I clicked on 0% for “How well did this answer your question?” and hit submit.

Here was the question.

I got a popup box asking for my email address and my feedback on how this question could be better.

my response:

I bought this drive expecting to get 500 gigs. And I did not get 500 gigs.

angrily,
Amy

because i missed you.

remember when i said that since my husband james was going to take our web stuff off our borg collective in our basement and open up a hosting account somewhere and put it all there, and this was terrific because it meant that our stuff would be up all the time, every time, even when our own home internet goes out, and isn’t the inkernet a magical, magical series of tunnels that al gore invented?

well, that all is dependant on everything being set correctly in the hosting account.

something wasn’t.

and unbeknownst to me, my main email address, the one i’ve used for years and years was bouncing all over the place.

and then, beknownst to me, my blog email address stopped working too.

and then, very very beknownst to me, my website (this thing here) stopped being available through the series of tubes.

and then i banged my head against lots of hard surfaces and cried.

you know, it’s funny how i sit and look at my site each morning, and i think, gee.. not sure what i could possibly write about.. i saw a weird license plate on my way to work. i even broke out my trusty camera phone and tried to take a picture of it. i don’t know why i keep trying to do this because it comes out looking like a big fuzzy blur. i’ve deleted a whole folder of big fuzzy blurry cars all grainy and pixelated. maybe the internet wants to see interesting/weird/indecipherable license plates. at least it would be something to post. CAN you post license plates on the internet? I don’t see why not, since folks see them when you’re driving down the road. Just imagine their driving along the internet. through the series of tubes.

so yeah. not a whole lot of inspiration on what to write.

BUT THEN THE INTERNET STOPS SERVING UP MY WEBSITE AND ALL OF A SUDDEN THERE ARE A MILLION THINGS THAT I MUST. BLOG. ABOUT. RIGHT. AT. THAT. MOMENT. AND. YET. I. CANT.

oh the harrowingness of it all.

of course, now that it’s back, i can’t think of a damn thing to write again.

except i missed you too. i could take you home and kiss you all over. DON’T EVER LEAVE ME AGAIN! I JUST CAN’T HANDLE IT!

I DON’T LIKE THE SHAKES! SHAKES NOT GOOD!

SINGITY SINGITY SING SING

So I joined a community choir. I went to my first rehearsal and everything this evening. It was great fun. I’m going to help their (I guess i should say ‘our’ now) website to stop being shitty. Yay me!

It was an adventure, to say the least. It is a very small group (maybe 12-15 folks total), and they were missing a handful of members, so it ended up that there were no sopranos. so i said sure, i’d take soprano. so we have me, SIGHTREADING as the lone soprano. the director arrived a bit late, which was good for me, becuase we ran through all the music a few times, so it wasn’t completely new by the time she went through it with us. still. i was just trying to get notes and rhythms right, and maybe, if you’re lucky, words, and the director was aiming for ACTUAL MUSICALITY. you know, like dynamics and different tonality and diction. and then there were those high Fs and Gs (for those of you that don’t know, THOSE ARE REALLY FREAKING HIGH NOTES) that I, alto at heart, and mezzo soprano AT BEST managed to squeak out (by myself! no other voices to blend in with cover it up!) fairly decently, and well, damn. I must say. I am proud of myself 🙂

After rehearsal was over, I asked the director if she wanted me to audition* or anything, even though I had just sung with the group the entire rehearsal. She laughed and said no, I was doing fine.

“You are trained..?”

she didn’t really pose this as a question, but she looked at me like she expected an answer, so I kind of stammered something out.

“Um, yeah. Sort of. I mean, I was a voice major. I dropped out.”

“I see. I could tell**. Where did you study?”

“Brigham Young University.”

“Really! Wonderful.”

She said more stuff too, thanking me for giving what she was asking for, which was nice of her, as mostly, I was just trying not to sound too screechy on the high parts, get the music right, and tried to pay attention to her as much as I could while I was at it. I’m definitely going to get my parts down this week so next week I can forget about the music, and pay attention to the music.

Seriously.. it’s been … 10 years? and it feels great to be singing in a group again. I feel GREAT.

*i brought my books and everything, i was SO PREPARED. I had “Amarilli Mio Bella”, from 26 Italian Songs and Arias ready (super fancy and all classical and operatic), On My Own, from Les Miserables, and either Night and Day, Summertime, or Since I Fell For You from my jazz fake book I could do too. so, classical, broadway, jazz.. I was covered. I’m actually kind of disappointed she didn’t need to hear me 🙂

** I’m going to take this as, she could tell I studied voice, NOT she could tell I dropped out 🙂

PROJECT PHOTO ALBUM

…is still ongoing. I have selected all the photos i want to print, and while I was going to go the costco/snapfish route ($.17/4×6), it costs a lot less to just go the straight snapfish route ($.10/4×6 if you prepay) and when you have FIVE HUNDRED PHOTOS that you decide you want to print (i know. i know. i managed to whittle it down to 450. good lord.) well, that extra 7 cents a photos makes ALL THE DIFFERENCE.

