yankees suck

apparently today is the day to catch up on blogging. and why not, with so many good things going on in the world- especially my world- and especially last weekend. the following blogs recap the past 4 days. that's right, all this happened in 4 days! including....

THE RED SOX WINNING THE WORLD SERIES!

ohmygosh you have no idea how exciting it is to live in the city of the champions (unless you do live here, or lived here in 2004, or lived in some other city wherein dwell the world series champions of yesteryear, or if you've ever lived somewhere where anyone has won any championship, then you might have some idea of how exciting it is, unless maybe you don't care about sports or winning or maybe you don't care about anything. but i digress.) today the city of boston held a parade in honor of the Sox return to beantown and nat and i used our lunch hour to contribute our beings and our shouts of jubilation to the masses.

here we are just happy to be out of work for a bit. who loves our twinner hats? early b-day present from nat!

we really wanted to jump on this guys back so we could get better pics, but in the end decided he probably wouldn't appreciate that.
this is our small section of the 3 mile parade route, which gives you an idea of how many people were there. honestly, the streets were filled. half of boston must have been out on boylston!


nat's mesmerized by the stars among us. jacoby ellsbury? breath nat, breath.

at the parade i was put in charge of video while nat took care of the pics. video didn't work out so well, mostly because i couldn't stop jumping up and down and screaming for the players. oops. see here for shots of the players themselves.

and for that matter, since nat and i spent the whole weekend together, you can find corresponding updates to my updates on her blog here.

how did this happen?

i dislike cats. how i ended up becoming one last night is beyond me- just proves i'll do about anything for this holiday.

kylee's lookin hot as a flapper.
thank you to these wonderful ladies above (and the rest of their roomies) for the fantastic halloween bash last night! who knew monday night could be so fun?

and thanks, nat, for the fantastic make-up skills! meow!

sick.

leaf peeping is not dirty, unless you want it to be

no really, that's what they call it when you look at leaves. um...anyway. new england is the place to be in the fall. if you don't believe me, see for yourself:

thanks to krista and jenny for visiting nat and forcing us out into nature!

it's the most wonderful time of the year!

no, not christmas. halloween! best holiday of the year! i can't begin to express my delight in the season, the parties, the costumes, the...blah blah blah, no one cares about this. give us pictures! ok! here we go:

behold, the 2nd annual park ave creepy night

the humble hosts! skullvia pierced: witch of the south (with critter), deathica haurror: witch of the west, chreepy vamparry: witch of the east, ghoulie howlet: witch of the north

ipod commercial- genius.

me and indiana jones and...um...female character from raiders of the lost ark.

two rockers: steve perry and slash

mitt romney campaigners. they're too busy to look up for a picture.

boo! wait, didn't we all wear this costume in...3rd grade?

me and amy winehouse- look her up. this was my favorite costume, and not just cause i like the person wearing it. the fake tat's are hot, no?
luke skywalker and steve perry

popeye and olive oil
ellsbury's bride- go sox! woot!
lindsay lohan, nicole richie, paris hilton and britney spears
this was one of my favorite group costumes of the night!

we were jam packed for most of the night! crowd 1
crowd 2
crowd 3

there were so many good costumes this year. can't wait for next!

i felt the pain of public transportation...and sheer stupidity

yesterday. was not my day.

after arriving home from the cape at 11:00 pm on tuesday night, i was a bit dazed wednesday morning. i left for work a bit late, waited at the bus stop outside my house for at least 10 minutes, then proceeded from the bus to the inbound train at alewife. the ride proceeded for another 25 minutes or so, when at the park street stop it hit me: i'd forgotten my computer.

off the train, cross the platform, the doors to the outbound train shut in my face and it pulls out of sight. i wait for 12 minutes for the next, which i hurry onto and arrive in 25 minutes back at alewife just in time to see my bus pulling away. i wait for another 30 minutes for the next bus, arrive home, get the computer and turn back around for my second commute of the day.

i get to work two hours past start time and realize, i've left my phone at home.

the end.

