ROCKSTAR!!!

I went to the Brazilian Girls concert last night and it was freaking delicious. The opening band, Tortured Soul (from Brooklyn, New York), was also good. I went with the most lushious of my coworkers and we had a smashing time. Who knew you could have so much fun with work people. I don't think we spoke one sentence about work. It was great. Probably helped by the fact that we decided to do shots before getting on the T, where we did pull ups. Then we tried to juggle in a convenience store and someone tried to teach us. Unsuccessfully.

The concert was a big sweaty sex pit. Sort of. A german guy tried to dance with me which was ok, but then he put his mouth on my face which was gross. Some people would call this a kiss, but I called it a slobbery mouth on my face. Yuck. Sabina, the lead singer, and her boys are all about as hot as they can be. Go see these babies in concert.

I am for real:

I know what you're going to say: The white knuckle grip and the wind in my eyes make me look dead sexy... I know. Well, at least it's a record that I really did drive a really big ship.

Reality Check

You know you're old when all of the draft picks of the Boston Red Sox were born after you. Isn't life scary?

So What Happened?

We went grocery shopping. No, really, it was an experience. It was like a clearance sale. Even in the boonies (McCall is population 5,000) everything is super cheap--especially when someone else decides he is going to pay for it and not going to take no for an answer (thanks Ryan).

We went on a hike through the woods behind the cabin. We almost killed a baby bird and I lost my sweatshirt. Then we found it thanks to the photo record. We learned that piles of sticks are bouncy and that you shouldn't walk on wet logs. But doing balancing yoga postures on them is fun--albeit dangerous.

We had some friends up for the weekend and cooked steak and asparagus on the grill. There is only one way to cook asparagus: On the Grill. I can't wait to have a grill. We also had some kick ass mashed potatoes.

The next day we went out to go mountain biking. After getting lost for about an hour on a beautiful ridge in the car, we found our trail. We reassembled all of our wheels and headed up the mountain. Then one of the handle bars came loose. We discovered that one of our cohort lost his allen wrench on the last trip out. So, we packed up the bikes and trekked up the hill by foot with the dog. Fine by me. I was scared of all the cliffs and rocks and slippery roots anyway. We hiked about 12 miles in total. It was on and off perfect sun and downpours of hail and rain. On the way back, the temperature dropped about 10 degrees in 10 minutes and just dumped hail on us. Thank goodness for the rain jacket.

We went back home after thoroughly wearing out the laborador and built a fire. Then we heated up the grill and made some chicken and corn on the cob. Plus a few potatoes. And a few beers. I know food maybe isn't the most exciting thing to some of you, but the whole food cooked on a grill thing is pretty foreign to City Girl McGee I realized I've become.

Next day was water skiing and wake boarding. I got up on a slalom ski on the first try. That might have had something to do with the impossibly cold water. (Elevation 5000+ feet). Luckily, there was a wetsuit that "fit" me at the cabin. It was a child's size 12. As it turns out, 12 year olds don't have hips... and perhaps a few fewer vertebrae.

I'll continue later. One step at a time. So we're up to Sunday.

Bringing Back the Goods

This will be quick because I have a million things to do. I just hopped off the plane from Boise. I wish I could hop back on. The Idaho trip was a blast. The ride there was painfully long and included a little jaunt through the mini terminal in an island in the middle of the San Fransisco tarmac that was frequented by mini planes that go to places like Chino. It was cute but stuffy. I got on the plane (and so did someone who was trying to go to Albuquerque... fitting) and sat next to someone who had just married a woman named Wy Lin (spelling is likely off). She sort of speaks English and he speaks "some" Mandarin. I wonder how meaningful that relationship is... There was also a couple who had brought back a baby girl (very cute). Turns out China is supplying the U.S. with its population. Fine by me, but funny.

On the way back I luckily only had to stop in Chicago, which unlike San Fran is actually on the way. Almost missed the flight though since my first one was very non-chalantly 30 minutes late which gave me about 20 minutes to make the final boarding call and O'Hare is mammoth.

