muy life on earth

Breathless exageration

2010-04-30T08:23:00.003-05:00

I am so tired of people on the internet completely overblowing things. Can't people be informed before they start going off on how everyone is going to be racially profiled in Arizona?

Can't they just read the Oklahoma bill before they start talking about how doctors are now free to lie to their patients about if their babies have birth defects?

Too many subjects for a title

2009-11-07T10:42:00.019-06:00

1. We bought a new car. It's my 3rd Saturn. The first two ended badly. The first one (white 1992) got into a HUGE fight with a bull and lost. The second one (blue, 2002) met its demise by hitting a car that ran a red light. The new one is a white 2002. My dad thinks I need to be careful next Friday (the 13th) as we drive to his house...hahaha.Anyway, we're happy with it and hopefully I won't wreck it any time soon. Or ever.

2. We dressed up for Halloween. We did indeed dress up like the Doctor and Rose Tyler.

I had to wear a blonde wig though, and it made my head look gigantic because of all the extra hair I had hiding underneath it. Jose was the ninth

Doctor 2.0 because we couldn't find

a jacket just like the one he wore on the show and also because Jose didn't want to shave his goatee. Whatever.

3. My Spanish husband has discovered, and wholly embraced, one of the most American traditions that I can think of: the garage sale.

Last night we made a garage sale map and this morning we got up at 6 am and drove all over Austin. We went to around 13 garage sales. (!!!) We didn't just go to the ones on the map, if we saw a sign for a garage sale, we had to stop at it.

4. Yesterday I went to Target and noticed that they have already decorated their entrances with Christmas decorations. The funny thing is that they put big snowflakes on the windows. However, it's in the high 70s here and not going to snow any time soon.

5. My neighbor's yard smells like a horse crap. Her landscapers put "natural fertilizer" down, if you know what I mean. Oh man, does it stink.

I just cried. A lot. Over a TV show.

2009-10-16T21:48:00.003-05:00

Um, we just watched the last episode of season 2 of Doctor Who. I bawled and I am not even kidding. Jose laughed at me, but it was really moving!

2009-10-16T12:30:00.003-05:00

Okay.

I have become just slightly obsessed with my Rose Tyler costume.

I have almost everything I need to dress just like her in the 1st season episode "Boomtown." I've got the blue jean jacket, the pink jacket that goes underneath the blue jean jacket, the finger gloves, the scarf, the black tights, the boots, the skirt and a wig. I need a pair of gold hoop earrings and I think I'll have everything.

So, I got this $10 blonde wig. The night that I bought the wig, I put it on and I was kind of disappointed in it. It's just not exactly right. And on top of that, it makes me look like I have no forehead. When I put it on I must have had a disappointed look on my face. Well, I think Jose may be on to my obsession because he gave me a sympathetic look and said, "Sara, you're never going to look just like her, you're not her!"

Definitive Halloween Costumes

2009-10-10T11:00:00.006-05:00

So Jose decided to actually dress up with me this year and we're going as the 9th Doctor and Rose Tyler from Doctor Who! Jose will be this guy:

I'm going for this look:

She's wearing a jean skirt with black tights too, but I may just go in jeans. I have pretty much everything I need. I just have to get a blonde wig and I'll be done.

Dress Up Dilema

2009-10-08T17:20:00.005-05:00

For the last few years for Halloween I've dressed up as a group with some friends. Last year we dressed up as female cartoon characters. I went as the very obscure Marzipan (from homestarrunner.com) but not just as Marzipan, but as Marzipan dressed up as Frida Kahlo. Everyone thought I was just Frida, and I didn't really argue much. There was only one person that I met who know exactly who I was. The year before that we were Ms. Pac Man and the ghosts. That one was really good! The three of them had dressed up together before as Madonna in different eras, and one year as the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

This year we've decided that our theme will be favorite TV characters. I can't decide of I want to dress up as Mel the one (very obsessed) fan of Flight of the Conchords or as Jadzia Dax from Star Trek: Deep Space 9. The others are going as Betty Draper (from Mad Men), Caprica 6 (from Battlestar Galactica), and I think Kate Austen (from Lost). Anyone else who wants to dress up like TV characters is welcome to join us!

Our experience* with Newmark in Austin (*horrible nightmare of an)

2009-09-30T09:07:00.014-05:00

When we signed the contract to buy a house in 2 1/2 years ago, we were so excited. It is exciting in the beginning. Nerve racking and exciting.

At that blissful time, we had no idea what a frustrating and stressful road we were about to embark on. The reason that is was (and is) such a frustrating experience was (and is) because the company that built my house, Newmark Homes in Austin, TX, was so incompetent, unorganized, and generally impossible to work with. (Actually, Newmark went belly up in Austin last year and some of their assets were bought by another company. You can find the name of that company on the Newmark website in the Austin section. Hopefully they'll treat their customers better than Newmark did.) We should have seen it in the beginning, after we were lied to for the first time.

When we were negotiating buying the house, we stipulated that we could not buy the house if they couldn't put a sink in the garage. The superintendent (who always said "yes" to everything) said, "Yes, we can put a sink in the garage. No problem!" Well, as they were beginning with the plumbing, we kept looking for the drain pipe for the sink in the garage. We kept asking him about the drain pipe for the sink in the garage. "Oh, just wait, just wait, we're not done yet, we'll put that in later."

Guess what - NO drain pipe was ever put in the garage. He gave a lot of excuses and said we could still put a sink in there, but it just wouldn't have a drain. No drain for the sink. We were scammed for the first time. We should have backed out then, and we came very close to doing so, but we're positive, optimistic people. Oh, but Jose was so mad a the super. So. Mad.

Another that should have tipped us off to the complete incompetence of Newmark was this next little gem. One afternoon, we were at the site, checking the work (because you HAVE to check everything yourself) we noticed first, that there was only one pipe for a downstairs toilet and, second, that it was in the middle of where the living room was going to be. In our floor plan, there are two toilets on the bottom floor and neither of them are supposed to be in the middle of the living room.

When we told the super, he didn't believe us. I had to convince him that it was wrong. He kept looking at the plans for our house and finally realized that the office had sent him the wrong plans. In short, they were about a day or two away from pouring the concrete for the foundation and they had plumbed the floor plan for different house. Luckily (for them) they hadn't poured the concrete just yet. Unluckily (for us), we still didn't see the writing on the wall.

These are only a few of so many times that I, or Jose, or our Realtor had to call, convince, reorder, argue, etc., with Newmark. However, thanks mostly to our tigress of a Realtor, we got a lot of things done and a lot of money off of the closing price for all of our troubles.

Two years later, however, we are still having problems with the construction of the house. There is water coming into our bedroom wall and just sitting there. There is a water line slowly creeping up the wall and the baseboards are all warped and waterlogged. This was happening in April of this year and Newmark sent people to fix it, but whatever they did didn't fix it and now it's happening again. Normally, it wouldn't be that bad. We would just call and/or email Newmark 5 or 6 times and they would eventually send someone out to fix it again, and hopefully find the leak while they were at it. Except Tousa, Newmark's parent company, went bankrupt last year. Then they closed down Newmark in Austin. If you signed on your house before January 28th, 2008, you have absolutely no warranty on any part of our house. We signed on the house just 2 months before that date. Oh well. Too bad for us!

How about that great selling point of a 10-year warranty on the foundation? NOPE.

And the guarantee that they would come and fix things that they messed up? SORRY.

Hey, don't we have any rights as consumers? We paid for this house! We paid for the 10-year warranty on our foundation! This is all extremely frustrating. Newmark pretty much scammed us and all the rest of the homeowners here in my neighborhood.

My friend says we should just sell the house and move to Cedar Park. We won't do that though. We'll just call the house insurance company and fix it through them, but we shouldn't have to do that.

maybe I'll post more now...

2009-09-15T22:06:00.004-05:00

Dude. I got a new laptop for my birthday, which is Monday. A Mac! I am stoked. I have to figure out how to use it now, but I'm totally excited! We've had a desktop for the past few years and it's been great, but now I can take my laptop around wherever I want and totally compute and stuff.

Jose is practically incapable of giving me a surprise, he gets too excited about giving me whatever it might be and can't wait, so I got my gift today instead of next week. That's okay though. I don't mind!

On a side note, I cut my dog's ear with the scissors yesterday. I feel so bad about it. It doesn't seem to bother her though, so I guess it's not that horrible.

How to Make Health Care Reform Bipartisan

2009-07-22T10:10:00.001-05:00

This is a great article. Click on the title.

Obamacare will ruin our country and take away our freedom!

2009-07-16T10:43:00.004-05:00

The new healthcare bill is freaking me out! If this passes, it will be the worst thing that has happened in this country in a very long time.

Ugh! I don't want to pay for anyone else's healthcare. I don't want other people to pay for mine either. I want to pay for my own! I want the freedom to use the money that comes into our household as I see fit. If I want to donate to charity, I should be the one to decide that.

What if I want an insurance plan with a high deductable, instead of paying a high monthly rate? That should be my choice. If people would be more responsible with their money, then I think a lot more people would have insurance.

Today I heard that 25% of those without insurance are illegal aliens and their children. Whoa. How are we going to pay for that?

I lived in Spain, a country that has a government run healthcare system, and I hated going to the doctor there. Also, there was never enough money to pay for it, so the gov't was always having to look for ways to suck more money out of the people. Did you know that the reason gas is so expensive in Spain is because of the heavy taxes that are placed on it to pay for healthcare?

The crazy thing is that the president and Congress will probably never have to even be in the public heathcare system (if it passes). Although they will have to pay for it. They are mostly "the rich." However, I wouldn't be surprised if they have written something into the over 1000 pages that makes them exempt from paying the taxes that would go toward healthcare. Obama couldn't even say that he would let his family go through the system if something happened to them. When asked, he obfuscated and never answered a clear yes or no. I bet not one congressperson would want to be in this system.

