I want my life to go into two different directions...formal education and Tae Kwon Do. I got a wonderful opportunity for each direction. If only one had come, it would be manageable, but no, two have to come, forcing difficult decisions and wishing that life would return to normal. I have put both decisions off for too long, and have to make a decision this week that will impact my life forever.

I hate this week already. Hopefully the comment of impacting my life forever is perhaps exaggerated. I can only hope.

It will end gloriously though, with wonderful rum drinks for everybody on Saturday! Just to be clear for the Game Night, I am not copying the Goetz' great Carribean theme, but using a Hawaiian theme. So yes, while the same clothes work for both parties, the theme is distinctly different for the sake of my hosting originality :)

5,000 Hits!
I'm not sure if this is supposed to a "cool" feeling or a "who cares" feeling. Please let me know so I can inform my feelings :)

Tired
People that don't work shouldn't be this tired. I should be writing a paper (you know, one of the busy work papers that really makes no impact on my education) right now, but instead I am attempting to keep my head from crashing into my keyboard.

I think that the Tae Kwon Do summer camps are draining me...a huge source of my power loss. 50 kids on Monday, 35 kids on Tuesday, 50 kids today. Please explain to me why I would want one 24/7. Actually I do, but after weeks like this, I go into shell mode.

...oh, and another power drainage was the home owner's meeting last night. You want to get you chance at war? Own a home in suburbia. I was expecting grenades and sniper rifles to appear at any moment. I think people keep their hostility towards their neighbors bottled up for one big explosion. I got nominated to the board, which was interesting. Then...somebody jumped up and wanted a five member board instead of a three member board since the current three member board spends an average of 20 minutes complaining of all the heavy responsibilities. One nice thing came out of it was a final brawl with the morons next door (if you've ever been to our place, you'll know what I mean). After rather harsh words were passed, the peace treaty was signed. Hopefully we'll have a less volatile future.

Ok...back to the brainless busywork paper that is making no impact on my education.

Some Humour
Ever think about joining a cooking club? Well, I've got the perfect one for you to be able to experiment, and relax with the fact that you may completely screw it up. For example, Sally, Ball, Sheehe and I are sitting in the living room when Ball astutely notices this kind of "flame" thing going on in the oven. Everybody backs away and the oven door is pulled open and flames shoot out from the oven. Seriously big flames, actually. I nearly fell over laughing. I will not disclose the identity of the person that presented extremely crispy mushroom, unless Ellen desires it to be known, (oops, that slipped out) but in her defense, the mushrooms were quite good, and oil had fallen off the tray or something, which is what caused it. It was the foil that was having issues, not the mushrooms. Still, it was very funny, and I think I would have paid quite a fortune to have a picture of everybody scurrying to get the fire out so we could use it as our cooking club logo :)

Harry Potter
Cute movie. Lots of magic.

From the huge discussion in the car on the way back (Laurie, Ellen, Sally), I am assuming that the movie is not like the book. I hate it when that happens, but I didn't have any expectations, so I'll go back to my review.

Cute movie. Lots of magic.

Oh, there was a lot of serious waiting. We had to stand in line for 1.5 hours to just get our seats! Oh wait, I'm confused. That's right, we walked into a virtually empty theatre at 1030 and sat there for 1.5 hours being tormented by monsterous teenagers. Remind me to kill my future kid once he or she turns 13. Did I also mention that there was a midnight showing at a theatre one mile from Ellen's? So you may ask, "why did you go to Greenwood?" I'll tell you why :) Because this vital information was withheld when a certain Ellen realised this a couple days ago and she couldn't get a return on our tickets at Greenwood so we could go to the other one. That actually didn't bother me in the slightest. What I found funny was her face... when the manager came in to thank us for our support and that only one theatre in town was doing a midnight showing...as all three of us just turned and looked at her. It was quite funny as she realised that her timing of breaking this fact to us slowly was shattered :)

Shrek II
I cannot endorse this movie too much. It came out in London while Noelle and I were there. Given that our first double date was the first Shrek, it only illuminated the lonliness for our husbands to think about Shrek II. However, it was the first on my To Do List when I got home. Besides all the great mockings of other movies (LOTR, Mission Impossible, etc.), I would have to say Puss In Boots ruled. I laughed so hard that I nearly cried. It's well worth your time.

Our Famous Trek
Many of you know of my aspirations to be a rugged hiker, so I was quite thrilled to spend four days mountain hiking in the Lake District with Noelle. While the natives did not have much confidence in our abilities to get around on foot, we were quite sure of ourselves. We bused to Windemere to check out the Beatrix Potter Exhibitions. We were both quite interested because we were both raised on Potter stories (Peter Rabbit, Miss Tiggy Winkle, Mr. Jeremy Fisher, etc.) and have high hopes for baby nursery's soon. Of course we wanted to ferry across Lake Windemere, but there were no buses and it was later in the afternoon anyway. We decided that we were properly suited up for hiking (good walking shoes, comfy clothes and backpacks with the appropriate rations), so we headed off on our eight mile trek. That would have been fine, but a bloody mountain got into the way! Her Air Force chants helped us. We finally hit the peak and got to enjoy a lovely view...(I think Noelle was slipping into some kind of meditation :))

I'll save the horrible hiking experience that would have had me sitting down on a rock in tears, but I didn't want my Burberry jeans to get dusty and there was too much sheep poop anyway. As you can see, that one was disasterous, and never started out as a hike.

