A couple of my favorite Niagara Falls pictures...


Water cascade

Rainbow

Zzz...

I'm tired. Tired of packing, tired of thinking about logistics, tired of running errands. I'm excited about going on my roadtrip, I'm excited about living in Seattle for the summer, and I'm excited about going back to Boston in the fall, but I'm tired of organizing my belongings. I went to the Salvation Army today to donate a bunch of clothes and a few pairs of shoes (including my Halloween cowgirl boots), and in doing some more packing tonight, I've come up with a few more things that I should get rid of, and I keep looking at all my books and furniture, wondering how much of it I could really give away and not regret later, just so that I don't have to send another box of crap home to my parents or take another box of crap over to Jen & Gavin's house.

I spent over an hour tonight talking to my mom on the phone, and I was reminded once again of what good friends we've become since I've grown up. I think there's always some crossover point you hit with mom and dad (hopefully) where they become friends instead of just parents. My mom and I reached that point pretty early, and even though there have been times along the way when either she or my dad has had to step up to the plate and play the parent trump card again, for the most part, I'm incredibly glad that I can simply consider them friends of mine. I miss being home. Yes, a long weekend is usually the maximum amount of time I can spend there before being ready to leave, but having dinner at my aunt's house a couple weekends ago while my grandparents were visiting made me realize how much I missed being surrounded by family.

I never thought I would be able to completely turn my back on Houston and all the people I've met here just because I didn't have a good experience at work, but lately I've been getting so fed up with the situation here that I've wanted to just leave and never look back. Sometimes I feel like I'm back in middle school with everything that's been going on.

Sorry about the random collection of thoughts. It's a good thing none of my high school English teachers are reading this... I swear, I picked up writing skills at one point, but it's too much work for a blog.

----------------------------------------

P.S. I posted my pictures from Niagara Falls/Jamestown, NY/Toronto, but the rest of the trip is still on Josh's camera. Coming soon...

Back from Canadia

The past two weeks have been absolute bliss. To start, I quit my job on May 13th. I spent the next seven days sleeping late, hanging out with friends, shopping, and planning my next vacation. A week ago, Josh and I left to go to New York for Laurie's wedding, stopping to see Niagara Falls on the way to all the usual wedding festivities. After the I do's, we spent about 4 days in Toronto. The last time I was in Toronto was in 6th grade for a class trip, but the only thing I remember from it was the bus ride. I dunno... what does anyone retain from a glorified field trip at 11 years old? I was more concerned about who I was going to sit next to during lunch at McDonald's than absorbing any Canadian culture. Anyway, we had a great time just wandering around the city, even if it was a little chilly for the first few days. We "celebrated" Victoria Day, which was Monday the 23rd, by taking a Toronto harbor cruise at night to see the fireworks the night before. The original cruise we wanted to go on was sold out by the time we called, so the only other option was a cruise with the Party on the Boat. It sounded totally sketchy when I called to reserve tickets, and I was even more skeptical when we got there and I had to hold the carbon paper tight over my credit card so that the Captain could rub a pen over the raised number on the card so that it would show up on my carbon-paper receipt. But it turned out to be a lot of fun, and I got some decent shots of the Toronto skyline from the harbor.

So apparently what I didn't discover in 6th grade is that Toronto is a fantastic city. I had heard it described as a smaller, cleaner New York City, which I think I would generally agree with. People walk and bike everywhere, and even though driving downtown can be frustrating, most of that is expected since it is a major city. The Toronto subway is rising to the top of my list of favorite subway systems - it was clean, we got to sit down during every ride we took except one, and the maximum amount of time between arriving trains is 5 minutes. I think the longest we waited was ~3 minutes. I suppose the whole layout could be a little bigger, but the streetcars fill in most of the subway gaps. I liked the mix of U.S. and European influence on the city and people, and there are so many different things to do - museums, theatres, the symphony, lots of bars & restaurants, the harbourfront, Chinatown, Greektown, Little Italy...

