Tomorrow I finally go to Humboldt. It's exciting, and a little scary. What's lame is I'm most looking forward to the drive. I really like driving. I feel very free and independent when I drive, but cozy and at home at the same time. I can get by in the stingiest of circumstances, with just the necessities, except for my car. I need Honda-chan. He's my best, most loyal friend. Not to mention he's pretty studly. The drive to and from Cobb mountain just recently was a piece of cake thanks to him being a manual car. It smelled like brakes going down those hills and I just laughed at everyone else with their stupid fancy cars. Plus it's much easier to haul ass up a hill when your car isn't jipping you on your engine's power with its "smart" transmission.
So yeah, Cobb mountain was great. I got to see some of the fam, and take Honda-chan on some off-roading adventures, haha. He's not much for mountain climbing, but he did better than my mom's bmw, so I'm proud. It was stinking hot the first day there, but luckily the local pool has a spring water pool from the creek. Ice cold, no chlorine.. much more to my taste. Regular pools are just so icky. The second day there we canoe-d 10 miles down the Russian river. It was nice for most of the way. We saw two blue herons and crashed our boats into a bunch of vegetation to get really close, lol, and then we saw some carp which was weird. I never knew there were carp in that river, but I guess so.
Anyways, still got more packing to do. Then I'm off tomorrow morning. Eeeeeeee wish me luck!
Episode Nine: Saturday in the Park
Early last Saturday morning, I decided to head out and take some pictures. I hadn't taken a good one in some time. Actually, a very long time.
But Saturday was the day. I could feel it.
So, shortly after seven thirty, out I went, down to the Humber River, right by the lake. It was a gorgeous morning, an absolutely stunning day to take pictures. After about three hours of trekking through the wild, I decided to take a break, sit in the grass for a while and look at the pix I had taken so far.
Suddenly, a scurry in the bushes behind me. As I turned, all I could see was a humongous-ly large telephoto lens and a person running through the brush, almost whispering; 'wow! did you see that, what a magnificent bird that is, where did it go'.
He asked me if I had seen a Grey Heron coming through. He had been tracking it for the last hour or so and was trying to get a few more pictures for a layout he was working on. I was intrigued, so of course, I decided to tag along. After all, he looked like an interesting person to talk to about photography.
I know the suspense is killing you, so I'll get to the point.
Turns out, his name is Larry Kirtley, quite a famous Canadian and Internationally renowned professional wildlife photographer with many awards and accolades to his credit. Perhaps you have seen some of his work in magazines like National Geographic, Outdoor Living and other Nature publications. I'm including a link below.
Very nice person, very knowledgeable, of course, yet almost humble in his way. And his camera equipment, absolutely amazing. The latest dream machine on the planet and worth almost as much as a mid size sedan. We chatted for about an hour, about all sorts of things, yet never once did he make fun of my toy, which it is, by comparison to the marvel of modern day technology he shoots with. He thought it was the perfect starter camera for anyone who wants to learn the basics.
I totally agree.
I must also say that this chance meeting was one of the most exhilarating and personally rewarding experiences I’ve had in some time. It gave me a whole new perspective, outlook and appreciation for the wonderful art of photography and certainly re-ignited my seemingly lost passion, once again.
Amazing how things work out sometime, and often, when least expected.
If you would like to visit his web site, with many spectacular and award winning pictures, click here; http://www.larrykirtley.com/ and select main page to start viewing his collection.
Enjoy the show!
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We arrived home last night from our 10-day trip to Upstate New York, thankful for a very good trip, and thankful to be home. Of the 10 days we were gone, 5 of them were spent traveling to multiple locations, giving us many opportunities to reflect on the "joy of the journey" -- and to try to convince the kids that this was possible. We drove over 1800 miles, and according to Pete's new GPS toy, with all of our stops along the way, we averaged 46 miles per hour, so you can do the math to calculate how many hours that meant in the car. I'll just say it was a LOT.
It was also a lot of snacks -- I think I need to schedule a special chiropractor appointment this week to get the crick out of my neck from swiveling to the left 4,654 times to hand someone some food or drink in the car. It was also WAY too many stops at nasty restrooms to take kids to the bathroom. The trip also afforded time for multiple games of Car Bingo and the Alphabet game, as well plenty of time to listen to some books on CD (interrupted about every 20 seconds by someone), as well as several rounds of singing songs.
