Weekly Check in

While I've had this page open since 12, I've yet to write ... out of completely and utter shock and disgust...

OMG .. Can I slap Steve Kragthorpe? I am about to get in my car, drive to bring Petrino back to UofL, and send out a rescue party to find out WTF happened to our defense, because they have yet to show up .... Ok .. I'm just fuming, annoyed, and everything else. Enough of that...

Just like what the Cards are doing now, I did the same thing this morning, except instead of throwing around garbage at Papa John's I was picking up garbage along Beargrass Creek for a couple of hours earlier this morning. MSD sponsors / encourages group cleanup of the creek at certain times and so I thought that I would contribute something back to creek, considering we all indirectly contribute to the pollution in the creek (runoff of car oils, road debris, etc when it rains as an example).


While I hate to wake up early, I wish I would do it more often because it makes the days ad my weekends feel so much longer, instead of sleeping it away and the next thing you know it's another dang Monday...

Watching dogs dream has to be the sweetest thing ever. In the moments that I'm calm, or trying to ignore the beating that 0-3 Syracuse is handing us, two of my dogs have gotten decently far into their doggy dreams ... it's so cute .. they do little whimper barks, their legs move a bit, the whole thing is so cute. I can just imagine that their dreaming that they're chasing a big cat down the street .. :o)

Work has been ... work. Between that and school, I'm running myself into the ground. My stress level has hit it's max and so now I'm trying to work myself into a compromise, meaning I'm going to try and work 40 and be done with it. In school my one teacher keeps talking about natural logs ... things I willingly forgot years ago .. so that whole process of re-teaching myself the math (that doesn't get used often in the real world) has not been pleasant.

While I've been making time for my personal life, I think I need to make room for more. Hopefully as I work out the kinks with my work / school schedule, I'll fix that too.

Ok .. I am just not in much of a mood anymore, thanks to the embarrassing display of football by a current top 25 team and probably 'former' BCS Championship contender. It's amazing .. 4 games and all of Petrino's work .. there is no evidence of it anymore..

Doggy number 3 now dreams .. :o)

Just a Quick Few Lines

Yes,

This will be brief .. I am hoping to be in bed before 1. The whole not sleeping .. yea it's really starting to catch up to me, so I have GOT TO try and change that. But .. I have two papers due this week, and two tests next week, so it won't be any time soon.

The weekend is never long enough and while most went to random details and common outtings, we did go somewhere different for a change. This weekend we went to see Anthony Cools out at Caesar's. I went out there to see him twice last year .. we went on a Saturday, turned around and bought tickets for that Sunday. This time, just as good, funny, hilarious, awesome. But he definitely does not hold anything back, so if you get offended at all, save your money. However if you have a sense of humor and don't mind the topics, he's worth seeing. I'll be going again next year.

As far as Caesar's, I literally only wanted to go out there, see the show, and leave, and that's what we did. Gambling .. never has done anything for me .. but I know people that borderline on having a problem, so I guess it's fun to some people. There are people that make the trip across the bridge a couple times a week, and I am sure that they're not the worst. As much as I don't personally like gambling, I don't know why it's not legal in KY so we can start keeping the tax money on our side of the bridge. Heck .. we have Churchill, why not add a casino.

Anyway, I went to Vegas in 2000 with an ex and literally did not gamble my money the whole week. We played Black Jack one night on his money, which is probably the only thing I'd consider playing, but after an hour or so I was done .. and that was all the nonsense I could tolerate!!

Ok .. I think my time is up .. gotta go!!

The Price to Pay for Getting Older ...

So .. as I've gotten older I've noticed soo many things changing. Not just physically, but emotionally, and everything else. It's amazing how things are so different now than they were before, but I think the hardest part is trying to deal with these changes, both the good and bad ones.