If this bill passes, if I ever get cancer I won't be able to make choices for myself and I will have to wait for treatment, if the "health board" decides that I am worth receiving that treatment.

I know very few people read this blog, but if you do, please look more closely at this bill.

Go to these websites and read the articles and posts about it:

The Cato Institute

The Heritage Foundation

It's really scary! Call your congressperson(s) and tell them that you DON'T WANT IT!

Article: "Michael Jackson and The Gorp Syndrome"

2009-07-09T12:23:00.001-05:00

Michael Jackson was a good dancer and sang pretty songs and changed nothing and represented nothing and meant nothing.

I agree with this guy.

Alaska

2009-07-08T13:30:00.004-05:00

Alaska is really big.

how not to treat a library book

2009-07-07T13:58:00.005-05:00

A week and a half ago we went to the branch library and signed up for library cards. I was really excited about it and checked out my first book that day. Well, this is how I treat my wonderful library book:

The other day, as I was getting in the car to leave town, I set it on the roof of my car while I wrangled the dog. When we were about an hour out of town I started looking around for it in the car and asked Jose if he had seen it. The last place he saw it, of course, was on top of the car.

Yes, we had driven off with the book still up there.

I frantically called a few of my neighbors to get them to please look for the book in the street. One of them found it, called me back and said, "It looks like it got run over, but it's not damaged."

I let the book that the city of Austin entrusted to me to take care of as if it were my own get run over by a car.

When I got home, my nice neighbor brought it over. I don't exactly know what his definition of "not damaged" is but the book, unfortunately, is damaged and I will probably have to pay for it. It has tire marks in a lot of places and the binding is coming apart in another. Ugh. I can't believe that this is what I did to my first library book in years.

I actually erased most of the tire marks, except for the darkest ones. You can still see faint black tire tracks on the pages and the outside edges!

whoz cool? me.

2009-06-26T22:55:00.004-05:00

Hey internet, I just want to give a shout out to myself for how cool I am. I am so cool. I just looked at my Twitter account and I signed up two years ago. I am way ahead of the times, ppl! I was on twitter before it even was a big deal! Now everyone and their dog is on twitter. I know, I know, ppl jst follw wht I do bc Im the coolest. oops...i reverting to twterspk. Of course I've also had this blog forevers too. Wow, I am soooo coooool. I can barely stand myself.

Oh man

2009-04-04T14:30:00.001-05:00

It's so pretty out today!

R. I. P. Baby Bunnies :'(

2009-03-15T22:57:00.001-05:00

You won't believe what we found in our flower garden when we got home tonight. There were 5 newborn bunnies in a hole under one of our bushes. Unfortunately they were all dead.

I pulled them out if the hole and lined them up to look at them. It was weird. I wonder when and how they got there. I think they must have drowned because it rained a lot this weekend and the hole was kind of in a low spot in the garden.

It would have been kind of cool to have baby bunnies in the yard.

Friday in Munday

2009-03-13T09:59:00.002-05:00

My day today will include:

-Watching HGTV

-Watching What Not to Wear

-Avoiding sham-wow and snuggie commercials like the plague

-Chasing little rescue dog around mom's house to get him to go outside (little pooper is cute, but NOT friendly)

-Contemplating a shower

-Finally taking a shower

In conclusion, pretty much the usual when we're in Munday. Except the little pooper. He's new.

Two (formerly) stray dogs meet

2009-03-13T00:51:00.001-05:00

My mom got a a new dog. Wait, let me rephrase that. She rescued yet another dog off of the side of the road and this time I think she's going to keep it. The poor thing was so skinny that all of its vertebrae were showing. Pitiful little guy.

Now we are here in Munday and my little dog is with us. I forsee a lot of dog wrestling this weekend. My mom's dog is gonna get TOLD by my dog! SNAP!

2009-03-11T20:25:00.001-05:00

Posted with LifeCast

Angelinajolieified

2009-03-10T22:43:00.002-05:00

Over two weeks ago my friend dyed my hair black. We used a type of dye that is supposed to wash out in a month. However, after all this time, my hair is still really black and I want it to wash out already!

Nerdy Star Trek Quote

2008-04-08T16:15:00.004-05:00

I've been addicted to overheardinnewyork.com for a while now. This is the latest quote:

Cute nerd-girl playing scrabble #1: Did you see that episode where Data made a daughter? It was so good, and so sad!
Cute nerd-girl playing scrabble #2: Yeah, it was.
Cute nerd #1: And do you remember the episode when the little boy idolized data...
Cute nerd #2 interrupting: I remember all the episodes.
Cute nerd #1: But there was this one scene...
Cute nerd #2: I remember that scene.
Cute nerd #1: But I didn't finish...
Cute nerd #2: I remember all the scenes. Seriously. There was one time when my friend was flipping channels, and she flipped to Star Trek. And I only saw like, a quarter of a second of it, with Dr Crusher bending over a patient, and I said, "'his blood is turning to some kind of liquid polymer.'" and then Dr Crusher said, "His blood is turning to some kind of liquid polymer!" It's like when some people hear like 3 seconds of a song and can identify it. I can do that with Star Trek.

--Starbucks, 2nd & 9th

FYI, the episode where Data makes a daughter is one of my favorite episodes of all time!!

Conversation challenge of the week

2008-03-19T13:54:00.002-05:00

Try inserting this into a conversation:

"Overall shorts are just an invitation to uncomfortableness."

I was involved in an exchange not 10 minutes ago in which I used that exact sentence.

Jose said

2008-03-03T12:55:00.003-06:00

When talking about current movies,

Jose: "...a movie something like This is Not a Country for Old People..."

Oh my Lord, that was funny.

2008-03-01T11:25:00.002-06:00

I had practically given up on blogging. I haven't felt like it for a long time. I still don't feel like I have much to say. I hate, however, having my blog out here un-updated for months, but I don't want to delete it either. So I'll just say a few things. We moved into a new house. We love it. It's really great to have more space to live in.

Today we are going to a memorial service for a friend who died of a rare form of cancer. She donated her body to a research facility that studies the type of cancer that she suffered from. Maybe they'll find a cure for others someday. Her name was Renee, here is here obituary in the Austin American-Statesman.

Some links that I've been into lately:

http://thelostdiary.com/
http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/Main_Page
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

Oh, and I'm excited about the Spring and Summer coming up. Although we had a really mild Winter compared to the rest of the country, it's always beautiful here in Texas in the Spring and Summer. Especially Austin.

Communion crunch

2007-09-22T11:20:00.000-05:00

At the church I go to, we sometimes take communion as a congregation. Each person is given a little piece of bread and a tiny cup of grape juice. The bread is a little bitty crunchy square cracker that tastes kind of like a wheat thin. After the pastor blesses the bread, everyone eats the cracker at the same time. The funny thing is that when it's really quiet and I don't chew my cracker right then, I can hear the resounding crunch of every person in the room biting down on and chewing their cracker at the same time.

Coming soon to a theater near you: Sara's War

2007-08-30T17:57:00.000-05:00

I am happy to say that I won my personal war against at&t. It's a long and painful story which involves talking to 10+ at&t representatives including 2 supervisors in 4 or 5 different departments, including the Retention department (what is Retention? Think about it. It's customer retention. Last resort central. They could not help either, by the way). Maybe I'll tell it someday. Suffice it to say, I GOT WHAT I WANTED.

Lesson? Keep bothering them. Argue. Threaten to cancel. You will eventually come out on top.

Ha ha

2007-08-24T11:56:00.000-05:00

Global warming: The newest religion

Do you ever feel squashed by post-modernism?

MLK, Jr. quote via The Irresistible Revolution

2007-08-22T18:50:00.000-05:00

"To our most bitter opponents we say: Throw us in jail and we will still love you. Bomb our houses and threaten our children and we will still love you. Beat us and leave us half dead and we will still love you. But be ye assured that we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer. One day we shall so appeal to your heart and conscience that we shall win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory."

That is a beautiful example of radical grace.That is the kind of grace that Jesus preached and continues to preach to this day.

By the way, the Simple Way recently experienced a huge fire in their neighborhood. Go to their website to see what happened, what they are doing about it, and what you can do to help.

www.thesimpleway.org

Funny word

2007-08-14T10:07:00.000-05:00

"Separatrix"

What do you think it is?

Also known as: virgule, solidus, slash, diagonal, or stroke.

Who knew that something so seemingly simple could have so many names?

If you aren't reading this website every week, you should be.

2007-08-12T17:48:00.000-05:00

I thought I was the only one who couldn't get no. 5 out of my head

2007-08-05T21:07:00.000-05:00

This is really funny. I saw this on digg. It's the top 10 songs that people get stuck in their heads. I have had experience with 5, 2, 9 and, of course 1.

1. Other. Everyone has his or her own worst earworm.
2. Chili's "Baby Back Ribs" jingle.
3. "Who Let the Dogs Out"
4. "We Will Rock You"
5. Kit-Kat candy-bar jingle ("Gimme a Break ...")
6. "Mission Impossible" theme
7. "YMCA"
8. "Whoomp, There It Is"
9. "The Lion Sleeps Tonight"
10. "It's a Small World After All"

The other day I had "Low Rider" by WAR stuck in my head for some reason, and also that song from the flea medicine commercial with the cute puppy singing, "I ain't got bugs on me, I ain't got bugs on me...!" That puppy is so cute, isn't it? I like it at the end of the commercial when he starts walking kind of sideways.

This bugs me

2007-08-04T11:02:00.001-05:00

A pet peeve of mine since I got back to Texas is that people call the pronunciation of Spanish by Spaniards a "lisp." You may or may not know this, but is Spain the correct pronunciation of the letter "z" and the soft "c" is a voiceless "th" sound like in "theater." Because Americans are used to hearing South American Spanish, which pronounces the "z," the soft "c," with the "s" sound, when they hear a Spaniard (or someone like me, who speaks Spanish with the Spaniard accent) it sounds to them as if they were lisping, and they call it so accordingly.

