Moments

Some favorite moments of my trip thus far.

Two overheard quotes from the Atlanta airport:

#1- "If I go to the bathroom, someone's going to have to hold this penguin."

#2- "These are all just fast food churches, and they're serving junk food."

And the spectacle of seeing about 50 Amish men in full traditional garb (beards, hats, suspenders, everything) getting off a very new, posh bus.

Oh, just thought of another one: What it must have looked like to outsiders who viewed me in my closed car swatting at the 1,000 chiggers that swarmed into my car after I left the door open too long. I was also swearing and yelling because those little buggers hurt when they bite. Yeah, I was a loud, seizuring woman flailing about in my car. Thankfully I was not driving at the time.

Off

And the work travel has finally begun again. I'm off to Mississippi until next Thursday.

In the meantime, I had the fun of teaching improv to kids twice in the past two weeks. It's funny - at first I was against the idea. I thought it would just be me baby-sitting them and having to chase them around (they ranged in age from a first grader to two fourth graders). But actually, they were more fun and more open than the adults that took the class.

Improv is so natural for kids, they are always making things up and pretending, and their imaginations know no boundaries. The kids did some hilarious scenes during the class. Some highlights:

Kid 1: I just discovered my friend has halitosis.
Kid 2: Really? I just discovered that I'm going to die in fifteen minutes.
Kid 1: That's bad. I hope we can cure everything.

Adult: Frogs have three legs.
Kid: I met a camel with one leg.
Adult: Wow!
Kid: Yeah, we should get them together and have a reunion for all these weird animals.

Maybe you had to be there, but they were cracking me up. The experience certainly changed my mind about teaching improv to kids.

Anyway, I'll try to blog whilst on the road. Considering how long it takes to fly to Gulfport (I have really long layovers), I'm sure I'll have some time.

Flickr

Because my cell phone has a camera on it, I've now joined the ranks of the Flickr people. On my right menu bar over there, if you scroll down you'll see some of my cell phone photos and a link to see more. And don't worry, if you enjoy stalking me, you can still see my regular camera photos in the "Photos!" link of my Links section. Don't freak out, stalkers.

Pretty soon I'll be posting some video my phone has taken as well. Way cool. Well, at least to me.

**UPDATE!**
Alright, here's my first test of a video clip. I believe you have to have QuickTime to view it, but I'm not totally sure. Perhaps someone without Quicktime can comment on whether it's viewable to them.

Anyway, the clip is a very short, soundless and boring tour of my desk at work. And yes, that is a half-eaten Pop Tart right there. Also, yes I know my desk is messy. I'm a reporter, it's required that I have a messy desk. I assure you that there's organization there, though. My own sort of organization.


View this clip on Vimeo

Spring!

Spring has sprung, the grass is ris....tomorrow it's supposed to snow and that makes me pissed.

Spring arrives today at 1:26pm EST. Tell that to the folks who are waking up to two feet of snow. Or to us fragile Marylanders, who are expecting a snowy crappy mix tomorrow. Oh well, just because the calendar says Spring doesn't mean things suddenly will be sunny and warm.

At least the birds are returning, the daffodils are appearing and there are buds on the trees. Oh, and there will be 12 hours of daylight today. Thanks, vernal equinox!

/nerd hat off

Cell Phone

I finally got my new cell phone on Tuesday and it's amazing. It's officially my work phone, which is cool because it's so expensive that I never would've bought one like it on my own. I am the proud owner of a Treo 650, which is super cool.

The cell phone I had before was archaic based on today's phones, meaning it was more than four years old. It was so old that no one sold hands-free devices for it anymore. But this new phone, not only did it come with a hands-free headset, but it also is Blue Tooth enabled.

That means I'm now one of those people. You know, the ones who look like they're talking to themselves because you can't see the cell phone earpiece or mic hanging off of them. I've not yet invested in the "I belong with the Borg" Blue Tooth wireless headsets, but I'll do that eventually.