Rollerblading
Eric has a pair of rollerblades, but the official function of the blades is to collect dust. Therefore, I decided to get some of my own so we could enjoy something athletic together (besides Tae Kwon Do). Guess what, it's not like ice-skating! I really love to ice-skate, but this doesn't seem to be a sport widely accepted in Hoosier-Land. We have skating rinks in Carmel, downtown, and Fishers, but I don't have friends or a husband that does it :( My opinion of blading is that it's like taking Karate and Tae Kwon Do: totally two different styles. So far no falls though. It would be nice to discover the secret of stopped without the tree's help.

PS If you like to ice-skate you are similarly isolated from the wonderful world of northern sports, please let me know!

Au Revoir
On momentary retrospect, that seems brainless to say when I don't even like the French and I'm going to England, not France, anyway. London Zoo, Devon to get my wedding dress, Lake District for somebody else's wedding, and then back home...all with my best friend. This holiday should rock on every level.

Oh, and speaking of events rocking, I think we need a theme like pizza and whisky each game night. People could focus on their appreciation of a particular alcohol and be involved with the very arduous and flour-frustrating event of food making, in this instance, pizza. :)

A Cat After My Own Heart
Yesterday morning I watched Q (my adorable black cat that doesn't yet comprehend that the world doesn't revolve around her) walk out of the guest bedroom where she usually sleeps, look around, hiss at the world in general, slink back into the guest bedroom, and fall back asleep.

Thank you Q, for expressed what we often feel too.

Smooth Margarita
As today is Cinco de Mayo, I made Eric some Margaritas. He asked for frozen, and I experimented. Instead of the little rocky chunks you get in restaurants (Eric doesn't like that), I added a little smoothie powder to the mixer. Basically, it was a Margarita Smoothie that earned critical acclaim from a difficult critic ;) Now, if you like the little crunchies in a frozen Margarita, you probably won't like it, but if you like it extremely smooth, I have the perfect drink for you!

Pending Disaster
Friday morning at 9am I am going to most likely be cranky. Paul, the director of Jireh Sports (they lease Dan Shi Club space), invited us to a golf outing. I love to go driving, but I've never actually did a game on the course because I have this philosophy that I must be perfect before starting anything. While this philosophy is slightly flawed, it has kept me from making myself a complete idiot on many occasion. This is apparently not going to save me this time though, as my husband pipes us, "oh I have to work, but Marian would love to play!" I went through many emotions in a few seconds, including excitement, nervousness, complete fury and death plans for Eric later. Depending on how it goes I may be in my grumpy hole for the following week. We'll see :)

Game Night (May 15)
Pizza and whiskey! I'm not sure if the recent craze with whiskey is due to the Ireland trip (although that's mostly Guinness, there is the ever popular Jamerson Whiskey there too), or because I realised just how much whiskey we have. Anyway, I've got some cool things for you to try. :)

Geeks
I was hugely excited today to go to Game Preserve and buy the Arcana Unearthed book, as well as my own dice. I noticed that the packs only had one of each though, and mumbled out loud that I would prefer two d6 dice, and wondered if I would ever need more than one now that the game was underway. An immediate eruption of geek argument ensued around me. People were previous just milling around the store were now gathering to give their 2 cents. To make matters worse, I received no help, as all the opinions seemed to vary, then the argument was diminished to "I'm more of a geek than you." I SWEAR that is a quote. It was insane. My goal at the point was to just slip through the masses to try and find a spryte sized figurine.

No spryte figurine was to be found. The smallest was a Loresong Faen, but Fiddy has that, so buying one would be rather pointless. I'm going to ask mum to carve me a couple (one casting spells and one with a mind sword) instead. She used to be an excellent carver, specialising in minatures, so I'm sure she could dig the 'ol tools out again. I'm going to have her put each one on a different stick height to symbolise how high I am, and also make one without a platform or stick so I can put her on Ro-Terrus' (the giant) shoulder. I realise that doing that is pretty geeky in itself, but I pray I will never sink down to the level of prouding stating in the middle of a busy store, "I'm more of a geek than you." *shiver*

Continued Education
My "lack of direction" feelings are making decisions irritating. I have a little under a year left with my mEd, then a probable waiting period of about 1-2 years to actually start teaching because universities seem to have that annoying little rule. So my lack of direction is if I want to go back and get another Bachelors in a subject that I enjoy a lot more than business (so I can teach more than Business and Finance courses), such as History, or Conservation, or go on and get my doctrate in a Business related field. While it may seem stupid to go back and get a Bachelors that would not do anything for me, being able to teach it by having a mEd would make it sensible. I'm not exactly happy with a couple doctrate programs I've looked at either. The one especially boxes you into this little expectation corner, not allowing you to have unique feelings or opinions, or so it appears. I think a doctrate program would encourage complete immersion into the subject matters, but it's like they only want to have students that work or have a career. I find this extremely odd because a real doctrate program would make working almost impossible.

