Category Archives: Hrm

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We Did Chicago

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There was a period of time there when I felt like I had a traveling job. We were flying so much I lived in an airport. We were pretty good at it. We recently changed that up for some road trips and so getting to the airport on time, parking, and checking in all had to be relearned.

We stayed at the Blackstone Hotel Thursday. I’ve never been to another hotel where they waited on us hand and foot. We ate and caught the VP debate. Friday MK traded a little from the hotel, which got us to a late start. BB and MB showed up and we met them at the Chairman’s Suite of the Sax Hotel. It ruled. There were a dozen TVs and a bar, dining room, living room, and enough hallway space for us all to try the moon walk. MB baked cookies and cakes and chex mix and brought all kinds of snacks. I decorated and covered the place in balloons and banners.

Three more friends of theirs and two of ours and it was a party. We almost didn’t want to leave! We checked out the bar scene and totally decided our room was more fun and went back.

The next day we enjoyed giant breakfast and some sightseeing, the Michigan Mile, Millennium Park, and had a drink at the top of the Hancock Tower. We went back for a little more drinking and football until we were starved enough to order pizza at Lou Malnati’s, then ate until we thought we might die. BB’s friends took off and we took MK out for birthday drinks. He got old at midnight and we went to our other not as big but still swank hotel room.

The next day was overcast but we ate and shopped and when the rain started went bowling. The hotel had a Microsoft Suite so we jammed a little Rock Band before MB and BB headed back home too. I took MK out for a birthday hamburger (his request) and we watched the end of the Red Sox game.

The next day we went to Navy Pier, then decided to challenge Lou Malnati’s with Giordano’s. It’s a tough call. Pretty much the only thing I learned about Chicago is the locals are overweight and I would be too if I lived there and ate Chicago stuffed pizza all the time…

So just like I told you here – we did enough but not too much. The idea was to be somewhere other than San Diego and to be with our close friends. We pulled that off and had a fun little break from reality. Now it’s back to work packing and planning. We’ll let my Daddy take us back to see all the good stuff we missed some time.

Don’t forget to read all my captions. They’re painstakingly there just for you.

Pictures Set One: Camera Phone pictures.

Pictures Set Two: Our Camera pictures.

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October

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October is a hilarious month around here. By around here, I mean around me. MK’s birthday. CH’s birthday, and now BB’s birthday. Pumpkins are exciting, and this post that I put up last year is very popular. I can’t tell what it is that you search on google that pulls me up, but I had more hits last October to this blog that all of the first year’s worth of posts.

So before I even put anything up today, I see this giant arch up in my blog stats. The market may be tanking, but my value is epic this month. 😉 Somegosoftly likes October, it creates self worth.

We are taking a trip tomorrow, a trip that has a funny story. The last time I tried to do this trip, I canceled it all and virtually moved out. For a reason we no longer remember. But still. This trip is a dangerous trip. So since we’ve never been on this trip, we’ve decided to do what no one’s ever done after flying somewhere they’ve never been: nothing.

That’s right, for MK’s BIG ***3-0*** we are planning on doing nothing. He hates sight seeing. Not gonna do it. He hates touristy stuff. Not gonna do it. He hates big fancy dinners. Not gonna have one. We got a giant GIANT room and we are going to sit in it. It has a media center fancier than anything. We might play Xbox all week. Who knows. We have some friends that we’ve tried to prepare. As in “you can come hang out, but if you’re gonna do stuff, well, we aren’t.” They seem down, so we might hang in PJ pants and drink wine and eat birthday cake and watch football – well, I might sneak in football if MK naps. I’m almost jealous of this birthday.

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Operating Heavy Machinery

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There’s more to recovery than just lying in bed. You’ve got to quit worrying about crap you’ve got going on. And if you can’t, well, chances are that crap is going to turn out like crap. Your brain totally counts as heavy machinery that you shouldn’t be operating when your face hurts, but here’s how mine’s been doing:

Husband won’t plan his own birthday. First he wanted to go to Tokyo. Because he’s odd. Then he didn’t want to go anywhere, but he didn’t want to sit at home. So then I planned him a surprise but he had to know what it was so we’re going somewhere that is not a surprise. And I’m supposed to do surprise things. At a place I’ve never been. And we’re meeting people, so his birthday PMS isn’t making it easier on them, either.

Then I have to get him stuff. If you’ve ever received a gift from me you know how good I am at that. But it’s his big super duper important birthday. So he gets one nice thing. That he’ll probably hate. I hate shopping. And gifts. And getting let down after you try and the person is not impressed.

Then we need to move. Not only that but we have to figure out when and how. It seems far off but we have stuff we need to get rid of, and probably a trip to Austin to try to get things out of storage (hopefully for good). We have friends to start saying goodbye to (friends to tell we’re leaving) and events in San Diego we haven’t experienced yet to get in before we leave. We have accounts to close and mail to forward. That stuff takes forever.

I have more dental work, if that can be possible. That was thrilling news to hear about in my foggy haze on my way out the door.

So I can’t stay in bed and read my nice little book and fall asleep and watch TV and fall asleep again. I have to get organized. My brain hurts.