In any case, I'm now using the headset as frequently as possible. I've called Amy with it approximately 15 times now - usually for very pointless reasons. Today I was in the grocery store and I called her twice.

Me: "Hey, I'm at the grocery store."
Amy: "Okay."
Me: "Just in case you needed to know."
Amy: "Okay."
Me: "So, um, do you need anything?"

And so on. 10 minutes later I called her because I wasn't sure if the 93% ground turkey meant that it was the 7% fat stuff we liked, or if it was in fact only 93% turkey and 7% a mixture of other birds they just found sitting around the farm. I'm lucky she loves me.

So, anyway, this phone is super awesome. Sorry if I sound like a PalmOne ad, but it is. I finally have a portable calendar again. Sure, while waiting for another phone I could've bought a dayplanner and actually written stuff in it with a pen, but that's so 1999. The phone also takes awesome photos and even video. Hell, I can even record my own ringtones.

Be ready, world. Be ready.

Brilliant

We keep the TV on CNN here in the office and I just heard one of their anchors ask a very intelligent question of the fire chief about a chemical plant explosion out in Phoenix, Arizona. The plant produces and tests aircraft ejection seats.

Anchor: So the chemicals on site there - are those chemical related to the aircraft ejection seats produced there?

I think I know what she meant by asking that, but perhaps she could have phrased that better. Anyway, I sure was hoping the fire chief she was speaking with would answer

"No, actually, they just really enjoy keeping large barrels of toxic chemicals on-hand in that factory. You know, for fun."

Dark-Sided Painter of Light

On Tuesday I was reading this LA Times article about Thomas Kinkade - the "painter of light." I can't stand his paintings, they're atrociously ugly. Anyway, apparently he's a hardcore Christian but has a darker side (read the article for more).

I thought it was funny that, according to the article, Kinkade once got hugely wasted in Vegas and heckled Siegfried and Roy during a show. So I shared that story with Amy during our Google Chat session.

me: haha, Kinkade once got so drunk in vegas he heckled siegfriend and roy during a show. Here's the LA Times quote on it:

"I think it was Roy or Siegfried or whatever had a codpiece in his leo­tard­s," Dandois test­i­fied. "And so when the show started, Thom just started yelling, 'Cod­piece, cod­piece,' and had to be quieted by his mother and Nanette."

Amy: This is his dark side? You would do that if I paid you $10

And of course, she's completely right. Touché, Amy, touché.

Sniff

There are many reasons I hate the winter season. One of them is sickness. Normally I can make it through the cold and flu season with maybe one cold. I'm a fairly health person when it comes to that stuff. Yet this year the rhinoviruses have been kicking my butt.

I've had two colds in the past month. This most recent one I blame on the weather-change from Florida to Maryland. I've spent the past week in a fog of a cold. It doesn't help that all the day-time cold medicine that I've tried out makes me feel loopy.

Saturday night was fun because I almost completely lost my voice to the cold. All day Sunday I sounded like a cross between a heavy smoker and a pubescent boy, both deeply talking and occasionally cracking and squeaking.

And it's great when people go, "Holy crap, you sound horrible." First of all - really? Here I thought sounding like a Drag Queen at age 14 was something everyone aspired to. Second of all - thanks. I love having my impending death from a nasal drowning pointed out to me.

Also, Amy can always tell where I am in the house for several reasons:

1- I leave a trail of kleenex.
2- That's not the cat that's hacking and clearing its throat.
3- The groans of, "I'm dying, oh God, I'm dying" are also easily heard throughout the apartment....
4- ...As are the yelled phrases of, "Why do my sinuses hate me?!" and "Man, if I ever see a sinus on the street, I'm totally going to kicks its ass."

So here's hoping everyone else out there is healthy and drinking their orange juice.

Tuesday

In case you didn't know, my cat (Tuesday) started a blog a month or so ago, and she's quite the talented writer. So, I invite you go to look through Tuesday's blog (scroll down), and also notice that she's now started an Ask Tuesday section where you can email her a question.