So now I'm 32... wow does that SUCK!! I cannot grasp that I'm actually that old or may be I don't want to. But, then again, I can't imagine being that same kid at 25... thinking back at the life I had, the things I did, and all the little details in between, we are two totally different people. Neither one was / is bad by any stretch of the imagination, just different. Different beliefs, different goals, and completely different paths. It's amazing how we are constantly evolving into our present self.And ten years from now I may even look back at my 32 year old self and say Wow as well.

1.) The biggest change I've noticed is that physically I'm not as up-to-speed as I was 5 or 6 years ago. I think it's amazing to think about, and probably a bit scary for me at the same time. There were a series of baby gates in my house in the past, to contain the kids while I'm at work. Before, I would fly over them as I was running late. Now .. it's one leg at a time. I don't know that I've completely adjusted to this, or accepted it. As things have slowed down I found it harder to stay ahead of the game, as far as my physical condition. So now, I've made the call to enroll in a gym, as a means of pushing it one step further in an effort to stay in shape and also to regain some of the agility that I had a few years back. So far I'm doing / feeling much better although I've yet to reattempt the gate hurdle .. :o) My middle sister recently hit the 30 milestone herself and is starting to notice the difference too. It's amazing but it's almost like an internal timer goes off. ... I hate it but what can you do?!

2.) As I've gotten older, I've become more and more bored with things. Which leads to me being more and more restless. Restless living where I live, restless in my spare time, restless in my own skin. Why? I don't know .. maybe because what was fun no longer is, maybe my priorities have changed. I don't know. I've noticed that I'm more prone to becoming obsessed with something, especially if that 'something' is the perfect way to kill time. However, it seems that the internet is not one of those things, and that probably has a lot to do with working in front of a monitor 5 days a week.

3.) My definitions of 'fun' has tremendously evolved ..

• I've long ago given up the bar scene, I remember going one time and thinking to myself how pathetic I must be to keep doing this. It was never fun and I hate the idea of being treated like a sex object. So I stopped going and I can't remember the last time I've willingly gone to a bar.
  
• On that token, at the same time I just decided to not drink anymore. Ok .. it's not that I'm against drinking or anything, but I just don't feel like ever doing it I guess. I guess at this stage in my life I lost sight of that fun that came with drinking.
• I've found fun more with the company of people and not so much with where we're at. I remember as a younger me it was more about where you were that night than anything else. So as long as you were there for new years, the rest of the story didn't matter. Nowadays I have found more fun driving around town, playing pool with friends, going bowling, or sitting in a coffee shop, than anything else. Because it's not fake in the least bit and I'm surrounded by everyone I want to be around, unlike how I perceive most things I've done in the past.

Ok ..I have a sick doggy that needs attending to so I should attempt to stop rambling. That is such a terrible thing for me, and funny enough, I'm not as talkative as I used to be in 'real' life, but I can ramble horribly on any sort of written media. Don't get me wrong, I talk with the best of them, but it's very much dependent on who I'm around, what we're doing, my mood, and so on. More often than not I stay more quiet than in the past .. I don't know why, maybe I got tired of hearing me talk so much!!



My last comment for the night is this ... I have a horrid obsession with my Nintendo DS Lite. Horrid!!!!!! I have a friend out in Seattle and a friend here in town that I play with on WiFi and it's amazing how many hours are wasted playing that .. and how often I'm charging the battery. I need another distraction or something I guess. I was hoping that school would help, but it's not helping in the least bit.

Again ... this goes back to my point above, in that I'm really bored right now and I think that this become my boredom fixer .. then became my obsession, because I'm a perfectionist and I have to have everything perfect on it.

So .. now I need a distraction to get me off of this thing. Well, basketball starts in a few months .. YAY .. but hopefully this won't still be going on as obsessively. But it's bad, and I know it's because I'm just bored and probably half reacting to getting older. I tend to panic around my birthday and I get into funks or something, so maybe this is a glitch that comes with that. Of course I've had the DS since January and while I've played it consistently, I've not gotten as bad as I am now. I think it's because of this darn game .. these Sims - type games just kill me ... and sadly I've pre-ordered MySims for the DS (I'm trying to resist getting the Wii version for right now) and I can't imagine how that's going to affect me trying to pry myself away from this little pink box!!

