Mr. Nice Comes to McCain/Palin Territory

Since the 13 hour conference room sessions last week did not get our presentation wrapped up, Mr. Nice traveled to Texas today.

Thankfully, when I got home from Mexico last Friday night, there was a package waiting for me. Well, two, actually. One package of wine from ABBA (yay! thanks!) and one package that I was unsure of. It was a tube, and without checking the return address,

I just ripped into it. I was thrilled, excited, and floored to find a Sarah! sign that had traveled all the way from Kentucky! About 2 weeks ago, Paula had emailed me a picture of the sign in her neighbor's yard. I begged her to steal it from me, and by God, she did. Well, she didn't really, I don't think, but she found me one :)

So... with Mr. Nice coming to visit, it seemed the perfect opportunity to put the sign on display. I originally contemplated hanging it up in his office, but I knew he would just destroy it. That would make me sad. I was sitting at my desk this morning, contemplating. That's when I looked up and realized that I could hang it on the inside of my door. The window on my door is directly across from his office. So, he'd have to look at it. I was even more conservative with my sign... once I hung it up, I pulled my door shut and locked it. When people wanted to come in and see me, I'd unlock the door, let them in, then shut and lock it again. It was quite fun.

Then, I get this IM from Mr. Nice: you need to unlock your door. I won't touch your stupid sign, but you're causing a commotion and our account manager is going to be mad.

haha, right, whatev. But I took it down. Point made.

Productivity

Yippee... the husband got an earlier flight home, so he'll be arriving at 5:45 instead of 8:45pm. This, of course, totally kicked me into over-drive on making accomplishments happen. Lots of stuff that I've been putting off for weeks, but not necessarily the stuff I listed in my Short Term Goals ;)

This is what I have accomplished today:

• Watched "My Super Ex-Girlfriend" which was awful
• Cleaned the shower (last night at 1am)
• Cleaned the bathroom & toilets
• Shredded a whole bunch of paperwork that had been piling up (never filed the study, but the paperwork piles are at least oderly)
• Dusted... bedroom, stairs, living room, study
• Watered plants
• Cleaned/straightened the hubby's closet (nope, never got to mine...)
• Loaded dishwasher, ran wash, put away dishes
• Made shopping list
• Stripped bed, cleaned sheets, re-made bed
• Unpacked my suitcase
• Wiped off kitchen counters and coffee table
• Straightened pillows on couch in living room
• Finished questions for Stats exam and shipped them off for review
• Finalized question 1 of Strategy exam, started question 3... total of 5 to do
• Taken "before" photo for HCBC competition and am planning on putting myself together enough to take an "after" one :)
• Updated Facebook status 4 times
• Posted blog
• Turned on my willpower enough to NOT play Guitar Hero

Not that you guys necessarily care about all of this mindless crap, but just to show that I've been productive today! Imagine if I'd had this amount of motivation every day while he was gone. I would just be chilling here, watching football, rather than working on Strategy exam :(

Comments Card Additions

When I checked out this morning, the desk clerk gave me another Comments card. They must really want me to tell them what I think of them. She actually expected me to fill it out in front of her. I had way too much to write and there was no way that was going to happen. Luckily I was able to point out to her that I could mail it in. I had done my research ;)

Last night… after the terrible leak in the ceiling… I went to bed rather early (10:30), since my internet had shut off at 9:45. I had already called the husband, called Jenn, read blogs, written blog, so I didn’t see a need to pay $15 for another day of service. I had dreams all night about making coffee. I’m not really sure why, other than every time yesterday that Mr. Nice asked me to do something (such as get coffee), I replied with, “are you asking me because I’m a girl?” since I was the only girl in our conference room. It was just fun.

Anyway, at 3am I woke up and all the lights were on in the room. I was (obviously) disoriented there for a moment and thinking back to if I’d fallen asleep while studying. I remembered that the lights had definitely been off. I checked the locks on the door, and I was still locked up tight. I know that the hotels here have motion sensing lights, so it makes me wonder what happened last night! Did I make some giant movement that caused there to be light, or did they just come on? Not fun….

Day 4 From Mexico - the Expected and the Unexpected

I forgot to elaborate on one point from yesterday. When you demagnetize your room key here at the Camino Real, you do not need to show any form of ID to get it reprogrammed. I'm not sure if this is in the plus or minus column.

Today was another day of 12 hour conference room shut-in time. However, we did escape for lunch and hit the market. I opted for the chicken today instead of the arrachera because I had veal last night and needed something lighter. Not that you care ;) However, this is slightly indicative of the stomach issues that greeted me this morning. Day 4 in Mexico typically is when this is introduc

ed. I'm pretty sure now that it is not actually related to any specific food that I'm eating, just that after 4 days my stomach is done. That is my in-depth analysis. 

