Beth's Contradictory Brain

3 Strange Days

I'm not sure I could accurately tell you the day or time or maybe even where exactly I am right now.

The alarm went off at 3 a.m. Saturday morning for our 6 a.m. flight to Houston. It takes us about 50 minutes to get out the door, about an hour to drive to the airport and park, then the adventure through security and to the gate. I don't think that's so bad.

We landed in Houston about 8:30 a.m. and Nerdstar's sister picked us up from the airport. They wanted an "asian" breakfast; I was holding out for Whataburger at 11. So we headed to some little asian place and they got something - Nerdstar will have to tell you about that.

Around 10:30 her sister's boyfriend met up with us and we headed out for Whataburger. Yummy.

Then it was off to the Houston Rodeo and Livestock show. There was a pretty big carnival and lots and lots and lots of cowboy stuff for sale. We were still too full to eat all the bad for us stuff, so that's probably good.

The rodeo was really cool. It was all of the events instead of just bull riding like the PBR, although those PBR dudes are crazy good at riding bulls. The only downside was that the volume of the speakers in that place was deafening. It gave me a horrible headache. Nerdstar's sister had never been to the rodeo, so it was all really cool.

We decided to leave around 7 to go get a yummy dinner. That's when the fun started. Her sister's car had been hit in the parking lot sometime while we were in there. Wow. As we were walking up all I thought was that someone had better had left some info on the windshield. Yep, the park police had talked to the man and gotten all his info - except of course he doesn't have insurance.

So, she called her insurance and arranged a tow truck. The car wasn't horribly damaged, but half of the front bumper was knocked totally off and was on the pavement. We couldn't get the rest of the bumper off so we could just drive it home. It didn't take the tow truck too long to show up, about an hour. Then another 45 minutes or so later her friend gave us a ride back to the house.

Sad part was no yummy dinner. We went to a Taiwanese place that was too cool for it's own good and the food was just so-so.

Sunday we got up and headed to Rudy's for lunch. Man did that hit the spot. I even got a little blue bell vanilla ice cream sandwich afterward!

Then we headed to a Chinese grocery store for Nerdstar to pick up some stuff to bring home AND a better Taiwanese restaurant, also for things to bring home. We bought a couple of glass containers with good lids for the soup dish and noodle dish. The TSA agent in Houston just smiled as Nerdstar explained it was just a duffel bag full of Chinese food, and thankfully let it all through!

Unfortunately, the bad luck continued for us.

We had a 5:30 flight out of Houston to Chicago then on to DC, getting us home about 2 a.m. It was going to be a long day. We got to the airport about 3:30 and at 4:30 were told the flight would be delayed until 7:30. That meant missing our connection. Over to the customer service desk. Apparently it's harder to travel during spring break than it is Christmas. There were 0 seats available from Houston to DC all day Monday. We didn't think standby would happen. So we were told there was a 4:30 flight Monday afternoon from Chicago to DC they could book us on. Great.

We made it into Chicago at 10:15. Our connecting flight left at 10:19. Nope, no hope of them holding the flight for us.

Finally, at almost midnight we left the terminal with a voucher for a hotel room and a post-it with the 4:30 flight #. That's it. No boarding passes, nothing absolutely stating we were on the flight.

Things got a little better once we wandered around and finally found where to catch the shuttle to the hotel - it was the Crown Plaza in Chicago. The room was super nice and had the best hotel bed I've slept on. I like 'em soft!

We got a good night's sleep and our food vouchers covered a great breakfast buffet at the hotel.

We hit the airport again at 10:30 this morning. An hour later we had boarding passes for the 4:30 flight. I got to looking at them and saw the word "business" - but no actual seat numbers. We went ahead and went through security and asked at the gate. Someone had put us in business class, so she assigned us seats and printed new boarding passes. We were so very happy!

That was the bestest flight ever. Except it was only about an hour and a half. When we do international flights in the future we'll have to sell our kidneys or something to make sure we get business class seats!!

We finally pulled into the driveway at 8:30 tonight. Poor Ramen has to spend another night at the kennel. But that cats are ok with that!!

Austin Recap

We made it back home safe and sound about 1:30 a.m. Poor Nerdstar had to get up and go to work today. I got up and retrieved Ramen from the kennel. He's already all crashed out next to me.

It was a good 48 hours in Austin. Wish we'd had another day. Unlike Nerdstar's, my stomach just can't handle all the food we'd like to eat.

We got in early Saturday evening and went straight to Coco's. It's a little Taiwanese restaurant that Nerdstar really likes because it reminds her of the food she had growing up. Then we did some browsing at Cheapo and down along South Congress. I bought my desk at Off The Wall down on Congress many, many moons ago.

Then, because we'd hate a late lunch/early dinner, we decided we'd just get some Amy's ice cream and wander around Book People for a while.

We love traveling to new places and seeing how life there would be, but as I've said, it's really nice to vacation in a city you know your way around and is familiar.

We love how Austin is so urban and yet so open and country feeling.

They've had a really hot and dry summer. It was at least 99 degrees the three days we were there.

Saturday we got up and headed to Magnolia Cafe for breakfast. MMMMMM is all I'm gonna say about that. Pics of breakfast.

We decided to go check out this hiking/biking trail that has a creek running through it and a natural pooling area to wade around in. We were really sad to see the whole thing was bone dry. We lived in Austin in years where it flooded, so this was something really different to see. Pics of dry creek.

We got all hot and sweaty and so we headed over to Barton Springs - a natural springs they built into a swimming pool area where the water is always 68 degrees. Where the pool overflows and leads down to Town Lake is where people with dogs congregate. Pics.

We had really wanted to see Extract at Alamo Draft House. But due to Mike Judge being a big deal in Austin, all the shows were sold out for Sunday.

Dinner Sunday night was at Hoover's. But Nerdstar was pretty heart broken when they told us they were out of wings. Sigh. It was still a damn good dinner though.

Monday before heading home we wanted to gather up some food to bring back and try to find some art for house. Nerdstar had the bright idea to get some glad containers to bring stuff back on the plane in. Mostly she just ended up bringing back some stuff from CoCo's. We tried going back to get some wings - but they were still out.

We we lucky that Art on 5th St. was open yesterday. They had this really cool collection of Dr. Seuss artwork. Most of them were out of our price range. We did buy a set by this artist - although I don't see pics of the one's we actually got. And we bought one other print. I'll post pics when they're delivered and we get them on the walls. I just really like having original art in the house. Many years ago we bought two paintings that were being "shown" in the little restaurant I waited tables in. I'm still glad I bought them. The new ones will be nice to have, too.

Our last two stops were for food, of course. There's this new to us thing going on in Austin with people using the old, small streamline RV's to sell food. The one - Sushi-A-Go-Go was the one Nerdstar tried. She says it's good sushi! Then it was lunch, or for me dessert, at East Side Cafe.

We were both a little sad to leave. There are at least 25 more restaurants we could name off the top of our heads we wish we'd had time for. And at least another 25 we've never gotten around to, even when we lived there. And we just love the atmosphere of the place. Yes, sometime's it's a little too hip, but it's friendly and laid back and creative. It's a city of dogs and flip flops.

Missing "Home"

We've finally made it back down to Austin for a short visit. Most of our travels are either to visit family or are military related. It's kinda weird to vacation where we used to live. Coming out of the airport it struck me that we actually had to go check into our hotel instead of just going "home." Weird.

Last night I was checking out The Austin Chronicle's website to see what's going on in town this weekend. Man, I had forgotten just how much there really is to do here - and then have been sad realizing just how lame life in the DC suburbs is.

There are at least four or five really good film festivals: SXSW, AGLIFF (gay and lesbian), Jewish, Texas, and Austin - those are just off the top of my head. There's the annual Hot Sauce Festival. Eeyore's Birthday. There's Alamo Draft House and all the crazy movie things they do all the time. The dog parks. Barton Springs. The music venues. Sigh.

I wrote a long time ago I'd rather live among liberals than conservatives because they have more fun things to do. I don't think I've changed my mind on that.

I've also been thinking about the idea of making where I live more like where I want to live. But even the challenge of starting a dog park near our new house seems crazy. It's kinda about the type of people in our "neighborhood". My general feeling is that if they wanted those things they'd already exist.

So, we'll enjoy a couple of days here and do what we can to make our current home as fun as we can.

Road Trippin

I think we're finally recovered from our road trippin. Damn I feel old.

Thursday I got up at 6:30 a.m. and hit the road just after 7. I knew from driving back last time that twelve hours is a long time to sit in car and pay attention. I thought I had gotten enough sleep, but I had to pull over about 9:30 and take a twenty minute nap. Then I was good for most of the trip. I got to the hotel just after 7 pm and checked in. Finally made it to Nerdstar just after 8! Yippee!!

I got to see her barracks and her room. Imagine a dorm built in the 50s and not updated. They're depressing as hell. Most military bases are though. I've never understood why anything on a military base would be run down - they have unlimited manpower. Oh well.

We went to Carrabas for dinner. Poor Nerdstar had to eat chow hall food and MREs way too much for six weeks. (You know, when she wasn't eating turkey legs at a Ren Fair.) One of her commanders said food is a crutch. She should have told him food is necessary - jacking off is a crutch!

She still had more paperwork and things to finish Friday morning. We got up at 6 and were on base at 7:30. I got to meet her roomy and another chick she'd been hanging out with. She finally found some good people to hang out with. If nothing else, she made a couple of new friends through all this.

She finally cleared post about 11:30 and we were starving so we hit a Cracker Barrel for lunch. Love their biscuits!

So we kinda got a late start on really getting on the road. I knew we'd be lucky to get home by 1 am. We made a couple of stops at rest stops for us and Ramen to pee. I love rest stops - simple and functional. For dinner we went to this place called the Penguin in Charlotte. It was a cool little dive and made me miss Austin.

About 11:30 I literally couldn't focus my eyes on the road anymore. We were both pretty tired. We'd drive a while then pull over and close our eyes for a few. Nerdstar drove the next to last hour and a half or so. I finished up the final thirty minutes. It was about 2:10 when we walked in the door.

Then I woke up about 8 am yesterday. Ugh. We went and got some ok Chinese food and did some grocery shopping. Now that we've got a good kitchen, I guess we need to learn to cook even better.

We spent a lot of the afternoon, putting together that kitchen island I ordered. We worked together really well on it - which is an improvement for us.

Today is Wal-Mart and getting a few more things done around the house. And, of course, more snuggling on the sofa.

I'm so glad to have her back home with me!

Back in The South

I grew up in the middle of the DFW metroplex. Dallas was 17 miles one direction, Ft. Worth was 15 miles the other. Not that we went to either one other than on field trips or something. But still, they were there. My schools were diverse. My neighbors were somewhat diverse. The radio stations were fantastic. I consider myself a Texan, not so much a Southerner.

This is our second time driving the highways between DC and Georgia. In Oct. '99 we took a month long road trip from Austin to Toronto. I'd never been to any of the major cities on the East Coast. It was a fantastic trip. I loved driving through the Carolinas, they are so beautiful. Then we'd stop in some small town to get gas and the cashier would often be missing a couple of teeth.

Driving through the Carolinas yesterday, we would scan the AM/FM dials and see what was out there. Apparently, there are pretty much four kinds of radio stations - Christian, Country, Oldies and Easy Listening. Heh. Within five minutes I heard references to Satan on two different stations. Within thirty minutes we heard a caller on a station talking about handling snakes in church. I swear. Cracked us up. There is also a plethora of outdoor/hunting/fishing stores.

I also grew up Southern Baptist. I've got no problem with church goin' folks. It's still been strange to be so inundated with religion the past 48 hours. There were no less than seven stations broadcasting church services on the tv this morning. Can I just say that I'd be much more wiling to listen if they spoke like normal people instead of this over the top preacher style.

I do love the way the South is much more friendly and laid back. We stopped in Charlotte at Price's Chicken Coop for some really good fried chicken. The place was take-out only, so we opened up the back of the Matrix and ate in the parking lot. Nice!

We've traveled a lot the past several years. We spend a lot of time talking about where we'd really enjoy living. I don't think we've found it yet.

Weekend Getaway

Some friends of ours have had a tradition of heading up to Skyland Resort in the Shenandoah Mountains for their last night of the season, and they invited us to tag along.

We met up with them yesterday afternoon and went hiking for about an hour or so. They have a dog, Daisy, that looks something like Ramen and they get along really well. For the first time, we let Ramen off his leash during the hike and he was just wonderful! Poor dog, he's 9 years old and finally having some fun in his life!

We drove up to the resort from there in the dark, so we didn't really get to enjoy all the views. They have a decent restaurant up there, although, it being their last night before closing until April, they were out of some stuff. Then there were local bluegrass (sorta/mostly) musicians.

We knew it was supposed to be rainy today, and at that elevation I was hoping for snow. Instead we woke up to ice everywhere and the roads within, and up to, the resort were closed. Uh oh.

Thankfully, after a decent breakfast, they said it looked like things would clear enough for us to all get out of there around noon. It did and we did and it was even a nice drive home considering I'm sure there is going to be a lot more traffic in our neck of the woods and the night goes on.

We'll probably head back up there in the early summer.

Good and Bad Luck

We had a really nice time this getaway weekend.

Traffic getting out of DC at 2 on Friday afternoon was crazy, but we made it to hear Kevin Smith in Red Bank, NJ just about on time. He did a Q&A for over four hours. It was cool to watch and hear him in person after listening to his podcasts for a while now. The theater was hot though, and that sucked. What sucked even more was that grown ass people were not able to sit in their damn seats and kept getting up to go pee, drink, jack off, whatever. It was annoying.

Then it was off to Atlantic City

We left home with $440 (the $40 for tolls and such while driving) and we came home with $430 or so. So the only thing this trip cost was the price of the hotel room, which was paid online a month ago, so doesn't feel like lost money.

We had terrible luck to start yesterday at the craps table. Then I spent two hours playing poker and ended up $10 ahead. I started with $200, was up to maybe $350, down to about $75, so was very happy to end up with $210!

Then we played some more craps and I got extremely lucky. Nerdstar started it off by hitting an 11 when I needed her to. Then, there's a bet called high/low which is the two and twelve. It pays 30 to 1. I put five dollars on each a couple of times and HIT twice in 3 rolls. That's $145 for essentially a $10 bet - twice. Crazy!!

I went from $100 to over $500. Cool. So we went to the buffet!

Unfortunately, over dinner I realized that they had only paid me $75 for each of those hits instead of $145. Fuck. We went back over to the tables and talked to the pit boss. He ended up giving me a $100 comp voucher. I figured that was fair enough since I was partly responsible. I should have been paying more attention to the payouts. He said that although it said it was valid for 24 hours, whenever we came back they'd issue a current one.

Overnight, when I couldn't sleep on the board stiff bed, I got to thinking about the voucher and such.

None of the restaurants we could drop $100 on dinner and be happy with would even be open before we wanted to start driving back. Uh oh. And I wasn't convinced they'd honor a 24 hour voucher months from now.

Because we were even on $, we had the $400 we started with, I figured what the hell. We'll go get some breakfast, see what's up with the voucher, and gamble a little more.

Good thing. The casino restaurant said that whatever portion of the comp not used was "lost". No change given. Ugh. So we went back to talk with a different pit boss. We ended up with $50 comp for today, and one in the system for next time we're there. That worked out ok.

Then we had shit luck at blackjack and roulette. At first we didn't have good luck at craps either. Then, I got totally lucky and hit that same $145 bet TWICE again! Unbelievable.

That's how we broke even.

I'm very happy to be home and about to sleep in our nice, comfy bed!!

Snuggle Weather

Perfect snuggle weather has moved in. It's cold and windy and raining. And it intends to stay that way through Sunday.

Alas, Nerdstar has a very early flight to Houston tomorrow morning. Sigh.

Fortunately for her, her grandpa's house finally got power back the other day.

Nerdstar's Take

Here's her entry about her trips.

Monterey Pics

I didn't post too many, but here's a good sample of our views last week.

Safe and Sound

We both made it home today!! My second flight of the day was delayed about 40 minutes, but hey, that's pretty good these days. But please, remind me to never fly on the weekend during the summer when every kid in the country is also flying. Not that the kids I saw were misbehaving, I'd just rather they weren't all over the place.

It's still weird to me to be on one side of the country this morning, and be on the other tonight.

I'd much rather still be on the other side. Yes, the west coast is entirely too liberal, but damn it's pretty and has perfect weather.

Feelin Monterey

We were last here about 3 years ago. It was the same sort of deal, Nerdstar had classes and I spent 3 days wandering around, watching waves. I easily found my way back to my favorite places this morning. Nice.

There is nothing like standing and seeing sky meet water meet earth - all in shades of grey. It's amazing how loud water crashing over land can be, and how soothing the sound.

My hair could not be more curly.

Sea lions lying on rocks - endless amusement.

Monterey is totally dog friendly, too bad Ramen isn't here. Although we're pretty sure he'd be totally terrified of the waves.

