Life is for Living, right?

New Movies (and TV) for 2012

2012-01-10T16:01:00.000-08:00

I'm planning on just consolidating all my movie watching and completed seasons of TV shows of 2012 here...

The Apprentice S1 - My boyfriend and I love some reality shows and this is one we can both agree on. We wanted to go back and watch the beginning to see how it all started and see the infamous Omarosa on her original season. We were not disappointed! It definitely had a lot of "first season" qualities (lots of bad audio dubbing, some awkward challenges), but I loved some of the challenges and I liked that it showed the cast out and about, at restaurants, drinking, having fun, not just the competitive stuff. Also, man, I *really* miss Carolyn Kepcher, who is (by far) my favorite person on the show. I love her comments, which I always agree COMPLETELY with. She is not free and easy with the compliments, so if she says something complimentary about someone, she really means it. I miss her. *sigh*
The Muppets - It's been so long since I saw a Muppet movie/show that I honestly forgot there was going to be singing in it. BUT, it was fun, nonetheless... The songs were funny (and short), so perfect for my ADD. We saw it at the Academy Theater in Pasadena too, where procrastination can be rewarded in the form of a movie ticket for $3/each and delicious popcorn for only $3.25.
Terriers - OMG. With so much bad TV out there, I don't understand how good TV like this gets BURIED by who the hell ever gave this show the stupid name. From the name, you'd have *no* idea what the show was about - it's a buddy/PI/mystery show. The main actors are great, the plots are interesting without being toooooo detailed and complicated. It's just good. I have no idea what the back-story is on this show and I wonder why it didn't get the fan following that it seems like it should have. I would highly recommend this! It's available on instant streaming Netflix, which may be the best invention ev-er. Well, right after TV on DVD. THEN, instant streaming...

"Resolutions" for 2012

2012-01-06T14:20:00.000-08:00

I'm not making absolute resolutions, mainly because they don't work, but as I make decisions about little adjustments I'd like to tweak in 2012, I'll post them.

The first being, I definitely want to post more on the blog and take more photos. I've been lax about this the last couple years for some reason. As a result, I've missed out tracking lots of exciting stuff that has happened this past year.

I'm also reviving my "floss more often" goal that I started in 2007 to floss more often. I've already flossed twice this year, so I'm already doing well!

I need to exercise more. This is, of course, the most common of all resolutions, but I need to do it. Luckily, ISTJ wants to exercise more too, so that should make it easier to achieve. He's far more disciplined than I am. He flosses every night. Which, on the surface sounds boring, but if you think about the dedication it takes to floss every night, it's kinda hot. I'm also looking forward to being with a man that has all his teeth.

I need to rebuild my savings account. After being unemployed for nine months and then having the sales job last year, I've managed to eat through a good chunk of my savings. I would like to rebuild that. I haven't set a firm goal on this though, so that is the next step.

I would like to get back to volunteering more. Whether it's "official" volunteering with a non-profit, or just helping friends with life stuff, like helping them move or just being there when they need company.

I'm looking at my calendar for January and it's fairly free. I only have activities planned for about half the days remaining in January and I'm kinda digging that. It'll be easier to exercise and be rested for work if I'm not overextended.

I'm also toying with the idea of tracking all my game plays again. So far, I'm 100% for 2012!

I'm also thinking about tracking my movies watched in 2012. I enjoyed doing that in 2007. The question is, is that too 2007?

These are the various items I'm pondering and not necessarily "resolutions," but things I'm considering tweaking.

Updates as they progress!

Boyfriend Update

2011-06-21T11:54:00.000-07:00

I've been horrible about updating the blog, but just thought I'd post a quick update!

First thing first, I'm still dating my boyfriend, ISTJ! We just passed our ten month anniversary and things have been going really well. I can't believe it's been almost a year.

We spend tons of time with each other and we still like each other, *gasp*! He is able to put up with my moods and I do my best to take good care of him. He's a gentleman and takes good care of me. He's pretty great...

A couple weeks ago, I thought, "I could marry him..." which is the first time I've seriously thought that about someone in a long time. No "official" talk of that just yet, but it's been discussed at a high, general level. I also am happy about it because I've known since dating him that he was good marriage material, but I'm kinda glad that I didn't feel like marrying him right away and we've kinda eased up to that point. I think this may be the first time I've ever been in a relationship when I've liked someone and then it's ramped up, which could either be a really good or really bad sign! Most of the time, I have high interest at the beginning and then slowly things erode as I learn more about the person (and vice versa). I'm thinking (and hoping) it's a good sign.

We've taken our time getting to know one another in a dating sense. He's a bit more reserved than I am (shocker!), but he's happy to go along with almost any plan I come up with, which is nice. He lets me have all my "boyfriends" on the side, so that's been really great too. The last guy I dated was constantly jealous. That said, I'm definitely more on the jealous side too, but luckily for me, he's more of a guy's guy, so he doesn't really hang out with that many women. I believe this would be called a "win-win"!

I was looking back at my list of things I've learned from my last relationship and I can say with a moderate amount of confidence that we're doing pretty well.

We trust each other completely,
We pay enough attention to one another without going overboard,
We both have good follow-through. When he says something, he means it and so do I. No empty promises!
We're both good with our money and open about talking about it.
Speaking of, we're both pretty open about talking about just about anything, which is really helpful.
Nothing to do with the last relationship, but he likes to play games! Lots of them!

If things continue on this trend, I would hope that it will one day lead to tying the knot, but for now, we're just enjoying each other's company, being supportive and getting to know one another better so that we don't rush into anything. I rushed into my first marriage and feel like I should take my time this time to be sure I'm making a good, solid choice. So far, it's looking good, but I want to give it time so that we both know that it's a right decision for both of us.

I'm meeting his parents in a couple months. Hey, actually, right around our one year anniversary! They're missionaries who live in Venezuela, but they're coming to the US for his sister's wedding, which I will be attending with the boyfriend. I hope that goes well. I usually am good with parents. I've already met his sister and future brother-in-law and we got along really well.

Deep breath... I know I can be a handful sometimes, but I'm being myself and loving him. It's not difficult to love him, so that's good. In fact, considering all the time we've spent together, this has been one of the easiest relationships I've ever been in as far as stress levels go. When the most annoying thing he's done in the last week is answer too many Jeopardy! questions correctly in a row... really? That's not such a terrible problem to have.

Coming soon: Employment Update!

Dating: Professional-Style

2010-12-10T00:39:00.000-08:00

No, I'm not becoming a professional dater! But, having been on several interviews recently, I can't help but notice how interviewing for a job feels remarkably like being on a date! I'm letting the employer know what I bring to the table, they're informing me of what they are offering and then we're seeing if it's a good fit. I show up, looking neatly pressed and presentable, they show me around the facility, we make small talk...

And since I haven't actually nailed down a job, there's dealing with rejection. I've usually coped fairly well with that in the dating world, so it's been interesting to see how I feel about it in a job interview situation. Mainly, I've been a bit more sensitive to rejection in a job interview. However, in general, I'm probably a little less sensitive to rejection than your normal applicant. I can only assume it comes from dealing with dating the last four years!

I think it's because I feel like dating is more of an organic thing... either we're going to match up or we won't. I don't think it's necessarily something that can be controlled, but I feel like an interview, I should have a bit more control. I'm smart and good at what I do, so why wouldn't they want me?

I recently applied for a sales position and during the interview, they asked if I would be able to cope with people rejecting me on the phone and I said, "Well, luckily, I've been dating for the last few years, so I've learned not to take it personally!" I think that's what I need to remind myself of in the job hunting realm. I shouldn't take it personally.

In some cases, I think I haven't had the exact experience in the field they were looking for or enough education/certifications or maybe I did, but I was too expensive. Or maybe I was geographically undesirable! Any way you look at it, it wasn't a good fit. And almost exactly like dating, it doesn't really matter why it wasn't a good fit, all that's important is that it wasn't and it's time to move along.

I guess the bottom line is that I need to be patient, because the right position will come along and we'll both know it when it happens! Finally! Dating experience helps in other areas of my life! I am hopeful about the sales position I interviewed for a couple weeks ago. I should be hearing back from them this week. I'm hopeful because like any good date, the chemistry was there right away, conversation flowed smoothly, it felt like a good fit. However, I've already mentally prepped myself for the possibility that maybe they didn't feel it, and if so, I guess it's back to the drawing board!

Out with the Old...

2010-09-23T19:38:00.000-07:00

Man, it's been a LONG time since I've posted anything on my blog. You'd think with not having a job, I'd have soooo much more free time to post something! And you'd be wrong! :-)

I suppose with even less structure than I had before, I've managed to just do whatever I've wanted over the last six months. Yes, it's been six months since I lost my job. The biggest news, besides the non-news that I don't actually *have* a job yet, is that I broke up with the ex-on-again-off-again boyfriend in June. And this time, it was for good. And I thank God every day for that. That is certainly the best decision I've made this year!

Here's what I learned from that relationship:

If I can't trust the guy, I need to just break up with him right away because always wondering when/if he's cheating is horribly taxing and SO not worth it.
Just because someone pays attention to you doesn't mean they love you.
Lip service is useless. I need someone who will follow through on what he says.
A man who can't manage his money is not a good match for me.
Chattanooga actually has some decent places to eat.
Dogs aren't all bad.

I'm sure I learned other things, but those were the biggies. And I think what was awesome about the whole situation (although it hurt and sucked at the time) was that I felt like everything in my life started taking a turn for the better after I broke up with him.

First, I came home to LA and went directly to church. I had been praying for a sign about what to do about him and the relationship and if I should move or not and got a big, bright flashing one that screamed, "GET OUT!", for which he ridiculed me. I thanked God for getting me out of that relationship and continue to do so. I had actually considered moving to live near him and I'm so glad I didn't actually do it. What a mistake that would've been... whew!

Second, little things happened like... I found the couch I've been wanting to buy for months from Ikea (but didn't because it was too expensive) on Craigslist for 1/3 the price! And easily found people to help me move it.

Third, but most importantly, I felt content to be alone. It's possible that I may have felt flickers of this from time-to-time over the last 4 1/2 years, but mostly, I've always wanted to find someone. This was the first time that I honestly and truly felt completely at peace with being alone. As a woman all alone. As a woman who maybe will never have children. As a woman who may never find the "right" man. And I felt completely okay with it because it was light years better than the relationship I had been in with him, especially over the last few months. It's amazing how freeing that feeling was for me. How calming and peaceful it was.

So of course, while I'm feeling extremely thankful for being out of that terrible relationship, I meet the new guy. I say "new guy," but truthfully I've known him for the last few years. He's recently become available and considering that I've admired him for the last couple years, I was pleasantly surprised (and more than a little thrilled!) to find out that he felt similarly and he asked me out. I decided to name him in accordance with his Myers-Briggs personality type (ISTJ) because I suspect it will fuel a lot of my discussions with him...

But in a nutshell, he's fabulous. When I'd see him here or there, I would always think to myself that it was rather unfortunate that he was not available because I always suspected that we might be a good match and now, I actually get to test that theory out! And you know who I have to thank for that? God, for getting me out of the previous relationship and available for this new one. The timing could not have been better! It's still pretty new, but so far, it's going well. We had our first real fight on Monday and made it through without any hard feelings, so I would consider that a success! We are able to discuss the tough subjects without much fuss and it seems like our biggest challenge so far is just in our communication styles, which doesn't surprise me. We're still trying to figure each other out.

Perhaps the most important thing to people who have been following my dating life? He lives 15 minutes away from me!! And he's a good, good man. Completely trustworthy, which in turn makes him red-hot sexy to me! He's fairly reserved, but I don't mind. He's the yin to my extroverted E! And he's given me permission to post about him, so I suspect there will be more frequent blog posts in the future...

To-Do List while Job-Free

2010-04-20T22:03:00.000-07:00

So, I've been job-free for just a couple weeks now and I've been busy, busy, busy! I went to Vegas for five days right after I got done training the new girl. And boy, oh boy, I needed a drink after finishing up the training... I don't think I've ever been to Vegas for more than a few days at a time to gamble and just hang out. It was pretty fun.

After returning from Vegas, I went over to Chris' house a few times to help him start cleaning out his garage. Other than that, I haven't really done a whole lot. The last few days, I've been on jury duty and officially got put on a case yesterday.

So I've decided I need to make a "to-do list" of what I want to do while I'm not working. Some of them are totally practical, some are completely pie-in-the-sky-weird and some are just miscellaneous notes to myself. Either way, the to-do list, which I used all the time while working, is going to become essential to getting stuff done while I'm job-free.

Read some books: some poker books, Your Money or Your Life, Getting Things Done, the Four-Hour Workweek, Eat Pray Love, and more to add I'm sure...
Watch some movies: Catching up on my Netflix list would be awesome... but that's to fill in the cracks.
Travel: May - Kauai, June - Atlanta for Oasis of Fun, July - Williamsburg, VA for Gulf Games, August - NorCal for MeepleFest. There's a decent chance I might take a road trip to the east coast for Oasis of Fun and just bum around over on that side of the country until Gulf Games about a month later. That would be fun. Just plain fun.
Volunteer on a regular basis - I want to volunteer at least a couple times a month with local agencies. Most likely, it will be Project Angel Food (prepping food to deliver to homebound clients) and AIDS Project LA (food bagging or office work).
Get rid of stuff out of my apartment.
Exercise.
Eat through my pantry & freezer to save $$ on food.
Figure out what I want to do for work - I could just get a job doing what I've been doing, but I've been contemplating what all my options are and I'm trying to figure out which direction I want to go. Do I want to make more money with more stress and responsibilities? Or settle for less money, but potentially much less stress? I'm hoping that I can read some books and do some soul-searching to figure this out.
Floss more regularly.
Learn some German.
Learn Morse code (?) - this is inspired by that episode of the Amazing Race when the Asian couple got eliminated.
Sleep a normal amount - I've been sleeping SOOOOOO much the last couple weeks. I need to stop oversleeping. It makes me feel lazy and unproductive. I also would like to keep a fairly "normal" schedule. I tend to lean towards the night owl side of the spectrum, so it's tough.

I'm sure there will be more and I'll just have to add them as I think of them.

Life Update

2010-03-09T21:51:00.000-08:00

The major life update is that as of March 31st (happy birthday to me!!), I will be job-free. Not necessarily by choice, but there wasn't much I could do about it. I've been working remotely for almost the last two years for a company based out of Dallas. They hired a new president last year and she wants to have someone working out of the main office in Dallas and I did not want to move there. There were other factors involved with the decision, but that seemed to be the sticking point.

The whole process has been extremely stressful which is what led me to my latest bout of silence on the blog. This situation has made me realize that I tend to become rather hermit-y when things aren't going well. I guess I'm following that old saying, "If you don't have something nice to say, don't say it at all!" Meanwhile, my friends I see day-to-day have been getting an earful. And then another earful...

I think probably the worst part has been the uncertainty of everything for several weeks. There have been other sucky parts, but I'll keep that part to myself for now. I was so stressed about it that I eventually got SO sick!! I've never been so sick in my life. I laid in bed for five days straight. I only got out of bed because I had to do our monthly payroll. After which, I promptly climbed back in bed. Thank goodness for Edward, who insisted I go see the doctor. I had been assuming I had the flu and was afraid I had the dreaded swine flu! When I finally went to the doctor, she informed me that I had bronchitis. She then prescribed me two inhalers and some nasal spray and instructions on how long to use them. Now, two weeks later, I'm feeling much, much better.

So, that's the big update. And with the free time I'll have on my hands you may get posts a little more often about random stuff I'm doing around my apartment. Some stuff I'd like to get done while I'm not working:

Eat through my pantry & freezer. This will give me the opportunity to try out different recipes and eat everything up!!
De-clutter my apartment! Wow, I'm REALLY looking forward to this. I've already started taking boxes of stuff to give to the Goodwill.
Stick to a budget. I've started making my budget. I'm not sure if I should post it on here because I'm not sure anyone would even care about the particulars. But, I was thinking about trying to make it like a game... LOL - as John put it, "a game with limited resources"!
Exercise more. With no job, I should be able to exercise more, right?
Floss more regularly. I just had my cleaning today and again I promised my hygienist Mary that I would be better about flossing. I need to start setting up better habits. Time to write it down, FLYlady-style...
Take some trips. Already planning on going to Atlanta in June for Oasis and Williamsburg in July for Gulf Games. I am contemplating taking a road trip out there and just killing time for the month in between with friends along the East Coast. I just need to find someone to babysit my kitty for a month!
Get caught up on my reading & Netflix queue. Not very "productive," but fun!
Go to the beach. I'm gonna work on my tan some... and maybe get some reading done while I'm at it!

Anyway, you'll see random notes to myself too as I clear stuff out of the apartment. The blog is the perfect place to record stuff that I don't want to lose! And then you get to see it too! I'm mentioning this because I'm about to post a list of restaurants from a newspaper ad/article that I've had stuck to my fridge for a couple years. I'm ready to throw it out, but I want to make a list of the restaurants in case I ever want to know what was on there.

I have no idea how long it will take to find a new job, but I intend to make good use of my time off and enjoy it!

