Yay! Blog! v2.0
Category: March 2004

What's on TiVo?
TiVo recordings I need to watch

New Song - Swiss Cheese and Chicken Patties
This song is so fun. I got to sing the part of the girl who walks out on her man because of his order at the restaurant. It's fun to be superficial sometimes.... It was written and performed by Andy Van Duyne. Enjoy!.

Sunday weigh-in: PZ -10 LW -1 (lost 10 pounds total, 1 pound since last week)

Today is dedicated to errands and chores. Laundry, vacuuming, sweeping, scrubbing, grocery shopping...

I've got a few movies I've watched, but haven't written about, too. Maybe I'll write about one of them today. I seem to not have as much time to write as I used to. Probably all the time I spend at the Ampcast chat room. I haven't read a book in ages either. I need to get a better handle on how I spend my time.

I thought the time was supposed to change last night, but I guess it'll change next weekend. I'm not looking forward to that... it means it'll still be dark when I get up in the morning. There oughta be a law...

So anyway... Happy Sunday!!

My landlord came by today and told me he plans to replace the fence, install a door to my backyard, and do a little landscaping in the backyard. Yay! I've always wanted a backdoor, and the fence is pretty beat up. Maybe I'll spend some time in a backyard this summer.

If I hear one more person announce that they're getting married or they just got married or they have a friend who met their soulmate and they're getting married, I'm going to crawl under a rock and not come out. It's an epidemic, and I'm naturally immune. Congratulations all you lucky people. Hold on tight and don't ever let go.

Go Be Young by Edwin McCain always makes me want to cry. Here's an excerpt:

Perfumed and smoky
She swears that she knows me
She's falling down drunk again
I say she's mistaken
She's visibly shaken
Emotions all drowned in gin
She said, "I used to be beautiful
But now it's all gone
I let my dreams slip away from me
That's where it went wrong
Go be young, go be free
Follow your heart where it leads you
Don't end up like me."

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Yesterday was the second day of my "Fundamentals of XML" class. Man... I love XML. You get to make your own rules and then you get to apply them and then you get to validate against your own rules and if you break them you get to fix them. Fun!!

The day started off weird, though. I got there and my chair was missing. They had these big leany back soft kind of chairs that were even comfortable while sitting typing at a computer. But the second day, mine was gone. I told the helper guy who was hanging around the classroom first thing. We studied all the chairs and came to the conclusion that I really was out of luck... there was one less chair than there were students. That's when a nice lady told me that a guy had taken my chair and moved it to another spot. Then I found out that one of the people the prior day was sitting on a fold up style metal chair.

So I decided to let it go and get one of the fold up style metal chairs and sit on it. Really... I let it go. No worries... someone had to sit on the fold up style metal chair. But then...

This girl got to class late. She was sharing a computer with the loud obnoxious guy (you know the one... always has a comment or question). He welcomed her and told her we were working on an exercise. Then he said something that made me fume... He said...

"And I got you a chair."

Um... that was my chair. It was painfully obvious it was my chair. It was sitting in front of my computer. "And I got you a chair." Bastage.

I still let it go except for making a mental note to blog about it... life's too short.

At lunch, I did something I haven't done in ages. Shoe shopping! Yay! I got two new pairs of Aerosoles. Those really are the most comfortable shoes ever. And that's what matters the most to me... comfort. You'll never see me in spiked heels (sorry boys ).

After class, I had a little time to kill before I could pick up LilyDawg, so I drove down Lake Austin Blvd to Lake Austin. I passed by the apartments where Kevin and Mary Hannigan used to live. Ah... memories. I miss Kevin and Ryan and Eric from my days as a State Auditor.

I got home at 5:00 which gave me plenty of time to relax before the 7:00 start of Velcro Touch Radio. I watched the rest of Ed TV, ate the last of my Tex Mex Pork Chops, and generally just vegged out.

