Friday, January 30, 2009

I drove back from the gym this morning at a few minutes past 6 a.m. I saw a car driving down my street behind me and kind of halfway wondered if they were following me (it was a completely random thought because I hadn't noticed a car behind me before.) Just as I was about to turn into my driveway, flashing lights came on! I was confused, because I knew I wasn't speeding and I couldn't remember running over anyone. I pulled into my driveway to get out of the way and the cop pulled in behind me. I opened the door and just started to get out when a voice barked (yes, barked) at me "GET BACK INTO THE CAR!"

I got back into the car.

My mind was racing because I couldn't figure out why I had been stopped! Did I cut someone off, or did I run a red light? I didn't know! The cop came over and shined a flashlight into my face and said "What's your hurry?" Apparently I had been speeding in a school zone. An inactive school zone, BTW. He also told me I had a "glaring tail light" and told me that the place where the cover was broken made it look like my reverse lights were on and that he could give me a ticket for that. He asked for my license, and walked back to his car. I had no idea I had been speeding and told him so, but I was already resigned to my fate of having to scrape up the money to pay a ticket. I sat in my car, in my own driveway, and watched police lights flick over my neighbors houses. I also saw a porch light flick on and off again, and I can only guess that they were wondering what dangerous criminal was living next door. The cop brought back my license and told me to slow down next time and he also told me where I could buy some tape to fix the broken shell of my tail light. To quote Indiana Jones "No Ticket." Whew. That is the very first time I've been pulled over and NOT gotten a ticket.

I was so thrown off by the whole thing that I forgot to open the garage door so I could get in the house and had trouble locking my car door. I don't like authority to be suddenly thrust upon me like that. I'm going to step lightly for the rest of today because I think I used up my daily allotted luck not getting that ticket.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1)I think I've developed some kind of bizarre OCD issue about having food in my office. I have a ton of food in here. Much more food than I should need for the 8 hours I am here, but I can't help myself. I have all kinds of "just add water" stuff in my desk and a mini-mini fridge in the corner to store the more perishable items. It's not even that I'm eating most of this stuff, but I feel weird if I'm not stocked up with things I COULD eat if I wanted to. I suppose it will come in handy if I decide to go all Branch Davidian on someone's ass, but I truly don't see that happening. Oh well, weird or not, I shouldn't have to have a lunchless or vending machine only day any time soon.

2) Yesterday the power unexpectedly went down in our city grid and the SpRocket went dark. I didn't realize that a new alert system had been installed, so when it went off it freaked me out. It sounds like the Star Trek "Red Alert" alarm and then this creepy, subhuman voice starts telling you to leave the building and not use the elevators. Since we didn't know why the alarm was going off at the time, me and the other graphics monkeys actually left the building, but for a second I had a fear that when we reached the doors, we wouldn't be able to open them and the creepy alarm voice would say "What are you doing, Dave? I can't allow you to do that, Dave." and then the UAT would split open and drown us. Wow, I think I just disturbed myself with that.

3) This morning I'm eating fresh strawberries, green grapes and apple slices. They are all very yummy.

4) Lost is coming on tonight! I'm so excited! I'm going to be sad when it goes off of the air. I like mysteries and confusion. Well, as long as I can deal with them from the comfort of my own couch.

5) Steve has decided that I can link to his blog! He is now on the list with the rest of them in case you want to visit.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Monday, January 26, 2009

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) Well, it's only 8:35 and I'm already having a case of the Mondays. I thought I had a doctor appointment this morning, so I drove out to Madison and tried to check in. It turns out, my appointment is actually on Thursday! Ack. I ended up getting to work late, but surprisingly, I was still the first one from my department here! Mondays are weird.

2) I finally saw Jurassic Park for the first time this weekend. I know, I know. Shut up. Even with all of the hype and such about that movie when it came out, I still didn't go and see it. Of course, I didn't have my drivers license in 1993, so I didn't see many movies at all that year. Anyways, I never rented it or anything because I didn't think I'd like it, but I LOVED it! I know it was hokey, but I really enjoyed watching it! It was even a little bit scary, but in the good kind of way. At the end, there is a rather tense scene where some freaky little, big-toe nailed dinosaurs (I don't want to try and spell what kind they were) are after the people in the museum, and then the big T-Rex comes in and gets them and the people get away. We had just finished watching that scene, and the movie wasn't even over yet but it had gotten quiet, when one of the dogs suddenly sneezed and scared the crap out of Steve. I just happened to be looking over at him (he was in the recliner) when it happened, and I swear he jumped up about 6 inches and pulled the chair up with him. I laughed so hard that I almost got sick. It was great. I think the dogs planned it because I'm pretty sure they were laughing at him too.

3) Hedgehogs scare me.

