I love my life :)

So I am going to take a little break from story day this week and just talk about how wonderful my life is. Be jealous.

I was talking to Marc yesterday and saying that mondays are the hardest day to write since I am sort of put on the spot to come up with something interesting (as in not an "I found $5 story"). So I may diversify the day.

Anyway I am writing this post from the Star Alliance lounge in Istanbul. I just caught up on my movies on the ten hour flight over. Ever seen Big Fish? I love that movie. I always feel so good after it.

I am on day two (technically) of my circumnavigation of the globe. I will do it in six days and while thats faster than 80 I kind of wish I could do it by hot air balloon. Who's in?

I will soon be in a casino in central asia playing penny slots. I don't gamble much BUT last time I won $40. Its more about wasting time so I'll enjoy it either way.

I am so fortunate to travel so much for my job. I love the sometimes odd but almost always fun places I have seen. Clearly I need to get a real camera. Also it is really handy when it comes to seeing my most lovely boyfriend.

Speaking of Marc I have a wonderful, caring, and understanding boyfriend. Long distance is always hard but I am so lucky. We live a very blessed life. I will be sure to post some pictures of our platinum party. It is so happening... in Chicago, and Paris, AND Amsterdam. That is how cool and lucky we are :)

I have a wonderful family with whom I am very close to and love very much. They love me and also really love Marc. Just a few days ago my lovely mother was saying how excited she is to see Marc for our (slightly late) Thanksgiving.

As for the spirit of Thanksgiving. I am thankful for all of these things! What are you thankful for?

The week in brief!

So Sunday was practically the longest working day of my life. Faced with option of "Go home now" or "Get put up in a hotel" I opted for the free night at the Hyatt Place. Lovely hotels btw. I went home Monday and after still being insanely exhausted proceeded to sleep most of it away.

Tuesday I managed to sleep through an important package delivery (grrrr....) even though I had Jimmy Johns DELIVERED so I wouldn't be out of the house when it came. Epic fail. I also hung out with a few friends, listened to This American Life (my favorite NPR radio show), and cleaned up around the house.

Wednesday I left for Miami for some additional training for work. The important part of this story is that I get almost 1700 United miles for the trip which puts me under 7k to go before I secure platinum status for next year. Sweet. Also I am staying at the Crown Plaza here in Miami. They have given us a nice little letter I would like to quote for your amusement:

"
[In the header they have included the logo of a different company with similar name]

Dear [Similar company name] Crew Member,

[skip some boring stuff...]

In conjunction with your team at [wrong company name again]...

[skip some more stuff] Please take note of the following arrangements for your transportation to/from the [name of training facility]:

Transfers from the hotel to the Training Center will depart promptly as below:
[note that we are in a list within a list now though I missed out on the first one.]
-7:30AM - Meet in the Hotel Lobby
-7:30AM - Meet in the Hotel Lobby
...
[Not sure why that is there twice or why we are randomly capitalizing things.]

[Then they go on to list pick up times for the 11th and 12th which, given I am here on the 17th and 18th, is very useful. Also they stop capitalizing the word hotel. The once again act like I work somewhere else. They THEN ask me to check out early on the 12th since they are full for the following night and want my room to be cleaned. Oh. Wait. I'm still not here til almost a week after that. My personal favorite is at the end.]

... 10% discount on all food and beverage throughout the hotel (does not include alcoholic beverages)... just let us know you are with [wrong company AGAIN] and will happily apply the generous discount...

... Sincerely,

..."

It is unsigned by the way. They are generous AND modest. The breakfast AFTER discount for a continental spread is $13.50. I can't imagine why I would want to miss that! I took the liberty of editing it (I removed the names... except the name of the tacky hotel...)





ANYWAY Thursday I had my first training day which was long but fairly exciting. I also discovered I am going on a trip next week that will get me the last 7k to platinum for United! WOOO! Marc and I promised to throw a party if we both hit platinum this year and now it will be so!

Today I will be taking my exam and doing my practicals. Wish me luck!

Who Loves Texas?

For those of us from the Midwest it is fairly common to think of Texas with a sort of country hick mentality. I am posting today that Texas gets a bad rep.

Since it is a travel Wednesday I am picking Austin as this months topic. I lived there for a long time. I still have a lot of family there and my brother and sister were both born in Austin.