Club Grazie Benefits

2010-02-22T23:30:00.001-08:00

I enrolled in the Club Grazie Players Club on New Year's Day (the day I met my new favorite poker player aka: the Venetian). After I enrolled, I was itching to play some black jack, but all the tables had a minimum bet of $25, which was a little too rich for my blood, so I played video black jack. It turns out that this is roughly the equivalent of playing slots! I put in $20 which lasted me quite a while and I kept recycling the money through. Finally, I busted out and proceeded to put another $60 in there, so I ended up losing $80.

Ever since this visit, I've been getting offer after offer from the Venetian/Palazzo for complimentary nights at the casino. The fine print says that I need to maintain my historical level of play. Out of curiosity, I checked to find out how much I had cycled through the machine in the 90 minutes I was playing... turns out it was quite a bit! $4,679!!

So, THAT'S why I've been receiving offer after offer... well, I called up to find out more about the program. Other interesting tidbits:

If you're a poker player and you play 6 hours a day in the poker room, they will reduce the amount of your suite (as long as your price is $399 or less) to $119 on Sun - Thurs and $159 on Fri-Sat nights. So, you can book the fancy suites for $369/night, play your six hours in the poker room and then have the poker desk call to the front desk to have them adjust your room rate. Good to know!
You earn food comps while you're playing. But they don't carry over! I had earned about $50 of food credit from my 90 minutes of video black jack and I had no idea!
They won't charge you for your hotel room if you don't maintain your level of play. They just won't offer you any more free nights.
To earn comps by playing slots, it's better to play longer with smaller bets than the way I did it, which was very concentrated playing.
To get a comped night for playing table games, your average bet has to be about $200/bet.
If you're staying there, open a credit line, charge everything to your room and then when you leave, check to see if you have any comps. If you do, have it applied to your bill.
If you aren't staying there and play the slots, you can go to a credit desk to get the credits you've earned (like my $50!!) transferred to a restaurant so you can use it up before you go.

I'm ready for another Vegas trip! Who's with me?

Working on Resolutions for 2010

2010-01-05T23:18:00.000-08:00

I love the beginning of a new year. Yes, it's still the Friday that follows a Thursday, but there's still something different about it. Mentally, it's a NEW year, which means I can slough off the old year and all the mistakes I made in 2009 and start fresh in 2010... a rebirth of sorts.

I've been contemplating what my resolutions will be for 2010 and have realized that all my resolutions fall into one of three (and usually ALL three) categories: money/finance, health/fitness and personal growth.

One thing that I completely let slide in 2009 that I think I'm going to pick back up for 2010 is logging all my game plays. It's not necessarily a "resolution," but I think it's something I'm going to re-start in 2010.

And looking back on 2009, I think the other non-resolution, but something I want to start back up is blogging! I've been lagging severely on that. I hardly posted anything in 2009. Mainly because I didn't want to blog about the guy I liked and that took up a lot of my mental energy. Now that that is over and done with, I feel the new year shining on my blogging soul!

At this point, I'm not going to go back and "catch up" on my old stuff, but just go forward from now.

Google Voice

2009-12-20T21:46:00.000-08:00

I just signed up for Google Voice! I'm curious to see how I'll like it and to see if it works. I have a new number that will automatically forward to my home and cell phone numbers. In addition, I can screen everything individually or by groups! Whenever people leave voice mail messages, it will email me an audio file of the voice mail as well as do a transcription of the voice mail message. I can easily make conference calls and listen to voice mails as they're being left! I'm excited to see how this will work.

Additionally, I put a cool new widget on the blog! Readers can call anytime and leave me audio commentary!

Sooooooo behind

2009-12-15T15:56:00.001-08:00

I'm SOOOOOO behind on blogging. The last few months have been really, really busy and it looks like it's not letting up until January. So, I'll have to post snippets when I can.

Major stuff that's been going on over the last few months:

Went to San Francisco for Oracle Open World in October,
Went to Belgium, Amsterdam & Essen, Germany with Chris & Jeremiah,
Went to BGG.CON in Dallas,
Went to the Bohemian Grove with Dave for Thanksgiving,
Baked lots and lots of cookies, and finally...
Have gone on lots and lots of dates, especially over the last month!

In between all that, I've been working, gaming, cooking, eating and trying to sleep! I'll have to post little tidbits about those adventures (plus any other little ones)!

Housing Swap

2009-10-01T08:09:00.000-07:00

I love to travel. And really, the most expensive part of traveling seems to be the airfare and the lodging, whatever form it takes. I've long contemplated trying to find a housing swap to take advantage of the ability I have to work from anywhere.

So I placed an ad on Craigslist stating I have a one bedroom apartment and would be interested in swapping with someone and was open to the destination. So far, offers I've received:

Swap for 3-6 weeks with a girl from Paris! That would be awesome...
Swap during Jan - Feb for an apartment in the center of Madrid
Swap during January for a Manhattan apartment that sounds way nicer than mine
A local who needs a place for her parents to stay when they visit her and the new grandbaby, the parents have a place in northern Italy
Swap during February with someone in Brooklyn

All good choices. Madrid would certainly be the most adventurous. I'd definitely need to clean up my place. They'd have to take care of my cats too. So, it's going to require some research, but I need to prioritize which of them I'm the most interested in. Hmmmm...

Date tonight

2009-09-30T17:54:00.001-07:00

I have a date tonight. This is the first date I've had in months and months and I feel ready! Lately I've become increasing frustrated with the ex-bf and he hasn't done himself any favors by ignoring my requests. That's a quick way to kill any kind of attraction.

Plus, I met a guy last weekend that kinda renewed my faith that I will find someone. He is incredibly sweet and seems like a very giving, loyal person, which is very attractive to me. You can also tell that he doesn't say anything lightly. If he says something, he means it 100%, which is refreshing. We spent a couple days together at camp, just star gazing, talking, hanging out and we had a blast. I talked to him a bit today and his life is in a bit of chaos, so I don't think there's anything to happen with him in the near future, but it was nice to just talk with someone and feel that connection. And of course, it happened completely when I wasn't expecting it to. Apparently I was ready and didn't even know it. It felt completely natural.

But the date tonight isn't with him. It's with someone from a dating site, so we'll see how it goes. He picked out an Italian restaurant that I've probably seen before but never gone in to eat there. I think the fact that he didn't suggest a chain restaurant is already a decent sign. The menu online looks tasty, so here's to hoping!

Camp Memories

2009-09-29T22:18:00.000-07:00

I went to summer camp once as a child. It was the summer I lived with my dad when I was in third grade. If you know me now, one thing you'll learn is that I don't like extreme temperatures, either hot OR cold. I have very few memories on the camp I went to, but the most vivid one is doing the "polar bear swim" where we had to wake up early and swim across the short end of the very cold pool. It was traumatizing! I think we also sang songs and played Capture the Flag, but other than that, I don't remember a lot. So I've never had happy memories of camp. Luckily, that is all changed!

I rode up Friday night with Jon and we stopped in Bakersfield to pick up Keith. I had made it a condition of traveling that we eat at Moo Creamery, this tasty burger/ice cream place in Bakersfield. If you have never been, you have to stop on your way up. Their onion rings are delicious. I've been here twice. Each time, I think I'll save room for custom-flavored ice cream and I never have room after dinner! Here are a couple pictures of our food:

Onion Rings with Bacon & Blue Burger

Friday's special: Fish & Chips

And then when we came out, we saw this big beetle! I couldn't resist taking a picture!
Beetle outside of Moo Creamery

We arrived around 10:30 on Friday night. By the time we got there, everyone was asleep, so we just got settled in. I spent a few hours in the kitchen on Saturday helping my friend Stephanie cook for all the volunteers that Shane had up there to help close the camp down for the winter. We made grilled cheese sandwiches in the super cool kitchen. Of course I took pictures of both...
Grilled Cheese Sandwiches
The Kitchen

After helping Steph with lunch, she gave me a couple hours off to go explore the camp. Once I took a peek outside, I saw how gorgeous it is up there! It's up in the mountains, which is nice, but I think what I like best is that it's on a lake. Here's a picture I took looking down at the lake from just outside the dining hall.
View of the lake

View of the dock

We spent some time just shooting the breeze down at the dock and it was a blast.

After dinner, I rounded up the Boy Scouts that were volunteering that weekend to play Ultimate Werewolf. They could not get enough of it! We played four games in a row before the parents made them go to bed. It was really fun.

After Werewolf, I went up to the staff house to have a drink with Steph, Rimas, Justin, Christine & Cassie. We hung out for a just a bit and then everyone trickled off to bed. I ended up staying up for a while and to do some star gazing. The stars are stunning up at camp! Without light pollution, it's shocking how many you can see! I forget that there are so many of them!

I was sad to go home on Sunday. I had a great time with the folks up at camp and as I was sitting in my living room on Monday, working on payroll, I just missed the quiet beauty. I can't wait to go back next summer!

Life is Short

2009-09-03T22:48:00.000-07:00

This break-up has been tough and I haven't been doing a good job of keeping away from the ex-boyfriend. I called him last week. The good news is that I'm feeling better after talking with him. The bad news is that I feel kind of lame for breaking down and calling him, although I know he didn't mind. I have a soft spot for him, that's for sure. The more I think about him, us, our separate lives, a possible life together, I just keep thinking... life is short. Too many people have been dying lately, friends have been losing jobs, love is difficult to find and even more difficult to maintain... Life is full of changes.

I need to remind myself to keep looking forward... Taking a deep breath now. Staying focused. I need to stay strong. It's tough, but I can do it. I can do it. I can do it...

Travian

2009-08-27T22:02:00.000-07:00

The ex-bf talked me into joining him in playing Travian, an online war game. You start with a dinky little village and build up your resources, then with those resources, you build troops and then there's all out warfare. I'm on S8 and I started late. So far, I have one village that's medium sized and I just started a new village. I'm naming all of my villages after Race for the Galaxy worlds. I've befriended another East Coaster who's helping me with my account and vice versa, so it's something to do in the evenings. Unfortunately for him, he's getting picked on by a rival alliance and he's not sure he'll last another week or two. It's quite volatile.

People keep talking about the mid-game. I think this is when a lot of casual players get picked off and destroyed to get ready for the "end-game". Each server runs for a year. This one started in March, but I didn't start until June. I'm doing okay though considering I started so late.

The good thing is that it's something to keep me busy. To be successful, I probably should read up on strategy, but so far, I've just been winging it. I'll just be happy if I don't get wiped out. So far, no one's been really picking on me, but I'm sure I'll become a target once I grow my population some more. Until then, I'm just enjoying managing everything! It scratches that itch for me... I am enjoying it!

Another Break-Up

2009-08-24T10:45:00.000-07:00

I've been really behind on blogging, but finally getting caught up on all the blogs. Mainly because I was dating someone that I wasn't blogging about and that was taking up a lot of my time. But, unfortunately, that is now over and it's freed up a lot of time that I need to fill somehow. I've been doing my best to keep busy because of all the break-ups over the last few years, so far, this one's been the most difficult to deal with. Part of the difficulty with it is that I really like him and I know he really likes me, compounded by the fact that we're broken up, but it's ambiguous. Add to that, we didn't break up because we didn't like each other or got into a big fight of some sort. He has a previous relationship that he needs to figure out first and that will take some time. I have no idea how much time it will take for him to figure it out. Or if he's even working on it (I hope he is). Or if he will ever figure it out. Or, or, or... There are many questions left unanswered at this point. I'm a planner type, so this uncertainty thing is not my favorite, nor is patience my strong suit. So there are lots of things rooting against my brain at this point.

I've been trying to convince myself that I need to just think: "It's completely over..." so then if anything changes in the future, it will be a surprise rather than trying to keep the hope alive that somehow we will work out. Plus, if I keep repeating that to myself, I can hopefully start moving on and be open to meeting someone else eventually.

That said, I think my big lesson from this one is: Don't get involved with someone if they are newly broken-up from someone because it might not be over. Especially if it was a long-term relationship. No matter how unhappy they were with the other person. No matter what the person says about the relationship or the other person. Because I think what I've learned more than anything is that old familiar phrase, "Actions speak louder than words..." He was a lot of words and a bit lackluster in the action department. Unfortunately for me, I am a "words of affirmation" person, so that kept me around long enough to fall for him. I won't make that mistake again. When I see lack of action, I will pay attention to that, more than the sweet, but empty words.

Additional lesson: I need to remember that people don't like to change and will often want to go back to what they're comfortable with, even if what they're going back to isn't good or fun or enjoyable. Even if it's not going to make them happy in the long run, people love to look back. To keep moving forward, you need to keep your eyes pointed forward. It's really difficult to do, especially in love relationships. Everyone wants to look back. I know, I've done it. I spent a long time deciding whether I should divorce Jason a few years ago. More recently, I've spent the last few weeks, looking back at him (and my phone, willing it to ring) and hoping everything will be different, but now I know... I have to keep my eyes forward so that I will move forward. I can't keep looking back. He knows how to reach me once he's done with looking over his shoulder. If he is ever done with it. I know how difficult it can be. I've been there. So while I get irrationally upset sometimes about it, I completely understand. And I do want what's best for him.

Because I think that more than anything, the goals for my life are: to grow, to be happy, to have meaning and share life with an equally suitable partner. I can't have that with him at this point so it's just as well that we're broken up. He has some work he needs to do and I'm not sure he wants to do it. Thankfully, I can stop thinking about that now.

And the last thing:
No more long distance relationships. None. Either someone moves, or it's just not happening.

Behind on blogging

2009-08-10T10:51:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I'm behind... But I think I'll be getting caught up soon.

Palm Pro

2009-05-28T23:44:00.000-07:00

I went to the Sprint store today to find out which phone I could buy without switching away from my awesome SERO plan... The Palm Pre was ruled out because it required upgrading to an Everything pack from Sprint. I also found out that if I upgraded to a Blackberry, I'd have to add on some sort of Blackberry data plan, so that quickly ruled out a Blackberry.

I knew I wanted to get a SmartPhone/PDA type with a full QWERTY keyboard. That left a couple HTC models and the Palm 755, Centro and Pro. The guy at the Sprint store said that the HTC models freeze up frequently, so I ruled those out. The Palm 755 was too close to my 650 and the Centro was fine. The Palm Pro had different features because it had a major difference from my Treo 650: it runs on the Windows OS.

Long story short - I bought the Palm Pro mainly because it had OneNote Mobile and it can sync up with Outlook 2007, which my Treo 650 could not do. I love having my calendar with me at ALL times. It's SO awesome!! Now that I've been using it for the evening, I have to say I'm also very pleased with how easy it was to set it up so that it pulls down my Yahoo and Gmail emails! The camera is decent, a 2 megapixels one, but no flash.

Overall, so far, I'm pretty happy with it. The new OS will just take some adjustment. I'm really bummed I had to give up on the Palm Pre, but oh well. Maybe in a couple years... I have 30 days to return it in case I decide I don't want it or like it. I'll try to post another update to see if I'm still liking it in a couple weeks.

Palm Pre

2009-05-27T01:12:00.001-07:00

Sprint has a new phone coming out on June 6, 2009. It's the Palm Pre and it's supposed to be some crazy awesome phone. I've been thinking I might buy one because my Treo has been quite temperamental lately and I'm worried it's going to just up and die on me. It's been randomly restarting when it gets overloaded and just hasn't been very cooperative lately. But then I read this on Engadget that says I won't be able to just add this phone to my existing SERO plan.

Sprint is taking a play out of the AT&T book and making its subscribers sign up for one of their "everything" plans. The cheapest plan they offer is $70/month for 400 minutes plus messaging and data, when I'm paying $30/month for 500 minutes plus messaging and data. Having a much higher monthly bill is completely not worth the super-cool new phone. I guess I'll have to start investigating other phones they have available. I really hope that all the phones I'm interested in don't have the Everything plan requirement because I won't buy that. I just don't need it. But I do need a new phone. Maybe it'll be back to eBay for me. That's where I bought the phone I had before the Treo 650 I currently have.

Gamex 2009

2009-05-23T00:40:00.000-07:00

I'm at Gamex, one of the local game conventions and I'm sad to report that I am in my hotel room, posting a blog post about how lame and old I am. But really, I don't think it's so much that as all my fellow crazy-late-nighters aren't here. Edward & Seth didn't make it and I think those two are the two that manage to talk me into staying up late to play games.

I'm also contemplating checking out a day early. There really isn't much happening on Monday and I could save $100+ if I just go home to sleep late Sunday night. I'm seriously considering doing that. I usually have a roommate to split the cost of a room, but this time I'm flying solo. Too bad I don't have a roommate because they upgraded me when I got in and I have a bigger room with a sleeper couch and it would've been perfect to share with a roommate. Oh well, next time.

I'm running the Charades tournament tomorrow night. I'm not doing standard Charades-style, I'm doing a "fortune cookie" charades tournament. All the clues will be fortunes. I'm not sure how it will go over, but considering it was the first way I ever played charades, it's near and dear to my heart.

I brought shoes/clothes to exercise while I'm here. Let's see if that actually happens. It could. I haven't decided if I want to subject myself to a Power Grid tournament at 10 AM tomorrow morning. It will just depend on how I feel when I wake up.

I must be tired because I'm rambling about nothing! Oh, but I did win one first place ribbon for Ticket to Ride: The Card Game. I really love this game. It's my favorite out of all the TtRs!

25 Random Things About Me

2009-05-17T18:59:00.000-07:00

OMG - could this meme be any more pervasive? And could I be any more behind the curve? Hi, here I am, four months after it was popular, filling out the 25 random things list. I'm never the early adopter on these, mainly because I kept getting 25 random things mixed up with 25 interesting things about me. So, once I gave up on trying to make them interesting, I was fine... And now, in no particular order, just the order I thought of them in... Dave - this is for you!!!! (I threw in a few more exclamation points just for you...)

