Not Forgotten

Dear blog,

I have not forgotten you. I have been in Mississippi. I have much to blog, but it will have to wait until tomorrow.

NeighborMan

The conversation went something like this:

Me: Hey Bud! What's going on?
NM: Well, we went to get some donuts.
Me: Oh yum! You have a new hat!
NM: Yes. It's a speedracer hat from a big box of things I got for my birthday party.
Me: Are you hunting something today?
NM: No, I'm just waiting for a bad guy. I have handcuffs. And a gun. And a silver thing on my belt.
Me: What's the silver thing on your belt called?
NM: It's called "a thing that tightens my belt"...

SYTYCD commentary posted

Link on right

I should finally admit that I didn’t realize until the beginning of this season that the theme song is saying “So You Think You Can……So You Think You Can…..DANCE DANCE DANCE” Well, I got the “DANCE” part, but I guess I just thought they were saying “shooby dooby dooby DANCE” or something.

Top 10 favorite disapproving rabbits (plus one)

In the ancient bunny monasteries, the secrets of one-eared disapproval are passed on from master (Grumphus) to pupil (Millie).

(no particular order)

1. http://www.disapprovingrabbits.com/2008/04/henry.html
2. http://www.disapprovingrabbits.com/2008/04/acorn.html
3. http://www.disapprovingrabbits.com/2008/04/clooney.html
4. http://www.disapprovingrabbits.com/2008/03/sunday-cinnamon.html
5. http://www.disapprovingrabbits.com/2008/01/nano-and-nina.html
6. http://www.disapprovingrabbits.com/2007/12/baby-bunnies.html
7. http://www.disapprovingrabbits.com/2007/12/tucker.html
8. http://www.disapprovingrabbits.com/2007/11/goldie.html
9. http://www.disapprovingrabbits.com/2007/09/jo-jo.html
10. http://www.disapprovingrabbits.com/2008/05/iggy.html

Top 10 authors (yes I know there's only 9. I can't decide on #10 yet)

1. Neal Stephenson - Cryptonomicon, Quicksilver, The Confusion, The System of the World, Snow Crash, Zodiac, The Big U, The Diamond Age
2. John Irving - A Prayer for Owen Meany, The World According to Garp
3. Douglas Adams - Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, Long Dark Teatime of the Soul
4. J.D. Salinger - Franny and Zooey, Raise High the Roofbeam, Carpenter and Seymour: an Introduction, Nine Stories, The Catcher in the Rye
5. Tom Robbins - Still Life with the Woodpecker, Skinny Legs and All, Another Roadside Attraction, Jitterbug Perfume
6. Terry Pratchett - ALL
7. Kurt Vonnegut - The Sirens of Titan, Breakfast of Champions, Cat’s Cradle, Slapstick
8. Sena Jeeter Naslund - Ahab’s Wife, The Four Spirits
9. Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Love in the Time of Cholera, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Potential 10's:

• Orson Scott Card (Thanks for the suggestion Pat!) - I do love Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, Children of the Mind, and The Worthing Saga. In that same sort of vein, I also do love
• Frank Herbert - Dune, Dune Messiah and Children of Dune

The verdict

So I had something like 116 viruses, worms, trojans, and whatnot on my machine. Finally purchased StopZilla. It SEEMS to have cleared everything off and the computer is behaving normally at the moment. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Botanic Garden pics posted @ picasa!

I haven't posted all the identification info - still working on it. I'll add the info as I gather it. If you know what something is please feel free to comment.

Link to the gallery over to the right.

Oh crap

I had a bunch of stuff I wanted to post today, but Jason's been working to clear the viruses, trojans, and worms off of my computer for the last 8 hours.

I'm panicking.

He's running yet another scan and it's about 20% done and has already found 61 infected files.

The scary thing is, I have NO idea how I got these. I'm generally pretty careful about what I downloand and what mail I open.

Office of Redundancy Office

I just heard this on the local news:

"Indiana has declared a state of emergency declaration."

SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE

For those of you as obsessed as I am:

http://colloquialsytycd.blogspot.com/

Comments required.

Marginally annoyed

So I thought this part of Colorado was supposed to be like the hippy/granola/vegan capital of the world. I went to Boulder yesterday and granted, the place I went was a tourist area, but still. I looked at the menu at EVERY restaurant in that area and there was only ONE where I saw any vegetarian food, and it was like a Falafel King or something. It was good, but I was looking forward to a variety of options.

And then today at lunch I went to Subway and they don't carry veggie patties so I had another lettuce sandwich basically. It's harder for me to eat up here than it is at home - and that's saying something.

I'm sunburnt and happy

Wow. Amazing. Beautiful. Inspiring. I took about a million pictures that I'll upload when I get home next weekend. In the meantime, here are a couple to hold you over.

ummmm.........Ouch.

Me Before: Getting up this morning and thinking "this is a great day to get outside and get some Vitamin D into my body"...