Just More Randomness ..

Ok .. here are my thoughts for the moment ..

1. So .. I was being a smart ass when I said that the spider in my kitchen was going to find me and bite me. Since then I have not seen him, so I don't know if he escaped, died somewhere in my house .. yuck, my cat finally chipped in her share and killed him, or he fell victim to one of the dogs. ... Or did I curse myself by mentioning it ... because I'll be darned if something did not bite the crap out of my leg!! Ok ... this is not an ordinary bug bite .. it's been here for 4 days now. The extent of it's redness is at least an inch in diameter and growing, and it itches like YOU HAVE NO IDEA!! Here's the worst part.... it is all the way at the top of my inner thigh!! ... Ok here is what I'm thinking:
1. How in the heck did something crawl up my leg and bite me there? (I'm guessing either when I was asleep or more than liking when I was out hiking and such the other day)
2. Why did it have to crawl all the up there and bite me (this things itches like none other and the first 30 minutes at work are like agony because I want to itch it sooo bad and I can't for the sake of not being looked at like a freak!!)
3. What bit me and when will it stop??? I can barely look at it because I remember how badly this thing itches. I'm so miserable and it's like punishment to put it in a spot where I can either 'releave my pain' and humiliate myself, or bite my teeth and make myself miserable. I have my pride ... Next time I'm keeping my mouth shut!!
2. I started school this week. Yay? NOT!! I started working on my Master's Degree back in 2004 and learned that at my last job it did not make a difference whether you had it or not. Now, at my new job, it does help. And besides, I invested time to get it halfway done, so why not get it over with? So .. I have 6 classes left, and am taking two classes, per semester, for the Fall, Spring, and Summer terms. In August I'll be graduating with both a Master's of Engineering Degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering and also a Certificate in Environmental Engineering. What's the benefit of the certificate? Heck besides to write on my resume I don't really know, but I could get it as well by only switching out one class, which is one of the classes I'm taking now, so why not? Anyway, for this semester I'm taking a Transportation Planning class (what I did at my last job) and also a Surface Water Quality Modeling and Control class (what I do at my current job). So .. I'm hoping that means they'll be easy to get through.
   
3. On that note, one of the classes that I'm taking is an internet course and the other (the surface water class) is classroom taught. Here's the kicker .. the class is in the middle of the day. ... ... ... Why? ... ... ... I guess I'm thinking that people get their Bachelor's, get a job, then return for their Master's WHILE working. So why is the class at 1PM, right in the middle of such work day. And ... it's 3 days a week? That makes no sense!! So .. as a result, I won't be taking lunch anytime soon because on Mondays I'll be going to class, Tuesdays I'll be working through in order to make up the time, Wednesdays going to school, etc ... Plus on top of that I'll still have to make up the rest in order to get my 40 hours in. Next semester, both classes are during the day ... and I'm going to school every day. So ... there goes my life for the next year. But, my boss is completely supportive / encouraging / nudging my along, so he's perfectly aware / OK with this, obviously with the understanding that I get my 40 hours in.
   
4. Maggie's one year day passed this past Sunday. It was not a good day for me and I took time to say a prayer at the time that she passed. I had intentionally left the day wide open and even spent the bulk of the day out by myself just to have the breathing room. I cannot believe that it's been a whole year. It really does not feel like it's been that long. The sad thing is that I still see them and can still picture them existing in my life. I remember when my loved ones passed away in the past, I always got so upset because not too long after and I'd start to lose the details on their face. Not with these two.
   
