History in the making....

Two days of being downtown for all the DNC madness has caught up with me.

I have a political hangover.

Monday, Todd and I went downtown to see what all the talk was about and it was surprisingly uneventful. The only pictures we took we of the multitudes of cops in riot gear. Cops on bikes. Cops on motorcycles. Klingon cops. Cops cops cops! With all the money and time spent on security, it would almost be a shame if something DIDN'T happen. Not that I want something to happen. There have been plenty of protestor arrests so whatever.

The most exciting thing to come of Monday night happened while sitting at Chili's at 16th & Champa. Just enjoying our two-for-one margs and beers and chowing on chips and salsa and along comes James Carville! No security, no entourage, no briefcase, not even DNC lanyards. Just Carville in his sport coat and shiny red Asics. Woo hoo! HE cemented himself in my mind as "coolest old guy alive" when someone yelled "Oh my god! James Carville!" and he responded with a fist in the air and a solid "YEAH!" and kept on walkin'. He was on a mission to get somewhere, which I found amusing.

Monday was supposed to be the only day we went downtown, but with public transit so cheap and accessible and history being made 2 miles from our house, we couldn't keep ourselves away.

So we went again last night. There were substantially more crazies out than on Monday, but last night was also Bill Clinton's speech and Joe Biden's (woo hoo!) acceptance speech, so crazies in droves was to be expected. Right when we stepped off the bus, we saw a band of people walking down 16th Street Mall shouting "Jesus is my gay friend! He can be yours too!" complete with signage. The statement made no sense to me and wasn't protesting anything so we were all kind of curious what their point was. I dunno.

Then there was the chick selling Obama action figures (which Kelly went back to buy later) whom our friend, Steph, took a photo of earlier this week. We gave her Steph's blog address so she could check herself out...she was pretty excited that someone blogged her haha!

There was a TON of Obama / DNC schwag to be had last night, but all of it was wickedly overpriced. $15 for an Obama/Biden car magnet?!? Sure I want one, but I don't really want to drop that much on a friggin' magnet. Oh well. I do still have my BARACK THE VOTE t-shirt which will be fun to wear to work, I'm sure. :o) Gabe saw some dudes selling light-up DNC t-shirts that he so wanted to buy, but they were $30. No way!

We made our way to Chili's for 2-for-1 margs and beers and some chips and queso while we watched Biden's acceptance speech, which was very very good and inspiring. We were all clapping and hootin' and hollerin' during the speech, which was just fun! At one point, Heather started chanting "Hillary! Hillary!" and a guy sitting next to our table leaned over and kindly said, "Get over it, honey." to which we all fell apart laughing. I think the end of Biden's speech was my favorite when his wife, Jill, came up on stage to congratulate him and tell him she had a surprise for him. He said, "What?" and that's when Obama walked out on stage and all of Denver erupted in cheers and "woo!"-ing and Biden had a look of glorious shock on his face...we were all dying laughing!

Oh and by the way, Obama was (is?) staying at the Westin downtown so we marched over there and actually got pictures of his motorcade! It was so cool! There were a bazillion demostrators outside the hotel with bullhorns and what not so we stayed pretty far away from that, lest we get arrested when Obama came out the hotel (just kidding...it was all pretty chill), but oh my damn it was so cool seeing a motorcade like that! There were at least a dozen vehicles hauling it over to the Pepsi Center so who knows which car he was in, but it was rad nonetheless.

Heather and I watched "roll call" on TV yesterday and both got shivery and teary when Hillary suggested that the entirety of the democratic votes go to Obama and to stop wasting time, nominate their candidate and get going on this! It was so exciting! Obama's mother was in the audience and she was a mess of tears. I guess until I saw that, I never put in perspective the fact that Barack Obama is somebody's KID...I mean, how many people's kids get to run for and/or BE President?! Not many. I can't even begin to imagine what she's feeling.

So now I have political hangover and am a bit sad that the Pepsi Center is all de-DNC'd. I'm jealous that some of our friends are going to be at the speech tonight. Megan and I are having "girls night" while we watch her husband be at the speech so that should be a good time.

History in the making, folks!

Confessions of a computer moron...