Then, you get this story about how one Spanish king had a lisp. So to make him feel better, all of the people around him began to speak as he did. And there you have it=why Spaniards lisp. This is all complete crapola.

Okay people. A lisp is a speech defect. It means that the person speaking with a lisp is not pronouncing words correctly. Like they are defective in some way.

This is the real story. The "th" sound was evident in Spain even before the Spanish travelled to the New World. The sound developed from the sounds associated with the cedilla (ç) and the "z." So the original pronunciation of the "z" and the soft "c" is as a voiceless "th."

However, in some areas of Andalucia they started pronouncing them as an "s." One of the articles that I read says that this might have been because of the strong the Mozarabic influence in the south. People from Seville and other places in Andalucia still speak like this today (some also still use "ustedes" instead of "vosotros" which is another difference in the use of the language).

Well, I bet most of you didn't know this, but many of the famous explorers and "conquistadores" from Spain were from Andalucia. As were many of the subsequent Spaniards that immigrated to the New World. They were the original "mispronouncers" of the the "z" and the soft "c." They removed themselves from their original population and the "sss" stuck.

So if we are to say that someone is mispronouncing, who would it be? I, for one, would have to say that no one is mispronouncing. I believe that language is alive and it evolves as cultures evolve. I also speak American English, which is different than British English. If I say that the British have a speech impediment because when they pronounce the "r" they open their mouths more, that would be stupid.

So please, stop saying that Spaniards have a lisp. It's insulting.

A homeless bum

2007-07-07T22:42:00.000-05:00

Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." Luke 9:58

Have you ever thought about that?

Anniversaries

2007-06-28T21:03:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow is our 5th anniversary. As I say every year, it's feels like an eternity...

We were actually married at the court house on May 23rd, but our wedding ceremony at the church was on June 29th. I recognize the first date, but Jose recognises the second date. He always gets what he wants.

It was also a year ago that I wrote about my family reunion. We are going again this weekend. Remember last year when I fell in the lake and nearly killed myself? Remember how my little cousins suffered from post traumatic stress disorder for about 5 hours after witnessing the fall? (Well, they did.) Remember cornhole??? Those were some good times. Well, those times are gonna look like crap compared to this weekend's times. This weekend's times are gonna ROCK!

Again a new layout

2007-06-26T13:33:00.000-05:00

Now blogger lets you change stuff on your template a lot easier than before. I like change. I just want to note that the photo behind my title was taken from this flickr site. This guy takes some nice photos, people. He was in Granada and took pictures of a lot of my favorite places.

Check out this guy's Spain flickr set as well. It's completely awesome.

A snippet of my life

2007-06-08T20:36:00.001-05:00

Say goodbye to the spelling bee and hello to a running update on my life! Jada introduced this to me.

Twitter!

Conclusion to Christian v. Athiest

2007-06-07T10:13:00.000-05:00

Here is the last installment.

Part 6

So poignant in light of current times

2007-06-05T11:59:00.000-05:00

Stolen from michellemalkin.com:

Do you recognize the artist?

Part 5, y'all

2007-05-31T12:11:00.000-05:00

Wilson v. Hitchens, part 5

I don't know if this is the last one. They said it would be throughout the month of May and this is the last day, so maybe it is.

I changed my template...cool!

2007-05-30T22:16:00.000-05:00

Here's a new template. I know, it's just another Blogger one, but I wanted to see something different. I was getting tired of the green one.

Anyhoo, we went to my mom's this weekend. Here are a few pictures.

We drove together in Amber's car. We met in Lampasas and we left our car at the hospital. I spent the entire weekend thinking that our car was going to get towed.

One of the many warnings on a gigantic combine (that's for cutting wheat). They are apparently very dangerous. You could get pelted with flying arrows.

My mom put Amber and I to work. Where was Jose? Watching the Sci-fi channel.

It's still very flat out there.

Last but not least, my GRANDMA! She's so cute. We played Skip-bo for about an hour.

Wilson v. Hitchens, cont.

2007-05-21T14:21:00.000-05:00

Here are parts 3 and 4 of the online correspondence between Douglas Wilson and Christopher Hitchens, continued from my last post on the subject:

Part 3

Part 4

Very, very interesting.

Market for cat dentures? HERE!

2007-05-17T13:29:00.002-05:00

I just got back from picking my cat up from the veterinary dentist, yes, that is what I said, the VETERINARY DENTIST. Or more specifically, the veterinary dentist/oral surgeon. She had to have 11 rotten teeth removed.

It cost $1150.00uch.

Moral of the story? Take care of your pet’s teeth, or be prepared to have various body parts removed.

Spellalicious

2007-05-15T14:08:00.000-05:00

Check out the awesome new thing in my sidebar. It's from one of my fave dictionary websites, thefreedictionary.com.

It's just under the site meter. Spelling bee!

UPDATE: Sabrina

2007-05-14T17:01:00.000-05:00

Hey, do you guys remember Sabrina?

This notice is currently appearing on her homepage, findsabrina.org.

NOTICE:
Our Investigators and Law Enforcement believe that Dara may be
attempting
to come back to the
United States.

Please be vigilant, and report any sightings to your
local law enforcement.

Watch out for Dara!

Guess who came to visit!

2007-05-13T18:48:00.000-05:00

This little guy showed up yesterday in the tree outside our apartment.

This, my friends, is a lesser nighthawk. According to the range map on whatbird.com, Austin is a little north of where he usually hangs out.

He didn't even care that I was standing below waving an empty paper towel tube at him and taking his picture. He just opened his little eyes and looked at me and then went back to sleep. I love him.

Atheists v. Christians, Times 2

2007-05-10T13:57:00.001-05:00

There is something in the air this month. Two new debates between Christians and Atheists are out on the web. Check them out.

1. Christianity Today is publishing a correspondence, all this month, between Douglas Wilson (Christian) and Christopher Hitchens (Atheist).

Here is part 1 and part 2.

So far, it's very interesting and promises to get even better as the month goes on. There will be more installments, so bookmark it and check back.

2. ABC online is doing a debate series called "Nightline Face-Off". The series will be about various themes, and this first one is between Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron of "The Way of the Master" and two people from the "Rational Response Squad," Brian "Sapient" and a woman named "Kelly" (those are not their real names).

The Way of the Master is a organization that is dedicated to "seeking and saving the lost the way Jesus did."

The Rational Response Squad is a group that is dedicated to "blaspheming the Holy Spirit" and confronting the "irrational claims" of religion.

Personally, I found that Kelly and Brian (especially Kelly) both acted and spoke with such a condescending and arrogant tone. They just came off as so unlikeable. On the other hand, Ray and Kirk spoke in such a loving and kind way. You could hear gentleness and genuine care in their voices. You really could hear the difference. There is one lady in the audience that yells at Ray and he speaks so kindly in return.

The link to the debate is here, also here.

Let me know what you think!

cognitive dissonance

2007-04-27T13:27:00.000-05:00

n. Psychology -A condition of conflict or anxiety resulting from inconsistency between one's beliefs and one's actions.

Don't we all suffer from this?

NASAfied

2007-04-20T23:05:00.000-05:00

We went to NASA last weekend.

It was pretty much awesome.

These are moon rocks. They look like blue cheese.

As a completely unrelated side note, I'm totally getting some of this:

It's caffinated soap. Awesome!

Jose's birthday yo

2007-04-07T11:19:00.000-05:00

Tim, you were right. Here are the fotos. Jose's (34th) birthday!

Maybe I have a weird sense of humor

2007-04-01T21:17:00.000-05:00

I don't know why, but I think these are so funny. It's just that there was this cheesy commercial in Spain about them and the way that the say the name in Spanish is hilarious. I feel bad about it. It's very insensitive of me to laugh at another person's incontinence problems.

Childhood Transgender Barbie Project

2007-03-31T10:47:00.000-05:00

I've told some of my friends about this. I've wanted to write about it for a while because it is so funny. I wish I still had her/him, but I must have sold her/him in a garage sale (which is what I did with everything I owned as a kid...I needed that 50 cents!).

Anyway, this is the deal. When I was little, my friend, Tennille, and I liked to play "Cinderella" with my Barbies. However, I only had 3 of them and no Ken. So, we needed a Prince Charming, see? One day we had one of the best ideas that has ever occurred to a couple of 9-year-olds.

Now, I had this one Barbie that had lost the little swivelly part that is attached to the neck and makes the head turn (I know you know what I'm talking about. Who hasn't pulled Barbie's head off at least once?) Since she didn't have this particular part of her doll anatomy, we had to shove her head down onto her neck which gave her an extremely square chin, a weird, deformed face and an abnormally short neck.

Well, she was the chosen one. This is what we did:

First order of business: breast removal. We went to my dad's shop, i.e. the building in the backyard where all his tools were, and found the belt sander. I am sure that we were not even supposed to touch it, but ignoring that fact, we turned it on and sanded those boobs right off. Because I was a child, I mistakenly thought that Barbie was a solid mass of plastic. I was, of course, wrong. She is hollow, people. Now, Man-Barbie had to large holes in her chest.

Next order of business: new hair-do. We cut it all off. She looked like she had bad hair plugs. Prince Charming could NOT have bad hair plugs, and the horror of that possibility lead us to our next epiphany.

I had this knock-off Barbie that that I got in Knox City at a store called Perry's. It probably cost about a dollar. This fake Barbie was completely bald and came with three wigs. Of course, I had already lost two of the wigs (and the doll). The only wig that I had left was the blond fro. The wig was made of a thick plastic half-sphere. It looked more like a round, skin colored hat with hair coming out of it than an actual wig. Well, we glued it to Man-Barbie's head. He now had a blond fro and a permanent abnormally large noggin with an 1/8 inch ledge rising up off of his forehead (and around the rest of his head). It also covered his ears to half way down.

