So i'm still feeling good today. After sleeping like a log last night, i woke up to find that my legs feel pretty good. Here's the problem though, my right foot feels like it is broken. I can't really put too much pressure on it, so i'm hobbling around my new office. I'll take it easy this week and see if it feels better for the goblin gallop this weekend!
ps i am blogging this from my totally cool iphone
Football and Crabs
The weather was beautiful yesterday so we decided to get some crabs, eat until we can't eat any longer, and crash on the couch watching football. Of course, it's not that late in the season so on our deck we baked in the sun because it was 105 degrees (yes we have a thermometer) and football is preseason so it kind of stinks. Well, the skins kind of stunk, but hopefully that will get better. Still, crabs and football make for a pretty awesome Sunday afternoon.
Today I decided to wear my blue Manolo Blahnik Caroline's. They are one of the most comfortable shoes I own. However, it is not comfortable when the heel breaks. That's right, the right heel snapped in two. This is my second pair of Manolo's this year that have broken. I am careful not to drive in them, I don't step in sidewalk grates in them, but they still break. I have other shoes that are in the same league as manolo and hell I also have Nine West shoes with tall heels. None of them have broken. I guess that teaches me a lesson.
btw, the first pair that broke, actually broke twice. I took them back to Neiman to have them fixed. Neiman ships them back to the manufacturer for fixing. Then they give them back to me. I had to do that twice with the last pair and I'm not convinced they'll last that long on this fix.
I need everyone's help! My sister is graduating from college this weekend and I can't think of a gift for her. I could just give money, but I would prefer to give her something that she could keep and remember that she got it for graduation from her big sister.... not a gift card that she bought subway and beer with.
I looked through red envelope and all the gifts are good luck symbols. i know that it's hard to be successful, but i'm not sure i want to send the message, "well, good job making it through school, now good luck making it in the real world. you'll need it."
so, any ideas?? what did you guys get when you graduated? To be honest... I only remember money..... maybe a amex gift card is a good idea.
So, today, my XM radio showed each station as playing "XM Radio" by "XM Radio". Ok, seriously, there are WAY too many channels to scan around and not see what's playing before flipping. I noticed that the audio dropped out a couple of times too, even though my signal was full and it didn't sound like interference. What is going on??
I love the new XM channels, however something bad is happening to the old channels I like. I listen to a lot of the various channels, depending on my mood. But, on my way into the office, I really like 20, 21, and 22. I can sing along to Beyonce, Mariah, Kanye, Rihanna, etc and get energized for the day. The problem comes in when two of the three channels are playing Green Day and the third is playing NeYo. What is that crap? I can't handle it.
Problem solved! XM added 26 and 30. 26 has a mix, similar to 22, but not quite as good and 30 is the hit list from XM. good good, now I have 5 channels to pick from.
not so fast. a few days ago 21 and 22 stopped telling me what was on the channel. 21 has been playing a blah mix and 22 is playing strange light classic rock or something. i looked on the xm site today and they say that the two channels are going to be clear channel programmed. UGGG. in addition to UGGG, does that mean that the radio won't tell us what's playing when we browse around? is clear channel trying to make xm suck like fm? the new channels are called regional news, talk, and music channels. i wonder if that means there will be talk commercials and news breaks in the middle of music. just like fm. blah.
still reading.... still learning... still bored.
why does paperwork take so long? the bigger question is, why aren't i on another project while the paperwork goes through. i guess everyone has their reasons.
oh yeah, and some lady came in this morning and took my seat! damn...
It's not my fault, i just love goofy scifi tv shows! I started watching Charmed on TNT in HD mostly because it's in HD and not many programs are yet. Well, after just a couple of episodes I'm hooked! I think I've picked up somewhere in season 5 it seems. TNT plays two episodes every morning, at 8am and 9am, so it works perfectly for my dvr to record. I think the next step is to get season 1 and start from the beginning.
