so much has happened!!!
okay, so i know it's my own damn fault for not writing over the past couple of weeks, but i have been busy has a little honeybee buzzing around doing anything and everything. i honestly cannot remember what went on the week before last. oh yes, i think i remember...
fourth of july weekend came and went with 4 different get-togethers. the first was a saturday afternoon in san francisco with our friends kathleeen and terrence. we didn't stay long since later that evening/afternoon was my niece and nephew's 7th birthday party. it was a family-only affair, but it was nice enough. the kids wanted pizza and ice cream, which is exactly what we had. the kids seemed to enjoy their gifts and it's just so amazing to see them growing up so quickly. the next day was my mom's 4th bbq celebration, calling it "tres de julio" since she wanted it on sunday so people didn't have to worry about work the next day. we all enjoyed lots of great food and tremendous company, as always. we had our own little bbq on the actual 4th. celtcub, norcalpaco, damneddonkey, and our other friends matt and haley got together to sanborn park for a true bbq. it was a lot of fun, even though it was rather warm and a little more crowded than any of us were expecting. realizing that we were losing shade without losing any heat, we moved the group indoors and played with L&P's new xbox kinect. it was really fun and i could definitely seeing its potential for parties.
over this same weekend, we each got new phones. i went with the iphone. i'm so used to the interface, due to having an ipod touch for the past couple of years. i like it and it's easy for me to start using right away. i didn't want an android phone since i would have to learn a totally new platform. no thanks. plus, it always looks too busy to me. marshall doesn't like android phones either, but it's more from a developer point of view. he decided to go against all the nay-sayers at verizon and went with the under-appreciated microsoft phone 7. he's been working with this phone at work for the last 2 years (almost) and fell in love with the interface and its capabilities. he loves his phone and he loves getting the chance to flaunt how much better his phone is than mine. whatever, mine runs "foursquare" better than his! :P oh yeah, i'm check-in happy now. i check-in EVERYWHERE. :D
my BFF from college moved to new york for graduate school a few years ago. she finished her program this spring and has since...well, she isn't sure what she wants to do. she's torn between getting as much out of NYC as she can before she gets too old to enjoy it, but she loves california. in her homesick state, she planned an impromptu visit to cali. all her friends took full advantage and the "banana slug crew" got together for dinner during the week and then hung out with a larger group that following saturday evening before she left back to NYC. it was wonderful seeing her again and while i'd love to have her back home, i want her to make the right decision for herself. but yes, that was an important thing that's happened in the last few weeks.
i house-sat for spitemeat during that same week. it was fun interacting with new/different kitties. they were good little boys, if not total bachelors (i swear i was sweeping every time i went over there!). it was also interesting seeing all male cats together. i've always had boy+girl kitties growing up (even now we have one of each) so seeing 3 boys together was a new experience. it was also neat to see such affectionate boy kitties, since all the boy kitties i've known have been kind of aloof. :)
this last week was the potter-thon, which i will leave to its own post. i think 8 movies over the course of 4 evenings, including a midnight-premier is deserving of its own page. :)
last thing to mention in this fast-forwarded post is my computer woes. the following is so totally "first-world-problem". i know there are more people on this earth WITHOUT computers than with, so i am thoroughly grateful that if, gods-forbid my desktop actually HAD completely went kaput, i have a choice of 2 laptops to use and if worst came to worst, i could just borrow marshall's desktop from time to time. luckily it wasn't that drastic, but it was drastic enough. after the potter-thon, a week of NO computer use at all, i came home thursday (before heading out to the last night of potter-thon) only to find my computer acting weird. i also detected this weird smell in our apartment coming from my computer. the LED's were all on inside my case, but the giant side fan was trying to oscillate, but was just rocking back and forth. the power switch wouldn't turn anything off, so i just turned it all off from the power supply. i determined that was the issue, especially when i tried turning it back on later. when i took it apart saturday, nothing looked burnt or blasted and everything was in working order (at least from what i could see). thinking it was the power supply, we went out and bought a new one. came home and installed it and my computer wouldn't boot up. the power switch was still wonky. not sure what else i could do (and marshall telling me repeatedly that he's a software guy and not a hardware guy), we went back to my local computer store and i dropped it off for a diagnostic test. i got a call this morning and they isolated the main issue to 2 bad sticks of RAM. the minor issue was a broken power switch. i picked it up tonight and asked them to replace the bad RAM and that i would take it home in its current frankenstein's-monster-appearance (they jerry-rigged a MB speaker cord to work as a barebones power-switch. hey - it works. i told them i would order my own case and put everything back together myself. so yeah, at least i've got a working computer now. i am so happy i can import the new music i bought over the weekend and can sync up my phone and ipod. god, this is so horribly first-world-problem here, but yeah.