There were many moments of aggravation -- such as when Colsen would get mad at us for not letting him do something (such as wiggle his way out of the car seat), and to punish us, he would throw his pacifier to a spot in the car no one could reach. Then we would all get to hear him cry in anger as if we did it. There were also moments of frustration, such as when we were trying to help Rayna achieve one of her "summer goals" which is to memorize the books of the New Testament. I wanted to pull my hair out on several occasions.... like when she kept insisting "July" comes after "Jude." And there were some moments of amusement, like when Strider announced to us, after a conversation with one of his cousins, "Did you know that Barry Bonds takes Asteroids???" And for the last 20 minutes of yesterday's 8 hour trip, we all ended up having a major laughing fest -- mostly to ward off a crying fest.
One of our favorite stops to break up long days of driving has become the New River Gorge in West Virginia. We stop to see a huge bridge that is something like the world's largest single arch steel bridge or something. It's 847 feet above the river -- a fact I try to forget when we have to drive over it -- and it looks like really cool from the little park that we stop at. Some of us ventured down 181 steps to an overlook with a beautiful view of the river and bridge... This place definitely beats stopping at a yucky rest area or McDonalds!
I'll write later about our adventures at our actual destinations, but for now will just say we're thankful the journeying went well, and it was good to stop and see family, friends and attractions, and attractive friends and family, along the way. Now that we are home again, though, I have to agree, "East, West, home's best." And I'll be happy to not get into car again with squirmy kids, juice boxes and trail mix, for at least a few weeks. :)
(Strider just read this and says he disagrees. He's been walking around chanting, "Vacation's best! Vacation's best!" But he made me laugh last night when we came home and he was trying to find something and, after spending over a week in very small quarters, said, "Man, this house seems so big now!")
(At the New River Gorge)
]]>So, this is more than slightly overdue but better than when I went to Kamakura, I think.
We took a crapload of pictures between us; the rest are here and these are Justin's pictures. There is more writing about each picture on Photobucket so I would suggest reading that first and then this entry.
It's the middle of summer vacation and I've gotten to do some traveling so I'm happy. :D Justin and I went to the Kansai area of Japan for 5 days. Kansai is the Western region of Japan while Kantou is the East, where Tokyo, Chiba, Saitama and Kanagawa are. We went spend a day in Kobe, and two in each Kyoto and Osaka.
I've learned that you need to get your planning done fast and get your arrangements sorted at this time of year because it's chaos! I'm a paranoid traveller and I want to know when/where I'm going well in advance and give myself lots of time to account for and avoid getting lost but I ended up leaving things until about two weeks before our planned departure. Originally, I had thought to take the night train both ways using the Seishun 18 Ticket again but couldn't get reserved seats on the nights I wanted to go because it's peak travel season. I forgot that not only is it summer for all kids in Japan, but also for most of the rest of the world. In the end, I decided we should just shell out and take the Shinkansen to Osaka. It would only take 3 hours in the morning (as opposed to 8 hours overnight) and we could go earlier and therefore get more days in Kansai. Then I could also say that I rode the Shinkansen and check that off my list. And for 15,000 yen one way, I'll only be doing it once!
We arrived at Shin-Osaka station at 11am, August 2nd and my friend Yuka met us there. She was an exchange student in 2005-2006 at UBC and was my next-door neighbour in the dormitory. She's going to grad school in Osaka and lives with her parents, and was kind enough to let us crash with them (and feed us and tour us around!). We left our bags in a locker at Osaka station and then took the train to Kobe. We wandered around the Chinatown there and had lunch before exploring the port area. We went to Kobe to see fireworks that night that were supposed to be some of the best in the area. Kobe is a nice city -- a lot of the buildings and roads are new after the 1995 Hanshin Earthquake. We didn't get to see any memorials because it was so hot and we didn't have enough time but we took a 45 minute ferry cruise around the marina and got to see the city view from the ocean. It was pretty incredible! The fireworks were kind of blah... I've seen a lot better. They were choreographed to music but they stopped every 5 or 10 minutes and the announcer gave some kind of commentary. It was nothing like the Symphony of Fire in Vancouver.
The second day, Yuka and her boyfriend took us around Kyoto. We met up and walked through Gion and stopped at Kennin-ji, a temple that happens to be the oldest (or one of) Zen temple in Japan. It was so peaceful and calm... I learned about Zen in school and the transmission of Buddhism from China to Japan and all that but it was so interesting to be in a place like that that could claim to be the one of the found Zen schools in Japan. There were lots of people sitting and resting and taking in the atmosphere of the place. It's one of the temples that you can sit in on a meditation session but we weren't there at the right time. I think that's thing I would like to do before I leave Japan.
