Continental Update

My friend, Laura, is supposed to be taking Continental from Pittsburgh to San Diego with a stop somewhere in between. At 315 her time, she texted me that there were maintenance issues. At 427 her time, she texted me that they just announced that they're not having maintenance issues, but in fact cannot find a pilot to fly the plane. She's wondering who they're asking. We're hoping not random people.

Cross Walk Stalker

Yesterday, on my way home from work I was came upon a right hand turn. The light had just turned from a green right arrow to a red light, and so I was planning on pausing and then turning. However, this lady and two little boys had just started walking across the cross walk. So I slammed on the breaks and waited. The lady turns around, looks at me, and points at the little white man signalling that she had the right of way. So, I'm wondering, what did she want me to do? I stopped for her. I didn't honk. Was she expecting me to get out of the car and put orange cones around her? I mean, REALLY, lady. What else did you want me to do?

Bachelorette's on the West Side

Justin bought me a new shiny camera for my birthday. It's red and sparkly :) I'm trying to figure out how to upload all of my pictures onto my computers, so while that is happening I will make a few notes about Nissa's Bridal Shower that took place this past Saturday.

1. The Company Picnic. It was thrown by Nissa's coworkers (including her manager) from Lulu's nail salon in San Diego. This means that the owner's wife (aka the manager) was in attendance as well as all of the other techs and receptionists.

2. And They're Off! Nissa invited Shannon and I to join her and her coworkers. I was under the impression (due to the evite) that we'd be getting drinks and appetizers at one bar and then going to a kareoke bar afterwards. To me, that means we'd be mingling at a bar, sipping cocktails, and munching on finger foods. To the manager, however, that apparently meant a sit-down affair with food and drink. I skipped on food since I'd just had dinner, but got a pomegranate martini (yum!), which the manager paid for...first round on her!

3. Set of Lungs. We eventually headed to the Lamplighter for some good ol' American fun: kareoke! I thought I might try my newly found kareoke skills, but once I realized it was jam packed full of college kids and old men, I changed my mind. Luckily, Nissa works with this adorable Japanese girl who sang an amazing rendition of "I will survive." She brought the house DOWN!

4. Queen Bee. About half way through the night, Shannon and I realized we'd be the only one's going home with our dignity. The owner's wife was all over the bar flies like whoa, while her minions were buzzing around trying to emulate her. And Nissa, of course, was the bachelorette, although she was very well behaved (no worries, Jason!). It definately made for some great people watching. Unfortunately, they were with us!

5. Negative Nancy. Around 1AM, after hours of me trying to make the best out of the situation (i.e. being Sober Sally in a room full of drunk and disorderly college kids, and surrounded by raspy-singing kareoke fools in white polyester pants. One lady sang "Enter Sandman" like James Hetfield himself. I'm talking scary. She threw down the mike, girated her hips, stood on a chair, and scared the poo out of the entire audience.), we realized that we needed to go home.

6. Lesbian Humping. The icing on the cake came right before we left when a lesbian woman started freak dancing me from behind. I was wearing a short brown dress and my new flowered wedges, but I have never been molested from behind by a woman before. The lesbian molestor eventually moved on to Nissa and then up to the stage, but soon after she dismounted my butt, this other lady comes up to me and goes "Were you just hitting on my girlfriend?" And I go "NO! She was hitting on ME!" She must have been trying to do damage control because her mean face turned soft and she started laughing. We had a good chuckle about how her girlfriend needed help standing up straight and how she must have found me hot to hit on me. Well, not hit on me, more like hump me. I guess there's a first time for everything!

7. Go Back to Your Home. Finally, we were making our rounds to head back to the car to go home when some girl bumped into Nissa's shoulder. So what does my 5'2" 100 lb friend do? She turns around and whacks the girl with her purse. And when the other girl tried to fight her, little Nissa (the elf) stood her ground. Go Nissa! Go...HOME! :) And go home we did, leaving the hoochies from her work to their devices at the bar, of course. I guess girls will be girls.

Thanks for NOTHING! :)

I've showered, shaved, slept, and snacked. I am officially a human again! After two days of traveling back from New York (a thunderstorm disrupted our travel plans and forced Justin and me to stay in a hotel in Atlanta), I am back in the saddle. I thought I'd just put a quick note on here about the trip. Note: it was amazing! I had a fabulous birthday and got to see so many friends. Thanks to Michelle, Tosha, RayRay, Kate Lally, Linds, and Kath for making the trek out to see me! I loved seeing you all and can't wait until the next time. And of course thanks to my family for spending time with Justin and me. Oh, and thanks to Justin for missing the US Open, which you've been waiting to see your WHOLE LIFE at Torrey Pines. I love you for coming home with me :) But NO thanks to AirTran and the La Guardia crew for making us sit on the tarmac for three hours and causing us to miss our connecting flight in Atlanta.

Hopefully, pictures will be up soon of our travels. I think that I'm going to have to either do a coffee table photo albumn or buy a digital frame for all of our pictures. So be out on the lookout for THAT! To be continued...

Festivas for the Restofus

I am neither Greek NOR a year older (yet!), but this weekend I got to spend my time celebrating birthdays and eating delicious food of the Mediterranean. Scrump-tious!

