Training II

No, it doesn't relate. I just like this pic.

Training is much improved these past two days. I no longer want to pour scalding coffee on my crotch to avoid the sessions. Thank goodness I held off on that idea!

On Wed and Thu we presented mock lessons on cognitive self change and basic social skills. Feedback from the class was favorable, so I feel very good about that. I was loud & confident, maintained eye contact, used people's names, involved the group, knew the material - all the things good speakers are supposed to do. I don't turn into a bumbling idiot or anything in front of a group of people, nonetheless I don't enjoy presentations. Why?

I'm not funny. I don't tell jokes well. Wait. I need to be honest. There is no "well" to it. I am a horrendous joke-teller. Terrible. Horrible. Miserable. Jokes aren't lost on my little blonde head or anything - I get 'em - I'm just no good at pulling off a punch line (or even the story leading up to that punch line for that matter). It is a skill that most of my peers appear to come by effortlessly. I know many of you have it, and you have my utmost respect and admiration. Bitches.

I've known about my un-funniness for years, and I am okay with it. Until now. Within a couple weeks I am going to begin facilitating this cognitive skills course to a group of 10-16 criminal offenders. Mostly men, generally in their 20s-30s, for the most part undereducated and underemployed - tough crowd. Granted, the curriculum itself is a tad dry. There is lots of roll play and group interaction, but other than that, how am I going to keep these guys entertained, interested, and AWAKE?!!

Where can I sign up for a how-to-be-funny class?

Training

I am out of town all week for a training. I'm actually learning how to facilitate a lengthy cognitive change course. It is designed for criminal offenders, so hopefully none of my dear readers have ever heard of it.

Anyway, the trainers are nice enough, but the training itself kinda bites (or am I just not in the mood for group participation this week?). I have been consumed by flip charts, list-making and role playing all day, and so much repetition of the core concepts that I think I may pour scalding hot coffee on my lap tomorrow as an excuse to leave class for a couple hours. A 3rd degree cootchie burn in the ER is bound to be more fun than this stuff.

I'm sure that I will continue my bitching tomorrow, but for now, I have to go do my homework. Yeah, actual homework assignments for a damn training seminar. Is 32 hours of our week not enough to learn the curriculum? Must we do another hour of studying and "thinking reports" on our own time? Do I need more practice identifying situations, thoughts, feelings, and beliefs?

Maybe I do:

Situation - I am alone at 10:52pm in a cold dark room doing homework for a seminar.
Thoughts - This sucks. I should be out partying on Sixth Street right now. Damn responsibility. Isn't Austin supposed to be fun? I'm pissed that they kept us until 5pm today. And who do they think they are assigning homework every night? Jeez, 27 more classroom hours to go. I have a sporty little rental car with a moonroof and a department gas card... Hmmm...
Feelings - Frustrated. Tired. Overwhelmed. Irritated. Missing home.
Core beliefs - Austin should always be a party.

I wonder if this would be inappropriate to turn in for tomorrow?

New toys

I have officially lost my marbles.

This weekend I splurged on a new iPod.

I have a perfectly good 15 GB 2nd generation iPod. TBF got it for me a year or so ago, and I love it. It's gone sans case all this time, and is getting a little dinged up though, so I decided to look for a case - unfortunately there are not too many accessories out there for the 2G. He's mentioned several times that he'd like to get me a new one. But my response was always, "I don't need a new one, let's put that money toward the wedding" or some such.

But this weekend I snapped.

I bought a used 4th generation 20GB iPod on eBay. I've used a 3G before, and I don't like that style with the horizontal control buttons at all, so I had to upgrade to the 4G. HAD to. Now I'm all click wheel. Awesome. I picked up a new iSkin eVo2 too (ghost white - then it glows blue in the dark - cool). And I already have some great Sony MDR-EX71 headphones (because everybody knows that iPod earbuds suck the big one).

I haven't gone clothes-shopping in months. I have an old car. We don't buy new furniture or expensive art or fancy wine. I do get my nails done every few weeks. And by God, in 3 days I am going to have more space than I know what to do with and the hottest iPod on the block. Woot!

Man eats underwear

I know it's too small to read*, but the jist of this story is that this Canadian dude gets pulled over for DWI and while waiting in the back of the cop car, he thinks it wise to rip the crotch out of his underwear and eat it.

Why you ask?

Well to absorb the alcohol in his mouth in order to fool the breathalyzer of course!!

Oddly, he blew .08, the legal limit. So did sucking on his leftover wee-wee juices and ass gases really work?! Eww. Too graphic even for me.