My only complaint about Toronto is that it's apparently bad luck for the Boston Red Sox - they lost to the Toronto Blue Jays in the game that we went to on Tuesday night. Otherwise, I approve.

Still homeless

My little sister found out a few days ago that I was going to Seattle for the summer and promptly announced that she had never met anyone so willing to relocate in her life. :) Well, I am willing, but so far I still have no place to live in Seattle yet. And furthermore, I have no place to live yet once I go back to Boston in the fall. No big deal, right? Yeah...

At the library yesterday, browsing through the travel section, a maybe 8-year-old boy wandered into the same row as me and asked me if he could have 65 cents. As if a close friend of mine had just asked to borrow a quarter to buy a soda, I rummaged through my wallet and gave him some change. Immediately afterward my brain returned and wondered why I had just done that. I've given my dinner leftovers to homeless people in the Boston subway a few times, but hardly ever do I give money to panhandlers on city streets, even though it makes me incredibly uncomfortable to walk past them and pretend that I didn't hear them or don't have any money on me. And I could almost guarantee you that this little boy in the library didn't need any money, but I apparently couldn't say no when he asked. I'm not sure whether this makes me a good person, a bad person, or just a huge sucker.

By the way, in case you're wondering if it's a good idea to drink hot beverages at your desk at work, it's not. I managed to get away with just a small spill this morning, but it reminded me of a time a few summers ago when I knocked over a styrafoam cup full of hot chocolate on my desk one morning as I swung around in my chair to talk to my officemate. The hot chocolate shot out of the cup and drenched my keyboard, dripped into a large puddle on the fabric seat of my chair, and even managed to soak some papers in one of the drawers as the hot chocolate cascaded down the side of the desk. Not surprisingly, my keyboard was completely useless after being soaked in something so sticky, so I had to call the IT people and ask them to replace it. Unfortunately, the only extra one they had looked like it had been saved from an Apple IIe manufactured in 1981.

Going to the chapel and we're... gonna get maaaaaaried

It's taken me five years, but I've finally found out what the point of sorority rush parties is: (drum roll please...) it's to prepare you for the eventual bridal showers that you'll attend once you leave college. For the most part, I had a great time in Sigma Kappa at MIT, but the one thing that I hated every year was rush. Everyone's in a random room in our student center that's decorated with crepe paper and balloons, trying not to spill punch they're drinking out of clear plastic cups on their cute spring dresses while they're mingling. I guess I thought I left that behind when I graduated, but it turns out that it rears its ugly head again once you start going to bridal showers. The only difference is that the conversation has changed from majors, dorms, and frat parties to weddings, babies, and flatware.

I really did have a good time, and it was fun to see Laurie again... I just didn't like revisiting the "Omigod, your dress is so cute!" era.

What did you do on Friday night?

I left work at 3:30 on Friday because I had already worked 48 hours that week, and because I needed to get a couple gifts for this weekend - something for my dad's birthday on Monday, and something for Laurie's bridal shower that I went to this afternoon. Anyway, I managed to convince Josh that he "wanted" to go to the Galleria with me, so we drove down there around 5, wandered around for a few hours, and ended up decorating a chocolate foot. Yes, a chocolate foot. Laurie's thing was an alphabet shower, so everyone had to bring a gift related to a certain letter, and I was assigned the letter F. Granted, it's not nearly as difficult as Q or Z, but I still couldn't find anything gift-worthy that involved F - until we walked into a store called Dylan's Candy Bar. Aside for being the biggest candy store I've been in, they had solid slabs of chocolate that were molded into different shapes - cats, fighter planes, feet, etc. that you could frost and decorate with other candy in their store. So, we decorated a giant chocolate foot with pink frosting - gave it a flip-flop, ankle bracelet, painted toenails, a toe ring, and a sock. I was amazed that it actually turned out halfway decent. :)

