best day ever!

today was seriously one of the best days i have ever had!  vicky, leah and i drove to waitomo to go to the caves, we went with the legendary black water rafting company on the five hour black abyss tour.  it started out with an abseil into the cave (which was the part i was looking forward to most, it was so much fun), a flying fox in the dark, tubing, and then walked in the stream through the cave.  to get out, we did this crazy climb up three waterfalls.  it was cold, i could hardly feel my feet and hands by the end, and i HATED having to climb into wet gear.  but it was so awesome and totally worth the money.  i am definitely planning on going again, in case anyone is planning on coming to visit me here!  (hint hint!) 

one of the more hilarious aspects of the day was that one of our guides (dan) looked suspiciously like derek.  i mentioned this to leah, but she said she would have to rely on my judgement on that one.  so you'll have to take my word on it, i guess!

the top left photo was from my camera, the others were taken in the cave by our guide dan.  and in case you aren't sure, yes, that is mud on our faces on those bottom two.  it was one of the fantastic activities we got to do: conceptual mud art on someone else. 

and after the long and fun day we had today, tomorrow morning we head in the opposite direction to gisborne!

edit: i feel that i should add that the day could have been improved by a lack of eels.  i wish that nobody had told me about them, and i really wish that leah hadn't asked if we had felt any...  *shudder*  i am still feeling the heeby jeebies just thinking about it!

happy holidays!

i hope that everyone had a good christmas, we had a nice relaxing one here.  there were a number of people who came over to where i am staying (i am with a family here in rotorua with leah) and we had a barbecue.  with lots and lots of desserts.  i have consumed about a year's worth of sugar in the last three days, i think.

rotorua has been good, i got here on saturday and i have been enjoying NOT living in a backpacker's for awhile.  dave took leah and i out to blue and green lakes (which did not look very blue or green, it was too cloudy i guess), and lake tarawera.  we also got to go to buried village for free which was nice because it was neat to see, but not worth money to see it.  i feel like i read the same information about five hundred times, and there sure were a lot of glass bottles to look at.  my glass bottle tolerance was pretty low.

i also got to see THE GOLDEN COMPASS yesterday.  which is a whole nother post, i tell you.  except a boring, nerdy one about how even with low expectations i was pretty disappointed.  although if you ignored all the plot stuff with the book, it was a pretty good movie.  i liked that they kept the part in about iorek taking the other bear's jaw off.  it was just so beautiful.  *sniff*

seriously though, i do have a whole list of things about this movie that i could go into, but i will spare you except to say, WHERE WAS THE HEAD OF STANISLAUS GRUMMAN?

tomorrow vicky, leah and i go to waitomo to go on a caving trip.  we are paying a lot of money to go underground and look at some glow worms, but i get to abseil and go tubing WITH SOME EELS.  super not looking forward to that part.  and then on the day after that, whatever day it is, we go to gisborne for a couple of days, off to napier for new year's, and then will be our five-day hike around and up to the top of mt. taranaki.  it should be fun, and i'm sure there will be lots of photos!

the food edition

i may not have had a thanksgiving this year, but i think i just made up for it with possibly more to come.  the last two days i went to barbecues, the one yesterday being held at the home of the guy i work for, and the other one here in the garden of the backpacker's.  peter's wife ann made some fantastic food, including a pavlova, which is basically like a meringue.  in the form of a cake.  it's very light and airy and sweet.  and oh, so tasty!  today was a potluck, with all sorts of goodys.  most of them seemed to have garlic and/or rosemary, which we have in abundance at the front of the back house.  i used both of those ingrediants and made garlic rosemary breadsticks.  they were all eaten, so i guess that means they were pretty decent.  this is after last monday, when jessica and i made our fantastic tomato spinach pizza.

and no, i have not been eating any kiwifruit.  just in case you all were wondering!

i'm also trying to decide about going to big day out 2008 in auckland.  the problem i am having most is about the date, and not knowing if i will be able to go even if i buy a ticket.  tickets are about $100 so of course i want to be certain.  but the list of bands looks almost irresistable.  the cincher is arcade fire.  i don't know if it would be as good at a festival as a regular show, but do i look like i care?  meanwhile, i am still waiting to see golden compass.  i have what, ten more days?  *sigh*

tgif...seriously.

