A Spectrum

Great little video combining Lost and Firefly. They even throw in music from Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean. I wish I was that creative.

My boss is on vacation all this week, but forgot to tell me. Plus, someone just put in a big order for maps and I don't know how to charge them. Lovely...

This afternoon I am watching TV, I switch channels, the TV becomes silent and I hear.. music. It almost sounds like a cell phone ringing in another room except it's not anything that plays on our cell phones. It sounds circusy. Oh, wait, maybe it's outside, who would be playing that in their vehicle? I go to the window. I look outside. "Oh, my gosh!!! TOM!!!!!!! There's an ice cream truck outside on our street!!"

Ha, I live in a town with an ice cream truck. I could have cried, well, not really, but I was super excited. However, said spouse, shot down my giddiness by insisting we didn't need ice cream. Man...it was probably just as well. The driver would have probably thought I was insane, not to mention the neighbors. Way to save the rep honey. Ha, like that matters once they've met me anyway.

Geesh, you make two maps for the State's Attorney and you find out you will probably get subpoenaed for a trial. Like they need my "expert opinion." Ahhhh....

Another fun job task I got to do recently was order business cards. I am not really sure what I am going to do with 500 of them, but I got to pick out fun paper and ink colors. (wink, wink). Ok, maybe that's not all that exciting but it did allow me to walk outside on a gorgeous day. Yipee. On the embarrassing side, I almost took a head dive into the concrete this morning as I was getting out of my car. That was fun. Thankfully, no one was around to witness that. Stupid cuffed pants. This is seriously like the 3rd time I have tripped/fallen in these pants. One rather memorable fall occur ed outside Trisha's apartment in the parking lot. My heel got caught in the cuff and down I went, all my limbs flailing about. Ya, Trisha and Tom got to watch that lovely action. Lucky them.

Today at a meeting someone actually introduced themselves to me this way, well using their name. I really, really wanted to say "Uh, (insert said person's actual name here), was it? or is it Eric Stratton?" But I wimped out and didn't say it. It is after all only my 2nd week at my new job. He turned out to be a hoot and I think it wouldn't have mattered if I said it. (He did go to SIU after all, crazy Salukis). Plus, he took me and my boss out for lunch afterwards. But it was me and 3 guys and the conversation consisted of guns, shooting birds, shooting trap, and an occaisonal comment about our earlier meeting. Suprisingly, I was rather quiet at lunch.

Let's see, so far at work I have accidentally called other people in my office twice while trying to access my voicemail. One was the sheriff, oops. Darn, I can't think of anything else truely embarrassing I have done yet. My first week was really boring because I didn't have anything to do. Now I have some things to do, but I know there will be a lot more to do once I have been trained on some programs. I have some training next week but I don't know when the rest will be. I did help someone figure out a GIS problem. My first suggestion fixed his issues. Yeah, I helped. I also found out that I can wear jeans on Fridays. I love jeans. Happiness.

Ahh, there's nothing like a fresh boquet of stray shopping carts.

Well, here it is! As you tell, it is country-fied, at least that's what I am calling it. Yet, the layout fit our needs and the decor is actually fine because we really didn't have to do anything in terms of painting, hanging up curtains, etc. It even came with Christmas light, ok, we have to take those down. (Christmas lights in April..Ugh..Insert inside joke with Trisha here).


Here's our backyard to the alley. Our resident squirrel resides in the tree giving off shade in the picture.


In through the front door is our living room, complete with new couch. No more glacier effect couch for us. Plus then we didn't have to move either couch.


The living room from the opposite angle. (More blurry pictures and I can't blame it on Tom this time. We'll have to have our camera looked at).


A bedroom that I have turned into my music room.


Another view. As you can see we have yet to hang things on the wall. All in good time.


An empty room right now. It has a dopey border with toys around the wall. That room will be one of the first to get redone. I cut off the floor from the picture because there are empty boxes all over.


The Kitchen. You head into the living room by going out the right side of the picture past the frig which you can't see. It's really messy at the moment. With the whole sewer issue, I didn't do dishes for a while. My favorite features are below.


Isn't this an awesome light fixture?


The pantry is covered by a screen door which squeaks. Plus the whole floor is hardwood.


Our bedroom was built onto the back of the house. It is rather odd, but works.