I was thinking, I haven't ever blogged about our crazy Christmas Eve from my childhood. I really should. It will probably be entertaining. It's weird, at least. :D First, I should tell you that I wrote this event down as a school paper that was supposed to be about our Winter Break. My teacher failed me. She thought I had made it up and the assignment was to write a true story. Of course, my mother went straight up and told the teacher that it was, in fact, very true. My grade was changed. :)
The backstory:
So, when I was about 13 or 14, we were living in a duplex. It was one of those front/back duplexes. The man my mom was with at the time (we will just call him jerkface) made us live in the houses he was fixing up to sell/rent. He was a house flipper and a used car salesman...and a jerkface con-artist who liked feeling powerful by hitting...but that's a whole other story. Hence....'jerkface'...and I'm being nice.
The front half of this duplex was in living condition. It had a kitchen, living room, bathroom, a storage room and 2 bedrooms. The storage room was a little skinny room behind the living room. The main bedroom was jerkface's room...and mom's (I should say that it wasn't her choice to be in this relationship at this point). The second bedroom was a storage/junk room that had a hole punched through the wall to connect the two halves of the duplex together. Because jerkface was cheap and didn't want to build a door. The back half of the duplex was 2 levels. The main level actually sat 3 feet lower than the front half, so we had to jump down 3 feet from the hole in the wall to get to the back part of the duplex. Jerkface didn't allow a step stool. His reasoning was that it was something we would trip over. *rolls eyes* My mom had one hidden in the junk in the front duplex's junk room, for when she did laundry (which was in the back half of the duplex). He never found it. Thank God. The back half of the duplex was what we were fixing up (and when I say 'we', I mean mom and my brother and I...since he didn't hire people to do the work...he made us do it). The outer walls were intact, but the windows were removed and all the interior walls on the first floor were gutted down to the framing. The flooring was all torn up and we walked on sub-floors. The upstairs was not gutted yet, but there were no windows in the window frames. There were two bedrooms and a bathroom.
Now, when I say there were no windows, I just mean that the glass was removed because jerkface was going to put new windows in, but then never got around to it and so all winter we just had snow in the house.
I should probably mention that my brother and I were forced to sleep in the bedrooms on the second floor of the back half of the duplex. With no windows or heat and snow in our rooms....in winter...in Iowa. Now, my brother had a bedroom set...a bed and dresser and all, because jerkface liked boys. If you know what I mean. He gave my brother whatever he wanted to keep him thinking jerkface was cool. (I promise this isn't a completely depressing story...but the backstory is needed to understand the bizarre nature of the rest of the story! lol) My brother and I are a year and a half apart, so he was about 11 or 12 at the time. I did not have anything in my room. I slept on the floor with the snow and my blankets....and the secret space heaters my mom got for us and hid. Yeah, dangerous, but she taught us how to be careful with them. It was the best she could do. (you should know that about a year after this...my mom found a way out and we got away from jerkface). To this day, I can't really sleep if it's not ice cold in my room. :) I love snow and cold. :)
So, now you have a general idea of the layout of the house. The back duplex had electricity. The heat was gas...so that was not on. The water was turned on for the washing machine...and that brings us to the beginning of our story. :)
Part One:
Jerkface finally agreed to give mom a washer/dryer to do laundry (instead of washing stuff in the bathtub or a laundromat). He put them in the back duplex. He had to have the water turned on for the washer...but jerkface was an idiot. He didn't have the gas turned on...which, in turn, would allow the water heater to heat the water. No. He just had the water turned on. In winter. And, of course...Christmas Eve morning, we woke up to a lovely lake in the back half of the house. The pipes had froze and burst and water was everywhere. Jerkface couldn't find the water valve to turn off the water...so he called the fire department and they came out and eventually found it. It was actually beneath the sub-floor in a closet. Weird place for it! So, the water problem was fixed....but it had frozen to the floors. Huge sheets of ice. Wonderful. The fire department said that we needed to turn on the gas and get the house heated. Jerkface, of course, told him that everyone was sleeping and living in the front half while the back was being remodeled. I guess they believed him. So, the firemen left and jerkface had the gas turned on. He had connections or something...maybe the fire department demanded it...I don't know. I just know that on Christmas Eve...that gas was turned on. And then jerkface decided mom and him were going shopping....and my brother and I had to stay home and chip ice off the floors. Starting in the upstairs bathroom.
