Ewwww.....I wanna try!

I present to you, "Dill Pickle Marinated in Kool Aid," 2007
image courtesy of the NY Times

Looks kinda like a marachino cherry, but you'd have one heckuva surprise if you bit into this expecting that. Apparently Kool Aid pickles are all the rage down in the delta (Mississippi, that is), and might soon gain a national distributor. I'm gonna have to make me up a batch just to see what all the fuss is about. Betcha it's nasty. Certainly sounds like it would be.

"You pull the pickles from the jar, cut them in halves, make double-strength Kool-Aid, add a pound of sugar, shake and let it sit — best in the refrigerator — for about a week."

Article here. (Free reg required, but everyone needs a New York Times account.)

Meme time

Heather of Blog, Blah, Blah did a cool interview meme the other day, and invited her readers to participate. Basically, she asks me three questions, and I respond in my own blog, then invite my readers to participate. The rules say that if you want to be interviewed by me, just leave a comment saying so (with your email address), and I'll send you questions.

Without further ado, here goes!

1. I know you have recently taken up residence in North Carolina. What's your favorite part of living in NC? What do you miss most about your old home?

My favorite part of living in NC is the natural beauty of it. Don't get me wrong--CA has remarkably beautiful places to visit--Yosemite, the northern coast, Napa Valley, etc. But NC's beauty is where you live. Forests line the freeway I commute on. Flowers bloom everywhere. There are rivers and lakes and ponds all over the place. What I miss most about CA is my friends, and the state's comprehensive recycling programs. That, and living next to a major airport where you can get a direct flight to Europe. Which leads me to...

2. I saw on your blog that you are going to England next year. What do you most want to see and what would you be okay not seeing if you ran out of time and had to scratch something off the list?

The top of my list is the Tower Bridge Key Ceremony. Apparently you have to write in advance for tickets, so relatively few people get to see it. From what I've read, it's steeped in tradition centuries old, and quite the spectacle. If I run out of time, the first thing to be scratched off would be a museum. I know that the British National Museum is a must-see according to all the guide books, but while I find art somewhat interesting, it would definitely take a back seat to something like the flea market on Portobello Road, or a day trip to Stonehenge.

3. I liked the question that was posed to me and so I am also going to ask it of you: If you could go back in time, what advice would you give your 19-year-old self?

That's a tricky question. A few years ago, I would have said without a doubt that I'd tell my 19-year-old self to not take the easy road majoring in history, and instead hunker down and major in math, because it would have given me more, better paying career options. But I might not have become a teacher, which means I would have never met my best friend, and that would be awful. Although, I might have met a husband instead, but really you can never know. And frankly, I am very satisfied with my career right now, so there are no regrets.

So since the math major advice is not something I would give myself any longer, instead I would tell myself to live life more fully, to experience more things. I lived in San Diego for three years in college and never went to Sea World. I lived in New Hampshire for three months and barely explored beyond my dorm room. I lived a mile from the beach in LA for a year and only went once. Lately I've tried to be more adventurous and I think that having a blog has really helped me try new things, if for no other reason than to report back on how they went.

I hope I did your interview questions justice, Heather. If anyone wants to be "interviewed" by me, just leave a comment and I'll ask you some questions. It's fun!

Raleigh Railhawks

Correction: It has come to my attention that they're actually called the Carolina Railhawks. Doesn't have quite the same ring to it, but accuracy trumps euphony.


Last night I went to my first professional soccer game. My coworker got free tickets from one of the players (apparently most of them live in her apartment complex) and she asked me to join her. I'm not all that familiar with the rules, but it was enjoyable nonetheless. It was cold and dreary all day, and rainy in the late afternoon, but it stopped just in time for the game. Of course, the grass was still wet so the players were slippin' and slidin' all night. We scored a goal in the first half, and I was so proud that I actually saw it, but they ended up calling off sides so it didn't count. The final score was 0-0, which is so bizarre. Here are a few shots. More at Flickr.

At the south end of the field, there was some sort of pep squad cheering section.
They were ridiculously spirited. Several people had flags, the poles of which
they banged rhythmically on the bleacher floor nonstop. I don't know how they
had the energy to keep it up for the entire game.

Nice camera, dude.