There are lots of things to say about the actual trip, but for now you get the there and back again stories. Yes, I quoted and referenced the Lord of the Rings too much. I tried not to, but it just fits so well into everyday life that I really couldn't avoid it.

20 Answers

1. I spent almost 12 hours in the office today. No matter how important you are, this should not be done. Yet, I feel strangely not too tired.
2. I still didn't get everything done.
3. There were far too many crises this morning.
4. I am wearing a floppy sun hat and I just noticed that my heartbeat is being echoed in the vibration of the hat.
5. Yes, it is 10pm.
6. No, I haven't packed.
7. I'm going to Idaho.
8. Yes, it will be fun.
9. I'm also going to the Brazilian Girls concert with 4 other people.
10. That will definitely be fun.
11. I had to give up on getting them in person and went ahead and paid The Man.
12. I hate paying The Man. I'd rather pay The Girls.
13. The Red Sox are winning.
14. How could that be Blahston?
15. Ok, there are certainly down sides to having an MLB team in your back yard, but I could think of worse things.
16. Like a bad mariachi band.
17. My head is 2 inches smaller than my waist.
18. I measured.
19. There is definitely something wrong with me.
20. It is cold.

Will Curiosity Kill the Visits?

I hope not, because I am curious and I can't help it. I've been trying to fight the urge to ask this, but I'm caving. If you are visiting from a Harvard computer, please tell me who you are. You've been visiting my site lately, and the mystery is starting to get to me. I manage information. I need it to survive. Give me data. No really. I have a feeling this will end up being less exciting than I am hoping, but anyway, send me an email. Address is in the sidebar. It's not fair that you get to keep tabs on me but I don't know who you are. I understand that life isn't fair and I did this to myself, but I reserve the right to ask about my visitors. Maybe you will like me and not make me feel like an object like some other people I know. One can hope. Secret pent up anger? Me? Never.

Why did I do this? Oh God. I've lost my mind. I'm stalking my stalker. There's just something not quite right about that.

The Littlest

Yet again, I was the littlest. I've been the Littlest Christmas Tree, the littlest employee, and now the littlest member of the yachting team. Ok, I wasn't really on a yachting team, but I got to pretend for a minute. Yesterday for "work" I went on a racing yacht that has traveled around the world. The boat is a 72 foot boat identical to its peers in the race. The teams are comprised of one professional skipper and 17 amateur sailors--from novice to lived-life-on-a-boat. The average age is approximately 35 partially because it costs $60,000 to go, despite heavy corporate sponsorship. The race lasts 9 months and travels from Portsmouth, UK to Buenos Aires, New Zealand, Australia, Cape Town, Boston, La Rochelle in France, and back to Portsmouth. I got to go out on the boat and while it was my turn to steer I got to drive us under the Tobin Bridge, which I thought we were definitely going to hit with our 100' mast. We didn't. Then we turned around and went South. On the trip, I discovered my camera battery had all but died, I had wine spilled on my pants--my new pants, I might add, and I burned my nose to a crisp because I refused to wear the goofy hat. Should have done that because now I look like Rudolph. Oh yeah, how was I the littlest? Well, all of my other corporate sailors (we were all invited by Factiva, the news service we use at the office, to take part in the event) were older than my parents. It was pretty funny. I bet most of them thought that I must be older than I look. Everyone seems to think I'm really young these days. Except one person who thought I was approximately 28--but that's another story.

And Here's Proof

Click the link above to see that I actually was in the race. Unfortunately, it's a pic of the beginning, but I promise I finished. Oh yeah, I'm in light blue shirt with matching headband toward the top right corner. Looking very serious with my sunglasses...