A lot of people probably compare the series with Buffy and Angel. It seems natural since they are all scifi-ish, fantasy-ish, soap opera-ish shows. Overall, I think Buffy was definitely a better series. It had better writing and better stories. I'm not sure about the character development yet because I can't compare them until I start Charmed from the beginning. From the 6 episodes I've watched so far, however, they already follow almost an identical path of some of the Buffy story lines. Since we finished Buffy and Angel a while ago, I've been looking for something to fill my need for this type of show... this seems like a good fill for now.
Webinars and books and training.. Oh My!
I'm still waiting for my paperwork to go through for two competing projects. I'm hoping that the project close to home will come through first!
I tried the fancy coffee maker today. Basically, it's this huge machine with 8 buttons. Each button will make you a different kind of coffee and/or hot chocolate. I tried the black coffee today. It grinds the beans and then spits out about 8 oz of water. Good god that is strong coffee. We also have lots of individual coffeemate creamers, actual real cream, not packets! So, I dumped loads of those in and now it's delicious.
if anyone wants a recipe for vegetarian cabbage stew, let me know. sound gross? yes, yes, it was.
when planning the dinner, i read most of the way through the recipe and it sounded like a bunch of fresh sauteed vegetables and it sounded great. i neglected to read the last step in the recipe which said, "add 4 cups of cabbage to the vegetables and cover with water" blech. when i read the ingredients, I actually thought that you served the vegetables over the cabbage as a salad.... that would have been delicious, i should have stopped the recipe right before the end and ignored the cabbage stew part.
It sort of looked like this, but not quite as creamy. It was more of a brown dirty sauce...maybe my coconut milk wasn't as fresh as the kind they use in the caribbean. Oh yeah, and this doesn't look like they put in 4 cups of cabbage.
so, when jason and i tried the vegetable rundown (official name of the caribbean recipe) we decided it would be better to walk over to chipotle. thank goodness for living close to restaurants.
Rihanna was at the town center last night! HOT 99.5 and Fuze (the drink, not tv) sponsored the free concert. Robin and I walked up to the town center, only to run into about 1,000,000 (no exaggeration) 10-15 year olds all dressed in mini-mini-mini skirts, with big gold belts and teeny tops. yuck.
anyway, the stage was set in the pavilion. Robin and I were able to push past the crowd and get right up near the stage. Rihanna's dancers came out and did a little hard core dancing to Sean Paul and Beyonce. I say hard core dancing because they were jerking their bodies so much I thought they were going to pop something.
Then Rihanna came out and sang SOS, If I could be your girl, and Faithful (?). Then she did a cover of the very first part of Gold Digger. At that point I was hoping that Kanye would pop-out... hahaha, one can only wish. After that she was pretty much done.
It was a fun time, we got to have Sushi with Grace, Phil, and Jason afterwards. It was a good ending to a day of sitting at my desk, reading training materials...
Watch our wood floor installation! http://www.flickr.com/photos/discwiz/sets/72057594068123511/
why haven't I blogged in quite a while? mostly because i haven't had two seconds on a computer that wasn't work related and every non-computer moment has been stressing over whether my program is being shut down and every non-work non-computer moment has been house related.
I guess by now everyone has read jason's blog about our house and looked at our pictures on flickr. I'm fairly... no pretty.. no really excited.. I think? Ok, I am SUPER excited, because the JTs have a house together!! I'm thinking we should put a sign out front that says "House of JT" hahaha
Anyway, closing is Wednesday... if everything goes well... the movers are coming at 8am Thursday morning, so thanks to all of you that have helped us move in the past, but you're off the hook this time! well, maybe not all of you... we have a favor to ask of a certain ice cold.....
of course, you are all invited to stop by anytime throughout next weekend, beer donations are welcome as we'll be moving to the PB&J diet. however, while we're eating the sandwiches we'll be on our 30Mb FIOS... take that market street!
we've had lots of old people come in today and i think they are particularly cute and funny in the morning. most of them clearly haven't bothered to do much other than roll out of bed and throw on some sweats. the last guy that was just here had white white white hair sticking straight up in the air. why bother to fix it? he doesn't care, he's old.
hmmm, here i am sitting, drinking coffee, doing some work, volunteering and such when a crazy walks up to me. she thought i was her friend in december when she started talking with me. today, she decided to stick around and chat with me some more.
