GEMS Update

Last night was our second GEMS meeting of the season. This year's theme is "Search for Truth" so for the past two weeks we've been having a mock trial about truth. Last week's lesson asked the question, "Is there such a thing as absolute truth?" and last night we discussed, "Does absolute truth matter?" The girls are the jury, and they have a trial folder where they answer questions to come to a verdict. Its pretty fun.

After the trial, I took my 3rd graders to our classroom where we spent some time getting to know one another. I had six girls last night, and it looks like it'll be a good group. There's pretty good dynamics in the group. After chatting for a bit we constructed a "Friendship Tree". I glued a tree made out of construction paper on a piece of bristol board and had each girl trace her hand on a coloured piece of paper, and write her name on it. Then each girl taped her hand onto the tree. The hands are the leaves on our tree, and every week the girls will put a happy face sticker on her hand. So by the end of the year, our tree's leaves will be covered in stickers. We ended our evening with a game of Telephone, which seems to be a universal favorite.

Church Picnic

It's been awhile since I've been to a church picnic. Saturday afternoon/evening we went to the Fellowship Greens for food and fellowship. We arrived a bit early and watched the some of the kids games. The usual, clothing relay, egg relay, water balloon toss, and fishing. I think my favorite one was watching the boys dress up as "fairy princesses" for the clothing relay. They were horrified when they saw the clothes that they had to wear. It was so funny.

After the kids games, and the rest of the people returned from golfing, everyone sat down for dinner. We had BBQ chicken, many, many, many salads and a wide assortment of desserts. There was so much food, but by the end, most of it was gone. The best part was meeting new people and getting a chance to chat and get to know them better. Its hard, and I'm terrible at remembering names, but I'm slowly getting to know some people at church.

Nutmeg

Last night Raisin (the hamster) did not have "wings" (food stuffed in her cheeks), so I put her in the ball to run around. I left the door to her cage open. After awhile, I began to wonder where Nutmeg had gotten to. She'd been terrorizing me the whole evening, but now she was nowhere to be found. Then I noticed a dark shape in Raisin's cage. The dumb cat had climbed in and was sniffing around. I had to go pull out my camera, this one was too good to pass up.



What a silly cat. So we have a hamster that thinks she's a monkey and a cat that thinks she's a hamster.

Worms

What's worse than finding a worm in your apple? Half a worm.

Bleech, I was crunching away at a necterine, when I look down to see a little crawling thing on the pit. Gross! At least he was whole, so I hadn't bitten him yet. *shivers* So gross though. *shudders*

Tools

The other day I wandered about Lowe's in search of a new tool. I brought my little desk home from my parent's place, and plan to sand it down and refinish it. As a kid, I always wanted to do that and now is my chance. I considered doing it by hand, but thought, that will take a very long time. So I went in search of a power sander. I found a nice little palm sander, yellow and black, with a carrying case to boot. Last night I hauled the sander and the desk out to the garage for a test drive. I have to say that using the power sander is pretty sweet. In a matter of minutes, it gives you a decently smooth surface. Not to mention the fact that its a lot of fun. I know where I'll be this weekend :)

Happy Birthday to Me!

I am now officially 24 years old. I've been around for nearly a quarter of a century. Funny thing is, I still feel 19 or 20. I can totally understand how shocking it must be to turn 30 or 40, but still feel like you're 20.

Even though today is my birthday, this year I've had a birthday week. Kinda cool. On Sunday, my mom made me a cake that we took to my grandparents house to share. Then on Tuesday we had dinner and games at our house. Mmmm...dark chocolate... :) Last night my roomie produced an assortment of rather random packages. Rather interesting gifts for a 24-year-old, but fun nonetheless. Ranging from a fun bread shaped tupperware and a kids book, to a bar shaker.

So now I have two new books to add to my collection:

The Berenstein Bears and the Messy Room, best book ever :) When I was about 8, I borrowed this book from the school library many, many times. I just loved it. I always wanted a bedroom that looked like brother and sister's when they were finished cleaning it up. Since I loved this book so much, my mom finally bought it for me. The sad thing is, I lost my copy of the book. A few months ago I searched my parents bookselves but couldn't find it anywhere...that was a sad day. But now I have my own copy again, and all is well with the world :)

Alton Brown has a great show on the food network, Good Eats. Kinda like Bill Nigh the Science Guy, but with cooking. This'll be a fun book to read, and then add to my collection of cookbooks.