I also boycotted the 12 hour conference room time by calling it quits at about 5pm and studying my article for school on Attention Deficit Trait. The link there isn't the actual article I was assigned, but it is an interview with the same person who wrote it. A fascinating read, imo. Mr. Nice came into our conference room to review the presentation at about this time and was rather upset that I wasn't going through the presentation with the rest of the group. I told him that I had been in the conference room with the presentation all day and was done :) I even started spouting facts about he was contributing to my ADT.

The unexpected tonight was that when I was sitting at the desk in my room I noticed what sounded like dripping. I got up to inspect and realized that there was water dripping from the ironing board onto the floor. I then noticed the water dripping from the ceiling onto the ironing board. (Yes, I was too lazy this morning to put up the ironing board) I put a cup out to catch the water and was more or less

happy to let it be, but then I started envisioning the ceiling crashing in due to an overflowing bathroom above me. So, I called maintenance. I coughed to cover up the sound of me taking a picture of him, but it flashed which might have been a giveaway. I missed the shot of the giant bucket that he took up the ladder with him. I have no idea what he was doing with it up there, but after about 10 minutes he declared it fixed. I guess the bathroom upstairs isn't flooding after all. You can see how much water was already collected in the cup. That was in maybe like 15 minutes!

K, I'm off to update my Comments card!

Day 3ish from Mexico

Let me start off by saying that I'm debating on if this post is worth the $15 I'm paying for internet access today. Other than laughing at some of the "tim" comments on the Palin blog, I think this is the only internet activity I'm going to get in tonight before grabbing my reading material for school and then falling asleep. So.... love tank filling is most welcome! Give me my $15 bucks worth. Surely that's still good for 4-5 gallons ;)

So... Day 3... to define it by food, it would be: South Beach breakfast bar, Pizza Hut, Italian. To define it by work it would be: 13 hours locked in a conference room with a projector running and blowing hot air right in my face. For the Striker & the Hot Chicks listeners, there was no Guitar Hero played today :(

There is not a lot of interesting things to discuss when my day is defined by non-Mexican food and being locked in a conference room. Highlight of the day? My hotel room key got de-magnetized. Oh, wait, that always happens to me.

So... I will have to mention that one of the people that was locked in the conference room with me was Mr. Nice. Mr. Nice and I do not have the same political views. Actually, we argue about most things non-work-related, much like a brother and sister. Sports, colleges, politics, these are all mostly off-limits topics if/when we want to remain civil. Unfortunately, we generally don't want to remain civil. And thus, it's been a week of bickering about A&M vs. ASU vs. Michigan, the Raiders vs. the Chiefs vs. the Cowboys vs. every Detroit sports team (we have a Detroit fan who is quite the instigator, too). It's been entertaining to say the least. 

All morning in the conference room, Mr. Nice would say, "Are you working on my presentation?" to us minions when he feared we were working on something else. But this afternoon became all about politics. I probably have to take some of the blame for it because I think the conversation didn't fully start until he asked me what I did last night. And I told him that I wasn't going to tell him - he gives me so much crap already for my Guitar Hero addiction. He got to guessing blogging, and I told him it was somewhat related. So then he guessed podcasting, and the look of shock on my face at how he'd more or less guessed gave me away. So I had to tell him about Striker & the Hot Chicks and how I spend my Tuesday nights talking politics. So... we would all be looking at the presentation on the projector, and he'd go off on a rant about McCain/Palin. And believe it or not, I am not one to talk politics. I actually only really talk politics among people that share my viewpoint. And it's not because I don't want to be around people who are trying to teach me facts about the other side or benefits or whatever. It's honestly because I believe that politics are pretty much entirely about people's personal opinions and priorities and to "argue" politics is just pointless (more or less) and just gets people too riled up for their own good. So, every time we started getting too deep, I would say, "are you working on your presentation?" and redivert the focus. 

Siiiiiiigh... sometimes it's rough being the only girl in Mexico.

More Updates from Mexico

Where last we left off, I was bummed that the gym at the hotel is only open from 7am-11pm. The craziest part is that I actually want to work out significantly more between 11pm and 7am. I was really counting on kick-starting my workout/eat healthy goal while down here. I even brought South Beach bars for breakfast and am religious about getting the morning workouts in, except the nights where I am out dancing until the wee hours of the morning. So... sigh. There was no workout today. It was a 12 hour work-day. Well... 11.5, as the last half hour I completely tuned out and disengaged from our discussions. It was quitting time (7pm). Had pasta for dinner, then had to get back to the room for the Striker & the Hot Chicks show.

This brings me to my newfound love of Skype. I totally admit that last trip to Mexico, I was all about GTalk for all of my communication needs. And it worked great. But, this time the husband is in North Carolina without consistent internet access. And... I don't think the Striker show accepts GTalk call-ins (yet). So... I conquered my fears and jumped into the Skype world. It's great. I have talked to the husband for like 30 minutes, my mom for 10 minutes (puppy update), Jenn's work voicemail for 4 minutes, Jenn when she was still at work way into the night for like 6 minutes, and to Striker for like 150 minutes. All of this has cost only 59 cents. Yep, that's right. To put things in perspective, to call from my room is $5/minute, to call from Sprint is $1.49/minute and to use an international calling card is some ridiculous algorithm that deals with calls from Mexico being charged as 7 minutes for every 1 minute. So, I ♥ Skype.