I've blogged this because I've been feeling this confusion for awhile, but am not getting anywhere with it. I just need to feel even a preference, but I have too many "equal" pros and cons for each direction. Maybe I missed something....opinions?

Returned!
I can't believe this, but it's actually colder here then in Ireland. Everybody that comes to Game Nights will definitely appreciate that we now have two bottle openers! I bought one at the Guinness Brewery. You must try an Irish Carbomb...Guiness with Baileys.

My two big events since I came back was teaching Tae Kwon Do on Wednesday and playing Arkana Thursday night. I've noticed how difficult it is to miss a night. I did bump a level, which is nice. I had a tonne of writing to do in order to catch up Vormeili's Journal.

OK, I'm starting to babble, so I'm going to go :)

Final Day
Touring Dublin's historical areas is our last day's activities. I'm amazed with my inability to remain "unplugged," as Neal put it. I'm going to be a basketcase on the Appalacian Trail! Wow. The reality of that Trail is sinking in more and more. It's still determined though...(if nothing else but to prove to Ball that I CAN DO IT! ;))

Pubs...
We finally found them! Need I say more? ;)

The really rural country apparently doesn't understand the concept of actual pubs. Restaurants don't even exist in the really small villages. They must cook or something. It's very strange. Therefore, we make a tremendous effort staying in cities. We're on the west coast right now, with a B&B window looking over the bay.

I have found out that I gained a spryte level? Very exciting!!!

One quick funny story about a Limrick bar...the DJ seemed very happy about visiting Americans. They played Born in the USA, and then we were given Henekein Cup hats to wear to the pubs in Dublin for the huge Rugby match :)

Ireland Update
I guess I should own up to the possibility of my geekhood if I am sitting in an Internet Cafe in Waterford, Ireland...posting a blog. How sad. Dublin is not cool. Very rude people and a small city at that. Waterford is a wonderful city with shoppes, nice people, tonnes of pubs and historical sites. Both Tonya and I feel that southern Ireland is more to our liking.

I just need Tonya's better clutch control and she needs my "other side of the road" experience ;) We have some very funny stories, although they were not so humourous at the time.

Catch everybody later...

Ireland!
I'm off to Ireland with Tonya. Driving to Chicago for a direct flight (thank you God!) to Dublin. The manual car rental should be interesting, even though it is like riding a bicycle. You just have to get the feel of the clutch again. The only problem with that is when I get back I'll be treating my automatic like a manual for a week :)

Be Back Tuesday Evening!

Arcana UnEarthed
I find playing a mindwitch to be very confusing. I have all these spells, some to be readied, others not. Some I can cast at certain times, others not. Then there's the weaving. While I understand it, how can I possibly remember all this in the heat of the battle??? It's enjoyable though. I suppose practice helps. Being a very focused individual, it doesn't help that I'm trying to follow a storyline, keep all the characters and their abilities straight, and keep my stuff straight. So I created yet another blog dedicated to Vormeili's Journey. Now I can better develop my character's personality, abilities, and still follow everything else...maybe :)

Lost Pup
Let me start off with the fact that this "lost pup" is up to my shoulders when he stands on his back legs. I'm terrified of big dogs. The name pit bull or rot sends shivers up and down my spine; however, this dog is smaller, so I didn't suspect pit bull. Since he was annoying me on every level by marking every bush and plant in my garden, he was installed in the garage. He wasn't leaving the area any time soon, and I felt that it would be better for him to mark silly tools instead of my plants. (Just kidding Eric!)

I took him to the vet today to scan him for a chip. He had one, but the computers were down, so they couldn't find out the owner. Given his excellent grooming condition, obedience, and gentleness, I figured him to have a chip and be owned. They asked me to keep him until they could locate the owner. I was perfectly fine with this until I ventured to ask the breed.

Pit Bull.

A very unhappy Marian took him home. I now understood why my cats puffed up in defense. Although I'm scared of him because of his breed, he has taken to me. We took a 2 mile walk. He managed to humiliate me by marking every rock and flower by the sidewalk. His owners must be breeding him. He's definitely ready to rock and roll. I placed him in the garage with the main door cracked, not figuring he would get through the screen door. Nope.

*click click click*

I look up, and this huge pit bull is looking at me with the most mournful eyes from the stairs. He came over and sat next to me. Never look into a dogs eyes when you lock them up.