I RAN 3.5 MILES

No, I really did. I stopped for water twice without much luck and got stuck in traffic a couple of times, but made it in 42 minutes. Now you're thinking "damn, she's slow", but you have to understand that I don't do aerobic exercise. Yoga is all done in a 2' x 6' space with no equipment. I didn't even think about training for this, so 12 minute miles is not bad if you ask me. Then I drank a beer and a half. My teammates ate pizza, but the overloaded with Feta greek salad was what appealed to me. Not that you care. Not that I care.

Anyhow, let's just say the shower I just now finally took was desperately needed.

I might not feel so hot in the morning. Then again, considering it's 90 degrees right now, I might.

Syndication

Syndication just means getting a news feed when the blog is updated. You can get this in several ways. There are news readers out there that you can download and then subscribe to different RSS feeds (i.e. if you have a news page, friend's blog, other freq. updated sites) you like to visit, you can add them and get updates without having to check the site. I am not actually familiar with any of these programs so I can't help you.

You can also set up a home page like my.yahoo.com to read it for you. In my yahoo, if you go to Add Content there is a little link beside the Search button that says "add RSS by URL". Click on this, then add the feed's site. In my case (and for most blogger accounts) this is http://touristabostonia.blogspot.com/atom.xml

If you have Firefox, you can get the site's feed as a bookmark, so instead of showing up as a link button, it looks more like a folder that lists recent posts. It's pretty cool (and it updates faster than my yahoo). To do this, go to the site you want to track and look at the bottom right corner of you browser window. If there is a little orange icon there, click on it and choose to subscribe to the site. It will ask you where you want to put it. I'll leave that up to you. I created a folder of blogs on my bookmark bar where I can check them all and I'm pretty pleased with that.

Sweaty Goodness

I'm sure that it will get a bit old after a while, but right now I couldn't be happier about the fact that my yoga shirt feels like my wet t-shirt contest shirt. It's thoroughly drenched, and I wasn't even in an intentionally hot yoga class. You know you're ridding yourself of toxins when your calves bead up with sweat.

The sun has finally made an appearance and has drawn out all the strapless tops. I never in my wildest dreams thought that a strapless top would be possible without goosebumps. There were literally times this winter/spring that I couldn't remember what it felt like to leave the house without a jacket. My friends who come over frequently came over last night for an impromptu dinner party and when they left I genuinely thought they had forgotten something since it's always such an operation at the door with layers and boots and all. As it turns out, all they needed was a pair of sandals. How freaking weird?

On the other hand, it's 10 degrees warmer than Long Beach, CA and I can almost guarantee it's more humid too. I'll take it, however, to a nor'easter.

Note To Self

Don't post in the middle of the night: only people who are searching for porn will randomly land on your site. Better to go for the 6am crowd.

What?, you ask

Explanation:

Blogger has an auto-update site where it houses links to blogs that have been recently updated. Anyone who has a public blog is included on this list. When you click on "next blog" at the top right, Blogger takes you to another site that has recently been changed. I just had 4 hits on my website from a post I took down because I meant to put it on "Envy" -- the referring URL was, in three out of four cases, a porn blog. This is not porn, people.

What gives?

Blogger overrode my freakin' icon! Do you have any idea how long it took me to figure out the html for that? Piss off!

Commuting on Thursday

This Thursday's commute home turned into mini pub crawl with coworkers. We were 4 i nHarvard Sqare and then, 2 girls decided they needed to discuss some sensitive details, so the other 2 of us went on to Central to finish the Miami Heat game. I now know that they're from Miami. And that they got Shaq. And that Kobe didn't turn out to be a good gamble for the Lakers. A whole season of basketball all told in one perfectly summarized pint. Then I arm wrestled a tatooed guy named Jesse and flirted with Analytical Stress. Turned out AS wasn't as interesting as I had hoped. Then I met Ben who opened the window at Zuzu to talk and he gave me a poster from his band. I gave him my URL too, so be on your best behavior, there might be someone new to the scene. Then we finally had to grab a slice and head home. I proceeded to sing out loud with my headphones on on the T. It was great.