I'm a huge game show fan. I remember spending summers watching nothing but game shows from 9 AM - noon every morning! Oh, how I used to love Bob Barker and The Price is Right! And then I got older and had a mad crush on Alex Trebek. How could I not? He was soooooo smart! Now, I just think he's smug and want to strangle him every time he pronounces something with the correct accent. Although Jeopardy! is still one of my favorite game shows.
Speaking of game shows... I've been on two since 2005. My sister and I went on Lingo (a Game Show Network show) in 2005 and proceeded to wipe up the competition. The stars were definitely aligned that day. In addition, I got to meet Chuck Woolery, Game Show Icon!! It was thrilling. If you ever want to see the episode, it's permanently on my TiVo and I also have DVDs made. Oh, and I was on the first episode ever of 1 vs. 100. It was such a terrible experience. Although, I did get to meet Ken Jennings (of Jeopardy! fame), so all was not lost.
I was married for 11 years. We met at my favorite dive bar in Burbank and eloped two months later. On my 21st birthday. We're still friends and hopefully always will be. He's known me for the most important third of my life to this point.
I went to a college prep magnet school for 7th - 11th grades . I didn't technically graduate from there, but the only friends I have from high school are from that school. As a nerd, I was on the Brain Brawl team and regularly traveled out of town for math competitions!
I've pretty much had a job ever since I could legally work at age 15 1/2. My first W-2 job was at a movie theater in El Toro, CA. By the time I was 20, I had worked the following jobs (roughly in this order): concession girl for two movie theaters (CA & FL), hostess for a seafood restaurant, greeter/cashier at Jiffy Lube, driver/counter girl at a dry cleaners, a shuttle driver for my college, a back office phone person at a doctor's office, a waitress at several restaurants, a concession girl at a country club, an auditor for an inventory company and a receptionist at an aerospace company. I then stayed at the aerospace company for 13 years. I think I held three jobs at once, but that was temporary. Now I'm a CFO at an awesome computer consulting firm and work from home.
I've been a B-52s fan since I was in the third grade and lived with my dad & his second wife and her family for a year. My super-cool 16 year old step-sister Danielle said they were cool and I believed her and have loved them ever since.
I own a Ruger .357 Magnum revolver that has a six-inch barrel. I'd like to buy another gun, probably something in the automatic family. I know all of you who live in the South think, only one gun? But in California, I'm the right-wing gun nut!
I can write with both hands. Backwards and forwards. Backwards as in, if you hold up the paper to a mirror, you can make out what it says. Oh, and in cursive. (I was bored in high school...)
My favorite number is 9. Like seriously. It's the only thing I'm slightly OCD about. Whenever I set my alarm or set the microwave, I make it so that the numbers add up to 9 or a number divisible by 9. I never put anything in for 30 seconds... it's either 27 or 36. See how that works? (OK, moving on...) [Wait, I'm going to make this the #9 thing on the list. There, that's better.]
I own 70 pairs of panties. I was having a conversation with a couple I know, during which he showed concern that if she didn't do her laundry, she might run out of underwear. I started laughing, then asked him how many pairs he owned. He guesstimated that he owned eight pairs(!). Wow. So, the next time I did laundry, I counted because I was curious to know how many I had. I can go two months baby!
I took piano lessons for seven years. I was in second grade and remember watching our new next door neighbor move in and seeing the piano roll down the ramp of the moving truck! I had always wanted to take piano lessons. I started taking lessons and we promptly adopted her as our "granny" for many years.
I have 364 items on my Netflix list. Probably not totally unreasonable, until I tell you that I'm on the "one disc at a time, maximum two discs per month" plan. And I've had Borat at home since September 2008. I probably should just return it so I can get the next disc on my list. But I'm a HUGE fan of the instant streaming through my 360.
I'm a list maker! I love making to-do lists and one of my favorite blogs is http://todolist.blogspot.com/. Most of the posts are photos of people's to-do lists. They're fun to read.
I'm a huge board game fan! I own 165 games and travel around the country to hang out with friends and play games. Along with #13, I track all my game plays on www.boardgamegeek.com. Since I started tracking in 2006, I've recorded 1,888 plays of about 500 unique games. In 2007, I traveled to Germany for gaming trade show. It was really fun.
My favorite food is fried chicken and I try it anywhere I can. My favorite fried chicken place is Mrs. White's Golden Rule Cafe in Phoenix, AZ. If Mrs. White's isn't open, Lo-Lo's is almost as good. My non-Phoenix favorite is in Nashville: Monahan's, a great family-style sit-down buffet place. My favorite place in Los Angeles is Roscoe's Chicken & Waffles.
I'm half Korean and 1/8+ Cherokee. What I find amusing is that some people think I look obviously Asian, while other people have no clue I am. I can't figure that part out.
The first time I ever played Charades was actually Fortune Cookie Charades while on break at a gaming convention in 2007. My first official game of "normal" charades was 2/15/09. It was a lot of fun...
I have an uncanny ability to guess what size pants guys wear. I don't know why I like doing it, but I do. I also am decent at guessing weight too. Maybe I should take a job at the fair...
I just started exercising and actually am kinda diggin' it. I haven't been doing anything that crazy, just walking with a bit of jogging. I've been using Podrunner Interval and it's awe-some! My love handles are already getting smaller.
I had a cookie-of-the-month club, where I made cookies for certain members "every month". That turned out to be just a wee bit overly ambitious. It has since turned into the cookie-of-the-quarter club, which means, I think they're due for some! It's the perfect Christmas gift for some of my guy friends who are real-life cookie monsters!
My favorite city in the whole world is Paris. I've thought about moving there temporarily. I'd love to go there with a boyfriend or husband one day.
I hate flossing. I try to make myself do it when I think about it, but I just hate doing it. I recently heard that flossing can help your breath smell better and this has actually helped me get started with flossing more regularly. Ah, vanity... Who wants bad breath??
When I was a junior in high school, I went on a date with a guy who took me and a couple of his friends on a plane trip across the state of Florida to Cedar Key. We landed on a little, teeny, tiny airstrip. We walked to town after being offered a ride in the local "cab," a station wagon driven by this older woman. We ate a hole-in-the-wall walk-up counter. I don't think I ever saw him after that. And to think I was interested in going out with him because he was a tall, dorky white guy that had higher a math SAT score than me!
I've been bitten by the poker bug. I think the gambling gene comes with being half-Asian. Craps used to be my game when I went to Vegas, but now it's all poker! I just went to Vegas for my birthday and we managed to spend 19 hours playing poker in a trip that was less than 48 hours. And most of it was on Sunday.
My favorite weird food combos are peanut butter & kimchi sandwiches, kimchi on my hot dogs, peanut butter on pickles and pickles with spaghetti.

Photo up on Womansday.com

2009-04-25T10:45:00.000-07:00

Often I get teased for all the photos of food I take when we go out to eat. I love doing that. They aren't gourmet shots, just quick ones to remember what we had to eat that night. Hmmm... that reminds me, I need to download my birthday dinner photos off of my camera!

Well, womansday.com contacted me and asked if they could use one of my grilled cheese photos from our outing to Campanile a couple years ago. I asked them for $50 to use it and they basically said that they don't have a budget to pay people for photos, but that they'd link to my blog and flickr account, so I said, "Why not?" So, I have a photo up in their article: 10 Greatest Grilled Cheese Sandwiches. I'm photo #2 of the Croque Madame.

Fun!

Dating Update

2009-04-17T01:25:00.001-07:00

I haven't posted much about dating lately. Last month I went out on a couple dates with a guy from OKCupid and they were fine, but no sparks from either direction. He's into board games though, so I have invited him over games once since and we had fun.

Other than that, I do have someone on the horizon and that's about all I can say about it because he knows about the blog and prefers that I don't blog about him, which is completely fine by me. Although, by mentioning him at all, I may have already broken the "don't blog about me" rule. Hmmm... Well, no particulars will be forthcoming, so I think technically, this is okay. :-) This will be the only mention unless things really ramp up and then I think he'll have to give me a wee bit of leeway to post a little something, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

And of course, I had re-joined eHarmony with some three-month special they had going on, so it just figures that this would happen right that! I'm going to go put that on hold for now.

Behind on blogging

2009-04-11T08:49:00.000-07:00

I'm terribly behind on blogging. The last non-health-related post I was working on was that crazy 25 random things about me. Dave - I will get this posted soon. However, I'm not sure I can post it to Facebook. It seems too ancient at this point to do it. Although, with the new format, I'm not sure anyone will even notice it anyway. I hate how everything is so jumbled up. I especially hate that on the website you can't *just* get status messages, you have to go through the news feed and see everyone's quiz results. Although I bet there is a way to filter out the extraneous BS and just get status messages. I'll have to figure that out some other time. At least on the mobile version, I can still just get status messages.

Good News!

2009-03-24T22:54:00.000-07:00

I spoke with my cardiologist today and it was good news!! He spoke with his colleague in Tucson and the verdict is that the Tucson doctor doesn't think that I need to do any further testing because he doesn't think the abnormalities that are on the MRI look like ARVD. He recommends that I do another MRI in a year to recheck it. So, that's what I'm going to do for now! :-)

I'm just happy because now I can exercise without worrying about keeling over!

Second Opinion

2009-03-14T00:22:00.000-07:00

My sister was in the same boat that I was. Her MRI came back with abnormalities, but her doctor offered to send her MRI with the report off to a doctor in Tucson who is heading up a study of ARVD. This doctor reviewed the MRI and said that to him, they looked normal and she didn't need to worry about the ARVD, but to get checked every year (or maybe it was every two years), but the point is, she didn't need to worry about the ARVD.

Meanwhile, I got scheduled to do the angiogram and biopsies next Wednesday. My sister called and suggested that I have this same doctor review my MRI before I undergo these procedures, so I called and spoke with my doctor and he's good friends with the guy, so he's going to send off my MRI and other pertinent info to him to see what he thinks before I do any further testing. I'm keeping my fingers crossed and praying that he has good news for me. That would be awesome, but I'm preparing myself for the possibility that I will need to do further testing.

Second opinions are good. Especially when one of the possible side effects of doing the biopsies is that the wall of my heart could rupture. That would be bad. Very bad. He's going to submit everything to the Tucson doctor on Monday and I'm hoping to have some word back from him by Friday.

Heart Update

2009-03-09T18:58:00.000-07:00

I saw my cardiologist today to discuss the results of my MRI from last month. He said there were some abnormalities, but nothing definitive to indicate ARVD, so I have to undergo more testing. He wants to schedule me for two more tests, hopefully next week. One's a right ventricular-gram where they are going to inject me with some kind of dye and then see the contrasting colors in my right ventricle to see if they can tell anything and he also wants to do some biopsies where they will take six tissue samples to test. He says it's a safe procedure. I don't really have any choice because I need to know.

I was very frustrated because I thought the MRI would tell us something more and it didn't, so now the timeline just gets longer and longer. Oh well. I think I'm going to go ahead and start exercising again though because I don't want to sit around for another month doing nothing. I'm not too stressed out about it. More than anything, I just want to know one way or another so I can deal with it if I have to and have it be over.

Health Issues

2009-02-23T22:35:00.000-08:00

This year has started off with a bang as far as health stuff is concerned. I had two issues pop up in January.

I found out right before I went on my work cruise (hmmm... I don't think I ever blogged about that!) that I have fibroids, which are benign tumors that grow in muscle layers of my uterus. My primary care doctor recommended I see a gynecologist about it because I have six of them and one in particular was kinda big (6.6 cm wide), or as she put it: "the size of a small grapefruit." My first question was "How could I have something that big inside me and NOT know it?" I found out that common symptoms are problems with urination and heavy/painful periods. Luckily, I have nothing like that happening.

After waiting a month for an appointment, I met with the gynecologist who said that the big fibroid is in the wall of my uterus vs. taking up space inside the uterus, so that's good. He said that he didn't recommend taking it out because cutting into my uterus would be more likely to lead to infertility than just leaving it in, especially if I have no symptoms and there's no reason to take it out. I was so relieved, I almost started crying while sitting in his office. The next step is I need to have another ultrasound done in six months, just to see how fast they're growing.

The other thing I've been concerned about all month, although at this point, I've just given up being stressed about it, is the chance that I could have ARVD, a genetic heart disease. Basically, if you have ARVD and your heart has an arrhythmia, it can cause you to die. The reason I even got tested for it was because it was declared the cause of death of my cousin Donna, who passed away last August. Her sister Robyne was diagnosed with it and was almost immediately put under the knife to have a defibrillator installed, which was rather alarming. The defibrillator acts like a pacemaker and zaps your heart if it has an arrhythmia to get it back on track.

After all this, we found out that ARVD was the cause of death listed on my grandmother's autopsy several years ago, but no one ever TOLD US to go get checked because it's a genetic disease! If someone had, my cousin Donna could possibly be alive today. But Robyne says, Donna has potentially saved all of us. I love Robyne's faith and optimism. It's inspiring.

So far, I've met with a cardiologist who has participated in studies related to ARVD, so I hope he'll be able to properly diagnose me. I have a cardiac MRI scheduled for tomorrow afternoon, so I get to spend 90 minutes in a tube, trying to remain very, very still. I'm going to take a CD of the MRI to my appointment with my cardiologist on Wednesday morning so he can then interpret it to see if I have the dreaded fatty tissue on my right ventricle. You've got to love modern technology!

If I have it, I want to just know so I can deal with it, but ideally, not having it would be better! My sister did her cardiac MRI last Friday and is meeting with her doctor on Thursday, so I'm anxious to find out her results too. To be honest, I would love to get back to any kind of exercise other than just walking. I miss hiking and have been afraid to do anything else, in case it inadvertently causes an arrhythmia! By Wednesday, I should know, so that will be a relief.

Oh, Trader Joe's...

2009-02-22T00:52:00.000-08:00

This guy made an unauthorized commercial for Trader Joe's on his Treo. Hilariousness! Enjoy! If you love Trader Joe's, you'll enjoy this...

Five and Dimes for 2008

2009-02-20T22:09:00.000-08:00

First, I didn't hit 100 new-to-me games for the year like I was hoping to. But here is a list of the games I played more than five and ten!

The Big Dollar
277 plays - Race for the Galaxy - Still one of my favorite games, if not my favorite. It's just fun, fun, fun.

Dimes
30 - Race for the Galaxy: The Gathering Storm
16 - Tichu - I really only play this at conventions
15 - Agricola
15 - Time's Up! - Still my favorite party game!
13 - Dominion
10 - Taboo
10 - Pandemic

Fives
9 - Time's Up! Title Recall
8 - Through the Ages
8 - Werewolf
7 - Ticket to Ride: The Card Game
6 - Brass - Definitely one of my favorite new games!!
6 - Cheeky Monkey
6 - Code 777
6 - Liar's Dice
6 - Password
6 - Unpublished Prototype
5 - Power Grid
5 - Tribune
5 - Yspahan

Games I expect to remain on my five and dimes for 2009?

Race for the Galaxy is an absolute... I'm already up to 12 plays. I also suspect that all my dimes will stay and probably most of my fives. Wow. Wait. Let me compare to my 2007 five and dimes. In 2007, I had 25 games listed on my five and dimes. There is a lot of overlap from 2007 to 2008 and I suspect that will continue in 2009.

Brass Online

2009-02-03T09:15:00.001-08:00

One of my favorite games in the last year has been Brass, a game from Martin Wallace that came out during my trip to Essen in 2007. It was 50 Euros, so it seemed a little pricey at the time, but man, I'm kicking myself for not getting a copy. I really am a fan of that game.

A guy has posted a primitive website that has an AWESOME version of Brass. It's not pretty, but it works REALLY well and I think playing Brass by email is a great idea. This game can produce a lot of thought and this gives people the time to think out their moves!

I finished one game last week and it was great. And I'm totally looking to play some more. Here's the website:

http://brass.orderofthehammer.com/

Anyone interested? You just create a free account! If you know how to play, you can check out the format on the game I just started up called Craftybeans.

Budgeting and Envelope System Update

2009-02-01T11:58:00.001-08:00

I've now tried the Envelope System for two months. I allocated $150 each month for groceries and $200 for going out to eat.

December
Groceries - Wow, was December the completely wrong month to try to start this! Besides regular groceries, I cooked Christmas Eve dinner for Dave & his parents which was an extra chunk of cash. Trying to stick to a budget makes you realize how expensive meat is! I bought the prime rib on sale for $4/lb, so it cost $28. Between Christmas Eve dinner, there was also New Year's Eve. Those two "events" put me over my budget for the month by $89.

Dining Out - I managed to avoid the Christmas Eve dinner to Providence which would've set me back $150 easily. Instead, I came in $25 under budget. Woo-hoo! I really had to make an effort to do this. I had to turn down going out for dinner and stop myself from making a quick stop to pick up a quick something. This took a lot of conscious effort.

January
Groceries - I was out of town for over a week, which helped cut down on the groceries I needed to buy for the month. I stocked up on stuff that I can use over the next couple months, including 25 pounds of flour and hamburger patties. I came in $8 under budget!

Dining Out - I spent some money on the cruise for alcohol and ended up coming in $18 under budget!