Porky is no-where to be seen, and Q occasionally ventures out all puffed up. She is very angry, but when is Q not angry?

Yup...
I went girly. Bored out of my wits, and currently frustrated with Sacred's inability to zoom in and out appropriately without the screen jumping (especially in the towns), I decided to spice up my blogs. For those of you that may be horrified with the delicate colours, they will be changed as the seasons past. You are reading about the woman that changed her living room setting about three times within two months. I'm feeling very...springy :)

Out of Touch
I have been very busy watching the second season of Babylon 5 in a 3 day period (Monday - Wednesday). I can't get over their character and story development. I will always be a hard and fast Star Trek fan, but Babylon 5 has them beat on that score.

Tax Season
There has also been a very big cloud of anger over my head this week because of tax season. I will spare you my rant, but I think there is something fundamentally wrong when you give so much money throughout the year, then they decide to sting you again. Given our tax bracket in a combined income, I will be relieved to see next year's tax bracket without my income. Why screw us? Do you see a Mercedes out front? Do you see us owning a really cool house on Meridian Street? NO! We are innocent American citizens that work hard. Part of my problem is that I always take very careful notice of how much they withheld too, and combined with the April 15 taxes, it's insane. If people did not have FICA withholding, there would seriously be a tax revolution in this country. People just don't quite realise the depth of their contributions to the government. This is an example (not ours) to show how much the government rips off from us....

*whew* I feel better.

The highlight of my day is that my stats class is over as of yesterday. I just want to say that I very much enjoyed giving the feedback survey on the instructor. BWA HA HA!

New Cousin
I only say that I have a new cousin (Eric's cousin) because I only met him for the first time a few months ago. I have tonnes of cousins, with family reunions ranging in the hundreds, so one more, and a "cousin-in-law" at that, had little impact on me...except perhaps that he's cute. Very cute, even. He has some serious potential except that he speaks the official computer-talk language, so there's some communication barriers for people like me. Eric, apparently, is somewhat fluent in this subject, as the entire dinner conversation that day was lost on me. Anyway, I bring up this memory because I found his blog. I immediately saw that his computer-talk language extended to his writing skills also. He has some political things mentioned regarding Iraq too to add some flavour to this otherwise confusing blog. Sometime I think I'm going to have to go to Rose-Hulman and get a CS degree just so I can converse with people. I never realised that a degree would be necessary for conversation skills when I married an engineer!

Cheesecake
Props to Ball's very fantastic cheesecake. Never again will I insult the Kitchen Fu... :) The only problem is that he is now known as the creator of wonderful cheesecake...thus expectations are greater!

Happy Day!
After a rather long afternoon of shoe shopping, I found my primary pair of hiking boots. Unfortunately, they are sold at the stiff price of $210. Well worth it though. I plan to buy them later this summer. In the meantime, I bought some nice summer walking shoes for those shorter hikes on the Monan.

Just when I thought the day couldn't get any better, I found Star Gate's season 1 for $29.95 at our local EB. I blinked several times...then put it back, thinking that it was a trick. Then I took it up front, and the manager confirmed this miracle, and told me that a guy had come in and traded two seasons. Since the manager bought the one, that left one for me :)

This has been a truly excellent day of shopping.

Stupid Programmers
Somebody at Microsoft needs to be shot for having the "delete" and "rename" option right next to each other in the drop-down box that you get when right-clicking a document name. I nearly lost many painful hours on a research paper through such stupid programming.

PS I was first inclined to blame myself for not paying attention, but realised that it was much easier to blame some poor lost soul at Microsoft.

Grrr
Upsetting Statistics Newsflash
My statistics prof has returned some horrible statistics exercises, knocking off 5 points for transposing a 2 and 3 in the original formula. I must say that I enjoyed returning that, asking her to verify the formula that I copied and pasted from the e-text. I was further annoyed by having a point taken off for not copying and pasting the rubric to the bottom of my paper, but I couldn't really argue that since I didn't. I just think taking off 2 points for not putting EXACTLY what she want's to see in the subject line (Literature Review-Marian, versus my Marian's Literature Review), and taking off a point for not providing her own rubric is a little extreme. She's a very good prof, but has a couple issues in the "picky" category...

Final Decision
I never expected the decision of what spend with birthday money to ever be this difficult. I had finally decided on the Toggery, but then, as I passed a walking shoe store at Keystone At The Crossing, I knew where my money was destined. Since walking is becoming more and more a part of my life, a truly excellent pair of walking shoes is required. I am hoping to convince Eric to walk just the Smokey Mountain National Park part of the Appalatian Trail in Spring 2005 (70 miles). Perhaps this Fall we can go down to Kentucky and go hiking on a smaller scale. I'm learning that it's all about adding a little bit at a time. We're going to the Cherry Festival in Traverse City in July...I know a ton of gorgeous hilly trails to hike up there too.