When visiting Austin there are a few things to keep in mind. Firstly, you are in Texas. It is hot outside. Hydrate often. Secondly, Austin is not flat. Wear sensible walking shoes. Thirdly, it is unlikely that you will see a tumble weed. Shocking I know. Now that the basics are covered on to the fun bits!

Everyone always goes to the capital building. It looks sort of like the white house only its made of pink granite. Infinitely cooler. I would say go check out the Elizabeth Ney Museum. She was a really cool artist and her house is now a small museum with her art and history and a really cool secret passage. Take a stroll down the drag to get a feel for the Austin scene and do some shopping. Don't forget to get your picture taken by the graffiti frog. It's sort of a thing there. At the end of the drag is a really awesome toy store called Toy Joy. I used to go there all the time as a kid and it is still a really cool place for kitschy stuff. And then go take a dip in Barton Springs. The Austin area water supply is fed from an aquifer and one of the springs is dammed into a natural swimming pool. Its cold but pretty neat!

When It comes to food Austin has a variety of great choices. When I was little we used to go to the Spaghetti Warehouse. It is still a fun place to go and if you are lucky you can dine inside the antique train caboose in the center of the dinning room. My favorite place is the SoCo Cafe. They offer some really interesting combinations I would never think to try at home. It is a little more pricey but worth every penny. If you are looking for Tex-Mex and a view head out to the oasis. Its an ok restaurant with good margaritas and an amazing sunset view. Did I mention it is built into the cliff face? For a great lunch head down to Cantina Laredo. They will make your guacamole fresh to order right at the table side and the meals are just as tasty!

I know we are all waiting for the section on nightlife. When in Austin the standard Modus Operandi is to go to sixth street. There are a lot... well actually its pretty much ALL bars. I find it is a little too messy on sixth and tend to stick over on fourth st. As for gay bars I really like Oil Can Harry's (which brings up a much dirtier image than what the bar is actually like) and Rain. Right between those two is QUA. It is a straight club but the big allure is that the dance floor is an aquarium with live sharks. For all of you screaming for the poor sharks check you the QUA website first. They claim to be taking really good care of them and they never seem distressed to me. I also really like the bar Six (also right there on 4th street). This bar is connected to the Spaghetti Warehouse. It has a roof deck, nice drinks, and sometimes live bands.

Austin will always hold a special place in my heart. Not only since I have friends there but because I grew up there as a child. Its a very eclectic and singularly accepting friendly place. Don't hate on Texas til you've been!

Topaz

Hey kids.

Sorry I got a little caught up at work and missed yesterday. Also it's kinda a blah day so I will keep it short. But I owe you a story.

In the late 90s my family moved to rural wisconsin. My mom's job was there and so a family friend through her work was trying to smooth the transition and introduced me to their son as we were the same age. We were starting jr high together and going to the same school so they organized times for us the hang out.

Right before school started for the year We attended orientation together and then my mom was going to take us to a local dineresque chocolate shop as a treat after. One hitch.

Now keep in mind that I barely knew this guy.

We came home from school and my step dad was looking very nervous. As it quickly became apparent our cat ha died. Now this cat had been around since before I was born and through my, my brother's, and my sisters infancy. The cat was very dear to all of us. It had been in kidney failure for a long time and was at least 17 years old. We didn't know as it was saved from a shelter. It had waited for everyone to leave the house and then died at the bottom of the stairs.

Now it doesn't take much for me to turn on the waterworks and become a hot sobbing mess. I'm balling up a storm at this point. My poor new friend was, I'm sure, in a very awkward position. He offered to cancel our diner plans. I insisted that we go anyway as that is what Topaz, our cat, would have wanted. We went and had ice cream which soothes any hurt 12 year old soul.

Later that week I wrote a letter addressed to Topaz in heaven. I am going through my stuff in the hopes that I still have it tucked away somewhere and if I can find it I will post it for you all to read.

Pet death is sad. But this cat went at her time and I have to say I will love someday having a pet again.

Anyone have any interesting pet stories to share?

The week in brief

I have been in Amsterdam all this week as well and I have to say I really do love it here. I will sadly be leaving tomorrow afternoon to head back to work. As much as I do not want to leave it will allow me to get started on my Thanksgiving preparations. That really needs to happen so I am excited to get to work on that.

