But I'm bored!

I really love my job, but I'm gonna have to start picking up more shifts! I get so bored now on my days off that I'm almost wishing I'd gone to look in to that job at BR. Speaking of which, I got a really cute shirt there on our Black Friday excursion that looks something like this, but the neck is a little higher, there are cute buttons on the shoulder, and it's a darker more marine blue. I'll take a picture when I get it back from the dry cleaners as I spilled bruschetta on it when I took Jeremy to dinner. The day I bought it. I still got it.

The news is boring, mostly people complaining about airport delays, but don't want to leave earlier in the day or not fly on a holiday weekend. Our friend Amanda sent a text on Thanksgiving to all us airline folks who are no longer working there (so, all of us that were friends lol) that we were all thankful for not having to spend a holiday weekend at the airport dealing with those people!!

I think I'm going to go buy stuff to send out after the first of the year so that I can go ahead and fill them out and have them ready to drop in the mail when I'm allowed to not keep secrets anymore :P Jeremy's much cuter than his mom (and, admittedly, me, too) gives him credit for-- I was pleasantly surprised at his response!

Now I'm back to watching HGTV and eating some PBJs. This girl on Property Virgins is ridiculous-- she wants everything in the world for under $110k which is silly. I also just noticed that the host has buckteeth... whoops. Nothing else interesting for the day, so I'm out. Ciao!

Trendfollower

Valerie's been getting these cute little blog backgrounds, so I decided it was time for a change and set myself up with one! I kinda like this one since it's all snowy, but may change it.

Happy Holidays!

The Rundown

And no, it doesn't involve The Rock.

Last week ended up being pretty great. Jeremy decided he was going to drive up and surprise me! So Thanksgiving day, he showed up and spent a couple days here with me, which was really great. He drove back down yesterday and made it back alive (his crazy self rode the motorcycle) so needless to say I'm thankful for that as well.

Since Mon went so well at work, I was able to send off something for Val, Matt, and Ana for Christmas; even though it wasn't exactly what I wanted, it'll work just fine. I'm just picky about when I get something in particular in my head.

I have a lot to do over the next couple of days... I've been tasked not only with cleaning out the fridge (god help me) but getting my brother in the GED program at GPC... blargh. At least I have work tomorrow, which will be great because not only will it mean more money, but it will mean less time just sitting here doing nothing (kinda like I am now). I'm also looking for a place to possibly have a big party next New Year's-- there's nothing official yet, but since dates usually indicate things like that... I guess it's official. Judging by the way things went with the rest of the family, I'm doing really well to get that out of it! I'll have to talk to him some more tonight and see if we can't nail down something that involves spreading the word. And yes, I'm being intentionally vague.

That's about all for now. I'm going to go eat something small to tide me over until Lex calls for lunch, and see if I can't start on the short story I've wanted to write for a while now.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I know it's a few days away, but this week is going to be busy so I'll go ahead and say it.

Tonight was fantastic-- India invited me to the AOII Thanksgiving at EA's house which was a lot of fun. They serve by Alpha order, which means that being old pays off because you get to go first! Oct '03, baby! There was ham, sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, and Leslie made TWO turkeys that I got to carve with a butcher knife because nobody knew how to carve a turkey. It was great to get to know the girls better, and they were all so very sweet for me-- I'm definitely thankful for my wonderful new group of sisters! There was also a strange strawberry pretzel concoction that was wonderful, and chocolate cake with frosting and red hots on top. Yum!

I'm going to Emily's for Thanksgiving since I won't be able to go down and see Jeremy (sad) and we're doing a mini Thanksgiving and getting up (staying up?) to hit the outlet malls at midnight where Banana Republic and J Crew are having BIG sales on clearance stuff. It probably won't be as bad because nobody really has money, but I'm sure it'll still be crazy since it IS the outlet malls. I'm hoping to make some cash this week so I can get the Eiler's Christmas off to Marc and Jan and get some pants at either J Crew or Banana.

There's not much else otherwise. I'm so jealous Matt, Val, and Ana are off to Hong Kong this week! Talk about exciting. I should have asked Valerie to pick me up a postcard since I'm a major geek and don't have any from outside Japan as far as Asia goes. I'm absolutely exhausted from Casey staying up late all week, so I'm going to drink my bedtime tea and go to bed!

