take it off!

I'm a fan of the Consumerist. Particularly because of articles like this: http://consumerist.com/5042178/woman-removes-bra-to-get-through-tsa

If you're a large-breasted woman, when you reach the TSA checkpoint you might want to yank your bra off and toss it in a tray. Not because TSA is demanding it, but because we'd just love to see that start happening a lot.

Pene's new toy

I got Pen a new toy at Petsmart today. She loves the squeaky ones but breaks them really quickly. This one - a bright orange abstract octopus - seemed fairly sturdy. I give him two days.

Anyway, it's quickly become the most annoying toy she's ever had. I offer you proof:



(so cute I made a picture album)

benzos...

I have a new line-up in my fight against insomnia: Ambien CR out, temazepam in. One night later and I'm not impressed. Anyone ever taken a benzodiazepine? I think my brain is definitely different that the average person, because this is the second drug I've taken that should've knocked me unconscious in a matter of minutes that instead did nada. I really don't think you're supposed to be able to read for hours and retain the information after popping one of these things.

I really like the ridiculous street names for temazepam. According to Wikipedia, they include: jellies, jelly, tams, terms, mazzies, temazies, temmies, beans, eggs, green eggs, wobbly eggs, knockouts, hardball, norries, oranges, rugby balls, ruggers, terminators, red and blue, no-gos, blackout, green devils, drunk pills, brainwash, mind erasers, mommy's big helper, vitamin T, big T, TZ...

a decade

Yesterday, August 24, was the tenth anniversary of the coupledom of Matt and Cameron. Ten years ago he came over on a Monday evening to watch some of the X-Files marathon (it was the summer of the movie release and FX replayed the first five seasons of the TV show over the course of the summer) and we had our first kiss in the backhouse of the old Haynie house. :)

I don't think I told the fam about us being an item right away though...he was my first high school boyfriend after all. At the time, I don't think any of us would have anticipated that Matt and I would be married and living in our own house Lake Highlands a decade later.