My final thought from Mexico (and you'll hear more if you tuned into tonight's broadcast) is in regards to coffee at the Camino Real hotel. I admit that I was VERY excited last night when I realized there was a coffee maker in the room. This is not something that the Hilton has, that I've noticed. So... I decided to break open the seal on the $4 bottle of water, thinking I would quench my thirst last night and then use it to make coffee in the AM. It was then that I saw the sign on the coffee that alerted you to the fact that the coffee is 48 pesos ($4.50-$5ish). Uh... wtf? It is not special coffee. It is not a venti non-fat latte from Starbucks, delivered to your room. It is hotel room coffee maker coffee. Argh...

Hola! Como Estas?

Well, Google is back to speaking Espanol to me. Not a lot to report on today. The big catastrophe of this trip is that the Hilton is booked, so I'm having to stay across the street at Camino Real. There are a lot of problems with this. So many, in fact, that normally if the Hilton is booked, I do not come to Mexico.

• Loss of Hilton points
• The Hilton is in the same parking lot as the office, hence a very short walk. This is especially important when it is raining, which it happens to be doing this week.
• The Camino Real is across a crazy street. I don't even know if I can possibly articulate how crazy of a street it is. I believe it is between 6-8 lanes. You would think this would mean that 3-4 lanes are grouped together and travel in one direction. This is not the case. 2 lanes go one way, 2 another, 2 go back the other way, 2 go the other. Did you follow that? Crossing this street is not fun.
• I have no idea if this hotel provides free bottled water like the Hilton does :(
• I know the Hilton. I do not have to wonder what time the gym opens or where the ATM is. sigh.....

But, I did get a good picture or two. This first picture is of 3 giant beer bottles. These are statues (?) outside the airport. They are probably 20 feet tall.

This second photo is of my toilet paper. I do not understand the

 need to put a sticker on the roll. I mean, it just seems like it's going  to get in the way... 

Also... REMINDER that Striker On The News is on tomorrow night! 10pm Central/8pm Pacific. Be there, or be square!

Busy Queen B

The husband has been gone for almost 2 weeks now, and I have made like no progress on the grandiose plans I had established for everything to get done while he was gone.

• Get back on track with the "healthy lifestyle" - eat good, workout! nope... I have been exhausted and unmotivated and am now looking for him coming home to be the catalyst
• Organize/file all the paper that I've been stacking up for 1.5 years in the home office... have not touched anything in that room
• Clean out my closet: get rid of the 2 boxes that have been hanging out in there since we moved in 3 years ago! Also need to buy some form of chest to go at the foot of our bed to put all the extra pillows/shams in when they're not on the bed... have not touched anything in that room
• Put pictures in the picture frames that I bought 9 months ago; maybe even hang the frames on the walls :) have not even dug into the storage closet to get out the frames
• Cook myself dinner... I think this will be the first time ever that I attempt to cook any form of meat in a contraption other than the microwave. Wait... can you cook chicken in the microwave? Hmmmm... something to research!  well, I didn't cook chicken, but I threw together some ingredients
• Complete my Strategy and Stats exams; each worth over 75% of my total grade in the respective classes this semester! no comment

I will say that my exams are taking up a lot more time than I expected. Plus, I was entirely unproductive the weekend that I was dogsitting. Between the dogs and watching the hurricane coverage, I did nothing. And then I had my evacuee, which was a great distraction from doing anything. I would much rather hang out with her than clean any room ever! My class was cancelled for this weekend, but I am still leaving this afternoon to go to the A&M game tomorrow. I'm hoping to get some productivity in on Sunday...

The other hurdle is that I had actually decided not to go to the A&M game next weekend in order to accomplish some stuff, but now it looks like the class that got cancelled this weekend will be rescheduled to next Saturday. argh

Striker On The News

I am fascinated by radio all of a sudden. When I was driving into work this morning, there was a commercial for a radio broadcast school that just opened in Dallas. I was mulling it over...

Tonight I finally sat down to listen to the replay of Tuesday night's episode of Striker On The News. I highly recommend listening, if you have not felt pressured enough into listening yet ;)

I somehow started listening to the show in kind of the middle and thought to myself, "uh, is that me talking?" It's funny... I know that you don't actually sound the way you think you do, so I was prepared to think I sounded lame. The funny thing was that I could not distinguish my voice from my cousin's! Poor Striker and Polly... I imagine it was difficult for them to tell who was talking!

Two interesting notes on this...