So, over the last two months, I spent $38 more than I had budgeted, but! I feel like it's been a success. I easily could've spent a lot more money on both areas, but didn't because I was consciously spending. Or rather, consciously NOT spending. Normally, I'd just go with the flow and go out to eat whenever, but now I'm trying to plan ahead to figure out whether I want to spend the cash to go out. The groceries should be fairly easy to manage I think. It'll be tougher when I'm going to be entertaining more.

I'm going to continue on with the system for at least a couple more months and then reassess. The economy is totally going downhill, with no end in sight. Even though I have money saved, I'm definitely trying to save more money. It's always good to be prepared in case of an emergency and who knows, maybe I'll want to buy a house. I stopped at an open house yesterday and the home prices in Burbank have come down, with several of them even under $500K, but frankly, I think they'll come down a lot more over the next year, so I'm just going to sit tight and save up some more cash.

I did decide to not max out my 401(k) this year, but instead take more cash in hand. There's no company match where I work, so it's not like I'm giving up any free money. I'm still maxing out my Roth IRA though. I'm still investing in my investment account that is outside of my retirement account. That has been the most difficult. To keep investing the same amount of money in there without feeling a twinge of "OMG I'm going to lose money". I keep remembering what I read in the The Coffeehouse Investor about how the no matter what the worst five year span is, it basically always goes back up... at least historically, it has! So I'm going to just chill and wait. And cross my fingers and hope that everything goes back up eventually. Besides, like Chris said, "It'll eventually go back up and if it doesn't everyone will be screwed, so it won't even matter."

We broke up

2009-01-29T23:36:00.000-08:00

Greg & I broke up tonight. We've had periodic discussions about how things were going and I think we were both in agreement that we looked great on paper, but in person, something was not quite right. The chemistry was there, but not fully there. So, we tried and tried and then, we broke up.

We've become very close over the last several months and he wants to remain friends and I do too. So, that's the plan. On one hand, it totally sucks. And on the other hand, it's good. I think I had started to lose hope that I would find someone who had the qualities I want in a boyfriend and then I met him, on a weekend I was pretty sure would be the worst of my life for completely other reasons. Instead, out of the blue, I met him and we were off! He restored my hope that there are still fabulous, caring men out there.

Wow, I am going to miss him... I was wrong. This totally sucks.

Download the new Suze Orman book for freeeeee

2009-01-08T12:31:00.000-08:00

You can download Suze Orman's new book Suze Orman's 2009 Action Plan for free at this website. You can do it until next Thursday, January 15, 2009, so don't delay! Save yourself $9.99 and get some advice on what you should do in 2009!

Twilight

2009-01-02T23:39:00.000-08:00

Over Thanksgiving break, I read Twilight, which is as my friend Shannon describes it: "It's like Sweet Valley High meets a vampire novel!" It's a total teenager love story that is thoroughly enjoyable. I loved it!!

It seems to be very popular with the ladies, regardless of age... Right around the time I was reading it, I found out that Greg's sister has read all of them, my sister was reading Twilight and has subsequently read the second novel New Moon, and Shannon has been blazing through them too. I can't wait to start New Moon myself!

I should probably add reading more to my New Year's Resolutions... Still working on what those will be exactly...

New Movie List for 2009

2009-01-01T12:00:00.000-08:00

In 2007, I used to keep track of all the new movies I watched and I've decided to revive that for 2009! I think I'll count seasons of TV shows too...

It Happened One Night - 1/1/09. Watched this with Travis and for an old, black and white movie, it was pretty good. Clark Gable is young and handsome and I found out later that he started a "no undershirt" trend way back when...
The Office - Seasons 1-3 - January 2009. I am so in love with Jim! He's cute, kinda dorky and funny.
Misery - 1/18/09. Yeah, this is an oldie that I still hadn't watched. Kathy Bates is (a) young, (b) freakin' creepy and (c) pretty damn amazing...
Murder by Death - 1/25/09. This movie completely reminded of Edward and his Top Secret! love. Oh my. It was pretty damn and you really have to pay attention because the jokes fly by...
The Office - Season 4 - Stupid Netflix doesn't have Season 5 available yet!!! Boo. I've decided that Dwight is my favorite character. He consistently makes me laugh.
Weeds: Season 1 - I love this show. The drug suppliers are awesome and just every character is interesting. Shane loves Uncle Andy!
Weeds: Season 2 - Oh, it continues to be awesome!
Dexter: Season 2 - A little slower than Season 2, but still awesome. And that British chick was just insane deliciousness.
Watchmen - 3/16/09. I've never read the graphic novel, saw it in the IMAX theater. It was very visually interesting. I can see why people like it, but I wasn't totally sucked into it like others. Maybe because I didn't already have a deep-seeded love? Not really sure.
The Thing - 2/12/09. An old horror movie that I actually really enjoyed. It was scary too which I kinda wasn't expecting. It just seems like older movies won't be scary, although I don't even know why I would think that considering that some of my favorite scary movies are from the 70s! Kurt Russell is so freakin' young in this too. Man, he was a cutie!
Boyz N The Hood - 2/20/09. Oh, this movie was incredible. How have I never seen it before? These movies just tug at my heart strings. I can't imagine living or growing up in such an unstable environment. I love Lawrence Fishburn's character too.
Ocean's Eleven - 1/30/09. I love the plot in the movie, although I had a little trouble following it. There was a lot of pausing and questioning of certain parts because I was watching it with Chris and he's seen it before.
Star Trek -

Envelope System: Halfway through December 2008

2008-12-18T23:58:00.001-08:00

I decided to make December my "test" month for trying out the envelope system. I put $150 in my Groceries envelope and $200 in my Eating Out envelope. We're now a little more than halfway through the month and here's how it's looking so far...

Groceries
I've spent $104.62 on groceries so far, of which $14 was for vanilla extract that will probably last me for the next two years and $7 was for pure entertainment of friends (some chips and dip). It's gonna be tough to stick to this and I may have just allocated too little to this envelope. Especially with cooking Christmas Eve dinner and co-hosting a New Year's Eve party. I only have $45.38 left and the standing rib roast I want to make will likely take up $25 of that even with the meat on sale this week. Hmmm... Maybe if I can spend less in the eating out department... How's that looking?

Eating Out
Tonight was my major outing for the month, an annual Christmastime tradition of eating $18 AMAZING grilled cheese sandwiches at Campanile. Add wine, cheese as dessert and a mandatory gratuity for a large party (not that they don't deserve it because the service at Campanile is excellent!) and you've got yourself a $50 dinner. I am proud of myself for not falling into the valet trap. I found street parking for free, a block away, while everyone else paid $6.50 plus tip for valet parking. I will gladly walk two blocks to save $8 dollars for nothing. I had planned on spending up to $60, so I am happy that it was only $50.

Back to the progress report... I've spent $104.86, so I'm on track to be OK for the month if I don't go crazy. I've been invited out for drinks tomorrow night with one group of friends and dinner with another... I might have to skip one or both if I want to have leftover money to put towards extra groceries and party supplies.

Overall
I'm happy with the budgeting. I've been taking some ribbing from friends, but I can take it. It's my money and sure, I might look cheap sometimes, but at least I am in control of what I'm spending and more importantly, I'm consciously spending my money. The envelopes definitely help with this because seeing the money in the envelope and writing down on the outside of the envelope exactly how much I spent helps me keep an eye on it. I've also been enjoying cooking more at home. It makes me feel more productive. It's a nice feeling.

Bike Hero

2008-12-11T00:34:00.000-08:00

It's fun and boy, do these kids have a lot of extra time on their hands. Strangely compelling to watch...

Tightening the Financial Belt

2008-12-05T18:04:00.000-08:00

I have been completely avoiding looking at my Vanguard account because I knew that my stocks must be down. I invest mainly in index funds, so I've been positive they would be down, down, down... I finally logged in to check on them and sure enough, they're so low that it's almost enough to make my stomach turn! I haven't stopped my regular contributions though. I'm gonna struggle through the emotional side and just keep plugging away at it. It did really help me resolve to buckle down on cutting my spending.

Which brings me to the next big thing that I've put off and off... trying to make a budget! Or I should say: MAKING a budget. I guess the even tougher part will be STICKING to it.

That is one of my goals this weekend. To figure out how much I am spending on the essentials and then how much I want to spend. I'm dedicated to eating food out of my pantry and freezer though, so that should get me through a lot of December. I have a lot of food in there!

I am pretty certain that my biggest expenditures are traveling (one of the downfalls of having a long-distance boyfriend) and eating out (foodie friends will kill you in that department!). So, I'm going to institute the Envelope System for the eating out and maybe groceries. I have no idea how much I actually spend on going out to eat each month, but should I be spending more than $200? I think not, so I'm gonna stick $200 in an envelope and every time I eat out, I'll take it out of the envelope. If I run out of money, I won't go out to eat. Luckily, so far, I only have two times this month that I KNOW I'm going out. I may adjust this amount if I come up with some data while making the budget that makes sense.

How much to budget for groceries? I'm a single woman who entertains often... $150 a month? Hmmm... that's a toughie. Maybe research is required on that one. I guess I could try $150 a month and see how it goes. December has the danger of being more expensive with New Year's and Christmas dinner thrown in there. Meat's expensive!

As far as traveling goes, most of my traveling can be broken down into: going to see Greg and gaming conventions. Gulf Games is coming up in February and I really don't want to miss it. I have a roommate lined up and maybe I could use a free ticket I got from United for being bumped on my white water rafting trip. That would make it more affordable for sure! *sigh*

OK - I can do this. Deep breaths...

No Christmas Gifts This Year

2008-12-02T13:24:00.000-08:00

I don't know about you, but I've definitely been much more conscious of my spending. Buying a new-to-me car took a big bite out of my savings and with my 401(k) and investments taking a dive, I've decided to just chill out for Christmas and not buy Christmas gifts. *gasp!*

This decision was also helped by doing Ramit's savings challenge the month of November. He created a website called No Christmas Gifts This Year and I've already used it to send out cute emails to some of my friends to let them know that instead of exchanging gifts, I'd much rather spend time with them playing board games or cooking a meal together. My free time has really become more precious this year and spending it with people I love is much more important that having more stuff. Especially when I'm constantly trying to fight the battle of The Stuff in my one bedroom apartment!

That said, this isn't a hard and fast rule. I adopted a woman through my church who needs some help and I'm planning to buy something for my boyfriend and my nephew. I might also give away things I currently own as gifts. I already started before I left town by clearing out my closet and giving Shane some clothes. I have my eye on something else to give her as a gift.

I also plan on sending out Christmas cards. I think I failed to accomplish that last year and I want to remedy that this year. I usually participate in the BGG Secret Santa exchange, but I downgraded myself to the Christmas card exchange. I'm very much looking forward to it as I have several people on my "to send" list and half of them are out of the country! If you aren't sure you're on my Christmas card list and want to be, send me an email with your mailing address!

The final issue is this... I'm not sure about buying a Christmas tree. I love having one and decorating it, but they do cost about $60-90 depending on how tall they are. That may have to be my one Christmas indulgence. I'm hosting a couple Christmas get-togethers and I think a decorated tree will be a nice addition to the festivities. Maybe I could get a shorter one? I love the big, tall trees though. And I know the fake trees are more practical, I don't know if I can revert to one! The real ones are just so darn pretty!! Oh, the dilemma! I think I'll just buy one. It just won't feel like Christmas without the tree...

Next to try... the Envelope System...

BGG.CON 2008 Day 1

2008-11-21T02:36:00.000-08:00

OK - so it's now 4:36 AM and we're winding down Day 1 of BGG.CON 2008... I'm in the Rock Band room, chillin', trying to stay awake while I write this. I think I officially missed a day yesterday, but my goodness, there's just too much happening here. I've been having fun with the webcam, talking to people all over the con (when my aircard and the ustream.tv website will cooperate).

If you're bored at work tomorrow, make sure you tune in! I think I'm only "planning" on webcasting around noon (or whenever I get downstairs) and then later at 11 PM before the drawing. That's CST! And we'll do the midnight drawing and then later, Ca$h'n Guns Live and maybe Time's Up? I'm not sure how popular the Werewolf was last night. The website crapped out and probably dropped the feed before they finished. I have no idea.

So far, it's been a blast. I'm still not fully recovered and I've been talking all day and I'm starting to lose my voice. I really need to try to get some sleep and take it easy.

I only played one "real" game last night and that was After the Flood, the new Martin Wallace game. It was fun and I think that if you like Martin Wallace games, you'll probably enjoy this one. It's really tight with resources and you really need to manage everything, planning both your short-term and long-term goals. I definitely need to play it again to grasp a basic strategy fully. I played with Michael Weston (delta1119) and Janna. Janna schooled us! It was awesome!

Other than that, I think I just played Time's Up! and Title Recall. I got to see Davebo act out all the works of Mark Twain in 30 seconds - white washing a fence, cajoling someone else into doing the white washing, a trip down the Mississippi River, burning at the stake(?) and other stuff. If I do stream Time's Up! tomorrow night, I will do my best to get Davebo in that game. He's so good at the third round (AKA: the no-words round).

BGG Application for the iPhone

2008-11-18T23:46:00.000-08:00

So I haven't caved and bought one of the fancy iPhones (not yet at least), but I did see the BoardGameGeek application created by Ryan Christianson (BGG ID: ryanch) for the iPhone tonight.

It's similar to MiniBGG in that you can search on BGG and download information as well as record plays. Click here to link to the Apple iTunes store if you're interested... the best part is that it's FREE!

Twittering from BGG.CON 2008

2008-11-17T21:11:00.000-08:00

Do you want to know what everyone's up to at BGG.CON 2008? You can find out by checking out this link:

http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23bggcon

Set it up now on your RSS feeder or bloglines.com or whatever you use to keep up wtiht he latest and greatest... We've already started posting and I don't expect it to stop until Sunday night!!

Gift-free Christmas

2008-11-16T22:47:00.000-08:00

I've been discussing this with several of my friends. The concept of a gift-free Christmas. And I think we're in agreement. We're going gift-free!

I mean, really... do I need more stuff? I've been slowly working on getting RID of stuff. I really don't need more books, CDs, games, clothes, or anything else.

Shane suggested regifting as a possibility and I think I might do that. I already sent her home with a bag of clothes and have something else I could possibly send her way for Christmas.

The couple exceptions will be children. I have a few kids in my life that I want to buy a gift for. Nothing extravagant, just a little something. And probably Greg too.

More than anything, I just want to spend time with everyone! I'm in Dallas for BGG.CON, then off to Athens for Thanksgiving plus some and then back in LA on December 4th. And then I'm in town for one more month!! And looking forward to seeing everyone!

Random Stuff

2008-11-15T23:37:00.000-08:00

I'm feeling better. I have a cough, but in general, I'm feeling much better as of this morning... I'm going to get lots of sleep the next couple days and I'm packing cough drops and Dayquil for the trip, JUST IN CASE. Maybe going to Texas tomorrow will help because the fires are making the air so gross and it is NOT helping my cough. At. All.

I'm not sure how much time I'll have from blogging... hmmm... maybe some live blogging from the con? Anyway, I think I'm going to schedule some posts in advance of the con so that I am not worrying about the whole posting every day in November. Actually, I think it's just 30 posts in November, so I guess in theory I could post twice in one day to make up for a missing day!

I'm pretty much all packed up for BGG.CON, just going to stop by Trader Joe's in the morning to pick up a few snacks to take with me to the con and then to Greg's afterwards.

The couch surfer is leaving tomorrow morning. She seemed nice enough, but I can't imagine living so loose the way she does. More power to her, but living gig to gig is definitely not for me!

Modern Long Distance Dating

2008-11-14T18:52:00.000-08:00

Because my boyfriend lives across the country... Georgia, more specifically... We don't have the "typical" dates that people who live in the same city might have. It usually consists of late night chats when we can squeeze them in and silly text messages to say "hi" or some such.

What we've been doing lately is setting up "date nights," which usually go like this:
He comes home from work, eats something, takes a nap and then calls me so we can get caught up on each others' week and hang out. Last time, we played some Dominion on BSW (a German website where you can play all kinds of Euro games).

I'm waiting for him to call so we can commence with our date tonight and tonight it'll be a little different. I bought him a webcam from Amazon and had it shipped to his house. He hasn't yet opened the box and he doesn't know what's in it, so I hope that he actually likes it. I picked out one with good reviews (4.5 stars with 402 reviews), so I hope it installs nicely and doesn't give him any trouble. As much as I love our date nights, I think I'll like them even more if I can see his smile!

And really, webcams are quickly becoming the norm. I was chatting about this with my waxer and a customer in the salon overheard us and said, "Oh, are you going to talk to your child with it?" Apparently, her son is in Japan and she just shipped him a webcam so she can see him when they talk via Skype. She loves it.

In fact, Google has just released video chatting! I can't wait to try this tonight. I guess we'll find out!

Couchsurfer #3

2008-11-13T23:36:00.000-08:00

I'm hosting my third couchsurfer. This one is a different from previous surfers in that (a) she's a woman - both of my other surfers were male and (b) she's not from out-of-town. She's an actress/set decorator/industry person who lives in LA and is apparently in between homes at the moment. So, she's crashing here for three nights. So far, it's going fine and I have no reason to believe that won't continue. Jason was over here when she arrived and he was asking her some questions about her experience with couchsurfing (as a host and surfer) and he seemed very skeptical of the whole idea. She said that typically men are more suspicious of it. I wonder why that is?

