100 things about me

So, I have decided to steal an idea from my brother's blog and use it. He had done a list of 100 things about himself. Now, I hesitated to do this because of a couple of reasons. First, who gives a shit if they know 100 things about me or not? Second, I don't know if I could actually come up with 100 different things about myself. I fancy myself sort of simple really. However, I am going to give it a shot. And I am shooting from the hip here, so I apologize if I double up on things without realizing I have done so. If this happens, take it as a clue that I am really passionate about that aspect of myself. Also, be prepared, I am honest, and many things about me are SO not politically correct. If you can't handle it, don't read it. :)

To save room, I will do this in the following format: Today will be numbers 100-75, tomorrow will be 74-50, the next will be 49-25 and then 24-1. Here goes nothing...

100. I am a fully grown adult female who is only 4' 9" tall.

99. I have a better work ethic than most.

98. I am very self aware.

97. I am single and childless by choice

96. I love my dog more than I ever thought possible.

95. I sometimes wonder if it is normal to love my dog as much as I do.

94. I am a pro-choice republican.

93. I am very secure.

92. I don't like drinking anything carbonated.

91. The only reason I don't drink alcohol is because I don't like it.

90. I am Jewish.

89. I respect people who believe in God.

88. I don't believe in God.

87. I respect people who don't believe in God.

86. I have little patience for laziness.

85. I believe that people are the masters of their own destiny.

84. I want to destroy my TV when I hear commercials that say things like "did a stroke of bad luck hurt your credit and keep you from getting the car you deserve?"

83. People who drive in the left lane going under the speed limit irk me to no end.

82. People who rubber neck at car accidents irk me even worse.

81. If I had this kind of money, I would live on my own private island. With my dog.

80. I am working on savingthat kind of money.

79. I love convertibles.

78. I can't stand attention, even when it's positive.

77. I think people who "people watch" are rude. No one likes to be stared at.

76. I love being in the Air Force.

75. I am proud to say what I do for a living when asked.

Still reading? ha ha! Tomorrow I will come up with 74-50. If I can think of more. :)

It's that time of year again!

Yes, I watch Dr. 90210.  Not obsessively or anything, but I do love Dr. Li.  I was so happy that her and her husband were able to finally have their baby!!  Ok, enough about that.

So, as I said in the subject line, it's that time of year again!  What time is that, you ask?  VOLLEYBALL TIME!  Yes, that's right, it's volleyball season out at Barksdale AFB.  I really do enjoy volleyball.  This year, I am actually the Assistant Coach.  Allow me to follow that up with a very important statement...I am not the Assistant Coach because I am good.  Actually, I suck.  About the only thing I have going for me is that I am a decent server, and I am not afraid of the ball.  It wasn't always like that, though.  The first time I ever played volleyball was about 14 years ago, when I was stationed in Germany.  It was our first game, and, being that we were on a NATO air station, it was country against country in all intramural sports. That night, it was the American's against the Italian's.  I was up at the net, and my mirror on the Itialian team was a female.  The ball is served, the Italian's set it up for the return and my mirror reaches up to set the ball and what I saw stopped me dead in my tracks.  I was about 20 years old, it was my first time out of the country, and my knowledge of other cultures was limited at best.  What I learned that night was that Itialian women do not shave their underarms.  Not It, born Itialians.  I had never seen such a thing in my life and there I stood, at the net, frozen.  It was like I had just laid eyes on Medusa and I had turned into a pillar of salt.  I was so frozen that I didn't even see the ball as the Itialians spiked it, hitting me square on the face, breaking my glasses, breaking my nose and laying me out right there on the NATO gym floor.  I was living proof that, yes, the ball CAN hurt you and I swore I would never play volleyball again.

Fast forward to Sept, 2004 and HSA school at Sheppard AFB.  Mandatory volleyball. That's right, mandatory. We did standard PT for an hour in the morning and followed it up with an hour of competitive volleyball.  When one is forced, most of the time, one learns.  I am still a lousy player, but at least now I enjoy the game.  Who knows, maybe this year we will actually win a game!

It boggles my mind...

I subscribe to Popular Science magazine.  I also subscribe to Natural History.  This is because I am really nothing but a nerd at heart.  I make no apologies for my choice of reading material.  I dig that kind of stuff. 