so i know that i had a whole bunch of stuff i wanted to say, but i am so exhausted that i couldn't tell you what it was.  this will happen to you after a week of this really fun job that i have.  it wasn't even a full week, we got rained out on monday.  i am glad of the weekend though, today was very trying.  the canopy was super wet, so everytime we pulled anything down this morning it was like taking a shower.  plus, i had my hair in braids which kept getting snagged on the canes.  usually i wear a bandana over my hair but it was making my head cold what with all the water i had been doused with and was even more annoyingly getting snagged on canes than my hair was.

see, i am so tired that i don't even know what it was that i was talking about in the previous paragraph and I JUST TYPED IT.

anyway, it's the weekend now and i have to decide what i am going to do week after next.  it's christmas, and i am thinking i will be doing something with leah and probably vicky, but i don't know what yet.  we may go to rotorua, or so the last email i received seemed to say.  and then the waitomo caves, i hope!  and then i would like to look for work somewhere that is NOT tauranga.  that would be fantastic.

since my words are not working, i will just give you some pretty pictures to look at.  but i will not put up the one of the really yummy pizza that jessica and i made on monday.  it was so good, that looking at it will just make me even hungrier and then i will cry alligator tears about my current lack of food.

is someone singing "it's a small world"?

yesterday i met my second american since auckland.  he's from seattle, and do you know what we have in common?

naknek, alaska.  i met a fellow cannery worker (not ags, but still!) in tauranga, new zealand.

i have more, photos, but i'm out of time!

rain rain, go away

apparantly there has been a lack of rain up until now, and the weather is currently making up for it.  which is good for things like kiwifruit plants, but bad for those of us who are trying to make money pruning them.  i worked one full day, and three partial days this whole last week.  i would like to say that at least i enjoyed the rest, but that is not true.  i am so tired.  i can't sleep.  i would like nothing more than to no longer be an insomniac.  although the pain i get in my right shoulder could go away too and i would like that quite a bit as well.

since i got here i'm pretty sure i've read at least ten books.  and i've been here a month today.

post #3

so did you see my movie?  and my haiku?  and all those new photos?  fun stuff, isn't it!

i am still in tauranga, at the backpackers.  i finally got some work doing summer pruning in kiwifruit orchards.  it's easy work, i mean, how hard can pruning be?  but i have to look up the whole time, and by the end of the day my neck hurts.  i've been told that after a couple of days you don't notice it, and it did hurt less the second day.  the job is supposed to last until around christmas, which is perfect.  that's about how long i wanted to work until.  fantastic!  i haven't done an awful lot of new stuff since my last post, i haven't been back to mt. maunganui.  it's hard to get around here without a car, just to get to the pak n save it takes about 45 minutes each way.  that's a long walk for groceries! 

one of my co-workers/fellow backpacker's resident is an american named jessica.  yesterday when we were almost finished working i mentioned how i REALLY wanted some pizza SO we walked to pizza hut yesterday evening to get some pizza.  but then it started to rain.  we decided to eat our pizza on the sidewalk in front of the store, and the delivery guy saw us and gave us a ride back.  he wanted to show us some kiwi hospitality!

i have been reading a lot lately.  rebecca  by daphne du maurier, the life and times of the thunderbolt kid by bill bryson (i literally lol'd, and quite often) and ask the posts of the house by witi ihimaera.  all good stuff.

a couple photos of tauranga:

a view of mt. maunganui from my room, and

big gulp!  i found it in a shop here in tauranga, all the way from spirit lake, iowa!

haiku!

okay, so i know these aren't quite as good as the infamous "beer" haiku, but i was bored and also i thought i needed to write more in my "gournal".  because i have had it since i went to alaska and i haven't filled even half of it, and it's just a composition book.  you would think i would have more to say!

it's a series.

the city i am
in is called tauranga, in
the bay of plenty.

the place in which i
reside is a backpackers
called just the ducks nuts.

the view from my room
is of mount maunganui across
tauranga harbor.

when i want to go
anywhere, including the
store, i have to walk

because i don't have
a car.  i don't even know
how to drive one here.

they drive on the left
and have strange rules regarding
who has right of way.

hahei sunrise movie

here is my video, that i have been working on for two weeks now!  sorry about that, i just find so many other intersting things to do on a regular basis and it's hard to keep up with my photos.  anyway, here it is!  (sorry it's sort of long, i took 30+ photos.)

who gets a bad cold in the summer?

that would be me, of course!  and it's not even cold, like in alaska.  it's beautiful and sunny and i am surrounded by green grass and turqouise water and white beaches.  ugh. 

