ZOOB

it's been a year now! we were on our way back to the states from china this time last year. and with one more person! it's been cool to see the kids one year later. we're in noblesville for the one-year reunion with our travel group. pretty interesting. some of these kiddos can talk, some definitely cannot. anyhow, here's brynn...one year later. her birthday is on monday...she'll be TWO! she's pretty silly. understands pretty much all of what you say but can't say much yet herself. i don't suppose it helps that i make up random words all the time either. the word of the day today was "ZOOB." and of course i try to get her to pronounce these words. and the poor kid, she always tries.

this is her in her carseat; pic was taken today. er...rather...saturday.

anyone heard of dierks bentley?

apparently he's quite popular with country music fans. he definitely is hot...i'm just not a fan of that music. btw...how many country western singers does it take to change a light bulb?

FIVE. it takes one to actually change and replace it, and four to sing about how much they miss the old one.

my new friends are so cute!

aren't my new bffs so cute? brings new meaning to bart simpson's "eat my shorts!"

no picture yet...

i'm too tired to go in search of my camera with the pics from tonight...it probably ran off with my cell phone. but my cell is actually MIA and has been for a few days now. my mom and my employer person think i lost it on purpose cuz i hated that fone. anyway, i've already ordered a new one but won't get it till wednesday, so i'm told. thankfully, everything's backed up online. (seeing as how i have more than 400 contacts in my fone.)

anyway, i made best friends tonight with a 3-week-old jersey calf. he is soooooooooooo cute. and nibbly. when i got home a good third of my shirt was soaking wet. he licked my arm and sucked on my fingers. it is a good idea for 3-week-old calves to have a salt-lick? i dunno but i'm sure i provided that service tonight. man, i could take him home. i've got pics, but like i said, they're still in my camera. which is who-knows-where.

oh yeah, and i met some country singer named "dierks bentley." i had never heard of him before tonight but got a pic with him anyway cuz my friend went NUTS over him. he's in concert tonight at the good ol' porter county fair. and seeing as how he wanted to go hang out for a few minutes in between some parked trucks in the parking lot of the fair, it was obvious he was trying to keep a low profile. (he was sneaking around with a hat and sunglasses on too.) after a large herd of girls/women saw him, they drew a crowd and started heading over towards us in the parking lot. he saw them, greeted them kindly, said goodbye to us, and made a mad dash back to his "safe area" which was between his tour buses. so i guess i somehow am a lucky person! but he WAS totally hot. i'll say that for him. too bad i don't like country music.

the good ol' county fair

anyway, instead of working at the courts, i'm trying to PROMOTE the courts at our county fair. woo hoo. not woohoo, but WOO hoo. not super fun is what i'm trying to say. i think it's good for us though. but man, i've never seen so many mullets since the eighties! besides that, we've got more rednecks around here than i last remembered. but then again, they do always come out for things like this. all i can say right now is...the poor, poor offspring of people such as these. (and unfortunately, there are a lot.)

it's been awhile

i posted a comment on a friend's blog and found myself signing in to my own. i don't have a ton to write about or even mention. it's my first summer working. i don't teach anymore. and this is the ONLY thing i miss about teaching. stuff is ok but i miss traveling. i miss my freedom in the summer. saturday i had an enjoyable day, tho. i went to play wii at a friend's house, we swam and floated in the pool, had dinner, and then i went out with another friend on his boat to watch the fireworks.

sigh.

i miss the great white north too. anyhow i guess it would be the great brown north. the midwest has had a serious lack of rain. but i usually get to cedar during the summer. couple times. i still had fun on memorial day weekend when i forced myself up north even though i felt crappy. sore throat, etc. but i still had a good time. went sailing and slept a lot. both were muchly needed. i miss my friends up there and the water. miss the boats. miss sailing. and the trees and the lack of people. but again, that was basically my last post.

the pic is of a friend's dog. he lives on a farm. in ohio.

SAW MY FIRST MOOSE!!!

unless it was an elk. i was going southbound at about 85 and these two huge horse-type things were going north about probably about 20. enormous. i had just crossed the bridge (the mackinac bridge) and was on my way home from spending some time with my friends in the U.P. we slept and sailed. it was a good time. but it got chily when the sun wasn't around. i also bought a new game called "snorta." it's quite a fun game. anyone wanna play?

fun times, happy wedding

kim carter got married last night. it was pretty classy. bridesmaids wore black and the bouquets were red roses. kim and sean faced us as an audience rather than have their backs to us. there was a really cool video shown at the beginning of the wedding. anyhow, it was fun and i have fun pics to post. and yeah, i'm wearing a dress. the reception was at sand creek and was quite fun as well. i had a great table of people to sit with and we danced and took lotsa great pics.

and again, SORRY i've been away for so long if anyone even looks at this anymore. i have been so busy at work and stuff!

sheryl crow vs. karl rove

you go, sheryl! i love how she got karl's goat. furthermore, it shows how badly the white house administration is in denial about our environment and global warming. honestly, sheryl has some very interesting ideas that i wouldn't necessarily agree with to help cut down on waste, but she did well to embarrass our unfortunate president's top advisor. she's right--just a little bit too extreme for me.

oooh wheeee!