What?
It's amazing what you can find in a storage room. While cleaning it out this afternoon, I found a fascinating document: Eric's Rose-Hulman grade card. All I want to know is, how in the world do you get straight A's in crazy horrible classes like Fractals & Chaos, Calculus III, Embedded System Design, and get a C+ in Principles of Economics????????

I might add that Principles of Economics was a freshman level course. I don't understand. While I realise that he is not an insane perfectionist like me, I see no excuse for this.

Back to finding more juicy gossip :)

Reveling In Freedom
An extra 4-5 hours of a day can really do wonders. Unfortunately, they are so easily filled! I was recently threatened by Buffy to not waste my days doing busy work, but I find the trap of busywork very unavoidable. Must practice be more lazy. Yesterday was so busy; something is very wrong with that. Two doctor appointments, three Tae Kwon Do classes, and homework. *sigh* Today started out much better. Two Babylon Five episodes, sluffing around the house, and getting packages ready to ship from eBay and Half.com sales. Much much better day.

Must hurry on to more sluffing.

Half.com
I just want to say Half.com so rocks. Buffy told me to sell my textbooks there because all you have to do is enter the ISBN number and the rest is all automated, but it seemed too good to be true. As I was cleaning out some of my books though, I thought, why not? I kept them for research, but since I haven't used Strategic Management, Managerial Accounting, and other such fascinating material since I graduated, it seemed to be worth a shot to sell them.

So...I posted most of my textbooks. I was praying to get $5 for one of them, simply because you never get the turn-around money on the initial zillions paid for them. But.....

...I got $28 on my first book after only one hour!!!!!!!!

This is a happy moment because I have been seething for several years that I was forced to pay $150 for a textbook, but now I'm at least getting 20-25% return on them. Although the day started badly, it's ending welll.

The Decision Has Been Made
Due the fact that I have been loaned the first season of Babylon 5 by my mother, and having received intense pressure from the only girl that comments on my blog (Buffy, believe it or not, but I am actually aware of 3 other girls that read it occasionally...we are not always outnumbered :)), I have chosen the Toggery as the desination of my birthday money.

Be advised that DS9 Season 2 will be purchased in the next month or two though....

Anger
I am experiencing a lot of anger right now. I had to do a rather arduous literature review for a research/statistics class last week. Received the feedback: B. This is totally unacceptable. Now I have to manage to stay in the 30 points remaining before I hit a class grade of A-. I think that will be all right though; and even if it's not, I have 50 more points in the A- range for the overall grade, but that's not the point. The point is that the literature review's grade was a B. I've never experienced this before, and I find it extremely unsettling. One time I received a B+ in World History during my Bachelors, but I wasn't even there half the time (was in France) and the prof was officially recognised as the "Prof B" (Professor Bitch) by the entire class and school. So, I'm very upset. I don't even know what I did wrong because the prof did the track changes for her comments, then copied/pasted in the OE email. She told me to copy/paste it back into Word and turn on track changes to see the feedback. This defies every ounce of logic, in my opinion. She may be good with research and statistics, but we need to work on the computer knowledge a bit. Why didn't she just attach the Word doc with the track changes in the OE message??? She's a good prof though, so I know she'll send it as an attachment since copying/pasting obviously didn't work.

This day is not starting out well.

Mini-News Flashes

ROTK
I went and saw ROTK last night with Eric, for the first time. Sad, I know, but there it is. I realise that I deserve a kick :) It was so unbelieveably awesome. I think I put off going because I was afraid of a let-down, being that it is the last movie of the series. It's been awhile since I read the books, so I'm going to go back through and read them. I can't wait until the extended version is released. I fully plan to reserve 12 hours of my day and watch all three extended versions in a row. That will be a blissful day.

Ireland
A huge bonus to not working in Corporate Hell is that travel has far more options. When a friend want to holiday somewhere, such as Ireland or England, and they ask if you want to go, there's really nothing to consider. Therefore, when I found out that a friend wanted to visit Ireland, I didn't really take time to roll the dice of consideration before saying yes! The same goes for another friend wanting to go to the beautiful Lake District in England during May. Ireland will be first though, most likely. Soooo...I looked for a website that had a lot of Irish history in it to help me appreciate the country more. Apparently I have a lot of reading ahead of me, seeing that the history starts approximately 1000 BC.

Corporate Hell
2 days and 2 hours...still counting down. My mood here is going down as well. For example, I was nearly enraged when a very annoying person called my chocolate swoops weird. Did I ask her opinion? No, I didn't. Did I ask her to even speak to me? Nope. While it was probably just a weak attempt at conversation, I am no mood to converse. Still counting down the hours to freedom.

Snow?!?!

Did anybody consult me in regards to allowing snow?

The answer is No.

I am very unhappy about this.

Stressful Decisions
I can't decide if I want to go to the Toggery for more clothing or buy the second season of DS9 with my birthday money. Any thoughts?

My Last Week!
Can I just say that I am so bloody excited about this being my last week at my company. I plan to:

Work on my Animal Preservation site a lot more...
Make paper...
Draw...
Cook...