Super DVR, other stuff

I totally love my TV and my HD DVR. I love them so much, in fact, that the DVR is frequently maxed out, and things don't stay on the hard drive for more than a day or two before they are automatically erased to make room for new recordings. You would think 160 GB would be plenty of space, but it's actually only enough for 20 hours of HD programming. So after reading some online forums, I recently bought a 500 GB external hard drive, one that would meet all the specs other people recommended. I hooked it up last night and voila! Oodles of room. Then this morning, I wanted to rewind live TV to hear something again (Matt Lauer was in South Africa) and I noticed I could not do it. I tried a ton of different things (powering off, etc.) but nothing made a difference. I hopped on the web at work today and discovered a different forum where lots of people reported the same phenomenon. The solution? Don't watch live TV! It's kind of an absurd notion at first, but then I realized I don't watch that much live TV anyway. For instance, last night, I waited until 9:20 to start watching Grey's Anatomy, so that I would always stay ahead of the commercials. It works fabulously. And on the occasions when I do watch live TV, I can just hit the record button so that in the event I want to rewind, I will be able to. It seems like a small price to pay to be able to record lots of HD movies and stuff. I guess it's just one of those quirks that might get fixed in a future patch. (From what I've read, my HD DVR unit was plagued with problems when it first came out, and slowly they've released patches--downloaded automatically while you sleep--that have remedied almost all of the complaints.)

Not much else to write about. Life is pretty quiet these days. The office is slow, but I'm still enjoying my coworkers. Now that I think about it, this is the first job where I haven't had some major complaint within the first year of working there. Wow, that's amazing. For a while, it appeared as if I'd never find the ideal situation, and I started to wonder if I was crazy for job-hopping in my quest for perfection, but now I seem to have found it, and I'm so happy I did not settle! Good lesson for other parts of my life.....

If you ever check out some of the blogs I read, you should head on over to Blueberry Pie and Head Full of Pixies. They've had some big posts recently.

In local news, a Wake County judge recently ruled that it is illegal to require a student to attend a year-round school. This is ludicrous! He cited the state law that says school must not start sooner than August 25 and must not end later than June 10 as his support. I think that law needs to be struck down, because with the kind of growth our county is experiencing, there is no other way to manage the huge enrollment numbers. Unless you want split schedules, where some kids go to school at 7 am and get out at 1, while others go at 1 and get out at 7. Like that wouldn't mess up parents' schedules! Ha!

So I'm having a little bit of a conscience crisis regarding watering my yard. The lawn, especially in front, has lots of brown spots, but I feel bad just dumping water on it because water is such a precious resource. What makes my lawn deserve this water, when so many billions of people don't even have reliable access to water for their daily needs? Of course, me choosing not to water my lawn will not give them access to water, but there's still an irrepressible twinge of guilt involved. Add to that the fact that I have a serious case of "keeping up with the Joneses" when it comes to my lawn. I am constantly inspecting other people's yards to see if theirs is better or worse than mine. Next door, theirs is Ugly with a capital U, while across the street, theirs is lush. I'm somewhere in the middle. I'd love to have a gorgeous lawn, but I don't want to be a water guzzler.

And then there's the fact that I live by myself in a dwelling that is over 1900 square feet. Talk about wasteful! I should be living in something that's 400 square feet, with solar energy and zero carbon footprint. But I know that is totally unrealistic. So what, I'm just supposed to say oh well, I guess I'll just be a guzzler? I saw an article this week about how the polar ice caps are melting much faster than they originally predicted. This global warming thing is dire, people, and we really have to start doing something. I don't know what I can do to make a difference, though. I try my best and do what I can, in terms of turning out lights and turning off the shower when I'm soaping up, using canvas shopping bags, and recycling everything (I'll even bring home empty plastic bottles from a business trip just so I can recycle them at home). I suppose I do more than a lot of people, but I know I could do much more, and I just have to figure out what. I feel compelled to pressure others into greener ways, but I am no proselytizer. So here's my suggestion for today: Please subscribe to Ideal Bite's daily tip. It is so awesome. They give you easy little ways you can make a difference. Not every day's tip will apply to your life, but most will, and it is very well written and user friendly.

London

London Souvenir
Originally uploaded by Vesuviano.

My next big trip (with my travel buddy Nicole, of course!) is going to be to England in June of 2008. I have already started researching, because, well, that's what I love to do. It's half the fun, really--anticipation and planning. I found this fabulous photo on Flickr and really wish I could make it my desktop wallpaper, but the photographer removed the download rights, so I'll just blog it instead!

Cleveland Metroparks Zoo

After my training this morning (which went well), I decided to go to the zoo. Last night I had gathered over a dozen brochures, but nothing else really moved me. For a while I was considering a drive-thru safari thingie, but then I read about how your car will be covered in animal slobber and full of food pellets. While the idea of having a buffalo stick his head in my car for a bite to eat is thrilling on the one hand, on the other I just couldn't shake the feeling that it seemed somehow wrong to do this to animals. Not just making them stick their heads in cars for food, but also exposing them to random vehicles and drivers. Seems a little too disrespectful for my tastes. So I opted for the traditional zoo, and it was a fun day. The weather was great: a tad windy at times, but a great temp, and a mix of clouds and sun. Apparently the zoo here is free to local residents every Monday, so there were quite a lot of moms and kids, which kinda made it neat.

I took a bazillion photos, of course, and I'll post my favorites here. The rest can be seen at Flickr.

I think that next to felines, elephants are my favorite!

