Personal Planning Fail

Part of my job includes taking a 24 hour on call rotation once a week.  Sometimes this means that we are up all night, and then have to go to work the next day with our game faces on and be productive.  I remember a time when I was about 22 when running on an hour or so of sleep was no big deal.  Now, it just hurts. 

Since I've worked here, our shifts have gone from 8:30am to 8:30am the next morning.  Those of us in the rotation have been rallying for awhile to get that changed for the above mentioned reasons.  The idea being that if we were up all night, we wouldn't have a full schedule the next day and we could sleep in a little bit.  I'm all for preparing for the zombie apocalypse, but I don't think the folks accessing our services should have to worry about that when they come in to see us.  

I was one of the more vocal proponents of this change, and last week we were able to implement it for the first time.  This meant that my original Thursday morning to Friday morning shift moves to Wednesday night to Thursday night, 5:00pm to 5:00pm.  

Last night, while in the ER for the better part of 3 hours, I realized a fatal flaw in my planning.  

We have a meeting at 8:30am every Thursday morning that is directly related to the on-call rotation.  Which means that no matter how late I'm up the night before, I still have to get up and go to work for our staff meetings.  This is not a problem with any other shift.  How I overlooked that one is a mystery to me. 

This morning was compounded by the fact that I was up late on Tuesday night helping MacGyver get ready for his new job.

OOHH!  I completely forgot!!  MacGyver got a job!

I'm sleep deprived.  Please excuse me. 

Tuesday afternoon MacGyver got a call asking him to come in for an interview Wednesday morning at 7:00am.  The interview was about 90 minutes away, so he needed to leave about 5:00am to make sure he got there in plenty of time.  Tuesday night we were up late at the office doing some maintenance work (I'm running off with the office maintenance guy!  Tee hee!!) and then had to run around and find everything he needed for his interview.  We didn't get to bed until about midnight.  I made the mistake of going back to sleep after getting up with MacGyver at 5:00.  I think I would have been okay if I'd just made some coffee and powered through the day, but I didn't.  I went back to sleep, and getting up after two more hours was just brutal.  

Then I did it again last night.  Today, I'm running on fumes.  My dad emailed me this morning, and I responded to a lot of information that was never in his original email.  I just started making things up that I swear I read, but that weren't there at all!  He wrote back and was like, "uhhh, did you even read that email?"  

I take no responsibility for my actions today.

Luckily I was granted reprieve from future staff meetings in the morning if this should happen again.  Everyone was kind enough to say that I could call in my information and show up later.  

Oh, and the best part?  My car is broken.  And MacGyver has our other car an hour and a half away.  I'm riding my Pink Bicycle to work, something that I actually enjoy doing when the weather is nice.  But today I'm so tired that bicycling home seems like so much work.  

If my next post is written from jail for passing out on some stranger's front lawn with my Pink Bicycle, you'll know what happened.

"Have you...the wing?"

I'm going to go start by saying that if it were not for my parents, none of this would have happened.  I want that noted for posterity.  My parents are awesome wedding planners.  Thanks, Mom and Dad!!

We spent all last weekend doing wedding stuff.  It's the first time an entire weekend was wasted spent on wedding planning business.  Though despite running around all day Saturday and Sunday for hours, and it being hot and humid outside, (if you're reading this from somewhere in the Mid West, I apologize for that statement and am sending thoughts of rain your way) we got a lot accomplished.

Namely, we discovered that MacGyver is worse than a 15 year old girl shopping for a prom dress when it comes to buying suits.

No, really.

Two days, several hours, and endless stores later, he has a suit.  A pin striped, three piece suit in which he looks absolutely dashing.  I'm so glad he found it, and I'm so glad we don't have to do that again for a very long time.  And in the name of saving my impending marriage, that's all I'm going to say about that.

We also picked up MacGyver's ring while we were out.  (And I got mine cleaned for the first time!  It's so sparkly again!!)  We narrowed it down to two different rings of very dramatically different styling.  One was made out of cobalt, gray and rather shiny.  It was classy and sophisticated, and suited him well.  Then we found one that was made from titanium, but it was a charcoal gray.  It looked very industrial, and we really liked it.  It suited MacGyver nicely.  But the more we thought about it, the titanium ring was more fitting for the 30-something year old MacGyver.  We weren't sure it would look so classy on a 60+ something MacGyver.  So we went with the first one.  It's classy and timeless.  MacGyver said he likes it enough that he might actually wear it!

