Oh, you desperate housewives, keep your panties on! Remind me never to blog like that again (from my vast personal experience of romance and passion) lest I reap the wrath of the people who live vicariously through me. Little do they know that 363 days out of the year, my life is WAY less exciting than theirs. I will, however, let you know that it is storming like crazy outside! I'm about to light some candles, get a glass of wine, and relive my history. Oh, who are we kidding? I'm going to have 1/2 of a glass of wine, and fall asleep on the couch at 9:15. 8/30/06 is NOT one of the two days when I am more exciting than any of you.

There is nothing really exciting going on in Farmville. SHOCKING!! I am looking forward to having a visit from Peg, Chris, and J, as they travel through on their way to PA. Whoo hoo! Besides Amanda, they will be the first people to visit me on any of my travel assignments. And they're coming to Farmville. God bless 'em. J is much bigger than this now, of course. He's a whole 20 months old! Oh my god! I just counted in baby months! You parent-people are wearing off on me! Oh crap, I have to J-proof the apartment before Saturday. I guess I'll shove it all in the closet. On Friday night. 'Cause that's how I do it.

Okay, that's a bout it folks. I'm looking forward

Oh behave!

Calm down people! For pete's sake, it's a memory. A distant memory. In fact, the answer to the question "when the hell will I get to do that again?", well, that answer is, apparently, "painfully too long." We just had a great thunderstorm last night, and it reminded me of that kiss. Not a new kiss. An old one. The memory of one. The hope of another one in the future. But not with him. It turns out he was an ass. Just my luck.

Trust me, next time I get a great one laid on me, I'll run around Blogger-ville with my hands above my head screaming "I got kissed! I got kissed! And despite you being uncomfortable with TMI, I'm going to make you hear all about it. And look, I got a picture with my camera phone. Mu-wha-wha-wha (evil laughing)"

Gheesh.

On the other hand, if this whole PT gig doesn't work out for me, I guess I could take on romance novel writing.

Isn't it strange how a storm can be exactly like a fantastic kiss?

It started slow, just the slightest shift of the wind. Meeting him was like that. Then the crickets started up. First soft, then with growing anticipation for what was to come. It was a good start to the date. They chirped a chorus that crescendoed into a volume that totally surrounded me. Being with him was intoxicating. The wind started to blow harder, making me flush with the sudden change in temperature. The conversation, the laughter. It was all good. Soft and low the rumble started; the sky quickly darkening. We stood close, waiting for the valet to bring the car. My heart started to beat faster, wondering if I would make it back before the rain hit. The drive home. The low rumble getting louder, the sky darker. Walking up the sidewalk. The breeze stronger and cooler. Standing on the doorstep. One by one the raindrops started, first falling light and soft. He put his left hand on my hip. The rain started falling faster. His right hand at the nape of my neck. The rumble of thunder clear and loud. His lips brushed mine. Rain falling at full speed. Hands pulling me in closer. A crack of lightning, a flash of light, electric crackling in the air. His lips on mine, bodies in full contact, electric crackling in the air.

And just as quickly as it started, it's over. And there I am, standing on the porch, hanging on to the railing, wondering when the hell I'm going to get to do that again.

The Hoote-what?

Aaaah, the Mulligan's Hootenanny. An all day music-fest. $5 buys your way in, $2 buys you a can of Miller Lite, and $3 will get you a plastic solo cup of Sam Adams summer brew. Hello summer. So, I gussied myself up. Well, makeup, party hair, jeans, and a clean shirt. Looked something like this...

Too bad I couldn't get a better picture of the band. The lead singer was missing a tooth and the guitarist had a mullet. But they did good covers, and I found my feet tapping along and a little boogie in my butt.

This guy had to be in his mid to late 40s. The underside of his hair is shaved, and he's got wanna-be dreds on the top. Crazy.
This shirt cracked me up.
It turns out, if you go to the Hootenanny by yourself, you can expect to be hit on by old and/or recently divorced men. And the problem with not having a girlfriend there, is that you have no great excuse to walk away, except to use the bathroom. I had to pee a LOT.

4 things

My friend, Neeter, sent this to me in an email. One of those "how much do you really know about me?" kind of things. These are my answers...


