A day late & a dollar (give or take) short

I was saddened, today, to learn that I'm too late in my quest to buy an Ethiopia-shaped island. I wonder what else might be left? Have a browse here.

What happens in Dublin stays in Dublin

Ethan's school is having its annual gala fundraiser next March. Info went home to parents today - this year's theme will be Viva las Vegas, with the tag line "What happens in Dublin stays in Dublin." LOL There will be dinner, an auction, and gaming tables. Apparently last year they raised $45,000 in one night. Yikes! At least we don't have to endue endless bake sales, candy bar sales, wrapping paper sales, etc. This puts the $10 Baileywick cookbook from last year to shame.

Hey dúid, don't be a dorc

Check out this sóúil article in the NY Times.

Random iPod inspection

EW's Popwatch (a column I love) does a random iPod inspection from time to time, and it's always fun to see what mine will reveal So fire up your iPod and see what the first 5 shuffled songs will be! (This pic is stolen from Popwatch too, it's nice to see them giving the Aussie blokes some love.)

My results today:

! All Because of You, U2
2 Rapper's Delight (Medley), from the Wedding Singer soundtrack
3 I Burn for You (Live), Sting
4 Elevation, U2 (Live from the Vertigo Tour, 2005)
5 Fast Cars, U2

Hmmm... I sense a pattern...

On a semi-related note, I bought a new desk calendar for 2008 today, the 1980s Book of Days, it looks gnarly!

I miss the 80s

I miss the 80s, even if this wasn't really from then.

You need one of these (really)

Capt. Ethan

It's so great to be living in a place where there's cool, fun stuff to do EVERY weekend.

Today, Mitch & Ethan went to the Hiller Aviation Museum to check out the planes while my mom and I hung out at the Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto. I can't wait to begin Christmas shopping... Note to all gift receivers reading this - update those Amazon wish lists ;-)

It's official...

We're now Californians. We had our first (noticeable) earthquake this evening, a 5.6, according to prelim reports, with an epicenter just 20 miles southwestish of us. It was an interesting sensation!

Finally all in CA - and back online!

Mitch sent me this today - a view from his office. Proof that even Oakland can be pretty sometimes.

Now that we are all out here and back online, the blog should resume as usual...

Watch this

A new one for my library

I've just found an ad on the SF Chronicle's web site for this book. I think I may need to buy... LOL

What did you say?!?

Liz gave me the funniest thing ever for my bday (thanks, Liz!), Shakespearean Insult Gum.

Thy breath stinks with a cating of toasted cheese.



I've not eaten any yet, as I am currently working my way through another yummy thing she sent, dark chocolate covered espresso beans, but once I do, you'll be hearing from me!

I should certainly hope so!

Given my profession, it is a relief to announce...

Your Vocabulary Score: A+

Congratulations on your multifarious vocabulary! You must be quite an erudite person.

How's Your Vocabulary?

Sorta Bionic

See What You're Made Of - Visit The Official Site

Not bad, given that I had the sound turned down on my computer when taking the aural section ;-)

Bono's blog?

This is, I believe, the funniest fake blog I've come across in a long time.

Road Trip, part I

Not much of note happened during the first half of the trip - NC, TN, AR, and OK all look pretty much the same each time one drives through them (with NC and TN being far more pleasant and interesting, imho). When e got to NM, however, we were in for some interesting sights. As we were driving through the desert east of Albuquerque, we could see a massive storm ahead - several miles wide, easily. We stopped and took a few cool pictures of the sky.



The next day we were on through Arizona and up to Las Vegas. Arizona's rock formations, as always, amaze me.


Before we reached Vegas, we drove over the Hoover Dam. Now, I've always heard of it, of course, and love the song by Sugar, but didn't really know what to expect when we got there. I was def. selling the thing short. And kudos to whoever it was that came up with the plan to make a feat of engineering a tourist attraction! I seriously want to go back when we have more time and spend a few hours looking at the displays and wandering around. (Note to self - do not try to drive a massive RV down the windy mountain road surrounding the dam, like someone we were stuck behind for a half hour.)




Mitch was Vegas earlier this summer, but neither Ethan nor I had been before, so we stopped off to take in the spectacle for a day. Like all good, non-corrupting parents, we let Ethan choose which casino hotel to stay at. We offered him a choice between the Luxor and the Excalibur (we were just there for a night, not looking for a place you'd want to stay for ages and ages). Ethan, being my child chose to stay in a castle over a pyramid, so the Excalibur it was. (I was secretly pleased, too, as Carrot Top is in residence at the Luxor, and the idea of encountering him and his scary torso is about enough to give me nightmares.)




I loved the water "show" at the Bellagio, sadly, though, we did not see George, Brad, or any of the other Oceans 11-13 people while we were there. We stayed out of Pacino's wonky casino as well. I think Ethan's faavorite thing was our visit to M&Ms World, where he could mix his own color combo of M&Ms. (He went for purple, hot pink, blue, and mixed colors, both regular and Mini M&M size, in plain and dark chocolate.)




After one night in Vegas, we were on to CA...

Long time, no blog

Gads, it's been positively AGES since I've blogged regularly! Where have I been? I suppose a better thing to say would be, where have I NOT been? As we prep more for the move to CA, we decided that we a) ended to get a car out to CA for Mitch to use all the time so his company won't have to keep renting him one and b) we needed a family vacation. It wasn't the most relaxing thing we've ever done, but it was fun. So, we set off - on a mere 24 hrs notice, for Road Trip 2007.

We did the drive (NC to CA) in about 5 days, without really pushing ourselves. We stopped in Knoxville, TN, Fort Smith, AR, Albuquerque, NM, and Las Vegas, NV along the way. I've not got much to report on the first half of the trip, but will be blogging about the more interesting parts of the trip, and the following 2 weeks that Ethan and I spent in CA with Mitch. (We're back in NC now, waiting for school to start and the move to get underway.)

How spam could be more effective

My "real" job's email account has been overloaded with spam for the past 2-3 weeks, and no one at the school seems to be interested in installing a spam filter to help the poor, beleaguered faculty escape it. Some came in yesterday with the obviously porny subject line "Me and my roommate . . ." I would be more inclined to open these if the subject lines were grammatically correct: "My roommate and I . . ." You know what writing teachers are like!

Simpsonized!

I've been meaning to do this for a while now. I've been Simpsonized!

What I need...

I SO need to be a contestant on The Singing Bee. Where else could I ever turn by knowledge of the lyrics to Electric Avenue into $50k?