On that note, TBF and I didn't go out last night, and although I was dying for a whiskey and diet coke, it feels good to be up early and NOT hungover. I'll be spending the next 48 hours intensely working on school papers. I have a total of 8 papers to complete before May 3rd - yes, EIGHT - what are they trying to do, kill me?! And since I'll be in Austin all next week for training (whee!) I need to get as much done this weekend as possible. So off I go. Back to the books. Diversity (I think the first assignment I'll tackle will be Native American Indians and their struggle to raise awareness of Indian-related mascots), here I come!

*Although the man in this pic is clearly not 18 (per the article), Snopes indicated that this actually happened in 1985, and that the parties were actually called to court to testify about the incident. I'd just die if I ever had to confess such a thing.

Read it

Read it. You'll be glad you did.

Cache?

I have to change my computer password at work every 60 days. Two Mondays ago I changed from ******* to ******. And ever since that day, my internet has been screwy. And by screwy I mean it-doesn't-work-when-I-want-it-to, which is all the time.

So the problem is that every morning when I get to work, I try to log in, and get an error message that my account has been "locked out" and to contact my network administrator. So I call K, and 2 seconds later I log in and can access everything I need to work.

But ... no internet.

It locks up again usually within minutes. The problem is that I can't keep calling and telling K that my internet is down. He might suspect that I check my gmail every half hour of that I occasionally spend a tad more than my 1/2 lunch break reading blogs. And we can't have that!

I've been very patient and tried not to bug out about it. Until today. And I guess K finally got tired of my daily calls, and he started looking into the problem. He used some sort of remote connection thing and was controlling my computer from 3 blocks away. He closed out every application one at a time, reset/ cancelled/ close out everything possible and still couldn't seem to find the problem.

The diagnosis as of 5pm was that my old password is caching out my new password, and after a certain amount of tries with the wrong password it locks me out. Maybe that makes sense to some of you, but I'm pretty clueless, and I'm okay with that. Just make it work please!

AI 70s dance music

I haven't done an American Idol post in quite a while. I had good intentions, but Tuesday nights have been a little blase lately. The contestants have been inconsistent, making it hard for me to commit to a favorite. So what's up with the update tonight? Well, I just love the genre, so here ya go.

Constantine - Nights on Broadway by The Bee Gees - Good performance, but too much eyeliner tonight buddy. Unfortunately I couldn't help but think of the SNL spoof w/ Justin Timberlake & Jimmy Fallon playing the Gibbs. Ha!

Carrie - McArthur Park by Donna Summer - She said she doesn't know any 70s dance music. Blasphemous! Donna Summer is the queen. I wish she would've picked Hot Stuff, Bad Girls, or Last Dance though. I'd love for Carrie to win the whole shebang, but she's got to kick it back up a notch.

Scott - Everlasting Love by Carl Carlson - pretty solid vocals. I would've loved to see him in a disco collar or baby blue tux though. I know this sounds terrible, but I just wish that he wouldn't speak, it ruins it for me.

Anthony - Don't Take Away the Music by Tavares - I truly hate to say this, but Anthony did good tonight. I actually enjoyed his performance. Feck. I've been waiting for this guy to go home for the past month, but I don't think it's going to happen this week.

Vonzell - I'm Every Woman by Chaka Kahn - Very enjoyable. Good song choice, but too much help from the backup singers I thought. I am completely amazed how much she has improved over the past few weeks - it's like a whole new girl entered the competition.

Anwar - September by Earth Wind & Fire - FABULOUS. This time Simon was wrong (and I very rarely disagree with Simon) - Anwar's back! I'd love to see him be the next American Idol - not only is he a great singer, but I think he's a nice genuine guy and a good role model to boot.

Bo - Vehicle by Ides of March - as usual, a good performance. He's still not my favorite but I've got to give him credit for always getting the crowd going - he does NOT deserve to be in the bottom 3 again.

Although there isn't any single person I'd just be heartbroken to see go home this week, if I had to put money on it I'd say Scott will be leaving us. The way the bottom 3 has been going though, it could be absolutely anybody. And that being said, no, I don't vote. If Carrie or Anwar goes home tomorrow I will have to admit partial responsibility for not doing my part. So sue me. I think though that I'd be more likely to vote if I could vote people off instead of to keep them on.

If you could, who would you vote off this week?

Eat your veggies

I've been on a veggie pizza kick lately. TBF and I were on Atkins for a year or so and whenever we broke the diet to eat pizza, we always ordered italian sausage or pepperoni or meat lovers pizza. More meat cancels out the carbs, right? Right?! Man what the hell were we thinking? Enough heavy fatty filling meat already!