Anyway, after decorating the foot, we had dinner, stayed at the restaurant until midnight, and then wandered around the mall until 2am. (Yes, the Galleria closes before 2am... don't ask.) After that we decided to call it a night, so we walked back to the Dilliard's parking lot, and Josh's car was most definitely no longer there. Only then did I notice the giant signs warning customers that their cars would be towed if they were parked there after hours. *sigh* So we walked up to one of the tow trucks that was still in the lot and they gave us a number to call to find out where our car was. After some confusion about whether or not the car had actually made it to the lot, we walked to a nearby gas station to find an ATM. Just to go along with the theme of the evening, a huge fight broke out at the gas station while we were trying to withdraw oodles of money to get Josh's car back.

So we went back to the Galleria parking lot and caught a cab (which contained a driver who was in desparate need of a stronger presription for his glasses) to take us to the impound lot. The lot reminded me of a dog pound - there was barbed wire everywhere, the office was about a foot and a half above our heads so that we couldn't really see what was going on in there, and the guy behind the glass didn't speak through just a regular microphone - he used a loudspeaker. So by 3:30am, we were safely back in Josh's car and on our way back to Clear Lake. To summarize...

1 gift for my dad: $32.54
1 chocolate foot: $16.28
1 dinner for 2: $26.50
1 cab ride to Ronda Lane Auto Storage: $18.00
1 red Honda Civic reclaimed: $171.89

Sitting outside of Uptown Realty on the 6th floor of the Galleria at 1am, solving all the world's problems and discovering an amazing friend: priceless.

I love you so much that I... fell asleep

Tuesday night was the Yuri's Night party in Houston. Specifically, it at the Outpost, which is this totally sketchy-looking bar right down the street from work - one of those places that has regulars who have stop in every day after work for 20 years. Like many sketchy bars though, it wasn't really as sketchy as it seemed from outside. Anyway, I went to the party because several of my friends organized the whole thing, and I walked over from my apartment because I knew I didn't want to have to worry about driving home afterward. It turned out to be a lot of fun, and I had a few drinks throughout the night, but I was feeling fine by the time I got home later, just a little tired. Carlos and I usually talk before I go to sleep at night, so I gave him a call after I finished getting ready for bed. I woke up later that night and rolled over my phone and earpiece in bed, wondering why I didn't put them away before going to sleep, but not really thinking any more about it. Anyway, the next morning I got an email from Carlos asking if I was okay... was I mad at him? It took me a few seconds to put everything together, but apparently I fell asleep while talking to my boyfriend on the phone. Aaagh! I am officially the worst girlfriend ever.

"... so that was my day. How was yours?"
"Zzzzzz....."

I hate my job

Absolutely, positively, hate it. I hate it so much that I can't even describe to you how much I hate it. I've been here since June 28, 2004 and the number of days that I've actually looked forward to going to work in the last 10 months would altogether add up to less than four weeks. I hate my job because I'm always someone else's bitch. I don't get to make any decisions about what I work on or what sort of analysis I do; I just have to smile and nod when anyone comes to me asking for data. I hate my job because I can't produce any useful work on my own - everything I do requires files, data, information, documents, or permission from someone else. Even if I didn't have to ask someone else for some sort of input, I don't really know how to use the analysis tools because there are so many quirks, fudge factors, and input files that have to be formatted just so, so I always have to go around bugging people about how to use programs. I hate my job because I work with people who have been here for longer than I've been alive and don't seem to understand that I haven't already learned everything there is to know here in the 10 months that I've worked here. I hate my job because I volunteer to take on new things under the assumption that someone else will take over one of my current projects to make time for the new stuff, but apparently that's a stupid assumption, because now I'm just working 10 hours a day instead. And honestly, I have no problem coming into work at 8am and leaving at 6pm, assuming that I were interested and excited about the stuff that I'm working on. I hate my job because I don't get to choose what I work on - it's just dumped in my lap and I've got all these responsibilities and then it's too late to say no. No one ever asks if it's something that I would be interested in working on or learning more about. And if you're going to tell me that I'm still "getting used to everything" and that I need to "keep the good times and bad times in perspective," save your breath. I don't care if all that's true - all I know is that when I wake up in the morning I wish to God that I were going anywhere else but to my stupid desk at work to count the hours until I can go home again. I'm wasting my life here. I haven't cried this much on a regular basis since I was still in diapers. Without a single doubt in my mind, I can say that this has been the worst year of my life.