For Nissa's birthday, Shannon and I met Nissa and her family at Island Prime for some drinks. The layout of the restaurant wasn't exactly condusive towards mingling at the bar, but the view was priceless. We were practically floating on the San Diego Bay with dahntahn and the Coronado Bridge glowing off in the background. Although we didn't stay there for too long, it was a super fun night. I will definately be going back there!

On Saturday, I tagged along with Ginny and Jason at the Greek Festival. Ginny's of Greek heritage so we go to a lot of the festivals to celebrate her culture. It was pretty small compared to the ones I've been to in MD, which apparently always happen the first weekend in June, but it was super fun. We ate gyros and loukoumathes (puffed pastry with honey and cinnamon, of course) and then I bought an oil painting. It's a picture of the streets in Paris. Oh la la! :) Hopefully, when Justin gets a house and I move into it (wink wink) I'll get to put my current bedroom set into the guest bedroom, painting and all. Should work perfectly...

I haven't been to a festival in a while and it reminded me how much I love to go to them. Parking's always a hurtle, but once we got inside it was a blast. I'll have to see if I can find another group of people I don't belong to so I can taste their foods and buy their goods. Anyone want to adopt me for a day?

Vegas, Baby!

I was staying at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on Wednesday and Thursday for the Construct Conference (that's right, I work for a trade publication). I had never been to LV before and my first experience was one I won't forget, although NOT because I saw the lions. (Not that I even knew they were there until after I'd already checked out and left!)

The walking the show on Wed and then attending seminars all day Thurs were fine. But my Saturday was an interesting situation. The challenge: make my $30 per diem go as far as I could. It wasn't as hard as it may sound. Some may think that $60 for two days in LV isn't enough--think transportation, food, entertainment, but a. walking the show was exhausting + b. I was by myself in a new big ol' city + c. I wasn't comfortable going around town alone at night + d. my rent was due on the 1st = e. my $60 went a long way.

The other challenge: get over my social anxiety to be able to leave my room.

I'm not sure if many people know this about me, but I get quite nervous when I don't know what to expect and don't have someone to show me around, so my sister Jen had to help coach me out of the room. I get this feeling where the thought of mingling around dozens if not hundreds of new people overwhelms me and I'd rather just give up before I start and stay in my room. It only really happens when I'm in a place I don't know, but it still happens nonetheless. Quite interesting and humbling. I'm not sure if anyone else gets like this, but I made it! My Saturday evening consisted of taking a twilight tour of the monorail, then walking out to the pool in my bikini. After a not-so-hot minute outside on the pool deck, I sauntered into a TV screening for a new show called "Game Show in My Head." If you see it on cable, don't blame me! I "changed the channel."

And finally FINALLY I decided to get a few of my dollar coins exchanged into dollar bills to play the slots. I took my five dollars to the $1 slots and sat there for three minutes before I was broke again. When I got the courage to look around a bit more closely for the 1 cent slots, I was out of bills. I had pennies though! New lesson: it's taboo to talk to anyone playing the slots that you don't know. I tried asking some lady if the machine would take slots, but she was NOT having it. And to top it off, I caught the eye of some guy down the row who was watching our exchange and he gave me the weird eye. So, back up to my room it was! Socializing over!

This is a picture of me first leaving my room after talking to Jen. Disregard the double chin and try to focus on the fear in my smile/eyes. Nice, eh?

Issues

I've been trying to create a new masthead banner for my June site, but am having technical difficulties. Apparently recreating something I've ALREADY DONE is not my forte. Please bare with me. And in the meantime, I thought I'd say: Happy Month of My Birthday! :) Only ten days until I fly home. First, I'll be flying to Las Vegas for a conference for work. I leave tomorrow morning and then return the following day. I have exactly $60 so the challenge to do as much as I can in Sin City will be a big one. This is my second work trip, my first was back to Maryland, ironically enough. I didn't get a chance to show this shot from Ego Alley downtown Annapolis after I returned, so I'm using it now. Hopefully I'll have something equally as beautiful to look at in LV. Doubtful.

I also wanted to give an update on my weekend. I was so busy! Friday night Annie, Sam, two other girls, and I went to the Sex and the City movie premier. It was a great evening. Although I did not dress up to the nines, there definately were a few sorority sisters there in full regalia! On Saturday Ginny, Shannon Kenney, and I biked Coronado. What an amazing way to see a town. I'll be posting those pictures soon (again, part of the wonders of the blog world that I'm still figuring out). We were there for four hours, had a lovely time, and then--after missing the first ferry--rushed back home to get ready for roommate's dinner. Annie, G, and I went to Kemo Sabe in Hillcrest. It was AMAZING. We're all foodies, Ginny's a veggie, and we still all loved the concoctions. We managed to get quite sloshed afterwards, so my Sunday took a little longer to get started than I'd anticipated. I'm not a drinker anymore, so thanks, G, for making my breakfast since I couldn't stand up to do it myself! :) Oh to be 20 again...

And THEN, Justin and I went house hunting. We found some really great homes in the North Park/Mission Hills area. Hopefully something will work out. I really loved this batch of homes and they're in a great location. Not too far from downtown, the zoo, the beach, work. It would be amazing. So, hopefully we'll have a house soon!

OK, now let's see if I can figure out this whole picture thingie. Help welcome. Also, why is some text 1.5 spaced and other text is not? Random.