Monday night we went out with friends for dinner, and after we came home MacGyver thought he'd try his suit on again just to make sure it fit well and to see how it looked with a dress shirt on underneath everything.

Did I mention he cleans up well?  Eh hem.  Anyway.

He put his ring on just for fun to see how it would look with the suit, and it FELL OFF HIS HAND.

No, actually it didn't just fall off.  It fell off his hand and bounced all the way down the stairs.  It's almost an entire ring size too big.  In the store it fit perfectly.  Apparently MacGyver had been mainlining the salt over the weekend and his fingers were swollen when we tried on rings.

I called the place this morning and they'll let us come back and exchange it.  Until then MacGyver is on a no salt diet, just in case.  I'm glad we checked this before the wedding.  That would have been interesting.

What? We have to feed people too?

A wise person once bestowed some words of wisdom that I have carried with me for many years.  I would like to share them with you now.  It's important, so pay attention:

Hard before beer, you're in the clear. 

Beer before hard, you're in the yard.

I'm glad we had this little talk.

We are serving alcohol at the wedding.  We are also serving non-alcoholic beverages for those who do not partake.  However, I'm less concerned about the effects that too much coffee and water will have on people (though there is only one bathroom so that may be a bigger issue than I realize), and more concerned about the effects of too much beer and wine.  There is no liquor allowed on the premises, which is okay by me.  

A few glasses of wine is just fine.

A few long islands...

Wait, what rhymes with island?
I'm not very good at this.

Anyway, when serving alcohol, food is a necessity.  Plus, I really don't know how to entertain 75-80 people for that many hours all by myself.  And I sincerely doubt anyone would appreciate listening to me play American Idol Tryouts as much as I do.

(Seriously though, how awesome would that be, am I right?)

I was all for going super cheap and doing a weenie roast, but I was informed that even that was a bit too much for my vintage ghetto theme, and we needed a caterer.  

Making big decisions stresses me out to the point of incapacitation.  I become that deer in the headlights that stands there and watches the truck run me over because the department of transportation decides in that moment to shut down the highway between Lake Decision Maker and Camp Do Something About This Right Now and flaggers have to come moderate traffic until next spring.  Unfortunately for us (and everyone else helping us) MacGyver is just as bad.  We're quite the pair, he and I.

Choosing food was one of those decisions.

My mom had suggested we call up some caterers that did a luncheon she'd been to because she said it looked like they did a pretty good job.  We made an appointment for last night, and we all met at my parents' house.

They were super nice people and were down with the one  big requirement of MacGyver's, which was that we not serve sticks and twigs.  MacGyver, and many people in my family, are meat and potatoes kind of men, and they were not interested in "snobby sticks and twigs rabbit food".  Yes, that is a direct quote.

We went with basic dishes that would probably appease most people because we want to encourage them to eat more than they drink.  My days of throwing mattresses up in the windows to muffle the sound of the party out on the street are over.  Though that does work really well, in case you're throwing a rager in the future.

Right before we left, my mom brought out a checklist she's created that rivals War and Peace.  She's adorable.  She actually thinks I'm going to do all of those things!  

Just keep swimming...

My wedding dress arrived a little over a week ago.  It took me about that long muster up enough courage to try it on.  If you need a reminder as to why, you can read about it here.

This was on Sunday morning and I was by myself, so I thought that would be the perfect time to try it on.  MacGyver wouldn't be around to see it, and I could prepare myself for what I would look like in privacy.  It seemed logical at the time.

The dress laces up the back, but that really just seemed like a lot of work, so I tried it on without that first.  That's when I discovered that the dress weighs 17 metric tons.

I'm not exaggerating.  I might have permanent dents in my body from this thing by the end of the night.

It took some wiggling, but I managed to pull it down over my head and more or less into position.  Everything looked fine from the front, but the back was gaping open and I immediately concluded that the dress was too small and we wouldn't be able to lace it up.

(That was my conclusion, 'it's too small.'  Not, 'you didn't lace it up, Stupid, that's why the back is gaping.'  Sheesh.)

Anyway, I panicked and wiggled back out of it, determined to lace it up and make sure it was going to fit.  Mind you, the back laces up all the way from slightly below my waist, all the way up to between my shoulder blades.  It's a lot of lacing, is what I'm saying.  This will be even more important in a moment.