Driving

Its interesting the things you see while driving. Friday night I hopped in the car and drove to Ontario for the weekend. I was motoring along quite nicely when, boom, major traffic. Stop and go, stop and go. I'm watching the bumper in front of me when I notice a white pickup truck pulling up beside me. I glance at the truck and see this guy in the passenger seat looking at me. And not just looking, craned around and looking back. As the truck passed me, the dude in the passenger seat blew me a kiss. Very strange, never had anyone do that before...but brought a smile to my face (the guy was cute too :P).

New Kitten!

Last night I picked up my new little kitten. She (I think its a she) is so cute :) Haven't come up with a name for her yet though.



It's like having a baby in the house. She cries when she's hungry and when she wants to be picked up. I tried keeping her in my bed last night, but she wiggles around too much. This morning she peed on me, so I had to lock her in the panty (don't want her peeing on the carpet). But it was so sad, she was crying and pawing at the door when I left. Not used to being on her own I guess.

Cedar Point

Cedar Point was awesome. Hit most of the big coasters. Out of the ones that we tried, here are my top 5 favorite ones:

1. Magnum - doesn't have the same heart-in-your-throat-hold-on-and-hope-you-dont-die drops that the Millenium Force had, but it had all the speed and tunnels and turns.

2. Raptor - a great feet-dangly coaster, lots of turns and twists, the wind in you face is great. Its only downfall was that it kind of rattles your head a little too much on the last turn.

3. Gemini - a coaster with two trains going at the same time on parallel tracks. Nothing too extreme, but a lot of fun.

4. Mantis - a standup coaster that twists you around and upside down.

5. Millenium Force - great aside from that first drop, its just a little too high and steep for me. Maybe I just need to try it again, afterall, it was the first one we hit. Talk about starting big :)

Another fun thing to do is to take the little train around the park. Its nice and relaxing after being dropped, flipped, turned, twisted, and drenched. It was so peaceful and nice that we stayed on for two loops.

Badgers and LOTR

Original Bagders

Today I discovered a LOTR version. Both are pretty dumb, but amusing.

Chicago

We spent Saturday wandering about Chicago. Particularly strange was the large globe-like thing that was in the park, or as Abi called it, a giant red blood cell. Rather bizarre looking.

Mackinac Pictures

Mackinac Bridge; The ferry leaving the harbor.


Arch Rock; My roomie standing in a meadow; Me on one of the many trails.


A view of the main street; So many bicycles!

Mackinac Island

Saturday my roomie and I got up before the crack of dawn (4:30 am), hopped into the car and headed north. I love driving so early in the morning, you feel like you're the only one up. About halfway there we got to watch the sunrise which was pretty, but kind of a pain cuz we were travelling east at the time. Arrived in St. Ignace around 9 am, bought our tickets, and boarded the ferry. When we reached the island, one of the first things we saw was a GFS truck backed up to a horse-drawn trailer. Now that is a strange sight.

Since it was still early and relatively we decided to lose ourselves in the park. We followed the trails as best as we could, but they were too windy and confusing. So we simply followed whatever trails we happened upon and enjoyed the fresh air and sunshine. Walking through the park was certainly a contrast to the downtown area of the island. It was so quiet and peaceful. With the exception of a few other walkers, the odd horse and rider, and an occasional bicyclist, it felt like we were all alone. It was rather nice.

After covering a major chunk of the island on foot we stopped at a little picnic area to eat our lunch. From there we walked back to the downtown and wandered in and out of the various shops. And of course we stopped to watch them making fudge. We bought a sample box, and broke into it while waiting for the next ferry to come and take us back to the mainland.

Back in St. Ignace we wandered through a bookstore, then stopped for a bite of dinner at a 50s style diner. The strange thing was, the diner had no tourists, it was all locals, even though it was right across the street from all the ferries.