Four Things about me...
Things you may not have known about me...


A) Four jobs I have had in my life when I was a kid (I'll define "kid" as pre-PT)

1. Nanny
2. Horseback instructor at YWCO all girls' camp
3. Waitress
4. Secretary

B) Four movies you would watch over and over:
1. 50 First Dates
2. Bull Durham
3. Out of Africa
4. Love Actually


C) Four places you have lived
1. Philadelphia, PA
2. Fairbanks, AK
3. Denver, CO
4. Klamath Falls, OR

D) Four TV shows you love to watch:
1. Grey's Anatomy
2. Sex and the City (I watch the reruns!)
3. What Not to Wear
4. Lost

E ) Four places you have been on vacation:
1. Las Vegas
2. Yellowstone National Park
3. Hawaii
4. all over Alaska

F ) Websites you visit daily
1. Amanda
2. Amy
3. The Rusty Nut Telegraph
4. Texas Heather

G ) Four of my favorite foods
1. Peppermint Patties
2. Fresh Rolls
3. Steak
4. scrambled eggs

H) Four places I would rather be right now:
1. Alaska
2. Hawaii
3. with Amanda
4. near a mosquito-less lake in the mountains

Let's all welcome my friend Julie to the blogosphere. She's a funny bird, and we've been friends since college, minus a few years where we were out of touch. Dad calls her "Apple Crisp Girl" (hence her link on the right). Julie came to the farm from college one weekend. Mom had made her tasty apple crisp for us. Well, needless to say, with Jules and me around, it didn't last long. Saturday night we were on our way to the Kroger for more apples, and Julie left the farm with the recipe in hand. I think she made about a million pans of that stuff while we were in school. She still makes it for carry-in dishes, and when I tell a story about her to Dad, I still have to clarify who Julie is by calling her Apple Crisp Girl. So, go over to her site and say hi.

Your Famous Movie Kiss is from The Empire Strikes Back

"Captain, being held by you isn't quite enough to get me excited."

What Famous Movie Kiss Are You?

of course the link doesn't work. It never does.

Do NOT go there!

And by THERE, I mean Wal-Mart. You see, the college kids have descended on Farmville. All 7000 of them. And they're all at Wal-Mart. It's hideous. There is more chaos inside that place than at the Chuck E. Cheese ball pit during a 4 year old's birthday party. Mothers elbowing each other at the 3-ring binder aisle, fathers shoving each other in front of the 4-way screwdriver rack, and more college kids than you can throw a keg at in the beer aisle clawing at each other for the last case of Natural Light. That's right. Gone are the 6 packs of micro-brew, and out come the cases of piss-poor-disgusting-but-cheap cases of canned beer. By the way, I now throw props out to Ma and Pa King for helping me move in and out of more than one dorm during my collegiate career. Even though I was never packed and cleaned, like I promised them I would be. Aaaah, college, now those were the days!

Remember when every college girl had some variety of this poster pinned to her wall?

Before you read the post, do me a favor and click the play button on the video way at the bottom of the page. Really. Do it. It adds to the ambience. But I can't get it to play automatically. And I can't find it on a website that has that feature. Do it. Just do it. Do it.

Iron Chef- Farmville style

I wanna be Asian! Okay, really, I just want to make tasty, yummy, hard-to-find-in-Farmville Asian food. The sad news? I'm a white girl. White as the rice noodles in my fresh rolls.

My friend Linda is first generation Vietnamese-American. And boy can that Asian cook! I had the good fortune to eat at her place on many occassions while living in Klamath Falls. I also had the opportunity to watch and learn. My favorite thing, for sure, are the fresh rolls she makes. Tasty beef, lettuce, cilantro, rice noodles and cucumbers, wrapped in delicate rice paper. It's too bad I didn't take the opportunity to watch and practice. Linda's experienced fingers rolled those ingredients with the skill of a Cuban cigar roller, or an Asian fresh-roll-roller. You see what I'm getting at.