i am in tauranga, i got here on monday.  i have been looking for work, but not very hard.  i got on a list for work in a fish factory (the irony is killing me!) but i haven't heard anything yet.  i got here right in the in-between time for the seasonal fruit work, so fantastic.  i don't know what to do.  at the very least it's almost christmas/holiday (as in vacation) time, so perhaps i can find something along one of those lines for awhile.

but not too long, because i have grown to like leah's idea of going to fiji for a week around christmas. 

i'm sure i have so many things i could talk about, like the name of the backpackers i am living in (just the ducks nuts) or how i ran into the finnish guy we met in auckland or how i took the "very steep" track (trail--these words confuse me sometimes) up mt. maunganui yesterday but it was still better than deer mt.

but this cold is giving me a headache and i feel like i am in a fog. 
(happy thanksgiving to everyone back home, i had hoped the day would pass and i wouldn't notice, but it was not to be!)

nz pronunciation guide: "wh" pronounced "f"

wow!  i have internet!  granted, i am paying $10 USD for 24 hours of wireless access which is completely ridiculous, but leah and vicky can use it too, so it's not completely selfish. 

i finally put up my auckland photos, as you can see.  i haven't even been there since tuesday and it is now...friday, so it took me long enough.  i have been here in hahei just doing very little.  it's been sweet as, really.  tuesday evening leah and vicky met me in whitianga where we ate dinner, and then took the ferry crossing.  drove here to tatahi lodge which is this fantastic little backpackers that i especially love after being in the 500 bed base hostel in auckland.  wednesday i read on the beach and walked to cathedral cove with vicky and admired the wonderful views, then yesterday morning we woke up really early to go to the cathedral cove carpark to watch the sunrise.  i'm going to try to make a slideshow/video of my photos...it's a project i thought of that will be really cool if i can get it to work.  i went to te pare point (an old maori fortified village at the south end of hahei beach) early in the afternoon, and then as i was walking back along the beach i ran into the gals as they were going out for a dive (they are taking a dive course this week).  i went along and sat in the boat while they were doing that, and then after they were finished we drove to hot water beach and sat in a little pool in the sand.  and when they say hot, it's HOT!  the sand under my feet kept burning them! 

today has been gray and dreary so i haven't done much, but vicky and leah's dive got postponed until tomorrow, so i think we are going to go to a vineyard and maybe whiti, and have some dinner later on.  tomorrow i am supposed to leave the backpacker's and i think i am going to call about a farmstay here in hahei i saw a sign for last evening.  maybe i can stay here another week doing that, i am really unsure of where to go next.  perhaps i will try to head south to tauranga or whakatane.  i really want to be on the east coast, i really want to find a way to go around the east cape on my way down to gisborne.  i think that whole area is really the main part of new zealand that i want to see, that area (or perhaps between gisborne and napier?) is where whale rider was filmed, and what i think of when i think of new zealand.  either way, it'll be beautiful i am sure as this whole country seems to be!

well, auckland was okay, but this is definitely more of the "real" new zealand.  although i really did love waiheke island and the jazz festival, sitting on a hill drinking wine and listening to music in the sun.  a fantastic sunday afternoon!

here is a little video i made of dinner the other night.  while on their dive, their instructor caught a crayfish and leah fixed it for dinner.  i ate a bite but didn't care for it, but it was as a whole a fun meal.

edit: i can't tell if the video thing embedded...can someone please tell me so i can try to fix it if it's not working?

kia ora!

well, here i am, still in auckland!  but not for long, i am leaving tomorrow to take a bus to whitianga on the coromandel peninsula.  there, i will meet leah and i will go stay at a hostel with her and presumably some other people for awhile.  i am not even sure of the town i will be in, but it's near cathedral cove she says.  which is supposed to be beautiful.  and hopefully, i won't be so busy and i can just sort of finish editing my photos to put online.  i started and i was going to put some online tonight for you to see, but apparantly i chose a computer with a bad usb port because i can't get it to recognise anything.

sigh!

i also have a phone now through vodafone.  it's a pay-as-you-go thing, which is ridiculous in price as everything is here, but calls to the u.s. are the same as in new zealand.  also, texting is even cheaper so i will probably start sending some of those.  lastly, i checked how much it would be to ship presents home, and it is far too much for it to happen.  no way.  sorry guys, you'll all get letters and absolutely nothing else.  i'm not going to spend $100 buying gifts just so i can spend the same amount mailing them home.

i promise, the next time i post: photos of gorgeous new zealand!  (you know, people really aren't kidding to say that!)

beautiful new zealand!