1. This is another thing that I can mark down as to how we're similar
2. When I mentioned this to JennAnn, she totally agreed. She then added that I sound more Cali at times. This makes sense, since my cousin lived in NY for awhile. She would not have been able to have the Cali tone.

After listening to the recap, I have to say that the line of the show was...

Queen B: we should probably be on a slight delay

Striker, Polly, Natasha (in unison): yes

QB Wine Club

Today marks the end of an era in our household. For almost a year now, we have been members of the BV wine club. I loooooove BV wine, and we visited the winery on our trip to Napa last fall. Being a wine club member gets you 20% off their wine and merchandise and also 2 bottles of wine per month. In February, I called to cancel it because it was kind of ridiculous to be spending $55/month for 2 bottles of wine when the hubby was not working. It was one of those expenses that had to go. But... the nice salesperson talked me into going to quarterly shipments rather than monthly. This seemed like a good compromise... we'd be saving money, but I'd still be getting my BV.

When we got our first quarterly shipment in June, the price had gone up like $20/shipment, which I was not expecting. There was some email that went out to all members that talked about a small price increase, but 40%? come on! 

For the past week, UPS has been trying to deliver our September shipment. Already being irritated at the price increase, I grew more irritated when I came home 3 days in a row to UPS notes on the door saying they had come by, signature was required, and they would come back tomorrow "sometime." Well... I can't really take a whole day off work to wait for wine, right?! Now... if they'd said that it would be between 8 and 10 or whatever, I could work something out. So today I had to drive down to the UPS customer care center to pick it up. Mind you... I only knew where to go after calling the 1-800 number on the final notice slip. There was no indication of where my poor package was, just that they had come by for the final time with it. Joy. So, I left for the customer care center around 3:20, trying to avoid rush hour.

There are 2 UPS centers serving the north Dallas area that I am aware of - one in Denton, one in Mesquite. Both are between 35-60 minute drives from my house, depending on traffic. I arrived at the customer care center at around 4:05 (42 min drive time). I went up to the door and gave it a push. It didn't budge. I gave it a pull. No budge. Then I noticed the Closed sign. Oh, right... their hours are 4:30-6:30pm. This customer is not feeling so cared about!!! So, I waited in my car for 25 minutes, calling JennAnn's office to leave her a voicemail and Facebook status updating. The round trip time for getting my wine was 2 hours. 

On the drive home, I called BV to cancel my membership. My irritation had increased when I saw the info sheet on the 2 bottles of wine. One was valued at $30, one at $18. My shipment was $78. I called the husband, told him I cancelled it, and proposed that once a quarter we go to one of the wine shops and pick out a few nice bottles. We should be able to get 3 decent bottles, and I won't have to spend 2 hours in the car!

Shout Outs

I can't believe I didn't post yesterday. It's not like mandatory that I post every day, but I have been on quite a roll lately. I will blame it on the responsibilities that have come with housing a hurricane evacuee ;) Just to kinda catch everyone up on my life since Monday...

Monday afternoon I was in PANIC mode. I have a 15-100 page paper due Friday at 9am for my Strategy class. It is worth 80% of my total grade. It is 5 questions about things such as "describe the history of strategic management at your company" and "what is your company's core competency?" Not questions that you can really bs on. So... Monday afternoon I had completed 9 pages, which was just for question #1. So I was 20% done. And I wasn't even really happy with the paper so far, but whatever.

I had been begging my cousin (who I stay with when I'm done in Houston for class) all weekend to escape her miserable conditions of not having electricity and come stay with me. Monday afternoon she came to her senses and decided to come up. I was so excited, but also bummed because I knew I would be all wrapped up in the stupid paper. But, miraculously, like 5 minutes after she made the decision to come up, I got an email that classes for the weekend were cancelled and that the paper would be due at a later date. AMEN! Don't get me wrong, I have enormous guilt that I became dependent on a hurricane/devastation to bail me out of the jam I'd gotten myself in. It was a huge wake-up call for how much procrastination I can get away with.

But... I was happy because it meant that I could procrastinate on it a little more and hang out with my cousin. One of the exciting events that I had planned for the week was an appearance on Striker On The News last night. I was telling her about it Monday, and we were both really excited. Of course, this meant that I had to fill her in on how exactly I know Striker. This involved discussion of HCBC/blogging. I could not believe that I hadn't sent her my blog info because blogging is totally something I could see her enjoying. So... last night she set up a blog! You can visit her here: http://agentdragonfly.blogspot.com/. She already has a lot of material up that she migrated over from her myspace blog. You can pace yourself on getting through it because she's heading back to Houston today and will be without power (unfortunately, we assume). She has posts on travel tips (she's a flight attendant) and dishwasher organization, so I know certain HCBC members who will be able to relate ;) If you fill her love tank with some comments, I'm sure she will reciprocate. Also, she is a blackberry user and bbm specialist. 