The radio show and chat were a blast! There was great music and dancing! Here's what you missed:

ME SALSA DANCING

I wish everyday could be like that. Well... except for the part where the guy stole my chair and bragged about it to his computer partner. heh!

Alrighty! I might do this photography project.

Sunday weigh-in: PZ -9 LW -0 (lost 9 pounds total, 0 pounds since last week)

Well... my lack of weight loss this week is not surprising given the giant schnitzel I ate at lunch Thursday and the trip to Starbucks yesterday. But I'm still committed to the diet, and that's what matters.

I'm doing well in the CrabAppleLane March Madness Pool. Yay! I've always loved March Madness, and it's even more fun when there's a pool. Thanks to Rob for the invitation to participate!

After a plugin mishap with my Cakewalk program (probably due to my upgrade to XP a while back), we've passed all the tracks for the song I'm doing with Boogaboo on to Adam Kittle and Robby James Rabuck. I've never liked doing the production work, so I'm just going to relax and let the experts do their thing. Thanks, guys!

Time for breakfast and basketball and grocery shopping...

I went to Bath and Body Works for a little pampering. I needed to get some Sun-Ripened Raspberry Body Cream. They always have some special that makes me buy way more than I need. Today it was buy 3 get 1 free. So I got two body creams, one body spray and a candle.

I like to try different fragrances even though I usually stick with raspberry. Today I tried something new.. I can't remember the name, but it had something to do with rice. Something and rice flower, maybe. I dunno, but it smelled like Play-Doh. heh!

After that, I needed to go to Eckerds for makeup, but I had to tinkle. I didn't want to go home and disturb Lily just to leave again, so I did a bad thing. I paid for it, too....

I went to Starbucks. Ugh. The sad thing is... the toilet was stopped up, so I didn't get to tinkle. And the bad thing is... I got a caramel machiatto. I mean... it was good and all, but not so good for my diet. I paid for it when I left... I got to my car and when I opened the door, it hit the cup and hot coffee spewed out of the little mouth hole and onto the front of my shirt. A lot of hot coffee. I burned my boobies.

I had to laugh, though, in case people saw it happen.

I still didn't want to disturb Lily, so I went ahead to Eckerds with a coffee stained shirt. It wasn't really that noticeable because of the color and design on the shirt. heh!

Now I'm ripping songs from CDs to put into iTunes. I've got Black Crowes Shake Your Money Maker playing at the moment. I forgot what a great CD that is!

New Song - Death of a Matador
Bill Farrish is one of the smoothest jazz guitarists I've heard. Sometime last year, he sent me a short melody on guitar, told me the tempo, and asked me to record the melody singing "ah's". It was strange singing with no music in the background, so I was excited to see how things would sound when he put the vocal into the music. It sounds cool! Wanna hear? Death of a Matador.

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A short story in three frames by John Ingram starring Kim Novak:

Sunday weigh-in: PZ -9 LW -1 (lost 9 pounds total, 1 pound since last week)

Whew, good news... rapid weight loss has been stalled, but weight loss just the same.

It's been a pretty productive weekend so far. I sat down in the kitchen yesterday and cleaned the pantry floor really well. It was a mess. Ick. But now I'm not scared of my pantry.

Speaking of scared... is anyone else still scared of the monster under the bed?

In other news... I think the song I'm doing with boogaboo is finished. Dennyvan is going to debut it on his Thursday night Old Time Radio show. Yay! It should be available for downloading on Friday.

My grocery store *finally* started carrying raspberry and grape Diet Rite. I didn't need anymore today, but I bought some anyway to show them there's a demand. heh!

Tonight's dinner menu includes Creamed Beef Florentine. That's ground sirloin, onion, spinach, heavy cream, pepper and parmesan cheese. I've never had it before, but it sounded pretty good. The recipe says, "It's quite delicious, but admittedly a bit odd looking."

That's what I like... odd looking cuisine that tastes delicious.

Back around 1997, I went to a lot of concerts. I liked to get there real early and stand in the front row. It was fun to make eye contact with the band members if possible. I liked to smile at them and see if they would smile back. Some would!