This is one of my best shots, I think. Gotta give some credit to the
froggy, though, for posing so perfectly.

This guy's also a pro at posing. He's actually over near the wolf
exhibit . This habitat affords a much better photo op than the bald
eagles in the other section of the zoo.

Come ON! Can't you just hear the purring?

This guy was over in the corner, pressed up against the
glass. After I took this, he walked over to me and looked
me right in the eyes. So precious!

P.S. I LOVE the zoom on my camera. Makes it worth lugging around the big thing!

Cleveland

I'm writing from my hotel room in Cleveland, and this trip has gotten off to a wonderful start. My flight was on time and pleasant, although the plane was teeny tiny!


I sat next to a nice gentleman with my father's name (George) and we chatted now and again about the weather, Raleigh, etc. My luggage came off the plane about a minute after I walked up to the baggage carousel, and the car rental shuttle was waiting at the curb when I stepped outside. There was no line at the Enterprise counter, and I got one of those nice clerks who, even though for some reason my reservation did not include the price I'd locked in, gave me the cheap rate anyway, and even upgraded me to boot! Check out my sleek ride:


The hotel was less than 10 minutes away, and my Garmin got me there without a hitch. This place (Ramada Cleveland Airport South) actually has drive-thru check in--have you ever heard of such a thing?! Could not be more convenient. And to top it all off, not only did I get a coupon for the Olive Garden across the street (hello, convenient!) but I also got a "goodie bag" with free candy bars, gum, and a pretty big trial size of toothpaste. My room is typical, one of the nicer rooms I've stayed in while on business. My standards are pretty basic: clean, decent smelling, and in good repair. Check, check, and check!

The weather is so delightful, I've had the door open all afternoon while I catch up on my blogs using the very-easy-to-access wireless internet. I don't want to jinx myself, but man, if only every trip was this awesomely smooth! In half an hour I'll catch some Desperate Housewives, and then it's off to lullabye land so I'll be rearin' to go for my training tomorrow morning. I have never spoken to the contact person at this district because he was being very difficult in the planning stages (e.g., complaining to his sales rep that the training dept. never contacted him when we actually left him tons of voicemails and emails), so I hope he's nicer in person and the sessions go okay. I should be done by noon, so I'll have some time for an excursion or two. Gotta make my way to the lobby to check out the brochure rack for anything interesting. The main attraction here, of course, is the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but....eh. The zoo might be more up my alley.

Most ridiculous charity ever

I'm watching Wednesday's episode of the Ellen show, and the guest is Sharon Stone. Ever since I was a volunteer at the Wildlife Waystation, of which she was an active supporter, I have admired her charitable works. However, today she lost a lot of that respect. The charity she was promoting was--wait for it--paying for girls to go to their proms. Dresses, makeup, admission, etc. If she wants to spend her own money on that, be my guest, but she was actually soliciting donations. "For only $175 you can send a girl to the prom!" How utterly ridiculous! There are so many more important things that money could benefit instead of paying for one night of lame decorations, sweaty dancing, and bad food, not to mention all the misbehaving that notoriously accompanies prom night. Come on!

My house on the red carpet

Just like a celebrity gets all gussied up for her walk down the red carpet at the Oscars, my house got all primped for her unveiling at my housewarning party last night. I was very, very satisfied with how everything looked on the first floor, and also quite satisfied with my bedroom. The two secondary bedrooms, however, were still in a state of disorder.

I know Gabrielle has been waiting for these photos (sorry it took so long!), so without further ado, here they are!

Kuh-rayzee weather

One look at my inbox and you can tell it was a busy weather day:


Winter's like, "I'm cold," and Summer's like, "I'm hot," and Fall is like, "I'm perfect." Spring is the rebel of the family, the one who refuses to be labeled. Spring's like, "Hey, check out my flowers, aren't I pretty?" but she'll turn on you in a heartbeat, and show off her bag o' tricks.

One day, it's sunny and 80 and everyone breaks out the flip flops. The next, there's a frost warning threatening the strawberry crops. And then today, Spring had a tantrum. Warm and muggy air, hail, rain, and glorious sun all within 30 minutes. Here's a look at my gutter this afternoon:


My back patio was also temporarily flooded during a downpour, sending dirt from the shrub area all over the cement and brick. My poor, newly planted weeping willow was really quite thrashed; thank goodness for the supports that held her up.


And the hail did its best to beat down the freshly planted petunias, but I think they survived pretty well.


I must mention that all the landscaping improvements were courtesy of my dad, who came over on Thursday to mow my lawn. It was, shall we say, a tad on the overgrown side. I'd never mowed a lawn before, and he was going to show me, but then before we knew it, it was time for the housewarming party, and the lawn was still unmown. So he offered to do it for me, because he's such a great dad.


He also planted the tree and petunias, as well as installing an adorable little solar light. He's the best!