Archive for March, 2006

Last week (as it shows in the title) was extremely long. On the up side, Cathy, my darling baby sister, was here in Dallas for her spring break. We had a wonderful time shopping, chatting, playing Animal Crossing on GameCube, being goofy, and having a good sisterly time. It was absolutely terrific having a gal around the apartment. I love Andy, Jordan, Griffin, Ben, and Eric. Just like during the day I enjoy working with David, Dr. David, Willie, Ivan, Victor, and Dr. Schetz. However, sometimes it’s just nice to talk about non-boy things. What qualifies as a non-boy subject? Wedding details, fashion, color coordination, decorating, affordable shoes…etc. Now all of the aforementioned subjects are slightly shallow, but by jove, after several months of computers, cars, video games, and sports, I don’t give a darn!

The yucky part of last week (and the part that made it REALLY long) was having the stomach flu. I always forget how horrible it is to be sick…until I get sick again. So, I was pretty much asleep from Thursday to Saturday. I’m happy to report that I’m feeling much better at present.

Yesterday, Andy and I threw a little birthday gathering for Griffin who is turning twenty tomorrow (Tuesday, March 28th). I’m rather proud of myself, I made a Mexican-ish dinner, beef enchildas, salsa rice, refried beans, queso + chips, and all of this was followed up with cookies and cream ice cream. Afterwards, Griffin opened up his very own Guitar Hero game. Which of course, we hooked up immediately to play the multiplayer mode with Jordan’s existing guitar controller. I actually find it more fun to play against someone, rather than play by myself. It takes the pressure off, plus there’s less time to wait for my turn to come again. So…wishing Griffin an absolutely terrific birthday!!

Yup, I’m back in good ol’ Texas. The time off was very nice and probably necessary. I didn’t accomplish most of the tasks that I had planned for being in Kansas, but I suppose I should have anticipated that. On Thursday, I drove up to Liberty to hang out with Sarah, Cari, and baby Eric. (Chris, Kylie, and Abagail were out enjoying their usual Thursday) It was terrific being able to see everyone, it’s always so hard being away from friends. Someone should really get to work on inventing a transporter!! Anyhow, even though I didn’t get to spend nearly enough time in Liberty, I still had a blast. Believe you me, these chicas are fabulously sweet and funny.

Thursday night was devoted to my dear friend Ashley, who is currently in Honduras with Peter on a medical missions trip. (Prayers for their safety is always appreciated) Ashley and I had a lovely time at the gym. Not often can you say you had a lovely time at a gym…but we stepped up to the task. Afterwards, we sat around and chatted/giggled with Bethann (Ashley’s mom) and Colleen (Ashley’s sister). It’s been way too long since I’ve had a good giggle. I wonder how many calories one could burn just from a good long laugh. Hm…I’ll have to look it up one of these days.

Then of course Friday and Saturday was spent hanging out with the family. Alas, my poor dad is stuck in Saudia Arabia on business till Tuesday. So, it was just the gals this weekend. Cathy, mom, and I went shopping at Oak Park. It’s a relief to go shopping with girls. I love Andy, I do. But he automatically gets this unhappy look on his face when I mention shopping. Even though he has his PSP, I think malls must drain him of his energy or something silly like that. I usually have to bribe him with a cookie. Ah..cookies are nice. The world should have more cookies, chocolate chip ones.

So, after a wonderful day of NOT WORKING, I am well rested and the woes of the lab have floated far away. Andy and I got up this morning, went out to lunch (Johnny Carino’s, where we mused over which waitress was Ben’s mysterious girlfriend…Andy thinks her name may be Carly, I don’t even remotely remember, sorry Ben! Perhaps if you brought her over, I might remember…), ran to Bank of America, stopped by Barnes and Nobles so I could pick up the new In Style Weddings magazine (which in my opinion has the best ideas and articles), and went back to the apartment to play GuitarHero (where I beat Jordan’s high score on Bark At the Moon…yay for me!).