At a Sister Hazel concert at Liberty Lunch, I got to stand right in front of Andrew Copeland, the rhythm guitar player. The band members all stood on carpets, and I'm pretty sure Andrew was bare-footed because I recall he had a toe ring.

This isn't the concert I was at, but here are some pictures of them live.

After they finished the concert I was at, I snagged one of their set lists. They did a meet and greet afterward, so I took the set list up to have it autographed. Ken Block (lead singer) told me something like "shame on you" for stealing the set list. Then he wrote what you can see... "Kim, Keep on singin'! Ken Block - Sister Hazel - 9/97"

I'm not sure if he generally writes "Keep on singin'" on autographs or if he saw me singing in the front row. Either way... I'm still singin'. I downloaded all the songs on their latest CD, "Chasing Daylight", last night. Not a bad song in the bunch!! My favorite so far is one called, "Killing Me Too."

Killing Me Too
Sister Hazel

Lend me your ear
and I'll tell you about the things I fear baby
Open your heart
and I'll tell you why I'm torn apart maybe
Lend me your car
and we'll go chase down a falling star
Give me your hand
cause it takes that fire to understand yeah

When was the last time you felt high?
Oh you were the best I've ever felt
'Cause I don't need you to fix me
but I just want you to listen

It's killing me too
It's so wrong not to be with you
It's getting harder to stay awake
It's killing me too
It stops my heart just to be with you
So listen
cause you are the only one who cares to hear

Lend me your time
and we'll go somewhere and kill some wine baby
Show me your soul
and I'll shine my light where it seems so cold now
Give me your lips
and I'll tell you about all the things I miss the most
Open your mind
and I'll crawl right up and sleep inside of it

When was the last time you felt high?
Oh you were the best I've ever felt
I don't need you to fix me
I just want you to listen

It's killing me too
It's so wrong not to be with you
It's getting harder to stay awake
It's killing me too
It stops my heart just to be with you
So listen
cause you are the only one who cares to hear

On Sunday, I went to the grocery store. It wasn't crowded, but the mission of every person in there was to block the food I wanted to put into my cart. There were a couple of ladies with a kid who were probably the leaders of the mission. Except their job wasn't to block the food I wanted, but to block entire aisles while the others got in place in other aisles. They had a kid with them, so they were pushing the cart that has a toy car attached big enough to hold the kid. Between the ladies and the kid car cart, it was quite difficult to pass.

Halfway through my shopping, I decided to break my routine, and go to the other end of the store in hopes to get away from the aisle blocking ladies. I skipped probably 10 aisles. Halfway down the aisle, here come the ladies again. Gak!

The other people would just watch for me to get near them and then hover around the chicken or the milk or whatever else was next on my shopping list.

Needless to say, I had a major case of shopping cart rage.

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I'd like to thank David for his explanation of how he found my blog and why he doesn't like it. I understand completely now.

To all of you who have come to my defense, I thank you much. But you have to realize... he's not my audience. You fine people are.

Apparently, David doesn't like the way I blog... See the link on the right of his blog that says "An Example of Why Blogging is a Bad Idea for Most People".

Thanks for the link, anyway.

Over the last several weeks, there's been a muddy patch at the side of my duplex. I didn't think *too* much of it when it started because it was raining off and on for a week or so. During the times it stopped, everything would dry up except that one muddy patch.

It was in a bad place, too... I had to jump over it to get to the backyard. LilyDawg could jump over it fine, but, most of the time, I'd end up with a mud caked shoe. I'm surprised I never ended up with a muddy butt!

So a couple nights ago, LilyDawg got me up to go potty at 3:30 a.m. I went outside with her, but being dark, I didn't want to risk trying to jump the puddle. I stood next to it and studied it with my flashlight. The weird thing is, it was a bigger puddle than I remembered the day before. Yet... we hadn't had any rain.

Then I heard it. A slight trickling noise on the other side of the fence.

