Any bright ideas?

So, this is a super lame thing to make a blog post of, but I was wondering if anyone knows of some super-duper low fare finder that I haven’t heard of. I’m trying to book my flight home for Christmas and have no extra vacation time to spend so my dates are relatively rigid. Thus, it being the Christmas season and all, Travelocity and Hotwire are both telling me I need to drop over $400 for a roundtrip flight. I need to fly from LAX (Los Angeles) to MSP (Minneapolis), either leaving Dec. 22 returning Dec. 26, or leaving Dec. 23 returning Dec. 27. Any and all suggestions welcome. Thanks for your help!

Why I should have stayed in bed this morning

If I had stayed in bed this morning, maybe I wouldn’t have looked in the mirror only to find that a MASSIVE ZIT OF DEATH had erupted on my chin.

Perhaps if I were not in such a rush to get to work, I wouldn’t have left my apartment to walk the dog without keys or my cell phone. I wouldn’t have had to knock on the doors of my neighbors before 8am until one of them answered in her pajamas, and allowed me to use her phone. I wouldn’t have stood there cursing myself, as I could not for the life of me remember my own boyfriend’s cell phone number. I wouldn’t have had to call directory assistance to connect me with some random locksmith to come save me and let me into my apartment for a gazillion dollars.

If I stayed in bed I wouldn’t have taken my mentally unstable dog for a walk, and he would not have attempted to kill the neighbor’s gardener while my back was turned to pick up poo. (Don’t worry, there was no blood and the dude’s not pressing charges. Could be worse.)

If I stayed in bed I wouldn’t have arrived at work almost an hour late, only to look over reports from the weekend and discover that the new project is failing miserably.

Hind sight is 20/20 you know.

What, me political?

I found the link to this quiz over @ Tabitha Jane’s blog. It was kind of fun.

You are a Social Liberal (68% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (18% permissive) You are best described as a: Socialist Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

At the end they ask you to make up a law, any law, that you would like to see enacted.

This was mine:
"I would dictate that...all persons wishing to reproduce themselves or adopt a child would have to be licensed. Limit of two children per parenting unit of two persons, limit of one child per single parent. Licensing dictates that potential parent is stable and sound of mind, and will be able to provide for the child (children) financially, physically, mentally and emotionally."
—ST from Los Angeles, CA

All of our problems solved in one generation! There ya go.

Happy Birthday to Blog!

Hey, my blog is one year old. Actually, this is a happy belated birthday, since my first post is dated October 14, 2004. Just goes to prove I can't seem to remember anyone's birthday in a timely fashion. Blogging has opened my eyes to a whole new way of meeting people on-line. It's also a great way to spend time while at work. All y'all blog IIFs and real-life friends who visit here despite my complete lack of amusing/interesting content most of the time are awesome. Keep on bloggin'.

AIDS Walk 2005

The opening ceremony

Nice and sunny as we start walking. There were some sprinkles later on, but nothing too serious.

Lots of cheerleaders along the route.

I saw this guy at the opening ceremony but wasn't able to get a good shot. Luckily I found this pic on the AIDS Walk website. This is an awesome Fester costume, the Thing on his head moves and he had a bunch of lightbulbs that would light up when he put them in his mouth. And he had a glass with water and dry ice. Very elaborate and cool!

Team APLA greets us at the finish line!

Jason is such a trooper. He had some nasty blisters from breaking in his new sandals while hiking the day before. But he made it! And only complained a little ;~)

Thank you so much to all our supporters! Because of you the walk was a great success, raising over $3 million for APLA.

A little walk in the woods

Satuday hike in Santa Ynez Canyon:

Avocado Festival

Here's those pictures:








It's a big vat o' guac. Yum!



Avocado Art



So many different kinds of avocado!



Avocado Ice Cream



We end our day at the beach

Worst blogger ever.