After a very productive and fun day, Andy and I warned Schnitzel to behave and bid him goodbye as I headed for the airport and Andy went on his merry way down to Austin. The flight was a little bumpy, very crowded, but at least the one hour spent flying was much better than the 8 1/2 hours it takes to drive to Kansas! It’s great to be back in Kansas, where everything is at the very least, familiar! I had a long conversation with the checkout guy at HyVee about how great Kansas is. Yeah, I’ll probably always be a Kansas girl at heart…and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that!

So, Andy and I are very much so enjoying our Friday night when we came upon this online video. You absolutely must watch the whole thing! Yes, it’s a little bizarre, and I can’t figure out why a person would possibly want to broadcast their wacky performance via webcam to the whole world. But I suppose even I, though it may be hard for you to believe dear reader, have had my goofy moments where I lip synch to something silly and bob my head to the beat.

Having seen this particular video, Andy then remembered another similar video.

Both videos are incredibly funny, albeit a little odd. But what is life without a little oddity in it? Hm…it’s late, I wonder if “albeit” is really a word and if I used “oddity” correctly. I’ve spent a lot of time today rewriting my abstract for Research Appreciation Day. I’m tired and my grammar knowledge has been expired for the day. With that said, I retire for the evening. Good night to all!

In the last month, anyone who has come to our apartment has had the pleasure of getting to play Guitar Hero on Play Station 2. For those of you who have never played this AWESOME game before, believe me, it’s worth the trip down to Denton, Texas.

Basically, the game consists of a guitar shaped controller with five colored buttons, a strummer, and a whammy bar. You can pick different rock songs to play in easy, medium, hard, or expert levels. When you have decided upon a song and level, you have to hit the colored button, at the same time strumming the strummer, once the respective color shows up on the television screen. So, I suppose the game is a little like Dance Dance Revolution, without the jumping around nonsense.

Either way, I absolutely ROCK at this game! It is the only game that I actually pose as a competent competitor to the boys of my apartment. This is a real breakthrough for me, even though I can’t quite figure out why. In Halo 2, I’m usually the idiot that gets herself stuck in a corner and can’t figure out how to turn around. I only kill the enemy by accident. In racing games beyond MarioKart 64, I’m usually the wacko that’s going in the wrong direction. And…I really have no interest in sports games. So in conclusion, thank you Jordan for buying Guitar Hero, it has given me faith in video games once more.

For those of you who haven’t had the joy of listening to my constant complaints on how long I have to drive in order to get to work in the morning, you get the pleasure of hearing it right now! For those of you who have…I suppose you just get to hear about it some more. We currently live in Denton, Texas, which is almost exactly 40 miles away from Fort Worth. The distance with traffic means I have to drive an hour each way to get to and from work. Yes, this makes me grumble quite a bit. (Our new house is only 15 miles away!!! Thank Heavens!)

On the up side, I have managed to go through a large amount of books on cd. I tried listening to music for the first week of work, and discovered that for two hours a day, I get tired of most all the music I have pretty quickly. A vast number of books on cd, however, can be be borrowed from the public library. They provide a wonderful source of entertainment, while not having to take up my full attention. I’ve burned through everything from “Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Bronte to “Cat’s Eye” by Margaret Atwood. I thoroughly enjoy anything written by Barbara Michaels.

I am currently listening to “Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh” by Robert C. O’Brien. I know it’s supposed to be a children’s book, but I never read it when I was little. I did LOVE the movie though. I do believe I used to act out the scene at the end when Mrs. Brisby would dash about trying to save her house from sinking into the mud. Or perhaps it was just an excuse to jump about the living room in a red cape. (No it’s not a misspelling, the movie version changed the name “Mrs. Frisby” to Mrs. Brisby to avoid trademark issues with the word “frisbee”) In any case, I probably haven’t watched the movie since I was…seven? So, I picked up this book on cd and I can now highly recommend it. Though…now I’m dying to get my hands on a copy of the movie. Gasp and shock…Blockbuster doesn’t carry a 1980′s cartoon that wasn’t all that popular in theatres?