Viola! We had our Prince Charming! Unfortunately, we could never get the feet to stand flat, as opposed to the perpetual high heel stance. I could never think of any tool in my dad's arsenal that could fix that.

I wish I had a picture of this thing. It was like my Frankenstein's monster of childhood. It was probably the ugliest doll that ever walked the earth. Needless to say, though, Cinderella loved him and lived happily ever after! Every time.

Addendum: I also gave one of my other Barbies a short haircut and then proceeded to dye its hair black with a Marks-a-lot marker. That one I still have. Next time I find it, I'll take a picture.

Inspired experimentation

2007-03-24T10:07:00.000-05:00

I was so inspired by the man on the travel channel that I went to a Mexican food restaurant and ate a tongue taco.

It was good.

Maybe next time I'll try a brains tosada...okay, maybe not.

It's official, Spainish foods are bizarre...

2007-03-23T16:55:00.000-05:00

There is a show on the travel channel in which the host goes to different countries and eats the weirdest food that he can find. So, last week he went to Spain. Here is a list of what he ate:

* Angulas (baby eels)
* Whole roast suckling pig - - tail, ear, tongue, eye, brains
* Baby squid in their own ink
* Crunchy pig ears
* Snails
* Grilled octopus
* Rabo de toro (bull’s tail)
* Callos (casserole made of blood sausage and tripe)
* Ox
* Maruca eggs (dried fish eggs)
* Criadillas (bull’s testicles)
* Deep-fried pork fat
* Tripe
* Jamón Ibérico (air-dried ham made from black-footed Iberian pigs)
* Percebes (gooseneck barnacles)
* Clams
* Langostinos (large prawns)
* Red shrimp
* Rodaballo (Spanish turbot)
* Spiny lobster
* Buey "mustard" (giant Mediterranean stone-clam innards)
* Razor clams
* Deep-fried worms
* Crickets
* Horchata (beverage made with almond milk and tiger nuts)
* Calf’s brains
* Arros de pages amb crestes de gall (rice with rooster combs)
* Nitrogen-cooled sake sorbet with lychee nuts
* Pine-nut meringue

From this list I have eaten (or drunk) snails, grilled octopus, rabo de toro, callos, jamon ibérico, clams, langostinos, and horchata. I don't like snails or clams or callos that much, but the rest of the ones that I have tried are really good.

Actually, Spaniards do eat a lot of strange seafoods. It is a peninsula, after all. If you go to the fish market, you don't just see fish, you see all of these weird kinds of marine animals too, many of which are still alive. It's like going to a macabre aquarium. Jose used to chastize me for going up and touching them all the time.

My friend saw the show and she said that the host didn't like horchata. I couldn't believe it! It's not the same kind of horchata, made of rice, that you get here. Like it says in the list, it's made of tiger nuts (chufa). Let me tell you, it is sooooo goooood!

Since I have a little experience in this field of study, I want to add a few other foods to the list that the host didn't try. He didn't go down to Andalucía after all! One thing that he didn't have on his list, which is something that my in-laws eat, on occasion, in there own home, is something called "sangre frita." That is, "fried blood." It's coagulated chicken (or pig) blood fried and mixed with a sauce of tomatoes, onion and peppers. At least that is how my mother-in-law makes it. I tried it once and didn't like it.

Another dish that comes directly from Granada is called "tortilla de sacromonte" or "Sacromonte omelette". This omelette has brains and testicles of lamb in it. I never tried it, nor do I desire to. That's mad cow disease just waiting to happen.

The other "bizarre food" that Americans find gross is morcilla. However, I love it. Yum! When Jose and I go back to Spain to visit, all we want to eat is jamón, morcilla, and cheese. And me, I also want to drink wine.

Well anyway, the host has been to places where the food is a lot weirder...do any of you know what a balut is? It's a delicacy in the Philipines...check it.

Monthly post

2007-03-20T21:53:00.000-05:00

My friends had the nerve to get hitched in Jamaica and then just have a measly party for the rest of us here in Austin.

Actually, the party was great. beautiful. awesome! For reals, it rocked. I was so mad at myself for not taking more pictures. There were people there that I hadn't seen in years and years. I just didn't FEEL like taking pictures (yet another reason why I shouldn't let my emotions rule me).

Well, anyway, here's the happy couple and cute Nico:

Aubony envelops moi (for a change):

Here's what a woman pregnant with twins looks like (NOT me, her):

Of course I took more pictures that that. Or, I should say, that Jose and Tori took more pictures than that. I think I might have taken one.

On a slightly different note, sorry for the scant posts. I've been chillaxin' over at Myspace. At least I'm doing better than Jada. As of now, she hasn't posted in over 2 months. I don't feel so bad. Thanks Jada! I'll try to live a more interesting life and then post about it.

Star Trek is...

2007-02-20T19:43:00.000-06:00

Okay. Jose and I just watched the very last episode of Star Trek: Deep Space 9, and I cried.

I cried, people. THAT is how much I love Star Trek.

Cool evangelical (oh my!) magazine online

2007-02-18T20:17:00.000-06:00

Check it. Geez Magazine. Linked to the simple way people that I talked about earlier.

2 things

2007-02-18T10:18:00.000-06:00

1. Last night I saw a U-haul trailer driving down I-35 with a vacuum duct taped to the side of it. I guess the trailer was just too full for the vacuum to fit. I can just hear the conversation, "Oh no! The trailer's full and the vacuum is still not packed! What can we do! ...I know, hand me the duct tape!"

2. Jose came back from Sweden and brought these little gummy candies that the Swedes like so much. Some of them taste like salty licorice, which is something that those crazy Scandinavians love. I never thought that I would like it, but I have to say, it's growing on me. It's strangely additive...

And finally, here's a little something extra:

The Simple Way

2007-02-11T21:21:00.000-06:00

Don't go to this website if you don't want to have your lifestyle challenged.

I went to church with Jada last week and the Sunday School teacher read from a book called The Irresistible Revolution (order it here or here). The author, Shane Claiborne, is a part of this group/organization/community called The Simple Way. His book and the way that these people live is causing me to really examine the way that I live. I want to live the gospel instead of just studying it. I want to impact the lives of the people living in poverty here in Austin. I want to help them and show them that they are loved. There are so many men and women on the street corners with next to nothing. How can I justify buying the things that I want without thinking of those who have nothing at all?

The quote that has been most on my mind from the book is a quote that the author says came from the mouth of Mother Teresa.

"We are called not to be successful but to be faithful."

I want to be faithful to God and live in a way that glorifies HIM.

Jesus says that the first shall be last and the last shall be first. What does that mean in my life?

Oh, you guys

2007-02-10T23:41:00.000-06:00

Jose has been in Sweden visiting Manolo & Co. for the last two weeks. How have I spent my time you ask? Well, I have NOT spent it cleaning up after myself. That's for sure. My apartment was so messy. I had time today to pick up, wash dishes, wash clothes, etc. Life is so hard.

I am forming an ugly Myspace habit too. That site is like crack. I can't get off of it. I have looked up just about every name in my brain.

While I am thinking of it, I have a question. Do you people notice the crazy spam email titles? Besides the ones about finding people to have sex with and the ones that tell me I can have a bigger wee, the rest have the funniest names. Here is a short list:

snuck outdid
or seep it say
The go draftsman
seemingly derive
her chromatography he waylaid
it my prone
if also panel boy republic

Interesting...One time I saw this website where this guy would take these random subject lines and illustrate them. It was really funny, but I can't find it now. I personally like "her chromatography he waylaid" the best. I think we need to collect the funniest ones and when we have enough, we can write an entire play using only spam subject lines as the dialogue. Then we can put in on Youtube. Awesome idea!

And finally, not to be snuck outdid by my friends, it was icy and cold about a month ago and here are my pictures of it:

Ooh, la la la la la

2007-02-06T19:56:00.000-06:00

I have succumbed to the incessant and overwhelming pull of the monster called MySpace. I have a myspace page. There. I did it. Enjoy it.

Olive! Shoes! Lovin'!

2007-01-12T17:42:00.000-06:00

Jose! Yellin'! In the background!

Interesting investment made by Jose

2007-01-12T17:04:00.000-06:00

Jose bought a whole bunch of movies the other day for $1.99 each. Some of the discs even have two movies for the price of one! Here are the names and some taglines:

Kill, Baby...Kill!
Creature-"Death is no escape from an alien nightmare!" [wise words...]
Warriors of the Wasteland-"Can mankind survive without humanity?"
Alien Contamination-"A new plague on Earth will come from the stars!"
Slave of the Cannibal God-"A bloodthirsty cult that hunts for the taste of human flesh!"
Devil Girl from Mars-"Mankind's greatest threat is a single woman!" [Condoleezza?]
Bronx Executioner-"The fate of the city belongs to one man..."
First Spaceship on Venus
The Killer Shrews [my favorite so far]

I actually watched some of Bronx Executioner and I have to say it is really, really bad. Jose just sits there watching all the bad parts over and over again and laughing.

Embarassing moments...brought to you by a 12 year old

2007-01-07T11:28:00.000-06:00

Last night we went to the airport to pick up Tori. As we were standing at the baggage claim waiting for her suitcases, a beige colored bag was coming down the chute and Tori said, "That's an old lady's bag."

So, I was under the impression that she actually saw an old lady with the bag so I asked, "Really? How do you know" Did you actually see an old lady with that bag?" She said, "No it just looks like an old lady's bag."

As these words were coming out of her mouth, an older man reached out and picked the bag up off of the carousel, looked over at Tori and said, "it's NOT an old lady's bag!" He was smiling and laughing, but Tori was so embarrassed! She turned bright red. It was funny.

Manolo, Jose's Cousin...has come!