Again, Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope you can take the time to think of a few wonderful things for which you're thankful no matter how bad things are looking-- it will make you feel a little more calm inside. :)

Gabrrrrrr

An exhausting and frustrating week here, but I've heard that from people all over the world. We can all hope that next week will be a good one for all-- and why shouldn't it be? It's Thanksgiving!

I finally found my glasses (and my BlackBerry holster), just in time for my AAC meeting, but that was about the only non-frustrating thing for this week! I got lost in the country that God forgot (aka Cobb County) and almost rammed someone (figure of speech, I'm not really the ramming type, though I did almost cry) but dinner with AAC was great. Viki is hilarious, she's about my mother's age and has kids a little younger than me, and Becky is a few years older and reminds me a lot of my neighbor Genece. Lizzy is my age, she just got married a couple of weeks ago and has been dealing with trying to change her last name... herk. That's the one thing I am NOT looking forward to (though at least I'll finally be rid of the Sizemore name... blargh), it just seems to take so much time and energy.

Last night was Palate's 4th Anniversary and mom, her friend(?) David, and I went up and had a glass of wine and some of the bruschetta and the hummus plate. It was nice, and David's pretty cool and had some good pointers about fixing up the car and getting a new spare tire-- apparently he's done a lot of DIY with his car and rebuilt something like 5 engines!

I got home and called Jeremy, then kind of felt like I was going to go to bed since a glass of red wine will do that to a girl, so I put something silly on TV and started dozing off. All of the sudden, this car horn starts blaring and jolts me awake because in this neighborhood, horn honking like that generally means something is wrong. I throw on my coat and run out the back door and Juliet (the girl who lives in the guest house behind our place) is yelling down the driveway to her dad who has hit some kind of button or hit the button and then opened the door, causing the car to spaz out and honk. After that, I couldn't get to sleep, told Casey to go to sleep and he didn't which kept me up even later... today wasn't much better.

I did go to Figo with Emily and Joanna (who owns the cute bunny Bruno of Halloween post fame) and had some delicious ravioli-- Tuscan sausage and apple! I decided why not-- I had a Caesar salad if I didn't really like the ravioli, but the pasta was awesome. We went back to Joanna's and just hung out and played with the bunny (who tried to eat me) and had an amaretto sour.

Anyway, that's about all, nothing terribly interesting. If you are so inclined and not easily put out, my friend Jimmy has started a blog entitled "Crossroads: An Intersection of Faith, (Homo)Sexuality, & Culture" about his journey through his faith and his homosexuality. I find it very interesting, and I think it's wonderful Jimmy is finally comfortable enough to talk about these things. For those of you who don't know, I'm more of an Old Testament kind of gal-- not officially Jewish, but that is where my beliefs most closely lie, and between Jimmy and his friends who are contributing and discussing, I think that we're all learning something about how our faiths and personalities interact with an ever-changing society.

The world is getting smaller my Foot!

So last night I'm foolin' around on Borders and Amazon and even Build-a-Bear to find presents from Jeremy and I to Valerie, Matt, and Ana. I had wanted to get a few books or a movie or something, things that might last a while since they don't have much space for frivolous things living in an apartment in Singapore. I know that DVDs have different regions, so I'm trying to find the region that will play in Singapore or (thank you, Joe!) region-free DVDs and funny thing-- nobody sells the Asian region DVDs! And, none of the movies I had on my list for them are available region-free! Talk about a scam!

I see that Amazon has a China site, which would be great to buy and ship from there because the shipping would be less, but of course the site is in Chinese so when the Amazon support desk gets back to me and tells me to just use that site, I get a little irritated because they're either ignorant or working under the assumption that I can speak/read Chinese. Maybe I can call Dustin...

Borders has stores in Singapore, and I'd rather buy from Borders anyway, so I'm like, "Awesome, I can get them a gift card and they can just pop over and pick up whatever they want which is equally as good as my generally on the nose guesses." (yes, I actually said that, because I'm usually great at picking out books and movies for people) I ask the Borders help desk, and... you can't use Borders gift certificates anywhere but the US, which is the same problem with Amazon.

Do we really have such a poor relationship with Asia that we can't make it easy to get things to loved ones over there? I mean, geez! I'll have to get everything together and shipped to Memphis so that Marc and Jan can put it in their big box to Singapore and hope that my gift for Ana doesn't get crushed (not that I don't trust them to pack it on top, but I'm paranoid about things breaking). So, Jeremy probably won't get to sign the card. But, on the upside, I'll probably get Marc and Jan's presents at the same time, so maybe I'll get enough for free shipping ;)

Anyway, that was my adventure in Christmas shopping... I need to e-mail Jan and check on when they're sending that thing anyway. Blargh. People make things entirely too complicated in a world that's supposed to be simple!