I get the thing laced all the way up like it's supposed to, but I leave it a little loose because I'm not that dumb and I know I'm going to need a little wiggle room to get it on.  I've done this once before about 5 minutes ago.  I'm a professional.

With a lot more wiggling and yarnking, I got back on.  To my utter relief, the dress fits beautifully.  Truly, it's a really wonderful dress, with only subtle marshmallow undertones.  Breathing a whole lot easier now that I knew the dress fit and I wouldn't be parading around in a sheet-toga, I started to take it off so I could put it away and not have to worry about it for another few months.

Heh.  Remember all those laces?  And the wiggling and yarnking it took to get everything in place once the laces were laced?

About that.

As it turns out, when the dress weighs 17 metric tons, and is fully laced, it's near impossible to get it back off again.

Sadly, Crush, I did not have my exit buddy.  Which meant I had to unlace the damn dress again to get it back off.  The whole thing.

Which is irritating in and of itself, but I'm also not a side-show contortionist.  I can't reach the whole area of my back with both hands at the same time.  And the taffeta was catching on the loops and not wanting to slide through...

After several minutes of wiggling and tugging and swearing, and a mild panic attack when I envisioned myself as a modern day Miss Havisham, forever stuck in her wedding dress, minus the man-hating business, I had a small epiphany.

I grabbed the hangar on which I had been storing the dress and was able to reach back and spring myself free from the laces.

After several more minutes, and a lot of swearing, I managed to wiggle back out of that dress.

Lessons learned today: Never put on a wedding dress without an exit buddy.  Be thankful it laces up and doesn't button up with those teeny tiny little wedding dress buttons.

Family vacation: Fin

If you've missed vacation trip days 1-4, you can read them here, here, and here.

As you can see, this vacation has been a real kick in the pants.  Har har.  Hahahaha.  Hee hee!

Hoo.

I'm so funny.

Anyway, after dad decided to turn his 4-wheeling trip into an X-Games tryout, we thought a low-key few days at the campsite or the lake were in order.  We went to bed Tuesday night with the plan that Wednesday we would see who was still standing, and maybe spend the day hanging out at the campsite playing board games.

The next morning, enemy forces took out the mothership.

I woke up early Wednesday morning to the all the unmistakable sound of someone revisiting their last meal.  My mom had caught some sort of evil virus and was down for the count.  She spent the rest of that day in her tent, miserable.

MacGyver, Turbo, his girlfriend and I decided to leave Mom and Dad behind to rest and we took off to Sea Lion caves and to do some tide pooling.

We started out at a beach to check out tide pools a bit.  That was really nice to go walk around the beach and climb on some rocks.  I'm happy to report that no one suffered any physical or psychological injury during those few hours.

I remember visiting Sea Lion Caves as a child.  I remember my dad telling me as a child that the sea lions were talking to me, and being very excited about this.  I was a very gullible child.  I'm sure my mom and brother were there too, but I don't remember that.  Other things I didn't remember: Sea Lions don't smell like petunias.  \

Holy Mary mother of Jerusalem those creatures smell awful!!  But it was fun to see them.  Even if we had to go on a bit of a death march to get to them.  Something else I had forgotten about.  This marshmallow is not a fan of death marches.

But I digress.

After we got back to camp, Dad reported that Mom was still not feeling great, but refusing to go home early.  Typical.  So we hung out for the rest of the night at the campsite.

The next morning, Mom was doing a little better, and we all decided it was best to pack it up and go home before anything else catastrophic happened.

We made it through packing up the campsite and getting home without incident.

As nice as it was to go camping, it was nice to get home again too.  Plus, I was able to get a head start on the monogrammed bubble wrap suits I'm making everyone for next year.

Special Delivery

When we ordered my wedding dress, the confirmation page informed us we had the option of "rush ordering" the dress and it would arrive faster, but it would cost more.  Or we could wait the standard 28-35 days it would normally take to receive the dress at no additional shipping charge.  Since we ordered it in May, I didn't see any reason to rush order it, so we didn't.

35 days from the day we ordered it fell right in the middle of our family camping trip.  I didn't worry too much because we have awesome neighbors who keep a vigilant eye on the neighborhood and had agreed to pick up our mail.  We let them know a dress may be arriving while we were gone, and they agreed to look out for it.  