Part Two:
Later, after they left, my brother and I headed to the back half of the duplex to chip ice off the floor. We hopped out the hole and walked around the lower part of the duplex to the stairwell...which had a door on it. There must have been a nest of cockroaches living in the framing above the door, because when we opened the door to go upstairs, tons of cockroaches fell on our heads. It was TRAUMATIC. They were in my hair, down my shirt. It was the most horrifying thing I've ever experienced. They were crawling all over. My brother and I helped each other to get them off and we ran to the front half of the house and both took a shower. It took awhile to get our courage up to go back and go upstairs again....but the wrath of cockroaches was better than the wrath of jerkface. So, when I say that I can't handle cockroaches...please understand, I'm not a squeamish girl...I had a traumatic experience and I WILL PANIC if you bring those things around me. It's not a joke, it's not funny.
Ok, so we go back and run up that stairwell very fast. lol. No cockroaches. They were hiding. Now, seriously. It was winter...why were there cockroaches? ugh! :( Maybe they had ventured back from the front house or something...it was a little warmer in there, because the heat was turned on. Who knows. I'd just like to say that mom was pretty good about controlling the bugs that were already present in these dumps jerkface made us live in. We hadn't been in this one very long at this point. And, ever since we've left him, we haven't had any buggies in our homes. Thank God.
Ok, so we are upstairs in the bathroom and chipping the ice away. There is a can of bug spray frozen in the ice in the middle of the floor. (That would have been nice earlier, huh?) I tell my brother not to chip too close to the can, as it could puncture it. I knew we shouldn't be breathing that stuff. And, I wasn't sure what happened to a can like that when it was punctured either. Would it explode? So, of course...my brother punctures the can. LOL That nasty gas is pouring out of that can, so I tell him we need to get out of there and let the gas go away. So we hurry down the stairs. There is a sense of urgency, but we are not running. We just don't want to smell and breathe that nasty stuff. When we get about 5 steps away from the bottom of the stairs, we hear a BOOM. I remember, it was like slow motion. Turning around to see what the boom was and looking up to the top of the stairs to see FIRE. You know in the movies...when that huge billowing cloud of fire is rolling toward the hero? LOL It was like that! I'm not even kidding. I don't remember touching the last 5 stairs. I think we flew. We got the door shut to the stairwell and that fire just blew out the framing above the door. It was seriously scary. I will never forget that for all of my life. o.O Anyhoo, you can see from the drawing above that the outside door was right there, so we just ran outside.
Now, it's winter. We have our sweats on and shoes, but not coats. And...we don't have a key for the door to the front part of the duplex. The phone and the dog were in the front half. We could have gone to the neighbors, yes, but we were pretty focused on our dog. So, I was the older one and I told my brother to stay in the front yard...not near the house. I told him if anything happened, to go to the neighbors. So, I ran to the back and tested the door. Cold. I went in..no fire...I ran to the hole in the wall and crawled into the front duplex and got the dog and the phone (forgot the coats. LOL) and ran out the front door. We called the fire department and paged jerkface and mom.
The SAME firemen came. They were surprised to be back out again. They went in and checked and it turned out that the water heater was in the bathroom closet, where that bug spray gas was at. And the bug spray and the pilot light created the big, billowing cloud of fire. There was no fire left, when the firemen came. They said that, luckily, it burned very fast and ate up all the gas and then the fire was just gone. Like it blew up and "whoosh" just disappeared. Jerkface and mom arrived and the firemen explained the situation to them. The whole upstairs was blackened, but not burned too badly. The firemen said that they checked everything out and it was safe to return to the house. So, they left. Jerkface was mad, but mom was glad we were ok. So, for some reason, jerkface decided that he was gonna turn on the oven in the kitchen of the back half and put out all the pilot lights in the heater and water heater. He didn't tell us he did that. I have no idea WHY he did that...but I did say he was an idiot. *sigh* And this brings us to the next chapter.