So then, you ask, why haven't I left yet? Trust me, I'm working on it. I'm going back to school in September to start my master's degree, and until then I have another job lined up for the summer, but that's not supposed to start until the second week of June. Because of that, I don't really feel like I can leave much earlier than the middle of May, and yes, it's only a month, and yes, I've survived this long so I'll make it until then, but I still wish that I could just crawl into bed, pull the covers over my head, and have my mom call me in sick, like she used to do when I was in middle school. But for an entire month. And not because I'm actually sick. And I'd still like to get paid between now and then...

So then, you ask, if you're that unhappy, why don't you just give your two weeks notice and leave? Well, here's the thing - if I have to stay for another two weeks, I may as well stay for two more weeks after that. It's not like that'll save me from having to go to work tomorrow.

Musings

First of all, I would just like to point out that whistling is rude. Just like most people wouldn't normally sing songs out loud in public, people shouldn't whistle in public. We can't hear the actual tune that's playing in your head! And the rendition of the song that's coming out of your mouth definitely doesn't do the song justice, and is mainly just annoying.

All right, now that that's out of my system, let's move on. This week has been crazy - interview, possible new plans for the summer, last minute trip to Boston (leaving in less than 5 hours), and lots of new stuff to do at work. And, I went to the Astros opening day game against the Cardinals on Tuesday! But, they lost. Oh well. I think I'll miss going to baseball games in Houston. I never made it to a Red Sox game in Boston, and the only other professional baseball game I went to was during middle school or high school. It was a triple-A team - the Toledo Mud Hens. No joke. Anyway, the point is that baseball games are cool, and anyone who's still mad about the strike several years back should get over it.

Josh asked me the other day what things I'll miss about Houston once I leave, and I could only come up with two things - the people I've met here and the weather (minus the summer). Since then, I've come up with one other thing, and that's my general proximity to the space program. Yes, I don't like my specific job, but still, there are times when it hits me that there are very few people that get to see what I see on a regular basis, and the space progam, in my opinion, is still really, really cool. The random meetings with astronauts and Gene Krantz sightings haven't been bad either. :)

Just one more story...

See, Becca? I'm an updating fiend. This was my conversation with some random guy next to me at the gas station while we filled up our cars yesterday afternoon:

Random Guy: Does that have the Vtech in it?
Me: Uh, no, it's just regular gas...
RG: No, I mean your car.
Me (feeling like an enormous dork): Oh yeah. It has a Vtech engine.
RG: Whoa... dude... Have you ever thought about racing it?
Are you out of your mind? It's a Honda Civic, for crying out loud. This thing's got over 70,000 miles on it.
Me: (giggle) Um, no, I haven't.
RG: Dude, you should so totally think about racing it.
Me: Okay... sure... I'll think about it.

Not that it wouldn't be cool to drive around in a car with a supercharged engine, speed chip, low-profile tires, and nicer suspension than what I currently own, but I think I would still feel like one of those people who screws a 2x4 onto the trunk of their sedan and calls it a spoiler. Sorry dude, it's still a Civic.