Oh no! I'm sick!

2008-11-12T23:26:00.000-08:00

I felt fine when I woke up and then halfway through the day, my throat started hurting. And then I started coughing. And now, I'm going to take Nyquil and crawl into bed and turn off my phones. UGH. Why is this happening right before BGG.CON? BOOOOOOO...

Countdown to BGG.CON

2008-11-11T12:04:00.000-08:00

Only nine more days until BGG.CON! I can't wait!!

I'm really excited because I know even MORE people from the SoCal area that are going and I get to see some of my favorite gamers that weekend! I can't wait! I'm going to have to stock up on sleep beforehand and sweet tea during the convention!

I'm going to bring my laptop with me and camera and I'm hoping to post pictures up on my Flickr account and maybe some videos up on YouTube while we're at the con... Just to keep everyone who isn't there in the loop somewhat while it's happening!

Live blogging from the event? Maybe!

I bought a DIFFERENT car!

2008-11-10T18:30:00.001-08:00

This afternoon, I took my car back to CarMax because it was scraping on my driveway every time I drove in and out of my garage. I showed the mechanic in their service department where it was hitting on the driveway and asked if I should be concerned. He said, "Well, it isn't good..." and so I returned the car. CarMax has a policy that allows you to return a car within five days for any reason. THANK GOODNESS!!

So, I came back this afternoon and drove some more cars and I must be a Honda person because I ended up with another Honda. Specifically, I got a 2005 Honda Accord EX. It's awesome!!! I'm in the waiting room right now, waiting to drive it home. The only slight negative is that it's silver. I'm not sure about the color, but I think I can live with that. My other color choices weren't fabulous, so I'm OK with that.

It has leather seats, seat warmers(!!), a six CD changer, 6 cylinder, 240 HP, dual AC and roomy inside without being too big. Most importantly, it's QUIET inside! That was the biggest complaint with my Civic. The road noise while driving was a bit annoying, especially while driving on the freeway and trying to chat on my cell phone. So, I'm looking forward to driving it home.

Also, I do have to add that my experience with CarMax has been VERY positive. Especially with regards to the sales people. They have a no haggle pricing policy, so you just see what the price is. They try to upsell you on their CarMax Full Protection policy and LoJack, but they don't put the hard sell on which is cool. I might have been able to pay less if I had gone somewhere else or bought from a private party, but I wouldn't have been able to return the car, which really gave me peace of mind. In addition, I don't have to worry about the past of the car as much since they do a thorough examination of the car before taking them in to sell.

I bought a car!

2008-11-09T23:59:00.000-08:00

I'm not really a "car person," so I went to CarMax in Burbank today to just look at cars to see what's out there. Well, I ended up leaving with a 2003 Infiniti G35! And it's this burgundy/red color, which is very different from the black cars I've had for the last 10 years... Once I take a picture, I'll post it here.

I have five days to return it if I change my mind... When I drove home tonight, the bottom scrapes on my driveway. I'm not sure if that's a huge problem? Any opinions on that? It's a moderate scrape, not tooooo bad, but it definitely scrapes. Plus, I smelled something that smelled like burning plastic or some kind of chemical. I'm going to see if Jason can look at it for me.

The idea behind the Mime

2008-11-08T23:05:00.000-08:00

I talked to Evan today and I was asking him how he came up with the idea for the mime costume. There's a downloadable PS3 game called Pain that is essentially VGA Bomb meets Tony Hawk. You put a person on a ramp and shoot them out into the city and try to make combos by exploding yourself and destroying stuff. It's totally over-the-top gross-ness, but really, really fun. And hey, you get to learn about physics while you're at it. Anyway, there's a mime that you get points for hitting in the game. Here's a slo-mo video of the PS3 mime...

Evan's Homemade Halloween Costume 2008

2008-11-07T23:20:00.000-08:00

My sister always does an awesome job with Evan's costumes... I think this year was mainly handled by my brother-in-law, who did a great job! My sister is a hard act to follow after the first homemade costume in 2006 and 2007. After those gems, I waited with baited breath to see what Evan would be for Halloween this year....

And the verdict was...

A sad, sad mime...

I can safely say that I handed out candy to 1,000 children on Halloween night and did not see a single kid dressed up as a mime... My nephew is unique and I love him!

Personal Assistant

2008-11-06T22:49:00.000-08:00

I've been contemplating the idea of hiring a personal assistant for a while. I even kinda softa offered the job to my former co-worker, but that didn't really work out. I've been really busy with work and as a result, some of my personal matters have just fallen by the wayside.

A couple weeks ago, I bit the bullet and put an ad on Craigslist for a personal assistant. I didn't want to pay a ton, so I put an ad out to pay $10 an hour thinking that I might get a few responses. Imagine my surprise when I received a dozen replies in less than eight hours, from people as far away as Culver City and Northridge! I turned those people down immediately just because it doesn't make sense that someone would drive 30-45 minutes to make $10 an hour for a few hours.

When I saw that someone applied and they lived right around the corner from me, I called her immediately and scheduled an interview. She came over, was fabulous and I hired her on the spot! I had her file all my bills that have been piled up for the last six months, call the vet to make an appointment for Evie, make a few phone calls that I'd been putting off to insurance companies and had her drive with me over to the body shop to take my car.

When we were at the body shop, I asked her if I could move some stuff from my car to her car because I thought I'd be leaving my car there so they could fix it.

When I moved a big bag of games I had in my car from the games day the past weekend, she asked if I liked board games and I said, "Yes!"

She said, "I have some friends who are really into that too..."
I said, "Oh really? Who are they? Maybe I know them..."
and then she said, "Do you know Lincoln & Nikki?"

I said, "Seriously!?!?!" I guess that's my one-in-a-million for this quarter... Turns out she worked with Nikki for two years at the hellhole company and she's still friends with them!

Her name is Danielle and she's working out great. I think the next project I have for her is to rearrange my game closet! It needs it!

White Water Rafting Update

2008-11-05T23:41:00.000-08:00

I never gave a recap of the white water rafting... In one very short sentence: It was awesome! It was freezing cold, but awesome.

Saturday was Bridge Day, which happens every third Saturday in October and it's the only day that base jumping is legal in the US. We rafted down the New River and that was OK, not too exciting. However it was great to watch people jump off a bridge over a gorge that's 876 ft above the river and freefall or flip and then toss their parachute into the air. It only takes eight seconds from bridge to river, so they don't even bother packing the chute because there just isn't enough time for it to deploy!!

Sunday was the best. There are two entries in the book "1,000 places to see before you die" for West Virginia and I've now hit one of them. We did the Gauley Marathon, which is the entire Gauley River - covering 23 miles and eight class five rapids. It's impossible to describe, but I'm hoping to get a picture posted soon. I haven't developed my film yet. On the way down to the river, the guides kept saying, "Be nice to us! Today's the last day of the season, so just remember.... we can't get fired!!!" And then the bus erupted into laughter! There was a lot of rubber cock talk going around too because one of the guides carries around a rubber chicken to be his boat mascot. It was hilarious!

I should add that when we woke up on Sunday, it was 30 degrees and we had to melt the ice off of our windshield. Yes, COLD. FREAKIN' COLD. Here's what I was wearing... under my wetsuit!!!
I know it's hard to tell, but I'm wearing TWO layers of long underwear, topped with a SmartWool sweater, wool socks and later, a cap under my helmet! Did I mention it was chilly? On top of all that, I put a farmer John wetsuit and a neoprene jacket & booties. Brrrrrr!

Here are a few more pictures from the trip:
With our river guide for the Gauley Marathon.... Leif!
And with our crazy, enthusiastic kayak-happy videographer... John Petro

BTW - I'd highly recommend our rafting company... If you're looking to do some beautiful white water rafting in West Virginia, call Ace Rafting. They were fabulous! All the guides were cool and had a lot of experience. When they sent me the online survey, I was only too happy to fill it out with glowing reviews. I'm not sure if it was that OR the tip that prompted this note from our guide...

I was completely surprised that he wrote that note and touched. I had a great time hanging out with him all day and you could tell that he had a great heart.

I hope some of the pictures I took on the Lower Gauley turn out well because I took pictures of the fall foilage. It was gorgeous!! I've never seen anything like it!

Boyfriend Update

2008-11-04T10:07:00.000-08:00

Greg came out to visit last month and we had a good visit... Much too short, but fun. We've both been really busy over the last month, so since that visit, we haven't been talking as much as we were a couple months ago. In theory, he'll be finished with one major obligation after this weekend and that should free up his weekend time quite a bit, at least compared to the last month!

Maybe then we'll be able to talk about something other than how tired we are and how busy we are! We still have our book of questions to go through and I feel like there's much more to learn about each other. It's as if this last month of dating doesn't even really count because it seems like we've talked SO little. Ah, well... He told me more than once while visiting that he's working on changing his schedule so he won't be so busy and he'll have more time to spend with me and I believe him, otherwise, we wouldn't still be dating.

I'm currently planning to go see him for Thanksgiving... I'll be heading there straight from BGG.CON. Once I come back from that, I'm not sure when I'll see him again. There's been talk of me going to see him for Christmas, but since we've hardly been talking, I want to see how everything is going before & after Thanksgiving before buying a ticket for Christmas.

We have very different communication needs. I could talk to him pretty much every day, even multiple times a day (which I know is probably overkill and not for everyone), while I think he could get by with a couple times a week. He's been making an effort to call more often, which I really appreciate because it says to me "I want to make you happy," a message I am glad he's sending. As a result, I've been patient about these last few insanely crazy weeks. Which I've taken as an opportunity to grow because God knows that patience is NOT my strong suit!! But I swear, I'm getting better.

I think the biggest challenge for me is that it's hard for me to feel connected to someone with whom I have very little contact (without having a pre-established super-strong connection like I do with some of my friends who I don't talk to for years at a time and then we do and it's just on...). So, an unfortunate side effect of all this non-contact over the last month has me feeling less connected to him now than I did when we first started dating. Not exactly the trend I want to see in my relationship, you know? It feels like we're going the wrong way. However, I'm doubt he feels that way, based on our very different communication needs. I've been trying to be optimistic about the future though and I hope that we can continue to tweak this so that we're both happy with how much communication we have. We were doing better before the last few weeks when he's been super-busy.

I'm very happy that we have a "date" scheduled for this Thursday night! I'll have him all to myself and get to talk to him about everything I've been saving up over the last week. He is a wonderful person and I love and admire many, many things about him. I want to feel a stronger connection to him, so I hope that once things settle down, we can get back to talking more often and hopefully, growing our relationship. Keep your fingers crossed for us!

My Poor Car...

2008-11-03T11:19:00.000-08:00

Greg came to visit the second weekend of October and while he was here, we went to see Davebo's son in a play out in Thousand Oaks. When we were done, I asked Greg what he'd like to do and he said, "Let's go to the beach!" Well, he didn't have to suggest that to me twice! I love the beach and have been out of town so much, I haven't really had the opportunity to take advantage of the beautiful natural wonder that is the Pacific Ocean.

So, we headed down the 101 freeway and exited on 23 and headed south going through the canyon. We were meandering, taking our time because we had about an hour or so to go before the sunset and we were enjoying the views. I commented on how the road had a speed limit of 25 because it was so curvy! I think I was even going below 25 as to not make us both car sick!!

As we approached one leftish turn, a car from the opposite direction came screeching over the line and while I swerved to get away from him (but not too much as we are on a frickin' mountain), he hit me. And my poor car. He hit my driver's side back door and quarter panel. This is my poor car...

Last week, my new personal assistant (that deserves a post too) Danielle took me over to a body shop (finally!) to have an estimate done. They estimated it would cost $4,500 to fix, not including any possible suspension damage that there may be.

I got a call this morning from State Farm's Total Loss Unit. Yep, my car is a total loss. We reviewed the condition of my car and she's going to get back to me with updated numbers, but the preliminary numbers are:

If I want to keep the car, they'll cut me a check for $5,244.04. If I want to get rid of the car, they'll cut me a check for $6,599.58. Choices, choices... I think I'll probably keep the car while I figure out if I ultimately want to keep the car. My sister really needs a car, so I could give her the car and let her fix it. She works for a school district and her office is on the same campus as their continuation high school, so they have a body shop on campus and they'd probably fix it for her cheap! Or, I could keep the money and keep the car and just drive it around with a big dent in it.

The real question is, what kind of car would I want to get? I'll probably just stick with that for now while I decide what to do.

So, State Farm called back and the new numbers are:
If I want to keep the car, they'll cut me a check for $6,323.32. If I want to get rid of the car, they'll cut me a check for $7,678.86.

I'm definitely going to keep the car, it's just a matter of what I do after that.

The Financial War Within

2008-11-02T23:26:00.000-08:00

I try to be good. Really I do. I want to save money. Heck, I do save money. But I know I could be saving more. Much more. If I was more disciplined... If I didn't travel to see friends... If I didn't have a boyfriend that lived across the country... If I didn't get talked into eating out all the time...

The problem? I haven't been disciplined enough about money. I've been thinking for months that I should make a budget and stick to it so I can save more money than I am now. That's why I'm happy to be focused for November with Ramit's "Save $1,000 in 30 days."

I am going to BGG.CON this month, so what I'm focusing on this week is not going out to eat. I go hiking almost every Tuesday and we usually go out to eat afterwards, so I'll probably do that, but other than that, I'm going to reduce how much I go out to eat. I haven't decided if I should pick a dollar amount to stay under or adjust the frequency? I think I'll aim for less than $40 this week. We'll see if that's doable! I think it should be. I don't have any plans to go out for lunch this week and other than hiking, so far, I don't have any set plans to go out for dinner, but I'm sure something will pop up on Friday or Saturday...

NaBloPoMo 2008?

2008-11-01T23:30:00.000-07:00

I will try, but with my schedule lately, I don't know if I can guarantee a post every day, but it's a worthy goal. I've been meaning to post anyway. It should be interesting because I'm also trying to do Ramit's "Save $1,000 in a month" challenge! So, if nothing else, I can post about how that is coming along.

I encourage you all to check out his posts on the topic. If you haven't read his blog, it's definitely one of the more enjoyable personal finance blogs out there. Speaking of, I should probably update my blog roll...

Weather Update from Beckley, WV

2008-10-17T20:20:00.000-07:00

While I'm happy to be having the opportunity to go white water rafting for the first time... I didn't count on the high to be 52F and the low to be 31F. At least the high on Sunday's supposed to be a balmy 61F!!

Sheesh! It'll be fun! I'm psyched!

White Water Rafting This Weekend

2008-10-16T00:41:00.000-07:00

I've been very neglectful lately on the blogging. It seems I've barely had enough time to sleep lately, much less blog! Hopefully that will change by next week. I'm going on a trip this weekend, but after that, I'll be home for a shocking four weeks in a row! I'm really looking forward to a few weeks without flying off somewhere. It'll give me a chance to start thinking about Christmas! I feel like Christmas is right around the corner. Where did this year go?!

I'm a bit nervous (and excited) about my next trip. I'm heading out to West Virginia this weekend to do some very chilly, white water rafting. I've never gone rafting before, but it's something I've always been interested in doing. Whenever I've imagined it, I've pictured myself in my bikini, drinking beers on a toasty day on the river. I certainly didn't imagine wearing wool long underwear to keep warm because the water is in the 40s! My friend who went last year said she had a great time, so I'm keeping focused on that! I am already anticipating the sheer exhaustion that will undoubtedly come along with class four and five rivers. I'm just glad I'll have a helmet and a personal flotation device. My goal is to survive!

And as a related side note... On Monday, I made my first trip ev-er to REI. That place is a money pit. I bought some SmartWool long underwear and a sweater. The sweater retailed for $140!!! But it's super-cute and I can wear it hiking on Tuesdays and I love it. They gave me a coupon for 20% off, but even with that, I spent more on clothes than I did for the actual rafting trip. On the plus side, I'm stocked up on all the winter clothes I'll probably ever need for the rest of my life!

Quick update: Here's a video they sent out that shows (in warmer weather!) where I'll be this weekend. Also, I forgot to mention that this weekend is Bridge Day and there will be base jumpers hopping off local bridge that crosses the gorge. We'll get to watch from the water below!

More blogging to come next week... I'm sure there will be a boyfriend update in there somewhere! Until then...

City Race LA

2008-10-01T20:28:00.001-07:00

I'm getting excited about City Race LA!! It's this Saturday and I'm signed up to run around with Chia, Travis and Ron! I have no idea if we'll win, but I'm ready to have some fun! I'll have a full report this weekend! I'm a little concerned because it's taking place in downtown LA and I'm not quite familiar with the area...

According to the website, we'll get a packet of clues that range from very easy to very difficult, along with a list of scavenger hunt items. The team that finishes in the three hour time frame with the highest score wins!

The Relationship Update

2008-09-27T23:18:00.000-07:00

I went to visit Greg for two and a half weeks and had a wonderful time. We spent lots of time just hanging out with friends, talking, playing games and of course, going to football games!

I arrived Friday night and we headed straight to Dragon*Con to go see Valerie and Tyler and to see all the crazy costumes that people wear! Feel free to browse my Dragon*Con photo album. It was so much fun to check out all the costumes and just people watch. I want to go next year and stay for the whole weekend. We didn't stay the whole weekend this time because we were scheduled to go to the first Georgia Bulldogs game of the season...