2007-01-07T10:59:00.000-06:00

Manolo:

Manolo's ugly twin:

Happy New Year.

2007-01-06T12:55:00.000-06:00

For New Year's we went to my mom's house. She lives in a little town called Munday, Texas. There's not a whole lot of things to do there. You wouldn't know it from all the pictures we took.

We went to Knox City, which is about 10 miles West of Munday:

Memories! From the corners of my mind...! My grandma lives here and I basically grew up going to Knox City and doing country bumpkin stuff.

We went to this store in Knox City (it's called Pepper's, if you ever want to go there):

Where you can buy stuff like this:

We also rode a Ryno. It's like a souped up golf cart. And camo!

We went all over the cotton fields behind my mom's house. It was so fun, especially going over bumps.

Jose told me to take a bunch of pictures of him on it (this isn't even all of them):

How many pictures did he take of me, you ask? Well, I'll tell you.

Two:

The flatness:

These are cotton modules:

See our tracks?

Amber rode it too:

And we saw some pigs:

Since we didn't go for Christmas, we opened Christmas presents:

Amber in the jungle:

On New Year's Eve, we played an eternal game of dominoes and ate grapes (a Spanish tradition). Jose said "boobie storm" (ask me about it). There are no pictures from that momentous occasion.

On the 2nd of January, 2007, my mom was sworn in as Treasurer of Benjamin County. Congratulations Mom! In the afternoon, we went to Witchita Falls. On the way, there is a camel ranch. That day, three of them were out by the road. So we walked up to the fence and, lo and behold, one of them decided to come closer and check us out. Unfortunately, we forgot the camera so we didn't get to take any pictures (I got this picture off of Flickr). The camel that came up to see us was white. It let us pet its nose, but it tried to bite me twice, too. It was so cool!

On our last night there, we ate ice cream at Dairy Queen:

AWESOME.

The Comeback

2006-12-23T12:03:00.000-06:00

Soooooo, has everybody gotten a good look at Sabrina????? I hope so, because the next time I feature a missing child on my blog, I expect results. Results, people! Find those missing children!

Also, in case any of you were wondering, Sabrina is my friend's daughter. That's why I left her up for so long. Not because I was neglecting my website. No.

Movingon.org, in honor of the new movie Rocky VI, I, too, am making a comeback (Tim, is that enough commas? Because, I, too, can add some more). This post is getting a little random, so I'm going to come into focus here and write a few related statements.

Jose and I are staying in town for Christmas this year. Basically, because he has to work and I don't have any vacation left anyway. So I plan on gathering up everybody else that I know that is staying here for Christmas weekend and have a nice cozy get-together at my cozy apartment. We can play Parcheesi and microwave chestnuts! Yay! Yellow army! (Martin, that hyperlink is for you)

Another thing that I want tell you about is the athlete's foot that I got last week. My friend gave it to me for Christmas. Oh, it's not what you think. I don't have crusty, yellow, stinky toes. I got an athlete's foot fungus magnified one million times its actual size and made into a plush doll, as modeled here by Olive.

She loves her athlete's foot. Can't you see it in her face? Isn't it cute? My friend, Jessica, gave it to me. She gave other people various and sundry diseases as well. I felt special.

Now, I'm going to tell you something that may make you uncomfortable. Every time I mention the subject to people they act strange and start either laughing or looking around nervously or both. It may sound sad, that's because it is sad, but I want you to know before I write it that I'm okay.

Here it is: last Wednesday was the 1 year anniversary of my brother, Dennis's, death. Most of my friends know that he died and most know how he died, and I don't want to write about it now because it's long and depressing. Maybe someday I'll tell the story, but for now, I just want to honor him by saying that he is greatly missed by his family and we wish he were here with us for Christmas 2006. I know that he is in heaven with Jesus and that God has given him a good, long lecture and now he's chillaxin' with Adam, Eve, Mammy and Pappy and Johnny Cash and co. I still wish he were here though. Here is a photo of him just 2 days before he died:

Amazing isn't it? He was alive and just two days later he was not. I can still hardly believe it.

Esta niña se llama Sabrina Allen-This girl is named Sabrina Allen

2006-11-22T15:35:00.001-06:00

Hoy quiero destacar la historia de una niña que se llama Sabrina Allen. Su madre la sequestró en el año 2002. Se cree que están en México. La siguiente foto es una aproximación a cómo parece hoy en día al lado de una foto de como era antes del sequestro.

Today I want to highlight a story about a little girl named Sabrina. She was abducted by her non-custodial mother on April 21, 2002. They have been spotted in Mexico. The following picture is an "artist's rendition" of what she may look like now along with a picture of her before she was abducted.

This is Dara. She is the abductor.

Esta mujer es Dara. Ella es la sequestradora.

La historia es tan trágica como es verdadera. La madre ha sido diagnosticada con problemas mentales. Ésta es una de las razones por qué el padre tenga custodia. Dara llevó a Sabrina muy lejos de su familia y sólo Dios sabe lo que Sabrina ha experimentado durante los últimos 4 años. Han estado corriendo y escondiendose todo este tiempo y su padre ni sabe si Sabrina está asistiendo la escuela.

The story is as tragic as it is true. The mother has been diagnosed with mental problems. This is one of the reasons that the father has custody of Sabrina. Dara has taken Sabrina far away from her family and only God knows what Sabrina has gone through in the last 4 years. They have been on the run all of this time and they aren't even sure if Sabrina has been in school.

La foto de Sabrina arriba fue sacada cuando las encontraron en México D. F. en 2003. La madre le había cortado y teñido el pelo de Sabrina. Estaba registrada con un nombre falso. Se evitó captura y no han podido llegar tan cerca otra vez.

The above photo is was taken when the FBI found them in Mexico City in 2003. The mother had cut and dyed Sabrina's hair. She was registered by a false name. Theye escaped capture and the authorities haven't been able to get as close again.

Aquí está su página web.

Por favor, ve a esta página. Tiene muchísima más información.

Here is her website. Please, go visit this website. It contains much more information.

Please, if you have seen either Dara or Sabrina, contact the investigators at: Investigator Philip Klein: 409-729-8798 x10

or email: info@FindSabrina.org

Por favor, si has visto a Dara o a Sabrina, contacta con los investiagdores: Investigator Philip Klein: 409-729-8798 x10

o manda un email a: info@FindSabrina.org

Anti-Christian Propaganda

2006-11-17T17:45:00.000-06:00

I found this article about a photography project today and I was intrigued and angered by it at the same time. It totally skews Christianity into something that only ignorant people believe. The author intentionally mixes facts with his own negative opinion to make Christians sound stupid. I know, why read it? Well, I think that it shows what people will brainwash themselves into believing in order to ignore God's truth.

Something positive does shine through about how God loves everyone and desires for us to know Him, despite our differences, faults and failures.

Notice that towards the end the photographer who was interviewed says that the people that he met were so nice and they believed so strongly that he actually considered the possibility that they were right and he was wrong. That is because the the Holy Spirit that lives in Believers is so compelling.

This whole thing reminds me of something I read before:

The message of the cross is foolish to those who are headed for destruction! But we who are being saved know it is the very power of God. As the Scriptures say, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and discard the intelligence of the intelligent.” So where does this leave the philosophers, the scholars, and the world’s brilliant debaters? God has made the wisdom of this world look foolish. Since God in his wisdom saw to it that the world would never know him through human wisdom, he has used our foolish preaching to save those who believe. It is foolish to the Jews, who ask for signs from heaven. And it is foolish to the Greeks, who seek human wisdom. So when we preach that Christ was crucified, the Jews are offended and the Gentiles say it’s all nonsense. But to those called by God to salvation, both Jews and Gentiles, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. This foolish plan of God is wiser than the wisest of human plans, and God’s weakness is stronger than the greatest of human strength. Remember, dear brothers and sisters, that few of you were wise in the world’s eyes or powerful or wealthy when God called you. Instead, God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful. God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important. As a result, no one can ever boast in the presence of God. God has united you with Christ Jesus. For our benefit God made him to be wisdom itself. Christ made us right with God; he made us pure and holy, and he freed us from sin. Therefore, as the Scriptures say, “If you want to boast, boast only about the Lord.”

(from 1 Corinthians)

Beautiful.

By the way, I looked up Mars Hill Church. It looks like a great church. It is badly misrepresented in this article.

It's a Small World, Literally

2006-11-02T16:33:00.000-06:00

Hi guys. I know I haven't been writing. I know. Since I can't seem to find time to write a good post, I will leave you with this awesome picture. It's from this website called Astronomy Picture of the Day. The photo that you are looking at is from October 16, 2006.

Breathtaking isn't it? As you can see, it is of Saturn. If you click on the photo, it will take you to the website where you can see a bigger version and read about it. And just to peak your interest, Earth is somewhere in this photo.

I feel so small in the universe when I see how tiny the earth is. It really puts things into perspective.

This is what Carl Sagan had to say when he saw another photo of a tiny Earth:

"We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there - on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors, so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.
Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."

Of course, I don't agree with Sagan that, "In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves."

There is more than a hint that help will come!

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Psalm 19:1

There is someone who came to save us from ourselves!

"Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." This saying is true, and it can be trusted. 1 Timothy 1:15a

Thank God for Jesus!

the universal translator

2006-10-27T09:35:00.000-05:00

Why is it that in all the movies that are set in "ancient times" or even just "olden times" the actors all have a British accent?

Rule of Thumb

2006-10-25T17:01:00.000-05:00

When a friend tells you that you did a bad job of painting your nails, but you actually did a great job and she is mistaking your hangnails and dried up, crusty cuticles for stray polish, then your nail polish is an ugly color.

More party, less boring videos

2006-10-23T23:02:00.000-05:00

This is what Tim posted. We sat there for about an hour skipping rocks. It's more fun in real life. Seriously.

Movingon.org...more party pics!

Cornhole is a spectator sport.