So tonight I made a little pizza on a store bought crust - added some olive oil and a bit of tomato sauce, mushrooms, artichoke hearts, onions, red bell peppers, green olives and grated mozzarella.

10 minutes at 450 = YUMALICIOUS!

Better than Dominos or Pizza Hut any day. And fun to make too. I love me some homemade veggie pizza.

Blogger code

You've heard of geek code? Well now I have a blogger code. Who knew?
You can find your code here, and decode it here.

Code: B2 d- t- k+ s u-- f i- o x+ e- l c+

Decoded: I've been blogging for 3-6 months. I don't own a domain, but I have my own web address. I use Blogger, BigBlogTool, or similar service to update a blogspot, Geocities, or other hosted site; or I use diaryland, livejournal, or another service with built-in updating and content management. I have quite a few links, and I try to check in on them all regularly, or at least periodically. I check my stats occasionally, mostly to discover new blogs that are linking to mine. I don't link to, nor read, any of the standard A-list blogs (Megnut, Kottke, Robot Wisdom, etc.). In fact, I've never heard of 'em. I try to post once a day, but it doesn't always happen, and that's no big deal. The blog isn't the first thing I think of when something happens, but I usually remember to blog the interesting things... eventually. My entries are a mix of some original material, some web links, and links and comments about other blogs. I've dated and/or slept with another blogger and/or met my significant other through blogging. I haven't posted, and don't plan on posting, any photos of myself on my blog. I've taken a few surveys or participated in a few memes, but there seem to be so many of them I have to pick and choose. Only a few people I know outside of blog circles knows about my blog.

Meh.

Boring, I know. I just haven't felt inspired to write the past few days. Not to mention still not having internet at work. Bummer. Anyway, after spending an hour looking for a clever meme, I've given up and and settled on this. Will return with more content soon. Hope you have a good Monday!

All laced up

Have you seen this trend around town yet?
Oh man, I hurt just looking at it...
Why? WHY?!

Reception

We've spent the past several days doing some serious wedding plan, and TBF and I have come to some major decisions. The big one is that we've decided to get married in Austin instead of Estes Park, CO. We love Estes Park. And the Stanley Hotel is absolutely gorgeous (did you know it's where Kubrick shot the exterior shots of the original Shining?). But anyway, we decided that Colorado is just too far away, too hard to plan the whole thing from Texas, too much traveling for our guests, plus it is just going to be too cold in April (blizzard this weekend - like a foot of snow - not good weather for a wedding and loads of travel).

So Austin it is. And I am thrilled! You may remember that this is where we got engaged in January.

Now we are trying to find the ideal reception location. There are some gorgeous old mansions that are really beautiful and unique. I've requested information and we're taking a trip up there in two weeks to check out the locations in person.

TBF talked to his best man today (who got married in Dallas almost 2 years ago). He recommended that we think about skipping the sit down dinner, and instead just go for a cocktail reception with lots of finger foods. He said the buffet was the biggest waste of money at their wedding, and they would definitely spend that money elsewhere (or save it!) if they could do it again.

Thinking about it now ... I've never been to a wedding where I raved about the meal afterwards. They've all been pretty good, but when you start thinking about $30-75 per person, well, that had better be a damn good cow!

Have you ever been to a cocktail reception and complained quietly that you didn,’t get a meal? Does it seem chintzy to skip the meal? Would it make a difference if you knew the couple was paying for the wedding themselves? Oh, and there will be an open bar, so we aren't completely screwing our guests. Yeah, priorities, I don't know. Lots of drinks, lots of hor'dourves. Thoughts?

Confession

*

In the spirit of PostSecret , I'd like to make a confession:
I just drank pickle juice straight from the jar. There are pickles in there, but I didn't want to eat a pickle. I just wanted to drink the juice - and lots of it - so I did - and now I feel kinda sick.

*Um, yeah, well I don't really know what this is either, but there just aren't a lot of interesting "pickle" pictures out there that don't involve sticking one into a woman's wide open mouth. So, here, this is what you get.

Damn you, Blogger

Arghhh. Blogger just ate my post. It was a good scary one too.

Ah, the weekend

What a great weekend. This is the first weekend in quite a while that I've felt truly and completely relaxed. As of Thursday at 9pm, I was officially caught up with all of my school work (and let me tell you, I had a hell of a week finishing up all those past due assignments), attended the entire week's classes (it's been a while since I could say that), and been reasonably productive at work.