A great, though very tiring day. I have pictures to share, but I need to download them still.

Dreams

I had a very strange dream last night/this morning. I was in some sort of US government organization that was looking for a treasurer. They were taking nominations, and there were some people who were interested in the position. But there was a catch. The job would be in England. Most people weren't too happy about that, but I thought, hey, sounds great! So I got my name on the list. I remember it saying something about my not having any advanced mathematics, but that I would be a quick learner. Unfortunately I woke up before I found out if I would be moving to England or not.

Beach Day

Yesterday was a great beach day. After church we grabbed a bite of lunch then headed off to the Grand Haven beach. Unfortunately everyone else had also decided that it was a great beach day. All you could see was a sea of bodies, and there was no parking to be found. So, plan B. We changed our minds and went to a local park, much fewer people, a less crowded beach, and best of all, available parking! So we settled down on the sand with our towels, sunscreen and reading material to enjoy the afternoon sun. Watched a mother bury her son in the sand, kids building sandcastles, couples walking hand in hand along the shore, and one family digging a big hole to bury their father in. Upon returning home, we picked up some noodle soup after a bit of grocery shopping, and headed home to watch Minority Report. What a life :)


Samara and I at the beach.

Why Computers Sometimes Crash! by Dr. Seuss

If a packet hits a pocket on a socket on a port
And the bus is interrupted at a very last resort
And the access of the memory makes your floppy disk abort
Then the socket packet pocket has an error to report.

If your cursor finds a menu item followed by a dash
And the double-clicking icon puts your window in the trash
And your data is corrupted cause the index doesn't hash
Then your situation's hopeless, and your system's gonna crash!

If the label on the cable on the table at your house
Says the network is connected to the button on your mouse
But your packets want to tunnel unto another protocol
That's repeatedly rejected by the printer down the hall,
And your screen is all distorted by the side effects of gauss
So your icons in the window are as wavy as a souse
Then you may as well reboot and go out with a bang
'Cuz sure as I'm a poet, the sucker's gonna hang!

When the copy of your floppy's getting sloppy in the disk
And the macrocode instructions cause unnecessary risk
Then you'll have to flash the memory and you'll want to RAM your ROM.
Quickly turn off the computer and be sure to tell your Mom!

Testing hello.com

Abi, Me, DC, and Sarah in Sevilla. Tom is in the background.

Chocolat

I watched Chocolat last night, great movie, and now I feel strangely inspired to open a choclaterie of my own. Too bad I don't know anything about making chocolates. Maybe I should learn, that and brush up my french. Then I can pack up and move to a little town somewhere in the french countryside. I just love the little town that the movie is set in. Apparently, the town they used had a total population of 250, just the right size :)

Song of the Day

I've been listening to a new CD today, Maroon 5, Songs about Jane. My roomie bought it and lent it to me, I really like it. I think I need to make a "backup" of this one :)

Song of the day is "Through With You".

Can you see me
Floating above your head
As you lay in bed
Thinking about everything
That you did not do
Cause saying "I love you"
Has nothing to do with meaning it

And I don't trust you
Cause every time you're here
Your intentions are unclear
I spend every hour waiting for a phone call
That I know will never come
I used to think that you were the one
Now I'm sick of thinking anything at all

You ain't ever coming back to me
That's not how things were supposed to be
You take my hand just give it back
No other lover has ever done that

Do you remember
The way we used to melt
Do you remember how it felt
When I touched you, oh
Cause I remember very well
And how long has it been
Since someone you let in
Has given what I gave to you

And at night when you sleep
Do you dream I would be there
Just for a minute or two do you?

You ain't ever coming back to me
That's not how things were supposed to be
You take my hand just give it back
o other lover has ever done that

Heartache heartache I just have so much
A simple love with a complex touch
There is nothing you can say or do
I called to let you know I'm through with you.

Pride and Prejudice

I spent an excellent 5 hours last night watching the BBC production of Pride and Prejudice. I've been meaning to buy it for awhile now, and finally did. I think I've seen the movie about six times, but still do not tire of watching the dynamics between Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy. Good food, good friends, good movie, Mr. Darcy, what better way to spend an evening...