This past week when my friends told me I needed to get out of town and relax… and I moaned and bitched about all the stuff I still had to do… Yeah, I was wrong. Against my better judgment I got in the Beetle on Friday and drove out of town leaving behind my destroyed home. By the time I got 40 miles out of town… I felt like a million bucks. By the time I reached San Angelo, I knew I had done the right thing. This weekend was exactly what I needed. Low key with friends and absolutely nothing to do with packing. Of course sleep was at a minimal, I think I got less than 8 hours the entire weekend.

And for the record, Aaron didn’t bite my tongue once and Gavin did nothing lewd to my body. I know I know, it was depressing. But we did get to see Constantine so the weekend wasn’t a total loss.

Sunday morning I got to sneak out of the house at about 6:45 am after only getting an hour and half sleep. Hey everyone has their talents - mine is sneaking out of a bed/house in the wee hours without disturbing anyone. I got back in town with enough time to go home, to grab a shower, and pick Mother up at the airport at noon. She then proceeded to work me to death for a few hours. Then we went to Chili’s for dinner where we ran into the Cop (remember him?), we talked for a bit then Mother and I left. Mother hit me on the head for passing up that opportunity.

He still looks damn good in that uniform.

Today at lunch I am running out to the fabric district to buy fabric for Lyonette to make me some garb. Tonight, I drop off fabric to Amy and Lyonette. Tomorrow, I have a fitting at Philip’s. and Wednesday or Thursday I hope Rix loves me enough to work with me on this cloak and hood. Yeah, I guess its safe to assume that Gulf Wars is in less than 2 weeks.

And today when I went to put on one of the cute little outfits I bought at Anne Klein in Florida… Mother takes one look at me and asks why I insist on wearing clothes that don’t fit right. The outfit is entirely too big now, and I have only worn it once. But on the bright side my hair is exceptionally wonderful today.

Oh on Monday… when I was going out of my freaking mind from spending all weekend packing … I went shopping. Now those of you who know me really really well know that I have shopping issues when I am emotional. Be it upset, stressed, frustrated, or just a general “going out of my mind”. You see, I get impulsive and all my frugally goodness pretty much gets locked in a trunk. Now usually this problem is fixed by buying a ridiculously overpriced designer purse. However add the “I can’t buy the furniture I want” frustration to the “If I don’t get out of this house right now… I am going to torch it” stress. And we ended up with a home theater system. Yeah all that money I am saving driving my own damn moving truck halfway across the country… well we are all now enlightened as to what that money was destined for. And since I didn’t really do much research on what I wanted in a system… I had to go back on Tuesday and buy more speakers.

So how upset is my new landlord going to be when I do inset speakers in my living room? Cause the boy? Well he informed me that these inset speakers are the only way to go… and the speakers I originally bought? “Well they make good secondary speakers…in other rooms…when you really don’t care about quality.” Thanks, asshat.

See the boy really does have some useful purpose besides sex.

Libra

It’s time for fun, and not a millisecond too soon. You’ve been diligent, thorough and conscientious. It’s now officially time for you to stop thinking about anything other than giving in completely to your impulses and having a great time.

And that is exactly what I am going to do this weekend and damn does it feel good. Everything can wait until I get back from Trelac… if I come back from Trelac.

I *think* life may just be getting back to normal. Well as normal as can be expected

Alarming catch-up facts:

1- I have 17 days left in Texas. I think this was made blaringly obvious last night when Genna came over. She looks around and sees the disaster that is my apartment in its current packing stage and says �You really are leaving, you weren�t kidding� - Yeah I really am leaving.
2- Despite everything I really am looking forward to Gulf Wars. A full week of friends, photos, and shopping. Hmmmm shopping. How bad is it that while everyone else is looking at battle schedules and waiting somewhat impatiently for the class schedule to come out� I am scouring the merchants site and doing advanced buying to be picked up at the War.
3- When I told myself that I wasn�t going to buy any silk at the War� I lied.
4- I love my Western Region friends. They seem to know exactly what I need.
5- I think I *may* have found an assistant. Maybe.
6- I have become increasingly frustrated at working to get my life setup in Florida. You would think it wouldn�t be that difficult, but apparently none of us were aware that Florida is actually a different country. Stores that have locations in both my present and future cities, you would think they would know how to communicate or at least be able to allow me to order something that I saw in the Texas location and somehow magically it could appear somewhere in the state of Florida. No this is too hard. Therefore I can�t get the furniture I want� Cause it doesn�t exist in the state Florida. Which worries me, cause I am beginning to think that if you want a sofa that doesn�t have palm trees or pineapples on it you have to drive to Georgia.
7- I really do have great friends. Already I have 3 friends scheduling trips to come and see me this year once I am settled. And my friends know me entirely to well� Rix sent me this email about a shopping center that has this park where they show movies outside. This is one of the things I miss most about living in Pittsburgh. There was a museum that every second Sunday (Spring and Summer) would show old black and white films against the side of the building. Everyone came out and there were food vendors and the playground for kids to play. You could sit on your blanket with your friends, watch a classic movie, and eat a turkey leg. I miss that.
8- I can�t pack worth a damn. My method of tear everything apart and pack it�not working too well. So I am just getting rid of everything instead of packing it.