Part Three:
Jerkface instructed us to continue chipping and him and mom went shopping again. (do I need to say that they were shopping for jerkface and not us? lol). Mom clearly objected, but jerkface was the boss. So they left again. My brother and I went upstairs and continued to chip away. When we got all done, we decided to take a risk and watch some TV (it was Christmas Eve! There would be cool shows on). Mom had a tiny tv hidden in the junk room and we got it out and plugged it in in the living room in the back half. Now, the big picture window was open to outside, of course, and the heat was turned off...so it was cold. We sat on a beanbag and cuddled in blankets and watched Christmas shows. It was safer back there, because they would come in the front half and we would hear them. We left our dog up in the front half too...so he was warm and we would hear him bark. :) Figured we could stash the tiny tv somewhere jerkface wouldn't look. :) But, as we are watching our shows...we began to smell heat. You know...that smell of burning wires and stuff? We looked around and discovered the oven light was on. We discovered it just in time too...because the stove promptly caught fire. I'm talking FLAMES. I'm thinking...'the house is gonna blow up!'...so we run to the hole, crawl up to the front, get the dog, the phone (and we are already in our coats) and we run outside and call the fire department. LOL. They thought we were kidding. We had to convince them that we were not kidding and there really was a fire. So, the same guys came back. Man, they were pretty peeved at jerkface. :D They put out the fire and dealt with the issue. I think, in the end, everything was turned off in the back and the firemen told jerkface that an inspection would have to be made...if I remember right. Of course, an inspection would have happened after the new year, I'm sure. I don't remember.
So, the firemen left and we all went inside. I thought for sure that we were gonna be dead meat...but jerkface didn't do anything. In fact, we all slept in the master bedroom that night. Jerkface was pretty cool for the whole winter break actually...after that day. I think he knew the police would be back to check on things.
I just have one question. Why, after firemen entered our house 3 times...and ventured upstairs once...did they not comment on the fact that those two bedrooms were clearly being occupied. I mean, those men could have rescued us, you know? I don't know. I was just a kid, I don't know what the adults were doing. :)
Oh, and by the way...you might have noticed... That TV we were watching? Yeah, we didn't get it put away because of the sudden fire. So, we had to sneak to get it done. It was STILL ON too. I cannot tell you how panicked my brother and I were! LOL We told mom about it and she made an excuse for me to go in the back and get something for her. I hid the TV again and brought back her 'excuse' item. :) I don't even remember what the thing was. LOL
When we were kids, we told the story much more playfully...minus all the jerkface details. :) Overall, it's a good, funny memory. I've let go of all the bad stuff...and nothing bad actually happened to us that day. To be honest, I think jerkface had the worst day...with all the firemen yelling at him for his idiotic ideas.
Oh, sweet justice. :)
Before there was a time when in need I will give money to the homeless and also tip. Now I just help the needed. The word "tip" is no longer in my vocabulary. I can't imagin how long I was in the dark to go as far as over tipping. At some places I did not know they add the tip money at certain places then the times when I tip and the service was beyond bad.
One person now has shown me the way of no tipping and damn it what a great man! I thank the founders of the no tipping organization. I now save money.
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So I went downstairs just a minute ago to get a glass of milk. I get it, and I start to walk back to my room. What's funny is it's actually something I've thought about, how I never turn the lights on when I go up the stairs, even when it's pitch black. For some reason, stairs are a lot easier for me in the dark than, say, a flat hallway would be. So I never need to turn the lights on.
But just now, when I got to the top of the stairs, the lights in the stairwell flickered on then off. It didn't really startle me until I looked at the switch and it kind of clicked in my head - lights need to be turned on to make light.
Needless to say, I freaked. I came into my room and just stood there with my glass of milk watching my closed bedroom door. It's been a while since I've been scared of anything like that - ghosts and the undead and the like don't really do it for me anymore. This was thrilling though.
Yeah, so I just went and told my parents about it, and I guess my mom turned the light on and the bulb died but she just left it on, so it's kind of randomly coming back to life every now and then.
STILL. MY HOUSE IS HAUNTED. TOTALLY.
So last Saturday, after the rough week we had with the accident we decided to take Cohen to the National Zoo in DC. It was so much fun but I got sad on the way there because I would really love to live on Fort Myer because Arlington/Georgetown is so beautiful! Anyway it was a super hot day but besides that everything was great... the mist stations were a life saver and Cohen loved them... I can't wait to go back.
I had a lot of pictures, but these are my favourites!
I went up to Brian Head this weekend with Chasen, Matt, Kelsie, Cassie and Cici and stayed in Kelsie's grandparent's cabin. It was way awesome! I won't talk about everything that happened, but I'll list a few.
This past weekend Pete's parents came for a visit. The original intention of their trip was to help watch our kids while Pete and I went to California.... but since our plans changed, we all got to spend some quality time together.