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My Maiden Voyage

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My husband and I have this thing. We love each other like crazy and know we are both borderline geniuses. So it’s hard for us to teach each other things. He couldn’t help me when we went skiing. I can’t help explain him anything I know. So we get out on this sailboat, and cords and sails are whipping around – and  apparently I was supposed to know (never having even seen a sailboat in action before) that I was in charge of some of them.

Once we figured out a system though, we were sailing. Like professionals. Like a team. Like we should get endorsements. Apparently all the big fancy boats look out for the little boats assuming those people are learning and don’t know the rules of the open water, but man did we impress them. I had to learn when we had right of way, all the names of things, and that I wasn’t just ‘flipping the front sail-thingy’.

Now that I’ve passed the first test, we get to go out on way fancier boats, which the great guys at the club MK belongs to let us check out. Some of them are nicer than our apartment…

Here are some pictures. I’m most proud of this one of me – I jumped out and parked the thing. WooHoo!

me paking boat

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On Second Thought

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Most of you should know about MK’s forced vacation by now, if you don’t, well, you’ll have to ask somebody. We’ve hit that super loving spot of needing to spend some serious time apart. So, in the height of his awesomeness, MK finally got started on his new hobby, and spent the weekend with an instructor learning how to sail a boat. I, to be sure, was all for this new hobby in concept. We can charter a boat without a crew, even buy one without me worrying who’s going to work it.

I’m envisioning all these fantastic moments:

girl on boat

Then, however, I flip through some of his manuals. MK informs me, when he cranks it to top speed or whatever, he could fall off the boat and I will have to know how to sail back and get him. (Or some other silly scenario that makes me have to work). Gone is my bikini and mimosa, suddenly I’m all geared up.

 

MK had me all set to suggest we buy a giant catamaran and live on it for years to come, but that was when the only schooling I was going to have to do was to read about provisioning (easy: spaghetti every night). That was when I was entertainer, lounge model, person in charge of relaxation. Now, we go shopping and he’s suggesting deck hands gloves and adventure pants. Usually with any new hobby we attempt, it’s the shopping for a whole ‘hobby specific’ wardrobe that gets me excited. Boating gear is not as alluring as I had imagined.

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Awesomest Trip

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We decided to drive up the coast this weekend. We’d gotten as far as Laguna before and turned inland, and really wanted to finally see LA. I was jumping up and down all morning while MK worked, all hyped up on Diet Dr.P. It was high time we had our little coast party weekend.

Our first stop was in Huntington Beach. We parked by the pier and checked out the Farmer’s Market, the Pier, the main strip of shops, which were nice and reasonable. Huntington has almost 9 miles of straight beach. Niiice. We shopped, walked, saw tons of volleyball players, and noticed that we were the oldest people there. Well, close. I’m putting median age at 16. Don’t they have school on Fridays?

We drove through Sunset Beach, Seal Beach, and up to Long Beach. The LBC! It’s not what you think, if you think like me. Theres a ton of industrial port stuff going on, there were more chains than I expected, and I didn’t see one person that could pass for an up and coming musician…

The drive continued through Rancho Palos Verdes, where I spotted the Trump Golf Course. If I ever golf, I’d do it there, on the cliffs overlooking the ocean. It looked spectacular. The houses there were accordingly insane, some just as big as we later saw in Beverly Hills. We stopped in a cove and watched some dolphins paying in the waves below us.

Redondo Beach and Hermosa Beach, which for whatever reason I was expecting great things from, were mostly unremarkable, and we decided to not even stop there. Manhattan Beach was much more eclectic of a beach town, with a nice So-Co (South Congress, that is) kind of a vibe. We drove through El Segundo, and I am happy to report I did not leave my wallet.

We drove through quite a bot of Santa Monica, by the coast, by Venice Beach, and by the mall. Venice by the water was filthy (worse than PB at least), but the shopping on Main Street was cute, it got nicer as you headed north. The Third Street Promenade reminded me of Boston by Faneuil Hall, there were restaurants and street performers and no cars. It was really nice. We hit LA traffic as we headed in right at 7, but got through it easily and saw the longest line in the world for an appearance by Jared Leto. Hmm. We drive right down Rodeo Drive while it was nice and empty, and headed through Beverly Hills to see some mansions.

If any one else said it, it would sound crazy, but it was adorable that my ever-so-unassuming husband actually told BB on the phone that he’d “really like to live here, it’s a nice neighborhood”. Too cute. After driving by the Beverly Hills Hotel and Chateau Marmot and heading down Sunset Strip, I started making reality tv show type recollections, as in gaining the ability to point out to MK many places I’ve seen or heard about (ex. Ketchup – famous from the Hills hahaha) It was a lot of silly fun. We parked to visit the Chinese Theater, Kodak Theater, Hollywood Blvd. stars, and mostly wander through crowds to get some coffee. I love seeing other people love touristy stuff. Our car happened to be right where we could sit and watch Jimmy Kimmel Live’s outdoor stage set up for Paramore. I don’t care what you think, I like that girl’s voice and was pretty excited. We went up north to Valencia to stay overnight.