Travel Woes

Yesterday was a damn long day. It started with me arriving at the airport about 8:30 a.m. for a 10:10 departure that, of course didn't happen. At 10 they said they'd update us at 10:15, at 10:15 they said they'd update us at NOON. WTF? They actually told us about 10:40 the flight had been cancelled - mechanical problems. Great. So I ran back upstairs to the ticketing place and was put on a 2:15 flight through Chicago. My original arrival time is SF was going to be about 6 p.m., now I was looking at 8 p.m. That flight left a little late, but I made my connection in Chicago in plenty of time. Of course, there was no way things were about to start going smoothly. We left the gate on time, but then sat on the runway for about 40 minutes. Apparently some big storms popped up in the middle of the country we had to go up and over - meaning we had to take the long way. Fantastic. I finally made it to SF about 9 p.m. (midnight for my body clock). Then we had a two hour drive down to Monterey which I'm sure was beautiful in the daylight.

I swear airlines really just don't want people to fly anymore. I'm not at all optimistic that Saturday will go any better. Fortunately/unfortunately, Nerdstar and I are on different airlines coming home. Maybe one of us will make it home on time.

But, I'm here and it's really, really good to see my Nerdstar!! She's in class until about 4 every day, so I am going to drive around and find a nice spot on a beach to watch the waves and maybe sea lions.

It's nice and cool and foggy this morning. I love it.

On Vacation!!

This evening I'm taking Ramen over to our friends' house, they have a dog a lot younger than Ramen who looks a lot like him. He'll be sufficiently worn out when we rescue him next weekend; he might even be happy to see us.

I'll be traveling all day tomorrow. 10 am flight outta here, 3 hour layover in Dallas, then the two hour drive from SF to Monterey. At least the two hour drive will be nice for catching up with my girl!!

The high temp will be 65 while I'm there. So nice! I truly intend to spend the afternoons watching the waves come and go.

One way or another we'll have internet access.

Be good. I'll check in on you all later.

Quiet Weekend

I knew it would be. I did manage to take Ramen to the park yesterday, but it must have been too hot. There was only one other dog there and Ramen didn't run around too much before lying around. I really can't tell if he misses Nerdstar, sometimes he acts weird, but he's a weird dog. He's going to spend next week with our friends with the younger dog, hopefully he enjoys it. At least he'll have more excitement than usual.

Nerdstar made it from Hawaii to Monterey today. She was supposed to fly out yesterday, but ended up having some loose ends to take care of. It was a very long two weeks for her. At least she'll be settled in before I get there Tuesday. Tuesday's a long day for me travel wise. Just over a three hour layover in Dallas, ugh. Oh well.

Nerdstar's rental car is a convertible - way cool! We fly out of SF early Saturday morning, so we might spend Friday night there instead of Monterey. Who knows.

Saw Batman today. Wow. There wasn't a bad actor in the movie, they were all amazing. I think it would take a second viewing to really get my head around all of the ideas it made me think about, but I'm not sure it's one I'm in a hurry to see again.

On Again

The trip was nice. We had a few delays with both flights, but we got where we were going on the day we planned, so it wasn't too terrible. We mostly hung around and ate and got caught up on sleep. Yesterday we took the kid to play putt putt and it was great because no one else was there.

I got to introduce my mother to more of the internet, and set her up with a gmail account. She also has links to LOLCats and dlisted and some other tv related websites. And really - isn't that all anyone really needs?

I've got a sore throat today from the plane. Ugh. Nothing worse than lots of recycled air.

Off Again

We're flying out to Dallas in a couple of hours - down to the heat of hell. But at least we'll get some good meals and some time with the nephew.

Back on Monday, will blog Tuesday. Have a great weekend and Happy Mother's Day to all the great moms out there!!

Must Read

Nerdstar wrote a really great entry about her trip to Taiwan for her father's funeral over there.

Rainy Day

For the record... Rice Krispy treats are crack.

My girl is finally stateside and has made it from Seattle to DFW. Now if she can make the final trip home she'll get here about 1:30 in the morning. Fun. At least she can sleep all day tomorrow while I work.

Lonely Nights

My poor Nerdstar is about two hours into a 14 hour flight. I don't envy her at all. Plus, she didn't have time between flights to get a good meal. I did make sure we packed her up with some snacks, but my poor girl needs her food!

The timing didn't work out so that I could go with her - and really that's ok. When it comes to her family it's usually better if she deals with them on her own.

I spent my evening watching the new Ani Difranco dvd Live At Babeville. It's pretty good.

Well. I'm 40 now. Seems strange. 30 was a tumultuous time and seems like so long ago - mostly. This just might actually be the year the house and baby happen. If so I won't feel so bad about 40.

Whirlwind!!

Life just keeps coming. And while that's a good thing, really, it can be kind of exhausting.

Yes, it's 1:30 a.m. and Nerdstar is packing for her flight to Taiwan tomorrow at 11:30 a.m.

We had planned to go down to Asheville, NC and visit some friends, hang out, do some shopping for our birthdays. (The coolest part of having birthdays two days apart is taking trips to celebrate them!)

Those plans fell through and I thought, what the heck, let's go lose a few hundred bucks in Atlantic City. IF we had left for Asheville Wednesday night as I'd thought would be good, it would have ended up being bad.

Early Thursday morning before we left for AC, Nerdstar checked her email and found out that they were planning on cremating her father on Tuesday in Taiwan - which is 12 or 13 hours ahead of us. (If we'd been on our way to Asheville she might have gotten those emails too late to book a flight out.) Then after a phone call or two, she found out that it's actually on Monday.

Amazingly, she was able to make some phone calls while I was driving and arranged her flights from DC to Taiwan and back - and will get there Sunday night.

It wasn't the best of timing for us for a few reasons. She had thought it'd be at least another week or two before she had to fly over there. But that's how it goes. The important thing is her and her sister (who flew over today) will get to do these last things for their father.

And We're Off

It's been a crazy week around here. Plans and situations have been pretty fluid.

Today we're off to Atlantic City for a couple of days to do some eating and gambling. Then we'll see what next week brings.

Fun

We had a short little weekend getaway to NJ this weekend. A few weeks back I read about this production of MacBeth on Neil Gaiman's website and thought it would be cool to go. It was! It was really well produced and the acting was adequate.

Then this afternoon we went to Kevin Smith's Secret Stash comic books store. Since he started doing podcasts we've become even bigger fans. He holds poker events there that we hope to go to soon.

The weather even cooperated today and although the winds were really bad, that was the only bad for our drive.

I'm not feelin the love for another week of work, but we'll see how it goes this week.

Hope your weekend was as fun!

Home Again

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and are recovering nicely from it all!!

We had a good trip - the flights there and back went very smoothly. We had a great time being bossed around by The Kid. We spent almost all day Sunday out at Six Flags Holiday at the Park - other than it being about 40 degrees out, it was a lot of fun. We rode a few rides and ate funnel cake. He loved all his presents. Of course, Nerdstar and I get him the best ones :-)

We had tons of good food. And this year I finally got to really surprise my parents - we bought them a computer. Not that they're quite in the internet age yet, but at least they're closer.

Then we had to take The Kid ice skating again. It's always fun to watch everyone trying to skate.

The only icky part was that I was perfectly healthy when I got on the plane home last night, and when I got off I was all kinds of sick. Not fun. All those recycled germsn - yuck!!

We've heard that Ramen had a lot of fun, we go pick him up later tonight. The cats won't be so happy about that, but oh well.

Again, I hope you and yours had a good time, and that your bank accounts aren't too terribly empty!!

Closer

No, not the NIN song that the Asylum Street Spankers cover oh so well...

yeah, that's my random brain at work.

Nevermind.

She made it from Seattle to Chicago - and the flight from Chicago to DC is a little delayed, so technically she won't make it home today. Maybe by 1 a.m.

As Val realized in the comments - no, I'm not a patient person. I think for a while God tried to beat some patience into me, but I don't think it took. And almost nine years into this relationship, I've also learned I'm pretty darn selfish. I know all these travel nightmares must be really, really tough on poor Nerdstar. If it were me instead, I'd be killing people with my bare hands! But knowing that doesn't keep me from being more pissy and frustrated than sympathetic. At least I'm a self-aware jerk...

Again

Nerdstar's stuck at SeaTac airport - something about planes not coming in from SF and a shortage of outbound flights to the East Coast. She was due to get home around midnight tonight - now she'll be lucky to fly out at midnight Seattle time.

Ugh.

Still

Nerdstar had to head back to Seattle for more Army shit today - and once again the travel gods hate her. She almost missed her flight this morning due to people in the DC area absolutely not being able to drive in simple rain. It's bad to the point of absurdity. Anyway. I knew it was going to rain this morning and told her to add an hour to her estimated drive time - so she made it just in time.

She was supposed to have a brief layover in Chicago - but the plane was broken, she it ended it being a bit longer.

I'm happy to say she did actually make it to Seattle today.

But, she found out the meeting stuff she thought would be Saturday will actually be ass early tomorrow. No sleep for her.

Keep your fingers crossed she makes it home before Monday morning.

Unbelievable!

Unfuckingbelievable!!!

Ok, so Nerdstar finally got the army to let her get out of Seattle - but apparently everyone in Seattle is leaving because she got bumped from her damn flight!

I have no idea why the travel gods hate her - but they evidently do.

Unless a miracle happens - and there's no way it will - she's now supposed to fly out at 6 a.m. tomorrow.

A Trip In Food

Here are the photos of all the places we ate on our trip. Just putting this post together made us both want to cry.

Start here at Whataburger and work your way up...

Safe and Sound

We made it home - although I don't think DC will ever feel like "home." It was a good trip, but it had some disappointments. The Kid was scheduled to spend this weekend at his mother's - so we didn't really get to see him until this afternoon right before flying out.

All the food was good, as was the trip in general. I'll try to post the pics and a better entry tomorrow.

Outta Here

The day we've been waiting for is soon to arrive... we're flying to Texas tomorrow around noon!!!

We've been counting down the days!

We fly into Dallas tomorrow, then rent a car and drive to Austin Saturday morning and return to Dallas Sun. night to spend a couple of days with The Kid. We don't return to DC until Tues. night.

We'll try to take pics of the food. But I don't think we'll have internet access on this trip.

Have a safe and happy, happy long weekend!!

Fun

We didn't have any luck at the gambling tables in AC, but we had a lot of fun.

We got there about 6:30 or so Saturday night and I almost got into a fight with the front desk lady at the hotel. We booked through Hotels.com and the place said it was pet friendly. I had a feeling they were going to charge extra for Ramen dog, and I was right. But when she asked what size of dog he was I thought, uh oh. I said he was medium sized. Then she asked if I had a crate for him. I was getting pissy because we had already paid more than I thought was reasonable for the room. So it ended up costing another $30 a night for Ramen. Bleh.

We went over to one of the casinos for a buffet dinner. It was decent. Then we quickly lost our gambling money for the evening and went to bed!

We had hoped to take Ramen down to the beach, but NJ says no dogs are allowed. Bleh. I don't think he was too unhappy sleeping on the hotel bed all day seeing as how he never gets to sleep on the bed at home.

We had a blast down at the beach. The waves were not too big, but they knocked us around a few times. One time I bumped my nose into someone and it bled for a while. I was surprised I didn't lose my contacts.

It was fun feeling like a kid again. But, we didn't put our spray on sun screen on very well - and now we're both sunburned in odd patterns. I hate being sunburned.

Sunday night we went to dinner at Ruth's Chris. We'd never been there before and steak sounded good. It was our first over $100 dinner tab for just the two of us - and that's without alcohol. It was some good food. Then we gambled and lost some more.

I did get to play some poker, and I played pretty well, but it was a slow table and I didn't really win any.

Monday we went to a noodle house and had a really good brunch. Hopefully we can find a noodle house like that here in DC.

Then we drove home.

What's funny to me is that while playing in the ocean made us both feel like kids at the time - it's also made us feel our ages since.

Atlantic City

I've got to work from 8 am to noon tomorrow, then we're off to Atlantic City until Monday night! Woohoo!!!

We're ready for some casino action and some beach action. We're gonna take Ramen to the beach for the first time - we're pretty sure he'll be scared of the waves.

Not sure I'll post while we're gone.

Good Weekend

It's been a pretty good weekend. I get frustrated at how tired my job leaves me. I'd love to go to four days a week, but I don't think I'll actually do it anytime soon.

Yesterday we took Ramen to the park again. It seems we attract women there with their kids and dogs who want to tell us all about their lives. It's almost interesting - but not really.

Then we went to see Evan Almighty. Nerdstar's a big fan of Bruce Almight, and we thought it looked fun. We both liked it. I've read it's not getting great reviews - so I really hope it finds it's audience. It's a sweet movie with a message that's good to hear, but doesn't beat you over the head.

Today we got brave and decided to drive up to Baltimore and see if we could find some decent seafood. The seafood we found wasn't anything to write home about (or I guess to really blog about). But we had fun people watching down at the touristy harbour. We didn't even get terribly lost.

And can I just say that now I understand why people enjoy summertime. I can't believe how nice the weather here is.

Traveling and Birthdays

We had a really nice weekend visiting my family. The travels all went smoothly, although I'm not sure I'll opt for the 6:25 a.m. flight again. We had to get up way too early!

It was great to spend time with The Kid again. I wish we could see him a lot more often! I posted a couple of pics on my photo blog. And I just can't tell you how much he loves Nerdstar - it's so cute. But that also means he bosses her around and won't let her out of his site all weekend.

We got to eat some Whatburgers and at Salt Grass - so life was very good. We always wish we had more days to eat more meals when we're in Texas!!

Now, I think we're both ready to get settled into our new life in DC. Just a few more boxes to unpack, groceries to buy, things like that.

Dallas

We're headed to Dallas at some ungodly hour in the morning to go see The Kid for his birthday. Although, he's been insisting for weeks he's already six.

You know me, I'm just looking forward to the Whataburgers!! It's our first stop before home on the way from the aiport to the house.

With all the craziness of the past month, traveling seems a little more tiring than usual. It'll be well worth it though!

Back on Tuesday...

Like Clockwork

My poor Nerdstar. I don't know anyone who has worse luck flying than she does.

I knew yesterday there was supposed to be really bad weather in Dallas today. Of course, Nerdstar's flight from San Diego to DC was supposed to go through - Dallas. She tried getting her flight changed, but for some reason the travel people arranging things for her for this Army stuff couldn't get it done.

Now, well, she's stuck in Odessa, Texas.

You all know how much we love Texas. Not Odessa. It's an icky little town in the middle of nowhere.

After way too many hours sitting on the plane, they finally let them off the plane. This is one of those good news/bad news things. Good in that she's not stuck it a little seat surrounded by other people and starving. (She did say there was a Pizza Hut exec on the plane, and while they were sitting there and sitting there, a bunch of pizzas were delivered. That was cool.) Bad in that I guess that means they've given up on getting the plane to a bigger city where she would have some hope of actually getting a flight to DC before the sun comes up in the morning. With all the real cities in Texas, I'm just not sure why a major airline would divert to somewhere like Odessa.

She had to call her manager to let her know she probably won't make it in tomorrow. She also called her Army unit and they're supposed to extend her orders to cover getting paid for sitting on a plane all day.

Not fun. I was all ready for snuggle time tonight!

UPDATE: She finally made it to DFW after midnight and had to sleep in the airport.

She's on a plane back to DC now and should be here early this afternoon.

Weekend

Early last week I told Nerdstar we had to DO something for the weekend.

Fortunately, the weather was great and we went to DC to see a friend of hers from her soldier days in Iraq and went to the zoo. We got to eat some Greek food for lunch and then sushi for dinner.

But, we're such old people. Between getting up at 7:30, driving to DC, walking around all day, driving back in a terrible fog, getting to bed after 3 a.m., and the time change - all we did yesterday was sleep!!

I was hoping we'd find out last week whether we were moving in the next few weeks or not. Then she was supposed to find out today - I've got my fingers crossed, but still not sure when any decisions will be made.

Alone Again

Today I'm taking Nerdstar to the airport. She's going to Houston to visit her family for the Chinese New Year. I hope she has a good time, but I'm also sad and frustrated at being left here in no-where-ville.

We'll see if I do any house cleaning, or just veg out to an even higher degree while she's gone. My days seem to consist of blog reading, watching way too much tv, and some free online poker.

I'd thought about going to Atlantic City for a couple of days to play some real poker, but I'm not sure the weather would be the best for driving this weekend. Besides, it wouldn't really be much fun without Nerdstar, and I'd have to find a place to stay that would take Ramen dog.

At least the weather is going to warm up soon. This weekend, although it's supposed to snow another 3 - 5 inches, it will at least be in the 20s. Then next week we're actually going to be above freezing! Woohoo. We'll be tempted to run around naked!

Back

The snow was coming down pretty heavy when we left home for DC Tuesday afternoon. We live on the snowy side of the mountains, so once we got far enough east of here, the weather and roads were nice.

Nerdstar had hoped to meet up with a friend of hers who lives in Alexandria Tuesday night, but phone problems and other plans got in the way. We ended up having dinner with Nerdstar's remote boss. It was interesting, although it didn't make Nerdstar feel any more love for this job.

