Hey,Bus Guy, I’d send you a beer, but it would probably be all warm before it got there. So, I’ll drink it for you, shall I?
Hot night down at the dog training club tonight - lots of pooches (including mine) whose brains just sort of melted down. Not unexpected, but I had been hoping for a longer, lingering spring.
Never had a gecko, but I sure like them. Had anoles, fence lizards and Curly tails, though… no more reptiles/amphibians for me, I’ll just enjoy the ones out the door.
Evening!
Shiftless Git didn’t do anything worse than whinge to the other girl I was working with about how mean welfare is to take his money, and then tell her how he doesn’t ever want a full-time job, because it’s too much work, and he likes welfare money.
I did not strangle him.
Home, and tomorrow’s off, and Mr. lissar and I are going to X-Men 3. Should be fun.
DogJeeves, yes. I hate geese. They hate me back. I want more owls. MORE OWLS!!!
Because they eat geese? Scare off geese? Why?
There are services that bring dogs in to scare geese away. There should be more of them - and fewer geese. I’m grateful not to have to encounter geese all that often.
Off to get ready for work…
GT
It’s 6/6/06. Y’all have a hell of a day, now…
Bobbio, you are so devilishly clever.
My day yesterday was composed of the following elements, in no particular order. Play along at home by rearranging them to tell a story! 
-I had lunch at the General Mess, and Hai Tran paid for my food today. I don’t expect that to continue, although I do plan on eating lunch at the base there every day.
-Another researcher in the employ of my mentor Hai Tran arrived at the office where we were waiting, and he showed me around the building where I’ll be working, and introduced me to various people. In the middle of this, Hai Tran himself showed up and continued the tour.
-Then I went back to work for the rest of the afternoon, until Dana and I left around 4:15. We went to the supermarket and I bought laundry detergent and milk and cereal and frozen meals.
-I did finally begin working around midmorning. What am I doing? I’m converting MATLAB programs to C++. It’s been just long enough since I took Comp Sci II that this is an interesting and doable activity with which to pass the time this summer, and it will reinforce what I learned in the class.
-I went to the driving range with Dana and her friend to whack the stuffing out of some golf balls. For the record, the golf balls totally owned me.
-I met some of the interns in the Visitor Office, where we got our photo IDs. Then we reconvened at the office of the guy running our little program and waited for our mentors to come collect us. Some of them seem like great guys.
-Tran then proceeded to take me around the rest of the base. It’s huge. It has camping facilities directly on the water. You can rent boats and everything. And then there’s the gym and the pool and the tennis courts, and all sorts of good stuff like that.
And now, off to work.
Bwa-ha-ha! That’s a good one!
Happy hell day, y’all. Nuthin’ much to tell. I’ll be lurking.
so tell me something - why would a developer think that someone would buy a house right next to the train tracks? - there was this oddly shaped undeveloped plot of land - less than an acre - maybe less than half an acre - alongside the tracks - I always figured a 7-11 would do nicely there since the road sees a lot of traffic - it intersects a road with 4 major companies’ headquarters. A few weeks ago they started construction - 3 new houses, none of which will have much of a yard to speak of. And I’m willing to bet the asking price will rival other homes in the area much further away from the tracks - that’s ballsie. Knock off 50-60K at least for the noise factor. I can’t imagine anyone but the desparate even being intreested
One of the few puns you’ve posted that I liked, Spats!
Be back later with the next update! Maybe two!
Personally, I’d be more excited if it were 6/9/69. But that’s just me.
Okay, I’m kinda caught up. But I’ve since forgotten everything I read, 'cause I do that.
Sunday afternoon, yet another cousin (this time on Dad’s side) got married. I had planned on attending, then driving home to make it to work on Monday, but the Grandchild Coalition had different plans. I’m the oldest (my brother no longer counts because he has children of his own), they should do what I say. They should not be forcing me to do shots so I can’t drive home and have to stay at the bed and breakfast with all of them and ask my dad to go to the hotel and bring me some of my mom’s clothes so I don’t have to sleep in my dress. That wasn’t nice of them.
I had a great time, though–my family loves to dance, and there’s really no stopping us, once the music starts. I’ll post pics later, but I don’t know who took half of them.
The only thing I’m sure of is that I am now officially too old to drink and dance all night and then sleep on a floor. Ouch.
G’mornin’ all. I am one tired soccer mom today. Paint hangover, I imagine.
Today I work on grad school stuff. And take #1 son to the orthodontist for the last time (excepting annual checkups). Hallelujah and amen. Car is in the shop for new brake pads. Sure hope it’s done in time for the ortho.
Graduation ceremony was only 67 minutes long–358 kids. Not too bad. It was a nice night. My brother missed getting in by two minutes, so being my brother, he went over across the street to the new pub that has opened up at the public golf course. Said the food is meh, but the ambience is nice.
Looks like rain today-and I have a killer sinus headache. Took some Sudafed left over from UK (they called my name out and wrote it in a big book when I bought it there–I had to ask for it, it was behind the counter). Some people bring home souvenirs, I bring home drugs…(make of that what you will, NSA!). 
Rifty -nice to see you’re settling in. I know a woman who wrote a book about C+±-and don’t ask me anymore, that’s all I know. I know her better as the mom to 2 kids, my kids’ ages. 