4) Do you like the new look of my blog? I do. It's nothing fancy, of course, but I like that I can make my own banners and such without having to understand the hastared HTML. I'm currently having issues with my tracker, though. Apparently there is either a glitch with my page or I've accidentally altered the code I was given when I changed to the new address. I have a support ticket in with the website where my tracker is hosted, so hopefully they can tell me what to do. i hope it will start working again soon. I like seeing where people come from to visit me. Well, as much as an IP address can tell me, anyway. I've also got some links to other blogs I like to read over to the right so that you can check them out if you want. By request I didn't add Steve's blog, so don't think I just forgot about him. He just likes to be more picky about who reads it. Not like me. I welcome all of you freaks on a daily basis. I kid, I kid. Only a couple of you are freaks.

5) We were watching an episode of Charmed last night where the three sisters had to go back in time for one reason or another. They met a lot of hippies, including their grandmother who happened to be a serious flower child. I don't know if any of you are familiar with the show, but the sisters are powerful witches who are always battling evil creatures and saving the world and such. Their grandmother, who raised them, was a serious demon ass-kicker who taught them to fight evil (I know this sounds silly, and it is, but bear with me.) Anyways, back when the grandmother was a flower child, she was a pacifist about all kinds of fighting, even with demons. There was a scene where the three sisters were trying to get her to understand why they couldn't just go and reason with the demon, but the grandmother gave a long speech that boiled down to "oh, no. We should just embrace them and try and work it out with love and acceptance" or something like that. The whole time she was talking, I was thinking about how that sounded just like a lot of the silly people I've heard that are serious anti-war advocates, and how they always say that if we just go and reason with the guys who want to kill us, they'll see our point and not kill us anymore. It annoyed me, but I didn't say anything. However, out of nowhere, Steve said "I hate hippies." It made me laugh, because I was pretty much thinking the same thing. Sometimes I worry at how our minds work.

6) I went to the gym this morning, after missing all last week for one reason or another. I could really tell that I hadn't been there in a while and have come to the conclusion that I don't need to take week-long vacations from the place anymore. I'm currently feeling as if my arm may completely fall off. Well, at least I'd lose some weight, I guess. An arm has got to weigh, what, 5 pounds?

Friday, January 23, 2009

A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

Hi. My name is Kelly and I want to tell you about a product that you may want to avoid.

Like some of you, during cold weather I become Snakey McLizardskin because of the dry air that comes from heaters. It's annoying and unattractive, not to mention itchy. The soap I currently use doesn't do my skin any favors, because it does not contain any kind of moisturizer. I am allergic to some unknown ingredient in most kinds of bar soap, so I can't change what I normally use to alleviate this problem. However, for some reason, I CAN use certain kinds of body wash. I usually use one of the many versions of Dove Cream Oil because it does such a good job of keeping me from shedding like a reptile, but when I went shopping for a new bottle, I decided to put a little variety in my life and try something new. I chose this:

Oil of Olay Body wash with Radiance Ribbons. It smelled nice, I liked the color of the packaging, and doggonit, I wanted to be radiant! Who wouldn't? So I purchased the product and added it to my arsenal of shower things. Before using it for the first time, I read the bottle because I was curious as to how I was going to become more radiant by using it. I mean, if I was going to be rubbing uranium into my skin, I wanted to know! I didn't see anything radioactive in the ingredient list, but the container said the green layers were going to make my skin noticeably more youthful and radiant in 5 days. Since it didn't say HOW it was going to do it, I just decided to assume it was pixie dust and unicorn eyelashes or something (those things can be lumped together in the unspecified "natural ingredients" category, in case you didn't know.) I didn't see any difference after the first day, nor the second. However, after the third day, I did see something. It was horrifying. No, it wasn't a third eye or a latent absorbed twin coming to the surface or anything like that. It was worse. The "radiance" this product promised me isn't some kind of magical skin transformation, oh no. The radiance comes from an external source. With the promise of bright, beautiful, youthful skin, I have been tricked into coating myself in reflective micro-particulates.

In short, I have enough micro glitter sticking to me right now that I sparkle like a freaking Twilight vampire! GLITTER! Seriously!

Now, I'll give the stuff props for helping out my dry skin issue, it worked great on that. However, the very last thing I wanted was my cleavage to shine like a Las Vegas casino sign! It was sneaky, too! The glitter is clear until light hits it and then - sparkle, sparkle, sparkle! GAH! I'm also worried that it will be a cumulative process and I'll eventually have enough glitter on me to transform me into a shiny fem-bot looking thing. Oh, I could throw it away or stop using it I suppose, but it wasn't exactly cheap and I rather enjoy not having to scratch all day. I'll use it and I'll freaking sparkle if I have to. However, I just wanted to make sure that all of you hear about this and are warned. WARNED! Grown people shouldn't be covered in glitter unless they specifically want to be.