Here's the finished room in the basement which will house our computer and right now has all of our unpacked boxes. Yes, those are still all full and you can only really see half of them.


This is the built in workbench in the unfinished part complete with grinder. I didn't get the rest because it's not very exciting at the moment. But hopefully we'll be able to set up our ping pong table as soon as there's enough room.

And, yes, we do have a bathroom but I didn't think you would want to see a picture of it, but it does have a claw foot tub, which is neat, but small to take a shower in. So I think the first thing we are going to do is finish the bathroom in the basement that some previous owner started. They even left the tub they were going to use. The garage is only one car, but there are lots of neat built in shelves, hangers, etc. Plus, there's an air compressor. The whole house has all sorts of crazy built in storage.

How cute is she?

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OK, I only picked out the weird ones. Try not to think less of me. And I love my friends and hope you think this funny and not embarassing.

To B and L from A:

Hi Buds! Happy Birthday to me. Today is my Birthday and I'm 15 yrs old! OH, I guess you already knew that. Duh to me...Guess what! I saw P in the Mall on Saturday about 4:45. (Right before me and K went to se Mr. Hollands Opus). He asked me why I wasn't with you guys. At first I thought that you all went and did something without me. Then I remembered that you were at the contest. Stupid P! Hello!.....I am scared of tornadoes...

To P from L: P, My mom saw this arm wrestling contest at the Town Tavern and asked me if I wanted to enter since I beat 3 guys. Want to come + watch?

To L from B and V: 10 Things V & B like about L 1. Very, very loyal 2. Beatles and Star Wars bud 3. Cuddly + loveable 4. Good Hugs 5. cool buffalo! 6. Manages to juggle a million things at once 7. Doesn't make fun of us for our bad singing, even though she has a fab voice 8. Great Smile 9. Movie Lover! 10. Knows the Lord (we saved the best for last!) Love, n hugs, B + V

To B and L from V: Dear B + L, (but not T) I miss you so much! My life in Spanish Will never be the same again. I am counting the seconds between our next meeting at lunch with vehemence (Not only 'cuz' I miss you but because I want food)...

To L from V: L, Wow 5 min. of silence God has heard my prayer. Everyone has been so loud in typing to day we are being punished...Some of the people in here are so annoying! B knows who. Yuck theres a combo of gum + corrections tape in my locker. eww...Bye Bye Fry Guy, V

Random scrap of paper: L- A person who doesn't wear shoes on his feet does not get corns + a person who wears shoes does not have dirty feet so all you people wear one shoe (Like this quote, V?) V- As long as there's not snow on the ground! L- That's true! Tell Ashley to ask God to do it for her. V- Okay, Ashley ask God to do it for her.

To B from L: Hey B, You are to weird you were cracking up in Biology. Right now you are flirting with JF. I sure hope not. Say it's not so! Good! P's mad. Oh well. He thinks I'm going to do something really bad to get revenge on him. We'll have to think of something good. Pretty boring over here. Test was pretty easy. Brandon looked some of them up for us. Everybody over here is nice. Erin gave me 2 gobstoppers + Becca gave me a piece of gum. Then Brandon gives me answers...Bye, L

To L from B and A: Dear L, B- We're at the Super Siter thing. It's lunch time. A-I never wrote a letter to you on a satruday before....B- Miss Holmes intitials are MH same as Mental Hospital. Coincidence I think not....

Tom, if it is possible, takes worse pictures than me. They are all blurry. Anyway, here are all my high school friends and their kiddies at Carolyn's 2nd birthday celebration. Back row: Me (with no kiddie), Brandy and Bethany, Becca and Jaydon.
Front Row: Angie and Trevor, Becca's two big kids, Micah and Chloe, and then Val and Carolyn, the birthday girl. Hopefully, one of my friends got a better picture than we did and will share although Tom took Brandy's pictures too. Sorry Brandy. Anyway, we had a blast. Even though, Tom fell asleep at one point, we still had a blast. Family updates, baby talk, reminiscing about high school, yellow legs, Steph's hair, Pierre the dummy, etc.