Tonight I was perusing the latest Pop Sci and I came across an article on this new Mars Rover that is being tested.  It will help in the quest to identify life on the planet.  This 'bot, nicknamed Zoe, can move around on it's own power, and can also be controlled remotely from Earth should it ever loose it's own power or functionality.  This is pretty similar to the current Mars rover.  True, we lost contact with the 'bot that is currently up there a time or two, but we did have some contact with it for long spells.  That being said, tonight I was talking with a friend of mine, Wendy, and using my cordless phone from my kitchen.  As usual, I brought the phone into the den with me, and as usual, it began to lose reception.  And I thought to myself, how is it that we can control a robot on Mars from Earth, but I can't get my reception to work on my cordless phone from the kitchen to my den?   Hmmm??

Crayfish and Crawfish and Mudbugs OH MY

I do enjoy the premiere episodes of American Idol.  A guilty pleasure indeed.  To be honest, I couldn't care less about the rest of the season or who will ultimately win the competition.  I just love the losers they have during the first week or two on the show.  I laugh so hard it hurts.  I have people that I send instant messages back and forth with as the show is going on and we just howl at the antics.  I have actually come close to falling out of my chair, hyperventalating, and choking on my mint tea as I watch.  It's simply a great way to end a stressful day.  Laughing that hard MUST have medicinal properties because I swear I sleep better after I watch it. 

Ok, side note...my dog has sleep apnea.  I am convinced of it.  She snores like a man, then stops breathing and twitches herself awake.  Very odd.

I have been here in the Shreveport Bossier area for just over a year now and have learned one great truth about this quasi-city.  These people love...nay...they WORSHIP their crawfish.  They have nicknames for them, like crayfish and mudbugs.  They have an entire festival dedicated to the crawfish that takes place every spring.  They make them into gumbo, etuffee and just plain boiled.  The crawfish to them is everything.  I admire their dedication to the little crustacean.   I, however, have a different impression of the crawfish.  My first experience with a crawfish was in the 8th grade where we were required to dissect one in science class as part of our final exam.  My next and only other experience with the mudbug was 20 years later, right here in Shreveport.  This is partly because I have never again had reason to even think about the crawfish once I passed my science class, much like I never again thought about the worm we were required to dissect as our first project in the class.   Now that I was here, bombarded daily by everything craw, I figured  I would at least try and see what all the fuss was about.  When in Rome, right?  Admittedly, I had a tough time getting past the whole 8th grade dissection thing, but get over myself I did.  I went to a local restaurant, and had myself a mudbug.  I immediately knew why it got the nickname "mudbug".  Because that is exactly what it tasted like.  A bug that someone dug up out of the mud, heated up and put on the plate.  Crawfish are tricky little suckers too, they show up on your plate disguised as little midget lobsters.  Do not be fooled.  They are really, reallly NOT lobsters.  Really. 

Disappointed,  I had to step outside myself and see if I was just being biased.  Too consumed consciously or otherwise by the science class all those years ago, perhaps?  I came to the honest self realization that I was not biased.  In fact, the truth of the matter is, I think the people here eat crawfish for one reason and one reason only.  They can't afford lobster.

What a blast!

Whoo hoo!!!  The chick trip was a rousing success!!  Actually the entire trip was awesome!  I saw my sister in law, my brother and my two gorgeous nephews.  My sister in law and I went to Las Vegas for three days of my trip and my o' my.  Las Vegas is something that must be experienced rather than described.  However, I will attempt to describe at least one part of the trip.  My sister in law and I went to see the show Le Reve at the Wynn.  Done by the same guys who put together Cirque Du Soleil. Yee ha.  I have come to the conclusion that two men, with the right physique, are downright sexy together.  Holy macaroni.  The entire show was sensual, emotional, and had its share of eroticisim.   Splendid.  Holy hot men.  Don't get me wrong, the show wasn't just about sexy men.  Not by any means. However, that is what I chose to focus on.  Hee hee. 

I also went to a spa for the first time at the Bellagio where we stayed, and had my very first massage.  My sister in law does that kind of self-pampering all the time, but I have never had the desire really to partake.  I get a pedicure about twice a month, but that doesn't really count as self-pampering, does it?  It was somewhat nerve wracking at first because all of us women were running around naked.  I think i was the only one with a complex about it.  Once I got over myself, I was able to relax and enjoy it.  And the Bellagio has really good coffee, among other things... 

