voices in the sky

let me preface all that i am about to say by pointing out that i am, in fact, in a really good mood. right now, that is. not when the day started.

and actually, the day started last night. for reasons too long to explain, i had a hotel room for last night. this is despite the fact that we had a condo until tomorrow (tues) because there were 4 of us. the room was pre-paid for (i know, that doesn't happen often, but it did) and so i was intending to go stay there. i love nice, clean hotel rooms. and my own big bed. and a clean bathroom (i've been sharing with my uncle which isn't the worst thing in the world, but having your own is clearly better). i also wanted internet so i could download things and there is one main benefit to being in a hotel last night: i would be alone. its a fact. i like to be alone. i'm an introvert. i can't be around people 100% of the time. i need ME time. and lots of it. i haven't had much lately, which is fine, i don't get to see my parents often, BUT i also felt like i was doing a lot of things that i wouldn't normally do - going to restaurants i didn't like, compromising on things to do, spending a lot of time in gyms, etc. i don't do stuff like this. so i wanted to be alone.

of course, my father whined, and i ended up staying at the condo. he didn't want to have to take me to the hotel at night and said he'd take me to the airport at 5:30am. this had a benefit of not having to lug my luggage on to a hotel shuttle and get up extra early to make sure i got the right shuttle. so i relented and stayed in the condo.

and now i remember. i know this much is true: i do not like being around people when i have to wake up early. i want to be alone. and with music and go at my own pace whether that be fast or slow. in the future, when i have a pre-paid hotel room, i think i will take it.

a few things that contributed to my lack of mood this morning. 1) i thought the trip to the airport would be 15-20 minutes. not a half hour. this was certainly my fault for not leaving more time, but i have learned another thing. when going to the airport - i need to drive myself. there is nothing more frustrating than being in a rush and depending on other people. i emailed my friend about this and she agreed. she said that when she is in a rush to get to the airport, she doesn't talk to anyone until she is at the gate getting ready to board. thats how serious i become when i am anxious to get to the airport. i dont know if i have ever missed a flight (i can't remember) but i dont want to. i also dont like to wait a long time, so i am often pushing myself and thats fine. as long as i dont have to push anyone else who gets annoyed with me. this is why i need to drive going forward.

2) not all airports have priority screening. i got to the airport in a stressed state - an hour before my flight, but not 1.5 hrs like i had anticipated (i recognized there would be a lot of travelers). normally this wouldn't make me nervous, but today there are THOUSANDS of people at mco. ugh. so i get in the "expert traveler" line only to realize that is WINDS around the room MORE and therefore is actually a longer line. i'm not sure that it goes faster. i get to the front and, just like in up in the air, i zoom through and get all my stuff out quickly. i'm an expert screen go-througher. there is no body scanner, so i think "nice, no need to worry." i go through security and set off the metal detector. she has me go through again. i dont set it off the 2nd time, so i must've hit it the first time. despite not going off the 2nd time, she made me go stand in this plastic mini room. this guy comes up to me and wipes a cloth on my hands. it tests positive in their fancy machine. i'm not sure why - i haven't handled any explosives lately (to my knowledge). they had to find a woman screen me, so that took some time. its easily 20 min before my flight, so i'm not super worried anymore. the woman brings me over to a different area and gives me the "pat down."

now let me just say a few things about the much-hyped pat down... it's pretty frickin invasive. there is definitely someones hands up your crotch. and don't get me wrong - it doesn't bother me: 1) i'm pretty effin open and liberal and have no issues with people groping between my legs (although i'd prefer they bought me a drink first) and 2) i completely understand that tsa has no idea if i've stuffed some sort of thing inside my thing and am planning to blow up a plane. so i UNDERSTAND the pat downs, and for me, personally, it doesnt bother me. BUT if i were a sexual assault survivor, i might freak out. i understand its an issue. and i think i handled it fine. BUT it doens't help add to my mood at 7am on a monday morning when you're trying to get back to work.