That is all.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Sorry for the mess, but I haven't had time to make the place presentable! After I've accomplished something work related today, I'll mess around with it and see what happens!

Glad you found me!

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

WHAT BRINGS YOU HERE?
Yes, this is another post on the things people type into search engines that brings them to my humble blog!

1)FFA Official Dress: This has actually brought the largest amount of people to my blog since I posted it. If a day goes by without at least two people finding me through that search, it's an odd day. Usually it's an image search where they find this picture I posted for Josh.
I never knew that official dress was such a popular subject to look for on the Internet!

2) Star Trek Uniform: This follows the same vein of the FFA thing, only they find the sexy, sexy picture of me in the home made Star Trek: TOS uniform. Oddly, this also brings in the most international visitors! Well, some people just like that sort of thing. I'm not going to judge!

3)Coconut Macaroon Pyramids: Yes, these were the burial mounds of the little known Mallomar Pharaohs. Legend has it that if you can get past the cursed animal cracker sphinx, you'll discover that the gingerbread sarcophagus has a creamy nougat center.

4) Girls Showing Their Boobies: Yeah, I'll admit it. I panicked for a second when I saw that. I was deathly afraid that I had a bad lapse of judgement at some point and posted something I would probably regret at this stage of my life. Luckily for me, I didn't find anything incriminating. However, I'm still mystified at how that search brought someone to my blog!

5) Kelly Pratt nude: Yeah...no. For that person's sake, I hope that there is another, much better looking Kelly Pratt out there that they wanted to see naked. Since I kind of fall into the "She has a great personality" category of people, they would probably be terribly disappointed and/or struck blind had they found a picture of me like that. Sorry, Perv!

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) Had a wonderful time last night having dinner and discussing wedding invitations with Kenny and Lauren. We ate at All Steak (Team Orange Rolls!) and I think we closed the place, which honestly isn't hard to do in Cullman. I truly believe everyone in that town is usually home and in bed by 9:00. The workers were probably cursing our existence because we didn't leave sooner! I also believe that the red eye flashy thing on Kenny's camera almost made me have a seizure. Good times.

2) I tried to watch the inauguration today, but there apparently wasn't enough bandwidth to go around. I did see bits of it. I got to hear the end of a song Aretha Franklin was doing, but I couldn't understand the words to her song since she was obviously "making it her own" and I was too distracted by the big-ass bow on her hat anyways. I got to see the swearing in of the VP and hear the beautiful, beautiful, beautiful rendition of the Shaker hymn arranged by John Williams, and the swearing in of Barak Obama. He must've been nervous because he totally talked over the guy swearing him in. I was really interested in hearing his speech, but that's about when the streaming video stopped streaming. I was kind of bummed, because I like to hear him do speeches. I've (sadly) never watched any president be sworn in before, so it was really interesting. Now I just hope the faith that so many people have in our new president is well founded. We'll see.

3) I am seriously craving a cafe au lait from Cafe du Monde in New Orleans. I hate when I find something I really like and it's completely innaccessable to me on a regular basis. It makes me feel stabby and shouty. Quite possibly the stabby and shouty parts of me could be quelled with any kind of caffine right now, but it just isn't the same. :(

4) And finally:

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Here are some pictures of Bro. Josh that we took while he was visiting!


The cuteness almost overwhelms, doesn't it? :)
BURN BABY BURN

Why am I never at work when the place catches on fire?

Yesterday I awoke feeling weird and unhealthy, so I called in sick. I found out this morning that there was a small fire at the SpRocket! It wasn't anything like the time the Bus Barn caught on fire, but it was actually in the break room area. Apparently some genius didn't put out a cigarette before they tossed it and it set the porch on fire. Luckily no one was hurt and our *ahem* crack team of security guards were able to keep the fire from spreading before the fire department got there. Actually, I'll give credit where it's due. They really did keep it from getting worse. Our break room is right next to the theater and TCF, not to mention right downstairs from my office and the building maintenance shop. Had it gotten away from them, it could have seriously caused a lot of damage. So, YAY SECURITY TEAM!

I wish this meant that smoking would be banned from the place. I don't care what anyone says, it's a nasty habit and it gives people cancer, and I don't like having to walk through a cloud of smoke just to get a soda out of the break room. However, I don't think that they will ban it, but just make sure that people put out their damn smokes before walking away from them.

Only YOU can prevent museum fires.

Monday, January 12, 2009

THE GREATEST FAIL EVER

As a sign maker, this strikes me as funnier than it probably is to other people.