not a quickie

So I promised a real update, and I'm a woman of my word. Let's see...I guess I'll just go in chronological order as best as possible.

~~~~~~

Friday, 8/15 - We had dinner with members of the Roberts clan as Aunt Trish and Uncle Neville passed through town on one of their freakishly long car trips. We had a fun dinner at El Fenix with them, John, Susie, Luke, and Uncle Mark. We ogled John, Susie, and Luke's brand new iPhones and went back to the Roberts house and watched Michael Phelps get another gold medal.

Sunday, 8/17 - Matt and I joined Mom and Dad for an early dinner at Peggy Sue and heard all about their trip to Mexico.

Monday - Nine Inch Nails concert at AAC!!! I drove to Matt's old parking lot downtown and we took the DART train to the West End and had dinner at TGI Fridays. Our waiter was seriously jealous that we were going to the concert (I was wearing my concert shirt from the 2006 NIN concert so he figured out where we were headed). After dinner we took a quick jump on the train to Victory Plaza. The train thing was super easy and we only spent $3 for my daily pass compared to at least $15 for AAC parking. We got there a bit early, because that's just what we do. We picked up our super-cool nin.com fan tickets (they are even cooler looking than stupid old boring Ticketmaster printouts, sporting embossed red foil logos and everything) and went inside. The opening band, A Place to Bury Strangers, started at 7:30 and we lasted a few songs before retreating to the lobby to save our ears. They weren't bad for an opening band but we wanted to be fresh for NIN.

Our seats were amazing! Here's the seating chart:

We were in section 106, second row, and on the aisle closest to the stage. When we stood up and turned our bodies to face the stage, we had hardly anyone blocking our view of the band, because we were above the people in the pit and only had a row in front of us. My biggest problem was this tool that was across the aisle from me. He had a giganto head and spent the entire concert talking to his boyfriend in the seat behind him. The few times he seemed to get into the music and started dancing, he kept looking behind him to see if his boyfriend was watching his super-neat robot moves. And he kept talking and getting in trouble with the event staff that were at the front of the aisle. So basically he was a huge distraction, but sometimes he sat down and I could ignore him. Other than that, our seats were perfect.

You can see the annoying guy in the right of the picture.

Yeah, sorry, the pics are crappy...I was taking them with my phone. It's funny though - apparently the band didn't have a problem with people taking pictures, because tons of people had their digital cameras with them, taking photos, videos, right in front of the event people that usually yell at you if you try that sort of thing...had I known, I would've brought mine! They did do a good job of keeping people from smoking though, which I appreciated.


The above picture is from the slower, calm section during the middle of the concert. They brought out a bunch of different instruments. Here I think it was the guitar player who was rocking out on the xylophone. It was awesome.

I can't convey the amazing stuff they did with the lights, but I'll try to explain a bit. They had three separate "curtains" that were see-through and made of tons of LED lights. They were spread out so one was behind the stage, one in the middle, and one at the front. They lowered them at different times and did "simple" things like in the first pic - they each had a light behind them that pulsed with their music and changed color. The more complicated things they did were making an alien landscape with sand dunes behind them and the front curtain lowered about a third to make roiling clouds above the musicians' heads. It was ridiculously cool and it all added to the music.

The final picture is the entire front curtain filled with the band logo, which was the final image of the concert.

One thing that I don't think the pictures can show is how close we were to the performers. None of these are zoomed in at all, and I think they don't do our closeness justice. I'm not great at estimating distances, but my guess is we were no more than 50 feet away from Trent.

Aside from all the cool stuff they did with the lights, my favorite part was probably the always-moving "Hurt" near the end of the show.

We took the train back to the parking lot. They had a very long one waiting at Victory Plaza to take us all back, and it wasn't crowded at all. We got home a little before midnight and went to bed with music running through our heads and ears majorly ringing.

Tuesday - dinner at the Petroleum Club

On Tuesday night we had a dinner hosted by KPMG to celebrate the promotions to manager. It was downtown at the Petroleum Club and there were probably 60 people there. It included all the new managers in advisory, audit, and tax, and their significant others, and then some company bigwigs. I met the head of Dallas tax and we sat with the head of audit at dinner. The conversation at our table got the most animated when we started talking about the Olympics. Also, Matt and I discovered the audit partner has two kids in HP schools so we talked about that for a bit. We also got to say hi to Nick and Rachel, but they weren't at our table. The dinner was quite yummy (can't go wrong with filet mignon and chicken) and the three head partner guys each gave a nice toast at the end. All in all, it was a nice night and I came away with renewed appreciation for their appreciation of Matt and his hard work. :)

Wednesday - a trip to Arlington

A couple days ago I picked up Susie and we took the trek to Arlington to visit Emily at their new apartment. We managed to find it okay (thanks to Emily's good directions and Google maps). The complex is really nice - lots of smaller buildings spread out over green lawns and mature trees. It's like our old AMLI place in that the apartments have garages, and Em and Rick picked a second floor place so that, unlike us on the third floor, they have a private access to their garage from inside their apartment. It's a two bedroom/two bath apartment with a patio. The rooms are fairly small, but having two bedrooms and bathrooms makes it plenty big for two people. Em already had the furniture in place and some decorations up, but she was also leaving some projects for her dear husband, who was suffering through a conference in Hawaii this week. =P Speaking of Rick, a big congratulations to him for finishing his masters thesis! So we got the apartment tour and went to Double Daves for lunch (pizza rolls, yummy) and then hung out at the apartment a while longer. Emily hadn't had her internet hooked up yet, so she borrowed Susie's iPhone to look up the two bakeries she was interested in for work opportunities. And now it's time for congratulations to Em, for getting a job at the cake place less than a mile and a half from her apartment! Score!