When we got home from our trip, we discovered that the dress had not yet arrived, and I began to worry a little that we'd been scammed.  I tried not to worry though.  I mean, who ever heard of some random website from China scamming people and taking their money without ever producing a product?  

Eh hem.

Anyway, a few more weeks went by and I finally went back to the website to see if there was a customer service number.  I didn't find a 1-800 number or anything, which is probably a good thing, since I don't speak Chinese.  I did, however, find an email.   It was a very generic customer service email, but I figured I'd give it a shot anyway.

Within 30 minutes I had a response from a real person!  I couldn't believe it!  They apologized for the delay, and assured me that they were paying close attention to detail on my dress, and were just running a bit behind schedule.  They asked for the date of my wedding.

Forgive me father, for I have sinned. 

I lied.

I wrote back and told them my wedding was scheduled for August 27, and I appreciated their response and attention to detail, and I looked forward to seeing my dress.

She wrote back the next day and said that would not be a problem, and as soon as it shipped they would give me a tracking number.  

I felt instantly better about the whole thing, and sure enough, within another week or so, I received a tracking number in my email.  I followed it all the way from Shanghai to my house!

I saw that it had been delivered, and I had a free hour, so I decided to run home and rescue it from the front porch.  And I really wanted to see it.

This is what I found sitting on my front porch:

Sorry about the poor photo quality, I didn't have time to break out the good camera so I just snapped this with my phone.  

But never mind that, look at this packaging!  I don't know what I was expecting, but this was not it.  It looks like those "Dorm Room in a Bag!" things.  Wedding Dress - in a bag!

Anyway, after I got over that, I opened it up and took the dress out so I could have a look.

You guys, it's beautiful.  It really, really is.  If you've read my other posts, you know I don't say that casually. 

It also came with this:

A 12 foot veil.  Just what ever antibride needs, right?  How did they know?!?!  Yeesh.

I'm going to find something obnoxious to do with this before the wedding is over.  I'm not sure what that will be just yet, but I'm open to suggestions.  

MacGyver already tried to sneak a peek after I hung it up, but I wouldn't let him.  He'll have to wait.  Just like everyone else.  

Including me.  

I'm too chicken to try it on just yet.

National Lampoon's Family Vacation Chapter III

Growing up, Turbo and my dad would go 4 wheeling in the sand dunes every time we went camping.  That left my mom and I to walk around town and do some shopping.  This year, Turbo, MacGyver, Turbo's girlfriend, and my dad were all going to the dunes.  I have no desire to ride one of those death traps up and around constantly moving sand trails, so I never go.

But MacGyver, my dad, Turbo and his girlfriend all have adrenaline complexes and thought that would be a fantastic idea.  Before I continue, I would like to take this opportunity to mention the following important points:

1. Turbo had massive shoulder reconstruction surgery in January.  He also has the coordination of a drunk elephant.
2. The last time my dad rode a quad out in the sand dunes was somewhere circa 1995.  He was 15+ years younger then.  (I'm not saying you're old, Dad, but - well, you're just not 35 anymore.)
3. MacGyver managed to screw up his shoulder and most everything attached to it shortly before we went on this trip.  He didn't really do anything specific to it, but I things had been steadily building up and finally his shoulder got together with his back and they went to their union rep to formally make a statement that they weren't going to take this kind of abuse anymore.
4. Turbo's girlfriend is miniature.  All 5 feet of her.  I think that's the absolute minimum height to ride a quad.  And even then, it's iffy.

Tuesday morning the four of them got up early and headed out for a day of quadding in the sand dunes.  Mom situated herself near the fire with a book, and I (feeling sorry for myself from falling the day before) went to town in search of a pedicure.  Stop laughing, you know you would have done the same thing.  We all have our inner princesses.

I went to town and did a little shopping, but all the pedicure places were booked up (on a Tuesday?!) so I came back to the campsite.  Mom and I played Yahtzee for awhile by the fire and hung out waiting for everyone to come back from riding.

About noon, Mom got a text from Turbo that said they were heading back to camp.  I remember thinking that sounded odd that he didn't make mention of how it went, or whether they had a good time, but I also realize he's not a 13 year old girl, and texting all of that might have been a little much to ask.