And I’m sorry, but that’s the lamest pun yet. :rolleyes: 
I’d buy it in a heartbeat, but I’m a train nut…
Swampy, what’s the square root of 69?
8 something... :Dgt, I think loune just wants to get his mail faster.
rifty, sounds like you are having an excellent adventure so far. BUUUUT, it is only six days into hurricane season. 
dogb, [Astro voice]rrrrrermouth in your rrreatyballs???[/AV] Well, I put vino in my sauce but only meat, romano, parmesan, bread crumbs, speecy spices, and eggs in mine. They are to die for.
Anybody want to take bets on how many young boys named Damien there will be starting kindergarten in five years?
Nuttin much else going on here.
Tupug
Whee! I’m really happy 'cuz I had a hot date last night, and it got REALLY hot. Whew. I’m running on coffee today.
I feel like I should do something special to celebrate 6/6/06. Any ideas?
it’s only the LIRR - nothing fancy
Drop Lee Remick (or Julia Stiles) from a stariwell?
I was going to stop on the way home, buy a devil’s food cake, and then probably watch horror movies. In fact, I’m sitting here, trying to figure out what movies I own that can be accurately classified as “religious horror”, because Freddy vs. Jason doesn’t cut it on a day like today. I’m thinking we’ll probably do a triple-feature of *The Ninth Gate, The Order, *and maybe Idle Hands.
We arrived in Vegas around afternoon Sunday. I don’t remember if I said this in my last post or not, but Vegas is exactly how they say it is - empty desert for miles and suddenly this glittering jewel appears out of nowhere…strip clubs, billboards, shining signs, the whole nine yards.
My aunt was flying in that evening. We tried to check into the hotel. We were staying at the 4 Queens, in Old Vegas. However, they put up a huge argument, saying that only the people who were registered on the rooms could check into them. So Aaron could check in for their room, as well as Sam for theirs, but I couldn’t, since my Aunt Pia was on the room. They even gave Sam a hard time, since he has no U.S. ID and only brought a copy of his passport. Which made sense to me, actually. Why would you bring your passport when you didn’t really need it? An invitation to lose it.
Anyway, we finally got them checked in and I dropped my stuff in their rooms. We showered, and freshened up after the trip, and then we did - nothing.
I mean, really. We were here in Vegas and without my Aunt Pia no one could come to a decision. We just milled around for a while. For a long time I thought we’d be late to the airport as no one could seem to come to a decision to leave for the damn airport.
Finally we get there, and we end up waiting forever. While we were waiting, my sister and I went to check out a little kiosk where a guy was telling people about some shows in Vegas. I was really impressed by this guy, as he was selling tickets but he was completely non-pushy. Instead, he very amiably told us about many different shows and even chatted with us. He told us that we could get shows for kids under 12 free, and I laughed and said I was the only baby of the group (I am the youngest). He chuckled and said if I could pass for 12…yeah right.
While we were separated from the group, my sister softly told me that she couldn’t stand these particular visitors from India. She told me that they were very lazy and about the man’s prediliction for ordering females, which I had already noticed.
Finally my aunt showed up. We were finally able to get back and check in, upon which we…did nothing again, for a while. Ugh!
Eventually we got down to the casino. My aunt loved gambling. We only really play on the penny or nickel slots, although sometimes we’ll be brave and hit the quarter slots. My aunt has a lucky hand, and nearly always wins something. I’m not much of a gambler, though it is entertaining, and tend to gravitate towards machines that do something, like light up or have a spinning wheel in addition to the slots or something.
That evening all we did was enjoy 4 Queens and try to engage the new people in the slots. They really didn’t get it, at least not then. They felt it was wasting money. Aargh!
Sometime during the evening we also discovered that Aaron had left his suitcase behind. That’s right, after two days of packing and three extra hours of preparation we’d left it behind. So we had to go to the Walgreen’s on the corner and shop for clothes for him. I saw no reason to go, as it was gorgeous and sunny, so I decided to take the new people and look at some of the shops. We looked at maybe two, then they decided we’d better wait on the corner in case we missed Brianna and Aaron. :rolleyes:
While we were there, three young men came up to us. Apparently they’d been looking at us for some time, and Sam was kind of suspicious of them. In India, young men never look at strange young ladies with innocent purpose. Here, of course, I didn’t even notice them until they came up. They asked me to take a picture of the three of them. I did of course, they took their camera, and went on to whatever. Later Sam told my Aunt Pia he’d been concerned about me. I was flabbergasted, and if he’d said anything - like “you shouldn’t talk to strange men” I’d have been tempted to belt him one. Don’t know anyone stranger than him!
Yeah, so, what with all the delays, by this time I was ready to push my family off a cliff. I mean, really. I was figuring I could rent a car and drive my own damn self to L.A. to catch my flight back. Maybe I could even call the SO and see if he could fly out to meet me. I bit back my impatience, though, and got through Sunday successfully without killing anyone, leading to…
Monday and the Strip (next post).
Also, jet lag seems to have finally caught up to me. Couldn’t sleep last night, and thus I am exhausted today. Couldn’t sleep Sunday either but I put it down more to happiness at being home.