VT

virginia tech got a raw deal. blacksburg, VA did too. apparently the people cho meant to kill (some rich, whiny, spoiled kids) were not the ones he did away with. unfortunately, he was tossed aside by society and even though there were warnings from his professors to their administrators, and even to the police, nothing was done.

as a former teacher, i feel that i have every right to say that as a society we have failed him. if he acted strangely as a younger child and was bullied, his teachers and other adults in his life are at fault for not intervening. he moved to this country when he was 8 and apparently had a ruff time adjusting. too bad for us--esp. the families directly affected who had family members killed earlier this week--not enuf was done to help him. our country is great at standing by and watching children get bullied. "they'll grow out of being the smallest kid," they'll say, or "someday he'll really fight back."

so although cho is completely guilty and WRONG to do what he did, he is not completely at fault. we can't hold him personally responsible either, because he is dead too. but when all these interviews on t.v. have all these people saying, "of course we'll learn a lot from this..." I DISAGREE. we don't learn from much. our society is ego driven--not many think of others first. if we continue down this path as a bunch of self-absorbed people, we won't learn anything at all.

we are a screwed up society.

oh yeah, COLBERT FOR PRESIDENT!!!

imus

i'll have fun pics someday--from when i was in amish country last weekend. i've just been busy 24/7 since i've been back.

this whole imus thing, however, is something i feel i finally need to speak about. first of all, what he said was pretty low. he must have been thinking it but accidentally said it out loud. shame on him for even thinking that. however, what happened to free speech? if imus has been on the radio for ~30 years as a SHOCK JOCK, why is everyone surprised he actually said something like this? now all dj's are gonna put a cap on everything they may want to say for fear of getting in trouble. i've heard that his firing was a mistake--only because cbs acted too swiftly. you wanna know why? cuz of those dang people named "REVEREND" al sharpton and "REVEREND" jesse jackson freaking out on the poor network. (as for al sharpton--i question ANY person who was ordained at age TEN. what the heck is that?????) and jesse jackson is just a punk. he's a MLK wannabe. but far from the real thing. what the heck is "rainbow push," anyway? at first glance it sounds like a gay/lesbian rights group. all we need are these two "men" thinking they're God's gift to our current society and trying to tell people that certain others owe them something.

i'm getting tired of AL and JESSE.

and what about the hypocrisy? the double standard? check out some of the hiphop/rap lyrics of today's "artists." you might be surprised at the profanity and degrading of women.

heading to amish country

i'm leaving on friday to go to middlebury, indiana for a thing. unfortunately the weather is supposed to be lousy. so i'm considering getting a nintendo wii so we can at least have SOME fun. i was hoping to play outside and maybe even get a new bike for my birthday to ride around on. however, since the weather is supposed to be crap and i had been contemplating a wii anyway, i might just go with that. i'll let ya know.

extreme, nearly CRIMINAL incompetence

libby got caught. dick cheney now has a huge cloud over his own head. and our dear president who has been seen "praying" in public and speaking outwardly about being a follower of God looks even worse. how can this administration claim to be "faith-based?"

EVERYTHING in this administration's wake helps the public to see clearly that our "leaders" are unable to lead. and most everything is based around LIES. all i have to say is this: if "W" decides to go ahead and pardon libby in about a year-and-a-half, his term in office has been nothing but a joke. that will just seal it. nobody's held accountable. and what's worse: christians get yet another bad rap because of his complete and undeniable hypocrisy. i believe he's doing more harm than he could ever imagine. once you start (START?) thinking you're above the law and have to answer to no one, you're screwed.

big red truck

went to crown point last nite with tony & deb to try to move a stage set for a play my roommate is putting on at our church in august. we had wanted to store the set in the barn at church but apparently it needs a bit of housekeeping first. so we got this guy rick to let us borrow some of his barn in hebron.

we were told 3 pickup-trucks would do the trick. i showed up with mark's truck and deb & tony showed up with theirs. okay. so that's TWO pickup trucks. once we got there at 6pm, we were immediately told to not return till 7:30. once we did, it was laughable. there was no way EIGHT pickup trucks would haul all this stuff.

so thankfully rick is a very cool guy and was willing to drag out his semi and flatbed out on a sunday night to haul all this stuff to his barn. AND we got lucky. he said the stuff can just stay on the flatbed till about may. then hopefully we can store it in the church barn till august.

whew. thanks to deb & tony & rick.