Except for Tim, he's looking for buzzards to catch and pet.

These are the "berries" that I tried to get both Tim and Jada to eat. I was unsuccessful with Tim, but Jada ate one. They are really what are known as Pequin peppers. They are "very hot, often 7-8 times hotter than jalapeños." That's from Wikipedia. It must be true. Anyway, they taste like ...burning!

Scary!

I touch you...you touch me! (wasn't that a song or something?) Anyhoo, Tim touches Bowen, Bowen is weirded out.

Tori farts and Jada doesn't like it.

J/K! Tori didn't fart, she is just saying something 11ish.

Second Birthday Parties Rock!

2006-10-23T22:48:00.000-05:00

I feel like a hobbit. They eat second breakfast, well, I had a second birthday. My sister-in-law, Amber, turns 30 on Thursday. So Susan decided to throw us a double b-day par-tay in Belton. IWSF!

The CAKE. Yum!

Cornhole, of course. My family is officially addicted.

Tim and Jada, chillaxin' on the patio.

I'm happy because I get more presents. Amber's just happy.

No comment.

Totally and Completely Robbed From Cuteoverload.com

2006-10-18T12:09:00.000-05:00

He's all, "This is MA sucka!"

It's just so cute!!!

My Most Embarrassing Moment™

2006-10-17T22:01:00.000-05:00

Tonight I want to respond to the embarrassing moment question posed by Jada Bobayda. More specifically, in a post named "Not a Naked Statue" and unofficially in "Condom Talk at Work" in which she relates yet another embarrassing moment. I thought I had embarrassing moments! That girl is a veritable embarrassing moment factory! Just kidding Jada. It's not that bad, really. It's not. No, seriously.

Ok, people. I'm going to tell you the story of My Most Embarrassing Moment™. Here it is, in all it's glory.

Here goes: ...

This is it: ...

Thar she blows:.....

&c: .........

...ok, now that I've psyched myself up with a few Ligers:

It happened when I was in high school nary 11 years past. Actually, I was a Freshman, so that makes it about 15 years past (OMG, I'm getting so old). It all happened in basketball. It was a game day (a Friday), so we were just going to go out on the court and do some light drills. The school worker people had pulled out the bleachers and there were a few guys (not just any guys, the cool guys) from my class sitting in them, watching us.

Well, I was a pretty good player. I had skills. So, I was going up and down the court, doing my layups, blockin' people out, lookin' good. As I finished exhibiting my awesomeness and made my way to the end of the line, I started to notice that a few of the Seniors were pointing at my derriere region and snickering. One Senior girl in particular, Celeste, who, btw, was known to be a "mean girl" type, was pointing and laughing in a "mean girl" kind of way (meaning in a loud and malevolent fashion).

At that moment, one of the female coaches swept up beside me, put her arm around my shoulders, and while whisking me away said, "Sara, we need to go to the locker room."

We entered the locker room and she said, "Sara, look at your shorts." I looked down at my shorts and realized for the first time that half of them were missing. A large swath of cloth from the crotchal area all the way across the right butt cheek just wasn't there anymore. The entire right half of my backside was feeling the gentle breeze of freedom, so to speak. While I was making my awesome layups, everyone in the entire gymnasium was checking out my underoos.

Apparently, this is what had happened. It's totally and completely random, but here it is. My dog, Gretchen, was preggers and she had taken to eating all the weird stuff that she could find (you know how those pregnant women are...). Since I didn't wash my gym shorts every day, well, she must have liked the smell of sweaty gym shorts and decided to make an afternoon snack of them. Of course, she only ate the best part. I'm not going to explain in any more detail.

That afternoon, when I had first put on my shorts, I didn't notice a dad burn thing. Our gym shorts were kind of flowy and baggy, so they always felt a little breezy anyway.

Well, my coach gave me a new pair of shorts and I walked back out there like nothing had happened. That, my friends, is the secret to overcoming embarrassing moments. Act like everything is totally under control.

My friend, Aubony, was present when the incident occurred. We didn't really know each other at the time and she says that she remembers that I came back to practice acting like I had just gone to the bathroom or something. I remember feeling mortified, but I wasn't going to show it. That way, Senior Celeste couldn't laugh at me.

FRENSHIP TIGERS! YAY!

Brow Bone Woe

2006-10-10T22:29:00.001-05:00

UPDATE: Here is a picture of my eye. I can see the headline now:

Bruised By A Toddler!

P.S. Check out the awesome eyebrow plucking job. Now that's what I like to call a good-lookin' eyebrow.

Remember how I said that a 3-year-old headbutted me on a trampoline? Well, I now have the makings of a faint but distinct black eye. Seriously. That kid has a hard noggin.

OMG People!

2006-10-09T20:54:00.000-05:00

I can't believe that it has been so long since I wrote even one measly post. All of this time and what do I have to show for it? I guess I'll have to do an almost-2-week-round-up special.

Okay, so when we left our intrepid heroine she had just learnt a life-lesson. So, this is what happened next:

I can't remember, let me think about it...

...ohh-kaay, now I remember. We played a soccer game. On Saturday, at 8 o'clock in the morning (dood). We won, btw. In the evening, we went to Tim's indulged in a little "Speed Scrabble-ation" as we are wont to do. Followed by a piquant game of "Pictionary."

Oh, and then, on Sunday we went to church as per usual. Hope Chapel, even, where we heard an insightful sermon on the importance of community. That evening, we went to the home of a Turkish couple. They are observing the fast of the Islamic month of Ramadan (Ramazan in Turkish). They had invited us over to break their daily fast with them. The wife is a good friend of mine. She is always inviting me over for tea. Actually, it started out because I said that I would help her with her English conversation, but we really just like to hang out and talk. Which helps her English conversation, but still. Here is a picture of us together:

If it looks like I am enveloping her, it's because I am. I'm huge. Check this one out:

Total and complete envelopment. She even has a look on her face that says, "Ehn! Stop ENVELOPING me!" Although, she's trying to hide it behind that smile.

...hey, whoa Nelly. Hold the phone. Latter picture reminds me of something. I forgot to post about my birthday par-tay. We sang us some mean karaoke, let me tell you (Aubony and Joe were missed while they were off gallivanting and GETTING MARRIED in Jamaica).

Here are some cool pics of the fated night in question:

Me. Singing who knows what. Being eaten by the giant karaoke machine monitor.

Jada. Being her usual dramatic self. Singing Glory of Love, you know, from Karate Kid III. I loved that song as a wee lass. I'm glad she sang it.

My cousin, Bowen. Singing some song by Metallica or Judas Priest. Also being eaten by the monitor. Jennifer in the foreground, apparently falling asleep (only momentarily as you will see).

Here's Jada again. Eating a monstrous (literally, ha!) cupcake.

Moi. Jada. Jennifer, who was totally woked up by then (photo [and good grammar] courtesy of Tim Stewart).

GUESS WHAT??!!

LIGERS! THAT'S WHAT!

Here is a special comparison of last year's karaoke pose to this year's karaoke pose. They look about the same to me. Just different clothes. White shirt: last year. Brown shirt: this year. As you can see in the first picture, there are no words on the screen behind me. I'm not really singing.

All right! There's a lot more to show and tell about the party, but we need to get back to the almost-2-week-round-up special:

Where was I? Hmmm. Let's see now...okay. Oh, we left off at the Ramadan dinner. It was v. good. My friend is so sweet. She always sends me home with food. It reminds me of a sweet old aunt or something, but she's not even as old as me.

Moving on. Last week was pretty uneventful. This weekend, though, we had another soccer game on Saturday afternoon, which we lost. The captain of our team broke his big toe to boot. It sucked. I thought that I played my worst game evar. My team is very encouraging though. They said that I did ok. However, I found out something even worse right after that game. Tim took pictures and I look so fat in my soccer uniform! It is very unflattering. Oh, the humanity!

Well, now that THAT'S out in the open, we'll move on to Saturday night. Should I mention Saturday night? This post is getting really long-winded. There's so much to catch up on! I know, it's my own fault for not posting in all this time... Well all that happened on Saturday night was that I went to a fun party in which I made S'mores and was attacked and subsequently head-butted on a trampoline by a three-year-old who didn't even notice, while I, on the other hand, was writhing in pain. My brow bone still hurts.

On Sunday we played Mojokickball. My team won. Yay!

Tonight: (Finally! She's nearing the end!) I got to see my cool cousin, brother of Bowen, my favorite Idiot Out Walking Around: WADE!

That's him, on the left. Bowen's on the right. He's here visiting from Iowa. All night I was telling him that he needs to move down to Austin.

Okay, people. That's it. I'll post more frequently so that things don't get so backed up. I know, you bloggers say to pick one topic and write about it. I picked a topic, it's called my life, so deal.

Oh, I forgot to say, Tim called me at 5:20 this morning (I was asleep, imagine that) to tell me that he couldn't give me a ride to work today. It was a very surreal, and short, conversation. All confusing and informative at the same time. It was almost like a dream.

in which I feel stupid

2006-09-28T19:29:00.000-05:00

So this is what happened. Last night. We practiced soccer. Then we went to have a little bubble drinkage. In initial attendance were Jada, Mark, and I. Mark drove us to the bubble drink location. Jose showed up a little later. We had a good time talking about traveling to Paris. We even had a pleasant conversation in Spanish about the comparative size of a triangle and a rectangle. Very interesting.

Fast forward to leaving bubble drink place. Jada and I are riding with Jose and Mark is going straight home. While we are still in the parking lot, Mark pulls up beside us and shows us a small something. It is Jada's keys. She had left them in his car. He says, "Now, that would have been bad!" We are all in hearty agreement. Then he says, "Do we need to take a second for everybody to make sure that they have everything out of my car???" We decline the offer. I am laughing because I think, "Ha, ha! Jada left her keys! She's so forgetful! I never do anything like that! I always know where my stuff is! Ha!" I even say to Jada, "I think that he was referring to you when he said that." And she says, "Yeah. Probably." As we drive off, I feel all the confidence of a person who has it together.