Me: I’m the biggest asshat of them all!
Her: And you’re my favorite asshat!
Me: ?
Her: Damn … that sounded so much better in my head.

In hopes to at least post something here… I give you yet another pointless meme. I would actually talk about my life but just about everything I would write about would … well nevermind.

Read your meme, damn it. (Read on …)

But I am about halfway done if I had to guess. To those that came and helped out today, thank you. I was starting to lose steam and you helped get me back on track. I love my friends.

To those that have claimed items – its time to come and get them. If you want to look thru the clothes there is a huge pile in my bedroom just dying to be pillaged. There are kitchen items that need to disappear as well. And misc. junk too.

Now I have a history question for you:

I have been reading a book. A work of fiction with a historical base. Now up until this point while the story is pure fiction… we have at least stayed true to history with people, dates and places, but now I am not sure. What we have is a young woman living in 16th century Germany. Upon her mother’s death she sets off in search of her father. Her father had left when she was in baby to journey to Jerusalem in search of an artifact from a certain saint. On the young girls journey, many things go wrong, and she ends off hundreds of miles off course and being escorted up a mountain by a nomad tribe. They bring her to a city atop this mountain. There she sees a city far richer than she has ever imagined. These people are Zhandu. As the story continues, it explains who these people were … how isolated they were on their mountain… and how an earthquake destroyed this paradise in the sky.

Then the story veers back on track and continues to follow verifiable textbook history once again. My first instinct is to call bullshit. I know a good bit about history and Zhandu doesn’t ring a bell. Of course my knowledge of middle eastern history isn’t the greatest and I get the idea that this city was located in the mountains of what would today be Tibet or Nepal. So I do what I do every time I have ? I ask Mr. Google…. He’s got nuthin’.

So I am asking you guys. Bullshit or can you guys give me a reference? Anyone?

And while we are on it… I need more help (insert favorite wisecrack/insult here).

I am looking for a painting. Arthurian. Arthur right before he pulls Excalibur out of the stone. My search so far as been fairly fruitless. You would think that with all the Arthurian art out there that this wouldn’t be a hard one…

I gots no luck today.

packing sucks… where did all this shit come from?

So about 3 months ago, Sarah and I were on a little road trip and we stopped in this really great shopping center in Austin. In this shopping center was a liquor store where Sarah went to buy some Jack Daniels. While she was making her purchase I saw something that made me very happy.

This is what sat on the shelf -

(yeah I know I am addicted)

I didn�t buy it cause I already had the alcohol I needed for the weekend and this was something that I wanted to take home and enjoy. So I said when I get home I�ll buy a bottle. I was wrong. Turns out it was still in its test phase and was only available in 3 cities in the US (Austin being one of them). I made some quick calls and talked one of my San Marcos friends into driving up and getting a bottle and mailing it to me. Since then I have savored this bottle in the secrecy of my own home…trying to not get my hopes up in case they decided to not let it go national. But this morning MSN tells me that soon I will be able to find my tasty little beverage in any liquor store.

I love America.

We have all heard that term before� but in dealing with the asshats I have had to deal with these past few days � I now understand the meaning behind it.

Life is nuts� I think I can expect that at sometime today someone will walk into my office to witness me swaying back and mumbling curses in Greek. I could have sworn that I promised myself that I wasn�t going to do a damn thing till I moved, but such is life in this sunshiny place.

Last night in an effort to de-stress a bit, I went and did some test-driving. Cause I thought this would be easy. I had 2 SUVs � I figured I would like one more than the other and boom we would be done. Place an order have it delivered to Florida. Yeah, not so easy. I didn�t like either one of them. I drove the Toyota 4-Runner and the VW Touareg (I thought the Beetle could use a Big Brother)� then on my way home I drove past a Nissan dealership so I stopped and drove the Murano. Maybe I just don�t want an SUV. Maybe I am just being stubborn cause I love my Beetle and don�t feel like I need a company car as well. I think I am going to put this decision off till after the move. I wanted to get something on order, but as a friend plainly pointed out to me I move in like 25 days. I should probably start to pack.

I do think I have decided on a couch, though. I am going back to Ethan Allen today to hopefully make my final choice so I can mark that off my list. It looks like its going to be a huge (yes, even that certain really tall Don could sleep well on it� its like 8.5 feet long and over 3 feet wide - HUGE) comfy green couch with matching huge comfy green chair and ottoman/coffee table. Its not on their website or I would show a pic.

On the brighter side of things, I brushed up on my hacking skills a bit. I now have access to all the free music I could ever download, and I don�t have to use a P2P network. And its even legal when you look at it… and squint. Wonder how long it will take Microsoft to realize they have a pretty major flaw in WMP10…. Thank gods I bought my mac mini with the largest hard drive� Poor thing has been out of the box all of 16 hours and hasn�t stopped downloading music yet. Now I just have to get Sarah setup.