leaving...on a jet plane

i'm back. back in freezinger indiana. (freezinger than san diego, anyway.) according to the weather channel it's freezing raining right now. that must be what's banging against my window. hmm. the bright lights and loud sounds must be thunder and lightning already! they said tomorrow we're supposed to have "strong" thunderstorms. sigh. i love violent weather but i'm still sad about freezing and drippy san diego. and no sailing too. snif. oh well.

left today from the san diego airport around one-ish p.m. it was chilly again today. i'm not sure why but i wanted to sit by the window on the plane. glad i did. took some mighty cool pics...the only way they'd be better is if there were less/no clouds. there's point loma, the north part of the island (with the naval base), and facing east off the coast of coronado island. you can even see where we stayed. see? i'm pointing to it. see? see?

okay. back to work tomorrow. back to the old grind. my mom and pop are leaving for africa on friday. wow. bizzy bizzy bizzy.

last day

weather is awful. it's been ridiculous. i couldn't even go sailing today on my AMERICA'S CUP boat due to excessive wind. something crazy like 24 knots. the coast guard was going nuts and didn't want anyone to go out. BUMMER. as i got to the dock--mind you it was cold and rainy anyway and i was soaked by the time i got there--this guy chad told me about the wind issues and told me to call his cell around one to see what may be going on later today. nothing happened. the wind was too insane. they did take out the "abracadabra" which is the america's cup boat painted by WYLAND. dolphins all over the sides of it. but it was for the OLN channel/network because they were doing a documentary for the upcoming america's cup. i sadly SADLY watched it go. i was supposed to go out on the "stars & stripes" but i wached this dude chad put on this MASSIVE sail cover and walked back to seaport village where i had parked my car. he had told me to come down and hang out on the dock for as long as i wanted though, so that was cool.

i moved up my appt. at the salon (called "roses") and went and got a new foil. here are two pics. like it? after that i showed my mom around the del and we hung out a bit. but there was no awesome sailing for me today. very sad. i might get over it. maybe with lots of therapy.

we're coming home tomorrow. it's been freezing here and rainy. QUITE windy as well. too windy. what luck.

sunny & a little warmer

hung out poolside today. worked on my book. did a little shopping. going sailing tomorrow.

glorietta bay inn

like i said, i'm staying at the glorietta bay inn--which as you can see above--is right across the street from hotel del coronado. i went to the beach today. brought a little picnic lunch. a hummus bagel sandwich with tomato, cucmber, lettuce, and onion. i almost had to wrestle down two seagulls in order to eat it. dumb birds. anyway, the wind was quite strong so i didn't spend too much more time there. the weather here is the biggest bummer ever. at least the wind might help for sailing on tuesday.

i wanna meerkat

after a while of being on the fone with some guy in st. louis and a guy here at this hotel, i'm finally online. these rooms don't have wireless and the ethernet connection was screwed up. the guy here in ca had to go to the basement of the hotel to fix it. i don't care how he did it but he did. crazy all the stuff i had to go through this afternoon. the fone stopped working too. (i called the 24/7 tech support guy in st. louis on my cell fone while i waited for the dude here to reset stuff and get new cables. what the heck?) anyway, we're at the Glorietta Bay Inn. it's on coronado island right across from hotel del. tell ya more about that later.

me and mom went to the san diego zoo yesterday. we had lunch at albert's--which we had trouble finding. but it was worth it. i had baked chicken with rosemary and lemon with mashed potatoes and grilled veggies. mom had a crabcake thing with fries. (we switched veggies & fries.)

the polar bear was my favorite because he was so cute. (or she?) anyway, all it did was eat carrots and sweet potatoes. it liked its audience too. you could tell.

we saw the elephants and giraffes have lunch too. the meerkats were my second favorite. i want one. hope you liked the pics!

ford stinks

literally. i'm not sure what they masked the odor with for four days but yesterday our little ford fusion was FOUL. smelled like something crawled up in there and died. i bought some febreeze this morning and sprayed down the car completely but that didn't help much. so after i dropped my mom off at the conference, i showered, packed the car, and checked out. i headed west on el cajon blvd. where i knew i saw an enterprise earlier. the lady directed me all the way back to the airport locaiton where i ran into a dude named judd who apologized and switched me into a jeep liberty. yeah, a little upgrade at no extra charge. better not be an extra charge! they're handing out funky fords! P.U. anyway, i'm waiting for my mom to call to let me know she needs to be picked up. she prolly won't know it's me in a different car. she'll figure it out. anyway, since there's still a chance of showers today, we're shopping at fashion valley mall. (where there's a nordstrom, saks, etc.) no jcpenney or sears. ew. tomorrow we're planning on heading for the zoo.