The adventure for one of the days was going to the Charlotte Museum of History and playing with the visiting Toy Time exhibit. All 3 kids had a blast playing with the big toys.... Colsen's favorite was a push-toy that he kept using as a "vacuum." Afterwards there was a tour of the Hezekiah Alexander House, which everyone found interesting.
Other adventures included a trip to the par 3 golf course, a trip to the $2 movie theater, several neighborhood walks, an attempt to go to the Lowes Motor Speedway tour (sold-out :( ), a couple lunches out, and a visit to my parents' house. We enjoyed having the grandparents here -- and especially appreciated their help with the kids, and fixing the ceiling fan in our bonus room! Thanks, Bud and Jane, for making the trip!!
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Kitty was a small girl for her age, she was only 4'1" and petite of frame, her breast had barely came in being a AAcup, she had long blonde hair and the bluest of blue eyes. Her 13th birthday was coming up soon, and while she had to stay at the boarding school for it over the summer, because her parents were out of the country and she couldn't go visit them. She found out that she would be sharing a room and her summer with a younger girl who she would be responsible for, it was a scary thought, she had been the younger girl for the previous years. She lay back on her bed and stared at the ceiling for a few minutes, wondering what the new girl who would be sharing her life was like. Hoped she didn't snore or anything, she had been lucky but had heard horror stories from her classmates. She got up and smoothed out her summer uniform and went over to her desk and started to blog on her laptop while she waited.
Jamie Was a tiny girl, just 4'0 and very petite. She had soft blue eyes and long soft dirty blonde hair that fell to just below her shoulders. She was flat as a bored, not having her breasts growing in yet. She had just turned 8 a month ago and was told she had to stay at a boarding school for the summer because her parents would be in Europe. So they dropped her off at the school in her little summer uniform, got her checked in, kissed her then drove off, leaving her to fend for herself.
When Kitty heard the car pull up to the dorms, her room over looking the long driveway and the huge park space at the front of the school's grounds, she got up and went down the the entrance hallway to meet her new roommate. It took a few minutes to get down as she was on the sixth and top floor of the dorms and she took the stairs. She entered the hall and saw a very pretty girl waiting by some luggage just at the entrance. She ran up to introduce herself, her summer uniform billowing with each step, if the little girl had been looking her way she would have noticed the short dress was barely long enough to cover her pussy, which was bare as Kitty was not wearing panties, and was completely hairless.
"Hi I'm Kitty I'm your roommate and mentor here at Bleu House Academy." She then hugged the girl and kissed her on the lips. "Come on if we each grab a bag and a suitcase we can get you settled into our room." Kitty picked up the larger bag and suitcase and led the girl through the hallway to the elevators, her dress billowing up again as she walked, there being two of them, they didn't have to wait long. "During semester it's easier to take the stairs, as their will be full house of students, but during the summer there is only a handful of us, in fact my old mentor Jessica is on the fifth floor and her new red rose is coming next week. Oh yeah all mentors are called white roses and all you being mentored are called red roses, see her on the shoulder of the uniforms is a red or white rose patch, so you can tell. You need to do anything a white rose tells you, but if they bully you or something, you tell me and they'll get in trouble, though bullying doesn't usually happen. I only moved into the room last week after the last semester finished, so we can decorate it together."
A few minutes later they entered their room, and Kitty put the luggage down beside a dresser on side of the room. The room was a nice size with plenty of space, and two huge floor to ceiling windows, one on either side of the large bed, Jamie noticed right away there was only the one bed, there was a larger dresser and desk with chair on each side of the bed and on each desk was a laptop, the one on the other side of the bed had a screen saver going it was a photo montage of girls in the school uniform, and gym uniforms or swimsuits, as Jamie watched she was sure she even saw several photos of the girls naked, but none in casual clothes. Kitty plopped down on the edge of the bed nearest Jamie, smiling. "Do you already have your uniforms? Cause you always have to wear the uniform at all times, even during the summer, the exception is here in the dorm this is the only place you don't have to, in here your free to go nude if you like, and most girls do unless coming or going out of the dorm, I'm only wearing mine cause after you change I'll give you the tour of the school and grounds and stuff, So hurry up and put your uniform on, I'll help you unpack and stuff later, once we've done the tour okay."
]]>If you like books and movies about pirates and their adventures you probably heard the name Tortuga many times. In the last movie trilogy Pirates of the Caribbean island of Tortuga was showed to us as a haven for pirates. In famous writer Sabatini’s book series about Captain Blood and the movies based on it, Tortuga is also mentioned as the main base of pirates operations. So what exactly is Tortuga? What is its history and where this island is located?