The other shout out I have for today is for Striker. He was so gracious to have some hot chicks on his show last night. We had a few minor technical difficulties, but it was great fun. If you missed the live show (and really, you should listen live because he takes call-ins!), you can catch the replay here: Striker On The News. The topics discussed were: Hurricane Ike, CA Trainwreck, Sarah Palin, Current Economy, Britney Spears, Odd News. I'm sure there was more we went through, but it's somewhat of a blur ;)

My Photo Submission

Gerlado Rivera and I were driving through Galveston last Friday, monitoring the "progress" (devastation) of Hurricane Ike. I snapped this picture out his driver's side window of the Hooters in Galveston that went "topless" - they'd lost their roof! Unfortunately, hours later, the entire building (and Geraldo, too, for several moments) became part of the Gulf of Mexico. This photo is quite possibly the last picture taken of this historical landmark. Thank God I was riding along with Geraldo to get this picture.

-Queen B

REMINDER: Photo Submissions Due 9/15

Just a reminder that Monday is the day that the photo submissions are due to Kim for judging. In case you have forgotten the rules of the competition, revisit This Post. Also... I ask that David Thomas not visit our blogs until the judging is done because I thought it might be fun if everyone had a chance to post their submission on their blog.

DT - I know it will be hard not to visit our blogs, but we appreciate your fairness in this important matter ;)

Hurricane Zack

In my household, we have skipped through the alphabet from the "I" hurricanes to the "Z" one. 

I also need to recognize this as a milestone post, per my New Year's Resolution. This is the first time I have posted a video on the blog - yay for progress!

The stars of this film are:

• Hurricane Zack - large black lab/great dane(?) mix; my brother and SIL's dog
• Duchess - brown/white sheltie; my dog that lives with my parents' (fine, ok, it's kinda my parents' dog, but I picked her out)
• Doogie - blue miniature pinscher; my dog
• Princess - black/white long haired Chihuahua; my dog

A word of caution on the video. If you are in a place where dog barking would be frowned upon or you are adverse to listening to dogs mindlessly barking (or you're hungover), I would turn down the volume ;)

More News on Ike

Ok, this is what happens when I'm tucked in with 4 dogs... I do nothing but sit transfixed by news. Yeah, yeah, I should be writing my Strategy Paper, I know!

I was flipping through the slideshow of pictures on www.khou.com, and came across this one. I had to flip back to it and sit, perplexed. I just don't get it.

1st Victim of Hurricane Ike

Ok, this is totally ridiculous. 1st Victim Dies from Hurricane Ike

I think it's slightly erroneous to say the hurricane caused this death. My 2 cents.

The Weekend Forecast

As I mentioned in my Short Term Goals post a few days ago, this weekend I am staying at my parents' house and dogsitting.

When I agreed to do this I was thinking of a fairly relaxing weekend, especially after the chaos of my days at home with the husband gone and burglars on the prowl. Yes, the dogs like to play around and pester each other, and taking 4 dogs out to "do their business" is a little more stressful than just opening the backdoor to let mine go out. But... I was thinking I would have ample time to work on my exams for school and knock that goal off my list.

Now I am facing a weekend of severe weather. This complicates things by about 100 fold. #1 because now I have to deal with getting 4 dogs to go outside to do their thang while getting pelted with rain and potentially tropical storm force winds. Well... maybe not. The dogs might not want to go outside to do their thang (and really, who can blame them). So, maybe I'll have a weekend of carpet cleaning. Did I mention that my parents' dog is petrified of storms and will spend the entire duration shaking, panting, and whimpering? If the storm is going on during the night, she will stand on top of me doing this (while I'm lying in bed... that was a funny mental image there for a second). Another issue is that I won't be at my house to monitor if I'm being damaged by the weather :( I did bring in all of our patio furniture. I'm hoping my parents do the same at their house before they leave.

So, I've kind of been planning on locking myself in the house for the weekend and not dealing with the outside world. But... tomorrow night (right when The Storm is supposed to be at its worst), we're doing a birthday party for my SIL at my MIL's house. Pray for me this weekend, please! Have I mentioned that the husband couldn't have abandoned me at a worse time? Hurricanes and burglars, oh my!

On a more serious note, I'm definitely keeping my eye on this thing. Galveston is already under 2 feet of water, and it is low tide with the hurricane still 10-15 hours out. This thing is a monster :(

September 11th

There are two days that stand out in my lifetime as truly life-changing, earth-shattering days. I shudder to think how that number will grow as each decade of my life passes.

The first day was November 18, 1999. My sophomore year at A&M, and the day that A&M changed forever... Bonfire collapse. In my first 19 years, that was by far the quietest, most emotional, most impactful, and most thoughtful day of my life. I could not imagine a day that would ever come close to it. 

Obviously, the other day that I tally on this scorecard is September 11, 2001. I'm getting teary now just remembering it. While the Bonfire collapse was really emotional to me, September

 11th far surpassed it. Bonfire collapse was an accident*... September 11th was deliberate. To me, this makes all the difference. 