so i go to my flight - no upgrade, but i had an exit row, so that was nice. we board and i fell asleep. i do this often and usually have no idea how long we've been in the air when i wake up. this time, turns out we weren't in the air at all. we never took off. some electrical problem in atlanta (my layover) closed 18 gates and so delta had problems - they couldn't accept flights or let flights leave. so our flight was grounded. we head back to the gate and they tell people that you MAY deplane if you'd like, but you dont have to. since i have a nice exit row seat, i was perfectly comfortable. and this didn't even make my mood worse. i typically have no issues flying and was actually trying to decide if i should even go to work because my flight would be late.

only about 10% of the plane stayed on, of which i was 1. BUT i'm smart. so i call delta while sitting on the plane. i'm on hold for 15 min, no doubtedly because atlanta is a major hub and causing tons of issues. when i finally get to someone, she says that they have automatically booked me on a direct flight to boston. SCORE! so i get up and grab my stuff and am heading out the plane when the lead flight attendant says "you're leaving? we're reboarding the plane." and i said "they rebooked me on a direct flight!" so i go out to the gate agent to get my ticket for my next flight. my mood is changing.

i ask the gate agent for an exit row seat and he says to me, "well, actually, they've booked you in first class." double score! so i get my ticket and actually feel i'm able to HELP people - many people were on the atlanta flight after mine and wanted to get on my flight, so now some lucky person got to. AND in an exit row seat!

so the 2nd thing that changed my mood: i am sitting patiently at my gate for my direct flight to boston (2 hours later) and my little brother, player, tweets something about checking in at mco. ?! of course! so i call him and sure enough, he's checking in to delta. he asked me if i saw a bunch of tall guys in black and blue (his team). i didn't because they were checking in and i was at the gate, but he said he'd call once he was through security. he calls back and turns out he was leaving from gate 73 and i was sitting at gate 74! so he comes to meet me. i was like "where's your team?" because he was the only black and blue person i saw. turns out he left them in the dust! he went through security and got on the first tram to come see me. awww. so we only got to hang for like 15 min, but he showed me his pictures from his trip, which was awesome and we had a good time. here is a picture of the two of us.

as you can see, my mood has improved. i'm on the internet on the flight and since i have to take a vacation day at work since my flight was late, i'm going home (instead of lugging my luggage to work, etc). i'll unpack and ... dum dum dum... start xmas decorating!! i can't wait! oh crap. i have open toed shoes. do we have snow in boston? that might actually IMPROVE my mood even more! i love snow. miss it. i just hope its not cold.

[song because its by the moody blues and i was moody today AND i'm in the sky!!]

sunday morning quick update

quick update: we're on our way to go alligator hunting. i kind of want one to bite me - just a little. just like nick my skin so i get a cool scare. no lost limbs or anything. player's team won last night. we didn't play the home team, just the two traveling teams, which was a better team, and my uncle talked to someone who said that that the home team always does that for their own tournament - plans to play the worst of the 3 teams. AND the home team lost last night to the team we beat on friday night. so player's team is the winner of the tournament!! they should've taken a chance and tried playing us. losers. last day in florida for me. i fly back to the tropics tomorrow morning and spend half a day at work. bleh.

ok, talk to you guys later.

can't think of a title because i have to go to the br...

greetings from not-that-sunny florida. flo rida. ha. it took me a long time before i realized that. if if it were sunnier, i'd want to go in the pool, but since its overcast, i'm fine sitting here in the ... atrium (?) of our condo complex on the internet. the internet didn't really work that well yesterday and that was super frustrating (no blogging or email checking!) so this morning i was going to head to a starbucks or borders to start using it. but my dad said he was going to try again, so i came with him and now its working. i'm downloading more podcasts and its taking forever, so that kind of sucks. AND i really really have to pee, but i don't want to get up and stop the downloading process. ha. there is a guy walking around me with an osu shirt on. funny.