5. Ok .. I'm so upset!! I bought my Nintendo DS Lite back in January I think, and it's that cute pink color. Guess what they just released??? A RED AND BLACK VERSION OF THE DS LITE!!!!! I am SOOOO jealous!! If I was dumber I'd be half tempted to sell mine and buy it ... but I'm not THAT dumb!! Anyway, my friend in Seattle told me about it and bought one the other day. .... so YAY .. now I have a DS friend to play games with. Yea ... loser .. I know!! But hey, don't know it until you try it!!
   
6. Here's a brief mention of something I could ramble on about forever. I hate those 'single person' phrases that people use. They make me want to kick someone. So, I talk to a coworker about how I'm having to go to school in the middle of the day. His response .. well it's not like you can't just come back in here and work all night since it's just you. Again .. I want to KICK those types of people. First of all .... IT IS 2007 ... Last I checked the WOMAN'S WORLD NO LONGER REVOLVED AROUND A MAN, GETTING MARRIED, AND 'MAKING BABIES.' Why is it that we've come so far in society, in general, only to have most people still 'think' the way they always have. I'm sorry, but just because I don't have your life, does not mean that my life is less important, less busy, less whatever. It's not anything less, it's just different, and different is not necessarily good or bad, but it sure as heck IS NOT LESS!!! My friend in Seattle just had someone make a single comment to her too the other day ... I always have the most sarcastic, bluntest, and just plan rude remarks to reply with, but instead I bite my lip and take a low blow without being too incredible bitchy. It's kinda like politely calling them out for being judgmental, hypocritical, and all that crap. Ok .. I could seriously vent and vent and vent, .. .. but I won't!!
7. On that note, I'm seriously rethinking this whole single girl thing, and thinking about growing up and settling down. Then maybe I'll find a man that will stand up to me and tell me not to work so dang much, and then maybe I'll have a reason not to work so much. Yea ... Ok .. probably not .. but maybe just a good excuse!! I have heard that the 'good man' has now been placed on the Endangered Species' list. I've been looking periodically for him for a while now, in hopes of finding one and saving it from extinction, but I think the numbers are dwindling every day so I have yet to even find one that was even close.
   

:o)

A Quick Recap

Ok .. lucky for whoever, I don't have a lot of time right now .. I just got home a while ago and I have laundry and chores to do before calling it a night!!

Here's a recap of the weekend ...

I left work at 4 on Friday, ran home to let the kids out, then Becky, Jen, Chris, and I headed to Cincy for the evening (my sisters and step brother). We went to see Reel Big Fish, Less Than Jake, Streetlight Manifesto, and Against All Authority.

Ok .. let me rephrase that ... my baby sister, as always, got completely shitfaced and, as always, forced us to conform our night to babysitting her. Needless to say, we only saw Streetlight Manifesto and Less Than Jake before packing a passed out drunk girl 2 blocks to the car.

Chris had his first experience being around a drunk person, because he's not necessarily young, but his father is a big guy in OVW wrestling, so Chris hangs out with them all the time and he's a pretty good guy in general. I think after Friday night he'll never drink because he was pretty traumatized. So .. he's a good size guy, he's about 6'4"-ish and manages to pack Jen about a block - block and a half. Since dead weight is MUCH worse than someone being conscious, me and him both packed her the rest of the way to the car.

Then, there was the ride home, which I'm not getting into, but needless to say my sister Becky was very upset about the whole experience.

Has their been an apology call since Friday night? Of course not. My sister Jen is one of the most self-centered, self involved people out there, and like my father, the word sorry, or any admission of guilt does not exist in her vocabulary. But, since she makes this a habit, after ruining the night for us this is not something that is going to just go away.

As you can tell I'm pretty sick of her doing that .. it's basically been going on for years now and she does this expecting other people to bail her out .. with their never being an apology the next day.


Anyway ... so we went to the Kentucky State Fair the next day. It was Becky, my Niece, Paula, Darren, their kids, Heather, Charlie, and their son. So .. while Paula takes photos as well, it's only when we're out and not when it's a family gathering. So while I packed the cameras around, they were barely used.