Fast forward to when we are in the parking lot of our apartments. I am getting my stuff out of Jada's car (which I was riding in earlier) and I say, "Fiddlesticks! I left my purse in Mark's car."

That, my friends, is what you call getting your just deserts. My arrogance has brought me low.

We had to go all the way to Mark's house and pick up my purse.

Next time, I'm checking the car for my stuff. And no more making fun of people who forget their keys.

Lesson learned.

Fave Website Showcase: Homestarrunner.com

2006-09-27T14:54:00.000-05:00

[Props to Aubony, this is one of her favorite websites and she told me how awesome it is!]

Ok y'all, do any of you remember those nerdy guys in high school that had the most random sense of humor, but at the same time, were so extremely, exaggeratedly funny? Well, those guys have grown up and made a cartoon, and it's name is homestarrunner.com.

It's a collection of Flash cartoons, etc. involving Homestar Runner and his cohorts, and I have to say, it is so very entertaining. And cute. It's supposed to be for kids, but to heck with that, Homestar rocks! I love the way he talks. (He don't wear no socks! His favorite food is lox!)

First, make sure you click on the little circle that says "first time here?" and watch the short introduction. Then check the "Strong Bad email," in which Strong Bad answers actual emails. You can even write him if you want. And then, of course, watch the cartoons.

Ok, now that you have your itinerary, get going!

V. v. v. busy

2006-09-26T17:34:00.000-05:00

Give me a little break, Jose! and Thad! I have been busy all week. It was my birthday week and, let me tell you, it was WILD! and CRAZY! I'll post about it later, but right now I will say that last night I went to Barnes and Noble because I got a gift card and I wanted to make use of it. Here are two titles that I came across in the World History section whilst seeking a book on Turkish history (which I did not find):

The Not So Little Book of Dung

Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World

Yes, these are real titles. And, I might add, there were multiple copies of each. I'm not just talking about two, either. I mean there were like a dozen each. Oh, and while I was browsing in the European History section, I came across The Basque History of the World: The Story of a Nation, which doesn't have a weird title or subject, the only point of interest being that it was written by the same guy who wrote Cod and there was a line on the back cover proclaiming, "Like his celebrated Cod..."

I guess that a biography of the fish that changed the world must be a real gem. I mean, it was celebrated.

It sounds pretty boring to me, but if you like that, check out Salt: A World History, same author.

That dung book had better be good too, but I don't know how it could top the History of Farts.

30 is the new 10

2006-09-21T18:23:00.000-05:00

Today is my birthday! Yes, today I turn 30 years old.

If 40 is the new 20, then I guess 30 is the new 10. Oh, yeah.

U-tube Funny

2006-09-20T16:40:00.000-05:00

Okay. So I went beta. I went beta on Blogger. I thought it would be a good thing and for the most part, it has been. However, I wanted to post a video from a couple of youtuber guys that are so freaking hilarious.

But I can't because I went beta. So to alleviate my woes, I'll post some linkarooneys in a minute.

I guess I should now let you in on a little secret about myself. I'm actually a little bit of a youtube junky. Believe me, there are probably (literally) a million more people out there who are a lot worse off than me, but I do like to follow a few of the youtube crazies.

There's the drama of lonelygirl15. Is it real? Is it fake? For a little while it was a big Internet mystery. I even liked her so much that I put a video of hers on my blog. Well, now we know people. They have been exposed of as complete fakes. Now, watching the latest video is just a big let down. When you know that they are acting, it's just so bad. As in, the acting is bad. I'm still going to watch to find out what happens, though.

Then there's thewinekone, he's preeeetty funny. And he's real.

Then there's paytotheorderofofof, she's a little boring and long winded, but I still watch her videos.

Lastly, there is BaratsAndBereta. These guys are so funny! They do skits and jokes.

So go to youtube. Live a little. Laugh a little. Love a little (or just gag me with a spoon).

Pieces of eight!

2006-09-19T22:47:00.000-05:00

Today (ok, yesterday. it's late) is talk like a pirate day. In honor of this day I am posting a picture of me as a pirate and a few other piratey friends. I must say, I make a great pirate! I made the same scowl in all the pictures. Check it out:

I just finished listening to Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson from Librivox. It was awesome. All the readers really get into the piratey dialogue.

Shiver my timbers! Davy Jones' locker! Avast, there!

This is who I am

2006-09-16T15:33:00.000-05:00

This is how Tim Stewart (known alternatively on this blog as "Thad") of timstewartsblog.blogspot.com describes our other blogging friends' blogs:

David's blog — Hope Chapel's arts pastor David Taylor blogs profoundly on all things Christian and aesthetic
Jada's blog — Jada possesses the rare (and coveted) writerly ability to write so you feel as though you're reading her mind
Jennifer's blog — Jennifer examines a variety of topics with intelligence and verve, and she posts lots of photos too
Melanie's blog — Melanie draws back the curtains of her heart and shares (bares?) her soul

Here is how he describes my blog:

Sara's blog — Sara ponders the why of what is and regularly photographs her feet and her cat, Olive

Man, that's all I get? "She posts pictures of her feet"?

Not "she's funny"? Not "she's insightful"? Not "she's poignant"? Do I need take some writing classes or something?

It's a good thing that I like my own blog*.

*See words under title of blog for accurate description.

Critics...what can you do with them?

2006-09-15T20:29:00.000-05:00

Kick 'em in the rear end, that's what.

So, I've gotten a little criticism from my friends and fellow collaborators on ideas for mixed drinks. They said that I came home last night and blogged too fast about the Liger. Someone, even said I was "moblogging".

I don't know what that means.

Okay, so maybe I did get home and write a post really fast. I just live down the street. I got home in 5 minutes and I was excited. What can I say?

Next time we make up a fictional drink called the Tigon or the Mule or the Hinny, one of you people can post about it, ok? Now does that make you guys feel better? Hug? Hug?

I'm going to go and look at my feet now.

Ok, a real liger picture

2006-09-14T22:46:00.000-05:00

Straight off the Internet.

The Liger

2006-09-14T22:12:00.000-05:00

At my small group Bible study tonight, we thought up a new mixed drink. We think that it will be a great success.

It contains ginger ale, rum (maybe coconut rum, we don't know yet), and a splash of half 'n half, over ice, in a low ball glass.

We call it The Liger.

Yes, that is one of the special things we do at a serious Bible study. We study the Bible and think up mixed drinks. Well, maybe not so much thinking up of mixed drinks. That's the first one that we've ever collaborated on.

We haven't tried it yet. I'll get back to you on how it actually tastes. I know, we're dorks. It rubs off on me from Tim and Jada.

I'm actually totally cool.

P.S. How about this liger???

Strange Encounters III

2006-09-14T22:03:00.000-05:00

Here is my last post about bathroom encounters. Jose said that when he came here to the US he was surprised at the ease of which men in the public restrooms do their noisy bidness. He said that it sometimes gets extremely loud in the restroom. He said that in Spain this kind of thing just doesn't happen (never mind the one time that he walked into the public restroom at the mall and a guy was in the middle of exposing and touching himself in a vigorous manner. That only happened once, and that guy was definitely crazy).

However, he told me that the other day he was in the bathroom at his job and when he had finished, he was leaving the restroom and, looking to his left, there was a guy sitting on the toilet with the stall door open, just out there for the world to see. He didn't care.

That's really gross. Don't you people have any sense of privacy?

Strange Encounters II: The Private Bathroom

2006-09-13T18:39:00.000-05:00

Now, I'm not one to talk about the office too much because of what happened to dooce. She got fired because of her blog (as if you didn't know that already). Anyway, I am keeping things VERY generic around here, plus I don't like to say mean things about anyone (please forgive me, you know who you are, for saying that you were metrosexual just because you use anti-aging cream...that was mean of me).

That said, I am continuing my investigative report.

In addition to the regular public restrooms, at my office we have what is known as (or more specifically, what I call) the "private bathroom." You know, just one toilet and sink. There is one for gentlemen and one for ladies. I guess the architect felt that the awkwardness of public restrooms in those special times necessitated a place where people can go to have a little moment to themselves.

The only problem with that is that everyone else also knows why someone visits the private bathroom. Therefore, no one wants anyone to see them go in.

So this is the standard approach procedure...in a flow chart:

This has been my report. In depth and informative.

Strange Encounters I

2006-09-12T17:03:00.000-05:00

I have two words for you: Public. Restrooms. Especially the ones at work. Does anyone else think that they make for the weirdest experiences? I mean, it's one thing to pee (and whatever else...) in a public restroom at the mall or Target, where you will never see those people again, but it's a whole other thing when you're in the restroom at work and you're doing it within earshot of people that you see everyday. Particularly those people who you don't really know that well. You may or may not know each other's names, but there you are, day in and day out, hearing each other's intimate moments.

I don't know about guys (my husband tells me that they [meaning American men, because in Spain this kind of thing just doesn't happen...]) have no qualms about making any untoward sounds in public, but we women hate to have anyone hear any kind of noise other than the name of the purple teletubbie, if you know what I mean.

Let me tell you a story. One day I was in said public restroom. As I was washing my hands, I was having a little conversation with my friend and co-worker. One stall was occupied, but otherwise we were alone. As I washed my hands, my friend was talking away, really into what she was saying. Now, I can't remember what it was that she was saying. That's because right when she was in the thick of an important point, the person in the stall (I don't know who) let out a really loud fart. It was very long and staccato-y. My friend tried to continue speaking right through the loudness, but we were both distracted from what she was saying and, at the same time, trying to ignore the fart. I could tell that my friend was distracted because she kept pausing and shifting her eyes. My lips were pinched shut and quivering. I was trying as hard as I could not to let out a loud guffaw. I didn't want to be rude to the farter by laughing. (Plus, I didn't want my co-worker to know that I think farts are funny.) By the time I was drying my hands, my friend had gotten it together and was continuing her important point. We walked out of the restroom together, leaving the farting lady to herself. It was all very awkward.