apparently, some guy at her office asked her for a computer 2 hours before 5pm and it's a 3 hour job.
first you might ask, did jessi ask her about her job? the answer is no.
second you might ask, did jessi pretend to be interested? the answer is no.
next you might ask, well, now that the story has started and there's no getting out of it, you might as well take the bandaid approach... get it over with as soon as possible.
so, please crazy lady, tell us why is giving someone a computer a 3 hour job? the answer is in the continuation of the story... she went on to tell me that she gave the guy a computer and plugged the monitor into the wrong hole and the guy laughed at her. ok, so the answer is that she is not very good at her job.
my attempts to show her that i was busy failed and my fake interest was about exhausted at this point in the story, but she went on to tell me that she decided to make a boston cream pie to put in the guy's face for making her work after 5pm. she brought it into the office the next day and he said, "don't put it in my face today because i have a meeting in the afternoon" she said, "ok, i'll do it tomorrow" so, she brought it back the next day. on that day her co-workers decided they would rather eat the pie than have her throw it in the guy's face. so they ate it.
hahaha... yeah, not funny crazy.
ok, seriously, i love winter when it is 60 degrees... but I have one major problem, i want it to stick around. i want to go outside everyday with just a sweatshirt and jeans, with no worries about a jacket. unfortunately, we all know that is not going to last. soon, winter will rear its ugly head because this is the washington dc metro area. soon it will be icy, soon it will be snowy, and soon it will be frigid. then, when we are dreaming of these beautiful 60 degree january days, it will snow some more and then we will really have the winter blues.
Congratulations are in order for Dwayne....
I forgot the best part of christmas eve! Ok, not the best, but certainly the funniest. pussywillows and dinguses....
During dinner, my grandmother started telling us that when she was growing up, boys used to come over and spray water on them with their dingus and the girls would give them treats and sweets... ok... i know what you are thinking, because we thought the exact same thing. boys spraying, or sprinkling if you will, on girls.... and they are rewarded with treats. hmmmm.....
well, my grandma had already finished 1 gallon of wine by the time we arrived and we thought she was a little off her rocker that night, but i had to go home and do research anyway.
turns out grandma wasn't totally nuts... it is a bit strange why christmas eve made her think about this holiday (maybe we were talking about dingus at the dinner table?) but here is some of the info i dug up on it:
From someone else's blog: Started in Poland as a way to provide merriment after the seriousness of Lent comes to an end. The tradition began when farm boys in Poland wanted to attract notice from the girls of their choice. It was custom to throw water and hit the girls on their legs with twigs or pussywillows.
From www.holidayinsights.com:
Dyngus Day
When : Always the Monday after Easter
Dyngus Day, also spelled Dingus Day, is a Polish Holiday. It is very popular in Poland, and in Polish communities in America. After the long Lenten holiday, Dyngus Day is a day of fun. And, perhaps a little romantic fun. It is always celebrated on the Monday after Easter.
There area all sort of ways for boys to meet girls. But, this one takes the cake.
Guys, on this day you get to wet the ladies down. Sprinkling or drenching with water is your goal. Chase after the ladies with squirt guns, buckets, or other containers of water. The more bold and gallant boys, may choose to use cologne. Hitting (gently, please) the ladies on the legs with switches or pussy willows is also common.
Yes ladies, you can strike back. Ladies , you get your revenge on Tuesday, when tradition has it that you throw dishes or crockery back at the boys. It has become increasingly popular for the ladies to get their revenge on Monday, tossing water back at the boys.
Note: Dyngus Day is also called Wet Easter Monday. Hmmmmm, I wonder why!?
This is a really comprehensive report on Dyngus Day, including too many references to list tracing Dyngus through various cultural backgrounds.
this is my second post with ecto, my first post was on jason's laptop... this is my first post from my mac with it. so far it looks good, it has a lot of options and a friendly interface. of course, most interfaces on the mac are friendly, which is why i love my mac. perhaps now i'll redesign my blog as i promised months ago... or maybe that will be my new year's resolution ;)
So, I have a little catching up to do....
Last thursday night, December 22nd, we went to The Kennedy Center to see Wicked. It was incredible!