anyway, in case i didn't mention before, i'm in florida because my little brother is playing basketball in this southern florida college tournament. we went to their first game yesterday and it was fun. they won, which always makes trips worthwhile. here is a press release on the game if you want to read about it (complete with a photo of player!!). this is probably the only time this year i'll get to see him play. sad. but glad that i get to at least be here for the game. there is another game today and i think we're going to head to tampa to check out the gulf and then stop at the game on the way back. oh! we're staying in kissimmee at some condo. i'll try to post some photos some other time. its kind of funny. my room is all mickey moused.

so last night i was a little frustrated. we wanted to find a place to eat mexican food, so i pulled up this android app that i have with restaurant reviews and whatnot. i put in orlando, even though we're staying in kissimmee. kissimmee, i've discovered, is not really my place. its full of chain restaurants, big box stores, and lots of annoying tourists who don't care about individuality and cute things. we went to "old town" the first night - for thanksgiving dinner - and it was ... ok, i guess. just like every other touristy old town i've been to (e.g. sacramento). we ate at a bar that i found on teh same android app and it sufficed, but wasn't really what i was looking for. typically this program has cute, independent restaurants who are trying to get their name out there. not big sports bars. whatever. so we try one more time last night. since i have NO CONTEXT of neighborhoods and menus or anything else, its been pretty miss and miss. no hitting.

as i was saying, last night, we head to orlando for dinner. the android app gave me an address which i put in to our tom tom when we were leaving lakeland, where player's game was. we hit the road and ... it was a LONG drive. and at night when it was dark, it was like driving in rural north dakota but with windy roads. so maybe rural wisconsin. it was slightly eerie. i was worried because the tom tom didn't know address numbers for the street we wanted, so i just clicked "any cross street." i have no idea how long streets are, where this place was, what area it was in, etc. i was hoping it was in downtown orlando or some cool area (not sure what downtown orlando is like). the whole time we're driving there, i'm thinking "please don't let us end up in the ghetto. please no ghetto." i was navigating while my dad drove with my uncle (he was a surprise for my brother!) and mom were in the back. we get off the highway (which was the cross street the tom tom chose) and... there not a lot around. we pull in to a gas station right away, with the guy behind glass. that always makes me think we're in a not-so-nice area. he doesn't know the restaurant (which i can't remember the name of and now my android app doesn't work and i couldn't pull it up). he suggests this one street which has a ton of restaurants on it. we go to it and its olive garden, chilis, long john silvers, perkins, etc. i'm really worried that my family is pissed that i've struck out TWICE with this stupid app. so when my uncle suggests "orlando bar" or something like that, i'm like "yes! let's go!" so we go inside and sure enough... bingo! it's a local chain, with a big menu, so not really my joint, BUT my family loved it because... dum dum dum... TVS EVERYWHERE. it was the ultimate sports bar. they even PLAYED the game on the loud speaker instead of music. so we had food and it wans't bad. i'm the designated driver, so i didn't drink and it meant i "got" to drive home (oh, we have a prius, btw - i love it!) and it was kind of freaky all the roads with no cities around. since i couldn't see anything other than the road, i imagined we were just driving over tons of swamps filled with alligators and crocodiles (wahts the difference again??) and that they were going to clamp on to our bumper and follow us home. i don't think it happened, so thats good. other than annoying phone apps, the trip has been good. player won his game yesterday, we're with family, the weather is not 40 degrees, etc. glad i came even if there isn't internet in our condo.

oh, but a few things are frustrating me currently:

1. i can't find my copy of oz season 1. i KNOW that i lent it to someone because i wanted him / her / them to watch it, but i absolutely cannot remember who this is. i've asked the people who i think i would've lent it to, but no one seems to have it. anyone know??
2. i had this video of a yoga pose that you do while you're stiting in a chair. you put your leg up on your knee and then bend over it and it lengthens your ... something. i think i've sent this video to people before and it is AWESOME, but i can't find the video online anywhere. grr. anyone have a video like this??

now i really have to go pee. peace out.

thanksgiving on a plane

on the plane. heading from bos to atl for my thanksgiving vacation. i think this is, literally, the first time that i have ever flown for thanksgiving weekend. i've never traveled on it - save for the first year in boston (11 year ago!) when i took the bus to nyc and met 3 friends there (gidge, kj, and shad). but that was bus travel. other than that, i've never really traveled on this weekend. thanksgiving isn't such a big holiday for me. its just eating and being lazy. is that my thing?