They all arrived back at camp about 45 minutes later and Mom and I got up to go greet them and to see how it went.  I saw the look on my brother's face first and I immediately knew something was wrong.  I started to really worry when the first thing out of his mouth was, "everyone is okay."

Huh?  Insert panic attack sequence in 3...2...1...

I immediately assumed MacGyver had somehow irreparably injured himself as he was already hurting before they left, and doesn't always know when to stop.  But when I saw my dad get out of the truck I realized it wasn't MacGyver who'd been hurt.

According to the story as it was told over the next few hours, they were all out cruising around and Dad made a beeline for a ridge up over the top of some big dune.  MacGyver followed him up a little ways behind.  The ridge turned out to be what I have now learned is called a "razorback".  That means that the sand is like a razor's edge and it drops off on the other side.

DROPS OFF ON THE OTHER SIDE.

You can see where this is going.

So it would appear that Captain America was cruising up the side of the dune, and fell off the other side, not realizing what it was.  Turbo stayed behind and his girlfriend, who was barely big enough to ride the quad to begin with stayed below too.  MacGyver came up right behind him and darn near landed on top of him.  Dad had flipped over the front of the quad and landed with the thing on top of him.  MacGyver almost landed on top of him too, but managed to maneuver out of the way just in time.

MacGyver said Dad was not responsive when he got to him and he had a moment where he honestly thought he was dead.  He later told me he started imagining how he was going to tell me and my mom about this and couldn't breathe for a minute.

But Dad ended up being alive and wiggling - sort of.  He was wearing his helmet (did you hear that, kids?  WEAR YOUR HELMETS!!) that was apparently cracked from the impact.  My brother has some medic training so he did a pretty thorough check to make sure his organs weren't going to suddenly fall out of his nose or anything, and determined he was probably just pretty banged up, but okay.

My dad's extremely stubborn.  I would have requested Life Flight.  And possibly the Coast Guard.

I'll take another moment to explain that this is not the first time my dad has been laid out in some sort of extreme adventuring accident.  In fact, it would seem that this is becoming a bit of a vacation tradition for him.  We went to Hawaii for Turbo's graduation in 2008, and my dad hit his head on a rock or something while snorkeling.  My mom sent me a picture of my father, laying out on his back in the sand with his eyes closed, and a huge dent in his head.  I had to call her to make sure she wasn't trying to tell me he was dead.  Then, last year for their 30th wedding anniversary, they went to Maui and on one of those snorkeling adventure things where they take you out in a catamaran to special snorkeling coves.  At some point, they hit a wave and the boat bounced and launched my father ten feet into the air.  On the way back down he collided with one of the metal beams of the boat with his head.  I got another text saying my father almost died while bounce-housing his way to a snorkeling trip.

I guess they got the people that run the little shop to come out and swap quads out for him since he still had more time, and he kept riding.  Because he's a bad ass.  Or really stubborn.  Or both.

That night had started developing some pretty gnarly bruises across his chest where he hit the handlebars on the way over, and where the quad landed on him.  Moving became increasingly difficult with every hour.

I'll stop here and point out that this was day 4 of our camping trip, and already we were two people down.  Two and a half if you count MacGyver's limbs that were staging a strike outside the union office.

I also forgot to tell you that on Monday night we went to town to watch fireworks for the 4th of July, and Turbo dropped his camera in the field where we had our chairs set up.  He didn't realize it until we had gotten back to camp, but he and his girlfriend ran back out there and found the camera!  None of us could believe it!  That should have been the first sign that everything was going to go south shortly thereafter.

So yeah, day 4 and 2 people down.  And we weren't scheduled to go home until Saturday - in four more days!!

National Lampoons Family Camping Trip Part Deux

The first 48 hours of our trip were fantastic.  We sat around the campfire, roasted marshmallows, and relaxed.  We even sacrificed a few Peeps I found after Easter.  Roasted Peeps, by the way, are sublime.  SUH-BLIME.  The sugar on the outside carmelizes and hardens a little, and the inside stays all gooey and warm.  So good.  I ate two, and then all my teeth instantly fell out of my mouth.  I see the dentist on Tuesday.

Like I said, the first 48 hours were great.  That's when everything went horribly, horribly wrong.  You know when you're watching those movies, and a sequence of unfortunate events happens, and you're like, "there's no way that would really happen in real life!"

Yeah.  It does.