Nowadays it is a quiet island that belongs to Haiti. A little bit over 20 thousand people live on its small territory which is about 180 square kilometers. It is very mountainous and full of rocks. Yet, it is hugely dense of lofty trees that grow upon the hardest of those rocks. Basically, in translation into English it means a Turtle Island. And it has a very wild history, as it was a major center of Caribbean piracy in the seventeenth century.
Read on ...
I know I pride myself as the grown nerdy version of myself. Even threw on my eye glasses and popped out the contacts just to stress my point.
But, I think sometimes I neglect to explain the day to day life aspects of myself outside of my digital scope of Warcraft, quests and raiding.
One thing every woman at some young age is initiated into, is the grand event, the quest of all quests, the strive for all womankind… the clearance sale.
Yes folks, the clearance sale. Known to be especially vicious during the holiday season, but add a suffering economy during off season times and you’re asking to be slaughtered by women in the aisle.
And almost literally. While on a break earlier this week I made the mistake of wandering into a store that specializes in fragrances, lotions and well powder puff stuff every woman needs in her arsenal. Like an idiot, clearly someone out of touch with “sale” rules of engagement I was in a hurry, and well seeking the fastest check out line.
So, in short when the line snaking through the aisles got towards the registers bodies began to fan out. And to me it appeared there were 3 lines instead of one. So checking out the goods in everyone’s bags in front of me I decided the safest bet was to stand in the second line. The first line had 2 woman total both with large baskets filled to the brim with items. I was the 3rd person in my line. Everyone with no more than 6 items I counted.
So In short my line began to speed up, and suddenly I found myself the 2nd person in line. I moved up and found myself standing next to a skinny older bitch of a woman who turned to me waved her hand at me and snapped “there’s one line here!”
Clearly this cranky bitch had not seen what I saw in front of me… 3 cashiers…
I tell her that I’m on a break and chose the fastest line, she snapped back “I’m on break too!” (listen here bitch just because you are on retirement doesn’t mean you’re on permanent break, get real). I then advise her this store has 3 registers and clearly it appears there are three lines. She snaps back at me “they keep saying the next customer!”
Well I decide to leave the old bitch alone. I even make a smart remark at her while waiting “ma’am would you like to stand in my line and I’ll stand in yours?” LOL at myself here!!! Please!
So I let her cut me in line. Meanwhile one of my friends parked herself secretly in the third line. As the cranky bitch turns and sneers at me, my friend yells my name and says “Come here” and I glide over to the third register. Clearly snotty grandma has lost.
Well… I want to be correct… so I tell my cashier, “you might want to organize the lines, see I was under the impression that there were three lines here..” “oh there is!! That’s my fault I was processing a return thats why the lines were kinda slow!”
So seeing the bitch staring at me from the corner of my eye I loudly state “GOOD, because that old lady over there just tried to start a fight with me because she didn’t think there were three lines!”
It was a moment of glory for this woman who endured some cranky and obviously stressed out bitch.
So the next time your gal pal comes back from a sale don’t be surprised at the wild beady eye scardy cat look upon her face. She’s probably almost had grandma gank her in the aisles.
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]]>Our Day at Busch Gardens
Crocodiles
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It's funny because the laptop actually has a much brighter screen than my old computer, so a lot of images look different now. My layout, too. Only after I got my lappy did I actually notice that the white smudges were actually eyes of these funny little black creatures. I didn't mind them, but I felt like changing it anyways. So now we have this.
Today I went to the city with my whoole family and we had dinner at this nice restaurant where my uncle was playing in a jazz group. It was as family outings usually are, where everyone is bickering and things are always going wrong and any laughs we have are usually at someone else's expense, but it was still fun. We don't ever do family-like things. Lucas really has changed, I realized. I think it has to do with this friend he has, Travis. One time Lucas mentioned how Travis is cool because he's always so happy and chill, and ever since then I've been noticing that Luke seems to try pretty hard to be like that. He never complains or talks down about anything, really, aside from complaining about other people's complaining.
It made me realize that I'd like to be less abrasive as a person. I mean, I'm not really when it comes to friends, but the better I know people (my family) the looser my tongue is, and the more things I say that I regret. I want to be able to communicate well and resolve conflicts. It seems like a lot of disputes and problems that people run into each other are because they just didn't communicate. If I could just always be genuinely happy and relaxed and know how to word my desires and intentions clearly as well as listen to and understand others just as much, I don't think I would have any regrets about myself as a person.