Wednesday morning Nerdstar had the big meeting she was there for. Then about 3 we headed to a big mall to find some dinner and maybe some shoes. While Nerdtsar has at least 30 pair of shoes (after me having given away at least 20 in the past few years), I need a pair for rainy/light snowy weather. The mall had a LL Bean store that had just what I wanted. We got a decent meal and then headed home.

The lovely Holiday Inn we stayed at didn't allow pets, so this was the first road trip Ramen didn't go with us. We were both a little sad that he had to spend a night at home without us. We talked our land lady (who lives one street over) to come and walk the dog while we were gone. But because we told her we only have one cat - to save $25 dollars a month on rent - we had to put the cats up in the attic while we were gone. Their food and litter box is always up there, but this deprived them of our warm bed on a very cold night. Next time we'll make sure we stay somewhere that allows pets. (These reservations were made through her office.)

There's still about 3 inches of snow on the ground here, and more supposed to fall tomorrow and Saturday.

The house we're renting has central heat and air, and no fireplace, so it tends to stay pretty cold. Just another reason we're not thrilled with life here.

And back again

I made it back home with no travel hassles yesterday. I've never had to fly home for Thanksgiving before, so I was a little worried. But even flying out of DFW and into Pittsburgh yesterday, neither airport had that many people it.

Well, the rest of the stay at the folks' was decent. My zen kicked back in. I even went to the mall Saturday to get out of the house for a while. I thought I might pick up a new cell phone, but that didn't happen. Mine works just fine, but there's a crack next to the antennae.

I decided to check out a movie. I'd like to see Babel, but I thought it might be a little on the sad side. So, I decided to give The Fountain a try. I can not tell you how much it sucked. They've sold it as a love story through the ages. It is no such thing. It's a convoluted mess that barely makes sense. Bad, very bad. And it was dark and gloomy. Oh well.

Holiday Travels

I'm about to begin my day long trek to see the family. The weather is a little nicer this morning than I anticipated, which is a good thing. But there should be a few snow showers to drive thru today. For now that's still novel enough to be fun!

It's a two hour drive to the airport. I should get there a couple of hours early, then it's a 3 hour flight. Then... Whataburger!

A week is about four days longer than my normal stay, but it'll be nice to hang with The Kid, eat some good food, and generally spend time in civilization.

Nerdstar's got a couple more days of work before heading to Jersey, where there will be no good food or fun :-)

Update: I made it to the airport with a couple of hours to spare. The Pittsburgh airport is really, really quiet this afternoon - which is a good thing for me I guess. Thankfully, the airport has free wi-fi and I found a plug to plug in the laptop. Web surfing and iPod listening in an airport, twenty years ago I wouldn't have had any idea what those words meant. Hell, maybe even fifteen.

Road Trippin

Nerdstar had the day off from work yesterday AND it was a nice, sunny day (the only one in the forcast for the next seven days) so we decided to head over to Pittsburgh for dinner. I also wanted to check out the drive over before having to drive to the airport next week.

It took us just over 2 hours to drive 80 miles. Huh? In Texas it takes an hour to drive 80 miles :-)

We found out just how out in the middle of nowhere we actually live. The drive was almost all two lane highways, and half of it was under construction - that's what really made the drive frustrating. At least the scenery around here is really nice. I'm already looking forward to many motorcycle rides in the spring and summer.

We live 26 miles away from the nearest major highway, and it's not always heading we were want to go.

I'm looking at a couple of altnernate routes for the drive to the airport next week. One involves driving the 26 miles out of the way to get to the real highway. The other is shorter and closer, but starts the first 1/3 of the trip off on more of those two lane highways.

Next time I/we have to fly, it just might be worth the extra cost to fly from our small town to Pittsburgh.

Oh yeah, dinner was good. We went to Station Square down on the river in downtown Pittsburgh. It was nice, but I think The West End in Dallas is a little more fun.

Bleh

The little day trip to DC wasn't really all that great.

Nerdstar and I are both terribly disappointed - we didn't even get a good meal out of the trip! Now, we both realize that food is much, much more important to us than to most people. We talk about restaurants and grocery stores in Austin as if we're talking about old friends we've left behind. But still...

The couple we tripped with are much younger than us, they're both in their very early 20s. And we're not sure the guy is all that nice to his g/f.

One of the more amusing/frustrating parts of the trip was the guy and his directions/driving. He was so stereotypical as to be amusing. But, the last part of our drive last night was in some pretty serious fog and he had me a little scared.

It was nice to be in a real, grown up city for a day. The main reason I tagged along yesterday was to get a feel for just how long the drive from here to DC would be and how often we'd feel like making it.

Nerdstar has a three day weekend this weekend, and I think the weather will improve, so hopefully we'll go find some good food!!

Simply Cursed

I'm not sure I can, in good faith, allow Nerdstar to fly anywhere ever again.

After having been all kinds of delayed on her flights to and from Japan, she had to fly again yesterday and today for a job interview in PA (which I'll let her tell you all about).

Not only was one of her flights cancelled yesterday, resulting in her driving instead of flying from Pittsburg to the middle of nowhere PA, but flying home today one of the flights was running too late for her to make her connecting flight - so she had to do all sorts of scrambing to find another flight home. Thankfully she won't be home too much later than she was originally going to be, but wow, this is getting absurd!!

Very Bad DejaVu

Just like on her flight over to Japan, Nerdstar's been stuck in Chicago.

Her 3 pm flight was cancelled - who knows why - fuckin United. So now it's after 9 pm and she thinks she'll be on a 10 pm flight home. Bleh.

So you know what that means, right? She didn't get to go to the buffet tonight like she wanted, and I had to walk the dog again.

Update: 11:18 pm - now that Nerdstar should actually be in the air in route - there are massive thunder storms all around KC. Great. They've got 45 minutes to blow on through so they can land. Doubtful...

arigato

Nerdstar says her goodbyes to Japan.

Just a little more waiting

About midnight my time, Nerdstar will be getting on a plane and heading back home to me. I think as of right now she's probably on the 3 hour bus ride to the airport.

As for me, between now and picking her up at the airport, I've got to be at work at 7:30 (an hour and a half earlier than usual) and on top of that - it's just me and the manager working the first hour and a half - fun! I'm literally praying no patients come through the door during that time! It's going to be a long 5 hours at work before hitting the door.

I told Nerdstar that I'm so very, very glad she's coming home on a Friday afternoon so we have all weekend together, but that it also means I don't have the energy to get the house all cleaned before she gets here. In the three hours between leaving work and picking her up at the airport, I have to at least wrap her welcome home presents!

I'm ready to have my snuggle bunny home with me again. I certainly hope she's as tired of her being away from home as I am!

Bleh

Nerdstar made it to Houston today. Tomorrow they'll spend getting everything ready for the funeral on Saturday. Then she'll have a few days to spend with Grandpa before heading back to Japan on Wednesday.

It's frustrating not being there with her. But her family just really wouldn't want me there. And this just isn't one of those situations where you make waves and make points about things. It just seems wrong that she's going through such an important event in her life, and I feel like I'm only peripherally involved.

Not much else going on other than that. I'm ready for her to be home. Mostly because it sucks having to do everything by myself. As I've said before, I could never be a single mother. It almost takes more energy than I have these days to come home from work at feed the pets and walk the dog and cook some dinner. The only good thing is that at least there's no time table to deal with. I do it all whenever I get my butt up to do it.

Well, ok, and I really miss snuggle time!

Home

It's always so nice to be home again!! The cats survived. I worry about them the whole long drive home. The neighbor guy was really sweet and had the litter boxes clean before I got home - that's way above and beyond the call of duty!

Well, the trek home only took a couple of days... the 3 hour bus ride from Camp Zama to the airport. Tokyo's Narita airport is really nice. Of course, I had us get there way too early, so we had time to hang out before I had to head to the plane. The flight home was only 11 hours, instead of the 13 to get there. They took a more direct flight over the ocean. I was thankful! It seems it's pretty impossible for me to sleep on flights. If I ever had a 10+ hour flight again, it's tylenol pm for me. So, I was awake for 24 hours for the second time in a week. I went to bed about 6:30 last night and woke up at 11:30, 1:30 and then for good this morning at 8:30. Then it was time for the 9 hour drive. I was happy it was a cloudy slightly rainy day to drive instead of unrelenting sunshine.

The cats are going to be clingy for a few days, but that's ok with me.

Now I start the countdown until Nerdstar gets her butt back home - 45 more days.

I think I got comments working again - feel free to leave some.

Last Day

I'm sad to be ending this trip. Today is my last full day here at Camp Zama with Nerdstar, tomorrow I begin the long trek home. There's the 3 hour bus ride to the airport, then the 13 hour flight to Dallas, then I'm hoping to make the 9 hour drive back to KC on Sunday. I don't have to be back at work until Tuesday, so I need to be back home Monday to get things like taking the mail off hold and some grocery shopping done before then.

I'm also sad to leave Nerdstar here. She should be coming home with me!

This has to have been my best vacation ever, though it's hard to pin point exactly why. Somehow over the past several weeks I've found a new patience in life, a new state of zen for lack of a better term. I have no idea why or how, but I'm very, very thankful for it. It's made me a much better traveler - as only Nerdstar can testify!

And while it's extremely unlikely we'll ever make our way back to Japan and Tokyo, I've truly enjoyed being here. I decided it doesn't matter to me if the politness is false (and I wouldn't say I'm convinced it is), it's still better than rudeness as a way of dealing with strangers.

I'm sorry I haven't found a way to get comments allowed. It seems to be all or nothing - either I turn part of MT blacklist off and get tons of spam emails, or I leave it on and it doesn't allow any. I'll try to look into it more when I'm back home. Always feel free to email any comments!

Days 5 and 6

Tuesday was our last day in Tokyo and we were both sad to leave. We spent the morning trying to see the Imperial Palace, but weren't successful. I think if we'd done a little research on tours of it before heading over we might have had luck, but oh well.

It took us quite a while to travel back to Camp Zama. Our subway train was delayed about 25 or so minutes, apparently there was an accident in the subway system, but we never did read or hear anything about it in the news.

It's so hard to really describe Tokyo. I know we barely scratched the surface of such a big city. The obvious comparisons are between New York City and Tokyo, but there are many differences as well. Tokyo doesn't have the frantic feel to it, even though it's probably more densly populated.

I do know one thing, if I were to live here for a year without a car, I'd lose tons of weight! We walked miles and miles around various parts of the city. Not to mention all the steps up and down getting into and out of subway stations.

I think it was actually more relaxing not speaking the language. I didn't have to tune out news or conversations and such. But we both love watching Japanese tv! Even without understanding a word it's very entertaining.

Nerdstar had to be back at work yesterday, so I'm spending a couple more days here at Zama with her before heading back home. I always worry about the cats when I'm gone for this long.

It's been interesting being here the past 24-48 hours with all the North Korea missle mess going on. It certainly puts it in a different perspective being where the missles could actually reach!

It's also interesting being 14 hours ahead of the US.

Days 3 and 4

Two more very long, humid days here in Tokyo. We have mastered the subway system, thankfully.

Yesterday was a nice breakfast, laundry, then we headed to this seven floor megastore for everything possible. Prices here are the same or maybe a little higher, the big difference is all the millions of choices. If there were 20 digital cameras for sale, there were 200! There is no shame in crass commercialism here!

From there we ended up at the huge intersection in Shibuya, the one shown on various travel shows. It really was something to see. We sat there for quite a while and watched it all mesmerized!

This morning we had an adventure trying to get more cash. We are both a little surprised at how many places are cash only here. I have gotten so used to never carrying cash. Because our bank in the US is just a credit union in Austin, our pulse atm card just will not work anywhere. Thankfully, there was a bank in a different part of town that we could get a cash advance from Nerdstar's credit card.

That taken care of, we found ourselves in a Roppongi, a cool part of town. It had this tall tower that had a museum at the top and a Pixar artwork exhibition that was really neat. Then we had a Chinese lunch.

Our biggest adventure of the day was finding a public bath house and going. It's just what it sounds like - a public bath. Yep, we got naked around a bunch of other women and sat in the hottest water ever! It was oddly refreshing. It was in an apparently ritzy neighborhood. I have never seen so many really expensive cars drive by in such a short amount of time.

One of the coolest things about Tokyo is that it just seems endless. If you never tired of walking, there would still be too many streets with too many wonderful little shops to look in.

Other than that, it's the land of skinny, skinny people and very impractical footware!

More to come from Camp Zama!

Day Two

It's been another good, long day here. I woke up about 6:30, Nerdstar about 7:30. Japan's oldest zoo is in the park a few blocks from our hotel, so that is where we headed today. It was a lovely zoo. And instead of seeing lions having sex, today it was the tigers! Then we wandered over to these streets that have all kinds of little vendors.

So far it has been easy enough getting around everywhere. Most signs and such are in English as well as Japanese, but good map reading skills come in very handy!

I'm glad to be at least a little used to humidy, although this rivals even Houston! It rains a little most days, but it's not too bad.

I keep thinking I should find it more strange being the only white person around most of the time, but I don't. I guess that's because of the weekends spent in China town in Houston with Nerdstar and her family.

We got back to our room about 5:30 and fell asleep, thinking it would be a short nap before dinner. Uh, dinner ended up being at midnight!

Not sure where we will head to tomorrow. I always like just wandering around places, seeing whatever there is to see.

48 Hours

They say the joy is in the journey, right? So far it has been decent, if long, travels.

From the time I got up Wed. morning in Dallas, until I got to sleep again at Camp Zama, Japan was 24 hours. The 13 hour flight was nice though, quiet. I had a portable dvd player, my ipod, and part of Steven King`s The Dark Tower series to keep me occupied.

It is great to be spending time with my Nerdstar!!

The first hassle, though, was just getting onto base. It was a three hour bus ride from the airport to base. No one told her she had to do all this paperwork to get me a pass to get onto base. We got a guy to give me a one night pass and then it took her over 2 hours this morning to get all the crap done required to get me a pass for the whole week.

So we got a little late start to Tokyo, but not too bad. The trains here are great. You are not allowed to talk on cell phones on them. Imagine not being able to talk on cell phones on New York subways!

The second hassle was trying to follow the directions from the train station to the hostel. But we finally found it. It is a nice little room with all the things that matter, a bed (with the hardest mattress ever), a shower and a/c!!

We`re off to find somewhere to eat some dinner. If all else fails, we passed a McDs on the way to the hostel.

Further bulletins as events warrant.

Ready to Fly

It's been nice being here in the Dallas area for a few days. But, I tell you what, there are just too many people around for my taste! I guess good food and shopping come with a price.

I'm spending today finishing up those last few details before flying out tomorrow. I'm pretty excited. Can't wait to see my Nerdstar!!

Woohoo!

I am on vacation!!

I've got a Mav's basketball game to watch tonight. (I cussed at the tv a lot the other night after their 1 point loss.) One last time I have to walk the dog before he was 3 weeks of backyard time! I've gotten 2 litter boxes ready, washed the dishes, gotten all of the bills set to be paid, and am almost packed (mostly because I'm just putting the whole laundry basket in the trunk).

Tomorrow morning I just have to finish loading the car, drop off the rent check, mail out a package to Nerdstar, get some breakfast, and hit the road.

I'm excited to see The Kid tomorrow. Thursday we take him to see Cars and get ice cream. I'm almost as excited to get to eat Whataburger, Chick-Fil-A and Braums Ice Cream!

I shoule be back online Saturday, I'm hoping to use some free wifi at Barnes and Noble while staying at the folks.

Getting Ready

I feel like I'm getting ready for two separate vacations. I've got almost a week at the folks' house in Dallas before flying out to see Nerdstar. I'm going to use that time to visit a couple of days with Zach before he goes to his mom's, see a couple of movies, do some decent shopping, and some really good eating! I'll have my laptop up there, too.

There are so many little details to take care of before being gone for three weeks. But I've put the mail on hold, given the keys to the dude looking after the cats, got all the bills ready to be paid for the first of the month, got lots of dog food, cat food, and cat litter. Now I've just got to do a little more house cleaning and load up the car Wednesday morning. Today I'm finishing updating the iPod.

I feel kinda weird about being gone from work 2+ weeks since I just got settled into the routine around there. But, oh well.

This time next week I'll be really excited about going to Japan. Right now there's just too much time and too much to do before then.

Update

Nerdstar made it safe and sound to the base in Japan after her delay. It's taken a few days to get settled in. She's glad she only signed up for a 100 day tour over there. It's nice, but not nice enough to stay long term. She said her room in the barracks doesn't even have a tv - oh the horror! At least she doesn't have to share it with someone.

I did download Skype last night so I can call her over the computer and talk for pretty cheap! $10 is supposed to get us about 7 hours of calls, hopefully that's true. With our schedules they way they are she's at work in the mornings when I'm getting home from work in the evening and we can chat through Gmail and I can call her office.