Freakish bug incident

Once again, I snoozed until 8:00 this morning, but after dragging myself out of bed, showering, and getting dressed, I was ready to leave my apartment at 8:30. I opened my front door and started to turn around, when all of a sudden one of those giant daddy-longleg mosquito things flies down my shirt. AGGHHHHH!!!! I start wildly flapping around and yanking at my shirt, trying to remove the bug that's now stuck between my shirt and my chest because it has such freakishly long legs. It falls down a bit so I jerk my shirt up and slap at my torso to get the bug to come out the bottom, but then it decides to go back up. By this point, I'm completely sure that I flashed any neighbors that happened to be watching me flail around, so after much wild scraping at my chest and shirt, the bug finally disintigrated into a chunk on my finger and miscellaneous legs scattered around the inside front of my shirt. Thoroughly exhausted and freaked out, I go back inside and peel off my clothes as I run up the stairs. After dumping my tainted clothes in a pile on my bathroom floor and scrubbing my finger clean of the bug guts, I spent another 15 minutes putting on nearly everything left in my closet, which doesn't take long because I haven't done laundry in a while, and quickly decide that everything is unsuitable. I finally picked out another shirt and walk out the front door, all while covering my chest with both hands to prevent another freakish bug incident.

National Geographic

All right, I just called a guy in Seattle that I was supposed to have a pseudo phone interview with, and the number he gave me for his cell phone was some old guy who had no idea who I was. I checked the number a zillion times, and I know that I dialed the same number in his email, so I don't know what's going on. *sigh* I guess I'll have to call him at work tomorrow... discretely...?

Anyway, after coming back from the gym, I was making dinner (well, not really, but I always call pouring myself a bowl of cereal, toasting a bagel and spreading on some cream cheese, or making macaroni & cheese out of a box "dinner," so we'll just move on) and I flipped on the TV. Of course, nothing was on since there was no OC this week, but I turned to the National Geographic channel in the middle of a special on the Orgasmatron. I only saw the second half of the show where three women met the doctor who discovered this whole thing and were going to participate in a 1 week trial. After getting the electrodes inserted into their spine and turning on the handheld device that could vary the frequency and intensity of the signals sent to their bodies, the women were told to go back to their hotel rooms with their husbands and basically "experiment" for the rest of the week. The outcome was actually really interesting - one of the women had fantastic results, one of them had a few orgasms over the course of the week, and the last women didn't see any changes at all. It was neat to see how the doctor discovered all this stuff, but it was really sad to hear from the woman who didn't really get anything out of it. I dunno... I guess it was just cool to see how these women spoke so candidly about the problems that they were having and what length they were going to in order to fix it.

I also thought it was amusing how some of the other people that were interviewed on the show talked all about their concerns about the "trend" that the Orgasmatron is setting. Ranging from "this is just like plastic surgery - we're encouraging women to chase after the ideal and they're losing sight of what's really normal" to "the female orgasm isn't really a necessary part of reproduction anyway, so why bother trying to recreate it?" First of all, the second argument is completely bogus since doctors are prescribing Viagra and Cialis to men who have already had vasectomies and are married to post-menopausal women. There's no reproduction going on. So now the message is that men can still enjoy sex but women can't? That's stupid. The plastic surgery argument is a little weak as well - if a woman is bothered enough by her looks and has the money to afford plastic surgery, who's to say that she shouldn't do it? Likewise, if a woman is unhappy enough with her sex life and has the money to pay for something like the Orgasmatron, why should people care that she's getting it? I'll bet it's making her happier. As long as the FDA says it won't hurt you, I say rock on.

Things about living in Texas that no longer seem weird to me

• flipping through at least 5 Spanish TV stations while looking for NBC
• traffic lights flipped on their sides
• losing count of the number of Corvettes and pimped-out 1984 Nissan Sentras I see on the road
• feeder roads for the highways
• walking into work every day and seeing "Mission Control Center" written on the wall
• telling people I work for NASA, because everyone works for NASA
• continuously using Unix commands by mistake in Windows applications
• not being interested in watching HBO's From the Earth to the Moon series on DVD because I already get too much of it at work
  
• living among palm trees
• having people ask me if I'm married
• having people ask me if I have kids
• turning on the A/C in March

Extended weekend

Carlos left this afternoon after a great long weekend. I think the highlight was eating ice cream for breakfast on Saturday and then going to Galveston to rollerblade along the seawall. Going to church the next morning on Easter Sunday fell by the wayside in favor of sleeping in and watching the USA-Mexico World Cup qualifier game. I think this makes my last appearance at a church on Easter over five years ago... but that's a story for another day.