I wish I had a picture of my first attempt at doing them on my own last week. First, you have to imagine me calling Linda to make sure I have the ingredients for fish sauce (doctored Nguyen-style) and peanut sauce. Then, you have to imagine me trying to find all of this in Farmville. To fine the 3 essential ingredients, I had to go to all 3 grocey stores in Farmville. Good grief, Charlie Brown. My man-hands? Not so good at rolling rice paper. Plus, I have no technique. My first attempts looked like water weenies. You remember water weenies. Floppy, full of water, and nearly impossible to hold on to. Needless to say, after several tries, I just dumped the sauce on top and ate the "rolls" with a fork. Can you get whiter than that?

Linda reassured me that it took her a year to do them well when she started cooking. I decided I could try again. So here's last night's attempts:



Not quite as bad as the first. At least this time I could hold them in my hand and didn't wind up eating them with a fork.










But they still look like white-girl-Asian-burritos. Check back in a year. We'll see how I'm doing then. Oh, I'm not giving up! I'll be a little Asian yet!

Not to worry, though, my technique might be lacking, but Linda's instructions were perfect, and the results delish!

Coming tomorrow...

The story of the white girl asian burrito.

Linda is nearly peeing herself in anticipation.

Pictures included.

I am the crazy cat lady.

So, here's the weekend update from Farmville.

I am the crazy cat lady. There are strays in the dumpsters, and I can't stand it. See a few posts ago. Now there are 4 regulars coming for dinner. Dempsey continues to be the only one that will let me pet her, but there is a gray and white kitten (the neighbor girls call her Dora) who really really wants to be tame, and is just a little nervous, and two totally feral cats. Dempsey (who will go to one of my patients) doesn't have any interest in the rest and hisses at them, even though Dora throws herself down and does the "I'm so cute, be my friend" roll around and meow moves ever. Dora and the feral black cat are pals. I think Slinky (the other kitten of the group) and Dora must be litter mates. They're the same size and coloring, but Slinky is a bit darker. Last night Dora realized that Oz was on the other side of the glass door, and the two spent 30 minutes talking to each other through the glass. They all spend some time lounging around my porch in the evenings, but take off when someone comes too close. I think I just saw a kid run past my apartment, pointing and yelling something about the crazy cat lady. Great.

So far, so good at work. I've been working 1/2 days in the outpatient clinic, and the other half at the hospital. When the other traveler gets here (around the first of Sept) the manager plans to keep me in the outpatient clinic and send the new chick to the hospital for the majority of the day. Now, some of you would think that this would upset me, as I like acute care. Let me tell you why it doesn't in this case.

Number one, the hospital is a mess. Not the structure itself, but the departments within. I have never been to a place where everyone wanted to work in their own bubble and not be bothered to speak to someone from another department. Don't get me wrong, I usually get the once-over and a bit of rude treatment as "the new guy", but this place does it to the people who have been here for years. I have worked 9 out of the last 10 days at the hospital (for 1/2 of the day), I wear a lab coat (ugh) and a name badge. I carry a walker and a gait belt. EVERY time I ask a nurse if there's anything crazy going on with a patient that I should know about, she gives me the once over and says "And who are you?" The case managers don't seem to care to get any input from the rehab staff about d/c planning either. Not one returned phone call last week. Either these people are retarded, or they don't like to be bothered. I figure they can do that to me every day for the next 15 weeks if they like to waste words and time, but they'd better get used to having to talk to me. Case closed.

The second reason the idea of staying in the OP clinic doesn't bother me is because I'm going to get to do a lot of OP wound care. And I do mean a lot. There isn't anyone in a 45 mile radius who does wounds, so all of our local patients have to travel to Lynchburg or Richmond to be seen. Even if they need daily care. Can you imagine a 90 mile round trip just to have a wound debrided and dressing changed? Yikes! The manager is so excited that I like wound care that she has given me open license to order whatever kind of supplies I want, and is writing a letter to the local physicians so they know I'm here. Now that's support! She says she can easily fill my schedule with wound care patients if that's what I want to do. I'll also have to do regular evals and re-evals, but the bulk of my caseload can be woundcare. That's the kind of outpatient clinic I can handle!

I'm having fun getting to know the staff. They all seem like good eggs. Being off on Sunday only, though, has left little exploring to be done. Welcome back to the South, Tiffany, our stores don't open on Sunday. And you can't buy a tasty adult beverage, either. Whoops, forgot about that part. Next weekend is my first full weekend of time off, and though I'll be missing Ryan and Erin's wedding shower (sorry guys) I will finally be able to get some foot-traffic exploration in. There's a shirt in the window of a downtown business that says "Where the hell is Farmville, VA?" Someone's getting that for Christmas!