Tomorrow I leave for Crescent City to visit family.. I'm really excited to see everyone, even though from what I've been hearing it's been a huge dramafest since some things went down on the 4th of July. Whatever though, mang. I'm still excited. I love having a big family!
So today I went to the fair with Akiko. It was as fairs always are - loud and obnoxious. I love seeing all the weird people come out of their holes to celebrate a country of greed and gluttony in the form of rides that make you nauseous and expensive "food" that makes you even more nauseous.
It was fun. I made Akiko go on the big spinning room one and I don't think she liked it, and then she nearly killed herself on these moving stairs in the crazy house, but overall it was a good day. There were many interesting things that happened, but what I want to talk about were the fireworks.
Usually at these things I find a seat farther from everyone else, and so it surprised me when Akiko and I sat in the main section that there was music to accompany it. The first song they played was one I have on my iTunes, though I can't remember the name of it I knew all the words, but after that it just got worse and worse. Then the fireworks started being coreographed with the music.. and I couldn't help but laugh. Here's one clip that shows the amazing lameness they resorted to. Announcing my first original video on my vox!
..Like, seriously? I wish they could just cut the crap and give us some real, hardcore explosions. The finale was pretty good but other than that there weren't many big ones. Big fireworks, like those ones that fill up the sky to the point where you feel like it might hit you, or the ones that turn into golden ash and rain down like the sad arms of a willow tree. Of course they had none of my favorite willow tree fireworks... Just a bunch of red, white, and blue. So expected. Pretty, but lame. It's like putting the Mona Lisa in a cardboard frame. Though just why everyone is infatiuated with that boring painting is beyond me...
I'm pissed that my camera died halfway through the day so I don't have
many pictures after lunch. For all of my pictures, they're at Photobucket
.
As always, I'm going to reguritate random wiki info to suppliment my
lack of knowledge or being able to read any of the Japanese signage.
Justin and I went to Kamakura yesterday and it was a blast. We did a shitton of walking and I even got a bit of a burn on my shoulders despite there being no sun. I told Justin as much at one point during the day because he was wanting to get his Philipino tan back. We were supposed to meet in Tokyo station at 9am so we could get there around 10 and start the day early but we ended up meeting around 10am because Justin couldn't wake up. We caught the Yokosuka-Sobu line from Tokyo station and an hour later we were in Kamakura. From the train you could see this giant white Kanno statue amongst the trees - the Ofuna Kannon. Maybe we'll do that when we go to Enoshima as well.
We
fought our way out of the station and started to make our way through
the city. My original plan was to do a few of the hiking trails in my
book, which hit the Buddha first and then a few of the major temples
and shrines before ending up at Kita-Kamakura station but that didn't
happen. I side tracked us and took us to a few smaller shrines that I
saw signs for and ended up doing the route of the course in reverse.
Our
first major stop was 寿福寺 Jufuku-ji. This Rinzai sect temple is the
oldest Zen temple in Kamakura, ranked third among Kamakura's Five
Mountain temples. Here, they worship Shakymuni, the Buddha. This
temple was founded by Hojo Masako (1157-1225) to enshrine her dead
husband, the founder of the Kamakura shogunate, Minamoto Yoritomo
(1147-1199). She installed Eisai as the founding priest, who was
ordained in China and brought Zen buddhism to Japan. He is also
credited with bringing green tea to Japan, which was orginally used to
keep monks awake during long sessions of meditation. Look, I learned
something in Asian Studies; I bet you didn't know that.
The
main hall is closed to visitors, which is a shame. It was so peaceful
and calm there... we could see monks walking around inside and a family
coming out of the reception area. Apparently (as Wikipedia tells me)
there are 3 statues of Shakyamuni, an eleven-headed goddess Kannon and
two Deva Kings inside. Behind the hall is a graveyard as well, where
all the head priests of the temple are buried. There are a few graves
dedicated to some Minamotos, some foreigners and a few literary
celebrities.
Next we made our way to 銭洗弁天 Zeniarai Benten, "Money-washing Benten". It was near by but you had to up this steep hill to get to the entrance. This is when we started to see some crowds, and a lot of foreigners. It was quite nice and cool up on the top of the hill though because there was a lot of shade from trees and nice cool caves.