I think we were there from about 1pm - 8:30pm, because we HAD to be at GameStop before 9pm when they closed. My sister gave my niece $10 to spend on games (in addition to rides) so she'd no ahead of time that she was not allowed to just spend an obscene amound of money at the fair. My niece realized that instead of games she could use that money and get a game for her GBA, and so that's what she did. Smart kid.

Yea, real smart kid, she also conned me into buying Harvest Moon DS, which I haven't played much as it's just not catching my interest. But, I bought Animal Crossing and Rayman DS (which is OK but it was real cheap) the other day and i'm currently obsessed with Animal Crossing.

On that note, a quick detour ... I'm starting to SUCK with the DS and the Wii .. I'm playing the darn things all the time!! Now my friend Lele is getting a DS and so she's going to try and match some of my games so that we can play each other! She lives in Seattle so it will be fun to play with her on the DS since she's so far away.


Ok .. so today I went out to take photos .. I was all over Louisville today, from the far West End, to downtown, to the Southern part, then NorthEastern and to the East .. I wish I would have kept track of how many miles I drove!

So, I ran into someone while at the Nature Center who gave me great tips on good places to go to. With two of them being in Louisville, I went to them today... Wow .. I was amazed!! I now have new great spots to go to!!

In addition, while in these new spots I ended up meeting a guy that is apparently a future date. He seemed really cool and easy to get along with, but while I don't doubt people off the bat, I try no to think much past things I don't know about a person. So I guess I'll be hanging out with him this week or weekend and I'm curious how that goes. He walked with me for a while when I was taking pictures and so that's a good thing because he was pretty interested in general even though he lacked the camera in hand.

Well, that's all their is to report .. I have laundry to tend to.

On a side note, I'll be working some OT this week and in addition .. I'm back in school as of Monday ... AAAAAAWWWW!!! If I take 2 classes a semester I should be done with my Master's degree come the end of summer. While it's not required at my job, I'm going back for two reasons, (1) I've already invested in it so why not finish it, and (2) the career opportunities at my current employer are faster / better just by having that extra degree.

So it's final I guess ... sadly .. :o(

A Recovery Attempt

Ok .. so among the other events of this weekend I also made an attempt to recover from my photography slump.


I started out by driving out to Harrison County, Indiana, but I sadly just ended up looking at and pricing land. Any excuse to not be taking photos apparently. After that though I headed to a wild field that I had seen the day before, also in Indiana, and I ended up staying in this field for a good 30 - 45 minutes in the insane heat.

I completely justified, during that stop, why I wanted and why I bought the second DSLR. It was perfect because I leave my main lens fixed on the D50 and I used the macro lens on the D1X. I was switching back and forth so much that I had to keep stopping so I could untangle the straps from around my neck! So now I feel even better about buying it, but I still can't adjust the settings on it as easily as I can on the D50 and I'm guessing that is because of the lack of practice. However, I think that I'm going to start routinely packing and using both cameras in a manner as I did yesterday because that seemed to be perfect.

Anyway, before heading to my Dad's I went to those two places, and then some open areas near the new Hurstbourne connection. After leaving his house I made my way into downtown Louisville for an hour or so, primarily along Waterfront Park and Main Street.

In the process of going home I was reminded about the Perseid Meteor shower, which peaked late last night. Apparently I had gotten a real bug up my tail because I ended up calling a friend and at 1AM we headed to Cherokee Park to watch the 'show.'

Yes, we LEFT at 1AM knowing that I had to be at work by 8AM.

I was expecting it to be quiet and unoccupied, but we were completely amazed. Cars lined the entire area area around Dog Hill where people were also set up to watch the meteor shower. There were probably 30+ people there when we first got there but as the next hour progressed, getting closer to the peak of the shower, we ended up having to move to another area because the headlights coming up the hill were consistent and 5 or 6 a minute. It was amazing that so many people knew about / were interested in the event.