There's already drama at work about my new job. All I'll say is that I have to learn over and over that you just can't really trust anyone anymore. And that's sad. Like I've said, I'm there to make money not friends. The best part of the job for me is working with the patients - and I have a least two or three every day tell me I'm doing good.

One other thing I know - I could never be a single mother. I'm doing good to come home from work and take care of me and the pets!

Figures

Nerdstar's flight was overbooked by 20 people - so she got bumped. It didn't even matter she's on military orders.

The only upside is that she's stranded in Chicago where her sister lives. Now she's on a flight tomorrow morning.

And She's Off

Well, I dropped Nerdstar off at the airport this morning. I think she has what all she needs, but I wouldn't be surprised if she forgot something.

I can't say the time we had right before she left was great. She got in Thursday night and we had a decent dinner, got a few things done and crashed. I knew she had some things to get done yesterday, including all of her packing. But in typical Nerdstar fashion, it took four hours to do things on post that I had hoped would only take an hour. Then it took her about eight hours to get organized and packed. The only good thing about that was I got some organizing and cleaning done at the same time. There was going to be some sort of get together with some of her co-workers last night, but only one guy showed. It was cool to talk with him and all, but I think I'd prefer a nice romantic dinner the last night together before 105 days apart. After dinner it was more packing and such.

By the time we finally got to bed about midnight I was a little frustrated. I told her it'd be nice to have the kind of girlfriend who'd have planned ahead and planned something even a little special. In some ways that's unfair of me. We both know she's not the "plan something special" type, that's generally more my role. I think somewhere along the way I got tired of that role.

We didn't exactly fight, but just had one of our hard to have conversations. She explained how she's just having a hard time since we moved here. I don't know. I've dealt with depression and such enough to know that changing location doesn't usually change my brain.

So, it's six weeks until I fly over and visit. I don't think we'll get much time on the phone, but we're hoping to use the Gmail chat a lot. It's 14 hours later there, and that might work out so that when I'm getting home from work, she's at work in the morning and hopefully can be online. We'll have a better idea of things in about 48 hours. She doesn't even know anything about the barracks she'll be staying in - other than it's between the chow hall and the PX - which makes her happy!

The Trip

It was a long weekend, but a good one. We got to Dallas Friday night in time to take the family out to dinner. I'd gotten lucky at the casino earlier and had started with $60 and left with $265. (I actually put five bucks on the 3 in roulette and that's the number that hit!) It was a nice dinner, but I think next time we'll stick with something simplier and cheaper.

Saturday was cool and rainy, but we took the kid to Six Flags anyway. I figured it couldn't rain ALL day. It didn't, but we did manage to get rather soaked. Fortunately, all the kids' rides and stuff don't close in the rain. My brother and I had hoped to ride a few roller coasters, but the first two times we stood in line for one it ended up closing before we could get on. The park closed at 10 pm, and at 9 we made it over to the Titan and thankfully the line was short! It's easily the best roller coaster I've ever ridden!! The kid got to ride lots of rides and I think he had fun. He's not the overly emotional type. My brother got the two of them season passes, so I hope he takes him out there a few more times.

Sunday was the birthday party. Not a ton of people, but he got lots of cool toys.

Then last night Nerdstar and I took him to dinner with us.

He is really such a good kid. I can only hope to have a kid that good.

This morning we got up to tell him bye before he headed out to school. He was all sad we were leaving, and then wanted us to leave Ramen dog there for him. I took Nerdstar to the airport and then made the long drive back here. At least this time of year everything is nice and green along the drive.

Upcoming Travels

In a couple of weeks we're headed to see my family for my nephew's birthday. He's going to be 5. Damn how the time flies! Me, Nerdstar and my brother are taking him to Six Flags. Then the next day we'll have a party. He's so funny. He understands that riding rides isn't based on age, but height, so the other day he told my Mom that he'd been stretching all night. He's going to be mad he can't ride the big roller coasters!

Then...

Nerdstar was offered a three and a half month job at a base in Japan. Actually, they'd love for her to stay much longer, but that's about as long as we want to be apart for now. She'll make at least twice what she normally does for those three months! Plus, it's a job doing more of what she wants to be doing translation wise. (Hopefully she'll write about all this and explain it better!)

A few months ago I got my first passport. So I'll be using in in June to go over and visit her in Japan. How cool is that? I'll probably be there just over a week and we'll do a long weekend in Tokyo. (The base she'll be staying at isn't very far, but it takes about three hours by train to get to Tokyo.) It is a little daunting to do my first 13 hour flight all by myself. Plus having to get through their version of customs, etc.

It's not my first trip out of the States. I met a great lady from Mexico City at Baylor and went down to visit her a couple of times. We even took the bus from Mexico City to Acapulco. I do know, though, how hard it was for me to be somewhere I didn't speak the language and how isolating it was.

But it's all very exciting!!

Sick

It was a very windy day yesterday, and whatever the wind blew in has made me sick. Stuffy nose and all. Bleh. I'm not really in the mood to be sick.

Nerdstar's headed to Houston tomorrow for a few days with her family. So on top of being bored this weekend, I'll be lonely. (send pity waves now.)

Nice

It's nice taking a vacation in a city you used to live in. You know where everything is, elminating the stress of constantly having to get directions.

The only downside is choosing between all of the great restaurants here. We had CoCo's (Taiwanese), Kirby Lane for breakfast yesterday, Hoover's (southern cooking) for dinner, and then to Austin Java for hot teas last night. All of those places are unique to Austin. We've been to REI for some shopping, finally found some snow boots I like and that are comfortable!

We spent part of the afternoon at the dog park with Ramen. It's so hard to know just what pets remember, but he was so happy to be there! There were about a dozen other dogs there and he played chase, ran around like an idiot, and played in the water - which is the only downside, because really needs a bath after a trip to the park, so we bathed him in the bathtub here at the hotel.

Last night we were going to see the Asylum Street Spankers, but we've seen them before and decided to hang out at Book People instead. It's such a great bookstore. I think we'd both be happy to spend a week in there.

Today it's more food, a little more shopping, and best of all, great haircuts!

Ahhhh

I made it to Austin this afternoon. It feels good to be back here. Nerdstar's flight arrives in the next couple of hours, so I'm catching up on blog reading and email and such. (Not that I've got any good emails to read - hint, hint!) We're staying at a LaQuinta because I knew where it was located and that they have free high speed internet. We're going from the airport to our favorite little Taiwanese place for a late lunch, early dinner. Not sure what's after that. We've got haircuts scheduled Thursday. Some shopping needs to be done. Taking Ramen dog to the dog park. Maybe some walking down at the Greenbelt. And of course, our list of restaurants to get to!

Friday we're headed back to my folks' for Christmas with the kid. We haven't exchanged any gifts yet. It's kinda nice because we can do the shopping when everything's even more on sale and hopefully the stores will be less crowded as the week goes by.

Being at my parent's house was hard for me. I've known for years I have a three day max with them, but because Nerdstar was going to be gone so long, I figured it would be better to spend time with family than alone. Next time I'll rethink that plan!

Hope you got what you wanted for Christmas!

Off to the Families

I got Nerdstar safely to the airport on time this morning. She'll be landing in Houston about the time I'm hitting the road to start my all day drive to Dallas. Fun. Ramen will be happy though, he gets to sit close to me in the car all day!

As of this moment, I can't find the cable necessary to pack up the laptop and take it with us, so I'm not sure we'll have much internet access until we're home again. I might hit the library, and I'm sure we can get access in Austin.

I'm going to miss the kitty cats a lot, but we found some very nice people to look after them!

Hope you all have safe and happy holidays!!!

Back Home

I made it back to KC late last night. Nerdstar was great and flew down Saturday morning to hang out with me and little Zach and then to drive back with me yesterday.

I plan on writing a final update on my time down in Dallas, if you have anything you'd like to ask, please leave a comment and I'll answer it.

In the meantime, if you're not still reading Brendan Loy and the Times Picayune sites, you should be.

Going

Well, I'm going to head out early in the morning. It's a nine hour drive, so I wish I could have gotten out of here this evening, but now it's getting too late.

I won't have internet access while I'm down there. My parents don't have a computer and I can't take our laptop. I think Nerdstar will posts updates for me from our phone calls. I tried to set up audioblog, but didn't have any luck.

Feel free to text msg me at ***** if the mood strikes, I don't know when I'll be able to access my email.

Going Again

We got Ramen dog off to the kennel this morning. It's not the Canine Hilton he's used to in Austin, but I'm sure he'll be fine. He was so happy to go into the place, he's gotten bathed there before, but he wasn't as happy to be put in a cage. If it were up to Nerdstar, he'd stay in a five star pet hotel while we're away. I'm sure he's just happy to not have to endure any more 9 hour drive days!

Then I got Nerdstar off to the airport. Thankfully she had a noon flight, because I swear she's the slowest moving person I know! Even slower than my Dad who she's just like!

So I've got an afternoon to nap, listen to Ranger baseball on XM, and pack. My flight is at 7:45 a.m. Ugh. I don't usually sleep to well on airplanes, but maybe tomorrow I will.

I'm really looking forward to this trip. It's such a beautiful place to hang out and I'll do some driving around the coast while Nerdstar has to sit in meetings - ha ha!

And, really, the weather doesn't get much better than this if you ask us.

We decided against lugging along the laptop. We figure the Hilton will have some sort of place for us to access the internet. If not, well, we shouldn't really be online anyway for a few days.

Back on Friday...

Home for now

Hopefully that's the last 8+ hour drive we make for a few months! Although it was good to help out Grandma. It was also cool that we have XM because I remembered that they have a channel for music from the 40s, so I tuned it in and Grandma had a good time listening to all the old music. I really enjoyed most of it, too. As a former band geek, it was fun to listen to all the horns from that era.

Other than that the weekend was hanging with the family, playing with Zach, and eating some decent food. Not a bad weekend.

More Driving...

although this time it's for a good cause. Tonight we're driving to an even smaller town in Kansas - woohoo! We're going to pick my grandma up in the morning to begin her move from the nursing home she calls jail to her own little apartment near my family in Texas. The drive tonight is just so we don't have to get up at 4 a.m. and drive in the morning. It's about four and a half hours to where grandma is, then tomorrow it's eight hours from there to my parents'. Sunday we'll eat and relax, then Monday it's another lunch at SaltGrass - mmmmmmmmmm SaltGrass - then back home. Very exciting stuff. But, we get to help out grandma and we get to see Zach. There are certainly worse weekends to be had!

Japan

My girl made it home this afternoon, with only a slight case of jetlag so far. She's got a few photos posted on her site.

Far Away

Well, Nerdstar made it out of here ok early this morning. Her flight was supposed to be at 8:17 this morning. At close to 6:30 her phone rang saying that they had to catch an earlier flight in order to not miss the connecting flight in Dallas. Great. Thankfully we were running early - which is a miracle for her!

She's about four hours into a thirteen hour flight from Dallas to Japan. I can't imagine being on a flight that long. Hopefully she'll sleep thru most of it.

Me, well, I've gotten an oil change, done laundry, bought a few snacks for the reunion this weekend and am going to try to get to bed around 9 because I have to get up at 5 am. Fun.

It's weird having my girl be so far away again. But I don't think any parting will ever be as hard as when I dropped her off at the airport for her return to Iraq after she was home on leave.

And did I mention just how unfair it is she's going to Japan and I'm going to a family reunion in southern Kanasas? Totally unfair!

More Travels

While Nerdstar is a lucky duck and gets to go to Japan Friday morning, I'm headed to a family reunion near Witchita, KS. The unfairness of that just can't be put into words. Not only does Nerdstar get to miss the reunion (and piss off Zach in the process) she gets to be somewhere too cool for words instead.

Her only goal for her three days in Tokyo is to see the Hello Kitty World Headquarters building. Yes, Hello Kitty has it's own building.

Then, the second week in August she's got another work conference in Monterrey, CA. She's been there one other time with the military for a language olympics. I've never been there, so I just booked me a flight for under $250 to meet up with her out there. Can you say beach time? I knew you could.

For poor people we're well traveled!

Home Again, Again

I actually enjoyed the time at my parents' house this weekend. I was dreading it because of the hell my brother - and therefore my parents - is going through. But nothing, absolutely nothing, warms the heart like a four year old little boy running towards you because he's missed you!!

We're all worn out from all the heat and driving. The poor dog is convinved he's already dead and in hell.

But one of the many things Nerdstar and I mulled over during driving is how many other people put so much thought into which part of this big ole country do they want to live in. It's a pretty constant theme in our conversations and I realized today that's probably not in the norm.

So my questions are - how did you come to be living in the place you're in now, do you intend to stay there indefinitely or is there somewhere else you'd rather live?

Off Again

We're up not quite so early today. We don't need to be in Dallas until after 7 pm, so we got to sleep a little later. While Nerdstar got her fill of ethnic foods last weekend, I'm hoping to get my fill of good American food this weekend. It's sad when I can't even get a decent chicken fried steak around these parts.

Here's hoping you all have a safe and happy 4th. Back on Monday night.

Home Again

at least for a couple of days. The trip to visit Nerdstar's sister was ok, not my favorite vacation, but ok. Her sister is in the process of selling her house, which is really good news. Once that's all done, she's moving down to Houston to stay with the grandparents for a while. That should be good for everyone. Except maybe her dog. He's a talkative little beagle, and we're not sure the grandparents will like listening to him.

We've found out just how much Ramen doesn't like other dogs in the past few days. Before we left, our neighbor across the hall had the cutest little white husky mix puppy they've probably given away by now. We took Ramen out in the hallway to meet it. He didn't want anything to do with it. Then at Nerdstar's sister's place, he didn't much like her dog either. I think Woody was too noisy and excited for Ramen's taste. He's like me and likes things very quiet!

We can't wait to see Zach this coming weekend. I talked to Mom yesterday, he's apparently learned to wisely use the words "never mind" when they don't understand what he's trying to tell them! And he's asked almost every day if today is "Ramen day." Awww.

That's about it for today. I'm too tired to think much more.

C Town

We made it up here safely, and it was a decent drive. Lots and lots of corn field. It's amazing to contrast the wide open places in this country with a city as massive as Chicago. I grew up near Dallas/Ft. Worth, but neither of them comes close to the scale of Chicago. Really, of all the places we've been, only New York and San Francisco come close.

We're mostly hanging out. Went to Taste of Chicago today. I heard there were over 250,000 people there yesterday and maybe more today. Wow. It was hot and crowded.

That's about it from here.

Outta Here

We're getting up bright and early, no really, the alarm goes off at 6, and doing our usual road trip breakfast at McD's and then driving through parts of the county we haven't actually driven through before. Up to Des Moines and across Iowa and then across Illinois and up to the far northeast corner. Very exciting.

We actually bought a pretty big wall map of the US with highways and have highlighted our roads traveled. I think there's maybe a dozen states we haven't driven through.

Nerdstar's sister is pretty excited about us coming to visit. She's been pretty lonely since the divorce. Neither Nerdstar nor I have been to Chicago, so we're looking forward to it.

All that said, not sure when I'll blog again. Probably over the weekend, but you never know.

There is tons of good reading on my blogroll, or probably on your own as well. Don't miss me too much.

Hook Em Horns!!!

College World Series

I had a great time yesterday driving up to Omaha to see Baylor and UT play in the College World Series. It was a nice surprise that UT won, seeing as Baylor had beaten them all season! Even better was getting to meet Mup, who was a great hostess for the day. The highlight of the evening was her catching a foul ball - way cool! I was also happy that I didn't come home with a sunburn.

I realized yesterday that in ten years of living in Austin I never went to a UT sporting event, yet in two months of living near Kansas City, I've seen UT play baseball twice. Go figure.

Nerdstar doesn't return home until late tonight, so I'm taking it slow today and maybe getting a few things done, like buying the poor dog some food.

On The Road Again...

We're just going to name this the summer of driving around!

Actually, tomorrow Nerdstar flies to Houston to check up on Grandpa. He's doing amazingly well! He's feeling good enough that Grandma was threatening to divorce him the other day and he found a blank piece of paper and signed it and said, "go ahead." They crack me up! I can only hope to have that much spunk after seventy years of marriage and almost ninety years of life!

Saturday I'm going to drive up to Omaha and see Baylor play UT in the College World Series. I have no idea who to root for, my university or my city! I have a feeling Baylor's going to kick UT's butt like they've done for most of the season.

Next Friday (the 24th) we're taking a four day weekend and driving up to north of Chicago to visit Nerdstar's sister and eat some good food! It's just another 9 hour drive.

The very next Friday - yes, three days after driving back - we're driving to Dallas to visit my family and spend some time with little Zach!

Then, July 15th Nerdstar's supposed to head over to Japan for work. I'm pretty jealous and sad I don't get to tag along. She'll only be there a few days, and mostly attending a boring conference, but still...

And it looks like mid August she's going to get sent to Monterey, CA. I'll definitely meet up with her there if at all possible. She's been there one other time for the military's language olympics.

Who knows from there!

Good Trip

We had a really good trip to Colorado Springs. We got lucky with the weather every day.