We started the evening at the Kennedy Center Roof Terrace Restaurant. The restaurant was very efficient and impersonal. They really get you in and out quickly without any chit chat from the waiter and with the most uncomfortable chairs imaginable. Jason and I were seated essentially in the hallway of a big ballroom. That was a drag.
The food on the other hand, was fantastic. I had reallly good crab cakes with more crab than cake, Jason had rockfish which was delicious. I should have written this post a bit sooner because then I would have remembered more of dinner. We had the wine flight, which was ok... but the dinner wasn't leisurely, so we didn't really get a chance to sit back and relax. For dessert, we split the witch's hat, a special creation for wicked. with dessert we tried to drink as much coffee as possible so that we wouldn't fall asleep during the show.
Falling asleep was not possible or an option. The show was energetic, witty, and delightful. Even Jason said that he'd go back to see more shows if they are like that one.
We did have a bit of a celebrity sighting. ok, ok... no one knows who this is except for us because we listen to wtop for traffic reports, but we sat next to the Man About Town, Bob Madigan from WTOP. He's like a hometown celebrity...
After a delicious and fun night of Festivus Celebrations (thanks Frank!), i was lounging in bed, enjoying my first day off. What should wake me up? My cellphone of course. The first time it rang, I just let it go on to voicemail... not concerned. Then it proceeded to ring for two more calls. apparently, someone was desparately trying to reach me...
two voicemails... who are they? my customer and my prime PM. uggg... apparently the head head head honcho and the head head honcho from the customer site were having issues.
so, i login to email. the issues they were having were the same issues they were having last week. the same issues that we are waiting on our cots vendor for. the same issues that they have a release schedule for the fixes. the same issues that i resolved last week in person with them and over email. but who can expect them to read email or remember conversations?? not me... so, first day off is turning into not a day off, but a work from home day.
i'll try again tomorrow for a first day off.
well, record last night as another failed attempt at white fish... though it's not for lack of trying...i just can't get jason to like white fish. in the past, i've made tilapia, halibut, and now cod. last night, i even tried to coat the cod with deliciousness, but it still wasn't enough to overcome his dislike of white fish. last night i made Tuscan Cod... I thought it was pretty good.
I seasoned the cod and chopped fresh basil and sprinkled it on top. then i sliced fresh tomatoes and mozzarella and layered them on top. for the finishing touch i mixed up some bread crumbs, seasonings, and olive oil, sprinkled on top and baked. i served it on top of baby mixed greens. mmm, it sounds delicious, doesn't it?
well, i'm going to give it one more shot. i'm going to make pan-fried flounder with a parmesan almond crust. if this doesn't go over.... then white fish will be off my menu... well, at least until i find another recipe that i want to try on him :)
I just got home from my folks house where I removed everything from their PC and installed their new Mac Mini! Ok, it's my old mini because I now have this:
It's my new iMac G5...jealous? you should be! My mac mini was great, however with the amount and size of my pictures, it was a bit slow. For my parents, however, it is perfect. My dad already loves it and is using iphoto and itunes like a pro. my mom's already figured out all her fancy word stuff and email. they are going to sell their old machine for a couple hundred bucks or donate it to charity... either way, they are happy they switched to mac.
now, for my g5, i love it. it's fast, quiet, has great sound, has a remote... how cool is that? everyone needs a mac.
last night was our corporate christmas party at the Old Post Office Pavilion. We went down early because we got a room at the J.W. Marriott. Wow, is that place nice.
We checked in, got ready, then hung out in the bar watching football, pre-gaming with gimlets and cosmos, and munching on delicious spicy bar snacks. (the bar is the dark room on the left in the above picture) while we were hanging out, our illustrious CEO came down the stairs, also staying in our hotel.
shortly after getting our buzz on, we headed to the party, which was only a block away. on the way, we decided it was best if i took ramps, instead of the stairs for the rest of the night. a long skirt accompanied by high heels and much liquor don't mix well with stairs. we also got chased by a rat! ok.. by chased I mean it came running across our path, then huddled in a trash pile until we passed.
the party was a good time. the highlights were seeing everyone we haven't seen in a long time, nice take home champagne glasses with plenty of champagne, and a chocolate fountain. everyone looked fantastic, including my man with the hanky.
after the party we headed back to the hotel where i could watch the last 9 minutes of the VT game. that was very sad to watch... but there's always next year. oh yeah, i was starving so we ordered pizza from room service then passed out to infomercials.
this morning i got to take some pictures of the hotel. they had fantastic chocolate sculptures. here is a shot of one of the coolest.
after checking out, we headed to silver diner to chase away our hang overs. now, it's football time....