well, i have been in new zealand now for a few days.  it's going pretty well, i am still getting over the jet lag.  i am staying in a hostel in downtown auckland with some other people in the iep program, which is pretty cool because we are all in the same boat together.  we've been doing some sightseeing, yesterday afternoon we went on the ferry to devonport, this cute little victorian style town on a peninsula up there.  (you'll have to look at a map i guess.)  climbed up mt. victoria and we could see auckland city across the water, and we took a lot of photos.  i've been to the art museums and stuff, the fish market (which was disapointing, unlike pike market in seattle) and today we're going to go to the domain and the new zealand museum.  or whatever it's called.

for as much as i look at my lonely planet guide, i really can't remember the names of things!  i'm going to blame it on the jet lag, heh!

i've been taking photos, but wireless is more expesive here and stuff, and i haven't edited them yet.  i really want to do that before i put them online because i am like that.  but here is one from my flight's approach into auckland airport just before 5am.  yeah, that was a really fun time!  what a great day that was, lol!

also stuff is insanely expensive here.  sunscreen is like $5-$13 NZD for a little bottle (and you  need it, the sun is pretty bad here, at least i have a bottle right now).  books are ridiculous too, the lonely planet australia is selling for $65 NZD new, which is about $50 USD.  so i might break down and beg someone to send it to me because even with mail, it has to be cheaper than that.  right?  and film.  i haven't checked but i bet it's ridiculous.  i have to get used to it, and i have to stop trying to convert everything to american dollars.  i mean, i have to buy shampoo at some point no matter what it costs!

anyway, i am off to enjoy the beautiful sun and the santa claus the bookstore down the street put up.  ah, auckland!

on to the southern hemisphere!

my next post will be from new zealand...EEK!

(i am still not packed yet, but at least i have the pile narrowed down quite a bit!)

mini-reunion

today i went to clarion and had a mini-reunion with some friends from high school.  we just hung out, went for a walk, ate some chinese.  going back to clarion is always a little strange because things have changed but it's still so familiar and comfortable.

from top left: the gang's all here! (missy, mandy, me, sarah, amber & larry, alicia), larry, my teapot at sam's chinese kitchen, and amber with larry

the fed-ex man must hate us.

he's been to our house four times in the last three days, and our american apparel delivery is supposed to come tomorrow.  sucks to be him!

i made a new album, just for fun.  probably not as funny as i think it is, but i did eat a lot of leftover halloween candy today (we had one trick-or-treater).

our house last night.

six days to go and...

i know that fedex has a huge hub in memphis, and that's why my package went there, but i still find it amusing that it came from tacoma to go there before it comes here.

this is what i bought.  i also got one of these which arrived today.
i'm also waiting for my very cheap refurbished dell laptop that i bought on ebay a week ago. 

and packing so far has consisted of me moaning to kate and laura about it and then finally piling a bunch of stuff that i might take on the floor.  i'm doing really well...

pardon my geek.

despite my initial hesitance towards how good this film would be, i am really excited.  despite the whole "oh!  the ALL IMPORTANT GOLDEN COMPASS! oh right, and there's that girl too, i guess".  but unlike everyone else, apparantly i have to wait until december 26 to see it.  because that is the release date in australia and i presume that includes new zealand.  this is where you should imagine me saying "NOOO!" (à la star trek II) and weeping copiously.  the almost three extra weeks will kill me, especially knowing that EVERYONE ELSE (WHO IS NOT NEARLY AS BIG A FAN AS ME) will get to see it first.  you'd better not spoil it for me or i will cease to speak to you.  seriously.  do i look like i'm kidding?

a photo a day keeps the doctor away

obviously this is way more than one photo, but i can only narrow it down so far before i become too indecisive.  just pretend that this will keep you going for the next week or so!

stephanie and i each carved one of our pumpkins today.  i'm disappointed in mine.  i liked the design idea (which i stole from someone else via google images) but the execution was poor.  i know what i would have liked to do differently, but it's too late for that.  and i got the rock and roe ray troll shirt today that i wanted (second photo).  stephanie gave it to me as a late birthday present, i'm a fan! 

also, does anyone know why typepad won't let me edit my alt tags?  i keep trying, but they never seem to take.  it's frustrating because it really shouldn't be that difficult.  argh!

wedding photos

like how there are no photos of the groom?  haha.  i put the (edited) set on facebook, which most people have already seen i gather.

i keep thinking that apollo should still be here.  like when i didn't eat the crusts on my sandwhich today and wanted to give them to him, or when i hear a dog barking.  even though he was sick since i got home, i remember him as his old self.  and then i picture him in that dirt hole, and that's REALLY hard.  sky seems to be confused too, she was at the vet's when he was put down, and came home this morning (she was spayed and declawed).  she's been mewing most of the afternoon and wandering around the house like she's looking for him.  we think apollo had osteosarcoma which, even if it had been treated, would only somewhat prolong his life.  i know it was better this way, but he was such a good dog it's hard not to miss him.