Being the middle of the night, I decided not to go investigate. But yesterday evening, I took a trip over there. The neighbors moved out a couple weeks ago, so I felt comfortable walking back there.

I found a garden hose pointed directly under my fence with the water running. There wasn't even a muddy patch in their yard.

I mentioned a while back that a guy I work with was heading for Iraq to work for Brown and Root. I just got an email forwarded to me that he wrote about his trip. This part cracked me up:

I finally got to ride on a Blackhawk helicopter to my ultimate destination (maybe). We flew at night and it was very exciting. I asked the pilot if I could drive, but he said no.

He is in Tikrit right now working 100 hours a week. My prayers are with him to come home safely.

According to the little tree in my front yard, Spring is here:

Yay!

Sunday weigh-in: PZ -8 (that means I've lost 8 pounds)

Egads... I didn't mean to lose that much so fast. I don't want to melt so fast on the inside that I sag on the outside. I need to start exercising more. And maybe add some more carbo meals to my meal plan.

I wanted to see if I could record a song real quick today, but I couldn't figure out the chords. DRAT! I hate that I can't learn songs by ear. I searched the internet for chords, but to no avail.

So I'll go back to being Suzy Homemaker and make a grocery list and go shopping. I need fruit!!

When I was in college, there were lots of parties. Duh. I think I've said it before that I've never been good at the "sitting around drinking" kind of parties. I need something to occupy my attention. So I was always happy when someone would start a game of quarters. Other people were getting high and making out and arguing and dancing and laughing and watching walls melt down and whatever else goes on at college parties. Me... I was sitting at a table trying to bounce a quarter into a glass.

My favorite flavor of quarters was "chandelier quarters." That's where everyone had their own glass. All the glasses were put in a circle in the middle of the table and some beer was poured into each. Then another glass was placed in the middle of those glasses with more beer. If you bounced the quarter into someone else's glass, they had to drink. If you bounced it into your own glass, you had to drink. If you bounced it into the middle glass, everyone had to drink quickly because the last person to set their glass down had to also drink the glass in the middle. It's really the only way I could stand to drink beer anyway... make a game out of it.

One time, we were sitting around the table bouncing quarters, and it just seemed too easy. There was a bottle of Mickey's Malt Liquor sitting on the table with the top off. Ever seen those? The mouths are wider than a normal beer bottle. So for a challenge, we started trying to bounce the quarter into the Mickey's bottle. Fun!

I'm reminded of this because I bought a six pack of Mickey's to use to cook beer can chicken. I've got one in the oven right now. While I was getting everything ready, I took a sip of the beer even though I don't like beer. It took me all the way back to college and all those quarters games. Ah.... good times.

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Over the last year and a half at work, I've been involved in a programming project. It's a web application that will allow security coordinators at Texas state agencies to request access for various systems for their employees. We have yet to come up with a name for it. The key to naming an application is to make it have a great acronym, but we can never settle on one. I think it's because it's too much fun to put our heads together every month and brainstorm silly acronyms. You know, like:

• SCARS (security coordinator access request system)
• FEAR (facility for entering access requests)
• CARP (comptroller access request program)
• EARS (electronic access request system)
• ARSE (application for requesting secured entry)

The one we would actually like to use is SARS (security access request system), but that durn SARS disease will probably keep us from getting it approved. Poo.

Happy Texas Independence Day!

On this day in 1836, the Texas Declaration of Independence was signed. Meanwhile, there was a battle raging at the Alamo in San Antonio. The Alamo fell on March 6th, and boy were the Texans pissed. To make matters worse, James Fannin and nearly 400 other Texans were executed by the Mexican Army on March 27th. You know what they say... Don't Mess With Texas! So after some more battles and stuff, Sam Houston kicked Santa Ana's tail at San Jacinto near my hometown of Houston. Our independence was won!

This history lesson brought to you by Lone Star Junction.

It's funny... back when I *had* to learn Texas history, I couldn't care less. But now it's kinda cool.