However, to be fair, I'm not altogether certain that Welsh is a real language.
RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) I got the greatest picture of Josh yesterday, but I'm not allowed to put it online! He won't let me. He was in town visiting for the week and came by to pick up the laptop Steve had fixed for him before he left town. Since it was Sunday, he was wearing his robes so he looked all official, but he was also driving his mom's little two seater BMW convertible. It clashed mightily with the whole "vow of poverty" thing, but it made a hilarious picture. Maybe one day he'll let me post it!

2) This weekend was extra lazy, but wonderful. I really didn't mean to spend so much time doing so very little, but that's what happened. I did, however, do a bit of needlework, so it wasn't completely wasted.

3) The gym is slowly but surely losing it's crowd. Last Friday I had to beg myself to get up and go, because I really didn't want to, so I ended up running later than I normally do. I was worried that I would get there and all of the cardio equipment would be taken and I wouldn't be able to do my list of exercises before I had to leave again. There were 4 people there. Apparently I was one of the few who could talk myself into going. Today was crowded, but not too bad. It was only irritating when people would sit down at a machine I needed and stare at the wall for 5 minutes not doing anything. There are a lot of people who do that. Boo on them.

4) While waiting on Steve to finish orchestra practice Sunday morning, I was sitting out in the lobby of our church with a bunch of older people and listening to them talk. I'm not sure what was said to bring this up, but a woman who is about 70 or so piped up with "My grandmother used to tell me that the best thing a woman could do for herself was close all of her curtains and clean the house in the nude. I did it a couple of times, but I just never felt completely hidden." What can you say to that?! I'm never going to be able to look at that lady again without thinking of that. Oy.

Wednesday, January 07, 2009

I have an unfortunate song in my head this morning and I don't know where it came from. No, really. It's even worse than the 3 month long brain-song "Brick House" that I had back in high school, or the intermittent "Me & Mrs. Jones" song that was just a breath away over the last couple of years.

Those were annoying but OK because I liked those songs.

Today, inexplicably, I have the Celine Dion song "It's All Coming Back To Me Now" running through my head. Nay, it isn't just in my head, but all throughout my being. I have a terrible urge to stand on my desk and really belt it out, singing into a Sharpie, fist pumping and everything. Even a part of me wants to turn on the oscillating fan so that my hair ripples around my face while I'm doing it. I want to refashion a few flight suits into a flowing, bodice-heaving pseudo-Victorian gown and run in pretend slow motion down the stairs.

I...I just don't know where it's coming from. Someone hold me. Hold me before I do this crazy thing!

Tuesday, January 06, 2009

Yuck! The third shift security folks forgot to check the rain barrel up here in my office and it overflowed. Luckily someone caught it before it got really bad, though. The water only reaches halfway to my desk instead of all the way underneath it! Yay!

Now I'm just worried about the sub flooring giving way someday and taking me and the contents of my office down to the museum floor. Oh, and the mold. I'm fairly certain that there is mold.

That is all.

Monday, January 05, 2009

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) YAY! 16 days until Lost comes back on the air. I probably shouldn't be as excited as I am. Nah, that's not true, I should be this excited.

2) I've had the strangest dreams over the weekend. They weren't chocolate related or anything, I don't think. They weren't nightmares, exactly, but they were weird. The first was, I swear, a lifetime movie waiting to be filmed. I don't remember much about it, but I remember that I wasn't the real-life me, but another me (you know what I mean.) Anyways, two of my girl friends and I wanted to get married to our boyfriends really bad, but they wouldn't ask us. We did all of this rather embarrassing stuff to get them to do it, and finally we just planned a whole wedding and tricked them into showing up. That's all I remember except for feeling embarrassed and rather sadly pathetic when I woke up. Maybe it really was a lifetime movie, I dunno. The other one was a recurring dream about Steve and I going to this health food store which was located next to a pet store. Each time we'd go to the food store, we'd wind up going to the pet store and getting a dog. Before we took them home, I'd spend time getting to know it and falling in pet-love with it, only to realize we couldn't afford to keep it. Every time I'd have to take the dog back inside the pet store, I'd cry so hard because I wanted to keep it. It made me sad. :(

3) The new Dr. Who was announced on Saturday, and so far I'm underwhelmed at the looks of the guy and the fact that I don't know if he's going to be any good. I'm hoping that the casting guys knew what they were doing. At any rate, he isn't as cute as David Tennant! Few people are, though. Am I right, Amy?

4) We went to the gym this morning, and as expected, it was really full. I couldn't decide if thet were all people I'd seen before just coming back to work out after the holidays, or if they were new people with new year's resolutions to work on. If the latter is the case, we probably won't see many of them too much longer. Of course, I'll probably slack off too, but I'm going to try not to. Even if working out doesn't make me lose weight (curses) at least I feel better when I do the exercises regularly!

5) Oh, and just FYI, if you used to read Steve's old blog, he's done a reboot and started all over. I'd link it from here, but I need to find out if that's cool with him first. That's just how he rolls.