nerds are not just candy

so i sit here at my desk wolfing down my soup/sandwich combo while frantically trying to complete today's assignment: master a new computer program by 4 pm and teach it to the rest of us. stress. i text nat with a question about smart quotes, and this time it's no joke. she responds, it works, i celebrate. in the corner of my screen a box pops up indicating there is a new email in my outlook. it's today's issue of my daily 'chief marketer' publication and is titled "a beautiful day in the virtual neighborhood". i view the articles and find that today's issue isn't nearly as interesting as yesterdays "what's awol from web 2.0" issue, and even less exciting than the webinar invite i received on demystifying online customer behavior. i'm disappointed. but then another email appears; it's my daily dilbert, and it's a good one.

and that's when it hits me...i'm a huge nerd.

o to the hio

i've been holding off on a trip update because mary really has the gems of our weekend in ohio on her laptop, waiting to be pieced together into some kind of wonderful blog. (yes mary, this is my foot on your back.)

suffice it to say that we had a great time. somehow it just felt right to be spending columbus day in columbus. we embarked on the usually 12 hour (775 mile) journey on friday night around 7 pm and arrived at my parents doorstep at 9 am on saturday morning. in my opinion we made pretty good time considering we sat for a few hours on the mass pike in stop and go traffic, took a pizza break, stopped every 200 miles for more caffeine, and slept an hour and a half in a parking lot in buffalo. still, we arrived with plenty of time to stretch our legs and prepare to sit a few more hours (well, let's be honest i laid on my bed) and be nourished by the good word. speaking of, wasn't conference awesome?

the weekend continued in the same manner. we left the house only once to go to dsw, and that was subsequently the only time i changed out of my pajamas and into real clothes. it nearly did me in. otherwise, my time was spent sleeping in, lounging on the couches and floor (they have carpet...mmmmm....carpet), watching movies, and partaking of the wonderment that is my mothers cooking. my parents were a delight, grandma was her usual fun 92 year old self, and geoff wasn't around to bother me (jk weff, i loves ya).

on the drive home we stopped in kirtland for a quick tour of some church history sites. this was shortly after we made a completely necessary stop at the local hardees for some hamburgers and fries. what was it, like 10:30 am? but come on, it's hardees! how many times i played in the ball pit of our local hardees as a child i can't count. there was no ball pit, and no fried zucchini, but we did experience the best fast food service this side of the mississippi, not to mention a good look at some sweet mullets. ohio is weird. anyway, and yeah, kirtland was cool too. the best part, which i almost forgot and am sure mary won't mention, was the challenge i gave her to tell me a story about making a peanut butter sandwich. this story, however, had to last for 40 miles. she did it people. let it be known that just when you think things can't get any less interesting, they can. well done, mar.

back on the road after kirtland, we still had about 11 and a half hours to go. deep breath, deep drink from my coke and 90 east for another 600 miles. done up right, mar. done up right.

i've still got 90 East on my mind.

moon child

one of the great mysteries of life- solved.

here

thanks, jake

dreamer

crazy.

last night i had an extremely vivid dream about something so sad i feel like repeating it would be taboo. in my dream i was sobbing uncontrollably. i woke up this morning with wet eyes and a soaked pillow.

does that ever happen to anyone else?

a random dump with hidden gems

i am a horrible life historian. these are the only two pictures i took from my weekend spent at camp joseph. it's a good thing that other people often blog my life for me.

on another note, i've been freaking my co-workers out all morning talking about my 72 hour kit. a few of them had never even heard of one before so they are taking the fact that our church leaders have asked us to have one by october 28th as a bad sign. i don't argue with them. one guy has promised me that he'll join the mormon church if anything happens on october 29th in anywhere in the world that would necessitate a 72 hour kit. i don't think he knows what he's promising...

i've been studying for the gmat lately and have been acing the practice tests so far, i'm hoping to stay consistent for the real deal. congrats to seth who just took the lsat on saturday! hooray for wannabe students!

last night i had my 4th ever voice lesson with mary. she's amazing and fun and i think i'd be more frustrated if we didn't spend half the lesson laughing. last night christy said, "hey, i could hear you doing a seal impression upstairs." (referring to the animal, not the singer) um, not encouraging. however, i think some things are starting to click in my brain, which is encouraging. anyway, if my singing profession fails i could always just become a marine biologist, right? thanks christy.

did i mention i'm going to ohio this weekend?

oh, and did i mention i'm going to salt lake in 3 weeks?

ok, lastly, welcome october! you are the best month by far because you house the best holiday of the year. and no, i'm not talking about columbus day.

are you calling 1989?

a piggyback.

i saw this in the boston common. be ye warned, i have no discretion when it comes to taking pictures of anyone i want. (more to come on my incredibly creepy stealth picture taking of children on the t today.)

but talk about flashback friday: people using payphones.