~~~~~~

And so, that's all, I think. We got over five inches of rain in the last week. The lawn even recovered from my chronic neglect! I may actually try watering it more now that it's proved it has a will to live, since the super hot, baking days of summer are numbered (I hope). We're happy for the US teams that have pulled off gold medals recently - men's and women's beach volleyball, women's soccer. We're bummed about the softball team...that was supposed to be a sure thing. And we're following the IOC investigation into the Chinese gymnasts' ages with fiendish delight, although I doubt anything will come of it. It is going to be rough TV viewing for the next month, in the dead space between Olympics and new fall shows. We plan on watching lots of Netflix, including season 2 of Dexter.

Ah, speaking of Netflix, that reminds me. The Thomas Crowne Affair, 1968. Blows. Hard. Matt and I both like the 1999 version with Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo. Our main complaint with it was not really liking Rene Russo. So we rented the 1968 version because we were curious. Oh my goodness. We had failed to appreciate how much they changed the story. For those not familiar, in the 1999 version Thomas Crowne steals an expensive painting; in the 1968 version, he robs a bank, twice, and keeps the money. In the 1999 version he pulls off the heist with finesse and wit; 1968 -he hires five thugs with guns. And there is nothing appealing about Steve McQueen's Thomas. And Faye Dunaway's character has nothing resembling a conscience (and she's a whore). So basically it is an awful movie. Now we realize too that there may be a reason we hated Rene Russo's character - she seems to be trying to channel the 1968 version and does a remarkable job at it. We figured we wouldn't love the 1968 version, just because older movies move at a slower pace and don't have the special effects and superior technology that modern movies have, but everything about the original version is pretty much awful.

Oh yes, and one final thing: Final Fantasy IV (DS) rocks!

quickie

I have plenty to write about...NIN concert (amazing), Matt's new manager celebratory dinner at the Petroleum Club, my visit to Em's new apartment, how incredibly awful the original The Thomas Crowne Affair is...but I'll get to that soon.

Tonight I leave you with the awesomeness that is Susie's birthday card to John.

Pene's first Olympics

Pene doesn't really get into the Olympics like her mommy and daddy do. She wasn't nearly as excited as we were about the US men's victory over France in the 4x100 relay.


I think she's ready for bed...

And just so Piper doesn't feel left out:

Colorado vacation pictures

I've put our vacation pictures up on our web site. You can find them here: Telluride 2008. The only unfortunate thing is that we lost day 2 of Mesa Verde upon the self-destruction of our camera. However, there are still more than enough pictures to look at!

Gymnastics :/

Matt and I are bummed about the girls taking silver in the team gymnastics final. We were thrilled for the guys' bronze yesterday, who didn't have a single former Olympian on the team and were operating with like third alternates. But the US women losing to China...harder to accept. It did seem like China was just the better team, that if every girl had given their best and no one had screwed up, the Chinese would've still taken the gold. But the gold medal was in our reach but for Alicia Sacramone's major errors - a fall off the beam and a butt landing on floor - and that makes the losing harder. We lost by 2.375 points and those two deductions alone were 1.6 points. Add in how those costly errors screwed up the minds of her teammates and I think we could've won it all.

Well, here's hoping that our women step it up for the individual finals.

Oh, and GO Michael Phelps and team US swimming!

US swimming, baby!

There was just some major yelling just now at our house as the United States men won the gold in the 4 x 100m Freestyle Relay. Michael Phelps kept his 8-gold-medal dream alive, and equally important, we kicked the butts of the smack-talking French (“The Americans?” Bernard recently told the sports newspaper L’Equipe, “We’re going to smash them. That’s what we came for.” Psst - Bernard lost the race for them =P). Wahoo! Add fuel!

Olympics!