We got up early and hit the road Friday morning. I had driven from Wichita, KS to Denver last year when Nerdstar was on her way home from Iraq, but Nerdstar had never driven thru this part of the country. It's certainly an easy drive, even if mostly boring. We always look out over all the empty parts of this country and wonder who owns all that land and what, if anything, it's being used for.

Friday night we got out the phonebook trying to find a decent place for dinner, and decided to just head over to downtown. Nerdstar booked our hotel online and it ended up being in a really convenient location for all the things we did. We found a great little pizza place. Colorado Springs has a nice little downtown and we were glad it wasn't one of those cities that rolls up the street early every night.

Saturday we drove out to the Royal Gorge Bridge. I know at some point growing up I have been there before, but I can't remember exactly when. Probably in high school. They've added a lot of stuff around it to try to justify charging outrageous amounts of money to see something nature made a man put a bridge over. It was cool to see it though. We got there when the sun was still shining, and by the time we left it was all cloudy.

We were going to go see some waterfalls, but it was raining up where they were so they weren't letting people in at that time. That was fine, I think the waterfalls outside of Portland are more beautiful - and free! So we ended up at the zoo instead. (Nerdstar loves zoos!) Unfortunately, we left the camera in the car. We didn't see more lion sex, but we saw giraffs kissing - french kissing. And with eight to ten inch black tongues, it was quite a sight to see! This other one was just standing there with his/her tongue hanging out, it was funny.

Sunday we headed over to Pike's Peak. There's a Cog Railway that makes the trip up to the top and back in about three hours. It was a neat trip. Again we got lucky with the weather. We were up there for the last of the sunshine and clear views from the peak. On our trip down it started to snow. It rained on us the rest of the day.

In all of our travels we read and hear about all of the structures built in the twenties and thirties, like Royal Gorge Bridge. It's just amazing what people achieved back then. I don't think we're doing anything nearly as remarkable as far as things like that.

Our last stop before heading home yesterday morning was to the ProRodeo Hall of Fame and Museum. Nerdstar loves the rodeo almost as much as she loves the zoo! It was neat learning how the rodeo's got started around the early 1900s.

Photos here.

Road Trip Snacks

I realized this morning that our entire drive will be through nowhere! Nine hours of not even small towns. That means nowhere to stop and eat. Oh no!!! Nerdstar can't survive that long!!

So, road trip snacks it is.

1 leftover hamburger
1 bag doritoes
1 package of cherries
1 package of beef jerky
1 package of fried chicken
1 package of 6 mini snickers
1 package of 6 reeses
1 big box of hot tamalies
2 little bags of M&Ms
2 apples
1 pound cake
cokes and diet cokes

That should get us there!

Getting Away

Nerdstar and I are headed over to Colorado Springs for the long weekend. Thankfully, she's off tomorrow AND Monday! It's supposed to be a little cool and rainy, but that's ok with us, we prefer that to overly hot and sunny! We're going to see the Royal Gorge Bridge, which I saw back in high school about twenty years ago. And of course head to the top of Pike's Peak. We got a really cool twenty page or more magazine about all the attractions in the area. Nerdstar's never been to the Rockies so we're excited about the trip.

That said, we're not taking the laptop so we'll be offline for a few days. I do hope to take lots of pics.

Have a wonderful long weekend!!

Boring Entry #87436

Man is it a gorgeous day today! Alas, I'm spending it lounging around. Nerdstar went to visit her grandparents tonight, one more time before the move.

I'd say we're about 2/3 packed. We've taken out lots of trash bags, given a few things to Goodwill, and have more set aside to drop off at my parents' house for their next garage sale.

The only complication in this move is turning out to be what to do with my '69 Camaro. (It doesn't run and the I don't think the tires would last through a tow across town, much less across three states.) A guy who restores cars was supposed to come by the other day and help me figure out if I want to start the restoration process, or sell it to him and be done with it. So far he hasn't come by. We think it's possible for the military to go ahead and transport it up there, and we can rent a garage at our apartment complex. But I think I'm just about to the point where I'd rather just sell it. In order to restore it I'd have to sell the few stocks I own, and I'd rather not do that - I think they're still going to gain some more.

I'm sure it'll work out one way or another. I just hate having things undecided.

It Starts

My flights to KS today were nice. Although, I went from sunny and in the 70s to drizzly and in the 40s - not a fair trade! Ramen dog is back at the kennel, the cats have the run of the house.

It's nice to be with my Nerdstar!!

The next two weeks are going to be insane. She still doesn't have official orders. Without them she can't talk to housing to arrange the move. Well, she did "talk" to housing, and found out that in addition to needing actual orders, the office of housing she has to go thru is in San Antonio. Uh, ok. She also found out that the basic procedure is the army guys come and get all your stuff and transfer it to a warehouse in the city you're transferring to, then you go and arrange with that warehouse for it to be delivered to your actual place of residence. What isn't said, but can pretty much be inferred, is that there could be several days between when all of our belongings would be picked up in Austin and the time they'd be at our new place up here. Yes, they would pay for your hotel stay if necessary - but that doesn't begin to address what we do with the pets. Ramen wouldn't be a problem really, God knows he's used to traveling and hotels. But the cats - omg. They're going to be pissed enough when they see the boxes starting to be packed. Then we're going to have to keep them indoors a few days before moving, then put them in a big crate. I can't imagine trying to keep two cats happy in a hotel room for two or three or four nights.

So, tomorrow we go sign a lease on an apartment, after guestimating a date for our actual arrival. Tomorrow is also Nerdstar's b-day, so I'm sure we'll do a nice dinner and I can give her her present.

Saturday we drive to Dallas to see my family and do birthdays and Easter. We can't wait to see Zach! Although, he's going to be mad at us because Ramen isn't with us.

Monday we head back to Austin and pick up the dog from the kennel and my car from the airport and begin to pack and organize and plan.

We're not even sure when she'll get an appointment with the housing office in San Antonio to get any of the information we need. We're keeping open the option to just go ahead and pay for moving everything ourselves, just to avoid all the headaches and stress.

The next two weeks will be crazy, but at least we know they're going to be crazy, hopefully that'll help our patience levels!

Life in the fast lane

Nerdstar finally made it home Saturday night. The new car is very cool! Then we drove to Dallas Sunday to see my family and pick up Zach. He had his Valentine's Day party at his little school and then soccer practice, so we didn't get back to Austin with him until 10 pm last night. He slept in the car most of the drive back, so that was nice.

Today we spent all afternoon at Zilker Park, his favorite place. I actually got sunburned in February! He scrapped up his knees and elbow, so he's a four band-aid kid today!

Not sure how cool the weather will be tomorrow or what our plans our. We drive him back up to Dallas on Thursday.

He's just so darn cute!!

Still Down

Sorry for the lack of posting. I seem to have lost just about all of my optimism. Which really sucks considering all the choices and changes looming. The last two years, and recent problems between Nerdstar and I, have left me pretty broken. Mostly I'm just getting thru each day.

Nerdstar's in Houston celebrating the Chinese New Year with her family. Then I think on Sunday we're going up to my family's and bringing Zach down to Austin for a few days. Feb. 23rd Nerdstar's driving back up to Kansas and I'm probably going to go up there with her for a few days to hopefully try to find somewhere to live, then fly back to Austin.

Anyway. Maybe things will improve in the near future.

Home again

Made it back from KS in eleven hours, not too bad. I've discovered that driving for long hours like that leaves me literally shaky. Oh well. It was worth it to spend some time with my snuggle bunny.

I was glad to read that someone else feels the sting of x friendships. There are at least a dozen x friends from throughout my life that I think of on a very regular basis.

Wouldn't it be cool if there was some little something letting us know old friends/x friends were thinking of us, too?

Wild Hair

I got a wild hair up my butt Thursday and decided to drive back up to KS to see my girl. It was a long week and we were still working thru some stuff, so snuggles were necessary. I figured I could sit on the sofa and watch tv and maybe play some more poker over the weekend, or I could hang out with Nerdstar. I got up about 5 a.m. friday and hit the road and got here about 4:40. just as she was getting off work. I also brought her Ramen dog for her to pet!

We had dinner with Beth and John again last night and Ramen got to play with their three dogs.

It's freezing outside, although not snowing like in so much of the northeast. Just a nice quiet weekend.

Long Weekend

The weekend ended up being longer than planned, and that was a good thing.

Friday I flew up to Kansas City to go see my girl! I got there about 3, and she was still at work so Beth was kind enough to pick me up at the airport and show me around until Nerdstar was off work. Then Nerdstar and John caught up with us and we all went to dinner. It was nice to meet and hang out with Beth and John. Saturday they were our tour guides to the Kansas City area.

What Nerdstar and I realized is how spoiled we are living in Austin. And that it's made us snobs about where we live. But, I think if Nerdstar really ends up liking this job, we could adjust nicely to life in the middle of the country.

I was supposed to fly out Sunday afternoon, but Nerdstar had Monday off and I had no real plans for Monday and it was only $88 to change the flight, so we did.

We couldn't resist the lure of a nearby casino, so we headed over there Sunday evening. I wanted to try playing poker for cash for a change. There was a table that had a buy-in of $100 and $1 and $2 blinds. Sounded good. But, we only took out $100 each to gamble with and there was going to be over an hour wait until I would get a seat at the table. Fortunately, I had a $20 in my wallet to play with at a craps table. We got lucky there. I won over $100 at the craps table so when I got the seat at the poker table I played with that $100. Two hours later I had $200 so I cashed it out. We grabbed some dinner, although Nerdstar was heartbroken the buffet was closed. Then we played a little more of various table games.

In the end we came out ahead. We took $200 out of the checking and today I'm putting $300 back in and the rest of the winnings covered dinner, the car park, getting Ramen at the kennel, and spending money for Nerdstar for the week. Not too bad.

But, that meant I got to sleep about 3 a.m. and had a noon flight.

I got into Austin at 4:10, picked up Ramen, drove by the amature poker place and signed up, dropped Ramen off at home, grabbed some dinner, and went to play poker.

I'm glad to be home, but I miss my Nerdstar a lot. It was good to see where she works and lives these days.

Merry Christmas

Nerdstar and I both got up early this morning and hit the road. Unfortunately, she drove to Houston and I drove to Dallas. Zach is mad at me and her because she's not here! Well, and because Ramen isn't here either.

We're doing Christmas tomorrow because Zach's evil mom is picking him up that evening. So I've been convinced all week that tomorrow is actually Christmas.

It's a nice, simple one here. Sleep until the kid wakes up. Make him wake up his daddy. Open gifts. Eat lunch. Probably nap. Eat dinner. Watch dvds. Back to bed!

Nerdstar and I will exchange gifts Sunday night when we're both back in Austin. I'm looking forward to that!

In the meantime. I'd love for all of my regular readers to leave comments as a Christmas present :-) You guys keep me doing this. I appreciate your thoughts, prayers, comments and encouragement this past year while Nerdstar was in Iraq. So again, Merry Christmas to you all!!

Rag Tag Entry

We're up at my parents' house for a couple of days. We brought a lot of stuff up here to put in a garage sale, and Saturday morning we're going to watch Zach play soccer - or, you know, whatever close approximation little kids have to soccer.

Yes, I'm relieved about the election. I'm glad it wasn't close and it didn't drag on.

The referendum's on gay marriage don't thrill me, but I'm not really bothered by them. I was telling Nerdstar last night that I have a sort of "Everyman" view of things, which I'm not sure I can explain fully. The short version is that it means I don't assume everyone who voted against marriage being anything other than a man and a woman would shoot me given the chance, and I don't think anyone who voted for it would necessarily be someone I'd get along with.

Instapundit has a lot of good thoughts and links on the issue.

I've got a kid to play with, more later.

Sunday Ramblings

Another Sunday evening. Nerdstar is finally going to visit her family in Houston for a few days, she left this afternoon after a late lunch. While she's missed her family a lot (she hasn't seen them since she was home on leave in March), they do tend to take a lot of energy to deal with. Her grandmother has been totally pissed at her grandfather lately because she thinks he has a crush on another woman. Her grandmother even left the house one evening and "showed him". I keep telling Nerdstar it's all kinda cute because, really now, two people in their late 80s acting like teenagers. We can only hope to have that much spunk!

Anyway, she's planning on being there until Thursday, but we'll see if she can last that long. At least she has Ramen with her!

I'm hoping to finally get the house clean and maybe start the hell called job searching.

We've got a desktop computer we bought several years ago that I think we're going to give to my nephew so we can buy him some cool kids cd-roms. Every time we're up there he's even happy to just type nonsense in MS Word. Last Christmas I got him a LeapPad and he loves it, but I think the cd-roms would be more fun. He's also starting to play soccer, which considering he's not even four yet is kinda fun. We're going to go see him run around in a couple of weeks. Oh, but the point was, I'm spending this evening trying to "clean up" the computer and get anything personal off of it before handing it over to my family. My brother has a computer but he won't let Zach do anything on it for fear of crashing it. I tell him it's not that easy to do, but oh well.

Home Sweet Home

We made the old, familiar drive from Dallas to Austin this evening. After two days of rain in Dallas, we ended our road trip with a day like most days we've been on the road - nice and dry. In fact, the only time I hit any sort of bad weather in 25 days and over 7000 miles was a brief thunderstorm that actually had pea sized hail in it back in Kansas.

We had a nice little dinner at Nerdstar's favorite Taiwanese restaurant and are getting things put away. Little Man is so happy to see us it's almost scary. Silly is still out and around somewhere and probably pissed as hell I left her for so long. Ramen is relieved to be back home and not in the car or in a hotel room (although he likes hotel beds since those are the only ones he ever gets a chance to get on).

It's good to be home. It's even better to have my Nerdstar home with me!

It was a great trip. We had fun, saw some beautiful country, and I think we both agree things are better than ever. I know I've laughed more on our trip together than I did the entire time she was gone!

Tragic

We're in Amarillo this morning, got in about midnight last night. This hotel has the most comfortable bed we've slept in this whole trip. We'll be at my parent's house this evening. We're both excited to see Zach and to eat some home cooking.

Nerdstar got a very sad email the other night. One of the contractors back in Iraq let someone in her unit know that the Iraqi translator she worked with and was friends with, and his brother, were murdered. It's just so sad. I think the Iraqi's who risk their lives to work with our military are truly unsung heros. Too many of them are murdered by insurgents. His brother had just stopped working with the soldiers and he was about to quit. Word is now there are very few, if any, Iraqi's willing to translate for the military. I don't blame them. Unfortunately, the military hasn't been able to train many new Arabic linguists and the ones already in service have done their time in Iraq. Just another reason we really have to get the Iraqi National Guard up and running.

Update from the road

We're in Flagstaff, AZ this morning. We decided to check out the Grand Canyon yesterday and got there about an hour before sunset. It was beautiful. Nerdstar had never seen it, for that matter had never driven thru Arizona.

To back up... we had a nice time in Sacramento staying with Wendy. It was good to chill out and not sleep in a hotel bed for a couple of nights. It was a needed break from the road.

The drive from Olympia, WA to Sacramento was cool. It goes thru beautiful mountains and trees until you hit Redding, CA, then you hit the CA Valley and it's just as flat as Kansas. Then the drive from Sacramento to Vegas was mostly flat and boring.

We had a good time in Vegas. We got to meet Alicia and Angel and the kid, unfortunately only for a short time, but was cool! We didn't win big like we wanted, but that's ok, we had fun. We went to see Cirque de Soliel's new show Zumanity - it was very sexy and fun! We gambled, we ate a lot, we walked a lot - that's Vegas. But we both feel like we're ready for a new vacation spot.

The drive from Vegas to the Grand Canyon is beautiful, in a dry kind of way.

We're taking pics along the way, hopefully they'll turn out. I lost most, if not all, of a roll of 12 pics because the film got stuck in the camera and the guy I had try to get it out fucked it up royally.

Not sure where we'll sleep tonight. Somewhere between here and Dallas. Then we'll spend the weekend with my family and finally hit Austin probably Monday night. I think we're both ready to be home. I worry about the cats and am anxious to see how they're doing.

Vegas

We made it to Vegas Sunday evening. We're having fun, not winning $ like we'd like to, eating well, and don't have really great internet access.

Looks like we'll start driving thru the desert starting Wednesday afternoon. We just have to make it to Dallas to visit with my family by Saturday morning.

More updates soon!

Bumps in the Road

First of all, thanks to those who have taken up the relationship question - more please! I'll post another entry about relationships in a day or two.

The trip had been going swimmingly until Wed. night, then it hit a couple of bumps. I ate something icky and my stomach protested, no big deal really. Then the bubble bath leaked all over the case holding all of our bathroom stuff (you really don't want to know how much stuff I packed!) Then the roll of film became jammed in the camera. I'm still hopefull that when I take it to a camera shop they can work some miracle and save the pics. All minor things, but all in a couple of hours was no fun.

We got back on the road at 10 a.m. yesterday looking forward to 10 hours on the I-5 thru Washington, Oregon, and Cali. We stopped for gas in some very small town in southern Oregon (where they don't let you pump your own gas), went to start the car and it just wouldn't. I knew it was either the battery or the alternator so wasn't too panicked. So while it took about two hours and a mile walk to and back from the auto store, we replaced the battery and were on our way again. The two men working at the gas station were really nice and helpful - even after I was a dumbass and bought the wrong kind of battery the first time. (My car requires side posts.)