I am going to check these out too. Very cool.

OK. Enough blogginess for now.

Except to say, did you know it’s national delurking week?

So DELURK I say! I COMMAND THEE! COMMENT HERE, ON THE MOKES DE CRAZY! ALL… 7 OF YOU*!

I’m going to try to make a point of commenting on the many, many, MANY bajillion blogs in my blogroll too, so come on folks, let’s go out there and dirty up the internet with our muddy feet stomping our comments all over the place.

And you can START HERE 🙂

-amy sings, “Cheezus was sacrifiiiiiiceduh!”

*ok. i’m being a bit optimistic 🙂 it’s probably more like…. 4. just comment already!

i’m a sucker for these things.

Here is another swap, one with geography and postcards involved, done by Zhinka Dinka Doo (who’s so incredibly talented in the crafty department that come kid birthday-time, I’m totally stealing all her birthday party ideas)! Click for more information:

and unlike the one i posted earlier, this one isn’t closed yet. It won’t be closed until Friday, so run go sign up! It’s just postcards! Fun and EASY!

-amy

UPDATE: And now I have it properly linked!

i’m crazy busy at work trying to get a publication out by friday. so no real blogging.

instead, i thought i’d just post some randomness throughout the day. it helps me get all the brain gook out, and well, you… um…. ok, no real benefit for you, but here you go anyway, out of the goodness of my heart. MERRY CHRISTMAS AND STUFF. HAVE MY BRAIN GOOK. BECAUSE. I. CARE.

• listening to a ‘Highlights of Aida’ (opera by Verdi, which I sang in the chorus of, many many years ago) at full blast makes for an interesting working environment. especially during the ‘return from battle’ crashy bangy loud parts. And since i can’t understand a word, it makes it easy to just relate it to whatever i’m doing. “Muuuuuuust LINK THOSE FOOTNOTES! Nooooooooooooowww check the ndashes! MUST MUST MUST LINK THOSE FOOTNOTES! doooooon’t forget those ndashes! Cross-reference! Cross-reference! Aaaaaaadd Referrrrrrrrrer! RE! FER! RER!”
• The bathroom in my office building has a little thingee on the wall (I think I’ve mentioned it before) that squirts out air freshener at timed intervals. Every month or so, it runs out and they replace the stuff inside. This month is the month that the bathroom stinks of rank too-strong floraly scent and it makes me want to do my business and get the hell OUT before my nose rebels. Maybe it’s all a plot for less lolly-gagging in the loo. (ahem. I have been known to lolly-gag. like you haven’t played sudoku on YOUR phone while in the bathroom. um. no? just me? ok then. so glad we shared!) I’m eagerly awaiting when this scent runs out and they replace it with something that doesn’t smell like someone drowned you in a big vat filled to the brim with cheap, stanky perfume.

UPDATE:
OK, so I was actually WORKING all day. Go figure. Maybe some photos tomorrow.

-amy

Linda my linda-lou-hoo did a weird habits meme that I’ve decided to do too. Then I dared Anna to do it, and she went and did it, so now I really need to hurry up and do mine 🙂

1. Clocks. Time. I like to know the time, at all times, and yet I don’t like to wear a watch. Therefore, I have clocks in just about every room in my house. And sometimes I fantasize about putting up a clock and where I would put it when I’m in a room for longer than 10 minutes that doesn’t have one. (Last week, it was at the vet’s office.)
2. I stick stuff in my bra. I’ve mentioned this before, so I won’t go into the details, but yeah. My bra = my own personal storage area. Most commonly found item in the brassiere = my camera lens cap.
   You may think it’s weird, but you gotta admit – I never lose my lens cap!
3. Toilet paper. It goes over the top people.
4. this one has recently come to my attention. the dirty dishes don’t go IN the sink. They go on the counter NEXT to the sink. Because if they’re in the sink, then you have to move them out of the sink in order to get to work on them, and that’s just a step that doesn’t need to be there. Maybe this is a weird habit, but I like to think of it as common sense!
5. This one I’ve mentioned before too, and it’s a little tough to explain.. If my mind is idle, and I’m walking, I will take the whole “don’t step on a crack” to a new level and begin to dissect all the angles that I see and then not step on THOSE imaginary cracks. it’s weird. i know.
6. I give things or people little names. “Tarty school marm shoes” is one example. I do it all the time, and sometimes they stick. In fact, one time, it stuck in a MAJOR way. It was the first day in my new dorm on the first day at college, and there had been a meeting when everyone introduced themselves, and a guy was walking by that I couldn’t remember anything except that he was from Missoula, Montana, and I called out, “Hey! Missoula-boy!” and it stuck. For a month, he was Missoula to everyone, and then it was just shortened to Zoula. It got so that he even introduced himself to new folks as Zoula. He was my best friend all through college.
7. I have to sleep with a smallish, squishy pillow (and this pillow shall be called, “Squishy Pillow”, yes, hello, another name for an inanimate object). Sometimes I can get away with a substitution, but overall, gotta have the squishy pillow to hug while I sleep.
8. It’s gotta be a mouse. Trackballs make me nervous and edgy and upset. It’s beyond a preference into a weird habit.
9. I like to chew gum and blow bubbles. I even buy Bubbilicious or Bubble Yum at times, just for the bubble blowing opportunities.
10. I can’t think of a 10th, even though I had one on my way in to work this morning. Oh well.