While I was getting ready on Saturday morning, Greg surprised me with a piece of jewelry! A necklace with one charm that said "My Heart Belongs to" and the other has a Georgia logo on it. I told him it was true in a sense. Unsurprisingly, my Georgia fan of a boyfriend has given me two gifts that are Bulldog-related. The first is my favorite teddy bear, Harrington, who sports a super-cute Georgia hooded sweatshirt.

Greg with a fellow newbie... Miller!

The game started at 12:30, so we started tailgating around 9:30. It was my first time ever tailgating, so I shared that honor with the two other new people at tailgating: babies who were born this past spring!! :-)

These Georgia Bulldog fans go all out! Here's a picture of the spread they had from our second game:

Steph in her Georgia gear by the snack table

The games we went to were smaller games, but FULL of people! A sea of red wherever you looked! And man, oh man, they were hoooooooooot! Both Saturdays, the temperature was about 90! We slathered ourselves in sunscreen because his seats in the first row of the visitors side right at the 50 yard line and in full sunlight the whole game. By the end of the game, we were both drenched in sweat! Mmmmm.... sexy... We got home and showered and just collapsed. Being in the sun all day is exhasting. Here's a picture towards the end of the second game (and you can see the necklace!)

Steph & Greg after a loooong, hot game

Other than football, we ended up hanging out a lot with his friends playing games, both board games and some Rock Band! That was super-fun and I got a chance to practice my drum skills, so now I'm getting decent at the foot pedal and can do the double and triple bass kicks. I can definitely tell that I'm getting better.

I also had a chance to cook for Greg a bunch and his dad a couple times. His dad is really sweet and was very kind to me the whole visit. I can see why Greg likes him so much. We invited Greg's dad and sister (who was in town the last weekend I was there) over for dinner and to watch the Bulldog game on TV. I made my favorite beef stew on the planet (Barefoot Contessa's recipe called "Parker's Beef Stew") and it was a huge hit. They all loved it, even Greg, who doesn't care for onions all that much.

Overall, it was a great visit... I was worried about spending that much time together, but it was better than I expected. I went out for "Girls' Night Out" one Thursday with some of his girlfriends and one of them said, "I was telling my husband, 'If they haven't killed each other after spending two weeks together, that's a good sign!' " Greg has never lived with a woman before, so I know I was probably encroaching his space, especially since he's a bit neater than I am, but he said that he liked it. We make a good team at home too! I do the cooking and he does all the cleaning! It works out great!

After three months of dating, I still am amazed by what a great person he is. He's sweet and thoughtful and I love him. And I told him so. He's so wonderful, it's hard to imagine not loving him. It's different from anything I've felt before. In fact, he's a walking version of my "Ideal Husband List." We don't fight, in fact, we hardly ever have disagreements. Not all that surprising considering we agree about all major subjects. That alone is completely different from being with Jason and some of the guys I've dated over the last couple years. And I like it. I like not feeling at odds with my boyfriend. It's relaxing and it makes it so easy to talk to him. He doesn't get upset when I bring up anything and likes to talk about whatever might be bothering me. I really appreciate that about him.

I'm happy that he's coming out to visit me in a couple weeks. Our plans will probably consist of hanging with friends and some gaming. I'm trying to figure out some other "L.A." stuff for us to do... I'm planning on going to see him for Thanksgiving after BGG.CON.

Another thing we did while I was there was spend time discussing a book I borrowed from my friend Chia called The Hard Questions: 100 Essential Questions to Ask Before You Say "I Do". We're not engaged, but since we're both interested in getting married, we thought those questions would be good ones to discuss. The book is split up into several chapters that have questions about your home, money, work, sex, health & food, children, community & friends, and spiritual life. We started covering a few of the questions, but it's going to be an on-going project. Some of the questions are no-brainers, but they are all things you should discuss with your partner. So far, it's been fun going through them together. I think we're going to have to start doing some over the phone too, otherwise, it'll take forever to get through the book.

I'm curious how the next few months will go. I'm looking forward to seeing him more and more and extremely thankful for my job which allows me the flexibility to stay with him and work from his home. I shudder to think how awful it would be having my old job and not being able to see him nearly as much. I would be very, very sad. As it is, I'm hoping we'll start talking more than we have been lately, but I think it's more of a question about setting aside time for each other because we both have pretty busy schedules. I think our relationship will continue to improve as we get to know each other more and more! I know I'm certainly looking forward to the process!

From the TiVo to my iPod

2008-09-26T12:42:00.001-07:00

I've been using the TiVo Desktop program for years. However, I just purchased the Desktop Plus program that allows me to convert programs from my TiVo at home to play on my iPod!! I'm so excited! I still haven't watched the Heroes premiere, so I've downloaded it to my iPod and I'm planning on watching it while I'm on the plane tomorrow morning, flying to Denver to see my sister! I'm so excited! I tested it out with an episode of Jeopardy and it works like a charm! This will be a great way for me to keep up with my TV watching when I'm on the go!

So far, I've transferred Heroes, Jeopardy! and Survivor: Gabon. I'm not usually a Survivor watcher, but Dave loves it so much, I gotta give it another looksie. We share the Amazing Race and Beauty & The Geek love, so I'm guessing I'll love Survivor too.

Rollover 401(k)

2008-09-14T14:03:00.000-07:00

I rolled over my 401(k) to Vanguard in July. It was super easy to do, but earlier this week, I finally sat down and figured out what I wanted to invest my money in. When I did the transfer, it defaulted to a prime money market fund, which is basically a cash/savings account at 2%. I put a chunk of it in the Vanguard 500 index fund based on this recommendation, but then split some of it out into other index funds. I moved about 20% of it over and I'm going to set-up an automatic exchange every week or two to make it move money over so I can do some dollar-cost averaging. Although, I'm wondering if I do it over such a short period (six months to a year), if it will really matter or not?

When I get home, I do want to start looking at my finances a bit more to see if I can save more money. The longer I date Greg, the more I start thinking that not working (or cutting back) after having kids is a real possibility, so I want to save up as much as possible to prep for that! It's a ways off I'm sure, but saving early is always a good idea!

My Cousin Donna

2008-09-13T18:05:00.000-07:00

I found out last week that my cousin Donna died. I'm not sure exactly when, but I think it was a couple weeks ago. They are waiting on the results of an autopsy because she was a relatively healthy 40 year old. She smoked, I'm not sure how much, but I suspect it contributed to her death. The preliminary cause of death is due to an enlarged heart. Which, according to my aunt, may run in my family! I am going to schedule an appointment with my doctor to talk to her about it.

She's my favorite cousin and I can't believe that she died. I haven't talked to her in ages and I'm feeling terrible about that. It only emphasizes that you never know when someone is going to pass away. I keep imagining that she had no idea that she would just basically drop dead that day. What if she did know? What would she have done differently?

What should I do differently? I don't want that distance to happen with my other friends and family. I'm going to start reaching out to some that I haven't spoken with lately. To me, friends and family are important, but it's so easy to get caught up in the day-to-day events that happen in my life. That whole "out of sight, out of mind" in motion, you know? I have a tendency to procrastinate also, which doesn't help anything.

First on my list of people to contact when I get home next week... Donna's sister and husband. And recontact my Aunt Terry to called to tell me about it. She's the person in my dad's family that I'm closest to and it's been ages since I've talked to her...

I encourage you to contact that friend or family member you haven't called lately. I know why I didn't call her... She was living in Virginia with her husband and kids, then moved back to the OC into my grandparents' house. We exchanged Christmas cards, but then I was having all my marital problems with Jason and I didn't want to call her just to dump my problems on her and admit that my marriage was having so much trouble. After enough time had gone by, it got to a point where it was just kind of embarassing that I hadn't contacted her sooner and thus, time passed. She moved back to Virginia and then I never saw her. The last time I did see her was at my grandfather's funeral. Why did I let pride get in the way? She would've understood and she would've been happy to hear from me... *sigh*

Stir Crazy?

2008-09-04T13:35:00.000-07:00

I've been working from Greg's house while he's at work all day which is fine. I started feeling antsy the other day though. I think it's because it's so quiet here. There are no cars going by, no planes flying overhead, no random people talking in my apartment complex and no kitties bugging me for affection and food (not necessarily in that order!).

I think I miss the random sounds of chaos. We'll see if I've adjusted to all the quietness by the time I leave. I do, however, thoroughly enjoy the absence of any real traffic. Oh, and cheaper groceries!

I think this time is a bit different than last time when I had the car and we were going out at least twice a day. This time, I've been hanging out at his house a bit more and I think I just need to get out of the house, or socialize more. I'm not used to being cooped up with just one other person (or alone!).

I had my first small-town experience yesterday! I played Power Grid on Tuesday night with Greg, Brett and Brandon. When I walked into Wal-Mart yesterday, I ran into Brett and we chatted for a while. He's a really nice guy and I found out all about him. It's not too often I run into people I just met at the store! I guess that's what it's like to live in a small town!

Meanwhile, Greg and I are getting along well. I've been cooking a lot since we went out for every meal last time I was here. His dad and friend are coming over tonight for dinner and then we're gaming afterwards. It should be fun! In fact, I gotta get started cooking, so I should probably post this...

Busy days ahead

2008-08-28T00:49:00.000-07:00

I am home for Thursday, but have a TON of stuff to do, both work-wise, socially and to pack for my trip. For some unknown reason, I chose to leave LAX on Friday morning at 5:40 AM. Thankfully, I think Travis is going to give me a ride (thank you!!!), but that pretty much means everything needs to get taken care of tomorrow.

Things to do Thursday
Getting up early for hiking
Dropping off stuff at Travis' apt.
Eating/showering
Work, work, work - lots of phone calls
Dinner with Robert
Packing/cleaning

Yikes! I'm also trying to break my work down so that I have plenty of stuff to do on the plane so I can get that mundane stuff that I hate doing when I'm at home.

Once I land in Atlanta, we're going to Dragon*Con in Atlanta, a huge sci-fi/fantasy con. I am really looking forward to it since I've never been, PLUS I'll get to see Valerie & Tyler and Mark! It should be pretty fun. The first event planned in our evening there is finding Valerie in the Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog room!

Then on Saturday (and the next one), I get to go to my FIRST University of Georgia football games with Greg and 97,000 of his closest friends... I'm taking some of my "bacon-of-the-month" bacon with me as my peace offering to the tailgating gods! The Bulldogs are seeded #1 pre-season, so hopefully, they can do it and win it all! The whole town is obsessed with that college football. It's like straight out of the movies.

On Sunday, I get to see Greg sing (finally!) in the choir at church. He has a solo in the early service, so we'll be getting up early to make it to that!

Whew, I'll be ready for a holiday by the time Labor Day rolls around! It'll be nice to have nothing to do on Monday and have Greg all to myself. I'm really looking forward to seeing him. It's hard living across the country from each other!

Our First Fight

2008-08-18T23:03:00.000-07:00

First fight? Check!

We've had our first fight. I would wonder sometimes what our first fight would be about considering we seem to get along so well and 0ddly enough, it was about the same exact thing as my first fight with 42. The subject? Calling when you're out of town.

With 42, when I look back at everything that ended up happening, I've thought, "I should've known when he didn't call that weekend that things weren't going to work out." To me, it was a sign that I wasn't a priority to him and I should've listened to my gut about it. Especially when the reason why he didn't call was that his phone died and he didn't want to stop gaming to go outside in the snow to get the charger out of his car. This coming from the guy that plays Ultimate in the snow and thinks it's fun. I should have heeded the big red flag when it made itself known. But I didn't and I gave him the benefit of the doubt, but it ended up not working out for a multitude of reasons.

So. Now it's happened again with Greg, except it wasn't just a weekend, it was six days. He texted me every day, but just didn't pick up the phone to call. (I did check and he does know how to use a phone...) And this is just the dating tip of the month to everyone out there: Texting is not the same as a phone call. I talked to him Monday night and by Thursday I was feeling a little antsy and cranky about it, by Friday I was upset and all I can say is thank goodness I was playing games all day Saturday to keep my mind off of it. So by the time he called me Sunday night, I was not happy with him.

I try to love like I've never been hurt, but it can be difficult. I mean, I was upset that he didn't call, but I think it was compounded by the fact that the same thing has already happened with 42 and look how that turned out. Greg was very apologetic on Sunday and Monday and tonight I told him that my first fight with 42 was over the same thing. And then I made sure that I told him that I didn't think he was like 42. Because I don't. They're like night and day in all the right ways.

After he apologized again tonight and promised that he would try very (very, very, very) hard to make sure it doesn't happen again, I made the decision to not be angry with him anymore. I believe him when he says that he did want to talk to me and thought of me often. I believe that it's hard to shift from being single and carefree to having a girlfriend and having to think about someone else in a different way than you have had to do in a long time. I was married for 10 years and am the oldest child in my family, so for me, that's more second nature. Not that I don't fall down on the job from time-to-time because I'm sure I do, but for the most part, I try to incorporate my significant other (or friends/family as the case may be) into my thought processes.

In any case, we made it through, unscathed. Again, I was able to talk to him about what I was thinking and feeling and we seem to communicate well. I probably could've been more up front with the fact that I was upset and why I was upset. But to be honest, I forgot that my first fight with 42 was about the same thing until last night. And remembering that kind of made it worse to me. Also, I think my pattern is that if I'm angry, I'm very loud about what I'm upset about, but if I'm hurt or feel vulnerable, I get very, very quiet. Which is why I was being more quiet about being upset. I am feeling pretty confident though that it won't happen again.

Feeling the Urge to Purge

2008-08-15T18:22:00.001-07:00

Before I left for Athens, I lent my xBox 360 and and PS2 to some friends and noticed how much nicer my whole living room looked with less stuff. My game closet had room in it without the drum set taking up room... So that got me thinking, I should get rid of stuff when I get home.

Greg has nothing in his house. It's very minimalist and it's good in that it feels really open. It made me think even more that I should get rid of stuff. I think I see some purging in my future. I know I have a couple boxes of books that I've never looked at once in the last two years. And I have a box of my piano books that I'll probably never use again either. With my new job, I certainly don't need all those dressy work clothes anymore either, so I think I will be purging my closet even more.

Diets of all Sorts

2008-08-14T22:26:00.000-07:00

I have eaten SO much during the last month. So, here's my plan that I'm focusing on for the next two weeks...

I'm swearing off all fried foods.
I need to just eat less!
Drink just water, UNsweetened tea or diet soda... but mainly water.
Exercise!! Even if it's just 15 minutes...

I'm really contemplating trying Tim Ferriss' technique of how to lose 20 lbs. of fat in 30 days... Although I'd only do it for the 15 days... Anything to help!

On a total random side note... Well, actually, I guess it's not totally random. It's kind of like a financial diet! :-)

I've also been stressing about retirement funds lately. Probably an odd thing for a 33 year old to worry about, but for some reason I do. I get obsessed sometimes about being prepared enough for retirement, worried that I won't have enough saved.

I was obsessing on this earlier this week and lucky for me, I had the good fortune to sit next to a retired person on each of my flights. I picked their brains and turns out, both of them were government workers, so they have pensions coming from that along with saving other ways. One of them told me to just save, even if it was a little bit and do it with every paycheck. I do that, so I am satisfied with that, but I feel like there's more I can and should do. I guess in reality, there's nothing more I can do about retirement since I'm maxing everything out. What I need to do is focus on saving more outside of my retirement accounts.

Anyway, random thoughts about the money stuff, I don't have a firm plan on that just yet. I think the first part is just looking at all the income and expenses and see how much I could possibly save if I wanted to and see how feasible that is. Luckily, I think I can make the next couple trips out to see Greg without actually spending anything by using miles that I've accumulated over the last few years.

I wonder how many people have budgets? And how many people stick to them? I should give myself a challenge of doing that! Making a budget and seeing if I can stick to it. For now, I'll do the research to see how much I'm actually spending. To be honest, I really don't know how much I'm spending other than my fixed expenses. My guess is that I'd be shocked at how much I'm spending going out to eat each month. Probably traveling too! Getting paid monthly should make it easy to divvy everything up if I make a budget. First step... see how much I'm spending and what exactly I'm spending it on...

The Short and Sweet about My Visit with Greg

2008-08-12T23:13:00.000-07:00

I have two rather lengthy posts about my trip to Athens, but really, I don't think it's that interesting to anyone except me and maybe Greg! So, I'll just say that Athens was very different. I have lived in LA for so long that I've forgotten how jaded or cynical you can get living in a big city. Greg's friends are extremely sweet and almost wholesome! It was very different. Not necessarily in a bad way and it definitely seems like something I could adjust to.

Disclaimer: I know I make a lot of comparisons to Jason, but I was with him for 10 years, most of my adult life, so it's hard NOT to!

After spending a week with Greg, I appreciate even more things about him. He's very laid back - something that has required some adjustment. I'm used to dating (or being married to!) guys that have little dark rainclouds that follow them around and I didn't think it was possible, but I think Greg is even more sunny and optimistic than I am!! At least on my good days... It's a change and it's something I've always wanted in a partner, but it's been a little more difficult to adjust to than I imagined it would be. But I'm working on it.

Related to his laid back-ness, he is very easy to talk to about ANYTHING. We talked about all sorts of things and some subjects that potentially could cause tension and yet, they didn't. It's a big change from Jason, who I had to choose very carefully the time, the method, the everything so that I could try to catch him at his most receptive. I don't have to worry about that with Greg and it's weird, but good.