I know I said I'd have pictures up and maybe the few people that stop by here now and again would like something interesting to read once in a while, but I'm too damn busy right now! Sorry. The walk is on Sunday, there's a new campaign I'm managing launching on Tuesday, and I don't know, something could reach critical mass and actually blow up. You never know. I don't even want to tell you what my calendar looks like for next week (mostly because you would find it immensely dull. And I might cry). And I need a Halloween costume! And I'm supposed to be leaving for Vegas in two weeks. Send help! And booze! Maybe I'll find time to put something up sometime next week. Bye y'all and have a good weekend!

Weekend rewind

Friday night our friend Becca hosted her first Shabbas dinner in her newish, now fully furnished apartment to celebrate the first Shabbat of the new year. It was lovely. There was much pot luck goodness, wine, and good company all around. Hooray for broccoli cheese casserole!

Saturday morning Jason went off to go take his test so he can substitute teach. I watched the Wisconsin @ Northwestern game. It made me very, very sad :~( Defense, what the hell? Where were you? Stocco, your passing game has really improved over the last couple of weeks, but try not to fall apart under pressure OK? A couple of those passes looked like you forgot which color jersey was supposed to be receiving. After the game I went off to the Y to sweat it out and lick my wounds.

Saturday night Ben was nice enough to invite everyone over for PBRs, leftover broccoli cheese casserole, and a movie. We watched Teenwolf. Maybe one of you out there in blogworld can answer this one: what is it about being a werewolf that makes one so good at basketball and van surfing?

Yesterday we drove up to Carpentaria to go the Avocado Festival. The weather was just gorgeous and it was fun times. There were vats of guacamole, and avocado ice cream, and all the usual artsy-craftsy booths you find at those quaint small town festivals. I took home a lot of avocados. I took lots of pictures too, and will get around to uploading them and posting some here soon.

Hope you all had a good weekend and that your Monday isn’t sucking too much :)

I got mad skillz

So, things have been kind of dull around here you might have noticed. Not much going on but workworkwork as usual. I’ve been going to the gym a bit more regularly, which is good. I even hit the pool twice last weekend.

Wanna hear a story about how I can lose things in the most improbable way? Alright, I guess that will have to do as a post for today.

Last week Thursday my whole department was going out to lunch to celebrate a birthday. Some of the group went in the birthday girl’s car and I volunteered to drive two others in my car. Our parking garage has one of those electronic card systems where you wave your little card, the thing beeps, and the gate opens for you. So, as I’m messing with my CD player I go to tuck my little card next to my coffee mug in my center console, only I somehow managed to drop the card in a tiny slot alongside my parking break (don’t ask how, I have no idea). Well crap! What was I gonna do? I could see it down there, but there was no way to get to it. As I was poking at it with my sunglasses of course I only managed to push it down farther.

So, after we cruise around looking for a way to get to the visitor exit where there’s a booth with a person in it whom I hoped would have mercy and let us out, we discover that there is only one way and that is through a gate that is closed. We asked the staff person there if she could open the gate so we could get out, but she was not a manager. Unfortunately for us, only a manager can open that gate, and being the most helpful person ever she had no idea when the manager might be back (I’m so lucky my co-workers have so much patience and a great sense of humor). So, they were essentially holding my car hostage until my card could be retrieved or a manager showed up.

As you can imagine we were quite late for lunch already. We ended up having to go across the street to the other parking garage where one of my co-workers who was with me parked, and we took his car. We called on the way and told everyone already at the restaurant to go ahead and order. They sounded annoyed. What the hell were we supposed to do? It’s not like we were late on purpose. Luckily the manager was there by the time I needed to leave work that day and let me out. Thanks Jose!

Anyway, Jason was able to help me take out a screw and hold the console partially open so I could fish out my parking card. I scratched up my arm a bit, but it was worth it.

That’s the best I got for right now. Hope you found that at least mildly entertaining. I also lost one of my earrings that I wore all the time in the pool at water aerobics last week. It was my birthday present from Jason this year :~(
I can manage to lose or break just about anything, jeeze louise. It’s so much fun being me some days.

Happy Humpday!

And a belated Shana Tova to all.

More pictures than you can shake a stick at

I just added a whole big bunch of photos to my Flickr.com account. Check 'em out!