I tried to vacuum my apartment this weekend because it's getting filthy (as in, I found a random bird feather underneath the living room rug, and I think my hamster pooped on the stairs the last time she was out there), but I discovered that the belt in the vacuum was broken, so my plan was foiled. I would ask my roommate if she knew where to get a new belt, but i think she's in India. I haven't seen her in about two weeks, which isn't really out of the ordinary since she spends so much time at her boyfriend's apartment, but I remember her saying something about having plans to go to India a few months ago. Our living situation hasn't turned out the way I thought it would at all, but it's been kind of nice to have this big apartment all to myself. The only weird part is when she actually does come home, because we sort of upset each other's rhythm.

Ugh, this post was useless. I'm not sure I'm really into this whole blog thing. It's fun to recount the funny stuff I see or random things that happen to me, but those events are sometimes few and far between. The other stuff that's been on my mind a lot lately isn't really appropriate for this sort of venue, so then I end up writing about nothing. *shrug*

In the bathrooms at work

Okay, I know you’re thinking, “No good stories start with a title like that,” but just hang on a second. In the bathrooms at work, a safety sheet is posted inside the stall door about a different topic every month. During the summer it was West Nile Virus; we’ve also had microwave safety, office safety, and some other less-memorable topics. Anyway, this month is “Driver Fatigue and Road Trance.” It starts out by scaring you with statistics about how many people die from drowsiness while driving and then goes on to list the symptoms of driver fatigue. Later on, there are some helpful suggestions on how to prevent driver fatigue and “road trance,” and while reading them, I couldn’t help thinking about the numerous times that G. and I drove between MIT and our respective homes near Detroit, MI. We always drove through Canada since it was shorter than going through Pennsylvania and Ohio, but it was still about 13 hours, give or take. Here’s the two of us not following the safety suggestions:

- Plan a healthy, well-balanced diet (okay - show me one person you know that’s ever had a well-balanced diet in college)
- Aim for seven or eight hours sleep (maybe if you added up the sleep that each of us got during the night, it would add up to seven or eight…)
- Start out as early in the day as possible (sorry, most of our trips started around 9pm the night before we planned to arrive at home. If you’re driving home for Thanksgiving, wasting an entire day on the road makes the trip pointless. Driving during the night means you have more time at home.)
- Avoid driving alone whenever possible (well, we accomplished that, but I’m not sure if it counts when the other person, usually me, snored the entire way home)
- Keep trips to reasonable distances (what defines “reasonable”?)
- Try to avoid long night drives (see #3)
- Keep the driver’s area cool and well ventilated (does this include rolling down both windows all the way and sticking your head out in the middle of December while going 70 miles an hour to keep yourself awake?)
- Talk to passengers without being distracted (again - me, asleep)
- Take breaks every two hours or 100 miles (hmm… how about every 350 miles when we stopped for gas?)
- On break, get out of the vehicle and walk, jog, or stretch (does stumbling into the rest-stop bathroom count?)
- If it is essential, pull over and take a nap of no more than 20 minutes. Any longer will make you feel groggy. (maybe it was sometimes more like 2 hours…)

Funny, those trips always went differently when I drove home with my parents…

Okay, so we didn’t meet all of the bathroom safety tips. But watching Andy eat chocolate-covered espresso beans the entire way home once, stopping at 5am for Tim Horton’s in BFE, Canada, detouring through Niagara Falls, and the general hilarity that resulted from being cooped up in a car for an entire night made it all worth it.

So much has happened...