So we finally pulled into my friend's place close to midnight. Today we're eating and sleeping and then will hit the road to Vegas tomorrow!

Relationships

Well, she's finally done! We're going to hang out in Seattle again this evening wtih her friend from college. Then tomorrow we drive down I-5 to Sacramento to stay with a friend of ours there.

I've been thinking that it would be really cool if I could persuade all of my regular readers to participate in a discussion on relationships, I know most of you are either married or have been together for years.

During all of our months apart, Nerdstar and I both had lots of time to really think about our relationship, if it's the one we want to have, if we're fully committed to it, and how to make it better. For me it was sort of the idea that well, we're apart for a long period of time, if one of us isn't sure and wants out, this is a convenient time for it. Even after five years together, the answers weren't automatic. There were times I had what I think is close to pre-wedding jitters. The wow, is this really the person I want to spend the rest of my life with, am I certain there isn't someone better, and life sure is a long time.

Nerdstar says she knew from our first weekend together that I was the one for her. I took a little longer to be sure.

What I'd really love is a cross-blog discussion of making life committed relationships work. One thing Nerdstar and I totally lack is role models for this sort of thing.

You can email me your response if you don't have a blog and I can post it here. If you answer on your blog, let me know and I'll post all the links, and comments are always good. Who knows, maybe we'll start a "carnival of relationships".

The first topic I'm curious about is not so much how you knew your love was "the one", but the idea of pre-wedding jitters - or any panic you had when you realized you were committing yourself to them for the rest of your life. Was it easy or hard to make that commitment, was it easier for one of you than the other, is it easy to keep that commitment?

Don't make me list your names and ask your thoughts :-)

A Day in Portland

We had a fantastic day in and around Portland yesterday. The Lush store was in this amazing neighborhood full of old houses converted into cool shops, but not ultra hip shops. The people strolling up and down the sidewalks were diverse and fun to watch. It was a nice change from the super freaks in the Seattle neighborhood - they just made me feel old.

I had been to Portland over ten years ago on a "business" trip and remembered going to see some really beautiful waterfalls then. While we were eating at one of the sidewalk cafes I asked the people at the next table of they were from around here, they were. I asked about the waterfalls and found out they were only about 35 miles east of town. Way cool. So we drove out to the Columbia River Gorge area and walked around and saw a couple of really beautiful waterfalls. The weather, once again was perfect, too.

Ramen is an overly friendly dog, which translates into not being able to take him anywhere. He's constantly choking himself on his leash trying to get to anyone who might be willing to pet him. I think yesterday convinced Nerdstar why it's important for her to try to get him at least a little better trained at staying calm. (Her as opposed to me because he's her dog!)

It was funny. After seeing the South Park episode where Cartman's cat has all of the other neighborhood cats over for a party, Nerdstar always jokes that's what ours will do while we're out of town. So we cracked up when the people we asked for directions told us they'd had a cat that they had installed a cat door in the basement for, and when they came home from being out of town for the weekend they found seven additional cats hanging out in their basement!

We don't have a digital camera with us. The one I thought Nerdstar would have with her, she actually mailed back to the house. I do, however, have my Canon AE-1 with us, which I think is a cool camera. It just means I'm having to wait to get the film developed before I can post any of them to her fotopage. She took the car today because she had to be on base at 7:30 this morning, so maybe tomorrow I can get the pics developed.

Their luggage is finally here from New Jersey. Later this evening she should know how long it's going to take to get it all sorted, cleaned, and turned in. Maybe we'll be out of here Wednesday instead of Thursday. We're definitely ready to be on our way to Vegas!

Weekend

Friday afternoon Nerdstar found out she has to be at Ft. Lewis until probably Thursday. Due to continued incompetence on the part of her chain of command, they're having a hard time getting the gear they had to leave behind in New Jersey to Ft. Lewis. Oh well. This is why I'm up here with her and not waiting back in Austin, we knew she could have to spend a week or two up here.

She did get the weekend off, so that's good. Yesterday we finally went into Seattle. The weather has been great. We went to Toys In Babeland, but I'm not telling what we bought! Then we met up with a friend of hers from college for lunch. We found this ultra hip barber shop and both got haircuts. My hair was way too cool for me for the rest of the day! We walked around the Capital Hill area for a while then drove over to West Seattle to this little chinese place for dinner that her friend had recommended. It was good.

Today we're driving down to Portland to indulge Nerdstar's fetish for bath products by going to Lush.

Finally!

I pulled into Olympia, WA about 4:30 yesterday. Nerdstar's flight got to the Seattle airport a few hours earlier. Her and her unit had to get all of their gear from the airport to the base, so it was a good thing she was earlier than me. I got all settled into the hotel and she finally called from base and was free for the evening. The Army gets her during the day while we're up here. They still have lots of paperwork, briefings, and turning in of equipment (some of which is still enroute) to do this week. Hopefully it won't take longer than a week, but you never know.

I got stuck at the front gate of the base because I didn't have the piece of paper for the car registration, but she walked from the barracks to the front gate :-) I actually didn't cry when I saw her, I thought I would. I think knowing she was at least safely in the states the last couple of days and the long, long drives thru beautiful country really helped deflate my worries.

We had a nice dinner, although we were both too tired to really eat. Then it was back to the hotel for some long awaited sex and snuggles!!

While we have lots of catching up to do, (especially in sex) being with her is better than ever, just as easy and comfortable as always.

I'll try to get her to write later tonight.

Boise

I'm now in Boise, Idaho. Go figure. Not a city I would have ever thought I'd find myself in. Almost 850 miles today, right at 12 hours. I think around the ninth hour Ramen lost his will to live.

I'm amazed that in those 12 hours of driving I passed thru maybe 3 real towns - not even cities. This really is the land of golden mountain majesty and amber waves of grain. If you've never taken a long drive thru the open parts of this beautiful country - you really, really should. It was cool to see that the rocks in Wyoming look a lot like the rocks in Arizona. Which makes sense, but it's still cool.

Nerdstar is stuck on some base in Jersey tonight. Even being stateside she can't get out of the logistical hell known as the U.S. Army. We should finally be together tomorrow night.

I want to say a great big thank you to Michelle and Kim for letting me crash at their place last night and taking me to see the play. It really did make this long drive much more enjoyable!

From the Road

It's too early! After over 600 miles and 9 hours, Ramen and I made it to the middle of Kansas. Feels like the middle of nowhere.

I couldn't sleep Wednesday night, so about 2 am I decided to check my email and got lucky and caught Nerdstar online. At that time she still didn't know if they'd fly out within 24 hours or 9 days later. She was on the list for a flight within 24 hours, but you read the complications in the earlier post. I told her to call when she knew anything. I thought I'd hear from her when I woke up Thursday.

I waited all morning and didn't hear from her. I decided to be optimistic and take a chance and go ahead and hit the road with the hopes she'd be on a flight soon.

After driving all day I found a nice little hotel for the night last night and checked in, plugged in the laptop and checked my email. Still no word. All day, and certainly now, I'm hoping it's because she's too busy getting ready for the flight! She has 3 duffle bags and two other bags which has to be checked by customs - which means unpacking everything and packing it again.

I finally fall asleep about midnight and the cell phone rings at 2 am again - it's Nerdstar!

They're on a flight out of Kuwait that leaves around 2 pm this afternoon. I know they're supposed to stop in Germany and New Jersey before hitting Ft. Lewis - but for now we should both be getting to Ft. Lewis sometime Sunday night.

I'm going to hit the shower, grab some breakfast, gas up the car and drive to Denver.

This post brought to you by "On the road again" and "I'm leaving, on a jet plane."

Hitting The Road

It's 8 a.m. where Nerdstar is - I'm just not sure what that is. Hopefully she made it to Kuwait nice and safe.

I'm hitting the road in the morning. I'm all packed and everything is all set and I'm ready to be done with this sofa! I'm driving from Austin to Salina, KS tomorrow. Not a very exciting drive. But the rest of the drive should be really cool.

I've been anxious and felt like crying several times today. Maybe it's an odd form of relief, maybe I'm transferring all the fear and worry about Nerdstar to fear and worry about the future. It's going to be hard to reprogram my brain - any suggestions?

It's also weird to know this part of our lives is over - although it will be felt for a long time to come. I'll probably write more about those kinds of things in a week or so.

I must say - road trippin is a good way to start over.

Counting Down

It's finally September 1. It's looking likely Nerdstar will be home this month, and with luck we'll both be at Ft. Lewis in Washington in three weeks. Hopefully she'll fly out of Iraq to Kuwait on the 18th and I'll leave Austin and start driving to Ft. Lewis. It should be lots of fun coordinating a trip halfway across the country with a trip halfway around the world.

I'm so excited about my road trip up there. I've been planning it for at least six weeks now. I've got my list of things to pack, my big book of maps of the U.S. and each state, I've arranged for a house sitter to take care of the cats and fish and such, I've got all the info for the hotel we'll stay at near Ft. Lewis, and on and on. I've even started packing.

I've been telling the cats not to worry while I'm gone, I'll be back. And I've been telling Ramen he's getting to go on a big trip with me and will get to see his other Mom soon.

No, I'm not ready to get going at all. HA!

I'll be driving from Austin up thru Oklahoma and part of Kansas (1-35 to I-70), then head over close to Denver then on to close to Salt Lake City, up thru Boise, Idaho then thru Oregon up to Tacoma, Washington. I'm not sure yet if it's going to take me three days or four. It kinda depends on how long it takes Nerdstar to clear out of Kuwait. I'll have the cell phone and laptop with me so hopefully we can stay in touch. It'll be hard for her to find phones enroute.

If any of you dear readers live along the route - drop me an email and maybe we can meet up for lunch or dinner or something.

Outta Town

The boss man at the temp job ended up being just a little too creepy, so I decided not to go back. I felt a little bad not sticking it out longer. In the future I might have to work I job I don't want to, right now I'm still fortunate I don't have to.

That said, I did get a different temp assignment starting Monday, so that's cool.

In the meantime I had decided it was time to go see Zachary. So I'm up at my parents' house near Dallas for a couple of days.

If blogging is a little light it's because I've got a very cute little 3 year old bossing me around.

Outta here

I'm heading up to Dallas to spend a couple of days with my brother and nephew while my parents are out of town. I've been looking forward to seeing Zach all week. I'm sure he's grown since I was there for his birthday and I can't wait to hear what all he's added to his vocabulary. It's also going to be good to have a change of scenery for a couple of days!

On the Road Again

I'm off to Dallas to visit the family. I'm so excited. Tonight I'm taking Zachary to his first baseball game - my brother and Zach and I are going to go watch the Rangers. Zachary turned 3 earlier this week so it's his birthday weekend. I got him a huge Buzz Lightyear and then the Dora and Thomas the Train books for his little Leap Pad.

I'll try to post a pic of him in his Rangers wear.

Lucky Day

Yes, I'm really writing this at 5:21 in the a.m. It's been a very, very long 24 hours, but also pretty lucky. I got a wake up call from my Nerdstar about 22 hours ago. For whatever reason only certain people on her base get access to a phone. She's been lucky and the Air Force guys have been very nice and let her use their satellite phone sometimes. Today she finally got whatever badge or whatever she needs to have access to the regular phones that just require a calling card. Woohoo!

I drove to Houston this afternoon to check out a church a reader recommended. On the way there I got pulled over - the first time I've been pulled over in years - and I only got a warning! But why do those men always look so mean even when they're being nice?

Ok, so church was ok, but not great. The casino was only another 2 1/2 hours down the highway, and it wasn't raining like they said it would be... so I just had to go.

I sat down at a blackjack table with $40. At one point I had about $120, and then the next thing I knew I was back to $45. I headed over to the craps table and under two hours later I had $450. I lost $50 at roulette and blackjack just making sure my luck had ended. But that's 4 $100 bills going into the checking account Monday morning! Yeah me!

Now I'm off to bed to see how long I can sleep

Too Much

What a difference a couple of days can make. When I was driving up to Dallas Saturday morning I was an emotional wreck and in tears. The stress of the past few days couldn't be ignored.

There were so many things I was grappling with. It's been one thing to have a general sense of worry about Nerdstar and missing her terribly. It was another thing altogether when her life was in much more real and imminent danger.

One of the obvious issues is where do I find comfort. Honestly, not really from anywhere other than hearing from Nerdstar herself that's she's alive and well, at least for the time being.

I tried praying Friday night and just couldn't for so many reasons. Mostly because I don't believe he's "there for me." I'm still struggling a lot with what kind of God I believe exists. Does praying for a particular soldier really make them any safer? Does God actually take an active interest in our individual lives? I used to believe that. But even if he does, does he in mine? I've reached out in the past few months to several people I used to be really close to when I was going to church. Even knowing how hard things are for me with Nerdstar being gone, at best the response has been total indifference. If I can't count on Christians to be supportive and understanding, then who could I count on?

Then there's the issue of feeling totally selfish. Yes, I'm all for a free and democratic Iraq - but not at the price of Nerdstar's life. Well, then who's life do I think it should be? Beats me.

There was more in there, but you get the picture.

The drive back to Austin was much more calm. I'm still worried, still don't have any answers, but I'm not as emotionally wrecked.

Done

Done, I'm Done and I'm On To The Next One.

It's 1 a.m. and as per normal this week, I'm waiting for my Nerdstar to log on so we can chat. Then I'm going to sleep as much as I can because I need to get up about 9 and drive to Dallas to visit my family for Easter weekend. I decided I'd rather stay Monday for a long weekend than go up there today. When I saw the traffic out there when I went to lunch I realized it was the smart choice.

As for the done stuff, I think I'm going to take a little break from posting until I get back to Austin. Well, you know, unless something really interesting happens, or just happens to cross my mind.

Happy Weekend!

Break from the Whirlwind

We got up this morning intending to head back to Austin fairly early, but poor Zachary was throwing up and couldn't go to school, so we stayed with him until my Mom came home at noon. It was nice to spend a little more time with him!

The weather today was just perfect. It feels good to have February over. With the beginning of each new month it just feels like that much closer to me having Nerdstar home for good.

We've had to do some compromising on her spending time with her family. She rented a car this afternoon and went ahead and drove to Houston with Ramen. Her sister flies into Houston late tomorrow night. We knew things would be crazy there until Wednesday, so I'm going to drive to Houston Wednesday afternoon and stay in a hotel. She'll spend the afternoons and evenings with her family and then come snuggle with me overnight. We're going to come back to Austin Friday night, probably late, and then she doesn't fly out of Austin until Monday morning.

Yes, it's all crazy. And I've made her swear up and down that once she's home from Iraq she's going to make her family treat me better. It's just too big a battle to try to wage in this short time that she's home on leave.

We've spent many hours this last week talking about all of it. It's so hard to understand, much less explain, about her family and their attitude towards our relationship. In the past year it went from grudingly accepting to hoping that if they don't have to see me it won't exist. It's partly cultural, maybe partly religious, partly who knows what.

Nerdstar would be perfectly happy to not talk to anyone in her family but her grandparents and sister, but with a family that's all into each other's lives that's just not going to happen.

Very Nice!

It's so nice having my Nerdstar home!! It's great to not have to worry about her and how she's doing and if she's safe, to not have to wonder when I get to hear from her again. My mind can finally relax.

This week is all about food and sex and sleep. We'll hit all our favorite restaurants, do some shopping, maybe catch a movie, mostly relax.

Next week is all about family. Saturday we'll head up to Dallas to spend a couple of days with my family. Then Monday we drive to Houston to see her family. I think we've worked out the time with her family. Her uncle had requested that I not stay the nights at her grandparents' house. I would just send her down there by herself if it was only for a couple of days, but they really want her there as long as possible. I told her I couldn't give up that many nights of snuggling when it's going to be so very long until we see each other again. So we're going to get a hotel room and she's going to spend the days with her family and I get her at night. I'll probably spend one day with her and her family, but that'll be about it.

Yes, it's all kinda crazy. I try to be understanding about how her family feels. But it's always hard to have your relationship so disregarded. Poor Nerdstar always feels caught in the middle, and I hate that. But, this two weeks is all about my girl being happy, so whatever that takes I'll do.

Coming Home

Kuwait to Athens
Athens to New York
New York to Atlanta
Atlanta to Austin

If all goes well, she'll be here at 10 pm tomorrow!!!

Brain Break

Sorry for the light posting. I've been up at my parents' house since Saturday taking a short vacation from my brain and from staring at the same walls all the time. (yummy, my Mom makes the best french toast and I can smell it cooking now.) Saturday night my brother and I drove over to Shreveport to go gambling. No luck. I decided Nerdstar must be my good luck charm! It's definitely more fun with her around. I've spent the rest of the time hanging out with little Zachary. Nothing like a little boy to get you out of your head!