Is anyone else not receiving their gmail? I haven�t received anything since yesterday early afternoon�

Oh and starting today I am guest blogging at a friends site while he is out of town (til Tuesday)�It may be a bit sparse over here since I feel obligated to actual put effort and thought into what I post on to someone else�s site, and right now I don�t have too much effort to spare. Props to you if you can find me�

My phone is going nuts right now� I am talking to someone. I have someone holding. And the receptionist is taking messages. We won�t talk about the cell phone (its been turned to silent). Today is the first day of the announcement of our company reconfiguration hence people are freaking. If they would take a deep breath and think they would realize that nothing is really changing. They might have a new manager to report to, but no one is losing their jobs.

*we are calm � we are placid � we are calm�*

and my other issue is that I have to clone a hard drive. I have been told that the best software to use is Norton Ghost. Anybody ever used it before? Anybody have it floating around on their desk? Wanna help a girl out?

So I am buying new furniture for the new place. A Number One Priority is to find a couch. I wanted something solid and versatile that way I don’t have to buy a new couch every time I want to redecorate like my mother does. So here are the options.

and of course all of these are just the deterrent to not buy the couch I really really want…

yes it is red and yes it is velvet… and yes I am fully aware of all the connotations that couch holds. But I still love it.

What do you think?

I love Google… I think I can officially call myself a Google slut.

We all know I use and love Gmail. (and if you use Gmail and haven’t downloaded the Notifier you need to stop reading this and go do that now. The Notifier rocks.) And that the original Google is my search engine of choice. But there are so many new beta features out there that I have been able to play with lately. The ones that they have released to the public (in beta form) are great. You should all become addicted.

In the past I have posted about Google Suggest . It rocks, but it still needs some work. I can easily see this replacing the original search feature in the future though.

We now have other features to waste time on.
Google Maps was just released to the public a few days back. I love these maps. The graphics are great and the directions have yet to lead me wrong.

Google Video allows for easy access to finding video clips… Its like customizing your own news show. I have fun with it. It still has some glitches and quite often you can only find screenshots instead of the clip.

But my favorite is Google Local. This has been instrumental in getting me ready for my move. Its great in one place I can find out everything that is located near me. and when you combine it with Google Maps…

And all of this is only the start. Google has many great and exciting things that are coming out of their labs.

I wanna be Google. Maybe I should quit my job and move to Atlanta to work in the Google Thinktank. That would make me happy.

(Read on …)

My life is too fucking hectic… thanks in large part to my job.

This weekend was frantic. Friday while I am onsite rearranging all the tables to make room for more, I get a call from my boss. I got another promotion. Yes I do realize that the first promotion hasn’t even taken effect yet. Apparently the guy who was going to be directly over me was retired and they want me to fill in his spot. This wouldn’t be a problem but now I am working over departments that I have never had contact with. My entire time with this company has been working within one department and having very little to do with the others now I get to be the person that ties all the departments together. Guess I better take some time and get myself up to date on what the other 70% of my company does everyday.

Saturday. We won’t talk about Saturday. I spent most of it frustrated and dealing with shit I shouldn’t have had to deal with. But the event was fun for the populace and no one noticed anything was wrong so I guess we did a good job.

Sunday. I closed up site and headed home. This was supposed to be where I left to spend a few days with the boy, but I had backed out of that sometime last week. I knew I would be worthless, so we postponed our plans a bit. Anyways while driving, I got another call from my boss. He wanted me on campus Monday morning for a meeting. So I went home packed a bag and walked on to a 2:30 flight. So the boy and I did spend Sunday night together. (oh and the V-day greeting? I had actually posted that last week when I found the graphic and set it to appear yesterday… but that was back when I thought the boy and I would be hiding somewhere… I also totally forgot about it until I noticed the comments in my email… but anyways Happy Valentine’s Day to you all)

The meeting on Monday was eventful we got quite a few details worked out and basically rearranged the entire structure of the company in about 4 hours. My company has now officially given me too much responsibility. I am not all that thrilled. Well not thrilled as in I am now completely outside my comfort zone. All of my expertise… everything that I have learned now kinda means nothing and I get to start over. Oh well life is an adventure.

And in typical Mother fashion… she hired me an interior designer. Yes, yesterday I was waiting in the airport for my return flight and my phone rings… Apparently I can’t be trusted to pick out my own furnishings. So much for stealing Hilde’s idea and gluing feathers to my walls…

And then last night when I got home I got to spend 2 hours throwing ramen at a boy that isn’t even mine… (don’t ask)

But in not completely shocking news … the boy is going to Florida with me.

(Read on …)

Happy V-day Everyone!

my head hurts…

Sabine found a website. This chick and her blog. And it reminds Sabine a lot of Sabine (like the Sabine we don’t talk about). And then it also reminds Sabine of a friend of hers. Hence Sabine became frustrated.
(and no you don’t get anymore details nor will I tell you which blog this is… cause there are some things you people just don’t need to know about me, errr I mean Sabine. Although with a sufficient bribe…maybe.)