Have I ever mentioned how much Matt and I love the Olympics? We watch almost everything (admittedly, table tennis is not our fav). We just got finished watching the opening ceremonies and we're pretty pumped. Olympics! Add fuel! *clap clap*

Final Fantasy III

I started playing Final Fantasy III on the DS a long time ago - I think I bought it not long after it was released on my birthday in 2006 - but only started it up again while on our trip to California. I just beat the game and let me tell you something: the end is hard! That's kind of what one would expect from a Final Fantasy game, but here is what was sort of ridiculous about it. I got to the final boss of the main story after trudging though a dungeon with no saves points for something like two hours. During the dungeon leading to the final boss ("Cloud of Darkness"), I fought five other bosses, without an opportunity to save. Apparently there used to be a save point somewhere in there in the original game, but the developers took it out when they were making the new DS version. Gee, thanks. The bosses and dungeon before the final boss weren't actually too hard. Unfortunately, that resulted in me thinking I was leveled appropriately for the final boss...not so. I eked out a victory by the skin of my teeth thanks to ridiculous usage of elixirs. Cloud of Stupidness had up to four actions per turn, including two spells that hit my whole party (hard). You know, if you're going to make the last boss significantly more challenging that the surrounding dungeon, put a freaking save point in front of it!

That said, I found the DS remake of Final Fantasy III a great game. It looked pretty awesome on the DS and they obviously spent a lot of time and energy completely retooling the graphics. My final playtime was 31:35, and if you add in times from my "Game Over's", I probably spent at least 35 hours playing. Not bad for a DS game!

Aside from my issues with the end of the game, I only had a couple other problems with the game. First, you can't access the ultimate weapons, secret job "Onion Knight," or secret boss unless you have a friend code for someone else with a DS and the game, because you have to use the completely unnecessary Moogle Mail system with another real person on the receiving end to start the quest lines. Lame. Second problem: the job system. Honestly, I like options, but there were just too many in my opinion. You had the choice of 23 jobs for each character (including the secret Onion Knight, which I couldn't access) by the end of the game...Freelancer, Warrior, Monk, White Mage, Black Mage, Red Mage, Thief, Ranger, Knight, Scholar, Geomancer, Viking, Dragoon, Dark Knight, Evoker, Bard, Black Belt, Magus, Devout, Summoner, Sage, Ninja, Onion Knight...and you could have multiple characters using the same job. Four dragoons, anyone? There were quite honestly some jobs that I never ever used, not even once. It was hard to try out new ones because new jobs usually stink for the first few hours until the character has some gotten some job levels (like XP but, you know, for your job). Add in a penalty for switching between disparate jobs (e.g. chaotic to lawful or physical to magical) that temporarily lowers your stats and performance, and then you really don't want to test drive a job that looks questionable.

But for all that, it was a Final Fantasy game and an RPG and that means it would take a lot for me to dislike it! Now I'm excited to start in on the new DS version of Final Fantasy IV!

----------------------------------------
I had an eye appointment today. My prescription is still chugging along at -1.00, the same it has been for years. I found out that I was misinformed about the shape of my eyeballs. I'd been told they were "pointy" but it turns out it's the opposite - they are flat! And Acuvue just came out with a new contact lens that fits me and my flat-eyed brethren better than the old Oasys contacts (different base curve). The optometrist said it should be more comfortable. I'm all for that!

I'd mentioned the demise of our digital camera during our vacation. We got a new one on Monday, a Canon SD790IS. I hadn't realized how tiny the screen on our old camera was until I compared the old and new side-by-side. Wow! Now I need a reason to take pictures. :)

Matt and I are going to the ranch this weekend to check on things and do some watering while Mom and Dad are in Mexico (Puerto Vallarta). I'm sure Pene will enjoy it, because her life was much more exciting when she was there with Mom and Dad, or with Mike Shannon, than it is back at home with us. Also, I'm excited to try out the new karaoke discs I got Mom and Dad for their birthdays (Queen, the Beatles, Mary Poppins, Lion King, a modern one, and Americana). We'll sing Wild Blue Yonder for y'all.

poor kitty

Poor Piper...she had to get gassed today at the vet for her annual check-up because she's such a bad patient. Now she's wandering the house looking slightly drunk.