Today we had a celebration to mark the successful delivery of our two systems. The entire client team and the contractor team went out to lunch at Mem Sahib. Now, I was at PPC during the Indian buffet incident and was not excited to learn that we would be eatting at this buffet with all my customers and co-workers. So, I did what any PPCer would do, I stuck to all vegetarian food.
The food was ok... I have never been a big fan of Indian. My Indian co-worker who has been trying to get me to eat Indian food with her for months was very hopeful that I would change my mind after going to this place. Unfortunately, I still would prefer pretty much any asian food instead. I had a chickpea dish which was ok and some mixed veggie dish. They also had, what i can only describe as, tempura. There were only onions and potatoes included in that though. There was delicious puffed, fried bread. I could eat that again.
It was a good time, even though I don't care for the food. My Indian co-worker said that she comes with her friends to this restaurant often on the weekends and they dance all night long. Apparently, the belly dancers come out in the evenings. They also had a big screen playing music videos, which are part of movies. She gave us the run-down on every movie that came up and whether the actors and actresses are any good, are hot, etc. The booths were really cool too. Tables were really low to the ground and you basically sit on a big couch.
If you want to experience a relatively authentic Indian restaurant, I say try this place. If you want me to join you though, i'd prefer thai.
So, last night I went with Lisa and Mom to see a Tuna Christmas at the Warner Theater. It was quite a bit different than I thought.
First of all, we had no idea what it was about, but over dinner at John Harvard's we hypothesized that maybe it involved starkist. Oh boy were we wrong.
The whole story was about christmas in a small town in Texas called Tuna. The first thing we realized when we arrived was that there are only two actors. They act as every character in the play. At first, that made us fall asleep a bit, but as they played more characters, it got funnier and funnier. They played two women that worked in a diner really well. I thought the end of the story wasn't as funny as I had hoped, but it was pretty good. What made it even better were our super box seats that my mom got from a lady in her office. that made it all good.
do i recommend going to see it? well, i definitely recommend going to eat at john harvard's and if you are too full and sleepy from delicious food and pumpkin ale, then it's no big loss if you go home and sleep on your full stomach.
christmas hit the reston town center this past friday with "Holidays Happen". They have a big parade in the morning and a tree lighting in the evening. Last year we missed it because we were still enjoying black friday sales. this year, mom and jenn were waiting at circuit city at 4:55am when a riot ensued and tore off the circuit city doors to get in. that sort of ruined it for mom and jenn and we only went to the mall for an hour or so. but, that means we got to go to the parade!
this year's parade was about read across america, so the theme was dr. seuss. everything was cute until the plumpkins arrived. more on that later in jason's blog.
Hahaha... so, i'm watching martha and she just said, "of course, i'm a nymphomaniac!"
to put it a bit in context, she is talking with betty white and they were talking about golden girls... of course, it's funnier when martha says it and then notes that she hopes the tabloids post that!
then, martha asked betty if she is a "martha stewart type"? are you allowed to say that? i'm gonna start asking people, "are you a jessi toye type?"
holy moly! betty white has been on tv since the 1940's! she looks pretty awesome for being that old.
so... today i'm working at home... now, before you think i'm slacking off, let me tell you that i wanted to take this entire week off, but felt like a bad person because i'm not actually going out of town even though i have tons and tons of vacation time. so, here i am, responding to emails, actually producing work, and not being on vacation. of course, i'm doing it on my couch and don't have to waste my vacation time, so it's not all bad.
so, here i am watching the Today show, waiting for Ellen to come on. hahaha, i just like to see her dance. but, wait... what is this?? martha stewart has a morning talk show?! working at home has never been better!