Blind as a bat without sonar

Soooo, I can't find my glasses. And this is a problem. I can't see anything after like 5p most days because of the light and it's really distressing. I'm starving because I can't go in the kitchen (I'm the only one who can smell and my brother let a whole bunch of milk spoil) and apparently my mother will only buy dinner if I go and get it... which I can't... BECAUSE I DON'T HAVE MY GLASSES!

They went missing election night, so I don't know if Karl Rove took them or maybe Mike Huckabee, but I'd really like them back. We keep it dark at work, so I'm worried I'm going to trip over something because I can't see it!

It would appear my mother is now going to go to the Farmer's Market, so-- oh but wait no. No, we're not going to do that.

I just made some pasta with sauce and we'll see if I can stand to eat it. I know they think I'm being dramatic, but the smell really is making me physically ill. I do'nt know how they can't smell it!

Blargh

Well, Val, it's a night to make you glad you're in Singapore! It's been steadily dropping down to 24 degrees F here and I'm not really keen on that kind of weather...

The first chapter meeting with Gamma Sigma went really well, the girls are sweet and kind of remind me of Kappa Omicron (my chapter at Rhodes). Two of the advisers graduated from GA State, and then there's me and a girl who went to Kentucky at Bolling Green. They had elections tonight and were done in 20 minutes! UNHEARD OF! Anyway, I'm really excited-- the new officers for the offices I'm advising seem really excited and can't wait to get started. VP of Chapter Development is going to be tricky, it's the first time the office has existed but at least we're both starting from scratch.

I'm also not sure why I keep staying up so late... It's not like I'm really thrilled to be awake or anything, it just happens.

Oh, well, that's about it. I'm going to go research some identity protection stuff for Jeremy and hit the hay. Hopefully the guy with all the stuff in the garage won't be a jerk and try to do anything stupid like break in to the house. The former tenants left all this stuff there, abandoned the house basically, and then got ticked when even though Jeremy, Jeff, and Justin have been there for about three weeks now and he hasn't picked up his stuff, they gave him the ultimatum to pick his stuff up or buy it back from the DAV. People are really stupid sometimes...

Palate

First night at work was awesome. I worked with Peter, whose girlfriend is a flight attendant for AirTran, and even though it was a super slow night it was good because it gave me a chance to learn the ropes. The wines are super nice, and I'll probably only ever get to try a few of them (we can't taste the "fourth tier" wines, the ones that cost upwards of $100/bottle), but we do get a free meal every night we work, and 50% off on nights we're not working.

Tonight I had macadamia encrusted scallops with sauteed green beans and garlic mashed potatoes. It was amazing. Also, for those of you who were wondering about the chocolate peanut butter mousse cake (given the "Better than Sex" award by Creative Loafing, the local rag), I don't know if it's better than sex, but it's pretty darn good! It's like a really well made, high quality Reeses cake or something, just delicious.

Peter was really nice, and John (the cook), too. One of the regulars came in and hang out and we talked about airlines, Hawaii, fixing cars, marketing schemes (Peter had one about a really large wine glass put on the front lawn...), and our significant others. There was a book club that came in reading "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" which I haven't read, they recommended it though, so I may swing by the library. Other than that, there were just a couple of two tops and us. Even though the opening and closing stuff is kind of a bunch of tedious little things, it's really not that bad and I don't have to mop three levels of restaurant like at Birdi's, so I don't really mind at all.

Even though I told him not to worry about it, Peter tipped me out $10 (sadly only a third of what we made tonight) for the night, but he said that there are nights he'll make $10 or $20 and then come in for a Friday and pull $350 so I'm not too worried. That and with the $10 from tonight, I know I can pay for my Netflix addiction this month!

Friday is the 4th Anniversary party, so I'm going to that to meet the rest of the staff and have a glass of wine (they're knocking down all the high price wines by the glass, so I'm going to try the ones Peter recommended) and get to know my coworkers. If they're all as cool as Peter, and in a small staff they probably are, then I'll actually have a new group of friends!

I also, for the first time in a while, feel like going to bed at 1130p! I'm so glad this happened!

What is wrong with people?