We got back to Seattle, and had a chance to really enjoy the city.  Washington state is beautiful.  Even raining it's just fantastic.  The mall in downtown Seattle is serious.  It's anchors are Niemen Marcus, Sax's, Macy's, and Nordstroms.  That's what I'M talkin' bout!  Not a freakin' Sears or Dillards to be found!  LIFE IS GOOD in Seattle!  I might want my next assignment to be there.  It was almost painful to come back to Bossier City.  As I have said before, there are worse places to be than Bossier City.  It's not bad here, but we don't even have a Macy's.  Have I said that before?  I think I am starting to develop a pattern here...

Less than a week away!

We are officially at 5 and a wake up before the chick trip!  I am so excited. 

I am sitting here, after just having returned from my evening run, and I am listening to my dog try and catch her breath.  It amazes me how it takes her so long to get back to herself after we run.  We run almost every day, and you'd swear she'd never run before.  She started becoming very distracted lately when we go running.  She stops and sniffs everything and it's very counter productive when it comes to my run.  I end up having to stop every 30 seconds so she can sniff stuff.  I try and yank her away from whatever it is that got to her nose, but when she digs her heals in, i am stuck.  She's a big girl.  She never used to do it before, and now i end up having to take her for a walk and go for my run separately.   I really enjoy running with her and would prefer to do it that way, but somethings gotta change!  Maybe i will take her to a class at PetSmart.

Speaking of bad things my dog has done lately...a while back I agreed to pet sit the dog of a colleague of mine.  A big drooling lab.  Sweet dog, and i decided to watch her at my house. I figured that Macy would have a playmate for a week.  Well, this other dog had a habit of digging holes in the yard, and Macy picked up on it.  She never dug a single hole before this other dog came along, and now my yard had these 5 massive holes in them.  So this weekend I ended up going to Lowe's and buying five 40-lb bags of dirt to fill in the holes, grass seed, and chicken wire to cover the spots and keep her from digging them up again.  Chicken wire.  What fun.  That is some nasty stuff.  Thank my insight for buying gardening gloves to work with it.  It seems to have done the trick and no more holes have been started, but what a pain.  Since this is my first dog, I really need to figure out how to stop these things.  She is generally very disciplined.  She doesn't bark even when the neighbors dogs are at the fence, scratching and barking their heads off.  I am thankful for that.  She is house trained, comes when called, sits, stays (most of the time), etc.  I need to learn how to teach an old dog new tricks I guess. 

 

Chick Trip!!!

Whoo hoo!!!!  Chick Trip!!!!

I am going on a vacation to Tacoma Washington and then to Las Vegas with my sister in law in about 2 weeks and I simply can't wait!  I have never been to Las Vegas, and to be totally honest, I have never even had the desire to go.  I am not a drinker, and I find nothing fun about gambling.  However, we are going to go see Cirque du Soleil (and I KNOW I destroyed the spelling of it, but oh well) and I am really looking forward to that part of it.  I have always been a fan of live theater and I have been wanting to see that show for a long time. 

Work is going great, and I am in a nice groove.  I am a little sad that my current commander is going to be retiring in about 4 months.  Ok, i am VERY sad about that.  I have had a lot of bosses since i have been in the work force, but i can count on one hand the number of really good ones that I have had.  This guy is one of the good ones. 

I must interject a thought here; As i am writing this entry, i am listening to this Deal or No Deal show on the TV, and it's sick.  Oh my, I am not even on the show, and I am sweating.  Gotta tell ya, my stomach couldn't handle a show like that.  I am just not a gambler.

I had PRK vision correction about 2 weeks ago and I am hoping that my eyesight will be better by the time i leave for my chick trip. It's probably about 20/30 right now.  I realize that the difference in immediate results between PRK and LASIK is pretty extreme, but PRK is a much better and safer procedure, and worth the extra healing time it takes to be able to see clearly again.  The procedure itself though, PRK, i mean, was quite painful.  They warned us about the level of discomfort, but man, eye pain sucks. 

I hope that those of you who are reading have a very merry Christmas and a happy Hanukkah and if you are in a place that has nova, cream cheese and bagels available, please have some for me!