Oh, and did I mention that the glorious holiday of Spring Cleaning is coming up very soon?

Basically, while females have earned their right to get out there and being Corporate, I'm finally starting to realise the freedom that women have by staying home. Tae Kwon Do is work, but since it's non-profit, I don't think of it as work. I'll still be making money by teaching college when I finish my Masters, but that's fun work, and I would be only an adjunct...far from full time, but enough to enjoy myself. I'm just not sure if I want to teach on-line or on-site, but I'll probably do a mix.

Freedom - FOUR DAYS AND THREE HOURS...AND COUNTING

Celebration...
Please note possible Crat plans in my Events forum...

New Bloggie
Ellen has started a blog! I realised how insightful into human nature *cough* her blog would be when I read her header:

A blog devoted to my continual struggle with the belief that people are good. Also, my crazy thoughts and feelings may also be discussed.

A Quarter of A Century
While I very much enjoyed turning 21 years old, I no longer quite look so forward to this day, now marking my 25th birthday. I remember the day where I couldn't wait until I got to the double digits! Yeesh! Why do kids want to grow up so quickly? Anyway, I'm out of college...well, a year left, and although I've decided to put off getting a PhD, I want to get another masters. What's wrong with me? Back to my list...out of college, have my home to decorate constantly, have a wee garden, have travelled quite a bit, and have friends. Most of my goals to be completed by 25 have been accomplished...*yay*! I don't count Dan Shi Club as an accomplishment before 25 simply because I had no idea that I would be doing that! I never thought I'd be married before 25 either...

So, it's time for new goals...to accomplish before 30. *shiver*...did I say 30?

1. Adopt my Chinese baby...
2. Have my own baby (somehow this gets procrastinated each year)
3. Have no more children after the Chinese girl.
4. Expand Dan Shi Club to more locations in the downtown community.
5. Get either a Bachelors in Wildlife Management or a MBA
6. Get more involved with animal preservation, thus the point of the Wildlife Management interest.
7. LEARN HOW TO DRAW! I've read, I've tried, and I still draw poorly unless I have it broken down for me.
8. Travel more, BEFORE kids!

Trip Highlights
The time away was much needed and helpful. Florida is not my ultimate favourite destination, but being a road trip, we got a beautiful view going through the mountains, and visiting historical locations. I must say, 80 degrees wasn't all that bad either!

I've heard that after 24 hours, whatever you remember are the poignant memories, and everything else was just moments in that particular time. Well, following are a few poignant memories...

Travelling
There was a lot of driving, as I discovered that I had exceeding my 3000 mile rule of changing the oil when we got back. I had just changed it before we left.

Friends
Getting to see the people responsible for our marriage was great! The radar on "trip value" shot way up when I discovered that Noelle has to go to England for a friend's wedding, and Denny can't go, so she was looking for a travelling companion. That decision took about 3 milliseconds. I already bought the ticket :)

Orlando
Since our resort was 6 miles from Disney World, it was tough getting away from the concept. May I just say that I will never take my child to an amusement park that costs $60 a person. Since I hate amusement parks anyway, this decision wasn't difficult at all. Unfortunately, Eric loves those terrifying beasts referred to as roller coasters, so I am the official holder of stuff in amusement parks. Pleasure Island was awesome though. Great comedy club in there...

Seaworld
Although I realise that Seaworld is in Orlando, it gets it's own catagory because ...well... it's SEAWORLD! Yes, I am one of those people that goes to as many zoos as possible and will stare at animals for hours on end, so I was in a dream come true at Seaworld. It's really sad though...I skipped Shamu completely. Something about the whale's fame annoyed me, so I spent more time with the manatees to compensate.

NASA
This was the most exciting part of the trip. Apparently they only use 5% of the island for rocket stuff, and the rest is dedicated to animal preservation...right down my alley! I saw a wild turtle coming out of his hole, a hawk swoop down and get a fish (the most awesome and poignant memory of the trip), and a wild Bald Eagle's nest. I also saw a wild armadillo cross the parking lot. There was a lot of discussion on shuttles and rockets, but it was either listen to the guide, or watch the animals. Gee, that's a toughie. According to Eric though, NASA is the most marvelous thing on the planet. I would suggest, if you are interested about the up close and personal views of the launch pads and such stuff, speak to Eric. :)

Columbia Zoo
Oh yeah! This is a great zoo, and I have some awesome photos. Since I obviously can't pop down to Columbia SC very often, I was very attentive to my camera, so I had Eric tagging behind me making notes of which photos were which animals.

Smoky Mountain National Park
As this park is the home of 70 miles of the trail I want to walk, and gorgeous besides, we had to visit. For my birthday, Eric had bought me Fendi sandals, and like a moron, was wearing them as we drove through the park....so when he wanted a picture of a waterfall with me next it, and water dripped on my Fendi sandals, there were many tears involved. Yes, I cried. I thought they were ruined, but Eric said since it was clean mountain water, it would dry all right. They did. I was happy again. Once again, I am proven that I will have to be a lot tougher for my Appalacian Trail hike.

