I love Hiking...

J and I went hiking today at one of the local state parks around where we live. We had fun but our ultimate destination (the waterfalls) was mostly dried up. Kind of disappointing. I took lots of pictures.

Tomorrow, I'm leaving for Las Vegas for a few days.

I love award winning chili and falling asleep during movies

This weekend was good. J and I went to a chili cook off yesterday at one of the local baseball stadiums around here. It was pretty cool, I had never been to a cook off before. I really like chili and like most people, I'm picky about how it's made. I like mine mostly sweet but a little spicy and with little or no beans. I think we tried about 16 different types of chili yesterday. Most good, some bad and some weird. There were no strict rules like in the serious competitions, people could pretty much do what they wanted as long as they called it chili. I had read a little bit about last year's competition and knew who the People's Choice Award had gone to. I made sure I tried their chili this year and out of the 16 I tried, that group was also my favorite and had I paid $1 to vote, I would've submitted them as my People's Choice vote. We were stopped by a reporter while we were walking around and we answered some of his questions and our comments ended up in the paper this morning. That was kind of neat.

Yesterday, I found 10 four leaf clovers in my backyard. Does this mean the start of some out of this world extreme luck or is this a case of some freak genetic mutation of clovers in my neighborhood? My whole life, I've always had a thing with four leaf clovers. I could just be walking by some, look down and immediately pick one out. Over the years, I have almost every single one I've found in one of those photo albums where the sticky clear stuff folds down on the pictures. One time, when I was about 20 or so I was at my Dad's house and we were walking down to his pond and I just happened to spot a four leaf clover so I bent down and picked it up. He stopped and looked at me and said "Have you always been able to find them like that?" and I said "Yeah" and he responded with "Your grandmother could do that." My grandmother died when I was really young so I didn't really get to spend a lot of time with her. It makes me wonder what innate abilities you truly pass down to your kids and their kids and so on and so forth or if things like that are just coincidences.

See below for my confusing find. I do hope it means I'll be lucky times 10. I need it right now.




My last week of training for my new job begins tomorrow. I really hope I know what the hell I'm doing by the time everything is said and done. I am feeling nervous for the first time. Whatever, I'll suck it up and get over it. Hopefully.

TV Talk: I watched the first Kitchen Nightmares episode this past week. I really think so far that this show will be better than Hell's Kitchen. I do like Gordon Ramsay and it's a nice change to see things change up every week since he'll be making over a new screwed up restaurant each time. It got old on Hell's Kitchen where you would watch the same idiots fail at making Pea Risotto and/or Beef Wellington week after week.

In other great news, some of my shows are coming back like Heroes, The Office and Earl while others are ending like Top Chef. This season of Top Chef has been hard to sit through. I don't want any of them to win.

Movie Talk: I watched and fell asleep at different times through both the movies School for Scoundrels and Fracture. Fracture was worse than I thought it would be and School for Scoundrels was a lot better than I anticipated. I didn't know SFS was a remake of a 1960's movie until I looked it up. I'm sorry, has everything already been done before? And when will my generation of movies start to become re-made on a regular basis? A new Honey, I Shrunk the Kids for 2030 perhaps? Ooh, I don't think I can wait!

I love Heroism, County Fairs and Train Rides

I had a pretty good weekend.

Saturday, my girlfriends and I went on a Mystery Train ride. It lasts for about 3 1/2 hours and you eat dinner while watching a murder mystery play. You get a little involved in the show and at the end you have to turn in a sheet saying who you are accusing of the crime, what weapon they used and their motive. I accused the wrong person, guessed the wrong weapon and motive and my chicken was a little dry, but it was fun anyway.

When I got home Saturday night, I found J in the basement playing Guitar Hero. He got the chance to play it for the first time at our neighbor's house yesterday and he got addicted and went out and bought it for us. I stayed up for a few hours last night playing it, only stopping because I was basically falling asleep while playing. Guitar Hero was the first thing on my mind when I woke up this morning. I am addicted now, too. It is so much fun. Every time I hear of things like this that a large number of people are into, I always think it's stupid. Then way down the line when everyone is already tired of whatever it is and it's not cool to do it anymore, I somehow step in and find it and go nuts with it. Whatever, I don't care. My hands hurt from playing so much. It hurts to type. I've opened up the third set of songs on the EASY level and I'm getting better. Most of my scores are in the 90-95% range. So I'll be moving on up soon enough. I think my favorite song to play right now is Mother by Danzig. The hardest seems to be Life Wasted?? (not sure of the title) by Pearl Jam.