I hate computers. We actually have a love/hate relationship. I love having a computer. I hate working with them. Something always goes wrong or blows up or stops working or works w-a-y to slowly or runs out of space or a myriad of other shit. I hate dealing with computers.

My current computer is a lovely little Dell laptop that I bought with my own money about 3 years ago. I needed one when I went back to school so I jumped on Dell's website and found one that was about $600 and had all the things I (thought I) needed...CD drive, wireless card (I was stealing wireless at that point), internal modem and USB ports. That's all I thought I needed. It seemed like a great deal and I paid for it outright rather than in installments (I try to pay in full whenever I can which, other than my car, I have done every time).

But over time, my poor little Dell started giving out. It started running kind of slowly or the modem didn't work when I needed it to (hard to search for jobs or register for classes online when the online portion of your computer starts crapping out). I would get frustrated and slam the book shut and try to walk away without freaking out more. Then I started running low on memory so I transferred all my photos to online storage sites and to CD (which really isn't a bad thing to do anyway if you're a photo freak like me). More recently, it's just proving to not be the laptop I need anymore. It's great and works fine and if you want to buy it from me for dirt cheap and do little more than word processing, surfing the 'net, and fiddling with photos, then let's chat. haha!

The other week, Todd came home and told me he'd almost bought me a "prize" (see previous Cracker Jack post) and that it was going to be a new laptop. Megan just got Paul a new one as he is in dire need of one for his job. She got a screaming deal on it so Todd took a look at it and nearly bought it. But with careful consideration, he figured that a "prize" of that nature (and price) should be discussed with me first. So we talked and I was probably more flippant about it than he was. My computer seems to be fine for now, but Todd is a computer geek so he's been pretty adamant about getting me a computer that I will "luuuuuuuuuurve" and have for always and will be eveyrthing that I'm dreaming of and more. I mostly couldn't care less.

Today, he sent me the link to this rad Toshiba (the one that Megan got for Paul) and I looked at it and saw that it was good. But I'm a Dell girl so I went to their site and found one that was comparable to the Toshiba but was PINK!! Gads! Could it be true? Was I going to have my cake and eat it too?

No.

That laptop apparently had less memory so it wouldn't be worth it. And did I really just like it better because it was pink?

Yes. So I told Todd that he'd be the final call on the laptop selection. Boring Toshiba with more memory or rad pink Dell with less memory.

"Wait a second!" he exclaimed!
Dell Outlet has a Flamingo Pink Inspiron with even MORE memory than the Toshiba (250GB, y'all!) for less money than the Toshiba.

OMG! It's true! I was going to have my cake, in the color and flavor I wanted, and get to eat it too!

So purchase my new "lappy" Todd did.
Holy wads. I have a pink laptop.
250GB
CD+DVD writer
6lbs (gads! that's the weight of a Zack Morris Phone!)
and all kinds of other specs that make it awesome enough for Todd to approve of the pink lapster.

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!

Eureka! It's time for a new vacuum!

So we're essentially approved for the new rad pad (that is what I'll be calling it from now on) so it's time to get packin'!

Yes, it's SIX WEEKS from our move date, but because I hate packing that much, I have to be very systematic with how I do this stuff. So we have one week for each room of the house, which will hopefully help with the insanity. We're making every attempt to get rid of any misc. crap that we possibly can via donations, recycling, throwing away or selling. So far on the auction block are a futon (that my parents may or may not want), Todd's desktop computer and our office desk. I have at least 7 bags/purses that I'm giving away and I may give away some misc. luggage. The funniest part of all of this, so far, is that there is at least $150 we have to spend in order to get all this crap squared away. We need a new vacuum and some more storage bins to tidy up all the crap that we have and are keeping.

When we first got married, we bought a dinky little vacuum because a) we have a small house with mostly hardwood floors and b) we had no pets. Now that we'll have all carpet and we have two puppies, a decent vacuum is in order. If Gabe reads this, we will gladly baby sit your Dyson after you move until we move hahaha! And we also need a vacuum with hoses on it so that we can effectively use our "space bags" which are going to come in wicked handy during the move for all our clothings and beddings. Awesome! I can't wait to use those things! I frickin' LOVE space bags and Hercules Hooks! hahaha! I'm such a dork for "as seen on TV" crap!