Roughing It
As I packed my little Saturn Coupe to the maximum capacity level of suitcases full of clothes, shoes, and other accessories, not counting the snacks, books, Gameboy SPs, and other required paraphenalia for a 10 day road trip, I realised just how difficult it would be for me to only take necessary clothing on a hiking trip. Since my goal is the Appalacian Trail, I've been really attempting to grasp the level of primitiveness that I will have to endure. One part of me is pumped full of excitement to rely on sheer human ability to travel such a distance without technology (except for a digital camera and small camcorder), while the other part of me shudders in fear and anguish with the concept that I will not have several changes of clothing for my mood, or electricity. You are reading about a woman that has a mini-fridge in her bedroom so she doesn't have to travel that annoying distance of one floor down to the main fridge.

Now that I'm becoming more and more aware of the small to no amounts of comfort items that can be taken on a hiking trip, I am starting to think the hardest part of training will be adapting to this huge culture shock of having everything at my fingertips to having to work for the most basic survival.

Spring Fever Follow-Up
As anybody will see when they come into my home now, I went nuts with completely re-allocating furniture around the house.

*pause*

Please tell me that I did not say "re-allocating."

Anyway, I am so very proud of myself because I totally redecorated the house only by moving furniture, and not buying anything except for one floor lamp, which was desperately needed anyway for better lighting, two big pillows for the living room, and two cool decanters. I found this self control utterly miraculous and inspiring.

Spring Fever
It would seem that Spring Break will never completely leave my system, as I can't wait for the season to arrive. I want sun (warm sun), flower gardens and redecorating. I'm sure Eric is cringing right now at the thought of redecorating :) Fortunately for him, I just rearrange, rather than buying new furniture. Did I mention the excitment of Spring Cleaning? While some people dread this weekend task, it is on the top 10 of my favourite holidays. I'm also anxious to see how well my daffodil bulbs did over the winter.

I've been completely zapped by the Spring Fairy.

Game Night
Am I getting stiffed for the 21st, or is everybody noting this important event in their palm pilots and daytimers?

RSS Feeds
I am trying to determine if the parasitical effect of RSS feeds is the fault of the blogger who sets up a RSS feed, or the fault of the idiot who subscribed to a blog. Before defenses flare, please understand that I am referring to feeds only for jabbering blogs like mine. I think the feeds serve a great and noble purpose for insane readers like my husband who has a current subscription total of 90+ technical blogs. While I cannot comprehend reading all of them, I can at least see how the feeds would help him to read the masses of information. I don't understand why he keeps wanting me to set up a feed for my blog though. I'm tempted to do it for my religion and Tae Kwon Do ones, because that is one subject that only relates to certain people, but a feed for my babbling seems very annoying. I can just see it now, Ball is having a bad day, gets a RSS feed of my bad day, and realising that precious moments of his already bad day has been wasted, throws a sandwich across Cubeland :)

Cruel Remarks
I was recently referred to as "a grumpy troll." I found this accusation to be most upsetting and grumpifying.

Cool Name?
So tell me, is John Blake Cusack 2.0 a cool name? Although I am attempting to be open minded, I find it a bit crazy to liken a child's identification to a technology upgrade...

Travel Observations
Obviously quite bored, I found a link while perusing blogs that gives me a geographical picture of my travels. I wasn't too displeased with my USA travel experience, although my western travels are quite lacking. I'm planning to make that up in a year or so though when Eric and I take a Western road trip...however, I didn't realised how untravelled I was globally until I saw the image! Hmmm...I definitely need to slow my re-occuring visits and start going to new places. I was surprised to see how many countries I had no interest in visiting though.

United States


create your own visited states map
or write about it on the open travel guide

Global


create your own visited country map

The countries I want to visit...


create your own visited country map
or write about it on the open travel guide

Blogging
I try to only blog when I'm inspired to prevent boring reads, but that can be difficult since inspiration doesn't come quite that often. However, as I went through Neal's lack of posting, Sterno's post that took me a full 2 days to realise he was venting about his moving fiasco, and Matt's little link rant, I came to the conclusion that I could post anything I wanted at any time!

On that note, I am beyond thrilled to have found the perfect gaming party outfit for the 21st! My big dilemma is that I'm not sure if I should wear it to Cabin Fever (Friday) or to my party (Saturday). Since it would be a grave sin in some women's books (including my own) to wear it two nights in a row, I am finding the dilemma very upsetting. While some of you are getting past the shock that I would even shop for a "gaming" outfit, please note that I was not specifically looking for one, it just fell into place while out shopping yesterday. I'll spare you the exciting minute to minute details.