I'm committed to her education, so offering her our computer each day to type up her diary is a good step in the right direction, I think. As long as she's not surfing for kitty porn, I'm just fine. Don't worry, I just punched myself in the face for that joke.

So, check it out and write her, folks.

Florida

Alright, it's taken some time, but I've uploaded all my photos into my Yahoo album. Click here to see the album. I'd recommend viewing them as a slideshow.

Now I'll tell you more about just what we did down there. Amy, Tara, Kate, my mom and I all headed down to the Port Charlotte area on Sunday, February 19th. We spent Monday through Friday working on a home that was heavily damaged by Hurricane Charley back in August 2004.

The five of us stayed in some donated trailers on a church property. All volunteers in town helping with hurricane rebuilds could choose to stay there if they wanted. And since there were only five of us, we were teamed up and bunked up with a group of 19 folks from a UCC church up in Connecticuty. They were a very fun group.

The volunteer trailers were actually pretty nice. There were bunk beds, but having been on many a mission trip - these sure beat sleeping on a church floor. Plus, we were staying by a church I had visited only days after Hurricane Charley blew through. I was down there for work travel, so it was neat to see how far the area had some since then.

The home we worked on was in real bad shape. The guy who lived there was 69-years-old, and really didn't have any nearby family or friends to look out for him. Thus, his home sat there wind and water-damaged for more than a year. The results were horrible. The roof had huge holes in it and the inside was full of mold and worse. He was a bit of a packrat, too, so that made cleaning it out even worse.

When we got to his house on the first day, I made sure to go for the roofing job. I didn't want to be stuck inside a house with mold all week, so I quickly scaled the ladder soon after arriving.

Not that the roof wasn't also going to be hard work. It was covered in heavy tile shingles, and they all had to come off. What a workout!

Amy and Mom got stuck doing some yardwork the first day. Earlier that morning they warned us about the perils of fire ants, and Amy got to experience that first-hand. I remember looking down from the room into the back yard and seeing Amy standing there with one pant-leg off. She'd found them. Or rather, they found her. She escaped with only a couple bites, but they're still itching this week from what she tells me.

My mom is a real trooper, she stuck with in the inside of that moldy, bug-filled home almost the entire week. She and another team of women from the Connecticut UCC church went to task with the kitchen and living room - bringing out bag after bag of moldy items and scary things. She said she'd rather be doing that than be up on the roof with us. She also assured me that I was right in choosing the roof. Apparently along with the mold inside, there were whole armies of spiders, giant roaches, snakes and rats. Yikes. I can handle snakes and rats, but spiders - especially large ones - would send me running.

In any case, the roofing team worked pretty quickly and efficiently. It was nice to have some folks on the roof who'd done that sort of thing before, they were helpful in guiding us to each task.

Oh, and since I just touched on the scary interior of the home - The homeowner himself, Dave, has not lived in the home since Charley. He lives in a FEMA trailer in his backyard. I can't imagine the feelings of not being able to do anything with your home for that long and just watching it get worse each day. I also imagine it was overwhelming for him to see a big army of volunteers show up the first day. Amy describes it well on her blog - I think the first day for him was hard, but he got used to it and then I think realized that people do care about him.

I don't think I can remember enough from each day to tell this story as a timeline, so I'll just share the stories as I remember them.

I certainly learned a lot about roofing, that's for sure. I got to help remove shingles, take out molding decking, and then hammer some back in. I also learned way too much about drip-edge and facia, and tar paper.

On the last day, finishing the roof was held up by permits, so I ventured inside to help with tearing out some modly drywall. While inside, I paused to watch some of the crew rip out the old door and doorframe. One guy took a crowbaw to the frame and ripped it out. It mostly crumbled due to rot and termites - but as it crumbled away much more came out.

Out pour several small snakes, roaches and the largest spider I've seen in some time. I had to take a break outside for an hour or so. Eeek.

I eventually headed back in and went back to the demo work. It's hard to say that I enjoyed punching out drywall in what was once someone's home, but to say that I didn't enjoy putting my foot and hammer through some walls would be false. I just hope the next crews can bring Dave's house back to the way it was. Or at least liveable enough.