In other news, I'm fairly certain that my in-laws were hoping we wouldn't be able to take the dogs with us to the new house so that they could adopt Suki from us hahaha! Just kidding! I just know that they love love love that little weirdo!

So if you're in the mood to pack someone else's crap, you feel free to come on over at any time haha! just kidding...sort of.

I'm sorry....you're a COLLEGE professor?!?!

My newest professor at Metro is kind of a moron. I'm in a journalism class this fall, which is quickly turning into a hybrid of editing and 10th-grade spelling/grammar. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!

I'm going to start writing down all the dippity-do-head things I hear in class so that I can share them. Here are last night's selections:

1. The prof kept saying CONSTANANT instead of CONSONANT. Are you f-ing kidding me?!

2. When asked by a student about how to notate time in journalism, professor said that everything is notated numerically except "noon" and "midnight" rather than 12am or 12pm. One of my classmates said, "Haha! That's because no one knows which is which!" WHAT?!?!

3. During out "spelling class" section of the evening, we had to choose which of the following words was correct: paniced / panicked. Obviously it's the second one. Prof says, "I'm not sure why the "k"...it probably just came over from England." Umm actually it's because of a VERY basic spelling & pronunciation rule: When "c" is followed by ANY vowel, it gives the "c" a soft "s" sound. In order to get the hard "c" sound you have to follow the "c" with a "k". Good Lord.

4. Finally, she said that something in the newspaper "stook" out to her. That's not a word, just FYI.

This class is going to be fuuuuuun!!!

Well we're movin on up...to a deluxe apartment in the sky!

That's right, folks.

Todd and I have HAD IT with our current house so we're moving. Woo hoo! We looked at moving into another house with a yard, but after all the drama with our yard right now, we're just not interested in it. And we're also not interested in dealing with a private landlord again. We'd much rather deal with a company whose business is that of managing property. If something breaks, I want it fixed stat. I don't ever want to have to wait 5-6 days to have my heat fixed in the winter. Absolutely not. I don't want to be bitched at when the lawn looks like crap even though we've called time and time again re: the lawnmower being broken. Todd doesn't want to shovel that much snow again. Ever. If you've seen our house and its lot, you'll understand why. He was responsible for shoveling nearly an entire block worth of sidewalk. Totally nuts.

So upon approval of our application, we'll be moving into Jefferson at Arvada Ridge.
This place is absolutely smashing and has all the amenities we want and even some we weren't expecting (like a 24hour pool in the summer and a 24hour hot tub year-round...and they'll be putting in a fire pit soon-ish). Yeah, the rent is higher, but like I told my mom, I'd too old and too professional to be having to deal with BS. I want what I want and I'm willing (and able) to pay for it.

We're even probably going to hire movers since we'll be living on the top floor (woo hoo!) and I have no desire to haul furniture up that many flights and I really don't want to have to ask our friends to do that for us. No no. This time, we get movers.

I think this is quite possibly the ONLY time I've ever been excited about moving. Okay, yes, I was excited to move into our current place, but that's because I was moving in with the Todd-meister and that in itself was exciting! But never in my life have I not dreaded having to pack and move. Blechth. I hate it. Fire-of-a-thousand-suns hate it. Most of you know that.

This is going to be awesome.
Awesome to have a kitchen island.
Even more awesome to have a dishwasher.
Awesome to not have to pay $200+ for heat in the winter.
Awesome to not have to shovel snow or mow the lawn.
Awesome to have a view of the mountains and THE perfect spot for fireworks.
Awesome to have a pool and gym thrown in for free.
Awesome to have a "big kid" bathroom that won't drive Todd nutso-bonkers.
Awesome to have TWO walk-in closets.
Awesome to have a linen closet and a real pantry.
Awesome to have same-floor laundry.
Awesome to have a fireplace.
Awesome.