not having a computer also put a stop into the roll i was having with mass effect. marshall was dead set on making sure this was a video game i played this summer. i finally got around to it and i am really enjoying myself. i played it all-day last sunday, which is something i haven't done in AGES. i am still playing (bit by bit, really) assassin's creed. i finally got past the stupid quest i was stuck on and the rest of the city was easy-peasy after that. but yeah, i'm itching to get back into mass effect and get my shepard on! :D
fat losers is still going strong. my emotional state this weekend over my computer didn't help my choice for dinner on saturday, but that cheeseburger was damn delicious and it did make me feel a little better. :P i'm back on track and i'm hoping that even with that minor set-back i will surpass the 10lb mark. i missed my weigh-in last week (due to, you guessed it, potter-thon), but i weighed myself at home and was 0.4lb away from losing a total of 10lbs. that's a huge achievement. i've been thinking about my journey, as short as it has been already, that going into WW i had the tools and the know-how, but none of the discipline to execute properly. so yeah, we'll see what my weigh-in shows this week.
alright, time to sync up my devices and get to bed. i also need to order my new case. yay!! gonna wait until the end of the month to order. we're expense-heavy right now. plus, i've got car stuff that needs taken care of and since my computer is working i don't need it right away. gidget definitely is more important. plus, you know, bills and such. :P i can wait. next friday, though, you KNOW i'll be ordering that case!
p.s. did i mention we dropped cable tv? yup. what we're saving will off-set our data plan charges for new phones and give us a little bit of cash back into our account each month. i'm surprised it took us this long to drop it, since we really weren't watching TV at all.
fourth of july weekend came and went with 4 different get-togethers. the first was a saturday afternoon in san francisco with our friends kathleeen and terrence. we didn't stay long since later that evening/afternoon was my niece and nephew's 7th birthday party. it was a family-only affair, but it was nice enough. the kids wanted pizza and ice cream, which is exactly what we had. the kids seemed to enjoy their gifts and it's just so amazing to see them growing up so quickly. the next day was my mom's 4th bbq celebration, calling it "tres de julio" since she wanted it on sunday so people didn't have to worry about work the next day. we all enjoyed lots of great food and tremendous company, as always. we had our own little bbq on the actual 4th. celtcub, norcalpaco, damneddonkey, and our other friends matt and haley got together to sanborn park for a true bbq. it was a lot of fun, even though it was rather warm and a little more crowded than any of us were expecting. realizing that we were losing shade without losing any heat, we moved the group indoors and played with L&P's new xbox kinect. it was really fun and i could definitely seeing its potential for parties.
over this same weekend, we each got new phones. i went with the iphone. i'm so used to the interface, due to having an ipod touch for the past couple of years. i like it and it's easy for me to start using right away. i didn't want an android phone since i would have to learn a totally new platform. no thanks. plus, it always looks too busy to me. marshall doesn't like android phones either, but it's more from a developer point of view. he decided to go against all the nay-sayers at verizon and went with the under-appreciated microsoft phone 7. he's been working with this phone at work for the last 2 years (almost) and fell in love with the interface and its capabilities. he loves his phone and he loves getting the chance to flaunt how much better his phone is than mine. whatever, mine runs "foursquare" better than his! :P oh yeah, i'm check-in happy now. i check-in EVERYWHERE. :D
my BFF from college moved to new york for graduate school a few years ago. she finished her program this spring and has since...well, she isn't sure what she wants to do. she's torn between getting as much out of NYC as she can before she gets too old to enjoy it, but she loves california. in her homesick state, she planned an impromptu visit to cali. all her friends took full advantage and the "banana slug crew" got together for dinner during the week and then hung out with a larger group that following saturday evening before she left back to NYC. it was wonderful seeing her again and while i'd love to have her back home, i want her to make the right decision for herself. but yes, that was an important thing that's happened in the last few weeks.