Of course, as far as the work-thing goes, that had a LOT more to do with my internet being down than with my actual motivation to succeed. Oh well, at least I know what it feels like to be a really productive employee (But, please God, give me web access next week - 5 days of productivity is quite enough for me!)

Yesterday after work I got a manicure, bought an adorable new purse and pair of pink summer sandals, and had a couple beers with my good friend and bridesmaid, T.

This morning I slept until 11:11 (have you ever heard that you should make a wish whenever you see a clock at 11:11? I've done this for years. Wacky?). And this is where is gets so great... I had absolutely nothing to do. I should rephrase: nothing that I HAD to do or feel guilty for NOT doing. Ahhhh.

So I got caught up on some emails and phone calls to out of town friends, had lunch in the park (it's gorgeous here today - 81 & sunny), did some laundry and partially cleaned out my closet (c'mon it's a big job - you can't expect me to actually finish that project in one day!), took a walk, did some wedding research/planning, and now I'm jamming out to a "totally 80s weekend" on the radio (currently playing: One Night in Bangkok) and catching up on my blog reading.

Tonight will be reserved for a bottle of wine and The Notebook on DVD. I didn't watch it at the theatre, but everyone said it was incredible. I'll have my kleenex box ready.

Hope you are having a fantastic weekend too!

Totooooo!

It is freakin windy here today! That crazy west Texas wind has been whipping across the plains since I got up this morning (where is it all blowing from/to?!). Hell, these are weak tornado speeds!

Here's the exact caption for today's forecast: Tuesday VERY WINDY. Wind westerly 25-35 mph, gusts 50-60 mph. Limited visibility in blowing dust. Both hands on the steering wheel. High profile vehicles, such as campers, full-size vans and semi's, try to stay off open roads.

You know it's windy when the gusts are blowing 3-ton vehicles around!

Funniest thing I saw today was some dumb blonde in a very short flippy skirt walking across campus (I have nothing against blondes, but she is dumb for two reasons: 1- not checking the weather before leaving the house, and 2- wearing cutsey little skirts to class - c'mon it's class not a date!). Anyway, when I saw her she was holding onto that little skirt for dear life with both hands, but no telling how many folks got a free beaver shot today compliments of the dumb blonde - I'd guess dozens.

I've been busting my booty on school assignments this week (as you can tell from my weak posts). I'd fallen very behind, and got the "I'm disappointed in you" speech from one of my professors last week. Fudge. So I'm working really hard to get caught up. So now, back to the books. Hopefully I'll be back with a more substantial post tomorrow (IF I don't blow away in the mean time)! Have a good one.

Mm hmm

To impress a woman:
Wine her. Dine her. Call her. Hold her. Surprise her. Compliment her. Smile at her. Listen to her. Laugh with her. Cry with her. Romance her. Encourage her. Believe in her. Pray with her. Cuddle with her. Shop with her. Give her jewelry. Buy her flowers. Hold her hand. Write love letters to her. Go to the ends of the earth and back again for her.


To impress a man: Show up naked. Bring chicken wings. Don't block the TV.

Old lady quiz

Here's a fun one. An interactive quiz that calculates how long you'll live based on personal stats (gender, height & weight, and family's health) plus the life choices we make daily (alcohol & drugs, diet, seatbelt use, exercise, etc). The cool part is you can go back and change answers to calculate how decisions like eating 5 servings of veggies a day could theoretically extend your life by 3 years. And how smoking 2 packs of cigs a day can decrease your life span by 10 years. Wow.

Looks like I could theoretically live to the ripe old age of 83 - not bad.

The quiz tells me that if I cut back on my whiskey consumption and partake in "vigorous" exercise daily I could live to 93 - 10 extra years. But hell, looks like TBF (a moderate smoker) is only going to make it to his late 70s, and who wants to be windowed for 20 years and die alone in a nursing home anyway?! Bring on the whiskey! ;)

The quiz takes about 30 seconds, and you don't have to register or anything. So tell me, who else is still going to be kicking up their heels in 2058?

Hello Tomorrow

I've never owned a pair of Adidas in my life (I'm a New Balance girl), but I love their new commercial - the guy running through a dreamy existence lighting up his world with each step in his "intelligent" kicks.

Although there is some conflicting info out there, most sites say the name of the song is "Hello Tomorrow", performed by Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. It was reportedly written just for this ad. Directed by Spike Jonez. Very cool.

Here are some of the lyrics:

Whenever I wake up
Try and pull the shades up
Journey through this whole wide world I made up

You can see the commercial here or just listen to the song here. iTunes doesn't have it, but Limewire does. Not that I download free tunes or anything...