On 9/11/01 I was staying over at the (now) husband's apartment. He was getting ready for work and had CNN on (as always). We were watching the footage from the first plane hitting the WTC and were just baffled. It was just total confusion and sadness for the people on the plane (no thought at all yet about people in the building). It was one of those, "oh, wow. I wonder what went so wrong for that to happen." All I could think of was some malfunction. I swear, hijacker never even crossed my mind, although how out of it would a pilot have to be to accidentally crash into a 100+ story building. Hijackers were something that happened in Europe and other countries, though, not in America.

When the second plane hit, my stomach just dropped. I quickly filled with anger as the fact that this was all very deliberate hit me. Through this anger, though, I still had no idea of the devastation left to come. At this point, the buildings were still standing.

The husband had to go to work, and I headed to my parents' house. On the drive over there, the plane hit the Pentagon, the towers started collapsing, and life as I knew it came crashing down. I laid on the couch for probably 2 days straight, just watching the news and crying. How could anyone deliberately do this???????????????

I wasn't sure when I started this post which direction it would take. I almost didn't do it because 

Kim had done such a great job that I kind of felt like the task of "post about 9/11" was taken care of. But, I'm glad that I did, and I'm glad that it took this direction because writing all of this down has caused all of the memories of that day to come rushing back, which I think is exactly what I needed and what we all need. Just as Kim (and everyone) says... Remember 9/11/01

*Yes, I'm somewhat simplifying the Bonfire situation by calling it an accident... there were many avoidable contributing factors, but that's not the point here

Queen Can Cook... So Can You

When I was at the grocery store the other day, shopping for groceries for my husbandless time, I was very optimistic that I would do more "cooking" than just popping Lean Cuisines into the microwave. So... I only bought 3 frozen dinners and 2 South Beach lunches. I'm home this week for 15 days, so obviously that won't last. I have already had both lunches and 2 of the dinners, in fact, and am only on day 4 ;)

When contemplating what to do for dinner tonight, my options were to "cook" something or to do the last frozen dinner. If I had the frozen dinner, I would not have anything to take to work for lunch tomorrow. So... laziness basically won out and I decided to "cook." I was not so optimistic while at the store the other day as to purchase chicken to cook. My "cooking" plan was to make tuna (canned), brown rice, and kidney beans/corn/lima beans/broccoli/something. Not so much cooking as mixing ingredients, but everyone has to start somewhere! So... I set the brown rice on the stove with little worry. I have made it quite a few times. Then... I had to call the husband. The conversation went something like this:

Queen: So... I have a cooking question for you

King: uh.... huh?

Queen: Well... maybe not so much a cooking question, but cooking-related

King: uh... hmmmm

Queen: When you're making kidney beans... well.... not really making kidney beans, but when you've bought them in a can... do you have to do anything with them? Like... heating-related?

King: uh, well, you probably want to heat them up. Well, it depends on what you're having them with. Like for a salad? or... what?

Queen: Well, I was thinking tuna, brown rice, kidney beans, corn

King: that sounds... that.... that's weird

Queen: uh oh. What is weird about it?

King: Corn and tuna? I would not do corn

Queen: yeah, ok, I won't do corn. Ah, crap. I don't know if I know how to use the electric can opener.

King: what? You just put the can in and turn it on

Yeah, it only took me like 5 attempts to get the darn can open. It made me really scared about my chances of not starving tonight since 67% of my dinner/lunch for tomorrow was based on being able to get cans open ;)

I invite your laughter at my first "cooking" experiment while home alone...

A Post About The Husband

In punishment honor of the husband abandoning me for 3 weeks (well, 2 since I'll be in Mexico the last week, but that's really neither here nor there), I am going to post a funny story that happened a few weeks ago. It actually happened the night of my high school reunion, but I was so wrapped up in embarrassment after that event that I never blogged this story.

Many of y'all know that my favorite word in the English language (and Spanish, too) is "NO." ABBA can attest to how effectively I use it. My husband is not so effective at using it. In fact, when we walk through the mall, I have to walk on the "inside" in order to shutdown the requests of all the vendors in the middle. If the husband is walking on the inside, we inevitably have to stop every 10 feet and hear sales pitches on hand cream, flat irons, candles, sunglasses, perfumes, etc. With me, it is a simple "no" that is sometimes followed by a hand being raised. As a point of clarification, I don't mandate walking on the inside. This is not a control issue for me. The husband pushes me to walk inside because he is aware that "no" is a weakness of his. I assume he's taking notes and learning from my demonstrations ;)

Cut to the reunion... it was in downtown Dallas. We had parked, and the husband was heading over to the payment machine. There was (of course) a homeless man hanging out by it. He (of course) asks my husband for some money. The husband says, "you'll have to ask my wife. She handles all the money," while steering him in my direction. OMG! We had partaken in a few 'ritas prior to this, so I'm cutting him some slack. And due to the 'ritas, I did not set him straight at the time. But the next morning (well, afternoon-ish, once my brain could function without hurting too badly), the memory came back to me. I remembered I needed to tell the husband that it was NOT ok husband behavior to pass homeless beggars off on your wife! 