So today I'm catching up on my journal (the original, handwritten kind), watching movies that I've been meaning to for months, and doing laundry. Aaaaaaahhhhhhh, Sundays.

Dear God,

Dear God,

My name is Pooh King, and I am a bad dog. Not just a little bad either. Really bad. And repeatedly bad.

You see, it was like this...

It was Thursday. I was home alone. Well, not alone really, I was with that dumpster cat. Anyway, I was hungry for something sweet. My bowl of food really wasn't doing it for me. I saw the treat bin. I couldn't help myself. I decided the beating would totally be worth it. So, I got out my retractable thumbs ('cause I have them) and opened the storage bin my treats are stored in. The silly two-legger left the bin in the living room, thinking I couldn't get into it. Like I said, silly two-legger.

I spotted my peanut butter scooby snacks. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, I love peanut butter scooby snacks. They were just the thing I needed. So I ate some. And then I ate some more. And then more. And then that dumpster cat came too close, so I ate some more. I was quite like Templeton at the fair. By the time the two-legger got home, I had eaten about 3 pounds of that tasty delicious snack. I was feeling pretty good about myself. Went for a walk, dropped a big bomb. Boy, that helped make a little room. Went inside and took a good long nap. The beating was totally worth it.

Here's where it starts to get ugly. At about 10:00 the two-legger went to bed. I roamed in and laid down on the floor. Just couldn't quite get my ass up onto that bed she sleeps on. At 1:30 I tried to wake the two-legger up. She told me to go lay down and be quiet. So I threw up on the floor in the hall. That got her out of bed. At 2:15 I tried to wake her up again. This time she took me outside, but I didn't need to throw up just then, so I waited until after she was back in bed. Then I let it fly in the spare bedroom. While she was busy cleaning that up, I let it fly two more times. She wasn't very happy. I think maybe she almost felt sorry for me. Except she kept saying "serves you right" and things like that. Whatever. Just 'cause she can't eat 3 pounds of her favorite thing shouldn't make her bitter. It was mostly worth the beating.

She walked me in the morning and I didn't throw up at all. So the two-legger went to work. Hey, somebody's got to put bread on the table. I threw up a little bit in the living room. Hey, she should have stayed home with me. I was sick. By the time she got home, there were other rumblings going on. And it wasn't good. She got me out the door just in time. My ass exploded. Really, I don't think it's polite to keep saying "Oh, sweet mother of god, are you dying?" in a time like that. By Friday night I felt much better. The two-legger thought I learned my lesson. It was definitely not worth the beating.

Whatever. Stupid two-legger didn't move the bin. So today I ate a bag of Breath Busters. Hey, at least tomorrow my bombs will be minty fresh. Wait. Maybe it won't take until tomorrow. Quick, where's the two-legger?!?!?!

Oh dear god. This isn't going to be good.

Love,
Pooh King

PS... I think I might have an eating disorder. What's this thing about bingeing and purging?

Let's hear it for the computer goddess... and it ain't me.

Paula Brown is the computer goddess of the universe!!!!!!! I give her the biggest thumb up possible. That woman just gave me 1 hour and six seconds of her Friday night. Now, those of you who know me know that I truly believe that the greatest gift you can give someone is your time. Now, Paula is a friend of Mom's. She is a superstar. (Peg, she did your wedding shower... our wine conneseur!) She happily agrees to have Mom pass on her phone number so I can give her a call to see if she can sort out my problems (the computer kind) over the phone. One hour and six seconds after she answered that fateful call, here I am, up and running. Posting pics without the help of Picasa (though Picasa is great) and getting on Yahoo Messenger without difficulty (which had become a difficulty). Let's all throw a cheer up for Paula, the computer goddess of the universe.

As close as dogs and cats can be to yin and yang. Got to love Pooh King and the Great and Powerful Oz.

Jeaner's right. The other template was the color of c-diff. In my defense though, I only changed it because I was hoping it would allow me to post pictures. Now the old template is back, but I have to figure out how to change the margins again, so my sidebar isn't way at the bottom. Why does this crap always happen to me?