i house-sat for spitemeat during that same week. it was fun interacting with new/different kitties. they were good little boys, if not total bachelors (i swear i was sweeping every time i went over there!). it was also interesting seeing all male cats together. i've always had boy+girl kitties growing up (even now we have one of each) so seeing 3 boys together was a new experience. it was also neat to see such affectionate boy kitties, since all the boy kitties i've known have been kind of aloof. :)
this last week was the potter-thon, which i will leave to its own post. i think 8 movies over the course of 4 evenings, including a midnight-premier is deserving of its own page. :)
last thing to mention in this fast-forwarded post is my computer woes. the following is so totally "first-world-problem". i know there are more people on this earth WITHOUT computers than with, so i am thoroughly grateful that if, gods-forbid my desktop actually HAD completely went kaput, i have a choice of 2 laptops to use and if worst came to worst, i could just borrow marshall's desktop from time to time. luckily it wasn't that drastic, but it was drastic enough. after the potter-thon, a week of NO computer use at all, i came home thursday (before heading out to the last night of potter-thon) only to find my computer acting weird. i also detected this weird smell in our apartment coming from my computer. the LED's were all on inside my case, but the giant side fan was trying to oscillate, but was just rocking back and forth. the power switch wouldn't turn anything off, so i just turned it all off from the power supply. i determined that was the issue, especially when i tried turning it back on later. when i took it apart saturday, nothing looked burnt or blasted and everything was in working order (at least from what i could see). thinking it was the power supply, we went out and bought a new one. came home and installed it and my computer wouldn't boot up. the power switch was still wonky. not sure what else i could do (and marshall telling me repeatedly that he's a software guy and not a hardware guy), we went back to my local computer store and i dropped it off for a diagnostic test. i got a call this morning and they isolated the main issue to 2 bad sticks of RAM. the minor issue was a broken power switch. i picked it up tonight and asked them to replace the bad RAM and that i would take it home in its current frankenstein's-monster-appearance (they jerry-rigged a MB speaker cord to work as a barebones power-switch. hey - it works. i told them i would order my own case and put everything back together myself. so yeah, at least i've got a working computer now. i am so happy i can import the new music i bought over the weekend and can sync up my phone and ipod. god, this is so horribly first-world-problem here, but yeah.
not having a computer also put a stop into the roll i was having with mass effect. marshall was dead set on making sure this was a video game i played this summer. i finally got around to it and i am really enjoying myself. i played it all-day last sunday, which is something i haven't done in AGES. i am still playing (bit by bit, really) assassin's creed. i finally got past the stupid quest i was stuck on and the rest of the city was easy-peasy after that. but yeah, i'm itching to get back into mass effect and get my shepard on! :D
fat losers is still going strong. my emotional state this weekend over my computer didn't help my choice for dinner on saturday, but that cheeseburger was damn delicious and it did make me feel a little better. :P i'm back on track and i'm hoping that even with that minor set-back i will surpass the 10lb mark. i missed my weigh-in last week (due to, you guessed it, potter-thon), but i weighed myself at home and was 0.4lb away from losing a total of 10lbs. that's a huge achievement. i've been thinking about my journey, as short as it has been already, that going into WW i had the tools and the know-how, but none of the discipline to execute properly. so yeah, we'll see what my weigh-in shows this week.
alright, time to sync up my devices and get to bed. i also need to order my new case. yay!! gonna wait until the end of the month to order. we're expense-heavy right now. plus, i've got car stuff that needs taken care of and since my computer is working i don't need it right away. gidget definitely is more important. plus, you know, bills and such. :P i can wait. next friday, though, you KNOW i'll be ordering that case!
p.s. did i mention we dropped cable tv? yup. what we're saving will off-set our data plan charges for new phones and give us a little bit of cash back into our account each month. i'm surprised it took us this long to drop it, since we really weren't watching TV at all.