i equally love and hate when plans get changed. tuesday night i stayed at work until 1am (took a cab home, of course). when i got home, i expected it to be quiet, but my roommate was up getting ready for thanksgiving dinner. i talked to him for a bit and then headed to bed. i probably didn't get to bed until almost 2, so i let myself sleep in until after 7 on wed morning. i still had to go to work. i got in around 9 and was prepared to work until 5 when i had plans with a coworker to have drinks. then i planned to go home, pack for my trip to florida, catch up on some tv, early to bed, early to rise, maybe do a bit of work, etc. tranquille.

so i get to work and of course, it was the day before thanksgiving so we had early release at 3pm. my coworker and i decided not to have drinks and my roommate asked me to meet up with him and his coworkers after work. they got out at 1:30 (working in higher ed must be so nice!) and i was super busy at work, so i didn't leave until 4:30 (annoying!). i rushed out and then headed to marliave where higgi and his friends were. they were a few drinks in so i got a drink. we had a good time. we were there until... hmm... i actually have no idea how long we were there. in the end there were 4 of us and higgi and his friend/coworker liz and i took a cab to the south end because it was FREEZING wind. we stopped at our place and had some bubbly. then we headed out to get some food at 647. i had a burger which was really good. since higgi used to work there we got to try a lot of the appetizers. mmmm mmm good. i had a glass of wine and was like "doh! i wasn't going to drink much." that was not my plan to have any at all. all i wanted to do was pack!

since i hadn't slept much the night prior, i was super tired. i didn't walk liz to the train station, i let higgi do that because i was dead. i went to bed right away and set my alarm for 7 am to get up and pack. my flight was at 11 but i've been hearing horror stories about the security at aiports, so i figured i would get there SUPER early. just in case. i got to the airport around 9:35 and... sure enough: no one's there. its totally dead. i zoomed through security (NOT the freaky deaky naked scanner thing, which i am undecided about - new study says that it can cause cancer which is not super cool) and was sitting in a rocking chair at my gate in no time. i got upgraded on tuesday, which should've told me that not a lot of people were flying, but i still thought it would be busier than it is. my flight is decently full. i think there are only a few empty seats. and i am getting more comfortable in first class. the people on this trip don't seem to be so elitist. probably all upgraders. ha.

so i feel like i should attempt something interesting.... i'm watching millionaire matchmaker. there's nothing interesting on tv and this show is one of those train wrecks. you can't stop watching it. why are people so concerned with how much money a person makes? and all of the matchmakers rules (i forget her name) are kind of ... i dont know. severe? limiting? over the top? something like that.

i was just looking through my old photos looking for one to post here. nothing really interesting, but i found one of a thanksgiving dinner a few years ago. oh wait. i DID travel for thanksgiving once. 3 or 4 years ago, i flew to paris and did thanksgiving with my friends. i must've flown wed night red eye and come back on sunday. i think it was a super quick trip. here are the photos:


guess we're descending now. so i'll post this. what are you doing for thanksgiving? what's your favorite thanksgiving food to eat? oh! and happy thanksgiving!

traveling band

i've been traveling a lot lately. i'm 50-50 on the whole new security measures.

here's a video on not touching the junk (from here):


then there is this very important ))) from canada (source):


and snl did a good parody here.

i can't paste the video in, so you'll have to click on the link to get it.

what do you guys think about the new flying procedures? i fly to florida out of one of the busiest airports in the country this weekend (bos) and am flying to mco. i already got upgrade for my flight to orlando, so i'm hoping that means its not very busy tomorrow... are you going anywhere??