Monday afternoon we decided to make our first voyage to the big lake that is situated near our campsite.  As a kid, my dad and I would load up the raft with all our stuff for the afternoon and row across the lake to our special spot away from most of the other visitors.  This time I decided to walk.  The route around the lake is one that I've never actually walked.  Or if I have, I don't remember.  It's mostly sand, a little water, and some marshy areas.  I was barefoot for most of it since it was hot and the water felt so good on my feet.  But when we got to the marshy spots, I thought putting my flip flops back on would be a better idea.  The ground was super muddy and I have claustrophobic feet. I can't handle them being covered in slime, so I thought the shoes would provide more traction and protection from the grody mud.  Or something.  

That act proved to be my fatal error.  The next step after putting my shoes back on I did a Bambi on Ice maneuver and ended up face planting in the mud.  Well, more like knee planting.  I landed on one of my knees really hard, but ended up sitting in a huge pile of muddy slime.  In my clothes.

I was able to get back up and go a few more steps, before landing with my feet in the air again.  It was awful.  I was hurt, embarrassed, and covered in slime.  And my whole family watched it happen form the bank a few hundred yards away.

Thankfully they were merciful and didn't laugh at me, and I made it over to sit in the sand and nurse my poor knee.  And my pride.

MacGyver, in true MacGyver fashion, built a water gun that sprays continuous water.  It's nothing short of amazing, and a definite force to be reckoned with in a water fight.  Some time after I'd patched myself up enough to be social again, I found myself on the cusp of a wet sand and water fight with my little brother, Turbo.

He was in the lake threatening to throw wet sand at me on the bank, so I threatened to shoot the water gun at him. Or maybe I started it.  I can't remember, and it's not important.  What's important is that the battle began, and we both ended up covered in wet sand, and soaking wet.  I emerged victorious.

How did I win, you ask?  It doesn't matter.  I'm writing the story, therefore I get to be the victor.  The end.

After indulging in the mud bath on the way over, and now being covered in wet sand, the only logical thing to do was wade into the lake in my clothes and try to rinse some of this crap off my body.  This would have been just fine, if I hadn't been so thoughtful as to slip my cell phone into my pocket right before heading to the lake.  My logic?  So I would know what time it was.  Because when you're camping, that's sooo important.

Yeah.

Little known fact: Droids don't swim.  In case you were wondering.  Penguins don't fly, and Droids don't swim.  I'd been in the water for a few seconds when I realized my mistake, and fished it out of my pocket and into the air.  Like that was going to save it.  Everyone rushed into action.  It was like a scene out of ER.

It's coding!  Quick!  Take it apart!  Get it into some rice!  STAT!


We laid it out in the sun for awhile, letting the wind blow sand into all it's already water-logged orifices, and then when we got back to camp, my awesome dad and brother ran to the store for some life-saving rice for my poor phone.

We were unable to resuscitate it.

And then somewhere between that happening and the next evening, I lost the stupid thing.  I suppose this is why we pay insurance on our phones, right?

The best part about this story?  This is only part 2.  Just wait.  It gets better!!

To be continued...

Your Attention Please

1.  Welcome to the new Pink Dog Blog!  For those of you who have followed my many blogs for awhile, you'll recognize the posts.  Keeping three blogs was simply too much work.  I'm all about efficiency, and combining them makes keeping them updated sooo much easier.  At the top of the blog you'll see the four main areas of posts.  I did this so that people who don't give a rat's petunia about home remodeling, can skip around and look at other posts.  You can also use the links under the "Labels" category on the right hand side to navigate through specific posts.

2.  Some of these posts date back a long time.  I'm currently going through a revising some of the nicknames I've given people so that everything is consistent, but it's taking forever.  So please bear with me while I get that all straightened out.  Here's a quick list reference of the who's-who on the blog from here on out:

MacGyver: Master remodeler, kite flyer, jack-of-all-trades extraordinaire.  And, as of October, he will be my husband (good grief...husband.)  The name MacGyver was chosen by popular demand from everyone that knows him.  If you already know this  man, no further explanation is needed.  If you don't, the name pretty much sums him up.  Minus the mullet.  For which we are all very grateful.

Turbo: My brother.  He earned this nickname in high school because he's actually powered by a jet engine.  Passing through the Department of Emissions Quality is part of his yearly physical.  He has a very important job. He could tell you about it, but then he'd have to kill you.