Anyway, we left around 11:15, took Becca and Jaydon home, grabbed a couple of things at my parents and headed home. Tom was driving. He was tired but we stopped at a rest stop on 74 so I could drive. Less than two minutes after I started driving, I get pulled over. Only, the 2nd time ever and on the same road too. Last time they "said" I was going 81 in a 65, but I know I wasn't going over 71. I didn't know at that time you could ask to see the radar gun, anyway, I just got a warning. This time, I knew I wasn't going too fast, at the most 70. They clocked me going 68, seriously, 68???? The cop was definately new, because he was more nervous than I was. I wasn't really that nervous because I knew I hadn't done anything. I usually get more nervous when I just pass a cop than I was last night. I was suprised at how relaxed I was. Apparently, they had been following us for a while, they said we were swerving a little and that it was "suspicious" that we only stopped for a short time at the rest stop. If Tom was swerving, it wasn't very much because I know we didn't hit the rumble strip. Anyway, Tom says I saved him from a ticket since they pulled me over instead of him. ;) Whatever, so a one hour drive took over two and we didn't get home until like 1:20 a.m. and then Tom had to get up 3.5 hours later and go to work. Poor husband.

The crazy ice storm this weekend knocked out our power for about 10 hours and our cable (TV and Internet) for 3 days. It stunk not have TV and internet over the weekend. I felt lost and blind and I missed the Oscars, but I heard they were boring so no loss really. Just outside on our road heading out of town there are about two dozen poles down. The road is closed. I will see if I can get a picture tomorrow. Grr. But on the bright side I am no longer unemployed. I have a temporary job back at NIU but that doesn't start until the middle of March. Right about the time we will probably be moving, good timing huh.

I really didn't think I was actually going to write this post, but then I discovered two brand new episodes today. I was quite excited, but I am unemployed and have nothing else to be excited about. A hilarious show, quite crude sometimes, but full of lovable, idiotic characters. It started in 1994 and the two episodes I just found were aired this past Christmas. However, there aren't 13 seasons of episodes out there. There are relatively few actually. I don't understand British television. Anyway, the show focuses on a female Vicar, Geraldine Granger, and her parishioners in a small country village. A great mix of religion, goofiness, and crudeness (maybe it's a British thing). The show's signature is the joke at the end of each episode (see example below, ok it took me hours to get that to come up, argh). This one is fairly tame, but mostly it is how the character of Alice reacts to the joke.

In addition, there is a new show slated for the fall season on Fox that is based on The Vicar of Dibley. It will be called The Minister of Divine and will star Kristie Alley, but I don't see how they can even come close to the original.

Isn't rather odd that both Lost and Grey's Anatomy have a Dr. Shepherd and a Dr. Burke? Lost has Jack Shepherd and Juliet Burke, while Grey's has Derek Shepherd and Preston Burke. Spoiler Alert: By the way, they totally can not kill off Meredith. The show is named after her. Although, I did enjoy Denny's and Dylan, the bomb guy's, reappearances.

I have found a new love. And soon my love will be over, well, not really over. But there is only one more disk of unseen episodes that Blockbuster can send me, and then no more.

Firefly is...well..odd, but wonderfully odd. It is a space western, which I think is what doomed it to only one season. I don't even recall seeing advertising for it, but it was apparently on when I was planning my wedding so... Anyway, what is great about it is the writing. I am a huge fan of excellent writing. Plus, the characters, I love interesting characters. So the backgroud is secondary, a show could be about baggage handlers in the year 2100, but if it has good writing, I would probably like it. (Unfortuately, they tried this, seriously, Matthew Perry was signed to this show, LAX 2100, and was almost prevented from doing Friends because of it).

The other intersting thing about this show is that the fans it did happen gather when it was on were so adament about the show, the creator made a feature film, Serenity (2005). I watched this before I watched the series. The movie is good but the series is better. And even now, almost four years after the series was on, there are still fans trying to get the show back or have another film made. Another cool thing, is that they show the series now on the SciFi channel and Firefly has now become the highest rated show ever on SciFi.

Anyway, if you haven't seen it, I recommend it. I beleive my next post will be I love The Vicar of Dibley. ;)

If I get a house,... No, no.... When I get a house, the first thing I am going to buy, furniture-wise, is a new couch. Right now, if you sit in the middle of our couch and someone else sits on either end, you are about two feet lower than them. I swear. It's ridiculous. And if you try to sit on one of the ends, it's impossible to stay there. You automatically get pulled to the vortex of terror which is the middle. My brother would call it "the Glacier Effect" as he once had a mattress with the same peculiar properties. Alas, no house, no couch, no comfort... yet.