By the way, welcome back Jeaner. Some of my first thoughts when I crushed my hand were A) I won't be able to work. B) I won't be able to give anyone the double bird.
Good call.

Oz looking out the window at the moon. That's a true story.
Posted by Picasa

whhhhhoooooooooooooooooo!

You know that was done Little Richard style, right?

So, thank god, allah, budda, ra, or whoever you like, for Picassa. I have pics. It's not the same as being able to post them all at the same time, but it'll do, pig, it'll do.

I'll do more tomorrow. For now, it's off to bed.

The welcome-water tower.

Pooh King in the Appamatox River.
ya, I'm good

Next to the river
ya, I'm good

Pooh King being happy
ya, I'm good

They know it's over.
ya, I'm good

Bear with me. I'm figuring this out.

1) The welcome-water tower in Farmville. And that's Prince Edward county, not an actual prince. 2) Pooh King in the Appamatox river. 3) The field next to the river 4) Pooh King is happy. 5) Ya, they know it's over down here. 6) A very cool spider web
ya, I'm good

Here's the dumpster cat. Named Dempsey, in honor of all dumpster animals.

Sucker.

Mom's right, I need to cut some bangs. Because I have "SUCKER" tattooed to my forehead. No, I didn't get a tattoo in Farmville, but there is another dumpster cat in my life. Actually, she's on my porch. I'm a sucker for a dumpster cat. Don't you judge me.

The good news is that one of the patients at the clinic says she'll take her. I hope that works out. She's a sweet cat and definitely either got away from someone and never made it home, or got put out the door when someone left the complex. Either way, she deserves to have a home and not eat out of a dumpster anymore.

Too bad Mom just got those kittens, or I'd know just the barn she belonged in, and which old lady would have taken her!

By the way, check out my new link to see my pictures. I'm working on getting them all loaded onto Shutterfly so you can see them. It will take a bit of time.

I guess it doesn't stop me...

Yep, still no pictures. I decided to defragment my computer. Maybe that will help. Turns out, maybe I should have done that about a year ago... or a year and a half. Maybe this shouldn't have been the first time I defrag'd since I bought the thing. Right now, it's busy "moving" my 2300+ iTunes files. That's a whole lot of Waylan and Willy, folks.

So, while I continue trying to figure out this blogger picture thing, I'll entertain you with another story. Or maybe gross you out and make you make a terrible face and cringe a little.

Have I ever told you about the time I slammed my left hand in the hatch of the Durango? Last week?

You see, it went like this...

I took off from Mom and Dad's at 6:30 am last Wednesday. (That's right, I've been in Farmville a whole week already!) I have a dead wire in my electrical thingy that hooks the trailer lights into my truck's lighting system. Turns out that this wire controls my running lights. So, thanks to Mr. Clampett (as in "Let me tell ya' a story 'bout a man named Jed") I have a sweet jimmy-rigged lighting system that only requires me to open the hatch on Tough Lucy and connect two little wires. With this all connected, I rolled out of Aiken without a worry in my mind, destination Farmville. Stopped for a pee break at a McDonalds outside of Charlotte at 9. Being the polite trailer-puller that I am, I pull around to the back so I won't take up too many of the "prime" parking spots that the old folks love so much. Run into McD's, take care of business, and decide that I'll go ahead and unplug the running lights since it's now PLENTY sunny out, and the running lights make it hard to see the brakes. (Jimmy-rigging = good, but not perfect.) So, into the hatch I go. Did I mention that my bike is hanging on the door? Makes it heavy. Real heavy. The hydraulics don't work kind of heavy, so I have to keep the door open by letting it rest on my back. Carefully backing out of it, hanging onto the edge and carefully letting it shut, I realized at the last possible nanosecond, that my left hand was not going to make it out in time. And there it was, the gate slammed shut, with my hand still in it.

Imagine it. Me, left hand stuck in door, in the back of the McDonalds. The back side, where the only person capable of being flagged down as I flail like a fish out of water, reaching desperately for the door handle, would have had to give up their spot in the morning rush line to help me. Like that was going to happen. Flailing, because I have to reach about the front wheel of the bike to reach it. Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god! Thankfully, my arm reached and I was able to extricate myself without waylaying some poor sap commuting to work.