Ahhhhh.. that was fun. I’m not tagging anyone because then I feel like a loser if someone doesn’t do it. Feel like joining in? Knock yourself out! And then I’ll feel special because someone DID do it! Wheeeee!

So I was driving home from work, going to fetch the kids from school, and was only a few blocks away, when I pulled up to a red light at the intersection of Sudley Rd and Godwin. This is the main drag through Manassas, and my side of the road has 1 left turn lane, 2 straight lanes, and a right hand turn lane. (VERY BUSY.)

I was pretty dismayed to see a friendly looking dog loping around right in the street. The cars were stopped, but I had JUST pulled to a stop, and there were many cars zooming along in the right turn lane.

This little (not really that little) guy was running RIGHT up to the cars, and I even saw him rear up, put his paws on the hood of one car and turn his head sideways to look at the driver. He kept trying to look at the people, get at the people, “hey! look at me! I need to find my people!” he seemed to be saying. I could see he had a collar, and I kept thinking, someone has got to do something. SOMEONE HAS GOT TO DO SOMETHING OR THIS DOG IS GOING TO GET HURT. I heard a horn honk as the dog sort of galloped into the right turn lane, not someone about to hit him and trying to scare him away, but one of the stopped cars trying to warn oncoming cars of his presence.

I got out, and a simple, “Here, boy!” brought him to my side. I opened the passenger door beside me, and he hopped right up, panting and wagging his tail happily. “Look at me! I found help! I’M SUCH A GOOD BOY!!” (drool) (pant) “OH IMA GOOD BOY!) He was adorable. (Definitely a boy. Definitely un-fixed in any way.)

I called James and set him on the path of finding where exactly I should take the dog while I continued on my way to get the kids. Soon, the kids were collected, and fascinated by the cute pooch in the back and I took him to the Manassas animal shelter. Jocelyn kept saying, “No poochie!” because that is what she always says to the cats at home, until I said, “how about, “Good poochie!” and then she said that, over and over and over. Ethan kept asking the directions to the shelter. And kept telling me all the animals they would have there. “Cats, mommy. And dogs. And RABBITS.”

The lady behind the counter gave me some withering looks as she commented, “You put the dog in with your kids?” I paused, blushed, and said, “Nooooooo… I got the dog out of the road… and THEN went and put the kids in the car with the dog.” But really, the dog was in the back of my SUV. (Not that he couldn’t have gone over, but still. He wasn’t sitting in their laps.)
I can see her point. I have no idea what sort of dog this is. I quick google image search on ‘pit bull’ makes me go, “Hmmm.. maybe.” But I just knew from the few seconds watching him trying to look into all the cars stopped at that light, that he was a dog looking for his home. I’ve heard the scare stories about pitbulls, and the other side of sweet pitbulls, and this guy sure was a mellow dog. Not a rabid, scared animal who is on the offensive (or even defensive). The whole time he was with me, he was a complete sweetheart.

I’m posting on craigslist, and any other ‘lost pets’ websites I can find. Hopefully this sweet pooch will find his way home again. And hopefully they put some ID tags on him!

Today is going to be an exciting day.

Today, the 4-month pregnant Tamara and I are going into DC to participate in a photo Safari. Basically we get to take photos like tourists in the National Museum of the American Indian in DC, with a professional photographer to help us learn more about our camera and how to take better pictures.

I am just so tickled I could spit.

But I won’t. You were nice enough to come to my site, so I will restrain myself. FOR YOU. MMMMWAH!

Here’s the blurb for this photography thing* in case you didn’t want to click on that link and see for yourself:

With their larger sensors, the Canon 20D and its bigger brother,the Canon 30D, SLR digital cameras have become a very popular items among serious digital photographers. This Safari will help 20D/30D users put their cameras through the paces of ISO settings, flash settings, variable white balance settings, file compression, aperture and shutter priorities, focus settings, custom settings, menu navigation tricks, exposure tricks, use of the histogram, etc. We will shoot inside and outside of the new National Museum of the American Indian.