*sigh*

i found out this weekend that there is another cornellian in new zealand right now, leah.  she graduated in '05, and was on the england trip that i was on.  she was one of the people that i liked to do things with, so knowing that she will also be in the country is a huge help.  also, i finally found my hat that laura gave me, so i can officially go now, lol!

goodbye

apollo, 11/6/96-10/22/07

emotionally, not a weekend i would like to relive.  it was nice to see everyone at liz's wedding, but it's hard to say goodbye.  especially knowing i'll be gone for a long time.

and when i finally got home this afternoon it was in time to bury our golden retriever, apollo.  he was very sick, so he was put to sleep this afternoon after dad took him out one last time to a lake and gave him an egg mcmuffin.  we buried him on the property of some friends of ours from church next to the little sioux.  it was really hard, and it will continue to be so.

but at least i have pictures of this little cutie to help cheer me up:

more photos to follow. 

oh, you know...

first of all, check this out!  i am referring specifically to marg helgenberger's character.  isn't that cool?!
(maybe you have to be a csi fan?)  i came across that when i was googling my name...but believe me, i had a very good reason to be doing that!

this morning my mom said to me as i was leaving for work, "what, are you homeless or something?"  because i was wearing this combination of clothes:
 
that's a purple ragbrai t-shirt.  and well, you can see the rest.  good thing she didn't see me after i put the scarf on...

today i got my passport back in the mail!  with my visa on page 14!!!!!  i am against multiple exclamation points as a rule, but i feel that this deserves an exception!  i think i might actually be a little excited about this. 

new frames

they look an awful lot like the old ones, except the whole thing is plastic and they are a little bit "bolder" as my mom would say.  also, they don't slide my nose every five seconds.  i keep trying to push these up, i guess it's a subconscious habit from the old ones.  and i got these at wal-mart for under $200 with a prescription that is two years more current.

why on earth is the weather so hot?  i almost can't stand it, i'm just sort of unused to this.  i just have to think, it's good practice, right?  i got an email from someone in the new zealand iep (international exchange program) yesterday welcoming me and giving me instructions.  so even though my passport is floating around somewhere i guess this means i am completely official, i am going to new zealand.  in a month from today.

at what point is it okay for me to start panicking?

SEATTLE!

some of my film photos from seattle are finally online!  how exciting!  have i ever mentioned how much i love that city?  this year i even managed a photo of a flying fish at pike place fish.  on my way back, i hung out with my friend ashton and went to chinatown (not impressed) and the olympic sculpture park (which i loved).  i had a lot of film hanging around, and just took pictures of a lot of different things.  fun times!

from top left: fence, Pioneer Square; bicycle, Lanna Trading Co.; Calder Sculpture, Olympic Sculpture Park; wooden fisherman, possibly in front of Ivar's; Love & Loss, Olympic Sculpture Park; bicycle, Lanna Trading Co.

have i mentioned that i sent all of my things in?  that i am now officially awaiting my visa?  a little over a month, and i will be flying far, far away!  it's a strange thought.  i hope it was a good idea!

wait! i need closure on that anecdote!

the only thing standing in between me and my ability to mail in my visa application, is the fact that wells fargo apparantly decided not to upload my august savings statement to my online account.  and july won't work because that was JULY a whole EIGHT weeks ago, not SIX.  as if that really makes a difference.  if they are worried i spent all of my money already those two weeks wouldn't matter, it would have been in the last three weeks since i got home.

so far i have spent an insane amount of money, so this had better go all according to plan.  plane ticket: $1700, visa: $495, mandatory 12-months of bunac's travel insurance: $479.  i just spent in about a week and a half the entirety of what i grossed in naknek.  when i think about it like that, i want to pass out.

on friday my grandparents came to town with my aunt and two uncles, and gave me the thurber album and the thurber carnival. which means that if i don't have a thurber story somewhere, it doesn't exist. then, yesterday was my birthday, which was fairly uneventful.  not really much of a change between 25 and 26.  i had my usual lasagna for dinner, and this year my mom made me a boston creme pie instead of german chocolate (since she made it for grandmere last week).  i talked to laura for the first time in three weeks, and i got the chemical brothers cd i wanted.  oh, and i started my temp job for the week.  it's really, really, really boring.  and it starts at 7am.  in spirit lake, which is at least half an hour away.