[song by ccr]

is your love strong enough

i was at a training the other day and we did this exercise where there were 5 signs around the room:

1. strongly agree
2. agree
3. conflicted
4. disagree
5. strongly disagree

the moderator would read a statement and then we all had to go stand under the sign which explained how we felt. the questions were meant to be polarizing and get us to think about our opinions. for example, "homeless people should be allowed to sleep in parks." or "america is the most democratic country in the world." they really made me think. but there was one sentence that i did not think about, for a second. "same-sex couples should be allowed to have the same rights as other couples."

there were about 3 of us in the "strongly agree" section (out of about 12). 4 or so under "agree" and then the rest spread across the other options. it was really shocking to me that anyone in boston would be under a sign other than "agree" or "strongly agree."



thanks to boingboing for posting this great video.

[bananarama]

things that are making me happy

so i'm obsessed with the idea of turducken (stuffing a chicken into a duck into a turkey).

and then they came out with this: pumpple cake.

i honestly can't say that i think i would actually like it, but it just blows my mind - who comes up with these things?? and what sort of delicious baked good could i come up with if i knew how to bake?? what is your favorite bizarre thing to eat?

alpha beta gaga

i have a sister now. did you know that? they (she and my brother, homie) got married during my blogging sabbatical, so i haven't really written about it (for which i am sure they are glad), but i def want to. some day. in any case, one thing i'm really looking forward to is making more money so that i can take my 3 siblings on lots of really cool trips. i love to travel and i think its great to see the world. so i've decided to write posts just for her so she can start to get excited about all the places to go. woo hoo!

my family visited me when i lived in france ... holy crap. 8 years ago. eek! and we went to london. so this picture is fabulous:


this is one of my FAVORITE cities in the world. or rather, two cities? buda and pest. LOVE it (them).

and then of course. THE city. paris. gay paris. this picture (where all these pictures are from) is not my favorite of paris, but i do love it.

in any case, thought i'd share some photos of cities i love. what are your favorite cities? or where would you like to go?

[song from air's cd talkie walkie]

don't put yourself in the garbage

so its saturday night. in november. you know what that means... basketball!!! and not just any basketball, player basketball! so fun.

so my parents and younger brother, homie, headed to bismarck to watch player play. in case you can't guess by my excitement, we won. 76-69 (or something like that...) maybe 75. i guess we scored the first 6 points and then didn't score again until after they scored 12 (oops!). i say "i guess" because i missed the first part of the game chatting with a friend online who is in australia. we were video conferencing, so i couldnt do both. anyway, it was really fun to watch even if jack michaels wasn't there. :) AND, for the record, homie: i DID listen last week, but not to jack. i listened to the video, remember? we talked about that at the time...

the other day, umarysports posted a video interviewing a bunch of the transfer students. they talk about how great the senior leadership (hint: my brother is a senior) is. here's the video:


but really now that i think about it, you want the video that shows my brother talking. he's the tall white kid with blue shoes. oh wait. that's not very distinctive. he's the one with the same last name as me. :)


but really, before i go to bed, i thought i would leave a little present for my little brothers. i am sure they, and hopefully you, will find this hilarious (from gawker):

happy half birthday to me!!

you won't believe my day so far. its 7:28 and i am at work. on my half birthday (which i LOVE, btw!) i should find a cupcake or something for me tonight. i wonder if my roommate will think of it.... hint hint...

anyway, so i talked to a bunch of people yesterday to give me advice on whether or not i should stay at work (this is around 6pm) and stay really late or go home and work. everyone convinced me to go home (i'm a taurus so i'm indecisive). so i head home after getting some indian food. i ate while watching criminal minds and then it went downhill. i should've started working right then and there. but no. i turned on i love money. and i love i love money. it is so trashy. its hysterical. AND i kind of like the challenges.

anyway, of course i got hooked and watched 2 episdoes and then promptly fell asleep. much too early. i woke up around 130 and kept thinking "i have so much to do, i have so much to do." so i got up, went downstairs and started working from home. it was too hard. the system is slow when you work remotely and i had a LOT to do. so, after an hour or so, i got ready and called a cab.