We also had some fun on the weeknights last week. We played mini-golf one night, and Kate beat me by one stroke when I choked on the final hole. Tara schooled us all, though, by getting three holes-in-one in a row.

We also went to Englewood Beach on the Gulf one evening and watched a beautiful sunset. We saw some dolphins swimming by, too.

Kate had to leave us Thursday afternoon, and then Tara flew out Friday night. Overall, the work week was really awesome. I'm glad I got to do it and wish I could do things like this more often. I think the whole crew had a lot of fun no matter what we did. Also, there's nothing like wearing shorts and a t-shirt in the middle of February. I'm sure my brain was confused.

Anyway, I think everyone should try a mission trip like this at least once in their lives. I did them all through high school and college, and I know they shaped my life and helped me choose the career I'm in now. Plus, they're just a really good way of reminding us that we need to care for neighbors - whether we know them or not.

Moving on, once last Saturday rolled around, it was just Amy, my mom, and I left to do some fun stuff until our flights left on Monday. Saturday we headed down to Punta Gorda and hung out at an artfest in the morning. Boy, I felt young. The whole place was crawling with senior citizens.

Also, please, senior citizens of Florida: stop driving. I lost count of how many times we were almost hit last week.

Anyway, after the artfest, we headed over to the Babcock Wilderness Ranch for a wilderness eco-tour. I think they put "eco" in there just because you're outside. I doubt driving an old modified school bus through a swamp is the most ecologically-sound way of preserving the environment. But, the tour guide was extremely knowledgeable on all the wildlife and plants and reminded folks about endangered species and loss of habitat.

We saw tons of alligators and wild water birds. We also saw the many cows on the ranch, and even the two Florida cougars the ranch folks are taking care of.

Once that tour was done, we headed down to Ft. Myers to the Lee County Manatee Park. We didn't see any manatees, unfortunately. The tour guides there said the Gulf was warm enough again that they wouldn't be seeking the warmth of the canal system there.

Also in the park, I tried to stuff my mom into a kayak. The story behind that (which probably isn't as funny when it's retold) is that while planning this trip, I listed off a number of things we could all do on our three days off at the end. Kayaking was on there. I told my mom that kayaks are nicer than canoes, they're more comfy and easier to use, I think. She responded with the phrase, "You are not stuffing me into a kayak." If you know my mom, you can picture her saying this - that's why it was so funny. So the trip became us occasionally bringing up about how we were going to go kayaking one evening, or spend a whole day in a kayak.

Sunday was spent on Sanibel Island - which was so totally beautiful and amazing that it's hard to describe. The beach is covered in shells, the water is almost clear - and dolphins were swimming right off the beach! So amazing.

From there we headed over the "Ding" Darling Wildlife Refuge. Wow - even more amazing. There's a four mile trail through the park that we went along. And so many beautiful birds and critters were just hanging out near the trail. I'd recommend it to anyone headed down there.

Our final day in the area was spent at the Boston Red Sox spring training complex. Oh man - so awesome. Thanks to my mom and Amy for letting me do this, it was so cool. I took endless photos (especially of Trot Nixon), so hopefully those won't bore anyone. We saw all our favorite players and more. I even got an awesome souvenir.

The story on that is as follows: After watching the training workouts for some time, the three of us decided to go sit on a secluded bench near one of the practice fields. I noticed a baseball just on the other side of the fence. Nobody was near it, but it had obviously been used that morning during the batting practices. Who knows who could have hit it? Anyway, with Amy and mom posted as non-chalant look-outs, I dug a small hole near the fence and reached my hand underneath. Score! My very own official spring training ball! And on the way out, we saw GM Theo Epstein - and mom muscled her way through the crowd to have him sign it.

That was one of the best souvenirs of the trip!

And that's all I can think of for now about my eight days in Florida. If I think of more stories, I'll post them. Hope you enjoy the photos!