So I'm over at my wacko liberal haven, the Huffington Post and they have an article about the destruction of the wildfires in California. I'm an active commenter on the site, and was appalled at the response of some of the readers-- mainly that God was mad at them for passing Prop. 8, or that he was mad that people were protesting the passing of Prop. 8. I am not religious, but I do believe in God, and I can't understand how anyone would say that. I guess Old Testament God was known for raining hellfire down on people, but I see no pillars of salt-- I see innocent people who have lost EVERYTHING. CNN's update article yesterday mentioned a man whose 8 year old son is autistic. For those of you who have never had the amazing experience of meeting an autistic child, they don't deal with any minor change at all-- everything in their day is planned to the minute, food has to be specific, even colors can upset them. This man was going to have to tell his autistic son that everything he knew had disappeared, and he had no idea how to do that.

I'm not going to say what I think of Prop. 8 (though if you know me, you know my opinion) but I really don't think that's big on God's agenda-- there are wars and famine and disease, and He gave us the intelligence to monitor ourselves so that He didn't have to be everywhere at once. God may have created the wildfires that burn through California every year, but it was human failure to require fireproof shingles on homes, human failure to have oversight on fire stations built in the hills, that allowed the fire to spread as quickly and ferociously as it has. As for these people who would speak to God's will in a situation like this... go away. If you're not going to help, you're just hurting. These people, like the people of New Orleans and Houston, don't need to be told that their lives are ruined, everything they've known taken away from them in the most absolute fashion because their city has sinned. I'm willing to bet that there are some pretty devout people in those areas-- don't try to rip their faith from them because of some petty dislike of a state law.

We are all humans, we are all living on this earth together, and we must all love one another. It is this lack of community, this acceptance of division, that has left us high and dry. I don't care what religion you are, it's our humanity that makes us all the same.

(xposted)

I GOT A JOB!!!

Thanks for all your happy thoughts-- I'm the newest server at Palate Cafe and Wine Bar in Oakhurst area, so come see me!

I start tomorrow at 5 and train tomorrow and Monday, then work M-W from 5 to close. Yay!

Babies!

My friend Kimberly, who was married in July and pregnant shortly thereafter, found out yesterday that she's going to have a little boy! I'm so excited for her-- she's nervous about having a boy instead of a girl, but she'll be a wonderful mother no matter what and I can't wait to have another little baby I can spoil! (with cheaper shipping to boot!)

Hopefully I can get the week off in April to go up and see her for the delivery, or at least right after to help her settle back in at home. Most of their family is in Missouri, and they're in Illinois, so I know her mom would like to know she's got someone taking care of Kim.

Blurgh

Prayers said, fingers crossed, lucky rabbit's feet rubbed and all that jazz...

I had an interview last night (good lord have mercy, is it really nearly 3?! I need to be careful about this finishing a book in one day deal...) at a restaurant called Palate. It's really cute, kinda trendy-- very Decatur. The owner was really sweet, she liked my experience and my ability to take care of the place on my own. There were, I think, two other people to speak with and she'll e-mail us today. Do all of the above and anything else you can think of for me because I would love to work at this place. It's close by, I'd make at least $100 a week with the option to pick up shifts, and it would mean I could get the time off to see Jeremy at Christmas and New Year's which is all I want right now.

I miss Jeremy so much, and it hasn't been that long since I last saw him... the next eight months are going to be rough. Hopefully, though, with a job I can afford to go down there once a month after this and my Christmas/birthday present is to be a ticket down there. It will be nice, even though not as cold in Florida as Mississippi, to cuddle up and watch movies like we did last year. We've chided everyone for starting Christmas before Thanksgiving this year, and here I am talking about it! I blame Valerie for putting up adorable Christmas decorating photos of little Ana. For anyone who doesn't know who Ana is (who are you, where have you been, and do you really ever talk to me?), she's the best little (un)niece I could ever hope to have and just about the cutest little girl I've ever met (and yes, I've seen my share-- goooooo daycare workers!).

They put up her Christmas tree this weekend and she got to wander around with garland on her. I really miss working at the daycare sometimes-- kids can wear on your nerves, but the moment they make you smile it's all forgivable. Just remind me I still need to wait a few years before really wanting one of my own! At least to the point of being able to afford one... though maybe I'll have a girl and snag some hand me downs! ;)

I suppose I should go to bed now. I've ended my election commentary on my other blog, so tomorrow I'll go back to reviewing literature and movies like a good little elitist and included will be Philippa Gregory's novels The Other Boleyn Girl and The Queen's Fool, both about the Tudor reign in to the rise of Queen Elizabeth I. I gotta tell you, those Tudors were frickin' nutters. Not just the flip flopping of religions, but Henry VIII bedded like half the Howard/Boleyn family, and after beheading the one Boleyn girl (Anne), he went off and relieved another of her caput (Catherine Howard)! I think the only reason Catherine Pharr survived the Queenship was because she happened to outlive him... And they say Americans are debauched...