Also I will be going to Florida for some new work training. Wish me luck! It is a little stressful since we all have to score very well in the training exam. But I haven't heard of anyone not passing so far so I imagine I will do just fine! I still get nervous about these things though. I think it has to do with entering into a slightly unfamiliar situation and having lots of time to imagine all of the horrors and things that could go terribly wrong.

In other news Marc has been eating all these vegetarian meals and while I have not asked him to join in my less meat lifestyle (and he is not an extreme carnivore anyway) it is really nice that he is doing that. It is always a good feeling when loved ones support lifestyle decisions that way. Thanks :)

The blog hit over 200 views this week woo! I have kind of hoped for more BUT I also didn't want to put it out there before I had a decent number of posts and this week was when FB got the link so HOPEFULLY my blog is now going to start getting passed around or however that happens. Go and work your social networking magic!

I went exploring last night with one of our friends in downtown Amsterdam! Well it was probably less exploration for her and more for me. I, however, thought it was really cool and exciting. Finding my way to her office was sort of my first big solo adventure here. Baby steps :) Plus shopping was nice and we had nice drink in an adorable little cafe afterwards.

The one problem that arose came from my new touch card. It is a preloaded pass you use on the trains, trams, and metro. When you are entering the platform you touch it to check in and then when you get off you touch it again to check out. It then deducts the cost of your trip from the balance on your card. The problem arose when I forgot to check out. If you check out too late (something like 4 hours later) they charge you €20. The trip I was taking usually costs €2.30 or something. So after realizing my error I once again donned my it's really cold out side attire and trooped back to the station to touch my card and come on back. No big deal :) AND lesson learned.

Until Monday TTFN and have a fantastic weekend!

Widget Wednesday

So the first little toy I have stumbled up this week is not for the mildly nerdy. Some people might be tempted to just wear a watch OR even carry a cell phone. Pffffft. BUT I think this is still pretty cool. The Sundial ring:


Image from ThinkGeek.com

Basically the ring is hung from a string. You rotate the center of the ring to line up with the current month and then the sun shines through a small hole in the ring allowing you to semi-accurately tell the time. Very useful for those of us expecting to be hit with an electronics frying EMP.

Keeping with the not so practical theme, I would like to just say, "Who WOULDN'T want a floating arm trebuchet in their back yard?" No really. Those brats next door will never bother you again. They can break your windows but you can puncture their roof. Did you ever read War of the Roses by Warren Adler? They were too subtle. Medieval style warfare is clearly the way to go:


Image from X-TremeGeek.com

Last and please let this be least: Inflight Porn. That's right. The airline that thought of charging passengers to pee, Ryanair, is talking about offering streaming porn for your handheld devices. You may really need the blanket you are buying from them. I would consider bringing your own. Please also consider headphones and an eye mask. Better still: Consider flying on a different carrier. Read more...

Easily distracted

So I never posted on Friday. I am going to unjustly blame Marc since when I am here with him AND he is not at the office how am I supposed to be productive on something that is a very one person activity. Anyway, that clearly never happened.

I think today I will scratch the normal Monday procedure and just talk about the past wonderful week.

Last weekend I was finishing work and I convinced my company to not send me home and then just flew straight to Marc. YAY. I spent Monday in a small town in Poland going gnome hunting. I can almost guarantee you read that correctly. There are something like 200 small metal gnome statues arranged throughout the city. Which is fairly awesome. Garden gnomes = creepy. Awesome metal gnome riding a pigeon = want.



That night I flew into Amsterdam to spend the week here with Marc. During the week we have had dinner with some friends, gone for some shopping, and had a few lovely evenings in front of the fire sipping home made long island ice teas. That''s how we roll.

Saturday night we had a Halloween party since it is my favorite holiday ever. Anyone who plays Plants vs Zombies will be amused since Marc and I went as a sunflower and a zombie. We had an unexpectedly large and nice turn out and fun was had by all YAY.

We have also begun rewatching Firefly. If you are unfamiliar and like shows like Buffy or Babylon 5 you should look into the show. It is one of our favorites. I think it is on the agenda for tonight as well.

That is it for today then and I will be super productive and make sure Wednesday's post is up on time :)

Youtube party!

It is video time again :)

I love a good commercial. Also, on a related note, I love bouncy balls:




While on commercials, this is one of my favorite commercials ever:



And why don't we just make a day of it. It is an oldie but a goodie:



Hope you are all having a great week!