Special exhibits at the museum pose unique challenges for the digital photographer, especially the mix of daylight and tungsten light. The eight-story high atrium is a great place to practice wide-angle photography, and the carvings and statues provide challenges for your telephoto lens.

Ooohhh. Doesn’t that sound cool? I’m going to come back knowing EVERYTHING! Well, a lot more than I know now, which is basically nothing.

So while Tamara and I learn how to be an awesome photographer, my darest dearling Linda is coming down from Long Island. She and I are going to road trip it old style (old style just means no kids in the car) to Virginia Beach to fetch some of her things from an ex. We will probably talk about the meaning of life** and many other deep things while listening to good music.

So. Yeah. Big day planned! Wish me luck! Or better, send me “stay on program!” vibes, because that will serve me better 🙂 (It’s been an excellent on program week thus far!)

* I keep refering to this photo safari thing as a “thing”. “Oh, I can’t Saturday, I have this photography thing.” It’s not a class, it’s not a seminar.. Really, I don’t know what to call it. It will have to remain a “thing”.

** FORTY-TWO!

-amy had an O.B. like that once.

I haven’t done this in a while, but today’s meetings had some good ones:

– Who’s next? Ben? What’s going on in Ben-dom?

– So what’s happening? What’s going on with that? Tell me about all the fixes you’re doing.
– I’m doing all the fixes.

– Well, Mr. X is taking another position within the organization, so it’s possible that this project will be taken over by Ms. Y–
– DOH!
(Ms. Y = troublemaker)

– I’m working on [a project] & [the client contact] needs to go back to the first grade.

– They’ve got to straighten out their paperwork, because it is a mess.
– I had an O.B. like that once.

(a minute later)

– Is it my turn? Are you finished? You done with your O.B. thing?

Wonder Woman Sculpted Resin Hand Mirror

how fun is that?

pointed out by Slave to Target.

– amy, who had wonder woman underoos when she was 7. AND MISSES THEM.

I have been trying to steer away from the Little People CD we own of adults putting on cutesy voices to sound like children and singing the ABC song and Twinkle Twinkle, and well, you get the idea. I hate it with ever fiber of my being.

They Might Be Giants‘ kids album, NO! is always a hit, and it is a cd that doesn’t make me want to gouge my eyes out with a shrimp fork, but after a few zillion times, I get sick of even TMBG. (I also highly recommend their DVD, Here Come the ABCs)
Ethan has a few songs that he quite likes, one of them being Proud Mary although he and Jocelyn call it “Rolling on the River, Mommy, play Rolling on the River!” I play them an a capella version from an college compilation CD called, “Acapellagram” that a bunch of folks contributed to during my years at BYU. The Creedence Clearwater Revival version is liked, but not as well.

Early Beatles has been met with rave reviews, Yellow Submarine being a special favorite, as well as Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, Fixing a Hole, and With a Little Help from my Friends.

Lady, by Lenny Kravitz is an old time favorite – every since we saw Sarah Jessica Parker dancing around in that Gap commercial, which Ethan dubbed, “The YEOW! Song! Play the YEOW song!” because in the chorus Lenny “YEEEEOW”s and it totally cracks him up. Jocelyn was just a baby then, and we used to dance around and sing it to her. My little lady!

Also a hit: The Distance, by Cake – the car theme totally gets Ethan. He will listen intently and then exclaim, “The starting line! Engines, mommy!” and “Empty tank! That’s a fuel tank!” When I play a song he really likes, he will want to hear it again and again, over and over until he knows all the words.

They both like Breakaway, and Since U Been Gone, by Kelly Clarkson, as well as Happy Boys and Girls by Aqua (of the I’m a Barbie Girl otherwise obscure band fame – what can I say, I love cheery techno). You can’t say I’m not about variety!

They also like Perry Como‘s Papa Loves Mambo.

And The Wonder Stuff covering Indigo Girls’ Closer to Fine (it was a b-side to the “Happy Now EP).

I’m saying ‘they’ but mostly the reviews are from Ethan. When asked, Jocelyn always always always asks for, “The Railroad Song, mommy, the Railroad song.” and I sigh and put on those atrocious Little People and their pedantic I’ve been working on the railroad.

And then I sing about Dinah as loud as I can, because the best audience in the world? Toddlers, baby. Toddlers.

There is a sad lack of U2, Indigo Girls, Ben Harper and Toad the Wet Sprocket, which I need to remedy. I also need to refurbish my collection with my missing non-children TMBG albums (holy &*#$ where did they all GO?!? Where are you FLOOD??) and I think it’s past time to own some Sheryl Crow.

any other suggestions?

-amy, whose hands are freakin’ freezing right now.