Me After: Two words.....Dumb ass.

Bubonic plague

So I'm getting sick AS PER USUAL lately every time I fly anywhere. I have been sneezing all day and now I'm coughing. I either caught something on the flight, I am allergic to something unfamiliar in Colorado, or I have caught the bubonic plague which is allegedly carried by the prairie dogs living outside my hotel room window. I don't care, they are CUTE. And it I could catch one I would pet it and call it George.

I also don't care if I'm sick. The weather here is like pure heaven and I am doing the things I have planned to do this weekend because who knows when I'll get another chance?

Patience is a virtue (thank God for zoloft)

So my trip up to Colorado Monday was not too bad, except that I had to wait on the plane in Dallas for 3 hours before we took off. First we didn't have a pilot, then when we were on our way down the runway some kind of gauge failed so we had to go back, wait for a gate, and then wait to get it fixed. I used to get SO annoyed and upset about stuff like that. I would have sat on the plane fuming and miserable and probably making a few people around me a little more miserable unknowingly.

I think part of it my new attitude is because of the zoloft but part is because I TRY to have a different perspective on things than I used to. I try not to sweat that kind of stuff as much. I still got to Colorado, and I got here safely. It put me about 1/2 a day behind on work, but I can catch that up. By the time I got to the rental car place I was tired but glad to be there. There was only a couple of people in line ahead of me. When I got to the counter, the lady helping me had a nametag that said something like "I'm Gayle and I'm in training" or something like that. She seemed frazzled.



A man came running in the office. Apparently his daughter left something in the car they just dropped off. Someone was supposed to be bringing it around, but they hadn't yet. Another guy came in and said he couldn't get in the car they assigned him. She had to stop helping me to assign him another car. I just pulled my book out and read a few pages. When she started looking at my reservation, she just sighed and said they didn't have any intermediate cars, all they had was a van or a jeep and would I take one of those? I said sure, I'll take the jeep. She typed a minute into the computer and then said "oh no, the jeep is two upgrades, but you know what? You've been so patient I'm going to make it work."



When I got in the car, I immediately found an AWESOME radio station - 97.3 out of Denver. The first song I heard was Gone, Gone, Gone (Robert Plant and Alison Kraus), which I had been humming all week anyway. The second song was Coldplay. On the hour drive up to Longmont, I heard The Cure, Billy Joel, Jack Johnson, The Grateful Dead, Violent Femmes, The Shins...a really great mix. They stream on-line too. I'm sure I'll be listening to them a lot.

The drive up was beautiful. I could see the Rockies. It was sunny but cool. The directions I printed out from Mapquest were easy.

Karma, baby. It all works out in the end.

Why do I treat my pets like family?

Recent conversation with my mother on the phone:

Mom: How much does Greta weigh?
Me: 57 pounds. Why?
Mom: Well, we took Mattie to the vet today, and he said she could lose a few.

(Mattie is the stray "puppy" that my brother showed up with about 8 years ago that still lives with my parents)

Me: How much does she weigh?
Mom: Like 65 pounds.

(Mattie is about 2 feet shorter than Greta)

Me: Huh, how about that. How did she do at the vet? (thinking how she freaks out and won't move when you put a leash on her and isn't thrilled about the car)
Mom: Oh she did SO good. (pause) So she had to have an ice cream sandwich when we got home...

A couple more of the park

Dog park woohoo!

The dog-park near our house opened last Saturday with great fanfare. We missed the ribbon-cutting ceremony but arrived shortly thereafter, at about 12:30 p.m. There were a good many people there between the dog-park opening and the kid's part opening. We immediately let the dogs off their leashes and off they ran. Schaffer had to make a perimeter check first of course. Greta ran off to meet new friends. They ran around and gave everybody a once over, and then checked out the far side of the park with Jason.

By that time I saw that Greta was wanting to lay down. She'd get up and go a few steps and plop back down. We got her out of the sun and she would barely stand up while we were waiting in line for the water hose. She had already laid all the way out on the sidewalk by the time we got the hose, so we let her drink water bits at a time and then just used the water to cool her down.

It scared the bejesus out of me. In the meantime Schaffer had escaped into the doggie airlock (there are two sets of gates going in to the open area)and was trying to pick up on a cute little lhaso.

Despite the drama, it was a fun time. There were lots of cute doggies and they were all well behaved. There was a zydeco band playing up the hill. It was very hot (especially if you are a solid blue/black dog bred to herd livestock in the mountains of Bavaria).

Even with his boundless energy, Schaffer was ready to go pretty soon too, so we set off for the walk home. It's only a few blocks. They were sure ready for water and naps!

I'm sure we'll go back but next time, maybe later in the evening when it's cooler.

SO EXCITED

I figured out what I'm doing in Denver Saturday. I'd love to tell you, but you know.....stalkers and serial killers....so you'll have to wait until I blog about it later!