When I got my hand out, I swear (right hand to whoever, since the left was smushed) my hand looked like it was from a cartoon. Between the closest knuckle and middle knuckle was flat. Completely flat. Flat and blue. Momentary shock before PT Tiffany kicks into gear and starts assessing the severity of the situation. Motion? Within normal limits and able to actively move them. Compression and distraction? Not painful (besides the obvious pain from the smush.) Cuts? Well, they're small, but I can see a tendon through one. Overall impression? No fractures, no tendon laceration. Just pain. Two Naproxen sodium down the hatch. Normal dose is one. Who cares about normal when your hand is flat and blue?

So, what do I do? I get in the car and start driving to Farmville. I know. Badass. No fracture means I have to go to work. Which means I have to get to Farmville. No points for coming this close to breaking 4 fingers and spending the next 8 weeks convalescing on the farm with a hideously contraptioned left hand. Trust me, that kind of stuff needs surgery.

A week later, my index and middle fingers are still lumpy and very painful when I poke them. So I don't poke them. Much. Doesn't inhibit work at all. Ring and pinky fingers? Well, the most useless fingers on my left hand are just fine. Not even sore anymore.

Lesson learned? No more storing the bike on the back if I'm going to have to get into the hatch. There's a one-time lesson.

You people had better hope I figure out the picture thing soon. I think I lost Amy at the first "smush" and she probably threw up a little in her mouth.

Okay, I'm asking... no, I'm pleading for help. I changed my template. Nothing. I rebooted. Nothing. I cleared my history. Nothing.

Why does Blogger hate me? Give me some advice people! I need to post pics!

It IS Skippy fu#*ing with me.

I've tried. And I've tried and tried and tried... Blogger is broken. No pics again today. I'm ashamed Amy, I'm ashamed.

Not that Farmville has the breathtaking, sweeping views that I found in Oregon, but it's not bad. And there's a water tower.

I'll keep working on it. Or rather, Blogger should.

Quick... someone else post a picture to see if it's just me, or if Blogger has gone completely berserk.

WTF IS UP WITH BLOGGER NOT LOADING MY PICTURES?!?!?!?!

Blogger isn't letting me load pictures. Stay tuned. Maybe tomorrow will be a lucky day.

I don't get it. I don't get it at all. There is a cease-fire coming. There is a date and a time. Both sides have agreed... or so they say. Yet in the hours leading up to the truce, both sides are still attempting to kill as many of the others as they can before having to lay down their arms. I don't understand why, when a truce is made, it isn't immediate. Why does a day and time have to be set? Why can't it just be a truce, starting now. You don't get another chance to kill more people. There can't be any more bombing. No shooting, no raping, no pillaging or plundering. Just stop. You've agreed to a truce. Just stop.

Hello?

Hello?

Is there anyone still out there?

Sorry for my prolonged absence. I've arrived in Farmville. It's kind of like coming to the Twilight Zone.

I got here Wednesday afternoon. Got all the stuff unloaded and into my small but comfortable two bedroom apartment. Pooh ran around like a maniac when all the stuff was in. It was like he was cheering "we live here! we live here! I don't live in a van down by the river!" Very funny. Oz hid for a few hours, but quickly got accustomed to the new digs. And though lots of things are still in bins and boxes (to be sorted out tomorrow, you see) we're all feeling much more settled. My bed is fantastic and I'm sleeping great. There's actually a full size couch, AND a loveseat! I can't believe that I can be in the bathroom and not see the kitchen. Or the living room. Or my front door. We miss the red heart lamp a little. Would have gone great with my red couches. No kidding.

There are an exceptional number of mullets in Farmville. There's a Wal-Mart. The two go hand-in-hand. The Cellular One mobile trailer is parked in the Wal-Mart parking lot. It still has wheels on it... but has the metal skirt around the bottom to tastefully cover the fact that you could pull it out of Farmville on a moment's notice. Carey suggested maybe Farmville is a test market... if things go bad they'll just move the trailer to another town and try again.

My internet service was to be turned on Thursday morning. I got home and tried it out. Nothing. Not a single blip on the internet horizon. I remained technologically isolated from my world.