...since I last wrote! Things have been pretty busy, and it never seems like I have enough time to sit down and actually post anything, and today (at work, at least) is no different, so I should be quick. I just got home yesterday from a weekend in Boston - MIT's open house for its recently-admitted aero/astro graduate students. It probably wasn't the most productive use of my time, since I already know the department pretty well, but it was an opportunity to visit Draper Labs, so I would at least know a little more about what sort of work I would be doing next year before I decide to accept the fellowship offer. During the Draper tour, I bumped into a girl that did her undergrad at Georgia Tech with Josh, and she was surprised to hear that he was now my officemate at work. Random small world experience...

The trip also made me realize how much I missed the Burton 2 crowd. We went out for dinner (Chili's, of course) and drinks (Whiskey's, of course), so I got a chance to meet everyone's new girlfriend and catch up on Angela's new relationship too. I also managed to monopolize the rest of Carlos's weekend, since this coming week is his spring break and he doesn't have any homework due for a while. I'm definitely sold on going back to Boston. I just wish it could happen sooner than August. Everyone I talk to that doesn't know anything specific about my situation at work tells me that I should stick around here until the beginning of August - save up some more money, I don't need to start classes or work at Draper that early, etc. But on the other hand, everyone who knows the real story about my life in Houston says, "Leave now! You're too unhappy here to stay for another four months." When I was younger, I couldn't understand why anyone would stay at a job or in a relationship that they weren't completely happy with, but at my now-wise age of 23, I can appreciate that nothing in life is ever that black and white.

Around the country in a bus

Ehren has finally posted all his pictures from our Vegas trip, and as I looked through them this morning, I had a chance to peruse his entire website for his trip around the country in a converted school bus. Here's how it starts out:

This page, temporarily, is the story of the conversion of a school bus into a motorhome. The deeper question of why will be answered eventually, so be patient.

On Friday July 23rd, I quit my job. I didn't enjoy it at all. There's an entire mental tome of reflection on this subject too, but again it's outside the scope of the bus conversion. Be patient.

A couple of posts later, Ehren explains a little about why he's excited for the trip:

It was tonight that the trip really began. My mind is clear of all doubt. In the past week and a half, even though it's been fun, and smooth, and unbelievably close to our vocalized goals for distance and experience, I've still been mulling over The Big Choices. We've stayed at the appointed apartments of friends who are going on to do their great things, having ensured their success along the paths that have been labeled out for all of us with bright signage and MapQuest. Yesterday, even, I balanced remote and lucrative-enough work, an afternoon at museums, an evening out and comfortable return home, which is all I had asked of myself on the days of this trip.

But tonight out my bedroom window I can see 270 degrees of the Shenandoah mountains. We're in a wide cup of hills, and all across the sky are cloudless stars and a vivid milky way. For dinner we had a roast chicken, and bread and cheese, and Dr. Pepper, finding our way around the kitchen by flashlight because main batteries still aren't connected.

It's hard, but not impossible, to describe why -- at least temporarily -- I've given up on doubt despite the fact that so much, the remaining entirety, is still unknown. This view, this composition of a day's events, this mix of travel and homes, this everything, is what I want. From now on, all the time.

There are a few reasons why I'm enormously impressed by Ehren's undertaking:
1) He's managing to work from the road/bus enough so that he's got money in the bank to support his travels, but not so much that it interferes with the real purpose of the trip.
2) Instead of buying an RV or equivalent vehicle, he bought a school bus, and converted it into a liveable space with only the help of his traveling partner Miro.
3) He's chucked the whole idea of a standard life: 9-5 job, apartment, etc. I'm embarrassed to say that I'm not sure I have the balls (for lack of a better term) to quit my job and move out of my cushy apartment to pursue a dream like that.