I love that Greg lets me do stuff for him. He was going to do laundry on Saturday while we hung around the house so that he could pack for his trip. Instead, I did his laundry for him on Friday while he was at work so that we could run around Athens and see some sights. I asked him on Friday during lunch if he did anything special to his laundry (so I could make sure I did it the way he liked) and he said, "You don't have to do that..." and I said, "I know, I want to!" Jason never wanted me to do anything for him. I'd offer to do things for him all the time and he would turn me down. Even stuff as simple as getting him a drink. It's just nice being with someone who will let me do things for him. It's really nice. And he was very appreciative after the fact. I'm looking forward to being even more domestic on my next visit and cook for him!

Most of all, I love that we just have lots of stuff in common, even more than I thought! The stuff we don't have in common, it just seems to work out and we're very complementary. It's really cool.

I think I'm just having to adjust to someone who is different than the "typical" guy I'm attracted to. I am confident that I will make the adjustment though and I think I'm going to be MUCH happier for it overall. I still think he's really awesome and I'm really looking forward to my next visit!

I miss him.

The View: Kill me now

2008-08-01T08:30:00.000-07:00

I never really watch daytime or morning TV. If I do, it's because I'm sick and I'm usually watching "The Price Is Right," although Drew Carey ain't got NOTHIN' on Bob Barker and never will. His personality really falls flat.

That said, my roomie had "The View" turned on when I got out of the shower this morning. After about a minute, I asked her, "Women watch this show every day?! I've been listening to it for a minute and I'm ready to poke my ear drums out!!!!" Who watches that show? Wow. I figure it's gotta be women who are staying at home and don't have girlfriends to talk to? I don't get it. But then, I don't "get" women in general. I've been trying very hard to branch out and try to connect with women more. This morning I got up and went walking with some ladies here at Gulf Games. It was really fun.

No, I'm not sick...

2008-07-31T23:47:00.001-07:00

As I shuffled off to bed at the early, early hour of 1:30 AM, Michael put the back of his hand on my cheek.

It was very warm, so I asked him, "Are you feeling okay?"

He said, "Are you feeling okay? This is the second night in a row you've gone to bed early!!" Which got a good laugh from everyone standing around because they know it's so true. I'm usually one of the last to go to bed and I'm typically encouraging everyone to stay up late with me!

I replied, "I'm saving up my energy..." I certainly can't meet up with Greg on Sunday night, go out to dinner with my mom, then fall asleep as soon as we get back to his place! Oh no... I'm sure we'll be up late and I've already thanked him more than once for taking Monday off from work. He's brilliant! And a realist!

OK - off to bed I go!

Only a week left

2008-07-28T00:32:00.000-07:00

Only a week left until I get to see Greg again and I can't wait!! Luckily, I'll have something to distract me before then, namely payroll for the next day or two and then games... Lots and lots of games...

I'm heading out to Nashville for Gulf Games on Wednesday and staying there til Sunday around lunchtime. Then I'm hitching a ride down to Atlanta, where I'll be meeting up with Greg and we're going out to dinner with my mom before heading back to his place for the next week.

More things I appreciate about him:
I love that he's somewhat of a planner. He already scheduled Monday off, so he can spend my first day in Athens with me, showing me all the sights and basically being my personal tour guide. We have plans to have dinner with his dad on Tuesday, after work and before gaming. I think the rest of that week is lots of friends and lots of eating, which sounds perfect to me! He's already started planning parts of the longer trip in September, in particular the long weekend we're going to spend in Savannah! It's so nice to be with someone who is pro-active and just takes care of stuff. I mentioned to him once that I've always wanted to go there and then we just made a plan to go. It was so painless!

He lets me call him in the middle of the night. Often, he heads to bed around 1 AM and is totally cool with me calling when I finish up *my* evening, also usually somewhere between midnight and 1 AM, so I am often calling him at 3 - 4 AM Eastern, rousing him from sleep. He'll often talk to me for 30+ minutes. It's nice being able to call him and to hear his voice and catch up. He's a busy bee like me, so often it's hard to match up our schedule during the day, which is why I appreciate that he welcomes my middle of the night calls. In fact, he's about to receive a call from me as soon as I brush my teeth and change into my PJs!

Welcome me to 2001

2008-07-23T23:35:00.000-07:00

I had heard so many great things about "24" (a show that started in 2001!) and when season one came out on DVD, my sister and I split the cost of it and she took custody of it first. She and her husband ripped through them and then gave it to me to watch. Which I finally started to do on Sunday. I'm at 4 AM and I can totally see why people love it. I totally want to watch another episode, but I really need to get some sleep!

Yes, get ready... 2001, here I come!

My Quarterly One-in-a-Million

2008-07-21T22:12:00.000-07:00

I love to post about the weird things that happen to me because it's usually a case of "Whatta small world!" So, drum roll please... this quarter's weird happening is this...

Last week, I got reconnected with some friends from high school, so I decided to comb through a few years of graduating classes to see who was on Facebook. I saw this guy Andrew on the c/o '89 list that I wasn't friends with, but I knew him because he was a few years ahead of me (c/o '93!). I clicked on his profile and saw that he lives in San Diego and thought, "Yea, someone else who escaped Florida to beautiful California!" But I didn't friend him because I wasn't actually friends with him. Knowing who someone is doesn't really qualify you to be "friends" with them, right?

So, I was hanging out with Travis on Saturday and he was checking his email... I peeked over his shoulder and saw a message from Facebook that said, "Andrew has added you as a friend on Facebook..." I asked Travis, "Wait, open that email... do you know that guy?" and he said, "Yeah, he's one of my San Diego friends, he's really cool!" I couldn't believe it! I told Travis (probably loudly and excitedly), "Oh my goodness! I totally know that guy! He went to my high school! In FLORIDA!!!" And then I got the scoop on him because apparently, Travis has known him since 2002! And Mike knows him too. Isn't that just weird?! Chris said that the fact my high school is across the country does make it even weirder. Especially considering our classes were pretty small back then. I think my class had about 250(?) people and his was even smaller.

So I friended him with a message something like this: Hey, this is Stephanie ____ and I went to ____ HS too (c/o '93) and I just found out that you know Travis & Mike!"

And he friended me back. It will be interesting to see him again. I haven't seen him since 1989. Wow... what are the odds?

Sixteen days and counting...

2008-07-19T00:11:00.000-07:00

Ugh, there are sixteen more days until I see Greg again. I've been missing him a lot lately. He's been really busy this week, so we haven't had a chance to talk as much as we did last week. In general, I've been feeling more emotional this week too, so I'm sure that hasn't helped. We've had several short conversations and lots of texting/IMing. We finally got a chance to talk tonight for a while which was really nice, but it sounds like he's pretty busy this weekend, so I don't think I'll have much of a chance to talk to him this weekend. And then I'm out of town next week... I just want these sixteen days to fly by!

Twitter

2008-07-18T02:36:00.000-07:00

I'm a little late hopping on the Twitter train, but I'm trying it nonetheless! I added the badge to my blog and we'll see how it goes. I guess I've already been slowly adjusting to this type of thing by updating my Facebook status almost every day. Twitter seems to call for more frequent updates though. Luckily, I can update my status via text message! Hurray for unlimited text messages! Not only good for Twittering, but also for having a boyfriend who lives cross-country.

The upside is at least there will be these mini-updates all the time even when I don't have time to write up a full blog post! Should be helpful as I'm roaming around the country for the next two months. I think I'm home for about two weeks during the next two months. Good grief. I really *am* a maniac!

Vanguard is still awesome

2008-07-15T20:33:00.000-07:00

I originally opened up my Roth IRA account with Vanguard in mid-2002. In September 2006, I opened up an investment account with them. Both times I was very happy with how easy it is to open an account and how easy it is to get a customer service rep on the phone to help with questions.

So naturally, when I decided to rollover my 401(k) account that I have at my old company, I chose to roll it over into Vanguard. They have a very easy-to-find phone number on their website and I was promptly connected to a live person who helped me set-up an account online. It took all of about five minutes.

I wish all companies were like Vanguard. They really make everything SO easy! I highly recommend them!

Visits are scheduled

2008-07-12T12:00:00.000-07:00

It's hard to believe that I've only known Greg for three weeks. It seems like so much longer than that! Unfortunately, it's going to be another three weeks before I see him, but when I do, it will be for a whole week! I'm very much looking forward to it! He has a list of places he wants to take me to and he wants me to meet his dad and some of his friends. It should be really fun.

Following that visit, I'll be gone for a little less than three weeks and then I'll be back to stay with him for two and a half weeks! Now that should be a real test! If we can still stand to be around each other after 18 days, I think we're gonna be juuuuuuust fine...

As an extra bonus, I was able to use 25,000 Delta Skymiles (the cheapest ticket they offer with points) to fly out there, so it's no extra money out of pocket. And I have 25,000 more miles for us to use on the next visit! I've been building them up slowly, but surely over the last few years and now I finally have a good use for them!

I'm so glad I have the job I do... He doesn't have much vacation time left so he'll be working most of the days I'm there which works out just fine for me because I can just work from his house. It's soooooo awesome! He's buying a multi-function printer so that I have it available to use while I'm there. And I set up an eFax type line so that I can get faxes electronically while out of town. It's perfect!

Smitten...

2008-07-10T16:35:00.000-07:00

After having an awesome weekend with Greg (his real name), what is the only thing that could make it better? Flowers and a super sweet card! :-)

I am thankful for him every day. And I can't help but to tell him every day how awesome I think he is.

This has just been such a different feeling than anything I've experienced before. It's freaky weird. I mean, he didn't annoy me one single time during the whole weekend. And I felt completely comfortable and relaxed around him. I think this is the first time I've ever felt genuine admiration for someone. He's such a good person. He has an amazing heart. Every time I look at him I feel happy. This is the easiest relationship I've ever been in. Shane commented on Monday after he left that we noticed how comfortable and relaxed we both seemed to be with each other and that she liked it. She said that it seemed different than when she's seen me with other people in the past. It sure feels different.

You know, it's one of those things... People always say that you should try to find someone that you respect and care about and have a lot of stuff in common, but anyone dating knows that it is practically impossible (or at least it feels that way). Because maybe part of it will line up, but then you don't want to kiss him. Or maybe ALL you want to do is kiss him and ignore the little (or not so little) red flags that are popping up all over the place. It's hard to have both. Even when you find someone that maybe shares common life goals, he might not share interests or personality quirks or something else equally important.

Before I was even divorced, I started compiling my "Ideal Husband Checklist." I wrote it up because I didn't want to get carried away by hormones and end up with someone that didn't share common goals/values/interests as me, so I wanted a checklist that I could use. Just the facts, ma'am... More than once, I've been told that I'm "too picky" or that my standards were too high or that maybe I shouldn't exclude guys that already have kids...

I'm so glad that I didn't settle. Because Greg meets or exceeds all the points on my list and even has bonus points for stuff that wasn't on my list! He is the best. I am so lucky to have met him.

Day 3: Saturday

2008-07-07T00:28:00.000-07:00

We met up with some friends for a BBQ lunch on Saturday. Davebo brought his kids and I sat near the kids' end of the table and fielded questions (mainly from Kate) like:

What kind of food you would not want to have on a first date? (My answer: BBQ? but I wasn't really sure if that was a good answer. Suzie had the best answer which was spaghetti. Unfortunately, that was exactly what I had eaten the night before when we stopped at the House of Pies, so not sure if I looked messy or not...)
What kind of food would you want to have on a first date? (My answer: sushi! All the kids agreed that sushi was a good answer and we chatted about what type of sushi we'd order...)
What was my favorite NFL team? Was Shane upset that Brett Favre was retiring? (That one got a big "oooooooooogggh" from Shane when asked... But nooooooo, she's not upset! [sarcasm])

Those kids are so darn cute. After kissing Athens at lunch, I was teased (again, by Kate) with the "Stephanie and Athens, sittin' in a tree... K-I-S-S-I-N-G!" First of all, I haven't been teased with that particular song in about 25 years. Second of all, there apparently is an updated follow-up verse that goes "...and that's not it, that's not all, the baby's drinking alcohol!" Oh, taunted by an 8 year old... my weekend. Thou art complete.

After lunch, we headed over to the Reagan Library in Simi Valley. It was my first visit. It's nice! Reagan is the first President that I really remember and I know surprisingly little about him and his wife. It was interesting to learn more about both of them. They seemed like remarkable people. We also went on board the Air Force One that was retired in 2001. That was neat. We took a picture before boarding AF1, but it's too cheesy to give prominent blog space to... check the flickr account if you're interested.

After the library, we went to the store to pick up snacks to munch on while we were at the Hollywood Bowl for the "Bugs Bunny on Broadway" show. It was so much fun. I haven't been to the Bowl in several years. The show itself was very entertaining too. The music was great and the cartoons were classics. He had a great time too, so I was really happy about that.

Overall, it was a busy Saturday, but fun and relaxing at the same time. While at the Hollywood Bowl, we were talking about how nice the weekend had been. The thing I was most surprised (and pleased) about was that he hadn't done anything to really annoy me! Which is saying something because I can be easily annoyed.

I was sad to see him go on Sunday, but really happy that he came out to see me and that we had such a wonderful weekend together.

Day 2 aka: Independence Day

2008-07-05T11:29:00.001-07:00

We went to Chris' house for the 4th and had a fun time. We ended up just gaming and munching all day, but it was nice because Shane came with her dad.

I was in the kitchen with Shane and she asked me how the weekend was going and I said, "It's going really well." (Might I add here that it's so cool to have a man singing in my shower!) OK, back to yesterday... Meanwhile, Athens was sitting in the dining room playing (arrrrrrr) Rrrrum and Pirates with the boys. She said something about how he seemed to be fitting right in with them and I said, "Yeah, it's so nice not to have to worry about him in social situations. Because I know if he doesn't know anyone, he'll start up a conversation and I'm never worried he's going to say the wrong thing because he's well-mannered." Shane agreed and said, "Yeah, that IS nice."

I was with Jason for 10 years and always felt (whether justified or not) like I needed to worry about him to make sure he was having a good time in social situations because he was introverted. I just always wanted to make sure he was having fun, partly for him and partly for me. If he wasn't having fun, chances are, we were going home early. And we didn't go out much to begin with, so... It's just nice to not have to worry about someone in that respect.

He had a blast meeting all of my friends there and then we went to House of Pies so I could have him taste the yumminess that is their pecan pie.

Today we're off to a big lunch with friends and some BBQ! I suspect we will be having fun and I HAVE TO remember to take some pictures today!!! Time is running out.

Day 1: So far, it wasn't a fluke

2008-07-03T19:37:00.000-07:00

He's almost been here 24 hours and it's confirmed. It wasn't a fluke, we definitely are still crazy about each other. His flight got in early and instead of arriving at 1:06 AM, he was off the plane, with baggage in hand by 1:06! I was glad to see him. I just love being with him. I swear, he keeps doing more and more things to make me like him that much more. For example, he made it so my second laptop talks to my new printer. It would've taken me forever to figure out how to do it and to be honest, I never would've. Instead, he printed something out from the printer and typed it in and installed the drivers and we were printing in less than 5 minutes!

We had plans to go eat lunch with Davebo because he wanted to meet Athens. Dave was also going to try to go. I got a call from him this morning saying that he was coming and I was getting a bonus Winton in the deal! So we all carpooled out to meet Davebo for lunch and had a great time. It seemed like everyone liked him and he liked them all so that was good!

Then we came home and took a nap and that was even better. Dave called that later and asked what we were doing and when I told him that we were taking a nap, he said, "A delicious afternoon nap! Ahhhh, that's the best part about having a boyfriend!!!!" And really, I don't think I can argue with him. Afternoon naps are the best... especially when you're running on just a few hours of sleep and have a full tummy from lunch.

Our plan for tonight is to go see Hancock at the Arclight and then go get something to eat. We'll be right next to Koreatown, so I think we might have to get some Korean food while we're there, especially since he has never had it before!

Agenda for tomorrow: Din Tai Fung and gaming/BBQ/swimming at Chris' house...

Rock Band 2 News

2008-06-30T18:15:00.001-07:00

Here's a link to an article about Rock Band 2...

Luckily all the equipment for the first version will work with the second one although they claim to be improving all instruments. Looks like they're really working to keep the fans happy. Another biggie for everyone (except me so far!) is that all the downloaded content will work with RB2. Rock on!!

He's coming to visit!

2008-06-27T17:42:00.000-07:00

We had talked about when we were going to see each other next and I'd pretty much resigned myself to having to wait until the beginning of August to see him, but instead he suggested buying a ticket for the 4th of July weekend! And he bought one!

SO... he'll be arriving Wednesday night and staying through til Sunday! Now I have to decide where to take him and try to figure out how to have him meet all my friends while he's here! I can't wait for everyone to meet him!

I have a boyfriend!

2008-06-25T23:51:00.001-07:00

I went to Atlanta a single woman, not looking forward to seeing her ex and worried about a guy that I had just broken things off with back at home. The last thing on my mind was "Hey, maybe I'll meet someone..." But, that's exactly what happened! I met him on Wednesday night and forgot his name like five seconds after he told it to me, which he gave me a hard time about...