I brought season 1 of Buffy dvds for my mom to watch. Last night Zach couldn't sleep so he got up and was watching them with us. It was the episode where Buffy tries out for cheerleader. Zach looked at the tv, saw the cheerleaders and said "Wow!" Heh!

Nerdstar is about to start her four or more day trek from Iraq to Dallas. I can't wait to see her!! I've got some house cleaning to do before then though!

Ok, time for french toast...

279

My Nerdstar has been gone from home 279 days, 87 of those she's been in Iraq.

I guess I try not to pay too much attention to every single day. Especially being unemployed and having to find ways to fill up all the time, it's all really bluring together. My wacked out sleeping schedule just makes it all worse. I swear 2:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. have become interchangeable in terms of what I'm doing at either one. Each can find me watching tv, surfing the internet or sleeping, it's all the same. I'm not saying this is a good thing, I'm just saying that's how it is for the time being.

I was going to go up to Dallas and spend a few days with my family, hang out with little Zachary this week, but my brother called and since the following Monday is our Mom's birthday, it's better if I wait a week. Now I'm at the start of another six days and nights to fill up.

A bright spot on the horizon is that Nerdstar's two weeks of leave during this year deployment are probably going to happen pretty soon. She has a very tentative travel date of Feb. 20th. Two weeks from now. It's a bit early in the year deployment, but I don't care. Of course, nothing is absolute with the military until she's actually on the plane!

The other night while lying in bed and missing my girl I decided that telepathy would be a great thing. Ok, not uncontrolled mass telepathy, but the kind where I could send her little thoughts on how much I miss her and she could do the same would be very nice.

We actually got to IM for over an hour today while she was working the graveyard shift. That always helps!! I haven't posted any updates from her lately because fortunately, things for her are really quiet and boring over there. They can stay that way as far as I'm concerned.

Once again I'd like to say thanks to everyone who sends us will wishes and prays for her safe return and all. It means a lot to both of us!!

The places I've been

The majority of this traveling has been done driving, with my family when I was young, or with Nerdstar in the past five years.

When I was little, we'd drive to Oklahoma to go camping, or to Tennessee or New Mexico to visit my dad's familiy. I think I was fifteen or sixteen when we drove to St. Louis. All of this was from Dallas.

In high school and college I think I ended up on about four road trips to Colorado to go skiing - from Dallas or Austin.

Nine or ten years ago I drove with my family out to SF, again from Dallas. I stayed with a friend from college and they stayed with family. We drove the 36 hours straight thru, my dad and I taking turns driving and sleeping. On the way back I wanted to see the Grand Canyon. See it was about all we did. We got to some part of it around 3:30 in the morning so we all slept in the van until the sun came up, took a look around, and hit the road for home. I hope to one day take a few days and do some white water rafting thru the Canyon.

Nerdstar and I took a month long road trip not long after we met from Austin up thru the east coast to Toronto and back. That was the best month of my life.

I think it was two years ago we drove to Sante Fe for New Year's Eve.

Even when we fly to a destination, we end up doing a lot of driving around and seeing the scenery.

There's just nothing like a good road trip! If I thought there was a market for it, I'd do road trip planning for people!

See Extended Entry for map.

After...

The kid loves to open packages! This Christmas was all about trains and hot wheels. Two hot wheels carrying cases and at least two different kinds of trains. I moved my parents into modern times a little by getting them a dvd player. It was christened with Finding Nemo. I think Zach will like it a lot eventually, there were just too many new toys to play with to sit still.

So now the food's all eaten, the new toys all played with, and if it were up to me, the beds wouldn't be empty!

Blogging and reading blogs at my parents' house is a little tricky. I certainly don't want my family to read this site (somehow it's just a little more info than I want them to have), which is easy to achieve seeing as they don't even have a computer in the house. But, when I've got the laptop with me and the easiest place to set it up is in the living room on the foot stool in front of the big cozy chair, naturally, they want to know what I'm reading. Uh, nope.

My best gift today was a phone call from Nerdstar. She said the food was good, but she didn't get a shower. I'm sure she'd rather have a good meal than a shower anyway! All we can really say is that next Christmas has to be better!!

The Monkey on my Back

I drove up to Dallas this morning to my parents' house. Tomorrow I'm driving back to Austin not only with the dog in the car, but also with Zachary. A 2 1/2 year old boy and a dog, in the car, for multiple hours. Oh what fun!

As I'm in a big chair trying to type this, Zachary is behind me playing with my hair, jumping around, wrapping his arms around my neck. Yep, nothing like blogging with a monkey on my back! It'll be just Zach and I until we come back to Dallas Christmas Eve. The goal, as always, is to completely wear him out every day! Wish me luck.

If I don't post anything in any 24 hour period - call the authorities, I just might be tied up.

Update

I got another call from Nerdstar this morning. It helps so much just to hear her voice! She's still having a really, really hard time dealing with being there, being frustrated and angry and miserable. Ok, actually, it's getting a little better. Poor thing has to spend Thanksgiving and the next three days at a weapons range. Then early next week they're supposed to start their trek into Iraq. So feel free to send her warm thoughts, prayers, and emails!

I made it up to Dallas from Austin in decent time, but even from 10 to noon there was already more traffic than usual. I can't imagine the parking lot I-35 will be this evening.

It's a little hard to be thankful this year - I'm working on it. But a year is a damn long time to be apart. Just think how long ago last Thanksgiving feels, and how far from now next Thanksgiving feels. Because, if we're lucky I'll have Nerdstar home for next Thanksgiving! She's already planning all the things she'll eat!!

Home

Yes, Nerdstar and I made it back to Austin, and she went and picked up Ramen from the kennel this morning. The cats were happy to see us. Little Man kept waking us up every hour or so meowing at us loudly all night. It's stupidly warm here this week - in the 80s. UGH! The high in Tacoma yesterday was in the low 40s, which we both prefer. Oh well, looks like we can ride the motorcycle to lunch!

It was really good to get away for a week. Spending time with Nerdstar helped me to set everything aside for a few days and not worry so much. I'm an amazing proficient worrier. But, another week has gone by, the ship out date is still getting closer, and suprise, surprise, we still have absolutely NO idea what's going to happen. Last word she got on Friday was that the paperwork has just been going back and forth between the new and the old units trying to decide who's going to decide. Stupid.

So, we're off to our favorite restaurants and maybe the movies and getting in as much snuggling as we can.

Driving Around

Nerdstar had the day off yesterday so we decided to take a drive up to Mt. Rainier. We weren’t able to drive to the top because the road was washed out, but the drive we did get to make was just beautiful. It was a mostly sunny day, the leaves are changing into their fall garb, so driving thru the forest with the sun coming thru the trees was fantastic.

For most of my life I’ve longed to spend some major time in a small cabin by a stream in the mountains, or at least a forest, somewhere. One of my favorite books is The River Why by David James Duncan. Other than having one of the best ever boy meets girl scenes, the main character arranges to live his ideal schedule – composed of fishing about 21 hours a day. It’s all set in this part of the country and it just draws me in.

Nerdstar and I seem to spend an inordinate amount of time driving around this country together. Fortunately, it’s something we both enjoy. It’s such a beautiful country. I’m always so curious about people who choose to live in the different parts of it, what they do for a living, why did they decide to live there in particular. Especially yesterday driving thru the forest and seeing the log cabins. I was so tempted to find someone to talk to about being able to live here.

At the very least, every time we take drives like this one, I’m tempted to find the nearest RV store and just load up the pets and hit the road, finding temp work in whatever city we end up in until we’re ready to move on. But, for now, we just can’t do that.

Made it

I made it to Tacoma. I'm not sure flying is something us humans are really supposed to be doing. It's kinda disconcerting to be 2400 miles from home in a few hours. We're all checked in and watching baseball. I'm going to try very hard to relax and not be a stressed out freak this week, but I'm not sure I can until I know for 100% certain that Nerdstar is not going to Iraq - and not only do we not know that, we still don't know when we will know. UGH!

See, relaxing can be hard for me.

It's beautiful and sunshiney here today - just like it has been every other day I've been in the Seattle area. I'm starting to think this rainy thing is just a nasty rumor!

Go Marlins!!

Oh, and I think I could get used to having a laptop and blogging from bed. Although, hmmm... that could be a whole different kind of blog. Maybe that kind of blog would pay the bills.

Made it

I made it to Tacoma. I'm not sure flying is something us humans are really supposed to be doing. It's kinda disconcerting to be 2400 miles from home in a few hours. We're all checked in and watching baseball. I'm going to try very hard to relax and not be a stressed out freak this week, but I'm not sure I can until I know for 100% certain that Nerdstar is not going to Iraq - and not only do we not know that, we still don't know when we will know. UGH!

See, relaxing can be hard for me.

It's beautiful and sunshiney here today - just like it has been every other day I've been in the Seattle area. I'm starting to think this rainy thing is just a nasty rumor!

Go Marlins!!

Ready To Go

This time tomorrow I'll be on my way to Tacoma to spend the week with Nerdstar. I think I'll be more excited about that once this very slow work day is over. Everything is arranged, the dog has reservations at the Canine Hilton, the neighbor is going to feed the fish and check on the cats.

I bought two books for the plane rides, I'll write about them later. For now suffice it to say that Neil Gaiman has cost me a lot of money this year. Now that I've read everything he's written, I'm branching out to women authors he's worked with or recommended.

I probably need to do a load of laundry tonight, and then pack.

We have plans to check into the hotel, order some pizza and get naked and snuggle while watching Game 6. Personally, I think that's the only way to watch sports and have been sorely deprived with Nerdstar being gone for six months

Other than that the week will be kinda weird for me because she's still doing Army stuff all the time and I'll be spending more time on an Army base and in the barracks. Her roommate was reassigned back to Austin because she's pregnant, so Nerdstar has her room to herself. But I'm still not sure I want to sleep in the barracks if it's possible for her to stay at the hotel with me. We'll figure out all the logistics after I get there.

Weekend

The weekend was very nice. Beautiful driving weather! In fact, it's still warm enough in Houston that Nerdstar and her sister went swimming Saturday afternoon, and then a bunch of kids got to swim that evening.

It was two days of family, and since it was only two days it was great! Her sister's husband is as picky about what he eats as I am, so it was nice to not be the only weirdo there! It was interesting to see everyone dote on him as the new man in the family.

Everyone loves Ramen because he's better behaved than their dogs and just wants to be petted all the time. He's funny though, after an extended period of time with lots of noise, he starts trying to find a quiet place to hide.

Mostly it was good to spend time with Nerdstar. She's still in Houston for a few days. Her grandmother has more medical tests on Wednesday, so she's going to go with her. Her grandmother was doing really well this weekend, she enjoys having everyone around for a few days.

Now it's back to work on a Monday morning. Oh joy.

Weekend Ponderings

Ramen and I had a lovely road trip. It's a good thing he doesn't mind five hours in a car and sleeping in hotel rooms! He's a very strange dog though. He wants desperately to be petted twenty hours a day, but he's not a dog that will do anything to please you to ensure those hours of petting. Saturday night when I got back from the casino and was on the phone with Nerdstar, I was sitting in a chair with my feet up on the king sized bed. Ramen walked around to the other side, looked me in the eyes, and jumped on the bed. Jerk. He knows better - he's never allowed on the furniture.

I lost a couple hundred gambling. I don't usually play roulette, but it was the only game I was winning at Saturday. Oh well. It wasn't the same being there without Nerdstar!

I realized it's the first time I've ever slept in a hotel room alone. Very weird. Then I got to thinking about all the rich, single men who'll fly to Vegas for the weekend and just hire a "companion." That would be too weird, too. I wonder, though, if I were to ever be older, rich and single, would I call up some company and hire a beautiful young woman to hang out with for an evening, a weekend. Maybe. Maybe once to see what it's like. To see what her life is usually like.

My attitude towards money is changing a little, too. When Nerdstar first left I was all about neither of us spending any money and saving it all for something big when she gets home. Now I'm more likely to say, fuck it, let's spend what we need to be happy now.

Choices

Oh my poor sad neglected empty lonely comments.... :-)

Plan A: Go home and be one with my sofa for the evening. I have a few tv shows recorded I've missed the last couple of days, and I'm feeling the need to lose a few brain cells.

Plan B: Go home and vacuum the floors, sweep up the dead bugs the cats bring in to play with, and shave my legs.

Hmmm... which do you think is more likely??

I pick Nerdstar up at the airport around 2 tomorrow afternoon. Then it's an evening of pizza and the first season of Coupling on dvd.

She got an update on the tests they did on her grandfather - and it turns out to be nothing serious. Her uncle is trying very hard to get her grandmother into the hospital in Houston that is the best in the world for stomach cancer. I don't understand the whole situation, but I still don't think the outlook is all that good.

Saturday we're headed to Dallas to see my family. I know Zachary will be very happy to see her - and in turn that will make her a little happier, too!

Close

Close but not close enough. Nerdstar got into Houston about 6:30 this morning. She has taken a week of leave time to see her family. She hasn't seen them since she left the on first of May and might not see them again until next May if she's sent to Iraq. She's going to drive up to Austin Thursday to be home for a couple of days. We've got an appointment at the really cool hair salon I got my last haircut at. We've got another list of restaurants. And then there's the usual odds and ends to straighten up. Mostly there's lots of snuggling to catch up on.

Ms. Smash wrote an entry about having Lt. Smash come home. I can mostly relate to what she's saying. I've realized even more lately that I can't imagine how hard her being gone would be if we had real kids (as opposed to pets). It's hard enough keeping up with the pets that we have. Silly apparently has worms. Ramen is back to itching like crazy. Feeding, walking, take care of.

As I've mentioned, I lived alone for a long time before I met Nerdstar. I'm good at it. Going to restaurants, movies, bookstores, whatever, alone doesn't bother me too much. But I really, really don't like it.

So here's to all the military wives/husbands out there who suck it up and do the best they can while their spouse is out keeping the rest of us safe and helping others be just a little more free. It's harder than you think!!

Misc. Monday

My new car is wonderful! I made it to Dallas in record time and in record comfort. Ramen thinks the front seat is a little small for him, but he doesn't want in the back seat either. (If he had his way he'd be in my lap the whole time.)

Zachary is so cute. But I think he's even more stubborn than he is cute! He's still not really talking very well. He can say his favorite foods, but not much else - although he sings and chatters away all the time. What's so fun to watch is how he is so good at pantomime. At 2 he could be a world champion charades player.

It was nice to not do or think too much this weekend.

Then last night I couldn't sleep for the life of me. I watched Lawrence of Arabia for the first time. I liked it. It's good to watch characters who were larger than life. Then I watched most of The Last Emperor. Two completely different cultures, but not too far apart in time. History is pretty much taught as a timeline, which it really isn't. It's more like a spider's web. All interconnected in ways we'll never even know.

Random insert: I'd love to see a globe that was to scale and without oceans. I know there are mountains under the ocean taller than Mt. Everest, but I can't really picture it. So I'd love a globe that showed all of that. Would the earth look all spikey without the oceans?

Well, work was interesting Friday. They fired one of my least favorite people! I feel really bad for her, but I'm still glad she's not here. It throws me off because I've got to cover the front desk a lot until they hire someone new. But oh well.

I spent a lot of the night thinking about work and alternate plans, only to show up this morning and pretty much think I should just stick this out until Nerdstar is done with the Army. But who knows, I could change my mind again tomorrow.

Nerdstar is thinking she could ship out next month, and it's already making me sad. Sigh.

Friday

Apparently, my brain is taking the day off. I suggest yours do the same.

July is finally over - it seemed very long. Hopefully, August will be a good month - there are hints it will be. At the very least, I get to see my girl the last weekend of this month! With a little luck, I might get to see her more than that! (Further bulletins as events warrant.)

We're having catered hamburgers and hotdogs and then cake at work today. Our company is in it's 50th year, so we've had all kinds of cheesy things this week. Hint: never let people in Iowa City plan you a party.

An additional bonus is that I'm out of here at 3 instead of 4 today - I'm driving my nice new little car up to Dallas to see the folks. I'm going to spend lots of time having fun with Zachary, I'm going to get my laundry done, and I'm going to try very hard to avoid watching any news. They still haven't managed to get the internet in their house, so I'll be blog free for a couple of days.

Waiting

Nothing like making a long day longer... her flight was delayed about an hour and a half. You think that if you're only real responsibility in a business was to maintain an on time schedule you'd do just that. Well, when the government gives you millions in hand outs instead of making you suffer the wrath of pissed of customers, why worry about being on time? (Yes that's a shortened version of the airline bailouts and customer service - but it's not inaccurate.)

Then again, she's the one who chose American over Southwest - silly girl!

Two more hours and she should be in sight!

Home

Traveling is such a mixed bag. I like flying because it makes me feel all grown up. Even better, you can be across the country in a relatively short amount of time. Well, if everything goes according to plan it's a short amount of time! Yesterday, however, it was over 12 hours. Four of which were spent sitting in the Phoenix airport. I got lucky though, I was really hoping that at least one of my flights would be overbooked and I could volunteer to take a later flight and get a travel voucher. Sure enough. Luckily, I got to take a non-stop flight from Phoenix to Austin instead of going thru El Paso, and only got home an hour later. Now, that didn't get me in bed until after midnight, but that extra hour also got me $344 on Southwest Airlines. Very nice.