Anyway, save it for the reviews. Hopefully in the next 12 hours I'll have a celebratory post up, but I'll try not to jinx myself...

Walls of Jericho

Wrapped up Season 1 of Jericho a while ago, which was really intensely awesome. Jericho is about a little town in Kansas that survives the nuclear bombing of 23 US cities and is completely cut off from the world-- by the way, this isn't international terror, it's domestic. They spend six months trying to hold up, keep fed, and find out what happened until a new government is built and the military comes through to take everything over and rebuild the country. The next town over, New Bern where a munitions plant is, starts a war with Jericho over food. Second season is all about reconstruction, just started on CBS I think this year.

A lot of people are saying that the way to do things now would be to wipe out debt, let everyone start over from zero, and I think that Jericho is an extreme example of why that wouldn't be a great idea. What happens? The guys with guns take over everything.

Anyway, I got a little bit of picking up done and redid the palate on my bed. It would appear that there was kind of a box spring sort of deal at the bottom over the support slats and it was so worn down that the slats in the box spring dealie were sticking up. I flipped it over, and so now there's something going down the middle of the bed, but I have one of those old gym-type mats and a slice of the bumpy foam that goes right down the middle, so it isn't too bad and the rest of the bed is MUCH more comfortable now. I also found out that the extralong sheets that I had in the dorm, which I almost gave to the sal army, fit the futon with a little room which makes it easy to keep all the padding on the futon.

I don't feel too much like cooking this week, so I'm just laying low. It's been drizzling all day and cooling off, so I've been feeling less inclined to take a walk. It'll warm back up by midweek and I'll try to make the best of it then, including finally fixing the exhaust leak.

Valerie put up more pictures of Analia, who's getting so big and walking on her own now! I wish Jeremy and I could have gotten out there to see them when we were still working for the airlines. Singapore's a couple few stone's throw away!

I also still haven't found a job, which is getting more and more stressful. I know I'm one of 6,000 people who are all perfectly qualified to do one job or another and can't get even the ones they're overqualified for, but... man. It's kinda nervewracking. I'm still keeping my fingers crossed, so say a prayer and send me happy thoughts-- I need everything I can get! Jeremy's taking about buying me a plane ticket down there, and you can actually get a great deal with Expedia with that flexible travel dates thing. If I fly in to Orlando, Wednesday to Wednesday, I can get a ticket for like $169! That's only about $30 more than the gas money to get to Daytona Beach. Not too shabby, really. Plus, if I get in early that morning, I could take a bus or taxi in to town and see Prof. Newman for lunch which would be fantastic! We'll see. I hate for him to spend more money than he needs, but I guess it's just as unfair for him to not see me as it is for me not to see him.

That's it for now, possibly more tomorrow.

Message in a Bottle

I love travel, but since I don't often get a chance to, I really love postcards. My friends are wonderful to me in indulging my love for contact from afar and places I may or may not have been. Why the intro, you ask? I'm going to geek you out and list up my postcards. Hopefully, if you don't think I'm too geeky, you'll think of me when you see the next .25 picture and pick it up!

Anchorage, AK (Suehyla)
San Fransisco, CA (Erin, Laura)
Savannah, GA
Tybee Island, GA
Hawaii
Chicago, IL (Lauren)
Idaho (Sarabeth)
Boston, MA (Alexis, Hallie)
St. Johns, MI (Erica)
Minneapolis, MN (Erica)
New Hampshire
New York, NY (Ax)
North Carolina (Anna)
Montreat, NC (Michelle)
Seattle, WA (Erin)
Nashville, TN (Bishop)
Austin, TX
Amsterdam (Brandon, Dad)
Wien, Germany (Joey)
British Columbia, Canada (Lauren)
Oxford, England (Amanda Jane)
Berlin, Germany (Joey)
Tubingen, Germany (Joey)
Rome, Italy (Nikki, Lauren)
Tokyo, Japan (Allie)
Cuernavaca (Morelia), Mexico (Gail)
New Zealand (Anna)
St. Petersburg, Russia (thanks to Aeroflot)
Granada, Spain (Valisa)

Obviously, Joey, Lauren, Erin, and Erica love me the most ;)

I don't know why I love postcards so much, but it is fun to get a little note from far away. Even in the most remote places, it's fun to think of your friends, to send something back to a place they might never get to experience. Perhaps part of our human nature drives us to connect no matter where we are, and postcards are cheap but thoughtful way to attempt that connection no matter the distance.