I did say "no" though, btw. It was really not a very graceful shutdown, as I told him I only had the $5 for parking while accidentally pulling a $20 out to hand to the husband for the payment machine then shuffling through for the $5. 

A Typical Morning Alone

I am going to describe for you how this morning has gone for me. Please note, this tends to be rather typical when the husband is out of town. One precursor to the story is that I got an email yesterday from the HOA that there have been some home burglaries in our neighborhood recently. I emailed the BIL (and had the husband call him) to tell him that we need to be using the alarm all the time.

1am BIL gets home from work. I wake up because the alarm is on and alerts me that it is being disarmed.

4am BIL opened a door for some reason. The alarm chirped, and I woke up. 10 mins later, he opened the door again. I assume this was a smoking excursion and notice that the alarm is not set. I begin stressing about home invasions.

6:30am alarm goes off, dogs get excited for breakfast/bathroom time. Since today is sprinkler running day, I let them out the side yard.  

6:40am after being rather distracted by reading blogs and commenting on Kim's, I notice that Princess has been outside for a really long time. It is still dark out, so I have to grab the flashlight to search the yard. No dog in sight. In my bathrobe, I exit my yard and start walking up/down the street calling out for Princess. Mild panic attack begins at the thought of Princess being lost.

6:45am I find Princess. She is covered in mud.

6:46-6:52am Princess gets a bath

6:53am I have a full-blown panic attack as the sideyard door slowly opens. I remember that I hadn't shut it all the way while dealing with muddy but safe Princess. I have a quick jolt of fear that the burglars saw that the door wasn't all the way closed and are coming in for their home invasion. They weren't. It was wind-related opening.

7:45am dogs want to go outside. Since I'm not sure Princess actually did anything other than have shenanigans on her last excursion, I open the door to let them out. Oops, I had set the alarm after my previous panic attack, so the alarms go off in full force. I turn it off, pick up the phone to be ready for when the alarm company calls, and notice that the dogs are completely afraid to go near the door now. I contemplate to myself that this might actually be a good thing, since now would-be burglars know that I use my alarm!

8:14am husband calls to say "good morning." I tiredly explain to him the excitement that we had already today. I ask him how his morning has been, and he replies, "simple." Brat. He didn't even ask me if I got breakfast ;)

8:45am as I'm walking down the hall towards my office, Mr. Nice calls me to find out if I'll be coming in to work today. "It's nearly 9am..." BM!

Short Term Goals

I want to take advantage of the time that the husband is gone to be PRODUCTIVE... something that I haven't felt I've been lately. That said, I need some goals to accomplish over the next 3 weeks. However, I do have some standing commitments:

• Weekend of Sept 13th: stay at my parents' house and babysit 2 extra dogs
• Weekend of Sept 20th: school; go to A&M vs. Miami football game
• Week of Sept 22nd: working in Mexico
• Sept 27th: go to A&M vs. Army football game

Short Term Goals:

• Get back on track with the "healthy lifestyle" - eat good, workout!
• Organize/file all the paper that I've been stacking up for 1.5 years in the home office
• Clean out my closet: get rid of the 2 boxes that have been hanging out in there since we moved in 3 years ago! Also need to buy some form of chest to go at the foot of our bed to put all the extra pillows/shams in when they're not on the bed.
• Put pictures in the picture frames that I bought 9 months ago; maybe even hang the frames on the walls :)
• Cook myself dinner... I think this will be the first time ever that I attempt to cook any form of meat in a contraption other than the microwave. Wait... can you cook chicken in the microwave? Hmmmm... something to research!
• Complete my Strategy and Stats exams; each worth over 75% of my total grade in the respective classes this semester!

The Weekend Update

Many of y'all noticed that I was MIA from Thursday until basically now. I had school, of course, which you probably saw on the right bar of the blog, if you came to visit. It was a really fun weekend, except that I had two solid days of statistics. The husband went down with me, partly to hang out with my cousin and cuz-n-law and partly to meet my "team" from school at our team bbq. You would think this would mean that I would get to kick back and be chauffeured on my drive from Dallas to Houston, but no, I drove both ways while the hubby napped. argh ;)

We got down there Thursday night, and the hubby dropped me off at school to meet with my group for a quick study session. Hubby went down the street to get some grub/beer/watch football. Afterwards, we went to the cousins' house and hung out for a bit. It is such a great arrangement to get to spend quality time with them. Friday night, after school, happy hour, and the team bbq, we had game night, which was SO fun. The husband loves playing board games, but they're usually not so fun with just the 2 of us. It was quite eye-opening for the husband to get to hang out with my cousin Elizabeth. I knew they would get along well because they have a lot of similiarites. But Elizabeth and I have a ton of similarities, too, which the hubby was constantly remarking on. Last night when I was making a disgusted expression face, he commented on how she had made the same face earlier in the day. 