Boston 2008 - Day 5 - August 8 - My feet just want to watch more Project Runway

Last day with lots to do so it was an early start. 8am and off to Dunkin Donuts for more coffee sold to us by a cheery Spanish woman (and yes, I used my skillz to converse briefly). Then the long walk to Boston Common and the park to visit The Ducks and begin a l-o-n-g day on The Freedom Trail! It's 2.5miles and allegedly takes about 4 hours to finish with all the things to read and photograph. It's a beautiful and fascinating walk but we have decided that it should have been done closer to the beginning of the trip rather than the end. Either way, it was enjoyable. The last stop was Bunker Hill. There's an ice cream truck at the bottom, which we giggled at...until we climbed the 294 steps to the top of the monument! After all that, it was time to head back to G'vannis for lunch (chicken parm, veal parm and pinot grigio) and gelato at Mike's. Took an inadvertent and round about way to the harbor to get sweatshirts (Boston for me, Harvard for Todd) before getting on the train back to Copley - wanted to tour Trinity Church, the library and Berklee, but only made it to the library before our feet all but gave out. Back to the hotel!

Three hours of American's Next Top Model and we were ready for pub food! Torrential rain and a lack of desire to walk landed us at The Pour House on Boylston & Fairfield. Good beer, great wings, the Sox game and opening ceremonies...couldn't have asked for a better end to our vacation!

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Notes from after the trip:
*Todd actually said the title of today's post. Yes, our feet hurt that badly.
*We missed out on Fenway, the Sam Adams Brewery and Berklee this time, so we're already planning on another trip and we'll hit all those things, I'll get to shop on Newbury and we'll probably head up to Cape Cod for a day. And we'll also do the harbor dinner/dancing cruise.
*We had the opportunity to go dancing on the pier of a hotel on the harbor (swing dancing, no less) but we missed that so we'll be doing that next time too.
*Boston fricking rocks!

Boston 2008 - Day 4 - August 7 - Big and DUUUUUUUUMB!

Dunkin Donuts coffee and pastry for breakfast. Long-ish walk to Boylston & St. Charles to catch the tour to Salem. We're across the street from Boston Common, so now we know how far it is to the start of the Freedom Trail.

On our way to Salem, via Marblehead. Stopped at Castle Rock to see the ocean (quite warm for this far north) and the Carcassone Castle. This whole area is beautiful and quaint, even if the crummiest house is priced at well over $1,000,000 - yowza! Professional dog walkers and rich socialites everywhere. The US Navy originated here, by the way.

Salem is nuts! Beautiful and you have to eat at Brother's Deli - hugest sandwiches ever! The witch museum is interesting and nice. Plenty of misc. crap to buy, especially for halloween. The Common is HUGE for the size of town this is. We got separated from the rest of the tour so our driver, Bob, took us over to see the statue of Samantha from Bewitched. She was given to Salem a few years ago. No one else on the tour got to see that...shhh! Bough the pups some collar charms at Pickering Wharf and tons of candy at Ye Olde Pepper Companie, the oldest candy company in America. They also make their own soda so we got cream soda and birch beer. It's the first time I've ever said "one of everything please" and MEANT IT! WOO HOO!

Got back to Boston and walked through some misting rain through Copley back to the hotel. Rested for a bit before getting dressed up to hit the town! Dinner at Legal Sea Foods - the had a dish with everything I wanted all at once! Crab cakes, shrimp and scallops - perfect! Todd had grilled tuna steak which was also very good. Took our time enjoying dinner until we stepped outside the Prudential Center to take a picture for the start of the Olympics. Then -- to the Top of the Hub for dessert and coffee! Lovely view, great live jazz and excellent dessert, but our server was NOT good and was kind of rude. Would have thought it would be better considering we dropped $45 on dessert.

But on the whole, a perfect day!

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Notes from after the trip:
* The title comes from a couple that was on the tour that could not, for the life of them, tell the bus driver where they needed to be at the end of the day. Critical information, given that Bob the Bus Driver was taking every single person on the bus back to their respective hotels. Sheesh. *If you go to Brother's Deli, definitely get a cheese steak sandwich...but split it with someone...it's freakin' HUGE! The place is set up quasi-cafeteria style so it's kind of fun and funky.
*I pretty much could have stayed in Marblehead all day and been okay with it.
*Our Olympics picture is part of a Facebook thing where you're supposed to take a picture at the exact time the Olympics started which, for us, was August 7 (yes 7, not 8...gotta love the int'l date line!) at 8:08pm...Boston is exactly 12 hours behind Beijing, in case you were terribly curious.