H.A.G...W!

the loves of my life

never

i never wanted

to let you in
to keep you out
to cut you off

to be a page in your scrapbook
a note in your journal
or an unwelcome muse.

to fight
to cry
to lose

to learn this lesson
or that one
or that one again

i never knew better. i'll never know worse.

i never meant to love you

i never could have stopped

i never would have anyway.

not much to say

thanks to a good friend who blogs consistently, you can read about my last five weekends here, here, here, here, and here. suffice it to say i've had a lot of fun lately. i know that's kind of a cop-out, but really, i can't say it much better than she already did.

in other news, i woke up happy this morning. that hasn't happened in a while and i thought it was worth remembering.

poignant

No really. His hair is so distracting. And, he's not really teaching anything, he's mostly just reading from the manual. He pronounced the word "poignant" as "po-ig-nant". Why am I here?

In other random thoughts, why do the sketchiest people hang out on termont street? Seriously, I fear for my life there, no matter what time of day. Also, why does 7-11 have every flavor of mt dew slurpee except for the original? I miss the classic.

Ok, enough. Only 3 hours to go. We'll see if his hair can make it.

real time blogging is where it's at

I'm sitting at a creative marketing conference at the hyatt downtown. I'm happy to be wearing jeans on a work day. The guy giving the seminar has perhaps the worst hairpiece ever made. I wish I could get a picture, but I think he might notice. Still, it might be worth a try. Ok, breaks over. More later.

if i can't be happy, i can at least be grateful...

for:

the colder weather
good friends
a paycheck

text messages that read: "just wanted someone to talk to and you came to mind"

the internet
legs that can run
and good hair

men who honor their priesthood
a friend who will sing a primary song to my message machine

G_A's
the prospect of going home. like, home, home.
public transportation

dogs

slurpees

sleep.

that's good, and i feel a bit better.

my lucky green thumb

this is a blog about the most boring thing i can think of right now. also, it contains emoticons.

you see, it all stated last week when i left my poor pink plant in the sun for about 6 days straight without water. sad :(

i dumped my whole bottle of water in it. hours later- it seemed to be getting a bit better. :/
and here we are just 2 days later and the plant is again thriving! :)

the end.

today is the first day of the rest of my life

i hate that saying.

hello september! you're going to change my life, i've decided. starting today. starting in about 8 minutes.

this is going to be good. stay tuned.

gba recap

wow. my blog has really consisted of cop-out posts lately. not unlike this blog, this blog, or this blog (which has been so badly neglected that it can hardly be called a blog at this point), i might add. sorry to call ya'll out. no, no i'm not.

this weekend was pretty good. it was all started off with a beautiful night swim in walden pond, one of my most favorite summer activities. it was perfect, except to some people who thought it was too cold. but, thanks to the overexertion of having to swim much further than i anticipated, i slept well friday night, and awoke super duper early to prepare for the great boston adventure. a day to play the ultimate boston tourist. brian, mike, annie, tim, natalie, clayton, and i (without cyrus) headed downtown in the wee hours of the morning (ok, it was 8:30- but on a saturday morning in back bay, that may as well be 4 am) and over to the museum of science to catch an infamous duck tour. we missed our first opportunity, which left a few minutes to mill around the museum- long enough to see some chicks hatching from eggs (one of which was getting trampled on by the other satanic birds in the pen- i nearly cried) and to take a moment to stop and smell the…wildlife.

the duck tour-ed us around the great city of boston, past many national and local historic landmarks. turns out boston is the city of a lot of firsts for this country; first hotel, first subway system (no, the correct answer is not new york-try me), first place to see a fist fight at the symphony...some people didn’t like our tour guide, but i thought he gave plenty of useless trivia, which is the only thing my brain retains anyway. did you know that if you made a sidewalk out of all the concrete used in the big dig project, it would stretch from here to san francisco and back 3 times? 3 times people!