We were there until around 3AM before we decided to pack up and head home. We did play with our cameras while out there, but the amount of light pollution at Cherokee Park was so incredible that there was a small section of the sky that was clear and not as polluted. I'm going to guess that 85% of the sky suffered extreme light pollution, but because of the time restraint we chose to stay close. Even considering the pollution we were lucky enough to witness many amazing sights in the night sky. However because of the excessive light the long exposures were not as successful because it meant less time that we could leave the shutters open.

Needless to say I did not get to bed until about 4AM and I had to pull and pull to get myself out of bed this morning. I came home and took a nice nap and we're actually considering going back out again tonight, although a bit earlier and this time up into Indiana where the light pollution is to the South and opposite to the area that the meteors are more likely to appear.

Well, that is it for the moment, but I'll try and update more later :o)

Woman VS. Spider

Ok .. so I just made myself a big ole' mess I think.

Here's a sad story. I don't cook that often so my kitchen is more of a hallway than anything else because I don't keep much food in the house either, or at least anything that requires more than a couple of minutes in the microwave.

Because of that, I have the tendency to walk through the room a 30 times a day and not see the first thing in there besides the sink, to fill the dogs water up.

Ok .. two nights ago I'm in the kitchen and I look over in the corner of the cabinets and I see a spider web... aaaww!! Well, my theory is that I don't want to destroy the web, but I want to destroy the spider, because if I knock out the web, the spider will set up shop somewhere else in my house.

So, I have been checking and checking to see the spider. Finally, last night I get a glimpse of it .. the damn thing is about a half inch or more long!! I about died because I'm expecting a little spider and not a BEAST!!

So .. I shudder, then walk into the other room to fetch myself a shoe. I come back and it's gone. Well now that I know how big it is, there is no way I'm noseying around looking for it. I have this fear from the movie Arachnophobia that the darn thing is going to jump at me and bite my hand. So, I leave for the evening and decide to look again when I get home.

I come home that night and there it is, in the same spot. I pick up the shoe and smack down at it. Missed bigger than life and away the spider ran. Well, crap!!

So today I look and of course it's sleeping, dreaming of ways to bite me (thank goodness my room is on the other side of the house!). I leave for the day and come home this evening to see him resting in his usual spot.

Well, I've had enough of this jerk sitting in my house taking up residency and not paying rent. So I check under the cabinet and oddly enough there's a bottle of Raid down there. Lucky for me, it mentions spiders on the bag of it. I practice spraying it just to be sure it actually works. It does. Then, I aim and spray...

Off he ran so I have no idea whether I hit him or not.

Now I'm mad, so I start moving things around (with my hands fully covered of course) because I want to find a spray him, but in the back of my mind I'm guessing that he's ran behind the stove. Of course I can't find him, so I get mad, grab the bottle of spray and start hosing everything down with it.

About 30 seconds later I stopped. Ok ... hello stupid.

Now I've not only drove him away to another unknown part of the house, but now I've hosed down my counter top and some counter top utensils with bug spray. Idiot!! Of course, knowing the mad spider is still in the vicinity there is no way I'm cleaning that up right now. I guess I'll give him a day to pack up and move (with my luck into my room) and then clean the mess that I made.

So he's making a complete mockery of me, but I don't know what I'm going to do to get this monster out of my house. He's too fast and I'll be darned if I swallow my pride and ask for back up. I'm hoping I sprayed him enough that he'll just go die somewhere or maybe he'll leave out of whatever avenue he got inside my house (I'm assuming that he came in from the window nearby that the idiot owner leaves open 24/7 - the screens down of course but I'm sure it's not bug proof). Or ... what about my cat .. isn't that supposed to be her area? She may need to be wrote up or something because she's not doing her job!!

Anyway, I've been in my house for over 6 years now and I've never actually seen spiders, or much of anything in my house, maybe because of the animals but who knows. So I guess this 10 foot long spider is to make up for the years of peace I've had. If that's the case, hopefully I'll find it soon, kill it, and go back to a bug-free life.

Please?! .. :o)