Boston 2008 - Day 3 - Aug 6 - The Holocaust Memorial

[This topic and portion of our trip, I felt, deserved it's own page in my journal]

We also went to the Boston Holocaust Memorial. I cried, like I usually do at these kinds of things.
There are six pillars, each with one million numbers, representing the tattooed #s on each victim of the Holocaust. It was beautiful and touching. Overwhelming, actually. 6 million people. There are some amazing quotes from survivors all through the park, many of which discuss the tragedy of inaction.

There was a family there who took photos of the smiling children in front of the entrance to the memorial. I found it disrespectful and cheap.

I've kind of had an onslaught of Holocaust information in the the last week or so and I'm a bit emotionally spent from it all. I suppose that's okay.

Memorials, stories and memories are how things like this do not melt away into nothing and become forgotten or glamorized.

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Notes from after the trip:
* The reason I'd had such an onslaught of Holocaust info is because I had just watched Freedom Writers and the whole movie sort of revolves around the idea of how a Holocaust comes to fruition. I have a huge spot in my heart for the Holocaust for many reasons...currently (and for the last few years) it has been because so many of the people that survived those atrocities are now starting to die and I do not want their stories to die with them. I wish I had endless time and resources and could hunt down every survivor in the US and document their stories.

* I made it VERY clear to Todd that we will NEVER cheapen these memorials by taking photos of ourselves or our children on, in, near or around them. That is not what this is for. And frankly when I saw that family, I was disgusted by their lack of respect. It was trashy, to say the very least.

Boston 2008 - Day 3 - Aug 6 - There are no pretty girls at Harvard...just smart ones.

Mr. Bartley's @ Harvard. Best burger - so sayeth Wall Street Journal and Pete Buchwald. Best/Only strawberry shake I've ever had.

Harvard is beautiful - amazing architecture & greenery.

MIT is funky and weird. Strange building - kind of look like Frank Lloyd Wright...or whoever did the Denver Art Museum. Haven't heard anyone say "Hahhvahd" yet, but saw a shirt that did.

The Harvard Co-op is waaay too expensive so if I get a Harvard shirt, I'll get it from a street vendor. Todd did get a cigar from a shop that could have been straight out of Roger Rabbit. Seriously.

It's very foggy tonight. so going to the Top of the Hub proved a bad idea so we changed our reservations for tomorrow night. Instead, we'll have wings at Whiskey's where we ate last night. YUM!

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Notes from after the trip:
*Canbridge is so beautiful, it's almost like being in a dream. It rained the whole time we were there and it couldn't have possibly been more lovely.
* The title of today's post comes from a girl whose phone conversation I was eavesdropping on. It's quite possibly the dumbest thing I've heard it quite a while.
*Definitely have AT LEAST dessert at the Top of the Hub...it's pricey, but totally worth the view and the live jazz.
*Karla, definitely check out the crazy MIT buildings!

Boston 2008 - Day 2 - August 5 - Do not ever EVER chug wine.

Got up around 8am, had some breakfast,then went to Copley Square to catch the Bean Town Trolley. That was an adventure. An hour later, we found the bus and we on our way!

This town rules! Everyone is really nice and there's too much history to keep up with!. Drove past concert halls, churches, MIT (woo hoo!), North End, Cheers, Boston Common, the duck park, theatre district and about a trillion other things!

Walked to North End to G'vannis for lunch - best Italian I've ever had, 2nd best for Todd. Cheese ravioli, spaghetti & meatballs and merlot - YUM!! Then to Mike's Pastry for dessert (cash only!) - got 2 canonlis, pizzelle, tiramisu, eclair, peanut butter cup, raspberry rugalache and some colory bit - woo hoo!

Harbor Cruise which allowed for gorgeous skyline pictures and some nice shots of the USS Constitution.

Walked back to the hotel for a break before heading to a pub on Boylston.