J and I went to the county fair today. We walked around, looked at cows, pigs, goats, chickens, rabbits, all the art and food exhibits, and ATE, ATE, ATE. I am so sick right now. I had fresh lemonade, italian sausage, deep fried oreos and a deep fried twinkie... and a slice of pizza. Uggh.

I'm done and out. I need sleep.

I Love Birthdays

My friend Chr is celebrating a birthday on Monday and his get together with friends happened last night at one of the local bars around here. I had a good time.

I really like when a birthday of one of my family members or best friends rolls around. I'm not sure what makes an anniversary of someone's birthdate a fun time, but it just is that way so I don't try to question it. There seem to be a few common types of reactions to someone's special day: either they are in a great mood the entire day, a bad mood because they are reminded just how old they are getting or they are surprised and relieved they were able to see another year go by without kicking the bucket.

I work with a girl who is usually not in the best of moods most days. When her birthday happened a few months ago, it was like a different person was in the room. She was laughing, making jokes, running around screaming "It's MY BIRTHDAY!!!" and ready to party at 8 am. It was good to see her happy for once. It made me secretly wish that every day was her birthday.

My big 30th is coming up in November. Holy shit, I remember when 30 was OLD and I thought "that won't happen to me for a LONG time" and somehow, here I am about to experience it for myself. I try to be sensitive when talking to people who are already older than that and surpassed their 30ths years ago. I've learned they are generally dismissive of my woes over the upcoming loss of my 20's. "You think 30 is bad, try 50!" or "Oh, you're still young! I wish I could be upset about turning 30 again, you're still a baby so quit your crying!"

Since I was little, I have always made the same wish before I blow out my birthday candles. And no, it's not to get my own PONY!! I will probably keep wishing for the same thing every year until I'm not alive anymore to blow candles out. I hope my 30th rolls in and rolls out quietly but spent with my loved ones, friends and family. I'll be in a new segment of the company I work for at that time and I was already informed that birthdays and other stuff are generally not celebrated. I guess in a way it could be a relief not to be celebrating stuff seemingly every single week out of the year but I hope my desk still gets covered in tons of confetti like usual.

Anyway, I need something to eat.

Happy Birthday, Chr!

Put your music on shuffle and write about the first ten songs...

I saw this on another site and I'm bored tonight so here we go...

1. Riot Poof - Tori Amos.
This is one of my favorites by her. It reminds me of a very specific period of my life.

2. Paradise City - Guns N Roses.
I still love this band. Appetite for Destruction is in my car cd player as we speak. One of my top ten albums of all time. This is one of my least favorites from the album but hey, that's alright.

3. Many Men - 50 Cent.
I have a soft spot for 50 Cent. I like this whole album and still listen to it quite a bit. He's got a few songs on my top 200 most played list on my iPod.

4. X-Static Process - Madonna.
I love this song. I was happy when she started going to an acoustic sound.

5. Wash Away - Joe Purdy.
My number one most played song on my iPod. I used to listen to this one on repeat constantly. It makes me feel happy and that life really doesn't suck whenever I feel like crap about things.

6. Whatever You Do! Don't! - Shania Twain.
Gotta love all the exclamation points this woman uses in her song titles.

7. Tribute - Tenacious D.
Jack Black is my celebrity crush. He makes me laugh. This is a great one to sing with your friends in the car driving home from somewhere.

8. Fighter - Christina Aguilera.
I think she's awesome. But I have a hard time singing along with her so I do it in private where no one can hear.

9. If it's Alright - Lindsay Lohan.
She's one of my favorite artists and everyone seems to make fun of me for it. I like her music though, especially this song. I love the chorus.

10. Joyful Girl - Ani DiFranco.
What a great song to end my ten songs on. Such a pretty song. Dilate was definitely my favorite album of hers.