so now here is where i need to fill in some backstory. a few weeks ago, my friend gidge was in town. we had a great time. i keep meaning to write about it. she stayed with me saturday night and then was heading home to dc on sunday evening. we were out and about all day on sunday and after talking about it, she decided to just take a cab to the airport instead of the t. she wanted to rest a bit more (she's preggers) and hang out with me and the cab is so much easier AND its only like 25 bucks. so 3 hours before her flight, i call a cab. and i keep telling her not to worry. i'm like "it takes less than 15 min to get to the airport, you'll be there in PLENTY of time." we continue watching chelsea lately. after a bit, gidge points out that we've been waiting for the cab for a while. i check my phone. its been 20 min. def too long. they said it would be 5-10 min and i usually never have to wait. so i call back and the guy says "he's on his way. he'll be there in a few minutes." so gidge and i go outside to wait. its a bit chilly, so we started to head back in. all of a sudden, the cab pulls up outside my place and then drives off! i call back and i explain that we were waiting for a cab for a very long time and they left immediately. so he calls the guy and says "i'll get him to turn around." meanwhile, some very sketchy kids are sitting on the bench outside my place. gidge was freaked out, but we didn't want to go back in because we didn't want to miss the cab.

so the cab finally shows up and gidge and i say goodbye. i go back in to the house and start picking up. 5 min later, i get a call from gidge saying that the cab driver's meter is broken and wondering how much it is to the airport. i tell her its usually $20 and then i give a tip to equal about $25 total. she says that to the guy and he replies that his boss said it was $35. i said "no, absolutely not, i take a cab to the airport twice a month, minimum, and its not more than 25 bucks." so finally they agree on $25.

10 minutes later, she calls back. i said "wait, where are you? why aren't you in a tunnel?" because by now she should've been half way to the airport. she explains that he was driving really slowly and kept stopping at green lights to wait until it turned red to wait longer and THEN go. i could tell she was really worried about getting to the airport on time. i told her it would be fine. while she's on the phone with me, the cab driver brings up again that it should be $35. i tell her that when she gets to the airport, there will be a cop standing outside to make sure people don't stop in their vehicles and she should call him over and explain the situation. she repeats this aloud so the cab driver can hear. I also ask her for his medallion number so that i can call and report him. she says this aloud, as well, which gets him to drive a bit faster. we say goodbye again.

20 min later, she calls me back while she's standing in line to get her ticket. turns out, when they got to the airport, she tries to pay with a credit card and he says that the credit card machine is broken and he told her that. (note - the meter and the credit card machine are two different things) they argued and she said that she would give him $25 like they agreed, but that included the tip. he got upset with her and YELLED AT HER to get OUT OF THE CAB. so she got a free ride to the airport! albeit, it was slow and stressful, but it was free. when she called, she was still a bit frazzled but we joked about the situation. i told her that i had been having problems with that company and was going to start using a different service.

now, fast forward to this morning, my half birthday. i call a cab and i call a DIFFERENT number from what i used to use. i ask for a cab. so this guy picks me up and the cab
SMELLS
LIKE
FARTS.

it was disgusting. i try to be respectful and not say anything. so we start driving and the guy asks me, "did you have a friend who went to the airport a few weeks ago?" i know exactly where he is going with this... "yes...?" and he says "she didn't pay for her cab ride!" and i explained "thats because you yelled at her to get out of the cab." and he starts YELLING AT ME that he told her the meter was broken. and i said that i didn't know the meter and the credit card machine were linked (one is by him and one is in the back). then he starts yelling at me that it should've cost $35 and i explain that that is not true, etc. i sat very calmly WHILE he YELLED at me and even paid cash at the end just to make nice (they get charged if you use a credit card, so it kinda sucks when you dont go far e.g. $7.40 worth of a ride to work at 3am). i got out of the cab and said in a very cheery voice, "have a good day!" and went in to work.

the whole point of this is two-fold: i'm a rock star for coming in so early and 2) i'm the BETTER PERSON for not getting upset that a cab driver was yelling at me. oh, AND i'm annoyed that the cabs must be linked. not pleased!

in any case, whatever. do you celebrate your half birthday? i normally dont but am going to since its my last in my 20s!!!