Get Smart

If I fill out 5 job applications (and I've already filled out one at Parker's), I can watch "Get Smart" which I borrowed from Emily. If I fill out two more, I can watch the little followup they did on Bruce and Lloyd (<3 Masi Oka), and speaking of Masi Oka, if I fill out two more I can watch Heroes on TV tonight instead of online tomorrow.

I picked up a TON of apps yesterday at the Forum, and only a couple here in town today, but it was a nice walk around so there ya go. The Forum is promising, Williams Sonoma and Banana Republic were hiring late because of the economy (one of the managers said she was waiting until a week after the election to start handing out applications-- she wanted to see what the stock market did) and a couple other seemed to be as well. It'd be a pain in the butt to drive all the way out there, but the scheduling sounds pretty decent, so it would be worth my while and I could get a few days off now and again to go down to see Jeremy. It would be better if I got a job in Decatur, then we wouldn't have to front the money to get new tires on the car and get it registered (not as big of a deal since I'm not driving it and, thanks to the tires, it's in obvious disrepair) because I could just walk to work. I applied at Parker's, which is where the old Mick's used to be (for the like zero people from Decatur who read this blog) and looks really super nice on the inside. I talked to the head chef who thought she recognized me from Birdi's, so hopefully she'll tell the hiring manager that I'm cute and nice and experienced and he should hire me first.

Brickstore is a possibility because of the Brickstore Biergarten (opening January at the latest, btw) and there's a new pizza place opening, Zucco, but the owner wasn't there when I stopped by and I don't think the painters spoke English so I'll probably just drop a letter of interest and a resume in the mail.

Though, let's be honest, I would die of happiness to work at WS or BR! I would spend too much money at WS, but that's ok. I'd have really nice kitchen stuff, and maybe even get some presents for people!

Anyway, I'm sure you're all thrilled with my job search updates, since that's what this has turned in to, but since there's not much else going on, I'll just bug out and start working on those apps and chopping up the butternut squash and the potatoes for the shepherd's pie (just the potatoes for the pie, not the squash).

Another lazy day

There are Mormons on Six Feet Under. Well, actually, no. They're not Mormons. They're some strange perversity of polygamy. With Space Horses.

This bed is getting exceedingly uncomfortable, and makes my lower back hurt. Turns out the wooden slats can't be taken out, they're part of the bed, so I'll have to find some way to fill in the blanks, even though the blanks are the comfortable part.

Fixing it might also involve getting off my butt... even though I'm feeling better, I'm still not motivated enough to deal with this bed! The clothes, the crafts, all that I can deal with-- the bed is my Mt. Everest. Any suggestions on decent, cheap padding until I can afford a foam topper?

Time for food, I think. Possibly more later!

Change is in the Air

Last night was an amazing experience, and I feel more than any other time in my life that I have been a part of making history. Here in Decatur, fireworks shot off, people were dancing in the streets (no, really, not just another song lyric), hugging strangers, it was an amazing night. I think we feel really connected to this moment here in Atlanta because we are the birthplace of Martin Luther King, JR. and, rightfully, the entirety of Metro Atlanta went blue for Barack. Ebeneezer Baptist Church celebrated through the night, Dr. King's home church.

I hope, so fervently, that this means better things for our country. I know some extreme conservatives who are still convinced he's a socialist Muslim terrorist, but I really don't think that's the case. I think that, like everyone who believes in him, he wants this country fixed. We've been scared and hateful for the last eight years, turning away from each other when we ought to have been lifting one another up. This is the rhetoric of hope, love, and charity (which, correct me if I'm wrong Jimmy, is a keystone of Corinthians) which is foreign to us at this juncture in time. John McCain's concession speech was beautiful and graceful, even if his supporters decided to be real buttheads and boo and interrupt him, and was a true show of bipartisanship. He knows that this is the change our country needs, and he intends to stand behind President Obama and help effect that change-- to get us back to glory. If you missed either of their speeches, you can find them in whole on MSNBC (to the left of the main images). I encourage you to watch both-- they are both incredibly important speeches, and darn well written at that.