something else...out here they have to give FOUR seperate forecasts for the san diego area! there's a coastal forecast, inland, mountain, and desert. after watching the mountain forecast i feel like i'm back at home. rats. anyway, it's supposed to be mid-60's and sunny for the next ~3 days. later!

got rained out

went to old town today but only stayed till about lunch. started sprinkling just enuf that you don't wanna be out in it. here are a few pics. oh yeah-and 2 years ago when i was here with 3 of my friends, we went to the old town surf shop. i went again today. got reefs. later.

brrrr in san diego which is NOT sunny

i'm in san diego with my mom who has two conferences to go to. anyway, she's at one right now and i don't need to pick her up till about 5pm tonite for dinner. anyway, when we got here it was POURING like i haven't seen in a long time. san diego had a major cold front come thru on monday. well guess what. it's cloudy out right now and they're slated to have a DILLY come in later today. even with thunderstorms. they're talking on the news about the flood control problems and how they're likely to get several FEET of snow in the mountains. ANOTHER cold front. can i just say that after leaving valpo which was at about 5 degrees upon departure that we're in not-so-sunny san diego at 55 degrees? it TOTALLY sucks. i just got off mapquest cuz i was trying to get directions to old town from here. i'm a bit northeast of old town. i guess i'll go hang out there till the weather gets really crappy. i guess i'll go back to the hotel then. everything i wanna do is outside!!! i gotta say, i brought 2 hoodies and a fleece jacket cuz i knew it was supposed to be cold. but good grief! i've gotten both of my hoodies dirty AND my fleece! one of my hoodies got soaked in the first rainstorm and once it couldn't take in any more water, (and i was more than wet) i took it off and tied to my suitcase during the whole "looking for a rental car" thing. now i'm looking for a new and clean hoodie. (what's new?)

anyway, just thought i'd say hello from not sunny san diego.

brrrrr!

wagon wheel ranch

finally have the internet. we're on the north side of san diego sort of. very close to san diego state university. anyway, i got to hold puppies! too bad they're still too little to play. just under 2 weeks old. this place we stayed at--my mom's friend of 40+ years (who also sorta got me my first teaching job in chicago) is called "wagon wheel ranch." it is in perris, california. it was a lookout in the spanish-american war and was used as a telegraph office after that. it has a tower and everything!

bleah

sicker than a sick pup. fever is around 102 when i don't remember to take my advil in regular increments. or if i finally fall asleep and can rest--but again--don't take the advil. my THROAT is KILLING me. my ears are not my friends either. i have whatever this is because i was being a punk. my boss' kid was playing on my computer one day and left her nestle crunch bar sitting next to my keyboard. i knew she had been out of school sick and she had even lost her voice--for nearly a week. but i wasn't thinking of that when i tried to be a smart aleck took a bite of it. (and made fun of her for not being more protective of her chocolate. usually she's insanely protective of the cocoa bean and food that it provides...)

anyway, i think i'll survive. my dad picked up some theraflu yesterday and fox brought me some orange joos today. tris came by tonight with some of those cepacol throat lozenges. anyway, i have got to get better before monday. (when me and mom head out to san diego for her conferences. problem is that for the first two days we're staying with some of our old friends from our chicago days who are a bit elderly. they CANNOT get sick with this.) not only that, but i'm missing the high school retreat that i'm supposed to be on RIGHT NOW. my kids are seniors this year and it's their last retreat! ugh. but with my head throbbing as it has been, i would be of no use there. prolly couldn't even sleep cuz of all the noise, too. i guess it's better i stayed home. but it was not NOT the plan. ish. today i'm feeling well enuf to watch a little t.v. and check my email. (my laptop had a full charge so it's here in bed with me.) my floor is a littered mess of dirty kleenexes and empty water and gatorade bottles.

my old teachers!!!

tonite at the courts we had a dodgeball tournament to benefit PATH. it was a fun charity dodgeball thing and the whole town came out. it was GREAT. tons of people--including my 3rd grade math teacher mrs. wolf! she was the coolest. and my 7th grade p.e. teacher was there too. (her identical twin sister is the PATH director.) here are pics of me and my old teachers. it was SOOOOOOO good to see them! oh yeah...and in a blog yet to come...i will be in southern california in about ONE WEEK from right now. WITH TWENTY 2-week-old puppies! long story, check upcoming posts for more. puppies are my favorite.

astronut

yeah, i spelled it like that on purpose. astronauts are just people. so are senators. and presidents. and nuclear physicists. JUST people. and they're all gonna screw up too. there is no longer a higher standard for astronauts. or senators. or nuclear physicists. or ESPECIALLY presidents.

our country is SUNK

boston thought we were all gonna die because a space invader was flipping us all off. on a lite brite. from the cartoon network. are you serious? we can't tell the difference between a space invader and a terrorist? we're all SCREWED. maybe our law enforcement should watch a little more t.v. and lighten up a bit.