But that much time in airports and planes just meant way too much time in very close proximity to the general public. And most people are just dull and dim. You knew that already, though, didn't you?

My time in Seattle, Tacoma, Ft. Lewis, etc. was really, really nice and relaxing! It was great to spend carefree time with my girl. Saturday we just hung out, went to the bookstore, drove around the base. We ended up in Gig Harbour for the evening. We looked at all the boats moored there and had a really nice dinner at Spiro's pizza and pasta place.

We talked a lot about "the future." We still don't have any info on how long she's at Ft. Lewis, where she goes next, or when she'll be back home. So much depends not really on how long she's gone, but on if any of this leads to her getting a job as a linguist for the military either active duty or as a civilian doing contract work. The biggest problem with her being active duty is us not being able to live together easily. But if it does lead to a job, then that's what our future plans will be based on. Which will make it all a lot easier! On the other hand, if in six months or a year she's home with no job leads, we're free to do whatever we want.

What's hard is knowing what to base that decision on, especially in this job market. Do we take our chances and move to the Northwest with several thousand in the bank but no job lined up? Do we stay here in Austin where we'd probably have better luck buying a house because of my job here? Do we throw caution to the wind, buy an RV and tour around the country for six months, a year?

I'm not really tied into the whole idea of buying a house, and therefore being locked into having to have a job that pays X amount of money just to have that house. Maybe if I'd ever been able to settle on a career it would be different. But it just doesn't look like I want to be a career woman. Law school has been very tempting for the money and such it could provide down the road. But I think the price in the meantime is too high. I don't feel like giving up the next five to ten years busting my ass for the chance at more security later. I'd rather live in a small little house and have my time as my own.

Nerdstar wants a career more than I do. I'd love to see her as a linguist. I think we'd both rather be poor nomads than be in some soul sucking 9-5 for long.

Who knows what the future holds. These days I'm learning to relax, lighten up, take it all in stride.

Seattle

Howdy Folks. It's Saturday afternoon and I'm on post at Ft. Lewis. The weather up here in sunny Seattle was just that all day yesterday, SUNNY! I told the guy on the ferry that I brought it with me personally from Texas. Thankfully today is more overcast! I didn't come all this way for sunshine, I get plenty of that at home. Although, I'll take sunny with a high of 75 over sunny with a high of 101 any day of the year!!

It's nice spending time with Nerdstar. Friday was dinner and snuggling!! Yesterday we spent all day in downtown seattle. We took a harbor tour on a boat that was very nice. Seattle has a truly beautiful skyline. It was weird though, when I was taking a picture from the boat it reminded me of being in NYC and taking the ferry out to see the Statue of Liberty. I have a fantastic picture of the NYC skyline before 9/11. I had just had it enlarged to 11x14 about a month before 9/11. So when I was taking the picture here in Seattle, I couldn't help but hope I wasn't jinxing the skyline. Stupid I know. But that's how much 9/11 has effected my psyche.

Anyway. The point was it was a nice day of wandering around a beautiful city. The fireworks weren't "the best ever" but it was fun to watch them on the pier.

Today we just had lunch in the mess hall and are figuring out what next. Maybe a drive up to Mount Ranier. It's cloudy today, but I think it would still be a great drive. Plus, there's snow up there - you can't beat snow in July!

Be back on Monday!

Cookie Monster

I love this kid! This is my nephew Zachary. He just turned 2 in early May. He's smart, stubborn, sweet, onery and cute as hell. When I was trying to get pregnant I was kinda sad because I had a feeling that my kid would never be this cute - even though Zach looks a lot like my baby pictures.

This weekend, my parents and Zach and I took the Dallas light rail into Dallas so my parents could see how long it takes to get over to this medical facility they have to go to later this month. Like almost all little boys, Zach loves trains. He had a blast! I can't wait until he's just a little older and we can do movies, and the zoo and six flags and the beach! Nerdstar and I would steal him if we could.

Happy Weekend

As soon as I get off work today, we're headed up to Dallas for my nephew's birthday. It's going to be an Elmo theme. He turns 2. I can't wait to see him, he's so cute! He's getting a big sandbox from us, he loves to be outside. Unfortunately, he's fearless and klutzy! I keep saying just put him in a helmet and pads and send him on his way!

My parents got a computer recently, but it doesn't have a modem. I'm going to try to put one in for them. The idea of my parents on the internet scares me! They mostly just want to be able to send emails, but you know how the internet just sucks you in! Needless to say, they don't know about this site, and I have no intention of telling them. I'm kinda close to my parents, but this is more info than they need. Yes, I know, it's strange that I'll let total strangers read all this, but not family. That's just the way it is.

Other than seeing Zach, I'm mostly looking forward to the cake and ice cream!

Have a great weekend!!

Friday

I don't think I've mentioned recently how much I love riding my motorcycle! It's still the best way to start my day, by riding to work. And even if I were to never listen to Ani again, everytime I ride I have the line "i'll keep my hands warm in your pockets, you can use the engine blocks" in my head.

Nerdstar is on her way to Houston for the weekend. This isn't going to be a fun weekend for her because she's getting together with her aunts and uncles to work out family "what if" stuff that came about because of her grandfather's stroke.

My weekend will consist of watching some baseball (Rangers), basketball (Mavericks) and hockey (Stars) and then more of my Buffy second season dvds. I also have to go get my motorcycle inspected and tuned up. Other than that I just want to sleep!! This week at work has been frantic.

Breaking Even

I think the best part of Monday morning, especially after being away from most of the news and from my computer most of the weekend, is catching up on all the personal blogs I read. It's so nice that so many people accomodate my voyeur side :-)

This gambling trip played out just like so many of the others. We got to the casino about 10 pm Saturday and spent until 3 am losing the money we brought to gamble with. We got back to the hotel to find Ramen right in the middle of the king size bed. He looked up at us like "hey, how ya doin'?"

So, because Nerdstar refuses to leave a casino without at least winning her money back, we headed back over there about noon on Sunday. Thankfully, we ended up at another lucky craps table and won our money back.

We really need to do fewer trips with more money and more time to sleep and relax!!

Other than that not much new going on this week. I'm just trying to stay upright at work today until I can go home and take a nap!!

Whew

The trip to Vegas was so exhausting I'm almost glad to be back at my desk where it's quiet and sorta relaxing. I can't remember another four days I slept so little or walked so much. That's Vegas for ya.

Can I just say I don't understand the way people act when they're traveling. I swear I don't know how some of them manage to get out their front door and to the airport, much less plan and go on a vacation. Mingling with them are the people who think they own the world and every line should part like the Red Sea so they don't have to wait like mere mortals.

Other than winning back the money we'd been losing (details to follow) the best part of being in Vegas was the near complete detachment from reality. Four days of not thinking about work or the war (except to check the news in the mornings to make sure the whole world hadn't been blown up) was just what I needed.

The immutable law of gambling where Nerdstar and I are concerned is that you must spend all of your days slowly but surely loosing money only to spend all night your last night winning it back. Except for the $40 that turned into $200 playing roulette, every time we were at a blackjack or craps table we'd lose. But I guess it's fortunate that Nerdstar is a stubborn addict and can't be dragged away from a casino until she gets lucky.

Sunday night was really the highlight of the trip. Friday was played a little, ate a little, watched some basketball and lost half our gambling money! Saturday we walked and walked and walked and watched a little basketball. Sunday night at our blackjack table were a couple of British guys, one of them is a rugby player. They were fun to get to know. We tried to teach them craps, but no luck. It took a while but between blackjack and roulette I finally called it quits on gambling for this trip. I had enough cash to help get the dog out of the kennel, take a taxi to the hotel and then to the airport, and get some breakfast before the flight. But Nerdstar was relentless. About 1 am she finds a craps table she likes and takes her last $40 and plays. Forty-five minutes into it she's doing ok and the table seems to be on a roll (no pun intended). So I borrow $20 in chips from her and the guy hits the point right off. Ok, nice start for a change.

An hour later that same guy is STILL rolling and everyone at that table walks away with about ten times as much money as they started with. For some of them they went from 2 or 3 hundred to 3 or 4 thousand - in an hour! I went from $20 to $400 - winning back the amount I'd started with Friday morning. Which is why we're addicts - you just never know when that incredible roll is going to come around.

Watching March Madness in Vegas was fun. It's great to watch a game on huge screens with fans of both teams yelling and clapping. Especially when UT kicks everyone's butt!! Go Longhorns!!

But, it's nice to be home, nice that at least our pets missed us.

We have to go back to Vegas in September, Nerdstar's sister is getting married there. I just took the money I won and set it aside to play with again then.

Vegas Is Calling

Nerdstar and I have a 7 am flight to Vegas in the morning and we can NOT wait to be there! We try to make it to Vegas at least once a year. There's just no place like it. We'll be playing lots of blackjack and lots of craps. There are buffets to take advantage of. And, we'll be watching UT basketball Friday night - Hookem Horns! It's so fun to watch a game on a huge screen with lots of guys who have money riding on the game. I try to stay away from sports bets, but we'll see what the odds are for UT.

The downside of this trip is not having a laptop to take along. I'll have to put a little effort into finding internet access and checking my email and maybe posting an update.

So, if you don't hear from me until Monday - rest assured I am happy and having fun and with any luck at all stuffing $100 chips in my pockets :-)

This would be a great time to check out all the links I have over there in Daily Reads - they're much better writers than I am anyway!!

Friday evening

For the second Friday in a row, Nerdstar has gone to Houston because her grandfather is in the hospital. Her uncle, who is there, seemed a little more upset today. Nerdstar's mostly going to help calm her grandmother down.

This leaves me home alone with boring war coverage. Now, I thank God that war coverage is boring. I just wish that will all the reporters over there we could get more confirmed info faster. I mean, msnbc was doing a follow up to a story that was on the today show this morning - huh??

Yet I don't have the attention span tonight for reading a book or anything else. Odds are good it's a tylenol pm kinda night.

Tomorrow my parents are coming down and bringing my nephew. I've been looking forward to this all week! We're doing Cheesecake Factory for lunch... yummy!

Outta here

I've got five minutes left at work. Nerdstar went to Houston today to see her grandparents. Sadly, her grandparents will be more happy to see Ramen than her these days. Just imagine if it was a real grandchild :-)

Me, well, I'm going to go get my motorcycle out of the garage I've had it stored in. Ice cream is definitely in my plans for the next 48 hours. Other than that we'll see where life takes me.

Have fun!

Pics

I really did take some pics of the living room and some art work the other night, but alas, the computer wouldn't agree to upload them. Nerdstar is headed to Houston this weekend to spend Chinese New Year with her grandparents, so I'll wander around Austin, see if I can take some decent pics and get them all up here.

Weary Traveler

This weary traveler is definitely weary and very glad to be home! I've been in constant motion since I arrived at the airport in Sacramento on Friday. The first flight was great, then the flight from Phoenix to Austin was delayed an hour and a half. I got back to Austin at 1 am. Friday.

Saturday about 8 am we got headed out for Houston to meet up with Nerdstar's grandfather and uncle to look for her a new car. The truck has been just enough trouble that it doesn't get another chance. After three hours with an asshole car salesman at CarMax, we found - with no help from him - a 94 Corolla she really liked that was at a decent price.

Yesterday were had to decide between coming home and resting up, or driving over to Lake Charles for a little gambling! You can guess which one won. Nerdstar had better luck than I did. But I'm still up for the year.

After about nine hours on the road yesterday we finally made it back to Austin to my nice soft warm bed!! It was a nice vacation, but I'm glad to be home!!

Just what I needed

This vacation has been just what I needed. Quiet, relaxing, good food, good company. New Year's Eve was happily uneventful, just dinner and then watching silly girl movies, Bring It On and Coyote Ugly. Those were enough to kill a few brain cells, but I suppose in a good way. There were fireworks shows at 10 and midnight just outside her apartment window, very nice! We didn't have to stand out in the cold with the crazy drunk people to enjoy them.

Yesterday we drove to Yosemite and back. It was such a beautiful drive! On the way back we finally found a nice little casino and in a couple of hours of Blackjack I walked out with an additional $200 in my pocket! Woohoo! Hopefully that's a sign that 2003 is in for better things. It was weird though, it was the grumpiest Blackjack table I've ever sat down at. Even the dealer was getting pissy with two of the players - to me that's unheard of! Thankfully she was replaced pretty soon by a very nice guy.

The drive back was also thru some back roads and a series of identical looking small towns. Nice.

Nerdstar took both the dogs and went to spend New Year's with her grandparents. Fortunately, her cousins and grandparents liked the stray so we're leaving her there for a while to see how it goes. We have to go back down to Houston this weekend to get her a new car anyway.

Nerdstar is all about food, so yesterday she told me that even food doesn't taste the same with me gone :-) I take it she misses me! I miss her, too!

Today I think we're going to San Francisco and then driving along the coastline. Way cool!

Hope your new year is starting off as nicely!!

Vacation

Howdy from "sunny" California, except it's cold and rainy here in Sacramento. That's fine with me though, so much better than hot and sunny!

It seems like forever since I've written anything. Friday when we got home late from dinner the stray dog was not to be found. I'm not convinced she could or would jump over the fence, so I kinda think someone thought she was too loud while we weren't home and let her out. Jerks. So Saturday we were both kinda sad. We went to a really late dinner Saturday night, then were sitting in the car listening to a weird radio show and the stray dog came right up to our fence gate and front door! We let her back in, took her out back and she ate a little and played with Ramen.

We'd had a vet. appointment for her Saturday, but she got lucky and missed that. I'm not sure when Nerdstar is going to be able to schedule another. She says she's not really eating very much, and she's still very very skinny.

Sunday morning I had a 7 am flight out UGH!! At least it was very quiet on the flight because everyone was sleeping. I had a short layover in Vegas. That's really just cruel to give someone a 45 minute layover in Vegas! I was very very tempted to just stay!

It's been nice and relaxing so far here in Sacramento. My friend lives two blocks from the governor's mansion in the old/tourist part of town. Very nice! Her apartment building used to be a hotel. Way cool. Yesterday we walked around for about three hours and I thought I was going to die! Thirty minutes of walking is usually my limit. She had to work today, so I got to sleep a lot and grab some lunch and some chocolates! Tonight we went to see The Two Towers - very very cool! I knew it would be a harder one to make and to watch because events don't really get resolved until the third book.

That's about it for me, I guess boring you is better than not writing!

Fun with the kid

Yes, Zachary and I did the road trippin thing Saturday and made it back to Austin safe and sound. We even had about a minute of sing along. He's such a good kid it amazes me. He slept about an hour of the three hour drive, other than that he just kinda hung out. We took him to dinner last night, our waiter carried him all over the small restuarant and Zach was waving at everyone. Normally he won't go to sleep unless he's in his bed. He won't snuggle with his parents or grandparents and fall asleep in their beds. But last night he didn't want in his bed, he wanted to snuggle with Nerdstar and in about ten minutes he fell asleep with her. :-) Today we fed him his cereal and then went to Krispy Kreme for breakfast; he wouldn't even try a donut. Then we took him to the mall to get his picture with Santa. That only took about twenty minutes and thankfully he wasn't scared of Santa. He loves all the Christmas lights and decorations! After the mall, we came by and got Ramen and took them to the dog park. Zach ran around all over the park chasing the dogs and someone was nice and let him throw one of the dog's balls and run and pick it up.

After all that he's now sleeping soundly for his nap! That's the key to babysitting kids - wear them out completely!!

It's nice unwinding from work for a few days, not having anything to do really. Thank God I finished all my Christmas shopping (there wasn't much) early! The mall wasn't too bad today, but more than I'd want to deal with.

Now it's time to bathe the dog and rest up a little before dinner. This is my life, and for now it's good enough!

more bad luck

Nerdstar and I have been planning a trip out to Sacremento the week of New Years for about two months now. We have plane tickets and are going to stay with a friend of ours. We both really need to get away, relax, eat some good food, be tourists, and go gambling!!

Unfortunately, despite Nerdstar telling her boss of these plans weeks ago, last week he told her she couldn't have the time off. She's gotten into two arguments about it with him and he's not changing his mind. Yesterday he told her if she took the time off he'd terminate her. Her company has some strange days off policies. They're given five days when they start working there, and then can earn a day every month and a half or so. Unfortunately she used her days off going for job interviews with NSA and DEA. She also had those three weeks of military service. Her boss is saying she's taken too much time. But in the year she's been there she's never called in sick or taken any vacation time. I think he's just being an asshole about the whole thing.

She's going to try talking to HR and has emailed her boss's boss, but I'm not too optimistic. I figure they'll tell her it's his decision to make.

It's bad enough she only has Christmas day off next week, but to fuck up our vacation plans is just evil.

At this point I'm pretty much thinking I'll go ahead and go without her. I haven't had any time off in quite a while and need the break. I'd also be miserable and pissy if I stayed home.

Keep your fingers crossed something works out!!