And now, all I have to say in conclusion is that the very same thing happened to me in the same restroom (long before above incident). The only exceptions being that there was just one other person there to hear my loudness, and that I know exactly who she is and she knows exactly who I am. Every time I see her in the halls I wonder if she thinks of me as the loud-farting girl from the bathroom.

Now THAT is awkward.

Tower photos

2006-09-06T16:03:00.000-05:00

The tower from below

The observation deck is right below the clocks.

Some of the many bullet holes filled in with plaster

The staircase to infinity

Theoretically, you can see all the way down to the first floor. It makes me dizzy just thinking about it.

Amber and Jose enjoy the view

Looking South towards downtown Austin

Isamu Taniguchi Oriental Garden

2006-09-06T16:00:00.000-05:00

Since I'm retarded and I can't figure out why I can't upload more than 5 pictures per post, here are the pics from the Zilker Botanical Gardens.

The HUGE koi.

HUGE koi: The Sequel

The UT Tower (re)visited and the other stuff that I did on Saturday...

2006-09-06T15:36:00.000-05:00

...without Jadita. I was sad that she went out of town. I missed her so. She could have come with us and done all the amazing and wonderful things that we did. I love her post, though.

What did I do this weekend, you ask? Well, this weekend I went with my sister-in-law, Amber, and Jose to do some fun things around the great town of Austin. First, we went to the Cactus and Succulent Plant Show at the Zilker Botanical Garden.

There were plants on display...

...and for sale.

This one has a teensy little flower.

I bought my own "Lithops." A.k.a the living stone. Mine is Lithops bromfieldii. I didn't buy one of the pots pictured, I got a little bitty one. It was cheaper. Oh yeah, the Lithops plant is from Namibia. I feel so close to Brad and Angelina now.

Notice the enormity of these two cacti. That's a chair to the left of them.

After about 30 minutes of staring at various and sundry cacti and succulent plants, we went out to the "Oriental Garden." It is a very pretty garden there and it had the biggest koi that I have ever seen. They were HUGE!

The coolest thing that we did was that we went up to the observation deck of the UT Tower. About a month ago I wrote about Charles Whitman and how he went up there and was shooting people. Well, it does have a great view, but it's also pretty eerie to have read about what happened there and then basically walk in Whitman's footsteps. We went down the same hall, up the same elevator, then up the same 3 flights of stairs. We saw the bulletholes left by the people who were shooting at him from the ground. They were plastered over, but you can still see them clearly. We saw the waterspouts that he used as turrets. We saw the view of the drag (Guadalupe St.) where many of his victims were out shopping and enjoying the day. It was all more than just a little surreal. Freaky is more like it. Apparently, the tour guide director was a witness. She has instructed the guides not to talk about the incident in their official schpiel, but they can talk about it if asked. While we were up there, both of the tour guides were asked about it and were in two different corners of the deck telling the story to 2 groups of tourists. There were a lot of foreigners in our group. The place will always be marked by tragedy.

In agreement

2006-08-31T18:37:00.000-05:00

Olive is totally on board with our decision to become Costco members. She really digs on the boxes that we have to pack all of our 100 lbs. of bacon into.

She loves boxes and paper bags. She has an on-going love affair with a paper bag that I brought home a few weeks ago.

We members now

2006-08-31T13:50:00.000-05:00

Jose and I just got a membership to Costco. My friend and co-worker is a veritable walking advertisement for the place. She has really convinced me and I think that I am totally brainwashed. We went the other day just to check out the prices and compare them to HEB. While we were there, being hungry, we took advantage of the sample tables. The lady that was serving samples of 100% natural white-cheddar-not-a-powder macaroni and cheese did a really bad job of preparing it because the macaronis were a not al dente (they were more like all hard in the middle) and the cheese was like white water. But other than that, it was good.

We are going to go tonight and probably spend way too much money. However, we will have a 100 pounds of cat food.

Speaking of cat food, they sell something at Costco called "cat food loaf." It sounds gross to me. I know, call me sensitive [read: crazy], but the word "loaf" reminds me of what people do in the bathroom. And while we're on the subject, I just google imaged "loaf" just to see what came up and I got a picture of a mouse cooked into a loaf of bread. Just click here and scroll down a little and you'll see it. I'm not going to post the actual picture, I've disgusted the Internet enough for this week.

I will say seriously that they have REAL Spanish cheese. I think that's what tipped the scale for Jose. Now if only they sold morcilla...mmmmmmmm.

So, in conclusion, if anyone wants to split bulk deodorant, let me know.

On being grossed out

2006-08-30T08:49:00.000-05:00

So, in my last post I thought it would be funny to mention the eyelash mites and provide a hyperlink to an article about them. So I googled the words "eyelash mites."

Now that I have seen some real pictures and read a little about them, I am seriously nauseous. Seriously. Not only do we have these things living in our eyelashes and eyebrows and in probably every other hair follicle on our bodies, these types of articles have to go into all the other types of microscopic parasites that we have all over our bodies and everywhere else. I knew that these things are everywhere, but, you know, out of sight out of mind and all that. Now I've seen pictures of eyelash mites and if you'll excuse me I'm going to go throw up.

And since I'm already grossed out, here are the rest of the eyeballs that Jose took pictures of. He was in everybody's face with the camera. Now that's professionality.

Pictures that I tried to upload earlier but couldn't

2006-08-29T19:28:00.000-05:00

My 11 year old niece, me and my sister-in-law

My mom and her new man

Again, sister-in-law, niece, Joe, Aubony and Nico

Pretty sunset on the way to my mom's house

My eye. It stares into your SOUL! You can almost see my eyelash mites. Grody. You CAN see the old lady spider veins on my eyelid.

100 greatest novels of all time

2006-08-29T17:31:00.000-05:00

Ok, so here I am again. Yes, I got an iPod nano. Yes, I've been preoccupied with messing with it. Yes, my mom got married this weekend. Yes, what I am writing has nothing to do with the title of this post. So to get to the point, I am totally digging the Librivox website. I'm going to download all of the books that Librivox offers that are on the "100 greatest novels" list and I'm going to listen to them on my iPod. Awesome.

I love to read, but it was only when I went to Spain that I started reading a lot of "classic" literature. That being because there is only one English bookstore in Granada and I, being saturated with Spanish, was determined to at least read in English. When I was in high school I was supposed to read books like Giants in the Earth and Wuthering Heights. I didn't read either of them then and I must admit, I will probably never read Giants in the Earth. It still looks boring to me. However, I did read Wuthering Heights just this year. It definitely lives up to the hype. It's really good. I just hate that Heathcliff!

The aforementioned English bookstore is run by a very unfriendly (read: snobby) English guy (maybe he's just introverted). It has a great collection of classic authors, and I am proud to say that I have read a lot of the books on the "100 greatest novels" list. One book that I am ashamed to say that I haven't read is Don Quixote. Heck, I could even read it in the original language. Oh the shame! The shame!

Moveingon.org...do you want to know about soccer? Well, let me tell you about soccer. I have to say that I'm really liking my team. We have some really good players and me. The others are very nice and tell me that I'm doing great. They give me advice that helps a lot, but you have to keep in mind that I haven't played soccer since I was a little kid. My team was called the Butterflies. I think I remember that was actually a forward on the Butterflies, but because my team was so bad, I hardly ever saw the ball. In the two seasons that we played, we scored one goal. That's how bad we were. Sad, isn't it? I even remember the name of the girl that scored the goal. It was Rachel K. Rachel K. scored our one and only goal (keep in mind that we were in the 1st grade, ok?).

All that being said, on the team that I'm on now, I have been playing defense. I get nervous whenever I get a hold of the ball, so I stick to trying to get it away from the other team and then kicking it as far down the field as I can. On Wednesdays, we are going to have an extra practice to work on ball handling skills. I'm totally there. Oh, and I wanted to add that my knees don't hurt nearly as much as they did the first week. Yay!!

This turned out to be quite a meandering post with an essentially misleading title. I will try to get some pictures up later. I can't get Blogger to upload any right now.

I'm going to mess with my iPod now.

Two words: A Mazing

2006-08-23T15:07:00.000-05:00

Have any of you been following the Jill Carroll story? Well you should be. It is beyond words. She is a journalist who was kidnapped by Sunni terrorists and held captive for almost 3 months. She says that she feared for her life every day. Her experience is being retold in 10 installments on the Christian Science Monitor website. There are also little videos of her and others being interviewed. They really add to the story.

Read it. Seriously. I don't know how to describe it other than just amazing.

The match up game

2006-08-18T10:45:00.000-05:00

I play a game on this website everyday. It's the "match up game". It consists of 10 very hard words in two columns. In one column there are 5 words and in the other column there are 5 words that match up as synonyms to one of each of the 5 words in the first column (by the way, I never thought that this game would be so hard to explain). So, you match the words to their synonyms and click on "Answer". This takes you to the screen where you find out how smart of stupid you are. It tells you the percentage of the words that you matched correctly and then gives the definitions of the words. I, surprisingly, get 100% many times. I guess it's all the reading of classic literature I do. I rarely get lower than 40%. Today I think I will get 0% because the words are really hard.

Today's words:

obdurate
spurious
impecunious
auricular
irascible

Now, some of those might seem easy, but now let me show you the synonyms that you have to choose from:

cussed
otic
penniless
unauthentic
choleric

Now, some of these seem reeeaally easy, but can you match them up? That's the hard part. I'm going to do it right now and then I'll tell you my score.

Okay, I did it. I got a 20%. I'm stupid.

See if you can do better.

Just as an aside, I also like the hangman game on this website.