Pene embarrassed us with the neighbors last night. We'd gone over to give Brian (housekeeper boy #1) his money. Someone we didn't know answered the door (I'm guessing it was a brother). As soon as the guy opened the door and I'd started to introduce myself, we saw Pene tearing over from our house. Yep, she can now open the front door too. She ran straight to the neighbor's door and tried to go in and eat their cat. The poor guy, who'd just opened his door to absolute chaos, was like "what is going on?!" We grabbed Pene and I quickly thrust the envelope at him (more than a little crumpled at this point), said "this is for Brian...I'm so sorry!" and we made a quick retreat. Now the rest of that family is going to think we're psycho!

home again home again jiggity jig

We did a monumental all-day drive yesterday to get from Telluride to home. Piper was very glad to see us, although we could tell that our next door neighbor Kyle, who was cat- and house-sitting for us the second week of vacation, had done his job well. His instructions included coming over and playing video games and watching movies to let Piper hang out with him. We think he did this admirably, as the set-up Rock Band drums and mic, Wendy's wrappers in the trash, and reasonably mellow Piper attest. He's probably sad we're home.

The drive home went well. We split it up a lot between us to avoid fatigue. The coolest thing we saw along the way was a really long train with a bunch of different army vehicles and tanks on it. They were pretty small on the back of the train, but as we got closer to the front engine, the tanks got bigger and more serious until they were the huge ones with the gigantic guns.

The last few days in Telluride were nice and relaxing. We did a great hike in Ouray on Wednesday while Susie shopped in town. On Friday we visited the farmers market again and made some purchases - for me, that included some amazing cherries and apricots.

Pictures will be forthcoming. Our camera finally kicked the bucket, and all we have is the first day of Mesa Verde (the second day had appeared to be on the compact flash card, until we tried to suck the pictures onto Luke's computer). All the other pictures will be compliments of Susie and I'll have to get them via burned CD from her.

I read eight books on vacation and they were all interesting in their own way...

1. Kushiel's Scion by Jacqueline Carey
2. Kushiel's Justice by Jacqueline Carey
3. Kushiel's Mercy by Jacqueline Carey
4. Time Bandit: Two Brothers, the Bering Sea, and One of the World's Deadliest Jobs by Andy and Johnathan Hillstrand
5. Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World by Tracy Kidder
6. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
7. After the War by Tim Lebbon
8. The Pixar Touch: The Making of a Company by David A. Price

I'd read the first two Kushiel's books before, and was excited about reading the final member of the trilogy that had come out in June. It didn't disappoint. The Time Bandit book was one I'd seen in the library right before we left for Colorado. As a loyal fan of the TV show The Deadliest Catch, I enjoyed the book, especially since I particularly love the Hillstrand brothers. However, from a literary standpoint, the book kinda sucked. Mountains Beyond Mountains was, I believe, a gift from Leslie. It is a non-fiction offering that details the work of Dr. Paul Farmer, who is basically trying to save the poor from infectious disease. His first and greatest success was treatment of TB in the central plateau of Haiti. The Glass Castle is a memoir and one that was highly recommended to me by Mom and Leslie. Turns out Susie has read it too and also threw in her vote of excellence. It was indeed a great book, and I wanted to slap the author's parents around like mad the whole time. After the War contains two novellas set in the same world as Dusk and Dawn, fantasy books by Tim Lebbon. I had read and enjoyed those before vacation, despite them being very dark, and so I picked up After the War. It was well-done, but perhaps even more disturbing than the original two novels. Finally, my read in the car ride home, the Pixar book. It was an extremely interesting look into the history of the company and how it got to where it is today. I particularly enjoyed the chapters in which the author described the creative process for each movie. For example, two artists actually climbed into a dead gray whale to help them understand what whales look like on the inside for the whale scene in Finding Nemo. They had all sorts of experts come in and talk to them about aquatic life, and a group was sent to scuba dive in Hawaii. For Cars, they went on a road trip down Route 66 (including a stop to eat the 72 oz steak at the Big Texan in Amarillo). A couple people apprenticed at a French restaurant for Ratatouille.