The Home Improvement Store formerly known as Lowes:  LOWES!!  You can read about it here, and here.  And that's all I'm going to say about that.

Me:  I have a few alter egos on here, including Pink Dog, Antibride, and some others.  Integrating them just seemed like a little too much work.  So they stay.

Everyone else who makes fleeting appearances here will get their own names at that time.  These are just the ones that seem to be frequent fliers.

3.  I'm still working all the kinks out of this new format, so you may experience some technical difficulties for a bit.  Thank you for your patience.

I'm glad we had this talk.  

National Lampoon's Family Camping Trip Part 1

Every year when I was a kid my family would go camping for a few weeks.  These camping trips are some of my favorite memories of growing up.  I remember going swimming at the lake every year, waiting to get out of my warm sleeping bag until I knew my dad and brother had the fire started and the coffee/hot chocolate made, driving through the Redwood forest and seeing those magnificent trees for the first time, that time I got the flu and had a horrible fever the whole trip and my dad threatened to throw me in the lake and I was so scared he'd actually do it, or that other time when my brother fell on a tree stump and wound up with some serious carnage on his back...

Ah, yes.  Fond memories.

Last year my dad mentioned that camping sounded like fun and I immediately jumped on the bandwagon and invited myself and MacGyver along.  Then I invited my brother.  Pretty soon we had a camping reunion in the works!  Dad booked the campground we always stayed at when we were kids.  We have a special campsite too, and Dad reserved it a year in advance.  I took time off work and my brother flew in with his girlfriend.  They live on the east coast so we don't get to see him often.  He's a real kick in the pants and I was soo looking forward to hanging out all week.

MacGyver and I packed our Exploder to the gills, and then shoved wine bottles in every nook and cranny.  Every time I pulled another bin out while we were unpacking it was like Christmas!  This was the first family camping trip in which alcohol was involved.  Wooo!

The first day or so of camping was fairly low key.  We'd all just come off of crazy, strenuous work schedules and I think we all needed a little down time.  But on Sunday, my brother, his girlfriend, MacGyver and I went to the sand dunes to fly his new kite.

Two things that are vital to this story that you need to know before I begin:

1. My skin would make an albino shield his eyes.  It's a glaring, brilliant white.  Actually, I bet on a clear day they can see me from the space station.  This means that I also sunburn easily.  Like, just me walking from my car to her office puts my dermatologist in fits.

2. MacGyver and I just found an amazing deal on a new telephoto lens for our digital camera, so we bought it.

Okay back to the story.  On this particular Sunday, the sun was shining high in the sky, as it is wont to do in July.  Our campsite was fairly shaded, so I was wearing jeans and a black hoodie.  I was also wearing sneakers because I wasn't thinking about walking in sand when we left the campsite.

There is a lake in the middle of the sand dunes, and a nice little swimming hole.  That day there were a fair amount of people playing in the water, and also sand-boarding down the dunes.  I had never heard of this sport before this weekend, but it looked like fun.  If you're into the whole running up and down huge, steep hills of sand kind of thing.  MacGyver and my brother went to go get the kite started.  I was advised that if I continued to stand where I was standing, I might find my head, or other various limbs, in need of intensive care.  Or a morgue.  So I moved down the hill a bit, closer to a lot of the families playing in the sand.

I realized shortly after arriving that I had not applied sunscreen before we left.  Please don't tell my dermatologist.  This meant I couldn't take my hoodie off and wear the much more appropriate tank top I had on underneath. I tried to keep my hood up to protect my head, but it was too hot, so I just adjusted the camera bag strap so that it pushed the hood up around the back of my neck a little more.

So there I was.  Standing out in the middle of these huge sand dunes, by myself, next to a swimming hole with lots of children, in dark sunglasses, black hoodie, jeans and sneakers on a hot, sunny day, with a telephoto lens on my camera, taking pictures of someone flying a kite several hundred feet away.

I'm sure it didn't look creepy at all.

I am rather surprised that people didn't try to relocate their children away from the Unabomber taking pictures of nothing.

I did get some pretty awesome pictures that day though.

MacGyver showing off his mad ninja kite flying skillz.

 I love how the guy in the background looks like he's running for his life.

I stalked this bald eagle for awhile too.  I've never seen a bald eagle that close before.  Really impressive - even for a bird.