On Friday I called the apartment office to get some help.

"Good morning! It's a great day here at Poplar Forest!" Ya, not so much. So I ask for some help. Derrick, the guy responsible for the chipper line, tells me that tech-support is not provided by Poplar Forest. "You should just plug the cord in, and it should work. I don't know what to tell you if it doesn't. Maybe you should try resetting your internet settings. The problem is probably your computer." Um, no, there is no problem with Mr. Miagi.

So Friday night, I spent 2.5 hours trying to get connected to the freakin' internet. No luck.

Today, I call the office.

D: "Good morning! We're having a great day at Poplar Forest! How can I make your day better?"

me: You can get my internet connection to work.

D: We don't prove tech support. And we already checked the box. The connection is fine. The problem must be your computer.

me: Someone has to provide tech support for this. I fail to believe I am the first person to ever have trouble here. The problem is not my computer. Ummm, okay, let's say you give me the number of the peoploe who provide the internet service. They should be able to help.

D: Let me give you a number.

Okay, fine. I call the number. It's the internet company that supplies service, but not tech support to this complex. The complex didn't pay for the tech support package. The guy is nice and gives me a few tips, stating that if that doesn't work, the problem has to be in the box, or between the box and the jack, in which case, it's still Derrick's problem.

I do all the things the guy suggested. Still nothing.

D: Good afternoon! We're having a great day at Poplar Forest! How can I help you?

me: You can make my internet work.

D: I told you that we don't provide tech support, you should call that number.

me: That's the wrong answer, Skippy.

D: My name is Derrick.

me: I know... Skippy.

Long story longer, Skippy comes over and checks the box again, at my insistance, with me standing over his shoulder.

D: Hey, look at that. I guess we hooked up the wrong apartment. Let's get that straightened out.

me: Good move, Skippy.

D: My name is Derrick.

me: I know.

I'll post pics and stories tomorrow. Watching Bridgette Jones and comparing our lives now. It's scary.

Pit Stop #3

Hi everyone. Here I am, tucked away safe and sound at the farm in SC. This two day layover will be followed by the trip to Farmville and all the hijinks and hilarity that will surely ensue. Had a great time in St. Louis with Dillbert. There are some freakin' hysterical stories to tell, but alas, they would not be complete without pictures, so will have to wait until I get to Farmville. Just a teaser, you ask? We experienced our own teen horror movie drama, and got to spend part of Saturday in a salvage yard in the projects of St. Louis. Cabrini Green has nothing on Welston. Good times, people, good times. I'll catch up with you down the road!

For those of you who haven't gone to see Amanda lately, you really should. There are some pics and stories from my visit to Grand Dysfunction. The best entertainment, though, is if you scroll down a bit and see the video of me jumping up and down when we win a cake at a basketball game. Just goes to prove, I'll do just about anything to win a bet, especially if it's publically humiliating. What did I win, you ask? Bragging rights. And a cake. And the never ending ability to make my sister snort in public.

PS... Mom did make good on her promise to make me a peach and blueberry cobbler. Had the first bite roughly 10 minutes after walking in the door last night. Proof that I'm the favorite!

Sweet, Sweet A/C

It's amazing that we got anything done today. I wasn't sure they would leave the bedroom. I walked into Amanda's room and found her and Teva jockeying for position in front of the air conditioner. She had it kicked on high, at the lowest temperature setting possible, and growled when I came near it. And I'm talking about Amanda, not Teva. And I thought I was happy to have it in Klamath Falls!

Aaaah, sweet little A/C. You are made of gold.

More pics

Ghost Tower, shot at 65+mph
Driving into the canyons, at 70 mph
Cool rocks in the canyon, at 70mph
Pooh King at Devil's Canyon... not at 70mph
More at Devil's canyon, at the speed of life.

Sunset on the Salt Flats

Not that the salt flats aren't pretty, it's just boring after a while...














But I was getting the feeling that I would be rewarded for driving east during the sunset.















When I checked the rearview, there it was. My universal prize for patience. For about 5 minutes, the sky went from pale pink and blue to this brilliant orange, red, and purpley explosion of color.







The layers of color were amazing, each unique in texture and design.



















A truly exceptional way to end the day and transition to night.