Moving on (though I'm still not entirely sure what to do with myself...), not much has happened since getting back from Florida. I've been doing my best to keep Jeremy company on the phone, he's been really bored with nothing to do, and doing my best to keep applying for jobs. I think this afternoon will include a trip to Sushi Avenue for a lunch special and then sitting down to apply for more jobs. I'm hoping that now the election's over, people will start hiring again. The election always screws things up anyway, and the fact that the economy stank to begin with certainly didn't help!

I spent the election coverage generally with Comedy Central-- CNN got on my nerves pretty quickly-- the maps, graphs, holograms, charts, lists, and other computerized crap was insane! I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING, WOLF! I stuck around on the off chance James Carville threw something at him, but that didn't happen and then Campbell Brown started talking, so I was pretty much out at that point. Instead, I showed my mom the Weekend Update clip with the map. It was pretty much the EXACT SAME THING that the dude on CNN was doing at the same time.



It's at the 5:28 left mark. The rest of it is pretty funny, but the map is what you want.

Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart were, of course, really freakin' funny.

Well, I think that's about all I can squeeze out for this one, so I'm gonna go get dressed and walk up to the square. Ciao!

Southern nights

This weekend, I helped Jeremy move down to his new place in Daytona Beach (he didn't transfer all the pictures to my memory chip, so only about half are up) on Saturday, then drove back with his parents Sunday. The drive down was nice-- 75S isn't nearly as bad as 75N, and the scenery is really nice. Passed Ocmulgee and Warner-Robbins AFB, and went through Tifton (shout out to the Dill family) and Valdosta (where pecans are born), then on through Jacksonville (where we ran in to Georgia fans taunting Florida fans in traffic... too bad they couldn't live up to it) and St. Augustine to Daytona. It's a really nice little area, and it's convenient to a few pretty nifty cities (Historical St. Augustine, Jacksonville, and Orlando), and it's not directly in Daytona so they won't be plagued by tourists when the time comes.

The house was really nice, but the previous tenants just about tore the heck out of the place-- cracked floor tiles, damaged fans/remotes, damage to the walls... I spent like all day adding things to the list I started, and Jeremy said he was still adding stuff last night. Most of it is minor, but we just want to make sure she doesn't try to charge them since she wasn't going to bother being there to do a walkthrough. It's also really easy to get to all your basic stuff from his place-- Target, Publix, gas, pharmacy, even a game shop. Got the bike off the back of the truck easier than we thought, and so Jeremy and his dad and mom worked on the futon and I put his massive stores of food up in the insane storage in the kitchen. I want this kitchen, no lie.

After things had gotten a little more settled, we went out to find the school, drove down to the beach (I LOVE THE OCEAN!) and came back and had some Steak and Shake for dinner before finishing up the futon and hitting the hay. Marc took some pictures of me and Jeremy part for me and part for Valerie, and I think this one's my favorite:

It just sums it all up, I think!

Drive back was uneventful, then spent most of last night keeping Jeremy company on the phone until his roommate Jeff got there. Today, I go apply for more jobs and try to get this tire situation figured out on my car. Bugger.

Don't forget to vote tomorrow!

Please allow me to introduce myself

It's November 3rd, the most nerve wracking day a four year cycle can have. Though I originally wanted to keep politics out of this blog, I do feel the need to say this: I Support Barack Obama. Time and time again, he comes through with a solid plan for our economy and our country-- only in extremely rare cases does he resort to negative campaigning, slandering, or maligning his opponent. I used to respect John McCain, I thought that he might be a Republican I could vote for, and I think this would be an extremely different race had he chosen Joe Liberman, or even hotheaded Rudy Guiliani as his veep president. But he didn't, and as his campaign gets more bogged down in itself, he starts to hate and get angry, and hate and anger are two very dangerous things that feed off of one another. You can be pro-life without mocking women's health, you can be pro-America and still be liberal, and you can be well educated without being an elitist.

That being said, I beg all of you to get out and vote tomorrow for whomever you wish. This is the most important election since 1933, if not the election of Abraham Lincoln. Our country is spiraling towards chaos and we need a focused leader to bring us back to greatness. If you have an opinion, let it be heard. And in the words of Will Smith's father, "if you don't vote, you have to shut up."