Top ten

In my effort to waste time this evening, I did a lot of web-surfing and ended up stumbling across a Forbes website that ranks the top ten blogs in twelve categories. I guess I'm really only interested in the travel and photo categories, but I could definitely spend some serious time reading all these entries. Hmm... things to do at work tomorrow? :)

It's been a slow couple of days since getting back to Houston... I've been really tired lately, which I first attributed to just readjusting to my regular work schedule, but now I think it's more than that, because I've developed a sore throat, watery eyes, and the sniffles over the past 24 hours. This is always one of those times where I think about whether or not I really want to go to work tomorrow if I'm sick... please, let me be sick! It's always a fine line though - sick enough so that I would infect my coworkers, but not so sick that I couldn't at least drink hot chocolate and watch movies all day. You at least should get a little mileage out of a sick day. But I'm supposed to go downtown to see Les Miserables tomorrow night with two of my coworkers, so I guess it would be poor form to skip work and still go to the show.

All right, I guess that means it's bedtime.

What happens in Vegas...

Actually, I don't really have any wild and crazy stories about my weekend in Las Vegas that I can't write about here. I didn't get in until about 11pm on Friday night, so after meeting G. at the airport, we took a shuttle to the strip to meet up with the five other guys who had flown in from Boston, and the guy who owned the converted school bus that we were staying on for the weekend. Yes, a school bus. We had an extremely late dinner at Denny's, then snuck into the Luxor to use their pool and hot tub. About an hour later, we got booted out by the security guard ("Uh, no sir, we didn't see the sign that says the pool closes at 5pm...") and then went back to the bus and fell asleep. The next morning we hit up the Excalibur for some a.m. gambling, and then after stopping at the Luxor for the lunch buffet, we wandered down the strip to see the pirate show outside of Treasure Island (definitely not a family show), the tiger inside the Mirage, the Russian acrobats at Circus Circus, and the Arby's at the end of the strip (a huge tourist attraction, I assure you). We took the bus back down the strip to see the Bellagio fountain show on the way to New York, New York for Zumanity, the Cirque du Soleil show we were going to see that night, and on the way we ran into a couple of Christians with picket signs about how God will judge you if you are a rebellious woman, a dyke on a bike, a Mormon, or a sports nut, among other things. The fountain show was amazing, and the nerd in all of us spent a lot of time wondering how big the pumps were that shot the water 200 ft in the air.

After going to see Zumanity, which was definitely a weird combination of regular Cirque du Soleil stunts and a standard topless show you'd see in Vegas, we stopped for dinner and then headed back to the bus. The next morning we rented scooters to drive out to Red Rock Canyon, about 15-20 miles off the Las Vegas strip. After getting to the canyon we scooted around the "scenic drive" through the area and climbed up to the top of the ridge of red (well, more like orange) rocks. We camped at the campsite in Red Rock that night and drove back the next morning, and I can honestly say that after this trip, I absolutely want a motorcycle. Yes, top speed on the scooters was only about 45 mph, but it was by far the best way you could drive through that area. The only downside was that our little scooters looked slightly ridiculous next to the real motorcyclists driving down the road...

So, the trip was awesome. I would definitely go back to do more of the regular Vegas stuff (i.e. gambling and shows), and it would have been nice to take an actual shower somewhere between Friday morning and Monday night (washing my hair in the bathroom at the Luxor on Sunday does not count), but I had a fantastic time regardless. There's something about traveling with seven guys and sleeping on a school bus that leads to the kind of general ridiculousness that you wouldn't get on a standard trip to Vegas!

Good day

In an email I received this morning:

To Melaniec c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c Millerc c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c:
I am delighted to be writing to you today to tell you of your acceptance to the graduate program in the Aeronautics and Astronautics Department at MIT. You will receive a formal notice of acceptance from the Institute, but we wanted to get the good news to you as quickly as possible.

Yay!! And on my birthday, even. Good timing! Now, if I only got a second email that went something like this...

To Melanie Miller (sorry about all the weird boxes last time - we cut them out here):
I am delighted to be writing to you today to tell you of your enormous grant to cover all your expenses while in the graduate program in the Aeronautics and Astronautics Department at MIT. You will receive a formal fatty check from the Institute, but we wanted to get the good news to you as quickly as possible.

Ah well... in any case, I'm excited. :)