the only nice part about it is that it is also really, really, really easy and i finish at 3:30.

you could be a part-time model

i am in desperate need of jeans.  i bought some cords online, relying solely on customer reviews and a sizing chart to decide if it i should.  then after i placed the order, i thought i had made a terrible mistake.  i can't find pants that fit even if i try on a hundred pairs, what would make me think these would work?  i got home today, and there was the box.  and you know, they fit perfectly!  it was completely amazing.  especially since i spent two hours today trying on jeans at the mall in ames, and found exactly one pair that i liked the fit of.  that are also $60 and one inch shorter (or three inches longer, if they are the regulars) than i would like.

other recent purchases include the new M.I.A. cd, which i have yet to listen to, and the flight of the conchords the distant future.  it was at target for $4, and they are from new zealand.  i know this because i am smart.  actually, i know this because i saw their show a couple of times on HBO when i was taking over eli's tv in naknek this summer, and then laura reminded me of their existance.  (btw, i can't figure out itunes...i think i need help 'cause i sure would like to see more of it.)

this week i went to ames because my grandmere turned 80.  two of my uncles and aunt were there as well, so it was a grand old time.  tomorrow they are all coming up to our house to see it, and then i think we are having lunch to celebrate my birthday.  which isn't until monday, but if i can extend it to a four-day weekend, like i would complain!  i will milk it for all it's worth.  especially since i will start my temp job monday, doing i'm not really sure what but i think i will be making boxes for a week.  hooray.

my application is almost done, i just need to do a few more pages and get my plane ticket and my passport out and put it in the mail.  holy cow.

 

i love this photo!

aaron, corinna, and ryan at the top of deer mountain.

some of my film has been put online at snapfish, and this is one photo i was looking forward to seeing.  the four of us and billy hiked up deer mountain one day.  we picked a really good day to go, it was one of the few days we had off where it didn't rain, and it was just a beautiful climb.  ketchikan is a rainforest with over 14 feet (yes, feet) of rain a year, and so the beginning was sort of this weird pre-historic forest that somewhat reminded me of louisiana.  and even after you pass the tree line, it's still not like a typical mountain with the fragile tundra.  there were plenty of plants and mud puddles.

i keep wanting to talk about alaska, but i can't.  when i was in naknek (which, by the way, is where my banner photo was taken*), erin and i talked about this.  naknek is just this place that sort of gets in your blood.  you may not really mean to go back when you leave and are exhausted and sick of the food, but after about eight months you just get this sort of itch to return.  and the place and the people and the whole experience (that's the key word i think) is just something you can't really describe to someone who hasn't ever done it before.  so even though i love it and it's this big part of my life now, i find it difficult to talk about it because i just don't know what to say. 

i also love that it enables me to do things like, oh, GO TO NEW ZEALAND!  which i am a little excited about, but i mostly feel trepidation.  i know very little about new zealand if i'm honest, and i know nobody there.  it's kind of like jumping off of a cliff...but a lot scarier.  if anyone knows of any blogs or websites or books or whatever that might be a good resource, please point me in the right direction!

*bunkhouse 88 may not have more than three hot showers a day, but at least i can take really good photos out of upper 88's windows!  right?

now that i am no longer a slave to dial-up

i can finally watch all of those online videos my friends have sent me. 

moving big rocks
one man demonstrates how stonehenge may have been built.

percusienfa de erik mongrain
a really cool way to make music on a guitar.

goreyesque trouble with tribbles
not a video, but it combines two of my nerdier obsessions.

ray troll and the squawking fish
and their 1988 music video "spawn till you die".  which is probably funniest if you are familiar with salmon breeding habits, or have seen the masses in ketchikan wearing troll's "spawn till you die" shirts.  (okay, so i stumbled on this one myself.)

and to update everyone on what i am doing next: today i mailed in my application and $495 cashier's check to bunac for my visa.  i said i wanted to leave at the beginning of november.  whee!

new family member

this is sky, our new cat.  she's cute, but she also likes to bite, torture book, and try to claw out my eyes.  i'll be glad when those get removed!  the best part about sky is that she's not nearly as anti-social as book, so i can just pick her up and torture her in return.  all of that petting is going to take her fur off!

(she has adopted apollo as a surrogate parent, and in that last picture she put herself there...apollo just looks sort of like "what is this thing?!?")