as jason mentioned, we went to see the midnight showing of harry potter last night. we started the night out by going to the new brewery in tysons, the Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurant. Before you even order beer, they offer you a 5 beer sample...which is FREE. That's right, free. It took me a few minutes to understand what the guy was talking about and then realized it truly is free. anyway, we got the five beers, i liked the dark red colored one... go figure.
to go along with it I got bbq salmon served on spinach. that was good, but a little salty. after dinner, we headed up to the line. unfortunately, we didn't wear our quidditch uniforms or scarves or bring our brooms, so we stood out a little. oh wait... we stood out because we were the oldest ones in line by 20 years.
this was our first experience at the tysons theater. it was really nice and well organized. we got right into the theater about an hour and a half before the movie started. it was good we got in early because we needed Hagrid and Hermione to lead us in a Harry Potter cheer. those crazy kids.
i thought the movie was good. it did jump from major event to major event, but with so many things that happened in book 4, it was a good approach. really, i think they took a gamble and will probably win. they bet that most people going to see the movie have read the book. certainly at our midnight showing that was the case. but, if their bet is correct, then most people will automatically fill in between the major events on screen with their knowledge of the book. it worked out for me. i usually look at my watch somewhere in the middle of the movie. last night, i didn't even think about my watch until near the end of the movie. i thought, "wow, this movie is really short". then I looked at my watch and noticed that we had been watching for over 2 hours already. ok, so not short, but i would not have complained if they made it even longer.
so, for my final thought. i think you should go see it and own it. it definitely lets your mind wander in a fantasy land and you don't think about anything else for at least 2 hours. i do recommend reading the book at least once before seeing it though.
just came out of a meeting with a pretty high ranking customer.... he had a rat tail. is there a new better term for that yet? rat tail is just as yucky as the hair. he is very clean cut, mousse in the hair and short hair everywhere except for back there.... i couldn't stop staring at it. it crossed my mind that perhaps he cuts his own hair and didn't realize he has a long few hairs back there.. or maybe his wife cuts his hair and thought it would be a funny joke?
jason beat me to the punch today... however, i have a picture
so, i took down all my halloween decorations last weekend and decided i need some thanksgiving stuff. granted, i have some fall foliage around the house and fall colored flowers, but i thought maybe i needed some turkeys or something silly. so, jason graciously agreed to walk to michaels craft store with me.
on the way we stopped at cosi to eat a sandwich with kevin. i have become addicted to the hummus and veggie sandwich from cosi. it is their stone oven bread, slathered with hummus, and topped with tomatoes, cucumbers and fresh basil. mmmmm...
anyway, we walked over to michaels, jason walked to starbucks to read and i went looking for thanksgiving stuff. well, bad news. no thanksgiving stuff. only christmas stuff. i know that stores are crazy and have had christmas stuff up for months, but michaels hasn't let me down, until now. so, no thanksgiving stuff... only christmas stuff, which i can't put up in my house until thanksgiving is over. i'm putting my foot down! i will not start putting up christmas stuff until at least my belly is full of turkey from thanksgiving.
well, my springtime look got lost in the upgrade, so we're going old school with the winter look. hopefully i'll be able to update this weekend while watching VT! (Saturday at Noon on ESPN)
well, what did you miss while my blog was down?
1. mom's birthday -- i had a mini-surprise party for my mom. i made:
a. pumpkin apricot layer cake with apricot cream cheese icing -- DELICIOUS!
b. vegetarian cornbread casserole with mole -- pretty delicious
c. Herb and Spice Roasted Beef Tenderloin With Red Wine-Shallot Sauce -- pretty delicious
d. Watercress and Broccoli Salad with Dried Cranberries -- pretty delicious
2. took picture for my mom at the Herndon Women's Club Fashion Show that she put on this year. the woman on the left has been a member for 49 years, she was hilarious!
3. went to salisbury to see jason's mom on her birthday.
4. and fall is about over.
let the blogging commence! i finally got internet access at work (unblocked access) and then my blog broke. luckily I know a smart guy that can fix stuff like that. now, i have the new and improved movable type.... cooool.