post duck tour, we ate lunch at fanueil hall. despite the 99 degree 80% humidity sweltering heat, most of us got clam chowder in a bread bowl, which was not smart, but delicious and very touristy. then we headed to the aquarium to view the fishies and the penguins, and the seals who couldn’t be coaxed to put anything but their noses out of the water. not that i blame them, did i mention it was 99 degrees?

when we’d had enough of the aquarium we boarded a yacht, or maybe just a boat, and set sail to sea to see whales. and see whales we did! i believe the grand total came to 9 or 10 whales spotted. the "marine biologist" claimed she could tell the difference between the whales, and even made up names for them, but i think some just swam under the boat and came up on the other side- a trick they’ve probably worked out to boost the numbers to ensure customer satisfaction. in fact, i'm not totally convinced those were real whales. whatev, it was pretty awesome. them’r big fish.

the weekend concluded much as it began. not as much with a swim in walden pond, but with a three and a half hour post-church nap, dinner at this person’s house, and a long restful nights sleep. ahhhhh.

well, the end. this weekend= the great connecticut adventure. i hope there will be penguins.

minivans are the new porsch 911

see minivan

see minivans licence plate cover

am i missing something here?

i'd like to thank the academy

i'd just like to mark this momentous occasion...

i have made it to this person's list of current obsessions!

tears. lots of tears.

a survey. please respond

let's say you have a friend.

and let's say that said friend is on a slippery slope to self destruction, a path that is marked with subtle pitfalls- many that are hard to decipher unless you yourself have actually been on a similar road, or at least seen that road taken by too many others...

but let's also say that you're no longer close enough to said friend to be comfortable in voicing your concern to them directly. however, you know said friend has other friends who might be more influential, and you could probably say something to said other friends. what do you do?

no really, i want to know.

who needs wordsworth?

three of my favorite quotes from last weekend. explanations given to the best of my ability

"you're a pimp dude, have some cabbage"

-this was tim referring to his methodology or criteria for tipping

"that's a cell phone?"

-the first thing out of rachel's mouth when she saw tim's old phone.

but really, people have home phones smaller than that.

"it's the emoticons with noses that make me want to rip my arm off and beat myself with it."

-natalie. enough said.

is this work?

so...catching a red sox game in the middle of the day, compliments of your place of employment, isn't anything to complain about.

so i won't.

and you will be my muse

dear mr. bellamy,

hi. remember me? section 113, row L, seat 19. green jacket. i was the only person at your saturday night concert above the age of 17- save the senior citizen two rows behind me whose rear never left the seat- rock on, grandma. i just wanted to thank you for putting on perhaps the most amazing concert i've ever seen in my entire life. i must admit that i was skeptical of the venue at first. though i can appreciate and celebrate your rising success and popularity, i am one who has always preferred a smaller music scene to an arena, and a part of me will miss the days where $5 (or sometimes just a smile and a wink-depending on who was working the door) could get me into your show at that rat hole someone passed off as a night club. however, from the moment you opened with "take a bow" all my pretense flew out the window and i couldn't sit still until after your second encore, "knights of cydonia" (a perfect closing number, in my opinion). thank you, also, for going old school a bit and incorporating a number of pieces from showbiz and origin of symmetry, which no doubt meant more to granny and me than could have to the rest of the toddlers in attendance. a thoughtful shout out to your groupies. still, hearing "starlight" live nearly brought tears to my eyes and in that moment i felt akin to brace-face sophomore on the front row who's mascara stained cheeks shone in the light of the well placed pyrotechnics. that song will be played at my wedding.

there were so many other amazing moments, the least of which included the piano light parade during "sunburn", the extended guitar solo in "hysteria", and singing along with the crowd to "time is running out", three of my most favorite songs ever, and you literally brought down the house with "supermassive black hole". well, maybe not the whole house, but at least that one girl that i saw fall off her chair. you brought her down. kudos.

anyway, i may not be able to claim the position of number one fan, but i probably fall in your top thousands. what i'm saying is i really like you guys and i'd appreciate your re-appearance in boston as soon as possible. give my love to chris and dominic, and maybe i'll catch up with y'all in bucharest in october.

yours truly,

fan #4,723 (or something like that)

i'll go it alone

today i purchased 1 ticket to Muse. 1.

...

only a concert of this rocking magnitude could make me forget that i'm going there alone.