Oh, quick question to you Cabin Fever people, is there an Euchre tourney, or am I getting confused with something else? I was telling Buffy Friend's stalker (that's what she calls herself) about it when she was lamenting that she wanted to play more Euchre. For those of you who don't know what Cabin Fever is, it's a crazy kind of lock-in for adult engineers at their company to play games with no alcohol.

Seriously Motivated
I have always loved nature. Although I'm a city girl, through and through, and I have to have my regular injections of Burberry and Coach, I have always wanted to complete a major undertaking regarding physical stanima and nature. Tae Kwon Do has been a huge motivating factor in my physical ability, but not something that quite "completed" me. However, I have discovered my challange to complete. I am so motivated for this! I want to walk the Appalachian Trail straight through. How cool is that? I realise how much I have to do in order to successfully complete this goal: health, good shape, increase physical stamina a ton, and become a lot more educated about hiking and camping. The concept of completing the trail straight through has only excited me about getting to the physical ability to accomplish it. My problem, it seems, is selling this to my husband. I thought he'd be all for it, but seems nervous about it.

Marian: Eric! I know what accomplishment I really want to do...something that helps complete who I am.

Eric: Wow. What is that?

Marian: Walk the Appalacian Trail straight through.

Eric: That's like 2000 miles. How long does it take?

Marian: That's the challenge (referring to the 2000 miles); it averages 6 months to complete.

Eric: Ummmmm, that's a really long time, and a lot of walking.

No kidding. I remain excited though, and I know he'll enjoy it once we are physically ready to take it on. I'll keep you posted on the training :)

Laceration Effects
I never realised how much I depended on my right index finger. I have made an oath to never cut cheese again with knife. This may seem challenging, but I can use cutting boards with wire on it or something. True, I didn't cut it correctly, but as I missed the cheese and cut my index finger to the bone, requiring six stitches, I am not in the mood to apply blame, but to avoid the situation altogether.

...and I also had no idea that I had so much blood in such a small part of my body. I finally rang a friend that used to be an EMT and he said to clot it by putting pressure on it with a wet towel. That was after the telephone and kitchen floor started looking like a crime scene. Now that it's stitched and wrapped, pressure on the keyboard kills me, so I'm pecking at it. I can't properly relay the annoyance of going from 85-90 words per minute down to, "where's that comma."

Impending Boredom
Though a lot of people work to pay the bills and have quality of life, which is driven by money in many cases, I have noticed that even when people don't have to work, there is a driving force or desire that keeps them in the workforce. Although I am not sure what the underlying psychology is that motivates people to continue working, I am starting feel it as well. Friday, I was told by my bosses that while the part time position that I had negotiated last year had been working, a lot more responsibilities were coming to the department, so they needed me to go back to full time. I felt caught between the feelings of "I hate to kill the golden goose that pays me money for coming in four hours a day," and "there's no way I'm going back to juggling Dan Shi Club, especially with another school wanting our after school teaching services, my MED, and having any semblance of a life." Since it appeared that my Golden Goose of part time was dead anyway, I obviously turned down the full time position. I'm going up to 6 hours a day until a new person is hired, and I transition the new person, but it appears that the remaining 6-7 months of 2004 is impending boredom. I am so freaked over the idea of not getting up and going to my little cubeland, wherever that might be. Perhaps having worked in cubeland since I was 17 has given me misgivings of freedom. I'll be glad to graduate (2/2005)with my MED ASAP so I can start teaching.

Klink...Be GONE
Worthless commenting systems. Yet again, for the billionth time since I've had their system, Klink's system is down. He blames it the hosting provider, but to this consumer that demands instant gratification, this is the final straw. Consider Klink in the trash. He's no smarter than Klink in Hogan's Hero's. I'll probably discover that Blogger's commenting system isn't much better, but we'll see.

Gourmet Party
My friend got the brilliant idea that since we, and a few of her friends, enjoy cooking gourmet recipes, why not have a party, and each person bring their favourite gourmet dish? Brilliant. Delicious. Fun. Awesome. I am kicking myself for fogetting to take pictures of the dishes, as they were truly excellent in both appearance and taste. Following were the delectable delights:

Appetisers

• Black Mountain cheese (Welsh), Chives and Onion cheese (Welsh), and 5 County cheese (English) with crackers


• Soy beans (if you haven't had these, don't judge them until you've tried!)


• Crab cakes

Entrees

• Fantastic pasta dish that had fresh parmesan just grated before put into the pan


• Sweet and Sour Strawberry salad


• Stuffed peppers


• A mussel/crab/shrimp concoction with Tusari mustard stuffed in a pastry shaped in a fish

Desserts

• Fudge cake with homemade fudge


• Mexican carmel custard

The fish was my contribution. I actually enjoyed it, which is rare because I don't often eat my own creations. It was a great meal though, that lasted 4 hours. We had no idea the time flew like that though. The only slight change that we discussed was making the meal work together a bit more. Perhaps with an ethnic theme. We'll see what she decides for next month :)