Saturday was funny. It has been nagging me for like a month that I had this one professor who teaches in the graduate program for a class as undergrad, and I just could not remember what it was. I remembered at 3pm yesterday. I had him for C programming the spring semester of my last year. I left the final from his class in tears, literally. It was one of only 2 times I cried over a class in college. Argh. He's a great prof, it was just quite the memory to hit me.

Saturday was also fantastic because A&M won their football game. It was ugly and might be the only one we win this year, so I'm going to have to relish it ;) It was good timing because I was able to listen to it for basically the entire drive from Houston to Dallas. 

Today has been sad. I took the husband to the airport for a 3 week visit to North Carolina. His very good friend is getting deployed overseas in the next few months, so the husband is going to help him move some stuff in storage, and just enjoy their time together. He is going to be very missed by me and the puppies, although we're going to be pretty darn busy. That is for a future blog, though!

By Popular Demand... Your Personalized Tour of Chrome

Since I'm busy procrastinating, I will give you a brief tour of Chrome, Google's new web browser. Since it is just a web browser, and does not have too many complicated features, I'll just kinda walk through what I like.

First off... a screenshot...

One of the GREAT things about it is that it is very tab-based. I am such a fan of this concept, and it is much smarter than IE is about opening things in new tabs rather than new windows. Plus, if one of your tabs freeze, you can just close out that tab instead of having to shut down the entire browser. I haven't had a tab freeze yet, though :)

Another way cool thing they do on their tabs is that when you want to open a new tab, unlike IE which opens it as a blank page, Chrome opens it up with 9 options of sites you have recently visited plus a list of your recently visited bookmarks. You can see from my screenshot where all I have been today :)

I also love their Bookmark bar. Unlike IE where you have to click the icon and then select your bookmark, I am literally one click away from going to my "Team 3" bookmark from where I type right now. However, that would take me to school things, and I'm more than happy not going there yet ;)

Also... since this is brought to you by Google, the people who know all, it is much smarter about filling in URLs for you. I went to a web site earlier today that I had not yet visited with Chrome, and it was populating the link for me after I had typed like 3 letters of the URL (not www ;) 

I have now been a Chrome user for about 24 hours. Who knows what I will discover in my next 24 ;)

It Has to Be Done

As the HCBCer with the most love for Google, I have to do the post on the new Google browser. In case you do not have the "Technology News" widget on your Google home page and have been oblivious to the recent launch of Chrome, you can read about it here: Chrome News.

So, the long and short of it is that Google created a web browser to rival IE and Firefox/Mozilla/Netscape (do they still exist)/Whatever... I have always been looking for an alternative to IE, but Firefox and Mozilla just did not quite cut it for me. As strange as it sounds, I have considered IE to be a step or two ahead of them.

But... Google... now, I do love me some Google. So, I downloaded it yesterday and have completely taken to it. It's now my default browser, and I'm a happy girl. It did require a bit of customizing... I had to figure out how to add the Home button to the menu bar and had to figure out how to make the bookmarks bar always stay at the top. Now that those two things are in place, I can't see myself ever using IE again.

Let me know... have you used it? Will you? What do you think of it?

Announcing the Next HCBC Competition

Unlike The Big Showdown, this next competition is open to all active HCBC members. The competition is who can take the "best" picture with their camera phone.

Rules:

• Picture cannot be one you've taken in the past - it has to be one you take from this point forward!
• Picture cannot be taken on a "real" camera, it must be from your Pearl, Curve, Treo, or whatever type of mobile phone you have for discrete photography
• Picture cannot be modified via Photoshop (or similar products)
• Photos must be submitted via email to Kim1Champ no later than 7pm Pacific on Monday, September 15th
• Since "best" is rather subjective and difficult to grade, we have recruited David Thomas to judge. He is more than qualified, since we have all seen his great work + he is the proud owner of a rare Sydney lens

Naming Hurricanes with Jenn

Here ya go, Jenn... couple of notes on my list:

1. HCBC names must be included
2. I didn't limit myself to traditional names. If a child can be "Apple", that opens the doors to hurricane names! ;)

Ann, Abba, or Andrea
Bianka
Christine
Dude
Eliza
Fuj
Gidget
Henry
Ike
JennAnn or Jinjer
Kim1Champ
Laura or Lois
Madonna
Neyo
Ollie
Paula
QueenB
RuthAnne
SarahPalin (nicknamed "Barracuda")
Track
Unfun (this has a nice ring to it)
Valium (you know you'll need some)
William (Billy for short)
Xert
Ymi (pronounced "why me")
Zelda