Archive for June, 2006

Ode to TaB 28Jun06


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I take a short intermission from all other pertinent topics, to bring you a small shrine to my favorite beverage, ever.

Although, I was not even a twinkle in someone’s eye when this wonderful diet soda made it to market, it managed to capture my heart. See, my Dad loved TaB, and I remember being a little kid and begging him to share his TaB with me. And my friends, never underestimate the childhood nostalgia factor, because it’s huge. (Just ask the Schwan’s man how much stuff we bought from him recently, as my brothers and I urged our Mom to get all our favorites from when we were younger).

So TaB…the illustrious, mysterious soda in the ever so lovely pink striped can. No matter how much you tell me it tastes like battery acid, or how I will die from cancer because of it’s saccharin/nutrasweet cocktail, I will continue to drink it faithfully. And I will continue to pillage every grocery store I come to that has a stock of TaB, leaving some poor addict left to drive to all kinds of stores to find it, since I’ve stocked up.

So thank you TaB, nothing can give me a little spring in my step like knowing that I brought an extra can of you along with my sack lunch.

TaB = awesome.

If you want to learn more about this wonderful soda, check out these links: I Love TaB, Wikipedia: TaB, The World of TaB Soda, TaB Soda Web.

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Be Still My Heart 26Jun06


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I almost had a heart attack tonight. See, it hailed at my house, and I really, really hate hail. I have tragic memories which stem from a hail storm of catastrophic proportions, which occured in the quiet little town of Socorro in October 2004. You see, around that time, I had to give up my wonderful 1995 VW Jetta, nick-named the “Ghetta Jetta”, since it had numerous issues.

But I was very blessed to find a great deal on a 2000 VW New Beetle, which I purchased in late August of 2004. Well, fast forward a month or so, and said car was marked for demolition by heaven, and boy was it destroyed. The hail storm caused $2,000 damage over the value of the car, and even punctured our roof completely through! Here’s a picture of the baseball size hails that destroyed the entire town, causing nearly $5,000,000 of damage to our school campus alone.

yard pelted by hail

Well now I have a PT Cruiser, which I like; and although I don’t love it as I did my VW, it’s still a good car. So imagine my horror when tonight, in a span of 30 minutes, the sky turned black and hail began to pour forth, followed by lightning strikes and loud claps of thunder. My stomach sank as far as it could go. Then finally, after what seemed an eternity, the downpour subsided.

With much trembling and trepidation, I decided I had to go assess the car-nage. As I swing open the creaky front door, I’m greeted with the sight of white pools of compacted hail in the front yard, along with branches, leaves and garbage bins strewn all over the street. Hands trembling, I walk up to my car, and run my hands over it’s still wet hood, expecting to feel the texture of a golf ball underneath my fingers. And I breathe slowly, as I realize, No Damage! Woo-Hoo, my car is alright!

So since that crisis over, I have a knitting update to report! I actually have a finished object! (It’s small, but I finished something nonetheless). It’s a Cotton Baby Hat for Lucy, the daughter of 2 of my good friends since the golden days at Tech. And I know you guys are reading this, so surprise! So that means we’ll have to get together again sometime soon, so Lucy can try on her new hat. :)

cotton baby hat

Anyway, it’s bed time for this old codger, so good night, and don’t stay up too late to all you CS nerds out there.

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Hey, I Actually Did Some Knitting! 21Jun06


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Wow, I got some knitting done last night, I’m amazed! I came home from work, made a quick dinner, and then it was off to Agility with Ms. Emma. And when I got home, I had a ton of stuff that I had planned to do to get the house cleaner and get my stuff more unpacked, but I decided that I didn’t want to do that. So instead, I rented a movie (Firewall…it was ok…but the ending was totally lame) and knitted. It was so wonderful! I’m working on a bunch of little mini socks to send out with my graduation thank you notes (which are very behind schedule), and am hoping to get the last of those finished up soon, so I can send out these notes. They’re quite fun, and I can finish one in about an hour, so they’re nice and quick. Then after that I think I’m going to come up with some fun projects to start making a dent in my ever growing yarn stash. I actually can fill a basket now!

And what’s a blog post without pictures? So here’s some more sketchy cameraphone pictures (I really need a decent camera, now that I’m not at home, I can’t use my parent’s camera) of Dallas, and the huge pond in my backyard.

dallas' first day home
backyard pond
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Introducing Dallas 19Jun06


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I’d like to introduce everyone to the newest canine member of my family, Dallas! I had mentioned last week that I might be adopting a new dog, and after quite a long series of events, I found Dallas, through the help of AZ Schnauzer Rescue. He’s a wonderful 9 month old Schnauzer, with an absolutely wonderful disposition and a sweet heart. He spent most of his life to this point tied to a tree in someone’s yard, and I’m very happy to be able to provide him with a loving home and lots of room to run. He’s a bit bigger than Emma, and the adoption agency thinks that he’s a Standard Schnauzer that might have a big of Giant Schnauzer blood in him. He currently weighs 35 pounds, and I’m not sure how big he will grow to, or if he will grow anymore at all.

Dallas

He’s completely wonderful and I’m so happy to have adopted him. Emma is getting along great with him, and is very happy to have a companion. Although it’s quite funny to watch their attempts at playing, given their size differences. They romp cautiously, as though they’re trying to figure out the best way to play together to accomodate their respective sizes.

I have more pictures, but haven’t uploaded them from my parent’s camera yet, so look for those soon. And congratulations to Scout for her recent adoption of Gus! Dogs are wonderful aren’t they?

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Dye-O-Rama Update! 14Jun06


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Well I finally have Internet access at my new house, so I can actually blog without having to go to Flying Star. Anyway, here’s my Dye-O-Rama update, since I’ve both sent and received my yarn. And I’ll apologize before hand for the pictures, because I didn’t have my parent’s camera, so I had to use my crummy cameraphone.

First off, I received a very beautiful skein of yarn, called Copper Moss, from Loredena. It has tones of green, orange, red and brown in it. It reminds me of a perfect fall day, and I think it’s absolutely gorgeous. I can’t wait to use it! So thank you Loredena! I also received a nice bar of very rich dark chocolate, but I returned home one night to find that my Mom’s dog Liberty had eaten it. Needless to say, it was a pleasant night of induced vomiting…I’m just sad that Libby got to enjoy it and not me!

yarn sent to me - copper moss - 2

As far as outgoing yarn, I dyed my yarn on Sunday (yeah, yeah, I procrastinated :-P), and I think it came out very nice. I used a nice lilac, spring green and a sky blue, and named it Spring Flowers. I hope that my Dye Pal likes it, I think she will!

yarn I sent - spring flowers - 2

yarn I sent - spring flowers - 5

Anyway, that’s about it on the dyeing front. As far as knitting goes, I haven’t gotten too much of that done lately, with the move and all, but things are settling down, so I should have more to report soon.

Also, I may have a new member of the dog family to report tomorrow, if all goes well…I’ll keep you posted. I won’t put too many details up yet, because it’s not a done deal, but I may soon have a new sweet boy to be Emma’s brother :)

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