Then on Thursday, I sat next to him at lunch and he proceeded to give me a hard time about just about anything I said! In fact, Michael, John AND Athens (that's what I'm calling him) were ALL giving me a hard time and I was loving every minute of it! This lunchtime was a pivotal point because I ended up getting a lot of facts about him. I already kinda thought he was cute and his personality seemed good... He mentioned that he had just bought a house in January (good...), but that he hadn't had time to really work on projects because he was too busy with church, gaming and volunteering. Yes, in one breath, he named three interests I would LOVE to share with a boyfriend/husband!

On our way back from lunch, Valerie intercepted me for a debriefing in the ladies room about various items (more on that later), one of which was that she wanted to impress upon me was that he was single, looking, an overall great guy and definitely wants to have kids! Also things I'm looking for... (Valerie, for the record, is an awesome wing woman... she really helped me out a lot this past weekend!) In fact, when compared to the Ideal Husband Checklist, so far, he's passing with flying colors. No negatives and a few unknowns still, but based on what I know about him so far, they most likely will be checked off. I think I'm going to have to assign bonus points for being an Eagle Scout too.

In fact, throughout the entire weekend, he didn't say or do anything that was even remotely flag-raising... We spent almost four whole days together and the only thing we could find that we're not in huge agreement about is music tastes and he's a hardcore Bulldog and I was born a Gator (although truth be told, I'm fine with switching because I look better in red anyway). Every time he opened his mouth or did something, it just got better and better.

Things that he did that I adored...
He opened all my doors for me, carried around anything heavy if we were walking somewhere, kept my mom company while I said good-byes and paid my hotel bill, killed two bugs for me that happened to cross my path, paid for my lunch on Sunday (and then said, "I've been trying to do that all weekend but everyone else kept buying your food!"), didn't hesitate to try to rescue me from a conversation with 42, (even better) didn't get jealous at all when I talked to 42, reminded me to send a postcard to my friend, and just overall is really cool.

We spent a lot of time talking over the weekend so I feel like I really got a sense of who he is. He is a really solid, dependable, upstanding person. I really admire him. Like Tim said... spending four days together at a con is the equivalent of a month of regular casual dating... I can't wait to spend more time with him. We talked about that and it looks like I'm going to go see him after Gulf Games for about five days. Possibly longer, but we'll wait to see on that. The sucky part is that that isn't until the beginning of August.

As for the boyfriend/girlfriend thing... We talked about it today and decided that it's "official"! And just so I didn't run into the same problem as with 42, I clarified to make sure that us calling each other boyfriend/girlfriend also meant we weren't seeing other people, which is exactly what he meant. (I never would've thought to ask someone that until that happened with 42...)

Because Valerie was instrumental in the whole pointing us at each other, I texted her to let her know that we were "officially" a couple and she was thrilled. I started getting texts from her, IMs from Dale and more texts from James (they're all at Origins together) until finally Valerie just called me and put me on speakerphone so I could tell them the whole story and fill them in on the details! Then Tyler piped up with "Did you change your status on MySpace?" I couldn't stop laughing, mainly because I hadn't (since it had just happened), but I had already been considering changing it even though it wasn't official. Yesterday, I contacted eHarmony and told them to quit sending me matches because I knew I wasn't interested in anyone else at this point. I did change my Facebook and MySpace status. It's funny! It's like a big announcement to everyone who's on Facebook! I told FaceBook that Athens was my boyfriend and they sent a request for confirmation to him so he could OK it. I guess it's a good thing I never tried to falsely say Josh Charles was my boyfriend! :-) But I can assure you, Josh Charles ain't got nothin' on my boyfriend.

The best part? It's completely mutual. We both really like each other, I'm not stressed at all when I think about him (a new feeling or rather lack of feeling) and there's no doubt in my mind about how he feels about me because he lets me know often. He's very communicative which is something that is a must-have for me.

All I can say is that I know it's good when I find myself laughing and giggling when alone in the car and thinking of him. I can't wait for all my friends to meet him! No set plans just yet on when he's headed this way, but hopefully soon!

Mini BGG

2008-06-19T08:15:00.000-07:00

I'm kinda geeky when it comes to games, but I'm not really a girl for all the minute details. I can be if it's something I am really interested in, but for the most part, I just lack the patience to chase down little details.

Case in point: MiniBGG

It's a streamlined website that takes all the essentials of BoardGameGeek.com and compresses it down for those of us using phones and just need to look up a quick fact or two. The awesome thing you can do with it is log your plays! You look up a game and then log your play from your phone. As someone who logs all her plays, this is awesome. No more keeping track of what I played on a little piece of paper so that I can transpose it to the website when I get home. If I remember and if I don't lose it!

The problem was this... You log in with your same user name and password at BGG. However, I could never get my password to work! I've known about MiniBGG.com for months, but could never figure it out and never took the time to go figure it out.

Thank you Valerie! She posted an article on BoardGameNews.com on how to get MiniBGG.com to work! And as a result, I logged all my plays in real time while at Oasis of Fun! It rocked!!!

In Hotlanta Once Again

2008-06-17T23:00:00.001-07:00

I'm in Atlanta once more for the Oasis of Fun which starts tomorrow night. One thing that is definitely different this time is that I will be seeing 42, whom I haven't seen since we broke up. I am feeling completely fine with it and we've already arranged to play Race for the Galaxy together. I'm curious to see how I'll feel after seeing him. My guess is that I'll feel the same way I'm feeling now... We've communicated a fair amount over the last few weeks and apparently, he's busy with a hoard of women, including his ex-girlfriend (and I think he was including me!). Just a month ago, I was feeling some fairly strong residual feelings for him, but a lot has happened since then and I think they've severely subsided. I guess I'll know exactly how much once I see him this weekend!

I'm really looking forward to seeing my friends, some of whom I haven't seen since the OoF last summer! Also, Dale is unable to make it so I promised that if I could acquire a webcam (I left mine at home), I would stream up some video so he could check in on us every once in a while! So, there may be some streaming video this weekend! He put out the call for the webcam and if anyone has one, I guess I'll find out soon!

I saw my friend MeeMe today who I haven't seen in ages!! I think the last time I saw her was about 14 years ago. Here's a picture of us from lunchtime today!

When I get home, I'll have to dig up the old picture I have from the last time we saw each other. She looks a little more "grown-up" but other than that, exactly the same. She said I look exactly how she remembered me too. I guess it might be time for another hairstyle? I am quite partial to long hair though... Maybe a haircut for the summer is in order.

Race for the Galaxy: Home Decor

2008-06-16T14:30:00.000-07:00

My friends know me. They know what I'm enthusiastic about and even though I haven't been posting about it lately, I'm still crazy about Race for the Galaxy (192 plays since Christmas and hoping to greatly add to that this weekend!). My friend Seth sent a gift via Mike for my birthday and when I saw Mike pulling out a rolled up poster, I started screaming with joy and jumping up and down in circles because I knew it had to be a Race for the Galaxy poster! And it was!! So, a very public "THANK YOU SETH!" for my favorite poster in the world (at least for now...)!

So, I took it and got a cool black anodized custom frame made and hung it in my dining room so I can look at it whenever I want while playing games. Here's what it looks like...

And a step back...

Isn't that awesome?!?!
*happy dance*
OK, that's it for now...

Update from Dallas

2008-06-04T01:40:00.000-07:00

It's been another week since I've been in Dallas and wow, I'm sore! Why? Because I took my first Krav Maga class. It's a style of fighting that the Israeli army uses. It's for close combat. I enjoyed the class quite a bit, but oh my, I'm so freaking sore!

Monday night I went to see the Sex and the City Movie. I liked it, hardly surprising considering I loved the show. One thing I always love about that show is that there's always some kernel of relationship truth in it. Something that is relate-able. In the movie, Carrie calls herself an "emotional cutter." I started dying laughing because I've been feeling like I've been an emotional cutter lately. Why? (Maybe I should rename this post to "Why?")

I got an email from 42 out of the blue last week and we've exchanged some emails since then. Mainly just catching up, but naturally I've been thinking about him and our relationship more. Sometimes it makes me sad and other times it just gets me thinking about the past. The last few weeks have been busy with dating in between work stuff, but I don't feel like going into all that. Especially since I've hardly written anything about dating stuffs since 42 & I broke up in March. I'll have to write an update on that sometime soon, I haven't quite decided about that just yet.

On Tuesday, I worked and then went to play games with the Dallas Gamers. I ended up playing Kingsburg, Rails of Europe and Race for the Galaxy. Man, I *still* really love that game!

I worked today and then spent the afternoon and evening playing poker! It was pretty fun. My table was good. There were a couple cool guys there and I was Nickname Girl. I nicknamed everyone at the table (whether or not they liked it or not). We had Golf Guy (who was quite the cutie), Fiance Guy (who got later renamed to Tat Guy at his request), New Guy, Quiet Guy, LA Guy, Oil Guy, and Tan Guy (who later was renamed to Raiser Guy because he kept raising all the pre-flops). I think I ended up down a bit for the trip, but I am definitely getting better. I felt like I was betting better and I'm trying to get better at reading people based on their actions. My problem is that I just go with my gut and not really with the logical assumptions. That is an area that I need work on.

Hello from Dallas

2008-05-28T21:22:00.000-07:00

I've been in Dallas since Monday night. My first official day at work was Tuesday. I'm going to be here training until next Friday. This week I'm training with Robin, the current controller and next week, I'm in the office working with the manager of the consultants and various others I'm sure.

One thing I've been really excited about is the program that our consultants consult on. It's really freakin' cool. It's hard to describe how it works, mainly because I'm not really sure, but the power it holds is amazing. I can't wait to learn more about that!

Other than that, I went out for gaming last night and managed to squeeze in a game of Agricola, Race for the Galaxy and Jetzt Schlagt 13. One of the beautiful side effects of BGG.CON... When I showed up at the cafe where I knew there'd be gaming going on, I ran into Jeff, a fellow BGGer and someone that I met at my first BGG.CON. So, it was nice to see a familiar face and even nicer to see he had a copy of Agricola underneath his Louis XIV (not my favorite game at all).

He invited me over for games on Saturday, so my plan is to game. So much more fun than sitting in the hotel watching "Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dead" for the umpteenth time. Although total side note: I forgot Josh Charles is in that movie and damn, he is quite fetching in it!

And another side note: BGG is down for maintenance or something or the other. Boo. I wanted to finally log in all my game plays from Gamex and last night. Oh well. Tomorrow I guess...

I'm officially done...

2008-05-10T19:01:00.000-07:00

Friday was insanely busy. It started off with showing up to work to no internet, no printing, and basically no network because the corporate office decided that Friday was going to be the day they decided to change the router to a more "robust" router. The first thing the auditors said was "We can't print..." I was like, "Oh yeah? Me EITHER..." Luckily, it was resolved fairly quickly. While they worked on resolving that I started packing up my office.

The day wore on and it became clear there was NO way I was going to be able to finish everything up and clean up everything. I'm a stacker. I stack paper everywhere, so I had several stacks that needed to be sifted through, but I had to just deal with the auditors and closing the month because those were the priorities.

I went in to work today to finish up everything and finished everything up as much as I could! My desk is completely cleaned out, cleared off, and Marilyn now has a stack of papers to file.

I went out to lunch Friday with the president of the company and my old boss (the former president). It was really fun. They get together for lunch every Friday. I think I might start dropping in on their lunches every month or so just to say "hi"! I went out last night with Marilyn, the new girl and a couple other co-workers for drinks and that was fun.

This past week has been so busy that I haven't really thought about the fact that I will no longer work there. I think next week is gonna be rough. Although, I'm super busy this coming week too! So we'll see. I'm planning on keeping in touch with all my favorites, so I'll get all the good social stuff without any of the stress!!

And maybe I'll finally get to catch up on blogging about everything else!

One more day

2008-05-09T01:05:00.000-07:00

I can't believe that tomorrow is my last day! This week has been a blur of auditing goodness... I have barely had time to do anything around the office. So much so that I'm seriously considering going in on Saturday to try to finish some stuff up. What is wrong with me?

I've been too busy to even feel sad about it being my last day. On top of that, I think I'm just so relieved that I won't have to deal with the stress anymore that it's hard to feel sad about leaving. I'm going out for drinks with Marilyn after work tomorrow, so that should be fun.

All I keep thinking is "I'm never going to get everything done!" I just don't think I'm going to be able to. Oh my. Tomorrow is going to be busy. Ugh!

Starting my last week of work

2008-05-05T06:29:00.001-07:00

I'm about to start my last week of work. Let's see what do I need to get done this week?

Close the month (ended 5/4)
Deal with the four auditors who will be here all week to go over our year-end numbers
Continue training my replacement
Deal with my corporate boss who will be here Wednesday
Clean out my office
Make sure loose ends/projects are handed over to someone or taken care of

This is going to be the longest week. EVER.

I got the job!

2008-04-28T20:55:00.000-07:00

I'm back from Dallas and... I got the job! I interviewed with three people at the company and they all went very well. I received my offer letter on Saturday and I signed and faxed it back today. Everyone at the company seems incredibly smart, happy to be there and just plain cool. I feel like I fit right in with everyone and just had a ball. I'm really looking forward to working with them. I think this is going to be a fabulous opportunity. I am really excited about all the possibilities! And apparently, I really need to practice my Call of Duty 4 skills. I really suck at that game!

I'll basically be doing the same type of work I'm doing now, but not for a manufacturing company. The company I'll be working for is a consulting company. I'll be the CFO/HR/recruiter. I'm especially intrigued by the recruiting because I've never actually done that before. The CFO/HR duties are very similar to what I've already been doing, so that should be no problem!

The best parts about the job:

The new company is awesome and fun. We went bowling for two hours in the middle of the day on Friday. Somebody lost a bet and had to do a can-can up and down the bowling alley and let's just say it wasn't me! :-)
I'll be working from home (or wherever I am at the moment) and the schedule is extremely flexible. As in, there is no schedule. So long as I'm getting my work done, they don't care if I work during the day, at night, four days so I can take three days off, whatever. They just care about the results. (Yay! More cons?)
There is no vacation/sick pay/holiday policy. See Extremely Flexible Schedule above. If I'm getting my work done, that's what matters.
I will have much more control over the direction of the company instead of just taking orders from the corporate office!
Traveling to meet with potential recruits will allow me to explore other parts of the country!
Less stress than my current job!

Overall, this is going to be WAY better than my current job. My last day there is next Friday, May 9th and I am counting down the days!!

And how can you pass up this view? Two of my interviews were held out on the balcony that goes along the whole office where this is the view:

The rest of the weekend was totally fun too. The Mavericks won the play-off game we went to Friday night, we played poker for 13 hours on Saturday and we saw the most amazing sudden death outcome at the Byron Nelson PGA tour! The winner, a hottie named Adam Scott, (and yes, I just called a golfer a "hottie"... if you don't trust me, OMG just check out that link!!!) sunk a 48-foot putt for the win. You should've heard the crowd, it was amazing!!!

I was exhausted by the time I got home, but it was worth every second! Oh, and I got that chicken biscuit on Saturday!

Upcoming Interview

2008-04-23T07:35:00.000-07:00

I am very excited about my upcoming interview on Friday in Dallas. I fly out Thursday night, right after work. The schedule after that is complete and utter madness!

Friday: Interviewing with the three partners of the firm & probably meeting many other employees as they'll all be in the office for a training day. They have a PS3 and xBox 360 in the office, so I'm hoping to squeeze in some Rock Band and/or Guitar Hero too, although I'm SO out of practice that putting "Guitar Hero shredder, proficient at Rock Band" on my resume under "Special Talents" may be an overstatement at the moment!

We'll hopefully wrap up training early that day and go bowling for a couple hours. Then we'll be going to the Mavericks playoff game that night. We turned down invitations to two home poker games and being able to watch the baseball game from the office.

Saturday: We had several options, but decided on going to Oklahoma to play some poker! Yay! I'm happy with that. I believe I'm also getting a personalized driving tour of Dallas to check out all the areas with the really cool, older homes. I love those! Oh, and I think a chicken biscuit for Chick-Fil-A will be in order Saturday morning.

Sunday: I think we have a PGA 18th hole tent party to go to, but I'll have to check. I come home Sunday night and it sounds like I will be downright tired after running around all weekend.

But, hopefully - keep your fingers crossed for me! - I'll have a new job by the end of it!

Recharging my batteries

2008-04-19T20:52:00.000-07:00

I've been home alone the last couple days, recharging the batteries. Last night, I chatted with a couple friends, watched some TiVoed programs (yay!!) and went to bed before midnight. That pretty much qualifies as early for me!

Today, I went into the office from 6 AM - 9 AM, then had an eyebrow waxing appointment. Then I went to Costco!! I haven't been there in ages! I also did six loads of laundry, re-read the book that I'm leading a book group for tomorrow and have been catching up on my Food Network programs. I also did something I haven't done in months! I swept my balcony! It looks so much better.

I watched an episode of Barefoot Contessa today that really made me want to make her Coq au Vin recipe! Oh my, it looked so delicious! After making her Beef Bourguinon a couple months ago, I'm itching to use my Dutch oven again. Oh, I wish I had taken pictures of that stew. It was delicious!!

Tonight, I'm going to just clean up around the apartment (and maybe play some video games) and go to bed early. Tomorrow is my first Ultimate experience and then a couple MyPC meetings, so I have a pretty busy day tomorrow. I'm glad I've been able to relax some today. It's been sooooo nice!