The hotel we stayed at was one of the nicest I’ve ever seen other than in Vegas. Our room had it’s own patio deck for laying out, and there was a giant pool, fire, and garden. We headed out through the shopping center in the morning. MK actually spent some formative years out here, so he let me know what was new and old as we drove through all of Valencia, Saugus, and Santa Clarita, and he took me to see the house he grew up in. We had a nice little greasy spoon breakfast and went to Vasquez Rocks.

vasquez rocks

When MK told me we were going there I didn’t know what it was, but I recognized it as soon as we pulled up. I hiked up the whole thing (yes, in a sundress) and we got some great pictures. It was beautiful. We drove past Magic Mountain, where MK spent most of his youth, and got on the road to Ojai, the place I picked for our trip.

Ojai has been in tons of shows and news pieces lately, and I really wanted to see what it was all about. We stopped on the way out there and bought more strawberries and oranges than a human could eat in a year for 10$. We saw Thomas Aquinas College, which was neat. The view from the inland road above Ojai Valley was amazing. We had some local Italian and wine for lunch at Boccali’s, and enjoyed the sunny afternoon as we strolled through the parks and shops.

ojai park downtown

The whole drive to Malibu we saw some incredible houses. The canyons were immense. There was still some fire damage in some places by Pepperdine. We stopped in their main shopping center for coffee. My husband, who never knows who anyone is, spotted first the swarm of paps, then none other than Val Kilmer running out of Ralph Lauren. I was pretty impressed – by MK.

Malibu makes no sense to me, as there is very little parking and houses on most of the water front. We drove back up through some other hills and cliffs look at houses. We stopped at Will Rogers State Beach, and walked up and down the Santa Monica Pier. I think all piers should be like this, with rides and games and amusement-type things, as opposed to the Ruby’s diners that you usually see.

santa monica pier

Back in LA we saw the Sherman Oaks Galleria and the Getty Center. We managed to drive through half of Hollywood and Hollywoodland and checked out the sign. Also of note was the line of 100s of cars and aliens heading into the giant Church of Scientology Celebrity Center.

I’ve got image descriptions for all the pictures, here’s the link!

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You Can’t Always Get What You Want

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And by “you”, I mean “you”. I on the other hand successfully managed to convince MK over the weekend to order me a brand spanking new laptop, just like I wanted. It wasn’t easy. And I have to wait a few days for it to ship. (Can’t anything ever just be cheap in the store!?!)

I hate begging. But I did learn an important lesson. Anything I want – I’d even go so far as to say I needed this new computer, mine IS on it’s deathbed – has stopped coming as easy as it did when we were dating. The last laptop, I maybe made fleeting mention of never having my own computer, and *poof* there it was. This one might have involved temper tantrums. Oh well. The super cool super light prize I desired is on the way.

Guess what that means??? Live blogging from SXSW! If you click this link right here, you can relive all of last year’s epic fun (Scroll down a bit past the first two posts). It’ll get you excited!

dell xps laptop

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For Your Amusement

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Happy Valentine’s. And if you’re not that into it, here’s something to cheer you up:

Anti Valentine’s Despair Bittersweets.

I remember what I did last year as if it was yesterday. In keeping with that mistress-seeking tradition, MK and I celebrated Valentine’s the night before. He took me out all day shopping and then we went out for a Chinese dinner that I was owed from my birthday, and fortunately since I’m only going to do that once a year, it was great.

xkcd valentine

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The Scenery

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MK finally took me on a great tour of where we live.

Here are the pictures.

We went to the La Jolla Beach, drove through more mansions (that’s kind of what they all are here) and up to Mt. Soledad, a really amazing view of the coast from La Jolla to Pacific Beach and back around to the city skyline.

We drove through Old Town, which we’ll have to explore more, and drove over the giant bridge to Coronado, which wasn’t as amazingly ritzy as I had imagined but was still very nice. I wouldn’t say no if you bought me a place there. The beach is incredible, and we could squint and make out pirate ships, which we had to go home and look up immediately. If we ever make any friends down here, we’re throwing a pirate ship party.

I have slightly mentioned to my nomadic husband that I might be perfectly FINE if this is where I end up for a substantial amount of time, we’ll have to see how that goes. The downtown area is super cool. Balboa Park is always crowded but full of things to do. Taking a vacation when we’ve only been here a week put a bump in our exploring, but we’ll see more soon.

NANO TOTAL: 9900 words.
NaBlo Day 20: Check.

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Early Planning

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When do you start thinking about the holidays? This weekend, MK and I realized that we need to think. Besides this giant move and drive, I’ve got to write another novel. I’ve got to finish my first novel. I mentioned that I was invited to a birthday celebration. MK mentions the day trading convention that we went to last year. Are we going again? JH calls and announces his wedding, Dec 1st. Can we make it? I’d love to see Key West…Where are we going for Thanksgiving? Where will his family be? I haven’t seen my family back home since last year. We must get some skiing in this winter. Utah? Colorado? ARGH!

Not to mention I miss my friends. All of a sudden, our penciled in little monthly calendar looked messy. How do you sort out all your time?