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Tidbits of Learning from Day 2:

* The new John Hancock Building has 10,000+ mirrored panes, each weighing 500lbs.
* Trinity Church is Episcopalian
* The top of the old Hancock building has a light that indicates weather, via a poem:
Steady blue, clear view
Flashing blue, fog is due
Steady red, rain ahead
Flashing read, snow instead (or Sox game is cancelled, in the spring/summer)
* Jacob Wirth Co - oldest German restaurant in the city (country?)....claims to sell 1million pounds of sauerkraut each year
* I-90 will take you all the way to Seattle with no stop lights and 5 tolls.
* Boston Financial District is 2nd only to Wall Street NYC
* The Big Dig was originally set to finish in 1999 at a cost of $3billion. It actually finished in 2008 at a cost of $22billion.
*Institute of Contemporary Art is located at Seaport & Boylston Wharf
* The No Name Restaurant is THE place to eat seafood...located between the two catch drop buildings in the Seaport District
* The Spirit of Boston is a yacht that offers nightly 3 hour dinner and dancing harbor cruises.
* St. Patricks Day is also called Evacuation Day in Boston (peace out to the Brits Day, basically)
* The Brinks Robbery was in 1950. They stole about $1mil. Only about $50K was recovered and the trial/investigation cost nearly $3mil.
* Quincy Market is 2nd only to Disney in # of visitors each year.
* Boston hosts 600,000 locals and 117,000 students.
* 1 of 3 people in Boston is between age 21 and 35....very similar to Seattle.
* New England School of Law (Portia School) was the 1st law school for women. Interestingly, women could practice law, but not vote.
* The Cheers Bar is located at S. Charles & Boylston (more or less).
* General Hooker frequently purchased "ladies of the night" for his soldiers....hence, "hookers".
* Charles St. & Beacon St. - private shopping district for the neighborhood in the 1800s.
* On Cambridge & New Chardon, you can find a combination Dunkin Donuts - sushi bar!
* Massachusetts General Hospital has 900+ patients.....and 23,000 docs and staff.
*The Liberty Hotel is a former prison that was designed so that each cell got as much daylight as possible. Even so, prisoners complained and complained about the living conditions and a few years ago, the prison was shut down. But because it was already on the historical landmark registry, it could not be torn down. So it was turned into a hotel, complete with bars on the windows, with the Presidential Suite running $4000/night.
* From the balcony of the old State House, the Constitution was read for the first time in 1776. In 1976, Queen Elizabeth greeted Bostonians from the balcony again, ending with the statement, "All is forgiven. You may come home." (She's a funny lady, isn't she?)

Boston 2008 - Day 1 - August 4 - Tubulence is a bitch.

7:40am flight...GAAA!!!
Slept most of the way - apparently too tired to function, even after a Dazbog green tea smoothie. Insane turbulence into Atlanta which I hated, but the XM satellite radio (for free!) and Todd made it a bit easier...but not much.

Made it to Boston. Uneventful flight for the most part. We flew over Manhattan, which was unreal. Other than "Friends", I've never seen NYC. Took some picture from the plane...AWESOME!!

Our hotel, Newbury Guest House, is amazing! Right on Newbury Street, which is apparntly the Rodeo Drive of Boston - HOT!. There's a Vera Wang Bridal Store here....WHAT?!?

Samantha, our evening concierge, sent us to Bangkok City for dinner. Best Thai food we've ever had. Mmm! Right across the street from Berklee, so that's rad!

Stopped into a fun cigar store for Todd before heading in for the night.

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Here are some "asides" from after the trip:

1. Yeah, those flights sucked big time. If I never see the inside of Atlanta's airport again, it'll be too soon. I hate routing through there.

2. Cab drivers in Boston are fricking insane. Very "east coast" feeling, I guess.

3. Pedestrians have absolutely zero regard for traffic. Just start walking. Cars will (hopefully) stop for you.

4. Not sure what all the people on Hotels.com had to bitch about regarding Newbury Guesthouse...it was everything we could have wanted...and more.

5. We think that Samantha is a student at Berklee College of Music, which is why she recommended Bangkok City...it's literally across the street from the school.

6. I haaaaaaaate Dazbog coffee. The tea isn't too bad though.

The Boston Blogs

So I've decided to start journaling about every trip that I take...mostly so that I can remember everything as it happens.

My first time with this was Boston...so the next few blogs will chronicle our trip through Bean Town...which was wicked awesome, by the way.