Snowy

Back from Austin, where we had a fantastic Thanksgiving trip. The Neibert Diaries does an excellent job in recapping the holiday, so interested parties can take a gander at that blog.

I got home to a new hard drive (thanks to my brother, Dell sent me a new one instead of a refurbished one), and after many many hours yesterday, I'm back online. Hoo-ray.

We got back in town just in time to experience the standstill that is Seattle when there's a bit of snow and ice. Woefully unprepared with salt or sand, and with Monday Night Football featuring the Seahawks, last night was a commuting nightmare. I'm awfully lucky that it only took me two hours to get home. The Seattle Times blog has some people traveling for over 11 hours. When I got to work today, only one other person had made it in, so I stayed for the whole day to cover. Kelsey had a snow day - and she thought those days were over when we left PA!

Supposed to get colder tonight, and another storm on Wednesday, then finally get warmer. Just in time for Kelsey's birthday camping trip this weekend!

Off to Austin

Seattle weather today:


Austin weather today:


Ummm...okay, we're ready to leave. Plane takes off at 3:45 pm tomorrow. It actually hailed today, along with thunder and lightning. That is a very rare occurrence in Seattle. The dogs were freaked. It's been raining for about 10 days now, and there's a bunch more in the forecast, so we are so looking forward to some sunshine.

We're all going to do the Turkey Trot 5 mile walk/run on Thursday morning, then watch Kirk deep fry the turkey for dinner. I'm anxious to taste deep fried turkey. I wonder if it'll look like deep fried snickers?

The boy next door came over tonight for dog instructions. I sure hope they behave while we're gone, but I'm not holding my breath. We put up a baby gate barrier so they're at least confined to the downstairs area, but they can still do a bunch of damage. Stephan is pretty responsible, so I'm not that worried. I just hope they don't drive him crazy enough to say he can't watch them over Christmas.

Don't know if I mentioned it to anyone, but my computer has died. I'm still waiting for the replacement hard drive to arrive, but in the meantime I haven't really been able to update. I'm using Jay's right now, but he's pretty protective of this bad boy so I can't take too long :-)

I'll post more from Austin. Happy Thanksgiving in advance!

Quick hello

Whew, the time is really flying. There's not too much to report, it's been pretty quiet here in Seattle. We're getting ready to settle into winter...the rain is definitely here for the season. It's been cold the last couple of days too. It makes you just want to hibernate.

Jason got his laptop back yesterday, so he's once again a happy camper. I hope this time there isn't anything wrong with it, because he's so lost without it :-). Luckily (or not) they were really in crunch mode at work the past few weeks so he's had little time to miss it. That's over for now though so he gets to come home at regular time again.

Yesterday was weigh and measure day with the trainer. After 4 weeks, the scale hasn't moved much, but we've both lost inches and that's the really important part. We worked so hard, I would have liked to see more progress in the numbers, but I know we're both wearing smaller clothes so I have to be satisfied with that.

I was thinking about Pam today, and wondering how she was doing with this being moving week. She must be really excited to be getting back into her own place with the girls. I hope everything goes well for her this weekend. I'm looking forward to seeing her new place when we come home in December.

Oooh, only about a week left to go before we leave for Austin for Thanksgiving. Hello sunshine!

R.I.P. Ed Bradley

I was very sad today when I saw that Ed Bradley died. He was one rockin' reporter. I always loved that this distinguished older guy on 60 minutes had a hoop earring. Can you picture Mike Wallace or Andy Rooney wearing a hoop earring? I don't think so. Ed, you will be missed.

Change in the training schedule this week. Mark came Monday, today, and then tomorrow. He couldn't make it on Wednesday. I missed the every other day training thing. Kelsey and I did some weight training on Tuesday, but I will admit we skipped working out yesterday. She had a ton of homework, I got home late from school, and it just didn't happen. I tried to make up for no workout by eating extra light yesterday. Monday is the big day, when we get weighed and measured. I honestly haven't seen that much weight come off...like maybe 3-4 pounds...but I definitely think I'm toning up. Someone at work today told me it looked like I was losing weight. Kelsey is definitely looking like she's toning too. She got into a smaller size jeans this week.

We both have a long weekend because of Veteran's Day tomorrow. Yay! We still have a workout scheduled at 3, but nothing planned the rest of the day. It's supposed to rain again anyway, so we'll just stay in and enjoy being dry.

Election Day

Time to rock the vote people. Take advantage of your freedom and go make a choice. Even it it's raining cats and dogs.

Many happy election day returns!

P.S. Oh wow...who would have seen this coming?

On Cultural Movie-Film for making Benefits of Us

Jay and I went to see the Borat movie yesterday. Holy cow, was that ever funny. The theater was packed, and I wound up sitting next to some guy who reeked of alchohol and kept swigging from a flask during the whole movie, but I still enjoyed it. Warning though, it's not for everyone. It helps to be familiar with Sacha Baron Cohen and the stuff he's done before, and parts of it is kind of ewwww graphic, but we both liked it a lot.

Afterwards we went to McGrath's Fish House, since Kelsey was sleeping on her friend's boat again. Then I quilted the rest of the night while Jay went to a friend's birthday party. I watched Saving Private Ryan while he was gone...I thought Band of Brothers was infinitely better. I think I'm in an anti-Tom Hanks phase for some reason.

Oh, and for those who have been expecting packages from me for like.....forever - I finally made it to the post office yesterday! The nephew is getting his in two pieces, mainly because of shipping box sizes and lack of packing material. Part two is coming with me on the plane at Thanksgiving.

Thanks yous, very nice, great success.

Second lifzzzzz

Yeah, I've been hearing a lot about Second Life lately, so this being a boring rainy Friday night, I thought I'd give it a try. Very unimpressive. On the surface it sounds really cool and fun, but in reality the lag is horrible, the character interface sucks, and it was a real snooze. I did like the flying bit, but the rest is pretty lacking. Maybe I just hit it on a bad night...I might try again if the circumstances all line up right. But then again, I might just take a nap.

Neil Patrick Harris is the latest celebrity to out themselves. Good for him, and double good for all the gay gentlemen out there, because that kid is cuuute. Now if Tom Cruise could only make an honest man of himself :-).

Bad timing

So I heard from my friend Jason the other day...he's in Ft. Collins, CO right now doing his thang. He'll be back in Seattle over Thanksgiving, and he asked if I wanted to go see Bodies with that Friday. However, we will be in Austin then so I don't get to A) see the exhibition or B) see Jason. I could still see the exhibition I guess, even though my very own Jason isn't really into seeing cadavers in various life-like poses. I'm mostly bummed about not seeing my friend Jason, because I haven't seem him since the summer and I miss him.

The Anthropology test today was way easier than I expected it to be. I'm pretty sure I only got a few questions wrong, so I'm expecting an A. The study guide that she passed out for the test was totally bogus, and barely had anything to do with the test. I'll be glad when this quarter is done. Next quarter I'm taking Medical Terminology online, with the same professor that I had for Anatomy, and she was really cool so I'm stoked about that one.

The trainer session was good today....more strength training with some more cardio in between. We almost felt like not eating dinner when we were done...almost I said. Instead, we rested a few minutes, and then had meatloaf muffins and mashed potatoes. Yummy :-)